July 30, 2020 • 42 mins
Who was the mysterious Ronald Hadley Stark? Just how closely can companies and the government monitor commercial (and, eventually, civilian) vehicles? How do forced disappearances actually work -- and how common are they in reality? Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they explore these questions and more in Stuff They Don't Want You To Know's weekly listener mail segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is They called me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producers Paul,
Mission Controlled, Decand and Alexis nicknamed tv D Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. The newest installment
in our continuing weekly listener mail segment. We are recording
(00:50):
this on Wednesday, July two. As we always say, since
day one, you, specifically you are the most important part
of the show. And this is when we in our
way past the microphone to you. My compatriots and I
have each selected some piece of correspondence and we wanted
(01:11):
to share it with each other and again, more importantly,
share it with you. So what do you think? Gents?
Who's up first? Oh? I'll take this one. Just another
shout out to everyone who has been calling. We've been
hearing your messages. We are a little behind, but we're
catching up quickly with these episodes. Coming out now, so
be prepared for us to hear your message and to
(01:35):
get a call back maybe or to hear yourself on
one of these episodes, like our first contributor read, Hey guys, Scott,
I think I's got something for you. Look up the
name Ronald at the Y. I think you might find
an interesting got a very good luck. So that was
(02:01):
a bit hard to hear. What we could make out
was that this person who left us a messages name
was read and I couldn't quite make out the name
of the person that he is telling us to look up.
But just through a little bit of searching and incorrectly
spelling this person's name, we stumbled upon Ronald Hadley Stark,
(02:25):
a very very fascinating individual, if I say so myself.
This person also is known as John Clarence Dylan, also
known as Terence William Abbott, and he also went by
numerous other names of varying origins. At least the names
were of varying origins throughout his life, and this person appears,
(02:49):
at least on the surface, to have been functioning as
some kind of operative for one or more intelligence agencies. Now,
like anyone who is an agent or someone working for
an intelligence agency. They're not going to be, you know,
on the news a whole lot, probably, so you're not
(03:10):
going to find a whole bunch of links about this
individual giving interviews talking about what they're doing, their biography,
their background, or anything like that. But there have been
numerous publications over the years discussing this person, Ronald Stark,
we'll just call him Stark. I like that a lot,
agent Stark, whatever. We honestly don't even know the capacity
(03:34):
at which he was functioning and exactly which agencies he
was working for, but we do know, just through some
FBI documentation, that he was working with the CIA at
some point, and he was functioning both internationally and within
the United States. It's very very interesting stuff. If you
go to archive dot org slash details slash Ronald had
(04:00):
LEAs Stark that's r O n A L D h
A D L E Y s t A r K,
you will be able to find several FBI documents of
background information on this guy. A lot of it has
to do with the FBI itself looking into Ronald Hadley
because he's had run ins with another agent generally of
(04:21):
the FBI, one run in or another, and it is
really interesting. He was charged with a whole bunch of
different crimes. According to this A lot of it had
to do with passport forgery and illegally obtaining passports. But
his big contribution, let's say, to national discourse and to
(04:42):
some would say the changing of the United States in general,
was his interaction with a group called the Brotherhood of
Eternal Love. It's been described in several places, including on
brain sturbator dot com, which is essentially a blog is
what it appears to But on this blog and through
(05:03):
the research that this writer has done, the Brotherhood of
Eternal Love is described as a quote hippie mafia, druggist syndicate,
and uh, you know, this whole thing, by the way,
is something that we're going to need to do a
whole episode on. But within this Brainsturvator, which is a
fun thing to say article, it really chronicles this guy,
(05:26):
Ronald Hadley Stark, and how he essentially was bringing liquid
l s D as a supplier into several different major
cultural groups that were really working in the nineties sixties,
especially in the West. This guy has been written about
in numerous books where they talk about how he was,
oh he always seemed to be there. He seemed to
(05:47):
be supplying a lot of the l s D, and
nobody really knew too much about him. But anyway, I
just want to point this to you guys, Ben and Noll.
Have you guys ever heard of this person and have
you read anything about him? Yes? Yes, Actually for intrepid uh.
(06:07):
Intrepid compatriots would be compatriots of the so called hippie mafia.
You can go to drug library dot net and read
the entire book of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. You
know what's interesting, Matt, I love that you pointed out
the arrest here because it's really strange, right, working for
a gang like the CIA, usually, or theoretically, it comes
(06:30):
aside benefits. One of those side benefits is being at
least for some time or to some degree above the law.
But to your point, you know, I think it was
back in nine when Hadley and a couple of other
people were either arrested or indicted, including Owlsley, who everybody
(06:50):
else you know, is like maybe a little more common
person in the story of LSD and the government and
the Mary Pranksters. It's interesting to me because this guy
is I agree we should do a full episode on it.
This guy, by which I mean Stark, agent Stark as
you call him, He is a great example of how
the intelligence apparatus used an asset, burned the asset, and
(07:16):
then sort of through them under the counterculture bus, you
know what I mean? Uh, he was moving weight. King
of LSD was not by any means, at least from
what I understand, an ironic nickname like Little John or something.
He was called the King of LSD because he moved
the most LSD. Uh. You'll see allegations that he produced
(07:39):
what kilos of LSD and that in some way the
stuff that he was making was going international, like not
just in the US. I don't know what your research
found there, but um, I agree this would be a
great uh sequel to our early or episode on how
(08:02):
US government kind of created counterculture in the US. Oh, yeah,
for sure. UM just talking about the international angle here.
So in nineteen seventy five, there there was an arrest
of a man named Terence w Abbott. At least that's
what his passport said. It was a British passport. It
was genuine has a number that I'm not going to
(08:25):
say right here. There was issued two years prior to
nineteen seventy three, and when this person, Terrence w Abbott,
was arrested, he was found in possession of four thousand,
six hundred kilos that's combined of marijuana, morphine, and cocaine
um a whole lot. And it was later discovered that
(08:48):
this guy, Mr. Abbott, was in fact Ronald Stark, and
he somehow had access to this British passport with a
different name that certainly reads as intelligence or were you know,
somebody taking part in some serious, uh felony passport action there,
especially since it was a legit number passport number. And
(09:10):
the really interesting thing here where again this is just
kind of taking it briefly, dipping your toe into the
rabbit hole. The British intelligence agencies would not cooperate and
release the information they had on this guy, or either
of these guys with their different names. Right. It's fascinating. Oh.
Also even the FBI, who did have files, some files
(09:33):
of which you can read, like I just mentioned, you
can read some of them. Uh, the FBI would not
share their files with the d e A who are
doing the investigation into this arrest. With all of these drugs,
really really interesting and the last thing here just is
that the State Department, the U. S State Department, they
(09:54):
were actually interfering. They were not allowing this guy to
be extradited at varying points within his career of essentially
creating and selling and distributing drugs. Really really weird stuff. Man. Yeah,
there's an interesting quote in this blog post that pulls
from a couple of books, one of which is David
Black's book Asked a Secret History of LSD UM that says,
(10:17):
of this gentleman quote, he had a mission, he explained,
to use LSD in order to facilitate the overthrow of
the political systems of both the capitalist West and the
communist East by inducing altered states of consciousness in millions
of people. Start did not hide the fact that he
was well connected in the world of covert politics. Well,
(10:37):
apparently he had jobs or was doing work at least
in Europe, in America, in Africa, so in Asia. I
don't know somebody like this with that much concealment going
on in assistance from various intelligence agencies. I want to
know more about this guy, and it appears that we
can find it if we dig deep enough. But it's
definitely things where he's been written up about, and some
(11:01):
of it feels, at least from what I'm reading here,
some of it does feel I almost want to say
crime folklore maybe, or you know, intelligence folklore. I don't
know if that's true or not. I think it just
maybe has that feeling to it because a lot of
the things that are written about him seems so out
there to me, like this one person could be involved
(11:24):
in all of these varying different things and still be
a ghost to a large extent. I don't know. Yeah,
it's interesting too, And I was looking for stuff on him,
like most of the things are on like fish message
boards or other like counterculture, you know, discussion forums. I
did find an article from the New York Times that's
like an archived article from nineteen seventy three. The headline
(11:46):
is king of LSD and and seven are indicted by
US and drug ring case. And it's talking about the
federal grand jury here said yesterday that LSD plants were
operated here in Windsor, California. St. Louis and Fenton, Missouri,
and in Belgium. Among those indicted was Augustus Owsley Stanley,
thirty seven year old of San Raphael California, and that's
(12:08):
the king of last we're talking about. And very kind
of quietly at the bottom at list the co conspirators
David Lee Mantell's thirty three whereabouts unknown, Lester Freedman forty four,
Cleveland chemistry professor, Ronald had Lee Stark thirty five of
New York, Michael B. Randall, address unknown, and Charles Drews
of London. So um, as far as like journalism, that's
(12:32):
sort of what I what I found. It's very interesting.
You're right about the kind of mythic uh reputation of
this guy. Long story short, It's gonna take a lot
more time and research to get a full picture here,
but thank you so much Red for writing in about
this person. I think we're all down to learn more,
so maybe we'll be getting back to you soon with
(12:54):
more information totally. And for now, let's take a quick
word from our sponsor and come back with another message
and we're back. Okay, boys, who's up next? I could go.
The message that I pulled comes from Rob and he
is a long haul truck driver and has some things
(13:16):
to say about the type of data that his employers
are able to get from his vehicle. And some questions
about the future of this kind of tracking. I'll make
this fast. I'm a truck driver. The ways that my
company can track what I do and what other companies
can trackt other trucks is amazing. They can see my speed,
my breaking, my g how close I get to other vehicles,
(13:40):
how often I'm in my lane, what's in my trailer,
and there's so much more. Names. Rob love you guys.
Guys are awesome. Keep it up. It's true, and I
think I think this is really interesting. Kind of going
to use this as a piggyback to talk about something
a little bit different. But uh, these systems are called
tele informatic systems that utilize things like GPS navigation, the
(14:02):
kinds of onboard diagnostic systems that you know, we know
about that have been kind of replacing more mechanical systems
and cars for many many years now. Ben, we had
talked a little bit off air about how kind of
mind blowing the advancement that the rapid advancement of this
technology is from you and your car stuff days. Yeah,
(14:22):
that's correct. It is a technology that is a no
brainer for large commercial fleets. It will increasingly be found
in new cars It will probably start off the same
way Sesame credit started off in China. It will start
off as an opt in service, but then people will
be incentivized to accept it, probably by lower insurance premiums
(14:47):
that's happening now with civilian vehicles. And then ultimately it
will be some kind of legislation which means it cannot
be opted out of. That will be with the rise
of infrastructure for autonomous vehicles. Rob You're absolutely right. One
thing I think we should emphasize there is the degree
of sophistication and accuracy in these systems. It makes it
(15:08):
tougher and tougher to make a living in the trucking industry,
which is simultaneously incredibly important to the modern world and
uh incredibly dismissed by people in power for sure. And
you know, in our episode we did on GPS tracking,
we talked about this quite a bit, where it doesn't
have to be you know, the fleet owner, right that's
(15:31):
tracking your stuff at the vehicle level. That kind of
tracking can be occurring externally to your vehicle and looking
at things on the outside of your vehicle, and it
doesn't have to actually be making any kind of digital
contact with anything inside your vehicle, that's right, and that
brings me to UM in thinking about this, how the
(15:51):
kind of nature of surveillance in vehicles. I found an
article that came out just today on Slate by Hannah Klein.
The headline Customs and Border Protection can track cars nationwide
via commercial database. I had asked a question of you
guys off air. I've gotten tickets before where it was
very clear that my license plate was in no way
(16:12):
viewable by the officer that pulled me over. You know,
for something like can expire tag. You know that that
I would think would need to be a visually confirmed thing.
But then you think that tag sticker is so tiny,
how could they possibly especially if they're on the side
of the road. And I questioned, like so that some
kind of like r f I D chips in our
license plates? And Matt mentioned this the idea of license
plate scanners, and that's exactly what this is. The CPB
(16:36):
actually partnered with a commercial license plate database, UM, so
they can actually track like historical data about cars across
the United States without a warrant. The CPB even updated
it's a privacy impact assessment, which you know makes it
(16:56):
clear that they are using these commercially owned cameras and
license plate readers and have been doing so since, but
with this new information, it really broadens the scope of
it pretty significantly. And we know about this from the
article because in twenty nineteen there was a deal between
(17:16):
the CPB and a company called Vigilant Solutions, which is
one of these databases that was publicly listed as law
Enforcement Archival Reporting. Law Enforcement Archival Reporting is actually the
name of a product that Vigilant makes, so they're talking
about something upwards of nine billion scans that they own
(17:39):
and that now the Customs and Border Protection Agency can access.
It was actually successfully used in a drug case not
long ago, tracking the movement of a heroin dealer to
and from a pick up and drop off location. So
it's certainly something we're going to see more of being
used to kind of sidesteff warrants. And it's really hard
(18:02):
to opt out of because you would really essentially just
have to like steer clear of areas where these cameras are.
We don't know where these cameras are, so there's really
no way to do that effectively. Right, What do you
guys think about this? Yeah, it's certainly disturbing. I think
it is all too frequent, and it's just something you know,
you'd want it to be there if there was a
(18:23):
you know, a criminal of some sort that had harmed
you or your family, right, you'd want that to be there.
At the same time, everywhere you go it is potentially
being tracked in like seven different active ways at all times.
It's just another one of those things that signals that
we are done with privacy. We're just over it. Sorry,
(18:45):
we talked about that on this show all the time.
Just another signal of it. Just a double back and clarify,
that case I was talking about was in Massachusetts. In
April of this year, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court actually
gave the go ahead to use license plate readers to
track this heroin deal that I was talking about. To
go back to what you had mentioned earlier, Matt, we
have a pretty pretty good introductory dive into this on
(19:09):
Big Brother on the Road car and GPS tracking. But
your point, Noel Uh, that this is developing technology. It
is inevitable barring some intense cataclysmic series of events that
drives technology back to an earlier age. It just makes
sense to have this tracking capability, and you have to
(19:31):
argue that it's indeed necessary for autonomous vehicles for anybody
wants more on that detail. Like you know, Rob, what's
interesting about your call, and I really appreciate your time here,
is that in some ways you are a non consensual
guinea pig for what will become a larger program, again,
(19:51):
just like so many other social pushes, right, and I
would be interested in hearing from more of our fellow
listeners in the trucking industry. Do you think this is
on balance a good thing? Do you think this is
on balance a scary thing? Why? Or why not? Because
the big problem we're looking at some some pretty scary
(20:12):
Checkers problems, right, and it's pretty scary I would say
early Chess problems. But one thing looming on the horizon,
the rough beasts slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. Here
is the idea of those systems being compromised and hacked
and what you could do with that, especially if it
becomes a mandate for all civilian vehicles, which could you know,
(20:35):
not to be dooming gloom, but could probably happen in
our lifetime. It's take Yeah, nobody, nobody wants to be tracked,
especially if it's based on you know, your political, religious belief,
your nationality, whatever it is, whatever the thing that it
is that you have. Nobody wants to be tracked because
(20:55):
of that, because someone in power decides that whatever you
are is bad. Right, That's one of the major things
we've talked about with a lot of topics on this show.
And anytime there's a technology like this that is so
powerful that has the potential to be misused either by
a controlling party you know that is the ones who
are actually using the thing, or a third party that is,
(21:18):
just like Ben said, hacking or making use of it
through force. It's a it's a scary thought. It freaks
me out. And the argument, I guess could be made
that it's, you know, it's all for the greater good.
It's like for our safety, it's it could technically prevent crimes.
So it falls into that realm of pre crime, of
surveilling people in advance of anyone having done anything wrong.
And uh, you know, there's sort of like a blue
(21:41):
sky utopian version that like that sounds nice, but it's
that slipperty slope argument where then it becomes you know,
we're basically living in a in a surveillance state, and
and that doesn't seem so nice. Depending on what kind
of car you drive or you know, the nature of
your work, if you work with vehicles. I keep in
mind that right now it's science fiction. Your carc could
(22:02):
be remotely shut off. It can happen. We talked about
it again in that earlier episode. Just the thing to
point out here that we've mentioned several times Been I
think you said it and said it best, but the
concept that any tool that's developed has the potential to
become a weapon depending on who wields it, something to
that effect. That feels like a quote from a scholar.
(22:23):
But I'm pretty sure you said that Been. I'm sure
somebody else wrote it better and said it earlier. Just
in the in the nature of things. But yeah, things
to watch out for. I mean, the US is still
very much a car culture. Many places in the world are,
and right now, despite all the various ideas and things
on the figurative drawing board, the US and a huge
(22:45):
portion of the world relies on the trucking industry to
get things from one place or another. So be more
appreciative to truckers if you see him on the road.
I don't want to get all car stuff and all.
I know that's not the point of this one, but
but don't drive like a jerk around people driving in
tractor trailers. Imagine what a harrowing experience that is to
(23:07):
have to be on inner States with a tractor trailer
and then have people you know, tailgating you or trying
to get right in front where you can't see them.
Drive safe. Well, with that, I think we can take
another quick break and then be back with another listener mail.
(23:29):
And we're back. We're gonna switch this up a little bit.
We have an email that comes to us from someone
who did identify themselves by their real name, but they
gave us an alias that I believe you all will enjoy,
Agent Veggie Burger. Agent Veggie Burger, you wrote in to
say I wanted to shoot you a quick email with
(23:52):
a few potential topics for future episodes that may be
worth looking into. I don't mind this being read aloud
on the air at all. Awesome, Thank you as always
for verifying that with us. So, Agent Veggie Burger. He
gave us two really strong topics that we hadn't examined before,
and I want to see if these would be worth
aful episode in the future. So here we go. The
(24:14):
first is regarding a question or subject that I wondered
about when it's come up in different episodes. I'm gonna
skip part of what you said here, Agent Veggie Burger,
uh and get right to the big tent item. My
first question, you say is this, how do people get
or become made to be disappeared by governments, organized crime, etcetera. Parentheses,
(24:40):
but the government one is what really interests me and
what circumstances tend to occur to lead to someone being disappeared.
If a person is disappeared, is a body or remains
ever found, Agent Veggie Burger. You suggested to other fantastic subjects,
but for today's listener, Ale, if that would be interesting
(25:02):
to focus on this concept of forced disappearances. Agent Veggie
Burger ends by signing off, thanks and regards or lettuce
and tomatoes. Agent Veggie Burger. But that's a very serious topic.
What do you guys think about, uh, forced disappearances in general?
That's going to be for anybody googling right now, that's
(25:23):
going to be the topic that will get you the
most salient results. I would just say The first category
of this, off the top of my head, is a
little more lighthearted. Well maybe not for the person involved,
but things like the witness Protection program are similar programs
(25:43):
that could be instituted by government agencies and intelligence agencies
where someone who's perhaps a witness or primary contact or
source of information, who is spirited away to a safe
place and none of their contacts ever know where they
are anymore. That's it. They're they're gone, um, and they're
(26:05):
still alive somewhere because they're needed and vital, but they
are no longer accessible by anyone previously in their life. Yeah,
it's spooky stuff, right, that's it's it's a real thing.
I think they called the witness Security Program now or
something like that. But everybody who's not a U. S.
Marshal puls witness protection. Uh, this is a real thing.
(26:26):
You can under certain circumstances crack of deal that leads
you to witness protection. Sometimes people who have committed crimes
are in the witness protection program or security program, but
they are highly incentivized to at least pretend to be
playing the straight and narrow and their new identity. There's
(26:47):
not a three strikes you go to jail kind of
rule for people in the program. If you commit any crime,
they can throw you out, and there's nothing stopping them
from calling Mafio. So's like match both hands or something, Lugiano.
I'm just making up a name. I'm sorry, Matt, and
then having you know and then saying, hey, guess what
(27:09):
you thought Dale da Vinci was dead. No, he was
living in Utah as of twenty minutes ago, and we
think he's heading to the airport. So do what you
do best like that? Can that can absolutely happen. I
think it's something that gets used a lot in fiction.
But you're right, man, it's very it's very, very real,
and it's very valuable. I would also shout out Witless Protection,
(27:33):
the American cinematic masterpiece starring Larry the Cable Guy. It
made almost four point two million dollars. Jenny McCarthy's in there, Um,
I don't think that's a documentary. Forced disappearances, or what's
sometimes is called enforced disappearances, are sadly much more common
(27:55):
than maybe we would like to think. Sometimes you think
of these as something that occurred dur in the Cold War.
There's something that occurs in authoritarian regimes. But then did
the Cold War ever end? Authoritarian regimes are certainly around
we know. Probably it's your question, Agent Veggie Burger. I
would say the Dirty War in Argentina is a huge
(28:18):
example of enforced disappearances. Stalin was literally erasing people from photographs.
That's a very very clear, uh example of forced disappearances. Uh.
And then the ongoing persecution of the weaker communities in
Western China, those are definitely forced disappearances. People are finding
(28:42):
human hair shaved from these people that is sent along,
you know, as like weave and stuff like that. They're
being forced to work in factories. Is very much happening.
As far as the nuts and bolts of how it works, uh,
Step one start with an authoritarian regime, so thing is
not accountable to its own rules of law. I would say,
(29:03):
maybe there's this, Maybe there's like, okay, helpful disappearances like
what you're talking about met with witness protection whenness security.
Maybe there's uh forced disappearances by an oppressive regime or government.
And then there are self motivated disappearances. You could disappear
yourself and you can get away, especially in places like
the US, UH, you can commit pseudo side. It's a
(29:26):
fancy word for faking your death. Uh, and you can,
you can get away for a long time. One of
the biggest mistakes people make, though, is when they try
to get that life insurance money. So if you're hearing this,
you're living under a fake name. Uh. When you start over,
you really start over at square one, unless you got
a bag of loose diamonds or something. I don't want
to be like two alarmist here, but you guys, I'm
(29:49):
sure I've been following what's been happening in Portland, UM,
with a lot of these federal forces being deployed US
Martial Services and Border Patrol and the like and um
grabbing folks off the streets and and shoving them into
unmarked vans. And uh, there's reports that they're being detained
(30:10):
and dragged into a courthouse without being told why they
were being arrested or you know, who the arresting authority was,
and then you know, being released without official record of
of of any kind of detainment or whatever. And you know,
it's stuff like this that just kind of has that
sort of police state kind of vibe. There's a there's
an interesting article in the Guardian about it And I
(30:30):
don't know now that we have any reports of people
being quote unquote disappeared, But isn't in a slipperty slope
like between that and just you know you're never hearing
from someone again and it's happened, and you know one
of the camera what show this was on. But one
of the big misconceptions that's happening right now with the
best of intentions regarding the situation in Portland, is the
(30:52):
idea that unidentified federal agencies or law enforcement groups putting
people into unmarked they and said abducting them is new
or unique to Portlands. That happened earlier in San Diego
with the San Diego p D, that's happened during the
times of civil rights. And those people were forcibly they
(31:12):
weren't just forcibly disappeared. They were you know, they were killed,
sometimes tortured, right or offered the chance to turn and
then uh come back as a mole. But you're right.
In fact, as we record this and by the time
this publishes, will have some more clarity on this. Uh,
the current administration's plan is to franchise this practice of
(31:36):
detaining people and unmarked fans. Often these people have been detained,
at least in the Portland case, are saying that they
were the people come back or saying they were detained.
They were, maybe they were read the rights, but they
were there. It was basically an intimidation show of power.
And then they were released. But they were released without paperwork.
(31:57):
And when you talk about the government, if it didn't
happen on paper, it just didn't happen. Shout out to uh,
Ronald Hadley Stark, right. What's troubling about this is the
idea of franchising this operation means that it could come
to a town near you. Democratic opponents of the current
administration are saying that this thing, UH that the administration
(32:20):
is calling Operation Legend, is going to be focused on
left leaning city, so think of like your Chicago's for instance. UH.
And that what's interesting about that is if that is true,
then that means that there is a move to use
this power, whether or not it's legal. There's a move
(32:42):
to use this power to enforce a political aim rather
than status quo. And that's that's where you get into
the dangerous slippery slope you describe. I think shout out
to our attempt at defining fascism, and I think this
is something that folks on both sides of any political
divide in this country or otherwise could probably get behind.
(33:04):
I don't think anybody particularly wants an authoritarian state or wants,
you know, removal of civil liberties. I think focus on
the right are fans of smaller government and less government
control over our day to day lives, and this would
very much represent a significant escalation of that kind of control.
Agreed and to walk a little bit further down the
(33:27):
path here, which maybe could be its own full episode
in the future. There are real life cases of how
far this can go practice of government supported forced disappearances
and they have long lasting, multigenerational consequences. Earlier I mentioned
the Dirty War in Argentina, the military junta that was
(33:50):
ruling Argentina from nineteen seventy six without three uh. They
disappeared tons and tons of people bowl maybe as many
as thirty thousand people for one reason or another. And
many of these people ended up going, you know, getting
(34:10):
abducted by death squads, tortured and then murdered or detained
in secret detention centers and interrogated and then tortured and
murdered but here's here's a consequence people didn't think about
a lot of those folks had children at one age
or another. I don't want to be alarmist or sensationalistic,
(34:31):
but this should be in the back of your mind
when you hear about uh, illegal detainments starting in the
US or excuse me, gaining mainstream attention in the US.
In Argentina when it escalated to the point of massive
disappearances and abductions, the children were taken and they were
(34:54):
put up for adoption. That's the classy way to say it.
But the mill militterry was doing at that time, and
this is according to the Harvard Women's Law Journal, so
hardly a tabloid. Uh. They were stealing. They were specifically
aiming for very young children, babies or infants, and they
(35:14):
were stealing them, and then they were selling them after
they had killed their parents. It's not a conspiracy theory,
it's real conspiracy thing that happened. So silver lining time,
I don't know. Yeah, there's not much still relying to
this kind of conversation. UM, silver lining would be that
(35:35):
we're not there yet, hopefully, although I will point out
that ICE is losing children. That is also not a
conspiracy theory. That is a fact. The big question, you know,
it's it's creating a lot of conspiracy theories, like the
Wayfair stuff, which we haven't done a full episode on
(35:55):
yet as we record this. Uh, they think we talked
about it a little bit. Did we talk about it
already previously? Maybe we did off air a bit. You
had a really great tweet about it, Ben that I
thought was brilliant, comparing it to uh Auji board. Uh
should not bring that up. But no, no, that's fine.
I'm just you're talking about where a point out that
(36:18):
saying you're busting a child trafficking ring by googling something
is kind of like saying you've been able to speak
with the dead because you have a mass marketed game.
Bye bye, I said Parker Brothers. But I think it's
I think it's Hasbro So apologies to everyone nor read that.
(36:38):
It sounds like we need some preemptive self defense guys
to keep to keep from getting snatched. Yeah, we preemptively
defended ourselves. These are really strong suggestions, and I think
each of them can be its own episode. Thank you
so much, Red, Rob Agent, Veggie Burger, and everyone else
(37:00):
listening to this. We want to hear your thoughts. We
want to know your take on each of these. We
want to know what you think about the c I
A and LSD. They're just very untrustworthy to work with,
you know what I mean. Their track records that good,
especially when they're on acid, especially when they're all on acid,
totally uninged. Yeah. Uh, the rise of mobile or vehicular tracking.
(37:26):
There's one great point you made, Matt in that earlier episode,
which is that the figured of horse or I guess
the figured of horse power has already left the left,
the stable, left the barn, because we're all being tracked
already by smartphones. But to your point, Noll, this kind
of tracking is much more uh what's the word, uh,
(37:47):
sophisticated and and robust. I mean, it's just like a
lot more ubiquitous, right, Like, it's sophisticated, and it's widespread,
and it seems to skirt the law pretty efficiently so far.
I mean I say skirt the law. That's that's accurate.
It's loophole city, you know what I mean. Um, that's
what it feels like exactly. And then of course, thank
(38:08):
you Agent Veggie, Like we said that name enough. Now
we can just shortnit I'm kidding, give you a little
full Moniker. Thank you Agent Veggie Burger for bringing up
the concept of forced disappearances. It's one of those things
that's surprising that we haven't covered this before. But before
we tell you, fellow listeners how to get in touch
(38:29):
with us, how to take a page from Red Rob
in Agent Veggie Burger's book, I have to ask, guys,
what do you think? Do these feel like? Does our
mutual spider sense say that these could be standalone episodes? Absolutely,
let's do it. I'm all about it. Let's take some
LSD track some cars and uh, you know, disappear into
(38:51):
our minds. Man, No, it's true. I think we're gonna
see a lot of that as we uh scratch the
surface with some of these little many segments. I guess
on these, I think we're gonna find a handful of
not a badger bag full of future deep dive topics,
which is exciting. And Hey, if you've got an idea
that absolutely needs to be on the show that we
need to look into or right now, please find us.
(39:13):
You can check us out on Facebook and Twitter, where
we're conspiracy stuff. You can check out our Facebook discussion page.
Here's where it gets crazy. You can jump on there
with all the other conspiracy realists and talk about this
and other topics, suggests, topics, do whatever you want to do,
post those memes. Uh, we'd love to see over there.
We've got some fantastic mods who will help you in.
(39:34):
All you have to do is say who hosts this show? Hey,
what are our names? I don't know. Bonus points if
you can name our new super producer. And I'm not
gonna say her name again right now, but bonus points
for you if you know her name. Double bonus points
on my part if you spell my name correctly. Uh
it's n O e L not n O l e
(39:56):
r k n O l l ah. Yes, yes, very honestly,
just make me laugh. If I'm approving people and you
give a chuckle, even a slightly louder than average exhalation
of air through the nasal passages, I'll take that. In
these dark and trying and frankly, uh terrifying troubling times,
(40:16):
puns are one of the new leading currencies in uh this.
If you don't like the Internet totally get it. You
can call us directly. We have a phone number. It's
available any time that you are near a phone. I
want you to hold a phone and look at it
and be like I could be talking right now to
these guys, because it's true. Just I one eight three
(40:39):
three say it with me std W y t K.
When you dial in here, you're going to have about
ballpark three minutes to share with your fellow listens, to
share your story, your reaction, your feedback, your proposal for
a new topic with us. One thing we're running into
is I think having that three minute clock ticking in
(41:02):
your head can be a little daunting. I tried it
myself once when I called into when I called into
this show from a different country, and that three minutes
goes by quickly, So it might be helpful to maybe
take just a second and write down like two to
three bullet points, just like this is what I'm gonna
talk about, and then boom, boom boom, you're in and
(41:24):
we can't wait to hear from you. It's like they say,
brevity is the soul of wit. Yes, and if you
are not interested in doing social media or calling us,
you can always send us a good old fashioned email,
just like Agent Vegetable Burger did, and we will check
it out for sure, and it might end up on
one of these episodes. So if you do want to
email us, you can find us. We are conspiracy at
(41:46):
iHeart radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff they don't want you
(42:07):
to know is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio 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 I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is They called me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producers Paul,
Mission Controlled, Decand and Alexis nicknamed tv D Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. The newest installment
in our continuing weekly listener mail segment. We are recording
(00:50):
this on Wednesday, July two. As we always say, since
day one, you, specifically you are the most important part
of the show. And this is when we in our
way past the microphone to you. My compatriots and I
have each selected some piece of correspondence and we wanted
(01:11):
to share it with each other and again, more importantly,
share it with you. So what do you think? Gents?
Who's up first? Oh? I'll take this one. Just another
shout out to everyone who has been calling. We've been
hearing your messages. We are a little behind, but we're
catching up quickly with these episodes. Coming out now, so
be prepared for us to hear your message and to
(01:35):
get a call back maybe or to hear yourself on
one of these episodes, like our first contributor read, Hey guys, Scott,
I think I's got something for you. Look up the
name Ronald at the Y. I think you might find
an interesting got a very good luck. So that was
(02:01):
a bit hard to hear. What we could make out
was that this person who left us a messages name
was read and I couldn't quite make out the name
of the person that he is telling us to look up.
But just through a little bit of searching and incorrectly
spelling this person's name, we stumbled upon Ronald Hadley Stark,
(02:25):
a very very fascinating individual, if I say so myself.
This person also is known as John Clarence Dylan, also
known as Terence William Abbott, and he also went by
numerous other names of varying origins. At least the names
were of varying origins throughout his life, and this person appears,
(02:49):
at least on the surface, to have been functioning as
some kind of operative for one or more intelligence agencies. Now,
like anyone who is an agent or someone working for
an intelligence agency. They're not going to be, you know,
on the news a whole lot, probably, so you're not
(03:10):
going to find a whole bunch of links about this
individual giving interviews talking about what they're doing, their biography,
their background, or anything like that. But there have been
numerous publications over the years discussing this person, Ronald Stark,
we'll just call him Stark. I like that a lot,
agent Stark, whatever. We honestly don't even know the capacity
(03:34):
at which he was functioning and exactly which agencies he
was working for, but we do know, just through some
FBI documentation, that he was working with the CIA at
some point, and he was functioning both internationally and within
the United States. It's very very interesting stuff. If you
go to archive dot org slash details slash Ronald had
(04:00):
LEAs Stark that's r O n A L D h
A D L E Y s t A r K,
you will be able to find several FBI documents of
background information on this guy. A lot of it has
to do with the FBI itself looking into Ronald Hadley
because he's had run ins with another agent generally of
(04:21):
the FBI, one run in or another, and it is
really interesting. He was charged with a whole bunch of
different crimes. According to this A lot of it had
to do with passport forgery and illegally obtaining passports. But
his big contribution, let's say, to national discourse and to
(04:42):
some would say the changing of the United States in general,
was his interaction with a group called the Brotherhood of
Eternal Love. It's been described in several places, including on
brain sturbator dot com, which is essentially a blog is
what it appears to But on this blog and through
(05:03):
the research that this writer has done, the Brotherhood of
Eternal Love is described as a quote hippie mafia, druggist syndicate,
and uh, you know, this whole thing, by the way,
is something that we're going to need to do a
whole episode on. But within this Brainsturvator, which is a
fun thing to say article, it really chronicles this guy,
(05:26):
Ronald Hadley Stark, and how he essentially was bringing liquid
l s D as a supplier into several different major
cultural groups that were really working in the nineties sixties,
especially in the West. This guy has been written about
in numerous books where they talk about how he was,
oh he always seemed to be there. He seemed to
(05:47):
be supplying a lot of the l s D, and
nobody really knew too much about him. But anyway, I
just want to point this to you guys, Ben and Noll.
Have you guys ever heard of this person and have
you read anything about him? Yes? Yes, Actually for intrepid uh.
(06:07):
Intrepid compatriots would be compatriots of the so called hippie mafia.
You can go to drug library dot net and read
the entire book of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. You
know what's interesting, Matt, I love that you pointed out
the arrest here because it's really strange, right, working for
a gang like the CIA, usually, or theoretically, it comes
(06:30):
aside benefits. One of those side benefits is being at
least for some time or to some degree above the law.
But to your point, you know, I think it was
back in nine when Hadley and a couple of other
people were either arrested or indicted, including Owlsley, who everybody
(06:50):
else you know, is like maybe a little more common
person in the story of LSD and the government and
the Mary Pranksters. It's interesting to me because this guy
is I agree we should do a full episode on it.
This guy, by which I mean Stark, agent Stark as
you call him, He is a great example of how
the intelligence apparatus used an asset, burned the asset, and
(07:16):
then sort of through them under the counterculture bus, you
know what I mean? Uh, he was moving weight. King
of LSD was not by any means, at least from
what I understand, an ironic nickname like Little John or something.
He was called the King of LSD because he moved
the most LSD. Uh. You'll see allegations that he produced
(07:39):
what kilos of LSD and that in some way the
stuff that he was making was going international, like not
just in the US. I don't know what your research
found there, but um, I agree this would be a
great uh sequel to our early or episode on how
(08:02):
US government kind of created counterculture in the US. Oh, yeah,
for sure. UM just talking about the international angle here.
So in nineteen seventy five, there there was an arrest
of a man named Terence w Abbott. At least that's
what his passport said. It was a British passport. It
was genuine has a number that I'm not going to
(08:25):
say right here. There was issued two years prior to
nineteen seventy three, and when this person, Terrence w Abbott,
was arrested, he was found in possession of four thousand,
six hundred kilos that's combined of marijuana, morphine, and cocaine
um a whole lot. And it was later discovered that
(08:48):
this guy, Mr. Abbott, was in fact Ronald Stark, and
he somehow had access to this British passport with a
different name that certainly reads as intelligence or were you know,
somebody taking part in some serious, uh felony passport action there,
especially since it was a legit number passport number. And
(09:10):
the really interesting thing here where again this is just
kind of taking it briefly, dipping your toe into the
rabbit hole. The British intelligence agencies would not cooperate and
release the information they had on this guy, or either
of these guys with their different names. Right. It's fascinating. Oh.
Also even the FBI, who did have files, some files
(09:33):
of which you can read, like I just mentioned, you
can read some of them. Uh, the FBI would not
share their files with the d e A who are
doing the investigation into this arrest. With all of these drugs,
really really interesting and the last thing here just is
that the State Department, the U. S State Department, they
(09:54):
were actually interfering. They were not allowing this guy to
be extradited at varying points within his career of essentially
creating and selling and distributing drugs. Really really weird stuff. Man. Yeah,
there's an interesting quote in this blog post that pulls
from a couple of books, one of which is David
Black's book Asked a Secret History of LSD UM that says,
(10:17):
of this gentleman quote, he had a mission, he explained,
to use LSD in order to facilitate the overthrow of
the political systems of both the capitalist West and the
communist East by inducing altered states of consciousness in millions
of people. Start did not hide the fact that he
was well connected in the world of covert politics. Well,
(10:37):
apparently he had jobs or was doing work at least
in Europe, in America, in Africa, so in Asia. I
don't know somebody like this with that much concealment going
on in assistance from various intelligence agencies. I want to
know more about this guy, and it appears that we
can find it if we dig deep enough. But it's
definitely things where he's been written up about, and some
(11:01):
of it feels, at least from what I'm reading here,
some of it does feel I almost want to say
crime folklore maybe, or you know, intelligence folklore. I don't
know if that's true or not. I think it just
maybe has that feeling to it because a lot of
the things that are written about him seems so out
there to me, like this one person could be involved
(11:24):
in all of these varying different things and still be
a ghost to a large extent. I don't know. Yeah,
it's interesting too, And I was looking for stuff on him,
like most of the things are on like fish message
boards or other like counterculture, you know, discussion forums. I
did find an article from the New York Times that's
like an archived article from nineteen seventy three. The headline
(11:46):
is king of LSD and and seven are indicted by
US and drug ring case. And it's talking about the
federal grand jury here said yesterday that LSD plants were
operated here in Windsor, California. St. Louis and Fenton, Missouri,
and in Belgium. Among those indicted was Augustus Owsley Stanley,
thirty seven year old of San Raphael California, and that's
(12:08):
the king of last we're talking about. And very kind
of quietly at the bottom at list the co conspirators
David Lee Mantell's thirty three whereabouts unknown, Lester Freedman forty four,
Cleveland chemistry professor, Ronald had Lee Stark thirty five of
New York, Michael B. Randall, address unknown, and Charles Drews
of London. So um, as far as like journalism, that's
(12:32):
sort of what I what I found. It's very interesting.
You're right about the kind of mythic uh reputation of
this guy. Long story short, It's gonna take a lot
more time and research to get a full picture here,
but thank you so much Red for writing in about
this person. I think we're all down to learn more,
so maybe we'll be getting back to you soon with
(12:54):
more information totally. And for now, let's take a quick
word from our sponsor and come back with another message
and we're back. Okay, boys, who's up next? I could go.
The message that I pulled comes from Rob and he
is a long haul truck driver and has some things
(13:16):
to say about the type of data that his employers
are able to get from his vehicle. And some questions
about the future of this kind of tracking. I'll make
this fast. I'm a truck driver. The ways that my
company can track what I do and what other companies
can trackt other trucks is amazing. They can see my speed,
my breaking, my g how close I get to other vehicles,
(13:40):
how often I'm in my lane, what's in my trailer,
and there's so much more. Names. Rob love you guys.
Guys are awesome. Keep it up. It's true, and I
think I think this is really interesting. Kind of going
to use this as a piggyback to talk about something
a little bit different. But uh, these systems are called
tele informatic systems that utilize things like GPS navigation, the
(14:02):
kinds of onboard diagnostic systems that you know, we know
about that have been kind of replacing more mechanical systems
and cars for many many years now. Ben, we had
talked a little bit off air about how kind of
mind blowing the advancement that the rapid advancement of this
technology is from you and your car stuff days. Yeah,
(14:22):
that's correct. It is a technology that is a no
brainer for large commercial fleets. It will increasingly be found
in new cars It will probably start off the same
way Sesame credit started off in China. It will start
off as an opt in service, but then people will
be incentivized to accept it, probably by lower insurance premiums
(14:47):
that's happening now with civilian vehicles. And then ultimately it
will be some kind of legislation which means it cannot
be opted out of. That will be with the rise
of infrastructure for autonomous vehicles. Rob You're absolutely right. One
thing I think we should emphasize there is the degree
of sophistication and accuracy in these systems. It makes it
(15:08):
tougher and tougher to make a living in the trucking industry,
which is simultaneously incredibly important to the modern world and
uh incredibly dismissed by people in power for sure. And
you know, in our episode we did on GPS tracking,
we talked about this quite a bit, where it doesn't
have to be you know, the fleet owner, right that's
(15:31):
tracking your stuff at the vehicle level. That kind of
tracking can be occurring externally to your vehicle and looking
at things on the outside of your vehicle, and it
doesn't have to actually be making any kind of digital
contact with anything inside your vehicle, that's right, and that
brings me to UM in thinking about this, how the
(15:51):
kind of nature of surveillance in vehicles. I found an
article that came out just today on Slate by Hannah Klein.
The headline Customs and Border Protection can track cars nationwide
via commercial database. I had asked a question of you
guys off air. I've gotten tickets before where it was
very clear that my license plate was in no way
(16:12):
viewable by the officer that pulled me over. You know,
for something like can expire tag. You know that that
I would think would need to be a visually confirmed thing.
But then you think that tag sticker is so tiny,
how could they possibly especially if they're on the side
of the road. And I questioned, like so that some
kind of like r f I D chips in our
license plates? And Matt mentioned this the idea of license
plate scanners, and that's exactly what this is. The CPB
(16:36):
actually partnered with a commercial license plate database, UM, so
they can actually track like historical data about cars across
the United States without a warrant. The CPB even updated
it's a privacy impact assessment, which you know makes it
(16:56):
clear that they are using these commercially owned cameras and
license plate readers and have been doing so since, but
with this new information, it really broadens the scope of
it pretty significantly. And we know about this from the
article because in twenty nineteen there was a deal between
(17:16):
the CPB and a company called Vigilant Solutions, which is
one of these databases that was publicly listed as law
Enforcement Archival Reporting. Law Enforcement Archival Reporting is actually the
name of a product that Vigilant makes, so they're talking
about something upwards of nine billion scans that they own
(17:39):
and that now the Customs and Border Protection Agency can access.
It was actually successfully used in a drug case not
long ago, tracking the movement of a heroin dealer to
and from a pick up and drop off location. So
it's certainly something we're going to see more of being
used to kind of sidesteff warrants. And it's really hard
(18:02):
to opt out of because you would really essentially just
have to like steer clear of areas where these cameras are.
We don't know where these cameras are, so there's really
no way to do that effectively. Right, What do you
guys think about this? Yeah, it's certainly disturbing. I think
it is all too frequent, and it's just something you know,
you'd want it to be there if there was a
(18:23):
you know, a criminal of some sort that had harmed
you or your family, right, you'd want that to be there.
At the same time, everywhere you go it is potentially
being tracked in like seven different active ways at all times.
It's just another one of those things that signals that
we are done with privacy. We're just over it. Sorry,
(18:45):
we talked about that on this show all the time.
Just another signal of it. Just a double back and clarify,
that case I was talking about was in Massachusetts. In
April of this year, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court actually
gave the go ahead to use license plate readers to
track this heroin deal that I was talking about. To
go back to what you had mentioned earlier, Matt, we
have a pretty pretty good introductory dive into this on
(19:09):
Big Brother on the Road car and GPS tracking. But
your point, Noel Uh, that this is developing technology. It
is inevitable barring some intense cataclysmic series of events that
drives technology back to an earlier age. It just makes
sense to have this tracking capability, and you have to
(19:31):
argue that it's indeed necessary for autonomous vehicles for anybody
wants more on that detail. Like you know, Rob, what's
interesting about your call, and I really appreciate your time here,
is that in some ways you are a non consensual
guinea pig for what will become a larger program, again,
(19:51):
just like so many other social pushes, right, and I
would be interested in hearing from more of our fellow
listeners in the trucking industry. Do you think this is
on balance a good thing? Do you think this is
on balance a scary thing? Why? Or why not? Because
the big problem we're looking at some some pretty scary
(20:12):
Checkers problems, right, and it's pretty scary I would say
early Chess problems. But one thing looming on the horizon,
the rough beasts slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. Here
is the idea of those systems being compromised and hacked
and what you could do with that, especially if it
becomes a mandate for all civilian vehicles, which could you know,
(20:35):
not to be dooming gloom, but could probably happen in
our lifetime. It's take Yeah, nobody, nobody wants to be tracked,
especially if it's based on you know, your political, religious belief,
your nationality, whatever it is, whatever the thing that it
is that you have. Nobody wants to be tracked because
(20:55):
of that, because someone in power decides that whatever you
are is bad. Right, That's one of the major things
we've talked about with a lot of topics on this show.
And anytime there's a technology like this that is so
powerful that has the potential to be misused either by
a controlling party you know that is the ones who
are actually using the thing, or a third party that is,
(21:18):
just like Ben said, hacking or making use of it
through force. It's a it's a scary thought. It freaks
me out. And the argument, I guess could be made
that it's, you know, it's all for the greater good.
It's like for our safety, it's it could technically prevent crimes.
So it falls into that realm of pre crime, of
surveilling people in advance of anyone having done anything wrong.
And uh, you know, there's sort of like a blue
(21:41):
sky utopian version that like that sounds nice, but it's
that slipperty slope argument where then it becomes you know,
we're basically living in a in a surveillance state, and
and that doesn't seem so nice. Depending on what kind
of car you drive or you know, the nature of
your work, if you work with vehicles. I keep in
mind that right now it's science fiction. Your carc could
(22:02):
be remotely shut off. It can happen. We talked about
it again in that earlier episode. Just the thing to
point out here that we've mentioned several times Been I
think you said it and said it best, but the
concept that any tool that's developed has the potential to
become a weapon depending on who wields it, something to
that effect. That feels like a quote from a scholar.
(22:23):
But I'm pretty sure you said that Been. I'm sure
somebody else wrote it better and said it earlier. Just
in the in the nature of things. But yeah, things
to watch out for. I mean, the US is still
very much a car culture. Many places in the world are,
and right now, despite all the various ideas and things
on the figurative drawing board, the US and a huge
(22:45):
portion of the world relies on the trucking industry to
get things from one place or another. So be more
appreciative to truckers if you see him on the road.
I don't want to get all car stuff and all.
I know that's not the point of this one, but
but don't drive like a jerk around people driving in
tractor trailers. Imagine what a harrowing experience that is to
(23:07):
have to be on inner States with a tractor trailer
and then have people you know, tailgating you or trying
to get right in front where you can't see them.
Drive safe. Well, with that, I think we can take
another quick break and then be back with another listener mail.
(23:29):
And we're back. We're gonna switch this up a little bit.
We have an email that comes to us from someone
who did identify themselves by their real name, but they
gave us an alias that I believe you all will enjoy,
Agent Veggie Burger. Agent Veggie Burger, you wrote in to
say I wanted to shoot you a quick email with
(23:52):
a few potential topics for future episodes that may be
worth looking into. I don't mind this being read aloud
on the air at all. Awesome, Thank you as always
for verifying that with us. So, Agent Veggie Burger. He
gave us two really strong topics that we hadn't examined before,
and I want to see if these would be worth
aful episode in the future. So here we go. The
(24:14):
first is regarding a question or subject that I wondered
about when it's come up in different episodes. I'm gonna
skip part of what you said here, Agent Veggie Burger,
uh and get right to the big tent item. My
first question, you say is this, how do people get
or become made to be disappeared by governments, organized crime, etcetera. Parentheses,
(24:40):
but the government one is what really interests me and
what circumstances tend to occur to lead to someone being disappeared.
If a person is disappeared, is a body or remains
ever found, Agent Veggie Burger. You suggested to other fantastic subjects,
but for today's listener, Ale, if that would be interesting
(25:02):
to focus on this concept of forced disappearances. Agent Veggie
Burger ends by signing off, thanks and regards or lettuce
and tomatoes. Agent Veggie Burger. But that's a very serious topic.
What do you guys think about, uh, forced disappearances in general?
That's going to be for anybody googling right now, that's
(25:23):
going to be the topic that will get you the
most salient results. I would just say The first category
of this, off the top of my head, is a
little more lighthearted. Well maybe not for the person involved,
but things like the witness Protection program are similar programs
(25:43):
that could be instituted by government agencies and intelligence agencies
where someone who's perhaps a witness or primary contact or
source of information, who is spirited away to a safe
place and none of their contacts ever know where they
are anymore. That's it. They're they're gone, um, and they're
(26:05):
still alive somewhere because they're needed and vital, but they
are no longer accessible by anyone previously in their life. Yeah,
it's spooky stuff, right, that's it's it's a real thing.
I think they called the witness Security Program now or
something like that. But everybody who's not a U. S.
Marshal puls witness protection. Uh, this is a real thing.
(26:26):
You can under certain circumstances crack of deal that leads
you to witness protection. Sometimes people who have committed crimes
are in the witness protection program or security program, but
they are highly incentivized to at least pretend to be
playing the straight and narrow and their new identity. There's
(26:47):
not a three strikes you go to jail kind of
rule for people in the program. If you commit any crime,
they can throw you out, and there's nothing stopping them
from calling Mafio. So's like match both hands or something, Lugiano.
I'm just making up a name. I'm sorry, Matt, and
then having you know and then saying, hey, guess what
(27:09):
you thought Dale da Vinci was dead. No, he was
living in Utah as of twenty minutes ago, and we
think he's heading to the airport. So do what you
do best like that? Can that can absolutely happen. I
think it's something that gets used a lot in fiction.
But you're right, man, it's very it's very, very real,
and it's very valuable. I would also shout out Witless Protection,
(27:33):
the American cinematic masterpiece starring Larry the Cable Guy. It
made almost four point two million dollars. Jenny McCarthy's in there, Um,
I don't think that's a documentary. Forced disappearances, or what's
sometimes is called enforced disappearances, are sadly much more common
(27:55):
than maybe we would like to think. Sometimes you think
of these as something that occurred dur in the Cold War.
There's something that occurs in authoritarian regimes. But then did
the Cold War ever end? Authoritarian regimes are certainly around
we know. Probably it's your question, Agent Veggie Burger. I
would say the Dirty War in Argentina is a huge
(28:18):
example of enforced disappearances. Stalin was literally erasing people from photographs.
That's a very very clear, uh example of forced disappearances. Uh.
And then the ongoing persecution of the weaker communities in
Western China, those are definitely forced disappearances. People are finding
(28:42):
human hair shaved from these people that is sent along,
you know, as like weave and stuff like that. They're
being forced to work in factories. Is very much happening.
As far as the nuts and bolts of how it works, uh,
Step one start with an authoritarian regime, so thing is
not accountable to its own rules of law. I would say,
(29:03):
maybe there's this, Maybe there's like, okay, helpful disappearances like
what you're talking about met with witness protection whenness security.
Maybe there's uh forced disappearances by an oppressive regime or government.
And then there are self motivated disappearances. You could disappear
yourself and you can get away, especially in places like
the US, UH, you can commit pseudo side. It's a
(29:26):
fancy word for faking your death. Uh, and you can,
you can get away for a long time. One of
the biggest mistakes people make, though, is when they try
to get that life insurance money. So if you're hearing this,
you're living under a fake name. Uh. When you start over,
you really start over at square one, unless you got
a bag of loose diamonds or something. I don't want
to be like two alarmist here, but you guys, I'm
(29:49):
sure I've been following what's been happening in Portland, UM,
with a lot of these federal forces being deployed US
Martial Services and Border Patrol and the like and um
grabbing folks off the streets and and shoving them into
unmarked vans. And uh, there's reports that they're being detained
(30:10):
and dragged into a courthouse without being told why they
were being arrested or you know, who the arresting authority was,
and then you know, being released without official record of
of of any kind of detainment or whatever. And you know,
it's stuff like this that just kind of has that
sort of police state kind of vibe. There's a there's
an interesting article in the Guardian about it And I
(30:30):
don't know now that we have any reports of people
being quote unquote disappeared, But isn't in a slipperty slope
like between that and just you know you're never hearing
from someone again and it's happened, and you know one
of the camera what show this was on. But one
of the big misconceptions that's happening right now with the
best of intentions regarding the situation in Portland, is the
(30:52):
idea that unidentified federal agencies or law enforcement groups putting
people into unmarked they and said abducting them is new
or unique to Portlands. That happened earlier in San Diego
with the San Diego p D, that's happened during the
times of civil rights. And those people were forcibly they
(31:12):
weren't just forcibly disappeared. They were you know, they were killed,
sometimes tortured, right or offered the chance to turn and
then uh come back as a mole. But you're right.
In fact, as we record this and by the time
this publishes, will have some more clarity on this. Uh,
the current administration's plan is to franchise this practice of
(31:36):
detaining people and unmarked fans. Often these people have been detained,
at least in the Portland case, are saying that they
were the people come back or saying they were detained.
They were, maybe they were read the rights, but they
were there. It was basically an intimidation show of power.
And then they were released. But they were released without paperwork.
(31:57):
And when you talk about the government, if it didn't
happen on paper, it just didn't happen. Shout out to uh,
Ronald Hadley Stark, right. What's troubling about this is the
idea of franchising this operation means that it could come
to a town near you. Democratic opponents of the current
administration are saying that this thing, UH that the administration
(32:20):
is calling Operation Legend, is going to be focused on
left leaning city, so think of like your Chicago's for instance. UH.
And that what's interesting about that is if that is true,
then that means that there is a move to use
this power, whether or not it's legal. There's a move
(32:42):
to use this power to enforce a political aim rather
than status quo. And that's that's where you get into
the dangerous slippery slope you describe. I think shout out
to our attempt at defining fascism, and I think this
is something that folks on both sides of any political
divide in this country or otherwise could probably get behind.
(33:04):
I don't think anybody particularly wants an authoritarian state or wants,
you know, removal of civil liberties. I think focus on
the right are fans of smaller government and less government
control over our day to day lives, and this would
very much represent a significant escalation of that kind of control.
Agreed and to walk a little bit further down the
(33:27):
path here, which maybe could be its own full episode
in the future. There are real life cases of how
far this can go practice of government supported forced disappearances
and they have long lasting, multigenerational consequences. Earlier I mentioned
the Dirty War in Argentina, the military junta that was
(33:50):
ruling Argentina from nineteen seventy six without three uh. They
disappeared tons and tons of people bowl maybe as many
as thirty thousand people for one reason or another. And
many of these people ended up going, you know, getting
(34:10):
abducted by death squads, tortured and then murdered or detained
in secret detention centers and interrogated and then tortured and
murdered but here's here's a consequence people didn't think about
a lot of those folks had children at one age
or another. I don't want to be alarmist or sensationalistic,
(34:31):
but this should be in the back of your mind
when you hear about uh, illegal detainments starting in the
US or excuse me, gaining mainstream attention in the US.
In Argentina when it escalated to the point of massive
disappearances and abductions, the children were taken and they were
(34:54):
put up for adoption. That's the classy way to say it.
But the mill militterry was doing at that time, and
this is according to the Harvard Women's Law Journal, so
hardly a tabloid. Uh. They were stealing. They were specifically
aiming for very young children, babies or infants, and they
(35:14):
were stealing them, and then they were selling them after
they had killed their parents. It's not a conspiracy theory,
it's real conspiracy thing that happened. So silver lining time,
I don't know. Yeah, there's not much still relying to
this kind of conversation. UM, silver lining would be that
(35:35):
we're not there yet, hopefully, although I will point out
that ICE is losing children. That is also not a
conspiracy theory. That is a fact. The big question, you know,
it's it's creating a lot of conspiracy theories, like the
Wayfair stuff, which we haven't done a full episode on
(35:55):
yet as we record this. Uh, they think we talked
about it a little bit. Did we talk about it
already previously? Maybe we did off air a bit. You
had a really great tweet about it, Ben that I
thought was brilliant, comparing it to uh Auji board. Uh
should not bring that up. But no, no, that's fine.
I'm just you're talking about where a point out that
(36:18):
saying you're busting a child trafficking ring by googling something
is kind of like saying you've been able to speak
with the dead because you have a mass marketed game.
Bye bye, I said Parker Brothers. But I think it's
I think it's Hasbro So apologies to everyone nor read that.
(36:38):
It sounds like we need some preemptive self defense guys
to keep to keep from getting snatched. Yeah, we preemptively
defended ourselves. These are really strong suggestions, and I think
each of them can be its own episode. Thank you
so much, Red, Rob Agent, Veggie Burger, and everyone else
(37:00):
listening to this. We want to hear your thoughts. We
want to know your take on each of these. We
want to know what you think about the c I
A and LSD. They're just very untrustworthy to work with,
you know what I mean. Their track records that good,
especially when they're on acid, especially when they're all on acid,
totally uninged. Yeah. Uh, the rise of mobile or vehicular tracking.
(37:26):
There's one great point you made, Matt in that earlier episode,
which is that the figured of horse or I guess
the figured of horse power has already left the left,
the stable, left the barn, because we're all being tracked
already by smartphones. But to your point, Noll, this kind
of tracking is much more uh what's the word, uh,
(37:47):
sophisticated and and robust. I mean, it's just like a
lot more ubiquitous, right, Like, it's sophisticated, and it's widespread,
and it seems to skirt the law pretty efficiently so far.
I mean I say skirt the law. That's that's accurate.
It's loophole city, you know what I mean. Um, that's
what it feels like exactly. And then of course, thank
(38:08):
you Agent Veggie, Like we said that name enough. Now
we can just shortnit I'm kidding, give you a little
full Moniker. Thank you Agent Veggie Burger for bringing up
the concept of forced disappearances. It's one of those things
that's surprising that we haven't covered this before. But before
we tell you, fellow listeners how to get in touch
(38:29):
with us, how to take a page from Red Rob
in Agent Veggie Burger's book, I have to ask, guys,
what do you think? Do these feel like? Does our
mutual spider sense say that these could be standalone episodes? Absolutely,
let's do it. I'm all about it. Let's take some
LSD track some cars and uh, you know, disappear into
(38:51):
our minds. Man, No, it's true. I think we're gonna
see a lot of that as we uh scratch the
surface with some of these little many segments. I guess
on these, I think we're gonna find a handful of
not a badger bag full of future deep dive topics,
which is exciting. And Hey, if you've got an idea
that absolutely needs to be on the show that we
need to look into or right now, please find us.
(39:13):
You can check us out on Facebook and Twitter, where
we're conspiracy stuff. You can check out our Facebook discussion page.
Here's where it gets crazy. You can jump on there
with all the other conspiracy realists and talk about this
and other topics, suggests, topics, do whatever you want to do,
post those memes. Uh, we'd love to see over there.
We've got some fantastic mods who will help you in.
(39:34):
All you have to do is say who hosts this show? Hey,
what are our names? I don't know. Bonus points if
you can name our new super producer. And I'm not
gonna say her name again right now, but bonus points
for you if you know her name. Double bonus points
on my part if you spell my name correctly. Uh
it's n O e L not n O l e
(39:56):
r k n O l l ah. Yes, yes, very honestly,
just make me laugh. If I'm approving people and you
give a chuckle, even a slightly louder than average exhalation
of air through the nasal passages, I'll take that. In
these dark and trying and frankly, uh terrifying troubling times,
(40:16):
puns are one of the new leading currencies in uh this.
If you don't like the Internet totally get it. You
can call us directly. We have a phone number. It's
available any time that you are near a phone. I
want you to hold a phone and look at it
and be like I could be talking right now to
these guys, because it's true. Just I one eight three
(40:39):
three say it with me std W y t K.
When you dial in here, you're going to have about
ballpark three minutes to share with your fellow listens, to
share your story, your reaction, your feedback, your proposal for
a new topic with us. One thing we're running into
is I think having that three minute clock ticking in
(41:02):
your head can be a little daunting. I tried it
myself once when I called into when I called into
this show from a different country, and that three minutes
goes by quickly, So it might be helpful to maybe
take just a second and write down like two to
three bullet points, just like this is what I'm gonna
talk about, and then boom, boom boom, you're in and
(41:24):
we can't wait to hear from you. It's like they say,
brevity is the soul of wit. Yes, and if you
are not interested in doing social media or calling us,
you can always send us a good old fashioned email,
just like Agent Vegetable Burger did, and we will check
it out for sure, and it might end up on
one of these episodes. So if you do want to
email us, you can find us. We are conspiracy at
(41:46):
iHeart radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff they don't want you
(42:07):
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