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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: back to the show. My name is Matt Party on Mam.

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Speaker 1: My name is Nol. They call me Ben. We are

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Speaker 1: joined with our super guest producer today, Seth Johnson. So

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Speaker 1: will help us find a nickname or a moniker for

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Speaker 1: him if you feel so inclined. Most importantly, you are you.

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Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to know now, it's it's a fairly well

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Speaker 1: known fact here in the studio, around the office, and

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Speaker 1: so that we are animal lovers ourselves. Uh. Seth has

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Speaker 1: three dogs as he as he described them to full

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Speaker 1: owned mutts and one pug. And then Matt, you have

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Speaker 1: you have a pooch as well, right, Yes, I do

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Speaker 1: have a pooch, a full blown mutt. She's got the mutts. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And you've got several feline companions. Yeah, you know. Oddly enough,

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Speaker 1: my and and Nolan I both have have cats. You know.

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Speaker 1: I think you have a cat named Robert. Have a

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Speaker 1: single cat goes by the name Robert interchangeably with Fernando. Um.

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Speaker 1: We named him Fernando before we found out that he

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Speaker 1: actually already had a name, which was Robert, because he

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Speaker 1: has a bob tail. Get it. So we're you know,

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Speaker 1: we're not alone by any means. Our species has a

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Speaker 1: long story history with animals. They're lovable, they're dangerous. If

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Speaker 1: you're listening to this in twenty nineteen, a ton of

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Speaker 1: them are endangered. So they're dangerous and endangered. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: today we're exploring the secret stories of animals beyond well, technically,

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Speaker 1: the secrets sory of non human animals, beyond the typical, uh,

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Speaker 1: fetch Fido, you know, pet your cat kind of things.

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Speaker 1: Beyond the world of pets. We're talking about animals in

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Speaker 1: the military. And there are a lot of those that

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Speaker 1: you probably think of immediately as we're saying that, right,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to talk briefly about some of those,

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Speaker 1: but we're getting into the deeper waters where animals are

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Speaker 1: used in such unconventional ways. It gets weird very quickly.

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Speaker 1: But but first, let's let's set the stage. Here are

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Speaker 1: the facts. Animals have been used in combat roles since

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Speaker 1: time immemorial ancient times. Occasionally they would be in support roles,

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Speaker 1: other times actually weaponized. UM. While dogs and horses were

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Speaker 1: some of the first critters used in war um horses,

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Speaker 1: of course, being one of the most historical representations of

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Speaker 1: the popular images you see of war horses decked out

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Speaker 1: in armor and the like. They're only two examples of

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Speaker 1: a much wider field than you might expect. That's right,

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Speaker 1: you know, horse is a horse. Of course, they're some

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Speaker 1: of the most popular. But over the past thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: humans have used camels, donkeys, monkeys, elephants, dolphins, rats, cats, pigeons, pigs, oxen, moose,

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Speaker 1: and more. I I don't know, thank you, thank you

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Speaker 1: for saving us. There. It felt like it was about

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Speaker 1: the beat was about to drop. But we have. We

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Speaker 1: have used these two some sort of either logistical or

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Speaker 1: tactical advantage for a long, long, long long time, and honestly,

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Speaker 1: we never really stopped. Nowadays, with the with the rise

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Speaker 1: of mechanized transportation. Nowadays we see horses still around, but

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Speaker 1: not as crucial as they were to say, uh, nomadic

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Speaker 1: parties on the steps right or Napoleonic warfare. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: that means that statistically speaking, humanity's favorite non human animal

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Speaker 1: gets the gets the spotlight now, and those are dogs.

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Speaker 1: So when you think of I mean, when most people

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Speaker 1: think of a pet, statistics prove they think of dogs.

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Speaker 1: And who hasn't seen those adorable pictures of dogs of

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Speaker 1: military vests, you know, or who hasn't been at the

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Speaker 1: airport and had a tough time. Uh, try not to

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Speaker 1: pet the drug dog exactly or the I've seen several

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Speaker 1: memes of shibus with a K S some of those.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, sorry, I got one that trumps all of that. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So I saw a picture of a guy with his

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Speaker 1: dog inside. His head was inside a watermelon and it

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Speaker 1: was cut, and then he opens up the watermelon and

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Speaker 1: there's a dog inside. Yeah, just the head. There was

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Speaker 1: like a whole cut and the bottom of the watermelon,

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Speaker 1: the watermelon is surrounding the dog's head. He's very happy.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't you know? There was no no animalishment, not

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Speaker 1: not at all. But the thing is, when you look

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Speaker 1: at it, you know forever. Secondly, what am I looking at?

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Speaker 1: And then the watermelon parts and there's that it looks

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Speaker 1: like there's a dog like living inside the watermelons. The

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Speaker 1: keytes thing i've ever seen in my life. You can

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Speaker 1: weaponize that. Yeah, well that image alone, you know, the

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Speaker 1: United States military can certainly weaponize things of that nature.

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Speaker 1: But they have other ways of doing this too. There's

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Speaker 1: this thing called the the US War Dogs Association, and

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Speaker 1: they've kind of given us some some basic categories in

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Speaker 1: which or types in which dogs have been used for

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Speaker 1: military purposes right over the years. Maybe not necessarily today,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, they have seven broad categories, and we can

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Speaker 1: list through these pretty quickly. So first century, it's what

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Speaker 1: it says on the tin. These dogs worked on a

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Speaker 1: short leash and they were taught to give a series

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Speaker 1: of escalating warnings. They could growl, they could run around

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Speaker 1: like they were irritated, or of course they could bark.

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Speaker 1: And they were most useful during during the evening, when

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Speaker 1: attack from cover or from the rear was most likely. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that feels like the most traditional use of a

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Speaker 1: dog for almost guarding purposes in a way, you know wolves. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you're around a campfire or something, having a dog

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Speaker 1: that is tame and near your campsite it would be

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Speaker 1: very very beneficial. But then you've also got dogs that

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Speaker 1: are actually going to go out on patrol or scout

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Speaker 1: with with humans, and a lot of these are trained

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Speaker 1: to work in silence. These would, um, these guys would

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Speaker 1: try and detect or at least attempt to detect snipers,

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Speaker 1: any kind of other ambushes from you know, an enemy force,

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Speaker 1: but especially if you're dealing with something that you've got

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Speaker 1: not a quarantined area but an area of operation. Right, Um,

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Speaker 1: these could kind of patrol the area as well. But um,

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Speaker 1: a type of dog needs to be trained for this.

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Speaker 1: You can't just get any breed essentially, or any dog

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Speaker 1: with any disposition for this. They have to be some

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Speaker 1: of the most highly intelligent breeds, German shepherds a lot

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Speaker 1: of the time, right, or at least those are those

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Speaker 1: are attack dogs. They are definitely used as they seem

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Speaker 1: pretty versatile because they're very highly intelligent and trainable. I

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Speaker 1: imagine you just don't want a Golden Retriever for this one. No, yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: because they would make friends. Yeah, well, it's crazy too.

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Speaker 1: They've got a statistic here, and again we're getting this

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Speaker 1: from the U. S. War Dogs Association. Quote, Scout dogs

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Speaker 1: could detect the presence of enemies of two distances of

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Speaker 1: one thousand yards and that's way before any of the

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Speaker 1: human operators would notice these enemy forces and just f y.

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Speaker 1: I this is an interesting statistic that I found from

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Speaker 1: how stuff works. Actually, the cost of training a military

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Speaker 1: dog per animal is around between twenty thousand to forty

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Speaker 1: thou dollars. So this is very specialized training that goes

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Speaker 1: into being able to do these tasks and and doesn't

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Speaker 1: come cheap. So the third category there would be the messenger.

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Speaker 1: The most desired quality for a messenger dog was loyalty,

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Speaker 1: and they had to be able to work with two handlers,

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Speaker 1: like one on each side. Yeah yeah, And so that

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Speaker 1: can be a problem with some animals. When the militaries

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Speaker 1: of the world attempted to train cetaceans, they found that

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Speaker 1: they had difficulty passing like getting the dolphin or what

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Speaker 1: have you, to also be cool with the field agent

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Speaker 1: instead of just being cool with the trainer. But then

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Speaker 1: we have mind detection. Those dogs have a cool nickname.

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Speaker 1: They're called M dogs. I feel like I've met an

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Speaker 1: M dog somewhere, but it was probably at a dive bar.

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Speaker 1: For some reason, all of this is reminding me of

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Speaker 1: metal Gear Solid and the Diamond Dogs. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you guys are aware of that. Nope, Okay, it's

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Speaker 1: been a while since I played the Metal Gears the

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Speaker 1: Diamond Dogs. Yeah, that's a David Bowie reference right there,

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Speaker 1: it is. That's correct. Oh, you should never mind. There

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Speaker 1: are lots of there's a lot of games that you

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Speaker 1: guys need to play, all right, keep going. So then

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Speaker 1: there are casualty dogs. This is a more somber duty,

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Speaker 1: but this is enormously important. They're like search and rescue dogs,

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Speaker 1: but they're meant to find the bodies. You know, if

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Speaker 1: the rescue is not the rescue is not possible while

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Speaker 1: the persons alive. They are meant to pinpoint the casualties. Right.

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Speaker 1: Can we jump back to the mind dogs really fast?

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Speaker 1: I'm always open to talk about m dogs because I

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Speaker 1: feel like I glossed over some of the end party there,

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Speaker 1: because there's something you found in the research bend that

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Speaker 1: was just about how difficult that job is. Because remember,

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Speaker 1: these animals are essentially performing a job, the job of

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Speaker 1: detecting minds and other metallic and non metallic explosive devices,

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Speaker 1: while there's let's say, a gun battle occurring or explosions

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Speaker 1: happening around. Just how difficult that job is to perform

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Speaker 1: in actual combat. Oh yeah, yeah, very stressful, right, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so they m dogs, despite having one of the list names,

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Speaker 1: did not in fact do the best job just because

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Speaker 1: the circumstances were so fraught with peril. You know, the

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Speaker 1: ones I admire immensely where the tunnel dogs Vietnam, because

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Speaker 1: you know, they used to have humans as well be

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Speaker 1: tunnel rats who would drop into uh the secret Viet

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Speaker 1: Cong uh tunnels hideouts and um headquarters and that just

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Speaker 1: I don't know why that one was the one that's

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Speaker 1: terrified me. Like, if you've ever been buried alive, it's

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Speaker 1: not a pleasant experience that like you wouldn't I'm not

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Speaker 1: normally claustrophobic, but it just takes like one night in

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Speaker 1: the dirt to not want to ever do that again.

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Speaker 1: Have you seen that whole movie where I think it's Ryan,

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Speaker 1: the guy that plays Deadpool. It's like the whole movie

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Speaker 1: is him in a gonna buried alive situation. Ryan Reynolds said,

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Speaker 1: his name is that Deadpool's name? Yeah, yes it is.

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Speaker 1: But I do not recall this film. It's called bing

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Speaker 1: there you go, Yeah, it's called burying. It sounds like

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Speaker 1: a very unpleasant film. I don't know that that Ben

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Speaker 1: would enjoy it very much. I always think of that

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Speaker 1: scene in kill Bill when she's buried in the coffin

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Speaker 1: and clung her way out, and that was to me

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Speaker 1: the most visceral depiction of like what it might feel

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Speaker 1: like to be buried alive, and it is it is

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Speaker 1: not good, Yeah, to totally. I I agree with you there,

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Speaker 1: but I'm sorry. All this stuff makes me think about

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Speaker 1: docks sins and I don't know, honestly, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if they were yeah, but I I know that, Uh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if they were used in for the

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Speaker 1: purposes specifically of being a tunnel dog. But dang, that's

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Speaker 1: like you couldn't create a better version, a better chassis. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you could have put their legs a little closer together,

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Speaker 1: probably get a little more traction. They're bread to hunt

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Speaker 1: all burrowing animals that were native to that position. That's why,

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Speaker 1: despite their diminutive frame, they have a warlike belligerent demeanor. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I said it's true. It's true. Ben. Back back to

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Speaker 1: casualty dogs. Uh, it makes me think of rescue dogs.

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Speaker 1: Not not that what we think of when we think

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Speaker 1: of like getting a rescue shelter dog, but like dogs

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Speaker 1: that would rescue people from avalanches. You might have seen

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Speaker 1: cartoons where you have these St. Bernard's in like Switzerland

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Speaker 1: and like the Swiss Alpse, with these little barrels around

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Speaker 1: their neck that I think had some sort of brandy

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Speaker 1: in them that would revive like uh, passed out snow

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Speaker 1: blind traveler and poor sap that got stuck in an

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Speaker 1: avalanche as well. I always wondered if if they really

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Speaker 1: did wear those The St. Bernard neck barrel not a

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Speaker 1: real thing. It was an invention of a painter and

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Speaker 1: then it just sort of caught the public's imagination. So

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Speaker 1: apparently not a real thing. But St. Bernard's were bred

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Speaker 1: in that area of the Swiss Alps where people were.

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Speaker 1: They were used as rescue dogs in that way, but

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Speaker 1: did not have the barrel. Well, now we know St.

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Speaker 1: Bernard's no barrel tunnel dogs. I think incredibly brave explosive

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Speaker 1: detection dogs, right, that is the that is the seventh

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Speaker 1: category will see on war dogs and those are just

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Speaker 1: what they sound like. They are trained to use the

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Speaker 1: astonishing K nine scent of smell to detect explosives before

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Speaker 1: human beings could. So these these dogs are in Rock,

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan a lot of other war torn areas, and that

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Speaker 1: only factors in these seven categories, only factor and official

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Speaker 1: working dogs. So these are not those heartwarming, buzzfeedy stories

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Speaker 1: of you know, like uh, Sergeant Peppercorns or whatever, who

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Speaker 1: is a little you know, uh cocker spaniel that the

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Speaker 1: French ran into one day and now he has his

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Speaker 1: own uniform and people have to salute him and stuff.

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Speaker 1: Sergeant Peppercorns. It just I don't know, it's it's trying

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Speaker 1: to get something besides Sergeant Pepper. You know, it's beautiful

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Speaker 1: all those different you know, Peter Ning Kompoop or something

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Speaker 1: for all the always sunny fans there. But those pooches

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Speaker 1: are in arguably crucial in their own very endearing, very

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Speaker 1: sweet way. But that is not why we are here today,

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Speaker 1: is it? The reason? The other things we are talking

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Speaker 1: about today are the way animals have been used right um,

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Speaker 1: for wartime and other things. And we've got a couple

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Speaker 1: examples that will laundry list here a little bit, but

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Speaker 1: some are a little more strange than others. Did you

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Speaker 1: guys do an episode of ridiculous history on the bats?

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Speaker 1: The explosive bat idea We've done an episode on a

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Speaker 1: few of these. Actually, um, there was another one involving dolphins.

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Speaker 1: But let's start with the bats for sure, because they

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Speaker 1: were incendiary, right, that was the whole point. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: the US almost used bats loaded with napalm and something

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Speaker 1: they call Project X ray. The idea here was that

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Speaker 1: it would create a wave of fires throughout Japan conflagration

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Speaker 1: that would destroy the primary cities. However, the plan was

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Speaker 1: scrapped because not because the bats were bad at their jobs,

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Speaker 1: but because they were very good and they escaped. They

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Speaker 1: burned down a hangar in New Mexico, a military officials car,

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Speaker 1: and everyone was against it. If I'm remembering correctly. They

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Speaker 1: were just on timers as well, so it wasn't like

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Speaker 1: they could be triggered individually in some remote way. They

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Speaker 1: were released, and the ideas that they would they would

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Speaker 1: kind of roost in the eaves of these very flammable

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Speaker 1: homes as you know, like a lot of Japanese homes

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Speaker 1: paper doors and you know, all wooden frames, and the

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Speaker 1: idea was smart, Uh, they would be undetectable. People wouldn't

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Speaker 1: think anything of it, and it just didn't didn't go

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Speaker 1: as planned. But it was a pretty smart idea, and

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Speaker 1: so so they had just like like a bomb essentially

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Speaker 1: attached to it would just unsteerable. Uh yeah, untrainable. Wow,

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Speaker 1: it's grenade rules. You pull the pen and you throw,

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Speaker 1: you know. But but in this case a million bats

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Speaker 1: because it was a ton, right, it wasn't just a couple.

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Speaker 1: It was like, wow, that's insane. And then on the

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Speaker 1: flip side, the Japanese did a weird similar thing, not

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Speaker 1: involving animals, but involving balloons that they would just like

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Speaker 1: release and hopefully the winds would take them into North America.

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Speaker 1: And a few of them made it, but mainly they

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Speaker 1: did not. But this idea of just like blindly releasing

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Speaker 1: weaponry into the world is very strange to me and dangerous.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is so back to animals. They're camels

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Speaker 1: have been used as mounts and beasts of burden since

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Speaker 1: time immemorial, but they were actually used as quote unquote

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Speaker 1: suicide bombers during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. And the

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Speaker 1: problem with that terminology, of course, is that the camels

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Speaker 1: could not consent. It's still the very you know, medieval

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Speaker 1: or ancient practice of like lighting pigs on fire and

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Speaker 1: then sending them to run at the enemy. And just

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Speaker 1: remember that Soviet war in Afghanistan. It's not the whole

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Speaker 1: two thousand one and beyond war that's back in the day. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that is correct and very good point there. Dolphins super intelligent,

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Speaker 1: of course, it's no wonder militaries all around the world

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Speaker 1: would love to work with dolphins. They're great at locating minds,

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Speaker 1: they're trainable. Um, they have some behavioral issues. Real dolphin

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Speaker 1: behavior does not match maybe what you think of when

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Speaker 1: you think of Flipper or echo the dolphin I think

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Speaker 1: was the Saga Genesis game. That game was hard. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but ben, I have also seen that episode of Drunk

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Speaker 1: History nod to Dunk Controst. So you're talking about that,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about the we're adults who you're talking about

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Speaker 1: the dolphin hand. Yeah, yeah, that's a true story. So

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Speaker 1: with with with Lily, with like the researcher, Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: the language language instruction, there was some freaky dolphin actually

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Speaker 1: going on in like a flooded laboratory like dormitory kind

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Speaker 1: of situation. Right. Yeah, that's for another day. So along

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Speaker 1: with dolphins, the US Marine Mammal Program also trains sea

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Speaker 1: lions to detect enemy divers sea lionel spotted diver, and

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Speaker 1: they're supposed to attach a tracking device shaped like a

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Speaker 1: handcuff to one of the enemy's limbs. They're also trained

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Speaker 1: to locate and recover military hardware and crash victims at sea.

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Speaker 1: The US is very careful to state that these cetaceans,

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Speaker 1: you know the doll, well, these cetaceans and the sea

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Speaker 1: lions and so on are not taught to attack people.

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Speaker 1: That's what they say. They just want to put a

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Speaker 1: little handcuff like thing on your leg. That's a little inklet,

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Speaker 1: just a little tag, just want to access arise. So again,

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Speaker 1: there's there's some murkiness around there, and it's not just

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Speaker 1: due to the depth of the ocean. Will will figure

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Speaker 1: out exactly what's going on there or from some disturbing

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Speaker 1: things in that regard. But going back to the idea

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Speaker 1: of blindly releasing something, one of the most dangerous uses

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Speaker 1: of animals in warfare would be the use of insects

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Speaker 1: because that ties directly with germ warfare and the spread

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Speaker 1: of weaponized disease. Yes, there's there's an historical use of

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Speaker 1: this in Japan when that country attempted to use insects

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Speaker 1: as weapons during World War Two, and the whole idea

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Speaker 1: there was too infect the you know, military members and

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Speaker 1: people in front lines and people in all places, a

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Speaker 1: lot of places with cholera and plague that would be

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Speaker 1: carried by these insects. Essentially, like you said, ben as

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Speaker 1: germ warfare, they're just carriers for these things. Oh and

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Speaker 1: little known fact um or counter fact to this is

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Speaker 1: the US tested very similar methods on its own people

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Speaker 1: like in Florida, very poor black neighborhoods. In Savannah, Georgia,

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Speaker 1: it dropped these flea bombs, um, and it was like,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's very swampy kind of area with a

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Speaker 1: lot of potential for disease and it was really bad.

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Speaker 1: What do we what do we find then that people

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Speaker 1: actually did were confirmed killed because of some of those tests.

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Speaker 1: I believe that's correct. Yeah. Wow. In Japan also did

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Speaker 1: this as well, Like we were talking about the same thing,

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Speaker 1: dropping fleas of like inside bombs essentially. Uh, that's that

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Speaker 1: is very very intense to me. Um, It's ingenious, but

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Speaker 1: I mean is what do you call? Is it biological warfare?

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Speaker 1: And it's a real scorched earth approach to I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's really just yeah, because there's not a when

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Speaker 1: those things are deployed there there wasn't any technology inform

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Speaker 1: of like a topical treatment or something applied to friendly forces,

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Speaker 1: or in terms of course you can't steer the bugs

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Speaker 1: wants to loose. So yeah, this is brutal, it's insidious.

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Speaker 1: Let's go to something that's a bit of a lighter

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Speaker 1: note before we plunge full on into the darkness. But

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Speaker 1: let's do that after a word from our sponsor. Alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. No, you'll love this one. Birds have also

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Speaker 1: been used in warfare. Trained parents were positioned on the

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Speaker 1: Eiffel Tower during World War One. This is kind of hilarious.

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Speaker 1: There is low key hilarious. The parrots were trained to

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Speaker 1: alert people to incoming enemy aircraft. However, the parents could

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Speaker 1: not differentiate between enemy aircraft and Allied planes, so they

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Speaker 1: were just losing their freaking minds repeatedly. This is very

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Speaker 1: stressful to the humans working with them, so the birds

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Speaker 1: had to get mixed. In the Second World War, in

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Speaker 1: the American behaviorists, the famous BF Skinner devised a plan

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Speaker 1: to train pigeons to ride in missiles and guide them

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Speaker 1: to enemy ships. The plan was scrapped for a while,

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Speaker 1: but then resurrected from fifty three as project or con

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Speaker 1: Isn't that an amazing image that gets conjuring your brain?

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Speaker 1: A pigeon piloting a missile Nope, or a bomb? Don't

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Speaker 1: don't care for it. It's like doctors Strangelove. But now

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Speaker 1: it's a pigeon with the hat. Yeah, and the bombs

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Speaker 1: are coming down. The parents are like German aircraft. Don't

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Speaker 1: like it one bit. So uh so, Nolan, the in

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Speaker 1: the interest of of your sanity, will move on there too.

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Speaker 1: We are just scratching the surface here. While the initial

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Speaker 1: idea may seem unorthodox, the logic does bear up, bears up.

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Speaker 1: Oh ah man, all right, you got me on that one,

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Speaker 1: fair and square. Uh. First, some animals do naturally have

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Speaker 1: ability superior to those of humans. Technology has done a

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Speaker 1: lot to mitigate this gap in recent years, but in

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Speaker 1: some cases animals still remain the superior, most cost effective solution.

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Speaker 1: The nose of a dog is amazing, right, It's tough

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Speaker 1: to replace that. Second, Now, this is cold blooded, a

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Speaker 1: lot more so than than we like to be here,

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Speaker 1: but it's true. If something goes wrong with an operative

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Speaker 1: if it is an animal and not a human being. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's a lot less expensive to train another one of

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Speaker 1: those animals than it is to train a soldier. Now,

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Speaker 1: that is that is pretty rough to look at it

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Speaker 1: just from a war cost perspective in that way. Um,

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Speaker 1: but it's also the the pr effect of having a

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Speaker 1: lost soldier versus a you know, perhaps a lost dog. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's it's different. Let's just do lost bird. Okay, we

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Speaker 1: can all stomach that. I'm not a A lost dog

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00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 1: makes me sad. Lost bird, I'm like better off without him.

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Speaker 1: The birds, I like, don't get lost. They're too smart.

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Speaker 1: The corvette, that's I don't know. I think every every

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Speaker 1: living creature could get lost. But yeah, that's a that's

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Speaker 1: a good point. Right. So it's no wonder that animals

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Speaker 1: continue and will continue to fill various rules and multiple militaries.

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Speaker 1: But just how far does this go? And what if

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Speaker 1: there is more to the story. Here's where it gets crazy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: depending on who you ask, intelligence agencies and militaries all

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Speaker 1: across the globe are using animals in a much more

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Speaker 1: various and secretive, clandestine ways. So let's talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit ben about the Middle East and it's strange preoccupation

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Speaker 1: with animal conspiracies. So this is crazy. Yeah, this, let's

400
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Speaker 1: spend some time on this, and we have to be

401
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Speaker 1: pretty careful going into this. We and all our fellow

402
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: listeners need to realize that this bizarre, distinct sub genre

403
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Speaker 1: of a different, larger conspiracy theory does occur, as you said, Noel,

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00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 1: in the Middle East, and it is wrapped up in

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Speaker 1: I would say, more than its fair share of anti Semitism,

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Speaker 1: because we have numerous sources in the Middle East claiming

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Speaker 1: that animals are being used in top secret programs to

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Speaker 1: surveil local populations, terrorize them, and attack them. However, the

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Speaker 1: vast majority, by which I mean close to a of

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Speaker 1: these accusations are coming of from other countries in the

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Speaker 1: Middle East, directly leveled at a sing other country, which

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Speaker 1: is Israel, and occasionally the West quote unquote the West.

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Speaker 1: Can we talk about the eagle that got detained? Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there HESBLA or HASBLA affiliated TV stations is According to

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Speaker 1: a report by slate Um, they were saying that an

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Speaker 1: eagle was detained north of Beirut because it was suspected

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Speaker 1: of being an Israeli spy. Yep, there are multiple things.

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Speaker 1: We can even trace it back to. The One of

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Speaker 1: the beginning reports that made international news, let's call it

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Speaker 1: the Great Shark Wave of twenty ten ten ten, is

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Speaker 1: that like a shark Nado. It's like a shark nado

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Speaker 1: plus a like a shark nado plus one of those

423
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: monster truck rallies, uh plus jaws. Yeah, that's pretty accurate.

424
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,679
Speaker 1: Disens cool, I know, right, unless you're one of the

425
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:53,880
Speaker 1: people who gets uh wrapped up in the shark wave.

426
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: In December, there were several shark attacks off the coast

427
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: of Egypt, near near some resort towns, and people appeared

428
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: on the Egyptian media, notably one guy named Captain Mustaf Ismail,

429
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: and this captain claimed that a GPS tracking device found

430
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: in one of the sharks was not your garden variety GPS.

431
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 1: These GPS trackers are not uncommon in the world of

432
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: terrestrial biology or marine biology. But the captain said that

433
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: this was instead of a GPS device, this was a

434
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 1: steering device. It was a guiding device planted by what

435
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 1: he described as agents of Israeli intelligence. Egyptian officials attributed

436
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: the attacks to more mundane factors like the actual politicians

437
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 1: and the intelligence community of Egypt said, well, you know,

438
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: sharks normally aren't super into eating people, so we're looking

439
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: at over fishing. We're looking at maybe teaching them to

440
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: associate people with food dumping, sheep carcasses overboard, even unusually

441
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: high water temperatures. Through their credit, Egyptian scientists also weren't

442
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 1: buying it, because you see, GPS is not a remote control.

443
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:15,239
Speaker 1: But here the conspiracy match was lit, and it once that.

444
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: Once that match was lit, the story itself became what

445
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: people nowadays call lit a f Because we have several

446
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 1: more stories of these strange accusations, they just get weirder. Okay,

447
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: so let's go to the Iranian military advisor Hassan Ferusa

448
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: body Um in two thousand eighteen. When asked about some

449
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: environmentalists who are under arrest at the time, this military

450
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:45,199
Speaker 1: advisor said that they weren't your average environment lovers, your

451
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,400
Speaker 1: average tree huggers. Instead, they were representatives of Western powers

452
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 1: hiding spy lizards in uranium minds that I remember this

453
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 1: story very very distinctly. This is fantastic. He claimed that

454
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 1: the environmentalists had lizards in chameleons on their persons at

455
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: the time, and that for Rusibaldi told the Iranian Labor

456
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: News Agency quote, we found out that their skin attracts

457
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: atomic waves and that they were nuclear spies who wanted

458
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: to find out where inside the Islamic Republic of Iran

459
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: we have uranium minds and where we are engaged in

460
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: atomic activities. And there's some issues with this. Yeah, yeah, First,

461
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: atomic waves are not a real thing. It is true

462
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: that in many cases it can be illegal to be

463
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: caught with living creatures in your possession, especially if you

464
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: are smuggling them in or out of a country, But

465
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: unless it's an endangered species, it's not. It's a it's

466
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: a weird thing to charge someone with. Next, the scales

467
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: that cover lizards are called scots sat right s c

468
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: U t e S, and these scoots are made up

469
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: of two types of keratin proteins, carratin A and, in

470
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: a stunning plot twist, keratin B. Neither of these types

471
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: of protein have any special ability to detect uranium or

472
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: other radioactive materials. Furthermore, reptiles are cold blooded, so they

473
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: want to be where it is warmer. Right. Often, it's

474
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: it's a tough cell to say that there are cold

475
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 1: blood reptiles who have some sort of motivation to burrow

476
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: deep into a cold uranium mine. So overwhelmingly people outside

477
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: of Iran and outside of hero Zibaldi say this is

478
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: hot wash. See, the lizards were meant to seek out

479
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: the warmth of the neutrons coming off of the radioactive materials. Guys,

480
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: that's the whole point, right, that's the whole point. You

481
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 1: you release a chameleon in a very cold cave, it's

482
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 1: going to go directly to the uranium. It's not rocket

483
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: science being facetious, of course, but what an interesting concept.

484
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, because what do you do with them? What

485
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: do you do with the lizards after they've found the uranium?

486
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: Give them some crickets? You know what I mean? What's

487
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: the intelligence part? What's the actionable thing? I guess it

488
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: could pinpoint the location of the mind would be the idea.

489
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: So it would have to be a numbers game. Then

490
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 1: you would either drop them into suspected minds, right, or

491
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: you would drop them into everything in a region and

492
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: just hope that one of them seemed to exist, seem

493
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: to prove the supposition. Okay, all right, well what about

494
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: this if lizards feel a little too beyond the pale.

495
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 1: How about something more reasonable like squirrels. Also in Iran

496
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven, right, oh yeah, oh yeah, Iran,

497
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: and and people working for Iran captured fourteen squirrels, and

498
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: the local news agencies there uh said that these little

499
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: guys were equipped with some kind of equipment that was

500
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: meant for spying. And allegedly the squirrels had some kind

501
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: of you know, like a small device attached to them

502
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: essentially that was used for eavesdropping. So you would just

503
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: put them in a park somewhere or maybe near a

504
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: government building, and you could just wait for the squirrels

505
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: to capture whatever conversations occurring at a park bench. And honestly,

506
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: that's become sort of a trope, a cliche of this

507
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: idea of the squirrels are listening, you know what I mean,

508
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:23,959
Speaker 1: Like you see it in uh in sketch cry. That's

509
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: exactly right. It was Rick and Morty, Yes, it was

510
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 1: Rick and Morty. They traveled to an alternate universe where

511
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: uh Morty is able to hear squirrels and they have

512
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: to burned out. They basically burned out the universe to escape,

513
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: right yeah, yeah, But the conversations the squirrels have are

514
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: so clandestine and beautiful. It's so good. Yeah, it is

515
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: really good. I missed that episode. Have we talked about

516
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: the fact that we're gonna be on Harmontown? You guys? Uh,

517
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: we talked about it on social media and we talked

518
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: about I'm just really excited about it. Um, it's really

519
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: cool because we're big fans of Dan and we're gonna

520
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: be on Harmontown and Dan's gonna be on this show.

521
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 1: To assume mean we don't just irreparably burn our bridges

522
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:07,719
Speaker 1: that we're all Dan's still friends with us, We're all

523
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: still friends with him. Who knows, Maybe we'll get rode

524
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: out on a rail, hard and feathered, hopefully not hopefully

525
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: not hopefully not so Okay, maybe the idea of squirrel

526
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: spies seems a little too far into the realm of

527
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: science fiction. That's fine. I got a different pitch for you.

528
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: How about dolphins. They're super intelligent and Hamas claimed that

529
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: they arrested a dolphin that was spying for Israeli forces.

530
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: What I love about this is when you just hear

531
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: that headline, I have this picture of a grizzled dolphin

532
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: that can somehow walk and it's got its flippers and

533
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: it's it's got sunglasses on for some reason, and it's

534
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: being walked out past the cameras. They got me, what

535
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: did the dolphins sounds sound like? I don't know that.

536
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: That's it. That's it. That's okay. It's hard to get

537
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: high enough the dolphins. It's not. I thought it was

538
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: pretty I appreciate you. So the Times of Israel reported

539
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: allegations that this dolphin was outfitted with spying equipment, including

540
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 1: but not limited to cameras. Which interesting about that is

541
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:25,959
Speaker 1: that we know stuff like that has happened before, right

542
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: in real life. Uh. Now, this next one is something

543
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: that I think is safe to say none of us

544
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: saw coming. There's there's a very specific, uh sort of

545
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: narrative thread with animals spy allegations concerning vultures. Massive, massive, disgusting, creepy,

546
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:50,959
Speaker 1: gangly dangly, red face weirdo creepy vultures. Yes, yeah, from Lebanon.

547
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: In Lebanon, security officials detained a huge vulture as described

548
00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: previously by myself, with the six point five foot wingspan.

549
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: This is making me cringe inside, uh, and claim that

550
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: it was a surveillance vulture, an animal working for Israel,

551
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: because there was apparently a tracking device attached to one

552
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: of its creepy vulture feet, which means, I mean, come on,

553
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Okay, So I had this tracking device

554
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: attached to its foot. Yet again, GPS transmitter is not

555
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: some sort of magic remote control gizmo. Tel Aviv University

556
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: was tracking this bird, and in addition, this is the

557
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: weird part. In addition to having a GPS transmitter on

558
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: the bird, the bird also had tags on its wings,

559
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 1: along with an engraved metal ring on its leg that

560
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: read Tel Aviv University Israel not super secret. That's not

561
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: good spycraft. It's not as crappy a job as James Bond,

562
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: who always like is eternally day drunk and tells people

563
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: his name does and what he does? Uh is That

564
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: guy's a mess. But this bird wasn't much better if

565
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be a spy. This is not

566
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: the first time Griffin vulture, specifically because these are massive, right,

567
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 1: it's it's not the first time one of them has

568
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: been accused to be an agent of Mossade of the

569
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 1: Israeli intelligence agency in Saudi Arabia in two thousand and

570
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,320
Speaker 1: eleven one was captured, and of course local news and

571
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:28,560
Speaker 1: scuttle but began to orbit intensely around this concept of

572
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,320
Speaker 1: a quote unquote Zionist plot, and then pretty much the

573
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:36,279
Speaker 1: same thing occurred in Sudan in twenty twelve. Around this

574
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: part of the world, many people were certain that there

575
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: was a new type of superspy and it was not

576
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: a human, It was not a robot. It was a buzzard,

577
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:48,879
Speaker 1: which is strange because again, from everything we can tell,

578
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: these birds were likely being tracked as part of some

579
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:57,360
Speaker 1: biodiversity conservation project. Yes, it was for beneficial means for

580
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:01,399
Speaker 1: both the birds and for our research at least that's

581
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: that's on the face of it, right. Maybe, Look, we

582
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: can't fully discount that some of these animals weren't spying

583
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: for somebody, right, sure, because we'll never know. We never

584
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 1: got to interrogate these birds. That vulture, You never got

585
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:16,879
Speaker 1: to put it down in a room with a polygraph knoll.

586
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:18,760
Speaker 1: And as far as I know, we have no Doctor

587
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: Doolittle esque figure on our in our governments. You know,

588
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 1: that's all we need, you guys, that'd be pretty cool

589
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: for counterintelligence. A doctor Doolittle. I mean, surely there there's

590
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, is there No, there's no kind of

591
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: like there isn't there a way to communicate with dolphins

592
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: that I make that up. I made that up. We

593
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: talked about it. It was the whole hand thing. Yeah,

594
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: But I mean, like, you know, with your mind, man,

595
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 1: come on some kind of helmet, you know. I don't know.

596
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: I feel like that's also a rick and Morty thing.

597
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: But I'm just seeing image. There's the intelligence. There's the

598
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 1: lawnmower man for Aldernn esque thing, yeah, with the dogs

599
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 1: classic so and I thought that was a good one too.

600
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 1: U So we also see other birds in Turkish officials

601
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 1: claimed they captured a kestral falcon spying for you guessed it,

602
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: the state of Israel. There's a great illustration of this

603
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: alleged culprit over at tablet mag dot com. Like the

604
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: other birds, this kestral has a bunch of markers identifying

605
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 1: as a research subject, and people are thought to be

606
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: researching migratory patterns. Right. The problem is that the very

607
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,319
Speaker 1: signs that should have made it plain these birds were

608
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:36,800
Speaker 1: part of various studies were instead taken as evidence of spycraft,

609
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: and then the very next year, fisherman in Egypt suspected

610
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: a stork of being the next James Bond. So far,

611
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: so far. Astute listeners will notice the trends here that

612
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: we mentioned at the top, the country's claiming conspiracies of

613
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 1: foot in the Middle East almost universally accused one country

614
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:01,280
Speaker 1: of creating these animal spies. So it is doubtlessly true

615
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 1: that anti Semitism is informing some of these claims. If

616
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 1: it is possible to bracket that that racism and that discrimination,

617
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: and just look at the facts. Could any of these

618
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: claims about animals as spycraft and animals and war, could

619
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 1: any of them be true? We'll tackle that after a

620
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. All right, we're back. So if

621
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 1: we just look at the trends, the claims of birds

622
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: being used for spying often seem to be cases of

623
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: birds that were being tracked for science rather than some

624
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: sort of intelligence agency. Allegations of squirrels to date remain unproven.

625
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: And if you know anything about what the squirrels are

626
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: doing or talking about, please write to us right now

627
00:38:56,320 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 1: or run be safe. You can only save yourself. It's

628
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: too late, it's too late. If you're nodded, they heard you. Uh.

629
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 1: It's true that there's no solid proof for against the

630
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 1: squirrel thing. Yet, however, there are a couple of former

631
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 1: CIA agents and wildlife experts who are very skeptical about

632
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: this because they think it would be very difficult to

633
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 1: train a squirrel or yeah, and if you could, you

634
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: would have a trained squirrel, and not a squirrel that

635
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: appears to be just you're running the mill guy out there, uh,

636
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:32,280
Speaker 1: collecting food. And this all leads mainstream writers to dismiss

637
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: a lot of the wilder conspiratorial accusations. Writing for the

638
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 1: Toronto Star, journalist Gil Yarran says many animals undoubtedly serve

639
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,320
Speaker 1: in Israel's army and security services. Dogs sniff out bombs,

640
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 1: alpaca help mountaineers carry their loads, which I did not

641
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 1: know and is true and is cool. But tails about

642
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: the use of sharks, birds, rodents, or, as it has

643
00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: also been claimed, insects in the service of the military

644
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:03,320
Speaker 1: are were the fruit of imagination than hard facts. So

645
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 1: with that in mind, let's go to the facts, the crazy,

646
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: strange facts. The United States is continuing to work with

647
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 1: underwater creatures, evaluating their usefulness as spies. Remember we talked

648
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: about that two thousand ten shark wave accusation right off

649
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 1: the coast of Egypt. It turns out the back in

650
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: two thousand six, the Pentagon looked into using cybernetic sharks

651
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 1: as spies, and in the BBC reported on it. It

652
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: sounds not real. I've just gott a couch that none

653
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: of this sounds real until you see it on the

654
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:41,319
Speaker 1: BBC website based off of a declassified document. So I'm

655
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: gonna read part of this. The latest project from the

656
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: U S Defense Advanced Research Projects DARPA. As you know,

657
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 1: we we were big fans of DARKA over need to

658
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,399
Speaker 1: sound cue at this point. Really uh So they aim

659
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 1: to improve military intelligence by using a range of aquatic

660
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 1: creatures from large fish to humble single celled organisms, and

661
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: their sing them all as underwater warning systems. And here's

662
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: a quote. We're trying to understand what these organisms can

663
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 1: tell us about the presence and movements of all kinds

664
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: of underwater vehicles in the ocean. That's from Dr Lori

665
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: oh Door NATO, who's the program manager of the Persistent

666
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: Aquatic Living Sensors or PALS project. I love my underwater

667
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: pals yeah, Well, of course the Navy comes through and

668
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 1: they're saying, look, look, guys, we've said this before in

669
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: the past, We're going to say it again. We are

670
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: not trying to use any creatures of the sea to

671
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: do any kind of aquaman stuff. We're not trying to

672
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 1: have them harm the watercraft, the uh, the ships and stuff,

673
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: or to hurt the humans that are out there. We're

674
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:49,879
Speaker 1: just using them as sensors that I was gonna say,

675
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 1: why would you not train it? I guess it would

676
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: be much more difficult to train a citation to attack

677
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:04,279
Speaker 1: a specific person or scific faces like an assassin, So

678
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 1: targeting a single person rather than a a I mean

679
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: a generic type of soldier or military person. Maybe there's

680
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,240
Speaker 1: some signal that you have to give to prove your friendly.

681
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 1: But also, I'm very taken an annual video games amount

682
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 1: of very taken with the idea of a dolphin centric

683
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 1: assassin's Creed franchise. You know what I want is a

684
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 1: cephalopod centric assassin organization. Really, I mean think about it.

685
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 1: They're like super smart, they can like open doors and stuff.

686
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: Didn't you see how finding Nemo too? They only live

687
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: two years though, that's part of what And they're the

688
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:40,760
Speaker 1: closest thing we have to approve an alien intelligence. So okay,

689
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: so fix the aging problem, right, have them walk on

690
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: the lands. I really just put them in a mex situation.

691
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 1: I wrote a great sci fi story about that. I

692
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:53,759
Speaker 1: ever sent you that. Oh man, it's it's a trip.

693
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,240
Speaker 1: But let's not lose that piece of the story. Maybe

694
00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: there were not any remote controlled cybern edic shark drones,

695
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 1: which against sounds insane, off the coast of Egypt, but

696
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 1: the United States certainly wanted or wants to make them,

697
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: or did, and it's just not it's still classified. The

698
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: project was discussed that the two thousand six Ocean Sciences

699
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Honolulu, Hawaii. There

700
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:22,320
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of news about the proposal after that,

701
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: And you know, if it was just in the proposal

702
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: stage at that time, it doesn't feel like a few

703
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 1: months would be enough time to get something like that

704
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 1: in the field, right, certainly, if that was their starting position,

705
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 1: and we can't forget that people in Norway did find

706
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 1: a runaway whale spy who is very friendly, very acclimated

707
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: to humans. Yes, and you can you can read about

708
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,920
Speaker 1: that on the BBC. There are several Again, the BBC

709
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 1: has some amazing reporting on spy animals. Yeah, there must

710
00:43:55,840 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 1: be someone in there. It's like their thing, because it

711
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 1: really was a beluga whale, right, that's this is the

712
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: one we're reference referencing that had a harness on it

713
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: that specifically was uh, let me see if I can

714
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:14,360
Speaker 1: find exactly what it said. Yes, it had a harness

715
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: on it that was supposedly Russian or of Russian origin,

716
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: and it also had a go pro holder like one

717
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: of those little you know, the mounts for go pro.

718
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 1: But but there was no go Pro attached on this

719
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: beluga whale that was found. Um, it's certainly odd. But

720
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 1: but again when people spoke about it, or of the officials,

721
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:38,879
Speaker 1: the Russian officials when they chimed in, they were basically saying,

722
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: come on, guys, you think we would put one of

723
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,320
Speaker 1: our specially trained spy beluga's out there with a harness

724
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 1: that clearly is Russian by beluga, Which goes back to

725
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:52,359
Speaker 1: the birth thing, like, yeah, if it's a spy, why

726
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: does it say tel Aviv University. Yeah. Yeah, but it's

727
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: also like one of those tropes you see in like

728
00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: sci Fi movies or one of like a satellite falls

729
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: and people like it's clearly a and satellite, it's got

730
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: Russian text on it, Like would they really do that?

731
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: Maybe they would, I don't know, yeah, you know, Especially

732
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:08,839
Speaker 1: the question is did they intend to get caught? Who

733
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 1: did they want to identify this? Well, here's the crazy

734
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 1: thing it is. At least according to this reporting, there

735
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 1: was a colleague of the Russian official who had comment

736
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 1: and saying, you know, this is crazy. Come on. Of

737
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,399
Speaker 1: course it wasn't this, but they were saying they don't

738
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,759
Speaker 1: do such experiments with Belugas, specifically to have them spy,

739
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:29,239
Speaker 1: but they have. The Russian military has been capturing and

740
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,320
Speaker 1: training Belugas for quite some time. So again it's like

741
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 1: the shark thing, like if you go back four years,

742
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: then you go, oh wait, there are some programs that

743
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:43,800
Speaker 1: seem pretty similar to this. Right, So maybe the maybe

744
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: the accusations are sort of urban legends, right, maybe they're

745
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 1: they're growing from these legitimate concerns. But at this point,

746
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: it is no secret that militaries and intelligence agencies do

747
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 1: very very creepy things, and further more, tail as old

748
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: as time when people are prejudiced against a giving group.

749
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: It's not hard for them to accept even the most

750
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: ridiculous accusation. If you, for some reason hate a person

751
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 1: or a people or a group of any sort, then

752
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: your BS detection, your BS meter is all out of whack.

753
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: You'll believe anything. If you hate everyone who watches Night Court.

754
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: Then you see a study that says people who watch

755
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 1: Night Court are you know, necrophiliacs or something, You'll just

756
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 1: sort of nod to yourself and go that makes sense

757
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 1: checks out. Yeah, you know that whoever that person is

758
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:40,399
Speaker 1: that hates people who like who watch Night Court, there's

759
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: something very wrong with them. And that is the only

760
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:44,760
Speaker 1: kind of person that I hate is people who hate

761
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:46,800
Speaker 1: people who watch night The guy from night Coort just

762
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 1: pass away. Harry Anderson. Yeah, he passed away last year

763
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 1: at the age of sixty five. I read a studying

764
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: mat that people who hate people who hate Night Court

765
00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 1: actually tend to perform higher on spatial aptitude tests. Do

766
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 1: you believe that I did? You just find that somewhere?

767
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 1: Found it somewhere? Sure, so you used your your aptitude

768
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:14,240
Speaker 1: to find it a good work. So again, however, despite

769
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: the fact that we cannot, uh, we we cannot like

770
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: extract the socio political uh soil in which this occurs.

771
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:29,440
Speaker 1: We cannot extract that racism. It is true despite that

772
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: that there are clear improving cases of animals being used

773
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 1: in ways that are, like you said, Matt, similar to

774
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: the more conspiratorial claims we see floating around. We cannot

775
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: confirm whether the specifics of a certain narrative are true.

776
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: You know, like two thousand ten off the coast of

777
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:49,319
Speaker 1: Egypt there were cyber sharks. But we can point out

778
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 1: a couple of things in the news just a few

779
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:56,919
Speaker 1: days ago that yeah, just happened. They really fast. Before

780
00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 1: you even get into this, but there's some weird serendipity

781
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: occurring with this show right now, and we won't go

782
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,719
Speaker 1: into all of it. But Ben and I were going

783
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: to record this episode last week. Noel wasn't gonna be

784
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:12,320
Speaker 1: able to be here, and something came up in my

785
00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:14,800
Speaker 1: personal life where we weren't We were not able to

786
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 1: record this thing. Then over the weekend there was reporting

787
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:24,399
Speaker 1: specifically about this thing, which blew my mind. Right. Yes,

788
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:28,440
Speaker 1: according to the BBC in an article release just a

789
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 1: few days before we recorded this, the CIA finally admitted

790
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,839
Speaker 1: it used pigeons to spy on Soviet forces in an

791
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:40,880
Speaker 1: operation nicknamed or code named rather to KNA and Operation

792
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 1: to KNA, fit these pigeons with these incredibly endearing tiny

793
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 1: cameras right right on the breast area, facing down a

794
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 1: little bit right, so as the pigeon is flying, the

795
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 1: camera would automatically take photos of whatever was within line

796
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,720
Speaker 1: of sight. They didn't stop there. To KNA also trained

797
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,720
Speaker 1: ravens to deliver and retrieve objects up to forty grahams

798
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 1: from window sills of otherwise inaccessible buildings. And let's just

799
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: go really fast into the Takana pigeons with those cameras.

800
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 1: It's something so fascinating. So let's imagine that. I mean,

801
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:18,759
Speaker 1: it's the way. It's the way carrier pigeons would work.

802
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,480
Speaker 1: Back in the day. Pigeons would be taken from place

803
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 1: A with wherever you're going. Right, if you're going to

804
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:28,680
Speaker 1: be in a caravan going somewhere, you're going to another

805
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: encampment somewhere, you'd carry a pigeon that had the home

806
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,239
Speaker 1: of A. You go to place B. You release that

807
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 1: pigeon at B with a message. It carries it back

808
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 1: to its home in a right So they would do

809
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:43,800
Speaker 1: something very similar where they would train the pigeon to

810
00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: have a home in place A. Then essentially, if imagine

811
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: drawing a straight line to place B, and in between

812
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 1: those two places would be let's say a Russian facility

813
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:57,759
Speaker 1: or Soviet facility back in the during the Cold War,

814
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: in between directly in betwe mean those two places, and

815
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,719
Speaker 1: they would release them from Place B. It would fly

816
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,040
Speaker 1: over this facility, take a ton of pictures, and again

817
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: you'd release probably multiple or several of them, take a

818
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: ton of pictures as it's going back to its home,

819
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 1: capture the stuff. It was a brilliant plan and they

820
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 1: were actually doing it. What's the mechanism for taking the pictures?

821
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:21,760
Speaker 1: It's that little camera we were talking about. It's remotely

822
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 1: like they're actually timing automatic sort of like the BA bombs. Yeah,

823
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 1: it's kind of old school exactly. So if they fly

824
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 1: over something that is not worth photographing, they're still going

825
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 1: to get a bunch of shots. Right. They also had

826
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 1: and those ravens that you were talking about. Yeah, man,

827
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: so okay, they used a flashing red laser beam to

828
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: mark a target, and a special lamp was used to

829
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: sort of train the bird to come back. According to

830
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 1: the BBC article. On at least one occasion in Europe,

831
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: the CIA delivered an eavesdropping device by bird via this

832
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:03,320
Speaker 1: raven mechanism to a window, although there was no audio

833
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:05,399
Speaker 1: picked up from the target, so they got the burn

834
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:07,800
Speaker 1: to do it. It's just no one talked about anything

835
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 1: important in the room where it happened. So the CIA

836
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 1: also looked at whether migratory birds could be used to

837
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 1: detect chemical weapons. There were some sort there's they like

838
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: allude to trials where there was some kind of electric

839
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:28,800
Speaker 1: brain stimulation to guide dogs remotely, and there was a

840
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 1: project to put listening devices into a cat. Uh. This

841
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:34,360
Speaker 1: stuff got ugly real quick. But I did want to

842
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 1: end on a lighter note. And I hope this is

843
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: this lighter Are you gonna talk about? This is lighter

844
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:47,439
Speaker 1: the no tricks, no tricks. There is an incredibly adorable

845
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 1: thing that will call the Otter dossier or the Otter

846
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:55,720
Speaker 1: doss Here it is. It reads like a book report.

847
00:51:55,760 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: It's called dossier on Lutra the Otter and it Uh

848
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 1: this came out of a Freedom of Information Act request. Uh,

849
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:08,320
Speaker 1: this reads kind of like a book report by someone

850
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:12,160
Speaker 1: working in the intelligence agencies for Uncle Sam, who just

851
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:14,840
Speaker 1: really loves otters and is trying to find a reason

852
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 1: for people to use them in experiments. Lutra the otter

853
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: is a compact, powerful, intelligent animal capable of negotiating land, water,

854
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: and obstacles with great facility. And it should goes on

855
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 1: to talk about how much this person, this anonymous author

856
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: loves otters. Ah, you can read it on you can

857
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 1: read it online for free too. It's one of the

858
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:39,720
Speaker 1: more pleasant things in fault Yeah, Geo cities dot FBI.

859
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: It's like otter fan fiction. It's like fan fiction that's

860
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 1: very well put. Yeah, I've really thought you were going

861
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 1: to jump straight to Acoustic Kitty. Acoustic Kitty is the

862
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 1: harrowing tale. That's the one where they installed an implant

863
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 1: into the kitty's brain basically right, yes, very in humane,

864
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: bad times, and it didn't They were listening devices inside

865
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 1: the cat or that was the that was at least

866
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:06,800
Speaker 1: the plan to release a bunch of these cats with

867
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: listening devices physically inside them. But then they tested it

868
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:15,319
Speaker 1: one time the and the kitty cat that they put

869
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:17,799
Speaker 1: it in immediately jumped out into the road and got

870
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 1: smashed by a car. Unfortunately, the Lutra usually sleeps on

871
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,239
Speaker 1: it's bad with its arms folded, and it likes to

872
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:29,239
Speaker 1: sleep with humans. We paid someone and it has a

873
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: it's all but that man seriously. Uh And then they

874
00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:37,000
Speaker 1: say never, if possible, confine or leaving a zoo or

875
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 1: kennel an hotter which has enjoyed any human companionship or freedom. Well,

876
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: there we go. This person just was an otter, buddy.

877
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 1: Uh wow, Uh the basic you know what, I'm gonna

878
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:53,479
Speaker 1: stop reading sections of this report. If you ever feel down,

879
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:58,359
Speaker 1: go check out Dacia on Lutra and do please let

880
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:02,560
Speaker 1: us know what you think about these allegations of animal spies.

881
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 1: What we're finding is that while the timeline for a

882
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff may not match up, the pure

883
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:16,080
Speaker 1: potential of the technology is there in some cases. Right. Well, yeah,

884
00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 1: and there's now an historical declassified trail of the CIA

885
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: using animals for these means pretty pretty closely to what's

886
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:28,360
Speaker 1: being you know, suspected in a lot of places. It

887
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's true, especially the later ones. And like

888
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 1: you said, Ben, you can't divorce some of those feelings

889
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:39,359
Speaker 1: that occur in regions with the reality. It's it's tough

890
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, absolutely, and that's why we want

891
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:44,879
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Let us know what you think

892
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,040
Speaker 1: about this. Do you think there is any sand to

893
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:51,640
Speaker 1: these claims? Further More, if you had to pick an

894
00:54:51,680 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: animal that would cooperate with you in aspy ring, what

895
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: kind of animal would you pick? And why? Do you

896
00:54:57,719 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: can let us know? Yeah? I mean, I'm pretty sure

897
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 1: or at least a few of us took Honey Badger's right.

898
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely going to be an honor at this point.

899
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 1: All right, what about you? Met? I mean I would say,

900
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 1: Honey Badger. If I could have a friend Honey Badger

901
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 1: that would be on my team and do stuff. I

902
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:17,759
Speaker 1: wouldn't be on your team because he doesn't give all.

903
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,960
Speaker 1: That's the whole point. Though he wouldn't. He wouldn't g

904
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 1: a f for anything. But me, I don't think he

905
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:27,600
Speaker 1: would g af about you know, he would he would

906
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:33,320
Speaker 1: be my boy. Okay, So we would have to do

907
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: this podcast with an animal that may well attack and

908
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 1: eviscerate us, and the only thing keeping it in line

909
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 1: is that it adores you. Yeah, I'd be like, yo,

910
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 1: stop man, it goes for the giblets first, right right,

911
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:53,960
Speaker 1: I mean it until it's got him. So, so uh, yeah,

912
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 1: we want to know what you think. You can find

913
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:57,320
Speaker 1: us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter, you

914
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:00,320
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram. Meet our favorite part of

915
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:03,200
Speaker 1: the show, your fellow listeners on our Facebook page. Here's

916
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:05,160
Speaker 1: where it gets crazy. If you don't want any of that,

917
00:56:05,239 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: you can hit us up on the social needs, uh,

918
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:10,680
Speaker 1: the Instagram or we are conspiracy stuff show. I am

919
00:56:10,760 --> 00:56:14,080
Speaker 1: personally at how Now Noel Brown. You can find me

920
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 1: at ben Bullin. You can also find me fpn Bullen

921
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:19,400
Speaker 1: h s W on Twitter. Matt, where can they find you?

922
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:21,799
Speaker 1: All right, I'm actually going to do it this time.

923
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 1: You guys got an Instagram account that I'm going to

924
00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:29,839
Speaker 1: share and you can follow it if you want. Um,

925
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:33,800
Speaker 1: I'm officially following one person, my wife right now, so

926
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 1: I've I'm not I haven't started it yet, but it's

927
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:40,080
Speaker 1: a big moment. Yes, it is official. My Instagram account

928
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 1: is Matt Frederick m A T T F R E

929
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 1: D E R I c K Underscore, I Heart I

930
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:48,840
Speaker 1: H E A R T. That's gonna be my account,

931
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:52,840
Speaker 1: and uh, you can follow me there and I'll post

932
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:57,240
Speaker 1: stuff like you know, I'm putting this on Instagram? Is that? Okay?

933
00:56:57,719 --> 00:57:01,200
Speaker 1: Oh wow? Okay? Sure? All right with that, I'm gonna

934
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:06,799
Speaker 1: understand people are going to be thrilled. Okay, yeah, they

935
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:09,360
Speaker 1: We're gonna post it and it's real and I'm not

936
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 1: gonna check it ever, but we'll see, we'll see what happened.

937
00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:14,800
Speaker 1: I'll check it for you, Matt, Okay, but that's it.

938
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 1: That's for me. So if you don't want to do

939
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: any of that stuff, give us a call. We are

940
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 1: one eight three three std w y t K. Leave

941
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 1: a message, tell us what you think, give us suggestions

942
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 1: for another episode. Anything you want to do. Just use

943
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: your mouth voice put it into our phone system. And

944
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 1: if you don't want to do that, but you still

945
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:35,120
Speaker 1: want to talk with us, please send us an email.

946
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they

947
00:57:57,240 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 1: Don't Want You to Know is a production of I

948
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:01,640
Speaker 1: Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my

949
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

950
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,