March 18, 2024 • 56 mins
Former Boeing employee and whistleblower John Barnett was found dead. A string of druggings and robberies in Atlanta's posh Buckhead neighborhood prompts concerns -- and disturbing questions. The internet goes nuts investigating Kate Middleton. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Alexis, code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
You are here.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
At the top of the week, we like to spend
an evening exploring stories that may not have hit the
top of the fold, as they used to say in
the days of print. However, some of these stories, when
they do hit, they don't get kind of the exploration
(00:57):
that they deserve. And that's what we're here for. We're
going to learn about some viral disappearance conspiracies. We're going
to learn about some active, dangerous true crime, not just
in Atlanta, but across the US. And if we're doing that,
I wanted to run through a couple of quick things
that haught our collective eye. Do you guys remember our
(01:18):
period of exploring prosperity theology?
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Oh boy, could how could we forget kreflo dollar Yeah,
gold plated private jets and all of that good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
We came out of that one with something that I
make no apologies for around condemnation of those folks who
are leveraging one of the most beautiful aspects of human
human beings, the ability to believe they're leveraging it for
a grift. Very and I say this not as a Christian,
very un christ like to do that kind of thing.
(01:56):
So there's a bit of good news. I want to
start off with good news. A Brook pastor known as
Lamar Whitehead or his name is Lamar Whitehead his he's
often called the Bling Bishop, was just found guilty in
court of spending ninety thousand US dollars of his parishioner's
savings on luxury goods.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
No man, So I've always been to churches where that
money I don't who knows what happens behind the scenes,
but that money ends up going to like actual missionary work,
and I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It's been a super positive thing.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
That's how it's so stablished.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So depressing that.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
But isn't it funny too though, how some parishioners I
guess that's the word of these prosperity theology churches are
almost okay with their money being used to enrich their
pastors in that way. Some of them, I guess maybe
are being you know, swindled, and they don't know. But
I do get to sense there are some that are
totally fine with it.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Well, yeah, I mean, Stockholm syndrome is.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
As I'm just saying, you know, that's and maybe I'm
maybe I'm paying with a broad brush there.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
But to give you a taste, fellow conspiracy realist, of
what prosperity theology is, I'd like to play a quick
clip from the famous Kreflo Dollar when he talks to
his congregation about spending their money on more private aircraft.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Dollar also responded to his critics during a sermon, if.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
I want to believe God for sixty five million dollar brain,
you cannot stop me.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
You cannot stop me from dreaming, you know, But I
think too this is also a product of like gross
commercialization of religion as well. The whole concept of prosperity
theology is about like having all the things, and why
wouldn't you aspire to your spiritual leader and want them
(03:52):
to have only the best because they are, after all,
your your spiritual leader. Therefore they must have the best
on you.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Yeah, it was one of the primary selling points of
a lot of those places. Right believe and not only
are you going to be healthy and your family is
going to be okay, you can find wealth just you know,
follow essentially me and the theology that I preach.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Right, Yeah, we are not poor in spirit. We are
a group of temporarily embarrassed spiritual millionaires. To paraphrase Ambrosepears.
I love that we're mentioning aspire too, because in the
spirit of positivity, there are a couple of things I
found that I think would be great go tos for
(04:39):
the newest flexes for televangelists, right for the actors in
prosperity theology. And I'm using the word actor on purpose.
Like everybody's getting jets, everybody's got Louis vatad suits and
so on. Why not flex in a different way? Why
not clone some Frank and sheep huh hybrids. That's something
(05:01):
that's happening in Montana. Did you guys hear about this?
We owe a debt of thanks to a conspiracy realist
on Twitter who have used this one.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Just the broad strokes are there any more? Deep says
to what's the benefit of this? I don't understand.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
So traffickers in Montana have cloned what are called Frankin
sheep hybrids entirely for the purpose of sport hunting. They
use genetic material from what are called Marco Polo or
Golli sheep all the way from Kyrgyzstan to breed these
entirely new animals and then kill them for funzies.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
I never really thought abou hunting sheep. Isn't the whole
deal with sheep that they're pretty docile and just hang
out in pens before you at a slaughter at will
Well seem a little unsportsman alike. Maybe these hybrids are
like have superpowers all of a sudden, but they're better chase.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Maybe they're like super bigs.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
It's like the plot of that movie The Island. You
guys remember that one?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Oh yeah, yeah, clones are.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
We talked about with our bought like harvesting, right organ
harvesting episode. But it's like that, except you combine that
with the most dangerous game except their sheep.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
This is super fun, guys.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
For this is going to be amazing. This could be
a great billionaire sketch on social media. So shout out
to Popular Science the journalist Andrew Paul, and shout out
to Monica del val or del Vallier over on Twitter,
who hipped us to this this happening pretty recently. Turns
out that these guys pled in court guilty to two
(06:35):
felony wildlife crimes, the Lacy Act in particular, which you
might not hear of if you're not involved in animal rights.
It's a law from way back in nineteen hundred which
is meant to combat illegal animal trafficking, and folks who
run quote alternative lifestock end quote ranches in Montana are
(06:56):
finding themselves in trouble with Uncle Sam on this to
tell you, yes, I think you're right. No, in terms
of the danger or lack thereof of hunting sheep. Let's
go to the pop side description of this. These these
Franklin sheep are about forty nine inches tall at the shoulder.
(07:18):
Their horns are over five feet wide across. They weigh
in around three hundred pounds. They're big guys, you know
what I mean. Like, if they're mad at you, you're
in trouble.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Do they have like scary horns or anything.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, their horns are over five feet wide.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Oh that's true. Really, Okay, okay, well there you go.
So it's someone'st more like a ram hunting a ram
or a wild boar or something like that, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
And it was an actual conspiracy because according to the
Department of Justice, these guys purchased parts of the sheep,
so like probably limbs or some sort of genetic material
of the sheep from Kyrghyzstan way back in twenty thirteen.
They smuggled them into the US and then they contacted
(08:04):
an underground lab to make embryo clones of the Kyrghistani
sheep and then implanted those in different sheep species and
this farm in Montana and they just bred them until
they created the Montana Mountain King, as they called it.
Checks out, checks out, yeah, yeah right, So you know,
(08:30):
maybe that drift is busted for our prosperity theologians in
the crowd. If that doesn't quite if that doesn't quite
do it for you, you could also fund a mysterious
monolith like the Perfect Monolith that appeared in Wales quite recently.
This is coming to us from the New York times,
(08:52):
Amy Ortiz, Did you guys hear about this? It just
it's a monolith that just appeared.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
No, but remember there was another story the monolith. It
was an artist or's some kind of weirdo artists that
just put in places and they were really heavy and expensive,
and he obviously went to a great expense to do it,
and it caused all this internet hubbub. But then it
turned out it was just some like you know, be
a Nolli type cap.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Ooh, it looks similar to that one.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It does, but it's unrelated. We're what we're talking about here, folks,
is the rash of mysterious objects that were placed around
the world in like the end of twenty twenty right
Q four of twenty twenty is the corporate types would
call it. This story occurs because a guy named Craig
Mure left his house in and you'll love this town
(09:38):
name left his house in hay On Way, Powells Whales.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Going hay On Way, y'ah sounds like like a sports thing.
Are you gonna go like crazy? Bro?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You're so hey right now?
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Oh man on Way.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
Day in the wind there it is there, it is
so this guy he takes a walk in a pretty
rural area, and he says it's in the middle of nowhere,
and he had the same guests as us.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Speaking to The New York Times, he said it must
have been some sort of art installation. If he didn't
know anything to look at it, you could have easily
thought it had been dropped off by a UFO or something.
He says, in the middle of nowhere. No visible tracks.
He saw a couple of footprints, but he didn't know
if they were his neighbors.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
What if this is from that satellite that fell from
from the Morbid remember that one?
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, a rod of God. What if it's a kinetic
weapon too? You know, they're just way less impressive than
all the studies down Or what if there are a
couple of prosperity theologians of the.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Current planet satellites?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Tell us that's perfect, No, keep it like, tell us, folks,
what is You know, Prosperity theology is going to be
a thing for a long time because the US has
really crooked relationship with taxation and the way religions function
or things that get to call themselves religion shout out scientology.
So maybe you can help us help them. Let's find
(11:14):
some new flexes for spiritual grifters. Nice suits, private jets.
Come on, that's a little right, old beans. What's what like,
get some freak.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I've got one.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Yes, guys, I found this and I meant to share
it with you, and I never did. And you probably
even know about this. It's not news, but it is. Sorry,
employee on my phone. It is a guy named Ernst
Vitter v E T e R. It's the Ernst system. Okay,
it is a gentleman that My name is Ernst Ter.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
This is his website.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
I am a practitioner and teacher of superpowers trained. If
that's not prosperity theology, thing like getting started, come on,
let's go.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
No, forget the show. Beat me here, doc the show.
Send me that thing. I want to read it incredible.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I was just going to throw into the ring jewel
incrusted robot exoskeleton suits.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Finally time has come. It's what Jesus would.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Want, It's what he would have done had he had
the opportunity.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
That's what the templars were all about.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
That's the secret.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Also, the shroud of turret is a Middle Age or
medieval forgery. Just to be good about that.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
What about it.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Wait, wait, what about a church where you take all
the everybody's savings the way that guy did, right, dollars
more whatever, and you buy every member of the congregation
and Apple vision pro so everybody does church at the
same time everybody's wearing one, and then you create interactive
church services using that technology.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, they are augmented religion.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
People have been attempting such things, you know, with previous
iterations of VR, but I don't think it's quite taken
off yet. Okay, yes, it could be the time, dude,
it could be.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
The Yeah, we can't wait to hear your suggestions obviously, folks.
You can tell we're cooking with some righteous gas at
this point.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
So jeous gas, right, I like that?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, yeah, I they did a girl that was her
old street name. But uh yeah, but we're gonna we're
gonna put a pinion that we believe in you to
send us the best ideas for the future of prosperity
theology and join up. You know, no idea is too small.
All are welcome. As the guy in Polterguys said, we
(13:40):
do want to give one important update before we move on.
We've been talking about boeing you know, it's no secret
we went on here about this. I had a kind
of a close call, not really close call in the
friendly skies with some detaching interior parts of a Boeing aircraft.
And then what was it?
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Guys?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
There is a wheel that dropped off, there was a
window that left work early, like.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
The yeah, and the biggest thing was the what was
it the door plug thing that came apart.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
A handful of let's tell them Oopsie's.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Well, it's really scary bedeues.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
John Oliver recently, like maybe a week ago or two
weeks ago from this coming out, did an entire series
on Boeing again. I know he's talked about in the past,
but it's serious.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
And we are happy to report that John Oliver neither
John Oliver nor any of the people in his writer's room,
who are all actually really cool people saw their improv
show one time in New York. They are not suspects
in the unfortunate demise of John Barnett, retired career quality
(14:46):
manager for Bowie. He passed away on March ninth, at
the age of sixty two. He retired in twenty seventeen.
He had been quite vocal about some of the concerns
he had about Boeing aircraft and according to the Charleston
County Coroner's office, this is reported in The Times and
the Washington Post and so on. He appears to have
(15:08):
expired due to a self inflicted wound.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Oh while staying at a hotel because he was in
town to do more legal business in his lawsuits against Boeing.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Yeah, do you think the pressure was too much? It
was just an unpleasant way to live, or do we
suspect foul play?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
He was going into the final day of his deposition
ahead of a trial set for June, where he alive,
he would have been testified in that trial.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Yeah, wowsers.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
He literally just met with the Boeing attorneys, Like that's
what he was doing.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
That's what he was doing. And the entire time since
his retirement, he has been alleging that Boeing retaliated against
him for verbally and vocally and publicly raising concern about
production issues. And this was, to be granted, this was
his job. He was managing quality and he's the one
(16:09):
who pointed out something was fishy. Nobody knew that anything
was amiss until he failed to show up at ten
a m. Saturday for that final deposition.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Dude, I just don't have a hard time believing that
too big to fail industries such as this have people
killed when they're inconvenient from time to time. I just
have no problem believing that I am not alleging such.
I just don't think it's a very long.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Walk Doc aka the Marchioness of Buckhead. I said, definitely assassinated.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Right right, And we may have we may have to say,
all right, we're buttoned up illlegal. We may have to
dive into this in an episode in the future as
part of our unfortunately ongoing series on mysterious deaths of
scientists inventors. Maybe we have to wrap up QA folks
(17:05):
in there as well.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
It's an engineer, right, I mean he has to have
some background and serious airplane mechanics and engineering. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's a smart fellow, and we'll learn more about him,
for sure. The main thing is the thing we want
to leave you with as we go into this adbreak,
is regardless of your stance on Boeing, please join us
in keeping the family in your thoughts. Yes, we're going
to pause for word from our sponsors, and we'll return
with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
And we returned with a story that was teased by
Ben in evoking the chat the nom de chat of
super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
The I like chat.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
I think it applies here. What was it? The Marchioness
of Buckhead? Any non atli? And can we even say that?
Whatever it said out there? Min? I know the Buckhead
is sort of an affluent community here in Atlanta, the
fancy malls out there where you can got the Dulchan
Gabonastoor and then stuff like that. Weirdly, though, Buckhead comes
(18:15):
into play in our third story, and there's a lot
of weird crime and some of the more affluent parts
of Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Study and extremes.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
But people don't talk about it. People act like Atlanta
is full of like car fires and it's just mad
max in the streets in the parts of the city
that we hang out in for the most part that
you would consider, I guess more urban, not so much,
but it's a lot of it happens in the suburbs.
But anyway, I digress. We'll get to that in a minute.
What is a marchioness. I'd never heard the term until
(18:45):
I started looking into this story about the mysterious case
of the doctored royal family photo. Kate Middleton, the Duchess
of Wales's wife of Prince Harry. Right, is it Prince
Harry or no, William right, wife of Prince William.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Is that right? I don't know, Doc, Yes.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah it's William.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
She's married to Prince William. Prince Harry is married to
mar Please no.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I don't care, I really don't.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
But Harry is married to Mark That's right, that's right.
That was a big to do as well. That's right
because Markle was like the she's a common you know,
all of that good stuff. Yeah, it's a bit of
a niche beat. Let's just call it the whole royal thing.
There are certainly people that are that are known as
Royal watchers. I guess it's you know, it's sort of
(19:37):
its own real life reality, real life reality. It is
Royal Jubilee, all of that good stuff. It's a thing
that people, certain people hang on quite intently. And I
was about to say it's a real life reality show,
which is the most meta, bizarre thing that it could
ever be said. Not entirely true, but this is weird.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
There's this guy Byron Denniston.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
He's he's the guy I follow to like get Royal
Watcher updates.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
He's really good, got it?
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Yeah, well it's not really my faery, well a million percent. Anyway,
as we know, you know, to a large degree, we've
talked about does the you know, the royal family or
does the crown control the world and all of these
kinds of things. Probably not, I think, is the takeaway there.
Largely ceremonial, largely about maintaining history and legacy and all
(20:27):
of that. But they're very very very very very very
very wealthy. Whether or not they're powerful is another question.
What they have typically been I guess, at least relatively
decent at doing, is controlling the kind of narrative of
you know, how they want to be perceived and all
of that. And that's done of course through like a
myriad of handlers and pr people and all of that stuff.
(20:48):
But it does seem maybe since as far back as
you know Princess Diana, they've sort of lost the grip
on that control, maybe, you know, with the advent of
the always on media and all of that good stuff.
Because obviously what happened with Princess Diana was she was
killed while evading paparazzi in a car accident. And so
(21:10):
it does feel like that informs perhaps you know, how
much they want to keep these kinds of things under
wraps and kind of insulate the royal family members from
this kind of scrutiny. So what's going on with Kate
Middleton is that she has been conspicuously absent from public
life for maybe the past four to six months. I
(21:30):
want to say, what was you know, told to the
public and to the press by the you know said
handlers and pr people, is that she underwent some sort
of abdominal surgery. Ben I believe you said you'd heard
that it was a gastric bypass surgery.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Well, it's the internet also, people are so the most
amazing thing about when stories become viral like this is
the just sheer amount of previously revealed experts who reveal
their expertise and some of those some of those folks
(22:07):
have read you know, Wikipedia articles on gastric bypass or
stomach staply and and then other people, you know, another
one doc you had mentioned this one was the a
bit more spicy speculation that.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
A Brazilian Yeah, okay, right, So see even me hearing
you say gastric Bypass earlier, when I think I might
even joined the chat late and it was already being
discussed because again of Doc's nickname, I just sort of
was like, oh, I must have missed that. That must
be God's honest truth that it definitely was that thing.
But of course that's a very private type of surgery
(22:43):
that they probably wouldn't let out. They probably wouldn't say
that's that's really none of anybody's business. So I believe
all of what we have is abdominal procedure, abdominal surgery,
and as we know, in the absence of facts, speculation thrives.
You mentioned Ben, all of these, you know, newly minted
Internet experts, armchair experts, sleuth's, what have you. There is
(23:06):
a fabulous editorial on NPR by Linda Holmes, who has
a term she refers to conspiracy theories, theorists, the overused
term at this point according to her, But she came
up with one that I had not seen before. It
was recreational speculators. And it totally makes sense people that
(23:26):
just are kind of bored and just are like, what
could it be? It's Is it a gastric bypass? Is
it a Brazilian butt lift? Does she have untreatable cancer?
You know? Has she has she been decapitated? You know,
I mean it literally, the sky's the limit. So already
because of the absence, and because of the vagary of
(23:46):
the description of what she underwent that led to this absence,
the Internet's already going nuts. Then on Mother's Day this
photo drops on first viewing a delightful family photo with
you know, three kids k in the middle, sitting on
what looks like a rustic type rocking chair on a porch.
Nothing particularly ostentatious about it. I don't know any of
(24:07):
the kid's names. That one of the young lads is
wearing a sweater and gripping the kind of like the
arm of the chair. Another one's on a lap kind
of situation, and they're all like mid laugh and just
having a glorious time. So this was released or was tweeted,
exed what have you, by the official Prince and Princess
(24:28):
of Wales's account, because they love each other very much.
They have a joint account which has fifteen point three
million followers, likely many of them these royal watchers, and
it was distributed by the AP and all of the
wire services whatever like this. This photo went out only
to be recalled quickly by a p first I believe
(24:49):
who issued something called a kill notice, because AP is
such a you know, kind of clearing house, I guess
for photos for all kinds of news agencies. They released
this and it sticking very seriously. I didn't realize this,
but in looking into the story, there are a lot
of very specific guidelines around what kind of doctoring is
allowed in photos. So yeah, I'm sorry, I'm ready to
lead there a little bit. It became very clear very
(25:11):
quickly this photo had been weirdly photoshopped. If we're looking
at it, we might be like, okay, maybe these were
just kind of like ham fisted touch up jobs, Like
there's some parts where there's some sort of like artifacting.
You know, I'm not an expert in this. Matt would
probably be a little more able to point the stuff out.
But things like the evidence of a clone tool being
used in photoshop, and evidence of a background blur kind
(25:33):
of tool being used, and some even copy and pasting
and textures that didn't make sense. And I think there's
something even like the kid's hand around the chair looks
kind of weird to my eyes. But yeah, and of
course when that happened, Oh boy, did those Internet salutes
go nuts. She's dead. This is all a lie. This
is a fabricated image. You know, her children have been abducted.
(25:55):
God knows what the sky's the limit to which presume
I believe the princess posted something on the same account.
I'm saying, like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment
with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any
confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday cause I hope
everyone had a very happy Mother's Day. So the princess
(26:18):
is copying to editing her own photo. This is something
everybody does, you know, in the age of phone photo
editing apps that are as powerful as Photoshop once was,
people like to touch their stuff up. There's a culture
of that, you know already that exists in things like
fashion magazines stuff. But the news is different. When you're
covering the news, you're not supposed to have any touch ups.
That's what I was saying. I found out can't even
(26:38):
get rid of red eye apparently. Ben. I don't know
if you heard about this, but There's a story I
ran across about a supposed war photographer who was like fat,
who's like stealing and photoshopping other war images to pass
them off as his own in conflict zones. I can't
remember the guy's name, but it's a thing that happens.
And you know, a lot of those photos were pulled
(26:59):
that when that happen. Have you heard of any other
examples of this kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
It's weird because it's a more specific version of the
old dilemma for technological innovation and legislation. Journalism is attempting
to make hard guidelines that keep people ethical and honest,
but those guidelines are often in reaction to this stuff
(27:26):
that distorts the truth, right, which is anathema to journalism
as a vocation or as a concept. And it's this
is not to say, of course, that there's not an expected,
to your point, measure of sweetening for images, right, Like,
we know that every for a long time, most of
(27:48):
the images you see in fashion magazines have been airbrushed
to an extent, little blemishes removed, and there seems to
be amid the public an expectation of this and a
certain degree of tolerance. But after you reach an ill
defined threshold, then people start reacting adversely. And also, you know,
(28:11):
as as anybody's worked in film, most particularly doc Holiday
here can confirm you know, your favorite films have a
lot of time put into oh what's that specific profession colorist,
color locking, that kind of stuff, you know, so sure, yeah, yeah,
that's it. So I think it's it's almost a spectrum.
(28:33):
It's a matter of degree of editing. And you made
an excellent point there earlier too, where you're saying, hey,
a lot of people do this. It's normalized, right, and
it's convenient through something like a phone app to put
a filter on, and as long as you're not, you know,
making yourself look like a h a space bear or
a German shepherd.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Then people Yeah. But but again the question then too big, Ben,
Those are excellent points is what is the intent of
the photo? You know what I mean? So is it
newsworthy or is it fashion which doesn't have the expectation
of newsworthiness per se. This is all stuff basically cooked
up in a lab, you know. But there have been
instances where celebrities even where it came out and said
(29:17):
I didn't like what they did to my legs, you know,
like I think it was Kate Winslet, another famous Kate
who there was some vanity fair, vogue or something where
she said they like reduced the size of her legs
by a magnitude and did not care for it. And
then the flip side is Lena Dunham. There was an
image or a series of images taken of her for
(29:40):
some you know magazine of that stripe and then the
Internet released the untouched version and she said she felt
invaded by them releasing the untouched version because it was
she you know, took the agency away from her.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, it reminds me of Fox News for another context.
You know, Fox News got in trouble a while back
because they were, without official knowledge, they were publishing photographs
of I think primarily folks from the Democratic or party
or left side of political ideology in the US. They
(30:14):
were publishing these photographs where the picture happened altered to
make a nose bigger, to make teeth yellower, things like that,
Subtle things that you wouldn't necessarily catch. And I think
you're making an excellent point regarding intent, because we know
the alteration of photograph of photographs. Excuse me, and the
plural can be an alteration of history. Shout out Tianaman Square,
(30:38):
shout out the pie styling photoshop fan.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Jose of Stalin, and I just my last little thing out.
I want to hear what you have to say about
this in terms of the intent. And I can't remember
there were there was a Verge piece that I read.
Now I'm scanning through it trying to find the exact quote.
But it was a really good point that either Mia
Saddo made in the Verge or or the NPR writer
(31:02):
made in that piece that was Linda Holmes. But the
idea that the intent of this photo, it wasn't meant
to be like a proof of life kind of situation.
But that is immediately how the Internet took it and
therefore treated it as this news item for all aburbos.
That this exactly was what it seemed was as a
mom making a nice picture with her kids. And also,
(31:24):
there is no reason to believe there's anything fishy going
on with Kate Middleton. We didn't even get to the
whole you know, conspiracy theory behind a divorce because of
the what's her name, guys, the the Holy Cow, the
marchionetts of Chambawombley, Charlie im Alder, what was it again?
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I just know the Marchioness of Bucket, that's all I know.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yeah, that's the what I respect, sir.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Yeah, that's the that's the only one that matters. It
is the Marchian net of. It's like, it looks like
it's chom wam delay or something. And apparently Stephen Colbert
did a bit on it and pronounced it as such
and was told that it's not pronounced that way. It's
sort of like, what has it been Wooster? That looks
like it should be Worchester, Leicester is lester things. Yeah,
(32:13):
and so it's like Chumbley I think that might be right,
Chumbley or Chomley.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
It's like if you were if you were a drunk
child labor in the Victorian era and you were trying
to say.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Chimney, yeah exactly, Chimney yeah. Or it's the name of
your your thieves, your thief master, you know, mister Lmbley.
You know, he runs like a crooked orphanage or something.
But in any case, the point of the matter is
it's a serious surgery, whatever it is. If it's on
your abdominal and it's it's enough to keep you out
(32:44):
of the public eye for that long, and chances are
she just wasn't ready to make an appearance, but wanted
to show some face for Mother's Day. Whether this was
a current picture or not was never indicated. It was
not really intended to be indicated. I don't think, And
I think it's just a good example of how the
Internet is a hive of scum and villainy and what's
the word again, recreational speculators. Matt closing thoughts that I've
(33:06):
been gab it on this one and I find it fascinating.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Did you guys see John cena streak at the Oscars?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I saw, yeah, I saw the stills. I didn't actually watch.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
The hashtag goals. He's forty six.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
I think I think about I think about this situation
with the royal family as much as I thought.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
About that thing.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
But I again, I enjoy John Cena's bit at the Oscars,
this whole, this whole thing. I'm just like, hey, whatever,
it makes me think. It's directly related to the way
we reacted to the Kim Jong un rumors. Remember every
time he would go missing, like how many times is
it now.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
I mean, there's always spent a speculation about putin, you know.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Yeah, you're like, oh, man, we haven't seen that guy
like two months is he alive? And then a picture
would come out like oh this is BS. That's not
actually right now. I don't know the weekend at Bernie sits,
you know, the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
It's hard for me to get myself to care about this.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I think that's fine. Let me make it clear. I
don't care either, and I'm sure she's fine. But I
think this is a teachable moment, you know, in terms
of like what is expected in and again I went
down some rabbit holes where I was unaware of this,
like these rules against touching up photos to any degree
like red eye even you know, for stuff that is
considered newsworthy and is looked at under the guidelines of journalism,
(34:28):
you know. And I think the issue is too that
lines have blurred, you know, between what is news and
what is entertainment. I think that's a problem. I hear
that we're probably dealing with the fallout from and will
be for a very long time. Especially and again, these
these regulations are more important now than ever because of
things like AI and much more easy access to doctoring
(34:49):
software that even the novice can just do. Dep dep
there it is, you know, somebody's next to somebody else.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I don't think we talked about yet, and I know
we need to move on.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
But the whole.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Gaza conflict. AI generated images that were shown off as
real for for a while before they were found out
like just completely AI generated images of Gaza in you know,
in ruins and false. I don't think happened. It's it's
you could look it up. It's just it's really it's
(35:22):
a scary time. We're moving into where I understand why
people call into question something like that when it comes
from a source you know that maybe is mistrusted by
a lot of people, are distrusted by a lot of people.
But it we're in that world now, we're in that place,
and I don't know how we get out of it. Uh,
And it's going to be this way for almost everything.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
I think. I don't think you can put the toothpaste
back in the tube at this point. AnyWho, Let's take
a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and
then come back with a more piece of strange news.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
All right, we've returned and we are going to hang
out in our city, Atlanta for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Well, I guess it's y'all city. My city is I guess?
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Oh North?
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Now let me tell people you live when we're on
the road, you know what I mean, Georgia.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
So, by the way, I just discovered that I'm taking
a rather long flight very soon for an event we're
going to be a part of in a Boeing seven
sixty seven. So yeeha, boys, rolling the dice, love it
love it is life.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
If not to be lived. Drink, make merry in Buckhead.
I'm quite excited about this story, madam, Well, interested in
your take here?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
This is a this is a freaky story.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
It does make me want us to put on our
detective hats, you know, go hang out at some bars.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Nay, just start to bar isn' Johnny' hide away at
Cougar Bar.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Well, we'll get into it to it. Okay, Sorry, here
we go?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Okay, so here we we mean cougar in an affirmational sense,
A million.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Oh yeah, go get it, yeah, go get it.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Whatever that get us stay away from me. Are you
still sorry for here we go?
Speaker 5 (37:15):
Here is the title and this is crazy. Here's the
title for NBC News. This is written by Matt Laviette's
I think that's how you'd say.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
His name is okay.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Posted on March eleventh, so not long ago, as we're
recording this on the thirteenth. Here's the title. Young men
say that they were drugged, kidnapped, robbed of thousands at
Atlanta bars. I'm going to read some of this verbatim
because it is really important to get this stuff correct,
and then we can maybe discuss.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Here we go.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Eight men said they lost consciousness and were robbed of
thousands of dollars while out at bars in a wealthy
Atlanta neighborhood from November twenty twenty one until last month,
and at his buckhead. It's a neighborhood of Atlanta. Here
we go, let's continue. The men said they believed they
were drugged or they described feeling abnormally intoxicated shortly before
(38:12):
their phones were used to transfer thousands of dollars out
of their bank accounts Nightmare, largely using mobile payment apps
like you think of what anyone that you use, Venmo
cash app, Apple Cash, all that stuff, PayPal and also
their credit cards were used to make fraudulent purchases. Five
of the eight men also alleged that while they were
(38:33):
in and out of consciousness, probably drugged right on the
nights of their encounters, they were driven around Atlanta in
unfamiliar cars by strangers, and most of the people who
were interviewed for this had a hazy memory of what happened,
so again in and out of consciousness, remembering bits and
pieces of the encounter as they're going. Very scary stuff.
(38:56):
All of the alleged incidents occurred after men went out
to bars in Buckhead. It's described here by writer Matt,
not me, Matt Lavette's as an affluent a landa neighborhood
known for its vibrant nightlife and young crowd, which is
something I think we can all attest to. That's what
I know of Buckhead when I've been in there. That's
how I would describe it.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
It's not our scene, it's our scene.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Our old office was there. I used to live there
once upon a time, off our road.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
I used to live very close to there, and I've
visited a couple of places we're about to mention because
four of the men said the alleged crimes occurred at
this place called Five paces In that I've never been to.
It's described as a dive bar by most people who
go to it. Others said incidents took place at three
other popular bars, a place called thirty th hi r
(39:46):
T Y Johnny's Hideaway, which is maybe it has a
reputation because this is how I've also encountered it to
or how I've heard about it, Noel, as you're describing
it a bar where there's it's got a bit older
client but often looking to party with maybe younger folks
who join up at the at the party there.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
I have heard that from multiple sources. Have not seen
it firsthand.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
It's I've see it firsthand. It's acquired, you know, it's
kind of like the local notoriety that you want if
you're running a public house, similar to how like the Claremont.
You know, sure, so it's good marketing for them, that
kind of tongue in cheek demographic advertisement.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
It does borderline, though, have the vibe of like a
swinger's kind of situation. I wouldn't say.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
It's borderline at all.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
I think, okay, fair enough, I'm just trying to be diplomatic.
Speaker 5 (40:35):
Yeah, I got that Yeah, I got that vibe too
a little bit. I'm not sure though. But the other
place is called the Ivy Buckhead.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
It's just known here as.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
The Ivy, and it's it's more of a gosh, I
don't again, I don't want to talk smack about any
of these places because they're actually kind of cool. The
Ivy struck me as more of a bro hangout kind
of vibe. Yeah, yeah, like maybe college guys or or
fresh out of college guys just hanging out. So, first
(41:05):
of all, this thing, this type of crime where you
are hanging out at a bar, maybe something gets slipped
into a drink that you've ordered, and then all of
a sudden you're out of it, and you're saying yes
to things that you would normally say yes to, or
you are being manipulated by someone physically by like capacitated.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Someone says, yeah, this is my buddy Chandler, here's his card.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
He's fine.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
And then especially if this occurs on a high traffic night,
and again, this is not denigration at all towards the staff,
towards the people going out to have a good time.
If you're in the weeds and it's a really busy night.
Then you want things that are easy to say yes
to and don't look suspicious. So cool ring out the
check because I have like eighteen people right now also
(41:54):
drunk and yelling for drinks. So it's understandable. That's why.
That's why these predators like where they do. It's opportunitism.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
I would also add to that that a lot of
these places to me have the vibe of a place
where there is an expectation of drug use and perhaps
drug dealing and consumption. It's just a thing, you know,
It's part of certain scenes and a Johnny's Hideaway type
vibe just hits me that way, and so it could
be the kind of place for maybe someone wouldn't notice
how messed up they were right away, because again a
(42:25):
not victim blaming here, I'm just trajecturing. But it does
strike me that way a little bit, because we've seen
similarities between this and some other crimes at similar types
of places in other cities.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Right, Yeah, Yes, I do want to point out two mechs.
I know we got a lot to get to here.
I do want to point out just for everybody tuning in, statistically,
there are probably there are unfortunately definitely fellow conspiracy realists
in the audience tonight who have been the victims or
someone has attempted to victimize you through drugging you when
(42:58):
you were out at a party with what would ordinarily
be a reasonable expectation of safety. We understand it, We
have your back. Please don't play around with it. Don't
drink drinks given to you by strangers, don't leave drinks unattended.
Please deploy the buddy system. It's just it's not worth it,
even when law enforcement does their best to address it.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Absolutely, let's go ahead and address one other thing here,
or a couple other things. We don't often get to
hear a big story about men being victims of this
kind of crime. We often hear about women being sexually
assaulted and attacked and harassed in these ways at nightclubs,
at bars, slipping a drug into a drink, and then
(43:42):
someone you know, predator approaching. It's just not common to
hear about it. It's something that happens all the time.
This I think, I don't know. I don't think this
is directly related to the New York crimes that we
had heard about guys in the recent past, because that
was a group of people who are actually awaiting trial
(44:03):
right now, like all the people that were. There were
several gay bars in New York that a couple of
years ago, the same kind of thing was happening. Men
were being taken from the bar, they were intoxicated way
too fast, and money was taken out of their accounts,
both via their phone and like they were driven around
in the same manner to ATMs where money was taken
(44:25):
out repeatedly, same kind of crime. And in both of
these instances though there I think this is just me
pousiting it. I think because of the neighborhood, there is
an expectation by these criminals whoever is stealing money from people,
They believe that patrons who go to these bars are
(44:45):
going to have more money in their accounts. And it
appears that that is true, because we're talking ten thousand
dollars that's sitting in a checking account that was taken out,
or thirteen thousand dollars in one of the cases, or
more where bank accoun emptied, and there are tens of
thousands of dollars in those accounts. So there's a couple
of different types of targeting that are occurring here. I
(45:09):
don't know how to protect yourself other than as you said, Ben,
watch your drink right at all times. The other thing
is several of the men reported that their assailants used
their facial recognition to unlost the phones. So they're intoxicated,
they're half passed out or whatever, and they were these
(45:29):
assailants were still able to gain access to their phones
and all of their apps.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
And most of those apps don't have a pen. They'll
just go, you know, if you get into the phone,
you're in the app for the most part, or they
don't have two factor authentication.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Now, I wanted to ask to the idea of what
always Sonny would call a brown out, come to and
fro from consciousness and memory. It seems that from some
of the reports of the gentleman who came forward, that
they were perhaps being repeated le dosed yes a period
of time. Could you tell us a little more about
(46:04):
that or their their descriptions.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I'm not going to name the names.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
You can find the names of the men who were
victims here because oh gosh, six six of the eight
men actually reached out to the APD and other police
outfits to report these crimes, and all of the cases
remain open of those six men that reported, so like,
there hasn't been any major movement Brandy, you know, finding
(46:31):
the people who are doing this yet. But in one
of the cases, at least that I read in the
NBC News article and some of the follow ups there
was that one of the men reported waking up and
there his assailants were basically they noticed, right, and they
were like, oh, we got to put him back under,
so they forced.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Fed him something.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
But it wasn't like it didn't I don't know the
way it's described as a bit strange.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Do you have the quote, Ben.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Yeah, one of these people, and again, as Matt said,
you can find them, but just out of respect for them,
we're not gonna we're not gonna like platform their names
because these guys didn't do anything wrong. To be very clear,
one victim says, the last thing they remember is being
at a bar. They're ordering a round of drinks for friends,
(47:18):
the way you would do in any given night. And
then he quote then recalls briefly coming to in the
backseat of an accelerating vehicle while being restrained by an
unknown person and says, I just remember everything was black
in there. I was trying to scream but it was
like a hand was over me, forcing more of that
substance down my mouth. And the person says it wasn't
(47:41):
a liquid at this point, it was something solid. They
just don't know what. Yes, so a pill perhaps.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
We don't know.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
I don't know, right, well, I mean really.
Speaker 5 (47:51):
And just to finish up the encounter with that person,
it goes on to say he woke up several hours
later violently throwing up blood in a gas station bathroom
three miles away from the bar. Oh, like, I can't
imagine going through that. And he lost thirteen thousand dollars
that night.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
They must have had some sort of smarts in terms
of being able to get that much, because you know,
there are maximums for a zell and things like that
that are tied to your bank account, or you'd think
there'd be a block on it.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Atter.
Speaker 5 (48:22):
Well, these guys went into the person's phone, right, And
in a couple of cases, it also appears if you guys,
I guess I'm jumping ahead here, but if you go
to Google right, and you like, go to Google Maps
and you search for the five paces in and you
can check out their reviews. Who knows how many of
(48:43):
these reviews are a response to some of the reporting.
You know, sometimes there are reviews that are not genuine there.
It's almost like piling on when there's bad press about
a place. But a few of these at least seem
to be pointing out actual events where a purse was stolen,
a cell phone was stolen, or one of the you know,
(49:03):
someone was victimized in this way at this establishment, and
in a couple of them. It appears that there's enough
social engineering going on in this busy bar where think
about how many times if you don't use spatial recognition
on your phone, you pull up your phone and you
type your password in real quick? Do you hide every
(49:23):
time you do that? Do you put your phone away
and you know, quietly put your number in? Anybody could
glance over, you know, and just go, oh, I know
that number.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
Easy.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
You could even see the fingerprints. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Yeah, I think about that a lot. Yeah, and then same,
I mean, it's the same as a pen number at
an ATM or you know, a point of sale. There's
also additionally to this. We we see that there are
moonlighting cops, there are security officers there. But to be clear,
without you know, casting unfair aspersion on any of these
(49:59):
establisablishments of their staff. I think it's really important that
you pointed out, Matt, there have been similar complaints or
there have been complaints of theft, complaints of predatory behavior
and so on for quite some time in that area.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Yeah, well, so how do you fix that? Guys?
Speaker 5 (50:18):
If you want a place to go hang out in
public with other people and all feel safe, but also
that sense of you know, I'm out and it's not
not dangerous, what is the what is the exciting thing
about a club or a bar like that? Just that
you're with other people, you are seeing other people in
being seen, and what is it?
Speaker 3 (50:37):
It's the for a lot of folks. Well, the humans
are naturally gregarious, right, so there's there's a big thing about,
especially in a younger demographic or sorry, college age demographic,
you want to go out, meet and mingle. Tonight might
be the night that you fall in love for a weekend. Hey,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (50:56):
Well, there's a certain acceptance too of again letting a
little looser than you might and certain scenes or bars
or clubs are even more so that. Right, if you're
into this kind of thing, or maybe you're into these
kind of drugs or whatever. This is where you go.
So there's a certain cocoonness of it all where you're like,
this is an accepted behavior. I'm in my safe space
(51:19):
that can very quickly turn into a dangerous space.
Speaker 5 (51:21):
Well, I guess okay, So there are a couple of
things just my thoughts from that. How I just wonder
how much of that is controlled by the groups of
people that end up congregating at those specific locations over time. Right,
do they create their own culture, like including drugs or
whatever is occurring there, their own types of people or
(51:44):
do you think that's the owner and the staff. And
I think it's way more the human beings that decide
to congregate over time at a place, Right, I just
I don't in my mind we were talking about drugs
in like the places where you go get specific drugs.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
I just don't want to.
Speaker 5 (52:00):
I don't want any of those business owners or you know,
businesses themselves to be associated with that kind of thing
because I don't think it's them.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
I think it's just no.
Speaker 4 (52:09):
I'm sinking more generally too. I mean, I'm certainly not.
I have not been to any of these places. I
have no idea of reputation. I'm just talking about in general.
There are certain places people would gravitate to for certain
types of things.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
It's the oasis problem, okay, or that's the oasis situation right.
There is a source for congregation and resources that summons
the preyer. I don't even want to say pray that
summons the innocent people, and their presence in numbers summons
the predators. This is a very old thing. It is
not the fault of the staff. It's not the fault
(52:42):
of the innocent people. And to bring it all back
around to look into bit with how our conversation began
this evening. You know, if you started a church and
the same sort of activities happened in youth group and
was open to everybody, and eventually predatory elements would intrude.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
Yeah, well then, but how do you stop it? Extreme security?
I have like cameras everywhere, so you look at yeah,
well exactly so everybody.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
But again that might stop it.
Speaker 5 (53:13):
Everybody who comes in and out of the establishment is
identified basically, but again not probably what you want if
you're going to a place like that.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
Yeah, you want to be a stranger in the night.
Speaker 5 (53:23):
You know, you put it, you put a ton more officers,
like off duty police officers around. I don't think that
helps the situation either.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
I don't know. It's just I it freaks me out.
Speaker 5 (53:34):
Because I can't see even the hint of a real
solution right there.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
There's not really the problem is I mean, the pickle
of it is the answer. The impossible answer is to
create a society such that people do not feel driven
to commit crime to survive, right, or create a society
that somehow effectively disincentivizes is those actions, Or to somehow
(54:02):
alter human nature such that people don't drug these folks.
I mean, some of these folks who got drugged. This
happens every day in the US. Some of them could
have died. They were not being administered doses of something
by a medical professional. They could have eased.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
To date, at least two people died in the New
York attacks at the gay bars. And again, I don't
think these are crimes to survive. We're talking tens of
thousands of dollars. These are crimes for some kind of enterprise,
criminal enterprise that I think is bigger than just.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
A couple of people.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah, but we don't know.
Speaker 5 (54:36):
We don't know, but it leads me to believe that.
I think so this is large amounts of money. All right,
that's all I've got for this segment of Strange News.
Please do let us know if you hear anything about
these cases or if something like this is happening in
your town.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Be safe out there, folks. One thing we can say
for sure, we do not think cap Middleton is related
to these crimes, but we have not heard a official
source on that.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
Who's to say?
Speaker 3 (55:03):
Who's to say? Thank you so much for tuning into
this week's Strange News segment, folks, Thank you for writing in.
Tune in later this week. We have some excellent episodes
coming up. We have our listener mail program where we
hear directly from the best part of the show. You
and your fellow conspiracy realist. Hey, I'd like to be
part of the show.
Speaker 4 (55:21):
You may be.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
Saying, well, you are in luck, friends and neighbors. We
try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 4 (55:26):
Correct. You can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist on most of the social media platforms
of notes. That includes Facebook, x FKA, Twitter, and YouTube,
where we have lots of fun videos rolling out every week.
I think we've got the first entry in our George
Washington time Machine video that is now live and direct
(55:47):
on the internet. Please let us know what you think.
Matt edited it, sang in it, Ben stars in it.
It's just the best. It's a delight, and there's more
of that kind of stuff to come. You can also
find us to the handle conspiracy stuff on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 5 (56:01):
Hey, we have a phone number one eight three three
st d WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a
cool name, and then you've got three minutes to say
whatever you'd want. Please let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. If you've
got more to say they can fit in that message.
Why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (56:39):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Alexis, code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
You are here.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
At the top of the week, we like to spend
an evening exploring stories that may not have hit the
top of the fold, as they used to say in
the days of print. However, some of these stories, when
they do hit, they don't get kind of the exploration
(00:57):
that they deserve. And that's what we're here for. We're
going to learn about some viral disappearance conspiracies. We're going
to learn about some active, dangerous true crime, not just
in Atlanta, but across the US. And if we're doing that,
I wanted to run through a couple of quick things
that haught our collective eye. Do you guys remember our
(01:18):
period of exploring prosperity theology?
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Oh boy, could how could we forget kreflo dollar Yeah,
gold plated private jets and all of that good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
We came out of that one with something that I
make no apologies for around condemnation of those folks who
are leveraging one of the most beautiful aspects of human
human beings, the ability to believe they're leveraging it for
a grift. Very and I say this not as a Christian,
very un christ like to do that kind of thing.
(01:56):
So there's a bit of good news. I want to
start off with good news. A Brook pastor known as
Lamar Whitehead or his name is Lamar Whitehead his he's
often called the Bling Bishop, was just found guilty in
court of spending ninety thousand US dollars of his parishioner's
savings on luxury goods.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
No man, So I've always been to churches where that
money I don't who knows what happens behind the scenes,
but that money ends up going to like actual missionary work,
and I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It's been a super positive thing.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
That's how it's so stablished.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So depressing that.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
But isn't it funny too though, how some parishioners I
guess that's the word of these prosperity theology churches are
almost okay with their money being used to enrich their
pastors in that way. Some of them, I guess maybe
are being you know, swindled, and they don't know. But
I do get to sense there are some that are
totally fine with it.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Well, yeah, I mean, Stockholm syndrome is.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
As I'm just saying, you know, that's and maybe I'm
maybe I'm paying with a broad brush there.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
But to give you a taste, fellow conspiracy realist, of
what prosperity theology is, I'd like to play a quick
clip from the famous Kreflo Dollar when he talks to
his congregation about spending their money on more private aircraft.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Dollar also responded to his critics during a sermon, if.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
I want to believe God for sixty five million dollar brain,
you cannot stop me.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
You cannot stop me from dreaming, you know, But I
think too this is also a product of like gross
commercialization of religion as well. The whole concept of prosperity
theology is about like having all the things, and why
wouldn't you aspire to your spiritual leader and want them
(03:52):
to have only the best because they are, after all,
your your spiritual leader. Therefore they must have the best
on you.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Yeah, it was one of the primary selling points of
a lot of those places. Right believe and not only
are you going to be healthy and your family is
going to be okay, you can find wealth just you know,
follow essentially me and the theology that I preach.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Right, Yeah, we are not poor in spirit. We are
a group of temporarily embarrassed spiritual millionaires. To paraphrase Ambrosepears.
I love that we're mentioning aspire too, because in the
spirit of positivity, there are a couple of things I
found that I think would be great go tos for
(04:39):
the newest flexes for televangelists, right for the actors in
prosperity theology. And I'm using the word actor on purpose.
Like everybody's getting jets, everybody's got Louis vatad suits and
so on. Why not flex in a different way? Why
not clone some Frank and sheep huh hybrids. That's something
(05:01):
that's happening in Montana. Did you guys hear about this?
We owe a debt of thanks to a conspiracy realist
on Twitter who have used this one.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Just the broad strokes are there any more? Deep says
to what's the benefit of this? I don't understand.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
So traffickers in Montana have cloned what are called Frankin
sheep hybrids entirely for the purpose of sport hunting. They
use genetic material from what are called Marco Polo or
Golli sheep all the way from Kyrgyzstan to breed these
entirely new animals and then kill them for funzies.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
I never really thought abou hunting sheep. Isn't the whole
deal with sheep that they're pretty docile and just hang
out in pens before you at a slaughter at will
Well seem a little unsportsman alike. Maybe these hybrids are
like have superpowers all of a sudden, but they're better chase.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Maybe they're like super bigs.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
It's like the plot of that movie The Island. You
guys remember that one?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Oh yeah, yeah, clones are.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
We talked about with our bought like harvesting, right organ
harvesting episode. But it's like that, except you combine that
with the most dangerous game except their sheep.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
This is super fun, guys.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
For this is going to be amazing. This could be
a great billionaire sketch on social media. So shout out
to Popular Science the journalist Andrew Paul, and shout out
to Monica del val or del Vallier over on Twitter,
who hipped us to this this happening pretty recently. Turns
out that these guys pled in court guilty to two
(06:35):
felony wildlife crimes, the Lacy Act in particular, which you
might not hear of if you're not involved in animal rights.
It's a law from way back in nineteen hundred which
is meant to combat illegal animal trafficking, and folks who
run quote alternative lifestock end quote ranches in Montana are
(06:56):
finding themselves in trouble with Uncle Sam on this to
tell you, yes, I think you're right. No, in terms
of the danger or lack thereof of hunting sheep. Let's
go to the pop side description of this. These these
Franklin sheep are about forty nine inches tall at the shoulder.
(07:18):
Their horns are over five feet wide across. They weigh
in around three hundred pounds. They're big guys, you know
what I mean. Like, if they're mad at you, you're
in trouble.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Do they have like scary horns or anything.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, their horns are over five feet wide.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Oh that's true. Really, Okay, okay, well there you go.
So it's someone'st more like a ram hunting a ram
or a wild boar or something like that, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
And it was an actual conspiracy because according to the
Department of Justice, these guys purchased parts of the sheep,
so like probably limbs or some sort of genetic material
of the sheep from Kyrghyzstan way back in twenty thirteen.
They smuggled them into the US and then they contacted
(08:04):
an underground lab to make embryo clones of the Kyrghistani
sheep and then implanted those in different sheep species and
this farm in Montana and they just bred them until
they created the Montana Mountain King, as they called it.
Checks out, checks out, yeah, yeah right, So you know,
(08:30):
maybe that drift is busted for our prosperity theologians in
the crowd. If that doesn't quite if that doesn't quite
do it for you, you could also fund a mysterious
monolith like the Perfect Monolith that appeared in Wales quite recently.
This is coming to us from the New York times,
(08:52):
Amy Ortiz, Did you guys hear about this? It just
it's a monolith that just appeared.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
No, but remember there was another story the monolith. It
was an artist or's some kind of weirdo artists that
just put in places and they were really heavy and expensive,
and he obviously went to a great expense to do it,
and it caused all this internet hubbub. But then it
turned out it was just some like you know, be
a Nolli type cap.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Ooh, it looks similar to that one.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It does, but it's unrelated. We're what we're talking about here, folks,
is the rash of mysterious objects that were placed around
the world in like the end of twenty twenty right
Q four of twenty twenty is the corporate types would
call it. This story occurs because a guy named Craig
Mure left his house in and you'll love this town
(09:38):
name left his house in hay On Way, Powells Whales.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Going hay On Way, y'ah sounds like like a sports thing.
Are you gonna go like crazy? Bro?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You're so hey right now?
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Oh man on Way.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
Day in the wind there it is there, it is
so this guy he takes a walk in a pretty
rural area, and he says it's in the middle of nowhere,
and he had the same guests as us.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Speaking to The New York Times, he said it must
have been some sort of art installation. If he didn't
know anything to look at it, you could have easily
thought it had been dropped off by a UFO or something.
He says, in the middle of nowhere. No visible tracks.
He saw a couple of footprints, but he didn't know
if they were his neighbors.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
What if this is from that satellite that fell from
from the Morbid remember that one?
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, a rod of God. What if it's a kinetic
weapon too? You know, they're just way less impressive than
all the studies down Or what if there are a
couple of prosperity theologians of the.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Current planet satellites?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Tell us that's perfect, No, keep it like, tell us, folks,
what is You know, Prosperity theology is going to be
a thing for a long time because the US has
really crooked relationship with taxation and the way religions function
or things that get to call themselves religion shout out scientology.
So maybe you can help us help them. Let's find
(11:14):
some new flexes for spiritual grifters. Nice suits, private jets.
Come on, that's a little right, old beans. What's what like,
get some freak.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I've got one.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Yes, guys, I found this and I meant to share
it with you, and I never did. And you probably
even know about this. It's not news, but it is. Sorry,
employee on my phone. It is a guy named Ernst
Vitter v E T e R. It's the Ernst system. Okay,
it is a gentleman that My name is Ernst Ter.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
This is his website.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
I am a practitioner and teacher of superpowers trained. If
that's not prosperity theology, thing like getting started, come on,
let's go.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
No, forget the show. Beat me here, doc the show.
Send me that thing. I want to read it incredible.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
I was just going to throw into the ring jewel
incrusted robot exoskeleton suits.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Finally time has come. It's what Jesus would.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Want, It's what he would have done had he had
the opportunity.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
That's what the templars were all about.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
That's the secret.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Also, the shroud of turret is a Middle Age or
medieval forgery. Just to be good about that.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
What about it.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Wait, wait, what about a church where you take all
the everybody's savings the way that guy did, right, dollars
more whatever, and you buy every member of the congregation
and Apple vision pro so everybody does church at the
same time everybody's wearing one, and then you create interactive
church services using that technology.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, they are augmented religion.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
People have been attempting such things, you know, with previous
iterations of VR, but I don't think it's quite taken
off yet. Okay, yes, it could be the time, dude,
it could be.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
The Yeah, we can't wait to hear your suggestions obviously, folks.
You can tell we're cooking with some righteous gas at
this point.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
So jeous gas, right, I like that?
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, yeah, I they did a girl that was her
old street name. But uh yeah, but we're gonna we're
gonna put a pinion that we believe in you to
send us the best ideas for the future of prosperity
theology and join up. You know, no idea is too small.
All are welcome. As the guy in Polterguys said, we
(13:40):
do want to give one important update before we move on.
We've been talking about boeing you know, it's no secret
we went on here about this. I had a kind
of a close call, not really close call in the
friendly skies with some detaching interior parts of a Boeing aircraft.
And then what was it?
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Guys?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
There is a wheel that dropped off, there was a
window that left work early, like.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
The yeah, and the biggest thing was the what was
it the door plug thing that came apart.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
A handful of let's tell them Oopsie's.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Well, it's really scary bedeues.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
John Oliver recently, like maybe a week ago or two
weeks ago from this coming out, did an entire series
on Boeing again. I know he's talked about in the past,
but it's serious.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
And we are happy to report that John Oliver neither
John Oliver nor any of the people in his writer's room,
who are all actually really cool people saw their improv
show one time in New York. They are not suspects
in the unfortunate demise of John Barnett, retired career quality
(14:46):
manager for Bowie. He passed away on March ninth, at
the age of sixty two. He retired in twenty seventeen.
He had been quite vocal about some of the concerns
he had about Boeing aircraft and according to the Charleston
County Coroner's office, this is reported in The Times and
the Washington Post and so on. He appears to have
(15:08):
expired due to a self inflicted wound.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
Oh while staying at a hotel because he was in
town to do more legal business in his lawsuits against Boeing.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Yeah, do you think the pressure was too much? It
was just an unpleasant way to live, or do we
suspect foul play?
Speaker 3 (15:28):
He was going into the final day of his deposition
ahead of a trial set for June, where he alive,
he would have been testified in that trial.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Yeah, wowsers.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
He literally just met with the Boeing attorneys, Like that's
what he was doing.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
That's what he was doing. And the entire time since
his retirement, he has been alleging that Boeing retaliated against
him for verbally and vocally and publicly raising concern about
production issues. And this was, to be granted, this was
his job. He was managing quality and he's the one
(16:09):
who pointed out something was fishy. Nobody knew that anything
was amiss until he failed to show up at ten
a m. Saturday for that final deposition.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Dude, I just don't have a hard time believing that
too big to fail industries such as this have people
killed when they're inconvenient from time to time. I just
have no problem believing that I am not alleging such.
I just don't think it's a very long.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Walk Doc aka the Marchioness of Buckhead. I said, definitely assassinated.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Right right, And we may have we may have to say,
all right, we're buttoned up illlegal. We may have to
dive into this in an episode in the future as
part of our unfortunately ongoing series on mysterious deaths of
scientists inventors. Maybe we have to wrap up QA folks
(17:05):
in there as well.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
It's an engineer, right, I mean he has to have
some background and serious airplane mechanics and engineering. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
It's a smart fellow, and we'll learn more about him,
for sure. The main thing is the thing we want
to leave you with as we go into this adbreak,
is regardless of your stance on Boeing, please join us
in keeping the family in your thoughts. Yes, we're going
to pause for word from our sponsors, and we'll return
with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
And we returned with a story that was teased by
Ben in evoking the chat the nom de chat of
super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
The I like chat.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
I think it applies here. What was it? The Marchioness
of Buckhead? Any non atli? And can we even say that?
Whatever it said out there? Min? I know the Buckhead
is sort of an affluent community here in Atlanta, the
fancy malls out there where you can got the Dulchan
Gabonastoor and then stuff like that. Weirdly, though, Buckhead comes
(18:15):
into play in our third story, and there's a lot
of weird crime and some of the more affluent parts
of Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Study and extremes.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
But people don't talk about it. People act like Atlanta
is full of like car fires and it's just mad
max in the streets in the parts of the city
that we hang out in for the most part that
you would consider, I guess more urban, not so much,
but it's a lot of it happens in the suburbs.
But anyway, I digress. We'll get to that in a minute.
What is a marchioness. I'd never heard the term until
(18:45):
I started looking into this story about the mysterious case
of the doctored royal family photo. Kate Middleton, the Duchess
of Wales's wife of Prince Harry. Right, is it Prince
Harry or no, William right, wife of Prince William.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Is that right? I don't know, Doc, Yes.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yeah it's William.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
She's married to Prince William. Prince Harry is married to
mar Please no.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I don't care, I really don't.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
But Harry is married to Mark That's right, that's right.
That was a big to do as well. That's right
because Markle was like the she's a common you know,
all of that good stuff. Yeah, it's a bit of
a niche beat. Let's just call it the whole royal thing.
There are certainly people that are that are known as
Royal watchers. I guess it's you know, it's sort of
(19:37):
its own real life reality, real life reality. It is
Royal Jubilee, all of that good stuff. It's a thing
that people, certain people hang on quite intently. And I
was about to say it's a real life reality show,
which is the most meta, bizarre thing that it could
ever be said. Not entirely true, but this is weird.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
There's this guy Byron Denniston.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
He's he's the guy I follow to like get Royal
Watcher updates.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
He's really good, got it?
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Yeah, well it's not really my faery, well a million percent. Anyway,
as we know, you know, to a large degree, we've
talked about does the you know, the royal family or
does the crown control the world and all of these
kinds of things. Probably not, I think, is the takeaway there.
Largely ceremonial, largely about maintaining history and legacy and all
(20:27):
of that. But they're very very very very very very
very wealthy. Whether or not they're powerful is another question.
What they have typically been I guess, at least relatively
decent at doing, is controlling the kind of narrative of
you know, how they want to be perceived and all
of that. And that's done of course through like a
myriad of handlers and pr people and all of that stuff.
(20:48):
But it does seem maybe since as far back as
you know Princess Diana, they've sort of lost the grip
on that control, maybe, you know, with the advent of
the always on media and all of that good stuff.
Because obviously what happened with Princess Diana was she was
killed while evading paparazzi in a car accident. And so
(21:10):
it does feel like that informs perhaps you know, how
much they want to keep these kinds of things under
wraps and kind of insulate the royal family members from
this kind of scrutiny. So what's going on with Kate
Middleton is that she has been conspicuously absent from public
life for maybe the past four to six months. I
(21:30):
want to say, what was you know, told to the
public and to the press by the you know said
handlers and pr people, is that she underwent some sort
of abdominal surgery. Ben I believe you said you'd heard
that it was a gastric bypass surgery.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Well, it's the internet also, people are so the most
amazing thing about when stories become viral like this is
the just sheer amount of previously revealed experts who reveal
their expertise and some of those some of those folks
(22:07):
have read you know, Wikipedia articles on gastric bypass or
stomach staply and and then other people, you know, another
one doc you had mentioned this one was the a
bit more spicy speculation that.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
A Brazilian Yeah, okay, right, So see even me hearing
you say gastric Bypass earlier, when I think I might
even joined the chat late and it was already being
discussed because again of Doc's nickname, I just sort of
was like, oh, I must have missed that. That must
be God's honest truth that it definitely was that thing.
But of course that's a very private type of surgery
(22:43):
that they probably wouldn't let out. They probably wouldn't say
that's that's really none of anybody's business. So I believe
all of what we have is abdominal procedure, abdominal surgery,
and as we know, in the absence of facts, speculation thrives.
You mentioned Ben, all of these, you know, newly minted
Internet experts, armchair experts, sleuth's, what have you. There is
(23:06):
a fabulous editorial on NPR by Linda Holmes, who has
a term she refers to conspiracy theories, theorists, the overused
term at this point according to her, But she came
up with one that I had not seen before. It
was recreational speculators. And it totally makes sense people that
(23:26):
just are kind of bored and just are like, what
could it be? It's Is it a gastric bypass? Is
it a Brazilian butt lift? Does she have untreatable cancer?
You know? Has she has she been decapitated? You know,
I mean it literally, the sky's the limit. So already
because of the absence, and because of the vagary of
(23:46):
the description of what she underwent that led to this absence,
the Internet's already going nuts. Then on Mother's Day this
photo drops on first viewing a delightful family photo with
you know, three kids k in the middle, sitting on
what looks like a rustic type rocking chair on a porch.
Nothing particularly ostentatious about it. I don't know any of
(24:07):
the kid's names. That one of the young lads is
wearing a sweater and gripping the kind of like the
arm of the chair. Another one's on a lap kind
of situation, and they're all like mid laugh and just
having a glorious time. So this was released or was tweeted,
exed what have you, by the official Prince and Princess
(24:28):
of Wales's account, because they love each other very much.
They have a joint account which has fifteen point three
million followers, likely many of them these royal watchers, and
it was distributed by the AP and all of the
wire services whatever like this. This photo went out only
to be recalled quickly by a p first I believe
(24:49):
who issued something called a kill notice, because AP is
such a you know, kind of clearing house, I guess
for photos for all kinds of news agencies. They released
this and it sticking very seriously. I didn't realize this,
but in looking into the story, there are a lot
of very specific guidelines around what kind of doctoring is
allowed in photos. So yeah, I'm sorry, I'm ready to
lead there a little bit. It became very clear very
(25:11):
quickly this photo had been weirdly photoshopped. If we're looking
at it, we might be like, okay, maybe these were
just kind of like ham fisted touch up jobs, Like
there's some parts where there's some sort of like artifacting.
You know, I'm not an expert in this. Matt would
probably be a little more able to point the stuff out.
But things like the evidence of a clone tool being
used in photoshop, and evidence of a background blur kind
(25:33):
of tool being used, and some even copy and pasting
and textures that didn't make sense. And I think there's
something even like the kid's hand around the chair looks
kind of weird to my eyes. But yeah, and of
course when that happened, Oh boy, did those Internet salutes
go nuts. She's dead. This is all a lie. This
is a fabricated image. You know, her children have been abducted.
(25:55):
God knows what the sky's the limit to which presume
I believe the princess posted something on the same account.
I'm saying, like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment
with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any
confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday cause I hope
everyone had a very happy Mother's Day. So the princess
(26:18):
is copying to editing her own photo. This is something
everybody does, you know, in the age of phone photo
editing apps that are as powerful as Photoshop once was,
people like to touch their stuff up. There's a culture
of that, you know already that exists in things like
fashion magazines stuff. But the news is different. When you're
covering the news, you're not supposed to have any touch ups.
That's what I was saying. I found out can't even
(26:38):
get rid of red eye apparently. Ben. I don't know
if you heard about this, but There's a story I
ran across about a supposed war photographer who was like fat,
who's like stealing and photoshopping other war images to pass
them off as his own in conflict zones. I can't
remember the guy's name, but it's a thing that happens.
And you know, a lot of those photos were pulled
(26:59):
that when that happen. Have you heard of any other
examples of this kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
It's weird because it's a more specific version of the
old dilemma for technological innovation and legislation. Journalism is attempting
to make hard guidelines that keep people ethical and honest,
but those guidelines are often in reaction to this stuff
(27:26):
that distorts the truth, right, which is anathema to journalism
as a vocation or as a concept. And it's this
is not to say, of course, that there's not an expected,
to your point, measure of sweetening for images, right, Like,
we know that every for a long time, most of
(27:48):
the images you see in fashion magazines have been airbrushed
to an extent, little blemishes removed, and there seems to
be amid the public an expectation of this and a
certain degree of tolerance. But after you reach an ill
defined threshold, then people start reacting adversely. And also, you know,
(28:11):
as as anybody's worked in film, most particularly doc Holiday
here can confirm you know, your favorite films have a
lot of time put into oh what's that specific profession colorist,
color locking, that kind of stuff, you know, so sure, yeah, yeah,
that's it. So I think it's it's almost a spectrum.
(28:33):
It's a matter of degree of editing. And you made
an excellent point there earlier too, where you're saying, hey,
a lot of people do this. It's normalized, right, and
it's convenient through something like a phone app to put
a filter on, and as long as you're not, you know,
making yourself look like a h a space bear or
a German shepherd.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Then people Yeah. But but again the question then too big, Ben,
Those are excellent points is what is the intent of
the photo? You know what I mean? So is it
newsworthy or is it fashion which doesn't have the expectation
of newsworthiness per se. This is all stuff basically cooked
up in a lab, you know. But there have been
instances where celebrities even where it came out and said
(29:17):
I didn't like what they did to my legs, you know,
like I think it was Kate Winslet, another famous Kate
who there was some vanity fair, vogue or something where
she said they like reduced the size of her legs
by a magnitude and did not care for it. And
then the flip side is Lena Dunham. There was an
image or a series of images taken of her for
(29:40):
some you know magazine of that stripe and then the
Internet released the untouched version and she said she felt
invaded by them releasing the untouched version because it was
she you know, took the agency away from her.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, it reminds me of Fox News for another context.
You know, Fox News got in trouble a while back
because they were, without official knowledge, they were publishing photographs
of I think primarily folks from the Democratic or party
or left side of political ideology in the US. They
(30:14):
were publishing these photographs where the picture happened altered to
make a nose bigger, to make teeth yellower, things like that,
Subtle things that you wouldn't necessarily catch. And I think
you're making an excellent point regarding intent, because we know
the alteration of photograph of photographs. Excuse me, and the
plural can be an alteration of history. Shout out Tianaman Square,
(30:38):
shout out the pie styling photoshop fan.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Jose of Stalin, and I just my last little thing out.
I want to hear what you have to say about
this in terms of the intent. And I can't remember
there were there was a Verge piece that I read.
Now I'm scanning through it trying to find the exact quote.
But it was a really good point that either Mia
Saddo made in the Verge or or the NPR writer
(31:02):
made in that piece that was Linda Holmes. But the
idea that the intent of this photo, it wasn't meant
to be like a proof of life kind of situation.
But that is immediately how the Internet took it and
therefore treated it as this news item for all aburbos.
That this exactly was what it seemed was as a
mom making a nice picture with her kids. And also,
(31:24):
there is no reason to believe there's anything fishy going
on with Kate Middleton. We didn't even get to the
whole you know, conspiracy theory behind a divorce because of
the what's her name, guys, the the Holy Cow, the
marchionetts of Chambawombley, Charlie im Alder, what was it again?
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I just know the Marchioness of Bucket, that's all I know.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yeah, that's the what I respect, sir.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Yeah, that's the that's the only one that matters. It
is the Marchian net of. It's like, it looks like
it's chom wam delay or something. And apparently Stephen Colbert
did a bit on it and pronounced it as such
and was told that it's not pronounced that way. It's
sort of like, what has it been Wooster? That looks
like it should be Worchester, Leicester is lester things. Yeah,
(32:13):
and so it's like Chumbley I think that might be right,
Chumbley or Chomley.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
It's like if you were if you were a drunk
child labor in the Victorian era and you were trying
to say.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
Chimney, yeah exactly, Chimney yeah. Or it's the name of
your your thieves, your thief master, you know, mister Lmbley.
You know, he runs like a crooked orphanage or something.
But in any case, the point of the matter is
it's a serious surgery, whatever it is. If it's on
your abdominal and it's it's enough to keep you out
(32:44):
of the public eye for that long, and chances are
she just wasn't ready to make an appearance, but wanted
to show some face for Mother's Day. Whether this was
a current picture or not was never indicated. It was
not really intended to be indicated. I don't think, And
I think it's just a good example of how the
Internet is a hive of scum and villainy and what's
the word again, recreational speculators. Matt closing thoughts that I've
(33:06):
been gab it on this one and I find it fascinating.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Did you guys see John cena streak at the Oscars?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I saw, yeah, I saw the stills. I didn't actually watch.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
The hashtag goals. He's forty six.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
I think I think about I think about this situation
with the royal family as much as I thought.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
About that thing.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
But I again, I enjoy John Cena's bit at the Oscars,
this whole, this whole thing. I'm just like, hey, whatever,
it makes me think. It's directly related to the way
we reacted to the Kim Jong un rumors. Remember every
time he would go missing, like how many times is
it now.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
I mean, there's always spent a speculation about putin, you know.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Yeah, you're like, oh, man, we haven't seen that guy
like two months is he alive? And then a picture
would come out like oh this is BS. That's not
actually right now. I don't know the weekend at Bernie sits,
you know, the whole thing.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
It's hard for me to get myself to care about this.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I think that's fine. Let me make it clear. I
don't care either, and I'm sure she's fine. But I
think this is a teachable moment, you know, in terms
of like what is expected in and again I went
down some rabbit holes where I was unaware of this,
like these rules against touching up photos to any degree
like red eye even you know, for stuff that is
considered newsworthy and is looked at under the guidelines of journalism,
(34:28):
you know. And I think the issue is too that
lines have blurred, you know, between what is news and
what is entertainment. I think that's a problem. I hear
that we're probably dealing with the fallout from and will
be for a very long time. Especially and again, these
these regulations are more important now than ever because of
things like AI and much more easy access to doctoring
(34:49):
software that even the novice can just do. Dep dep
there it is, you know, somebody's next to somebody else.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I don't think we talked about yet, and I know
we need to move on.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
But the whole.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Gaza conflict. AI generated images that were shown off as
real for for a while before they were found out
like just completely AI generated images of Gaza in you know,
in ruins and false. I don't think happened. It's it's
you could look it up. It's just it's really it's
(35:22):
a scary time. We're moving into where I understand why
people call into question something like that when it comes
from a source you know that maybe is mistrusted by
a lot of people, are distrusted by a lot of people.
But it we're in that world now, we're in that place,
and I don't know how we get out of it. Uh,
And it's going to be this way for almost everything.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
I think. I don't think you can put the toothpaste
back in the tube at this point. AnyWho, Let's take
a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and
then come back with a more piece of strange news.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
All right, we've returned and we are going to hang
out in our city, Atlanta for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Well, I guess it's y'all city. My city is I guess?
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Oh North?
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Now let me tell people you live when we're on
the road, you know what I mean, Georgia.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
So, by the way, I just discovered that I'm taking
a rather long flight very soon for an event we're
going to be a part of in a Boeing seven
sixty seven. So yeeha, boys, rolling the dice, love it
love it is life.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
If not to be lived. Drink, make merry in Buckhead.
I'm quite excited about this story, madam, Well, interested in
your take here?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
This is a this is a freaky story.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
It does make me want us to put on our
detective hats, you know, go hang out at some bars.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Nay, just start to bar isn' Johnny' hide away at
Cougar Bar.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Well, we'll get into it to it. Okay, Sorry, here
we go?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Okay, so here we we mean cougar in an affirmational sense,
A million.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Oh yeah, go get it, yeah, go get it.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Whatever that get us stay away from me. Are you
still sorry for here we go?
Speaker 5 (37:15):
Here is the title and this is crazy. Here's the
title for NBC News. This is written by Matt Laviette's
I think that's how you'd say.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
His name is okay.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
Posted on March eleventh, so not long ago, as we're
recording this on the thirteenth. Here's the title. Young men
say that they were drugged, kidnapped, robbed of thousands at
Atlanta bars. I'm going to read some of this verbatim
because it is really important to get this stuff correct,
and then we can maybe discuss.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Here we go.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Eight men said they lost consciousness and were robbed of
thousands of dollars while out at bars in a wealthy
Atlanta neighborhood from November twenty twenty one until last month,
and at his buckhead. It's a neighborhood of Atlanta. Here
we go, let's continue. The men said they believed they
were drugged or they described feeling abnormally intoxicated shortly before
(38:12):
their phones were used to transfer thousands of dollars out
of their bank accounts Nightmare, largely using mobile payment apps
like you think of what anyone that you use, Venmo
cash app, Apple Cash, all that stuff, PayPal and also
their credit cards were used to make fraudulent purchases. Five
of the eight men also alleged that while they were
(38:33):
in and out of consciousness, probably drugged right on the
nights of their encounters, they were driven around Atlanta in
unfamiliar cars by strangers, and most of the people who
were interviewed for this had a hazy memory of what happened,
so again in and out of consciousness, remembering bits and
pieces of the encounter as they're going. Very scary stuff.
(38:56):
All of the alleged incidents occurred after men went out
to bars in Buckhead. It's described here by writer Matt,
not me, Matt Lavette's as an affluent a landa neighborhood
known for its vibrant nightlife and young crowd, which is
something I think we can all attest to. That's what
I know of Buckhead when I've been in there. That's
how I would describe it.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
It's not our scene, it's our scene.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Our old office was there. I used to live there
once upon a time, off our road.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
I used to live very close to there, and I've
visited a couple of places we're about to mention because
four of the men said the alleged crimes occurred at
this place called Five paces In that I've never been to.
It's described as a dive bar by most people who
go to it. Others said incidents took place at three
other popular bars, a place called thirty th hi r
(39:46):
T Y Johnny's Hideaway, which is maybe it has a
reputation because this is how I've also encountered it to
or how I've heard about it, Noel, as you're describing
it a bar where there's it's got a bit older
client but often looking to party with maybe younger folks
who join up at the at the party there.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
I have heard that from multiple sources. Have not seen
it firsthand.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
It's I've see it firsthand. It's acquired, you know, it's
kind of like the local notoriety that you want if
you're running a public house, similar to how like the Claremont.
You know, sure, so it's good marketing for them, that
kind of tongue in cheek demographic advertisement.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
It does borderline, though, have the vibe of like a
swinger's kind of situation. I wouldn't say.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
It's borderline at all.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
I think, okay, fair enough, I'm just trying to be diplomatic.
Speaker 5 (40:35):
Yeah, I got that Yeah, I got that vibe too
a little bit. I'm not sure though. But the other
place is called the Ivy Buckhead.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
It's just known here as.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
The Ivy, and it's it's more of a gosh, I
don't again, I don't want to talk smack about any
of these places because they're actually kind of cool. The
Ivy struck me as more of a bro hangout kind
of vibe. Yeah, yeah, like maybe college guys or or
fresh out of college guys just hanging out. So, first
(41:05):
of all, this thing, this type of crime where you
are hanging out at a bar, maybe something gets slipped
into a drink that you've ordered, and then all of
a sudden you're out of it, and you're saying yes
to things that you would normally say yes to, or
you are being manipulated by someone physically by like capacitated.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
Someone says, yeah, this is my buddy Chandler, here's his card.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
He's fine.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
And then especially if this occurs on a high traffic night,
and again, this is not denigration at all towards the staff,
towards the people going out to have a good time.
If you're in the weeds and it's a really busy night.
Then you want things that are easy to say yes
to and don't look suspicious. So cool ring out the
check because I have like eighteen people right now also
(41:54):
drunk and yelling for drinks. So it's understandable. That's why.
That's why these predators like where they do. It's opportunitism.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
I would also add to that that a lot of
these places to me have the vibe of a place
where there is an expectation of drug use and perhaps
drug dealing and consumption. It's just a thing, you know,
It's part of certain scenes and a Johnny's Hideaway type
vibe just hits me that way, and so it could
be the kind of place for maybe someone wouldn't notice
how messed up they were right away, because again a
(42:25):
not victim blaming here, I'm just trajecturing. But it does
strike me that way a little bit, because we've seen
similarities between this and some other crimes at similar types
of places in other cities.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Right, Yeah, Yes, I do want to point out two mechs.
I know we got a lot to get to here.
I do want to point out just for everybody tuning in, statistically,
there are probably there are unfortunately definitely fellow conspiracy realists
in the audience tonight who have been the victims or
someone has attempted to victimize you through drugging you when
(42:58):
you were out at a party with what would ordinarily
be a reasonable expectation of safety. We understand it, We
have your back. Please don't play around with it. Don't
drink drinks given to you by strangers, don't leave drinks unattended.
Please deploy the buddy system. It's just it's not worth it,
even when law enforcement does their best to address it.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Absolutely, let's go ahead and address one other thing here,
or a couple other things. We don't often get to
hear a big story about men being victims of this
kind of crime. We often hear about women being sexually
assaulted and attacked and harassed in these ways at nightclubs,
at bars, slipping a drug into a drink, and then
(43:42):
someone you know, predator approaching. It's just not common to
hear about it. It's something that happens all the time.
This I think, I don't know. I don't think this
is directly related to the New York crimes that we
had heard about guys in the recent past, because that
was a group of people who are actually awaiting trial
(44:03):
right now, like all the people that were. There were
several gay bars in New York that a couple of
years ago, the same kind of thing was happening. Men
were being taken from the bar, they were intoxicated way
too fast, and money was taken out of their accounts,
both via their phone and like they were driven around
in the same manner to ATMs where money was taken
(44:25):
out repeatedly, same kind of crime. And in both of
these instances though there I think this is just me
pousiting it. I think because of the neighborhood, there is
an expectation by these criminals whoever is stealing money from people,
They believe that patrons who go to these bars are
(44:45):
going to have more money in their accounts. And it
appears that that is true, because we're talking ten thousand
dollars that's sitting in a checking account that was taken out,
or thirteen thousand dollars in one of the cases, or
more where bank accoun emptied, and there are tens of
thousands of dollars in those accounts. So there's a couple
of different types of targeting that are occurring here. I
(45:09):
don't know how to protect yourself other than as you said, Ben,
watch your drink right at all times. The other thing
is several of the men reported that their assailants used
their facial recognition to unlost the phones. So they're intoxicated,
they're half passed out or whatever, and they were these
(45:29):
assailants were still able to gain access to their phones
and all of their apps.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
And most of those apps don't have a pen. They'll
just go, you know, if you get into the phone,
you're in the app for the most part, or they
don't have two factor authentication.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Now, I wanted to ask to the idea of what
always Sonny would call a brown out, come to and
fro from consciousness and memory. It seems that from some
of the reports of the gentleman who came forward, that
they were perhaps being repeated le dosed yes a period
of time. Could you tell us a little more about
(46:04):
that or their their descriptions.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I'm not going to name the names.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
You can find the names of the men who were
victims here because oh gosh, six six of the eight
men actually reached out to the APD and other police
outfits to report these crimes, and all of the cases
remain open of those six men that reported, so like,
there hasn't been any major movement Brandy, you know, finding
(46:31):
the people who are doing this yet. But in one
of the cases, at least that I read in the
NBC News article and some of the follow ups there
was that one of the men reported waking up and
there his assailants were basically they noticed, right, and they
were like, oh, we got to put him back under,
so they forced.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Fed him something.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
But it wasn't like it didn't I don't know the
way it's described as a bit strange.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Do you have the quote, Ben.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Yeah, one of these people, and again, as Matt said,
you can find them, but just out of respect for them,
we're not gonna we're not gonna like platform their names
because these guys didn't do anything wrong. To be very clear,
one victim says, the last thing they remember is being
at a bar. They're ordering a round of drinks for friends,
(47:18):
the way you would do in any given night. And
then he quote then recalls briefly coming to in the
backseat of an accelerating vehicle while being restrained by an
unknown person and says, I just remember everything was black
in there. I was trying to scream but it was
like a hand was over me, forcing more of that
substance down my mouth. And the person says it wasn't
(47:41):
a liquid at this point, it was something solid. They
just don't know what. Yes, so a pill perhaps.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
We don't know.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
I don't know, right, well, I mean really.
Speaker 5 (47:51):
And just to finish up the encounter with that person,
it goes on to say he woke up several hours
later violently throwing up blood in a gas station bathroom
three miles away from the bar. Oh, like, I can't
imagine going through that. And he lost thirteen thousand dollars
that night.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
They must have had some sort of smarts in terms
of being able to get that much, because you know,
there are maximums for a zell and things like that
that are tied to your bank account, or you'd think
there'd be a block on it.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Atter.
Speaker 5 (48:22):
Well, these guys went into the person's phone, right, And
in a couple of cases, it also appears if you guys,
I guess I'm jumping ahead here, but if you go
to Google right, and you like, go to Google Maps
and you search for the five paces in and you
can check out their reviews. Who knows how many of
(48:43):
these reviews are a response to some of the reporting.
You know, sometimes there are reviews that are not genuine there.
It's almost like piling on when there's bad press about
a place. But a few of these at least seem
to be pointing out actual events where a purse was stolen,
a cell phone was stolen, or one of the you know,
(49:03):
someone was victimized in this way at this establishment, and
in a couple of them. It appears that there's enough
social engineering going on in this busy bar where think
about how many times if you don't use spatial recognition
on your phone, you pull up your phone and you
type your password in real quick? Do you hide every
(49:23):
time you do that? Do you put your phone away
and you know, quietly put your number in? Anybody could
glance over, you know, and just go, oh, I know
that number.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
Easy.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
You could even see the fingerprints. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Yeah, I think about that a lot. Yeah, and then same,
I mean, it's the same as a pen number at
an ATM or you know, a point of sale. There's
also additionally to this. We we see that there are
moonlighting cops, there are security officers there. But to be clear,
without you know, casting unfair aspersion on any of these
(49:59):
establisablishments of their staff. I think it's really important that
you pointed out, Matt, there have been similar complaints or
there have been complaints of theft, complaints of predatory behavior
and so on for quite some time in that area.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Yeah, well, so how do you fix that? Guys?
Speaker 5 (50:18):
If you want a place to go hang out in
public with other people and all feel safe, but also
that sense of you know, I'm out and it's not
not dangerous, what is the what is the exciting thing
about a club or a bar like that? Just that
you're with other people, you are seeing other people in
being seen, and what is it?
Speaker 3 (50:37):
It's the for a lot of folks. Well, the humans
are naturally gregarious, right, so there's there's a big thing about,
especially in a younger demographic or sorry, college age demographic,
you want to go out, meet and mingle. Tonight might
be the night that you fall in love for a weekend. Hey,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (50:56):
Well, there's a certain acceptance too of again letting a
little looser than you might and certain scenes or bars
or clubs are even more so that. Right, if you're
into this kind of thing, or maybe you're into these
kind of drugs or whatever. This is where you go.
So there's a certain cocoonness of it all where you're like,
this is an accepted behavior. I'm in my safe space
(51:19):
that can very quickly turn into a dangerous space.
Speaker 5 (51:21):
Well, I guess okay, So there are a couple of
things just my thoughts from that. How I just wonder
how much of that is controlled by the groups of
people that end up congregating at those specific locations over time. Right,
do they create their own culture, like including drugs or
whatever is occurring there, their own types of people or
(51:44):
do you think that's the owner and the staff. And
I think it's way more the human beings that decide
to congregate over time at a place, Right, I just
I don't in my mind we were talking about drugs
in like the places where you go get specific drugs.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
I just don't want to.
Speaker 5 (52:00):
I don't want any of those business owners or you know,
businesses themselves to be associated with that kind of thing
because I don't think it's them.
Speaker 2 (52:07):
I think it's just no.
Speaker 4 (52:09):
I'm sinking more generally too. I mean, I'm certainly not.
I have not been to any of these places. I
have no idea of reputation. I'm just talking about in general.
There are certain places people would gravitate to for certain
types of things.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
It's the oasis problem, okay, or that's the oasis situation right.
There is a source for congregation and resources that summons
the preyer. I don't even want to say pray that
summons the innocent people, and their presence in numbers summons
the predators. This is a very old thing. It is
not the fault of the staff. It's not the fault
(52:42):
of the innocent people. And to bring it all back
around to look into bit with how our conversation began
this evening. You know, if you started a church and
the same sort of activities happened in youth group and
was open to everybody, and eventually predatory elements would intrude.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
Yeah, well then, but how do you stop it? Extreme security?
I have like cameras everywhere, so you look at yeah,
well exactly so everybody.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
But again that might stop it.
Speaker 5 (53:13):
Everybody who comes in and out of the establishment is
identified basically, but again not probably what you want if
you're going to a place like that.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
Yeah, you want to be a stranger in the night.
Speaker 5 (53:23):
You know, you put it, you put a ton more officers,
like off duty police officers around. I don't think that
helps the situation either.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
I don't know. It's just I it freaks me out.
Speaker 5 (53:34):
Because I can't see even the hint of a real
solution right there.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
There's not really the problem is I mean, the pickle
of it is the answer. The impossible answer is to
create a society such that people do not feel driven
to commit crime to survive, right, or create a society
that somehow effectively disincentivizes is those actions, Or to somehow
(54:02):
alter human nature such that people don't drug these folks.
I mean, some of these folks who got drugged. This
happens every day in the US. Some of them could
have died. They were not being administered doses of something
by a medical professional. They could have eased.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
To date, at least two people died in the New
York attacks at the gay bars. And again, I don't
think these are crimes to survive. We're talking tens of
thousands of dollars. These are crimes for some kind of enterprise,
criminal enterprise that I think is bigger than just.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
A couple of people.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah, but we don't know.
Speaker 5 (54:36):
We don't know, but it leads me to believe that.
I think so this is large amounts of money. All right,
that's all I've got for this segment of Strange News.
Please do let us know if you hear anything about
these cases or if something like this is happening in
your town.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Be safe out there, folks. One thing we can say
for sure, we do not think cap Middleton is related
to these crimes, but we have not heard a official
source on that.
Speaker 4 (55:02):
Who's to say?
Speaker 3 (55:03):
Who's to say? Thank you so much for tuning into
this week's Strange News segment, folks, Thank you for writing in.
Tune in later this week. We have some excellent episodes
coming up. We have our listener mail program where we
hear directly from the best part of the show. You
and your fellow conspiracy realist. Hey, I'd like to be
part of the show.
Speaker 4 (55:21):
You may be.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
Saying, well, you are in luck, friends and neighbors. We
try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 4 (55:26):
Correct. You can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist on most of the social media platforms
of notes. That includes Facebook, x FKA, Twitter, and YouTube,
where we have lots of fun videos rolling out every week.
I think we've got the first entry in our George
Washington time Machine video that is now live and direct
(55:47):
on the internet. Please let us know what you think.
Matt edited it, sang in it, Ben stars in it.
It's just the best. It's a delight, and there's more
of that kind of stuff to come. You can also
find us to the handle conspiracy stuff on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 5 (56:01):
Hey, we have a phone number one eight three three
st d WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a
cool name, and then you've got three minutes to say
whatever you'd want. Please let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. If you've
got more to say they can fit in that message.
Why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (56:17):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (56:39):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.