June 14, 2019 • 51 mins
When most people think of pyramids, we imagine the pyramids of Egypt -- but they're by no means the only example of this ancient architecture. In this episode, the guys explore more stories of strange, lesser known pyramids, concentrating on the increasingly bizarre claims of pyramids hidden in the planet's northern climes, from Alaska to Antarctica.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Welcome back
(00:24):
to the show. My name is Matt nol is here
in spirit they call me Ben. We are joined as
always with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decad Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. For a check in, Matt,
I know usually I ask, I ask you first, but
(00:47):
I just want to say, after interject, I am so
glad to see you man. Yeah, it's been too long.
It has been we uh, you know, for any of
you that don't know out there, let's just give him
a little bit hind the curtain. We record three times
a week this show, so we we usually have a
time like time to be together in a room talking,
(01:08):
catching up before recording and everything and uh and has
been notes all the time. We are friends outside of
this magical darkened room where we record. Yea, so not
having that has been uh, it's it's not been great.
So it's also happy to see you, sir, thanks man,
it feels a good Yeah, yeah, I was. Um, let's see,
(01:30):
Paul and I were in Texas and then we're in
Chicago for a second, and I am hopefully by the
time all our fellow listeners hear this, I will have
returned from Brussels. Wow, that's cool. I'm going there tomorrow
as we record this. Oh my gosh. And now now
(01:54):
with all that update, all that prool, like I have
to ask how are how are you doing? Man? Almost
almost almost sent you some prank text it was at
the Alamo, but decided against it. Oh Man, I would
have accepted. Uh, I'm doing really well. You know, everything
in my life is focused on my son, and we're
doing this thing where every morning he makes a picture
(02:16):
of a letter and then we talked about what that
letter is, and then the whole day is about that letter.
So like walking around going to the grocery store, pointing
out things that are like start with b uh. It's
so it's so much fun. And uh yeah, the whole
thing was my wife's idea. And she's so talented and
smart about doing these kind of things. She makes every
day unique and exciting for my son's h It's really great.
(02:38):
That's that's what's going on with me. Ben. That's great.
I want to ask you how you're doing personally and
what's going on, but I have a feeling you would
respond no comment. Okay, So let's go ahead. Let's go
ahead and get into the episode. Everyone. We're talking pyramids today, right, Yes, pyramids.
(02:58):
Pyramids some of the oldest known structures built by human
beings so far as we know. And uh, these structures
have also captivated human beings. Uh, not not just in
the recent days when they're seen as mysterious and enigmatic,
but during the times that they were built, right, and
especially coming across Let's say you're walking along a river.
(03:22):
You're following a river in exploration of some kind, and
out in the distance you see something towering and it
has sharp angles to it, which you don't find anywhere
in nature. And as you get closer, you realize how
large this structure is. It's not just the mountain in
the middle of the desert. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating to
(03:42):
put ourselves back in space and time. In a previous episode,
we explored these stories of pyramids in other parts of
the world, which is a real it's a real thing.
You know what I mean, Like one of the early
as pyramids we know about would be the zig Rats
(04:04):
in Mesopotamia. Right, They don't get a lot of street credit.
You know, a lot of people never heard of Mesopotamia
until Ghostbusters came out in the eighties. No, no, no,
maybe the Exorcists to be fair, because isn't Pozuzoo Maybe
(04:25):
pezuzos Samarian. It all sounds familiar. It all sounds familiar, right.
So in that episode, we we explore what pyramids are
getting to the architecture of the structures, how they're typically
built and so on, and we talked about how there
are multiple different kinds of pyramids, right, and this this
(04:46):
reminded me of a conversation that it's a little tangential,
but I thought you would enjoy. I saw one of
those Internet hypotheticals right when it was it hypothetical questions
your friends post on the Internet, and it said, Okay,
here's the gist. If someone gave you ten million dollars
right now, cash in hand, with the following caveats, would
(05:09):
you take the money. Here are the caveats. One, a
snail will follow you for the rest of your life.
Two if the snail touches you, you will die. And
then there were a couple of other snail related things.
My first question with that was, well, what type of snail?
Because not all you know, when we see the word snail,
(05:29):
we all think of like the same um crenulated shell
and the you know, the like living booger that crawls
around under it. But there are different sorts of snails,
and there are different sorts of pyramids. So the thing
that is interesting about this for our purpose is that
there's so many misconceptions about pyramids, right. Uh. People think
(05:51):
when we think of a pyramid, we think of the
angular structure you're describing. I love that moment you took
us back to where there's someone maybe living um a
hunter gatherer lifestyle or something, and they're they're walking along
the river and then they see the seat of human
civilization breathtaking and they don't get immediately killed by the
(06:12):
security forces or of some kind, right right, or the
crocodiles or the other wildlife. Yes. Uh, so when we
think of pyramids, we think of pyramids in Egypt, located
in uh northern Africa. It's all because of the movie Stargate,
(06:33):
just completely because of the movie Star, which is an
amazing documentary. It is. Uh So it's strangely because as
we found there are pyramids and other parts of the world,
right they're they're not just in Egypt. We in our
previous episodes we found them in South America. We are
(06:54):
we knew that they were in South America where we
also found them in Africa, parts of Asia. Um. I mean,
it's it's fascinating, and we keep talking about this because
anytime we bring up pyramids, you just get back to
the question of why, Like why, why the heck why
did you do with that? Like what is it? Why?
Why did you do that? Yeah, that's my favorite part too,
(07:16):
you know, like obelisk, yes are weird. Remember when we
went to uh we went up to d C and
we filmed some stuff about the Washington Monument. Yes, which,
once upon his time was going to be you know,
a statue of George Washington, but now it's you know,
it's this ridiculously phallic thing you can crawl up inside
(07:37):
of and reach the top. Yeah. Man, the tip. I
don't know that's what it's all about. But but really
the just that that um, that concept is still baffling
to me. UM with all the varying types like you're
talking about the zigger outs, the you know, the more
angular pyramids, the stepped pyramids, all these things. It's just, um,
(08:00):
they're so symbolic, and I think outwardly symbolic of something
to have that shape. It also goes back to, you know,
the construction process of you know, building up in that
way right, right, But still it's just I don't know,
there's something so mysterious about it. It's true, yet we
(08:20):
know that we know that the primary purposes of pyramids
and pyramid like structures I would also include baby mounds
in the North American continent. We know that the primary
purposes tended to be spiritual or funereal. Right, these are
gigantic tombs taj Mahal style, or these are in the
(08:45):
case of some zigarettes, holy sites, sacred sites of worship
wherein rituals are enacted. At least that's our best understanding
from the work of archaeology and our right the work
of some brilliant archaeologists and then also the work of
some uh just morally bankrupt ones back in the day.
And then that's you know, like the the racism that
(09:08):
gave rise later first to the idea of law civilizations,
and then later to the idea of extraterrestrials. Because the
people and for we have to hit this fact. The
people who wrote a lot of early early stories about
discovering these different amazing structures in different parts of the world,
(09:30):
they they were somehow, on some level offended by the
idea that the ancestors of the local people could have
built those. So there you have it. We know that
that's the that's the craziest thing. We know that pyramids,
despite being ancient, the ancient pyramids and structure as we
(09:51):
talked about, remain controversial today, not just because of the
institutionalized discrimination and stuff, but also because people continue to
claim that they have discovered more ancient pyramids thanks to
Google Earth. May don't you know I love Google Earth
and Light Are I know that's true? We will will?
(10:12):
We all do. They are amazing tools. It just it
gives an opportunity to at least search from behind a
computer screen the entire planet for things that look angular
or out of place or you know, square, rectangular, right.
And it's not to say that these things don't exist
somewhere in the world, because in many parts of the world,
(10:34):
the surrounding ecosystem will eat everything made by man, you
know what I mean. You can build something in a
jungle and it can just for all intents and purposes,
it can vanish. And I think you know, you and
I probably both still check in to see how many
new ruins or ancient sites are found just in the
(10:56):
Amazon alone. There's a ton. Uh So, so we know
that these things do exist, but we also know that
there's a lot of exaggeration and a lot of hyperbole
involved in these claims. Generally, these discoveries become controversial for
one reason or another, and it's not it's not a
(11:17):
case of you know, someone pretending to be a scientist
a line or selling snake oil, as is so often
the case in a lot of scientific research. The scientists,
the archaeologist, the experts. Uh. They say one thing, maybe
in a relatively obscure journal of some sort, and then
(11:38):
someone someone else says, hey, this would be a great
headline for my my blog, my my pop culture news thing,
right website, my French website. Sure, and then then all
of a sudden, what the scientists really we're saying gets
(12:01):
convoluted and telephoned into something different. And that's where we
get into these claims of ancient hitherto unknown civilizations, or
they try to find something that is a selling point
for a pyramid because in mainstream news or in fringe
websites just saying hey, here is a pyramid found that
(12:23):
confirms long held beliefs that this group of people lived
in this way you know, or this crop or etcetera, etcetera.
We want once some h perbole, you know, we want
some some superlatives like when you graduate high school. Well, yeah,
and the reader and or listener or whoever. I think
this is just my opinion, who wants to have that
(12:46):
discovery moment, that eureka moment where it's oh, civilization was older,
or civilization did exist in this part of the world,
or you know that that kind of I don't even
know exactly what it is. It's that it's a mystery
being solved, right, and you want that answer even if
(13:07):
it doesn't even if it's a question that you weren't
even really asking in that moment, but you see the
potential for this answer to a cool thing. I'm not sure. Yeah,
we like we like patterns and solutions. Yeah, we like
seeing uh, we like seeing the bridge between concept, day
and concept. The human beings are all about connection, right,
(13:29):
I think I think that's a think it's profoundly as
stupe man, because now we're talking about psychological drive and
so what what does this what does this drive mean
when we read about pyramids, Well, it means, like you said,
they're all these claims, uh that this is the oldest one.
(13:52):
Here's the biggest revelation that you're going to get with
regards to this whole thing, and we're gonna give it
to you right now, such as let's say it's let's
say it's and you're at the Independent and you get
a you know, a tip about some seashell constructions in
Brazil and you post it up and you put a
(14:15):
title that says something like world's oldest pyramids are discovered
in Brazil. But that's literally all you have to put
at the title. That's what they put, World's oldest pyramids
are discovered, Right, Because with this kind of reporting, people
love seeing an st an e s t the big
st the old st these strange st right. And so
(14:38):
when we when we see the world's oldest pyramid, we think,
what Brazil, That is definitely not Egypt. Uh So, so
the story with this is interesting because this is just
one of a pattern of um oldest pyramid claims. Right,
the Brazil Pyramids date back to two thousand BC, two thousand,
(15:03):
three thousand BC or BC, whatever you prefer, and the
construction techniques are different, because again, not every pyramid is
created equal. These are as you said, met built of seashells,
and they were built over a long period of time,
but four, I think, starting in maybe two or so,
(15:25):
about four years before the articles published, teams of researchers
based in the area had been trying to figure out
what was up with these things because they had been
um largely deconstructed, yes, or broken down, right, that's just
over through natural processes and stuff, or you know, destroyed.
(15:47):
And they were literally called in that article. The remnants
were called piles of ancient rubbish. Yeah exactly, Yeah, they were.
They were deliberately built. But while archaeologists estimate there used
to be a ton of them, a thousand pyramids, there's
(16:08):
some thousands and thousands of years old, only ten survive
in any recognizable way. Uh. They thought the structures were
a hundred and sixty ft high with bases that were
up to thirty seven acres, so this makes them much
(16:28):
bigger than the earliest examples in Egypt, not as high.
H and also they took a long long time to build,
so that's a claim, and that's that's a fairly reputable claim.
The one thing that makes it different when you really
think about pyramids in Egypt is that pyramids in Egypt
(16:49):
have survived in not the best condition. But as pyramids go,
their their top notch you know what I mean. Uh,
they are what fans of classic cars called all uh
cherry condition, right, yes, yeah, So unfortunately a lot of
the pyramids in Brazil are not like that. They don't
exist anymore. But now you can claim that's the this
(17:14):
is the oldest pyramid. Well yeah, And again, when you're
establishing the age of something like that, let's say the
primary construction is made of seashells. Um the mode of
determining the age of those is to then carbon date
somehow the the structure or whatever is made up of
(17:37):
those things. And if you're dealing with seashells, I guess
by carbon dating the shells themselves is how you get
that number or that range. But still, I there's so
much variance there. I guess that's why you have something
like some of these are two thousand, three thousand years old,
some of them are up to five thousand years old,
(17:57):
and those estimates to get so ballparky at some point,
you know, speaking of people. One could say, however, that
you know what, the margin on the margin on the
dating process here maybe pretty large, but it doesn't invalidate everything.
(18:17):
So sorry, Egypt, that's it. Brazil has what what we
now know as Brazil has the oldest pyramids. But this
was not the only claim for the oldest pyramid. The
debate continues today. We'll tell you more about it after
a word from our sponsors. We're back and we're going
(18:43):
to jump to a different part of the world in
a different time. Yes, so we were in the nineties,
and to be exact, let's jump to just a couple
of years ago. And in Kazakhstan. That's right, Matt. A
report came from an archaeologist working at the Kazakh National University,
(19:04):
A fellow named Victor novo Zenov uh This apologies for
the mispronunciation. There. He claimed that specialist working at the
saya Kinski Archaeology Institute in Karganda, Kazakhstan, led by a
guy named Igor Kukushkin, had discovered the world's oldest pyramid
in wait for it, Kazakhstan. There we go, there we go,
(19:28):
and that's another oldest pyramid and it's um. You know,
it's another one of these super captivating headlines, captivating stories.
The headline itself was world's oldest pyramid was found and
it's in Kazakhstan. That was from Nature World News, so
you know, slightly different publication, but still it's that same
kind of title that's just gonna get your attention. Um.
(19:52):
So it's believed to be built roughly a thousand years
earlier than some of the more prominent pyramids that are
found in Egypt. A thousand years before that is that's
pretty significant if if that's proven right. So, it's located
in this place called the Sarayaka Steps and uh, it's
near the city of Karganda. It's like three thousand nine
(20:16):
miles northeast of Cairo, Egypt. You know, that's that's a
long way. That's a comparison, really long way. Um. And
you know, it's similar in appearance to some of the
other pyramids that exists there the pyramid of Dojer or
Joe Josser. I don't know how to pronounce any of
those things. I'm sorry, but again it's uh, it's really interesting.
(20:38):
You can find the article on it if if you
go and look and um, you know, there's more you
can find here. It popped up on it popped up
in a couple of places in sixteen that you know,
Yahoo wrote about it. You can also find the statement
from novol Zenov who believes that this was This is
(21:01):
what they call a step pyramid, so it doesn't have
that complete um flat angle like a pyramidic gizer or something,
but he believes it was a mouslim built for a
local king. Still, the age of it seems legit, but
does that make it the oldest pyramid or structure of
(21:23):
this type? No, say researchers. In Indonesia. You see geophysicist
Danny Hillman not the witha. And again, thank you, thank
you to everyone who tuned into our episode on the
wrong manyak Rang manyak Uh and told us that if
(21:47):
our pronunciation was terrible, at least it was endearing and amusing.
So hopefully that's what we're going for here, folks. Improv rules, uh, Yeah.
This This geophysicist based on the Indonesian Institute of Sciences
analyzed a site called Gunung Padang in Java in Indonesia,
(22:07):
and they said that this this thing that people thought
was just a weird hill for a long long time
was actually a pyramid, and a very very old pyramid.
This is, by the way, one of the more well
researched claims at this point, which is not a ding
(22:28):
on the other pyramids. This is just to say that
the site in Indonesia and the team in Indonesia had
more time to spend and access to better tech. Yeah,
they did. They had ground penetrating radar and a couple
of other things. And they also took photographs of the
site and published them and made them available so that
(22:49):
you could see you could really see it rather than
just being you know, some text on a website somewhere
that always lends credibility. If you go to science alert
dot com, you can find some images, some aerial photographs
um that we're taken, and some like closer up to
the structures. It's it's really fascinating to see. Uh, I
(23:13):
don't know this one. This one gets me. This is compelling. Yeah,
this is compelling that this what's strange about this one
is that while it was presented in an academic setting,
I think on December twelve at the Annual Media in
the American Geophysical Union, it was still considered highly controversial.
(23:38):
But the research is compelling. You can you can read
it in depth if you just just check it out online.
It looks like there are four separate layers and they
were built over thousands of years. So the first layer,
(23:58):
the one that we would consider or the surface, looks
to be about three thousand, five hundred years old. The
second layer, however, it looks to be eight thousand years old.
And then they get to the really crazy stuff. This
is where it becomes super controversial, right. The third layer,
(24:18):
according to their estimate, is somewhere between nine thousand and
twenty eight thousand years old. Twenty eight thousand, I mean
maybe honestly, maybe maybe we just don't know yet, man,
But that seems a bit of a stretch. I mean,
(24:39):
it's pretty crazy if you look at it too. They've
got a an example of the layering. It shows you
all the different ones in the structure and how uh
how it looks, and that initial period, the initial layer
that you're talking about the one that's that has that
range of age. It is the most sharply angled um,
(25:00):
the most basic pyramid structure like part of the entire thing.
And you know, if that truly could have been built
even just at the minimum of that number nine thousand
years ago, that is so significant for humanity and the
history you know of of bipedal intelligent things walking around
(25:24):
on this earth. That's pretty dangn cool. I can't wait
to get to Indonesia one day, man. There's so much
history there that we just don't know about in the West,
you know. So one thing we do have to say
about this about this site is that when when I
mentioned that the research was considered controversial, I mean, it's
a ton of people are criticizing the teams conclusions and
(25:49):
their methods. They're they're very much going hard on the
pain with this. Right now, the presentations that they made
remain non peer reviewed, which is a big criticism by
their their opponents. But time will tell, right, the wheels
of archaeology grind slow but exceedingly fine, if we're paraphrasing,
(26:13):
And they've been at this since so it looks like
they're they're giving it a serious go and this is
not going to be the last ancient site that's found, right,
so we know that there may be even older stuff
out there. And the I you know, it's almost it's
(26:37):
almost the wrong way to phrase the question when we say,
let's search for the oldest man made thing, because there
are so many things we don't know. Let's just search
for all the old stuff. That's that's what we need
to do, right, because so much of it has already disappeared.
But this leads us to we had a long preamble here,
(27:00):
but this leads us to, uh something that anything captivated us.
You you hipped me to this matter. More and more
people have started to claim that Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Brazil,
that they have nothing on the true old structures, that
(27:20):
there are much much older pyramids out there in some
of the world's most remote locals. We always think of
Egypt when it comes to pyramids, But what about Alaska?
And we'll talk about that right after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy, it's true, fellow
(27:47):
conspiracy realist. In recent years, various groups have claimed pyramids
created by some unknown civilization can be found in both
Alaska and Antarctica. Now we've explored the Antarctic a theory
briefly before, yes we have. And but before you even
get into that, let's let's establish here just the concept
(28:08):
of uh general belief in how humanity began, you know,
in the fertile crescent um in in parts of Africa,
whereas euphrates exactly where the rivers, where where the water was,
where the um the land again was fertile, and people
(28:30):
could survive easy more easily, let's say, even though life
was a struggle, um. And then humanity spread out from there,
going to all corners of the earth over over the
course of time. Right. So when you introduce an idea
that perhaps there's an even older version of humanity that
(28:51):
existed in some other part of the world, um, that's
that's why it's such a controversial idea, because it goes
against the basic understandings that are that are generally accepted.
I see that's a good point, because you know, the
most popular theory for human human arrival on North and
(29:15):
South America as we call them today is the crossing
the Baring Straight via the bearing Land Bridge, which was
about twenty thou years ago. And I think. So the
issue with that is, for instance, there's a twenty eight
thousand year old pyramid and Indonesia. Uh. The the issue
with this idea of a pyramid in Alaska is how
(29:39):
is one of um pure resources and timeline right? Because
if you if you notice, a lot of these pyramids
that we've mentioned in other parts of the world are
built in more human friendly environments, you know what I mean.
So the idea of pyramids being built in these freezing areas,
(30:03):
it seems like something that would turn our understanding of
history completely on its head if this were true. So
what about antarcticle. Let's just do a quick Okay, we
talked about this for Chuck Out the other episode. If
you have time, and let's just say in nineteen you
know Tennis, the early nineteen tens, the teens there too. Uh,
(30:28):
some British explorers were hanging out in Antarctica. They were
looking around, going, this is a pretty desolate barren. I'm
not seeing much here until they saw rock, nice pointy rock,
and they said, hey, let's put this on our map.
It's a pyramid. Uh, it's the pyramid rock. It's a
type of pyramid. Um. Finally, that's what it is. Uh,
(30:51):
you know, it was probably some kind of natural formation
or you know, from shearing from ice or something. Jen. Really,
let's say that that's probably what it was. It isn't
necessarily exactly what it was or who knows what they found.
There may be a mystery out there in Antarctica still
with the old pyramid rock. Um, we haven't been able
(31:13):
to find it thus far, neither of us have been
to Antarctica. But that this, uh, let's call it a seed.
This concept of, oh, there's a pyramid on this map
of Antarctica. Somebody labeled that. That becomes a catalyst for
all kinds of stories. Right. Yes, some were admittedly fiction,
(31:34):
such as at the Mountains of Madness written by HP
Lovecraft in UH. Some were more rumor mill kind of
stuff reported as if they were true in newspapers. Right
and in the following decades, uh. But from two thousand
(31:55):
twelve to two thousand sixteen there was a new round
of rumors spreading, and they were based on photographs that
apparently showed some something, some geographical feature in Antarctica with
regular triangular sides. The kind of stuff that, to your
point met earlier in the show, would not occur in nature,
(32:19):
and so it was the argument about the face or
pyramid on Mars all over again. People on one end
we're saying this is true. Someone's covering this up. This
is stuff they don't want you to know. And then
there were other people saying, well, if we don't get
photographs of this thing at multiple angles, how do we
know this is not just a trick of perspective, which
(32:41):
is different from from immediately calling bs. It's just saying,
go back there, take more pictures. Yeah, let's let's verify.
What is it the old adage trust but verify? Yeah? Yeah, right,
And uh, it's funny because there were even more rumors spreading.
I think the uh the favorite is our our returning
(33:04):
a returning champion of our show, buzz Dr Rendezvous Al
Dren returned in this story because the thing in sixteen.
Towards the end of twenty sixteen, there was this rumor
that he posted a picture of this ice pyramid as
people were calling it and then said we are all
in danger, evil chev and then he rapidly deleted it. Yeah,
(33:25):
that was the rumor, That was the rumor. But what
if he really did that? How crazy would that be?
If Dr Rendezvous was like, look at this pyramid, they're
here too, Oh my god. Oh man, I don't know,
that would be that would be out of character for him. Yeah,
I really would. Oh gosh. That's because he's known sort
(33:48):
of as a you know, as someone who's trolled conspiracy
theorist before, or what he calls conspiracy theorists. But anyway,
so that's that's Antarctica at this point. Don't get us wrong.
There's a lot of very strange stuff that happens on
that continent, and it's part of the reason I think
(34:09):
that you and I want to go, and maybe we
can talk Paul into going with us. But he's had
some Iceland experience. I think maybe he would. He would
be fantastic as like a guide and a oh spiritual advisor.
I think, okay, yeah, Paul, can you come with us? Cool?
He says, yes, great, he's in Let us know. Also,
if you have been to Antarctica, we'd love to hear
(34:31):
your adventures. So Alaska, let's talk about this one. This
is this is a little more recent, and this is
a bit more enigmatic. According to a couple of people,
there's something strange buried in the ground about fifty miles
from Mount McKinley. Today, the most well known proponent of
(34:54):
this idea is a writer new ethologist named Linda Molton. Howe,
here's how this story starts. All right, travel back with
us to Anchorage in nineteen ninety two, this is just
for comparison, the same year that the Brazilian research team
(35:17):
began digging into the Seashell Pyramids. Yeah, same year, there
was a television news broadcast from Channel thirteen out of Anchorage,
and they had a segment about this discovery by geologist
another one more time scientists of an underground pyramid that
they said was many times the size of existing pyramids
(35:40):
in Egypt and specifically the Great Pyramid of Giza exactly.
So here's how it here's the rumor, here's how it
went out. So u s scientists were concerned about nuclear
tests being conducted underground by the government of China, so
they set up seismic equipment in Alaska to monitor this
(36:07):
possibility of nuclear testing. And keep in mind, just while
this is all happening, it's President George H. W. Bush
who in the White House, good call, good call. Uh.
This discovery, again was only allegedly reported and a scientist
getting a quarter. This is a campfire story. If you're listening, you, Matt, Paul,
(36:29):
and I were all gathered around a camp fire, So
let's use our campfire voices. So the next day, a
scientist visits the station, this Channel thirteen out of Anchorage,
and he says, could I get a copy of that video?
No such broadcast exists, they responded, and he was stonewalled.
(36:51):
Twenty years later, a retired military officer named Douglas A.
Muchler claimed to have seen this Channel thirteen report and
he gave this information to ufologists and investigative journalist Linda Malton,
how how confirmed the nuclear test, but seems to agree
(37:12):
with Mushler that there's more to the story. You see,
she believes that there is a pyramid and that any
information about it has been covered up by someone or
some organization thing something. Oh man, that's that's awesome. It's awesome.
(37:33):
Has even more fuel to the fire here, because you see,
it was also a video that came out apparently recently,
that that showed footage of this pyramid. Uh, that a
team of explorers stumbled upon. Right, but there are some
(37:55):
problems with the video too. Oh, there's certainly problems with
the video. My understanding is that has this thing it's
called text of voice, oh right, right right, where people
want to disguise their voices and accents or what what
have you, or just to be able to type something
anonymously and then have the computer vocalize it. Can you
do a computer voice to me? Uh? Mine would just
(38:16):
probably be misconstrued as Stephen Hawking. Oh, I see yeah.
I want to stay away from that one. Huh yeah. Yeah.
But it's a similar thing where it's a program that
is vocalizing the words there. But the I just want
to get this really fast because this is the most
mind bling thing for me with this whole story, this
campfire story there, because you know it mentions that this
(38:39):
this person, Linda how confirmed the nuclear test that China conducted, right, Well,
we we can also confirm that that occurred, or at
least there was reporting about it in places like the
New York Times, in the Chicago Tribune um in May
specifically of when China conducted a large test and the
(39:02):
signals or the vibrations from that test were registered throughout
the United States. Specifically, there a system of detection devices
that are all over the planet right right, and have
been since shortly after the invention of nuclear weapons. Yeah, so,
so that story itself has that it's that grain of
(39:24):
truth thing where when you're looking into a campfire story
like this, you begin to see the walls, they're illuminating.
You're like, oh, there, we're actually in a space. This
really does exist wherever this is or whatever this is.
But then you go looking a little bit further and
you get to that point where, um, Linda says, you know,
(39:47):
the the actual location of where this pyramid is though,
has been secreted away. It's been covered up. And then
it goes back to your original question when we're talking
about pyramids in general, the question your motive why cover
this up? Why this guy's is it? Is it perhaps
a sacred site for local cultures, or is it a
(40:10):
site that is considered unclean for some reason. The problem
with with both of those claims is that other holy
places throughout the world have almost always become tourist destinations,
and you can make money off of those things, and
that's nice, but here's the thing. Yes, Hound Alaska, where
(40:33):
it was located, I'm not gonna get tourism out there.
Probably you've got to build a bunch of civilization first,
or maybe someone already did. That's the argument, right, that's
the argument. So it is true, though you're absolutely right
that there wasn't just one test in There was a
(40:54):
test on the twenty one of May, a test on
the twenty five September, and a failed test on November two,
all in the same year. So this this was extensive testing.
But the one you had mentioned in the New York
Times article, it's true that was the largest underground test
the government of China had taken at that time. So
(41:17):
it is true. But the problem here is that there's
very little indication of a pyramid in Alaska from anybody
other than these sources that we've named. It does lead
us to something interesting that we we had never covered before,
(41:37):
which was the existence of a Bermuda triangle in Alaska,
the Alaska and Bermuda Triangle. This is the kind of
thing that a lot of more mainstream television producers love.
You know, you can see I'm sure you can find
a cheesy episode about this. But but just so that
everyone has the concept, maybe we can explore this and
(42:00):
if there's more sent to it later. Uh, there is
this belief that much like the Devil's Triangle in the
Pacific or the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic, Alaska has
its own triangle in which people disappear. Uh. It's an
(42:21):
area sparsely, very sparsely populated wilderness. It's very cold, it's
a inhospitable location. Wild animals abound, right. And this this
triangles thought to stretch from Barrow, Alaska in the north,
which I think was popularized in Thirty Days of Night,
(42:41):
to Anchorage in south at the left, all the way
down to Juneau. And it's different because it largely goes
over land right, rather than ocean. Maybe there's a bay
or two that it crosses, you know, And in this
case it's it's generally just I think one of the
concepts here is that it's generally forest areas, it's mountain areas.
(43:05):
There's a lot, there's a lot of it's very cold,
there's a lot of ice, there's a lot of snow,
there's a lot of all of these things that are
somewhat inhospitable for humans. Right and within this triangle area
um in the center of at least before you get
out to the edges, and you know, a lot of
the claims that have to do with the Devil's Triangle,
(43:28):
Music Triangle and all these things. They have to do
with a lot of magnetic anomalies. A lot of times
they have to do with weather patterns that occur within
those spaces. Um and you could at least you can
imagine something occurring here. We're in this some it's not
desolates just uh, it's not a place where a lot
(43:49):
of humans gather and have all of their stuff, right.
I think we should do an episode on this in
the future. Well, I think so too, because the disappearances
that have occurred over this little triangle with in Alaska
there are there are many, and they're pretty frightening. Since
more than sixteen thousand people have vanished in this this
(44:09):
area mapped out as the Triangle. Uh, this contributed to
an average of roughly four missing person reports for every
one thousand people in Alaska. That is more than double
the national average. Gosh, so not only are there relatively
few people in this part of the world, but a
(44:30):
lot of them go missing. Maybe maybe Alaska is just
a place where people get off the grid, you know,
or maybe they they end up at the pyramid. That's okay, Okay, look,
before we wrap up, let's let's talk about the biggest,
at least most fascinating out their concept for why a
(44:52):
pyramid in Alaska would be covered up. All right, do
you want me just tell you what it is? Yes,
I think you know it. We've been talking about ancient
like human civilization building it or something like that. But
the concept that perhaps all of these pyramids across the
world the big conspiracy, we're all influenced by the same
(45:14):
extraterrestrial force that shaped humanity, that perhaps seeded intelligence on
this earth plane, like a an intelligent pan spermia kind
of thing. Um. That to me is the most captivating
version of this of like, that's why a lot of
(45:36):
these secrets are still hidden. That's why we don't truly
understand the pyramids in Egypt. That's why we truly don't
fully understand why they're everywhere and all of all of
humanity was so fascinated by that shape and that structure.
As kind of a sacred geometry argument too, yea, so
stargate star gate. I mean not to not to diminish
(45:59):
that that would that would be amazing if it's were
somehow true. There the counter argument people make for that,
of course, is that at the time, given understanding of
construction technology, that was the easiest thing to build that
would last for a long time. You know what I mean?
I know, I know. I wish you know what, Matt.
(46:20):
I hope the truth is out there too. I met
Hey tell you what, uh if if we do meet
extraterrestrials uh in our lifetimes, if I ever meet them,
even if you're not there, I I Am going to
try to get them to build a pyramid, even if
they don't care what it is and they're just like
(46:40):
they think it's our our hello ritual. If they spend
the rest of their time with our species thinking that
instead of you know, waving or shaking hands or vocalizing,
you build somewhat a pyramid as a way of greeting
them from It'll be great. Yeah, it'll be worth it.
I'm so down with that. Let's get t shirts with
pyramids on them. I want. What I want to see
(47:02):
is let's do a pyramid on the ground right when
it's kind of nice to see, kind of surrounding when
it depends. It doesn't matter what kind of music gradic
could be whatever, but then above it is an inverted
version that has lights on the top of it and
the bottom that's like hovering down or coming down. So
it's like as above, so below, and it's kind of
(47:23):
like the old UFO pictures where the UFO would be
casting a tractor beam down on the ground. We could also, Oh,
you know what, let's go with that design. That's brilliant.
I have a caption. Tell me what you think aliens
the first pyramid scheme? No, not yet, Yeah, let's do
(47:46):
it and you're good. Uh, well, no, mad Frederick. But
but we want to hear your thoughts. Have you ever
been to Antarctica? Do you think this there's some sand
to this Alaska pyramid idea? Or do you think it's
just another rumor in the echo chamber of the internet.
(48:08):
Perhaps most importantly, and this will help us with an
upcoming episode, what's your take on this idea of a again,
for lack of a better phrase, Alaskan Bermuda triangle. We'd
love to hear from you. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook,
and Twitter. Uh if you want to meet our favorite
part of the show, your fellow listeners, find us on
(48:28):
Here's where it Gets Crazy our Facebook page where um
I have recently asked for some suggestions for upcoming episodes,
and we've got like hundreds of responses, so we've got
to go through. Have you checked that out? I haven't
been on facebooking weeks. That's awesome. No you don't. I'll
take one for the time. But check it out. That
thread still active and let us know. Uh, let us
(48:51):
know by writing to us with your ideas for upcoming
episodes or your feedback. Uh. And if you if you
don't care to sit on and write something out, or
you don't like the social means, you can call us. Yeah,
that's right, get your get those vocal cords involved and
call one eight three three s T d W y
(49:12):
t K. Leave us a message. Tell us what you're
thinking about an episode. Tell us I'll answer one of
the questions that we ask in one of the episodes.
Give us suggestion for something you want to hear. Uh,
any of it, All of it make us laugh. That's
my favorite thing ever. Just if you just be funny.
I love it. It's it's not a not a lot
to ask and to put our money where our mouth
(49:34):
is here shout out to e j on. Here's where
it gets crazy. Who heard us? Talking about Skyrin and
win ahead and posted some pictures of us complete with
with our helmets, with our horned helmets. I don't even
know which helmets those are in the game, Like, is
that an iron helm that you're wearing, Ben, that's that's
(49:56):
the one from the ads. Okay, original advertisement, but it's
actually it's not that great helmet. Hold on, hold on, no,
looks like he's wearing an oblivion helm. No. No, no,
he's not. He's not. That's in the game. I think
it is interesting. Uh. And then I went back and
just asked e J for Dadrek Garberg. It came through,
(50:17):
So that was really cool. Thanks so much. You can
see what we're talking about if you go on here's
where it gets crazy. But if you say I don't
like social meds, it's I don't like talking on the phone.
We totally get it. You can write twist directly. We
are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(50:52):
Don't Want You to Know is a production of iHeart
Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast Us, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Gradios How Stuff Works. Welcome back
(00:24):
to the show. My name is Matt nol is here
in spirit they call me Ben. We are joined as
always with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decad Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. For a check in, Matt,
I know usually I ask, I ask you first, but
(00:47):
I just want to say, after interject, I am so
glad to see you man. Yeah, it's been too long.
It has been we uh, you know, for any of
you that don't know out there, let's just give him
a little bit hind the curtain. We record three times
a week this show, so we we usually have a
time like time to be together in a room talking,
(01:08):
catching up before recording and everything and uh and has
been notes all the time. We are friends outside of
this magical darkened room where we record. Yea, so not
having that has been uh, it's it's not been great.
So it's also happy to see you, sir, thanks man,
it feels a good Yeah, yeah, I was. Um, let's see,
(01:30):
Paul and I were in Texas and then we're in
Chicago for a second, and I am hopefully by the
time all our fellow listeners hear this, I will have
returned from Brussels. Wow, that's cool. I'm going there tomorrow
as we record this. Oh my gosh. And now now
(01:54):
with all that update, all that prool, like I have
to ask how are how are you doing? Man? Almost
almost almost sent you some prank text it was at
the Alamo, but decided against it. Oh Man, I would
have accepted. Uh, I'm doing really well. You know, everything
in my life is focused on my son, and we're
doing this thing where every morning he makes a picture
(02:16):
of a letter and then we talked about what that
letter is, and then the whole day is about that letter.
So like walking around going to the grocery store, pointing
out things that are like start with b uh. It's
so it's so much fun. And uh yeah, the whole
thing was my wife's idea. And she's so talented and
smart about doing these kind of things. She makes every
day unique and exciting for my son's h It's really great.
(02:38):
That's that's what's going on with me. Ben. That's great.
I want to ask you how you're doing personally and
what's going on, but I have a feeling you would
respond no comment. Okay, So let's go ahead. Let's go
ahead and get into the episode. Everyone. We're talking pyramids today, right, Yes, pyramids.
(02:58):
Pyramids some of the oldest known structures built by human
beings so far as we know. And uh, these structures
have also captivated human beings. Uh, not not just in
the recent days when they're seen as mysterious and enigmatic,
but during the times that they were built, right, and
especially coming across Let's say you're walking along a river.
(03:22):
You're following a river in exploration of some kind, and
out in the distance you see something towering and it
has sharp angles to it, which you don't find anywhere
in nature. And as you get closer, you realize how
large this structure is. It's not just the mountain in
the middle of the desert. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating to
(03:42):
put ourselves back in space and time. In a previous episode,
we explored these stories of pyramids in other parts of
the world, which is a real it's a real thing.
You know what I mean, Like one of the early
as pyramids we know about would be the zig Rats
(04:04):
in Mesopotamia. Right, They don't get a lot of street credit.
You know, a lot of people never heard of Mesopotamia
until Ghostbusters came out in the eighties. No, no, no,
maybe the Exorcists to be fair, because isn't Pozuzoo Maybe
(04:25):
pezuzos Samarian. It all sounds familiar. It all sounds familiar, right.
So in that episode, we we explore what pyramids are
getting to the architecture of the structures, how they're typically
built and so on, and we talked about how there
are multiple different kinds of pyramids, right, and this this
(04:46):
reminded me of a conversation that it's a little tangential,
but I thought you would enjoy. I saw one of
those Internet hypotheticals right when it was it hypothetical questions
your friends post on the Internet, and it said, Okay,
here's the gist. If someone gave you ten million dollars
right now, cash in hand, with the following caveats, would
(05:09):
you take the money. Here are the caveats. One, a
snail will follow you for the rest of your life.
Two if the snail touches you, you will die. And
then there were a couple of other snail related things.
My first question with that was, well, what type of snail?
Because not all you know, when we see the word snail,
(05:29):
we all think of like the same um crenulated shell
and the you know, the like living booger that crawls
around under it. But there are different sorts of snails,
and there are different sorts of pyramids. So the thing
that is interesting about this for our purpose is that
there's so many misconceptions about pyramids, right. Uh. People think
(05:51):
when we think of a pyramid, we think of the
angular structure you're describing. I love that moment you took
us back to where there's someone maybe living um a
hunter gatherer lifestyle or something, and they're they're walking along
the river and then they see the seat of human
civilization breathtaking and they don't get immediately killed by the
(06:12):
security forces or of some kind, right right, or the
crocodiles or the other wildlife. Yes. Uh, so when we
think of pyramids, we think of pyramids in Egypt, located
in uh northern Africa. It's all because of the movie Stargate,
(06:33):
just completely because of the movie Star, which is an
amazing documentary. It is. Uh So it's strangely because as
we found there are pyramids and other parts of the world,
right they're they're not just in Egypt. We in our
previous episodes we found them in South America. We are
(06:54):
we knew that they were in South America where we
also found them in Africa, parts of Asia. Um. I mean,
it's it's fascinating, and we keep talking about this because
anytime we bring up pyramids, you just get back to
the question of why, Like why, why the heck why
did you do with that? Like what is it? Why?
Why did you do that? Yeah, that's my favorite part too,
(07:16):
you know, like obelisk, yes are weird. Remember when we
went to uh we went up to d C and
we filmed some stuff about the Washington Monument. Yes, which,
once upon his time was going to be you know,
a statue of George Washington, but now it's you know,
it's this ridiculously phallic thing you can crawl up inside
(07:37):
of and reach the top. Yeah. Man, the tip. I
don't know that's what it's all about. But but really
the just that that um, that concept is still baffling
to me. UM with all the varying types like you're
talking about the zigger outs, the you know, the more
angular pyramids, the stepped pyramids, all these things. It's just, um,
(08:00):
they're so symbolic, and I think outwardly symbolic of something
to have that shape. It also goes back to, you know,
the construction process of you know, building up in that
way right, right, But still it's just I don't know,
there's something so mysterious about it. It's true, yet we
(08:20):
know that we know that the primary purposes of pyramids
and pyramid like structures I would also include baby mounds
in the North American continent. We know that the primary
purposes tended to be spiritual or funereal. Right, these are
gigantic tombs taj Mahal style, or these are in the
(08:45):
case of some zigarettes, holy sites, sacred sites of worship
wherein rituals are enacted. At least that's our best understanding
from the work of archaeology and our right the work
of some brilliant archaeologists and then also the work of
some uh just morally bankrupt ones back in the day.
And then that's you know, like the the racism that
(09:08):
gave rise later first to the idea of law civilizations,
and then later to the idea of extraterrestrials. Because the
people and for we have to hit this fact. The
people who wrote a lot of early early stories about
discovering these different amazing structures in different parts of the world,
(09:30):
they they were somehow, on some level offended by the
idea that the ancestors of the local people could have
built those. So there you have it. We know that
that's the that's the craziest thing. We know that pyramids,
despite being ancient, the ancient pyramids and structure as we
(09:51):
talked about, remain controversial today, not just because of the
institutionalized discrimination and stuff, but also because people continue to
claim that they have discovered more ancient pyramids thanks to
Google Earth. May don't you know I love Google Earth
and Light Are I know that's true? We will will?
(10:12):
We all do. They are amazing tools. It just it
gives an opportunity to at least search from behind a
computer screen the entire planet for things that look angular
or out of place or you know, square, rectangular, right.
And it's not to say that these things don't exist
somewhere in the world, because in many parts of the world,
(10:34):
the surrounding ecosystem will eat everything made by man, you
know what I mean. You can build something in a
jungle and it can just for all intents and purposes,
it can vanish. And I think you know, you and
I probably both still check in to see how many
new ruins or ancient sites are found just in the
(10:56):
Amazon alone. There's a ton. Uh So, so we know
that these things do exist, but we also know that
there's a lot of exaggeration and a lot of hyperbole
involved in these claims. Generally, these discoveries become controversial for
one reason or another, and it's not it's not a
(11:17):
case of you know, someone pretending to be a scientist
a line or selling snake oil, as is so often
the case in a lot of scientific research. The scientists,
the archaeologist, the experts. Uh. They say one thing, maybe
in a relatively obscure journal of some sort, and then
(11:38):
someone someone else says, hey, this would be a great
headline for my my blog, my my pop culture news thing,
right website, my French website. Sure, and then then all
of a sudden, what the scientists really we're saying gets
(12:01):
convoluted and telephoned into something different. And that's where we
get into these claims of ancient hitherto unknown civilizations, or
they try to find something that is a selling point
for a pyramid because in mainstream news or in fringe
websites just saying hey, here is a pyramid found that
(12:23):
confirms long held beliefs that this group of people lived
in this way you know, or this crop or etcetera, etcetera.
We want once some h perbole, you know, we want
some some superlatives like when you graduate high school. Well, yeah,
and the reader and or listener or whoever. I think
this is just my opinion, who wants to have that
(12:46):
discovery moment, that eureka moment where it's oh, civilization was older,
or civilization did exist in this part of the world,
or you know that that kind of I don't even
know exactly what it is. It's that it's a mystery
being solved, right, and you want that answer even if
(13:07):
it doesn't even if it's a question that you weren't
even really asking in that moment, but you see the
potential for this answer to a cool thing. I'm not sure. Yeah,
we like we like patterns and solutions. Yeah, we like
seeing uh, we like seeing the bridge between concept, day
and concept. The human beings are all about connection, right,
(13:29):
I think I think that's a think it's profoundly as
stupe man, because now we're talking about psychological drive and
so what what does this what does this drive mean
when we read about pyramids, Well, it means, like you said,
they're all these claims, uh that this is the oldest one.
(13:52):
Here's the biggest revelation that you're going to get with
regards to this whole thing, and we're gonna give it
to you right now, such as let's say it's let's
say it's and you're at the Independent and you get
a you know, a tip about some seashell constructions in
Brazil and you post it up and you put a
(14:15):
title that says something like world's oldest pyramids are discovered
in Brazil. But that's literally all you have to put
at the title. That's what they put, World's oldest pyramids
are discovered, Right, Because with this kind of reporting, people
love seeing an st an e s t the big
st the old st these strange st right. And so
(14:38):
when we when we see the world's oldest pyramid, we think,
what Brazil, That is definitely not Egypt. Uh So, so
the story with this is interesting because this is just
one of a pattern of um oldest pyramid claims. Right,
the Brazil Pyramids date back to two thousand BC, two thousand,
(15:03):
three thousand BC or BC, whatever you prefer, and the
construction techniques are different, because again, not every pyramid is
created equal. These are as you said, met built of seashells,
and they were built over a long period of time,
but four, I think, starting in maybe two or so,
(15:25):
about four years before the articles published, teams of researchers
based in the area had been trying to figure out
what was up with these things because they had been
um largely deconstructed, yes, or broken down, right, that's just
over through natural processes and stuff, or you know, destroyed.
(15:47):
And they were literally called in that article. The remnants
were called piles of ancient rubbish. Yeah exactly, Yeah, they were.
They were deliberately built. But while archaeologists estimate there used
to be a ton of them, a thousand pyramids, there's
(16:08):
some thousands and thousands of years old, only ten survive
in any recognizable way. Uh. They thought the structures were
a hundred and sixty ft high with bases that were
up to thirty seven acres, so this makes them much
(16:28):
bigger than the earliest examples in Egypt, not as high.
H and also they took a long long time to build,
so that's a claim, and that's that's a fairly reputable claim.
The one thing that makes it different when you really
think about pyramids in Egypt is that pyramids in Egypt
(16:49):
have survived in not the best condition. But as pyramids go,
their their top notch you know what I mean. Uh,
they are what fans of classic cars called all uh
cherry condition, right, yes, yeah, So unfortunately a lot of
the pyramids in Brazil are not like that. They don't
exist anymore. But now you can claim that's the this
(17:14):
is the oldest pyramid. Well yeah, And again, when you're
establishing the age of something like that, let's say the
primary construction is made of seashells. Um the mode of
determining the age of those is to then carbon date
somehow the the structure or whatever is made up of
(17:37):
those things. And if you're dealing with seashells, I guess
by carbon dating the shells themselves is how you get
that number or that range. But still, I there's so
much variance there. I guess that's why you have something
like some of these are two thousand, three thousand years old,
some of them are up to five thousand years old,
(17:57):
and those estimates to get so ballparky at some point,
you know, speaking of people. One could say, however, that
you know what, the margin on the margin on the
dating process here maybe pretty large, but it doesn't invalidate everything.
(18:17):
So sorry, Egypt, that's it. Brazil has what what we
now know as Brazil has the oldest pyramids. But this
was not the only claim for the oldest pyramid. The
debate continues today. We'll tell you more about it after
a word from our sponsors. We're back and we're going
(18:43):
to jump to a different part of the world in
a different time. Yes, so we were in the nineties,
and to be exact, let's jump to just a couple
of years ago. And in Kazakhstan. That's right, Matt. A
report came from an archaeologist working at the Kazakh National University,
(19:04):
A fellow named Victor novo Zenov uh This apologies for
the mispronunciation. There. He claimed that specialist working at the
saya Kinski Archaeology Institute in Karganda, Kazakhstan, led by a
guy named Igor Kukushkin, had discovered the world's oldest pyramid
in wait for it, Kazakhstan. There we go, there we go,
(19:28):
and that's another oldest pyramid and it's um. You know,
it's another one of these super captivating headlines, captivating stories.
The headline itself was world's oldest pyramid was found and
it's in Kazakhstan. That was from Nature World News, so
you know, slightly different publication, but still it's that same
kind of title that's just gonna get your attention. Um.
(19:52):
So it's believed to be built roughly a thousand years
earlier than some of the more prominent pyramids that are
found in Egypt. A thousand years before that is that's
pretty significant if if that's proven right. So, it's located
in this place called the Sarayaka Steps and uh, it's
near the city of Karganda. It's like three thousand nine
(20:16):
miles northeast of Cairo, Egypt. You know, that's that's a
long way. That's a comparison, really long way. Um. And
you know, it's similar in appearance to some of the
other pyramids that exists there the pyramid of Dojer or
Joe Josser. I don't know how to pronounce any of
those things. I'm sorry, but again it's uh, it's really interesting.
(20:38):
You can find the article on it if if you
go and look and um, you know, there's more you
can find here. It popped up on it popped up
in a couple of places in sixteen that you know,
Yahoo wrote about it. You can also find the statement
from novol Zenov who believes that this was This is
(21:01):
what they call a step pyramid, so it doesn't have
that complete um flat angle like a pyramidic gizer or something,
but he believes it was a mouslim built for a
local king. Still, the age of it seems legit, but
does that make it the oldest pyramid or structure of
(21:23):
this type? No, say researchers. In Indonesia. You see geophysicist
Danny Hillman not the witha. And again, thank you, thank
you to everyone who tuned into our episode on the
wrong manyak Rang manyak Uh and told us that if
(21:47):
our pronunciation was terrible, at least it was endearing and amusing.
So hopefully that's what we're going for here, folks. Improv rules, uh, Yeah.
This This geophysicist based on the Indonesian Institute of Sciences
analyzed a site called Gunung Padang in Java in Indonesia,
(22:07):
and they said that this this thing that people thought
was just a weird hill for a long long time
was actually a pyramid, and a very very old pyramid.
This is, by the way, one of the more well
researched claims at this point, which is not a ding
(22:28):
on the other pyramids. This is just to say that
the site in Indonesia and the team in Indonesia had
more time to spend and access to better tech. Yeah,
they did. They had ground penetrating radar and a couple
of other things. And they also took photographs of the
site and published them and made them available so that
(22:49):
you could see you could really see it rather than
just being you know, some text on a website somewhere
that always lends credibility. If you go to science alert
dot com, you can find some images, some aerial photographs
um that we're taken, and some like closer up to
the structures. It's it's really fascinating to see. Uh, I
(23:13):
don't know this one. This one gets me. This is compelling. Yeah,
this is compelling that this what's strange about this one
is that while it was presented in an academic setting,
I think on December twelve at the Annual Media in
the American Geophysical Union, it was still considered highly controversial.
(23:38):
But the research is compelling. You can you can read
it in depth if you just just check it out online.
It looks like there are four separate layers and they
were built over thousands of years. So the first layer,
(23:58):
the one that we would consider or the surface, looks
to be about three thousand, five hundred years old. The
second layer, however, it looks to be eight thousand years old.
And then they get to the really crazy stuff. This
is where it becomes super controversial, right. The third layer,
(24:18):
according to their estimate, is somewhere between nine thousand and
twenty eight thousand years old. Twenty eight thousand, I mean
maybe honestly, maybe maybe we just don't know yet, man,
But that seems a bit of a stretch. I mean,
(24:39):
it's pretty crazy if you look at it too. They've
got a an example of the layering. It shows you
all the different ones in the structure and how uh
how it looks, and that initial period, the initial layer
that you're talking about the one that's that has that
range of age. It is the most sharply angled um,
(25:00):
the most basic pyramid structure like part of the entire thing.
And you know, if that truly could have been built
even just at the minimum of that number nine thousand
years ago, that is so significant for humanity and the
history you know of of bipedal intelligent things walking around
(25:24):
on this earth. That's pretty dangn cool. I can't wait
to get to Indonesia one day, man. There's so much
history there that we just don't know about in the West,
you know. So one thing we do have to say
about this about this site is that when when I
mentioned that the research was considered controversial, I mean, it's
a ton of people are criticizing the teams conclusions and
(25:49):
their methods. They're they're very much going hard on the
pain with this. Right now, the presentations that they made
remain non peer reviewed, which is a big criticism by
their their opponents. But time will tell, right, the wheels
of archaeology grind slow but exceedingly fine, if we're paraphrasing,
(26:13):
And they've been at this since so it looks like
they're they're giving it a serious go and this is
not going to be the last ancient site that's found, right,
so we know that there may be even older stuff
out there. And the I you know, it's almost it's
(26:37):
almost the wrong way to phrase the question when we say,
let's search for the oldest man made thing, because there
are so many things we don't know. Let's just search
for all the old stuff. That's that's what we need
to do, right, because so much of it has already disappeared.
But this leads us to we had a long preamble here,
(27:00):
but this leads us to, uh something that anything captivated us.
You you hipped me to this matter. More and more
people have started to claim that Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Brazil,
that they have nothing on the true old structures, that
(27:20):
there are much much older pyramids out there in some
of the world's most remote locals. We always think of
Egypt when it comes to pyramids, But what about Alaska?
And we'll talk about that right after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy, it's true, fellow
(27:47):
conspiracy realist. In recent years, various groups have claimed pyramids
created by some unknown civilization can be found in both
Alaska and Antarctica. Now we've explored the Antarctic a theory
briefly before, yes we have. And but before you even
get into that, let's let's establish here just the concept
(28:08):
of uh general belief in how humanity began, you know,
in the fertile crescent um in in parts of Africa,
whereas euphrates exactly where the rivers, where where the water was,
where the um the land again was fertile, and people
(28:30):
could survive easy more easily, let's say, even though life
was a struggle, um. And then humanity spread out from there,
going to all corners of the earth over over the
course of time. Right. So when you introduce an idea
that perhaps there's an even older version of humanity that
(28:51):
existed in some other part of the world, um, that's
that's why it's such a controversial idea, because it goes
against the basic understandings that are that are generally accepted.
I see that's a good point, because you know, the
most popular theory for human human arrival on North and
(29:15):
South America as we call them today is the crossing
the Baring Straight via the bearing Land Bridge, which was
about twenty thou years ago. And I think. So the
issue with that is, for instance, there's a twenty eight
thousand year old pyramid and Indonesia. Uh. The the issue
with this idea of a pyramid in Alaska is how
(29:39):
is one of um pure resources and timeline right? Because
if you if you notice, a lot of these pyramids
that we've mentioned in other parts of the world are
built in more human friendly environments, you know what I mean.
So the idea of pyramids being built in these freezing areas,
(30:03):
it seems like something that would turn our understanding of
history completely on its head if this were true. So
what about antarcticle. Let's just do a quick Okay, we
talked about this for Chuck Out the other episode. If
you have time, and let's just say in nineteen you
know Tennis, the early nineteen tens, the teens there too. Uh,
(30:28):
some British explorers were hanging out in Antarctica. They were
looking around, going, this is a pretty desolate barren. I'm
not seeing much here until they saw rock, nice pointy rock,
and they said, hey, let's put this on our map.
It's a pyramid. Uh, it's the pyramid rock. It's a
type of pyramid. Um. Finally, that's what it is. Uh,
(30:51):
you know, it was probably some kind of natural formation
or you know, from shearing from ice or something. Jen. Really,
let's say that that's probably what it was. It isn't
necessarily exactly what it was or who knows what they found.
There may be a mystery out there in Antarctica still
with the old pyramid rock. Um, we haven't been able
(31:13):
to find it thus far, neither of us have been
to Antarctica. But that this, uh, let's call it a seed.
This concept of, oh, there's a pyramid on this map
of Antarctica. Somebody labeled that. That becomes a catalyst for
all kinds of stories. Right. Yes, some were admittedly fiction,
(31:34):
such as at the Mountains of Madness written by HP
Lovecraft in UH. Some were more rumor mill kind of
stuff reported as if they were true in newspapers. Right
and in the following decades, uh. But from two thousand
(31:55):
twelve to two thousand sixteen there was a new round
of rumors spreading, and they were based on photographs that
apparently showed some something, some geographical feature in Antarctica with
regular triangular sides. The kind of stuff that, to your
point met earlier in the show, would not occur in nature,
(32:19):
and so it was the argument about the face or
pyramid on Mars all over again. People on one end
we're saying this is true. Someone's covering this up. This
is stuff they don't want you to know. And then
there were other people saying, well, if we don't get
photographs of this thing at multiple angles, how do we
know this is not just a trick of perspective, which
(32:41):
is different from from immediately calling bs. It's just saying,
go back there, take more pictures. Yeah, let's let's verify.
What is it the old adage trust but verify? Yeah? Yeah, right,
And uh, it's funny because there were even more rumors spreading.
I think the uh the favorite is our our returning
(33:04):
a returning champion of our show, buzz Dr Rendezvous Al
Dren returned in this story because the thing in sixteen.
Towards the end of twenty sixteen, there was this rumor
that he posted a picture of this ice pyramid as
people were calling it and then said we are all
in danger, evil chev and then he rapidly deleted it. Yeah,
(33:25):
that was the rumor, That was the rumor. But what
if he really did that? How crazy would that be?
If Dr Rendezvous was like, look at this pyramid, they're
here too, Oh my god. Oh man, I don't know,
that would be that would be out of character for him. Yeah,
I really would. Oh gosh. That's because he's known sort
(33:48):
of as a you know, as someone who's trolled conspiracy
theorist before, or what he calls conspiracy theorists. But anyway,
so that's that's Antarctica at this point. Don't get us wrong.
There's a lot of very strange stuff that happens on
that continent, and it's part of the reason I think
(34:09):
that you and I want to go, and maybe we
can talk Paul into going with us. But he's had
some Iceland experience. I think maybe he would. He would
be fantastic as like a guide and a oh spiritual advisor.
I think, okay, yeah, Paul, can you come with us? Cool?
He says, yes, great, he's in Let us know. Also,
if you have been to Antarctica, we'd love to hear
(34:31):
your adventures. So Alaska, let's talk about this one. This
is this is a little more recent, and this is
a bit more enigmatic. According to a couple of people,
there's something strange buried in the ground about fifty miles
from Mount McKinley. Today, the most well known proponent of
(34:54):
this idea is a writer new ethologist named Linda Molton. Howe,
here's how this story starts. All right, travel back with
us to Anchorage in nineteen ninety two, this is just
for comparison, the same year that the Brazilian research team
(35:17):
began digging into the Seashell Pyramids. Yeah, same year, there
was a television news broadcast from Channel thirteen out of Anchorage,
and they had a segment about this discovery by geologist
another one more time scientists of an underground pyramid that
they said was many times the size of existing pyramids
(35:40):
in Egypt and specifically the Great Pyramid of Giza exactly.
So here's how it here's the rumor, here's how it
went out. So u s scientists were concerned about nuclear
tests being conducted underground by the government of China, so
they set up seismic equipment in Alaska to monitor this
(36:07):
possibility of nuclear testing. And keep in mind, just while
this is all happening, it's President George H. W. Bush
who in the White House, good call, good call. Uh.
This discovery, again was only allegedly reported and a scientist
getting a quarter. This is a campfire story. If you're listening, you, Matt, Paul,
(36:29):
and I were all gathered around a camp fire, So
let's use our campfire voices. So the next day, a
scientist visits the station, this Channel thirteen out of Anchorage,
and he says, could I get a copy of that video?
No such broadcast exists, they responded, and he was stonewalled.
(36:51):
Twenty years later, a retired military officer named Douglas A.
Muchler claimed to have seen this Channel thirteen report and
he gave this information to ufologists and investigative journalist Linda Malton,
how how confirmed the nuclear test, but seems to agree
(37:12):
with Mushler that there's more to the story. You see,
she believes that there is a pyramid and that any
information about it has been covered up by someone or
some organization thing something. Oh man, that's that's awesome. It's awesome.
(37:33):
Has even more fuel to the fire here, because you see,
it was also a video that came out apparently recently,
that that showed footage of this pyramid. Uh, that a
team of explorers stumbled upon. Right, but there are some
(37:55):
problems with the video too. Oh, there's certainly problems with
the video. My understanding is that has this thing it's
called text of voice, oh right, right right, where people
want to disguise their voices and accents or what what
have you, or just to be able to type something
anonymously and then have the computer vocalize it. Can you
do a computer voice to me? Uh? Mine would just
(38:16):
probably be misconstrued as Stephen Hawking. Oh, I see yeah.
I want to stay away from that one. Huh yeah. Yeah.
But it's a similar thing where it's a program that
is vocalizing the words there. But the I just want
to get this really fast because this is the most
mind bling thing for me with this whole story, this
campfire story there, because you know it mentions that this
(38:39):
this person, Linda how confirmed the nuclear test that China conducted, right, Well,
we we can also confirm that that occurred, or at
least there was reporting about it in places like the
New York Times, in the Chicago Tribune um in May
specifically of when China conducted a large test and the
(39:02):
signals or the vibrations from that test were registered throughout
the United States. Specifically, there a system of detection devices
that are all over the planet right right, and have
been since shortly after the invention of nuclear weapons. Yeah, so,
so that story itself has that it's that grain of
(39:24):
truth thing where when you're looking into a campfire story
like this, you begin to see the walls, they're illuminating.
You're like, oh, there, we're actually in a space. This
really does exist wherever this is or whatever this is.
But then you go looking a little bit further and
you get to that point where, um, Linda says, you know,
(39:47):
the the actual location of where this pyramid is though,
has been secreted away. It's been covered up. And then
it goes back to your original question when we're talking
about pyramids in general, the question your motive why cover
this up? Why this guy's is it? Is it perhaps
a sacred site for local cultures, or is it a
(40:10):
site that is considered unclean for some reason. The problem
with with both of those claims is that other holy
places throughout the world have almost always become tourist destinations,
and you can make money off of those things, and
that's nice, but here's the thing. Yes, Hound Alaska, where
(40:33):
it was located, I'm not gonna get tourism out there.
Probably you've got to build a bunch of civilization first,
or maybe someone already did. That's the argument, right, that's
the argument. So it is true, though you're absolutely right
that there wasn't just one test in There was a
(40:54):
test on the twenty one of May, a test on
the twenty five September, and a failed test on November two,
all in the same year. So this this was extensive testing.
But the one you had mentioned in the New York
Times article, it's true that was the largest underground test
the government of China had taken at that time. So
(41:17):
it is true. But the problem here is that there's
very little indication of a pyramid in Alaska from anybody
other than these sources that we've named. It does lead
us to something interesting that we we had never covered before,
(41:37):
which was the existence of a Bermuda triangle in Alaska,
the Alaska and Bermuda Triangle. This is the kind of
thing that a lot of more mainstream television producers love.
You know, you can see I'm sure you can find
a cheesy episode about this. But but just so that
everyone has the concept, maybe we can explore this and
(42:00):
if there's more sent to it later. Uh, there is
this belief that much like the Devil's Triangle in the
Pacific or the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic, Alaska has
its own triangle in which people disappear. Uh. It's an
(42:21):
area sparsely, very sparsely populated wilderness. It's very cold, it's
a inhospitable location. Wild animals abound, right. And this this
triangles thought to stretch from Barrow, Alaska in the north,
which I think was popularized in Thirty Days of Night,
(42:41):
to Anchorage in south at the left, all the way
down to Juneau. And it's different because it largely goes
over land right, rather than ocean. Maybe there's a bay
or two that it crosses, you know, And in this
case it's it's generally just I think one of the
concepts here is that it's generally forest areas, it's mountain areas.
(43:05):
There's a lot, there's a lot of it's very cold,
there's a lot of ice, there's a lot of snow,
there's a lot of all of these things that are
somewhat inhospitable for humans. Right and within this triangle area
um in the center of at least before you get
out to the edges, and you know, a lot of
the claims that have to do with the Devil's Triangle,
(43:28):
Music Triangle and all these things. They have to do
with a lot of magnetic anomalies. A lot of times
they have to do with weather patterns that occur within
those spaces. Um and you could at least you can
imagine something occurring here. We're in this some it's not
desolates just uh, it's not a place where a lot
(43:49):
of humans gather and have all of their stuff, right.
I think we should do an episode on this in
the future. Well, I think so too, because the disappearances
that have occurred over this little triangle with in Alaska
there are there are many, and they're pretty frightening. Since
more than sixteen thousand people have vanished in this this
(44:09):
area mapped out as the Triangle. Uh, this contributed to
an average of roughly four missing person reports for every
one thousand people in Alaska. That is more than double
the national average. Gosh, so not only are there relatively
few people in this part of the world, but a
(44:30):
lot of them go missing. Maybe maybe Alaska is just
a place where people get off the grid, you know,
or maybe they they end up at the pyramid. That's okay, Okay, look,
before we wrap up, let's let's talk about the biggest,
at least most fascinating out their concept for why a
(44:52):
pyramid in Alaska would be covered up. All right, do
you want me just tell you what it is? Yes,
I think you know it. We've been talking about ancient
like human civilization building it or something like that. But
the concept that perhaps all of these pyramids across the
world the big conspiracy, we're all influenced by the same
(45:14):
extraterrestrial force that shaped humanity, that perhaps seeded intelligence on
this earth plane, like a an intelligent pan spermia kind
of thing. Um. That to me is the most captivating
version of this of like, that's why a lot of
(45:36):
these secrets are still hidden. That's why we don't truly
understand the pyramids in Egypt. That's why we truly don't
fully understand why they're everywhere and all of all of
humanity was so fascinated by that shape and that structure.
As kind of a sacred geometry argument too, yea, so
stargate star gate. I mean not to not to diminish
(45:59):
that that would that would be amazing if it's were
somehow true. There the counter argument people make for that,
of course, is that at the time, given understanding of
construction technology, that was the easiest thing to build that
would last for a long time. You know what I mean?
I know, I know. I wish you know what, Matt.
(46:20):
I hope the truth is out there too. I met
Hey tell you what, uh if if we do meet
extraterrestrials uh in our lifetimes, if I ever meet them,
even if you're not there, I I Am going to
try to get them to build a pyramid, even if
they don't care what it is and they're just like
(46:40):
they think it's our our hello ritual. If they spend
the rest of their time with our species thinking that
instead of you know, waving or shaking hands or vocalizing,
you build somewhat a pyramid as a way of greeting
them from It'll be great. Yeah, it'll be worth it.
I'm so down with that. Let's get t shirts with
pyramids on them. I want. What I want to see
(47:02):
is let's do a pyramid on the ground right when
it's kind of nice to see, kind of surrounding when
it depends. It doesn't matter what kind of music gradic
could be whatever, but then above it is an inverted
version that has lights on the top of it and
the bottom that's like hovering down or coming down. So
it's like as above, so below, and it's kind of
(47:23):
like the old UFO pictures where the UFO would be
casting a tractor beam down on the ground. We could also, Oh,
you know what, let's go with that design. That's brilliant.
I have a caption. Tell me what you think aliens
the first pyramid scheme? No, not yet, Yeah, let's do
(47:46):
it and you're good. Uh, well, no, mad Frederick. But
but we want to hear your thoughts. Have you ever
been to Antarctica? Do you think this there's some sand
to this Alaska pyramid idea? Or do you think it's
just another rumor in the echo chamber of the internet.
(48:08):
Perhaps most importantly, and this will help us with an
upcoming episode, what's your take on this idea of a again,
for lack of a better phrase, Alaskan Bermuda triangle. We'd
love to hear from you. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook,
and Twitter. Uh if you want to meet our favorite
part of the show, your fellow listeners, find us on
(48:28):
Here's where it Gets Crazy our Facebook page where um
I have recently asked for some suggestions for upcoming episodes,
and we've got like hundreds of responses, so we've got
to go through. Have you checked that out? I haven't
been on facebooking weeks. That's awesome. No you don't. I'll
take one for the time. But check it out. That
thread still active and let us know. Uh, let us
(48:51):
know by writing to us with your ideas for upcoming
episodes or your feedback. Uh. And if you if you
don't care to sit on and write something out, or
you don't like the social means, you can call us. Yeah,
that's right, get your get those vocal cords involved and
call one eight three three s T d W y
(49:12):
t K. Leave us a message. Tell us what you're
thinking about an episode. Tell us I'll answer one of
the questions that we ask in one of the episodes.
Give us suggestion for something you want to hear. Uh,
any of it, All of it make us laugh. That's
my favorite thing ever. Just if you just be funny.
I love it. It's it's not a not a lot
to ask and to put our money where our mouth
(49:34):
is here shout out to e j on. Here's where
it gets crazy. Who heard us? Talking about Skyrin and
win ahead and posted some pictures of us complete with
with our helmets, with our horned helmets. I don't even
know which helmets those are in the game, Like, is
that an iron helm that you're wearing, Ben, that's that's
(49:56):
the one from the ads. Okay, original advertisement, but it's
actually it's not that great helmet. Hold on, hold on, no,
looks like he's wearing an oblivion helm. No. No, no,
he's not. He's not. That's in the game. I think
it is interesting. Uh. And then I went back and
just asked e J for Dadrek Garberg. It came through,
(50:17):
So that was really cool. Thanks so much. You can
see what we're talking about if you go on here's
where it gets crazy. But if you say I don't
like social meds, it's I don't like talking on the phone.
We totally get it. You can write twist directly. We
are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(50:52):
Don't Want You to Know is a production of iHeart
Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast Us, 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
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!