Note: this week's strange news segment may not be appropriate for all audiences.
Authorities have uncovered a sophisticated sexual abuse and slavery ring in Alabama, including biological parents abusing their own children. The United States wants you to help pay the national debt by venmoing Uncle Sam directly. A scandal erupts in Thailand as police arrest a woman who allegedly seduced and blackmailed Buddhist monks. A grenade has gone missing from the scene of an explosion that killed 3 Los Angeles deputies. Plus a low-key plan to (finally) dim the sun.
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noa.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
They called me Ben where joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Exciting news for us
and hopefully for you as well. Folks, if you are
listening to this strange news program the evening it publishes,
(00:51):
it is August fourth, It is officially August. This is
going to be crazy for us. You know, this is
all a month that has a lot in store for
the three of us.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
LEO season yay R.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Shout out to all our Leonines in the crowd. I
remember having a discussion of the word leonine for something
new to me. Lee. Well, you know how we would say,
like someone is lionized. Leonine is it's complimentary.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Word, having the qualities of a line.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Right, Yeah, And we wanted to celebrate our our August
recording here by of course starting with a heist following
up on our earlier excellent story about a con man
involved in the world of sports memorabilia. Thank you for
(01:47):
bringing that one to us, Matt, there is a new
heist in the news. Millions of dollars worth of Miami
Heat memorabilia, including jerseys people wore at the Fire Finals,
have been stolen and sold on the black market. Are
their real ones? It's real memorabilia, so they say, so,
(02:10):
they say. If you want to learn more about that,
you can go to Yahoo's Sports. With some excellent reporting
by journalist Shane Galvin. This may be the largest heist
of sports collectibles ever.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
So sorry, I was about to say, yeah, dang putting
no Jada shame.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I know, I know, but there we go. Please check
it out in depth if you are so inclined.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
We love that Yahoo's had such a second life as
a news organization. You love to see it. You know
you'll love to see it.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
You'll love to see it. Yahoo has not gone missing.
It is not hiding. We're going to talk about that.
We're going to get into some exciting and disturbing true
crime across the world, particularly in the East Asian and
South Asian sphere, we might hit on some darker stories.
(03:06):
We are also going to look at some disturbing active
investigations out in Los Angeles. Before we do any of that,
you guys, let's say we take a break for a
word from our sponsors. Let's do it, and we have
(03:27):
returned everyone. I'd like to begin this part of our
Strange News program by playing a clip I think a
lot of us in the crowd tonight will recognize.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
And so my fellow Americans ask, not what your country
can do for you, ask what you can do for
your country?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
What can we do for our country?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Oh good, I'm so glad you asked, Noll. That's a
perfect setup, thanks to you and former President JFK that.
We'll have a follow up later. By the way, here's
what you can do for your country. You can now
venmo the US government to help pay off national debt.
Have you ever sorry, that's what you could do for
your country. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Do they have like a Patreon or something? Is there
a gofund me? You know campaign we've got right now.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
We want to make it easy for you to give
us your hard earned cash. Now, we're not going to
give you anything back. It's going to be a gift.
This went viral recently. The US government does accept Venmo.
Uncle Sam is not too good for PayPal, which also
rolled out earlier. This has been met with a lot
(04:41):
of hot takes, of course, because the national debt has skyrocketed.
But honestly, it feels like it's skyrockets more often than
it declines, does it not?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah, buy the government of coffee.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
You know, this is insane, It really is.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
This.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
This is absolutely it's satirical.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Is satirical.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's also not new. It is a true story. I
had to I had to dive in a little bit
to make sure this wasn't an accidental onion article. This
idea dates back to nineteen sixty one HR three eleven.
Not the band, but maybe the band's named after this.
It's called an Act to Authorize the Acceptance by Government
(05:26):
of gifts to be used to reduce the public debt.
This law authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to accept
your money wherever you're from on behalf of the United States,
so long as that money you are gifting but no
strings attached, is expressly used to reduce the national debt.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And we fully trust you the government to just use
that money to reduce the how much how many brillions
now thirty six.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Thirty six trillion yesez?
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Important question? Do we get to write this gift off
on our taxes as charity?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
That is a great question.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Why why would you be able to do that? If
you were if you could do that, then they would
just tax you, like right right, you're just paying your taxes.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Then doesn't that just like the question why would anybody
do this?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And is it even how does it even make sense
in any.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Especially especially in a governmental structure that absolutely bootlecks lobbying
and bribery, Like if you want bang for your buck,
then you're going to touch a politician, or if you've
got the scratch, you are going to superpack it.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
The issue here buy a ticket to a fancy dinner, sure.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Right, or go golfing whatever. But the issue here is again,
this is simply a gift. And I think a lot
of people who read past the headlines were as surprised
as us. Then this has been a thing for decades.
I'm not sure what the demographic they're looking for is,
(07:10):
but we do know that the US Treasury has just recently,
as of like July, expanded the methods through which you yourself
can give Uncle Sam some walking round pocket money.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
It would be awesome if it was like donating to
a local sheriff's department or something where you get a
sticker and then when you know the.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Ship ball yeah, oh oh sorry, I didn't mean to
pull you over, Dylan. I wasn't aware that it was you,
And we want to let you go. Thank you for
your contributions. Do you the give Thank you, Dylan for
your contributions. Uh to the police ball. It's very breaking
(07:57):
bad in the idea of those donations. Look, we know
the money gets dirty so quick. If you go to
theo Berman writing for Newsweek just a few days back,
we are recording on July thirtieth, Wednesday, twenty twenty five,
you'll see that the United States national debt surpass thirty
(08:18):
four trillion in twenty twenty four, just last year, and
now somehow there's another two trillion added on to that.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Wasn't that from the BBB, the big beautiful bill, right?
That added some number?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
For sure?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
This the original claims.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
We have to get under the hood to see exactly
how the debt is calculated here, but we do want
you to know if you want to be part of
the change yet or part of the cash, you can
donate essentially, And it's weird, you know what it reminds
me of. It reminds me of that moment at the
(08:59):
end of paying taxes where you're offered the option to
contribute to a number of charities, right, remember, like do
you want to contribute to the presidential campaigns? Do you
want to contribute to the following nonprofit organizations? And so on?
Speaker 4 (09:14):
I charities are a tax haven, right, I mean that's
sort of the point. I mean, not the Sorry, that's
not the point of charity, but the offer there is like,
oh maybe if I do this now, I will lower
my tax burden. Like that's sort of what they're offering you,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah. So we'd be interested to hear your thoughts folks
on how this is calculated first national debt. That's an
episode itself, given how many politicians have said the debt
doesn't matter or is not real when it suits them.
We also want to hear whether you would just randomly
(09:51):
hop on Venmo or PayPal and you know, throw a
couple bucks to this hard working government of ours.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Sorry, I I part of me gets it, like part
of me says, well, yeah, I mean, if I had
little extra money, then I wouldn't mind contributing to that.
But it is really a level of trust and that
that money would actually be allocated to that. And how
much of a dent could the American public possibly put
(10:25):
in that number? What was the I saw something in
the Newsweek article you shared something about how much was
offered by Americans in twenty twenty two. Do you have
that number?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah? Yeah, And it's like one of those GoFundMe campaigns
or kickstarters that makes you sad when you look at it.
In twenty twenty two, again, according to the reporting from
our pal theo Berman, Americans overall with this amazing opportunity
contributed a total of one hundred and eighty thousand in
(11:00):
three hundred and ten dollars and thirty two cents.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero yah zero
zero percent.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
But it's still amazing to me that that much money
was collected via this method.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I just don't trust it. Hell no, I feel like
it's gonna get slushed up so quick. To your earlier
point there, guys, I feel like it'll be something that
you can't really prove went to the national debt or
how do we also, how do we define going toward
the national debt? What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, we're gonna this is gonna help us craft a
new bill that's gonna relieve.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
The national debt.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
That's that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Cool. Yeah, and to do that, part of this one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars is paying for some fancy dinners.
It is flying us but to golf courses that we
have important conversations open.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, it's gonna be guys, this is for all of us.
That amount is going to pay for a fancy dinner
for the high level dinners.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I need a faberge egg right now. To solve this
stuff between Cambodia and Thailand, which is technically helping the
national deal.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I'm not sure if we talked about this, yeah, but
we certainly did initially. The Qatari Boeing seven forty seven
that was donated or whatever to the Air Force, apparently
it's going to cost around half a billion dollars to
retrofit it. Yeah, and then after the term of the
(12:35):
current president ends, he just kind of gets to keep it. Yeah,
it's taxpayer that's taxpayer money that goes to do that
thing for that gift.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, and Hexath has been revealed in recent news to
a sort of been the liaison for that deal. Now
in full disclosure, folks. And I think we mentioned this previously.
The Buttotic government has been trying to get rid of
that plane forever. It's inconveniently large, it doesn't work on
(13:06):
every every airstrip. So the idea of the idea of
it being a visible bribe does have some validity. But
also it's like a junker car in their front yard
that they just had to get rid of the part
of the reason it's so expensive to quote unquote retrofit
(13:29):
it is you essentially have to take the thing apart
to make sure there's no spoopy doop surveillance stuff going on. Yeah,
it's not a great look.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Hey, this one bolt is kind of weird. Guys, what
do you think.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I don't know. It keeps whispering to me in the dark.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Apparently there's a New York Times piece about this where
they talk about a mysterious nine hundred and thirty four
million dollar fund transfer from UH the Pentagon from one
of their programs modernizing ground based nuclear missiles, and there
are some budget sleuths that seem to believe that this
(14:11):
is meant for that refurbishing project.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
And so perhaps that will be an episode in the
future with respect to everybody's want to move to a
darker story, and I was on the fence about whether
or not we should report it, but I feel like
we're ethically bound to do so. This. If you're listening
(14:36):
with your kiddos, or if you have certain sensitivities, folks,
please fast forward about five to eight minutes. This may
not be this may not be the story for you.
Quite recently, guys, I don't know if you saw the news,
but seven suspects, including two mothers and other relatives, have
been arrested for running a an absolutely brutal child sexual
(15:03):
abuse spring. They were torturing kids with shot collars, they
were forcing them into abusive situations. If we go to
The Independent, with some excellent work by Isabelle Keene published
July twenty fourth, twenty twenty five, we're going to see
that there's an Alabama storm shelter where at least ten children,
(15:25):
some as young as three years old, were held captive
and tortured, often by their own biological relations.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Have you guys heard about this purest of evil? That's
all I can say.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, So if you go to BIB Counting, you'll hear
the sheriff, Jodie Wade, speaking during a press conference Wednesday
and stating that so far, at least ten victims have
been identified. But when the sheriff said that, the sheriff
also said that the number of victims and the number
(16:02):
of rest would likely increase. We don't know what's going on.
I would like to share a quote from Sheriff Wade.
It is the following quote. I have been in law
enforcement for thirty three years and this is absolutely the
most horrible thing I've ever seen when it comes to
the victimization of children. I know God's forgiveness is boundless.
(16:23):
Keep in mind this is Alabama. But if there was
a limit to it, I think we've reached it. So
two of the assailants here were the biological mothers of
the victims.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Yeah, that much I can say about that. I mean
totally accurate that it needs to be People need to
know that this kind of evil exists in the world.
I don't know what I can do about it, it
really does. It's the kind of thing that makes you
feel a little hopeless.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Right, It's also the kind of thing to add to
that makes me wonder how many other situations like this
are out there?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
That's what I mean, that's where your mind goes.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Right, and the news is focused on the Epstein scandal,
rightly so, but how many other things like this are
happening below the radar right and not being reported as widely,
possibly because there's not a political calculation involved. It's just
(17:29):
the good guys against the evil guys.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Well, these people aren't rich either, I mean, yeah, I
mean I know that's what you mean. Look at the picture.
This is like you know, I'm not trying to demonize
any particular segment of any population, but I mean these
are definitely low income, you know, white people.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
And they all live very closely together in a small
town which is called Brent, Alabama. They will be arraigned
in August. The the investigation is ongoing, and I know
that it's such a such an unclean thing. It's just
(18:09):
I'm bringing this because I feel like it shows us
how easily these other things can go under the radar
because people considered powerful or wealthy are not involved.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Do you think that Maxwell's going to get pardon.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
It's an open question right now, like what was in
the box not to quote seven, but the box Delaine
Maxwell walked away with.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
So then it's about her leverage, it's not about what's right.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
There are ongoing conversations about oh, she got denied immunity
for testifying to Congress. Still it will be worth the
testimony if only that it gives lawmakers the ability to
ask a question such that Maxwell would have to plead
(18:59):
the fifth It's it's terrible spaghetti all around. It's a messy,
messy bowl.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
We also, I guess, I guess. I just mean, like
with stories like this and the the things that we
know that Epstein did, it does start to feel like
at a certain level it isn't about what's right, it's
and and and and it's maybe a time where there
needs to be some kind of line in the sand
as far as like who will you continue to support,
you know, when it's clear that that moral compass is
(19:28):
just non existent.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Interesting because Joe Broken used the exact same figure of
speech he drew Alive. I think I from ein stuff
It's true.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
I mean, I just I do tend to agree that
we are at a tipping point. How far is too far?
It becomes the question, and to the quote that you
mentioned from the law enforcement person, how far is God's
whatever uh forgiveness? How far does it stretch? And is
this beyond that limit?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And what will you as the public allow? Right? Your
overton window of evil? Doesn't it shift? Is it absolute?
I think we've got a lot of work to do
on this, and I can tell this resonates with all
of us, So thank you for letting me share these stories, Guys,
disturbing as they may be, we don't have time to
(20:17):
get to another story that we do want to mention.
It's flown under the radar a bit. Missionaries have been
discovered using secret audio devices to evangelize isolated indigenous communities
in Brazil. They're literally hiding speakers jeuz that are just
(20:39):
emanating biblical passages.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
It's like ghost tape type stuff. Are they trying to
like convince them like that there are spirits or something?
Or is this just about repetition propaganda? I'm confused about
the methodology.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
It's propaganda, right, And there's an interesting argument over whether
or not all proselytizing religion is propaganda. But if you
want to learn more about that, folks, please check out
an excellent article from the Guardian that's a good primer
for this. This was written by John Reid and Daniel
Biasetto over in Brazil. Do check it out. I think
(21:14):
we should also do an episode on uncontacted tribes, which
are often misrepresented in various Western explorations. That's it. I
yield my time. I know we ran a little bit long,
but we had some points we had to get to
and some important conversation. We're going to pause for a
word from our sponsors and we'll be back with more
strange news.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
And we're back with strange news. This is one that
I didn't have time to get to the other week.
I think it's a worthwhile discussion on its own. Tie
woman arrested for blackmailing monks with thousands of videos after sex.
That comes from the BBC's Jiraporn shriyam Shiham and co Away.
(22:07):
Police in Thailand have arrested a woman who allegedly had
sexual relations with Buddhist monks and then use photos and
videos to extort them. She is being referred to as
MS Golf by police and is alleged to have had
sex with at least nine monks and received around three
(22:31):
hundred and eighty five million bot or eleven point nine
million dollars eight point eight million pounds over the course
of three years, and this arrest took place last week.
Investigators searched her home and found more than eighty thousand
photos and videos that were used to blackmail the monks.
(22:53):
Spokesman said, So, okay, this is one of a handful
of scandals that have rocked Thailand's Buddhist institution, which over
the last decade or so has been the subject of
numerous allegations of monks engaging with sex and drug trafficking. Okay,
(23:16):
the drug trafficking thing is its own issue. I do
think it's interesting that these individuals who are you know,
have taken a vow of celibacy. It would appear that
they're participating in consensual sex between adults, heterosexual sex with
a person of age. So this is not in the
(23:39):
same ballpark, I would argue, as you know scandals rocking
the Catholic Church, where of course a lot of these
scandals involve sex with minors and you know, coercive sex
and you know, extreme levels of abuse. So it does
kind of become a question about the nature of these
(23:59):
types of valw and you know, what leads to the
ability for someone to do this kind of blackmail. And
obviously this is a cultural thing. This is a matter
of you know, the people of Thailand and and their
trust in these institutions and their and judgments around individuals
(24:19):
who claim to be a part of this type of
religious order and then go back on their vows. But
it would also appear that no crime has been committed
by these monks. The crime that is being committed, of course,
is by this woman who has engaged in significant extortion
and blackmail of these folks. So I don't know, maybe
let's start with it there. And again I'm not trying
(24:41):
to do any kind of necessarily critique of the religious
vow of celibacy and the concept of it, but it
does it's interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, because look, we have to I appreciate you establishing
from the jump here that there is a marked difference
between the way those vows are treated in monasticism in
Buddhism versus monasticism in say, the Catholic institution. In general,
(25:13):
Buddhist monks are expected to be celibate and are expected
not to marry. But it kind of varies from place
to place, you know, Like how there are some Muslim populations,
especially in the Stands or Eurasia, who clearly follow Islam
but will drink vodka that kind of stuff right there,
(25:34):
It's not a uniform rollout. And as we know, you know,
those of us who have had experience with Thai Buddhism
here in the States are abroad. I got to tell you.
Sometimes there are Buddhist monks from Thailand who travel internationally
(25:57):
and get a little amorous, and it's a it's a
huge scandal. So to your point there, Noel, it's clearly
a reputation that cannot be repaired. And that's why this
extortion grift is working so well. The seduction, the exposure,
the threat right of violating your vows, even if you
(26:22):
ordinarily didn't always practice them, it can force you to
leave the wat or the position of being a monk.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
It's such a strange concept to me, this idea of.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Denying.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
In order to be closer to whatever deity that we worship,
you have to deny one of the if not the
primary function that your biological body has which is to
mate and continue to have more of yourself, which is
like one of the reasons that it is the primary
reason that any biological creature exists that reproduces with sexual reproduction, right,
(27:03):
if you look from an evolutionary standpoint, that is what
creatures do. Like I was just fighting a wasp infestation
in my attic, And the whole reason that the mother
wasp creates that specific type of nest and then fills
it with spiders is so that the babies can eat
their way out and have sustenance to then become a
(27:25):
wasp and do the same thing. And just the control
mechanism of telling somebody from high above, hey, if you
want to be a part of this thing, you can't
have sex. Ever, not once you're not allowed to have sex.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I can kick a little bit of historical context for
this if we want, well, we Taylicism and in Buddhism. Yeah,
also wasp, thank you for figs. Nice one, guys.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Weird right, also weird.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
All it is so weird, so many weird things.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And just like the way flowers look sexy, you know,
to exact certain insects. Oh yeah, ditation's a hell of
a drug, right.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Oh my gosh. Now I'm picturing landing on an alien
planet with the aliens. They're already keyed into humans and
all their foibles and just making their own version of flowers. Yep,
that look like sexy humans.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Man, oh, I got it right.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Then we get stuck in them.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Were just stuck in a yeah, so okay historical context
in the Catholic sense, in the Western sense. The idea
of celibacy, however it's packaged, is also very much a
political mechanism, like Matt set of control mechanism, because we
have to remember the way inheritance worked in a lot
of powerful families was that one kid got all the
(28:46):
toys in the land, and if there was another kid,
that kid better like God, and that kid would be
put in a situation where they would not be allowed
to reproduce and create a threat or divide the lineage.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
King e to a nunnery.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Right. So that's a big part of why just practically
like God and spirituality. I don't mean to sound dismissive,
but all the high fluting stuff aside, that is the
practical reason.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Well, and I was going to say too, a lot
of these types of things feel like remnants from a
bygone era where they at the time had some function
within society, but now they don't anymore, and they're being
held onto for exclusively for these reasons of control or
just like blind adherence to tradition.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Legacy is a hell of a drug.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Absolutely no, and again I'm not trying to it's interesting
the president of Thailand, king or a king of Thailand
rather excuse me, Vajira Longkorn revoked a royal command that
he'd issued in June which conferred higher titles to eighty
one months, so he basically demoted them, saying that recent
cases of misconduct have caused Buddhists to suffer greatly in
(30:04):
their minds. Again, this BBC article points out that more
than ninety percent of the population of Thailand identify as Buddhists.
Monks are looked at with the highest levels of reverence,
and many Thai men actually temporarily become ordained in order
to accumulate good karma.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yes, that is true. Actually, it's kind of like how
you know in some countries you are required to do
a couple of years of military service, like it's just
part of your citizenship or existence. There is in different
forms of Buddhism, and we're not experts. There is a
requirement to serve with a lot or serve with a
(30:46):
monastic order in some way or a contained amount of time.
It's a very much a real thing. Like my girlfriend's
dad is talking about it now, like he might be
required to go be a monk for a minute. I
mean it's longer than a minute. I just like the.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Alliteration for no no, I like it too, man. And
last thing for me, the religious order, the Buddhist you
know order, is governed by a kind of a board
almost that is called the Sangha Supreme Council, and it
is claiming to be in the process of forming a
(31:25):
special committee to review monastic regulations, which is interesting because
it doesn't necessarily say that they're looking into these cases
of of you know, misconduct that they're looking into maybe
that they need to tweak the regulation the regulations a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
I love it. A holy version of jury nullification.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Yeah right, it does read that way a little bit.
I'm not crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It does read that way a little bit, it does.
I agree.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I want to say some more things, but I don't
have them in the same right guys, So I'm going
to just I'm stuck here now in this concept of
just withholding this from an institutional place like the I
feel like it's so universal. If you're of age and
you have, you know, been sexual one time, even if
that's just with yourself, right, once you know that feeling,
(32:19):
once you know that sensation, and then once you have
a partner, no matter who that partner is, no matter
what the purposes of the sexual interaction you're having is,
whether it's to have kids or even if you cannot
have kids. With the type of sexual interactions you're having,
that that thing inside you is the same. It's a
biological urged thing that's inside you, right, that feel that
(32:42):
you get from interactions like that, the comfort that you
get with especially when you have somebody else that's around you.
Because we talked about it before, the chemicals that get released,
that all the stuff that keeps couples together, all that
stuff that it's all positive things that end up happening
in your body. When you have something like that and
it's consensual and it's you know, of people who are
(33:05):
adults and all that stuff, it's it's so strange to
me to make that the thing.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Well, and it also kind of implies this sort of
view of sex as something impure, like going against that
biological imperative. Like you would think that the highest most
revered among us in a society would be the ones
we wanted to reproduce the most, but instead we deprive
(33:32):
them of that for whatever reason, and it creates all
of these opportunities for scandal. I just don't understand that
view because it seems to even like in Catholicism, like
with with priests and stuff, there is this inherent view
of sexual conduct as bad.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Sure, yeah, why, well it's a way a Celtics want
you to reproduce. It.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Just I just don't understand there's this, there's this disconnect.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I want you to reproduce in a narrowly defined and
scope right, a very narrow, highly regulated field of play, marriage, right,
and sex for the purpose of reproduction not recreation. Uh this,
I feel like everybody who's unfamiliar with this concept, if
there are a few of us left, should check out
our previous episodes on how cults are for right and
(34:20):
how these organizations uh do do say you know, look
but don't touch, touch, but don't taste. Now I'm quoting
Devil's advocate.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
I love it, but that's a different.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
But then there's somebody at the top who's having their
fill and just ah, but you can't.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Oh, the Medici popes to those guys were wild. It
was Panama City, spring break, the entirety of their run.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Kinky pattis yeah, well, I mean it goes back, right,
so ancient religious orders. You can think about what's going
down in Rome and Greece and just take it back
to the ancient empire. So especially religious.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Leaders requisite castoration and so.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Oh yeah, well, and then just I think about the
studies that I'm done with children, and specifically the one
where there's two you get two marshmallows if you can
leave that one there and withhold right right, But most
of the kids, especially American kids, ate that first marshmallow
because they it's just difficult to control something where especially
when for some reason humans, when you're told you can't
(35:23):
do something, you're not supposed to do something, there's some
urge within a lot of us that says, I need
to do that thing, give me it, right.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Thank you, dare program.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I'm thanks, guys, but it's just it's so deep in there.
I don't know what it I don't know, Well, it's.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Reptile brain stuff, you know. I mean, like and again,
a lot of these things, like we know, even those
adaptations of the animal urges and drives and survival instincts,
we've kind of outlived their usefulness in the way they
were originally designed, so we kind of have to like
fill those things with other stuff. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I feel like that's because you're not. Really you're not.
In very few cases are you removing the urge, even
if you physically prevent the consummation of that urge. I
would look also toward the Ottoman Empire, right, which had
an entire system of institutionalized castration, the Eunuchs, right, the
(36:25):
Kisler Naga, for instance, the white Unich, the black Unich.
It's not a racial thing. It's their role in the Harem,
and they channeled this. You could argue, I've talked with
too many folks about this, but you could argue that
those folks who were without their consent, deprived of what
(36:47):
would have been their normal sexual activity, they sought other
things out. And that's part of why this specific part
of the Ottoman Empire became such a powerful institution right there.
Look if someone is possessed by virtue of their existence,
(37:11):
of their natural inclinations that do not harm other people,
that's the important part, that do not harm other people,
that are, as Noel said, consensual. Then when you prevent
those people from existing the way they would have normally, right,
then there is always going to be an almost Newtonian response,
(37:34):
There is going to be an equal and opposite reaction
to that action foisted upon them. I yield my time.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Sorry, I was feeling and may think that's why we
see so much abuse in the church, in the in
the Catholic Church, it's that like equal and opposite reaction
to deprivation, which a lot of times it gets complicated
because things like guilt get figured into it and it
becomes psychologically rife or fraud rather.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Yeah, well, you're also forcefully sexualizing children, right, who then
grew up to be adults, and then that is the
way that they were sexualized. So you know it it
make I don't know if you guys saw some of
the stories coming out of BBC on this place called Rotherham.
(38:20):
It's it's a place where gangs, grooming gangs have been
active since the mid nineties and again so it's like,
it's not just churches. It's not it's not just all
these things. It's abuse of this type where they they
start the children very young, these gangs do. But then
the South Yorkshire Police, at least according to many investigations
(38:41):
that have been ongoing for decades or showing that it
was the police as well, because they could individuals within
some of that department could make use of the way
the children were already.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Groomed and exactly, and it.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Makes you really identify with with Marty Hart from True
Detective season one, and it makes you wish that some
of these folks could just get the LaDue treatment because dang,
that just shouldn't be allowed to exist.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Five survivors of Ratherham grooming gangs say they were also
raped by police officers just came out today. Yeah, this
is news to me.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
I remember reading some of that last night.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
This was in the UK.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah. The issue Future Area two is that it calls
into question all of the other public statements from people
in the United Kingdom that did trend. To be clear,
they did trend towards xenophobic and Islamophobic and all that stuff,
but there were when there is smoke, you should look
(39:49):
and see whether there is a fire. There is a
non zero chance that at least some members some factions
of UK law enforcement were beat opportunistic predators and we're
hiding or slow footing. If I can make that word
up an investigation that should have occurred, I don't. I
(40:13):
don't know, man, I'm just gonna say it. Look, British friends,
love you to pieces, love you to bits. There's some
stuff going on in that archipelago and it just keeps
getting covered up.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Yeah, stuff going on everywhere, for sure, though, Ben and
I just add the last little detail from an AP
piece on this scandal. Will Iwan m Sawatt is her name,
in her mid thirties, was arrested her home north of Bangkok.
She's being charged with extortion, money laundering, and receiving stolen goods,
and police traced money transferred to her by a senior
(40:46):
monk from a bank account belonging to his temple in
northern Thailand. So this is from last week. No updates
as of yet, but yeah, good conversation.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Y know.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
It's dark stuff, but I I had a feeling it
would go in some of these directions, so I'm glad
we got to it. Let's take a quick break here,
a word from our sponsor, and then return with another
piece of strange news.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
All right, we've returned. Let's uh yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Yeah, that's okay, it's okay, not on purpose, just sometimes
it just be like.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Be like that, well, this is not gonna get any
brighter really besides the one explosion that will be right.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, oh and then it gets a little different.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah, there we go. Yeah, immediately, Sorry, Okay, let's jump to.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
It's always darkest before the grenade explosion.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Yeah, that's right. Uh, let's jump to The Guardian. We're
gonna go through some reporting from them, and then jump
to ABC in a couple other places. We're following an
ongoing story here that is occurring in Los Angeles County,
Los Angeles, California, here in the States. So so, the
first report came out on July eighteenth. Explosion at Los
(42:05):
Angeles law enforcement training facility kills three people. I'm going
to read directly from this article here. The news as
it came out reported that an explosion at a training
facility in Los Angeles killed three human beings who were
with the county's Sheriff's department, and it was the largest
(42:25):
loss of life the agency has seen since eighteen fifty seven,
when four officers were killed by gunfire. The three deputies
who were killed were members of the sheriff Department's Arson
Explosives Detail, So immediately it sounds as though three men
were killed in explosion while they were working on some
(42:46):
kind of explosives project. Right, We don't know more than that.
That was all according to Robert Luna, who's the acting
Los Angeles County Sheriff. The incident took place shortly after
seven am on Friday, July eighteen. The explosion occurred at
the Department's Special Enforcement Bureau in the Arson Explosives Detail facility.
(43:08):
In the parking lot there is where it appears to
have occurred, at least initially from the helicopter footage that
was able to be captured by you know, NBC and
some of the local affiliates there.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
So not on to be clear, not in some kind
of previously established training ground.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yes, like getting to the facility where you would have
stuff like that. Right, so it appears that there were
explosives possibly in transit. It was a parking lot filled
with patrol cars, box trucks, things like that. The bomb
squad of the Los Angeles Police Department responded to the
scene to render the devices safe whatever, you know, if
(43:48):
there were any other devices and what was occurring, and
that task took a little over four hours. The FBI
and the ATF were also there assisting in the investigation,
basically to figure out what the heck happened. And in
that moment, at this time, on July eighteenth, there wasn't
any other information. The investigators at that time didn't think
(44:09):
there was any threat to anybody. They didn't believe that someone,
you know, blew up the car that held those people.
They didn't believe that it was an attack. They just thought, Okay,
something terrible has happened. These guys are involved with explosives.
Let's find out what that thing is. Then we jumped
to after there was some more information that started to
(44:30):
come out after that time, over the course of a week,
but a little less than ten days later, on July
twenty sixth, The Guardian also reported, and I'm using The
Guardian by the way, because it's just it's not one
of the primary US news outlets on purpose, because generally
these places will take a more filtered approach to news
that's coming out or directly from whatever department is, you know,
(44:52):
making a public statement.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
And on critically, yes, from that department, just objective.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Here's what happened. So let's go to that. The title
is grenade missing from scene of blasts that killed three
LA police officers. So here's where it gets a little strange.
I'm just gonna read again directly from the Guardian here,
going back to Sheriff Luna here, he said that the
(45:17):
three men were working on two quote military style unquote
grenades when one detonated. The other is unaccounted for, and
that's according to the ATF, who is directly investigating the
blast now at this point. Sheriff Luna also said that
authorities have x rayed Special Enforcement Bureau vehicles, They've searched
(45:37):
the entire blast area. They've examined office spaces, the gym
that's located there. They have not found anywhere this second
potentially deadly grenade that's out there. Here's why it's important.
These two grenades that were seized at some apartment complex
like a town home complex in Santa Monica a day
(45:59):
before or the explosion occurred on the seventeenth. He said
that they x rayed the devices themselves and everybody involved
believed that these devices were inert, meaning they cannot explode
on their own. They are not going to explode likely,
even if you know with a grenade situation, if you
have a pullpin or something that would strike the thing,
(46:21):
that would cause the grenade to explode or cause the
fuse at least to be lit. They said, according to
their findings, these are the guys who are the explosives experts.
By the way, they say, these things are good to go.
We can move them right, and that's all they were doing.
They were moving them. After they got examined, the devices
(46:43):
were taken to be quote destroyed and rendered safe at
that specific facility in the parking lot where they exploded.
It was not known at that time if the grenades
had any connection to the military, though they were military
style grenades at least that's what they're reporting.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
I was going to ask about that, Yeah, what type
of what type of grenade, because we know military style
can be somewhat of an umbrella term, kind of like
saying the assailant had a long gun.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yeah, well, which military right, Because each country's military uses
different types of grenade, some of them are similar some
of them so different, you know, And some grenades are explosives,
and as you stated, there been some grenades have a
different kind of yield, a different kind of thing that
happens when they explode.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Frag grenades or fragmentation I should say, I can't assume
everybody knows that one, but concussion, you know, But in
this case, it's definitely not just like a smoke grenade,
because three people are dead.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
Yeah, this was some type of fragmentation grenade, explosive grenade.
And again when you say military style, there's so many
different types of even a frag grenade that have been
used by the US military over the years, and right,
who knows, but it was something like that, and it
was found in that place, right, So probably a place
(48:08):
in a town home where you shouldn't have grenades, and
you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I don't think they ran that past the landlid.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Yeah, you know, but you know, some people do collect
military memorabilia and things like that, well, like an inert
grenade or a grenade that doesn't actually have any explosives
in it, but it's the shell of a grenade. Some
people collect that kind of stuff and whatever. That's fine.
I think some people even collect the other stuff, just
not on a on the level, let's say.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
And it's very easy to mistake something for inert if
you're not an expert. Just like you should always treat
any gun, even a gun at a museum that has
its barrel filled with lead. Any gun should be treated
as actively loaded, safety off, even if you just check
the safety. Any explosive device, no matter how fun and
(49:03):
cool the museum looks, should be treated as though it
can go off.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yep, yep. And again, these individuals, the three men killed.
Detective Ecklund had nineteen years of experience, Detective Limis had
twenty two years of experience in Detective Osbourne had thirty
three years of experience in that sheriff's department. And they
were explosives arson experts, and they used very sensitive, specialized
(49:31):
equipment to make sure these things were safe. And then
they went off, and then a grenade is missing. That's
what That's why it makes you think maybe something else
is at play here, Maybe something else happened, Maybe just
something we don't understand occurred. Right as especially as an
ATF agent whose third party coming in to investigate a
(49:52):
scene like that, there are so many unknowns at that
point of how the heck did this happen? Why is
the other one gone?
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah, and this is not a situation where, for instance,
the two explosive devices could be close enough together that
one is just obliterated, you would still be able to
find fragments of it.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Yeah, theoretically, that's part of a fragmentation grenade. Right, that's
one of the things it does, the specially designed ones
you've probably seen in video games or movies that have
the little ridges around them. That's because those ridges fragment
and become the weapon shrapnel. Yeah, it's specialists with ATF
and the FBI would be able to easily ascertain if
(50:38):
there's enough material to constitute two explosives. Right, it's just creepy.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, I'm picking up or putting down here because the
question is the missing grenade that some of the reporter
and your shared tells us that the devices were originally
discovered after tenant had left the previous tenant who may
have been in the US military. But let's say the
(51:07):
quiet part out loud. We have questions until that other
grenade is found, there is a non zero possibility that
there might have been something more than an accident at play,
especially given the decades and decades of experience these l
eos had.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
Yeah, so maybe you're listening to this and you're in
the Los Angeles County area of just quickly, you're probably
following this already. But Sheriff Luna and Kenny Cooper, who's
a special Agent in charge there at the ATF, said, hey,
if you do see something that you think maybe could
possibly be a grenade, whatever you do, do not touch
(51:47):
the dang thing and call somebody.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Those poor kids LA is already stressed, a stressed out
right with the with that, the huge earthquake, the not
uncommon natural disasters. Imagine being one of those kids in
the LA area. You wake up, you have to you
have to go to school or do your kids stuff,
and then your parents go, m okay, I want to
(52:13):
I want to be straight with you, tyler. Uh, this
is what a grenade is. If you see something that
looks like I know you got a lot going on, bud,
But if you see something that looks like this run away. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
Well and if you're a kid and you see something
like that, your curiosity gets pequed. And that's something that
we've all got And oh.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
This is the thing Dad told me to look out
for and not mess with.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, well, especially if you don't get warned, you know, like,
oh dude, what is that a grenade? Because all these
kids are playing college for Fortnite, all of them have
grenades in them.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Just what this is a hope that everybody is very
careful and whoever it was in Marina del Rey that
Marina del Rey.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Sorry too much, you had to do it.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
Just you know, whoever that is, I hope that person
is being talked to and coming forward just to have
an understanding of what's going on. And hopefully there's not
somebody out there that's got one of these things there
wants to use it for one reason or another.
Speaker 4 (53:18):
Can I really quickly just say without going into it,
because I mean, the news is out there and it
is what it is. How crazy is it that it
didn't even make the cut today that there was another
mass shooting in an office building in midtown Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (53:31):
Yeah, it's just crazy that. I mean, I'm not casting
aspersions at any of the three of us. It literally
just occurred to me that is the level of business
as usual that that kind of thing as people.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Well, yeah, we're also not going to talk about the
Reno shooting at the casino where the man's like paced
back and forth for forty five minutes and was observed
doing so before he got his gun out and went
up to the vallet area and started shooting people.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
And we had one line at best about the the
situation in Thailand and Cambodia, and then one line maybe
about the huge earthquake that's sending tsunamis across across the ocean.
It's a lot of stuff. Yeah, and that's why this
is a continuing mission for us. And I couldn't be
(54:17):
happier for us to have teamed up together on these things,
even in the darkest of times.
Speaker 4 (54:23):
No, no question, it keeps me sane. I love you guys.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
We love you too, man, I like both of.
Speaker 5 (54:33):
I love you.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Yeah. I thought Dylan was going to hit us with
that oh that cold, that cold wind of a relationship
talk where Dyl is going to pause and go, you're great, God,
you have such personalities. Sorry, we're derailing mass speaking of
cold wind.
Speaker 3 (54:53):
Back in three roughly two years ago, Ben, I think
you brought to the table a store about a weird
concept that the White House had of like, maybe we
should study blocking out the sun with some stuff, you know,
matrix style.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Let's do it, do it, cowards.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
Well, we have some updates from that that That original reporting,
at least that I had seen, came from Politico from
one Corbyn. Hyar hi ar again. That was July first,
twenty twenty three, when that came out. You can look
it up. The title of the article is white House
cautiously opens the door to study blocking sun's raised to
(55:34):
slow global warming.
Speaker 4 (55:37):
I want my VENMO to go towards that project. That's us.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
Yeah, Okay, I don't care how you rationalize it, guys.
Just make it happen.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
Okay, that's good.
Speaker 4 (55:45):
Sun sucks. We're on records upon it. The yellow sun.
This insists upon itself.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
So I'm so glad to hear, and I think all
our fellow damp here are happy to hear that the
project may be moving forward well.
Speaker 3 (55:59):
And I don't maybe is it a good thing. I
don't know. Seems like maybe the worst thing, but also great.
Corbyn is back though, and in Politico he's writing again
now July twenty seventh, twenty twenty five. You can read
this article. Researchers quietly planned a test to dim sunlight.
They wanted to quote avoid scaring the public. And it
(56:22):
goes into deep, full detail of the backing of some
of this stuff, the billionaire money that was coming in,
the government money that was coming in, and this basically
a really quiet attempt to see in this little spot
over the ocean right near Puerto Rico, to see if
they could actually do this thing and then to maybe
(56:45):
unleash it on all of us.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
Uh, okay, it is, I caught you, it is.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
But but we're talking about blotting out the sun guys.
Speaker 2 (56:59):
Yeah, that's some lex there right there. It's the army
you have, you know, let's figure it out.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
Is it to you? Just asking for.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
I would go I would go with luthor, but I'm
they change it.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
And depending on the movie and the and the whatever.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
Well, it's kind of like how we would say sure
versus sure, or how we would say for versus four.
Speaker 4 (57:25):
We've just gotten Everybody's just sounds more like he man
ask more extreme sorry or cal l right, Yes, cadence
makes sense.
Speaker 2 (57:35):
So yeah, there are I mean, there are always wild
drawing board projects like this. This one feels a little
bit different.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Well, because it was a real test. They actually tried
to do it, and then he got shut down because
they didn't give enough warning. And they all they did
was they told the New York Times like a pr thing.
They're like, hey, new York, all right, we're gonna blow
out the sun a little bit, Steve. If it works,
all right, I hope you guys are good. And then
the local authority said, hey, you didn't you didn't say that.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
You didn't say you were doing c seed on this email.
This one should have been a wider conversation. Yeah, speaking
of consent.
Speaker 4 (58:11):
Geez.
Speaker 3 (58:11):
Anyway, check out those articles. It might be worth a
full episode from us at some point just to really
go over what they were planning and could that actually
work and do we want.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
To do that? And that's it for me, and our
mission continues. Folks, Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. We want to hear your thoughts on these
and all the other stories. We do also want to
point out something we didn't get to, our own fellow
(58:42):
Atlanta resident Julian Brown and the conversation about plastly his term,
and we're going to get to that maybe in the
next few weeks. In the meantime, we want to hear
from you. Tell us your thoughts. You can find us
in an email, You can find us via telephonic code.
You can all so find us on the lines correct.
Speaker 4 (59:02):
You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where
it gets crazy, on xfka, Twitter, and on YouTube where
we have videos for your perusing, enjoyment. On Instagram and TikTok.
On the other hand, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show and
there's more.
Speaker 3 (59:19):
Oh yes, we have a phone number. It is one
eight three three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. When
you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let
us know within the message if we can use your
name and message on the air. If you've got links,
maybe the hyperkind, maybe you've got attachments of kitty kats
(59:40):
or something that will lift all of our spirits, why
not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back and yes we do know about shall lend
temple ceo monk speaking of violation of holy folks is
being probe for cartoonish embezzlement. May have had a lot
(01:00:07):
of kids, like a Djengus God level lot of kids.
Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
Ooh, good call, Ben did not catch that. That's interesting
in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
We're going to get back with that and more strange news.
Join us out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noa.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
They called me Ben where joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Exciting news for us
and hopefully for you as well. Folks, if you are
listening to this strange news program the evening it publishes,
(00:51):
it is August fourth, It is officially August. This is
going to be crazy for us. You know, this is
all a month that has a lot in store for
the three of us.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
LEO season yay R.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Shout out to all our Leonines in the crowd. I
remember having a discussion of the word leonine for something
new to me. Lee. Well, you know how we would say,
like someone is lionized. Leonine is it's complimentary.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Word, having the qualities of a line.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Right, Yeah, And we wanted to celebrate our our August
recording here by of course starting with a heist following
up on our earlier excellent story about a con man
involved in the world of sports memorabilia. Thank you for
(01:47):
bringing that one to us, Matt, there is a new
heist in the news. Millions of dollars worth of Miami
Heat memorabilia, including jerseys people wore at the Fire Finals,
have been stolen and sold on the black market. Are
their real ones? It's real memorabilia, so they say, so,
(02:10):
they say. If you want to learn more about that,
you can go to Yahoo's Sports. With some excellent reporting
by journalist Shane Galvin. This may be the largest heist
of sports collectibles ever.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
So sorry, I was about to say, yeah, dang putting
no Jada shame.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I know, I know, but there we go. Please check
it out in depth if you are so inclined.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
We love that Yahoo's had such a second life as
a news organization. You love to see it. You know
you'll love to see it.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
You'll love to see it. Yahoo has not gone missing.
It is not hiding. We're going to talk about that.
We're going to get into some exciting and disturbing true
crime across the world, particularly in the East Asian and
South Asian sphere, we might hit on some darker stories.
(03:06):
We are also going to look at some disturbing active
investigations out in Los Angeles. Before we do any of that,
you guys, let's say we take a break for a
word from our sponsors. Let's do it, and we have
(03:27):
returned everyone. I'd like to begin this part of our
Strange News program by playing a clip I think a
lot of us in the crowd tonight will recognize.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
And so my fellow Americans ask, not what your country
can do for you, ask what you can do for
your country?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
What can we do for our country?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Oh good, I'm so glad you asked, Noll. That's a
perfect setup, thanks to you and former President JFK that.
We'll have a follow up later. By the way, here's
what you can do for your country. You can now
venmo the US government to help pay off national debt.
Have you ever sorry, that's what you could do for
your country. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Do they have like a Patreon or something? Is there
a gofund me? You know campaign we've got right now.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
We want to make it easy for you to give
us your hard earned cash. Now, we're not going to
give you anything back. It's going to be a gift.
This went viral recently. The US government does accept Venmo.
Uncle Sam is not too good for PayPal, which also
rolled out earlier. This has been met with a lot
(04:41):
of hot takes, of course, because the national debt has skyrocketed.
But honestly, it feels like it's skyrockets more often than
it declines, does it not?
Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah, buy the government of coffee.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
You know, this is insane, It really is.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
This.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
This is absolutely it's satirical.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Is satirical.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's also not new. It is a true story. I
had to I had to dive in a little bit
to make sure this wasn't an accidental onion article. This
idea dates back to nineteen sixty one HR three eleven.
Not the band, but maybe the band's named after this.
It's called an Act to Authorize the Acceptance by Government
(05:26):
of gifts to be used to reduce the public debt.
This law authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to accept
your money wherever you're from on behalf of the United States,
so long as that money you are gifting but no
strings attached, is expressly used to reduce the national debt.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And we fully trust you the government to just use
that money to reduce the how much how many brillions
now thirty six.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Thirty six trillion yesez?
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Important question? Do we get to write this gift off
on our taxes as charity?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
That is a great question.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Why why would you be able to do that? If
you were if you could do that, then they would
just tax you, like right right, you're just paying your taxes.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Then doesn't that just like the question why would anybody
do this?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Right?
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And is it even how does it even make sense
in any.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Especially especially in a governmental structure that absolutely bootlecks lobbying
and bribery, Like if you want bang for your buck,
then you're going to touch a politician, or if you've
got the scratch, you are going to superpack it.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
The issue here buy a ticket to a fancy dinner, sure.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Right, or go golfing whatever. But the issue here is again,
this is simply a gift. And I think a lot
of people who read past the headlines were as surprised
as us. Then this has been a thing for decades.
I'm not sure what the demographic they're looking for is,
(07:10):
but we do know that the US Treasury has just recently,
as of like July, expanded the methods through which you yourself
can give Uncle Sam some walking round pocket money.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
It would be awesome if it was like donating to
a local sheriff's department or something where you get a
sticker and then when you know the.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Ship ball yeah, oh oh sorry, I didn't mean to
pull you over, Dylan. I wasn't aware that it was you,
And we want to let you go. Thank you for
your contributions. Do you the give Thank you, Dylan for
your contributions. Uh to the police ball. It's very breaking
(07:57):
bad in the idea of those donations. Look, we know
the money gets dirty so quick. If you go to
theo Berman writing for Newsweek just a few days back,
we are recording on July thirtieth, Wednesday, twenty twenty five,
you'll see that the United States national debt surpass thirty
(08:18):
four trillion in twenty twenty four, just last year, and
now somehow there's another two trillion added on to that.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Wasn't that from the BBB, the big beautiful bill, right?
That added some number?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
For sure?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
This the original claims.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
We have to get under the hood to see exactly
how the debt is calculated here, but we do want
you to know if you want to be part of
the change yet or part of the cash, you can
donate essentially, And it's weird, you know what it reminds
me of. It reminds me of that moment at the
(08:59):
end of paying taxes where you're offered the option to
contribute to a number of charities, right, remember, like do
you want to contribute to the presidential campaigns? Do you
want to contribute to the following nonprofit organizations? And so on?
Speaker 4 (09:14):
I charities are a tax haven, right, I mean that's
sort of the point. I mean, not the Sorry, that's
not the point of charity, but the offer there is like,
oh maybe if I do this now, I will lower
my tax burden. Like that's sort of what they're offering you,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah. So we'd be interested to hear your thoughts folks
on how this is calculated first national debt. That's an
episode itself, given how many politicians have said the debt
doesn't matter or is not real when it suits them.
We also want to hear whether you would just randomly
(09:51):
hop on Venmo or PayPal and you know, throw a
couple bucks to this hard working government of ours.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Sorry, I I part of me gets it, like part
of me says, well, yeah, I mean, if I had
little extra money, then I wouldn't mind contributing to that.
But it is really a level of trust and that
that money would actually be allocated to that. And how
much of a dent could the American public possibly put
(10:25):
in that number? What was the I saw something in
the Newsweek article you shared something about how much was
offered by Americans in twenty twenty two. Do you have
that number?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah? Yeah, And it's like one of those GoFundMe campaigns
or kickstarters that makes you sad when you look at it.
In twenty twenty two, again, according to the reporting from
our pal theo Berman, Americans overall with this amazing opportunity
contributed a total of one hundred and eighty thousand in
(11:00):
three hundred and ten dollars and thirty two cents.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero yah zero
zero percent.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
But it's still amazing to me that that much money
was collected via this method.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I just don't trust it. Hell no, I feel like
it's gonna get slushed up so quick. To your earlier
point there, guys, I feel like it'll be something that
you can't really prove went to the national debt or
how do we also, how do we define going toward
the national debt? What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, we're gonna this is gonna help us craft a
new bill that's gonna relieve.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
The national debt.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
That's that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Cool. Yeah, and to do that, part of this one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars is paying for some fancy dinners.
It is flying us but to golf courses that we
have important conversations open.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, it's gonna be guys, this is for all of us.
That amount is going to pay for a fancy dinner
for the high level dinners.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I need a faberge egg right now. To solve this
stuff between Cambodia and Thailand, which is technically helping the
national deal.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I'm not sure if we talked about this, yeah, but
we certainly did initially. The Qatari Boeing seven forty seven
that was donated or whatever to the Air Force, apparently
it's going to cost around half a billion dollars to
retrofit it. Yeah, and then after the term of the
(12:35):
current president ends, he just kind of gets to keep it. Yeah,
it's taxpayer that's taxpayer money that goes to do that
thing for that gift.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, and Hexath has been revealed in recent news to
a sort of been the liaison for that deal. Now
in full disclosure, folks. And I think we mentioned this previously.
The Buttotic government has been trying to get rid of
that plane forever. It's inconveniently large, it doesn't work on
(13:06):
every every airstrip. So the idea of the idea of
it being a visible bribe does have some validity. But
also it's like a junker car in their front yard
that they just had to get rid of the part
of the reason it's so expensive to quote unquote retrofit
(13:29):
it is you essentially have to take the thing apart
to make sure there's no spoopy doop surveillance stuff going on. Yeah,
it's not a great look.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Hey, this one bolt is kind of weird. Guys, what
do you think.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I don't know. It keeps whispering to me in the dark.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Apparently there's a New York Times piece about this where
they talk about a mysterious nine hundred and thirty four
million dollar fund transfer from UH the Pentagon from one
of their programs modernizing ground based nuclear missiles, and there
are some budget sleuths that seem to believe that this
(14:11):
is meant for that refurbishing project.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
And so perhaps that will be an episode in the
future with respect to everybody's want to move to a
darker story, and I was on the fence about whether
or not we should report it, but I feel like
we're ethically bound to do so. This. If you're listening
(14:36):
with your kiddos, or if you have certain sensitivities, folks,
please fast forward about five to eight minutes. This may
not be this may not be the story for you.
Quite recently, guys, I don't know if you saw the news,
but seven suspects, including two mothers and other relatives, have
been arrested for running a an absolutely brutal child sexual
(15:03):
abuse spring. They were torturing kids with shot collars, they
were forcing them into abusive situations. If we go to
The Independent, with some excellent work by Isabelle Keene published
July twenty fourth, twenty twenty five, we're going to see
that there's an Alabama storm shelter where at least ten children,
(15:25):
some as young as three years old, were held captive
and tortured, often by their own biological relations.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Have you guys heard about this purest of evil? That's
all I can say.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, So if you go to BIB Counting, you'll hear
the sheriff, Jodie Wade, speaking during a press conference Wednesday
and stating that so far, at least ten victims have
been identified. But when the sheriff said that, the sheriff
also said that the number of victims and the number
(16:02):
of rest would likely increase. We don't know what's going on.
I would like to share a quote from Sheriff Wade.
It is the following quote. I have been in law
enforcement for thirty three years and this is absolutely the
most horrible thing I've ever seen when it comes to
the victimization of children. I know God's forgiveness is boundless.
(16:23):
Keep in mind this is Alabama. But if there was
a limit to it, I think we've reached it. So
two of the assailants here were the biological mothers of
the victims.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Yeah, that much I can say about that. I mean
totally accurate that it needs to be People need to
know that this kind of evil exists in the world.
I don't know what I can do about it, it
really does. It's the kind of thing that makes you
feel a little hopeless.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Right, It's also the kind of thing to add to
that makes me wonder how many other situations like this
are out there?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
That's what I mean, that's where your mind goes.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Right, and the news is focused on the Epstein scandal,
rightly so, but how many other things like this are
happening below the radar right and not being reported as widely,
possibly because there's not a political calculation involved. It's just
(17:29):
the good guys against the evil guys.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Well, these people aren't rich either, I mean, yeah, I
mean I know that's what you mean. Look at the picture.
This is like you know, I'm not trying to demonize
any particular segment of any population, but I mean these
are definitely low income, you know, white people.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
And they all live very closely together in a small
town which is called Brent, Alabama. They will be arraigned
in August. The the investigation is ongoing, and I know
that it's such a such an unclean thing. It's just
(18:09):
I'm bringing this because I feel like it shows us
how easily these other things can go under the radar
because people considered powerful or wealthy are not involved.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Do you think that Maxwell's going to get pardon.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
It's an open question right now, like what was in
the box not to quote seven, but the box Delaine
Maxwell walked away with.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
So then it's about her leverage, it's not about what's right.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
There are ongoing conversations about oh, she got denied immunity
for testifying to Congress. Still it will be worth the
testimony if only that it gives lawmakers the ability to
ask a question such that Maxwell would have to plead
(18:59):
the fifth It's it's terrible spaghetti all around. It's a messy,
messy bowl.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
We also, I guess, I guess. I just mean, like
with stories like this and the the things that we
know that Epstein did, it does start to feel like
at a certain level it isn't about what's right, it's
and and and and it's maybe a time where there
needs to be some kind of line in the sand
as far as like who will you continue to support,
you know, when it's clear that that moral compass is
(19:28):
just non existent.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Interesting because Joe Broken used the exact same figure of
speech he drew Alive. I think I from ein stuff
It's true.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
I mean, I just I do tend to agree that
we are at a tipping point. How far is too far?
It becomes the question, and to the quote that you
mentioned from the law enforcement person, how far is God's
whatever uh forgiveness? How far does it stretch? And is
this beyond that limit?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And what will you as the public allow? Right? Your
overton window of evil? Doesn't it shift? Is it absolute?
I think we've got a lot of work to do
on this, and I can tell this resonates with all
of us, So thank you for letting me share these stories, Guys,
disturbing as they may be, we don't have time to
(20:17):
get to another story that we do want to mention.
It's flown under the radar a bit. Missionaries have been
discovered using secret audio devices to evangelize isolated indigenous communities
in Brazil. They're literally hiding speakers jeuz that are just
(20:39):
emanating biblical passages.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
It's like ghost tape type stuff. Are they trying to
like convince them like that there are spirits or something?
Or is this just about repetition propaganda? I'm confused about
the methodology.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
It's propaganda, right, And there's an interesting argument over whether
or not all proselytizing religion is propaganda. But if you
want to learn more about that, folks, please check out
an excellent article from the Guardian that's a good primer
for this. This was written by John Reid and Daniel
Biasetto over in Brazil. Do check it out. I think
(21:14):
we should also do an episode on uncontacted tribes, which
are often misrepresented in various Western explorations. That's it. I
yield my time. I know we ran a little bit long,
but we had some points we had to get to
and some important conversation. We're going to pause for a
word from our sponsors and we'll be back with more
strange news.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
And we're back with strange news. This is one that
I didn't have time to get to the other week.
I think it's a worthwhile discussion on its own. Tie
woman arrested for blackmailing monks with thousands of videos after sex.
That comes from the BBC's Jiraporn shriyam Shiham and co Away.
(22:07):
Police in Thailand have arrested a woman who allegedly had
sexual relations with Buddhist monks and then use photos and
videos to extort them. She is being referred to as
MS Golf by police and is alleged to have had
sex with at least nine monks and received around three
(22:31):
hundred and eighty five million bot or eleven point nine
million dollars eight point eight million pounds over the course
of three years, and this arrest took place last week.
Investigators searched her home and found more than eighty thousand
photos and videos that were used to blackmail the monks.
(22:53):
Spokesman said, So, okay, this is one of a handful
of scandals that have rocked Thailand's Buddhist institution, which over
the last decade or so has been the subject of
numerous allegations of monks engaging with sex and drug trafficking. Okay,
(23:16):
the drug trafficking thing is its own issue. I do
think it's interesting that these individuals who are you know,
have taken a vow of celibacy. It would appear that
they're participating in consensual sex between adults, heterosexual sex with
a person of age. So this is not in the
(23:39):
same ballpark, I would argue, as you know scandals rocking
the Catholic Church, where of course a lot of these
scandals involve sex with minors and you know, coercive sex
and you know, extreme levels of abuse. So it does
kind of become a question about the nature of these
(23:59):
types of valw and you know, what leads to the
ability for someone to do this kind of blackmail. And
obviously this is a cultural thing. This is a matter
of you know, the people of Thailand and and their
trust in these institutions and their and judgments around individuals
(24:19):
who claim to be a part of this type of
religious order and then go back on their vows. But
it would also appear that no crime has been committed
by these monks. The crime that is being committed, of course,
is by this woman who has engaged in significant extortion
and blackmail of these folks. So I don't know, maybe
let's start with it there. And again I'm not trying
(24:41):
to do any kind of necessarily critique of the religious
vow of celibacy and the concept of it, but it
does it's interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, because look, we have to I appreciate you establishing
from the jump here that there is a marked difference
between the way those vows are treated in monasticism in
Buddhism versus monasticism in say, the Catholic institution. In general,
(25:13):
Buddhist monks are expected to be celibate and are expected
not to marry. But it kind of varies from place
to place, you know, Like how there are some Muslim populations,
especially in the Stands or Eurasia, who clearly follow Islam
but will drink vodka that kind of stuff right there,
(25:34):
It's not a uniform rollout. And as we know, you know,
those of us who have had experience with Thai Buddhism
here in the States are abroad. I got to tell you.
Sometimes there are Buddhist monks from Thailand who travel internationally
(25:57):
and get a little amorous, and it's a it's a
huge scandal. So to your point there, Noel, it's clearly
a reputation that cannot be repaired. And that's why this
extortion grift is working so well. The seduction, the exposure,
the threat right of violating your vows, even if you
(26:22):
ordinarily didn't always practice them, it can force you to
leave the wat or the position of being a monk.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
It's such a strange concept to me, this idea of.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Denying.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
In order to be closer to whatever deity that we worship,
you have to deny one of the if not the
primary function that your biological body has which is to
mate and continue to have more of yourself, which is
like one of the reasons that it is the primary
reason that any biological creature exists that reproduces with sexual reproduction, right,
(27:03):
if you look from an evolutionary standpoint, that is what
creatures do. Like I was just fighting a wasp infestation
in my attic, And the whole reason that the mother
wasp creates that specific type of nest and then fills
it with spiders is so that the babies can eat
their way out and have sustenance to then become a
(27:25):
wasp and do the same thing. And just the control
mechanism of telling somebody from high above, hey, if you
want to be a part of this thing, you can't
have sex. Ever, not once you're not allowed to have sex.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I can kick a little bit of historical context for
this if we want, well, we Taylicism and in Buddhism. Yeah,
also wasp, thank you for figs. Nice one, guys.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Weird right, also weird.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
All it is so weird, so many weird things.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And just like the way flowers look sexy, you know,
to exact certain insects. Oh yeah, ditation's a hell of
a drug, right.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Oh my gosh. Now I'm picturing landing on an alien
planet with the aliens. They're already keyed into humans and
all their foibles and just making their own version of flowers. Yep,
that look like sexy humans.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Man, oh, I got it right.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Then we get stuck in them.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Were just stuck in a yeah, so okay historical context
in the Catholic sense, in the Western sense. The idea
of celibacy, however it's packaged, is also very much a
political mechanism, like Matt set of control mechanism, because we
have to remember the way inheritance worked in a lot
of powerful families was that one kid got all the
(28:46):
toys in the land, and if there was another kid,
that kid better like God, and that kid would be
put in a situation where they would not be allowed
to reproduce and create a threat or divide the lineage.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
King e to a nunnery.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Right. So that's a big part of why just practically
like God and spirituality. I don't mean to sound dismissive,
but all the high fluting stuff aside, that is the
practical reason.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Well, and I was going to say too, a lot
of these types of things feel like remnants from a
bygone era where they at the time had some function
within society, but now they don't anymore, and they're being
held onto for exclusively for these reasons of control or
just like blind adherence to tradition.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Legacy is a hell of a drug.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Absolutely no, and again I'm not trying to it's interesting
the president of Thailand, king or a king of Thailand
rather excuse me, Vajira Longkorn revoked a royal command that
he'd issued in June which conferred higher titles to eighty
one months, so he basically demoted them, saying that recent
cases of misconduct have caused Buddhists to suffer greatly in
(30:04):
their minds. Again, this BBC article points out that more
than ninety percent of the population of Thailand identify as Buddhists.
Monks are looked at with the highest levels of reverence,
and many Thai men actually temporarily become ordained in order
to accumulate good karma.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yes, that is true. Actually, it's kind of like how
you know in some countries you are required to do
a couple of years of military service, like it's just
part of your citizenship or existence. There is in different
forms of Buddhism, and we're not experts. There is a
requirement to serve with a lot or serve with a
(30:46):
monastic order in some way or a contained amount of time.
It's a very much a real thing. Like my girlfriend's
dad is talking about it now, like he might be
required to go be a monk for a minute. I
mean it's longer than a minute. I just like the.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Alliteration for no no, I like it too, man. And
last thing for me, the religious order, the Buddhist you
know order, is governed by a kind of a board
almost that is called the Sangha Supreme Council, and it
is claiming to be in the process of forming a
(31:25):
special committee to review monastic regulations, which is interesting because
it doesn't necessarily say that they're looking into these cases
of of you know, misconduct that they're looking into maybe
that they need to tweak the regulation the regulations a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
I love it. A holy version of jury nullification.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Yeah right, it does read that way a little bit.
I'm not crazy.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
It does read that way a little bit, it does.
I agree.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I want to say some more things, but I don't
have them in the same right guys, So I'm going
to just I'm stuck here now in this concept of
just withholding this from an institutional place like the I
feel like it's so universal. If you're of age and
you have, you know, been sexual one time, even if
that's just with yourself, right, once you know that feeling,
(32:19):
once you know that sensation, and then once you have
a partner, no matter who that partner is, no matter
what the purposes of the sexual interaction you're having is,
whether it's to have kids or even if you cannot
have kids. With the type of sexual interactions you're having,
that that thing inside you is the same. It's a
biological urged thing that's inside you, right, that feel that
(32:42):
you get from interactions like that, the comfort that you
get with especially when you have somebody else that's around you.
Because we talked about it before, the chemicals that get released,
that all the stuff that keeps couples together, all that
stuff that it's all positive things that end up happening
in your body. When you have something like that and
it's consensual and it's you know, of people who are
(33:05):
adults and all that stuff, it's it's so strange to
me to make that the thing.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Well, and it also kind of implies this sort of
view of sex as something impure, like going against that
biological imperative. Like you would think that the highest most
revered among us in a society would be the ones
we wanted to reproduce the most, but instead we deprive
(33:32):
them of that for whatever reason, and it creates all
of these opportunities for scandal. I just don't understand that
view because it seems to even like in Catholicism, like
with with priests and stuff, there is this inherent view
of sexual conduct as bad.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Sure, yeah, why, well it's a way a Celtics want
you to reproduce. It.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Just I just don't understand there's this, there's this disconnect.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I want you to reproduce in a narrowly defined and
scope right, a very narrow, highly regulated field of play, marriage, right,
and sex for the purpose of reproduction not recreation. Uh this,
I feel like everybody who's unfamiliar with this concept, if
there are a few of us left, should check out
our previous episodes on how cults are for right and
(34:20):
how these organizations uh do do say you know, look
but don't touch, touch, but don't taste. Now I'm quoting
Devil's advocate.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
I love it, but that's a different.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
But then there's somebody at the top who's having their
fill and just ah, but you can't.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Oh, the Medici popes to those guys were wild. It
was Panama City, spring break, the entirety of their run.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Kinky pattis yeah, well, I mean it goes back, right,
so ancient religious orders. You can think about what's going
down in Rome and Greece and just take it back
to the ancient empire. So especially religious.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Leaders requisite castoration and so.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Oh yeah, well, and then just I think about the
studies that I'm done with children, and specifically the one
where there's two you get two marshmallows if you can
leave that one there and withhold right right, But most
of the kids, especially American kids, ate that first marshmallow
because they it's just difficult to control something where especially
when for some reason humans, when you're told you can't
(35:23):
do something, you're not supposed to do something, there's some
urge within a lot of us that says, I need
to do that thing, give me it, right.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Thank you, dare program.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I'm thanks, guys, but it's just it's so deep in there.
I don't know what it I don't know, Well, it's.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Reptile brain stuff, you know. I mean, like and again,
a lot of these things, like we know, even those
adaptations of the animal urges and drives and survival instincts,
we've kind of outlived their usefulness in the way they
were originally designed, so we kind of have to like
fill those things with other stuff. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
I feel like that's because you're not. Really you're not.
In very few cases are you removing the urge, even
if you physically prevent the consummation of that urge. I
would look also toward the Ottoman Empire, right, which had
an entire system of institutionalized castration, the Eunuchs, right, the
(36:25):
Kisler Naga, for instance, the white Unich, the black Unich.
It's not a racial thing. It's their role in the Harem,
and they channeled this. You could argue, I've talked with
too many folks about this, but you could argue that
those folks who were without their consent, deprived of what
(36:47):
would have been their normal sexual activity, they sought other
things out. And that's part of why this specific part
of the Ottoman Empire became such a powerful institution right there.
Look if someone is possessed by virtue of their existence,
(37:11):
of their natural inclinations that do not harm other people,
that's the important part, that do not harm other people,
that are, as Noel said, consensual. Then when you prevent
those people from existing the way they would have normally, right,
then there is always going to be an almost Newtonian response,
(37:34):
There is going to be an equal and opposite reaction
to that action foisted upon them. I yield my time.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Sorry, I was feeling and may think that's why we
see so much abuse in the church, in the in
the Catholic Church, it's that like equal and opposite reaction
to deprivation, which a lot of times it gets complicated
because things like guilt get figured into it and it
becomes psychologically rife or fraud rather.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Yeah, well, you're also forcefully sexualizing children, right, who then
grew up to be adults, and then that is the
way that they were sexualized. So you know it it
make I don't know if you guys saw some of
the stories coming out of BBC on this place called Rotherham.
(38:20):
It's it's a place where gangs, grooming gangs have been
active since the mid nineties and again so it's like,
it's not just churches. It's not it's not just all
these things. It's abuse of this type where they they
start the children very young, these gangs do. But then
the South Yorkshire Police, at least according to many investigations
(38:41):
that have been ongoing for decades or showing that it
was the police as well, because they could individuals within
some of that department could make use of the way
the children were already.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Groomed and exactly, and it.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Makes you really identify with with Marty Hart from True
Detective season one, and it makes you wish that some
of these folks could just get the LaDue treatment because dang,
that just shouldn't be allowed to exist.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Five survivors of Ratherham grooming gangs say they were also
raped by police officers just came out today. Yeah, this
is news to me.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
I remember reading some of that last night.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
This was in the UK.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah. The issue Future Area two is that it calls
into question all of the other public statements from people
in the United Kingdom that did trend. To be clear,
they did trend towards xenophobic and Islamophobic and all that stuff,
but there were when there is smoke, you should look
(39:49):
and see whether there is a fire. There is a
non zero chance that at least some members some factions
of UK law enforcement were beat opportunistic predators and we're
hiding or slow footing. If I can make that word
up an investigation that should have occurred, I don't. I
(40:13):
don't know, man, I'm just gonna say it. Look, British friends,
love you to pieces, love you to bits. There's some
stuff going on in that archipelago and it just keeps
getting covered up.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Yeah, stuff going on everywhere, for sure, though, Ben and
I just add the last little detail from an AP
piece on this scandal. Will Iwan m Sawatt is her name,
in her mid thirties, was arrested her home north of Bangkok.
She's being charged with extortion, money laundering, and receiving stolen goods,
and police traced money transferred to her by a senior
(40:46):
monk from a bank account belonging to his temple in
northern Thailand. So this is from last week. No updates
as of yet, but yeah, good conversation.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Y know.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
It's dark stuff, but I I had a feeling it
would go in some of these directions, so I'm glad
we got to it. Let's take a quick break here,
a word from our sponsor, and then return with another
piece of strange news.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
All right, we've returned. Let's uh yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
Yeah, that's okay, it's okay, not on purpose, just sometimes
it just be like.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Be like that, well, this is not gonna get any
brighter really besides the one explosion that will be right.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, oh and then it gets a little different.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Yeah, there we go. Yeah, immediately, Sorry, Okay, let's jump to.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
It's always darkest before the grenade explosion.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Yeah, that's right. Uh, let's jump to The Guardian. We're
gonna go through some reporting from them, and then jump
to ABC in a couple other places. We're following an
ongoing story here that is occurring in Los Angeles County,
Los Angeles, California, here in the States. So so, the
first report came out on July eighteenth. Explosion at Los
(42:05):
Angeles law enforcement training facility kills three people. I'm going
to read directly from this article here. The news as
it came out reported that an explosion at a training
facility in Los Angeles killed three human beings who were
with the county's Sheriff's department, and it was the largest
(42:25):
loss of life the agency has seen since eighteen fifty seven,
when four officers were killed by gunfire. The three deputies
who were killed were members of the sheriff Department's Arson
Explosives Detail, So immediately it sounds as though three men
were killed in explosion while they were working on some
(42:46):
kind of explosives project. Right, We don't know more than that.
That was all according to Robert Luna, who's the acting
Los Angeles County Sheriff. The incident took place shortly after
seven am on Friday, July eighteen. The explosion occurred at
the Department's Special Enforcement Bureau in the Arson Explosives Detail facility.
(43:08):
In the parking lot there is where it appears to
have occurred, at least initially from the helicopter footage that
was able to be captured by you know, NBC and
some of the local affiliates there.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
So not on to be clear, not in some kind
of previously established training ground.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yes, like getting to the facility where you would have
stuff like that. Right, so it appears that there were
explosives possibly in transit. It was a parking lot filled
with patrol cars, box trucks, things like that. The bomb
squad of the Los Angeles Police Department responded to the
scene to render the devices safe whatever, you know, if
(43:48):
there were any other devices and what was occurring, and
that task took a little over four hours. The FBI
and the ATF were also there assisting in the investigation,
basically to figure out what the heck happened. And in
that moment, at this time, on July eighteenth, there wasn't
any other information. The investigators at that time didn't think
(44:09):
there was any threat to anybody. They didn't believe that someone,
you know, blew up the car that held those people.
They didn't believe that it was an attack. They just thought, Okay,
something terrible has happened. These guys are involved with explosives.
Let's find out what that thing is. Then we jumped
to after there was some more information that started to
(44:30):
come out after that time, over the course of a week,
but a little less than ten days later, on July
twenty sixth, The Guardian also reported, and I'm using The
Guardian by the way, because it's just it's not one
of the primary US news outlets on purpose, because generally
these places will take a more filtered approach to news
that's coming out or directly from whatever department is, you know,
(44:52):
making a public statement.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
And on critically, yes, from that department, just objective.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Here's what happened. So let's go to that. The title
is grenade missing from scene of blasts that killed three
LA police officers. So here's where it gets a little strange.
I'm just gonna read again directly from the Guardian here,
going back to Sheriff Luna here, he said that the
(45:17):
three men were working on two quote military style unquote
grenades when one detonated. The other is unaccounted for, and
that's according to the ATF, who is directly investigating the
blast now at this point. Sheriff Luna also said that
authorities have x rayed Special Enforcement Bureau vehicles, They've searched
(45:37):
the entire blast area. They've examined office spaces, the gym
that's located there. They have not found anywhere this second
potentially deadly grenade that's out there. Here's why it's important.
These two grenades that were seized at some apartment complex
like a town home complex in Santa Monica a day
(45:59):
before or the explosion occurred on the seventeenth. He said
that they x rayed the devices themselves and everybody involved
believed that these devices were inert, meaning they cannot explode
on their own. They are not going to explode likely,
even if you know with a grenade situation, if you
have a pullpin or something that would strike the thing,
(46:21):
that would cause the grenade to explode or cause the
fuse at least to be lit. They said, according to
their findings, these are the guys who are the explosives experts.
By the way, they say, these things are good to go.
We can move them right, and that's all they were doing.
They were moving them. After they got examined, the devices
(46:43):
were taken to be quote destroyed and rendered safe at
that specific facility in the parking lot where they exploded.
It was not known at that time if the grenades
had any connection to the military, though they were military
style grenades at least that's what they're reporting.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
I was going to ask about that, Yeah, what type
of what type of grenade, because we know military style
can be somewhat of an umbrella term, kind of like
saying the assailant had a long gun.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yeah, well, which military right, Because each country's military uses
different types of grenade, some of them are similar some
of them so different, you know, And some grenades are explosives,
and as you stated, there been some grenades have a
different kind of yield, a different kind of thing that
happens when they explode.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
Frag grenades or fragmentation I should say, I can't assume
everybody knows that one, but concussion, you know, But in
this case, it's definitely not just like a smoke grenade,
because three people are dead.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
Yeah, this was some type of fragmentation grenade, explosive grenade.
And again when you say military style, there's so many
different types of even a frag grenade that have been
used by the US military over the years, and right,
who knows, but it was something like that, and it
was found in that place, right, So probably a place
(48:08):
in a town home where you shouldn't have grenades, and
you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I don't think they ran that past the landlid.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Yeah, you know, but you know, some people do collect
military memorabilia and things like that, well, like an inert
grenade or a grenade that doesn't actually have any explosives
in it, but it's the shell of a grenade. Some
people collect that kind of stuff and whatever. That's fine.
I think some people even collect the other stuff, just
not on a on the level, let's say.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
And it's very easy to mistake something for inert if
you're not an expert. Just like you should always treat
any gun, even a gun at a museum that has
its barrel filled with lead. Any gun should be treated
as actively loaded, safety off, even if you just check
the safety. Any explosive device, no matter how fun and
(49:03):
cool the museum looks, should be treated as though it
can go off.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yep, yep. And again, these individuals, the three men killed.
Detective Ecklund had nineteen years of experience, Detective Limis had
twenty two years of experience in Detective Osbourne had thirty
three years of experience in that sheriff's department. And they
were explosives arson experts, and they used very sensitive, specialized
(49:31):
equipment to make sure these things were safe. And then
they went off, and then a grenade is missing. That's
what That's why it makes you think maybe something else
is at play here, Maybe something else happened, Maybe just
something we don't understand occurred. Right as especially as an
ATF agent whose third party coming in to investigate a
(49:52):
scene like that, there are so many unknowns at that
point of how the heck did this happen? Why is
the other one gone?
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah, and this is not a situation where, for instance,
the two explosive devices could be close enough together that
one is just obliterated, you would still be able to
find fragments of it.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Yeah, theoretically, that's part of a fragmentation grenade. Right, that's
one of the things it does, the specially designed ones
you've probably seen in video games or movies that have
the little ridges around them. That's because those ridges fragment
and become the weapon shrapnel. Yeah, it's specialists with ATF
and the FBI would be able to easily ascertain if
(50:38):
there's enough material to constitute two explosives. Right, it's just creepy.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, I'm picking up or putting down here because the
question is the missing grenade that some of the reporter
and your shared tells us that the devices were originally
discovered after tenant had left the previous tenant who may
have been in the US military. But let's say the
(51:07):
quiet part out loud. We have questions until that other
grenade is found, there is a non zero possibility that
there might have been something more than an accident at play,
especially given the decades and decades of experience these l
eos had.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
Yeah, so maybe you're listening to this and you're in
the Los Angeles County area of just quickly, you're probably
following this already. But Sheriff Luna and Kenny Cooper, who's
a special Agent in charge there at the ATF, said, hey,
if you do see something that you think maybe could
possibly be a grenade, whatever you do, do not touch
(51:47):
the dang thing and call somebody.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Those poor kids LA is already stressed, a stressed out
right with the with that, the huge earthquake, the not
uncommon natural disasters. Imagine being one of those kids in
the LA area. You wake up, you have to you
have to go to school or do your kids stuff,
and then your parents go, m okay, I want to
(52:13):
I want to be straight with you, tyler. Uh, this
is what a grenade is. If you see something that
looks like I know you got a lot going on, bud,
But if you see something that looks like this run away. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
Well and if you're a kid and you see something
like that, your curiosity gets pequed. And that's something that
we've all got And oh.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
This is the thing Dad told me to look out
for and not mess with.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, well, especially if you don't get warned, you know, like,
oh dude, what is that a grenade? Because all these
kids are playing college for Fortnite, all of them have
grenades in them.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Just what this is a hope that everybody is very
careful and whoever it was in Marina del Rey that
Marina del Rey.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Sorry too much, you had to do it.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
Just you know, whoever that is, I hope that person
is being talked to and coming forward just to have
an understanding of what's going on. And hopefully there's not
somebody out there that's got one of these things there
wants to use it for one reason or another.
Speaker 4 (53:18):
Can I really quickly just say without going into it,
because I mean, the news is out there and it
is what it is. How crazy is it that it
didn't even make the cut today that there was another
mass shooting in an office building in midtown Manhattan.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (53:31):
Yeah, it's just crazy that. I mean, I'm not casting
aspersions at any of the three of us. It literally
just occurred to me that is the level of business
as usual that that kind of thing as people.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Well, yeah, we're also not going to talk about the
Reno shooting at the casino where the man's like paced
back and forth for forty five minutes and was observed
doing so before he got his gun out and went
up to the vallet area and started shooting people.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
And we had one line at best about the the
situation in Thailand and Cambodia, and then one line maybe
about the huge earthquake that's sending tsunamis across across the ocean.
It's a lot of stuff. Yeah, and that's why this
is a continuing mission for us. And I couldn't be
(54:17):
happier for us to have teamed up together on these things,
even in the darkest of times.
Speaker 4 (54:23):
No, no question, it keeps me sane. I love you guys.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
We love you too, man, I like both of.
Speaker 5 (54:33):
I love you.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
Yeah. I thought Dylan was going to hit us with
that oh that cold, that cold wind of a relationship
talk where Dyl is going to pause and go, you're great, God,
you have such personalities. Sorry, we're derailing mass speaking of
cold wind.
Speaker 3 (54:53):
Back in three roughly two years ago, Ben, I think
you brought to the table a store about a weird
concept that the White House had of like, maybe we
should study blocking out the sun with some stuff, you know,
matrix style.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Let's do it, do it, cowards.
Speaker 3 (55:13):
Well, we have some updates from that that That original reporting,
at least that I had seen, came from Politico from
one Corbyn. Hyar hi ar again. That was July first,
twenty twenty three, when that came out. You can look
it up. The title of the article is white House
cautiously opens the door to study blocking sun's raised to
(55:34):
slow global warming.
Speaker 4 (55:37):
I want my VENMO to go towards that project. That's us.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
Yeah, Okay, I don't care how you rationalize it, guys.
Just make it happen.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
Okay, that's good.
Speaker 4 (55:45):
Sun sucks. We're on records upon it. The yellow sun.
This insists upon itself.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
So I'm so glad to hear, and I think all
our fellow damp here are happy to hear that the
project may be moving forward well.
Speaker 3 (55:59):
And I don't maybe is it a good thing. I
don't know. Seems like maybe the worst thing, but also great.
Corbyn is back though, and in Politico he's writing again
now July twenty seventh, twenty twenty five. You can read
this article. Researchers quietly planned a test to dim sunlight.
They wanted to quote avoid scaring the public. And it
(56:22):
goes into deep, full detail of the backing of some
of this stuff, the billionaire money that was coming in,
the government money that was coming in, and this basically
a really quiet attempt to see in this little spot
over the ocean right near Puerto Rico, to see if
they could actually do this thing and then to maybe
(56:45):
unleash it on all of us.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
Uh, okay, it is, I caught you, it is.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
But but we're talking about blotting out the sun guys.
Speaker 2 (56:59):
Yeah, that's some lex there right there. It's the army
you have, you know, let's figure it out.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
Is it to you? Just asking for.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
I would go I would go with luthor, but I'm
they change it.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
And depending on the movie and the and the whatever.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
Well, it's kind of like how we would say sure
versus sure, or how we would say for versus four.
Speaker 4 (57:25):
We've just gotten Everybody's just sounds more like he man
ask more extreme sorry or cal l right, Yes, cadence
makes sense.
Speaker 2 (57:35):
So yeah, there are I mean, there are always wild
drawing board projects like this. This one feels a little
bit different.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Well, because it was a real test. They actually tried
to do it, and then he got shut down because
they didn't give enough warning. And they all they did
was they told the New York Times like a pr thing.
They're like, hey, new York, all right, we're gonna blow
out the sun a little bit, Steve. If it works,
all right, I hope you guys are good. And then
the local authority said, hey, you didn't you didn't say that.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
You didn't say you were doing c seed on this email.
This one should have been a wider conversation. Yeah, speaking
of consent.
Speaker 4 (58:11):
Geez.
Speaker 3 (58:11):
Anyway, check out those articles. It might be worth a
full episode from us at some point just to really
go over what they were planning and could that actually
work and do we want.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
To do that? And that's it for me, and our
mission continues. Folks, Thank you, as always so much for
tuning in. We want to hear your thoughts on these
and all the other stories. We do also want to
point out something we didn't get to, our own fellow
(58:42):
Atlanta resident Julian Brown and the conversation about plastly his term,
and we're going to get to that maybe in the
next few weeks. In the meantime, we want to hear
from you. Tell us your thoughts. You can find us
in an email, You can find us via telephonic code.
You can all so find us on the lines correct.
Speaker 4 (59:02):
You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where
it gets crazy, on xfka, Twitter, and on YouTube where
we have videos for your perusing, enjoyment. On Instagram and TikTok.
On the other hand, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show and
there's more.
Speaker 3 (59:19):
Oh yes, we have a phone number. It is one
eight three three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. When
you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let
us know within the message if we can use your
name and message on the air. If you've got links,
maybe the hyperkind, maybe you've got attachments of kitty kats
(59:40):
or something that will lift all of our spirits, why
not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back and yes we do know about shall lend
temple ceo monk speaking of violation of holy folks is
being probe for cartoonish embezzlement. May have had a lot
(01:00:07):
of kids, like a Djengus God level lot of kids.
Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
Ooh, good call, Ben did not catch that. That's interesting
in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
We're going to get back with that and more strange news.
Join us out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Ben Bowlin
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
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