February 1, 2024 • 43 mins
True story: in the heart of the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, there's a puzzle no one has solved. In the second part of this special two-part episode, Ben, Noel and Max join up with returning guest A.J. Jacobs to learn more about the enigmatic sculpture known as Kryptos.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's give a shout out to our
super producer, the one and only mister Max white Pants Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Who Rah and guy that write that time, Ben, I
didn't say who uh or no, No, there's.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
A tsky We got it, we got it. We're working live.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I really thought I was getting it right here. Who
rah just embedded in my mind.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
It's a good thing to yell. It's a hussah for
you know, situationally dependent hussah.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We are period accurate.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
We are also we are also so excited, so fortunate
to be returning to part two of trade Craft Puzzles
with our good friend member of the Ridiculous History Expanded Universe,
none other than the author, the now podcaster, the thought leader. Uh,
mister A. J. Bahamas Jacobs aj. You said off air,
(01:23):
you said, guys, I got an intro for part two
of this, and then you.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Started really sinister like you did.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
There were some ellipses that we could hear, and then
and then you, uh, you're a brilliant, very kind in person.
So you started telling Nolan and I like, Nolan me
rather what uh what the intro would be like? And
we both immediately I apologize for this. We both immediately
vetoed that.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Extra jut throat us. We were we.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Were like, just do it on air. So so we
must we must uh pass the order of operations to you,
dear friend wield.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, we'll yield to you as some sort of overlord.
Sure so uh utah Mulberry's side, how are we getting
into this part of the conversation.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Well, this is sort of a continuation of our episode
on spying and puzzling. And while we were on break,
I had remembered that a few years ago I have
been poking around the CIA, the official CIA dot gov website,
like you do, just to make sure that they know
I'm here, and they and there's a kids corner. There
(02:40):
is a whole section called Spy Kids. And I went
to see just now if it was still there.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
It's not.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
It's bigger, it's more expanded, so I and it's all
these puzzles and games.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Is it also.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Is a little bit of a recruitment tool and I
actually had a it was kind of fun. I mean,
some of them are very basic. There's a word search
where kids can look for asset and surveillance and mission.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
There's kids kids food menu kind of stuff, you know, yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Kids food menu. There's a jigsaw you put together and
it's the Seal of the CIA. But actually one that
you should check out was I enjoyed. It was called
Aerial Analysis, and it's a picture of port with some ships,
and it's a bunch of questions like what time is it?
Is it noon or is it six pm? And I
was like, and then it was six pm because of
(03:31):
the long shadows. So it's actually it was you know,
if I were a cats make.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Just in my head, I thought that was the CIA
outsourcing aerial photographs of like picking out assets to children.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Is also shout out. You'll find this of interest AJ,
if you're not already aware. I recently learned a few
weeks back that the CIA has a long running extracurricular
creative writing group staffed like I shouldn't say staffed, but
everybody in the group is an active member of the CIA.
(04:08):
The name of the group. What you're gonna love is
get this invisible ink.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh that's nice. And the stories are nine ciphers.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
They're all in code. Yeah, yeah, they're they're the club discussion. No, obviously,
I can never tell you their their book Club discussion
is all in code. They We do know that the
CIA does love puzzles, like any any kind of intelligence
(04:38):
operation worth its salt. Ciphers are a part of the business,
a part of the craft. And when we left off
in episode one, we're talking a little bit about, uh,
the ancient history of trade craft, a little bit about crosswords,
and then you led Nola and I through a rabbit
(05:00):
hole on times crosswords went wrong, and we ended with
an extremely fascinating thing that history has yet to figure.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Out right, And this episode we are going to get
to my visits to the CIA headquarters to try to
crack one of the most famous unsolved puzzles ever. But
first let me just do a couple of more nuggets
on this fascinating crossover between spies and puzzles. And we
(05:37):
had mentioned in last time about some World War two puzzles.
There's one more World War two puzzle that we should
talk about, which is that the Nazis actually tried to
use crosswords for evil.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
So what yes, nineties doing evil stuff? The humble crossword?
Speaker 4 (05:58):
I know they will not even lave a own the crossword.
This was nineteen forty five and Nazi planes flew over
London and dropped leaflets containing crossword puzzles that had propaganda answers.
So the answers were anti us, anti ally. So, for instance,
(06:19):
one of the clues was he wants all You've got
and the answer that was the clue. The answer was Roosevelt,
so they were saying he and The New York Times
described the clues as feeble and heavy handed.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh that is such a New York Times roussy. I
love it especially.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I love that, especially given that that you taught us earlier.
The New York Times was a prominent anti crossword institution
for some time. And now they may better.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Yeah, exactly, and they show, yeah, they are better than
the Nazis at making crossword puzzles.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yeah, they just slammed the not only the Nazis are
the most evil people.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
But.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Constructed crosswords. That's and really, isn't that the great villainy
of the Nazi part? No one in fact check us
on that one. But the there's there's another thing on
the break. This reminded me of of a great a
great sequence in fiction, first in novels, but then later
(07:22):
in film adaptations. Uh, in the Silence of the Lambs series, right,
Silence of the Lamb where they follow they follow the
more of the quint essential serial killer figures of American literature,
Hannibal Lecter, and we learn that Lecter is communicating with
(07:44):
a serial killer named the Red Dragon or once we
called the Red Dragon through personal through essentially a cipher
where they're taking out back when people used to read, uh,
you know, print magazines and newspapers, taking out classified ads
which contain coded meanings. Yeah, I think they were classified.
(08:05):
I can't remember, but.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, either cloud one of those things you can pay
a couple bucks to put a little tiny graph, you know,
in the back of the newspaper. Even in the Silence
of the Lambs, that that was the Red Dragon that
was read sounds to the Lambs he does, you know,
He feeds Clarice Starling a few kind of incorrect clues
that are actually themselves ciphers, like miss Moffetts or something
(08:28):
like that, and I forget it's to translated like it's
an anagram for something. And then one of them is
an anagram or I believe the cipher for pyride for
fools gold, and it's basically showing that they're barking up
the wrong tree if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Well, speaking of classified ads, that reminds me in the
Victorian England in the eighteen hundreds that was huge. Lovers
would send secret messages through the classified ads. They'd put
these ciphers in the ads. It was sort of like
the sexting of the time, but he had to encode
it just a little healthy. They were not that I've
(09:03):
I've read a bunch of them, and h there are
things like I have the most handsome horse in the land,
now I need the most handsome lady.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That kind I write that probably get results.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, Also that that feels like you have given us
a lead on a great uh on a great future episode.
Right the precedents for sextem you've been around for so long?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Who was it the writer who wrote all those gnarly
lovely Joyce? James Joyce?
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Yeah, a great episode.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
On him wealthy.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
He wrote some of some of the best literature in
the English language, and then he also wrote Finn against Wake.
But he also how do you really feel about Jesus anyway?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
But it was a fart poet. Yes, turns out love.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
They were amazing. They were Yeah, I was astounded. That
is Yeah, maybe my favorite writing by Teams joy.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's where Cynasthasia really comes to bear.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Flippity floppity never mind, Oh gosh, yeah that Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Substitute teachers listening in the crowd, any high school teacher
who might be thinking it's time to take the day
easy and play an episode of ridiculous history for your students,
It is not the James Joyce episode unless you wish.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
To be bold, unless your students are very mature.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, that's what that would interest the students. I mean,
that is a way to get kids into James Joyce
our poetry.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
You guys might hate novels, but who likes farts?
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Why do we have sexy farts? Aha? But you never
thought that was a thing there.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
It is, so got a lot to learn, kids, So
the there's an interesting thing that we should just we
should spend one moment on here, which is that perhaps
the reason the propaganda crossword bombing failed is due to
the act that by nineteen forty five, the nomenclature of
(11:04):
clues and crosswords had already been pretty well established, right,
Like if you are just all things aside, just objectively,
you're playing a crossword. The clue he wants all you've
got sounds incredibly misleading. There is not a way logically
to like a is yourself into Roosevelt there.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That is a good point, or you know it definitely
any more broad like God or like Jesus or something,
you know what I mean, Like even that would be
a pretty lazy clue, right, Yeah, well that's specificity.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
It reminds me they weren't the only ones who did propaganda.
The New York Times also ran an article about in
nineteen fifty. So now we're in the Cold War and
the Soviet Union was trying the same trick where they
would produce these crosswords and spread them around us with
anti US propaganda and their clues. I don't think we're
(11:58):
much better. Well, you know what, take it back. This one,
you could almost say is half witty. The clue is
what is General MacArthur's concept of a courtesy call? And
the answer is a four letter word raid.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
So they're gonna say bomb, but like we were, Yeah,
those are both good, So.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So it sounds a little feeble and heavy handed to
the New York Times. Ah yeah, try harder, yeahdition out,
but you can't take it New York Times.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Oh no, no, that wasn't the Times. That was a
Soviet Union crossword puzzle maker being mentioned in the New
York Times.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
At that point, The New York Times is clearly has
clearly done a one eighty on their previous anti crossword stance,
and now they're like, crosswords are one of the most
important American cultural institutions.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
And we will one day be intrinsically linked to the
concept of the crossword puzzle. These are New York Times.
It is odd we're taking we.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Are super good at the thing we.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Hated inevitably become the thing you hate. You know, it's
just well, that's.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
That's like a Nietzschean observation thing.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I know, it's not true. It doesn't have to be true.
It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Folks, we have your back, and we also we also
have maybe a moment here before we get to like
our big star.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Of the day.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The hence this up to now unsolvable puzzle of the CIA.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
There are so many Cold War shenanigans. I love that
you're mentioning the Cold War aj because this is back
in the time. This is like the looking at old
spycraft or trade craft. At this time we see again
the Seinfeld problem.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
The number one criticism of Seinfeld, which Noel and I
talked about all the time off air, is that many
of the many of the plots the gang gets involved
in could easily have been solved if they had cell
phones and the trade craft. In this time, from the
fifties to let's say the early eighties, everything a lot
(14:06):
of things were still analogue. So these are the days
of weird code words, which are like another puzzle, right.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Yes, well, now we do have computers and high speed computers.
They haven't cracked everything, though they've held there's the famous
one of the most famous unsolved puzzles are the Zodiac killers.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
In Zodiac Thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
If we didn't get there, I was going to bring
it up, please, Sally Forth.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So, yeah, this was a serial killer in the seventies.
I'm not an expert on it, but he he sent
a lot of letters with codes to the police with
clues and several of them were unsolved. But last year,
just last year, there was a group of people who
solved using computers along with people. It was sort of
(15:04):
a a nice meshing of humans and computers that was
able to crack this. And part of the reason why
it was so hard to crack is this guy was terrible.
He made all of these mistakes. No, it's not consistent,
and so yeah, terrible person for killing and for also being.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
You exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I'm taking a stand.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
You know, the Zodiac film by David Fincher, I think
is one of his finest films and I rewatch it
just about every year, and it deals with a lot
of the stuff and the you know, the guy that
ultimately goes on to kind of write the book about
the whole thing, which is named Gray Smith, I believe,
played by Jake Gillenhall. He's the one who's like a cartoonist,
you know, working for the San Francisco Chronicle who starts
kind of solving these ciphers and it's because he's a
(15:56):
puzzle nerd.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
He's like that this is like his his wheelhouse.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
You know, he just does crosswords for fun and then
he ends up kind of being the one that sort
of pushes that stuff forward. But I do love the
idea that he just made tons of mistakes. That's really funny.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
And I love the point about the necessity for hybrid
problem solving concurrently because right now, and shout out to
the Puzzle Palace, of course, right now, there are tremendously
robust algorithms and other computerized approaches that can tackle puzzles
(16:31):
and codes very very well. However, those are those are
still not going to be able to get you across
the fence on their own one hundred percent of the time.
We know, like I'm thinking back in the days of
analog trade craft. One thing, like there are two examples
that still always work when deployed correctly, even in this
(16:55):
the Amazing Future twenty twenty four. One of them would
be numbers stations, right, and related to number stations, there's
the other code, which is the thing that requires you
like it's a descendant of the Caesar cipher, the Arnold cipher.
You have a one time code book that you have
to hear and right, that's how the that's the other
(17:16):
end of the key es, yes, yeah, and without that
you are a drift. There is no there is simply
no way to solve those things unless you have that
that old school crypto key, right, shout shout out.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
To bitcoin and the number stations is that's the one
where they just list off seemingly random numbers all day
long and no one has actually solved. Yes, is that right?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, that is absolutely correct. It is related to USSR
now Russian intelligence activities abroad. It may be related to
the so called dead hand system, which is, you know,
deploying all the nukes at once. If let's just let's
play yeah, let's play one clip so everybody can hear
(18:05):
at number station.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
N five two eight run five seven two.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Run five.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Egg.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
It's such a creepy thing.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And I'm pretty sure that Lost, the folks behind Lost,
used that sort of mysterious idea of transmissions, you know,
for some of the uh, the radio signals that are
intercepted by the Islanders if anyone remembers Lost.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Are there any theories that it's just a total hoax
and some guy is just reading numbers in to waste
all of these people's time.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There are definitely, uh, there are definitely some clear like
copycat guys. There's some you know, ham radio enthusiasts who
just have a lonely you know, Saturday night and hop
on and say some stuff but but in general, I
think for our purposes here, uh, this is illustrative of
one of the big differences between a puzzle and tradecraft,
(19:03):
or a code and tradecraft, and a puzzle in popular media,
which is that if you are propagating a puzzle in
popular media, you want people to be able to solve it,
and some of these tradecraft things simply do not have
an answer by design. And this is what leads us to,
uh to the legendary the legendary puzzle known as cryptose
(19:29):
with a case.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Exactly because it sort of straddles both of those sides.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
That's like the name of the last boss in the
puzzle video game. Yeah, now you must face cryptos.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
It's like, yeah, yeah, it's a little you know, this
was back in nineteen eighty eight, so maybe it seemed
a little spookier back.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
And they probably seen some Transformers cartoon, but.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
They like, okay, so AJ, can you introduce us to
cryptos Because one thing people want to be clear here.
You might have heard us talking about this and you
might think that the CIA said, well, we've solved most
of the puzzles, but there's this one that we have
no idea about, and it might surprise folks to realize
(20:12):
that the CIA themselves asked for this puzzle. Is that correct, right?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Are you cryptos.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
The thorn in their side?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
It really is. It's the self created it's exactly commissioned thorns.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Well, this was the end of the Cold War nineteen
eighty eight, and they the CIA, they have a portion
of their budget, like all government agencies, for art, so
they commissioned what turned out to be one of the
greatest unsolved puzzles of all time, and it's a sculpture.
They commissioned a sculpture from an artist named Jim Sanborn,
(20:50):
and they teamed him up with a retiring cryptographer from
the CIA, and they teamed up and created this art
piece called Crypto. And I went to see it. It's amazing.
It's a big wall, a big metal.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Wall, and anyone can go visit, by the way, Well.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
No, it took me like a year and a half
to get permission to visit.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Are you really Yeah? I thought anyone could go.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Oh no, it's right in the middle of Langley. It's
like in the courtyard.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Okay, so it was not easy, Like if you have minders,
oh I had tons of minders. You probably had a
background check too, Oh they had.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yes, no, they you know, everything like anything I brought
in had to be thoroughly vetted. And then they told
me I can't talk about the vetting in my book.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
So but they to wait.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So the book just goes from like page forty seven
to page fifty three.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
No comic, Yeah, well I did. Yeah, I had some
descriptions of like what they did to me to try
to get me through, and they're.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Like, you can sketch what you see, but only for
five ten seconds.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Yeah. No, I couldn't take photographs. But it was so
they commissioned this sculptor and this cryptographer, and it's a
metal wall with hundreds of letters and symbols on it,
and it contains the secret code. And thirty five years later,
it has still not been fully cracked, not even by
(22:22):
the CIA itself or the NSA. And they'd actually thought
when they put it up, the CIA is like, oh,
our guys will crack it in two days a week.
And it's been thirty five years now I will say
part of it has been cracked. So there are four
sections in Cryptos, four different messages on the wall, and
(22:42):
three of the four have been cracked by CIA employees,
but also by all of these amateurs who look at
it online, look at the photos.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Given the hoops you had to jump through just to
look at the thing, you think they would have pre
solved it before they let them build it.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I don't know why. Maybe that was sort of the points.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
But I love the idea of this retired CIA cryptographer
cryptologists just did this thing, and then he's like, cryptos out,
you know, and.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, Mike drop for sure. Also, uh, in the interest
of transparency very much, not the CIA vibe, but in
the interest of transparency.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
I think I was.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I was under the impression that this was slightly easier
to visit because all of the photographs I've seen of
Cryptos the sculpture are it's in a plaza, right, like
it's outside and and like you said, I think it's.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Uh the inter sanctum.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, the fourth passage or the fourth side is unsolved.
But dude, even reading I remember this, I can't quote
him off the dome, but I remember reading the like
solutions to the first three and there they themselves seem like.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Riddles to me, like exactly help.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
It seems like you found another clue or something.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Well, that is most people think. And the stim Sandber
and the sculptor has said that the all the four
when you add them together, it's a clue to another puzzle.
It sounds like it's a barriage treasure or a hidden treasure,
possibly on the CIA, because one of the solutions does
include longitude and latitude. Another one is a quote from
(24:26):
the guy who discovered King Tut's tomb about the wonders
that he discovered in there. So they are all leading
to part five, but since we still haven't style part four,
we don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Well, when they inevitably saw it. I hope it's not
like one of those Heraldo moments where they just like
open the vaults and there's just like a bag of
chips or some trash.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I hope it's a Christmas Story moment, you know, where
the kid finally gets his decoder ring, not what he
thought of. The answer is drink more ovaltine.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I can't wait. It's just an for CIA.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It's an ad for CIA weld t shirts. Can you imagine? Like, Okay,
so the people working at the CIA very smart, very
brilliant people, but there's still just people, so they still
get lunch. You know, their lunch break is probably shorter
than they like. So I love this image of some
CIA folks, crypto nerds going out with you know, their
(25:25):
brown bag lunch and standing in front of that sculpture
and eating your sabwich and thinking, okay, king tye, and
it's like a.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Nice place to pick a nick. It sounds like there's
there's a lawn something.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Were you saying, aj that you had folks reaching out
to you and they found out that you were doing this,
like telling you giving you inside tips on other stuff
to look for.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
That was on the piece itself.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
So I'm on this message board for cryptos because there
are thousands of people still trying to solve it thirty
five years later. And first of all, I give them
credit for the grit. Like when I'm helping my kids
with their math homework, I'm I'm like, after a minute
and a half, I'm like, I get like, this is
thirty five years so and every day I get messages, Oh,
(26:08):
I think it's gonna the key is Moby Dick or
the key is it's something to do with Navajo wind talkers,
And every every day there's a new theory. And I
was on the board and I said, I just got
permission to go visit Cryptos in person. And since only
a couple of them had actually done that, they were
(26:30):
all at Twitter, and they gave me all of these
these projects that I had to do, these secret projects.
Study the patterns in the grass and bring a compass
to see if the magnetic if there's any weird magnetic energy,
and look underneath to see how the screws are are positioned.
(26:52):
So it was hilarious and I did it. I you know,
I made a full report on it. Has not led
to the solution yet or or.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Is it a thing where you can't tell us?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Oh exactly, I did solve it, and I'm trying to
get sneak back in and.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
They will come for you in the night.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Oh no, let's hope the next book is it the
Year of Livy with the CIA.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
So living in get Mo, well, I will. I will say.
One of my favorite parts I got to interview the
sculptor Jim Sanborn, and he is he's a character and eccentric,
and one of my favorite parts is he's he's been
this has been going on for three decades, so he
still gets emails every day from people saying is this
(27:40):
it is that knows the sculptor and the cryptographer know it.
Two people in the world know it.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
That's it. That's it.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
They have the allegedly they have the solution somewhere in
a safe on the CIA, but only two people in
the world know it.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Well, really quickly, what kind of echelon of sculptor do
you have to get to to be invited to create
an unsolvable you know, the modern art, you know, piece
on the grounds of the CIA.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I don't want to sound I don't want to sound
like I'm telling tales out of school. But if I
recall correctly, Sanborn has has like grew up with family
members in the political class, right, or like he's like
a DC guy.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I guess I just think about that all the time
when you see these giant government sanctioned works of art, Like,
who is this artist that is like a totally cool
with the government, you know, because our artists tend to
be a little prickly sometimes about things like that, and
they're just down for it. And also the government is
like this artist is both interesting and safe.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Well, I will say he, I mean, he was supposed
to have told the head of the CIA at the
time what the solution was, because I guess the CIA
didn't want it to be like some Naudie Limerick or something.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Well, you don't want the.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Guy at the top to be like I should.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
I don't know either.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
It's a but the thing is, but Sanborn hints that
he really didn't tell the guy the actual full answer,
so so really it is still those two who know it.
But here's one thing that I love about Sanborn as
a writer, because he gets all of these emails of
(29:20):
saying is it this?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Is it that?
Speaker 4 (29:22):
And he got six so he decided he will tell
you whether his solution is correct, but only if you
pay him fifty dollars. People wow, right in, they said, exactly.
I mean he's the highest paid writer per word, I
think in America because he just has to say nope,
not it, and that's fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
How do you know if he's even telling Okay, I
don't mean to besmirch Sanborn's honor, but.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
People just be like, you know, no, man, I got
to keep the grift going, exactly.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
There are people. There are people that reminds me of
the the worst.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
So I don't really understand casinos like the gambling Itch
but I was trying to think of casino games, and
it feels to me like I figured out the dumbest
casino game that I think people would still play. It's
called pick a Number, and so you you pay you know,
five to fifty bucks or whatever numbers game, and then
(30:21):
you just guess a number and the dealer says yes
or no. That's like, I feel like we could sell that.
But also it feels like Jim got in front of us.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
On that one exactly is yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
It's like how many things am I holding up by
my back? You know, like, yeah, it's exactly. I mean
early early gambling probably very much included things like sure, but.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
You're you're welcome MGM, Grand et cetera, and the Mafia
to our new game pick a number. We'll tell you
if it's right, as long as you send us fifty bucks.
There is one thing that I think is really interesting
(31:03):
to share with our fellow ridiculous historians here, guys, which
is one mention you made Aj Navajo wind talk.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
It's a great example.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's something we've talked about on stuff that I want
you to know for sure, And honestly, the details are
a little fuzzy, but I know it involved Native Americans
using Native American characters and words in ways to embed
super difficult to crack codes, isn't that right?
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Right? Yeah, I a little fuzzy on this end as well,
But from what I remember, first of all, they made
a movie about it, all right, But the idea was
that this was a language unrelated to any other on Earth.
So that was like a unicorn, you want that language
because that way, it's very hard to crack a code.
(31:52):
When and then they took not only that language, but
then they encoded the language at least one other time
and made it even trickier. So yeah, again another unsung here.
I love these unsung heroes of World War Two.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I think one of my favorite facts I learned from
from reading about the wind Talker program was like, you're
saying that the double twist of encoding a very obscure
language for the access power certainly, or for like, you know, whatever,
the global superpower rivals.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
One of the things that was really interesting to me is,
I will posit there's a third coding iteration because the
Navajo language didn't have specific words for a lot of
military things, so like.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
You're you're, you're, Like the Navajo language does not, I imagine,
incorporate something for a word like P fifty two bobber
or submarine.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Right right, Well, if you anybody listening feels like poking
around and on the CIA's website, like aj was, so
they can see that you're around as well. List there's
some good writing on that website about the Navajo. Code
talkers is another term for them, and also on Intelligence
dot gov, which is the website of the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence. And I'm reading a little
(33:19):
blurb here where it says I'm just going to quote
from it. This system enabled the code talkers to translate
three lines of English in twenty seconds, not thirty minutes
as was common with existing code breaking machines. The code
talkers participated in every major marine operation in the Pacific theater,
giving them marines a critical advantage throughout the war. They
apparently were hugely credited for the victory at Ewajima and
(33:39):
transmitted more than eight hundred messages without error, which is
a big deal.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
That's amazing. Also, I do want to point out speak
at this while we're doing references to unsung heroes. If
you go to American Indian dot SI dot edu. You
will find an example of the linguistic parker that they
had to do. Submarine, you guys, is not a word
in Navajo, so it is translated to iron fish.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
That yeah, yeah, that is.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And speaking of unhung heroes, I'm looking on the CIA
website again and the kids section, and they have a
lot on animals who helped about that.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
There was like a cat, there was definitely a cat.
There was a catnge devices. That was a whole yep.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
And gosh, now I'm thinking of dolphins with laser beams
mounted their heads. But that's from from us to powers.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Gosh, that was a really fun episode, but it was
a ways back.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
So maybe you know, we're actually about to start doing
a thing where we re released some classics.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
So maybe we can do it where we actually pair
them in some ways with things that come up.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
If that's ever, you know, appropriate, then I think this
might be a good one to make one of our
first classes.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
It's a beautiful idea. And here we are, we're ending
with a puzzle. I want to be careful how we
say this that is solvable but has not yet been solved.
We're talking to one of the very few people who
actually went and got to hang out with the CIA.
So cool, such a yeah, why is that not at
(35:11):
the top of your bio? Right?
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
So h with this, we have to we have to
ask one thing that I think a lot of our
our listeners will be very interested in learning. We have
now done four episodes together on ridiculous history regarding your
your love of puzzles, your love of analyzing these things,
(35:34):
and and you have a lot of social commentary as
well in both your book The Puzzler and the podcast
The Puzzler. Uh what do you what do you hope
people take away from these conversations about ciphers, puzzles and
these thought experiments.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
One thing that I always talk about is the puzzle mindset,
which is all about curiosity, and I think that is
a great way to go through life. Quincy Jones, great producer,
great musician. He has an awesome saying. He says his
Flay philosophy is I don't have problems, I have puzzles exactly.
(36:16):
I love that because if you look at problems are
just so negative and intimidating and stress inducing, whereas puzzles,
it's like, all right, let's roll up our sleeves and
try to solve this. So I try to look at
my problems in my family and my marriage and my business.
These are puzzles, and I'm going to try to solve them.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
So it's funny you say that I'm in the process
of doing final mixes on a record. I do that,
you know, when I'm not podcasting for a kind of
a psychedelic rock band. And you know, when you have
such a big thing with so many pieces, like every
drum has its own microphone, every little element, you are
carving away frequencies to make the most impactful final products,
(36:55):
and you have to figure out how to slot these
things together. And sometimes it's not something you can do
in one go. You have to think about it in
stages and in pieces. And that's where like a good
producer gets their workflow from. And what separates a really
good one from like a mediocre one is you kind
of have experience in doing that, but every time it's
a little different and you have to tailor you know,
the solutions to the quote unquote problem or I guess
(37:18):
the puzzles, you know. And I love thinking of using
puzzle as a stand in for problems. Let's think about
that just in general in our lives moving forward. And
that's really smart.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
That is when I's same thing when I'm writing or
and I'm podcasting, I'm trying to think of it as
a puzzle and put the pieces together.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
And if you would like to join us in this
continuing enterprise to solve everything, or at least understand why
we as humans are so driven to make that attempt,
then please do check out the puzzler with Aj Bahamas Jacobs.
I don't think they put Bahamas in there yet, but
we're we're holding out home.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
We're gonna it's gonna happen, and.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
We're never gonna explain why, and uh still don't know why.
So it's so we are we are mentally we are
I mentally again, Aj over the moon that you would
join us here. As you said, you can hear luminaries
such as Ofira Eisenberg, Roy Wood Junior, Lisa Lobe, and
Noel Brown.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yeah what about nine stories? Did they get included?
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (38:19):
Not yeah, but a great idea.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Well, AJ, talk about the like you went to school
with Lisa or something I did.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
I went to college with Lisa Lobe and you only
hear what I want to AJ. She out very soon
after college and we were like, oh wow, she was.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
She was among that like that jewel kind of coffee
shop like elevated coffee shop era where like you know,
people were getting discovered playing in Granwich village like coffee
shops and stuff, and oh yeah, that was the and
then they had movies like you know that they were
on the soundtrack.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I think she blew up because it was like reality bites,
I want to say.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
And she was friends with with Ethan Hawk, yes exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
That was the golden time for singer songwriters and for
our purposes. Uh.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
She is absolutely great at solving puzzles, which you can.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
See is a puzzle. She's a puzzle Uh, a ficionado.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Excellent glasses game too, by the way, two.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Can buy she has.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So the hustle.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Spoiler alert, folks. We're hoping that we can get AJ
back on the show in the near future to talk
about a book that is near and dear to our hearts,
the forthcoming year of living constitutionally. Uh, if if it's
not imposing too much, AJ, could you, uh could you
(39:42):
give us just like a blurb for our fellow ridiculous historians.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
What is this about.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
I am very excited about us coming out in May.
And it's called the Year of Living Constitutionally. And I
try to understand our founding document by getting inside the
minds of the founding fathers and living the Constitution as
literally as possible. So I bear a musket in the
streets of New York. I write pamphlets with a quill
(40:08):
pen to express my first amendment. I quarter a soldier.
I apply to be a government sanctioned pirate. And it
was an amazing experience, and I learned so much about
the Constitution and hopefully how we can save this country
which is so insanely divided. And I will say one
(40:29):
of the joys was having people I respect read it.
And both Ben and Noel were super supportive and helpful
in reading the manuscript. So you are in the book.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
You are oh well acknowledgement, very very kind.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I got to ask you the name of these projects
you've got biblically now constitutionally that come from the Peter
Weir movie The Year of Living Dangerously with.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Mel Gibson said, I love that movie.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
I've actually have not seen it, but it made me
google that I like, is that a thing?
Speaker 2 (41:01):
I think that's a thing, and it certainly is from
the guy that directed Master and Commander, which people also love.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
And picnic it Hanging Rock, which I've also heard is
great seventies.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
I've never seen that.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
I haven't, but I've heard it's like a mystery thriller
kind of thing. But yeah, you're living dangerously and I
needed to films Storry mel Gibson.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Right, And no one even really remembers that, so it's
a reference that doesn't resonate.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Does Now you're bringing it back. We're bringing it back.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
We're bringing it back, and we're gonna bring you back
in the near future.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Yeah, folks, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank
you to the legendary one and only mister A. J. Jacobs.
And oh and thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams,
who still does own a pair of white pants.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
It's true, never forget the white pants.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
A huge thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme
and is also related by.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Blood to mister Max Williams and his white pants by marriage.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Chris Rociotis and he's Jeff Coat here in spirit and
Ben but ever so not leastly in fact. Firstly, but somehow, lastly,
thank you Ben for a yeah, this being my master
and commander.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Wait no, no too much, that's too much.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Au Shuxley, thanks as well to Jonathan Strickland, a k a.
The Quizter. I contacted him earlier. I was like, we
got this guy you got to meet. He's called the
Puzzler and Jonathan. Jonathan's response was something just like, I.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
See puert, you have my interests, sir, love it. But
last lastly, first, foremostly, but last still somehow, thank.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
You AJ for being here and we look forward to
having you back real soon.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Oh my pleasure. It's a joy. I love it so
thank you.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
We'll see you next time. Folks.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's give a shout out to our
super producer, the one and only mister Max white Pants Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Who Rah and guy that write that time, Ben, I
didn't say who uh or no, No, there's.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
A tsky We got it, we got it. We're working live.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I really thought I was getting it right here. Who
rah just embedded in my mind.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
It's a good thing to yell. It's a hussah for
you know, situationally dependent hussah.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We are period accurate.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
We are also we are also so excited, so fortunate
to be returning to part two of trade Craft Puzzles
with our good friend member of the Ridiculous History Expanded Universe,
none other than the author, the now podcaster, the thought leader. Uh,
mister A. J. Bahamas Jacobs aj. You said off air,
(01:23):
you said, guys, I got an intro for part two
of this, and then you.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Started really sinister like you did.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
There were some ellipses that we could hear, and then
and then you, uh, you're a brilliant, very kind in person.
So you started telling Nolan and I like, Nolan me
rather what uh what the intro would be like? And
we both immediately I apologize for this. We both immediately
vetoed that.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Extra jut throat us. We were we.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Were like, just do it on air. So so we
must we must uh pass the order of operations to you,
dear friend wield.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, we'll yield to you as some sort of overlord.
Sure so uh utah Mulberry's side, how are we getting
into this part of the conversation.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Well, this is sort of a continuation of our episode
on spying and puzzling. And while we were on break,
I had remembered that a few years ago I have
been poking around the CIA, the official CIA dot gov website,
like you do, just to make sure that they know
I'm here, and they and there's a kids corner. There
(02:40):
is a whole section called Spy Kids. And I went
to see just now if it was still there.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
It's not.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
It's bigger, it's more expanded, so I and it's all
these puzzles and games.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Is it also.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Is a little bit of a recruitment tool and I
actually had a it was kind of fun. I mean,
some of them are very basic. There's a word search
where kids can look for asset and surveillance and mission.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
There's kids kids food menu kind of stuff, you know, yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Kids food menu. There's a jigsaw you put together and
it's the Seal of the CIA. But actually one that
you should check out was I enjoyed. It was called
Aerial Analysis, and it's a picture of port with some ships,
and it's a bunch of questions like what time is it?
Is it noon or is it six pm? And I
was like, and then it was six pm because of
(03:31):
the long shadows. So it's actually it was you know,
if I were a cats make.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Just in my head, I thought that was the CIA
outsourcing aerial photographs of like picking out assets to children.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Is also shout out. You'll find this of interest AJ,
if you're not already aware. I recently learned a few
weeks back that the CIA has a long running extracurricular
creative writing group staffed like I shouldn't say staffed, but
everybody in the group is an active member of the CIA.
(04:08):
The name of the group. What you're gonna love is
get this invisible ink.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh that's nice. And the stories are nine ciphers.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
They're all in code. Yeah, yeah, they're they're the club discussion. No, obviously,
I can never tell you their their book Club discussion
is all in code. They We do know that the
CIA does love puzzles, like any any kind of intelligence
(04:38):
operation worth its salt. Ciphers are a part of the business,
a part of the craft. And when we left off
in episode one, we're talking a little bit about, uh,
the ancient history of trade craft, a little bit about crosswords,
and then you led Nola and I through a rabbit
(05:00):
hole on times crosswords went wrong, and we ended with
an extremely fascinating thing that history has yet to figure.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Out right, And this episode we are going to get
to my visits to the CIA headquarters to try to
crack one of the most famous unsolved puzzles ever. But
first let me just do a couple of more nuggets
on this fascinating crossover between spies and puzzles. And we
(05:37):
had mentioned in last time about some World War two puzzles.
There's one more World War two puzzle that we should
talk about, which is that the Nazis actually tried to
use crosswords for evil.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
So what yes, nineties doing evil stuff? The humble crossword?
Speaker 4 (05:58):
I know they will not even lave a own the crossword.
This was nineteen forty five and Nazi planes flew over
London and dropped leaflets containing crossword puzzles that had propaganda answers.
So the answers were anti us, anti ally. So, for instance,
(06:19):
one of the clues was he wants all You've got
and the answer that was the clue. The answer was Roosevelt,
so they were saying he and The New York Times
described the clues as feeble and heavy handed.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh that is such a New York Times roussy. I
love it especially.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I love that, especially given that that you taught us earlier.
The New York Times was a prominent anti crossword institution
for some time. And now they may better.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Yeah, exactly, and they show, yeah, they are better than
the Nazis at making crossword puzzles.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yeah, they just slammed the not only the Nazis are
the most evil people.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
But.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Constructed crosswords. That's and really, isn't that the great villainy
of the Nazi part? No one in fact check us
on that one. But the there's there's another thing on
the break. This reminded me of of a great a
great sequence in fiction, first in novels, but then later
(07:22):
in film adaptations. Uh, in the Silence of the Lambs series, right,
Silence of the Lamb where they follow they follow the
more of the quint essential serial killer figures of American literature,
Hannibal Lecter, and we learn that Lecter is communicating with
(07:44):
a serial killer named the Red Dragon or once we
called the Red Dragon through personal through essentially a cipher
where they're taking out back when people used to read, uh,
you know, print magazines and newspapers, taking out classified ads
which contain coded meanings. Yeah, I think they were classified.
(08:05):
I can't remember, but.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, either cloud one of those things you can pay
a couple bucks to put a little tiny graph, you know,
in the back of the newspaper. Even in the Silence
of the Lambs, that that was the Red Dragon that
was read sounds to the Lambs he does, you know,
He feeds Clarice Starling a few kind of incorrect clues
that are actually themselves ciphers, like miss Moffetts or something
(08:28):
like that, and I forget it's to translated like it's
an anagram for something. And then one of them is
an anagram or I believe the cipher for pyride for
fools gold, and it's basically showing that they're barking up
the wrong tree if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Well, speaking of classified ads, that reminds me in the
Victorian England in the eighteen hundreds that was huge. Lovers
would send secret messages through the classified ads. They'd put
these ciphers in the ads. It was sort of like
the sexting of the time, but he had to encode
it just a little healthy. They were not that I've
(09:03):
I've read a bunch of them, and h there are
things like I have the most handsome horse in the land,
now I need the most handsome lady.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That kind I write that probably get results.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, Also that that feels like you have given us
a lead on a great uh on a great future episode.
Right the precedents for sextem you've been around for so long?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Who was it the writer who wrote all those gnarly
lovely Joyce? James Joyce?
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Yeah, a great episode.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
On him wealthy.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
He wrote some of some of the best literature in
the English language, and then he also wrote Finn against Wake.
But he also how do you really feel about Jesus anyway?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
But it was a fart poet. Yes, turns out love.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
They were amazing. They were Yeah, I was astounded. That
is Yeah, maybe my favorite writing by Teams joy.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's where Cynasthasia really comes to bear.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Flippity floppity never mind, Oh gosh, yeah that Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Substitute teachers listening in the crowd, any high school teacher
who might be thinking it's time to take the day
easy and play an episode of ridiculous history for your students,
It is not the James Joyce episode unless you wish.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
To be bold, unless your students are very mature.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, that's what that would interest the students. I mean,
that is a way to get kids into James Joyce
our poetry.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
You guys might hate novels, but who likes farts?
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Why do we have sexy farts? Aha? But you never
thought that was a thing there.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
It is, so got a lot to learn, kids, So
the there's an interesting thing that we should just we
should spend one moment on here, which is that perhaps
the reason the propaganda crossword bombing failed is due to
the act that by nineteen forty five, the nomenclature of
(11:04):
clues and crosswords had already been pretty well established, right,
Like if you are just all things aside, just objectively,
you're playing a crossword. The clue he wants all you've
got sounds incredibly misleading. There is not a way logically
to like a is yourself into Roosevelt there.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That is a good point, or you know it definitely
any more broad like God or like Jesus or something,
you know what I mean, Like even that would be
a pretty lazy clue, right, Yeah, well that's specificity.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
It reminds me they weren't the only ones who did propaganda.
The New York Times also ran an article about in
nineteen fifty. So now we're in the Cold War and
the Soviet Union was trying the same trick where they
would produce these crosswords and spread them around us with
anti US propaganda and their clues. I don't think we're
(11:58):
much better. Well, you know what, take it back. This one,
you could almost say is half witty. The clue is
what is General MacArthur's concept of a courtesy call? And
the answer is a four letter word raid.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
So they're gonna say bomb, but like we were, Yeah,
those are both good, So.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So it sounds a little feeble and heavy handed to
the New York Times. Ah yeah, try harder, yeahdition out,
but you can't take it New York Times.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Oh no, no, that wasn't the Times. That was a
Soviet Union crossword puzzle maker being mentioned in the New
York Times.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
At that point, The New York Times is clearly has
clearly done a one eighty on their previous anti crossword stance,
and now they're like, crosswords are one of the most
important American cultural institutions.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
And we will one day be intrinsically linked to the
concept of the crossword puzzle. These are New York Times.
It is odd we're taking we.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Are super good at the thing we.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Hated inevitably become the thing you hate. You know, it's
just well, that's.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
That's like a Nietzschean observation thing.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I know, it's not true. It doesn't have to be true.
It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Folks, we have your back, and we also we also
have maybe a moment here before we get to like
our big star.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Of the day.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The hence this up to now unsolvable puzzle of the CIA.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
There are so many Cold War shenanigans. I love that
you're mentioning the Cold War aj because this is back
in the time. This is like the looking at old
spycraft or trade craft. At this time we see again
the Seinfeld problem.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
The number one criticism of Seinfeld, which Noel and I
talked about all the time off air, is that many
of the many of the plots the gang gets involved
in could easily have been solved if they had cell
phones and the trade craft. In this time, from the
fifties to let's say the early eighties, everything a lot
(14:06):
of things were still analogue. So these are the days
of weird code words, which are like another puzzle, right.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Yes, well, now we do have computers and high speed computers.
They haven't cracked everything, though they've held there's the famous
one of the most famous unsolved puzzles are the Zodiac killers.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
In Zodiac Thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
If we didn't get there, I was going to bring
it up, please, Sally Forth.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So, yeah, this was a serial killer in the seventies.
I'm not an expert on it, but he he sent
a lot of letters with codes to the police with
clues and several of them were unsolved. But last year,
just last year, there was a group of people who
solved using computers along with people. It was sort of
(15:04):
a a nice meshing of humans and computers that was
able to crack this. And part of the reason why
it was so hard to crack is this guy was terrible.
He made all of these mistakes. No, it's not consistent,
and so yeah, terrible person for killing and for also being.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
You exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I'm taking a stand.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
You know, the Zodiac film by David Fincher, I think
is one of his finest films and I rewatch it
just about every year, and it deals with a lot
of the stuff and the you know, the guy that
ultimately goes on to kind of write the book about
the whole thing, which is named Gray Smith, I believe,
played by Jake Gillenhall. He's the one who's like a cartoonist,
you know, working for the San Francisco Chronicle who starts
kind of solving these ciphers and it's because he's a
(15:56):
puzzle nerd.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
He's like that this is like his his wheelhouse.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
You know, he just does crosswords for fun and then
he ends up kind of being the one that sort
of pushes that stuff forward. But I do love the
idea that he just made tons of mistakes. That's really funny.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
And I love the point about the necessity for hybrid
problem solving concurrently because right now, and shout out to
the Puzzle Palace, of course, right now, there are tremendously
robust algorithms and other computerized approaches that can tackle puzzles
(16:31):
and codes very very well. However, those are those are
still not going to be able to get you across
the fence on their own one hundred percent of the time.
We know, like I'm thinking back in the days of
analog trade craft. One thing, like there are two examples
that still always work when deployed correctly, even in this
(16:55):
the Amazing Future twenty twenty four. One of them would
be numbers stations, right, and related to number stations, there's
the other code, which is the thing that requires you
like it's a descendant of the Caesar cipher, the Arnold cipher.
You have a one time code book that you have
to hear and right, that's how the that's the other
(17:16):
end of the key es, yes, yeah, and without that
you are a drift. There is no there is simply
no way to solve those things unless you have that
that old school crypto key, right, shout shout out.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
To bitcoin and the number stations is that's the one
where they just list off seemingly random numbers all day
long and no one has actually solved. Yes, is that right?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, that is absolutely correct. It is related to USSR
now Russian intelligence activities abroad. It may be related to
the so called dead hand system, which is, you know,
deploying all the nukes at once. If let's just let's
play yeah, let's play one clip so everybody can hear
(18:05):
at number station.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
N five two eight run five seven two.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Run five.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Egg.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
It's such a creepy thing.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And I'm pretty sure that Lost, the folks behind Lost,
used that sort of mysterious idea of transmissions, you know,
for some of the uh, the radio signals that are
intercepted by the Islanders if anyone remembers Lost.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Are there any theories that it's just a total hoax
and some guy is just reading numbers in to waste
all of these people's time.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There are definitely, uh, there are definitely some clear like
copycat guys. There's some you know, ham radio enthusiasts who
just have a lonely you know, Saturday night and hop
on and say some stuff but but in general, I
think for our purposes here, uh, this is illustrative of
one of the big differences between a puzzle and tradecraft,
(19:03):
or a code and tradecraft, and a puzzle in popular media,
which is that if you are propagating a puzzle in
popular media, you want people to be able to solve it,
and some of these tradecraft things simply do not have
an answer by design. And this is what leads us to,
uh to the legendary the legendary puzzle known as cryptose
(19:29):
with a case.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Exactly because it sort of straddles both of those sides.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
That's like the name of the last boss in the
puzzle video game. Yeah, now you must face cryptos.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
It's like, yeah, yeah, it's a little you know, this
was back in nineteen eighty eight, so maybe it seemed
a little spookier back.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
And they probably seen some Transformers cartoon, but.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
They like, okay, so AJ, can you introduce us to
cryptos Because one thing people want to be clear here.
You might have heard us talking about this and you
might think that the CIA said, well, we've solved most
of the puzzles, but there's this one that we have
no idea about, and it might surprise folks to realize
(20:12):
that the CIA themselves asked for this puzzle. Is that correct, right?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Are you cryptos.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
The thorn in their side?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
It really is. It's the self created it's exactly commissioned thorns.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Well, this was the end of the Cold War nineteen
eighty eight, and they the CIA, they have a portion
of their budget, like all government agencies, for art, so
they commissioned what turned out to be one of the
greatest unsolved puzzles of all time, and it's a sculpture.
They commissioned a sculpture from an artist named Jim Sanborn,
(20:50):
and they teamed him up with a retiring cryptographer from
the CIA, and they teamed up and created this art
piece called Crypto. And I went to see it. It's amazing.
It's a big wall, a big metal.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Wall, and anyone can go visit, by the way, Well.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
No, it took me like a year and a half
to get permission to visit.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Are you really Yeah? I thought anyone could go.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Oh no, it's right in the middle of Langley. It's
like in the courtyard.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Okay, so it was not easy, Like if you have minders,
oh I had tons of minders. You probably had a
background check too, Oh they had.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yes, no, they you know, everything like anything I brought
in had to be thoroughly vetted. And then they told
me I can't talk about the vetting in my book.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
So but they to wait.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So the book just goes from like page forty seven
to page fifty three.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
No comic, Yeah, well I did. Yeah, I had some
descriptions of like what they did to me to try
to get me through, and they're.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Like, you can sketch what you see, but only for
five ten seconds.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Yeah. No, I couldn't take photographs. But it was so
they commissioned this sculptor and this cryptographer, and it's a
metal wall with hundreds of letters and symbols on it,
and it contains the secret code. And thirty five years later,
it has still not been fully cracked, not even by
(22:22):
the CIA itself or the NSA. And they'd actually thought
when they put it up, the CIA is like, oh,
our guys will crack it in two days a week.
And it's been thirty five years now I will say
part of it has been cracked. So there are four
sections in Cryptos, four different messages on the wall, and
(22:42):
three of the four have been cracked by CIA employees,
but also by all of these amateurs who look at
it online, look at the photos.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Given the hoops you had to jump through just to
look at the thing, you think they would have pre
solved it before they let them build it.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I don't know why. Maybe that was sort of the points.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
But I love the idea of this retired CIA cryptographer
cryptologists just did this thing, and then he's like, cryptos out,
you know, and.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, Mike drop for sure. Also, uh, in the interest
of transparency very much, not the CIA vibe, but in
the interest of transparency.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
I think I was.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
I was under the impression that this was slightly easier
to visit because all of the photographs I've seen of
Cryptos the sculpture are it's in a plaza, right, like
it's outside and and like you said, I think it's.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Uh the inter sanctum.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah, the fourth passage or the fourth side is unsolved.
But dude, even reading I remember this, I can't quote
him off the dome, but I remember reading the like
solutions to the first three and there they themselves seem like.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Riddles to me, like exactly help.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
It seems like you found another clue or something.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Well, that is most people think. And the stim Sandber
and the sculptor has said that the all the four
when you add them together, it's a clue to another puzzle.
It sounds like it's a barriage treasure or a hidden treasure,
possibly on the CIA, because one of the solutions does
include longitude and latitude. Another one is a quote from
(24:26):
the guy who discovered King Tut's tomb about the wonders
that he discovered in there. So they are all leading
to part five, but since we still haven't style part four,
we don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Well, when they inevitably saw it. I hope it's not
like one of those Heraldo moments where they just like
open the vaults and there's just like a bag of
chips or some trash.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I hope it's a Christmas Story moment, you know, where
the kid finally gets his decoder ring, not what he
thought of. The answer is drink more ovaltine.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I can't wait. It's just an for CIA.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It's an ad for CIA weld t shirts. Can you imagine? Like, Okay,
so the people working at the CIA very smart, very
brilliant people, but there's still just people, so they still
get lunch. You know, their lunch break is probably shorter
than they like. So I love this image of some
CIA folks, crypto nerds going out with you know, their
(25:25):
brown bag lunch and standing in front of that sculpture
and eating your sabwich and thinking, okay, king tye, and
it's like a.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Nice place to pick a nick. It sounds like there's
there's a lawn something.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Were you saying, aj that you had folks reaching out
to you and they found out that you were doing this,
like telling you giving you inside tips on other stuff
to look for.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
That was on the piece itself.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
So I'm on this message board for cryptos because there
are thousands of people still trying to solve it thirty
five years later. And first of all, I give them
credit for the grit. Like when I'm helping my kids
with their math homework, I'm I'm like, after a minute
and a half, I'm like, I get like, this is
thirty five years so and every day I get messages, Oh,
(26:08):
I think it's gonna the key is Moby Dick or
the key is it's something to do with Navajo wind talkers,
And every every day there's a new theory. And I
was on the board and I said, I just got
permission to go visit Cryptos in person. And since only
a couple of them had actually done that, they were
(26:30):
all at Twitter, and they gave me all of these
these projects that I had to do, these secret projects.
Study the patterns in the grass and bring a compass
to see if the magnetic if there's any weird magnetic energy,
and look underneath to see how the screws are are positioned.
(26:52):
So it was hilarious and I did it. I you know,
I made a full report on it. Has not led
to the solution yet or or.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Is it a thing where you can't tell us?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Oh exactly, I did solve it, and I'm trying to
get sneak back in and.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
They will come for you in the night.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Oh no, let's hope the next book is it the
Year of Livy with the CIA.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
So living in get Mo, well, I will. I will say.
One of my favorite parts I got to interview the
sculptor Jim Sanborn, and he is he's a character and eccentric,
and one of my favorite parts is he's he's been
this has been going on for three decades, so he
still gets emails every day from people saying is this
(27:40):
it is that knows the sculptor and the cryptographer know it.
Two people in the world know it.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
That's it. That's it.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
They have the allegedly they have the solution somewhere in
a safe on the CIA, but only two people in
the world know it.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Well, really quickly, what kind of echelon of sculptor do
you have to get to to be invited to create
an unsolvable you know, the modern art, you know, piece
on the grounds of the CIA.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I don't want to sound I don't want to sound
like I'm telling tales out of school. But if I
recall correctly, Sanborn has has like grew up with family
members in the political class, right, or like he's like
a DC guy.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I guess I just think about that all the time
when you see these giant government sanctioned works of art, Like,
who is this artist that is like a totally cool
with the government, you know, because our artists tend to
be a little prickly sometimes about things like that, and
they're just down for it. And also the government is
like this artist is both interesting and safe.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Well, I will say he, I mean, he was supposed
to have told the head of the CIA at the
time what the solution was, because I guess the CIA
didn't want it to be like some Naudie Limerick or something.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Well, you don't want the.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Guy at the top to be like I should.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
I don't know either.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
It's a but the thing is, but Sanborn hints that
he really didn't tell the guy the actual full answer,
so so really it is still those two who know it.
But here's one thing that I love about Sanborn as
a writer, because he gets all of these emails of
(29:20):
saying is it this?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Is it that?
Speaker 4 (29:22):
And he got six so he decided he will tell
you whether his solution is correct, but only if you
pay him fifty dollars. People wow, right in, they said, exactly.
I mean he's the highest paid writer per word, I
think in America because he just has to say nope,
not it, and that's fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
How do you know if he's even telling Okay, I
don't mean to besmirch Sanborn's honor, but.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
People just be like, you know, no, man, I got
to keep the grift going, exactly.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
There are people. There are people that reminds me of
the the worst.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
So I don't really understand casinos like the gambling Itch
but I was trying to think of casino games, and
it feels to me like I figured out the dumbest
casino game that I think people would still play. It's
called pick a Number, and so you you pay you know,
five to fifty bucks or whatever numbers game, and then
(30:21):
you just guess a number and the dealer says yes
or no. That's like, I feel like we could sell that.
But also it feels like Jim got in front of us.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
On that one exactly is yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
It's like how many things am I holding up by
my back? You know, like, yeah, it's exactly. I mean
early early gambling probably very much included things like sure, but.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
You're you're welcome MGM, Grand et cetera, and the Mafia
to our new game pick a number. We'll tell you
if it's right, as long as you send us fifty bucks.
There is one thing that I think is really interesting
(31:03):
to share with our fellow ridiculous historians here, guys, which
is one mention you made Aj Navajo wind talk.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
It's a great example.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It's something we've talked about on stuff that I want
you to know for sure, And honestly, the details are
a little fuzzy, but I know it involved Native Americans
using Native American characters and words in ways to embed
super difficult to crack codes, isn't that right?
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Right? Yeah, I a little fuzzy on this end as well,
But from what I remember, first of all, they made
a movie about it, all right, But the idea was
that this was a language unrelated to any other on Earth.
So that was like a unicorn, you want that language
because that way, it's very hard to crack a code.
(31:52):
When and then they took not only that language, but
then they encoded the language at least one other time
and made it even trickier. So yeah, again another unsung here.
I love these unsung heroes of World War Two.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
I think one of my favorite facts I learned from
from reading about the wind Talker program was like, you're
saying that the double twist of encoding a very obscure
language for the access power certainly, or for like, you know, whatever,
the global superpower rivals.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
One of the things that was really interesting to me is,
I will posit there's a third coding iteration because the
Navajo language didn't have specific words for a lot of
military things, so like.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
You're you're, you're, Like the Navajo language does not, I imagine,
incorporate something for a word like P fifty two bobber
or submarine.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Right right, Well, if you anybody listening feels like poking
around and on the CIA's website, like aj was, so
they can see that you're around as well. List there's
some good writing on that website about the Navajo. Code
talkers is another term for them, and also on Intelligence
dot gov, which is the website of the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence. And I'm reading a little
(33:19):
blurb here where it says I'm just going to quote
from it. This system enabled the code talkers to translate
three lines of English in twenty seconds, not thirty minutes
as was common with existing code breaking machines. The code
talkers participated in every major marine operation in the Pacific theater,
giving them marines a critical advantage throughout the war. They
apparently were hugely credited for the victory at Ewajima and
(33:39):
transmitted more than eight hundred messages without error, which is
a big deal.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
That's amazing. Also, I do want to point out speak
at this while we're doing references to unsung heroes. If
you go to American Indian dot SI dot edu. You
will find an example of the linguistic parker that they
had to do. Submarine, you guys, is not a word
in Navajo, so it is translated to iron fish.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
That yeah, yeah, that is.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And speaking of unhung heroes, I'm looking on the CIA
website again and the kids section, and they have a
lot on animals who helped about that.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
There was like a cat, there was definitely a cat.
There was a catnge devices. That was a whole yep.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
And gosh, now I'm thinking of dolphins with laser beams
mounted their heads. But that's from from us to powers.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Gosh, that was a really fun episode, but it was
a ways back.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
So maybe you know, we're actually about to start doing
a thing where we re released some classics.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
So maybe we can do it where we actually pair
them in some ways with things that come up.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
If that's ever, you know, appropriate, then I think this
might be a good one to make one of our
first classes.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
It's a beautiful idea. And here we are, we're ending
with a puzzle. I want to be careful how we
say this that is solvable but has not yet been solved.
We're talking to one of the very few people who
actually went and got to hang out with the CIA.
So cool, such a yeah, why is that not at
(35:11):
the top of your bio? Right?
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
So h with this, we have to we have to
ask one thing that I think a lot of our
our listeners will be very interested in learning. We have
now done four episodes together on ridiculous history regarding your
your love of puzzles, your love of analyzing these things,
(35:34):
and and you have a lot of social commentary as
well in both your book The Puzzler and the podcast
The Puzzler. Uh what do you what do you hope
people take away from these conversations about ciphers, puzzles and
these thought experiments.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
One thing that I always talk about is the puzzle mindset,
which is all about curiosity, and I think that is
a great way to go through life. Quincy Jones, great producer,
great musician. He has an awesome saying. He says his
Flay philosophy is I don't have problems, I have puzzles exactly.
(36:16):
I love that because if you look at problems are
just so negative and intimidating and stress inducing, whereas puzzles,
it's like, all right, let's roll up our sleeves and
try to solve this. So I try to look at
my problems in my family and my marriage and my business.
These are puzzles, and I'm going to try to solve them.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
So it's funny you say that I'm in the process
of doing final mixes on a record. I do that,
you know, when I'm not podcasting for a kind of
a psychedelic rock band. And you know, when you have
such a big thing with so many pieces, like every
drum has its own microphone, every little element, you are
carving away frequencies to make the most impactful final products,
(36:55):
and you have to figure out how to slot these
things together. And sometimes it's not something you can do
in one go. You have to think about it in
stages and in pieces. And that's where like a good
producer gets their workflow from. And what separates a really
good one from like a mediocre one is you kind
of have experience in doing that, but every time it's
a little different and you have to tailor you know,
the solutions to the quote unquote problem or I guess
(37:18):
the puzzles, you know. And I love thinking of using
puzzle as a stand in for problems. Let's think about
that just in general in our lives moving forward. And
that's really smart.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
That is when I's same thing when I'm writing or
and I'm podcasting, I'm trying to think of it as
a puzzle and put the pieces together.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
And if you would like to join us in this
continuing enterprise to solve everything, or at least understand why
we as humans are so driven to make that attempt,
then please do check out the puzzler with Aj Bahamas Jacobs.
I don't think they put Bahamas in there yet, but
we're we're holding out home.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
We're gonna it's gonna happen, and.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
We're never gonna explain why, and uh still don't know why.
So it's so we are we are mentally we are
I mentally again, Aj over the moon that you would
join us here. As you said, you can hear luminaries
such as Ofira Eisenberg, Roy Wood Junior, Lisa Lobe, and
Noel Brown.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yeah what about nine stories? Did they get included?
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (38:19):
Not yeah, but a great idea.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Well, AJ, talk about the like you went to school
with Lisa or something I did.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
I went to college with Lisa Lobe and you only
hear what I want to AJ. She out very soon
after college and we were like, oh wow, she was.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
She was among that like that jewel kind of coffee
shop like elevated coffee shop era where like you know,
people were getting discovered playing in Granwich village like coffee
shops and stuff, and oh yeah, that was the and
then they had movies like you know that they were
on the soundtrack.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I think she blew up because it was like reality bites,
I want to say.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
And she was friends with with Ethan Hawk, yes exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
That was the golden time for singer songwriters and for
our purposes. Uh.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
She is absolutely great at solving puzzles, which you can.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
See is a puzzle. She's a puzzle Uh, a ficionado.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Excellent glasses game too, by the way, two.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Can buy she has.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
So the hustle.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Spoiler alert, folks. We're hoping that we can get AJ
back on the show in the near future to talk
about a book that is near and dear to our hearts,
the forthcoming year of living constitutionally. Uh, if if it's
not imposing too much, AJ, could you, uh could you
(39:42):
give us just like a blurb for our fellow ridiculous historians.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
What is this about.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
I am very excited about us coming out in May.
And it's called the Year of Living Constitutionally. And I
try to understand our founding document by getting inside the
minds of the founding fathers and living the Constitution as
literally as possible. So I bear a musket in the
streets of New York. I write pamphlets with a quill
(40:08):
pen to express my first amendment. I quarter a soldier.
I apply to be a government sanctioned pirate. And it
was an amazing experience, and I learned so much about
the Constitution and hopefully how we can save this country
which is so insanely divided. And I will say one
(40:29):
of the joys was having people I respect read it.
And both Ben and Noel were super supportive and helpful
in reading the manuscript. So you are in the book.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
You are oh well acknowledgement, very very kind.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I got to ask you the name of these projects
you've got biblically now constitutionally that come from the Peter
Weir movie The Year of Living Dangerously with.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Mel Gibson said, I love that movie.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
I've actually have not seen it, but it made me
google that I like, is that a thing?
Speaker 2 (41:01):
I think that's a thing, and it certainly is from
the guy that directed Master and Commander, which people also love.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
And picnic it Hanging Rock, which I've also heard is
great seventies.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
I've never seen that.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
I haven't, but I've heard it's like a mystery thriller
kind of thing. But yeah, you're living dangerously and I
needed to films Storry mel Gibson.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Right, And no one even really remembers that, so it's
a reference that doesn't resonate.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Does Now you're bringing it back. We're bringing it back.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
We're bringing it back, and we're gonna bring you back
in the near future.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Yeah, folks, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank
you to the legendary one and only mister A. J. Jacobs.
And oh and thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams,
who still does own a pair of white pants.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
It's true, never forget the white pants.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
A huge thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme
and is also related by.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Blood to mister Max Williams and his white pants by marriage.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Chris Rociotis and he's Jeff Coat here in spirit and
Ben but ever so not leastly in fact. Firstly, but somehow, lastly,
thank you Ben for a yeah, this being my master
and commander.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Wait no, no too much, that's too much.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Au Shuxley, thanks as well to Jonathan Strickland, a k a.
The Quizter. I contacted him earlier. I was like, we
got this guy you got to meet. He's called the
Puzzler and Jonathan. Jonathan's response was something just like, I.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
See puert, you have my interests, sir, love it. But
last lastly, first, foremostly, but last still somehow, thank.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
You AJ for being here and we look forward to
having you back real soon.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Oh my pleasure. It's a joy. I love it so
thank you.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
We'll see you next time. Folks.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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