Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to Text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm joined once again by Ben Bolan,
Speaker 1: host extraordinaire improv genius. Yeah, you're laying it on man. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm just the short round here, Indiana Jones here, so
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on the show. I cheat little,
Speaker 1: you cheat big. Uh. Yeah, we're going to uh, we're
Speaker 1: going to continue our discussion about Area fifty one. If
Speaker 1: you have not heard the first part of this series,
Speaker 1: I urge you to go and listen to the previous
Speaker 1: episode where we set up what Area fifty one is.
Speaker 1: How we got start. We talk all about the A
Speaker 1: twelve spy plane that was developed and tested, were largely
Speaker 1: tested there, and now we're going to look at what
Speaker 1: happened post A twelve at the room like facility a
Speaker 1: k a. Area fifty one. To keep in mind that
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff like eight the A twelve
Speaker 1: tests are going on at the same time as all
Speaker 1: of this. You know, the way history works is we
Speaker 1: like to think of it as there's a beginning, middle,
Speaker 1: and end of each thing, and then the next thing
Speaker 1: has a beginning middle, and end when really everything is
Speaker 1: overlapping everything else. Yeah, it's that's that's exactly right, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that. I was thinking about that
Speaker 1: earlier this week. If you've ever looked up historical characters
Speaker 1: who who lived in the same time period, it's it's fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it can get really confusing really fast. Right, It's hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard to communicate how complex history is because we
Speaker 1: work really well understanding narratives. Right, but when you when
Speaker 1: you weave in so many narratives, that becomes like the
Speaker 1: ultimate Quentin Tarantino film, you can get lost. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you are an explainer extraordinary, how about that? So, so,
Speaker 1: I I think that you can easily guy us through
Speaker 1: some stuff that might be might be a little confusing
Speaker 1: if you get it all at once, but take us
Speaker 1: through point by point, because I'll be honest with you, man,
Speaker 1: we're getting to my favorite part of the story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's here's where things get a little weird. Um. So,
Speaker 1: we had talked about the A twelve that had started.
Speaker 1: The first A twelve arrived at Area fifty one in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two and wouldn't really be tested until the
Speaker 1: following year. That's when pilots trained by the c I
Speaker 1: A or pilots who had joined the CIA began to
Speaker 1: test these these aircraft at that same time. All the
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen sixty two, you had a project
Speaker 1: that ended up being called the D twenty one. That
Speaker 1: twenty one, by the way, where that number come from. Well,
Speaker 1: they had the A twelve and they figured having like
Speaker 1: an A twelve and a D twelve would be really confusing,
Speaker 1: so they just they just transpose those numbers to the
Speaker 1: A twelve and the D twenty one. This is when
Speaker 1: you realize how capricious the naming systems are. It's so
Speaker 1: you eventually like, ah, you know, I always thought those
Speaker 1: letters of numbers really had special designation. Not all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh here's an idea, Jonathan. We if we end up
Speaker 1: ever doing top secret government work, I hope that you
Speaker 1: and I could both threw our names in the hat
Speaker 1: to be the people who make up the code names.
Speaker 1: That'd be fantastic. And yeah, and and ultimately people will
Speaker 1: fear us because they know that if they if they
Speaker 1: do not please us, we will give them the worst
Speaker 1: code names. Yeah. Yeah, Also, uh, going back to it,
Speaker 1: Sorry for that, Uh, it's called the D twenty one
Speaker 1: instead of the A twelve. Then we know they transpose
Speaker 1: numbers to avoid uh, to avoid too much similarity. But
Speaker 1: what's this D twenty one about? So this is this
Speaker 1: is where things are are pretty amazing. And the D
Speaker 1: twenty one was an unmanned vehicle. It was meant to
Speaker 1: be a spy plane that would not require a human
Speaker 1: pilot behind the controls. I mean, there would be a
Speaker 1: pilot controlling it, but they be control pulling it remotely
Speaker 1: on the ground. So we are talking about this not
Speaker 1: an autonomous vehicle. I don't want to go so far
Speaker 1: as to say it's like some sort of robotic super
Speaker 1: thing that happened bo, but we're talking about a remote
Speaker 1: controlled aerial vehicle that was essentially a jet. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it was not like it was that much smaller
Speaker 1: than some of the other aircraft we're talking about. It
Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't like the size of a drone. You
Speaker 1: might go and get one of those little quad copters.
Speaker 1: It was significantly larger than that. It was amazing to
Speaker 1: me that it was this early. Now the reasons behind
Speaker 1: developing it make a lot of sense, because if you
Speaker 1: have a manned vehicle, then clearly you have a human
Speaker 1: life at risk whenever that vehicle is in operation. Even
Speaker 1: if first we have to consider the fact that flying
Speaker 1: is can be dangerous. Flying a spy plane in particular,
Speaker 1: can be dangerous because the design may mean that it's
Speaker 1: difficult for you to have it take off or land safely,
Speaker 1: even if there's no enemy uh interference whatsoever during the mission, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you have to conduct evasive maneuvers, then there's
Speaker 1: not really a nice way to say it. You're in
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble. Yeah, I mean, the we already
Speaker 1: mentioned in the previous episode that the YouTube plane is
Speaker 1: notoriously difficult to fly. So just with that alone, if
Speaker 1: you were able to have an unmanned version where you
Speaker 1: could get that same sort of reconnaissance ability but you
Speaker 1: don't put a pilot's life in danger, that's good. But
Speaker 1: on top of that, there's another reason that's that goes
Speaker 1: back to safety, but it's more about the safety of
Speaker 1: the country and not the pilot. Yeah, which means that
Speaker 1: if you have one of these aircraft and it's unmanned
Speaker 1: and it's shot down, there's no pilot for the folks
Speaker 1: who shot down the aircraft. There's no pilot for them
Speaker 1: to capture and interrogate, so they're not going to get
Speaker 1: any other information apart from the actual workings of whatever
Speaker 1: the device was. So they might see that, you know,
Speaker 1: what kind of engine you're using or whatever, what sort
Speaker 1: of technology you made it work, but they're not going
Speaker 1: to have a person that they can say, all right,
Speaker 1: how many other operatives are in the area, where did
Speaker 1: you fly from? Yeah? So that also, I mean it's
Speaker 1: not completely um, it's not just something that's in concern
Speaker 1: for the pilot's well being. Uh, it's also a national
Speaker 1: security issue, which you know, it's not pleasant to talk about,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly something they had to keep in mind.
Speaker 1: And at this point sixty two, they're developing this early
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. Uh, the U s s R already knows
Speaker 1: about the you Tube and they're on the lookout for
Speaker 1: these vehicles I almost say creatures, but for these planes absolutely.
Speaker 1: And so this one in particular was was an an
Speaker 1: ambitious project. It wasn't just an unmanned drone, which already
Speaker 1: like I always think of the quad copters. It's just
Speaker 1: because the quad copters is such a popular consumer drone
Speaker 1: right now. And it's also kind of the design that
Speaker 1: we're seeing for stuff like the proposed most Amazon delivery drones.
Speaker 1: This was this was a ramjet engine drone. We're talking
Speaker 1: about a super sonic vehicle. It's not meant to travel
Speaker 1: and speeds lower than that. In fact, you couldn't have
Speaker 1: this takeoff from a regular landing strip, you know, or
Speaker 1: or a runway. You had this mounted to a separate vehicle,
Speaker 1: like an A twelve. The A twelve would travel and
Speaker 1: start to reach supersonic speeds, and from that point you
Speaker 1: would then launch the D twenty one, which would already
Speaker 1: be traveling at a superspeed, a sonic supersonic speed, and
Speaker 1: it would just go from there. So this meant that
Speaker 1: they had a pretty risky launch sequence. I mean it
Speaker 1: meant you already had an aircraft that was manned that
Speaker 1: had to be traveling at this incredible speed before you
Speaker 1: even launched the unmanned vehicle during the test that the
Speaker 1: drones would actually land slash crash, usually on a nearby mountain,
Speaker 1: uh near Groom Lake during the actual tests, and so
Speaker 1: to retrieve it, they would send out another aircraft, usually
Speaker 1: I guess a helicopter because it had to have some
Speaker 1: hovering capabilities, and they had para jumpers, but the jumpers
Speaker 1: wouldn't parachute. What they would do is they would lower
Speaker 1: down on lines from the aircraft hook the drone, you know,
Speaker 1: it had some you know, they would attach the line
Speaker 1: to the drone in some way, and then they would
Speaker 1: essentially tow the drones back to the facility, so that
Speaker 1: you just didn't have these unmanned vehicles crashed on the
Speaker 1: side of mountains, which I'm sure would fuel even more
Speaker 1: speculation if they had been found by civilians, yeah, or
Speaker 1: god forbid, a rival government. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So so
Speaker 1: they were a cool idea, but like I said, it
Speaker 1: was really dangerous and kind of impractical. There's a high
Speaker 1: rate of attrition for these vehicles, just because I mean,
Speaker 1: think about it. We just named four big ifs in
Speaker 1: the takeoff, if the twelve survived, if the pilot's cool,
Speaker 1: if it reaches the you know, if it reaches the
Speaker 1: speed sufficient to deploy, and if it deploys successfully. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, there was an accident in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: It was a catastrophic failure the drone, which I believe
Speaker 1: was top mounted onto an A twelve, UH ended up
Speaker 1: tilting downwards instead of upwards when it took off and
Speaker 1: cut the plane in half. Now, the two pilots inside
Speaker 1: that plane. At this point, the the twelve was over
Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean. It had flown out over the coast
Speaker 1: of California. The two pilots aboard the A twelve were
Speaker 1: able to eject successfully. However, one of the two tragically
Speaker 1: got caught up in his parachute line and drowned in
Speaker 1: the ocean. The other one had been rescued successfully. And
Speaker 1: the story is that Kelly Johnson, we talked about him
Speaker 1: in the first episode about A one, is the guy
Speaker 1: from Lockheed who very much was the the head of
Speaker 1: development at Area fifty one, This guy who designed the
Speaker 1: YouTube plane. Well, Kelly Johnson was so horrified at this accident.
Speaker 1: I mean he really personally took it very, very hard.
Speaker 1: That he reportedly shut down the project and then returned
Speaker 1: the project funding to the Air Force and the CIA,
Speaker 1: which is sort of unheard of in the world of contracting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that I had heard that. The phrase I read was
Speaker 1: emotionally and impulsively returned the funding. So, I mean it
Speaker 1: was clear that he truly cared about the people who
Speaker 1: were working for him. So um. And that's something I
Speaker 1: think that's also important to remember is that we often
Speaker 1: in these stories we d personalized dehumanize the folks who
Speaker 1: are involved in it. Because so much secrecy is there,
Speaker 1: we don't really know that much about the people involved.
Speaker 1: But these are people, right, and they're probably friends, They
Speaker 1: hang out, they probably eat together, things like you would
Speaker 1: do with your friends. Yeah. So it's it's good to
Speaker 1: have this this touchstone to just remind ourselves that while
Speaker 1: we're talking about this, and while it lends itself to
Speaker 1: the whole discussion of shadowy government projects, ultimately we're not
Speaker 1: talking about these giant organizations that are somehow sentient on
Speaker 1: their own and acting without direction, their actual people behind,
Speaker 1: not some faceless octopus. But no, that's that's the S
Speaker 1: four facility, not area right, faceless octopus lake look it up.
Speaker 1: I know the uh they got a little lovecraft craft.
Speaker 1: That's fair. So in nineteen sixty seven, a big thing happens, right,
Speaker 1: because the mission that we have always been trying to
Speaker 1: avoid in the United States at this time is to
Speaker 1: never have an aircraft captured. Right. But conversely, we want
Speaker 1: to capture aircraft, and in fact we were able to
Speaker 1: do that. The very first MiG twenty one plane arrived
Speaker 1: at Groom Lake, So that's a Soviet aircraft. This is
Speaker 1: then the the era of the U S s R UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I I grew up in the eighties, so
Speaker 1: I grew up when the USSR was still a thing.
Speaker 1: And even at that point, even maybe especially in the eighties,
Speaker 1: something like the thought of a MiG twenty one being
Speaker 1: in US hands was a big, big deal because it
Speaker 1: meant that we could see what are our opponent in
Speaker 1: the Cold War was capable of. You could see what
Speaker 1: the military capabilities of this aircraft were, and it meant
Speaker 1: that the Area fifty one became a testing ground not
Speaker 1: just for developing technology here in the United States, but
Speaker 1: also for foreign technology, so that we could really understand
Speaker 1: what the capabilities were and therefore design our stuff to
Speaker 1: meet and exceed those capabilities. So it becomes kind of
Speaker 1: this this game of uh, they get one square ahead,
Speaker 1: then we have to jump two squares a head, and
Speaker 1: what are they able to do and what can't they do?
Speaker 1: And we're continually reverse engineering. Right. So with the arrival
Speaker 1: of Soviet aircraft at the Groom Lake facility, because this
Speaker 1: MiG would not be the only one. There would be
Speaker 1: other Soviet aircraft that would join it. Throughout the years,
Speaker 1: the pilots begin to have a new name for the
Speaker 1: restricted airspace, which in our last episode you may remember
Speaker 1: we talked about being the Groom Box or just the box.
Speaker 1: Now it's called Red Square because now it is the
Speaker 1: space the one place in the United States where you
Speaker 1: might see Soviet aircraft lying overhead. And again that starts
Speaker 1: to fuel a lot of conspiracy theories because you'd see
Speaker 1: a jet that doesn't look like anything you would have
Speaker 1: seen here in the US, and you see it fly overhead,
Speaker 1: and you wonder what the heck was that thing? And
Speaker 1: and that starts to you know, you start to fill
Speaker 1: in the blanks as much as you can, and if
Speaker 1: you're a veteran, then you say, uh, the Soviet plane.
Speaker 1: You go back to your to your your house, and
Speaker 1: you sit down your typewriter and you type up the
Speaker 1: first draft a Red Dawn, which one of us would
Speaker 1: reach that first. But of course with this they immediately
Speaker 1: begin uh retooling and working on new iterations of stealth
Speaker 1: craft right right, So they're earlier there earlier plan had
Speaker 1: been reduced radar footprint, but mainly go go so fast
Speaker 1: that people can't shoot you down. You know. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty simple plan, but it can be really effective. However,
Speaker 1: it can mean also that the aircraft itself is really dangerous.
Speaker 1: So they start looking at other ways of creating stealth technology,
Speaker 1: and engineers over at Lockheeds start to develop something called
Speaker 1: Have Blue which was a stealth aircraft, and it was
Speaker 1: a proof of concept aircraft. It wasn't meant to be
Speaker 1: a full production vehicle. Only two Have Blue aircraft were
Speaker 1: ever made, and they started as kind of ended up
Speaker 1: being a predecessor to the F one seventeen Nighthawk, which
Speaker 1: has another name that became famous in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: that would be the stealth fighter. So this is the
Speaker 1: even though it was not really a fighter by the way,
Speaker 1: just set it was meant to. It was meant it
Speaker 1: was that air took round combat vehicle, not an air
Speaker 1: to air vehicle, which is what you would typically call
Speaker 1: a fighter versus what the stealth what the Nighthawk actually was.
Speaker 1: So and this is the one that if you look
Speaker 1: at the pictures that has all those crazy funky angles
Speaker 1: on it that are meant to deflect radar so that
Speaker 1: the returning radar signals don't go back to the receiving station,
Speaker 1: which means that the receiving station doesn't get an accurate
Speaker 1: representation of where the aircraft is. Right, They get something,
Speaker 1: but it's not anything you can concretely trace, and hopefully
Speaker 1: in theory, not something you can shoot at. Right right,
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of it. So they have blue aircraft? Uh?
Speaker 1: Is that that predecessor? And so a lot of stealth
Speaker 1: technology was pioneer at Area fifty one, especially in the
Speaker 1: testing phase because again a lot of this stuff would
Speaker 1: end up being built at Lockheed's other facilities and then
Speaker 1: transported over to Area fifty one for testing. Now we're
Speaker 1: gonna skip ahead quite a bit. That was seventy seven
Speaker 1: with the have blue aircraft and e D two. You
Speaker 1: have tacit Blue? It does it? Does tacit Blue? Come on,
Speaker 1: let's go fight the kaiju um. It's a still aircraft
Speaker 1: that was developed by Northrop. So this one was not
Speaker 1: a Lockheed aircraft as a Northrop aircraft and that's also
Speaker 1: tested room like. Only one was ever built and it
Speaker 1: was retired in nineteen eighty five, So from two to
Speaker 1: eighty five this thing existed. Now we didn't know about
Speaker 1: it until nineties six, so this thing had been out
Speaker 1: of commission for more than a decade before the government said, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, yeah we had this thing. It was
Speaker 1: a forerunner of the stealth technology that we used today.
Speaker 1: It's called Tacit Blue. And guys, you know, this is
Speaker 1: an audio podcast, which is in some ways is great
Speaker 1: because it means you can listen to it whenever you're
Speaker 1: doing anything like jogging or driving and you're not missing
Speaker 1: it out on anything. But it also means that we
Speaker 1: can't do it justice by saying this thing looks weird.
Speaker 1: It go google tacit Blue and take a look at
Speaker 1: this aircraft because it does not look like other aircraft.
Speaker 1: It just it's very oddly designed and shaped. So it
Speaker 1: certainly can tell you that the experiments in stealth technology
Speaker 1: were uh, they went in all sorts of you're looking
Speaker 1: at it right now, aren't you, isn't it? Yeah? It
Speaker 1: looks like if you've seen a sci fi film made
Speaker 1: in the seventies about how crazy the two thousands, so
Speaker 1: you're gonna be this is a plane they would fly
Speaker 1: you can see that plane flying overhead during clockwork orange.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because with all the white, uh, the white
Speaker 1: furniture that's in that Yeah. So in nineteen four, Area
Speaker 1: fifty one, the Groom Lake Facility petitions Congress for an
Speaker 1: additional eighty nine thousand acres of land. Meanwhile, you've got
Speaker 1: armed guards who patrol the area, essentially patrolling that additional
Speaker 1: eighty nine thousand acres, turning people away, even though it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be till that the request would actually be approved
Speaker 1: by Congress. So technically they were kind of acting like
Speaker 1: the land was theirs before it officially had become theirs.
Speaker 1: And you might wonder, well, why were they asking for
Speaker 1: all this land? I mean, besides being able to expand
Speaker 1: outward for the testing purposes. Part of it was that
Speaker 1: Area fifty one, by the eighties was starting to become
Speaker 1: one of those things that people were getting more and
Speaker 1: more interested in. Right exactly, because at this time we
Speaker 1: see as some of the what will later become the
Speaker 1: big known conspiracy theories about Area fifty one or about
Speaker 1: Groom Lake. We see these taking root roots because there
Speaker 1: are now people who are able to say, well, I
Speaker 1: heard some rumors, I lived nearby. I drove out there,
Speaker 1: and sure enough somebody showed up. Uh, and they'll say,
Speaker 1: I don't know, was that the United Nations or was
Speaker 1: that the US government? And they and they drove me away.
Speaker 1: And so now it begins to look like a real thing,
Speaker 1: and you still don't know exactly what's going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there were a couple of of points, like natural
Speaker 1: um hills, natural ledges that were not too far from
Speaker 1: the facility that originally we're not we're not within that
Speaker 1: that border, right, so you could crawl up there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you hiked out there, which would be quite a
Speaker 1: hike anyway, but because you know, and you'd have to
Speaker 1: be pretty well equipped to do it, but you could,
Speaker 1: in theory, go and hike out at one of these
Speaker 1: little points of interest, set up a telescope or binoculars,
Speaker 1: and maybe not get a real good idea of what
Speaker 1: was going on, but at least see that there's activity
Speaker 1: going on. And especially if you're there toward dusk and
Speaker 1: you're looking out I mean, if you're looking out in
Speaker 1: the daytime, it's hard anyway, because you get a lot
Speaker 1: of distortion from the heat and sound the desert. But
Speaker 1: at nighttime, if you're out there looking at it, and
Speaker 1: and everything's lit up. You could you see that stuff
Speaker 1: is going on. You might even see aircraft taking off
Speaker 1: and landing, although you know, you might not have a
Speaker 1: real good look at what they how they're shaped. But
Speaker 1: it was one of those things that became a concern.
Speaker 1: And so while they didn't have official ownership of that land,
Speaker 1: they were discouraging people from being there. And by day,
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, some folks in camouflage. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: them in a mythology episode because because they have they
Speaker 1: have a reputation, like they're called the Camo dudes. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about that. And it's not just not just a couple,
Speaker 1: there's actually quite a few of all the yeah, it's
Speaker 1: our teaser for part three exactly. So some citizens also
Speaker 1: point out that it's not strictly legal for them to
Speaker 1: be told to leave land that doesn't belong to the facility.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like the stud land is belong to you,
Speaker 1: So therefore, what what authority do you have to tell
Speaker 1: me to leave this place? Um, which that would end
Speaker 1: up fueling the facility really petitioning to get access to
Speaker 1: this this light. And and you know, realistically, if somebody
Speaker 1: were to go to UH Quarter or to local law
Speaker 1: enforcement and say, hey, what's going on here, There is
Speaker 1: no chance that it would go anywhere. And the those
Speaker 1: suspicions is very interesting. Those suspicions and those concerns were
Speaker 1: finally verified in so all through this time the government
Speaker 1: is still saying there's nothing out there, or that they
Speaker 1: cannot comment on it, or that it's a weather station,
Speaker 1: that anything other than what it actually is. Right, and internally,
Speaker 1: at the same time, they're telling each other, we have
Speaker 1: to keep security at the maximum level, the most unreasonable level,
Speaker 1: because people cannot find out about this, and if we
Speaker 1: slip at all, someone will yeah, and then lives. National
Speaker 1: security everything's at stake. So that included telling companies that
Speaker 1: operated satellites, hey, this this area of Nevada, you can't
Speaker 1: photograph that. You cannot image that, and either they would
Speaker 1: prevent companies from imaging that whole area of Nevada, or
Speaker 1: if those images were gathered, they would demand to have
Speaker 1: them censored so that the facility itself would not show
Speaker 1: up on satellite photography, which worked fine until when a
Speaker 1: Soviet satellite flew overhead and took images of very fifty one.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing that the CIA finds a little frustrating.
Speaker 1: They do not have authority over the Soviet Union. If
Speaker 1: they did, their jobs would be so much easier during
Speaker 1: this time. But because the Soviets ended up flying a
Speaker 1: satellite overhead taking images, it meant that the cat was
Speaker 1: out of the bag. So those images would end up
Speaker 1: being published in an article for Popular Science, which was
Speaker 1: the first time that most people got a real look
Speaker 1: and granted a far overhead look of what area fifty
Speaker 1: one actually looks like. You haven't had a few people
Speaker 1: try and sneak some photos here and there from a
Speaker 1: great distance. But one thing, if you're really far out
Speaker 1: and you're taking a picture of a facility that's way
Speaker 1: the heck out there, you have no sense of scale.
Speaker 1: You have no real idea of what you know. You
Speaker 1: just see a bunch of bumps and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's clearly something there, but I don't have any feel
Speaker 1: for what it is. This gave you an idea of
Speaker 1: what the actual layout was. You could see hangars, you
Speaker 1: could see where the housing units where, you could see
Speaker 1: the the the runways, so it actually showed what the
Speaker 1: general layout was. Now granted that's not good enough for
Speaker 1: some people. We'll talk about that in the mythology. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people saying, well, what do you not see?
Speaker 1: So now though as you as you said, uh, the
Speaker 1: Pandora boxes open, the cat is out of the bag,
Speaker 1: and this is the beginning of a well, depending on
Speaker 1: what you what perspective you're looking at this from, is
Speaker 1: either a watershed moment or a disastrous moment because now
Speaker 1: we see, uh, people who are not Soviets start to
Speaker 1: go public. Yeah. Yeah, in this case, it's a story
Speaker 1: that that involves tragedy. So in nine there was an
Speaker 1: Area fifty one employee named Robert Frost who passed away,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't the only one. There were other There
Speaker 1: was another employee who passed away and several who reported
Speaker 1: having serious health issues because what they had. Their story
Speaker 1: was that what they had to do was deal with
Speaker 1: um uh, various pieces of equipment and fuel and things
Speaker 1: like that and destroy them by incinerating the incinerating them
Speaker 1: by essentially burning them in a pile, and and sifting
Speaker 1: through all of that pile, burning anything that was left
Speaker 1: over because the smallest trace could give someone an indication
Speaker 1: of what was going on. At the facility, so they
Speaker 1: couldn't keep anything. They couldn't they couldn't send anything out
Speaker 1: to be destroyed. They had to destroy it all on site. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of those materials were toxic, and even if
Speaker 1: they weren't toxic before you set them on fire, they
Speaker 1: became toxic once they were burning. So it meant that
Speaker 1: a lot of these employees were exposed to toxic elements.
Speaker 1: And they apparently according to the allegations laid by the
Speaker 1: former employees and and there's you know, the former spouses
Speaker 1: who lost their spouses as the part of this Mrs
Speaker 1: Frost in this case. Yeah, so they have at least
Speaker 1: alleged that the workers were not given access to appropriate
Speaker 1: gear that would protect them from the toxicity, that in fact,
Speaker 1: they were essentially told, we don't have anything for you.
Speaker 1: This has to be burned. Burn it. So they ended
Speaker 1: up grouping together and filing a lawsuit against the government
Speaker 1: and they said, you know, this is unconscionable that this happened,
Speaker 1: these these conditions existed, and they sought damages against the government. Well,
Speaker 1: the government's response was that because of the nature of
Speaker 1: what goes on at this facility, they could not go
Speaker 1: forward with this um this lawsuit, because it would it
Speaker 1: would mean revealing things that were state secrets that could
Speaker 1: endanger national security. And the judges have agreed with this
Speaker 1: and dismissed cases on the basis that pursuing such a
Speaker 1: case would be a danger to national security, which has
Speaker 1: led critics to point out, and I think rightfully so,
Speaker 1: that this gives the government a get out of jail
Speaker 1: free card, get out of accountability free card. If if
Speaker 1: you are able to claim that whatever you did you
Speaker 1: did in the name of national security, and that having
Speaker 1: to defend yourself, we put that security at risk, and
Speaker 1: that means you are no longer accountable. That's a terrible precedent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's dangerous. And also on the other side, there
Speaker 1: is a legitimate concern because I think this is a
Speaker 1: big misstep on Uncle Sam's part, because let's just construct
Speaker 1: this speculative situation here. How did these people end up
Speaker 1: getting exposed these toxic chemicals? They said they did not
Speaker 1: have informed consent. Essentially, does that tie into the need
Speaker 1: to know stuff? Were they concerned that if they said
Speaker 1: what these chemicals are and their toxicity, this would somehow
Speaker 1: get back to a foreign power Yeah, and we've gotten
Speaker 1: to a point now where everyone knows what is going
Speaker 1: on at a high level, right. You know, Area fifty
Speaker 1: one is a testing grounds for new technology, specifically aircraft technology,
Speaker 1: whether it's manned or unmanned. We know that that's a fact.
Speaker 1: So the question then becomes, well, couldn't we have this
Speaker 1: case framed in such a way where that where the
Speaker 1: specifics remain top secret. We don't need to get into
Speaker 1: the specifics of what the vehicles were. We we just
Speaker 1: need to address whether or not in fact, workers were
Speaker 1: exposed to toxic conditions without without sufficient resources to deal
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, that that's really all we have to
Speaker 1: to focus on, and then these sort of questions could
Speaker 1: be answered that way. But that's not how it played out.
Speaker 1: And in fact, uh, these things have become even more
Speaker 1: of a concern in the post nine eleven world where
Speaker 1: transparency is even harder to come by in certain fields
Speaker 1: of government. So, you know, you do have to balance
Speaker 1: out the transparency to the national security, but when it
Speaker 1: comes down to people's lives and saying well, you know this,
Speaker 1: this is this is an example of where we could
Speaker 1: say the government is is wronging the citizens, that it's
Speaker 1: supposed to represent. Then that that's a whole other question.
Speaker 1: Now it could end up being that the government ends
Speaker 1: up accommodating various workers and families and other ways that
Speaker 1: are very quiet that we don't know about. That could happen,
Speaker 1: but we don't know that, right, and the the implications
Speaker 1: I've seen suggest that that had not happened. But moving on, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's I certainly don't want to be
Speaker 1: the one who has to make the decisions, so I
Speaker 1: argue like this is a simple thing, but clearly it's
Speaker 1: a very complex matter. So in a f one would
Speaker 1: acquire two sites. These are two of those sites that
Speaker 1: I had talked about being kind of a problem for
Speaker 1: Area fifty one. Uh, there was Freedom Ridge and white
Speaker 1: Side's Peak. Both of those had been popular spots for people,
Speaker 1: And by popular I mean a few times a year,
Speaker 1: so folks would go out there with the binoculars. Um,
Speaker 1: these have been spots where people would go and try
Speaker 1: and get a distant look. Yeah, I think the closest
Speaker 1: you can get to Area fifty one right now. And
Speaker 1: I may even be wrong about this, It might not
Speaker 1: be that accurate at this point, but I believe it's
Speaker 1: twenty six miles away, right, so you cannot snatch a photograph.
Speaker 1: And that's what you mean, there's legally yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you were to trespass, it would be really stupid.
Speaker 1: And we're saying, we're not saying do it. In fact, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: both you and I are emphatically saying, don't ever go
Speaker 1: there unless you are specifically invited told by someone who
Speaker 1: is in charge. If you work there, go ahead and go.
Speaker 1: It's your job. So um, yeah, but at any rate,
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely one of those things where if you
Speaker 1: are not invited, you do not go there. So in
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, there was a declassified ci A document,
Speaker 1: actually a group of documents that referred to Area fifty
Speaker 1: one by that very name. Again, may have been a
Speaker 1: mistake that that part hadn't been blacked out, right, But Jonathan,
Speaker 1: this this two thousand thirteen thing, which is very recent.
Speaker 1: It happened several several years after. Another point, a legislative
Speaker 1: point that I think is very important to underline. With
Speaker 1: some people's favorite presidents, some people's least favorite president, our
Speaker 1: boys saxophonist extraordinaire William Clinton, Yeah, good old Bill. So
Speaker 1: Clinton had signed an act into law that puts Area
Speaker 1: fifty one beyond investigation and legislation to preserve national security,
Speaker 1: which means there were a lot of different organizations that
Speaker 1: were trying to get access out of out of various concerns.
Speaker 1: You had people who were concerned for the health of
Speaker 1: the workers, like the lawsuits that we had mentioned. There
Speaker 1: are also environmental concerns, so environmentalists and environmental agencies that
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that the facility was following appropriate
Speaker 1: measures to make to make sure it wasn't polluting the area,
Speaker 1: wasn't affecting water tables, wasn't affec the ecosystem, because when
Speaker 1: you hear here things like they're burning toxic materials, that
Speaker 1: raises a lot of flags. And Clinton's Act essentially said
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. You're not gonna You're not gonna get
Speaker 1: the clearance to investigate this, So whether something is going
Speaker 1: on or not, you're never gonna know. And essentially every
Speaker 1: president since then has backed that up, because again, it's
Speaker 1: one of those national security issues where you say, all right,
Speaker 1: I have to make a call. Do I call it
Speaker 1: on the side of national security, which a lot of
Speaker 1: people think is kind of a cop out answer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's again like it's a way to just avoid accountability.
Speaker 1: That's how it can often be perceived. And maybe the
Speaker 1: truth is that, no, it really is a matter of
Speaker 1: national security. It's just hard to appreciate when you don't know,
Speaker 1: right and you can't know because if you did know,
Speaker 1: it would no longer be safe. And you don't know
Speaker 1: what you don't know, the old unknown, Yeah exactly. So, uh, well,
Speaker 1: we I don't know. I'm pretty I'm pretty firm on
Speaker 1: what I don't know. It's it's a lot your authority
Speaker 1: on what you Yeah, I could write a book on
Speaker 1: what I don't know, but what you do know on
Speaker 1: what we have we've looked at here so far, is that, um,
Speaker 1: hopefully we've we've done a pretty bang up job of
Speaker 1: going through the facts. You know enough, I think to
Speaker 1: give us a hypothetical or high level look at what
Speaker 1: it would be like if Jonathan Strickland worked at Groom
Speaker 1: Lake and and and just uncle Sam, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: he doesn't I do not know, But here here's kind
Speaker 1: of what it would sound like according to the few
Speaker 1: accounts that we have that seemed credible. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who have claimed to
Speaker 1: have worked at groom Lake at one time or another,
Speaker 1: who may or may not have actually worked at groom Lake. Right,
Speaker 1: but let's say that, Let's say I'm i'm I'm working there.
Speaker 1: This is kind of what the perhaps the the orientation
Speaker 1: video would go high. So you've decided to work at
Speaker 1: groom Lake. Welcome to the team. When you turn in
Speaker 1: on Monday morning at the McCarron Airport in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: you'll go straight to a secret area. Well, you'll board
Speaker 1: a Janet aircraft. Janet is the call sign. It's just
Speaker 1: a white plane with a red stripe. Then it's just
Speaker 1: a quick johnt to the airport over at Area fifty one.
Speaker 1: You'll get off the aircraft and go straight to work.
Speaker 1: Don't look around because all that other stuff is secret.
Speaker 1: You will work exactly on the projects you've been assigned
Speaker 1: and on nothing else. In your spare time, maybe you'd
Speaker 1: like to play some baseball, perhaps tennis, go for a swim,
Speaker 1: or visit a wonderful cafeteria. All the amenities you can
Speaker 1: imagine are available at Area fifty one. So that would
Speaker 1: be kind of the beginning. I wasn't in the mike
Speaker 1: but um, but yeah, everything you're saying is is spot on.
Speaker 1: These seven thirty seven's are always called Janets. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's that's the call sign, so people refer to it
Speaker 1: as Janet Airlines. But these are that's not an official
Speaker 1: company name, it's that they contracted seven thirty seven's. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to be a flight attendant on one
Speaker 1: of these, you have to go through the same sort
Speaker 1: of background check you would if you were to work
Speaker 1: at Area one. In fact, you would have to make
Speaker 1: sure that you got that top secret classification clearance because
Speaker 1: you were going to come into contact with folks who
Speaker 1: are working on top secret projects. So you have to
Speaker 1: be you have to prove that your trustworthy. There are,
Speaker 1: like I said, some amenities. They have a gym, they've
Speaker 1: got a movie theater. The pool they use is mostly
Speaker 1: used for training purposes for pilots to train for what
Speaker 1: would happen if they eject over water. Yeah, things like
Speaker 1: new flight suits that are designed for high altitude flying.
Speaker 1: You know, they had to make new flight suits because people,
Speaker 1: pilots were suddenly flying at altitudes that no human had
Speaker 1: ever gone to before, or at least not I had
Speaker 1: gone to for a sustained amount of time. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they had to they had to say, well, what happens
Speaker 1: if they have to eject over water? Can they get out?
Speaker 1: Is those suit going to weigh them down? And the
Speaker 1: way they tested is they'd essentially have pilots fall from
Speaker 1: a great height into a pool while wearing one of
Speaker 1: those suits, and they've tested out that way, so um so,
Speaker 1: probably not going for a pleasure swim, although from what
Speaker 1: I understand, some of the some of the people who
Speaker 1: are running who are running the programs, actually did have
Speaker 1: their pilots go for a swim first before going on
Speaker 1: a a mission, just to help kind of kind of
Speaker 1: focus themselves. So it all depends. The food, like I said,
Speaker 1: was supposedly really good apparently, and I have no idea
Speaker 1: if this is true, but if aparently, if the test
Speaker 1: flight involved going to some remote location like Maine, the
Speaker 1: pilots would sometimes bring back lobsters and so you would
Speaker 1: end up being able to have fresh lobster them and
Speaker 1: caught that morning in a desert in Nevada. But now,
Speaker 1: of course, for people who are listening to the series,
Speaker 1: you notice that we've mentioned the early planes were very,
Speaker 1: very difficult and in some cases impossible to land to
Speaker 1: stop over. So it just makes you think about how
Speaker 1: far this technology has gone, because it makes me think
Speaker 1: where did they land these planes? Where? If you're working
Speaker 1: on a top secret aircraft, where do you land in
Speaker 1: Maine where you could go pick up some lobster and
Speaker 1: come back. I mean, I heard the story, but I
Speaker 1: just don't know how that worked. And how do you
Speaker 1: give a lobster security clearance? Right? I mean those guys
Speaker 1: loose mandible sink ships. But uh and and also I
Speaker 1: mentioned that Area fifty one has a black budget project.
Speaker 1: So there have been several people who have reported that
Speaker 1: the way they were paid was in cash, that they
Speaker 1: were not given a check, because a check would mean
Speaker 1: that it's traceable to a specific organization, whatever that might be,
Speaker 1: whether it's Lockheed or it's c I A or whatever,
Speaker 1: which that that happens in. Yeah, yeah, no, you have
Speaker 1: you have people who collect intelligence who just pour over paperwork.
Speaker 1: Not all spying involves dressing in a tuxedo and betting
Speaker 1: on black I mean some spying is pouring over countless
Speaker 1: documents trying to look for hints at what's really going
Speaker 1: on underneath most in fact, yeah, yeah, great, deal. Of course,
Speaker 1: a lot of it now has been relegated to algorithms,
Speaker 1: which means that the poor clerks don't have to do
Speaker 1: it anymore, but at any rate. So you might get
Speaker 1: paid in cash, and you might be told that whenever
Speaker 1: you sign for anything, you have to use an assumed
Speaker 1: name Josh Clark. When I sign everything, Josh doesn't realize
Speaker 1: that's big Co signed alone from my house. So, um,
Speaker 1: that's totally not true. Uh so, yeah, the it's they
Speaker 1: take their secrecy seriously all the way from the very
Speaker 1: high level we're talking like all that that restricted airspace
Speaker 1: that goes all the way up to space to how
Speaker 1: they pay the employees. Now, that doesn't say that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that everything we've said today is accurate for how
Speaker 1: things work at Area fifty one today. Most of the
Speaker 1: information we have dates from folks who are discussing things
Speaker 1: that happen back in the sixties or seventies. Because they
Speaker 1: take the secrecy so seriously, and because people are signing
Speaker 1: over oaths that say they will not, under any circumstances
Speaker 1: share the information, it means that we don't have up
Speaker 1: to date information. Now. I imagine that most of what's
Speaker 1: going on at Area fifty one these days probably involves
Speaker 1: a lot more on man drones. I think that's probably
Speaker 1: one of the big things that are under development there,
Speaker 1: and it really since it is an aircraft for I
Speaker 1: imagine that that's mostly what we're seeing. You know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who suggest that other types
Speaker 1: of UH technology are under development Area fifty one, but
Speaker 1: that's really not what it's set up to do, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you set up a facility like that there, it
Speaker 1: goes back to us talking about the specialization of these
Speaker 1: various aircraft. The base is the same. A base has
Speaker 1: to specialize. It can't be all things to all projects. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, another an unmanned UH space project that's going
Speaker 1: on now, the X thirty five B. I think it
Speaker 1: is UH, and I'm gonna double check while I was
Speaker 1: talking here. UH. That is something that goes into space.
Speaker 1: It requires a platform capable of launching it into near
Speaker 1: Earth orbit, So it is how would you do that?
Speaker 1: You wouldn't be able to do that at a facility
Speaker 1: like Area fifty one that doesn't have it, and if
Speaker 1: it did have it, you would you know, you would
Speaker 1: have to be further out than twenty five miles to
Speaker 1: not notice. Right. So a lot of the I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the drones that you'll that would be
Speaker 1: under development at Area fifty one would either be lower
Speaker 1: altitude drones or they would be like the old D
Speaker 1: twenty one where it was launched from a larger vehicle, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about U A v. S at this point,
Speaker 1: the Predator or something. Yeah, but the which is a
Speaker 1: name for you a v folks, not the not the movie,
Speaker 1: right they that's actually uh, Area fifty one is where
Speaker 1: they conceived and shot the Predator. It's also the fantastic
Speaker 1: location for the film Independence Day. Uh. Sorry, that's okay.
Speaker 1: So we are not done with Area fifty one yet.
Speaker 1: We have covered the history as much of the real
Speaker 1: history as is known that we can talk about. Um.
Speaker 1: There of course a lot more details on all of
Speaker 1: these stories, and there's some fantastic books that have been
Speaker 1: written about the subject where people have meticulously researched all
Speaker 1: the available information and piece together as much as they
Speaker 1: could to get us as close to a full story
Speaker 1: as you can get without being on the inside. But
Speaker 1: we aren't done there because in our next episode, Ben
Speaker 1: and I are going to uh, we're going to explore
Speaker 1: the mythology a very fifty one and the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, in in pop culture, we think of it
Speaker 1: as not just a place where spy technology was tested
Speaker 1: or and is still tested, but a place where other
Speaker 1: worldly technology may resign. Right, yes, And that goes along
Speaker 1: with some of the some of the very very strange
Speaker 1: things that you have probably heard in your own day
Speaker 1: to day life about Area fifty one. When we say
Speaker 1: other worldly, we don't just mean this dimension. Yeah, it could.
Speaker 1: It could be pretty weird. And they range from things
Speaker 1: that you you could say, I can see why people
Speaker 1: believe that too. How is how was this ever an
Speaker 1: idea that someone had? Uh, there's a pretty pretty dynamic
Speaker 1: change there. So I look forward to having that discussion
Speaker 1: with you. Ben. We're going to end our recording for
Speaker 1: today and and conclude, but um, just just out of
Speaker 1: curiosity before we close the door on the the as
Speaker 1: much of the real story of Avery fifty one as
Speaker 1: we can know, What do you think? What do you
Speaker 1: think about? What are your thoughts when you hear Area
Speaker 1: fifty one? Okay, yeah, thank you. The the just of
Speaker 1: Area fifty one. We've we've explored us some of the
Speaker 1: effects that secrecy have on people's the way they frame
Speaker 1: questions and the way they address an area. UM, I
Speaker 1: think it's clear that there is a grain of truth
Speaker 1: to some of the beliefs, unfounded as they may be
Speaker 1: about Area fifty one, we do know that there is
Speaker 1: secret technology being tested there, absolutely right. We know that
Speaker 1: it is. UM. It's it's not unreasonable to assume that
Speaker 1: it is several years ahead of what we would consider
Speaker 1: current publicly known pioneering research. And I would add to
Speaker 1: that that UM, when we when we say that there
Speaker 1: is a grain of truth to these things, what we're
Speaker 1: talking about more is similar to a piece of sand
Speaker 1: getting inside of seashell building a pearl. There's so much
Speaker 1: embellishment that occurs that at some point people will consciously
Speaker 1: dismiss the actual explanation. Where there's so much excitement about
Speaker 1: the embellishment and people fall in love with these stories
Speaker 1: that it can be difficult at times for them to
Speaker 1: admit when we say, oh, we have found the grain
Speaker 1: of sand called Project Mogul or something like that. And
Speaker 1: so as a result, we we run into what really
Speaker 1: is a new mythology that perpetuates itself. And honestly, the
Speaker 1: government is not helping with that at all, but them,
Speaker 1: to be fair, I think the government has a vested
Speaker 1: in in letting that go as long as it needs
Speaker 1: to go, because if that means that the attention is
Speaker 1: put on something that is not real while they can
Speaker 1: work on very real but very secret projects, it benefits right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's there's not a whole lot of incentive to say
Speaker 1: you are completely wrong. And here's why when they could
Speaker 1: say we, you know, we have no comment on that,
Speaker 1: which gives them the benefit of saying we didn't. We
Speaker 1: didn't confirm it, we didn't really deny it strongly either.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we can continue our work on
Speaker 1: the very secret stuff that we actually need to develop. Um.
Speaker 1: I personally think that such a such a facility like
Speaker 1: Area fifty one, in a world where spying is uh
Speaker 1: necessary evil, that it's absolutely the perfect the perfect facility
Speaker 1: for that because it has stood the test of time.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the idea of something that was
Speaker 1: built in the fifties still maintaining this level of mystique,
Speaker 1: you know, five more than five decades later, is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: So it's it's pretty it's a fascinating subject to me.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of these engineers working to meet
Speaker 1: seemingly unachievable goals. I mean, the idea of the idea
Speaker 1: of creating an aircraft that could defy radar was was
Speaker 1: a real eye opener. And you know, you've got to
Speaker 1: keep in mind that the United States had that technology
Speaker 1: years before we ever had any public unveiling of it.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty exciting stuff, and I love the idea
Speaker 1: of it. I do think that the operation of it
Speaker 1: lends itself to some potential misuses of power. I really
Speaker 1: do think that this, this use of national security to
Speaker 1: kind of um distance yourself from any culpability is a
Speaker 1: little distasteful. Well yeah, I mean, national security is the
Speaker 1: way I like to think of it. Often in the
Speaker 1: post nine eleven world, national security has been the come
Speaker 1: the equivalent of hitting base in the Great Game of
Speaker 1: Tag than this national discourse. So one one other thing
Speaker 1: that I wanted to ask you, and again, as always,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me on the show. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, do you think that people should be
Speaker 1: people who let me phrase this correctly, people. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, what do you think about the scrutiny
Speaker 1: regarding area of fifty one or Groom Lake, because it's
Speaker 1: pretty well known right now. So I think that the
Speaker 1: question is what else is out there? And my question
Speaker 1: is do you think that there are other lesser known
Speaker 1: places where um, not the bulk of the work, but
Speaker 1: other work has taken place. Oh yeah, I mean Area
Speaker 1: one is really a testing ground, So if you're talking
Speaker 1: about actual research and development to the point of before
Speaker 1: you even built something, where you're just figuring out prototypes.
Speaker 1: There are facilities all over the United States that are
Speaker 1: involved in that in some way or another, Like Lockheed
Speaker 1: has has areas that they have famously disguised from the
Speaker 1: air so that you couldn't see what was going on
Speaker 1: or where where even a building was. But they're not
Speaker 1: the only one by a long shot. I mean there's
Speaker 1: their companies and organizations um, as well as as actual
Speaker 1: military facilities that are just as secretive as Area fifty
Speaker 1: one is, but perhaps don't have the same level of mystique, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're talking about aircraft and you're seeing
Speaker 1: weird things fly overhead, that definitely brings some questions to mind.
Speaker 1: If it's a facility that you can't really see and
Speaker 1: all the stuff they do is ground related, it's not
Speaker 1: going to gain that same level of attention. So they're
Speaker 1: definitely facilities like it that are looking at different types
Speaker 1: of technology, whether it's weapons based or vehicle based or
Speaker 1: personal armor, anything along those lines. But because of the
Speaker 1: very nature of what is done at Area fifty one,
Speaker 1: and then the fact that you get a light show
Speaker 1: at night, you know what, that is what I think
Speaker 1: sets it apart. It get it creates. We can see
Speaker 1: just enough to know that something weird is going on,
Speaker 1: but we can't see enough for us to be able
Speaker 1: to put it all together, and that is where we
Speaker 1: end up creating the mythology around it. That's how I
Speaker 1: filled up first dates, you know, just been too long
Speaker 1: for me. It's been eighteen years since I went on
Speaker 1: our first date. So, uh, guys, we're gonna wrap this
Speaker 1: discussion up. If you have any suggestions for future episodes
Speaker 1: of Tech Stuff, maybe there's another topic that you would
Speaker 1: love to hear. You know, I could invite Ben back
Speaker 1: and you might think, oh, there's this crazy you know,
Speaker 1: conspiracy technology I've always wanted to hear about, or something
Speaker 1: along those lines. I know Ben loves to do that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Our email addresses Tech Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or you can drop us a
Speaker 1: line on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumbler or handle it all
Speaker 1: three tech stuff hs W and you'll hear from me again.
Speaker 1: I'm really sick for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com