November 25, 2021 • 51 mins
Anvil Alf relates his experience with lucid dreams. A caller asks for more information about the Knox Mine disaster. Skippy wants to know what exactly is going on over at the Idaho National Laboratory. All this and more in this week's listener mail.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is do they call
me Ben? We're joined as always with our superproducer Paul.
Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. It's the most wonderful time of the week, folks.
We are sharing correspondence from across the world from our
(00:46):
favorite people, your fellow conspiracy realists. This week's segment is
going to take us to some disasters. It's going to
take us to the edges of the science of the mind.
Because we've received so much fantastic correspondence about dreams. We
are also going to be diving into, um, several things
(01:09):
that don't make the news the way they should UM.
And and just to just to lay out the land
briefly here as we hurtle towards the end of the year, UH,
you may hear a few more listener male segments from
us as we get closer to twenty two. Um, I
think is what the kids are calling it nowadays. And
(01:30):
that's gonna be that's gonna give us a little bit
of time to go do all the familial and social
obligations that come at the end of the year. Uh.
And we hope that you enjoy them as much as
we enjoy making them. So with that in mind, uh,
now that we're in the holiday spirit, and um, we're
(01:52):
all very alexa play the Mountain Goats or whatever. Uh,
let's let's let's darken the palette a little bit more. Uh.
Let's talk about disasters, because there's so many that people
just never talk about. Right, Like you you might remember
big things like Pearl Harbor, you might remember disasters like
(02:13):
Chernobyl or whatever. But it turns out that human civilization
is just kind of a constant stream of things going
terribly wrong. Yeah, and to learn more about it, let's
go to this anonymous person who left us a message.
Good morning, afternoon, evening, sdd W I, d K crew,
(02:35):
whatever time you're listening to this. The girl has been
a small, medium sized mining area in northeastern Pennsylvania, and
there were two critical events that happens that put an
end to mining in that area, and number one would
be the nocks Mine disaster. There was a mind collapse
that bloody all of the minds in the area and
(02:57):
reader to useless from there. In the Nik's already there
was an event called the called their Mindsell. So what
that was was a a drainage hole that they opened
up to during these minds and it ended up getting
loaded with toxic industrial waste that company just kept dumping
(03:19):
into and it actually ended up being a super fun
site which was recently removed from the list. Definitely we're
looking into. I think it was a really interesting episode
and I'd love to hear about it, especially have my
small punt of it's been an old Forge reference. Feel
free to use this and my voice on the podcast
love listening to you guys. Get the episodes coming. Thanks. Yes,
(03:43):
anonymous person who lives somewhere in Pennsylvania. Uh, it's it's
so funny when I started looking into something like this,
I don't know why I spent way too much time
in Google Maps just to orient myself of the place
where things are occurring, because I have no idea what
it even means, what any of the proper nouns mean
where they are what it looks like. So I ended
(04:05):
up going here and guys, the area where this anonymous
person is from is right near Scranton, Pennsylvania. Yes, granted,
which was like Joe Biden's catchphrase when he was running
for president, Santon Scranton was like a It was like
Scranton was a baby he had just had. And when
(04:27):
you it's not a political point, but when whenever somebody
has had a child recently, you know, every conversation inevitably
leads back to that. And that was very much Biden
and Scranton. Yeah, I'm not taking digs at the guy,
but it's just like I thought for a second he
might be being paid to mention it like every time,
or what the campaign meeting was like. But Pennsylvania is
(04:51):
as a beautiful place. We've got a lot of listeners
in that state. Um, this may be a story that
a lot of people in Pennsylvania are from earlier with,
but I would be surprised if it's very familiar to
a lot of people outside of the area, you know
what I mean very much, So it's kind of a
local thing. Although the specific disaster that this anonymous person mentions,
(05:14):
the Knox Mind disaster, had a wide effect on the
coal mining industry in general, though as I've learned, it
wasn't like the thing that destroyed the industry altogether. It
was a large mixture of circumstances and events that cause
coal mining in that area to shut down to a
large extent. Right in this very very specific area that
(05:37):
we're talking about's called the Wyoming Valley, And if you
look on Google Maps, you can search for Scran that's
probably the easiest way to get there, and you will
see this interesting I don't know, it's kind of just
a splotch, a line of a splotch of civilization amongst
a whole heck of a lot of trees if you're
(05:57):
looking at it from far far above, And it runs
from a place called Nanticoke kind of in the southwest,
all the way up to the northeast to Carbondale, Simpson.
Those are the towns, and it is a really interesting
thing to see on a map and then to imagine
that this place it's it's kind of home. Well, much
(06:18):
of Pennsylvania is, but this particular place is home to
anthracite coal mining and that entire industry that existed in
their you know, late eighteen hundreds. I me existed there
even before that, but it was really thriving in the
eighteen hundreds and the early nineteen hundreds, right before World
War Two. So this thing, the Knox Mind disaster, occurred
(06:39):
on January twenty second, nineteen fifty nine. It was a
mine called the River Slope Mine in the Jenkins Township
of Pennsylvania. It's also near a place called Pittston and
another place called Port Griffith that is probably the closest
place to where this mine was located. In what happened,
(07:00):
so long story short, there is a large there are
several large and site coal mines that exist in this
area that you can kind of see where the civilization
is on the map. And the Susquehanna River runs right
down alongside where mine, where mines are on the east
bank and the west bank of that river. And the
operators of one of these mines decided that they were
(07:23):
going to illegally have their workers mine underneath the Susquehanna River.
This is a large river, lots and lots of water
flowing through it at all times. And when these workers
did this by the orders of their superiors, they unfortunately
dug a little bit too close to the riverbed and
water started pouring into the mine. And the reason why
(07:45):
it's a disaster is because that water flooded that mine
system and twelve individuals were killed. They were drowned and
locked in that mine. They were never recovered, and numerous
others were trapped in the mind for a long time.
Uh many of them did end up escaping, thankfully because
(08:07):
of the heroic efforts of one man. You can read
about all of this stuff if you search the Knox disaster,
you can find a place called Pagan p A G. E.
N web w eb dot org that has a really
nice rite up from an original article. It's very it's
rather short, actually, but you can but you can read
the original article there. You can also go to Knox
(08:28):
Mine disaster dot com. That's where you can find an
entire documentary that was produced about this disaster, about the
effects that it had on the coal mining industry overall,
and it even includes stories from people who were there,
which is a fascinating thing. In that documentary was produced
fairly recently and it's it's really great. The trailer at
(08:51):
lease makes it look really great and u heart wrenching.
Actually would recommend that highly. So what do you guys
think this Knox disaster. Really, it's a story of workers,
regular folks who are earning a living, doing their job
pretty good, living in the anticite coal mines around that time. Uh,
(09:13):
they were just told to do something that they knew
was probably not the right thing to do. But you
do it or you lose your job. And many of
them perished, and it really affected the whole place because
those minds, guys, are all connected, the ones I was
talking about. According to somebody I spoke with, I'll tell
you about in just a moment, the mind systems from
(09:33):
Port Griffith all along that Susquehanna River down to that
place that I mentioned, Nanticoke. Those mines were all flooded
because of this disaster. So it wasn't as though it
was one small thing, right. It's imagine a cave system
getting flooded completely because of the decision of some managers somewhere. Well. Uh,
(09:55):
first shout out to on a positive note, shout out
to the one and only on Ado Pankatti, who is
just as cool as his name sounds. I think that's
the hero they're describing. He Uh, he is a reason
that Uh sixty nine people were able to survive, and
he got a Carnegie Medal for it. But one of
the things we have to understand about this disaster is
(10:17):
that in this time, and this is preaching to the
choir for people in coal mining country in this time
met what you were describing as absolutely accurate. They if
they didn't do as they were told, then they were
kicked out of a job in an area where that
was one of the one of the only really solid
(10:39):
jobs you could have at the time. And so many
disasters in the world of mining occur across the world,
you know, because of safety standards, they cut into the
bottom line, and then as uh as the mind gets depleted,
they are increasingly dangerous methods to bring every last drop
of or out of it, every last pebble, I guess
(11:01):
is a better phrase. Uh. And often these things occur
without consequences. So the good news to anybody who was
just no hearing of this story is that there were
legal actions taken against what ten people. One of them
was the Mind superintendent. One of them, this was the
(11:22):
most interesting part to me about this guys. One of
them is a secret owner of the Mind. His name
is I guess j Lippy. We're not gonna keep him anonymous, right, Yeah,
you can imagine to hear that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
One thing I know for sure is that is one
haunted as abandoned mine right there. Well, much of it
remains flooded, and because they were never able to pump
(11:44):
the water out, they attempted, they spent a lot of
money attempting to pump the water out of there. Because
this disaster affected fifteen thousand jobs, that's a that is
a number. That's an estimate, right, But I get that
number from the Anthracite Heritage Museum there in Scrand, Pennsylvania,
from the curator John Fielding. I spoke with him for
(12:06):
quite a while just learning about some of this stuff,
and it really was a major thing because when you
think about the coal mining industry, it's not just the
people who are in the minds getting the coal out.
It's drivers, right, who are delivering that kind of stuff.
It's people who sell the coal. It's other industries like
that are attached directly to the coal industry. Yeah, yeah,
(12:31):
there's there's a lot, right, And I would just highly
recommend anybody who's interested. You can go to www. Dot
Anthracite That is a n T h R A c
I T E Museum dot org, and you can you
can learn really stories of individuals as well as the
(12:51):
industry as a whole, just like how that whole region
was developed because of this one thing basically that existed there. Yeah,
I have to point out, and I'm sure the curator
pointed this out too, but for anyone unfamiliar with the area,
this is only about an hour away from Centralia, Pennsylvania.
(13:12):
You guys, remember that that's the place that is still
literally on fire. It has been on fire since nineteen
sixty two, so just a few years after the terrible
events that we're mentioning in in this part of the show.
It's it's strange because you know, minors m I n e.
(13:33):
R S are some of the hardest working people historically,
and the health consequences can be pretty delatorious and damaging.
But um, there's a there's a bit of empathy. I
think that too often gets missed when people talk about
this industry. It is people's livelihood, you know. It's it's
(13:54):
not as if it's not as if you can tell
these thousands of folks stop what you're doing. You know
and go what become a ping pong champion or something.
So the people who are working in these minds and
have worked in these minds are very much not the enemy.
They're just people who are trying to make a living.
(14:15):
If you feel like, um, the mining practices do need
to be eliminated, which will inevitably occur, at least in
the world of coal mining. UM. If you feel those
practices need to be eliminated, then the best way to
bring that idea into a reality is to start at
the top. Don't vilify the people who are just like people.
(14:36):
Don't wake up and say I can't wait to go
hundreds of feet underground. I am so pumped, you know. Um,
that's just to note I want to make because mining
has really mining has left permanent, permanent effects on this
country and many others. Um. I just don't think the
average person is a villain. They're usually not. They've been
(14:59):
watching them in the series on Hulu I think called
Dope Sick. Uh. It's about the Sackler family and you
know the oxycotton opioid epidemic and all that, and obviously
a place that was hit very very hard by that
was West Virginia, which is a you know, coal mining country,
and one of the main characters in the show gets
(15:20):
in an accident, um in a coal mining situation and
ends up you know, addicted to OxyContin um. So I
mean it's a very inherently dangerous profession um not to
mention the conditions and you know the long term effects
of breathing in all of that, all of those materials.
So you know, you're absolutely right. Certainly not would be
(15:41):
someone's first choice, but people that are in that profession
are very proud of it. And then there's often like
multigenerational families um that have you know, mined for coal
for for many generations. And so when you start to
see that kind of legacy um industry dry up, While
it makes sense on a environmental level, it's certainly sad,
(16:03):
and it's not like people look like you said, then
people have some other option or they're like, given, oh sorry,
we're taking your your whole industry is gone, but here's
another option for you. That's not usually how it works.
It's the same with like textile factories. You know, during
the housing crisis, you know, literally dried up entire towns economies.
(16:24):
So it's very sad. I agreed, we have to end
this segment. Guys, just really quickly to hit the Butler
Tunnel thing. You can learn about that as well. I
would head to Greater Pittston. That's p I T T
S T O N Progress. You can search for that
and you can find a story. They're titled Butler mind
Tunnel Contamination Revisited at Mining History Month program. It's really
(16:46):
interesting there you can just read a bit about it.
You can also head over to e p A dot
gov and see the story about how it was removed
from the list of the nation's most contaminated sites, which
is very interesting. Because last thing, guys, if you are
looking at that Google Maps and you follow the Susquehanna
River north from Port Griffith, which is where the Fort
(17:09):
Knox disaster occurred, you just follow it just a little
bit north. You will see some weird orange red stuff
coming into the Susquehanna River and that is coming from
the Lackawanna River. And that if you continue following up
the Lackawanna River to where it ends, is where the
Butler Tunnel disaster occurred. Where the dumping was occurring that
(17:34):
has caused the river to literally turn that color. According
to John at the museum, that is actually what it
looks like. It's not some trick of the satellite imagery
or something like that. It's actually orange. The rocks are
colored orange, and it's because of iron and other things
that were inside these mines where other toxic materials were
(17:55):
dumped or just left when a company shut down, and
then when flooding occurs or when there is a lot
of water coming through the areas in those mines get
you know, like runoff water basically in them. It flushes
that stuff out into the river system. But according to
the e p A, everything's fine. You don't have to
worry about it anymore. And they're kind of right at
least according to their own logic and the readings that
(18:17):
have been coming out of that area. It's still very
striking to look at all. Right, that's an anonymous color.
We hope you have a wonderful day. They're in Pittston
and we'll be right back with more messages from you.
And we're bad with another message. This one comes from listener.
(18:40):
Anvil alf I'm trying to picture that is it's like
an anvil in the shape of of alf. The cat
eating uh space creature from from nineties sitcom Fames Watch
alf Oh yeah, what was this deal? Was there? Was it?
Was it Spencer? There's a nerdy kid named Spencer. Was
that the dad? I don't remember anyway, I can't believe
(19:02):
that show less as long as it did. Who what
was that pitch meeting? Like? What a fun idea. I
think there was a probably a lot of cocaine. I
mean because his main his main character flaws that he
can and will eat any cat. Yeah, it's pretty dark, Yeah,
pretty dark. But it came right before Unsolved Mysteries, which
(19:24):
it was searing your toes in the paranormal that it
was a nice segue. It's one of those shows where
it's like it was a little too like goofy for
adults and a little too adult for kids, and yet
somehow it succeeded far way longer than I would have thought. Anyway,
and the alf Right Ty Ben, Matt and Nold. I'm
a longtime listener and fan of the show, podcasting show
(19:44):
after show as I renovated my house here in Oxfordshire. Uh,
your big ticket shows are great, but I also find
your views of current world news fascinating. From your side
of the pond, especially the recent political shenanigans in the US,
well balanced opinions bouncing off each other in an inner
retaining way. Good job, well, Gee, thanks, and well Alf,
that's very kind, he goes on. Back in the early
(20:06):
nineteen seventies, I was at university in Swansea, Wales. I
started lucid dreaming. Um. It was great, free entertainment. Every
night I could pick up on a good previous dream,
steer my dreams and wake myself up if things got
out of hand. I knew I was dreaming, but brighter, sharper,
more real than a normal dream. Not uncommon, but one
(20:29):
of my favorite dreams was flying, breathing in to go up,
out to go down, swooping around and around, so all good.
I would regale my dreams, meeting the duck people and
such light to my housemates as we drove into college
in the morning, much to their amusement. This one morning
we drove into college as normal, I found a parking
place and not always easy. I ran into the lecture hall,
(20:50):
got a seat in the middle, found my pencil tuned
into the lecture. Then I woke up. Wow that was odd.
Not much fun. There, so set off to colloge again,
got into the lecture, found my place, lecture started, woke
up again three times in a row, groundhog day. I
then began to doubt whether I was awake or not anytime.
(21:11):
I stopped walking along the nearby cliffs, as I had
massive urges to jump off and fly as I did
in my dreams. But now I wasn't dreaming, was I?
I was really freaked out. It was like my brain said, Okay,
you have fun at my expense, try some of this.
I switched off the dreaming by repeating you will not
(21:31):
dream over and over again in my head. I started
lucid dreaming by repeating I will dream, I will dream.
For the record, I wasn't on drugs, just plenty of beer.
For a long time, I didn't dream or remember any dreams.
And now my dreams are the normal fuzzy mix of stuff,
and I'm quite happy with that. I thought it my interest.
You use any you wish on the show. Props. Cheers
(21:55):
anvil elf. I guess we just found a potential drawback
of ucid dreaming. Guys, well that's it. That is astonishing,
and I've never heard that before. A three X Groundhog
Day style like scenario happening on repeat, um, especially with
something as mundane as waking up doing a regular routine,
(22:17):
being at the place you're supposed to be at, then
it happening again and again and again. That's weird. I mean,
props to UH anvil Alf for figuring out how to
steer it and control it and you know, seemingly having
such a handle on the whole process. I mean that
sounds fascinating and then it would be a lot of fun.
But I think, you know, some of the research into
it that we've been talking about, UM, and also I
(22:38):
think the last email that we got about lucid dreaming
was you know, it led us to discuss how lucid
dreaming and UH night terrors or you know, sleep paralysis
where kind of two sides of the same coin in
a weird way that like, you know, the the sleep
paralysis was almost a nightmarish form of lucid dreaming. This
is somewhere in the middle. It really makes me think
(22:59):
of like the nightmare on elm Street movies, you know,
where the characters don't know they're dreaming until something kind
of spooky happens and then all of a sudden. You know,
the audiences included into the fact that they're dreaming. Um
this I don't know, Like this would really wreck my
brain and make me really paranoid. Uh if if this
was happening to me, what do you think, ben? Uh? Yeah,
(23:20):
most reoccurring dreams or recurring dreams are the typical scientific
assumption is that they are revealing the presence of an
unresolved conflict or a source of stress, which is why
so many recurring dreams are unpleasant. Uh this this idea,
(23:41):
they can recur multiple times in one sleep cycle. Uh.
You know, because you don't remember most of your dreams
if you're human. Everybody does. The vast majority of humans
tend to enter that state just uh not everybody brings
those stories or those experiences back with them as efficiently
(24:01):
to the waking world. So I would be interested and
the alf to hear um and to hear a little
bit more about your sleep schedule and about how how
you typically find yourself waking up. Because most people don't
sleep the solid aid all the time, you have these
moments where you're a little closer to the waking world.
(24:22):
And that's where things like lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis
can occur. Your muscle antonia may not all be all
the way activated. So it may be that there was
something in your subconscious that was very much bothering you.
And remember that part of the mind speaks in its
(24:43):
own language, with its own logic and syntax, and it's
all based on symbols, and those symbols. Don't let dream
dictionaries fool you. Those symbols are not necessarily universal. They
are culturally based and individually um accented like language. So
you may have in your in your experience, your brain
(25:06):
may have been trying to tell you something and now
it's just a matter of sort of the other part
of your mind decoding what the sleeping you was trying
to was trying to tell you. And yes, kudos to
taking agency over your over your experiences. UM. I tend
(25:26):
to think that a lot of people have recurring dreams.
One thing that's interesting about this too, and it's somewhat related,
is I would love to hear from anvil alf and
from you, Matt. And you know, have you had periods
of time where you find yourself waking up at a
very specific like a specific time, like you know, you
go through a run of three months where at least
(25:49):
once a week or waking up at exactly three thirty
seven am. Things like that. No, I'd be weird, though
I've never really had any experience like this. UM it's
fascinating to me and one of my favorite musical artists
of all time, Richard D. James or Aphex twin UM.
He talks about experimenting with lucid dreams, but he's also
a notorious troll with interviews and hates doing him and
(26:10):
often just kind of like, you know, pulls the leg
of whome embers interviewing him. But he did specifically refer
to using lucid dreaming in the creation of his album
Selected Ambient Works, Volume two, which is like super you
know like that the title suggests very like, you know,
dream like ambient soundscapes with kind of alien you know,
pitched vocals and just super bubbly, lovely stuff, really great
(26:33):
to fall asleep to. A handful of tracts though, are
more like hearing you towards the nightmare side of things.
But he specifically talks about UM learning how to lucid dream,
coming up with compositions in his dream, and then forcibly
waking himself up and then trying to recreate the compositions
from his dream in the real world. Uh. And Ben,
You've mentioned in the past, you know, the idea of
(26:55):
um writers using lucid dreaming to kind of create, you know,
a aguitative scenarios as well. So I just thought this
was a neat analog to that. Yeah, and Matt, I'm
so interested in that earlier question. Did you ever experience this,
like waking up at the same moment? Yeah, yes, definitely
around three am is when I generally will wake up.
(27:18):
It's not a very specific you know, new number right
like three seventeen or something, but right around three am.
Always after never at to something. It's always after three am,
within give or take fifteen minutes. Um. Yeah, I don't know,
but I've certainly never had this thing where it's like
my daily routine. You know, Like if you guys, imagine
(27:40):
us like waking up, driving to the studio, getting inside,
sitting down with all three of us in the studio
that we start rolling and then you wake up, and
then you do it again, and then you wake up,
and then you do it again and you wake up
until you That would mess me up. I wouldn't know
if this was an actual conversation or just my dream
versions of y'all that I'm conversing with. Oh yeah, you
(28:00):
gotta wake up now, man. No, shoot, you gotta have
like a safe word, you know, like a like a
wake up word. Um. That's that's that's what they call
it with Siri and other smart devices that want a
wake word, which is the word that you say that
that causes the device to start listening even though you
know who knows all the time. So they're dreaming the
(28:21):
whole time. They're not they're in dream stasis, yeah, exactly,
and they're potentially dreaming of electric sheep. I would go
with Cthulhu. They're dead and dreaming. You know, it doesn't
take as much as you think to wake him up.
Just say the magic words. We're getting closer and closer
to the Arthur C. Clarke quote, where in, uh, sufficiently
(28:42):
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So strange when you
think about it that way. You're casting spells with that's
what voice activation is. But yeah, this is uh, Alf,
you gotta right back and let us know if you
have had some of these experiences that were mentioning or
were exploring here. I do want to say this is
(29:05):
not an imperative thing, but it would be an interesting
experiment if you were to get yourself into that liminal
state between waking and sleep that's when imaginations are super active,
and then try to take yourself back to that routine, right,
and see how far you can get the story to go.
(29:27):
That's one of the problems the Groundhog Day, right, He's
trying to figure out how far he can take this
existence before the clock resets. Also shout out to one
of my favorite underrated sketch groups, Chris and Jack. If
you're listening, guys, great job on your Groundhog Day sketch.
(29:47):
Did I send that to you? Guys? I was really
not supposed those books. Oh it's great. It's great Alph.
You'll love it too, Chris and Jack. They're not paying
me to say it. Chris and Jack Groundhog Day. Well,
everyone google that as well, and then we can all
enjoint together during this commercial break and we be back
with one more piece of listener mail, and we have returned.
(30:14):
We're going to hear something pretty interesting that might be
new to a lot of people from our pal Skippy. Hey, guys,
it's Skippy, you guys are good to use my voice
on air. Live in southeastn Idaho, we have a place
called the I n L, the Idaho National Laboratory, and
I've met a few people. I've even worked closely with
(30:35):
a few people who who have either done work out
there or actually work out their full time. They have
offices in a town called Idaho Falls, and the secrecy
that surrounds this particular laboratory is almost as intense as
Area fifty one. A good friend of mine, without hunting
(30:56):
one bright fall morning, uh and wandered onto I n
L land. He's in his full hunting get up and
he was about uh not a twenty minute walk. He
didn't realize that he was on their land, and twenty
(31:16):
minutes after he crossed what they told him later was
the line. A UH darkened suv, big off roading suv
pulled up. Some guys in security uniforms got out, asking
what he was doing. As he told him who he was,
escorted him off off the land and told him that
if he UH did it again that there would be
(31:39):
no warning that he would be prosecuted to the full
extent of the law, with no explanation as to why
or anything like that, and then they got in the
vehicle and left. Next day he got a phone call
from He wasn't sent sure who it was it was
calling him. They told him that he uh. Basically, they
(32:02):
just reiterated the same thing you told him. You're not
allowed to go back out there. It happens again, still
get arrested. I'd love for you guys to go into
the history, because some of the listeners out there obviously
aren't going to know the history behind this place. But
I'd love for you guys to dig into it and
talk about this on air. The secrecy behind this particular
(32:23):
national laboratory is intense. Again, my name is Skippy, and
you guys are amazing well Chucks, thank you Skippy. This
is you're spot on about how obscure this is going
to be for a lot of people, and I would
argue that as partially by design. Before we dive in,
(32:44):
Noel Matt, had either of you heard of this laboratory before.
I'm saying laboratory because it sounds fancier. That's the only
reason sounds scarier when you say laboratory, sound like the
way you know Dr Frankenstein might say it let's lean
into it. Just say, like laboratorium. I want to say
we encountered this a while ago when we were doing
(33:06):
something on nuclear energy or nukes. You're right, you're right.
Established by the Atomic Energy Commission in the hub of
Atomic Innovation in the United States, of course to the
Atomic Heritage Foundation website, right, yeah, And I think I
have a link there in in our doc if if
(33:27):
you want to pull that up here. So here's the deal.
This place is part of the d Oe Department of Energy,
and it is a huge deal to the US, and
it's a huge deal globally. And they're messing with things
that people literally don't understand, which is part of what researches,
(33:50):
you know what I mean. They're not like the dwarves
delving too deep and Lord of the rings there. They're
working on very important, mission critical stuff for the future
of energy. And if the world does say goodbye to
Cole completely, doing a callback, guys, that's what you call
it in the business. Uh. If Cole has ever fully
(34:12):
gone from the world, the Idaho National Laboratory will play
a part in that. It has there there were like
fifty two reactors there. It's it has had the highest
density of nuclear reactors on the planet. All but three
were I think eventually decommissioned. So why why this secretsy?
(34:33):
If you go to their website, there's something really interesting,
which is you can you know, you can learn about
the history of the site, which we'll get into in
a sect. You can learn about what they're working on now.
But some links on the website are dead. The website
links that pertain to national security do not work, which
(34:56):
is not a good look if you're trying to quell
people's fear and suspicions. It has also been the site
of um of a tremendous disaster. It wasn't until when
federal authorities when public and admitted that in two radiation
(35:16):
and chemicals probably killed people in relation to this. Uh.
It's the kind of thing that if you are a
foreign operator or sometimes they're called collectors, which is somehow
even more creepy to me. If you're a foreign collector
or operator and you're a spy, this is one of
(35:38):
like the top places on your tour of the US.
And this is the kind of like the level of
skill that these folks are functioning at becomes in I
hate to say it, but it becomes inherently conspiratorial because
so few people know how to do what these folks
are doing. It's kind of like how a q con
(36:00):
almost single handedly spread nuclear weaponry around the world. And
they do, you know, they do important peaceful stuff, fuel
cycle research, development, trying to make the next iteration or
the next innovation in nuclear reactors, light water reactors. We
talked about those before. Shout out to who was a Haliburton. Uh.
(36:22):
They also they are working on cybersecurity and working on
national security, working on nuclear non proliferation ideas, and that
gets that gets really sticky very quickly. You know. So
this is a Tom Waits, what's he building in their situation?
The truth of the matter is that it's very difficult
(36:43):
to tell from the outside. And although the show is
against censorship, I don't know about you guys, but I
have to admit you probably have to have it that way.
Probably can't have, you know, somebody popping on Instagram and
going out, O we we thought we knew what we
were doing with the reactor. It blew up l M
A O U. Or we've we've made a new propulsion system.
(37:06):
Can't wait to get this firework popped off, you know
what I mean, Like they can't talk about that and
they can't publicize it. And I would also posit, Skippy
that in your friends defense, it doesn't matter what it
was wearing, you know what I mean, Like did the
hunting gear help? Maybe not? Maybe not? But did the uh?
(37:27):
But would it have mattered if you was, you know,
addressed as a stormtrooper or doing a Naruto run or
something like that. It doesn't. Uh. It's these places are
very very tight security. I think mentioned before. A good
friend of ours on the show went to Roswell went
(37:47):
to went to Groom Lake with his brother on a
road trip and they almost got shot. They stopped at
the sign where it says, you know, you can't go
past this point. They stopped their truck and they got
out and they were just looking around because when are
we going to be here again? And that's when they
saw the glint of what was probably a sniper scope.
And then that's also where they got almost run off
(38:08):
the road by a military vehicle and they didn't even
cross the trespassing line. So I would say, be very
very very careful with that stuff. And it's got a
men in black situation, which is another cool part of
the story, Skippy, although it is spooky admittedly for these
other folks to come back the next day and just
(38:29):
say and just see, no, we weren't kidding, like on
the off chance he thought, Ah, that's no big deal,
I'm gonna be back there again. I wonder how many
people have been in a situation where you get a
follow up like that because they I'm sure they did
an extensive background check on the guy too, you know
(38:49):
what I mean, And if he had ever traveled like
Tearran in the past, the conversation might have gone differently.
I completely agree. One of the only things that's really
sticking in my mind right here is the size of
the laboratory because if you again look, I'm sorry I'm
so Google centric today, but if you search for it,
(39:10):
it shows you this one lab, like it's clearly a
large building that is a lab that is there in Idaho,
in Idaho Falls, I think, um, But on their website
they say they have an eight hundred and nineties square
foot laboratory, like whatever, that means eight hundred and nine
(39:30):
square foot And this person that we're hearing from trespassed
on land. So I'm trying to figure out where all
this square footage is, right, like, where actually is this place?
Because I can't find it? And maybe that's the point. Yeah,
that's that's kind of the point. It's it's uh, it's
a different approach from the from the window List building
(39:54):
in Manhattan. But it is supposed to it is supposed
to be difficult to find, and and it's important it's there.
It's been It was originally an artillery range in the
nineteen forties and it predates the events of Pearl Harbor.
But it makes sense to have something like that located
where it is because it's not by the coast, it's
(40:16):
difficult to get there. It's in the heartlands, the interior
of the country. Um. And if anything, it's kind of
surprising that it is so public facing and you can,
you know, go to their website and learn so much
stuff about it, because because it seems like it could
have been easy for this facility to be secret, the
(40:36):
way that so many other nuclear research initiatives were conducted
in secrecy, like entire towns didn't officially exist. We did
an episode on that. Um. Yeah, I don't know, I
I don't know whether you can get a tour yet. Skippy, though,
I am going to give it the old college try.
(40:56):
It's just amazing that they do so much stuff, all
so hybrid energy systems, robotics, nuclear waste processing, uh, bio energy.
I mean, what are they up to? All right? What
are they building in there? Uh? Not to answer your question,
they do have a a large desert location somewhere, but
(41:18):
somewhere probably don't want to skip these friends to tell us.
Mm hmmm. Well, there's a weird i'm gonna call it
a splotch again of kind of a dark area near
Atomic City out there, and there's a place called Atomic City.
And I'm wondering if that's like a part of their
(41:39):
thing or just something completely different. Uh. Yeah, it's just
it's just to the west of where Idaho falls, that
area that that Skippy was describing. I don't know, it's
weird stoic city. Yeah, it's a great name. Uh. And
if you go to Atomic City today, I think there's
(42:00):
like one store and a couple of rundown houses and
the place no longer sell even sells gasoline because there
was a nuclear explosion in nine and most people got
out of Atomic City. How is that? Yeah, it's big whoops. Um.
But if you want to look at some of the
more I guess sinister allegations, sinister by which I mean
(42:24):
not unfortunate accidents skippy, but stuff that they're accused of
doing on purpose, by design, I would direct your attention
to the New York Times two thousand eleven article wherein
they said that the Idaho National Laboratory UM was instrumental
(42:46):
in the creation of something called stucks net. So it's
weaponizing nuclear non proliferation and stucks net. Stucks. That was
like a Lamborghini of malware. Man, it was. It was
a Mona Lisa of malware. It was you know, an international,
an international initiative. But there is controversy. The New York
(43:09):
Times usually get stuff right. There's controversy because so the
official statement of the I n L is no way ted.
We did not create stucks net. We we are just
trying to defend from things, to defend the US against
things like that if someone else happened to build them.
(43:32):
But the best way to defend oneself against things of
that nature is to build the things the offensive side
of it and then just reverse engineer from there. Right, Um,
So I don't buy it. I don't know. What do
you guys think? You think they're on the up and up?
Is it like how actors can't say when they have
a cameo in a Marvel movie until it comes out.
(43:54):
I think, Jeff, they always do. They always screw it up.
Oh my god, you guys, Yeah, I have to tell
you this. I think I think there's stuff going on.
But then to your to answer your question that they
just can't talk about. There's some weirdness because it's advanced
energy systems as well. Like I know they have a
(44:15):
clear focus on nuclear energy, but it feels to me
that they've got other things maybe going on because they
are directly involved with the Center for Advanced Energy Studies,
which is like a you know, a whole bunch of
different people doing R and D for that. But they've
got again I'm gonna harp on it. This whatever, this
square mile thing is where they can just test stuff out.
(44:39):
And I was looking around on Google Maps. This is
my mantra for the day that I was looking around
on Google Maps. I found a thing called the E
B R DASH I I or two and the MFC.
They're out in the middle of this desert area that
is pretty immediately to the west of the laboratory and
(44:59):
it look expand like that's where the stuff happens. Mm hmm,
I see, that's where the nuclear sausage gets ground. Yeah. Yeah,
you know what you what else you might see here?
Because I was trying to find one of like the
craziest things and one one story I found that really
stood out and I thought you guys, as fellow fans
(45:21):
of cryptids, would be interested in this. There was a
mountain lion in Collie cougar that was discovered in the
area with a second set of teeth growing out of
its skull. And this was not alleged. The animal was
hunted and someone got it. They bagged it, and they
brought it in. And this, uh, this is a pretty
(45:42):
highly developed, very distinct kind of deformity, but it can
happen with a lot of living creatures. Uh. The I'm
laughing because this is this is almost like the three
eyed fish in the Simpson's kind of situation, because there
are people that are convinced that radiation from the I
(46:05):
N L had somehow contributed to this. So radioactive critters
are in the mix too. If you find the you know,
if you find the right speculative forums. I don't know.
I don't know if that's the truth, because as we've
seen again in like the Chernobyl example, uh, there's not Unfortunately,
(46:27):
radiation when it does cause mutations, it doesn't cause like
the cool X Men style mutations. There aren't any flying
mountain lions. There aren't any mountain lions that can turn
to steel or have laser eyes instead. Animals tend to,
you know, get the short end of the stick man um.
(46:50):
I would also be I wanted to say that, like,
would you guys be concerned about living next to something
like that? Absolute? Yeah, for sure. E b R, by
the way, is experimental breeder reactor, and number two is
the second one. Number one is just just down the
desert from there. And I would not want to live
anywhere near where the first experimental reactors are being created.
(47:14):
That's true, that's true. Do you want to live in
the testing site? That's a really good point. And the
decommissioned dB R two, I think, but but still it's Uh,
if something goes wrong and you decommission the thing, that
doesn't automatically mean that it's fine to live there again.
And I don't think i'd want a second set of teeth.
(47:36):
I don't know about you, guys. I think it might
be for some people, but that's nightmare fuel for me. Yeah,
thank you. But we're seeing the inside of a goose's mouth.
That's gross. Yeah, it's offensive. Teeth on the roofs of
the roofs of their mouths, and it's pure nightmare fuel. Yeah.
I don't know why might take away from this story
is now I find the mouth of geese offensive. I
(47:59):
just it's it's wrong. You know, it shouldn't be happening.
Is that real? Yeah, No, it's true, like their beaks
or they actually have teeth. Yeah, it's like teeth on
the inside of their mouths. Swans, I think it's swans.
I think it's I think it's geese too. I think
it's multiple birds. And now we officially are gonna blame
(48:22):
the Idaho National Laboratory for the entire thing. Excuse me, laboratory. Um,
but this does, this does put us in a great
spot to highlight one of the profound dilemmas of this
sort of work. Someone inevitably is going to do it.
Would you rather it be you? Or would you rather
it be some other country? Right? And it's it's very
(48:46):
much a devil you know situation, and it's very much
a nimby situation. Not in my backyard. There's there's not
really an easy way around it. That's why these things
are often put in. That's why these things aren't always
put in uh bustling metropolis like Los Angeles or New York.
But their home to their own creepy stuff as well
(49:08):
as any long time fellow conspiracy realist is well aware.
Uh Skippy, thank you so much for writing in. We're
going to maybe return to this in the future because
there is a great deal of history in in the
world of nuclear proliferation, in the world of nuclear research
(49:29):
that remains untold in the modern day, and it is
often literally the stuff they don't want you to know.
So I suggest we pause the conversation for today. We're
gonna be back very soon. I can't wait to hear
your thoughts on the stories that anonymous anvil alf and
Skippy himself shared with us today. Uh, and tell us
(49:51):
about the weird sketchy things in your neck of the woods.
We're sure they're out there. We try to make it
easy to find us online. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube at the handle conspiracy Stuff. You can find
us a conspiracy stuff show. Yes, yes, remember that YouTube
Conspiracy Stuff. Go there, check out the videos. They're so great.
(50:13):
And if you want to leave us a voicemail, just
the way Skippy and Anonymous left, you can call one
eight three three st d w y t K. Please
give yourself a cool nickname. Let us know whether or
not we can use that name and your message on
the air in one of these episodes. And hey, you've
got three minutes say whatever you'd like. We were just
(50:33):
tickled to hear your voice. Thanks for doing it. And
if you've got more to say than can fit into
that three minutes, please instead send us a good old
fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Yeah.
(51:03):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is do they call
me Ben? We're joined as always with our superproducer Paul.
Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. It's the most wonderful time of the week, folks.
We are sharing correspondence from across the world from our
(00:46):
favorite people, your fellow conspiracy realists. This week's segment is
going to take us to some disasters. It's going to
take us to the edges of the science of the mind.
Because we've received so much fantastic correspondence about dreams. We
are also going to be diving into, um, several things
(01:09):
that don't make the news the way they should UM.
And and just to just to lay out the land
briefly here as we hurtle towards the end of the year, UH,
you may hear a few more listener male segments from
us as we get closer to twenty two. Um, I
think is what the kids are calling it nowadays. And
(01:30):
that's gonna be that's gonna give us a little bit
of time to go do all the familial and social
obligations that come at the end of the year. Uh.
And we hope that you enjoy them as much as
we enjoy making them. So with that in mind, uh,
now that we're in the holiday spirit, and um, we're
(01:52):
all very alexa play the Mountain Goats or whatever. Uh,
let's let's let's darken the palette a little bit more. Uh.
Let's talk about disasters, because there's so many that people
just never talk about. Right, Like you you might remember
big things like Pearl Harbor, you might remember disasters like
(02:13):
Chernobyl or whatever. But it turns out that human civilization
is just kind of a constant stream of things going
terribly wrong. Yeah, and to learn more about it, let's
go to this anonymous person who left us a message.
Good morning, afternoon, evening, sdd W I, d K crew,
(02:35):
whatever time you're listening to this. The girl has been
a small, medium sized mining area in northeastern Pennsylvania, and
there were two critical events that happens that put an
end to mining in that area, and number one would
be the nocks Mine disaster. There was a mind collapse
that bloody all of the minds in the area and
(02:57):
reader to useless from there. In the Nik's already there
was an event called the called their Mindsell. So what
that was was a a drainage hole that they opened
up to during these minds and it ended up getting
loaded with toxic industrial waste that company just kept dumping
(03:19):
into and it actually ended up being a super fun
site which was recently removed from the list. Definitely we're
looking into. I think it was a really interesting episode
and I'd love to hear about it, especially have my
small punt of it's been an old Forge reference. Feel
free to use this and my voice on the podcast
love listening to you guys. Get the episodes coming. Thanks. Yes,
(03:43):
anonymous person who lives somewhere in Pennsylvania. Uh, it's it's
so funny when I started looking into something like this,
I don't know why I spent way too much time
in Google Maps just to orient myself of the place
where things are occurring, because I have no idea what
it even means, what any of the proper nouns mean
where they are what it looks like. So I ended
(04:05):
up going here and guys, the area where this anonymous
person is from is right near Scranton, Pennsylvania. Yes, granted,
which was like Joe Biden's catchphrase when he was running
for president, Santon Scranton was like a It was like
Scranton was a baby he had just had. And when
(04:27):
you it's not a political point, but when whenever somebody
has had a child recently, you know, every conversation inevitably
leads back to that. And that was very much Biden
and Scranton. Yeah, I'm not taking digs at the guy,
but it's just like I thought for a second he
might be being paid to mention it like every time,
or what the campaign meeting was like. But Pennsylvania is
(04:51):
as a beautiful place. We've got a lot of listeners
in that state. Um, this may be a story that
a lot of people in Pennsylvania are from earlier with,
but I would be surprised if it's very familiar to
a lot of people outside of the area, you know
what I mean very much, So it's kind of a
local thing. Although the specific disaster that this anonymous person mentions,
(05:14):
the Knox Mind disaster, had a wide effect on the
coal mining industry in general, though as I've learned, it
wasn't like the thing that destroyed the industry altogether. It
was a large mixture of circumstances and events that cause
coal mining in that area to shut down to a
large extent. Right in this very very specific area that
(05:37):
we're talking about's called the Wyoming Valley, And if you
look on Google Maps, you can search for Scran that's
probably the easiest way to get there, and you will
see this interesting I don't know, it's kind of just
a splotch, a line of a splotch of civilization amongst
a whole heck of a lot of trees if you're
(05:57):
looking at it from far far above, And it runs
from a place called Nanticoke kind of in the southwest,
all the way up to the northeast to Carbondale, Simpson.
Those are the towns, and it is a really interesting
thing to see on a map and then to imagine
that this place it's it's kind of home. Well, much
(06:18):
of Pennsylvania is, but this particular place is home to
anthracite coal mining and that entire industry that existed in
their you know, late eighteen hundreds. I me existed there
even before that, but it was really thriving in the
eighteen hundreds and the early nineteen hundreds, right before World
War Two. So this thing, the Knox Mind disaster, occurred
(06:39):
on January twenty second, nineteen fifty nine. It was a
mine called the River Slope Mine in the Jenkins Township
of Pennsylvania. It's also near a place called Pittston and
another place called Port Griffith that is probably the closest
place to where this mine was located. In what happened,
(07:00):
so long story short, there is a large there are
several large and site coal mines that exist in this
area that you can kind of see where the civilization
is on the map. And the Susquehanna River runs right
down alongside where mine, where mines are on the east
bank and the west bank of that river. And the
operators of one of these mines decided that they were
(07:23):
going to illegally have their workers mine underneath the Susquehanna River.
This is a large river, lots and lots of water
flowing through it at all times. And when these workers
did this by the orders of their superiors, they unfortunately
dug a little bit too close to the riverbed and
water started pouring into the mine. And the reason why
(07:45):
it's a disaster is because that water flooded that mine
system and twelve individuals were killed. They were drowned and
locked in that mine. They were never recovered, and numerous
others were trapped in the mind for a long time.
Uh many of them did end up escaping, thankfully because
(08:07):
of the heroic efforts of one man. You can read
about all of this stuff if you search the Knox disaster,
you can find a place called Pagan p A G. E.
N web w eb dot org that has a really
nice rite up from an original article. It's very it's
rather short, actually, but you can but you can read
the original article there. You can also go to Knox
(08:28):
Mine disaster dot com. That's where you can find an
entire documentary that was produced about this disaster, about the
effects that it had on the coal mining industry overall,
and it even includes stories from people who were there,
which is a fascinating thing. In that documentary was produced
fairly recently and it's it's really great. The trailer at
(08:51):
lease makes it look really great and u heart wrenching.
Actually would recommend that highly. So what do you guys
think this Knox disaster. Really, it's a story of workers,
regular folks who are earning a living, doing their job
pretty good, living in the anticite coal mines around that time. Uh,
(09:13):
they were just told to do something that they knew
was probably not the right thing to do. But you
do it or you lose your job. And many of
them perished, and it really affected the whole place because
those minds, guys, are all connected, the ones I was
talking about. According to somebody I spoke with, I'll tell
you about in just a moment, the mind systems from
(09:33):
Port Griffith all along that Susquehanna River down to that
place that I mentioned, Nanticoke. Those mines were all flooded
because of this disaster. So it wasn't as though it
was one small thing, right. It's imagine a cave system
getting flooded completely because of the decision of some managers somewhere. Well. Uh,
(09:55):
first shout out to on a positive note, shout out
to the one and only on Ado Pankatti, who is
just as cool as his name sounds. I think that's
the hero they're describing. He Uh, he is a reason
that Uh sixty nine people were able to survive, and
he got a Carnegie Medal for it. But one of
the things we have to understand about this disaster is
(10:17):
that in this time, and this is preaching to the
choir for people in coal mining country in this time
met what you were describing as absolutely accurate. They if
they didn't do as they were told, then they were
kicked out of a job in an area where that
was one of the one of the only really solid
(10:39):
jobs you could have at the time. And so many
disasters in the world of mining occur across the world,
you know, because of safety standards, they cut into the
bottom line, and then as uh as the mind gets depleted,
they are increasingly dangerous methods to bring every last drop
of or out of it, every last pebble, I guess
(11:01):
is a better phrase. Uh. And often these things occur
without consequences. So the good news to anybody who was
just no hearing of this story is that there were
legal actions taken against what ten people. One of them
was the Mind superintendent. One of them, this was the
(11:22):
most interesting part to me about this guys. One of
them is a secret owner of the Mind. His name
is I guess j Lippy. We're not gonna keep him anonymous, right, Yeah,
you can imagine to hear that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
One thing I know for sure is that is one
haunted as abandoned mine right there. Well, much of it
remains flooded, and because they were never able to pump
(11:44):
the water out, they attempted, they spent a lot of
money attempting to pump the water out of there. Because
this disaster affected fifteen thousand jobs, that's a that is
a number. That's an estimate, right, But I get that
number from the Anthracite Heritage Museum there in Scrand, Pennsylvania,
from the curator John Fielding. I spoke with him for
(12:06):
quite a while just learning about some of this stuff,
and it really was a major thing because when you
think about the coal mining industry, it's not just the
people who are in the minds getting the coal out.
It's drivers, right, who are delivering that kind of stuff.
It's people who sell the coal. It's other industries like
that are attached directly to the coal industry. Yeah, yeah,
(12:31):
there's there's a lot, right, And I would just highly
recommend anybody who's interested. You can go to www. Dot
Anthracite That is a n T h R A c
I T E Museum dot org, and you can you
can learn really stories of individuals as well as the
(12:51):
industry as a whole, just like how that whole region
was developed because of this one thing basically that existed there. Yeah,
I have to point out, and I'm sure the curator
pointed this out too, but for anyone unfamiliar with the area,
this is only about an hour away from Centralia, Pennsylvania.
(13:12):
You guys, remember that that's the place that is still
literally on fire. It has been on fire since nineteen
sixty two, so just a few years after the terrible
events that we're mentioning in in this part of the show.
It's it's strange because you know, minors m I n e.
(13:33):
R S are some of the hardest working people historically,
and the health consequences can be pretty delatorious and damaging.
But um, there's a there's a bit of empathy. I
think that too often gets missed when people talk about
this industry. It is people's livelihood, you know. It's it's
(13:54):
not as if it's not as if you can tell
these thousands of folks stop what you're doing. You know
and go what become a ping pong champion or something.
So the people who are working in these minds and
have worked in these minds are very much not the enemy.
They're just people who are trying to make a living.
(14:15):
If you feel like, um, the mining practices do need
to be eliminated, which will inevitably occur, at least in
the world of coal mining. UM. If you feel those
practices need to be eliminated, then the best way to
bring that idea into a reality is to start at
the top. Don't vilify the people who are just like people.
(14:36):
Don't wake up and say I can't wait to go
hundreds of feet underground. I am so pumped, you know. Um,
that's just to note I want to make because mining
has really mining has left permanent, permanent effects on this
country and many others. Um. I just don't think the
average person is a villain. They're usually not. They've been
(14:59):
watching them in the series on Hulu I think called
Dope Sick. Uh. It's about the Sackler family and you
know the oxycotton opioid epidemic and all that, and obviously
a place that was hit very very hard by that
was West Virginia, which is a you know, coal mining country,
and one of the main characters in the show gets
(15:20):
in an accident, um in a coal mining situation and
ends up you know, addicted to OxyContin um. So I
mean it's a very inherently dangerous profession um not to
mention the conditions and you know the long term effects
of breathing in all of that, all of those materials.
So you know, you're absolutely right. Certainly not would be
(15:41):
someone's first choice, but people that are in that profession
are very proud of it. And then there's often like
multigenerational families um that have you know, mined for coal
for for many generations. And so when you start to
see that kind of legacy um industry dry up, While
it makes sense on a environmental level, it's certainly sad,
(16:03):
and it's not like people look like you said, then
people have some other option or they're like, given, oh sorry,
we're taking your your whole industry is gone, but here's
another option for you. That's not usually how it works.
It's the same with like textile factories. You know, during
the housing crisis, you know, literally dried up entire towns economies.
(16:24):
So it's very sad. I agreed, we have to end
this segment. Guys, just really quickly to hit the Butler
Tunnel thing. You can learn about that as well. I
would head to Greater Pittston. That's p I T T
S T O N Progress. You can search for that
and you can find a story. They're titled Butler mind
Tunnel Contamination Revisited at Mining History Month program. It's really
(16:46):
interesting there you can just read a bit about it.
You can also head over to e p A dot
gov and see the story about how it was removed
from the list of the nation's most contaminated sites, which
is very interesting. Because last thing, guys, if you are
looking at that Google Maps and you follow the Susquehanna
River north from Port Griffith, which is where the Fort
(17:09):
Knox disaster occurred, you just follow it just a little
bit north. You will see some weird orange red stuff
coming into the Susquehanna River and that is coming from
the Lackawanna River. And that if you continue following up
the Lackawanna River to where it ends, is where the
Butler Tunnel disaster occurred. Where the dumping was occurring that
(17:34):
has caused the river to literally turn that color. According
to John at the museum, that is actually what it
looks like. It's not some trick of the satellite imagery
or something like that. It's actually orange. The rocks are
colored orange, and it's because of iron and other things
that were inside these mines where other toxic materials were
(17:55):
dumped or just left when a company shut down, and
then when flooding occurs or when there is a lot
of water coming through the areas in those mines get
you know, like runoff water basically in them. It flushes
that stuff out into the river system. But according to
the e p A, everything's fine. You don't have to
worry about it anymore. And they're kind of right at
least according to their own logic and the readings that
(18:17):
have been coming out of that area. It's still very
striking to look at all. Right, that's an anonymous color.
We hope you have a wonderful day. They're in Pittston
and we'll be right back with more messages from you.
And we're bad with another message. This one comes from listener.
(18:40):
Anvil alf I'm trying to picture that is it's like
an anvil in the shape of of alf. The cat
eating uh space creature from from nineties sitcom Fames Watch
alf Oh yeah, what was this deal? Was there? Was it?
Was it Spencer? There's a nerdy kid named Spencer. Was
that the dad? I don't remember anyway, I can't believe
(19:02):
that show less as long as it did. Who what
was that pitch meeting? Like? What a fun idea. I
think there was a probably a lot of cocaine. I
mean because his main his main character flaws that he
can and will eat any cat. Yeah, it's pretty dark, Yeah,
pretty dark. But it came right before Unsolved Mysteries, which
(19:24):
it was searing your toes in the paranormal that it
was a nice segue. It's one of those shows where
it's like it was a little too like goofy for
adults and a little too adult for kids, and yet
somehow it succeeded far way longer than I would have thought. Anyway,
and the alf Right Ty Ben, Matt and Nold. I'm
a longtime listener and fan of the show, podcasting show
(19:44):
after show as I renovated my house here in Oxfordshire. Uh,
your big ticket shows are great, but I also find
your views of current world news fascinating. From your side
of the pond, especially the recent political shenanigans in the US,
well balanced opinions bouncing off each other in an inner
retaining way. Good job, well, Gee, thanks, and well Alf,
that's very kind, he goes on. Back in the early
(20:06):
nineteen seventies, I was at university in Swansea, Wales. I
started lucid dreaming. Um. It was great, free entertainment. Every
night I could pick up on a good previous dream,
steer my dreams and wake myself up if things got
out of hand. I knew I was dreaming, but brighter, sharper,
more real than a normal dream. Not uncommon, but one
(20:29):
of my favorite dreams was flying, breathing in to go up,
out to go down, swooping around and around, so all good.
I would regale my dreams, meeting the duck people and
such light to my housemates as we drove into college
in the morning, much to their amusement. This one morning
we drove into college as normal, I found a parking
place and not always easy. I ran into the lecture hall,
(20:50):
got a seat in the middle, found my pencil tuned
into the lecture. Then I woke up. Wow that was odd.
Not much fun. There, so set off to colloge again,
got into the lecture, found my place, lecture started, woke
up again three times in a row, groundhog day. I
then began to doubt whether I was awake or not anytime.
(21:11):
I stopped walking along the nearby cliffs, as I had
massive urges to jump off and fly as I did
in my dreams. But now I wasn't dreaming, was I?
I was really freaked out. It was like my brain said, Okay,
you have fun at my expense, try some of this.
I switched off the dreaming by repeating you will not
(21:31):
dream over and over again in my head. I started
lucid dreaming by repeating I will dream, I will dream.
For the record, I wasn't on drugs, just plenty of beer.
For a long time, I didn't dream or remember any dreams.
And now my dreams are the normal fuzzy mix of stuff,
and I'm quite happy with that. I thought it my interest.
You use any you wish on the show. Props. Cheers
(21:55):
anvil elf. I guess we just found a potential drawback
of ucid dreaming. Guys, well that's it. That is astonishing,
and I've never heard that before. A three X Groundhog
Day style like scenario happening on repeat, um, especially with
something as mundane as waking up doing a regular routine,
(22:17):
being at the place you're supposed to be at, then
it happening again and again and again. That's weird. I mean,
props to UH anvil Alf for figuring out how to
steer it and control it and you know, seemingly having
such a handle on the whole process. I mean that
sounds fascinating and then it would be a lot of fun.
But I think, you know, some of the research into
it that we've been talking about, UM, and also I
(22:38):
think the last email that we got about lucid dreaming
was you know, it led us to discuss how lucid
dreaming and UH night terrors or you know, sleep paralysis
where kind of two sides of the same coin in
a weird way that like, you know, the the sleep
paralysis was almost a nightmarish form of lucid dreaming. This
is somewhere in the middle. It really makes me think
(22:59):
of like the nightmare on elm Street movies, you know,
where the characters don't know they're dreaming until something kind
of spooky happens and then all of a sudden. You know,
the audiences included into the fact that they're dreaming. Um
this I don't know, Like this would really wreck my
brain and make me really paranoid. Uh if if this
was happening to me, what do you think, ben? Uh? Yeah,
(23:20):
most reoccurring dreams or recurring dreams are the typical scientific
assumption is that they are revealing the presence of an
unresolved conflict or a source of stress, which is why
so many recurring dreams are unpleasant. Uh this this idea,
(23:41):
they can recur multiple times in one sleep cycle. Uh.
You know, because you don't remember most of your dreams
if you're human. Everybody does. The vast majority of humans
tend to enter that state just uh not everybody brings
those stories or those experiences back with them as efficiently
(24:01):
to the waking world. So I would be interested and
the alf to hear um and to hear a little
bit more about your sleep schedule and about how how
you typically find yourself waking up. Because most people don't
sleep the solid aid all the time, you have these
moments where you're a little closer to the waking world.
(24:22):
And that's where things like lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis
can occur. Your muscle antonia may not all be all
the way activated. So it may be that there was
something in your subconscious that was very much bothering you.
And remember that part of the mind speaks in its
(24:43):
own language, with its own logic and syntax, and it's
all based on symbols, and those symbols. Don't let dream
dictionaries fool you. Those symbols are not necessarily universal. They
are culturally based and individually um accented like language. So
you may have in your in your experience, your brain
(25:06):
may have been trying to tell you something and now
it's just a matter of sort of the other part
of your mind decoding what the sleeping you was trying
to was trying to tell you. And yes, kudos to
taking agency over your over your experiences. UM. I tend
(25:26):
to think that a lot of people have recurring dreams.
One thing that's interesting about this too, and it's somewhat related,
is I would love to hear from anvil alf and
from you, Matt. And you know, have you had periods
of time where you find yourself waking up at a
very specific like a specific time, like you know, you
go through a run of three months where at least
(25:49):
once a week or waking up at exactly three thirty
seven am. Things like that. No, I'd be weird, though
I've never really had any experience like this. UM it's
fascinating to me and one of my favorite musical artists
of all time, Richard D. James or Aphex twin UM.
He talks about experimenting with lucid dreams, but he's also
a notorious troll with interviews and hates doing him and
(26:10):
often just kind of like, you know, pulls the leg
of whome embers interviewing him. But he did specifically refer
to using lucid dreaming in the creation of his album
Selected Ambient Works, Volume two, which is like super you
know like that the title suggests very like, you know,
dream like ambient soundscapes with kind of alien you know,
pitched vocals and just super bubbly, lovely stuff, really great
(26:33):
to fall asleep to. A handful of tracts though, are
more like hearing you towards the nightmare side of things.
But he specifically talks about UM learning how to lucid dream,
coming up with compositions in his dream, and then forcibly
waking himself up and then trying to recreate the compositions
from his dream in the real world. Uh. And Ben,
You've mentioned in the past, you know, the idea of
(26:55):
um writers using lucid dreaming to kind of create, you know,
a aguitative scenarios as well. So I just thought this
was a neat analog to that. Yeah, and Matt, I'm
so interested in that earlier question. Did you ever experience this,
like waking up at the same moment? Yeah, yes, definitely
around three am is when I generally will wake up.
(27:18):
It's not a very specific you know, new number right
like three seventeen or something, but right around three am.
Always after never at to something. It's always after three am,
within give or take fifteen minutes. Um. Yeah, I don't know,
but I've certainly never had this thing where it's like
my daily routine. You know, Like if you guys, imagine
(27:40):
us like waking up, driving to the studio, getting inside,
sitting down with all three of us in the studio
that we start rolling and then you wake up, and
then you do it again, and then you wake up,
and then you do it again and you wake up
until you That would mess me up. I wouldn't know
if this was an actual conversation or just my dream
versions of y'all that I'm conversing with. Oh yeah, you
(28:00):
gotta wake up now, man. No, shoot, you gotta have
like a safe word, you know, like a like a
wake up word. Um. That's that's that's what they call
it with Siri and other smart devices that want a
wake word, which is the word that you say that
that causes the device to start listening even though you
know who knows all the time. So they're dreaming the
(28:21):
whole time. They're not they're in dream stasis, yeah, exactly,
and they're potentially dreaming of electric sheep. I would go
with Cthulhu. They're dead and dreaming. You know, it doesn't
take as much as you think to wake him up.
Just say the magic words. We're getting closer and closer
to the Arthur C. Clarke quote, where in, uh, sufficiently
(28:42):
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So strange when you
think about it that way. You're casting spells with that's
what voice activation is. But yeah, this is uh, Alf,
you gotta right back and let us know if you
have had some of these experiences that were mentioning or
were exploring here. I do want to say this is
(29:05):
not an imperative thing, but it would be an interesting
experiment if you were to get yourself into that liminal
state between waking and sleep that's when imaginations are super active,
and then try to take yourself back to that routine, right,
and see how far you can get the story to go.
(29:27):
That's one of the problems the Groundhog Day, right, He's
trying to figure out how far he can take this
existence before the clock resets. Also shout out to one
of my favorite underrated sketch groups, Chris and Jack. If
you're listening, guys, great job on your Groundhog Day sketch.
(29:47):
Did I send that to you? Guys? I was really
not supposed those books. Oh it's great. It's great Alph.
You'll love it too, Chris and Jack. They're not paying
me to say it. Chris and Jack Groundhog Day. Well,
everyone google that as well, and then we can all
enjoint together during this commercial break and we be back
with one more piece of listener mail, and we have returned.
(30:14):
We're going to hear something pretty interesting that might be
new to a lot of people from our pal Skippy. Hey, guys,
it's Skippy, you guys are good to use my voice
on air. Live in southeastn Idaho, we have a place
called the I n L, the Idaho National Laboratory, and
I've met a few people. I've even worked closely with
(30:35):
a few people who who have either done work out
there or actually work out their full time. They have
offices in a town called Idaho Falls, and the secrecy
that surrounds this particular laboratory is almost as intense as
Area fifty one. A good friend of mine, without hunting
(30:56):
one bright fall morning, uh and wandered onto I n
L land. He's in his full hunting get up and
he was about uh not a twenty minute walk. He
didn't realize that he was on their land, and twenty
(31:16):
minutes after he crossed what they told him later was
the line. A UH darkened suv, big off roading suv
pulled up. Some guys in security uniforms got out, asking
what he was doing. As he told him who he was,
escorted him off off the land and told him that
if he UH did it again that there would be
(31:39):
no warning that he would be prosecuted to the full
extent of the law, with no explanation as to why
or anything like that, and then they got in the
vehicle and left. Next day he got a phone call
from He wasn't sent sure who it was it was
calling him. They told him that he uh. Basically, they
(32:02):
just reiterated the same thing you told him. You're not
allowed to go back out there. It happens again, still
get arrested. I'd love for you guys to go into
the history, because some of the listeners out there obviously
aren't going to know the history behind this place. But
I'd love for you guys to dig into it and
talk about this on air. The secrecy behind this particular
(32:23):
national laboratory is intense. Again, my name is Skippy, and
you guys are amazing well Chucks, thank you Skippy. This
is you're spot on about how obscure this is going
to be for a lot of people, and I would
argue that as partially by design. Before we dive in,
(32:44):
Noel Matt, had either of you heard of this laboratory before.
I'm saying laboratory because it sounds fancier. That's the only
reason sounds scarier when you say laboratory, sound like the
way you know Dr Frankenstein might say it let's lean
into it. Just say, like laboratorium. I want to say
we encountered this a while ago when we were doing
(33:06):
something on nuclear energy or nukes. You're right, you're right.
Established by the Atomic Energy Commission in the hub of
Atomic Innovation in the United States, of course to the
Atomic Heritage Foundation website, right, yeah, And I think I
have a link there in in our doc if if
(33:27):
you want to pull that up here. So here's the deal.
This place is part of the d Oe Department of Energy,
and it is a huge deal to the US, and
it's a huge deal globally. And they're messing with things
that people literally don't understand, which is part of what researches,
(33:50):
you know what I mean. They're not like the dwarves
delving too deep and Lord of the rings there. They're
working on very important, mission critical stuff for the future
of energy. And if the world does say goodbye to
Cole completely, doing a callback, guys, that's what you call
it in the business. Uh. If Cole has ever fully
(34:12):
gone from the world, the Idaho National Laboratory will play
a part in that. It has there there were like
fifty two reactors there. It's it has had the highest
density of nuclear reactors on the planet. All but three
were I think eventually decommissioned. So why why this secretsy?
(34:33):
If you go to their website, there's something really interesting,
which is you can you know, you can learn about
the history of the site, which we'll get into in
a sect. You can learn about what they're working on now.
But some links on the website are dead. The website
links that pertain to national security do not work, which
(34:56):
is not a good look if you're trying to quell
people's fear and suspicions. It has also been the site
of um of a tremendous disaster. It wasn't until when
federal authorities when public and admitted that in two radiation
(35:16):
and chemicals probably killed people in relation to this. Uh.
It's the kind of thing that if you are a
foreign operator or sometimes they're called collectors, which is somehow
even more creepy to me. If you're a foreign collector
or operator and you're a spy, this is one of
(35:38):
like the top places on your tour of the US.
And this is the kind of like the level of
skill that these folks are functioning at becomes in I
hate to say it, but it becomes inherently conspiratorial because
so few people know how to do what these folks
are doing. It's kind of like how a q con
(36:00):
almost single handedly spread nuclear weaponry around the world. And
they do, you know, they do important peaceful stuff, fuel
cycle research, development, trying to make the next iteration or
the next innovation in nuclear reactors, light water reactors. We
talked about those before. Shout out to who was a Haliburton. Uh.
(36:22):
They also they are working on cybersecurity and working on
national security, working on nuclear non proliferation ideas, and that
gets that gets really sticky very quickly. You know. So
this is a Tom Waits, what's he building in their situation?
The truth of the matter is that it's very difficult
(36:43):
to tell from the outside. And although the show is
against censorship, I don't know about you guys, but I
have to admit you probably have to have it that way.
Probably can't have, you know, somebody popping on Instagram and
going out, O we we thought we knew what we
were doing with the reactor. It blew up l M
A O U. Or we've we've made a new propulsion system.
(37:06):
Can't wait to get this firework popped off, you know
what I mean, Like they can't talk about that and
they can't publicize it. And I would also posit, Skippy
that in your friends defense, it doesn't matter what it
was wearing, you know what I mean, Like did the
hunting gear help? Maybe not? Maybe not? But did the uh?
(37:27):
But would it have mattered if you was, you know,
addressed as a stormtrooper or doing a Naruto run or
something like that. It doesn't. Uh. It's these places are
very very tight security. I think mentioned before. A good
friend of ours on the show went to Roswell went
(37:47):
to went to Groom Lake with his brother on a
road trip and they almost got shot. They stopped at
the sign where it says, you know, you can't go
past this point. They stopped their truck and they got
out and they were just looking around because when are
we going to be here again? And that's when they
saw the glint of what was probably a sniper scope.
And then that's also where they got almost run off
(38:08):
the road by a military vehicle and they didn't even
cross the trespassing line. So I would say, be very
very very careful with that stuff. And it's got a
men in black situation, which is another cool part of
the story, Skippy, although it is spooky admittedly for these
other folks to come back the next day and just
(38:29):
say and just see, no, we weren't kidding, like on
the off chance he thought, Ah, that's no big deal,
I'm gonna be back there again. I wonder how many
people have been in a situation where you get a
follow up like that because they I'm sure they did
an extensive background check on the guy too, you know
(38:49):
what I mean, And if he had ever traveled like
Tearran in the past, the conversation might have gone differently.
I completely agree. One of the only things that's really
sticking in my mind right here is the size of
the laboratory because if you again look, I'm sorry I'm
so Google centric today, but if you search for it,
(39:10):
it shows you this one lab, like it's clearly a
large building that is a lab that is there in Idaho,
in Idaho Falls, I think, um, But on their website
they say they have an eight hundred and nineties square
foot laboratory, like whatever, that means eight hundred and nine
(39:30):
square foot And this person that we're hearing from trespassed
on land. So I'm trying to figure out where all
this square footage is, right, like, where actually is this place?
Because I can't find it? And maybe that's the point. Yeah,
that's that's kind of the point. It's it's uh, it's
a different approach from the from the window List building
(39:54):
in Manhattan. But it is supposed to it is supposed
to be difficult to find, and and it's important it's there.
It's been It was originally an artillery range in the
nineteen forties and it predates the events of Pearl Harbor.
But it makes sense to have something like that located
where it is because it's not by the coast, it's
(40:16):
difficult to get there. It's in the heartlands, the interior
of the country. Um. And if anything, it's kind of
surprising that it is so public facing and you can,
you know, go to their website and learn so much
stuff about it, because because it seems like it could
have been easy for this facility to be secret, the
(40:36):
way that so many other nuclear research initiatives were conducted
in secrecy, like entire towns didn't officially exist. We did
an episode on that. Um. Yeah, I don't know, I
I don't know whether you can get a tour yet. Skippy, though,
I am going to give it the old college try.
(40:56):
It's just amazing that they do so much stuff, all
so hybrid energy systems, robotics, nuclear waste processing, uh, bio energy.
I mean, what are they up to? All right? What
are they building in there? Uh? Not to answer your question,
they do have a a large desert location somewhere, but
(41:18):
somewhere probably don't want to skip these friends to tell us.
Mm hmmm. Well, there's a weird i'm gonna call it
a splotch again of kind of a dark area near
Atomic City out there, and there's a place called Atomic City.
And I'm wondering if that's like a part of their
(41:39):
thing or just something completely different. Uh. Yeah, it's just
it's just to the west of where Idaho falls, that
area that that Skippy was describing. I don't know, it's
weird stoic city. Yeah, it's a great name. Uh. And
if you go to Atomic City today, I think there's
(42:00):
like one store and a couple of rundown houses and
the place no longer sell even sells gasoline because there
was a nuclear explosion in nine and most people got
out of Atomic City. How is that? Yeah, it's big whoops. Um.
But if you want to look at some of the
more I guess sinister allegations, sinister by which I mean
(42:24):
not unfortunate accidents skippy, but stuff that they're accused of
doing on purpose, by design, I would direct your attention
to the New York Times two thousand eleven article wherein
they said that the Idaho National Laboratory UM was instrumental
(42:46):
in the creation of something called stucks net. So it's
weaponizing nuclear non proliferation and stucks net. Stucks. That was
like a Lamborghini of malware. Man, it was. It was
a Mona Lisa of malware. It was you know, an international,
an international initiative. But there is controversy. The New York
(43:09):
Times usually get stuff right. There's controversy because so the
official statement of the I n L is no way ted.
We did not create stucks net. We we are just
trying to defend from things, to defend the US against
things like that if someone else happened to build them.
(43:32):
But the best way to defend oneself against things of
that nature is to build the things the offensive side
of it and then just reverse engineer from there. Right, Um,
So I don't buy it. I don't know. What do
you guys think? You think they're on the up and up?
Is it like how actors can't say when they have
a cameo in a Marvel movie until it comes out.
(43:54):
I think, Jeff, they always do. They always screw it up.
Oh my god, you guys, Yeah, I have to tell
you this. I think I think there's stuff going on.
But then to your to answer your question that they
just can't talk about. There's some weirdness because it's advanced
energy systems as well. Like I know they have a
(44:15):
clear focus on nuclear energy, but it feels to me
that they've got other things maybe going on because they
are directly involved with the Center for Advanced Energy Studies,
which is like a you know, a whole bunch of
different people doing R and D for that. But they've
got again I'm gonna harp on it. This whatever, this
square mile thing is where they can just test stuff out.
(44:39):
And I was looking around on Google Maps. This is
my mantra for the day that I was looking around
on Google Maps. I found a thing called the E
B R DASH I I or two and the MFC.
They're out in the middle of this desert area that
is pretty immediately to the west of the laboratory and
(44:59):
it look expand like that's where the stuff happens. Mm hmm,
I see, that's where the nuclear sausage gets ground. Yeah. Yeah,
you know what you what else you might see here?
Because I was trying to find one of like the
craziest things and one one story I found that really
stood out and I thought you guys, as fellow fans
(45:21):
of cryptids, would be interested in this. There was a
mountain lion in Collie cougar that was discovered in the
area with a second set of teeth growing out of
its skull. And this was not alleged. The animal was
hunted and someone got it. They bagged it, and they
brought it in. And this, uh, this is a pretty
(45:42):
highly developed, very distinct kind of deformity, but it can
happen with a lot of living creatures. Uh. The I'm
laughing because this is this is almost like the three
eyed fish in the Simpson's kind of situation, because there
are people that are convinced that radiation from the I
(46:05):
N L had somehow contributed to this. So radioactive critters
are in the mix too. If you find the you know,
if you find the right speculative forums. I don't know.
I don't know if that's the truth, because as we've
seen again in like the Chernobyl example, uh, there's not Unfortunately,
(46:27):
radiation when it does cause mutations, it doesn't cause like
the cool X Men style mutations. There aren't any flying
mountain lions. There aren't any mountain lions that can turn
to steel or have laser eyes instead. Animals tend to,
you know, get the short end of the stick man um.
(46:50):
I would also be I wanted to say that, like,
would you guys be concerned about living next to something
like that? Absolute? Yeah, for sure. E b R, by
the way, is experimental breeder reactor, and number two is
the second one. Number one is just just down the
desert from there. And I would not want to live
anywhere near where the first experimental reactors are being created.
(47:14):
That's true, that's true. Do you want to live in
the testing site? That's a really good point. And the
decommissioned dB R two, I think, but but still it's Uh,
if something goes wrong and you decommission the thing, that
doesn't automatically mean that it's fine to live there again.
And I don't think i'd want a second set of teeth.
(47:36):
I don't know about you, guys. I think it might
be for some people, but that's nightmare fuel for me. Yeah,
thank you. But we're seeing the inside of a goose's mouth.
That's gross. Yeah, it's offensive. Teeth on the roofs of
the roofs of their mouths, and it's pure nightmare fuel. Yeah.
I don't know why might take away from this story
is now I find the mouth of geese offensive. I
(47:59):
just it's it's wrong. You know, it shouldn't be happening.
Is that real? Yeah, No, it's true, like their beaks
or they actually have teeth. Yeah, it's like teeth on
the inside of their mouths. Swans, I think it's swans.
I think it's I think it's geese too. I think
it's multiple birds. And now we officially are gonna blame
(48:22):
the Idaho National Laboratory for the entire thing. Excuse me, laboratory. Um,
but this does, this does put us in a great
spot to highlight one of the profound dilemmas of this
sort of work. Someone inevitably is going to do it.
Would you rather it be you? Or would you rather
it be some other country? Right? And it's it's very
(48:46):
much a devil you know situation, and it's very much
a nimby situation. Not in my backyard. There's there's not
really an easy way around it. That's why these things
are often put in. That's why these things aren't always
put in uh bustling metropolis like Los Angeles or New York.
But their home to their own creepy stuff as well
(49:08):
as any long time fellow conspiracy realist is well aware.
Uh Skippy, thank you so much for writing in. We're
going to maybe return to this in the future because
there is a great deal of history in in the
world of nuclear proliferation, in the world of nuclear research
(49:29):
that remains untold in the modern day, and it is
often literally the stuff they don't want you to know.
So I suggest we pause the conversation for today. We're
gonna be back very soon. I can't wait to hear
your thoughts on the stories that anonymous anvil alf and
Skippy himself shared with us today. Uh, and tell us
(49:51):
about the weird sketchy things in your neck of the woods.
We're sure they're out there. We try to make it
easy to find us online. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube at the handle conspiracy Stuff. You can find
us a conspiracy stuff show. Yes, yes, remember that YouTube
Conspiracy Stuff. Go there, check out the videos. They're so great.
(50:13):
And if you want to leave us a voicemail, just
the way Skippy and Anonymous left, you can call one
eight three three st d w y t K. Please
give yourself a cool nickname. Let us know whether or
not we can use that name and your message on
the air in one of these episodes. And hey, you've
got three minutes say whatever you'd like. We were just
(50:33):
tickled to hear your voice. Thanks for doing it. And
if you've got more to say than can fit into
that three minutes, please instead send us a good old
fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Yeah.
(51:03):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.