Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of.
Speaker 2: IHEARTRADI Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nolan.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super guest producer Chandler the Golfman Maze a item. Most importantly, folks,
Speaker 3: are you You are here? That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. It's one of our
Speaker 3: favorite evenings of the week when we get to hear
Speaker 3: from our fellow conspiracy realist all across the world and
Speaker 3: sometimes arguably beyond. We are going to get some letters
Speaker 3: from home, a thing that we've been doing lately that
Speaker 3: I quite like. We're going to learn a little bit
Speaker 3: about the go Garcia. We're going to learn about an active,
Speaker 3: very strange recruitment conspiracy on the part of Uncle Sam.
Speaker 3: And before we do any of that, in deference to
Speaker 3: this most wonderful of seasons, we thought we'd start with
Speaker 3: a horror story.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, did we ever think that? Gosh, this one
Speaker 4: comes from Beesel Bob, which is a great name I'm
Speaker 4: gonna go with beel z Abob, but beesel Bob is
Speaker 4: good too. I think some folks pronounce it beesel bub.
Speaker 4: I believe right, the name for the devil lucifer I
Speaker 4: scratch the dark one exactly.
Speaker 2: I think that's how this person pronounced it when they
Speaker 2: called in the voicemail systems diesel Bub diesel Bob.
Speaker 3: Alternatively, it's sometimes diesel Bub refers to Satan as a synonym,
Speaker 3: and then sometimes it's a employee of see one of
Speaker 3: the Seven Princesses. He's the he's the gluttony.
Speaker 4: Guy, well see In any case, Bob is a fabulous
Speaker 4: nickname for this listener who wrote into us with the
Speaker 4: subject line the day I may have sold my soul
Speaker 4: to the devil.
Speaker 2: WHOA.
Speaker 4: And I don't know if you all have been watching
Speaker 4: The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix. N Yeah,
Speaker 4: but it's very good and that is a somewhat central theme.
Speaker 4: No spoilers, but I highly recommend checking it. I just
Speaker 4: finished it last night, and I think it's one of
Speaker 4: the best things Mike Flanagan's ever done. And also, if
Speaker 4: you're into Edgar Allan Poe and like this kind of
Speaker 4: weird literature, weird fiction. It ticks all the boxes. It
Speaker 4: does a really good job of weaving a lot of
Speaker 4: the stories that you might be familiar with, but presenting
Speaker 4: them in a way that's a little different than you
Speaker 4: might expect. So let's jump right into this story on
Speaker 4: how Beesel bub may have accidentally or on purpose sold
Speaker 4: their soul to the devil. Hello, STDWYITK, this is Beesel Bob.
Speaker 4: Please do share my name and message on air if
Speaker 4: you so choose. I have a real life horror story
Speaker 4: for you, a story in which I may have met
Speaker 4: the devil itself. As a guitarist, I was intrigued to
Speaker 4: learn the story of the Delta Blues guitarist Robert Johnson.
Speaker 4: Johnson was rumored to have sold his soul to the
Speaker 4: devil in exchange for musical ability. Johnson also practiced by
Speaker 4: playing in the cemetery, as it was one of the
Speaker 4: safest places for a black man to practice in the South.
Speaker 4: It has also been said that to really learn to
Speaker 4: play the blues, one must play for the dead. I
Speaker 4: took the saying to heart and began practicing in cemeteries.
Speaker 4: That is until I discovered that the dead do not
Speaker 4: appreciate being disturbed, oh Man. On one such occasion in Jacksonville, Florida,
Speaker 4: as I began playing, I suddenly heard the noise of
Speaker 4: stone grinding on stone and the snort of a pig. Immediately,
Speaker 4: a voice said, leave what. I hurriedly packed my guitar
Speaker 4: and took off down the path, when all at once
Speaker 4: a very loud boom reverberated throughout the cemetery, and I
Speaker 4: felt a strong gust of wind push at my back,
Speaker 4: as if to kick me out. On another night, in Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 4: I sat underneath an old tree to play. Suddenly I
Speaker 4: felt this instinctual urge that I should stand. When I
Speaker 4: turned around, I shined my flashlight at where I had
Speaker 4: been seated, and to my horror, discovered the largest spider
Speaker 4: I have ever seen was hanging by a single thread,
Speaker 4: directly over where my head had been ewh Lastly, one night,
Speaker 4: while walking in New Orleans, Louisiana, I fear that I
Speaker 4: may have met the devil. I was walking towards the
Speaker 4: crossroads at which stood Lafayette Cemetery Number one. I was
Speaker 4: reminded of Johnson's song Crossroads. I was singing and whistling
Speaker 4: that song. As I approached, when I noticed a figure
Speaker 4: in black standing at the crossroads without moving. This figure
Speaker 4: was standing there as if waiting for me to approach. Unnerved,
Speaker 4: I crossed to the other side of the road and
Speaker 4: headed towards the cemetery up on the left of the crossroads.
Speaker 4: The figure remained glued.
Speaker 3: To the spot.
Speaker 4: As I drew closer, I noticed the figure was a
Speaker 4: man wearing some kind of security uniform. He watched me
Speaker 4: as I headed over to the cemetery. I thought to
Speaker 4: myself that it was strange that this lone security guard
Speaker 4: would be standing on an empty street corner so late
Speaker 4: in the night. Realizing the cemetery was locked, I considered
Speaker 4: jumping the iron fence, but the security guard was still
Speaker 4: staring at me. I settled for gazing pensively through the
Speaker 4: bars into the shadowy cemetery. Suddenly I noticed the security
Speaker 4: guard walking closely behind me. He said to me as
Speaker 4: he passed behind me. Nice place to meditate, isn't it.
Speaker 4: I replied that it was and turned around, but the
Speaker 4: security guard had completely vanished. I rounded the corner of
Speaker 4: the cemetery and looked to where he might have gone,
Speaker 4: but he was nowhere. In sight. I'm not sure if
Speaker 4: by evoking the spirit of Robert Johnson I summoned the devil,
Speaker 4: and if in doing so I inadvertently sold my soul.
Speaker 4: I can note that my ability to play the blues
Speaker 4: significantly improved after this encounter. I am a devoted follower
Speaker 4: of the show and am forever grateful to you.
Speaker 2: WHOA, those are good. That's intense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, thank you, Bee Sable. I love the way
Speaker 3: you write.
Speaker 2: Man agreed.
Speaker 3: Also, I've got some good news for you if you
Speaker 3: are if you do believe in the human soul. Typically
Speaker 3: the way it has to be sold is it's a misconception.
Speaker 3: You don't have to necessarily sign anything. A gentleman's agreement
Speaker 3: can hold so as long as you didn't shake hands
Speaker 3: or make the declarative statement in which you agreed to
Speaker 3: barter away your soul. It may be a situation where
Speaker 3: you just got some encouragement, not a little at a
Speaker 3: boy and you know who doesn't enjoy a good place
Speaker 3: to meditate.
Speaker 4: Interesting that the devil would be talking about meditating, though, right,
Speaker 4: I don't really think of that as being a particularly
Speaker 4: devilish pursuit.
Speaker 3: He's a very meditative dude. He meditated on why humans
Speaker 3: were the new the new kid right, and then reached
Speaker 3: his conclusion and set the universe in motion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one could argue that's that's a good point.
Speaker 2: My theory is that Beesel Bob encountered a bunch of
Speaker 2: crows dressed up as a security guard. And the reason
Speaker 2: why security guard vanishes because the crows just like Dishurst.
Speaker 4: That's an excellent theme from Fall of the House of Usher. Wait,
Speaker 4: really well, I mean there's you know, there's a demonic
Speaker 4: force that's sort of the main antagonist in the show
Speaker 4: and is often depicted as a raven and also made
Speaker 4: of like steam or can just vanish and disperse or
Speaker 4: become a raven?
Speaker 2: It will Oh it's po Yeah, you're right, Okay, it's.
Speaker 4: Poe af no question about it. Yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker 4: I mean, I really think that that show does such
Speaker 4: a good job of weaving in a lot of modern concepts.
Speaker 4: Like the family that is, the Usher family in the
Speaker 4: show is sort of a Sackler family type situation where
Speaker 4: they have done all of these horrible things knowingly and
Speaker 4: they're sort of being punished and or the debt is
Speaker 4: coming due on this Devil's bargain they made. And you know, again,
Speaker 4: I don't want to spoil anything for you, and it's
Speaker 4: impossible to spoil having just read the poet stories. They're
Speaker 4: just going to kind of enhance your enjoyment of the show.
Speaker 4: But the tone of these stories from Beesel Bubs very
Speaker 4: much in line with the vibe of this show. So
Speaker 4: I thank you. I think this is a great way
Speaker 4: to kick off this episode as we march headlong into
Speaker 4: spooky season.
Speaker 2: For sure, what's the weirdest thing you guys have done
Speaker 2: at a cemetery?
Speaker 4: Poop?
Speaker 3: Kidding would be really disloding effort to that honest to
Speaker 3: answer it doesn't have to be honest. I was. Let's
Speaker 3: keep it honest. So the when I was living in Guatemala,
Speaker 3: the part of it I was in, uh similar to
Speaker 3: places like New Orleans. A lot of the a lot
Speaker 3: of the caskets, a lot of the grave sites are
Speaker 3: elevated above the ground. And I went to I accidentally
Speaker 3: crashed a party there. It was a pretty cool party too.
Speaker 3: Was it a dead man's party and we were a
Speaker 3: lot of dead people there? Is it a monster mash
Speaker 3: type situation?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That was the That was That was probably one of
Speaker 3: the strangest and honestly longest nights of my life. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was cool.
Speaker 4: To leave the rest of the imagination like that.
Speaker 2: What about you, Matt, I I attempted to contact my grandfather,
Speaker 2: like he was cremated. So I don't know what the
Speaker 2: rules say about contacting the dead after, you know, depending
Speaker 2: on what happens to their body when they go. I
Speaker 2: know it probably changes depending on the sure belief systems,
Speaker 2: but you know, I just it was like meditation, right,
Speaker 2: a good place to meditate, and you know, he was
Speaker 2: physically there so.
Speaker 4: Well, and it does seem to be a place that's
Speaker 4: primed with the kind of energy that maybe would be
Speaker 4: conducive to such a contact.
Speaker 3: Oh that I also got lost in a cemetery for
Speaker 3: several hours is very big.
Speaker 2: WHOA, some of them are huge, like a military cemetery
Speaker 2: kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Like no, because those is since we're audio, Matt is
Speaker 3: illustrating the reality, which is a lot of those military
Speaker 3: cemeteries are uniform, smaller tombstones, and this one was not that,
Speaker 3: but it was. It was a wild time, especially when
Speaker 3: the GPS stops working part way through and then you
Speaker 3: know it's already dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's intense.
Speaker 3: But tell us your favorite cemetary stories, folks, tell us
Speaker 3: a special your spooky stories. We love those. Send in
Speaker 3: your own accounts, and I just want to once again,
Speaker 3: Diesel Bob, give you props. I really really enjoy the
Speaker 3: way right there.
Speaker 4: Agreed. I think we can make this one a bit
Speaker 4: of a shorter one to kick us off. Let's take
Speaker 4: a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and
Speaker 4: then come back with several more messages from you, and
Speaker 4: we're back.
Speaker 2: I remember why I recognized diesel Bob. I attempted to
Speaker 2: call diesel Bob back and left a message, So apologies
Speaker 2: to you, Beesel Bob for that, but also thank you
Speaker 2: for writing in.
Speaker 3: You can also just meet us at the crossroads later.
Speaker 2: Hey, we'll be there dressed.
Speaker 3: In bone thugs and Harmony cosplay.
Speaker 2: Just talking really fast about.
Speaker 3: Busy bone for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so let's jump to the phone lines.
Speaker 2: We've got a message here, guys. Some of these are silly,
Speaker 2: and I'm doing it on purpose for us, just to
Speaker 2: have a little fun. So here's our first message from
Speaker 2: lunch Lady, whom I've also left a message with.
Speaker 5: Hey, this is lunch Lady. I just want to say
Speaker 5: I love the show. It's great. The only picture I
Speaker 5: see is the Matt sexy as hell, and I just
Speaker 5: appreciate that you being a pingenius, bend your appreciation for
Speaker 5: king great down South hip hop. That's all I wanted
Speaker 5: to say. Because I'm listening to some juicy jay right
Speaker 5: now and I thought of you. That's kind of odd.
Speaker 5: It's kind of weird. Don't worry about it. It's not
Speaker 5: a big deal. But you know your hip hop and
Speaker 5: I like that smart man. Pat on back, pat on
Speaker 5: the butt. No, you get nothing. I'm sorry. No, you're
Speaker 5: amazing too, your amazing father, and as a father with
Speaker 5: a daughter, I love listening to you too. Thanks you guys.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry. I've had a couple white wine apologist.
Speaker 4: I love a good white wine.
Speaker 3: Best white wine spirits or advertisement I've ever heard shout
Speaker 3: out t CYJ Fellow Tennessee And yeah, that's that's so nice. Man.
Speaker 2: I'm just made me so happy hearing from lunch lady
Speaker 2: just saying just really kind things.
Speaker 3: That's what I call letters from home. You know, it
Speaker 3: doesn't always have to be like a revelation, right or
Speaker 3: you know the truth about the JFK assassination. We we
Speaker 3: just like hearing from you guys.
Speaker 2: Oh exactly, and you know what, We're gonna switch it
Speaker 2: up a little bit. Let's hear one more from a Frame,
Speaker 2: who is a constant caller on the voicemail system.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: A Frame just has a tiny comment on something that
Speaker 2: that happened in one of our episodes, and I am
Speaker 2: trying very hard to remember which conversation it was and
Speaker 2: I cannot, so I need you guys, your guys help.
Speaker 3: You and I were talking about this off air earlier. Matt,
Speaker 3: I don't think we can. Either of us were able
Speaker 3: to remember.
Speaker 4: I guess it's down to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 6: But just had to say that Ben's little joke about
Speaker 6: not seeing any performance and hances your pants is just
Speaker 6: about one of the funniest things I've ever heard. You
Speaker 6: could just go for it, dude, just your pants totally can't.
Speaker 5: That's stopping you. I believe in you.
Speaker 6: Good stuff, That's all.
Speaker 5: I had to say that.
Speaker 6: My eyes are wet after that, and it was very funny.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: My pants are wet after that, as I just.
Speaker 2: Pooped my pants because I'm wearing them and I just
Speaker 2: did no.
Speaker 4: I don't remember that either. But that's just the kind
Speaker 4: of little nugget of wisdom that just flies through unnoticed
Speaker 4: sometimes when we're hang.
Speaker 3: It's also I was thinking about this. It's also for
Speaker 3: many people. Maybe we talked about this a little bit
Speaker 3: too many. It's psychologically difficult for a lot of people
Speaker 3: to poop their pants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if I could do it, Just like, okay,
Speaker 2: I've decided you.
Speaker 3: Could do it.
Speaker 2: I believe in you.
Speaker 4: It's very very thoughtful.
Speaker 3: But also also my eyes are wet. It's such a
Speaker 3: specific I haven't heard that phrase before.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard like cutting onions, I've heard people say that.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, man, we believe in you.
Speaker 2: You know, it's all.
Speaker 3: It's like any other responsible recreation. You just want to
Speaker 3: be conscious of your scene and setting, you know, read
Speaker 3: the room, make sure everybody's going to be cool and supportive.
Speaker 4: I guess I just love slash hate the idea of
Speaker 4: intentionally pooping your pants. It just seems like a very nihilistic,
Speaker 4: self defeating thing to do.
Speaker 3: Well, you've been programmed to think that way for so long.
Speaker 4: Maybe I need to open my mind, you know.
Speaker 3: Like how to how to astronauts use the toilet. But
Speaker 3: what if you have to go when you're on an eva,
Speaker 3: you know, like you're out there in the suit. What
Speaker 3: if you're in a gilly suit as we talked about
Speaker 3: earlier this week, and you can't move for days.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, is there the questions that keep keep
Speaker 4: us up at nice See?
Speaker 2: But yeah, if you poop your gilly suit though you
Speaker 2: it's you're gonna give your position away, like for sure.
Speaker 4: To bury the whole suit and then your naked.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Well, write in gilly suited enthusiasts, let us let us
Speaker 3: know the secret. Also, we we know private investigators, pis
Speaker 3: and long haul drivers too who have just said, look,
Speaker 3: you can't be too proud. Sometimes you got to use
Speaker 3: that empty Gator eight bottle coffee.
Speaker 2: Can baby seal it up?
Speaker 3: Astronaut story you guys remember saving a while ago. Now,
Speaker 3: the story of that that astronaut who got obsessed with
Speaker 3: the dude or the diaper to go in. She didn't.
Speaker 3: That kind of knowledge doesn't come from a vacuum.
Speaker 4: No, Well, it comes from the vacuum of space where
Speaker 4: nobody can hear you poop your pants. In space apparently, guys.
Speaker 4: I think I found it.
Speaker 2: I think it was a conversation we had about steroid
Speaker 2: Olympics on Strange News.
Speaker 3: Something you brought to the table, a Strange News segment,
Speaker 3: and I think.
Speaker 2: It was something about that you don't need performance in
Speaker 2: dancing drugs to do that. All right, Well, hey, we've
Speaker 2: got one more voicemail here we're going to listen to today,
Speaker 2: and this one comes from Storm Raven.
Speaker 7: Hey, it's up, guys, you can just call me Storm Raven.
Speaker 7: I really don't care what you do with this. But
Speaker 7: I was actually lucky enough to visit Diego Garcia. We
Speaker 7: had moved some B fifty two's there because we were
Speaker 7: bombing Iraq at the time. It seems like we're always
Speaker 7: bombing someone, are threatening to bomb someone, you know, ye
Speaker 7: not AnyWho. Diego Garcia is actually long. It's got a
Speaker 7: runway that's barely long enough to launch in land heavy bombers.
Speaker 7: But I do mean barely. You miss the runway and
Speaker 7: you're in the ocean. Just it's just that simple. But
Speaker 7: the island is about half wild. It's about and it's
Speaker 7: about half wild, and it roughly follows the outline of
Speaker 7: a footprint, it's weird. But the Middle Blue Lagoon, it
Speaker 7: is a beautiful blue lagoon. But that lagoon is also
Speaker 7: home to several merchant marine vessels which are gym packed
Speaker 7: with war supplies, ready to say, oh, anywhere in a
Speaker 7: moment's notice, wherever the US wants to pick a fight.
Speaker 7: But remember how I said the island is like half wild.
Speaker 7: That's because that half is even restricted from those who
Speaker 7: are stationed on the island. Now, I don't know why
Speaker 7: it's restricted, but I've got a good hunch, and that
Speaker 7: hunch is probably sensitive to some countries reasons. So we'll
Speaker 7: just leave it at that. But it it's a shame
Speaker 7: people can't see it because I do mean that lagoon
Speaker 7: is absolutely beautiful. So but you guys, take care of
Speaker 7: yourself and keep doing what you're doing. Back.
Speaker 2: I just thought that was a great message from somebody
Speaker 2: who has experienced in that place that we just, you know,
Speaker 2: we began talking about a little bit, and I think
Speaker 2: we were all really interested in it. And I don't
Speaker 2: know what do you guys.
Speaker 3: Think, Yeah, God saved the king, right, because this is
Speaker 3: a depending on who you asked, this is a territory
Speaker 3: of the United Kingdom and I'm picking up what you're
Speaker 3: putting down there storms. This is this sensitive. But again,
Speaker 3: like we said, you know, they do have beautiful wildlife
Speaker 3: from what we hear. We've talked to other people who
Speaker 3: have had the distinct pleasure you could say, of visiting
Speaker 3: Diego Garcia. And there's something it makes me think of
Speaker 3: the Merchant Marines. Do you guys know much about them?
Speaker 2: Not much, not as much as I wish I did.
Speaker 3: Do you know who runs them? No, you're not the
Speaker 3: Department of Transportation?
Speaker 2: Wow? So are the is it? It is a military though?
Speaker 3: Right, it's not a government agency. It's not a military service.
Speaker 3: It's a DOT.
Speaker 4: It's made of civilians, right, sort of like the Coast Guard,
Speaker 4: and then it's like volunteer I guess, but like weapons ready, right.
Speaker 3: They you can go to the US Merchant Marine Academy.
Speaker 3: They do carry supplies. I'm sure they have to have
Speaker 3: security when they're going, like we're not. None of us
Speaker 3: have been members of the Merchant Marines obviously, but I
Speaker 3: didn't know the DOT even had a maritime administration.
Speaker 2: That's so nuts, But I guess it makes sense because
Speaker 2: let's just refresh people where this is very south end
Speaker 2: of the Maldives. Oh gosh, I don't know if I'll
Speaker 2: be able to even describe it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's right out like if you started India
Speaker 3: the tip of India with a little kama that is
Speaker 3: Sri Lanka, and then go down and slightly to the
Speaker 3: left and you will be you'll be sort of in
Speaker 3: the the mid northwest of the Indian Ocean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost smack dab in the middle of all
Speaker 2: of the land that surrounds the Indian Ocean there. So
Speaker 2: that's a great strategic position even if you're dot right,
Speaker 2: But you need to deploy a ship really quickly.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, pull up a map, look at the
Speaker 3: Persian Gulf, look at your booty, the Red Sea, Gulf
Speaker 3: of Eight, and Yemen. As you said, that is another
Speaker 3: incredibly important point. I'm really glad that got brought up
Speaker 3: because a lot of those things, a lot of the
Speaker 3: US activities abroad are not classify, but they're just not
Speaker 3: as widely reported, and administrations might change, but that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean the bomb stopped dropping for sure. Uh.
Speaker 2: Just to end on a light note here, guys, I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed the phrasing of storm Raven in a lot
Speaker 2: of places in that voicemail. The first one is the
Speaker 2: concept of that the island is half wild, because it
Speaker 2: made me feel like some kind of MTV spring break promo, like, man,
Speaker 2: this island is half wild fully lagoons go wild? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's this blue lagoon is so filled with merchant marine vessels.
Speaker 5: And uh.
Speaker 2: And also just that phrasing that you picked up on
Speaker 2: ben sensitive to some country's reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a nature reserve there too, Like a lot
Speaker 3: of a lot of islands that are territories with a
Speaker 3: primarily military interest, a lot of those places have amazing wildlife,
Speaker 3: you know, assuming they're not the side of nuclear tests.
Speaker 3: But even then life endures. It's amazing. It reminds me
Speaker 3: of Oh, I gotta do it. I have to do
Speaker 3: the shout out. I probably shouldn't because because it gets
Speaker 3: harder to find this book every time that we mentioned
Speaker 3: on air, But one of my very favorite books, which
Speaker 3: you might enjoy as well Storm Raven, is called Atlas
Speaker 3: of Remote Islands by Judith Shelansky. If you can get
Speaker 3: the hardback copy, it's amazing. It's somewhere between an anthology,
Speaker 3: somewhere between an Atlas. Of course, Diego Garcia makes an appearance,
Speaker 3: but perhaps not in the way you would imagine. So
Speaker 3: do check it out. And you know, if you have
Speaker 3: had the fortune to travel two places like this, let
Speaker 3: us know because a lot of people in the United States.
Speaker 3: It's weird. I can't remember what I was talking with
Speaker 3: about this, but a lot of people in the United
Speaker 3: States simply will not have the opportunity to travel because
Speaker 3: it can be so prohibitively expensive unless you join the military. Right,
Speaker 3: So we want to hear your stories about places you
Speaker 3: think your fellow conspiracy realist should know more about, because
Speaker 3: there's a lot out there.
Speaker 4: Well, if you go to the website for the Merchant
Speaker 4: Marines Institute that you were mentioning, the first selling point
Speaker 4: is want to see the world, manes.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, Yeah, I see the world, probably some asterisks,
Speaker 3: some specific parts.
Speaker 2: Of the world. I just want to visit the United
Speaker 2: Seamen's Service Center.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I bet you do. Whatever that means.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the club.
Speaker 3: They don't say what kind of sir.
Speaker 4: I I just met whatever I meant by my tone.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I get it, all right, all right, Well,
Speaker 2: with that, we're gonna hear a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much everybody who called in over the
Speaker 2: past month. We're caught up to October. Guys, we did it.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: We've returned seamen like sperm guys, get it like we're
Speaker 3: going to walk you through a casing body.
Speaker 2: No wait, I was talking about like the term for
Speaker 2: people who are on the scene. We knew what you meant.
Speaker 3: We knew what you Okay, we just refused to acknowledge it.
Speaker 3: So the h this is uh, this is one of
Speaker 3: our final pieces we got. We got an email that
Speaker 3: was very interesting from our pal Brock, fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 3: If you've heard the show, if you heard any of
Speaker 3: our strange news or listener mail segments, then you have
Speaker 3: heard Rock. Uh. Rock hipped us to something that I
Speaker 3: was very much not aware of, and I am I'm surprised.
Speaker 3: This is why, this is why we love hearing from
Speaker 3: you folks. So we know TikTok's a big thing, right.
Speaker 4: We know that.
Speaker 3: Uh, we know that the US millitarya is a big thing.
Speaker 3: To your point, Storm Raven and many other folks riding
Speaker 3: into us. We also know if you look at the
Speaker 3: numbers year over year. We know that for quite some
Speaker 3: time the US arm Services have been struggling to meet
Speaker 3: their recruitment quotas as more and more people become i
Speaker 3: would say, disillusioned with the army or cynical about joining
Speaker 3: and about what that greater purpose might be. Then we
Speaker 3: see that fewer and fewer people are going into a
Speaker 3: recruitment office or signing up. So how do you change that? Well,
Speaker 3: according to some interesting research we read, as well as
Speaker 3: a great little piece of from Upper Echelon on YouTube,
Speaker 3: we have learned that the psyop wing of the Armed Services,
Speaker 3: the US Army in particular, may have taken to TikTok
Speaker 3: and leverage slashed weaponized e girls. Before we continue, for
Speaker 3: anybody not in the know, how would you describe an
Speaker 3: e girl?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I remember this from years ago from my kid,
Speaker 4: and you told me what an e girl was, and
Speaker 4: I just remember they're kind of goffy internet, like perpetually online.
Speaker 4: Are they the ones that have the certain water bottles
Speaker 4: or is that Visco girls? I think that's Visco, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's that one. But then there was like the hydro flasks.
Speaker 4: What is egirls? I'm sorry, I'm getting conned.
Speaker 2: Is is there a sexual or sexuality.
Speaker 3: Component similar to some luck bing videos. The idea it
Speaker 3: could be a twitch streamer. It's now increasingly at someone
Speaker 3: on TikTok, and the idea is like you're a cute See.
Speaker 3: There are all sorts of specializations, but ultimately, at least
Speaker 3: critics would say the idea is that you can encourage
Speaker 3: a parasocial relationship as an egirl to get people to
Speaker 3: donate money to you to sharing your interest watching play
Speaker 3: video game for instance, watching you do unpacking unboxing videos,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 4: I was right about the goth element. Are there a
Speaker 4: subcategory of the mal.
Speaker 3: Goths or like waifu kind of ideas? So, this genre
Speaker 3: of influencer and performer is enormously successful and a lot
Speaker 3: of these people can make a quite a lucrative living here.
Speaker 3: So in step with programs designed to recruit young gamers
Speaker 3: through video games like Call of Duty, which we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: there's this allegation that Uncle Sam has weaponized some of
Speaker 3: these so called e girls. One great article we found
Speaker 3: about this, in addition to the YouTube video we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 3: is from Dazed Digital. This is by gunsili Yo Sinka
Speaker 3: and The title of it is how egir influencers are
Speaker 3: trying to get gen Z into the military, and they
Speaker 3: spend some time on someone named hey Lujan who has
Speaker 3: three hundred and sixty three thousand TikTok followers as of
Speaker 3: earlier this year and at the time this person's twenty
Speaker 3: years old classic eagle thing posting what are called thirst traps, right,
Speaker 3: but these thirst traps take place inside choppers or holding
Speaker 3: assault rifles, holding military gear hashtags like Pew pew and
Speaker 3: military curves. There will also be her plane with rebot
Speaker 3: control tanks.
Speaker 4: These are oh my gosh. These are like strategically created
Speaker 4: hashtags by somebody working in like social media marketing for
Speaker 4: the governments.
Speaker 2: Well it sounds like guns and Ammo the pages of
Speaker 2: like magazines back.
Speaker 3: In the Guns and Ammo after Doug.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they would have like some of the ads,
Speaker 2: not the actual articles in but the ads often have
Speaker 2: that very.
Speaker 4: Peny clad women sporting assaults a little soldier of fortune
Speaker 4: to it as well, not counting the classified advertisements and
Speaker 4: Soldier of fortune.
Speaker 3: But that time has passed this person. This person, who
Speaker 3: is sometimes called the psyop Girl No Fooling, is a
Speaker 3: self described psychological operation specialist in the US Army, and
Speaker 3: people have started speculating been speculating for a long time
Speaker 3: now that she is that her role in the Army
Speaker 3: is entirely to entice gen Z people largely male. We
Speaker 3: would assume to sign up for the Army or the
Speaker 3: Armed Services, some branch of it in hopes of meeting
Speaker 3: the one because what do you think of what do
Speaker 3: you think of the army romance? Right? Totally Number one
Speaker 3: guest family future.
Speaker 4: Every girl needs an e boy or whatever. No, that's
Speaker 4: not It's much more complex and fluid than that. But wait,
Speaker 4: so she claims to be a psyops expert, but it
Speaker 4: turns out that she actually is the syops.
Speaker 3: She claims to be employed by the US Army, and
Speaker 3: people are increasingly believing that there's also stuff like people
Speaker 3: not stuff like Bailey Crespo, Kayla salinas uh and then
Speaker 3: hashtag mill talk, m I L t O ky military
Speaker 3: TikTok uh and the more I thought about this, this
Speaker 3: is mentioned in several articles as well. I think of
Speaker 3: folks like remember bella Porch she came out with. She's
Speaker 3: an influencer who came out with a song that went
Speaker 3: viral which was build up thanks for beating me there.
Speaker 2: I don't think I know this one.
Speaker 8: It's it's it's about it's about how you, as a woman,
Speaker 8: you should not have to conform to romantic or sexual expectations.
Speaker 3: Cool. Yeah, down with overall's message, I think anybody can support. However,
Speaker 3: she served in the US Navy for four years before
Speaker 3: she went viral on TikTok, which to people play in
Speaker 3: the conspiracy Board Red String game. They think that this
Speaker 3: may have been a precedent or a blueprint that's set
Speaker 3: for this idea of let's get to young potential future
Speaker 3: armed Forces members through the power of sex appeal right
Speaker 3: and through video games.
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny because it seems like Uncle Sam
Speaker 4: has been sort of late to the party with that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff, sure, and that oftentimes their attempts at
Speaker 4: like making the military seem cool have fallen quite flat.
Speaker 4: So I guess they just finally maybe got some younger
Speaker 4: folks on their marketing team that were like, you know,
Speaker 4: what we ought to do is this. But also, TikTok
Speaker 4: is kind of notoribviously an enemy of information security, you know, right.
Speaker 3: That's what's interesting to me as well. And I think
Speaker 3: that's a good point because TikTok is an app that
Speaker 3: is compromised by the Chinese government pretty openly.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody at this point is going to
Speaker 3: say that's not the case unless they work for the
Speaker 3: government of China. But you see other countries doing this too.
Speaker 3: Israel has done this with things like the gun Waifu
Speaker 3: an influencer and IDF soldier. This is from the article
Speaker 3: who Well, here's the thing I think at that point,
Speaker 3: I think at that point our author on Day's Digital
Speaker 3: might have a particular stance in the race. The most
Speaker 3: important part to know is that to your point, other
Speaker 3: countries are doing this a lot of times propaganda. If
Speaker 3: it works in one situation, other organizations will attempt to
Speaker 3: emulate it as quickly as possible, create a feedback loop, right,
Speaker 3: which eventually creates to diminishing return, which is why people
Speaker 3: move on to new syops. So there's there's a question here,
Speaker 3: which is are we when when people agree to this
Speaker 3: or when they allow this? Here is this line to children?
Speaker 3: Is this like are you we selling them a full
Speaker 3: a bill of goods? Like if someone when you join
Speaker 3: the army, right, when you join the armed forces. Even
Speaker 3: if you don't meet your fantasy online girlfriend, you still
Speaker 3: have to stay in.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah. I think it's a crime if you
Speaker 4: just leave, you abandon your post. I think it's called
Speaker 4: going a wall or something, and it's punishable.
Speaker 3: I think even if you had the mental fortitude to
Speaker 3: purposely share your pants every day, they would keep you.
Speaker 3: Unless you were that guy on that plane from a.
Speaker 4: Few weeks back, they'd figure out something for you to do.
Speaker 3: They figure out something, Well, you'll likely the latrees. I
Speaker 3: mean he's there all the time. Anyway.
Speaker 2: It just puts you going to see one thirty and
Speaker 2: they make a little hole so you can just drop
Speaker 2: bombs on the NI.
Speaker 3: But but so my question then, building off this great
Speaker 3: point you make, Brock, it does seem there's something to it,
Speaker 3: but we don't know whether it's some widespread, systematic or
Speaker 3: systemic rather nefarious thing, or if it's just a couple
Speaker 3: of forays into something that's working.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So my question is is this dangerous?
Speaker 2: I you know, you know what feels dangerous to me
Speaker 2: the fact that there is a real thing called army syops.
Speaker 3: Oh, come on, that's old beings.
Speaker 2: No, no, but that but think about that. Psyops is
Speaker 2: the kind of it's a sci fi feeling thing, right,
Speaker 2: psychological operations, but it's real. It's a real thing within
Speaker 2: all of the branches of military for ages.
Speaker 4: And we talked about this recently. I think I forget
Speaker 4: the ghost army tapes or whatever, like in Vietnam, where
Speaker 4: they would play the sounds of ghosts of like the
Speaker 4: viet Cong's like ancestors that would supposedly get them to
Speaker 4: potentially retreat. They'd hang like speakers in the trees and stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean asswong or mutilating a corpse to look like
Speaker 3: it was an Aswalang attack in the Philippines exactly.
Speaker 2: But when psyops are involved at all, how do you
Speaker 2: know what is a part of the syops syop and
Speaker 2: what is not part of the syops sciops. You shared
Speaker 2: a link for a training about a training video that
Speaker 2: they put out to try and encourage people to join
Speaker 2: their thing. Yeah, and it sounds insane, then.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like when it's like when I can't remember
Speaker 3: which intelligence agety it was. Maybe out in the United
Speaker 3: Kingdom they put out a billboard with some riddles to solve.
Speaker 3: That was like the application slash challenge Cicada.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean it's not that different than I guess
Speaker 4: the CIA now allowing people to not have to take
Speaker 4: a drug test it in order to be a hacker
Speaker 4: for them, you know, because it's just part of the culture.
Speaker 4: You know, people don't want to work for the government
Speaker 4: if they can't smoke their weed or whatever, you know.
Speaker 4: And it's the same thing where they're trying to meet
Speaker 4: people young people. Not to sound like a granddad where
Speaker 4: they are. Is it any more dishonest than those videos
Speaker 4: we were talking about in the previous episode with the
Speaker 4: you know, call of duty kind of action sort of
Speaker 4: like think people rising from the swamps, and you know,
Speaker 4: it looks like just wow, you want to be a hero.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's all Michael Bay type stuff. That's that's
Speaker 4: not honest. We know that's not what it's like.
Speaker 3: You said that. Yeah, let's point out our earlier episode. Look,
Speaker 3: regardless of whether or not you support this way of
Speaker 3: gaining the interest of young people who may not fully
Speaker 3: realize the repercussions of their decisions, you should check out
Speaker 3: our episode on the US military and how it interacts
Speaker 3: with the entertainment industry in the in domestically and a
Speaker 3: little bit a little bit abroad, still mainly in the endphere.
Speaker 3: But the long and short of it is, the Armed
Speaker 3: Services will give you a heck of a deal on
Speaker 3: having US military appear in your films and your TV shows,
Speaker 3: so long as you make them look good in the process. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's great, you know what I mean. I think any
Speaker 3: organization that had the money to do that would do so.
Speaker 3: So it's just pr But those sie up groups are
Speaker 3: the s battalions and specific they are real. And when
Speaker 3: you see a video game company or a movie studio
Speaker 3: wanting to use the military legally in media, then they're
Speaker 3: gonna talk with those guys the propagandas.
Speaker 4: Don't they let them use like helicopters and stuff or
Speaker 4: they are like supervised They obviously they're not just letting
Speaker 4: people fly their helicopters, but it's stuff that would be
Speaker 4: very expensive to either create or to cgi. It is
Speaker 4: a good deal for the movie industry if they can
Speaker 4: play nice, so long as they look good.
Speaker 2: Well is the thing. Somebody recently, and I apologize I
Speaker 2: can't remember who was, They were talking about the Top
Speaker 2: Gun Maverick movie and how the enemy is never defined.
Speaker 2: It's like an unknown enemy, and there were people online
Speaker 2: attempting to figure out who the actual ideological enemy of
Speaker 2: them of the American forces was.
Speaker 4: Isn't the point though, that it doesn't matter that it's
Speaker 4: just like leaving it up to the imagination and it
Speaker 4: makes it a little more universally applicable or enjoyable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, But I imagine that's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that they're able to actually get access to
Speaker 2: a lot of the planes and feature actual military toys.
Speaker 3: Look, the idea is the lesson for those kind of films,
Speaker 3: especially when they're shown abroad, as anyone.
Speaker 4: Can get it.
Speaker 2: Oh you know what I mean? Yeah, like, do you.
Speaker 3: Really want to find it why we don't have free healthcare?
Speaker 2: It's because of these these five And I.
Speaker 3: Know that's on cinema. But that being that alone, that
Speaker 3: cynicism does not mean that is untrue. But also just
Speaker 3: to be very fair, you know, the US armed forces
Speaker 3: are one of the great guaranteurs of international trade, right
Speaker 3: especially we look at this huge infrastructure across these massive oceans,
Speaker 3: counting Diego Garcia as well. The force projection of the
Speaker 3: United States enables global commerce to exist, and it's really
Speaker 3: hard to argue against that, and I don't necessarily, you know,
Speaker 3: there are all kinds of criticisms. We'd love to hear
Speaker 3: your stories on this one, folks. There are all kinds
Speaker 3: of criticisms of the at times misleading tactics that recruitment
Speaker 3: offices have given. Have spungges, yeah, for ages, and you
Speaker 3: know they themselves. If we have anybody who's worked in
Speaker 3: recruitment listening tonight, you know that you yourself may have
Speaker 3: been subjected to some pretty crazy quotas that are very
Speaker 3: difficult to meet at times. So there is that problem
Speaker 3: there to maintain that recruitment. But then there's also the
Speaker 3: question of what is ethical. You know, I just I
Speaker 3: feel God, there are so many stereotypes about young folks.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say kids who join the military instantly,
Speaker 3: get married to their high school sweetheart, buy a Mustang
Speaker 3: at twenty something percent interest, and then fast forward two
Speaker 3: years and they're in deep water. And those stereotypes exist
Speaker 3: because they there is some sand to them. I just
Speaker 3: hate the idea of a kid signing up for something
Speaker 3: that will affect them potentially for the rest of their
Speaker 3: lives or potentially end their life, just because they saw
Speaker 3: some TikTok videos that doesn't seem right.
Speaker 4: Well, and this seems like kind of small tata as
Speaker 4: compared to the ethical quandaries posed by military war machines
Speaker 4: in general. Right, But like a lot of these kind
Speaker 4: of oo wu type videos, these egirl type videos are
Speaker 4: about sexualizing young people, you know, in a very potentially
Speaker 4: icky way, but it's also about empowerment sometimes too, So
Speaker 4: it's a it's a confusing fall of wax. But when
Speaker 4: the government kind of weaponizes it and is trying to
Speaker 4: target it, then they're capitalizing on something that is in
Speaker 4: the wrong hands, quite you know, problematic.
Speaker 3: And we want this is where we will your help.
Speaker 3: If you have worked in recruitment, if you've worked in
Speaker 3: the armed forces, if you haven't, it doesn't matter. We
Speaker 3: want to hear your opinions on the ethics, on the
Speaker 3: nature of this conspiracy, whether it's overblown, whether there's sand
Speaker 3: to it, and we love it. If you visit Army
Speaker 3: times dot com, check out a article says, foreboding Army
Speaker 3: syops recruitment video shows who's pulling the strings. This was
Speaker 3: written in May of last year by Rachel Nostrand and
Speaker 3: with that, like we cannot wait to hear from you
Speaker 3: on this. With that, folks, we bid you at a
Speaker 3: do and a happy almost Halloween. Shout out to Brock,
Speaker 3: shout out to lunch Lady, shout out to Storm Raven,
Speaker 3: a Frame, and of course beezel Bob. One final note,
Speaker 3: on a bit of a personal level, a dear friend
Speaker 3: of mine and of the show has passed away unexpectedly,
Speaker 3: Canadian Dean. There are many people listen to the show
Speaker 3: who know you and remember you, and there's never there's
Speaker 3: never a right way to say it. But just wanted
Speaker 3: to give our thoughts to your family and loved ones
Speaker 3: and with that, we can't wait to hear from you, folks.
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