June 26, 2023 • 51 mins
A California restaurant is caught using a fake priest to spy on employees. A Harvard morgue manager is caught selling body parts. The Titan submersible meets with unexpected disaster. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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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 iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are here and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know as we record today on Wednesday,
June twenty First, there is a submersible in trouble. There
(00:51):
are also some people in trouble in the world of
the body part trade, and there are pre that you
should not trust, which we know sounds a bit Shakespearean,
but you'll see what we're what we're talking about. Maybe
we start today with the with the thing that has
(01:12):
increasingly taken the forefront of the zeitgeist here in the US.
It's not the burgeoning geopolitical tensions. It's not the stuff
we talked about with with Chia and Cuba. It's five
people who went James Cameron style to explore the wreckage
(01:33):
of the liner Titanic, which we talked about the Titanic
in previous episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We did yeah, and there was Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I mean the biggest conspiracy of all is there was
plenty of room on that door for Jack and Rose
to survive.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's my hot take, but yeah, a tragedy, right, a massive,
massive tragedy that lives in history books. For every student
that goes through American public schools, You've likely learned about
the titan You've likely seen the movie about it. It
is still, let's say, a thing, an event in time
that is a fascination for a lot of people, and
(02:09):
specifically the wreckage of that site. When we think about
James Cameron's obsession with it and all of the money
and time he spent creating the technology to go down
there in film a documentary years and years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, there are some controversial interviews with James Matt where
it appears that our pal Heavy Jay is saying he
made the Titanic film primarily to get the funding for
his expedition down there.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Can you imagine having that kind of agency. I'm going
to make a blockbuster film so that I might build
a submersible and go to the depths.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, and just to have the foresight to know that
it would be so massive. He always does, like I
was so skeptical about these Avatar sequels twenty years removed
from the original number one grossing movie of all time.
I mean, the guy's got vision, if nothing else but
an interesting obsession, don't you think. I mean, I guess
it is fascinating. I think we're all fascinating with historical blunders,
(03:10):
you know, of this magnitude, especially ones that are so
high profile, the unsinkable ship and all of that. So
it does make sense that it kind of remains as
do you know, a large portion of the wreckage because
it's so deep that it's not like they're going to
dredge it up, you know, just that's just kind of
where it is, so you kind of got to go
to it.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And people forget just how easy it is to lose
things in the ocean. It's often said, unfortunately with a
great deal of accuracy, that the human species knows more
about the surface of the Moon than they do about
the majority of Earth's surface, which is covered by water.
(03:50):
The Titanic for anyone who somehow got through life without
knowing about this, it is a big ass ocean liner.
And on April fifteenth, nineteen twelve. It sank after colliding
with an iceberg. That's the official story. Would love to
hear your alternative narratives. It wasn't until nineteen eighty five
(04:15):
that the wreckage of this stuff was discovered. Not quite
in the middle of nowhere, not Pacific Ocean, middle of nowhere,
you know, not like Point Nemo or whatever. But it's
about seven hundred and forty clicks or four hundred nautical
miles from the coast of Newfoundland, and it is deep, deep,
(04:36):
deep on the ocean floor. Twelve thousand, five hundred feet.
For anybody who likes a good sea shanty metric, that's
little over two thousand fathoms, so it is fathoms deep.
There's a group of people called ocean Gate. Ocean Gate
is not a weird like Watergate reference. It does seem
(04:59):
to be an unfortunate self prophesizing name. Ocean Gate operates
out of Everett, Washington, and they provide submersibles, not submarines,
submersibles for tourism, for research, for general exploration. It's very
close to exploring near outer space when you get to
(05:21):
this level of the depths.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, I mean down to all the completely bizarre looking
creatures that reside down there, you know, with all these
insane adaptations. I mean, I know we haven't discovered life
and outer space quite yet, but if we were, wouldn't
be surprised if they had similar.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Vibin Yeah, and as we've said in previous episodes on cryptozoology,
if you are a human interested in undiscovered animals, then
your highest likelihood of finding a large undiscovered animal is
not on the surface of Earth. It is in those
abysal depths. It is in that lou Cthulhu, their Catulhu territory.
(06:04):
Excuse me, I don't speak Lovecraft natively, I hope not,
Dear God right, different different franchise who could call our species.
But so first, in twenty twenty one, this outfit Ocean Gate.
It says, look, we have this submersible that we're really
proud of, and we trust that it can take paying
(06:29):
customers to visit the Titanic shipwreck, just like James Cameron.
They say, all for the low low cost of two
hundred and fifty thousand US dollars per person. Now that's
a high barrier for a lot of people. You know,
there are watches that are more expensive. There are houses
that are less expensive. Either way, it's less than going
(06:51):
than pretending to go to space for eleven minutes.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
I was about to say, yeah, it's definitely cheaper than that. True.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
And their mission is to make underwater exploration, let me
get this right, more accessible to private citizens. And there
are a lot of echoes and parallels to the missions
of private space exploration ventures like SpaceX or Blue Origin. Recently,
(07:19):
quite recently, as we record, disaster struck on June eighteenth,
just a few days ago, and we're recording on the
twenty first of June, one of their submersibles went missing
about two hours after it was supposed to take an
(07:39):
eight hour trip down and up to visit to have
a let me put this correctly, to have a one
in five chance of successfully seeing the wreckage of the Titanic.
Other expeditions had occurred, and they're called expeditions by Ocean Gate.
And I think for a lot of the passengers, many
(08:02):
of whom are famous, many of whom are people of note,
I think it was startling for them to realize the sheer,
vastness of the ocean, the idea that something as large
as the Titanic could be a needle in a haystack.
You know, you get down to the ocean floor and
you're thinking, we're somewhere near here, right, We're somewhere near
(08:24):
what we want to see. Let's use our Logitech off
brand Xbox controller to try to find the most famous
shipwreck in modern history.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
So is there there's no way to use like radar
or like to like search for something of that magnetic
I understand the issue of scale, but you think, if
you're paying that much, you damn sure we want to
be guaranteed a glimpse of the thing.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah. I I feel like there would be some kind
of transponder or some kind of powerful thing that was
left in the wreckage after somebody like James Cameron go
down there. You know, But how in the heck do
you do that? How do you transport that, get it
all the way to that depth and leave it in
a strategic place and ensure that it stays there? Like
(09:10):
the mechanics that would be really simple if you were
on the surface, right, if you were going to go
leave a transponder somewhere at a location. But when you
got to go that far in those pressures, I imagine
that's really really difficult.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Especially considering the surface of the ocean is itself fluid,
right like the okay, difference between a submarine and a submersible,
a craft that we will call a submarine can operate independently.
As you hear this strange new segment everything we're talking
(09:44):
about from Stem distern today, you need to realize you
are in a world where there are a not insignificant
number of what we call nuclear submarines that just sort
of ghost around the world. And the whole reason that
nuclear deterrence matt mutually assured destruction works is essentially because
(10:08):
no one knows where those subs are, but they know
they have nuclear warheads. It is tough to find stuff here, right,
So this thing obviously self limits to people who people
are doing well financially. So every time you have a
dive or an expedition, again as ocean Gate likes to
(10:29):
call it, you have a pilot, you have a guide
they work for ocean Gate or work with ocean Gate,
and then you have three paying passengers and they're called
mission specialists. It's similar nomenclature to what you would hear
in the world is space exploration. So it takes three
hours to get to the Titanic the wreckage. If everything
(10:50):
goes well, the full dive again takes about eight hours,
and there are some safety safety protocols in place. There's
supposed to be a ping scent ping every fifteen minutes
to be monitored by the above water crew because this
is not a submarine. It is a submersible, which means
(11:14):
it needs something on the surface of the ocean like
old school bathispheres. It needs something on the surface of
the ocean to function as mission control, just like our Palpaul.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
But it's not tethered like physically like those old like
diving suits right, Like, this is all electronic communications right.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Kind of makes you wish it was tethered right.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
After this, it's sort of like wrapping the rope around
your you know, ankle before you go into the ghost abyss,
you know, I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah. Unfortunately, the depths that we are talking about here
are with current technology, it's impossible to build a really
effective tether such that you could just pull on the
rope and bring people back to the human world.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I called bulls. Wrap a rope around that thing like a.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Good rope, leave a breadcrumb trail as well. That we
talked about. We talked about this off air. I forget
the guy's name now and I'm so sorry, but you
can probably google this. They're a former showrunner for The
Simpsons actually got into a scrape in one of these
quite a few years back. So this is not like
a brand new proposition.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
He actually told The New York Post in a recent article,
because these people are kind of coming after him, now,
get his perspective on this thing about how his craft
got stuck in the mud and the driver using Essentially,
if you look at the inside of these, it's like
a little joystick, you know. I think there's like maybe
three people can fit in one of these, and they're
wedged against the sides of this you know, curved you know,
(12:47):
fuselage kind of deal, and they had to kind of
wiggle back and forth and got out of there. And
he talks about how like his last and is what
he thought were his dying moments. He whipped out his
handy dandy comedy journal and wrote some jokes about.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, that's Mike Rice. Yes, a former a writer, former
showrunner for the Simpsons. He was down there with the
five people that can fit and that's submersible, and it
looks like when you look inside you can see photos
and video of the interior of the titan craft. It
is not It is not a five star hotel by
(13:24):
any means. It's a tube that can again fit five people,
two of whom are Stafford crew, three of whom are passengers.
It has one porthole. It has a couple of monitors,
three monitors. It has this again, this Logitech. It is
literally a Logitech off brand video game controller that will
(13:47):
help it navigate the seafloor. It cannot be opened from
the outside. It does not have escape pods or anything
of that nature. The reason that we opened with saying
the oxygen becomes the main concern here is that, according
to the most optimistic calculations, a craft like this, a
(14:10):
subversible like this, will have around ninety six hours of
breathable oxygen four or five people. Again, that feels like
a lot of redundancy, right when we're talking about an
eight hour tour, an eight hour tour. Shout out to
Gilligan's Island inappropriately.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh that you do a Gilligan's Island reboot where it's
a submarine. They find some sort of Atlantis type civilization.
That'd be fun.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And so as we're recording, these folks have about fifteen
at best fifteen or so hours of oxygen, which means
by the time this comes out on Monday, then they
will be found hopefully or they will be lost. And again,
(14:55):
the ocean is another part of nature. It is hungry,
It eats things. What we want to talk about here,
what we need to highlight here is that it sounds
like they were quite possibly alive as far as the
most recent updates. We talked about this a bit off air.
There were banging, clanging sounds coming every thirty minutes in
(15:20):
an attempt ostensibly to show their location, which I think
there are three scenarios right now that are most possible.
And I think this lends a lot of credence to
the idea that they got stuck somewhere in the muck.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, like with the Simpsons guy. But I guess they
weren't able to wiggle their way out of it. Just man,
doesn't this seem patently unsafe? Just the whole thing. Like
another thing I read in one in the post article
about mister Rice is like, yeah, was that yeah? In
the waiver that he had to sign the word death
(15:56):
appears about three or four times, right, Yeah, indemnification or
whatever like it is definitely on the table death. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Well it's a massive risk. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
It's a thrill seeker type deal is what it is.
It's like, you know, jumping out of a plane. But
even I think more dangerous.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
But anyway, all I'm saying is it doesn't matter how
advanced the technology is. Right, of course, going down there
is going to be crazy dangerous. I'm just surprised there
wasn't some form of I don't know what you would
call it, right, something that would ping, but on a
wider scale, sure, right, that was on board.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Some sort of automated black box, some sort of automated
dead hand surfacing system that would have been That would
have been ideal. Shout out to Mike by the way,
because he went on three different dives or again expeditions
with this company and he said they quote almost always
lost communication. I'm pulling this from a great independent article
(16:55):
by Tom Murray which came out about twelve hours ago
when there was much more oxygen on the craft. When
we look at this, we have to be again intellectually honest,
even if the truth is ugly. The company has a
record of being called to account for what opponents would
(17:20):
call cutting corners. For instance, there were several safety complaints
for a while. You can find no shortage of maritime
veterans from a bunch of different US services and non
US services who are pointed out there was a lack
of redundancy, of safety redundancy here. In short, it seems
(17:45):
as though they were not treating the deep ocean the
way you would treat outer space. Again, as we record this,
and in the time interval between when we record and
when this publishes, it is hopefully possible, or it is hopeful,
that these five people will return safely alive to the surface. However,
(18:12):
I'm going to go just a second long here to
point out the three possible scenarios and one interesting thing.
The three possible scenarios. One, the safety preparations as we
understand them could have failed. The integrity of the craft
could have been compromised, in which case those people are
(18:33):
almost certainly lost in Davy Jones locker. Second, the craft
could be stuck, as noted in earlier expeditions. Third, they
could be alive and simply lost. Get this somewhere on
the surface of the ocean and extensive air searches may
(18:54):
have somehow just not found them yet. That would be
the most optimistic of the three possibilities. Already we see
the proliferation of conspiracy theories associated with this what looks
to be a tragedy, and one of them is I
mean many of them honestly concerned the passengers on this
(19:17):
on this craft. We know a little bit about them.
Obviously they're well to do. One is Silliman Daoud who
is the son of Shahzada Daoud Uh. These are British Pakistan.
There's a British Pakistani father and son. Shahzada da Wud
is a trustee at the SETI Institute. Hamish Harding is
(19:40):
a British businessman, aviator and space tourist. And then we
have the pilots, the pilot team, Paul Henri Nagere and
Stockton Rush. Stockton Rush is the chief executive and founder
of Oceangate, the folks who launched this idea in the
(20:00):
first place. Our thoughts are with them. We want to
hear your thoughts as well. Again, this is an ongoing situation.
By the time you hear this week's strange news segment,
the oxygen will have run out on the submersible. We're
going to pause for a word from our sponsors. We'll
return with more strange news before we head to a
(20:23):
commercial break. We wanted to give you this update. Between
the time we recorded and the time this Strange news
segment published, authorities have confirmed that the Titan submersible imploded
during its descent into the North Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, debris
of the craft appears to have been found. The most
(20:46):
likely outcome here was the instantaneous death of all five
occupants aboard, including the leader of Ocean Gate himself.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Okay, and we are back. We should just reiterate our
thoughts and prayers are with the people on that submersible
in their families. Just again. We talked a little bit
in the break there just about the situation, and I
just send it out on our thoughts. So I wanted
to ask you guys for something completely different. Did you
hear anything about a potential UAP dog fight that occurred
(21:27):
recently in early June?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I have not met no.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Okay, so I don't have enough on this to cover
it today in the episode. But look up, what is
this place called bad Acts? Bad acts ax AX. And
there was something that occurred on June third that the
NUFO RC reported on and I thought, Ben, specifically, you
(21:56):
might know about this because of a project you're working
on that I we're not gonna name yet, but very interesting.
Apparently there were two F sixteen's that engaged in a
dogfight with some kind of disc at least according to
witness reports. And it looks really interesting. If anybody has
any more info on that, please send it our way.
(22:17):
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, I'm seeing this now, Matt, thank you for hitping
me to this. Looks like original sources the hero hero
on Daily Tribune.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I'm seeing that, but also a June sixth report that
came from that n uforc that happened. And then there's
also something that was written in I guess it's called
My Journal Courier. I don't know. I thought it was
maybe an AP article or something, but it was written
by Mark Birdsol.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well, let's figure this out before student loans come due
in October. Triggery that great recession, just going to slide
that one in there. It's happening.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Oh, maybe the UAP can help us, help us up
with our student loan debt. All right, but but for now,
put all that stuff aside, because guys, I'm gonna need
you to confess some sins today.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Oh okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, I'm a priest and I've been hired by iHeart
Radio to have all the employees of iHeart Radio to
confess their sins.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I read. Do you do parties, Matt, You show up
like in your priest garb and go around absolving people?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah? Yeah, we go.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
No, I don't No, that might be a fun spin,
you know.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I'm just joking. I'm completely joking. But it's a joke
about the story that we're gonna cover today. I'm gonna
read something to you, I guess. It's a press release
that was written by the US Department of Labor's Wage
in Hour Division. It was written on June twelfth, twenty
twenty three. This is the first sentence quote Federal wage
and our investigators have seen corrupt employers try all kinds
(24:04):
of scams to short change workers and to intimidate or
retaliate against employees. But a Northern California restaurant's attempt to
use an alleged priest to get employees to admit workplace
quote sins maybe among the most shameless.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Wow, it's real Department of Labor too. You can tell
because they don't use any commas. They really didn't use this,
Like Matt, that's the real that's Uncle Sam say that
there there's wait, there's a restaurant in California doing psyops
(24:39):
leveraging Catholicism.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
What a time? Yes, what a time?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So so nuts you guys. Within our doc there you
can see a Google link where you can see where
this is. It's in Sacramento, California. Shout out to more
Broccoli who always calls us from there. The place is
called Takorea. Garibaldi. I think that's how you would say it.
(25:04):
I think it's Jeribaldi Jeribaldi.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I think so this is with A er and ar
G A R I B A L D I Garibaldi.
You get it. Yeah, I'm probably like americanizing it, but
I think it might be either jar or Garibaldi.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I think people will be able to find it with
the information we've provided.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, just just type in fake priest, just spy.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Hey, come on, you'll get it.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Okay, So this is what happened the company that owns
this Takaia and two others with the same name Ja Garibaldi, Inc.
It's alleged that this group or person whoever it is,
whatever it is, whatever that i NC represents, hired a
person identified as a priest to get the sins out
of employees during work hours. So imagine you're at work
(25:53):
and there's a priest just roaming around saying, oh hello,
could I speak with you for a moment, and tries
to take you away just to the corner of the
room in this case of the Tacorea and ask you
some really strange questions. Have you ever stolen anything from
the establishment, from Chay or the Tacorea. Have you ever
(26:14):
been late to work? Do you have any ill will
towards our employer or the Tacorea itself?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, and these these people may be sincere, and these
you know, confess your sins my child, Well, I have
coveted and resent the success of others. They're like, Okay,
let's talk about how how much of your tips you report.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, let's talk about the tips you report. And let's
also talk about maybe somebody else you've been talking to
about grievances you have with the Tacorea and the company
because guys, the Tacorea, it's alleged was paying management from
the tip pool. We talked about this, you know a
little bit when we were talking about tips. The servers,
(26:59):
people working there in the front of the house often
pool tips to where everybody makes money. When when the
company basically is making money when people are being sat,
when people are eating food and having drinks. Sure distributes it,
redistributes to everybody, even tips. Well, you're not allowed to
pay management with that tip pool, but this company was
(27:21):
allegedly doing that. They were also allegedly not paying employees
who were working overtime hours. So there were multiple employees
that were working over forty hours a week who needed
to be paid overtime wages for that time, and the
company was not paying them for that.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
There's an episode of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares that's one
of the most infamous episodes about the I Think Amy's
Baking Company. That's this woman who just goes is completely
out of touch with reality and loses her mind right
there on camera because she thinks everyone is like a
sabotaging her and attacking her. But it's revealed that she
and her husband, who owned the restaurants together are are
(28:00):
taking tips from customers and pocketing them rather than give
them to their their staff, who, of course the customers
believe those tips are going to.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I mean, it's just so grossh Yeah, it's not a
good practice, right. So it seems as though someone within
the organization, probably an employee that was feeling slighted because
of those practices, ended up making a report about the
company about these things, you know, alleging the company is
doing this. And it appears that this tactic of sending
(28:34):
in a priest is a retaliation, a way to root
out the employees who have been maybe speaking in their
opinion out of turn about the restaurant's activities. Here's here's
the other thing, guys. The company also retaliated allegedly by
threatening their employees with quote adverse immigration consequences if they
(28:57):
cooperated with the Department of Labor's investigation into the company.
Oh because somebody, because somebody snitched on the.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Okay, that's an escallation. Man. Also, I do want to
point out that no joke left behind on our recording. Today.
You have changed your your moniker to father snitch a lot,
which I am then.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Father snitch a lot.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I mean, this is egregious on so many levels, you know,
just like, first of it's like a general workplace privacy
violation level, and just not to mention that they were
absolutely taking advantage of these folks, but then to besmirch
the name of a man of the cloth in this
way heresy, I say.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Well, the Diocese of Sacramento was not too happy about it,
and you can read their response to this whole thing
on the Catholic News Agency.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Do they use the word heresy?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I hope so well. I mean they've got some strong words.
It's just like, hey, we are not connected with whoever
this joker was. It's not us. We have nothing to
do with this. We didn't do we doism.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Famously concerned about it's branding. Uh but that in that
case then okay, that's one of the questions a lot
of us are going to have listening this evening. Uh So,
this apparently, per the diocese over there in Sacramento, this
is not an acknowledged member of the clergy.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
No, absolutely. I'll give you a little quote here from
that article. It is titled California restaurant had fake priest
here workers' confessions Labor Department says it is from the
Catholicnewsagency dot Com. There's no d in there, so Catholicnewsagency
dot Com. Here's the quote. While we don't know who
the person in question was, we are completely confident he
(30:48):
was not a priest of the Diocese of Sacramento.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I think he's gonna get it.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
So I don't know, I don't know, I don't know,
And I'm going to read a little more from this
actually because this is compelling. This is a quote from
someone named Maria who is a server at the Takaria,
and this is from her sworn affid David that's attached
to the lawsuit that the Department of Labor has against
this company, and she's talking about speaking with this person
(31:14):
purporting to be a priest. She says, quote, I found
the conversation to be strange and unlike normal confessions. Again,
they're targeting somebody and probably several people who are used
to going to confession, right, maybe Catholic civilians. She continues, quote,
He asked if I ever got pulled over for speeding,
if I drank alcohol, or if I had stolen anything.
(31:38):
The priest mostly had work related questions, which I thought
was strange.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Mm hmm, little less eternal soul, little more secular.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
It's pretty crazy, right, and heaven depends on your workplace conducts.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah yeah, Well, hey, guys, so there is this federal
investigation and the reason why we're talking about it today
is because the findings were just released and basically the
penalties the Takaria has to pay five thousand dollars in
penalties for their actions of hiring a fake purpose total
(32:15):
total five thousand dollars in penalties, which is just a
basically a civil charge for being naughty and hiring a
fake priest and you know, basically intimidating workers. But here's
the better thing for the workers. There are thirty five
employees who were affected by the other practices there, and
(32:36):
including the fake priest thing, but you know the other
stuff too, right, the problems that were occurring there. They
are going to get a combined total of one hundred
and forty thousand dollars split amongst.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Kay, just make clapping and clapping for you.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, hey, it's it's at least something, you know, it's
not a crazy amount of money, but it's enough to
hopefully make up for that missed overtime for the missed.
It's their money, you know, right, exactly exactly, So, guys,
I don't have much else for this one. Besides, this
is nuts.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I got I've got one thing for you, Matt. I
looked up the menu. Right, this is a chain restaurant, right,
regional chain restaurant. There's I think there are at least
three at least three locations. So, uh, you know, the
test here is to check on the case adella prices
and one case idea dekat a like for two dollars
(33:29):
and twenty five cents. Doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem
right to me.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Wait, he was suspiciously deliciously low. Yeah, so likely not
using fresh ingredients.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, well they're not using real priest, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
You have a faux priests. Probably a lot like one
of those. Uh, I mean, don't get me wrong, I
kind of like them. Thost. Have you've ever been a cookout?
They have a quote unquote casadea there it's literally just
shredded cheese and hot sauce on a on a tortilla.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
You know what, I'm just hungry enough right now where
that sounds delicious?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
You want to take a snack break.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Oh please, God, please, all right, I am really angry.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I'll give the Department of Labor the last word here
quote the US Department of Labor, in its Solicitor's office
will not tolerate workplace retaliation and will act swiftly to
make clear that immigration status has no bearing on workers'
rights under the Fair Labor and Standards Act.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Okay, tough words, right, let's go. Yeah, kind of hope
that the archdiocese's words were a little bit more cutting.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Oh yeah, you want to hear you want to hear
some Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I think yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
They're quoted as saying shame on you, fake priest.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I call it fake priest.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
All right, that's it for now. We'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
And we've returned with one more p of strange news. Matt,
If that last story made you angary, way do you
get a load of this one? Okay, that's a very
morbid setup for a very sad and morbid story about
a person similar to years, though in some ways it's
about a person occupying position of trust and authority absolutely
(35:20):
bulldozing over that responsibility in the most egregious way possible.
Harvard Medical School. You know, yes, you hear that. You
think of one of the top Ivy League institutions of
higher learning, you don't necessarily think about creepy morga managers
selling body parts to oddity shops, do you No, No,
(35:44):
That's exactly what was found out here. Federal prosecutors alleged
that the manager of the Harvard Medical School Morgue was
part of a network that bought and sold remains from
the medical school and an Arkansas mortuary. So I guess
they have maybe like a satellite mortuary. I'm not quite
(36:07):
sure to get to that in a second. This is wild.
This guy, Cedric Lodge fifty five and his wife, Denise Lodge,
sixty three, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, and several others are
being indicted by a federal grand jury in Pennsylvania on
charges of conspiracy an interstate transport of stolen goods. Again,
(36:33):
what manner of stolen goods, you might ask, Well, let's see,
we're talking human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and
a mortuary in Little Rock, Arkansas, where miss Scott was employed.
So it seems like they've got you know, they must have,
They've got that in common, this is a happy couple
(36:54):
that met over their love of cadavers. Harvard Medical School,
speaking of angry condemnation of people betraying the trust of
the public, Harvard Medical School released a statement referring to
this in the most academic fashion possible as an aberrant betrayal.
I love that the word abarant only academics use that.
(37:15):
That's a harsh one. So between twenty eighteen and twenty
twenty two, and some of these details actually come from
a fabulous New York Times piece by Michael Levinson. Between
those years twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two, the loges
collectively stole parts from bodies cadavers that had been donated
(37:38):
to the medical school and dissected. These are cadavers that
are you know, people I guess who opt to donate
their bodies to science. This would be one of those options.
And again we've talked about this in the past, where
you don't necessarily get to decide where your body goes.
Isn't that right, Ben, when we're talking about body brokers
and donating your body to science, you can't. Maybe you
(37:59):
can decide where goes, which can't decide how it's going
to be used. What were the kind of the caveats
surrounding them.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, that's correct. We have an episode on the very gray,
sometimes red market known as body brokerage. There are not
regulations for it. It is in the most unfortunate sense
of the term, very much a wild West.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Yeah, not to mention. Once you start getting these bad actors,
you know, who are the kind of middle people in
these exchanges. But again you think about institution like Harvard.
This would be someone who had been heavily vetted, has
some academic background, somebody trustworthy. But she goes to sow.
You can't really trust anybody. We're talking about limbs, severed heads, brains,
(38:46):
dissected faces, you know, individual parts of hands and fingers
and right human skulls. An absolute chop shop. And the
thing is too this guy would let some of his
buyers in kind of sneak them into the morgue so
they could have the pick of the litter. You know,
they look around you, what do you want? What you
(39:07):
need a toe? I can get you a toe, And
then they tell him and then he ships it to them.
One such customer, a woman by the name of Katrina McLean,
a forty four year old resident of Salem, Massachusetts who
owns the pretty cute, silly named cats Creepy Creations in Peabody, Massachusetts.
(39:31):
We have a place kind of like that here in Atlanta,
I call Rainy Day Revival. It sells, you know, mummified
you know, usually taxidermy and stuff like that, crucifixes. I've
actually got kind of a minor collection of crucifixes and
I'm bioloed them from there. And they also lease a
lot of their stuff out to film here in Atlanta.
And I actually had the occasion to visit the home
(39:55):
of somebody who used to work for them as a
prop manager for movies. He was going through a bit
of a tough time because of some the writer's strike,
and so he was selling some synthesizers and I purchased
one of them from him. And when I walked into
his house, I couldn't help but notice a giant case
of human skulls, to which he told me, let's he
definitely wasn't selling any of those, and then he proceeded
(40:16):
to clue me into some of the laws surrounding human remains. Apparently,
it's kind of like that scene in pulp fiction where
John Travold's character is talking about marijuana laws and Amsterdam.
It's illegal to sell them, it's illegal to transport them
across state lines, but it's not illegal to possess them.
(40:37):
So there's a lot, and then it's probably differs state
to state as well. So it does seem that there's
again radio revival, great shop. No reason to believe that
they're participating anything like this, but I can see how,
you know, it might be potentially lucrative to get some
real special pieces that you keep kind of in the
back room sell to only the discerning customer. Right. Miss
(40:58):
MacLean apparently paid mister Lodge six hundred dollars for two
dissected faces. According to prosecutors in the case, they found
a paper trail for some of this stuff, payments with
memos on them, one of them that just read breaks,
which is pretty wild and in portaste. All of this
(41:20):
is in poor taste, guys. I'm not quite sure where
to go from here. I mean, obviously there's something you
know that's darkly humorous about this, but also it's an
absolute betrayal. I mean, is it is totally you know,
a really low nasty type of crime. You say it's
victimless because these people are dead. But I don't think
(41:41):
it's victimless. You know, you are going against directly against
somebody's wishes and essentially having their remains serve as some
sort of like weird you know, mantle ornaments. What do
you guys think?
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Well, I wanted to talk about the toll amount of
money if you don't mind, guys, just really quickly, yeah, please,
how lucrative could this be? Right? And I think we
examined that a little bit in our last the full
episode we did on this topic. And do you have
any reporting about how much this group.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Made roughly forty grand between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty one,
which isn't a ton if you think about it, like
for that amount of time, you know, and obviously you
can only do this so much before people catch on.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
In two thousand and nine, interestingly enough, in the Body
Broker's episode dove into the stats and the research. In
two thousand and nine, a very prestigious business school professor
estimated that the total number of full bodies not chop
chopped donated to the US in the United States, to
(42:50):
all groups, law enforcement, automobile manufacturers, you know what I mean,
forensic stuff like the Tennessee body fart all that stuff,
medical research too. It all total to twenty thousand bodies
about year over year. The reason I say a prestigious
business school, Noll, you might find this of interest. That
(43:11):
professor is from the Harvard Business School, so right next
to right right on campus with these absolutely ghoulish resurrection men.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
I mean, you know, it's it's obviously it's it's not
like it's just just chock full of staff. You know,
it probably just takes one or two people to run
a department like this. Yeah. I mentioned maybe on a
previous episode that I recently went to the Mutcher Museum
in Philadelphia, which is an incredible place. You know, it's
a connected with the Association of Physicians I forget I'm
(43:47):
getting the name exactly right, but a long standing organization
dedicated to preserving the history of the medical profession, you know,
in Philadelphia, which is of course very old city here
in the United States. And there is one part of
the museum where you can kind of look through and
see this laboratory where there are people actively cataloging things
(44:10):
that they get in because you know, collections will be
donated to the Mutor Museum, whether it be collections of
skulls or you know, human remains and all of that.
And even the Motor Museum has been kind of in
some hot water lately and took some stuff off of
social media because they were getting kind of yelled at
by people saying, you're exploiting these people in their memory.
(44:31):
You don't know who these people are, you know, for example,
some of these subjects are unidentified, and they do everything
they can to be as descriptive as possible with the
little placards. But my point is when you look through
into this lab, it's like one person, you know, cataloging
slides and whatever, you know, fetuses in jars, maybe one
other person kind of in a back room, but real
(44:54):
no pun intended pun intended skeleton crew. So my point
is you could do this and and fly under the
radar for quite a long time, which they clearly did.
And just to wrap it up on my end, here
is a little bit more of the statement from the
Harvard Medical School community to two deans that were sort
(45:15):
of explaining how they came to be aware of this
and their their take on mister Lodge's activities. Quote, we
are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen
on our campus, a community dedicated to healing and serving others.
The reported incidents are a betrayal of HMS and most importantly,
(45:36):
each of the individuals who altruistically chose to will their
bodies to HMS. So that answers one of my questions. Yes,
you can will your body to a specific institution, UH
through the Anatomical Gift Program to advance medical education and research,
and that is a thing. Harvard Medical School does have
a program called the Anatomical Gift Program, which is is
(46:00):
what you would have had something in your last will
and testaments and all of that to indicate you wanted
your remains donated to this program for these exact purposes.
So yeah, it's a betrayal of those people and their
wishes and that's gross. Not to mention the whole thing
is just kind of ease. Are the creeps? What do
you guys think? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yeah, it's just horrifying.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Yeah, yeah, that's about the size of it.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
But yeah, I can see the angle you're talking about.
It's what we talked about before. I can see the
unfortunate angle that somebody might come to the rationalization, I'm
not hurting anybody by taking these body parts and selling them.
Nobody's getting hurt, but they're not thinking about the families
of that individual. And I don't just there's something. It
(46:44):
is up on the borderline of the moras, right, and
the things we just decide as a society we don't do.
Don't mess with dead bodies, geez right.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
It is a great social taboo, you know, the kimmata
vocation of what once was part of a living person.
I cannot I don't always say this, but I cannot
recommend the earlier Body Broker's episode from I think it
was April twenty twenty two. Enough. We dive into a
(47:18):
lot of the things we're talking about here, and every
single subject matter expert that we reference there that we
cite is agree again, this is an horrific wild West,
you know, because oftentimes also by the way, this practice
(47:39):
is only exacerbated in other countries. I mean, check into
you know, look into your neck of the global woods,
look and see whether there's a body exhibit at your
local museum. Those come from non consensual body donations of
often Chinese place prisoners. It's it's a dirty, dirty thing.
(48:03):
There really is a conspiracy of foot and Noel, I
am so glad that at least one came to light,
but statistically we have to realize there are more out there.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Now right that it agreed, agreed, And then this really
is like a perfect companion piece for that episode that
we've referenced a couple of times. So do check that
out if you get the chance. And yeah, I think
in the meantime, that's that's it for this one. I mean,
it'll again wondering if any additional members of this network
(48:35):
will be exposed. That might be the thing to keep
an eye on. And how far does it go? You know?
I mean, if an institution is prestigious as Harvard Medical
School could be prey to this kind of behavior, what
about the community college Morgues? You know what of that?
I mean, it's like, no, no one body is better
or more attractive than another when it comes to like
(48:57):
selling them for two enthusiasts, I guess call them, you know,
I mean, a body's a body, a skull's a skull,
So you're right, Ben, I bet you. It will be
interesting to see if any other participants are uncovered, because
refer to it as like kind of a ring, you know,
but they're really only about four people that are named
in the indictment, And this.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
May be is where we cast our net in a
fishing expedition. For your help, fellow conspiracy realist, what do
you think will develop with the Titan submersible? How easy
is it in the modern day? How damningly easy is
it to lose a craft at sea? When's the last
(49:38):
time you impersonated a priest? And for what reason? We
hope you weren't doing it to oppress workers. Maybe you
were just maybe you're just doing some social experiments on
your local public transit, in which case, who are we
to judge, certainly not members of the clergy. And this idea,
what we just talked about, the idea of organ thievery,
(50:03):
of body brokers. It's a really nasty thing and it
is absolutely true, and you need to be careful whenever
you or a loved one are signing yourself up for
a posthumous donation, you need to know there's often more
to the story. There are things they don't want you
to know when you sign those papers.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
We can't wait to.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Hear your thoughts. We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Try and finds in the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Twitter,
YouTube and Facebook. Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
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Speaker 1 (50:54):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are here and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know as we record today on Wednesday,
June twenty First, there is a submersible in trouble. There
(00:51):
are also some people in trouble in the world of
the body part trade, and there are pre that you
should not trust, which we know sounds a bit Shakespearean,
but you'll see what we're what we're talking about. Maybe
we start today with the with the thing that has
(01:12):
increasingly taken the forefront of the zeitgeist here in the US.
It's not the burgeoning geopolitical tensions. It's not the stuff
we talked about with with Chia and Cuba. It's five
people who went James Cameron style to explore the wreckage
(01:33):
of the liner Titanic, which we talked about the Titanic
in previous episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We did yeah, and there was Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I mean the biggest conspiracy of all is there was
plenty of room on that door for Jack and Rose
to survive.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's my hot take, but yeah, a tragedy, right, a massive,
massive tragedy that lives in history books. For every student
that goes through American public schools, You've likely learned about
the titan You've likely seen the movie about it. It
is still, let's say, a thing, an event in time
that is a fascination for a lot of people, and
(02:09):
specifically the wreckage of that site. When we think about
James Cameron's obsession with it and all of the money
and time he spent creating the technology to go down
there in film a documentary years and years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, there are some controversial interviews with James Matt where
it appears that our pal Heavy Jay is saying he
made the Titanic film primarily to get the funding for
his expedition down there.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Can you imagine having that kind of agency. I'm going
to make a blockbuster film so that I might build
a submersible and go to the depths.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, and just to have the foresight to know that
it would be so massive. He always does, like I
was so skeptical about these Avatar sequels twenty years removed
from the original number one grossing movie of all time.
I mean, the guy's got vision, if nothing else but
an interesting obsession, don't you think. I mean, I guess
it is fascinating. I think we're all fascinating with historical blunders,
(03:10):
you know, of this magnitude, especially ones that are so
high profile, the unsinkable ship and all of that. So
it does make sense that it kind of remains as
do you know, a large portion of the wreckage because
it's so deep that it's not like they're going to
dredge it up, you know, just that's just kind of
where it is, so you kind of got to go
to it.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And people forget just how easy it is to lose
things in the ocean. It's often said, unfortunately with a
great deal of accuracy, that the human species knows more
about the surface of the Moon than they do about
the majority of Earth's surface, which is covered by water.
(03:50):
The Titanic for anyone who somehow got through life without
knowing about this, it is a big ass ocean liner.
And on April fifteenth, nineteen twelve. It sank after colliding
with an iceberg. That's the official story. Would love to
hear your alternative narratives. It wasn't until nineteen eighty five
(04:15):
that the wreckage of this stuff was discovered. Not quite
in the middle of nowhere, not Pacific Ocean, middle of nowhere,
you know, not like Point Nemo or whatever. But it's
about seven hundred and forty clicks or four hundred nautical
miles from the coast of Newfoundland, and it is deep, deep,
(04:36):
deep on the ocean floor. Twelve thousand, five hundred feet.
For anybody who likes a good sea shanty metric, that's
little over two thousand fathoms, so it is fathoms deep.
There's a group of people called ocean Gate. Ocean Gate
is not a weird like Watergate reference. It does seem
(04:59):
to be an unfortunate self prophesizing name. Ocean Gate operates
out of Everett, Washington, and they provide submersibles, not submarines,
submersibles for tourism, for research, for general exploration. It's very
close to exploring near outer space when you get to
(05:21):
this level of the depths.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, I mean down to all the completely bizarre looking
creatures that reside down there, you know, with all these
insane adaptations. I mean, I know we haven't discovered life
and outer space quite yet, but if we were, wouldn't
be surprised if they had similar.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Vibin Yeah, and as we've said in previous episodes on cryptozoology,
if you are a human interested in undiscovered animals, then
your highest likelihood of finding a large undiscovered animal is
not on the surface of Earth. It is in those
abysal depths. It is in that lou Cthulhu, their Catulhu territory.
(06:04):
Excuse me, I don't speak Lovecraft natively, I hope not,
Dear God right, different different franchise who could call our species.
But so first, in twenty twenty one, this outfit Ocean Gate.
It says, look, we have this submersible that we're really
proud of, and we trust that it can take paying
(06:29):
customers to visit the Titanic shipwreck, just like James Cameron.
They say, all for the low low cost of two
hundred and fifty thousand US dollars per person. Now that's
a high barrier for a lot of people. You know,
there are watches that are more expensive. There are houses
that are less expensive. Either way, it's less than going
(06:51):
than pretending to go to space for eleven minutes.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
I was about to say, yeah, it's definitely cheaper than that. True.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
And their mission is to make underwater exploration, let me
get this right, more accessible to private citizens. And there
are a lot of echoes and parallels to the missions
of private space exploration ventures like SpaceX or Blue Origin. Recently,
(07:19):
quite recently, as we record, disaster struck on June eighteenth,
just a few days ago, and we're recording on the
twenty first of June, one of their submersibles went missing
about two hours after it was supposed to take an
(07:39):
eight hour trip down and up to visit to have
a let me put this correctly, to have a one
in five chance of successfully seeing the wreckage of the Titanic.
Other expeditions had occurred, and they're called expeditions by Ocean Gate.
And I think for a lot of the passengers, many
(08:02):
of whom are famous, many of whom are people of note,
I think it was startling for them to realize the sheer,
vastness of the ocean, the idea that something as large
as the Titanic could be a needle in a haystack.
You know, you get down to the ocean floor and
you're thinking, we're somewhere near here, right, We're somewhere near
(08:24):
what we want to see. Let's use our Logitech off
brand Xbox controller to try to find the most famous
shipwreck in modern history.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
So is there there's no way to use like radar
or like to like search for something of that magnetic
I understand the issue of scale, but you think, if
you're paying that much, you damn sure we want to
be guaranteed a glimpse of the thing.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah. I I feel like there would be some kind
of transponder or some kind of powerful thing that was
left in the wreckage after somebody like James Cameron go
down there. You know, But how in the heck do
you do that? How do you transport that, get it
all the way to that depth and leave it in
a strategic place and ensure that it stays there? Like
(09:10):
the mechanics that would be really simple if you were
on the surface, right, if you were going to go
leave a transponder somewhere at a location. But when you
got to go that far in those pressures, I imagine
that's really really difficult.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Especially considering the surface of the ocean is itself fluid,
right like the okay, difference between a submarine and a submersible,
a craft that we will call a submarine can operate independently.
As you hear this strange new segment everything we're talking
(09:44):
about from Stem distern today, you need to realize you
are in a world where there are a not insignificant
number of what we call nuclear submarines that just sort
of ghost around the world. And the whole reason that
nuclear deterrence matt mutually assured destruction works is essentially because
(10:08):
no one knows where those subs are, but they know
they have nuclear warheads. It is tough to find stuff here, right,
So this thing obviously self limits to people who people
are doing well financially. So every time you have a
dive or an expedition, again as ocean Gate likes to
(10:29):
call it, you have a pilot, you have a guide
they work for ocean Gate or work with ocean Gate,
and then you have three paying passengers and they're called
mission specialists. It's similar nomenclature to what you would hear
in the world is space exploration. So it takes three
hours to get to the Titanic the wreckage. If everything
(10:50):
goes well, the full dive again takes about eight hours,
and there are some safety safety protocols in place. There's
supposed to be a ping scent ping every fifteen minutes
to be monitored by the above water crew because this
is not a submarine. It is a submersible, which means
(11:14):
it needs something on the surface of the ocean like
old school bathispheres. It needs something on the surface of
the ocean to function as mission control, just like our Palpaul.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
But it's not tethered like physically like those old like
diving suits right, Like, this is all electronic communications right.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Kind of makes you wish it was tethered right.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
After this, it's sort of like wrapping the rope around
your you know, ankle before you go into the ghost abyss,
you know, I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah. Unfortunately, the depths that we are talking about here
are with current technology, it's impossible to build a really
effective tether such that you could just pull on the
rope and bring people back to the human world.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I called bulls. Wrap a rope around that thing like a.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Good rope, leave a breadcrumb trail as well. That we
talked about. We talked about this off air. I forget
the guy's name now and I'm so sorry, but you
can probably google this. They're a former showrunner for The
Simpsons actually got into a scrape in one of these
quite a few years back. So this is not like
a brand new proposition.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
He actually told The New York Post in a recent article,
because these people are kind of coming after him, now,
get his perspective on this thing about how his craft
got stuck in the mud and the driver using Essentially,
if you look at the inside of these, it's like
a little joystick, you know. I think there's like maybe
three people can fit in one of these, and they're
wedged against the sides of this you know, curved you know,
(12:47):
fuselage kind of deal, and they had to kind of
wiggle back and forth and got out of there. And
he talks about how like his last and is what
he thought were his dying moments. He whipped out his
handy dandy comedy journal and wrote some jokes about.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, that's Mike Rice. Yes, a former a writer, former
showrunner for the Simpsons. He was down there with the
five people that can fit and that's submersible, and it
looks like when you look inside you can see photos
and video of the interior of the titan craft. It
is not It is not a five star hotel by
(13:24):
any means. It's a tube that can again fit five people,
two of whom are Stafford crew, three of whom are passengers.
It has one porthole. It has a couple of monitors,
three monitors. It has this again, this Logitech. It is
literally a Logitech off brand video game controller that will
(13:47):
help it navigate the seafloor. It cannot be opened from
the outside. It does not have escape pods or anything
of that nature. The reason that we opened with saying
the oxygen becomes the main concern here is that, according
to the most optimistic calculations, a craft like this, a
(14:10):
subversible like this, will have around ninety six hours of
breathable oxygen four or five people. Again, that feels like
a lot of redundancy, right when we're talking about an
eight hour tour, an eight hour tour. Shout out to
Gilligan's Island inappropriately.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh that you do a Gilligan's Island reboot where it's
a submarine. They find some sort of Atlantis type civilization.
That'd be fun.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And so as we're recording, these folks have about fifteen
at best fifteen or so hours of oxygen, which means
by the time this comes out on Monday, then they
will be found hopefully or they will be lost. And again,
(14:55):
the ocean is another part of nature. It is hungry,
It eats things. What we want to talk about here,
what we need to highlight here is that it sounds
like they were quite possibly alive as far as the
most recent updates. We talked about this a bit off air.
There were banging, clanging sounds coming every thirty minutes in
(15:20):
an attempt ostensibly to show their location, which I think
there are three scenarios right now that are most possible.
And I think this lends a lot of credence to
the idea that they got stuck somewhere in the muck.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, like with the Simpsons guy. But I guess they
weren't able to wiggle their way out of it. Just man,
doesn't this seem patently unsafe? Just the whole thing. Like
another thing I read in one in the post article
about mister Rice is like, yeah, was that yeah? In
the waiver that he had to sign the word death
(15:56):
appears about three or four times, right, Yeah, indemnification or
whatever like it is definitely on the table death. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Well it's a massive risk. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
It's a thrill seeker type deal is what it is.
It's like, you know, jumping out of a plane. But
even I think more dangerous.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
But anyway, all I'm saying is it doesn't matter how
advanced the technology is. Right, of course, going down there
is going to be crazy dangerous. I'm just surprised there
wasn't some form of I don't know what you would
call it, right, something that would ping, but on a
wider scale, sure, right, that was on board.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Some sort of automated black box, some sort of automated
dead hand surfacing system that would have been That would
have been ideal. Shout out to Mike by the way,
because he went on three different dives or again expeditions
with this company and he said they quote almost always
lost communication. I'm pulling this from a great independent article
(16:55):
by Tom Murray which came out about twelve hours ago
when there was much more oxygen on the craft. When
we look at this, we have to be again intellectually honest,
even if the truth is ugly. The company has a
record of being called to account for what opponents would
(17:20):
call cutting corners. For instance, there were several safety complaints
for a while. You can find no shortage of maritime
veterans from a bunch of different US services and non
US services who are pointed out there was a lack
of redundancy, of safety redundancy here. In short, it seems
(17:45):
as though they were not treating the deep ocean the
way you would treat outer space. Again, as we record this,
and in the time interval between when we record and
when this publishes, it is hopefully possible, or it is hopeful,
that these five people will return safely alive to the surface. However,
(18:12):
I'm going to go just a second long here to
point out the three possible scenarios and one interesting thing.
The three possible scenarios. One, the safety preparations as we
understand them could have failed. The integrity of the craft
could have been compromised, in which case those people are
(18:33):
almost certainly lost in Davy Jones locker. Second, the craft
could be stuck, as noted in earlier expeditions. Third, they
could be alive and simply lost. Get this somewhere on
the surface of the ocean and extensive air searches may
(18:54):
have somehow just not found them yet. That would be
the most optimistic of the three possibilities. Already we see
the proliferation of conspiracy theories associated with this what looks
to be a tragedy, and one of them is I
mean many of them honestly concerned the passengers on this
(19:17):
on this craft. We know a little bit about them.
Obviously they're well to do. One is Silliman Daoud who
is the son of Shahzada Daoud Uh. These are British Pakistan.
There's a British Pakistani father and son. Shahzada da Wud
is a trustee at the SETI Institute. Hamish Harding is
(19:40):
a British businessman, aviator and space tourist. And then we
have the pilots, the pilot team, Paul Henri Nagere and
Stockton Rush. Stockton Rush is the chief executive and founder
of Oceangate, the folks who launched this idea in the
(20:00):
first place. Our thoughts are with them. We want to
hear your thoughts as well. Again, this is an ongoing situation.
By the time you hear this week's strange news segment,
the oxygen will have run out on the submersible. We're
going to pause for a word from our sponsors. We'll
return with more strange news before we head to a
(20:23):
commercial break. We wanted to give you this update. Between
the time we recorded and the time this Strange news
segment published, authorities have confirmed that the Titan submersible imploded
during its descent into the North Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, debris
of the craft appears to have been found. The most
(20:46):
likely outcome here was the instantaneous death of all five
occupants aboard, including the leader of Ocean Gate himself.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Okay, and we are back. We should just reiterate our
thoughts and prayers are with the people on that submersible
in their families. Just again. We talked a little bit
in the break there just about the situation, and I
just send it out on our thoughts. So I wanted
to ask you guys for something completely different. Did you
hear anything about a potential UAP dog fight that occurred
(21:27):
recently in early June?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I have not met no.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Okay, so I don't have enough on this to cover
it today in the episode. But look up, what is
this place called bad Acts? Bad acts ax AX. And
there was something that occurred on June third that the
NUFO RC reported on and I thought, Ben, specifically, you
(21:56):
might know about this because of a project you're working
on that I we're not gonna name yet, but very interesting.
Apparently there were two F sixteen's that engaged in a
dogfight with some kind of disc at least according to
witness reports. And it looks really interesting. If anybody has
any more info on that, please send it our way.
(22:17):
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, I'm seeing this now, Matt, thank you for hitping
me to this. Looks like original sources the hero hero
on Daily Tribune.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I'm seeing that, but also a June sixth report that
came from that n uforc that happened. And then there's
also something that was written in I guess it's called
My Journal Courier. I don't know. I thought it was
maybe an AP article or something, but it was written
by Mark Birdsol.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well, let's figure this out before student loans come due
in October. Triggery that great recession, just going to slide
that one in there. It's happening.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Oh, maybe the UAP can help us, help us up
with our student loan debt. All right, but but for now,
put all that stuff aside, because guys, I'm gonna need
you to confess some sins today.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Oh okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, I'm a priest and I've been hired by iHeart
Radio to have all the employees of iHeart Radio to
confess their sins.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I read. Do you do parties, Matt, You show up
like in your priest garb and go around absolving people?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah? Yeah, we go.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
No, I don't No, that might be a fun spin,
you know.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I'm just joking. I'm completely joking. But it's a joke
about the story that we're gonna cover today. I'm gonna
read something to you, I guess. It's a press release
that was written by the US Department of Labor's Wage
in Hour Division. It was written on June twelfth, twenty
twenty three. This is the first sentence quote Federal wage
and our investigators have seen corrupt employers try all kinds
(24:04):
of scams to short change workers and to intimidate or
retaliate against employees. But a Northern California restaurant's attempt to
use an alleged priest to get employees to admit workplace
quote sins maybe among the most shameless.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Wow, it's real Department of Labor too. You can tell
because they don't use any commas. They really didn't use this,
Like Matt, that's the real that's Uncle Sam say that
there there's wait, there's a restaurant in California doing psyops
(24:39):
leveraging Catholicism.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
What a time? Yes, what a time?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
So so nuts you guys. Within our doc there you
can see a Google link where you can see where
this is. It's in Sacramento, California. Shout out to more
Broccoli who always calls us from there. The place is
called Takorea. Garibaldi. I think that's how you would say it.
(25:04):
I think it's Jeribaldi Jeribaldi.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I think so this is with A er and ar
G A R I B A L D I Garibaldi.
You get it. Yeah, I'm probably like americanizing it, but
I think it might be either jar or Garibaldi.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
I think people will be able to find it with
the information we've provided.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, just just type in fake priest, just spy.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Hey, come on, you'll get it.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Okay, So this is what happened the company that owns
this Takaia and two others with the same name Ja Garibaldi, Inc.
It's alleged that this group or person whoever it is,
whatever it is, whatever that i NC represents, hired a
person identified as a priest to get the sins out
of employees during work hours. So imagine you're at work
(25:53):
and there's a priest just roaming around saying, oh hello,
could I speak with you for a moment, and tries
to take you away just to the corner of the
room in this case of the Tacorea and ask you
some really strange questions. Have you ever stolen anything from
the establishment, from Chay or the Tacorea. Have you ever
(26:14):
been late to work? Do you have any ill will
towards our employer or the Tacorea itself?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, and these these people may be sincere, and these
you know, confess your sins my child, Well, I have
coveted and resent the success of others. They're like, Okay,
let's talk about how how much of your tips you report.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, let's talk about the tips you report. And let's
also talk about maybe somebody else you've been talking to
about grievances you have with the Tacorea and the company
because guys, the Tacorea, it's alleged was paying management from
the tip pool. We talked about this, you know a
little bit when we were talking about tips. The servers,
(26:59):
people working there in the front of the house often
pool tips to where everybody makes money. When when the
company basically is making money when people are being sat,
when people are eating food and having drinks. Sure distributes it,
redistributes to everybody, even tips. Well, you're not allowed to
pay management with that tip pool, but this company was
(27:21):
allegedly doing that. They were also allegedly not paying employees
who were working overtime hours. So there were multiple employees
that were working over forty hours a week who needed
to be paid overtime wages for that time, and the
company was not paying them for that.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
There's an episode of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares that's one
of the most infamous episodes about the I Think Amy's
Baking Company. That's this woman who just goes is completely
out of touch with reality and loses her mind right
there on camera because she thinks everyone is like a
sabotaging her and attacking her. But it's revealed that she
and her husband, who owned the restaurants together are are
(28:00):
taking tips from customers and pocketing them rather than give
them to their their staff, who, of course the customers
believe those tips are going to.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I mean, it's just so grossh Yeah, it's not a
good practice, right. So it seems as though someone within
the organization, probably an employee that was feeling slighted because
of those practices, ended up making a report about the
company about these things, you know, alleging the company is
doing this. And it appears that this tactic of sending
(28:34):
in a priest is a retaliation, a way to root
out the employees who have been maybe speaking in their
opinion out of turn about the restaurant's activities. Here's here's
the other thing, guys. The company also retaliated allegedly by
threatening their employees with quote adverse immigration consequences if they
(28:57):
cooperated with the Department of Labor's investigation into the company.
Oh because somebody, because somebody snitched on the.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Okay, that's an escallation. Man. Also, I do want to
point out that no joke left behind on our recording. Today.
You have changed your your moniker to father snitch a lot,
which I am then.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Father snitch a lot.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I mean, this is egregious on so many levels, you know,
just like, first of it's like a general workplace privacy
violation level, and just not to mention that they were
absolutely taking advantage of these folks, but then to besmirch
the name of a man of the cloth in this
way heresy, I say.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Well, the Diocese of Sacramento was not too happy about it,
and you can read their response to this whole thing
on the Catholic News Agency.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Do they use the word heresy?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I hope so well. I mean they've got some strong words.
It's just like, hey, we are not connected with whoever
this joker was. It's not us. We have nothing to
do with this. We didn't do we doism.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Famously concerned about it's branding. Uh but that in that
case then okay, that's one of the questions a lot
of us are going to have listening this evening. Uh So,
this apparently, per the diocese over there in Sacramento, this
is not an acknowledged member of the clergy.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
No, absolutely. I'll give you a little quote here from
that article. It is titled California restaurant had fake priest
here workers' confessions Labor Department says it is from the
Catholicnewsagency dot Com. There's no d in there, so Catholicnewsagency
dot Com. Here's the quote. While we don't know who
the person in question was, we are completely confident he
(30:48):
was not a priest of the Diocese of Sacramento.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I think he's gonna get it.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
So I don't know, I don't know, I don't know,
And I'm going to read a little more from this
actually because this is compelling. This is a quote from
someone named Maria who is a server at the Takaria,
and this is from her sworn affid David that's attached
to the lawsuit that the Department of Labor has against
this company, and she's talking about speaking with this person
(31:14):
purporting to be a priest. She says, quote, I found
the conversation to be strange and unlike normal confessions. Again,
they're targeting somebody and probably several people who are used
to going to confession, right, maybe Catholic civilians. She continues, quote,
He asked if I ever got pulled over for speeding,
if I drank alcohol, or if I had stolen anything.
(31:38):
The priest mostly had work related questions, which I thought
was strange.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Mm hmm, little less eternal soul, little more secular.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
It's pretty crazy, right, and heaven depends on your workplace conducts.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Yeah yeah, Well, hey, guys, so there is this federal
investigation and the reason why we're talking about it today
is because the findings were just released and basically the
penalties the Takaria has to pay five thousand dollars in
penalties for their actions of hiring a fake purpose total
(32:15):
total five thousand dollars in penalties, which is just a
basically a civil charge for being naughty and hiring a
fake priest and you know, basically intimidating workers. But here's
the better thing for the workers. There are thirty five
employees who were affected by the other practices there, and
(32:36):
including the fake priest thing, but you know the other
stuff too, right, the problems that were occurring there. They
are going to get a combined total of one hundred
and forty thousand dollars split amongst.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Kay, just make clapping and clapping for you.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, hey, it's it's at least something, you know, it's
not a crazy amount of money, but it's enough to
hopefully make up for that missed overtime for the missed.
It's their money, you know, right, exactly exactly, So, guys,
I don't have much else for this one. Besides, this
is nuts.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I got I've got one thing for you, Matt. I
looked up the menu. Right, this is a chain restaurant, right,
regional chain restaurant. There's I think there are at least
three at least three locations. So, uh, you know, the
test here is to check on the case adella prices
and one case idea dekat a like for two dollars
(33:29):
and twenty five cents. Doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem
right to me.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Wait, he was suspiciously deliciously low. Yeah, so likely not
using fresh ingredients.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, well they're not using real priest, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
You have a faux priests. Probably a lot like one
of those. Uh, I mean, don't get me wrong, I
kind of like them. Thost. Have you've ever been a cookout?
They have a quote unquote casadea there it's literally just
shredded cheese and hot sauce on a on a tortilla.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
You know what, I'm just hungry enough right now where
that sounds delicious?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
You want to take a snack break.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Oh please, God, please, all right, I am really angry.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I'll give the Department of Labor the last word here
quote the US Department of Labor, in its Solicitor's office
will not tolerate workplace retaliation and will act swiftly to
make clear that immigration status has no bearing on workers'
rights under the Fair Labor and Standards Act.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Okay, tough words, right, let's go. Yeah, kind of hope
that the archdiocese's words were a little bit more cutting.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Oh yeah, you want to hear you want to hear
some Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I think yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
They're quoted as saying shame on you, fake priest.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I call it fake priest.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
All right, that's it for now. We'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
And we've returned with one more p of strange news. Matt,
If that last story made you angary, way do you
get a load of this one? Okay, that's a very
morbid setup for a very sad and morbid story about
a person similar to years, though in some ways it's
about a person occupying position of trust and authority absolutely
(35:20):
bulldozing over that responsibility in the most egregious way possible.
Harvard Medical School. You know, yes, you hear that. You
think of one of the top Ivy League institutions of
higher learning, you don't necessarily think about creepy morga managers
selling body parts to oddity shops, do you No, No,
(35:44):
That's exactly what was found out here. Federal prosecutors alleged
that the manager of the Harvard Medical School Morgue was
part of a network that bought and sold remains from
the medical school and an Arkansas mortuary. So I guess
they have maybe like a satellite mortuary. I'm not quite
(36:07):
sure to get to that in a second. This is wild.
This guy, Cedric Lodge fifty five and his wife, Denise Lodge,
sixty three, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, and several others are
being indicted by a federal grand jury in Pennsylvania on
charges of conspiracy an interstate transport of stolen goods. Again,
(36:33):
what manner of stolen goods, you might ask, Well, let's see,
we're talking human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and
a mortuary in Little Rock, Arkansas, where miss Scott was employed.
So it seems like they've got you know, they must have,
They've got that in common, this is a happy couple
(36:54):
that met over their love of cadavers. Harvard Medical School,
speaking of angry condemnation of people betraying the trust of
the public, Harvard Medical School released a statement referring to
this in the most academic fashion possible as an aberrant betrayal.
I love that the word abarant only academics use that.
(37:15):
That's a harsh one. So between twenty eighteen and twenty
twenty two, and some of these details actually come from
a fabulous New York Times piece by Michael Levinson. Between
those years twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two, the loges
collectively stole parts from bodies cadavers that had been donated
(37:38):
to the medical school and dissected. These are cadavers that
are you know, people I guess who opt to donate
their bodies to science. This would be one of those options.
And again we've talked about this in the past, where
you don't necessarily get to decide where your body goes.
Isn't that right, Ben, when we're talking about body brokers
and donating your body to science, you can't. Maybe you
(37:59):
can decide where goes, which can't decide how it's going
to be used. What were the kind of the caveats
surrounding them.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, that's correct. We have an episode on the very gray,
sometimes red market known as body brokerage. There are not
regulations for it. It is in the most unfortunate sense
of the term, very much a wild West.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Yeah, not to mention. Once you start getting these bad actors,
you know, who are the kind of middle people in
these exchanges. But again you think about institution like Harvard.
This would be someone who had been heavily vetted, has
some academic background, somebody trustworthy. But she goes to sow.
You can't really trust anybody. We're talking about limbs, severed heads, brains,
(38:46):
dissected faces, you know, individual parts of hands and fingers
and right human skulls. An absolute chop shop. And the
thing is too this guy would let some of his
buyers in kind of sneak them into the morgue so
they could have the pick of the litter. You know,
they look around you, what do you want? What you
(39:07):
need a toe? I can get you a toe, And
then they tell him and then he ships it to them.
One such customer, a woman by the name of Katrina McLean,
a forty four year old resident of Salem, Massachusetts who
owns the pretty cute, silly named cats Creepy Creations in Peabody, Massachusetts.
(39:31):
We have a place kind of like that here in Atlanta,
I call Rainy Day Revival. It sells, you know, mummified
you know, usually taxidermy and stuff like that, crucifixes. I've
actually got kind of a minor collection of crucifixes and
I'm bioloed them from there. And they also lease a
lot of their stuff out to film here in Atlanta.
And I actually had the occasion to visit the home
(39:55):
of somebody who used to work for them as a
prop manager for movies. He was going through a bit
of a tough time because of some the writer's strike,
and so he was selling some synthesizers and I purchased
one of them from him. And when I walked into
his house, I couldn't help but notice a giant case
of human skulls, to which he told me, let's he
definitely wasn't selling any of those, and then he proceeded
(40:16):
to clue me into some of the laws surrounding human remains. Apparently,
it's kind of like that scene in pulp fiction where
John Travold's character is talking about marijuana laws and Amsterdam.
It's illegal to sell them, it's illegal to transport them
across state lines, but it's not illegal to possess them.
(40:37):
So there's a lot, and then it's probably differs state
to state as well. So it does seem that there's
again radio revival, great shop. No reason to believe that
they're participating anything like this, but I can see how,
you know, it might be potentially lucrative to get some
real special pieces that you keep kind of in the
back room sell to only the discerning customer. Right. Miss
(40:58):
MacLean apparently paid mister Lodge six hundred dollars for two
dissected faces. According to prosecutors in the case, they found
a paper trail for some of this stuff, payments with
memos on them, one of them that just read breaks,
which is pretty wild and in portaste. All of this
(41:20):
is in poor taste, guys. I'm not quite sure where
to go from here. I mean, obviously there's something you
know that's darkly humorous about this, but also it's an
absolute betrayal. I mean, is it is totally you know,
a really low nasty type of crime. You say it's
victimless because these people are dead. But I don't think
(41:41):
it's victimless. You know, you are going against directly against
somebody's wishes and essentially having their remains serve as some
sort of like weird you know, mantle ornaments. What do
you guys think?
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Well, I wanted to talk about the toll amount of
money if you don't mind, guys, just really quickly, yeah, please,
how lucrative could this be? Right? And I think we
examined that a little bit in our last the full
episode we did on this topic. And do you have
any reporting about how much this group.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Made roughly forty grand between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty one,
which isn't a ton if you think about it, like
for that amount of time, you know, and obviously you
can only do this so much before people catch on.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
In two thousand and nine, interestingly enough, in the Body
Broker's episode dove into the stats and the research. In
two thousand and nine, a very prestigious business school professor
estimated that the total number of full bodies not chop
chopped donated to the US in the United States, to
(42:50):
all groups, law enforcement, automobile manufacturers, you know what I mean,
forensic stuff like the Tennessee body fart all that stuff,
medical research too. It all total to twenty thousand bodies
about year over year. The reason I say a prestigious
business school, Noll, you might find this of interest. That
(43:11):
professor is from the Harvard Business School, so right next
to right right on campus with these absolutely ghoulish resurrection men.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
I mean, you know, it's it's obviously it's it's not
like it's just just chock full of staff. You know,
it probably just takes one or two people to run
a department like this. Yeah. I mentioned maybe on a
previous episode that I recently went to the Mutcher Museum
in Philadelphia, which is an incredible place. You know, it's
a connected with the Association of Physicians I forget I'm
(43:47):
getting the name exactly right, but a long standing organization
dedicated to preserving the history of the medical profession, you know,
in Philadelphia, which is of course very old city here
in the United States. And there is one part of
the museum where you can kind of look through and
see this laboratory where there are people actively cataloging things
(44:10):
that they get in because you know, collections will be
donated to the Mutor Museum, whether it be collections of
skulls or you know, human remains and all of that.
And even the Motor Museum has been kind of in
some hot water lately and took some stuff off of
social media because they were getting kind of yelled at
by people saying, you're exploiting these people in their memory.
(44:31):
You don't know who these people are, you know, for example,
some of these subjects are unidentified, and they do everything
they can to be as descriptive as possible with the
little placards. But my point is when you look through
into this lab, it's like one person, you know, cataloging
slides and whatever, you know, fetuses in jars, maybe one
other person kind of in a back room, but real
(44:54):
no pun intended pun intended skeleton crew. So my point
is you could do this and and fly under the
radar for quite a long time, which they clearly did.
And just to wrap it up on my end, here
is a little bit more of the statement from the
Harvard Medical School community to two deans that were sort
(45:15):
of explaining how they came to be aware of this
and their their take on mister Lodge's activities. Quote, we
are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen
on our campus, a community dedicated to healing and serving others.
The reported incidents are a betrayal of HMS and most importantly,
(45:36):
each of the individuals who altruistically chose to will their
bodies to HMS. So that answers one of my questions. Yes,
you can will your body to a specific institution, UH
through the Anatomical Gift Program to advance medical education and research,
and that is a thing. Harvard Medical School does have
a program called the Anatomical Gift Program, which is is
(46:00):
what you would have had something in your last will
and testaments and all of that to indicate you wanted
your remains donated to this program for these exact purposes.
So yeah, it's a betrayal of those people and their
wishes and that's gross. Not to mention the whole thing
is just kind of ease. Are the creeps? What do
you guys think? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yeah, it's just horrifying.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Yeah, yeah, that's about the size of it.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
But yeah, I can see the angle you're talking about.
It's what we talked about before. I can see the
unfortunate angle that somebody might come to the rationalization, I'm
not hurting anybody by taking these body parts and selling them.
Nobody's getting hurt, but they're not thinking about the families
of that individual. And I don't just there's something. It
(46:44):
is up on the borderline of the moras, right, and
the things we just decide as a society we don't do.
Don't mess with dead bodies, geez right.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
It is a great social taboo, you know, the kimmata
vocation of what once was part of a living person.
I cannot I don't always say this, but I cannot
recommend the earlier Body Broker's episode from I think it
was April twenty twenty two. Enough. We dive into a
(47:18):
lot of the things we're talking about here, and every
single subject matter expert that we reference there that we
cite is agree again, this is an horrific wild West,
you know, because oftentimes also by the way, this practice
(47:39):
is only exacerbated in other countries. I mean, check into
you know, look into your neck of the global woods,
look and see whether there's a body exhibit at your
local museum. Those come from non consensual body donations of
often Chinese place prisoners. It's it's a dirty, dirty thing.
(48:03):
There really is a conspiracy of foot and Noel, I
am so glad that at least one came to light,
but statistically we have to realize there are more out there.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Now right that it agreed, agreed, And then this really
is like a perfect companion piece for that episode that
we've referenced a couple of times. So do check that
out if you get the chance. And yeah, I think
in the meantime, that's that's it for this one. I mean,
it'll again wondering if any additional members of this network
(48:35):
will be exposed. That might be the thing to keep
an eye on. And how far does it go? You know?
I mean, if an institution is prestigious as Harvard Medical
School could be prey to this kind of behavior, what
about the community college Morgues? You know what of that?
I mean, it's like, no, no one body is better
or more attractive than another when it comes to like
(48:57):
selling them for two enthusiasts, I guess call them, you know,
I mean, a body's a body, a skull's a skull,
So you're right, Ben, I bet you. It will be
interesting to see if any other participants are uncovered, because
refer to it as like kind of a ring, you know,
but they're really only about four people that are named
in the indictment, And this.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
May be is where we cast our net in a
fishing expedition. For your help, fellow conspiracy realist, what do
you think will develop with the Titan submersible? How easy
is it in the modern day? How damningly easy is
it to lose a craft at sea? When's the last
(49:38):
time you impersonated a priest? And for what reason? We
hope you weren't doing it to oppress workers. Maybe you
were just maybe you're just doing some social experiments on
your local public transit, in which case, who are we
to judge, certainly not members of the clergy. And this idea,
what we just talked about, the idea of organ thievery,
(50:03):
of body brokers. It's a really nasty thing and it
is absolutely true, and you need to be careful whenever
you or a loved one are signing yourself up for
a posthumous donation, you need to know there's often more
to the story. There are things they don't want you
to know when you sign those papers.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
We can't wait to.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Hear your thoughts. We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Try and finds in the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Twitter,
YouTube and Facebook. Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
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send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
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