May 15, 2020 • 50 mins
HIV and AIDS, the syndrome the infection causes, have become the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. Over the decades people have proposed the infection was purposely designed to kill certain segments of the public, or that it was a lab experiment gone wrong, or that it didn't exist at all. For a time these theories enjoyed massive popularity in the US and abroad... but there was another conspiracy at play, one that most people weren't aware of: tune in to learn more about Russia's Operation Infektion.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brady. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt pal nol Is on Adventures. They
called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. How's it? How's it going? Matt? I
gotta say I still love the lighting in your bunker. Yeah,
(00:46):
the lighting is pretty good. There's no light except for
this tiny one here that mimics sunshine, which is nice.
You can feel like I'm outside getting at least some
kind of exposure rather than being in this room and
not going mad. I'm not going mad. Everything's fine. Um,
if things are well right, How are they going in
(01:07):
your neck of the woods? Uh? Yeah, thanks for asking. Uh,
They're they're going all right. Um. Been a little isolated,
part of that self imposed, and part of that, um,
you know, part of part of that due to other reasons.
But everything will work out. It's strange because I was
thinking about this earlier this weekend. How quickly um, I mean,
(01:32):
I talked about all the time, how quickly things become
normal for populations of human beings. And one of the
things that's interesting is the um the adaptation of friend groups. Uh,
it's interesting. I've noticed this on a lot of like
virtual hangout platforms, especially the ones that have limits right
(01:54):
over how many people can be an X or do why.
And I think it's pretty tructive from a social dynamics, um,
you know, from from that perspective, like peek behind the curtain, folks.
Here on this show, we use zoom because it has
it has a lower lag than a lot of stuff,
at least for us, and it doesn't have a time limit.
(02:17):
So so I think it's interesting to see how people
adjust in the face of a an infection that is
probably not going away. I've got some scary research on that,
we might say for our next COVID update. Uh, But
you and I have been thinking about other global diseases,
and that's that's something we're talking about today. Yes, we
(02:38):
are exploring one of the most prominent conspiracy theories that
has existed over you know, the last few decades. It
is a belief that you will see repeated all across
the internet. Um it found global popularity for a time there,
and it kind of remains as this like unspoken truth
(03:02):
within a lot of communities, especially on the Internet in
the modern day. Right now, it's a really twisted thing.
It's a twisted dale. The concerns a disease, but not
the one that most of us are concerned with right now. Right, Yeah,
we're talking about HIV today and also you know you'll
(03:22):
hear it interchangeably described as AIDS. They're not quite the
same thing. But in short, ourur question today is how
did so many people come to believe that the United
States purposely created AIDS and why? So to answer this question,
we have to start the way we always do, with
what we know for sure. So here are the facts.
(03:46):
HIV is a virus like the coronavirus. HIV is short
for Human immuno deficiency virus. It causes the condition known
as autoimmune efficiency syndrome or AIDS. So you don't get AIDS,
you get HIV, and that it causes you to have AIDS. Nowadays,
(04:09):
millions of people millions of people have died from the
syndrome caused by HIV. But luckily, as we're recording this
now in there isn't a cure, but there are improved
therapies and preventative measures that have put the death rate
in a state of deep decline since it peaked back
and around two thousand and five. Yeah, so let's talk
(04:31):
about an area of HIV and AIDS that has a
lot of information misinformation about it on the internet, and
that is how the virus is transmitted. We do know
that a lot of bodily fluids are the general way
that it gets transmitted. We're talking blood, breast, milk, um
(04:52):
semen and vaginal secretions, uh and so on down down
the line there. And unlike the coronavirus, you cannot get
infected with HIV by that good old fashioned kissing. You
can't get it by shaking hands. You can't get it
by hugging or sharing food or beverages the way you
can get the coronavirus. But we do have a makeout
(05:16):
warning though, right, yes, you have to be very careful
about sores in the mouth of uh someone you are
deep kissing is the way it has been described French
kissing as most of us know it, So just be
careful because if you have a if there is an
open sore in someone's mouth, that can transmit this virus.
(05:37):
If you have an open sore as well, or if
you have you know, bleeding gums because of the gum disease,
gingervitis or something. I just wanted to drop a gingervitis
line and there from the tooth based commercials. You're absolutely right, Matt.
You know um in comparison to other viruses, you would
think that HIV has one huge limiting factor. It's not airborne, right,
(06:02):
It's it's fluid transmitted. So you would think that, hey,
this is not something you know, this is not near
as easy to spread. But there's a problem because HIV
has a very long um I don't know if it's
right to call it an incubation rate, but you can
get HIV. A person get HIV and be contagious, be
(06:26):
a carrier and transmitter of it for a decade, ten
years or more before they exhibit any sign of infection,
before they have any reason to think they should go
get tested. And when they are out and about, when
they are you know, living their lives symptom free, asymptomatic,
(06:48):
they can infect what dozens more people one way or another,
and then those people, of course rents and repeat, go
on to infect dozens of others and so on and
so on until it becomes a glue mobal problem. HIV
attacks your immune system. It invades our cells, invades the
cells of your immune system, and then it hacks them
(07:11):
in a in a very uncool way, to say the least.
It reprograms them to stop being your immune cells that
you know, love and trust and become factories to just
make more HIV. If you don't get treatment, then what
happens is the number of immune cells in your body.
They dwindle, you know, like not all at once, but
(07:33):
kind of like a a dying town in the rural
Midwest or something. If the body cell, if the immune cells,
are people, there are fewer and fewer in the population.
And then as as your body is deprived of these
and loses them, that then autoimmuno deficiency syndrome can kick in.
(07:54):
And once that happens, a person can be susceptible to
a wide range of possible infections, some that would ordinarily
not be fatal. Right, your body has to work so
much harder, and your immune system has been so weakened
that it cannot fight back effectively. Yeah, and this is
(08:15):
where the coronavirus really does come back in because it
makes it that much more dangerous for anyone out there
who who is HIV positive um or who has autoimmune deficiency.
So it really it's a scary thing right now, um,
having this pandemic going around, um for those people. And
(08:36):
the other thing about HIV is that it isn't just
one thing, one particular thing. It is consistently changing and mutating,
and it's believed to be like HIV itself, is believed
to be a mutated version of a different virus that
was it's called the Simian immunodeficiency virus or SIEVE s
(08:57):
i V. And this is the same It does the
same kind of thing, only it attacks primates, apes, monkeys, right,
And that's important that will matter in just a second,
especially as we dive into the history of this of
this disease. So AIDS first gained public attention in the
nineteen eighties, and there were so many misconceptions about what
(09:20):
this was and how it spread. For example, some people,
including medical experts, early on, thought it was only a
disease encountered by people engaging in same sex relationships or
you know, same sex um intimate encounters. Right, And then
other people thought it only targeted minorities because both African
(09:42):
Americans and people in the LGBT communities were seemed to
be acquiring this more often than other communities. One thing
was for sure. It was initially seen as a terminal condition,
and you know, early treatments we're almost as damaging as
(10:02):
the infection itself. Luckily, back in the nine nineties, so
long ago now, doctors shifted to a new treatment program.
They started using combinations of drugs simultaneously. They called these
anti retroviral drugs cocktails. Even now, a cocktail cannot cure
HIV or AIDS, but it can control that replication and
(10:24):
that gives your immune system vital time to recover and strengthen.
So we're in a good spot there, especially compared to
the eighties. But we're still trying to figure out the
origin story of HIV, and we wanted to give you
the official version as it stands now. So the official
(10:44):
version of how HIV reached humans was that there were
hunters somewhere out in the bush and the sieve infection
that we talked about Previously to this, the immune deficiency
disease or virus that was affecting apes was trans bit
into humans when they killed somehow and then probably in
some way consumed the chimpanzees or possibly when these hunters.
(11:09):
You know, you're going through let's say a jungle, very
thick bush area, You're getting small cuts on your arms
or your legs or something. Then blood comes out of
a chimpanzee when it is killed, and somehow that blood
gets into one of those cuts, and then the virus
begins to mutate from there. Yeah. The thing is that
people have been getting sieve for a long long time,
(11:33):
pretty often, but every so often, every blue moon, this
sieve that was in their body would evolve and it
would adapt to live in its new environment, the human host.
And this is the ascendency of HIV one. There are
four main groups of HIV strains and they each have
a slightly different makeup genetically. And this is interesting because
(11:58):
it supports the scientist enter theory because they're saying, hey,
these different versions exist because every time sieve passed from
a chimp to a human, it mutated independently in a
different way and produced a slightly different strain. There are
things there that we should also mentioned. There's HIV two
UH that comes from sieve inside UH type of monkey
(12:20):
rather than a chimpanzee, and we think it happened in
a similar way, but it's much rarer and it's less infectious,
so as a result, you don't see as many people infected.
It's nowadays found mainly in some West African countries Molly, Mauritania, Nigeria,
Sierra Leone. But check this out. So we said the
nineteen eighties, right, how far back does it go. The
(12:42):
first verified case of HIV is from a blood sample
taken in nineteen fifty nine from a guy who's living
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And that's probably
not the first one. That's just the first case for
which we have a verifiable, tested blood sample. It probably
(13:03):
happened before then. As a matter of fact, we're nine
eight percent plus certain that it did so. Right now,
that's the current theory, the hunter theory. That's when people
accept studies concluded the first transmission of sieve to HIV
and humans probably occurred in the early twentieth century, right,
(13:23):
think the teens or so. But we see evidence of
this in the Democratic Republic of Congo, because that's where
HIV strains have the most genetic diversity, and from what
we know, that means that sieve transformed into HIV multiple
times in this area. It's also home of many of
(13:45):
the first reported cases. So there you have it, right,
that's the official that's the official theory. That's what if
you ask an expert in the field, that's probably what
they're going to tell you. Yeah, it is the prevailing theory,
but it is certainly not the only thing you are
going to hear if you just go around and start
asking everybody about HIV and AIDS, and in fact, millions
(14:06):
of people across the world are convinced that for some reason,
in some way, the United States government or some faction
within had a hand in creating this virus, creating this disease.
Why would they do that, Well, allegedly, it's because of
something called operation Infection infection spelled with a K, And
(14:29):
we'll tell you all about that after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Put aside for
the moment any questions about whether the United States actually
did or did not somehow manufacture HIV. Instead, let's explore
(14:54):
how this idea evolved, how it became so popular in
the world of conspiracy. The answer is simply this. It's
one thing. It's Operation infection, like you said, Matt with
a K, which makes it sound very cooler. Uh. But okay,
so you introduced this to this concept. But what is
operation infection? Well, has a several other names. By the way,
(15:18):
we should just mention here. There's forward too, there's Operation Denver.
By the way forward to you may also find Voorwarts
v O r W A R T S two. You'll
you'll find that if you begin searching around, um, this
Operation infection, it was just a classic KGB move, one
(15:39):
of these dis info productions, you know, disinformation. We've talked
about it before on this show, and it bears all
the hallmarks of their objectively top notch approach to information warfare.
And when you started diving in this, you're just you
it's weird. This feels very callous. But you begin to
after seeing this for so you know so many times,
(16:01):
you begin to have an appreciation of it in some
weird way of like, oh, okay, guys, I see you,
I see what you're doing. But let's just jump into
this and that sounds callous. I promise I don't mean
it that way. The Russian government, Okay, the Russian government
has been doing this for a long long time, way
before the rise of HIV. Oh, yes, yeah, they have.
(16:23):
You know, it's the thing. It's it's like, you gotta
respect the hustle, you know what I mean. Like they
put the work in, they put the time in. Uh.
The the idea that you one can labor for ten
hours on something and then become a genius is a myth.
But this you could tell that the practice made perfect here.
(16:46):
They didn't just come up with information warfare in the eighties. Uh,
the first Office entirely dedicated to propaganda and dis info
on the Russian side. And um, possibly in the world
is older than the KGB itself in ninety three, the GPU,
(17:07):
it's the predecessor to the KGB, kind of like how
the OSS here in the States as the predecessor to
the CIA. Anyway, in n the GPU was already rolling
along full steam ahead. And uh, the etymology of the
word disinformation itself proves how far into the game these
folks were. Oddly enough, you know, Russian and English very
(17:30):
different languages, but by the rise of the Second World War,
the word disinformation had been invented independently in both Russian
and English to describe information warfare. And when the KGB
got into the game, when they became a real thing
officially in the nineteen fifties, this meant that disinformation was
(17:52):
already uh tremendously important tool in their active measures doctrine.
Active measures, by the way, is just that you fimism.
Think of it more like the art of political warfare. Uh.
They were linking media manipulation the front groups, so we've
talked about before, they were counterfeiting documents and currency. And
then of course even um, when it was necessary or
(18:14):
I guess maybe when they had a bad day, Uh,
they would practice wet work assassinations. Yeah, this kind of
thing a lot of times feels like a smoke screen
so that other operations can occur. Right, So you can
mislead your opponent in some way into believing one thing
when you're actually doing another. And if you do it
(18:35):
effectively enough, you can still do the one thing because
your opponents will think that you are trying to deceive
them by talking or putting information about out about the
one thing. It's it's it's fascinating. The game involved with
all of this, the game that they play with lives
(18:55):
across the world, is fascinating, if not horrifying. So, um,
let's talk about the Cold War throughout all of it.
The you know, the Soviets really just excelled in creating
tension between their opponents and their friends. So the the
opponent's friends, right, does that make sense? The the allies
(19:18):
that the people who are supposed to be on one side,
but if you can fullment some kind of tension between
those allies, they are no longer as strong as they
once were. And in particular, they love this thing called
quote black propaganda, and this was crafting making up really
damaging stuff information that we would be put out about
(19:40):
an ally, let's say, which purported to be from an ally. Right,
So the Russian propaganda would exist, and it would look
as though, let's say England was putting out some information
about the United States, when in fact it is actually
a Soviet uh message, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean,
(20:00):
even for a microcosmic example, you could imagine, let's just
take uh, let's just take Matt Nolan Ben and say like, well,
we'll pick one of one of those podcasters to be Russia.
Then they if they wanted to um break down cooperation
between the other two, then they would say. They wouldn't say,
(20:21):
hey I think this about I think this person thinks
us about you. They would say, hey, I got the
I recovered this and it's about you, and I wanted
to share it with you. The Russians did this on
a global level. One example would be Operation Neptune. They
attempted to use these forged documents to imply that Western
(20:42):
politicians had supported the Nazis. But the important part here,
the twist is that they didn't say they were declassified
Soviet documents. They came from somewhere else, and the Russians
happened to find them. Excuse me, so the government happened
to find them, and so now it was ethical to
spread this thing and and to um because really it's
(21:03):
an attack, it just doesn't use bullets. And there there
are a lot of other cases to like. The USSR
was working actively, of course during this Cold War, right,
they're working actively to discredit the U. S. Government internationally,
not that it always needed a lot of help with that,
and to discredit it to its domestic population. Again, not
that it always needed much help with that either. Um,
(21:25):
I don't want to sound too cynical. We just have
to remember like during this time, Uh, there were massive
domestic protest right. Uh. There there was a lot of
unhappiness in the international sphere regarding unilateral actions of the
United States. So there's a pretty compelling chicken or the
egg argument, right, was h were these programs stoking flames
(21:47):
that already existed? Were they starting new fires? But they
did things like oh, evidence emerged that the US supports apartheid,
things like that, And so in the early days of
the AIDS crisis, the KGB saw a go olden once
in an intelligent agency's lifetime kind of opportunity. Yeah, around
(22:07):
your there is I guess one of the first known
examples that you can kind of point to when you're
looking through this stuff. Uh. There was an Indian pro
Soviet paper. It carried an anonymous letter from a quote
well known American scientist. Okay, oh, well known American scientist obviously,
(22:27):
and this person who was quoted in this paper claimed
that AIDS had been developed in a secret bio lab
in Fort Dietrich within the United States. And of course,
you know you begin there with a little seed basically right, Uh,
some scientists that we can't verify because it would put
(22:47):
their life at risk exactly. Um, so you've got that
little seed. Nine three. Then only two years later, there's
a retired biophysicist named Dr Jacob Siegel. He claims that
the AIDS virus was synthesized by combining parts of other
viruses retroviruses in this case, the v I s n
(23:08):
A or VISNA and the ht lv one. And you know,
we we talked about how the Soviets were using again,
not unlike the United States or any other large power,
they were using fronts to report, like fronts where they
could kind of seed a story in or something, and
(23:29):
then those fronts would report on that story. So they
would all these fronts all over the world started reporting
about this thing. They would talk about the seagull report,
this person who has come forward to let us know
about the AIDS virus and how it was created rather
than how it had evolved. And and here's here's an example.
(23:51):
We don't have to read this whole excerpt, but we
wanted to sum up what it's saying so you get
a sense of it. This doctor, this retired biophysicists. You
mentioned Matt Seagull and his report, which was treated kind
of like the way, um, well, anytime politically you hear
a report and it's just the name of the report
is the last name of someone, and kind of like
(24:12):
the Miller report, Well, that's not science. Anytime you hear that,
it's it's kind of a currency created. It's a nickname
created so that people can circulate it more easily, and
it's super recognizable, because that's the rule of media, right,
make it one or two words, preferably yep. So the
Seingull report says no relation to Steven Seagal, by the way, unfortunately,
(24:36):
says quote, it's very easy using genetic technologies to unite
two parts of completely independent viruses. But who would be
interested in doing this? The military, of course. And then
they say in seven a top security lab was set
up at the Pentagon Central Biological Laboratory. And then when
year after that the first cases of AIDS occur in
(24:58):
the US in New York City. So the timeline then
implies how it occurred, how it managed to get out
of the secret, hush hush laboratory is easy to understand,
And they say this following quote. Everyone knows that prisoners
are used for military experiments in the US. There promised
their freedom if they come out of the experiment alive. Interesting,
(25:19):
now we should note that Siegel himself, Dr. Jacob Siegel,
was presented as a French researcher, but he was definitely
he was a German guy. They were just trying to
sort of make it one more remove from the Soviet government.
And unfortunately there's some truth in some of these statements.
The US does have secret biolabs, the US did experiment
(25:42):
on prisoners, Like none of that stuff was made up.
Just this instance of that happening. And you know, the
report blew up. At least for back in the day.
It couldn't go viral on the internet because it wasn't
really you couldn't do that yet, but it did go
viral as far as coverage and rumor and people talking
(26:03):
about this. It received coverage in eighty countries in thirty languages,
this Seagul report, and that spread it just it followed
this fashion that we've seen before. It's something that continues
that we you know, kind of continue to see. Well,
let's let's just keep going here. Uh, the story appeared
in a publication from outside the USSR, right, So it's
(26:26):
not us, it's just it's over there. Right. Then it
was presented as um investigative work within so the Soviet media. Right,
So it's like we, um were investigating this thing, this
report that's been out there that now we're looking at Uh,
look what we found right right, right, look at this
(26:48):
Look what we found. Uh. It's it's crazy, right, but
we feel it is our ethical duty to report it. Uh.
And furthermore, you know, join us and ask you why
the Unit to States won't answer these strong and disturbing allegations.
And this is a smear tactic that you've seen probably
in in the world of celebrity as well, where it's like,
(27:12):
you know, I didn't say it, but some people say, Okay,
who's our celebrity we pick on today, Matt, let's go
with Paul Rubens. No no, no, um Conan O'Brien, Conan O'Brien,
oh man, Okay, alright. So this hypothetical example, and I'm sorry, uh,
(27:37):
I'm sorry Mr Rubens that you lost the ConA in here. Uh.
In this hypothetical example, you would see something in the
media like, well, you know, I didn't say it. There
are a lot of reports. There are some people are
saying it happened, saying that Conan O'Brien breaks into preschools
(27:57):
and steals children's shoes and that he's he's using them
to decorate a wall of of his attic and uh,
you know, I'm not saying it's true. I'm saying a
lot of people are saying it. But I think it's
interesting that he's never denied the allegation. And you know what, erol,
(28:17):
I won't even come out and talk about it. Have
you noticed that? Yeah, exactly exactly. It's like, well, why
aren't they responding? Um? And this is disturbing because you know,
it works really well if people are already, if they
already have some pre existing beliefs. Right, if someone, for
some terrible reason, ever watched Conan O'Brien, who is a
(28:39):
fantastic guy, and thought, yeah, guy, it looks it looks
like steel shoes, and they especially, yeah, they heard that report,
they would be like, wow, he never he never denied it.
I knew it. I knew I was right. And we're
we're having fun with that example. But the mechanics are
sound that happens all the time. The Soviet Party also
(29:03):
focus special attention on the continent of Africa and Radio Moscow,
which is pretty much exactly like Voice of America or something.
Radio Moscow said the US was deliberately infecting people with
disease under the guise of free vaccination projects. Uh. And
there there's you know, tremendous distrust of vaccination projects in
(29:25):
a lot of the world, especially when they're sponsored by
Western powers or Western pharmaceutical companies. That's a story for
another day though, because there's some sand to it in
my opinion. I don't know if you agree with me there.
Oh yeah, actually, yeah, there's some sand to it. Okay,
So we've got to write that episode down for the future.
But we're we're going to take a pause, we'll have
(29:46):
a word from our sponsor, and when we return, we're
gonna see what happened to Operation Infection. And we're back.
So just to be clear, what was the purpose of
Operation Infection. We understand the strategy of this conspiracy, and
(30:10):
it is a conspiracy and it was effective, but what like,
what was the what was why? Why were they doing this?
That's a great question because on the surface, it doesn't
seem to make a ton of sense, but if you
look at a bigger picture, it does appear to have
(30:31):
two purposes. The first one is just to discredit the
United States in any way that they could um and
to you know, make the United States civilians within the
United States maybe feel just a little bit more, if
not a lot bit more, worried that their government isn't
telling them the truth. And the second purpose there is
(30:52):
to shift attention away from Russia's own very real chemical
and bioweaponry research, the re scary stuff that was happening
in Russian research laboratories and the United States laboratories and
probably a bunch of other places too. Mm hmm, yeah,
well said. And this leads us to another question. An
(31:15):
elephant in the room here, an elephant in the red
room here is how do we know about this today?
It was so top secret? Right, how did we figure
this out? Are we secretly Russian disinfo agents? Well, there
is a tragic turn of events that leads to the
revelation of this. Here's what happens. Russia was actually really
(31:36):
successful convincing people across the planet that HIV was not
only manufactured, but that the US was responsible, and part
of the reason they were so successful is because they
didn't make up the disease itself. It was and is
a real medical condition, and it was spreading unchecked, and
(31:57):
eventually the bill came to the disease arrived on Russian soil.
So in the mid to late nineteen eighties, Soviet researchers
are asking their American colleagues for help fighting this virus.
The request gets denied. Not only is it denied, but
their American colleagues say, look, we're not going to help
(32:18):
you at all and will never help you unless you
stop this disinformation operation, at which point, you know, of course,
the Soviet researchers are like, hey, I'm not in charge
of that. That's the that's the you know, that's the
k g B, I check samples. I don't know how
much policy influence you think I have UH. But they
(32:39):
were at an impasse, and the Gorbachev administration tried to
prevent the US from exposing this right, from tracing these
things like the Cigar report back to UH its ultimate
creators in the U s SR. But HIV infections continue
to grow in Russia and or in the Soviet Union.
(33:02):
Excuse me and Eventually, the Gorbitchov administration disowns the project
entirely in n but only two years, only two years
after that report the Sego report, right right, So it
blew up and then it collapsed, but people didn't admit
what was going on for a few more years, that's right.
(33:23):
It wasn't until nineteen ninety two that you've Geini prima CoV,
he was at the time the director of the Foreign
Intelligence Service. He came forward, he confirmed for everyone that
the KGB had in fact created and perpetuated this myth.
They their hands were all over it. And you know,
again is quite a while, like seven years after that
(33:46):
initial report, but still it is so strange to think
about how many minds were touched by this concept and
how it spread both on a arena, but then also
you know, within small communities kind of whispering to each other,
because this wasn't This isn't the kind of thing you
(34:08):
just go out and you just start telling everyone, And
it was I and I I imagine that it was
known it would be a whisper campaign after the initial push,
or at least it feels that way. Um, it really
is fascinating to think about this being orchestrated though, Yeah,
word of mouth for for almost anything. Word of mouth
(34:29):
is such a powerful medium of transmission, and it's a
powerful medium of belief. As human beings, you know, most
of us are driven to seek um harmony of some
sort with our peer groups. And part of the way
we seek harmony with each other is through agree on things.
(34:50):
It's a different drive. Like there's some who only want
to um I guess feel like they're they're dominating a
social circle. But most people tend to want to seek
harmony through being able to look at their close associates
and friends and say, yeah, not only do we know
what's going on, but we all agree on it, you
know what I mean. So if someone you like or
(35:11):
are close to is telling you something, depend on how
they tell it to you, you're going to eventually start
to shift towards their ideology. It's fascinating. I agree. Fascinating's
the right word because what we found here is Operation Infection,
whatever you wanna call it, is a genuine conspiracy to
create a fake conspiracy. It's like it's a Matroska doll
(35:32):
of schemes within schemes. And I love that you brought
up the very short span of time that elapsed here.
But here's the thing. Even after these people are like
caught redheaded in nineteen nineties, UH, the government officially admits
it was a thing, but the damage was already done.
(35:54):
Because another thing about our species is we like our incorrect,
like our red meat headlines and sensational stuff. We like
it big slapped on the front page and a headline,
maybe with some exclamation marks. I don't know. We'll style
on it. We'll see how it feels in the print shop.
But we saved the corrections for like the back of
page twelve two weeks later, because no one reads them.
(36:18):
No one really wants to, you know what I mean.
You got the headline, you got your opinion. You're pretty
much done. As we said in the US, this virus
was predominantly affecting in the early days, was predominantly affecting
as far as the experts could see UH, African American
communities and people in LGBT communities. These two groups have
(36:40):
been historically discriminated against and victimized. So it is a
damning condemnation of American society that this idea didn't seem impossible.
You know, people would look around and say, well, think
about all the other things the government has done to
attack these communities in the past. We know those things happened,
and we know that ES keeps evolving at a breakneck pace.
(37:02):
So it's kind of like shrug dot gif. Yeah it uh,
it definitely seemed to make sense, especially at the time
given the past. You're right, I mean you you could
almost imagine it being oh, well, hey, this disease was
created by the government to wipe these populations out. Basically,
(37:24):
you could you can imagine why people would at least
be open to that idea. Um And and the other
big problem here was that, you know, at the time,
the presidential administration, the the whole White House structure, if
you will, all of the people there, they were not
tackling it head on it. You know, it was a
known thing, especially if you were living in one of
(37:47):
the communities, communities that was being ravaged by the by
HIV and AIDS. It was very much well known and
it was a terrifying thing. But there wasn't It didn't
feel like a ton was being done about it, and
there really wasn't much being done about it at the time,
at least early on. Yeah, that's a good point because
the initial government and activity was You know, if you're
(38:09):
coming from that space, right, you believe in this, then
what seems to be a lack of activity in the
public sphere on the government's behalf is just another another
piece of proof. Right at that point, I mean, people
are not people are not idiotic. Right, we have to
remember that people people then are just as smart as
(38:29):
people today, and they have all the same failings and
all the same triumphs. So we can we can understand
where this is coming from. And this operation infection didn't
last that long, but its effects are still with us.
A two thousand five study published in the Journal of
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome showed that fifty of African American people
(38:51):
surveyed believed that AIDS is quote a man made virus,
and fifteen percent thought that was a form of genocide
against against black people in general. And like HIV itself,
this KGB crafted conspiracy theory mutated beyond its original state
(39:12):
because it was it was out in the wild. You know,
if you don't already trust the government, why would you
trust their official statements of any sort. Right, So this,
once it gets in the wild once it gets in
the field, Uh, this theory that the US made HIV
starts to mix with other things, even things that seem
kind of contradictory, like AIDS denihilism, which was huge at
(39:33):
the time. You know, it was like it's misunderstood things,
sort of like five G and COVID. Nowadays, I would
say for a parallel m Yeah, interesting, just because there
wasn't enough people didn't have enough working information or working
knowledge of it. It felt as though it couldn't be
real or it was not real. And there there were
so many other stories still today actually that uh roll
(39:57):
around about the origin of HIV and AIDS, and I
think it is one of those things that once you
have enough, once you can get enough people to question
the official story, than all of the other stories out
there begin to be a possibility for someone who's already disbelieving. Um,
(40:20):
I don't know it just yeah, it makes sense and
you can kind of see it at work with so
many things in now, like in today's zeitgeist of just
our disbelief at official stories or disbelief of official stories. Yeah, agreed,
and there you have it. You know, that is why
(40:43):
people genuinely believe the US government created HIV. It tragically
jibs with past atrocities, It mixed with other adjacent or
existing conspiracies, and some of the world's foremost experts on
information warfare just pushed it through two and again. I
I hate to say it, but just objectively, if you
(41:05):
look at the at the structure that they implemented, Uh,
their hustle is top notch. As you said, I mean
today it is important to remember there's still unanswered questions
about HIV, but it is luckily no longer a death sentence,
and scientists are working continually to improve the treatments available. Yeah,
(41:26):
and if you look on the other side of that coin,
you realize that dis info agents masters people who have
been doing this for a long time, they don't stop. Uh.
They'll you know, there's a project that may end, or
one campaign that may end, but the people who are
very good at this will continue to be doing this.
And they do because they every time they attempt a campaign,
(41:47):
you'll learn a little something about how well it worked,
how well it didn't work, what and what you can
take away from it, and things like operation infection can
then get applied to something new, let's say current events
let's talk about the election that's you know, about to happen. Well,
think about the previous election in and the manipulation that
(42:09):
occurred there, you know. Um, And there are people here
listening that don't believe any kind of manipulation occurred. There
are people here who a thousand percent know that manipulation
occurred from Russia during the presidential election in the United States. Um.
And it is very interesting to see that divide, uh,
(42:31):
you know, our own disbelief or fervent belief in something
that either did or didn't happen, right, right. And you
would think that, um, you would think that the proliferation
of instantaneous communications, social media and the Internet would finally
smash all the you know, relatively like disgusting gate keeping
(42:55):
of information sources that existed beforehand. But unfortunately that is
not the case. Make no mistake. Nineteen fifty that was nothing.
We are in the golden age of information warfare and
things like this. Just like you've heard experts predict uh pandemics,
in the future, there is another kind of global situation.
(43:17):
There will be more things like Operation infection. They will
get better, just like in the Terminator movies, when the
first androids were easy to spot. These new propaganda projects
are going to get closer and closer to seeming like
the real thing. The difference, the important difference, is that
they are not real. They are being used to control you,
(43:41):
to make you comply with the behaviors you would not accept,
or to make you do things you ordinarily wouldn't do.
And on that note, we have to ask for your health.
Fellow conspiracy realists, what are other propaganda operations proven or
alleged that you think your fellow listeners should learn more about?
And you may be asking your says, Hey, guys, how
do you even know that Operation Infection was real and
(44:04):
actual disinformation campaign? Well, it's an It's interesting that you
ask that, because one of the main reasons I believe
it is true is because on the CIA dot gov
website there is an entry about it. There are some
materials you can look at, so if you search Operation
Infection on CIA dot gov you can see that. Now
(44:25):
I'm just gonna use my own logic here. Why why
would the CIA want to put out information about a
propaganda campaign from an opposing at least at the time
and opposing superpower. M hmm, Now my wheels are turning
even further because I hadn't thought about it in this
(44:46):
way until we started this episode. Just the concept that
the CIA would want you to think that Russia is
putting out all kinds of disinformation campaigns, or the Soviet
Union at the time. Um, so that maybe you don't
think about or you dismiss the United States originating propaganda
(45:07):
campaigns that are going around at disinformation campaigns. Um, yeah,
I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just I'm just
trying to figure out where I am within the net
of propaganda. Yeah, because you know, it makes like for
a visual analogy, makes me think of maybe U two
street musicians on opposite sides of the street or on
(45:32):
stages that are facing one another, and they're both trying
to get attention from the same audience. Uh, they're trying
to direct attention from the same audience, like look what
that joker is doing. Don't look at what my hands
are doing, you know what I mean? Yeah? Oh wow,
that's that's depressing, which means it's probably has a seat
(45:52):
of truth in it, right. But you can also find
it on The Guardian in New York Times and on
you know, the website New York Good video a video studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and we want to Hey, if you think operational infection
was a hoax, I think it's a c I a
cover up for the truth. Let us know too. We
(46:14):
would always rather learn the truth than be comfortable feeling
right about something, you know what I mean. Absolutely, So
you can find us, and more importantly, you can find
your fellow listeners in our communities on Facebook, on Instagram,
and on Twitter. We especially love to recommend Here's where
it gets Crazy over on Facebook, where you can hang
(46:37):
out with us and some of the best mods in
the moderating business, or shout out to you all as well.
That's right. All you need to know is I think
the host names still and you can get in and
start talking about all the episodes, suggest some new ones,
post some memes, whatever you want to do. It's fun.
And you know we always say yes, name name one
(46:58):
or all of the host uh. If if you would like,
you can just make us laugh. That will probably get
you in. Absolutely people have been following that uh that
direction in our voicemail messages that they've been leaving us.
You can right now call our number. It is one
eight three three std w y t K you can
(47:21):
leave up to a three minute message. Um, and I
am very happy to report that both Ben and I
will be listening for sure, and Noel also has the
information now too, So we might all be listening to
your messages and you might get a call. You might
just uh uh, just know that your words will enter
our ears. That sounds weird, uh that I'd like to
(47:45):
do an impromptu shout out. Okay, I would like to
give a shout out to Matthew B. You know who
you are. Matthew B who uh called in to say
that one of his other favorite conspiracy shows has a
has a host named Matthew uh and and one as
(48:08):
a host named Ben, and he thinks it is a conspiracy,
not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy that he has
something some things in common with his name. Wise, do
you remember that one? I do remember that one. Yes, Ben,
he's like which Matt and Ben? Okay, Yeah, that's really great.
(48:30):
Also had somebody calling in asking about the squirrel population
and coronavirus. I don't know if you get to hear
that one yet been but it was a very adamant
listener asking about whether or not the squirrels I think
it's around the Chicago area where for some reason being
affected by coronavirus because they this person hadn't seen any
(48:52):
squirrels all spring. Um, I haven't been able to find anything.
But if you out there listening and you have some
information about squirrels and where they are, where they are
right now, let us know they're here in Atlanta. I
was looking at some earlier today in my backyard. But
you know who knows. And if you think social media
is not the place for that squirrel, you know for
(49:15):
the hard hitting squirrel reporting. If you think that uh
voicemail doesn't give you enough time, you will have three
minutes to fully air out your thoughts. Then never worry.
We have one way that you can always always contact us,
Rain or Shine Collapse of civilization notwithstanding, you can reach
us seven at our good old fashioned email address. We
(49:38):
are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they
(50:00):
don't want you to know is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts for 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 Brady. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt pal nol Is on Adventures. They
called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer,
Paul Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. How's it? How's it going? Matt? I
gotta say I still love the lighting in your bunker. Yeah,
(00:46):
the lighting is pretty good. There's no light except for
this tiny one here that mimics sunshine, which is nice.
You can feel like I'm outside getting at least some
kind of exposure rather than being in this room and
not going mad. I'm not going mad. Everything's fine. Um,
if things are well right, How are they going in
(01:07):
your neck of the woods? Uh? Yeah, thanks for asking. Uh,
They're they're going all right. Um. Been a little isolated,
part of that self imposed, and part of that, um,
you know, part of part of that due to other reasons.
But everything will work out. It's strange because I was
thinking about this earlier this weekend. How quickly um, I mean,
(01:32):
I talked about all the time, how quickly things become
normal for populations of human beings. And one of the
things that's interesting is the um the adaptation of friend groups. Uh,
it's interesting. I've noticed this on a lot of like
virtual hangout platforms, especially the ones that have limits right
(01:54):
over how many people can be an X or do why.
And I think it's pretty tructive from a social dynamics, um,
you know, from from that perspective, like peek behind the curtain, folks.
Here on this show, we use zoom because it has
it has a lower lag than a lot of stuff,
at least for us, and it doesn't have a time limit.
(02:17):
So so I think it's interesting to see how people
adjust in the face of a an infection that is
probably not going away. I've got some scary research on that,
we might say for our next COVID update. Uh, But
you and I have been thinking about other global diseases,
and that's that's something we're talking about today. Yes, we
(02:38):
are exploring one of the most prominent conspiracy theories that
has existed over you know, the last few decades. It
is a belief that you will see repeated all across
the internet. Um it found global popularity for a time there,
and it kind of remains as this like unspoken truth
(03:02):
within a lot of communities, especially on the Internet in
the modern day. Right now, it's a really twisted thing.
It's a twisted dale. The concerns a disease, but not
the one that most of us are concerned with right now. Right, Yeah,
we're talking about HIV today and also you know you'll
(03:22):
hear it interchangeably described as AIDS. They're not quite the
same thing. But in short, ourur question today is how
did so many people come to believe that the United
States purposely created AIDS and why? So to answer this question,
we have to start the way we always do, with
what we know for sure. So here are the facts.
(03:46):
HIV is a virus like the coronavirus. HIV is short
for Human immuno deficiency virus. It causes the condition known
as autoimmune efficiency syndrome or AIDS. So you don't get AIDS,
you get HIV, and that it causes you to have AIDS. Nowadays,
(04:09):
millions of people millions of people have died from the
syndrome caused by HIV. But luckily, as we're recording this
now in there isn't a cure, but there are improved
therapies and preventative measures that have put the death rate
in a state of deep decline since it peaked back
and around two thousand and five. Yeah, so let's talk
(04:31):
about an area of HIV and AIDS that has a
lot of information misinformation about it on the internet, and
that is how the virus is transmitted. We do know
that a lot of bodily fluids are the general way
that it gets transmitted. We're talking blood, breast, milk, um
(04:52):
semen and vaginal secretions, uh and so on down down
the line there. And unlike the coronavirus, you cannot get
infected with HIV by that good old fashioned kissing. You
can't get it by shaking hands. You can't get it
by hugging or sharing food or beverages the way you
can get the coronavirus. But we do have a makeout
(05:16):
warning though, right, yes, you have to be very careful
about sores in the mouth of uh someone you are
deep kissing is the way it has been described French
kissing as most of us know it, So just be
careful because if you have a if there is an
open sore in someone's mouth, that can transmit this virus.
(05:37):
If you have an open sore as well, or if
you have you know, bleeding gums because of the gum disease,
gingervitis or something. I just wanted to drop a gingervitis
line and there from the tooth based commercials. You're absolutely right, Matt.
You know um in comparison to other viruses, you would
think that HIV has one huge limiting factor. It's not airborne, right,
(06:02):
It's it's fluid transmitted. So you would think that, hey,
this is not something you know, this is not near
as easy to spread. But there's a problem because HIV
has a very long um I don't know if it's
right to call it an incubation rate, but you can
get HIV. A person get HIV and be contagious, be
(06:26):
a carrier and transmitter of it for a decade, ten
years or more before they exhibit any sign of infection,
before they have any reason to think they should go
get tested. And when they are out and about, when
they are you know, living their lives symptom free, asymptomatic,
(06:48):
they can infect what dozens more people one way or another,
and then those people, of course rents and repeat, go
on to infect dozens of others and so on and
so on until it becomes a glue mobal problem. HIV
attacks your immune system. It invades our cells, invades the
cells of your immune system, and then it hacks them
(07:11):
in a in a very uncool way, to say the least.
It reprograms them to stop being your immune cells that
you know, love and trust and become factories to just
make more HIV. If you don't get treatment, then what
happens is the number of immune cells in your body.
They dwindle, you know, like not all at once, but
(07:33):
kind of like a a dying town in the rural
Midwest or something. If the body cell, if the immune cells,
are people, there are fewer and fewer in the population.
And then as as your body is deprived of these
and loses them, that then autoimmuno deficiency syndrome can kick in.
(07:54):
And once that happens, a person can be susceptible to
a wide range of possible infections, some that would ordinarily
not be fatal. Right, your body has to work so
much harder, and your immune system has been so weakened
that it cannot fight back effectively. Yeah, and this is
(08:15):
where the coronavirus really does come back in because it
makes it that much more dangerous for anyone out there
who who is HIV positive um or who has autoimmune deficiency.
So it really it's a scary thing right now, um,
having this pandemic going around, um for those people. And
(08:36):
the other thing about HIV is that it isn't just
one thing, one particular thing. It is consistently changing and mutating,
and it's believed to be like HIV itself, is believed
to be a mutated version of a different virus that
was it's called the Simian immunodeficiency virus or SIEVE s
(08:57):
i V. And this is the same It does the
same kind of thing, only it attacks primates, apes, monkeys, right,
And that's important that will matter in just a second,
especially as we dive into the history of this of
this disease. So AIDS first gained public attention in the
nineteen eighties, and there were so many misconceptions about what
(09:20):
this was and how it spread. For example, some people,
including medical experts, early on, thought it was only a
disease encountered by people engaging in same sex relationships or
you know, same sex um intimate encounters. Right, And then
other people thought it only targeted minorities because both African
(09:42):
Americans and people in the LGBT communities were seemed to
be acquiring this more often than other communities. One thing
was for sure. It was initially seen as a terminal condition,
and you know, early treatments we're almost as damaging as
(10:02):
the infection itself. Luckily, back in the nine nineties, so
long ago now, doctors shifted to a new treatment program.
They started using combinations of drugs simultaneously. They called these
anti retroviral drugs cocktails. Even now, a cocktail cannot cure
HIV or AIDS, but it can control that replication and
(10:24):
that gives your immune system vital time to recover and strengthen.
So we're in a good spot there, especially compared to
the eighties. But we're still trying to figure out the
origin story of HIV, and we wanted to give you
the official version as it stands now. So the official
(10:44):
version of how HIV reached humans was that there were
hunters somewhere out in the bush and the sieve infection
that we talked about Previously to this, the immune deficiency
disease or virus that was affecting apes was trans bit
into humans when they killed somehow and then probably in
some way consumed the chimpanzees or possibly when these hunters.
(11:09):
You know, you're going through let's say a jungle, very
thick bush area, You're getting small cuts on your arms
or your legs or something. Then blood comes out of
a chimpanzee when it is killed, and somehow that blood
gets into one of those cuts, and then the virus
begins to mutate from there. Yeah. The thing is that
people have been getting sieve for a long long time,
(11:33):
pretty often, but every so often, every blue moon, this
sieve that was in their body would evolve and it
would adapt to live in its new environment, the human host.
And this is the ascendency of HIV one. There are
four main groups of HIV strains and they each have
a slightly different makeup genetically. And this is interesting because
(11:58):
it supports the scientist enter theory because they're saying, hey,
these different versions exist because every time sieve passed from
a chimp to a human, it mutated independently in a
different way and produced a slightly different strain. There are
things there that we should also mentioned. There's HIV two
UH that comes from sieve inside UH type of monkey
(12:20):
rather than a chimpanzee, and we think it happened in
a similar way, but it's much rarer and it's less infectious,
so as a result, you don't see as many people infected.
It's nowadays found mainly in some West African countries Molly, Mauritania, Nigeria,
Sierra Leone. But check this out. So we said the
nineteen eighties, right, how far back does it go. The
(12:42):
first verified case of HIV is from a blood sample
taken in nineteen fifty nine from a guy who's living
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And that's probably
not the first one. That's just the first case for
which we have a verifiable, tested blood sample. It probably
(13:03):
happened before then. As a matter of fact, we're nine
eight percent plus certain that it did so. Right now,
that's the current theory, the hunter theory. That's when people
accept studies concluded the first transmission of sieve to HIV
and humans probably occurred in the early twentieth century, right,
(13:23):
think the teens or so. But we see evidence of
this in the Democratic Republic of Congo, because that's where
HIV strains have the most genetic diversity, and from what
we know, that means that sieve transformed into HIV multiple
times in this area. It's also home of many of
(13:45):
the first reported cases. So there you have it, right,
that's the official that's the official theory. That's what if
you ask an expert in the field, that's probably what
they're going to tell you. Yeah, it is the prevailing theory,
but it is certainly not the only thing you are
going to hear if you just go around and start
asking everybody about HIV and AIDS, and in fact, millions
(14:06):
of people across the world are convinced that for some reason,
in some way, the United States government or some faction
within had a hand in creating this virus, creating this disease.
Why would they do that, Well, allegedly, it's because of
something called operation Infection infection spelled with a K, And
(14:29):
we'll tell you all about that after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Put aside for
the moment any questions about whether the United States actually
did or did not somehow manufacture HIV. Instead, let's explore
(14:54):
how this idea evolved, how it became so popular in
the world of conspiracy. The answer is simply this. It's
one thing. It's Operation infection, like you said, Matt with
a K, which makes it sound very cooler. Uh. But okay,
so you introduced this to this concept. But what is
operation infection? Well, has a several other names. By the way,
(15:18):
we should just mention here. There's forward too, there's Operation Denver.
By the way forward to you may also find Voorwarts
v O r W A R T S two. You'll
you'll find that if you begin searching around, um, this
Operation infection, it was just a classic KGB move, one
(15:39):
of these dis info productions, you know, disinformation. We've talked
about it before on this show, and it bears all
the hallmarks of their objectively top notch approach to information warfare.
And when you started diving in this, you're just you
it's weird. This feels very callous. But you begin to
after seeing this for so you know so many times,
(16:01):
you begin to have an appreciation of it in some
weird way of like, oh, okay, guys, I see you,
I see what you're doing. But let's just jump into
this and that sounds callous. I promise I don't mean
it that way. The Russian government, Okay, the Russian government
has been doing this for a long long time, way
before the rise of HIV. Oh, yes, yeah, they have.
(16:23):
You know, it's the thing. It's it's like, you gotta
respect the hustle, you know what I mean. Like they
put the work in, they put the time in. Uh.
The the idea that you one can labor for ten
hours on something and then become a genius is a myth.
But this you could tell that the practice made perfect here.
(16:46):
They didn't just come up with information warfare in the eighties. Uh,
the first Office entirely dedicated to propaganda and dis info
on the Russian side. And um, possibly in the world
is older than the KGB itself in ninety three, the GPU,
(17:07):
it's the predecessor to the KGB, kind of like how
the OSS here in the States as the predecessor to
the CIA. Anyway, in n the GPU was already rolling
along full steam ahead. And uh, the etymology of the
word disinformation itself proves how far into the game these
folks were. Oddly enough, you know, Russian and English very
(17:30):
different languages, but by the rise of the Second World War,
the word disinformation had been invented independently in both Russian
and English to describe information warfare. And when the KGB
got into the game, when they became a real thing
officially in the nineteen fifties, this meant that disinformation was
(17:52):
already uh tremendously important tool in their active measures doctrine.
Active measures, by the way, is just that you fimism.
Think of it more like the art of political warfare. Uh.
They were linking media manipulation the front groups, so we've
talked about before, they were counterfeiting documents and currency. And
then of course even um, when it was necessary or
(18:14):
I guess maybe when they had a bad day, Uh,
they would practice wet work assassinations. Yeah, this kind of
thing a lot of times feels like a smoke screen
so that other operations can occur. Right, So you can
mislead your opponent in some way into believing one thing
when you're actually doing another. And if you do it
(18:35):
effectively enough, you can still do the one thing because
your opponents will think that you are trying to deceive
them by talking or putting information about out about the
one thing. It's it's it's fascinating. The game involved with
all of this, the game that they play with lives
(18:55):
across the world, is fascinating, if not horrifying. So, um,
let's talk about the Cold War throughout all of it.
The you know, the Soviets really just excelled in creating
tension between their opponents and their friends. So the the
opponent's friends, right, does that make sense? The the allies
(19:18):
that the people who are supposed to be on one side,
but if you can fullment some kind of tension between
those allies, they are no longer as strong as they
once were. And in particular, they love this thing called
quote black propaganda, and this was crafting making up really
damaging stuff information that we would be put out about
(19:40):
an ally, let's say, which purported to be from an ally. Right,
So the Russian propaganda would exist, and it would look
as though, let's say England was putting out some information
about the United States, when in fact it is actually
a Soviet uh message, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean,
(20:00):
even for a microcosmic example, you could imagine, let's just
take uh, let's just take Matt Nolan Ben and say like, well,
we'll pick one of one of those podcasters to be Russia.
Then they if they wanted to um break down cooperation
between the other two, then they would say. They wouldn't say,
(20:21):
hey I think this about I think this person thinks
us about you. They would say, hey, I got the
I recovered this and it's about you, and I wanted
to share it with you. The Russians did this on
a global level. One example would be Operation Neptune. They
attempted to use these forged documents to imply that Western
(20:42):
politicians had supported the Nazis. But the important part here,
the twist is that they didn't say they were declassified
Soviet documents. They came from somewhere else, and the Russians
happened to find them. Excuse me, so the government happened
to find them, and so now it was ethical to
spread this thing and and to um because really it's
(21:03):
an attack, it just doesn't use bullets. And there there
are a lot of other cases to like. The USSR
was working actively, of course during this Cold War, right,
they're working actively to discredit the U. S. Government internationally,
not that it always needed a lot of help with that,
and to discredit it to its domestic population. Again, not
that it always needed much help with that either. Um,
(21:25):
I don't want to sound too cynical. We just have
to remember like during this time, Uh, there were massive
domestic protest right. Uh. There there was a lot of
unhappiness in the international sphere regarding unilateral actions of the
United States. So there's a pretty compelling chicken or the
egg argument, right, was h were these programs stoking flames
(21:47):
that already existed? Were they starting new fires? But they
did things like oh, evidence emerged that the US supports apartheid,
things like that, And so in the early days of
the AIDS crisis, the KGB saw a go olden once
in an intelligent agency's lifetime kind of opportunity. Yeah, around
(22:07):
your there is I guess one of the first known
examples that you can kind of point to when you're
looking through this stuff. Uh. There was an Indian pro
Soviet paper. It carried an anonymous letter from a quote
well known American scientist. Okay, oh, well known American scientist obviously,
(22:27):
and this person who was quoted in this paper claimed
that AIDS had been developed in a secret bio lab
in Fort Dietrich within the United States. And of course,
you know you begin there with a little seed basically right, Uh,
some scientists that we can't verify because it would put
(22:47):
their life at risk exactly. Um, so you've got that
little seed. Nine three. Then only two years later, there's
a retired biophysicist named Dr Jacob Siegel. He claims that
the AIDS virus was synthesized by combining parts of other
viruses retroviruses in this case, the v I s n
(23:08):
A or VISNA and the ht lv one. And you know,
we we talked about how the Soviets were using again,
not unlike the United States or any other large power,
they were using fronts to report, like fronts where they
could kind of seed a story in or something, and
(23:29):
then those fronts would report on that story. So they
would all these fronts all over the world started reporting
about this thing. They would talk about the seagull report,
this person who has come forward to let us know
about the AIDS virus and how it was created rather
than how it had evolved. And and here's here's an example.
(23:51):
We don't have to read this whole excerpt, but we
wanted to sum up what it's saying so you get
a sense of it. This doctor, this retired biophysicists. You
mentioned Matt Seagull and his report, which was treated kind
of like the way, um, well, anytime politically you hear
a report and it's just the name of the report
is the last name of someone, and kind of like
(24:12):
the Miller report, Well, that's not science. Anytime you hear that,
it's it's kind of a currency created. It's a nickname
created so that people can circulate it more easily, and
it's super recognizable, because that's the rule of media, right,
make it one or two words, preferably yep. So the
Seingull report says no relation to Steven Seagal, by the way, unfortunately,
(24:36):
says quote, it's very easy using genetic technologies to unite
two parts of completely independent viruses. But who would be
interested in doing this? The military, of course. And then
they say in seven a top security lab was set
up at the Pentagon Central Biological Laboratory. And then when
year after that the first cases of AIDS occur in
(24:58):
the US in New York City. So the timeline then
implies how it occurred, how it managed to get out
of the secret, hush hush laboratory is easy to understand,
And they say this following quote. Everyone knows that prisoners
are used for military experiments in the US. There promised
their freedom if they come out of the experiment alive. Interesting,
(25:19):
now we should note that Siegel himself, Dr. Jacob Siegel,
was presented as a French researcher, but he was definitely
he was a German guy. They were just trying to
sort of make it one more remove from the Soviet government.
And unfortunately there's some truth in some of these statements.
The US does have secret biolabs, the US did experiment
(25:42):
on prisoners, Like none of that stuff was made up.
Just this instance of that happening. And you know, the
report blew up. At least for back in the day.
It couldn't go viral on the internet because it wasn't
really you couldn't do that yet, but it did go
viral as far as coverage and rumor and people talking
(26:03):
about this. It received coverage in eighty countries in thirty languages,
this Seagul report, and that spread it just it followed
this fashion that we've seen before. It's something that continues
that we you know, kind of continue to see. Well,
let's let's just keep going here. Uh, the story appeared
in a publication from outside the USSR, right, So it's
(26:26):
not us, it's just it's over there. Right. Then it
was presented as um investigative work within so the Soviet media. Right,
So it's like we, um were investigating this thing, this
report that's been out there that now we're looking at Uh,
look what we found right right, right, look at this
(26:48):
Look what we found. Uh. It's it's crazy, right, but
we feel it is our ethical duty to report it. Uh.
And furthermore, you know, join us and ask you why
the Unit to States won't answer these strong and disturbing allegations.
And this is a smear tactic that you've seen probably
in in the world of celebrity as well, where it's like,
(27:12):
you know, I didn't say it, but some people say, Okay,
who's our celebrity we pick on today, Matt, let's go
with Paul Rubens. No no, no, um Conan O'Brien, Conan O'Brien,
oh man, Okay, alright. So this hypothetical example, and I'm sorry, uh,
(27:37):
I'm sorry Mr Rubens that you lost the ConA in here. Uh.
In this hypothetical example, you would see something in the
media like, well, you know, I didn't say it. There
are a lot of reports. There are some people are
saying it happened, saying that Conan O'Brien breaks into preschools
(27:57):
and steals children's shoes and that he's he's using them
to decorate a wall of of his attic and uh,
you know, I'm not saying it's true. I'm saying a
lot of people are saying it. But I think it's
interesting that he's never denied the allegation. And you know what, erol,
(28:17):
I won't even come out and talk about it. Have
you noticed that? Yeah, exactly exactly. It's like, well, why
aren't they responding? Um? And this is disturbing because you know,
it works really well if people are already, if they
already have some pre existing beliefs. Right, if someone, for
some terrible reason, ever watched Conan O'Brien, who is a
(28:39):
fantastic guy, and thought, yeah, guy, it looks it looks
like steel shoes, and they especially, yeah, they heard that report,
they would be like, wow, he never he never denied it.
I knew it. I knew I was right. And we're
we're having fun with that example. But the mechanics are
sound that happens all the time. The Soviet Party also
(29:03):
focus special attention on the continent of Africa and Radio Moscow,
which is pretty much exactly like Voice of America or something.
Radio Moscow said the US was deliberately infecting people with
disease under the guise of free vaccination projects. Uh. And
there there's you know, tremendous distrust of vaccination projects in
(29:25):
a lot of the world, especially when they're sponsored by
Western powers or Western pharmaceutical companies. That's a story for
another day though, because there's some sand to it in
my opinion. I don't know if you agree with me there.
Oh yeah, actually, yeah, there's some sand to it. Okay,
So we've got to write that episode down for the future.
But we're we're going to take a pause, we'll have
(29:46):
a word from our sponsor, and when we return, we're
gonna see what happened to Operation Infection. And we're back.
So just to be clear, what was the purpose of
Operation Infection. We understand the strategy of this conspiracy, and
(30:10):
it is a conspiracy and it was effective, but what like,
what was the what was why? Why were they doing this?
That's a great question because on the surface, it doesn't
seem to make a ton of sense, but if you
look at a bigger picture, it does appear to have
(30:31):
two purposes. The first one is just to discredit the
United States in any way that they could um and
to you know, make the United States civilians within the
United States maybe feel just a little bit more, if
not a lot bit more, worried that their government isn't
telling them the truth. And the second purpose there is
(30:52):
to shift attention away from Russia's own very real chemical
and bioweaponry research, the re scary stuff that was happening
in Russian research laboratories and the United States laboratories and
probably a bunch of other places too. Mm hmm, yeah,
well said. And this leads us to another question. An
(31:15):
elephant in the room here, an elephant in the red
room here is how do we know about this today?
It was so top secret? Right, how did we figure
this out? Are we secretly Russian disinfo agents? Well, there
is a tragic turn of events that leads to the
revelation of this. Here's what happens. Russia was actually really
(31:36):
successful convincing people across the planet that HIV was not
only manufactured, but that the US was responsible, and part
of the reason they were so successful is because they
didn't make up the disease itself. It was and is
a real medical condition, and it was spreading unchecked, and
(31:57):
eventually the bill came to the disease arrived on Russian soil.
So in the mid to late nineteen eighties, Soviet researchers
are asking their American colleagues for help fighting this virus.
The request gets denied. Not only is it denied, but
their American colleagues say, look, we're not going to help
(32:18):
you at all and will never help you unless you
stop this disinformation operation, at which point, you know, of course,
the Soviet researchers are like, hey, I'm not in charge
of that. That's the that's the you know, that's the
k g B, I check samples. I don't know how
much policy influence you think I have UH. But they
(32:39):
were at an impasse, and the Gorbachev administration tried to
prevent the US from exposing this right, from tracing these
things like the Cigar report back to UH its ultimate
creators in the U s SR. But HIV infections continue
to grow in Russia and or in the Soviet Union.
(33:02):
Excuse me and Eventually, the Gorbitchov administration disowns the project
entirely in n but only two years, only two years
after that report the Sego report, right right, So it
blew up and then it collapsed, but people didn't admit
what was going on for a few more years, that's right.
(33:23):
It wasn't until nineteen ninety two that you've Geini prima CoV,
he was at the time the director of the Foreign
Intelligence Service. He came forward, he confirmed for everyone that
the KGB had in fact created and perpetuated this myth.
They their hands were all over it. And you know,
again is quite a while, like seven years after that
(33:46):
initial report, but still it is so strange to think
about how many minds were touched by this concept and
how it spread both on a arena, but then also
you know, within small communities kind of whispering to each other,
because this wasn't This isn't the kind of thing you
(34:08):
just go out and you just start telling everyone, And
it was I and I I imagine that it was
known it would be a whisper campaign after the initial push,
or at least it feels that way. Um, it really
is fascinating to think about this being orchestrated though, Yeah,
word of mouth for for almost anything. Word of mouth
(34:29):
is such a powerful medium of transmission, and it's a
powerful medium of belief. As human beings, you know, most
of us are driven to seek um harmony of some
sort with our peer groups. And part of the way
we seek harmony with each other is through agree on things.
(34:50):
It's a different drive. Like there's some who only want
to um I guess feel like they're they're dominating a
social circle. But most people tend to want to seek
harmony through being able to look at their close associates
and friends and say, yeah, not only do we know
what's going on, but we all agree on it, you
know what I mean. So if someone you like or
(35:11):
are close to is telling you something, depend on how
they tell it to you, you're going to eventually start
to shift towards their ideology. It's fascinating. I agree. Fascinating's
the right word because what we found here is Operation Infection,
whatever you wanna call it, is a genuine conspiracy to
create a fake conspiracy. It's like it's a Matroska doll
(35:32):
of schemes within schemes. And I love that you brought
up the very short span of time that elapsed here.
But here's the thing. Even after these people are like
caught redheaded in nineteen nineties, UH, the government officially admits
it was a thing, but the damage was already done.
(35:54):
Because another thing about our species is we like our incorrect,
like our red meat headlines and sensational stuff. We like
it big slapped on the front page and a headline,
maybe with some exclamation marks. I don't know. We'll style
on it. We'll see how it feels in the print shop.
But we saved the corrections for like the back of
page twelve two weeks later, because no one reads them.
(36:18):
No one really wants to, you know what I mean.
You got the headline, you got your opinion. You're pretty
much done. As we said in the US, this virus
was predominantly affecting in the early days, was predominantly affecting
as far as the experts could see UH, African American
communities and people in LGBT communities. These two groups have
(36:40):
been historically discriminated against and victimized. So it is a
damning condemnation of American society that this idea didn't seem impossible.
You know, people would look around and say, well, think
about all the other things the government has done to
attack these communities in the past. We know those things happened,
and we know that ES keeps evolving at a breakneck pace.
(37:02):
So it's kind of like shrug dot gif. Yeah it uh,
it definitely seemed to make sense, especially at the time
given the past. You're right, I mean you you could
almost imagine it being oh, well, hey, this disease was
created by the government to wipe these populations out. Basically,
(37:24):
you could you can imagine why people would at least
be open to that idea. Um And and the other
big problem here was that, you know, at the time,
the presidential administration, the the whole White House structure, if
you will, all of the people there, they were not
tackling it head on it. You know, it was a
known thing, especially if you were living in one of
(37:47):
the communities, communities that was being ravaged by the by
HIV and AIDS. It was very much well known and
it was a terrifying thing. But there wasn't It didn't
feel like a ton was being done about it, and
there really wasn't much being done about it at the time,
at least early on. Yeah, that's a good point because
the initial government and activity was You know, if you're
(38:09):
coming from that space, right, you believe in this, then
what seems to be a lack of activity in the
public sphere on the government's behalf is just another another
piece of proof. Right at that point, I mean, people
are not people are not idiotic. Right, we have to
remember that people people then are just as smart as
(38:29):
people today, and they have all the same failings and
all the same triumphs. So we can we can understand
where this is coming from. And this operation infection didn't
last that long, but its effects are still with us.
A two thousand five study published in the Journal of
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome showed that fifty of African American people
(38:51):
surveyed believed that AIDS is quote a man made virus,
and fifteen percent thought that was a form of genocide
against against black people in general. And like HIV itself,
this KGB crafted conspiracy theory mutated beyond its original state
(39:12):
because it was it was out in the wild. You know,
if you don't already trust the government, why would you
trust their official statements of any sort. Right, So this,
once it gets in the wild once it gets in
the field, Uh, this theory that the US made HIV
starts to mix with other things, even things that seem
kind of contradictory, like AIDS denihilism, which was huge at
(39:33):
the time. You know, it was like it's misunderstood things,
sort of like five G and COVID. Nowadays, I would
say for a parallel m Yeah, interesting, just because there
wasn't enough people didn't have enough working information or working
knowledge of it. It felt as though it couldn't be
real or it was not real. And there there were
so many other stories still today actually that uh roll
(39:57):
around about the origin of HIV and AIDS, and I
think it is one of those things that once you
have enough, once you can get enough people to question
the official story, than all of the other stories out
there begin to be a possibility for someone who's already disbelieving. Um,
(40:20):
I don't know it just yeah, it makes sense and
you can kind of see it at work with so
many things in now, like in today's zeitgeist of just
our disbelief at official stories or disbelief of official stories. Yeah, agreed,
and there you have it. You know, that is why
(40:43):
people genuinely believe the US government created HIV. It tragically
jibs with past atrocities, It mixed with other adjacent or
existing conspiracies, and some of the world's foremost experts on
information warfare just pushed it through two and again. I
I hate to say it, but just objectively, if you
(41:05):
look at the at the structure that they implemented, Uh,
their hustle is top notch. As you said, I mean
today it is important to remember there's still unanswered questions
about HIV, but it is luckily no longer a death sentence,
and scientists are working continually to improve the treatments available. Yeah,
(41:26):
and if you look on the other side of that coin,
you realize that dis info agents masters people who have
been doing this for a long time, they don't stop. Uh.
They'll you know, there's a project that may end, or
one campaign that may end, but the people who are
very good at this will continue to be doing this.
And they do because they every time they attempt a campaign,
(41:47):
you'll learn a little something about how well it worked,
how well it didn't work, what and what you can
take away from it, and things like operation infection can
then get applied to something new, let's say current events
let's talk about the election that's you know, about to happen. Well,
think about the previous election in and the manipulation that
(42:09):
occurred there, you know. Um, And there are people here
listening that don't believe any kind of manipulation occurred. There
are people here who a thousand percent know that manipulation
occurred from Russia during the presidential election in the United States. Um.
And it is very interesting to see that divide, uh,
(42:31):
you know, our own disbelief or fervent belief in something
that either did or didn't happen, right, right. And you
would think that, um, you would think that the proliferation
of instantaneous communications, social media and the Internet would finally
smash all the you know, relatively like disgusting gate keeping
(42:55):
of information sources that existed beforehand. But unfortunately that is
not the case. Make no mistake. Nineteen fifty that was nothing.
We are in the golden age of information warfare and
things like this. Just like you've heard experts predict uh pandemics,
in the future, there is another kind of global situation.
(43:17):
There will be more things like Operation infection. They will
get better, just like in the Terminator movies, when the
first androids were easy to spot. These new propaganda projects
are going to get closer and closer to seeming like
the real thing. The difference, the important difference, is that
they are not real. They are being used to control you,
(43:41):
to make you comply with the behaviors you would not accept,
or to make you do things you ordinarily wouldn't do.
And on that note, we have to ask for your health.
Fellow conspiracy realists, what are other propaganda operations proven or
alleged that you think your fellow listeners should learn more about?
And you may be asking your says, Hey, guys, how
do you even know that Operation Infection was real and
(44:04):
actual disinformation campaign? Well, it's an It's interesting that you
ask that, because one of the main reasons I believe
it is true is because on the CIA dot gov
website there is an entry about it. There are some
materials you can look at, so if you search Operation
Infection on CIA dot gov you can see that. Now
(44:25):
I'm just gonna use my own logic here. Why why
would the CIA want to put out information about a
propaganda campaign from an opposing at least at the time
and opposing superpower. M hmm, Now my wheels are turning
even further because I hadn't thought about it in this
(44:46):
way until we started this episode. Just the concept that
the CIA would want you to think that Russia is
putting out all kinds of disinformation campaigns, or the Soviet
Union at the time. Um, so that maybe you don't
think about or you dismiss the United States originating propaganda
(45:07):
campaigns that are going around at disinformation campaigns. Um, yeah,
I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just I'm just
trying to figure out where I am within the net
of propaganda. Yeah, because you know, it makes like for
a visual analogy, makes me think of maybe U two
street musicians on opposite sides of the street or on
(45:32):
stages that are facing one another, and they're both trying
to get attention from the same audience. Uh, they're trying
to direct attention from the same audience, like look what
that joker is doing. Don't look at what my hands
are doing, you know what I mean? Yeah? Oh wow,
that's that's depressing, which means it's probably has a seat
(45:52):
of truth in it, right. But you can also find
it on The Guardian in New York Times and on
you know, the website New York Good video a video studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and we want to Hey, if you think operational infection
was a hoax, I think it's a c I a
cover up for the truth. Let us know too. We
(46:14):
would always rather learn the truth than be comfortable feeling
right about something, you know what I mean. Absolutely, So
you can find us, and more importantly, you can find
your fellow listeners in our communities on Facebook, on Instagram,
and on Twitter. We especially love to recommend Here's where
it gets Crazy over on Facebook, where you can hang
(46:37):
out with us and some of the best mods in
the moderating business, or shout out to you all as well.
That's right. All you need to know is I think
the host names still and you can get in and
start talking about all the episodes, suggest some new ones,
post some memes, whatever you want to do. It's fun.
And you know we always say yes, name name one
(46:58):
or all of the host uh. If if you would like,
you can just make us laugh. That will probably get
you in. Absolutely people have been following that uh that
direction in our voicemail messages that they've been leaving us.
You can right now call our number. It is one
eight three three std w y t K you can
(47:21):
leave up to a three minute message. Um, and I
am very happy to report that both Ben and I
will be listening for sure, and Noel also has the
information now too, So we might all be listening to
your messages and you might get a call. You might
just uh uh, just know that your words will enter
our ears. That sounds weird, uh that I'd like to
(47:45):
do an impromptu shout out. Okay, I would like to
give a shout out to Matthew B. You know who
you are. Matthew B who uh called in to say
that one of his other favorite conspiracy shows has a
has a host named Matthew uh and and one as
(48:08):
a host named Ben, and he thinks it is a conspiracy,
not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy that he has
something some things in common with his name. Wise, do
you remember that one? I do remember that one. Yes, Ben,
he's like which Matt and Ben? Okay, Yeah, that's really great.
(48:30):
Also had somebody calling in asking about the squirrel population
and coronavirus. I don't know if you get to hear
that one yet been but it was a very adamant
listener asking about whether or not the squirrels I think
it's around the Chicago area where for some reason being
affected by coronavirus because they this person hadn't seen any
(48:52):
squirrels all spring. Um, I haven't been able to find anything.
But if you out there listening and you have some
information about squirrels and where they are, where they are
right now, let us know they're here in Atlanta. I
was looking at some earlier today in my backyard. But
you know who knows. And if you think social media
is not the place for that squirrel, you know for
(49:15):
the hard hitting squirrel reporting. If you think that uh
voicemail doesn't give you enough time, you will have three
minutes to fully air out your thoughts. Then never worry.
We have one way that you can always always contact us,
Rain or Shine Collapse of civilization notwithstanding, you can reach
us seven at our good old fashioned email address. We
(49:38):
are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they
(50:00):
don't want you to know is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
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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.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.