Listener Mail: Lyme Disease Conspiracies, Hazards of the Foster System, the Bible and the Bronze Age
October 15, 2020 • 45 mins
Could Lyme disease be man-made? What insights can the Bible give us about the mysteries of the Bronze Age? Just how problematic is the foster care industry? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this week's listener mail segment.
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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 Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. It's our weekly Listen
Male segment. We are so thankful that you and your
(00:48):
fellow conspiracy realist write to us via email, or tweet
to us, or find us on social media, or in
many cases give us a call. We want to share
your stories with the world. So I believe today we've
we've talked a little off air, and Matt, you found
(01:11):
a voicemail that that touches on something we have, oddly enough,
never examined in almost a decade on the air. It's
very true, and it was brought to us by an
anonymous person who listened to a recent episode and thought
about his own experience. I'll let him tell you about it. Hey, Matt,
(01:33):
Ben Noel, I apologized and mysterious super producer, but I
haven't quite remembered your name yet. I hope you're all
doing all right during these really crazy times. I wanted
to talk about how similarly relatable the Floor Dallas cult
and how it sounds quite relatable to my experiences as
(01:56):
a tired child and a teenager. How have you ever
considered talking about the foster care system or even the
harrowing things that happened to a lot of kids in
the system. I can say I met a lot of
monsters under human skin and was both birth and adopted
(02:17):
by some pretty hernous sociopaths. Perhaps you could even discuss
narcissistic personality disorder, a very specific kind of sociopathy. Anyways,
we love your show, Keep up the fantastic work. Wow okay,
Um obviously, thank you for the kind words, Thank you
(02:39):
for that, thank you for listening, and for sending us
this idea of discussing the foster care system specifically within
the United States. But I'm sure examining that system in
any country you would find some stuff that they don't
want you to know. Um. You mentioned specifically something called
(03:03):
narcissistic personality disorder, which is something you can find in
statistic manuals that are used by psychiatrists and psychologists across
the globe. And I guess we can just start there, maybe,
Like what does that mean? Uh, this term that you mentioned, Um,
(03:23):
we have talked about psychopathy and sociopathies, sociopathy, Uh, we've
we've talked about these things before on this show numerous times,
but this one I don't think we've actually covered. So
let's just go to the Mayo Clinic just to tell
you what they say at least. Um, they describe it
(03:44):
as one of several types of personality disorders. It's a
mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of
their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration,
troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But
behind this mask of extreme confidence lies of fragile self
esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism. And uh, I
(04:07):
would I would add a couple of things there. Uh,
that's a great starting definition. I would add that for
people with mp D, relationships are all transactional, so something
you don't really regard other people as a person. They
don't have like they wouldn't have the right to exist
(04:28):
as a person. You're the person in the world, and
the idea that a friendship might exist is really defined
by what they can do for that person, what transaction
they can accomplish for that person with mp d UH.
And also the idea of fragility of self image ties
(04:49):
into pretty often an overinflated sense of vengeance. Like if
you even if a narcissist is dead in the wrong
and you point out if they feel like they lose
face as is sometimes said culturally, uh, then there will
be a lot of energy put toward somehow quote unquote
punishing the person who had the audacity to be right
(05:12):
or point out whatever terrible thing the mp d UH
individual was having was doing. Um. There there is one
thing I want to point out here on mp d
S specifically, a lot of times there are children raised
by parents with this condition who you know, the strangest
(05:32):
things seem normal, right even when you're an adult, The
most beautiful and most terrible things become normalized so quickly.
When you're a child, you often don't have the wherewithal
to realize that the way you are being raised is
maybe not a healthy way, right it's maybe not a
way that you yourself would want to raise a child.
(05:54):
And you know, it's only years later that people come
come to find as adults that what was happening to
them was not right and it was not it was
not good for you. So I'd like to recommend just
at the top a resource, uh a subreddit actually where
you can share your stories is called raised by Narcissists.
So go to reddit dot com slash r slash Raised
(06:17):
by Narcissists and you can find and share your stories. Now,
please do not mistake that for medical advice, and please
don't you know, presume to give people medical advice if
you're not a doctor. But I think when you can
feel so alone in the world, and especially if you're
living with a seven mp D, then it can be
(06:38):
helpful to know that you are indeed not alone in
one sense or another. Thank you for doing that, Ben,
and for providing that. Um. One of the most important
parts of this is that each of us, no matter
who you are, where you grew up, what those circumstances were,
those circumstances were unique to your experience. Right, There's not
a single other person that went through whatever it is
(07:00):
that you went through positive or negative as a child, UM,
and now whatever you're going through right now, nobody is
exactly like you. UM. But those commonalities that bring us
two together I think are sometimes the most important because,
like you said, if you can find a subredit of
of people have been through something similar, then you can
(07:23):
actually share with that. That is a great way to
to move forward if you're if you're struggling with something.
It's kind of weird. I guess that we started talking
about this disorder because really what we're talking about is
who within the US and the foster care system is
eligible to taking a child for the system to say, yes,
you are, we trust you in some way or at
(07:46):
some level to take care of a child in all
things feeding, clothing, housing, Uh, you know, caring, caring for
a child's emotional needs, which is maybe something that um,
I don't want to say it gets overlooked because if
you think about it this way, to have the number
(08:08):
of children that enter the foster care system within the
United States every year, uh, there have to be an
overwhelming number of good people who are trying to do
good in what in what they're doing to take care
of children. They're just has to be. I'm saying that
as as an opinion, just because to have in two
(08:32):
thousand seven to two two hundred and seventy six children
entering the foster care system and then having that number
wavering between two hundred and ninety thousand two. The lowest
number was in two thousand twelve, when two thousand three
(08:54):
d fifty two children were entered into foster care within
the United States. I mean, if you if you didn't
have good people to a large arge extent taking care
of these children, then I feel like you would see
a very different general picture. Maybe And maybe I'm completely
wrong because I'm I'm so far removed from and I
just don't know yet. We haven't delved into the statistics
and enough personal experiences yet. UM, but I would just
(09:17):
say to take on a child that is not yours,
to raise that child and take care of them is
a massive undertaking. And um, I don't know. I I
want to give props to parents out to foster parents
out there who are doing good and know they're doing good. Well,
I can go I can completely uh speak to that.
My um, my ex wife's sister UM was a foster
(09:40):
and her husband were a foster family. And they adopted
almost every single kid they took in as foster kids,
so they now have this massive extended family. And they
adopted three siblings who all, you know, we're separated under
the foster care system initially, and then she you know,
fought dreed them all together and then adopted them. So
(10:03):
that's a success story, I would say. And there's obviously
a big butt here, that's why we're leading with this
right well, I mean there is a big butt because,
like our caller, there are so many reports of awful
experiences within the system. And that doesn't mean you know,
an individual parent adopting or parents like that like your example,
(10:26):
noal adopting. Sometimes it's just part of the system where
so many children get adopted under one roof the way
we saw with the floora de least occult, and in
other places, um you know, other instances there. There's all
kinds of abuse that can occur, whether whether it is
making use of the money that is afforded to a
(10:47):
family when they foster a child, the breaks that you
can get on your taxes and all these other things.
There are ways to abuse the system. And as we've
also seen throughout the history of this show. There's a
cavalcry of ways to abuse a child with whom you
are you are given guardianship, it's you know, I don't.
(11:10):
I don't. I don't even know what else to say.
I haven't, I haven't done enough looking into this. There's
a frontline piece from PBS looking at the child welfare
system back in the nineties and it was really focused
on it, and it painted a pretty grim picture of
what was going on. Yeah, they're the statistics are troubling,
(11:31):
and even just the cursory statistics proved that there are
serious systemic problems with the foster care system. I have.
I have a little bit of personal experience, but more
second hand. I knew a lot of foster kids growing
up and in my times traveling around. So we The
(11:55):
thing is, we cannot speak to the foster system in
other countries. We can speak a little bit in the
US because there's a lot of research that's been done.
John Hopkins found that children in foster care are four
times more likely to be abused sexually than pure child
(12:16):
in a non foster care setting. Children in group homes
or eight times more likely to encounter abuse. We also
know that researchers in New Jersey concluded no assurances can
be given that any foster child in the state is safe.
(12:36):
More than half of them of the trafficking victims that
we're children that were recovered through FBI raids in we're
from foster care or group homes. And there's there's an
entire world. I mean, you can say this about so
many things, but there's an entire world that most people
(12:58):
will not know about here unless we have direct impact
with it, or unless we know someone somehow, And we
have to be very careful. And I appreciate that you're
doing this, Matt, not to paint with a broad brush.
We're not talking about these families. We're talking about a
system that needs to that needs to do it's best
(13:22):
for some of the most vulnerable parts of the US population.
I mean, think about short stays alone, right. A short
stay is where a child is removed from their home
due to what authorities would consider a credible fear for
their safety, but then returned within days. So think about that.
If you're five years old, you think you've been kidnapped, right,
(13:45):
no matter what those people say, you've been kidnapped and
somehow returned. That's pretty traumatic for a kid to experience
and even when these these agencies have their best intentions, right,
they're not they're not really kidney happing kids. They're trying
to keep kids in a safe place. But the damage
is done. And with with foster with foster care, I
(14:09):
think it's the right thing to do for us to
do an episode on this. Absolutely. I'm going to consult
with my wife, who is a school psychologist who deals
with with the children who often have emotional or behavioral
issues prior to being placed into a foster care system
where they are then living in you know, in extremely
(14:30):
close contact with numerous generally this is generally speaking, but
numerous other children who also have emotional behavioral disorders. And
when when you when you create an ecosystem like that,
a lot of times it's not even the foster parents
or the people running whatever the foster home is that
are doing the abusing because it's UM. Again, it's just
(14:54):
it's it's UM. So much of our behavior as humans
is learned, and it's We're going to get into some serious,
really seriously dark topics when we do this episode, and
I hope you'll come with us, but also, you know,
hopefully we can maintain at least that sense that there
could be a positive way through. Yeah, no, for sure,
(15:17):
But I think I think what you what you what
you're pointing to, Matt, is just the vulnerability of children
in foster care. They're very vulnerable to things like trafficking,
like human trafficking because of their unstable upbringing, often that
they can be easy prey. Not to say that the
foster parents themselves are doing this at all, It's just
could be, um, they run away or they are putting
(15:41):
themselves in risky situations and maybe they're targeted in that way.
But there's certainly other aspects to it as well. Yeah,
I mean, there's so many issues. I guess what I
was just getting at, KNOWLD is just saying that someone
entering and it's so hard to generalize like this because
every single person has had a different experience in the
foster care system. It's just stories that I've heard come
(16:02):
through that sometimes it is the kids themselves who, because
of what they have experienced, reflect some of the emotional, mental,
physical abuse on their surroundings no matter what their surroundings are,
and when their surroundings are other kids who are also vulnerable,
it's just becomes really messed up cycle. I'm not going
(16:23):
to cry talking about this, but there's so many really
heart wrenching stories that have come out of UH, the
foster care system, specifically in Atlanta. My God, children who
have been brought up in abuse UH such the physical
violence as a primary means of communication, and then find
(16:43):
themselves in a group home attempting to communicate. I believe
that we as a species do not fully understand the
long lasting impacts that early childhood education and make. And
and one of the misconceptions about early childhood education is
(17:05):
the idea that it starts at kindergarten in a school
with a licensed professional. Early childhood education is everything that
happens to a child in their early childhood. It is
all in education. Children are very very smart and absorb information.
When we talk about education, I mean, look at look
(17:25):
at the long lasting, UH disturbing trends with um likelihood
of dropping out of high school. You know what I mean. Again,
it's not because these children are any different. There's certainly
not any worse than any other kid out there. It's
it's a matter of the opportunities given or withheld. And
(17:47):
this is something that that I hope fellow listeners. I
hope you understand that we take this very seriously because
people's lives are are on the line, and we have
on in the past. We've done some some work with
activists who are looking at the juvenile criminal system, right,
(18:10):
We've done some We've done some work about the assimilation
attempts that countries like Australia, Canada and the US um
instigated upon native populations. Again, you know, we're at least
I'm taking pains to say that the idea that you
(18:30):
would rescue and adopt as your own child, uh, a kid, right,
just a kid who needed help. That is a beautiful, noble,
amazing thing. And it's something that I think is is
very human and to be commended. But the problems with
the system often come about because of underfunding, because of
(18:55):
a lack of oversight, and because in some cases these
caretakers have ulterior motives or they have bad motivations, and
the system that is meant to monitor that is often
woefully overcrowded, right, and underfunded. It always seems like the
good guys are out number, you know, to put it
(19:17):
in very simplistic terms, but you're right, we should do
an episode on that and We want to hear your
stories if you're comfortable sharing them, absolutely please. Our number
is one eight three three std w y t K.
Our email is Conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com.
(19:37):
Please reach out. Um okay, and with that, we're going
to hear a word from our sponsor and we'll be
right back with another message from you. And we're back
with more listener mail. This one comes from Jason and
he listened to our Bronze Age episode and had a
(20:00):
little bit of interesting context to have And this is
what what Jason says. Hey, guys, a big fan of
the show. You just wanted to point out a huge
historical factor that you didn't cover in your Bronze Age episode.
The biblical judge Joshua. He was the first Israelite to
lead the charge of his people into the Promised Land
and was given instruction to utterly destroy all the cities
(20:22):
they came into contact with. Burning was commonplace, and they
took over a vast majority of the territory within the
span of Joshua's life. Um. He goes on to reference
the Sea People's The famous Sea People's also sound an
awful lot like the Philistines who happened to be one
of Israel's longest standing and most pain in the side
(20:44):
uh enemies. And guess what. The Philistines were huge purveyors
of iron. They were feared for their pension for slave trading, pillaging,
and brutality. Whether or not y'all believe in the Bible,
there are historical records in its pages that aptly described
I have a lot of mysteries. Thanks for doing the show.
Really enjoy the work and due diligence you give to
(21:05):
each episode. Yeah, really very much. So, Ben, can we
point out that he signed that Jason, you signed this, Taters,
he signed he did sign a Taters. Do you know
it was below the fold that I almost missed that entirely. Um.
That's great, So thanks Taters for that. Um. And it's
(21:26):
and it's and it's a good point. It's something that
we that I know you came across in your research
for this, Ben Um, and you pointed out a really
great article from Newsweek that made a similar connection between
the Philistines and the sea People's. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
This is something. This is a little bit of a
(21:47):
peat behind the curtain when we're working on our core episodes,
especially very big topics like the Bronze Age collapse. Um,
there are things that we do such that we can
provide hopefully in an introduction to a concept with with
some dives in there, but more more something that illuminates
(22:09):
a path for your own research and your you know,
we want you to find the papers for yourself as well.
We want you to dig into the weird corners and
get back to us. Uh. One thing I think we
do mention there, which you you picked up Taters, is
that I'm gonna just get concentators please, is that there
(22:30):
is a there's a mystery still afoot in about the
identity of these folks collectively known as the Sea People's,
and this mystery is still being solved. No, we were
talking off air a little bit about this concept that
(22:52):
DNA research will perhaps help us figure out the ultimate
identity of the See People's. But it goes to that
bigger question which I love that you you brought here, Nolan,
and I love that that you wrote about here Jason,
which is to what degree are biblical events confirmed by uh,
(23:16):
the historical the secular historical record. And that is that's
a tricky thing. So I'm gonna be honest when we
were working on our Bronze Age collapse uh research. We
we talked maybe a little bit about some of that,
but it's almost its own episode, right, like was there
a biblical flood? It's on that level, you know it is.
And it's also a little you know, not that we
(23:38):
uh fear to step on toes too often if we're
doing our due diligence. But you're right then to just
have it as a footnote in this is almost doing
it a disservice, because honestly, you're right. Uh, the idea
of where do the historical records line up with the
course of events depicted in the Bible, that in and
of itself big picture is a is an episode, if
(24:00):
not a series of episodes. But the Newsweek article points
to the potential identity of these so called sea people,
who were this group that was potentially responsible for this
massive cultural shift in that part of the country. And
they were, of course given their their name a seafaring
folk um. And they were in fact, as as as
(24:22):
mentioned in the email, very active in uh conquering and
pillaging and kind of sweeping through the land like a plague,
attacking places like Canaan. The Biblical land of Canaan, but
which is a real place Syria and Egypt as well,
And when you're dealing exclusively with artifacts, it makes it
(24:44):
a lot harder to really figure out who an entire
race of people that that maybe are no longer around were. Uh,
it's it's it's difficult to do that kind of detective
work using only digs and excavating, you know, certain artifacts.
But um, now that we're able to essentially analyze ancient DNA,
(25:05):
it becomes a little easier to sort of narrow down
the possibilities, right. Uh, yeah, the technology has advanced quite
a bit, although you do have to find a source
of DNA to do any kind of you know, uh,
full forensic looking or full forensics on that DNA. Right,
(25:26):
you can't just take bones that are fossilized or too old.
But there there are instances now where you can get
a better sample of DNA from an older body. Let's say,
in the case that we're talking about specifically here, there
were ten individuals that were recovered near the ports city
of Ashkelon, which is a really interesting place Biblically speaking,
(25:48):
it was a Philistine city and they're really trying to
understand these Uh, scientists, researchers who are taking a look
at this, doing the the digs there and looking at
the body, these the skeletal remains that are there. Um,
they're really trying to figure out the origins of these
ten individuals that were found, right, and this was from
(26:10):
twenty nineteen. They are they've been publishing findings in Science Advances,
and they're saying that the people that they found, these
ten individuals date back probably three thousand five years ago,
really interesting stuff, and they appear to be very different
(26:31):
from most of the individuals who lived there at the time.
So that's why we're that's why the researchers are thinking
perhaps this was a migratory people or a specific you know,
group of people that migrated at some point to Ashkelon
and to this area. Um. Yeah, they're saying that it
that it really does appear to fit with the estimated
(26:51):
time of the philistines arrival to this area at least,
you know, again when we're talking about the the differing
records that exist out there, that's right. And this uh,
this study came out of the Max Planck Institute for
the Science of Human History and was headed up by
Michael Feldman, who said, quote, um, some interpretations of ancient
(27:12):
textas suggested that the Philistines were one of the groups
that comprised the Sea People's and that's the same thing
that Jason mentioned in his email. Uh. He goes on
to say, our genetic results could fit with this hypothesisms.
We detect a movement of people that crossed the Mediterranean
reached Ashkelon in the relevant time period around the twelfth
century BC. However, from the genetics, we cannot determine whether
(27:33):
these ancestors of the Philistines that migrated to Ashkelon were
indeed part of the Sea people or not. So it's
you know, it's vague. It points to this could fit,
but the jury is somewhat still out. UM. But I
did see another article, uh that similarly speaks to the
idea of historical record um agreeing with or disagreeing with
(27:58):
events in the Bible. And this comes from a site
called Herrets. Forgive me if I'm mispronouncing that it is
a an Israeli news site, and it's it's true. I
mean this. This does figure into that thing that we
talked about at the top of the segment about how
sometimes disputes between the historical record, um, you know, in
(28:18):
terms of artifacts and DNA and things like that can
conflict with the record that's in the Bible, and that
can be very divisive, and UM, we're not gonna get
into it today, but I do recommend checking out another
article about archaeologists looking to find signs of Joshua's conquest,
which is mentioned in in our listener email as well
(28:39):
in the last unexplored Biblical city, a city known as
Tell Shamron. And you can check out that article that
goes much more into Joshua's conquest um and the kind
of burning through um enemy civilizations that was mentioned in
in the email. You can go find that yourself on
the website uh herrats dot com h A A R
(29:02):
E t z dot com and look for this article
by Arial David from And with that, I think we'll
take a quick break and then come back at you
with one more listener mail. And we're back with one
more piece of listener mail. Buffy has written to us.
(29:25):
Buffy L. You said, I would love to hear your
take on lime disease and if infected ticks truly could
be created by our government at Plumb Island right by Lime, Connecticut. Buffy,
you added, I just read Bitten So crazy. Also watch
Lime Crime. The disease, diagnosis, treatment, everything involved is so
(29:49):
incredibly controversial. Everybody's getting diagnosed, it seems, and no one
knows what to believe. Thanks for your consideration, Buffy, Thank
you so much for writing to us. This is something
that Doc and Matt Nolan myself talked about a little
bit off air, because you see, there is a there
(30:12):
is a fault of conspiratorial belief here, the idea that
lime disease was not something discovered in the wild or
evolved in the wild, but instead something created and then
either through design or by incompetence, let out into the
(30:33):
world at large. Guys, I had asked, I had asked
you both a little bit off air if you had
known anyone with lyme disease, or if you had ever
heard of the conspiratorial stuff. No cheating, Matt, because I
know you heard this one years ago, right. Well, yeah,
we've we've had people writing to us about lyme disease
for a while. Um and we've mentioned Plumb Island before,
(30:59):
which I know is something uh that always crops up there,
as it did in that in that message Um, it's
it's weird because this is one of those topics that
makes you wonder if you're going down a conspiracy rabbit
hole and giving into conspiracy thinking. Lime disease, I would say,
(31:23):
is one of these gateway topics that you know, maybe
someone encounters because someone has contracted lime disease. It isn't
an astounding number of Americans that contract lime disease every year,
hundreds of thousands. Yeah, that's correct. I believe it's something
like lime disease is the most common disease spread by
(31:44):
any ticks in the northern hemisphere. It affects some three
hundred thousand people in the US alone, so not counting Canada,
not counting Mexico, just the U s a year. Yeah. Yeah,
that's an estimation that and we have to be careful
with effects. But that's according to the New England Journal
(32:04):
of Medicine from uh wow wow. Yeah. So I guess
that's what I'm saying is a lot of people become
aware of lime disease what it is, and then directly
connect connected to it. I think is the question of
whether or not the US government had anything to do
with creating a biological weapon. So weird because you know,
(32:27):
I grew up in the outdoors a lot, and I
always knew about ticks, and I knew a little bit
about lime disease, but I had never heard that it
was something manufactured. It was just for you know, when
you're a kid. One of the weirdest things about ticks
is they love the warm, dark places of the bodies,
so you have to watch out for, you know, your
(32:50):
crotch and your armpits in the back of your knees.
And I think, I think I, like a lot of kids,
was just rightly terrified of the idea of one day
stripping down to your skivvies and seeing a tick attached
to your unmentionables. You know, you guys have had ticks before, right, ever,
(33:12):
like a tick attached to you somewhere. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, okay,
I was gonna say, I certain I've had my fair share,
but attachments, um, And it's not a it's not a
nice thing to just you know, the right way to
get them off, right, yeah, fire right, and kind of
turn it and then you have to light it on.
(33:33):
Oh man, it's a whole thing. And it's fine when
it's on your arm. It's okay to do that, but
when it's like in a sensitive area, that's a real
rite of passage, you know what I mean? Because I was,
without giving away too much information, I was one of
the people who always thought, I am going to do
this on my own. This is this is a dark tunnel,
(33:54):
I will travel through alone. Uh. But it turns out, Buffy,
that quite a few people leave that lime disease was
perhaps produced by Plumb Island were produced on Plumb Island.
So many people in fact, that in July the U. S.
House of Representatives voted successfully to order the Department of
(34:19):
Defense to investigate whether the Pentagon had ever developed ticks
as biological weapons. And the implication there is that the
Pentagon would have to disclose that information, which they totally
wouldn't tell you. If they did that, they would have
to disclose that information and then would also have to
disclose whether any of those little critters escaped to cause
(34:43):
the national lime disease epidemic. And six thousand people, just
for the record, does qualify as an epidemic? When you say, yeah,
I think so. The weird thing to me is that
it was a question whether or not whether or not
they were manufacturing ticks rather in some kind of disease,
or I guess you would be manufacturing ticks because you'd
(35:05):
be fostering a disease through a population. I don't know,
it's just I think it's weird to think about it
in that way, like a factory where ticks are being made.
That's a really good point. Yeah, that's like blaming rats
for the plague, right, rat carriers, but they're not the
plague itself. Yeah. Lime disease is caused by a bacterium
(35:28):
Borellia bacterium, and the most common side of this is
red rash. Now again, earlier when we're talking about this
off air, Uh, I think several of us had assumed
that I was told at times a lime disease is incurable.
Luckily that turns out not to be the case. The
vast majority of it can be treated with antibiotics, which
(35:52):
is great news for anybody stuck out in the woods. Uh.
But the Plumb Island thing is so fast snating because
it is relatively rare for a conspiratorial belief to garner
so much momentum that it is addressed in the halls
(36:13):
of Congress. You know what I mean? When you think
about it, This puts lime disease up there with nine
eleven and JFK in terms of that government response. Uh So,
we have some good or bad news, depending whether you
believe the official story. Apparently, per a Coming School professor
(36:35):
named Sam Telford, a leading expert on infection spread by
mosquitoes as well as ticks, this conspiracy theory is wrong
and it's been soundly debunked by the work that Professor
Telford says he did with one David Percy in the
early nineteen nineties, which is interesting because that's uh, I
(36:56):
keep forgetting that the nineties was what thirty years ago
by now. So and their studies. They did multiple studies.
One was published in Science, one was published in the
Journal of Infectious Diseases. Uh. They tested specimens of white
footed mice and deer ticks to see if they had
DNA evidence of being infected with the bacterium responsible for
(37:19):
lime disease. And what they found was a timeline problem
with the theory. Ticks that were collected in ninety from
the east side of Long Island and mice that were
collected in eight four in Cape cod were both found
to be infected with this bacterium, which means that this
(37:40):
thing that causes lyme disease already existed before the time
period um that the conspiracy centers on. So the the
predecessor Diplum Island was a thing called Fort Terry that
was made by the Army chemical Core uh In and
(38:02):
it wasn't even around until like activated until nineteen. So
the scary thing about lime disease in this regard is that, uh,
lime disease was already in the wild. We just learned
more about it over time. And of course that is
we should add the caffeat the little asterisk about the
(38:24):
size of some ticks on your printed page that says,
if you believe the official story. But what do you
guys takes on this? Well, you know it's funny, you
should ask. I have a quick take, um, And then
a quick, very very brief pivot slightly away from this
topic to something very quick that I wanted to bring
up the this thinking about this brought me back to
(38:48):
uh and then let me uh let the kind of
the bag you're gon be too mysterious. UM. I first
heard of lime disease from the real world Seattle. Um,
there's a character and I say, character. And again I'm
talking about this because interesting crossover between our between this
topic and our episode about reality TV, which which you
can listen to now. Um. But yeah, Irene, I had
(39:08):
to correct myself from calling her a character. Uh. This
person that was on the Real World Seattle had lyme
disease and there was a big kerfuffle at the end
of that season UM that many folks don might not remember,
but I do, just because I remember her having lyme
disease and the way the producers sort of used that
(39:29):
as an explanation for her leaving the show, and there
was almost some kind of gas lighting behavior that went
into her depiction as sort of a crazy person who
was addled by lyme disease and caused to become delusional
because of this condition. And there's actually an interesting op
ed on Vulture where Irene talks about this and talks
(39:51):
about the nature of reality television. And there was an
event when she left the show where someone who she
had been feuding with, a man by the name of Stephen,
actually slaps her in the face. Um runs out to
her car as she's leaving, Um throws her bunny rabbit
like stuffed animal that she left behind in the in
the water over this bridge and then opens the car
(40:12):
door and slaps her in the face. And Um, she
just talks about in this op ed a how she
was kind of demonized through editing and also, I mean
she was a difficult person on the show. I do
remember that. But also the lime disease angle that was
used as sort of a weapon to indicate that she
was somehow, um, not in her right mind because of
(40:34):
the progression of this condition, which she says in this
culture piece is a disservice to people with lime disease,
that that it's not a thing, and that she really,
looking back on it now, was unfair the way she
was treated an unfair to people with lime disease. Um.
And when she saw these episodes, she the way they
did it back then, Um, the cast members were sent
(40:58):
VHS copies of these episodes like that they would receive
maybe a day before the real thing aired on television,
and she didn't think they would air this part or
put it in this context, and she was blown away
to find out that they did. And she just talks
about reality television. Is this is quoting from from the
pieces has changed so much since I was on the
real world today, there's no end of the pain we
(41:18):
now witness on reality TV. Cast members don't have to
be goaded by producers to fight physically and emotionally. These
wanna be stars go in knowing that regular screaming, feuding
and hair pulling is expected of them, and they want
to deliver in order to get airtime. Um So sorry
the weird pivot, I know, but I think interesting with
the line disease angle the way was portrayed, and also
(41:39):
a call back to what we've just very much discussed
on our reality TV episode. Yeah, it seems like a
good example of Frank inviting and retroactively redefining reality. Yeah.
I was thinking a little bit too about narcissistic uh
influences and producers, right and gaslighting. They're very there's a
(42:00):
dark triumvit. They're not the one you're thinking of. That's
a different story for a different episode. But let's end
this on something positive and actionable for people who want
to avoid lyme disease. Just in case you need to
hear these again. It's always helpful if you're going out
and camping and now this is lovely camping weather time.
Cover up long pants, especially if you're in tall grass
(42:24):
insect repellent, find one that works for you. Always check
your clothing yourself, and if you have pets, check them too.
They'll appreciate the attention because you know you're just scratching them.
Check your children. Of course, do not assume that you
are immune. And if you do get a tick, safely
remove it as soon as possible. Uh. And do not
(42:46):
mail it to Plumb Islands. I'm sure someone has. I'm
sure they don't want to get that mail. It might
be crime, I don't know. And maybe avoid walking in
tall grass wearing shorts, you know, just a word to
the wise. Yep, yep, as I said, like where long
pants and tall grass even if it's hot, long sleeves
(43:06):
as well. Uh. Thank you so much, Taters, Thank you
so much, Buffy. Thank you so much, Anonymous for tuning
in and for writing to us, for calling us. To
everyone else who's inspired to weigh in with your thoughts
on the strange interaction of biblical tales and secular history,
(43:29):
the identity of the Sea People's to everyone who has
a story of a possible biological weapon or an explanation
of how lime disease is one we'd love to hear
from you, and to everyone who has firsthand experience with
the foster care system, we would like to hear from you.
We try to make it easy to find us. You
(43:50):
can find us on Facebook, you can find us on Instagram,
you can find us on Twitter, all over the internet. Really,
we like to recommend here's where it gets crazy, our
Facebook community page. What if you hate social media. If
you don't like social media, call our number. It is
one eight three three st d w y t K.
That last part is just stuff they don't want you
(44:11):
to know. In acronym form or numbers, alpha numericle, you
get it if it were an acronym, matt star and
if you if you do, say that, you know, making
a part of your regular every day vernacular. Why not
listening to did wiki yesterday? And but yes, give that
(44:32):
number a call, leave a message, Just keep it as
brief as you can. That's the best. Send us down
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to do. You've got three minutes. Let us know if
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(44:54):
say that's what you want. It's fine. Yep. We are
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that you are, in fact the best part of the
show and if we wasn't for you, we wouldn't have
had this episode that we just wrapped up. So thank
you once again to everyone that wrote in into everyone
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that stuff but you still want to get in touch
(45:15):
with us, you can also send us a good old
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(45:40):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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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 Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. It's our weekly Listen
Male segment. We are so thankful that you and your
(00:48):
fellow conspiracy realist write to us via email, or tweet
to us, or find us on social media, or in
many cases give us a call. We want to share
your stories with the world. So I believe today we've
we've talked a little off air, and Matt, you found
(01:11):
a voicemail that that touches on something we have, oddly enough,
never examined in almost a decade on the air. It's
very true, and it was brought to us by an
anonymous person who listened to a recent episode and thought
about his own experience. I'll let him tell you about it. Hey, Matt,
(01:33):
Ben Noel, I apologized and mysterious super producer, but I
haven't quite remembered your name yet. I hope you're all
doing all right during these really crazy times. I wanted
to talk about how similarly relatable the Floor Dallas cult
and how it sounds quite relatable to my experiences as
(01:56):
a tired child and a teenager. How have you ever
considered talking about the foster care system or even the
harrowing things that happened to a lot of kids in
the system. I can say I met a lot of
monsters under human skin and was both birth and adopted
(02:17):
by some pretty hernous sociopaths. Perhaps you could even discuss
narcissistic personality disorder, a very specific kind of sociopathy. Anyways,
we love your show, Keep up the fantastic work. Wow okay,
Um obviously, thank you for the kind words, Thank you
(02:39):
for that, thank you for listening, and for sending us
this idea of discussing the foster care system specifically within
the United States. But I'm sure examining that system in
any country you would find some stuff that they don't
want you to know. Um. You mentioned specifically something called
(03:03):
narcissistic personality disorder, which is something you can find in
statistic manuals that are used by psychiatrists and psychologists across
the globe. And I guess we can just start there, maybe,
Like what does that mean? Uh, this term that you mentioned, Um,
(03:23):
we have talked about psychopathy and sociopathies, sociopathy, Uh, we've
we've talked about these things before on this show numerous times,
but this one I don't think we've actually covered. So
let's just go to the Mayo Clinic just to tell
you what they say at least. Um, they describe it
(03:44):
as one of several types of personality disorders. It's a
mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of
their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration,
troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But
behind this mask of extreme confidence lies of fragile self
esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism. And uh, I
(04:07):
would I would add a couple of things there. Uh,
that's a great starting definition. I would add that for
people with mp D, relationships are all transactional, so something
you don't really regard other people as a person. They
don't have like they wouldn't have the right to exist
(04:28):
as a person. You're the person in the world, and
the idea that a friendship might exist is really defined
by what they can do for that person, what transaction
they can accomplish for that person with mp d UH.
And also the idea of fragility of self image ties
(04:49):
into pretty often an overinflated sense of vengeance. Like if
you even if a narcissist is dead in the wrong
and you point out if they feel like they lose
face as is sometimes said culturally, uh, then there will
be a lot of energy put toward somehow quote unquote
punishing the person who had the audacity to be right
(05:12):
or point out whatever terrible thing the mp d UH
individual was having was doing. Um. There there is one
thing I want to point out here on mp d
S specifically, a lot of times there are children raised
by parents with this condition who you know, the strangest
(05:32):
things seem normal, right even when you're an adult, The
most beautiful and most terrible things become normalized so quickly.
When you're a child, you often don't have the wherewithal
to realize that the way you are being raised is
maybe not a healthy way, right it's maybe not a
way that you yourself would want to raise a child.
(05:54):
And you know, it's only years later that people come
come to find as adults that what was happening to
them was not right and it was not it was
not good for you. So I'd like to recommend just
at the top a resource, uh a subreddit actually where
you can share your stories is called raised by Narcissists.
So go to reddit dot com slash r slash Raised
(06:17):
by Narcissists and you can find and share your stories. Now,
please do not mistake that for medical advice, and please
don't you know, presume to give people medical advice if
you're not a doctor. But I think when you can
feel so alone in the world, and especially if you're
living with a seven mp D, then it can be
(06:38):
helpful to know that you are indeed not alone in
one sense or another. Thank you for doing that, Ben,
and for providing that. Um. One of the most important
parts of this is that each of us, no matter
who you are, where you grew up, what those circumstances were,
those circumstances were unique to your experience. Right, There's not
a single other person that went through whatever it is
(07:00):
that you went through positive or negative as a child, UM,
and now whatever you're going through right now, nobody is
exactly like you. UM. But those commonalities that bring us
two together I think are sometimes the most important because,
like you said, if you can find a subredit of
of people have been through something similar, then you can
(07:23):
actually share with that. That is a great way to
to move forward if you're if you're struggling with something.
It's kind of weird. I guess that we started talking
about this disorder because really what we're talking about is
who within the US and the foster care system is
eligible to taking a child for the system to say, yes,
you are, we trust you in some way or at
(07:46):
some level to take care of a child in all
things feeding, clothing, housing, Uh, you know, caring, caring for
a child's emotional needs, which is maybe something that um,
I don't want to say it gets overlooked because if
you think about it this way, to have the number
(08:08):
of children that enter the foster care system within the
United States every year, uh, there have to be an
overwhelming number of good people who are trying to do
good in what in what they're doing to take care
of children. They're just has to be. I'm saying that
as as an opinion, just because to have in two
(08:32):
thousand seven to two two hundred and seventy six children
entering the foster care system and then having that number
wavering between two hundred and ninety thousand two. The lowest
number was in two thousand twelve, when two thousand three
(08:54):
d fifty two children were entered into foster care within
the United States. I mean, if you if you didn't
have good people to a large arge extent taking care
of these children, then I feel like you would see
a very different general picture. Maybe And maybe I'm completely
wrong because I'm I'm so far removed from and I
just don't know yet. We haven't delved into the statistics
and enough personal experiences yet. UM, but I would just
(09:17):
say to take on a child that is not yours,
to raise that child and take care of them is
a massive undertaking. And um, I don't know. I I
want to give props to parents out to foster parents
out there who are doing good and know they're doing good. Well,
I can go I can completely uh speak to that.
My um, my ex wife's sister UM was a foster
(09:40):
and her husband were a foster family. And they adopted
almost every single kid they took in as foster kids,
so they now have this massive extended family. And they
adopted three siblings who all, you know, we're separated under
the foster care system initially, and then she you know,
fought dreed them all together and then adopted them. So
(10:03):
that's a success story, I would say. And there's obviously
a big butt here, that's why we're leading with this
right well, I mean there is a big butt because,
like our caller, there are so many reports of awful
experiences within the system. And that doesn't mean you know,
an individual parent adopting or parents like that like your example,
(10:26):
noal adopting. Sometimes it's just part of the system where
so many children get adopted under one roof the way
we saw with the floora de least occult, and in
other places, um you know, other instances there. There's all
kinds of abuse that can occur, whether whether it is
making use of the money that is afforded to a
(10:47):
family when they foster a child, the breaks that you
can get on your taxes and all these other things.
There are ways to abuse the system. And as we've
also seen throughout the history of this show. There's a
cavalcry of ways to abuse a child with whom you
are you are given guardianship, it's you know, I don't.
(11:10):
I don't. I don't even know what else to say.
I haven't, I haven't done enough looking into this. There's
a frontline piece from PBS looking at the child welfare
system back in the nineties and it was really focused
on it, and it painted a pretty grim picture of
what was going on. Yeah, they're the statistics are troubling,
(11:31):
and even just the cursory statistics proved that there are
serious systemic problems with the foster care system. I have.
I have a little bit of personal experience, but more
second hand. I knew a lot of foster kids growing
up and in my times traveling around. So we The
(11:55):
thing is, we cannot speak to the foster system in
other countries. We can speak a little bit in the
US because there's a lot of research that's been done.
John Hopkins found that children in foster care are four
times more likely to be abused sexually than pure child
(12:16):
in a non foster care setting. Children in group homes
or eight times more likely to encounter abuse. We also
know that researchers in New Jersey concluded no assurances can
be given that any foster child in the state is safe.
(12:36):
More than half of them of the trafficking victims that
we're children that were recovered through FBI raids in we're
from foster care or group homes. And there's there's an
entire world. I mean, you can say this about so
many things, but there's an entire world that most people
(12:58):
will not know about here unless we have direct impact
with it, or unless we know someone somehow, And we
have to be very careful. And I appreciate that you're
doing this, Matt, not to paint with a broad brush.
We're not talking about these families. We're talking about a
system that needs to that needs to do it's best
(13:22):
for some of the most vulnerable parts of the US population.
I mean, think about short stays alone, right. A short
stay is where a child is removed from their home
due to what authorities would consider a credible fear for
their safety, but then returned within days. So think about that.
If you're five years old, you think you've been kidnapped, right,
(13:45):
no matter what those people say, you've been kidnapped and
somehow returned. That's pretty traumatic for a kid to experience
and even when these these agencies have their best intentions, right,
they're not they're not really kidney happing kids. They're trying
to keep kids in a safe place. But the damage
is done. And with with foster with foster care, I
(14:09):
think it's the right thing to do for us to
do an episode on this. Absolutely. I'm going to consult
with my wife, who is a school psychologist who deals
with with the children who often have emotional or behavioral
issues prior to being placed into a foster care system
where they are then living in you know, in extremely
(14:30):
close contact with numerous generally this is generally speaking, but
numerous other children who also have emotional behavioral disorders. And
when when you when you create an ecosystem like that,
a lot of times it's not even the foster parents
or the people running whatever the foster home is that
are doing the abusing because it's UM. Again, it's just
(14:54):
it's it's UM. So much of our behavior as humans
is learned, and it's We're going to get into some serious,
really seriously dark topics when we do this episode, and
I hope you'll come with us, but also, you know,
hopefully we can maintain at least that sense that there
could be a positive way through. Yeah, no, for sure,
(15:17):
But I think I think what you what you what
you're pointing to, Matt, is just the vulnerability of children
in foster care. They're very vulnerable to things like trafficking,
like human trafficking because of their unstable upbringing, often that
they can be easy prey. Not to say that the
foster parents themselves are doing this at all, It's just
could be, um, they run away or they are putting
(15:41):
themselves in risky situations and maybe they're targeted in that way.
But there's certainly other aspects to it as well. Yeah,
I mean, there's so many issues. I guess what I
was just getting at, KNOWLD is just saying that someone
entering and it's so hard to generalize like this because
every single person has had a different experience in the
foster care system. It's just stories that I've heard come
(16:02):
through that sometimes it is the kids themselves who, because
of what they have experienced, reflect some of the emotional, mental,
physical abuse on their surroundings no matter what their surroundings are,
and when their surroundings are other kids who are also vulnerable,
it's just becomes really messed up cycle. I'm not going
(16:23):
to cry talking about this, but there's so many really
heart wrenching stories that have come out of UH, the
foster care system, specifically in Atlanta. My God, children who
have been brought up in abuse UH such the physical
violence as a primary means of communication, and then find
(16:43):
themselves in a group home attempting to communicate. I believe
that we as a species do not fully understand the
long lasting impacts that early childhood education and make. And
and one of the misconceptions about early childhood education is
(17:05):
the idea that it starts at kindergarten in a school
with a licensed professional. Early childhood education is everything that
happens to a child in their early childhood. It is
all in education. Children are very very smart and absorb information.
When we talk about education, I mean, look at look
(17:25):
at the long lasting, UH disturbing trends with um likelihood
of dropping out of high school. You know what I mean. Again,
it's not because these children are any different. There's certainly
not any worse than any other kid out there. It's
it's a matter of the opportunities given or withheld. And
(17:47):
this is something that that I hope fellow listeners. I
hope you understand that we take this very seriously because
people's lives are are on the line, and we have
on in the past. We've done some some work with
activists who are looking at the juvenile criminal system, right,
(18:10):
We've done some We've done some work about the assimilation
attempts that countries like Australia, Canada and the US um
instigated upon native populations. Again, you know, we're at least
I'm taking pains to say that the idea that you
(18:30):
would rescue and adopt as your own child, uh, a kid, right,
just a kid who needed help. That is a beautiful, noble,
amazing thing. And it's something that I think is is
very human and to be commended. But the problems with
the system often come about because of underfunding, because of
(18:55):
a lack of oversight, and because in some cases these
caretakers have ulterior motives or they have bad motivations, and
the system that is meant to monitor that is often
woefully overcrowded, right, and underfunded. It always seems like the
good guys are out number, you know, to put it
(19:17):
in very simplistic terms, but you're right, we should do
an episode on that and We want to hear your
stories if you're comfortable sharing them, absolutely please. Our number
is one eight three three std w y t K.
Our email is Conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com.
(19:37):
Please reach out. Um okay, and with that, we're going
to hear a word from our sponsor and we'll be
right back with another message from you. And we're back
with more listener mail. This one comes from Jason and
he listened to our Bronze Age episode and had a
(20:00):
little bit of interesting context to have And this is
what what Jason says. Hey, guys, a big fan of
the show. You just wanted to point out a huge
historical factor that you didn't cover in your Bronze Age episode.
The biblical judge Joshua. He was the first Israelite to
lead the charge of his people into the Promised Land
and was given instruction to utterly destroy all the cities
(20:22):
they came into contact with. Burning was commonplace, and they
took over a vast majority of the territory within the
span of Joshua's life. Um. He goes on to reference
the Sea People's The famous Sea People's also sound an
awful lot like the Philistines who happened to be one
of Israel's longest standing and most pain in the side
(20:44):
uh enemies. And guess what. The Philistines were huge purveyors
of iron. They were feared for their pension for slave trading, pillaging,
and brutality. Whether or not y'all believe in the Bible,
there are historical records in its pages that aptly described
I have a lot of mysteries. Thanks for doing the show.
Really enjoy the work and due diligence you give to
(21:05):
each episode. Yeah, really very much. So, Ben, can we
point out that he signed that Jason, you signed this, Taters,
he signed he did sign a Taters. Do you know
it was below the fold that I almost missed that entirely. Um.
That's great, So thanks Taters for that. Um. And it's
(21:26):
and it's and it's a good point. It's something that
we that I know you came across in your research
for this, Ben Um, and you pointed out a really
great article from Newsweek that made a similar connection between
the Philistines and the sea People's. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
This is something. This is a little bit of a
(21:47):
peat behind the curtain when we're working on our core episodes,
especially very big topics like the Bronze Age collapse. Um,
there are things that we do such that we can
provide hopefully in an introduction to a concept with with
some dives in there, but more more something that illuminates
(22:09):
a path for your own research and your you know,
we want you to find the papers for yourself as well.
We want you to dig into the weird corners and
get back to us. Uh. One thing I think we
do mention there, which you you picked up Taters, is
that I'm gonna just get concentators please, is that there
(22:30):
is a there's a mystery still afoot in about the
identity of these folks collectively known as the Sea People's,
and this mystery is still being solved. No, we were
talking off air a little bit about this concept that
(22:52):
DNA research will perhaps help us figure out the ultimate
identity of the See People's. But it goes to that
bigger question which I love that you you brought here, Nolan,
and I love that that you wrote about here Jason,
which is to what degree are biblical events confirmed by uh,
(23:16):
the historical the secular historical record. And that is that's
a tricky thing. So I'm gonna be honest when we
were working on our Bronze Age collapse uh research. We
we talked maybe a little bit about some of that,
but it's almost its own episode, right, like was there
a biblical flood? It's on that level, you know it is.
And it's also a little you know, not that we
(23:38):
uh fear to step on toes too often if we're
doing our due diligence. But you're right then to just
have it as a footnote in this is almost doing
it a disservice, because honestly, you're right. Uh, the idea
of where do the historical records line up with the
course of events depicted in the Bible, that in and
of itself big picture is a is an episode, if
(24:00):
not a series of episodes. But the Newsweek article points
to the potential identity of these so called sea people,
who were this group that was potentially responsible for this
massive cultural shift in that part of the country. And
they were, of course given their their name a seafaring
folk um. And they were in fact, as as as
(24:22):
mentioned in the email, very active in uh conquering and
pillaging and kind of sweeping through the land like a plague,
attacking places like Canaan. The Biblical land of Canaan, but
which is a real place Syria and Egypt as well,
And when you're dealing exclusively with artifacts, it makes it
(24:44):
a lot harder to really figure out who an entire
race of people that that maybe are no longer around were. Uh,
it's it's it's difficult to do that kind of detective
work using only digs and excavating, you know, certain artifacts.
But um, now that we're able to essentially analyze ancient DNA,
(25:05):
it becomes a little easier to sort of narrow down
the possibilities, right. Uh, yeah, the technology has advanced quite
a bit, although you do have to find a source
of DNA to do any kind of you know, uh,
full forensic looking or full forensics on that DNA. Right,
(25:26):
you can't just take bones that are fossilized or too old.
But there there are instances now where you can get
a better sample of DNA from an older body. Let's say,
in the case that we're talking about specifically here, there
were ten individuals that were recovered near the ports city
of Ashkelon, which is a really interesting place Biblically speaking,
(25:48):
it was a Philistine city and they're really trying to
understand these Uh, scientists, researchers who are taking a look
at this, doing the the digs there and looking at
the body, these the skeletal remains that are there. Um,
they're really trying to figure out the origins of these
ten individuals that were found, right, and this was from
(26:10):
twenty nineteen. They are they've been publishing findings in Science Advances,
and they're saying that the people that they found, these
ten individuals date back probably three thousand five years ago,
really interesting stuff, and they appear to be very different
(26:31):
from most of the individuals who lived there at the time.
So that's why we're that's why the researchers are thinking
perhaps this was a migratory people or a specific you know,
group of people that migrated at some point to Ashkelon
and to this area. Um. Yeah, they're saying that it
that it really does appear to fit with the estimated
(26:51):
time of the philistines arrival to this area at least,
you know, again when we're talking about the the differing
records that exist out there, that's right. And this uh,
this study came out of the Max Planck Institute for
the Science of Human History and was headed up by
Michael Feldman, who said, quote, um, some interpretations of ancient
(27:12):
textas suggested that the Philistines were one of the groups
that comprised the Sea People's and that's the same thing
that Jason mentioned in his email. Uh. He goes on
to say, our genetic results could fit with this hypothesisms.
We detect a movement of people that crossed the Mediterranean
reached Ashkelon in the relevant time period around the twelfth
century BC. However, from the genetics, we cannot determine whether
(27:33):
these ancestors of the Philistines that migrated to Ashkelon were
indeed part of the Sea people or not. So it's
you know, it's vague. It points to this could fit,
but the jury is somewhat still out. UM. But I
did see another article, uh that similarly speaks to the
idea of historical record um agreeing with or disagreeing with
(27:58):
events in the Bible. And this comes from a site
called Herrets. Forgive me if I'm mispronouncing that it is
a an Israeli news site, and it's it's true. I
mean this. This does figure into that thing that we
talked about at the top of the segment about how
sometimes disputes between the historical record, um, you know, in
(28:18):
terms of artifacts and DNA and things like that can
conflict with the record that's in the Bible, and that
can be very divisive, and UM, we're not gonna get
into it today, but I do recommend checking out another
article about archaeologists looking to find signs of Joshua's conquest,
which is mentioned in in our listener email as well
(28:39):
in the last unexplored Biblical city, a city known as
Tell Shamron. And you can check out that article that
goes much more into Joshua's conquest um and the kind
of burning through um enemy civilizations that was mentioned in
in the email. You can go find that yourself on
the website uh herrats dot com h A A R
(29:02):
E t z dot com and look for this article
by Arial David from And with that, I think we'll
take a quick break and then come back at you
with one more listener mail. And we're back with one
more piece of listener mail. Buffy has written to us.
(29:25):
Buffy L. You said, I would love to hear your
take on lime disease and if infected ticks truly could
be created by our government at Plumb Island right by Lime, Connecticut. Buffy,
you added, I just read Bitten So crazy. Also watch
Lime Crime. The disease, diagnosis, treatment, everything involved is so
(29:49):
incredibly controversial. Everybody's getting diagnosed, it seems, and no one
knows what to believe. Thanks for your consideration, Buffy, Thank
you so much for writing to us. This is something
that Doc and Matt Nolan myself talked about a little
bit off air, because you see, there is a there
(30:12):
is a fault of conspiratorial belief here, the idea that
lime disease was not something discovered in the wild or
evolved in the wild, but instead something created and then
either through design or by incompetence, let out into the
(30:33):
world at large. Guys, I had asked, I had asked
you both a little bit off air if you had
known anyone with lyme disease, or if you had ever
heard of the conspiratorial stuff. No cheating, Matt, because I
know you heard this one years ago, right. Well, yeah,
we've we've had people writing to us about lyme disease
for a while. Um and we've mentioned Plumb Island before,
(30:59):
which I know is something uh that always crops up there,
as it did in that in that message Um, it's
it's weird because this is one of those topics that
makes you wonder if you're going down a conspiracy rabbit
hole and giving into conspiracy thinking. Lime disease, I would say,
(31:23):
is one of these gateway topics that you know, maybe
someone encounters because someone has contracted lime disease. It isn't
an astounding number of Americans that contract lime disease every year,
hundreds of thousands. Yeah, that's correct. I believe it's something
like lime disease is the most common disease spread by
(31:44):
any ticks in the northern hemisphere. It affects some three
hundred thousand people in the US alone, so not counting Canada,
not counting Mexico, just the U s a year. Yeah. Yeah,
that's an estimation that and we have to be careful
with effects. But that's according to the New England Journal
(32:04):
of Medicine from uh wow wow. Yeah. So I guess
that's what I'm saying is a lot of people become
aware of lime disease what it is, and then directly
connect connected to it. I think is the question of
whether or not the US government had anything to do
with creating a biological weapon. So weird because you know,
(32:27):
I grew up in the outdoors a lot, and I
always knew about ticks, and I knew a little bit
about lime disease, but I had never heard that it
was something manufactured. It was just for you know, when
you're a kid. One of the weirdest things about ticks
is they love the warm, dark places of the bodies,
so you have to watch out for, you know, your
(32:50):
crotch and your armpits in the back of your knees.
And I think, I think I, like a lot of kids,
was just rightly terrified of the idea of one day
stripping down to your skivvies and seeing a tick attached
to your unmentionables. You know, you guys have had ticks before, right, ever,
(33:12):
like a tick attached to you somewhere. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, okay,
I was gonna say, I certain I've had my fair share,
but attachments, um, And it's not a it's not a
nice thing to just you know, the right way to
get them off, right, yeah, fire right, and kind of
turn it and then you have to light it on.
(33:33):
Oh man, it's a whole thing. And it's fine when
it's on your arm. It's okay to do that, but
when it's like in a sensitive area, that's a real
rite of passage, you know what I mean? Because I was,
without giving away too much information, I was one of
the people who always thought, I am going to do
this on my own. This is this is a dark tunnel,
(33:54):
I will travel through alone. Uh. But it turns out, Buffy,
that quite a few people leave that lime disease was
perhaps produced by Plumb Island were produced on Plumb Island.
So many people in fact, that in July the U. S.
House of Representatives voted successfully to order the Department of
(34:19):
Defense to investigate whether the Pentagon had ever developed ticks
as biological weapons. And the implication there is that the
Pentagon would have to disclose that information, which they totally
wouldn't tell you. If they did that, they would have
to disclose that information and then would also have to
disclose whether any of those little critters escaped to cause
(34:43):
the national lime disease epidemic. And six thousand people, just
for the record, does qualify as an epidemic? When you say, yeah,
I think so. The weird thing to me is that
it was a question whether or not whether or not
they were manufacturing ticks rather in some kind of disease,
or I guess you would be manufacturing ticks because you'd
(35:05):
be fostering a disease through a population. I don't know,
it's just I think it's weird to think about it
in that way, like a factory where ticks are being made.
That's a really good point. Yeah, that's like blaming rats
for the plague, right, rat carriers, but they're not the
plague itself. Yeah. Lime disease is caused by a bacterium
(35:28):
Borellia bacterium, and the most common side of this is
red rash. Now again, earlier when we're talking about this
off air, Uh, I think several of us had assumed
that I was told at times a lime disease is incurable.
Luckily that turns out not to be the case. The
vast majority of it can be treated with antibiotics, which
(35:52):
is great news for anybody stuck out in the woods. Uh.
But the Plumb Island thing is so fast snating because
it is relatively rare for a conspiratorial belief to garner
so much momentum that it is addressed in the halls
(36:13):
of Congress. You know what I mean? When you think
about it, This puts lime disease up there with nine
eleven and JFK in terms of that government response. Uh So,
we have some good or bad news, depending whether you
believe the official story. Apparently, per a Coming School professor
(36:35):
named Sam Telford, a leading expert on infection spread by
mosquitoes as well as ticks, this conspiracy theory is wrong
and it's been soundly debunked by the work that Professor
Telford says he did with one David Percy in the
early nineteen nineties, which is interesting because that's uh, I
(36:56):
keep forgetting that the nineties was what thirty years ago
by now. So and their studies. They did multiple studies.
One was published in Science, one was published in the
Journal of Infectious Diseases. Uh. They tested specimens of white
footed mice and deer ticks to see if they had
DNA evidence of being infected with the bacterium responsible for
(37:19):
lime disease. And what they found was a timeline problem
with the theory. Ticks that were collected in ninety from
the east side of Long Island and mice that were
collected in eight four in Cape cod were both found
to be infected with this bacterium, which means that this
(37:40):
thing that causes lyme disease already existed before the time
period um that the conspiracy centers on. So the the
predecessor Diplum Island was a thing called Fort Terry that
was made by the Army chemical Core uh In and
(38:02):
it wasn't even around until like activated until nineteen. So
the scary thing about lime disease in this regard is that, uh,
lime disease was already in the wild. We just learned
more about it over time. And of course that is
we should add the caffeat the little asterisk about the
(38:24):
size of some ticks on your printed page that says,
if you believe the official story. But what do you
guys takes on this? Well, you know it's funny, you
should ask. I have a quick take, um, And then
a quick, very very brief pivot slightly away from this
topic to something very quick that I wanted to bring
up the this thinking about this brought me back to
(38:48):
uh and then let me uh let the kind of
the bag you're gon be too mysterious. UM. I first
heard of lime disease from the real world Seattle. Um,
there's a character and I say, character. And again I'm
talking about this because interesting crossover between our between this
topic and our episode about reality TV, which which you
can listen to now. Um. But yeah, Irene, I had
(39:08):
to correct myself from calling her a character. Uh. This
person that was on the Real World Seattle had lyme
disease and there was a big kerfuffle at the end
of that season UM that many folks don might not remember,
but I do, just because I remember her having lyme
disease and the way the producers sort of used that
(39:29):
as an explanation for her leaving the show, and there
was almost some kind of gas lighting behavior that went
into her depiction as sort of a crazy person who
was addled by lyme disease and caused to become delusional
because of this condition. And there's actually an interesting op
ed on Vulture where Irene talks about this and talks
(39:51):
about the nature of reality television. And there was an
event when she left the show where someone who she
had been feuding with, a man by the name of Stephen,
actually slaps her in the face. Um runs out to
her car as she's leaving, Um throws her bunny rabbit
like stuffed animal that she left behind in the in
the water over this bridge and then opens the car
(40:12):
door and slaps her in the face. And Um, she
just talks about in this op ed a how she
was kind of demonized through editing and also, I mean
she was a difficult person on the show. I do
remember that. But also the lime disease angle that was
used as sort of a weapon to indicate that she
was somehow, um, not in her right mind because of
(40:34):
the progression of this condition, which she says in this
culture piece is a disservice to people with lime disease,
that that it's not a thing, and that she really,
looking back on it now, was unfair the way she
was treated an unfair to people with lime disease. Um.
And when she saw these episodes, she the way they
did it back then, Um, the cast members were sent
(40:58):
VHS copies of these episodes like that they would receive
maybe a day before the real thing aired on television,
and she didn't think they would air this part or
put it in this context, and she was blown away
to find out that they did. And she just talks
about reality television. Is this is quoting from from the
pieces has changed so much since I was on the
real world today, there's no end of the pain we
(41:18):
now witness on reality TV. Cast members don't have to
be goaded by producers to fight physically and emotionally. These
wanna be stars go in knowing that regular screaming, feuding
and hair pulling is expected of them, and they want
to deliver in order to get airtime. Um So sorry
the weird pivot, I know, but I think interesting with
the line disease angle the way was portrayed, and also
(41:39):
a call back to what we've just very much discussed
on our reality TV episode. Yeah, it seems like a
good example of Frank inviting and retroactively redefining reality. Yeah.
I was thinking a little bit too about narcissistic uh
influences and producers, right and gaslighting. They're very there's a
(42:00):
dark triumvit. They're not the one you're thinking of. That's
a different story for a different episode. But let's end
this on something positive and actionable for people who want
to avoid lyme disease. Just in case you need to
hear these again. It's always helpful if you're going out
and camping and now this is lovely camping weather time.
Cover up long pants, especially if you're in tall grass
(42:24):
insect repellent, find one that works for you. Always check
your clothing yourself, and if you have pets, check them too.
They'll appreciate the attention because you know you're just scratching them.
Check your children. Of course, do not assume that you
are immune. And if you do get a tick, safely
remove it as soon as possible. Uh. And do not
(42:46):
mail it to Plumb Islands. I'm sure someone has. I'm
sure they don't want to get that mail. It might
be crime, I don't know. And maybe avoid walking in
tall grass wearing shorts, you know, just a word to
the wise. Yep, yep, as I said, like where long
pants and tall grass even if it's hot, long sleeves
(43:06):
as well. Uh. Thank you so much, Taters, Thank you
so much, Buffy. Thank you so much, Anonymous for tuning
in and for writing to us, for calling us. To
everyone else who's inspired to weigh in with your thoughts
on the strange interaction of biblical tales and secular history,
(43:29):
the identity of the Sea People's to everyone who has
a story of a possible biological weapon or an explanation
of how lime disease is one we'd love to hear
from you, and to everyone who has firsthand experience with
the foster care system, we would like to hear from you.
We try to make it easy to find us. You
(43:50):
can find us on Facebook, you can find us on Instagram,
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That last part is just stuff they don't want you
(44:11):
to know. In acronym form or numbers, alpha numericle, you
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(44:32):
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(44:54):
say that's what you want. It's fine. Yep. We are
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you once again to everyone that wrote in into everyone
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(45:15):
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