Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel. They call me Bed.
Speaker 3: We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code
Speaker 3: name Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You
Speaker 3: are here that makes this the stuff they don't want
Speaker 3: you to know. It is time, hello, conspiracy realist for
Speaker 3: you to join our show. Would love to give a big,
Speaker 3: big thank you to everyone who hears us say stuff
Speaker 3: like this and says, you know what. I Am going
Speaker 3: to reach into the void. I Am going to contact
Speaker 3: my friends over on stuff they don't want you to know,
Speaker 3: via email, via telephonic device, via any number of things,
Speaker 3: including walking Widershen's at crossroads. This is where we hear
Speaker 3: from you. We are going to learn about witches. We
Speaker 3: are going to learn about tragedies. We are going to
Speaker 3: learn about hidden locusts or hidden loci of control throughout
Speaker 3: the world, and all of these, in one way or another,
Speaker 3: affect all of us directly. Perhaps we start with a
Speaker 3: lovely piece of correspondence we received from across the pond
Speaker 3: from someone who is what was the name nol Red
Speaker 3: Scott Witch.
Speaker 4: If I'm not mistaken, let's see or was it Scott's
Speaker 4: Red Witch. Hold on a second, let's go right, you
Speaker 4: got it? Yeah, yeah, Red Scott Witch here, let's just
Speaker 4: get right into it. This definitely was in relation to
Speaker 4: By the way, guys, I'm recording from a slightly different look,
Speaker 4: and you might hear some siren songs, not the ones
Speaker 4: that lure you to your demise, but you know, ones
Speaker 4: from ambulances and the like them, kind of on an
Speaker 4: exterior window of a building. So forgive that in advance.
Speaker 4: But here we go right direct to the email, Red
Speaker 4: Scott Witch here.
Speaker 5: Huh.
Speaker 4: Never thought I'd be sending a bunch of dudes guys
Speaker 4: an email about my witchiness. I guess times are changing.
Speaker 4: I finally had the courage to listen to how witch
Speaker 4: Hunts actually worked, the How witch Hunts actually work podcasts,
Speaker 4: and wanted to send a note to say thank you
Speaker 4: for shining a light on the power women hold and
Speaker 4: the fear it invokes in others. I would consider myself
Speaker 4: a reluctant witch, not necessarily wickan pagan, but definitely have
Speaker 4: stuff within that scares the out of me. So to
Speaker 4: be completely out there, I'm able to connect with dead
Speaker 4: people's energy. Yep, I talk to dead people. I didn't
Speaker 4: ask for it, I don't necessarily want it, and it
Speaker 4: is there and getting stronger as I get older. So
Speaker 4: this redheaded Scott despises the word witch because of the
Speaker 4: history and negativity surrounding it. Seen a Disney movie lately,
Speaker 4: I do not have warts on my face, and when
Speaker 4: I enter my Crone era, I am sure I won't
Speaker 4: be as hunched over and evil as witches are portrayed
Speaker 4: to be conspiracy against women. Once again, I think I
Speaker 4: don't recall seeing a wart on Merlin's character.
Speaker 2: It's very true.
Speaker 4: Don't get me started. I'm sure you can sense a
Speaker 4: bit of rage building. Anyways. I have been a huge
Speaker 4: fan of your podcast, and I wonder if part of
Speaker 4: it is about surrounding myself with men, guys, dudes, masculinity
Speaker 4: where I don't feel like I'll be burned, drowned, or
Speaker 4: come after. I am at a time in my life
Speaker 4: where I would have been a prime target for the
Speaker 4: witch hunts, and maybe there is comfort in knowing there
Speaker 4: are humans that don't think being witchy is bad. Weird maybe,
Speaker 4: but not bad or dangerous. I also listen to Josh
Speaker 4: and Chuck, so it is refreshing to know there are
Speaker 4: guys out there that have room for witchiness. If you
Speaker 4: see them in the hallway, say hi for me. You bet.
Speaker 4: I am not sure if you realized it, but your
Speaker 4: podcasts help me feel safe. That's a big deal. My
Speaker 4: next challenge is to listen to the Divine Intervention episode
Speaker 4: not there yet, as I have lots of fear around
Speaker 4: facing my own experiences without feeling shame. I'm a work
Speaker 4: in progress. Thanks again for doing what you do best,
Speaker 4: Red Scott Witch and Ben you actually you saw this
Speaker 4: email as well as we see every email that comes
Speaker 4: to us, like we say at the end of every episode,
Speaker 4: and you wrote a lovely response back to Red Scott
Speaker 4: Witch just about how you and I'm sure we can
Speaker 4: all get behind this. It makes us feel really great
Speaker 4: to know that in any way we can help contribute
Speaker 4: to someone's feelings of safety and in security, or at
Speaker 4: the very least be you know, an ally in any way,
Speaker 4: shape or form.
Speaker 3: Agree Yeah, and you know, I think we are unanimous
Speaker 3: in that sentiment. And there's something interesting that happens here
Speaker 3: read Scott, which, as we may have mentioned, you're not alone.
Speaker 3: You're one of several folks who have written into us
Speaker 3: and said, Hey, I was skeptical or I was hesitant
Speaker 3: or trepidacious perhaps about tuning into a certain episode, right,
Speaker 3: How which hunts actually worked, how divine intervention actually works,
Speaker 3: things like that, And we do our level best as
Speaker 3: a group to make sure that we're not falling prey
Speaker 3: to the romanticization that so often occurs with some of
Speaker 3: these things. And we endeavor, we endeavor in all things
Speaker 3: to be objective, to be reasoned, and I think we
Speaker 3: do an all right job overall. Right, Like we're not
Speaker 3: dunking on things we don't understand, We're trying to understand them.
Speaker 3: Is that fair?
Speaker 4: Oh? One hundred percent. I think I've mentioned before on
Speaker 4: the podcast there are people that are very close to
Speaker 4: me in my life who consider themselves to be witchy
Speaker 4: or witch adjacent for various reasons. And you know, have
Speaker 4: very strong connections with the dead and with energy fields
Speaker 4: and you know the like, and I you know, try
Speaker 4: very hard to never be judge or to think about like,
Speaker 4: oh is this true? Is this real? Because it's not
Speaker 4: for me to say honestly, you know, I really have
Speaker 4: gotten to a place in my old age, I guess
Speaker 4: advancing age, that I just don't have room for that anymore.
Speaker 4: And I really really try, outside of maybe the occasional
Speaker 4: judgment towards people who are just plain hateful or use
Speaker 4: beliefs in ways that divide people, I try never to
Speaker 4: ever have any judgment when it comes to people's beliefs
Speaker 4: as long as it's something that is just personal to
Speaker 4: them and they aren't using it in any kind of
Speaker 4: negative or mean spirited way. So and we talk about
Speaker 4: it a lot too. In the Divine Intervention episode, I
Speaker 4: think Red Scott, which pointing out their connection with the dead.
Speaker 4: This to me feels very adjacent to the Divine Intervention, Slash,
Speaker 4: Hearing Voices, slash, the witch hunt stuff, all of those.
Speaker 4: I think we're kind of a triple threat, and they
Speaker 4: have elements that really support and kind of enhance each
Speaker 4: other in terms of how a lot of these things
Speaker 4: sort of played with historical figures and folks that were
Speaker 4: seen as being a threat. And I do think a
Speaker 4: big part of what we were talking about was about
Speaker 4: how this was just used as a tool to oppress women.
Speaker 4: And recently I did a video update, you know, on
Speaker 4: our YouTube channel or maybe on Instagram just about how
Speaker 4: modern witch hunts, which was referencing something we talked about
Speaker 4: in that very episode that this stuff is not just
Speaker 4: relegated to the past. You know, there are parts of
Speaker 4: the world that still do use these tactics as tools
Speaker 4: of oppression, you know, to keep women subjugated and to
Speaker 4: take their land and to take their prosperity.
Speaker 3: And to further add because this has been an obsession
Speaker 3: mind for some time, to further at the people who
Speaker 3: are persecuted in these things that we call witch hunts.
Speaker 3: If you do, if you do some diligent research, what
Speaker 3: you find is it is historically, yes, women and female
Speaker 3: identifying people are overwhelmingly targeted. However, there will also be,
Speaker 3: especially in trying socioeconomic times, there will also be a
Speaker 3: number of other demographic indicators that are targeted. Right now,
Speaker 3: you can see various horrifying cases of people with albinism
Speaker 3: targeted in countries across Sub Saharan Africa actually in different
Speaker 3: parts of the continent overall, and these accusations, these moral panics.
Speaker 3: They never occur because someone genuinely thought there was an insidious,
Speaker 3: infernal conspiracy. They occur because people are having a terrible
Speaker 3: time and they want someone to blame that they can
Speaker 3: also harm.
Speaker 4: Yeah or rob or deprive of their legacy, their heritage,
Speaker 4: their belongings.
Speaker 3: Shout out devil in the shape of a woman.
Speaker 2: I've got a question for Red Scott Witch and anybody
Speaker 2: else who's listening right now. And I'm asking this from
Speaker 2: a genuine position of curiosity because I've had some weird
Speaker 2: stuff mid meditation and dream sequence. What is the sensation
Speaker 2: when you are communicating with dead people's energy? What are
Speaker 2: the sites, the sounds, the all other sensory input. What
Speaker 2: is that experience like for you? I think we'd all
Speaker 2: be interested in the mechanisms, maybe like how it functions
Speaker 2: for you. Again, that doesn't mean that's how it functions
Speaker 2: for everybody. Sure, that's how you experience it.
Speaker 4: And it made me think of the hearing voices stuff,
Speaker 4: because you gotta wonder. We even on that episode talked
Speaker 4: about what would that feel like? The idea of hearing
Speaker 4: voices seems like you're describing a very objective thing like
Speaker 4: there's a voice audible in your mind. But we talked
Speaker 4: about how it's different folks that could be experienced very differently.
Speaker 4: Your internal voice isn't necessarily a sound, you know, it's
Speaker 4: like a psychic sound. Kind that's weird.
Speaker 3: And there's so many people who do not have an
Speaker 3: internal monologue, at least as they identify it, which I
Speaker 3: think baffled a lot of us listening along that evening.
Speaker 3: I love this question because your mileage may vary when
Speaker 3: you're having these experiences. It may be multipolar. There are
Speaker 3: in the historical record there are depictions of all of
Speaker 3: the senses. Right. There are people who say I can
Speaker 3: see dead people, and that's not a sixth sense reference.
Speaker 3: There are people who will say, oh, I can hear someone,
Speaker 3: or I feel something, or a memory springs to mind,
Speaker 3: or one of the One of the very interesting ones
Speaker 3: is the idea of a smell. Right, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I have smell held this smell that I always associated
Speaker 3: with my grandfather, right, or with a relative who was
Speaker 3: passed on. So, if I agree with you, Matt, it
Speaker 3: would be absolutely fascinating to hear more people's individual experiences
Speaker 3: with this phenomenon.
Speaker 4: Well, with that, I think it's time to take a
Speaker 4: quick break, hear a word from our sponsor, and then
Speaker 4: come back with more listener mail, and thank you again
Speaker 4: to Red Scott Witch.
Speaker 2: We're right back, and we're back. We're jumping to the
Speaker 2: phone lines. Everybody to hear a message from Kitty. Just
Speaker 2: minor warning here. The things Kitty is discussing then, what
Speaker 2: we'll be discussing after I have to do with a
Speaker 2: mass shooting event that occurred this year in Maine. You've
Speaker 2: likely heard about it. It was a big deal and
Speaker 2: a tragedy and a horrible thing, and we're going to
Speaker 2: examine it a little bit. So if you don't want
Speaker 2: to hear about that, or if that's going to be triggering,
Speaker 2: you go ahead and skip forward about fifteen minutes. We'll
Speaker 2: see you then, or continue listening. Here's the message from Kitty.
Speaker 5: Hi, my name is Kat, you can call me Pitty.
Speaker 5: Uh So, I lived in Lewiston, Maine, which recently, as
Speaker 5: you may know, made national headlines for there being one
Speaker 5: of the deadliest mass shootings in history, the deadliest this
Speaker 5: year and certainly the only one that mate has ever had. However,
Speaker 5: something that came out of this is you know, and
Speaker 5: looking at the suspect, he had cochlear implants recently put
Speaker 5: in and you know, according to you know, the media,
Speaker 5: which you knows, but he was like perfectly normal before
Speaker 5: these cochlear implants were given to him and then started experiencing,
Speaker 5: you know, auditory hallucinations of that were very humiliating and dehumanizing,
Speaker 5: and that for of led him down this spiral of
Speaker 5: you know, sort of psychosis. So I just thought it
Speaker 5: was something that's interesting. Maybe you guys could look into
Speaker 5: it or talk about it or maybe not, But to me,
Speaker 5: it was fascinating because there is some literature. I'm a
Speaker 5: doctorate student in social work and so I have access
Speaker 5: to some peer reviewed stuff, and it does look like
Speaker 5: there's some evidence that cochlear implants can lead to auditory
Speaker 5: hallucinations and psychosis. So I just, you know, it's just
Speaker 5: kind of fascinating. There's obviously plenty of conversation to be
Speaker 5: had about the shooting in terms of politics and what
Speaker 5: could have been done. Certainly its own beasts of the
Speaker 5: topic and one that is certainly being debated in me
Speaker 5: right now, particularly in my field. But I thought the
Speaker 5: cochlear implant that was kind of fascinating. You know, why
Speaker 5: why would that be, I guess? And in what are
Speaker 5: we doing to help protect these sulks when they get
Speaker 5: these implants? You know, how are we screening people who
Speaker 5: are getting these how are making sure that they'll be okay?
Speaker 5: And who's following up to make sure that these folks,
Speaker 5: you know, have to support any if they do experience that.
Speaker 5: So anyway, I love the show, longtime listener, and you know,
Speaker 5: thank you guys for getting me through not only a
Speaker 5: tough time in my community, but many years of tough
Speaker 5: time in my field. So I look forward to it
Speaker 5: every week. Thank you guys for all you do. Goodbye.
Speaker 2: Well. As we said at the top, here we're talking
Speaker 2: about a mass shooting that happened in Lewiston, Maine, where
Speaker 2: Kitty hails from. This is a really interesting point that
Speaker 2: somehow I completely missed when reading about this story. I
Speaker 2: think personally maybe because it was yet another mass shooting
Speaker 2: story that I felt I didn't want to explore too
Speaker 2: much unless I had to just for literally literally for
Speaker 2: my own mental health and stability.
Speaker 4: Just how frequently these happens to the point where you
Speaker 4: do have to almost self select. Yeah, because it's just overwhelming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this concept of cochlear implants in particular, or
Speaker 2: hearing aids, any kind of sound amplification, inner ear amplification,
Speaker 2: any technology like that, and then that association with potentially
Speaker 2: musical ear or hearing voices or you know, anything to
Speaker 2: where there's potentially an auditory hallucination occurring musically or syndrome, Yeah, exactly, musically,
Speaker 2: or syndrome where sounds are coming in and those tones
Speaker 2: are forming human vocalizations in your mind, right right in
Speaker 2: your the transition between what that sound vibration actually is
Speaker 2: to how your brain is taking in that information. It
Speaker 2: does appear from a lot of reporting out of Newsweek
Speaker 2: and New York Post and The Daily Beast. Even CBS
Speaker 2: News picked up on it that there was something going
Speaker 2: on with the suspect in that case, Robert Card, an
Speaker 2: Army reservist who pretty shortly before this event, had visited
Speaker 2: a psychiatric facility and he had stated to them, at
Speaker 2: least according to the reporting, that he had been hearing voices.
Speaker 2: He also had suffered some pretty severe hearing loss fairly
Speaker 2: recently before this event to where he did need to
Speaker 2: use some kind of hearing aids. I have not seen
Speaker 2: the phrase cochlear implant used in any of that reporting.
Speaker 2: I have seen high powered hearing aids, which those are
Speaker 2: two very different things, right, So I don't know is.
Speaker 4: The hypothesis that this is causing auditory hallucinations that are
Speaker 4: being interpreted as voices of some kinds.
Speaker 2: The hallucination would be changing grouping of sounds and tones,
Speaker 2: or translating a group of tones into human speech as
Speaker 2: you're hearing them, right, that would be the hallucination.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it'd be very similar to and I'm cloud
Speaker 3: we're bringing this up. First, I want to say, Kittie,
Speaker 3: thank you for fighting the good fight and pursuing your
Speaker 3: higher education in a way that betters society overall. The
Speaker 3: point you're bringing up, Matt, if we look at it
Speaker 3: through comparison, another example would be, imagine the last time
Speaker 3: you looked at clouds, right, and you saw shapes in
Speaker 3: the clouds, And you know, that's a very safe thing
Speaker 3: for people to do, because we're exercising the brain's pattern
Speaker 3: recognition tendency. In this case, there's the idea that having
Speaker 3: this technological intervention which changes the things that you can
Speaker 3: consciously hear, may in some way function in a code
Speaker 3: morbid method with perhaps other mental conditions right, such that
Speaker 3: your pattern identification goes a little bit beyond your conscious control.
Speaker 3: And now you are hearing things that you could not
Speaker 3: have heard before without this technological intervention. But your brain
Speaker 3: doesn't quite know what to do with them. And if
Speaker 3: there are a couple of preexisting sort of circumstances, then
Speaker 3: it may interpret these things to your point in a
Speaker 3: very damaging, a very damaging manner. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does well. And also you have to put
Speaker 2: yourself in a position of imagining the all all of
Speaker 2: the sounds around you are being amplified way more than
Speaker 2: they ever have been. Right now, imagine you're in a
Speaker 2: crowded place like a bowling alley or a bar. If
Speaker 2: you are that person sitting in that bar, you were
Speaker 2: probably hearing a lot more conversation, a lot more clearly
Speaker 2: than you would if you were just sitting there across
Speaker 2: from somebody talking to them. Right, And then there's that susserus,
Speaker 2: the murmur that's going on within the bar space or
Speaker 2: the you know, large open bowling alley. I do imagine
Speaker 2: it's probably a combination of that thing you're describing ben
Speaker 2: and just actually hearing conversations out of context, but a
Speaker 2: bunch of them at once, so that words become out
Speaker 2: of context and phrases, and you know, the subjects and
Speaker 2: the objects are all intermingling.
Speaker 3: And your brain is prioritizing, maybe without your conscious consent.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's similar in some ways, and not to
Speaker 3: be glib at all, it's similar in some ways to
Speaker 3: the depictions we see in fiction where someone discovers telepathy, right,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, the world is too much
Speaker 3: with us. Oh yeah, that that can happen. And if
Speaker 3: you've ever had you're listening today and you've ever had
Speaker 3: some sort of surgery like ear oh what was it like?
Speaker 4: Ear?
Speaker 3: Canal surgery? Things like that used to be quite common
Speaker 3: once upon a time. Then you realize that the world
Speaker 3: does seem to fundamentally change based on your ability to
Speaker 3: experience it. So all of a sudden, you're hearing these
Speaker 3: new sounds and your brain is the unreliable narrator of
Speaker 3: all this new information.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, or if you're applying all of it to yourself, right,
Speaker 2: So we do that as humans a lot. We will
Speaker 2: kind of apply things have nothing to do with this
Speaker 2: to ourselves. That's just another trait that many humans have.
Speaker 2: I'm one of them, putting my hand up self identifying
Speaker 2: with stuff that has none to do this. This is
Speaker 2: very interesting because all of this is occurring very shortly.
Speaker 2: This person, Robert Carter, is in these places we're describing,
Speaker 2: hearing some of these things. He is reporting to his
Speaker 2: family members, at least according to his sister in law, Katie,
Speaker 2: who is either named last name Card or O'Neill, just
Speaker 2: depending on which reporting you're believing, either Newsweek or New
Speaker 2: York Post. Assuming he's probably Card, he was reporting to
Speaker 2: his family that he was hearing voices and people in
Speaker 2: these locations were speaking ill of him, saying things directly
Speaker 2: about him, and he would tell his family that and
Speaker 2: they didn't It wasn't that they didn't believe him. Here's
Speaker 2: some quotations from Katie from the reporting this coming out
Speaker 2: of New York Post. In the lead up to the shooting,
Speaker 2: Card started using these high powered hearing aids. He truly
Speaker 2: believed he was hearing people say things, and this all
Speaker 2: happened just within the last few months. He would get
Speaker 2: mad and claim we didn't believe him. We tried to
Speaker 2: listen to him and tell him that nobody was talking
Speaker 2: about him. When she goes on to say in the newsweek,
Speaker 2: he basically he would just get very frustrated when trying
Speaker 2: to express that he's hearing these things, these very specific things.
Speaker 2: But his close family members were expressing that he's not
Speaker 2: actually hearing that, and he's okay. You know, who knows
Speaker 2: what led to what and why this terrible shooting occurred,
Speaker 2: the worst mass shooting in Main's history. But the connection
Speaker 2: between these like hearing aid devices no matter what they are,
Speaker 2: and auditory hallucination, I think is something we we need
Speaker 2: to look into even further.
Speaker 3: Agreed it should be a follow up to our previous
Speaker 3: episode on on hearing voices, because this is I mean, Kitty,
Speaker 3: One of the best questions you ask is why there
Speaker 3: is not some sort of check in or evaluation for
Speaker 3: the for the application of hearing a technology in this
Speaker 3: way right, Because I don't know. I agree with you, Matt,
Speaker 3: I think this is something that bears much further investigation. Again,
Speaker 3: it seems as if the technological intervention to improve this
Speaker 3: shooter's hearing coincided with pre existing mental conditions, and if
Speaker 3: you read through the publicly available information, about about his
Speaker 3: life leading up to this disaster, which I believe is
Speaker 3: the tenth deadliest mass shooting in US history. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: That's what I've seen in the reporting. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you read about this, then what you see
Speaker 3: is that this was not a person who was feeling
Speaker 3: completely one hundred percent on the up and up before
Speaker 3: they got this technological intervention.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So let's just really quickly jump to something from WBZ
Speaker 2: News that is a CBS affiliate out of Boston. They
Speaker 2: were reporting all on October twenty sixth that he was
Speaker 2: behaving erratically on July sixteenth while training at the United
Speaker 2: States Military Academy and quote, out of concern for his safety,
Speaker 2: the unit requested law enforcement be contacted. New York State
Speaker 2: Police responded and transported him to the Keller Army Community
Speaker 2: Hospital in the US Military Academy for medical evaluation. So
Speaker 2: that I mean he went through something in July and
Speaker 2: then the shooting occurred in October, so not a long
Speaker 2: span between some kind of mental health crisis and this
Speaker 2: mass shooting. It's tough because it becomes so politicized, just
Speaker 2: as Kitty said, and we don't want that to occur
Speaker 2: as much as possible, but looking at the science, I
Speaker 2: think can't hurt anyone or anything.
Speaker 3: It can only helped.
Speaker 2: So thanks so much Kitty for sending us that message.
Speaker 2: We will be right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 3: And we have returned this one. Is This one may
Speaker 3: seem somewhat dry and academic, but we promise you it
Speaker 3: does matter. First off, what do you guys think about lithium?
Speaker 4: Lithium the drug or the the rare earth metal. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: the rare you know. Honestly, I don't think I know
Speaker 4: too much about it, Ben, but I'm excited to learn.
Speaker 1: Me too. Man.
Speaker 4: Unrelated to the medication, right, they just happen to share
Speaker 4: the same name, or is there I've always wondered is
Speaker 4: there a crossover?
Speaker 2: Is it not a metal just a metal substance.
Speaker 4: Isn't it kind of a brittle like white metal that
Speaker 4: can that can kind of crumble almost into a powder.
Speaker 3: So lithium compounds, lithium salts, they're called, are what are
Speaker 3: used as the psychiatric medicine or medication. Lithium itself the
Speaker 3: soft metal, right, Lithium itself, the element is a soft
Speaker 3: and a silvery white metal. If you saw it, you'd
Speaker 3: probably think that looks like tinfoil, but lithium does, in
Speaker 3: a very real way, in a very weird way, make
Speaker 3: the world go round. Let's go to Jbird. Jaybird, you
Speaker 3: recently wrote us the following. We'll read this long, we'll
Speaker 3: explore it together, just like Rock City, and then we'll
Speaker 3: stop along the way. So Jay Bird, you say, hey, guys,
Speaker 3: I enjoy the show and thought this ongoid multi national
Speaker 3: saga would be right up your ally. Beware it's a
Speaker 3: can of worms. We'll also accept bag of badgers. JB.
Speaker 3: J Bird says, this story is a tangled web of
Speaker 3: epic proportions. I'll try to provide a general outline. You
Speaker 3: can dive as deep as you wish. The stories about
Speaker 3: a lithium deposit and the Democratic Republic of Congo called Manono,
Speaker 3: an Australian junior mineral exploration company called AVS, and to
Speaker 3: all the government's crooks and individuals trying to steal or
Speaker 3: otherwise personally capitalize upon it. The AVZ, says Jabert, their
Speaker 3: managing director is a Tasmanian geologist who's worked on the
Speaker 3: African continent fairly extensively. They got the permits they drilled
Speaker 3: to prove their resource. Then they created a feasibility study
Speaker 3: and turned out that this site they found in Minono
Speaker 3: was one of the largest and purest lithium deposits on Earth.
Speaker 3: We're talking in estimated value of twenty four trillion dollars
Speaker 3: or something absurd like that. And we're going to paraphrase
Speaker 3: a little bit here, folks. With this this proven study,
Speaker 3: they did a IPO in initial public offering, They signed
Speaker 3: an agreement with the world's largest battery manufacturer, then they
Speaker 3: applied for a mining license and so on and so on,
Speaker 3: and Jabert says, full disclosure. I bought some stock in
Speaker 3: this Australian company because the research they had done showed
Speaker 3: it was going to be one of the most ecologically
Speaker 3: friendly mining operations. Okay, lot, I love your face there.
Speaker 3: So ecologically friendly mining operations. That's a lot like the
Speaker 3: most illiterate essayist at the Nobel You know, it seems paradoxical,
Speaker 3: but Jay Bird says they were ecologically friendly because they
Speaker 3: had hydrogen powered machinery. The electricity came from a nearby
Speaker 3: hydro electric plant, and because they were publicly treated, this
Speaker 3: company in Australia would have to be transparent so they
Speaker 3: would minimize bribery, corruption, child labor, nasty stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And then they got an approval from the high muckety
Speaker 3: MUCKs in the government in this country, and they were
Speaker 3: supposed to get a tax for what are called surface rights.
Speaker 3: Then they get a permit, and then they could begin
Speaker 3: actually building this mine that they had, Like millions of
Speaker 3: dollars have already moved to and fro across the table here.
Speaker 4: And Ben maybe silly question in terms of like the
Speaker 4: value of the stuff and the way it affects our economy.
Speaker 4: This is the same stuff that maybe goes into like
Speaker 4: phone batteries, lithium ion, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, lithium ion batteries, lithium metal batteries. It's used
Speaker 3: to make steel and aluminium. It's used to make ceramics,
Speaker 3: heat resistant glass, something called lithium grease lubricants, which I
Speaker 3: don't I don't pretend to know much about, but it
Speaker 3: does sound just cartoon experts. It just yeah, I'm not
Speaker 3: a lithium lubricant expert, but this sounds specific enough to
Speaker 3: be real. Matt, I see your headshake. We're working live.
Speaker 4: I do also, I think I'm remembering from like my
Speaker 4: early studies of the periodic table. Lithium in its raw
Speaker 4: form is high reactive and can be dangerous, you know,
Speaker 4: if they like I think, it reacts very violently with
Speaker 4: water and can cause expensive reactions.
Speaker 3: Super flammable too. Also learned a fun trick with a
Speaker 3: little bit of aluminum and mercury recently. It's cool stuff. Uh, anyway,
Speaker 3: hopefully that never comes in handy. But if we're ever
Speaker 3: locked up in the wrong place.
Speaker 4: Let's just cookbook type stuff.
Speaker 3: Ben, Yeah, just remember, just remind me we got to
Speaker 3: break the thermometer if they have aca there, and then
Speaker 3: we're we're off to the races. It's so cool, I'll
Speaker 3: send it to you guys later. So, with all this
Speaker 3: stuff and our little anarchist cookbook level tip, if you
Speaker 3: ever find yourself in an escapable situation, let's go back
Speaker 3: to Jaybird. So j Bird says that there is a
Speaker 3: heck of a lot of corruption going on with a
Speaker 3: state owned mining company called Comigner or Comygner, and they
Speaker 3: are in an agreement with this Australian company. One of them,
Speaker 3: the state owned company, has a twenty five percent stake
Speaker 3: and then like it gets into the weeds pretty hard
Speaker 3: here Jaber. This is perfect for a future episode. But
Speaker 3: the problem is these folks started illegally selling shares to
Speaker 3: a Chinese owned company named Zizhen, and they sold it
Speaker 3: very off the books. Only a fraction of the value
Speaker 3: got accounted for, and it was spent on. Get this,
Speaker 3: This is a quote from Jaybird. Clemiennier illegally sold shares
Speaker 3: to a Chinese owned company named Zizhen out from under
Speaker 3: a VZ for a fraction of its value, with none
Speaker 3: of the money accounted for. It was allegedly spent on
Speaker 3: consulting fees and snacks. Snacks, snacks, dude, hopefully jolly ranchers,
Speaker 3: you know, mountain dew dang.
Speaker 2: I wonder how much that fifteen percent actually equals, Right,
Speaker 2: that's probably a lot of money.
Speaker 3: And it's still speculative money too, right, because you don't
Speaker 3: get the money until you sell the lithium and process
Speaker 3: it and all those other things. Uh. To make a
Speaker 3: long story short, says Jabird. The situation has devolved into
Speaker 3: several court cases at the ICC in Paris. And what
Speaker 3: do we say in the United States about the International
Speaker 3: Criminal Court?
Speaker 2: Eh?
Speaker 3: No way, not today, death, not today, will storm the Hague?
Speaker 1: Go out and find out.
Speaker 3: So there's a There are a couple of other international
Speaker 3: entities that have been sucked into this, and j Bird says,
Speaker 3: by the way, this Chinese company, Zishen, has one of
Speaker 3: the worst human rights records in the world and has
Speaker 3: been repeatedly trying to steal this lithium mining project from
Speaker 3: this Australian company. They funded a compag to try and
Speaker 3: overturn the company's board of directors and a hostile takeover.
Speaker 3: They paid off journalists, they've bribed officials and judges in
Speaker 3: the DRC, and they have infiltrated stock forums to try
Speaker 3: to do some like fifty cent army kind of internet
Speaker 3: trolling and astroturfing and so on.
Speaker 2: Wow, I just want to know where you're getting all
Speaker 2: this information, jabird.
Speaker 3: Ja Bert says, Basically, whomever controls this mind controls the
Speaker 3: global lithium market. It doesn't get a lot of media
Speaker 3: attention because it's confused and because people don't really want
Speaker 3: you to talk about it. That's us editorializing here. And
Speaker 3: to your question, Matt, let's again we're paraphrasing a lot
Speaker 3: because we're saving some of this for an episode. Let's
Speaker 3: go to Jaybird's very last line, please don't state anything
Speaker 3: I've written as fact, as I wrote this from memory
Speaker 3: off the top of my head. Have fun, Jaybird, what
Speaker 3: I don't know for off the dome. You got a
Speaker 3: lot of facts, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you're making up facts, j Bert, what
Speaker 2: are we supposed to do about it?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, we haven't even mentioned lithium's use in nuclear physics.
Speaker 3: What we'll leave the cat in? So he was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: nuclear physics. So we've talked a little bit in the past,
Speaker 3: you guys about the invisible, often invisible, cutthroat market of
Speaker 3: rare earth metals and how much of the world depends
Speaker 3: on them. My question at the top is do these
Speaker 3: kind of machinations Do they feel like just the regular
Speaker 3: dirty game of international business or is there something more
Speaker 3: at play? Is this a resource war?
Speaker 2: If it was a resource war, it would feel more
Speaker 2: like security services getting involved rather than stuff happening in
Speaker 2: the boardroom. But I guess if you're doing it smart,
Speaker 2: you know, like resource extractions, smart and wars in that way,
Speaker 2: you would do it in the boardroom rather than on
Speaker 2: the field. I'm just looking up some of the reporting
Speaker 2: that you can find in Reuters and other places specifically
Speaker 2: about AVZ Minerals that is being mentioned here. Yep, there is.
Speaker 2: There's some definite stuff going on, and it's talking about
Speaker 2: these specific companies Xijian Mining.
Speaker 3: Yibentanye and so on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's in here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely No, it's definitely real. I would also
Speaker 3: point out while we're playing the f N game here
Speaker 3: that right before Russia invaded Ukraine this time around, the
Speaker 3: lithium resources of Ukraine were drawing huge global attention from
Speaker 3: you guessed it, Chinese and Australia mining investors. I know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be Charlie Day about it, but coincidence.
Speaker 2: It's important stuff. You like batteries, you like things that
Speaker 2: run on batteries.
Speaker 4: About magnets, how do they work?
Speaker 5: How?
Speaker 3: Also?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 3: Fine, I'll say it again, Noel, I'm sorry you have
Speaker 3: to hear this again, But the problem with the ICP
Speaker 3: song about where they mentioned magnets is that Shaggy too
Speaker 3: Dope says magnets, how do they work? I don't want
Speaker 3: to talk to a scientist. Your mothers be lying and
Speaker 3: getting me pissed.
Speaker 4: So in this Sun's a good rhyme, though, scientist with
Speaker 4: lying and getting me pissed who saw it?
Speaker 3: But at the same time that he is saying he
Speaker 3: has no idea how magnets might work, which honestly, I
Speaker 3: don't think we're all one hundred percent on. Then he
Speaker 3: in the same line he acknowledges that there are people
Speaker 3: who know, and he refuses to speak to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're called sorcerers, ben duh magno sorcerer.
Speaker 4: The very least alchemist at the very least.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, maybe it's so weird that we haven't played D
Speaker 3: and D together, But this is important because lithium is
Speaker 3: part of the rush to clean energy, right, and it's
Speaker 3: all well and good, I think for us to talk
Speaker 3: about a future that is not reliant on fossil fuels.
Speaker 3: But something that often gets missed and all the feel
Speaker 3: good ted talkie arguments about this is those technologies that
Speaker 3: create this so called clean energy. They often come from
Speaker 3: dirty places, right, Like if you get an electric car
Speaker 3: and you power that car on a coal powered energy grid,
Speaker 3: what are you really doing.
Speaker 2: It's true that that's one of the major what points
Speaker 2: against the electrification of our vehicles. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I love Lorn Michaels.
Speaker 3: Electrification of our vehicle in my day, you push the.
Speaker 2: Pop it's dirty energy no matter where it comes from.
Speaker 3: H dirty. I don't wait, No, that's the wrong that's
Speaker 3: the wrong accent. I did the wrong accent.
Speaker 4: Very hard to place accent.
Speaker 3: This is a shout out Elave Musk, right, But this
Speaker 3: is uh, this is something that I think we could
Speaker 3: investigate further chambered in this specific case, we see a
Speaker 3: microcosm a larger thing happening now. To Matt's point, is
Speaker 3: it a resource war? Not yet? Not quite yet, however,
Speaker 3: and I guess I should also say we are all
Speaker 3: proponents of cleaning energy. As people who are not working
Speaker 3: in that industry, we keep a pretty close eye on
Speaker 3: these different alternatives the way they will shake out in
Speaker 3: the world. So we are pro those improvements. However, it
Speaker 3: seems like there's a lot of stuff happening behind the
Speaker 3: curtain regarding who controls this stuff, how they use it,
Speaker 3: and where they use it. And so it's important to
Speaker 3: keep your eye on because right now, for the global public,
Speaker 3: that is the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: And with that, speaking of segues, we are going to
Speaker 3: call it an evening Dodd approaches, which means we must
Speaker 3: enter torpor. We would like to hear from you. Let
Speaker 3: us know what's on your mind, let us know what
Speaker 3: you think. Folks. We have come across multiple stories here
Speaker 3: that will be episodes in the future, and we want
Speaker 3: more of them. We cannot wait to hear from you.
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