September 18, 2025 • 49 mins
A bizarre Power Wheels heist goes awry. TikTok loses its mind over an unidentified ...thing in Panama. A fellow Conspiracy Realist hips Ben, Matt and Noel to a massive (and massively petty) possible conspiracy in the corporate world. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
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Episode Transcript
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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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noa.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
argue you are here. That makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. If you're checking out listener
mail the evening, it publishes, folks, welcome to Thursday September eighteenth,
twenty twenty five, which we are dubbing for the purposes
(00:55):
of this show National Rude Bega Day. Dylan, I think
you've got something prepared for our celebration.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
He's looking for a charming fixer upper with a ports
where he can obsessively look out for bigfoot. Oh, this
view is perfect for using my military grade binoculars. But
she's hoping to find a cozy bomb proof bunker within
walking distance of area fifty one. Well, I can see
the classified aircraft break the laws of physics from here.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Will this work from home?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Skunkworks test pilot and our astral projectionist husband be able
to agree on a lay line positioned home of their
cia and planted dreams. It's time to dig up the
rude bigas in this episode of Shelter Seekers Poetry.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Oh beautiful, so many rudabagas at the shelter.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
And thank you, of course, folks for celebrating this with us.
You know what improv rules say, We're just going to
yes and it, So everybody also tune in September eighteenth,
twenty twenty six. Let's see if we can make this
a thing national Rue de Baga Day. We're so happy
to have several conspiracy realists joining us through one method
(02:00):
or another on the show. Might not get to everything,
but we're gonna have some Latin American conversations while Lahara
Panama in particular, maybe a conspiracy about Time Warner. But
before we do any of that, Noel, there's something really
strange that hit up our inbox.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Huh, A little bit strange.
Speaker 6 (02:18):
Yeah, and we're gonna do kind of one of those
wonderful moments where listener mail and strange news meet, involving
a very unusual traffic stop that we were hipped to
by a delightful listener. Before we get into that, let's
jump into a quick word from our sponsor, and then
we'll be right back with Digital Sage. And we have
(02:41):
returned with our first listener message of the episode from
our buddy Digital Sage, we've heard from many times in
the past, and he hipped us to a very very
fascinating article from the CBC. Hi, Matt Ben and Nole.
He says, you can use this on the podcast. Thanks
Digital Sage. This is probably the most un common traffic
(03:01):
stop I've heard of, and clearly strange news. And then
he links us and signs off. Digital says the headline, gentlemen.
In this article from the CBC, writer Andrew Kurjata, Man
arrested after driving child size pink Barbie jeep through Prince George,
British Columbia. Now, driving any motorized vehicle, according to Kurjata,
(03:26):
without a license is against the law, police say, and
they appear to be classifying this tiny What was it,
guys hot with power wheels? Remember power wheels?
Speaker 5 (03:35):
Oh yeah, I think that's what we're talking here, is
the power wheels? Ask Barbie Jeep?
Speaker 6 (03:38):
A Prince George man was pulled over by police after
driving a child's size pink toy Barbie jeep along one
of the main roads in the north central BC city
on September fifth. And this is not a slow news
day as far as traffic incidents were concerned. We had
a hit and run involving an ambulance that very same day,
and a downtown business being destroyed by are on this
(04:00):
very same day. Photo and videos of the Barbie jeep
incident began to spread online, and we've got him. First
of all, the dude driving the jeep is a real character.
His name is Casper with a K. Lincoln and he's
pictured here wearing a delightful platinum chain and the most
(04:21):
kind of hype beastie you know, like Oakley goggles that
are like these rainbow kind of mirrored shades. They almost
look like you should be a you know, on the
bridge in the Star Trek episode.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It looks like the ones Goggins is pushing Goggins goggles.
Speaker 6 (04:36):
Yes, sir, so yeah, this guy just seems to be
an odd cat Onlookers were shocked when asked about this,
or they reported their shock during the incident. Summer Karan,
who was one of the people witnessing this gentleman being
put in handcuffs said you're really arresting him for driving
a kids jeep.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
She was on Team Casper.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
She told CBC News that he he had been seen
driving very close to the curb, and maybe only at
a speed of up.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
To three miles an hour.
Speaker 6 (05:07):
It does seem a little interestingly pedantic, like, I mean,
you can obviously drive a bicycle in the road and
you don't have to technically hug the curb, but it's
sometimes good etiquette so people can pass you. So it
seems like he was kind of using bicycle etiquette here.
He is, in fact seen driving near the side of
the road in a lane that was actually closed off
(05:28):
due to construction, so he was sort of cordinged off
by cones, so there was no traffic directly in front
of or behind him. Somebody named Nikita Morgan, who was
also an onlooker, saw part of the incident as she
drove in the open lane right beside him, saying that
she was cruising down the street and this undercover, unmarked
police vehicle is behind me, so I rode out my
(05:48):
window and say, don't let him catch you riding dirty.
She shouts out the window to Urt Buddy Casper, of course,
referencing the Chamellionaire song Riding Dirty from two thousand and five,
an absolute banger of the era. However, her warning was
not given in enough time because he was in fact
pulled over our CMP. So they pulled Lincoln over for
(06:10):
a traffic stop and through the course of speaking with him,
found that he had a suspended license and surprise, surprise,
perhaps was believed to be inebriated, which was verified by
a field sobriety test, which Lincoln himself also confirmed to
CBC News.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Technically, do you need a license to drive a Barbie car?
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Like?
Speaker 6 (06:34):
Certainly not if you're doing it in your own private
you know, driveway or like subdivision subdivision?
Speaker 5 (06:41):
I guess yeah, a gray area here, guys.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I think the main thing is the d Y, which
is not a gray area. This does sound like the
plan a person under the influence would come up with,
you think was perfect.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Oh totally.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Can you get a DY for operating a bicycle or another? Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
As well, you should as well you should attractor a
riding lawnmower. I didn't know that anything pretty much that
moves on the road. I think I'll have to check
on this, but I remember reading a couple of cases
where some guys in Texas got duys on horses.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Now that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I feel bad for the horse.
Speaker 6 (07:22):
If the horse was, you know, intoxicated, that'd be one thing.
But it does it's you know, it's not quite the same,
but I.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Guess it's also it's also a thing where you know,
in this case, and thank you so much digital sage.
In this case, they probably would have just been like, Hey,
get out of here with your dumb college pranks. You
know what I mean. You've got your video or your reels.
We have real police work to do. But a suspended
(07:48):
license means that there were already some things that were
on the wrong side of the law. So yeah, yeah,
being intoxicated possibly, but they say.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Not a great combo.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
And the police did make a statement to the CBC
stating that driving an unlicensed motorized vehicle, even one that's
made for a child on a road mean for full
sized cars, is in fact against the law. Their media
relations officer, staff Sergeant Chris Clark said that insurance also
comes into play. Driving an uninsured vehicle is enough to
(08:23):
justify making an arrests, especially when combined to your point
bend with possible impairment. Kyla Lee, who was spoken to
for this article, who's a Vancouver based lawyer who specializes
in driving offenses, agreed with the police in this case,
saying that it's a very well established policy that toy
vehicles aren't supposed to be on the road in the
first place, and that you are in fact required to
(08:45):
have a driver's license in British Columbia for operating any
kind of motorized vehicle on the roadway, including barbie cars,
she says, toy cars, electric skateboards or anything like that,
it's required to have a license and insurance. And guys,
I mean, maybe it's just u thing, but it does
feel a little more like a gray area here, And
I do wonder are there requirements in certain places for like,
(09:08):
there's all of these gray areas now with these motorized
bicycles that are technically classified as you know, self propelled
vehicles that don't require the same rigor in terms of
like having a license orcurying insurance.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
But they're basically motorcycles. And oh yeah, it's causing some
real issues, I know.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So when we got seriously injured on one of those,
just because of the the speed they can attain frankly
depending on the kind of e byte you get. But
it's also in this case too, the personal travails of
this person aside. It shows us it's not so much
what you're driving, but where you're driving, like you can be,
(09:47):
you can be totally in your in your best frame
of mind, and really a really talented bicyclist, But it's
still technically illegal for you to bicycle on the interstate.
You know, you're a danger to yourself others.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
You nailed it, Ben.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
Here in Georgia, in particular, a motorized biker an e
bike is considered a moped if its engine is fifty
ccs or less, and it's not allowed to exceed thirty
miles per hour on level surfaces. Also, you have to
be at least fifteen years old and have a valid
Georgia driver's license fifteen I guess it would be a
(10:22):
learner's permit. That's interesting, yes, or permit correct? And you
are supposed to wear a DOT approved helmet, so I
wonder if you got popped for a helmet to.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Oh like a lame yeah, thanks government.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
No, it's true. It's true. Take a take away my liberties.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
Why don't you and to your point bend here in
Georgia you're not allowed to ride a moped on limited
access highways or roads with minimum speeds above thirty MPs.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Can we talk about why it's so important to have
insurance and it's not pure safety?
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Yes, And I don't want to get into this, but
somebody brought up a really good point around this, you know,
Charlie kirk shooting and all of the spates of in saying,
gun violence that we just see on such a regular
basis in this country. The idea of a form of
gun control could be requiring people to carry insurance, like
like a high degree a high level of insurance in
(11:13):
the event that you were, you know, wrongfully injured somebody
or killed somebody. And I'm not sure exactly how that
would work, but I did. It kind of made my
you know, my gears start turning a little bit about
what would that look like, Something that would be like
not outright you know, prohibition of firearms, but something that
just protected others at least to some degree.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You know, that's interesting, that's really interesting because well, you
guys tell me if I'm wrong here, But my understanding
is that the reason why it's required to have insurance
when you're operating a vehicle like that is in the
event that you injure someone with that v hundred percent right,
so that you can pay them.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, that's why the lowest tier of car insurance is
liability only. And also, you know, the the foot the
car stuff had on for insurance with motor vehicles. A
big part of the argument for that is not just
that people can't usually afford to pay out of pocket
(12:13):
for something as horrendous as a car accident, but also
that driving a motor vehicle in this country is a privilege.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Not a right to any point. And that's why the
Second Amendment.
Speaker 6 (12:24):
Stuff is so sticky, because it, of course, you know,
owning a weapon and wielding a weapon and being able
to protect yourself is considered a right, and people get
really up in arms about that. No pun intended, And
I'm really not trying to make this about gun violence
at all. I just thought it was an interesting parallel that, like,
vehicles can be as deadly as firearms, and a lot
of people making arguments for firearms and for maybe lesser
(12:48):
gun control is this idea that for the right to
drive a car and the privilege of driving a car
rather and like how convenient it is we accept a
certain number of traffic datas every year.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, and that is on record what the late Charlie
Kirk said.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
That's correct.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
And again not trying to make this a hot button issue,
but I just I can't help but see those parallels
and then find it interesting. There's a bit of a
false equivalency between the two or lack of rather, you know,
like one is its own thing, but they both are
capable of the same devastating results.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Do we have a.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Well, also, a gun is not gonna take it on
a cool road trip.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I want to see how much damage you could do
with that thing, right right?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Do we have an official statement for the good folks
at Barbie Power? Will we really do?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Ben?
Speaker 6 (13:35):
I'm so glad to ask, because I want to know
a little bit about the stats of this vehicle.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
If you can call it that. Hey, now you knock
that off.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Paulo is speaking to the to the fine people out there.
According to Mattel, the Barbie jeep wrangler from Fisher Price,
I guess they own Fisher Price as well. No, no, no,
they must license the Barbie stuff to Fisher Price. Can
only drive up to eight kilometers per hour, and it
does come with power brakes, so you know, safety first.
(14:05):
It's recommended to children three to seven years of age
and is only for use on hard surfaces. And the
police do circle back on this issue at the very least,
saying that the police are probably not going to mess
with a kid for playing on a quiet residential street,
you know, in their power wheels. Barbie jeep Wrangler. However,
this car was driving on a high traffic road that
(14:26):
is used by other vehicles and it is considered a
public safety risk.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, it's a great quote. You don't mind me.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Reading it, at least do my friend.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It's a huge public safety risk. If you're using it
on the sidewalk, you pose a risk to pedestrians to children.
If you're using it on the roadway, it's a safety
risk to yourself. Nobody wants to hit somebody in a
Barbie car, and drivers aren't looking for Barbie cars in
the roadway.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
To be fair, they are very short. It would be
very easy to not see this individual entirely. And just
like pancake, the guy so.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yep, especially with the powder of cars becoming larger and
larger over time to dodge a mission laws. I do
want to say one of my favorite parts of this
that seems like there's more to the story here digital Sage,
is the fact that it was not this guy's own
Barbie Power Wheels vehicle. He is lucky he didn't get
(15:18):
charged with whatever. The power Wheels version of Grand Theft
Auto is belonged to the daughter of his roommates. He
took a little joy ride deep.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, he said he was using the hand signals and everything.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
Yes, they don't have like signals. Do you think these
things would have like blinkers, No, they don't. That's an upgrade. Yeah,
he did say that exactly, Matt I was using the
hand signals and everything. He had no idea he was
breaking the law, and he did apparently take it in
stride and then appreciated being at the center of some
jokes and on this article. If you want to check
it out, there is a fabulous graphic that somebody made
(15:56):
with some excellent scenes from the region of Prince George
and it's like a Grand Theft Auto video game, you know,
cover with a little dude in a very low speed
card chase.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
I mean the police suv. It's like a Chevy suv.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
You can see the flashers on and this is right
up on the guy's ass and he's looking.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Over his shoulder. Just cal him as a cucumber. It's
very funny. Well, we appreciate this one digital stage.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
We'll keep this one a little shorter because it was
just a silly, fun goofy chat about a weird traffic stop.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
So let's take a quick break.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Here, a word from our sponsor, and then we'll be
back with more messages from you.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And we've returned and we're jumping to the phone lines. Guys,
who would have funk it? That's what we're doing. We're
gonna hear a message from Plant Queen. Then we're gonna
go on a little TikTok journey. Are you guys excited?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Now, look, this is interactive. We all have to do
this together. So if you need to, you can skip
this part and go to the third section of the
show and wait until you're in a place where you
can look at your phone and do some tiktoking while
you're listening, Because it is highly important that you get
the visuals here. Why don't we hear the message? Then
we'll jump over to the links from Columbia one and
(17:17):
watch these videos because you don't need TikTok to be
able to watch them. That's the best part. Okay, here
we go.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Hey guys, this is the plant Queen here. This is
my second time calling, but I have some interesting stuff
for you guys. If you look over on the tiki talk,
there is a handle user by the name of ken
Panama kas and Kilo is is an igloo and is
in Nancy, Panama, Papa Alpa, Nancy Alpha, Mary Alpha. Take
(17:48):
a look at his stuff. He's been posting for a
couple of weeks now that I've been following. He is
what seems like maybe an outdoorsy kind of guy in
the jungles of Panama, and he's found a meteorite and
he's keeping this meteorite in his home. Looks like he
sent out some samples, but I think it's something you
guys might want to take a look at. It's definitely growing, growing,
(18:10):
some weird little funky appendages seemed to be moving and
other stuff. So definitely take a look at that. Come
back and let me know I'm definitely generly curious to
do with your guys' thought processes. I've been watching this
for a little while now, and I really was assuming
it was probably an AI fake at some point, but
it does not seem to have been debunked yet, and
(18:32):
it seems to be actually happening. So yeah, take a
look at that. Let me know, or you know, air
it out.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Well.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Hi, guys, thank you so much. Plant queen. Guess what
we're gonna look at it right now. We found an
article on Columbia one dot com titled alleged meteorite with
alien life found in Panama Shakes social media. It was
posted on September fourteenth, twenty twenty five, written by Victor Cohen.
(19:01):
Look that up. Go ahead, we'll give you a second
look up that link, and if you scroll down, well,
first of all, you're gonna get hit with a gnarly
looking picture which looks pretty alien to be especially if
you've ever seen the X Files series and you've seen
the Black Goo feels a lot like that. But if
you scroll down here you will see one of the
(19:23):
first related TikTok videos. And that's the first one I
want to watch with you, guys. This one. I don't
know if it has a title on it or not.
I guess it does. But it's embedded, so you can
find it if you go to that link or if
you go to that article. So if you look at
the first embedded TikTok on that article, you will see
what looks to be a chopstick maybe pushing around something
(19:47):
that looks almost like a rock.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Looks like a tiny rotten potato.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
It does.
Speaker 6 (19:54):
When you pull back to see the scale, it's a
lot smaller because it's just the first You just see
it zoomed in as the tip of the chopstick poking
at but it looks a little bigger than it might
feel once it's zoomed out, and it is a little
bit of a fragment of a thing. But up close, man,
it looks like Matt ben I think you pointed out
off Mike, it looks like a spray painted potato.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yes, a very specific yellow potato that you'll find common
in Panama and a lot of Latin American South American countries.
And to me, that's what I'm seeing. So I'm not
seeing rock mediorite whatever. But maybe that's just my eye right,
Maybe that's just what I'm thinking about as I'm watching it.
(20:32):
Let's scroll down to the next one, because if you
look at the next one, you'll find what appears to
be that same rock or potato or whatever it is,
sprouting some kind of crab like tentacles or very strange looking.
There's specifically a green one as the camera to change
the shots there that appears to have movement to it
(20:53):
while it's inside a glass container, which I can imagine
if you're watching this and someone is telling you in
this TikTok, hey, this is what's happening. Look, it's sprouting
tentacles something like that, you would probably feel as though
that's what's happening. Right, And there appears to be movement.
I'm looking at movement on this thing.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Ah, but we're looking at movement after it's being moved
by the person's hand.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And then when it appears to be moving the Sorry
I had to pull up my trash browser for this one.
When it appears to be moving whatever these growths or
tubers may be, it's after it has been placed on
a flat surface after being moved.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yes, and it's appears to be on a plate, right,
that appears to have weight to it, and then a
glass enclosure is put on the top of it, almost
like a cake carrier or something.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yeah, it's like the upside It's like someone took the
fancy glass tupperware and turned it upside down.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah. And then once that's placed on top of it,
the creator of the video appears to put masking tape
so that the top can't come off. And that's at
least what it looks like to me. And you continue
to see movement on this thing again with these tentacle
like protrusions. I am seeing what looks like maybe a
(22:14):
worm in there or some kind of bug moving things around,
but again not sure if that's my eye or you know,
what's actually happening. So you got to keep going down
this rabbit hole, guys, I can totally see why people
have been obsessing over this watching you know what's going
to happen next, because if you continue down, you see
(22:35):
we've got what appears to be the same plate from
the previous video, but now this thing has grown to
the size of the plate, and it's much larger in
height than the plate itself than whatever that rock or
potato or whatever it was is there, and it is
this writhing moving The whole thing appears to be shifting
(22:56):
back and forth. Very creepy, not cool.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
In fact, it's it's very the thing.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yes, do you want to talk a little bit about
the description of the smell?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Oh, now that is where we start to get into
the more skeptical version of what this could be. How
talk about the smell?
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Ben So, according to kin Panama, there was a the
thing that he discovered had a burning smell, and the
burning smell seemed to intensify.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So we've got this big writhing thing that is smelling
of burning and just hanging out, you know, in this
guy's house. I thing keeps taking videos of it. According
to the story, he's reached out to experts to try
and come and look at this thing to discover what
it is, to no reply. So we're still on this
TikTok journey with our creator there, kin Panama. If you
(23:55):
go all the way down, guys, there's what I'm looking
at as a final video or in the series. Here
at least of a small safe, you know, the kind
you might find in a hotel room that you can
very small sized safe open up with the numbers. The
entire safe appears to be filled with this viscousy black
(24:16):
thing that is very much from the thing, and it
is still moving and just hanging out in this guy's
house and this at this point he's illuminating it with
a flashlight, so it looks even creepier than it maybe
even needs to be pretty creepy stuff, Guys, any other
(24:37):
thoughts on what this potentially could be or how these
videos could have been created Before we get into, like
some of the explanations that have been put out there.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Practical effects, without assuming malevolence or purposeful dishonesty, I would
say Panama is a very biodiverse place. We would want
to we would want to coordinate or we'd want to
correlate rather whether or not there was any unusual meteor
activity like a shower or something before this was discovered.
(25:08):
And then we would also want to acknowledge that there's
a lot of weird stuff just on the ground in
Panama to start.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
With, Yes, a lot of weird things that have been
put out there as potential explanations, such as the clathorus
a sherry or the octopus stinkhorn by several other names. Yes,
it is a type of fungus that sprouts from what
looks like you may say a potato, maybe a mushroom
(25:36):
that's just very a bulbous mushroom, but it sprouts these
five sometimes looking tentacles, but they're usually red and black.
Sometimes it creates a really interesting structure that's almost like,
I don't know how you describe it, besides a dome
that has holes in it, that grows outwardly and upward,
(25:57):
and it also puts off a terrible stink, and that's
on purpose to attract flies and other animals to come
over to it that it can then move its spores
around via you know, the mechanisms of those flies or
other bugs. And you know, when people are putting out
that explanation, they're also saying, ah, when you see stuff moving,
(26:18):
like even when it's under the plate, where you're actually
seeing are creatures, bugs that have made a little home
inside this decaying thing, this fungus, as it's growing, but
also as it's decaying and turning that black, kind of
gooey look like let's say a worm or a small
beetle or something is moving around in there, creating the
(26:38):
entire structure, the entire thing to move and appear to
have sentience.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Almost right, right, And you guys know, I'm fascinated with
mycology in general, so I don't put anything past fungus.
To be honest, it's one of the most alien life
forms out there. But people would also respond likely that
the devil's finger oct to a stinkhorn if you prefer
(27:04):
is not. It wasn't generally known to be in Central America, right,
I know it came to North America.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Well, that is not the only stinkhorn in the game.
There's all kinds of weird fungus out there that makes
weird smells, that makes weird protrusions, that you know, decays
in a slimy dark way. So you know, there's all
these possibilities out there of what it could be. Maybe
it's not that, but it sure looks to be something
(27:32):
kind of like that. We should mention that. At one point,
he says in one of the videos that authorities have
come out and taken samples. And that's right before the
time when you get to see the safe with like
the full blown I'm gonna say, creature is hanging out
in the in there. Ultimately, I guess what I'm trying
to get at Plant Queen guys, everybody is that this
(27:55):
is a compelling series of videos that seems really cool.
And if some one is making the videos that either
doesn't have enough information to explain what is occurring or
wants you to think that something else is occurring, you
could make this series of videos with that type of fungus, right,
that makes sense?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
And then also I would add and folks, please, this
is important for all of us to remember. There are
still a lot of fungal life forms that have not
been collected or identified by science, which is why you
should be very careful if you're ever foraging in the wild.
So it is also possible. We don't have confirmation yet,
(28:35):
I believe, but it is also possible that this is
just the first time this specific thing has been on film.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Ah could be, It absolutely could be. Or as one
astute redditor high Strangeness said, and can you can find
this on another Columbia one dot com article, the title
is sorry everybody, redditor debunk viral Panama alien meteorite TikTok case.
(29:03):
Now that doesn't mean it's conclusive, but it does mean
that somebody high Strangeness in this case stepped forward and
gave what appears to be a pretty good explanation, And
it goes back to what you said, Noel, potentially some
kind of effects, right, practical effects, and a specific silicon
based polymer known as p d MS, and another solvent, hexane,
(29:30):
which can be used to create this wriggling breathing movements
because of the when you combine these two things and
they would look that certain way and it would smell
like burning.
Speaker 6 (29:42):
How are the MythBusters guys not on this? This is
exactly the best stuff that's right up there alley.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
They don't really hang out with each other anymore.
Speaker 6 (29:50):
One of them is always on the Corridor Crew show,
and I guess that don't hang out, but like separately
they're still doing some stuff. But like I don't know
if you guys have seen this YouTube series, it's like
THEFX artists kind of taking apart like famous VFX shots
and dissecting which parts are CGI and which parts are practical.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
And he's often on there talking about this kind of thing.
I think they get a kick out of this. They
have a field day with it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Well, what we really need is Captain Disillusion. Do you
remember that gentleman Captain Disillusion. He was a YouTuber gosh,
way back in the day when we were on YouTube
all the time. He puts on this really cool makeup
where he's like, he looks like Silver Surfer from the
cheeks down. Have you ever seen this guy? He's amazing.
(30:33):
He goes through and he debunks a lot of videos
that you'll find on YouTube and other places. I'm assuming TikTok.
Now it's been a while, Captain Disillusion. Sorry, awesome human being,
and I hope that he's out there at least doing
this video at some point, because he just he'll show
you how was the video effect used here to create
this or how was this practical effect used to create
(30:55):
this thing? But maybe again we have to keep in mind,
maybe something weird was found in Panama and that's what
we're actually dealing with. I don't know. Plant Queen, thanks
for sending us this strange thing. We hope we gave
you some stuff to think about, and we look forward
(31:15):
to hearing from you again and everybody else who has
already called in and will call in for now. We'll
be right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
And we have returned. Folks, Guys, I was on the
fence about this when because there are a couple of
different directions we can go in, but just for time,
I want to share a corporate conspiracy that comes to
us from our former friendly neighborhood Wi Fi guy. And
(31:50):
then and then we'll get into one more thing at
the very very end that we keep teasing. Okay, here
we go. Hi, I'm writing to you after listening a
few months back where you read a listener mail from
a postal worker who oftentimes has to buy a stamp
from himself so that he can leave a customer review
of the interaction so we can get a good score
(32:11):
on his customer approval rating. This made me remember a
conspiracy I had long forgotten about. Time Warner Cable now
Spectrum has reviews you can leave for their employees as well,
but many of us believe for years it was a
scheme to keep us from getting better raises. And here,
a former WiFi guy, you have structured this like one
(32:33):
of our episodes. Nice. Here are the facts you say
after every interaction with TWC now Spectrum, you have the
opportunity to leave a review of your interaction with the
company and automated voice ask a few simple questions about
your experience. Customers use a number rating one through five,
one being the worst, five being the best to answer back. Now,
(32:54):
we'll pause here because guys, we've talked a little bit
about this in the past. I I'm sure we've all
experienced these often, especially big companies. I always do the survey.
It takes a lot for me to say someone is bad,
and I always thought it does help the employee for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, I do as well, you know, I do not.
I really do not. However, because of my recent interaction
with Hyundai, I learned that the compensation for a lot
of the employees is directly tied to those things, okay,
and so it does make me think I need to
be doing that more often, just to help everybody.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Out, especially you know, if you're dealing with someone who's
a human on the phone. It is such a rough
job at times because people can be so disrespectful and crazy,
and usually if they're calling, it's because there's already a problem, right,
So you have such a high likelihood of meeting a
(33:55):
stranger who has a problem and does not necessarily feel
that they need to accord you the respect of a
fellow human being, just honestly, And that's not the dunk
on people it's just what happens. Here's where things get
really interesting for Wi Fi Guy. He says the scale
wasn't always one through five. For many years it was
(34:16):
one through ten. This is important because when using the
keypad to respond, there is no ten button. You'd think
you hit one than zero. But if you listen to
the instructions at the beginning of the prompt, which no
one does, it says to give a ten, you have
to hit the star key at the end. If you
try to type in ten, which you hit the one,
(34:37):
it takes your answer as a one and ignores the zero.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
What deus, Oh my god, devious.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Or it is cartoonishly dumb designed. So many employees, as
free Wi Fi Guy often received all ones on a
survey when the well intentioned customer was tried to give
them all tens. Combined that with customers sometimes not understand
ending the rating was the for the specific person they
spoke to and not the company overall. Many people could
(35:06):
have a problem with the company, right, but not the
person that has to be on the phone. So an
employee getting all ones was really common, even if they
were exemplary at their job. And now you continue, Free
Wi Fi Guy these bad reviews, whether intentional or not,
are calculated with all your other reviews for your personal
end of the year performance review, and that's what determines
(35:29):
whether or not you get a raise. Probably also affect
your bonus customer ratings averaged with four or five other
grades from things like your attendance, productivity, et cetera, et cetera,
and just getting this one from this one to ten
snappho or conspiracy was enough to put you in the
bad kid crowd. At the end of the year, everybody
(35:51):
complained to management. They said, this is unfair. It's out
of our control. Look at all these ones they're supposed
to be tens. This counts against or money, This counts
against our pay I don't know. At this point, do
you think, okay, before we continue with Wi Fi the listeners, guys,
do we think this is just incompetent design and oversight
(36:14):
or does it feel purposeful?
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Well, first of all, it sounds like they're letting management know, hey,
this is this is a significant issue, and it sounds
like management said, uh.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
Yeah, they tell you.
Speaker 6 (36:26):
What it more makes me think of is like the
inefficiency of a lot of these kind of robo menu
systems where I don't know if you've ever been on
one where you have the option to either saying a
number out loud or entering it by hand.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
And a lot of times like.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
I'll be on I'll be on speaker because you know,
we're doing other things over on these holds, and it
will register any tap or any tiny little sound as
an input, and then all of a sudden it'll pause
and get confused and you'll have to start over again.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
And I would imagine the.
Speaker 6 (36:55):
Same thing applies to like space between inputs, you know,
because to your point, like I mean, most of the
menu options on these things are single digit numbers.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and they have to be because of
the nature of the phone keypad design, right. But I
would add to this the caveat that we always have
to say, there is a big push now for you
to not manually input numbers or information. The automated lines
will imply that you have to speak, and that is
(37:28):
being recorded and often turned into another revenue streap. So
do you want to pay these people while you're paying them?
I certainly don't. And I've got to tell you it's
insidious how I've seen so many companies just have the
manual entry option hidden beneath a bevy of things, and
(37:48):
they keep pretending that you have to say one. I
don't have to say anything, man, that's right.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Just hit zero over and over and over zero.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Sometimes it works.
Speaker 6 (38:00):
I just despise these things where it's like the menu
is so long and it's changed or menu has changed,
and the thing that you really want is the very
end of it. So spamming zero is often just like
a move out of desperation and frustration.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
And it often works an I'll give you another hack here.
This is an unethical hack, okay, but it does work
for some companies. If you have an operator or agent
or pushing zero. If that's not working for you, start cursing,
use really strong bad language.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
What happens.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Then it gets you to a human. Often it used to.
I don't know if that always works. You know, like
the Captain crunch whistle used to be great for hacking phones,
but then somebody blew up the spot.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, I remember that. But it is a great thing
you could do. This is a nice thing you could
do for somebody. Do all the cursing up front like that,
and then as soon as a human talks to you,
yours just the coolest, nicest customer ever.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Yeah, that's you know me too, well, Matt, that is
that is a tactic deployed. Also, my last question on
that one is when they say, oh, this part of
this conversation and blah blah blah interaction maybe used for
training purposes. Are they still talking about just training human
employees or are they taking that recording that audio data
(39:22):
and using it to train bots.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Agenta AAI agentic AAI.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Here's where it gets crazy, says free Wi Fi guy.
So they went to management, like we're saying, and they
acknowledged this was a problem. Sounds good, right. Corporate would
tell us they were looking into it, but for many
years nothing ever changed, and eventually they told us it
was just too difficult to change in the system. The
attitude from them was that they're essentially telling us to
(39:51):
just do better at everything else and you won't be
on the line, so this shouldn't affect you. The problem
with the response is that many of the technicians who
work for the company are skilled with computers and programming,
at least enough to know how easy it would be
to change the system. Some of these folks were the
people who created the feedback line in the first place. However,
(40:13):
Time Warner Spectrum was so committed to sticking with the
flawed system that they went so far as to start
handing out nine is fine buttons that we could wear,
encouraging customers to just give all nines and avoid that
issue of accidental ones.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
This went on for years before they finally changed the
scale to one to five and eliminated the main issue,
though customers upset with the company as a whole still
leave all one star reviews time to time, But for years,
thousands of employees received slightly lower raises or no rais
at all, which, when added up, could have saved the
(40:50):
company tens of thousands of dollars probably more, just by
creating a game the employees had to play with no
way to control their pieces. Makes you wonder how many
other companies are out there doing this or have done
something similar in an attempt to justify low or no raises.
See their former free Wi Fi guy. There at least
(41:13):
you have convinced me or you've gotten me a little
bit more towards the side of on purpose or purposeful conspiracy,
because they're telling the people who built the feedback line
that it's too complex to fix it, and then there
do you think there? I think it's quite possible there
was a backroom deal where they calculated what might happen
(41:36):
to yearly raises and bonuses if they fix the system.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
I think it's cost benefit analysis.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
How can we afford to pay all these nines? Too
many nines?
Speaker 5 (41:49):
Nines?
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I mean, we we know this kind of stuff happens
across industries and across corporations. One of the well, you know,
we host a thinking show about conspiracies, but in corporate America,
you know, there are all kinds of little conspiracies about
seeing what's on the horizon, knowing something's in the wind,
Like the snacks in the break room get less and
(42:13):
less cool or disappear entirely right, or the year end
party gets a little a little more subdued, right as
the company gets closer to being sold.
Speaker 5 (42:26):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
I've maybe seen something like that.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
I've maybe seen Yeah, yeah, our company used to ball out.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
We used to go to ESPN.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
So dude, did we ever we went?
Speaker 5 (42:38):
Once?
Speaker 3 (42:39):
We went one time.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
I don't think we ever did a DMB day.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
No, no, and we burned you and I know, we
burned a lot of political capital on that one. You know,
I was bringing it up in every meeting.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Can you imagine all of us at Andretti's racing around
the track?
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I can, I can ur sleeate. Dylan and I are
actually putting together a bowling thing. Oh and looking into falconry.
But that's that's the big swing.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
That's a big swing. Man. Get one of those hats.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Oh no, no, no, no, not committing to falconry, experiencing it
for a pleasant afternoon. Dylan, are we where are we
at with that?
Speaker 5 (43:20):
Man?
Speaker 4 (43:21):
Oh? The falcon arrives at down all right?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
The falconer one of the best sketches on SNL ever.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Also, Dylan, can you let the falcon know don doesn't
work for me? Can we do ten to fifteen?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah? He can move some things around?
Speaker 5 (43:36):
All right? Awesome?
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Thanks, Now it's time scheduling with no seriously, I'm obsessed
with falconry and breaking news. Looks like the falcon has
confirmed ten fifteen it is, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I was on the edge of my seat.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Yeah, pay for the whole seat, you only need the edge. Guys,
do we think shnanny like this being described here? With spectrum.
Do we think it could be common in other industries.
I feel like we need some folks who have had
experience in call centers to give us the give us
an email, and give us the skinny.
Speaker 6 (44:12):
I completely agree, and I do wonder if there is
a whole potential episode for stuff that don't want you
to know about call centers. We've certainly talked about like
the Fraternal Order of Police and a lot of the
sort of scamming activities around those, but I'm certain it
goes deeper and that there are other examples that are
worth talking about.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I think we should spread it out to any industry
where there are feedmal reviews.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Yeah, whatever you did right, retail anything, retail McKenzie consulting,
you know all the hits.
Speaker 6 (44:44):
I also, I mean this is sort of related, but
I would love to know a little bit more about
the psychology of the way those menus are programmed and
designed to sort of be as unhelpful as possible, if
that is in fact part of the design or what.
Speaker 5 (44:59):
The Because I just mad.
Speaker 6 (45:01):
It makes me want to scream into a pillow.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, there are definitely a lot of thought goes into
decision trees and to creating barriers to manage customer flow. Right,
So it's supposed to take somebody X amount of minutes
to complete a call, but it's supposed to take them
why amount of time to try to get to where
they're going, because otherwise the calls would be just through
(45:28):
the roof.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
That's that's a calculation for some of these things. And
I've I've personally seen some really ethically questionable kind of
situations like that decisions trees, especially in disaster management, like
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, people were filing a
(45:50):
lot of claims regarding activities by oil companies, right, and
industrial giants, and so these giants would contract out to
third party systems that we get a script where they
pretend to be you know, insert oil company here or whatever,
and then they have a list of things that sound
(46:13):
like they're doing something, but they are not in fact
doing something. They're putting you your name on a list
that a group of lawyers will read several years later.
And it gets really crappy when you know people are
calling lines like that or insurance companies because nine to
one one was overloaded and they had to find something
(46:35):
that could answer the phone, like this is. This gets deeper,
you know, the more you look at it, and Friendly
Neighborhood Wi Fi Guy, thank you so much for hipping
us to this. We're gonna keep it short. Do believe
this could be an episode. We'd love to hear your
thoughts on it. Check out our related interview segments with
(46:56):
Denise Chan, who did a fantastic investigation of forced labor
in call centers, especially in Myanmar and other parts of
that region. We will have a full episode on the
Guadlajara disappearances, but for now, big thanks and friendly neighborhood
Wi Fi Guy, Plant Queen, Digital Stage and everybody else
who wrote in. We're gonna call it an evening. We're
(47:18):
off to activigate. We can't wait to hear from you.
Join the show. Find us. You can go online and
give it some email. You can give us a call,
it's right.
Speaker 6 (47:27):
You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where
it gets crazy, on xfka, Twitter, and on YouTube where
we have video content for YouTube, Cruise and enjoy on
Instagram and TikTok. However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three st d WYTK. When do you call in? I'm
gonna let the cat out of the bag here, guys,
there's currently no time limit on the voicemail. We ask
you kindly to keep it to three minutes. It has
changed and we've received several fifteen minute voicemails recently that
(48:06):
we just can't use on the air. So please, if
you want to talk to us, keep it as short
as you can, just to increase the probability that we'll
be able to actually address everything you have to say
on the show. If you've got more to say then
can fit in a three minute voicemail. Why not instead
send us an email.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive, no matter how short, no matter how long.
Sometimes I just get an email that says, look at this,
we love it. Sometimes get an email that is a
very well thought out essay, love that as well. Send
us the links, send us the attachment, send us the pictures,
and thanks for that Ruda Bega video. Anonymous conspiracy realist
(48:47):
Dylan let us know it made his day. All that
and more. Just be aware that sometimes the void does
right back. So play some reindeer games with us out
here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, 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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noa.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
argue you are here. That makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. If you're checking out listener
mail the evening, it publishes, folks, welcome to Thursday September eighteenth,
twenty twenty five, which we are dubbing for the purposes
(00:55):
of this show National Rude Bega Day. Dylan, I think
you've got something prepared for our celebration.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
He's looking for a charming fixer upper with a ports
where he can obsessively look out for bigfoot. Oh, this
view is perfect for using my military grade binoculars. But
she's hoping to find a cozy bomb proof bunker within
walking distance of area fifty one. Well, I can see
the classified aircraft break the laws of physics from here.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Will this work from home?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Skunkworks test pilot and our astral projectionist husband be able
to agree on a lay line positioned home of their
cia and planted dreams. It's time to dig up the
rude bigas in this episode of Shelter Seekers Poetry.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Oh beautiful, so many rudabagas at the shelter.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
And thank you, of course, folks for celebrating this with us.
You know what improv rules say, We're just going to
yes and it, So everybody also tune in September eighteenth,
twenty twenty six. Let's see if we can make this
a thing national Rue de Baga Day. We're so happy
to have several conspiracy realists joining us through one method
(02:00):
or another on the show. Might not get to everything,
but we're gonna have some Latin American conversations while Lahara
Panama in particular, maybe a conspiracy about Time Warner. But
before we do any of that, Noel, there's something really
strange that hit up our inbox.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Huh, A little bit strange.
Speaker 6 (02:18):
Yeah, and we're gonna do kind of one of those
wonderful moments where listener mail and strange news meet, involving
a very unusual traffic stop that we were hipped to
by a delightful listener. Before we get into that, let's
jump into a quick word from our sponsor, and then
we'll be right back with Digital Sage. And we have
(02:41):
returned with our first listener message of the episode from
our buddy Digital Sage, we've heard from many times in
the past, and he hipped us to a very very
fascinating article from the CBC. Hi, Matt Ben and Nole.
He says, you can use this on the podcast. Thanks
Digital Sage. This is probably the most un common traffic
(03:01):
stop I've heard of, and clearly strange news. And then
he links us and signs off. Digital says the headline, gentlemen.
In this article from the CBC, writer Andrew Kurjata, Man
arrested after driving child size pink Barbie jeep through Prince George,
British Columbia. Now, driving any motorized vehicle, according to Kurjata,
(03:26):
without a license is against the law, police say, and
they appear to be classifying this tiny What was it,
guys hot with power wheels? Remember power wheels?
Speaker 5 (03:35):
Oh yeah, I think that's what we're talking here, is
the power wheels? Ask Barbie Jeep?
Speaker 6 (03:38):
A Prince George man was pulled over by police after
driving a child's size pink toy Barbie jeep along one
of the main roads in the north central BC city
on September fifth. And this is not a slow news
day as far as traffic incidents were concerned. We had
a hit and run involving an ambulance that very same day,
and a downtown business being destroyed by are on this
(04:00):
very same day. Photo and videos of the Barbie jeep
incident began to spread online, and we've got him. First
of all, the dude driving the jeep is a real character.
His name is Casper with a K. Lincoln and he's
pictured here wearing a delightful platinum chain and the most
(04:21):
kind of hype beastie you know, like Oakley goggles that
are like these rainbow kind of mirrored shades. They almost
look like you should be a you know, on the
bridge in the Star Trek episode.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It looks like the ones Goggins is pushing Goggins goggles.
Speaker 6 (04:36):
Yes, sir, so yeah, this guy just seems to be
an odd cat Onlookers were shocked when asked about this,
or they reported their shock during the incident. Summer Karan,
who was one of the people witnessing this gentleman being
put in handcuffs said you're really arresting him for driving
a kids jeep.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
She was on Team Casper.
Speaker 6 (04:57):
She told CBC News that he he had been seen
driving very close to the curb, and maybe only at
a speed of up.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
To three miles an hour.
Speaker 6 (05:07):
It does seem a little interestingly pedantic, like, I mean,
you can obviously drive a bicycle in the road and
you don't have to technically hug the curb, but it's
sometimes good etiquette so people can pass you. So it
seems like he was kind of using bicycle etiquette here.
He is, in fact seen driving near the side of
the road in a lane that was actually closed off
(05:28):
due to construction, so he was sort of cordinged off
by cones, so there was no traffic directly in front
of or behind him. Somebody named Nikita Morgan, who was
also an onlooker, saw part of the incident as she
drove in the open lane right beside him, saying that
she was cruising down the street and this undercover, unmarked
police vehicle is behind me, so I rode out my
(05:48):
window and say, don't let him catch you riding dirty.
She shouts out the window to Urt Buddy Casper, of course,
referencing the Chamellionaire song Riding Dirty from two thousand and five,
an absolute banger of the era. However, her warning was
not given in enough time because he was in fact
pulled over our CMP. So they pulled Lincoln over for
(06:10):
a traffic stop and through the course of speaking with him,
found that he had a suspended license and surprise, surprise,
perhaps was believed to be inebriated, which was verified by
a field sobriety test, which Lincoln himself also confirmed to
CBC News.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Technically, do you need a license to drive a Barbie car?
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Like?
Speaker 6 (06:34):
Certainly not if you're doing it in your own private
you know, driveway or like subdivision subdivision?
Speaker 5 (06:41):
I guess yeah, a gray area here, guys.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I think the main thing is the d Y, which
is not a gray area. This does sound like the
plan a person under the influence would come up with,
you think was perfect.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Oh totally.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Can you get a DY for operating a bicycle or another? Yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
As well, you should as well you should attractor a
riding lawnmower. I didn't know that anything pretty much that
moves on the road. I think I'll have to check
on this, but I remember reading a couple of cases
where some guys in Texas got duys on horses.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Now that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I feel bad for the horse.
Speaker 6 (07:22):
If the horse was, you know, intoxicated, that'd be one thing.
But it does it's you know, it's not quite the same,
but I.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Guess it's also it's also a thing where you know,
in this case, and thank you so much digital sage.
In this case, they probably would have just been like, Hey,
get out of here with your dumb college pranks. You
know what I mean. You've got your video or your reels.
We have real police work to do. But a suspended
(07:48):
license means that there were already some things that were
on the wrong side of the law. So yeah, yeah,
being intoxicated possibly, but they say.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Not a great combo.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
And the police did make a statement to the CBC
stating that driving an unlicensed motorized vehicle, even one that's
made for a child on a road mean for full
sized cars, is in fact against the law. Their media
relations officer, staff Sergeant Chris Clark said that insurance also
comes into play. Driving an uninsured vehicle is enough to
(08:23):
justify making an arrests, especially when combined to your point
bend with possible impairment. Kyla Lee, who was spoken to
for this article, who's a Vancouver based lawyer who specializes
in driving offenses, agreed with the police in this case,
saying that it's a very well established policy that toy
vehicles aren't supposed to be on the road in the
first place, and that you are in fact required to
(08:45):
have a driver's license in British Columbia for operating any
kind of motorized vehicle on the roadway, including barbie cars,
she says, toy cars, electric skateboards or anything like that,
it's required to have a license and insurance. And guys,
I mean, maybe it's just u thing, but it does
feel a little more like a gray area here, And
I do wonder are there requirements in certain places for like,
(09:08):
there's all of these gray areas now with these motorized
bicycles that are technically classified as you know, self propelled
vehicles that don't require the same rigor in terms of
like having a license orcurying insurance.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
But they're basically motorcycles. And oh yeah, it's causing some
real issues, I know.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So when we got seriously injured on one of those,
just because of the the speed they can attain frankly
depending on the kind of e byte you get. But
it's also in this case too, the personal travails of
this person aside. It shows us it's not so much
what you're driving, but where you're driving, like you can be,
(09:47):
you can be totally in your in your best frame
of mind, and really a really talented bicyclist, But it's
still technically illegal for you to bicycle on the interstate.
You know, you're a danger to yourself others.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
You nailed it, Ben.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
Here in Georgia, in particular, a motorized biker an e
bike is considered a moped if its engine is fifty
ccs or less, and it's not allowed to exceed thirty
miles per hour on level surfaces. Also, you have to
be at least fifteen years old and have a valid
Georgia driver's license fifteen I guess it would be a
(10:22):
learner's permit. That's interesting, yes, or permit correct? And you
are supposed to wear a DOT approved helmet, so I
wonder if you got popped for a helmet to.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Oh like a lame yeah, thanks government.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
No, it's true. It's true. Take a take away my liberties.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
Why don't you and to your point bend here in
Georgia you're not allowed to ride a moped on limited
access highways or roads with minimum speeds above thirty MPs.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Can we talk about why it's so important to have
insurance and it's not pure safety?
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Yes, And I don't want to get into this, but
somebody brought up a really good point around this, you know,
Charlie kirk shooting and all of the spates of in saying,
gun violence that we just see on such a regular
basis in this country. The idea of a form of
gun control could be requiring people to carry insurance, like
like a high degree a high level of insurance in
(11:13):
the event that you were, you know, wrongfully injured somebody
or killed somebody. And I'm not sure exactly how that
would work, but I did. It kind of made my
you know, my gears start turning a little bit about
what would that look like, Something that would be like
not outright you know, prohibition of firearms, but something that
just protected others at least to some degree.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
You know, that's interesting, that's really interesting because well, you
guys tell me if I'm wrong here, But my understanding
is that the reason why it's required to have insurance
when you're operating a vehicle like that is in the
event that you injure someone with that v hundred percent right,
so that you can pay them.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, that's why the lowest tier of car insurance is
liability only. And also, you know, the the foot the
car stuff had on for insurance with motor vehicles. A
big part of the argument for that is not just
that people can't usually afford to pay out of pocket
(12:13):
for something as horrendous as a car accident, but also
that driving a motor vehicle in this country is a privilege.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
Not a right to any point. And that's why the
Second Amendment.
Speaker 6 (12:24):
Stuff is so sticky, because it, of course, you know,
owning a weapon and wielding a weapon and being able
to protect yourself is considered a right, and people get
really up in arms about that. No pun intended, And
I'm really not trying to make this about gun violence
at all. I just thought it was an interesting parallel that, like,
vehicles can be as deadly as firearms, and a lot
of people making arguments for firearms and for maybe lesser
(12:48):
gun control is this idea that for the right to
drive a car and the privilege of driving a car
rather and like how convenient it is we accept a
certain number of traffic datas every year.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, and that is on record what the late Charlie
Kirk said.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
That's correct.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
And again not trying to make this a hot button issue,
but I just I can't help but see those parallels
and then find it interesting. There's a bit of a
false equivalency between the two or lack of rather, you know,
like one is its own thing, but they both are
capable of the same devastating results.
Speaker 5 (13:20):
Do we have a.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Well, also, a gun is not gonna take it on
a cool road trip.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I want to see how much damage you could do
with that thing, right right?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Do we have an official statement for the good folks
at Barbie Power? Will we really do?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Ben?
Speaker 6 (13:35):
I'm so glad to ask, because I want to know
a little bit about the stats of this vehicle.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
If you can call it that. Hey, now you knock
that off.
Speaker 6 (13:44):
Paulo is speaking to the to the fine people out there.
According to Mattel, the Barbie jeep wrangler from Fisher Price,
I guess they own Fisher Price as well. No, no, no,
they must license the Barbie stuff to Fisher Price. Can
only drive up to eight kilometers per hour, and it
does come with power brakes, so you know, safety first.
(14:05):
It's recommended to children three to seven years of age
and is only for use on hard surfaces. And the
police do circle back on this issue at the very least,
saying that the police are probably not going to mess
with a kid for playing on a quiet residential street,
you know, in their power wheels. Barbie jeep Wrangler. However,
this car was driving on a high traffic road that
(14:26):
is used by other vehicles and it is considered a
public safety risk.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, it's a great quote. You don't mind me.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Reading it, at least do my friend.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It's a huge public safety risk. If you're using it
on the sidewalk, you pose a risk to pedestrians to children.
If you're using it on the roadway, it's a safety
risk to yourself. Nobody wants to hit somebody in a
Barbie car, and drivers aren't looking for Barbie cars in
the roadway.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
To be fair, they are very short. It would be
very easy to not see this individual entirely. And just
like pancake, the guy so.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yep, especially with the powder of cars becoming larger and
larger over time to dodge a mission laws. I do
want to say one of my favorite parts of this
that seems like there's more to the story here digital Sage,
is the fact that it was not this guy's own
Barbie Power Wheels vehicle. He is lucky he didn't get
(15:18):
charged with whatever. The power Wheels version of Grand Theft
Auto is belonged to the daughter of his roommates. He
took a little joy ride deep.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, he said he was using the hand signals and everything.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
Yes, they don't have like signals. Do you think these
things would have like blinkers, No, they don't. That's an upgrade. Yeah,
he did say that exactly, Matt I was using the
hand signals and everything. He had no idea he was
breaking the law, and he did apparently take it in
stride and then appreciated being at the center of some
jokes and on this article. If you want to check
it out, there is a fabulous graphic that somebody made
(15:56):
with some excellent scenes from the region of Prince George
and it's like a Grand Theft Auto video game, you know,
cover with a little dude in a very low speed
card chase.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
I mean the police suv. It's like a Chevy suv.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
You can see the flashers on and this is right
up on the guy's ass and he's looking.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Over his shoulder. Just cal him as a cucumber. It's
very funny. Well, we appreciate this one digital stage.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
We'll keep this one a little shorter because it was
just a silly, fun goofy chat about a weird traffic stop.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
So let's take a quick break.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Here, a word from our sponsor, and then we'll be
back with more messages from you.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And we've returned and we're jumping to the phone lines. Guys,
who would have funk it? That's what we're doing. We're
gonna hear a message from Plant Queen. Then we're gonna
go on a little TikTok journey. Are you guys excited?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Now, look, this is interactive. We all have to do
this together. So if you need to, you can skip
this part and go to the third section of the
show and wait until you're in a place where you
can look at your phone and do some tiktoking while
you're listening, Because it is highly important that you get
the visuals here. Why don't we hear the message? Then
we'll jump over to the links from Columbia one and
(17:17):
watch these videos because you don't need TikTok to be
able to watch them. That's the best part. Okay, here
we go.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Hey guys, this is the plant Queen here. This is
my second time calling, but I have some interesting stuff
for you guys. If you look over on the tiki talk,
there is a handle user by the name of ken
Panama kas and Kilo is is an igloo and is
in Nancy, Panama, Papa Alpa, Nancy Alpha, Mary Alpha. Take
(17:48):
a look at his stuff. He's been posting for a
couple of weeks now that I've been following. He is
what seems like maybe an outdoorsy kind of guy in
the jungles of Panama, and he's found a meteorite and
he's keeping this meteorite in his home. Looks like he
sent out some samples, but I think it's something you
guys might want to take a look at. It's definitely growing, growing,
(18:10):
some weird little funky appendages seemed to be moving and
other stuff. So definitely take a look at that. Come
back and let me know I'm definitely generly curious to
do with your guys' thought processes. I've been watching this
for a little while now, and I really was assuming
it was probably an AI fake at some point, but
it does not seem to have been debunked yet, and
(18:32):
it seems to be actually happening. So yeah, take a
look at that. Let me know, or you know, air
it out.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Well.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Hi, guys, thank you so much. Plant queen. Guess what
we're gonna look at it right now. We found an
article on Columbia one dot com titled alleged meteorite with
alien life found in Panama Shakes social media. It was
posted on September fourteenth, twenty twenty five, written by Victor Cohen.
(19:01):
Look that up. Go ahead, we'll give you a second
look up that link, and if you scroll down, well,
first of all, you're gonna get hit with a gnarly
looking picture which looks pretty alien to be especially if
you've ever seen the X Files series and you've seen
the Black Goo feels a lot like that. But if
you scroll down here you will see one of the
(19:23):
first related TikTok videos. And that's the first one I
want to watch with you, guys. This one. I don't
know if it has a title on it or not.
I guess it does. But it's embedded, so you can
find it if you go to that link or if
you go to that article. So if you look at
the first embedded TikTok on that article, you will see
what looks to be a chopstick maybe pushing around something
(19:47):
that looks almost like a rock.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Looks like a tiny rotten potato.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
It does.
Speaker 6 (19:54):
When you pull back to see the scale, it's a
lot smaller because it's just the first You just see
it zoomed in as the tip of the chopstick poking
at but it looks a little bigger than it might
feel once it's zoomed out, and it is a little
bit of a fragment of a thing. But up close, man,
it looks like Matt ben I think you pointed out
off Mike, it looks like a spray painted potato.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yes, a very specific yellow potato that you'll find common
in Panama and a lot of Latin American South American countries.
And to me, that's what I'm seeing. So I'm not
seeing rock mediorite whatever. But maybe that's just my eye right,
Maybe that's just what I'm thinking about as I'm watching it.
(20:32):
Let's scroll down to the next one, because if you
look at the next one, you'll find what appears to
be that same rock or potato or whatever it is,
sprouting some kind of crab like tentacles or very strange looking.
There's specifically a green one as the camera to change
the shots there that appears to have movement to it
(20:53):
while it's inside a glass container, which I can imagine
if you're watching this and someone is telling you in
this TikTok, hey, this is what's happening. Look, it's sprouting
tentacles something like that, you would probably feel as though
that's what's happening. Right, And there appears to be movement.
I'm looking at movement on this thing.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Ah, but we're looking at movement after it's being moved
by the person's hand.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And then when it appears to be moving the Sorry
I had to pull up my trash browser for this one.
When it appears to be moving whatever these growths or
tubers may be, it's after it has been placed on
a flat surface after being moved.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yes, and it's appears to be on a plate, right,
that appears to have weight to it, and then a
glass enclosure is put on the top of it, almost
like a cake carrier or something.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yeah, it's like the upside It's like someone took the
fancy glass tupperware and turned it upside down.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah. And then once that's placed on top of it,
the creator of the video appears to put masking tape
so that the top can't come off. And that's at
least what it looks like to me. And you continue
to see movement on this thing again with these tentacle
like protrusions. I am seeing what looks like maybe a
(22:14):
worm in there or some kind of bug moving things around,
but again not sure if that's my eye or you know,
what's actually happening. So you got to keep going down
this rabbit hole, guys, I can totally see why people
have been obsessing over this watching you know what's going
to happen next, because if you continue down, you see
(22:35):
we've got what appears to be the same plate from
the previous video, but now this thing has grown to
the size of the plate, and it's much larger in
height than the plate itself than whatever that rock or
potato or whatever it was is there, and it is
this writhing moving The whole thing appears to be shifting
(22:56):
back and forth. Very creepy, not cool.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
In fact, it's it's very the thing.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yes, do you want to talk a little bit about
the description of the smell?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Oh, now that is where we start to get into
the more skeptical version of what this could be. How
talk about the smell?
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Ben So, according to kin Panama, there was a the
thing that he discovered had a burning smell, and the
burning smell seemed to intensify.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So we've got this big writhing thing that is smelling
of burning and just hanging out, you know, in this
guy's house. I thing keeps taking videos of it. According
to the story, he's reached out to experts to try
and come and look at this thing to discover what
it is, to no reply. So we're still on this
TikTok journey with our creator there, kin Panama. If you
(23:55):
go all the way down, guys, there's what I'm looking
at as a final video or in the series. Here
at least of a small safe, you know, the kind
you might find in a hotel room that you can
very small sized safe open up with the numbers. The
entire safe appears to be filled with this viscousy black
(24:16):
thing that is very much from the thing, and it
is still moving and just hanging out in this guy's
house and this at this point he's illuminating it with
a flashlight, so it looks even creepier than it maybe
even needs to be pretty creepy stuff, Guys, any other
(24:37):
thoughts on what this potentially could be or how these
videos could have been created Before we get into, like
some of the explanations that have been put out there.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Practical effects, without assuming malevolence or purposeful dishonesty, I would
say Panama is a very biodiverse place. We would want
to we would want to coordinate or we'd want to
correlate rather whether or not there was any unusual meteor
activity like a shower or something before this was discovered.
(25:08):
And then we would also want to acknowledge that there's
a lot of weird stuff just on the ground in
Panama to start.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
With, Yes, a lot of weird things that have been
put out there as potential explanations, such as the clathorus
a sherry or the octopus stinkhorn by several other names. Yes,
it is a type of fungus that sprouts from what
looks like you may say a potato, maybe a mushroom
(25:36):
that's just very a bulbous mushroom, but it sprouts these
five sometimes looking tentacles, but they're usually red and black.
Sometimes it creates a really interesting structure that's almost like,
I don't know how you describe it, besides a dome
that has holes in it, that grows outwardly and upward,
(25:57):
and it also puts off a terrible stink, and that's
on purpose to attract flies and other animals to come
over to it that it can then move its spores
around via you know, the mechanisms of those flies or
other bugs. And you know, when people are putting out
that explanation, they're also saying, ah, when you see stuff moving,
(26:18):
like even when it's under the plate, where you're actually
seeing are creatures, bugs that have made a little home
inside this decaying thing, this fungus, as it's growing, but
also as it's decaying and turning that black, kind of
gooey look like let's say a worm or a small
beetle or something is moving around in there, creating the
(26:38):
entire structure, the entire thing to move and appear to
have sentience.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Almost right, right, And you guys know, I'm fascinated with
mycology in general, so I don't put anything past fungus.
To be honest, it's one of the most alien life
forms out there. But people would also respond likely that
the devil's finger oct to a stinkhorn if you prefer
(27:04):
is not. It wasn't generally known to be in Central America, right,
I know it came to North America.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Well, that is not the only stinkhorn in the game.
There's all kinds of weird fungus out there that makes
weird smells, that makes weird protrusions, that you know, decays
in a slimy dark way. So you know, there's all
these possibilities out there of what it could be. Maybe
it's not that, but it sure looks to be something
(27:32):
kind of like that. We should mention that. At one point,
he says in one of the videos that authorities have
come out and taken samples. And that's right before the
time when you get to see the safe with like
the full blown I'm gonna say, creature is hanging out
in the in there. Ultimately, I guess what I'm trying
to get at Plant Queen guys, everybody is that this
(27:55):
is a compelling series of videos that seems really cool.
And if some one is making the videos that either
doesn't have enough information to explain what is occurring or
wants you to think that something else is occurring, you
could make this series of videos with that type of fungus, right,
that makes sense?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
And then also I would add and folks, please, this
is important for all of us to remember. There are
still a lot of fungal life forms that have not
been collected or identified by science, which is why you
should be very careful if you're ever foraging in the wild.
So it is also possible. We don't have confirmation yet,
(28:35):
I believe, but it is also possible that this is
just the first time this specific thing has been on film.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Ah could be, It absolutely could be. Or as one
astute redditor high Strangeness said, and can you can find
this on another Columbia one dot com article, the title
is sorry everybody, redditor debunk viral Panama alien meteorite TikTok case.
(29:03):
Now that doesn't mean it's conclusive, but it does mean
that somebody high Strangeness in this case stepped forward and
gave what appears to be a pretty good explanation, And
it goes back to what you said, Noel, potentially some
kind of effects, right, practical effects, and a specific silicon
based polymer known as p d MS, and another solvent, hexane,
(29:30):
which can be used to create this wriggling breathing movements
because of the when you combine these two things and
they would look that certain way and it would smell
like burning.
Speaker 6 (29:42):
How are the MythBusters guys not on this? This is
exactly the best stuff that's right up there alley.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
They don't really hang out with each other anymore.
Speaker 6 (29:50):
One of them is always on the Corridor Crew show,
and I guess that don't hang out, but like separately
they're still doing some stuff. But like I don't know
if you guys have seen this YouTube series, it's like
THEFX artists kind of taking apart like famous VFX shots
and dissecting which parts are CGI and which parts are practical.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
And he's often on there talking about this kind of thing.
I think they get a kick out of this. They
have a field day with it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Well, what we really need is Captain Disillusion. Do you
remember that gentleman Captain Disillusion. He was a YouTuber gosh,
way back in the day when we were on YouTube
all the time. He puts on this really cool makeup
where he's like, he looks like Silver Surfer from the
cheeks down. Have you ever seen this guy? He's amazing.
(30:33):
He goes through and he debunks a lot of videos
that you'll find on YouTube and other places. I'm assuming TikTok.
Now it's been a while, Captain Disillusion. Sorry, awesome human being,
and I hope that he's out there at least doing
this video at some point, because he just he'll show
you how was the video effect used here to create
this or how was this practical effect used to create
(30:55):
this thing? But maybe again we have to keep in mind,
maybe something weird was found in Panama and that's what
we're actually dealing with. I don't know. Plant Queen, thanks
for sending us this strange thing. We hope we gave
you some stuff to think about, and we look forward
(31:15):
to hearing from you again and everybody else who has
already called in and will call in for now. We'll
be right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
And we have returned. Folks, Guys, I was on the
fence about this when because there are a couple of
different directions we can go in, but just for time,
I want to share a corporate conspiracy that comes to
us from our former friendly neighborhood Wi Fi guy. And
(31:50):
then and then we'll get into one more thing at
the very very end that we keep teasing. Okay, here
we go. Hi, I'm writing to you after listening a
few months back where you read a listener mail from
a postal worker who oftentimes has to buy a stamp
from himself so that he can leave a customer review
of the interaction so we can get a good score
(32:11):
on his customer approval rating. This made me remember a
conspiracy I had long forgotten about. Time Warner Cable now
Spectrum has reviews you can leave for their employees as well,
but many of us believe for years it was a
scheme to keep us from getting better raises. And here,
a former WiFi guy, you have structured this like one
(32:33):
of our episodes. Nice. Here are the facts you say
after every interaction with TWC now Spectrum, you have the
opportunity to leave a review of your interaction with the
company and automated voice ask a few simple questions about
your experience. Customers use a number rating one through five,
one being the worst, five being the best to answer back. Now,
(32:54):
we'll pause here because guys, we've talked a little bit
about this in the past. I I'm sure we've all
experienced these often, especially big companies. I always do the survey.
It takes a lot for me to say someone is bad,
and I always thought it does help the employee for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, I do as well, you know, I do not.
I really do not. However, because of my recent interaction
with Hyundai, I learned that the compensation for a lot
of the employees is directly tied to those things, okay,
and so it does make me think I need to
be doing that more often, just to help everybody.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Out, especially you know, if you're dealing with someone who's
a human on the phone. It is such a rough
job at times because people can be so disrespectful and crazy,
and usually if they're calling, it's because there's already a problem, right,
So you have such a high likelihood of meeting a
(33:55):
stranger who has a problem and does not necessarily feel
that they need to accord you the respect of a
fellow human being, just honestly, And that's not the dunk
on people it's just what happens. Here's where things get
really interesting for Wi Fi Guy. He says the scale
wasn't always one through five. For many years it was
(34:16):
one through ten. This is important because when using the
keypad to respond, there is no ten button. You'd think
you hit one than zero. But if you listen to
the instructions at the beginning of the prompt, which no
one does, it says to give a ten, you have
to hit the star key at the end. If you
try to type in ten, which you hit the one,
(34:37):
it takes your answer as a one and ignores the zero.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
What deus, Oh my god, devious.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
Or it is cartoonishly dumb designed. So many employees, as
free Wi Fi Guy often received all ones on a
survey when the well intentioned customer was tried to give
them all tens. Combined that with customers sometimes not understand
ending the rating was the for the specific person they
spoke to and not the company overall. Many people could
(35:06):
have a problem with the company, right, but not the
person that has to be on the phone. So an
employee getting all ones was really common, even if they
were exemplary at their job. And now you continue, Free
Wi Fi Guy these bad reviews, whether intentional or not,
are calculated with all your other reviews for your personal
end of the year performance review, and that's what determines
(35:29):
whether or not you get a raise. Probably also affect
your bonus customer ratings averaged with four or five other
grades from things like your attendance, productivity, et cetera, et cetera,
and just getting this one from this one to ten
snappho or conspiracy was enough to put you in the
bad kid crowd. At the end of the year, everybody
(35:51):
complained to management. They said, this is unfair. It's out
of our control. Look at all these ones they're supposed
to be tens. This counts against or money, This counts
against our pay I don't know. At this point, do
you think, okay, before we continue with Wi Fi the listeners, guys,
do we think this is just incompetent design and oversight
(36:14):
or does it feel purposeful?
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Well, first of all, it sounds like they're letting management know, hey,
this is this is a significant issue, and it sounds
like management said, uh.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
Yeah, they tell you.
Speaker 6 (36:26):
What it more makes me think of is like the
inefficiency of a lot of these kind of robo menu
systems where I don't know if you've ever been on
one where you have the option to either saying a
number out loud or entering it by hand.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
And a lot of times like.
Speaker 6 (36:39):
I'll be on I'll be on speaker because you know,
we're doing other things over on these holds, and it
will register any tap or any tiny little sound as
an input, and then all of a sudden it'll pause
and get confused and you'll have to start over again.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
And I would imagine the.
Speaker 6 (36:55):
Same thing applies to like space between inputs, you know,
because to your point, like I mean, most of the
menu options on these things are single digit numbers.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and they have to be because of
the nature of the phone keypad design, right. But I
would add to this the caveat that we always have
to say, there is a big push now for you
to not manually input numbers or information. The automated lines
will imply that you have to speak, and that is
(37:28):
being recorded and often turned into another revenue streap. So
do you want to pay these people while you're paying them?
I certainly don't. And I've got to tell you it's
insidious how I've seen so many companies just have the
manual entry option hidden beneath a bevy of things, and
(37:48):
they keep pretending that you have to say one. I
don't have to say anything, man, that's right.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Just hit zero over and over and over zero.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Sometimes it works.
Speaker 6 (38:00):
I just despise these things where it's like the menu
is so long and it's changed or menu has changed,
and the thing that you really want is the very
end of it. So spamming zero is often just like
a move out of desperation and frustration.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
And it often works an I'll give you another hack here.
This is an unethical hack, okay, but it does work
for some companies. If you have an operator or agent
or pushing zero. If that's not working for you, start cursing,
use really strong bad language.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
What happens.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Then it gets you to a human. Often it used to.
I don't know if that always works. You know, like
the Captain crunch whistle used to be great for hacking phones,
but then somebody blew up the spot.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, I remember that. But it is a great thing
you could do. This is a nice thing you could
do for somebody. Do all the cursing up front like that,
and then as soon as a human talks to you,
yours just the coolest, nicest customer ever.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Yeah, that's you know me too, well, Matt, that is
that is a tactic deployed. Also, my last question on
that one is when they say, oh, this part of
this conversation and blah blah blah interaction maybe used for
training purposes. Are they still talking about just training human
employees or are they taking that recording that audio data
(39:22):
and using it to train bots.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Agenta AAI agentic AAI.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Here's where it gets crazy, says free Wi Fi guy.
So they went to management, like we're saying, and they
acknowledged this was a problem. Sounds good, right. Corporate would
tell us they were looking into it, but for many
years nothing ever changed, and eventually they told us it
was just too difficult to change in the system. The
attitude from them was that they're essentially telling us to
(39:51):
just do better at everything else and you won't be
on the line, so this shouldn't affect you. The problem
with the response is that many of the technicians who
work for the company are skilled with computers and programming,
at least enough to know how easy it would be
to change the system. Some of these folks were the
people who created the feedback line in the first place. However,
(40:13):
Time Warner Spectrum was so committed to sticking with the
flawed system that they went so far as to start
handing out nine is fine buttons that we could wear,
encouraging customers to just give all nines and avoid that
issue of accidental ones.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
This went on for years before they finally changed the
scale to one to five and eliminated the main issue,
though customers upset with the company as a whole still
leave all one star reviews time to time, But for years,
thousands of employees received slightly lower raises or no rais
at all, which, when added up, could have saved the
(40:50):
company tens of thousands of dollars probably more, just by
creating a game the employees had to play with no
way to control their pieces. Makes you wonder how many
other companies are out there doing this or have done
something similar in an attempt to justify low or no raises.
See their former free Wi Fi guy. There at least
(41:13):
you have convinced me or you've gotten me a little
bit more towards the side of on purpose or purposeful conspiracy,
because they're telling the people who built the feedback line
that it's too complex to fix it, and then there
do you think there? I think it's quite possible there
was a backroom deal where they calculated what might happen
(41:36):
to yearly raises and bonuses if they fix the system.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
I think it's cost benefit analysis.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
How can we afford to pay all these nines? Too
many nines?
Speaker 5 (41:49):
Nines?
Speaker 3 (41:50):
I mean, we we know this kind of stuff happens
across industries and across corporations. One of the well, you know,
we host a thinking show about conspiracies, but in corporate America,
you know, there are all kinds of little conspiracies about
seeing what's on the horizon, knowing something's in the wind,
Like the snacks in the break room get less and
(42:13):
less cool or disappear entirely right, or the year end
party gets a little a little more subdued, right as
the company gets closer to being sold.
Speaker 5 (42:26):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
I've maybe seen something like that.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
I've maybe seen Yeah, yeah, our company used to ball out.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
We used to go to ESPN.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
So dude, did we ever we went?
Speaker 5 (42:38):
Once?
Speaker 3 (42:39):
We went one time.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
I don't think we ever did a DMB day.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
No, no, and we burned you and I know, we
burned a lot of political capital on that one. You know,
I was bringing it up in every meeting.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Can you imagine all of us at Andretti's racing around
the track?
Speaker 3 (42:58):
I can, I can ur sleeate. Dylan and I are
actually putting together a bowling thing. Oh and looking into falconry.
But that's that's the big swing.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
That's a big swing. Man. Get one of those hats.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Oh no, no, no, no, not committing to falconry, experiencing it
for a pleasant afternoon. Dylan, are we where are we
at with that?
Speaker 5 (43:20):
Man?
Speaker 4 (43:21):
Oh? The falcon arrives at down all right?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
The falconer one of the best sketches on SNL ever.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Also, Dylan, can you let the falcon know don doesn't
work for me? Can we do ten to fifteen?
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah? He can move some things around?
Speaker 5 (43:36):
All right? Awesome?
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Thanks, Now it's time scheduling with no seriously, I'm obsessed
with falconry and breaking news. Looks like the falcon has
confirmed ten fifteen it is, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I was on the edge of my seat.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
Yeah, pay for the whole seat, you only need the edge. Guys,
do we think shnanny like this being described here? With spectrum.
Do we think it could be common in other industries.
I feel like we need some folks who have had
experience in call centers to give us the give us
an email, and give us the skinny.
Speaker 6 (44:12):
I completely agree, and I do wonder if there is
a whole potential episode for stuff that don't want you
to know about call centers. We've certainly talked about like
the Fraternal Order of Police and a lot of the
sort of scamming activities around those, but I'm certain it
goes deeper and that there are other examples that are
worth talking about.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I think we should spread it out to any industry
where there are feedmal reviews.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Yeah, whatever you did right, retail anything, retail McKenzie consulting,
you know all the hits.
Speaker 6 (44:44):
I also, I mean this is sort of related, but
I would love to know a little bit more about
the psychology of the way those menus are programmed and
designed to sort of be as unhelpful as possible, if
that is in fact part of the design or what.
Speaker 5 (44:59):
The Because I just mad.
Speaker 6 (45:01):
It makes me want to scream into a pillow.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, there are definitely a lot of thought goes into
decision trees and to creating barriers to manage customer flow. Right,
So it's supposed to take somebody X amount of minutes
to complete a call, but it's supposed to take them
why amount of time to try to get to where
they're going, because otherwise the calls would be just through
(45:28):
the roof.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Right.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
That's that's a calculation for some of these things. And
I've I've personally seen some really ethically questionable kind of
situations like that decisions trees, especially in disaster management, like
in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, people were filing a
(45:50):
lot of claims regarding activities by oil companies, right, and
industrial giants, and so these giants would contract out to
third party systems that we get a script where they
pretend to be you know, insert oil company here or whatever,
and then they have a list of things that sound
(46:13):
like they're doing something, but they are not in fact
doing something. They're putting you your name on a list
that a group of lawyers will read several years later.
And it gets really crappy when you know people are
calling lines like that or insurance companies because nine to
one one was overloaded and they had to find something
(46:35):
that could answer the phone, like this is. This gets deeper,
you know, the more you look at it, and Friendly
Neighborhood Wi Fi Guy, thank you so much for hipping
us to this. We're gonna keep it short. Do believe
this could be an episode. We'd love to hear your
thoughts on it. Check out our related interview segments with
(46:56):
Denise Chan, who did a fantastic investigation of forced labor
in call centers, especially in Myanmar and other parts of
that region. We will have a full episode on the
Guadlajara disappearances, but for now, big thanks and friendly neighborhood
Wi Fi Guy, Plant Queen, Digital Stage and everybody else
who wrote in. We're gonna call it an evening. We're
(47:18):
off to activigate. We can't wait to hear from you.
Join the show. Find us. You can go online and
give it some email. You can give us a call,
it's right.
Speaker 6 (47:27):
You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where
it gets crazy, on xfka, Twitter, and on YouTube where
we have video content for YouTube, Cruise and enjoy on
Instagram and TikTok. However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three st d WYTK. When do you call in? I'm
gonna let the cat out of the bag here, guys,
there's currently no time limit on the voicemail. We ask
you kindly to keep it to three minutes. It has
changed and we've received several fifteen minute voicemails recently that
(48:06):
we just can't use on the air. So please, if
you want to talk to us, keep it as short
as you can, just to increase the probability that we'll
be able to actually address everything you have to say
on the show. If you've got more to say then
can fit in a three minute voicemail. Why not instead
send us an email.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive, no matter how short, no matter how long.
Sometimes I just get an email that says, look at this,
we love it. Sometimes get an email that is a
very well thought out essay, love that as well. Send
us the links, send us the attachment, send us the pictures,
and thanks for that Ruda Bega video. Anonymous conspiracy realist
(48:47):
Dylan let us know it made his day. All that
and more. Just be aware that sometimes the void does
right back. So play some reindeer games with us out
here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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