September 17, 2026 • 58 mins
Jai Shree RĀM hips the guys to the bizarre -- and possibly terrifying -- technology of 'smart dust'. Duke Nukem shares his first-hand experience with strange events in a missile facility. Weshiwan follows up on the recent Charlie Kirk episodes. Also, congratulations to Megatron on the pineapple. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal Fagin. Most importantly, you
are you, you are here. That makes this the Stuff
They Don't Want You To Know listener mail edition. If
you are tuning in to our listener mail program, The
Evening and Publishes, welcome one and all friends and neighbors
(00:51):
to September 17th. And we were talking... A little bit
backstage before we started rolling about all sorts of stuff,
magic cards, dentist visits, a couple of awesome recommendations for
good birthday dinners at restaurants. And guys, I got to tell.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
You, this.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Is it just me, or does it seem like the
year is moving more quickly as we get closer to
the end of December?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Are you talking about Virgin Voyage? I'm joking.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Oh my gosh, has no one heard about that? Wait,
can we joke about it now?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I think we must have to. I think there's no
way to not joke about it. And all I'm saying, Ben,
is that I am excited about that, and maybe that's
what's causing time to move a little fast. But you think,
doesn't that usually make time dilate, move a little slower
when you've got something you're looking forward to? I don't
know how it works. I agree with you, Ben.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I do agree with you.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I hear you, man. That reminds me of that fascinating
quotation by Albert Einstein about relativity of time. It depends
upon whom you're hanging out with.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It depends on how much stuff you got to do, right?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It sure does, Matt.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And how much amphetamines you're on.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Right, yeah, and I'll be honest, I took a five-hour
energy drink just an hour or so ago, so hopefully
we can get this done in four hours.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I took a fistful of unknown pills. I found them
on the ground. Ground scores.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I took four soup spoons full of creatine.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Did you take the red pill, Matt? Did you take
both pills?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Did you take silly boils? The purple pill. And what
better way to celebrate this listener mail program than to
kick it off with our favorite pill to swallow, a
rutabaga pill.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
There we go.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
And now, a dramatic reading of a campaign donation text message.
Dear Your name here. It is with a heavy heart
that I send you this note today. Earlier this year,
I made a decision. As a lifelong rutabaga supporter, I
care about creating farming jobs, promoting rutabaga literacy, and lowering
the cost of vegetables at the grocery store. That's where
(03:11):
you come in.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Your name here.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
There are folks out there that want to give tax
breaks to the rutabaga hoarders and start wars with the
sweet potato industry that only drive up the prices of
both root vegetables. They tell terrible lies about me. One
congressman went on Starch News to call me a glorified
chickpea lobbyist. The stakes have never been higher. Can you
please rush $ 27 for my campaign? We only need one
(03:33):
more donation from your zip code. Please forward this message
to 10 people or you will have bad luck for
seven years. Donate at the link below and thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Your name here.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Www.spam.untrustworthylookingurl.trackingid.notaffiliatedwiththiscandidate.you'llneverremoveyourselffromthislist.net Stop to end, but not really.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Now, Dylan, was that Ed Sheeran's official response or Macklemore's?
Speaker 7 (04:03):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (04:05):
Hey, man, big ups to Macklemore for speaking his truth.
I've clowned on that guy before, but.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
He's on the right side of history here, guys, I think.
I like that guy.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I don't know much about him. I just know that
I like thrift stores.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
You like poppin' tags. Yeah, you like poppin' tags.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And his real name is Ben, so I have to
recuse myself. I'm supervised.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
He is arguably a good Ben. Are you a good
Ben or a bad Ben? Guys, I recently... donated to
a campaign that i'm not going to say the name
of just for you know whatever reason um and i
boy oh boy am i getting blown up with all
kinds of nonsensical text messages like that you do one
good thing you try to help you try to make
a difference and they just push and they push and
(04:47):
you know what i did donate a second time um
so maybe it's working i don't know And it's all
like from him. It's like, hey, we really only need
five more dollars, you know?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, it's crazy because that's why. He keeps texting me
and he's like, hey, man, are Noel and I cool?
He hasn't been answering my text message.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It's really him?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Guys, isn't it hilarious to see ads from people like him? That,
you know, theoretically stand for the people and everything.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And then you see these ads and he's like, I'm... Hey,
look at me. You know what I did? I sponsored
legislation that isn't going to let the... It's going to
stop all of these insurance companies from not paying for
the stuff you need. And your mind just goes... But
you're still like in a way working with the insurance
companies and supporting the system. Yeah, why aren't you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Stopping the insurance companies? It's a lot like saying, hey, guys,
I'm working with, again, broken record. There's a reason. I'm working, again,
with the Fox community in charge of hen house construction. OK,
so give me some money and help me fight their
larger problems. fox friendly doors policies.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I mean i i guess i guess the reason today's
rutabaga just kind of resonated for me is because they're
all so shady it doesn't matter which side they're on
whether nobody nobody.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Is sending no politician is sending me a text saying
hey i really need to give you twenty dollars No.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Matter who they are.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
How about 5K?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Speaking of which, how about that Trump dividend? You think
he's going to come through on that one?
Speaker 6 (06:23):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I am Jack's lack of surprise. Shout out Chuck Palahniuk.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Look, all these glorified chickpea lobbyists out there looking for
their $ 27. They just need to get out of town.
But you notice that none of us are like, hey,
I'll run for office. I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Did it come up the last time that you can
absolutely make rutabaga hummus?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (06:45):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I'm going to try it.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Please do.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Seems weird, but I'm going to try it.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
We also got a great update on salamander tacos.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Guys, before we jump in, I have to say one thing.
I was doing a little cleanup of the subscriptions, and
I decided to take a little break on the Hulu
Disney thing, but it still gave me, like, You know,
I have a certain amount of time left until my
subscription runs out. Doing a little browsing around there. Heard
a rumor, a little rumor about something. And I found
this show called The Unbelievable Encounters with Dan Aykroyd. And
(07:18):
I played the second episode. And what in the hell?
I saw a man that sits before me right now
on the television screen. And he was saying words about
Texas and a weird thing that happened at a supermarket.
And he was awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Was it B.B.? It was BB. Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Oh, I'm blushing you guys. Uh, the yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I've heard of it right here. This is how much
Ben shares with us guys.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Sorry guys. Yeah, it's, it's true. Uh, we have, uh,
not just yours truly, but, uh, multiple members of our
cohort on a show, uh, helmed by the legendary Dan Aykroyd,
called the Unbelievable. Capital U, lowercase n, capital B, lowercase e-leavable.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It's all caps over here for me, Ben, but I
can't tell.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
All right. Well, we're obviously hired guns on this one.
Do check it out, and thank you so much for
the shout-out, guys. I will say the best part of
the show, in my opinion— is our own Holly Fry,
whom you can see on multiple seasons, multiple episodes.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I thought you were going to say Dan Aykroyd, but
now I like Holly too.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Dan's doing his thing.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Crystal Skull Vodka, shout out.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Dan, you know why when it comes between you and Holly,
we made the choice we did. But you were a
close number two, bro. We'll never get in trouble for that.
Throwaway comment.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah. Holly was great on there. Ben, are there any
other episodes besides Aftershocks that you're on?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
There may be several. Matt, I think there are eight now.
I don't know how many I am on or off,
but you might see us popping through as well as,
more importantly, Holly Fry and, of course, Dan Aykroyd, who
has done Several things.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
From Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (09:22):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yes. He has busted ghosts. He is a known buster
of ghosts. Busting makes him feel good. Yes. He's a
brother with the blues, for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Do you think they knew what they meant when they
wrote that in that song back then? Or has it
just taken on a new meaning? Did that not mean
the same thing back then? Because, man, that line is
raunchy now. It sure is.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It sure is. And we also, guys, we ran into,
quite recently... a massive wave of feedback when we were
talking about, I'm not sure how to say this. I
won't say iconic because that's unfair. when people have lost
their lives but recently we did a two chapter series
(10:04):
on the assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10th 2025
and I think you know this was very important to
all of us hopefully you listening as well and Noel
you pointed out in those episodes that we had not
really made space for each other to talk about this
(10:27):
in as much depth as we do. So maybe we,
maybe we answer some listener mail about the Charlie Kirk stuff.
What do you guys say?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Sounds good. I mean, if good is the right word,
we'll be right back. And guys, a happy Kirkiversary to
all who celebrate. Okay. I just had to say it
like that because, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Wild, dude.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
The internet is so mean-spirited. My kid turned me on
to this notion. There's an internet meme, Kirkiversary, that refers
to September 10th, the one-year anniversary of September 10th, 2025,
which just passed September 10th, 2026. And it's just, you know,
how the internet be pretty irreverent when these Gen Zs
(11:12):
think 9-11 not only was it an inside job, but
it's a funny, hilarious joke. And that is exactly how
they are treating The Assassination of Charlie Kirk. And the
interesting thing is my kid, who is not a mean-spirited person,
something that their cohort is aware of, was not aware
of the exploding mic theory, which is so interesting considering
how chronically online a lot of these kids are. And
(11:35):
it didn't seem like any of their friends knew much
about it. And it's kind of interesting that maybe it's
one of those Bader-Meinhof thing, but since we published that
two-part episode, I swear that theory has been getting a
ton more traction online or maybe, you know, algorithms be algorithming.
But I have been seeing so many more very convincing
(11:56):
commentaries about it. That comedian you mentioned, Matt, he keeps
popping up in my feed telling his tale or his
version of it. And I have seen a few new stories.
details discussed that I mentioned to you guys about Pete
Hagsgath and his plane having been flying under a banner. Yeah,
(12:18):
doing a flyover under a particularly sensitive designation. And guys,
I'm totally forgetting what it is, but it is apparently
something that can only be assigned by the president and
it's a particular type of mission that has like call
letters more or less. And supposedly... I have not been
able to confirm this, and I'd love to hear from y'all,
(12:39):
or if you guys have had a chance to look
into it. Pete Hagsgath, in this plane, not only picked
up Erica Kirk and brought her to a military installation, very,
very close to when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, but did
a flyover over that factory that exploded, that was responsible
(12:59):
for making all of that weapons-grade explosion.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Oh, the military in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
No, I saw you share something about that, and I
had never heard of that before. That is definitely like, her?
Why would that happen?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
There's nothing else around. Just to point out, there's nothing
else around that would be of interest for him to
be flying over, and the timing was literally almost like
while it was burning. And I'm sure we mentioned this,
but just to mention it one more time, everybody inside
of that building, this happened like during peak business hours,
office hours, guys. They all perished. Yeah. 16 people, I think.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yes, that's correct, 16.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
We're not saying they dropped a bomb or something, right?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
No, I just think they were trying to survey their
fine works, you know? I mean, I don't think they
dropped it from Hegsgeth Plain. I don't know if I'm
saying his name right, but I'm just saying they were
checking in and making sure it got did.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Like, theoretically to verify?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I really, I don't know, man. I'm sorry. You know
I don't go out for this stuff all the time,
a whole hog, these kinds of theories, but this one's
got me. It really does. The exploding Rode mic. Somebody
else pointed out something very interesting, that this particular device,
this Rode microphone, it does an interesting thing. It transmits
(14:11):
via Wi-Fi to a device that's recording externally, but it
also records simultaneously internally. Think about what could be done
with a high-quality digital audio file of the sound of
the impact of the bullet. Think of what we can
do with, uh, spectral analysis and things like that and
(14:31):
how you could, you know, think of what, uh, spot shot,
shot spotter type technology could do. What could you do
with an audio, um, file, high quality 32 point float, um,
which is like a really, really high resolution audio file. Um,
you could figure out the direction that the bullet came from.
You could figure out all kinds of crap. And why
(14:52):
are they not talking about the microphone? Um, Where the
hell is the microphone?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Genuinely, guys, I hadn't thought about the shot spotter of
it all. As in, like, potentially....
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
That's crazy. Well, I just wanted to lead off with
those things because they've been on my mind. And I've been, again,
this Bader Meinhof thing where it's like you talk about something,
all of a sudden you see it everywhere. But it
does feel like this... It's really starting to prick some
ears up in terms of like, I don't know, this
narrative doesn't make any sense. And again, I know the
algorithms work in mysterious ways. But my listener mail actually
(15:28):
comes from someone, a listener from Utah, who had some
interesting things to say about gun culture in that particular
neck of the global woods, as Ben would say. So
I'm going to read this. We'll chat a little bit
about this and see if we can kind of make
it jive with what we were just talking about.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Hello, I just finished listening to part one of your
Charlie Kirk episode and I wanted to provide some cultural
insight into why it could be very plausible that Tyler
Roberts could have easily shot Kirk from the distance that
he did. I currently live within just a couple of
miles from where Kirk was killed and can say it
was a weird couple of weeks after his death in
my community. While I attended college in Utah, I did
(16:08):
not attend school at UVA. I attended school at Southern
Utah University and Robinson is from Southern Utah. The culture
and people who live down there are very different than
those who live in Orem. Southern Utah has a lot
of smaller towns and a lot of agriculture, ranchers, and
other small town type things. Another thing that is very
much part of the culture in southern Utah is guns.
(16:30):
I have many cousins in that part of the state,
and they all started to shoot guns at a young
age and started hunting as soon as they were old
enough to do so, age 12 in Utah. Duck hunting
is very popular. So if Robinson was raised like a
lot of other people in the area, he very likely
grew up with guns and learned to shoot them at
a young age and even learned to shoot things from
quite a distance, such as ducks or clay pigeons. So
(16:53):
while I am not saying he's guilty as he hasn't
had his trial, I just wanted to provide context that
this isn't outside of the realm of possibility that he absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Knew what he was doing.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
And getting back to St. George from Orem takes less
than four hours on the freeway unless you stop to
pee in Fillmore. as the speed limit is 75 to
80 miles an hour, most of the way there. You
can share this on the show and you can call
me Weshawan. If you have any questions, let me know. Weshawan.
So I think a thing that maybe Weshawan was referring
(17:25):
to was we all kind of were a little skeptical
of like how maybe more of an amateur shooter. I mean,
I don't think anyone was saying that he couldn't have
had any skills that might have given him the ability
to land a shot from that distance. it's just still
the whole, like, disassembling of the rifle and reassembling of
(17:45):
the rifle and sticking it down his pant leg and
then putting it back together and leaving the screwdriver, all
of those details, not to mention that another interesting detail
that I've kind of come across recently, and we maybe
didn't quite talk about this, is my understanding that a bullet, a. 30- 06,
if I'm not mistaken, bullet, would have probably blown his
head off. Like, it would not have just, you know...
(18:09):
did an arterial spray. It just feels like it would
have done a whole hell of a lot more damage.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
It would have had to have been a graze.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
It would have had to have been a graze, a
perfect arterial graze that would have caused him to bleed
out in that fashion. Much like the bullet that supposedly
grazed Donald Trump's ear and then magically healed. I've heard
kayfabe talk that he had a razor in his hand.
Have you guys heard that theory? I have.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
What? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
That just relies on so much acumen and i'm gonna
be diplomatic for for a guy who is older and
is known for you know not being the most coordinated
on stairs that's good to be able to have the
timing to just real quick sleight of hand on the
(18:56):
earlobe that's that's a tall milkshake but i he.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Does love wrestling I know he really does.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
We love wrestling, guys. We also can't thank you enough
for your letter here because Utah, we'll just say Utah
right now. Utah, you raise a point that, like you
were saying, we didn't quite get to, which is for
anybody who spent time in that state or for anybody
(19:24):
who has family there. you know that firearms are definitely
a more normalized part of the culture than in, say,
Rhode Island or New York City. So it makes sense
that kids who are maybe even just in Boy Scouts
may train with firearms, that they may be more familiar
(19:48):
with them than the the average person that age of
that demographic in the other 49 states.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Well, and then that is, I guess, a thing that
maybe in the moment I perhaps dismissed. I can't remember
if I did, but Just the fact that if you
become a gun owner or if you're around guns a lot,
one of the things you learn is how to clean them.
If you're responsible and you're paying attention, you also learn
how to break them down. And if you are interested
(20:18):
in doing something that requires you to quickly assemble or
break down a weapon, you can teach yourself how to
do that simply through repetition. And, you know, you can
teach yourself to do most things simply through repetition.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Military drills, I mean, involve like quickly assembling and disassembling
your sidearm or your rifle, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
But I'm saying they're trained to do that. But if
you're just an interested party and you have a background.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
I just could see them being fascinated by that kind
of thing and then sort of learning it themselves or
maybe treating it with the same level of rigor, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Muscle memory, repetition, repetition. a boy scout badge you know
what i'm saying like why do you put it back
together level.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Why do you put it back together i don't understand
that part well was it him really showing off he's
like guys i really practiced i wanted to show you
that i.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Could we we also know um we we also know
to be clear here we we were quoting folks like
uh roger stone another political activist long time standing uh
People like Stone are the ones who cast doubt on
Robinson pulling the actual hit because they said this feels
(21:29):
too professional. Like you were saying, Noel, with the dismantling
of the firearm, with the reassembly, with the clear bug
out plan or the concept of a bug out plan.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Isn't it weird that it was Roger Stone that was
bringing up those things?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I appreciate that. Yeah, what I was like, there were
other people in the research, but that's one of the
most prominent folks I found. And again, we're looking for
the answers just like everybody else. I think one thing
that stood out to us for anybody who checks out
chapter two of that series is. is the repercussions and
(22:06):
recriminations against people just asking questions. The people who got
in trouble for talking about the Charlie Kirk assassination last year,
they were not all dancing on the grave of some
guy they never met or dancing on the grave of
some guy with whom they disagreed politically. There were people
(22:27):
who were just saying, hey, this official story doesn't add up.
And they got in trouble to the point where some
of them were booted out of the military. It's very
it's it's a very messy bowl of spaghetti.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
And back to the whole Kirkiversary thing. I mean, that
really is, you know, a lot of younger folks on.
TikTok and, you know, Instagram, um, really rolling the dice on, uh,
you know, the whole internet, you know, breadcrumb trail of
like being openly mocking of the assassination of a person. Again,
(23:01):
whether or not you respected that man, uh, he didn't
deserve to go like that.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
No, no.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Agreed. Agreed. And we have, uh, Noel, Matt, Tennessee, everybody
we have, so much more Charlie Kirk correspondence that I
think we're going to have to get to over the
following weeks and months, you know, because we have been
astounded and grateful and amazed for all of everybody who
(23:29):
took the time to write to us or to call
us or reach out on social media and give us
your takes because I think the question that we all
came out with at the end of that two-part series was,
You know, we came in skeptical, and then all three
of us ended up on some spectrum of, what if?
Speaker 3 (23:53):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Like, why this?
Speaker 7 (23:56):
Right?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
I think we all— we got at least to the point
where we could all agree it's weird that some of
these questions— could be answered with information that is usually
available in any homicide.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Where is the microphone, guys? We want to hear that
audio file. That's the most interesting bit.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Why is the information removed?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Why did they cement over the crime scene?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Hey, guys. I just noticed something.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Imagine in your mind a person that we've recently just
mentioned in this discussion.
Speaker 7 (24:33):
Mr.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Peter Brian Hegseth. Imagine him in your mind and then
realize that he is only a couple of years older
than us, like two to three years. No, one, two
to three years older than us. That man, when I
think about him and I see him on television, you
know what we need to do? Ben, I think we
(24:54):
need to follow your lead and we need to start
wearing suits because I think we would look, we would
look like We could be the secretary of war slash
defense if we put on suits.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Should we get Nazi tattoos while we're at it or no?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Oh, nope.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I can't do the tattoos.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
I know you can't.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Sorry, I should say I can't do Nazi tattoos. I mean,
tattoos in general I can't do, but also Nazi tattoos
are part of that category.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
That guy scares me, man. That guy is unhinged. They
all just seem so bug-eyed on amphetamines, man. It's a
thing to behold.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Well... It's also a thing that we are all consensually
or non-consensually experiencing together. It's so interesting to be in
the back rooms of our conversations before we record, folks,
because we are always comparing notes as we lead up
to episodes. We get into strange news. Did you guys
(25:53):
see this stuff about space being weaponized? We called it all...
our Kirk discourse off air has been one of my
favorite things.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
You guys, it's been weird. And, and weird is good here.
And this is a good, this is a safe space
for weird.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It's definitely weird.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
That's a good way to put it, Matt. Well, guys,
I actually had another email on, uh, the sort of
gentrification of Tai Chi, but I think I'm going to
save that one for next time. Um, because this one
went a little long. So you know what? Now I've
got next week's listener mail covered. But thanks so much, Weshuan,
for that insight about the gun culture in Utah. Let's
take a quick break, and we'll hear a word from
(26:32):
our sponsor, and then we'll come back with more weird
stuff in a safe space.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And we've returned. And guys, somebody back me up on this.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Ready? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Weshuan.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Weshuan.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Weshuan.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Weshuan. Weshuan.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Weshuan.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Is that what that's from?
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Weshuan?
Speaker 7 (26:54):
I don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Tell us.
Speaker 7 (26:55):
All right.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
But it works.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You guys, back in August, we heard from freaking Duke Newcomb.
And he told us of his personal experience as an
Air Force missile man, a missileer. In that episode, we
realized that the Duke had called us before way back
in 2024. And we had planned to air his original message,
but we never did. And we couldn't figure out why
(27:19):
within that episode. But we have good news. The Duke called.
has returned the call, and we're going to hear more.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Does the Duke abide, Matt?
Speaker 2 (27:26):
The Duke abides.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
He nukes them.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
That's right. When in doubt, I guess just.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Nuke it out.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Nuke them out.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Or at least, you know, be prepared to send out
nukes if necessary, as the Duke was. So let's jump
to him really quickly, and we'll see what he has
to say.
Speaker 7 (27:47):
Guys, Duke Nukem calling in. Duke of Kerrigan, apparently now
a recurring character in the stuff they don't want you
to know, Missileer's cinematic universe. Well, seriously, thank you for
airing my voicemail and spending so much time talking through it.
Hearing you guys react to my experience was incredibly cool,
especially after listening to you guys for so long. Glad
(28:07):
I could help kill the Hollywood idea that nuclear missiles
are launched by one guy slamming a giant red button.
But yeah, I lost it when you brought up my
older voicemail from 2024. about the weird stuff that sometimes
happened underground because I absolutely did call about that. Missile
crews had plenty of ghost stories and unexplained weirdness that happened.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
But one thing happened to me that I still can't explain.
Speaker 7 (28:32):
The capsule we worked in underground is basically a really
big heavy metal room suspended underground on really big springs,
technically an acoustical enclosure. One night I was on alert.
It was like three o'clock in the morning. I was awake.
My fellow missileer that I was working with was sleeping.
And something really hard hit the outside of the capsule
(28:54):
enough to actually sway the entire thing back and forth,
which is really not something you want your nuclear launch
centers doing. I went around to look afterwards because you
could actually inspect the outside of that. Did a little
reconnaissance and nothing. No impact, no debris, nothing. Absolutely nothing
that could explain enough force to make this massive capsule move.
(29:17):
Never actually figured out what caused it. So when you
guys looked up my old voicemail and found that it's
somehow been crossed out and read in your database and
nobody knew why, I'm just saying it's not really helping
the ghost theory. Apparently, whatever was haunting the missile field
that night also had admin access to your voicemail system.
The boring explanation is that we actually played phone tag
(29:38):
back then and never actually connected. So I never made
it on the show. But I definitely prefer the haunted
database explanation. Anyways, thank you guys again for airing this one.
It was really surreal, really fun hearing you guys talk
through it. I'm glad Duke Nukem finally made it onto
stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Have a great rest of your day, guys.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
Talk to you later.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Bye.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Aw, what a cool guy. Right?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Very cool human being. Former Air Force missileer. That's freaking sweet.
I don't know. I don't think I've met any other missileers.
Do you guys have any? Well, you obviously don't name names,
but do you have anybody that's worked in a Minuteman
system in your world? Well, guess what? Now we got
the Duke.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Guys, I got to mention, Ben, this is largely for
your benefit. Um, we did an episode of Ridiculous History
yesterday about, what'd you call them? The pocket nukes? No,
backpack nukes. I like pocket nukes.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
That'd be cool.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Let's miniaturize them one further. Um, just about sort of
the idea.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Uh-huh.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I'm sorry. Sorry.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
No, no, no. The idea of miniaturizing, you know, nuclear weapons.
and the movie, the 1990s action thriller Broken Arrow came
up in our conversation, and I promised Ben that I
was going to watch it yesterday, and I did. Did you? Yeah,
I sure did.
Speaker 7 (30:57):
Oh, man.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Speaking of launching a nuke with a big red button,
that's the kind of stuff you see in that movie,
and it's John Travolta doing it with a little remote control,
you know?
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, and he's not– he is at no point– in
that film in a massage parlor, from what I understand.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
No, but he is ripping cigs constantly.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
He is, because he's a bad guy.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
He's a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Also, Noel, if you'll recall, and folks, if you'll recall,
I was a huge supporter of the Broken Arrow cinematic masterpiece.
It's no vibes, but it's out there. And I'm a
supporter of it, folks, because I am pro-clown. I support
the clown community. And it's so difficult for people like
(31:43):
John Travolta to make their way in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Oh, damn.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah. So just for representation.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I thought he was pretty tough, Ben. I thought he
was pretty tough.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Dude, I freaking love that movie, genuinely. And it's because Mr.
Robot's in it himself, Mr. Christian Slater. I really like
that guy on camera.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
That dude rocks.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
He was great in Robin Hood.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah, he's a good protagonist. And I gotta say, I
love that John Travolta had this period of heel turn,
face off, where he was the baddie. But he was
the goodie with the baddie dressed up as him. with
a face off, whatever. Anyway, it's complicated.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
He's got the Nicholson thing.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
He sure does. Nicholas Cage, I think is what you mean.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Oh, I'm just going back to Christian Slater having his
Jack Nicholson vibe.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Oh, no, no.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
I was talking about John Travolta.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
I was talking about John Travolta being a bad guy.
He had like a brief period where he was playing
bad guys in his 90s.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Oh, yeah, like Faisal.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, Faisal. And also that The Broken Arrow, didn't realize
this is kind of a minor work of his, directed
by John Woo.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
I forgot that it was directed by John Woo and
it has some pretty cool action set pieces, uh, and
some pretty ridiculous dialogue, uh, and some very implausible, uh,
nuclear shenanigans. Um, but it's, it's worth a watch. I
enjoyed my time with broken arrow.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I'm so glad you followed through man in Duke Nukem. Also,
thank you for listening to our impromptu review of broken arrow.
Check it out. I'm sure you've seen it already. Uh, Guys,
I'm just so fascinated by this idea of supernatural events
at underground silos because we previously talked about unexplained events
(33:25):
in the sky around nuclear compounds and facilities, right? Launch sites.
But we haven't talked about ghosts in the deep. So
this feels like an episode in the future.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Dude, well, what could make impact like that and not
leave any kind of debris or mark.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
On the capsule?
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Especially with all the surveillance around it.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Well, I mean, I wish we had more information. Wait. Guys,
what if I found that old voicemail, the original Duke
Nukem voicemail?
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Wait, did you?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 7 (33:59):
That'll be easy. Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
The quality isn't as good, Duke. I think you called
with maybe a car involved or something, so it wasn't
quite as good as the sound quality on your update.
So we should take note of that. Everybody, if you
call in, please do it from a good sound space.
If you can.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
If not, that's fine. Oh, really quickly, Matt, before you
drop that bit of knowledge, I have to comment on
something that Dylan put in the chat. Have you seen
John Travolta's new look where he's in a beret period?
I'm just going to leave it there. Just look up
John Travolta's new look and you're going to be tickled.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Is this John Travolta now?
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Yes, sir, it is. He's in his beret period. That's
all I'm going to say.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
Oh, dear.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Oh, dear. Okay, well, shouldn't have looked at that. All right,
let's jump to Duke Nukem's original message.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
It's going to be your sleep paralysis demon now.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Just that smile.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
All right, here we go. Here is the original.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Hey, guys, long-time listener, first-time caller. You can call me
Duke Nukem. So I am a previous Air Force officer.
I worked in nuclear missile control and command. I was
technically an ICBM launch officer, specifically the Minuteman III missile.
(35:17):
So I was the one underground, 55 feet underground, and
we were there behind a 65-ton blast door for about
24 to 72 hours at a time. I wanted you
guys to think about what it was like for us
underground there, because it wasn't just checklist and procedure, but
there were a lot of stories about supernatural activity. That
(35:41):
happened in a lot of our missile alert facilities or
capsules that we hung out in. And things got super weird.
I did it for about five years. And this is
where it gets crazy. I actually had some experiences underground
of things that I couldn't explain. Wasn't sure if you
(36:02):
guys have heard about this, but a lot of these
missile silos, these alert facilities were built And they found
Indian burial ground. So that might contribute to some of
the weird things that happened. But specifically, I was on
alert one morning just up by myself. And our entire
(36:23):
capsule got knocked. And we were swinging because we're on
springs just in case there was like a nuclear war.
We would be able to do our jobs. But out
of nowhere, our entire capsule got hit. I investigated and
we were swinging and there was nothing there. There was
another story of a missileer looking across into the launch
(36:47):
control equipment building, which is outside of the blast door,
which is where our diesel generation comes from. And I
saw a little girl that threw a ball at them
and then disappeared. So not sure if you guys are
interested in like exploring this, but I know there has
been some supernatural activity that has been reported by missileers
(37:11):
that might be ghosts, but also extraterrestrial activity with the
nuclear sites and some nuclear launch facilities going offline. Just
wanted to give you guys a heads up that that's
actually a thing in our community. I am no longer
in the Air Force anymore, but this is something that
stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Oh, my God. I remember this clearly, guys. The way
Duke Nukem says... and ends his message with, this is
something that stuck with me. I was like, oh, it
really did. So, guys, just the idea that potentially where
these silos are built and having to go so deep
(37:51):
down in the ground, going into the ground means going
into history, right? That's kind of the whole thing of
searching for historical artifacts and buildings. It's all based on
going down. To find some stuff. So you can imagine
that maybe some of these places were built over quite
a bit of history or dug directly into some history
(38:12):
and or people. That's a weird thought. And what if
one of those people could haunt a place like that?
I don't know. It's weird to me.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Indeed.
Speaker 7 (38:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
So one last thing here, guys. We heard from our
good friend Megatron, our old pal. Now, nobody in the
Stuff They Don't Want You to Knowverse besides us knows
who Megatron is. He's been calling for quite a time,
for ages, and he never fails to bring the positivity,
(38:45):
and sometimes, as we're about to hear, the produce.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
So, guys, this is your old friend Megatron.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
I bought a pineapple and I let it sit in
the center of my table for a whole week.
Speaker 7 (39:00):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I bought a pineapple. I let it sit in the
center of my table for a whole week. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Well, what's it like at the top, guy? What's it
like at the top?
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, Megatron, you absolute legend. Thank you so much for
letting us know that you've reached the upper echelons of
society here. Now, Matt, riddle us this. Do you know
why the pineapple thing is a big deal?
Speaker 3 (39:30):
I do.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I'm a, I, yeah, I've been on a couple of
cruises now and I've seen the pineapples on the doors
and they're upside down. And to my understanding, it's a
social status symbol.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Yeah. They used to like rent them out. We did
a ridiculous history episode on that years ago.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I'm just kidding, guys.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Yes, I know. You guys are.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Both right about the swinger iconography, which is true. And
you could see it even at grocery stores throughout the land.
But we're also right, like you were saying, Noel, and
as you know, Megatron, back in 2021, five years ago now,
we did a two-part episode on our sister show, Ridiculous History,
(40:15):
about pineapples being a weird thing. hyper-expensive cartoonish flex in
the European theater. And like you were saying, Noel, people
literally rented pineapples to put in the center of their
dining room tables. And Megatron, you are so far beyond
all those decaying aristocrats now because you bought a pineapple, bro.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
You own it.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Think of all the decaying pineapples. that sat on a
table for a week. They had to return them. Maybe
they were better pineapples back then, but, like, the ones now, that, ugh,
it'd be all gloopy and brownish and bad way.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, the only edible bromeliad. Also, one of the coolest fruits.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
And most delicious.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Folks, I know this program is audio, so please understand.
that when we said it's one of the best fruits,
we all paused and just solemnly nodded. Like we were
characters in Game of Thrones going, this is known.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Dylan just popped on to agree, I think, with that
and then popped right back off.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
He's popping it off.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
It's a pineapple guy.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
All right. Well, that's it for this segment of this
Listener Mail episode. We'll be right back with more messages
from you.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
And we have returned with the last act of our
weekly listener mail program. Apologies in advance, mea culpa. There
are some things we're not going to get to, but
don't think we don't read every piece of correspondence we receive. Guys,
I think what we should do first is introduce the
(42:06):
idea of dust. You guys remember dust, right? You guys
got dust?
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Like dust? Like particulates matter?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
The stuff in the air? The stuff coating all my stuff?
Speaker 4 (42:19):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
The stuff coating all your stuff.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
A lot of it's apparently dead skin.
Speaker 7 (42:25):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
A ton of it is dead skin. Check out our
underwater episode, by the way. We've got, you know, we
have our regular lives like anybody else. We wake up
at sunset and put our skin on one leg at
a time.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
And we all do that.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
We all do that.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
All of us.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
And we all still have to dust. Right.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Because I'm not wearing my bottom skin right now. Oh, man.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Well, you know, do you?
Speaker 3 (42:51):
It's the beauty of podcasting from home, man.
Speaker 6 (42:54):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Wait, wait.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Are you saying just your bottom or the entirety below
the waist?
Speaker 3 (42:59):
The equivalent of pants.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah. It's just, it's waist up podcasting.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Skin pants.
Speaker 7 (43:04):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Which was a myth in parts of Scandinavia. Well, we're
talking about dust today, not just in its... particulate general meaning.
We're also talking about a technology that has a lot
of people really worried. Let's go straight to our fellow
conspiracy realist, Jai Shri Ram. Jai Shri Ram says, Ben, Matt, Noel,
(43:32):
top of the morning to you, fellow conspiracy realist, and
a doff of the cap to thee. You say, I
recently discovered a technology called smart dust. As we all know,
advanced technology such as this has the potential for doing
great good because of the dual nature of this reality.
This technology also has the potential to be weaponized. I
(43:56):
am really curious about you all's take on this technology. Unfortunately,
I can see it as a potential threat to humanity
as a whole. Maybe you guys can help shed some
light on this topic and hopefully change my mind. I'm
trying to be optimistic. We're going to pause there. Beat
me here, Dylan. We are right with you. Jai Shrey Ram.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Ben, are we, is this like nano somehow tech?
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Ah, yes.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah. It's, uh, it's, uh, look guys, uh, it's, it's
everything that you're thinking from sci-fi and it's everything that
you love and hate about it. Uh, You know, it's
beautiful here, Matt, that Noel earlier mentioned our recent episode
(44:43):
on backpack nukes, right? It's counterintuitive for us to imagine
the USSR and the United States saying, okay, we can
build bombs as big as possible, but can't we make
them tiny? Can we get little tiny boys?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Shrink them on down.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Can we shrink them on down?
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Shrink them on down. I want to be able to
strap them to my junk.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
And smart dust is the end result of that kind
of reasoning. It's a system of tiny wireless micro electro
mechanical systems or MEMS or moats that are smaller than
a grain of sand that can be used for surveillance, uh,
for other stuff, uh, for any number of things.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Are we, how tiny we're talking?
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Like grain of dust, few millimeters. friends and neighbors, you
can like imagine, you know, we have talked off air
before about, especially during the lockdown evenings, we had talked
about making sure we could get good mesh networks, right?
When we were recording from home, imagine instead of a
(45:53):
mesh network, you get a spray bottle and the spray
bottle is a bunch of spark dust. You can just
sort of wish, wish, wish it around your crown molding.
maybe towards your computer. And all of a sudden that
will function as a wireless internet connection, perhaps stronger than, uh, yeah,
perhaps stronger than your typical wifi. Pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
I'm looking at a science.org article here from 2004. Right.
Talking about smart dust in a specific type called photonic crystals,
which is more of a, It's a sensor, right? But
it's not a device necessarily. It's a way to detect
if something chemical or something was present, right?
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
They're in this article. They're talking about dime-sized wafers. They're
talking about things that are getting smaller and smaller in 04.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
That article, I love that you're bringing up that one, Matt,
because that's Jamie Link is our journalist for that article
in science.org. And there's a line that should stand out
to everybody, wherein our journalist says, quote, the project, smart
dust project, developed in response to emerging national needs since
(47:12):
11 September. Interest in environmental surveillance technologies for homeland security
applications has increased dramatically. And folks like Matt said, that
was years back. So what's happening now? How smart is
the dust project?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
What the hell is environmental surveillance technologies? Are we talking
about anthrax and things, like trying to sense anthrax? If
it enters an area, now the dust in the air
turns purple, and you're.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Like, oh, shit.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
All of it.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
All of it, Kevin.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Or if there's thermite floating around downtown in New York.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Okay, I like that application. But, Ben, I got to say,
when I saw your entry in the doc, for smart
dust in my mind, I was sort of thinking like
that technology. And I think it's called big hero six
about the robot kind of fluffy robot guy. And there
was the baddie essentially weaponized these tiny particles that could
join together to make like massive chains of things. When
(48:11):
I hear smart dust, I'm picturing dust that you could
deploy and then it could like kind of Voltron together
and become like a Megazord and like, you know, kill everyone.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Yeah. Grey goo kind of, Yeah. Nanobot Voltroning technology.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
That's right.
Speaker 7 (48:25):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Nanotech, yes. I love it, man.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah. It's also, without sounding too cynical, Bram, I know
that several of us in the crowd, when we first
heard the word smart dust, thought of things that very cool,
edgy people would use as a synonym for their drug
of choice. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (48:48):
I thought of Grey Goo, but I hear you, and
that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Go on, let Daddy get his smart dust.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Oh, it's the thing that guy Brad, our friend Brad,
that's the thing that he did in that one movie.
Didn't he do smart dust, and then he could do everything?
He was, like, limitless?
Speaker 3 (49:04):
He was. Is that the one where he was limitless? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
There wasn't a limit on that.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Other than the runtime. So we do have to dispel
some myths here. First off, this technology is very much real.
One of our friends in the the Rand Corporation, was
involved in early ideation about this. Yeah, we're saying friend
of as that's a legal requirement. It's not. We're just
(49:31):
spooked of it.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
We're just hedging our bets. It's like when we text
about AI, we try to stay polite.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
So the issue is, if you go to places like promwad.com,
real name, respectable outfit, they specialize in electronics design. And
as of January 2026, they put out this great article
that I think dispels some myths and also, more importantly,
(50:01):
tells us what we need to keep an eye on.
Here's how they put it. Every few years, the idea
of smart dust in some application comes back into the zeitgeist.
It gets wrapped up in these bold claims about invisible sensors,
autonomous swarms, the gray goo we mentioned earlier, a future
where everything is surveilled and measured at every possible metric,
(50:26):
at every possible moment. But the issue is the technology exists,
the prototypes exist, We have even seen early deployments of
smart dust, but it is not a silver bullet solution.
Just like backpack nukes, there are hard physical limitations, material
(50:47):
limitations on what we can do with this stuff now.
So read that if you want a little bit of
a cleansing cold shower as you're worried about smart dust,
but also folks acknowledge we have to, uh, People could
breathe this stuff in.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
I was about to say the same thing. Don't breathe
in too deeply while you're having your cleansing moment.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Asbestos was a miracle substance. Lead was a miracle substance.
Then we were awash in serial killers and mesothelioma. Now
we're looking at something that you could unknowingly breathe in
just by being in the vicinity of this thing and
(51:29):
Depending on the technology, you could become a carrier of this,
like another air transmissible disease. I mean, depending on how
they work the biotech, you could maybe potentially breathe it
in and become a factory for creating more smart dust.
(51:51):
I know, I know. But it's a society where people...
buy branded t-shirts. You buy a Nike t-shirt, now you're
doing their work for them.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Well, dude, it's fine, Ben. We'll all be strapped to
our chairs with our VR goggles on, just breathing smart dust,
pooping smart dust.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Our little finger, our little fist clickers, so we still
feel like we're doing something.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, yeah, it'll be fine. Meta will be able to
analyze our excrement and figure out what we want to
buy for lunch tomorrow and give us the right ads,
so it'll be fine. Ben, I watched one of my
favorite movies last night from, oh, I can't remember the
director's name. The movie's called The Host, Bong Joon-ho. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (52:35):
Phenomenal movie.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, it's great. And there's another one, another monster movie
like that out now called Hope that's supposed to be
really good.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
Oh, I can't wait to see that.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
But please, continue.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
But it reminded me of just the plot of that movie, Ben,
where there's this theoretical virus thing going around, but to
kill the potential virus that's there, they use a thing
called called Agent Yellow. Come on, a little on the nose,
Agent Yellow.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Translation, maybe.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
But it was definitely that kind of thing where either
the virus is going to kill you or the antidote
to the virus is going to kill you if you're
hanging around. Just thinking about all of us breathing something
that potentially either controls us or tracks us or, you know,
makes our limbs do funny things like assassinate people.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yes, and? Fell back to Improv 101 there for a sec.
Another thing we have to point out here is that
there are a ton of conspiracy theories about smart dust. Also,
just to ruin everybody's evening, remember that every time you
smell something, in a way, your body is tasting it
(53:43):
and ingesting it. So, welcome to your next experience with
farts in an elevator. Smart dust, you guys, is the
focal point of so many conspiracy theories now and it
makes sense it's tied in with the idea of 5g
exposure right or chemtrail exposure and i genuinely believe this
(54:04):
can be an episode for us in the future uh
assuming that we don't get pod peopled by nanobots and
smart dust we kind.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
Of already are pod people ben that's sort of what
we do for a living i guess we're.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
We are potting. Yeah, you're right. We're casting these pods.
I mean, what would you guys do if you were
walking into, let's say, a public area, one that you
have to go to? So let's say, what if you
guys are... And Dylan, I want you in on this too.
What if you're walking into an airport, right? And along
(54:41):
with the non-smoking signs, don't bring guns, something like that,
you see a new sign that says... Please note this
area is under smart dust assisted surveillance. What would you do?
Speaker 7 (54:55):
God. Run.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Run away.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Matt runs. Okay.
Speaker 7 (55:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Noel, where are you at?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Oh, I'm running. I'm following Matt. Okay. He's faster than me.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
And as I go, I'd be like.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
There's smart dust in there.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Just like that.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
So the guys are running. Tennessee, what about you? What's
your take on smart dust?
Speaker 6 (55:18):
Well, imagine I'm rolling my suitcase and I read the
sign and I very smoothly turn around and walk out
the door.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
A real heel turn.
Speaker 7 (55:25):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Okay, little Ocean's Eleven, get away with the heist. Folks,
we're going to keep this part of the program short.
We have adventures ahead. We hope you do, too. We
cannot wait to hear more. what you would do in
a smart dust situation. And we do think it's an
episode in the future. In the meanwhile, we are off
(55:47):
to not to the gate. Shout out to Shen Yun
and pancakes. We didn't get to you, Saturn, but you're
on the way for next week. Shout out to Luke
in the bellows falls. We'll spoil that one later. Jai
Sri Ram Duke Nukem, of course, Megatron and Weshawan. We
cannot wait to hear from you fellow conspiracy realist, join
(56:08):
up with the cause. There are a number of ways
to contact us.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
There sure are. First and foremost, no, not foremost, but first,
chronologically speaking for right now, you can find us at
The Handel's Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show on your
social media platform of choice.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
I'm going to tell you the number to call, but Ben,
I'm in a rabbit hole now. I just did some
pretty standard searching on the internet for the terms that
you've been saying throughout this segment, and I'm finding CNN
articles from 2010 titled SmartDust aims to monitor everything. Articles
from 2013 from MIT Technology Review, how SmartDust could spy
(56:49):
on your brain. Good God, dude.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Well, maybe a God, but I don't know if it's good.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Oh, it's definitely a genie that we're racing to summon.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
Check out our episode on how recent technological breakthroughs are
making folklore real.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Hope you got your key of Solomon, and it's the
right one. Okay, you can call 1-833-STD-WYTK. That's our voicemail system.
You can be like the Duke himself. Just give us
a cool nickname so we can refer to you when
you call in, and let us know within the message
if we can use your name and message on the air.
(57:28):
If you want to send us an email, you can
do that.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back. Give yourself a cool nickname. Give us a
random fact. We'll do so in return. Quid pro quo, Clarice.
See you out here in the dark. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio.com.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal Fagin. Most importantly, you
are you, you are here. That makes this the Stuff
They Don't Want You To Know listener mail edition. If
you are tuning in to our listener mail program, The
Evening and Publishes, welcome one and all friends and neighbors
(00:51):
to September 17th. And we were talking... A little bit
backstage before we started rolling about all sorts of stuff,
magic cards, dentist visits, a couple of awesome recommendations for
good birthday dinners at restaurants. And guys, I got to tell.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
You, this.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Is it just me, or does it seem like the
year is moving more quickly as we get closer to
the end of December?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Are you talking about Virgin Voyage? I'm joking.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Oh my gosh, has no one heard about that? Wait,
can we joke about it now?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I think we must have to. I think there's no
way to not joke about it. And all I'm saying, Ben,
is that I am excited about that, and maybe that's
what's causing time to move a little fast. But you think,
doesn't that usually make time dilate, move a little slower
when you've got something you're looking forward to? I don't
know how it works. I agree with you, Ben.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
I do agree with you.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I hear you, man. That reminds me of that fascinating
quotation by Albert Einstein about relativity of time. It depends
upon whom you're hanging out with.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It depends on how much stuff you got to do, right?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It sure does, Matt.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And how much amphetamines you're on.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Right, yeah, and I'll be honest, I took a five-hour
energy drink just an hour or so ago, so hopefully
we can get this done in four hours.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I took a fistful of unknown pills. I found them
on the ground. Ground scores.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I took four soup spoons full of creatine.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Did you take the red pill, Matt? Did you take
both pills?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Did you take silly boils? The purple pill. And what
better way to celebrate this listener mail program than to
kick it off with our favorite pill to swallow, a
rutabaga pill.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
There we go.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
And now, a dramatic reading of a campaign donation text message.
Dear Your name here. It is with a heavy heart
that I send you this note today. Earlier this year,
I made a decision. As a lifelong rutabaga supporter, I
care about creating farming jobs, promoting rutabaga literacy, and lowering
the cost of vegetables at the grocery store. That's where
(03:11):
you come in.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Your name here.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
There are folks out there that want to give tax
breaks to the rutabaga hoarders and start wars with the
sweet potato industry that only drive up the prices of
both root vegetables. They tell terrible lies about me. One
congressman went on Starch News to call me a glorified
chickpea lobbyist. The stakes have never been higher. Can you
please rush $ 27 for my campaign? We only need one
(03:33):
more donation from your zip code. Please forward this message
to 10 people or you will have bad luck for
seven years. Donate at the link below and thank you.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Your name here.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Www.spam.untrustworthylookingurl.trackingid.notaffiliatedwiththiscandidate.you'llneverremoveyourselffromthislist.net Stop to end, but not really.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Now, Dylan, was that Ed Sheeran's official response or Macklemore's?
Speaker 7 (04:03):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (04:05):
Hey, man, big ups to Macklemore for speaking his truth.
I've clowned on that guy before, but.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
He's on the right side of history here, guys, I think.
I like that guy.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I don't know much about him. I just know that
I like thrift stores.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
You like poppin' tags. Yeah, you like poppin' tags.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And his real name is Ben, so I have to
recuse myself. I'm supervised.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
He is arguably a good Ben. Are you a good
Ben or a bad Ben? Guys, I recently... donated to
a campaign that i'm not going to say the name
of just for you know whatever reason um and i
boy oh boy am i getting blown up with all
kinds of nonsensical text messages like that you do one
good thing you try to help you try to make
a difference and they just push and they push and
(04:47):
you know what i did donate a second time um
so maybe it's working i don't know And it's all
like from him. It's like, hey, we really only need
five more dollars, you know?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, it's crazy because that's why. He keeps texting me
and he's like, hey, man, are Noel and I cool?
He hasn't been answering my text message.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It's really him?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Guys, isn't it hilarious to see ads from people like him? That,
you know, theoretically stand for the people and everything.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And then you see these ads and he's like, I'm... Hey,
look at me. You know what I did? I sponsored
legislation that isn't going to let the... It's going to
stop all of these insurance companies from not paying for
the stuff you need. And your mind just goes... But
you're still like in a way working with the insurance
companies and supporting the system. Yeah, why aren't you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Stopping the insurance companies? It's a lot like saying, hey, guys,
I'm working with, again, broken record. There's a reason. I'm working, again,
with the Fox community in charge of hen house construction. OK,
so give me some money and help me fight their
larger problems. fox friendly doors policies.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I mean i i guess i guess the reason today's
rutabaga just kind of resonated for me is because they're
all so shady it doesn't matter which side they're on
whether nobody nobody.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Is sending no politician is sending me a text saying
hey i really need to give you twenty dollars No.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Matter who they are.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
How about 5K?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Speaking of which, how about that Trump dividend? You think
he's going to come through on that one?
Speaker 6 (06:23):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I am Jack's lack of surprise. Shout out Chuck Palahniuk.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Look, all these glorified chickpea lobbyists out there looking for
their $ 27. They just need to get out of town.
But you notice that none of us are like, hey,
I'll run for office. I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Did it come up the last time that you can
absolutely make rutabaga hummus?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (06:45):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
I'm going to try it.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Please do.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Seems weird, but I'm going to try it.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
We also got a great update on salamander tacos.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Guys, before we jump in, I have to say one thing.
I was doing a little cleanup of the subscriptions, and
I decided to take a little break on the Hulu
Disney thing, but it still gave me, like, You know,
I have a certain amount of time left until my
subscription runs out. Doing a little browsing around there. Heard
a rumor, a little rumor about something. And I found
this show called The Unbelievable Encounters with Dan Aykroyd. And
(07:18):
I played the second episode. And what in the hell?
I saw a man that sits before me right now
on the television screen. And he was saying words about
Texas and a weird thing that happened at a supermarket.
And he was awesome.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Was it B.B.? It was BB. Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Oh, I'm blushing you guys. Uh, the yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I've heard of it right here. This is how much
Ben shares with us guys.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Sorry guys. Yeah, it's, it's true. Uh, we have, uh,
not just yours truly, but, uh, multiple members of our
cohort on a show, uh, helmed by the legendary Dan Aykroyd,
called the Unbelievable. Capital U, lowercase n, capital B, lowercase e-leavable.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It's all caps over here for me, Ben, but I
can't tell.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
All right. Well, we're obviously hired guns on this one.
Do check it out, and thank you so much for
the shout-out, guys. I will say the best part of
the show, in my opinion— is our own Holly Fry,
whom you can see on multiple seasons, multiple episodes.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I thought you were going to say Dan Aykroyd, but
now I like Holly too.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Dan's doing his thing.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Crystal Skull Vodka, shout out.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Dan, you know why when it comes between you and Holly,
we made the choice we did. But you were a
close number two, bro. We'll never get in trouble for that.
Throwaway comment.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah. Holly was great on there. Ben, are there any
other episodes besides Aftershocks that you're on?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
There may be several. Matt, I think there are eight now.
I don't know how many I am on or off,
but you might see us popping through as well as,
more importantly, Holly Fry and, of course, Dan Aykroyd, who
has done Several things.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
From Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (09:22):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yes. He has busted ghosts. He is a known buster
of ghosts. Busting makes him feel good. Yes. He's a
brother with the blues, for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Do you think they knew what they meant when they
wrote that in that song back then? Or has it
just taken on a new meaning? Did that not mean
the same thing back then? Because, man, that line is
raunchy now. It sure is.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It sure is. And we also, guys, we ran into,
quite recently... a massive wave of feedback when we were
talking about, I'm not sure how to say this. I
won't say iconic because that's unfair. when people have lost
their lives but recently we did a two chapter series
(10:04):
on the assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10th 2025
and I think you know this was very important to
all of us hopefully you listening as well and Noel
you pointed out in those episodes that we had not
really made space for each other to talk about this
(10:27):
in as much depth as we do. So maybe we,
maybe we answer some listener mail about the Charlie Kirk stuff.
What do you guys say?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Sounds good. I mean, if good is the right word,
we'll be right back. And guys, a happy Kirkiversary to
all who celebrate. Okay. I just had to say it
like that because, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Wild, dude.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
The internet is so mean-spirited. My kid turned me on
to this notion. There's an internet meme, Kirkiversary, that refers
to September 10th, the one-year anniversary of September 10th, 2025,
which just passed September 10th, 2026. And it's just, you know,
how the internet be pretty irreverent when these Gen Zs
(11:12):
think 9-11 not only was it an inside job, but
it's a funny, hilarious joke. And that is exactly how
they are treating The Assassination of Charlie Kirk. And the
interesting thing is my kid, who is not a mean-spirited person,
something that their cohort is aware of, was not aware
of the exploding mic theory, which is so interesting considering
how chronically online a lot of these kids are. And
(11:35):
it didn't seem like any of their friends knew much
about it. And it's kind of interesting that maybe it's
one of those Bader-Meinhof thing, but since we published that
two-part episode, I swear that theory has been getting a
ton more traction online or maybe, you know, algorithms be algorithming.
But I have been seeing so many more very convincing
(11:56):
commentaries about it. That comedian you mentioned, Matt, he keeps
popping up in my feed telling his tale or his
version of it. And I have seen a few new stories.
details discussed that I mentioned to you guys about Pete
Hagsgath and his plane having been flying under a banner. Yeah,
(12:18):
doing a flyover under a particularly sensitive designation. And guys,
I'm totally forgetting what it is, but it is apparently
something that can only be assigned by the president and
it's a particular type of mission that has like call
letters more or less. And supposedly... I have not been
able to confirm this, and I'd love to hear from y'all,
(12:39):
or if you guys have had a chance to look
into it. Pete Hagsgath, in this plane, not only picked
up Erica Kirk and brought her to a military installation, very,
very close to when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, but did
a flyover over that factory that exploded, that was responsible
(12:59):
for making all of that weapons-grade explosion.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Oh, the military in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
No, I saw you share something about that, and I
had never heard of that before. That is definitely like, her?
Why would that happen?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
There's nothing else around. Just to point out, there's nothing
else around that would be of interest for him to
be flying over, and the timing was literally almost like
while it was burning. And I'm sure we mentioned this,
but just to mention it one more time, everybody inside
of that building, this happened like during peak business hours,
office hours, guys. They all perished. Yeah. 16 people, I think.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yes, that's correct, 16.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
We're not saying they dropped a bomb or something, right?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
No, I just think they were trying to survey their
fine works, you know? I mean, I don't think they
dropped it from Hegsgeth Plain. I don't know if I'm
saying his name right, but I'm just saying they were
checking in and making sure it got did.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Like, theoretically to verify?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I really, I don't know, man. I'm sorry. You know
I don't go out for this stuff all the time,
a whole hog, these kinds of theories, but this one's
got me. It really does. The exploding Rode mic. Somebody
else pointed out something very interesting, that this particular device,
this Rode microphone, it does an interesting thing. It transmits
(14:11):
via Wi-Fi to a device that's recording externally, but it
also records simultaneously internally. Think about what could be done
with a high-quality digital audio file of the sound of
the impact of the bullet. Think of what we can
do with, uh, spectral analysis and things like that and
(14:31):
how you could, you know, think of what, uh, spot shot,
shot spotter type technology could do. What could you do
with an audio, um, file, high quality 32 point float, um,
which is like a really, really high resolution audio file. Um,
you could figure out the direction that the bullet came from.
You could figure out all kinds of crap. And why
(14:52):
are they not talking about the microphone? Um, Where the
hell is the microphone?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Genuinely, guys, I hadn't thought about the shot spotter of
it all. As in, like, potentially....
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
That's crazy. Well, I just wanted to lead off with
those things because they've been on my mind. And I've been, again,
this Bader Meinhof thing where it's like you talk about something,
all of a sudden you see it everywhere. But it
does feel like this... It's really starting to prick some
ears up in terms of like, I don't know, this
narrative doesn't make any sense. And again, I know the
algorithms work in mysterious ways. But my listener mail actually
(15:28):
comes from someone, a listener from Utah, who had some
interesting things to say about gun culture in that particular
neck of the global woods, as Ben would say. So
I'm going to read this. We'll chat a little bit
about this and see if we can kind of make
it jive with what we were just talking about.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Hello, I just finished listening to part one of your
Charlie Kirk episode and I wanted to provide some cultural
insight into why it could be very plausible that Tyler
Roberts could have easily shot Kirk from the distance that
he did. I currently live within just a couple of
miles from where Kirk was killed and can say it
was a weird couple of weeks after his death in
my community. While I attended college in Utah, I did
(16:08):
not attend school at UVA. I attended school at Southern
Utah University and Robinson is from Southern Utah. The culture
and people who live down there are very different than
those who live in Orem. Southern Utah has a lot
of smaller towns and a lot of agriculture, ranchers, and
other small town type things. Another thing that is very
much part of the culture in southern Utah is guns.
(16:30):
I have many cousins in that part of the state,
and they all started to shoot guns at a young
age and started hunting as soon as they were old
enough to do so, age 12 in Utah. Duck hunting
is very popular. So if Robinson was raised like a
lot of other people in the area, he very likely
grew up with guns and learned to shoot them at
a young age and even learned to shoot things from
quite a distance, such as ducks or clay pigeons. So
(16:53):
while I am not saying he's guilty as he hasn't
had his trial, I just wanted to provide context that
this isn't outside of the realm of possibility that he absolutely.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Knew what he was doing.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
And getting back to St. George from Orem takes less
than four hours on the freeway unless you stop to
pee in Fillmore. as the speed limit is 75 to
80 miles an hour, most of the way there. You
can share this on the show and you can call
me Weshawan. If you have any questions, let me know. Weshawan.
So I think a thing that maybe Weshawan was referring
(17:25):
to was we all kind of were a little skeptical
of like how maybe more of an amateur shooter. I mean,
I don't think anyone was saying that he couldn't have
had any skills that might have given him the ability
to land a shot from that distance. it's just still
the whole, like, disassembling of the rifle and reassembling of
(17:45):
the rifle and sticking it down his pant leg and
then putting it back together and leaving the screwdriver, all
of those details, not to mention that another interesting detail
that I've kind of come across recently, and we maybe
didn't quite talk about this, is my understanding that a bullet, a. 30- 06,
if I'm not mistaken, bullet, would have probably blown his
head off. Like, it would not have just, you know...
(18:09):
did an arterial spray. It just feels like it would
have done a whole hell of a lot more damage.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
It would have had to have been a graze.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
It would have had to have been a graze, a
perfect arterial graze that would have caused him to bleed
out in that fashion. Much like the bullet that supposedly
grazed Donald Trump's ear and then magically healed. I've heard
kayfabe talk that he had a razor in his hand.
Have you guys heard that theory? I have.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
What? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
That just relies on so much acumen and i'm gonna
be diplomatic for for a guy who is older and
is known for you know not being the most coordinated
on stairs that's good to be able to have the
timing to just real quick sleight of hand on the
(18:56):
earlobe that's that's a tall milkshake but i he.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Does love wrestling I know he really does.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
We love wrestling, guys. We also can't thank you enough
for your letter here because Utah, we'll just say Utah
right now. Utah, you raise a point that, like you
were saying, we didn't quite get to, which is for
anybody who spent time in that state or for anybody
(19:24):
who has family there. you know that firearms are definitely
a more normalized part of the culture than in, say,
Rhode Island or New York City. So it makes sense
that kids who are maybe even just in Boy Scouts
may train with firearms, that they may be more familiar
(19:48):
with them than the the average person that age of
that demographic in the other 49 states.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Well, and then that is, I guess, a thing that
maybe in the moment I perhaps dismissed. I can't remember
if I did, but Just the fact that if you
become a gun owner or if you're around guns a lot,
one of the things you learn is how to clean them.
If you're responsible and you're paying attention, you also learn
how to break them down. And if you are interested
(20:18):
in doing something that requires you to quickly assemble or
break down a weapon, you can teach yourself how to
do that simply through repetition. And, you know, you can
teach yourself to do most things simply through repetition.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Military drills, I mean, involve like quickly assembling and disassembling
your sidearm or your rifle, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
But I'm saying they're trained to do that. But if
you're just an interested party and you have a background.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
I just could see them being fascinated by that kind
of thing and then sort of learning it themselves or
maybe treating it with the same level of rigor, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Muscle memory, repetition, repetition. a boy scout badge you know
what i'm saying like why do you put it back
together level.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Why do you put it back together i don't understand
that part well was it him really showing off he's
like guys i really practiced i wanted to show you
that i.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Could we we also know um we we also know
to be clear here we we were quoting folks like
uh roger stone another political activist long time standing uh
People like Stone are the ones who cast doubt on
Robinson pulling the actual hit because they said this feels
(21:29):
too professional. Like you were saying, Noel, with the dismantling
of the firearm, with the reassembly, with the clear bug
out plan or the concept of a bug out plan.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Isn't it weird that it was Roger Stone that was
bringing up those things?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I appreciate that. Yeah, what I was like, there were
other people in the research, but that's one of the
most prominent folks I found. And again, we're looking for
the answers just like everybody else. I think one thing
that stood out to us for anybody who checks out
chapter two of that series is. is the repercussions and
(22:06):
recriminations against people just asking questions. The people who got
in trouble for talking about the Charlie Kirk assassination last year,
they were not all dancing on the grave of some
guy they never met or dancing on the grave of
some guy with whom they disagreed politically. There were people
(22:27):
who were just saying, hey, this official story doesn't add up.
And they got in trouble to the point where some
of them were booted out of the military. It's very
it's it's a very messy bowl of spaghetti.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
And back to the whole Kirkiversary thing. I mean, that
really is, you know, a lot of younger folks on.
TikTok and, you know, Instagram, um, really rolling the dice on, uh,
you know, the whole internet, you know, breadcrumb trail of
like being openly mocking of the assassination of a person. Again,
(23:01):
whether or not you respected that man, uh, he didn't
deserve to go like that.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
No, no.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Agreed. Agreed. And we have, uh, Noel, Matt, Tennessee, everybody
we have, so much more Charlie Kirk correspondence that I
think we're going to have to get to over the
following weeks and months, you know, because we have been
astounded and grateful and amazed for all of everybody who
(23:29):
took the time to write to us or to call
us or reach out on social media and give us
your takes because I think the question that we all
came out with at the end of that two-part series was,
You know, we came in skeptical, and then all three
of us ended up on some spectrum of, what if?
Speaker 3 (23:53):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Like, why this?
Speaker 7 (23:56):
Right?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
I think we all— we got at least to the point
where we could all agree it's weird that some of
these questions— could be answered with information that is usually
available in any homicide.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Where is the microphone, guys? We want to hear that
audio file. That's the most interesting bit.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Why is the information removed?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Why did they cement over the crime scene?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Hey, guys. I just noticed something.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Imagine in your mind a person that we've recently just
mentioned in this discussion.
Speaker 7 (24:33):
Mr.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Peter Brian Hegseth. Imagine him in your mind and then
realize that he is only a couple of years older
than us, like two to three years. No, one, two
to three years older than us. That man, when I
think about him and I see him on television, you
know what we need to do? Ben, I think we
(24:54):
need to follow your lead and we need to start
wearing suits because I think we would look, we would
look like We could be the secretary of war slash
defense if we put on suits.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Should we get Nazi tattoos while we're at it or no?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Oh, nope.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I can't do the tattoos.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
I know you can't.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Sorry, I should say I can't do Nazi tattoos. I mean,
tattoos in general I can't do, but also Nazi tattoos
are part of that category.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
That guy scares me, man. That guy is unhinged. They
all just seem so bug-eyed on amphetamines, man. It's a
thing to behold.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Well... It's also a thing that we are all consensually
or non-consensually experiencing together. It's so interesting to be in
the back rooms of our conversations before we record, folks,
because we are always comparing notes as we lead up
to episodes. We get into strange news. Did you guys
(25:53):
see this stuff about space being weaponized? We called it all...
our Kirk discourse off air has been one of my
favorite things.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
You guys, it's been weird. And, and weird is good here.
And this is a good, this is a safe space
for weird.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It's definitely weird.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
That's a good way to put it, Matt. Well, guys,
I actually had another email on, uh, the sort of
gentrification of Tai Chi, but I think I'm going to
save that one for next time. Um, because this one
went a little long. So you know what? Now I've
got next week's listener mail covered. But thanks so much, Weshuan,
for that insight about the gun culture in Utah. Let's
take a quick break, and we'll hear a word from
(26:32):
our sponsor, and then we'll come back with more weird
stuff in a safe space.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And we've returned. And guys, somebody back me up on this.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Ready? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Weshuan.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Weshuan.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Weshuan.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Weshuan. Weshuan.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Weshuan.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Is that what that's from?
Speaker 3 (26:53):
Weshuan?
Speaker 7 (26:54):
I don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Tell us.
Speaker 7 (26:55):
All right.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
But it works.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You guys, back in August, we heard from freaking Duke Newcomb.
And he told us of his personal experience as an
Air Force missile man, a missileer. In that episode, we
realized that the Duke had called us before way back
in 2024. And we had planned to air his original message,
but we never did. And we couldn't figure out why
(27:19):
within that episode. But we have good news. The Duke called.
has returned the call, and we're going to hear more.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Does the Duke abide, Matt?
Speaker 2 (27:26):
The Duke abides.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
He nukes them.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
That's right. When in doubt, I guess just.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Nuke it out.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Nuke them out.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Or at least, you know, be prepared to send out
nukes if necessary, as the Duke was. So let's jump
to him really quickly, and we'll see what he has
to say.
Speaker 7 (27:47):
Guys, Duke Nukem calling in. Duke of Kerrigan, apparently now
a recurring character in the stuff they don't want you
to know, Missileer's cinematic universe. Well, seriously, thank you for
airing my voicemail and spending so much time talking through it.
Hearing you guys react to my experience was incredibly cool,
especially after listening to you guys for so long. Glad
(28:07):
I could help kill the Hollywood idea that nuclear missiles
are launched by one guy slamming a giant red button.
But yeah, I lost it when you brought up my
older voicemail from 2024. about the weird stuff that sometimes
happened underground because I absolutely did call about that. Missile
crews had plenty of ghost stories and unexplained weirdness that happened.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
But one thing happened to me that I still can't explain.
Speaker 7 (28:32):
The capsule we worked in underground is basically a really
big heavy metal room suspended underground on really big springs,
technically an acoustical enclosure. One night I was on alert.
It was like three o'clock in the morning. I was awake.
My fellow missileer that I was working with was sleeping.
And something really hard hit the outside of the capsule
(28:54):
enough to actually sway the entire thing back and forth,
which is really not something you want your nuclear launch
centers doing. I went around to look afterwards because you
could actually inspect the outside of that. Did a little
reconnaissance and nothing. No impact, no debris, nothing. Absolutely nothing
that could explain enough force to make this massive capsule move.
(29:17):
Never actually figured out what caused it. So when you
guys looked up my old voicemail and found that it's
somehow been crossed out and read in your database and
nobody knew why, I'm just saying it's not really helping
the ghost theory. Apparently, whatever was haunting the missile field
that night also had admin access to your voicemail system.
The boring explanation is that we actually played phone tag
(29:38):
back then and never actually connected. So I never made
it on the show. But I definitely prefer the haunted
database explanation. Anyways, thank you guys again for airing this one.
It was really surreal, really fun hearing you guys talk
through it. I'm glad Duke Nukem finally made it onto
stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Have a great rest of your day, guys.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
Talk to you later.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Bye.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Aw, what a cool guy. Right?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Very cool human being. Former Air Force missileer. That's freaking sweet.
I don't know. I don't think I've met any other missileers.
Do you guys have any? Well, you obviously don't name names,
but do you have anybody that's worked in a Minuteman
system in your world? Well, guess what? Now we got
the Duke.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Guys, I got to mention, Ben, this is largely for
your benefit. Um, we did an episode of Ridiculous History
yesterday about, what'd you call them? The pocket nukes? No,
backpack nukes. I like pocket nukes.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
That'd be cool.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Let's miniaturize them one further. Um, just about sort of
the idea.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Uh-huh.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I'm sorry. Sorry.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
No, no, no. The idea of miniaturizing, you know, nuclear weapons.
and the movie, the 1990s action thriller Broken Arrow came
up in our conversation, and I promised Ben that I
was going to watch it yesterday, and I did. Did you? Yeah,
I sure did.
Speaker 7 (30:57):
Oh, man.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Speaking of launching a nuke with a big red button,
that's the kind of stuff you see in that movie,
and it's John Travolta doing it with a little remote control,
you know?
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, and he's not– he is at no point– in
that film in a massage parlor, from what I understand.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
No, but he is ripping cigs constantly.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
He is, because he's a bad guy.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
He's a bad guy.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Also, Noel, if you'll recall, and folks, if you'll recall,
I was a huge supporter of the Broken Arrow cinematic masterpiece.
It's no vibes, but it's out there. And I'm a
supporter of it, folks, because I am pro-clown. I support
the clown community. And it's so difficult for people like
(31:43):
John Travolta to make their way in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Oh, damn.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Yeah. So just for representation.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I thought he was pretty tough, Ben. I thought he
was pretty tough.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Dude, I freaking love that movie, genuinely. And it's because Mr.
Robot's in it himself, Mr. Christian Slater. I really like
that guy on camera.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
That dude rocks.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
He was great in Robin Hood.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah, he's a good protagonist. And I gotta say, I
love that John Travolta had this period of heel turn,
face off, where he was the baddie. But he was
the goodie with the baddie dressed up as him. with
a face off, whatever. Anyway, it's complicated.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
He's got the Nicholson thing.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
He sure does. Nicholas Cage, I think is what you mean.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Oh, I'm just going back to Christian Slater having his
Jack Nicholson vibe.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Oh, no, no.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
I was talking about John Travolta.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
I was talking about John Travolta being a bad guy.
He had like a brief period where he was playing
bad guys in his 90s.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Oh, yeah, like Faisal.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, Faisal. And also that The Broken Arrow, didn't realize
this is kind of a minor work of his, directed
by John Woo.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
I forgot that it was directed by John Woo and
it has some pretty cool action set pieces, uh, and
some pretty ridiculous dialogue, uh, and some very implausible, uh,
nuclear shenanigans. Um, but it's, it's worth a watch. I
enjoyed my time with broken arrow.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I'm so glad you followed through man in Duke Nukem. Also,
thank you for listening to our impromptu review of broken arrow.
Check it out. I'm sure you've seen it already. Uh, Guys,
I'm just so fascinated by this idea of supernatural events
at underground silos because we previously talked about unexplained events
(33:25):
in the sky around nuclear compounds and facilities, right? Launch sites.
But we haven't talked about ghosts in the deep. So
this feels like an episode in the future.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Dude, well, what could make impact like that and not
leave any kind of debris or mark.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
On the capsule?
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Especially with all the surveillance around it.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Well, I mean, I wish we had more information. Wait. Guys,
what if I found that old voicemail, the original Duke
Nukem voicemail?
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Wait, did you?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 7 (33:59):
That'll be easy. Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
The quality isn't as good, Duke. I think you called
with maybe a car involved or something, so it wasn't
quite as good as the sound quality on your update.
So we should take note of that. Everybody, if you
call in, please do it from a good sound space.
If you can.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
If not, that's fine. Oh, really quickly, Matt, before you
drop that bit of knowledge, I have to comment on
something that Dylan put in the chat. Have you seen
John Travolta's new look where he's in a beret period?
I'm just going to leave it there. Just look up
John Travolta's new look and you're going to be tickled.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Is this John Travolta now?
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Yes, sir, it is. He's in his beret period. That's
all I'm going to say.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
Oh, dear.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Oh, dear. Okay, well, shouldn't have looked at that. All right,
let's jump to Duke Nukem's original message.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
It's going to be your sleep paralysis demon now.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Just that smile.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
All right, here we go. Here is the original.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Hey, guys, long-time listener, first-time caller. You can call me
Duke Nukem. So I am a previous Air Force officer.
I worked in nuclear missile control and command. I was
technically an ICBM launch officer, specifically the Minuteman III missile.
(35:17):
So I was the one underground, 55 feet underground, and
we were there behind a 65-ton blast door for about
24 to 72 hours at a time. I wanted you
guys to think about what it was like for us
underground there, because it wasn't just checklist and procedure, but
there were a lot of stories about supernatural activity. That
(35:41):
happened in a lot of our missile alert facilities or
capsules that we hung out in. And things got super weird.
I did it for about five years. And this is
where it gets crazy. I actually had some experiences underground
of things that I couldn't explain. Wasn't sure if you
(36:02):
guys have heard about this, but a lot of these
missile silos, these alert facilities were built And they found
Indian burial ground. So that might contribute to some of
the weird things that happened. But specifically, I was on
alert one morning just up by myself. And our entire
(36:23):
capsule got knocked. And we were swinging because we're on
springs just in case there was like a nuclear war.
We would be able to do our jobs. But out
of nowhere, our entire capsule got hit. I investigated and
we were swinging and there was nothing there. There was
another story of a missileer looking across into the launch
(36:47):
control equipment building, which is outside of the blast door,
which is where our diesel generation comes from. And I
saw a little girl that threw a ball at them
and then disappeared. So not sure if you guys are
interested in like exploring this, but I know there has
been some supernatural activity that has been reported by missileers
(37:11):
that might be ghosts, but also extraterrestrial activity with the
nuclear sites and some nuclear launch facilities going offline. Just
wanted to give you guys a heads up that that's
actually a thing in our community. I am no longer
in the Air Force anymore, but this is something that
stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Oh, my God. I remember this clearly, guys. The way
Duke Nukem says... and ends his message with, this is
something that stuck with me. I was like, oh, it
really did. So, guys, just the idea that potentially where
these silos are built and having to go so deep
(37:51):
down in the ground, going into the ground means going
into history, right? That's kind of the whole thing of
searching for historical artifacts and buildings. It's all based on
going down. To find some stuff. So you can imagine
that maybe some of these places were built over quite
a bit of history or dug directly into some history
(38:12):
and or people. That's a weird thought. And what if
one of those people could haunt a place like that?
I don't know. It's weird to me.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Indeed.
Speaker 7 (38:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
So one last thing here, guys. We heard from our
good friend Megatron, our old pal. Now, nobody in the
Stuff They Don't Want You to Knowverse besides us knows
who Megatron is. He's been calling for quite a time,
for ages, and he never fails to bring the positivity,
(38:45):
and sometimes, as we're about to hear, the produce.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
So, guys, this is your old friend Megatron.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
I bought a pineapple and I let it sit in
the center of my table for a whole week.
Speaker 7 (39:00):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I bought a pineapple. I let it sit in the
center of my table for a whole week. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Well, what's it like at the top, guy? What's it
like at the top?
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, Megatron, you absolute legend. Thank you so much for
letting us know that you've reached the upper echelons of
society here. Now, Matt, riddle us this. Do you know
why the pineapple thing is a big deal?
Speaker 3 (39:30):
I do.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
I'm a, I, yeah, I've been on a couple of
cruises now and I've seen the pineapples on the doors
and they're upside down. And to my understanding, it's a
social status symbol.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Yeah. They used to like rent them out. We did
a ridiculous history episode on that years ago.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I'm just kidding, guys.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Yes, I know. You guys are.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Both right about the swinger iconography, which is true. And
you could see it even at grocery stores throughout the land.
But we're also right, like you were saying, Noel, and
as you know, Megatron, back in 2021, five years ago now,
we did a two-part episode on our sister show, Ridiculous History,
(40:15):
about pineapples being a weird thing. hyper-expensive cartoonish flex in
the European theater. And like you were saying, Noel, people
literally rented pineapples to put in the center of their
dining room tables. And Megatron, you are so far beyond
all those decaying aristocrats now because you bought a pineapple, bro.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
You own it.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Think of all the decaying pineapples. that sat on a
table for a week. They had to return them. Maybe
they were better pineapples back then, but, like, the ones now, that, ugh,
it'd be all gloopy and brownish and bad way.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, the only edible bromeliad. Also, one of the coolest fruits.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
And most delicious.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Folks, I know this program is audio, so please understand.
that when we said it's one of the best fruits,
we all paused and just solemnly nodded. Like we were
characters in Game of Thrones going, this is known.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Dylan just popped on to agree, I think, with that
and then popped right back off.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
He's popping it off.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
It's a pineapple guy.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
All right. Well, that's it for this segment of this
Listener Mail episode. We'll be right back with more messages
from you.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
And we have returned with the last act of our
weekly listener mail program. Apologies in advance, mea culpa. There
are some things we're not going to get to, but
don't think we don't read every piece of correspondence we receive. Guys,
I think what we should do first is introduce the
(42:06):
idea of dust. You guys remember dust, right? You guys
got dust?
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Like dust? Like particulates matter?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
The stuff in the air? The stuff coating all my stuff?
Speaker 4 (42:19):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
The stuff coating all your stuff.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
A lot of it's apparently dead skin.
Speaker 7 (42:25):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
A ton of it is dead skin. Check out our
underwater episode, by the way. We've got, you know, we
have our regular lives like anybody else. We wake up
at sunset and put our skin on one leg at
a time.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
And we all do that.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
We all do that.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
All of us.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
And we all still have to dust. Right.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Because I'm not wearing my bottom skin right now. Oh, man.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Well, you know, do you?
Speaker 3 (42:51):
It's the beauty of podcasting from home, man.
Speaker 6 (42:54):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Wait, wait.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Are you saying just your bottom or the entirety below
the waist?
Speaker 3 (42:59):
The equivalent of pants.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah. It's just, it's waist up podcasting.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Skin pants.
Speaker 7 (43:04):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Which was a myth in parts of Scandinavia. Well, we're
talking about dust today, not just in its... particulate general meaning.
We're also talking about a technology that has a lot
of people really worried. Let's go straight to our fellow
conspiracy realist, Jai Shri Ram. Jai Shri Ram says, Ben, Matt, Noel,
(43:32):
top of the morning to you, fellow conspiracy realist, and
a doff of the cap to thee. You say, I
recently discovered a technology called smart dust. As we all know,
advanced technology such as this has the potential for doing
great good because of the dual nature of this reality.
This technology also has the potential to be weaponized. I
(43:56):
am really curious about you all's take on this technology. Unfortunately,
I can see it as a potential threat to humanity
as a whole. Maybe you guys can help shed some
light on this topic and hopefully change my mind. I'm
trying to be optimistic. We're going to pause there. Beat
me here, Dylan. We are right with you. Jai Shrey Ram.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Ben, are we, is this like nano somehow tech?
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Ah, yes.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah. It's, uh, it's, uh, look guys, uh, it's, it's
everything that you're thinking from sci-fi and it's everything that
you love and hate about it. Uh, You know, it's
beautiful here, Matt, that Noel earlier mentioned our recent episode
(44:43):
on backpack nukes, right? It's counterintuitive for us to imagine
the USSR and the United States saying, okay, we can
build bombs as big as possible, but can't we make
them tiny? Can we get little tiny boys?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Shrink them on down.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Can we shrink them on down?
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Shrink them on down. I want to be able to
strap them to my junk.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
And smart dust is the end result of that kind
of reasoning. It's a system of tiny wireless micro electro
mechanical systems or MEMS or moats that are smaller than
a grain of sand that can be used for surveillance, uh,
for other stuff, uh, for any number of things.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Are we, how tiny we're talking?
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Like grain of dust, few millimeters. friends and neighbors, you
can like imagine, you know, we have talked off air
before about, especially during the lockdown evenings, we had talked
about making sure we could get good mesh networks, right?
When we were recording from home, imagine instead of a
(45:53):
mesh network, you get a spray bottle and the spray
bottle is a bunch of spark dust. You can just
sort of wish, wish, wish it around your crown molding.
maybe towards your computer. And all of a sudden that
will function as a wireless internet connection, perhaps stronger than, uh, yeah,
perhaps stronger than your typical wifi. Pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
I'm looking at a science.org article here from 2004. Right.
Talking about smart dust in a specific type called photonic crystals,
which is more of a, It's a sensor, right? But
it's not a device necessarily. It's a way to detect
if something chemical or something was present, right?
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
They're in this article. They're talking about dime-sized wafers. They're
talking about things that are getting smaller and smaller in 04.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
That article, I love that you're bringing up that one, Matt,
because that's Jamie Link is our journalist for that article
in science.org. And there's a line that should stand out
to everybody, wherein our journalist says, quote, the project, smart
dust project, developed in response to emerging national needs since
(47:12):
11 September. Interest in environmental surveillance technologies for homeland security
applications has increased dramatically. And folks like Matt said, that
was years back. So what's happening now? How smart is
the dust project?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
What the hell is environmental surveillance technologies? Are we talking
about anthrax and things, like trying to sense anthrax? If
it enters an area, now the dust in the air
turns purple, and you're.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Like, oh, shit.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
All of it.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
All of it, Kevin.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Or if there's thermite floating around downtown in New York.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
Okay, I like that application. But, Ben, I got to say,
when I saw your entry in the doc, for smart
dust in my mind, I was sort of thinking like
that technology. And I think it's called big hero six
about the robot kind of fluffy robot guy. And there
was the baddie essentially weaponized these tiny particles that could
join together to make like massive chains of things. When
(48:11):
I hear smart dust, I'm picturing dust that you could
deploy and then it could like kind of Voltron together
and become like a Megazord and like, you know, kill everyone.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Yeah. Grey goo kind of, Yeah. Nanobot Voltroning technology.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
That's right.
Speaker 7 (48:25):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Nanotech, yes. I love it, man.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah. It's also, without sounding too cynical, Bram, I know
that several of us in the crowd, when we first
heard the word smart dust, thought of things that very cool,
edgy people would use as a synonym for their drug
of choice. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (48:48):
I thought of Grey Goo, but I hear you, and
that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Go on, let Daddy get his smart dust.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Oh, it's the thing that guy Brad, our friend Brad,
that's the thing that he did in that one movie.
Didn't he do smart dust, and then he could do everything?
He was, like, limitless?
Speaker 3 (49:04):
He was. Is that the one where he was limitless? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
There wasn't a limit on that.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Other than the runtime. So we do have to dispel
some myths here. First off, this technology is very much real.
One of our friends in the the Rand Corporation, was
involved in early ideation about this. Yeah, we're saying friend
of as that's a legal requirement. It's not. We're just
(49:31):
spooked of it.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
We're just hedging our bets. It's like when we text
about AI, we try to stay polite.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
So the issue is, if you go to places like promwad.com,
real name, respectable outfit, they specialize in electronics design. And
as of January 2026, they put out this great article
that I think dispels some myths and also, more importantly,
(50:01):
tells us what we need to keep an eye on.
Here's how they put it. Every few years, the idea
of smart dust in some application comes back into the zeitgeist.
It gets wrapped up in these bold claims about invisible sensors,
autonomous swarms, the gray goo we mentioned earlier, a future
where everything is surveilled and measured at every possible metric,
(50:26):
at every possible moment. But the issue is the technology exists,
the prototypes exist, We have even seen early deployments of
smart dust, but it is not a silver bullet solution.
Just like backpack nukes, there are hard physical limitations, material
(50:47):
limitations on what we can do with this stuff now.
So read that if you want a little bit of
a cleansing cold shower as you're worried about smart dust,
but also folks acknowledge we have to, uh, People could
breathe this stuff in.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
I was about to say the same thing. Don't breathe
in too deeply while you're having your cleansing moment.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Asbestos was a miracle substance. Lead was a miracle substance.
Then we were awash in serial killers and mesothelioma. Now
we're looking at something that you could unknowingly breathe in
just by being in the vicinity of this thing and
(51:29):
Depending on the technology, you could become a carrier of this,
like another air transmissible disease. I mean, depending on how
they work the biotech, you could maybe potentially breathe it
in and become a factory for creating more smart dust.
(51:51):
I know, I know. But it's a society where people...
buy branded t-shirts. You buy a Nike t-shirt, now you're
doing their work for them.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Well, dude, it's fine, Ben. We'll all be strapped to
our chairs with our VR goggles on, just breathing smart dust,
pooping smart dust.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Our little finger, our little fist clickers, so we still
feel like we're doing something.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, yeah, it'll be fine. Meta will be able to
analyze our excrement and figure out what we want to
buy for lunch tomorrow and give us the right ads,
so it'll be fine. Ben, I watched one of my
favorite movies last night from, oh, I can't remember the
director's name. The movie's called The Host, Bong Joon-ho. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7 (52:35):
Phenomenal movie.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, it's great. And there's another one, another monster movie
like that out now called Hope that's supposed to be
really good.
Speaker 2 (52:41):
Oh, I can't wait to see that.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
But please, continue.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
But it reminded me of just the plot of that movie, Ben,
where there's this theoretical virus thing going around, but to
kill the potential virus that's there, they use a thing
called called Agent Yellow. Come on, a little on the nose,
Agent Yellow.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Translation, maybe.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
But it was definitely that kind of thing where either
the virus is going to kill you or the antidote
to the virus is going to kill you if you're
hanging around. Just thinking about all of us breathing something
that potentially either controls us or tracks us or, you know,
makes our limbs do funny things like assassinate people.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yes, and? Fell back to Improv 101 there for a sec.
Another thing we have to point out here is that
there are a ton of conspiracy theories about smart dust. Also,
just to ruin everybody's evening, remember that every time you
smell something, in a way, your body is tasting it
(53:43):
and ingesting it. So, welcome to your next experience with
farts in an elevator. Smart dust, you guys, is the
focal point of so many conspiracy theories now and it
makes sense it's tied in with the idea of 5g
exposure right or chemtrail exposure and i genuinely believe this
(54:04):
can be an episode for us in the future uh
assuming that we don't get pod peopled by nanobots and
smart dust we kind.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
Of already are pod people ben that's sort of what
we do for a living i guess we're.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
We are potting. Yeah, you're right. We're casting these pods.
I mean, what would you guys do if you were
walking into, let's say, a public area, one that you
have to go to? So let's say, what if you
guys are... And Dylan, I want you in on this too.
What if you're walking into an airport, right? And along
(54:41):
with the non-smoking signs, don't bring guns, something like that,
you see a new sign that says... Please note this
area is under smart dust assisted surveillance. What would you do?
Speaker 7 (54:55):
God. Run.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Run away.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Matt runs. Okay.
Speaker 7 (55:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Noel, where are you at?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Oh, I'm running. I'm following Matt. Okay. He's faster than me.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
And as I go, I'd be like.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
There's smart dust in there.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Just like that.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
So the guys are running. Tennessee, what about you? What's
your take on smart dust?
Speaker 6 (55:18):
Well, imagine I'm rolling my suitcase and I read the
sign and I very smoothly turn around and walk out
the door.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
A real heel turn.
Speaker 7 (55:25):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Okay, little Ocean's Eleven, get away with the heist. Folks,
we're going to keep this part of the program short.
We have adventures ahead. We hope you do, too. We
cannot wait to hear more. what you would do in
a smart dust situation. And we do think it's an
episode in the future. In the meanwhile, we are off
(55:47):
to not to the gate. Shout out to Shen Yun
and pancakes. We didn't get to you, Saturn, but you're
on the way for next week. Shout out to Luke
in the bellows falls. We'll spoil that one later. Jai
Sri Ram Duke Nukem, of course, Megatron and Weshawan. We
cannot wait to hear from you fellow conspiracy realist, join
(56:08):
up with the cause. There are a number of ways
to contact us.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
There sure are. First and foremost, no, not foremost, but first,
chronologically speaking for right now, you can find us at
The Handel's Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show on your
social media platform of choice.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
I'm going to tell you the number to call, but Ben,
I'm in a rabbit hole now. I just did some
pretty standard searching on the internet for the terms that
you've been saying throughout this segment, and I'm finding CNN
articles from 2010 titled SmartDust aims to monitor everything. Articles
from 2013 from MIT Technology Review, how SmartDust could spy
(56:49):
on your brain. Good God, dude.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Well, maybe a God, but I don't know if it's good.
Speaker 2 (56:57):
Oh, it's definitely a genie that we're racing to summon.
Speaker 1 (57:01):
Check out our episode on how recent technological breakthroughs are
making folklore real.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Hope you got your key of Solomon, and it's the
right one. Okay, you can call 1-833-STD-WYTK. That's our voicemail system.
You can be like the Duke himself. Just give us
a cool nickname so we can refer to you when
you call in, and let us know within the message
if we can use your name and message on the air.
(57:28):
If you want to send us an email, you can
do that.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back. Give yourself a cool nickname. Give us a
random fact. We'll do so in return. Quid pro quo, Clarice.
See you out here in the dark. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio.com.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!