Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know this is a compiletion episode. So every episode
Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Well, come to spookke you Week,
Speaker 1: a week where we are not really any spooky or
Speaker 1: honestly than the average things happening, because everything happening is
Speaker 1: is terrifying and like ghosts and Google's are are a
Speaker 1: lot more fun. Anyway, hang up in this podcast, don't listen,
Speaker 1: Go watch Herbert West reanimat or have some fun um.
Speaker 1: But if you decide to keep listening to podcasts for
Speaker 1: some reason, we have a bunch of spooky content for
Speaker 1: you this week. How was that? How was that? Injured? Action?
Speaker 1: Sop o bad? Yeah? Get going do your think? Yeah?
Speaker 1: My my thing? So yeah, we're doing We're doing spooky
Speaker 1: Spooky Week, which is very excited about. But yeah, every
Speaker 1: everyone I've told about Spooky Week, they're like Oh so
Speaker 1: it's just a regular week for for the show, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much, it's more fun, but it is in a
Speaker 1: few ways. It is actually gonna be more fun because
Speaker 1: the spooky spooky mind goddamn yeah, spookoky mind bedding kails
Speaker 1: actually do have do have some more fun than just
Speaker 1: the solely depressing ones. I mean, this was this was
Speaker 1: the first theme week that we all agreed upon. This
Speaker 1: was the first things like can we do something around
Speaker 1: spooky nous near Halloween? And everybody younestly said yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: this is the first theme week. Um, we have we
Speaker 1: we have. We have been promising Nut Week coming up.
Speaker 1: Eventually we're going to tease about things that made us
Speaker 1: nut or where we talk about the legumes mostly legumes. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's fair, Um, but anyway, we should we should have
Speaker 1: start off our first, our first spooky tale. Um, so
Speaker 1: I'm going I'm going to tell a very very spooky
Speaker 1: tale of a of an entire French town going going
Speaker 1: mad over the course of a single week. Yeah. Probably
Speaker 1: probably with the help of psychoactive drugs and a certain
Speaker 1: three letter agency. You know what I think we're going
Speaker 1: to get to do. Garrison Accent did somebody messages that
Speaker 1: you can't be racist against the French. They're like the
Speaker 1: British or Americans. I didn't get a new messages saying
Speaker 1: that your French accent was very racist to the French.
Speaker 1: There is a certain number. It's like the Germans. There's
Speaker 1: a certain number of genocide. It's after which people get
Speaker 1: to make fun of your country and it's not racist.
Speaker 1: And that number is let's say three. Honestly, the worst
Speaker 1: part of this story is that we're probably doing critical
Speaker 1: support for France. I mean in all honestly, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be a kind of more critical support to the CIA
Speaker 1: by the end of this one. Um yeah, that's that
Speaker 1: is the most critical support can be. So anyway, our
Speaker 1: very spooky tail begins in ninety one in a small,
Speaker 1: charming French village called Pont Saint a Spray, which is
Speaker 1: how I'm gonna say that. Yeah, there you go. Um, so,
Speaker 1: not much happened in this little, picturesque, little little town
Speaker 1: on the south side of France. You know, on the
Speaker 1: day we start, it's just like a regular summer day.
Speaker 1: People are going about their routine, going to their jobs.
Speaker 1: Kids are playing in the street, enjoying some delicious freshly
Speaker 1: baked bread. Um. But suddenly strange things began happening. Um.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to start off with some of the
Speaker 1: more mild, mild mild effects here. So on in August,
Speaker 1: first dozens, then hundreds of people began first just complaining
Speaker 1: of nausea, you know, and some people with some like
Speaker 1: stomach and abdominable pain. They're coming up less often, less often, noted,
Speaker 1: there was a few instances like vomiting and diarrhea. Um.
Speaker 1: Only about percent of people had diarrhea. That is that
Speaker 1: is a weirder, weirder thing. Yeah, that is on like
Speaker 1: a town wide basis three significant thirty Sorry, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a significant strain on the sewage of the people affected.
Speaker 1: It's just gonna be like a few hundred versus I
Speaker 1: was taking drugs with a group of friends. Third of
Speaker 1: them had diarrhea. I would say, we might need to
Speaker 1: go to a hospital this that we have taken someone
Speaker 1: that perhaps what we got was tainted. There is there
Speaker 1: is Yeah, well we'll be talking about what actually what
Speaker 1: the actual drugs being used here are going to be.
Speaker 1: But that's something where that's not an uncommon side effect.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, First, first nausea, a little a little
Speaker 1: bit of vomiting, stomach pains, cramping. Um. Hospitals began reporting
Speaker 1: people experiencing alternating warm and cold waves over their body. Uh.
Speaker 1: The British Medical Journal recalls abundant sweating and a disagreeable odor,
Speaker 1: which I'm guessing the odor is just because there's all
Speaker 1: those sweating people in the same cramped hospital room in
Speaker 1: the summer. In the summer heats. Yeah, so anyway in
Speaker 1: their French so a lot of scargo sweats. I don't
Speaker 1: want to get more messages like that. I have to stop.
Speaker 1: He's going to do it more. By the way, do
Speaker 1: we know that the diarrhea was the result of whatever
Speaker 1: substance or maybe it's just the wine ships again, we
Speaker 1: don't we there's no way to tell. So out uh,
Speaker 1: patients began complaining about weird pains and pressure around their neck,
Speaker 1: which yeah, um. And one of the one of the
Speaker 1: most reported symptoms was in insomnia, in some cases lasting
Speaker 1: several days. Uh. Quoting the British Medical Journal, h the
Speaker 1: first symptoms appeared after a latent period of six to
Speaker 1: forty eight hours. The digestive disorders quickly became worse, with
Speaker 1: burning sensations through the entire digestive tract. Some experienced sensations
Speaker 1: of burning at the anus. A state of giddiness persisted.
Speaker 1: I mean, who's not giddy when your anus is burning?
Speaker 1: Am I? Right? I fear like like this is like
Speaker 1: this is like the like the clear side that there's
Speaker 1: like some some psychoactive job going on, because like your
Speaker 1: anus is burning and yet your very born. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like that sign from that what is that from a
Speaker 1: rejected by what? What? What's the cartoonists? Like my anus
Speaker 1: is bleeding, but like you're down, you know, you're down
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah, yeah, you're you're John Millenny impression. No no, no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a John Linney impression. So that's just your
Speaker 1: poisoned millennial brain. Don Hertzfeld. Yeah great artist, Yeah, great artist.
Speaker 1: Uh So these pale and limp patients, Still quoting the
Speaker 1: British Medical Journal, these pale and limp patients showed inconspicuous
Speaker 1: trembling of the extremities, and they complained of disorders of
Speaker 1: the visual accommodation and especially being unable to read. So
Speaker 1: this this is this is the more mild. This could
Speaker 1: be a long one year. So this is for many
Speaker 1: people affected. This is where the symptoms stopped. After suffering
Speaker 1: for insomnia for a while, with you know, mild disorders
Speaker 1: of the visual accommodation um and you know, and stomach
Speaker 1: pains and like weird like neckings. After they were able
Speaker 1: to sleep, that was the sign of their recovery. Is
Speaker 1: like the ability to sleep again. African insomnia war off.
Speaker 1: But in a in around fifty of the cases reported,
Speaker 1: the effects were much more intense. Um, I'm going to
Speaker 1: continue from the from the medical journal first and then
Speaker 1: get into some of the more colorful reporting around the incident. Uh.
Speaker 1: Quoting the Medical journal again, Vivid visual hallucinations appeared, in
Speaker 1: particular themes of visions of animals and of flames. All
Speaker 1: of these visions were fleeting invariable in many of the patients.
Speaker 1: They were followed by dreamy delirium. Yeah, that's that's about right.
Speaker 1: That's actually pretty good description of like l s A LSD.
Speaker 1: Those kind of like the movies always get it wrong
Speaker 1: because you're not usually not like you're not seeing some
Speaker 1: sort of like visual like cartoon world. It's it's these
Speaker 1: kind of like fleeting impressions of visions and things in
Speaker 1: the corner of your eyes. Yeah, it's a pretty good
Speaker 1: especially on lower like it is unclear what exactly they
Speaker 1: were on because then they definitely can be the more
Speaker 1: cartoon lags. I mean, you can get full open eyed hallucination,
Speaker 1: like especially the shogun emicles will do that that I
Speaker 1: don't get it so much with like LSD L s A, say,
Speaker 1: if you want to shoot yourself that is to write
Speaker 1: some Hawaiian baby wood rows seats yea from home depot
Speaker 1: and have yourself a horrible right. So the delirium seemed
Speaker 1: to be systematized with animal hallucinations and self accusation. It's weird,
Speaker 1: weird terms from them from self accusations. Yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: think I think they're trying to get at ego death,
Speaker 1: but they don't have terms for it yet either that
Speaker 1: or that. Like sometimes you're hallucinating it like overcoming like
Speaker 1: guilt like oh I did this terrible thing or yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody's angry at me or whatever, like continuing from the
Speaker 1: Medical journal, self accusation and and it was sometimes mystical
Speaker 1: or macabre in some cases, terrifying visions were followed by fugus,
Speaker 1: which is an old um for like fugues, says fugues. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pronounced fugue. It's like it's like it's like extreme,
Speaker 1: it's extreme disassociation. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: two and two patients threw themselves out the window. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The delirium was of a confusal kind, which could be
Speaker 1: interpreted for some moments by a strong stimulation. Every attempt
Speaker 1: at restraint increased the agitation. Well, yeah, that's it restraining.
Speaker 1: I've had to restrain a number of people and it
Speaker 1: does not calm anyone down, especially especially when you're tripping hard. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a real, real bad time. Not the
Speaker 1: thing to do. In severe cases, muscular spasms appeared. The
Speaker 1: duration of these periods of delirium was varied. They lasted
Speaker 1: several hours, several hours and some patients and in others
Speaker 1: they persisted overnight. So that and then here it's it's
Speaker 1: we're gonna get a little bit darker and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna have more fun. Um. We observed four fatal cases,
Speaker 1: three men and one woman. Three of these people were
Speaker 1: old and in bad health. One of the men was
Speaker 1: only twenty five years old that had been in good
Speaker 1: health previously. They died in a muscular spasm in a
Speaker 1: state of cardiovascular collapse. I think this is probably mostly
Speaker 1: due to how the doctors were handling these patients, right,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously your your blood pressure want to can
Speaker 1: elevate when you're hallucinating, But yeah, I think it also
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the way they were
Speaker 1: being handled. Yeah, you're right. Um, the disorder has developed
Speaker 1: more quickly in children, but also left them more quickly.
Speaker 1: An interesting feature some of the cases was that the
Speaker 1: delirium it was the first sign to be noted. So
Speaker 1: it depends people come up, came up on different ways
Speaker 1: or some some of them first had a weird body feelings,
Speaker 1: some of them first started just seeing stuff. Um. One
Speaker 1: other interesting tidbit that we're not going to spend much
Speaker 1: time talking about, but like around two weeks after this
Speaker 1: initial incident, some symptoms started to reappear, either through like
Speaker 1: a secondary poison egg or it was like some kind
Speaker 1: of like acid flashback. Yeah it must because I've done it,
Speaker 1: fuckload of ascid. I've never had a flashback. Um, I
Speaker 1: did at one point. I mean I have like done
Speaker 1: some damage and so have permanent tracers. But it's not
Speaker 1: like my guess is they got I think the idea
Speaker 1: that there are like acid flashbacks that are vivid hallucinations
Speaker 1: has been pretty heavily debunked. My guesses they got redosed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I might fight you goods like it
Speaker 1: could be that it was traumatic enough that like they're
Speaker 1: having they're dealing with PTSD and kind of that that's
Speaker 1: what's happening. But I don't know, And I think I
Speaker 1: definitely have seen enough reports that would see acid flashbacks
Speaker 1: definitely actually being a thing in some cases, especially in
Speaker 1: the early days of studying these types of drugs and
Speaker 1: like the sixties, like the CIA reported a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff around acid flashbacks around the people that they tortured.
Speaker 1: But I guess it's it's tide to torture. That could
Speaker 1: just be PTSD. Stuff could be PTSD. It's also, I mean,
Speaker 1: one thing you have to know, and I don't know
Speaker 1: what kind of dose these people were getting. With the CIA,
Speaker 1: with dosed people, they were sometimes giving people doses people
Speaker 1: do not take, like you do not take that much,
Speaker 1: like hundreds or thousands or millions of yeah, ridiculous irresponsible doses. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now now we're going to get to some of
Speaker 1: the some of the more fun descriptions here which we
Speaker 1: can actually kind of like, based on our experiences, can
Speaker 1: actually kind of see like what was actually going on
Speaker 1: in these people's heads. Um, So basically we had at
Speaker 1: least dozens and dozens of people tripping very very hard. Um.
Speaker 1: The local postman was doing his rounds on his bicycle
Speaker 1: when he was suddenly overwhelmed by nausea and wild hallucinations.
Speaker 1: Quoting him, it was terrible. I had the sense, I
Speaker 1: had the sensation of shrinking and shrinking, and the fire
Speaker 1: and the serpents coiling around by arms. Yeah, that guy
Speaker 1: had some other stuff going on. Yeah, because the very
Speaker 1: first acid trip was on a bicycle when Heinrich Kaufman
Speaker 1: like made it, nosed himself. He started coming up I
Speaker 1: believe it was in Amsterdam, like riding his bicycle, which
Speaker 1: is like, well, this is lovely. Yeah, I've made something cool.
Speaker 1: Why was the postman riding a bicycle to deliver packages?
Speaker 1: And it's not to I mean that, I'm sorry. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the maleman fell off his bike and was taken to
Speaker 1: the taking into a hospital in a nearby town. He
Speaker 1: was putting a straight jacket and he shared a room
Speaker 1: with three teenagers who were also tripping, and the teenagers
Speaker 1: were changed to their beds to keep them under control. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's how it sounds horrible. Flashbacks to this, to
Speaker 1: being chained to a bed tripping. Yeah, some of my
Speaker 1: friends trying to get out the window. They were thrashing wildly, screaming,
Speaker 1: and the sound of the metal beds and jumping up
Speaker 1: and down. The noise was terrible. I would prefer I
Speaker 1: would prefer to die then go through that again, which terrible.
Speaker 1: This sounds like like the worst acid trip you could
Speaker 1: go off. That sounds like about the worst way you
Speaker 1: could have a trip go It sounds awful. So back
Speaker 1: in the French town, a little girl screamed as she
Speaker 1: was being chased by man eating tigers. A woman sobbed
Speaker 1: about how her children had been ground did too, sausages?
Speaker 1: Oh great? And specific a large bed founded off terrific
Speaker 1: beasts by smashing this furniture and using the wood as weapons.
Speaker 1: Good for you, buddy, Good for you. Husband and wife
Speaker 1: right around chasing each other with knives. Again, probably something
Speaker 1: else going on there. My guesses we're not just talking
Speaker 1: the acid and that because I have again been on
Speaker 1: acid a lot around knives and other weapons. I have
Speaker 1: never chased someone. I've never chased someone around with knives
Speaker 1: like a couple who was on the verge of a
Speaker 1: knife chick. I think I think the important part here
Speaker 1: is that like in this French town, like acid wasn't
Speaker 1: a thing yet, Like like like lucinogenic drugs weren't a
Speaker 1: thing right even like even like mushrooms weren't popular around
Speaker 1: this time, no one knew what what the hell was
Speaker 1: going on. Like they just think that they're just basically
Speaker 1: losing their minds, like they're like there's there's no other
Speaker 1: ex nation for what's happening to them. And let's just
Speaker 1: say that the most shocking thing that has come out
Speaker 1: so far as that when Robert was on acid, he
Speaker 1: wasn't chasing people with knives. It's honest, Like, depending on
Speaker 1: your acid trip, you wouldn't want to chase someone with
Speaker 1: a knife. Like it's not it's not the kind of
Speaker 1: we would we would like during this we would we
Speaker 1: would take a bunch of drugs and grab my a
Speaker 1: K forty seven and hike out into the woods and
Speaker 1: we would shoot down a fir tree and we would
Speaker 1: drag it back to a clearing and we would bury
Speaker 1: it standing up, and we would drape it in pig
Speaker 1: intestines and put a pig's heart on it, and when
Speaker 1: we cover it in gasoline and light it with firecrackers
Speaker 1: and dance around it like the pagans of old. But
Speaker 1: there was nothing aggressive about no. You. You you very
Speaker 1: rarely would want to hurt somebody on acid. And my
Speaker 1: experience like you generally generally are at least like way
Speaker 1: more compassionate in a lot of ways. Um. But if
Speaker 1: you have no idea what acid is and you're just
Speaker 1: you're in the nineteen fifties and you're losing your mind
Speaker 1: and you're seeing weird things that I can see how
Speaker 1: this would maybe cause some other types of behavior. Just
Speaker 1: think that, like, because that is angry at you, Like
Speaker 1: it's like they're not they're not dosing themselves either, like
Speaker 1: they're being dosed rights like they don't. It's very different
Speaker 1: where like you're deciding to go with a trip versus
Speaker 1: this is happening to you when you have no decision.
Speaker 1: I think for basically anyone in this position, the logical
Speaker 1: assumption would be, oh, the devil has taken over our
Speaker 1: town and our minds have we have been infested with demons?
Speaker 1: Like that's what else are you going to assume? You're
Speaker 1: not going to be like, oh, this drug that's just
Speaker 1: barely been invented and that nobody really knows about yet
Speaker 1: except for weird nerds. It must be some version of
Speaker 1: that that I've taken accidentally. No, you're going to do
Speaker 1: in your blood. So one interesting tid. But before we
Speaker 1: before we go and break um, even some of the
Speaker 1: local animals had been affected by whatever poisoned the town. Um.
Speaker 1: There there was there was one dog in particular that
Speaker 1: kept chewing on rocks until its teeth chipped away. I
Speaker 1: don't like this. And and ducks were behaving very odd. Um.
Speaker 1: It's described that they were. They were walking around erect
Speaker 1: and upright, like penguins in a line, and they're just
Speaker 1: like weird, weird behavior from ducks. Scariest thing I've heard
Speaker 1: so far. That kind of makes me want a dose
Speaker 1: our ducks scares. We are not We're not wasting acid
Speaker 1: on the ducks the lot. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things you could give ducks. We're not. We're not
Speaker 1: giving ducks assets. That's not a thing about giving ducks drugs.
Speaker 1: Is they're all monsters. That is true. They are monsters
Speaker 1: and rapists, every one of them. Yeah, all the mail ducks.
Speaker 1: So anyway, a reoccurring theme was that people were running
Speaker 1: around wildly and being very fearful of like monstery animals
Speaker 1: and encroaching flames. Um, it sounds like the ducks were
Speaker 1: having a good time doing their ministry of silly walk shit. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what all these people are bummed about.
Speaker 1: This is rad okay. So when when you first said that,
Speaker 1: I heard dogs and I was like, that is the
Speaker 1: most terrible ducks. It's like duck steady, like very upright,
Speaker 1: like penguins walking around in the line. I think ducks
Speaker 1: might enjoy it. I think dogs are a little too
Speaker 1: aware of what's going on. Grison dog. The stone thing
Speaker 1: was about the dog, Yeah, with the dog scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just don't know that the dogs enjoy because, like
Speaker 1: I've seen dogs accidentally eat large amounts of pot and
Speaker 1: whatnot and they get weird. They're they're they're pretty scared.
Speaker 1: They're they're pretty're pretty scared. Yeah. Yeah, do you know
Speaker 1: what is also very spooky? Yeah, capitalism and all of
Speaker 1: these spooky advertisements to sell things. Advertisements are also a
Speaker 1: form of mind control. Speaking of the CIA in the
Speaker 1: fifties anyway, profoundly damaging. We are back from the spooky
Speaker 1: advertised Yeah. Anyway, So I think another another reoccurring factor
Speaker 1: for why a lot of these people have very similar
Speaker 1: types of experiences around like snakes, um, which we're talking
Speaker 1: about later, and like flames is like with this many
Speaker 1: people trapping and no one knows what being is. I
Speaker 1: think it's really easy for an idea or a fear
Speaker 1: to spread from one person to another while they're tripping. Um.
Speaker 1: With like this many people, i think if someone says something,
Speaker 1: it's gonna start happening to someone else, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of kind of this like cascading effect where they're all
Speaker 1: developed these very similar fear is because it's almost like
Speaker 1: being spread like an infection. Um. So there was there
Speaker 1: was a one man convinced that red snakes were devouring
Speaker 1: his brain and he jumped out a window. Oh did
Speaker 1: he live this? He did live? Um. I'm not guessing
Speaker 1: a lot of these It's it's like France and the fifties,
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing most of these buildings are not super
Speaker 1: they're not. They're not super high up now. No, they're
Speaker 1: like fall en a foot or two. Although here we
Speaker 1: have another one. Another mad reportedly left for a window, yelling,
Speaker 1: look everyone, I'm a dragonfly, and then the men broke.
Speaker 1: The men broke both legs, but he stood up and
Speaker 1: continued running, looking rad king, sigma sigma behavior absolute. This
Speaker 1: is a new kind of man. Just drapped. Look everyone,
Speaker 1: have a dragonfly breaks both legs, he keeps running. Basically
Speaker 1: the information you've provided us, I can't say he's not
Speaker 1: a dragon. No, he is an absolute, absolute king. Good
Speaker 1: for I hope he had a great life. Yeah. Another
Speaker 1: one saw his heart escape through his feet and beseeched
Speaker 1: the doctor to try to put it back into place.
Speaker 1: You don't want to have that happen. That doesn't sound fun.
Speaker 1: You want to keep that somewhere around the middle of
Speaker 1: your body. Someone sprinted down the lane, claiming that he
Speaker 1: was being chased by bandits with donkey ears. A nearby river,
Speaker 1: a man was convinced that he was a circus tight
Speaker 1: rope walker and attempted to balance his way across the
Speaker 1: cables of a suspension bridge. How do you know it
Speaker 1: doesn't say? The reportant to not tell you he's not
Speaker 1: in the death report. Yeah he's. And therefore another another
Speaker 1: person did try to die in the river. He tried
Speaker 1: to jump into the river, only to be saved by
Speaker 1: his friends, and he was screaming, I am dead, I
Speaker 1: am dead, and my head is made of copper, and
Speaker 1: I have snakes in my stomach and they are burning me.
Speaker 1: It's such a weird description of like tripping and saying
Speaker 1: like my head is made of copper. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of like what was going on, what, like what
Speaker 1: what series of events did did he spiral down in
Speaker 1: his brain to have that sentence I did? I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure. It's it's it's definitely. I can definitely see
Speaker 1: it happening. I just I just can. I'm trying to think,
Speaker 1: like we're exactly what would happen to get to that point.
Speaker 1: It's really really interesting. I think some of these are
Speaker 1: hard because again it's like these people just think literally
Speaker 1: think they're going insane or that like this stuff is
Speaker 1: just actually happening to them, like you were like when
Speaker 1: when you're tripping on acid, you are already kind of
Speaker 1: have the feeling that there is moments where you feel
Speaker 1: like this is like this is like never gonna end,
Speaker 1: even though even though you know, you know you're on acid,
Speaker 1: these people don't know that, right, Like these people don't
Speaker 1: have the reascernce like no, I took acid, I'm on
Speaker 1: a drug. This is gonna be over eight hours. They
Speaker 1: think this is gonna last forever, right like they think
Speaker 1: this this is just the world now, like this is
Speaker 1: just one of those Rubert Anton Wilson, who is a
Speaker 1: thinker I enjoy a lot, writes a lot about how
Speaker 1: to calm people down when they've taken too much, and
Speaker 1: most of his advices around talking about like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: how long ago did you take it? Hey, well that
Speaker 1: the good news is that this is going to end here.
Speaker 1: You know, it's only gonna last this long, like you're
Speaker 1: you're through this point. Oh, this is the this is
Speaker 1: the second hour, freakies, and by the third hour you'll
Speaker 1: be fine again and enjoying it Like it's all about
Speaker 1: making keeping in people's minds like this is going to pass.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you're right, like this is the fucking worst
Speaker 1: way to take drugs, alright. So local newspapers, uh and
Speaker 1: also like in national newspapers described described this as a
Speaker 1: among the stricken, delirium rose patients thrash wildly on their beds,
Speaker 1: screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their bodies, people
Speaker 1: throwing themselves from rooftops, men and women throwing their clothes
Speaker 1: off and running in the streets naked, and children complaining
Speaker 1: their stomachs were infested with coils and snakes, Which I
Speaker 1: mean half of that sounds like, yeah, that's like a
Speaker 1: normal good time just running around the streets naked on acid.
Speaker 1: Other and I was like, yeah, that that doesn't seem
Speaker 1: pleasant with coils and snakes in your stomach, but also
Speaker 1: like flowers blossoming fund your body. I can, I can,
Speaker 1: I can understand that kind of sensation. Um. But like
Speaker 1: it definitely, it definitely wasn't all horrible and the night
Speaker 1: like nightmares we we were. We already mentioned the giddy
Speaker 1: people with burning anuses, um, but for like the full
Speaker 1: on tripping folks. According to the New York Times, there's
Speaker 1: reports of people like hearing heavenly choruses and seeing you know,
Speaker 1: bright colors. The world look beautiful to them. Um. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the head of the farming co op wrote hundreds of
Speaker 1: pages of like enlightened tripping poetry. That that guy must
Speaker 1: be because knowing nothing, he starts tripping, not knowing he's tripped.
Speaker 1: It's just like time to make some fucking art. You
Speaker 1: know what. This head state is good for writing some ship.
Speaker 1: He just went to his cabinets wrote poetry. That's fucking awesome.
Speaker 1: That's a guy. I'll bet he handled just everything that
Speaker 1: life through it. Well, like that says a lot about
Speaker 1: you when you're like, oh, demons have infiltrated my brain.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna hang out in my cabin and
Speaker 1: write some poems hundreds of pages. Wow, like I could.
Speaker 1: I could hardly write ship on acid. I cannot imagine
Speaker 1: trying to write poetry. I've done a lot of creative
Speaker 1: stuff on acid. Creative stuff. Yeah, I just feel like specifically,
Speaker 1: like weeding and typing can can be hard at certain points.
Speaker 1: You know, if if you're like coming down that it
Speaker 1: can be easier, but really good for like writing. It's
Speaker 1: good for ideas that you later can flesh out into writing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so unfortunately, you know, because this was you know,
Speaker 1: no one who was going on. Many people were taken
Speaker 1: to local asylums in straight jackets and tied onto beds,
Speaker 1: making things undoubtedly worse for people tripping. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things I can't even be angry at them because
Speaker 1: like they don't know what's going you know, like you
Speaker 1: have no idea what's going on the whole. Like every
Speaker 1: attemptant restraint increased the agitation line. It's like horrifying from
Speaker 1: the concept of like you're tripping, you you you do,
Speaker 1: you don't know what's going on, and people are tying
Speaker 1: you down to beds, making you feel like you're even
Speaker 1: more stuck in this permanent seat of delirium. It's just
Speaker 1: it just it is the worst nightmare. Yeah, all of
Speaker 1: this is horrible. Yeah, the mayor of the town said,
Speaker 1: like I've seen healthy men and women suddenly become terrorized,
Speaker 1: ripping in their bed sheets, hiding themselves beneath their blankets
Speaker 1: to escape their hallucinations. So yeah, it's it's if you,
Speaker 1: if you, if you don't know what's going on, pretty
Speaker 1: pretty pretty scary, except for the poetry guy. Good for him, Yeah,
Speaker 1: good for him. Um. Yeah. So by by the time
Speaker 1: the effects had subsided for everyone affected, which is around
Speaker 1: like a few days after the initial reported like nausea,
Speaker 1: like you know not it didn't affect everyone at the
Speaker 1: same time. You know, some people got dosed later on.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's unclear what what exactly because it's of
Speaker 1: the fifties, we didn't have a great idea of the
Speaker 1: exact timeline of events of like when the first effects
Speaker 1: were felt, and like how all the spaced out. But
Speaker 1: this whole instant arrassed lasted around like a few days
Speaker 1: for like everyone, everyone totaled. UM. It was supported that
Speaker 1: anywhere between like three hundred and five hundred people had
Speaker 1: felt the effects UM, you know, around fifty feeling very
Speaker 1: very extreme like open eye like hallucinations of objects that
Speaker 1: aren't even there, like like very extreme hallucinations. UM. And
Speaker 1: and four people did die in connection to the poisoning
Speaker 1: UM at least where people died. It's again it's unclear
Speaker 1: for exact numbers for a lot of this stuff. UM.
Speaker 1: An investigation into the sudden outbreak of the madness was
Speaker 1: probably underway. Town officials wanted to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of this as quickly as possible. Do you want to
Speaker 1: figure out what was happening? Yea, UM, and the blame
Speaker 1: fell onto a single batch of bread what so among
Speaker 1: the common denominator among those affected that they all allegedly
Speaker 1: consumed bread from one specific baker he was accused of
Speaker 1: using er got contaminated rye flower, and he was arrested
Speaker 1: and a temporarily imprisoned. Um. Also, a nearby miller that
Speaker 1: he got the flower from was also arrested and given
Speaker 1: some of the blame Um. The funny part is that
Speaker 1: around this time, the French government had a very top
Speaker 1: down grain distribution system that originally controlled everything about where
Speaker 1: the grains were milled, where they were sent, and what
Speaker 1: bakers could use which flower, so bakers had no choice
Speaker 1: and what type of flower to use or what kind
Speaker 1: of a grain they could use in baking. It was
Speaker 1: all decided by other people. Is like real big deal
Speaker 1: and pretty pretty pretty important. Yeah, for the record, just
Speaker 1: like air got poisoning. There are a lot of cases
Speaker 1: of like different like dancing manias and whatnot in like
Speaker 1: the mid Evil in medieval Europe, or like whole towns
Speaker 1: will be well, everyone will start like dancing or like hallucinating,
Speaker 1: and you know they always came down as like these
Speaker 1: people assumed apocryphal of stories about like demon possessions or whatnot.
Speaker 1: And now a lot of the suspicions like oh yeah
Speaker 1: some arra had gotten Yeah it was it was just
Speaker 1: kind of tripping about poisoning. It seems like one of
Speaker 1: the rougher trips to go on. It's not super clean,
Speaker 1: it's no. I mean I've done L s A, which
Speaker 1: I think is similar similar to Yeah, they're tripp to
Speaker 1: means that are like really rough and it's I would
Speaker 1: not don't don't do L s A. No Hawaiian baby
Speaker 1: wood roase seeds. For if you're going to take L
Speaker 1: s A, than actually like synthesizing, which is a felonate um.
Speaker 1: But you can just buy Hawaiian baby wood roase seeds
Speaker 1: and eat them and you will have maybe the worst
Speaker 1: trip of your life. Great advice from the from the
Speaker 1: pod um. So yeah, on on on on the on
Speaker 1: the On the raw and ergot topic, the past growing
Speaker 1: season was especially wet and ergot fun guy did grow
Speaker 1: across the country's rye fields. UM, but the amount of
Speaker 1: ergot on the rye and the amount of rye used
Speaker 1: in baking was thought to not be enough to induce
Speaker 1: any any type of poisoning. UM. In fact that the
Speaker 1: last time or like orgot poisoning had struck France was
Speaker 1: back in was back in eighteen sixteen, so almost like
Speaker 1: a century and a half before this incident. And that
Speaker 1: was a century if it's the fifties right, little less
Speaker 1: than a century. No, so the last instant was eighteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: This was nine no, no as a century and a
Speaker 1: half ago. Um. And no other towns anything, and no
Speaker 1: other part of France was affected by anything similar to this. Um.
Speaker 1: So the Ergot thing is kind of iffy um it.
Speaker 1: But the Ergot explanation was the only thing that doctors
Speaker 1: investigators could come to would do, like you know, the
Speaker 1: their their limited knowledge around brain altering substances and just
Speaker 1: pressure from town officials to get to the bottom of
Speaker 1: this so that they had something to blame and people
Speaker 1: could move on. Um. But you know, as a result,
Speaker 1: not much evidence really backs up there backs up there
Speaker 1: got claim and a lot of experts today kind of
Speaker 1: deem it bunk um it doesn't There's and and there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of like, um, there's this thing hike key
Speaker 1: on that the Greeks would take that was like this
Speaker 1: re collucinatory thing that they think it was because they
Speaker 1: were putting grain and wine and it might have been
Speaker 1: air got poisoned, but also like people enjoyed it, and
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of debate over whether or not
Speaker 1: it could have been argot But I don't know, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know what else is There are other other
Speaker 1: theories about what it might Boy is it the c
Speaker 1: I A A where can they get to it? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make much sense that the high amounts
Speaker 1: of ergot rye would only be in one batch of
Speaker 1: grain used in a single batch of bread from just
Speaker 1: one bakery and one small town. Doesn't doesn't really make sense. Um.
Speaker 1: Other explanations um that people have come to includes like
Speaker 1: mercury poisoning and overuse of other fungicides. These have been
Speaker 1: mostly disproved. Been Yeah, that doesn't seem like mercury poisoning. No,
Speaker 1: but there is a guy who likes to drink some mercury,
Speaker 1: you know boy. So yeah. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: other theories around, like fungicides being used, but those have
Speaker 1: been kind of disproved by some people, but others still
Speaker 1: point to them as possible explanations. But but there is
Speaker 1: one other theory that we will focus on that features
Speaker 1: two of my favorite things LSD and the nineteen fifties CIA,
Speaker 1: because if you're gonna pick a c I A, they
Speaker 1: had the most fun. They had the most fun, right like,
Speaker 1: you know who else has a lot of fun? Garrison,
Speaker 1: who is also the nineteen fifties c I A whoms
Speaker 1: our sponsors, Oh really happen here is sponsored only by
Speaker 1: the fifties CIA, only the one from the fifties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you order any of our product products, they will
Speaker 1: come to your house and inject you with seven thousand
Speaker 1: hits of LSD. Hey three, Hey, that is that sounds
Speaker 1: like a great deal. Honestly, you're saving a lot of money.
Speaker 1: You are saying, that is a lot of free a
Speaker 1: lot of acid for the amount of money you're spending.
Speaker 1: You won't do more acid, that's for sure. You're that
Speaker 1: that's acid for life. You won't do it again? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you might, you probably. You won't have to do it,
Speaker 1: you won't you want to do any expenses ever again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll survive, You'll just be a very different person by
Speaker 1: the end of the Yeah, you you won't survive your
Speaker 1: body with someone at the end of that someone else
Speaker 1: will wake up. So, speaking of waking up here products
Speaker 1: so nine fifties c I A um wild time. In
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, Hank P. Albarelli is an an American
Speaker 1: writer and journalist released a book called A Terrible Mistake,
Speaker 1: which focuses on the suspicious death of a CIA scientist
Speaker 1: named Frank Olson, who worked on the CIA mind control
Speaker 1: experiments during the late forties and early fifties. While researching
Speaker 1: the book, Albarelli claims to have come across a number
Speaker 1: of old CIA and White House document referencing the pont
Speaker 1: Saint to Sprite incident, and he claims that the village
Speaker 1: was the target of a CIA experiment on the mass
Speaker 1: effects of LSD and that around the time that Frank
Speaker 1: Olsen wanted to sever his ties with the Army and CIA,
Speaker 1: Frank started talking about his participation in the experiment, which
Speaker 1: may have led to the government off in Olsen. So
Speaker 1: I know that is a lot and it is slightly
Speaker 1: more than justice speculation. We're going to get into the
Speaker 1: evidence here shortly, UM, but by now it's pretty well
Speaker 1: known that throughout the authorities fifties and sixties, both the U. S.
Speaker 1: Army and the CIA tried to use hallucinogenetic hallucinogenic drugs
Speaker 1: such as LSD as both an offensive weapon and as
Speaker 1: a way to make like psychic super soldiers in the
Speaker 1: programs like m k Ultra and k Naomi, Project Bluebird,
Speaker 1: Project Artichoke, UM, lots of watch, lots of these things
Speaker 1: were trying to find different ways of using LSD for
Speaker 1: like offensive and defensive means. UM. Some of the interest
Speaker 1: was promoted by it was was prompted by reports of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union doing experiments with drugs around the same time.
Speaker 1: Also stuff around like you know, like like like Zeo
Speaker 1: psychic powers and Hypno says. This was very popular around
Speaker 1: this time for for lots of different intelligence agencies. UM.
Speaker 1: But so albert Elli uncovered report from nineteen forty nine
Speaker 1: by the director of the Edward Arsenal which many which
Speaker 1: which was where many US government LST experiments were carried out,
Speaker 1: and this report stated that the army should do everything,
Speaker 1: everything is everything, everything possible to launch so called field
Speaker 1: experiments using this drug. And later in his to us
Speaker 1: A nine book, Albrely claims that he found references to
Speaker 1: a government document with the label RETU SPRI and f
Speaker 1: Olsen files s O SPAN slash France Operation File inclusive
Speaker 1: Olsen Intel files. Hand Carrie to Bellin, tell him to
Speaker 1: see to it that these are buried. Um, this document
Speaker 1: does exist like we we we like we we we
Speaker 1: we do have this label on on this document um,
Speaker 1: but like the actual contents of documents are are gone.
Speaker 1: But this is this is this is this is just
Speaker 1: like a label that is being referenced as so the
Speaker 1: document label references Frank Gilson and David Bellan. So. Belln
Speaker 1: was the executive director of the Rockefeller Commission, created by
Speaker 1: the White House in the mid seventies to investigate abuses
Speaker 1: carried out worldwide by the Central Intelligence Agency. So Albrey
Speaker 1: believes that the that the French town LSD incident um,
Speaker 1: which is like the pont saintist Bra which is the
Speaker 1: name of the town, and the Ethelson files mentioned in
Speaker 1: the document, would definitely show that if the document hadn't
Speaker 1: been buried, as it was said in the in the
Speaker 1: label the CIA, it would show that the CIA was
Speaker 1: experimenting on the townspeople by dosing them with what he
Speaker 1: thinks was LSD. Um. Now there is also a bit
Speaker 1: more to it than that. Um. Using Foya's he got
Speaker 1: ahold of another CIA document, a two page report from
Speaker 1: my team fifty four detailing a conversation between a CIA
Speaker 1: agent and a representative of the Sand DAWs Chemical Company.
Speaker 1: So this the San DAWs base was the place where
Speaker 1: Albert Hoffman invented LSD in ninety eight UM and it
Speaker 1: was it was it was only a few hundred kilometers
Speaker 1: away from Pont st Asprit, the town where this happened.
Speaker 1: So the chemical company was actually pretty pretty close relatively
Speaker 1: to like Europe UM and it was also the only
Speaker 1: place where LSD was being made at the time. And
Speaker 1: they were providing both the Army and the CIA with
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of acid. But you mean
Speaker 1: they're also giving it like they were also giving it
Speaker 1: to universities. They gave lots to Timothy Laria initially. They
Speaker 1: were they were, they were, they were giving it out
Speaker 1: to a lot of different universities and people, but including
Speaker 1: the US government, so the CIA. The CIA agent wrote
Speaker 1: um in this report that was like he was detailing
Speaker 1: a dinner he had with this representative of the chemical company,
Speaker 1: and he reported that after having several drinks, the scientists
Speaker 1: started talking about the Pont Saint Desprite incident. The senda's
Speaker 1: official burned out the poont Saint Aspirit secret was that
Speaker 1: it was not the bread at all, continued to send
Speaker 1: off official for weeks. The French tied up our laboratories
Speaker 1: with analysis of the bread. It was not the grain ergot,
Speaker 1: it was a die ethyl laminated Sorry, it's it's the
Speaker 1: last part of the LSD. Yeah, the die ethyl lemonide
Speaker 1: like compound. So yeah, the surgic diethyl acid is what
Speaker 1: LSD stands for. So yeah, he the sidists said that
Speaker 1: it was. It was like it was like basically an
Speaker 1: LSD like compound. Um, So that's that was the That
Speaker 1: was report detail like a dinner that a CIA agent
Speaker 1: had with this scientist, um, and that document was uncovered.
Speaker 1: That was it was from like the fifties. Now this this,
Speaker 1: this next part has a little bit less proof to
Speaker 1: it because there's no documents backing this up. But al
Speaker 1: Brelli also claims that Dirk is diggig too forward. Ci
Speaker 1: A researchers reached out to him and revealed that revealed
Speaker 1: some details of most impossible details of the method of
Speaker 1: the poisoning. They told him that the village was subjected
Speaker 1: to an air blitz of pulverized LSD Holy shit, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's fucking based, so to force it to take the
Speaker 1: substance through the air. According to the researchers, this manner
Speaker 1: of of this manner of distribution proved mostly unsuccessful, um,
Speaker 1: forcing the CIA to move onto phase two, which was
Speaker 1: contaminating local food. So apparently the if the if, if
Speaker 1: the air blitz was a thing, it didn't take super well. Um.
Speaker 1: Although actually to have Sophie bias a plane we will
Speaker 1: talk about this later, but um, the CIA did do
Speaker 1: more air blitzing um of of acid in New York City. Actually,
Speaker 1: they would ride around in cars um in like poorer
Speaker 1: and poorer more like multicultural areas, UM, shooting LSD out
Speaker 1: of the back of the car to see what would
Speaker 1: happen if people, i mean take out the racism. And
Speaker 1: that really is a dream job, just driving around cities
Speaker 1: air dosing people with acid. It random smoking cigarettes. Probably
Speaker 1: so with the conclusion drawn that it was one of
Speaker 1: the town's bakeries being the source of the poisoning, Alberrel
Speaker 1: says it was possible that LSD was put in or
Speaker 1: onto the bread. Um. So yeah, and uh. Also, lots
Speaker 1: of the scientists, lots of the scientists dispatched to investigate
Speaker 1: the poisoning after it took place, where actually from the
Speaker 1: San DAWs Chemical Company. UM. They studied the situation for
Speaker 1: like two or three weeks UM and gave the explanation
Speaker 1: that would later be kind of disproven, uh, that it
Speaker 1: was got poisoning, which they told the town officials and
Speaker 1: the British medical journal. UM. What what, What no one
Speaker 1: knew at the time was that one the existence of
Speaker 1: LSD in the first place, UM, and two that San
Speaker 1: DAWs was the company making it and giving these drugs
Speaker 1: to the U. S. Army and to the CIA. UM.
Speaker 1: And apparently apparently Albert Hoffman himself went to the town
Speaker 1: to investigate this incident. UM. So yeah. And one last
Speaker 1: thing on like the physical evidence side of things UM.
Speaker 1: Albarelli also found an undated White House document that appeared
Speaker 1: to be part of a larger file that have been
Speaker 1: sent to members of the Rockefeller Commission, containing the names
Speaker 1: of two French nationals who had been secretly employed about
Speaker 1: the CIA and made direct references to the quote pont
Speaker 1: Saint Esprit incident um. Also it was linked the document
Speaker 1: linked former CIA biological warfare expert and the chief of
Speaker 1: the Fort Derek's Special Operations Division. So those are all
Speaker 1: places that they were experiencing with this similar kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Um we we we have mentioned the Rockefeller Commission a
Speaker 1: few times now for remember the names, uh, Frank Olsen,
Speaker 1: the guy one of the CIA researchers on LST, and
Speaker 1: David Bellan where they were they were they were on
Speaker 1: the label of that missing document. So but Bellin was
Speaker 1: the executive director of the White House Commission to investigate
Speaker 1: the CIA's abuses and crimes, which was called the Rockefeller Commission.
Speaker 1: It was formed by President Ford in nineteen seventy five
Speaker 1: to investigate abuse, uses, and other activities by the CIA
Speaker 1: and a few other intelligence agencies that were operating within
Speaker 1: the States. Um. So the Rockefeller Commission revealed not only
Speaker 1: like the reason why we know but I'm Kaeltra was
Speaker 1: because the Rockefeller Commission. This is this is how we
Speaker 1: know this was a thing. Um. So it not only
Speaker 1: revealed stuff about like programs around m k Ultra, but
Speaker 1: also revealed the details of the CIA dosing their own scientist,
Speaker 1: Frank Olsen with LSD and possibly killing him. Um. There's
Speaker 1: also like there's like a Netflix series about this called
Speaker 1: would Word, which I haven't. I haven't actually watched yet,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how good or accurate it is,
Speaker 1: but they did. They did make a series a few
Speaker 1: years ago about the death of Frank Olson. Um and
Speaker 1: all of the weirds got yourself surrounding both his job
Speaker 1: and and and and and his death. Um. We do
Speaker 1: love the CIA, folks, So the The commission also concluded
Speaker 1: that the head of the CIA's LSD program, doctor Sydney
Speaker 1: ghost Leap, destroyed all of the drug programs records in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three to hide the details of possibly illegal actions,
Speaker 1: and he was personally involved in the torture of Frank Olsen. UH.
Speaker 1: Twenty years after Mr Olsen's death and ten years after
Speaker 1: the LSTIC experiments were halted, a doctor Gotlieb ordered the
Speaker 1: destruction of all the records of the program, including a
Speaker 1: total of one hundred and fifty two separate files. This
Speaker 1: came shortly after other reports that that that records were
Speaker 1: being destroyed by Richard Helms that the then Director of
Speaker 1: Central Intelligence. So it's undoubterably true that the CIA was
Speaker 1: up to up to some ship involving LST around around
Speaker 1: the exact time period of this French Town incident. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's certainly not like you're not coming out of nowhere
Speaker 1: suggesting the CIA may have dosed all these people, but
Speaker 1: they set it to a bunch of folks. If they
Speaker 1: didn't do it here, they've done similar ship. And it's
Speaker 1: also it's also worth mentioning at this point that like
Speaker 1: this is like the point where the CIA is also
Speaker 1: running this like enormous heroin network out of France as
Speaker 1: like basically basically had this whole they have this deal
Speaker 1: with the French where their life Okay, so the French
Speaker 1: mob can like basically move all the heroin they want
Speaker 1: and exchange they'll like stop the communists and taking control
Speaker 1: of the point of marseilla Is And so this is
Speaker 1: this is all also going on like at the same
Speaker 1: time that they're doing the LSD stuff. It's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there's there's some historians that think the LSD theory
Speaker 1: does not hold enough water. Um Stephen Kaplan it's a
Speaker 1: US historian specializing in the French food history and the
Speaker 1: author of the two book Cursed Bread, which follows this incident.
Speaker 1: Um He says that he is I have numerous objections
Speaker 1: to this poultry evidence that this that this against the CIA.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's clinically and coherent. LSD takes effects
Speaker 1: in just a few hours, whereas the inhabitants, where the
Speaker 1: inhabitants showed symptoms only after thirty six hours or more.
Speaker 1: For the more, LSD does not cause that the digestive
Speaker 1: elements or the vegetative effects described by the townspeople. Um.
Speaker 1: And So to both those claims, I say, they're not
Speaker 1: necessarily true. Um, it's it's it's unclear how soon the
Speaker 1: delirious effects took place for some people. They were they
Speaker 1: forced effect felt Um. So the whole thing about like
Speaker 1: the effect only taking effect after thirty six hours, that's
Speaker 1: not that's not necessarily true. Um. And Also l s
Speaker 1: D can definitely have nauseating or digestive effects. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so that's that's that's not that's yeah. And and but
Speaker 1: but like there were other types of symptoms that are
Speaker 1: not common for what we think of as like modern LST. Again,
Speaker 1: this is the nineties, and we don't know what they
Speaker 1: were actually on it did it's maybe not, it may
Speaker 1: not be what we think of as like LSD. Now
Speaker 1: it could be slightly that you know that this is
Speaker 1: a whole class of psychoactive drugs. That's unclear what they
Speaker 1: were all actually being dosed with. Yeah, who the funk
Speaker 1: knows what they were being given and who the funk
Speaker 1: knows what the actual like dose amount was. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have no no idea. It's also you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's leary was the origin of the phrase that like
Speaker 1: the things that determine what happens on a trip or
Speaker 1: set setting in dose, So your mindset, where you take
Speaker 1: it and who you take it around, and the dose
Speaker 1: and the fact that these are somewhat unique symptoms could
Speaker 1: be to the fact that like other people taking ascid
Speaker 1: have never taken it this way and town without knowing
Speaker 1: what acid is like. So Kaplan's other objections revolve around
Speaker 1: like the delivery system. He says, it's absurd this idea
Speaker 1: of transmitting a very toxic drug by putting by putting
Speaker 1: it in the bread as for pulver as to get
Speaker 1: for ingestion through the air. That technology wasn't even possible
Speaker 1: at the time. Most compelling lee why would they choose
Speaker 1: the town of pont st A Spree to conduct these tests.
Speaker 1: It was half destroyed by the U. S Army during
Speaker 1: fighting with the Germans in the Second World War. It
Speaker 1: makes no sense. And and to that, I say, that
Speaker 1: makes it the perfect town for the CIA to funk
Speaker 1: with Ian. Yeah, they generally would choose to dose someone
Speaker 1: with acid because it sounded funny. Like. I think the
Speaker 1: fact that this town was already kind of like only
Speaker 1: half inhabited and half destroyed by the by the Second
Speaker 1: World War, that makes the perfect town to funk with like.
Speaker 1: And also they also the CIA and the government very
Speaker 1: much did have the means to try to distribute stuff
Speaker 1: via the air, because we can see other we can
Speaker 1: see other documents are in the time of them doing
Speaker 1: this too, specific areas of of New York City. They
Speaker 1: also tried to poison the entire New York Subway with
Speaker 1: LSD in the fifties, but that was shut down by
Speaker 1: higher ups in in the Central Intelligence. Unly, God what
Speaker 1: a time that would have been. But but cap But
Speaker 1: but Caplin isn't sure or got responsible either. Um. He
Speaker 1: says that or combination would not have worked because it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense that only one sack of grain would
Speaker 1: have been affected. Um. And he says if it was
Speaker 1: or got the the effects would have been way more widespread.
Speaker 1: He rules out LSD in the grounds and the symptoms
Speaker 1: of people suffered, although similar don't quite fit what we
Speaker 1: modernly think of the drug. Also, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: think Caplin's ever taken LSD, so I don't think talking
Speaker 1: about I think he's right about it probably not being
Speaker 1: air got, but I don't think he knows much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hell he also he also he also points out that
Speaker 1: LSD probably wouldn't have survived the fierce temperatures of the
Speaker 1: baker's oven, although Albarelli counters that it could have been
Speaker 1: that LST could have been added after the fact to
Speaker 1: the surface of the breach. You could just drop it on.
Speaker 1: You could just drop it on with like with like
Speaker 1: liquid block, whichuld also explain how the effects were so
Speaker 1: different from person to person, because one person may be
Speaker 1: having a whole drop of LSD, where somebody maybe only
Speaker 1: have like a tiny little like you know, spec of
Speaker 1: like speck of like like moist liquid. So I can
Speaker 1: explain some things, but you know, this is still pretty
Speaker 1: much a mystery. You know, It's very clear it this
Speaker 1: very much, very well could have been some kind of
Speaker 1: hidden LSD c I a experiment um or the CIA
Speaker 1: could have just been you know, interested in studying what
Speaker 1: happened in the town since they were also doing studies
Speaker 1: into psychoactives substances at the time. Um, it could be
Speaker 1: either or um. And that's where it's spooky because you'll
Speaker 1: never know. So, yes, that is that. That is the
Speaker 1: spooky incident of a French town basically thinking that they
Speaker 1: lost their minds and then you know they do. We
Speaker 1: it is a little funny. It is definitely a little funny. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it is a great example of like the worst
Speaker 1: way to trip. Yeah, that that's that's pretty high up there. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: critical support to the CIA for josing random people with acid.
Speaker 1: Always one of my favorite sets of stories. You love
Speaker 1: to see it, so yeah, tune tune in, tune in
Speaker 1: tomorrow for more spooky, spooky story and you can follow
Speaker 1: the spooky social media that poisons your brain at cam
Speaker 1: up in here pod and cool zone media which yes,
Speaker 1: Twitter will poison your brain. That is just as spooky, um,
Speaker 1: more spooky, way worse for your brain than surprise c
Speaker 1: I a acid To be honest, the acid wears off.
Speaker 1: I'm so close to clicking leaf meeting every time that
Speaker 1: that bullshit comes up. It's like, yes, I can sent
Speaker 1: the want to fucking here. All right, So we're starting
Speaker 1: with that line from Daniel's well come to spooky. It
Speaker 1: could happen here. Today. We are discussing a truly spooky topic,
Speaker 1: one that everyone is just really gonna hate. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it's we're talking about let's say, esoteric keck is um
Speaker 1: and me magic. So Shanni, my brothers and sisters come
Speaker 1: along on a ride. We read a whole book for this?
Speaker 1: Oh at least I did you read a book just
Speaker 1: for this? I would say that like all of the
Speaker 1: books I read from age nineteen to twenty two prepared me.
Speaker 1: Have that have been preparing here for that? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: books I read while I was doing psychedelics twice a week.
Speaker 1: All really, we're good background on this subject. Is you
Speaker 1: want to kick us off? I don't so. I think firstly,
Speaker 1: we're talking about we're gonna we're gonna emphasize awareness over
Speaker 1: amplification or that kind of my my goal for this
Speaker 1: is that we can all be more aware of kind
Speaker 1: of the power that images on the Internet can have
Speaker 1: over influencing the actual world. And talking about people who
Speaker 1: believe this to a ridiculous degree and how they actually
Speaker 1: have been able to institute change not only because of
Speaker 1: this belief, just because of their dedication to this practice,
Speaker 1: because it's it's because it's a thing that exists and
Speaker 1: it has had real world ramifications, and it's good to
Speaker 1: understand that that's a thing, and that also maybe we
Speaker 1: can influence the way we like us use the Internet
Speaker 1: to also maybe make good things happen as opposed to
Speaker 1: just being dooomers all the time. Um so that's kind
Speaker 1: of what I wanted to to start with, many jubs
Speaker 1: to that garrison, complete keeck with you God. Although to
Speaker 1: be fair, the past few days I have just been
Speaker 1: spamming the it could have and here a group chat
Speaker 1: with horrible nonsense surround to kick it has been the
Speaker 1: most insufferable week of my life. Horrible nonsense like paragraphs,
Speaker 1: paragraph paragraphs, walls of text so big. Any any actually
Speaker 1: safe working environment that cared about its employees would have
Speaker 1: fired you long ago. Yeah. So, I think the other
Speaker 1: thing that we should definitely mention is that any type
Speaker 1: of like occultism, mysticism, or like woo woo um has
Speaker 1: actually does have a decent history within right wing political
Speaker 1: ideas and specifically like you know, like more extreme like
Speaker 1: right wing um stuff from the past few years. Like
Speaker 1: everyone's most people know that like the modern not like
Speaker 1: the like the early Nazis had some mystical stuff going on.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more stuff going behind the scenes. A
Speaker 1: lot of their favorite authors also were like practicing occultists. Um,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is a thing that goes
Speaker 1: back awhile you can even see this to some degree
Speaker 1: with like how close Christianity is to a lot of
Speaker 1: the right wing, to a lot of like the modern
Speaker 1: right wing the States as well, a lot of what
Speaker 1: we would consider evangelical Christianity has a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that's actually very similar to occultism. They just use different
Speaker 1: terms because occultism and and like magic is taboo, But
Speaker 1: it's actually the same things. It's all like just it's interest.
Speaker 1: It's interacting with the same systems, just with different words.
Speaker 1: So like this is this is the thing that is
Speaker 1: is not it's it's not just on the internet. This
Speaker 1: is thing that's been going on for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: In particular, the past one years, we've seen a big
Speaker 1: rise in the amount of like occultism and mysticism specifically
Speaker 1: tied to politics. Yeah, and there's this. I mean, there
Speaker 1: have been a couple of articles written just recently about
Speaker 1: the fact that a lot of like the Woo Woo left,
Speaker 1: the kind of um, not really esoteric but kind of
Speaker 1: mainstream a CULTI left, like the popa CULTI left has
Speaker 1: has increasingly turned towards stuff like Q and On, And
Speaker 1: a big chunk of it is like this, this openness
Speaker 1: to like feel power in coincidences, synchronicity would be they
Speaker 1: is such. Yeah, and and just a general open mindedness
Speaker 1: to um, maybe too many things. Sure, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's you can see this on on on a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of sides because it's yeah, it's it
Speaker 1: is definitely not just the right wing, because like the
Speaker 1: biggest example of it would probably be facets of Q
Speaker 1: and On the past few years have done very similar
Speaker 1: types of things. Uh, there's a lot of other stuff
Speaker 1: going on behind the scenes, like how how Pepe operated
Speaker 1: was very similar to that, which is what we're mainly
Speaker 1: talking about today. Um, but you know, there is also
Speaker 1: stuff like this on on the left wing, whether it
Speaker 1: be like New a G type stuff that seems to
Speaker 1: kind of mostly be bullshit, but there's a you know,
Speaker 1: other other type of like like like like folk magic
Speaker 1: or like indigenous traditions that have that have I would
Speaker 1: say slightly more of uh, significantly more like there's reasonable
Speaker 1: actually stuff going on as opposed to just like New
Speaker 1: age selling books and that kind of stuff. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the things that also separates actual religion from religion
Speaker 1: that kind of has formed in this nomadic way recently
Speaker 1: is that all of this stuff, particularly what we're talking
Speaker 1: about today, formed simultaneously with political sentiment and as and
Speaker 1: and was was crafted and in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: like they state facts wrong specifically because they are trying
Speaker 1: to craft a political narrative alongside this like weird quasi
Speaker 1: spiritual things and speaking of spiritualism coming to the same
Speaker 1: kind of coming to the same and this is you know,
Speaker 1: we're all kind of anarchisty adjacent here. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that really came up around the same time
Speaker 1: as anarchism in the twentieth century was a concept called
Speaker 1: chaos magic, which was really really really tied to a
Speaker 1: lot of old really tied to a lot of like
Speaker 1: anarchist thought and anarchists kind of thinkers some of the
Speaker 1: most same as chaos magicians are like explicitly anarchists, someone
Speaker 1: like Grant Morrison. Um. Others are like Discordians which have
Speaker 1: a lot of like anarchists crossover stuff, like like Robert
Speaker 1: Enton Wilson, which kind of operates in that same ocean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he played a big role in kind of pulling me
Speaker 1: away from proto alt right style beliefs. And I think
Speaker 1: also a lot of his work was very intelligently crafted
Speaker 1: because he wrote about conspiracies, He wrote about esoteric magic,
Speaker 1: but always with a really intent eye on increasing people's
Speaker 1: defenses to this kind of stuff what we're talking about today. Um,
Speaker 1: he was very like cognizant of that, Like he wrote
Speaker 1: about conspiracy as an enthusiast, but also as someone who
Speaker 1: was trying to stop um kind of unchecked conspiratorial belief. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he went awout about that in peculiar ways, but he
Speaker 1: was an odd man. Yeah. And the reason why I've
Speaker 1: been getting more into this type of type of stuff
Speaker 1: the past year, uh increase. And the reason why I
Speaker 1: really like chaos magic as I like it as like
Speaker 1: a postmodern system of magic of looking at how basically
Speaker 1: if magic is just ideas and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how our brains can interact with the physical world. Then
Speaker 1: chaos magic introduces a lot of interesting stuff around like
Speaker 1: late stage capitalism, because it is it's explicitly tied to
Speaker 1: to like postmodern art and postmodern thought, um in the
Speaker 1: way you know, brands and marketing and specifically the Internet
Speaker 1: all affects our minds. All this stuff gets talked about
Speaker 1: charis matic a lot, and I really like look using
Speaker 1: that framework for things um and speaking of that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff specifically around the Internet, we're gonna be talking about.
Speaker 1: The first thing I want to mention is like the
Speaker 1: concept of searching for something and then you're like you're
Speaker 1: and you're gonna find it, whether that you know, Robert
Speaker 1: Enton Wilson and um, like the Illuminatious Trilogies has like
Speaker 1: and and like, and Discordianism has like twenty three and
Speaker 1: the Law of Fives. Right. I I read that book
Speaker 1: when I was twenty and I have been like seeing
Speaker 1: twenty three's repeatedly at like significant moments in my life
Speaker 1: for the last fourteen years or so. Like, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's like, once you get that kind of meme implanted
Speaker 1: in your brain, it can stick with you for forever.
Speaker 1: And and this this happens to everything. You know, this
Speaker 1: happens to This happens to everyone. Like once you learn
Speaker 1: about a new topic, the next day, you'll see it
Speaker 1: somewhere right, You'll like, you'll you'll be and it's it's
Speaker 1: in all these places that you didn't see it before.
Speaker 1: This happens all of the time with everything. This is
Speaker 1: how this is like how synchronicity works, and this is
Speaker 1: where religions come from, Yeah, throughout history. And it's because
Speaker 1: like this all has its roots in why we're very
Speaker 1: good hunters. We are patterned and we're pattern recognition, like
Speaker 1: our brains are pattern recognizing machines. That's what we're best at.
Speaker 1: And it means that we're good at spotting berries and
Speaker 1: tracking deer. And it also means that we can't stop
Speaker 1: making religions. We can and if we have one too
Speaker 1: many synchronicities, we can change the entire way we view
Speaker 1: view about the like the whole world, which can have
Speaker 1: varying degrees of effects. Sometimes it can if it's just
Speaker 1: a little bit that can maybe back tould be very helpful. Um,
Speaker 1: if you join a weird cult that does messed up stuff,
Speaker 1: then it's like, yeah, that's a problem. Yeah, sometimes it
Speaker 1: ends in burning man and sometimes it ends and burning men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: dropped the bomb. So first thing I want to kind
Speaker 1: of discuss before we get into the actual timeline of
Speaker 1: how pepcism became a thing, I want to just do
Speaker 1: a brief overview of sigils and memes um and the
Speaker 1: idea of what Like, let's let's take the original concept
Speaker 1: of the meme, which is like you know, the it's
Speaker 1: genes are genetic, memes are cultural. There's air cultural ideas
Speaker 1: that can spread like a virus um and usually memes.
Speaker 1: In the since since since the Internet has become way
Speaker 1: more popular, memes have become more tied to images, like like,
Speaker 1: memes are a much more visual thing now, whereas in
Speaker 1: the nineties they were more of just like like an
Speaker 1: idea concept, but now they have like in this extra
Speaker 1: visual backing. So a sigil is a is a magical
Speaker 1: concept and mostly to chaos magic, which is basically an
Speaker 1: abstract concept um or or like a specific concept put
Speaker 1: into an abstract image that then gets charged and then
Speaker 1: it's going to manifest itself in your life. The reason
Speaker 1: why this works it's because part part of this desire
Speaker 1: gets implanted deep in your brain when you charge it
Speaker 1: through like a trance or that there's a there's there's
Speaker 1: like there's different methods of charging sigils, but you have this,
Speaker 1: you have this concept and this idea and this desire
Speaker 1: and it gets put into you. So you're gonna kind
Speaker 1: of subconsciously do things that that influence it into becoming
Speaker 1: something that you can see. Just like you know, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're looking, if you hear about twenty three,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see it. Same thing for this. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's the same kind of based concept. Um. And
Speaker 1: then Grant Morrison of comic book Writers, right, my favorite
Speaker 1: comic book writer. He he was, he's really the only
Speaker 1: person that's developed sigil's more since their inception UM with
Speaker 1: the concept of a hyper sigil, which is taking this
Speaker 1: theme idea of like wanting to influence change in the
Speaker 1: world via this visual medium of a sigil, and instead
Speaker 1: of just having it be like an abstract glyph that
Speaker 1: you charge, hyper sigil is an entire work of art
Speaker 1: with this express interest. Um. So everything that you do
Speaker 1: in this is trying to get some type of real
Speaker 1: world change, and it's very very intentional, Right, and a
Speaker 1: lot of art already oprights like this. This is why
Speaker 1: a lot of postmodern magic is very similar just to
Speaker 1: like making art, because it's the same kind of basic idea,
Speaker 1: whether that be something like you know, like the matrix
Speaker 1: or you know, any any type of art kind of
Speaker 1: does this already. If it is good um and it in,
Speaker 1: it can find ways to influence reality. So memes operate
Speaker 1: on this same way, and eventually people actually found it.
Speaker 1: Eventually people on four ch and realize that that they
Speaker 1: were doing sigils and started using this word because it's
Speaker 1: really the same thing when you're when you're altering all
Speaker 1: of these images of this frog and posting it into
Speaker 1: all these different kind of more abstract more like ugly
Speaker 1: obscure kind of like weird like surreal types of types
Speaker 1: of memes, and you're spamming them on politicians Twitter account.
Speaker 1: You're basically doing a group a group sedul and a
Speaker 1: group hyper cigul because you're all making these individual things
Speaker 1: and you're spamming them into the world, and because there's
Speaker 1: so many of them, yeah, they're gonna have they're gonna
Speaker 1: have a real world effect, and they're going to have
Speaker 1: a real world effect in part because of the way
Speaker 1: human brains work, in part because of the way algorithms work,
Speaker 1: which is one of the things where like it's it's easy,
Speaker 1: especially if you're an impressionable kid, to mistake the algorithm
Speaker 1: doing what it's designed to do, which is find patterns
Speaker 1: groups of people sharing something and expand that to a
Speaker 1: larger group of people, because oh, if this cluster of
Speaker 1: people like this, this will probably be something that's very
Speaker 1: Algorithms are great at making synchronicities because that's what they're
Speaker 1: designed to do. That's what they're supposed that that's the
Speaker 1: whole point of why they exist, and that's why this
Speaker 1: is that that that's why are because as you stated
Speaker 1: a little earlier, and one of these days on Bastards,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about Helena Blovotsky and like the Theosophy
Speaker 1: movement and more detail, like all of the occult stuff
Speaker 1: that fed into the Third the early stage of the
Speaker 1: Third Reich. But the occult back then is very different
Speaker 1: from the kind of occult feeding into fascism now, which
Speaker 1: is heavily based around synchronicity, because it's also heavily based
Speaker 1: around social media and the way memes bread. Yeah, that's why.
Speaker 1: That's I think chaos magic has really gotten kind of
Speaker 1: a resurgence the past few years with social media and
Speaker 1: how algorithms developed, because they do mirror a lot of
Speaker 1: the concepts within chaos magic, because the Internet is kind
Speaker 1: of a chaotic place. But also it's not just pure chaos.
Speaker 1: It is chaos within a framework of order, which is
Speaker 1: why I like the like the like the chaos star,
Speaker 1: like the like the actual like chaos like sigil. Yes,
Speaker 1: the arrows are pointing in every direction, but you can
Speaker 1: make a perfect circle around all of the arrows. It's
Speaker 1: because it's not just pure chaos, it actually is contained
Speaker 1: with within this other framework. And by the way, Garrison,
Speaker 1: when you started talking about synchronigeas and sigils, I checked
Speaker 1: my phone for a second and saw that it was
Speaker 1: five seventeen on October five. Of course contains both two
Speaker 1: and three and as thus a sacred number October twenty three.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to explain why that significant. And it's yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's the twenty three on my phone. Why because
Speaker 1: my phone's fucked up? Because because because now the universe, baby,
Speaker 1: that's the synchronicity. I'm living in the future. Motherfucker's And
Speaker 1: what time is it that it's not right now? It
Speaker 1: was phone and the other time it is. I don't
Speaker 1: need to know what time it is your default. No, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're on a different, different dimensional plane. Now
Speaker 1: we have two into two different ones. I think I
Speaker 1: think that I think this gives up gives us a
Speaker 1: perfect opportunity for the audience to find their own synchronicities
Speaker 1: in these ads, because who knows what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: what's gonna play, So look for patterns and you'll find them.
Speaker 1: Here's some as I hope it's an ad for the
Speaker 1: Egyptian goddess Mott and we are back, We're gonna, We're
Speaker 1: gonna now actually kind of get into some of the
Speaker 1: some of the actual peppe nonsense. UM. I think another
Speaker 1: important part to mention is that like for a lot
Speaker 1: of people doing this online, this this is like an
Speaker 1: online pattern that happens all the time. Um, it happens
Speaker 1: with It happens with stuff like this, It happens with
Speaker 1: with with cat boys, it happens with a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff. Is that like stuff starts as a joke
Speaker 1: and then you do it a lot, and the repetition
Speaker 1: basically makes you do it genuinely. Yeah, like me talking
Speaker 1: about getting all of my followers to a compound in
Speaker 1: Idaho where we die fighting the f d A exactly
Speaker 1: Intually that turns into an actual death cult. So it's
Speaker 1: it's it starts as a joke and then under repetition
Speaker 1: it becomes genuine. This happens so basically almost everything on
Speaker 1: the internet. Yeah, this, this, this, this, this leads to
Speaker 1: Garrison and I doing the inevitable Robert Evans Behind the
Speaker 1: Bastards episode episode the three part or if I ever
Speaker 1: heard one you you hope so you wish what what
Speaker 1: are what are cat boys? This is different? That's a
Speaker 1: different you're here, that is a different podcast, I think, Yeah, Hi, sorry,
Speaker 1: I know I only interjected briefly. Is that is that?
Speaker 1: Are they? Are they like prefurries? That's different? No, cowboys, Fury,
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's it's it's it's rehumanizing the it's
Speaker 1: rehumanizing the furies. So like the same way that the
Speaker 1: same way, the same way Sonic the Hedgehog is a
Speaker 1: re mickey mousification of vegeta. Uh, cowboys are a humanification
Speaker 1: of furries. This is a whole process on the I
Speaker 1: can explain this in great detail in the later episode,
Speaker 1: but I think we have enough. We have enough to
Speaker 1: talk about already. Thank you so much, my dog. Okay.
Speaker 1: Sure would someone be willing to sacrifice their own mentality
Speaker 1: to describe the rise of Pepe and just originally in
Speaker 1: the early twenty teens, Yeah, so it started is this
Speaker 1: guy's comic that there was nothing particularly about. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just it was a dude's comic. He was like, uh,
Speaker 1: feels good man, was kind of a good man. He
Speaker 1: was a chill dude. He was a chill dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not a fascist comic. Peppe is actually pretty fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: comic Pepe, He's like, he's like a millennial slacker who
Speaker 1: doesn't really know what to do with his life after
Speaker 1: like after nine eleven, after the financial crash. He's just
Speaker 1: trying to kind of get by the comics. Fine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the comics fine, but the art just that kind of
Speaker 1: the specifics of how he drew Pepe made him very
Speaker 1: well suited for a meme because he's expressive and he
Speaker 1: so he shows up and starts getting spread in four chan,
Speaker 1: and you know that kind of idea goes viral, and
Speaker 1: it particularly gets attached to a lot of like the
Speaker 1: political ship on Pole and the people who are like
Speaker 1: churning into gamer Gate and the right sad. Pepe gets
Speaker 1: very popular, smug Pepe gets very popular. Yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 1: then as so kick is text of it, like later on,
Speaker 1: I think we'll go over more for like how Pepe
Speaker 1: is like the cartoon character got you know, as soon
Speaker 1: as it becomes a meme, it spreads out into all corners.
Speaker 1: And the people who means this hardest were were on fortune.
Speaker 1: So this is how pep Peppe became very kind of
Speaker 1: tied to this. And I think the last bullet in
Speaker 1: Pepe really solidifying him as as an alt right meanings
Speaker 1: specifically was the Richard Spencer punch. I think think that's
Speaker 1: the thing that actually was like done. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: Pepe is just this now, he can't be anything else
Speaker 1: because but when when when Richard Spencer was being punched,
Speaker 1: he was describing what Pepe was. That was what's happening
Speaker 1: in that specific viral moment. If you want to talk
Speaker 1: about like magical terms, this is Pepe getting like charged,
Speaker 1: like this is the idea of like this idea getting
Speaker 1: getting charged because it is now going to be perflated
Speaker 1: to the masses in this in this moment of like
Speaker 1: pure motion. So that's when Pepe really gets tied to.
Speaker 1: And I think Hillary Clinton made it very, very worse
Speaker 1: the way she talked about this kind of stuff on
Speaker 1: her speeches basically gave gave the all right a baseball
Speaker 1: bat to hit her with the the problem that Clinton
Speaker 1: and everyone else because like a big part of I
Speaker 1: would argue that like the largest part of why Pepe
Speaker 1: became a thing that was destined to last was that
Speaker 1: pundits and politicians, including Hillary and media people kept talking
Speaker 1: about it as a fascist symbol and kept discussing like
Speaker 1: what it was, and that anyone who grew up on
Speaker 1: the Internet, who grew up around these communities knows that
Speaker 1: you would ignore them as much as possible, to the
Speaker 1: extent that that's possible. You don't feed the troll you
Speaker 1: don't give them power, Yeah, you don't, And and talking
Speaker 1: about it again, this is like chas mat like referencing it,
Speaker 1: bringing it up, bringing it into the real world gives
Speaker 1: it power. That's the thing that feeds it. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that that's how it got so much more power the
Speaker 1: more Clinton talked about it, the more news media wrote
Speaker 1: about it, everyone got so excited on fortune. That's like
Speaker 1: that's that's that's like, that is them winning than them
Speaker 1: seeing this thing. And and then and then this goes
Speaker 1: back pre even being far I can't remember because I
Speaker 1: was in these spaces when they first started doing ship
Speaker 1: like raids on the Church of Scientology. Every time there
Speaker 1: would be actual, like news coverage of what people on
Speaker 1: the Internet did, it got people so fucking excited because
Speaker 1: like the Internet had been this thing that didn't matter
Speaker 1: for the longest. I think in the in the book
Speaker 1: I read about this kind of stuff, they did use
Speaker 1: the example of like Anonymous and the raids on Centology
Speaker 1: being like a precursor to this type of like me
Speaker 1: magic of this thing like like internet forums influencing the
Speaker 1: real world through repetition and getting getting to grow power.
Speaker 1: We're getting people who don't use Internet to talk about
Speaker 1: these same things. It was like a precursor to then
Speaker 1: what we what we saw the al right, which is
Speaker 1: which is a pretty pretty common opinion. Um and then
Speaker 1: and then enter enter the Egyptian gods. Roberts, do you
Speaker 1: wanna do you wanna? I don't wanna. I don't wanna
Speaker 1: discuss that. We're gonna That's what we're gonna say. Next is,
Speaker 1: how is this intersex with Egyptian gods? The ancient pharaoh
Speaker 1: has played a card game of ancient and terrible power man.
Speaker 1: Nobody wats you as a kid, This is no now, Robert,
Speaker 1: do you wanna do you wanna? Do you wanna? Do
Speaker 1: you want to discuss keck? Yeah? I mean so way
Speaker 1: back in the day, um and I think I think
Speaker 1: this even pre dates World war Craft. I remember at
Speaker 1: first happening on like StarCraft Games online, there would be
Speaker 1: like gamers from Korea, and like when you were doing
Speaker 1: like a Zurg rush or something, which is when you
Speaker 1: have a bunch of guys and they all attack the
Speaker 1: enemy base or whatever, they would type out their term
Speaker 1: for l O L, which was like keck k e
Speaker 1: K yeah kau k so would usually just look like
Speaker 1: a stream of k e K e k k k
Speaker 1: k over and over and over again. This really took
Speaker 1: off in World of Warcraft, where like there were Korean
Speaker 1: gold farmers were a big thing, and like keck was
Speaker 1: something that like everyone kind of knew what it meant
Speaker 1: because it was often the only thing you can understand.
Speaker 1: You could you could understand as an American that like
Speaker 1: these people would be typing um and it as a
Speaker 1: result of kind of all of that, it took off
Speaker 1: an internet culture as just an l O L and
Speaker 1: specifically like one of the things that's going on here
Speaker 1: as the mid a it's dawn and the Internet becomes
Speaker 1: serious business and like social media really and everybody's even
Speaker 1: before social media is dominant, but just when everybody's taking
Speaker 1: the Internet seriously, it's clear there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: in it. It's it's mainstream. You have this this kind
Speaker 1: of second generation of Internet people who got on in
Speaker 1: the late nineties early two thousands when they were kids,
Speaker 1: who get frustrated at the fact that all of these
Speaker 1: different terms and phrases and like bits of Internet culture
Speaker 1: that they had identified with our going mainstream and are
Speaker 1: using them. Yeah. Yeah, And keck is everyone knows what
Speaker 1: l O L is. People don't know what keck is.
Speaker 1: So in places like four Chan, that becomes a really
Speaker 1: popular thing. And keck kind of is like so keck
Speaker 1: as a as a term for laughters like floating around
Speaker 1: at the same time as like pepe a memes, and
Speaker 1: so whenever you whenever you like meme something into the mainstream,
Speaker 1: whenever like some four chan op or whatever you wanna
Speaker 1: call it, like succeeds in getting main streams. It's as
Speaker 1: Hiler Clinton mentions Peppe on stage, everyone in fourtune goes
Speaker 1: kick because they're laughing. They go can they say, like
Speaker 1: top kick and whatnot? And and and eventually somebody realizes
Speaker 1: that there's an Egyptian goddess. One of the translations of
Speaker 1: that god and goddess his name is k e k Um.
Speaker 1: Now there's a couple of other translations. There's there's there's
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of issues with this if you
Speaker 1: wanted to look at it, that's with a rational kind
Speaker 1: of brain. Is because like this, there was this old
Speaker 1: family of god's are very very old old Egyptian gods.
Speaker 1: They all had male and female versions. The male versions
Speaker 1: all had frog heads um and but around frogs can
Speaker 1: change their gender, so like so like all of the
Speaker 1: all this whole era of Egyptian gods all had frog heads.
Speaker 1: So there was one of them that was named Keck
Speaker 1: who was a god of chaos. And this also played
Speaker 1: into how Fortune was using Trump because like they liked
Speaker 1: Trump mostly as like as like a chaotic reforce that
Speaker 1: got people angry, because that's what that's what Fortune wanted
Speaker 1: to do as well. They wanted to be a chaotic
Speaker 1: force again that gets people angry. That's why they really
Speaker 1: latched onto Trump. Um. And then when they found out that,
Speaker 1: oh there's this god named Keck who is like the
Speaker 1: lord of like like like um like pro what's the
Speaker 1: word um, primordial darkness, primordial darkness. Yeah, and this idea
Speaker 1: not yeah yeah, kind of like um um urinus and
Speaker 1: like Greco Roman faith, right, like a god kind of
Speaker 1: before the gods that are are more well known. But
Speaker 1: like this was a synchronicity, so they took it as like,
Speaker 1: you know, the same way religions take take synchronicity and
Speaker 1: create and create like divinity. They took this as like
Speaker 1: this take they took this as like divinity. Again this
Speaker 1: this starts as a joke, but you do it enough
Speaker 1: and you start to take it seriously, and there's a
Speaker 1: you get a mix of um, you get a mix
Speaker 1: of of real like Egyptology was that. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a god named Kick like among a bunch of other gods.
Speaker 1: One of the ways he was depicted was with a
Speaker 1: frog head. But also like bad egyptology. Like I found
Speaker 1: an article on the word plus press blog Peppe the
Speaker 1: frog Faith, which oh, I'm sure this, I'm of this
Speaker 1: is like a bastion of archaeology, and and the title
Speaker 1: is amateur egyptologist weighs in on the frog statue hieroglyphs.
Speaker 1: And one of the things he points out are talking
Speaker 1: about the frog statues that isn't check but they thought
Speaker 1: it was kick yeah, yeah, yeah, and a number of things.
Speaker 1: So like one of the things this guy claims is
Speaker 1: that the hieroglyphics for Keeck are a frogman um and
Speaker 1: then a couple of what he calls baskets. First, not
Speaker 1: their cups, not baskets. Second, the actual um uh hieroglyphics
Speaker 1: for for k e K don't include the little frogman.
Speaker 1: They're like the two of the little cups in this
Speaker 1: weird T shaped thing. Like yeah, it's all, it's all,
Speaker 1: Like it's bad again, amateur egyptologist. Like he's just a
Speaker 1: kid who was googling stuff and like got some either
Speaker 1: lied or got some hieroglyphics wrong. But this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff compounds. But Keck as like an idea of is
Speaker 1: like now we have a backing of an ancient god.
Speaker 1: Again first as a joke, but then some people start
Speaker 1: to take it more seriously. Really really caught on among
Speaker 1: people because because because it's funny, like it's it's just funny,
Speaker 1: and it is funny, it seem funny. That's gonna catch
Speaker 1: on on for chat because it's hilarious, right, so they're
Speaker 1: gonna start using this and repeating this and creating a
Speaker 1: whole new memes, creating Like there's like there's like an
Speaker 1: eight eight part book series that's like fake books written
Speaker 1: by like someone who's like just me big but pretending
Speaker 1: to take it seriously, but like the authenticity doesn't actually
Speaker 1: matter because because it exists, it doesn't actually matter how
Speaker 1: athtic it is. Yeah, Like, and there's there's weird coincidences
Speaker 1: that continue to occur, Like one of the biggest being
Speaker 1: there's this like phrase shadow, which creeps up in all
Speaker 1: of this and becomes like this exhortation that they use
Speaker 1: like a way of like exclaiming and such. And then
Speaker 1: somebody figures out that shadow is also a song, like
Speaker 1: an allow disco song I think from the seventies and
Speaker 1: the album that Shadow is on has like a frog
Speaker 1: man face on the cover. Um, and so they're like
Speaker 1: it's a sign like all of the because you're gonna
Speaker 1: find frogs wherever you look now, because that has becomes
Speaker 1: the uncommon fends ever. Are gonna find them everywhere now
Speaker 1: and there are every ancient religion everywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get guaranteed there's some fucking frogs in it,
Speaker 1: because like they're everywhere, and they're old creatures peoples, they've
Speaker 1: been around for a long time, have been around. So
Speaker 1: the other the other thing that happened, so people not
Speaker 1: only basically created their whole mythology around this, creating different
Speaker 1: types of religion. There was like keckis m as a religion,
Speaker 1: the cult of keck Um, esoter Keechism, all of their
Speaker 1: own distinct differences. Because these people spend all their time
Speaker 1: on the internet. Um, they developed all these things. And
Speaker 1: they also found this old frog statue that they said
Speaker 1: was keck it Actually it isn't. It's actually it's actually
Speaker 1: a gold called heck it Um. But on the basis
Speaker 1: does it does, it doesn't matter. But on the base
Speaker 1: of the statue it had it had gliphs which appear
Speaker 1: to us modern humans as they look like someone sitting
Speaker 1: on a computer. Like they look like like someone sitting
Speaker 1: in front of a monitor on a keyboard. Um, and
Speaker 1: on the other side of the keyboard is a DNA
Speaker 1: is like what looks like a DNA spiral. So this
Speaker 1: is like Jesus like jeans, right, jeans, jeans are DNA.
Speaker 1: Memes are cultural DNA. This is a glyph of the
Speaker 1: god Teck on a statue with someone on a computer
Speaker 1: with a DNA spiral. Of course they're gonna take this
Speaker 1: is like some like message from the from the gods.
Speaker 1: You're like, yes, I'm supposed to be. I am supposed
Speaker 1: to be by my meming, I'm doing Keex's work to
Speaker 1: put Trump into office. Yeah it's um god, that's frustrating insurance. Uh,
Speaker 1: it sure is. But like all of those in the
Speaker 1: in group, this is like the statue was just a
Speaker 1: depiction of what the check people and the and the
Speaker 1: Pepper Spaniards were doing posting on the Internet to manifest
Speaker 1: real world change, and that's that's all it is. If
Speaker 1: you want to see other examples of this, like if
Speaker 1: you look at the ancient alien stuff, there's this like
Speaker 1: famous Mayana higher glyph of the astronomer that's like if
Speaker 1: you if you know what a telescope is, because you're
Speaker 1: looking at it a thousand years after it was carved,
Speaker 1: it kind of looks like it might be a telescope.
Speaker 1: And it's part of what people say, like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is proof that like that this is an alien, Like
Speaker 1: he's looking at a fucking telescope. No, it was, there's
Speaker 1: other explanations for it. It was something like that somebody carved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's another thing that you start and I
Speaker 1: see this like not even like I see this just
Speaker 1: this is just on the end of all time, like
Speaker 1: I see left, just do this or like so like okay,
Speaker 1: so you learn something and then oh it's not true,
Speaker 1: But then people will keep spreading the thing because they'll
Speaker 1: say people say, yeah, yeah, well it has more power
Speaker 1: with it, so you're still going to believe it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like when we talk about the fact that Will Wheaton
Speaker 1: murdered three people in if you want to this is
Speaker 1: the message like yeah, yeah with a knife, what's horrible. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: I mean he was in Thailand at the time, so
Speaker 1: he was able to get out and we don't extra diet,
Speaker 1: so he's he's got out Scott free. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean like this is like the same this is the
Speaker 1: same thing that Rump does, which we'll talk about it,
Speaker 1: but we'll talk about a bit. It's like if you
Speaker 1: would apeate the thing enough, it becomes true for large
Speaker 1: swats of the population that that's that's that's all truth
Speaker 1: actually needs to be for people. Um, I think I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna go and break uh and come back
Speaker 1: and close us, close us up, and finally finished this
Speaker 1: horrible discussion. Um. Anyone know who won't meme fascism? Well, actually,
Speaker 1: KFC the have you seen have you seen the KFC
Speaker 1: fascist posting on Twitter? There's like a Spanish KFC account
Speaker 1: that has been doing that that is up to some ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hate I hate that. That's a sentence that that
Speaker 1: that you got to say, just products and we are back.
Speaker 1: I have finished an entire dark meat bucket and I
Speaker 1: am so full. Um yep, And now I'm sad. I'm
Speaker 1: sad because I'm still thinking of the fascist KFC Twitter account. Um,
Speaker 1: so we we The other thing I want to do,
Speaker 1: want to mention is kind of Trump's own uh power
Speaker 1: of belief kind of idea and how Trump was basically
Speaker 1: using esoteric terms, was able to basically create an alternate
Speaker 1: reality for millions of people to live in. UM. And
Speaker 1: there's really no getting through to them now because they
Speaker 1: are literally just in a just in a different dimension,
Speaker 1: and there's just there's there's no way to pierce that
Speaker 1: other dimension. They're basically living in just a totally alternate
Speaker 1: reality there. There's there's no use saying that it is
Speaker 1: the one that we live in. UM. So Trump was
Speaker 1: obsessed with a few of these ideas. He's less than
Speaker 1: like the like, He's less interested in like the woo
Speaker 1: and more interested in like the power of positive thinking,
Speaker 1: power of your own belief. He grew up in a
Speaker 1: movement and a specific stuff. Yeah, he grew up following
Speaker 1: a specific movement and church called that falls under the
Speaker 1: umbrella called New Thought UM, which is where Trump's you know,
Speaker 1: Trump's like like how strong Trump's ego is comes from
Speaker 1: this idea of that you need to reinforce yourself and
Speaker 1: reinforce your own victories because if you do that, you're
Speaker 1: gonna you're you're gonna find them, right if if you're
Speaker 1: looking for you're gonna find it. If you're looking for
Speaker 1: your own victories, you're going to force them to happen, um,
Speaker 1: even if they don't happen into other people. Right. But
Speaker 1: like so that we see this happening successfully with the election,
Speaker 1: we see both like all of the meming, everything that
Speaker 1: happened in twenty in the TRUSTe election worked for Trump UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, of course, of course he
Speaker 1: didn't win the popular vote, but that doesn't actually matter,
Speaker 1: but it worked into in getting him to office. Now
Speaker 1: it you know, it worked less well for the election um,
Speaker 1: but still his reassertions that he won still gave us
Speaker 1: a lot of real world for salts like the January
Speaker 1: six Capital insurrection. So like it's this right, so this
Speaker 1: type of idea that if you re if you if
Speaker 1: you reinforce this thing, if you reinforce this belief, if
Speaker 1: you can, if you have if you have this idea
Speaker 1: and you keep putting it out into the world, it's
Speaker 1: going to manifest some type of real, real world result.
Speaker 1: And that that was January six, That's what that was.
Speaker 1: And and that's the kind of the world we live
Speaker 1: in now. It's like the weaponized unreality world where people
Speaker 1: because of how media works because are the Internet works,
Speaker 1: They're able to create this like chaotic like like sphere
Speaker 1: of energy and ideas that can like spread so much
Speaker 1: faster than anything used to be. That could everyone can
Speaker 1: segment their own reality into two degrees that we've never
Speaker 1: really seen before because of how fast information can travel. Now, um,
Speaker 1: it is, it is it is a new it's it
Speaker 1: is a relatively new thing. The way that the way
Speaker 1: that this this this can operate so like memes, memes
Speaker 1: themselves like Pepe and all this kind of stuff undoubtedly
Speaker 1: had had an impact on not only just the twenties
Speaker 1: sixteen election, but just the entire political climate surrounding the
Speaker 1: whole Trump presidency. Uh. Now, to the degree to which
Speaker 1: we can credit me magic or the god kick, that
Speaker 1: part is meaningless because because the effect is the same
Speaker 1: that like the synchronicities were still experienced and and truth
Speaker 1: is just is just experiential. So it's the beliefs that
Speaker 1: we kind of hold will shape how we experience things anyway,
Speaker 1: and that will experience what the actual truth is. There's
Speaker 1: there there is a great Robert Anton Wilson quote that
Speaker 1: is like reality is what you can get away with, ye,
Speaker 1: And that's that's like that that like summarizes how Trump
Speaker 1: was able to be so successful is because he was
Speaker 1: able to shape reality. Right. I think me, me and
Speaker 1: me and Chris were talking about this the other day
Speaker 1: about how, Chris, do you want to say the thing
Speaker 1: about like the Democratic Party and Republican Party and how okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So there's there's there's there's thing. And Garrison I think
Speaker 1: was too young for this. But there's a very famous
Speaker 1: thing that that one of the Bushman pedetrician people said
Speaker 1: about how Democrats lived in the reality based community. And
Speaker 1: this this is like a whole thing in the in
Speaker 1: like the two thousands. This is just the Bush administration
Speaker 1: and everyone loses their minds and this is like a
Speaker 1: whole meme of the Democrats that's like, oh, we're the
Speaker 1: reality based community and they're not. But but then this
Speaker 1: is the interesting part. If you look at the second
Speaker 1: part of that quote, right, what he's actually saying is
Speaker 1: that so the Democrats are the reality based community, right,
Speaker 1: they they analyze reality. The Republican Party is the party
Speaker 1: that creates reality because of the people in control the empire.
Speaker 1: And this is this is what neo conservative this was right,
Speaker 1: and you know The argument here basically is that the
Speaker 1: Democrats are you know, they're always going to be a
Speaker 1: step behind because they're merely analyzing reality, whereas Republicans using
Speaker 1: the powers or of the state to you know, change
Speaker 1: and define it. And this this worked for them, you
Speaker 1: know what. I would argue that this is how they
Speaker 1: came into power, This is how there's this is what
Speaker 1: they're still doing. Yeah. Yeah, why every president since Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan has just been Ronald Reagan with a mask. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but I think I think there's something very important here,
Speaker 1: specifically about how Bush took off this right, because Bush,
Speaker 1: Bush steals the election, right, Bush does like the thing
Speaker 1: that Trump was trying to do is what George Bush
Speaker 1: did in two in two thousands, but with a riot,
Speaker 1: just with a very kind of riot. Yeah. But but
Speaker 1: this is the thing, the thing, this is the thing
Speaker 1: that Bush and the neo kons understood that the Trump
Speaker 1: is kind of understand but never quite solidified because they're
Speaker 1: not like they're not sort of insider political actors. Which
Speaker 1: is that. Okay, so all of the stuff about saying
Speaker 1: something and it becoming real, right, there's there there's sort
Speaker 1: of a limit to this if if you don't have
Speaker 1: a gun. Now, if you have a gun, then the
Speaker 1: limits of that are are you know, it's it's you
Speaker 1: can be basically whatever you want because you can just
Speaker 1: you can force everyone else to also accept this as
Speaker 1: reality that you know, this is what the state is.
Speaker 1: Right and there there's there's a whole there's a whole thing.
Speaker 1: This is a couple of performance theory. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so like you you saying the thing makes it so right? Well,
Speaker 1: this is this is what a is. And this is
Speaker 1: how Bush won the election because he, unlike Trump, who's
Speaker 1: people tried to like take power directly about like Stormy
Speaker 1: in the Capitol, Bush was smart and Bush was like,
Speaker 1: oh okay, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna de clare that
Speaker 1: I won the election. And but but but instead of
Speaker 1: like openly doing it right, I'm going to get the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court to declare that I'm president. And you know,
Speaker 1: and this this this requires the Brooks brothers riot stop
Speaker 1: the counts and all the stuff. We were like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's doesn't yeah, yeah, it's great, but it's like it
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't matter that, you know, he he didn't
Speaker 1: win Florida. Like if if if if, if, if, if, if,
Speaker 1: the if the votes had actually been counted, he would
Speaker 1: not have won Florida. But because he was able to
Speaker 1: get the courts to say that he was president, he
Speaker 1: was president. And and that's that is the concept of
Speaker 1: magic words yep, yep, and this is this is this,
Speaker 1: this is this is all the state is, right, it's
Speaker 1: this this this the state is magic with a gun
Speaker 1: behind it. Yeah, it is, yeah, the state of magical
Speaker 1: because it's like, yeah, you're right. It's like magic can
Speaker 1: have a hard cap. There's gonna be a certain people
Speaker 1: that you know, with with with Trump's reality altering kind
Speaker 1: of power, there's a certain that there is a hardcap
Speaker 1: on how much that can influence the general population. But
Speaker 1: if you have a gun behind that, that gives us
Speaker 1: so much more enforceable power. And to go back to
Speaker 1: Egyptian mythology, one of the attitudes they had about the
Speaker 1: pharaoh is that reality was whatever the pharaoh declared. Other
Speaker 1: a lot of societies of this idea towards their monarchs,
Speaker 1: and the duty of his people is to make reality
Speaker 1: conform to the Pharaoh's will, and like that's that's what
Speaker 1: the GOP does. Like that always I think I think
Speaker 1: the quote surrounding like, yeah, the Democrats are the reality
Speaker 1: based party because they because they you know, observe it
Speaker 1: except the reality and like and yeah and and like
Speaker 1: and like and like. Libs and Democrats are like yes,
Speaker 1: they like they take this on private, like, yes, we
Speaker 1: are rational, we observe reality. Meanwhile the Republicans like, no,
Speaker 1: you just observe it, but we can just we can
Speaker 1: create it. I think that is a great example of
Speaker 1: how those two parties operate politically and how like, yes,
Speaker 1: they're both they're both right leading parties. But here's the
Speaker 1: different it's for how they actually operate is that one
Speaker 1: of them is way more passive in their observing of reality,
Speaker 1: and one is is okay with getting their hands dirty
Speaker 1: and actually forcing this type of reality altering changes. I
Speaker 1: will say, I think like one thing to close this
Speaker 1: out is that you know we can we when we
Speaker 1: can tie this all the way back to the second
Speaker 1: part of the Duel Power episode, which is that the
Speaker 1: Niokonokon project doesn't work, and the reason it doesn't work
Speaker 1: is that you know, they they like they basically they
Speaker 1: lose militarily, and that just that implodes the entire project.
Speaker 1: And so you know, and if if if if you
Speaker 1: look back at like all of this stuff about how
Speaker 1: we can shape reality. We can shape reality, we can
Speaker 1: shape reality. That stopped being true the moment that you know,
Speaker 1: like they lose control of Bosra or like you know,
Speaker 1: all like they when the other people, uh, Soder is
Speaker 1: to be unkillable by all the weapons of Empire. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like you know, and and Sawder and Solder does
Speaker 1: this by like you know, Sauder sets up a bunch
Speaker 1: of baby clinics, right, He's like, here's a bunch of
Speaker 1: clinics here, we we will will give help the pregnant mothers.
Speaker 1: Like you guys really going to shoot us? And you know,
Speaker 1: he builds a militia around this and he's and he's
Speaker 1: able to like he's one of the smartest people on
Speaker 1: the planet. He's yeah, and he's not. It's not a
Speaker 1: good guy, but like completely shatter the neo cons like
Speaker 1: they they're dead, Like they don't like that that project
Speaker 1: which was like the culmination of this this incredible like
Speaker 1: that described on electro prodect of Trouble Military project and
Speaker 1: they got their absolute as kick by watch people doing
Speaker 1: dual power. Yep, I think, and I I really, I
Speaker 1: do want to talk more about kind of chaos magic,
Speaker 1: and then there's a lot on the ground, and I think,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think this is a great interning. How
Speaker 1: the how these concepts overlapped with politics, And I disagree
Speaker 1: on the end of this with one aspect, Garrison, because
Speaker 1: you said their reality can't be pierced, But the ancient
Speaker 1: texts speak of a spear that once pierced the side
Speaker 1: of Christ itself, and while Hitler held it, his armies
Speaker 1: were ascended, but it was stolen. And if we can
Speaker 1: find the spear, Blonde Sparrison, we can pierce their reality. Hey,
Speaker 1: I have a Fedora, I have a whip. We could
Speaker 1: we all have Fedora's Garrison. Let's do it. Let's go.
Speaker 1: We are we are off to find the spear that
Speaker 1: signs us off the sphere of destiny. You can follow
Speaker 1: our adventures on Happened Here pod and media on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Um and yeah, I'm sure we will give you updates
Speaker 1: for our spirit ventures at the pod. Sophie. We need
Speaker 1: half a million dollars to find the spear of destiny. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: see you on the other side. Kill them all. This
Speaker 1: has been it could happen here the show where I
Speaker 1: just kill them all, Garrison and Chris. You want to
Speaker 1: I want to take over? Oh boys, woke up. I
Speaker 1: haven't have coffee yet. That is incredibly spooky. It is spooky.
Speaker 1: You're right, this is true. I didn't realize that until
Speaker 1: Joe's now, but retroactively that makes it fine. Extreme spy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are we doing? Who are we? We're we're doing
Speaker 1: We're where it can happen here. We're doing this is
Speaker 1: this is this is a podcast where we talk about
Speaker 1: spooky stuff that happens around Halloween, and today we are
Speaker 1: doing the spookiest thing of all, which will be revealed shortly.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I hope it's Will Wheaton? Is not what Wheaton? Well,
Speaker 1: unfortunately that's the spookies. I really I really should have
Speaker 1: looked for that tie in because there might be one.
Speaker 1: Is a CIA asset we might get there, I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: see this is this is I'm hacking a fraud and
Speaker 1: I didn't actually look into this action. Yeah, well we
Speaker 1: missed it. You and most journalists. Yeah, all right, what
Speaker 1: are we? What are we doing? What do we do it?
Speaker 1: On June fourteenth, A Rancher named W. W. Mac Brazil
Speaker 1: and his son Vernon with driving across their property when
Speaker 1: they encountered quote a large area of bright wreckage made
Speaker 1: up of rubber strips, tinfoil, and rather tough paper and sticks.
Speaker 1: Yeah me too, Just a regular night in in in Oregon.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, well buzzles back in a time where
Speaker 1: people are baffled when weird things happened, instead of going oh,
Speaker 1: it's Tuesday, so oh man, what a time. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they didn't just go straight to Twitter. No, no, he
Speaker 1: he you know she doesn't. That was actually, you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of like reasonably a reasonably responsible thing to
Speaker 1: do in seven, which is that he spends about a
Speaker 1: week like picking up all of the scraps that he
Speaker 1: can and like putting them in a box, and that
Speaker 1: he drives it to the sheriff, and the sheriff his
Speaker 1: name is George. That says a lot about the difference
Speaker 1: in urgency back then, where it's like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: import I'll spend a week getting everything together off to
Speaker 1: the share. Like before the Internet, you could really afford
Speaker 1: to sit. It was an era in which like if
Speaker 1: you had a busy life, three things happened. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so George Wilcox, the sheriff, looks at this and
Speaker 1: it's like, I have no idea what any of this
Speaker 1: crap is, Like, what is happening? So he takes it
Speaker 1: to Roswell Air Force Base for further investigation. Now, Colonel
Speaker 1: Butch Blanche, the commander of Roswell air Fields five O
Speaker 1: nine Composite Group you know send sends a team out
Speaker 1: to analyze the wreckage, which includes an Air Force intelligence
Speaker 1: officer named Major Major Jesse Marcel. Now Marcel gives a
Speaker 1: now infamous series of quotes to the media that results
Speaker 1: in the Roswell Daily Record running the sentence quote. The
Speaker 1: Intelligence office of the five O ninth Bombardment Group at
Speaker 1: Roswell Airfield announced that noon that the field has come
Speaker 1: into session of a flying saucer. Now this is the birth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this, this isn't the birth of modern unphilology,
Speaker 1: but this is, you know this, this is one of
Speaker 1: the most important error events. And the pictures do rule
Speaker 1: all of all of the Rosbelt pictures are super rad
Speaker 1: because it's just random ship in the field, and they're like,
Speaker 1: it's aliens. There's a random ship in the field. Now
Speaker 1: this this is all happening to be just like like
Speaker 1: scattered sort of reports of UFOs that have been cropping
Speaker 1: up throughout the sort of like the post war era. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the next day, the Air Force releases a statement
Speaker 1: saying there's no flying saucer in the wreckage. Is just
Speaker 1: an air balloon? Is this you know it's it's it's
Speaker 1: just the Yeah. Yeah, so the airport sure air Force
Speaker 1: weather balloon. Yeah, yeah, they're lying. Everyone knows they're lying.
Speaker 1: But this is where things get bad, because when Mark
Speaker 1: Brazil really discovered with something even spookier and more sinister
Speaker 1: an aliens Mark Brazil had discovered was the American military
Speaker 1: and a strio complex out. That's what's really spooky. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's real spooky. It's yeah, we're by by by
Speaker 1: the end of this episode, they will have I had
Speaker 1: to cut two times. They almost killed everyone on Earth. Okay,
Speaker 1: well all right, so we're gonna be judging folks for
Speaker 1: almost killing everyone on Earth, Like you haven't almost killed
Speaker 1: everyone on Earth? Come on, that's true, that's true. Podcasting
Speaker 1: saves me from a little mass distinction of the entire
Speaker 1: human race and will eventually end all life on this planet.
Speaker 1: I believe in podcastings potential to kill absolutely everyone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's great, It's it's a time. It's actually you
Speaker 1: know this part part of this is actually going to
Speaker 1: be about how we get to the point where everyone
Speaker 1: is podcasting on the internet. Develt things that that does.
Speaker 1: This does absolutely plague in the Swell incident. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: there's a there's a strong line between ship like coast
Speaker 1: to coast f M, the old like conspiracy, you know,
Speaker 1: the precursors to that alien UFO whatever radio shows and
Speaker 1: ship on the on the wide band back in the day,
Speaker 1: and uh in the podcasts where we are right now. Yep,
Speaker 1: it's it's great, it's a it's a good time. We're
Speaker 1: descended from great media. We're going to continue to produce
Speaker 1: green media where totally not just like an extremely a
Speaker 1: much larger version of the radio broadcast you get right
Speaker 1: before genocide. That's like, that's not what's happening here. It's
Speaker 1: all in fact good and cool. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: why I tell people to get machetes. It's true that
Speaker 1: was a bad ye made that made that comment. Look,
Speaker 1: we just we just we just we just got to
Speaker 1: make sure only ways to blaze one right ahead. Now
Speaker 1: the Air Force is lying out of its ass. But
Speaker 1: the Air Force isn't lying out of its ass because
Speaker 1: they have a flying saucer. The Air Force knows precisely
Speaker 1: what they've gotten their hands on here, because the other
Speaker 1: identified flying object that has trashed at Roswell is actual
Speaker 1: really something called Project Mogul. Now to understand Project Mogul,
Speaker 1: we need to go back a little bit in the
Speaker 1: US drops to nuclear bombs of Japan. And this does
Speaker 1: a lot of things literally, all of which are bad um.
Speaker 1: And what one of which is that it sets off
Speaker 1: a sort of and it's it sets off, you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that we all live in now, which is
Speaker 1: the nuclear arms race between the U S and the
Speaker 1: U S SR, who you know, but pretty quickly after
Speaker 1: World War Two are just bitter enemies. And you know,
Speaker 1: by there's just bores raging across the world between Commuist
Speaker 1: anti Comanist forces. This is what's the war in China,
Speaker 1: I mean in Greece, which I think people know. People
Speaker 1: know more about the Chinese of war, people know less
Speaker 1: about Greece. We're just like the British. The British are like, oh,
Speaker 1: the Communis are gonna take power. So they just like
Speaker 1: give all the guns back to the fascists and they
Speaker 1: start doing the Holocaust again, and that you know, sets
Speaker 1: off this own and another civil war there, and you know,
Speaker 1: as as as Europe comes, you know, divided between the
Speaker 1: two great powers, the US becomes increasingly worried about the
Speaker 1: uss are crying acquiring their own nuclear weapons. So to
Speaker 1: detect the potential Soviet nuclear test, the US embarked on
Speaker 1: Project Mogul. Project Mogil sent six and fifty seven foot balloons.
Speaker 1: These are like massive, they're twice the size that's actually
Speaker 1: of liberty. Yeah, those balloons are bigger than a balloon
Speaker 1: needs to be. Yeah, they're they're too large. It's too
Speaker 1: big for balloons. And they so they load these balloons
Speaker 1: with like sensor and listening equipment to like detecting nuclear detonation.
Speaker 1: They like they like float them into the upper jet stream,
Speaker 1: and the jet team like pushed them to Russia. Is
Speaker 1: sort of the plan behind it, and this sort of works,
Speaker 1: except the Russians don't have nukes yet. So yeah, this,
Speaker 1: by the way, is also why the song Red Balloons
Speaker 1: was not just a banger, but also very realistic, because
Speaker 1: we absolutely could have had a nuclear exchange over some
Speaker 1: fucking balloons. Oh yeah, yeah, actually don't I'm not sure
Speaker 1: there's any direct balloon related near nuclear exchanges in this episode,
Speaker 1: but don't worry. It happen. Yeah, well, you know, and
Speaker 1: what what what it did actually do was, you know,
Speaker 1: set off the modern UFO thing because you know what,
Speaker 1: one of these balloons like fails and it's it's used
Speaker 1: the records around and you know there's yeah, this this,
Speaker 1: you know, this is this. Then you see a bunch
Speaker 1: of the problems that are gonna happen with the rest
Speaker 1: of how the course of UFOs gode because you know,
Speaker 1: you have initially the government's like, we have a flying
Speaker 1: saucer and then they turn around and do this like
Speaker 1: incredibly half ass cover up that like everyone knows is fake.
Speaker 1: And you know, so you know, because Americans are Americans,
Speaker 1: they don't assume that like the US is, you know,
Speaker 1: creating a devastating new surveillance and intelligence program that would
Speaker 1: be used to further total nuclear war. Instead they go,
Speaker 1: it's aliens. Yeah, because we're great at okoins Razor. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a time. But I think what's really important
Speaker 1: here is that what Brazil had actually made first contact
Speaker 1: with was America's new thermal nuclear monarchy. And this is
Speaker 1: something that I think more people should talk about, which
Speaker 1: is that having nukes just as a thing massively centralizes
Speaker 1: power into sort of individual people into the executive branch.
Speaker 1: Because you know, so if you have nuclear weapons, right,
Speaker 1: the theory is that you have to have one person
Speaker 1: who presses the button to shoot them, and you can't
Speaker 1: have like, you know, there's not enough time for like
Speaker 1: a parliament or delivered or body to like set the
Speaker 1: dukes off. And so this becomes this rationale for enormously
Speaker 1: centralizing the powerty executive branch. And this this produces an
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying new wage of state secrecy, filled with increasingly
Speaker 1: powerful and clandestine government agencies and bureaucracies, ranging from the
Speaker 1: CIA are good friends to the much lesser known Atomic
Speaker 1: Energy Commission, and these agencies the power of their secrecy
Speaker 1: is so strong that, I mean by the es Atomic
Speaker 1: Energy Commissions like successor agency, it decides that they can
Speaker 1: keep secrets from the president on the basis that the
Speaker 1: president does not need to know, which is absolutely horrifying.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean, look, it's just you've got a democracy,
Speaker 1: and that's going to be a problem because in a democracy,
Speaker 1: people presumably get to make choices, and if you don't
Speaker 1: want them to decide not to continue making weird ship
Speaker 1: to throw into the sky, then you know why, you
Speaker 1: probably should just not tell anybody anything. Yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: that that particular story is also grim I it's one
Speaker 1: thing that was debating covering they're they're covering up the
Speaker 1: fact that they deliberately poisoned enormous like hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 1: of people with radiation to do human testing on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't need to know this, like it doesn't need
Speaker 1: to know about you know. I mean it's like we
Speaker 1: don't tell Sophie guys. A lot of the things that
Speaker 1: we do with our budget. Um, like when we irradiated
Speaker 1: all those people for a podcast, we're we're still not
Speaker 1: telling Opie that. Yeah, it could happen here. Black budget
Speaker 1: will remain secret. Yeah, it is a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Please continue. Now, all of the secrecy around this and
Speaker 1: the fact that these cover ups are like the most
Speaker 1: half asked ship anyone has ever seen, you know, it continue.
Speaker 1: It fuels his rampant speculation around UFOs and the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorists are also aided by the fact that people keep
Speaker 1: seeing weird flying objects. Sure do we love we love
Speaker 1: to see weird ship in this guy we are very
Speaker 1: good at it. Yeah, it's we're we're incredible. It's it
Speaker 1: And this guy is full of weird. It's true. I
Speaker 1: saw crow the other day anyway. Yeah, in in hundreds
Speaker 1: of people start who are on airplanes start seeing these
Speaker 1: just enormous flaming crosses flying in possibly high and possibly
Speaker 1: fastened the sky and publicly KKs gained space flight. It's
Speaker 1: it's worse than that. It's it's the people. The people
Speaker 1: doing this are worse than the AKA, which is what
Speaker 1: what a sentence? It's great, it's yeah. So so you know,
Speaker 1: in public, the U S. Governments like whatever, these aren't
Speaker 1: a thing, they're fake whatever their mediological dis services. Uh.
Speaker 1: In private, the passengers who are on these jets that
Speaker 1: that see these flaming crosses are all detained by the
Speaker 1: FBI and sworn to secrecy after providing accounts of what
Speaker 1: they'd seen. Awesome and yeah, and this this is also
Speaker 1: part of the surf uf oil mythology. And this does
Speaker 1: actually happen, like that, the FBI does actually show up
Speaker 1: to these people. Well, that's who you send in when
Speaker 1: you want people to stop wondering if something shady is
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, yeah, it's I hear the FBI is
Speaker 1: telling people to shut up about something. I think, well,
Speaker 1: that's not worth looking into it all. When you have
Speaker 1: five men in suits and sunglasses show that you talk
Speaker 1: about something, you know, that means everything is fine and normal.
Speaker 1: You know what I don't think of when I think
Speaker 1: of the FBI UFO cover ups. It's great. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is this is America's first contact with yet
Speaker 1: another new part of his clandestine military military bureaucracy. Area
Speaker 1: fifty one. Area fifty one is a secret military aeronautics
Speaker 1: research and development facility built on a salt flat called
Speaker 1: Lake Groom inside the massive Nevada Test and Training Range. UM.
Speaker 1: This place, by the way, this place is massive. This
Speaker 1: place is like the size of connect Like it's like
Speaker 1: larger than Connecticut. It's larger than than most of the
Speaker 1: Eastern State. Yeah, it's enormous. And but you know it's
Speaker 1: something I think it's very interesting about this is that
Speaker 1: for all it's mystique. Area fifty one is not the
Speaker 1: most dangerous facility on the Nevada Tests and Training right now,
Speaker 1: that's there fifty two, the sub level below where they
Speaker 1: store the real weird ship. Yeah, okay, so I watched
Speaker 1: I watched a few YouTube videos. I think I know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Well, definitely, so that we are
Speaker 1: actually going to get to area all right. Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: the thing, the thing that's actually really dangerous is areas twelve, nineteen,
Speaker 1: and twenty because that's the Nevada areas. Do these motherfucker's
Speaker 1: names there? All these things? Yeah, all the others because
Speaker 1: I mean this this this is like a state sized
Speaker 1: like testing facility, right, Okay, they get all these fucking areas,
Speaker 1: but the branch Davidians have one compound where they don't
Speaker 1: even do very many illegal things, and suddenly it's a problem.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Let's Swans never had nukes, and that
Speaker 1: that that that could could you imagine though pretty amazed.
Speaker 1: You know what if they'd had nukes about like a D,
Speaker 1: people would still be alive maybe or everyone would be dead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the two. A D people would be alive or
Speaker 1: everyone on Earth would be did so. Area fifty one
Speaker 1: is the partner of the Nevada Test Site, which which
Speaker 1: is areas twelve, nineteen and twenty, and that's where the
Speaker 1: real dangerous ship happens, which is the US test nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons there. Okay, but we need to make it clear
Speaker 1: at the outset we should not be underestimating Area fifty one.
Speaker 1: That place has done irreparable harm to the cause of
Speaker 1: world peace and very nearly like cause us all to
Speaker 1: go extinct several times. So do not underestimate the power
Speaker 1: of of of military spy airplanes yeah, can lead us
Speaker 1: all destruction. Are honestly, way more, way, more spooky than
Speaker 1: any little gray creatures at large. Different various planes just
Speaker 1: with cameras on them have gotten us closer to the
Speaker 1: extermination of all life on Earth than basically anything else,
Speaker 1: except for that one computer buck that the Russians had
Speaker 1: that would have killed us all if not for Petrov
Speaker 1: I think his name is, I forget his last name,
Speaker 1: that one guy who was like, we're not going to
Speaker 1: have a nuclear war right now. Well, there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot this is. This is weirdly the Soviets come out
Speaker 1: looking like yeah, so yeah, It's like every every time
Speaker 1: there's almost a nuclear war, it's like it doesn't happen
Speaker 1: because the Soviets are like, no, and the Americans are like,
Speaker 1: we want this war and the like when it comes
Speaker 1: to atomic apocalypse stories, if you, if you, if you
Speaker 1: tally up all the columns, because the Soviets definitely have
Speaker 1: a few in their side, but it winds up way
Speaker 1: more fucked up nuke incidents on the U S side
Speaker 1: of things than the Soviet side of things. Although there
Speaker 1: wasn't that time they built a bomb so big that
Speaker 1: it might have changed the tilt of the earth if
Speaker 1: they and at the last moment they were like, let's
Speaker 1: take half of the desile material out of this. This
Speaker 1: seems like a bad idea. It's it's great, yeah, so
Speaker 1: so speak speaking of bad ideas involving in involving nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: So oh no, I not thought that you're doing a
Speaker 1: yeah speaking speaking ideas. You know what else will change
Speaker 1: the tilt of the earth, the products and services, their quality.
Speaker 1: It's so intent that it's like the Czar bomba it
Speaker 1: is just like that explosive potential. Yeah. Area fifty one
Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen fifty one by the Atomic Energy Commission,
Speaker 1: a federal agency established as a success to the mother
Speaker 1: of all black projects, the Manhattan Project. Now black projects
Speaker 1: are secret off the books military defense projects, the existence
Speaker 1: of which are kept secret even from Congress, which is
Speaker 1: a totally cool and normal thing to have in a
Speaker 1: democracy when you're representative body does not know what anyone
Speaker 1: else what the military is doing. Now every fifty one
Speaker 1: is interesting because it's it's basically like a black project
Speaker 1: of a black project. It's so secret that like the
Speaker 1: Vice President lb J, who is like not a funk
Speaker 1: off vice president, right, this is lb J, Like lb J,
Speaker 1: He's he's like type yeah, yeah, and she's also gonna
Speaker 1: show up the story briefly. But yeah, like even he
Speaker 1: didn't actually really know what was going on there until
Speaker 1: like after JFK was assassinated. So this this place is
Speaker 1: really secret, and as best we can tell, in its
Speaker 1: first four years, it was essentially the Atomic Energy Commission.
Speaker 1: I basically wanted to play to do off the books
Speaker 1: like pilot and aircraft testing, and they were able to
Speaker 1: do this successfully that like we basically don't know what
Speaker 1: they did for four years. But yeah, but but but
Speaker 1: in NETE five, the facility has taken over by an
Speaker 1: even spookier organization, the Central Intelligence Agency, our our old friends.
Speaker 1: Now that the CIA. You know, this is this nine
Speaker 1: and the CIA has spent the early years of the
Speaker 1: Cold War getting just it's absolute ass handed to it
Speaker 1: in Europe because you know, this is what happens with
Speaker 1: a bunch of different Harvard grads in like yeah, because
Speaker 1: the people with acid and that's all they're doing. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But the problem, so they're running into a real intelligence agency,
Speaker 1: which is the KGB, who like, like those guys do
Speaker 1: not look around. They don't just poison people with acid.
Speaker 1: They they they're they they're they're much much more intense
Speaker 1: than than the early fifties the CIA. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: so and so they have this real problem which is
Speaker 1: that they the CIA basically can't get intelligence out of
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe, which is bad when your whole, like your
Speaker 1: entire like state is based off of like fighting Eastern Europe.
Speaker 1: So this kind of your main target. Yeah. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: the solution is to fly a plane really high over
Speaker 1: Russia and uses to take pictures. Yeah, like I think
Speaker 1: like this sounds like I think kind of banal to
Speaker 1: us in twenty one century, where like this is this
Speaker 1: is like this is like this is like pre satellite
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and and and you know, like like we
Speaker 1: were all just sort of used to the fact that
Speaker 1: like the government is buying on us at all times.
Speaker 1: We are. But you know, in in in the nineteen
Speaker 1: this is incredibly radical. Like the the US, the US
Speaker 1: has only had intelligence agencies for like ten years, and
Speaker 1: there there is no precedent at all. There's none, no
Speaker 1: precedent for flying surveillance over a country you aren't actively
Speaker 1: at war with, Like the only reason you fly airplane
Speaker 1: over countries if you're about to bomb them. People should
Speaker 1: note also that like the first ten years or so
Speaker 1: that we had an intelligence industry, every single or that
Speaker 1: we had an intent like intelligence agencies, every single vote
Speaker 1: for funding them, every single like vote for giving them
Speaker 1: new powers was like universally supported by both parties. There
Speaker 1: was there was zero dissent about whether or not we
Speaker 1: should have a c I A and they should have
Speaker 1: a giant black budget to do all sorts of scary
Speaker 1: ship that might provoke a nuclear war. People are just like, well,
Speaker 1: of course it's really bad, and I think this is
Speaker 1: this is you know, this is what Area fifty one
Speaker 1: actually is. The Area fifty one is the place where
Speaker 1: the development is that the permanent intelligent industrial complex is
Speaker 1: permanently solidified. And this all starts with the you two. Now,
Speaker 1: the CIA brings in Lucked Martin and a little known
Speaker 1: but very powerful and influential defense contractor called E. G
Speaker 1: and G. Who I mean, they do a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: but that's such a defense contractor. Yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's like it's the ultimate defense contraatractual name and nobody
Speaker 1: knows who they are because they make like cameras and
Speaker 1: like film equipment and stuff. But like, you know, so
Speaker 1: these are the people who like made the cameras that
Speaker 1: could take pictures of yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know and so and so the CIA brings them all
Speaker 1: to this like remote testing Rage in Nevada to work
Speaker 1: in a secret project called Dragon Lady. Now in its
Speaker 1: early stages are fifty one is so secret that like
Speaker 1: even the Air Force doesn't know about it. And this
Speaker 1: like really pisces off the Air Forces senior senior generals,
Speaker 1: in particular a guy who was going to become very
Speaker 1: important to the story, Air Force General Curtis LeMay, who
Speaker 1: like that man like that. I I don't say this
Speaker 1: very often about historical figures, but like if someone had
Speaker 1: assassinated General Curtis lemaid. The world like we would like
Speaker 1: the amount safer that the world would have been described
Speaker 1: the architects of saturation bombing started in World War Two
Speaker 1: and continuing. Uh and from up to now we didn't stop.
Speaker 1: And that is that is not the worst thing he's
Speaker 1: involved in. Yeah, now, but in Lomay is extremely piste
Speaker 1: off that the CIA doesn't tell about this, and he's
Speaker 1: going to remember that that's gonna become important later in
Speaker 1: this story. But eventually the CIA is forced to bring
Speaker 1: the Air Force into Area fifty one for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons, partially because they're flying airplanes, and partially because
Speaker 1: the YouTube is like kind of a piece of ship,
Speaker 1: you know, and part of it Okay, so they're learning
Speaker 1: how to fly planes really high for the first time,
Speaker 1: but you know the YouTube, if you fly it too slowly,
Speaker 1: it's stalls, which is like, okay, that's kind of a
Speaker 1: normal airplane. The you the YouTube is an amazing aircraft
Speaker 1: because it just is the most absurd pieces of aviation
Speaker 1: equipment ever designed, and like watching those things take off
Speaker 1: and land is the most funny thing on that's wild.
Speaker 1: Like and the other problem is like, as a stalling problem,
Speaker 1: but also has the problem if you fly it too
Speaker 1: fast the wings will fall off, Okay, which the plane, Chris,
Speaker 1: It's so it's so massive and so fragile. The wings
Speaker 1: are so heavy and so large. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most ridiculous pieces of equipment ever designed. It's it's it's incredible.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so that the CIA needs helped to get
Speaker 1: the sting working. And so the result is at Area
Speaker 1: fifty one at this point is is staffed by about
Speaker 1: it's one third CIA, one through an air Force, and
Speaker 1: one third Lucky Martin. What a what a combination these
Speaker 1: are the god, can you imagine that cafeteria, the conversations.
Speaker 1: It's wild too, because it's like because you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of just like spooks, right, it's a bunch of
Speaker 1: just like people. And then there's just like a bunch
Speaker 1: of test pilots who are like just nuts and have
Speaker 1: been like a bunch of like people who are like
Speaker 1: genuine war heroes who like fought in World War two
Speaker 1: but then went turned around and like it did horrible
Speaker 1: war crimes and like Koreas like Tom Cruise from Top
Speaker 1: Gun but with horrible PTSD and Michael Douglas from falling down.
Speaker 1: But he hasn't picked up a gun yet. We can
Speaker 1: we can, we can mention this now. So top the
Speaker 1: reason that top Gun exists is actually also area fifty one. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because at one point the US, like so the Israeli's
Speaker 1: managed to convince I it was three pilots to defect,
Speaker 1: and then they gave the airplane to the US, and
Speaker 1: so the US spent a bunch of time like flying
Speaker 1: this big twenty three around and figuring out how it worked.
Speaker 1: And that's how they like trained, they basically trained other
Speaker 1: pilots because they suddenly do how the bigs worked, and
Speaker 1: that's that's the origin of the top Gun program. But
Speaker 1: then also hilariously that the Biggs got their revenge when
Speaker 1: when an Air Force general whose name is whose name
Speaker 1: is I am not making this up. His name is
Speaker 1: General Bond and he was like he's like, shows up
Speaker 1: the air he wanted like I want to fly, I
Speaker 1: want to fly and make eighteen and they're like and
Speaker 1: then he just flew it into a mountain and died,
Speaker 1: which well, alright, yeah, we have turned my opinion. Yeah
Speaker 1: he was, which is like a really that is the
Speaker 1: fast difficult to control plane. Just that rules. That rules
Speaker 1: so hard. I see, I was you just completely changed
Speaker 1: my opinion of the man. Yeah, that is that is
Speaker 1: the that is incredibly based. Unfortunately, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: other way more depressing plane crashes that happens here. And
Speaker 1: part of the reason it's bad is because so you
Speaker 1: know this, this whole thing is a black trouble. Imagine
Speaker 1: being depressed about anyone they're dying. Oh, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of so there there's a I don't really care
Speaker 1: as much about the people. But like so there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of like fourteen of the people who are flying
Speaker 1: you twos like die and they like they crash into
Speaker 1: a mountain and one of the it's like, but but
Speaker 1: that sucks about it? Is it like like the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government lies to their families for like half a century
Speaker 1: about how they died. It's like, this sucks. But then
Speaker 1: it gets even worse because again this is you know this,
Speaker 1: this is the Black Project of like all black projects,
Speaker 1: and that means that they have a bunch of people
Speaker 1: from Operation paper Clip because again this is a facility
Speaker 1: run by the CIA in the nineteen fifties, and so
Speaker 1: they let these literal not a bunch of literal Nazi.
Speaker 1: Nazi doctors wrote in endurance test on potential YouTube pilots. Now,
Speaker 1: these doctors are Nazi concentration camp doctors who had performed
Speaker 1: to horrific human experiments on people in the camps. So
Speaker 1: naturally when they do endurance test, they torture people. So
Speaker 1: they would do things like they would force pilots to
Speaker 1: like hold their arms under ice water for like it's
Speaker 1: me long times. They would draft the chairs just like
Speaker 1: randomly electrocute different parts of their body, and it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a nightmare, Like it's yeah, you know, this
Speaker 1: is what happens when you give the Nazis free reign
Speaker 1: over completely secret testing facility where no one can even
Speaker 1: talk about what people did to them. It's it's great,
Speaker 1: it's great, it's it's this is this is why you
Speaker 1: don't have black projects, because the Nazis wind up in
Speaker 1: charge of them and they torture people. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: we're pretty we're pretty all on the same page of
Speaker 1: not having really any projects. Now, the CIA has another problem,
Speaker 1: which is which is a much weirder and funnier problem,
Speaker 1: which that people keep seeing their spy planes and so
Speaker 1: part of this is the original you tuos were silver,
Speaker 1: which means that they reflected the sun and then claiming
Speaker 1: cross yeah the first YouTube now because they not that
Speaker 1: all Matt black. Yeah, that's like a chromed a chrome
Speaker 1: doubt too, like yeah, and it's but you know like
Speaker 1: this this this is you know, this causes like a
Speaker 1: huge number of the UFO settings just people seeing this thing,
Speaker 1: and eventually they're like, we have to make this black
Speaker 1: because like having a spy plane that glows in the sun, yes,
Speaker 1: that idea now and worse yet, so you know, you
Speaker 1: two can fly at like sixty feet, which is it's
Speaker 1: way outside the range of anti aircraft guns. It is
Speaker 1: ridiculously how how high that plane can go. But the
Speaker 1: c i A, in their eternal hubris assumes that it's
Speaker 1: also too high for the Soviet radar to work, and
Speaker 1: so what happens instead is that they fly a YouTube
Speaker 1: directly over the Kremlin to like take pictures of Racruse
Speaker 1: Trevis sleeping, and the Soviets just immediately see it and
Speaker 1: they get really piste off because again, like there's no
Speaker 1: precedent for flying a spy plane over a country you're
Speaker 1: not at war. With and they're like, what the funk?
Speaker 1: Why are you flying pains? The problem is that they
Speaker 1: can't actually like shoot them down because the plans too
Speaker 1: high up. So there's some they can just see it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and but but the US is like, okay, this is
Speaker 1: not provocative enough, right, like we've we've now flown we've
Speaker 1: now flown planes over the house of like a guy
Speaker 1: who can fire nuclear weapons. That's not enough. That's incredibly funny,
Speaker 1: it is very funny. But they're like the So Curtis LeMay,
Speaker 1: who's anyway, we don't need actions in front of Russian embassies? Continues,
Speaker 1: So Lemmy is this guy, this guy is a threat
Speaker 1: to all humanity, and he has his idea, say, okay,
Speaker 1: he wants to figure out how the he want to
Speaker 1: figures out like how the the USRS bade our as
Speaker 1: system works. And so his plan is he's going to
Speaker 1: get the uss ARE to trigger their radar system. And
Speaker 1: he's going to do this by flying a thousand B
Speaker 1: forty seven bombers over Alaska and fly them like Soviet
Speaker 1: air space and then turn around the moment before they
Speaker 1: get in. Guys, come on, there's other ways to do trolling,
Speaker 1: like you don't know, like, you don't need to risk
Speaker 1: the entire populations. Yeah, you get Garrison. See this is
Speaker 1: why you're not an A level troll. Trolls know that
Speaker 1: if you're not risking the entire future of possibly all
Speaker 1: life in the known universe, then you're just you're not
Speaker 1: even there's other ways to make some friends. Make make
Speaker 1: some friends, and troll your friends. It's not that hard.
Speaker 1: Come on, guys, troll the world by by playing chicken
Speaker 1: with its continued ability to sport any life above the
Speaker 1: microbial level. Like that, I think it's incredile about this
Speaker 1: was the only reason any of this works is that
Speaker 1: the Soviets, Like, Soviets are not good, but Soviets aren't
Speaker 1: who the Americans say they are, Like, you're not. Like
Speaker 1: if if the US had done this against the US,
Speaker 1: everyone on Earth would have gone like yeah in the
Speaker 1: end of it, and and may like you can say,
Speaker 1: is like wholmi is Someone asked him about this afterwards
Speaker 1: and his and he says, anti quote, with a little
Speaker 1: bit more luck, we could have started World War three.
Speaker 1: Oh man, this guy, this guy is a fucking like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are like that. They are all just like like
Speaker 1: this this is so bad that like the c i
Speaker 1: A sends a panel of like advisers to the President
Speaker 1: telling him that, like, you can't do this again because
Speaker 1: the Soviets will think it's an actual attack. When n
Speaker 1: is calling you out, then yeah, I think it's time
Speaker 1: to it's time to wrap up shop. Yeah, we're done.
Speaker 1: And the thing is like this is not the like
Speaker 1: the only just absolutely psychotic thing going on in this period,
Speaker 1: like a round ereaft one. So in seven, the US
Speaker 1: test the first dirty bomb and they really don't know
Speaker 1: what this thing is gonna do. And it's like this
Speaker 1: is extremely danious or detonating a bomb. It spiced plutonium
Speaker 1: if you were but just eight uh, lest you think
Speaker 1: that detonating a dirty bomb was not dangerous enough. In
Speaker 1: they dropped something called the hood bomb. And this bomb
Speaker 1: like the blast this okay, they drop this, brought this
Speaker 1: bomb in Nevada, right, the blast of this bomb blows
Speaker 1: out windows in l A. People people see that this
Speaker 1: is in Nevada. People see the explosion in Canada. Great,
Speaker 1: they see in Mexico, like you can see it from
Speaker 1: eight hundred miles out to see. And the funniest part
Speaker 1: is that it temporarily renders Area fifty one uninhabitable, and
Speaker 1: they forgot to tell the people. And if you want
Speaker 1: to evacuate, that is incredible. Everybody can incredibly. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you know the Airty one people still want to
Speaker 1: work there, and so they but this is like before
Speaker 1: they have hassmat suits. So they said, a bunch of
Speaker 1: people in lab coats with like magnets to go collect
Speaker 1: radioactive bomb fragments so people can bring Great, that's extremely fun,
Speaker 1: just killing all of their I have no yeah, I
Speaker 1: have no problems with this. Yeah, and this is fine.
Speaker 1: This is completely fine. We have had probably saved a
Speaker 1: lot of lives, honestly. Yeah. Well, the problem the problem
Speaker 1: is though they they like Area fifty one was allowed
Speaker 1: to resume, and that like very nearly killed us all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been like the more people that die there, if
Speaker 1: you want to get cancer, that probably odds are that
Speaker 1: that contributes to it is it is it is slow death.
Speaker 1: I guess that's what everyone says about radiation poisoning. It
Speaker 1: happens too slowly. Yeah yeah, now, okay, so every fifty ones,
Speaker 1: you two's are like continuing to do flights and pissing
Speaker 1: off the Soviets, but unbeknowns of the Americans, the Soviet
Speaker 1: anti air capacity was rapidly improving, and on Mayday nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: the US pushes it too far and they send a
Speaker 1: pilot and Gary Powers to fly over the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: and the Soviets just like shoot the shoot out of
Speaker 1: him and this this is actually this really cute moment
Speaker 1: where like he crashes and he survived and he's found
Speaker 1: by some raid farmer, and the Soviet farmer just like
Speaker 1: it's like, oh hey cool, just like gives them a
Speaker 1: cigarette with Lucky of the Space Dog on it, and
Speaker 1: they have this very nice moment where they smoke a
Speaker 1: cigarette together and then Powers gets arrested by the Soviet
Speaker 1: government and put on show for espionage. Now the interesting
Speaker 1: part about this is that so the US assumes that
Speaker 1: Powers is dead because when they designed the You Tube,
Speaker 1: the CIA was like, oh yeah, if this they didn't
Speaker 1: tell the pilots, but everyone will die. You are done.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, It's like, but but you know, Powers lives
Speaker 1: through it, and so they they they the US is
Speaker 1: like claiming on life television that Powers was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this wasn't a spy plane. He was collecting high altitude
Speaker 1: weather data for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. This
Speaker 1: lets Krishtchev has like his finest hour here is like
Speaker 1: incredible theatrical moment. He gives this incredible speech that's like
Speaker 1: he's he's like he's like asking like comrads, like what
Speaker 1: what would happen if Soviet planes flew over Detroit and
Speaker 1: immediate war? And he goes on this thing about how
Speaker 1: he's accusing, like he's like, okay, so who who said
Speaker 1: the spy plane? And he's like, well, it couldn't be
Speaker 1: the American people. It must have been the American militarist
Speaker 1: running this biplane uh program without the knowledge of the
Speaker 1: commander in chief. And so the US like keeps denying it.
Speaker 1: And then Kristiev a couple of days later gains this
Speaker 1: another incredible line. I'm gonna quote from this speech because
Speaker 1: it rules comrades. He said, I must let you win
Speaker 1: on a secret. When I made a report two days ago,
Speaker 1: I deliberately refrained from mentioning that we have the remains
Speaker 1: of the plane and we also have the pilot who
Speaker 1: was quite alive and kicking, and the US just like
Speaker 1: it gets owned because safe, Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure
Speaker 1: this day is I'm sure this date isn't thrilled. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's like, it's an enormous embarrassment for this and this,
Speaker 1: this is this is a couple of other great lines. So,
Speaker 1: so Gary Powers gets tried for espionage, and there's there's
Speaker 1: this incredible line in this trial where Sergey Rodenko, who's
Speaker 1: this he's an Air Force general and he's also part
Speaker 1: of the trial, and he calls area fifty one quote
Speaker 1: a criminal conspiracy between quote a major American capitalist company,
Speaker 1: an espionage and recconnaissance center, and the military of the US.
Speaker 1: And because this is this literally whatever is um you know,
Speaker 1: but but this is where everything goes to ship because
Speaker 1: there was supposed to be a massive like US ussr
Speaker 1: P summit to like look at the nuclearization uh huh
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and so and and Christef is like, okay, Eisenhower,
Speaker 1: you you need to apologize for flying spy planes over
Speaker 1: our country. And Eisenhower is like no, and this this yeah,
Speaker 1: the conference is canceled and the world has plunged at
Speaker 1: the mortal peril that will only barely survive and but
Speaker 1: barely I mean it. Oh yeah, we got extremely lucky.
Speaker 1: Um all, all of this basically causes cruise schef to
Speaker 1: like start a military build up in Cuba. And you
Speaker 1: know you can see where this is going. But but
Speaker 1: don't worry less less you think that Area fifty one
Speaker 1: is only indirectly responsible for this. They are in fact
Speaker 1: directly responsible for the Cuban missile crisis. You know they
Speaker 1: they they are fifty one does they did? They do
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff that like funk with the Cubans,
Speaker 1: like they have this thing with it. They send in
Speaker 1: pilots like right up the right up to to Cuban
Speaker 1: airspace and like have them basically trade missile locks with
Speaker 1: Soviet pilots so that they can test the Soviets like
Speaker 1: electronic weapons capacity. And it's again cool once again, we
Speaker 1: only didn't die because the Soviets didn't shoot after the
Speaker 1: U S did some like just absolutely we would have
Speaker 1: absolutely shot them. Done. Yeah, if if a MiG had
Speaker 1: buzzed like Washington d C. We would have ended all humanity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we share would have. They fucking knew that. God. That
Speaker 1: has to be so frustrating. Yeah, Like not a lot
Speaker 1: of sympathy for the U S. S R. In my
Speaker 1: book with just being like, well, this is unacceptable. But
Speaker 1: if we do literally just what they're doing to us,
Speaker 1: and so I guess we have to be chills here,
Speaker 1: it's like yeah, well, and speaking of doing things, there's
Speaker 1: also there's also an incredible Bay of Pigs connection, which
Speaker 1: is that Richard Bassell, who's the guy who did Bay
Speaker 1: of Pigs, was the guy who ran at one. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it fails is that, so
Speaker 1: remember when I talked about how the CIA piste off
Speaker 1: Curtis LeMay by not telling him about everyty one. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the May is supposed to send a bunch of BFTY
Speaker 1: two bombers to support the Bay of Pigs, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't do it. And this defense is that he fucked
Speaker 1: like He's defence is that he sucked up the time zones,
Speaker 1: which I missed. Hey, we've all missed meetings because of that.
Speaker 1: I'm late all the time because the time zones. It's
Speaker 1: that that, you know what, Curtis LeMay did nothing wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. And this this causes the cell but it
Speaker 1: doesn't work because it's a cluster fuck and this you
Speaker 1: know this, this causes the cell to get kicked out
Speaker 1: of the security establishment. But it it doesn't stop the
Speaker 1: U S fucking with Cuba. And so we still haven't
Speaker 1: stopped fighting. Yeah, we're like never going to It's it's incredible.
Speaker 1: And and but because this is the time that came
Speaker 1: closest to killing us all, which is that well, Chris,
Speaker 1: you know what will also eventually kill us all products
Speaker 1: and services. That's not even a joke, that's just true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of these things that is being sold for fake money.
Speaker 1: So yep, by products. And this is when Garrison goes
Speaker 1: on a rant about Fiat currency. We're back and we're
Speaker 1: talking about the Honda Fiat, which is certainly a car.
Speaker 1: I lost it all. I lost I lost it all
Speaker 1: to Fiat. Please everyone everyone sent me, send me what
Speaker 1: you can. I'll reinvest and give you back your money
Speaker 1: in a few days. You're gonna buy one of those
Speaker 1: fucking one of those eight bit illustration and f T
Speaker 1: s that costs two million dollars, aren't you, Garrison? Oh
Speaker 1: you bet see. I heard. I heard now that they're
Speaker 1: making physical copies. This is a brand new phenomenon, making
Speaker 1: physical versions of an n f T so you can
Speaker 1: actually like have something. Yeah, there is there's nothing else
Speaker 1: like this. It's like art, but you actually can have it.
Speaker 1: It's the first time it's Robert. You guys, you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't tell the public how are how how? How
Speaker 1: how how we funnel all of our money around for
Speaker 1: our black projects. You're not allowed to explain our money
Speaker 1: laundering schemes on air. You know. One one surprising thing
Speaker 1: about all of this, like AIRF one stuff is honestly
Speaker 1: the degree to which the government does not deflect stuff
Speaker 1: by using alien ship more often, because if they were smart,
Speaker 1: they could just use alien ship more often to deflect
Speaker 1: any suspicion about what's actually happening. So they I don't know,
Speaker 1: they go back and so so part of us going
Speaker 1: so they go back and forth on this, and part
Speaker 1: of what's going on is that the CIA, when when
Speaker 1: when people start first reporting UFOs like, they have to
Speaker 1: like concerns, one of which is that it's just going
Speaker 1: to cause panic in the US public and they don't
Speaker 1: want that they're doing this sort of like elite panic
Speaker 1: thing and they're afraid that's going to go insane or whatever.
Speaker 1: But the second thing that they're worried about is that
Speaker 1: they're really concerned that the Soviet Union is going to
Speaker 1: block out the U s IS Early Warning System by
Speaker 1: sending a bunch of a QFO reports, which would be
Speaker 1: very funn Yeah, it would be very funny, but you know,
Speaker 1: but so so they their initial line on UFOs is
Speaker 1: like they're they're trying. They spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: trying to get everyone to like not believe in them,
Speaker 1: because they're like, this is this is treading ast area
Speaker 1: and it's like damaging or early warning capacity because people
Speaker 1: keep reporting and also because people just keep seeing their
Speaker 1: spy planes and so they're just like, guys, there's no UFOs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll get to in a little bit of some
Speaker 1: more about that, because there's a lot of very weird
Speaker 1: stuff going on there. But first we have to almost
Speaker 1: end the world, all right, Let's let's just do that
Speaker 1: at first. And then in six two, the CIA flies
Speaker 1: it flies a YouTube over over Cuba and they get
Speaker 1: a bunch of pictures of nuclear weapons and this this
Speaker 1: is basically the thing that starts to Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 1: Although I also I also we need to talk about
Speaker 1: LeMay one more time, because before they get these pictures,
Speaker 1: LeMay is convinced there's there's no nukes there, and LeMay
Speaker 1: wants to do a preective strike on Cuba to stop
Speaker 1: the Soviets and bring missiles in, which again literally would
Speaker 1: have killed us. All yeah, yeah, but but let me
Speaker 1: let's make us voted down. So the CIA, you know,
Speaker 1: sends the youtubes in and this this is the thing
Speaker 1: that starts to the starts to Cuban missile crisis. And
Speaker 1: you have the Soviets and Americans like staring each other
Speaker 1: down at sea. And but again because these people are
Speaker 1: just like like because there are if you want people
Speaker 1: to see how people are just nuts, they keep sending
Speaker 1: UFOs and if they keep sending you twos over Cuba,
Speaker 1: and they they're sending youtubos over Cuba, and and the
Speaker 1: Americans like line on the you Tuesday sendiver is if
Speaker 1: they shoot down a YouTube, We're going to invade. And
Speaker 1: so the Soviets actually do shoot shoot down a YouTube.
Speaker 1: But for like the only time ever in history, uh,
Speaker 1: the US is like, wait, maybe we shouldn't end all
Speaker 1: like literally end all humanity, and like we we get this,
Speaker 1: be goet this moment, we're just like, you know, you
Speaker 1: get to actually, so you have all of the like
Speaker 1: just horrific leadership stuff that has got you here, But
Speaker 1: you get a moment where like the soul of humanity
Speaker 1: is tested in like a very small number of people,
Speaker 1: and it's like, if any one of these people on
Speaker 1: either side flinches or like decides that they want to
Speaker 1: end all life on earth, everyone is going to die.
Speaker 1: And for one of like this is you know, this
Speaker 1: is like this is like one of the only times
Speaker 1: ever that it has actually mattered that we're not all
Speaker 1: just like terrible pieces of ship and we didn't do it,
Speaker 1: and we didn't end all humanity, and eventually the whole
Speaker 1: the whole thing is wound down. Alternatively, the people in
Speaker 1: charge realized that if they were doing this, they could
Speaker 1: no longer do whatever fun stuff they didn't their spare time.
Speaker 1: And it's only for selfish reason. Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: because yeah, the lead. Let me say, it's like the
Speaker 1: leaders get no credit here at all. The people who
Speaker 1: do get credit are just like the random assholes on
Speaker 1: a ship who like got sent over to the other
Speaker 1: side of the world and had to just like sit
Speaker 1: there knowing that they could be destroyed in any moments,
Speaker 1: and then didn't panic and held and kept kept everyone
Speaker 1: on Earth from dying by just not just like holding
Speaker 1: it together in a situation that would have just like
Speaker 1: destroyed most people. So so good, good on, good on
Speaker 1: like the Cruise of the Ships for not killing us
Speaker 1: all yeah, yeah, depending on how I feel now, part
Speaker 1: part part of what's happening here is is the you
Speaker 1: tu is getting shot down. It makes the area tript
Speaker 1: to one. People go, we need to build a faster plane. Sure,
Speaker 1: and so there's their solution to this is the A
Speaker 1: twelve ox cart. And the oxcar is interesting because this
Speaker 1: is another thing that everyone thinks is the UFO but
Speaker 1: actually isn't. And I mean there's a very famous UFO
Speaker 1: picture of like one of NASA's like X fifteen rocket jets,
Speaker 1: and in the very like in the very corner of
Speaker 1: this rocket picture of the rocket jet, there's there's an
Speaker 1: A twelve and everyone is like, oh, this is UFO.
Speaker 1: Is the UFON is like, no, it's not, it's this.
Speaker 1: But you know, the CIA keeps doing these like half
Speaker 1: ast cover ups. But like ye, like you can just
Speaker 1: see these out of passenger planes, Like if you're in
Speaker 1: a plane, you just see it. It's like, oh, this
Speaker 1: thing looks like a cigar sleep past, and they they
Speaker 1: do looking they do look incredibly weird. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't work. And eventually in the mid sixties, Walter Cronkite
Speaker 1: like goes on TV and tells the American public at
Speaker 1: the CIA have been doing a UFO cover up, which
Speaker 1: is true, but everyone assumes this is about aliens. But
Speaker 1: it's not about aliens. Nothing with aliens. It has everything
Speaker 1: to do with the fact that people keep seeing this biplanes.
Speaker 1: And so the Air Force gets to put in charge
Speaker 1: of an investigation of UFOs. But the problem is that
Speaker 1: only a few top Air Force generals know about the
Speaker 1: A twelve. Yeah, they only a few people know what
Speaker 1: the existence of this aircraft. Yeah yeah, And so the
Speaker 1: low level investigators are like, oh, the Air Force is
Speaker 1: doing a uh cover up, which they are, but they
Speaker 1: assume that it's about aliens. And so a bunch of
Speaker 1: these people like turned into aliens, like U focus eiracy
Speaker 1: theorists and yeah, because this is you know, and we're
Speaker 1: getting to see this. The the US basically through it
Speaker 1: sort of like the secrecy run these programs. It just
Speaker 1: it keeps creating UFO conspiracies and yeah, there there's some okay,
Speaker 1: there's some question as to how deliberately they're doing this.
Speaker 1: Um So, the head of the National Investigation Committee on
Speaker 1: Aerial Phenomena, which is like the uf U s s
Speaker 1: UFO Study Group uh IN nine is taken over by
Speaker 1: Joseph Brian the Third, who Joseph Brian the Third was
Speaker 1: the CIA's first chief of Political and Psychological Warfare. He
Speaker 1: seems like a solid dude to hang out with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have no idea what that means, does you know?
Speaker 1: And and there's there's some reports that there have been
Speaker 1: a couple of like books and documentaries and a lot
Speaker 1: and in the last like ten years to have repared that. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it basically reported that that people in the CIA
Speaker 1: deliberately fed like fake UFO information to people to cause
Speaker 1: people to like go even deeper into their conspiracy, which
Speaker 1: is absolutely believe. Yeah, I would, I will say this, Okay, so,
Speaker 1: like this is the kind of thing the CIA would do.
Speaker 1: But the people who are giving the evidence are sketchy,
Speaker 1: and I mean, of course, yeah, like that that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is kind of how that mean. They probably feed
Speaker 1: it to a lot of people, and the people who
Speaker 1: talk about it, well, I mean so that the people
Speaker 1: are testifying a better the people who allegedly did it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. But but the thing that, well, the
Speaker 1: probably is weird about those people also just sort of
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I spread this conspiracy, but like they
Speaker 1: kind they also want to get into the UFO scene.
Speaker 1: And so the question it's it's weird and it is
Speaker 1: a lot of weird conflicting interests going on. And this
Speaker 1: is this is one of the problems with the CIA,
Speaker 1: which is that like, okay, so there's there's there's a
Speaker 1: couple of there's like some important things you need to
Speaker 1: understand about the CIA. They're bad. You don't need conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories for that. They're just they're bad. They do a
Speaker 1: lot of bad things. Um, the CIA having done something
Speaker 1: is not in and of itself proof that they need
Speaker 1: another thing. So for example, like you can say that
Speaker 1: like you know, you sayn't think like the CIA is
Speaker 1: a mood base, right, and someone asked you for evidence
Speaker 1: that you can go, oh, well, they did operation paper
Speaker 1: Clip and they're involved in development of rocket technology. But
Speaker 1: just because the CIA did offer paperclip and had rockets
Speaker 1: does not mean they have a moon base, right, Like
Speaker 1: this is this is this is something. This something happens
Speaker 1: all the time when people talk about the CIA falling
Speaker 1: into yeah, yeah, you cannot you cannot use something that
Speaker 1: the CIA has done as direct evidence they did something
Speaker 1: else unless there's a direct tie between, unless unless you
Speaker 1: have evidence that the other thing happened. There's other people
Speaker 1: who suck. Yeah yeah, and if everything is, they're not omnipotence.
Speaker 1: And then this is what the example I always bring
Speaker 1: up because it's really funny. So the CIA just completely
Speaker 1: missed two two different Indian nuclear weapons tests, like across
Speaker 1: two decades. Like not only did they not realize that
Speaker 1: that they were testing me happening soon, Like they didn't
Speaker 1: even know that India was doing tests at all. And
Speaker 1: then they Yeah, so these news would go off and
Speaker 1: they would learn that the India was doing tests when
Speaker 1: Indiana govern renounced on TV. So like they're they're not
Speaker 1: actually omnipotent. I think, I think, what is this interesting? People?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you're in a I'm not sure
Speaker 1: you bring this up shortly, but like this sort of
Speaker 1: thing is definitely is still happening in terms of like yeah,
Speaker 1: like air force pilots seeing weird stuff in this guy
Speaker 1: and then going to talk about it be like you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like this is some other aircraft. Usually it's
Speaker 1: usually usually we're able to actually like prove what these
Speaker 1: things are. Um, but like you know, military or people
Speaker 1: see stuff, they talk talk about the news, and at
Speaker 1: the time it was always weird. It's always when like
Speaker 1: some other like like civil arrest is happening. When like
Speaker 1: we get some weird piece of information about UFOs, you're like, oh, really,
Speaker 1: what a coincidence. And it's it's it's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to be though, because like there's this kind of like
Speaker 1: weird interplace because like a lot of like like like
Speaker 1: senators and presidents like actually believe that there's UFOs and
Speaker 1: and this is like I mean the weird things, but
Speaker 1: like the different do you mean like UFOs are doing
Speaker 1: like aliens well, like like aliens like this like that
Speaker 1: there are there are a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: government who do believe in aliens and and and it's
Speaker 1: it's this weird tension because and a lot of like
Speaker 1: everything is like like I don't know, like Harry Reid,
Speaker 1: for example, was a big alien dude, right, but Harry Reid,
Speaker 1: like I mean, I know he's very powerful in Nevadas,
Speaker 1: like maybe he knew, but like Harry Reid is not
Speaker 1: some one who knows what's happening in these black projects
Speaker 1: because they don't tell. They don't tell Congress, right, I
Speaker 1: mean she she might know because of how powerfully is,
Speaker 1: but like again, it's up in the even even the
Speaker 1: people who are supposed to be in charge, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's actually happening. And that means they fall for
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories because yeah, they fought for conspiracy theories. And
Speaker 1: at this point, it's more of a it's more of
Speaker 1: a fandom than anything else. It's really easy to get
Speaker 1: sucked into a fandom, like so I can't I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't trust any Congressman on any level specifically around
Speaker 1: this issue, because this is solely a fandom issue. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like it's like taking their opinion on like religion.
Speaker 1: It's like I care zero amount because it's only a
Speaker 1: fandom like that. But I think I think that the
Speaker 1: thing that is very dangerous about this Stough is that
Speaker 1: again Area fifty one is like the existence of Area
Speaker 1: fifty one is like an atrocity to anyone who thinks
Speaker 1: you live in a democracy. They have almost killed us,
Speaker 1: like multiple multiple times, and everyone is like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: the aliens. It was like, nope, they they literally almost
Speaker 1: ended life on Earth like four times times. And and yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're gonna get into they they you know,
Speaker 1: we'll get into the other horrible stuff they do in
Speaker 1: a second. But I do want to talk about the
Speaker 1: one cool thing they did, because okay, they did one
Speaker 1: thing that was incredibly awesome. That was the greatest thing
Speaker 1: the American Empire has ever produced, which is they made
Speaker 1: the SR seventy one, and the SR seventy one is
Speaker 1: fucking sick. This is this is the coolest airplane anyone.
Speaker 1: It's like, just like dot google a picture of it.
Speaker 1: It looks so cool. It could hit it could hit
Speaker 1: Mock three point four. Like, it's just fast. It's faster
Speaker 1: than bullets is. It doesn't have any weapons on it,
Speaker 1: and it it's it's defense strategy, So I want you
Speaker 1: missile is to outrun the missile. It's what's the X Man.
Speaker 1: It does look just like the X Wing, and it
Speaker 1: does look just like the X Men's Yeah, well yeah,
Speaker 1: it's specifically they modified s. Yeah, yeah, it's it's shiitest
Speaker 1: thing ever and it's like from that was like that
Speaker 1: was the pinnacle of the American empires when they made this,
Speaker 1: this one just absolutely incredible machine, and then they used
Speaker 1: to do war crimes in Vietnam and then they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's too expensive. Dick Cheney, who was a demon in
Speaker 1: human form, who will one day returned to the hell
Speaker 1: that spawned him and spend the rest of his day's
Speaker 1: being torn apart by Satan, has the program killed because
Speaker 1: he wants to make B two bombers, and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we've got to be able to drop nukes from weird
Speaker 1: triangle planes. We can't run the coolest plane of all
Speaker 1: time ever anymore. So he kills it. And it's depressing
Speaker 1: and it's it's everything is bad now, and he will
Speaker 1: rott in hell eternally for of his many crimes. Killing
Speaker 1: the SR seventy one. The only good thing the Americans
Speaker 1: ever did. He should have This is the only thing
Speaker 1: we should have ever spent money on us. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: if look if the roads just a network of SR
Speaker 1: seven it was that was almost three million dollars in
Speaker 1: today's money for one Yeah. Sure, but like just like
Speaker 1: just like a trillion dark. Look at how much worse
Speaker 1: that lane looks than the sr SEV one, like every
Speaker 1: success flying around in at they're so wet, they're so
Speaker 1: bad because Professor Xavier has has fucking style unfortunately. So
Speaker 1: there's the other things they're building there are horrifying. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the most important ones that I think people
Speaker 1: have sort of like forgotten the real impact of is
Speaker 1: is that the F one se Nighthawk and so so
Speaker 1: uh Eric fifty one is basically where American steuth technology
Speaker 1: is developed, which really does on the conspiracy but like, no,
Speaker 1: this is actually like yeah, this, this is this is
Speaker 1: what they're doing. They're doing Yeah, they're doing stealth technology
Speaker 1: and the Nighthawk. The Nighthawk is really bad, and the
Speaker 1: night Hawk is really bad because it fundamentally changes the
Speaker 1: balance of power between antio weapons and bombers. And this
Speaker 1: means that the US can just like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: for example, just obliterate an army of fleeing Iraqi conscripts
Speaker 1: without having to like worry about someone shooting down their planes.
Speaker 1: To be fair, I do think I do think the
Speaker 1: night Hawk looks way better then the previous plane we mentioned.
Speaker 1: That's for any one has not a bad looking plane,
Speaker 1: but the night has beautiful plane. It's a it is
Speaker 1: a horrible killing machine. It's all it's designed for. And
Speaker 1: it looks like it it looks like death. Like the
Speaker 1: plane looks like it's true, it doesn't look like well
Speaker 1: that's why I likely there's only one or seventy one
Speaker 1: just looks like it looks like, looks like sexy death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: whereas where this one looks like it's like, this looks
Speaker 1: like like like like like yeah, like a government put
Speaker 1: into a plane that is death, that is and that
Speaker 1: is what it looks like. And so yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is this is part of a transition the night
Speaker 1: Hawks actually is there's an interesting transition that's happening here,
Speaker 1: which is that so the Nighthawks, Uh, the night Hawk
Speaker 1: is tested at at at one, but this is the
Speaker 1: first plane that like can actually drop bombs that are
Speaker 1: fift do you want ever made? Because up until up
Speaker 1: until this point they've been doing mconnaissance aircraft and be
Speaker 1: doing the YouTube there's seventy one a twelve, which is
Speaker 1: like they're just capable of accident ending the world, whereas
Speaker 1: these deliberately ending it by dropping bombs. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: this this this is when the CIA gives control of
Speaker 1: AFT one to the Air Force. Yeah, and this is all.
Speaker 1: This is also where airy fifty two comes in because
Speaker 1: fifty two, which it's it's it's literally just a facility
Speaker 1: X fifty one. And so they air fifty one is like,
Speaker 1: I sorry, Air fifty two is built up basically to
Speaker 1: like house the night Hawks. Now it is it is
Speaker 1: interesting that like the older night Hawks look a lot
Speaker 1: more like UFOs than the newer night Hawks. Like the
Speaker 1: newer night Hawks look more like the stupid like tumbler
Speaker 1: batmobile but in a plane, the older night Hawks look
Speaker 1: a lot more sci fi um. And it is interesting
Speaker 1: working the difference to be like, if I saw the
Speaker 1: older night Hawk could be like, oh that's the UFO.
Speaker 1: If I saw the newer night Hawk, I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: that is like a military plane. Yeah. Well, and I
Speaker 1: will I will say this. So they start doing a
Speaker 1: lot of things to reduce the number of UFO sightings
Speaker 1: they produce. So, like they said, they start flaying. They
Speaker 1: start flying at night because it's actually really hard to
Speaker 1: see a black airplane at night. Which yeah, but but
Speaker 1: you know the other thing that they're doing in Air
Speaker 1: fifty one, and they've been doing this really since the sixties.
Speaker 1: Is Air fifty one is where the US basically develops
Speaker 1: its drones. Yeah, and that is that that is the
Speaker 1: modern thing that pilots talk of it on CBS or whatever,
Speaker 1: and and you know, and it's interestingly so so I
Speaker 1: I mean I've been sort of aware of this, I
Speaker 1: didn't fully understand it. The US like had drones in
Speaker 1: the sixties which just put a lot Yeah, yeah, like
Speaker 1: they like one of the things they do with the
Speaker 1: A twelve is they put like they had this like
Speaker 1: Ramjet drone on top of it, just like pretty like
Speaker 1: a Ramjet joone is sick. Like that's like, that's just
Speaker 1: like a cool thing. Yeah, if it wasn't used for
Speaker 1: killing people, then all these things are cool designed to people.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but about the ram jet things, they had
Speaker 1: to stop using it because it kept it kept just
Speaker 1: like like cutting the airplane that kept cutting the A
Speaker 1: twelve and a half. It's okay, well to the ram
Speaker 1: Jet drowne But yeah, And I think the last thing
Speaker 1: we should talk about is that, Yeah, so Area fifty
Speaker 1: ones the latest thing that we know that they did
Speaker 1: that is horrifying and awful is so up up until
Speaker 1: nine eleven, there have been a line in the U. S. Military,
Speaker 1: and that line was you do not put weapons on
Speaker 1: unarmed drones. After after what a time? Yeah, and every
Speaker 1: nine eleven, uh, the air Force in the CIA basically
Speaker 1: get together and they're trying to draw up a plan
Speaker 1: to kill Burn Lauden and so their their plan to
Speaker 1: do this is to put health fire missiles on a drone.
Speaker 1: And this is this is this is the origin of
Speaker 1: what a horrible series of ye there like the few
Speaker 1: decisions that have impacted the course of humanity for the
Speaker 1: next century that are being responsible for so many and
Speaker 1: this thing, you you can you can see where this
Speaker 1: is going in the initial thing because so when when
Speaker 1: when when they're testing the missiles on this right in
Speaker 1: Air fifty one, that they set up a mock version
Speaker 1: of like Ben Lawden's house, and they're setting it up
Speaker 1: so that they can figure out how many children they
Speaker 1: are going to kill when they blow this thing up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's that's that's that's that's been that's been
Speaker 1: a modern No, the worst, the worst thing to come
Speaker 1: from places like this is putting guns on robots and drones.
Speaker 1: This is like the worst thing, almost almost almost ending
Speaker 1: the world with nuclear weapons, and then now drones deciding
Speaker 1: to put deciding to put bombs and weapons on little
Speaker 1: tiny things that fly and little and little robots that
Speaker 1: crawl around. This is the worst thing imaginable that we
Speaker 1: could have. We could have just not done, but we're like, nope,
Speaker 1: let's do it. And because the thing thing has occard
Speaker 1: about it is even even though like seventies c i
Speaker 1: A was like, this is a bad idea. I know,
Speaker 1: it's one of one of the first laws of like
Speaker 1: one of the first laws of first lave of robotics,
Speaker 1: the first law of robotics. Yeah, but we stopped talking
Speaker 1: about that years ago, and now we have the Now
Speaker 1: we have those fucking robot dogs have fucking like five
Speaker 1: six rifles six point five even worse, even worse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's the episode. And yeah, a six point five
Speaker 1: creed More rifle, it'll go right through a robot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm real excited for the robot Wars and then you'll
Speaker 1: be able to it's gonna suck so bad. We're already
Speaker 1: in the robot Wars. Yeah, I know, yeah, it's well,
Speaker 1: it's happened. Well, but you know what will never happen.
Speaker 1: It would have been so much it would have been
Speaker 1: so much better if it was just aliens. God what no, not, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would though, if we ever do Store Mary, we
Speaker 1: should just destroy it like that. That's just that place.
Speaker 1: That place should be raised to the ground and like
Speaker 1: left as a monument to the people that killed, because
Speaker 1: that should be most of the states. Yes, yes, specifically,
Speaker 1: we fill every inch of it with concrete and we
Speaker 1: top it with a statue of Fox Molder. You know.
Speaker 1: You know what we do is we do the thing
Speaker 1: like for the theoretical the theoretical nuclear waste disposal site. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is what we do. It is also still sort
Speaker 1: of a radiant and also it is still also radiant.
Speaker 1: So yeah, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing of value is kept here.
Speaker 1: Turn turn away. Yea. Yeah, well I wish it was Aliens.
Speaker 1: We all wish it was aliens. All right, Well that's
Speaker 1: the episode. You can follow our CIA exploits that that
Speaker 1: happened here upon on Twitter and Instagram. God I hate
Speaker 1: social media. All right, that's the episode, spooky, all right,
Speaker 1: we're done. Um, hello, everybody, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: That this is on the week that this is which
Speaker 1: is the spooky week of the year where things are spooky. Today,
Speaker 1: my guest Katie Golden. Katie, say hello to the audience. Hello, audience,
Speaker 1: now say goodbye. Okay by audience. Now tell the audience
Speaker 1: that acts of industrial sabotage are always morally justified in
Speaker 1: defense of the climate. Uh acts of Wait, okay, so
Speaker 1: are you do you guys have a team of lawyers
Speaker 1: that I can access or absolutely, they say it's fine.
Speaker 1: They say it's fine. If you tell people that, then
Speaker 1: you know, industrial sabotui or whatever. He said, it's cool.
Speaker 1: I love it all right, everybody. I wouldn't have made
Speaker 1: that kind of claim, but but you heard Katie, so
Speaker 1: you know, there you go. We've now made a full
Speaker 1: throated defense of the Niger Delta Avengers. That is true.
Speaker 1: That is an upcoming episode. Chris, um, Katie, what do you?
Speaker 1: What do you do? What do we? What do we?
Speaker 1: What do we? What? What are we? What are we?
Speaker 1: What are We're all stardust? Robert, Okay, well that sounds soothing.
Speaker 1: Actually well well, first, Katie of of of the Golden's
Speaker 1: is the host of Creature right for some more news.
Speaker 1: You're the host of Creature Future Jesus, Sophie, you gotta
Speaker 1: remember these things. Um, everything's always beautiful. What are we
Speaker 1: What are we doing today? What do you got? What?
Speaker 1: What are what's happening? I mean, this is your podcast,
Speaker 1: But I thought, all right, fine, it's my podcast. Now,
Speaker 1: welcome to it could happen. We are hosted by Katie Golden.
Speaker 1: I thought we could talk. I thought we could talk
Speaker 1: about animals because I like animals. All right, you got
Speaker 1: a spooky thing about an animal for us? Yeah, I thought,
Speaker 1: because the theme of your podcast seems to be, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the future and how things could get pretty
Speaker 1: fucky in the future, and I thought, there are some
Speaker 1: examples of things getting fucky with animals in the current present.
Speaker 1: That seems to it could maybe be a bit of
Speaker 1: a crystal ball for things that could happen in the
Speaker 1: future with climate change. That is kind of spooky. All right,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Have you guys heard of the Saiga antelope.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've heard of antelopes, and I've heard of
Speaker 1: the Saiga, and I guess I'm not surprised that there's
Speaker 1: antelopes in the Saiga. Do me a quick favor and
Speaker 1: just google Siga antelope and just take a gander. Take
Speaker 1: them on in as I I'll describe them to the audience. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are kind of some of the cutest, dufiest little
Speaker 1: us in the world. Little little they have the best
Speaker 1: little face. It's it's like just too it's just a
Speaker 1: big nose. It's just a big ridiculous nose. My god,
Speaker 1: that knows looks silly. They must be endangered because they
Speaker 1: look they look like they're terrible at staying alive. Their
Speaker 1: their faces all nose. It's like someone's whole face was
Speaker 1: just a nose, like someone stuck an ant eater to like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they look delicious. I'm just gonna say it. I would
Speaker 1: hunt them and eat them. They kind of have like
Speaker 1: did it with Voldemort's nostrils in the Harry Potter movie.
Speaker 1: But like long, Yeah, they look ridiculous. Yes, they like
Speaker 1: a Star Wars animal. Yeah, some of them. They're patterning
Speaker 1: makes it look like they have tear drop tattoos under
Speaker 1: their eyes, which I think means they've all killed someone
Speaker 1: in prison. I remember the hard correctly. Yeah, anyways, are
Speaker 1: you going to tell something that is happening with them? Katie? Yes?
Speaker 1: Are they racist? Are these racist? Antelope. Katie, we're gonna
Speaker 1: milkshake duct these antelopes. Yeah, they're they're all as far
Speaker 1: as I know, they're not tear racist. They have some
Speaker 1: problematic views on like, you know, gender abortion. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I mean, all antelope have really regressive attitudes towards women's
Speaker 1: reproductive health, I mean frustrating. Yeah, yeah, it's a but
Speaker 1: these guys look like Star Wars animals. To me, they
Speaker 1: kind of look like a Star Wars animal named like
Speaker 1: a grass honker or something. Yeah, they look extremely fake.
Speaker 1: It's it looks like a guy you'd meet at the
Speaker 1: bar where the Aliens played jizz. Yes, that type of
Speaker 1: music that Katie's doing is canonically and if you and
Speaker 1: if you are if you, if you are a musician
Speaker 1: who plays jiz, you are a jiz whaler. And the
Speaker 1: best thing about that is that I know all of
Speaker 1: the thought that George Lucas put to that was, Oh,
Speaker 1: someone asked what the type of music they played in
Speaker 1: the jazz is a real kind of music. Let me
Speaker 1: just put an eye in the vowel. Now, well that's
Speaker 1: gonna be the day for me. Aren't put an apostrophe
Speaker 1: in which it could have? It could have it could
Speaker 1: have been, is right, So it didn't even the effort
Speaker 1: wasn't there because these are okay, sorry, no, I could
Speaker 1: talk about this for hours. I just the differences between J. K.
Speaker 1: Rowling and and George Lucas as creators who both made
Speaker 1: very popular fiction franchises and want people to think they
Speaker 1: thought about them more than they did, is absolutely hysterical
Speaker 1: because J. K. Rowling does that by creating all these
Speaker 1: convoluted backstories and George Lucas replaced the A and jazz
Speaker 1: with an eye and didn't realize that a thing. Right,
Speaker 1: what an incredible person. It is pretty good. Sorry, Katie, No,
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's fine. So these psyched antelope a k a.
Speaker 1: Jiz whalers are found in the grasslands and semi deserts
Speaker 1: in Central Asia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. They
Speaker 1: actually used to have a much wider change, but because
Speaker 1: of all the Roberts out there wanting to taste their delicious,
Speaker 1: delicious hunting just that nose on a plate, their population
Speaker 1: declined and it's now limited to a small territory. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's still enough for me to eat a couple no, Robert,
Speaker 1: if you try to kill one, I'll kill you first.
Speaker 1: Antelope hunting, we have to we have to protect they
Speaker 1: look they look stupid as ship. They can't possibly be
Speaker 1: good at stuff. Actually what that knows? I bet their
Speaker 1: senses are. They could do a lot of interesting things. Yeah, anybody,
Speaker 1: let Katie tell the story. You interrupting, Fox go sorry,
Speaker 1: we all got jizz pilled in now not so, it's okay,
Speaker 1: it's I understand the excitement about these guys. Um. I
Speaker 1: do want to paint a mental picture for the audience
Speaker 1: just so they get like why people are freaking out.
Speaker 1: So they have this elephant, like imagine a little antelope,
Speaker 1: and they're they're small. They're about two to three ft tall,
Speaker 1: about sids. Yeah, they're little babies. And it looks like
Speaker 1: you took like a cute little deer and just glued
Speaker 1: like a big elephant nose to it. It's not as
Speaker 1: long as an elephant trunk, but it's sort of a
Speaker 1: like a it curls under like an elephant seal nose
Speaker 1: stuck to a little deer. And that snout is called
Speaker 1: a proboscis, and yeah, it's a they're kind of a
Speaker 1: they have sort of a light tan white coat. Uh,
Speaker 1: they can get really fluffy in the winter. Uh. They
Speaker 1: have these really huge tubular nostrils on that nose, and
Speaker 1: that gigantic honker helps them filter dirt as the huge
Speaker 1: herds sort of trample on the ground and kick up
Speaker 1: dirt clouds um. And it can also act as an
Speaker 1: ac unit that cools the Siga antelopes blood. So as
Speaker 1: blood flows through it, you have this spacious chamber and
Speaker 1: it cools the blood and it recirculates. And then in
Speaker 1: the winter it can act as a space heater that
Speaker 1: warms the air before they breathe it in so ac heater. Yeah,
Speaker 1: filter system. It's really a cool nose, which is why
Speaker 1: it was absolutely horrifying when entire herds of the Saga
Speaker 1: antelope started dropping dead on mass within like days of
Speaker 1: each other, just like a biblical plague. So there are photos.
Speaker 1: What's properly unbelievable. You're so embarrassing sometimes, Katie, I'm so sorry. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's fine. Um, I'm I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know how else to sort of add levity to just
Speaker 1: the most adorable little antelope in the world just all
Speaker 1: suddenly dying. Uh, there. So there are photos in Kazakhstan
Speaker 1: of in Kazakhstan of these fields just littered with these
Speaker 1: white lumps, and when you zoom in you realize they're
Speaker 1: all saga antelope corpses just covering the ground. It's pretty
Speaker 1: bone chilling. It kind of looks okay, this is a
Speaker 1: little bit, uh. It kind of looks like a cult death,
Speaker 1: a mass cult death, like jonestown antelope. Oh boy. I
Speaker 1: was going to say when you go grenade fishing, but yeah,
Speaker 1: same kind of idea grenade fishing. Yeah, what does you
Speaker 1: drop a grenade in a lake and then it kills
Speaker 1: all the fish and they float to the top so
Speaker 1: you can Okay, I thought it was like you were
Speaker 1: fishing for like running around a field going like is
Speaker 1: that a grenade? Is? If you go fishing in a
Speaker 1: lake where people go grenade fishing, you may in fact
Speaker 1: catch a grenade. But no, right, two grenades with one stone.
Speaker 1: Well kind of I'm having this image of bobbing for apples.
Speaker 1: But above ye with lakes in Iraq, is it because
Speaker 1: they've got grenades in them? Yeah? Don't really, that's how
Speaker 1: you fish, Yeah, okay, yeah, it's still obsession looking at
Speaker 1: these pictures. Okay, what caused all this, this this nightmare
Speaker 1: plague that killed all of the all of the weird
Speaker 1: nos the gonzo antelope, right, the gonzo antelope. It was
Speaker 1: kind of a mystery. So in two hundred thousand siged
Speaker 1: died off in that year alone, literally not that many.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was like the they wiped out the
Speaker 1: majority of the global population because they were already endangered. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just like keeled over died without explanation, and so
Speaker 1: researchers were obviously horrified and confused and slightly curious and
Speaker 1: start that's moan left. Yeah. Yeah, so they're like a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand left. Um. And so they started investigating the
Speaker 1: mass deaths and they found that the cause was a
Speaker 1: bacterial infection of pastor Ella multosita type B bacteria, which
Speaker 1: is a really catchy name. Um. And it caused hemorrhagic
Speaker 1: sceptus simia um, which is a horrible I looked up
Speaker 1: the symptoms. It's like internal bleeding and just it's like
Speaker 1: the worst cold ever, but also with your organs bleeding inside,
Speaker 1: which doesn't sound great. It sounds and honestly looks like
Speaker 1: Captain trips, like the plague from Stephen King's the stand
Speaker 1: that killed all of the people, Like just this horrible
Speaker 1: plague that makes everybody bleed out and drop where they're standing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's essentially what it happened. What happens also with a
Speaker 1: lot of snot like a lot of Yeah, that's also
Speaker 1: very captain trips. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean maybe
Speaker 1: that yeah yeah, so meat fun So yeah. What is
Speaker 1: thought to have happened is that basically, this bacteria pastor
Speaker 1: Ella has often been found in siga antelope large noses.
Speaker 1: They're also found in other like a yellow noses that
Speaker 1: have big these big sort of proboscus noses, and it
Speaker 1: lives in there. But it's normally not a problem because
Speaker 1: the immune system is able to fight it off fine
Speaker 1: and maintains this balance. But the climate, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you guys have heard, but climate is kind of
Speaker 1: getting weird. That is something I've I've heard of, Yeah,
Speaker 1: learning about it. It may be it may be changing
Speaker 1: from what it used to be a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's called change of climate kind of on a global scale.
Speaker 1: Everything getting slightly warmer. Yeah, climate hot ng because of
Speaker 1: climate hottening, this bacteria it had much more ideal, uh
Speaker 1: kind of of an environment to grow. So inside the
Speaker 1: beautiful proboscis of the antelope, you can imagine it's moist,
Speaker 1: it's warm, it's great, it's moister fester inside the nose,
Speaker 1: right exactly. And so when it gets more humid on
Speaker 1: the outside, more hot and humid, that nose increases in
Speaker 1: temperature as well, and it became the perfect incubator for
Speaker 1: hosting this bacteria such that it overwhelmed the antelopes immune
Speaker 1: system and literally they just started dropping like flies from
Speaker 1: this infection, like an entire herd dying within a couple
Speaker 1: of days. When when you first mentioned this, you're talking
Speaker 1: about how they can use their nose as like an
Speaker 1: air conditioner. I was thinking like, oh, maybe maybe these
Speaker 1: animals will be like well adapted to climate change so
Speaker 1: they can stuff regulate. But no, of course not. Of
Speaker 1: course it's not a good story. Um yea. Now, I
Speaker 1: think that's what's so creepy about climate change to me
Speaker 1: is there's like the obvious effects are things like more fire,
Speaker 1: we get real hot and we die because it's too hot.
Speaker 1: But things like oh this means bacteria loves loves living
Speaker 1: life and like starts eating us from the inside out.
Speaker 1: Like that's not a really I guess intuitive consequence of
Speaker 1: global warming, but it is one of the things that
Speaker 1: seems to be likely to happen. So it's really creepy.
Speaker 1: Well it's fun is when you started this and talked
Speaker 1: about like a whole herd of of of these antelopes
Speaker 1: dropping at once, I thought it was going to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: another one of those like horrible sulfur bubbles that killed
Speaker 1: like a city's worth of animals in a matter of
Speaker 1: seconds because a bunch of ice melted. Um. And I'm
Speaker 1: not sure which is creepier. Actually this is worse. Like
Speaker 1: they died in like horrible pain. Yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: the sulfur wasn't painful, but yeah, but they're horrifying. Break
Speaker 1: the soulfers at least faster. They're both very frightening. And
Speaker 1: it's also both things that like oh yeah, that could
Speaker 1: that could they that could drop some people that could
Speaker 1: just jump right across. There's there's a couple of ways
Speaker 1: this could go bad for us. This is the thing
Speaker 1: me and Robert was looking a little bit into to
Speaker 1: put together the first five scripted episodes of The Daily
Speaker 1: Is We in a few books we read, there were
Speaker 1: there were there were sections, like large sections about how
Speaker 1: this is gonna basically just make plagues be a thing forever. Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be hard for people to really get
Speaker 1: their heads around. But imagine a plague hit in in
Speaker 1: in the twenty onet century. How scary that would be
Speaker 1: just really trying to get your head around that global plague. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people drop into frightening, you know. So the coronavirus coronavirus
Speaker 1: is technically it's not a plague, right because it's not bacteria.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's viral, but a lot of people a
Speaker 1: plague like it's it's it's both both both like viral
Speaker 1: pathogens bacterial pathogens are with with globalization, can spread it
Speaker 1: much faster, right, and now with global warming there's gonna
Speaker 1: be more breeding ground for literally new bacterias. And this
Speaker 1: is and with with stuff melting in the ice caps
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. There's just a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons to just assume that, yeah, we're just gonna
Speaker 1: kind of live with plagues constantly being a problem now,
Speaker 1: Like it's that's just what they were there there There
Speaker 1: never is going to be a post COVID nineteen world,
Speaker 1: it's just this forever. COVID was just the first plague
Speaker 1: that really got through the defenses that we're never going
Speaker 1: to hold up to the damage we're doing to the climate.
Speaker 1: Like there were a couple of plagues beforehand that like
Speaker 1: we we were able to kind of tamp down on,
Speaker 1: get a lit on, and COVID was just the system
Speaker 1: actually finally shattering and it's never gonna get fixed and
Speaker 1: the plagues are just gonna get play gear and uh,
Speaker 1: it'll be fun. But on the other side, on the upside,
Speaker 1: here's some mats. Okay, Yeah, on the upside, capitalism we
Speaker 1: are back. I've I've unfortunately I've got to the point
Speaker 1: where I'm scrolling through these pictures where I have now
Speaker 1: found the mountain of dead animals. Yeah, it's real, fucking
Speaker 1: the stand ship. Yeah, it's a lot of them, a
Speaker 1: lot of them dead, just in giant pile. Like imagine
Speaker 1: the cutest Sesame Street character, cuter than snuffle uphagus, just
Speaker 1: lying in heaps. And that big nose has to make
Speaker 1: them extra vulnerable to fucking horrible nose bacteria. That's what
Speaker 1: we were just talking about. It's literally that's just what
Speaker 1: we said Katie just explained that I know, but it's
Speaker 1: so sad. It is very sad. It's very sad. And
Speaker 1: there there's this is not an isolated case that will
Speaker 1: never happen again. Researchers warm that it's very likely stuff
Speaker 1: like this will keep happening with climate change, and they're
Speaker 1: warning that reindeer populations are at risk because reindeer actually
Speaker 1: also have a really even though it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: they have a huge boss, because they have a very
Speaker 1: impressive nose, it's very spacious. It also actually works like
Speaker 1: a little space heater and warms up the air as
Speaker 1: they breathe it in. It's pretty amazing. But those same
Speaker 1: characteristics that are so beneficial to the reindeer now could
Speaker 1: actually become very dangerous for them with climate change if
Speaker 1: this bacterial growth happens. So we're looking at potential um,
Speaker 1: you know, risk to reindeer population, and there's also a
Speaker 1: lot of risk to farm animals as well, like for
Speaker 1: something similar have to happen where this bacteria can infect
Speaker 1: farm animals like cows and other types of ungulate farm animals. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so you know, even if people don't care about
Speaker 1: the adorable psycha antelope, which I guess would be just
Speaker 1: psychopaths murders, you know. Uh, But like you know, we
Speaker 1: also have very important species like you know, reindeer that
Speaker 1: are keystone species, and also you know our farm animals
Speaker 1: that you know, Yeah, they're very important for a lot
Speaker 1: of people to basically how they live. Their lives are
Speaker 1: based around cultivating these animals and hunting and raising it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I mean, in my opinion, every species, even if
Speaker 1: no matter how obscured it is, it is typically something
Speaker 1: very important for humans. It's just it's sort of the
Speaker 1: like seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It's like you don't
Speaker 1: have to get too far away to realize that Kevin Bacon,
Speaker 1: like his survival is really important to the planet. Um,
Speaker 1: except instead of Kevin Bacon, it's like any animal. And
Speaker 1: that is basically all animals and all ecosystems, no matter
Speaker 1: even if you feel like they're not super important. The
Speaker 1: way our world works and how he doesn't work, they're
Speaker 1: all incredibly intrinsic and reliant on each other. So even
Speaker 1: you know, that's that we're seeing stuff about like why
Speaker 1: don't we just like turn entire deserts into solar fields
Speaker 1: and be like, well, no, because the desert equistem actually
Speaker 1: like if they serves a very important purpose, Like you
Speaker 1: can't just be like, oh, deserts are important, Like no,
Speaker 1: like they have an actual equism that's actually very important
Speaker 1: to the surrounding areas. Okay, we can't just bulldoze it
Speaker 1: and turn into a solar just sand garrison, which is
Speaker 1: coarse and irritating, and it gets everywhere, It's everywhere? Is
Speaker 1: that an actual quote from from EPs episode two, Attack
Speaker 1: of the Clones by hearing Christensen playing Anakin skywalker the
Speaker 1: padawan with with the rat tail. Yeah, yeah, classic that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his rat tail. Amazing. The courage they used to have,
Speaker 1: the courage of two three really stunning. Yeah. How could
Speaker 1: pat May not? How could she not want that? How
Speaker 1: could you resist? It's like that Ween song Every girl
Speaker 1: wants a guy with a rat tail. Yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: assuming if that were a song, it would be by
Speaker 1: Ween called it's called a like a love lover. I
Speaker 1: think that's right, that's right. So what's up with these animals? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You want some more animals because I talked about how
Speaker 1: those animals mostly all died. Oh, I'm I'm just thinking, like,
Speaker 1: what's like, what's what like, do you know, like what's
Speaker 1: happened with them since they all dropped the thousand of
Speaker 1: them left alive? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're not currently all
Speaker 1: dying of this bacterial infection. Uh. I think like some
Speaker 1: of them are they apparently outside of the danger zone.
Speaker 1: I guess outside of the area where they're That's about
Speaker 1: the best you can say for any species. Some of
Speaker 1: them aren't the danger area occurred, but obviously that's going
Speaker 1: to change as global warming progresses. So yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's pretty grim. It's also I think, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: when you think about these things, humans obviously don't have
Speaker 1: like these big snuffle off a guess noses, which is
Speaker 1: really sad because I'm imagining us with it, and we're
Speaker 1: we'd all be dead, would all be dead? But really
Speaker 1: which would be better for the planet? So but we
Speaker 1: but we we would we would be way better at
Speaker 1: whaling jizz. And honestly, I feel like we would be
Speaker 1: whaling the hell out of some jizz one man, one
Speaker 1: can dream it would be nose deep in a big
Speaker 1: old pile of jes Oh wow, yeah, how would How
Speaker 1: does the Bible quantify jizz um cubits? Okay, that's what
Speaker 1: Noah said, but he wanted to get the Jews on
Speaker 1: the arc. Yeah, God's like us two jiz of every kind. Well,
Speaker 1: Noah was big into Now we're just like drawing that
Speaker 1: it was ever about music, all right, Sorry, Katie, No,
Speaker 1: that's all right, I asked, so, uh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I thought another thing we could talk about is how
Speaker 1: animal folklore is really important to pay attention to and
Speaker 1: to kind of listen to it as both information and
Speaker 1: warnings for the future. Um, because we often dismiss folklore
Speaker 1: as like, oh, you know, these are just spooky stories
Speaker 1: that we tell around the campfire. They're just legends, they
Speaker 1: don't mean anything. We're especially dismissive, I think when it
Speaker 1: comes to indigenous peoples. It's like, oh, your folklore, Oh
Speaker 1: that's so cute and quaint. But yeah, we listen to it.
Speaker 1: We we look at it as we we like really
Speaker 1: like infantilize it as like, oh, look at you primitive
Speaker 1: people still doing folklore, which is extremely extremely disrespectful and
Speaker 1: also like very naive about how things work when you
Speaker 1: look at how heavily engineered all of like the forests
Speaker 1: were in the entirety of the America's like from the
Speaker 1: Amazon of the up to the Pacific Northwest. It's a
Speaker 1: little like like the architect of a building comes in
Speaker 1: and says, hey, you can't knock out that retaining while
Speaker 1: the building is gonna collapse, and we're gonna be like, oh,
Speaker 1: Mr Architect with his magic walls, and then the building
Speaker 1: collapses on you know. There's there's a bunch of paintings.
Speaker 1: You're like, there's like these drawings from like this is
Speaker 1: like the early sixteen hundreds of of people like in
Speaker 1: North America, and and it will be these drawings. It's
Speaker 1: all these European guys standing on a tree and what
Speaker 1: they're watching is like it's it's one of one of
Speaker 1: the I forget exactly what tried this is. It's one
Speaker 1: of one of the people like they figured out how
Speaker 1: to have like a fire that's like it burns it
Speaker 1: like exactly, like like perfectly in this ring around the
Speaker 1: tree does not catch anything else inside of it. Like
Speaker 1: and it's funny because it's like you look at this
Speaker 1: and it's like okay, like the people, like the people
Speaker 1: who are drawing this painting cannot do this. And it's
Speaker 1: like it's very clear that they're just like incredibly befuddled
Speaker 1: by this, but like you know, and just it's it's
Speaker 1: just sitting there. And then all of the people who paint,
Speaker 1: who painted you, like, all the European artists who like
Speaker 1: do this each like no, no, not, it's fine. We
Speaker 1: don't know how they're doing this fire control stuff. But
Speaker 1: we're Europeans. Everything we every ignoring everything other people say
Speaker 1: is gonna go fine and great, and we're not gonna
Speaker 1: like turn half the country into a dust bowl. What
Speaker 1: do they got to teach us? We figured out how
Speaker 1: to make boats that only kill half the people on them,
Speaker 1: only half. I mean that, I mean that is a
Speaker 1: really good point. Uh. Controlled burns have been practiced by
Speaker 1: a number of civilizations for millennia, but when European settlers
Speaker 1: came and colonized North America were like controlled burns. But
Speaker 1: we want to sell the timber, and that sounds dangerous,
Speaker 1: so let us handle it. But this is all immortalized
Speaker 1: in the biographical song Timber Bye Bye pit Bull, which
Speaker 1: which which tell this story in in lyrical version please continue,
Speaker 1: and in uh, and in uh Timberland Boots, and in
Speaker 1: Timberland Boots. That's right. Every Timberland boot has a piece
Speaker 1: of the story. Yeah, and Timberwolves. The I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: hockey team. Yes, the hockey team is yeah. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Sophie is shaking your head. I'm sorry, Sophie. Minnesota Wolves
Speaker 1: are an NBA team. I'm sorry everyone you should be
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean so. In North America, especially in California. Uh,
Speaker 1: Indigenous American tribes practice controlled burns for thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of years. Uh. The europe Carrick and Hoopa tribes of
Speaker 1: California did controlled burns, which, in addition to preventing larger,
Speaker 1: more dangerous wildfires by getting grid of dead brush, it
Speaker 1: also promoted new growth of vegetation like really important plant
Speaker 1: species like oak and hazel. It even had unexpected effects
Speaker 1: like supporting the salmon population because as you did, these
Speaker 1: controlled burns created a block from the sun so that
Speaker 1: the ash clouds and then that would cool down the
Speaker 1: temperatures of the streams. And I know what you're thinking, that, Hey,
Speaker 1: to counter global warming, we should burn everything so that
Speaker 1: I cooled down. Um. The problem with burning everything like
Speaker 1: these uncontrolled burns is they also kill living vegetation. And
Speaker 1: it's just like it burns everything in sight and leaves
Speaker 1: basically nothing, and it burns off a huge amount of
Speaker 1: carbon stores. So the great thing about controlled burns is
Speaker 1: it very slowly burns off these carbon stores in this
Speaker 1: dead wood, and then it gives it time to regrow
Speaker 1: so that you recapture the carbon rather than than just
Speaker 1: like burning all this carbon at once, releasing it all
Speaker 1: at once, and then it's like trying to play catchup.
Speaker 1: It's like if you still like a little bit of
Speaker 1: milk on the table and you use a paper towel
Speaker 1: and wipe it up, it works. But if you just
Speaker 1: like pour out the entire milk jug on the table, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, on like a sloppy Saturday, just pouring out
Speaker 1: that milk, It's like a paper towel is not going
Speaker 1: to do anything. That's like trees and carbon. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Yes, yeah, I do, I do, I do.
Speaker 1: I do. Pick up what you are putting down. They say,
Speaker 1: although I still milk. Analogy, we should try a controlled
Speaker 1: burn on. Let's say Boston, see how it goes, right,
Speaker 1: didn't care for it. I didn't care for Boston. Don't
Speaker 1: see how we need it? Even North End? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't care for it. M hm. They've got good
Speaker 1: canolis there, though I'm sure they do. You know where
Speaker 1: else has good canola? I don't because I don't care
Speaker 1: for cannoli's either. Okay, well, all right, that's uh. I'm
Speaker 1: actually living in Italy and so if they find out
Speaker 1: I've been on this podcast, I'm gonna get kicked out
Speaker 1: of the Oh you need to be yea very careful.
Speaker 1: It's filled with Italians. They're everywhere. If you can get
Speaker 1: up to the Alps, there might be some Swiss nearby
Speaker 1: who can protect you, but you're in dangerous territory. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize they're Italians here. That's scary. Yeah, it's one
Speaker 1: of the main problems that Italy has. Yeah so uh
Speaker 1: yeah so. But when basically um indigenous tribes had a
Speaker 1: pretty good system of controlled burns in California, and then
Speaker 1: when you know, colonizers came to North America, we were like, hey,
Speaker 1: stop that. In fact, we're gonna make it illegal to
Speaker 1: do controlled burns because that seems dangerous. And they focused
Speaker 1: on fire suppression and protection of timber stores rather than
Speaker 1: you know, paying attention to the way people had been
Speaker 1: doing this for thousands and thousands of years and how
Speaker 1: it kind of worked, and so they just thought like, hey,
Speaker 1: if we just stopped fires from ever happening, they'll never happen.
Speaker 1: But spoilers they just started happening still happen, and it's
Speaker 1: worse and they're out of control and they're big problems
Speaker 1: every year. And learned nothing, yep um. But another thing
Speaker 1: is that we could have learned about controlled burns much
Speaker 1: much earlier if we had decided to listen to the
Speaker 1: Aboriginal peoples in northern Australia. UM about fire hawks. So,
Speaker 1: fire hawks are raptors, that is, like birds of prey
Speaker 1: who seemed to either accidentally or intentionally spread wildfire by
Speaker 1: picking up smoldering twigs and sticks from a burning area
Speaker 1: and dropping them elsewhere. And then once they start that fire,
Speaker 1: they watch for all the little scared mice and rodents
Speaker 1: and lizards and just feast upon the fleeing animals. It's
Speaker 1: extremely metal. It does sound like that does sound very fun? Yeah, uh.
Speaker 1: And so research published in twenty eighteen UH detailed about
Speaker 1: how three species of birds of prey in Australia seemed
Speaker 1: to do this. But of course this is not news
Speaker 1: because Aboriginal people's have known about this for thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of years and have documented this in their own folklore.
Speaker 1: There's uh even a ceremony called Yabadrua in which people
Speaker 1: act out birds carrying smoldering branches, which sounds amazing, but
Speaker 1: essentially they are teaching this uh sort of naturalist history
Speaker 1: of sorry of how they have seen these uh, these hawks,
Speaker 1: these firehawks carrying these burning sticks and distributing it. And
Speaker 1: if this, if we had listened to this, you know, earlier,
Speaker 1: we may have had more research on how you know,
Speaker 1: maybe these birds of prey have been terriforming the Australian
Speaker 1: out back for thousands and thousands of years and that's
Speaker 1: really cool and it may be really informative. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: we kind of really only decided to start researching in
Speaker 1: and those researchers started doing it because they listened to, uh,
Speaker 1: these stories from the Aboriginal people. So yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like everyone should. I feel like everyone should be
Speaker 1: more okay with understanding why folklore exists and what propose
Speaker 1: it serves. This is this, This is something I got
Speaker 1: into years ago because of the because of the Lower podcast,
Speaker 1: learning about just how folklore influences culture and politics and
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of really interesting and weird ways, and
Speaker 1: that it's thing I wanted to talk about more because
Speaker 1: it's it's a thing, and folklore is different for us
Speaker 1: now in terms of how we have like a cultural stories,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's still the same it's still the
Speaker 1: same purpose, and we just kind of deny it in
Speaker 1: a way that is kind of silly. Yep. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's often this idea of there is a clear
Speaker 1: distinction between fact and folklore, and while it's true, like
Speaker 1: we can't necessarily just take folklore for at its exact word,
Speaker 1: because like it's sort of like a telephone game throughout
Speaker 1: years and years. Folklore is going to take on new
Speaker 1: shapes every generation. But we really should take it seriously
Speaker 1: as a part of very important data set of like
Speaker 1: this is human observational history. Maybe some of it has
Speaker 1: been sort of uh turned into myth, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it could be genuine observation that people are relaying
Speaker 1: over many, many generations, which I think is really important. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you Katie Golden for talking about those those very
Speaker 1: silly gonzo things that are unfortunately dropping dead at the
Speaker 1: little Gonzo climate change genocide, and then and then the
Speaker 1: other climate change issues are on in folklore. Um where
Speaker 1: where can people find you on the old internet in interwebs? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a podcast. I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 1: about those. Uh, it's called Creature Feature. And I talk
Speaker 1: about stuff like this all the time about animals. It's
Speaker 1: not always about animals dying in horrible ways, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it is a mix. You know, It's like sometimes animals
Speaker 1: being alive, sometimes animals being dead. Sometimes some animals making
Speaker 1: other animals dead and interesting animals. Yeah, you can never
Speaker 1: predict them. Uh. And you know, uh, you can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Katie Golden. That's ka E T
Speaker 1: I E G O L D I. N Uh yeah
Speaker 1: where I just you know, just posted on the Twitter.
Speaker 1: Do you want to creature future? Find Katie on Twitter
Speaker 1: and uh shoplift. Sure it's it's spook all right. I
Speaker 1: didn't so if I'm done for the day, taking taking
Speaker 1: the rest off by apparently have a we sure do. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you know, normally this is a show about collapse,
Speaker 1: all that good stuff, YadA, YadA YadA, But fucking it's
Speaker 1: Halloween week, so we're we're we're we're we're making sure
Speaker 1: all of our stuff has a little bit of an
Speaker 1: extra spook you twist. It's like when you you make
Speaker 1: a martini and you decide to actually put vermouth inside it,
Speaker 1: as opposed to just kind of waving it nearby. That's
Speaker 1: what we're doing this week, with spookiness being the vermouth
Speaker 1: and mixing up our martini. Today is Margaret Killjoy, Margaret, Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm a famous mixologist, so clearly this will be very good. Now,
Speaker 1: Margaret today, for this very special episode of it could
Speaker 1: happen here on spooky Week. You have written us while
Speaker 1: you've written a short story, and you're going to read
Speaker 1: it and and and we're all gonna enjoy it. Is
Speaker 1: that is that accurate? Um? I hope at least I can.
Speaker 1: I can testify to the first parts, and I hope
Speaker 1: for the last part. Excellent. All right, Well, with without
Speaker 1: further ado or with minimal further ado, let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: let's let's you know, with the with the stuff, with stuff, Margaret,
Speaker 1: with this stuff. Well, this is great because this is
Speaker 1: actually a short story that you start reading of ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where's that link? You tasted it to me, but I
Speaker 1: don't have my phone on me. Okay, let me put
Speaker 1: it in the chat here um based impressive, to say
Speaker 1: the least, based in fiction, pilled Okay, I start reading
Speaker 1: the italics. Yeah, it's the first couple of paragraphs of introduction,
Speaker 1: and you're you're interviewing me, alright, motherfucker's let's get it started.
Speaker 1: The Northern Host, for all its lingering, horror and misery,
Speaker 1: the wake of a war is rich to reign for
Speaker 1: a folklorist like myself. More people report more supernatural experiences
Speaker 1: during times of war than times of peace. Some of
Speaker 1: my peers have argued the stress and shock of battle
Speaker 1: leaves our brains more susceptible to mass delusion. Others claim
Speaker 1: that the veil between worlds remains thin when so many
Speaker 1: are passing from life to death. The Second American Civil
Speaker 1: War has been no exception. Most famously, of course, soldiers
Speaker 1: from each of the three armies present at the fifteen
Speaker 1: day Siege of Saint Louis reported a wailing man who
Speaker 1: walked among the wounded, healing some and ending the lives
Speaker 1: of others. On the Cascadian Front, rebel forces spoke of
Speaker 1: black bears who in effect stood sentry for their guerrilla
Speaker 1: positions during the White Army's occupation of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Civilians and soldiers alike reported apparitions pouring out from the
Speaker 1: Pentagon Crater every New Moon. Of all the various myths
Speaker 1: and legends to spring up in the wake of the
Speaker 1: recent conflict, however, I find myself most strongly drawn to
Speaker 1: the stories of the Northern host. Never have I heard
Speaker 1: a myth recounted in such detail by such a wide
Speaker 1: variety of people. My favorite telling comes from Private Sarah
Speaker 1: Dollar in the Battle of Asheville. This interview was recorded
Speaker 1: in the spring of twenty thirty five and lightly edited
Speaker 1: for clarity with permission of the subject. Note that the
Speaker 1: subject refers to the White Army by pejoratives throughout. These
Speaker 1: have been left intact for the historical record. Could you
Speaker 1: introduce yourself and tell me what you saw. Yeah, My
Speaker 1: my name is Sarah Daher. I'm thirty one years old.
Speaker 1: I live in Asheville, in the Appalachian region of the
Speaker 1: United States of America, on stolen Cherokee land. My U
Speaker 1: S military rank was private. They made us all privates
Speaker 1: when they incorporated the irregulars into the army, But I
Speaker 1: only served in the Union to fight the White Army
Speaker 1: a year later. I'm one of those crazy radicals who
Speaker 1: doesn't think the reconfiguration goes far enough. I never fired
Speaker 1: a gun in my life before the Irregulars, and I
Speaker 1: hope I never fire another one again. By temperament, I'm
Speaker 1: neither a lover nor a fighter, just your average trans
Speaker 1: girl who likes cats and hates Nazis. I fought in
Speaker 1: three engagements in Weaverville, Leicester, and Asheville. I think I
Speaker 1: killed two people. One of them I know I killed him.
Speaker 1: I saw him bleed out and I saw him taken
Speaker 1: away in a black bag. The other person was a
Speaker 1: man I shot in the thigh during the Battle of Asheville.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you could die from a bullet in
Speaker 1: the thigh, but I've spent a lot of time looking
Speaker 1: at casualty records, and someone who fit that man's general
Speaker 1: description died in that battle. From all it to the thigh.
Speaker 1: Does that bother you? Yes? No, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't lose sleep over it, but I think about it
Speaker 1: a lot. I look at the docks on both of them.
Speaker 1: The first guy was a true believer, a real blood
Speaker 1: and soil type, It doesn't bother me that I mingled
Speaker 1: those two things for him. The second man, though, I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure he signed up because his son signed up.
Speaker 1: I don't have any kids myself, but I could see
Speaker 1: myself doing that. His son survived the war. Have you
Speaker 1: been in contact with his son now? Funk That guy
Speaker 1: that kids a fucking Nazi, and I don't know how
Speaker 1: he talked his way out of the tribunals. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me what you saw at the Battle of Asheville.
Speaker 1: This was during the Fascist Spring Offensive last year, you know,
Speaker 1: Hitler's birthday April. By that point, the White Army was
Speaker 1: pretty much done, but they weren't about to go down
Speaker 1: without doing some major symbolic damage. So there were about
Speaker 1: forty of us, all irregulars, with our own commanders, no
Speaker 1: army oversight. Morale was down. We felt pretty a band
Speaker 1: and common sentiment in the South. I was on the
Speaker 1: street out in front of the library, walking rounds. Downtown
Speaker 1: was half rubble at that point. Only the library was standing,
Speaker 1: because symbols matter and all that bullshit. So that's where
Speaker 1: we were making a stand. Neither side had artillery really
Speaker 1: by that point, the brass had just commandeered even our
Speaker 1: RPGs for the quote real fight. Air support wasn't coming,
Speaker 1: not for them and not for us. Really, the Battle
Speaker 1: of Ashville was was like nothing to the rest of
Speaker 1: the world, and we knew it. So I was doing
Speaker 1: the rounds, thinking about my ship luck, thinking maybe I
Speaker 1: was going to die, and how so many people had died,
Speaker 1: and what's another dead girl to add to the pile.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how at least this dead girl
Speaker 1: is going to die surrounded by or in defense of books.
Speaker 1: And then I heard dogs from around the side of
Speaker 1: the building. One barked loud and near, the other sort
Speaker 1: of distant and echoy. I went to check it out,
Speaker 1: turned the corner and there was this naked guy. He
Speaker 1: was pale as hell, tall, tattooed and scarred, and like
Speaker 1: I said, was naked as the sun. I stared at him,
Speaker 1: he stared at me. I got so distracted trying to
Speaker 1: figure him out that it took me a moment to
Speaker 1: realize there were nine others behind him, or maybe they
Speaker 1: weren't there at first, I don't know. Most of them
Speaker 1: were men, mostly of the tall Norse looking variety, but
Speaker 1: there was a Middle Eastern man and three women, including
Speaker 1: one who by my read was Latin X no dogs
Speaker 1: anywhere that I could see. The man closest to me
Speaker 1: he asked me something in the language I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I just kind of stared. He asked me another question
Speaker 1: in another language. What I asked? Who are you? Who
Speaker 1: are we fighting? He asked? His accent was thick, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't place it for the life of me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know now, but I sure ship didn't know it
Speaker 1: then we. I asked what I was due back out front,
Speaker 1: because I was a century doing the rounds and this
Speaker 1: sure needed reporting. But what the hell was I going
Speaker 1: to tell? People? Who are we fighting? Where are we?
Speaker 1: You're in Asheville? Who are you? Ah? The American conflict,
Speaker 1: the man said behind him. Others nodded. Their movements were sloppy,
Speaker 1: dream like they were drunk. I later realized one of
Speaker 1: them had dried blood running down from her lip onto
Speaker 1: her not in substantial belly. You're fighting the nationalists, the
Speaker 1: first one said, We're here to help you. Who are you,
Speaker 1: I asked this third time. He actually answered, My name
Speaker 1: is Bell Gear. We are the dead. We are the
Speaker 1: inn here from Valhalla. Every day we are sent to
Speaker 1: a battle to fight, and we die. The others behind
Speaker 1: him nodded, definitely drunk. Now, I know there were good
Speaker 1: folks on our side who were into European paganism, but
Speaker 1: you have to understand that a lot more of the
Speaker 1: fashion were into that ship than anybody else. If they
Speaker 1: hadn't been naked and drunk, I might have mistaken them
Speaker 1: for the enemy and shot them Valhalla, I said, reciting
Speaker 1: the tiny bit. I knew that's where Vikings go if
Speaker 1: they die in battle, feast every day and fight every
Speaker 1: night in Odin's hall until the end of the world,
Speaker 1: where you also fight and die but wolf feeds the
Speaker 1: sun or something close enough. Belgar said. I mean, Odin
Speaker 1: only gets half the battle dead, and Viking isn't a
Speaker 1: good name for us. But sure, and you're here because
Speaker 1: we are to take arms alongside you, fight your enemies
Speaker 1: and die today, and are going to die today. Only
Speaker 1: the seers and the gods know that. I've been calling
Speaker 1: myself a witch half of my life, but honestly that
Speaker 1: was mostly because I like taro and astrology and panagrams
Speaker 1: and ship I've never been someone who took the supernatural
Speaker 1: all that seriously. But nothing in the world made sense
Speaker 1: like it used to. Fascists had just been driven out
Speaker 1: of d C. Cascadia had not only succeeded, but was
Speaker 1: in a civil war of its own. Now Mexico was
Speaker 1: gone and replaced by self governing states of almost every
Speaker 1: stripe in the political rainbow. China had backed white supremacists
Speaker 1: and other nationalist types in an American civil war, and
Speaker 1: antigovernment leftists were fighting alongside weirdos like me in the
Speaker 1: damn u s Army. I can't say those things were
Speaker 1: as weird as naked dead don't call us vikings talking
Speaker 1: to me in the street. But somehow all of that
Speaker 1: was just comparably bizarre. Come let us arm ourselves and
Speaker 1: fight together. You and I belger said. So that's how
Speaker 1: I met the Northern host. Most people don't believe me,
Speaker 1: assume it was just some kind of drunk wing nuts,
Speaker 1: maybe some irregulars I've never met before. But I saw
Speaker 1: what I saw, and I believe it. The rest of
Speaker 1: us who survived they saw it too. And how did
Speaker 1: it go? Yeah, pardon the battle? How did it go?
Speaker 1: We got the iron here yard into irregular's garb and
Speaker 1: armed them. There were plenty of guns at that point
Speaker 1: in the forgotten hellhole up front, Bullets not so much,
Speaker 1: but plenty of guns. They were all comfortable with firearms.
Speaker 1: The one fellow groused about what he wouldn't do for
Speaker 1: an axe and shield, and another said what we had
Speaker 1: was fine, but monofilament web guns were better than any
Speaker 1: combat shotgun. To hear them, tell it, funk it. Why
Speaker 1: am I pretending like I don't believe them. I believe
Speaker 1: them with every bit of my soul, and damn what
Speaker 1: people think of me for it. The Northern Host fight
Speaker 1: every night, and every night they are at a different
Speaker 1: time and place. Most battles in human history were in
Speaker 1: the past, they said, which sounds optimistic, doesn't it. But
Speaker 1: they said they fought in every century up to the
Speaker 1: Nothing happens after the century Ragnarok, most likely the end
Speaker 1: of the world, wolves eating the sun and the moon.
Speaker 1: All that. They stood guard out with me out front.
Speaker 1: Around midday we got hit with an e MP. We
Speaker 1: knew that was coming. It didn't screw us up much.
Speaker 1: We had a hardened phone in the basement, and all
Speaker 1: our weapons operated just as well, and dumb mode a
Speaker 1: smart mode, including our own e MPs. The White army
Speaker 1: showed up, maybe a hundred men, all men. That's their
Speaker 1: whole stick. They came in on motorcycles and a t
Speaker 1: v s and horses. More stick. Like a fucking folksy
Speaker 1: they are. We hit them with the m e mp
Speaker 1: s anyway, level the field, took out the A t
Speaker 1: v s. The bikes were retrofitted, no electric and a horse.
Speaker 1: You can't impel horse. I don't know if there was
Speaker 1: a skirmish in that war that didn't start with both
Speaker 1: sides ritually knocking the other one back to Basely the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, I think the tactical E m P is
Speaker 1: the reason there's anything left of this country. We took
Speaker 1: a few pot shots while they were still at range,
Speaker 1: but we didn't have the AMMO to waste on anything else.
Speaker 1: I don't think we did any damage. They took up
Speaker 1: position further up the hill and the ruins of the
Speaker 1: old Basilica. Then we waited. We should have mined the church.
Speaker 1: That old thing was blown half to ship. Anyway, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have made the world any worse if we'd either
Speaker 1: leveled it or hidden explosives throughout. But you know, ethical
Speaker 1: war or whatever, don't mind churches. The other side leveled
Speaker 1: every mosques, synagogue and quote heretic church they got their
Speaker 1: hands on, not to mention libraries and universities and even
Speaker 1: the goddamn Statue of Liberty because they had immigrants. But
Speaker 1: we were supposed to be fighting a quote ethical war.
Speaker 1: Those two words don't got nothing to do with one another,
Speaker 1: and everyone knows it. So they hold up in the
Speaker 1: basilica and we pulled back into the library and we
Speaker 1: had one of those good old fashioned standoffs where people
Speaker 1: die slowly from sniper fire and everything is awful. That's
Speaker 1: when Laura got shot right in the head because we
Speaker 1: missed a spot when we bullet proof of the facade.
Speaker 1: She's dead. She had natural red hair, but she always
Speaker 1: died at redder and her favorite show was Buffy the
Speaker 1: Vampire Slayer, and she liked to drink water out of
Speaker 1: long stem glasses. She was I think she was thirty seven,
Speaker 1: way past rafting age. She volunteered. It was her first engagement.
Speaker 1: She was only there because she loved books, had plenty
Speaker 1: of time to avoid looking at her corpse while she
Speaker 1: was in there with us. Dead. Dwight was another one
Speaker 1: of my friends in the unit. One of my favorite people,
Speaker 1: hands down, total weirdo, and he was all obsessed with
Speaker 1: that Viking ship in Dark Ages in general. Both his
Speaker 1: parents had come over from Sweden, though his dad was
Speaker 1: originally from Nigeria. Dwight had one degree in medieval studies
Speaker 1: in another in African history, and I I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how many times during basic he'd run down the
Speaker 1: details of this or that ancient battle, whether in Europe
Speaker 1: or Africa. If there were guns involved, he didn't care
Speaker 1: about it, but if there were swords in armor or
Speaker 1: spears and shields, he was all in. He started talking
Speaker 1: to the Vikings. First thing. He was the first person
Speaker 1: to believe them, to to really believe them, and his
Speaker 1: faith was contagious. While we were pinned down, he asked
Speaker 1: them everything. Mostly they were quiet, even taciturn, But there
Speaker 1: was one thing they were very insistent on, and that
Speaker 1: I overheard them talking about Nazis. Don't go to Valhalla.
Speaker 1: But why not? Dwight asked, It takes two things to
Speaker 1: go to Valhalla. The spokesperson said, you have to die
Speaker 1: in battle and you have to venerate Odin. A bunch
Speaker 1: of those fuckers are oldness, he said, no, they aren't
Speaker 1: their nationalist, fascist, racial separatists. They're all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: but they don't venerate Odin. Whatever they think, What do
Speaker 1: you mean? They only know one half of Odin. They
Speaker 1: know the masculine side, the heterosexual side, the Christian side.
Speaker 1: They worship a bastardization of our God, a bastardization first
Speaker 1: created by a nationalist Christian eight hundred years ago that's
Speaker 1: only gotten further afield since our Odin practices women's magic,
Speaker 1: the magic of these sexually penetrated. We also worshiped female
Speaker 1: gods of war, and male gods of the hearth, and
Speaker 1: gods who change their gender when they're board. Nazis don't
Speaker 1: understand that any of it. In life, we raided, sometimes traded,
Speaker 1: other times. We also did all sorts of things that
Speaker 1: won't fit your modern sensibilities, things that were I alive
Speaker 1: you might kill me for. But we're not Nazis, and
Speaker 1: people who worship a Christian version of our God most
Speaker 1: certainly do not go to Valhalla. It was as if
Speaker 1: the man had used up every word allotted to him
Speaker 1: for the day, because I don't believe a one of
Speaker 1: them spoke again before the battle began In earnest and
Speaker 1: how long was that another hour? Maybe the sun was
Speaker 1: still right overhead when the White Army rushed us. It
Speaker 1: was a bullshit move, rushing us one part over confidence
Speaker 1: in one part desperation. If you can imagine that they
Speaker 1: knew they were losing the war at that point, but
Speaker 1: they had us more than two to one, and we
Speaker 1: all know that KKK commanders don't give two ships about
Speaker 1: the lives of their men. That's when I put a
Speaker 1: bullet on a man's leg while he was in the
Speaker 1: street running. It was a good shot. He was running,
Speaker 1: and I led the target. In everything, I've been aiming
Speaker 1: for center body mass, but but still at least a
Speaker 1: hundred yards against a moving target. I was proud of
Speaker 1: that shot at the time, on a technical level, even
Speaker 1: if I'm not sure i'm proud of it any more
Speaker 1: now that I know the man's name. We expected the charge.
Speaker 1: What we didn't expect was the ordinance that knocked the
Speaker 1: reinforced front off its hinges. But that happened, and almost
Speaker 1: all the fighting happened right there on the first floor,
Speaker 1: among the empty shelves. The whole thing felt like it
Speaker 1: lasted half an hour. I've looked it up, since from
Speaker 1: the time of the first blast of the time the
Speaker 1: last shot was fired, we're talking about three minutes and
Speaker 1: twelve seconds. We thought they were going to pour in
Speaker 1: through the door after they blew at the funk off.
Speaker 1: So James got in there with our one functioning automatic
Speaker 1: and he took at least ten of the fash down
Speaker 1: with him before someone got him in the neck. It
Speaker 1: was a faint and they blew a hole in the
Speaker 1: side of the building. Well, well that was going on,
Speaker 1: and that's where they got in close quarters combat as
Speaker 1: a whole different beast, a worse one, maybe maybe a
Speaker 1: better one. I go back on fourth on that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: instead of sleeping, I think about the pros and cons
Speaker 1: of various types of absolute horror. Is it better to
Speaker 1: see your death coming or to get picked off without
Speaker 1: knowing it? I would have thought the Vikings would expend
Speaker 1: themselves right off. I mean Vikings. They were starting to
Speaker 1: sober up by that point, but still they'd been drinking
Speaker 1: and they were already dead, and they were doomed to die.
Speaker 1: But they were smarter than that, never risked themselves unnecessarily.
Speaker 1: Your next assumption of a comrade, you know, is doomed
Speaker 1: is that they'll sacrifice themselves to save others. None of
Speaker 1: that either. They knew they were the best trained soldiers
Speaker 1: on the field and that in order for us to win,
Speaker 1: they had to be in the fight as long as
Speaker 1: they could. They were smart like that. Assholes like that.
Speaker 1: I stationed myself in the back. I fancy myself more
Speaker 1: of a sniper than the assault sort, so I watched
Speaker 1: the whole thing go down. I also only hit three
Speaker 1: targets out of a hundred and seventeen bullets I fired.
Speaker 1: But that's another story. I watched us when we took
Speaker 1: casualties of fifty percent. Half of those were k Ia,
Speaker 1: but we defeated a force twice our strength. I watched
Speaker 1: the eye hangar but bayin at men and shoot them.
Speaker 1: And I saw one of the Viking women break a
Speaker 1: man's face apart with her fists. Soon after, a bullet
Speaker 1: found her heart and she collapsed with a smile on
Speaker 1: her lips. She disappeared like literally she fazed out of existence.
Speaker 1: Being me up, Scotty. We pushed them back on to
Speaker 1: the pavement. And when I say we, I'm honestly not
Speaker 1: being fair because I didn't do much of it myself.
Speaker 1: We had them scattered and running, most of them. Dwight
Speaker 1: was out there, waving a pistol in one hand and
Speaker 1: swinging a wooden stock rifle like a club in the other.
Speaker 1: A Viking with a shot gun stood beside him. I
Speaker 1: think the same fashy little ship killed them both, maybe
Speaker 1: in the same three round burst. I tagged the fasci
Speaker 1: in his belly, and his friends helped him get away,
Speaker 1: and the remaining Nazis ran. He survived his wound. Why
Speaker 1: do we have so much information about the war? Does
Speaker 1: it do me any good to know who I killed
Speaker 1: and who I didn't? And Dwight. Dwight lay alone in
Speaker 1: the concrete, face down. There wasn't much blood, but he
Speaker 1: was dead. Two ravens sat atop him, one on each shoulder.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a raven in Nashville in my life,
Speaker 1: not before, not since. There were two of them, as
Speaker 1: big as people say those things are. They barked and
Speaker 1: they sounded like dogs. One was loud, like it was
Speaker 1: right where I was. The other was distant, echoing. Then
Speaker 1: they flew away, directly up and towards the sun, and
Speaker 1: I tried to watch to see where they went. But
Speaker 1: you can't look directly at the sun like that. I
Speaker 1: looked back down and Dwight was gone. Okay, so his
Speaker 1: body was still there, but there was there was something
Speaker 1: about him that was gone, and I don't know how
Speaker 1: to tell you what it was. That that was that
Speaker 1: we won sort of. They didn't storm the library, which
Speaker 1: I guess means we won. But sometimes I think I'd
Speaker 1: burn every single book in that place. It would bring
Speaker 1: back Lord or Dwight or any of the rest of
Speaker 1: my friends. The war was over at that point, and
Speaker 1: even if we didn't know it yet. So what did
Speaker 1: they die for? I guess for symbols. Maybe symbols matter
Speaker 1: that much. I don't know. I deserted after that. Half
Speaker 1: the survivors of the Battle of Asheville died less than
Speaker 1: a week later up in Pittsburgh, and I suppose I'd
Speaker 1: be dead if I had gone, And it probably makes
Speaker 1: me a coward that I didn't. It's not that I
Speaker 1: was afraid of dying. It's that I was afraid of
Speaker 1: dying in battle because I believe in Odin. Now, it's
Speaker 1: hard not to believe in a god without venerating him.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go to Valhalla. I don't want
Speaker 1: to fight ever again, let alone every night. I don't
Speaker 1: want to serve with the iron and yard at the
Speaker 1: Twilight of the Gods sometime in the twenty fi century.
Speaker 1: If I don't want to do that, then I don't
Speaker 1: want to die in battle Dwight, though I expect he's happy.
Speaker 1: I expect he dies every day with a smile on
Speaker 1: his lips and meat and his belly. He won't have
Speaker 1: to fight alongside the monsters of the human race either, because,
Speaker 1: as I learned in Nashville, Nazis don't go to Valhalla.
Speaker 1: All right, that was awesome, Margaret, Thank you. Yeah, thanks Dan.
Speaker 1: I'll put a bunch of applause noise here because translating
Speaker 1: over yeah as an end and and uh an air
Speaker 1: horn stick an, I don't think the air horn is
Speaker 1: going to be that as Garrison air horn. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Garrison. Margaret. Um, how long ago did you
Speaker 1: write that? I wrote that, I believe in two seventeen. Mah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's not gotten less relevant, Yeah, man, I uh,
Speaker 1: there's definitely some times where I've I've wished for a
Speaker 1: platoon of vikings uh to deal with some ship. Yeah. Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: this has been it could happen here, and this has
Speaker 1: been spooky week. I hope you enjoyed this scary story
Speaker 1: that's also relevant to our theme of collapse. Margaret, you
Speaker 1: want to tell the people where they can find you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at Magpie kill Joy. I'm on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Margaret kill Joy. I'm on Patreon at patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash Margaret kill Joy, where this story and many
Speaker 1: other stories are available for anyone who sponsors me at
Speaker 1: a dollar a month. Then if you make less money
Speaker 1: than I do, then just message me and I'll give
Speaker 1: you all my ship for free. And I have an
Speaker 1: upcome because you've asked me to plug things and I'm
Speaker 1: definitely just gonna go ahead and plug things. Um. I
Speaker 1: have a book coming out from a K Press. It's
Speaker 1: a reissue of my anarchist utopian book, A Country of Ghosts.
Speaker 1: If you like my very I like writing war stories,
Speaker 1: but I specifically like writing war stories that are actually
Speaker 1: sad and how about how war is horrible? Um? And
Speaker 1: so A Country Ghosts is such a book and this
Speaker 1: story will eventually. I'm excited to say I just signed
Speaker 1: the contract for a K Press is going to put
Speaker 1: out a short story anthology of mine, which will include
Speaker 1: this story. Yeah, it sounds incredibly rad Yes, great publisher. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not biased at all in that No, no, no, nor
Speaker 1: towards stories of the Second American Civil War with superior
Speaker 1: I've been introduced to just today. Um, all right, we'll
Speaker 1: check out Margaret's book Parentheses. S uh and and um
Speaker 1: check out this show when it comes back someday one day.
Speaker 1: You'll never know when, but you'll hear a whisper on
Speaker 1: the wind, and there will be or it will be
Speaker 1: the next weekday after one of those two. Hey, we'll
Speaker 1: be back Monday with more episodes every week from now
Speaker 1: until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen
Speaker 1: Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
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Speaker 1: for listening.