1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:04,800
Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. Have you ever wish that your workplace

2
00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:07,240
Speaker 1: was stinky? Have you ever walked in and said, I

3
00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:09,119
Speaker 1: wish this was a little more skunky.

4
00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:11,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, maybe, I don't know.

5
00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:17,160
Speaker 1: Well, that's what happened almost eighty years ago at Lockheed Martin.

6
00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:22,120
Speaker 1: We must imagine, because in this week's classic episode, we're

7
00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:26,880
Speaker 1: learning about something that isn't open secret now, but was

8
00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:30,720
Speaker 1: much more of a secret and indeed a cradle of

9
00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:36,280
Speaker 1: conspiracy back in the day. Lockheed Martin has worked hand

10
00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:39,840
Speaker 1: in hand with the US government to create a lot

11
00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:42,680
Speaker 1: of weird, weird secret stuff.

12
00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:47,560
Speaker 2: Weird wild stuff. Indeed, Johnny Carson would be proud. Yeah.

13
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:49,920
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, just this past week, as we're

14
00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:53,080
Speaker 3: recording this, the US Army celebrated I think two hundred

15
00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:55,720
Speaker 3: and fifty years of existence, and off air, we were

16
00:00:55,720 --> 00:00:58,320
Speaker 3: just talking about the technology on display during the parade

17
00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:02,680
Speaker 3: that occurred for that stuff, thinking about how far the

18
00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:06,320
Speaker 3: like the leaps and bounds the technology has taken, specifically

19
00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:09,880
Speaker 3: in aircraft, but then also on you know, ground stuff

20
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:12,559
Speaker 3: that the Army uses, and a lot of those leaps

21
00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:15,040
Speaker 3: and bounds occurred inside.

22
00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:19,600
Speaker 2: This place, and we jump right into the history of

23
00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:20,880
Speaker 2: skunk works.

24
00:01:21,319 --> 00:01:25,800
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

25
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:30,200
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

26
00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:33,280
Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

27
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:36,400
Speaker 4: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.

28
00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:47,040
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to the show.

29
00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:49,560
Speaker 2: My name is Matt, my name is Nolan. They call

30
00:01:49,640 --> 00:01:50,000
Speaker 2: me Ben.

31
00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:52,800
Speaker 1: We are joined as always with our super producer Paul.

32
00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:57,320
Speaker 1: Mission control decands. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,

33
00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:03,080
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Honestly,

34
00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:04,480
Speaker 1: it's great to see you.

35
00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:04,760
Speaker 2: Guys.

36
00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:09,320
Speaker 1: Have no idea what time it really is. I'm looking

37
00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:13,480
Speaker 1: at a clock here now that says it's right around

38
00:02:13,639 --> 00:02:16,360
Speaker 1: four PM or a little bit before Eastern time, but

39
00:02:16,760 --> 00:02:17,280
Speaker 1: who knows.

40
00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:20,720
Speaker 3: Maybe it's it's eight GMT.

41
00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:24,880
Speaker 1: Okay, there we go, There we go, and body clock wise,

42
00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:28,960
Speaker 1: it's I think fourteen hours ahead for me.

43
00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:30,280
Speaker 2: But I'm a little out of it.

44
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:33,600
Speaker 1: But I think we're gonna have fun with with today's topics.

45
00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:35,160
Speaker 2: What's it like in the future, Ben.

46
00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:40,840
Speaker 1: It's interesting, it's interesting. No flying cars yet. Velcro is

47
00:02:40,919 --> 00:02:47,399
Speaker 1: making a comeback in a big way for that everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

48
00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:50,280
Speaker 1: I'm a little weirded out by all the buttons around

49
00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:55,639
Speaker 1: us right now. But but yes, the show must go on, right,

50
00:02:56,639 --> 00:03:02,000
Speaker 1: today's episode is has nothing to do with the oscar.

51
00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:04,920
Speaker 1: There's not a good segue. Today's episode has nothing to

52
00:03:04,919 --> 00:03:08,239
Speaker 1: do with that, but could be could be fertile soil

53
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:12,600
Speaker 1: for a different episode in the future. Today we're talking

54
00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:20,200
Speaker 1: about something strange that's happening every single moment of every

55
00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:25,720
Speaker 1: single day here in the US and abroad. It's military research.

56
00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:29,799
Speaker 1: And this is a very spooky, Boogeyman esque sort of

57
00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:33,400
Speaker 1: phenomenon for a lot of us. You know, some folks

58
00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:37,200
Speaker 1: like maybe like Matt, you and I grew up on

59
00:03:37,440 --> 00:03:41,120
Speaker 1: X files, right. I know, I know you watch I

60
00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:42,720
Speaker 1: don't know how into it you were.

61
00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:45,360
Speaker 2: I was into it, yeah, medium I watched it typically

62
00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:47,960
Speaker 2: with no lights on while listening to the bare naked

63
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:49,720
Speaker 2: ladies so on. One week.

64
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:53,320
Speaker 1: So the three of us then we're very much into

65
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:58,160
Speaker 1: X files, right, and X Files paints this picture of

66
00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:04,360
Speaker 1: a vast, locking conspiracy between corporations and governments right to

67
00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:11,000
Speaker 1: advance suppressed technology to better the elite's control of the

68
00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:13,960
Speaker 1: world as we know it. The thing is, that's sort

69
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:16,920
Speaker 1: of true. It's sort of true. You don't need aliens

70
00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:18,560
Speaker 1: for that to be true. It's no secret that the

71
00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:24,560
Speaker 1: world's militaries have loads and loads classified weapons, hardware, strategies,

72
00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:28,000
Speaker 1: including psyops, techniques, and all this other stuff. But where

73
00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:30,719
Speaker 1: do they come from? In the United States? One of

74
00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:35,239
Speaker 1: the answers to this question is inevitably something called skunk works.

75
00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:40,120
Speaker 3: It's a cool name, right, yeah, potentially pretty smelly.

76
00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:44,680
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, there's something stinky about it. But what exactly

77
00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,280
Speaker 1: is skunk works? To answer this, we have to start

78
00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:53,000
Speaker 1: with this story of something called Lockheed Martin. So here

79
00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:57,920
Speaker 1: are the facts. What is Lockheed Martin. You've surely heard

80
00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:01,040
Speaker 1: of it before. There are buildings here year around Atlanta

81
00:05:01,160 --> 00:05:06,680
Speaker 1: with the names plastered across the top of them. This title,

82
00:05:07,040 --> 00:05:10,039
Speaker 1: or this term, let's say, skunk works, can really be

83
00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:12,279
Speaker 1: applied in a lot of different ways to a lot

84
00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:15,360
Speaker 1: of different things, but normally to secretive some kind of

85
00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:20,080
Speaker 1: experimental facility like a lab or a factory, something like that.

86
00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:22,840
Speaker 1: But the origin of the phrase skunk works really does

87
00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:27,279
Speaker 1: come from this single company, Lockheed Martin Corporation. And to

88
00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:28,600
Speaker 1: really learn about it, you have to go all the

89
00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:32,320
Speaker 1: way back to nineteen forty three, and there you find

90
00:05:32,320 --> 00:05:36,080
Speaker 1: if the United States Armies Air Tactical Service Command or

91
00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:39,040
Speaker 1: ATSK or ATSC.

92
00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:42,560
Speaker 3: Because you see, the ATSC had a bit of an issue.

93
00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:47,240
Speaker 3: They were worried about German rocket science, specifically jets as

94
00:05:47,279 --> 00:05:50,240
Speaker 3: well as you know, the things that would become missiles

95
00:05:50,279 --> 00:05:53,760
Speaker 3: in the potential technology that existed there, because as we've

96
00:05:53,839 --> 00:05:58,440
Speaker 3: learned in previous episodes, German technology or scientists there in

97
00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:01,440
Speaker 3: Germany really were the ones that created rocketry.

98
00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:04,840
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Nazis are the reason the US got to.

99
00:06:04,839 --> 00:06:07,880
Speaker 2: The moon vanv bron Right did I say that? Right? Yeah?

100
00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:09,320
Speaker 2: I think I left the N out of the Vaughan,

101
00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:10,760
Speaker 2: but you got what I was getting at.

102
00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:15,040
Speaker 3: So, so the officials there from the ATSC they met

103
00:06:15,080 --> 00:06:18,719
Speaker 3: with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and they said, okay, guys,

104
00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:20,520
Speaker 3: let's figure out what we can do on this end

105
00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:23,880
Speaker 3: to catch up with this technology and make some of

106
00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:26,599
Speaker 3: our own revolutionary rocketry happen here.

107
00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:32,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they also said, let's do it quickly, yesterday, right,

108
00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:35,520
Speaker 1: Let's do it yesterday. About a month after this meeting,

109
00:06:35,560 --> 00:06:38,039
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty three, there was a team led by

110
00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:41,960
Speaker 1: an engineer named Clarence L. Johnson, playing ol'kelly to his friends.

111
00:06:42,320 --> 00:06:45,880
Speaker 1: They came back to ATSC and they said, Okay, we're

112
00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:49,760
Speaker 1: gonna build a jet for you, the XP eighty Shooting

113
00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:53,560
Speaker 1: Star jet fighter. Uncle Sam gave it the green light.

114
00:06:53,720 --> 00:06:57,240
Speaker 1: Lockey began developing the first US fighter jet in June

115
00:06:57,520 --> 00:07:00,080
Speaker 1: of nineteen forty three. This is we should know, so

116
00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:03,680
Speaker 1: the official narrative. You're gonna have some You're gonna have

117
00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:07,479
Speaker 1: some other reporters and historians who will argue that the

118
00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:11,880
Speaker 1: true story begins a little bit earlier in the late thirties.

119
00:07:12,160 --> 00:07:14,880
Speaker 1: But this is like, if you ask someone at Lockheed

120
00:07:15,200 --> 00:07:19,040
Speaker 1: what happened what skunk Works, this is the official answer,

121
00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:23,400
Speaker 1: and that jet fighter, the XP eighty Shooting Star is

122
00:07:23,520 --> 00:07:27,400
Speaker 1: the birth of what today is known as skunk Works, and.

123
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:32,400
Speaker 2: Lockheed was surprisingly is surprisingly transparent about the origins of

124
00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:35,880
Speaker 2: this of this organization. It emphasizes that it was a

125
00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:41,920
Speaker 2: pretty informal and urgent need that created this collaboration. The

126
00:07:42,040 --> 00:07:44,920
Speaker 2: formal contract for the Xpad did not arrive at Lockheed

127
00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:47,560
Speaker 2: until October sixteenth of nineteen forty three, which was four

128
00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:51,920
Speaker 2: months after work had already begun, and this would prove

129
00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:55,320
Speaker 2: to be kind of a common theme within the Skunkworks story.

130
00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:57,760
Speaker 2: Many times a customer would come to Skunk Works with

131
00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:00,840
Speaker 2: a request, and on a handshake, the project would began.

132
00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:03,200
Speaker 2: That's crazy to me, given the amount of money some

133
00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:06,280
Speaker 2: of these project must have costs, No contracts in place,

134
00:08:06,440 --> 00:08:08,880
Speaker 2: no official submission process at all.

135
00:08:08,960 --> 00:08:12,200
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, just some make it happens and some handshakes

136
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:17,880
Speaker 1: Johnson and his team. Eventually, they didn't just design the

137
00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:22,520
Speaker 1: XP eighty. They built one in less than one hundred

138
00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:25,560
Speaker 1: and fifty days and only one hundred and forty three days.

139
00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:29,520
Speaker 1: Their deadline was one hundred and fifty. This was only possible,

140
00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:31,800
Speaker 1: by the way, because he broke the rules. He broke

141
00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:35,000
Speaker 1: all of the rules that were in place. Johnson, you see,

142
00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:40,080
Speaker 1: felt that the primary problem with Lockheed and government contracts

143
00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:41,480
Speaker 1: was all the red tape.

144
00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:42,600
Speaker 2: All the bureaucracy.

145
00:08:42,760 --> 00:08:45,040
Speaker 1: Wanted to shoot from the hip, so we don't need

146
00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,440
Speaker 1: these plans and all these reviews. So he didn't just

147
00:08:48,559 --> 00:08:52,080
Speaker 1: ignore the status quo. He built his own set of

148
00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:57,480
Speaker 1: rules fourteen commandments, the first of which is the manager

149
00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:01,920
Speaker 1: of skunk Works must have comp deleete control over everything

150
00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:04,760
Speaker 1: in his program and should not have to answer to

151
00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:08,640
Speaker 1: anyone higher than a president and a company. So he

152
00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:12,320
Speaker 1: wanted complete control. He wanted a fiefdom essentially that was

153
00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:16,960
Speaker 1: answerable to very few people. And he also, in direct

154
00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:21,239
Speaker 1: contrast to a lot of the normal standard operating procedures,

155
00:09:22,160 --> 00:09:26,720
Speaker 1: Kelly wanted a minimum number of people involved, and he

156
00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:27,880
Speaker 1: was brutal about it.

157
00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:30,800
Speaker 3: Yes, and this is number three. The number of people

158
00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:33,520
Speaker 3: having any connection with the project must be restricted in

159
00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:37,000
Speaker 3: an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good

160
00:09:37,120 --> 00:09:41,640
Speaker 3: people ten five percent compared to the so called normal systems.

161
00:09:42,280 --> 00:09:46,240
Speaker 1: And he also said less reports. Yes, we want to

162
00:09:46,400 --> 00:09:49,040
Speaker 1: look well, well, we'll show our work, but we don't

163
00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:51,240
Speaker 1: want to have to check in with you. This guy,

164
00:09:51,280 --> 00:09:53,280
Speaker 1: I get the feeling of this guy hated meetings.

165
00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:59,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also less inspections or at least use subcontractors

166
00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:02,959
Speaker 3: and and other things for some of the testing stuff

167
00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:06,400
Speaker 3: and inspection. He's like, don't duplicate so much inspection. We

168
00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:08,040
Speaker 3: can't do this in that amount of time.

169
00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:11,480
Speaker 1: And don't let people outside skunk works get in. It's

170
00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:14,160
Speaker 1: kind of fight clubbish, you know, it is the first

171
00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:15,320
Speaker 1: rule of skunk works.

172
00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:16,360
Speaker 2: Anyhow.

173
00:10:17,400 --> 00:10:21,640
Speaker 1: We have to note though that when this started out,

174
00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:25,320
Speaker 1: it was just a cool idea, and it was just

175
00:10:25,360 --> 00:10:28,840
Speaker 1: a desperate measure to get something in the air that

176
00:10:28,880 --> 00:10:33,000
Speaker 1: could fight the Axis forces. They didn't actually call it

177
00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:36,240
Speaker 1: skunk Works for a while, so we have to ask

178
00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:38,160
Speaker 1: ourselves how did it get its name?

179
00:10:38,720 --> 00:10:42,960
Speaker 2: How indeed? Well, oddly enough, it's kind of a sweet story,

180
00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:46,760
Speaker 2: at least the way Lockheed pr tells it. Because the

181
00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:50,120
Speaker 2: war effort was in full swing, there was no space

182
00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:55,440
Speaker 2: available at Lockheed's facility for Johnson's effort. Johnson's organization operated

183
00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:59,280
Speaker 2: out of a rented circus tent next to a manufacturing

184
00:10:59,360 --> 00:11:04,000
Speaker 2: plant that made plastics formerly, and that produced a very

185
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:09,679
Speaker 2: strong odor which permeated this tent. So members of Johnson's

186
00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:12,959
Speaker 2: team were cautioned that design and production of the XP

187
00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:16,640
Speaker 2: eighty had to be carried out in strict secrecy. No

188
00:11:16,679 --> 00:11:19,559
Speaker 2: one was to discuss the project outside the small organization,

189
00:11:19,720 --> 00:11:23,040
Speaker 2: and team members were even warned to be careful how

190
00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:27,120
Speaker 2: they answered their phones. Right So, a team engineer by

191
00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:29,840
Speaker 2: the name of IRV Culver was a big fan of

192
00:11:29,960 --> 00:11:33,880
Speaker 2: Al Capp's newspaper comic strip Lil Abner, in which there

193
00:11:33,880 --> 00:11:36,560
Speaker 2: was a running joke about a mysterious and mattt odris

194
00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:41,040
Speaker 2: place deep in the forest called the Skunk Works sko

195
00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:45,240
Speaker 2: n K. There there was a strong beverage being brewed

196
00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:49,319
Speaker 2: from Skunk's old shoes and other odd ingredients.

197
00:11:50,840 --> 00:11:51,520
Speaker 3: Yeah.

198
00:11:51,679 --> 00:11:54,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, So one day this guy IRV gets a phone

199
00:11:54,679 --> 00:11:57,840
Speaker 1: call and he answers it in kind of a glib manner,

200
00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,840
Speaker 1: and he goes skonk Works inside Mankova speaking.

201
00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:03,360
Speaker 2: And people loved it.

202
00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:06,400
Speaker 1: It was a great inside joke because you know, when

203
00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:08,920
Speaker 1: you work in an office with the same people, you

204
00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:13,280
Speaker 1: love an inside joke. So other employees started adopting this,

205
00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:17,560
Speaker 1: and they started calling their division of Lockheed skunk Works,

206
00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:20,960
Speaker 1: and eventually that changed to Skunk Works. So it's not

207
00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:26,280
Speaker 1: it may be surprising to find that they weren't secretly

208
00:12:26,320 --> 00:12:30,280
Speaker 1: working on some kind of weaponized odor. This was just yeah,

209
00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:34,080
Speaker 1: this was just actually a neat little office job joke.

210
00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:36,280
Speaker 3: Well yeah, well it's not even an office job. It's

211
00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:39,000
Speaker 3: a circus tent. It's a rented circus tent outside of

212
00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:42,160
Speaker 3: plastics facility, and the whole place reeks, and they're in

213
00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:46,120
Speaker 3: there like doing really important technological work and engineering work.

214
00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:47,160
Speaker 3: It's so weird to me.

215
00:12:47,240 --> 00:12:51,280
Speaker 2: It's so weirdly punk rock, yeah, and kind of like DIY.

216
00:12:51,400 --> 00:12:53,600
Speaker 2: When you think of government work, you think of everything

217
00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:57,240
Speaker 2: being all buttoned up in these like air tight labs,

218
00:12:57,280 --> 00:12:59,640
Speaker 2: like clean rooms and all that stuff, and this was

219
00:12:59,800 --> 00:13:02,319
Speaker 2: not that, yeah, exactly.

220
00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:06,800
Speaker 1: It's strange too, because skunk Works is often brought up

221
00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:13,240
Speaker 1: as an example of old school conspiratorial corporate warmongeringe you know,

222
00:13:13,280 --> 00:13:16,440
Speaker 1: it's part of the war machine, the stuff Eisenhower warned

223
00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:20,160
Speaker 1: us about, and rightly so. But if you learn about

224
00:13:20,200 --> 00:13:24,600
Speaker 1: Skunkworks today, it's actually a registered trademark of Lockeed. That's

225
00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:30,080
Speaker 1: a far cry from any off the books operation. Their

226
00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:32,760
Speaker 1: official name is not skunk Works. That's just the name

227
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:36,640
Speaker 1: everybody likes. Their official name is Lohey Martin's Advanced Development

228
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:41,440
Speaker 1: Programs or a DP. But again, why the hell would

229
00:13:41,480 --> 00:13:43,320
Speaker 1: you call it that when you have a fun name

230
00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:45,880
Speaker 1: like skunk Works just begging for you to say it

231
00:13:46,040 --> 00:13:47,520
Speaker 1: and shout it to the rooftops.

232
00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:50,959
Speaker 3: I don't know. Advanced Development program also sounds pretty dope.

233
00:13:50,920 --> 00:13:54,760
Speaker 1: Like advanced idea mechanics. The Marvel fans out there, yes.

234
00:13:54,640 --> 00:13:57,440
Speaker 2: And the elite squad of scientists operating at Skunkworks well,

235
00:13:57,520 --> 00:13:59,199
Speaker 2: no affectionately as the smelly Boys.

236
00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:05,760
Speaker 1: And now let's look at skunk Works today. So Skunkworks

237
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:08,920
Speaker 1: still conducts a ton of classified research.

238
00:14:09,160 --> 00:14:10,240
Speaker 2: We actually do.

239
00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:15,120
Speaker 1: Not know how much it We don't know what it's doing. Really,

240
00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:18,640
Speaker 1: we know a little bit. And it's a well known

241
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:21,600
Speaker 1: organization in the world. It's not even an open secret,

242
00:14:21,680 --> 00:14:25,600
Speaker 1: you know. They in fact have published a glossy brochure

243
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:29,840
Speaker 1: with a ten point agenda. This was back from twenty fifteen.

244
00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:33,200
Speaker 1: That was focused on kind of selling it to the

245
00:14:33,240 --> 00:14:36,640
Speaker 1: public and then selling it to the government or at

246
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:39,880
Speaker 1: least the people who signed the checks for contracts and all.

247
00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:43,520
Speaker 1: It was kind of boring and it's very it's very

248
00:14:43,640 --> 00:14:47,680
Speaker 1: full of trade jargon. It's like, we're focusing on keeping

249
00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:51,400
Speaker 1: costs down. We work closely with the government. We also

250
00:14:51,520 --> 00:14:54,680
Speaker 1: build these prototypes and we give the savings to you,

251
00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:59,200
Speaker 1: uncle Sam. And today the primary site is out there

252
00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:03,640
Speaker 1: in Palm Dale, California. It's the middle of nowhere. Why

253
00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:06,920
Speaker 1: would you drive their desert about sixty miles from LA.

254
00:15:07,040 --> 00:15:10,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's almost directly north across the mountain range

255
00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:17,280
Speaker 3: there together there near Lancaster. Really, I don't know, it's isolated,

256
00:15:17,280 --> 00:15:19,760
Speaker 3: but it really is close to Los Angeles.

257
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:23,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, sixty miles is not that far. It's just up

258
00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:25,560
Speaker 1: the way from the Antelope Valley mall and in.

259
00:15:25,680 --> 00:15:27,800
Speaker 2: LA traffic It probably only take you about three days

260
00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:28,240
Speaker 2: to get.

261
00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:32,800
Speaker 1: There, unless you had an experimental skunk Works helicopter or

262
00:15:32,920 --> 00:15:38,320
Speaker 1: hypersonic vehicle. This place is huge. There are one hundred buildings,

263
00:15:38,480 --> 00:15:41,440
Speaker 1: there's an estimated three million square feet of floor space,

264
00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:44,240
Speaker 1: and the vast majority of this stuff here is off limits,

265
00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,600
Speaker 1: but there are occasional press tours and journalists get a

266
00:15:48,600 --> 00:15:51,280
Speaker 1: peak behind the curtains. So this is all on the

267
00:15:51,400 --> 00:15:54,280
Speaker 1: up and up right. This is not just It is

268
00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:58,200
Speaker 1: no longer a secret lab something that we think of

269
00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:01,960
Speaker 1: an association with DARPA. This is actually a government contractor

270
00:16:02,120 --> 00:16:05,840
Speaker 1: who's trying to work on its public image. And you know,

271
00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:08,480
Speaker 1: you have to look no further than something like Boeing

272
00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:12,760
Speaker 1: to know how important public image can be. There's no

273
00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:16,560
Speaker 1: question skunk Works has played a huge role in military innovation,

274
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:21,040
Speaker 1: especially in the field of spy, aircraft, material tech, things

275
00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:25,720
Speaker 1: like that. But the question for today is what else

276
00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:28,720
Speaker 1: are they cooking up in there and what's coming out

277
00:16:28,840 --> 00:16:29,560
Speaker 1: in the future.

278
00:16:30,520 --> 00:16:33,240
Speaker 3: And we're going to get to that, at least what

279
00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:35,640
Speaker 3: we've been able to find. After a quick word from

280
00:16:35,640 --> 00:16:36,280
Speaker 3: our sponsor.

281
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:46,960
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy, all right, So we have

282
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:51,160
Speaker 1: to open this conversation with an age old dilemma the

283
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:55,320
Speaker 1: problem with secrecy, which is, you know what, sometimes I

284
00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:57,720
Speaker 1: think we should just make this a children's book and

285
00:16:57,760 --> 00:17:00,600
Speaker 1: make it a pop up and put it out in

286
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,480
Speaker 1: every school in America.

287
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:04,159
Speaker 2: This is a.

288
00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:06,920
Speaker 1: Huge problem, and people don't think about it as often

289
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:07,400
Speaker 1: as they should.

290
00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:09,080
Speaker 2: Well, Ben and that children's book. I mean it really

291
00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:11,720
Speaker 2: just boils down to one age old added, which is

292
00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:15,040
Speaker 2: secret secrets are now fun. Secret secrets hurt someone.

293
00:17:15,440 --> 00:17:16,400
Speaker 1: Where's that from?

294
00:17:16,600 --> 00:17:18,640
Speaker 2: You know? Children? Really? Yeah?

295
00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:26,600
Speaker 3: But also secret secrets protect the nation from security threats

296
00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:29,280
Speaker 3: to society.

297
00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:33,080
Speaker 1: Well, there's no judgment in brainstorming. We're spitball in here,

298
00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:35,399
Speaker 1: you know, I like where I think we're going in

299
00:17:35,400 --> 00:17:38,720
Speaker 1: the right direction. It's true, though, it's a huge problem.

300
00:17:39,119 --> 00:17:42,320
Speaker 1: If you're a government, you have to have secrecy because

301
00:17:42,359 --> 00:17:45,080
Speaker 1: you want to keep your rivals from stealing your technology

302
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:48,520
Speaker 1: or getting a jump on your research. That's a huge deal. Now,

303
00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:53,960
Speaker 1: like the primary intelligence operations of the Chinese government are

304
00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:58,960
Speaker 1: almost entirely corporate and military espionage, and if you don't

305
00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:03,560
Speaker 1: have operational security, you could find yourself in a situation

306
00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:08,560
Speaker 1: where facilities are bombed and people genuinely die. That old

307
00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:13,000
Speaker 1: saying loose lips sink ships is meant to be taken literally,

308
00:18:13,240 --> 00:18:16,280
Speaker 1: got the right idea, been there like that, I didn't

309
00:18:16,280 --> 00:18:20,600
Speaker 1: write it one. But here's the other side of the problem.

310
00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:23,480
Speaker 1: If you are a government, especially if you're the kind

311
00:18:23,520 --> 00:18:26,680
Speaker 1: of government that allows citizens to vote, which has been

312
00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:29,960
Speaker 1: you know, enjoying a brief moment in the sun. We'll

313
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:33,600
Speaker 1: see how long. Yeah, we'll see how long the fag goes.

314
00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:37,400
Speaker 1: But right now it's about as successful as say, beanie

315
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:41,840
Speaker 1: babies in the nineties. Hacky Sacks perhaps, Hacky Sacks. Perhaps. Yeah.

316
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:44,919
Speaker 1: If you're one of those governments, you also need at

317
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,639
Speaker 1: least the illusion of transparency. You need, at at the

318
00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:53,320
Speaker 1: very minimum, you need performative transparency, meaning that people want

319
00:18:53,320 --> 00:18:55,840
Speaker 1: to know where their tax dollars are going totally, they

320
00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:59,520
Speaker 1: want to say in what their government does totally. You

321
00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:02,439
Speaker 1: have to at least make them feel like that is

322
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:07,119
Speaker 1: an option, even when and especially when it's not, especially

323
00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:09,440
Speaker 1: when you consider that old Eisenhower quote.

324
00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:14,120
Speaker 3: Every gunship that is made, every warship launched, every rocket

325
00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:18,680
Speaker 3: fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those

326
00:19:18,760 --> 00:19:22,000
Speaker 3: who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold

327
00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:23,520
Speaker 3: and are not clothed.

328
00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:27,399
Speaker 1: And it's true, right, if voters don't know what is

329
00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:31,280
Speaker 1: being built, they cannot reasonably determine whether that money was

330
00:19:31,320 --> 00:19:35,920
Speaker 1: well spent, right, especially when you consider every dollar that

331
00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:38,959
Speaker 1: goes to a battle is a dollar that goes away

332
00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:42,800
Speaker 1: from the people of a country. Eisenhower is right about this.

333
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:49,360
Speaker 1: We can argue that this trade off is worthwhile if

334
00:19:49,359 --> 00:19:53,439
Speaker 1: we know what's happening we as voters. This leads us

335
00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:57,679
Speaker 1: to an important, heartbreaking problem. There are no shortages of

336
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:01,960
Speaker 1: countries that spend tremendous some amounts of cash, blood, and

337
00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:05,440
Speaker 1: treasure on their militaries while they are people literally starve.

338
00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:09,640
Speaker 1: We're not being hyperbolic while they die of starvation, dysentery,

339
00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:13,359
Speaker 1: things like that. But you know, the rockets keep firing.

340
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:17,480
Speaker 1: We need gas, we need bullets, we need more radar capability,

341
00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:22,480
Speaker 1: and so in the absence of transparency, speculation thrives. Like

342
00:20:22,760 --> 00:20:25,320
Speaker 1: I always think of that creepy Tom Waits thing. I

343
00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:27,240
Speaker 1: don't even know if it's a song, Maybe it's more

344
00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 1: a performance piece. What's the building in there? You guys

345
00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:30,240
Speaker 1: know that one.

346
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:31,520
Speaker 3: I'm unfamiliar with this.

347
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:33,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that one either, man. It's uber creepy.

348
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:37,680
Speaker 1: It's like peak Tom Waits creeping around going want in

349
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:41,160
Speaker 1: building in there? And it's a good question, right, because

350
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:45,119
Speaker 1: we are we are giving our if we're voters, we

351
00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:48,879
Speaker 1: are we are giving a portion of our income to

352
00:20:49,119 --> 00:20:53,800
Speaker 1: a thing in a tremendous trust fall. We're asking this leviathan,

353
00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:58,560
Speaker 1: this gigantic mechanism, to make our lives better or to

354
00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:02,000
Speaker 1: at the very least maintain a standard of living to

355
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:05,359
Speaker 1: which we're accustomed. And now we're throwing money in a

356
00:21:05,359 --> 00:21:10,080
Speaker 1: black box. So what is Lockheed building in there? And

357
00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: is it worth the expense? That's the question. And it's

358
00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:19,639
Speaker 1: tough to answer because we know some stuff about skunk Works,

359
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:21,520
Speaker 1: But how much do we actually know?

360
00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:24,280
Speaker 3: Well, let's we know some from the past, we know

361
00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:27,000
Speaker 3: some from the present, and all of it from the

362
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:30,119
Speaker 3: future because we've been consulting with an oracle. No, I'm

363
00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:31,800
Speaker 3: just kidding. We don't know anything about the future. But

364
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:35,320
Speaker 3: let's talk about the past. Stuff that we can talk about,

365
00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:38,440
Speaker 3: and hey, let's make a determination. Was this worth it

366
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 3: while some of us starved? That's really what we're saying here,

367
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:45,320
Speaker 3: So let's think about it. Here's the first one, Lockheed

368
00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:47,560
Speaker 3: Yo three, No.

369
00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:50,879
Speaker 2: What is that well, I'm glad you asked, Matt. The

370
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 2: Yo three A, as it were, was designed to a

371
00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:58,919
Speaker 2: US Army speck from the nineteen sixties nineteen sixty eight

372
00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:04,560
Speaker 2: to be precise, which called for an observation aircraft a spyplane, right,

373
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:08,679
Speaker 2: that would be acoustically undetectable from the ground when flying

374
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:11,640
Speaker 2: in an oultitude of twelve one hundred feet at night.

375
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:16,920
Speaker 2: Nine of the eleven Yo three a's produced operated in

376
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:20,719
Speaker 2: South Vietnam at night from nineteen seventy to nineteen seventy one,

377
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 2: only fourteen months and never took a single round. Absolutely,

378
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 2: we're never shot down, right, These.

379
00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:30,760
Speaker 3: Are a fascinating aircraft. Ben, I was wondering if you've

380
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:33,479
Speaker 3: ever talked about these on car stuff for any of

381
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:34,199
Speaker 3: the other shows.

382
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,919
Speaker 1: No, no, this is this is I think the first

383
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 1: time any of us have mentioned this on Okay, Yeah,

384
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: this is a pretty this is a pretty neat one.

385
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: It's now at the box thing. And you know, whenever

386
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:50,120
Speaker 1: we talk about research in these sorts of fields, we're

387
00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:53,040
Speaker 1: looking at a huge attrition rate. A ton of stuff

388
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:56,280
Speaker 1: never makes it off the blueprint stage, you know, and

389
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: a ton of the stuff that makes it to a

390
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:01,640
Speaker 1: prototype never never gets beyond where the what the Horton

391
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 1: HO twenty two was, Yes, exactly right, But this.

392
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 3: Was just to stay on here just for a second.

393
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:09,720
Speaker 3: It was a smaller aircraft. You can find pictures of

394
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:12,840
Speaker 3: the Yo Dash three online and if you look at

395
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 3: the pilot, it's like, the pilot looks pretty big in

396
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,640
Speaker 3: the photo is because the plane is relatively small. It's

397
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 3: got a tiny little propeller upfront, single propeller wings that

398
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 3: are not large in width, and just to fly around

399
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:30,960
Speaker 3: at night being quiet, observing troops. It did its purpose

400
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 3: and like Noel said, it didn't get shot down, so

401
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:37,840
Speaker 3: you know, it was certainly helpful for the military, right.

402
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:40,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was helpful for the military. You could also

403
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,640
Speaker 1: argue that it saved the lives of US forces there

404
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:50,399
Speaker 1: you go through its surveillance capabilities. One that one craft

405
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: that might be more familiar to some of us would

406
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: be the Lockheed U two. In nineteen fifty five, Skunkwork's

407
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: got this contract from the CIA to build a spyplane

408
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: known as as the U two. Later, you know, this

409
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:06,480
Speaker 1: one was so popular that a certain Irish band named

410
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 1: themselves after it.

411
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 2: Are you and the numeral two? Yes?

412
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 1: And yeah? They were right on the edge with that one,

413
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: and the ideal for the U two was to fly

414
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:20,359
Speaker 1: over the USSR and try to photograph sites that they

415
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 1: couldn't see using other methods. They operated for a number

416
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 1: of years. The first flight happened on Independence Day on

417
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 1: July fourth, nineteen fifty six. But the U two stopped

418
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 1: flying when a guy named Francis Gary Powers was shot

419
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,920
Speaker 1: down over Russia. So the U two was not as

420
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 1: successful as the U three A. I should call it

421
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: the YO three A.

422
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 3: But I like you though it did operate for a

423
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:50,119
Speaker 3: much longer time it did.

424
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 1: It did operate for a much much longer time. And

425
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: then we also know about the Lockheed A twelve, which

426
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:04,120
Speaker 1: which was a a logical successor to the U two

427
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: because when skunk Works was a lot of people don't

428
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: know this.

429
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 2: When Skunk Works was building the U.

430
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 1: Two, they baked into their predictions that this would have

431
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: a short shelf life. They said, look, this is gonna

432
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: work really well for a second, and then it's it's

433
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: gonna blow up in our faces like the Spice Girls

434
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: or the Macarena song.

435
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 2: You know, why would they build a plane that was

436
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,120
Speaker 2: designed to blow up in their faces? That doesn't seem

437
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 2: very effective.

438
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 3: So okay, let's just talk about this really quickly. So

439
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 3: the You two plane, the lockyed version of You two

440
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 3: was a really cool spy plane. It was huge, like

441
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 3: really really large, and generally the ones that I've seen

442
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 3: at least in in museums and a couple of other

443
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 3: places were playing it. We're painted this like gun metal

444
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 3: black or like a dark gray, you know that color

445
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 3: they order to operate in the sky to be you know,

446
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 3: almost undetectable and flying over those places. Right, But it

447
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 3: looks kind of like a jet that you if you

448
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:06,919
Speaker 3: think about a jet the way a jet plane looks,

449
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,360
Speaker 3: it kind of looks like that. The one that we're

450
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 3: talking about now, the what is it, the A twelve.

451
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 3: This thing looks out of this world really yes, big,

452
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 3: just it looks like a fully different kind of aircraft.

453
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:26,440
Speaker 3: If you look at a picture.

454
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 2: I see what you're saying. So, like, the designs were

455
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 2: really's next level stuff, sort of like those crazy that

456
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:33,719
Speaker 2: the design started to get a little more angular and crazy,

457
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 2: like with those stealth bombers that Donald Trump really thinks

458
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:37,120
Speaker 2: they're invisible.

459
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:39,919
Speaker 3: Well, well yeah, because they had a specific thing they

460
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 3: were trying to do with this plane, right.

461
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, they wanted it to be invisible essentially, and it

462
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: is the ante seton of the much more famous SR

463
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:53,120
Speaker 1: seventy one Blackbird. The interesting thing about A twelve is

464
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: that they it was already in the works when the

465
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 1: utwo was rolling out because they predicted that correctly. As

466
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: it turns out that USSR detection technology would catch up

467
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: with the evasive capability of the U two. And then

468
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: the A twelve was strange because it required some help

469
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:20,880
Speaker 1: from the CIA. Now you might be saying, guys, the CIA,

470
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: they're not exactly experts in engineering, nor the experts in aviation.

471
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: That's correct, but the problem here's where they came in.

472
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: So skunk Works had to build five of these A

473
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: twelve aircraft. They wanted it to go mock three plus,

474
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: and they wanted to build it out of titanium. It

475
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 1: was very tough because in the Cold War, the USSR

476
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 1: controlled the titanium game. They they had like ninety plus

477
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: percent of the titanium trade. So these folks went to

478
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,199
Speaker 1: the CIA and they said, hey, we know one thing

479
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: you're good at setting up front companies. And the CIO said, yeah,

480
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 1: we're all about that.

481
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 2: Oh, we know, we heard about that in the very

482
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 2: recent episode, didn't we about the NGOs exactly?

483
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:13,679
Speaker 1: So the CIA set up a dummy corporation entirely to

484
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: acquire titanium for the A twelve. That was very stuff

485
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, and it worked. How

486
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,440
Speaker 1: pissed off would you be if you were the USSR

487
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: where it turned out, you know, when you found out that,

488
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: like you know, Socialist Titanium Consortium of Eastern Turkey was

489
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: actually the agency and you sold them the stuff they

490
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 1: needed to build the spy planes that were flying over

491
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 1: you right now.

492
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 2: WHOA right, dirty deed's done quite expensively.

493
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 1: Yes, Sarah Well said, Let's let's pause for a second

494
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll dive

495
00:28:52,520 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: into some more examples and we're back now. We mentioned

496
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 1: this earlier. This is one of the more famous US

497
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: spy planes, also built by Skunkworks, the Lockheed s R

498
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: seventy one Blackbird. And I don't want to get in

499
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: too deep with the Marvel fans, but I think didn't

500
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: the didn't the X men have a Blackbird at some point?

501
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:23,479
Speaker 2: Me And there's their plane.

502
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks kind of like that you're talking.

503
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 2: About the one that would take off from the ground,

504
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 2: you know, and then it would zoom off. It was

505
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 2: called the X something it was. It was definitely called

506
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 2: the jet. Yeah, probably there you go.

507
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 3: I don't I think it looks like a blackbird. Well

508
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 3: that's the thing, the one we talked about before the

509
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 3: break there. The A twelve and the SR seventy one

510
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 3: look very very similar, just slightly different shape of the

511
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 3: nose basically is what you look at when you're looking

512
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 3: at it. It looks very very similar.

513
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 2: No, No, it's the X men Blackbird X jet.

514
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 3: What it was, straight up a blackbird.

515
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 2: The Blackbird, also nicknamed X, is a fictional aircraft appearing

516
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 2: in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Nailed it, man,

517
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 2: What does it look like? It's the one you know

518
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 2: from the movies. It's real narrow, tapers off like it's

519
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 2: got the wings are in the back, and then the

520
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 2: body is real skinny and kind of goes goes forward.

521
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 2: At least that's how they depicted it in the films.

522
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: And I think you're right, Noel, that it does have

523
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,719
Speaker 1: that vertical takeoff and landing capability which the real blackbirds

524
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: can't right, Okay.

525
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 3: Okay, the wings are very different and they are.

526
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: Axes, but but.

527
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 3: It's a blackbird. It looks like a blackbird.

528
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: But the real blackbird's cool too. It's not comic book

529
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: level cool, but it is.

530
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 3: Cool, dude. When I was in middle school, yeah, this

531
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 3: was the coolest thing that it ever existed.

532
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: Did you were you one of those guys at a

533
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 2: poster of it?

534
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 3: Yeah?

535
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 2: Did you build a model?

536
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 3: I did, and I went and checked it out at

537
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 3: the museum that they have their warder robins and this

538
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:57,760
Speaker 3: I wanted to pilot one of these things. It was

539
00:30:57,800 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 3: my biggest dream, that's true.

540
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: I don't know if a lot of people are aware

541
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: of this, but Matt, you grew up relatively close to

542
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: an actual skunk works facility. I did, right, yep, Okay,

543
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: well we'll move on then, yep.

544
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 3: So so, but no, I think a lot of maybe

545
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 3: you listening out there, like, saw a picture of this thing.

546
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 3: It just looked so futuristic and unreal, and when you

547
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 3: started to learn about the physics of it, how it

548
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 3: actually expanded a little bit when it got up to

549
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 3: the speeds that it could reach because of the heat

550
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 3: that was going on with the metals that were involved.

551
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 3: It felt it just felt like it was out of

552
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 3: this world, like and it was alien technology or something

553
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 3: that we had captured. You combine that with the whole

554
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 3: X Files enthusiast thing.

555
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, it also seems like it was

556
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: really difficult to fly.

557
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sure you know.

558
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 1: Well, that's a that's a problem with a lot of

559
00:31:55,840 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: spy planes is that they're they're terrible to their terrible

560
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: on the ground. They're terrible to take off. They're terrible

561
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: to land because they're just designed to float a high altitude,

562
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: so you have to get up there first. It's kind

563
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: of like, you know birds that there are so many

564
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: birds that are terrible on land but amazing the air.

565
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 2: Like the Great frigate bird.

566
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: It looks like a nincompoop when it's trying to walk

567
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: around because it's not made for the ground.

568
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 2: It's made for this guy, Ben, you missed a really

569
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 2: great voicemail we had on the Listener Mail episode where

570
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 2: someone proposed a conspiracy theory that ducks are in fact

571
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 2: not floating on the surface of the water, but that

572
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 2: they have weird, gangly legs that extend all the way

573
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 2: down to the bottom of the lake or what have you.

574
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 2: And that really triggered me the whole the thought of that, Yeah,

575
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 2: the image of that. In just a minute when you

576
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 2: were saying, you know, some birds are terrible, I was

577
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 2: really hoping you would just stop short and just say

578
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 2: birds terrible.

579
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just I'm going to give this to you.

580
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: It's an evil gift. And I'm sure you're already aware

581
00:32:59,040 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: of duck penises. They're screwed right, there are many.

582
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 2: Did you bring me one from? Never mind? Don't want.

583
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 2: I don't want to scoop you.

584
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I did I. Duck penises are Lovecraftian.

585
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 2: It is probably the best way to do, don't. They

586
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 2: like hook in and won't let go.

587
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: They're evil because ducks reproduce non consensually. That is the

588
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: most diplomatic that you say it.

589
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 3: So the uh, that's.

590
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 2: My planes.

591
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 3: I have to talk about this a little more interesting.

592
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 3: So the previous model, the A twelve, you can only

593
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 3: have one pilot in there. It's just you, by your

594
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 3: loansome flying around up pretty dang high and going ridiculously fast.

595
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 3: So you're maneuvering away from people being able to shoot

596
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 3: you down. At least hopefully, this SR seventy one. You

597
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 3: could have two one pilot copilot in there, helpful in

598
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 3: case one one operator loses consciousness because you are travel

599
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 3: so fast. And the other thing is that this thing

600
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 3: operated for longer than anything that Lockheed was producing before.

601
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,839
Speaker 3: Then when it comes to these advanced programs, it went

602
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 3: from nineteen sixty six, This thing, this futuristic thing, went

603
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 3: from nineteen sixty six until nineteen ninety eight. That's when

604
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 3: it was in service.

605
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 2: Like they didn't even like massively updated or they would

606
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 2: have had to give it a new model name.

607
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 3: Right, it was just awesome and it stayed awesome.

608
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: And it was expensive, so it's okay to do. You know,

609
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: they're still researching the next step of the evolution, but

610
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 1: they have to be very sure that it's worth sinking

611
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: billions of dollars into a new design.

612
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,919
Speaker 2: Into the R and D alone I mentioned the manufacturing right.

613
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 2: Quick question for my own edification here, what do these

614
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 2: things actually do? Like, I mean, I know they are

615
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 2: spy planes and they're surveilling, but like, is it with radar?

616
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 2: Is it taking aerial photography? Is are there their listening devices?

617
00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:04,320
Speaker 2: Just wonder like what the implementation of this absurdly expensive

618
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 2: technology is and how does it benefit us?

619
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it looks cool and it's just nice

620
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 1: to kind of have a flex Okay.

621
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's.

622
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: What's called a long range strategic reconnaissance craft. Essentially, they

623
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 1: have a bunch of eyes in the sky. They have

624
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 1: infrared imagery, they have radar, airborne radar, electronic intelligence gathering systems.

625
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 2: They have.

626
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: Counter missile systems, right, so they can avoid both ground

627
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: launched missiles and other birds in the air. And they

628
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:45,919
Speaker 1: have these huge cameras. One thing to your point, Matt,

629
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: about why there was only one person in the in

630
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: the predecessor, in the A twelve, and while there were

631
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: two in the Blackbird. For that second person to be

632
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: able to fit in the Blackbird, the designers had to

633
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: remove the principal censor which was on the A twelve,

634
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 1: which was this huge, large, focal length optical camera. So

635
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: they were flying over and taking pictures more or less,

636
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: and they weren't, you know, they weren't dropping bombs on

637
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,879
Speaker 1: civilians or freedom fighters, got it. So another thing that's

638
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: interesting here is this spy plane. These these spy planes

639
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 1: specifically saw the rise of government mandated drug use because

640
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: It's the only way that pilots could remain alert while

641
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: they were on these missions. This has been confirmed. It

642
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: used to be considered a secret, but even up to

643
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: the up into the Gulf War, pilots were taking amphetamines.

644
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 1: There's one brand name, dexadrine, which is the brand name

645
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 1: for dextro amphetamine. This was given to pilots to keep

646
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 1: them alert during flight's law longer than eight.

647
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 2: Hours like Benny's was another one, right, like Poppin' Benni's

648
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:09,399
Speaker 2: the housewife pill of the nineteen twenties and thirties, I guess.

649
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 2: And then didn't the Nazis take some form of this

650
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 2: as well? Or that was more of an they're amphetamines,

651
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:15,760
Speaker 2: it's all.

652
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,399
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, blitzkrieg Blitzgreeg operatives took them.

653
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:20,359
Speaker 2: Hitler loved them.

654
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: And amphetamines were I mean very common in war because

655
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:25,359
Speaker 1: they work.

656
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now we give them to our children to

657
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 2: help them pay better attention.

658
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: That's adderall right, which.

659
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 2: Essentially, I mean, studies have shown they act very similar

660
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 2: to amphetamines.

661
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 3: Yay.

662
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: So we know that the technology Lacky was capable of

663
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 1: creating was years and years ahead of what the public

664
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: would be aware of and we also know that the innovation,

665
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 1: the pace of innovation there was much more precipitous than

666
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: the public might have thought. We also know that skunk

667
00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: Works projects were not confined to the air Please don't

668
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:04,759
Speaker 1: think that all skunk Works does is work on aircraft.

669
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 1: It's just that we know the most about the aircraft.

670
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: They also made things that worked on the water.

671
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, talking about the Sea Shadow here as one example. Again,

672
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 3: like Lockheed's got this look now at this point, once

673
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,439
Speaker 3: we enter the eighties, it's now nineteen eighty four. They're

674
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 3: using that gun metal, black coated looking crazy awesome stuff.

675
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: Cyber truck didn't come from nowhere.

676
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 3: Exactly right now. Their developer or they developed in nineteen

677
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,279
Speaker 3: eighty four. It started working being deployed in nineteen eighty five.

678
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 3: A stealth boat essentially our transport vehicle. And it looks

679
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 3: crazy aka the duck penis.

680
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 2: No, that was.

681
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: They changed the name to the Sea Shadow when they

682
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: rolled it out.

683
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and that was just the working title whenever,

684
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 2: keeping on or aps and skunk Work in the family,

685
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:02,480
Speaker 2: you know.

686
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's it's either called the nine dash five

687
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 3: two nine or I X dash five to nine. This

688
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,879
Speaker 3: thing it looks crazy. If you you know, you can

689
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:18,399
Speaker 3: just google sea Shadow, maybe blockheed. That's probably the best

690
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:19,280
Speaker 3: way to find it.

691
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 2: It doesn't look seaworthy.

692
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:24,919
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't. And it's hard to understand what you're

693
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,319
Speaker 3: actually seeing. It's like, oh, wait, is that a submarine?

694
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 3: But wait, those sides are just diagonal? How far down

695
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 3: do they go? Wait? What is this raised part or

696
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 3: people inside that thing?

697
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 2: It's like Darth Vader's helmet or something like the top

698
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 2: of a Darth Vader helmet, or like that weird dude

699
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 2: in the first Star Wars movie you had just kind

700
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 2: of the dome thing on his head, and you know, oh, sure,

701
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 2: he's kind of like that, and there's people standing on

702
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 2: top of it in this image that I'm looking at,

703
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 2: and there's an antenna of some sort. But yeah, it's

704
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,840
Speaker 2: got like a weird little windshield, like four kind of

705
00:39:55,880 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 2: little trapezoidal interlocking windshields. And then there's open space underneath it,

706
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 2: which is the part that really throws you off. It's

707
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 2: like it's above the water, but there's this like it's

708
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 2: almost like a moving tunnel kind of it looks.

709
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: Like a chronoplan You guys, remember those chronoplan is somewhere

710
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: between a ship and an aircraft. It uses the ground

711
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 1: force effect to hover over the water.

712
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 2: They're so cool. E k R A n O plan.

713
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 2: Oh would that be what I would maybe have always

714
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 2: heard of as just a hovercraft.

715
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: They're different from a hovercraft, different.

716
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 2: Don't They don't have anything interesting? They look like this.

717
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 2: They're so cool. So they use propulsion to literally hover

718
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 2: above the surface of the water with like fans or

719
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 2: something like that. That's interesting.

720
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: I always wanted to ride one, but a lot of

721
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 1: them are either decommissioned or in countries that are difficult

722
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: to get to.

723
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 2: Interesting what's going on with the sea Shadow? Because I'm

724
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 2: with you, guys, I'm like, how how is this thing functioning?

725
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: It was an experimental ocean surveillance vessel and was built

726
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 1: way back in nineteen eighty four, which is crazy. The

727
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: idea is that it's reducing its footprint its radar profile,

728
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 1: so that's part of why it's floating like that with

729
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: this hydrofoil on board. So it has two separate holes

730
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,319
Speaker 1: and they're connected by struts, so the holes that you

731
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: see are underwater. So there is more to it than

732
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:36,799
Speaker 1: just a flat plane. And the ship was used in

733
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:42,000
Speaker 1: secret experimentally until nineteen ninety three. So for almost a

734
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 1: decade this thing existed off the grid and was not

735
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:49,240
Speaker 1: universally acknowledged. People are saying, hey, I saw some weird

736
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: stuff out there in the ocean, and people were saying, whoa, Donnie,

737
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 1: slow down on your whatever their version of Adderall.

738
00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 2: Was at the time.

739
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:02,799
Speaker 1: And this was also one of the first tests of

740
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 1: automation to reduce the number of actual people on the vessel. Interesting,

741
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:14,799
Speaker 1: and now this one has an ignomonious end because in

742
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:17,560
Speaker 1: two thousand and six the US Navy gave up on

743
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 1: the Sea Shadow and they tried, they literally tried to

744
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: sell it at an auction and nobody would buy it.

745
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 1: And so then they said, okay, we're just going to

746
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: sell it for dismantling. You can dismantle it and can

747
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:32,280
Speaker 1: take away the parts. We get rid of the secret stuff.

748
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 1: And they said, look, if you buy this, there are

749
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 1: two conditions. One you cannot sell it to you have

750
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 1: to scrap it. And they sold it in twenty twelve

751
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 1: when it was dismantled. But it lives on because there

752
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: are ships like the Impeccable and the Victorious that have

753
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: still have the same kind of structure. I mean, just

754
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:56,240
Speaker 1: show you, guys, this is an actual ship. It's working now.

755
00:42:56,719 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: Who they took that weird missing missing piece of the

756
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: whole or the center cut out, and they kept the

757
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:05,240
Speaker 1: twin hole design, but they made.

758
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 2: It much bigger. Man.

759
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 3: That's fascinating and there's a.

760
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: Lot of money there. So these are things that have

761
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 1: all happened in the past. We know currently that Lockheed's

762
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: doing a couple of pretty fascinating things. One of them,

763
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: one of them makes sense, and one of them is

764
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:25,959
Speaker 1: an out of nowhere thing that I guarantee will sound

765
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: like sci fi to ninety five percent of us listening.

766
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: The first is the Lockheed Martin SR seventy two. That

767
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 1: makes sense, right, Wait, oh wait.

768
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 3: Can we do one thing before we hit the seventy

769
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 3: two totally because it's something that Noel brought up that

770
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 3: I have another picture of my mind that I'm assuming

771
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 3: other people do too. Yeah, And it's the I think

772
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 3: it's the F one to seventeen Nighthawk, which is I

773
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 3: think that's.

774
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:48,399
Speaker 2: What it called.

775
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 3: Was it called uh, it's lockeyed, it is skunkworks. It

776
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 3: is Skunkworks, and it's the Nighthawk. It's the stealth fighter

777
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 3: jet looking thing that looks kind of like like a

778
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 3: hawk or an owl or a bird of prey or

779
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 3: something similar to all the other designs we've been talking about.

780
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.

781
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 3: The one that I remember seeing when I think it

782
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:16,399
Speaker 3: was desert storm was occurring in the nineties. The thing

783
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:18,800
Speaker 3: was built in the eighties, around the same time that

784
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 3: they were building the what were we just talking about,

785
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,879
Speaker 3: the Sea Sea Shadow, The Sea Shadow, and it wasn't

786
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,879
Speaker 3: publicly acknowledged until five years later, and then it didn't

787
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 3: actually make an appearance anywhere operationally until a desert storm.

788
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 3: But it's just another one of those iconic planes that

789
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 3: was used for a lot of different things in secret

790
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,320
Speaker 3: for a long time, and then eventually it was made published.

791
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 2: So what it was just like a big unveiling when

792
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 2: they decided to make these public? Is it only when

793
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 2: they decommissioned them? Like, what when is the moment the

794
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:53,959
Speaker 2: public gets to know about these cool, you know sci

795
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 2: fi looking spy planes.

796
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 3: Well, here's here's the way. I think it goes down

797
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:04,240
Speaker 3: years in an operational capacity somewhere in another country, probably

798
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 3: where there is you know, a conflict occurring. Sure that

799
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 3: one of these things gets used and either it gets

800
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:15,359
Speaker 3: shot down, one of them gets shot down, or one

801
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 3: is caught, you know, operating, and then the United States

802
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 3: military has to kind of.

803
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: Just yeah, kind of like the stealth helicopters win right. Yeah.

804
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: The Nighthawk was publicly revealed or I would even say

805
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: publicly acknowledged in nineteen eighty eight.

806
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:37,280
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, and.

807
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: People still didn't really didn't really clock it until, as

808
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,319
Speaker 1: you said, Matt, in the Gulf War in nineteen ninety one.

809
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 1: It's weird to call it a stealth fighter because as

810
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:54,879
Speaker 1: stealth fighter capabilities, but it's mainly a ground attack aircraft. Yeah,

811
00:45:55,040 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 1: dropping dropping bombs like hot mixtapes. So that yes, So

812
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 1: that's amazing. That's one of the posters I had. Yes,

813
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:07,280
Speaker 1: you know, because it's just so iconic.

814
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 3: I apologize that I jumped back to that. Ben.

815
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 2: We have to.

816
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:14,319
Speaker 3: So let's let's go. Let's I'm going to take you

817
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 3: back now to the what the big brother of the

818
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 3: Lockheed Martin SR seventy one, the SR seventy two.

819
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this one is still in the works, still

820
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: in the skunk works. According to Lockheed, it's going to

821
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 1: replace the seventy one.

822
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:33,359
Speaker 2: It's going to have.

823
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:41,719
Speaker 1: A middleman role between surveillance satellites, manned aircraft and unmanned.

824
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 2: Aerial vehicles UAVs.

825
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: Those creepy blimps, they're so far up in the sky

826
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: you can't see them. I think I'm supposed to call

827
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 1: them airships now. So the idea here is that the

828
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 1: SR seventy two is going to be able to leverage

829
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: all this communicative ability and its high speed to get

830
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: in and out of protected airspace and sneak pictures, sneak surveillance,

831
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 1: or blow up a target before people can detect it

832
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: at all, much less intercept it. This is dangerous stuff

833
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 1: and it's you know, if you're going to be alive

834
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 1: for the next few years, you're gonna you're gonna see

835
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: it in action or you're gonna hear about it. The

836
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:24,719
Speaker 1: last thing that this blew me away, I don't know.

837
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 1: I don't know what you guys think about this. Paul

838
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 1: and I were talking about this earlier. The last thing

839
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: that Lakie Martin has confirmed that they are working on

840
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: is a compact fusion reactor. Yeah, fusion fusion, the thing

841
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: that we can't really do efficiently. They're jumping the gun

842
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: from a fusion reactor. Those can exist in a very

843
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:51,319
Speaker 1: inefficient way to a compact fusion reactor. So if you

844
00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: ever been walking around with your backpack and you're like, man,

845
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: this laptop's okay, and I like my notebook, but I

846
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 1: sure wish I had a fusion reactor, Well it's not

847
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 1: that compact, but it's on the way.

848
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 3: We just talked about this with Chris Cogswell as like

849
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 3: the Pine in the sky thing.

850
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 1: And how he said it would never happen. Yeah, yeah, Olwen.

851
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: Thanks to everybody who wrote in to let us know

852
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:16,360
Speaker 1: about that interview. We got some great feedback from that.

853
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 2: I'm really looking forward to listening to it. I had

854
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 2: to miss that one.

855
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 3: This is crazy. I'm just reading about this right now

856
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 3: for the first time. Ben I what yep?

857
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:31,919
Speaker 1: What skunk Works is officially building a fusion reactor. They're

858
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:36,760
Speaker 1: actually as of twenty nineteen, they were on the fifth

859
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:40,720
Speaker 1: iteration of it, known as T five. It's a huge

860
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:43,960
Speaker 1: engineering challenge because they have some stuff that they have

861
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: to keep very very cold and some stuff that they

862
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: have to keep very very hot, and they have to

863
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:51,880
Speaker 1: put it all together and make it work without tearing

864
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 1: itself apart or you know, exploding and raining death down

865
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 1: upon us.

866
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,319
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go ahead and call bs on this whole thing.

867
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:04,800
Speaker 3: I am reading about this online right now in twenty

868
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:09,240
Speaker 3: twenty talking about how this was unveiled in twenty fifteen,

869
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 3: and Ben, if this was actually a program they were

870
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:18,759
Speaker 3: doing that Skunkworks was working on, it would never be

871
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:22,319
Speaker 3: revealed until, as we've seen with each other example here

872
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 3: like five ten years later. This is this. I'm just

873
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:30,040
Speaker 3: calling it right here, and this is my opinion. But

874
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,840
Speaker 3: this is Skunkworks in Lockheed like putting up a smoke

875
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 3: a smoke grenade just to be like, hey, look over here, guys,

876
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:41,600
Speaker 3: put all your money Russia and China and other large

877
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 3: state actors into this technology that you'll never be able

878
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:48,040
Speaker 3: to do. That's what I'm saying.

879
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,920
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, I see what you're saying. That's crazy, because

880
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:55,279
Speaker 1: the official line from Lockheed is that the US military

881
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 1: wants to create something that can be a portable generator.

882
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:02,320
Speaker 1: Of course they do, because think of the supply chain

883
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 1: for you know, diesel or gas powered vehicles. Right, that's

884
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: one of the move that's a huge expense in war,

885
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 1: if not one of the most egregious expenses. But yeah,

886
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:14,480
Speaker 1: a compact fusion reactor.

887
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 2: What Yeah, a compact are we're talking here, guys.

888
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not a backpack again, but if you

889
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 1: if you look at some of the articles, you can see, let.

890
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 2: Me, bigger than like a generator. You might buy it

891
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 2: on depot.

892
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 3: Dude. Yeah, dude, there's a picture on this. Uh there's

893
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,839
Speaker 3: a picture I'm assuming that they're saying is from this

894
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 3: thing in the skunk quorks from the drive dot com.

895
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 3: And it looks like a big pr photo of a

896
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 3: bunch of engineers touching one individual piece of this compact reactor. Dude,

897
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:57,840
Speaker 3: this is this is not real, man, that's probably just

898
00:50:58,160 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 3: that's probably a vacuum chamber.

899
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like it's probably.

900
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 3: An image of a vacuum chamber that they're just messing with.

901
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:05,360
Speaker 2: It looks like one of those tanks. You'd see it

902
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 2: a beer brewer, Mike when I say that, but really,

903
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's so it's it's it's an industrial

904
00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 2: piece of industrial equipment. You know, it's not when they

905
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 2: say compact, I mean it's smaller than like a you know,

906
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 2: a reactor. You'd see it with one of those cool

907
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 2: cooling towers and the whole nine and all that stuff.

908
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 2: Obviously that's not the actual reactor, but uh, fascinating.

909
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 3: No, that I mean, I think it is.

910
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:28,279
Speaker 2: You know, this is self contained. That it's mean like

911
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:31,880
Speaker 2: a nuclear power plant. The reactor is not the cooling,

912
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 2: the big thing that you cooling. Yeah, that's a separate

913
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 2: and people have some some people mistakenly believe that that

914
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:40,760
Speaker 2: is the reactor. Ah, yes, it's a good point.

915
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 1: So the predecessor of this current, when this T five

916
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: was only one meter in diameter and two meters long,

917
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 1: which is big. You know, again, it's bigger than a

918
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: backpack or a bread box. I was just thinking about,

919
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:56,200
Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking about a conversation we had

920
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 1: a while ago. Man, I just wanted to double check

921
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:01,760
Speaker 1: your pay parents actually do use a bread box?

922
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 3: Yes, weird?

923
00:52:03,719 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 2: Do they also keep their eggs out at room temperature?

924
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 2: Do they churn their own butter?

925
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 3: Never room temperature?

926
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 2: That's a thing though, you know.

927
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: I know, yeah, because of the goop, the gunk that's

928
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 1: on the eggs. When you know, that's that's the reason

929
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: grocery store eggs have to be refrigerated. The gunk is

930
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: washed off of them that's fluid. Uh No, it's like, well,

931
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:28,840
Speaker 1: it's like a protective it's like a protective thing that

932
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: keeps bacteria from coming into rotting eggs, so you don't

933
00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: have to refrigerate eggs if you buy them from a

934
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 1: farmer's market, or if you just get them from a chicken,

935
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:38,839
Speaker 1: if that's where you're at.

936
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, the gunk I got it. Yeah, technical term. I'm

937
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 2: sure it's an acronym. Well, guys, we're approaching. We're approaching

938
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 2: the end of this episode, but we got a few

939
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 2: kind of housekeeping issues take care of what else? I mean.

940
00:52:51,920 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 2: Given's long histories, kunk Works is often a kind of

941
00:52:55,239 --> 00:52:58,240
Speaker 2: go to for a lot of fringe researchers who believe

942
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 2: the government may be develop, uping, or hiding advance suppress technology,

943
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 2: which they almost certainly are.

944
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 3: They were, they have been their whole career.

945
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. So that means they still are.

946
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 2: We just don't know. We won't know about it for

947
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:13,439
Speaker 2: another ten twenty, however many years.

948
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: It's kind of like it's kind of like saying, is

949
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:19,759
Speaker 1: mel Gibson gonna say something anti semitic? Well, he's got

950
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,640
Speaker 1: a track record, you know, what I mean, maybe maybe it's.

951
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, but people can change ben sure, government agencies

952
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:29,840
Speaker 2: can know anyway, But who's done to do this? And honestly,

953
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 2: this isn't an inherently like negative thing. It doesn't have

954
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:36,399
Speaker 2: to be seen as some kind of nefarious, shrouded kind

955
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 2: of activity. Just because we don't know about it doesn't

956
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,879
Speaker 2: mean it's bad for us. In fact, us not knowing

957
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:43,759
Speaker 2: about it is kind of important. That's sort of part

958
00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:48,520
Speaker 2: of the deal, right, But gone unchecked and we can't

959
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 2: follow the paper trail of the funding and all that stuff.

960
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 2: I mean, you know there certainly can can run amock.

961
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:57,640
Speaker 1: Now I do I do object to calling this housekeeping

962
00:53:57,680 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 1: because I would say the most important part of this

963
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:05,120
Speaker 1: episode is this. The concern of active secret research and

964
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:09,840
Speaker 1: suppressed technology in Lockeed's case, does not come from just

965
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:13,720
Speaker 1: some rabbit hole or some sort of creepy copy pasta,

966
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:17,839
Speaker 1: nor does it come from the dilemma of state secrecy.

967
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:20,640
Speaker 1: In June of two thousand and eight, Skunk Works went

968
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 1: on an unprecedented, unexplained hiring binge. And they didn't fire

969
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:28,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of people either. They hired a bunch of

970
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 1: people to do something. We just don't know what it was.

971
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:36,399
Speaker 1: The reason or the reasons behind this hiring spree are

972
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 1: still not clear. They increased their size by a third,

973
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 1: by thirty three percent. That's a crazy amount of people

974
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 1: to hire, and we don't know. Again, we don't know

975
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 1: what they were doing. We know what they acknowledge they're doing.

976
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: They're these pretty I wouldn't say necessarily, I wouldn't say

977
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 1: super specific, but they have these categories. There are things

978
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 1: like next gen fighters, quieter supersonic planes, and then they

979
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:04,960
Speaker 1: have stuff that's pretty vague, like revolutionary technologies.

980
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 2: What is that that would be anything? It's technology that

981
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 2: promotes revolution, I would assume.

982
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 1: Right, And that's where we are today. You know, today's

983
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:19,319
Speaker 1: skunk works employees three thousand, seven hundred people and these

984
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: are facilities in Palmdale, California, that's the big one, also

985
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:27,600
Speaker 1: Fort Worth, Texas, also in Georgia. They're working on at

986
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:32,880
Speaker 1: least five hundred projects, most likely more, and it's in

987
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 1: a range of stuff.

988
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:37,000
Speaker 2: Now, do you think it's public information? No, I can't

989
00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 2: imagine it would be. As to who these people are

990
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 2: that work for them. Are there high level positions that

991
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 2: are public facing and skunk Works that we can know

992
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:45,520
Speaker 2: about and talk to.

993
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,760
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, there are pr folks, they are admin folks.

994
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:52,680
Speaker 1: The engineers are pretty locked down with the DAS, and

995
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 1: we've got some engineers in the audience today. If you're

996
00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:02,280
Speaker 1: bound by an NDA, don't let us be the reason

997
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 1: you break it. We don't want your jail time on

998
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:08,600
Speaker 1: our conscience or your fines. But if you can talk

999
00:56:08,640 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 1: about it, we would love to hear your insight on

1000
00:56:11,239 --> 00:56:12,280
Speaker 1: what's going on here.

1001
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:16,120
Speaker 2: But like Lockheed itself and especially skunk Works, it's so

1002
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 2: government adjacent that it's essentially like an extension of the

1003
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:24,680
Speaker 2: government in some small way. I mean, it's a private industry,

1004
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:28,480
Speaker 2: but there's so much back and forth between the two

1005
00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 2: that I feel like it's almost inseparable. I don't know,

1006
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:33,799
Speaker 2: maybe i'm reaching there. What do you guys think?

1007
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 3: No, yeah, I mean to me, it's very similar. I mean,

1008
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 3: it is just a contractor and that's just the way

1009
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:42,840
Speaker 3: it is, right. It's money changing hands to get to

1010
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 3: the experts.

1011
00:56:43,680 --> 00:56:46,640
Speaker 2: But what if they wanted to do business with China?

1012
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:50,680
Speaker 3: Lockheed, Yeah, I.

1013
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:53,360
Speaker 2: Mean we export things to China all the time. You know,

1014
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 2: if they're a private industry, why can't they sell these

1015
00:56:57,480 --> 00:56:59,400
Speaker 2: planes to other countries.

1016
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:04,480
Speaker 3: Well, just speaking of China is simultaneously trying to produce

1017
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:08,319
Speaker 3: a reactor based off of Lockheed Martin's reactor yep.

1018
00:57:08,600 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 1: And also we know that the government or the US

1019
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:17,000
Speaker 1: government has to approve certain sales and they can they

1020
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:19,760
Speaker 1: can do this through a through a Carritoris stick approach,

1021
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: so they can sanction certain sales, meaning they will disallow them,

1022
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:26,880
Speaker 1: and then they can incentivize other ones through through a

1023
00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: number of different ways. It's it's strange because everybody's trying

1024
00:57:31,360 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 1: to learn the same thing. They're trying to apply it

1025
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 1: in one way or another. The ultimate the ultimate goal,

1026
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:41,080
Speaker 1: of course, is to be the hedgemond, to have the

1027
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: sovereignty and control of a given technology or domain. And

1028
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: that's why places like that's why Boeing, even if it

1029
00:57:49,840 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: goes bankrupt, something like that will rise up in its stead,

1030
00:57:53,760 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 1: because the state needs to have manufacturing capabilities like this.

1031
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:01,400
Speaker 1: And that's why we know the people at Lockheed and

1032
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:05,600
Speaker 1: other associated things like North Grumman will be working around

1033
00:58:05,680 --> 00:58:09,040
Speaker 1: the clock for the foreseeable future. The stuff we named

1034
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 1: is already crazy, but that's just the stuff we know about.

1035
00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:15,560
Speaker 1: So what do you think, folks has skunk works moved

1036
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:18,880
Speaker 1: more or less completely into the public eye, or, like

1037
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:23,840
Speaker 1: Matt just argued, are there still secret unacknowledged projects at play.

1038
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 1: If so, what are they and what are they going

1039
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:29,080
Speaker 1: to do? And when will we find out about them

1040
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 1: twenty years afterwards?

1041
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, thirty probably. I'm telling you that SR seventy two

1042
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:38,000
Speaker 3: is out there right now. It's been spotted. It's the

1043
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 3: reason for numerous UFO sightings over the past ten years.

1044
00:58:42,960 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 3: I guarantee it.

1045
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:46,920
Speaker 1: And now we've you know, we spent eighty percent in

1046
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:50,360
Speaker 1: this episode just talking about the different spy planes. Who

1047
00:58:50,640 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 1: else knows what they're working on there, like ice cream

1048
00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 1: that doesn't need to be cold to be good, or

1049
00:58:58,520 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 1: like Dorito fla ice cream or yeah, I'm just spitballing here.

1050
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 1: I'm not a member of skunk Works. Oh God, But

1051
00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:09,600
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you. We hope you enjoyed

1052
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:12,320
Speaker 1: this episode. And again, if you're an engineer in the audience,

1053
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:14,920
Speaker 1: we would love to hear your take on this because

1054
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 1: a lot of the reporting on these sorts of things

1055
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:19,800
Speaker 1: can be alarmist at times when it doesn't.

1056
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:19,920
Speaker 2: Have to be.

1057
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:23,400
Speaker 1: But you should if you are lucky enough to live

1058
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:26,000
Speaker 1: in a country where you can vote. You should pay

1059
00:59:26,040 --> 00:59:29,720
Speaker 1: attention to where your tax dollars are going, and you

1060
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:32,960
Speaker 1: should have a conversation with yourself and your friends about

1061
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:37,760
Speaker 1: the dilemma between secrecy and transparency. How much transparency do

1062
00:59:37,800 --> 00:59:40,720
Speaker 1: you deserve and how much secrecy does your government need?

1063
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:41,560
Speaker 2: Let us know.

1064
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:43,600
Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook. You can find us

1065
00:59:43,600 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 1: on Instagram, where we're all over the internet. Say hello

1066
00:59:47,360 --> 00:59:49,520
Speaker 1: to our favorite part of the show, your fellow listeners

1067
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 1: on our Facebook page. Here's where it gets crazy. But wait,

1068
00:59:53,640 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 1: you can also follow us as individuals online.

1069
00:59:57,040 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 2: You can follow me exclusively on Instagram at how Now

1070
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:02,680
Speaker 2: Noel Brown. I try to get verified, but they rejected me.

1071
01:00:03,120 --> 01:00:06,000
Speaker 2: But you can still find me there. Just I promise

1072
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 2: I'm me.

1073
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 3: It's true, It's true. You could find me too. I'm

1074
01:00:10,840 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 3: Matt Frederick underscore iHeart. I think.

1075
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 2: Are you verified? Do they verify you? Matt? No, they don't.

1076
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 2: I just the whole idea of verification is really trippy

1077
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:23,360
Speaker 2: to me because it's sort of like, I can't prove

1078
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:25,240
Speaker 2: that I am myself if I don't have that blue

1079
01:00:25,320 --> 01:00:26,439
Speaker 2: check mark next to my name.

1080
01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 3: Would you have to send them like a birth certificate?

1081
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 2: You got to send them a copy of your photo ID.

1082
01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 3: Oh, we'll do that.

1083
01:00:32,880 --> 01:00:37,320
Speaker 2: I tried, like I rejected. I'm not a public figure enough,

1084
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:40,920
Speaker 2: I guess for Instagram nir rigorous standards understood.

1085
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter where I'm at

1086
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:47,640
Speaker 1: ben Bolland HSW. You can find me on Instagram where

1087
01:00:47,680 --> 01:00:51,400
Speaker 1: I am inn a burst of creativity at Ben Bollan

1088
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:53,720
Speaker 1: I thanks so much for tuning in, thanks to our

1089
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:59,120
Speaker 1: super producer Paul Mission controlled decand. And if you are

1090
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:02,560
Speaker 1: the kind of person who says I love this show,

1091
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 1: I love you guys. I hate social media. I heard

1092
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:08,680
Speaker 1: your Facebook episode and I don't understand how you guys

1093
01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:11,680
Speaker 1: are still on that thing. How else can I contact you?

1094
01:01:11,880 --> 01:01:13,800
Speaker 2: Boy? Do we have good news for you?

1095
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 3: You can call us. Our number is one eight three

1096
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 3: three std WYTK. Leave a message.

1097
01:01:22,640 --> 01:01:25,120
Speaker 2: We'll hear it, because you'll hear it first and foremost,

1098
01:01:25,640 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 2: you're the first line of defense. It rings with the

1099
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 2: stuff that I want you to know. Beat the unquantized

1100
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:35,520
Speaker 2: beat theme quite loudly. Every time you call right into

1101
01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 2: Matt's sleeping ears and he wakes up and deals with

1102
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 2: it post haste. Yeah, I get a call back personally

1103
01:01:40,800 --> 01:01:42,600
Speaker 2: from him. In fact, that's right, He's been known to

1104
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 2: do that.

1105
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 3: Dan, if you're still listening to this show, I would

1106
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:49,240
Speaker 3: love to get a message from you. I think that

1107
01:01:49,280 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 3: would be hilarious. That would put it out there. Yeah,

1108
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:53,560
Speaker 3: I'd love to play it on the air. That would

1109
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 3: be fun.

1110
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:56,880
Speaker 1: At least it'll make it worth it because we just

1111
01:01:56,920 --> 01:01:59,560
Speaker 1: freaked you out while you're in traffic.

1112
01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 3: Escially, nobody listens this far into the episode. I'm telling

1113
01:02:04,840 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 3: you this. Nobody is listening to me.

1114
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've seen the statistics.

1115
01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:11,680
Speaker 3: All right, Well, goodnight everyone. Email us.

1116
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:33,040
Speaker 5: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1117
01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 3: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production

1118
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:38,600
Speaker 3: of Iheartradios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

1119
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 3: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

1120
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:43,880
Speaker 3: to your favorite shows.