Celebrities, Death and Conspiracy

Is Elvis alive? What really happened to Tupac, Kurt Cobain and Andy Kaufman? Join Ben and Super Producer Noel Brown as they explore the fact, fiction and controversy surrounding celebrity death conspiracies.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Ben and
I'm Noel Surprised. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, the

(00:22):
very same super producer, Noel Brown, who only usually shows
up at the end of the episode. Sometimes you might
interject when when you have to say that. Guys know
that was birk. I try to avoid it if I can,
I'm called forth to do so. So long time listeners
you will know that. Uh. In our last episode last week,

(00:45):
we mentioned that the better half of the show, in
my opinion, Matt Frederick is it's going to take a
little bit of time off to be a dad. This
is yeah, it's a it's a big it's a big deal.
And uh, whereas we know, everything is fine. We'll keep
you updated when we're hearing things. But Matt, as always

(01:05):
is with this in spirit and we'll see if we
can talk him into some cameos. Uh during his during
during his um vacation. I guess it's the opposite of
a vacation. It's a new career. It's a staycation, it's
a staycacaybe we can skype him manage. Yeah, maybe we
could skype him in, or maybe we can just show
up at his house. Right, nothing creepy about that, you know.

(01:26):
I'm sure his wife will be thrilled. Sure she will,
especially the surprise aspect. Right, we'll go late at night,
Diana all love it, and we'll just we'll scratch on
the glass Salem Lot style. Well sure, yeah, yeah, that's
what you do. Because what's more scary than seeing like
a bright face in the dark. You wanna want to
keep it. You just want the eyes to see that disembodied,

(01:48):
floating creepy eyes. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's
I think that's a full proof plan. In our hearts
are in the right place. No, I wanted to say
thank you so much for coming on the show and
making this whole ing a moment with null. I know
that I kind of cajoled you into it, but I
appreciate you agree. There was a little arm twisting. It
wasn't animal though. There was a little arm twisted. Uh

(02:11):
So today, what are we talking about? We are talking
about celebrity death conspiracies. I suppose are just celebrity deaths. Well,
we can, we can, we can say that they should
be we can we can say that there are conspiracy theories,
and we can say that they're definitely celebrity deaths. Right,

(02:32):
we're talking about several different things, so we're gonna give
an overview of some of this stuff. Here's the thing,
in an increasingly secular age, right when you and I
have talked about this before off air, Uh, people don't
worship gods or demi gods the way they used to.
You know, there used to be what umpteen temples to

(02:54):
Dionysus or or you know, all the stories of Hercules
were told across the land to Now that the world
has become a little more secular, celebrities have elevated to
this sort of mythical role. Right. Sure, So today we're
taking a closer look at this obsession with celebrities and
and first we'd like to look at a specific and

(03:16):
odd type of conspiracy theory. Yeah, so, the there's this
idea that a celebrity would fake his her own death
in order to escape public scrutiny. This comes up a
lot Tupac or Elvis, Jim Morrison the list goes on
and on and on um. And Second, the idea that
some celebrity deaths were the result of a conspiracy or

(03:37):
some sort of sinister, murky explanation that differs from official counts,
you know, like Michael Jackson or Kurt Cobain. Oh yeah, yeah,
so they actually did die. We're just talking about how
they died, right, exactly, the official reports not necessarily being
what actually took place. And then third, we're going to
look at how someone might actually fake their own death

(03:57):
and whether it's possible in the modern Ay, yeah, that's
that's gonna be interesting. And oh we should put a
disclaimer out right now, ladies and gentlemen, neither super producer,
Noel the Madman Brown, nor me myself where I or
even Matt as a matter of fact, no one is
condoning faking your own death. Uh. The stuff that you

(04:19):
would have to do is well you'll see no spoilers,
but it would probably be easier just to disappear. Oh
go ahead, I don't know, let and say that if
you were able to successfully do that, I would give
you a tip of the hat. And personally, just because
I mean, it's such an insane feat to be able
to pull off the right you should do it, but
pretty impressive thing to pull it is an impressive It

(04:42):
is an impressive thing. It's like, it's like stealing a
Space shuttle and making it to space is so many
different kinds of illegal, but still it's impressive. And then
like coming back from space and parking it in your
one car garage and having nobody noticed. Wow, yeah, I
guess that's a about the same level. Yeah. Um, and
put a mustache on the shuttle of course, disguise it.

(05:05):
So let's talk about the first, the first type, the
idea that someone could fake their deaths. Now, you know,
I was born in uh, Tennessee. My family's from the
hinter the ends of the Appalacha. So Elvis Presley big
deal and all the all the theories that swirl around
this guy, the lore, if you will, the lore, that's

(05:27):
the perfect word. So one thing that I always heard
growing up was that Elvis Presley was also a malungeon,
which people just often when someone gets famous in Tennessee,
there will be people going, yeah, you know, he's a
he's a malungeon. You know, I didn't know what malungeons
were until you told me pretty recently. Maybe catch up
some of the listeners in case they don't know either.

(05:48):
Oh did we talk about this? Uh? Okay, well, uh,
my family is umlungeon on my dad's side, and the
lungeons are what what we're originally called a try racial isolate.
That's the kind of thing they were. And for a
long time in uh Tennessee history or Eastern Tennessee history

(06:09):
to use the word that you use so well, earlier
there was this lore about malungeons and they weren't uh,
they were considered ethnically ambiguous. You can check it out
to learn more online. Uh, it's spelled in E L,
you in G e O in S. So how does
the king figure in that? So? Thank you bring it back? Yeah,

(06:29):
the King Elvis Presley considered to be a malungeon. But
he was one of the most popular celebrities in m
at the time for sure, but possibly in American history.
And he was born um, let's see, we have his uh,
we have his earth and death date, right, Yeah, So
Elvis Presley was born on January eighth, nineteen thirty five,

(06:51):
and he died on August sixteenth, nineteen seventy seven. Or
did he or did he they probably did. But um
so how he died is it was a suspected drug
overdose and he was pretty was pretty common knowledge that
that Elvis was was popping some serious sedatives. His personal doctor,

(07:13):
doctor Nicopolis, prescribed him as much as ten thousand doses
of sedatives, emphetamines and narcotics. And I'm guessing that's in
a ye year's time. Yeah, yes, so there. It's it's
strange because you know, this was considered a national and
personal catastrophe for thousands and thousands of people. Okay, so yes,

(07:37):
when he when he dies, when he is declared dead
the sixteenth, nineteen seventy seven, people are people are floundering
to figure out what's happening, and they don't want their
favorite celebrity to be dead, so they come up with
these ideas about what really happened. We know that there
was already some controversy because a metal examiner named Dr

(08:01):
Jerry Francisco said that the cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia.
But you can only determine that condition in a living person.
So if you guess about the like, if you try
to speculate on that, it gets messy really quickly. I
mean rhythmia. Is this idea that your heart is not
beating the correct right tempo or the correct it's an

(08:23):
irregular heartbeat. So how can you detect an irregular heartbeat
in a non beating heart? Exactly right? Yeah, perfect. And
in two thousand and ten, however, we have a wrinkle
to the story because that doctor you mentioned earlier returns
so in his friend and former personal position, Dctor Accopolis
said he believed that chronic constipation, not cardiac arrhythmia, is

(08:46):
what knocked the king office throne. Uh bum bum bomb bomb.
So yeah, so this this is a case where the
the examiners, the invest gators. It is not a pretty image.
I'm sorry, man, Yeah, I know, no one wants to
go that way because this was this was fat alvious too.

(09:07):
I mean he was, you know, looking a little worse
for wear in those days. He had lived a hard
life and he was is being cheated by the colonel,
you know, eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches shooting the television.
I read that he went to, uh there was this
one place who I read a lot about the sandwiches
he ate in preparation of the show. But he was

(09:29):
an acceptable researcher, and he went to, Uh, there was
this one sandwich he loved, which was the entire loaf
of bread hollowed out with like a jar of peanut
butter and making no, I'm not I'm going to find
the name of it. It's more like a cake. But
he wasn't eating healthy, He wasn't living in a healthy manner,
and it wasn't leaving the house particularly often. Right, Probably

(09:49):
wasn't um. Probably wasn't functioning very well on an emotional
or social level because with thoses of sedatives, etcetera, etcetera,
it's probably pretty difficult thing to do. So there are
a We're family shows. So I'll say, a boatload of
people who do not believe the official story. They say, no,

(10:11):
Elvis Presley faked his death to get away from the
financial troubles caused by his manager, the Colonel, to get
away from the constant grind of fame, to go somewhere
and maybe dry out and stop popping pills, And that
he faked his death and goes by the name John
Burrows because there was a guy named John Burrows apparently

(10:32):
who resembled Elvis and brought it bought a plane ticket
from Memphis to Buenos Aires, Chile. Uh, the day after
Elvis was declared dead. Dumb thumb, that's the one. Yeah,
and this is only the beginning of numerous Elvis sightings
over the years following decades. I know people noel who

(10:53):
claimed to have seen Elvis Presley and believe it was
Elvis Presley. Well they believe it. Well, I like, circle,
when did they? When do they see these before you
and I were born for you? So this would be
like possibly before the Elvis impersonation things, right, That's the
thing I always thought, Yeah, there was an Elvis. Uh,

(11:14):
there's so many sightings right that there's an Elvis Sighting
Society that was established in like eighty nine. And I
love that point about the impersonators, Elvis impersonators. So that's
what I always think, don't you when you see when
you hear somebody say, oh I saw Elvis. Yeah, you
were in Vegas during the Elvis Convention, of course you
saw it. And then uh, we've got a we've got

(11:37):
a neat um guest here, though, if Elvis were alive today,
how old would he be? So if Elvis were alive today,
he would be wait for it, eighty years old, eighty
years old, eight years old. I don't know, man, I
think uh, I think the King would come back. I
mean if you did, he certainly wouldn't be able to

(11:58):
do any of his signature dance man with without you know,
breaking a hip. Yeah, no, hips, we couldn't do the hips. Uh.
Probably have to be a little more laid back acoustic.
I think so too. The the funny things not funny.
The interesting thing, um that's been occurring to me when
we've been talking about this, is this the similarities between
the Elvis situation and a much more recent celebrity death

(12:19):
that will likely spawn many conspiracy theories as time goes on.
Sure already has I'm not aware of. But it's of
course Michael Jackson very similar circumstances. I mean, he you know,
was in horrible debts, had been used and abused by
his handlers and his management, and his family isolated, isolated, depressed,

(12:40):
had a personal doctor of suspicious moral you know, fiber.
Yet it was just given him books of whatever it
was that he wanted, supposedly to help him sleep, but
honestly probably just a dope him into submission so he
didn't have to think about all the horrible stuff that
he had to deal with. Michael Jackson is is a

(13:01):
very similar case, and I'm glad you point that out.
And again also like an example of someone that was
just that just achieved just you know, extra human levels
of fame, like to the point where it was all
he knew. That was his entire existence, from being a child,
he always was in the spotlights. He knew nothing else.
I mean, Elvis obviously had a bit of a normal

(13:22):
life for a while, but when he hit, I mean
he hit so hard that it was just like his
past was practically irrelevant. Yeah, that you know, that's a
good point. Michael Jackson born nineteen fifty eight August twenty nine,
so he's an August birthday too, and uh declared dead
June two thousand nine, and he was declared dead of
an acute drug overdose. UM some drugs that I've I've

(13:46):
never heard of or tried. Yeah, I mean, from what
I've read, propofile is some sort of like um anesthesia. Actually,
maybe double check me on that, but I believe I
was reading an article about were there talking. It was
just an odd thing to prescribe in the way that
it was being quote unquote prescribed right when it's your

(14:06):
personal doctor. There's just no checks and balances. Oh you
know what. It's also um, I believe it's also considered
a hypnotic amnesthetic agents, So it okay general anesthesia UM
for something you would give a person going in for
a procedure, you know of some kind, probably not typically

(14:28):
used just to make you know, zombifie a celebrity. Right, Yeah,
that's that's very strange. So the conspiracy there is is similar. Um, well,
this conspiracy a little different here. The theory is that
his doctor personally and purposefully kill him. Do you have
any info as to to what end? I mean? Did

(14:50):
he have irons in the fires? But he was paid
getting financial you know that he was paid by the
family that was one of that was one of them,
or you'll hear people will say that he was paid
by them, that he was paid by a record label,
or you will hear that he was um just negligent um.

(15:12):
So he actually went to jail. Dr Conrad Murray that's
his name, he went to He went to jail for
killing Michael Jackson and he was released in October two thousand, thirteens.
And there are a civil suit of some kind, I believe.
So he served two years of a four year sentence
for causing um, Michael Jackson's death. And uh, these these

(15:36):
kind of conspiracy theories that that grew up around this
are as far as I can tell, not substantiated with
any hard evidence yet. Yeah. I mean the thing about
that is it does you hear about celebrities like, for example,
James Brown. I actually grew up in Augusta, Georgia, and

(15:57):
James Brown, when he was alive was his worst enemy.
Like he wouldn't allow his music to be used in
certain ways. You know, he insisted on being his own
boss and managing all his business affairs pretty directly, and
consequently he wasn't the greatest at it. I feel like
when he passed away, it opened up a lot of

(16:18):
opportunities for you know, his music to be used posthumously
in a way that was never possible when he was alive.
That's very similar to me as to what happened with
Michael Jackson. You know, he his catalog is a lot
more valuable to the people you know, in a position
to benefit from it after he passed away than when
he was alive. Right, Yeah, that's that's a very that's

(16:40):
a very disturbing but accurate point. The thing with Michael
Jackson stuff is there's another Elvis con Elvis esque conspiracy
that he's not dead. You can actually visit websites like
Michael Jackson not Dead dot word press and it's original. Yeah,
and they talk about that, uh that if you look

(17:01):
at it, the facts don't add up, and that the
behavior of the family indicates that he's alive. There's somehow
in on it. But I think that I think the
part of it is just because of the importance of
celebrity occupies in the secular world. Now, I don't know,
I don't know. It's quite possible, and I use the

(17:22):
word possible very carefully. It's not quite possible. No, I'm sorry.
It's like mathematically approaching zero percent possible that Michael Jackson
could be listening to our show right now, in which
case you can always write to us and we'll we'll
we'll tell the story. Uh, just another one real quick. Uh.

(17:46):
Andy Kaufman, right, you've heard about that. Yeah. Andy Kaufman
was supposed to have, according to some internet rumors, uh,
faked his death. Someone went online a while back and
said Hey, uh, I'm Andy Kaufman faked my death. And
we received an email from a guy purporting to have

(18:08):
the information about how Andy Kaufman faked his death. Followed
up on it, but nothing really came of it. And
so with that guy, I have to wonder, without going
in details, I have to wonder if maybe Kaufman was
passing away and who he was going to die and
told his friends. Hey, in like a few years, pretend
to meet me and say that I faked my dad,

(18:29):
because that sounds like a great That sounds like something
he would mean. Are you are you familiar with this
character Tony Clifton Tony Clifton, Yeah, So he was sort
of this kind of borish entertainment like manager type, like
sort of like a nightclub promoter type. Kill um. So
Kaufman would play him in a fat suit and like,
you know, mustache and like really greasy hair kind of look,

(18:51):
and he was just kind of a troll, you know.
He would just do shows as Tony Clifton, completely troll
the audience and it wasn't exactly funny if you weren't
in on the joke. And that's the thing about Andy
Kaufman is a lot of times, nobody was in on
the joke until much, much, much later, and so he
was in a lot of ways doing these things for himself.
But that's why it's sort of like now it became apparent. Um,

(19:14):
this was in that biopic Man on the Moon when
Jim Carrey that he wasn't always the one playing Tony Clifton.
Sometimes it would be his friend and I believe manager
Bob Zamuda, who would also play the character very convincingly,
you know, similarly to the way Kaufman would play him.
And in recent years that character has kind of popped
up again here and there. So Kaufman was always the

(19:37):
kind of quote unquote comedian that was, you know, multiple
steps ahead of his audience, and he you know, he
definitely had some success obviously, but kind of left a
lot of general audience types scratching their heads. And he
definitely laid the groundwork for what some could argue, you know,

(19:57):
would be a successful faking a one's own death. Yeah,
you know, that's that's a good point. And there was
some recent news about this. It's a little that's a
little strange. So Bob Zemuda, you know, wrote a book
called Andy Kappman the truth finally and it's it alleges
that Kaufman's death was this prank and it's finally coming out.
He actually appeared on a podcast, fitz Dog Radio, where

(20:23):
he told the host Greg fitz Simmons that he had
invested like fifty grand in the book. But then they
got in a again an argument. Nolan and Zamuda apparently
stormed off the show because Uh, fitz Simmons, as as
it turns out, uh doubted Samuda's intentions. So people, um,

(20:44):
people were doubting both sides. But they were doubting that
Kaufman was dead, but they were also doubting that Zamuda's
story was accurate. And we leave that to you to
decide if you want to, if you want to come
to your own conclusions, we'd love to hear what you think.
Is it just a a posthumous prank or is it

(21:05):
something something much much different? You know? Uh, but that's
that's Andy Coppman for you. Yeah. I mean, he is
a perfect example of an unreliable narrator talking about himself.
No one knows if he's telling the truth ever, you know,
I mean the guy when he was on taxi you know,
I washed dishes at the deli next door just for kicks,

(21:26):
just because he thought it was funny kind of, you know,
And it was very very interesting figure And and Taxi
just on the side, don't has one of my favorite,
uh intro songs. Isn't It great? Uh? So, I don't
know why I like isn't it great? As though we
were going to disagree and I was going to storm
off the show. It's right up there with Mash Mash

(21:46):
is good too. I like, you know, I find that
I enjoyed the themes too sitcoms much more than I
enjoyed the actual show. That's fair. I yeah, I think
I might have a problem. So uh, speaking of problems,
you know who else has one? Tupac Shakur. He either
has a problem because he's dead or he has a
problem because he is in hiding. So uh he tell

(22:10):
us a little bit about Tupac. Sure, why not. Tupac
Shakur was born on June sixteenth, nineteen seventy one, and
he died um supposedly on September nine, six How he
died was from multiple gunshot wounds, and the official story
was that an involved gang activity. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

(22:33):
So just past eleven PM, September seven, Uh, that he
is in a car with Sugar Night at the intersection
of Flamingo Road in Coval Lane. Uh. And they were
idling at the red light and a white Cadillac from Sorry,
this is in Vegas. Yes, this is in Vegas. Yeah,
And they rolled up to the passenger side and they

(22:55):
fired and Tupac was hit four times. One bullet critically
punctured his long Sugar Knight, for the most part, was unharmed.
That's the I think he had injuries from bullet fragments.
That's the official story, But of course that's only the
beginning of the unofficial story, which is that people people
not only believe to Pat Core faked his death, they

(23:18):
also believe that he left clues in his albums about
his about his plan to fake his death, like the
marca Velli things and and you Can you Can go U.
The marca Velli record didn't come out until after he
had passed, right, That's part of why people thought it
was a clue. I would like to point out that

(23:42):
if you really want to fake your death in a
believable way, leaving clues to glow in globally distributed albums
is not the best way to do it, you know.
But there's a there's an interesting addendum to this because
Suge Knight himself at one point said that he doesn't

(24:04):
believe Poc is dead. He thinks Poc somewhere else. He said,
nobody has seen Tupac dead, and uh he this is
Shug Knight. There's a quote the person who supposedly cremated Tupac.
This guy got about three million dollars personally for me cash,
and next thing I know, I never heard from the
guy or seeing him again. He retired and left. I'm sorry,

(24:24):
Why did Schuge Night give this man three million dollars?
And it's kind of vague, I know, I guess he
just you understand, that's like a justificer, like catch him
on a good day. I know. Now it sounds like
Sugar is implying Schug Knight is implying that he helped
cover up that. So one week after Tupac was pronounced dead,
a thousand people from Haiti called police saying they have

(24:45):
seen Tupac. Other other people, Yeah, yeah, other people have.
You can find some You can find all kinds of
websites where they're laying out the evidence of these sorts
of things. Right, So for people who really do believe
um that Tupac Shakur faked his death and left clues

(25:08):
in his music, one of the things I used to
hear it was the idea of like, oh, well, he's
just waiting for the statute of limitations to expire on
what right on? On fake homicide? Yeah, I don't think
that's I don't think that. Uh, that doesn't sound like
it makes sense, you know, and I'm not a lawyer,
but it doesn't sound like it would actually equate to

(25:31):
any kind of enforceable crime or unenforceable Here's a question.
Is it illegal to fake your on death? I guess
it depends on how you go about it. It's certainly
illegal to do it for the purposes of getting insurance money, right,
But I mean, is it considered some form of fraud

(25:52):
if you're if you're literally just lying to people and
fabricating stories, if you're just doing it for fun. I
don't think it is unless it unless it impinges upon
their rights in a in a certain way. But if
you if you want to fake your own death and
you want to do it as a prank over the weekend.

(26:14):
First off, you are a messed up person. You're a
messed up person. But but secondly, you know, if you're not,
like if you damage property while you do it, or
if or if a law is broken because of what
you have done or right, then I'm sure that would
be easier prosecute. But I don't know if just faking

(26:35):
your own death and then coming back and saying, ah,
psych sucker, I don't know if that actually is illegal
or if it's just a massive dick move. Well, I
mean I could imagine that if there was a police
investigation involved, Yeah, that you could be held or wasted

(26:55):
resources that got poured into looking into whether or not
you got murdered by getting ativity or right. You know,
that's a good point. I think I'm gonna have to
re rethink my week. Obviously, there's lots of different ways
these things can happen. So what do you think about
the idea of Kurt Cobain. Uh, Kurt Kurt Cobain, of course,
Uh passed away after a self inflicted gunshot wound. Right?

(27:20):
Have you seen the new crime scene photos that just
came out. I have not. They're very interesting. I don't
know that they necessarily reveal anything new, but they're just
they're very Um what's the we're moving for? I don't know.
They're just they're they're there. They've got a very haunting
quality to time for sure. Are they gruesome? No, there's
definitely no blood. You just see you see that he's

(27:41):
still wearing the wrist band from the rehab facility that
he had just left. Like you see his arm, you
see his box, his drug box with all his you know,
the needles and little packets of heroin and you know,
pharmaceutical great things that are in there. Um, you see
his suicide note that's sort of think it's it's in
like a plant, a planter or something like with a

(28:04):
pen like it's a pen stuck through it and it's
it's kind of stuck onto something like that, and um, yeah,
it just it's it just it just gives you a
sense of of the scene that's a lot more vivid
than you know, what had been out there in the past.
But to me, it definitely drives with a lot of
the reports of of what went down. Obviously, one of
the conspiracy theories here is that his his wife had

(28:27):
something to do with it, right that uh that Courtney Love. Oh.
Kurt Cobain born February twenty, nineteen sixty seven, passed away
April fifth. Nine. Investigators say that he I think sustained
the gunshot wound on April third, so he might have
been alive a little while afterwards. Yeah. So people believe

(28:48):
that Courtney Love was involved in arranging for actually arranging
for a homicide rather than a suicide. Uh. Nick Broomfield
had a documentary called Curt and Courtney where a guy
named Elden Hope also known as Ducci Uh, singer of
a band called The Mentors, said that Courtney Love talked

(29:10):
to him in a record store and offered to pay
him fifty grand to kill Kurt Cobain. Here's it doesn't
jive with me about that. I mean, the man is
a known narcotics addict. Why why fake a suicide self
inflicted gunshot? Why not just tie him up and shoot
him up with too much heroin and and have it

(29:31):
be an overdose. No one would bad and eyelash at that,
you know. That's yeah, That's that's another thing because if
you think about it, heroin addiction is m and this
is maybe a This is maybe a disturbing thing to say. No,
but heroin addiction itself is a slow suicide, absolutely, And
I mean, and you know, Kurt and Courtney had it bad.

(29:52):
I don't know if you've seen Montage of Heck, which
is the more recent documentary that was very strangely sanctioned
by Courtney Love and the Kobaana State, and that they
got access to a lot of interesting archival footage of
him as a child and like you know, a teenager
are playing guitar and things like that. But the most
telling stuff in the documentary is the footage that Kurt

(30:14):
and Courtney made of each other, whether they were before
they had their child, um when they had their child,
and every single moment they are out of their minds
on heroin, They're they're just they're nodding out constantly. They're
just acting completely insane. You know, there are scenes where
they're holding their child and you see Kurt just like

(30:35):
as eyelids drooping and just kind of like you know,
his head bobbing up and down, and it's just it's
very very disturbing. So I mean, my point is that
these two you know people, it's it's a very sad thing. Um,
But they were very much in the throes of this addiction,
you know, throughout this period and up to Kurt's death.
So I just I would say, if you were gonna fake,

(30:59):
you were going to have somebody like Kurt Cobain killed,
I think there would be easier ways to do it
than having him, you know, shoot himself. Right, it seems
like it would be more likely he would decide to
do it impulsively, and apparently, according to Love, had suicide
attempts before. But you know who does not believe the
official story. A private investigator named Tom Grant. Right, I

(31:21):
don't know about this. Oh well, he uh, he was
from what I understand, he was hired by Courtney Love
after Kurt Cobain went missing from rehab, and he has
a website called kobain case dot com where you can
go if you want to learn more about it. He
says that after months of investigation and interviews, he believes

(31:42):
that Courtney Love and her live in nanny Michael DeWitt,
conspired to kill Cobain. But his his central arguments are
fairly detailed. Is just to the one about the angle
of a gun or the way like he used like
a ruler or something to like the jammed where the um,

(32:03):
what's it called the hammer like he was able to
kick the thing out and that's what caused the gun
to go off. And I'm not starting no, no, no, no, Yeah,
you're exactly right. He he has uh, he has a
masked a great deal of what I think he feels
is conclusive evidence. And for a while, especially given your

(32:24):
age of my age, uh, you know, we were we
were around when that guy was incredibly popular and passed away,
and a lot of my friends just believed that he
did not commit suicide. Um. And our you know, now
we're talking about this. Our one of our editors, Alison
louder Milt, told me a really interesting thing. She said that, uh,

(32:48):
she had run across this theory that music labels and
the music industry conspires to kill musicians in their early
twenties so that they own the rights to their music. Yeah,
I mean, similar to what I was talking about with
Michael Jackson and ye. And I mean I don't know
that there's a conspiracy about James Brown's death, but similar, Yeah,

(33:09):
it makes it makes sense from a financial respective, especially
if you have an uncooperative quote unquote that's right. Yeah,
Kurt was definitely that. And then, uh, just just for
just for adequate representation of Matt Frederick, we have to
mention one of his favorite ones, which is the idea

(33:30):
that Paul McCartney died in a car accident earlier into
the Beatles career and was replaced by a look alike,
and that somehow, for decades no one has burst that bubble.
Turn me on dead Man, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly,
And uh, that one I think is more of a

(33:50):
pop culture phenomenon. But let's talk for a moment about
why people believe these things. We talked about several different celebrities,
We've talked about several different theories about their deaths, either
cover up or it didn't occur. So why why, uh
is the population so interested in these stories? I feel

(34:15):
like people want a mystery. People people just don't want
things to be so cut and dry, especially when it
comes with comes to what is essentially, as we said
at the beginning of the episode, the modern equivalent of
a god, you know, so puts so much energy into
loving and consuming every piece of media that these people,

(34:36):
you know, produce that they just they want they either
want to believe they're still alive, or they want to
believe that some nefarious, you know, shadowy thing is responsible
for taking away this person, you know, from them because
it's a very personal relationship with musicians, you know what
I mean. That's a very good point. And and in

(34:58):
the in the defense of that, we have to also
acknowledge that it is completely possible for a cover up
of the actual circumstances of a death to occur. Absolutely,
I feel like that's a lot more common common, you know,
a lot more plausible. Well yeah, and that's because people
have things to gain. I don't understand what a celebrity
has to gain by quote unquote faking their own death,

(35:21):
and almost all of these situations, that's the thing that
that leaves me cold. I just don't see the benefit
to the celebrity, and right especially when consider uh the
facts about faking a death. Fact number one, it is tough.
It is way tougher than a lot of people might think.

(35:42):
Actually today, yeah, especially today, and each year is just
going to become more difficult because of all the breadcrumbs
we leave around. And look, you don't have to own
a cell phone, you don't have to have a Gmail
account or a laptop or I don't a fit bit whatever.
The mere fact that you are surrounded by other people

(36:03):
who do means that you are able to be tracked
the prevalence of c C t v s. And I
know it sounds like paranoia, noal, but it's only paranoia
if you ascribe some sort of motivation to the monitoring.
I think this is just how how things are going
to work. Privacy is not long for this world, and

(36:25):
historically it it didn't start very long ago either. Right,
Privacy may end up being just this anomalous social blit,
but that means that. And then if this were the
nineteen fifties, you and I could uh say that we're
going on a road trip to Vegas because we're going

(36:50):
to film the Elvis convention, right. Uh yeah, well he
would still be alive. So maybe we're just going to
see Elvis, right, and we're gonna film it for our
show or something. And then we would take a car
we've lickd with date all our assets. We would uh
make sure that the car we would we would abandon

(37:12):
the car or we would uh dispose of it in
a very dangerous area or a very spectacular way that
would leave no remains and then we just never would
show up to Vegas. I mean, we could also never
talk to anyone we knew. Ever, again, we couldn't talk
to each other. We would be ghosts. It just seems
so messy. It's just like what, you know, why why

(37:32):
not just withdraw just you know, by an island. Yeah,
you know, I just say I want to be alone.
Uh yeah, no more interviews. It's pretty easy. I mean,
eventually the press is gonna get tired of camping out
on your lawn, you know, right. Because one person who
did retire from public life, there's a great example of

(37:53):
that would be J. D. Salinger. J D. Salinger notoriously
didn't publish anything for very long long time, and he
was granting interviews uh sometimes at his home in Cornish Flats,
New Hampshire, but only to uh pretty female students. So yeah,

(38:16):
there's nothing, there's nothing creepy about that. But look if okay,
let's take our case, if even if we had all
the all the stuff in order, all our ducks in row,
be very difficult for us to disappear on our own
and we're not celebrities. So a celebrity, a well known
person whose face can be identified, that person is going

(38:37):
to have a much much more difficult time. You know,
you have to get plastic surgery, and and just even
for you and I or you listeners. But again, I'm
not saying you should do it. You need to be
aware that faking your death requires planning, discipline, a boatload
of money. Did you like that? And uh? And even

(38:57):
if you do everything perfectly, you're still gonna need an
unbelievable amount of luck. I've been watching the show I
know you have two Narcos on netflixtastic. There's a great
let's sort of like when Escobar is on the run,
just the amount, the sheer amount of effort it requires
on his part to not get caught. And granted it

(39:17):
wouldn't be exactly the same if you were to fact
your undeaf. People wouldn't necessarily be on a man hunt
for you. Sure, but but still you know they're there
are there are things that are related. But there's a
great line from the main d e A officer where
it's something like, you know, criminals on the run have
to get lucky every time, and we as those that
are chasing them, only have to get lucky once. Yeah,

(39:37):
I remember that that that applies here because I mean
it just it would be the same thing. It would
be like being on the lamb. You could never let
your guard down, I just unless you were. I just
don't understand the point that makes sense to me, right,
And perhaps there's something else the story we don't know,
I guess if I'm trying to be reasonable with it.
But you you make an excellent point. Also, I love

(39:59):
that line from Narcos to UM. I think we were
talking about that off air one time, right, we had
a Narco fan club meeting. Uh, So there's there's something else.
So if you need all this money, right, you need
this influence, UM, and you need to keep it very secret,
then that means you need power. And the people who

(40:19):
were most capable of faking their own deaths, I think
are more likely to be fallen heads of state, maybe
even assisted by another country's intelligence agency. Right, And that's
where we get those theories about Adolph Hitler escaping to
South America after World War Two. We'd know that Nazis
and uh members of the Nazi Party did escape, and

(40:40):
we're so much more at stake in those situations. And
if you're if you're all right, we have time for Tangent.
I just want to talk about the the Hitler's skull stuff. Yeah, okay,
So in a lot of the biographies we read about
Hitler and how Hitler's death happened, it's suicide, right like

(41:03):
he and eb yeah ebo braun Uh. They he takes
the Sana pill, shoots himself. They both kill each other.
But um, it looks like Hitler's death might need to
be rewritten and left open ended because researchers claimed that
the skull fragment that have been secretly preserved by Soviet

(41:27):
intelligence for decades actually belonged to a woman under forty.
And this story was announced in two thousand and nine.
So maybe this means that, um, maybe this means that
something different happened to the body. To some people, it
means he got away. But this this idea, this open

(41:50):
ended thing, I don't know, man. It just seems more
likely to me that someone who was in charge of
a country, or Pablo Escobar or something would have the
means to fake their death, you know, absolutely, And I
mean you know, in this situation, you could almost argue
that it is more of the cover up where it's

(42:11):
you know, the the folks that were responsible for taking
him alive or making sure that he you know, perished,
didn't do the job, didn't get the job done, so
they had to cover there. But you know, with the
banks call of some kind and never let it be known,
you know. Yeah, or maybe or maybe the way in

(42:31):
which he was killed was not suicide and they were
covering up the manner of the death. I don't know.
It's strange. It reminds me of the Osama bin Laden
episode that we did last week. Uh what okay? That
that goes into such a good question too, man, because
how can you really know what happens if there's not
evidence of a body. In all of the cases that

(42:53):
we have described so far, there have been allegations of
kind of of hinky I guess Chuck would say, hinky autopsies. Yeah,
you know, it's it's it's his word. It weirds me out,
but I'll use it. I think it applies. Uh So,
how much can you know for witnesses to these deaths?

(43:14):
Questions about faking a death or a cover up might
sound profoundly offensive, you know what I mean? Like what
if what Like in the case of the Kurt Cobain suicide,
stuff if he just committed suicide on his own due
to whatever factors right then, and you were his surviving um,

(43:37):
the mother of his child. You know that that's a
pretty damaging thing to experience for people to say you
killed him, you know. And and so I I understand
why that would be offensive. And we're certainly not trying
to offend any survivors of that kind of situation, whether
celebrity or someone in your own life, because celebrities in

(44:00):
the modern world again or not treated as human as
human beings. If I can just piggyback off of your
tangent for a second, especially with the Courtney Love situation,
she is a perfect example of kind of a scapegoat
because people just didn't like her very much. They didn't
like their like friends in their circle, in Kurt's circle,

(44:20):
in her personal life. Yeah, I felt like she was
a bad influencer, felt like, you know, she wasn't good
for him, and things like that, you know, Like especially
so one of Kurt's oldest friends, Buzz Osborne from the
band The Melvin's Um, he has come out and of
this documentary montage of heck kind of said that it

(44:40):
was a lot of it was complete bogus complete fabrication.
And he's also said that Kurt would never have killed himself,
and that a lot of the stuff that he says
in the movie where you hear him talking on these
cassette recordings or answering machine tapes, sounds very morose and
very like, you know, having this existential crisis and just
sounds completely you know, to rest. He says a lot

(45:01):
of that was for show, like he was just kind
of a sarcastic, mischievous kind of dude who you know,
liked to troll people in a very Andy Kaufman asked
kind of way if we bring it back again. So
I don't know what any of that means, um, but
it's interesting, especially someone who has known him for as

(45:21):
long as because buzz Osborne knew him far longer than
he knew Courtney loved so he knew him, and they
were they were kids together more or less. And I see, yeah.
And then also grief does strange things to people and
affects the way you see the world. Um. After the
thing I read, I read something a long time ago

(45:41):
that I thought was the best analogy, and it was
or not analogy, but it was the best way to
say it, and it was like, grief is sitting by
a table with your hands hovering over a phone that
never rings, and that that, to me is shows how
profoundly this kind of thing can affect the way someone

(46:04):
looks at the world. And so I'm you know, everybody
at some point in their life is going to go
through the experience of losing people, right, and the last
person you lose is yourself. It sounds like a very
pessimistic bumb wrap the way I put it. Don't worry.
A lot of great things happen in between a sort
of amazing stuff, but this this idea. You know, if

(46:27):
someone that you cherish passes away, then of course the
natural inclination for a lot of people is to say, no,
it's it didn't happen the way it sounds like it did.
Point to someone else and say you did it right,
because that anger kind of gives you an outlet. But
let's suppose I was sorry. No, I'm saying, especially if

(46:47):
we're talking about someone like a like a rock star,
like an infuential writer or a performer or some kind
who just has legions of fans, you that grief becomes
exponentially increased and and and then you have all of
these different perspectives that can create these various differing scenarios
as to what happened. Like, you know, it's not the

(47:08):
same as if Grandma dies and I'm sad about it.
You know, my mother and father said about it. My
family sad about it. But it's not the same as
millions and millions of people being sad about it to
the point of, you know, holding a vigil at her
his or her grave, like when a pope passes away,
when JFK passed away. And Okay, these are things that
some listeners are probably wondering. No, Ben, why aren't you

(47:30):
mentioning these It's because right now we have we have
some stuff on those um on those specific instances, uh,
and you can check those out on our YouTube and
further down in the stream we have audio and a
few of them, I think, But for now, let's let's
think about I don't know, No, do you think we

(47:51):
did okay, like due diligence to the importance of respecting
the survivors of death. I think so. And I guess
my whole point was that And you're talking about somebody
of this magnitude of this larger than life, you know, persona,
the survivors are everyone. Yeah, that's a good point, legion.
So it's like a completely different situation. And that's why

(48:12):
I think there are many, many different ideas about what
could happened different because you've just got all of these
different hands in the different like narratives. Yeah, so okay, Well,
let's suppose, then, in the most respectful manner possible, just
for the sake of argument, that a celebrity or ahead

(48:33):
of state somehow did fake his or her death. It's
the last part of our show today. We're going to
talk about how to fake at death. The first things first, though,
the good news, I guess it's good news is that
people have successfully fake their deaths. The problem is that

(48:53):
they usually get caught because they're you know, they're still alive.
So a good example of this is John Stonehouse. You
know the story I think you do. That's a good yeah, alright.
So John stone House was a British politician who got
way in over his head during his business dealings, and

(49:18):
he started cooking the books and got when that the
Department of Trade and Industry was looking into his and
his stuff, looking into his business. So he started moving
money around, um and set up a new identity as
Joseph Markham. Okay, so gets better. On November nineteen seventy four,

(49:39):
he faked his own suicide by leaving uh piles of
clothes on the beach and making it look like he
had drowned. I mean, you know, because again produced the body.
It's gonna take a while. Um. He was instead on
his way to Australia, actually to make a new life
with his mistress. Of course. So John was eventually caught

(50:03):
in Australia by a very savvy banker who caught onto
the fact that he was moving money around under multiple alias.
So police first thought he was the fugitive Lord Lucan
Lucien's Luca. I called Luca because it sounds more evil twirling,

(50:27):
did he twirlet? Do you think and cackle? I think
he might, you know, I hope? So, yeah, you know,
I think Luca looking right? So um, police at first
thought he was this fugitive Lord Lucan, who, two weeks
before stone House did it was also believed to effect
his own death. What are the chances go? Figure? So

(50:49):
John was eventually identified by a photo of himself on
a list of the recently deceased and was arrested on
December twenty four, right, and like any other people who
attempted to uh fake their own death, he was he
was eventually caught. It's interesting because there's you know, I

(51:10):
love unnecessary words. I know I could best there could
be Okay, Well, thanks man, I've got one for you.
The proper term for faking your own death. I didn't
even know there was such a thing was pseudo side
like pseudonym to have a minute to take that one

(51:32):
in pseudos That sounds like a metal band, it does.
It sounds like a pseudo cidal. That is fantastic. Um.
I love that. So if you want to fake your
own death, that would make you pseudo cidal. Right, Okay,
So there are some other people that uh fake thrown
death with less success. So it's a guy named Stephen
chin Lung who faked his death during the September eleventh

(51:55):
attacks to evade a charge of passport fraud. And if
if you think about it, it's a very cold Mackavellian thing.
But if you think about it, that's a that's an
opportunity to do so. Is in a time of national disaster,
rule of law deteriorating. That's that's one of the perfect
times to fake a death. Other people have done so

(52:19):
with much less success, often to try to build you know,
insurers or something like that. A guy named Kid and
Kissy you might remember from the Electric kalle Ad Asset trip. Yeah,
he faked his death in ninety six and went away
to Mexico to avoid charges from marijuana and he came
back again. Kind of a little bit more of a

(52:41):
understandable reason to figure on death if you have if
you've got a rap that you're trying to beat, you know,
sort of like a the equivalent of going on the lamb,
but trying to make it so they don't come after you. Now,
one guy who one guy who did get completely away though,
is the guy you mentioned earlier, Lord Luken. So yeah,
Lord Luken, this British aristocrat just completely vanished in the

(53:04):
wee hours of November eighth, nineteen seventy four, after the
death of his children's nanny and an attack on his
ex wife. And he was, you know, obviously widely suspected
to be the murderer. Yeah, and uh, it's pretty it's
pretty fair that he I think he was definitely the

(53:25):
murderer would say that would see disappeared instantly after having
a means to escape. People have been trying to find
sightings or people have been trying to find the guy
for years and years and years. He has numerous sightings
in the British media. If I may, what a what
a scoundrel, you know, what a rep scallion, scalliwag, a
ne'er do well. Indeed, it's through Lord Lucan again as

(53:48):
exists in the seventies, and we're talking about him like
if he's like some sort of Dickensian villain. Right, yeah,
but that's what it sounds like to me. It does
absconded with the night the pipe. It's yeah, it does
sound it sounds like an episode of real life episode
of clue. So we are going to tell you some
of the things that people need to do in order

(54:11):
to fake their own death. It's not as easy as
disappearing completely one, especially in this day and age social
media silence, none of it, none of it. Some some
would say, um, six months before your death or whatever,
or some would say delete your accounts. Deleting your accounts
is too much. The leading your accounts is going to

(54:32):
be suspicious um, unless you do it four years before
your plan reaches fruition. You'll probably also need a friend
or a partner in crime of some sort who will
be able to touch on the social media nets and announce,
oh my gosh, someone's missing and uh oh, it just
encouraged me. By the way, guys, Matt is not about

(54:53):
to fake his own death. You know, we don't think No, no,
we don't think so. Pretty sure he didn't say anything
to us about it. And there's some similar things to
going off the grid, like if you want to develop
an alias. One thing that people used to do is
they would um when they were getting a utility bill
or um something that leaves a paper trail, like a

(55:14):
credit card or something, they would change start slowly changing
their their name one letter at a time. So it
would be like Ben Bowling with a G been uh Bowland,
you know what I mean? I mean legally, like what
are we talking about? No, just on the on the
utility bill and start establishing that. And then when you

(55:38):
have a utility bill that establishes that kind of alias,
I mean, don't they require some sort of identification in
order to change information on a utility. But now it's
much more difficult, but that's what people used to do.
Keep the details vague, right, Um, And and depends it

(55:59):
all depends. Are you planning to come back? Is this
a stunt for like your novel? Or is this get
like a David Blaine trick? Yes, David Blaine trick? Or
are you planning to disappear? Because there are people after
you and the version of you that you exist as
now needs to die because that's what fake and your
death ultimately would be the version of you that you

(56:20):
are no longer exists. So you know, how do you
deal with taxes? How do you deal with rule of law?
Government stuff? Uh? The truth of the matter is that
it's very difficult and you are overwhelmingly likely to get
caught because after you disappear completely right, no cell phones,
no Gmail, no hanging around people that have them. You're

(56:44):
gonna have to have a like massive cash. You can't
use a bank account. You're gonna to slowly withdraw the
cash over time. Uh. You can never use a computer again.
You have to be very careful around the post. Um,
And do you want to write a suicide note? Because
if you write a suicide note and your body is

(57:05):
not there, it's immediately a little suspicious. You know. As
for starting a new life, you have to be very careful.
You have to change everything, you have to do a
level of acting that's Daniel day Lewis, you know, and
you have to maintain all of these various lives every
single day, every single moment, you know, from when you

(57:27):
wake up to when you go to sleep. You're you're
never gonna have a great job again because you're gonna
have to work under the table if you unless you
have enough cash for the rest of your life, which
you know in some of these situations is I guess likely.
But yeah, you're gonna have to go to some place
where uh you're unknown and you've never been. You're gonna
have to have fake identification to get you there, right,

(57:50):
because a lot of the places where you could just
go without identification are very dangerous places, war zones, lawless
land and so if you want to go to the
kind of place where you would want to live after
your pseudo side, then you're going to need like you know, um,
Bill Bellamy, that's my LV, my my student from MTV. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(58:15):
I like different in person, I'll just be Bill Bellamy.
And go to Hong Kong or something, and they might
know Bill Bellamy there. They probably do give us a
little more thought. I should really think about this. It
goes back to the planning and the discipline. Um No,
this is usually the time in the show where Matt
and I would pause and and hear that noise. So

(58:37):
I've I've gotta through the last word to you. Yeah,
I mean, um, I guess I think we've we've hit
all the points for this topic. I think it's really
interesting stuff. I guess I would use this moment to just,
you know, say to the listeners, Um, I hope everyone's
really enjoying the show. I certainly enjoy working on it,

(58:59):
and it's been a lot of fun to be able
to kind of chime in here and there, and um,
you know, like Ben and Matt always say, most of
the great ideas for the show come from you guys.
So I mean, please, please please keep that coming and
let me know if there's anything that you feel like
the moment of with Noel could be better used for.

(59:19):
I mean, honestly, as has been made clear on the
show a couple of times, I wear a lot of
hats here at how stuff works. I work on a
lot of shows. I do a lot of things kind
of in a mad dash multitasking kind of scenario. So
sometimes my moment with Noel is a bit b s E.
You know, I'm just kind of talking about when my

(59:40):
car blowing up or what's on my mind, you know.
But I think it's fun to do um Ben and
Matt or my friends as you can tell. I mean,
I think we get along really well and we have
a good time just chatting. But if there's something that
you think, you know, you'd like to hear in that
segment um with a little advanced notice, I'm sure we
could make it work. Yeah, yeah, let us let us know,
because this is your show, ladies and gentlemen. And I

(01:00:03):
know that we took kind of a scatter approach right
to this, a buckshot approach because we looked into a
little bit of some one oh one about various multiple celebrities.
If you have another celebrity that you would like us
to cover, then let us know where on Facebook and
Twitter where conspiracy stuff. You can also check out our

(01:00:24):
website and I you know, we've opened a dangerous store
now NOL because what are people going to write in
and say that they want us to do dramatic readings.
I hope you guys liked my my h predictive text
poem on the Washington DC. You know, I don't know.
It's it's a fun opportunity, uh to kind of try

(01:00:45):
new things. And like I said, I'm not always in
a position where I can make the best use of it,
I guess, is what I'm getting at. So I would
love to hear from you guys what you think might
be some fun things that we could use that spot for. Yeah,
and we'll try it out and let's get weird with it.
So we're going to uh skitaddle. We're gonna mosey on
out of here, but we will not unless you have

(01:01:07):
different weekend plans. We're not gonna fake our deaths. Will
be back the same BAT time, same BAT channel next
week and in the meantime, if you have suggestions for
a future show, if you have feedback for something else
that you would like to hear, or if you just
want to send us a random hello, we'd love to
hear from you. Our email address is conspiracy at how

(01:01:29):
stuff works dot com. For more on this topic, another
unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube, dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. You
can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle
at conspiracy stuff.