Chinese scientists construct a robot capable of carrying a human fetus to term -- will the government allow this in the public sphere? A California man finds his recreational Cessna repeatedly stolen. Dictionary boffins are criticized for canonizing recent phrases and words. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
You are here.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
We have so much strange news to share with you
if you are tuning in the evening. Our program publishes
August the twenty fifth, twenty twenty five. Oh man, there's
brain rot. There's some true crime going on in Vegas
that has countered some geopolitical interests that I know we're
(01:03):
fascinated to get into before we do any of that,
along with a couple of other strange stories. Guys, remind
me you guys eat pork.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
Right, hey, pork for dinner last night. That's some delicious
pork ribs on occasion.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
And I've been known to sup on some swine. This
is interesting because if you were trying to jazz up
your pork game, if you're tired of the same old
ribs or the same old pulled pork sandwich, maybe you
can travel to California where wild pigs are turning neon.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Blue m I mean, finally.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Know why.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
So the real issue here seems to be not radiation.
We've been on a cake of radioactive animals recently. It
doesn't seem to be a genetic mutation. And the pigs
from outside, from the exterior look like your normal wild pig,
and don't interact with them if you don't have to.
(02:10):
But if you cut them open, you will see their flesh.
Their interior is neon blue, a bright neon blueberry blue.
Investigations by local authorities in California have found that this
super strange color change was caused by a poison a
rodent side. There's been a warning issued across California. This
(02:34):
poison is often sold dyed in its consumer form just
so you can identify it, you know what I mean.
Like the reason different gas companies will put a smell
into the gas so you can detect a leak before
your house explodes.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It makes sense that they would use this blue color
because it is not naturally occurring.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
No, it's very like smurf blue or like a sports
drink or something. I distinctly remember when I was a kid,
they had these dinosaur gummy candies that were called dinosaurs,
and they would dye your tongue different colors. You know
what else, they'd die different colors your.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Poopoo, urine or poop.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah, yeah, guys.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
This is a crazy thing. Not great at least these
aren't meant to be eaten, or were these maybe hunted
as wild game to be eaten, or we don't have
to worry about consumption.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Right, Well, people will hunt pretty much anything they can hunt.
It's going to be rather odd for most people to
eat this source of pork versus you know, the kind
of pork you buy from a factory farm, produced and
delivered to a grocery store. But yeah, this is discovered
by hunters. We know that these various environmental poisons, pesticides,
(03:54):
rodent sides, herbicides, they do appear to have knock on consequences.
This one is making the news. The specific chemical in
question here is called die fastenone d I P H
A C I N O n E. This stuff is
getting in the news just because of the coloration involved,
(04:15):
like like the mention of dinosaurs there earlier. If you
want to read more, checkout Science Alert from August sixteenth,
twenty twenty five by Tessa Kumandoros, who is a journalist
we've actually mentioned in past iterations of this program, Be
safe out there. Man, it was so hard for me
not to do the Alex Jones voice and say.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
They're turning to the pigs blue. You know, it started
to turn to the frogsy gate. Now the pigs are blue.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
It's a slippery slope.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
It's a democratic conspiracy. Why can't they turn the pigs red.
We're going to pause for a word from our sponsor
and we'll get into even more strange news. We're going
to go through some ups and downs in tonight's recording
in a weekly strange news segment. But as we're getting there,
(05:08):
we had to have at least one piece of something
vaguely conspiratorial.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Guys, remember Easter Island, of.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Course, how can I forget the island with all the
bunny rabbits.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Rapa Nui as as the indigenous folks would call it.
Rapa Nui's famous for these huge stone sculptures, the distinctive
heads of Easter Island. The story behind them is itself
compelling and tragic. It's kind of a parable for the
(05:40):
dangers of environmental degradation. But I didn't realize this until
a listener hit me up earlier. Guys, someone discovered a
new Easter Island head. Just in July, a new statue
suddenly appeared on Easter Island.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And whoa, wait.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
A minute, this is another one of those those art hoaxes.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, no, it must have been buried or something, right,
they can't. It wasn't. Just it didn't just like it.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Erupted slowly right by the landing strip. No, that would
have been wakeful.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
It had a warning about it had a worrying about.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
The dangers of movie studios doing reboots instead of original content.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Now that didn't happen. It was.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
It was discovered, as you said, Matt, somewhat buried. It
was in a dried lake bed. So let's go to
Tim Newcombe writing for Popular Mechanics. Do check out his
article here right now. As Tim points out, there are
more than one thousand what we call Moay's statues on
Easter Island. And this is the thing that most people,
(06:50):
I think it's fair say, most people think of these
big heads, these stone carvings when they think of this island,
but this new one was just discovered, found in a
dried up lake bed. Everybody was dumbfounded because look, Easter
Island is not a big place, you know, it's still
(07:13):
not too It's amazing, but it's not too surprising for
ancient cities to be discovered in the jungles of South America,
because that's a huge place.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Right yeah, but when it's a little densely vegetated, right yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
And this is so that's why this is incredibly fascinating
and irregular. If we go to Terry Hunt, professor of
archaeology at the University of Arizona, he was speaking with
Good Morning America, who also snagged this story, and he said,
we think we know all the moy but then a
new one turns up, a new discovery, in this case,
(07:51):
in this lake at the Statue Quarry. There have been
no by found in the dry bed or in what
was previously a lake in the past, so this is
a first.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
Can I just say good on Good Morning America for
breaking a story. You do love to see it. It's
nice that they're staying relevant.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Yeah, it's nice that they're open to stories outside of
the usual news cycle. The fact that others have been discovered,
you know, near a quarry, is indicative of how far
people got into the stone construction process. I think that
would make a good episode for either stuff. They'll want
you to know a ridiculous history. It's one of those ones.
(08:30):
Is weird we haven't done yet, we.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Haven't a wonder of the world.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Well, the people who make that list are in my opinion,
a little bit biased.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Well, at the very least, it's in a NESCo site, right,
it's got to be.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's got some sort of accolades. So here's
why we're finding it. This shows us two interesting things.
One is really cool and one is a little bit dystopian.
One is kind of a what rough beast It's hour
comes at last slouches toward Beth Lamb kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
The good news is.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
That this statue will probably may well not be the
last big stonehead discovered. There may be more discovered in
the near future. So that's good news, and that's fascinating
because that can teach civilization more about the mystery surrounding
these carvings. However, the good news is related to the
(09:28):
bad news. The reason we found this previously unknown statue
is because of global environmental degradation. The area is undergoing
a lot of drying and that's why we were able
to find this unique sculpture in this dried up lake bed.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Isn't it interesting? Though they haven't done any excavations for
things like that, one would think that would be a
prime real estate for archaeology digs, you know, looking for
additional buried pieces. It's kind of crazy that it just
sort of uncovered itself due to this sort of environmental degradation.
By the way Easter Island revenue, it was not designated
as in an ESCO site until nineteen ninety five. That
(10:11):
seems a little bit offensive to me. It was a
little a little recent. It seems like it should have
gotten the designation long ago.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Yeah, unfortunately, nineteen ninety five was technically long ago at
this point.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
Oh geez, stop it.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Sure you're not well, either of you.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
The point holds there, the increasingly arid conditions may well
lead to the discovery of new Easter Island statues. So
we're gonna we're gonna leave that one there and hopefully
we'll return maybe in the future with an episode about
the mystery, the fact and fiction surrounding the conundrum of
(10:51):
these massive statues out there in Easter Island. And by
the time we get to the story, guys, I don't know,
there may be babies alive in the world today that
were not necessarily bone of man whoa like test tube
(11:12):
stuff like a baby's kids, test tube baby?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 5 (11:16):
Yeah, we don't die.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
We multiply, uh for the unrelated.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
For the longest time, when I first saw the animated
masterpiece Baby's Kids, I thought he wasn't calling them test
two but babies. I thought he was just saying test
two baby, like the number two. And I thought this
slang is so weird. Why does he Does he mean
that something went wrong and they got to try again?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I don't know, Yeah, I could.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
I could follow your logic on that one.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Man, it was not. It was not a clever entity then.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Or now, so highly doubt that to be the case, sir.
But with self deprecating humor, very kind.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
So here's here's what we're talking about, with a baby
not bonon of mad, just sounding eldritch on that because
it's cool.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Vibe get this, folks.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
The nation of China is currently building what they call
a pregnancy robot to help you carry your human baby
to term, a non organic surrogate essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I had the same, mark Simpson gral.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, it's like an incubator, but for a full fetal
development thing.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
M hmm.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Let's go to doctor Jiang Qifang, the founder of Kaiwa
Technology and Guangzhou. This scientist is leading a team to
create sophisticated machines that have synthetic uteruses housed within their
abdomens that are then these uteruses are connected to specialized
(12:52):
tubes that all together. When combined, they function similar to
a umbilical cord. They deliver the nutrients to a developing fetus.
If this works, according to Doc Shong, these robots would
be capable of carrying pregnancies for about ten months before
facilitating delivery. The working prototype that they want to unveil
(13:17):
should hit next year, twenty twenty six. And this was
surprising to me as well. It's only fourteen thousand US dollars.
That's their price point. That seems alarmedly alarmingly affordable.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Oh man, well, this initially rubs me the wrong way
for reasons. Is there not a scenario wherein this kind
of technology could be beneficial for someone who cannot conceive?
Speaker 4 (13:42):
I would say, even even past that, it's a great question.
Even past that, it appears the idea is to help
people yet who couldn't conceive, but also people who couldn't
safely carry fetus to term. Right, so maybe you could conceive,
than due to pre existing medical conditions, your likelihood of
(14:06):
carrying the baby yourself could be dangerous for you and
the child. So it also makes it more accessible than
the traditional surrogate route because traditional surrogate roots in the
United States, as anybody who's watched Always Sunny and Philly know,
can be quite expensive. They can cost between one hundred
(14:27):
thousand two hundred thousand dollars. So if this pregnancy bot
does roll out off the drawing board, if itself comes
the term in the market, then this could this could
be a game changer for people who want kids and
can't afford a traditional surrogate route.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
Yeah, and maybe I should even apologize for my initial
spidey sense being to recoil in horror at this idea.
Maybe just pregnancy bot just sort of is inherently a
little freaky sounding, but I can see the benefits of this.
Does it walk around? Is it anthropomorphized?
Speaker 3 (15:05):
That's the question.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Okay, so we have to be careful with a lot
of this stuff. Whenever you read a headline now from
any number of legit journalistic outfits, you have to be
careful because increasingly, at least i've noticed, there will be
out of context kind of AI generated photographs that can
(15:30):
be god yess leading. So that's why I would say,
let's not trust. Let's not trust any real descriptions of
the prototype until we see pictures of the actual thing.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
In twenty twenty.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Six, I saw a news article about a cat barge
for rescue cats in Amsterdam, and the image was just
like this floating cat city, and I sent it to
someone immediately, look how cool that is, only to be
immediately admonished for sending them an AI photo. It's so
easy to fall into the traps, so don't feel bad.
It happens to the best of us. But I'm with
you one, and it's easy also to fall for the
(16:08):
trap of hyper optimism with technology.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Though I think nowadays a lot of us are a
little more healthily cynical or jaded about these glowing reports
coming from private companies right that want a thing to
work because it will be a huge amount of revenue
for them. Public reaction is notably divided. I am going
(16:31):
to say in full disclosure that my anti technology stuff
came out very quickly reading this, I saw a ton
of problems with you know how this could easily accelerate
the move toward tinkering with a human fetus in the womb,
(16:53):
depending on like now you can really control the mix directly,
you can do all sorts of shenanigans.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Back to your baby's kids reference, I've never really quite
understood what a test to baby is? This is this
that is it not just when things are artificially inseminated
outside of the womb, or is a test to baby
something different? And is that term even offensive and antiquated
at this point in time.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
It's meant to be offensive in babased kids. It's meant
to be a humorous pejorative. But it does that in
that sense in the animated film, it does refer to
artificial insemination, and there's absolutely there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
This my concern here is more.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Again, the idea of how this opens up the traditional
pregnancy and birth process to some other technological propositions that
maybe people aren't comfortable with, and maybe we shouldn't be
comfortable with it because we've all surely seen Gattiga. I
am killing it with the pop culture references today, you guys.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
What comes up all the time. So this is in
a future of fertilization, though, is what this is just
like a little bit more of a high tech version.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
I think they have a couple of different options that
they could they could pursue here now. That would primarily
be stuff like the are the egg and the sperm.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Combined in this device? Right?
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Or are they combined and then transplanted? Weirdly enough, there's
a precedent to this because in twenty seventeen over in Philadelphia,
some boffins at the Children's Hospital created what they call
the biobag experiment. They took premature lambs, lambs who were
(18:40):
birthed early, too early to survive, and they put them
in controlled fluid environments or bio bags, and they were
able to successfully keep the lambs alive and keep them
developing as though they had never left the womb.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
So this could be a good thing.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
This could lead to some terrifying things similar in a way,
similar to how the good news bad news of Raba.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Nui is directly related.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
All right, guys, before we move on, what do we
think forward er against it or more information?
Speaker 5 (19:18):
I'm on the fence.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I think this could be pretty great as especially for
an emergency situation, as you were talking about, Ben, for
a mother that is potentially putting her life in danger
to give birth and then allowing for that to be
a possibility, or for someone who who physically cannot carry
a child. But now maybe a couple can like have
(19:42):
part of that experience at least I don't know, I
think that, Yeah, I feel like positive.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
No, I see that too, and that was It took
me a minute to get to that, but I do
think that's true. And to Ben to your point, I
think I'm just so dystopia coded about a lot of
this tech that's being rolled out so willy and or
nilly that it's easy for my to just sort of
like look at the worst possible version of what the
intentions of the technologists behind this kind of thing might be.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It would be weird if you could add some stuff
to your baby upgrade your baby while it's in the thing,
you know.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Eventually for just a few coins more, once they already
have you as a captive audience. Right, because the way
you would do it, late stage capitalism argues, you know,
you you get the baby in there, right, you've got
the parents already with a sunk costs, and you don't
offer the upgrades until that point, and then.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's a subscription.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Maybe you could also you could also do something clever
with ad supported revenue. But anyway, ethics aside, this is
a brave New world shout out to Huxley.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
We don't know how far this is going to come
to term.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Thank you for the drum roll there, because a lot
of it depends not on the technology. A lot of
it depends instead upon the regulatory bodies of China and
where they fall on the question I posed to you
guys about whether you want to be for or against it.
So we'd love to hear your thoughts, folks conspiracy at
(21:18):
iHeartRadio dot com. There's a bunch of stuff that we're
not going to get to for this one, especially for
all our fellow gear heads and car fans. Volkswagen is
officially locking higher horsepower behind a paid subscription. That's going
to be great. The Oklahoma ideology test. What could go wrong?
(21:41):
Why don't you tell us? We're gonna pause for a
word from our sponsors.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
And we returned with more strange news, y'all. I'm gonna
put it to the group. Would you like the quirky,
pop culturey, slightly irritating thory first or the macabre, somewhat
bummery story first?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Well, you know I would say I would say dealer's choice,
though I do always like asking those kind of questions.
Let's roller coaster, man. As long as we you know,
we've been trying to end on a high note for
listener mail and strange news, So as long as we
get to a high note by the end, that I
think we're good.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
We got a high note on the way literally in
the sky.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Well, speaking of roller coasters, really quickly, I'm gonna split
the difference and lead with a story of triumph very
short mention a thrill seeker in the UK who has
just set a new Guinness World record by writing fifty
five roller coasters in a single week. Dean Stokes from
Brighton by the Sea said he in total went on
one hundred and eight roller coasters at thirty two theme
(22:51):
parks across the United Kingdom in sixteen days. He's thirty
six years old, and he started at Brighton Palace Pier
on the second of August and ended at Thorpe Park
in Surrey. Instagram post that he put up said this
in his moment of triumph, he posted this, rather, I
did it. I even did an extra victory lap on
Hyperia to celebrate. That must be a roller coaster of
(23:12):
some sort. Now I'm a bit of a coaster head,
but that just seems like an awful lot. But he
looks very happy, and I think we all extend our
congratulations to mister Stokes for his new Guinness World record.
So now that I've sort of softened things up, I
know I offered you guys the option, but I think
I'm going to lead with the bummer story because I'm
going to try to keep it short. It is just wild, y'all.
(23:32):
It's the kind of headline you see and you're not
even quite sure what the details could possibly be. A
family in Pennsylvania whose veterans son tragically passed received his
brain in a box in the mail from a funeral home.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Questions like the way we've heard about donations of body
parts and stuff. Is that what we're talking about.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Not exactly, though it does. It does beg the question
of why did they remove his brain? What was it
doing in a box? How does such a tragic and
despicable and clearly unfortunate mix up take place? Because according
to reporting from The Guardian, this is not something that
(24:19):
should ever happen. Can you imagine a sinartan. We're not
like ancient Egyptians putting the pharaoh's brain in a you know,
removing it through the nose and putting it in the
jar next to the sarcophagus and the pyramid. There's no
reason to remove a brain. I don't think that happens.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And then to take the time to put it in
a box and send it with you know, shipping address
and all that other stuff, right, or are we saying
it was just dropped off?
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, that's the thing it is.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
It is not common practice at all in the United
States for a funeral home specifically.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
To do this.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
There might be exceptions. Again, like Matt, You're excellent point
about body donation after death, posthumous body dodation, but yeah,
to be crystal clear here funeral homes are not supposed
to do this, but funeral homes have gotten up to
all kinds of shenanigans. I'm think you know the scandals
in North Georgia in particular.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Yeah, well this took place.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
In george actually in Marietta or one of the funeral
homes involved the Nick and Nick funeral Nixon's Nicks. Thank you.
It's odd. I mean, I guess that's their name, but
it just it doesn't quite roll off the tongue. And
I would like to correct myself. This was not sent
via the post. They hand delivered this to the family
(25:36):
when they went to the funeral home to recover their
son's personal effects. The personal effects, which is maybe even crazier,
included this this like red plastic type box inside of
a cardboard box, which the fact that they tried to
get into it very curious. I didn't know what it
(25:56):
was and they weren't able to does indicate it was
somehow sealed, you know, because of biohazardous material. However, it
would appear that it was not sealed well enough because
they didn't know what to do with that. They couldn't
get into it, so they put it in the car
only to come back to the car and try to
move it, remove it, and the father, mister Butler, got
brain goo all over his hands. It was leaking into
(26:18):
the vehicle. I mean, right, yeah, you've already lost a
beloved son and you're dealing with everything that that involves,
and now you are well. The way the father put it,
let's just get right to it. He referred to it
as the smell of death permeating his vehicle and then
(26:41):
realizing that there was bodily fluids leaking out of this box.
Lawrence Butler was the father's name, by the way, Timothy
Garlington was the son's name. His remains were shipped from
Georgia to a funeral home in Pennsylvania, which is where
the family is from. That's where they picked up the
effects and were handed this box. The two funeral homes
(27:05):
are now having the ever loving pants suit off of them,
understandably so for negligence. Let's just read from the Guardian piece.
Two funeral homes allegedly gave grieving parents their deceased son's
brain in a box, which began to smell, leaked into
their car and got on the father's hands when he
moved it. According to an updated lawsuit filed this week.
The father, Lawrence Butler, said the discovery was overwhelming and
(27:27):
a news conference on Thursday, leaving a horrific memory that
mars the other memories of a good young man. It
was and still is in my heart that I got
in my car and I smelled death. I just don't
think there's any version of this doesn't result in them
getting significant damages paid out.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, it's hard to understand what series of mess ups
could have led to that occurring, like just because you
know that's multiple errors, right.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Oh god, yeah, Yeah, they consulted for this piece or
actually read well the lawyer of the family they have
They have representation in Philly, are in Pennsylvania and in Georgia.
In one of their attorneys, after doing some digging and
consulting with various folks from the funeral industry, said that
at no point in the process is the brain separated
(28:22):
from the body in that fashion and shipped in that fashion.
If it ever is, he said, then it is in
a sealed bag and labeled as a biohazard. Once again
reading from the Guardian, whether or not Nix and Nix,
this is the funeral home in Philadelphia knew a brain
was inside the box. Stuart alleged they should not have
handed the box over to the butler's because it was
(28:44):
not on the list of belongings sent from Southern Cremations,
the crematorium in Georgia in Marietta, and the only thing
we've got from the funeral home Nix and Nix. We've
got a quote, a really delightful quote from Julian Nicks
telling the ap it was definitely not our fault. So
you know, the lawyer for the family did indicate that
(29:09):
they have not even received anything resembling an apology. But
you know, in the legal legal eese of it all,
an apology would perhaps be an admission of guilt, so
I could maybe see why that wouldn't be so forthcoming.
But I'm curious to see. It does not feel like
these two organizations are going to be in business for
much longer. What do you guys think?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Unfortunately, it's terrible how often these kind of things will
not spell doom for a company. People just play the
Spider Man game of pointing at each other wait for
the news cycle to move on. And this leads to
what we discussed earlier in our Funeral Home episode, A
lot of the things that appear to be mom and
pop institutions are in fact owned by one large company,
(29:53):
So they might close down that brand but keep the
facility and reopen it under a new name.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Yeah, dramatized beauty and disturbingly. In the HBO seminal series,
six feet Kroner, I believe was the name of the big,
mega funeral company that was all about buying up these
mom and pop companies, and a big conflict in the
show comes from the Fisher family not wanting to play
ball and wanting to keep their family owned funeral home
(30:21):
in the family.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
It's very real, Oh, I see what I'm like, Just
like Blackwater Academic or Comcast and Infinity, the bush.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
Mills buying craft breweries. You know, not sure you know, yeah,
but I mean it's it's it's all a subterfuge.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
And this, I mean, this is also this is terrible
because you know, in the case of cable providers, we're
talking about a luxury or the ability of communication, but
here we're talking about desecration of the dead. So I
do hope there are I do hope there are consequences.
(30:59):
You know, it was a mistake. It wasn't like someone
was trying to perversely harass people at one of the
worst moments in their lives. But something should be done.
There should be consequences.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Yeah, and you know that's one of the points made
by the attorneys involved, saying that they want to, you know,
make sure something like this never happens again. So we're
gonna move from brains in a box to brain rot.
I had to do it, There's no way around it.
I'm sorry. We are talking, as we do every year,
about the new words that have been entered into the
(31:31):
English lexicon that is the Oxford English Dictionary. I think
brain rot specifically was entered in last year, but brain
rot encompasses a whole lot of weird slang and meme culture,
and a lot of these terms that have now been
entered in this year would fall under the category of
(31:51):
brain rot, including specifically, I would say skibbitty skibbity, skibbitty skibbity,
which is apparently means something is bad. It is, of
course a reference to the very popular YouTube short series,
not that it's presented on YouTube shorts. It's just like
their short videos, skimmity toilet, which is a odd kind
(32:13):
of weird world where there are these creatures that are
heads and toilets that are fighting against like these robots,
races of robots, absolute brain rot, absurdist Internet humor, and
it's kind of you know, seeped into the lexicon, especially
with gen Z and gen Alpha kids saying things are
skibbitty skibbitty riz blah blah blah blah. And it sometimes
isn't even clear whether it means something is good or bad.
(32:35):
I think it all depends on the context and the
emphasis that you put on it. But it is one
of the new words that have been entered into the
I'm sorry, excuse me, the Cambridge Dictionary, not the Oxford
English Dictionary. Really yeah, thank you, Ben, thank you, No,
I hear you. Some others include trad wife trad wife
(32:58):
being a homemaker type. I don't think it's particularly new concept,
but it does appear to revolve a little bit more
around someone who exhibits that kind of life and posts
about it a lot. Delulu is just a shorthand for
a delusional you know, imagining things that aren't there. Yeah,
that's the thing that's crazy skibbity can can simultaneously mean
(33:19):
cool and bad or sometimes nothing at all. Luke, which
is a lot of these terms stem from drag culture,
and so luke l ewuk is of course a little
twist on the word look talking about a style, a
particular type of outfit that may stand out from the crowd,
be a little bold or eye catching. Colin McIntosh, who
(33:43):
is the Lexical program manager at Cambridge Dictionary, said that
the us from ABC News at the rise of words
like skibbity and de lulu shows how internet culture is
reshaping the English language. And here's the part I love
the debate with y'all are just maybe discussed lasting ways.
She said this, it's not every day you get to
see words like skibbity and de lulu make their way
(34:04):
into the Cambridge Dictionary. Macintosh said, we only add words
where we think they'll have staying power. Internet culture is
changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to
observe and capture in the dictionary. Now, while I agree,
I think we all can that the fluctuating nature, the
malleable nature of English language is fascinating, I would beg
(34:24):
to differ on the staying power of skibbety and even
de lulu, even if people are using them, you know,
in political speeches, which I believed Lulu was used by
a politician giving a speech either in DC or maybe
even it was abroad. They all seem very fad based
to me. And I just don't feel like skibbity toilet
(34:46):
and the concept of something being skivity is gonna make
the grade, you know, down the line. So I yield
my time. What do you guys think?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
It's just a strange term for us because because guys
were in our early.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Four now think about like dated slang from when we
were young, like so much of that stuff. It does
not It just I just kind of think that this
is a good way for these dictionary folks to grab
some headlines and turn some heads and be a little divisive.
(35:22):
But to me it's sort of also maybe speaks to
the somewhat irrelevance of these types of collections if there
isn't really that much scholarly rigor going into it. And
a question that my buddy Jonesy on the weird a
News podcast made was does this mean we can use
skimmity or luke in scrabble and banana grams.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Scrabble has a different uh oh, yeah, that's right, the
board reference. Yeah to the original question, I think it's
important to zoom out from our personal experiences in media
arrests in the think of it and think through the
larger context of etymology. I agree that a lot of
(36:08):
what we call slang words are indeed ephemeral, right, and
they become archaic and just like a stone rippling across
a pond, if you're skipping a stone, then they will
have this sort of wax and wane, you know. But
like for every every word, like dude, right, which is
(36:28):
older than a lot of people think, there are phrases
like twenty three skid o, which came and went. You know,
that's what I think of with skippity. So it's not
that all these slang words should be dismissed or looked
down upon because they don't happen to be the tried
and true words that have stood the test of time.
(36:51):
It's more that they have a high rate of attrition.
So think of think of one hundred slang words, it's
safe to us zoom ten percent will make it over
a century or so in some form, and then it
goes to the idea of sorry, we've opened a door here,
(37:11):
the idea of what we count as permanence, the ephemeral nature, right,
because the English language is a living language. That is
such a weird mixtape. I heard it called.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Friend of my recently said English language is imagine if
you had a bunch of Vikings invading and they yelled
at some Germans, but French people yelled back totally and
m so I think, like, so skibbety. You know, the
next logical question is not just will skivity last, but
the next question is something like will the word television
(37:48):
last or TV? You know what, what do we define
as permanence? It's very difficult to do that in something
that is not a dead language.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Well, yeah, for sure. And also it would seems to
me that the minimum criteria of a word being entered
into a dictionary of note would be that it has
a fixed meaning, at least to some degree you know
that we can agree on. And the definition in Cambridge
for skimbny is a word that can have different meanings
(38:18):
or bad, or can be used with no real meaning
at all as a joke. And that just to me
is like, come on, really, it just seems like a headline. Yeah, man,
why didn't Choogie make it?
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah, those self reflective antonyms, though, are pretty common in English.
To suppose not just devil's advocate, but you should be
always to skim and to scrutinize.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
There are a lot of There are a lot of
things like that.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Also, we did it may be ridiculous history, it may
have been brain stuff years ago, but it is the
process of getting a word submitted to the fanciest reference works.
You can imagine. It's pretty strange, just something like get
it used in print five times and then.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
Have it.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Time exactly so the maybe the rubric itself is a
bit antiquated.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
Real shifting goalposts. Well, this was fun. I think we're
good to to to pop to a quick break here
we're from our skibbety sponsor, and then we'll be back
with a last little run of strange news stories for you.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
And we've returned. Guys, did you see the thing that
Dylan posted? You click on the link. It seems as
though somebody, yes, I.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Did see this on the internet organically. Yeah, this skibbitty
rizzler is eight No cap bruh, I'm eight. It's like
the birthday party sign situation for the kids for clearly
a jen Alpha Yeah birthday party bash.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Great joke from the parents, but it also reminds me
of that thing where going back to our Conspiracy of cool,
we didn't mention this too much on air, but one
of the things people think is inherently uncool is when
their parents try to uh jokingly or sincerely use slang.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
Great way to kill it.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah, yeah, exactly like funky.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
You know what's funny though. I mean, maybe it is
a product of being a little older, but I really
do dig using older slang, or at least it just
feels it's a more natural fit for me, Like I
could call people cats sometimes, you know, I say something
I call money like scratch and things like that, and
I'm not doing it ironically. I just I don't know.
Slang is such a personal thing, and I think the
(40:36):
moment you start to kind of jump on the slang
train and not have your own sort of like picky
choosy way of talking, it can sort of be a
little uncool, right.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
No, I think that's groovy as hell.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
Yeah, see.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
See old meats news. This is great.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I like all the slang.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
I mean it's just a it's a it's a beautiful
opportunity for exploration.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
There's street a language.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
You know, So I no doubt I love all slang
when it appears that the person you see, if you're
communicating clearly, then who are we to judge?
Speaker 3 (41:13):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (41:13):
There are some things that don't feel right mouthfeel for me,
but that's fine because there are literally eight over eight
billion other people who can do it. So I adore it.
And you guys know, I'm all about archaics, Like.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
Yeah, men, I'm saying I wasn't saying that I just
exclusively use that, but I'm just saying I kind of
have like a little bit of a hodgepodge in the
way that I employ slang, And to me, that is
part of the fun of language. And I would argue
that another aspect of being cool is being a good
communicator and being able to, like, you know, get your
meaning across to just about anybody.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
That's right, dude. Most of my slang is it's mostly
from South Park episodes, I think, so Simpsons stuff a
little bit of Crocodile Hunter every once in a while.
Speaker 5 (41:57):
Yeah, it's a Simpsons simp aren't you.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Yeah, yeah, it's weird way this way it worked, right,
it's popular culture, just flow.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Simpson stands, Yeah, I hear you. I don't want to derailist.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
But I realized now when think about it, I accidentally
invent a lot of slang just because I feel like
I'm still learning English.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So I uh so that is.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
That's something that comes up. Would love to hear your
favorite invented slang words. What have you what have you
created in your.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
In your family?
Speaker 5 (42:27):
Well, and now I'm gonna say, Ben, you should submit
some of these to Cambridge except.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Sure, a bag of badgers, I would say. Also, I'm
trying to think of another one because they don't seem
weird or unusual to me. Oh old beans for something
that's not new news or a new idea. Yeah, they're
probably more The more we think.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
About it got youa Yeah, I don't know if Cambridges
accept those. They're a little more phrase oriented than than
than word oriented. But I know you got some words
you've coined as well. But yeah, what was so sorry
we kind of derailed Matt's that's yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
I didn't want to derail you there, Matt.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I was saying I was I
was apologizing for my part in that. But what you
got today for us, Matt.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Well, I was going to talk about this sussy baka
tom Artium, Alexandrovitch, but I don't want to do that.
We're not going to talk about him. Look him up
if you want to. It's a whole story. Brought eight
full links to talk about that dude today and what
he did and what's happening with him. But it's become
a political black hole of sorts, where it's just becoming
(43:36):
a whole thing and lines are being drawn about how
you're supposed to feel about it, when on the surface
and deeply within the story, it is just about a
man that appears to have attempted to Laura Child for
sex act and then was just let go on ten
thousand dollars bail and then was allowed to fly back
(43:57):
to Israel and probably won't face anything in the future.
That's all it is. You can look up all the
details if you want to. High level cybersecurity official with
Israel that got caught in Las Vegas, look it up
on your own.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Had some hats that the we're black.
Speaker 5 (44:14):
Yes, well, and it's another example of the evils, the
potential evils of like all this diplomatic immunity type stuff.
I know it's not exactly the same, but the idea
that certain people just have are afforded levels of protection
for their evil acts that you know, the rest of
the world does not get.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Check out Margaret Thatcher and Operation you Tree as well.
Check out Cyril Smith, check out other examples if you
really want to ruin your afternoon. But Matt, I think
that's the right tack to let our fellow audience members
and conspiracy realists learn more about that.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
If they are so.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Inclined, Yes, check it out. Please, it is worth your time,
I suppose. Just don't get caught in all the political
manipulation that's occurring. Instead, let's go to the Los Angeles
Times and hear a heartwarming story from Salvador Hernandez. He
wrote this on August eighth, twenty twenty five. I'm not
gonna say the title yet, because we're gonna tell it
(45:07):
a little bit like a story. I hope you don't mind, Salvador,
and then we'll say the title at the end. Some
people can find all you're writing. Here we go, there's
a man in southern California. Guys, his name is Jason Hong. Jason,
it's kind of awesome. He owns a plane that's freaking nice, right,
nice work, Jason. It's a nineteen fifty eight Cessna Skyhawk.
(45:31):
This thing is a humble yet gorgeous single engine plane.
It has a red nose that kind of morphs into
a red stripe that goes down both sides, and then
there's a little yellow and purple that goes along with
that stripe. It's a butte. And this guy, Jason, when
he arrived at this place called the Corona Municipal Airport,
which is in the Los Angeles area Pasaden area. The
(45:54):
riverside is right there. You can look it up if
you want to, the Corona Municipal Airport. He arrived there
on Jie twenty seventh for a seventy fifth birthday flight,
Jason seventy five. Uh. When he got there, guys, he
couldn't find a Skyhawk. And we got a little quote
here from Jason. Here it is quote. I got confused.
(46:15):
I thought, did I park it somewhere else? Did the
airport manager move it? But I looked all over he
couldn't find it. Is airplane dude, where's my sessta? Yeah,
there you go. Where the heck is my airplane? It's
you know, I think we've maybe all had that experience
where we park our car somewhere in a huge parking
lot and we really feel like we know exactly where
(46:37):
it is, so you head to that location and it
is not even close to where your car is.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
I was hoping so much, man, that you were gonna say,
I think we've all been in that situation where you
can't remember where you parked your nineteen fifty eight sess
the sky high, And I was just gonna, yes, add
the heck out of you.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
I was gonna be like, absolutely, I wish, God.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
I wish one day, one day will own a smaller
plane that will be so awesome one day. But in
this case, in Jason's case, back on the twenty seventh
of July of this year, he couldn't find his plane,
so he reported it missing and he hoped the police
could find this thing. He refers to it as his
old treasure because again this is an older plane and
it's just awesome. So Jason, who visits this airport all
(47:21):
the time, You guys have ever been to a municipal
airport like the one that Decab p Stree.
Speaker 5 (47:27):
It's a little more like for private planes. And yes,
yeah I have not I've seen them there. We've got
a decent view of a few of them around town.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, for sure, I've only been to a couple.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
I love them, probably as you guys know, going to
be more involved with some in the in the future.
But yeah, they're they're way more informal in a lot
of ways than a commercial airport. I think that's probably
key to the story here.
Speaker 5 (47:51):
Yes, and last, sorry, I mean, but I did recently
go to one speaking of informal here in Atlanta, and
you'll probably know the name of it, Ben, but it
is one of these airports that has a really cool
little restaurant attached to it where you can eat outside
and just like watch the planes take off and land
and you can even like pay for right, that's the
one correct, taking pay for a little plane.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Ride well, and shout out to Downwind restaurant that's there
at the cab. And it's so a lot of these
airports are cool like that. It's a place to go
hang out for a little bit. There's usually a restaurant,
there's usually a little park of some sort and just
places to kind of gather and be. And like you said, Ben,
informal is a great way to put it because it
(48:31):
doesn't have that. There's not the tension that you get
when you head towards a big old international airport or something.
You're like, oh, man, security is tight around here. You
don't feel that usually until you, you know, you move
through certain parts of it and there are security and
things like that often, but it's not the same. So
Jason knows his way around there. He knows people around there.
(48:52):
He knows other pilots, because you know, pilots hang out
at the airport.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
It's like your golf course.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
It's and the the restaurants were talking ab out of
the public spaces adjacent are like where you go after
you've played your golf game. You know, you might have
a cocktail, grab some gnash with with your outher other
buddies you saw at the hangar, and then you'll trade
war stories. It's a really cool environment usually. But that
(49:19):
I think speaks to your point, Matt. He already has
been going here for a while. Yeah, so he knows
the other regulars.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yes, and he's saying, hey, guys, you see my plane,
everybody's going to Oh, well, I don't know, I don't
maybe maybe he eventually learns that. On at least two occasions,
somebody that was not Jason came and got his plane
and just took it out and flew it away like
it was theirs, and then took it somewhere else. He
(49:48):
couldn't figure out where it was. People couldn't figure out
where it was. On July twenty seventh, neither could the police,
so he reported the aircraft missing and he hoped that
somebody is gonna find this thing, and again he referred
to it as his old treasure. You know, this is
a seventy five year old man just looking to have
a little flight. Come on, who's taking this old treasure?
Speaker 4 (50:07):
And folks, to be clear here, if we haven't said
it explicitly before, he's not doing any thing wrong. This
is a joy riding, recreational pilot. He's not moving weight
over the border or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Right, Well, we don't know that much about Jason. We
just know he has a plane, that's all.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
I'm all right, And we're assuming the best about people, yes,
because that's the thing we're trying to work on.
Speaker 5 (50:33):
As a group.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, maybe a TB.
Speaker 5 (50:35):
Cooper type situation. Huh, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Yes, So let's jump to two days later, July twenty ninth.
Somebody at the Laverne Police Department called and told Jason
that the plane was located at this place called Bracket Field.
This is about twenty five miles northeast of that municipal airport,
Corona Municipal Airport, where he parked it last. So Jason
(50:59):
gets in the car, drives over to that airport and
guess what, there's this plane just parked there like like
he parked it there like it was normal, Like everything's cool,
he said. He checked out the plane, looked at the sides,
did a little quick inspection of the plane. Everything feels
in place and in working order, except there's a little
bit of garbage on the inside of the cockpit. He
(51:20):
also found some cigarette butts in the cockpit, which, come on,
you don't smoke in another person's plane.
Speaker 5 (51:25):
Hell, don't any plane, Jeff fuel is, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
That's the beauty of owning a plane. You can smoke
in that one. I guess, I guess, But what is
this like.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
The Vietnam War?
Speaker 4 (51:38):
I respect helicopter pilots because they're crazy. And if you
want to chain smoke while you're running the bird, then
whatever it takes to get us in and out safely.
But if you're in a plane, come on, and if
you're someone else's plane, at least police the area. Just
clean up, right, Really.
Speaker 5 (51:54):
A plane jacking etiquette?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah? Yeah, so so it goes on you guys. Yeah,
Jason's pretty smart guy. He says, all right, how am
I going to prevent this from happening again? I know,
I'm gonna take the battery out of the plane, much
like the way you would take the battery out of
a car or something. You can't get the thing to
start if it doesn't have that initial power, right, So brilliant,
(52:16):
let's do that. Sorry, mystery joy riding pilot, no more
flying for you. I took your battery, my battery. But
then just a few days later, guys, on August third,
Jason came back to the airport to clean up the
plane because there was that garbage and stuff in there,
and he also wanted to do a full inspection, only
to find it was gone again. Ye need the.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
Club or something. I mean, good lord, what you almost
got to respect the hustle of this wiley gremlin esque
a mystery man.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
This is going into prank territory.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Bright man. I hope Jason didn't have any enemies here.
Well here, here's what happens. Jason again reports the plane missing,
and again he gets a call, this time from a
different police department, the Elmonte Police Department, and his plane
has been found at another small airport, the San Gabriel
Valley Airport, about eighteen miles west of that second airport, Bracketfield.
(53:17):
So he again gets in his car, travels to another
airport to find his plane. Again. He finds it, and
he finds it. Somebody put a new battery in there.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
Oh, okay, whoever you're given right, there's a there's a
new battery for every cigarette. Butts, this is a relationship now.
But there are no identifying notes, right, there's no there's
no like reht Baron esque ha, mister hang kind of
note this time or any time.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
Okay, and get this.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
The police departments, all of them now that he's in
contact with. Nobody has any surveillance video that captured the
pilot that captured the planes. No real leads. There's a
according to Sergeant Robert Montanez of the Corona Police Department.
So he's just like, he doesn't understand why is this happening.
So he ends up going to Flight Aware that we've
(54:11):
mentioned before on this show. This is an app and
website that you can use to track all kinds of
different stuff that's in the air. It's just the public
information plotted on grafts basically, and on a real time map.
He noticed when he went back in time that his
plane was flown two times on his seventy fifth birthday
on July twenty seventh, when he wanted to go out
(54:32):
for a flight two times and one that left at
one thirty am Pacific time. So it's just this very
strange thing because Jason, when he was talking to the
Los Angeles Times here is in his mind at least
estimating that whoever is taking his plane is not some
joy riding person. This is somebody who understands planes. This
(54:53):
is somebody who flies planes. Because they have successfully taken
off and landed so many times at this point, they've
they've had the tools or found or stolen or borrowed
the tools that you would need to even get access
to the battery in that plane which are specialized. You
can't just walk up there with a screwdriver and you're
gonna get the battery out. Uh. And he you know,
(55:15):
it's just adding to this mystery of somebody who knows
planes and does this stuff. It's just taking his Uh.
It makes you wonder if does somebody just think that's
their plane and they're getting in the wrong charitable.
Speaker 4 (55:29):
I think it's more like uh, one missing piece in
the story from the raporty I've seen here Matt is uh,
the we don't know how frequently he flew the plane.
Hong flew the plane before he discovered the joy riding,
so it may have been like the car that's parked
at the end of the lot for long enough. That's
(55:50):
some that the valet thinks they can just start scooping
around with it.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Maybe no, absolutely could be. But the other thing is
who Hoover's flying. It is adding money because Jason found
a pretty nice headset that you use when you're in
the air. There Again, a battery for assessma like that
is not cheap. The tools that you need to do
that stuff not cheap. So somebody is putting a lot
(56:19):
into this. Oh and according to Los Angeles Times. Here, guys,
according to the writing of mister Hernandez, there's one lead,
a single lead. There is a description of a woman
in her forties or fifties who another pilot at one
of these airports saw sitting in this plane, the specific plane,
(56:40):
on multiple occasions. And the only reason why this was
a remarkable thing that someone would remember is because everybody,
once they land their plane at the municipal airport, they
go hang out inside, they go do the things like
we talked about earlier, hang out at the restaurant, maybe
even have a drink. This person just sat in the
cockpit after landing. And it's hot in those cockpits, especially
(57:03):
in July, at the end of July towards August, it's
getting real hot. This person just kind of hung out
and then would take back off again. And you know,
that's a weird thing, but that's all they got, you, guys.
Speaker 5 (57:18):
I kind of worship this person, man. I'm this is
like a real discordinateism, chaotic energy that this individual is
putting out that yes, thank you, ben.
Speaker 4 (57:27):
Not about the money, It's about sending a message. There's
also there's also this aspect here here. Two quick responses
and I don't want to keep us too long. But first, guys,
I think this is how this could be how the
case gets blown wide open, because the description of a
woman quote in her forties or fifties could lead to
(57:49):
some This is like you poke someone's personality here, and
maybe the person hearing this, who is that lady in
the cockpit is like, screw you, guys, I'm thirty seven,
And maybe they'll reach out to correct the record, like
this surveillance footage is unfair, And then you know, the
(58:09):
the next thing is that we haven't really.
Speaker 3 (58:11):
Talked about is that the gas is free.
Speaker 4 (58:15):
Right, So when you have a plane parked at a
hangar like this, then you are paying fees like you
would a boat at a marina. But those fees don't
always include the consumables, right, like the like the oil,
like the like the gas here. So whomever is doing
this is still gassing up the plane, and that might
(58:37):
be a way to follow the you know, the bread
crumbs or the sky crumbs to solve the mystery of
the cessen the Skyhawk.
Speaker 5 (58:46):
Yeah, we don't have a We don't have a solution, right,
this says still remains a mystery.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
Well, I don't think we're ever going to have a solution.
Speaker 5 (58:52):
Incredible, I prefer it.
Speaker 2 (58:54):
Well, Jason did probably the right thing as an airplane owner,
especially one like this.
Speaker 5 (59:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (59:00):
He locked the thing up, He chained it up, so
it's not going anywhere unless somebody, you know, goes in
there with some heavy equipment and breaks that stuff off.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (59:10):
I kind of wish he would have left it there
with some kind of like with a tras camera with something.
You know, it's an older plane.
Speaker 5 (59:18):
It's easy to jump to hijack or it's easy to
see it's wire or whatever.
Speaker 2 (59:23):
Yeah, this is this is quite a bit older.
Speaker 5 (59:26):
Yeah, I mean, why isn't it happening to other people's planes?
Is what I'm getting at.
Speaker 4 (59:30):
Because other people, I'm pretty sure other people are using
their planes more often. Got another theory for you, guys,
love I love speculation on this. What if Jason himself
is the culprit and he's doing this because he was
getting in trouble with his family members for taking his
plane out too often, and now he's you know, it's
(59:50):
like a fight club.
Speaker 2 (59:51):
This.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
It wasn't me.
Speaker 4 (59:52):
There's a Tyler Diurden in the sky and I know
and I'm doing the best I can.
Speaker 5 (59:58):
The dude's alter he's playing for himself.
Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
I'm doing my best, he's he's saying to his family,
I'm doing my best to hunt this person down.
Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
But he can't ever find the person. And he's doing it.
Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
He's doing it on purpose, so he can just be like, well, honey,
I guess I do have to go out to the
airfield more often, so I can, you know, keep an
eye on whomever is stealing our plane. And it's not
me because like you said, you know, I wanted to
fly it bore. You told me I shouldn't fly it
as much. We compromised, and I'm doing what you told
me to do.
Speaker 5 (01:00:30):
That's like the plot of Charlie Kaufman's Twin Brothers movie
The Third in adaptation. It was him, the detective is
chasing a serial killer and it turns out it was
him the whole time, and of course Charlie is like,
that's idiotic. There's no way to make that make sense
or play out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
I just started watching Mister Robot again and it sounds
like that too very much.
Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
That's a great reference. Also, You're welcome, Larry David. This
is an amazing pitch for another episode of Kurbyer in three.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yes, uh so, guys. Let's end here with a quote
from Jason. Here it is someone breaks into your house.
They're looking for jewelry or cash, right, But in this case,
what's the purpose. It's like someone breaks my window and
then they put up a new one. It's the strangest thing.
I love that, the idea of someone breaks your window
(01:01:22):
and then the next day replaces it, and they keep
breaking your windows and replacing them.
Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
I hope they get to hang out.
Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Yeah, me too. Everyone. If you want to check this out,
please look up. Someone keeps stealing, flying, fixing, and returning
this California man's plane. But why? Written by Salvador Hernandez
for the Los Angeles Times on August eighth.
Speaker 5 (01:01:42):
It's an incredible story. It's an incredible story.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
It's so great. Thank you, Salvador, and thank you La Times.
That's it for me, guys.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
And that's it for our show.
Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
Fellow conspiracy realist friends and neighbors, thank you so much
for tuning in, whether you are a bot, a human,
or another entity all your own, we are grateful that
you've spent time with us for some strange news. Thanks also,
of course, to the legendary Tennessee pal Dylan Fagan. Please
do join us in our upcoming explorations. We've got some
(01:02:17):
Annu Naki stuff dropping. Finally, we're continuing the Epstein saga.
We are going to figure out whether you can actually
talk to animals. Very excited about that one. So give
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Make up your own slang and send it along. You
can call us on a telephone, you can send us
an email, and you can find us on the lines.
Speaker 5 (01:02:39):
You share Kenna. Speaking of the straight poop, there was
another story that slid through the cracks that I meant
to mention. Apparently, Vladimir Putin carries his bodyguards carry a
poop suitcase whenever he travels so that they can recover
his feces so that no one finds it and keeps
it and tries to extract his precious DNA. I'm just saying,
so we're not going to straight poop you to find us. Indeed,
at the Handslans here is this stuff. Or we exist
(01:03:01):
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Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Do you want to call us? Our number is one
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Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
We are the entities the read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back spoiler. Pretty often these evenings. Ask us for
a random fact. We will gladly give you one dealer's
choice out of context, thanks to people who are writing
it with that already. One last funny Putin story we
(01:03:46):
didn't get to speaking to weird vehicle stuff. Putin in
his recent visit to Alaska, gave a random man a motorcycle.
The man has no idea why, but congratulations Alaska.
Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
So joined us.
Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
Tell us your weird stories. We'd love to hear them
talk soon. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
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 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
You are here.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
We have so much strange news to share with you
if you are tuning in the evening. Our program publishes
August the twenty fifth, twenty twenty five. Oh man, there's
brain rot. There's some true crime going on in Vegas
that has countered some geopolitical interests that I know we're
(01:03):
fascinated to get into before we do any of that,
along with a couple of other strange stories. Guys, remind
me you guys eat pork.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
Right, hey, pork for dinner last night. That's some delicious
pork ribs on occasion.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
And I've been known to sup on some swine. This
is interesting because if you were trying to jazz up
your pork game, if you're tired of the same old
ribs or the same old pulled pork sandwich, maybe you
can travel to California where wild pigs are turning neon.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Blue m I mean, finally.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Know why.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
So the real issue here seems to be not radiation.
We've been on a cake of radioactive animals recently. It
doesn't seem to be a genetic mutation. And the pigs
from outside, from the exterior look like your normal wild pig,
and don't interact with them if you don't have to.
(02:10):
But if you cut them open, you will see their flesh.
Their interior is neon blue, a bright neon blueberry blue.
Investigations by local authorities in California have found that this
super strange color change was caused by a poison a
rodent side. There's been a warning issued across California. This
(02:34):
poison is often sold dyed in its consumer form just
so you can identify it, you know what I mean.
Like the reason different gas companies will put a smell
into the gas so you can detect a leak before
your house explodes.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It makes sense that they would use this blue color
because it is not naturally occurring.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
No, it's very like smurf blue or like a sports
drink or something. I distinctly remember when I was a kid,
they had these dinosaur gummy candies that were called dinosaurs,
and they would dye your tongue different colors. You know
what else, they'd die different colors your.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Poopoo, urine or poop.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah, yeah, guys.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
This is a crazy thing. Not great at least these
aren't meant to be eaten, or were these maybe hunted
as wild game to be eaten, or we don't have
to worry about consumption.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Right, Well, people will hunt pretty much anything they can hunt.
It's going to be rather odd for most people to
eat this source of pork versus you know, the kind
of pork you buy from a factory farm, produced and
delivered to a grocery store. But yeah, this is discovered
by hunters. We know that these various environmental poisons, pesticides,
(03:54):
rodent sides, herbicides, they do appear to have knock on consequences.
This one is making the news. The specific chemical in
question here is called die fastenone d I P H
A C I N O n E. This stuff is
getting in the news just because of the coloration involved,
(04:15):
like like the mention of dinosaurs there earlier. If you
want to read more, checkout Science Alert from August sixteenth,
twenty twenty five by Tessa Kumandoros, who is a journalist
we've actually mentioned in past iterations of this program, Be
safe out there. Man, it was so hard for me
not to do the Alex Jones voice and say.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
They're turning to the pigs blue. You know, it started
to turn to the frogsy gate. Now the pigs are blue.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
It's a slippery slope.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
It's a democratic conspiracy. Why can't they turn the pigs red.
We're going to pause for a word from our sponsor
and we'll get into even more strange news. We're going
to go through some ups and downs in tonight's recording
in a weekly strange news segment. But as we're getting there,
(05:08):
we had to have at least one piece of something
vaguely conspiratorial.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Guys, remember Easter Island, of.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Course, how can I forget the island with all the
bunny rabbits.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Rapa Nui as as the indigenous folks would call it.
Rapa Nui's famous for these huge stone sculptures, the distinctive
heads of Easter Island. The story behind them is itself
compelling and tragic. It's kind of a parable for the
(05:40):
dangers of environmental degradation. But I didn't realize this until
a listener hit me up earlier. Guys, someone discovered a
new Easter Island head. Just in July, a new statue
suddenly appeared on Easter Island.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And whoa, wait.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
A minute, this is another one of those those art hoaxes.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, no, it must have been buried or something, right,
they can't. It wasn't. Just it didn't just like it.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Erupted slowly right by the landing strip. No, that would
have been wakeful.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
It had a warning about it had a worrying about.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
The dangers of movie studios doing reboots instead of original content.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Now that didn't happen. It was.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
It was discovered, as you said, Matt, somewhat buried. It
was in a dried lake bed. So let's go to
Tim Newcombe writing for Popular Mechanics. Do check out his
article here right now. As Tim points out, there are
more than one thousand what we call Moay's statues on
Easter Island. And this is the thing that most people,
(06:50):
I think it's fair say, most people think of these
big heads, these stone carvings when they think of this island,
but this new one was just discovered, found in a
dried up lake bed. Everybody was dumbfounded because look, Easter
Island is not a big place, you know, it's still
(07:13):
not too It's amazing, but it's not too surprising for
ancient cities to be discovered in the jungles of South America,
because that's a huge place.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Right yeah, but when it's a little densely vegetated, right yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
And this is so that's why this is incredibly fascinating
and irregular. If we go to Terry Hunt, professor of
archaeology at the University of Arizona, he was speaking with
Good Morning America, who also snagged this story, and he said,
we think we know all the moy but then a
new one turns up, a new discovery, in this case,
(07:51):
in this lake at the Statue Quarry. There have been
no by found in the dry bed or in what
was previously a lake in the past, so this is
a first.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
Can I just say good on Good Morning America for
breaking a story. You do love to see it. It's
nice that they're staying relevant.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Yeah, it's nice that they're open to stories outside of
the usual news cycle. The fact that others have been discovered,
you know, near a quarry, is indicative of how far
people got into the stone construction process. I think that
would make a good episode for either stuff. They'll want
you to know a ridiculous history. It's one of those ones.
(08:30):
Is weird we haven't done yet, we.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Haven't a wonder of the world.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Well, the people who make that list are in my opinion,
a little bit biased.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Well, at the very least, it's in a NESCo site, right,
it's got to be.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's got some sort of accolades. So here's
why we're finding it. This shows us two interesting things.
One is really cool and one is a little bit dystopian.
One is kind of a what rough beast It's hour
comes at last slouches toward Beth Lamb kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
The good news is.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
That this statue will probably may well not be the
last big stonehead discovered. There may be more discovered in
the near future. So that's good news, and that's fascinating
because that can teach civilization more about the mystery surrounding
these carvings. However, the good news is related to the
(09:28):
bad news. The reason we found this previously unknown statue
is because of global environmental degradation. The area is undergoing
a lot of drying and that's why we were able
to find this unique sculpture in this dried up lake bed.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Isn't it interesting? Though they haven't done any excavations for
things like that, one would think that would be a
prime real estate for archaeology digs, you know, looking for
additional buried pieces. It's kind of crazy that it just
sort of uncovered itself due to this sort of environmental degradation.
By the way Easter Island revenue, it was not designated
as in an ESCO site until nineteen ninety five. That
(10:11):
seems a little bit offensive to me. It was a
little a little recent. It seems like it should have
gotten the designation long ago.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Yeah, unfortunately, nineteen ninety five was technically long ago at
this point.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
Oh geez, stop it.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Sure you're not well, either of you.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
The point holds there, the increasingly arid conditions may well
lead to the discovery of new Easter Island statues. So
we're gonna we're gonna leave that one there and hopefully
we'll return maybe in the future with an episode about
the mystery, the fact and fiction surrounding the conundrum of
(10:51):
these massive statues out there in Easter Island. And by
the time we get to the story, guys, I don't know,
there may be babies alive in the world today that
were not necessarily bone of man whoa like test tube
(11:12):
stuff like a baby's kids, test tube baby?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Do you remember that?
Speaker 5 (11:16):
Yeah, we don't die.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
We multiply, uh for the unrelated.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
For the longest time, when I first saw the animated
masterpiece Baby's Kids, I thought he wasn't calling them test
two but babies. I thought he was just saying test
two baby, like the number two. And I thought this
slang is so weird. Why does he Does he mean
that something went wrong and they got to try again?
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I don't know, Yeah, I could.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
I could follow your logic on that one.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Man, it was not. It was not a clever entity then.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Or now, so highly doubt that to be the case, sir.
But with self deprecating humor, very kind.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
So here's here's what we're talking about, with a baby
not bonon of mad, just sounding eldritch on that because
it's cool.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Vibe get this, folks.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
The nation of China is currently building what they call
a pregnancy robot to help you carry your human baby
to term, a non organic surrogate essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I had the same, mark Simpson gral.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, it's like an incubator, but for a full fetal
development thing.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
M hmm.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Let's go to doctor Jiang Qifang, the founder of Kaiwa
Technology and Guangzhou. This scientist is leading a team to
create sophisticated machines that have synthetic uteruses housed within their
abdomens that are then these uteruses are connected to specialized
(12:52):
tubes that all together. When combined, they function similar to
a umbilical cord. They deliver the nutrients to a developing fetus.
If this works, according to Doc Shong, these robots would
be capable of carrying pregnancies for about ten months before
facilitating delivery. The working prototype that they want to unveil
(13:17):
should hit next year, twenty twenty six. And this was
surprising to me as well. It's only fourteen thousand US dollars.
That's their price point. That seems alarmedly alarmingly affordable.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Oh man, well, this initially rubs me the wrong way
for reasons. Is there not a scenario wherein this kind
of technology could be beneficial for someone who cannot conceive?
Speaker 4 (13:42):
I would say, even even past that, it's a great question.
Even past that, it appears the idea is to help
people yet who couldn't conceive, but also people who couldn't
safely carry fetus to term. Right, so maybe you could conceive,
than due to pre existing medical conditions, your likelihood of
(14:06):
carrying the baby yourself could be dangerous for you and
the child. So it also makes it more accessible than
the traditional surrogate route because traditional surrogate roots in the
United States, as anybody who's watched Always Sunny and Philly know,
can be quite expensive. They can cost between one hundred
(14:27):
thousand two hundred thousand dollars. So if this pregnancy bot
does roll out off the drawing board, if itself comes
the term in the market, then this could this could
be a game changer for people who want kids and
can't afford a traditional surrogate route.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
Yeah, and maybe I should even apologize for my initial
spidey sense being to recoil in horror at this idea.
Maybe just pregnancy bot just sort of is inherently a
little freaky sounding, but I can see the benefits of this.
Does it walk around? Is it anthropomorphized?
Speaker 3 (15:05):
That's the question.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Okay, so we have to be careful with a lot
of this stuff. Whenever you read a headline now from
any number of legit journalistic outfits, you have to be
careful because increasingly, at least i've noticed, there will be
out of context kind of AI generated photographs that can
(15:30):
be god yess leading. So that's why I would say,
let's not trust. Let's not trust any real descriptions of
the prototype until we see pictures of the actual thing.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
In twenty twenty.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Six, I saw a news article about a cat barge
for rescue cats in Amsterdam, and the image was just
like this floating cat city, and I sent it to
someone immediately, look how cool that is, only to be
immediately admonished for sending them an AI photo. It's so
easy to fall into the traps, so don't feel bad.
It happens to the best of us. But I'm with
you one, and it's easy also to fall for the
(16:08):
trap of hyper optimism with technology.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Though I think nowadays a lot of us are a
little more healthily cynical or jaded about these glowing reports
coming from private companies right that want a thing to
work because it will be a huge amount of revenue
for them. Public reaction is notably divided. I am going
(16:31):
to say in full disclosure that my anti technology stuff
came out very quickly reading this, I saw a ton
of problems with you know how this could easily accelerate
the move toward tinkering with a human fetus in the womb,
(16:53):
depending on like now you can really control the mix directly,
you can do all sorts of shenanigans.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Back to your baby's kids reference, I've never really quite
understood what a test to baby is? This is this
that is it not just when things are artificially inseminated
outside of the womb, or is a test to baby
something different? And is that term even offensive and antiquated
at this point in time.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
It's meant to be offensive in babased kids. It's meant
to be a humorous pejorative. But it does that in
that sense in the animated film, it does refer to
artificial insemination, and there's absolutely there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
This my concern here is more.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Again, the idea of how this opens up the traditional
pregnancy and birth process to some other technological propositions that
maybe people aren't comfortable with, and maybe we shouldn't be
comfortable with it because we've all surely seen Gattiga. I
am killing it with the pop culture references today, you guys.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
What comes up all the time. So this is in
a future of fertilization, though, is what this is just
like a little bit more of a high tech version.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
I think they have a couple of different options that
they could they could pursue here now. That would primarily
be stuff like the are the egg and the sperm.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Combined in this device? Right?
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Or are they combined and then transplanted? Weirdly enough, there's
a precedent to this because in twenty seventeen over in Philadelphia,
some boffins at the Children's Hospital created what they call
the biobag experiment. They took premature lambs, lambs who were
(18:40):
birthed early, too early to survive, and they put them
in controlled fluid environments or bio bags, and they were
able to successfully keep the lambs alive and keep them
developing as though they had never left the womb.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
So this could be a good thing.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
This could lead to some terrifying things similar in a way,
similar to how the good news bad news of Raba.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Nui is directly related.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
All right, guys, before we move on, what do we
think forward er against it or more information?
Speaker 5 (19:18):
I'm on the fence.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I think this could be pretty great as especially for
an emergency situation, as you were talking about, Ben, for
a mother that is potentially putting her life in danger
to give birth and then allowing for that to be
a possibility, or for someone who who physically cannot carry
a child. But now maybe a couple can like have
(19:42):
part of that experience at least I don't know, I
think that, Yeah, I feel like positive.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
No, I see that too, and that was It took
me a minute to get to that, but I do
think that's true. And to Ben to your point, I
think I'm just so dystopia coded about a lot of
this tech that's being rolled out so willy and or
nilly that it's easy for my to just sort of
like look at the worst possible version of what the
intentions of the technologists behind this kind of thing might be.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It would be weird if you could add some stuff
to your baby upgrade your baby while it's in the thing,
you know.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Eventually for just a few coins more, once they already
have you as a captive audience. Right, because the way
you would do it, late stage capitalism argues, you know,
you you get the baby in there, right, you've got
the parents already with a sunk costs, and you don't
offer the upgrades until that point, and then.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's a subscription.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Maybe you could also you could also do something clever
with ad supported revenue. But anyway, ethics aside, this is
a brave New world shout out to Huxley.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
We don't know how far this is going to come
to term.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Thank you for the drum roll there, because a lot
of it depends not on the technology. A lot of
it depends instead upon the regulatory bodies of China and
where they fall on the question I posed to you
guys about whether you want to be for or against it.
So we'd love to hear your thoughts, folks conspiracy at
(21:18):
iHeartRadio dot com. There's a bunch of stuff that we're
not going to get to for this one, especially for
all our fellow gear heads and car fans. Volkswagen is
officially locking higher horsepower behind a paid subscription. That's going
to be great. The Oklahoma ideology test. What could go wrong?
(21:41):
Why don't you tell us? We're gonna pause for a
word from our sponsors.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
And we returned with more strange news, y'all. I'm gonna
put it to the group. Would you like the quirky,
pop culturey, slightly irritating thory first or the macabre, somewhat
bummery story first?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Well, you know I would say I would say dealer's choice,
though I do always like asking those kind of questions.
Let's roller coaster, man. As long as we you know,
we've been trying to end on a high note for
listener mail and strange news, So as long as we
get to a high note by the end, that I
think we're good.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
We got a high note on the way literally in
the sky.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
Well, speaking of roller coasters, really quickly, I'm gonna split
the difference and lead with a story of triumph very
short mention a thrill seeker in the UK who has
just set a new Guinness World record by writing fifty
five roller coasters in a single week. Dean Stokes from
Brighton by the Sea said he in total went on
one hundred and eight roller coasters at thirty two theme
(22:51):
parks across the United Kingdom in sixteen days. He's thirty
six years old, and he started at Brighton Palace Pier
on the second of August and ended at Thorpe Park
in Surrey. Instagram post that he put up said this
in his moment of triumph, he posted this, rather, I
did it. I even did an extra victory lap on
Hyperia to celebrate. That must be a roller coaster of
(23:12):
some sort. Now I'm a bit of a coaster head,
but that just seems like an awful lot. But he
looks very happy, and I think we all extend our
congratulations to mister Stokes for his new Guinness World record.
So now that I've sort of softened things up, I
know I offered you guys the option, but I think
I'm going to lead with the bummer story because I'm
going to try to keep it short. It is just wild, y'all.
(23:32):
It's the kind of headline you see and you're not
even quite sure what the details could possibly be. A
family in Pennsylvania whose veterans son tragically passed received his
brain in a box in the mail from a funeral home.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Questions like the way we've heard about donations of body
parts and stuff. Is that what we're talking about.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Not exactly, though it does. It does beg the question
of why did they remove his brain? What was it
doing in a box? How does such a tragic and
despicable and clearly unfortunate mix up take place? Because according
to reporting from The Guardian, this is not something that
(24:19):
should ever happen. Can you imagine a sinartan. We're not
like ancient Egyptians putting the pharaoh's brain in a you know,
removing it through the nose and putting it in the
jar next to the sarcophagus and the pyramid. There's no
reason to remove a brain. I don't think that happens.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
And then to take the time to put it in
a box and send it with you know, shipping address
and all that other stuff, right, or are we saying
it was just dropped off?
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, that's the thing it is.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
It is not common practice at all in the United
States for a funeral home specifically.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
To do this.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
There might be exceptions. Again, like Matt, You're excellent point
about body donation after death, posthumous body dodation, but yeah,
to be crystal clear here funeral homes are not supposed
to do this, but funeral homes have gotten up to
all kinds of shenanigans. I'm think you know the scandals
in North Georgia in particular.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Yeah, well this took place.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
In george actually in Marietta or one of the funeral
homes involved the Nick and Nick funeral Nixon's Nicks. Thank you.
It's odd. I mean, I guess that's their name, but
it just it doesn't quite roll off the tongue. And
I would like to correct myself. This was not sent
via the post. They hand delivered this to the family
(25:36):
when they went to the funeral home to recover their
son's personal effects. The personal effects, which is maybe even crazier,
included this this like red plastic type box inside of
a cardboard box, which the fact that they tried to
get into it very curious. I didn't know what it
(25:56):
was and they weren't able to does indicate it was
somehow sealed, you know, because of biohazardous material. However, it
would appear that it was not sealed well enough because
they didn't know what to do with that. They couldn't
get into it, so they put it in the car
only to come back to the car and try to
move it, remove it, and the father, mister Butler, got
brain goo all over his hands. It was leaking into
(26:18):
the vehicle. I mean, right, yeah, you've already lost a
beloved son and you're dealing with everything that that involves,
and now you are well. The way the father put it,
let's just get right to it. He referred to it
as the smell of death permeating his vehicle and then
(26:41):
realizing that there was bodily fluids leaking out of this box.
Lawrence Butler was the father's name, by the way, Timothy
Garlington was the son's name. His remains were shipped from
Georgia to a funeral home in Pennsylvania, which is where
the family is from. That's where they picked up the
effects and were handed this box. The two funeral homes
(27:05):
are now having the ever loving pants suit off of them,
understandably so for negligence. Let's just read from the Guardian piece.
Two funeral homes allegedly gave grieving parents their deceased son's
brain in a box, which began to smell, leaked into
their car and got on the father's hands when he
moved it. According to an updated lawsuit filed this week.
The father, Lawrence Butler, said the discovery was overwhelming and
(27:27):
a news conference on Thursday, leaving a horrific memory that
mars the other memories of a good young man. It
was and still is in my heart that I got
in my car and I smelled death. I just don't
think there's any version of this doesn't result in them
getting significant damages paid out.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, it's hard to understand what series of mess ups
could have led to that occurring, like just because you
know that's multiple errors, right.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Oh god, yeah, Yeah, they consulted for this piece or
actually read well the lawyer of the family they have
They have representation in Philly, are in Pennsylvania and in Georgia.
In one of their attorneys, after doing some digging and
consulting with various folks from the funeral industry, said that
at no point in the process is the brain separated
(28:22):
from the body in that fashion and shipped in that fashion.
If it ever is, he said, then it is in
a sealed bag and labeled as a biohazard. Once again
reading from the Guardian, whether or not Nix and Nix,
this is the funeral home in Philadelphia knew a brain
was inside the box. Stuart alleged they should not have
handed the box over to the butler's because it was
(28:44):
not on the list of belongings sent from Southern Cremations,
the crematorium in Georgia in Marietta, and the only thing
we've got from the funeral home Nix and Nix. We've
got a quote, a really delightful quote from Julian Nicks
telling the ap it was definitely not our fault. So
you know, the lawyer for the family did indicate that
(29:09):
they have not even received anything resembling an apology. But
you know, in the legal legal eese of it all,
an apology would perhaps be an admission of guilt, so
I could maybe see why that wouldn't be so forthcoming.
But I'm curious to see. It does not feel like
these two organizations are going to be in business for
much longer. What do you guys think?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Unfortunately, it's terrible how often these kind of things will
not spell doom for a company. People just play the
Spider Man game of pointing at each other wait for
the news cycle to move on. And this leads to
what we discussed earlier in our Funeral Home episode, A
lot of the things that appear to be mom and
pop institutions are in fact owned by one large company,
(29:53):
So they might close down that brand but keep the
facility and reopen it under a new name.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Yeah, dramatized beauty and disturbingly. In the HBO seminal series,
six feet Kroner, I believe was the name of the big,
mega funeral company that was all about buying up these
mom and pop companies, and a big conflict in the
show comes from the Fisher family not wanting to play
ball and wanting to keep their family owned funeral home
(30:21):
in the family.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
It's very real, Oh, I see what I'm like, Just
like Blackwater Academic or Comcast and Infinity, the bush.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
Mills buying craft breweries. You know, not sure you know, yeah,
but I mean it's it's it's all a subterfuge.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
And this, I mean, this is also this is terrible
because you know, in the case of cable providers, we're
talking about a luxury or the ability of communication, but
here we're talking about desecration of the dead. So I
do hope there are I do hope there are consequences.
(30:59):
You know, it was a mistake. It wasn't like someone
was trying to perversely harass people at one of the
worst moments in their lives. But something should be done.
There should be consequences.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Yeah, and you know that's one of the points made
by the attorneys involved, saying that they want to, you know,
make sure something like this never happens again. So we're
gonna move from brains in a box to brain rot.
I had to do it, There's no way around it.
I'm sorry. We are talking, as we do every year,
about the new words that have been entered into the
(31:31):
English lexicon that is the Oxford English Dictionary. I think
brain rot specifically was entered in last year, but brain
rot encompasses a whole lot of weird slang and meme culture,
and a lot of these terms that have now been
entered in this year would fall under the category of
(31:51):
brain rot, including specifically, I would say skibbitty skibbity, skibbitty skibbity,
which is apparently means something is bad. It is, of
course a reference to the very popular YouTube short series,
not that it's presented on YouTube shorts. It's just like
their short videos, skimmity toilet, which is a odd kind
(32:13):
of weird world where there are these creatures that are
heads and toilets that are fighting against like these robots,
races of robots, absolute brain rot, absurdist Internet humor, and
it's kind of you know, seeped into the lexicon, especially
with gen Z and gen Alpha kids saying things are
skibbitty skibbitty riz blah blah blah blah. And it sometimes
isn't even clear whether it means something is good or bad.
(32:35):
I think it all depends on the context and the
emphasis that you put on it. But it is one
of the new words that have been entered into the
I'm sorry, excuse me, the Cambridge Dictionary, not the Oxford
English Dictionary. Really yeah, thank you, Ben, thank you, No,
I hear you. Some others include trad wife trad wife
(32:58):
being a homemaker type. I don't think it's particularly new concept,
but it does appear to revolve a little bit more
around someone who exhibits that kind of life and posts
about it a lot. Delulu is just a shorthand for
a delusional you know, imagining things that aren't there. Yeah,
that's the thing that's crazy skibbity can can simultaneously mean
(33:19):
cool and bad or sometimes nothing at all. Luke, which
is a lot of these terms stem from drag culture,
and so luke l ewuk is of course a little
twist on the word look talking about a style, a
particular type of outfit that may stand out from the crowd,
be a little bold or eye catching. Colin McIntosh, who
(33:43):
is the Lexical program manager at Cambridge Dictionary, said that
the us from ABC News at the rise of words
like skibbity and de lulu shows how internet culture is
reshaping the English language. And here's the part I love
the debate with y'all are just maybe discussed lasting ways.
She said this, it's not every day you get to
see words like skibbity and de lulu make their way
(34:04):
into the Cambridge Dictionary. Macintosh said, we only add words
where we think they'll have staying power. Internet culture is
changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to
observe and capture in the dictionary. Now, while I agree,
I think we all can that the fluctuating nature, the
malleable nature of English language is fascinating, I would beg
(34:24):
to differ on the staying power of skibbety and even
de lulu, even if people are using them, you know,
in political speeches, which I believed Lulu was used by
a politician giving a speech either in DC or maybe
even it was abroad. They all seem very fad based
to me. And I just don't feel like skibbity toilet
(34:46):
and the concept of something being skivity is gonna make
the grade, you know, down the line. So I yield
my time. What do you guys think?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
It's just a strange term for us because because guys
were in our early.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Four now think about like dated slang from when we
were young, like so much of that stuff. It does
not It just I just kind of think that this
is a good way for these dictionary folks to grab
some headlines and turn some heads and be a little divisive.
(35:22):
But to me it's sort of also maybe speaks to
the somewhat irrelevance of these types of collections if there
isn't really that much scholarly rigor going into it. And
a question that my buddy Jonesy on the weird a
News podcast made was does this mean we can use
skimmity or luke in scrabble and banana grams.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Scrabble has a different uh oh, yeah, that's right, the
board reference. Yeah to the original question, I think it's
important to zoom out from our personal experiences in media
arrests in the think of it and think through the
larger context of etymology. I agree that a lot of
(36:08):
what we call slang words are indeed ephemeral, right, and
they become archaic and just like a stone rippling across
a pond, if you're skipping a stone, then they will
have this sort of wax and wane, you know. But
like for every every word, like dude, right, which is
(36:28):
older than a lot of people think, there are phrases
like twenty three skid o, which came and went. You know,
that's what I think of with skippity. So it's not
that all these slang words should be dismissed or looked
down upon because they don't happen to be the tried
and true words that have stood the test of time.
(36:51):
It's more that they have a high rate of attrition.
So think of think of one hundred slang words, it's
safe to us zoom ten percent will make it over
a century or so in some form, and then it
goes to the idea of sorry, we've opened a door here,
(37:11):
the idea of what we count as permanence, the ephemeral nature, right,
because the English language is a living language. That is
such a weird mixtape. I heard it called.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Friend of my recently said English language is imagine if
you had a bunch of Vikings invading and they yelled
at some Germans, but French people yelled back totally and
m so I think, like, so skibbety. You know, the
next logical question is not just will skivity last, but
the next question is something like will the word television
(37:48):
last or TV? You know what, what do we define
as permanence? It's very difficult to do that in something
that is not a dead language.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Well, yeah, for sure. And also it would seems to
me that the minimum criteria of a word being entered
into a dictionary of note would be that it has
a fixed meaning, at least to some degree you know
that we can agree on. And the definition in Cambridge
for skimbny is a word that can have different meanings
(38:18):
or bad, or can be used with no real meaning
at all as a joke. And that just to me
is like, come on, really, it just seems like a headline. Yeah, man,
why didn't Choogie make it?
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah, those self reflective antonyms, though, are pretty common in English.
To suppose not just devil's advocate, but you should be
always to skim and to scrutinize.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
There are a lot of There are a lot of
things like that.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Also, we did it may be ridiculous history, it may
have been brain stuff years ago, but it is the
process of getting a word submitted to the fanciest reference works.
You can imagine. It's pretty strange, just something like get
it used in print five times and then.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
Have it.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Time exactly so the maybe the rubric itself is a
bit antiquated.
Speaker 5 (39:08):
Real shifting goalposts. Well, this was fun. I think we're
good to to to pop to a quick break here
we're from our skibbety sponsor, and then we'll be back
with a last little run of strange news stories for you.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
And we've returned. Guys, did you see the thing that
Dylan posted? You click on the link. It seems as
though somebody, yes, I.
Speaker 5 (39:36):
Did see this on the internet organically. Yeah, this skibbitty
rizzler is eight No cap bruh, I'm eight. It's like
the birthday party sign situation for the kids for clearly
a jen Alpha Yeah birthday party bash.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Great joke from the parents, but it also reminds me
of that thing where going back to our Conspiracy of cool,
we didn't mention this too much on air, but one
of the things people think is inherently uncool is when
their parents try to uh jokingly or sincerely use slang.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
Great way to kill it.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Yeah, yeah, exactly like funky.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
You know what's funny though. I mean, maybe it is
a product of being a little older, but I really
do dig using older slang, or at least it just
feels it's a more natural fit for me, Like I
could call people cats sometimes, you know, I say something
I call money like scratch and things like that, and
I'm not doing it ironically. I just I don't know.
Slang is such a personal thing, and I think the
(40:36):
moment you start to kind of jump on the slang
train and not have your own sort of like picky
choosy way of talking, it can sort of be a
little uncool, right.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
No, I think that's groovy as hell.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
Yeah, see.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
See old meats news. This is great.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I like all the slang.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
I mean it's just a it's a it's a beautiful
opportunity for exploration.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
There's street a language.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
You know, So I no doubt I love all slang
when it appears that the person you see, if you're
communicating clearly, then who are we to judge?
Speaker 3 (41:13):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (41:13):
There are some things that don't feel right mouthfeel for me,
but that's fine because there are literally eight over eight
billion other people who can do it. So I adore it.
And you guys know, I'm all about archaics, Like.
Speaker 5 (41:26):
Yeah, men, I'm saying I wasn't saying that I just
exclusively use that, but I'm just saying I kind of
have like a little bit of a hodgepodge in the
way that I employ slang, And to me, that is
part of the fun of language. And I would argue
that another aspect of being cool is being a good
communicator and being able to, like, you know, get your
meaning across to just about anybody.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
That's right, dude. Most of my slang is it's mostly
from South Park episodes, I think, so Simpsons stuff a
little bit of Crocodile Hunter every once in a while.
Speaker 5 (41:57):
Yeah, it's a Simpsons simp aren't you.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Yeah, yeah, it's weird way this way it worked, right,
it's popular culture, just flow.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Simpson stands, Yeah, I hear you. I don't want to derailist.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
But I realized now when think about it, I accidentally
invent a lot of slang just because I feel like
I'm still learning English.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
So I uh so that is.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
That's something that comes up. Would love to hear your
favorite invented slang words. What have you what have you
created in your.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
In your family?
Speaker 5 (42:27):
Well, and now I'm gonna say, Ben, you should submit
some of these to Cambridge except.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Sure, a bag of badgers, I would say. Also, I'm
trying to think of another one because they don't seem
weird or unusual to me. Oh old beans for something
that's not new news or a new idea. Yeah, they're
probably more The more we think.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
About it got youa Yeah, I don't know if Cambridges
accept those. They're a little more phrase oriented than than
than word oriented. But I know you got some words
you've coined as well. But yeah, what was so sorry
we kind of derailed Matt's that's yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
I didn't want to derail you there, Matt.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I was saying I was I
was apologizing for my part in that. But what you
got today for us, Matt.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Well, I was going to talk about this sussy baka
tom Artium, Alexandrovitch, but I don't want to do that.
We're not going to talk about him. Look him up
if you want to. It's a whole story. Brought eight
full links to talk about that dude today and what
he did and what's happening with him. But it's become
a political black hole of sorts, where it's just becoming
(43:36):
a whole thing and lines are being drawn about how
you're supposed to feel about it, when on the surface
and deeply within the story, it is just about a
man that appears to have attempted to Laura Child for
sex act and then was just let go on ten
thousand dollars bail and then was allowed to fly back
(43:57):
to Israel and probably won't face anything in the future.
That's all it is. You can look up all the
details if you want to. High level cybersecurity official with
Israel that got caught in Las Vegas, look it up
on your own.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Had some hats that the we're black.
Speaker 5 (44:14):
Yes, well, and it's another example of the evils, the
potential evils of like all this diplomatic immunity type stuff.
I know it's not exactly the same, but the idea
that certain people just have are afforded levels of protection
for their evil acts that you know, the rest of
the world does not get.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Check out Margaret Thatcher and Operation you Tree as well.
Check out Cyril Smith, check out other examples if you
really want to ruin your afternoon. But Matt, I think
that's the right tack to let our fellow audience members
and conspiracy realists learn more about that.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
If they are so.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Inclined, Yes, check it out. Please, it is worth your time,
I suppose. Just don't get caught in all the political
manipulation that's occurring. Instead, let's go to the Los Angeles
Times and hear a heartwarming story from Salvador Hernandez. He
wrote this on August eighth, twenty twenty five. I'm not
gonna say the title yet, because we're gonna tell it
(45:07):
a little bit like a story. I hope you don't mind, Salvador,
and then we'll say the title at the end. Some
people can find all you're writing. Here we go, there's
a man in southern California. Guys, his name is Jason Hong. Jason,
it's kind of awesome. He owns a plane that's freaking nice, right,
nice work, Jason. It's a nineteen fifty eight Cessna Skyhawk.
(45:31):
This thing is a humble yet gorgeous single engine plane.
It has a red nose that kind of morphs into
a red stripe that goes down both sides, and then
there's a little yellow and purple that goes along with
that stripe. It's a butte. And this guy, Jason, when
he arrived at this place called the Corona Municipal Airport,
which is in the Los Angeles area Pasaden area. The
(45:54):
riverside is right there. You can look it up if
you want to, the Corona Municipal Airport. He arrived there
on Jie twenty seventh for a seventy fifth birthday flight,
Jason seventy five. Uh. When he got there, guys, he
couldn't find a Skyhawk. And we got a little quote
here from Jason. Here it is quote. I got confused.
(46:15):
I thought, did I park it somewhere else? Did the
airport manager move it? But I looked all over he
couldn't find it. Is airplane dude, where's my sessta? Yeah,
there you go. Where the heck is my airplane? It's
you know, I think we've maybe all had that experience
where we park our car somewhere in a huge parking
lot and we really feel like we know exactly where
(46:37):
it is, so you head to that location and it
is not even close to where your car is.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
I was hoping so much, man, that you were gonna say,
I think we've all been in that situation where you
can't remember where you parked your nineteen fifty eight sess
the sky high, And I was just gonna, yes, add
the heck out of you.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
I was gonna be like, absolutely, I wish, God.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
I wish one day, one day will own a smaller
plane that will be so awesome one day. But in
this case, in Jason's case, back on the twenty seventh
of July of this year, he couldn't find his plane,
so he reported it missing and he hoped the police
could find this thing. He refers to it as his
old treasure because again this is an older plane and
it's just awesome. So Jason, who visits this airport all
(47:21):
the time, You guys have ever been to a municipal
airport like the one that Decab p Stree.
Speaker 5 (47:27):
It's a little more like for private planes. And yes,
yeah I have not I've seen them there. We've got
a decent view of a few of them around town.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, for sure, I've only been to a couple.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
I love them, probably as you guys know, going to
be more involved with some in the in the future.
But yeah, they're they're way more informal in a lot
of ways than a commercial airport. I think that's probably
key to the story here.
Speaker 5 (47:51):
Yes, and last, sorry, I mean, but I did recently
go to one speaking of informal here in Atlanta, and
you'll probably know the name of it, Ben, but it
is one of these airports that has a really cool
little restaurant attached to it where you can eat outside
and just like watch the planes take off and land
and you can even like pay for right, that's the
one correct, taking pay for a little plane.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Ride well, and shout out to Downwind restaurant that's there
at the cab. And it's so a lot of these
airports are cool like that. It's a place to go
hang out for a little bit. There's usually a restaurant,
there's usually a little park of some sort and just
places to kind of gather and be. And like you said, Ben,
informal is a great way to put it because it
(48:31):
doesn't have that. There's not the tension that you get
when you head towards a big old international airport or something.
You're like, oh, man, security is tight around here. You
don't feel that usually until you, you know, you move
through certain parts of it and there are security and
things like that often, but it's not the same. So
Jason knows his way around there. He knows people around there.
(48:52):
He knows other pilots, because you know, pilots hang out
at the airport.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
It's like your golf course.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
It's and the the restaurants were talking ab out of
the public spaces adjacent are like where you go after
you've played your golf game. You know, you might have
a cocktail, grab some gnash with with your outher other
buddies you saw at the hangar, and then you'll trade
war stories. It's a really cool environment usually. But that
(49:19):
I think speaks to your point, Matt. He already has
been going here for a while. Yeah, so he knows
the other regulars.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yes, and he's saying, hey, guys, you see my plane,
everybody's going to Oh, well, I don't know, I don't
maybe maybe he eventually learns that. On at least two occasions,
somebody that was not Jason came and got his plane
and just took it out and flew it away like
it was theirs, and then took it somewhere else. He
(49:48):
couldn't figure out where it was. People couldn't figure out
where it was. On July twenty seventh, neither could the police,
so he reported the aircraft missing and he hoped that
somebody is gonna find this thing, and again he referred
to it as his old treasure. You know, this is
a seventy five year old man just looking to have
a little flight. Come on, who's taking this old treasure?
Speaker 4 (50:07):
And folks, to be clear here, if we haven't said
it explicitly before, he's not doing any thing wrong. This
is a joy riding, recreational pilot. He's not moving weight
over the border or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Right, Well, we don't know that much about Jason. We
just know he has a plane, that's all.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
I'm all right, And we're assuming the best about people, yes,
because that's the thing we're trying to work on.
Speaker 5 (50:33):
As a group.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, maybe a TB.
Speaker 5 (50:35):
Cooper type situation. Huh, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Yes, So let's jump to two days later, July twenty ninth.
Somebody at the Laverne Police Department called and told Jason
that the plane was located at this place called Bracket Field.
This is about twenty five miles northeast of that municipal airport,
Corona Municipal Airport, where he parked it last. So Jason
(50:59):
gets in the car, drives over to that airport and
guess what, there's this plane just parked there like like
he parked it there like it was normal, Like everything's cool,
he said. He checked out the plane, looked at the sides,
did a little quick inspection of the plane. Everything feels
in place and in working order, except there's a little
bit of garbage on the inside of the cockpit. He
(51:20):
also found some cigarette butts in the cockpit, which, come on,
you don't smoke in another person's plane.
Speaker 5 (51:25):
Hell, don't any plane, Jeff fuel is, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
That's the beauty of owning a plane. You can smoke
in that one. I guess, I guess, But what is
this like.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
The Vietnam War?
Speaker 4 (51:38):
I respect helicopter pilots because they're crazy. And if you
want to chain smoke while you're running the bird, then
whatever it takes to get us in and out safely.
But if you're in a plane, come on, and if
you're someone else's plane, at least police the area. Just
clean up, right, Really.
Speaker 5 (51:54):
A plane jacking etiquette?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah? Yeah, so so it goes on you guys. Yeah,
Jason's pretty smart guy. He says, all right, how am
I going to prevent this from happening again? I know,
I'm gonna take the battery out of the plane, much
like the way you would take the battery out of
a car or something. You can't get the thing to
start if it doesn't have that initial power, right, So brilliant,
(52:16):
let's do that. Sorry, mystery joy riding pilot, no more
flying for you. I took your battery, my battery. But
then just a few days later, guys, on August third,
Jason came back to the airport to clean up the
plane because there was that garbage and stuff in there,
and he also wanted to do a full inspection, only
to find it was gone again. Ye need the.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
Club or something. I mean, good lord, what you almost
got to respect the hustle of this wiley gremlin esque
a mystery man.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
This is going into prank territory.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Bright man. I hope Jason didn't have any enemies here.
Well here, here's what happens. Jason again reports the plane missing,
and again he gets a call, this time from a
different police department, the Elmonte Police Department, and his plane
has been found at another small airport, the San Gabriel
Valley Airport, about eighteen miles west of that second airport, Bracketfield.
(53:17):
So he again gets in his car, travels to another
airport to find his plane. Again. He finds it, and
he finds it. Somebody put a new battery in there.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
Oh, okay, whoever you're given right, there's a there's a
new battery for every cigarette. Butts, this is a relationship now.
But there are no identifying notes, right, there's no there's
no like reht Baron esque ha, mister hang kind of
note this time or any time.
Speaker 3 (53:47):
Okay, and get this.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
The police departments, all of them now that he's in
contact with. Nobody has any surveillance video that captured the
pilot that captured the planes. No real leads. There's a
according to Sergeant Robert Montanez of the Corona Police Department.
So he's just like, he doesn't understand why is this happening.
So he ends up going to Flight Aware that we've
(54:11):
mentioned before on this show. This is an app and
website that you can use to track all kinds of
different stuff that's in the air. It's just the public
information plotted on grafts basically, and on a real time map.
He noticed when he went back in time that his
plane was flown two times on his seventy fifth birthday
on July twenty seventh, when he wanted to go out
(54:32):
for a flight two times and one that left at
one thirty am Pacific time. So it's just this very
strange thing because Jason, when he was talking to the
Los Angeles Times here is in his mind at least
estimating that whoever is taking his plane is not some
joy riding person. This is somebody who understands planes. This
(54:53):
is somebody who flies planes. Because they have successfully taken
off and landed so many times at this point, they've
they've had the tools or found or stolen or borrowed
the tools that you would need to even get access
to the battery in that plane which are specialized. You
can't just walk up there with a screwdriver and you're
gonna get the battery out. Uh. And he you know,
(55:15):
it's just adding to this mystery of somebody who knows
planes and does this stuff. It's just taking his Uh.
It makes you wonder if does somebody just think that's
their plane and they're getting in the wrong charitable.
Speaker 4 (55:29):
I think it's more like uh, one missing piece in
the story from the raporty I've seen here Matt is uh,
the we don't know how frequently he flew the plane.
Hong flew the plane before he discovered the joy riding,
so it may have been like the car that's parked
at the end of the lot for long enough. That's
(55:50):
some that the valet thinks they can just start scooping
around with it.
Speaker 2 (55:55):
Maybe no, absolutely could be. But the other thing is
who Hoover's flying. It is adding money because Jason found
a pretty nice headset that you use when you're in
the air. There Again, a battery for assessma like that
is not cheap. The tools that you need to do
that stuff not cheap. So somebody is putting a lot
(56:19):
into this. Oh and according to Los Angeles Times. Here, guys,
according to the writing of mister Hernandez, there's one lead,
a single lead. There is a description of a woman
in her forties or fifties who another pilot at one
of these airports saw sitting in this plane, the specific plane,
(56:40):
on multiple occasions. And the only reason why this was
a remarkable thing that someone would remember is because everybody,
once they land their plane at the municipal airport, they
go hang out inside, they go do the things like
we talked about earlier, hang out at the restaurant, maybe
even have a drink. This person just sat in the
cockpit after landing. And it's hot in those cockpits, especially
(57:03):
in July, at the end of July towards August, it's
getting real hot. This person just kind of hung out
and then would take back off again. And you know,
that's a weird thing, but that's all they got, you, guys.
Speaker 5 (57:18):
I kind of worship this person, man. I'm this is
like a real discordinateism, chaotic energy that this individual is
putting out that yes, thank you, ben.
Speaker 4 (57:27):
Not about the money, It's about sending a message. There's
also there's also this aspect here here. Two quick responses
and I don't want to keep us too long. But first, guys,
I think this is how this could be how the
case gets blown wide open, because the description of a
woman quote in her forties or fifties could lead to
(57:49):
some This is like you poke someone's personality here, and
maybe the person hearing this, who is that lady in
the cockpit is like, screw you, guys, I'm thirty seven,
And maybe they'll reach out to correct the record, like
this surveillance footage is unfair, And then you know, the
(58:09):
the next thing is that we haven't really.
Speaker 3 (58:11):
Talked about is that the gas is free.
Speaker 4 (58:15):
Right, So when you have a plane parked at a
hangar like this, then you are paying fees like you
would a boat at a marina. But those fees don't
always include the consumables, right, like the like the oil,
like the like the gas here. So whomever is doing
this is still gassing up the plane, and that might
(58:37):
be a way to follow the you know, the bread
crumbs or the sky crumbs to solve the mystery of
the cessen the Skyhawk.
Speaker 5 (58:46):
Yeah, we don't have a We don't have a solution, right,
this says still remains a mystery.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
Well, I don't think we're ever going to have a solution.
Speaker 5 (58:52):
Incredible, I prefer it.
Speaker 2 (58:54):
Well, Jason did probably the right thing as an airplane owner,
especially one like this.
Speaker 5 (59:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (59:00):
He locked the thing up, He chained it up, so
it's not going anywhere unless somebody, you know, goes in
there with some heavy equipment and breaks that stuff off.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (59:10):
I kind of wish he would have left it there
with some kind of like with a tras camera with something.
You know, it's an older plane.
Speaker 5 (59:18):
It's easy to jump to hijack or it's easy to
see it's wire or whatever.
Speaker 2 (59:23):
Yeah, this is this is quite a bit older.
Speaker 5 (59:26):
Yeah, I mean, why isn't it happening to other people's planes?
Is what I'm getting at.
Speaker 4 (59:30):
Because other people, I'm pretty sure other people are using
their planes more often. Got another theory for you, guys,
love I love speculation on this. What if Jason himself
is the culprit and he's doing this because he was
getting in trouble with his family members for taking his
plane out too often, and now he's you know, it's
(59:50):
like a fight club.
Speaker 2 (59:51):
This.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
It wasn't me.
Speaker 4 (59:52):
There's a Tyler Diurden in the sky and I know
and I'm doing the best I can.
Speaker 5 (59:58):
The dude's alter he's playing for himself.
Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
I'm doing my best, he's he's saying to his family,
I'm doing my best to hunt this person down.
Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
But he can't ever find the person. And he's doing it.
Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
He's doing it on purpose, so he can just be like, well, honey,
I guess I do have to go out to the
airfield more often, so I can, you know, keep an
eye on whomever is stealing our plane. And it's not
me because like you said, you know, I wanted to
fly it bore. You told me I shouldn't fly it
as much. We compromised, and I'm doing what you told
me to do.
Speaker 5 (01:00:30):
That's like the plot of Charlie Kaufman's Twin Brothers movie
The Third in adaptation. It was him, the detective is
chasing a serial killer and it turns out it was
him the whole time, and of course Charlie is like,
that's idiotic. There's no way to make that make sense
or play out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
I just started watching Mister Robot again and it sounds
like that too very much.
Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
That's a great reference. Also, You're welcome, Larry David. This
is an amazing pitch for another episode of Kurbyer in three.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yes, uh so, guys. Let's end here with a quote
from Jason. Here it is someone breaks into your house.
They're looking for jewelry or cash, right, But in this case,
what's the purpose. It's like someone breaks my window and
then they put up a new one. It's the strangest thing.
I love that, the idea of someone breaks your window
(01:01:22):
and then the next day replaces it, and they keep
breaking your windows and replacing them.
Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
I hope they get to hang out.
Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Yeah, me too. Everyone. If you want to check this out,
please look up. Someone keeps stealing, flying, fixing, and returning
this California man's plane. But why? Written by Salvador Hernandez
for the Los Angeles Times on August eighth.
Speaker 5 (01:01:42):
It's an incredible story. It's an incredible story.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
It's so great. Thank you, Salvador, and thank you La Times.
That's it for me, guys.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
And that's it for our show.
Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
Fellow conspiracy realist friends and neighbors, thank you so much
for tuning in, whether you are a bot, a human,
or another entity all your own, we are grateful that
you've spent time with us for some strange news. Thanks also,
of course, to the legendary Tennessee pal Dylan Fagan. Please
do join us in our upcoming explorations. We've got some
(01:02:17):
Annu Naki stuff dropping. Finally, we're continuing the Epstein saga.
We are going to figure out whether you can actually
talk to animals. Very excited about that one. So give
us the straight poop from your neck of the global woods.
Make up your own slang and send it along. You
can call us on a telephone, you can send us
an email, and you can find us on the lines.
Speaker 5 (01:02:39):
You share Kenna. Speaking of the straight poop, there was
another story that slid through the cracks that I meant
to mention. Apparently, Vladimir Putin carries his bodyguards carry a
poop suitcase whenever he travels so that they can recover
his feces so that no one finds it and keeps
it and tries to extract his precious DNA. I'm just saying,
so we're not going to straight poop you to find us. Indeed,
at the Handslans here is this stuff. Or we exist
(01:03:01):
on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy,
on x FKA, Twitter, and on YouTube video content glore
for you to get the Straight Poop on You can
also find us the handle Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram
and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Do you want to call us? Our number is one
eight to three three STDWYTK. When you call in, you've
got three minutes. It's a voicemail. Give yourself a cool
nickname and let us know within the message if we
can use your name and message on the air. If
you want to send us an email.
Speaker 4 (01:03:26):
We are the entities the read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back spoiler. Pretty often these evenings. Ask us for
a random fact. We will gladly give you one dealer's
choice out of context, thanks to people who are writing
it with that already. One last funny Putin story we
(01:03:46):
didn't get to speaking to weird vehicle stuff. Putin in
his recent visit to Alaska, gave a random man a motorcycle.
The man has no idea why, but congratulations Alaska.
Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
So joined us.
Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
Tell us your weird stories. We'd love to hear them
talk soon. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
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