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 iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nolan.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 3: our super producer Andrew TryForce Howard. Most importantly, you are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: Featuring Triforce's cat astrid. We love mysteries. We hope you
Speaker 3: dig mysteries as well. Tonight's episode takes us across the
Speaker 3: Pacific to Southeastern Asia, specifically to a place most people
Speaker 3: do not visit, Laos.
Speaker 4: It's a bit of a history mystery. Euh mm hm
Speaker 4: oh Yescoby and the gang would be on board.
Speaker 2: Oh, and it's an exciting one because there's so much
Speaker 2: stuff to ponder within this topic, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of history for us to discuss as well, just as
Speaker 2: Ben is alluding to, just with the history of the
Speaker 2: country and especially with United States involvement.
Speaker 3: Yes, just so, the recent history of Laos is intensely troubled,
Speaker 3: and we'll get into that as well, most Americans in
Speaker 3: the crowd tonight. If you think a Laos, you're probably
Speaker 3: thinking of it through the lens of the Vietnam War.
Speaker 3: And you're probably thinking of Laos and the Vietnam War because,
Speaker 3: as Matt mentioned, during the Vietnam War and during the
Speaker 3: Cold War, the United States planted thousands of fatal land
Speaker 3: mines that remain a danger to anybody in the area
Speaker 3: in the modern day.
Speaker 4: So they didn't just go back and remove them all
Speaker 4: as a courtesy. No, no, man, that's bad form for us.
Speaker 3: True story. A couple of offins figured out how to
Speaker 3: train rats to hunt the land mines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But I mean there's also the ordinance that
Speaker 2: just fell from the sky right when when planes were
Speaker 2: flying over Laus. I mean, but we're talking about and
Speaker 2: it's hard to understand the amount of unexploded ordinance that
Speaker 2: is just existing.
Speaker 3: There, millions of tons, not all of it purposely dropped
Speaker 3: there on a sort of loose change out of the
Speaker 3: pocket scenarios. But the problem with that is for someone
Speaker 3: walking around, it doesn't matter whether or not the bomb
Speaker 3: was put there on purpose, it will still explode.
Speaker 2: Yes, because most of it is that term unexploded ordinance
Speaker 2: right where it's it's just they are waiting.
Speaker 3: And despite this lens, we do have to acknowledge there's
Speaker 3: a lot more to this country to what is called
Speaker 3: Laos today. It's ancient, hidden history. And tonight, folks, we
Speaker 3: are hoping you will join us on an ongoing endeavor.
Speaker 3: Maybe you can help us figure out a question that
Speaker 3: has baffled investigators for centuries, if not millennia. Why are
Speaker 3: there so many giant stone jars?
Speaker 4: It's a good question when we will likely answer after
Speaker 4: a quick word from our sponsor. That was our cold open.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts, all right, what do we know
Speaker 3: about Laos? If you're being fancy or you work at
Speaker 3: the UN the technical name for the country is the
Speaker 3: Lao People's Democratic Republic or Loo PDR. And it's a
Speaker 3: fascinating place. It's in Southeast Asia. It is the only
Speaker 3: country in Southeast Asia that does not have a coastline. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, I never thought about it like that. I always
Speaker 2: imagined a piece of it. I guess that is Vietnam
Speaker 2: where it wraps around the western side of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, borders shared with Cambodia, China, Mian Mars Slash, Burma,
Speaker 3: Thailand and Vietnam. It's fascinating and tragic that a lot
Speaker 3: of the history of this region is unfamiliar to the
Speaker 3: Western world. To be completely honest, I had no idea.
Speaker 3: I don't think any of us had any idea how
Speaker 3: far back human habitation stretches in this specific region.
Speaker 4: Right. We know, for example, that the oldest skull in
Speaker 4: all of Southeast Asia was discovered in northern Laos. The
Speaker 4: Tampya Ling Cave holds human remains, the date back at
Speaker 4: least forty six thousand years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nuts, pretty impressive. Also, it's the perfect passing ground
Speaker 3: between multiple civilizations. It kind of reminded us of the
Speaker 3: role that Eurasia played with the old Silk Road. Right,
Speaker 3: you're between these great empires, you become a transit point,
Speaker 3: you know. And Laos was in what we call Laos today,
Speaker 3: was in that situation. Civilizations from India and China, other
Speaker 3: nearby regions, they all pass through at one point or
Speaker 3: another in very ancient history, even before these civilizations would
Speaker 3: be called China or India, they made contact and they
Speaker 3: contributed at times violently to the modern day Laos.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man. And there are all kinds of just incredible
Speaker 2: artifacts that you can find there are well, you guys
Speaker 2: tell me. In my research online, I found that it's
Speaker 2: pretty difficult to get some of the websites for the museums,
Speaker 2: like the more local museums that exist in places in Laos.
Speaker 2: It's hard to get those websites working really well for
Speaker 2: me and to see the actual imagery and the actual
Speaker 2: artifacts that are in museums and places there. But you can,
Speaker 2: you can find a couple and some especially around the
Speaker 2: stuff that we're going to be talking about today. But
Speaker 2: there are things that go back to this era that
Speaker 2: goes back millions of years up until eleven thousand years ago,
Speaker 2: which we're just we just mentioned oldest skull. It was
Speaker 2: like forty what forty six thousand years ago.
Speaker 4: And it's such a diverse regions here because I think
Speaker 4: a lot of people, myself included, might not have realized
Speaker 4: that it's like its own kind of crossroads of civilization,
Speaker 4: especially being such a tiny geographical, you know area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But but the whole point is the we've talked
Speaker 2: about this before. The stuff that sticks are that humans create.
Speaker 2: What's the thing that sticks around the best stones stones?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking about the police to scene aka street
Speaker 3: name ice ages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the mammoth times.
Speaker 3: They were mammoth times indeed, and people will argue there
Speaker 3: were giants in those days.
Speaker 2: Oo ooh, which is really cool when you think about
Speaker 2: the at least the story surrounding today's.
Speaker 3: And the roots of modern day laus come about. In
Speaker 3: I would say thirteen fifty three CE or so, a
Speaker 3: warlord named Fa Gum declared himself the king of Lanzhong
Speaker 3: million elephants. That loosely translates to also side note, we
Speaker 3: are clearly not native speakers. We are going to tangle
Speaker 3: with some words that were will do our best to pronounce,
Speaker 3: and if we're ever in a tough spot, we'll spell
Speaker 3: it out for you so you can search on your
Speaker 3: own for sure.
Speaker 4: With Ben, you helpefully pointed out off air that I
Speaker 4: believe the X sound is sort of a Shia kind.
Speaker 3: Of yeah song song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's good to know.
Speaker 3: It depends on this our level best, Yeah right, It
Speaker 3: depends on your your translations, your linguistic mileage may vary.
Speaker 3: The Kingdom was initially a vassal state of a civilization
Speaker 3: in nearby Cambodia. It split into three different parts in
Speaker 3: sixteen ninety four. It was overtaken by the Thai or
Speaker 3: Siamese civilization gradually, piece by piece, such that it became
Speaker 3: a vassal state of the Siamese civilization in eighteen eighty five,
Speaker 3: which is crazy because it's recent, right more or less?
Speaker 2: Right, Well, yeah, it goes, it gets even crazier and
Speaker 2: laws where they can getting invaded. I think it's one
Speaker 2: of the major problems of existing in that cool spot
Speaker 2: where you get influenced by all these you know, big empires.
Speaker 2: But those big empires often have plans ideas about expanding
Speaker 2: territory and you just happen to be right up against.
Speaker 4: Them, right, it's that crossroads elements.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Maybe another way to say it is you can
Speaker 3: meet a lot of people at an interstate gas station,
Speaker 3: but also you can meet a lot of people at
Speaker 3: an interstate gas.
Speaker 2: Station sushi glory hole. Sorry, have you guys heard that
Speaker 2: song yet?
Speaker 3: Yes? Okay, heard or experience?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's not what you're thinking.
Speaker 2: Guys, Wait, where are you going? Hear us out.
Speaker 3: Hear us out, hear us out. So if you look
Speaker 3: at modern lout like to your earlier point there, no,
Speaker 3: you'll see it is a fairly new thing. As we
Speaker 3: record this evening. Experts are still working to learn more
Speaker 3: about the story of this region. It is often described
Speaker 3: as being forgotten. It is one of the least explored
Speaker 3: countries in this part of the world, if not on
Speaker 3: the planet overall.
Speaker 4: And that's not in any what we're going to get to,
Speaker 4: but in any small park because of some of this
Speaker 4: stuff we're talking about today, like all of these things
Speaker 4: left behind by the US that are not particularly conducive
Speaker 4: to exploration, you know, lest you get blown up.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that unexploded ordinance has had a major effect
Speaker 2: on so many aspects of the country, whether it's from
Speaker 2: economic expansion to being able to dig in the ground
Speaker 2: for you know, at these amazing sites because you've got
Speaker 2: to get them cleared first.
Speaker 4: Probably a little bit of an issue with tourism, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 3: Which is the fastest growing legal industry in the country.
Speaker 3: Of course, a couple of caveats there for the astute listener,
Speaker 3: and then check out our future episode on the troubled
Speaker 3: border of Mianmar. But with this we know that the
Speaker 3: modern Laos is a somewhat recent thing. The actual name,
Speaker 3: the term for these three different kingdoms was coined by
Speaker 3: French colonial forces. They in United Lao Kingdoms in the
Speaker 3: region under the rule of French Indo China back in
Speaker 3: eighteen ninety three, so again pretty recent in the grand
Speaker 3: scheme of things, primarily due to the consistent interference of
Speaker 3: foreign powers. Laos is a country with a lot of problems.
Speaker 3: We actually, you know, we talk about this sometimes on air,
Speaker 3: but we actually may not be able to go to
Speaker 3: Laos after this episode. They're a little bit touchy. The
Speaker 3: ruling Communist government is constantly accused of corruption. Poverty is rife,
Speaker 3: crime is as widespread as the bombs, which are relics
Speaker 3: of you know what is sometimes called the Secret War,
Speaker 3: which took place around Viadam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh, the nineteen sixty three, sixty four
Speaker 2: to seventy three, those are the years when those bombs
Speaker 2: were dropped, and it was the Secret War. This is
Speaker 2: mentioned and almost hinted at in a lot of the
Speaker 2: popular i would say, graphic novels and some of the
Speaker 2: movies and TV shows that we like a lot, but
Speaker 2: just this concept of what the United States was saying,
Speaker 2: like there you can hear quotes of then President Kennedy saying,
Speaker 2: you know where in allows for peaceful reasons. It's all
Speaker 2: peace baby, he said it, just.
Speaker 3: Like that Barian.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And then just for the result to be
Speaker 2: you know, minds and cluster bombs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the result is that allows today this evening is
Speaker 3: in fact the most bombed country in modern history, per
Speaker 3: cap But if you are fortunate enough to visit, just
Speaker 3: remember this. First off, never talk politics in a foreign country.
Speaker 3: Not to be like the fun police, but be very
Speaker 3: careful here. And then secondly, if you see a sign
Speaker 3: that says don't walk on the grass, you should can
Speaker 3: believe it.
Speaker 4: Chicky want to you can't want to tread lightly, Well,
Speaker 4: that's so maybe not tread at all, probably best in
Speaker 4: not tread at all.
Speaker 2: If you want to learn more about that stuff, just
Speaker 2: we'll throw to an article real quick in the Guardian.
Speaker 2: You can read something that was written in April of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three titled the fifty year Fight to clear
Speaker 2: US bombs from Laos. And it is just tragic to
Speaker 2: hear the stories of children, little little kids in school
Speaker 2: being taught specifics about types of ordnance so that they
Speaker 2: can recognize even the tip of a piece of something
Speaker 2: that's you know, stuck out of the dirt.
Speaker 3: These yeah, these evil relics of American activity in the
Speaker 3: Vietnam War, when the US was bobbing Laos, when there
Speaker 3: were incursions in Cambodia as well. In Laos alone, hundreds
Speaker 3: of people die or get maimed every year. We're talking children,
Speaker 3: missing limbs. We're talking people people walking through a place
Speaker 3: that they have walked through for decades, making the wrong
Speaker 3: step and becoming obliterated. If you want to read a
Speaker 3: slightly more positive spin on this, do check out a
Speaker 3: Smithsonian article by Danny Lewis from twenty fifteen, which is
Speaker 3: all about how giant rats have been taught to sniff
Speaker 3: out these land mines. That's at least a positive spin.
Speaker 3: I'm always looking for those.
Speaker 2: Do they go in, Is that like their final mission
Speaker 2: when they find a cluster bomb? Or do they just alert? Sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm just imagining alert jumping on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah they're not. They're not. Yeah, they're not suicide jockeys.
Speaker 3: Are They're also pretty to train?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, checks out, especially if you're given the life span
Speaker 3: of a rat. Story for a different time, right.
Speaker 2: But there are cool groups out there, like the Mind's
Speaker 2: Advisory Group that are specifically attempting to clear large areas, right,
Speaker 2: but I think it oh Man. In that article from
Speaker 2: the Guardian, they're saying it at the current pace, it
Speaker 2: would take one hundred years.
Speaker 4: To clear it.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's absolutely correct. Unfortunately, and the endeavor to clear
Speaker 3: the country of unexploded ordinance is dramatically underfunded because it
Speaker 3: simply does not exist in the zeitgeist for a lot
Speaker 3: of people who would donate to a charitable cause. Kind
Speaker 3: of similar to how only the fuzzy animals that are
Speaker 3: endangered get saved, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's true the cute ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about those pangolins, Man, come on.
Speaker 4: Gross get rid of them.
Speaker 3: I could see.
Speaker 4: I'm just joking.
Speaker 3: So if you are I like that note, I could
Speaker 3: see in a world without pangolins, they're on the way. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I want to save them too. If you are again
Speaker 3: fortunate enough to explore Laos firsthand, you're going to meet
Speaker 3: some of the coolest people around, some of the nicest
Speaker 3: people who have some of the most kick ass food ever.
Speaker 3: You were also going to encounter ancient mysteries that have
Speaker 3: baffled people for millennia. One of the most famous, the
Speaker 3: Plane of Jars. I can't believe we're finally getting to this.
Speaker 3: This has been a hobby horse. I've never seen.
Speaker 2: Them well me neither well outside of the Internet, of course.
Speaker 2: But it's I'm sure it doesn't do justice because it guys,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm going to make an elden Ring reference.
Speaker 4: I just have to say, by all means, is it
Speaker 4: that the jars with arms and legs that run.
Speaker 2: Around, Well, specifically, it's imagery from the expansion that exists
Speaker 2: where there are just fields that have these what the
Speaker 2: jars that exist in that game. It feels like somebody
Speaker 2: was aware of this topic, the plane of jars, and
Speaker 2: put it into the game and came up with lore
Speaker 2: about it. And it just when I'm looking at imagery
Speaker 2: of the actual plane of jars that exists in the
Speaker 2: world today, I go right to that imagery and elden
Speaker 2: Ring because that's where I saw that very specific thing first,
Speaker 2: just fields of these amazing looking jars.
Speaker 3: And that expansion is shadow of the rd Tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always think the Scdoo tree, which is a
Speaker 2: weird name.
Speaker 3: For the Ohio tree. Yeah, we're not getting friends and neighbors.
Speaker 3: If you go out to the hung Quang plateau of
Speaker 3: northern Laos. You will see a relatively level area just
Speaker 3: inundated with these huge a carved stone jars. Just like,
Speaker 3: look at these things. Pull up your search browser of choice,
Speaker 3: visit your local library. Sure, the French discovered it during
Speaker 3: their colonial period, but everybody already knew these things were
Speaker 3: out there. And the questions we're hoping to answer are one,
Speaker 3: who built these? To why were they built? And three
Speaker 3: why are they no longer being built today?
Speaker 4: Do you guys remember the pretty popular Christian band Jars
Speaker 4: of Clay. H I don't know why it comes to mind.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, didn't mean to. What was a song about?
Speaker 4: Like the Noah flood? Good fuck chans the flood. They're
Speaker 4: kind of like Christian Creed. Wait, Creed was Christian Creed?
Speaker 4: What am I talking about?
Speaker 3: We'll find out after a word from our sponsors. Here's
Speaker 3: where it gets crazy, all right.
Speaker 2: First off, Jars of Clay was my favorite band growing up.
Speaker 3: Okay, Jars of Clay was great. I was gonna say
Speaker 3: that I thought that. I thought that was a bop.
Speaker 3: It was one of those things called Yeah, it's one
Speaker 3: of those. The song about the flood is one of
Speaker 3: those bops where you don't need to speak English understand it.
Speaker 3: The song structure is just amazing.
Speaker 4: Ny Tail spins the yarn, and.
Speaker 3: We hope you can help us spin some yarn today.
Speaker 3: There's not one plane of jars. They're like ninety known
Speaker 3: instances of these things out there on the plateau, and
Speaker 3: there may well be more because this is one of
Speaker 3: the least explored countries in the area. Each site has
Speaker 3: between one to four hundred carved huge jars cauldrons. Actually,
Speaker 3: if you look at the pictures, they look a lot
Speaker 3: more like cauldrons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does. It looks like something could have
Speaker 2: either been cooked in there or or you know, you
Speaker 2: think storage as well as soon as you look at them,
Speaker 2: which is really interesting. And I guess the other thing
Speaker 2: that is kind of baffling when you look at them,
Speaker 2: they are varying in their sizes. Right, Some of these
Speaker 2: none of them are tiny, right, because they're almost four
Speaker 2: feet The smallest one is about four.
Speaker 3: Feet or three a meter, So yeah, exactly, So.
Speaker 2: I mean that's not tiny. That's still a huge jar.
Speaker 2: What are you gonna put in that jar? But others
Speaker 2: go up to like nine almost ten feet mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're between one to three meters that's about three
Speaker 3: point two eight to nine point eight feet. Shout out
Speaker 3: to Namibia and the US, the last two countries who
Speaker 3: refuse to do the metric system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's America.
Speaker 3: You are rock.
Speaker 4: From our cold, dead feet and hands.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to hunt big meter, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: We hunt big foot. That's right, that's right. Yeah. I
Speaker 3: feel like I feel like we just all need to
Speaker 3: take a plug of a big leak chew. Do you
Speaker 3: guys remember that.
Speaker 4: When so cool my bubblegum chaw?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, the candy cigarettes, oh man, idea.
Speaker 2: But these jars amazing. And because there are varying sizes,
Speaker 2: I think you immediately go, well, why would they Why
Speaker 2: would there be such a difference between the large ones
Speaker 2: and the small ones? Were they all for the same thing?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah? Why the variation upon the theme? The bottom
Speaker 3: is always larger than the top. They are all cylindrical.
Speaker 3: They all basically do look like cauldrons. Some are not
Speaker 3: in great shape, obviously. Some of them have lids. Most
Speaker 3: have like a carved rim. You could imagine a lid
Speaker 3: being And it reminds me of our discussion on the
Speaker 3: mystery of non module. These are megalithic structures. At some
Speaker 3: point in ancient history, a bunch of people who had
Speaker 3: a lot of other stuff to do put a ton
Speaker 3: of time and energy into building these curious structures.
Speaker 4: Matt, you're spot on. I picture the jars from elden
Speaker 4: Ring instantly in my like that. It's just that they're
Speaker 4: the perfect size, perfect level of ornate kind of attention
Speaker 4: to detail carved into the outside. These probably didn't sprout
Speaker 4: arms and legs and kick your ass, but they in
Speaker 4: my mind, they look very similar.
Speaker 2: There's definitely some inspiration from the these sites and there Ben,
Speaker 2: as you were saying, they're scattered like pretty much all
Speaker 2: over this area. There are three main sites though, right
Speaker 2: if you like, if you go on a map or something,
Speaker 2: you'll discover Site one, Site two, Site three, which are
Speaker 2: just larger collections of them. But one of the other
Speaker 2: things that was discovered is that these jars exist under
Speaker 2: the ground too, in a lot of places. So it's
Speaker 2: not just the ones you can see above ground, which
Speaker 2: look incredible. There's also a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 3: Buried, yes, yeah, buried, forgotten, unexplored. We kicked some stats
Speaker 3: already on the jars themselves, and their structures. But what
Speaker 3: we need to understand is this is one of the
Speaker 3: most important prehistoric sites in all of human history. Add
Speaker 3: to this evening, no one really knows what those human
Speaker 3: ancestors were doing when they built this stuff. We've got
Speaker 3: some good guesses, but no one has proven it. We
Speaker 3: don't know what inspired people to make these things. As
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, it wasn't until twenty twenty one
Speaker 3: that a coalition of researchers from LAOS in Australia managed
Speaker 3: to date some of the jars. Not romantically like, they
Speaker 3: figured out how old the jars are, and they did
Speaker 3: this with a yes, bizarre technology that does not sound
Speaker 3: like it should be real. It sounds like a move
Speaker 3: in a video game. Optically stimulated luminescence.
Speaker 2: Gotta tell you looked this up, guys, and I'm still
Speaker 2: super confused. What we could say is from a super layman.
Speaker 2: That's me standpoint. It is it is testing when the
Speaker 2: last time specific like minerals were exposed to sunlight, and
Speaker 2: it does it in a way that is super sciencey,
Speaker 2: And my brain hurts when I read some of the sentences.
Speaker 2: So I don't even know if I'm gonna try i'll
Speaker 2: read I'll read it to you from geosciences. It's optically
Speaker 2: stimulated luminescence dating or optical dating, provides a measure of
Speaker 2: time since sediment grains, so specific grains we're talking about
Speaker 2: here were deposited and shielded from further light or exposure.
Speaker 3: M This uh, this makes use of electrons that are
Speaker 3: trapped between different crystalline structures of certain.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, I just don't get it.
Speaker 4: It's just about the grains.
Speaker 3: You'll mess with the grains, yes, absolutely, with the brains.
Speaker 2: I just I think it's just hard for me to
Speaker 2: understand how I love the humans are so smart, just
Speaker 2: figuring out how you actually measure that, right, Like, oh,
Speaker 2: these are these electrons. There's pockets where these electrons where
Speaker 2: stuff would be filled inside if it were exposed, but
Speaker 2: it's not. It was under this jar for this number
Speaker 2: of years roughly.
Speaker 3: I that's that's one of those things where first off, yes,
Speaker 3: thank you to the humans, and then secondly, someone obviously
Speaker 3: lost their mind figuring this out.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, I've got eureka, I've gotten mad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, someone's marriage got ruined over a valence band obsession. Dude.
Speaker 3: That's where it happened well, so thank you, Thank you
Speaker 3: boffins for doing this. This research is fascinating. You can
Speaker 3: you can read the statements from the folks who leveraged
Speaker 3: this to solve the mystery. That's people like doctor Louise
Speaker 3: Schwan from University of Melbourne. That's Associate Professor douggled O'Reilly
Speaker 3: from a and U Australia National University and doctor tonglith
Speaker 3: Lone Colt from the Loud Apartment of Heritage. So they
Speaker 3: figured out how to do this. What they found when
Speaker 3: they applied this optically stimulated luminescence was that people had
Speaker 3: been building these jars across multiple generations and they were
Speaker 3: likely placed in their current positions from well forty to
Speaker 3: six sixty BCE. These things pre date Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: By a long shot. And and it is just gosh,
Speaker 2: it's baffling that we can even know that through that stuff.
Speaker 2: But what's the other dating technique that was written about
Speaker 2: in that same article. There's one in fizz Org about
Speaker 2: that it.
Speaker 4: Was is there a reason that radiocarbon dating can't be used?
Speaker 4: Or is like this I've never heard of this method?
Speaker 4: I just thin guess I've always is.
Speaker 2: That what zircon UPB dating is. They mentioned that as
Speaker 2: well as like a way to measure carbon.
Speaker 3: They definitely used radiocarbon dating as well. I think, what's
Speaker 3: new about this and the other? Look, I can't pretend
Speaker 3: to understand a lot of me you could. I think
Speaker 3: this service to all of us. You know, zircon UPB
Speaker 3: dating is definitely a thing. It's also the trital what
Speaker 3: its right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, involving detritus.
Speaker 2: So so, guys, I looked at that one up to
Speaker 2: this is what it says. Whole grain analysis by thermal
Speaker 2: ionization mass spectrometer yields UPB ages with the greatest precision
Speaker 2: but potentially poorest accuracy.
Speaker 4: What like like I didn't understand even where that sentence
Speaker 4: is supposed to be split up.
Speaker 3: Also, greatest, greatest precision, poorest accuracy means it will give
Speaker 3: you the most specific result with the highest likelihood that
Speaker 3: that result is incorrect exactly.
Speaker 2: But also it's because of the mixing of different age
Speaker 2: components and PB lost domains.
Speaker 3: Ah, yes, let's talk about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, why didn't you say?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 4: That's a different color?
Speaker 2: Where is jaw? We need your job?
Speaker 3: Rules? Shall start this out you'll get it done, you know,
Speaker 3: I think the material science they are. One of the
Speaker 3: fascinating points to raise is that these jars are not
Speaker 3: uniform in their composition. You'll find limestone, sometimes sandstone, granite,
Speaker 3: a combination thereof Most are sandstone. But the fascinating scary ones,
Speaker 3: the ones at site one. Those are limestone. And what
Speaker 3: it seems to indicate is a valuable clue the sculptors
Speaker 3: were likely working with whatever material they can find nearby.
Speaker 3: You can trace some of these stones to nearby quarries.
Speaker 2: But they're not that nearby, right, which is a whole
Speaker 2: other thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're longer than you would imagine, similar to nan medal.
Speaker 3: But what I think it shows us is that people
Speaker 3: were working in service of an idea, a greater concept
Speaker 3: or cultural trend. So if you want to make these
Speaker 3: cauldrons or these jars for some reason, and you don't
Speaker 3: have the sandstone nearby, then you grab the granite or
Speaker 3: the limestone.
Speaker 4: You don't have the sandstones.
Speaker 2: Do you know how many?
Speaker 3: That sounds good? I think we keep it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you know how many were made out of quarts? Guys?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Zero? At least according to according to plane Dash of
Speaker 2: dash Jars dot Org.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah. Also the Crystal Skulls are a hoax, unfortunately.
Speaker 4: But the vodka is a thing that exists, the vodka,
Speaker 4: Crystal Skull vodka. And it's likes company here, it's somebody
Speaker 4: famous as company.
Speaker 2: Somebody it's Dan Ackroyd.
Speaker 4: Sorry, it's Dan Akroyd's company. Is a big old ghosty guy.
Speaker 4: He's really into conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 3: He's got a show too, or he had.
Speaker 4: He did pretty good. He's an odd cat.
Speaker 3: Yes, also Canadian. You like how I added that in
Speaker 3: italics at the.
Speaker 4: End, not mutually exclusive, necessarily being Canadian and being an
Speaker 4: odd cat. But you know, there's a Venn diagram in
Speaker 4: there somewhere.
Speaker 2: I think I I think I could listen to him
Speaker 2: talk like maybe all day, just some of them. His
Speaker 2: accent is just so.
Speaker 4: The King of that played and Tommy Boy, he was
Speaker 4: like the Muffler King of.
Speaker 3: I forgot he was in Tommy Yeah he was. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Congratulations Dan, is what we're saying on all your success,
Speaker 3: On all your success, big fans. We also have to
Speaker 3: mention that in these structures you can find human remains.
Speaker 4: And that's the lead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's yeah. They probably veried a few, But that's
Speaker 3: that's our other big clue. Right, So let's go to
Speaker 3: something we teased earlier, our our immediate questions, who built this?
Speaker 3: Why if one ask who built it, we have to
Speaker 3: look at the folklore, right, ask the people on the ground.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's and has it that a race of giants,
Speaker 4: you love, a giant story ben potentially inhabited the area,
Speaker 4: and we're ruled by a king by the name of
Speaker 4: Kun Chung who fought a very long and ultimately victorious
Speaker 4: battle against an enemy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And why did he need all those jars?
Speaker 2: He's a big old giant. Why are they just all
Speaker 2: over the place.
Speaker 3: What do you do after you have won a battle
Speaker 3: against a enemy? Well, in Chunk's case, you you make
Speaker 3: a lot of rice wide.
Speaker 4: That's how you replenish your chi in the RPG version
Speaker 4: of this story, right, yeah, flask or whatever you gotta.
Speaker 4: You gotta re up that those hps get that lao high.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's uh strategically placed supplies during the battles and
Speaker 2: stuff like reach around.
Speaker 3: Yeah okay, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: This is all this is made up in my mind.
Speaker 3: Sorry, this is headcannon for us. So maybe the maybe Further,
Speaker 3: the reason that all these jars are broken open and
Speaker 3: strewn around is because they kept drinking the rice wine
Speaker 3: and forgot to replace it at some point. Right, So
Speaker 3: maybe like like after a rager house party, you know,
Speaker 3: you walk into the back deck and there are just
Speaker 3: tons of empty miller like hands or something.
Speaker 4: Or you go into the fridge and someone's left an
Speaker 4: empty carton of oat milk in there, and you just
Speaker 4: fly into a rage. You know who it was? It
Speaker 4: was the kid? The kid did it?
Speaker 3: Okay? Oh no, I feel like you're coming from some
Speaker 3: first hand experience in that one. Nope, Okay, I'm.
Speaker 4: Venting a little bit. So nobody likes to see that.
Speaker 4: Nobody wants to see an empty you know yo yoa
Speaker 4: bag hardboard thing. No, it's no good.
Speaker 3: We you guys know, I drink a lot of strange
Speaker 3: beverages and juices and that they I know what you're
Speaker 3: talking about. Because let's say you get a jar of lemonade,
Speaker 3: right yeah, and there's the one swig left in the body.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants why did you do that?
Speaker 2: Come on, dude, well, let's talk about other possible uses
Speaker 2: of this these jars because we can, I tell you
Speaker 2: where my mind went to please do and I saw
Speaker 2: it mentioned in a couple of places. What about ancient techniques,
Speaker 2: techniques for food storage and.
Speaker 3: For fermentation exactly right.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, and I know this is not correct,
Speaker 2: but I imagine the way to create kim chi if
Speaker 2: you're if you're doing it in some of the older
Speaker 2: ways and literally bearing it, burying it for fermentation purposes.
Speaker 2: I'm imagining using some kind of vessel like that, not
Speaker 2: for that specific food, but for something like that.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's all kinds of other like East Asian
Speaker 4: cultures that will wrap things in, say like banana leaves
Speaker 4: and bury them in the ground. Like you know, there's
Speaker 4: all kinds of examples of what you're talking about, Matt.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also, fermentation is something that humans would be figuring out
Speaker 3: around this time, and fermentation was a global technology because
Speaker 3: everybody had to figure out how to keep food edible.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, and stuff to drink right right.
Speaker 3: Which would go to the second idea or the third
Speaker 3: idea here, which would be storage of rain water for instance,
Speaker 3: or storage of something and that all jibes.
Speaker 4: I propose an additional possibility for these jars about clay.
Speaker 3: Yes, wait, are you of Clay.
Speaker 2: Yes, No, that answer is world's apart, my friend.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I never made a beast flood. That one kind
Speaker 4: of broke through Secondler Radio flood. I don't think I
Speaker 4: ever gotten around to the rest of our catalog.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have an album coming out with Dan Ackroyd
Speaker 3: and jaw Rule.
Speaker 4: I can't wait.
Speaker 3: What Ario It's called Jaws of Clay.
Speaker 4: That's too good, Ben, It's terrible.
Speaker 2: Up a little bit.
Speaker 3: It was so good.
Speaker 4: Throughout, joy in my mouth and my heart.
Speaker 2: I could handle it.
Speaker 3: If only we had our own set of gigantic stone jars.
Speaker 4: It's not too late, man, let's let's let's together.
Speaker 3: That's the spirit, and we have to remember that folklore
Speaker 3: always carries with it some version of the truth. We
Speaker 3: saw this in earlier giant stories like the c Tech
Speaker 3: check out our episode on that spoiler. We figured out
Speaker 3: what was going on. Maybe here we take a break
Speaker 3: for a word from our sponsors, and then when we return,
Speaker 3: we ask why build this? Like why why? We We
Speaker 3: seriously still don't really know why people why people were
Speaker 3: building this giant or human? And you're right, no, well,
Speaker 3: I love a giant story, but we do know there
Speaker 3: was a little bit of research up until like the
Speaker 3: early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, and that's mostly by French academics, primarily one
Speaker 4: in particular, a geologist named Madeline Kolanie, who excavated a
Speaker 4: cave at one of the first French discovered discovered sites.
Speaker 4: I guess, I mean, yeah, it's about claiming things, you know,
Speaker 4: named as you put it, Ben in a burst of creativity,
Speaker 4: site number one, like the Blur song. You know, it's
Speaker 4: like a song number one, the Woo who one and
Speaker 4: Kilani explored another six or so sites that contained these jars,
Speaker 4: and for decades her work was kind of seen as
Speaker 4: the best Western not like the motel chain exploration of
Speaker 4: the sites and motivations behind building these structures. She kind
Speaker 4: of seems to be the authority for some time on
Speaker 4: what was going on with these these structures.
Speaker 2: And just to be clear here, Kolani in her exploration
Speaker 2: of Site one in particular, she discovered the human bones,
Speaker 2: the teeth, the remains that humans were at one point
Speaker 2: in at least some of these jars.
Speaker 3: As well as pottery sharks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pottery, So like why do in my head these
Speaker 2: are almost pottery themselves, But they're not. They are stone,
Speaker 2: they're carved stone structures. If we know that at least
Speaker 2: some of these jars contained human remains, don't we feel
Speaker 2: like that skews like the even the way people would
Speaker 2: think about them, potentially, because you don't accidentally have human
Speaker 2: remains in fermenting jars or in rain dark Okay, no,
Speaker 2: you're right, so, okay, okay. I feel like in my
Speaker 2: if I was out there doing that, it would push
Speaker 2: pretty hard towards Oh, these are funerary rights or this
Speaker 2: is like some kind of burial.
Speaker 3: Ritual, right right, Yeah, and kidding aside, Yes, people end
Speaker 3: up dying in all sorts of strange places and nooks
Speaker 3: and crannies throughout history and throughout the globe. But this
Speaker 3: feels purposeful, right, This feels as though it was built
Speaker 3: to store something. As we're saying, nol Kolani finds these
Speaker 3: strong indicators and is on the right path, right, the
Speaker 3: path toward discovery. Except the research got shut down and
Speaker 3: then banned to the point where if you were a
Speaker 3: professor or a boffin, a fellow nerd eggheader tourists trying
Speaker 3: to check out these sites, you could meet the wrong
Speaker 3: end of a sword, for sure, very nasty stuff. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: research was banned until nineteen ninety four, which is why
Speaker 3: there are so many theories. You know, in the absence
Speaker 3: of transparency, speculation only thrives. Maybe we start with the
Speaker 3: craziest theory, what if there were giants? There's actually a
Speaker 3: little bit of sandstone to this, as Noel would say.
Speaker 4: Yes, the idea that giant humanoids existed for some period
Speaker 4: in that region and potentially learned how to quarry and
Speaker 4: carve stone, and then also for some reason didn't leave
Speaker 4: any material trace that they existed other than a bunch
Speaker 4: of carvings on a plateau.
Speaker 2: Well, it's weird, guys. Do you get images of Skyrim
Speaker 2: at all? And the giants with the mammoths like walk
Speaker 2: after them.
Speaker 4: They always smash me. But they're fun to you know,
Speaker 4: they are gentle. But sometimes you just want to f
Speaker 4: around and find.
Speaker 3: Out with those you're going to turn into a stealth archer.
Speaker 3: That's what Skyrim does.
Speaker 2: That's every time, every time. But I guess I just
Speaker 2: have I have images of that in my mind where
Speaker 2: you can imagine early versions of us, imagining the creatures
Speaker 2: like us that are walking around, you know, that are
Speaker 2: close to the size of a mammoth that would you know,
Speaker 2: raise mammoths and use mammoths for whatever purposes, including getting
Speaker 2: their milk like in Skyrim. But whatever you know, I
Speaker 2: mean you can just I think you can imagine that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. It's also here's the sandstone part about it.
Speaker 3: Here's where the argument sounds less crazy. It's the old
Speaker 3: Bigfoot question. We're raising, right, these huge things that were
Speaker 3: somewhat like yet entirely distinct from humans. They existed, they proliferated,
Speaker 3: they vanished, They left nothing behind except for the fact
Speaker 3: that they're super into jars. There is a There is
Speaker 3: a fascinating folkloric note because southeastern Asia was, during this
Speaker 3: era of time, home to the world's largest known primate.
Speaker 3: It has a very dumb and I would say somewhat
Speaker 3: offensive name. It's full name, but it's real name. Just
Speaker 3: call it Gigantipithecus. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wait, has more than.
Speaker 3: That, Gigantipithecus Blackie.
Speaker 4: Oh, like the Christopher Walk in King Louis and the
Speaker 4: live action Jungle Book.
Speaker 3: Yes, just so.
Speaker 4: He even writes it into the song.
Speaker 3: Yes it is. That is a gigantipithecus, and well done.
Speaker 3: This thing only became extinct in the late Middle plastine.
Speaker 3: No one sure why it went extinct. Just like other
Speaker 3: megafauna of the day, it was a big, probably not
Speaker 3: super duper fast herbivore. But this guy's a real chonker,
Speaker 3: ten feet tall, weighed over twelve hundred pounds. Shout out
Speaker 3: again to the US hashtag never the metric system. And
Speaker 3: so we know it's quite possible that human beings Homo
Speaker 3: sapiens in this part of the world ran into this big,
Speaker 3: not quite human thing out there in the forest, so
Speaker 3: they would have to have legends about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, really, it really is this. If you
Speaker 2: look at size comparisons of like theoretically what Gigantipithicus could
Speaker 2: look like. From what we do know, it does appear
Speaker 2: to be Bigfoot like between somewhere between Bigfoot and King Kong, right,
Speaker 2: I mean it's huge.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. It's also that the way it's depicted in
Speaker 3: the live action Jungle Book, in the King Louis character,
Speaker 3: it looks a lot more like an orogaton.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and and the way it's depicted in
Speaker 4: that movie would have been quite significantly larger than the
Speaker 4: real thing as well.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and it's yeah, it's it's depicted often in
Speaker 2: some of these what would you call these scientific illustrations
Speaker 2: where it's like, theoretically, this is what it looked like.
Speaker 2: For me, it looks like a cross between an orangutan
Speaker 2: and a gorilla, like the way it you know, would ambulate.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it's got the big cheeks too on the front, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, but it is not kaiju size.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, definitely definitely a chonky chonky boy. But
Speaker 3: so we know that humans may have interacted with this
Speaker 3: mega fautum in this area at this time. It may
Speaker 3: have informed folklore. But from everything we know about Gigantipithecus,
Speaker 3: which is honestly not a lot, this primate did not
Speaker 3: have the gumption to use tools. There's no record of
Speaker 3: it doing those classic human moves, right, so we could
Speaker 3: say that they that the humans at some point encountered something,
Speaker 3: maybe even Gigantipithecus. Honestly, if we know humans, which we do,
Speaker 3: the odds are that they are the reason that Gigantopithicus
Speaker 3: went extinct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you likely wouldn't have much time for fossils
Speaker 2: to be created. It just depends on you if you
Speaker 2: theoretically did have an interaction between let's say a large
Speaker 2: group of Gigantopithecus that lived in that area. Then humans
Speaker 2: come in. Humans figure out how to basically kill all
Speaker 2: of them and eat them, and potentially eat them. There
Speaker 2: really wouldn't be anything left. Those bones would go away
Speaker 2: over that span of time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a scary point. I mean, check out the
Speaker 3: story of those poor hobbits in Indonesia. The other version
Speaker 3: of this also happened. Yeah, I think they ate the
Speaker 3: hobbits man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sure seems like it.
Speaker 3: That's Homo Florenzi's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never know how to pronounce it.
Speaker 3: So anyway, Yes, hobbits are real. We're just gonna throw
Speaker 3: that one out for you. Check out our earlier episode.
Speaker 3: We mentioned this just a few minutes ago. Based on
Speaker 3: the admittedly scant investigations so far, the jars do appear
Speaker 3: to be some form of grave. They do appear to
Speaker 3: be funereal. They appear to be ritualistic cemeteries. And we
Speaker 3: know that the humans have always deified, worshiped, and feared
Speaker 3: the dead right because death is the one certitude other
Speaker 3: than being alive, that everybody has to go to it's
Speaker 3: go through. It's quite universal. So maybe people in the
Speaker 3: area were just following the same rules as other cultures,
Speaker 3: making sophisticated monuments for their loved ones when those folks
Speaker 3: passed away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, potentially, for sure. I found a Fox News article, guys,
Speaker 2: that was from twenty nineteen that was discussing the number
Speaker 2: of young persons, like remains of young persons that were
Speaker 2: found in these jars, and it was something like over
Speaker 2: over fifty percent of the humans that were found or
Speaker 2: the remains that were found in these jars were i
Speaker 2: think fifteen years old or younger, and a significant proportion
Speaker 2: of those were children that either died at birth or
Speaker 2: during birth, or you know, before they were born, those
Speaker 2: kinds of things. Yeah, it almost seems like a way
Speaker 2: to remember at least young people, but maybe not all
Speaker 2: young people, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then also we have to realize our sample
Speaker 3: size is pretty small because it's based on just the
Speaker 3: remains that were found. So as a counterfactual, it's completely
Speaker 3: possible that someone that let's say these were graves, let's
Speaker 3: say there were grave robbers, and they just had at
Speaker 3: least enough of a moral compass, you know, not to
Speaker 3: disgrace the remains of children.
Speaker 2: I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 3: As possible that. I don't know if it's true.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, it's just to give you the actual quote here, guy,
Speaker 2: instead of off the top of my head. According to
Speaker 2: Fox News article, researchers found that over sixty percent of
Speaker 2: the population at Site one, that specific Site one that
Speaker 2: we mentioned earlier, was less than fifteen years of age,
Speaker 2: and almost half of those died at the fetal stage
Speaker 2: or in early infancy.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, and there does seem to be some sand
Speaker 3: to that. We also know it's possible these were not
Speaker 3: permanent graves. It might be a case where a body
Speaker 3: was placed within a jar and was decomposed or laying
Speaker 3: in state before it was moved to a secondary location.
Speaker 3: Because our next question is inevitably going to be why
Speaker 3: do not all of the jars have human remains?
Speaker 2: That's a great question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a question.
Speaker 4: I mean, I had all different kinds of stuff in jars.
Speaker 4: You know, the jar is not just for one type
Speaker 4: of thing.
Speaker 3: I love that, jock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you guys see that there's this theory that
Speaker 2: potentially the jars were used for almost it's not the
Speaker 2: same thing. Some of the rights that have been around
Speaker 2: for a long time, where humans either attempt to preserve
Speaker 2: the squishy bits of a body after it's died, or
Speaker 2: to remove the squishy bits so that all you have
Speaker 2: is like bones.
Speaker 3: Right right leading up to usually in a process leading
Speaker 3: up to a final phase of internment or incineration. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we know that. I'm glad you mentioned this because we
Speaker 3: know that in the royal tradition of Thailand's ruling family,
Speaker 3: historically your body is cremated, but only many months after
Speaker 3: your death, and your body will be moved from one
Speaker 3: urn to the next until the final day of incineration.
Speaker 3: And the belief is that this reflects the gradual transition
Speaker 3: from the earthly world to the world of the spirits
Speaker 3: or the heavens. So so totally possible. Also, I love
Speaker 3: that point. Yeah. People keep all kinds of stuff in jars.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, God, I'm just gonna say, I've got my dog
Speaker 2: that passed recently in a thing like that, just because
Speaker 2: I want to have it around, you know. And I
Speaker 2: can imagine that if you've got loved ones that passed,
Speaker 2: you put them in one of those things until they're
Speaker 2: ready for whatever the rights are you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, and maybe maybe waiting is part of the ritual.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's tough because we do have to remember
Speaker 3: these are real people, no matter how long ago, and
Speaker 3: they did die. It's possible too that this became a
Speaker 3: social flex, that this became an impressive thing to do well.
Speaker 4: I mean, surely these are innate things were not just
Speaker 4: for everybody, right, I mean it would seem it's almost
Speaker 4: like tantamount to you know, the Pharaohs and having very
Speaker 4: very ornate sarcophagus sarcophaguy or whatever, and like you know,
Speaker 4: the Pyramids and all of that. It would it would
Speaker 4: certainly seem that if there were versions of these there
Speaker 4: were for like you know, the plubs or whatever, that
Speaker 4: they would be significantly less ornate. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: when my mother passed away, like to get anything beyond
Speaker 4: just like the most basic of urns is very expensive
Speaker 4: even today.
Speaker 2: But there's so many of them, you I don't know,
Speaker 2: act so many places.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it's yeah, I think it's
Speaker 3: more a function of this is the normalized way to
Speaker 3: commemorate the dead or to process that that passage. But
Speaker 3: there's also you know, I love that we're pointing out
Speaker 3: the common misconception about ancient Egypt. Not everybody got a pyramid.
Speaker 3: It was a very one percent thing for those guys,
Speaker 3: and it was dare I say, a pyramid scheme?
Speaker 4: Wow? All right, a lot of work for one one individual.
Speaker 3: Yes? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Have we done a full episode about pyramids and like
Speaker 2: the theories of like energy usage and battery storage and
Speaker 2: all the stuff like that.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's only come up in other conversations,
Speaker 4: but i'd have to look.
Speaker 3: Right, lay lines a couple.
Speaker 2: Videos specifically with water and like us it. I don't
Speaker 2: I've been I've been going down some YouTube rabbit holes
Speaker 2: about pyramids and I want to talk about it with
Speaker 2: you guys at some point.
Speaker 4: Or going energy.
Speaker 3: Yes, I I I love it. I will also, without
Speaker 3: hesitation and without apology, reuse that pyramid scheme joke because
Speaker 3: I really like it.
Speaker 4: Make it too.
Speaker 3: So it is possible then that if this were a
Speaker 3: normalized social thing, people might begin planning for their demise
Speaker 3: right the same way, you know, the same way people
Speaker 3: build a taj mahal, or they plan a graveyard or
Speaker 3: grave plot before their time. This we know this would
Speaker 3: have happened generation after generation but we will probably not
Speaker 3: have the answers we hope we do. But this is
Speaker 3: why we need your help. This is a UNESCO World
Speaker 3: Heritage Site. It is one of the most important in
Speaker 3: the area, and it got the ever loving Christ bombed
Speaker 3: out of it over and over again. Imagine if all
Speaker 3: the bombs in World War Two were just dropped on Stoneheinge.
Speaker 4: That's insane, I mean, and that's accurate, Ben, because this
Speaker 4: this is a very small, geographically small part of the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's this is what we wanted to open
Speaker 3: with and to close with. The Plane of Jars fell
Speaker 3: victim to bombing. Even today, there are areas of the
Speaker 3: plane that are full stop unsafe, even for the rats,
Speaker 3: even for the rats that are trained to figure out
Speaker 3: the bombs, you know what I mean. Sometimes the rats
Speaker 3: just turn around and say, like, I'm not paid enough
Speaker 3: for this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, I've no amount of cheddar is worth this, Chad,
Speaker 4: of course it's scheddar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I know, I don't know if I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get this out, guys, Sometimes the numbers get skewed
Speaker 2: in a way that makes you or makes me feel like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's not that big a deal. But you read something
Speaker 2: like there were sixty three accidents in twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: where there was unexploded ordinance that went off and maimed or.
Speaker 4: Killed people, right, twenty twenty one, Yeah, which reported exactly.
Speaker 2: So like immediately when you see that number, you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's not that many. Maybe that's not that big of
Speaker 2: a deal. Oh it's a huge freaking deal.
Speaker 3: It definitely is, because, as we mentioned previously, from nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty four to nineteen seventy three, as part of what
Speaker 3: is conventionally called the Cold War or the Secret War,
Speaker 3: the US military dropped more than two million tons worth
Speaker 3: of bombs over this country in secret, with the idea
Speaker 3: that doing so would prevent the spread of communist forces. Again,
Speaker 3: very Cold War, very Domino theory of hegemony. The CIA
Speaker 3: stepped in to radicalize and train anti communist forces pulled
Speaker 3: from local tribes like Mong tribes, and the whole thing was,
Speaker 3: let's disrupt supply chains to communist Vietnamese forces. Before you
Speaker 3: think we're getting too political, folks, please remember Dwight Eisenhower
Speaker 3: is the guy who greenlit this, the CIA activity and
Speaker 3: the whole shebang, And then the next several presidents, regardless
Speaker 3: of their political ideology, were fully on board with doing this.
Speaker 3: They just made it more extreme. Kennedy, Linda Johnson, Richard Nixon.
Speaker 3: They may have had public performance differences in their speeches,
Speaker 3: but when they got to the closed door of the
Speaker 3: Oval Office, they all co signed on continuing these programs.
Speaker 2: Yep, it's messed up. To look at a map too.
Speaker 2: If you go back and watch some documentaries about the
Speaker 2: Vietnam War, you can see Dnang, which is one of
Speaker 2: the main places that troops were deployed from. You can
Speaker 2: if you just look at the map, you can see
Speaker 2: how they would send aerial attacks to the north towards
Speaker 2: northern Vietnam where they were going to drop those bombs,
Speaker 2: and they would just fly right over Laos, which is
Speaker 2: basically a strip next to the strip that is Vietnam,
Speaker 2: and then hang or right as they're going over where
Speaker 2: this plane is the plane of jars, and it's just
Speaker 2: where they were dropping bombs.
Speaker 3: And it's horrifying, horrifying, and it's true. It's also it's
Speaker 3: a heartbreaking thing for humanity overall. Because of this activity,
Speaker 3: humanity has prevented itself from solving some ancient mysteries, from
Speaker 3: doing real research that tells humans where they come from.
Speaker 3: That's why most of the vast area containing the jars
Speaker 3: today is off limits to the public. You can visit
Speaker 3: like seven sites. I think Site one is probably the
Speaker 3: most fascinating because it has a specific and unique type
Speaker 3: of jar, a limestone jar. At Site one, who knows
Speaker 3: how old it is. It has a bass relief carving
Speaker 3: of something that looks like a hybrid between a human
Speaker 3: being and a front why. Okay, no one knows. It's
Speaker 3: just one of those ancient things that we could have
Speaker 3: figured out if we could just stop bombing each other.
Speaker 2: Yep, look up the Victory Cup and plane of jars.
Speaker 2: There's all kinds of amazing individual jars like that, and
Speaker 2: just the whole thing itself. It's been a fascinating episode, absolutely.
Speaker 3: We hope. So we also hope you can solve it.
Speaker 3: Tell us what's going on if you happen to be
Speaker 3: on the ground, if you are an ancient giant or
Speaker 3: Eldrich Bean, who has a good explanation for why you
Speaker 3: would get in a situation where you have to build
Speaker 3: these gigantic stone cauldrons. We want to hear from you.
Speaker 3: We hope you find this investigation fascinating as well, maybe
Speaker 3: so much so that you give us a couple stars
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Speaker 2: How about five five?
Speaker 3: If you're choosing stars, please choose five. We try to
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