Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel. They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code
Speaker 1: named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You
Speaker 1: are here that makes this this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. It's an exciting time of the week
Speaker 1: for us, folks. This is our listener mail program where
Speaker 1: we get to hear directly from the best part of
Speaker 1: the show, you, specifically you. We always conclude our episode saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: reach out to us, find us online, call us on
Speaker 1: the phone, send us an email, and we're not blowing smoke.
Speaker 1: We're going to hear about active fitness groups. We'll get
Speaker 1: a note from a Knoxvillian, we'll learn about some mysterious holes.
Speaker 1: And before we do any of that, we have a
Speaker 1: couple of voicemails we'd like to share with you.
Speaker 2: I have so many questions about active fitness groups, and
Speaker 2: that just sounds like a group of people that's really active,
Speaker 2: and they go out and they do fitness together.
Speaker 1: Because I do that part is true.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of those see them at the
Speaker 2: what is it? There's orange theory Jim right around where
Speaker 2: I am and see him doing that. All right, So
Speaker 2: let's jump first to a voicemail message from Ta Gray.
Speaker 3: Hi, you can call me Gray. I'm a PhD candidate
Speaker 3: at Florida State and I study political science and international relations.
Speaker 3: And I just want to say I teach American foreign policy.
Speaker 3: Uh and as a long time listener of your show,
Speaker 3: it's hard not to deveolop my class into discussions of
Speaker 3: all the shady stuff that the United States government has
Speaker 3: done overseas. But I'm a big fan of the show.
Speaker 3: Keep up the good work. I'm calling because I had
Speaker 3: any potential idea for a future episode. Recently, I had
Speaker 3: a talk at my university from professor Danielle Donno. She's
Speaker 3: at University of Oklahoma on fraudulent election monitors. So according
Speaker 3: to her, there's an international conspiracy going on about election monitors.
Speaker 3: These popped up a lot in international relations after the
Speaker 3: fall of the Soviet Union. What they do is they
Speaker 3: go into countries that are you know, developing democracies and
Speaker 3: they monitor their elections. They then develop objective reports about,
Speaker 3: you know, whether the election was free or fair, or
Speaker 3: whether there was some fraudulent to be going on. However,
Speaker 3: recently there have been efforts uncovered that Russia has been
Speaker 3: spearheading a lot of fraudulent election monitors. These monitors are
Speaker 3: usually you know, kind of developed overnight, paid off by
Speaker 3: either the governments that they're monitoring, or you know, Russia themselves,
Speaker 3: and they go in and say elections are free and
Speaker 3: fair when they weren't. But they always assign themselves really
Speaker 3: official sounding names, so if you're citizen of that country,
Speaker 3: it's hard to tell, you know, whether or not this
Speaker 3: is legit, especially if your media is you know, not
Speaker 3: free and fair as well. So I know there's some
Speaker 3: work in terms of sources by Danielle Donnell and her
Speaker 3: co authors. There's also been a series of investigative journalism
Speaker 3: that looks at some of these kind of pop up
Speaker 3: election monitors and tracks their finances and has found a
Speaker 3: lot of ties to Russia and other kind of shady
Speaker 3: governments as well. So anyways, I thought this might be
Speaker 3: of interest. Of course, I'm a political scientist, so my
Speaker 3: interests are a little bit more niche. But I hope
Speaker 3: to see this in a future episode, thinks I.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, thank you take grade. That's amazing. It's awesome
Speaker 2: to your PhD candidate at Florida State that's teaching international relations.
Speaker 2: My goodness. And this is something that we have had
Speaker 2: our eyes on for a long time. We've talked about
Speaker 2: this a little bit in the past, been in Noel right,
Speaker 2: specifically election monitoring and kind of a fishiness that can
Speaker 2: occur there when it's a third party or an NGO
Speaker 2: or some you know, some other group that goes into
Speaker 2: a country to verify in some way that this election
Speaker 2: is good to go, you guys, especially when it's a
Speaker 2: paid group, right, because the money flows from somewhere for
Speaker 2: some reason. If it's not just some some pro democratic
Speaker 2: group that is just all good and only you know,
Speaker 2: only working for good in the world.
Speaker 1: The good folks at Wagner want you to vote your conscience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they would never say that, would never say it.
Speaker 2: Bogner would be some other group. I don't know, have
Speaker 2: you guys heard anything about this or been specifically just
Speaker 2: do you know much about the election monitoring process that's
Speaker 2: in place right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is astic, T Gray, thank you for reaching
Speaker 1: out to us. We share similar interest, especially appreciate your
Speaker 1: recommendation to our fellow conspiracy realist about Professor Donno's work.
Speaker 1: The idea here in specific seems to be a conspiracy
Speaker 1: to legitimize corrupt elections. Election monitoring is an at times
Speaker 1: controversial industry. The Carter Center, based here in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: sends groups across the world to monitor elections. We know
Speaker 1: people who work in election monitoring. However, we see in
Speaker 1: this in this industry, we do see opportunity for conspiracy
Speaker 1: and corruption. I mean, you know, it's weird because there
Speaker 1: is an arguably condescending framework for Americans. Looking at the
Speaker 1: elections in other countries. The Americans say this election needs
Speaker 1: to be investigated, but never our own, because we're so great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking at outfits like the Office for Democratic
Speaker 2: Institutions and Human Rights based at least it looks like
Speaker 2: it is based out of Poland. Maybe yeah it is.
Speaker 2: It's based in Warsaw, Poland that do this very thing, right,
Speaker 2: go into other countries and monitor elections for theoretically the
Speaker 2: good of everyone. And they've got something called thesc E,
Speaker 2: which I'm just finding a handbook on it. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: just because I've already searched for it. OSCEE called the
Speaker 2: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is a
Speaker 2: whole other thing. Again, like some of this stuff, just
Speaker 2: in looking at it, you know, in the moment here
Speaker 2: after listening to that message, there's no way for me
Speaker 2: to die or at least me personally to dive into
Speaker 2: all the stuff we need to talk about. But y'all,
Speaker 2: I found a handbook from for that Office of Democratic
Speaker 2: Institutions and Human Rights that goes over like how to
Speaker 2: make sure an election is good to go or at
Speaker 2: least on the up and up. Wow, there's a lot here.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, folks, election monitoring is a necessary process.
Speaker 1: There are tons of corrupt elections around the world every year.
Speaker 1: That is not a hot take, That is simply true.
Speaker 1: The question then becomes something like who watches the Watchman?
Speaker 1: Yeah that's not a dated reference.
Speaker 2: No it's not. But but legitimately is there something like that?
Speaker 2: Is there some kind of third party that comes into
Speaker 2: the United States and monitors our elections?
Speaker 1: Do you mean like consensually or do you mean they're
Speaker 1: pole watchers.
Speaker 2: No, No, I mean not. I mean an actual third
Speaker 2: party like this one based out of Warsaw, Poland that
Speaker 2: goes into the United States just to be like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: let's monitor these elections, just to make sure.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: I mean to Ben's point though, right, Like, isn't that
Speaker 4: sort of a little bit uh oh, We're so great
Speaker 4: like these these things don't happen here, you know, because
Speaker 4: I think that would be a conflict of interest to
Speaker 4: the election process. There's so many things you're not allowed
Speaker 4: to do at polls, you know, like they're very particular
Speaker 4: about certain you know, campaigning and the like. I don't
Speaker 4: think there would have to be special dispensations made for
Speaker 4: an organization quote unquote doing that poll watchers. If I'm
Speaker 4: not mistaken, what's the deal with that?
Speaker 5: Guys?
Speaker 4: Remind me, I don't think I've ever witnessed that practice.
Speaker 4: But don't they have to keep a distance of some kind?
Speaker 4: They hang out outside the polling place. They're certainly not
Speaker 4: looking over people's shoulders whilst they vote.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a whole issue that was brought up with
Speaker 2: that thing with intimidation, right, pole watchers being put in
Speaker 2: place as an intimidation tactic. Potentially, maybe not, but it
Speaker 2: certainly seems that way to me, at least from my perspective.
Speaker 2: I wonder what hole monitoring is like in another country
Speaker 2: where it is a third party coming through just to
Speaker 2: keep an eye on everything. And the point you made
Speaker 2: been like it could be some third party that is
Speaker 2: actually a part of the election, that is doing it
Speaker 2: on purpose. I don't know. It just gives me a
Speaker 2: weird feeling, you guys, because it makes me want to
Speaker 2: look internally and just make sure we're actually good. I
Speaker 2: think the US is good, but maybe that's just because
Speaker 2: I grew up saying the pledge of allegiance, you know.
Speaker 4: And just to answer my own question, I guess pole
Speaker 4: watchers can be affiliated with any number of organizations where
Speaker 4: they be a political party or some kind of non
Speaker 4: partisan group. They also can conduct exit polls, which we
Speaker 4: know are really important for e Gauging how an election
Speaker 4: is going right in advance.
Speaker 1: I think they just had one hundred feet back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea of corruption here is worth asking, it's worth investigating. Completely,
Speaker 1: agree with you, Tay. This maybe an episode in the future.
Speaker 1: We do know that Vladimir Putin's pulling numbers are through
Speaker 1: the roof. Who would have saw that coming unanimously loved
Speaker 1: by the nation.
Speaker 2: Of Russia now that we're there, the shirt off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he's he's a real stub buff in that guy.
Speaker 1: We do know that there are international observers to your question, Matt,
Speaker 1: that will. I guess they're not quite on the level
Speaker 1: of poll watchers all the time, but there are institutions
Speaker 1: and groups from other countries that will monitor US elections,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and it needs to happen. Elections do need
Speaker 1: to be monitored, hopefully by an objective third party. The
Speaker 1: problem is that a lot of those parties are not
Speaker 1: indeed objective.
Speaker 2: Right, How do you get one? There was such a
Speaker 2: huge issue during the last presidential election in the United States,
Speaker 2: and there's about to be another one. It would be
Speaker 2: awesome if there was some kind of watchers of the watchmen,
Speaker 2: as you said, Ben, that could just go, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: we got it. We're just gonna make sure we're all good,
Speaker 2: and we're good, or and oh nope, we have to
Speaker 2: do that one again, sorry, y'all.
Speaker 1: I wonder what would happen, though, if some member state
Speaker 1: of NATO came out and publicly said or like the
Speaker 1: United Nations said, this election has too many serious problems
Speaker 1: and we need to just do a take to reset
Speaker 1: vote again. America would not have.
Speaker 2: It at I know you're right, especially if it was
Speaker 2: like a NATO or some other group that we're supposed
Speaker 2: to say. Okay, we'll do what you say. Oh man,
Speaker 2: oh well, this feels like a conundrum to me. We
Speaker 2: need people like Take Gray out there figuring out what
Speaker 2: to do next.
Speaker 1: So congratulations on the PhD.
Speaker 2: Tap absolutely, heck yeah, and shout out to Professor Danielle Adno,
Speaker 2: that's awesome. I've looked at her about page on her
Speaker 2: own website. It's very interesting stuff and there's a whole
Speaker 2: book that we can look into.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 1: The Cypress research is fascinating.
Speaker 3: Hm.
Speaker 5: Very cool.
Speaker 2: All right, well, thanks so much, Take Gray. We are
Speaker 2: going to jump to another piece of a listener mail,
Speaker 2: but we'll be right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 4: And we have returned with listener mail. This particular missive.
Speaker 5: Comes from Cool Guy, big fan of Cool Guy. Let's
Speaker 5: just jump right into it. This is a fun one. Howdy, gentlemen.
Speaker 4: I've been a huge fan of you guys four years
Speaker 4: now and always wanted to reach out but never had
Speaker 4: anything to say, so glad you finally did.
Speaker 5: Cool guy.
Speaker 4: I was scrolling through the internet when I stumbled upon
Speaker 4: a whole m Mel's hole. To be exact, who is
Speaker 4: this mel, you may ask, as son in the email.
Speaker 4: I was just curious if you guys have ever heard
Speaker 4: of it, and what are your thoughts.
Speaker 5: I'm going to attach a link.
Speaker 4: To a YouTube video because it's like, actually super gn hourly.
Speaker 5: Cool guy.
Speaker 4: I appreciate your podcast and can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5: Ps.
Speaker 4: I apologize if I have a spell this, which he does.
Speaker 4: But Noel's evil voice definitely is sounding like the killing
Speaker 4: Joke joker.
Speaker 5: What is my evil voice? I love it?
Speaker 4: I gotta know. Let us know, cool guy you're talking about.
Speaker 4: I hope he's not saying that I sound evil all
Speaker 4: the time. Apparently I put on a bit of an
Speaker 4: evil patois.
Speaker 2: Let's do a test. Let's do a test. Say something
Speaker 2: really evil in your evil.
Speaker 5: Voice, meda most foul.
Speaker 2: There we go. Yeah, I think that's what he's talking about.
Speaker 5: Okay, cool.
Speaker 4: He spells my name nol though, like the grassy noole,
Speaker 4: which I get a lot, and I guess that makes
Speaker 4: sense considering, you know the nature of the of the podcast,
Speaker 4: So I do not.
Speaker 5: Begrudge you that cool guy.
Speaker 4: But Mel's Hole, y'all, this is actually pretty prescient because
Speaker 4: we may well have a full episode coming up on
Speaker 4: mysterious Holes, and we're gonna try real hard not to
Speaker 4: giggle like little school girls throughout that one. But yeah,
Speaker 4: this actually kind of ties back around to an episode
Speaker 4: of a show that's in some ways adjacent to our show,
Speaker 4: at least in this in the sense that it's on
Speaker 4: our network, the iHeart Podcast network.
Speaker 5: Coast to Coast AM.
Speaker 4: And if I'm not mistaken, this story first surfaced in
Speaker 4: the nineties, and there's a real cool article. You guys,
Speaker 4: remember ifl Science you still have a dirty word in
Speaker 4: it was still around. Holly Large is kicking it as
Speaker 4: their resident whole expert, and the headline to this piece
Speaker 4: is geologically impossible. The strange story of Mel's supposedly bottomless
Speaker 4: hole essentially what the gist is. And in February of
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety seven, a fellow calling himself Mel Waters called
Speaker 4: into the late night conspiratorial.
Speaker 5: Talk show Coast to Coast.
Speaker 4: This is back when Art Bell was still at the
Speaker 4: helm there and this guy you know, I you know, guys,
Speaker 4: I've never really spent any time with coast to coast.
Speaker 4: Is this pretty common? Like folks just calling in and
Speaker 4: telling their wild stories? Is that sort of the format?
Speaker 5: Yes? Early, Okay, got it, So that makes sense. So
Speaker 5: this guy had a bit of a doozy.
Speaker 4: He calls in and says that on his property around
Speaker 4: fourteen kilometers nine miles to the west of Ellensburg, Washington State,
Speaker 4: there was once a giant hole that, according to this fellow, waters.
Speaker 5: Had no end was it was an endless, bottomless pit.
Speaker 4: He talks about how locals from the area would throw
Speaker 4: away their their garbage into the hole pretty regularly, and
Speaker 4: one might ask, well, then, at what point wouldn't that
Speaker 4: hole just start to fill up and an overflow with
Speaker 4: with nasty waiste. Apparently it never did, because he goes
Speaker 4: on to talk about how he went to literally try
Speaker 4: to get to the bottom of this thing, ha ha,
Speaker 4: And he took a real large amount of fishing line.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, I'm not I'm no fishermen here,
Speaker 4: no angler, but I think a big old reel of
Speaker 4: fishing line probably comprises quite a lot of length and
Speaker 4: he had to go through several of them, so he
Speaker 4: claimed to get to still not the bottom, he exhausted.
Speaker 5: I believe three reels that he had brought.
Speaker 4: Constitute around eighty thousand feet twenty four thousand meters.
Speaker 5: So yeah, without, he said, without, still, by the way.
Speaker 4: Reaching the bottom of this chasm. The IFL Science article
Speaker 4: then goes on to talk a little bit about geology.
Speaker 5: So let's not be the spoilers quite yet.
Speaker 4: Let's talk a little bit more about some of the
Speaker 4: lore behind Mel's hole. Waters also goes on to claim
Speaker 4: that some government agents of unknown origin or affiliations just
Speaker 4: call them general spook type individuals showed up and shut
Speaker 4: down the area, claiming that it had been the site
Speaker 4: of a plane crash, an official you know, government vehicle,
Speaker 4: perhaps some kind of spyplane. Perhaps didn't really go into detail,
Speaker 4: so they shut it down. And then he claims that
Speaker 4: they essentially forced him to lease his land to the government,
Speaker 4: which they paid him, you know, obviously for and he
Speaker 4: supposedly was able to use that money paid to him
Speaker 4: by the government to move to Australia, which sounds nice.
Speaker 4: Probably got some pretty deep holes out there Australia way
Speaker 4: as well. So some of the properties of this hole
Speaker 4: that he described were things like bringing animals back from
Speaker 4: the dead is one that strikes me. I'm a big
Speaker 4: I don't know fan is the right word. Pet Cemetery
Speaker 4: I find to be one of the most nihilistic and
Speaker 4: upsetting pieces of fiction ever penned.
Speaker 5: I think it was so effed up.
Speaker 4: That sorry, talking like Jojo Sewell over here, that Stephen
Speaker 4: King kept it in a drawer for many years.
Speaker 1: He says it's the novel that scared him the most.
Speaker 4: That's right, yeah, because it was also I think when
Speaker 4: he was in the deepest throes of his cocaine addiction.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that has anything to do with it,
Speaker 4: but it certainly is a really, really, really dark and
Speaker 4: sinister novel about a place in of course, Maine, where
Speaker 4: is supposedly an Indian burial ground on the other side
Speaker 4: of what became a child's kind of cemetery for dead
Speaker 4: burying dead pets and when you bury them on the
Speaker 4: other side, the Micmac burial ground, I believe what they
Speaker 4: call it. The First Nations tribe that is depicted in
Speaker 4: the book and in the film. Then it comes back,
Speaker 4: but it comes back bad comes back.
Speaker 5: The soul sour?
Speaker 4: Yes, boy, is it ever? Fred Gwyn for the Wind
Speaker 4: to the Road loss Loss, I.
Speaker 5: Mean God, talk about what a bummer.
Speaker 4: And then that guy meets a real gnarly end at
Speaker 4: the hands of a spoiler for a probably thirty year
Speaker 4: old piece of fiction. At this point, they bury a
Speaker 4: small child in the pet cemetery and it comes back
Speaker 4: and slices old Herman munster up with a scalpel and
Speaker 4: eats his Adam's apple out of his throat. Scared the
Speaker 4: crap out of me. You guys have a memory of
Speaker 4: seeing a movie that was above your pay grade for
Speaker 4: the age you were, and it kind of wrecked you
Speaker 4: a little bit. That was that for me Event Horizon
Speaker 4: as well, because I would argue Event Horizon was irresponsibly marketed.
Speaker 4: I thought that was gonna be a fun space romp,
Speaker 4: and it had all kinds of weird, horrible hell raiser surgery,
Speaker 4: clawing out people's eyes kind of stuff in and that one
Speaker 4: wrecked me. But Pet Cemetery really did a number on me.
Speaker 4: So guy claims that a local threw his dog in
Speaker 4: there and saw it later shambling around.
Speaker 5: With another hunter and it didn't recognize him.
Speaker 4: Okay also claims that he had heard tale of people
Speaker 4: taking radios holding it up around the ridge, which I
Speaker 4: believe the mouth of this cavern hear this thing he
Speaker 4: claimed to be around nine feet wide the mouth of
Speaker 4: the hole, only to pick up music from the past. Huh,
Speaker 4: broadcasts from yesteryear. There are claims of transmutation of substances,
Speaker 4: the kinds of things that you would only hear in
Speaker 4: tales of alchemy, you know of like turning you know,
Speaker 4: brass into gold or what have you. Metals specifically said
Speaker 4: held near the whole would morph into other substances, and
Speaker 4: you guys are already kind of getting the just this
Speaker 4: is starting to take on urban lore urban legend type
Speaker 4: status real quick. My favorite one was the story of
Speaker 4: like somebody lowered like a pack of life savers down
Speaker 4: there be not my favorite one, and it's pretty smart,
Speaker 4: hoping they would reach water and then it would call.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 5: I think it was the fishing line.
Speaker 4: It had life savers on the end of it and
Speaker 4: it was supposedly if it hit water then it would dissolve,
Speaker 4: but it never did. So that's that's one thing. And
Speaker 4: the last thing was sounds black beams emitted from this
Speaker 4: thing and supposedly the sounds of some sort of sinister creature,
Speaker 4: you know, lurking within. This is very Cthulhu esque kind
Speaker 4: of stuff. So before we try to debunk it, or
Speaker 4: at least talk to some folks that maybe we'll try
Speaker 4: their hand at that.
Speaker 5: This cool stuff is very interesting.
Speaker 4: It's the stuff of probably Coast to Coast, you know vibes.
Speaker 4: It seems to me to have clearly been an influence
Speaker 4: in the television series I think it's called Outer Range
Speaker 4: starring Josh Brolin, about a mysterious hole that is some
Speaker 4: sort of portal. It would have to be because it's
Speaker 4: definitely a rural kind of setting and similar kind of
Speaker 4: mystery surrounding this hole.
Speaker 5: But how does this guy? How does this hit you?
Speaker 3: Guys?
Speaker 4: Do you have any analogs for this sor as you
Speaker 4: guys heard of this story?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have heard of it. In full disclosure, I
Speaker 1: am one of the executive producers for a lot of
Speaker 1: Coast to Coast AM podcast. However, I didn't put my
Speaker 1: thumb on the scale of this exploration of mysterious holes.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 1: It is startling. I think one of the things we
Speaker 1: have to remember if we're hearing this and we're saying,
Speaker 1: I'm a skeptical person. We have to remember that the
Speaker 1: vast majority of cavern systems on this planet remain unexplored.
Speaker 1: Like right now, it is totally possible, not plausible, but
Speaker 1: totally possible that there is an entire region of the world,
Speaker 1: subterranean region that we do not understand knell. For the
Speaker 1: case of mel Waters in particular, if I recall correctly,
Speaker 1: we just know that the guy called himself Mel Waters.
Speaker 4: We don't know if real Further exploration of into this
Speaker 4: dude revealed that no such individual existed by that name,
Speaker 4: and he also referred to his wife, I believe, by
Speaker 4: name in the broadcast, who was affiliated with a university
Speaker 4: in the area. And the cross references of that name
Speaker 4: also led to bump. Guess when it came to you know,
Speaker 4: somebody that had been employed at this university And sorry,
Speaker 4: I'm my tabs are all askew and I'm not getting
Speaker 4: the names quite right.
Speaker 5: Way here we go.
Speaker 4: Ellensburg, Ellensburg, Washington, and yeah, Kitchitas County. Yeah, his wife,
Speaker 4: he claimed worked at c w U, which I guess
Speaker 4: is Central Washington University.
Speaker 5: He named her, and no.
Speaker 4: No person of that name working at Central Washington University.
Speaker 5: So yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: Ben Seattle's k o m O TV station did a
Speaker 4: piece on it on February seventh of that year.
Speaker 5: You know this, this conversation.
Speaker 4: On art Bell definitely hit the hit the small community
Speaker 4: pretty hard for whatever reason though this the exact location
Speaker 4: is very vague and no one seems to have been
Speaker 4: able to actually find the thing. And for a giant,
Speaker 4: bottomless hole, that seems a little sketchy, but again, the
Speaker 4: guy said that the government basically co opted it. One
Speaker 4: would maybe, you know, if we were to believe that
Speaker 4: line of thinking, maybe filled it in or camouflaged it
Speaker 4: or whatever in some way.
Speaker 2: Well, we are talking about only a nine foot diameter hole, right,
Speaker 2: so that's I don't know, imagine if you're looking out
Speaker 2: on this like vast landscape where there's not really much
Speaker 2: there that does have ups and downs to it, right,
Speaker 2: the elevation shifts a little bit, it'd be pretty hard,
Speaker 2: I think to find just a hole that's that small.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, didn't didn't this person make repeat appearances on Coast
Speaker 1: to Coast?
Speaker 5: He did?
Speaker 4: Yeah, as recently as two thousand, is my understanding, and
Speaker 4: another person who kind of entered the chat when this
Speaker 4: story first, you know, kind of hit the airwaves and
Speaker 4: then the you know, the TV was a guy who
Speaker 4: actually did confirmed, did work at CWU, a geologist for
Speaker 4: the Department of now Shore Resources by the name of
Speaker 4: Jack Powell, and he was very skeptical. He kind of
Speaker 4: even referred to the art Belt show as being all
Speaker 4: about UFOs and sasquatches in kind of.
Speaker 5: A dismissive way.
Speaker 4: And he had this to say when interviewed by filmmakers.
Speaker 4: Jack Powell, a geologist with the Washington State Department of
Speaker 4: Natural Resources, he said, geologically and physically, it's not possible
Speaker 4: for a hole to be that deep. It would collapse
Speaker 4: into itself under the tremendous pressure and heat from the
Speaker 4: surrounding strata. He believes that the legend sparked from the
Speaker 4: existence of a local goldbind shaft that he remembered from
Speaker 4: being a boy that had its entrance in a local
Speaker 4: field with a shaft of around twenty seven meters or
Speaker 4: ninety feet deep, which is certainly deep, but not what
Speaker 4: one might call bottomless or like you know, portal into
Speaker 4: the unknown waters does reference something called the Cola super
Speaker 4: deep hole on the Cola Peninsula in northwestern Russia. Which
Speaker 4: is a hole that or it is a project, I guess,
Speaker 4: a dig that spanned from May twenty fourth, nineteen seventy
Speaker 4: to after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which saw
Speaker 4: the digging of the deepest hole ever, which is forty
Speaker 4: thousand feet below the surface. That's a that's a pretty
Speaker 4: deep hole there. It's about still a half what this
Speaker 4: hole was purported to have been. And there was another
Speaker 4: kind of point of reference. Let's see the Russians, he said,
Speaker 4: drilled the deepest hole two hundred and thirty feet in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty nine is when that rapped. He said, if
Speaker 4: they had said over the radio was on the north
Speaker 4: side of the valley, well I might have stayed with
Speaker 4: the program for a while longer. I was thinking the
Speaker 4: hole I knew about was somehow being made into Mel's hole.
Speaker 5: And he's referring to.
Speaker 4: Some areas of the eastern Washington you know region, the
Speaker 4: lower Kitsitas County and Manna stash Ridge Specifically.
Speaker 5: He says, geologically and physically.
Speaker 4: It's not possible for a hole to be that deep
Speaker 4: because of the reasons we mentioned earlier. He said whoever
Speaker 4: mel was, he probably knew about the hole in northwest
Speaker 4: of allens Burglet's on private land fenced with barbed wire
Speaker 4: and is not too far from State D in r Lands.
Speaker 4: I suppose this mell Waters, he says, usually the real
Speaker 4: hole as a kind of inspiration for making up this
Speaker 4: mysterious one in Manustache Ridge.
Speaker 5: Cool idea.
Speaker 4: I really get it, you know. And it's like I
Speaker 4: know that art Bell and Coast to Coast. Certainly there
Speaker 4: are stuff that gets talked about on there that you
Speaker 4: know has grains of truth, like a lot of the
Speaker 4: stuff we talk about on this show. But this one
Speaker 4: does maybe seem like someone was trying to get some
Speaker 4: airtime and created a story that was maybe rooted in
Speaker 4: a grain of truth with this other hole, but then
Speaker 4: kind of went a little bit. He jumped the shark
Speaker 4: a little bit in terms of some of the details.
Speaker 2: What do you guys think, I think we should all
Speaker 2: watch out Arrange. I think we've talked about it before
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 4: It's good show, really a lot very twin peaksy I
Speaker 4: really dig it. I like the the weird, evil kind
Speaker 4: of rancher guy who's always singing like to his son,
Speaker 4: like he bursts into song all the time. And I
Speaker 4: can't remember the character's name. It's been a minute, but
Speaker 4: I think there's another season of that too. But I
Speaker 4: did watch every episode of the first season and enjoyed
Speaker 4: it very much.
Speaker 5: Been any any other thoughts about Mel's hole?
Speaker 1: Oh you know, Mel, I'm kidding me very very much,
Speaker 1: looking forward to our future subterranean exploration. Uh, it's a
Speaker 1: it's very it's very hold by beer of humanity to
Speaker 1: say how deep can we dig? And we will dig
Speaker 1: into that in a future episode. So thank you so
Speaker 1: much for writing in what a fantastic suggestion.
Speaker 5: Absolutely thanks a lot. Cool guy.
Speaker 4: We're gonna take a quick pause here a word from
Speaker 4: our sponsor, and then come back with another one final.
Speaker 5: For this evening's episode. Piece of listener Mayo.
Speaker 2: And we've returned, Ben. I thought you were gonna say,
Speaker 2: hold my beer like you just tossed it in.
Speaker 1: This is why we hang out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe you would come out a different kind, right,
Speaker 2: Or are.
Speaker 5: You guys talking about beers in butts?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: Always If you look back over the course of this show,
Speaker 1: every episode in some way is about beers and butts.
Speaker 1: Mm hm, you know, think about it. We have. We
Speaker 1: have a couple of pieces of correspondence here. This is
Speaker 1: something that is pretty serious. It's been on our collective
Speaker 1: mind for some time. Here is a piece of correspondence
Speaker 1: from our longtime conspiracy realist Fiota. Fiona says, hi, all,
Speaker 1: very long time listener here. I had never heard the
Speaker 1: term active clubs until today. I've missed some episodes recently,
Speaker 1: so not sure if you've covered these already, Fiona. We
Speaker 1: have yet to do so, and we're glad you brought
Speaker 1: this up. Fiona is quoting from a newsletter called The
Speaker 1: Real Intel, and Fiona quotes the following. Active clubs are fraternal,
Speaker 1: white only fitness groups that use physical fitness as a
Speaker 1: lifestyle draw to funnel men into white nationalism and into
Speaker 1: militant neo Nazism. In addition to using fitness culture as
Speaker 1: a means of influence and recruitment, the fitness proposition of
Speaker 1: active Clubs allows white nationalists to train for street violence.
Speaker 1: They were started in January twenty twenty one and use
Speaker 1: Mma style training to train for what they claim is
Speaker 1: an upcoming race war. They're found throughout the US, Canada, Europe,
Speaker 1: and Australia. Canada has twenty two known chapters, including a
Speaker 1: rare women only chapter. They've spread fast and hard in
Speaker 1: an unprecedented amount of time by hiding and Playing Sight
Speaker 1: and making it easier to draw new members in. Let's
Speaker 1: pause there, peep behind the curtain. All of us are
Speaker 1: exploring physical fitness on our own as individuals. Have you, guys,
Speaker 1: ever heard of active fitness clubs?
Speaker 5: Literally?
Speaker 4: Matt was talking about earlier and it sounded perfectly innocuous
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 5: But what you're describing doesn't, doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never seen one, and I'm right now searching
Speaker 2: for and failing to find like official websites of any
Speaker 2: of these things. All I see is links from Anti
Speaker 2: Defamation League and a bunch.
Speaker 5: Of other groups talking about them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but nobody. But there's no like place online. I
Speaker 2: guess where there was.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? You wouldn't advertise that, you
Speaker 1: would just have your gym's website. We want to recommend,
Speaker 1: First off, Fiona, thank you for the suggestion.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 1: We want to recommend an excellent piece by Tim Dickinson
Speaker 1: writing for The Rolling Stone, who says, quote this violence
Speaker 1: ready militia is hiding in Playing Sight and also Dickinson
Speaker 1: describes these active clubs as quote who the Proud Boys
Speaker 1: wanted to be. Do you guys remember the Proud Boys debacle? Unfortunately, Well,
Speaker 1: I wish we were video for this, because folks, you
Speaker 1: had to see Matt nol nod when we remember Proud Boys.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we talked about them a while back before
Speaker 2: they got involved with the January six things at the
Speaker 2: right date, that whole stuff, because they were one of
Speaker 2: those groups that seems like an interesting way for especially
Speaker 2: like former soldiers or people who are no longer soldiers,
Speaker 2: to get together and have like a thing to do, right,
Speaker 2: a post deployment hang kind of thing, which is really
Speaker 2: important actually, but it seems like it went a different way.
Speaker 2: I don't know it, like this whole defending the constitution
Speaker 2: thing no matter what. From like there's something at the
Speaker 2: heart of it that seems like, okay, I get that,
Speaker 2: but then it just goes towards I don't know how
Speaker 2: to even say it. Some often racism and terrible things.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You can read reports from outfits like the Counter Extremism
Speaker 1: Project or CEP that describes these groups this cottage industry
Speaker 1: of militias as a backup standby army for what they
Speaker 1: envision as some sort of apocalyptic reckoning, right, some sort
Speaker 1: of race war. They have been affiliated with groups like
Speaker 1: the oath Keepers, right, and I'm sure there are some
Speaker 1: one percenter motorcycle clubs that might have a Venn diagram there.
Speaker 1: We do have to say, most importantly, one, this conspiracy
Speaker 1: does appear to be real. It may be an episode
Speaker 1: in the future. And two, I hate to say it,
Speaker 1: but hashtag not all gyms. Some people just like to
Speaker 1: go boxing, you.
Speaker 2: Know, well, of course, well, absolutely not all gyms, and
Speaker 2: also not all groups like that. I mean, it's so
Speaker 2: weird to me because you guys remember early early in
Speaker 2: the especially ben early in the video days, when we
Speaker 2: would get reached out to sometimes by people who were
Speaker 2: like oathkeeper kind of folks. I would say, right, who
Speaker 2: have this mentality of I am finished with my military service,
Speaker 2: but I'm dedicated to either the country or the human
Speaker 2: beings inside the country. Right, So, at least from what
Speaker 2: we've saw from their writings, it's I will protect the
Speaker 2: human beings who live in the United States from any
Speaker 2: enemy that tries to roll through here, right, including exactly
Speaker 2: including if it's like a government that comes through, or
Speaker 2: a tyrant comes through, I will defend the people around
Speaker 2: me basically, which I don't know about you guys. That
Speaker 2: feels pretty noble to me, at least in theory when
Speaker 2: you say it like that. But again, when you have
Speaker 2: a bunch of people who are like minded in that
Speaker 2: way and then there's a leader who maybe has some
Speaker 2: different kind of views, it gets it's a slippery slope
Speaker 2: towards radicalization. So it's it's I don't know, I just
Speaker 2: I just want to put that out there because I
Speaker 2: know there are people listening, at least some people listening
Speaker 2: right now that feel the positive parts of that, but
Speaker 2: hopefully aren't in you know, infected or influenced by the
Speaker 2: negative parts.
Speaker 1: Dude, honestly shout out to everybody doing reps as you're
Speaker 1: listening to the show. You know what I mean.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this also reminds me to your point, met, this
Speaker 1: reminds me of nol and observation you made in a
Speaker 1: recent previous episode where he said, yeah, communism could be
Speaker 1: great if anybody actually did it right. Because these theories,
Speaker 1: these grand ideas, in practice, they so often divolve into
Speaker 1: very different things. And when we're talking about active clubs. Again,
Speaker 1: it's just like motorcycle gangs. A very small percentage of
Speaker 1: active clubs or whatever you want to group them as,
Speaker 1: a very small percentage of them are these white supremacists.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the origin story, as far
Speaker 1: as we can tell, it goes back to a guy
Speaker 1: named Robert Rundo, Are you in d operating out of
Speaker 1: Orange County, California, was attempting to launch an extremist network
Speaker 1: for some time. In twenty seventeen, he built something called
Speaker 1: the Rise Above Movement or RAM, and it called itself
Speaker 1: like a top notch MMA club. It was going to
Speaker 1: find the warrior spirit in you, and anyone could sign
Speaker 1: up as long as they were a dude and white.
Speaker 1: Low caveat there. He got into a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, this guy was charged with federal conspiracy
Speaker 1: to riot in sight violence right to try to create
Speaker 1: the race war the same way that Charles Manson pushed
Speaker 1: his followers to enact Helter Skelter and tune in for
Speaker 1: our Manson and Cia episode on the way.
Speaker 4: There's some wild stuff in there, Ben, with the Manson
Speaker 4: Cia connections that I only just stumbled across recently.
Speaker 5: I can't wait to have that conversation.
Speaker 1: Excited as well. Yeah, that's going to be a doozy,
Speaker 1: as you said, federal prosecutors when they charged Robert Rundo.
Speaker 1: The judge threw the case out just in March of
Speaker 1: this year, in twenty twenty four, and then another judge
Speaker 1: came back in and reinstated the case. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn more, check out the Fantastic Guardian article summarizing
Speaker 1: this by Ali Winston. The headline is jailed, released, jailed again.
Speaker 1: Whiplash in a leading neo Nazis legal case. It's strange, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know about this stuff. Have you guys ever
Speaker 1: entered into an organization or pursued some kind of hangout
Speaker 1: or fellowship only defined? It was very different than what
Speaker 1: it presented itself.
Speaker 4: As I think I mentioned to you that I had
Speaker 4: a brief period where I was hanging out with some
Speaker 4: behigh faith folks that you know, it has been lumped
Speaker 4: in with the C word and.
Speaker 5: You know, the cult that is the other sea where.
Speaker 4: I found it to be very friendly, you know, kind
Speaker 4: of meet for dinner and like minded folks just kind
Speaker 4: of talking.
Speaker 5: It's almost like a group therapy or like an AA
Speaker 5: meeting or something like that.
Speaker 4: I did get to a point where it felt a
Speaker 4: little weird or like it wasn't exactly what my wheelhouse is.
Speaker 4: But I never felt like I was being coerced into
Speaker 4: anything at all.
Speaker 5: But I did get to the point where I'm like,
Speaker 5: I don't think I am the same as these people. Well,
Speaker 5: they're very lovely people. And then I have, you know,
Speaker 5: gradually just sort of slow faded it.
Speaker 4: But it was it was, you know, because of school
Speaker 4: friends of my kid, and no shade on any of
Speaker 4: those people. They are all really lovely people. Just you know,
Speaker 4: I just felt like I didn't really belong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for a while I was in this group. We
Speaker 2: would get together like once or twice a week and
Speaker 2: we would all kind of sit together, listen to somebody talk,
Speaker 2: and we would sing songs together, often like repeat these
Speaker 2: words that were written down in this book we had.
Speaker 2: And then they tried to get me to drink blood
Speaker 2: and eat you know, human flesh. And they were called
Speaker 2: the United Methodist Church or something like that.
Speaker 5: I did stuff to you.
Speaker 2: I'm just playing. I'm just playing.
Speaker 1: Canibalism tells us that transubstantiation is like calling bass in
Speaker 1: a game attack catalyst.
Speaker 4: I don't think transibstantiation counts as cannibalism.
Speaker 5: I think it's okay. Yeah, yeah, I went to youth
Speaker 5: group too.
Speaker 4: I ate a lot of tacos, didn't really eat any
Speaker 4: human flesh that I know.
Speaker 1: Technically a sandwich.
Speaker 5: Why am I so anti taco as sandwich?
Speaker 1: I'm just it's like the most conservative opinion I have
Speaker 1: ever heard.
Speaker 4: I never really associated that with being one way or
Speaker 4: the other politically speaking.
Speaker 1: I like that you're a firebrand for it.
Speaker 4: I think I just like being contankerous about this one
Speaker 4: really pretty meaningless issue.
Speaker 5: You know, I will die on this hills.
Speaker 1: And there are people who appear to have decided that
Speaker 1: they will die on this hill of white supremacy. Right
Speaker 1: of active militias. One thing we need to understand in
Speaker 1: the larger context, going back to our earlier conversation in
Speaker 1: tonight's program about the importance of election monitoring, we see
Speaker 1: opportunities for conspiracy and we see opportunities for corruption. One
Speaker 1: very clever thing that the US military does is rotate
Speaker 1: out its leaders such that you are following a position
Speaker 1: rather than following a person right, and this avoids the
Speaker 1: cultish riz that is created by the Mansons and the
Speaker 1: Jim Joneses, and you know, I'll say at the castros.
Speaker 1: But the issue here is that the US right now,
Speaker 1: the anglosphere entire is pretty concerned about the idea of
Speaker 1: this hidden column of successionist supremacist you know, and oftentimes
Speaker 1: you will hear references to groups like this in just
Speaker 1: passing in, like our conversations about attacks on power stations,
Speaker 1: right on the very vulnerable US infrastructure, we see again
Speaker 1: the shadow of these supremacists. It's a very old enemy,
Speaker 1: and it's a it survives, and it's a very troubling
Speaker 1: conspiracy in my opinion. Obviously, we don't obviously we don't
Speaker 1: co sign this stuff. We think fitness is super cool,
Speaker 1: but we really appreciate you, Fiona, for reaching out because
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know about this. Imagine you
Speaker 1: go to a gym, right You've got your New Year's
Speaker 1: resolution or whatever, and you're thinking, this is it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna learn mma, I'm gonna learn parkour, I've got my gloves,
Speaker 1: I got my weird little shorts whatever, and then several
Speaker 1: months in they start inviting you to a different sort
Speaker 1: of meeting. I don't know, like, how prevalent do you
Speaker 1: guys think this could be.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's prevalent at all.
Speaker 1: I think it must be a rarity, right.
Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of MMA Jim's. I've seen a
Speaker 2: lot of individuals who like study that kind of martial arts,
Speaker 2: and I've yet to meet somebody who crosses that goes
Speaker 2: into whatever that is, or at least openly. Right, Maybe
Speaker 2: I haven't. I just haven't had that conversation with them.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe they did a vibe check on you and
Speaker 1: they decided you weren't receptive, which I think is a
Speaker 1: good thing.
Speaker 2: I doubt it, though, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, they're out there, folks, And with this we are
Speaker 1: going to call it an evening. We're going to dive
Speaker 1: into these stories in future episodes. Thank you to everybody
Speaker 1: who took the time to reach out and touch faith
Speaker 1: and contact us. If you would like to join the
Speaker 1: show in a future program, please come into our cult.
Speaker 1: It feels weird to ask people to contact us after
Speaker 1: we just talked about how fitness clubs will sucker people
Speaker 1: into evil things. But you know, find us online.
Speaker 5: Oh, find us online.
Speaker 4: Indeed, we exist in the handle conspiracy Stuff on YouTube,
Speaker 4: where we have video content rolling out and switching up
Speaker 4: the order this time, on xfka, Twitter, and on Facebook
Speaker 4: where you can join our Facebook group Here's where it
Speaker 4: gets crazy. On Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy Stuff Show.
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