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 the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined with our guest super producer, Max the
Speaker 1: freight trained Williams. Most importantly, you are here. That makes
Speaker 1: this the stuff they don't want you to know. Fellow
Speaker 1: conspiracy realist. It is one of our favorite evenings of
Speaker 1: the week. This is our weekly listener male segment between
Speaker 1: all the strange digging we do. We rely on you
Speaker 1: the most important part of this show to share with
Speaker 1: your fellow conspiracy realist, the things that struck you as important,
Speaker 1: the things that in your own personal life are the
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. We are going
Speaker 1: to learn about ghost weddings from an exciting email that
Speaker 1: gives us a chance to talk about something that I
Speaker 1: think is fascinating many of us for several years. We're
Speaker 1: going to get some letters from home from some of
Speaker 1: our favorite people in the world, educators. We're also going
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about the Maldives. And before
Speaker 1: we do any of that, we are going to hang
Speaker 1: out with a fellow conspiracy realist and fantastic writer. By
Speaker 1: the way, GP Scooth.
Speaker 3: Just love the name GP Scooth. Yeah.
Speaker 4: GP wrote into us with the subject Bob Burdella and
Speaker 4: Bob's bizarre Bizarre, which is a lovely play on words too.
Speaker 4: What do you call that a homonym? I guess they're
Speaker 4: not quite exactly the same in they're clothes. I've certainly
Speaker 4: seen people play that's bizarre. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3: Fun So here he goes. Gentlemen, I have not bothered
Speaker 3: you in a while.
Speaker 4: And this week's episode on Serial Killers brought back memories
Speaker 4: of the spring of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 3: I was a struggling freelance teacher, lecturer.
Speaker 4: Writer, and overachiever in my dad trying out any number
Speaker 4: of new business ventures. One of these which became successful,
Speaker 4: but after I gave it up, was based in an
Speaker 4: office space I rented in an executive suite. I'm not
Speaker 4: going to give the exact address in Kansas City, Missouri
Speaker 4: is always confused me. The Kansas City isn't in Kansas
Speaker 4: but there you go. I located here because of proximity
Speaker 4: to the professional clients I was trying to attract, even
Speaker 4: though it was across town and the state line. These
Speaker 4: were sally referring to the office spase proximity to the
Speaker 4: professional clients I was trying to attract, even though it
Speaker 4: was across town and the state line from my home
Speaker 4: on the suburban Kansas side. When I came to the
Speaker 4: office one Monday, shared by about a half dozen accountants,
Speaker 4: insurance agents, and a barter exchange, I was told that
Speaker 4: over the weekend one of the guys that hung out
Speaker 4: there are regular in the barter exchange, had been a rested.
Speaker 4: A teenage boy had escaped from this guy's house naked
Speaker 4: and beaten up. When the police took Bob Burdella into custody,
Speaker 4: it later turned out Bridella had killed and dismembered at
Speaker 4: least six young men, threw the parts away into the
Speaker 4: garbage or buried them in his backyard. Bardella had a
Speaker 4: business at the Westport flea market called Bob's Bizarre Bizarre,
Speaker 4: which he called his personal cabinet of curiosities. Westport would
Speaker 4: be the Kansas City version of the Hipster Village, with restaurants, bars,
Speaker 4: and little shops of all kinds. It lies between the
Speaker 4: University of Missouri Kansas City and the Kansas University Medical Center,
Speaker 4: a teaching hospital, plus is easily reached from downtown or
Speaker 4: the suburbs for meetings, parties, etc. Inside the Westport flea Market,
Speaker 4: where some of the best Hamburgers ever were sold, Bob's
Speaker 4: Bazaar has a cult magic, satanic merchandise, and even real
Speaker 4: human skeletal remains, although there were always many manufactured body
Speaker 4: parts as well. The days of the head shop, this
Speaker 4: was one where you could purchase rolling papers for your
Speaker 4: own cigarettes, so I'm told, and even sometimes what were
Speaker 4: advertised as marital aids or tension relieving massagers that would
Speaker 4: fit on a finger. You get the idea a spencer's
Speaker 4: gifts for adults with weirdness thrown in. But in the
Speaker 4: many times I just had coffee conversations with Bob, he
Speaker 4: was about as low key regular a person as you
Speaker 4: could get. A bit eccentric, yes, openly gay in the
Speaker 4: nineteen eighties, which sets him apart, but nothing to give
Speaker 4: you the vibes that this person with whom I was
Speaker 4: speaking just happens to have a teenage boy locked in
Speaker 4: a room and chained to a bed at his home,
Speaker 4: and the timeline we later worked out told us that
Speaker 4: had to have been the case. While you guys discussed
Speaker 4: the mementos from such people, I have always questioned, even
Speaker 4: to Bob, where did you get the stuff for your inventory?
Speaker 4: Who just sells human hands? Is there a big demand
Speaker 4: for human skulls and some of his We're real?
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: The strangest part to me has always been that no
Speaker 4: one suspected anything about Bob that would have led you
Speaker 4: to believe he was killing, dismembering, and disposing of people.
Speaker 3: The typical quiet.
Speaker 4: Guy next door, I guess, but still odd to have
Speaker 4: a brief period of your life where you were in
Speaker 4: frequent contact and on a first name basis with a
Speaker 4: serial killer.
Speaker 3: You know me as gpscooth Yeah, Ike, thank you?
Speaker 4: Whoow that's a tale GP, My goodness, that must have
Speaker 4: been chilling to discover.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'm looking at a business card here
Speaker 2: from all That's Interesting dot com, and it quotes his
Speaker 2: company as Bob's Bizarre Bizarre, so like describing the bizarre
Speaker 2: after Okay, clever.
Speaker 1: Well, you don't have to look. You can be a
Speaker 1: monster and still understand the importance of wordplay.
Speaker 4: Very true, That is very true, Ben, I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: this just sounds like the perfect fodder for murder fiction
Speaker 4: type stuff because you know, of course, like the twist,
Speaker 4: is that the thing that you bought from the you know,
Speaker 4: the shrunken head or you know, withered hand actually belonged
Speaker 4: to one of his victims. That's of course where your
Speaker 4: mind goes. And I don't know, did you guys read
Speaker 4: any further into this. Was there ever any indication that
Speaker 4: he did put his trophies in his shop?
Speaker 1: Unclear? I think because of the timeline at that point,
Speaker 1: you would have, like in the nineteen eighties, if you
Speaker 1: are actively operating the way this guy was, then you
Speaker 1: would have hopefully had some lessons learned from from previous
Speaker 1: experiences of people who got popped for doing this sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. However, what was he called the Kansas City butcher? Right?
Speaker 1: He clearly wasn't very clever, Most of them aren't. I
Speaker 1: think he was just throwing people away and throwing human remains,
Speaker 1: excuse me away in garbage bags. It reminds me, God,
Speaker 1: it just reminds me of so many other serial killers.
Speaker 1: To your question or GP, what you're talking about what
Speaker 1: you're talking about here. No, what we're exploring together here
Speaker 1: is the idea of serial killer merchandising. That's part of it, right,
Speaker 1: that big question you pose, did this individual attempt to
Speaker 1: profit off of the results of their mental illness? Right?
Speaker 1: And that's I mean, that's a good question because HH
Speaker 1: Holmes was killing people because he liked it, but he
Speaker 1: was also killing people for insurance money, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. You run into you run into that simultaneous.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a rationalization or if it's
Speaker 1: a simultaneous benefit in their minds.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to be said about this guy. And
Speaker 1: I also appreciate JP for pointing out it's at least
Speaker 1: six young men, because, as we know, unfortunately, very often
Speaker 1: in the US and abroad, when the victims of creatures
Speaker 1: like this, when they are sociologically marginalized, then their law
Speaker 1: enforcement just doesn't doesn't seem to do their due diligence.
Speaker 1: So for that, that's part of why people killing, you know,
Speaker 1: folks who are considered African American folks who are considered homosexual,
Speaker 1: that's part of why those entities have a higher likelihood
Speaker 1: of getting away from justice for a longer amount of time.
Speaker 4: It does appear that, you know, he was into S
Speaker 4: and M type stuff, and they did have people participating
Speaker 4: and some of these activities, you know, willingly. I think
Speaker 4: there were upwards of twenty photographs discovered of folks in
Speaker 4: various stages of this type of you know stuff, dog
Speaker 4: collars and you know, things like that, and I think
Speaker 4: it was almost all of the victims I believe, were
Speaker 4: among those photographs. And the you know gp you mentioned
Speaker 4: the person that was found naked, It was naked except
Speaker 4: for a dog collar. And apparently this creature, as you
Speaker 4: very appropriately put it, Ben had this.
Speaker 3: Something called rules of the House that were rules.
Speaker 4: That were mandatory for anyone that he was doing this
Speaker 4: stuff with and that any you know, non adherence to
Speaker 4: these rules would result in electric shocks being administered to
Speaker 4: their private areas.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like it's kind of like David Parker
Speaker 1: Ray also known as the Toy Box s Killer, the
Speaker 1: Four Entities like this. What you do is you construct,
Speaker 1: you construct a regiment of rules and make it such
Speaker 1: that there is no way those rules cannot be in
Speaker 1: some way quote unquote Brokenken and then right, because it's
Speaker 1: not about the rules. It's about an opportunity to feel
Speaker 1: that one controls and punishes people. It's it's very unclean thing.
Speaker 3: No, it's it's it's it's it's really really awful. Matt.
Speaker 4: You've gone deep with you know, the Zodiac killer and
Speaker 4: Atlanta child murderers and all this stuff. And I was
Speaker 4: having a conversation with my partner the other day just
Speaker 4: about whether these types of conditions are medical in nature
Speaker 4: or whether these types of conditions are these are just
Speaker 4: bad people, you know. I mean, obviously you can be
Speaker 4: diagnosed with schizophrenia, but that's a psychiatric diagnosis. Like it's
Speaker 4: usually only post mortem that you know, aberance is the
Speaker 4: brain can be detected. Do you have any thoughts on that, Matt,
Speaker 4: like from any of the dives that you've done, Like
Speaker 4: whether these are just people that are just bad or
Speaker 4: can they be cured?
Speaker 3: Is that even something that should be invested in? Like what?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe that's too big a question, and obviously
Speaker 4: is the question, but I'm just interested in your perspective
Speaker 4: on that.
Speaker 2: I'm no expert, man. The people we've talked to have
Speaker 2: differing opinions, but a lot of the investigators on the
Speaker 2: law enforcement side, especially from the FBI, tend to have
Speaker 2: a pretty stark look at it, like this is a
Speaker 2: bad person. But generally this person was made bad through experience,
Speaker 2: life experience, right through a lot of things they've been through. Generally,
Speaker 2: not this person was created evil from the womb kind
Speaker 2: of concept.
Speaker 1: Often traumatic brain injury early in childhood.
Speaker 2: Or traumatic brain injury really anytime, which is kind of crazy,
Speaker 2: like it can that kind of thing can adjust somebody
Speaker 2: in not so great ways of show.
Speaker 3: Gage, Yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 2: Remove filters that are there that kind of internally bind
Speaker 2: our behavior. Give us these rules that generally aren't broken
Speaker 2: out of fear of what it means to break one
Speaker 2: of those rules. You get a brain injury, and that
Speaker 2: can go away depending on where it is. I don't
Speaker 2: I don't know, man.
Speaker 4: No, that's a really good point, Matt, And that's that.
Speaker 4: I think that's a very valid perspective for sure. I
Speaker 4: was listening to a podcast that I really quite enjoy.
Speaker 4: It's called with Gorley and Rust with Matt Gorley and
Speaker 4: Paul Rust, and they talk about different horror movies, and
Speaker 4: they were talking about the movie Seven, which you know,
Speaker 4: I think in a lot of ways, movies like Silence
Speaker 4: of the Lambs and Seven sort of led to this
Speaker 4: whole like genius serial killer kind of you know, Craze
Speaker 4: or whatever. And they just pointed out, I think, very
Speaker 4: astutely that that's not a thing, like there's nobody that
Speaker 4: would be that twisted, that would do something like what
Speaker 4: John Doe does in seven. These very elaborate or like
Speaker 4: you know, Jigsaw. But Seven's just obviously interesting.
Speaker 1: That you mentioned that, because I believe it was Bridella, right,
Speaker 1: Bridella watched The Collector, that film from the sixties. Do
Speaker 1: you guys know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: I don't know that one, now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he watched a film that came out in the
Speaker 1: mid sixties called The Collector, which is about a guy
Speaker 1: who stalks and kidnaps a lady and feels like he is,
Speaker 1: you know, practicing lepidoptery, like the collection of butterflies or
Speaker 1: something where you pin them against you know, a backdrop,
Speaker 1: And this was sort of an inspiration. So I think,
Speaker 1: and GP, maybe you will find this interesting. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a question that I have not quite solved yet about
Speaker 1: the possible feedback loop. You know, why does the serial
Speaker 1: murderer in the United States. Why does it hold such
Speaker 1: a unique position in the zeitgeist, and to what degree
Speaker 1: do films that appear to glorify one of these people?
Speaker 1: Right to your point, nol the the largely fictitious idea
Speaker 1: of the intelligent serial murderer a lah Hannibal in or
Speaker 1: Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, to what degree
Speaker 1: is that sort of fiction perhaps informing the actions of
Speaker 1: the mentally ill. And that's a slippery slope, because then,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's too close intellectually speaking or
Speaker 1: philosophically speaking to the idea that listening to quote unquote
Speaker 1: the wrong music makes make someone violate moral taboos I
Speaker 1: or social taboos, excuse me, socioeconomic taboos as well. It
Speaker 1: is true, though it is objectively true that Birdella watched
Speaker 1: this film and talked about it. He also had some
Speaker 1: of the things that you're clocking as well.
Speaker 2: Matt, there are other two killers. Sorry this I was
Speaker 2: trying to figure out why the collector like pinged something
Speaker 2: for me. It was another project that we were working
Speaker 2: on for a time, Leonard Lake and Charles Ang. This
Speaker 2: also committed a bunch of brutal murders that involved kidnapping people,
Speaker 2: and they were also allegedly inspired by the Collector.
Speaker 4: That is fascinating that feedback loop idea. But you're right,
Speaker 4: then it can be the slippery slope when it comes
Speaker 4: to just like blaming the art and censoring it as
Speaker 4: a result of what I think would largely be some
Speaker 4: pretty rare.
Speaker 3: Outliers who actually you know, are and.
Speaker 4: You know, whether he chose to act out because of
Speaker 4: that in a certain way, he probably would have acted
Speaker 4: out in some other way without said inspiration.
Speaker 3: But back to what gorleyan Rest said, and then we'll
Speaker 3: take a break.
Speaker 4: They just pointed out that the reality of it is
Speaker 4: what you were pointing to as well, Ben, is that
Speaker 4: anyone that's mentally ill enough or you know, has some
Speaker 4: fetishistic drive enough to do something like the Seven Murders,
Speaker 4: there's no way they'd be able to pull it off
Speaker 4: with the degree of accuracy that happens in that film.
Speaker 4: So it is largely But also David Fincher, who directed Seven,
Speaker 4: said that he almost felt guilty about introducing this glorified
Speaker 4: version of the genius serial killer into the world, which
Speaker 4: is largely.
Speaker 3: Why he made Mind Hunter.
Speaker 4: That depicts the killers as mainly perverts and degenerates, you know,
Speaker 4: so he did kind of say that was almost his
Speaker 4: way of feeling as though he were righting or wrong,
Speaker 4: even though I think seven is an excellent film. But
Speaker 4: thank you so much, GP scooth. And we're going to
Speaker 4: take a quick break and we'll come back with some
Speaker 4: more messages from you.
Speaker 1: And we have returned. You've got a couple here. There's
Speaker 1: something that we started a little while back that I
Speaker 1: quite like, which is just letters from Home. We look
Speaker 1: for nice stuff. We dive into many dark and troubling things.
Speaker 1: We often find a grain of truth at the heart
Speaker 1: of a conspiracy, but also we like to hear the
Speaker 1: nice things. So we're gonna give you a weird story
Speaker 1: from our pal proximate Cause. Oh let me speak this
Speaker 1: in all caps, from our pal proximate Cause, who wants
Speaker 1: to share an experience that I think will be instructive
Speaker 1: for a lot of us playing along at home tonight.
Speaker 1: And then we're gonna hear one nice letter from home
Speaker 1: before we go to the ad break. So here we
Speaker 1: go from Proximate Cause. PC says, I was reminded by
Speaker 1: the most recent strange news segment in relation to China
Speaker 1: India relations and the line of ultimate control of something
Speaker 1: I saw while in the Maldives or Maldives more than
Speaker 1: a year ago, says Proximate. I went to the Maldives
Speaker 1: as a tourist. From the shore of the first island
Speaker 1: I visited that was not the capital, I saw a
Speaker 1: man piloting a boat or captaining who was wearing a
Speaker 1: red shirt with big black text on it which read
Speaker 1: India out Now. Being an avid googler, I took to
Speaker 1: my phone to see just what this was about. And
Speaker 1: it turns out there are some residents of the Maldives
Speaker 1: who consider India to be somewhat of a threat to
Speaker 1: their sovereignity to a greater or lesser degree. While there
Speaker 1: is some official chatter about there being no actual threat,
Speaker 1: I kind of wonder in a country where apostasy is
Speaker 1: punishable by death, and having some experience living in China,
Speaker 1: I don't think that for my short touristy trip it
Speaker 1: was a good idea to get too deep into local
Speaker 1: politics in a way that might seem impolite coming from
Speaker 1: a foreigner. You're right about that, my friend, especially being
Speaker 1: a foreigner from a country with a strong interventionist history.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just overly cautious. I'm edatorializing here. You were
Speaker 1: not you were on the money. So PC continues and says,
Speaker 1: I've heard and read several accounts from Filipinos regarding the
Speaker 1: behavior of Chinese nationals and the Philippines, some of which
Speaker 1: were more high profile than others, the general gist of
Speaker 1: which tended to be, what do you mean it's illegal?
Speaker 3: Here?
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 1: This ours? And those have fueled some conspiracies related to
Speaker 1: the elections of various officials, and so approximate Cause says,
Speaker 1: while I recognize the Maldives may not be the same
Speaker 1: kind of strategic location in relation to India that the
Speaker 1: Philippines is to China, if I were a betting man,
Speaker 1: I'd say Sri Lanka would be a more likely option.
Speaker 1: Does this change anything? Much like Azerbaijan and Armenia now,
Speaker 1: because there's more value in backing Azerbaijan, the larger regional
Speaker 1: powers around them have turned a blind eye to what's
Speaker 1: happening in our media. That's true, Would there be any
Speaker 1: strong response from the West or other large Asian governments?
Speaker 1: I think PC means if something sideways happened to the Maldives,
Speaker 1: PC says, I doubt many Americans outside of the influencer
Speaker 1: crowd could even point to this country on a map,
Speaker 1: much less make a full bodied vocal defense of an
Speaker 1: Islamic country, even if our relationship with India turned that sour.
Speaker 1: There's just too much nuance required. Could this be the
Speaker 1: beginnings of another regional proxy war? I have no idea,
Speaker 1: but I feel as if it may be something to
Speaker 1: watch when the region starts to pop off even more.
Speaker 1: I could see China coming to the Maldives in the
Speaker 1: same way the US supports the Philippines. So that's a
Speaker 1: good question. One thing I think most Westerners know about
Speaker 1: this nation, about the Maldives or Maldives however you would
Speaker 1: like to pronounce it Malay, It is probably probably going
Speaker 1: to be the first nation whose land totally disappears due
Speaker 1: to the rise of the oceans. Do you guys hear
Speaker 1: about this part?
Speaker 3: I have not heard about it yet.
Speaker 1: Know they're going to Unfortunately, due to the rising surface
Speaker 1: level of the oceans, the Maldives may indeed become a
Speaker 1: place that exists in a different country, like an enclave
Speaker 1: of some sort. They're about like you if you look
Speaker 1: at it, they're in the Indian Ocean. So see the
Speaker 1: very bottom of India, and there to the southeast of
Speaker 1: India there Sri Lanka.
Speaker 3: If you go to the.
Speaker 1: Southwest and you go further out into the ocean, then
Speaker 1: you see this country. The highest the highest elevation above
Speaker 1: sea level there is like a little under eight feet.
Speaker 1: It's not looking good in short, And the question that's
Speaker 1: being asked here, which I very much appreciate, is it's
Speaker 1: kind of following up to what we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: the idea that India and China may be practicing their
Speaker 1: own expansionist methods, and the idea that both of these
Speaker 1: countries may be attempting to turn this other smaller country
Speaker 1: into what's called a vassal state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's certainly in a good strategic place. I mean,
Speaker 2: far enough from the South China Sea and some of
Speaker 2: the you know, some of the stuff that's being done
Speaker 2: out there in protecting that area right by China, because
Speaker 2: you got the whole Bay of Bengal and the Gulf
Speaker 2: of Thailand in between. But I don't know. We just
Speaker 2: talked about how India is a strategic country for the West,
Speaker 2: right now right, and having like naval bases there would
Speaker 2: be interesting. But again it's like, what's the long term
Speaker 2: strategy for any country with the Maldives when it comes
Speaker 2: to oceanize, like you said, because there's not that much
Speaker 2: time probably, and they're like, the country is aware of it.
Speaker 2: Officials in the country are aware of it. It's a
Speaker 2: it's a dangerous situation for them. So then what do
Speaker 2: you you know, what do you do when some military
Speaker 2: comes rolling through and says, hey, we want to invest
Speaker 2: a bunch of money in your country. All you got
Speaker 2: to do is let us turn one of these islands
Speaker 2: into a giant base.
Speaker 1: Just the one, just the one, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like the one you're not using, so like the there's
Speaker 1: also I appreciate you pointing this out, Matt, there's also
Speaker 1: a clear easy controlling this little piece. It gives you
Speaker 1: a clear and easy transit point to all sorts of
Speaker 1: stuff like Eastern Africa. You got that, you know you could,
Speaker 1: You're way closer to the Strait of Hormuz. There's also
Speaker 1: a very powerful argument that the nation of China needs to,
Speaker 1: like like Russia, it needs to extend its ocean access
Speaker 1: past what it has now, you know, things will be
Speaker 1: very different if Russia had a little bit better maritime
Speaker 1: access to the Atlantic Ocean. And I'm fascinated to by
Speaker 1: this acknowledgment of Islamophobia. I guess we know that plays
Speaker 1: a part in Western political calculus.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I don't know. Is it weird to you
Speaker 2: guys how much that has cooled off since you know,
Speaker 2: two thousand and one.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, well.
Speaker 2: In talking points, right, I mean, we're going through the
Speaker 2: presidential election here right now, and well, I mean, okay,
Speaker 2: this is full disclosure. I'm not exactly listening to any
Speaker 2: presidential debates because I could give up what anybody says.
Speaker 1: On this is amazing though. Just watch the clip shows.
Speaker 1: I keep going to bad lip Reading on YouTube just
Speaker 1: to see if they've got a banger. I'm just waiting.
Speaker 1: But it was really the most recent one that occurred
Speaker 1: the primary here in the US. The primary debate was
Speaker 1: kind of embarrassing.
Speaker 4: Okay, I guess it just feels like the dog whistles
Speaker 4: now are more for like other stuff like trans people
Speaker 4: and queer people. You know, that's sort of become the
Speaker 4: new threat at home. You know, we haven't really had
Speaker 4: any high profile quote unquote terrorist attacks for them to
Speaker 4: point to.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: It seems like if if there were, if that were
Speaker 4: the case, they certainly would not shy away from using that.
Speaker 4: But you're right, I didn't think about that. It certainly
Speaker 4: has quote unquote cool down, at least in their rhetoric.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a really important part. That's something that
Speaker 1: we should all keep an eye on as we go
Speaker 1: forward here, because what you were seeing, you, if you
Speaker 1: don't try to go outside of your information bubble, right
Speaker 1: and you live in the anglosphere, what you were probably
Speaker 1: going to see is news that an algorithm has determined
Speaker 1: you will care about. And that's a hell of a
Speaker 1: catch twenty two. And it is not good for you
Speaker 1: as a person or an entity. It's not good for
Speaker 1: you as a citizen of the world right now. There's
Speaker 1: a ton of stuff that's happening out there, and it
Speaker 1: is in the collective best interest to know about it.
Speaker 1: To the point about Islamophobia, it's always going to be
Speaker 1: a part of the West, right, and that's simply because
Speaker 1: people are sort of cheat at times. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean they're necessarily bad people. They just like having an
Speaker 1: in group and an outgroup, and that's sort of a
Speaker 1: that's like a cognitive hardware defect. However, we have to
Speaker 1: realize that the vast majority of people living on the
Speaker 1: planet right now are super super similar to you hearing this.
Speaker 1: They want a good job, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They don't want to be rushed when they have to poop.
Speaker 1: They like feeling like they're funny, you know, They want
Speaker 1: their kids to have a good life. They have like
Speaker 1: they have certain concerns about their lives that might seem
Speaker 1: little to the world entire but they're very big to them.
Speaker 1: And if civilization together can just agree on those basic
Speaker 1: things in a non zero sum equation, the world will
Speaker 1: be better off. And you don't have to have all
Speaker 1: this geopolitical pissing on fire hydrants because ultimately it benefits
Speaker 1: very very few people. With that, let me retreat off
Speaker 1: the soapbox. We promised you a letter from home. This
Speaker 1: is quickly becoming one of the favorite parts of the evening.
Speaker 1: We get a letter by someone. This is so great,
Speaker 1: you guys. We get a letter by someone calling themselves
Speaker 1: outnumbered by sixth graders, and this is just a nice
Speaker 1: thing to us playing along at home recording here this evening.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, says Outnumbered. I'm a public school teacher in Arizona.
Speaker 1: I just got done listening to the Public Schools Factory episode.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say thank you for managing to
Speaker 1: point out all of the problems with the education system
Speaker 1: without disparaging teachers. We teachers know the system is problematic,
Speaker 1: and we were all working hard to change it. But
Speaker 1: many of us already know that the info in your
Speaker 1: episode was true. Walking that line of respect for what
Speaker 1: we do while pointing out problems is not always easy,
Speaker 1: but you did an amazing job.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Feel free to share if you choose to do so.
Speaker 1: And thank you, out Numbered, because as you know, Matt
Speaker 1: Noel and yours, truly, we're all We come from teachers,
Speaker 1: you know, we come from educators, and I would argue,
Speaker 1: I would argue that every adult person comes from education, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's part of why humans are such popular primates, because we.
Speaker 2: Teach each other things and then we write it down, right,
Speaker 2: make videos about it and TikTok the heck out of it.
Speaker 3: No jeez.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, anyway, I wanted to end on that nice
Speaker 1: one because we made the world sound terrifying, which it
Speaker 1: is but shout out to the teachers and thank you
Speaker 1: to everyone who tuned in to our public education episode.
Speaker 1: There are some serious intergenerational issues with the system, at
Speaker 1: least as it stands in the United States. We're going
Speaker 1: to pause for a word from our sponsor and will
Speaker 1: return with one more message from you, and no spoilers, folks.
Speaker 3: It's a good.
Speaker 2: One and we've returned. Guys. During that Maldives section, I
Speaker 2: was just looking all around Google Earth, which is what
Speaker 2: I do whenever we talk about a place that I
Speaker 2: don't know a ton about and I found somewhere I
Speaker 2: want us to go Brunette. It's called Ascension Island.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's in one of my favorite books, Matt
Speaker 1: Judah Shlansky. Oh god, every time I really mention the book,
Speaker 1: it screws things up.
Speaker 3: Whatever.
Speaker 1: But one of my favorite books in the world is
Speaker 1: called The Atlas of Remote Islands. Ascension Island is an
Speaker 1: entry in The Atlas of Remote Islands by Judah Slansky.
Speaker 1: Check out the book if you.
Speaker 2: Get it's really cool looking. I want to go to
Speaker 2: the Volcano Club and snack bar on the island.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: Someone's like, I don't know, you can five volcanoes anywhere.
Speaker 1: And then someone else comes up and says, there's also
Speaker 1: a snack bar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, but it's inside the volcano.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It looks nuts. This place looks nuts.
Speaker 2: It's in the middle. Gosh, so cool. It's like just
Speaker 2: right in the middle of Africa and South America.
Speaker 1: Okay, eight hundred people live there.
Speaker 2: Dude, somebody in the RAF is listening right now and
Speaker 2: right to us. Let us know, because you got a
Speaker 2: base O're there, all right. So we are getting a
Speaker 2: message here from someone we're all familiar with. I'm assuming
Speaker 2: someone that writes to us all the time, mister Lucas.
Speaker 2: Lucas says, so here's some more body broker kind of
Speaker 2: stuff for you, but a bit darker. Apparently this is
Speaker 2: a thing. Women's dead bodies are sold to families burying
Speaker 2: their unmarried son. This gets more sinister when people begin
Speaker 2: to start murdering women than selling them. What is this thing? Well,
Speaker 2: it is. It can be a lot of things. Posthumous marriage,
Speaker 2: ghost marriage, you could call it. There are other words
Speaker 2: for it in varying religions and cultural sects, but we're
Speaker 2: talking ghost weddings. And Lucas sends us a couple of
Speaker 2: different links and a bit of information from Wikipedia that
Speaker 2: we're not going to read in full, Lucas, we'll talk
Speaker 2: about it and around it. So let's just go to
Speaker 2: some of the news links that were sent to us.
Speaker 2: One of them comes from the BBC. Its title is
Speaker 2: China's Ghost Weddings and Why they can be Deadly. This
Speaker 2: was written in August twenty sixteen by Grace sooy Tsoi
Speaker 2: and guys. It's a story about some people who were
Speaker 2: murdering women and then selling their corpses to willing, needy
Speaker 2: families who believed they were buying a recently deceased person
Speaker 2: to be wed in a traditional ceremony to a loved
Speaker 2: one who has just died. I've never heard of this before.
Speaker 2: This is kind of blowing my mind. Ben. It sounds
Speaker 2: off air like you've heard of this a no bit
Speaker 2: about it. What can you tell us about the tradition
Speaker 2: of what we're calling ghost wedding but it's really after
Speaker 2: death marriage ceremonies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you nailed at Matt. Posthumous matrimony, Okay,
Speaker 1: call it right. The idea and it goes across culture.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that point. Part of it is. Part
Speaker 1: of it is the idea that a spirit will be
Speaker 1: angry or will be left bereft of what could have
Speaker 1: been their lived existence.
Speaker 2: If they pass away without being married.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then also you'll see I think it's in Korea
Speaker 1: it happens where if someone was engaged and they die,
Speaker 1: there's still a posthumous ceremony.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Through But before we get to you know, the really dark,
Speaker 1: macabre side of it, it's important for us to know
Speaker 1: that traditionally in these cultures this is seen as a
Speaker 1: good thing, you know, like Dia delaba in Mexico. It's
Speaker 1: not seen as some sort of like horrible, spooky dookie thing.
Speaker 1: It's seen as another cycle in life and death. They
Speaker 1: are legally binding and sometimes both people who get married
Speaker 1: this way.
Speaker 3: They're both dead.
Speaker 1: Wow, which goes into like financial calculations because you can't
Speaker 1: get away from, you know, the idea of dowry and
Speaker 1: stuff like that.
Speaker 4: That's my Wowtand didn't even think of the logistics of
Speaker 4: that part of it.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: I know it has been used, this practice has been
Speaker 2: used very functionally throughout history and a couple of different places.
Speaker 2: Just read a little bit via the wiki, go down,
Speaker 2: look at the links, the sightings and everything, and then
Speaker 2: started going, yeah, so there's a weird situation to talk about.
Speaker 2: But in Germany, when let's say a soldier who has
Speaker 2: a partner at home but they're not married yet, right,
Speaker 2: they are sexually active, the woman in that relationship gets pregnant,
Speaker 2: the man goes off to war and dies. Now that
Speaker 2: woman is going to have a baby, but she's unwed,
Speaker 2: and she's going to be considered an unwed mother. I'm
Speaker 2: doing that in quotes, right, because there's there's cultural connotation
Speaker 2: to that which.
Speaker 4: Could lead to being ostracized and treated in a negative manner,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: Exactly So, there were some examples where the actual corpse
Speaker 2: of a dead soldier was brought in and a wedding
Speaker 2: ceremony was performed to wed that woman to this dead person,
Speaker 2: just so that that child would take the father's name
Speaker 2: and it would be okay to everybody else basically in
Speaker 2: the society.
Speaker 3: Matt, have you gotten into the why they can be
Speaker 3: deadly part?
Speaker 2: No, let's talk about it.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just saw it in the headline. It's pretty pretty
Speaker 4: eye catching. It just says China's ghost weddings and why
Speaker 4: they can be deadly.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, okay, so so yes, just like Lucas said,
Speaker 2: he's he's like referring or he's like, this is an
Speaker 2: offshoot of our Bodybroker's episode, right, because if there's a
Speaker 2: black market for something, if there's something that's sellable, someone
Speaker 2: might want to take advantage of that and maybe is
Speaker 2: a little less morally inclined than others. Right, So this
Speaker 2: article is citing I think it was. There are a
Speaker 2: couple things that have occurred. One that we mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: is that there was in one case a woman found
Speaker 2: like a dead woman found in a vehicle, and after investigation,
Speaker 2: three of the males who were still living who were
Speaker 2: in the vehicle, they got questioned and basically one of
Speaker 2: them admitted to killing this woman in order to sell
Speaker 2: her dead body to a needy family.
Speaker 1: That which is different from related practices. There have also
Speaker 1: been operators that would count as what we would call
Speaker 1: it resurrection men, grave robbers.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And then twenty fifteen, according to this BBC article,
Speaker 4: fourteen female corpses were stolen in a village and Shangshi
Speaker 4: propit yep. And this article, ifew refers to them as
Speaker 4: tomb raiders, which I always thought was really cool and
Speaker 4: like adventury, but not in this context. You know, I
Speaker 4: just think of Laura Croft obviously and her polygons. But
Speaker 4: now tomb rating or grave robbing, I guess is maybe
Speaker 4: the term we would use over here. And yeah, resurrection, man,
Speaker 4: that older term is still just such a captures the imagination.
Speaker 2: Well, And again it's kind of messed up because it
Speaker 2: could be pretty lucrative for those grave robbers, right they
Speaker 2: I mean, at least in this BBC article, it cites
Speaker 2: like quite a bit of money. I don't even know
Speaker 2: if we can really quote it well, because I don't
Speaker 2: know if they're saying it would be forty five hundred
Speaker 2: US dollars to seventy five hundred US dollars for all
Speaker 2: fourteen corpses, or if that means per corpse that was
Speaker 2: recovered of those fourteen just I'm not sure, but it
Speaker 2: does seem as the so if you could make that
Speaker 2: much money for a lot of like messed up hard labor,
Speaker 2: if you're desperate enough, maybe you would be pushed to
Speaker 2: do that, right, or you would feel pushed to do that,
Speaker 2: And this article does state that in two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: the sale quote, the sale of corpses was outlawed, but
Speaker 2: that was according to the he stopped crave robbers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: isn't that cool. Let's see there's other stuff here. There
Speaker 2: was an article from Daily Mail that was also left
Speaker 2: to us by Lucas here and this is about a
Speaker 2: quote ghost bride, a supposed corpse that was delivered to
Speaker 2: a family to be married to their dead son. So again,
Speaker 2: this is a situation where both parties in the marriage
Speaker 2: would already be deceased, but upon receiving the woman and
Speaker 2: starting the ceremony, the woman woke up and was alive.
Speaker 3: What, yes, you have one of those like Romeo and
Speaker 3: Juliet drugs. What are we talking here? Crazy?
Speaker 2: I don't have the full details they are saying, only
Speaker 2: some details have come to light. And this was written
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen December by Julian Luck for Daily Mail.
Speaker 2: And this person was allegedly a deaf mute who was trafficked.
Speaker 1: Okay, because I know there have been cases where women
Speaker 1: were drugged, purposely sedated and then sold as ghost brides.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that is that's that's crazy. But it's even
Speaker 2: more heinous because you're killing a person as when they
Speaker 2: get buried, I suppose.
Speaker 3: Matt, sorry if I missed this.
Speaker 4: Is there a sense in any of the religious side
Speaker 4: of these that it also ensures that their loved one.
Speaker 3: Will have like companionship in the afterlife.
Speaker 2: To my knowledge, yes, that's one of the primary reasons
Speaker 2: why this practice would occur, so that the person is
Speaker 2: not alone basically, but again, yeah, it depends on religious belief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are hundreds and hundreds of years, especially in what
Speaker 1: we call rural China today, the idea is that you know,
Speaker 1: death is scary, and you don't want to go alone,
Speaker 1: so you'll have someone with you in the afterlife. Unfortunately, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this has provided an opportunity for some unclean activities. And
Speaker 1: I think it's also important to note that a lot
Speaker 1: of these folks, like the folks doing the traffick aid
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, they're getting the majority of the
Speaker 1: campfire headlines because it's a very scary, disturbing thing, and
Speaker 1: it's a true thing. But often these are kind of
Speaker 1: conversations people are having and maybe both families involved have
Speaker 1: lost a child, you know what I mean, and they're
Speaker 1: sort of helping themselves deal with this tremendous, unspeakable tragedy.
Speaker 1: So I do think it's important to say this practice
Speaker 1: is like when you're hearing about the very bad criminal stuff.
Speaker 1: This is not representative of the entirety of again, this
Speaker 1: ancient cultural practice, oh of course.
Speaker 2: And it has nothing to do with why the practice occurs, right,
Speaker 2: The illegal stuff is because people see an opportunity to
Speaker 2: make money and they don't care. I guess, ugh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know what else to say about this.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 2: This is a brand new thing to me.
Speaker 3: I say, man, this is fascinating.
Speaker 4: I mean truly, I'm surprised there hasn't been like this
Speaker 4: hasn't appeared in pop culture, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: This seems like just the kind of thing that could
Speaker 4: be another kind of interesting twist in a story, or
Speaker 4: like build building a ghost story from this.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a great novel called, Oh gosh, I
Speaker 1: think it might be called The Ghost Spride. It is
Speaker 1: called The Ghost Pride twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this hasn't been adapted into a movie.
Speaker 4: I only watch movies, and I don't know for books.
Speaker 2: That was The Corpse Bride. Maybe it's maybe.
Speaker 1: Well, there's the Corpse Bride. Then there's The Ghost Bride.
Speaker 1: Got The Ghost Bride I think was an Oprah book.
Speaker 1: You know how that time Oprah got bigger than the
Speaker 1: New York Times for bestsellers and.
Speaker 3: She still does pretty well. Yeah, yeah, the Book Club. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a Netflix series that I have
Speaker 1: not watched in full disclosure called The Ghost Bride, which
Speaker 1: is an adaptation of that.
Speaker 4: So this strikes me as something like Chan Wook Park
Speaker 4: might do you know, the Old Boy director. He's just
Speaker 4: something about it that's just delightfully macab and I could
Speaker 4: see it being handled by it a tour in a
Speaker 4: very interesting way, but also delightful in some ways when
Speaker 4: it's not done where it hurts people. You know, there
Speaker 4: are some people that were commenting on this in some
Speaker 4: of the articles that you found, Matt, that say it
Speaker 4: is an affirmation of love, you know, and things like that.
Speaker 4: So I think if it's done above board and it
Speaker 4: is something that gives people some sense of peace or
Speaker 4: some sense of wholeness, you know, for their loved ones,
Speaker 4: then why not, right as long as it's not hurting anybody.
Speaker 1: I just, by the way, Matt, last thing I just
Speaker 1: learned the word for this god English is weird. The
Speaker 1: word for posthumous marriage in English is necrogammy, like monogamy.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, necrogamy.
Speaker 1: You know what, Hopefully, hopefully all of us listening to
Speaker 1: tonight are not in a situation where we need to
Speaker 1: continually use that word, you know what I mean? Wishing
Speaker 1: you the best, folks.
Speaker 4: Can I ask a question, guys, this is a little
Speaker 4: off top of it. Why is Phelia always only associated
Speaker 4: with horrible things?
Speaker 3: Doesn't it just mean.
Speaker 4: Like love and the love of But why do we
Speaker 4: only hear it when it comes to like really.
Speaker 3: Bad, bad things that people do.
Speaker 1: I think it goes back to the idea of amateiv
Speaker 1: versus amor ris love.
Speaker 4: Because you know, you can be an audiophile, but no
Speaker 4: one ever call you an audiophiliac.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, again, English weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a bibliophiliac sounds like you're you're sleeping.
Speaker 4: With those books, You're doing stuff with those folds, with
Speaker 4: those pages.
Speaker 1: Again, I'm telling you, it's uh. I I feel like
Speaker 1: I have at best a rudimentary understanding of the language
Speaker 1: of which we're recording this podcast. There's always a new one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just like the paper cuts.
Speaker 2: You know, you have not about the paper cuts.
Speaker 3: You don't do it that direct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, you gotta go with the grain. What's going
Speaker 1: on with you?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: So that Matt uh, Matt and Lucas, what's the final
Speaker 1: say on ghost marriage, posthumous marriage necro gemy uh necrogamy,
Speaker 1: however we would say it. What's your takeaway for this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lucas, what's your take so? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think I put in my two cents. Matt, I
Speaker 5: don't know. I think it's fascinating to me. I see
Speaker 5: the functionality of it when it comes to some cultural
Speaker 5: moras literally for taxes, for things like inheritance and you know,
Speaker 5: a bloodline. Yeah, even if it's not an actual bloodline,
Speaker 5: it's maybe a child that becomes a part of that
Speaker 5: family because of this ceremony. I can see why that
Speaker 5: would be desirable.
Speaker 1: And there's no divorce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I.
Speaker 4: Think we can probably all agree that the bad part
Speaker 4: of the story is obviously the folks who are taking
Speaker 4: advantage of this practice, who are not people who are believers.
Speaker 4: I would argue they are the opposite there, you know,
Speaker 4: absolutely taking advantage of people's faith in the same way that.
Speaker 4: You know, body brokers are people that like run crematoriums
Speaker 4: or they just dump the bodies in the backyard or.
Speaker 3: In communal pile or whatever.
Speaker 4: Things like that, where you're literally taking advantage of someone
Speaker 4: who's either in mourning or who has a deeply held
Speaker 4: spiritual belief. I think that is fundamentally ichy to the maximum.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's an article from The Guardian you can look
Speaker 2: up if you wish, titled Trio Stole Corpse to sell
Speaker 2: as Bride say Chinese media. It's written by the ap
Speaker 2: Envising and it's from October twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Ed Minghun as it's called in China. Again, as we
Speaker 1: took pains to say, is not in any way an
Speaker 1: inherently sinister thing, Nor are similar practices inherently sinister wherever
Speaker 1: wherever they occur. I guess we could say, you know,
Speaker 1: the course of true love never did run smooth and
Speaker 1: maybe end on some Shakespeare. So with that, we we've
Speaker 1: got to thank everybody who wrote in, everybody who took
Speaker 1: time to contact us and cut past the no of
Speaker 1: the internet. Shout out to again our guest super producer
Speaker 1: Max Williams, who you can you can find blowing us
Speaker 1: up on our messaging thread right now. He's a big
Speaker 1: fan of bad lip reading. He's also a big fan
Speaker 1: of You guys are fellow conspiracy realists. So we do
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Speaker 1: with us one day by hook or by crook. We'd
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Speaker 1: over the place, right you can.
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Speaker 3: That's from Pete and Pete's famous insult. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 1: There's also the the colon and the capital P, which I.
Speaker 4: Think Sorry the way I typed it, it must appear that
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