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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome

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Speaker 1: back to the show. My name is Matt, my name

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Speaker 1: is Noel. They call me Ben. We are joined as

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Speaker 1: always with our super producer Paul Mission Controlled deconds. Most importantly,

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Speaker 1: you are you, You are here, and that makes this

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Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know now. Honestly, it's

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Speaker 1: great to see you. Guys. Have no idea what time

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Speaker 1: it really is. I'm looking at uh clock here now

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Speaker 1: that says it's right around four pm or a little

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Speaker 1: bit before Eastern time, but who knows, Maybe it's not.

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Speaker 1: It's eight pm. G M. T Okay, there we go,

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Speaker 1: There we go, and body clockwise, it's I think fourteen

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Speaker 1: hours ahead for me. But I'm a little out of it.

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Speaker 1: But I think we're gonna have fun with with today's topic.

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Speaker 1: What's it like in the future, Ben, It's interesting. It's interesting. Um,

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Speaker 1: no flying cars yet. Velcro is making a comeback in

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Speaker 1: a big way for that. Every everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, and

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Speaker 1: a little weirded out by all the buttons around us

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Speaker 1: right now. But but yes, the show must go on, right. Uh,

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Speaker 1: today's episode is has nothing to do with the oscars.

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Speaker 1: There's not a good segue. Today's episode has nothing to

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Speaker 1: do with that. But could be uh, could be fertile

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Speaker 1: soil for a different episode in the future. Today we're

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Speaker 1: talking about something strange that's happening, uh, every single moment

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Speaker 1: of every single day here in the US and and abroad.

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Speaker 1: It's military research. And this is a very spooky boogeyman esque,

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Speaker 1: uh sort of phenomenon for a lot of us. You know,

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Speaker 1: some some folks like maybe like Matt, You and I

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Speaker 1: grew up on X Files. Right, I know, I know

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Speaker 1: you watch I don't know how into it you were medium.

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Speaker 1: I watched it typically with no lights on while listening

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Speaker 1: to the bare Naked Ladies on one week. So the

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Speaker 1: three of us then were very much into X files,

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Speaker 1: right and and X Files paints this picture of a vast,

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Speaker 1: uh interlocking conspiracy between corporations and governments right to to

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Speaker 1: advance suppressed technology to better the the the elites control

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Speaker 1: of the world as we know it. The thing is,

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Speaker 1: that's sort of true it's sort of true. You don't

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Speaker 1: need aliens for that to be true. It's no secret

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Speaker 1: that the world's militaries have loads and loads classified weapons, hardware, strategies,

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Speaker 1: including psy ops, techniques, and all this other stuff. But

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Speaker 1: where do they come from? In the United States? One

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Speaker 1: of the answers to this question is inevitably something called

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Speaker 1: skunk works. It's a cool name, right, yeah, potentially pretty

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Speaker 1: uh smelly? Yes, yes, there's something stinky about it. But

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Speaker 1: what exactly is skunk works? To answer this, we have

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Speaker 1: to start with this story of something called Lockheed Martin.

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Speaker 1: So here are the facts. What is Luckheed Martin? You

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Speaker 1: sure you've surely heard of it before? There are buildings

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Speaker 1: here around Atlanta with the names plastered across the top

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Speaker 1: of them. Um, this this title or this term, let's say,

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Speaker 1: skunk works can really be applied in a lot of

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Speaker 1: different ways to a lot of different things, but normally

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Speaker 1: to secretive some kind of experimental facility like a lab

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Speaker 1: or a factory something like that. But the origin of

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Speaker 1: the phrase skunk works really does come from this single company,

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Speaker 1: Lockheed Martin Corporation. And to really learn about you have

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Speaker 1: to go all the way back to nineteen forty three. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and there you find the United States Armies Air Tactical

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Speaker 1: Service Command or ATSK or a T s C. Because

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Speaker 1: you see, the A T s C had a bit

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Speaker 1: of an issue. They were worried about German rockets science, uh,

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Speaker 1: specifically jets as well as you know, the things that

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Speaker 1: would become missiles in the potential technology that existed there.

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Speaker 1: Because as we've learned in previous episodes, German technology or

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Speaker 1: scientists there in Germany really were the ones that created rocketry. Right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Nazis are the reason the US got to the moon?

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Speaker 1: Right did I said that? Right? Yeah? I think I

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Speaker 1: left the end out of the van, but you got

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Speaker 1: what I was getting. So so, Uh, the officials there

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Speaker 1: from the A T s C they met with the

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Speaker 1: Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and they said, okay, guys, let's figure

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Speaker 1: out what we can do on this end to catch

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Speaker 1: up with this technology and uh make some of our

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Speaker 1: own revolutionary rocketry happen here. Yeah, and they also said,

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Speaker 1: let's do it quickly, yesterday. All right, let's do it yesterday.

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Speaker 1: About a month after this meeting, in ninety three, it

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Speaker 1: was a team led by an engineer named Clarence L.

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Speaker 1: Johnson playing O'Kelly to his friends. They came back to

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Speaker 1: a T s C. And they said, Okay, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: build a jet for you. Uh, the XP eight Shooting

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Speaker 1: Star jet fighter. Uncle Sam gave it the green light.

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Speaker 1: Locky began developing the first US fighter jet in June

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Speaker 1: of this is we should know the official narrative. You're

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Speaker 1: gonna have some You're gonna have some other reporters and

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Speaker 1: historians who will argue that the true story begins a

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Speaker 1: little bit earlier in the late thirties. But this is

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Speaker 1: like if you ask someone at Lockeed what happened what

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Speaker 1: skunk Works? This is the official answer, and that jet fighter,

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Speaker 1: the XP E D Shooting Star is the birth of

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Speaker 1: what today is known as skunk Works. And Lockheed was

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Speaker 1: surprisingly is surprisingly transparent about the origins of this of

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Speaker 1: this organization. Uh. It emphasizes that it was a pretty

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Speaker 1: informal um and urgent need that created this collaboration. The

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Speaker 1: formal contract for the xp AD did not arrive at

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Speaker 1: Lockheed until October sixteenth, which was four months after work

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Speaker 1: had already begun. UM and this would prove to be

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Speaker 1: kind of a common theme within the skunk Work story.

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Speaker 1: Many times a customer would come to Skunk Works with

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Speaker 1: a request, and on a handshake, the project would begin.

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Speaker 1: That's crazy to me, given the amount of money some

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Speaker 1: of the project must have costs. Uh, No contracts in place,

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Speaker 1: no official submission process at all. Right, yeah, just some

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Speaker 1: make it happens in some handshakes Johnson and his team. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: they didn't just design the xp E D. They built

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Speaker 1: one in less than a hundred and fifty days and

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Speaker 1: only a hundred and forty three days. Uh. Their deadline

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Speaker 1: was a hundred and fifty This was only possible, by

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Speaker 1: the way, because he broke the rules. He broke all

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Speaker 1: of the rules that were in place. Johnson, you see,

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Speaker 1: felt that the primary problem with lockeed and government contracts

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Speaker 1: was all the red tape. All the bureaucracy wanted to

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Speaker 1: shoot from the hip, So we don't need these plans

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Speaker 1: and all these reviews. So he didn't just ignore the

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Speaker 1: status quo. He built his own set of rules fourteen commandments, UH,

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Speaker 1: the first of which is the manager of skunk Works

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Speaker 1: must have complete control over everything in his program and

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Speaker 1: should not have to answer to anyone higher than a

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Speaker 1: president and a company, so he wanted complete control. He

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Speaker 1: wanted a fiefdom essentially that was answerable to very few people.

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Speaker 1: And he also in in direct contrast to a lot

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Speaker 1: of the normal UH standard operating procedures, Kelly wanted a

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Speaker 1: minimum number of people involved, and he was brutal about it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and this is number three. The number of people having

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Speaker 1: any connection with the project must be restricted in an

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Speaker 1: almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people

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Speaker 1: ten compared to the so called normal systems. And he

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Speaker 1: also said, less reports. Yes, we we wanna look, we'll, we'll,

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Speaker 1: we'll show our work, but we don't want to have

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Speaker 1: to check in with you. This guy, I get the

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Speaker 1: feeling this guy hated meetings. Yeah. And also less inspections

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Speaker 1: or at least you use subcontractors and vendors and other

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Speaker 1: things for some of the testing stuff and inspection. He's like,

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Speaker 1: don't duplicate so much inspection. We can't do this in

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Speaker 1: that amount of time. And don't let people outside skunk

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Speaker 1: works get in. It's kind of fight clubbish, you know,

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Speaker 1: it is the first rule of skunk works. Anyhow, we

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Speaker 1: have to we have to note though that when this

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Speaker 1: started out, it was just a cool idea, and it

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Speaker 1: was just a desperate measure to get something in the

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Speaker 1: air that could fight the Axis forces. They didn't actually

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Speaker 1: call it skunk works for a while, so we have

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Speaker 1: to ask ourselves how did it get its name? How indeed? Well,

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Speaker 1: oddly enough, it's kind of a sweet story, at least

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Speaker 1: the way Lockheed pr tells it. Because the war effort

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Speaker 1: was in full swing, there was no space available at

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Speaker 1: Lockheed's facility for for Johnson's effort. Johnson's organization operated out

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Speaker 1: of a rented circus tent next to a manufacturing plan

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Speaker 1: that made plastics formerly, and that produced a very strong

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Speaker 1: odor which permeated this tent. So members of Johnson's team

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Speaker 1: were cautioned that design and production of the XP eight

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Speaker 1: he had to be carried out in strict secrecy. No

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Speaker 1: one was discussed the project outside the small organization, and

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Speaker 1: team members were even warned to be careful how they

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Speaker 1: answered their phones. Right So, a team engineer by the

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Speaker 1: name of IRV Culver was a big fan of Al

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Speaker 1: Capp's newspaper comic strip Lil Abner, in which there was

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Speaker 1: a running joke about a mysterious and Mattoudris place deep

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Speaker 1: in the forest called the skunk Works s k O

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Speaker 1: n k um. There there was a strong beverage being

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Speaker 1: brewed from skunks, old shoes, and other odd ingredients. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So one day this guy IRV gets a phone call

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Speaker 1: and he answers it and kind of a glib manner

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Speaker 1: and and goes skunk Works inside man Colvera speaking and

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Speaker 1: people loved it. There's a great inside joke, because you know,

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Speaker 1: when you work in an office with the same people,

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Speaker 1: you love an inside joke. So other employees started adopting this,

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Speaker 1: and they started calling their division of Lockheed skunk Works,

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Speaker 1: and eventually that changed to skunk Works. So it's not it.

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Speaker 1: It may be surprising to find that they weren't secretly

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Speaker 1: working on some kind of weaponized odor. This was just

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Speaker 1: this was just actually a neat little office job joke.

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Speaker 1: Well it's not even an office job as a circus tent.

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Speaker 1: It's a rented circus tent outside of plastics facility in

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Speaker 1: the whole place reeks, and they're in there like doing

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Speaker 1: really important technological work and engineering work. It's so weird

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Speaker 1: to me, it's so weirdly a punk rock and kind

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Speaker 1: of like d I Y when you think of government work,

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Speaker 1: you think of everything being all buttoned up in these

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Speaker 1: like airtight labs, like clean rooms and all that stuff,

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Speaker 1: And this was not that, Yeah, exactly that. It's strange too,

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Speaker 1: because skunk Works is often brought up as an example

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Speaker 1: of old school conspiratorial corporate warmongering. You know, it's part

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Speaker 1: of the war machine, the stuff Eisenhower warned us about,

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Speaker 1: and rightly so. But if you learn about skunk Works today,

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Speaker 1: it's actually a registered trademark of Lockeed. That's a far

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Speaker 1: cry from any off the books operation. Their official name

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Speaker 1: is not skunk Works, that's just the name everybody likes.

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Speaker 1: Their official name is like he Martin's Advanced Development Programs

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Speaker 1: or a DP. But again, why the hell would you

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Speaker 1: call it that when you have a fun name like

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Speaker 1: skunk Works just begging for you to say it and

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Speaker 1: shout it to the rooftops. I don't know. Advanced Development

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Speaker 1: program also sounds pretty dope, like advanced Idea mechanics. The

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Speaker 1: Marvel fans out there and the elite squad of scientists

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Speaker 1: operating at skunk Works, well, not affectionately, as that's Matt Bis.

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Speaker 1: And now let's look let's look at skunk Works today.

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Speaker 1: So skunk Works still conducts a ton of classified research.

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Speaker 1: We actually do not know how much it. We don't

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Speaker 1: know what it's doing. Really, we know a little bit. UH.

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Speaker 1: And it's a well known organization in the world. It's

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Speaker 1: not even an open secret. You know. They in fact

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Speaker 1: have published a glossy brochure with a ten point agenda.

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Speaker 1: This was back from UH that that was focused on

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Speaker 1: kind of selling it to the public and then selling

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Speaker 1: it to the government or at least the people who

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Speaker 1: signed the checks for contracts and all. It was kind

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Speaker 1: of boring and it's very um, it's very full of

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Speaker 1: trade jargon. It's like, we're focusing on keeping costs down.

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Speaker 1: We work closely with the government. We also build these

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Speaker 1: prototypes and we give the savings to you uncle Sam

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Speaker 1: and UH. Today the primary site is out there in Palmdale, California.

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Speaker 1: It's the middle of nowhere. Why would you drive their

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Speaker 1: desert about sixty miles from l A. Yeah, and that's

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Speaker 1: almost directly north across the mountain range there to UH

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Speaker 1: to get their near Lancaster. Really, Uh, I don't know it.

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Speaker 1: It's isolated, but it really is close to Los Angeles. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: sixty miles is not that far. It's just up the

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Speaker 1: way from the Antelope Valley Mall and in l A traffic,

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Speaker 1: it probably only take you about three days to get there,

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Speaker 1: unless you had an experimental skunk Works helicopter or hypersonic vehicle.

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Speaker 1: Uh there. This place is huge. There are a hundred buildings,

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Speaker 1: there's an estimated three million square feet of floor space,

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Speaker 1: and the vast majority of this stuff here is off limits,

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Speaker 1: but there are occasional press tours and journalists get a

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Speaker 1: peek behind the curtains. So this is all on the

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Speaker 1: up and up right. This is not just this is

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Speaker 1: no longer a secret lab something that we think of

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Speaker 1: an association with DARPA. This is actually a government contractor

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Speaker 1: who's trying to work on its public image. And you know,

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Speaker 1: you have to look no further than something like Boeing

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Speaker 1: to know how important public image can be. There's no

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Speaker 1: question skunk Works has played a huge role in military innovation,

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Speaker 1: especially in the field of spy, aircraft, material tech things that.

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Speaker 1: But the question for today is what else are they

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Speaker 1: cooking up in there and what's coming out in the future,

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Speaker 1: And we're going to get to that at least well

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Speaker 1: we've been able to find. After a quick word from

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Speaker 1: our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy, all right, So

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Speaker 1: we have to open this conversation with an age old dilemma,

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Speaker 1: the problem with secrecy, which is, you know what, sometimes

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Speaker 1: I think we should just make this a children's book

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Speaker 1: and make it a pop up and put it out

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Speaker 1: in every every school in America. This is a huge problem,

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Speaker 1: and people don't think about it as often as they should.

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Speaker 1: Ben and that children's book, I mean, he really just

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Speaker 1: boils down to one age old added, which is secret

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Speaker 1: secrets are now fun, Secret secrets hurt someone. Where's that from?

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Speaker 1: You know? Children? Really? Yeah? But but also secret secrets

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Speaker 1: protect the nation from security threats determined to be well,

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Speaker 1: there's no judgment in Brainstorm, and we're spitball in here.

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Speaker 1: You know, I like where I think we're going in

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Speaker 1: the right direction. It's true, though, it's a huge problem.

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Speaker 1: If you're a government, you have to have secrecy because

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Speaker 1: you want to keep your rivals from stealing your technology

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Speaker 1: or getting a jump on your research. That's a huge deal. Now,

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Speaker 1: like the primary intelligence operations of the Chinese government are

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Speaker 1: almost entirely corporate and military espionage, and if you don't

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Speaker 1: have operational security. You could find yourself in a situation

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Speaker 1: where facilities are bombed and people genuinely die. That old

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Speaker 1: saying loose lips sink ships is meant to be taken literally,

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Speaker 1: got the right idea, been there like that, I didn't

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Speaker 1: write it. Wrap my head around that one. But here's

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Speaker 1: the other side of the problem. If you are a government,

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Speaker 1: especially if you're the kind of government that allows citizens

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Speaker 1: to vote, which has been you know, enjoying a brief

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Speaker 1: moment in the sun. We'll see how long democracy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll see how long the fag goes. But right now

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Speaker 1: it's about as successful as say, beanie babies in the nineties.

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Speaker 1: Hacky Sacks perhaps, Hacky Sacks. Perhaps. Yeah. If you're one

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Speaker 1: of those governments, you also need at least the illusion

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Speaker 1: of transparence. You need, at at the very minimum, you

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Speaker 1: need performative transparency, meaning that people want to know where

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Speaker 1: their tax dollars are going totally, they want to say

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Speaker 1: and what their government does totally. You have to at

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Speaker 1: least make them feel like that as an option, even

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Speaker 1: when and especially when it's not, especially when you consider

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Speaker 1: that old Eisenhower quote. Every gun ship that is made.

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Speaker 1: Every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense,

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Speaker 1: a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,

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Speaker 1: theos who are cold and are not clothed. And it's true, right,

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Speaker 1: if voters don't know what is being built, they cannot

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Speaker 1: reasonably determine whether that money was well spent, right, especially

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Speaker 1: when you consider every dollar that goes to a battle

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Speaker 1: as a dollar that goes away from the people of

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Speaker 1: a country. Eisenhower is right about this. We can argue

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Speaker 1: that this trade off is worthwhile if we know what's

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Speaker 1: happening we as voters. This leads us to an important,

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Speaker 1: heartbreaking problem. There are no shortages of countries that spend

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Speaker 1: tremendous amounts of cash, blood, and treasure on their militaries

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Speaker 1: while their people literally starve. We're not being hyperbolic, while

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Speaker 1: they die of starvation, dysentery, things like that. But you know,

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Speaker 1: the rockets keep firing. We need gas, we need bullets,

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Speaker 1: we need more radar capability, and so in the absence

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Speaker 1: of transparency, speculate Asian thrives. Like I always think of

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Speaker 1: that creepy Tom Waits thing. I don't even know if

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Speaker 1: it's a song. Maybe it's more a performance piece. What's

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Speaker 1: the building in there? You guys know that one. I'm

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Speaker 1: unfamiliar with this. Yeah, I don't know that one either. Man.

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Speaker 1: It's uber creepy. It's like peaked Tom Waits creeping around

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Speaker 1: going what's in building in there? And it's a good question, right,

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Speaker 1: because we are we are giving our if we're voters,

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Speaker 1: we are we are giving a portion of our income

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Speaker 1: to a thing in a tremendous trust fall. We're asking this,

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Speaker 1: uh Leviathan, this gigantic mechanism to make our lives better

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Speaker 1: or two, at the very least, maintain a standard of

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Speaker 1: living to which we're accustomed. And now we're throwing money

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Speaker 1: in a black box. So what is lockeed building in there?

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Speaker 1: And is it worth the expense? That's the question. And

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Speaker 1: it's tough to answer because we know some stuff about

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Speaker 1: skunk Works, But how much do we actually know? Well,

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Speaker 1: let's we know some from the past, we know some

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Speaker 1: from the present, and all of it from the future

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Speaker 1: because we've been consulting with an oracle. No, I'm just kidding.

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Speaker 1: We don't know anything about the future. But let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the past. Stuff that we can talk about. And hey,

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Speaker 1: let's make a determination. Was this worth it? Well, some

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Speaker 1: of us starved, That's really what we're saying here, So

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Speaker 1: let's think about it. Here's the first one, Lockheed y

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Speaker 1: O three. No, what is that? Well, I'm glad you asked, Matt.

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Speaker 1: The y O three A, as it were, was designed

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Speaker 1: to a US Army spec from the nineteen sixties nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight to be precise, which called for an observation

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Speaker 1: aircraft a spy plane, right, that would be acoustically undetectable

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Speaker 1: from the ground when flying in an outsitude of twelve

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Speaker 1: hundred feet at night. Uh. Nine of the eleven y

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Speaker 1: O three a's produced operated in South Vietnam at night

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Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy one, only fourteen months

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Speaker 1: and never took a single round. Uh. Absolutely were never

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Speaker 1: shot down. Right, These are a fascinating aircraft. Ben, I

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Speaker 1: was wondering if you've ever talked about these on car

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Speaker 1: stuff for any of the other shows. No, No, this

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Speaker 1: is this is I think the first time any of

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Speaker 1: us have mentioned this on Yeah, this is a pretty

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Speaker 1: this is a pretty neat one. It's now at the

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Speaker 1: box thing. And you know, whenever we talk about research

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Speaker 1: in these sorts of fields, we're looking at a huge

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Speaker 1: attrition rate. A ton of stuff never makes it off

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Speaker 1: the blueprint stage, you know, and a ton of the

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Speaker 1: stuff that makes it to a prototype never never gets

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Speaker 1: beyond where the what the Horton h O two was, Yes,

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Speaker 1: exactly right, But but this was just to stay on

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Speaker 1: here just for a second. It was a smaller aircraft.

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Speaker 1: You can find pictures of the y O Dash three

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Speaker 1: online and if you look at the pilot, it's like

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Speaker 1: the pilot looks pretty big in the photos because the

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Speaker 1: plane is relatively small. It's got a tiny little propeller upfront,

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Speaker 1: single peller wings that are not large in width, and

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Speaker 1: just to fly around at night being quiet, observing troops.

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Speaker 1: It did its purpose and like Noel said, it didn't

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Speaker 1: get shot down, so you know, it was certainly helpful

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Speaker 1: for the military, right, Yeah, it was helpful for the military.

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Speaker 1: You could also argue that it saved the lives of

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Speaker 1: US forces through its surveillance capabilities. One that one craft

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Speaker 1: that might be more familiar to some of us would

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Speaker 1: be the Lockheed U two. In nine, skunk Works got

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Speaker 1: this contract from the CIA to build a spy plane

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Speaker 1: known as the U two later. You know, this one

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Speaker 1: was so popular that a certain Irish band named themselves

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Speaker 1: after it, that are you in the numeral two? Yes

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Speaker 1: and uh yeah. They were right on the edge with

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Speaker 1: that one. And the idea for the You two was

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Speaker 1: the fly over the USSR and try to photograph sites

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Speaker 1: that they couldn't see using other methods. They operated for

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Speaker 1: a number of years. The first flight happened on Independence

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Speaker 1: Day on July four n But the You two stopped

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Speaker 1: flying when a guy named Francis Gary Powers was shot

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Speaker 1: down over Russia. So the You two was not as

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Speaker 1: successful as the YO three A. I should call the

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Speaker 1: y O three A, but I like YO though it

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Speaker 1: did operate for a much longer time it did. It

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Speaker 1: did operate for a much much longer time. And then

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Speaker 1: we also know about the Lockheed A twelve, which which

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Speaker 1: was a logical successor to the U two because when

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Speaker 1: skunk Works was a lot of people don't know this.

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Speaker 1: When Skunk Works was building the U two, they baked

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Speaker 1: into their predictions that this would have a short shelf life.

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Speaker 1: They said, look, this is gonna work really well for

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Speaker 1: a second, and then it's it's gonna blow up in

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Speaker 1: our faces. Like the Spice Girls or the Micrana song.

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Speaker 1: You know, why would they build a plane that was

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Speaker 1: designed to blow up in their faces? That doesn't seem

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Speaker 1: very effective. So okay, let's just talk about this really quickly.

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Speaker 1: So the YouTube plane, the lockeed version of You two

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Speaker 1: was a really cool spy plane. It was huge, like

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Speaker 1: really really large, and um generally the ones that I've

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Speaker 1: seen at least in um in museums and a couple

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Speaker 1: of the places were planing were painted this like um

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Speaker 1: gun metal black or like a dark gray, you know

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Speaker 1: that color. They were to operate in the sky to

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Speaker 1: be you know, almost undetectable and just flying over those places. Right,

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Speaker 1: But it looks kind of like a jet that you

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Speaker 1: if you think about a jet the way a jet

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Speaker 1: plane looks, it kind of looks like that the one

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Speaker 1: that we're talking about now, the what is it, the

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Speaker 1: A twelve. This thing looks out of this world, yes, big,

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Speaker 1: just it looks like a fully different kind of aircraft

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Speaker 1: if you look at a picture, I see what you're saying.

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Speaker 1: So like the design that release next level stuff sort

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Speaker 1: of like those crazy that the design started to get

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Speaker 1: a little more angular and crazy, like with those stealth

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Speaker 1: bombers that Donald Trump really thinks are invisible. Well, well yeah,

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Speaker 1: because they had a specific thing they were trying to

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Speaker 1: do with this plane, right, Yeah. They wanted it to

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Speaker 1: be invisible essentially, and it is the anti sdent of

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Speaker 1: the much more famous s R seventy one Blackbird. The

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Speaker 1: interesting thing about A twelve is that they it was

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Speaker 1: already in the works when the YouTube was rolling out

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Speaker 1: because they predicted that correctly, as it turns out that

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Speaker 1: USSR detection technology would catch up with the evasive capability

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Speaker 1: of the YouTube. And then the A twelve was strange

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Speaker 1: because it required some help from the CIA. No, you

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Speaker 1: might be saying, guys, the CIA are not exactly experts

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Speaker 1: and engineering, nor the experts and aviation. That's correct, But

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Speaker 1: the problem here's where they came in. So Skunk Works

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Speaker 1: had to build five of these A twelve aircraft. They

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Speaker 1: wanted it to go mock three plus, and they wanted

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Speaker 1: to build it out of titanium. It was very tough

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Speaker 1: because in the Cold War, the USSR controlled the titanium game.

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Speaker 1: They they they had like ninety plus percent of of

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Speaker 1: the titanium trade. So these folks went to the CIA

425
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, we know one thing you're good

426
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,880
Speaker 1: at setting up front companies, and the CIA said, yeah,

427
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,199
Speaker 1: we're all about that. We know, we heard about that

428
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: in a very recent episode. Didn't exactly, So the CIA

429
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 1: set up a dummy corporation entirely to acquire titanium for

430
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: the A twelve. That was very stuff they don't want

431
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 1: you to know, and it worked. How piste off would

432
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:02,200
Speaker 1: you be if you were the U S s R.

433
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: Where it turned out, you know, when you found out

434
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 1: that like, uh, you know, Socialist Titanium Consortium of Eastern

435
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: Turkey was actually the agency and you sold them the

436
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 1: stuff they needed to build the spy planes that were

437
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: flying over you right now, right, Ah, dirty deeds done

438
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: quite expensively. Yes, well said, let's let's pause for a

439
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: second for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll

440
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 1: dive into some more examples and we're back now. We

441
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: mentioned this earlier. This is one of the more famous

442
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 1: US spy planes, also built by skunk Works, the Lockheed

443
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,440
Speaker 1: s R seventy one Blackbird. Uh. And I don't want

444
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 1: to get into deep with the Marvel fans, but I

445
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: think didn't the uh didn't the X men have a Blackbird?

446
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 1: At some point me and they're they're they're plane. It

447
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: looks kind of like that did Are you talking about

448
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: the one that would take off from the ground, you know,

449
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: and then it would zoom off. It was called the

450
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:12,360
Speaker 1: X something it was. It was definitely called the Yet Yeah,

451
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: there you go. I don't I think it looks like

452
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: a blackbird. Well that's the thing, the one we talked

453
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: about before the break there. The A twelve and the

454
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: SR seventy one look very very similar, just slightly different

455
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: shape of the nose basically is what you look at

456
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: when you're looking at it. It looks very very similar. No, No,

457
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: it's the X Men Blackbird X jet what it was

458
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: straight of a blackbird. The Blackbird, also nicknamed ex Jet,

459
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: is a fictional aircraft appearing in American comic books published

460
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: by Marvel Comics. Nailed It, Ben, What does it look like?

461
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: It's the one you know from the movies. It's real narrow,

462
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: tapers off like it's got the wings are in the back,

463
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: and then the body is real skinny and kind of

464
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: goes goes forward. At least that's how they depicted it

465
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: in the in the films. And I think you're right

466
00:28:57,080 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: now all that it does have that vertical takeoff and

467
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: landing capability, which the real blackbirds can't. Okay, the wings

468
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: are very different and they are excess, but but it's

469
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: a it's a it's a blackbird. It looks like a blackbird.

470
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: But the real blackbird's cool too. It's not comic book

471
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: level cool, but it is cool, dude. When I was

472
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: in middle school, yeah, this was the coolest thing that

473
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: it ever existed. Did you were you one of those

474
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: guys out a poster of it? Did you build a model?

475
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 1: I did, and I went and checked it out at

476
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: the museum that they have their water Robbins, and uh,

477
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: this I wanted to pilot one of these things. It

478
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: was my biggest dream, that's true. I don't know if

479
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: a lot of people are aware of this, but Matt,

480
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: you grew up relatively close to an actual skunk works facility.

481
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: I did, right, Yep, Okay, well we'll move on then, yep.

482
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: So so, but no, I think a lot of maybe

483
00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: you listening out there, like saw a picture of this thing.

484
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: It just looked so futuristic and unreal, and when you

485
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: started to learn about the physics of it, how it

486
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: actually expanded a little bit when it got up to

487
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: the speeds that it could reach because of the heat

488
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: that was going on with the metals that were involved. Um,

489
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: it felt it just felt like it was out of

490
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: this world, like it was alien technology or something that

491
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: we had captured. Um. You combine that with the whole

492
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: X Files enthusiast thing. I mean, come on, it also

493
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: seems like it was really difficult to fly. Oh, I'm

494
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: sure you know. That's a that's a problem with a

495
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: lot of spy planes is that they're they're terrible to

496
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: They're terrible on the ground. They're terrible to take off,

497
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: they're terrible to land because they're just designed to float

498
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: high altitude, so you have to get up there first.

499
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, um, you know birds that there's

500
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: so many birds that are terrible on land but amazing

501
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: in the air, like the Great frigate bird. It looks

502
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: like a nincompoop when it's trying to walk around because

503
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: it's it's not made for the ground. It's made for

504
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: this guy, Ben, you missed a really great voicemail we

505
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: had on the Listener Mail episode where someone proposed a

506
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:13,479
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory that ducks are in fact not floating on

507
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: the surface of the water, but that they have weird,

508
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: gangly legs that extend all the way down to the

509
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: bottom of the lake or what have you. Um And

510
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: that really triggered me the whole the thought of that,

511
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: the image of that. In just a minute, when you're saying,

512
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: you know, some birds are terrible, I was really hoping

513
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,479
Speaker 1: you would just stop short and just say birds are terrible. Um,

514
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm gonna give this to you. It's a

515
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: it's an evil gift. And I'm sure you're already aware of. Uh.

516
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: Duck penises screwed being right there, there are many. Did

517
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: you bring me one from? Never? I don't want to.

518
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: I don't want to scoop. No, no, no, I did

519
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: uh I uh duck penises are lovecraft, yet it's probably

520
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: the best way to do. Don't pay like hook in,

521
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: won't let go? Yeah I did. They're evil because ducks

522
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: rep us non consensually. That is the most diplomatic say it.

523
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: So the spy planes just I have to talk about

524
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: this a little more so. The previous model, the A twelve.

525
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:18,719
Speaker 1: You can only have one pilot in there. It's just

526
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 1: you by your loans. I'm flying around up pretty dang

527
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 1: high and going ridiculously fast, so you're maneuvering away from

528
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: people being able to shoot you down. At least hopefully

529
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: this SR seventy one you can have to one pilot

530
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: co pilot in their helpful in case one one operator

531
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: loses consciousness because you are traveling so fast. And the

532
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: other thing is that this thing operated for longer than

533
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 1: anything that Lockheed was producing before. Then when it comes

534
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: to these advanced programs, it went from nineteen sixty six.

535
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: This thing, this futuristic thing, went from nineteen sixty six

536
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: until nine. That's when it was in service. Like they

537
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: didn't even like massively updated, they would have had to

538
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: give it a new model name. Right, it was just

539
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: awesome and it stayed awesome, and it was expensive, so

540
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 1: it's okay to do. You know, they're they're still researching

541
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: the next step or the evolution, but they have to

542
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: be very sure that it's worth sinking billions of dollars

543
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: into a new design to the R and D alone.

544
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: I mentioned the manufacturing, right, Um, quick question for my

545
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: own edification. What what do these things actually do? Like,

546
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 1: I mean I know that I know they're spy planes

547
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: and they're surveilling, but like, is it with radar, is

548
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: it taking aerial photography? Is are there are listening devices?

549
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: I just wonder, like what the implementation of this absurdly

550
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: expensive technology is and how does it benefit us? Well, yeah,

551
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: I mean it looks cool and it's just nice to

552
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: kind of have a flex. Uh yeah, it's it's uh,

553
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: it's what's called a long range strategic reconnaissance craft. Essentially,

554
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: they have a bunch of eyes in the sky. They

555
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: have infrared imagery, they have radar, airborne radar, electronic intelligence

556
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 1: gathering systems. They have counter counter missile systems, right, so

557
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: they can avoid both ground launched missiles and other birds

558
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: in the air, and they have these huge cameras. One thing,

559
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: one of the to your point, mat about why there

560
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: was only one person in the in the predecessor, in

561
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: the A twelve, and while there were two in the Blackbird.

562
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 1: For that second person to be able to fit in

563
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:42,720
Speaker 1: the Blackbird, the designers had to remove the principal sensor

564
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: which was on the A twelve, which was this huge, large,

565
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: focal length optical camera. So they were flying over and

566
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: taking pictures more or less, and they weren't you know,

567
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 1: they weren't dropping bombs on civilians or freedom fighters, got it.

568
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 1: So another thing that's interesting here is this spy plane.

569
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 1: These these spy planes specifically saw the rise of government

570
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:15,760
Speaker 1: mandated drug use because it's the only way that pilots

571
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: could remain alert while they were on these missions. Uh. This,

572
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: this has been confirmed. It used to be considered a secret.

573
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: But even up to the up into the Gulf War,

574
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: pilots were taking amphetamines. Uh. There's one, a brand name, uh, dexadrine,

575
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 1: which is the brand name for dextro amphetamine. This was

576
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: given to pilots to keep them alert during flights longer

577
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: than eight hours. Like Benny's was another one, right, like

578
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: popping Benny's the housewife pill of the nine twenties and thirties,

579
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 1: I guess, um, And then didn't the Nazis take some

580
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: form of this as well? Or that was more of

581
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: an empheta their emphetamines, It's all right, yeah, Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg

582
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: operatives took them. Hitler loved them. Uh uh. And emphetamines

583
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: were I mean very common in war because they work.

584
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: And now we give them to our children, help them

585
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 1: pay better attention. That's adder all right, which essentially, I mean,

586
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: studies have shown they act very similar to emphetamines. Yeah.

587
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 1: So we know that the technology Locky was capable of

588
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 1: creating was years and years ahead of what the public

589
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:27,360
Speaker 1: would be aware of. And we also know that the innovation,

590
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: that the pace of innovation there was much more precipitous

591
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,800
Speaker 1: than the public might have thought. We also know that

592
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 1: skunk Works projects were not confined to the air. Please

593
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: don't think that all skunk Works does is work on aircraft.

594
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 1: It's just that we know the most about the aircraft.

595
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: They also made things that worked on the water. Yeah,

596
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: talking about the sea Shadow here as one example. Again,

597
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,200
Speaker 1: like Lockheed's got this look now at this point, once

598
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:04,359
Speaker 1: we once we enter the eighties, it's now four. They're

599
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 1: using that gun metal black coded looking crazy awesome stuff.

600
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: Cybertruck didn't come from. It's exactly right now. They're developed

601
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 1: or they developed in four. It started working in being

602
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:23,879
Speaker 1: deployed in five a stealth boat essentially or transport vehicle. Um,

603
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: and it looks crazy a k a. The duck penis.

604
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: That was they changed the name to the show Up. Yeah,

605
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 1: that was that was just the working title when they

606
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,839
Speaker 1: were keeping under wraps and Skunkwork and the family. Yeah,

607
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: and it's it's either called the nine dash five to

608
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: nine or I X dash five to nine. Um, this thing.

609
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: It looks crazy. If you you know, you can just

610
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 1: google Sea Shadow maybe blockheed. That's probably the best way

611
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: to find it. It doesn't look seaworthy, no, doesn't. And

612
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: it's hard to understand what you're actually seeing. It's like, oh, wait,

613
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 1: is that a submarine? But wait, those sizes are just diagonal.

614
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 1: How far down do they go? Wait? What is this

615
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 1: raised part or people inside that thing? It's like Darth

616
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: Vader's helmet or something like the top of a Darth

617
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: Vader helmet, or like that weird dude in the first

618
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: Star Wars movie you had just kind of the dome

619
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 1: thing on his head, and you know, it's kind of

620
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: like that, and there's people standing on top of it

621
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 1: in this image that I'm looking at, and there's an

622
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 1: antenna of some sort. But yeah, it's got like a

623
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: weird little windshield, like four kind of little um trapezoidal

624
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: interlocking windshields. And then there's open space underneath it, which

625
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: is the part that really throws you off. It's like

626
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: it's above the water, but there's this like it's almost

627
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: like a moving tunnel kind of. It looks like a

628
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:52,800
Speaker 1: chrono plan. You guys remember those? I don't. That chrono

629
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: plan is somewhere between a ship and uh an aircraft.

630
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: It uses the ground force effect to hover over the water.

631
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: They're so cool. E k r a n oh plan? Oh?

632
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: Would that be what I would maybe have always heard

633
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:11,240
Speaker 1: of as just a hovercraft. They're different from a different

634
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: don't have the thing, they don't have anything like bladder. Interesting,

635
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: they look like this. Uh, they're so cool. So they

636
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: used propulsion to literally hover above the surface of the

637
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 1: water with like fans or something like that. That's interesting.

638
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: I always wanted to ride one, but a lot of

639
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: them are either decommissioned or in countries that are difficult

640
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: to get to. Interesting. Well, what's going on with the

641
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 1: c shadow Because I'm with you, guys, I'm like, how well,

642
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: how is this thing functioning? It was an experimental ocean

643
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 1: surveillance vessel. It was built way back in four which

644
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: is crazy. The idea is that it's reducing its footprint

645
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: it's radar profile, so that's part of why it's floating

646
00:39:55,160 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 1: like that with this hydrofoil on board, so it has

647
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: two separate holes and they're connected by struts, so the

648
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 1: holes that you see are underwater. So there is more

649
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: to it than just a flat plane. And the ship

650
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 1: was used in secret experimentally until so for almost a

651
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: decade this thing existed off the grid and was not

652
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: universally acknowledged. People are saying, hey, I saw some weird

653
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:30,839
Speaker 1: stuff out there in the ocean, and people were saying,

654
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:34,800
Speaker 1: whoa Donnie slowed down on your whatever their version of

655
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 1: adderall was at the time. And this was also one

656
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: of the first test of automation to reduce the number

657
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 1: of actual people on the vessel. And now this has

658
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 1: this one has an ignominious end because in two thousand

659
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: and six the U. S. Navy gave up on the

660
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: Sea Shadow and they tried, they literally tried to sell

661
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 1: it at an auction and nobody would buy it. And

662
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: so then they said, okay, we're just gonna sell it

663
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:09,359
Speaker 1: two for dismantling. You can dismantle it and take away

664
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: the parts. We get rid of the secret stuff. And

665
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 1: they said, look, if you buy this, there are two conditions.

666
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 1: One you cannot sell it too. You have to scrap it.

667
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:20,800
Speaker 1: And they sold it in two thousand twelve when it

668
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: was dismantled, but it lives on because there are ships

669
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:28,800
Speaker 1: like the Impeccable and the Victorious that have still have

670
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: the same kind of structure. I mean, just show you, guys,

671
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: this is an actual ship. It's working now. They took

672
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 1: that weird missing missing piece of the whole or that

673
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 1: center cut out, and they kept the twin hole design,

674
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: but they made it much biggerating and there's a lot

675
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: of money there. So these are these are things that

676
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: have all happened in the past. We know currently that

677
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:59,399
Speaker 1: lockeeds doing a couple of pretty fascinating things. One of them,

678
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: one of them makes sense, and one of them is

679
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 1: an out of nowhere thing that I guarantee will sound

680
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: like sci fi to of us listening. The first is

681
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: the Locky Martin s R. Seventy two takes sense right, Wait,

682
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: oh wait, we do one thing before we hit the

683
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: seventy two totally, because it's it's something that Noel brought

684
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 1: up that I have another picture of my mind that

685
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: I'm assuming other people do too. Yeah, and it's the

686
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 1: I think it's the F one seventeen Nighthawk, which is

687
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: I think that's what it called was it called uh,

688
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: it's Lockeed, it is Skunk Quirks, it is Skunk Works,

689
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:37,479
Speaker 1: and it's the Nighthawk. It's the stealth fighter jet looking

690
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: thing that looks kind of like a hawk or an

691
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 1: owl or a bird of prey or something um similar

692
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: to all the other designs we've been talking about. Oh yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,

693
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: it's the one that that I remember seeing when I

694
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: think it was desert storm was occurring in the nineties.

695
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 1: The thing was built in the eighties, around the same

696
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: time that they were building the what were we just

697
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 1: talking about, the Sea the Sea Shadow, And it wasn't

698
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,759
Speaker 1: publicly acknowledged until five years later, and then it didn't

699
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 1: actually make an appearance anywhere operationally until a desert storm.

700
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 1: But it's just another one of those iconic planes that

701
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 1: was used for a lot of different things in secret

702
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: for a long time, and then eventually it was made public.

703
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 1: So what what what it was like a big unveiling

704
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:26,319
Speaker 1: when they decided to make these public? Is it only

705
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 1: when they decommissioned them? Like, what when is the moment

706
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: the public gets to know about these cool you know,

707
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 1: sci fi looking spy planes. Well, here's here's the way

708
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,319
Speaker 1: I think it goes down. It appears in an operational

709
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 1: capacity somewhere in another country, probably where there is you know, um,

710
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 1: a conflict occurring that one of these things gets used

711
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 1: and um either it gets shot down, one of them

712
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 1: gets shot down, or one is caught you operating, and

713
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: then the United States military has to Okay, yeah, kind

714
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: of like the stealth helicopters. Right. Yeah, the Nighthawk was

715
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: publicly revealed or I would even say publicly acknowledged, and uh,

716
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:22,799
Speaker 1: people still didn't really didn't really clock it until, as

717
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: you said, Matt, in the Gulf War. It's weird to

718
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,800
Speaker 1: call it a stealth fighter because as stealth fighter capabilities,

719
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 1: but it's mainly a ground attack aircraft dropping dropping bombs

720
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: like hot mix tapes. So that yes, So that's amazing.

721
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 1: That's one of the posters I had. Yes, you know,

722
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 1: because it's just so iconic. I apologize that I jumped

723
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: back to that. Ben. We have to. So let's let's go.

724
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: Let's I'm gonna take you back now to the what

725
00:44:55,880 --> 00:45:00,319
Speaker 1: the big brother of the lockeed Martin SR sevente, SR

726
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: seventy two. Oh yeah, this one is still in the works,

727
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: of course, still in the skunk works. According to Lockheed,

728
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 1: it's going to replace the seventy one. It's gonna have

729
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 1: uh a middleman role between surveillance satellites, manned aircraft and

730
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:23,319
Speaker 1: unmanned aerial vehicles u A vs. Those creepy blimps. They're

731
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:25,359
Speaker 1: so far up in the sky you can't see them.

732
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: I think I'm supposed to call them airships now. So

733
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:31,359
Speaker 1: the idea here is that the s R seventy two

734
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 1: is going to be able to leverage all this communicative

735
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: ability and it's high speed to get in and out

736
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: of protected airspace and sneak pictures, sneak surveillance, or blow

737
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: up a target before people can detect it at all,

738
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: much less intercepted. This is dangerous stuff, and it's you know,

739
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:55,439
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be alive for the next few years,

740
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna see it in action or you're

741
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: gonna hear about it. A last thing, this blew me away.

742
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what you guys think

743
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 1: about this. Paul and I were talking about this earlier.

744
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: The last thing that Loki Martin has confirmed that they

745
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: are working on is a compact fusion reactor. Yeah, fusion

746
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: fusion the thing that we can't really do efficiently. They're

747
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: jumping the gun from a fusion reactor. This can exist

748
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: in a very inefficient way to a compact fusion reactor.

749
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,240
Speaker 1: So have you ever been walking around with your backpack

750
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 1: and you're like, Man, this laptops okay, and I like

751
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 1: my notebook, but I sure wish I had a fusion reactor.

752
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: Well it's not that compact, but it's on the way.

753
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 1: We just talked about this with Chris Cogswell as like

754
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: the Pine the Sky thing and how he said it

755
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,959
Speaker 1: would never happen. Yeah, ewen. Thanks to everybody who wrote

756
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: in to let us know about that interview. We've got

757
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: some great feedback from that. I'm really looking forward to

758
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: listening to it. I had to miss that one. This

759
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 1: is easy. I'm just reading about this right now for

760
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: the first time. Ben what what skunk Works is officially

761
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: building a fusion reactor. They're actually as a twenty nineteen

762
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 1: they were on the fifth iteration of it, known as

763
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 1: T five. It's a huge engineering challenge because they have

764
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 1: some stuff that they have to keep very very cold,

765
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:26,799
Speaker 1: and some stuff that they have to keep very very

766
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:29,360
Speaker 1: hot and they have to put it all together and

767
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 1: make it work without tearying itself apart or you know,

768
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: exploding and reigning death down upon us. I'm gonna go

769
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:39,239
Speaker 1: ahead and call bs on this whole thing. I am

770
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: reading about this online right now in talking about how

771
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: this was unveiled in and Ben. If this was actually

772
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: a program they were doing that skunk Works was working on,

773
00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: it would never be revealed until, as we've seen with

774
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: other example here, like five ten years later. Um, this

775
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: is this. I'm just calling it right here, and this

776
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:11,640
Speaker 1: is my opinion. But this is Skunkworks and Lockheed like

777
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 1: putting up a smoke a smoke grenade just to be like, hey,

778
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: look over here, guys, us put all your money Russia

779
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:23,400
Speaker 1: and China and other large state actors into this technology

780
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 1: that you'll never be able to do. Um, that's what

781
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Wow, Okay, I see what you're saying. That's

782
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: crazy because the official line from Lockheed is that the

783
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: US military wants to create something that can be a

784
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: portable generator. Of course they do, because think of the

785
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 1: supply chain for you know, diesel or gas powered vehicles. Right,

786
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:48,759
Speaker 1: that's one of the movie that's a huge expense in

787
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: war if that one of the most egregious expenses. But yeah,

788
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: a compact fusion reactor? What yeah, how compact are we

789
00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:59,919
Speaker 1: talking here, guys? I mean, it's not a backpack again,

790
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:02,480
Speaker 1: but if you if you look at some of the articles,

791
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:07,800
Speaker 1: you can see, uh, let me, bigger than like a generator.

792
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:12,360
Speaker 1: You might buy it home depot. Dude, dude, there's a

793
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:17,400
Speaker 1: picture on this. Uh there's a picture I'm assuming that

794
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:20,840
Speaker 1: they're saying is from this thing in the skunk works,

795
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: from the drive dot com. And it looks like a

796
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:28,839
Speaker 1: big pr photo of a bunch of engineers touching one

797
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:34,480
Speaker 1: individual piece of this compact reactor. Dude, this is this

798
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: is not real, man. That's probably just that's probably a

799
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 1: vacuum chamber. It's probably an image of a vacuum chamber

800
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 1: that they're just messing with. It looks like one of

801
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 1: those tanks you'd see at a beer brewery. Sure, Mike,

802
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:47,920
Speaker 1: when I said that, um, but really, I mean it's

803
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's an industrial piece of industrial equipment.

804
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:52,759
Speaker 1: You know, it's not when they say compact, I mean

805
00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: it's smaller than like a you know, a reactor. You'd

806
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: see it with one of those cool cooling towers in

807
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 1: the whole nine and all that stuff. Um, I say

808
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 1: that's not the actual reactor, but fascinating, No that I mean,

809
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: I think it is. You know, this this is self contained.

810
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 1: I just mean, like a nuclear power plant, the reactor

811
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 1: is not the cooling the big thing that you cooling. Yeah,

812
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 1: that's a separate and people have them some some people

813
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: mistakenly believe that that is the reactor. Yes, it's a

814
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 1: good point. So the predecessor of this current when this

815
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 1: T five was only one meter in diameter and two

816
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: meters long, which is big. You know. Again, it's bigger

817
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 1: than a backpack or a bread box. I was just

818
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:34,920
Speaker 1: thinking about you know, I was thinking about conversation we

819
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: had a while ago. Man, I just want to double

820
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:41,399
Speaker 1: check your parents actually do use a bread box? Yes,

821
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 1: so weird. They also keep their eggs out at room temperature?

822
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: Do they turn their own butter? Never room temperature? That's

823
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:51,120
Speaker 1: a thing, you know, I know, yeah, because of the

824
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 1: good the gunk that's on the eggs. When you know,

825
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,359
Speaker 1: that's that's the reason grocery store eggs have to be refrigerated.

826
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 1: The gunk is washed off of them. That's when the

827
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: otic fluid. Uh No, it's like, well, it's like a

828
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:08,680
Speaker 1: protective Uh, it's like a protective thing that keeps bacteria

829
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 1: from coming in and rotting eggs, so you don't have

830
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 1: to refrigerate eggs if you buy them from a farmer's

831
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 1: market or if you just get them from a chicken,

832
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 1: if that's where you're at the gunk got it. Yeah,

833
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 1: it's technical term. I'm sure it's an acronym. Well, guys,

834
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:25,920
Speaker 1: we're we're approaching, uh, we're approaching the end of this episode,

835
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: but we've got a few, uh, kind of housekeeping issues

836
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:31,760
Speaker 1: to take care of. What else I mean. Given's long history,

837
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 1: skunk Works is often a kind of go to for

838
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:38,400
Speaker 1: a lot of fringe researchers who believe the government maybe

839
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: developing or hiding advanced suppressed technology, which they almost certainly,

840
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. That means they still are. We

841
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:50,680
Speaker 1: just don't know. We won't know about it for another

842
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: ten twenty however many years. It's kind of like it's

843
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 1: kind of like saying, is mel Gibson gonna say something

844
00:51:57,080 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 1: anti semitic? Well, you got a track record, you know

845
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,360
Speaker 1: what I mean? Maybe maybe it's hey, but people can change,

846
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: government agencies can now anyway, it's a but who's done

847
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 1: to do this? And honestly, this isn't an inherently like

848
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: negative thing. It doesn't have to be seen as some

849
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: kind of various, shrouded kind of activity. Just because we

850
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,239
Speaker 1: don't know about it doesn't mean it's you know, bad

851
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 1: for us. In fact, us not knowing about it, it's

852
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: kind of important. That's sort of part of the deal, right,

853
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:28,359
Speaker 1: But gone unchecked and we can't follow the paper trail

854
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:30,239
Speaker 1: of the funding and all that stuff. I mean, you

855
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,239
Speaker 1: know there certainly can can run a muck now I

856
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:36,800
Speaker 1: I do I do object to calling this housekeeping, I

857
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 1: would see the most important part of this episode is

858
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: this The concern of active secret research and suppressed technology

859
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:49,440
Speaker 1: in Lockheed's case, does not come from just some rabbit

860
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 1: hole or some sort of creepy copy pasta, or nor

861
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:57,000
Speaker 1: does it come from the dilemma of state secrecy. In

862
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:00,880
Speaker 1: June of two thousand eight, Skunk Works went on an unprecedented,

863
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 1: unexplained hiring binge. And they didn't fire a bunch of

864
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:07,840
Speaker 1: people either. They hired a bunch of people to do

865
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,920
Speaker 1: something we just don't know what it was. The reason

866
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: or the reasons behind this hiring spree are still not clear.

867
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 1: They increase their size by a third, by thirty three percent.

868
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:23,239
Speaker 1: That's a crazy amount of people to hire and we

869
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:25,879
Speaker 1: don't know. Again, we don't know what they were doing.

870
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:29,799
Speaker 1: We know what they acknowledge their doing. They are these

871
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 1: pretty I wouldn't say necessarily, I wouldn't say super specific,

872
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: but they have these categories. There are things like next

873
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 1: gen fighters, quieter supersonic planes, and then they have stuff

874
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:45,840
Speaker 1: that's pretty vague, like revolutionary technologies. What is that? Maybe anything?

875
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:51,600
Speaker 1: It's technology that promotes revolution, right, And that's where we

876
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 1: are today. You know, today's skunk works employees three thousand,

877
00:53:56,480 --> 00:54:00,480
Speaker 1: seven hundred people and these are facilities in Palmdale, California,

878
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 1: that's the big one, also Fort Worth, Texas, also in Georgia.

879
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 1: They're working on at least five projects, most likely more,

880
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 1: and it's it's in a range of stuff. Now do

881
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:15,919
Speaker 1: you think it's public information now? I don't. I can't

882
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:17,480
Speaker 1: imagine it would be. As to who these people are

883
00:54:17,520 --> 00:54:20,239
Speaker 1: that work for them, are their high level positions that

884
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:23,400
Speaker 1: are public facing and skunk works that we can know

885
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:26,480
Speaker 1: about and talk to sure. Yeah, there are pr folks.

886
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:30,359
Speaker 1: They are admin folks. The engineers are pretty locked down

887
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:32,719
Speaker 1: with the d A S and and we've got some

888
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:37,839
Speaker 1: engineers in the audience today. Uh, if you're bound by

889
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:41,239
Speaker 1: an n DA, don't let us be the reason you

890
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 1: break it. We don't want your jail time on our

891
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:47,479
Speaker 1: conscience or your your fines. But if you can talk

892
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 1: about it, we would love to hear your insight on

893
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:52,840
Speaker 1: what's going on here. But like Lockheed itself and and

894
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:58,360
Speaker 1: especially skunk Works, it's so government adjacent that it's essentially

895
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:01,960
Speaker 1: like an extension of the government in some small way.

896
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:05,839
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a private industry, but there's so much

897
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 1: back and forth between the two that that I feel

898
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: like it's almost inseparable. I don't know, maybe that maybe

899
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:13,919
Speaker 1: I'm reaching there. What do you what do you guys think? No, Yeah,

900
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 1: I mean to me, it's very similar. I mean, it

901
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 1: is just a contractor and that's just the way it is, right,

902
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 1: it's money changing hands to get to the experts. But

903
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 1: what if they wanted to do a business with China Lockheed, yeah, um,

904
00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: I mean we export things to China all the time.

905
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: You know, if they're a private industry, why can't they

906
00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: sell these planes to other other countries. Well, just speaking

907
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:44,920
Speaker 1: of China is simultaneously trying to produce a reactor based

908
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:49,279
Speaker 1: off of Lockeed Martin's reactor. Yep. And also we know

909
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:52,320
Speaker 1: that the government, where the U. S. Government, has to

910
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:56,400
Speaker 1: approve certain sales, and they can they can do this

911
00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:58,759
Speaker 1: through a through a carrot or a stick approach, so

912
00:55:58,880 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: they can sanction certain sales, meaning they will disallow them,

913
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: and then they can incentivize other ones through through a

914
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 1: number of different ways. It's it's strange because everybody's trying

915
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:12,640
Speaker 1: to learn the same thing. They're trying to apply it

916
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:16,560
Speaker 1: in one way or another. The ultimate the ultimate goal,

917
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:19,840
Speaker 1: of course, is to be the hedgemon, to have the

918
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: severenity and control of a given technology or domain. And

919
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 1: that's why places like that's why Boeing, even if it

920
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 1: goes bankrupt, something like that will rise up in its stead,

921
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:37,600
Speaker 1: because the state needs to have manufacturing capabilities like this.

922
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 1: And that's why we know that the people at Lockeed

923
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:44,000
Speaker 1: and other associated things like North Grumman will be working

924
00:56:44,160 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 1: around the clock for the foreseeable future. The stuff we

925
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:50,920
Speaker 1: named is already crazy, but that's just the stuff we

926
00:56:51,040 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: know about. So what do you think, folks, Has skunk

927
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:56,560
Speaker 1: Works moved more or less completely into the public eye

928
00:56:56,880 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 1: or like Matt, just argue, are there still secret unacknowledged

929
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 1: projects at play? If so, what are they and what

930
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:07,319
Speaker 1: are they going to do? And when will we find

931
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:11,799
Speaker 1: out about them? Twenty years afterwards? Thirty Probably I'm telling

932
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:14,200
Speaker 1: you that SR seventy two is out there right now.

933
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:20,240
Speaker 1: It's been spotted. It's the reason for numerous UFO sightings

934
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 1: over the past ten years. I guarantee it. And now

935
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 1: we've you know, we spent eight percent in this episode

936
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 1: just talking about the different spy planes. Who knows else

937
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:33,400
Speaker 1: knows what they're working on there, like ice cream that

938
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:37,280
Speaker 1: that doesn't need to be cold to be good, or

939
00:57:37,360 --> 00:57:42,640
Speaker 1: like Dorrito flavored ice cream, or yeah, I'm just spitballing here.

940
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 1: I'm not a member of skunk Works, but we want

941
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:49,120
Speaker 1: to hear from you. We hope you enjoyed this episode,

942
00:57:49,160 --> 00:57:51,320
Speaker 1: and again, if you're an engineer in the audience, we

943
00:57:51,360 --> 00:57:53,920
Speaker 1: would love to hear your take on this because a

944
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:56,040
Speaker 1: lot of the reporting on these sorts of things can

945
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 1: be alarmist at times when it doesn't have to be.

946
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 1: But you should. If you were lucky enough to live

947
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 1: in a country where you can vote, you should pay

948
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 1: attention to where your tax dollars are going. And you

949
00:58:08,640 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 1: should have a conversation with yourself and your friends about

950
00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 1: the dilemma between secrecy and transparency. How much transparency do

951
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:19,560
Speaker 1: you deserve and how much secrecy does your government need?

952
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 1: Let us know. You can find us on Facebook. You

953
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram. We're all over the internet.

954
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:27,360
Speaker 1: Uh say hello to our favorite part of the show,

955
00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 1: your fellow listeners on our Facebook page. Here's where it

956
00:58:30,200 --> 00:58:34,440
Speaker 1: gets crazy. But wait, you can also follow us as

957
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 1: individuals online. You can follow me exclusively on Instagram at

958
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:40,720
Speaker 1: how Now Noel Brown. I try to get verified but

959
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:42,960
Speaker 1: they rejected me. Um, but you can. You can still

960
00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:46,680
Speaker 1: find me there. Just I promise I'm me. It's true.

961
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:51,200
Speaker 1: It's true. You could find me too. I'm Matt Frederick

962
00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:55,120
Speaker 1: Underscore I heart. I think are you verified? They verify you, Matt?

963
00:58:56,240 --> 00:58:59,040
Speaker 1: They don't. I just the whole idea of verification is

964
00:58:59,080 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 1: really trippy to me, because it's sort of like I

965
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:03,720
Speaker 1: can't prove that I am myself if I don't have

966
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 1: that blue check mark next to my name. Would you

967
00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: have to send them like a birth certificate. You gott

968
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 1: to send him a copy of your photo. I d

969
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,040
Speaker 1: We'll do that. I tried, like, got rejected. I'm not

970
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 1: I'm not a public figure enough, I guess for Instagram

971
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 1: rigorous standards understood. You can also find me on Twitter

972
00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:25,040
Speaker 1: where I'm at Ben Bowling hs W. You can find

973
00:59:25,080 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 1: me on Instagram where I am in a burst of

974
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:31,720
Speaker 1: creativity at Ben Bulling. Thanks so much for tuning in,

975
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:35,960
Speaker 1: thanks to our super producer Paul Mission controlled decond And

976
00:59:36,920 --> 00:59:40,760
Speaker 1: if you are the kind of person who says I

977
00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:43,440
Speaker 1: love this show, I love you guys. I hate social media.

978
00:59:43,880 --> 00:59:47,240
Speaker 1: I heard your Facebook episode and I don't understand how

979
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 1: you guys are still on that thing. How else can

980
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:52,200
Speaker 1: I contact you? Boy? Do we have good news for you?

981
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 1: You can call us. Our number is one eight three

982
00:59:55,320 --> 01:00:01,000
Speaker 1: three st d W y t K. Leave a message.

983
01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:03,560
Speaker 1: We'll hear it. It goes well, you'll hear it first

984
01:00:03,600 --> 01:00:06,520
Speaker 1: and foremost. For the first line of defense, it rings

985
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: with the stuff that I wants you to know. Beat

986
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:13,840
Speaker 1: the unquantized beat theme quite loudly every time you call

987
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: right into Matt's sleeping ears and he wakes up and

988
01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 1: deals with it post haste. I get a call back

989
01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 1: personally from him, and that's right. He's been known to

990
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:24,680
Speaker 1: do that. Uh. Dan, if you're still listening to this show,

991
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 1: I would love to get a message from you. I

992
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:30,760
Speaker 1: think that would be hilarious out there. I'd love to

993
01:00:31,160 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 1: play it on the air. That will be fun. At least,

994
01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:36,480
Speaker 1: it'll make it worthy because we just freaked you out

995
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: while you're in traffic. Nobody listens this far into the episode.

996
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 1: I'm telling you this. Nobody is listening to me. Yeah,

997
01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:50,440
Speaker 1: we've seen the statistics. All right, Well, goodnight everyone. Email us.

998
01:00:50,760 --> 01:01:00,120
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy and I heart radio dot com. Y

999
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 1: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production

1000
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:16,680
Speaker 1: of I Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts

1001
01:01:16,720 --> 01:01:18,919
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

1002
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:21,880
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.