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Speaker 1: Sodomy. Shit, fuck, god, damn it. No, that's not the

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Speaker 1: way to introduce the post. I'm so sorry. That was

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Speaker 1: just the word sodomy. That's not an introduction of of

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Speaker 1: any sort. I'm terribly sorry. Oh my god, I'm so sorry.

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Speaker 1: This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast a fine Day

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Speaker 1: where we talk about bad people, and I've ruined it.

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Speaker 1: I've ruined our discussion of genocide by mentioning the word sodomy,

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Speaker 1: and I apologize for that. You're just kind of subverting

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Speaker 1: the narrative, and I do appreciate that. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what a narrative is. But speaking of narratives, the subject

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Speaker 1: of our episode today was was the master of creating narratives? Um? Also,

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Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus, you're the guest. Sorry, I got so caught

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Speaker 1: up in saying the words satomy quietly that today you

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Speaker 1: really gave your all to it. And I know you're

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Speaker 1: not feeling well, so that that took a lot to it.

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Speaker 1: That kind of Are we talking about Aaron Sorkin, No,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about kind of. I mean, okay, so Chris

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Speaker 1: Carter was the X Files guy, right, were possible? Maybe

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Speaker 1: I think it was Chris Carter. We're talking about the

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Speaker 1: guy who inspired a lot of the X Files, also

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Speaker 1: talking about the guy who inspired Alex. It is Chris Carter. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I mean as long as as long as he inspired

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Speaker 1: Alex Jones. I think you're gonna say Alex Mack. No, no,

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Speaker 1: not Alex mac. But he also inspired the Wu Tang Clan. Wow, Okay,

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Speaker 1: well you got a hand it to him? What a life. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a real, a real influential piece of

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Speaker 1: ship today. Um. Some people, I think when I when

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Speaker 1: I mentioned the Wu Tang Clan, the folks who know

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Speaker 1: this guy recognized who it is. But we're talking about

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Speaker 1: Bill Cooper. Have you ever heard of Bill Cooper? I have,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know in which of these contexts I've

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Speaker 1: heard of them. Was he like a conspiracy got like

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Speaker 1: a conspiracy he was? He was a radio show host

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Speaker 1: who was kind of the first Alex Jones in a

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Speaker 1: lot of ways. Man. He also was a very successful

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Speaker 1: author of a conspiracy book that um went on to

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Speaker 1: become one of like the foundational documents of American gangster

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Speaker 1: rapp Um. The first paragraph of his Wikipedia page, I'm excited. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's quite a character. I like the first paragraph is

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Speaker 1: just a full journey. Holy sh it. His real name

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Speaker 1: is not even Bill, isn't it isn't his real name,

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Speaker 1: It's William. It's William. But isn't that also not even

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Speaker 1: in his real name? UK William Milton Williams my grandfather's name.

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Speaker 1: So we're gonna take that Bill. He's Bill. Yes, I've

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Speaker 1: decided that already. Don't. Like, Yeah, I have a long

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Speaker 1: I have a long and it hasn't really failed me yet.

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Speaker 1: I have like a long distrust of someone that insists

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Speaker 1: on going by three names, and um, I have a

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Speaker 1: feeling that this is no different. No, No, he was

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Speaker 1: pretty consistent about just Bill. But yeah, you still shouldn't

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Speaker 1: have trusted him because he was a famous liar. Um. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So kind of the reason I think this is important

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Speaker 1: to talk about today is that um AT at the

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Speaker 1: present moment, Jamie eleven Q and on believers are currently

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Speaker 1: have uh like active congressional candidates have they have either

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Speaker 1: won primaries or runoffs. Um, and we'll be on the

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Speaker 1: ballot in November. Yeah. And if if you're if you're

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Speaker 1: just joining us from the year two thousand fifteen, um,

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Speaker 1: some ship has gone down First off, you might want

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Speaker 1: to now yeah, yeah, should just turn your car and angle.

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Speaker 1: Yeah so uh. Q and On the qua on conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theory basically states that the whole Democratic Party and and

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Speaker 1: all global political leadership is part of a satanic cult

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Speaker 1: that drinks the blood of children. Um. Donald Trump was

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Speaker 1: chosen by our military and also Jesus to take power

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Speaker 1: and root out this cabal of devil worshippers. And we

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Speaker 1: talk about at the barbecues I have at my house. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as as you should. Um. In some versions of the conspiracy,

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Speaker 1: JFK Jr. Is a crucial part of it. Um. But

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Speaker 1: that's very much a contentious issue within within this community.

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Speaker 1: So there's even I mean there's at least one of

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Speaker 1: the Q and On candidates is also hot, which I

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Speaker 1: found to be. Yes, there's some hot ones. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: know the hot people were in Q and On that

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Speaker 1: did you know. I was just like, okay, so they

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Speaker 1: know skincare at very least Yeah, okay, I mean you

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Speaker 1: can you can give a shit about you know, your pores.

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Speaker 1: And also believe that the Luciferian Cabal has been orchestrating

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Speaker 1: global politics in order to harvest to dream of chrome

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Speaker 1: from the blood of children child Yes, well, I mean

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Speaker 1: actually yeah, but that's something some of us just learned

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Speaker 1: by accidents. So uh yeah, Q and On, it's pretty silly,

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Speaker 1: pretty silly stuff. And it's so silly that all credible

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Speaker 1: media kind of ignored it for three years and pretended

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Speaker 1: it wasn't happening until there were hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 1: Americans who believed it, and eleven of them who might

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Speaker 1: wind up in Congress. Michaels, one person that you went

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Speaker 1: to high school with, deeply powerfully would die for Q

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Speaker 1: and On, would die for this conspiracy. Yeah. Michael Flynn,

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Speaker 1: a lifetime military intelligence man, a general, and a former

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Speaker 1: member of President Trump's staff, recently had his whole family

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Speaker 1: swear an oath of allegiance. Uh like the mysterious que

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Speaker 1: and his cause. So, um, it's a problem. It's become

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Speaker 1: an issue. It's a real issue, and it's not like

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Speaker 1: there's the only thing to do about it is kind

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Speaker 1: of laugh because of how how much of a problem

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Speaker 1: it is. But it really is not a laughing matter.

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Speaker 1: It's a very serious issue. Um, it's it's and and

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Speaker 1: it's worth noting. Like Q and On, for a long time,

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Speaker 1: people would talk about it as a conspiracy theory, and

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Speaker 1: one of the researchers I follow, Sarah high Tower, UM,

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Speaker 1: has kind of been making the point for quite a

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Speaker 1: while that like calling it a conspiracy theory really misses

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Speaker 1: the point. It's a cult. Um, it's and like it's

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Speaker 1: a religious movement. And I think at this point you

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Speaker 1: could probably make a pretty good case that Q and

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Speaker 1: On is the USA's fastest growing new religious movement UM,

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Speaker 1: which is again a real problem. So the question, one

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Speaker 1: of the questions we should all be asking ourselves is

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Speaker 1: we we try to deal with this thing that's happening,

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Speaker 1: is how did we get here? Um? Like, well, the

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Speaker 1: question I've been asking myself is who is Q? I've

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Speaker 1: been asking myself this for many years. See, I think

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Speaker 1: that's the least important thing in the world. Actually, uh,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I I at this point, the belief system

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Speaker 1: has gone so far beyond whatever the individual or individuals

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Speaker 1: who are like posting the Q drops actually have been

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Speaker 1: pushing people to do that. It's like, I think, kind

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Speaker 1: of almost immaterial who Q is? UM. So the broader

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Speaker 1: question when we look at like Q and on, and

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Speaker 1: we look at just the fact that we're in a

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Speaker 1: place right now where like the guy who got elected

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Speaker 1: president is a famous conspiracy theorist who has like repeated

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theories about the active pandemic killing people during his

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Speaker 1: administration while delivering like like news to the nation about

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Speaker 1: the pandemic. Like the fact that that's where we are

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Speaker 1: right now, um like kind of begs the question how

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Speaker 1: the fund did we get here? Um? And there's a

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Speaker 1: number of theories about like how conspiracism um became what

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Speaker 1: it is in American culture. Uh. And it it kind

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Speaker 1: of starts in the nineteen seventies with the work of

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Speaker 1: a British sociologist named Campbell, who coined the term cultic

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Speaker 1: milieu to refer to the kinds of supportive cultural environments

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Speaker 1: that allow cults to form. So prior to Campbell's work,

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Speaker 1: most experts had kind of seen cults as freak phenomenon,

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Speaker 1: strange and terrible, like things that just sort of happened,

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Speaker 1: Like some charismatic guy would come along and he would

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Speaker 1: enthrall the brains of a certain group of people, and

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Speaker 1: then you'd have a cult, and it was just sort

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Speaker 1: of like this thing that happened, um, as sort of

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Speaker 1: like a freak curiosity um. But Campbell's argument was that

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Speaker 1: cults didn't come out of nowhere, and they weren't primarily

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Speaker 1: the product of whatever individual or individuals were behind them.

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Speaker 1: They kind of grew mushroom like from a fertile cultural substrate.

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Speaker 1: You had to have like a culture that could support

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Speaker 1: the growth of cults, and certain things in a culture,

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Speaker 1: certain like um trends within a culture would make it

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Speaker 1: much a much more fertile ground for cults to sort

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Speaker 1: of like form and thrive in. So that's like what

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Speaker 1: a cultic milieu is. Uh. In the book A Culture

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Speaker 1: of Conspiracy, scholar Mike Barkun notes, quote, the cultic milieu

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Speaker 1: is by nature hostile to authority, both because it rejects

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Speaker 1: the authority of such normative institutions as churches and universities,

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Speaker 1: and because no single institution within the milieu has the

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Speaker 1: authority to prescribe beliefs and practices for those within it.

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Speaker 1: As diverse as the cultic milieu is, however, Campbell finds

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Speaker 1: in it unifying tendencies. One such tendency is its opposition

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Speaker 1: to dominant cultural orthodoxes. This is also a major characteristic

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Speaker 1: of the culture of conspiracy, within which the reigning presumption

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Speaker 1: is that any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so that that sounds a little familiar. It definitely does.

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Speaker 1: I feel like the like conspiracy. Uh, like the conspiracy

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Speaker 1: label is used to be dismissive too often of like, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a fun tabloid story. More more so.

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Speaker 1: And then when you start calling it a religion which

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Speaker 1: has much of the same properties, it's suddenly become serious.

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Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, there's hot people running for

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Speaker 1: public office. Yeah yeah, or or you know, compounds outside

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Speaker 1: of Waco getting burnt down by the FBI, a number

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Speaker 1: of things. Do you just bring Waco in here? I'm this,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk so much about Waco today, getting into

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Speaker 1: Waco today. Oh yeah, we're gonna be wake up ready

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Speaker 1: for Waco today. Nobody wakes up ready for Waco except

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Speaker 1: for David Koresh briefly but not more. Yeah. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: we live in a culture of conspiracy now, and and

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of Americans are kind of waking

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Speaker 1: up to the extent to which that is happening and

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Speaker 1: continuing to happen. And what a problem it is, um

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't this kind of cultic milieu that that

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Speaker 1: has overtaken a lot of even mainstream culture now, like

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Speaker 1: didn't didn't happen by accident. It was formed kind of

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Speaker 1: intentionally by individual human beings who tended it like a

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Speaker 1: good farmer tends to soil, and made basically made our

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Speaker 1: culture into one in which a famous conspiracy theorist could

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Speaker 1: not just get to become president, but could could get

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Speaker 1: to like shout out his nonsense um to like, could

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Speaker 1: get to like shout out conspiracy theories about an active

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Speaker 1: plague while it was going on, and have millions of

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Speaker 1: Americans say, well, like, surely that guy's right. Like the

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Speaker 1: fact that we're there now isn't an accident. It was

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Speaker 1: it was like the yeah, I don't know, this is

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Speaker 1: this is a bad way to introduce this. There's a

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Speaker 1: lot of that. I'm trying to like kind of even

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Speaker 1: wrap my head around here because the problem is so extensive,

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Speaker 1: and there's a number of individuals who were sort of

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Speaker 1: behind bringing us to this point because this wasn't always

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Speaker 1: the case. You know, there used to be you can't

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Speaker 1: really what we're looking at. What we're looking at as

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Speaker 1: the root cause of of why we are where we

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Speaker 1: are culturally right now and politically right now. Is the

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Speaker 1: death of any kind of shared conception of truth. It's

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Speaker 1: not possible to have that because a huge chunk of

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Speaker 1: the country, whenever somebody claims to be hims to be

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Speaker 1: like trying to tell them facts about the world UM

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Speaker 1: now kind of automatically will reject those facts if they're

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Speaker 1: in opposition to you know, whatever belief structure that person

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Speaker 1: has UM and will form the fact that like some

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Speaker 1: professional person is telling them that that that their beliefs

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Speaker 1: are wrong, will kind of graph that automatically onto this

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Speaker 1: conspiratorial belief about the nature of of of the world

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Speaker 1: at the moment, like the fact only accepted truths exactly exactly.

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Speaker 1: And today we're going to talk about probably the man

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Speaker 1: who's most responsible with kind of setting off that domino

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Speaker 1: chain reaction that led to the death of truth. I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to say that that that this guy killed

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Speaker 1: truth on his own, UM, but Bill Cooper probably deserves

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Speaker 1: more credit for building our cultic milieu UM than any

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Speaker 1: other single person. And only again, like two kinds of

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Speaker 1: people really recognize Bill's name today. The first kinder folks

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Speaker 1: who like study conspiracy and the history of right wing extremism,

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Speaker 1: the militia movement. Those folks will have heard of Bill Cooper.

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Speaker 1: The second kind of people who know Bill Cooper today

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Speaker 1: are are fans of nineteen nineties gangster rap. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is the Wu Tang clan. I'm thrilled that we

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Speaker 1: have found this intersection at Long Last. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Bill left a really big influence on both worlds. And

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Speaker 1: it's kind of fascinating as to why. Um So, Milton

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Speaker 1: William Cooper um So, Yeah, that's the name, Jamie. He

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Speaker 1: is a Milton um It's really unfortunate. Was born on

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Speaker 1: May six, nineteen forty three, in Long Beach, California. His father,

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Speaker 1: Milton Vance Cooper, was an Air Force pilot who got

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Speaker 1: his start flying for the US military before the Air

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Speaker 1: Force even existed. Milton wisely went by the name Jack,

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Speaker 1: which is a much better name for a pilot, Jack Cooper.

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Speaker 1: That's a good that's a good pilot name. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: just a good old fashioned MGM renamed. Yeah, and you'll

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Speaker 1: note that like neither Milton William nor Milton Vance ever

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Speaker 1: went by the name Milton, because it's a it's an

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Speaker 1: objectively bad name. Well, I mean, just you know say

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Speaker 1: which you will about his life choices, but he did

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Speaker 1: make at least one solid Yeah. No, no, he made

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Speaker 1: the right call there. Um and yeah, as a little kid,

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Speaker 1: Bill went by little Jackie um, which is is Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I don't like that's perverted. I don't like that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So Bill's ancestors had come from all over the British Isles,

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Speaker 1: which you shouldn't call the British Isles because it wipes

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Speaker 1: out the existence of Scotland and Ireland, two nations that

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Speaker 1: were kind of oppressed by the British for centuries. But

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Speaker 1: I want to challenge the British and the Irish to

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Speaker 1: unite and finally wipe out the English, and I feel

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Speaker 1: like goading them this way might work. So just as

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Speaker 1: a note in the future, when I call something the

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Speaker 1: British Isles, it's because I'm trying to orchestrate the destruction

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Speaker 1: of the English people. Yeah, you're just trying to people

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Speaker 1: to radicalize and get some done. Yeah. Yeah, so like

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Speaker 1: you know, I'll I'll refer to them properly Scotland and

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Speaker 1: Ireland when you in Wale, when you do something about

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Speaker 1: the English. Um. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, Bill uh, Bill's

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Speaker 1: family came from all over the aisles, and they wound

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Speaker 1: up in the United States. Uh, and kind of all

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Speaker 1: over the United States. He had family that fought on

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Speaker 1: both sides of the Civil War. Um, there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of frontiersman in the Cooper family. As a boy,

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Speaker 1: Bill was particularly taken by stories of his great grandfather,

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Speaker 1: who he would later call a real cowboy. Uh. He

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Speaker 1: wrote later that as a child, he saw photos of

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Speaker 1: his great grandpa. Yeah. He would later write that as

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Speaker 1: a child, he saw photos of his great grandpa quote

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Speaker 1: standing in front of a saloon with a six gun

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Speaker 1: in his belt. Now, Bill was a famous liar. And

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Speaker 1: this is probably a lot of just wret A lot

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Speaker 1: of those guys really like as as a rule, it

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Speaker 1: was like a fake that was a constructed image in

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Speaker 1: the first place. That's fun fun. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, but this is what Bill, This is what

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Speaker 1: Bill at least thought it was important for people to

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Speaker 1: think about his family background. They were cowboys. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is a very mature cowboys and horse thieves. He was

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Speaker 1: also like, oh, yeah, and one of them got hung

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Speaker 1: as a horse thief. Yeah it was Yeah. So the

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Speaker 1: Cooper family moved constantly to accommodate Jack's military career. And

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Speaker 1: this was not a low stress period to be the

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Speaker 1: family member of somebody doing what Jack was doing in

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Speaker 1: the military. The Cold War was at its coolest level.

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Speaker 1: Nuclear annihilation was a constant threat, and young Bill grew

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Speaker 1: up knowing that at any moment his father might be

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Speaker 1: sent off to die in a war that would almost

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Speaker 1: certainly kill his family in nuclear hell fire as well. Um,

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Speaker 1: it was a stressful way to be a kid. Um.

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Speaker 1: I I know that particularly well because my dad and

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Speaker 1: Bill had very similar childhoods. Actually, my dad was about

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Speaker 1: about a decade younger, UM, But his dad, I don't.

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Speaker 1: I don't even know what my grandpa on that side

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Speaker 1: of the family actually did. He was a civilian employee

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Speaker 1: of the Department of the Defense, and he was constantly

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Speaker 1: in Southeast Asia, and we don't know, like nobody really

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Speaker 1: knows anything else about what Grandpa was doing. I think

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Speaker 1: he was probably posing like a cowboy in front of

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Speaker 1: a saloon. If I probably posing like a cowboy. But

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Speaker 1: like my dad has these memories of like when the

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Speaker 1: when the there were stateside, when the Cuban missile crisis hit,

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Speaker 1: and he was just like he and I think his

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Speaker 1: mom like drove him and his sister out to like

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Speaker 1: family who lived away from a city, and they just

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Speaker 1: stayed there for days without really knowing anything, just knowing

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Speaker 1: that like something had happened, and dad says, like, you

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Speaker 1: guys shouldn't be in the city. Yeah. Yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: like in a lot of there were a lot of

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Speaker 1: kids who grew up, uh, Like my whole family in

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Speaker 1: this period of time were military brats, and there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of like it was a stressful thing to

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Speaker 1: be like, you know, because you're always you're always worried

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Speaker 1: that nuclear annihilation is around the damn corner. And so

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Speaker 1: Bill grows up with this kind of apocalyptic expectation is

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Speaker 1: just a constant part of his reality. Is like a

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Speaker 1: little kid. Um, so that's not great. Um yeah, the

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Speaker 1: bioy Yeah, and it's yeah. The biography Pale Horse Writer

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Speaker 1: by Mark Jacobson, which is a biography of William Cooper,

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Speaker 1: notes quote, once while his father was assigned to Lajah's

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Speaker 1: Field on ter Sierra Island and the hisurs uh, the

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Speaker 1: young Cooper was sitting in the base reck room watching

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Speaker 1: a movie when the projector ground to a halt. The

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Speaker 1: lights came on and a plea was made for blood donors.

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Speaker 1: I knew immediately something terrible. It happened. Running outside, Cooper

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Speaker 1: saw that a B twenty nine super Fortress had crashed.

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Speaker 1: I saw men on fire running through the night. Cooper

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Speaker 1: wrote in Behold a Pale Horse, I was only nine

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Speaker 1: years old, but felt much older. That's not great. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's not great. Ye's the problem at the beginning, all

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Speaker 1: of these stories start out with like just a traumatized,

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Speaker 1: broken little boy. There, we need to start well, no,

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Speaker 1: this is probably, but they're like, there needs to be

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Speaker 1: some sort of muppet babies for for the bastards. Yeah,

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00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:50,879
Speaker 1: bustard babies there, and then they can just all go

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Speaker 1: to a child therapist and really talk ship through and

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00:18:53,119 --> 00:18:56,359
Speaker 1: saving a lot of trouble. Yeah, except for Saddam, who

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Speaker 1: would have absolutely smuggled in a gun and shot that therapist,

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Speaker 1: like shot that therapist immediately. Was Yeah he was, he was,

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00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:07,119
Speaker 1: you know, are born that way? He was, he was.

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Speaker 1: He was a hardened gangster by thirteen. Yeah, but also

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00:19:12,280 --> 00:19:14,800
Speaker 1: had the heart of a poet, you know. Yeah, well

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00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:19,000
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, like al Capone, right right. So in

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Speaker 1: his own book Behold a Pale Horse, Bill which is

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Speaker 1: a great name for a book. It is a great

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Speaker 1: name for a book. Bill. One thing you'll learn about

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Speaker 1: Bill is that he was a fantastic marketer. And that's

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00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:33,040
Speaker 1: an objectively incredible title. Like I'm it's a memoir, no, no, no, no,

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00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:35,640
Speaker 1: it just includes a section on his background. We'll talk

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Speaker 1: about what Behold a Pale Horse is because very influential, Like,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of it's a very appealing title. Well it's

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Speaker 1: but it's from that book that uh, that line in

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Speaker 1: the Book of Revelations. But again we'll talk about that

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Speaker 1: in a little bit. So, yeah, it is a great title,

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Speaker 1: and I'm kind of frustrated that he took it because

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00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:54,600
Speaker 1: it would be a great title for a book right

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00:19:54,640 --> 00:19:59,280
Speaker 1: now about Yeah, So anyway, um, Bill would later write

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Speaker 1: himself right a his upbringing that quote, I didn't always

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Speaker 1: love my father. He was a strict disciplinarian. My dad

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00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:07,040
Speaker 1: did not believe in spare the rod, and his belt

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00:20:07,119 --> 00:20:10,000
Speaker 1: was put to use frequently in our family. And like

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Speaker 1: most children who grew up in such families, Bill grew

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00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:16,760
Speaker 1: was like Bill grew up with a like basically focusing

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Speaker 1: all the time on how to avoid getting in trouble,

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Speaker 1: like right, That's the thing you learn as a kid

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Speaker 1: with authoritarian parents who punish you, um physically particularly, is

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Speaker 1: how to not get in trouble. Um. And he was

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Speaker 1: regularly the focus of his dad's anger, which kind of yeah,

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Speaker 1: his his whole life was his whole life as a

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Speaker 1: kid was revolved around hiding from his dad's anger. Um.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, he grew up with the feeling that quote,

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Speaker 1: rules didn't mean much until I got caught breaking them.

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Speaker 1: And discipline like this has the effect of kind of

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Speaker 1: training children to be exceptional liars. Um. It teaches them

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Speaker 1: to always have a story, a really believable story, in

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Speaker 1: order to not get in trouble. And there's actually research

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00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:57,080
Speaker 1: to back this up. In two thousand and sixteen, Victoria

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Speaker 1: talwar an expert on children's social cognitive develop a minute,

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Speaker 1: McGill University published a study on this. I f L

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Speaker 1: Science reported quote tal Warren and her colleagues developed a

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00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:09,760
Speaker 1: test to identify effective young liars called the Peeping Game.

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Speaker 1: Taking her test to West African schools, one with relaxed

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00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:15,719
Speaker 1: rules and one with harsh disciplinary regimes, the peoples were

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00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:17,920
Speaker 1: asked to guests, without looking at it, which object is

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Speaker 1: making the noise behind them. Importantly, the last object made

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00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 1: a noise that was different from any sound it could

386
00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:26,000
Speaker 1: actually produce. For example, a baseball would make a squawking noise.

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00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:28,719
Speaker 1: If any children knew what this final object was, they

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00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:31,880
Speaker 1: were clearly taking a peek at it while unsupervised. During

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Speaker 1: the experiment, the supervising adult leaves the room and upon

390
00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:37,000
Speaker 1: returning asked the child two questions what the object was

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00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:39,480
Speaker 1: and if they peaked at it. Talwar discovered that the

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00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 1: more relaxed school showed a distribution of liars and truth

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00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:45,280
Speaker 1: tellers similar to that found in many Western schools. However,

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00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 1: in the strict school, the children proved to be extremely

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00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:52,439
Speaker 1: rapid and effective liars. Um So that's going to become

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00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 1: very relevant as we talk about every single thing Bill

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00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 1: says about his life. Uh so, much of the information

398
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,080
Speaker 1: we have on Bill's filthood comes from Bill himself. And again,

399
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:10,040
Speaker 1: he's a he's a liar. So yeah, okay, this is difficult,

400
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:14,240
Speaker 1: This is tough with him, but that's because he wants

401
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:16,639
Speaker 1: to and that's because he's a good liar. That's because

402
00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:18,680
Speaker 1: he's a good liar. That also doesn't mean that he's

403
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,120
Speaker 1: lying about everything, and in fact, there's a lot. He's

404
00:22:21,119 --> 00:22:24,359
Speaker 1: definitely telling the truth about um, including the fact that

405
00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:26,239
Speaker 1: his dad. I have new trouble believing his dad was

406
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:30,200
Speaker 1: an authoritarian, you know, parent, because he was a military man,

407
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:32,600
Speaker 1: and that's real fucking common. I have no trouble believing

408
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 1: that he was constantly stressed out as a kid about

409
00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:38,399
Speaker 1: nuclear war, because that's what it was like growing up

410
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:44,120
Speaker 1: in the fifties on a military base. Yeah. So that said, though,

411
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: we're going to we're going to enter into a lot

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00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:49,159
Speaker 1: of areas where we have Bill's version of the of

413
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:52,520
Speaker 1: what happened and what's more likely to have happened, and

414
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:57,040
Speaker 1: they diverge quite rapidly. So uh. Bill's relationship with his

415
00:22:57,119 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 1: mother was a little more positive than his relationship with

416
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,520
Speaker 1: his father. He describes her as the kind of woman

417
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:03,920
Speaker 1: who used to be called a Southern bell, the type

418
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,200
Speaker 1: of women that men like to dream about when they're lonely.

419
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:08,960
Speaker 1: She's the kindlest, gentlest woman I've ever known. Once she

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00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 1: likes you, she cannot be driven away. She is loyal

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00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 1: to a fault. Um that that will become a little

422
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,119
Speaker 1: bit more relevant later too. So Yeah, Bill was a

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00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 1: high spirited, sensitive mama's boy who moved around too often

424
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: to build strong ties, and one of the few constants

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00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,720
Speaker 1: in his youth was Armed Forces radio. Bill was obsessed

426
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:30,720
Speaker 1: with the emerging popular music of the day, particularly Sam Cook. Moreover,

427
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:32,919
Speaker 1: he fell in love with the idea of being a DJ,

428
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 1: which at the time was the guardian and arbiter of

429
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 1: popular youth culture. Yeah, and again, all of a sudden,

430
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 1: it's kind of weird the extent to which Bill and

431
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:45,920
Speaker 1: my dad had the same childhood because my dad also

432
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: grew up on military bases wanting to be a DJ

433
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: and like doing that in high school and ship, Um,

434
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 1: it was like the cool thing. Like it's not now,

435
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 1: but at the time, like being a DJ was the

436
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,879
Speaker 1: coolest thing you could fucking be. Uh, Proberties, you are

437
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:01,400
Speaker 1: just saying it's not, curl the coolest thing you could be,

438
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: because it still is. Asking the coolest thing you can

439
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 1: be is a white guy who does a podcast about politics.

440
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 1: That's that's that's what this is. The conspiracy theories are

441
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:16,919
Speaker 1: that's actually a popular Q and on belief is that

442
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 1: having a podcast is cool. You know what, who definitely

443
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:24,400
Speaker 1: actually does think that having a podcast is cool? Who

444
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 1: the products and services to support this show? They'd fucking better. Uh,

445
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 1: Lord in Heaven, we're back. Uh. And I just I

446
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 1: have some good news for everybody. We have a new

447
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: face mask that will be selling in the behind the

448
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: Bastard store. Uh. It just says f d A approved

449
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:55,919
Speaker 1: to prevent all diseases. Um, so you know when we're

450
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: as we're talking about colts, Jamie, I just want everyone

451
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,480
Speaker 1: to know I am, in act doing everything I can

452
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: to to to get us violently rated by the Food

453
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: and Drug Administration. That that is the goal. So grab

454
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: your kids, uh, take them to my compound in the mountains,

455
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: put them in a basement, and we'll wait for the

456
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: f DAY to come firebomb us. Um yep. But a

457
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:24,679
Speaker 1: beautiful image. What a beautiful image. Yeah, we're gonna make

458
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 1: them do it. We're gonna we're gonna radicalize the f

459
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: d A, Jamie. That's my goal. That would be kind

460
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: of fun. It would be neat fun, radicalized with good outfits.

461
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, Well I don't know. Well, but the

462
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 1: FDA and crop tops see what happens. So okay, fine,

463
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:43,879
Speaker 1: as long as as long as you know they're still

464
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: like unaccountably violent. That's my my dream for the f

465
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,679
Speaker 1: d A. Oh, they're extremely violent. I'm just saying like

466
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:52,199
Speaker 1: a cult that it like a Heaven's gate. You know,

467
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: it's like there, you know they have they have no morals,

468
00:25:56,240 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: but also you know they look nice. They match. Okay, okay, okay,

469
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: well we'll we'll talk about this more. So. Bill was

470
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 1: a Yeah. Bill Bill as a as a kid on

471
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: the military based like falls in Love with the idea

472
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 1: of being a dj um in an age sixteen, while

473
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: he was living on Tachikawa Air Base near Tokyo, he

474
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 1: got his very first radio show on the Armed Forces

475
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: Networks Radio teen program Radio teen. Bill would later write quote,

476
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 1: I was called the Mad Lad and my theme song

477
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: was Quiet Village by Martin Denny. And this is, Yeah,

478
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: he's a huge dork, And it's the fact that he

479
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: picks Quiet Village is really interesting because it is it

480
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: is not the kind of song you might expect a

481
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: seventeen or a sixteen year old to make his like

482
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: introduction music when he comes on the fucking radio. It's

483
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:49,359
Speaker 1: like it's a mournful ballad about lost love that starts

484
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: with the lyrics alone in my quiet Village, I pray

485
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: you will be returning one day to me returned to

486
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: me alone, living with the memory of you promising you'd

487
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:00,959
Speaker 1: always be true to me, be true to me. So

488
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,239
Speaker 1: that's a little weird for sixteen year old Billy just

489
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: right eye energy to it. There's equivalents of this. It's

490
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: really unsettled, like like you can you can kind of

491
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: tell Bill is not going to go good places. Yeah,

492
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: this isn't this isn't going to end well, Okay, it's

493
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: intense very to Yeah. So, as a young DJ, Bill

494
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: finally felt the acceptance that had been cruelly denied to

495
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: him by his father's constant travel. He would later recall

496
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 1: being elated that quote, hundreds of teenagers all over Japan

497
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 1: were dancing to the music I spun on my little machines.

498
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: He managed to convince himself that millions of Chinese teens

499
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: were also listening into his radio program, which could not

500
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 1: have been true um, and that the communists said had

501
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: jammed his signal to stop it. Which, okay, this isn't

502
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: like your DJ energy is like not just that people

503
00:27:54,720 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: don't have access to it. There if in communism, if

504
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,679
Speaker 1: they can listen to my sad songs about quiet like

505
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: villages and girls not liking me, enough. Oh my god.

506
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, even at age sixteen, Bill was convinced that

507
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: he had somehow become the target of a global communist movement,

508
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: um of the global communist movement, which is is funny

509
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 1: and again he's probably just inventing this decades later. But

510
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: also I wouldn't be surprised if at the time young

511
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: Bill Cooper convinced himself the Communes were trying to stop

512
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: his terrible radio show. So teenaged Bill was convinced that

513
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:34,919
Speaker 1: rock and roll music was the very best advertisement for

514
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,479
Speaker 1: capitalism possible. And to be honest, he was probably right

515
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: about that. It's actually something too that's actually at that time. Yeah,

516
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: I think a lot of teenagers in Cuba got a

517
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: really unfairly rosy idea of American culture by listening to

518
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: the Stones and Ship. I don't like that. I don't

519
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: like the feeling of agreeing with him, but yeah, I'm

520
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: on board for that one. Yeah, No, he's probably right

521
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: about that. Nowto the rock and roll listen, I think

522
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: I'm very skeptical of this rock and roll music that

523
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: the kids are listening to. I think it might be

524
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: dangerous as an adult. Bill Witho mourn in his writing

525
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: that Chuck Berry was thrown in jail for two years

526
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: rather than being made Secretary of State, quote like he

527
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: should have been. So he believed Chuck Berry should have

528
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: been the Secretary of State. And it's probably here that

529
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: I do you know much about Chuck Berry, Jamie not

530
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: really know the right side of who he is. His

531
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: music sounded like, yeah, I mean, father of rock and roll,

532
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 1: incredible musician, historically an important musician. He was also thrown

533
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: in jail for transporting a fourteen year old across state

534
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: lines for a moral purposes India. Okay, well, yeah, like

535
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: it wasn't a mild It wasn't like a like, it

536
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: wasn't that they weren't just going after him to like

537
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: shut down this rock and roller he was. He was

538
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 1: sexually trafficking a teenage girl. I mean, to continue on

539
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: my anti rock and roll tirade, which rock artists of

540
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: this arrow was not doing that. It was that is

541
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: that is very fair. We had some ship but no one,

542
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: but no one wants to talk about it. No, I mean,

543
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: Billy Joel didn't. But but that's the only one. I

544
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: bet that it was just that, not that he didn't

545
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,239
Speaker 1: that he couldn't because he would have been terrible at

546
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: sex trafficking. Really, he would have been horrible at it.

547
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: So can't be a good liar. No, no, he can't.

548
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: He's an innocent man. So in nineteen eighty eight, Chuck

549
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: Barry was arrested again and charged for punching a woman

550
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: in the face so hard she required stitches. He was

551
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 1: also accused by multiple women and girls of filming them

552
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: in the bathroom of his restaurant. So, I don't know,

553
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: maybe not the best pick for Secretary of State, although

554
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: even with that resume, he would have been better than

555
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: kissing Jerry I was supposed to say. I'm like, there

556
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: have been worse people as secretary of state. Oh, that's

557
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: so depressed. There's truly not one rock legend that isn't

558
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: the most horrifying person though there they were all monsters.

559
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: It turns out when you like elevate mostly young teenage

560
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: in twenties something men to like effectively living gods. Uh,

561
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: they do horrible, horrible things repeatedly. Really have been known

562
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: to take advantage of it. Yeah, yeah, it turns out

563
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: to be a bad call. So in nineteen sixty learn

564
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: from it, though, Yeah, we don't do that anymore. It

565
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: doesn't happen anymore. No, and it never will again. Yeah.

566
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, nineteen year old Bill Cooper joined

567
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: the Air Force. The Navy was his first choice, but

568
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 1: he got sea sick easily, and he didn't think he'd

569
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 1: be able to handle a career on a boat. Um,

570
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: this will be slightly ironic. Later, uh, young Bill chose

571
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 1: to enlist rather than joining as an officer, which surprised

572
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: his family because his family, you know, his military tradition

573
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: had been officers. Um. He wound up going to a

574
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 1: technical school outside of Amarillo, Texas, where he later claimed

575
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 1: to have seen real atomic bombs. Quote. I worked around

576
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: them on a daily basis. Because of that, I had

577
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: to wear a dosimeter just in case I was exposed

578
00:31:56,640 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 1: to radiation. Bill's first gig was in the field maintenance squadron,

579
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: watching after everyone's quarters and basically keeping their work area police.

580
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: It was a job that kept him alone a great

581
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: deal of the time, and so he was sitting on

582
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: his own and the barracks watching TV on the day

583
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot by Bernard Montgomery Sanders.

584
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: As Bill later wrote, quote at that point, huge tears

585
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: began to stream down my face. Waves of emotion rushed

586
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: through my body. I felt that I had to do something,

587
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 1: so I picked up the direct line to the command center.

588
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: I choked back tears. When the command duty officer answered,

589
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: I told him that the president had just been shot

590
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: in Dallas. There was a pause and he asked me,

591
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: how do you know he has been shot. I told

592
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 1: him that I had watched it on television and then

593
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: hung up the phone. I was numb all over. You know, people,

594
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: you know, it's just so what President Kenny got shot?

595
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: Get over it by Bernie Sanders. Yes, absolutely to it.

596
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: I think I have actually brought this up on this

597
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: show before. But it's my favorite fact, my favorite fun

598
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: fact about the assassination of JFK, which is that meat

599
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: Off was there. Yes, you did bring it up. I

600
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: would think to bring it up. Meat Loaf is like

601
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: thirteen or fourteen years old, and he was like I

602
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: guess he lived in that area and he went like

603
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: with his family to see that he was. He was there.

604
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: So would we have bad out of Hell had JFK lived?

605
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: We may not know. That's a shame that we have

606
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: bad out of Hell. I love, Okay, I know that

607
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: I famously hate rock and roll, but I do kind

608
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 1: of like that Out of Hell me Love's a terrible person,

609
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: but you know he was fine in fight Club and

610
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 1: bad out of Hell is pretty good. Yeah, and he'd

611
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: probably I don't know, I had something to do with

612
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 1: the jfk assassination anyway, I think yeah, he was pro

613
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,479
Speaker 1: of the Youth the youth plot, Yeah he was. He

614
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: was spotting for Bernie Sanders a sniper scope. Um So,

615
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: now Jamie, uh So, you can kind of see in

616
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: that little paragraph like and this is this is again

617
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: from something that Bill writes decades later. But he's kind

618
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: of like he's kind of like sprinkling into his life

619
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,719
Speaker 1: story these little bitty elements of conspiracy. Like obviously he

620
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: calls the duty officer and the guys like how did

621
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 1: you know he'd been shot? And like nothing else happens,

622
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: but there's this little insinuation that like, you know, Bill

623
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:15,319
Speaker 1: had kind of stumbled onto something a little bit and

624
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: like that will happen repeatedly. That happens repeatedly in his

625
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 1: narrative of his early life that he later publishes. Um,

626
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: He'll he'll drop these little like if it like he

627
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: kind of he kind of frames it almost like a movie, right,

628
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:28,760
Speaker 1: where like he drops these little bit of hints about

629
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 1: the vast conspiracy and his his childhood like stories of

630
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:35,239
Speaker 1: his early life. Um. And he does it really well

631
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's it's good good storytelling. Um. Which

632
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: is something that like Bill has a real talent for

633
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: is is telling stories because he's a great liar. Um. Yeah.

634
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: So uh. He also brought aliens into the mix in

635
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: his his his biography, but not in a way, not

636
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 1: in a way that was super cookie. Um. This is

637
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: this this part, this is the way he does this

638
00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: I actually think is really effective as a storytelling tool. Um. Quote.

639
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 1: It was during this time when he was he was

640
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: working um in the Air Force, that a couple of

641
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: sergeants kind of adopted me. We went out to clubs

642
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: together and usually ended up chasing women and drinking a

643
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:11,399
Speaker 1: lot of beer. They told me several stories about being

644
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 1: attached to a special unit that recovered crashed flying saucers.

645
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: Sergeant MIAs told me that he had been on one

646
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: operation that transported a saucer so large that a special

647
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 1: team went before them, lowering all telephone poles and fence posts.

648
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: Another team followed and replaced them. They moved it only

649
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: at night. It was kept parked and covered somewhere off

650
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: the road during the day, since we were always half tanked.

651
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: When these stories came out, I never believed them. Sergeants

652
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 1: were known to tell some tall tales to younger guys

653
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: like me. So that's a good that's a good way

654
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 1: to kind of start sprinkling this ship into your narrative.

655
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: That's really that's really smart. I feel like that doesn't

656
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:44,560
Speaker 1: come out come up enough of like, well, I wasn't

657
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,840
Speaker 1: totally sure at first. It sounded a little weird. It

658
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: sounded a little bit. But the more I listened, there,

659
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: that's that. That is effective storytelling. Yeah, that's good storytelling. Yeah.

660
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: The assassination of President Kennedy brought several more days of

661
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:00,080
Speaker 1: apocalyptic stress to young Bill Cooper. The nation went to

662
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: the brink of war with Russia because nobody knew what

663
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: the funk was going on, and Bill spent his nights

664
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,280
Speaker 1: sleeping under a B fifty two loaded with nuclear munitions,

665
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: waiting for the order to go. So again, to understand

666
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: Bill Cooper's mindset, you have to understand this kid spent

667
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 1: like the first several decades of his life, sometimes literally

668
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: sitting next to nuclear weapons, knowing that, like all human

669
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 1: life could end in moments. It's like there's no moment

670
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: of his life that he is not deeply stressed out. Yeah,

671
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 1: deeply stressed out and just waiting for the apocalypse to

672
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: him like that. Yeah, it's a it's a tough it's

673
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: a tough way to grow into being an adult. Sure, sure, yeah.

674
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:46,719
Speaker 1: So thankfully the order to end all human life via

675
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 1: nuclear annihilation never came. In the nineteen sixty six Bill

676
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: got an honorable discharge from the Air Force. He immediately

677
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: decided to join the Navy next since his seasickness had

678
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: apparently improved. And Bill was, you know, shipped over to

679
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: serve on a submarine in Hawaii that because apparently his

680
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:06,439
Speaker 1: C six C sickness improved. As A yeah, the way

681
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: he describes it as like, after four years in the

682
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,400
Speaker 1: Air Force, he was like, I've always wanted to be

683
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:12,240
Speaker 1: in the Navy. Like I'm not gonna let I'm gonna

684
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,840
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get over this this problem and do I

685
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: don't Yeah, so Bill or something and was like it

686
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: sounds like he he bought a drug store supplement. Yeah.

687
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:26,879
Speaker 1: Probably so. Bill claims he got along famously with all

688
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 1: of his new comrades in Hawaii, including his best friend,

689
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 1: who Bill takes great pains to inform us, was a

690
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: black sailor named Lincoln Loving. Um, which I had. There

691
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 1: are actual people named Lincoln Loving, so he might not

692
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: have been making that name up. It does kind of

693
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: sound like the name a white guy would make up

694
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: for a black sailor to be his best friend. In

695
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 1: the narrative of his life. Uh, Bill's other best friend

696
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: was an American Indian who he doesn't give us the

697
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: guy's real name, but informs us that he was nicknamed Geronimo. Um.

698
00:37:57,040 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 1: So I don't I can't say that Bill's lying about this,

699
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: but maybe I can. I can say that I'm pretty

700
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 1: sure he's lying about this. The sounds yeah, fake as hell. Yeah. Anyway,

701
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: while Bill was stationed in Hawaii, he poisoned one of

702
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: his shipmates. Uh. In fact, the guy who was the

703
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 1: ship's cook. Now. Bill claims that this is because, for

704
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:18,840
Speaker 1: no reason at all, the cook banned him from eating

705
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: in the mess, and he also insists that the cook

706
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: was a drunk and Bill was nobly worried he might

707
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: endanger the other crew members. While underway, Bill wrote quote,

708
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: I won't tell you what I laced his vodka with,

709
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 1: but it wasn't anything you'd ever want to drink. Believe me.

710
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 1: I kept that chief so sick he was transferred off

711
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: the boat for medical reasons. I didn't want to hurt him,

712
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: but it was either get rid of him or starved

713
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 1: to death. I made up my mind that chief or

714
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:41,359
Speaker 1: no chief, I wasn't going to see on a boat

715
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:46,280
Speaker 1: that wouldn't feed me. Um so real willing to poison

716
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: his fellow sailors, which is I feel like this? It

717
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: seems like maybe he had a real problem with this guy.

718
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 1: I feel like most most most people would have found

719
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: a way to do that that didn't involve poisoning a man.

720
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I mean, listen, desperate times, desperate

721
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: test sometimes you got a poison a guy. Um. Anyway,

722
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: the Navy was only ever supposed to be a stepping

723
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 1: stone on Bill's way to achieving a bizarre, and in

724
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: my opinion, pointless dream. He wanted to be the first

725
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: member of his family to serve in all four branches

726
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:19,240
Speaker 1: of the armed forces, which is a weird dream, isn't

727
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: that like kind of a like that's just like what

728
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: if I went to four high schools? Like what is

729
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: the point that is in that? It's like the egot,

730
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: but you've always are doing shitty jobs. Uh and it's

731
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,800
Speaker 1: not at all like the egot because they'll take anyone

732
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 1: pretty much. Um okay, interesting irrational goal. But anyway, he

733
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: never got to do this because by the time he

734
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 1: was near the end of his four years in the Navy,

735
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: the Vietnam conflict had really started to heat up, and

736
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 1: Bill requested deployment to a combat zone and the Department

737
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 1: of Defense was like, absolutely, we keep getting all these

738
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: guys killed. So yeah, like you you, You're more than

739
00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 1: welcome to go to Vietnam Bill, Okay, cool? Um. So

740
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 1: Bill was sent to a naval support unit in the

741
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:06,320
Speaker 1: Quaviat River Quang Tree Province, and this was a really

742
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 1: dangerous posting. Bill's job was to captain a river boat. Um,

743
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: motoring up and down the river. Sounds like he's been

744
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: alive for a hundred years already. Yeah, he's in his twenties. Um. Yeah,

745
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: and he's do If you watched Apocalypse now, yes, you

746
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: know the you know, the like a huge chunk of

747
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: it there on that boat with the machine guns that

748
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: get shot at repeatedly. Yes, that's Bill's job, Like Bill

749
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: does that for real, Um, And it's it's a really

750
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: it's one of the most dangerous gigs you could have

751
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, like because you're on these like fiberglass boats

752
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: that are basically big moving targets that have no armor

753
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 1: on them. So it's it's it's a bad it's a

754
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: dangerous gig vibe. Okay, yeah, yeah, whatever else you can

755
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: say about him, and well we're gonna say mostly bad

756
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: things about him. Bill Cooper saw some ship. Um. His

757
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: best friend during training was a guy named Bob Baron,

758
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 1: and both men made a pact to drink at of

759
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:03,239
Speaker 1: Scotch and the other man's memory if they died in battle. Uh.

760
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:06,320
Speaker 1: Bob shipped out first, and he was killed almost immediately

761
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: UM treat for Bill Um. Bill Cooper felt that now

762
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 1: Vietnam was quote a personal war. They had killed a

763
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: part of me. UM. He claims that once he reached

764
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: the river, his boat engaged the enemy more times than

765
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: any other boat that ever patrolled that river. We kept

766
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 1: the enemy off the river and I never lost another man.

767
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: I can't tell you if that's true, he's almost certainly exaggerating.

768
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,359
Speaker 1: But he won awards and stuff for gallantry under fire,

769
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 1: He had a really he did some ship in Vietnam. Um,

770
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 1: And it's it's probably fair to say that Bill's service

771
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: in Vietnam was the only time where his like imagination

772
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 1: of who he was as a person came close to

773
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 1: being the real thing. Um. So, you know, Vietnam is

774
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: in some ways a really positive experience for Bill, but

775
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: he also walks away from it horribly, horribly traumatized. And

776
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 1: obviously he's a man who grew up in the fifties

777
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 1: to a father who was incapable of having emotional conversations,

778
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:04,759
Speaker 1: and Bill grows into an adult with combat trauma and

779
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 1: no no capacity to deal with it in any in

780
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: any way. Um. But his service earned him a promotion

781
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: to the Office of Naval Intelligence in Hawaii, where he

782
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,760
Speaker 1: worked on the briefing team for Admiral Bernard Clary, commander

783
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: of the U. S. Specific Fleet UH. In order to

784
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: do this job, bill security clearance was upgraded to top

785
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 1: secret Q sensitive Compartmentalized information Q. Yeah Q I hear yeah, yeah,

786
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: that's where and that's where Q and on comes from

787
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: is like Q was a level of military intelligence classification.

788
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,879
Speaker 1: I thought it was just a spicy continent. No, Bill

789
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: Cooper is clearly cute. No he's not because spoilers, he

790
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: dies violently. But um yeah, so giving Bill Cooper any

791
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:51,880
Speaker 1: kind of security clearance would prove to be one of

792
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:54,760
Speaker 1: the worst mistakes the US Navy ever made, a second

793
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: only to its continued failure to finally destroy the city

794
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: of Boston. Bill Cooper was a competency, but giving him

795
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: access to top secret information was a really bad decision,

796
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:05,880
Speaker 1: because not because Bill was a spy or because he

797
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: would in any way reveal actual secret information, but because

798
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: he was exactly the sort of guy who knew how

799
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:12,799
Speaker 1: to dine out for the rest of his life on

800
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: the lies that his position with Admiral Clary allowed him

801
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 1: to tell. He later trying to not act on the

802
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:22,280
Speaker 1: fact that you said competent Seman, I'm sorry I stopped listening.

803
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to defend the city of Boston,

804
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: because I know you're from that whole eastern chunk of

805
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: the country. Listen, there is no defending the city of Boston.

806
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 1: Glad we agree on this, ja There's no I mean

807
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: by all means watch Patriots Day on Netflix. It's in

808
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: the top ten right now. And um, I can't watch

809
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: it because it will give me PTSD PTSB. He will

810
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: give me. It's just Mark Wahlberg. I'm kidding. Um, there's

811
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 1: no defending the city of Oka full You know what?

812
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: Do you want to get beat up by my uncle?

813
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:02,760
Speaker 1: So she I don't take what kind of my uncle

814
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: will will kick? And I'm kidding. My uncle is a grifter.

815
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: He's pretending to be on disability, but he's not. Well,

816
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: what's that that's my rochette that I'm holding can take?

817
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,959
Speaker 1: I'm in a challenge. Are salutes at home? To figure

818
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:22,839
Speaker 1: out who Jamie's uncle is? A report him to? I mean,

819
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,280
Speaker 1: talk about it, guys. We're talking about good liars. Someone

820
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: talk to my uncle. He's it's not Jamie's uncle. Oh

821
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: is it time for that already? Transition I've ever done?

822
00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, but also fun the Boston Salt. You

823
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 1: know you want to know who won't tell on you

824
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:44,280
Speaker 1: for committing disability fraud? The products and services that support

825
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,320
Speaker 1: this podcast? Oh thank god. My family really can't handle

826
00:44:47,360 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: another situation like this. We're back. We're back, my family.

827
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 1: The last time my family went to court, we all

828
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: had to testify that my grandma had thrown a TV

829
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 1: at my grandpa. So don't talk about the city of Boston.

830
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 1: A very Boston story. Watch your grandma throw roku at

831
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 1: your grandpa. See how you like it, Oh, Jesus. So

832
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: Bill gets this job working for the admiral, and he

833
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 1: gets top secret security clearance about it, and he uses

834
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: the fact that he had this gig for the rest

835
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:32,360
Speaker 1: of his life to kind of make the lies that

836
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: he will later tell about the US government, um to

837
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: give them like an air of truth um. As he

838
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,319
Speaker 1: later wrote, quote, I began to see things at first

839
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:42,319
Speaker 1: that made no sense to me. President Nixon was on

840
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: television giving a speech, an incredible speech, saying that we

841
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: were conducting no bombing raids in North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Lao.

842
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: Five minutes later, intelligence came into the office with k

843
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: a figures of sorties over exactly the targets. Nixon said,

844
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 1: the Americans weren't bombing. I would shake my head and

845
00:45:56,360 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 1: wonder what in the world was going on here? That

846
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: wasn't right. I never said anything at time, most of

847
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:02,879
Speaker 1: us never did. I never imagined the people in charge

848
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 1: of the country would light of the people like that.

849
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 1: I was raised to think that this was impossible. Now

850
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 1: that part may or may not have been true. The

851
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: bombing raids he's talking about happened, but it was also

852
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: common knowledge by the time he actually wrote about them.

853
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 1: His biographer Mark Jacobson seems to believe in this part

854
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: and think that it was kind of a turning moment

855
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: for Bill where he starts to distrust the government in

856
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:25,360
Speaker 1: a real way. Um. But once his career is a

857
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorist got going, Bill started focusing on other things

858
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 1: he'd seen in the Admiral's file cabinet. First and foremost

859
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 1: was evidence that President Kennedy had been assassinated by his

860
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:39,479
Speaker 1: own Secret Service agent, William Greer. This was a remarkable feat. Yeah, yeah,

861
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:41,839
Speaker 1: because number one it was Bernie Sanders and number two

862
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,280
Speaker 1: Greer was driving JFK's Limo at the point the president

863
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: was shot. And Bill hand this like weird conspiracy theory

864
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 1: of like a shellfish tox and pellet gun that was

865
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 1: built into the body if I think an umbrella. Um.

866
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 1: But for the rest of his life, when Bill would

867
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: be like talking about government conspiracies, he'd say like I

868
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,720
Speaker 1: saw the evidence of it and the Admiral's fire in cabinet,

869
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:03,280
Speaker 1: and like he would say that about fucking everything sounds

870
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:05,959
Speaker 1: like a game of clue. So this job is very

871
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: fortunate for Bill Cooper because he did have a security

872
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: clearance at one point, and he basically it would allow

873
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 1: him to lie for the rest of his life about

874
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 1: having seen evidence of like evil government plots. That kind

875
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: of reminds me of like when I guess, I guess

876
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: in context to my life, when someone like works on

877
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 1: a TV show that's good, but they do nothing but that,

878
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 1: then they associate themselves with that TV show for the

879
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 1: rest of their lives. Yeah. So yeah, Bill Cooper like

880
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 1: kind of for for uh, sort of an example of

881
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 1: the way Bill would later frame his relatively brief period

882
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 1: of time working as basically the Admiral Secretary. Um, I'm

883
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: gonna quote from a speech he gave at Hollywood High

884
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: School in nineteen nine. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird that

885
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: that got to happen. Huh every time it sounds like

886
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: a fake place. Right away, I knew I was seeing

887
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: what I was not supposed to see. Material never intended

888
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 1: for my eyes. The grits were there what had been

889
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:03,239
Speaker 1: covered up the trees in this betrayal, I looked right

890
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:05,319
Speaker 1: into the heart of it. Everything about the war was

891
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: in there, the story behind the alleged attack by the

892
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:09,760
Speaker 1: Vietnamese navy, and the gulf of talking, the death counts,

893
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: the Americans dealing with corrupt South Vietnamese government. That's what

894
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:14,800
Speaker 1: I learned in Vietnam. I thought I was fighting for

895
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 1: my country, and I found it I was really fighting

896
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 1: for big business, the coming one world government, Cooper told

897
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: the audience. It was a devastating realization. This is from

898
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:27,360
Speaker 1: his biography Pale Horse Writer. So Bill continued to do

899
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 1: his job in the Navy, but when the time came

900
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: up to either sign up for four more years or leave,

901
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: he opted to quit this time. Soon Bill was back

902
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 1: in the mainland United States without a job for the

903
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:38,319
Speaker 1: first time in his adult life. And he'd kind of

904
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 1: grown up obsessed with the idea of like living you know,

905
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:45,879
Speaker 1: like kind of a stereotypical Americana life, you know, living

906
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 1: in like a small town with like a close knit community. Um,

907
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 1: and that was when he gets back to the US.

908
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,320
Speaker 1: He winds up and like the California, like big cities

909
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: in California, like the fucking Bay Area and stuff, and

910
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: he's like, this is so different than like what life

911
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: is supposed to be like in America. Something must have

912
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 1: gone horribly wrong. And people who knew Bill as a

913
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: kid will point out, like, Bill never knew the like

914
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: quote unquote like real America that he would spend the

915
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:14,719
Speaker 1: rest of his life obsessed with living he like lived

916
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:18,360
Speaker 1: on military basis. He never knew. It was just like

917
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: a projection of like the media he was consuming, exactly exactly,

918
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 1: like he grew up having this kind of miserable childhood

919
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: and longing for, you know, the kind of America he

920
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 1: saw on the television, which never really existed anywhere. Um yeah,

921
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 1: so uh yeah. Bill winds up in the Bay Area.

922
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 1: He gets a job as a diving instructor, He buys

923
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:44,240
Speaker 1: a motorcycle, and he attempts to lead a normal life.

924
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: Um but, as Bill would later claim, his sense of

925
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: guilt and outrage over the things he'd learned to overpower

926
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: would overpower him. So he like he later claims that

927
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:55,279
Speaker 1: basically he's he leaves the military with the knowledge of

928
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 1: all these horrible secrets, you know, these these evil programs

929
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:02,000
Speaker 1: that the government is instituting to a filing. Yeah, yeah,

930
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: this evil filing cabinet full of secret government plans to

931
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:10,280
Speaker 1: suborn the liberty of the American people and destroy freedom. Um.

932
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: And so he decides to start like going after he claims,

933
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:17,400
Speaker 1: um that he goes to a reporter and like starts

934
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 1: giving him the information that he's gotten. Um. And he's

935
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:23,319
Speaker 1: trying to like basically do what Woodward and Bernstein you know, did,

936
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: and be like a deep throat to them to like

937
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 1: reveal all these horrible government conspiracies. Um. And when he's

938
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,760
Speaker 1: midway through this process, he's tracked down and he's almost

939
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:34,800
Speaker 1: murdered by government men. Now. Bill claims that this happened

940
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:37,719
Speaker 1: while he was on his motorcycle driving on Skyline Boulevard.

941
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 1: A black Cadillac limousine pulled up behind him and ran

942
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:43,759
Speaker 1: him off the road. Bill would later write, quote, two

943
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:45,719
Speaker 1: men got out and climbed down to where I lay,

944
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:47,719
Speaker 1: covered in blood. One bent down and felt for my

945
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: carotid pulse. The other asked if I was dead. The

946
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: nearest man said no, but he will be. The other

947
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: applied good. Then we don't have to do anything. Now.

948
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 1: I felt that lie could have used a second draft. Yeah,

949
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,360
Speaker 1: I think he to use an editor on that one.

950
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 1: Um so. Bill claims he recovered, only to be run

951
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: down a month later by the same Cadillac, and this

952
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:11,600
Speaker 1: time the assassination was closer to his success. They damaged

953
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 1: his right leg badly enough that it had to be

954
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 1: amputated above the knee. Car yeah, same car, same limousine.

955
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And while he was in the hospital recuperating,

956
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:24,200
Speaker 1: Bill claims the same government men came to visit him again.

957
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 1: They only wanted to know if I would shut up

958
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 1: or if the next time should be final. I told

959
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 1: them that I would be a very good little boy

960
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,560
Speaker 1: and that they needn't worry about me anymore. Obviously, these

961
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 1: are all lies. Bill's motorcycle accident had a completely mundane explanation.

962
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 1: He lost control of his bike and almost died horribly

963
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 1: as a result of the fact that he was a

964
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:45,360
Speaker 1: bad motorcycle driver. Um yeah. And this is like what

965
00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 1: his family like. His dad when this got brought up

966
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: to him, his dad was like, what the funk is

967
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:50,880
Speaker 1: he talking about? It wasn't the government, like he was.

968
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:53,799
Speaker 1: He fucked up and crashed his motorcycle, and like I

969
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:56,479
Speaker 1: had to pay for his medical bills because he would

970
00:51:56,480 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 1: have been bankrupted otherwise. Um. And this was part of

971
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 1: why Bill light about this was because his relationship with

972
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:05,880
Speaker 1: his dad was strained and he couldn't like admit that

973
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:08,720
Speaker 1: he needed his family's money for a medical issue, especially

974
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:14,359
Speaker 1: when he'd caused himself. So it was the government. Yeah, um, yeah,

975
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:17,240
Speaker 1: I love I love his little soft core line about

976
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a good little boy. What you do? Yeah,

977
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 1: that is that is sexy, objectively sexy. Yeah, little Jackie

978
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 1: in I'll be a good little boy. Jamie for blowing

979
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: your mind with my amazing ideas. I think you need

980
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:42,960
Speaker 1: to get off this skype call right now and start writing. Yes,

981
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I have a final draft filed to take

982
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 1: And that was That was the last time any of

983
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 1: us ever talked to Jamie. She was too big a

984
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: star after making her Bill Cooper pornography video of brain

985
00:52:56,680 --> 00:53:03,839
Speaker 1: failure four pages into I'll be uh So. The mid

986
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties were a real rough

987
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:10,360
Speaker 1: period for Bill. Um. He had a fucking shipload of PTSD.

988
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 1: He was missing most of a leg, like he's in

989
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: a bad place. The seventies aren't a good time for Bill.

990
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:21,440
Speaker 1: Um and medical science didn't really formally recognize post traumatic

991
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:23,319
Speaker 1: stress disorder is the thing until it was added to

992
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 1: the d s M in like nineteen eighty. Um So

993
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,359
Speaker 1: for most of the time that Bill was struggling with it, um,

994
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 1: the term was used as post Vietnam syndrome when like

995
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 1: doctors believed it was a problem at all. Um And

996
00:53:34,520 --> 00:53:36,880
Speaker 1: in the US in the nineteen seventies, it wasn't like

997
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: a very welcome place to admit you were struggling with

998
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:43,239
Speaker 1: mental health issues related to your military services. Like Bill

999
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:46,759
Speaker 1: wasn't didn't talk about this ship to anyone for quite

1000
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:49,759
Speaker 1: a while. Um, he's just burying his trauma with the

1001
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 1: what's certainly even more PTSD from a horrible motorcycle accident.

1002
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:58,839
Speaker 1: He he's he's a damaged boy. Um And I I'm

1003
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:01,359
Speaker 1: saying that in the colledge that that should not at all,

1004
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: um mitigate what comes next, because we're going to talk

1005
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:10,839
Speaker 1: about his incredibly long history of profound spousal abuse. Uh. So,

1006
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:13,840
Speaker 1: we don't know how many women that Bill Cooper married

1007
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:17,440
Speaker 1: in the seventies. Um. What, Yeah, we have no idea.

1008
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:22,879
Speaker 1: It's a lot. It's too many women. So how can

1009
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 1: that be true? How can you? Yeah, because he was

1010
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:32,600
Speaker 1: a famous liar. Oh yeah, maybe making up what well? No, no, no, no, no, no,

1011
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 1: he we we know he had a number of them.

1012
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 1: It's just that we don't know how many of them

1013
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: there were because he lied about to all of them

1014
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,520
Speaker 1: about the others and wouldn't acknowledge them. And yeah, we'll

1015
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 1: talk about it'll this will make more sense than a

1016
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,799
Speaker 1: little bit um, his biographer writes, quote and his voluminous

1017
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:49,640
Speaker 1: FBI file. Cooper's father, Jack, is quoted as saying that

1018
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:52,760
Speaker 1: his son had been married or engaged at least nine times.

1019
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: According to Jack, Bill was still in high school when

1020
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: he got engaged to a seventeen year old Japanese girl.

1021
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:00,239
Speaker 1: The elder Cooper had to break it up. A year later,

1022
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: living on Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City, Cooper

1023
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:06,800
Speaker 1: again got engaged to another young Asian woman. Now Bill's

1024
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:09,359
Speaker 1: marriages weren't kept secret to protect his exes or whatever

1025
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:11,920
Speaker 1: kind of super cool spy explanation he probably would have

1026
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:15,399
Speaker 1: preferred people believe. The ugly reality is that, especially as

1027
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 1: an adult after his military service, Bill was wildly unstable

1028
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 1: and violent, and living with him was a waking nightmare

1029
00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 1: for most of the women that he married. UM. He

1030
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:26,680
Speaker 1: kept his prior relationships hidden because nobody would want to

1031
00:55:26,719 --> 00:55:29,799
Speaker 1: marry a guy with Bill's history. UM. In nineteen seventy six,

1032
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:32,399
Speaker 1: he got hitched to Jenny's Pell Um, who told Bill's

1033
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:35,600
Speaker 1: biographer later that I was number four. I think so again.

1034
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 1: Nobody has a real clear idea, even his wives, of

1035
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 1: like how many people he married. UM, but he gets

1036
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 1: married a shipload uh quote. I had no idea what

1037
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:47,040
Speaker 1: I was getting into. One minute he'd be the sweetest,

1038
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: warmest guy. Then he'd changed start yelling at me for

1039
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:52,440
Speaker 1: no reason. It was like living with Dr Jacklin Mr. Hyde.

1040
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 1: We were living in Union City, near Hayward. Bill was

1041
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 1: working in Oakland at the diving school. He'd get up

1042
00:55:56,840 --> 00:55:58,799
Speaker 1: at six to drive to work. I tried so hard

1043
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: to be a good wife. Every day. I had clean,

1044
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:02,760
Speaker 1: make dinner for him. I said a nice table waiting

1045
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:04,799
Speaker 1: for him to come home. In the beginning, he'd rush

1046
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:06,959
Speaker 1: home and give me a kiss, bring flowers. It was great.

1047
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 1: Then he got home later and later it could be

1048
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 1: after ten or midnight. Sometimes he didn't come home at all.

1049
00:56:11,719 --> 00:56:13,759
Speaker 1: I be beside myself, trying to figure out if he

1050
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:15,600
Speaker 1: was all right. It was really awful. I'd sit there

1051
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:17,440
Speaker 1: at the dinner table, looking at the cold food and

1052
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: crying my eyes out. When he did come back, he'd

1053
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 1: say he was tired and go straight to bed. I

1054
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 1: didn't understand what was happening. I thought it was all

1055
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:26,160
Speaker 1: my fault. And then there's a number of possibilities about

1056
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:27,799
Speaker 1: like what Bill was doing at the time. He very

1057
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 1: well may have been cheating. Probably was cheating because he

1058
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:34,080
Speaker 1: was constantly had a carousel of women kind of going um.

1059
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 1: He also had like a bunch of really unsuccessful business ventures.

1060
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:39,160
Speaker 1: He had an art gallery that failed, So maybe his

1061
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:46,840
Speaker 1: fucked up career was on his mind. Yeah, terrible, it's bad.

1062
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,120
Speaker 1: And he was also he was also an alcoholic and

1063
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:53,359
Speaker 1: increasingly like an increasingly like vicious drunk during this period

1064
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 1: of time. So he was up probably out drinking a

1065
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:57,279
Speaker 1: lot of the time. And Janice described him as a

1066
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 1: monster when he was drinking. Quote, he'd get a use

1067
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:02,719
Speaker 1: of mentally and after a while physically. I tried to

1068
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 1: make excuses for him. The war, his leg. He always

1069
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 1: told me the men in the car would come back

1070
00:57:07,120 --> 00:57:09,359
Speaker 1: to finish the job. One day he hit me gave

1071
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:11,880
Speaker 1: me a bloody nose, knocked me out. I called the hotline.

1072
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:13,719
Speaker 1: They told me to get out of there. Tony was

1073
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:15,600
Speaker 1: just a little baby. Then the next day we drove

1074
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:17,720
Speaker 1: built to work and just kept going. We moved in

1075
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: with my parents in Los Altos. I only saw him

1076
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:21,520
Speaker 1: one more time after that, when he drove up to

1077
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:23,440
Speaker 1: get his stuff. I thought he might stay a moment

1078
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:25,400
Speaker 1: talk to his son, but he just got the things

1079
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:28,439
Speaker 1: and left. And Bill we don't actually know many kids

1080
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 1: Bill had, either, but they all kind of have the

1081
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 1: same story as this one, where like he he'll have

1082
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:34,680
Speaker 1: a couple of kids or a kid with one of

1083
00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:39,040
Speaker 1: these women and then he will be a violent monster

1084
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:41,360
Speaker 1: and she will flee with the kid and Bill never

1085
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:47,360
Speaker 1: tries to reach out again. Um. God, miserable. It's not good,

1086
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:49,200
Speaker 1: it's not great. It's not a good way to be

1087
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: a person. Um. And it is like you look at

1088
00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:55,800
Speaker 1: Bill's history and again, not to mitigate the profound spousal abuse,

1089
00:57:55,840 --> 00:57:57,919
Speaker 1: but it's like, yeah, hard to imagine how this guy

1090
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:00,919
Speaker 1: grows up good at being in a relation ship. Yeah,

1091
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:03,360
Speaker 1: impossible for him to be good in relationships. I just,

1092
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: oh God, I hate that. I hate that there's so

1093
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:09,960
Speaker 1: many victims of that cheese. Yeah, a ton of victims.

1094
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:13,440
Speaker 1: Janice's story is probably very similar to a number of bills,

1095
00:58:13,520 --> 00:58:16,200
Speaker 1: unknown number of wives. Uh. It's important to note that

1096
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 1: the monster Bill could take quite a while to come out,

1097
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 1: and he was very good at charming women um in

1098
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 1: the meantime, As the story of his ex wife Sally illustrates.

1099
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 1: Bill and I started talking. I liked him, but he

1100
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:30,120
Speaker 1: was smoking. I told him, smoke really bothered me. I'm allergic.

1101
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 1: He looked me right in the eyes, said all right,

1102
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:34,760
Speaker 1: and crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. He said he'd

1103
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:37,000
Speaker 1: been smoking since he was fourteen, a couple of packs

1104
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 1: a day, But for me, he was going to quit.

1105
00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:40,840
Speaker 1: I asked him when he pointed to the cigarette in

1106
00:58:40,880 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 1: the tray and said, I already did. He never smoked

1107
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 1: another cigarette as long as I knew him. We started dancing.

1108
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:48,760
Speaker 1: He had this kind of old world formality about him,

1109
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:51,920
Speaker 1: that military thing. I suppose. He was a very graceful dancer,

1110
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: very light on his feet for a big guy. It

1111
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: wasn't until later that I realized he had an artificial leg.

1112
00:58:56,760 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: You would never have guessed it. Plus he made me laugh.

1113
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:02,240
Speaker 1: He was Zany, always acting out these incredible stories. He

1114
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 1: did these funny impressions. I love to hear him talk.

1115
00:59:04,800 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 1: It didn't make a difference what the topic was. He

1116
00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:09,360
Speaker 1: knew everything about it. He had this tone in his voice.

1117
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:11,240
Speaker 1: It just draws you in. You can hear it on

1118
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: the radio. He was perfect for that. We got married

1119
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:16,560
Speaker 1: on Catalina on the steps of the Wriggly Mansion. The

1120
00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 1: party was at l Galleon. Bill planned the whole thing,

1121
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: told the band what to play. It was great, but

1122
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 1: then he started drinking and picking fights. I guess that

1123
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:25,840
Speaker 1: should have been a sign. My girlfriend said I was

1124
00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:30,959
Speaker 1: crazy to marry him, but I really loved him. So yeah, yeah,

1125
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:35,840
Speaker 1: it's not great. It's not and it's I'm trying it

1126
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: just in kind of trying to classify Bill. I don't

1127
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 1: know that. I don't know that he's what you'd call

1128
00:59:40,960 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: a predator because I don't think I don't think he

1129
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 1: had a whole lot of control over what he was doing.

1130
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 1: I think he was a pretty broken person. But he

1131
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 1: also didn't go to like extreme measures to win back

1132
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:52,480
Speaker 1: the women who left him, like when he when he

1133
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:55,240
Speaker 1: violently chased them away. He would just kind of pretend

1134
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 1: they never existed, move on to the next person. I

1135
00:59:57,520 --> 01:00:00,000
Speaker 1: mean that's still like pretty clear. I mean it's hard

1136
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:02,360
Speaker 1: a ball. Yeah, yeah, definitely an abuser. But I don't

1137
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:04,800
Speaker 1: he's not like I don't think he's like seeking women

1138
01:00:04,840 --> 01:00:07,480
Speaker 1: out and like trying to psychologically fuck them out. Like,

1139
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:09,520
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any kind of like planning in it.

1140
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:13,000
Speaker 1: I think Bill is one of these people who has

1141
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:16,320
Speaker 1: like violent mood swings and no control over them and

1142
01:00:16,320 --> 01:00:22,600
Speaker 1: no desire to really control them. Yes, deeply selfish, Yes, yes, yes, absolutely,

1143
01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: and just yeah that's that's that's the feeling you get

1144
01:00:25,880 --> 01:00:28,520
Speaker 1: from him. His mood swings seemed to come more or

1145
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:32,520
Speaker 1: less at random, um, and probably was a mix of

1146
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:35,560
Speaker 1: a number of things. Um. He was also like working

1147
01:00:35,560 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 1: a pretty unsatisfying life at this time, a lot series

1148
01:00:38,040 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 1: of horrible dead end jobs, repeated failed business games, and

1149
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:43,160
Speaker 1: you get the feeling he was taking that out on

1150
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:45,640
Speaker 1: his family as well. Um, But he also took it

1151
01:00:45,680 --> 01:00:47,720
Speaker 1: out on everyone around him. And one of these dead

1152
01:00:47,760 --> 01:00:49,960
Speaker 1: end jobs, Bill got into an argument with his boss

1153
01:00:49,960 --> 01:00:52,360
Speaker 1: and punched through a plate glass window to try and

1154
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:57,080
Speaker 1: strangle him. Um. So he is not a not a

1155
01:00:57,320 --> 01:01:01,480
Speaker 1: not a planner. That this point, he really is just

1156
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 1: by the seat of his pants at every turn. Yeah,

1157
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: punching through a plate glass window is not something you

1158
01:01:07,760 --> 01:01:11,960
Speaker 1: do if you're thinking a lot about your violence. So

1159
01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:14,360
Speaker 1: he was let go from that job. And obviously money

1160
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:18,120
Speaker 1: was always tight because Bill repeatedly got fired from jobs

1161
01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:21,720
Speaker 1: for being a violent piece of shit. Um. Yeah. And

1162
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 1: also he couldn't stop from getting the women that he

1163
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:26,760
Speaker 1: was with pregnant. So we got Sally pregnant, like, you know,

1164
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:30,400
Speaker 1: pretty much as soon as they get married, their daughter, Yeah,

1165
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:34,800
Speaker 1: competent salmon um their daughter Jessica again, like, we don't

1166
01:01:34,800 --> 01:01:38,480
Speaker 1: know how many kids he had um. Yeah. Sally later

1167
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,360
Speaker 1: recalled quote, he was the most loving, attentive dad. He'd

1168
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:43,880
Speaker 1: play with Jessica for hours. He seemed so happy, but

1169
01:01:43,960 --> 01:01:46,320
Speaker 1: then just like that, he'd go off start yelling. I

1170
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:48,120
Speaker 1: blamed it on the drinking, but it was more than that.

1171
01:01:48,280 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 1: It was like he became possessed, not in control of himself.

1172
01:01:51,280 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 1: I tins up every time he came into the room.

1173
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 1: One night, when Jessica was little, we went to chuck

1174
01:01:55,520 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 1: e cheeses. Bill was drinking. He got abusive, calling me.

1175
01:02:00,160 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 1: I mean, that is something that happens at Chucky Cheese.

1176
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:04,600
Speaker 1: I mean, no, no, what no one's going to be sober?

1177
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:06,960
Speaker 1: I would I would be more worried about No. Wait,

1178
01:02:07,040 --> 01:02:11,720
Speaker 1: I don't want to make that reference. Um, that's bad. Still,

1179
01:02:11,760 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 1: how's birthday carries at Chuck E Cheese? Is no one

1180
01:02:14,080 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 1: is sober and no one is getting along? Yeah? No,

1181
01:02:17,160 --> 01:02:19,240
Speaker 1: no one should get along. I don't know. I don't

1182
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:21,280
Speaker 1: want to. This story goes in a bad place, so

1183
01:02:21,280 --> 01:02:23,840
Speaker 1: I don't want to make the drinking jokes about Chuck

1184
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:26,560
Speaker 1: E Cheese. Is that normally? Like are a real positive

1185
01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:28,680
Speaker 1: part of my life. I loved I love talking about

1186
01:02:28,680 --> 01:02:30,760
Speaker 1: what a bad place Chuck E Cheeses is. But this,

1187
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:34,000
Speaker 1: this story is real dark. This is one of the

1188
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:37,080
Speaker 1: worst Chuck E Cheese stories I've ever heard. And that's

1189
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:41,000
Speaker 1: saying something. Yeah, Bill was drinking. He got really abusive,

1190
01:02:41,000 --> 01:02:43,040
Speaker 1: calling me names. I told him I'd had enough to

1191
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:45,160
Speaker 1: stop the car, let us out. I was holding Jess

1192
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:47,400
Speaker 1: in my lap. We didn't deal with seatbelts like today.

1193
01:02:47,440 --> 01:02:49,280
Speaker 1: I opened the door to go when Bill turned and

1194
01:02:49,320 --> 01:02:51,240
Speaker 1: pushed me and Jess out of the car with his

1195
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:53,640
Speaker 1: artificial leg. It was like getting hit by a four

1196
01:02:53,680 --> 01:02:56,200
Speaker 1: by four. We went flying. I was okay, but then

1197
01:02:56,240 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 1: I looked in Jess's tiny face was all cut up.

1198
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:01,640
Speaker 1: So he keeps a wife and infant daughter out of

1199
01:03:01,680 --> 01:03:04,400
Speaker 1: a moving vehicle after getting drunk at Chuck E Cheese?

1200
01:03:04,520 --> 01:03:08,360
Speaker 1: Is um, Jesus Christ, why they have a to drink

1201
01:03:08,520 --> 01:03:12,040
Speaker 1: cap now? First of its Bill Cooper. That's the Bill

1202
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:15,040
Speaker 1: Cooper rule of Chuck E Cheesus. That is so that

1203
01:03:15,240 --> 01:03:19,880
Speaker 1: is very upsetting and very It's not the first time

1204
01:03:19,920 --> 01:03:22,080
Speaker 1: that has happened at a Chuck E Cheese, not the

1205
01:03:22,120 --> 01:03:24,400
Speaker 1: fiftieth time that's happened at a Chuck E Cheese. No,

1206
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:28,600
Speaker 1: for reasons that are probably too depressing to think about.

1207
01:03:28,680 --> 01:03:30,880
Speaker 1: Sally didn't leave for good after that. She set up

1208
01:03:30,880 --> 01:03:33,320
Speaker 1: a meeting between her Bill and their pastor to try

1209
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:35,800
Speaker 1: to talk things out, and the subject of the conversation

1210
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:39,080
Speaker 1: quickly turned to Vietnam and Bill. As soon as like,

1211
01:03:39,160 --> 01:03:41,800
Speaker 1: the pastor kind of started asking him questions about his service,

1212
01:03:41,880 --> 01:03:45,320
Speaker 1: Bill got violently angry. He started screaming and became so

1213
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:47,720
Speaker 1: incensed that Sally's pastor had to call the v A

1214
01:03:47,840 --> 01:03:50,360
Speaker 1: to come and pick him up. Um, So the couple

1215
01:03:50,400 --> 01:03:53,240
Speaker 1: splits in like nineteen eighty two, and during this time

1216
01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:55,360
Speaker 1: Bill is going to Long Beach College and trying to

1217
01:03:55,400 --> 01:03:57,640
Speaker 1: make use of his g I bill, and he spends

1218
01:03:57,680 --> 01:03:59,280
Speaker 1: a lot of time. They're like, this is kind of

1219
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 1: the first time in the early eighties after his his

1220
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:05,760
Speaker 1: this marriage X breaks apart where he starts to kind

1221
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: of deal with his PTSD UM by writing about it.

1222
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:13,840
Speaker 1: So he does like essays and stuff about um what

1223
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:16,880
Speaker 1: like he and other veterans are kind of experiencing one

1224
01:04:16,920 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: of his essays, and most people were doing at that time.

1225
01:04:21,120 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 1: He does to an extent try to process his trauma.

1226
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 1: He writes an essay titled Vietnam Are we still suffering Casualties?

1227
01:04:27,040 --> 01:04:30,040
Speaker 1: Ten years later? Um? And in it he wrote quote

1228
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:32,840
Speaker 1: on the campus of Long Beach City College. Aspector reaps

1229
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:35,600
Speaker 1: its harvest ghastly. It stalks the future of those who

1230
01:04:35,640 --> 01:04:38,000
Speaker 1: know it's past, any of us who have stood against

1231
01:04:38,000 --> 01:04:41,040
Speaker 1: it and survived. The demon strikes down dreams, educations, and

1232
01:04:41,040 --> 01:04:43,920
Speaker 1: even minds. It is insidious in nature and rides upon

1233
01:04:43,920 --> 01:04:46,840
Speaker 1: an undercurrent of memories, ignorance, and fear. It is not

1234
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:49,000
Speaker 1: dead as many believe, nor is it a figment of

1235
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:51,520
Speaker 1: the imagination. It is as real, as real as the

1236
01:04:51,520 --> 01:04:55,320
Speaker 1: earth we walk upon. He's writing about his PTSD, and

1237
01:04:55,360 --> 01:04:59,440
Speaker 1: he's writing pretty well about it actually, like Bill's not

1238
01:04:59,520 --> 01:05:04,120
Speaker 1: a bad writer, um and he uh no, and he

1239
01:05:04,240 --> 01:05:06,600
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things that happens during this time

1240
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:09,680
Speaker 1: is he meets a young Vietnamese refugee at Long Beach

1241
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:12,240
Speaker 1: College and gets to like interview her, and he has

1242
01:05:12,280 --> 01:05:14,560
Speaker 1: this realization that like when he was the way he

1243
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:17,320
Speaker 1: later described as like he realized that if he'd encountered

1244
01:05:17,320 --> 01:05:19,080
Speaker 1: this woman when she was a young girl in Vietnam,

1245
01:05:19,320 --> 01:05:22,520
Speaker 1: he probably would have shot her. And this like really fucks,

1246
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:27,520
Speaker 1: like Bills, you can't over exaggerate how much Vietnam fox

1247
01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:31,440
Speaker 1: this man up. Yeah, which is which is you know,

1248
01:05:31,560 --> 01:05:34,680
Speaker 1: like a story ful lot of people, Yeah, it's yeah,

1249
01:05:34,680 --> 01:05:36,080
Speaker 1: and you know, to be fair, a lot of people

1250
01:05:36,120 --> 01:05:38,400
Speaker 1: who don't kick their wife and infant child out of

1251
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:42,439
Speaker 1: a moving car, so like certainty that you will then

1252
01:05:42,520 --> 01:05:48,080
Speaker 1: do that. Um yeah, but yeah, it's a rough like

1253
01:05:48,160 --> 01:05:51,200
Speaker 1: Bill is. And this will become really appropriate because of

1254
01:05:51,200 --> 01:05:53,320
Speaker 1: the man he grows into. Bill is like the fucking

1255
01:05:53,360 --> 01:05:58,800
Speaker 1: poster child for how badly American imperialism fox up young men,

1256
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 1: the young men who are two of like, how American

1257
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:07,000
Speaker 1: imperialism sucks you up? How like PTSD fucks you up?

1258
01:06:07,000 --> 01:06:10,680
Speaker 1: How like the expectation based on like media and like

1259
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:15,800
Speaker 1: expectations versus reality fuck you up. There's no there's no

1260
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:19,480
Speaker 1: limit on ways that this guy's fucked up. Case study

1261
01:06:19,520 --> 01:06:21,520
Speaker 1: a lot of lessons in the story of Bill Cooper.

1262
01:06:21,960 --> 01:06:24,160
Speaker 1: So Bill gets married again in nineteen eighties six, and

1263
01:06:24,160 --> 01:06:26,160
Speaker 1: that worked out about as well as you'd expect. By

1264
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,840
Speaker 1: the tail end of the Reagan years, he had nearly

1265
01:06:28,880 --> 01:06:31,720
Speaker 1: two basketball teams have failed marriages in their rear window,

1266
01:06:31,960 --> 01:06:34,520
Speaker 1: a head full of bad memories and no real prospect

1267
01:06:34,560 --> 01:06:40,440
Speaker 1: for worked. The future looked bleak. Yeah, um, so the

1268
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:44,560
Speaker 1: future looked bleak for Bill. But then in nineteen Jamie

1269
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:49,080
Speaker 1: there came a single shaft of brilliant sunlight. Bill Cooper

1270
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:54,880
Speaker 1: discovered the Internet. No, I know, I know, the worst

1271
01:06:54,920 --> 01:07:00,600
Speaker 1: thing that could have happened to this confirmation of the

1272
01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:05,600
Speaker 1: whole thought he's ever had in his life. Yeah, it's

1273
01:07:05,680 --> 01:07:10,200
Speaker 1: it's it's unfortunate that things about that way. Yeah he was.

1274
01:07:10,280 --> 01:07:13,040
Speaker 1: Bill Cooper was one of the very first people on

1275
01:07:13,080 --> 01:07:16,680
Speaker 1: the Internet. Yeah, like, one of the very first human

1276
01:07:16,720 --> 01:07:19,120
Speaker 1: beings to really get into it. Um, and the late

1277
01:07:19,160 --> 01:07:21,320
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties Internet was a real different beast than the

1278
01:07:21,320 --> 01:07:23,960
Speaker 1: modern one. There was nothing that really worked like social media,

1279
01:07:24,080 --> 01:07:26,840
Speaker 1: but there were b b s s, which were essentially forums.

1280
01:07:26,840 --> 01:07:29,320
Speaker 1: So if you remember what forums were, you can if

1281
01:07:29,360 --> 01:07:32,560
Speaker 1: you can think back to a time before Facebook. Bill's

1282
01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:35,160
Speaker 1: kind of into that sort of thing, um, and he

1283
01:07:35,320 --> 01:07:39,720
Speaker 1: quickly discovers parannet, which was dedicated to the paranormal, particularly

1284
01:07:39,840 --> 01:07:45,040
Speaker 1: UFOs And yeah, so Bill gets super fucking into UFOs

1285
01:07:45,280 --> 01:07:48,400
Speaker 1: um and into this community of like UFO nerds and

1286
01:07:48,520 --> 01:07:52,920
Speaker 1: like really the first online community of UFO nerds that exists. Yeah,

1287
01:07:52,960 --> 01:07:56,320
Speaker 1: this is such early Internet ship. It's like every annoying

1288
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:59,479
Speaker 1: couple in their forties met on an Internet forum. Yeah,

1289
01:07:59,640 --> 01:08:03,480
Speaker 1: just exactly. Yeah, though legally as well, um, that's in

1290
01:08:03,520 --> 01:08:07,320
Speaker 1: the constitution. So Mark Jacobson suggests that flying saucers and

1291
01:08:07,360 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: sort of like belief in UFOs was quote the first

1292
01:08:10,280 --> 01:08:13,360
Speaker 1: populist truth or issue, the first time the authorities denied

1293
01:08:13,480 --> 01:08:16,040
Speaker 1: something that a large percentage of the population believed to

1294
01:08:16,080 --> 01:08:19,120
Speaker 1: be true. And this is probably accurate in a culture

1295
01:08:19,160 --> 01:08:22,880
Speaker 1: of conspiracy, scholar Michael Barkon notes, quote, within a few

1296
01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:25,280
Speaker 1: months of the first modern claim of a flying saucers

1297
01:08:25,280 --> 01:08:28,439
Speaker 1: siting in nineteen forty seven poles showed that of the

1298
01:08:28,479 --> 01:08:31,280
Speaker 1: population had heard of them. By nineteen sixty six, that

1299
01:08:31,320 --> 01:08:34,120
Speaker 1: figure had risen to ninety six percent, and more importantly,

1300
01:08:34,320 --> 01:08:37,880
Speaker 1: forty six percent of all Americans believed UFOs actually existed.

1301
01:08:38,240 --> 01:08:40,920
Speaker 1: More than a decade later, in nineteen seventy eight, thirty

1302
01:08:40,960 --> 01:08:44,240
Speaker 1: percent of college graduates believe they existed. At that time,

1303
01:08:44,280 --> 01:08:46,920
Speaker 1: the number of Americans who believed UFOs were real reached

1304
01:08:46,920 --> 01:08:51,559
Speaker 1: its highest level fifty seven percent. Now Wow, by nineteen

1305
01:08:51,640 --> 01:08:54,479
Speaker 1: ninety the number of UFO true believers had actually fallen

1306
01:08:54,520 --> 01:08:56,640
Speaker 1: to about forty seven percent, and it was still at

1307
01:08:56,640 --> 01:08:59,040
Speaker 1: around that level six years later. And this suggests that

1308
01:08:59,080 --> 01:09:02,599
Speaker 1: the Internet so much allow for the spread of a

1309
01:09:02,600 --> 01:09:05,080
Speaker 1: belief in UFOs, as it did help to make those

1310
01:09:05,120 --> 01:09:07,920
Speaker 1: beliefs kind of more durable by building communities for people

1311
01:09:07,960 --> 01:09:11,360
Speaker 1: like build to explore and expand on existing theories. And

1312
01:09:11,439 --> 01:09:16,320
Speaker 1: this allowed for very different kinds of conspiracy theories to merge.

1313
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:20,040
Speaker 1: For example, there's always been stories about an alien crash

1314
01:09:20,160 --> 01:09:23,240
Speaker 1: landing in Roswell since like nineteen seven UM, and there'd

1315
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:26,599
Speaker 1: also been conspiracy theories theorists who believe that JFK had

1316
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:29,680
Speaker 1: been murdered by someone besides the widely accepted culprit, who is,

1317
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:35,960
Speaker 1: of course Bernard Sanders accomplished me yeah. Um. And then

1318
01:09:36,120 --> 01:09:38,960
Speaker 1: starting in the mid nineteen eighties, there was Majestic twelve,

1319
01:09:39,040 --> 01:09:42,479
Speaker 1: and in brief, Majestic twelve conspiracy theory purported to be

1320
01:09:42,520 --> 01:09:45,920
Speaker 1: a set of briefing documents for the incoming newly elected

1321
01:09:45,960 --> 01:09:48,320
Speaker 1: president and forming him of the existence of a secret

1322
01:09:48,439 --> 01:09:52,200
Speaker 1: organization of the world's dozen most powerful people. M J

1323
01:09:52,400 --> 01:09:57,519
Speaker 1: twelve is like the first hidden global government conspiracy theory um,

1324
01:09:57,560 --> 01:09:59,280
Speaker 1: and it was formed in the wake of the Roswell

1325
01:09:59,360 --> 01:10:02,400
Speaker 1: land Like this, this hidden global government was supposedly had

1326
01:10:02,439 --> 01:10:04,200
Speaker 1: been formed in the wake of the Roswell landings to

1327
01:10:04,240 --> 01:10:07,519
Speaker 1: deal with the newfound existence of aliens. Now, the initial

1328
01:10:07,560 --> 01:10:10,439
Speaker 1: claims of the m J twelve conspiracy theory were rather basic,

1329
01:10:10,520 --> 01:10:12,439
Speaker 1: because this document actually was only like, I think, a

1330
01:10:12,479 --> 01:10:15,599
Speaker 1: dozen pages or something. But once m J twelve hit

1331
01:10:15,640 --> 01:10:18,040
Speaker 1: the Internet in the late nineteen eighties, a funny thing

1332
01:10:18,160 --> 01:10:22,520
Speaker 1: started to happen. Conspiracy theorists began grafting their pet conspiracy

1333
01:10:22,600 --> 01:10:26,560
Speaker 1: theories onto m J twelve. Writing in the jfk assassination

1334
01:10:26,560 --> 01:10:28,640
Speaker 1: and the Tonk and Gulf incident, which you know was

1335
01:10:28,680 --> 01:10:30,720
Speaker 1: the spark behind the Vietnam War and a bunch of

1336
01:10:30,720 --> 01:10:34,639
Speaker 1: other shady stuff into the machinations of the Majestic Twelve. Now.

1337
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:38,160
Speaker 1: The most successful of these conspiracy fan fiction authors was

1338
01:10:38,200 --> 01:10:40,479
Speaker 1: a fellow named John Lear, the son of a guy

1339
01:10:40,520 --> 01:10:43,360
Speaker 1: of the guy who created the Leir Jet. Lear's theory

1340
01:10:43,479 --> 01:10:45,160
Speaker 1: was that the leaders of the US had made a

1341
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:47,880
Speaker 1: devil's bargain with aliens back in the nineteen sixties to

1342
01:10:47,960 --> 01:10:51,480
Speaker 1: hand over American citizens and cattle to them for mutilation

1343
01:10:51,520 --> 01:10:56,360
Speaker 1: and experimentation in exchange for technology. But the aliens, yeah, yeah,

1344
01:10:56,600 --> 01:10:59,280
Speaker 1: this is this is the X files, right, like this

1345
01:10:59,320 --> 01:11:02,320
Speaker 1: is actually like is literally what the like John Lear,

1346
01:11:02,360 --> 01:11:04,760
Speaker 1: And then the work that Bill Cooper does with Lear

1347
01:11:04,960 --> 01:11:08,560
Speaker 1: is the inspiration for all of the X Files. Clearwater

1348
01:11:08,640 --> 01:11:11,120
Speaker 1: Revival playing in the background of this Devil's deal with

1349
01:11:11,200 --> 01:11:14,480
Speaker 1: the Aliens is good. I feel like I'm there. Yeah yeah,

1350
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:18,920
Speaker 1: so you know, Lear, Lear in Cooper, once they got together,

1351
01:11:18,920 --> 01:11:22,759
Speaker 1: would kind of argue that actually, the Majestic twelve um

1352
01:11:23,040 --> 01:11:26,919
Speaker 1: were had we're kind of getting like grifted by the aliens,

1353
01:11:26,960 --> 01:11:29,160
Speaker 1: that like the technology they were getting wasn't very good

1354
01:11:29,160 --> 01:11:31,719
Speaker 1: and the aliens were way more brutal with their abductions

1355
01:11:31,760 --> 01:11:34,760
Speaker 1: than they were supposed to be um, and so like

1356
01:11:35,000 --> 01:11:38,280
Speaker 1: the conspiracy evolves under Lear into like claiming that the

1357
01:11:38,360 --> 01:11:42,479
Speaker 1: Allies in the military had balked at this this like

1358
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:45,400
Speaker 1: agreement with the Aliens, and that was what led to

1359
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:48,400
Speaker 1: the creation of the Strategic Defension Initiative Reagan's Star Wars

1360
01:11:48,439 --> 01:11:55,200
Speaker 1: Missile program. Is. What's happening is the Internet is making

1361
01:11:55,400 --> 01:11:58,559
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories had largely been sort of spread by kind

1362
01:11:58,560 --> 01:12:00,920
Speaker 1: of you know, there'd be some underground newsletters and stuff,

1363
01:12:00,960 --> 01:12:03,400
Speaker 1: but also people just kind of spread these these fake

1364
01:12:03,520 --> 01:12:05,960
Speaker 1: documents that we're purporting to be like the and this

1365
01:12:06,000 --> 01:12:08,280
Speaker 1: is like throughout the eighties, these documents that were claimed

1366
01:12:08,320 --> 01:12:11,519
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, evidence of one conspiracy or another.

1367
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:13,519
Speaker 1: And the Internet brings all starts to bring all this

1368
01:12:13,560 --> 01:12:16,479
Speaker 1: ship together, so like we can take your take your

1369
01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:18,639
Speaker 1: cork and take it from your corkboard and really start

1370
01:12:18,680 --> 01:12:22,240
Speaker 1: to compare some ideas. Yeah, yeah, um, I'm gonna quote

1371
01:12:22,240 --> 01:12:24,599
Speaker 1: from the book A Culture of Conspiracy on sort of

1372
01:12:24,600 --> 01:12:28,559
Speaker 1: what happened like the impact of of John Lear's uh,

1373
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:31,759
Speaker 1: what's called the Leer statement, which is like his personal

1374
01:12:31,840 --> 01:12:34,960
Speaker 1: theory about MJ twelve. The Leer Statement is brief, only

1375
01:12:35,000 --> 01:12:37,839
Speaker 1: seven printed pages, but dizzying in its claims. It elevates

1376
01:12:37,920 --> 01:12:40,800
Speaker 1: m J twelve to a conspiratorial position nowhere hinted at

1377
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:43,519
Speaker 1: in the original papers themselves, and implies a web of

1378
01:12:43,560 --> 01:12:47,120
Speaker 1: subsidiary conspiracies to silence the news media with that in

1379
01:12:47,160 --> 01:12:49,879
Speaker 1: the academic community, and to must lead the UFL community

1380
01:12:49,920 --> 01:12:53,320
Speaker 1: as well. According to leer upologist William Moore, the figure

1381
01:12:53,360 --> 01:12:56,919
Speaker 1: most identified with the MJL twelve papers was probably himself

1382
01:12:56,960 --> 01:13:00,439
Speaker 1: a disinformation agent in the higher of MJ twelve. So

1383
01:13:01,640 --> 01:13:06,280
Speaker 1: you also start to see like what's essentially like this

1384
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:10,040
Speaker 1: big over conspiracy that's being created. Like it's not just

1385
01:13:10,160 --> 01:13:12,280
Speaker 1: it's not just aliens exist, It's not just there's a

1386
01:13:12,320 --> 01:13:15,720
Speaker 1: secret world government. It's not just JFK was killed, you know,

1387
01:13:16,040 --> 01:13:18,479
Speaker 1: um by the CIA or whoever. It's like all of

1388
01:13:18,520 --> 01:13:23,400
Speaker 1: these things are part of this massive, branching, impossibly influential conspiracy.

1389
01:13:23,479 --> 01:13:25,800
Speaker 1: What you're seeing is the precursor for the kind of

1390
01:13:25,840 --> 01:13:28,800
Speaker 1: conspiracy that qan On is right, Like this is when

1391
01:13:28,800 --> 01:13:31,760
Speaker 1: that first starts happening, and Bill Cooper is one of

1392
01:13:31,800 --> 01:13:33,920
Speaker 1: the guys on the ground making it happen. He's one

1393
01:13:33,920 --> 01:13:38,840
Speaker 1: of the most influential people in this early little online community. UM.

1394
01:13:38,880 --> 01:13:41,360
Speaker 1: And you know, Bill had kind of just started by

1395
01:13:41,520 --> 01:13:45,960
Speaker 1: sharing tales of of aliens and stuff in paranet um,

1396
01:13:46,000 --> 01:13:49,160
Speaker 1: but he very quickly graduated into like writing about Lear's

1397
01:13:49,160 --> 01:13:52,679
Speaker 1: work and adding conspiracies to it. And Lear and Cooper

1398
01:13:52,760 --> 01:13:55,639
Speaker 1: soon like become friends and start talking and start working

1399
01:13:55,720 --> 01:14:00,160
Speaker 1: together on like expanding kind of people's idea of what

1400
01:14:00,280 --> 01:14:05,519
Speaker 1: a conspiracy could be. UM. And here's how it'll be

1401
01:14:05,640 --> 01:14:08,639
Speaker 1: less so in just a second. Cooper's biographer actually interviewed

1402
01:14:08,720 --> 01:14:11,479
Speaker 1: Lear um pretty recently. Uh, and Lear was very old

1403
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:13,680
Speaker 1: at the time. But here's how Leir described the two

1404
01:14:13,720 --> 01:14:16,680
Speaker 1: men's early friendship. I heard there was this guy on

1405
01:14:16,760 --> 01:14:19,120
Speaker 1: parannet who was supporting what I said, Bill Cooper. He

1406
01:14:19,200 --> 01:14:21,200
Speaker 1: was writing into the bulletin board saying he'd worked in

1407
01:14:21,200 --> 01:14:23,840
Speaker 1: the Office of Naval Intelligence and see this incredible amount

1408
01:14:23,880 --> 01:14:26,439
Speaker 1: of top secret material. And he could vouch for word

1409
01:14:26,479 --> 01:14:29,160
Speaker 1: for word fifty percent of what I said. Lear and

1410
01:14:29,160 --> 01:14:31,640
Speaker 1: Cooper spent a lot of time together through nineteen and

1411
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:34,360
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. I liked him from the beginning. Lear recalled

1412
01:14:34,439 --> 01:14:35,960
Speaker 1: he was smart, and he had a good sense of

1413
01:14:36,040 --> 01:14:38,599
Speaker 1: humor and amazing memory. He also could drink me under

1414
01:14:38,600 --> 01:14:40,559
Speaker 1: the table, which wasn't so easy to do back then.

1415
01:14:40,720 --> 01:14:42,439
Speaker 1: When I saw him put away a fifth of Scotch

1416
01:14:42,479 --> 01:14:45,000
Speaker 1: before lunchtime, I knew he was my kind of guy.

1417
01:14:45,360 --> 01:14:47,599
Speaker 1: Then he'd be off on something else, that was Bill.

1418
01:14:47,840 --> 01:14:50,040
Speaker 1: One minute, he'd be wrapping himself in the flag, standing

1419
01:14:50,080 --> 01:14:52,679
Speaker 1: up and reciting parts of the Constitution verbatim. Then he'd

1420
01:14:52,720 --> 01:14:55,000
Speaker 1: be like a beat nick at a jazz club. Hey daddy, oh,

1421
01:14:55,000 --> 01:14:57,040
Speaker 1: hey daddy Oh. He might have pulled a gun on

1422
01:14:57,080 --> 01:14:59,040
Speaker 1: me three or four times. Then again I pulled a

1423
01:14:59,040 --> 01:15:04,920
Speaker 1: gun on him too. Okay, So just to summarize, he's like,

1424
01:15:05,280 --> 01:15:06,720
Speaker 1: I knew this guy. We were going to be friends

1425
01:15:06,720 --> 01:15:09,120
Speaker 1: when I found out he was very sick in his head,

1426
01:15:10,080 --> 01:15:12,479
Speaker 1: that there was a little hope that he was going

1427
01:15:12,560 --> 01:15:15,320
Speaker 1: to seek out help or get any support from someone

1428
01:15:15,400 --> 01:15:17,240
Speaker 1: in his life. I was all about this, and I

1429
01:15:17,280 --> 01:15:19,919
Speaker 1: thought it was really cool because I shared these same issues,

1430
01:15:20,080 --> 01:15:23,559
Speaker 1: because I have the same problem. We both had violent

1431
01:15:23,560 --> 01:15:26,679
Speaker 1: mood swings and pulled firearms on each other regularly. That's

1432
01:15:26,640 --> 01:15:30,320
Speaker 1: what we have interested in addressing this. No, therefore, were

1433
01:15:30,320 --> 01:15:33,720
Speaker 1: going to be good friends soon. Bill Cooper developed his

1434
01:15:33,720 --> 01:15:36,879
Speaker 1: own hypothesis based off of Lear's theory about global elites

1435
01:15:36,920 --> 01:15:40,840
Speaker 1: trading human souls for alien technology and excited online rants.

1436
01:15:40,840 --> 01:15:43,160
Speaker 1: Bill would claim to have access to top secret information

1437
01:15:43,200 --> 01:15:46,080
Speaker 1: that at least sixteen alien craft had crashed and been

1438
01:15:46,080 --> 01:15:50,679
Speaker 1: found by the US government UH aliens had been recovered dead,

1439
01:15:50,720 --> 01:15:52,960
Speaker 1: and one had been recovered alive, but was always very

1440
01:15:53,000 --> 01:15:56,559
Speaker 1: specific in these kind of posts. According to Mark Jacobson quote,

1441
01:15:57,040 --> 01:16:00,200
Speaker 1: Cooper's rewrite of Lear's hypothesis added new items like a

1442
01:16:00,280 --> 01:16:03,799
Speaker 1: particle beam weapon and machinery for cloning and synthetic genetic

1443
01:16:03,920 --> 01:16:06,200
Speaker 1: duplication of humans to the shopping list of Lear's and

1444
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:09,479
Speaker 1: holy tech for flesh deal. He also tweaked the timeline

1445
01:16:09,520 --> 01:16:12,360
Speaker 1: of government alien interaction. Now there were three separate meetings,

1446
01:16:12,400 --> 01:16:14,799
Speaker 1: the most significant being the signing of the formal agreement,

1447
01:16:14,800 --> 01:16:17,800
Speaker 1: which took place on February tenth, nineteen fifty four, and

1448
01:16:17,920 --> 01:16:21,720
Speaker 1: Murrock now Edwards Air Force Base near Lancaster, California. The

1449
01:16:21,760 --> 01:16:24,280
Speaker 1: historic event had been planned in advance and the details

1450
01:16:24,320 --> 01:16:26,439
Speaker 1: of the treaty had been agreed upon Cooper rights in

1451
01:16:26,479 --> 01:16:30,639
Speaker 1: the secret government. President Eisenhower had been vacationing nearby Palm

1452
01:16:30,680 --> 01:16:32,640
Speaker 1: Springs when he was spirited away to the base on

1453
01:16:32,680 --> 01:16:34,639
Speaker 1: the pretext that he had an appointment with his dentist

1454
01:16:34,800 --> 01:16:37,360
Speaker 1: who happened to be Dr tim tote Leary, father of

1455
01:16:37,400 --> 01:16:40,160
Speaker 1: the LSD guru Timothy Leary, which of course would make

1456
01:16:40,200 --> 01:16:45,759
Speaker 1: it into later conspiracy theories, but is true. Uh yeah, yeah.

1457
01:16:46,080 --> 01:16:48,960
Speaker 1: So it's not hard to see why Bill's alternate version

1458
01:16:49,000 --> 01:16:51,960
Speaker 1: of history played well with very online people. It's fun,

1459
01:16:52,160 --> 01:16:55,000
Speaker 1: um yeah. And and Bill wasn't content with just being

1460
01:16:55,000 --> 01:16:57,919
Speaker 1: a giant among the very first and the very saddest

1461
01:16:57,920 --> 01:17:02,040
Speaker 1: conspiracy nerds and the internet kind of fun. Everything is

1462
01:17:02,080 --> 01:17:05,559
Speaker 1: connected vibe to it that people a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

1463
01:17:05,600 --> 01:17:07,400
Speaker 1: and he get he starts to get kind of famous

1464
01:17:07,439 --> 01:17:09,400
Speaker 1: within this community for that, and he's soon he's speaking

1465
01:17:09,439 --> 01:17:12,519
Speaker 1: at like conventions and stuff, UFO conventions all around, like

1466
01:17:12,560 --> 01:17:17,719
Speaker 1: he's kind of in demand by later angel Fire fan sites. Yeah.

1467
01:17:17,920 --> 01:17:20,639
Speaker 1: And in ninety nine, Bill decides he's going to take

1468
01:17:20,680 --> 01:17:22,280
Speaker 1: things a step further because he doesn't want to just

1469
01:17:22,360 --> 01:17:24,680
Speaker 1: be limited to the Internet. So he prints out five

1470
01:17:25,160 --> 01:17:28,640
Speaker 1: thirty five copies of all of his findings on extraterrestrials,

1471
01:17:28,880 --> 01:17:30,840
Speaker 1: and he sends out copies to every member of the

1472
01:17:30,920 --> 01:17:33,640
Speaker 1: U S House and Senate. UM. And he'd written so

1473
01:17:33,760 --> 01:17:36,720
Speaker 1: much like these documents he was sending everyone in Congress

1474
01:17:37,080 --> 01:17:39,960
Speaker 1: um were so extensive that the whole endeavor costs twenty

1475
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:50,160
Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars. Yeah yeah, what yeah, he in like

1476
01:17:50,320 --> 01:17:59,680
Speaker 1: nineteen eight nine money. Yeah, okay, Yeah, Bill's dedicated. His

1477
01:18:00,120 --> 01:18:03,559
Speaker 1: guides for Congress included a helpful taxonomic guide to all

1478
01:18:03,560 --> 01:18:06,400
Speaker 1: the different aliens species out in the galaxy, including two

1479
01:18:06,400 --> 01:18:11,840
Speaker 1: different kinds of gray aliens and the draco Moffman. Um. Yeah,

1480
01:18:16,600 --> 01:18:21,679
Speaker 1: let's not let's not make fun of mothman here, okay, Okay. Now,

1481
01:18:21,800 --> 01:18:25,080
Speaker 1: Bill obviously hadn't seen anything like these creatures in person um,

1482
01:18:25,160 --> 01:18:28,040
Speaker 1: and but he was, you know, at this point claiming openly,

1483
01:18:28,320 --> 01:18:30,160
Speaker 1: you know, he'd been claiming for years to his friends

1484
01:18:30,200 --> 01:18:32,839
Speaker 1: of all the secret seed seen in that admiral's cabinet.

1485
01:18:33,040 --> 01:18:35,360
Speaker 1: And now he starts like justifying, like, this is how

1486
01:18:35,400 --> 01:18:38,759
Speaker 1: I learned about all these aliens from the cabinet. Um.

1487
01:18:38,840 --> 01:18:41,719
Speaker 1: This is a very wise cabinet. Yeah, that that admiral

1488
01:18:41,760 --> 01:18:44,639
Speaker 1: really kept a lot of different ship just under his desk,

1489
01:18:45,000 --> 01:18:47,679
Speaker 1: And apparently Bill had a ton of time to really

1490
01:18:47,720 --> 01:18:49,880
Speaker 1: read it and take it in, and you know, well,

1491
01:18:49,920 --> 01:18:52,320
Speaker 1: you know, you know a lot of three Martini lunches

1492
01:18:52,360 --> 01:18:56,960
Speaker 1: happened happening in the Admiralty back then, you know. So

1493
01:18:57,920 --> 01:19:03,240
Speaker 1: uh yeah, So Bill sends all this off to Congress,

1494
01:19:03,320 --> 01:19:06,519
Speaker 1: along with an offer to undergo hypnotic regression to convince

1495
01:19:06,560 --> 01:19:09,040
Speaker 1: Congress he was the real deal. Um. No one took

1496
01:19:09,080 --> 01:19:12,559
Speaker 1: him up on the author but could yeah, just let

1497
01:19:12,600 --> 01:19:14,599
Speaker 1: me hypnotize you. I can come into you. My ideas

1498
01:19:14,640 --> 01:19:17,120
Speaker 1: are good. No, you just have to. You have to

1499
01:19:17,200 --> 01:19:20,320
Speaker 1: hypnotize me and take me back to the past. Oh

1500
01:19:20,360 --> 01:19:22,439
Speaker 1: and then I will give you the Oh, I see

1501
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:25,880
Speaker 1: what he's doing. Okay, watch like thirty different episodes of

1502
01:19:25,920 --> 01:19:29,600
Speaker 1: the X Files for more information on hypnotic regression. I

1503
01:19:29,680 --> 01:19:35,360
Speaker 1: guess so. Yeah, and nobody at Congress ever gets back

1504
01:19:35,360 --> 01:19:37,320
Speaker 1: to Bill, but he later will write that at least

1505
01:19:37,439 --> 01:19:39,679
Speaker 1: sending all of this nonsense out to them had quote

1506
01:19:39,720 --> 01:19:42,360
Speaker 1: prevented the government from arresting or harming me, and he

1507
01:19:42,439 --> 01:19:44,960
Speaker 1: moved by them would be interpreted as total confirmation of

1508
01:19:45,000 --> 01:19:48,599
Speaker 1: everything that I had revealed. Um. A lot of faith

1509
01:19:48,640 --> 01:19:52,880
Speaker 1: to have in this evil government. So luckily for Bill,

1510
01:19:52,960 --> 01:19:56,040
Speaker 1: the late nineteen eighties saw the meteoric rise in popularity

1511
01:19:56,040 --> 01:19:58,280
Speaker 1: of the UFO movement, and Bill became one of its

1512
01:19:58,280 --> 01:20:01,320
Speaker 1: first celebrities. He started to make money selling his different

1513
01:20:01,320 --> 01:20:03,920
Speaker 1: writings on extraterrestrials, and he was invited to speak at

1514
01:20:03,920 --> 01:20:09,760
Speaker 1: the Mutual uf Phone Network Moufon Symposium in nine now.

1515
01:20:09,840 --> 01:20:14,080
Speaker 1: The mouf On Symposium started with disaster when on Saturday evening,

1516
01:20:14,280 --> 01:20:17,439
Speaker 1: an m J twelve expert named William Moore admitted that

1517
01:20:17,479 --> 01:20:19,799
Speaker 1: he had colluded with an Air Force Office of Special

1518
01:20:19,800 --> 01:20:23,880
Speaker 1: Investigations employee to spread false information to UFO researchers, which

1519
01:20:23,920 --> 01:20:26,880
Speaker 1: is exactly what like Lear and Bill Cooper had been

1520
01:20:26,920 --> 01:20:31,120
Speaker 1: claiming UM. But unfortunately, More admitted to that some of

1521
01:20:31,120 --> 01:20:34,439
Speaker 1: the disinformation he had spread UM was like one of

1522
01:20:34,479 --> 01:20:37,560
Speaker 1: the pieces of fake, you know, leaked government documents that

1523
01:20:37,600 --> 01:20:39,719
Speaker 1: Bill had used as a major source in his own

1524
01:20:39,760 --> 01:20:43,519
Speaker 1: work UM. Mark Jacobson writes quote. This was particularly troubling

1525
01:20:43,560 --> 01:20:45,920
Speaker 1: for the Lear Cooper contingent, since Lear had included a

1526
01:20:45,920 --> 01:20:48,439
Speaker 1: fair amount of this work in his hypothesis. It brought

1527
01:20:48,439 --> 01:20:51,040
Speaker 1: the galling possibility that much of the MJ twelve story

1528
01:20:51,080 --> 01:20:54,040
Speaker 1: that revealed Washington malfeasance was itself part of a government

1529
01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:57,519
Speaker 1: directed disinformation program. Following more speech, Cooper ended up at

1530
01:20:57,600 --> 01:21:00,280
Speaker 1: Lear's home in a rage. He was roaring drunks, dreaming

1531
01:21:00,280 --> 01:21:01,720
Speaker 1: that he had been set up and demanding to know

1532
01:21:01,760 --> 01:21:04,280
Speaker 1: who I was really working for. Leir recalled, that was

1533
01:21:04,320 --> 01:21:06,000
Speaker 1: one of those times I thought he might kill me.

1534
01:21:06,320 --> 01:21:08,639
Speaker 1: By the next day, Cooper had calmed down. Who cared

1535
01:21:08,640 --> 01:21:11,160
Speaker 1: what Millia William Moore said anyway, the man was a liar,

1536
01:21:11,200 --> 01:21:13,400
Speaker 1: a fake, less than upon in the larger game the

1537
01:21:13,439 --> 01:21:16,040
Speaker 1: original m J twelve papers, where Bogus Cooper said a

1538
01:21:16,040 --> 01:21:18,040
Speaker 1: pile of craft designed to lead you right through the

1539
01:21:18,120 --> 01:21:20,320
Speaker 1: rose Garden. The truth, the real truth, the one he

1540
01:21:20,439 --> 01:21:23,439
Speaker 1: learned while looking through Admiral Clary's cabinet, was still out there,

1541
01:21:23,479 --> 01:21:27,120
Speaker 1: ready to be told. So after this all happens at

1542
01:21:27,120 --> 01:21:29,719
Speaker 1: his first really big speech at move Ons, Bill gets

1543
01:21:29,760 --> 01:21:32,839
Speaker 1: on stage and he delivers a captivating lecture that relied

1544
01:21:32,920 --> 01:21:35,759
Speaker 1: very heavily on his own experiences stumbling upon top secret

1545
01:21:35,800 --> 01:21:38,120
Speaker 1: information while working for the Navy. I'm gonna play you

1546
01:21:38,160 --> 01:21:41,200
Speaker 1: a little segment of that right now, Jamie. That's what

1547
01:21:41,280 --> 01:21:43,599
Speaker 1: I sent you, Jamie over text. Yeah, and this will

1548
01:21:43,600 --> 01:21:45,519
Speaker 1: give you an idea of kind of where Bill is

1549
01:21:45,600 --> 01:21:48,360
Speaker 1: in terms of a pitch man, how he isn't delivering

1550
01:21:48,800 --> 01:21:51,040
Speaker 1: his information at kind of the start of his career

1551
01:21:51,280 --> 01:21:54,599
Speaker 1: because he's not really on the radio yet. Okay, so

1552
01:21:54,640 --> 01:21:57,280
Speaker 1: he's still he's still finding his voice. He's still finding

1553
01:21:57,280 --> 01:22:00,120
Speaker 1: his voice. And fine, hey, you know we've all in

1554
01:22:00,160 --> 01:22:04,280
Speaker 1: there or accounts that there were four. I saw pictures

1555
01:22:04,479 --> 01:22:08,000
Speaker 1: of three of those dead alien bodies in a report

1556
01:22:08,240 --> 01:22:12,479
Speaker 1: called Project Grudge, which also included material from a report

1557
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:18,400
Speaker 1: called Blue Book Report Humber thirteen. So I'm not sure

1558
01:22:18,439 --> 01:22:21,240
Speaker 1: whether there were three or four. I saw photographs of

1559
01:22:21,360 --> 01:22:26,280
Speaker 1: three of those bodies for sure. Really, it doesn't make

1560
01:22:26,320 --> 01:22:30,240
Speaker 1: any difference if there was one or fifty. The important

1561
01:22:30,280 --> 01:22:34,120
Speaker 1: thing is that it occurred and that there were dead

1562
01:22:34,280 --> 01:22:39,840
Speaker 1: alien bodies that were not of this world. Okay, um, yeah,

1563
01:22:40,439 --> 01:22:42,920
Speaker 1: you know he does kind of have the energy of

1564
01:22:42,960 --> 01:22:45,680
Speaker 1: a Reddit user who is who is on stage for

1565
01:22:45,720 --> 01:22:48,519
Speaker 1: the first time. But it sounds like Key course corrects

1566
01:22:48,520 --> 01:22:52,320
Speaker 1: this later in his life. He sure does. But we'll

1567
01:22:52,360 --> 01:22:54,760
Speaker 1: hear a lot of thing thrown out. There's ideas being

1568
01:22:54,800 --> 01:22:57,920
Speaker 1: thrown out in a decent shirt. Yeah, in a decent shirt.

1569
01:22:58,080 --> 01:23:00,960
Speaker 1: So yeah, one are shown that from that is that

1570
01:23:01,000 --> 01:23:03,439
Speaker 1: like what Bill saying is obviously absurd, but he's smart

1571
01:23:03,560 --> 01:23:05,320
Speaker 1: enough not to dwell on any like one piece of

1572
01:23:05,400 --> 01:23:08,360
Speaker 1: data for long a very matter of fact the way

1573
01:23:08,360 --> 01:23:11,040
Speaker 1: it's delivered. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that

1574
01:23:11,080 --> 01:23:14,000
Speaker 1: Bill really starts to do so like UFO conspiracy theories

1575
01:23:14,040 --> 01:23:15,840
Speaker 1: had for most of the time that existed just kind

1576
01:23:15,880 --> 01:23:18,200
Speaker 1: of been this theory that like there's aliens out there

1577
01:23:18,200 --> 01:23:20,760
Speaker 1: and the government doesn't want you to know about them.

1578
01:23:20,760 --> 01:23:25,400
Speaker 1: Bill finds a way to really connect UFO conspiracy theories

1579
01:23:25,400 --> 01:23:27,639
Speaker 1: to people in a much more kind of emotional level,

1580
01:23:27,640 --> 01:23:30,679
Speaker 1: because you know, by this point the late nineteen eighties,

1581
01:23:31,160 --> 01:23:34,000
Speaker 1: everyone's pretty aware that things have started to go wrong

1582
01:23:34,040 --> 01:23:36,600
Speaker 1: since World War Two, Like most Americans are like, this

1583
01:23:36,680 --> 01:23:38,800
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like the path we were supposed to be

1584
01:23:38,880 --> 01:23:43,880
Speaker 1: on um And Bill kind of is the first guy

1585
01:23:43,920 --> 01:23:45,479
Speaker 1: to be like, what if we just blame it all

1586
01:23:45,479 --> 01:23:49,000
Speaker 1: on aliens? Like what if that's the reason things went wrong?

1587
01:23:49,160 --> 01:23:51,800
Speaker 1: A shortcut? So I had to come up with a

1588
01:23:51,840 --> 01:23:54,360
Speaker 1: great one. It is interesting too, just even like listening

1589
01:23:54,400 --> 01:23:57,040
Speaker 1: to how he talks of how he seems to be

1590
01:23:57,120 --> 01:24:01,400
Speaker 1: kind of using this like military way of carrying himself

1591
01:24:01,439 --> 01:24:03,639
Speaker 1: to like have a level of authority. It's not really

1592
01:24:03,680 --> 01:24:08,400
Speaker 1: the same kind of conspiracy theorist carrying oneself that you

1593
01:24:08,439 --> 01:24:11,720
Speaker 1: see now. It's very it's not like a media personality.

1594
01:24:11,800 --> 01:24:15,559
Speaker 1: It's like a He sounds like a military person saying

1595
01:24:15,640 --> 01:24:19,240
Speaker 1: that weirdest should I've ever heard. Yeah, uh and and

1596
01:24:19,280 --> 01:24:22,439
Speaker 1: he yeah. Another quote from that speech where he kind

1597
01:24:22,439 --> 01:24:26,519
Speaker 1: of goes into detail about how the aliens said fucked

1598
01:24:26,560 --> 01:24:28,840
Speaker 1: things up for America, I think is salient to end

1599
01:24:28,880 --> 01:24:31,719
Speaker 1: on for this episode. Quote Without the aliens, you can't

1600
01:24:31,720 --> 01:24:33,680
Speaker 1: make sense of anything that's happened in this country for

1601
01:24:33,680 --> 01:24:35,960
Speaker 1: the past forty four years. But the aliens in the middle,

1602
01:24:36,000 --> 01:24:38,080
Speaker 1: and you've got all the answers. Your own government is

1603
01:24:38,080 --> 01:24:40,240
Speaker 1: selling your children drugs and you don't seem to care.

1604
01:24:40,320 --> 01:24:42,519
Speaker 1: Your own government has given away the power of the people,

1605
01:24:42,520 --> 01:24:44,759
Speaker 1: and you don't seem to care. There is an apathy

1606
01:24:44,800 --> 01:24:46,960
Speaker 1: that is running rampant in this country that is deadly.

1607
01:24:47,160 --> 01:24:49,360
Speaker 1: Whether or not there are aliens, where now truly a

1608
01:24:49,439 --> 01:24:52,120
Speaker 1: nation of sheep and ladies and gentlemen. I assure you

1609
01:24:52,479 --> 01:24:55,240
Speaker 1: sheep are always led to the slaughter. It's here I

1610
01:24:55,280 --> 01:24:57,360
Speaker 1: should note that Bill Cooper is probably the man who

1611
01:24:57,439 --> 01:25:01,599
Speaker 1: invented the words sheeple wow. Yeah. He's the sheep oh

1612
01:25:01,640 --> 01:25:06,360
Speaker 1: guy yeah, popularized. If you saw about any of what

1613
01:25:06,400 --> 01:25:11,639
Speaker 1: he said with a absurd devotion to capitalism. I agree

1614
01:25:11,680 --> 01:25:15,880
Speaker 1: with it. Well, it's just about aliens. With devotion to capitalism,

1615
01:25:16,320 --> 01:25:18,240
Speaker 1: you're onto something. Because one of the things that I

1616
01:25:18,240 --> 01:25:20,840
Speaker 1: think separates Bill from guys like Alex Jones is I

1617
01:25:20,880 --> 01:25:23,679
Speaker 1: don't think Bill was primarily a grifter. I think Bill

1618
01:25:23,800 --> 01:25:26,240
Speaker 1: was a guy who, for all of his many, many

1619
01:25:26,240 --> 01:25:31,760
Speaker 1: horrific flaws, um like, recognized that things were really fucked up.

1620
01:25:32,280 --> 01:25:35,720
Speaker 1: And he created this because he was a liar and

1621
01:25:35,840 --> 01:25:39,200
Speaker 1: a fabulous um he had, he created this, and because

1622
01:25:39,240 --> 01:25:42,599
Speaker 1: he was kind of like fundamentally mentally incapable of really

1623
01:25:43,439 --> 01:25:47,640
Speaker 1: admitting what had gone wrong. He creates this whole schema

1624
01:25:48,200 --> 01:25:52,719
Speaker 1: to justify or to to explain to people who don't

1625
01:25:52,720 --> 01:25:56,120
Speaker 1: want to admit what the actual problem is why things

1626
01:25:56,160 --> 01:25:59,480
Speaker 1: are fucked up in America. And that's really like the genesis.

1627
01:25:59,680 --> 01:26:03,360
Speaker 1: That's why conspiracy is so fucking popular today in large

1628
01:26:03,360 --> 01:26:06,240
Speaker 1: parts because things are fucked up. Everybody knows it, and

1629
01:26:06,280 --> 01:26:08,400
Speaker 1: a lot of us are desperate to not stare the

1630
01:26:08,439 --> 01:26:10,400
Speaker 1: real problem in the face. And Bill Cooper was the

1631
01:26:10,439 --> 01:26:13,680
Speaker 1: first guy to really get good at providing people with

1632
01:26:13,760 --> 01:26:15,960
Speaker 1: something that would let them not stare the real problem

1633
01:26:15,960 --> 01:26:18,799
Speaker 1: in the face. Um And I don't know the extent

1634
01:26:18,840 --> 01:26:21,759
Speaker 1: to which we'll get into this a little tomorrow or

1635
01:26:22,240 --> 01:26:24,200
Speaker 1: in part two. I don't know the extent to which

1636
01:26:24,600 --> 01:26:29,160
Speaker 1: Bill knew what he was doing. Um, I don't know

1637
01:26:29,200 --> 01:26:31,120
Speaker 1: the extent. There's definitely a part of him that was

1638
01:26:31,160 --> 01:26:33,720
Speaker 1: a pitchman and a con artist, and there's a part

1639
01:26:33,760 --> 01:26:36,800
Speaker 1: of him that I think was like a patriot who

1640
01:26:36,840 --> 01:26:40,040
Speaker 1: was legitimately traumatized by how fucked up he watched his

1641
01:26:40,040 --> 01:26:42,679
Speaker 1: country become. I don't really know, um, but it seems

1642
01:26:42,720 --> 01:26:45,120
Speaker 1: like both things are kind of going on. He truly

1643
01:26:45,240 --> 01:26:50,000
Speaker 1: is like suffering of a lot of definitely suffering. Yeah,

1644
01:26:50,080 --> 01:26:53,639
Speaker 1: he's definitely suffering. He's definitely has some mental illness issues,

1645
01:26:53,840 --> 01:26:59,400
Speaker 1: and um, I can't wait to hear what he does next. Well, Jamie, first,

1646
01:26:59,439 --> 01:27:01,400
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to tell us where they can find

1647
01:27:01,479 --> 01:27:06,960
Speaker 1: you next so that you can Okay, well sure you can.

1648
01:27:07,080 --> 01:27:14,400
Speaker 1: Well you can follow me and Twitter. This never feels right, Uh,

1649
01:27:14,760 --> 01:27:17,040
Speaker 1: you can follow me on Twitter. You can listen to

1650
01:27:17,080 --> 01:27:20,800
Speaker 1: my podcast My Year in Mensa, which there will be

1651
01:27:20,920 --> 01:27:23,080
Speaker 1: I think there will be another episode of and some

1652
01:27:23,200 --> 01:27:26,920
Speaker 1: developments in in the near future. And you can listen

1653
01:27:27,200 --> 01:27:36,240
Speaker 1: to the Bechdel Cast every Thursday Feminist Movie podcast and yeah,

1654
01:27:36,800 --> 01:27:40,400
Speaker 1: all right, and you can find me somewhere. No one,

1655
01:27:40,640 --> 01:27:44,000
Speaker 1: no one's, no one's ever learned how though? Um So

1656
01:27:45,200 --> 01:27:47,639
Speaker 1: you can follow him at I right, okay on Twitter.

1657
01:27:47,840 --> 01:27:51,559
Speaker 1: He doesn't believe in Instagram. I don't believe in Instagram

1658
01:27:51,560 --> 01:27:55,599
Speaker 1: now um or or the TikTok's what the kids are doing?

1659
01:27:55,920 --> 01:27:58,679
Speaker 1: All right? I think you would be really good at TikTok, Robbert,

1660
01:27:59,240 --> 01:28:03,400
Speaker 1: you would fucking love TikTok. It's a bunch of angry teenagers.

1661
01:28:03,439 --> 01:28:06,599
Speaker 1: You would say fuck the patriarchy. It's you would love it,

1662
01:28:06,720 --> 01:28:09,840
Speaker 1: and you would be good at it. I don't recommend it.

1663
01:28:09,920 --> 01:28:13,880
Speaker 1: I don't know, absolutely not unless it makes me years

1664
01:28:13,920 --> 01:28:19,679
Speaker 1: old lawless skin TikTok. If you're looking for a teenager

1665
01:28:19,720 --> 01:28:24,280
Speaker 1: to tell you that your parents are racist, TikTok, that's

1666
01:28:24,320 --> 01:28:28,200
Speaker 1: my looking for Kelly and Conway's daughter. Yes, being on

1667
01:28:28,240 --> 01:28:32,960
Speaker 1: the right side of history, tiktok' looking for. If you're

1668
01:28:33,160 --> 01:28:35,320
Speaker 1: for teenagers that are trying to make it so that

1669
01:28:36,000 --> 01:28:42,439
Speaker 1: there's empty seats at Trump rallies, also, tiktoktok are your sponsor. No,

1670
01:28:42,520 --> 01:28:49,280
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, I'm I'm so tired even thinking about TikTok um.

1671
01:28:49,320 --> 01:28:53,920
Speaker 1: I'm so tired thinking about young people in general. Um, alright,

1672
01:28:53,920 --> 01:28:57,519
Speaker 1: old alright, old guy. The podcast over, yep.