January 9, 2023 • 53 mins
It's 2023 -- and more shady companies are selling body parts on the sly. Infrastructure attacks continue across the United States, prompting questions about a larger pattern at play. Canada is banning foreign homebuyers, and Japan is begging people to move out of Tokyo. Join Ben and Matt for all this and more in this week's Strange News.
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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 My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt Our Colleaguel is not here today,
but we'll be back soon. They called me Ben and
we're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code
named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It's tree It's strange news. One
(00:48):
of at least our favorite segments on this show. We
hope you feel the same way. Matt man Man, were
you one of the guys who was politely Yeah, it
was politely responding to happen Ner your messages by saying
the calendar's cartoonish and arbitrary, but O Felia and I
(01:13):
believe in you. I had way too many many conversations
about that over the holiday season this year, just accidentally,
and I didn't even mean to man it, just I
would blurt it out and just have a conversation about
Julius Caesar in his calendar, and like the days that
were stolen from all of us, and you know, winter Solstice,
And it was basically just a bunch of keywords from
(01:35):
our conversations and I would just blurt them out in
a salad it people people are into it. Yeah, yeah,
and you know, with all due respect, and I mean
that objectively respect up to a certain threshold. Uh, the
calendar is, as we discovered in some previous explorations, the
(01:56):
human calendar calendars are some of the earliest technology that
human beings have created. And I had a lot of
those similar conversations, Matt, where I would I would be
talking with people, random people actually, some strangers who had
listened to our earlier episode you and I did on
(02:17):
the set the Calendar Heist back in the day in
the United Kingdom. And uh, one of my favorite responses
was from an old school vet who will call Rosario
and he said, yeah, no, it makes sense, but uh,
you know, you call it what you would. Everybody has
(02:38):
to agree. We gotta move as a unit. You know,
the whole world needs to say it's Tuesday when it's Tuesday.
And I thought, you know, hard to find fault with that. Yeah,
it's just we've got this weird rolling Tuesday thing that
happens Tuesday kind of rules around. It's weird. Yeah, and uh,
(03:01):
there's this interesting problem right of scale. You know, you
can create a calendar like the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar, etcetera,
and you can obviously note the imperfections of it, but
those imperfections often are visible on a longer horizon of time, right,
(03:25):
and in the immediate horizon of time. People just all
want to be on the same page. And you know,
one of the things we all want to be on
the same page about, ben what's that meant? Trusting that
when a loved one passes away, we know what's happening
to them. To segue and there we are off to
(03:51):
the races. Yes, that should be something that most people
can reasonably assume, right if I and we we talked
about this in the past with body brokers. We talked
about this and a couple of other stories about oh gosh,
that guy in Georgia that we brought up a couple
(04:11):
of times. Yeah, this is a fundamental violation of trust.
What what happens when things go wrong? I think we've
got maybe an update here, we do. We have an
unfortunate update about a particular place, a business that was
(04:31):
operating in a couple of different ways. So let's head
on out to Montrose, Colorado. I think that's how you
would say that. It's about a five hour drive southwest
of Denver, like two sixty miles or something by road,
not as the crow flies. Um. This place one building,
(04:52):
two businesses. The first business was called or known as
Sunset Mesa. It was a funeral home, a place where
families would go after a loved one died and seek
the services to have that person, you know, interred however
they saw fit, whether it's either burial or being cremated,
it's generally the services that they would offer. And they
would do those things, you know, sell coffins, that kind
(05:15):
of stuff. The other business that was in the same
building was called Donor Services. It's a secondary business, separate business.
And can you guess what that company specialized in. What
did that company special Well, it's in the name body
(05:35):
Parts and full body donation for science. Wildly unregulated, yes,
still wildly unregulated. Well, um, this company was run at
least primarily by two individuals, one person named Megan Hess
and another person named Shirley Cock. I believe is how
(05:58):
you'd say there, maybe coke probably coke. Right, It's like
the Koch brothers spelled the same way ko c H
and uh surely was is Megan's mom. Okay, So here's
what was happening over at MESA four years, several years.
(06:19):
Families would come ask for those services for a loved
one who died. Then Surely and Megan together would defraud
those people by you know, allowing them that family to
pay for funeral services, for let's say, services to have
a loved one cremated. They wouldn't in fact cremate that person,
(06:41):
or at least all of that person. They would instead
take them into the back and chop that body up
and create false paperwork like donate body donation paperwork for
those individuals and their various body parts, and then they
would sell them, uh for not a ton of money,
(07:03):
but for uh quite a bit of money. It's not
like these two are getting massively rich or something. But
they just started this business going. It was like a
machine that started running, and it didn't stop until they
got caught. Do we do we know for how long
this operation continued? Well, then I'm not positive how long
(07:25):
this was occurring, but I do know that it goes
back to at least eleven because of the reporting coming
out of the Denver post Um, but I don't want
to get too far ahead here. The reason why any
of us know about any of this is because of
an investigation carried out by Reuters that dates back to
UH or between eighteen. They were looking into the body
(07:48):
broker issue across the board and this is one of
the places that kind of hit on their radar when
they started talking to family members. Um. And there was
an PII investigation where they began to identify the remains,
Like let's say your loved one got cremated, that person
came home in a jar of sorts and container of sorts.
(08:13):
The family believes, oh that's my you know, that's Uncle
Jerry or whatever. And the FBI confirmed through testing that no,
in fact, that is the remains of multiple people, probably
multiple parts of multiple people just burned up together. Um.
And if that's not heartbreaking and like makes you want
(08:34):
to hit something really hard, UH, it should. Um. Okay,
so let's talk about what happened to Megan and Shirley.
They both pleaded guilty back in July of last year
to fraud essentially the you know, they did some horrible
macab things to dead bodies, like unspeakable things did the bodies. Um.
(09:00):
But ultimately the thing they're getting in trouble for is
filling out that false paperwork on behalf of those families, right,
and then gaining money from selling it to places that thought,
you know, a research organization that thought everything was on
the up and up. It was fraudulent. Um. Megan hess
(09:21):
was sentenced to twenty years, which was the maximum number
of years that she could have gotten, and Shirley Coke
was sentenced to fifteen years. And I think one of
the reasons Shirley was given less years because she discussed
outllowed during the process of how she was the person
(09:41):
cutting up bodies. Added to a lot of it, she
admitted to a lot of the things that she was doing.
She's also sixty nine years old, and you know she's
still getting fifteen years in prison. Um. It's just it's
one of those things where in my mind and I
have the facts about this, so I haven't actually seen
(10:02):
that it's been proven in a court of law that
surely was the one cutting up the bodies, But it
feels like something you might say or admit to if
you're a parent of someone who's also getting an equal trouble, like,
you know, I'll take the blame. It feels like that
to me. I don't know if that's true. Yeah, So
that they got sentenced. The reason we're talking about this
today is because they were sentenced on Tuesday the third.
(10:26):
So it's finally kind of the end to this crazy
story that all of these family members have been going through,
who've had people, you know, run through that system. Um,
unwillingly and unknowingly. They finally got to see these two
get locked up. Um. So that's really why we're talking
(10:47):
about it today. It's a much bigger story though, Ben,
I don't know if you want to touch on the
full thing, but it's just kind of it's just gross.
It's stinks. Um, it's just pretty awful. You can read
all about it if you want to. The reporting is widespread,
a lot of it's coming from as I said, Denver
Post Reuters, the Guardian had to write up on it.
(11:07):
You can find it everywhere. Yeah, and you can also
find uh, speaking to that point about larger context, you
can also find more information about this in our previous
episode on the body broker industry, which remains unregulated today
remains is not a pun and anybody who treats that
(11:27):
as a pun you should feel bad. So the the
issue too is that, to be quite concrete about this,
just because this one group of folks got convicted, it
doesn't mean that the families have a happy ending. It
is virtually impossible to trace the you know, to trace
(11:56):
the timeline for each body part that got older trafficked.
I would use the word trafficed anonymously, right. Uh. The
people who are receiving this stuff, it reminds me a
little bit of the museum problem, Matt. You know, the
the idea that a museum procureer or cure at or
(12:19):
can say, well, we did our due diligence, and these
people are you know they they said, uh, they looked
on the up and up when they gave us these
bronzes right from a country that is not of their origin,
and we cough cough, British museum cough cough, have no
problem taking it. And it looked legit. It had a stamp,
(12:45):
you know, the stamp pois and colors like it really
popped and that stamps it is like that, and you
know something I forgot to mention Ben. It's there were
an estimated five hundred and sixty bodies in total, or
or at least that many bodies that were quote dissected
(13:06):
by this group. And if we're being if we're being
coldly objective about this, when you hear that number over
five d what what we all need to realize, fellow
conspiracy realists, is that folks engage in these operations are
practicing rules that would be familiar to the proprietor of
(13:27):
any decent automobile chop shop. You make more money selling
parts than you do the whole car, So there's it's
incredibly difficult if you are a surviving family member to
find all of the places where your loved ones remains went. Boy,
(13:50):
we are kicking off and a super I am so
sorry everybody. This is just a story that stood out
to me and us and uh, it's something we talked about. Yeah,
it's not justice though, mm hmm. It's just really real
messed up. Yeah, gosh, they were charging a grand for
(14:13):
a cremation. It didn't happen at all, at least in
the way that they were told. The body that loved
one got donated chopped up and then they got sent
a jar remains. That was just like all the other
victims in this case, bunch of different people, just a
(14:34):
mixed tape of ashes. So one, let's let's go for
a positive aspect of this. One positive thing amid all
this tragedy is that there are more there are more
eyes on this problem, there's more awareness. Hopefully, you know,
the FBI successfully pursuing this kind of investigation hopefully spells
(15:00):
uh spells out a precedent, right, Hopefully this will one
day become a thing of the past. You know, if
the FBI is rating one business in an industry, you
can statistically be certain they at least have some scarily
(15:20):
accurate eyes on other other examples of that industry without
other cam website running people in all of your if
you've got a business running cam girl and boy services,
watched out Andrew Tate just went down. Oh oh yeah, okay,
what's the deal with that guy? Why he's just human
(15:43):
trafficking with cameras disgusting and also uh not involved in
body broker stuff. Different kind of Actually, that is an
excellent point, Matt. This is the reason you and I
hang out. Yeah, I will say though again going for
a positive note. Okay, yeah, ok yeah, going through a
(16:06):
positive note. Uh. It's crazy that greta Thunderberg of old
people became a hypocrite in that argument, because how are
you going to be a climate activist and make a
burn that enormous. It's like we're working live, We're working
(16:29):
no no props though it was it was can I
tell you I didn't actually I saw the headlines pop up,
but I never clicked on it was. It wasn't in
a tweet or something that she what was it? Yeah,
So the the guy take I think just proactively maybe
for clout or attention. Uh, sent sent a message to
(16:52):
Thunderberg's Thunberg's Twitter handle and said, look, I have all
these cars, and you know, I'm very proud of them.
And it was trying to do do a nagg of
some sort, which you know as a the guy's a
pick up artist key way they call themselves, and so
(17:13):
I think he was trying to do that sort of stuff,
which which in general different bag of badgers. But look,
don't listen to the pickup artist stuff. It's like self
help books. It's to make those folks money, not to
help you. As an audience and uh. And then she
responded with something like, uh, yeah, yes, send an email
(17:34):
to me at small energy at something dot com and
and it it burnens so bad that he made a
response video which was supposed to um depicted him in
his version of a successful light and he messed up
(17:56):
the same way Tracy Jordan's messed up on thirty Rock,
which is he was he was eating pizza and from
the pizza boxes he authorities were able to track his vacation, Yes, sir,
and it sealed the deal on the human trafficking or else. Yeah.
(18:17):
Well he's got big small brain energy, you know. Uh.
And and then Thumberg came back and said this was
the brutal like finisher move. Uh. If we're talking to
m m A, she said, you know, like when the
rests are trying to hold you back and you've gotta
knock one more in. Uh. Thumberg said something along the
lines of this is what happens when you don't recycle
(18:39):
your pizza boxes moves. Uh. And that's a positive note.
We should go to break. I feel good and we
have returned. So Matt, you and Doc and I uh
(19:03):
managed to find some positivity in a quite quite terrifying
story in our first part of this strange news segment.
Let's continue to our second story. Uh, it's another update. Man.
We talked about this a while ago. We actually forecast
(19:23):
it just a bit. And that's not calling that's not
calling ourselves no stradomical dominish. No. Uh. What what we're
saying is the numbers were there, the statistics were there,
the trends, the motivations, they were all there. They're still there,
they're mapped out. There are continuing attacks on the infrastructure
(19:49):
of the United States. These are soft targets. Uh, Matt,
I place enormous priority on credit where it's due. And
you brought up the story not too long ago of
a fluoride activist in Florida. I believe a fluoride activist
in Florida who had fused with the water levels right
(20:14):
at a water treatment plants. Oh, Man, I can't remember
if I actually if I'm the one that brought that up.
Inn It might have been through listener mail. And so
so this this story illustrated for us what seemed to
be not just the one off case of problems with
(20:34):
a specific water treatment plant, but it showed us why
infrastructure is both one important and too easily ignored. You know.
It's it's not hot red meat for the media, not yet.
And so what we're gonna do now is talk a
little bit about some of the recent infrastructure attacks, some
(20:58):
of the patterns we see about the future, and then
let's interrogate that perception of patterns, because there's a little
bit more to the story if we're paying attention. So
recently white recently, Uh, you and Doc and I were
talking about this before we before we hopped on air today.
There was another attack on an energy substation, and this
(21:22):
one was in the Pacific Northwest, correct, that is correct,
near Tacoma, Washington. Yeah, And in in those attacks, two
people are in custody, actually, which is very nice. For
quite a while, at least on Christmas Day and the
next the following day on December last year, it's weird
(21:43):
to say, Um, they were still trying to figure out
who the heck was attacking substations, empower stations near Tacoma.
But they finally got somebody, Yeah, because four got hit
on Christmas morning and it didn't take long for these
two guys to get arrested on New Year's Eve. So
(22:06):
the celebrated, and um, probably not the situation they were
hoping for. You know, wow, they got picked up on
New Year's Eve. Oh man, oh yeah, I know. Can
I make a confession just as a side note here,
I did not do a countdown this year. I was
(22:28):
alone at my house with the dogs and playing a
little skyroom. I'm sorry, everybody, that's what I was doing.
That that's a king move. Yeah. I was finishing up
some Thieves Guild stuff and I looked over and it
was twelve o two and I went, hey, look at that.
(22:49):
Uh yeah, that's again. Uh, big fans of Skyrim here,
I was at you know me quite well, I was right,
something ridiculous. Uh, and then got over my head in
some dumb project or another. And I believe Doc told
us code named Doc Holiday told us that she was
(23:11):
watching a game. She was watching a game with the dogs,
right with the Bulldogs. And then yeah, I told us,
there's a brief moment where she said, oh, happy New Year, everybody.
And they went back to the game and then Ohio
State lost immediately afterward. My dad was so excited. God,
(23:33):
he was excited, and so so everybody. Uh celebrates New
Year's Eve in a different way, right, is what we
can say. And uh, these guys, we can tell you
their names. In this country is legal to disclose people's names.
Guy named Matthew Greenwood and a guy named Jeremy Crahan
(23:55):
were attacking these uh four powers stations in Pierce County
in Tacoma. But they were not doing so as um,
they were not doing so with a terrorist ideology or
anything like that. They had a specific plan in mind.
(24:16):
Well they said, they say they did. They said they
were gonna they were gonna go rob a local business.
So it's very much big heist energy going on there
where we're gonna we're gonna take down all the power
in this whole area and then get in there and
get the bonds or whatever they were going to steal.
And I would have gotten away with it too if
(24:36):
it weren't for you phone records, Yeah, I got them.
Don't take your cell phone to a crime soon. Uh yeah,
actually wait, do take your cell phone to a crime seen?
Uh well, you know shot spotter, so the the that
(25:00):
doesn't apply in this situation. But also shout out man,
I was listening to something we did earlier that came
out last week. Now I think where you and I
walked through and hopefully not too specific of a detail,
ways to uh spoo fence and fool uh cell phone tracking. Yeah, yeah,
(25:25):
I was still I I listened back, and I wanted
to make sure we were on We were on the level,
and it was a great job. I really liked your idea.
By the way of uh recording listening to a television, Yeah,
it only works if you're only being spied on through audio, though.
If there's video involved, too bad you did. That gets
(25:47):
a little more sophisticated, right, And a surveillance state we
live in, that's for sure. Actually, if you're listening to this,
you're in a surveillance state as well. What a time
to be alive. So why are these two guys in
Tacoma interest they've failed in their heist. A lot of
folks attempting a heist fail. That's just the nature of
(26:10):
the game. It's like spoken word. Most of it is
going to be unsuccessful, some of it will be amazing.
So so the issue here is that there's a larger
conversation that the United States needs to have across political
boundaries about soft targets. All Right, most of the energy
(26:33):
that cities, towns, you know, everything in between. Most of
it is very unprotected. Right. One of the most one
of the most extreme examples I saw of energy substation
being even adequately surveiled is a is a content building.
(26:59):
This GUIs as an apartment block in New York City,
And that's just because of the density of people and
the frequency of folks walking by. If you are going
to almost any area that is not already a federal
or military installation, you are going to see the number
one protection being what a chain link fence and some cameras.
(27:23):
And this really this really spiked Matt when Um when
our pal Heinrich Over in Germany the decade aristocrat tried
to try to be the face of an attempted coup
and German German police and law enforcement overall came down
quite hard, and they came with receipts. The plan for
(27:46):
that coup was to detonate UH an e MP electromagnetic
pulse device. And they're thinking was this would be a
signal so people who are on board with this idea
and together they would rise up and they would UH
overthrow Germany's current government and institute monarchy. Because they were
(28:12):
very interested in dumb ideas about government, and that's that's
just objective monarchies are done. But the the thing is this,
I think gave some fuel to the fire. Right. This
is something that you will you will hear about increasingly.
(28:32):
And we talked about this previously in you know, as
long as those substations remain things with essentially no kind
of protection. The assumption is, hey, everybody living here needs energy, right,
(28:53):
It's it's part of life in the United States. So
who would be enough of a jerk to a packet?
What good would it do? It would help maybe distract
local law enforcement for long enough in one area that
you could go to a different area of the same
metro and then pull a pretty successful heist, right, Like
(29:17):
if you wanted to just for an example, if you like,
picture your city, if your city has two strip malls,
then if you want to rob one of those strip
malls or a store there, then what do you do.
You create a huge brew haha at the first strip mall.
(29:37):
You distract first responders, right, you get the deputies, the possese,
the l eos in general all converged on that spot,
and then really quickly you scoop in on on point
to H'm they did. They did because they were thinking
(30:00):
through it, but they weren't thinking about the precedent they
were setting this. This means that that kind of tactic
is going to be readily apparent two anyone paying attention,
not just in the US but in other parts of
the world, and make the mistake without providing solid proof.
(30:25):
I am I'm virtually certain that intelligence agencies and state
actors have deployed similar tactics in the past. It just
we just saw in the warrant the war that's occurring
in Ukraine right now. I mean, it's a war. It
is a standard war tact. I guess you're saying, man
(30:47):
attacked the infrastructure, knock that out. If they don't have power,
they the enemy whoever they are, can't do certain things. Yeah,
it's true. And I'm talking about the um even the
fishier side of it, which is the plausible deniability. So
(31:08):
so why why is this an issue? Well, yes, the
reality is there, these are targets. These are easy targets
and unless something changes, as the US infrastructure continues to decay, right,
there will be more opportunities for attack. They will likely
(31:31):
be they will likely be actors who think of themselves
as domestic actors, but they may not be. They may
be financed without their knowing by foreign powers of one
sort or another. But the other thing the question we
should end on with this one is does media reporting
(31:55):
of these instances does it help or does it courage
more similar attempts? And that's an open question. I don't
know what what's your take, man, I think it might.
I was reading in one of the stories you found
here been from the National Review dot com or National
Review dot com. The article is just titled Who's Attacking
(32:16):
Our Power Grid? And in there they discuss how attacks
on the US power grid individual attacks like this are
at the highest levels since But that means there have
been in the past fairly high frequencies of attacks on
the power grid. It's just we I haven't heard a
(32:36):
ton about them. I don't know if you have, but
it does appear that it's something that's been happening for
quite a while. When it becomes a major news story
like the North Carolina attacks that we discussed previously on
this show, I wonder if it gives people ideas, right,
that's the question, are you informing, are you empowering? Possibly?
(32:59):
What benizing. We need those dogs with guns. You know
those robot dogs. Oh yeah, you love those. Yeah. At
each substation there's like a couple of them. Oh boy. Yeah.
It's weird because if you think about a lot of
these things, right, these substations outside of dense urban populations,
(33:21):
these um these little nodes of modern culture are often
put where they are because of nimby not in my
backyard concerns, and as a result of that, they are
often not not in the most accessible places. I want
(33:42):
to shout out. We'll keep people anonymous. I want to
shout out a Reddit user named Damon d A E.
M I N who pointed out that when they were
doing a a security assessment let's call it in Wyoming
a while back, they noticed that the nearest town, the
(34:03):
nearest mark of civilization to this power station was a
hundred miles away, and for law enforcement to travel to
the site it would take four hours if they left immediately.
So there's a logistical problem. How do you how do
you combat that? Right? How do you how do you
(34:24):
get in front of it? Robot dog sentinels, robot dog,
robot you know what, robot ravens too. Let's get some
birds up there, you know, sphere guardians. Uh, you know,
I like them. I also think the oh the little
Dwemmer spiders because you know, because they drop out of
(34:48):
nowhere those shock attacks. Come on. Why are we doing
a half measures? Dragons? Someone invent dragons. We need dragons. Dragons. Yeah,
DARPA drop everything, DARPA drop everything. Get dragons. All right, Uh, folks,
(35:10):
we're gonna take a pause for a word from our sponsors,
and we'll be back with some things that we've been
keeping our eyes on. In three and spoiler, we're going
to end this show asking for your opinion about what
your fellow conspiracy realist should keep an eye on this year.
(35:39):
And we've returned full disclosure. Folks. I don't know about you, Matt,
but since a lot of hostility towards Ohio State from
the good code name Doc Holiday, and I didn't even
ask her about it during the break because I'm not
up to date. I don't know about the villainous past
of Ohio State. Ohio State, bro educate yourself to Michigan graduated.
(36:07):
It's really it's really that simple. And my mom also
graduated from Michigan, so I was like raised to hate
Ohio State. In fact, Ohio State actually like sent me
a letter of my senior year in high school, cause
I got a really high school. In my A C T.
I had some different colleges like you know, like offer
letters and so like, Ohio State sent me a letter
(36:28):
offering me a full of scholarship, and I burned it,
burned it amazing. I put it in the fireplace. It's
not an exaggeration. This actually happened. It's too real. It's
too real out here twenty free Okay, Uh, thank you
for that information. I am. I am continually amazed. And
(36:53):
U I don't know this this kind of information. It's
it's the sort of stuff that I think makes a
lot of us feel centered in our communities in which
we live. You know, like sports games, people find so
much identification. People identify with their communities the same way
that all of us will naturally identify with some region
(37:19):
of the world. And there's a big us versus them thing.
And this is one of the things that we wanted
to keep an eye on in in the very end
of this show today. Uh, we're calling this twenty three
things to keep an eye on. Quick update on our
pretty divisive episode about foreign investment in housing markets across
(37:43):
the planet. We got let's see, we got uh, we
got some folks who said this was in danger of
being xenophobic, which I think is true. We got some folks,
We got a lot of folks say that this was
an estment scam by people who have made money in
a shady way in some other country and they're parking
(38:06):
that money in another place to the detriment of people
who actually live in that community. And so we have
an update. Now. We spent a lot of time on
Canada here, and our Canadian conspiracy realists wrote to us
with this. The law has passed. If you're not Canadian,
(38:26):
you are banned from buying a home. Asterick asterix fine print. Yeah,
it's not it's not looking good for that investment sector,
I guess, as you'd call it, because houses, it's just
something you don't know as you're growing up, even when
you're in college, unless you're specializing in some of this stuff,
(38:48):
you don't realize that homes are this weird investment sector
for wealthy human beings on planet Earth, and that's really
what they are. It's this It's not a place for
you to grow up and you know, have a good time,
have your nice family and do all that stuff. No, no, no,
it's just a thing that it accrues in worth that
(39:10):
you didn't eventually get to flip one day or turn
it into passive income for you and your family for
the rest of your life. It's really all it is,
right right, we're talking specifically about a there's a great
right up on this from Nadine yusuf over at British Broadcasting.
And there are some statistics we should kick like Summer
(39:34):
of want of Folks may remember it fondly unless you
were trying to buy a home in Canada. The average
home price in Canada at that time was seven hundred
seventy seven thousand, two hundred dollars Canadian Canadian in US
that's uh five d sixty eight thousand dollars. And yeah,
(39:59):
and so that is as use of points out more
than eleven times the median Canadian household after taxes. We've
seen similar stuff in Australia. You've seen you have seen
similar stuff if you live in California, right, uh, l
or London, for example. Uh. This is a larger systemic
(40:21):
problem and until this law got passed, it was totally
not illegal. I feel like not illegal is watering it
down a bit. I don't know that's a new thing, man,
I like, not illegal, it's just it's real hot this decade.
(40:42):
Actually just humans. That's that's real hot. It's real hot
this yeah, this species. Okay, So it's that's where Google
was coming from. What there don't be evil world away
from be good or do good? Well, Okay, so I'm
bringing this up. This is a thing to keep n
ion because I imagine more countries are going to do
(41:06):
things similar to this. You know, we have to remember
that other countries already have laws banning foreign ownership and
have had those laws for quite some time. Thailand would
be an excellent example, Zealand New Zealand as well, large
large expat communities in both but pretty strict laws. And
(41:28):
I wonder, Matt, whether this leads us to a larger
trend over twenty three of increasing sort of um us
versus them nous. Right, like you you told me this
story and I wasn't aware of this update until you
(41:48):
kicked it right before it went on air. Uh Japan,
which has a huge percentage of its population in Tokyo
metro area, Japan is asking people to leave the capital. Dude.
They've been asking people to get the heck out of
Tokyo for a long time. And they also said we'll
(42:09):
pay you, like seriously, we will. We will give you
lots and lots of yen and you can get out,
Thank you very much. The problem is their campaign has
not been successful at all. You might you may ask
why are they doing that, and it's because Tokyo in
general is just super overcrowded, at least compared to most
of the rest of Japan in the more suburban areas
(42:31):
that exist out there, where populations are just dwindling, completely dwindling.
CNN Business had a great article titled Tokyo is so
crowded the government is paying families to leave, and they
mentioned that the country of Japan is offering families seven thousand,
seven dollars US per child if your parents to move
(42:52):
to less populated areas on the island or in the country.
So it's really that's pretty good. I mean, let's say
you've got two kids. Wow, that's over fifteen thousand dollars
US or two million yen um, not a not a
not too bad, and you could actually walk down the street.
(43:14):
They're also encouraging people to open their own businesses in
those places because there's like no businesses in a bunch
of these towns that used to be flourishing. Well, that's
the pickle, isn't it. I mean, let us not forget that.
In the US for some time, a couple of states
had this program where they would give you, uh land
(43:36):
for free as long as you promised to actually live there.
What we're seeing then is, I would argue an increasing
trend towards conurbation. That's that's okay, I've laughing at your
face there. I just have to thinking about Karl McGregor,
and like, that's how I would describe what he used
(43:56):
to do in the ring when he makes but he
was just knocking people left and right now anybody, I mean, judges,
they're giving us a ding dot holiday. Can we get
a dingy good? We got the belt? Well done that?
Uh yeah. Conturbation is just it's just the concept of
(44:18):
a metro area with a tie on to sound fancy.
And as we have discussed for several years, actually for
quite a few years now, the majority of the human
species has lived in cities. That's just a numbers game.
So the prospect of telling someone to go live outside
(44:39):
of a city and try to be you know, on
the forefront of resurrecting that economically, that is, that is
one of those things where I imagine you would get
eighty percent of people to agree with it in principle,
but how many would actually go and do it? M M,
(45:02):
you know what I mean. Well, that's why we have
some numbers for you here Okay. So Tokyo as a
city is the fifth most expensive city that you could
live in, Okay. That's one of the major reasons they're
doing the same reason why in the world, in the world, yes,
not in Japan, in the world. Uh And Japan, as
(45:24):
we said, has been trying to do this for quite
a while. There was there have been numerous attempts to
get individuals and families out of Tokyo and into these
other places that are more or less unoccupied. And let's see,
the last time, or at least the best information I
(45:44):
have right now, there was a plan where they were
offering three thousand yen per child for a family to
relocate or for a single person or couples right um.
And there was a whole thing where they're offering to
help get businesses going. Here we go, here we go.
(46:06):
In the first year that they launched this where they're
offering people money to leave, yea, they had seventy one
total households that participated and actually got out of Tokyo.
Holy edemy here Holy yeah. Everybody's like, nah, Tokyo is
pretty good, man. It sounds like, you know, the majority
(46:26):
of households are going. That's a great idea, and let's
make sure it happens for someone else. Yeah. Yeah, So
there's a current population in Tokyo thirty seven million human
beings at least last time I checked. And to have
only seventy one households move out not great. In one
(46:49):
thousand households moved out, so a little better, but not
even a fraction of a drop in the bucket. It's difficult,
as you know, uh Matt, doc Holiday. I have spend
some time in various situations in South Korea, and one
thing that sticks with me about that is the capital
(47:11):
their soul is considered the best place to live by
the majority of population. And it's not found that idea
is not founded on some um vague abstract concept. It's
founded on things like opportunities. Where do I get where
(47:31):
do I get a better life for my kids? Where
does my business have a chance of success? Where can
I find a job in some other business? And even
though Soul remains as of the time of this recording,
even though Soul remains under very dangerous potential threat from
(47:52):
the neighbors to the north, people still make that choice.
So much so in fact, that I've heard people refer
to moving away from Seoul as stepping down. So it
may be seen and again, the three of us are
not native residents of Japan, so it may be seen
(48:14):
as taking a step down to move away from this
capital city. And look, folks, if you're not from the
United States, Just to be very clear about this, most
people who live here, I don't want to live in
the capital. They don't want to live in Washington, d C.
It's just a pain in the ass, you know what
(48:36):
I mean. It's it's the seat of some wonderful ideas
and some terrifying ideas. But I'm so joke left behind.
But it's but take our word for it. If you've
never visited to the capital of the United States, it's
(48:57):
not as cool as Tokyo. It's not as cool as
all you know what I mean, No, it's nowhere. It's
actually not as cool as New York. I meet so
many people who will argue that New York City is
the cultural capital of the United States, and I think
there's a pretty good case to be made there. But
(49:18):
our big reason for bringing this up is that we're
talking about the idea of in increased nationalism, increased attention
on where people would like to live versus where current
power structures want them to reside, and that is going
(49:38):
to be a big thing. Like we just very very
obliquely outlined plans, and and of course there's the licensing
system in mainland China that dictates where people can live
or move even pre COVID. I pose it to you
that this kind of trend will continue. I see in
(50:02):
a further restriction of free movement just overall across the board.
I don't know how extreme it will be, but as
climate migrants trend upward, which is inevitable, I think we're
going to see a lot more restriction on movement, if
not in the definitely in the coming years. There's a
(50:24):
story over Christmas about migrants being dropped off at Kamala
Harris's house. Is that right, I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's politically, it's a political goal. And again, when elephants
make war, it's the grass that suffers. So regardless of ideology, Uh,
(50:44):
everybody should be pissed on behalf of folks who were
lied to and misled and trucked up somewhere and treated
like props instead of human beings. Uh, I I don't know, man.
Let's let's send on something funny. Let's send on a
small time, small time heist, because as as you and
(51:06):
I know, uh, this is this strange news. Part of
what we're talking about is a pretty good lead into
an episode that you and I are doing about overpopulation
fact and fiction. I can't wait. And speaking of overpopulating things,
(51:26):
painful segue. We have even more stories to keep an
eye on in three, but we're gonna call it a
day or in my case, a sunrise, for now, and
we are going to return with more stuff they don't
want you know, very soon, big, big thanks to everybody,
(51:47):
all of our fellow conspiracy realists who reached out. We
can't wait to share some of your stories in our
upcoming listener mail segment in the meantime, give us your
thoughts on the body broker industry, give us your thoughts
on the potential for continuing attacks on UFS, UFC C,
f C S, no on UFC or u S infrastructure,
(52:14):
and uh, let us know what and let all of
us know what you're keeping an eye on. In twenty three.
We try to be easy to find online Facebook, Instagram, UH, YouTube,
TikTok until that gets banned in the u S, which
is probably probably on the way. If you don't like that,
If you don't sip those social meds, why not give
(52:34):
us a telephone call. Yes, I re number is one
eight three three S T d W y t K
A minor apologies to everyone. We are still a little behind,
but we're getting closer and closer every day to getting
caught up on voicemails, so please continue sending them in
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(52:55):
give yourself a cool nickname, leave a message that's less
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(53:33):
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 My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt Our Colleaguel is not here today,
but we'll be back soon. They called me Ben and
we're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code
named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It's tree It's strange news. One
(00:48):
of at least our favorite segments on this show. We
hope you feel the same way. Matt man Man, were
you one of the guys who was politely Yeah, it
was politely responding to happen Ner your messages by saying
the calendar's cartoonish and arbitrary, but O Felia and I
(01:13):
believe in you. I had way too many many conversations
about that over the holiday season this year, just accidentally,
and I didn't even mean to man it, just I
would blurt it out and just have a conversation about
Julius Caesar in his calendar, and like the days that
were stolen from all of us, and you know, winter Solstice,
And it was basically just a bunch of keywords from
(01:35):
our conversations and I would just blurt them out in
a salad it people people are into it. Yeah, yeah,
and you know, with all due respect, and I mean
that objectively respect up to a certain threshold. Uh, the
calendar is, as we discovered in some previous explorations, the
(01:56):
human calendar calendars are some of the earliest technology that
human beings have created. And I had a lot of
those similar conversations, Matt, where I would I would be
talking with people, random people actually, some strangers who had
listened to our earlier episode you and I did on
(02:17):
the set the Calendar Heist back in the day in
the United Kingdom. And uh, one of my favorite responses
was from an old school vet who will call Rosario
and he said, yeah, no, it makes sense, but uh,
you know, you call it what you would. Everybody has
(02:38):
to agree. We gotta move as a unit. You know,
the whole world needs to say it's Tuesday when it's Tuesday.
And I thought, you know, hard to find fault with that. Yeah,
it's just we've got this weird rolling Tuesday thing that
happens Tuesday kind of rules around. It's weird. Yeah, and uh,
(03:01):
there's this interesting problem right of scale. You know, you
can create a calendar like the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar, etcetera,
and you can obviously note the imperfections of it, but
those imperfections often are visible on a longer horizon of time, right,
(03:25):
and in the immediate horizon of time. People just all
want to be on the same page. And you know,
one of the things we all want to be on
the same page about, ben what's that meant? Trusting that
when a loved one passes away, we know what's happening
to them. To segue and there we are off to
(03:51):
the races. Yes, that should be something that most people
can reasonably assume, right if I and we we talked
about this in the past with body brokers. We talked
about this and a couple of other stories about oh gosh,
that guy in Georgia that we brought up a couple
(04:11):
of times. Yeah, this is a fundamental violation of trust.
What what happens when things go wrong? I think we've
got maybe an update here, we do. We have an
unfortunate update about a particular place, a business that was
(04:31):
operating in a couple of different ways. So let's head
on out to Montrose, Colorado. I think that's how you
would say that. It's about a five hour drive southwest
of Denver, like two sixty miles or something by road,
not as the crow flies. Um. This place one building,
(04:52):
two businesses. The first business was called or known as
Sunset Mesa. It was a funeral home, a place where
families would go after a loved one died and seek
the services to have that person, you know, interred however
they saw fit, whether it's either burial or being cremated,
it's generally the services that they would offer. And they
would do those things, you know, sell coffins, that kind
(05:15):
of stuff. The other business that was in the same
building was called Donor Services. It's a secondary business, separate business.
And can you guess what that company specialized in. What
did that company special Well, it's in the name body
(05:35):
Parts and full body donation for science. Wildly unregulated, yes,
still wildly unregulated. Well, um, this company was run at
least primarily by two individuals, one person named Megan Hess
and another person named Shirley Cock. I believe is how
(05:58):
you'd say there, maybe coke probably coke. Right, It's like
the Koch brothers spelled the same way ko c H
and uh surely was is Megan's mom. Okay, So here's
what was happening over at MESA four years, several years.
(06:19):
Families would come ask for those services for a loved
one who died. Then Surely and Megan together would defraud
those people by you know, allowing them that family to
pay for funeral services, for let's say, services to have
a loved one cremated. They wouldn't in fact cremate that person,
(06:41):
or at least all of that person. They would instead
take them into the back and chop that body up
and create false paperwork like donate body donation paperwork for
those individuals and their various body parts, and then they
would sell them, uh for not a ton of money,
(07:03):
but for uh quite a bit of money. It's not
like these two are getting massively rich or something. But
they just started this business going. It was like a
machine that started running, and it didn't stop until they
got caught. Do we do we know for how long
this operation continued? Well, then I'm not positive how long
(07:25):
this was occurring, but I do know that it goes
back to at least eleven because of the reporting coming
out of the Denver post Um, but I don't want
to get too far ahead here. The reason why any
of us know about any of this is because of
an investigation carried out by Reuters that dates back to
UH or between eighteen. They were looking into the body
(07:48):
broker issue across the board and this is one of
the places that kind of hit on their radar when
they started talking to family members. Um. And there was
an PII investigation where they began to identify the remains,
Like let's say your loved one got cremated, that person
came home in a jar of sorts and container of sorts.
(08:13):
The family believes, oh that's my you know, that's Uncle
Jerry or whatever. And the FBI confirmed through testing that no,
in fact, that is the remains of multiple people, probably
multiple parts of multiple people just burned up together. Um.
And if that's not heartbreaking and like makes you want
(08:34):
to hit something really hard, UH, it should. Um. Okay,
so let's talk about what happened to Megan and Shirley.
They both pleaded guilty back in July of last year
to fraud essentially the you know, they did some horrible
macab things to dead bodies, like unspeakable things did the bodies. Um.
(09:00):
But ultimately the thing they're getting in trouble for is
filling out that false paperwork on behalf of those families, right,
and then gaining money from selling it to places that thought,
you know, a research organization that thought everything was on
the up and up. It was fraudulent. Um. Megan hess
(09:21):
was sentenced to twenty years, which was the maximum number
of years that she could have gotten, and Shirley Coke
was sentenced to fifteen years. And I think one of
the reasons Shirley was given less years because she discussed
outllowed during the process of how she was the person
(09:41):
cutting up bodies. Added to a lot of it, she
admitted to a lot of the things that she was doing.
She's also sixty nine years old, and you know she's
still getting fifteen years in prison. Um. It's just it's
one of those things where in my mind and I
have the facts about this, so I haven't actually seen
(10:02):
that it's been proven in a court of law that
surely was the one cutting up the bodies, But it
feels like something you might say or admit to if
you're a parent of someone who's also getting an equal trouble, like,
you know, I'll take the blame. It feels like that
to me. I don't know if that's true. Yeah, So
that they got sentenced. The reason we're talking about this
today is because they were sentenced on Tuesday the third.
(10:26):
So it's finally kind of the end to this crazy
story that all of these family members have been going through,
who've had people, you know, run through that system. Um,
unwillingly and unknowingly. They finally got to see these two
get locked up. Um. So that's really why we're talking
(10:47):
about it today. It's a much bigger story though, Ben,
I don't know if you want to touch on the
full thing, but it's just kind of it's just gross.
It's stinks. Um, it's just pretty awful. You can read
all about it if you want to. The reporting is widespread,
a lot of it's coming from as I said, Denver
Post Reuters, the Guardian had to write up on it.
(11:07):
You can find it everywhere. Yeah, and you can also
find uh, speaking to that point about larger context, you
can also find more information about this in our previous
episode on the body broker industry, which remains unregulated today
remains is not a pun and anybody who treats that
(11:27):
as a pun you should feel bad. So the the
issue too is that, to be quite concrete about this,
just because this one group of folks got convicted, it
doesn't mean that the families have a happy ending. It
is virtually impossible to trace the you know, to trace
(11:56):
the timeline for each body part that got older trafficked.
I would use the word trafficed anonymously, right. Uh. The
people who are receiving this stuff, it reminds me a
little bit of the museum problem, Matt. You know, the
the idea that a museum procureer or cure at or
(12:19):
can say, well, we did our due diligence, and these
people are you know they they said, uh, they looked
on the up and up when they gave us these
bronzes right from a country that is not of their origin,
and we cough cough, British museum cough cough, have no
problem taking it. And it looked legit. It had a stamp,
(12:45):
you know, the stamp pois and colors like it really
popped and that stamps it is like that, and you
know something I forgot to mention Ben. It's there were
an estimated five hundred and sixty bodies in total, or
or at least that many bodies that were quote dissected
(13:06):
by this group. And if we're being if we're being
coldly objective about this, when you hear that number over
five d what what we all need to realize, fellow
conspiracy realists, is that folks engage in these operations are
practicing rules that would be familiar to the proprietor of
(13:27):
any decent automobile chop shop. You make more money selling
parts than you do the whole car, So there's it's
incredibly difficult if you are a surviving family member to
find all of the places where your loved ones remains went. Boy,
(13:50):
we are kicking off and a super I am so
sorry everybody. This is just a story that stood out
to me and us and uh, it's something we talked about. Yeah,
it's not justice though, mm hmm. It's just really real
messed up. Yeah, gosh, they were charging a grand for
(14:13):
a cremation. It didn't happen at all, at least in
the way that they were told. The body that loved
one got donated chopped up and then they got sent
a jar remains. That was just like all the other
victims in this case, bunch of different people, just a
(14:34):
mixed tape of ashes. So one, let's let's go for
a positive aspect of this. One positive thing amid all
this tragedy is that there are more there are more
eyes on this problem, there's more awareness. Hopefully, you know,
the FBI successfully pursuing this kind of investigation hopefully spells
(15:00):
uh spells out a precedent, right, Hopefully this will one
day become a thing of the past. You know, if
the FBI is rating one business in an industry, you
can statistically be certain they at least have some scarily
(15:20):
accurate eyes on other other examples of that industry without
other cam website running people in all of your if
you've got a business running cam girl and boy services,
watched out Andrew Tate just went down. Oh oh yeah, okay,
what's the deal with that guy? Why he's just human
(15:43):
trafficking with cameras disgusting and also uh not involved in
body broker stuff. Different kind of Actually, that is an
excellent point, Matt. This is the reason you and I
hang out. Yeah, I will say though again going for
a positive note. Okay, yeah, ok yeah, going through a
(16:06):
positive note. Uh. It's crazy that greta Thunderberg of old
people became a hypocrite in that argument, because how are
you going to be a climate activist and make a
burn that enormous. It's like we're working live, We're working
(16:29):
no no props though it was it was can I
tell you I didn't actually I saw the headlines pop up,
but I never clicked on it was. It wasn't in
a tweet or something that she what was it? Yeah,
So the the guy take I think just proactively maybe
for clout or attention. Uh, sent sent a message to
(16:52):
Thunderberg's Thunberg's Twitter handle and said, look, I have all
these cars, and you know, I'm very proud of them.
And it was trying to do do a nagg of
some sort, which you know as a the guy's a
pick up artist key way they call themselves, and so
(17:13):
I think he was trying to do that sort of stuff,
which which in general different bag of badgers. But look,
don't listen to the pickup artist stuff. It's like self
help books. It's to make those folks money, not to
help you. As an audience and uh. And then she
responded with something like, uh, yeah, yes, send an email
(17:34):
to me at small energy at something dot com and
and it it burnens so bad that he made a
response video which was supposed to um depicted him in
his version of a successful light and he messed up
(17:56):
the same way Tracy Jordan's messed up on thirty Rock,
which is he was he was eating pizza and from
the pizza boxes he authorities were able to track his vacation, Yes, sir,
and it sealed the deal on the human trafficking or else. Yeah.
(18:17):
Well he's got big small brain energy, you know. Uh.
And and then Thumberg came back and said this was
the brutal like finisher move. Uh. If we're talking to
m m A, she said, you know, like when the
rests are trying to hold you back and you've gotta
knock one more in. Uh. Thumberg said something along the
lines of this is what happens when you don't recycle
(18:39):
your pizza boxes moves. Uh. And that's a positive note.
We should go to break. I feel good and we
have returned. So Matt, you and Doc and I uh
(19:03):
managed to find some positivity in a quite quite terrifying
story in our first part of this strange news segment.
Let's continue to our second story. Uh, it's another update. Man.
We talked about this a while ago. We actually forecast
(19:23):
it just a bit. And that's not calling that's not
calling ourselves no stradomical dominish. No. Uh. What what we're
saying is the numbers were there, the statistics were there,
the trends, the motivations, they were all there. They're still there,
they're mapped out. There are continuing attacks on the infrastructure
(19:49):
of the United States. These are soft targets. Uh, Matt,
I place enormous priority on credit where it's due. And
you brought up the story not too long ago of
a fluoride activist in Florida. I believe a fluoride activist
in Florida who had fused with the water levels right
(20:14):
at a water treatment plants. Oh, Man, I can't remember
if I actually if I'm the one that brought that up.
Inn It might have been through listener mail. And so
so this this story illustrated for us what seemed to
be not just the one off case of problems with
(20:34):
a specific water treatment plant, but it showed us why
infrastructure is both one important and too easily ignored. You know.
It's it's not hot red meat for the media, not yet.
And so what we're gonna do now is talk a
little bit about some of the recent infrastructure attacks, some
(20:58):
of the patterns we see about the future, and then
let's interrogate that perception of patterns, because there's a little
bit more to the story if we're paying attention. So
recently white recently, Uh, you and Doc and I were
talking about this before we before we hopped on air today.
There was another attack on an energy substation, and this
(21:22):
one was in the Pacific Northwest, correct, that is correct,
near Tacoma, Washington. Yeah, And in in those attacks, two
people are in custody, actually, which is very nice. For
quite a while, at least on Christmas Day and the
next the following day on December last year, it's weird
(21:43):
to say, Um, they were still trying to figure out
who the heck was attacking substations, empower stations near Tacoma.
But they finally got somebody, Yeah, because four got hit
on Christmas morning and it didn't take long for these
two guys to get arrested on New Year's Eve. So
(22:06):
the celebrated, and um, probably not the situation they were
hoping for. You know, wow, they got picked up on
New Year's Eve. Oh man, oh yeah, I know. Can
I make a confession just as a side note here,
I did not do a countdown this year. I was
(22:28):
alone at my house with the dogs and playing a
little skyroom. I'm sorry, everybody, that's what I was doing.
That that's a king move. Yeah. I was finishing up
some Thieves Guild stuff and I looked over and it
was twelve o two and I went, hey, look at that.
(22:49):
Uh yeah, that's again. Uh, big fans of Skyrim here,
I was at you know me quite well, I was right,
something ridiculous. Uh, and then got over my head in
some dumb project or another. And I believe Doc told
us code named Doc Holiday told us that she was
(23:11):
watching a game. She was watching a game with the dogs,
right with the Bulldogs. And then yeah, I told us,
there's a brief moment where she said, oh, happy New Year, everybody.
And they went back to the game and then Ohio
State lost immediately afterward. My dad was so excited. God,
(23:33):
he was excited, and so so everybody. Uh celebrates New
Year's Eve in a different way, right, is what we
can say. And uh, these guys, we can tell you
their names. In this country is legal to disclose people's names.
Guy named Matthew Greenwood and a guy named Jeremy Crahan
(23:55):
were attacking these uh four powers stations in Pierce County
in Tacoma. But they were not doing so as um,
they were not doing so with a terrorist ideology or
anything like that. They had a specific plan in mind.
(24:16):
Well they said, they say they did. They said they
were gonna they were gonna go rob a local business.
So it's very much big heist energy going on there
where we're gonna we're gonna take down all the power
in this whole area and then get in there and
get the bonds or whatever they were going to steal.
And I would have gotten away with it too if
(24:36):
it weren't for you phone records, Yeah, I got them.
Don't take your cell phone to a crime soon. Uh yeah,
actually wait, do take your cell phone to a crime seen?
Uh well, you know shot spotter, so the the that
(25:00):
doesn't apply in this situation. But also shout out man,
I was listening to something we did earlier that came
out last week. Now I think where you and I
walked through and hopefully not too specific of a detail,
ways to uh spoo fence and fool uh cell phone tracking. Yeah, yeah,
(25:25):
I was still I I listened back, and I wanted
to make sure we were on We were on the level,
and it was a great job. I really liked your idea.
By the way of uh recording listening to a television, Yeah,
it only works if you're only being spied on through audio, though.
If there's video involved, too bad you did. That gets
(25:47):
a little more sophisticated, right, And a surveillance state we
live in, that's for sure. Actually, if you're listening to this,
you're in a surveillance state as well. What a time
to be alive. So why are these two guys in
Tacoma interest they've failed in their heist. A lot of
folks attempting a heist fail. That's just the nature of
(26:10):
the game. It's like spoken word. Most of it is
going to be unsuccessful, some of it will be amazing.
So so the issue here is that there's a larger
conversation that the United States needs to have across political
boundaries about soft targets. All Right, most of the energy
(26:33):
that cities, towns, you know, everything in between. Most of
it is very unprotected. Right. One of the most one
of the most extreme examples I saw of energy substation
being even adequately surveiled is a is a content building.
(26:59):
This GUIs as an apartment block in New York City,
And that's just because of the density of people and
the frequency of folks walking by. If you are going
to almost any area that is not already a federal
or military installation, you are going to see the number
one protection being what a chain link fence and some cameras.
(27:23):
And this really this really spiked Matt when Um when
our pal Heinrich Over in Germany the decade aristocrat tried
to try to be the face of an attempted coup
and German German police and law enforcement overall came down
quite hard, and they came with receipts. The plan for
(27:46):
that coup was to detonate UH an e MP electromagnetic
pulse device. And they're thinking was this would be a
signal so people who are on board with this idea
and together they would rise up and they would UH
overthrow Germany's current government and institute monarchy. Because they were
(28:12):
very interested in dumb ideas about government, and that's that's
just objective monarchies are done. But the the thing is this,
I think gave some fuel to the fire. Right. This
is something that you will you will hear about increasingly.
(28:32):
And we talked about this previously in you know, as
long as those substations remain things with essentially no kind
of protection. The assumption is, hey, everybody living here needs energy, right,
(28:53):
It's it's part of life in the United States. So
who would be enough of a jerk to a packet?
What good would it do? It would help maybe distract
local law enforcement for long enough in one area that
you could go to a different area of the same
metro and then pull a pretty successful heist, right, Like
(29:17):
if you wanted to just for an example, if you like,
picture your city, if your city has two strip malls,
then if you want to rob one of those strip
malls or a store there, then what do you do.
You create a huge brew haha at the first strip mall.
(29:37):
You distract first responders, right, you get the deputies, the possese,
the l eos in general all converged on that spot,
and then really quickly you scoop in on on point
to H'm they did. They did because they were thinking
(30:00):
through it, but they weren't thinking about the precedent they
were setting this. This means that that kind of tactic
is going to be readily apparent two anyone paying attention,
not just in the US but in other parts of
the world, and make the mistake without providing solid proof.
(30:25):
I am I'm virtually certain that intelligence agencies and state
actors have deployed similar tactics in the past. It just
we just saw in the warrant the war that's occurring
in Ukraine right now. I mean, it's a war. It
is a standard war tact. I guess you're saying, man
(30:47):
attacked the infrastructure, knock that out. If they don't have power,
they the enemy whoever they are, can't do certain things. Yeah,
it's true. And I'm talking about the um even the
fishier side of it, which is the plausible deniability. So
(31:08):
so why why is this an issue? Well, yes, the
reality is there, these are targets. These are easy targets
and unless something changes, as the US infrastructure continues to decay, right,
there will be more opportunities for attack. They will likely
(31:31):
be they will likely be actors who think of themselves
as domestic actors, but they may not be. They may
be financed without their knowing by foreign powers of one
sort or another. But the other thing the question we
should end on with this one is does media reporting
(31:55):
of these instances does it help or does it courage
more similar attempts? And that's an open question. I don't
know what what's your take, man, I think it might.
I was reading in one of the stories you found
here been from the National Review dot com or National
Review dot com. The article is just titled Who's Attacking
(32:16):
Our Power Grid? And in there they discuss how attacks
on the US power grid individual attacks like this are
at the highest levels since But that means there have
been in the past fairly high frequencies of attacks on
the power grid. It's just we I haven't heard a
(32:36):
ton about them. I don't know if you have, but
it does appear that it's something that's been happening for
quite a while. When it becomes a major news story
like the North Carolina attacks that we discussed previously on
this show, I wonder if it gives people ideas, right,
that's the question, are you informing, are you empowering? Possibly?
(32:59):
What benizing. We need those dogs with guns. You know
those robot dogs. Oh yeah, you love those. Yeah. At
each substation there's like a couple of them. Oh boy. Yeah.
It's weird because if you think about a lot of
these things, right, these substations outside of dense urban populations,
(33:21):
these um these little nodes of modern culture are often
put where they are because of nimby not in my
backyard concerns, and as a result of that, they are
often not not in the most accessible places. I want
(33:42):
to shout out. We'll keep people anonymous. I want to
shout out a Reddit user named Damon d A E.
M I N who pointed out that when they were
doing a a security assessment let's call it in Wyoming
a while back, they noticed that the nearest town, the
(34:03):
nearest mark of civilization to this power station was a
hundred miles away, and for law enforcement to travel to
the site it would take four hours if they left immediately.
So there's a logistical problem. How do you how do
you combat that? Right? How do you how do you
(34:24):
get in front of it? Robot dog sentinels, robot dog,
robot you know what, robot ravens too. Let's get some
birds up there, you know, sphere guardians. Uh, you know,
I like them. I also think the oh the little
Dwemmer spiders because you know, because they drop out of
(34:48):
nowhere those shock attacks. Come on. Why are we doing
a half measures? Dragons? Someone invent dragons. We need dragons. Dragons. Yeah,
DARPA drop everything, DARPA drop everything. Get dragons. All right, Uh, folks,
(35:10):
we're gonna take a pause for a word from our sponsors,
and we'll be back with some things that we've been
keeping our eyes on. In three and spoiler, we're going
to end this show asking for your opinion about what
your fellow conspiracy realist should keep an eye on this year.
(35:39):
And we've returned full disclosure. Folks. I don't know about you, Matt,
but since a lot of hostility towards Ohio State from
the good code name Doc Holiday, and I didn't even
ask her about it during the break because I'm not
up to date. I don't know about the villainous past
of Ohio State. Ohio State, bro educate yourself to Michigan graduated.
(36:07):
It's really it's really that simple. And my mom also
graduated from Michigan, so I was like raised to hate
Ohio State. In fact, Ohio State actually like sent me
a letter of my senior year in high school, cause
I got a really high school. In my A C T.
I had some different colleges like you know, like offer
letters and so like, Ohio State sent me a letter
(36:28):
offering me a full of scholarship, and I burned it,
burned it amazing. I put it in the fireplace. It's
not an exaggeration. This actually happened. It's too real. It's
too real out here twenty free Okay, Uh, thank you
for that information. I am. I am continually amazed. And
(36:53):
U I don't know this this kind of information. It's
it's the sort of stuff that I think makes a
lot of us feel centered in our communities in which
we live. You know, like sports games, people find so
much identification. People identify with their communities the same way
that all of us will naturally identify with some region
(37:19):
of the world. And there's a big us versus them thing.
And this is one of the things that we wanted
to keep an eye on in in the very end
of this show today. Uh, we're calling this twenty three
things to keep an eye on. Quick update on our
pretty divisive episode about foreign investment in housing markets across
(37:43):
the planet. We got let's see, we got uh, we
got some folks who said this was in danger of
being xenophobic, which I think is true. We got some folks,
We got a lot of folks say that this was
an estment scam by people who have made money in
a shady way in some other country and they're parking
(38:06):
that money in another place to the detriment of people
who actually live in that community. And so we have
an update. Now. We spent a lot of time on
Canada here, and our Canadian conspiracy realists wrote to us
with this. The law has passed. If you're not Canadian,
(38:26):
you are banned from buying a home. Asterick asterix fine print. Yeah,
it's not it's not looking good for that investment sector,
I guess, as you'd call it, because houses, it's just
something you don't know as you're growing up, even when
you're in college, unless you're specializing in some of this stuff,
(38:48):
you don't realize that homes are this weird investment sector
for wealthy human beings on planet Earth, and that's really
what they are. It's this It's not a place for
you to grow up and you know, have a good time,
have your nice family and do all that stuff. No, no, no,
it's just a thing that it accrues in worth that
(39:10):
you didn't eventually get to flip one day or turn
it into passive income for you and your family for
the rest of your life. It's really all it is,
right right, we're talking specifically about a there's a great
right up on this from Nadine yusuf over at British Broadcasting.
And there are some statistics we should kick like Summer
(39:34):
of want of Folks may remember it fondly unless you
were trying to buy a home in Canada. The average
home price in Canada at that time was seven hundred
seventy seven thousand, two hundred dollars Canadian Canadian in US
that's uh five d sixty eight thousand dollars. And yeah,
(39:59):
and so that is as use of points out more
than eleven times the median Canadian household after taxes. We've
seen similar stuff in Australia. You've seen you have seen
similar stuff if you live in California, right, uh, l
or London, for example. Uh. This is a larger systemic
(40:21):
problem and until this law got passed, it was totally
not illegal. I feel like not illegal is watering it
down a bit. I don't know that's a new thing, man,
I like, not illegal, it's just it's real hot this decade.
(40:42):
Actually just humans. That's that's real hot. It's real hot
this yeah, this species. Okay, So it's that's where Google
was coming from. What there don't be evil world away
from be good or do good? Well, Okay, so I'm
bringing this up. This is a thing to keep n
ion because I imagine more countries are going to do
(41:06):
things similar to this. You know, we have to remember
that other countries already have laws banning foreign ownership and
have had those laws for quite some time. Thailand would
be an excellent example, Zealand New Zealand as well, large
large expat communities in both but pretty strict laws. And
(41:28):
I wonder, Matt, whether this leads us to a larger
trend over twenty three of increasing sort of um us
versus them nous. Right, like you you told me this
story and I wasn't aware of this update until you
(41:48):
kicked it right before it went on air. Uh Japan,
which has a huge percentage of its population in Tokyo
metro area, Japan is asking people to leave the capital. Dude.
They've been asking people to get the heck out of
Tokyo for a long time. And they also said we'll
(42:09):
pay you, like seriously, we will. We will give you
lots and lots of yen and you can get out,
Thank you very much. The problem is their campaign has
not been successful at all. You might you may ask
why are they doing that, and it's because Tokyo in
general is just super overcrowded, at least compared to most
of the rest of Japan in the more suburban areas
(42:31):
that exist out there, where populations are just dwindling, completely dwindling.
CNN Business had a great article titled Tokyo is so
crowded the government is paying families to leave, and they
mentioned that the country of Japan is offering families seven thousand,
seven dollars US per child if your parents to move
(42:52):
to less populated areas on the island or in the country.
So it's really that's pretty good. I mean, let's say
you've got two kids. Wow, that's over fifteen thousand dollars
US or two million yen um, not a not a
not too bad, and you could actually walk down the street.
(43:14):
They're also encouraging people to open their own businesses in
those places because there's like no businesses in a bunch
of these towns that used to be flourishing. Well, that's
the pickle, isn't it. I mean, let us not forget that.
In the US for some time, a couple of states
had this program where they would give you, uh land
(43:36):
for free as long as you promised to actually live there.
What we're seeing then is, I would argue an increasing
trend towards conurbation. That's that's okay, I've laughing at your
face there. I just have to thinking about Karl McGregor,
and like, that's how I would describe what he used
(43:56):
to do in the ring when he makes but he
was just knocking people left and right now anybody, I mean, judges,
they're giving us a ding dot holiday. Can we get
a dingy good? We got the belt? Well done that?
Uh yeah. Conturbation is just it's just the concept of
(44:18):
a metro area with a tie on to sound fancy.
And as we have discussed for several years, actually for
quite a few years now, the majority of the human
species has lived in cities. That's just a numbers game.
So the prospect of telling someone to go live outside
(44:39):
of a city and try to be you know, on
the forefront of resurrecting that economically, that is, that is
one of those things where I imagine you would get
eighty percent of people to agree with it in principle,
but how many would actually go and do it? M M,
(45:02):
you know what I mean. Well, that's why we have
some numbers for you here Okay. So Tokyo as a
city is the fifth most expensive city that you could
live in, Okay. That's one of the major reasons they're
doing the same reason why in the world, in the world, yes,
not in Japan, in the world. Uh And Japan, as
(45:24):
we said, has been trying to do this for quite
a while. There was there have been numerous attempts to
get individuals and families out of Tokyo and into these
other places that are more or less unoccupied. And let's see,
the last time, or at least the best information I
(45:44):
have right now, there was a plan where they were
offering three thousand yen per child for a family to
relocate or for a single person or couples right um.
And there was a whole thing where they're offering to
help get businesses going. Here we go, here we go.
(46:06):
In the first year that they launched this where they're
offering people money to leave, yea, they had seventy one
total households that participated and actually got out of Tokyo.
Holy edemy here Holy yeah. Everybody's like, nah, Tokyo is
pretty good, man. It sounds like, you know, the majority
(46:26):
of households are going. That's a great idea, and let's
make sure it happens for someone else. Yeah. Yeah, So
there's a current population in Tokyo thirty seven million human
beings at least last time I checked. And to have
only seventy one households move out not great. In one
(46:49):
thousand households moved out, so a little better, but not
even a fraction of a drop in the bucket. It's difficult,
as you know, uh Matt, doc Holiday. I have spend
some time in various situations in South Korea, and one
thing that sticks with me about that is the capital
(47:11):
their soul is considered the best place to live by
the majority of population. And it's not found that idea
is not founded on some um vague abstract concept. It's
founded on things like opportunities. Where do I get where
(47:31):
do I get a better life for my kids? Where
does my business have a chance of success? Where can
I find a job in some other business? And even
though Soul remains as of the time of this recording,
even though Soul remains under very dangerous potential threat from
(47:52):
the neighbors to the north, people still make that choice.
So much so in fact, that I've heard people refer
to moving away from Seoul as stepping down. So it
may be seen and again, the three of us are
not native residents of Japan, so it may be seen
(48:14):
as taking a step down to move away from this
capital city. And look, folks, if you're not from the
United States, Just to be very clear about this, most
people who live here, I don't want to live in
the capital. They don't want to live in Washington, d C.
It's just a pain in the ass, you know what
(48:36):
I mean. It's it's the seat of some wonderful ideas
and some terrifying ideas. But I'm so joke left behind.
But it's but take our word for it. If you've
never visited to the capital of the United States, it's
(48:57):
not as cool as Tokyo. It's not as cool as
all you know what I mean, No, it's nowhere. It's
actually not as cool as New York. I meet so
many people who will argue that New York City is
the cultural capital of the United States, and I think
there's a pretty good case to be made there. But
(49:18):
our big reason for bringing this up is that we're
talking about the idea of in increased nationalism, increased attention
on where people would like to live versus where current
power structures want them to reside, and that is going
(49:38):
to be a big thing. Like we just very very
obliquely outlined plans, and and of course there's the licensing
system in mainland China that dictates where people can live
or move even pre COVID. I pose it to you
that this kind of trend will continue. I see in
(50:02):
a further restriction of free movement just overall across the board.
I don't know how extreme it will be, but as
climate migrants trend upward, which is inevitable, I think we're
going to see a lot more restriction on movement, if
not in the definitely in the coming years. There's a
(50:24):
story over Christmas about migrants being dropped off at Kamala
Harris's house. Is that right, I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's politically, it's a political goal. And again, when elephants
make war, it's the grass that suffers. So regardless of ideology, Uh,
(50:44):
everybody should be pissed on behalf of folks who were
lied to and misled and trucked up somewhere and treated
like props instead of human beings. Uh, I I don't know, man.
Let's let's send on something funny. Let's send on a
small time, small time heist, because as as you and
(51:06):
I know, uh, this is this strange news. Part of
what we're talking about is a pretty good lead into
an episode that you and I are doing about overpopulation
fact and fiction. I can't wait. And speaking of overpopulating things,
(51:26):
painful segue. We have even more stories to keep an
eye on in three, but we're gonna call it a
day or in my case, a sunrise, for now, and
we are going to return with more stuff they don't
want you know, very soon, big, big thanks to everybody,
(51:47):
all of our fellow conspiracy realists who reached out. We
can't wait to share some of your stories in our
upcoming listener mail segment in the meantime, give us your
thoughts on the body broker industry, give us your thoughts
on the potential for continuing attacks on UFS, UFC C,
f C S, no on UFC or u S infrastructure,
(52:14):
and uh, let us know what and let all of
us know what you're keeping an eye on. In twenty three.
We try to be easy to find online Facebook, Instagram, UH, YouTube,
TikTok until that gets banned in the u S, which
is probably probably on the way. If you don't like that,
If you don't sip those social meds, why not give
(52:34):
us a telephone call. Yes, I re number is one
eight three three S T d W y t K
A minor apologies to everyone. We are still a little behind,
but we're getting closer and closer every day to getting
caught up on voicemails, so please continue sending them in
anything you've got to say, give us a call, Just
(52:55):
give yourself a cool nickname, leave a message that's less
than three minutes, please because it will cut you off,
and let us know if we can use your name
and voice on one of our listener mail episodes. If
you've got more to say, they can fit in that
three minutes. Why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com.
(53:33):
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