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: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Noah.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 1: super producer Alexis code named Dot Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. We are so glad to hang
Speaker 1: out with you this evening. This is our weekly Listener
Speaker 1: Male segment. It's one of our favorite times of the
Speaker 1: week wherein we get to share stories with our fellow listeners.
Speaker 1: We are going to learn a little bit more about
Speaker 1: a situation in Canada that we talked about in the past.
Speaker 1: We're going to learn a little bit more about def Con,
Speaker 1: which I'm quite excited to visit or some version of me.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about paracusia, some responses to the
Speaker 1: idea of hearing voices, some responses to the undersea cables
Speaker 1: and the vulnerabilities they pose for civilization and the Internet
Speaker 1: at large. We're going to start, I believe, with a
Speaker 1: story that we were grateful to receive. We recently did
Speaker 1: an episode on the concept of divine intervention. Whether or
Speaker 1: not you find yourself a person of spiritual beliefs, regardless
Speaker 1: of your own school of metaphysical thought, we know that
Speaker 1: it is true the concept of divine intervention has fundamentally
Speaker 1: shaped human history and quite likely continues to do so
Speaker 1: in the present and in the future day. So maybe
Speaker 1: we start there. Noel, what stood out to you about
Speaker 1: this one? I don't know.
Speaker 3: Let's just let's let's read it and then we'll kind
Speaker 3: of see what stands out about it to all of us.
Speaker 3: I just always fascinated by people's real life encounters with
Speaker 3: the divine or something that they perceive to be the divine.
Speaker 3: And I think that's a big part of what that
Speaker 3: episode was, was the idea of stories and the idea
Speaker 3: of people filtering their experiences through their beliefs. And you know,
Speaker 3: results may there, But here we go. This comes to
Speaker 3: us from Leslie somewhere in Texas. I have been meditating
Speaker 3: since nineteen seventy two. I'm not religious and did not
Speaker 3: become religious during any altered states. Just a profound love
Speaker 3: and oneness with everything. So would that be a divine intervention.
Speaker 3: After these experiences, my outlook on life was much different.
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy five, a book titled Life After Life,
Speaker 3: written by a psychiatrist, doctor Raymond Moody, came out. It
Speaker 3: was one of the first books about near death experiences.
Speaker 3: When I read the accounts of these patients he interviewed
Speaker 3: documented cases of clinical death and recovery, I realized I
Speaker 3: had the same experience as these patients, but I just
Speaker 3: didn't die. Some of you guys that feel that those
Speaker 3: who make statements like this must have psychological problems must
Speaker 3: have never had anything like this happen to you. I
Speaker 3: studied personality disorders and drug abuse. I did an internship
Speaker 3: at the state hospital and a treatment center. I eventually
Speaker 3: was in charge doing psychological testing on all the patients.
Speaker 3: In my training and work, I had to do the
Speaker 3: same testing on myself, so no, I don't have a
Speaker 3: personality disorder. It was always encouraged to test yourself. I
Speaker 3: worked with psychologists throughout my time there. Because of all
Speaker 3: the testing on patients. I have talked to one female
Speaker 3: who told me about having extraordinary experiences and unfortunately she
Speaker 3: told her family. The family told her it was Satan,
Speaker 3: so she had been terrified of her experiences. How sad
Speaker 3: religion strikes again. I would say that my quote, divine
Speaker 3: interventions were when my friends and I would drive a
Speaker 3: vehicle well intoxicated and not kill someone else or ourselves.
Speaker 3: Our asses were saved, Leslie somewhere in Texas. The thing
Speaker 3: that stood out to me personally about this is the
Speaker 3: interpretation of what divine intervention can meet, or messages from
Speaker 3: the divine can meet, as we found in a lot
Speaker 3: of cases of you know, prominent figures that expressed this
Speaker 3: and went in opposition to maybe the governing you know,
Speaker 3: kind of status quo, which usually was the church. They
Speaker 3: would be ostracized as being having demonic visions or demonic possession,
Speaker 3: like Joan of Art for example. So this idea of
Speaker 3: filtering experiences through that lens can go both ways. You
Speaker 3: could divine intervention is God stepping in and doing you
Speaker 3: a solid or in the case of this example that
Speaker 3: Leslie gave, someone might say you are being visited upon
Speaker 3: by you know, the damned, you know, the the lord
Speaker 3: of all evil, Satan himself. So I mean, I know
Speaker 3: it's not a particularly long email, but I did think
Speaker 3: it would give us an opportunity to kind of chat
Speaker 3: a little bit about, you know, what some of these
Speaker 3: experiences might mean kind of in the modern day.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm really glad you brought this up, No,
Speaker 1: because we have received a lot of communication about this
Speaker 1: from from many of our fellow listeners who perhaps identify
Speaker 1: more on the skeptical side of things in most of
Speaker 1: their experiences. But as we as we explored in our
Speaker 1: previous episode on divine intervention, there are things that the
Speaker 1: human cannot yet rationally explain. And it's it's a very
Speaker 1: nice compliment. I would imagine to the earlier Conversation Exploration
Speaker 1: episode about auditory verbal auditory hallucinations, hearing voices, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's easy. I was read listening to an episode
Speaker 1: we did recently about the companies that were started by
Speaker 1: cults or newest iteration of that, and there was a
Speaker 1: great point I believe you originally raised it, Nol, about
Speaker 1: what defines the sea word? What makes something a cult?
Speaker 1: Is it one? I think I said, if there was
Speaker 1: just one guy who was Buddhist, I guess it would
Speaker 1: be Buddha, then people would treat him like it was
Speaker 1: crazy until he got millions of people to agree with him,
Speaker 1: and with divine intervention versus auditory hallucination, maybe we see
Speaker 1: we see a similar process. Right. It is only after
Speaker 1: Joan of Arc successfully executes several stunning military campaigns that
Speaker 1: people begin to say, perhaps supernatural heavenly celestial force is intervening.
Speaker 1: And leslie to your point. I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that idea of day to day divine intervention driving under
Speaker 1: the influence. No one dies, you know, maybe.
Speaker 3: And obviously this is someone reflecting back on there perhaps
Speaker 3: misspent youth. Right, you know that they survived forst sure
Speaker 3: and this did get me kind of digging through our
Speaker 3: inbox for some other accounts of divine intervention.
Speaker 4: I did find one more that I'd.
Speaker 3: Love to add to the to the pot if I could.
Speaker 3: From Uncle Bosco. Hey, Matt Nolan, Ben, I hope you
Speaker 3: are all well. I grew up in an atheist home.
Speaker 3: We celebrate Christmas and Easter, but not in a way
Speaker 3: associated with any Christian trappings hung on these pagan celebrations.
Speaker 3: I've never believed in a divine spirit or angels or
Speaker 3: demons or what have you. I still don't. That said,
Speaker 3: two things have happened in my life that I cannot explain.
Speaker 3: I've talked about both, and most people either don't believe
Speaker 3: me or say they were divine or angelic interventions. Incident one.
Speaker 3: It was June nineteen eighty three. I grew up on
Speaker 3: an eleven acre farm, and our house was on the
Speaker 3: northwest corner. The school bus dropped me off of the
Speaker 3: southeast corner of the farm, and i'd walk through the
Speaker 3: fields and pasture to get home. My dad and grandfather
Speaker 3: were building a new house near where the bus dropped
Speaker 3: me off. Walking by one day from the school bus,
Speaker 3: I saw the stud walls had been put up. I
Speaker 3: was a curious soon to be thirteen year old and
Speaker 3: had been warned the construction sites could be hazardous, so
Speaker 3: to only get close if my dad or grandfather were around.
Speaker 3: They were not around, and curiosity got the better of me.
Speaker 3: I was wandering around looking at how everything was put together,
Speaker 3: and I walked backwards into the hole in the floor
Speaker 3: where the stairs to the basement would go. I fell
Speaker 3: and slow and realized that the basement's concrete floor had
Speaker 3: been poured that day. I remember thinking how angry everyone
Speaker 3: would be when I ruined the concrete by falling into it.
Speaker 3: Then I saw my brown Adidas gym bag in my
Speaker 3: hand and feared it getting ruined by wet concrete. When
Speaker 3: my chin was about level with the plywood subfloor of
Speaker 3: the main floor, I stopped falling and was lifted to
Speaker 3: a sitting position on the edge of the hole. As
Speaker 3: I was being lifted and set down, I heard a
Speaker 3: soft whisper say it's not your time yet. It freaked
Speaker 3: the shit out of me, and I only went back
Speaker 3: to the house when my family moved in later that summer.
Speaker 3: I told one of my friends the next day, and
Speaker 3: he thought I had made the story up. I only
Speaker 3: spoke of it again when I was about twenty five.
Speaker 3: I told my parents and they both said that I
Speaker 3: had likely started to fall but caught myself and pulled
Speaker 3: myself up. Maybe, but not likely with a gym bag
Speaker 3: with books and gym clothes. I'm aware of our mind's
Speaker 3: ability to change events and create false memories, and so
Speaker 3: I more or less chalked that event up to a
Speaker 3: false memory. We got another incident here, but I'm just
Speaker 3: gonna stick with the one since we already had the
Speaker 3: other email. But that's pretty cool, I would say, coming
Speaker 3: from a you know, a self professed skeptic and atheists.
Speaker 3: You know, why bother making up a tale like that?
Speaker 3: I mean, again, he talks about the false memory. But
Speaker 3: that's pretty significant false memory, you know, especially with the
Speaker 3: whole whispered you know, it's not your time yet thing.
Speaker 3: What do you guys think of that?
Speaker 2: I don't even know what to say. I think the
Speaker 2: gym bag saved you, boss, somehow the gym bag attached
Speaker 2: to a spring mechanism unbeknownst to you within.
Speaker 1: Mustache.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I have no idea. That's that's that's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's also it's also true again, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: maybe we we owe a bit of a mia Kolpa
Speaker 1: here to Leslie as well or earlier conspiracy realist in
Speaker 1: that we said there might be psychologue issues at play Leslie.
Speaker 1: We did not say, in any case, there must be.
Speaker 1: We also with your story, Uncle Bosco, pleasure to meet you, bro.
Speaker 1: We al we also, I think, share a commonality in
Speaker 1: these experiences. There are certain events that, upon retrospect, even
Speaker 1: knowing memory is somewhat treacherous. There are certain events that
Speaker 1: simply defy plausible explanation, right, and they stick with you.
Speaker 1: It's strange to me that the line of demarcation between
Speaker 1: the quote unquote true believers and the quote unquote skeptics,
Speaker 1: it's not whether or not they had a moment like this,
Speaker 1: it is how they interpret it sactly. We've seen people
Speaker 1: who identify themselves as you know, very zealous skeptics, to
Speaker 1: the point where they're basically another version of fundamentalist religious types.
Speaker 1: And they'll say, well, yeah, this happened, but here's why
Speaker 1: it happened. And I know for sure it wasn't something
Speaker 1: I can't explain. But are they also just reaching for
Speaker 1: rationalization because one thing both sides of those spectrums have
Speaker 1: whenever these events occur is a dearth of proof, a
Speaker 1: lack of proof confirming their opinion or interpretation absolutely valid.
Speaker 3: I completely see where you're coming from. I do feel
Speaker 3: like it is. This second one is almost too good
Speaker 3: not to at least mention, and I try to paraphrase
Speaker 3: it. It is a little bit longer, but in late spring
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, doing some yard work, and my wife and
Speaker 3: kids are out and we don't really have any neighbors
Speaker 3: close enough to see. As I'm raking leaves, I see
Speaker 3: a person standing near the edge of our property about
Speaker 3: two hundred feet from me. I turn to look at
Speaker 3: the person and there's no one there. Weird, but there
Speaker 3: wild animals in the area, and there was a bit
Speaker 3: of a breeze, so perhaps my eyes were playing tricks
Speaker 3: on me. Over the next four months, I continue to
Speaker 3: see a figure in my peripheral vision while I'm in
Speaker 3: my backyard alone. Every two to three weeks this would happen.
Speaker 3: The difference is each time the figure is closer and
Speaker 3: closer to me. In August, I finally get a halfway
Speaker 3: decent view of the figure. It's about six feet tall
Speaker 3: and a deeply pleated robe with the hood covering the face,
Speaker 3: and is holding its arms at about a forty five
Speaker 3: degree angle from its legs. I nearly pooped my pants.
Speaker 3: That's me editorializing. It's about thirty feet from me, and
Speaker 3: once again I register the details of what I'm looking
Speaker 3: at and it disappears. I think about telling my wife,
Speaker 3: but concerns she'll think I'm insane. In September, I start
Speaker 3: smelling smoke when there is none. I start thinking that
Speaker 3: the figure I've been seeing and the smoke smell are
Speaker 3: signs of a serious medical issue. I go to see
Speaker 3: my doctor and get a CT scan and a battery
Speaker 3: of tests. On October first, I was raking leaves and
Speaker 3: I hear a whisper saying be prepared, and I turned
Speaker 3: to see the road figure. I coughed from the smell
Speaker 3: of smoke, and the figure is gone. On the second,
Speaker 3: I received a call from my doctor's office telling me
Speaker 3: all my test results were normal. The next morning, October third,
Speaker 3: I woke to my phone ringing my dad was in
Speaker 3: the hospital dying and I needed to leave now to
Speaker 3: see him if I wanted to say goodbye. He died
Speaker 3: an hour after I arrived. When I was taking the
Speaker 3: personal effects one from the hospital, I was overwhelmed by
Speaker 3: the smell of cigarette smoke coming from his jacket. He
Speaker 3: was a lifelong smoker, and by the cigarette butts in
Speaker 3: the driveway of his home. Apparently was chainsmoking while waiting
Speaker 3: for the ambulance to come get him. I've not seen
Speaker 3: the road figure since, I've not smelled phantom smoke since.
Speaker 3: That was just a particularly eerie one. You know, we
Speaker 3: talked about examples of folks receiving information, you know that
Speaker 3: led to them making a decision that was meaningful.
Speaker 1: So I thought this was a really good one.
Speaker 3: But thank you to Leslie and Uncle Bosco for those
Speaker 3: accounts of divine intervention. Let's take a quick break here,
Speaker 3: a word from our sponsor, and we'll be back with
Speaker 3: more messages from you.
Speaker 2: And we're back and we're jumping to the phone lines.
Speaker 2: Remember you can call us just like everybody else that has.
Speaker 2: Our number is one eight three three std WYTK. It's
Speaker 2: a voicemail. Leave one and we might play it on
Speaker 2: one of these episodes. Here we go. This message comes
Speaker 2: from Green Garnet and it is regarding our episode on
Speaker 2: hearing voices.
Speaker 5: Hey, everybody, you can call me Green Garnet. I'm calling
Speaker 5: because I just felt compelled to share a little tiny
Speaker 5: ditch with you about hearing voices. When I was a
Speaker 5: little kid in the seventies and eighties, we lived in
Speaker 5: a house that was a really big old house from
Speaker 5: the nineteen twenties, and I would hear voices, but I
Speaker 5: couldn't make out what they were saying. I didn't feel
Speaker 5: like they were talking to me. Just sounded like mumbling
Speaker 5: a lot of times, or like through the wall kind
Speaker 5: of conversation. I didn't think very much of it. I
Speaker 5: didn't it didn't scare me or anything like that. It
Speaker 5: was just like something that happened sometimes, except for one
Speaker 5: night where it was really kind of like escalated. I
Speaker 5: woke up and I so it was kind of like
Speaker 5: after a dream, but I could still or whatever. I
Speaker 5: don't know if it was from a dream or what,
Speaker 5: but I could hear downstairs because our bedroom was on
Speaker 5: the second floor. Down stairs, I could hear this voice
Speaker 5: coming just yell, kind of talking really loud, saying hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 5: And it was really loud and it didn't go away,
Speaker 5: and I started getting scared somebody was actually really downstairs,
Speaker 5: and woke up my dad to go Caul. I could see.
Speaker 5: I was so sure somebody was down there. Of course
Speaker 5: he came back up there wasn't, and the noise had stopped.
Speaker 5: And there's no really interesting resolution or other story about
Speaker 5: it except for that. I don't know if it's related.
Speaker 5: But when I was growing up, I had like this
Speaker 5: imaginary friend and her boyfriend, but they were like adults.
Speaker 5: I didn't really play with them. I just like knew them,
Speaker 5: if that makes sense. Rosie and Steve and I never
Speaker 5: heard those voices or saw the friend and her boyfriend
Speaker 5: ever again. Once we left the house. So I'm wondering
Speaker 5: if this is something a little more related to a
Speaker 5: house thing and that it's energy or some I don't know. Anyway,
Speaker 5: interesting story, not super interesting, though not as interesting as
Speaker 5: your show was, but at least you have another data
Speaker 5: point and another story to add to your collection of
Speaker 5: hearing voices. I really look forward to your show almost
Speaker 5: every day. I work in a lab and sometimes there's
Speaker 5: a lot of monotony, and being able to listen to
Speaker 5: you guys while I'm doing the work is really really fun.
Speaker 5: Thanks for doing all the work that you do, and
Speaker 5: hope you're having a great day or a great night.
Speaker 2: I wow, guys, Okay, we got to talk about this.
Speaker 1: What do you think imaginary friends? Did you guys have
Speaker 1: any Oh geez, is that too personal? I know we're
Speaker 1: just coworkers, so.
Speaker 3: Well, no, you know, it's funny, you know, I was
Speaker 3: I think I was the only child, and I did
Speaker 3: I wish I did. It seems really cool, you know,
Speaker 3: like I really love the movie Inside Out. You know
Speaker 3: there's that whole thing with like Bingbong, the imaginary friend
Speaker 3: that like pink elephant.
Speaker 1: Creature, drop dead Fred.
Speaker 3: Drop dead Fred. That's right, Yeah, that guy was a psychopath,
Speaker 3: though not a very good friend at all.
Speaker 1: He was rambunctious. Man.
Speaker 3: Man, No, I just I think that's you know, it's funny,
Speaker 3: though that didn't really come up in the episode. But
Speaker 3: the idea of imaginary friends is a lot like hearing
Speaker 3: voices in the sense, you know, and sometimes you have
Speaker 3: to wonder, how do these imaginary friends manifest themselves, you know,
Speaker 3: in the mind of a child versus the interpretation of
Speaker 3: an adult about what it was like when they were
Speaker 3: a child.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, at the risk I'm going to talk for
Speaker 2: a little bit, you guys, just interrupt me because I've
Speaker 2: got so many thoughts on this. The first one is
Speaker 2: I didn't have an imaginary friend that I can remember,
Speaker 2: which is really important, right. I don't recollect having an
Speaker 2: imaginary friend. I remember Teddy Ruxman and him whispering things
Speaker 2: to me through his tapes. But the important thing there
Speaker 2: is that maybe I did have an imaginary friend that
Speaker 2: I was interacting with at some point, but when I
Speaker 2: got older, either I put that away or it's hidden
Speaker 2: somewhere in the back of my mind. That is the
Speaker 2: weird thing about our minds, right, they are pretty pliable
Speaker 2: at times. And we can if we go through something
Speaker 2: especially traumatic, we can kind of forget some stuff and
Speaker 2: then maybe have to come back to it or rediscover
Speaker 2: it later, either accidentally or on purpose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, an unethical or incompetent Uh, the right kind of
Speaker 1: mentalist or a therapist could also uh sort of incept
Speaker 1: us with the idea right through the hypnotic regression or
Speaker 1: any other technique similar.
Speaker 2: Exactly the Darren Brown dude. There's weird stuff they can
Speaker 2: occur up in this closed closet of a brain skull
Speaker 2: thing whatever.
Speaker 1: That is the technically read that's papers on Jamma.
Speaker 2: So many on their journal. I just flood that thing.
Speaker 2: It's like a mud flood.
Speaker 1: Sorry, all right, So wait, but this idea though imaginary friends.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, So that is what intrigued me the most
Speaker 2: about Green Garnet story. Uh, the concept of as a
Speaker 2: child maybe having interactions with you go on a limb
Speaker 2: a little bit thinking about this, but maybe with some
Speaker 2: kind of spirit or leftover energy that was in this
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties house, and as a child, for one reason
Speaker 2: or another, she's more attuned to them and has interactions
Speaker 2: with Rosie and Steve, you know, as this uh, this
Speaker 2: person and her boyfriend, and she can see them, she
Speaker 2: can hear them, there's interaction there. But then as she
Speaker 2: gets older, they're still there. But for some reason, the
Speaker 2: changes in our minds, in our brains, physiological changes as
Speaker 2: we grow older, it won't allow for her to see
Speaker 2: them and experience them as she once did.
Speaker 1: Oh, the accumulation of fluoride. I'm kidding, it's definitely.
Speaker 2: Florid calcification of your But maybe something does change over time. Again,
Speaker 2: there aren't There aren't studies on this, because how do
Speaker 2: you how do you get taken seriously and get funding
Speaker 2: to do a study on we do our brains change
Speaker 2: in a way that are our imaginary friends are no
Speaker 2: longer accessible over time?
Speaker 1: Do our antenna attenuate? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Good luck, good luck getting funding for that. But that,
Speaker 2: to me is a really intriguing concept, And I wonder
Speaker 2: if there's anyone else out there who's had us maybe
Speaker 2: a similar thing where there was, to your recollection, an
Speaker 2: imaginary friend with whom you had interactions at least to
Speaker 2: you right, and then over time you either gradually lose
Speaker 2: that connection or is there one day when it just stops?
Speaker 2: Can you even recall that? Is it possible? To recall
Speaker 2: that moment if you are now, you know, in your thirties,
Speaker 2: let's say, and you interacted with an imaginary friend at
Speaker 2: five or six or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you say this, Matt, because typically you may
Speaker 1: find this of fascination as well Green Garnet. Typically when
Speaker 1: people talk about having an imaginary friend, they are not
Speaker 1: able to bring up a specific moment where it said goodbye, right,
Speaker 1: or said I'm going to go in the background because
Speaker 1: you brush your teeth too much or whatever. But all right,
Speaker 1: I'm laying that Joco. The idea. Typically what happens is
Speaker 1: it seems somewhere in adolescence, perhaps targeted as close as
Speaker 1: a summer, so a time window of let's say three
Speaker 1: to four months. Then it gradually fades out as new
Speaker 1: external stimuli are introduced. Now, obviously I have to accuse
Speaker 1: myself because I have been the imaginary friend of several
Speaker 1: different people. But but the idea here is I think
Speaker 1: really fascinating because it goes back to our concepts of
Speaker 1: cultural framing for an experience. Right, I hear a voice,
Speaker 1: I hear it multiple times. It feels like it's the
Speaker 1: same voice. How do I phrase it? It's clearly not,
Speaker 1: you know, a thing like, it's not nefarious force, it's
Speaker 1: not sinister. It's not in the bed or in the
Speaker 1: closet waiting to get me.
Speaker 2: It's in the walls.
Speaker 1: It's in the walls. We're all inside. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it's it's also one of our collective dreams that take
Speaker 1: to do a fun improv thing together. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's food for thought, for sure, because to your point, Matt,
Speaker 1: and to your point Green Garnet, I imagine that there
Speaker 1: are quite a few people with with something like the
Speaker 1: quote unquote imaginary friend experience. Also being an only child,
Speaker 1: like you know, there's this tendency to make one's own
Speaker 1: inner universe. It applies to all. Yeah, but in the
Speaker 1: formative age of of the humans, there's uh, there's a
Speaker 1: special particular emphasis on internal world building when one does
Speaker 1: not have siblings.
Speaker 2: Mmmm. So it's kind of like when Fred Savage is
Speaker 2: looking down at the pile of laundry, and then the
Speaker 2: pile of laundry becomes you know, Howie Mandel as Maurice,
Speaker 2: and then he proceeds to go underneath the bed down
Speaker 2: into an entire imaginary world. Brother Ben Savage is like, nah, man,
Speaker 2: there's no monsters under your bed, and then Ben gets
Speaker 2: pulled down into the world, and then Fred's got a
Speaker 2: save Ben. It's just crazy, man.
Speaker 3: I was thinking that was sort of an imaginary friend's story,
Speaker 3: but I wasn't sure. I don't know that one as
Speaker 3: well as right, right said Fred, dropped dead Fred, they're all.
Speaker 1: In the same universe. We're doing an MCU for everything
Speaker 1: now dropped dead Fred, little monsters and right said Fred
Speaker 1: the Catwalk guy.
Speaker 2: Yes, all the same.
Speaker 3: And if you're into this kind of Foster's Home for
Speaker 3: imaginary friends, it's a great cartoon, a good one to
Speaker 3: watch with your kids, and it definitely talks about a
Speaker 3: lot of the same stuff that these movies do, but
Speaker 3: in a little bit more of an absurdist, childlike fashion.
Speaker 2: But what I'm saying, guys, is that we're all Ben
Speaker 2: Savage until our pile of laundry becomes how we mendel. Okay,
Speaker 2: does that make sense totally? I use that.
Speaker 1: I'm a big from he of your articles in jama.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad somebody reads them.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, check out our check out our earlier
Speaker 1: episode out of academic journals. If we've done that one.
Speaker 1: But uh. But also something important to note that may
Speaker 1: be of interest to not to green Garnet, to you
Speaker 1: as well. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, folks.
Speaker 1: The concept of imaginary friends, generally in the world of psychoanalysis. Uh,
Speaker 1: they will not arrive from a vacuum. They will be
Speaker 1: descended from something you know, like uh, like in a
Speaker 1: Christmas story, Uh, the kid loves little orphan Annie and
Speaker 1: his go to get a decoder ring. Right, spoiler, It's
Speaker 1: an advertisement, but it's a good advertisement. And I'm wondering
Speaker 1: this is a question for all of us playing along
Speaker 1: at home this evening. Is an imaginary friend a predecessor
Speaker 1: of the parasocial relationship tendency.
Speaker 2: Go on someone who well, I don't know, because.
Speaker 4: Parasocial being someone who kind of is clingy, parasocial parasocial
Speaker 4: being the tendency that humans have to be quote unquote
Speaker 4: like to be psychologically or consciously with someone like a celebrity,
Speaker 4: and then to feel that there is a closer personal relationship.
Speaker 1: Dude.
Speaker 3: Social media is imaginary friends. For days. Podcasts are imaginary friends.
Speaker 3: I mean, but they're not imaginary, but they fill the
Speaker 3: same need. We just have technology now where people can
Speaker 3: have ten different flavors of imaginary friend.
Speaker 2: Guys, I don't know. I feel like Conan is probably
Speaker 2: my friend. He made a whole podcast with friend and title.
Speaker 1: Thank you for stepping up man, you know, good on you, Matt.
Speaker 2: I really do love that podcast.
Speaker 1: It is Conan's Conan's a legend everybody. Everybody knows that
Speaker 1: he needs to stop texting as often. But otherwise great dude.
Speaker 3: For sure. Definitely to stop texting while driving, Conan, that's
Speaker 3: dangerous and against the law.
Speaker 2: Knock it off, seriously.
Speaker 1: His meme game is tight though.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but Leslie, you know knows our last emailer,
Speaker 2: Leslie knows you cannot do that. Texting and driving is dangerous. Leslie,
Speaker 2: by the way, also didn't like hugs. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you guys remember a long time ago Leslie wrote
Speaker 2: in our previous emailer that we just talked about. She
Speaker 2: wrote to tell us she does not like hugs, and
Speaker 2: she refuses to hug anything that's not a cute animal.
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Consumptuous it can be. They can be. I don't like it.
Speaker 2: I remember you, h that's why.
Speaker 3: For you guys, I'll do it, But but I feel
Speaker 3: you twitch while I'm holding you close.
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit militant about it. I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: here we are. I totally am guilty of doing the
Speaker 1: three times.
Speaker 2: The twitch is what it's all about. That's how you know,
Speaker 2: That's how you know the hug. Oh God, I'm calling HR.
Speaker 2: You should thank you so much Green Garnet for writing
Speaker 2: in with that experience. Uh yeah, we we love hearing
Speaker 2: those kind of stories. If anyone else has one like that,
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear it as well. We'll be right
Speaker 2: back with more messages from you.
Speaker 1: And we have returned never fear fellow conspiracy realist. I
Speaker 1: obviously did not call HR because I don't like calling people.
Speaker 1: Uh So we got a We received something that I
Speaker 1: think was very illuminating slash disturby and talk about real
Speaker 1: quick from our pal Rich, fellow conspiracy realist Rich in
Speaker 1: Southern Alberta. Being that Southern Alberta is in Canada, Rich
Speaker 1: is still more of a Yankee than we are. Rich says, Hello, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: if you like, you can read this email for the
Speaker 1: show and refer to me as Rich from Southern Alberta.
Speaker 1: Got your back, Rich done, Rich says, I just finished
Speaker 1: listening to your strange news segment talking about the so
Speaker 1: called Queen of Canada, and as a resident of southern
Speaker 1: Alberta near the Saskatchewan border, my ears perked up when
Speaker 1: you mentioned Ramona Didulo. The article you referenced in the
Speaker 1: show made the situation seem very minor and somewhat comical,
Speaker 1: not much more than a nuisance, but I can assure
Speaker 1: you that is far from the truth. I've included a
Speaker 1: link to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article written just a
Speaker 1: few days ago that should answer some of your questions
Speaker 1: and let you know just how serious the situation is
Speaker 1: and how potentially dangerous this cult may be. Spoiler alert
Speaker 1: it includes threats of public execution. I hope that you
Speaker 1: find this email helpful and the article informative. Best wishes
Speaker 1: from Rich in Southern Alberta. Real quick, before we get
Speaker 1: into this, I want to thank Doc Holliday, Matt and
Speaker 1: Nole for putting up with me having to do a
Speaker 1: couple takes of that one. I don't know why that
Speaker 1: became a tongue twister. Southern Alberta near the Saskatchewan border.
Speaker 2: You got it, dude, that's a toughie.
Speaker 1: Well, it took me four tries. All right, So, longtime
Speaker 1: conspiracy realist. If you tuned in to our previous Strange
Speaker 1: News and listener mail segments, which again we welcome. We
Speaker 1: do this every week, please join us next week as well.
Speaker 1: We talked about something that NOL you in particular, have
Speaker 1: been following. You you hipped us when you found a
Speaker 1: Vice article way back about the so called QAnon Queen
Speaker 1: Ramona Didulo has self appointed as the matriarch, the monarch
Speaker 1: of Canada, which is very interesting to the good people
Speaker 1: of Canada who already had their own government and are
Speaker 1: part of the you know, part of the British Empire.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I do want to say that maybe the
Speaker 3: article that I referenced was downplaying things a little bit.
Speaker 3: I didn't really think so. And I also felt like
Speaker 3: we were all kind of being visibly freaked out by.
Speaker 4: The potential for this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, because there was the whole like surveillance,
Speaker 3: like people on the roofs and stuff, and there is
Speaker 3: a lot of veiled threats. Yeah, so I'm interested to
Speaker 3: hear what this next level is of maybe d pulling
Speaker 3: the veil back on some of these threats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think also what we did in terms of
Speaker 1: the concept of being somewhat comedic about it is we
Speaker 1: were pointing out just how very kind people tend to
Speaker 1: be in most rural environments in the West, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like if you went to the a
Speaker 1: lot of the Midwest and the United States and you
Speaker 1: were in a small town and you took over like
Speaker 1: an abandoned barn or a shed, then what would happen
Speaker 1: is someone would show up and they would tell you
Speaker 1: to get out, but they would also probably check if
Speaker 1: you needed snacks, like show up with a cast role
Speaker 1: like well, you know, also, you're not supposed to be here.
Speaker 1: So when we were being a bit comedic, we're not
Speaker 1: being dismissive. And to Nole's point there, we have one
Speaker 1: reason we keep coming back to this person and their
Speaker 1: followers is because there seems to be a growing danger, right,
Speaker 1: There's something, there's something reaching a boil is the problem.
Speaker 1: And this happens with you know, this happens with your Kureeshes,
Speaker 1: this happens with your Bundy with the Ammons, this happens
Speaker 1: with your Jim Joneses.
Speaker 3: We mentioned all of those two on the episode that
Speaker 3: it was feeling like it was inching towards that kind
Speaker 3: of standoff situation. Sorry, I'm not like trying to defend
Speaker 3: ourselves that is fly, I really did. I think we
Speaker 3: all felt like this was like, what's the word, a
Speaker 3: powder keg type situation.
Speaker 2: Well, see now here, here's a problem. This person is
Speaker 2: probably talking directly to me because in my mind, seriously,
Speaker 2: I've viewed I viewed that group a lot as a nuisance,
Speaker 2: as in a you know, a group that's traveling through
Speaker 2: to different towns because nobody wants them there and they're
Speaker 2: kind of keeping to themselves, and I saw it as
Speaker 2: the town kind of saying, hey, get out, like come on,
Speaker 2: we don't we don't want y'all here. And I was
Speaker 2: thinking about solutions that the town could come up with
Speaker 2: to just force them out. But I didn't think about
Speaker 2: the things that are in this article that was shared
Speaker 2: by our listener.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's go to this article. Let's shout Laura
Speaker 1: Scarpioletti and a pardon my pronunciation here. Laura is a
Speaker 1: journalist for the CBC and links us to this article.
Speaker 1: The headline involves the concept of public executions.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: What we see here are mentions of several things we
Speaker 1: pointed out previously. The militarization of a cult that is,
Speaker 1: a cultic movement that is becoming increasingly it's trending in
Speaker 1: a bad direction. It's trending toward the US versus them.
Speaker 1: The delusions of grandeur, the apocalyptic reckonings and predictions that
Speaker 1: are common to all sorts of ultimately unsustainable ideological movements.
Speaker 1: The CBC article directly references a letter that the group
Speaker 1: sent to the mayor, the village councilors, members of the
Speaker 1: fire department, members of the Mounted police, and a school
Speaker 1: teacher named them specifically accuse them of corruption, bullying, and skulking,
Speaker 1: and said the following. If the village does not follow
Speaker 1: the decrees of the Queen, they will receive judgment, and
Speaker 1: if they are quote found guilty of crimes against humanity
Speaker 1: or treason, they will face publicly broadcast execution upon yourselves
Speaker 1: and undeserved devastation upon your children, grandchildren and families. Continues.
Speaker 1: Be Fore warned, WTP, we the people like the nomenclature.
Speaker 1: We've got the acronyms going. We the people WTP are
Speaker 1: now watching you with open eyes. The curtain is drawn.
Speaker 1: Your future is in your hands. So these folks in
Speaker 1: the village council they call a meeting after the letter
Speaker 1: work comes out the mayor's they're disgusted, they're scared. People
Speaker 1: are staying in their houses more often. This is dangerous stuff.
Speaker 1: The RCMP Royal Canadian Mound Police have opened a temporary
Speaker 1: detachment and they're in Richmond, in this rural town. And
Speaker 1: I think it's important to note that this may be something.
Speaker 1: Hopefully this situation results peacefully. But what do you think, guys?
Speaker 1: I don't think. No, you're too far off and calling
Speaker 1: it a powder keg, because clearly, look, cultic organizations like this,
Speaker 1: they're like fascism. They need an enemy, they need a
Speaker 1: timeline right to rationalize the increased control over the followers.
Speaker 1: So what will happen?
Speaker 2: Well, there's definitely no quiet de escalation in that event. Right.
Speaker 2: The queen doesn't gradually say, oh, well, maybe I'm not
Speaker 2: the queen. Oh well, you know, i haven't been the
Speaker 2: queen for a while, guys, I'm not the queen anymore.
Speaker 3: You know, she's more on the off with their heads mode.
Speaker 2: Now, Yes, either I am the queen or I am
Speaker 2: not the queen. Right and until and right now, I
Speaker 2: am the queen, and if you say I'm not right,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to dethrone me. Kind of thing, is
Speaker 2: what it sounds like, feels like. But again, how do
Speaker 2: you with the thought of tanks that essentially act as
Speaker 2: flame throwers that we have seen in the past, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you not expect some kind of devastating force
Speaker 2: to be brought down upon you if you're threatening an
Speaker 2: entire town of people, right, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know occupying a publicly owned building, right.
Speaker 2: Taking, But if you're threatening I didn't know about these threats,
Speaker 2: is what I guess I'm saying, Like I didn't realize
Speaker 2: they're calling for the deaths of specific people as well
Speaker 2: as anybody that they find to be breaking the rules
Speaker 2: that they set, you know.
Speaker 1: Which those people did not agree to. They did not
Speaker 1: vote for this uh pretender to the throne. I'm not
Speaker 1: being I'm not being a jerk. That is the name.
Speaker 1: That is the term used when one person says they're
Speaker 1: a monarch and someone else already considers themselves a monarch.
Speaker 1: I'm just putting that out there. And Queen here, you know,
Speaker 1: and and that's that I think that is. I think
Speaker 1: it's tremendously impactful because this shows us how these things
Speaker 1: can build. And if you see something in mass media
Speaker 1: later when this stuff goes sideways, then you're going to
Speaker 1: see no shortage of self appointed experts who were not
Speaker 1: paying attention to it until about twenty minutes before they
Speaker 1: went on air. You know what I mean. Like, it's
Speaker 1: just the world is happening. It's not happening in a vacuum,
Speaker 1: and we have to be very careful. That's why strange
Speaker 1: news and listener mail exists, because we've got to look
Speaker 1: past Matt Nole. You and I were talking about this
Speaker 1: a little bit offline, you know, the way that news
Speaker 1: is sort of prepackaged like a microwave meal for people.
Speaker 1: Here's a very complex situation. We've got four minutes and
Speaker 1: thirty seconds to tell you. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's dangerous. I really appreciate you Rich for
Speaker 1: reaching out. Stay safe up there and write to us
Speaker 1: with more details as things develop. Thought we could end
Speaker 1: on one more if we got time. Do we have
Speaker 1: one more? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So we got a friend who, uh, for the
Speaker 1: sake of anonymity, we'll call the beekeeper. The beekeeper and
Speaker 1: I got in a little bit of a conversation because
Speaker 1: the beekeeper is a former attendee of Deaf Cod and
Speaker 1: I pitched you guys on maybe us visiting Deaf God. No,
Speaker 1: so that says, no, well you can't. You can't afford
Speaker 1: a burner phone.
Speaker 2: I'm not allowed in those places anymore. All right, Ever
Speaker 2: since I got banned for putting quake on my middle school.
Speaker 1: Servers, Oh you did?
Speaker 2: Is that a true story, dude?
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Power to the people. Nice job. Uh so, uh,
Speaker 1: here we go. This is a fun story about getting
Speaker 1: banned from places. Okay, beekeeper, this is your story about
Speaker 1: getting banned from Caesar's Palace. Here's how it starts. Beekeeper says,
Speaker 1: I haven't been to a conference in a few years.
Speaker 1: I'm not as active in info SEC as I was,
Speaker 1: but I would love to get back to Deaf Cod
Speaker 1: if I can get my Caesar's Palace ban lifted. Also,
Speaker 1: beekeeper says, I'm jealous of you all's trip to the
Speaker 1: Hoover Dam and I've wanted to go, but I've always
Speaker 1: been busy when I'm in Vegas.
Speaker 3: Because he's a beekeeper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's putting a jar of Bee's on the blackjack table.
Speaker 3: He's like, better put it right in that circle man
Speaker 3: or that dealer. Look at you funny.
Speaker 1: Out there, So ask for more details. Beekeeper says, basically,
Speaker 1: they kicked me out of my room and I kept
Speaker 1: breaking back in until they escorted me off the property
Speaker 1: and banned me. They being Caesar's Palace. And then Beekeeper says,
Speaker 1: I used pre paid cards and cash for deaf cod
Speaker 1: and they couldn't charge the card. They wouldn't take cash
Speaker 1: or payment over the phone for instidentals. Again, they being
Speaker 1: Caesar's Palace. Beekeeper says this was a defcon after the
Speaker 1: mass shooting there in Vegas and was one of the
Speaker 1: worst def cons because people would come into everyone's room
Speaker 1: twice a day with or without permission. It was a
Speaker 1: whole thing. It really pissed off a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I'm not going there, says Beekeeper. With bank cards or
Speaker 1: phones that can be stolen or cloned. You get there
Speaker 1: a few days early, you walk around, you'll find once
Speaker 1: the conference starts. There are mystery ATMs that appear and
Speaker 1: disappear after the conference, as well as all kinds of
Speaker 1: beat me here doc as well as all kinds of
Speaker 1: other free that happens. There is a reason Defcon's open
Speaker 1: Wi Fi network is called the most dangerous Wi Fi
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I would never in a million years connect
Speaker 2: to a def Con open w Are you crazy?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Why why would you connect to any open Internet.
Speaker 3: I'll just your social Security number on the internet. Just
Speaker 3: get it, you know, just save some efforts on that.
Speaker 1: Type list of my fears. Here's some rare genetic diseases,
Speaker 1: you know what I.
Speaker 2: Mean, stress positions that don't work well with my body.
Speaker 1: Right, my opinions on boards and water. Jeez. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this was interesting. This is more of a clarion call
Speaker 1: to anybody who has worked in the hygiene industry, anybody
Speaker 1: who is interested in sharing their experiences with our fellow
Speaker 1: conspiracy realists regarding def COT on the fence about attendin
Speaker 1: sounds like Matt's heart. No, Noel, I think maybe we
Speaker 1: can sweeten the deal.
Speaker 3: I've intrigued.
Speaker 2: I'll do it if I can leave my cell phone
Speaker 2: like in Atlanta, put.
Speaker 3: In one of those black box things that Dave Chappelle uses.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't Faraday bag, don't trust it.
Speaker 2: Nope. Wow, I have to get a burner phone that
Speaker 2: only the three of us have access to. Right, don't you.
Speaker 3: Already have one of those?
Speaker 5: Bro?
Speaker 3: Didn't you call me from one and creep me out
Speaker 3: that one? That one's done, it's already burnt.
Speaker 2: That was a partnership phone, mint Mobile, get mint Mobile?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Sorry, but I know seriously like that. It really does
Speaker 2: terrify me and I and I identify with this person
Speaker 2: who wrote to you, Ben, because it's just like I
Speaker 2: don't trust any of my electronics near anybody with sufficient nohow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got enough imaginary friends, you know what I mean? Like, uh, no.
Speaker 3: New imaginary friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're very drake about it. But but the uh uh,
Speaker 1: of course, the next logical question will be is our
Speaker 1: pal Jonathan Strickland, aka the quister of tech stuff fame,
Speaker 1: is he going to attend Defcoon with us? He described
Speaker 1: himself at it in an email as cautiously curious and
Speaker 1: definitely would need to take a burner phone. So I
Speaker 1: pitched to you guys the idea that we all go
Speaker 1: doc you're in this too, and stay at that stay
Speaker 1: somewhere by the Hoover Dam somewhere in Boulder City. Okay,
Speaker 1: get out of the heat.
Speaker 2: That's interesting saloon perhaps no Dillingers Dillingers. Yeah, but even
Speaker 2: if we were like sufficiently far enough away on the
Speaker 2: other side of the strip, I might be okay with
Speaker 2: that where only a burner phone is on my person
Speaker 2: ever at a time, and cash cash money.
Speaker 3: Well, guys, the only thing that's going to get me
Speaker 3: back out to Vegas anytime soon is the six Sad
Speaker 3: World Festival featuring System of a Down and Lamb of
Speaker 3: God and other Alison chains, which I guess they got
Speaker 3: a new singer now, but yeah, I'd go to that.
Speaker 3: That'd be fun, But that con sounds seconds here fun.
Speaker 1: It's pretty deaf. It's not most deaf, but it's definitely deaf.
Speaker 1: So we should we should go. We should go check
Speaker 1: it out. We are also going to go now. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much to everybody wrote in. Thank you to Leslie,
Speaker 1: thank you to Green Garnet, thank you to Rich, thank
Speaker 1: you to the Beekeeper. We can't wait to hear your opinions.
Speaker 1: Keep the stories coming. You are the reason this show exists.
Speaker 1: And if you want to join up, if we could
Speaker 1: proselytize a little bit, we promise we're not going to
Speaker 1: start a cult. We just want to be easy to
Speaker 1: find online, and I hope that comment doesn't haunt us.
Speaker 3: At deaf coin, we are, in fact easy to find online.
Speaker 3: You can find this at the handle conspiracy stuff on
Speaker 3: x nay, Twitter, on Facebook, and on YouTube. On TikTok
Speaker 3: and Instagram, we go by the handle conspiracy Stuff show.
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