Speaker 1: Oh me, Harty's this is our classic episode for this evening.
Speaker 1: Oh man, did you guys like treasure stories and pirate
Speaker 1: stories when you were kids? Yeah's heart? What's a hearty?
Speaker 1: A hardy? I think it's just pirates slaying. If I'm
Speaker 1: being honest, it means you don't have the scurvy, you're
Speaker 1: you're a party. Yes, my dear heart or something. Maybe
Speaker 1: I've never seen it spelled though. Is it spelled like
Speaker 1: herty h E A R t y or h A
Speaker 1: R d ys and boys? Well, Pirates were known for
Speaker 1: a lot of things, but literacy was not one, So
Speaker 1: I imagine they wrote it down several different ways.
Speaker 2: Got it, it'd be time to plunder this classic episode.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, Oh there's a German immigrant. His name
Speaker 1: John Jacob Astor, the first known multi millionaire in the
Speaker 1: United States. But how did he get this? Agreed to
Speaker 1: fortune as we were, I think all surprised to learn
Speaker 1: the answer may lay in hidden pirate treasure. Depending on
Speaker 1: who you ask. Caveat caveat asterisk, there are she blows yrs.
Speaker 1: Let's roll it.
Speaker 3: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 3: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 3: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 3: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. There's
Speaker 2: a Noll spaced hole to my left.
Speaker 1: There's a Noll hole. Indeed, they call me Ben. We
Speaker 1: are joined as always with our super producer Paul mission
Speaker 1: controlled decand who has recently been rethinking is Moniker and
Speaker 1: maybe going with Paul Hollywood in a British accent. Most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are you, You are here, and that makes this
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. This is a
Speaker 1: this is a strange episode for us, and and an
Speaker 1: interesting story. There's a there are a couple of different
Speaker 1: conspiratorial myths we run into here, and we also run
Speaker 1: into the evolution of media and the great game of
Speaker 1: telephone that we've mentioned in previous previous episodes. But before
Speaker 1: we begin, Matt, I have to I have to ask you, yes,
Speaker 1: do you think this summer will be the summer that
Speaker 1: our hometown burns.
Speaker 2: Down, that Atlanta burns again.
Speaker 1: Just from the heat, this time not from interesting warfare?
Speaker 2: My goodness, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. We went
Speaker 2: out my family and I went out to the Candler
Speaker 2: Park Festival on Gosh was that Saturday? Yes, it was Saturday,
Speaker 2: and just standing outside uncovered was a terrible thing. I
Speaker 2: would not recommend it to anyone. Find a tree, get
Speaker 2: underneath it and you'll be okay. The music is still
Speaker 2: gonna sound great.
Speaker 1: There we go. That's the spirit. It's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a positive, positive spin on a terrible, terrible thing. I
Speaker 1: just landed back in town late yesterday night or early
Speaker 1: this morning, I'm not sure which, and the thing that
Speaker 1: hit me immediately was the heat. I'm just everyone who
Speaker 1: lives here enjoys summer and autumn and all the hits,
Speaker 1: all the all the slow jazz of the seasons until
Speaker 1: summer comes. This is terrible, This is horrific. I have
Speaker 1: no idea how hot or cold it is, you know,
Speaker 1: in your neck of the global woods, folks, but please
Speaker 1: send us. What do they say on Facebook? Thoughts and
Speaker 1: prayers or better yet, ice cubes or those Did you
Speaker 1: ever have those those weird little popsicles that came in
Speaker 1: the plastic tubes when you were a kid? Yes, or
Speaker 1: some of those. I'm burning up so much, you know.
Speaker 1: The sun is my ancient nemesis anyway, I'm considering ice
Speaker 1: pops as a treatment.
Speaker 2: It really is hot town somewhere in the city, back
Speaker 2: of my neck, feeling.
Speaker 1: Cool cat looking forward, kid, You're going to search in
Speaker 1: every corner ru the city all around the people looking
Speaker 1: have to walking on.
Speaker 2: Oh, gonna get sued by that town and artists too.
Speaker 1: I doubt it. I doubt it. But that is that
Speaker 1: is a stone cold jam or a hellishly hot day.
Speaker 1: So assuming that, assuming that the studio doesn't melt into
Speaker 1: one interminable mass of plastic VOCs that's volatile organic compounds
Speaker 1: chemicals a ka the basis of new carsmel and why
Speaker 1: it will slowly kill you along with organic matter and mortar,
Speaker 1: we will successfully finish this episode. This is a story
Speaker 1: that encounters, as we said, so many different conspiratorial threads.
Speaker 1: And while you were listening, we would like to invite
Speaker 1: you to participate with us in pseudo real time. I
Speaker 1: mean time itself is sort of a pseudo thing anyway, right, Yes, So,
Speaker 1: if the mood strikes you, if the spirit so moves you,
Speaker 1: as you are joining us today, don't hesitate. Don't feel
Speaker 1: like you have to wait till the end to write
Speaker 1: an email, you can go ahead and just give us
Speaker 1: a call.
Speaker 2: We are one eight three three std WYTK. And if
Speaker 2: you're like one of our listeners that we casually mentioned
Speaker 2: at the end of the show, and I must say
Speaker 2: in a way that I knew that only this listener
Speaker 2: would understand that I was talking to her, you will
Speaker 2: then leave. Six more message is over the weekends, so
Speaker 2: please feel free to reach out with any kind of questions,
Speaker 2: any kind of statements, especially if you come up with
Speaker 2: something as we're talking about this episode.
Speaker 1: Yes, please, So let us begin to paraphrase HENREDA. Balozak.
Speaker 1: Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime. It's
Speaker 1: a thought that we've encountered multiple times, and that you
Speaker 1: have probably encountered in your own life in any variety
Speaker 1: of fronts. The concept here is that one cannot, regardless
Speaker 1: of time and space, one cannot reach, regardless of time
Speaker 1: and space, a certain threshold of financial success without somehow
Speaker 1: purposefully or unwittingly gaining some part of that fortune through
Speaker 1: criminal acts.
Speaker 2: And it's not it isn't necessarily criminal acts of that
Speaker 2: person by gaining that wealth, because that wealth, then many
Speaker 2: times is handed down right, So perhaps it's a criminal
Speaker 2: act that your grandparents or your great grandparents, or even
Speaker 2: further back, committing right right.
Speaker 1: So it's a known fact, for instance, that there are
Speaker 1: people in the world who still enjoy the benefits their
Speaker 1: ancestors reaped from things like the slave trade or colonialism.
Speaker 1: There's also another case to be made if we want
Speaker 1: to make a case about people who are unwittingly perhaps profiting.
Speaker 1: For this, we could look at Silicon Valley and the
Speaker 1: technocrats who live there, profiting off of the backbreaking human
Speaker 1: rights abuses involved in the mining.
Speaker 2: Industry, retaining the things they need to make their chips.
Speaker 1: Right right, right, one way or the other. And this
Speaker 1: quickly descends into a very sticky philosophical conversation. Are you
Speaker 1: or I, if we own a smartphone, we also benefiting
Speaker 1: from this? The answer is more or less yes. But
Speaker 1: in this case, we're talking about the people who become millionaires, multimillionaires,
Speaker 1: billionaires in the pursuit of these of these ambitions. Right. Yes.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, we are traveling back in time, Fellow
Speaker 1: conspiracy realist, we are exploring the story of one of
Speaker 1: America's earliest tycoons, literally the first multi millionaire in the
Speaker 1: United States, or perhaps officially is a better word than literally,
Speaker 1: and will along the way dive into the speculation about
Speaker 1: just how this one individual arrived at his fortune and
Speaker 1: why this speculation continues today.
Speaker 2: And as we'll find out in this episode. As many others,
Speaker 2: these stories have an official version and not so official versions.
Speaker 1: Yes, just so, here are the facts. Born Johann Jacob
Speaker 1: Astor in Germany on j seventeenth, seventeen sixty three, John
Speaker 1: Jacob Astor was the son of a butcher who would
Speaker 1: go on to found a financial dynasty that continues in
Speaker 1: some ways into the modern day.
Speaker 2: That's right. When he was, you know, a young man,
Speaker 2: around seventeen years old, he went to London and he
Speaker 2: started to work with one of his brothers, his older
Speaker 2: brother George, and this this guy, George, made musical instruments,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's interesting enough, but he wanted to
Speaker 2: try something else. So in seventeen eighty four he left London.
Speaker 2: He got out of town. He brought some some of
Speaker 2: these instruments with him and just a little bit of
Speaker 2: pocket money around twenty five dollars, and he traveled all
Speaker 2: the way across the ocean to the United States to
Speaker 2: try and find something fortune, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, right to seek his fortune. It's an American dreams story. Right.
Speaker 1: Let's let's explore the official story about how this German
Speaker 1: immigrant came to become America's first multi millionaire. So, as
Speaker 1: you said, Matt, seventeen eighty four, he arrives, he's got
Speaker 1: some flutes, he's got around twenty five dollars cash money,
Speaker 1: as they would say. He arrives in Baltimore, and he
Speaker 1: eventually makes his way up to New York City. While
Speaker 1: he is in New York, he opens his own fur
Speaker 1: trade shop in seventeen eighty six, so about two years
Speaker 1: after he leaves Germany. He often at this time travels
Speaker 1: out into the wilderness, just like his fur trappers do,
Speaker 1: and he wants to find new sources for his shop.
Speaker 1: This is a huge industry at this time, and this
Speaker 1: was before concerns about preserving species were very widespread. It
Speaker 1: was a foreign concept or an alien concept to many
Speaker 1: of these trappers and traders that there would ever be
Speaker 1: a day where it was difficult to obtain as many
Speaker 1: repelts as one would wish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the populations all start to dwindle. Because the
Speaker 2: furred trade ends up being a really big thing well,
Speaker 2: and just one quick thing here with Johann aka John Astor. Here.
Speaker 2: He when he went to New York, he met up
Speaker 2: with another brother, right, and he was working i think
Speaker 2: at a butcher shop for a while with his brother,
Speaker 2: and then he ended up trying his hand at baking,
Speaker 2: cooking and these kind of things. And he was totally like,
Speaker 2: I'm never gonna make enough money just working with my
Speaker 2: hands at this level doing this kind of thing. And
Speaker 2: that's one of the main reasons he went out to
Speaker 2: seek out the.
Speaker 1: Fur trade exactly because he could have easily spent the
Speaker 1: bulk of his life laboring as a successful artisan, right yeah,
Speaker 1: And instead he wanted something more. So he traveled to
Speaker 1: what even today is known as the Land of Excess,
Speaker 1: and the fur trade was appealing. It helped him get
Speaker 1: a start again, according to the official story, but he
Speaker 1: saved his he saved his pennies, he saved his scratch,
Speaker 1: didn't party too hard at whatever their equivalent of Dave
Speaker 1: and Busters was back then, And so it came to
Speaker 1: pass that a few years later Astor was able to
Speaker 1: make his first real estate investment, and as he was
Speaker 1: diversifying into real estate, he was continuing to grow his
Speaker 1: fur business. Eventually, Astor's fur trading interest becomes the country's
Speaker 1: leading fur company by the turn of the century. He
Speaker 1: also takes his reach international. He starts exporting fur directly
Speaker 1: to China. In return, he is importing Chinese silk and tea,
Speaker 1: which are you know, items of luxury, right with a
Speaker 1: with a tremendously high profit margin, even counting in all
Speaker 1: the dangers involved in international shipping at the time.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and you can see how that also becomes
Speaker 2: very lucrative just the fact that he can ship goods
Speaker 2: back and forth into different places and then even to China,
Speaker 2: into different places in China. I mean, this is a
Speaker 2: huge deal. This is how you really really make some money.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly right, You go big, you go international. So
Speaker 1: all of Astor's fur businesses has different, you know, different interests.
Speaker 1: We talk about this. This occurs in business today. You
Speaker 1: may see five different products on the same shelf in
Speaker 1: the same section of a grocery store, and they're ultimately
Speaker 1: all owned by the same place. Fingers on a hand, right,
Speaker 1: So he goes public with this. He merges all of
Speaker 1: his fur businesses into something he calls in a burst
Speaker 1: of creativity, the American Fur Company in eighteen oh eight.
Speaker 1: And we shouldn't be too hard on the guy. I'm
Speaker 1: sure he had a lot going on. He just needed
Speaker 1: something simple and to the point for the name.
Speaker 2: Well, and I think if you can call something the
Speaker 2: American anything, like, if that name hasn't been trademarked already,
Speaker 2: I mean, go ahead and trademark it.
Speaker 1: That's great because that's similar to you know, I bet
Speaker 1: you've stumbled onto an ad an AD cycle, like an
Speaker 1: AD copy cycle. Maybe we've mentioned this before, but if
Speaker 1: you're listening now, depending on how old or young you are,
Speaker 1: you can probably look back in your life and notice
Speaker 1: that marketing companies and ad companies go through this sort
Speaker 1: of industry wide trend towards certain phrases.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I think there are times when everything is organic, or
Speaker 1: in the nineties everything was digital. It didn't even matter
Speaker 1: if it was an actual digital product, right, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And so maybe American was one of the first iterations
Speaker 1: of that. I think that's I think you're probably right.
Speaker 1: But regardless of our theories on the creativity or lack
Speaker 1: thereof and the ad community, it turns out that this
Speaker 1: was a very good move on his part and the US.
Speaker 1: We have to remember this is just the dawn of
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. The US is still still in its
Speaker 1: infancy in terms of what will later become the fifty
Speaker 1: state beheamoth we know today. Lewis and Clark had just
Speaker 1: ended their expedition to the west coast of the continent.
Speaker 1: That was in what eighteen oh six, And after this
Speaker 1: Astor when he learned about this expedition, he bought up
Speaker 1: some land in Oregon where a fort was built in
Speaker 1: eighteen eleven, and he had planned to build a settlement
Speaker 1: called Astoria, not the most humble name, but you know,
Speaker 1: he was by far not the only person doing this. Everybody.
Speaker 1: Everybody was naming crap after themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and why not. I mean, that's pretty great eighteen
Speaker 2: eleven building a thing called a Storia, which sound I mean,
Speaker 2: it actually doesn't sound that bad. Well, it's not like
Speaker 2: a story of Asterville or or Fordlandia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we also have to consider, for being fair,
Speaker 1: that the people would live there for thousands of years earlier,
Speaker 1: probably had their own name for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: Well, regardless, the reason he did not end up going
Speaker 1: through with this was because of the War of eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: he ended up selling the outpost because Great Britain and
Speaker 1: the United States had what people today would call a
Speaker 1: messy breakup.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe it was with a Canadian company that
Speaker 2: purchased that from him, or Canadian interests at least.
Speaker 1: Right, So he decided to get out while the getting
Speaker 1: was good, you know what I mean? Because if he
Speaker 1: had if he had owned that land and the US
Speaker 1: ended up losing control over it or sovereignty over it,
Speaker 1: would his deed of ownership still be honored.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and indeed they did take over for like
Speaker 2: forty years.
Speaker 1: And so he appeared to have made the right decision.
Speaker 1: After the War of eighteen twelve, he made even more scratch,
Speaker 1: even more cheddar, even more pony bones, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it, because he had a bond deal with
Speaker 1: the US government. At the same time. His wealth is
Speaker 1: compounded by the fact that all the real estate in
Speaker 1: New York City he owns begins the skyrocket in value.
Speaker 2: And then he ends up getting out of the fur
Speaker 2: business around eighteen thirties, and then he's really you know,
Speaker 2: I guess he's realizing that the true money now is
Speaker 2: in the accrude wealth of those properties. That he owns.
Speaker 2: So he's spending a lot of time doing his real
Speaker 2: estate management and all the estates, the investments he's you know,
Speaker 2: at this point, he owns hotels, he owns places where
Speaker 2: other people live, residences where people are paying rent essentially,
Speaker 2: and that's where his time is spent and his money
Speaker 2: really is made.
Speaker 1: That's where he sees his most significant return. It's not
Speaker 1: to say that being a landlord is easy by any means,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure the landlord's listening here can attest. But
Speaker 1: it is to say it's less work than sending people
Speaker 1: out into the wild to try to capture dwindling populations
Speaker 1: of wild animals in the hopes that affur retains its value.
Speaker 2: And then sending a lot of the same people or
Speaker 2: new other people you're hiring to then ship it across the.
Speaker 1: World, right and just hope nothing goes wrong. So that's
Speaker 1: why he goes into real estate. And again, as the
Speaker 1: official story, by the time Astor dies in eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: he is the most wealthy man in the country. He
Speaker 1: has an estimated fortune of around twenty million dollars. And
Speaker 1: just let's give a little bit of perspective here, Paul
Speaker 1: we're going to have an inflation calculator. Could you throw
Speaker 1: us a sound cueue somewhere in the middle of this.
Speaker 1: So twenty million dollars in eighteen forty eight is roughly equivalent.
Speaker 2: To six hundred and forty six million, nine hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty six thousand, nine hundred and sixty two dollars and
Speaker 2: three cents.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen. Yes, so almost like more than half
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. Yes, most of his wealth, the vast majority,
Speaker 1: goes to one guy, one of his uh seven children,
Speaker 1: William Backhouse Astor. Yes, you heard that correctly. His middle
Speaker 1: name is the words back and house together, William Backhouse Astor.
Speaker 2: It just feels like something his friends called him, or
Speaker 2: like he was a wrestler something.
Speaker 1: It does sound like weird. It's one of those yeah,
Speaker 1: in joke nicknames. I'm sure it's it's it has a
Speaker 1: logic and reason to it, but it sounds like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, how you meet different friend groups and one
Speaker 1: of the members of the friend group just has has
Speaker 1: a weird name that no one explains to you, just
Speaker 1: have it, like.
Speaker 2: Like, really, your name's Red Paladin. Okay, Sure, that's pretty okay?
Speaker 2: Is that whatever you say.
Speaker 1: Archie friends at Dragging Con, is that what's going on?
Speaker 2: No, my wife's making me watch Riverdale and it's killing me.
Speaker 1: It's Riverdale isn't a murder mystery now it is.
Speaker 2: I can, like I survive because it is a murder mystery.
Speaker 1: But oh my god, is jug Head the killer? He
Speaker 1: always struck me as the most sinister dude.
Speaker 2: Jughead and FP are holding it down.
Speaker 1: Who's fph Should I? Should? I? Just uh read the
Speaker 1: reviews on Vox or something or.
Speaker 2: No, just know that FP is skeet ulrich and he
Speaker 2: makes the show worth it for me, as well as
Speaker 2: the late unfortunately Luke Perry, who is also awesome. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of great there. There's the cast is wonderful.
Speaker 2: The show itself is slightly infuriating.
Speaker 1: Okay, slightly infuriating, that's the review.
Speaker 2: No, not in a bad way. It's just you can
Speaker 2: tell it's written for maybe a slightly younger audience than me.
Speaker 2: They do They do reference movies that came out the
Speaker 2: year that they were in production, which is or you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of years prior to being in production, which
Speaker 2: is so interesting to have a separate universe. But Baby
Speaker 2: Driver is still a thing.
Speaker 1: So is this on real quick? Is this on CW?
Speaker 2: I don't even know it's one of the streaming services.
Speaker 2: And I just want to play a little gargoyle Griffin's
Speaker 2: and gargoyles now, So when you're ready, let's let's throw
Speaker 2: down some dice and get the chalices. Oh God, I
Speaker 2: don't know why I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, that's your official story, and it coincides with
Speaker 1: the official story of John Jacob Astro. It's very difficult,
Speaker 1: I imagine, for both of us not to say John
Speaker 1: Jacob Jingelheimerschmidt every time. But anyway, Johnny j Aster, at
Speaker 1: this point, posthumously, he looks to be a quintessential example
Speaker 1: of the American dream. He has all the essential ingredients.
Speaker 1: He's a hard working immigrant. He has risen to the
Speaker 1: top achalons of society, not through undeserved inheritance, not because
Speaker 1: of who his parents were, but because he combined hard
Speaker 1: work with sharp wits, good old gumption, and no small
Speaker 1: dose of good luck. However, for decades and decades, various
Speaker 1: researchers have proposed another we could say conspiratorial narrative, a
Speaker 1: less inspiring stranger explanation for the source of Astor's enormous wealth.
Speaker 1: What if instead of earning it slowly over time, he
Speaker 1: stole it all in one go.
Speaker 2: And we'll learn about that right after a quick word
Speaker 2: from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. There's an alternate story about
Speaker 1: John Jacob Aster's wealth. Let's say that the story of
Speaker 1: his arrival to the North American continent is true up
Speaker 1: to his early career as a fur trader. Okay, what
Speaker 1: if the narrative takes a sharp turn shortly afterward. What if,
Speaker 1: instead of continually evolving his business, Astor has a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of help from an unexpected discovery. Could his fortune
Speaker 1: be based not on business acumen, but on the secret
Speaker 1: discovery of buried treasure.
Speaker 2: Now, before we get into this, this is why it's
Speaker 2: so interesting to me, because one of the major things
Speaker 2: you need in order to make money is to have
Speaker 2: some money. Right, This is something we've established throughout all
Speaker 2: of time, Memoriam. The connection here is that he just
Speaker 2: needed a certain injection of funds early on to be
Speaker 2: able to make some of the investments he made and
Speaker 2: to grow that into a fortune. That's what everything else
Speaker 2: we're talking about. That's what makes it so fascinating to me.
Speaker 2: So there's this other person, this other person named William Kidd,
Speaker 2: and he had this thing called pirate treasure. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: let's get into his life. So this dude was born
Speaker 2: William Kidd. He was born in sixteen forty five. He
Speaker 2: originally had a career focusing on privateering, but eventually he
Speaker 2: was hired by European royals to attack foreign ships that
Speaker 2: would encroach on land and would be enemies essentially.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, or competitors, because we have to consider at
Speaker 1: this point that trade and state craft were very closely,
Speaker 1: very closely intertwined.
Speaker 2: And much of it is happening on the open seas,
Speaker 2: and that's where the pirates come in.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, as so, he was a pirate hunter, and
Speaker 1: he took the helm of a ship called the Adventure
Speaker 1: Galley in sixteen ninety five. English investors had hired him
Speaker 1: to be a privateer to hunt down the four investors
Speaker 1: that were endangering there or as you know, his employer's
Speaker 1: international trade deals. Now, hold on, Matt, hold on, Ben,
Speaker 1: you might be saying, as you listen along here, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that Captain William Kidd is one of the
Speaker 1: world's most notorious pirates from this era. And you were
Speaker 1: telling me that he started out hunting pirates, he became
Speaker 1: one of the same monsters he meant to eradicate. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is exactly what we're saying.
Speaker 2: It's like he got bitten by a pirate and he became.
Speaker 1: A which is how it works. That's how it works exactly.
Speaker 1: So the problem with his pirate hunting days was that
Speaker 1: they couldn't He and his crew didn't really find the
Speaker 1: ships they were supposed to attack. They were supposed to
Speaker 1: attack some French ships, and they found very few of them.
Speaker 1: And then in January of sixteen ninety eight, he caught
Speaker 1: sight of something called the Quagda Merchant, which was rounding
Speaker 1: the tip of India. This was an Armenian ship, weighed
Speaker 1: five hundred tons. It carried gold, silk spices, all the hits.
Speaker 1: They were owned in part by a minister at the
Speaker 1: Indian Grand Mughal's court. This minister had powerful, powerful connections,
Speaker 1: and when he learned that his vessel had been attacked,
Speaker 1: he complained to the East India Company.
Speaker 2: M that's an old hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And now the East India Company and the Grand
Speaker 1: Mogul are saying, this guy is not legit, he's not
Speaker 1: a pirate hunter. He's hurting the wrong ships. He is
Speaker 1: not a pirate hunter. He is a pirate and so
Speaker 1: begins his life on the wrong side of the law.
Speaker 1: Turns out being on the wrong side of law did
Speaker 1: not suit Kid over the long term, and he eventually
Speaker 1: was arrested in Boston. Then he was shipped back to
Speaker 1: England for his trial.
Speaker 2: And his court date was May eighth, seventeen oh one,
Speaker 2: and he was found guilty and unfortunately for him, he
Speaker 2: was hanged on May twenty third of that same year,
Speaker 2: seventeen oh one. And again like one of the big
Speaker 2: things here, there are some abhorrent things done to humans
Speaker 2: and their bodies, you know, within in the past to
Speaker 2: basically serve as warnings for other people to not do something.
Speaker 2: And Captain William Kidd he was one of these people
Speaker 2: because his body, after it was dead and hung, was
Speaker 2: then put in a cage and hung up and it
Speaker 2: was left or rot there for everyone to see. Everybody
Speaker 2: who went down the Tims River, the one that goes
Speaker 2: through London, so you know, don't be a pirate. Look
Speaker 2: at that guy. He was a pirate.
Speaker 1: See what happens when you mess with the world's most
Speaker 1: successful corporation. Right, yeah, So here's the thing. He's dead.
Speaker 1: No one knows how much treasure he did or did
Speaker 1: not have, and no one knows where he did or
Speaker 1: did not put it.
Speaker 2: We did know that there was about ten thousand pounds
Speaker 2: worth of treasure that was sent to pay for part
Speaker 2: of the trial and a couple other things. Right, Yes,
Speaker 2: there's something like that where it was not a lot
Speaker 2: of money. I mean, ten thousand pounds at the time
Speaker 2: is a lot of money, but it wasn't like the
Speaker 2: full pirate bounty that you would think of.
Speaker 1: Right. We do know that he did possess treasure. He
Speaker 1: did deposit some of it on Gardeneer's Island, hoping to
Speaker 1: use his knowledge of the treasure as a bargaining chip.
Speaker 1: He also he also probably puts some in other places.
Speaker 1: The thing is, no one knows exactly where that would be.
Speaker 1: No one date has found this huge treasure trove. Before
Speaker 1: he was hanged in seventeen oh one, he allegedly buried
Speaker 1: some of his loot in the Caribbean. This was the
Speaker 1: popular theory at the time, and despite the generations of
Speaker 1: treasure hunters who have attempted to verify his claims more
Speaker 1: or less in over the past three centuries. Nothing has
Speaker 1: been recovered that would equal the rumors, because the rumors
Speaker 1: are kind of like like Smoug's Horde of gold level
Speaker 1: treasure trove, you know what I mean, not just a
Speaker 1: box with some emeralds. This brings us background. So the
Speaker 1: life and times of William Kiddon. He did get treasure,
Speaker 1: we don't know how much. He put it in a
Speaker 1: few places, and then he ducked and then he died,
Speaker 1: and we don't know where those places are. So the
Speaker 1: Astore connection. Could John Jacob Astor have somehow located a
Speaker 1: piece of Kid's treasure? We will tell you the actual
Speaker 1: answer after a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 1: There's more to this story than one might think it
Speaker 1: first blush. It all traces back to a fellow named
Speaker 1: Franklin Harvey Head.
Speaker 2: Yes, this gentleman, mister Head. He was a lawyer. He
Speaker 2: was born in New York, and he worked in all over,
Speaker 2: like really all over the place, Wisconsin, California, Utah, and
Speaker 2: he ended up in Chicago. He was a bank director
Speaker 2: and president of this place called the Chicago Malleable Iron Company,
Speaker 2: another one of those awesome company titles or names that
Speaker 2: is just if it's not there, we'll take it. But
Speaker 2: in this case they added Malleable just to let you
Speaker 2: know that iron was going to be shaped and changed,
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool because again it's so funny. Sometimes
Speaker 2: we forget that shaping iron into things and then cooling
Speaker 2: it off was such a major advancement in human history.
Speaker 2: There was a big deal and we need still they
Speaker 2: needed a ton of iron to be produced.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So this guy, Franklin Harbyhead, he he's the kind of
Speaker 2: guy that has some wealth and he also likes to
Speaker 2: show it off a little bit and also socialize with
Speaker 2: other people that have some wealth.
Speaker 1: Right, he's a social climber.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly. And you know one of the things that
Speaker 2: he likes to do was write and publish these humorous
Speaker 2: tales that he would use to try and impress his
Speaker 2: wealthy friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So the kind of people that he wants
Speaker 1: to hang out with are not the novu riche there
Speaker 1: is new money, got it. They're the kind of people
Speaker 1: that he wants to hang out with are the equivalent
Speaker 1: of American aristocrats. Their idea of success is to not
Speaker 1: be associated with earning money, and indeed to look down
Speaker 1: at times upon people who do work for a living.
Speaker 1: Even if they're working for a living, is just them
Speaker 1: owning a company, you know. Let's not forget this is
Speaker 1: the country where someone once famously derided the Hilton family
Speaker 1: by saying, oh, the Hiltons are they still letting rooms
Speaker 1: to people? And for many of us listening, of course,
Speaker 1: that is that is a surreal and cartoonish concept that
Speaker 1: you would be condescending to someone for being good at something.
Speaker 1: But this was the case. These were the sorts of
Speaker 1: groups with whom had aspired to be associated. And you
Speaker 1: can see why he is a person between two worlds
Speaker 1: because he still has to work for a living. The shame, right,
Speaker 1: the ignomy.
Speaker 2: And just the last the thing that's most important in
Speaker 2: order to feel as though he's included with those groups
Speaker 2: the way been talking about here, it's very important to
Speaker 2: note that the stories he was talking about would make
Speaker 2: reference to historical figures that those people would recognize and know,
Speaker 2: but they are made up.
Speaker 1: Or or pander a bit to his friends, I would say,
Speaker 1: more importantly, pander a bit to his friends by mentioning
Speaker 1: their ancestry or the land that their families got back when,
Speaker 1: you know, back when one of them had a job.
Speaker 1: So the most important thing that you just point out there, Matt,
Speaker 1: is that these stories which were whimsicals, satirical, they were
Speaker 1: made up. They were made them upseas and they were
Speaker 1: to quote Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quister, and they were
Speaker 1: meant to they were meant to ingratiate him within these circles.
Speaker 1: They were also not meant to be widely published outside,
Speaker 1: because you know, the more people have access to a thing,
Speaker 1: the less interesting or valuable it becomes. In this in again,
Speaker 1: in this mindset. That's not how the world should work,
Speaker 1: but that's how their mindset was functioning. We have some
Speaker 1: examples in a work of his, a work of heads
Speaker 1: called Shakespeare's Insomnia and the Causes Thereof. He claims that
Speaker 1: newly discovered correspondence between Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, an actor
Speaker 1: named William Kemp, and a money lender with a tremendously
Speaker 1: offensive name, Mordecai Shylock all show that Shakespeare had difficulty
Speaker 1: with money and marriage, and that this led to chronic insomnia,
Speaker 1: and that his chronic insomnia manifests itself in many of
Speaker 1: his works because various characters talk about sleeping or not sleeping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they need to get some rest. Finally they can
Speaker 2: be okay, yeah, fascinating and it's funny in a way.
Speaker 2: I've not read the book, but just that concept alone
Speaker 2: is humorous to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I get where he's going with it.
Speaker 1: One of his books is the actual and only source,
Speaker 1: only primary source for this story about Astor and William Kidd.
Speaker 1: And here's how it happens. So Harvey Head is having
Speaker 1: dinner with the daughter of a landscape architect named Frederick
Speaker 1: Law Olmsted, and the subject of some property in Maine
Speaker 1: comes up. And this is a place called Deer Island.
Speaker 1: Olmsted owns land there and he spent maybe like a
Speaker 1: summer there before he passed away. And based on this conversation,
Speaker 1: Head decides he's going to have a little fun. Aha.
Speaker 1: He thinks it's time for one of my classic moves,
Speaker 1: one of my in joke books. I'm gonna absolutely kill
Speaker 1: it with this crowd. What does he do?
Speaker 2: Man with the olmsteads? Okay, well, and just another little
Speaker 2: footnote here about Frederick Law Olmsted the architect who moved
Speaker 2: there to Deer Mains Deer Island. It really was so
Speaker 2: soon before his death. He ended up being put in
Speaker 2: a I guess a facility because he was on his
Speaker 2: way out almost immediately after moving there. Ended up being
Speaker 2: a little a tragic little story there about him. You
Speaker 2: can read more about in other places. But Head thought
Speaker 2: it would be hilarious if he came up with this
Speaker 2: backstory as to how one of Olmsted's I guess ancestors
Speaker 2: helped John Astor, who was who's known widely known as
Speaker 2: one of the most wealthy people in the world. All
Speaker 2: these people know who at the Astor family is, and
Speaker 2: John Astor came up with his idea of maybe here's
Speaker 2: this secret, little this tale about how your ancestor helped
Speaker 2: this guy become the wealthiest person in the world.
Speaker 1: Right he writes a book called Studies in Early American History,
Speaker 1: a notable lawsuit, and in this story. In this work
Speaker 1: he which you can read online by the way, he
Speaker 1: describes how Olmsted's descendants sued the Astor family to recover
Speaker 1: William Kidd's pirate treasure. According to this account, one of
Speaker 1: one of Astor's agents, or perhaps asked for himself. A
Speaker 1: fur trapper discovered a buried treasure chest from the pirate
Speaker 1: William Kidd on land that Olmsted's ancestors owned on Deer
Speaker 1: Isle in Maine. This trapper stole the chest, but for
Speaker 1: some reason did not know its actual value, so he
Speaker 1: sold the chest to John Jacob Aster, and it became
Speaker 1: the entire basis for the Astor family fortune in Head's
Speaker 1: account generations. Later, the Olmsteds somehow discover this theft, and
Speaker 1: they decided to sue the Astor clan for compensation, including
Speaker 1: back rent on all his Manhattan real estate that you know,
Speaker 1: because he had purchased it with his pirate treasure and
Speaker 1: the stick there, you know, you see how it's almost
Speaker 1: like an onion article. It just continues to escalate. But
Speaker 1: the book itself is full of these nods and these winks,
Speaker 1: and these tongues and these cheeks. It's full of tip
Speaker 1: offs that it is not a work of fact, including
Speaker 1: references to ancestors that don't exist, like Cod Mather Olmsted
Speaker 1: or Oliver Cromwell Olmsted, neither of whom are real.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he's just throwing Olmsted on the bottom of
Speaker 2: other important.
Speaker 1: Figures right exactly, William Shakespeare, Olmsted, etc. So maybe the
Speaker 1: biggest indicator that this story is completely fictional was that
Speaker 1: there is no lawsuit. The book mentions a lawsuit and
Speaker 1: bases itself on this lawsuit, but the lawsuit does not exist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is not a thing. It's not real at.
Speaker 2: Least, it's not written about in any papers and any
Speaker 2: ledgers and anything that has been kept over all the years.
Speaker 1: In any legal documents proceedings. It's not cited as precedent
Speaker 1: for anything. It doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: Well, and in the account of Head, there's it's a
Speaker 2: very specific claim of asking for five million dollars or
Speaker 2: the equivalent, Yeah, five million dollars roughly, or just you know,
Speaker 2: control over all of John Astor's property in Manhattan, which
Speaker 2: everyone was easier, essentially what he will work with you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it was like minus a couple cents for some
Speaker 2: other thing. I mean, it's very very specific.
Speaker 1: So this is a little bit of conspiracy busting here.
Speaker 1: This story was published in eighteen ninety two, and again
Speaker 1: it was originally known to be fiction. The Olmsted's knew
Speaker 1: it was fiction. The guy who wrote it, Head knew
Speaker 1: it was fiction. He was just funny. But the problem
Speaker 1: is that people at that time, in the late eighteen
Speaker 1: hundreds early nineteen hundreds, were very, very similar to people
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties or twenty nineteen, or we can
Speaker 1: go ahead and reach to assume people in twenty fifty
Speaker 1: They were desperate for news of the world's wealthy and
Speaker 1: had a difficult time separating fact and fiction, differentiating between
Speaker 1: you know, one news report on Facebook and in the
Speaker 1: piece of fake news on Facebook.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, and let's talk about fact checking in the
Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Or how would hundred Yeah, how would you verify?
Speaker 2: Well, just how difficult it would be to have correspondence
Speaker 2: between some like some law office somewhere else, let's say
Speaker 2: in Maine, even if you're in New York or something,
Speaker 2: just making that happen and trying to get any kind
Speaker 2: of correspondence back and forth in a timely manner to
Speaker 2: write or report on something. If let's say, in New
Speaker 2: York City or Chicago, you came upon a copy of
Speaker 2: this this work and you were unsure of it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's veracity or it's the truth behind any of the stuff.
Speaker 2: But it looks real and it's talking about people that
Speaker 2: you you know. The name sell sound familiar. It looks
Speaker 2: all familiar and who knows.
Speaker 1: Hey, that reminds me. I can't remember if I told
Speaker 1: you because we this this is the first time this
Speaker 1: week we're hanging out. I went to Maine this weekend.
Speaker 1: Oh did you mention? That?
Speaker 2: Was that the jumping off point to the other place
Speaker 2: you went?
Speaker 1: No, No, it was actually I had to go to
Speaker 1: Maine to make it back here.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, yeah it was.
Speaker 1: It was kind of sketchy. I was in Maine in
Speaker 1: an undisclosed location on a ramp for two hours or so. Whoa, yeah,
Speaker 1: because someone went wrong with the plane. That's how I
Speaker 1: ended up in Maine. I don't know if it counts.
Speaker 1: I guess I can't say I went to Maine because
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed outside of the plane. Yeah, but I'm
Speaker 1: still gonna count it, and one day I'll one day
Speaker 1: I'll walk in Maine as a freeman. But today, with
Speaker 1: this weekend, was not that weekend. So yeah, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: you're in Maine, tell me what it's like outside outside
Speaker 1: of a vehicle. I want to check it out. I here.
Speaker 1: Now is a good time to visit Maine as well,
Speaker 1: because it's not you know, snowed in and Stephen Kingy.
Speaker 2: All right, well I'll definitely.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go to Maine sometimes? Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go to Maine, Paul, Do you want to go to Maine?
Speaker 1: Paul Hollywood. Okay, he's given us a nod.
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 1: That was an enthusiastic nod. Well, yes, you're you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: It's easier now to differentiate between fact and fiction. But
Speaker 1: then it took a lot of legwork. Right. The problems
Speaker 1: starts a compound when a magazine called Liberty publishes an
Speaker 1: account of this story as though it is fact. And
Speaker 1: this is for comparison. This is the very similar to
Speaker 1: the Internet rumors about celebrities that will uh that will
Speaker 1: still make the rounds today, like what's that? What's that one?
Speaker 1: Richard gear in the Gerbil? Remember that that old chestnut?
Speaker 2: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Okay, good, because we still want this to be a
Speaker 1: family show. Yes, google it, but not on your word computer.
Speaker 1: This was presented as though it were factual when it
Speaker 1: was literally the equivalent of a mad magazine for insiders
Speaker 1: or an onion newspaper. And then it gets even worse.
Speaker 1: It gets codified into history nineteen twenty six, when a
Speaker 1: historian in California presents this story as though it is true,
Speaker 1: and everyone essentially falls for it. It's published. Not just
Speaker 1: in papers in California do they say this historian figured
Speaker 1: this out, Not just in papers in New York do
Speaker 1: they say this historians figured it out? And not just
Speaker 1: in Maine do they say this. They say it around
Speaker 1: the world, and now people continue to believe it, and
Speaker 1: you'll hear it floated as some sort of his historical conspiracy,
Speaker 1: right that that not only is it true that at
Speaker 1: the heart of every great fortune lay a great crime,
Speaker 1: but that we know the great crime of John Jacob Astro,
Speaker 1: which is stealing from pirates, and that's escape Architects.
Speaker 2: Well, there's even a I think it's a History Channel show,
Speaker 2: I don't even know if it's in production right now,
Speaker 2: called Unearthed, uh huh, where at one point they, you know,
Speaker 2: they craft this whole episode about how this guy finds
Speaker 2: out that there's a secret number of correspondence and within
Speaker 2: this book that was written by Head that basically translates
Speaker 2: or represents the coordinates to this place on Deer Island
Speaker 2: where the treasure still remains, and they apparently they go
Speaker 2: throughout the entire episode just pretending like it's real until
Speaker 2: they end up, you know, discussing at the end and
Speaker 2: finding out, oh, this was all just in historical fiction account.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, America Onearthed, that's the name. Yeah, so a
Speaker 1: bit about that genre of show, Matt, You and I
Speaker 1: have had run ins with creators of shows like this,
Speaker 1: not specifically America on Earthed. I don't want to dign them.
Speaker 1: I haven't watched the show, but I am aware of
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Uh, what we have seen is
Speaker 1: that the companies creating these shows have a propensity to
Speaker 1: prize you know, what they see as as a clickbaity headline,
Speaker 1: the broadcast equivalent thereof, over facts and investigations. So we've
Speaker 1: been in situations where and not to brag about us
Speaker 1: or anything or this show, but we've been in situations
Speaker 1: where we have just walked away from offers to collaborate
Speaker 1: these sorts of projects because we feel that they are
Speaker 1: at the very least wildly misleading. Yes, I am I
Speaker 1: being diplomatic enough. When they saw that you really are.
Speaker 2: I think. I think at the heart of it, you
Speaker 2: would say that sensationalism is paramount because it will get
Speaker 2: eyeballs on the screen on the correct channel configuration that
Speaker 2: you're looking for.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I guess, but but that leaves
Speaker 1: but that leaves people in such a lurch. You know,
Speaker 1: when when you see this kind of wackado presentation of
Speaker 1: things at the very end someone says, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like at the very end of a pharmaceutical commercial, which
Speaker 1: is a crazy thing anyway, or the very end of
Speaker 1: a car commercial where the fine print person comes in
Speaker 1: and they say, you know, the following account is based
Speaker 1: on a satirical fictional work published in the late at
Speaker 1: hundreds by Franklin Head, which has little or nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the facts of the matter. It's so great,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, that's it and I get
Speaker 1: it that it's entertainment, but it should not be entertainment
Speaker 1: disguised as you know, disguised as some sort of factual investigation.
Speaker 2: I always think about the Mermaids show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, have we mentioned that on Era? We have, right,
Speaker 1: we did.
Speaker 2: I think we did an podcast episode on it, but
Speaker 2: we definitely did a video on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, years and years back, Matt, you and I
Speaker 1: were asked to participate in something between participating something that
Speaker 1: was again wildly misleading and not a not a small
Speaker 1: bit exploitative. Someone had put out this documentary documentary that
Speaker 1: was purporting to be a documentary about the discovery of
Speaker 1: mermaids roommates have finally been discovered. They were real. Here
Speaker 1: they are, And we were asked to I think we
Speaker 1: talked about this on our Facebook group earlier. Here's where
Speaker 1: it gets crazy. As our Facebook group, we were asked
Speaker 1: to dive into, dive into this documentary and present our
Speaker 1: take on it as though it were true. We refused.
Speaker 1: This was also, I think one of the only times
Speaker 1: anyone had ever specifically asked us to do something.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, And it's also why Discovery sold the whole
Speaker 2: company because they were like Ben, Matt, Nope.
Speaker 1: Won't play ball, right, We were the mice that right
Speaker 1: in the elephant. That's that's also myth elephants don't care.
Speaker 1: Frankly I wrote that yet. So, if anything, this is
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: Virtually certain that more myths like this propagate, mass grading
Speaker 1: this fact in your day to day experiences. For your
Speaker 1: entire life, you know what I mean? There are tons
Speaker 1: of things that the equivalent of three kids in a
Speaker 1: trench coat pretending to be an adult, which I'm just
Speaker 1: that's just a great image. That's why I'm putting that
Speaker 1: in there. So the good news is that armed with
Speaker 1: this information, more and more people are not wasting time
Speaker 1: trying to trying to find some kind of William Kidd
Speaker 1: treasure in Maine instead, because even in that story, that's
Speaker 1: a weird thing about Dear Island. Even in that story
Speaker 1: the treasure is taken. But more and more people are
Speaker 1: searching for kids treasure in other places that are based
Speaker 1: on their understanding as actual voyages, and oddly enough, more
Speaker 1: and more people claim to find this treasure with each
Speaker 1: passing decade. There's a recent example which makes a lot
Speaker 1: more so, Vents from Madagascar in twenty fifteen, and the
Speaker 1: title of it get this, You're gonna love this.
Speaker 2: How many times are we going to find Captain Kid's treasure?
Speaker 1: Right? So, the first line is from New Jersey to Vietnam.
Speaker 1: There's barely a swatch of the world left untouched by
Speaker 1: the swashbuckling pirate. Captain Kid's evasive legacy. In twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: an explorer named Barry Clifford says he's discovered a sunken
Speaker 1: treasure at the bottom of the Indian Ocean off the
Speaker 1: coast of Madagascar. He found a one hundred pound silver
Speaker 1: bar with strange markings on it, and he said, this
Speaker 1: is a remnant of the pirate's wrecked ship, because he
Speaker 1: did wreck as ship in Madagascar. So the thing is
Speaker 1: that there are so many shipwrecks throughout these oceans of hours.
Speaker 1: Finding something is one thing, but then proving its providence
Speaker 1: is another, and it's more difficult, perhaps than you might think.
Speaker 1: So Kid's treasure may have been discovered. It leads us
Speaker 1: to a larger question, though, do you think that there
Speaker 1: is still buried treasure out there that remains undiscovered? Where
Speaker 1: could it be located? And I know this episode may
Speaker 1: have been a bit of a bummer because we did
Speaker 1: bust a conspiracy kind of, but this leads us to
Speaker 1: I would argue more important conspiracy for our day and age.
Speaker 1: Do you think that someone could pull off something like
Speaker 1: Franklin Head did.
Speaker 2: Ooh and like make up a story and then the
Speaker 2: modern day make everyone think it's real. Yeah, ah, yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure. Think about some of the viral videos that
Speaker 2: have occurred where it's one of these small groups of
Speaker 2: video audio video professionals that are making fake things about
Speaker 2: a bear attack or like an almost bear attack, or
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of some of the exact examples,
Speaker 2: and if you know some of these or give us
Speaker 2: a call. But there's somewhere it's been absolutely proven to
Speaker 2: be false. Oh the one there was like Justin Bieber
Speaker 2: eating a burrito like from the middle or something like that,
Speaker 2: where it became a national news story in all of
Speaker 2: these places, but it was just these guys. Somebody dressed
Speaker 2: up like Justin Bieber and ate a burrito from the
Speaker 2: center and it became a thing. I think it's probably
Speaker 2: pretty easy now because of the rapid rate that everyone
Speaker 2: wants to pick up a story and you kind of
Speaker 2: have to in order to be relevant. You've got to
Speaker 2: get it in your feed somehow. So I think it's
Speaker 2: I bet it's easier. Now.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. We should do an episode on deep fakes
Speaker 1: in general, right, yeah, yeah, So let us know what
Speaker 1: your examples are, or if you were to perpetuate a
Speaker 1: myth of this nature, what would it be and why
Speaker 1: There's one example that someone recently posted on Here's Where
Speaker 1: It Gets Crazy that I would like to read because
Speaker 1: it just sounds like a great time. You want to
Speaker 1: hear it?
Speaker 2: Yes? Please?
Speaker 1: This comes from Wayward Sun, who said, in the latest
Speaker 1: episode you fellas pose the question what mystery would you
Speaker 1: like to leave the world trolling? Of course, I want
Speaker 1: to rob a house, he says. Stay with me. I
Speaker 1: want to steal someone's entire house. Now, this would take
Speaker 1: a lot of resources, but the mechanics are pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: It would have to be a rural area where there
Speaker 1: are less neighbors and they are farther between. Wait for
Speaker 1: some poor, unsuspected family to go on a long vacation,
Speaker 1: then hire a house moving company. Of course, there would
Speaker 1: have to be planning a fluid capital to asswash the
Speaker 1: house movers from spilling the beans. Then you simply jack
Speaker 1: the house up and off we go with everything inside.
Speaker 1: The family comes home to an empty space, disbelief and
Speaker 1: hilarity ensue, and then we go down in historical anonymity
Speaker 1: as the unknown perpetrators of the greatest unsolved mystery of
Speaker 1: all times. Step aside, go Beckley Teppe.
Speaker 2: Wow, I want to say I'm on board. You're still
Speaker 2: stealing a house, even even jokingly.
Speaker 1: There, I'm on board. I'm on board if through some
Speaker 1: ridiculous series of circumstances they get their house back. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I think it's more of a troll move for
Speaker 1: the house to show to show up later all their stuff.
Speaker 2: I think it's way funnier if it's moved only slightly.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's only a couple of feet over, like beyond
Speaker 2: a gate or something. Now it's behind the gate and
Speaker 2: it used to be on the other side of the gate.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, David Kope says, break into a house and
Speaker 1: move everything over two to three inches.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: Uh. And then you know, also I had this idea too,
Speaker 1: Uh why not don't why not replace the house, don't
Speaker 1: just steal it, replace it with a nicer house.
Speaker 2: But all the stuff is still in All.
Speaker 1: The stuff is still in the house, all the same stuff.
Speaker 1: And then have one empty room. Yeah that doesn't exist
Speaker 1: in the in the old house. And in there leave
Speaker 1: leave the room absolutely blank except for a Manila envelope
Speaker 1: on the floor, and it has a VHS tape of
Speaker 1: the bearn steam Bears. Right.
Speaker 2: But see, you're just describing the Netflix revival of Queer Eye.
Speaker 2: Really just put a whole new house there.
Speaker 1: What happens? I've watched it.
Speaker 2: All your facial care products are replaced. I don't know
Speaker 2: how it works. My wife makes me watch a lot
Speaker 2: of TV.
Speaker 1: I see, I see.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying some of it.
Speaker 2: I really am.
Speaker 1: And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear your thoughts. We try to be easy
Speaker 1: to find online. Find it to the handle Conspiracy Stuff
Speaker 1: where we exist on Facebook X and YouTube, on Instagram
Speaker 1: and TikTok. We're conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 2: Show call our number. It's one eight three three st
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