October 7, 2025 • 51 mins
HIV and AIDS, the syndrome the infection causes, have become the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. Over the decades people have proposed the infection was purposely designed to kill certain segments of the public, or that it was a lab experiment gone wrong, or that it didn't exist at all. For a time these theories enjoyed massive popularity in the US and abroad... but there was another conspiracy at play, one that most people weren't aware of: join Ben, Matt and Noel to learn more about Russia's Operation Infektion in this week's Classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist. This one was a real hot button
issue for us. This is something that a lot of
people in the West are not aware of. It's Russia's
operation infection with a cake.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Because it's edgy. No, all jokes aside. This is a
horrific story. Yes it is. And it's strange because we
did this one in twenty twenty. And I don't know
about you, guys, I didn't personally learn about the conspiracy
theories floating around about the National Institutes of Health and
some of the other institutes here in the United States
(00:34):
and their potential involvement in vaccinations that led to all
these things. Again, these are theories that are floating around
out there. I hadn't either, Matt, but they match up
weirdly with this the thing we're going to talk about
in this episode. I don't know, just strange.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Let's get into it after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff. They don't want you to know. A
production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Pal Noel is on adventures. They call me Ben. We're
joined as always with our super producer Paul, Mission control
decand most importantly, you are here and that makes this stuff.
They don't want you to know. How's it going, Matt,
I gotta say, I still love the lighting in your bunker.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, the lighting is pretty good. There's no light except
for this tiny one here that mimics sunshine, which is nice.
I can feel like I'm outside getting at least some
kind of exposure, rather than being in this room and
not going mad. I'm not going mad. Everything's fine. Things
are well right. How are they going in your neck
(02:03):
of the woods. Uh?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, thanks for asking. Uh, They're they're going all right.
Been a little isolated, part of that self imposed, and
part of that, you know, part of part of that
due to other reasons. But everything will work out. It's
strange because I was thinking about this earlier this weekend.
(02:25):
How quickly I mean, I talk about all the time,
how quickly things become normal for populations of human beings.
And one of the things that's interesting is the the
adaptation of friend groups. It's interesting. I've noticed this on
a lot of like virtual hangout platforms, especially the ones
(02:46):
that have limits right over how many people can be
an X or do why? And I think it's pretty
instructive from a social dynamics, you know, from from that perspective,
I peak behind the curtain, folks here on this show.
We use zoom because it has it has a lower
(03:08):
lag than a lot of stuff, at least for us,
and it doesn't have a time limit. So I think
it's interesting to see how people adjust in the face
of an infection that is probably not going away. I've
got some scary research on that we might save for
our next COVID update. But you and I have been
thinking about other global diseases, and that's that's something we're
(03:31):
talking about today.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, we are exploring one of the most prominent conspiracy
theories that has existed over you know, the last few decades.
It is a belief that you will see repeated all
across the Internet. It found global popularity for a time there,
and it kind of remains as this like unspoken truth
(03:56):
within a lot of communities, especially on the Internet in
the modern day. Right now. It's a really twisted thing.
It's a twisted tail that concerns a disease, but not
the one that most of us are concerned with right.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Now, right, Yeah, we're talking about HIV today. I'm also
you know, you'll hear it interchangeably described as AIDS. They're
not quite the same thing. But in short, our work
question today is how did so many people come to
believe that the United States purposely created AIDS and why?
(04:32):
So to answer this question, we have to start the
way we always do, with what we know for sure.
So here are the facts. HIV is a virus like
the coronavirus. HIV is short for Human immunodeficiency virus. It
causes the condition known as autoimmune deficiency syndrome or AIDS.
(04:57):
So you don't get AIDS, you get HIV and that
it causes you to have AIDS. Nowadays, millions of people,
millions of people have died from this syndrome caused by HIV.
But luckily, as we're recording this now in twenty twenty,
there isn't a cure, but there are improved therapies and
(05:17):
preventative measures that have put the death rate in a
state of deep decline since it peaked back and around
two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, so let's talk about an area of HIV and
AIDS that has a lot of misinformation about it on
the Internet, and that is how the virus is transmitted.
We do know that a lot of bodily fluids are
the general way that it gets transmitted. We're talking blood, breast, milk, semen,
(05:47):
and vaginal secretions and so on down the line there.
And unlike the coronavirus, you cannot get infected with HIV
by that good old fashioned kissing. You can't get it
by shaking hands. You can't get it by hugging or
sharing food or beverages the way you can get the coronavirus.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
But we do have a makeout warning.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Though, right Yes, you have to be very careful about
sores in the mouth of someone you are deep kissing
is the way it has been described French kissing as
most of us know it. So just be careful because
if you have a if there is an open sore
in someone's mouth, that can transmit this virus.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
If you have an open sore as well, or if
you have you know, bleeding gums because of the gum disease,
gingivitis or something. I just wanted to drop a gingervitis
line in there. From the tooth based commercials. You're absolutely right, Matt.
You know, in comparison to other viruses, you would think
that HIV has one huge limiting factor. It's not airborne, right,
(06:57):
it's fluid transmitted, So you would think that, hey, this
is not something you know, this is not near as
easy to spread. But there's a problem because HIV has
a very long I don't know if it's right to
call it an incubation rate, but you can get HIV,
(07:18):
get HIV and be contagious, be a carrier and transmitter
of it for a decade, ten years or more before
they exhibit any sign of infection, before they have any
reason to think they should go get tested. And when
they are out and about, when they are you know,
(07:38):
living their lives symptom free, asymptomatic, they can infect what
dozens more people one way or another, and then those people,
of course, rent and repeat, go on to infect dozens
of others, and so on and so on until it
becomes a global problem. HIV attacks your immune system. It
(08:00):
invades our cells, invades the cells of your immune system,
and then it hacks them in a very uncool way,
to say the least, It reprograms them to stop being
your immune cells that you know, love and trust and
become factories to just make more HIV. If you don't
get treatment, then what happens is the number of immune
(08:22):
cells in your body. They dwindle, you know, like a
not all at once, but kind of like a dying
town in the rural Midwest or something. If the body cell,
if the immune cells are people, there are fewer and
fewer in the population. And then as as your body
is deprived of these and loses them, that then autoimmuno
(08:46):
deficiency syndrome can kick in. And once that happens, a
person can be susceptible to a wide range of possible infections,
some that would ordinarily not be fatal. Right, your body
has to work so much harder, and your immune system
has been so weakened that it cannot fight back effectively.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, and this is where the coronavirus really does come
back in because it makes it that much more dangerous
for anyone out there who is HIV positive or who
has autoimmune deficiency. So it really it's a scary thing
right now, having this pandemic going around for those people.
(09:30):
And the other thing about HIV is that it isn't
just one thing, one particular thing it is consistently changing
and mutating, and it's believed to be like HIV itself,
is believed to be a mutated version of a different
virus that was It's called the Simian immuno deficiency virus
(09:51):
or civ SIV. And this is the same It does
the same kind of thing, only it attacks primates, apes, monkeys,
all right, And that's important.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That'll matter in just a second, especially as we dive
into the history of this of this disease.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So AIDS first.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Gained public attention in the nineteen eighties, and there were
so many misconceptions about what this was and how it spread.
For example, some people, including medical experts, early on, thought
it was only a disease encountered by people engaging in
same sex relationships or you know, same sex intimate encounters, right,
(10:32):
And then other people thought it only targeted minorities, because
both African Americans and people in the LGBT communities were
seemed to be acquiring this more often than other communities.
One thing was for sure. It was initially seen as
a terminal condition, and you know, early treatments were almost
(10:55):
as damaging as the infection itself. Luckily, back in the
nineteen nineties, so long ago now doctors shifted to a
new treatment program. They started using combinations of drugs simultaneously.
They called these anti retroviral drugs cocktails. Even now, a
cocktail cannot cure HIV or AIDS, but it can control
(11:18):
that replication, and that gives your immune system vital time
to recover and strengthen. So we're in a good spot there,
especially compared to the eighties. But we're still trying to
figure out the origin story of HIV, and we wanted
to give you the official version as it stands now
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So the official version of how HIV reached humans was
that there were hunters somewhere out in the bush and
the sieve infection that we talked about previously to this,
the immune deficiency disease or virus that was affecting apes,
was transmitted to humans when they killed somehow, and then
probably in some way can assumed the chimpanzees or possibly
(12:03):
when these hunters. You know, you're going through let's say
a jungle, very thick bush area, you're getting small cuts
on your arms or your legs or something. Then blood
comes out of a chimpanzee when it is killed and
somehow that blood gets into one of those cuts and
then the virus begins to mutate from there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
The thing is that people have been getting sieve for
a long long time, pretty often, but every so often,
every blue moon, this sieve that was in their body
would evolve and it would adapt to live in its
new environment, the human host. And this is the ascendancy
(12:43):
of HIV one. There are four main groups of HIV
strains and they each have a slightly different makeup genetically.
And this is interesting because it supports the scientist hunter
theory because they're saying, hey, these different versions exist because
every time sieve asked from a chimp to a human,
it mutated independently in a different way and produced a
(13:05):
slightly different strain. There are things that we should also mention.
There's HIV two that comes from CIV inside a type
of monkey rather than a chimpanzee, and we think it
happened in a similar way, but it's much rarer and
it's less infectious, so as a result, you don't see
as many people infected. It's nowadays found mainly in some
(13:27):
West African countries Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Sierra Leone. But check
this out. So we said the nineteen eighties, right, how
far back does it go. The first verified case of
HIV is from a blood sample taken in nineteen fifty
nine from a guy who was living in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. And that's probably not the first one.
(13:51):
That's just the first case for which we have a verifiable,
tested blood sample. It probably happened before then. As a
matter of fact, we're ninety eight percent plus certain that
it did so. Right now, that's the current theory, the
hunter theory. That's when people accept studies concluded the first
transmission of SIV to HIV and humans probably occurred in
(14:16):
the early twentieth century, right, I think the teens nineteen
twenty or so. But we see evidence of this in
the Democratic Republic of Congo because that's where HIV strains
have the most genetic diversity, and from what we know,
that means that CIV transformed into HIV multiple times in
(14:38):
this area. It's also home of many of the first
reported cases. So there you have it, right, that's the
official that's the official theory. That's what if you ask
an expert in the field, that's probably what they're going.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
To tell you, Yeah, it is the prevailing theory, but
it is certainly not the only thing you are going
to hear if you just go around and start asking
everybody about HIV and AIDS, and in fact, millions of
people across the world are convinced that for some reason,
in some way, the United States government or some faction
(15:09):
within had a hand in creating this virus, creating this disease.
Why would they do that, Well, allegedly it's because of
something called operation infection infection spelled with a K. And
we'll tell you all about that after a word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Put aside for the moment any questions about whether the
United States actually did or did not somehow manufacture HIV. Instead,
let's explore how this idea evolved, how it became so
popular in the world of conspiracy. The answer is simply this.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
It's one thing.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's operation infection, like you said, Matt with a K,
which makes it sound way cooler. But okay, so you
introduced this to this concept, but what is operation infection?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Well, has a several other names. By the way, we
should just mention here. There's forward two there's Operation Denver
by the way forward two. You may also find vorwartz
v O r w a ar t S two. You'll
you'll find that if you begin searching around this Operation Infection,
it was just a classic KGB move, one of these
(16:35):
disinfo productions, you know, disinformation. We've talked about it before
on this show, and it bears all the hallmarks of
their objectively top notch approach to information warfare. And when
you started diving into this, you're just you it's weird.
This feels very callous. But you begin to after seeing
this for so you know, so many times, you begin
(16:56):
to have an appreciation of it in some weird way
of like, oh okay, guys, I see you, I see
what you're doing. But let's just jump into this. And
that sounds callous, why, I promise I don't mean it
that way.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
The Russian government, okay, the Russian government has been doing
this for a long long time, way before the rise
of HIV.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Oh yes, yeah, they have. You know.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's the thing.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
It's it's like you got to respect the hustle, you
know what I mean. Like they put the work in,
they put the time in, the idea that you one
can labor for ten thousand hours on something and then
become a genius is a myth, but this you could
tell that the practice made perfect here. They didn't just
(17:42):
come up with information warfare in the eighties. The first
Office entirely dedicated to propaganda and disinfo on the Russian
side and possibly in the world, is older than the
KGB itself in nineteen twenty three. The GPU, it's the
(18:02):
predecessor to the KGB, kind of like how the OSS
here in the States is the predecessor to the CIA. Anyway,
in nineteen twenty three, the GPU was already rolling along
full steam ahead, and the etymology of the word disinformation
itself proves how far into the game these folks were.
(18:23):
Oddly enough, you know, Russian and English very different languages,
but by the rise of the Second World War, the
word disinformation had been invented independently in both Russian and
English to describe information warfare. And when the KGB got
into the game, when they became a real thing officially
(18:43):
in the nineteen fifties, this meant that disinformation was already
a tremendously important tool in their active measures doctrine. Active measures,
by the way, is just a euphemism. Think of it
more like the art of political warfare. They were linking
manipulation the front groups that we've talked about before, they
were counterfeiting documents and currency. And then of course even
(19:07):
when it was necessary or I guess maybe when they
had a bad day, they would practice wetwork assassinations.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, this kind of thing a lot of times feels
like a smoke screen so that other operations can occur. Right,
So you can mislead your opponent in some way into
believing one thing when you're actually doing another. And if
you do it effectively enough, you can still do the
one thing because your opponents will think that you are
(19:36):
trying to deceive them by talking or putting information about
out about the one thing. It's it's it's fascinating. The
game involved with all of this, the game that they
play with lives across the world, is fascinating, if not horrifying.
So let's talk about the Cold War throughout all of it.
(19:58):
The you know, the Soviets really just excelled in creating
tension between their opponents and their friends. So the opponent's friends, right,
does that make sense? The Allies that the people who
are supposed to be on one side, but if you
can foment some kind of tension between those allies, they
(20:20):
are no longer as strong as they once were. And
in particular, they love this thing called quote black propaganda,
and this was crafting, making up really damaging stuff, information
that we would be put out about an ally, let's say,
which purported to be from an ally. Right, So if
Russian propaganda would exist, and it would look as though,
(20:43):
let's say England was putting out some information about the
United States, when in fact it is actually a Soviet message, right.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, I mean, even for a microcosmic example,
you could imagine, let's just take let's just take Matt
Noel and Ben and say like, well, we'll pick one
of those podcasters to be Russia. Then they if they
wanted to break down cooperation between the other two, then
(21:13):
they would say they wouldn't say hey I think this
about I think this person thinks this about you. They
would say, hey, I got the I recovered this and
it's about you, and I wanted to share it with you.
The Russians did this on a global level. One example
would be Operation Neptune in nineteen ninety four, they attempted
(21:34):
to use these forged documents to imply that Western politicians
had supported the Nazis. But the important part here, the twist,
is that they didn't say they were declassified Soviet documents.
They came from somewhere else, and the Russians happened to
find them. Excuse me, Sylviet government happened to find them.
And so now it was ethical to spread this sort
(21:54):
of thing and to because really it's an attack, it
just doesn't use bullets. And there are a lot of
other cases too, like the USSR was working actively of
course during this Cold War, Right, they're working actively to
discredit the US government internationally, not that it always needed
a lot of help with that, and to discredit it
to its domestic population. Again, not that it always needed
(22:18):
much help with that either. I don't want to sound
too cynical. We just have to remember, like during this time,
there were massive domestic protests, right, there was a lot
of unhappiness in the international sphere regarding unilateral actions of
the United States. So there's a pretty compelling chicken or
the egg argument, right, was were these programs stoking flames
(22:41):
that already existed? Were they starting new fires, but they
did things like oh, evidence emerged that the US supports apartheid,
things like that, And so in the early days of
the AIDS crisis, the KGB saw a golden once in
an intelligent agencies lifetime kind of opportunity.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah. Around the year nineteen eighty three, there is, I
guess one of the first known examples that you can
kind of point to when you're looking through this stuff.
There was an Indian pro Soviet paper. It carried an
anonymous letter from a quote well known American scientist. Huh
oh okay oh, well known American scientist obviously, and this
(23:22):
person who was quoted in this paper claimed that AIDS
had been developed in a secret bio lab in Fort
Dietrich within the United States. And of course, you know,
you begin there with a little seed basically, right, scientists
that we can't verify because it would put their life
(23:42):
at risk, exactly. So you've got that little seed nineteen
eighty three. Then only two years later, in nineteen eighty five,
there's a retired biophysicist named doctor Jacob Siegel. He claims
that the AIDS virus was synthesized by combining parts of
other viruses retroviruses in this case the VISNA or VISNA
(24:04):
and the HTLV one. And you know, we talked about
how the Soviets were using again not unlike the United
States or any other large power. They were using fronts
to report, like fronts where they could kind of seed
a story in or something, and then those fronts would
(24:25):
report on that story. So they would all these fronts
all over the world started reporting about this thing. They
would talk about the Seagull report, this person who has
come forward to let us know about the ADS virus
and how it was created rather than how it had evolved.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, and here's an example. We don't have to read
this whole excerpt, but we wanted to sum up what
it's saying so you get a sense of it. This doctor,
this retired biophysicist. You mentioned Matt Siegel in his report,
which was treated kind of like the way, Well, anytime
politically you hear a report and it's just the name
(25:03):
of the report is the last name of someone, kind
of like the Miller report, Well that's not science. Anytime
you hear that. It's kind of a currency created. It's
a nickname created so that people can circulate it more easily.
And it's super recognizable because that's the rule of media, right,
make it one or two words, preferably yep. So the
(25:26):
single report says no relation to Steven Sagall, by the way, unfortunately,
says quote, it's very easy using genetic technologies to unite
two parts of completely independent viruses. But who would be
interested in doing this? The military, of course. And then
they say, in nineteen seventy seven, a top security lab
(25:46):
was set up at the Pentagon Central Biological Laboratory, and
then one year after that, the first cases of AIDS
occur in the US in New York City. So the
timeline then implies nineteen seventy eight, how it occurred, how
it managed to get out of the secret, hush hush
laboratories easy to understand. And they say this following quote,
everyone knows the prisoners are used for military experiments in
(26:08):
the US. They promise their freedom if they come out
of the experiment alive. Interesting, now we should note that
Siegel himself, doctor Jacob Siegel, was presented as a French researcher,
but he was definitely he.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Was a German guy.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
They were just trying to sort of make it one
more remove from the Soviet government. And unfortunately there's some
truth in some of these statements. US does have secret biolabs,
the US did experiment on prisoners, like, none of that
stuff was made up, Just this instance of that happening.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, and you know, the report blew up. At least
for back in the day. It couldn't go viral on
the Internet because it wasn't really you couldn't do that yet,
but it did go viral as far as coverage and
rumor and people talking about this. By nineteen eighty seven,
it received coverage in eighty countries in thirty languages, this
(27:05):
Seagull report, and that spread it just it followed this
fashion that we've seen before. It's something that continues that
we you know, kind of continue to see. Well, let's
let's just keep going here. The story appeared in a
publication from outside the USSR, right, so it's not us,
it's just it's over there. Right. Then it was presented
(27:25):
as investigative work within the Soviet media, right, so it's
like we were investigating this thing, this report that's been
out there that now we're looking at, uh, look what
we found, right right.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Right, Look at this Look what we found. It's crazy right,
but we feel it is our ethical duty to report
it and furthermore, you know, join us and asking why
the United States won't answer these strong and disturbing allegations.
And this is a smear tac that you've seen probably
in the world of celebrity as well, where it's like,
(28:06):
you know, I didn't say it, but some people say, Okay,
who's our celebrity we pick on today.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Matt, let's go with Paul Rubins. No, no, no, Conan O'Brien.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Conan O'Brien. Oh man, Okay, all right, So this hypothetical example,
and I'm sorry, I'm sorry mister Rubens that you lost
to Conan here in this hypothetical example, you would see
something in the media like, well, you know, I didn't
say it. There are a lot of reports there are
(28:44):
some people are saying and have been saying, that ConA
and O'Brien breaks into preschools and steals children's shoes and
that he's he's using them to decorate a wall of
of his attic And uh, you know, I'm not saying
it's true. I'm saying a lot of people are saying it,
(29:06):
but I think it's interesting that he's never denied the allegation.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And you know what, earl, I won't even come out
and talk about it. Have you noticed that?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, exactly exactly. It's like, well, why aren't they responding?
And this is disturbing because you know, it works really
well if people are already, if they already have some
pre existing beliefs. Right, if someone, for some terrible reason
ever watched Conan O'Brien, who is a fantastic guy, and thought, yeah, guy,
(29:37):
looks it looks like steal shoes, and they especially, yeah,
they heard that report, they would be like, wow, he
never he never denied it.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I knew it.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I knew I was right. And we're we're having fun
with that example. But the mechanics are sound. That happens
all the time. The Soviet Party also focused special attention
on the car continent of Africa and Radio Moscow, which
is pretty much exactly like Voice of America or something.
Radio Moscow said the US was deliberately infecting people with
(30:09):
disease under the guise of free vaccination projects, and there's
you know, tremendous distrust the vaccination projects in a lot
of the world, especially when they're sponsored by Western powers
or Western pharmaceutical companies. That's a story for another day though,
because there's some sand to it in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I don't know if you agree with me.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
There, Oh yeah, actually, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
There's some sand to it. Okay, So we've got to
write that episode down for the future. But we're going
to take a pause. We'll have a word from our sponsor,
and when we return, we're going to see what happened
to Operation Infection.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And we're back, so.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Just to be clear, what was the purpose of Operation Infection.
We understand the strategy of this conspiracy, and it is
a conspiracy and it was effective, but what, like, what
was the what was why? Why were they doing this?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That's a great question because on the surface it doesn't
seem to make a ton of sense, but if you
look at a bigger picture, it does appear to have
two purposes. The first one is just to discredit the
United States in any way that they could and to
you know, make the United States, the civilians within the
(31:36):
United States maybe feel just a little bit more, if
not a lot bit more, worried that their government isn't
telling them the truth. And the second purpose there is
to shift attention away from Russia's own very real chemical
and bioweaponry research, the real scary stuff that was happening
(31:57):
in Russian research laboratories, in the United States laboratories, and
probably a bunch of other places too.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
M yeah, well said. And this leads us to another question.
An elephant in the room here, an elephant in the
red room here is how do we know about this today?
It was so top secret? Right, how did we figure
this out? Are we secretly Russian disinfo agents? Well, there
is a tragic turn of events that leads to the
(32:26):
revelation of this. Here's what happens. Russia was actually really
successful convincing people across the planet that HIV was not
only manufactured, but that the US was responsible. And part
of the reason they were so successful is because they
didn't make up the disease itself. It was and is
(32:46):
a real medical condition, and it was spreading unchecked, and
eventually the bill came due the disease arrived on Russian soil.
So in the mid to late nineteen eighties, Soviet researchers
are asking their American colleagues for help fighting this virus.
(33:07):
Their request gets denied. Not only is it denied, but
their American colleagues say, look, we're not going to help
you at all and will never help you unless you
stop this disinformation operation, at which point, you know, of course,
the Soviet researchers are like, hey, I'm not in charge
of that. That's the that's the you know, that's the KGB,
(33:28):
I check samples. I don't know how much policy influence
you think I have. But they were at an impasse,
and the Gorbachev administration tried to prevent the US from
exposing this, right, from tracing these things like the Cigar
Report back to its ultimate creators in the USSR. But
(33:51):
HIV infections continued to grow in Russia or in the
Soviet Union excuse me, and eventually the Gorbachev administry disowns
the project entirely in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
But only two years, only two years after that report
the Seagull Report.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Right, right, So it blew up and then it collapsed,
but people didn't admit what was going on for a
few more years.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
That's right. It wasn't until nineteen ninety two that Yevgeny Primakov,
he was at the time the director of the Foreign
Intelligence Service, he came forward. He confirmed for everyone that
the KGB had in fact created and perpetuated this myth.
They their hands were all over it. And you know, again,
nineteen ninety two is quite a while, like seven years
(34:40):
after that initial report, but still it is so strange
to think about how many minds were touched by this
concept and how it spread both on a wide arena,
but then also you know, within small communities kind of
whispering to to each other because this wasn't This isn't
(35:02):
the kind of thing you just go out and you
just start telling everyone, and it was. I I imagine
that it was known it would be a whisper campaign
after the initial push, or at least it feels that way.
It really is fascinating to think about this being orchestrated though.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, word of mouth for almost anything. Word of mouth
is such a powerful medium of transmission, and it's a
powerful medium of belief. As human beings, you know, most
of us are driven to seek harmony of some sort
with our peer groups. And part of the way we
(35:41):
seek harmony with each other is through agreeing on things.
It's a different drive, Like there are some who only
want to I guess feel like they're dominating a social circle,
but most people tend to want to seek harmony through
being able to look at their close associates and friends
and say, yeah, not only do we know what's going on,
(36:02):
but we all agree on it, you know what I mean.
So if someone you like or are close to is
telling you something, depend on how they tell it to you,
you're going to eventually start to shift toward their ideology.
It's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Fascinating is the right word, because what we found here
is Operation Infection, whatever you want to call it, is
a genuine conspiracy to create a fake conspiracy. It's a
Matroshka doll of schemes within schemes. And I love that
you've brought up the very short span of time that
(36:36):
elapsed here. But here's the thing. Even after these people
are like caught redheaded in a nineteen nineties the government
officially admits it was a thing, but the damage was
already done. Because another thing about our species is we
like our incorrect, like our red meat headlines and sensational stuff.
(36:57):
We like it big slapped on the front page in
a headline, maybe with some exclamation marks. I don't know.
We'll style on it. We'll see how it feels in
the print shop, but we saved the corrections for like
the back of page twelve two weeks later, because no
one reads them. No one really wants to, you know
what I mean. You got the headline, you got your opinion.
You're pretty much done. As we said, in the US,
(37:20):
this virus was predominantly affecting in the early days. It
was predominantly affecting as far as the experts could see,
African American communities and people in LGBT communities. These two
groups have been historically discriminated against and victimized. So it
is a damning condemnation of American society that this idea
(37:43):
didn't seem impossible. You know, people would look around and say, well,
think about all the other things the government has done
to attack these communities in the past. We know those
things happened, and we know that science keeps evolving at
a breakneck pace. So it's kind of like shrug dot gif.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah. It it definitely seemed to make sense, especially at
the time given the pasture, right. I mean, you could
almost imagine it being oh, well, hey, this disease was
created by the government to wipe these populations out. Basically,
you could you can imagine why people would at least
(38:21):
be open to that idea. And the other big problem
here was that, you know, at the time, the presidential administration,
the whole White House structure, if you will, all of
the people there, they were not tackling it had on it.
You know, it was a known thing, especially if you
were living in one of the community's communities that was
(38:43):
being ravaged by the by HIV and AIDS. It was
very much well known and it was a terrifying thing.
But there wasn't It didn't feel like a ton was
being done about it, and there really wasn't much being
done about it at the time, at least early on.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, that's a good point because the initial government and
activity was you know, if you're coming from that space, right,
you believe in this, then what seems to be a
lack of activity in the public sphere on the government's
behalf is just another another piece of proof right at
that point, I mean, people are not people are not idiotic, right,
(39:21):
We have to remember that people people then are just
as smart as people today, and they have all the
same failings and all the same triumphs. So we can
understand where this is coming from. And this operation. Infection
didn't last that long, but its effects are still with us.
A two thousand and five study published in the Journal
of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome showed that fifty percent of African
(39:45):
American people surveyed believed that AIDS is quote a man
made virus, and fifteen percent thought there was a form
of genocide against against black people in general. And like itself,
this KGB crafted conspiracy theory mutated beyond its original state
(40:07):
because it was it was out in the wild. You know,
if you don't already trust the government, why would you
trust their official statements of any sort. Right, So this,
once it gets in the wild, once it gets in
the field, this theory that the US made HIV starts
to mix with other things, even things that seemed kind
of contradictory, like AIDS denihilism, which was huge at the time.
(40:29):
You know, it was like it's a misunderstood things, sort
of like five G and COVID. Nowadays, I would say for.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
A parallel yeah, interesting, just because there wasn't enough people
didn't have enough working information or working knowledge of it.
It felt as though it couldn't be real or it
was not real, and there were so many other stories
still today actually that roll around about the origins of
(40:55):
HIV and AIDS, and I think it is one of
those things that once you have enough, once you can
get enough people to question the official story, then all
of the other stories out there begin to be a
possibility for someone who's already disbelieving. I don't know it
(41:16):
just yeah, it makes sense, and you can kind of
see it at work with so many things now, like
in today's zeitgeist of just our disbelief at official stories
or disbelief of official stories.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent agreed, And there you have it.
You know, that is why people genuinely believe the US
government created HIV. It tragically jibs with past atrocities, It
mixed with other adjacent or existing conspiracies, and some of
the world's foremost experts on information warfare just pushed it through.
(41:55):
And again, I I hate to say it, but just objective,
if you look at the at the structure that they implemented,
their hustle is top notch. As you said, I mean, today,
it is important to remember there's still unanswered questions about HIV,
but it is luckily no longer a death sentence, and
(42:16):
scientists are working continually to improve the treatments available.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah, and if you look on the other side of
that coin, you realize that disinfo agents masters people who've
been doing this for a long time. They don't stop.
They'll you know, there's a project that may end, or
one campaign that may end, but the people who are
very good at this will continue to be doing this.
And they do because they every time they attempt a campaign,
(42:41):
you'll learn a little something about how well it worked,
how well it didn't work, and what you can take
away from it, and things like operation infection can then
get applied to something new. Let's say current events. Let's
talk about the twenty twenty election that's you know, about
to happen. Well, think about the previous election in twenty
(43:02):
sixteen and the manipulation that occurred there. You know, and
there are people here listening that don't believe any kind
of manipulation occurred. There are people here who one thousand
percent know that manipulation occurred from Russia during the twenty
sixteen presidential election in the United States. And it is
(43:22):
very interesting to see that divide of you know, our
own disbelief or fervent belief in something that either did
or didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Right right, And you would think that you would think
that the proliferation of instantaneous communication, social media and the
Internet would finally smash all the you know, relatively like
disgusting gatekeeping of information sources that existed beforehand. But unfortunately
(43:54):
that is not the case. Make no mistake nineteen fifty
nineteen eighty, that was nothing. We are in the golden
age of information warfare and things like this. Just like
you've heard experts predict pandemics in the future, this is
another kind of global situation. There will be more things
like Operation Infection. They will get better. Just like in
(44:18):
the Terminator movies when the first androids were easy to spot,
these new propaganda projects are going to get closer and
closer to seeming like the real thing. The difference, the
important difference, is that they are not real. They are
being used to control you, to make you comply with
the behaviors you would not accept, or to make you
(44:40):
do things you ordinarily wouldn't do. And on that note,
we have to ask for your help, fellow conspiracy realists.
What are other propaganda operations proven or alleged that you
think your fellow listeners should learn more about.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
And you may be asking yourselves, Hey, guys, how do
you even know that Operation Infection was real and actual
disinformormation campaign. Well, it's an It's interesting that you ask that,
because one of the main reasons I believe it is
true is because on the CIA dot gov website there
is an entry about it. There are some materials you
can look at, So if you search Operation Infection on
(45:16):
CIA dot gov you can see that. Now I'm just
gonna use my own logic here. Why Why would the
CIA want to put out information about a propaganda campaign
from an opposing at least at the time, in opposing superpower. Hmmm,
(45:37):
Now my wheels are turning even further. I hadn't thought
about it in this way until we started this episode.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
I'm on the edge of my se What is it?
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Just the concept that the CIA would want you to
think that Russia is putting out all kinds of disinformation
campaigns or the Soviet Union at the time, so that
maybe you don't think about or you dismiss the United
States originating propaganda campaigns that are going around to disinformation campaigns.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yeah, I love it, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
I'm just trying to figure out where I am within
the net of propaganda.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, because you know, it makes like for a visual analogy.
It makes me think of maybe two street musicians on
opposite sides of the street or on stages that are
facing one another, and they're both trying to get attention
from the same audience, or they're trying to direct attention
from the same audience, like look what that joker is doing.
(46:38):
Don't look at what my hands are doing, you know
what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh wow, that's that's depressing,
which means it's probably has a seat of truth in.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
It, right.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
But you can also find it on the Guardian in
New York Times and on you know, the website beyond.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Video a video you can learn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And we want to hey, if you think Operation Infection
was a hoax, think it's a CIA cover up for
the truth, let us know too. We would always rather
learn the truth than be comfortable feeling right about something.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Absolutely, So you can find us, and more importantly, you
can find your fellow listeners in our communities on Facebook,
on Instagram, and on Twitter. We especially love to recommend
here's where it gets crazy over on Facebook where you
can hang out with us and some of the best
mods in the moderating business. So shout out to you
(47:38):
all as well.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
That's right. All you need to know is I think
the host names still and you can get in and
start talking about all the episodes, suggest some new ones,
post some memes, whatever you want to do. It's fun.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
And you know we always say yes, name name one
or all of the hosts. But if you would like,
you can just make us laugh. That'll probably get you in.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Absolutely people have been following that direction in our voicemail
messages that they've been leaving us. You can right now
call our number. It is one eight three three std WYTK.
You can leave up to a three minute message, and
I am very happy to report that both Ben and
I will be listening for sure, and Noel also has
(48:26):
the information now too, So we might all be listening
to your messages and you might get a call. You
might just just know that your words will enter our ears.
Oh oh, it sounds weird.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Matt, I'd like to do an impromptu shout out if
please okay, I would like to give a shout out
to Matthew B.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
You know who you are.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Matthew B who called in to say that one of
his other favorite conspiracy shows has a has a host
named Matthew and one as a host named Ben, and
he thinks it is conspiracy, not a conspiracy theory, but
(49:09):
a conspiracy that he has something some things in common
with us, name wise, do you remember that one?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I do remember that one, Yes, Susan Ben. He's like,
oh which Matt and Ben? Okay, Yeah, that's really great.
Also had somebody calling in asking about the squirrel population
and coronavirus. I don't know if you get to hear
that one yet, Ben, but it was a very adamant
listener asking about whether or not the squirrels. I think
(49:39):
it's around the Chicago area where for some reason being
affected by coronavirus because they this person hadn't seen any
squirrels all spring. Oh wow, I haven't been able to
find anything. But if you out there are listening and
you have some information about squirrels and where they're, where
they are right now, let us know they're here in Atlanta.
(50:01):
I was looking at some earlier today in my backyard.
But you know who knows.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
And if you think social media is not the place
for that squirrel you know, for the hard hitting squirrel reporting.
If you think that a voicemail doesn't give you enough
time you only have three minutes to fully air out
your thoughts, then never worry. We have one way that
you can always always contact us, Rain or Shine, Collapse
(50:27):
of civilization notwithstanding, you can reach us twenty four to
seven at our good old fashioned email address.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't
(50:55):
want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist. This one was a real hot button
issue for us. This is something that a lot of
people in the West are not aware of. It's Russia's
operation infection with a cake.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Because it's edgy. No, all jokes aside. This is a
horrific story. Yes it is. And it's strange because we
did this one in twenty twenty. And I don't know
about you, guys, I didn't personally learn about the conspiracy
theories floating around about the National Institutes of Health and
some of the other institutes here in the United States
(00:34):
and their potential involvement in vaccinations that led to all
these things. Again, these are theories that are floating around
out there. I hadn't either, Matt, but they match up
weirdly with this the thing we're going to talk about
in this episode. I don't know, just strange.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Let's get into it after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff. They don't want you to know. A
production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Pal Noel is on adventures. They call me Ben. We're
joined as always with our super producer Paul, Mission control
decand most importantly, you are here and that makes this stuff.
They don't want you to know. How's it going, Matt,
I gotta say, I still love the lighting in your bunker.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, the lighting is pretty good. There's no light except
for this tiny one here that mimics sunshine, which is nice.
I can feel like I'm outside getting at least some
kind of exposure, rather than being in this room and
not going mad. I'm not going mad. Everything's fine. Things
are well right. How are they going in your neck
(02:03):
of the woods. Uh?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, thanks for asking. Uh, They're they're going all right.
Been a little isolated, part of that self imposed, and
part of that, you know, part of part of that
due to other reasons. But everything will work out. It's
strange because I was thinking about this earlier this weekend.
(02:25):
How quickly I mean, I talk about all the time,
how quickly things become normal for populations of human beings.
And one of the things that's interesting is the the
adaptation of friend groups. It's interesting. I've noticed this on
a lot of like virtual hangout platforms, especially the ones
(02:46):
that have limits right over how many people can be
an X or do why? And I think it's pretty
instructive from a social dynamics, you know, from from that perspective,
I peak behind the curtain, folks here on this show.
We use zoom because it has it has a lower
(03:08):
lag than a lot of stuff, at least for us,
and it doesn't have a time limit. So I think
it's interesting to see how people adjust in the face
of an infection that is probably not going away. I've
got some scary research on that we might save for
our next COVID update. But you and I have been
thinking about other global diseases, and that's that's something we're
(03:31):
talking about today.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, we are exploring one of the most prominent conspiracy
theories that has existed over you know, the last few decades.
It is a belief that you will see repeated all
across the Internet. It found global popularity for a time there,
and it kind of remains as this like unspoken truth
(03:56):
within a lot of communities, especially on the Internet in
the modern day. Right now. It's a really twisted thing.
It's a twisted tail that concerns a disease, but not
the one that most of us are concerned with right.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Now, right, Yeah, we're talking about HIV today. I'm also
you know, you'll hear it interchangeably described as AIDS. They're
not quite the same thing. But in short, our work
question today is how did so many people come to
believe that the United States purposely created AIDS and why?
(04:32):
So to answer this question, we have to start the
way we always do, with what we know for sure.
So here are the facts. HIV is a virus like
the coronavirus. HIV is short for Human immunodeficiency virus. It
causes the condition known as autoimmune deficiency syndrome or AIDS.
(04:57):
So you don't get AIDS, you get HIV and that
it causes you to have AIDS. Nowadays, millions of people,
millions of people have died from this syndrome caused by HIV.
But luckily, as we're recording this now in twenty twenty,
there isn't a cure, but there are improved therapies and
(05:17):
preventative measures that have put the death rate in a
state of deep decline since it peaked back and around
two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, so let's talk about an area of HIV and
AIDS that has a lot of misinformation about it on
the Internet, and that is how the virus is transmitted.
We do know that a lot of bodily fluids are
the general way that it gets transmitted. We're talking blood, breast, milk, semen,
(05:47):
and vaginal secretions and so on down the line there.
And unlike the coronavirus, you cannot get infected with HIV
by that good old fashioned kissing. You can't get it
by shaking hands. You can't get it by hugging or
sharing food or beverages the way you can get the coronavirus.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
But we do have a makeout warning.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Though, right Yes, you have to be very careful about
sores in the mouth of someone you are deep kissing
is the way it has been described French kissing as
most of us know it. So just be careful because
if you have a if there is an open sore
in someone's mouth, that can transmit this virus.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
If you have an open sore as well, or if
you have you know, bleeding gums because of the gum disease,
gingivitis or something. I just wanted to drop a gingervitis
line in there. From the tooth based commercials. You're absolutely right, Matt.
You know, in comparison to other viruses, you would think
that HIV has one huge limiting factor. It's not airborne, right,
(06:57):
it's fluid transmitted, So you would think that, hey, this
is not something you know, this is not near as
easy to spread. But there's a problem because HIV has
a very long I don't know if it's right to
call it an incubation rate, but you can get HIV,
(07:18):
get HIV and be contagious, be a carrier and transmitter
of it for a decade, ten years or more before
they exhibit any sign of infection, before they have any
reason to think they should go get tested. And when
they are out and about, when they are you know,
(07:38):
living their lives symptom free, asymptomatic, they can infect what
dozens more people one way or another, and then those people,
of course, rent and repeat, go on to infect dozens
of others, and so on and so on until it
becomes a global problem. HIV attacks your immune system. It
(08:00):
invades our cells, invades the cells of your immune system,
and then it hacks them in a very uncool way,
to say the least, It reprograms them to stop being
your immune cells that you know, love and trust and
become factories to just make more HIV. If you don't
get treatment, then what happens is the number of immune
(08:22):
cells in your body. They dwindle, you know, like a
not all at once, but kind of like a dying
town in the rural Midwest or something. If the body cell,
if the immune cells are people, there are fewer and
fewer in the population. And then as as your body
is deprived of these and loses them, that then autoimmuno
(08:46):
deficiency syndrome can kick in. And once that happens, a
person can be susceptible to a wide range of possible infections,
some that would ordinarily not be fatal. Right, your body
has to work so much harder, and your immune system
has been so weakened that it cannot fight back effectively.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, and this is where the coronavirus really does come
back in because it makes it that much more dangerous
for anyone out there who is HIV positive or who
has autoimmune deficiency. So it really it's a scary thing
right now, having this pandemic going around for those people.
(09:30):
And the other thing about HIV is that it isn't
just one thing, one particular thing it is consistently changing
and mutating, and it's believed to be like HIV itself,
is believed to be a mutated version of a different
virus that was It's called the Simian immuno deficiency virus
(09:51):
or civ SIV. And this is the same It does
the same kind of thing, only it attacks primates, apes, monkeys,
all right, And that's important.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That'll matter in just a second, especially as we dive
into the history of this of this disease.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So AIDS first.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Gained public attention in the nineteen eighties, and there were
so many misconceptions about what this was and how it spread.
For example, some people, including medical experts, early on, thought
it was only a disease encountered by people engaging in
same sex relationships or you know, same sex intimate encounters, right,
(10:32):
And then other people thought it only targeted minorities, because
both African Americans and people in the LGBT communities were
seemed to be acquiring this more often than other communities.
One thing was for sure. It was initially seen as
a terminal condition, and you know, early treatments were almost
(10:55):
as damaging as the infection itself. Luckily, back in the
nineteen nineties, so long ago now doctors shifted to a
new treatment program. They started using combinations of drugs simultaneously.
They called these anti retroviral drugs cocktails. Even now, a
cocktail cannot cure HIV or AIDS, but it can control
(11:18):
that replication, and that gives your immune system vital time
to recover and strengthen. So we're in a good spot there,
especially compared to the eighties. But we're still trying to
figure out the origin story of HIV, and we wanted
to give you the official version as it stands now
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So the official version of how HIV reached humans was
that there were hunters somewhere out in the bush and
the sieve infection that we talked about previously to this,
the immune deficiency disease or virus that was affecting apes,
was transmitted to humans when they killed somehow, and then
probably in some way can assumed the chimpanzees or possibly
(12:03):
when these hunters. You know, you're going through let's say
a jungle, very thick bush area, you're getting small cuts
on your arms or your legs or something. Then blood
comes out of a chimpanzee when it is killed and
somehow that blood gets into one of those cuts and
then the virus begins to mutate from there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
The thing is that people have been getting sieve for
a long long time, pretty often, but every so often,
every blue moon, this sieve that was in their body
would evolve and it would adapt to live in its
new environment, the human host. And this is the ascendancy
(12:43):
of HIV one. There are four main groups of HIV
strains and they each have a slightly different makeup genetically.
And this is interesting because it supports the scientist hunter
theory because they're saying, hey, these different versions exist because
every time sieve asked from a chimp to a human,
it mutated independently in a different way and produced a
(13:05):
slightly different strain. There are things that we should also mention.
There's HIV two that comes from CIV inside a type
of monkey rather than a chimpanzee, and we think it
happened in a similar way, but it's much rarer and
it's less infectious, so as a result, you don't see
as many people infected. It's nowadays found mainly in some
(13:27):
West African countries Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Sierra Leone. But check
this out. So we said the nineteen eighties, right, how
far back does it go. The first verified case of
HIV is from a blood sample taken in nineteen fifty
nine from a guy who was living in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. And that's probably not the first one.
(13:51):
That's just the first case for which we have a verifiable,
tested blood sample. It probably happened before then. As a
matter of fact, we're ninety eight percent plus certain that
it did so. Right now, that's the current theory, the
hunter theory. That's when people accept studies concluded the first
transmission of SIV to HIV and humans probably occurred in
(14:16):
the early twentieth century, right, I think the teens nineteen
twenty or so. But we see evidence of this in
the Democratic Republic of Congo because that's where HIV strains
have the most genetic diversity, and from what we know,
that means that CIV transformed into HIV multiple times in
(14:38):
this area. It's also home of many of the first
reported cases. So there you have it, right, that's the
official that's the official theory. That's what if you ask
an expert in the field, that's probably what they're going.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
To tell you, Yeah, it is the prevailing theory, but
it is certainly not the only thing you are going
to hear if you just go around and start asking
everybody about HIV and AIDS, and in fact, millions of
people across the world are convinced that for some reason,
in some way, the United States government or some faction
(15:09):
within had a hand in creating this virus, creating this disease.
Why would they do that, Well, allegedly it's because of
something called operation infection infection spelled with a K. And
we'll tell you all about that after a word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Put aside for the moment any questions about whether the
United States actually did or did not somehow manufacture HIV. Instead,
let's explore how this idea evolved, how it became so
popular in the world of conspiracy. The answer is simply this.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
It's one thing.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's operation infection, like you said, Matt with a K,
which makes it sound way cooler. But okay, so you
introduced this to this concept, but what is operation infection?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Well, has a several other names. By the way, we
should just mention here. There's forward two there's Operation Denver
by the way forward two. You may also find vorwartz
v O r w a ar t S two. You'll
you'll find that if you begin searching around this Operation Infection,
it was just a classic KGB move, one of these
(16:35):
disinfo productions, you know, disinformation. We've talked about it before
on this show, and it bears all the hallmarks of
their objectively top notch approach to information warfare. And when
you started diving into this, you're just you it's weird.
This feels very callous. But you begin to after seeing
this for so you know, so many times, you begin
(16:56):
to have an appreciation of it in some weird way
of like, oh okay, guys, I see you, I see
what you're doing. But let's just jump into this. And
that sounds callous, why, I promise I don't mean it
that way.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
The Russian government, okay, the Russian government has been doing
this for a long long time, way before the rise
of HIV.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Oh yes, yeah, they have. You know.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's the thing.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
It's it's like you got to respect the hustle, you
know what I mean. Like they put the work in,
they put the time in, the idea that you one
can labor for ten thousand hours on something and then
become a genius is a myth, but this you could
tell that the practice made perfect here. They didn't just
(17:42):
come up with information warfare in the eighties. The first
Office entirely dedicated to propaganda and disinfo on the Russian
side and possibly in the world, is older than the
KGB itself in nineteen twenty three. The GPU, it's the
(18:02):
predecessor to the KGB, kind of like how the OSS
here in the States is the predecessor to the CIA. Anyway,
in nineteen twenty three, the GPU was already rolling along
full steam ahead, and the etymology of the word disinformation
itself proves how far into the game these folks were.
(18:23):
Oddly enough, you know, Russian and English very different languages,
but by the rise of the Second World War, the
word disinformation had been invented independently in both Russian and
English to describe information warfare. And when the KGB got
into the game, when they became a real thing officially
(18:43):
in the nineteen fifties, this meant that disinformation was already
a tremendously important tool in their active measures doctrine. Active measures,
by the way, is just a euphemism. Think of it
more like the art of political warfare. They were linking
manipulation the front groups that we've talked about before, they
were counterfeiting documents and currency. And then of course even
(19:07):
when it was necessary or I guess maybe when they
had a bad day, they would practice wetwork assassinations.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, this kind of thing a lot of times feels
like a smoke screen so that other operations can occur. Right,
So you can mislead your opponent in some way into
believing one thing when you're actually doing another. And if
you do it effectively enough, you can still do the
one thing because your opponents will think that you are
(19:36):
trying to deceive them by talking or putting information about
out about the one thing. It's it's it's fascinating. The
game involved with all of this, the game that they
play with lives across the world, is fascinating, if not horrifying.
So let's talk about the Cold War throughout all of it.
(19:58):
The you know, the Soviets really just excelled in creating
tension between their opponents and their friends. So the opponent's friends, right,
does that make sense? The Allies that the people who
are supposed to be on one side, but if you
can foment some kind of tension between those allies, they
(20:20):
are no longer as strong as they once were. And
in particular, they love this thing called quote black propaganda,
and this was crafting, making up really damaging stuff, information
that we would be put out about an ally, let's say,
which purported to be from an ally. Right, So if
Russian propaganda would exist, and it would look as though,
(20:43):
let's say England was putting out some information about the
United States, when in fact it is actually a Soviet message, right.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, I mean, even for a microcosmic example,
you could imagine, let's just take let's just take Matt
Noel and Ben and say like, well, we'll pick one
of those podcasters to be Russia. Then they if they
wanted to break down cooperation between the other two, then
(21:13):
they would say they wouldn't say hey I think this
about I think this person thinks this about you. They
would say, hey, I got the I recovered this and
it's about you, and I wanted to share it with you.
The Russians did this on a global level. One example
would be Operation Neptune in nineteen ninety four, they attempted
(21:34):
to use these forged documents to imply that Western politicians
had supported the Nazis. But the important part here, the twist,
is that they didn't say they were declassified Soviet documents.
They came from somewhere else, and the Russians happened to
find them. Excuse me, Sylviet government happened to find them.
And so now it was ethical to spread this sort
(21:54):
of thing and to because really it's an attack, it
just doesn't use bullets. And there are a lot of
other cases too, like the USSR was working actively of
course during this Cold War, Right, they're working actively to
discredit the US government internationally, not that it always needed
a lot of help with that, and to discredit it
to its domestic population. Again, not that it always needed
(22:18):
much help with that either. I don't want to sound
too cynical. We just have to remember, like during this time,
there were massive domestic protests, right, there was a lot
of unhappiness in the international sphere regarding unilateral actions of
the United States. So there's a pretty compelling chicken or
the egg argument, right, was were these programs stoking flames
(22:41):
that already existed? Were they starting new fires, but they
did things like oh, evidence emerged that the US supports apartheid,
things like that, And so in the early days of
the AIDS crisis, the KGB saw a golden once in
an intelligent agencies lifetime kind of opportunity.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah. Around the year nineteen eighty three, there is, I
guess one of the first known examples that you can
kind of point to when you're looking through this stuff.
There was an Indian pro Soviet paper. It carried an
anonymous letter from a quote well known American scientist. Huh
oh okay oh, well known American scientist obviously, and this
(23:22):
person who was quoted in this paper claimed that AIDS
had been developed in a secret bio lab in Fort
Dietrich within the United States. And of course, you know,
you begin there with a little seed basically, right, scientists
that we can't verify because it would put their life
(23:42):
at risk, exactly. So you've got that little seed nineteen
eighty three. Then only two years later, in nineteen eighty five,
there's a retired biophysicist named doctor Jacob Siegel. He claims
that the AIDS virus was synthesized by combining parts of
other viruses retroviruses in this case the VISNA or VISNA
(24:04):
and the HTLV one. And you know, we talked about
how the Soviets were using again not unlike the United
States or any other large power. They were using fronts
to report, like fronts where they could kind of seed
a story in or something, and then those fronts would
(24:25):
report on that story. So they would all these fronts
all over the world started reporting about this thing. They
would talk about the Seagull report, this person who has
come forward to let us know about the ADS virus
and how it was created rather than how it had evolved.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, and here's an example. We don't have to read
this whole excerpt, but we wanted to sum up what
it's saying so you get a sense of it. This doctor,
this retired biophysicist. You mentioned Matt Siegel in his report,
which was treated kind of like the way, Well, anytime
politically you hear a report and it's just the name
(25:03):
of the report is the last name of someone, kind
of like the Miller report, Well that's not science. Anytime
you hear that. It's kind of a currency created. It's
a nickname created so that people can circulate it more easily.
And it's super recognizable because that's the rule of media, right,
make it one or two words, preferably yep. So the
(25:26):
single report says no relation to Steven Sagall, by the way, unfortunately,
says quote, it's very easy using genetic technologies to unite
two parts of completely independent viruses. But who would be
interested in doing this? The military, of course. And then
they say, in nineteen seventy seven, a top security lab
(25:46):
was set up at the Pentagon Central Biological Laboratory, and
then one year after that, the first cases of AIDS
occur in the US in New York City. So the
timeline then implies nineteen seventy eight, how it occurred, how
it managed to get out of the secret, hush hush
laboratories easy to understand. And they say this following quote,
everyone knows the prisoners are used for military experiments in
(26:08):
the US. They promise their freedom if they come out
of the experiment alive. Interesting, now we should note that
Siegel himself, doctor Jacob Siegel, was presented as a French researcher,
but he was definitely he.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Was a German guy.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
They were just trying to sort of make it one
more remove from the Soviet government. And unfortunately there's some
truth in some of these statements. US does have secret biolabs,
the US did experiment on prisoners, like, none of that
stuff was made up, Just this instance of that happening.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, and you know, the report blew up. At least
for back in the day. It couldn't go viral on
the Internet because it wasn't really you couldn't do that yet,
but it did go viral as far as coverage and
rumor and people talking about this. By nineteen eighty seven,
it received coverage in eighty countries in thirty languages, this
(27:05):
Seagull report, and that spread it just it followed this
fashion that we've seen before. It's something that continues that
we you know, kind of continue to see. Well, let's
let's just keep going here. The story appeared in a
publication from outside the USSR, right, so it's not us,
it's just it's over there. Right. Then it was presented
(27:25):
as investigative work within the Soviet media, right, so it's
like we were investigating this thing, this report that's been
out there that now we're looking at, uh, look what
we found, right right.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Right, Look at this Look what we found. It's crazy right,
but we feel it is our ethical duty to report
it and furthermore, you know, join us and asking why
the United States won't answer these strong and disturbing allegations.
And this is a smear tac that you've seen probably
in the world of celebrity as well, where it's like,
(28:06):
you know, I didn't say it, but some people say, Okay,
who's our celebrity we pick on today.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Matt, let's go with Paul Rubins. No, no, no, Conan O'Brien.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Conan O'Brien. Oh man, Okay, all right, So this hypothetical example,
and I'm sorry, I'm sorry mister Rubens that you lost
to Conan here in this hypothetical example, you would see
something in the media like, well, you know, I didn't
say it. There are a lot of reports there are
(28:44):
some people are saying and have been saying, that ConA
and O'Brien breaks into preschools and steals children's shoes and
that he's he's using them to decorate a wall of
of his attic And uh, you know, I'm not saying
it's true. I'm saying a lot of people are saying it,
(29:06):
but I think it's interesting that he's never denied the allegation.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
And you know what, earl, I won't even come out
and talk about it. Have you noticed that?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, exactly exactly. It's like, well, why aren't they responding?
And this is disturbing because you know, it works really
well if people are already, if they already have some
pre existing beliefs. Right, if someone, for some terrible reason
ever watched Conan O'Brien, who is a fantastic guy, and thought, yeah, guy,
(29:37):
looks it looks like steal shoes, and they especially, yeah,
they heard that report, they would be like, wow, he
never he never denied it.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I knew it.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I knew I was right. And we're we're having fun
with that example. But the mechanics are sound. That happens
all the time. The Soviet Party also focused special attention
on the car continent of Africa and Radio Moscow, which
is pretty much exactly like Voice of America or something.
Radio Moscow said the US was deliberately infecting people with
(30:09):
disease under the guise of free vaccination projects, and there's
you know, tremendous distrust the vaccination projects in a lot
of the world, especially when they're sponsored by Western powers
or Western pharmaceutical companies. That's a story for another day though,
because there's some sand to it in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I don't know if you agree with me.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
There, Oh yeah, actually, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
There's some sand to it. Okay, So we've got to
write that episode down for the future. But we're going
to take a pause. We'll have a word from our sponsor,
and when we return, we're going to see what happened
to Operation Infection.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And we're back, so.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Just to be clear, what was the purpose of Operation Infection.
We understand the strategy of this conspiracy, and it is
a conspiracy and it was effective, but what, like, what
was the what was why? Why were they doing this?
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That's a great question because on the surface it doesn't
seem to make a ton of sense, but if you
look at a bigger picture, it does appear to have
two purposes. The first one is just to discredit the
United States in any way that they could and to
you know, make the United States, the civilians within the
(31:36):
United States maybe feel just a little bit more, if
not a lot bit more, worried that their government isn't
telling them the truth. And the second purpose there is
to shift attention away from Russia's own very real chemical
and bioweaponry research, the real scary stuff that was happening
(31:57):
in Russian research laboratories, in the United States laboratories, and
probably a bunch of other places too.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
M yeah, well said. And this leads us to another question.
An elephant in the room here, an elephant in the
red room here is how do we know about this today?
It was so top secret? Right, how did we figure
this out? Are we secretly Russian disinfo agents? Well, there
is a tragic turn of events that leads to the
(32:26):
revelation of this. Here's what happens. Russia was actually really
successful convincing people across the planet that HIV was not
only manufactured, but that the US was responsible. And part
of the reason they were so successful is because they
didn't make up the disease itself. It was and is
(32:46):
a real medical condition, and it was spreading unchecked, and
eventually the bill came due the disease arrived on Russian soil.
So in the mid to late nineteen eighties, Soviet researchers
are asking their American colleagues for help fighting this virus.
(33:07):
Their request gets denied. Not only is it denied, but
their American colleagues say, look, we're not going to help
you at all and will never help you unless you
stop this disinformation operation, at which point, you know, of course,
the Soviet researchers are like, hey, I'm not in charge
of that. That's the that's the you know, that's the KGB,
(33:28):
I check samples. I don't know how much policy influence
you think I have. But they were at an impasse,
and the Gorbachev administration tried to prevent the US from
exposing this, right, from tracing these things like the Cigar
Report back to its ultimate creators in the USSR. But
(33:51):
HIV infections continued to grow in Russia or in the
Soviet Union excuse me, and eventually the Gorbachev administry disowns
the project entirely in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
But only two years, only two years after that report
the Seagull Report.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Right, right, So it blew up and then it collapsed,
but people didn't admit what was going on for a
few more years.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
That's right. It wasn't until nineteen ninety two that Yevgeny Primakov,
he was at the time the director of the Foreign
Intelligence Service, he came forward. He confirmed for everyone that
the KGB had in fact created and perpetuated this myth.
They their hands were all over it. And you know, again,
nineteen ninety two is quite a while, like seven years
(34:40):
after that initial report, but still it is so strange
to think about how many minds were touched by this
concept and how it spread both on a wide arena,
but then also you know, within small communities kind of
whispering to to each other because this wasn't This isn't
(35:02):
the kind of thing you just go out and you
just start telling everyone, and it was. I I imagine
that it was known it would be a whisper campaign
after the initial push, or at least it feels that way.
It really is fascinating to think about this being orchestrated though.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, word of mouth for almost anything. Word of mouth
is such a powerful medium of transmission, and it's a
powerful medium of belief. As human beings, you know, most
of us are driven to seek harmony of some sort
with our peer groups. And part of the way we
(35:41):
seek harmony with each other is through agreeing on things.
It's a different drive, Like there are some who only
want to I guess feel like they're dominating a social circle,
but most people tend to want to seek harmony through
being able to look at their close associates and friends
and say, yeah, not only do we know what's going on,
(36:02):
but we all agree on it, you know what I mean.
So if someone you like or are close to is
telling you something, depend on how they tell it to you,
you're going to eventually start to shift toward their ideology.
It's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Fascinating is the right word, because what we found here
is Operation Infection, whatever you want to call it, is
a genuine conspiracy to create a fake conspiracy. It's a
Matroshka doll of schemes within schemes. And I love that
you've brought up the very short span of time that
(36:36):
elapsed here. But here's the thing. Even after these people
are like caught redheaded in a nineteen nineties the government
officially admits it was a thing, but the damage was
already done. Because another thing about our species is we
like our incorrect, like our red meat headlines and sensational stuff.
(36:57):
We like it big slapped on the front page in
a headline, maybe with some exclamation marks. I don't know.
We'll style on it. We'll see how it feels in
the print shop, but we saved the corrections for like
the back of page twelve two weeks later, because no
one reads them. No one really wants to, you know
what I mean. You got the headline, you got your opinion.
You're pretty much done. As we said, in the US,
(37:20):
this virus was predominantly affecting in the early days. It
was predominantly affecting as far as the experts could see,
African American communities and people in LGBT communities. These two
groups have been historically discriminated against and victimized. So it
is a damning condemnation of American society that this idea
(37:43):
didn't seem impossible. You know, people would look around and say, well,
think about all the other things the government has done
to attack these communities in the past. We know those
things happened, and we know that science keeps evolving at
a breakneck pace. So it's kind of like shrug dot gif.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah. It it definitely seemed to make sense, especially at
the time given the pasture, right. I mean, you could
almost imagine it being oh, well, hey, this disease was
created by the government to wipe these populations out. Basically,
you could you can imagine why people would at least
(38:21):
be open to that idea. And the other big problem
here was that, you know, at the time, the presidential administration,
the whole White House structure, if you will, all of
the people there, they were not tackling it had on it.
You know, it was a known thing, especially if you
were living in one of the community's communities that was
(38:43):
being ravaged by the by HIV and AIDS. It was
very much well known and it was a terrifying thing.
But there wasn't It didn't feel like a ton was
being done about it, and there really wasn't much being
done about it at the time, at least early on.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, that's a good point because the initial government and
activity was you know, if you're coming from that space, right,
you believe in this, then what seems to be a
lack of activity in the public sphere on the government's
behalf is just another another piece of proof right at
that point, I mean, people are not people are not idiotic, right,
(39:21):
We have to remember that people people then are just
as smart as people today, and they have all the
same failings and all the same triumphs. So we can
understand where this is coming from. And this operation. Infection
didn't last that long, but its effects are still with us.
A two thousand and five study published in the Journal
of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome showed that fifty percent of African
(39:45):
American people surveyed believed that AIDS is quote a man
made virus, and fifteen percent thought there was a form
of genocide against against black people in general. And like itself,
this KGB crafted conspiracy theory mutated beyond its original state
(40:07):
because it was it was out in the wild. You know,
if you don't already trust the government, why would you
trust their official statements of any sort. Right, So this,
once it gets in the wild, once it gets in
the field, this theory that the US made HIV starts
to mix with other things, even things that seemed kind
of contradictory, like AIDS denihilism, which was huge at the time.
(40:29):
You know, it was like it's a misunderstood things, sort
of like five G and COVID. Nowadays, I would say for.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
A parallel yeah, interesting, just because there wasn't enough people
didn't have enough working information or working knowledge of it.
It felt as though it couldn't be real or it
was not real, and there were so many other stories
still today actually that roll around about the origins of
(40:55):
HIV and AIDS, and I think it is one of
those things that once you have enough, once you can
get enough people to question the official story, then all
of the other stories out there begin to be a
possibility for someone who's already disbelieving. I don't know it
(41:16):
just yeah, it makes sense, and you can kind of
see it at work with so many things now, like
in today's zeitgeist of just our disbelief at official stories
or disbelief of official stories.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent agreed, And there you have it.
You know, that is why people genuinely believe the US
government created HIV. It tragically jibs with past atrocities, It
mixed with other adjacent or existing conspiracies, and some of
the world's foremost experts on information warfare just pushed it through.
(41:55):
And again, I I hate to say it, but just objective,
if you look at the at the structure that they implemented,
their hustle is top notch. As you said, I mean, today,
it is important to remember there's still unanswered questions about HIV,
but it is luckily no longer a death sentence, and
(42:16):
scientists are working continually to improve the treatments available.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah, and if you look on the other side of
that coin, you realize that disinfo agents masters people who've
been doing this for a long time. They don't stop.
They'll you know, there's a project that may end, or
one campaign that may end, but the people who are
very good at this will continue to be doing this.
And they do because they every time they attempt a campaign,
(42:41):
you'll learn a little something about how well it worked,
how well it didn't work, and what you can take
away from it, and things like operation infection can then
get applied to something new. Let's say current events. Let's
talk about the twenty twenty election that's you know, about
to happen. Well, think about the previous election in twenty
(43:02):
sixteen and the manipulation that occurred there. You know, and
there are people here listening that don't believe any kind
of manipulation occurred. There are people here who one thousand
percent know that manipulation occurred from Russia during the twenty
sixteen presidential election in the United States. And it is
(43:22):
very interesting to see that divide of you know, our
own disbelief or fervent belief in something that either did
or didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Right right, And you would think that you would think
that the proliferation of instantaneous communication, social media and the
Internet would finally smash all the you know, relatively like
disgusting gatekeeping of information sources that existed beforehand. But unfortunately
(43:54):
that is not the case. Make no mistake nineteen fifty
nineteen eighty, that was nothing. We are in the golden
age of information warfare and things like this. Just like
you've heard experts predict pandemics in the future, this is
another kind of global situation. There will be more things
like Operation Infection. They will get better. Just like in
(44:18):
the Terminator movies when the first androids were easy to spot,
these new propaganda projects are going to get closer and
closer to seeming like the real thing. The difference, the
important difference, is that they are not real. They are
being used to control you, to make you comply with
the behaviors you would not accept, or to make you
(44:40):
do things you ordinarily wouldn't do. And on that note,
we have to ask for your help, fellow conspiracy realists.
What are other propaganda operations proven or alleged that you
think your fellow listeners should learn more about.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
And you may be asking yourselves, Hey, guys, how do
you even know that Operation Infection was real and actual
disinformormation campaign. Well, it's an It's interesting that you ask that,
because one of the main reasons I believe it is
true is because on the CIA dot gov website there
is an entry about it. There are some materials you
can look at, So if you search Operation Infection on
(45:16):
CIA dot gov you can see that. Now I'm just
gonna use my own logic here. Why Why would the
CIA want to put out information about a propaganda campaign
from an opposing at least at the time, in opposing superpower. Hmmm,
(45:37):
Now my wheels are turning even further. I hadn't thought
about it in this way until we started this episode.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
I'm on the edge of my se What is it?
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Just the concept that the CIA would want you to
think that Russia is putting out all kinds of disinformation
campaigns or the Soviet Union at the time, so that
maybe you don't think about or you dismiss the United
States originating propaganda campaigns that are going around to disinformation campaigns.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Yeah, I love it, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
I'm just trying to figure out where I am within
the net of propaganda.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, because you know, it makes like for a visual analogy.
It makes me think of maybe two street musicians on
opposite sides of the street or on stages that are
facing one another, and they're both trying to get attention
from the same audience, or they're trying to direct attention
from the same audience, like look what that joker is doing.
(46:38):
Don't look at what my hands are doing, you know
what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh wow, that's that's depressing,
which means it's probably has a seat of truth in.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
It, right.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
But you can also find it on the Guardian in
New York Times and on you know, the website beyond.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Video a video you can learn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And we want to hey, if you think Operation Infection
was a hoax, think it's a CIA cover up for
the truth, let us know too. We would always rather
learn the truth than be comfortable feeling right about something.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Absolutely, So you can find us, and more importantly, you
can find your fellow listeners in our communities on Facebook,
on Instagram, and on Twitter. We especially love to recommend
here's where it gets crazy over on Facebook where you
can hang out with us and some of the best
mods in the moderating business. So shout out to you
(47:38):
all as well.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
That's right. All you need to know is I think
the host names still and you can get in and
start talking about all the episodes, suggest some new ones,
post some memes, whatever you want to do. It's fun.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
And you know we always say yes, name name one
or all of the hosts. But if you would like,
you can just make us laugh. That'll probably get you in.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Absolutely people have been following that direction in our voicemail
messages that they've been leaving us. You can right now
call our number. It is one eight three three std WYTK.
You can leave up to a three minute message, and
I am very happy to report that both Ben and
I will be listening for sure, and Noel also has
(48:26):
the information now too, So we might all be listening
to your messages and you might get a call. You
might just just know that your words will enter our ears.
Oh oh, it sounds weird.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Matt, I'd like to do an impromptu shout out if
please okay, I would like to give a shout out
to Matthew B.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
You know who you are.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Matthew B who called in to say that one of
his other favorite conspiracy shows has a has a host
named Matthew and one as a host named Ben, and
he thinks it is conspiracy, not a conspiracy theory, but
(49:09):
a conspiracy that he has something some things in common
with us, name wise, do you remember that one?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I do remember that one, Yes, Susan Ben. He's like,
oh which Matt and Ben? Okay, Yeah, that's really great.
Also had somebody calling in asking about the squirrel population
and coronavirus. I don't know if you get to hear
that one yet, Ben, but it was a very adamant
listener asking about whether or not the squirrels. I think
(49:39):
it's around the Chicago area where for some reason being
affected by coronavirus because they this person hadn't seen any
squirrels all spring. Oh wow, I haven't been able to
find anything. But if you out there are listening and
you have some information about squirrels and where they're, where
they are right now, let us know they're here in Atlanta.
(50:01):
I was looking at some earlier today in my backyard.
But you know who knows.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
And if you think social media is not the place
for that squirrel you know, for the hard hitting squirrel reporting.
If you think that a voicemail doesn't give you enough
time you only have three minutes to fully air out
your thoughts, then never worry. We have one way that
you can always always contact us, Rain or Shine, Collapse
(50:27):
of civilization notwithstanding, you can reach us twenty four to
seven at our good old fashioned email address.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't
(50:55):
want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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