January 15, 2026 • 56 mins
It's our first listener mail segment of 2026! The Grease Weasel gives an inside look at faith healing. Bonita C. provides more context on the terrifying hidden history of Africville. Alpha Flight and Betty share strange Christmas stories. Inspired by Noah, the guys vow to do a full episode on oligarchs. William writes a beautiful letter all the way from Malaysia. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined with our guest superproducer,
Max the Frey Train Williams. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this whole thing the stuff
they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist friends
and neighbors, Venezuelans and no Venezuelans alike. This is our
(00:49):
first listener mail segment of twenty twenty six. Welcome to Thursday,
January fifteenth. We are recording this on Wednesday, January seventh,
and I've got to tell you, guys, gents, it feels
good to be back. We got new cameras, we've got
these different setups. We're on Netflix. It's true.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
What's weird to even say out loud? I guess by
the time this comes out, we will be not yet.
No not kid.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
You can go to Netflix right now if you are
if you're on Netflix, you can go there right now.
You can click a little a bell button bell icon
that says remind me. And I was joking with some
of our folks backstage. Our current category, you guys, is
New Zealand. But no, not really, yes, really go to
(01:37):
Netflix now you'll see.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
We've been able to talk of New Zealand from time
to time.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
We do.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
We love the Yeah, it's I guess. The reminder thing
is sort of like when you see a new show
that's about to drop and it lets you sort of
pre pre subscribe or whatever. It just sends you a
little reminder. So do that for the video podcast and
you can see us as real human people. I'm excited.
Everyone looks great.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, it's it's pretty great because you can find us,
you can find stuff your mind. Oh if you missed
a history class pictures of us from like twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Right right. So it's a work in progress. We wanted
to do the new headshots, we wanted to go live.
We'll be doing that very soon. Just know the conversations
are happening. We're so glad that you're joining us here,
and we're pleased as punch. I'm so excited, you guys,
not just for our upcoming Netflix thing. Returning to our
(02:35):
video roots, but also for all the fantastic correspondents we
received during our interim holiday break. As we said, with Netflix,
you can catch our We do two episodes a week.
You can catch them on Netflix, and between then we
do our weekly Strange News segment, our weekly listener mail segment,
(02:57):
and you can catch those right here wherever you're tuning
in to your favorite shows.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, well, some for everybody, mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And don't forget the classics. We had a bunch of
those recently. We hope you enjoyed all of them as
we did listening back to them. Okay, it's so much
fun to look back just five years and see how
much the world has changed in every one of those.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Yeah, I mean look back before the holidays. I think
there was an episode that and you and Ben recorded
that I was sadly not around for where you basically
predicted this whole Venezuelan thing. What a difference a couple
of days makes.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
We made a couple of sly remarks about how it
appeared it felt as though there was going to be
some action in Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Something in the wind, Yeah, we all watered too, right, well,
thank you. And in the soil and in the refineries.
Thank you to everybody who wrote to us. Guys. We
actually had some folks checking in on various social media
platforms asking if we were okay. We're very much okay.
We just took some time with some friends and loved one.
(04:00):
We were saving up for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
We're gonna talk about so much cool stuff. Let's see.
We had a lot of responses about Elf in the Shelf.
I don't know if we're gonna get to that. We've
got a continuing correspondence from multiple people in email and
voicemail about long COVID, particular concern of our longtime friend
of the show, Alexis stock Holliday Jackson. We've got some
(04:27):
stuff from Russian oligarchs. We've got a nice note from Malaysia,
which is wild. Before we get to any of that, guys,
you ever heard some creepy ice? You ever creepy ice?
Not ice spice, creepy posh, creaky and creepy.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Yeah, making so weird sounds.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Weird some not long ago. Actually, are we talking specifically
about standing on a large frozen body of water or something, or.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Maybe not even standing, just being in its presence and
the fact that these sounds for downstream can reverberate and
you know, ping around and make all kinds of unusual,
hard to place sounds where you might be. You know.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, how about this. Let's take a break for a
word from our sponsors. Everybody goes stand out in the
middle of a frozen lake. Sure when we when we return,
we'll hear our first fist of listener mail.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Okay, so now that you're on this frozen lake, I
want you to take a handsaw and saw a little hole.
Let me they want to extend your little fishing pole
down in there, and you yourself a nice little ice fish.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
You can also use a router, now there you go.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yeah, perhaps a drimmal. No, it's not enough more than
multi tool a multi tool. Yeah, you know what I
will say. Depending on the thickness of the ice. There
are certain leathermen that might have when find to saws
that would perhaps do the trick.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
You if the leather maked. I love leatherman, you guys know,
I have several of those multi tools. If if you
can use the little leatherman saw for the tooth saw
on the ice, yeah you should run. Yes, but we'd
not just chatting ice fishing and weird ice noises for nothing, right.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
No, it's for something. So yeah, we've been talking a
lot recently about kind of phantom sounds originating from god
knows where, creating all kinds of theories and hullabaloo. Full disclosure.
We had a whole back and forth off theear trying
to figure out where this came from, and it was
from a previous listener, male from Saturn, talking about the
(06:43):
Longfellow boom, a sound heard in a neighborhood in Minneapolis
called Longfellow. That was mystifying people. We read some news
reports about it, some tweets about it, like people talking
about like what is this? It's like sounds like an
there's explosions happening downstream. And this led us to kind
(07:05):
of reconsider things like the windsor hum and what is
it the ping man.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
BANDA, yes, yes, no, it's the none of the ping,
nne of it's ping. There are several other reported things.
Do check out our earlier episode on the windsor hum.
Do check out our earlier episodes on mysterious sounds and
just tangentially, why not check out our video on what's
Beneath the Ice of Antarctica.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
And our live show we did at our air fests
last year about the conspiracies of sound, where we do
talk about some of these things, and I believe the
nine of it ping comes up in that in particular.
But sound is interesting because it moves, you know, through
the air in the form of vibrations, and it as
it moves, frequencies kind of separate and you experience them differently.
(07:54):
Lower frequencies can move through denser materials. Higher frequencies, you know,
are able to be stopped by certain materials, and as
those vibrations sort of permeate through medium aka the air
or let's say a sheet of ice, you're going to
start to hear some anomalous, unusual sounds. And as a
giant you know, audio and sound design nerd personally, as
(08:15):
I know we all are, I'm personally fascinated with what
happens when you manipulate sound and filter out certain frequencies
and you know, all the modular synth nerdery that I
love to get into. It's really it really just makes
you realize how sound is such a unique building block
and how it's all just kind of vibrations that are
(08:37):
manipulated and dispersed in different ways. So we got a
response from this discussion. Maybe it was just something that
was in the air. Our listener here does not specifically
reference any of those episodes that I mentioned, but I
think it had to have been as a response to
some of that discussion we've had in the latter part
of twenty twenty five. This is about ice noises from
(08:58):
k J. Being from upstate New York, I'm familiar with
the eerie sounds ice can make. It sounds like a
humongous rubber band being snapped, as well as other pings
and groans. I can see how someone in the media
who hasn't experienced this themselves could make all kinds of
conspiracy theories about it, although I wouldn't doubt at all
(09:20):
in this case, it is one of the evil empires
searching underwater for who knows what, to somehow increase their
power even further. Thanks for a great podcast, kJ. So
like back to what I was saying, This idea of
a sound moves across time, you know, and space. It
can vibrate things in different ways. A sound that maybe
(09:43):
originates far far away as it moves through a medium
can become a completely different sound, vibrate other things. We're
talking about snapping rubber bands. If you've ever taken a
rubber band and pinged it while you put your ear
up close to it, it's a huge sound. It is
a fascinating, enormous sound that you can be created on
a micro level. So think about that on a massive,
(10:06):
stretched out level, involving a frozen lake or river or whatever.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I don't know, and water complicates it as mean, think
about the bloop. We did an.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Awesome episode on the Blue is what we talked about
in the Conspiracy of Sound episode.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
We definitely mentioned it for sure. Man, this I think
we're all, as Noel said, I think we're all mystified
by the magic of sound and the way it also
certain sounds communicate with the human brain on a primal,
nie unconscious level. There are to your question there, kJ
(10:42):
There are so many sounds that have yet to be
explained here in twenty twenty six. History and science have
come so far. But you get to a certain point
and the world's top experts will go, I don't know,
maybe it's this. Maybe the ice is fartened around, you're
(11:03):
shifting somewhere. We genuinely don't know yet, And it's.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
The kind of thing that like and I know you're
itchened up to weigh in, Matt, something can happen way
way upstream. And if you've got this heavy medium and
pieces that are maybe sliding against one another, glass sheets
or whatever it might be, or as it flexes and
sort of you know, I mean ice is it can
move as a large body or individual parts of it, it
(11:29):
might be thinner than other parts. Think about some of
the weird sounds your house makes as the temperature outside
warms and cools.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, I've noticed that a lot actually recently as the
weather you know, we've had a lot of swings between
pretty extreme cold and then getting super warm again in
the winter here in our fier state of Georgia. Strange
sounds that you'll heal, that you'll hear even on the staircase,
but you realize that, oh, that actually has to do
with the house physically cooling and warming.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
A lot of the State House sounds, as Larry David
talks about, there's an episode of Curb where they have
this like weird sound that they can't explain. They end
up selling the house because Cheryl can't put up with it.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, it's something weird going on. But you know, I've
spooked myself a couple of times, or at least made
myself go do a full scale check of the house
simply because I poured myself a glass of ice water,
and the ice as it melts and settles, you know,
in a glass of ice water, sometimes will make a
pretty loud sound, and I'm like, what was that?
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Those sounds? It freaks me out. I'm scared sometimes a
little bit, and I've literally googled is my house crumbling
into the fountain?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
That kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
You know, I do live in a little bit of
a constant state of paranoia about things like that, but
I'm doing better. But the whole point of this kJ
is that sound as it travels through again time and space,
which is a thing that's interesting about sound. It requires
both of those things. It requires time to fill in
order to experience it, and it requires space and a
(13:00):
medium for it to move in order to create the sound.
So it's an amazing thing when you start hearing like
the kinds of fantastic things that sound designers and composers
are able to do by say like Boeing a symbol.
It just can create these other worldly vibrations and then
throw it through some reverb and some effects and some delay,
and before you know what, you're hearing sounds you did
(13:20):
not know existed. And that stuff can also happen in nature,
because what is nature if not a giant reverb tank,
reverb chamber, you know, with things bouncing all over town exactly.
So thanks for that one. kJ got another one that
I think we will all have a lot to say
about from our listener in the UK who would like
us to refer to him as the grease Weasel, which
(13:42):
is one of my favorite nicknames of recent in recent memory. Hi, Ben,
Matt and nol Is by my email and say you
sure give me away my real name. Please refer to
me on air as the grease weasel. We love take
that opportunity to say it a second time. Boy, do
we ever love a nickname? He sweezel continues, I'm going
to say it a third time. I was listening to
(14:03):
your episode on Laying on Hands, so do check that
one out if you haven't heard it already. That was
me and thought I would share a bit of behind
the scenes context. I work as a dop at its
director of photography and camera operator. And as long as
someone's paying, I'll work on pretty much any production point
to glass end at things. I love that and press
(14:24):
the red button and I'm happy. I'm UK based and
while we don't quite have US scale megachurches, we do
have similar outfits here. Long services, big music, highly emotional preaching,
speaking in tongues, faith healing, laying on hands, the lot.
I was once hired as part of a production team
filming one of these services or shows really, as it
(14:48):
was extremely theatrical when things stood out. As people arrived,
anyone elderly who could walk was immediately offered a wheelchair
as a courtesy and wheeled near the front. Fast forward,
it's so funny, I'm sorry. Fast forward a few hours.
The preacher would select someone in a wheelchair that's like
other a plant, bring them on stage, lay on hands,
and miraculously feel them by encouraging them to walk, because
(15:11):
of course they already could walk. Cue the audience, Susan
Oz going absolutely wild, not exactly planted stooges. Ooh that
isn't Darren Brown ref right there stooges know where there
are no stooges. I love that, but very effective, so
it probably is just a UK thing. I have. This
first place I ever heard someone referring to a plant
or an audience kind of fake participatory member part of
(15:32):
the show as being a stooge but very effective social engineering.
Perhaps that's the bit they don't want you to know.
Oh my coat. Ps, thanks for the podcast. Over the years,
I've had some rough personal stretches and your shows have
kept me company through many sleepless nights. Genuinely appreciated best
(15:53):
the Grease Weezl.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Thank you, Grease Weasel.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Pretty cool perspective and quite the tricky trick, yes it is.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Also Yeah, we've got to be fair with this, Grease
Wizzle Wizzle, We'll keep it. Grease Whizzle. Wanted to follow
up with you on this correspondence because one of the
big questions becomes are those people consensually being planted or
are they consensually stooging? Or are they just feeling poorly
(16:22):
and then given priority seeding and then feeling really good
with some kind of show high you know what I mean?
Like I don't it sounds like they are not necessarily
conspiring or being paid to pretend to walk.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Yeah, and if they're in on the gag. I'm sorry,
that's the wrong word. I don't mean to be dismissive.
If they're in on the bit, doesn't that break the
illusion and let them in on the fact that this
is all kind of a load of bunk them.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
And then it would need to depend upon their personal
moral compass and kills.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Right, Yeah, exactly, that's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I would just want to see more videos of this.
I remember back in the day you could find stuff
wasn't necessarily on YouTube, on another video services. Yeah, I'm sure,
I'm sure as Vimeo. I'm thinking more of like those
old old school ones you guys remember, like Ebomb's World
and things like that. They would have. They would have
(17:19):
megachurches and you know maye li laying on of hands
and that whole thing. Everybody dances around and is excited
that someone is healed. I do I do wonder how
many other investigations went into things like that, because I
know there were several that we've even covered on this
show of individuals, often couples that were part of the
megachurch that would set these kinds of things up with
(17:41):
radio transmissions and things like that.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Little earbuds as well, and then and then, of course,
you know, I'm sure that all of us of a
certain age are fantasizing about some world Star video. I
would love to see a compilation of faith healing where
whomever is filming it inexplicably yells world Star at the
end when they start walking.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Waffle house faith healing videos.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I mean, oh my gosh, yeah, barely before my time.
And I don't mean that you guys are older than me.
I just wasn't cool enough to have participated in that
part of early Internet culture. Super fascinating though, this is
the k fabe of it all, if I'm using that
term correctly. I mean, it does feel, especially with the
production aspect of it, it really is almost like a
(18:27):
magic show. And it doesn't really bode well for the
believability of this kind of phenomenon. I mean in terms of,
like you know, and I'm I'm not here to poopo
anybody's faith or anybody's belief in faith healing. I think
we've definitely seen uncovered and you know, done research indicating
(18:47):
that a lot of the stuff is manipulative, and of course,
with the you know, the prosperity, theologists of it all
just trying to make money and feather their nests and
their gold airplanes. I mean, we know, oh that there's
some bad acting in the world of megachurch hurry. So
this does not particularly surprise me. It doesn't. I didn't
(19:08):
think about the uk of it all. It makes of
course there would be this kind of thing. But on
the other hand, you've got folks like Pentecostals who are
doing the speaking in tongues and the snake handling and
whatever that might be. And it's purely belief based, you know,
like everyone's in on the fervor of it all. Sure,
and this to me seems like a real cynical you know.
(19:30):
I mean, think what you will about folks with that
level of faith based, performative kind of stuff, you know.
I mean, if you believe what you believe by all means,
believe it. But this to me is sort of a
thumbing of the nose at actual.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Belief, definitely on the part of the authority figures or
the authority structure after a certain threshold. And I love that.
I love that mention of prosperity theology, which is a
very dangerous thing, and just because we hear about it
most often in the United States does not mean it
(20:05):
does not occur in other places. Please check out our
other recent mentions of just really dangerous religious stuff that
has occurred in Southeast Asia or Latin America or the
African continent. I can't remember. In Laying on Hands or
Faith Healing, I can't remember which episode it was where
we talked about the folks who appear to physically remove
(20:32):
a demonic influence or like it looks like a little
booger or goop when they put their hands on and
they pray hard enough and the congregation donates, and all
of a sudden boom, you're healed. As long as the
cameras are rolling.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Well and ben speaking of the versions of this and
other parts of the world, this story got me thinking
about a I believe it was an Instagram post that
I saw shared with you guys on our group text
thread about a pastor in South Africa in the region
of Limpopo Spirit Ministry sorry Sevenfold Holy Spirit Ministries. A
(21:14):
fellow by the name of Christ Penelope It's a fabulous name,
who apparently is not laying on hands but laying on
of butts, his butt on people's faces and farting on them,
but not.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Just in a fun way. It's not a fun butt lay.
It's a butt lay with a purpose.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
There's a buttlery with a purpose. I mean, presumably it's
fun if it does heal what ails you. He says,
it's important that the fart be near the person's nostrils
the healing power can enter the body and do its work.
So this is from South Africa's Independent Online News, and
this is an older story. It's in twenty twenty one,
but it's new to me and new to us. So
(21:52):
I'm just going to read a little piece from Boing
Boing that describes this by Rob Beschizza from November of
this year. But again it is referencing an older story.
I don't know why I came up again something in
the Zeitgeys. In an interview with Drum Penelope said his
unorthodox and stinky healing ritual is a demonstration of God's power.
He claims that he is following the divine example of
(22:13):
putting people in need of a miracle into a deep
sleep before hitting them the healing they need. It started
with Master Jesus when he stepped on Peter.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I didn't know this happened.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
He stepped on him. It is the demonstration of God's power.
I'm not laughing at religion. I'm just laughing at farts.
Is the demonstration of God's power. Just like God made
Adam go into a deep sleep. It is a similar thing.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And one of the returning compliments to our show, Thank you,
fellow conspiracy realist, is five stars. Love these guys. I
could not go to sleep without them. So finger guns, You're.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Welcome, just out here tooting on the mic for you.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Sorry, it's a more gentle fart. It's more of it's
like a hot bread.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah. I'm just gonna just gonna wrap up with the
last bit of this piece from Lingbling. He's been out
of for years, and there's plenty of images that's been
healthy sitting on people's heads online. There are just want
to right the top and he's smiling and just popping
the squat on this dude's face. He can't even see
the guy's features because it's covered in butt. So some
(23:23):
really fancy bretches too.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Sounds very Denis Reynolds to me. Little.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I did see other posts about this. It does appear
to be a thing that happened. I just wanted to
end on a light note. Uh, this is just funny
to men. Farts are always funny. He's been out it
for years. And there's plenty of images of Penelope sitting
on people's heads online, though I didn't spot any footage.
A small mercy for you this Thanksgiving morning. The ministry
posts otherwise conventional charismatic services to YouTube.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, it takes all kinds.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
You gotta find God where God finds you. I guess
you sure do.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And and God works in the serious ways sometimes through parts.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I just wonder how often our pastor cleanses himself, you know,
in between your application.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Oh, he's got some opinions of the days I imagine,
you know, on helping you was God's.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Warrior, gets rid of the good, the good.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Vibes like Sampson cutting the hair right.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Exactly by the way, guys, speaking of Samson, Yeah, I
watched Half Baked with my kid the holiday break. I
love it. Some of it didn't age super well, but
the boy boy was still really funny. And I'll never
I'll always associate with you, guys.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yes, Cuban be.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Really good. It's really funny. Okay, let's take a break
here where a response and then we'll come back with a
couple more segments of messages from you.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
And we've returned jumping straight to the phone lines. Guys,
we did our episode on the Elf on the shelf. Yes,
talked about that character and a cavalcade of other characters
within Santa's Christmas universe.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
It's Christmas Pantheon on the Extended Christmas Universe.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It was created by Lumis Stella Incorporated.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
You're in Marietta, Georgia.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
That's right. We've also talked about just you know, Santa
Rudolph in the the old school hits that we've been
living with for way before two thousand and four to
two thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
The Mule lads, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Leck that window, my guy, dude, dude, Yes, let us
jump quickly sniff that storway. Sorry to miss Betty Brown
who sent us this quick message just around how she
handles Christmas time and Santa presence versus presence that kids
know are purchased. So if you are still within the
(25:54):
Santa verse and whatever your journey is, however old you are,
maybe skip this one because there is some behind the
scenes stuff to talk about you. So Santa spoilers ahead,
here we go.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
Hi, this is Beattie Brown. I just listened to the
elf on the shelf thing as far as Santa believing
in Santa Claus. Every year for my kids, I always
they get one. Each of us gets one present from
Santa Claus. The rest they know are purchased because they
(26:29):
help Christmas shops. But I always get everyone, including myself,
one present from Santa Claus that they don't know about,
and I wrap it in different wrapping paper from all
the other presents. So under the tree there's one thing
wrapped in a special wrapping paper from Santa to each
(26:54):
of us. It helps keep the joy alive. Have a
good Christmas buy.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Miss Betty, thank you so much. This is this is
first off, this is a get out of my head thing,
classic move, Betty. I don't talk about my family too
much on air, but you will. We got the call
just as I said, but we will. Uh. But I
have to confess this is without coming in personal anecdote.
(27:21):
This is a practice that is pretty common in some
folks I know off air, especially close family members, where
you say honestly like garlands and missiletoe and tensil aside.
I've had conversations with family members who say, well, we
we busted our humps here. We know that Santa is
(27:43):
kind of the first conspiracy kids learn about. And one
of my one of my buddies, said, he said, I
didn't come from a Christian background, Ben, I want my
kids to know that I gave them the cool gifts.
So Santa gets a fun one, Dad and mom got
you the other ones.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
That makes a lot of sense. That was similar in
my household too. The really cool stuff came from the
parents or the cousins, or you know, an aunt or
an uncle. But then there's one special one the night
he probably ended up playing with more than the expensive
stuff you know that came from Santa. Feel that for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Did you see the news about this GOP lawmaker whoever?
The Christmas break posted ai pictures of him beating the
crap out of Santa Claus. Why? Yeah, that was the
question a lot of people were asking. It was in
reference to the War on Christmas, but it seemed like
he didn't quite get the memo the War on Christmas
actually entails. He was truly waging war on Santa Claus.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, Christ I.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Think is his name?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Dude?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
He didn't even have one of his people check on
that one after they produced.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
He was just having some fun with his kids.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
But you know, well, maybe he's just having some fun
with his kid.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
It's maybe. But it's like when you post it on
your official lawmaker page with a message that said something like,
when you find out the North Pole is trying to
bring more bureaucratic overreach and unfunded mandates down the chimney,
this guy's Christmas cheer. The people run Indiana, not the bureaucrats.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Why did you do it as a joke about unionization
and elves bringing elves.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Over here trying to get better hours? Yeah, what about presence?
Speaker 4 (29:31):
It's also our first exposure to slave labor. It's a conspiracy,
and it's our first exposure to like these unpaid elf workers.
There's no discussion of the fair wage for the elves.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
They're happy about it is the narrative, right, They just
can't wait. And also, what are they doing in March
as we established an elf on the shelf as a
part of the surveilled State. The elf on the shelf
is working Thursday through or wait, Thanksgiving through Christmas Day.
(30:01):
That's when they're snitching. And then they're back. They're back
in the North Pole, right, So what are they doing
in March?
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Presumably the worker elves are working year round, and I
to get the output required to gift you know, every
child in the known world.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I'm going to write this down future.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Do you guys listen to Comedy Bang Bank Still?
Speaker 4 (30:23):
I saw Still. I stopped it. I need to read it.
I needed not because I didn't love it. I just
you know how it is. I only have room for
so many podcasts, but Delight.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Like, oh dude, oh he's incredible. I can't get enough
of that show still, and they every year they do
their best of and they went back and gosh, I see.
I particularly like Lord Lapkus's Ho the elf character. That
is like going against the grain up there in the
North Pole. It's pretty wonderful. And then maybe think about
(30:53):
that with everybody's happy but everyone but Ho Ho right exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, I am literally writing this down in the book
of future episodes. I wonder what they're doing in March.
Maybe we can get some of the Bang Bang folks
on to explain it to us.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Wet Day, let's have him one for Wet Day. I
love those. Hey, let's stay in the Christmas spirit.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
For a moment. Sure, maybe a little difference between the
North Pole and the US.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Perhaps, but let us let us jump to another Christmas
like festival, a holiday festival that occurs in February, though,
because it hasn't happened yet, it's coming up, and it's
something we learned from Alpha Flight in a message he sentenced,
So let's go ahead and jump to that message.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Hey guys, here, this is listening to your episode most
recent listener mail and you mentioned all of the crazy
Christmas folklore and now I guess Winter Times folklore. It's
on our neck of the woods, so I am obviously Canadian,
(32:12):
but also have some Dutch background, although the Dutch Christmas
is buck wild to take a little a little bit
from Encanto, we don't talk about shot speak. So basically
the Canadian stuff is pretty pretty much similar to you guys,
(32:33):
except for one weird French notable exception, and that's when
you go say bonjou to venom Dnju in Quebec, which
I can only really describe him as a mixture between
a snowman and the kegler else and he is one
party dude and worth looking out as part of the
(32:55):
Quebec Festival like the Winter Festival. Yeah, honestly, if you're
ever in Montreal, oh, it's a good hang. But yeah,
Bama is the pretty sweet dude.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Oh man, Alpha Flight, you have no idea how much
of a rabbit hole we are going down with Bonam
now that we have learned about the Quebec Winter Carnival,
the Winter Carnival, guys, holy mackerel, this is so much fun.
And Bonam a big old snowman that runs around and
(33:25):
just get as as Alpha Flight says, gets the party going.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
It's got a sash. Look, Alpha Flight, first off, thank
you again for the shout out to one of the
best superhero teams in all of Marvel Comicdom. Comicdom. That's right.
Uh this guy, Oh, he's got his sash, he's got
his fun hat, and he's uh he's timeless.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well yeah, a lot like these Christmas characters that we're encountering, right,
they live forever, They've always been there. It's just Bonham
first came in nineteen fifty four or fifty five and
made his appearance known, and now he is with us forever.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
And he's a chalky boy too. Seven feet tall, four
hundred pounds of pack snow, which is interesting that it's
not in the metric system. I guy parties.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, for sure, you could go to Carnival dot QC
dot c A to learn more about Bonholme and learn
about all the excitement that happens right before the big carnival,
which is when Bonoma is really doing his thing.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
I don't know that they have an equivalent mascot type figure.
But when I was a little kid living was when
I was a small German boy, I remember a distinct,
very exciting period in Germany and the region where I
live called fashing Carnival or Fashnacht, which goes from November
eleventh up until ash Wednesday, so roughly still a winter carnival,
(34:51):
or you know, early winter carnival. And you made like
paper mache heads and all kinds of crazy stuff, and
there's revelry and various let's see chance and lots of
different parade floats and something called a boot which is
a barrel shaped lectern for giving satirical speeches, and people
wear all kinds of crazy costumes and it's very mardy
gra coded. But I think there's probably, you know, connection
(35:14):
between these seasons.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I love all these parties so cool.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
There's a lot to learn about and has some cool origins,
just about celebrating before a crazy harsh winter or like
you know, as you're going through a crazy harsh winter,
getting through it, preparing for it, all those good things
there is. Just if you look at the bonom page
down here, I'm going to read this part because I
don't know enough about it. Maybe somebody else can write
(35:41):
in tell us more. Maybe if you're from Quebeca or
somewhere around there that celebrates the carnival, it says ur
bonom is quite different than the inanimate straw or wooden
European bonom that is sacrificed at the end of each
carnival a wicker man to symbolize rebirth and the return
of spring. It's very interesting. There is a sacrifice that's
very common, right, as we've talked about before, sacrifice of
(36:04):
an fig of some sort. Shout out to Bohemian growth.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Shout out yeah, shout out to European history. I love
the Bohemian grove. Shout out Alpha Flight. You might also
enjoy our episode from years back on the origins of
Christmas as celebrated in the West as well. As if
you want to get into some ridiculous history, our episodes
(36:30):
on Christmas traditions from ridiculous history. Spoiler, it's wild, there's
a poop log, there's everything, you know. I feel like
Stefan Bill Hayter's old character on Saturday Night Live, going, Oh,
it's Christmas in Europe, It's Christmas in Latin America. You
(36:50):
can't wait to hear the stuff they have for you. Actually,
I think we should go celebrate the end of the
year parties in another country one time, just one time.
Let's find one.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Let's do it. They've got everything, Cagatillo. All right, Well, hey,
that's it for this segment of Listener Mail. We'll be
right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
And we have returned. This is the final act of
our listener Mail segment, folks. I thought we would start
with a big thank you to a couple of people
in particular. We'll give you their names and then we'll
we'll dive into what they said. We got a great
history lesson from Bonita C who hit us up over
(37:39):
on the social meds. We got a series of great
letters from Noah's F and B. We'll call it F
and B. And then we got a big thank you
letter from Malaysia and maybe we can close with that one,
but let's kick it off this way. Do you guys
remember our episode years back on Africville.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Yes, and that came up again recently, I believe.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yes, yeah, it did. This This is a story the
Sith and the Jedi won't tell you. We should give
a quick summary here. Africvil was a small community of
African descended Nova Scotian residents in Halifax, Okay, out in Canada.
(38:25):
So we're still kind of staying in Canada with this one.
And this episode stood out to all three of us
fellow conspiracy realists because it's literally hidden history. This is
where Bonita c comes in. Bonita listened to the show
and said, great job on Africvil. One of the reasons
this is especially awful behavior is because it was a
(38:47):
free black village there. To begin with, those were the
black loyalist The British Crown promised black people in the
America's freedom and land in Canada for their support in
the British side of the American War of Independence. Then
it became a thing they tried to back out of
before leaving, and those who were stuck behind, were left
(39:10):
in Canada in an inhospitable region with no support. Halifax
at the time had a government imposed bounty on scalping
the indigenous population, and they also this early government of
Halifax made it clear that white supremacy was a law
that would be enforced, and they also brought the loyalists
there and that they didn't give these people land because
(39:32):
of white supremacy. This is not just stuff they don't
want you to know. Some Nova Scotians right now don't
understand that there's entire history of black people that built
up the area, and maybe we paused there because I
think it's interesting. I haven't re listened to our Afrodville research,
but it is something pretty common in colonialism, where you
(39:56):
promise one group of people something and then you leave
them out to dry. I'm thinking of like as recently
as Mong tribes in the Vietnam War, or of course Kurdistan.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Those are great examples. I don't know enough about them
to comment on it, but I think specifically, just right now, guys,
my son is learning about a lot of indigenous peoples
here in the United States, and there's just so many
examples of specific groups that were told specific things and
then it's just swept out from under their feet before
they can get anything.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Yeah, one hundred percent, it's a jam tomorrow, jam yesterday,
but never ever jam today's situation. And yeah, this is
a downer after some fun chats about Christmas stuff, which
obviously we love, but it is important to remember history
is closer than it looks in the rear view mirror.
The consequences of this are carrying on today, and it's
(40:49):
not just the United States that has continuing conversations about
the concept of reparations. Does that make sense? M hm,
So thank you again, not just you, Benita see, but
everybody who is writing into us on the social meds.
We've got time for one more email from a series
(41:11):
of emails from our pal, Noah's FMB, and I think
we all saw the correspondence as we responded Noah, you
were on fire Man. You sent us some great links,
several of which will inspire I think full episodes in
the future. We talk a lot about Russian oligarchs, especially
(41:31):
when windows come into play, the physical windows, not the
operating system. But we've never done an episode, a full
episode on Russian oligarchs and guys I think Noah is
going to inspire us to do it with a story
(41:52):
that they sent which is older but wasn't widely reported
in the United States. It's about Russian investment in American
tech companies.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Oh, that's great. We are about to speak with Jake again, right,
mister Hanrahan, Well, oligarchs.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
I wrote to him today. Let's see as he written back.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
That's fantastic. So hmm, maybe we can ask him about
this specific thing.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yes, our buddy does does specialize in sad oligarchs. Do
check out his show. We're excited to have him on
for an interview. I just I can't believe we have
not done an episode about Russian oligarchs yet.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
I was just gonna say the same thing. We've had
a cut, We've had a handful of those. Can't believe
we haven't done this yet. Topics of late I know.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Yeah, we're rediscovering ourselves. We have Bermuda triangle. We had
let's see whatever heads trunk and heads. Oh, good call there.
And Noel, Yeah, we also have this oligarch thing. I
don't even I don't know if we should get into
it yet because the story dates back so far, like
one of the earlier quotes we found, or one of
(43:00):
the earlier stories that Noah shared with us is about
how Russian investors Facebook connect and group on. If you
remember group on, we're conspiring.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Treat you by job roll tickets.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Right there we go, We're conspiring to to really wash
the money. It reminds me of that old wrap line,
I'm running to the laundry like there's something smelly on me.
Russian oligarchy was tremendously successful laundring money through all these
different all these different avenues, and I we gotta save it.
(43:41):
Can we make the audible call? Can we save this
for an episode?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Sure? Well, just talking about that kind of stuff in
laundry money, I want to ask you, guys if you've
seen anything wonky happening in YouTube with ads? Have you
guys seen anything that feels like money is being washed
or something thing? Or I stumbled upon an ad accidentally.
(44:05):
I'll just give you the exact scenari soon. You understand.
I'm on my work computer, I'm not signed in through
any account. I'm on YouTube watching something from the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation. I get served an ad beforehand, and you're
gonna have to beat me on this. It is an
AI generated woman sitting on a couch. She turns to
(44:27):
the camera and says, last night my husband to me
for three hours.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
I'm not kidding. Thanks for the beep, Dylan, Yeah, please.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Thanks for the beep. Dylan agreed, because that it says
audibly right, I'm not signed in, so YouTube doesn't know
if I'm a child or an adult or whoever watching
this thing, and it still serves this absolutely easily determined
to be AI generated ad on something crazy, not okay.
(44:56):
And then I look down on the Australian Broadcasting Corporations
video that I'm watching and there is a highly stylized
female figure giving fullatio to a tree, a very penis
shaped tree, and it's for a window tinting company, like
like commercial car window tinting. This is AI It's also
(45:20):
AI slop of some sort AI generated image. And I'm
just seeing that all of that stuff is somehow going
through whatever alphabet and Google is attempting to do with YouTube, right,
because as we know personally, guys, it's all about advertiser
safety on YouTube. We know this. That's where our hand
(45:40):
got slapped many a time because we were not safe
enough for advertisers.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
But this whatever I took the YouTube course, we all get.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
But like, it's just crazy to me that that kind
of junk, that slop can just make its way through
as long as the dollars are rolling through to pay
for it.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
There's that terminification and I forget to coined it. It's
this dude that I just saw doing an interview. It's
I think he's like a media critic or something. But anyway,
the idea is that these platforms have gone through a
process of indentification that is multi layered. The first one
is they sell you a product that's the user. First,
we're going to protect your data, we're going to protect
(46:19):
your privacy, we're not going to serve you a bunch
of ads. And then of course eventually they do serve
your ads in a way that's really invasive and obnoxious,
and all the priority gets put on the sponsors. But
the next stage is this guy describes aification, is that
now the sponsors aren't even getting that treatment. So stuff
is totally coming through because it is no longer even
(46:40):
about brand safety or sponsor you know protection.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, we're talking about the Canadian writer Corey. Thanks Cory
doctor Rowe. That was yeah twenty twenty two. Oh, I'm
still so into this oligarchy idea because we can argue
we always hear the term oligarch thrown around with the
Russian kleptocracy, which just is a fancy way of saying
(47:06):
government run by thieves. However, I advance to all of
us listening that there is another oligarchy at play. It
is a tech oligarchy. It is the one responsible for
in poopification. Just to save you the beat there, Dylan,
this is the one. This is the oligarchy that people
need to be primarily concerned about here in the West today.
(47:30):
And I am so excited for us to do the
episode on this in the future. If it's all right, guys,
just to wrap on some good news. We'll get to
the rest of this as our journey through twenty twenty
six continues. It's all right to wrap on some good news.
I'd love to share a cool letter that we got
all the way out from Malaysia.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
Oh man, I love a happy letter, especially from Malaysia,
and I love good news.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
You know what I mean? Don't you like when you
get a text that's just a nice tech They're not
asking you to do anything. They're just saying, Hey, I
hope you have a good day.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
It's nice. Yeah. I also love getting the Ben Boleen
Venezuelan invasion texts as well.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Gosh, sorry about that.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
I'm joking. It's good to be on the cutting edge
of what's happening. But yeah, it is nice to get
just a little bit of a warm hug in text
or letter or any correspondence.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
For sure, we love a little Ada boy. We're suckers
for We're suckers for sincere validation. This is so nice
and it gives us a chance to answer a question
that we love and spoiler it might be a question
that was on the mind of a lot of our
long term listeners when we began this listener mail program.
Hello there, std wytkt, says William. I just wanted to
(48:49):
thank you guys for all the great content you put out.
It's probably not a stretch to say you guys helped
save my sanity during the COVID lockdown years and have
continued to educate and to entertain me. Since I don't
have any story to share for your listener mail segment,
but maybe one day I'll have a conspiracy worthy of
further exploration. You can pausing here, William. You can always
(49:14):
write to us. Everybody can always write to us. We
just want to know what's on your mind. We love
an no pun left behind. You continue and say, by
the way, I still don't know what a ruta bega is.
Web searches and AI haven't helped me figure out what
you guys were always giggling about. And William's right, we
do giggle when it comes up. Is this an American
(49:37):
English thing? You asked, William? Is that something you don't
want us to know anyway? Happy holidays? William from Malaysia.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
Does the Google algorithm in other parts of the world
not know what a route bega is?
Speaker 3 (49:49):
I think it's the spelling, so okay, yeah, So a
couple of things here real quick, big Willie style. If
you permit the moniker, a rutabaga typically is going to
be spelled r u t a b a g a
for anybody new to the show. One of our favorite
parts of our weekly listener mail program is when our
(50:11):
pal Dylan literally the Tennessee pal Dylan fakean Uh continues
in beginning the Ruta Bega universe. The ruta bega is
our root vegetable. Let's think of it like a cross
between a turn up with some cabbage in the DNA.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
Mm hmm yeah. Also known as a swede.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Yes, yes, just so.
Speaker 4 (50:34):
It doesn't quite have the ring to it, but it's
still nice like a swede.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
It can bring out some sweetness too, which is really cool,
almost like a sweet potato kind of thing, those root
vegetables that have that natural sugar going on.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
A little beat, like I like, yeah, intense, yeah, roasted
with the sweetness.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
We have parsnip esque. Yeah. I think it's got a
lot of a lot in common with parsnip, but parsnip's
a little bit more bitter.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
A little bit more rootie or a little bit more
stemy kind of you know. It can be tough.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
To cook, William. You can also replace mashed potatoes with
mashed rutabaga. Please follow us for more rudabaga recipes through email.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
We got a we got a recipe for a rutabaga casserole.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Yes, yeah, I forwarded that to Dylan. Actually I should
have been doing other things, but it was like, stop everything,
the email can wait. I'm not getting on the call yet. Dylan.
You have to know. H.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Thank you for doing the needful bit, thank you for
doing that what you just said.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
In Scotland, rudabagas are referred to as nips and they
have a delightful dish that sounds like I want to
track called nieps and tatties, where the tattoos are the
Scots word for potatoes and meats are mashed rutabagas. And
there's another version of that where you can mine those
two ingreen and referred to the combo as clap shot.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
Whoa yep. Now you might be asking yourself, William. You
might be saying, guys, I am sold. How did I
not know more about this earlier? Well, we'll tell you
it's a conspiracy. You see, the rootabaga is a is
a cool season crop and as a very long growing season,
so big agriculture went to easier things to cultivate. And
(52:25):
we're bringing the rudabaga back. It's twenty twenty six. That's
going on our vision board. We're also bringing back the
idea of vision boards.
Speaker 4 (52:35):
I remember that we used to talk about the vision
board all the time. At the end of ridiculous history,
we should bring it back. It was because of a Pinterest.
I think now apparently Pinterest is just a hive of
scum and AI sloppery. Oh no, yeah, it's been like
you can no longer find any real or very difficult
to find real images that are generated by humans. Everything
(52:57):
is just it's been like infested with Aila.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Where will I get my interior design ideas well?
Speaker 4 (53:02):
Yeah, human beings.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
I do want to point out, folks, we were ahead
of the curve because the stuff they don't want you
to know logo had six fingers on it way before. Hey,
I slopped from pinterest.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Oohs, as did the Gravity Falls logo. Unfortunately you know
that when we created our logo.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
But big thanks to our brother in arms, the legendary
Paul Mission Controlled Decands, who helped bring that vision to life.
And big thanks to you for joining us. Folks. We're
so excited again that you're hanging out with us. Stay
tuned as we proceed through the week, you're going to
hear a couple more classic episodes. You're going to hear
more strange news, more listener mail. I can't even remember
(53:47):
which of our episodes are publishing by the week that
this comes out. Oh gut intuition memories from the future.
Let's see. Oh we've got some we got some neat stuff. Noel,
you mentioned trunk and heads.
Speaker 4 (54:00):
Yeah, that was a romp for sure.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
The Sansas right. So join us, folks. We'd love to
hear from you. You can find us on Netflix. You
can call us on a phone line, you can send
us an email. You can always contact us on the
social meets.
Speaker 4 (54:16):
You sure can. And before I tell you how to
do that, I just wanted to add one little rudegga tidbit.
This may have come up in the past, but I
had to do this for the sake of our guest
super producer Max the Freight Train Williams in Ithaca, New York.
There is something called the International Rudebega Curling Championship that
started in December of nineteen ninety seven, where people try
(54:37):
out the new Rudebega crop by rolling them into like
a you know, a pitch that is a circular goal,
much like the delightful Olympic Winter Olympic sport of curling
that Max loves so well.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Check out our episodes on curling if you have Ridiculous
history as well. It's a few part series.
Speaker 4 (54:56):
And in the meantime, you can indeed find us on
the social meds at the hand conspiracies level. We exist
on Facebook with our Facebook group here's where it gets crazy,
on xfka, Twitter and on YouTube with video content glor
for your apprusing enjoyment on Instagram and TikTok where conspiracy
stuff show.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
We have a phone number. It is one eight to
three three std WYTK. Turn those letters into numbers. Give
the number a call. You'll find our voicemail system. You've
got three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname and let
us know within the message if we can use your
name and message on the air. If you got other
things to say, stuff you want to put down with words,
why not send us an email.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
We are the entities the read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet o't afraid. Sometimes the
void rights back. What do we going to write back with? Well,
it depends on what you say to us. Play the game.
Tell us if you want a random fact or a
random poem. We love this kind of stuff. Twenty four
hours in evening, seven nights a week. Guys, I just
(55:55):
found an excellent poem about Rude Bega's by an author
named law La Grace Weldon. What is it Anna hit
us up? Find out We'll see you in the dark.
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
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 the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined with our guest superproducer,
Max the Frey Train Williams. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this whole thing the stuff
they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist friends
and neighbors, Venezuelans and no Venezuelans alike. This is our
(00:49):
first listener mail segment of twenty twenty six. Welcome to Thursday,
January fifteenth. We are recording this on Wednesday, January seventh,
and I've got to tell you, guys, gents, it feels
good to be back. We got new cameras, we've got
these different setups. We're on Netflix. It's true.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
What's weird to even say out loud? I guess by
the time this comes out, we will be not yet.
No not kid.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
You can go to Netflix right now if you are
if you're on Netflix, you can go there right now.
You can click a little a bell button bell icon
that says remind me. And I was joking with some
of our folks backstage. Our current category, you guys, is
New Zealand. But no, not really, yes, really go to
(01:37):
Netflix now you'll see.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
We've been able to talk of New Zealand from time
to time.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
We do.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
We love the Yeah, it's I guess. The reminder thing
is sort of like when you see a new show
that's about to drop and it lets you sort of
pre pre subscribe or whatever. It just sends you a
little reminder. So do that for the video podcast and
you can see us as real human people. I'm excited.
Everyone looks great.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well, it's it's pretty great because you can find us,
you can find stuff your mind. Oh if you missed
a history class pictures of us from like twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Right right. So it's a work in progress. We wanted
to do the new headshots, we wanted to go live.
We'll be doing that very soon. Just know the conversations
are happening. We're so glad that you're joining us here,
and we're pleased as punch. I'm so excited, you guys,
not just for our upcoming Netflix thing. Returning to our
(02:35):
video roots, but also for all the fantastic correspondents we
received during our interim holiday break. As we said, with Netflix,
you can catch our We do two episodes a week.
You can catch them on Netflix, and between then we
do our weekly Strange News segment, our weekly listener mail segment,
(02:57):
and you can catch those right here wherever you're tuning
in to your favorite shows.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Yeah, well, some for everybody, mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
And don't forget the classics. We had a bunch of
those recently. We hope you enjoyed all of them as
we did listening back to them. Okay, it's so much
fun to look back just five years and see how
much the world has changed in every one of those.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Yeah, I mean look back before the holidays. I think
there was an episode that and you and Ben recorded
that I was sadly not around for where you basically
predicted this whole Venezuelan thing. What a difference a couple
of days makes.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
We made a couple of sly remarks about how it
appeared it felt as though there was going to be
some action in Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Something in the wind, Yeah, we all watered too, right, well,
thank you. And in the soil and in the refineries.
Thank you to everybody who wrote to us. Guys. We
actually had some folks checking in on various social media
platforms asking if we were okay. We're very much okay.
We just took some time with some friends and loved one.
(04:00):
We were saving up for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
We're gonna talk about so much cool stuff. Let's see.
We had a lot of responses about Elf in the Shelf.
I don't know if we're gonna get to that. We've
got a continuing correspondence from multiple people in email and
voicemail about long COVID, particular concern of our longtime friend
of the show, Alexis stock Holliday Jackson. We've got some
(04:27):
stuff from Russian oligarchs. We've got a nice note from Malaysia,
which is wild. Before we get to any of that, guys,
you ever heard some creepy ice? You ever creepy ice?
Not ice spice, creepy posh, creaky and creepy.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Yeah, making so weird sounds.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Weird some not long ago. Actually, are we talking specifically
about standing on a large frozen body of water or something, or.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Maybe not even standing, just being in its presence and
the fact that these sounds for downstream can reverberate and
you know, ping around and make all kinds of unusual,
hard to place sounds where you might be. You know.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, how about this. Let's take a break for a
word from our sponsors. Everybody goes stand out in the
middle of a frozen lake. Sure when we when we return,
we'll hear our first fist of listener mail.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Okay, so now that you're on this frozen lake, I
want you to take a handsaw and saw a little hole.
Let me they want to extend your little fishing pole
down in there, and you yourself a nice little ice fish.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
You can also use a router, now there you go.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yeah, perhaps a drimmal. No, it's not enough more than
multi tool a multi tool. Yeah, you know what I
will say. Depending on the thickness of the ice. There
are certain leathermen that might have when find to saws
that would perhaps do the trick.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
You if the leather maked. I love leatherman, you guys know,
I have several of those multi tools. If if you
can use the little leatherman saw for the tooth saw
on the ice, yeah you should run. Yes, but we'd
not just chatting ice fishing and weird ice noises for nothing, right.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
No, it's for something. So yeah, we've been talking a
lot recently about kind of phantom sounds originating from god
knows where, creating all kinds of theories and hullabaloo. Full disclosure.
We had a whole back and forth off theear trying
to figure out where this came from, and it was
from a previous listener, male from Saturn, talking about the
(06:43):
Longfellow boom, a sound heard in a neighborhood in Minneapolis
called Longfellow. That was mystifying people. We read some news
reports about it, some tweets about it, like people talking
about like what is this? It's like sounds like an
there's explosions happening downstream. And this led us to kind
(07:05):
of reconsider things like the windsor hum and what is
it the ping man.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
BANDA, yes, yes, no, it's the none of the ping,
nne of it's ping. There are several other reported things.
Do check out our earlier episode on the windsor hum.
Do check out our earlier episodes on mysterious sounds and
just tangentially, why not check out our video on what's
Beneath the Ice of Antarctica.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
And our live show we did at our air fests
last year about the conspiracies of sound, where we do
talk about some of these things, and I believe the
nine of it ping comes up in that in particular.
But sound is interesting because it moves, you know, through
the air in the form of vibrations, and it as
it moves, frequencies kind of separate and you experience them differently.
(07:54):
Lower frequencies can move through denser materials. Higher frequencies, you know,
are able to be stopped by certain materials, and as
those vibrations sort of permeate through medium aka the air
or let's say a sheet of ice, you're going to
start to hear some anomalous, unusual sounds. And as a
giant you know, audio and sound design nerd personally, as
(08:15):
I know we all are, I'm personally fascinated with what
happens when you manipulate sound and filter out certain frequencies
and you know, all the modular synth nerdery that I
love to get into. It's really it really just makes
you realize how sound is such a unique building block
and how it's all just kind of vibrations that are
(08:37):
manipulated and dispersed in different ways. So we got a
response from this discussion. Maybe it was just something that
was in the air. Our listener here does not specifically
reference any of those episodes that I mentioned, but I
think it had to have been as a response to
some of that discussion we've had in the latter part
of twenty twenty five. This is about ice noises from
(08:58):
k J. Being from upstate New York, I'm familiar with
the eerie sounds ice can make. It sounds like a
humongous rubber band being snapped, as well as other pings
and groans. I can see how someone in the media
who hasn't experienced this themselves could make all kinds of
conspiracy theories about it, although I wouldn't doubt at all
(09:20):
in this case, it is one of the evil empires
searching underwater for who knows what, to somehow increase their
power even further. Thanks for a great podcast, kJ. So
like back to what I was saying, This idea of
a sound moves across time, you know, and space. It
can vibrate things in different ways. A sound that maybe
(09:43):
originates far far away as it moves through a medium
can become a completely different sound, vibrate other things. We're
talking about snapping rubber bands. If you've ever taken a
rubber band and pinged it while you put your ear
up close to it, it's a huge sound. It is
a fascinating, enormous sound that you can be created on
a micro level. So think about that on a massive,
(10:06):
stretched out level, involving a frozen lake or river or whatever.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I don't know, and water complicates it as mean, think
about the bloop. We did an.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Awesome episode on the Blue is what we talked about
in the Conspiracy of Sound episode.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
We definitely mentioned it for sure. Man, this I think
we're all, as Noel said, I think we're all mystified
by the magic of sound and the way it also
certain sounds communicate with the human brain on a primal,
nie unconscious level. There are to your question there, kJ
(10:42):
There are so many sounds that have yet to be
explained here in twenty twenty six. History and science have
come so far. But you get to a certain point
and the world's top experts will go, I don't know,
maybe it's this. Maybe the ice is fartened around, you're
(11:03):
shifting somewhere. We genuinely don't know yet, And it's.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
The kind of thing that like and I know you're
itchened up to weigh in, Matt, something can happen way
way upstream. And if you've got this heavy medium and
pieces that are maybe sliding against one another, glass sheets
or whatever it might be, or as it flexes and
sort of you know, I mean ice is it can
move as a large body or individual parts of it, it
(11:29):
might be thinner than other parts. Think about some of
the weird sounds your house makes as the temperature outside
warms and cools.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, I've noticed that a lot actually recently as the
weather you know, we've had a lot of swings between
pretty extreme cold and then getting super warm again in
the winter here in our fier state of Georgia. Strange
sounds that you'll heal, that you'll hear even on the staircase,
but you realize that, oh, that actually has to do
with the house physically cooling and warming.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
A lot of the State House sounds, as Larry David
talks about, there's an episode of Curb where they have
this like weird sound that they can't explain. They end
up selling the house because Cheryl can't put up with it.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, it's something weird going on. But you know, I've
spooked myself a couple of times, or at least made
myself go do a full scale check of the house
simply because I poured myself a glass of ice water,
and the ice as it melts and settles, you know,
in a glass of ice water, sometimes will make a
pretty loud sound, and I'm like, what was that?
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Those sounds? It freaks me out. I'm scared sometimes a
little bit, and I've literally googled is my house crumbling
into the fountain?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
That kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
You know, I do live in a little bit of
a constant state of paranoia about things like that, but
I'm doing better. But the whole point of this kJ
is that sound as it travels through again time and space,
which is a thing that's interesting about sound. It requires
both of those things. It requires time to fill in
order to experience it, and it requires space and a
(13:00):
medium for it to move in order to create the sound.
So it's an amazing thing when you start hearing like
the kinds of fantastic things that sound designers and composers
are able to do by say like Boeing a symbol.
It just can create these other worldly vibrations and then
throw it through some reverb and some effects and some delay,
and before you know what, you're hearing sounds you did
(13:20):
not know existed. And that stuff can also happen in nature,
because what is nature if not a giant reverb tank,
reverb chamber, you know, with things bouncing all over town exactly.
So thanks for that one. kJ got another one that
I think we will all have a lot to say
about from our listener in the UK who would like
us to refer to him as the grease Weasel, which
(13:42):
is one of my favorite nicknames of recent in recent memory. Hi, Ben,
Matt and nol Is by my email and say you
sure give me away my real name. Please refer to
me on air as the grease weasel. We love take
that opportunity to say it a second time. Boy, do
we ever love a nickname? He sweezel continues, I'm going
to say it a third time. I was listening to
(14:03):
your episode on Laying on Hands, so do check that
one out if you haven't heard it already. That was
me and thought I would share a bit of behind
the scenes context. I work as a dop at its
director of photography and camera operator. And as long as
someone's paying, I'll work on pretty much any production point
to glass end at things. I love that and press
(14:24):
the red button and I'm happy. I'm UK based and
while we don't quite have US scale megachurches, we do
have similar outfits here. Long services, big music, highly emotional preaching,
speaking in tongues, faith healing, laying on hands, the lot.
I was once hired as part of a production team
filming one of these services or shows really, as it
(14:48):
was extremely theatrical when things stood out. As people arrived,
anyone elderly who could walk was immediately offered a wheelchair
as a courtesy and wheeled near the front. Fast forward,
it's so funny, I'm sorry. Fast forward a few hours.
The preacher would select someone in a wheelchair that's like
other a plant, bring them on stage, lay on hands,
and miraculously feel them by encouraging them to walk, because
(15:11):
of course they already could walk. Cue the audience, Susan
Oz going absolutely wild, not exactly planted stooges. Ooh that
isn't Darren Brown ref right there stooges know where there
are no stooges. I love that, but very effective, so
it probably is just a UK thing. I have. This
first place I ever heard someone referring to a plant
or an audience kind of fake participatory member part of
(15:32):
the show as being a stooge but very effective social engineering.
Perhaps that's the bit they don't want you to know.
Oh my coat. Ps, thanks for the podcast. Over the years,
I've had some rough personal stretches and your shows have
kept me company through many sleepless nights. Genuinely appreciated best
(15:53):
the Grease Weezl.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Thank you, Grease Weasel.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Pretty cool perspective and quite the tricky trick, yes it is.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Also Yeah, we've got to be fair with this, Grease
Wizzle Wizzle, We'll keep it. Grease Whizzle. Wanted to follow
up with you on this correspondence because one of the
big questions becomes are those people consensually being planted or
are they consensually stooging? Or are they just feeling poorly
(16:22):
and then given priority seeding and then feeling really good
with some kind of show high you know what I mean?
Like I don't it sounds like they are not necessarily
conspiring or being paid to pretend to walk.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Yeah, and if they're in on the gag. I'm sorry,
that's the wrong word. I don't mean to be dismissive.
If they're in on the bit, doesn't that break the
illusion and let them in on the fact that this
is all kind of a load of bunk them.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
And then it would need to depend upon their personal
moral compass and kills.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Right, Yeah, exactly, that's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
I would just want to see more videos of this.
I remember back in the day you could find stuff
wasn't necessarily on YouTube, on another video services. Yeah, I'm sure,
I'm sure as Vimeo. I'm thinking more of like those
old old school ones you guys remember, like Ebomb's World
and things like that. They would have. They would have
(17:19):
megachurches and you know maye li laying on of hands
and that whole thing. Everybody dances around and is excited
that someone is healed. I do I do wonder how
many other investigations went into things like that, because I
know there were several that we've even covered on this
show of individuals, often couples that were part of the
megachurch that would set these kinds of things up with
(17:41):
radio transmissions and things like that.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Little earbuds as well, and then and then, of course,
you know, I'm sure that all of us of a
certain age are fantasizing about some world Star video. I
would love to see a compilation of faith healing where
whomever is filming it inexplicably yells world Star at the
end when they start walking.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Waffle house faith healing videos.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I mean, oh my gosh, yeah, barely before my time.
And I don't mean that you guys are older than me.
I just wasn't cool enough to have participated in that
part of early Internet culture. Super fascinating though, this is
the k fabe of it all, if I'm using that
term correctly. I mean, it does feel, especially with the
production aspect of it, it really is almost like a
(18:27):
magic show. And it doesn't really bode well for the
believability of this kind of phenomenon. I mean in terms of,
like you know, and I'm I'm not here to poopo
anybody's faith or anybody's belief in faith healing. I think
we've definitely seen uncovered and you know, done research indicating
(18:47):
that a lot of the stuff is manipulative, and of course,
with the you know, the prosperity, theologists of it all
just trying to make money and feather their nests and
their gold airplanes. I mean, we know, oh that there's
some bad acting in the world of megachurch hurry. So
this does not particularly surprise me. It doesn't. I didn't
(19:08):
think about the uk of it all. It makes of
course there would be this kind of thing. But on
the other hand, you've got folks like Pentecostals who are
doing the speaking in tongues and the snake handling and
whatever that might be. And it's purely belief based, you know,
like everyone's in on the fervor of it all. Sure,
and this to me seems like a real cynical you know.
(19:30):
I mean, think what you will about folks with that
level of faith based, performative kind of stuff, you know.
I mean, if you believe what you believe by all means,
believe it. But this to me is sort of a
thumbing of the nose at actual.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Belief, definitely on the part of the authority figures or
the authority structure after a certain threshold. And I love that.
I love that mention of prosperity theology, which is a
very dangerous thing, and just because we hear about it
most often in the United States does not mean it
(20:05):
does not occur in other places. Please check out our
other recent mentions of just really dangerous religious stuff that
has occurred in Southeast Asia or Latin America or the
African continent. I can't remember. In Laying on Hands or
Faith Healing, I can't remember which episode it was where
we talked about the folks who appear to physically remove
(20:32):
a demonic influence or like it looks like a little
booger or goop when they put their hands on and
they pray hard enough and the congregation donates, and all
of a sudden boom, you're healed. As long as the
cameras are rolling.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Well and ben speaking of the versions of this and
other parts of the world, this story got me thinking
about a I believe it was an Instagram post that
I saw shared with you guys on our group text
thread about a pastor in South Africa in the region
of Limpopo Spirit Ministry sorry Sevenfold Holy Spirit Ministries. A
(21:14):
fellow by the name of Christ Penelope It's a fabulous name,
who apparently is not laying on hands but laying on
of butts, his butt on people's faces and farting on them,
but not.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Just in a fun way. It's not a fun butt lay.
It's a butt lay with a purpose.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
There's a buttlery with a purpose. I mean, presumably it's
fun if it does heal what ails you. He says,
it's important that the fart be near the person's nostrils
the healing power can enter the body and do its work.
So this is from South Africa's Independent Online News, and
this is an older story. It's in twenty twenty one,
but it's new to me and new to us. So
(21:52):
I'm just going to read a little piece from Boing
Boing that describes this by Rob Beschizza from November of
this year. But again it is referencing an older story.
I don't know why I came up again something in
the Zeitgeys. In an interview with Drum Penelope said his
unorthodox and stinky healing ritual is a demonstration of God's power.
He claims that he is following the divine example of
(22:13):
putting people in need of a miracle into a deep
sleep before hitting them the healing they need. It started
with Master Jesus when he stepped on Peter.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I didn't know this happened.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
He stepped on him. It is the demonstration of God's power.
I'm not laughing at religion. I'm just laughing at farts.
Is the demonstration of God's power. Just like God made
Adam go into a deep sleep. It is a similar thing.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And one of the returning compliments to our show, Thank you,
fellow conspiracy realist, is five stars. Love these guys. I
could not go to sleep without them. So finger guns, You're.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Welcome, just out here tooting on the mic for you.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Sorry, it's a more gentle fart. It's more of it's
like a hot bread.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah. I'm just gonna just gonna wrap up with the
last bit of this piece from Lingbling. He's been out
of for years, and there's plenty of images that's been
healthy sitting on people's heads online. There are just want
to right the top and he's smiling and just popping
the squat on this dude's face. He can't even see
the guy's features because it's covered in butt. So some
(23:23):
really fancy bretches too.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Sounds very Denis Reynolds to me. Little.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I did see other posts about this. It does appear
to be a thing that happened. I just wanted to
end on a light note. Uh, this is just funny
to men. Farts are always funny. He's been out it
for years. And there's plenty of images of Penelope sitting
on people's heads online, though I didn't spot any footage.
A small mercy for you this Thanksgiving morning. The ministry
posts otherwise conventional charismatic services to YouTube.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, it takes all kinds.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
You gotta find God where God finds you. I guess
you sure do.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And and God works in the serious ways sometimes through parts.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
I just wonder how often our pastor cleanses himself, you know,
in between your application.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Oh, he's got some opinions of the days I imagine,
you know, on helping you was God's.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
Warrior, gets rid of the good, the good.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Vibes like Sampson cutting the hair right.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
Exactly by the way, guys, speaking of Samson, Yeah, I
watched Half Baked with my kid the holiday break. I
love it. Some of it didn't age super well, but
the boy boy was still really funny. And I'll never
I'll always associate with you, guys.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yes, Cuban be.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Really good. It's really funny. Okay, let's take a break
here where a response and then we'll come back with a
couple more segments of messages from you.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
And we've returned jumping straight to the phone lines. Guys,
we did our episode on the Elf on the shelf. Yes,
talked about that character and a cavalcade of other characters
within Santa's Christmas universe.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
It's Christmas Pantheon on the Extended Christmas Universe.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It was created by Lumis Stella Incorporated.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
You're in Marietta, Georgia.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
That's right. We've also talked about just you know, Santa
Rudolph in the the old school hits that we've been
living with for way before two thousand and four to
two thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
The Mule lads, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Leck that window, my guy, dude, dude, Yes, let us
jump quickly sniff that storway. Sorry to miss Betty Brown
who sent us this quick message just around how she
handles Christmas time and Santa presence versus presence that kids
know are purchased. So if you are still within the
(25:54):
Santa verse and whatever your journey is, however old you are,
maybe skip this one because there is some behind the
scenes stuff to talk about you. So Santa spoilers ahead,
here we go.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
Hi, this is Beattie Brown. I just listened to the
elf on the shelf thing as far as Santa believing
in Santa Claus. Every year for my kids, I always
they get one. Each of us gets one present from
Santa Claus. The rest they know are purchased because they
(26:29):
help Christmas shops. But I always get everyone, including myself,
one present from Santa Claus that they don't know about,
and I wrap it in different wrapping paper from all
the other presents. So under the tree there's one thing
wrapped in a special wrapping paper from Santa to each
(26:54):
of us. It helps keep the joy alive. Have a
good Christmas buy.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Miss Betty, thank you so much. This is this is
first off, this is a get out of my head thing,
classic move, Betty. I don't talk about my family too
much on air, but you will. We got the call
just as I said, but we will. Uh. But I
have to confess this is without coming in personal anecdote.
(27:21):
This is a practice that is pretty common in some
folks I know off air, especially close family members, where
you say honestly like garlands and missiletoe and tensil aside.
I've had conversations with family members who say, well, we
we busted our humps here. We know that Santa is
(27:43):
kind of the first conspiracy kids learn about. And one
of my one of my buddies, said, he said, I
didn't come from a Christian background, Ben, I want my
kids to know that I gave them the cool gifts.
So Santa gets a fun one, Dad and mom got
you the other ones.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
That makes a lot of sense. That was similar in
my household too. The really cool stuff came from the
parents or the cousins, or you know, an aunt or
an uncle. But then there's one special one the night
he probably ended up playing with more than the expensive
stuff you know that came from Santa. Feel that for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Did you see the news about this GOP lawmaker whoever?
The Christmas break posted ai pictures of him beating the
crap out of Santa Claus. Why? Yeah, that was the
question a lot of people were asking. It was in
reference to the War on Christmas, but it seemed like
he didn't quite get the memo the War on Christmas
actually entails. He was truly waging war on Santa Claus.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, Christ I.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Think is his name?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Dude?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
He didn't even have one of his people check on
that one after they produced.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
He was just having some fun with his kids.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
But you know, well, maybe he's just having some fun
with his kid.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
It's maybe. But it's like when you post it on
your official lawmaker page with a message that said something like,
when you find out the North Pole is trying to
bring more bureaucratic overreach and unfunded mandates down the chimney,
this guy's Christmas cheer. The people run Indiana, not the bureaucrats.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Why did you do it as a joke about unionization
and elves bringing elves.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Over here trying to get better hours? Yeah, what about presence?
Speaker 4 (29:31):
It's also our first exposure to slave labor. It's a conspiracy,
and it's our first exposure to like these unpaid elf workers.
There's no discussion of the fair wage for the elves.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
They're happy about it is the narrative, right, They just
can't wait. And also, what are they doing in March
as we established an elf on the shelf as a
part of the surveilled State. The elf on the shelf
is working Thursday through or wait, Thanksgiving through Christmas Day.
(30:01):
That's when they're snitching. And then they're back. They're back
in the North Pole, right, So what are they doing
in March?
Speaker 4 (30:08):
Presumably the worker elves are working year round, and I
to get the output required to gift you know, every
child in the known world.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I'm going to write this down future.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Do you guys listen to Comedy Bang Bank Still?
Speaker 4 (30:23):
I saw Still. I stopped it. I need to read it.
I needed not because I didn't love it. I just
you know how it is. I only have room for
so many podcasts, but Delight.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Like, oh dude, oh he's incredible. I can't get enough
of that show still, and they every year they do
their best of and they went back and gosh, I see.
I particularly like Lord Lapkus's Ho the elf character. That
is like going against the grain up there in the
North Pole. It's pretty wonderful. And then maybe think about
(30:53):
that with everybody's happy but everyone but Ho Ho right exactly.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, I am literally writing this down in the book
of future episodes. I wonder what they're doing in March.
Maybe we can get some of the Bang Bang folks
on to explain it to us.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Wet Day, let's have him one for Wet Day. I
love those. Hey, let's stay in the Christmas spirit.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
For a moment. Sure, maybe a little difference between the
North Pole and the US.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Perhaps, but let us let us jump to another Christmas
like festival, a holiday festival that occurs in February, though,
because it hasn't happened yet, it's coming up, and it's
something we learned from Alpha Flight in a message he sentenced,
So let's go ahead and jump to that message.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Hey guys, here, this is listening to your episode most
recent listener mail and you mentioned all of the crazy
Christmas folklore and now I guess Winter Times folklore. It's
on our neck of the woods, so I am obviously Canadian,
(32:12):
but also have some Dutch background, although the Dutch Christmas
is buck wild to take a little a little bit
from Encanto, we don't talk about shot speak. So basically
the Canadian stuff is pretty pretty much similar to you guys,
(32:33):
except for one weird French notable exception, and that's when
you go say bonjou to venom Dnju in Quebec, which
I can only really describe him as a mixture between
a snowman and the kegler else and he is one
party dude and worth looking out as part of the
(32:55):
Quebec Festival like the Winter Festival. Yeah, honestly, if you're
ever in Montreal, oh, it's a good hang. But yeah,
Bama is the pretty sweet dude.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Oh man, Alpha Flight, you have no idea how much
of a rabbit hole we are going down with Bonam
now that we have learned about the Quebec Winter Carnival,
the Winter Carnival, guys, holy mackerel, this is so much fun.
And Bonam a big old snowman that runs around and
(33:25):
just get as as Alpha Flight says, gets the party going.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
It's got a sash. Look, Alpha Flight, first off, thank
you again for the shout out to one of the
best superhero teams in all of Marvel Comicdom. Comicdom. That's right.
Uh this guy, Oh, he's got his sash, he's got
his fun hat, and he's uh he's timeless.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well yeah, a lot like these Christmas characters that we're encountering, right,
they live forever, They've always been there. It's just Bonham
first came in nineteen fifty four or fifty five and
made his appearance known, and now he is with us forever.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
And he's a chalky boy too. Seven feet tall, four
hundred pounds of pack snow, which is interesting that it's
not in the metric system. I guy parties.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, for sure, you could go to Carnival dot QC
dot c A to learn more about Bonholme and learn
about all the excitement that happens right before the big carnival,
which is when Bonoma is really doing his thing.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
I don't know that they have an equivalent mascot type figure.
But when I was a little kid living was when
I was a small German boy, I remember a distinct,
very exciting period in Germany and the region where I
live called fashing Carnival or Fashnacht, which goes from November
eleventh up until ash Wednesday, so roughly still a winter carnival,
(34:51):
or you know, early winter carnival. And you made like
paper mache heads and all kinds of crazy stuff, and
there's revelry and various let's see chance and lots of
different parade floats and something called a boot which is
a barrel shaped lectern for giving satirical speeches, and people
wear all kinds of crazy costumes and it's very mardy
gra coded. But I think there's probably, you know, connection
(35:14):
between these seasons.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I love all these parties so cool.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
There's a lot to learn about and has some cool origins,
just about celebrating before a crazy harsh winter or like
you know, as you're going through a crazy harsh winter,
getting through it, preparing for it, all those good things
there is. Just if you look at the bonom page
down here, I'm going to read this part because I
don't know enough about it. Maybe somebody else can write
(35:41):
in tell us more. Maybe if you're from Quebeca or
somewhere around there that celebrates the carnival, it says ur
bonom is quite different than the inanimate straw or wooden
European bonom that is sacrificed at the end of each
carnival a wicker man to symbolize rebirth and the return
of spring. It's very interesting. There is a sacrifice that's
very common, right, as we've talked about before, sacrifice of
(36:04):
an fig of some sort. Shout out to Bohemian growth.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Shout out yeah, shout out to European history. I love
the Bohemian grove. Shout out Alpha Flight. You might also
enjoy our episode from years back on the origins of
Christmas as celebrated in the West as well. As if
you want to get into some ridiculous history, our episodes
(36:30):
on Christmas traditions from ridiculous history. Spoiler, it's wild, there's
a poop log, there's everything, you know. I feel like
Stefan Bill Hayter's old character on Saturday Night Live, going, Oh,
it's Christmas in Europe, It's Christmas in Latin America. You
(36:50):
can't wait to hear the stuff they have for you. Actually,
I think we should go celebrate the end of the
year parties in another country one time, just one time.
Let's find one.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Let's do it. They've got everything, Cagatillo. All right, Well, hey,
that's it for this segment of Listener Mail. We'll be
right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
And we have returned. This is the final act of
our listener Mail segment, folks. I thought we would start
with a big thank you to a couple of people
in particular. We'll give you their names and then we'll
we'll dive into what they said. We got a great
history lesson from Bonita C who hit us up over
(37:39):
on the social meds. We got a series of great
letters from Noah's F and B. We'll call it F
and B. And then we got a big thank you
letter from Malaysia and maybe we can close with that one,
but let's kick it off this way. Do you guys
remember our episode years back on Africville.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Yes, and that came up again recently, I believe.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Yes, yeah, it did. This This is a story the
Sith and the Jedi won't tell you. We should give
a quick summary here. Africvil was a small community of
African descended Nova Scotian residents in Halifax, Okay, out in Canada.
(38:25):
So we're still kind of staying in Canada with this one.
And this episode stood out to all three of us
fellow conspiracy realists because it's literally hidden history. This is
where Bonita c comes in. Bonita listened to the show
and said, great job on Africvil. One of the reasons
this is especially awful behavior is because it was a
(38:47):
free black village there. To begin with, those were the
black loyalist The British Crown promised black people in the
America's freedom and land in Canada for their support in
the British side of the American War of Independence. Then
it became a thing they tried to back out of
before leaving, and those who were stuck behind, were left
(39:10):
in Canada in an inhospitable region with no support. Halifax
at the time had a government imposed bounty on scalping
the indigenous population, and they also this early government of
Halifax made it clear that white supremacy was a law
that would be enforced, and they also brought the loyalists
there and that they didn't give these people land because
(39:32):
of white supremacy. This is not just stuff they don't
want you to know. Some Nova Scotians right now don't
understand that there's entire history of black people that built
up the area, and maybe we paused there because I
think it's interesting. I haven't re listened to our Afrodville research,
but it is something pretty common in colonialism, where you
(39:56):
promise one group of people something and then you leave
them out to dry. I'm thinking of like as recently
as Mong tribes in the Vietnam War, or of course Kurdistan.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Those are great examples. I don't know enough about them
to comment on it, but I think specifically, just right now, guys,
my son is learning about a lot of indigenous peoples
here in the United States, and there's just so many
examples of specific groups that were told specific things and
then it's just swept out from under their feet before
they can get anything.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Yeah, one hundred percent, it's a jam tomorrow, jam yesterday,
but never ever jam today's situation. And yeah, this is
a downer after some fun chats about Christmas stuff, which
obviously we love, but it is important to remember history
is closer than it looks in the rear view mirror.
The consequences of this are carrying on today, and it's
(40:49):
not just the United States that has continuing conversations about
the concept of reparations. Does that make sense? M hm,
So thank you again, not just you, Benita see, but
everybody who is writing into us on the social meds.
We've got time for one more email from a series
(41:11):
of emails from our pal, Noah's FMB, and I think
we all saw the correspondence as we responded Noah, you
were on fire Man. You sent us some great links,
several of which will inspire I think full episodes in
the future. We talk a lot about Russian oligarchs, especially
(41:31):
when windows come into play, the physical windows, not the
operating system. But we've never done an episode, a full
episode on Russian oligarchs and guys I think Noah is
going to inspire us to do it with a story
(41:52):
that they sent which is older but wasn't widely reported
in the United States. It's about Russian investment in American
tech companies.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Oh, that's great. We are about to speak with Jake again, right,
mister Hanrahan, Well, oligarchs.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
I wrote to him today. Let's see as he written back.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
That's fantastic. So hmm, maybe we can ask him about
this specific thing.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yes, our buddy does does specialize in sad oligarchs. Do
check out his show. We're excited to have him on
for an interview. I just I can't believe we have
not done an episode about Russian oligarchs yet.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
I was just gonna say the same thing. We've had
a cut, We've had a handful of those. Can't believe
we haven't done this yet. Topics of late I know.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Yeah, we're rediscovering ourselves. We have Bermuda triangle. We had
let's see whatever heads trunk and heads. Oh, good call there.
And Noel, Yeah, we also have this oligarch thing. I
don't even I don't know if we should get into
it yet because the story dates back so far, like
one of the earlier quotes we found, or one of
(43:00):
the earlier stories that Noah shared with us is about
how Russian investors Facebook connect and group on. If you
remember group on, we're conspiring.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Treat you by job roll tickets.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Right there we go, We're conspiring to to really wash
the money. It reminds me of that old wrap line,
I'm running to the laundry like there's something smelly on me.
Russian oligarchy was tremendously successful laundring money through all these
different all these different avenues, and I we gotta save it.
(43:41):
Can we make the audible call? Can we save this
for an episode?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Sure? Well, just talking about that kind of stuff in
laundry money, I want to ask you, guys if you've
seen anything wonky happening in YouTube with ads? Have you
guys seen anything that feels like money is being washed
or something thing? Or I stumbled upon an ad accidentally.
(44:05):
I'll just give you the exact scenari soon. You understand.
I'm on my work computer, I'm not signed in through
any account. I'm on YouTube watching something from the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation. I get served an ad beforehand, and you're
gonna have to beat me on this. It is an
AI generated woman sitting on a couch. She turns to
(44:27):
the camera and says, last night my husband to me
for three hours.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
I'm not kidding. Thanks for the beep, Dylan, Yeah, please.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Thanks for the beep. Dylan agreed, because that it says
audibly right, I'm not signed in, so YouTube doesn't know
if I'm a child or an adult or whoever watching
this thing, and it still serves this absolutely easily determined
to be AI generated ad on something crazy, not okay.
(44:56):
And then I look down on the Australian Broadcasting Corporations
video that I'm watching and there is a highly stylized
female figure giving fullatio to a tree, a very penis
shaped tree, and it's for a window tinting company, like
like commercial car window tinting. This is AI It's also
(45:20):
AI slop of some sort AI generated image. And I'm
just seeing that all of that stuff is somehow going
through whatever alphabet and Google is attempting to do with YouTube, right,
because as we know personally, guys, it's all about advertiser
safety on YouTube. We know this. That's where our hand
(45:40):
got slapped many a time because we were not safe
enough for advertisers.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
But this whatever I took the YouTube course, we all get.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
But like, it's just crazy to me that that kind
of junk, that slop can just make its way through
as long as the dollars are rolling through to pay
for it.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
There's that terminification and I forget to coined it. It's
this dude that I just saw doing an interview. It's
I think he's like a media critic or something. But anyway,
the idea is that these platforms have gone through a
process of indentification that is multi layered. The first one
is they sell you a product that's the user. First,
we're going to protect your data, we're going to protect
(46:19):
your privacy, we're not going to serve you a bunch
of ads. And then of course eventually they do serve
your ads in a way that's really invasive and obnoxious,
and all the priority gets put on the sponsors. But
the next stage is this guy describes aification, is that
now the sponsors aren't even getting that treatment. So stuff
is totally coming through because it is no longer even
(46:40):
about brand safety or sponsor you know protection.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, we're talking about the Canadian writer Corey. Thanks Cory
doctor Rowe. That was yeah twenty twenty two. Oh, I'm
still so into this oligarchy idea because we can argue
we always hear the term oligarch thrown around with the
Russian kleptocracy, which just is a fancy way of saying
(47:06):
government run by thieves. However, I advance to all of
us listening that there is another oligarchy at play. It
is a tech oligarchy. It is the one responsible for
in poopification. Just to save you the beat there, Dylan,
this is the one. This is the oligarchy that people
need to be primarily concerned about here in the West today.
(47:30):
And I am so excited for us to do the
episode on this in the future. If it's all right, guys,
just to wrap on some good news. We'll get to
the rest of this as our journey through twenty twenty
six continues. It's all right to wrap on some good news.
I'd love to share a cool letter that we got
all the way out from Malaysia.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
Oh man, I love a happy letter, especially from Malaysia,
and I love good news.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
You know what I mean? Don't you like when you
get a text that's just a nice tech They're not
asking you to do anything. They're just saying, Hey, I
hope you have a good day.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
It's nice. Yeah. I also love getting the Ben Boleen
Venezuelan invasion texts as well.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Gosh, sorry about that.
Speaker 4 (48:15):
I'm joking. It's good to be on the cutting edge
of what's happening. But yeah, it is nice to get
just a little bit of a warm hug in text
or letter or any correspondence.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
For sure, we love a little Ada boy. We're suckers
for We're suckers for sincere validation. This is so nice
and it gives us a chance to answer a question
that we love and spoiler it might be a question
that was on the mind of a lot of our
long term listeners when we began this listener mail program.
Hello there, std wytkt, says William. I just wanted to
(48:49):
thank you guys for all the great content you put out.
It's probably not a stretch to say you guys helped
save my sanity during the COVID lockdown years and have
continued to educate and to entertain me. Since I don't
have any story to share for your listener mail segment,
but maybe one day I'll have a conspiracy worthy of
further exploration. You can pausing here, William. You can always
(49:14):
write to us. Everybody can always write to us. We
just want to know what's on your mind. We love
an no pun left behind. You continue and say, by
the way, I still don't know what a ruta bega is.
Web searches and AI haven't helped me figure out what
you guys were always giggling about. And William's right, we
do giggle when it comes up. Is this an American
(49:37):
English thing? You asked, William? Is that something you don't
want us to know anyway? Happy holidays? William from Malaysia.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
Does the Google algorithm in other parts of the world
not know what a route bega is?
Speaker 3 (49:49):
I think it's the spelling, so okay, yeah, So a
couple of things here real quick, big Willie style. If
you permit the moniker, a rutabaga typically is going to
be spelled r u t a b a g a
for anybody new to the show. One of our favorite
parts of our weekly listener mail program is when our
(50:11):
pal Dylan literally the Tennessee pal Dylan fakean Uh continues
in beginning the Ruta Bega universe. The ruta bega is
our root vegetable. Let's think of it like a cross
between a turn up with some cabbage in the DNA.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
Mm hmm yeah. Also known as a swede.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Yes, yes, just so.
Speaker 4 (50:34):
It doesn't quite have the ring to it, but it's
still nice like a swede.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
It can bring out some sweetness too, which is really cool,
almost like a sweet potato kind of thing, those root
vegetables that have that natural sugar going on.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
A little beat, like I like, yeah, intense, yeah, roasted
with the sweetness.
Speaker 3 (50:53):
We have parsnip esque. Yeah. I think it's got a
lot of a lot in common with parsnip, but parsnip's
a little bit more bitter.
Speaker 4 (51:06):
A little bit more rootie or a little bit more
stemy kind of you know. It can be tough.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
To cook, William. You can also replace mashed potatoes with
mashed rutabaga. Please follow us for more rudabaga recipes through email.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
We got a we got a recipe for a rutabaga casserole.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Yes, yeah, I forwarded that to Dylan. Actually I should
have been doing other things, but it was like, stop everything,
the email can wait. I'm not getting on the call yet. Dylan.
You have to know. H.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Thank you for doing the needful bit, thank you for
doing that what you just said.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
In Scotland, rudabagas are referred to as nips and they
have a delightful dish that sounds like I want to
track called nieps and tatties, where the tattoos are the
Scots word for potatoes and meats are mashed rutabagas. And
there's another version of that where you can mine those
two ingreen and referred to the combo as clap shot.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
Whoa yep. Now you might be asking yourself, William. You
might be saying, guys, I am sold. How did I
not know more about this earlier? Well, we'll tell you
it's a conspiracy. You see, the rootabaga is a is
a cool season crop and as a very long growing season,
so big agriculture went to easier things to cultivate. And
(52:25):
we're bringing the rudabaga back. It's twenty twenty six. That's
going on our vision board. We're also bringing back the
idea of vision boards.
Speaker 4 (52:35):
I remember that we used to talk about the vision
board all the time. At the end of ridiculous history,
we should bring it back. It was because of a Pinterest.
I think now apparently Pinterest is just a hive of
scum and AI sloppery. Oh no, yeah, it's been like
you can no longer find any real or very difficult
to find real images that are generated by humans. Everything
(52:57):
is just it's been like infested with Aila.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Where will I get my interior design ideas well?
Speaker 4 (53:02):
Yeah, human beings.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
I do want to point out, folks, we were ahead
of the curve because the stuff they don't want you
to know logo had six fingers on it way before. Hey,
I slopped from pinterest.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Oohs, as did the Gravity Falls logo. Unfortunately you know
that when we created our logo.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
But big thanks to our brother in arms, the legendary
Paul Mission Controlled Decands, who helped bring that vision to life.
And big thanks to you for joining us. Folks. We're
so excited again that you're hanging out with us. Stay
tuned as we proceed through the week, you're going to
hear a couple more classic episodes. You're going to hear
more strange news, more listener mail. I can't even remember
(53:47):
which of our episodes are publishing by the week that
this comes out. Oh gut intuition memories from the future.
Let's see. Oh we've got some we got some neat stuff. Noel,
you mentioned trunk and heads.
Speaker 4 (54:00):
Yeah, that was a romp for sure.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
The Sansas right. So join us, folks. We'd love to
hear from you. You can find us on Netflix. You
can call us on a phone line, you can send
us an email. You can always contact us on the
social meets.
Speaker 4 (54:16):
You sure can. And before I tell you how to
do that, I just wanted to add one little rudegga tidbit.
This may have come up in the past, but I
had to do this for the sake of our guest
super producer Max the Freight Train Williams in Ithaca, New York.
There is something called the International Rudebega Curling Championship that
started in December of nineteen ninety seven, where people try
(54:37):
out the new Rudebega crop by rolling them into like
a you know, a pitch that is a circular goal,
much like the delightful Olympic Winter Olympic sport of curling
that Max loves so well.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Check out our episodes on curling if you have Ridiculous
history as well. It's a few part series.
Speaker 4 (54:56):
And in the meantime, you can indeed find us on
the social meds at the hand conspiracies level. We exist
on Facebook with our Facebook group here's where it gets crazy,
on xfka, Twitter and on YouTube with video content glor
for your apprusing enjoyment on Instagram and TikTok where conspiracy
stuff show.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
We have a phone number. It is one eight to
three three std WYTK. Turn those letters into numbers. Give
the number a call. You'll find our voicemail system. You've
got three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname and let
us know within the message if we can use your
name and message on the air. If you got other
things to say, stuff you want to put down with words,
why not send us an email.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
We are the entities the read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet o't afraid. Sometimes the
void rights back. What do we going to write back with? Well,
it depends on what you say to us. Play the game.
Tell us if you want a random fact or a
random poem. We love this kind of stuff. Twenty four
hours in evening, seven nights a week. Guys, I just
(55:55):
found an excellent poem about Rude Bega's by an author
named law La Grace Weldon. What is it Anna hit
us up? Find out We'll see you in the dark.
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
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.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.