August 26, 2020 • 24 mins
From Atlantis to Ciudad Blanca, Troy and Shangri-La, history is full of legends about lost civilizations. But how does humanity lose an entire city, empire or society? Are any of the stories of lost cities true? Tune in to learn more in this week's classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The art of losing isn't hard to master. So many
things seem filled with the intent to be lost, that
their loss is no disaster. That's the opening of a
poem called one Art by Elizabeth Bishop. Why are we
quoting poetry on today's episode, because we're talking about losing things,
(00:20):
you know, a building here or there, maybe a burial ground,
an entire civilization, perhaps possibly in excellent Well, so are we,
because that's what this classic episode of Stuff they Don't
Want You to Know is about. Who oh man, we
were gonna make lots of good points about how easy
it is to actually lose a city. You may not
(00:43):
think so, but we're gonna make a lot of those
good points in this episode. No, seriously, we actually we
we uh, we learned some pretty cool stuff on this one. Uh.
Sometimes we're a little bit hesitant to listen back to
things from so long ago, but we think this one
holds up and we hope you enjoy it as well.
(01:05):
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. Hey, everybody,
welcome back. This is stuff they don't want you to know.
My name is Matt and I'm Ben, and today we're
(01:25):
talking about lost civilizations. Let me ask you a question then,
oh all right, all right, good, I'm glad you're on board.
Have you ever lost something? I've lost many things, and uh,
it's coming throughout a lot of human literature and art,
this idea of losing things. Everybody, statistically speaking, everybody has
(01:50):
at some point lost something. It could be something small,
like your car keys. It could be something metaphorical, like
one time I lost my religion. There you go. I
was listening to way too much R. E. M. And
you know, it happens. I guess that they said it happens. Yeah,
and you're you're in the market for a new religion?
Yeah yeah, looking around checking out eBay. Well. One thing
(02:12):
that's also weird about human history is that we've lost
big things too. We've lost entire civilizations, We've lost entire cities.
And you and I have done several video episodes on
the nature of lost civilizations. Right now, that's correct. We have,
I believe two episodes that you can find on our
(02:35):
older channel that one day will be brought over to
our new YouTube channel and on test tube but we
also have a fairly new one that we kind of
started our new channel out with about lost cities. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a two part episode. You can find all that
on YouTube and on test tube. And we've we've talked
(02:55):
about this because it's strange when when you go back
in to research on history. One thing that's weird that
happens is the further back you go, the less stark
the line between myth and reality becomes us. So that
for instance, um, if you trace back the origins of
(03:17):
Chinese civilization, you quickly run into While I say quickly
depends on how faster flipping the pages, I guess, um,
you'll run into eventually this area of time wherein the
legends are the closest thing to universal historical record. And
(03:38):
when we us being you know, human beings at large,
when we research lost civilizations, what we find is a
huge wealth of rumor legend, misdirection, fable, but we also
often find a grain of truth. One thing that really
(03:58):
blew the lid off of law civilizations and launched it
from you know, kind of a speculative pseudo science. Wouldn't
it be cool if kind of thing and made it
a real viable feasible pursuit was the discovery of ancient Troy.
And for uh, for a long time people thought that
(04:22):
Troy the city was either u completely fictional thing or
just somewhat loosely based on reality, the same way that
a lifetime show is inspired by true events. But come
to find out that actually is a real place, and
it wasn't just a real place. It had uh, it
(04:43):
had layers of different periods in in the civilization's history.
Now we also have other things that may or may
not have some sort of basis in fact. And we
can't go any further unless we talk about the Big A,
the most famous of all legendary law civilizations. Matt Frederick,
(05:06):
I'm gonna let you intro this one. We have in
the left hand corner, the red corner Atlantis fighting out
of the Pacific or the Atlantic or somewhere who knows.
We don't know where it exists, but it's there and
it's called Atlantis. We know that for sure. Yeah, perfect intro,
and thank you. We know that it's called Atlantis because
(05:27):
this guy may have heard of named Plato, uh wrote
about it and said, yeah, there was this city around
nine thousand years before me that uh was beyond the
pillars of Heracles, to the west of Gibraltar, and he
just had some insider information. Yeah, he had some insider
(05:48):
info back before. Insider info is against law. Um, let
me just imagine some finger quotes there on against the law.
And according to Plato's story, the people of Atlantis angered Pacide, Uh,
see God, pretty big deal back in the day, and
he sank the city. Now, as we know, that's already
kind of a diplomatic way, would you say, it's kind
(06:10):
of an implausible story because no one has proved the
existence of see God's yet. Well, yeah, and not yet.
We're we're getting better at this, sorry Catulu fans. I
like Pacific Realm and Lovecraft too, but at this point
there's not too much evidence one way or the other. Now,
as we know, people have claimed to find the origin
(06:34):
of Atlantis all around the world, in the Caribbean, in
the Pacific, in the Atlantic. You'll hear stories all the time,
or you'll read stories. Um, you'll find them usually online
from let's say, not the most reputable source. Sure, talking
about sunken pyramid with some pictures that look to me
(06:56):
like they've been photoshopped. I can't prove it, but I'm
pretty sure, uh, and you'll you'll hear about that at
least once or twice a year. And the reason that
we bring up Troy in the beginning is because, for
a long time, as crazy as it sounds, the city
of Troy was put up there right around the same
level of plausibility as the city of Atlantis, until an
(07:17):
archaeologist named Heinrich Schliman Schleiman rediscovered it in the nineteenth
century and hopefully, uh, the journalist at the time pronounced
his name better than I just did, Sorry, Germany. Um.
The key questions here that we're tackling are how likely
is it that humanity could lose entire cities or civilizations?
(07:39):
And spoiler alert, the answer is incredibly likely. In fact,
it's uh, it's fair to say that there could be
cities that are extant and known today that could later
be lost to just the slow grind of history. And
it is frighteningly plausible that there are undiscovered cities right now,
(08:04):
or rather lost cities. The people who knew who built them,
probably knew where they were. Um. So, so just when
you're as you're talking, I'm just thinking about the the
line kind of drawn in the sand for me. Uh
about how civilization could be lost is the record keeping
techniques of whatever the day. So it sounds to me
(08:27):
as though I don't think there ever will be another
lost civilization on Earth because we have so many records
throughout the world. Internationally, we're becoming so globalized, okay, so
we're so interconnected that even for example, if let's just
pick an isolated place, okay, like the mall Dives. The
Maldives are um an island nation, one of the ones
(08:48):
at the most immediate threat of I guess sinking into
the ocean with rising sea levels. So then the argument
would be, well, now that the cost of communication across
the world is so cheap, everyone is able to find
out that the Maldives exists. It will be known that
it existed, right. It won't be lost, The structures will
(09:11):
be lost, the population will be dispersed, but it will
be known that, yes, Maldives really was there. We can
google map it. Here's where I think it gets interesting too,
because I used to be on the same page with
you and that in that respect, when we say the
slow grind of history, though, let's take it out thousands
(09:32):
of years because the the error, or rather the flaw
in this global information system is that it depends upon
uh technology, several different types of technology in order for
it to be accessed. So let's just go dystopian Matt.
Let's say huge nuclear war. The world is up a
(09:57):
certain creek without a paddle. You know, all the vault
dwellers or are coming out of their vaults. All the
vault dwellers are coming out of their vaults. And over
over the thousands, maybe even millions of years that they've
been locked in, super mutants are roaming in the hills. Yeah,
they've speciated, and they're different to the point where they
can't even breed together. Um. And then they start finding
(10:22):
relics and they find you know, cast off bits of
things that maybe wouldn't have expired, like the ruined stone ruins,
perhaps models of cola right plastic and uh. Then they
start to piece this together and they could rediscover it.
What I guess the point we're making is that, um,
(10:43):
it is much less likely that cities will be lost
now as in forgotten. You know, it's still it's still
the same dangerous game when we ask will cities survive?
Because there are any number of natural or and interstellar
disasters against when human beings are entirely helpless, entirely helpless,
(11:07):
even the most wealthy people in the world will just
be able to use their wealth to g tfo before
before it hits the fan. Speaking speaking of wealth and
being a factor in the survivability of civilization, let's talk
about something that kind of strings together all of these
civilizations in humanity as a whole. Uh water Ah good.
(11:30):
And this is this is something that we discussed in
the first episode of Law Civilizations about how large a
factor water played in several civilizations, the Mayan civilization, the
Indusk or Haraping civilization, and even Anchor and how water
was just kind of the underlying problem that they all
(11:52):
ended up having to face, and when they faced it,
they had to g tfo um. So well, okay, now
now look at that today, and let's let's think about
how aquifers are being purchased, how water is largely being privatized,
and and we even it's funny. We even mentioned back
(12:13):
in two thousand eleven we made that first episode that
it's kind of silly, it's or not silly. We didn't
say that, we said it was kind of fanciful to
talk about water wars and the you know, in the future,
having a war where water is the main resource that's
being fought over. And now with a lot of what
we're seeing again with the privatization, it seems like it
(12:34):
may be a real thing that we're gonna have to
deal with soon. Yeah, and as soon as a tricky
word there, because do we mean soon in the larger
context of history or do we mean soon as in
within our lifetimes? And in that context, uh, within your lifetime, listener,
means it may as well be happening right now. Uh.
(12:55):
The I love that you brought up the point about water.
So in anglor Watt in the Maya and the Robin
civilizations that we talked about in that episode, we try
to trace the fall of these civilizations, and there's a
frighteningly plausible argument that what caused a lot of these
(13:15):
civilizations to collapse, or these great cities and empires to
fall was an ecological disaster. In the case of Angkor
why it was a lack of water um that came
about because they simply had a huge population of people,
and of course it was an agricultural economy and they
(13:36):
had great infrastructure. Yeah, they had aquifers, they had aqueducts. Uh,
just there wasn't enough for the population. Yeah, and there
was an anomalous series of droughts, so they were running
on reserves for a while, and then ultimately they couldn't
support the people. And the story is similar with these
other two civilizations. And we find that in that episode
(13:59):
we find the climate change. Um let me take a
second here. When we say climate change as well, we
don't mean the current argument about climate change. We mean
that the ecosystem in which these cities were built or founded,
uh failed them or changed in a way that in
a way that they were not able to adapt to
(14:21):
in enough time to survive. And we know that water
can do uh something else to ruin a civilization which
is completely flooded. Matt, I don't know if you saw
this on read it recently, but a new Egyptian city
has been rediscovered. It was it's underwater now. Oh man,
(14:41):
it's crazy. They're getting great artifacts, hieroglyphs that are preserved
almost perfectly. It's pretty incredible. And we also know that
there are numerous underwater features. I guess is the best
word to say, like themini road or something that people
have positive might be the work of human beings at
(15:05):
sank under the ground. Another thing, another way we can
lose these is through volcanic eruption like pay Yeah, you
have volcanic eruptions even now can form brand new islands. Um,
just it's actually happening. You can search for this, go
to Google and search new volcanic island. Yeah. And what's
(15:25):
another thing that's kind of I guess you know what
I will say to me this is a positive note. Uh.
It is true that with the evolving technology that we have,
with our increasingly sophisticated means of pulling our own forensic
science experiments on the past, we have found that, um,
(15:48):
we got so much stuff wrong about history. You know,
we're finding footprints, human footprints four thousand years before they're
supposed to be in a place. We're finding human d
n a thousand years ago. Yeah, older than it should be.
And and we're even finding you know, things that qualify
as completely different types of pure hominic groups to human beings,
(16:12):
which is is um a level beyond the Neanderthal. It's
it's you know, the Dennis Silvans I believe are one
of them, or the hotly debated Homo florenzis um, which
would be if if this is true, if the most
outrageous stuff is true, then they would be a race
of little people. It just makes you realize that you,
(16:34):
we can't take any of this stuff for granted. Well,
we have to be vigilant and constantly searching. And that's
why science is really important, guys. Research, it's studying the
past is just as important as studying the future, in
my opinion, and I think I agree with that. It
(16:54):
reminds me of the William Falkner quotation when he said
the past isn't over, it isn't even past. Yeah, and
let's pick up on the point about science, because one
thing that you and I ran into when we were
doing these episodes was an alarming tendency towards bad science,
primarily um. For most of the most of the span
(17:20):
of archaeology, the primary problem in the science has been
institutionalized racism. You know, European European forces come to Africa,
they find the ruins of ancient civilizations, Great Zimbabwe or
so on, and then they say, oh, well, there's no
way that native Africans could have built this where is
the secret Lost tribe? Because that makes sense. I don't know,
(17:43):
it's so weird to me. We've we've been getting a
lot of flak on YouTube in the comments because we've
discussed we want to discuss that point of institutionalized racism
at that time period and well pretty much in the
past from this point, um. And I it's tough for
me too kind of swallow that criticism because I understand
(18:03):
what people are saying. You know, you're playing the racism card,
is I think. But unfortunately, this is just a kind
of a truth that we need to face at some point.
Well sure, and I you know, I understand somebody saying that,
but they're objecting to something different than what we have
done in that video, which is the which is the fact,
(18:25):
the concrete historical fact that due to pre existing notions
of how the world or human society should be, a
lot of scientists who could have made some great headway,
uh when when their time income instead retreated back to
their ideologies. And it's kind of like the it's kind
(18:46):
of like the Holocaust experiment stuff. You know, it's bad
science because the guys set out, the people who are
conducting those experiments set out to reach a predetermined conclusion.
Now I will say, I will say, to be absolutely
fair that assuming, um, assuming that there was no great
secret to find or there was no lost technology, is
(19:08):
just as silly as assuming that there had to be
UM some you know, well, imagine the most unrealistic thing
you could see, right like, UM, time travelers from the
future come back and build the pyramids to found the
Masonic Order that later builds the time machines and post
(19:30):
apocalyptic Earth to send them back to finish the loop.
I mean, that's I'm just kind of riffing on that one.
But we do know, we do know that, UM, different
different techniques, different processes that we are using are bearing
fruit because lost civilizations and lost cities are being found
(19:52):
at an unprecedented rate and across the world in South America,
in the Near East, UM, who knows what's out there
in Eurasia or Siberia or places where UM, you would
have to have a massive amount of funding to uncover something.
And to be absolutely fair, again, UM, who knows what
(20:14):
we will find? I'm so excited about it. Yeah, I am.
I am personally thrilled. Brings the Indiana Jones part of
me that's hidden deep down in my childhood. It just
brings it right to the surface. And when we let's see,
we've touched on a lot of stuff in this one
and um, we don't want to completely ruin the episodes
(20:36):
for anyone who hasn't seen them, and you should check
them out. Uh. One one thing that we can find
if we want to call this in favor of you know,
the quote unquote conspiracy theorists versus the quote unquote skeptics
who are not usually don't like those two sides. Man, Yeah,
I don't either. They're not. They're kind of a false dichotomy.
(20:57):
And usually the people who are quote unquote skeptics are not. Um,
the people who often are self described skeptics are have
some preconceived notions. But and that's what we found in
a lot of our research. It doesn't lie on the
outskirts of any issue. Really, the the truth that that
we've been drilling down to, it's usually somewhere near the
(21:18):
middle on one side or the other. Uh, it's usually right,
you know, right near the middle somewhere where it's especially
with these law civilizations. Right, there's there's truth to it
that we can find a point to um. But there's
so much left that, let's say, the more imaginative ideas
can't be dismissed. Ubar Hali Gate, Shangri Law, the Minoan Empire.
(21:44):
These are just these are just a few of the
examples you've heard about, oh El Dorado for instance, um
Sue dot Blanca. What what we are finding shows us
clearly that there is a hugely favorable probability that there
are undiscovered cities. And when we say cities, we mean
(22:08):
possibly massive cities that might be underwater now due to
a shift in um land mass, or that might be
completely covered due to some other sort of disaster, especially
now that we know from that DNA discovery recently that
humanity goes back much further than we thought. So we
(22:30):
need to start looking in places that perhaps have been
covered over for three thousand years. Oh yeah, what if
the ice caps melt and it turns out that has
been in the South Pole of the entire time. It's
I mean, it's crazy to think about it, and it
sounds silly, but yeah, well it's not necessarily silly. It's
it's silly if we say that's definitely gonna happen. But
(22:51):
but it is a point of departure, and this is
um Honestly, this is an exciting time to be alive,
not just for an archaeologists, but this is an exciting
time to be alive for anyone who wants to see
how the official narrative of history has been wrong and
(23:11):
humanity as a whole, and and the official story of
humanity as a whole. So we're gonna go ahead and
wrap it up. On that note, we hope that you
do check out our four episodes on lost cities, uh
everywhere from anglor Wat to Atlantis and everything between, and
we would love to hear your stories and your opinions
(23:34):
about these lost cities. And on the off chance that
you have solid evidence of something that completely contradicts the
historical narrative of you know, your textbooks and your teachers
and the news or whatever, we want you to come
to us with it. We would love to learn more
(23:55):
about it, and as always, we would love to bring
it out to the rest to the world. So you
can find us on Facebook where conspiracy stuff. You can
drop us line on Twitter, where we are also in
averse of creativity calling ourselves conspiracy stuff. That's and that's
the end of this classic episode. If you have any
thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into
(24:19):
contact with us in a number of different ways. One
of the best is to give us a call. Our
number is one eight three three std w y t K.
If you don't want to do that, you can send
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you
to Know is a production of I heart Radio. For
(24:39):
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
The art of losing isn't hard to master. So many
things seem filled with the intent to be lost, that
their loss is no disaster. That's the opening of a
poem called one Art by Elizabeth Bishop. Why are we
quoting poetry on today's episode, because we're talking about losing things,
(00:20):
you know, a building here or there, maybe a burial ground,
an entire civilization, perhaps possibly in excellent Well, so are we,
because that's what this classic episode of Stuff they Don't
Want You to Know is about. Who oh man, we
were gonna make lots of good points about how easy
it is to actually lose a city. You may not
(00:43):
think so, but we're gonna make a lot of those
good points in this episode. No, seriously, we actually we
we uh, we learned some pretty cool stuff on this one. Uh.
Sometimes we're a little bit hesitant to listen back to
things from so long ago, but we think this one
holds up and we hope you enjoy it as well.
(01:05):
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. Hey, everybody,
welcome back. This is stuff they don't want you to know.
My name is Matt and I'm Ben, and today we're
(01:25):
talking about lost civilizations. Let me ask you a question then,
oh all right, all right, good, I'm glad you're on board.
Have you ever lost something? I've lost many things, and uh,
it's coming throughout a lot of human literature and art,
this idea of losing things. Everybody, statistically speaking, everybody has
(01:50):
at some point lost something. It could be something small,
like your car keys. It could be something metaphorical, like
one time I lost my religion. There you go. I
was listening to way too much R. E. M. And
you know, it happens. I guess that they said it happens. Yeah,
and you're you're in the market for a new religion?
Yeah yeah, looking around checking out eBay. Well. One thing
(02:12):
that's also weird about human history is that we've lost
big things too. We've lost entire civilizations, We've lost entire cities.
And you and I have done several video episodes on
the nature of lost civilizations. Right now, that's correct. We have,
I believe two episodes that you can find on our
(02:35):
older channel that one day will be brought over to
our new YouTube channel and on test tube but we
also have a fairly new one that we kind of
started our new channel out with about lost cities. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a two part episode. You can find all that
on YouTube and on test tube. And we've we've talked
(02:55):
about this because it's strange when when you go back
in to research on history. One thing that's weird that
happens is the further back you go, the less stark
the line between myth and reality becomes us. So that
for instance, um, if you trace back the origins of
(03:17):
Chinese civilization, you quickly run into While I say quickly
depends on how faster flipping the pages, I guess, um,
you'll run into eventually this area of time wherein the
legends are the closest thing to universal historical record. And
(03:38):
when we us being you know, human beings at large,
when we research lost civilizations, what we find is a
huge wealth of rumor legend, misdirection, fable, but we also
often find a grain of truth. One thing that really
(03:58):
blew the lid off of law civilizations and launched it
from you know, kind of a speculative pseudo science. Wouldn't
it be cool if kind of thing and made it
a real viable feasible pursuit was the discovery of ancient Troy.
And for uh, for a long time people thought that
(04:22):
Troy the city was either u completely fictional thing or
just somewhat loosely based on reality, the same way that
a lifetime show is inspired by true events. But come
to find out that actually is a real place, and
it wasn't just a real place. It had uh, it
(04:43):
had layers of different periods in in the civilization's history.
Now we also have other things that may or may
not have some sort of basis in fact. And we
can't go any further unless we talk about the Big A,
the most famous of all legendary law civilizations. Matt Frederick,
(05:06):
I'm gonna let you intro this one. We have in
the left hand corner, the red corner Atlantis fighting out
of the Pacific or the Atlantic or somewhere who knows.
We don't know where it exists, but it's there and
it's called Atlantis. We know that for sure. Yeah, perfect intro,
and thank you. We know that it's called Atlantis because
(05:27):
this guy may have heard of named Plato, uh wrote
about it and said, yeah, there was this city around
nine thousand years before me that uh was beyond the
pillars of Heracles, to the west of Gibraltar, and he
just had some insider information. Yeah, he had some insider
(05:48):
info back before. Insider info is against law. Um, let
me just imagine some finger quotes there on against the law.
And according to Plato's story, the people of Atlantis angered Pacide, Uh,
see God, pretty big deal back in the day, and
he sank the city. Now, as we know, that's already
kind of a diplomatic way, would you say, it's kind
(06:10):
of an implausible story because no one has proved the
existence of see God's yet. Well, yeah, and not yet.
We're we're getting better at this, sorry Catulu fans. I
like Pacific Realm and Lovecraft too, but at this point
there's not too much evidence one way or the other. Now,
as we know, people have claimed to find the origin
(06:34):
of Atlantis all around the world, in the Caribbean, in
the Pacific, in the Atlantic. You'll hear stories all the time,
or you'll read stories. Um, you'll find them usually online
from let's say, not the most reputable source. Sure, talking
about sunken pyramid with some pictures that look to me
(06:56):
like they've been photoshopped. I can't prove it, but I'm
pretty sure, uh, and you'll you'll hear about that at
least once or twice a year. And the reason that
we bring up Troy in the beginning is because, for
a long time, as crazy as it sounds, the city
of Troy was put up there right around the same
level of plausibility as the city of Atlantis, until an
(07:17):
archaeologist named Heinrich Schliman Schleiman rediscovered it in the nineteenth
century and hopefully, uh, the journalist at the time pronounced
his name better than I just did, Sorry, Germany. Um.
The key questions here that we're tackling are how likely
is it that humanity could lose entire cities or civilizations?
(07:39):
And spoiler alert, the answer is incredibly likely. In fact,
it's uh, it's fair to say that there could be
cities that are extant and known today that could later
be lost to just the slow grind of history. And
it is frighteningly plausible that there are undiscovered cities right now,
(08:04):
or rather lost cities. The people who knew who built them,
probably knew where they were. Um. So, so just when
you're as you're talking, I'm just thinking about the the
line kind of drawn in the sand for me. Uh
about how civilization could be lost is the record keeping
techniques of whatever the day. So it sounds to me
(08:27):
as though I don't think there ever will be another
lost civilization on Earth because we have so many records
throughout the world. Internationally, we're becoming so globalized, okay, so
we're so interconnected that even for example, if let's just
pick an isolated place, okay, like the mall Dives. The
Maldives are um an island nation, one of the ones
(08:48):
at the most immediate threat of I guess sinking into
the ocean with rising sea levels. So then the argument
would be, well, now that the cost of communication across
the world is so cheap, everyone is able to find
out that the Maldives exists. It will be known that
it existed, right. It won't be lost, The structures will
(09:11):
be lost, the population will be dispersed, but it will
be known that, yes, Maldives really was there. We can
google map it. Here's where I think it gets interesting too,
because I used to be on the same page with
you and that in that respect, when we say the
slow grind of history, though, let's take it out thousands
(09:32):
of years because the the error, or rather the flaw
in this global information system is that it depends upon
uh technology, several different types of technology in order for
it to be accessed. So let's just go dystopian Matt.
Let's say huge nuclear war. The world is up a
(09:57):
certain creek without a paddle. You know, all the vault
dwellers or are coming out of their vaults. All the
vault dwellers are coming out of their vaults. And over
over the thousands, maybe even millions of years that they've
been locked in, super mutants are roaming in the hills. Yeah,
they've speciated, and they're different to the point where they
can't even breed together. Um. And then they start finding
(10:22):
relics and they find you know, cast off bits of
things that maybe wouldn't have expired, like the ruined stone ruins,
perhaps models of cola right plastic and uh. Then they
start to piece this together and they could rediscover it.
What I guess the point we're making is that, um,
(10:43):
it is much less likely that cities will be lost
now as in forgotten. You know, it's still it's still
the same dangerous game when we ask will cities survive?
Because there are any number of natural or and interstellar
disasters against when human beings are entirely helpless, entirely helpless,
(11:07):
even the most wealthy people in the world will just
be able to use their wealth to g tfo before
before it hits the fan. Speaking speaking of wealth and
being a factor in the survivability of civilization, let's talk
about something that kind of strings together all of these
civilizations in humanity as a whole. Uh water Ah good.
(11:30):
And this is this is something that we discussed in
the first episode of Law Civilizations about how large a
factor water played in several civilizations, the Mayan civilization, the
Indusk or Haraping civilization, and even Anchor and how water
was just kind of the underlying problem that they all
(11:52):
ended up having to face, and when they faced it,
they had to g tfo um. So well, okay, now
now look at that today, and let's let's think about
how aquifers are being purchased, how water is largely being privatized,
and and we even it's funny. We even mentioned back
(12:13):
in two thousand eleven we made that first episode that
it's kind of silly, it's or not silly. We didn't
say that, we said it was kind of fanciful to
talk about water wars and the you know, in the future,
having a war where water is the main resource that's
being fought over. And now with a lot of what
we're seeing again with the privatization, it seems like it
(12:34):
may be a real thing that we're gonna have to
deal with soon. Yeah, and as soon as a tricky
word there, because do we mean soon in the larger
context of history or do we mean soon as in
within our lifetimes? And in that context, uh, within your lifetime, listener,
means it may as well be happening right now. Uh.
(12:55):
The I love that you brought up the point about water.
So in anglor Watt in the Maya and the Robin
civilizations that we talked about in that episode, we try
to trace the fall of these civilizations, and there's a
frighteningly plausible argument that what caused a lot of these
(13:15):
civilizations to collapse, or these great cities and empires to
fall was an ecological disaster. In the case of Angkor
why it was a lack of water um that came
about because they simply had a huge population of people,
and of course it was an agricultural economy and they
(13:36):
had great infrastructure. Yeah, they had aquifers, they had aqueducts. Uh,
just there wasn't enough for the population. Yeah, and there
was an anomalous series of droughts, so they were running
on reserves for a while, and then ultimately they couldn't
support the people. And the story is similar with these
other two civilizations. And we find that in that episode
(13:59):
we find the climate change. Um let me take a
second here. When we say climate change as well, we
don't mean the current argument about climate change. We mean
that the ecosystem in which these cities were built or founded,
uh failed them or changed in a way that in
a way that they were not able to adapt to
(14:21):
in enough time to survive. And we know that water
can do uh something else to ruin a civilization which
is completely flooded. Matt, I don't know if you saw
this on read it recently, but a new Egyptian city
has been rediscovered. It was it's underwater now. Oh man,
(14:41):
it's crazy. They're getting great artifacts, hieroglyphs that are preserved
almost perfectly. It's pretty incredible. And we also know that
there are numerous underwater features. I guess is the best
word to say, like themini road or something that people
have positive might be the work of human beings at
(15:05):
sank under the ground. Another thing, another way we can
lose these is through volcanic eruption like pay Yeah, you
have volcanic eruptions even now can form brand new islands. Um,
just it's actually happening. You can search for this, go
to Google and search new volcanic island. Yeah. And what's
(15:25):
another thing that's kind of I guess you know what
I will say to me this is a positive note. Uh.
It is true that with the evolving technology that we have,
with our increasingly sophisticated means of pulling our own forensic
science experiments on the past, we have found that, um,
(15:48):
we got so much stuff wrong about history. You know,
we're finding footprints, human footprints four thousand years before they're
supposed to be in a place. We're finding human d
n a thousand years ago. Yeah, older than it should be.
And and we're even finding you know, things that qualify
as completely different types of pure hominic groups to human beings,
(16:12):
which is is um a level beyond the Neanderthal. It's
it's you know, the Dennis Silvans I believe are one
of them, or the hotly debated Homo florenzis um, which
would be if if this is true, if the most
outrageous stuff is true, then they would be a race
of little people. It just makes you realize that you,
(16:34):
we can't take any of this stuff for granted. Well,
we have to be vigilant and constantly searching. And that's
why science is really important, guys. Research, it's studying the
past is just as important as studying the future, in
my opinion, and I think I agree with that. It
(16:54):
reminds me of the William Falkner quotation when he said
the past isn't over, it isn't even past. Yeah, and
let's pick up on the point about science, because one
thing that you and I ran into when we were
doing these episodes was an alarming tendency towards bad science,
primarily um. For most of the most of the span
(17:20):
of archaeology, the primary problem in the science has been
institutionalized racism. You know, European European forces come to Africa,
they find the ruins of ancient civilizations, Great Zimbabwe or
so on, and then they say, oh, well, there's no
way that native Africans could have built this where is
the secret Lost tribe? Because that makes sense. I don't know,
(17:43):
it's so weird to me. We've we've been getting a
lot of flak on YouTube in the comments because we've
discussed we want to discuss that point of institutionalized racism
at that time period and well pretty much in the
past from this point, um. And I it's tough for
me too kind of swallow that criticism because I understand
(18:03):
what people are saying. You know, you're playing the racism card,
is I think. But unfortunately, this is just a kind
of a truth that we need to face at some point.
Well sure, and I you know, I understand somebody saying that,
but they're objecting to something different than what we have
done in that video, which is the which is the fact,
(18:25):
the concrete historical fact that due to pre existing notions
of how the world or human society should be, a
lot of scientists who could have made some great headway,
uh when when their time income instead retreated back to
their ideologies. And it's kind of like the it's kind
(18:46):
of like the Holocaust experiment stuff. You know, it's bad
science because the guys set out, the people who are
conducting those experiments set out to reach a predetermined conclusion.
Now I will say, I will say, to be absolutely
fair that assuming, um, assuming that there was no great
secret to find or there was no lost technology, is
(19:08):
just as silly as assuming that there had to be
UM some you know, well, imagine the most unrealistic thing
you could see, right like, UM, time travelers from the
future come back and build the pyramids to found the
Masonic Order that later builds the time machines and post
(19:30):
apocalyptic Earth to send them back to finish the loop.
I mean, that's I'm just kind of riffing on that one.
But we do know, we do know that, UM, different
different techniques, different processes that we are using are bearing
fruit because lost civilizations and lost cities are being found
(19:52):
at an unprecedented rate and across the world in South America,
in the Near East, UM, who knows what's out there
in Eurasia or Siberia or places where UM, you would
have to have a massive amount of funding to uncover something.
And to be absolutely fair, again, UM, who knows what
(20:14):
we will find? I'm so excited about it. Yeah, I am.
I am personally thrilled. Brings the Indiana Jones part of
me that's hidden deep down in my childhood. It just
brings it right to the surface. And when we let's see,
we've touched on a lot of stuff in this one
and um, we don't want to completely ruin the episodes
(20:36):
for anyone who hasn't seen them, and you should check
them out. Uh. One one thing that we can find
if we want to call this in favor of you know,
the quote unquote conspiracy theorists versus the quote unquote skeptics
who are not usually don't like those two sides. Man, Yeah,
I don't either. They're not. They're kind of a false dichotomy.
(20:57):
And usually the people who are quote unquote skeptics are not. Um,
the people who often are self described skeptics are have
some preconceived notions. But and that's what we found in
a lot of our research. It doesn't lie on the
outskirts of any issue. Really, the the truth that that
we've been drilling down to, it's usually somewhere near the
(21:18):
middle on one side or the other. Uh, it's usually right,
you know, right near the middle somewhere where it's especially
with these law civilizations. Right, there's there's truth to it
that we can find a point to um. But there's
so much left that, let's say, the more imaginative ideas
can't be dismissed. Ubar Hali Gate, Shangri Law, the Minoan Empire.
(21:44):
These are just these are just a few of the
examples you've heard about, oh El Dorado for instance, um
Sue dot Blanca. What what we are finding shows us
clearly that there is a hugely favorable probability that there
are undiscovered cities. And when we say cities, we mean
(22:08):
possibly massive cities that might be underwater now due to
a shift in um land mass, or that might be
completely covered due to some other sort of disaster, especially
now that we know from that DNA discovery recently that
humanity goes back much further than we thought. So we
(22:30):
need to start looking in places that perhaps have been
covered over for three thousand years. Oh yeah, what if
the ice caps melt and it turns out that has
been in the South Pole of the entire time. It's
I mean, it's crazy to think about it, and it
sounds silly, but yeah, well it's not necessarily silly. It's
it's silly if we say that's definitely gonna happen. But
(22:51):
but it is a point of departure, and this is
um Honestly, this is an exciting time to be alive,
not just for an archaeologists, but this is an exciting
time to be alive for anyone who wants to see
how the official narrative of history has been wrong and
(23:11):
humanity as a whole, and and the official story of
humanity as a whole. So we're gonna go ahead and
wrap it up. On that note, we hope that you
do check out our four episodes on lost cities, uh
everywhere from anglor Wat to Atlantis and everything between, and
we would love to hear your stories and your opinions
(23:34):
about these lost cities. And on the off chance that
you have solid evidence of something that completely contradicts the
historical narrative of you know, your textbooks and your teachers
and the news or whatever, we want you to come
to us with it. We would love to learn more
(23:55):
about it, and as always, we would love to bring
it out to the rest to the world. So you
can find us on Facebook where conspiracy stuff. You can
drop us line on Twitter, where we are also in
averse of creativity calling ourselves conspiracy stuff. That's and that's
the end of this classic episode. If you have any
thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into
(24:19):
contact with us in a number of different ways. One
of the best is to give us a call. Our
number is one eight three three std w y t K.
If you don't want to do that, you can send
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you
to Know is a production of I heart Radio. For
(24:39):
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
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