September 17, 2025 • 64 mins
At the height of the Cold War, both the Soviets and the United States raced to hold supremacy across the globe. Over in North Dakota, you can find a strange relic of this unending conflict -- the Stanley R. Mickelson Safeguard Complex, a billion-dollar boondoggle built to detect and destroy Soviet missiles. It opened on October 1st, 1975. Just one day later, on October 2nd, Congress shut it down. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel ask: What happened?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They goll be bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pl Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Gold War still here,
never left. Don't call it a comeback, right, etc.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Etc.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
This is one that several listeners suggested to us a
number of years ago, actually, when it was making the
rounds on social media. Maybe the best way we get
into it is to start with a question, what's the
weirdest building we've been in as individuals?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
The Shaken Crawdad over there on Buford Highway really like
a merry ground, super odd.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I remember that one. I've never been in it, but
I haven't, but I remark upon it every time I
go past them. I'd like to one day.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
The strangest building I've been in is the Omega mart Oh.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
I'm so glad we were frustrained, interdimensional fun.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That was a good time. Yeah wolf thing in Vegas. Yeah,
with our pal Paul Decant. And I remember being worried
that might be a weird pitch because I didn't know
what to expect either, Like, hey, let's go to this
fake fake I don't even want to spoil it. You know,
I think he nailed it. That is such an amazing building.
(01:54):
I've seen a lot of weird historical stuff that, you
know that I have to be honest about. It may
have only seemed strange to me as an outsider, you
know what I mean, Like the Washington Monument is really
weird if you're not from the US.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Sulti looking double lists have always struck me as a
little you know, ominous.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
What do we think of penile?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
What do we think of when we think of George Washington?
We do love it too. Mess monuments here in the
United States, Oh yeah, skyscrapers are going to look crazy
in two thousand years to understand what were they thinking?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Oh yeah, they have a preoccupation there. Maybe they were
compensating for something.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I think a better example if I if I wasn't
going weird, it would be the facility at Buford Dam
here in Georgia because it's one of those places that
is roped off to most individuals, but because of our
association with Marshall brain and how stuff works way back
in the day, was able to actually go in there
and look at the systems while they're functioning. So while
(02:58):
they're generating electricity with the hydroelect forces of the huge
lake reservoir moving just down through this dam and then
you get power. But nobody's allowed in there to see
that kind of stuff. So maybe that's one of the
weirdest places I've been.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Oh yeah, I like that mad. It also reminds me,
maybe not in just weirdness. We're happy to tell you
weird buildings around the world later, folks, but in terms
of scale and enormity. You've made me think of the
Hoover Dam, right, which the brain can't really get its
mind around the first time you drive up and see it. Yeah,
(03:36):
scaled upon that, it's nuts.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
It's like being in a real life video game, which
is such a kind of silly way of putting it,
but it's sort of the only thing I could compare
in terms of the like I'm even using video game terms.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
The draw distance of it all, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, yeah, and it's a great building. Just when we
think about government sponsored massive structures that have a very
specific purpose and cost the equivalent of billions and billions,
tens of billions of dollars today.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, you see where we're going with this. That's right, folks,
We're gonna get real weird with one for urban explorers.
For as odd as it may sound to say, Cold
War fans all the hits like stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Even Space Force fans and Space.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Force fans, good luck on your relocation coming up, folks Alabama, right,
uh huh, Yeah, that was the big announcement of letdown
Role Tide. Uh. So we're gonna pause for a word
from our sponsors, and then we're going to we're going
to learn the stuff they don't want you to know
about the Cold War. Here are the facts, all right,
(04:52):
let's cast our memories back to the days of the
first Cold War. We got two superpowers, right, the USA
and the USSR.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, and they had just won a huge victory over
the bad guys, uh, the ones, the ones A Norm
McDonald called the guys.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I don't know this crankly crankly guys.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I think he was doing an impression of Hitler. You remember.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
The less I like him. Yeah, we've been bringing that
joke of on a couple of different shows. Yeah, you're right,
there's this big there's a world changing conflict, World War two.
And as you said, Matt, the US s R. And
the USA had teamed up to fight the Axis Powers,
but they were never really close. They were never bosom buddies.
(05:49):
They were always frenemies with very different ideologies that were
mutually exclusive, and so they already saw a new kind
of war on the horizon. Even before World War Two
officially ended in nineteen forty five, these guys were figuring
out how to screw each other over. Well.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, and as we just talked about on a couple
of episodes ago, the other forces that were not like
the main allies that you hear about in history, like
China that we're fighting against Japan on the Pacific Front,
and how everybody was working together to defeat these Axis
powers again, like just as we're taught in schools, but
(06:27):
the big team up and just to have all of
that shatter because everybody is trying to watch the other
one with the corner of their eyes. They wait a second,
what are you are you trying something over there, buddy?
Oh oh oh, maybe we got to do something.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Right that the other people were saying, hang on, why
are they looking at us? Are they planning to do something?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And we should have planned to do something.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
We should plan to get in front of this a
little little reactionary. Maybe, I don't know very much. So
I mean that's where you get things like Operation paper Clip.
That's where you get the Soviet equivalent of trying to
extricate all the scientists. They can recover any and all
axis rocket science in particular, and these axis powers are
(07:12):
collapsing in Europe and East Asia. These two juggernauts are
instantly going at it with their allies what we would
call the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc back then,
but for shorthand we'll just say Russia and the USA.
So Western sources, we've talked about this too before. They're
going to tell you that the Cold War lasted between
(07:33):
like nineteen forty seven all the way to the fall
of the USSR in nineteen ninety one. However, a lot
of other people will tell you no, the Cold War
began as World War Two was dying down. And if
you go to sources that are not your Western textbook.
Some of them will tell you the Cold War never ended.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, the titles of some of the countries changed a
little bit. The Gulfs became you know, America instead of Mexico.
But it's just the history continued on, and some of
the same human beings lived, you know, continued to live,
(08:14):
and some of those same human beings had similar aspirations
that they did when countries were named other things.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And visited Alaska recently, some of those guys, Yeah, yeah,
I mean some speeches. You're absolutely right. The names change,
but the game's the same, right, Rose by any other
name is still a Rose of war. Whatever won't keep
it anyway. So it was apparent from the jump to
all the political class, the academics, the boffins, the eggheads,
(08:42):
the public that both sides, at least the powers, the
decision makers of both sides wanted to establish global supremacy.
And when they were trying to rationalize beat me here, Dylan, please,
when they were trying to rationalize the evil Street Director
they were doing, they said, look, if we don't break
a few eggs, the other guys are going to take
(09:04):
over the world. And that's going to be way worse
than what we're doing, you know, by testing these gases
on civilians and so on.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And that's sort of what kicked off the arms race.
So both groups searched for any possible leg up on
the other, regardless of how minor it might be. The
US as are and the United States jumped into all
kinds of weird reindeer games, as you would say ben shenanigans.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Dare we say.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Some of them sound a little bit odd or you know,
potentially downright evil even by today's standards, and you know,
to be fair, some of them actually continue. So we've
got private defense contractors, politicians and department heads of government
all agreeing on one thing, these buzz phrases like national
(09:58):
defense or the red threat. We're key in helping Uncle
Sam open that wallet on up.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah, we need a shield.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Uh huh, well, yeah we need a shield. We have
no per diem. There's no budget limit on this stuff
for real, as long as you say the right words
in the right rooms. And this sounds really paranoid today,
we do have to admit a lot of progress, scientific
and social was lost due to this mistrust. But everyone
looking back can agree the assessments of these two world
(10:31):
powers were correct. And the secret that a lot of
your textbooks will tell you is some of those forces
we just describe actively wanted a cold war because it's
great for business, It unifies domestic support. It is so
easy to get re elected if you can make the
public feel you're fighting a common threat.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
But it's also like way more convenient than a hot war.
You know, it's more sustainable in terms of, like it
gives you the rationale that's needed, but you don't have
people dying, and you don't have to like deploy troops
to the front.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Lines, right, deploying troops being one of the big differences there.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It's a quieter war, yes, quickly, Let's remember August sixth
and ninth, nineteen forty five is when Hiroshima and Nagasaki
are both bombs with the first show of force with
a nuclear weapon or an atomic weapon. It's only two
years later that the USSR tests their first nuclear bomb
(11:33):
or atomic bomb. So just remember like that that part
is probably the most important. These two superpowers have both
demonstrated this ability to cause mass casualties almost instantaneously if
the right bomb gets dropped in the right place, and
so just wielding that power alone creates this common threat,
(11:55):
common enemy thing for everybody.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Right, yeah, these are this is world end technology with
at that point no real viable deterrent on something's in
the air, and you know now you're bringing that up.
One of the weird doesn't fit. But one of the
most singular series of buildings I've ever visited is the
(12:18):
Hiroshima site. You know that that is a scale that
is in its own way, equally incomprehensible, similar to similar
to the Hoover Dam in some respects. But you absolutely
nailed it because then later we see Sputnik, which is
real egg on the face for the US, and there's
(12:39):
a space race happening, right and all the technology involved there.
This means that technological research, despite the despite the tensions
that won't let people work together, the research is at
a fever pitch, and it's so well funded. This is
the time to go to the Department of Defense and
(13:00):
and shark Tankum say like, hey, I got a wacky idea.
Have you guys heard of psychic powers? And they're like,
you know what, it's weird that you made it this
far into the building, but hit us.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
We gotta look at it. They might be doing it too.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
They might be doing it too.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I don't mean to be reductive about the space race stuff,
but doesn't it feel a little bit guys like most
of that is about, Hey, they might put nukes up there,
I'm sure, okay.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Or be able to command and control that part of
that sphere literal sphere of orbit for surveillance. And maybe
they don't even need a nuke, right, maybe they can
work with some of that technology that was still in
play at the time, the idea of just dropping rods
(13:49):
from God into things.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
But in the mid fifties, I suppose it would be
and Nixon era. That's around the time when we're thinking
how do we prevent missiles like nukes from hitting us? Right,
that's when that concept is like just a little seed. Hey,
I think we could probably stop nukes. We just got
to build something that could stop the nukes. So how
(14:13):
do we do that? And that's when that idea it
becomes alive. And then I just imagine I imagine people
at the time with the seemingly endless possibilities that space represented,
like that being another way, Hey, there's got to be
a way to stop the nukes from up there.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And we combine it with the shiny new thing that
is space exploration, and we see stuff like sees the
high ground and we see, you know, a high rate
of attrition for ideas, lots of extremely weird, at times
useless stuff and some very brilliant ideas like how to
get to space and stay there without dying for a
(14:51):
second for a little while. But a lot of this,
we have to realize, comes from this almost like a
global poker game these world leaders were playing, because they
both attempted to send misleading signals about what they were
doing and how successful or unsuccessful it actually was. Because
(15:12):
if you can, let's say we're Russia and you can
appear to build an amazing new technology, right, but it's
impossible to build it. But no, you're gonna be rushing
this one, if that's right. Oh sure, absolutely all right.
So you you figure out, you get with your guys
(15:34):
and you say, we don't have to actually build this,
we just have to make the other side think we're
doing it, and then we'll bleed them dry financially.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Because they got to build one now, right, because.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
They don't want to defits gap. It's the old.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
What's the building in there? Trick tom Way would be proud. Yes,
I suppose he would.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Guys, we've mentioned that recently, we were talking about AI
right within this that I think this goes further and
deeper into the present than we would like to believe.
I genuinely think that I have read things about new
tech and in the science sphere that are these kinds
(16:18):
of red herring developments that are going on in countries
that are not just the United States and Russia or China,
but other countries that are closely allied that will put
out something and say, oh, we're fusion technology is now
at this point where it's in this incredible spot. You
guys were doing it. We've done it, and then somebody
(16:39):
else is going to have to start pumping those billions in.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Right, and then you have to you know, in times
of peace were even then your next solution is, oh,
we have to get someone there in person, not boots
on the ground, but we got to get some shoes
in the ground so someone can see if this fusion
thing is malarkey? Right? Is this or is this a
mechanical turk things of that nature. Sorry it's classified, no, No,
(17:05):
it's fine, I'm just I'm a tourist. I apologize. I
thought this was the restroom. Yeah yeah, that kind of stuff,
which did happen during the Cold War. What are the
weirdest results of this, Well, we're very excited to explore
with you tonight, folks. Is something called the Stanley R.
(17:26):
Mickelson Safeguard Complex. Not the sexiest name, but very expensive
and according to the war it costs around six billion
dollars to build and as you said, Matt, nineteen sixties
nineteen seventies money, and the story says it was only
in operation for one day and then became the center
(17:47):
for something else entirely. Is any of this true? If so,
how much?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Maybe?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Most disturbingly, what could it be used for today? I
don't think any of us have visited this building just yet,
have we not?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I we have not, but we're going to get into it.
We we have watched many a video from mister Robert Branting,
site supervisor of the Ronald Reagan Minuteman missile site, whom
we left a message with. We we we phoned the
We phoned the Minuteman site and left the message and
(18:24):
said thank you for your videos. So hopefully if you
got that message. You're hearing this now, Rob, and thank you. Well.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Also we've also seen, you know, extensive photographs and you
know what, how about this. Let's just pause for a
word from our sponsor and then let's continue years where
it gets crazy. We don't always get to say this.
The social media conspiracy story that was all over TikTok
(18:55):
and Instagram in twenty twenty one is sort of true.
It contains true elements, that's right.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
The conspiratorial allegations surrounding the Michelson safeguard recently spread on TikTok,
and from there the claims got spread. It's like the
way I see TikTok basically reposted on Instagram. I mean,
it kind of gets picked up and it gets weirder
and weirder as it starts to proliferate.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
So let's just start with what we know to be true.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Right, Yeah. If you see images without context of this site,
specifically of one part of the site, because it has
the site itself has multiple sections and multiple large concrete structures.
When you're looking at some of the imagery that will
appear on social media, the one that's most striking looks
(19:50):
like a dang pyramid.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, the MSR, the missile Site Radar complex. It's gigantic,
and it looks like a pyramid walked into a barber
shop and said just up. Yeah, pyramid walked into a bar.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well, they just said, took the take the top off.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, they took the top off and flattened it. They
pushed it down, you know, just f my ass up,
as the as the subreddit goes.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And well, but it's also got those little uh, the
little circular right things on the front that are actually
part well I we'll get into what that actually is,
but it the actual radar systems that are within that
thing are facing in four different directions. So it looks
like symbols, like giant symbols of some sort on.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
There, and it makes you, if you're an American, it
makes you maybe take out a dollar bill if you
have one handy and look at the artwork and go,
oh man, all yeah. Also there's a site. Uh from
the angle, it can look like a giant eye for
from a cyclops of old or some Lovecraftian creature.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Well, isn't that that's the symbol that's on the dollar.
Isn't that the all seeing eye? Like where there's a
disconnect between the top of the pyramid and the base.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
On the dollar, and on this boy, there are four
quote unquote eye things on the larger mass of the pyramid.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I'm just saying, this is a symbol. This kind of
iconography is something we've seen before.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, and if you're already primed to think in those terms, right,
we could obviously say how close can a resemblance become
before we can no longer accept coincidence or technological necessity,
which is the real argument for the pyramid, but also
the under the stacks for the underground power plant. They
(21:41):
look like little monoliths. It looks very weirdly Egyptian themed
in its heyday. For some reason, It's like I was
thinking about this while we're doing research for this, when
we talked briefly about Stargate in a recent listener mail.
It's like future ancient Egypt. What's going on in the
(22:02):
North Dakota. Finally in Nakoma, North Dakota, which also if
I were a Canadian leader at that time, I would
be massively worried and irritated because Nakoma is pretty close
to Canada.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, but that's the point, right, get into it, but
you gotta be as close to the north Pole as.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Possible, right, Yeah, to get your to get your best coverage. Uh.
And this thing is as we're going with, as you said,
and old true stuff. This thing is or was for
a short time, Uncle Sam's first operational what we call
ABM defense System anti ballistic system. It's part of a
(22:45):
bigger thing called the Safeguard program. Think of that as
a clear predecessor to stuff like Israel's Iron Dome or
the proposed Star Wars program under the later administration. The
street name for this guy isn't Mickelson, by the way,
It's Nixon's Pyramid.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, and you'll hear it.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Mentioned all the time. The idea is not that these
guys are gonna missiles from this site will obliterate Russia
or Chinese forces half a world away. It's the idea
that if something gets shot towards the US, these little
things which we'll talk about, are going to be fast
enough to intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile, blow it up
(23:28):
in the sky, possibly with a thermonuclear explosion, and then
everything's great.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah. Oh yeah, These are like the Nikes, right, the
Nike like they're at not Nike shoes, but Nike missiles
like the Zeus, the Ajax, the X. These are the
things that are supposed to go up and take out
either bombers or missiles that are coming our away. The
craziest part, I think this is what we're getting to.
(23:55):
The craziest part is in the nineteen fifties all the
way up to the mid nineteen seventies, how do you
target a missile that's flying really, really really fast.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Excess of four hundred miles an hour for instance, Yes, so.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What how do you target that with that technology of
the day.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
You need to build a better radar, You need to
you need to build what we call phased array. Yes,
and this is this is what this is what the
big ten to big pyramid item right of Mickelson and
Nixon's pyramids. It was also we got to mention this
before we move into it. This was only the first
(24:36):
of twelve planned sites. Yes, and it was meant to specifically,
Michelson was meant to protect the missile airfields for the
Minutmen missiles at Grand Forks Air Base. So it's like, hey,
you want some missiles on the side with your order
of missiles, Well, listen.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Because the minute men were the response to being attacked, right,
so we have to protect our response, which is a
really interesting concept. And the way we're gonna protect our
response is by having our own nukes that are prepared
to go up and off in the sky, because theoretically
(25:16):
that's the only way we can actually knock the bombers
and missiles out, because you need to get close enough
and then and then detonate a nuke in the air
above your own property, you know, property and relation.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and weather patterns be damned also. As
so everybody in the room went yay khalu kalay huzzah
Brah Brah.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Missile defense shield shield.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
We made up a little chant at the end, we
did the wave across the boardroom.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And Northrop grumming and all the companies said, oh my god, guys,
we're gonna make so much money.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
The Lockey guys were love at it. Uh, they party crazy.
Sadly that was not the case. A lot of people
were pissed about this and have been for decades. Even
I think we've all had those conversations with frustrated experts
and professors who are like, yes, again, general, we all
(26:16):
agree this would be a cool idea if guess missiles
are cool. I get it, they're cool.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Yeah, So I mean you can't you can't kind of
mandate something into existence.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah, Like, however, not all cool things are real things.
So that's what they were talking about. The technology wasn't
where it needed to be.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I agreed. It's tough to fault some of the top
military thinkers at the time because you you can imagine
them racking their brains, getting the top science scientific experts
around and saying, well, how could we actually do this?
How can we achieve defense of this kind of technology
that we're developing and that we know they're developed. And
(27:01):
this was at least at the time, the best option,
or as close to the best option as you can get.
It just was freaking expensive. It reminds me, guys of
that old guitar game Missile Command. Do you remember that one?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Do you remember like a battleship situation? Like, isn't it
It's very basic, right, aren't you sort of like kind
of missiles.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
You're you're you're basically one of these things. You're like
this site, right, you play that site and then you
can shoot missiles up into the air that explode with
what looks like nuclear A small nuclear explosion starts at
the center, expands out, and you have to stop all
the missiles from coming in. It feels very similar to that.
That's a nineteen eighty game game.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
It is.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Ye, it's a missile defense game, which is literally what
we're talking about here. I guys, I just wanted to
get this in. I find it so interesting that you
can play this nineteen eighty arcade game in Well, there's
one place that I found it. You can play it
for free right now if you want to on the
a ARP website. I'm not kidding, I believe you, the
(28:10):
website of the American Association of Retired Persons. Uh, it's
games dot a ARP dot org slash games Slash Atari
Missile Command, and you could play it right now.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I think I might have it on I want to.
I've got it on an emulator. I was just gifted
to a switch to. So doesn't switch have Atari games
on it as well?
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I think there might be maybe it's If not, I'll
go on the emulator. Yeah, it looks like you can
play it literally through the browser. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, just go just go to the AARP website. Man,
we just there's people who have nostalgia for the concept
of shooting missiles out of the sky with nukes. That's all.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Yeah, I see what you're saying, and good on you, AARP.
Uh and no further comment about emulators. I think, uh,
so this is the issue, and you put it so beautifully.
People are say, yes, this is expensive, Yes, this is imperfect. No,
we have no other options. And then someone says what
about global peace? And they're like, get out, get them out,
(29:10):
get them out, get them out of here. Anyway, as
we were saying, so Congress, to their credit, they have
some serious misgivings about this. Not everybody is happy. There's
a very controversial thing, right and journalists in the public
or clocking onto this. We have to remember at this
time there's also a very strong anti nuclear power in
general movement. They don't love it either. Still, public fear
(29:35):
and the potential for contract or profit won the day,
and the site gets approved out there in North Dakota
in nineteen sixty nine. They start building it in nineteen seventy.
The estimates for how much it ran to build usually
very in contemporary reporting, between five point seven and five
point eight billion dollars in nineteen sixty nineteen seventy money,
(29:59):
so it was way more than that.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
In real terms. Well yeah, and just so you know,
that's around twenty nine point three billion dollars in twenty
twenty one.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Dollars and then in twenty twenty five dollars. We actually
have to wait for the data to come in. How
screwed up the current economy is. But this is I
guess at first this seems like good news. Right as
we're picking up these breadcrumbs and connecting this red string.
The social media conspiracy lore isn't that far off. And
(30:31):
the thing is real. It is built, It costs around
as much money as it was alleged to have cost,
and it was completed. It opened on October the first
of nineteen seventy five, and the very next day, October second,
nineteen seventy five, Congress members in the House successfully voted
to shut it down.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, that's that, but that doesn't mean it shut down
that day. When Congress voted to shut it down, it
means funding is gone. So it's gotta roll down a
couple months at least.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
What an odd thing to do, though, I mean, after
all that money after all that labor that goes into
a facility like that, like what's going on.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Well, keep in mind the cost of labor and R
and D does not get refunded, So the money is gone, right,
the money has left the barn. It's a weird bait
and switch, right, and it gets a little money. When
we think about the reasons, and already this is just
the true information. According to the facts as they stand,
it does seem Mickelson's safeguard was either an offensive waste
(31:39):
of time and resources or just maybe something else. And
so if you don't dive any deeper, you see those
conspiratorial allegations on your favorite social media, you may say, hey,
these have some sand to them. But if there was
is a conspiracy to what end quibono, who benefits? That's
where we get to the really weird stuff.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well, one person, group of people organization that is currently
benefiting from this site is the United States Space Force. Why, well,
let's get into it. So the pyramid structure, if you're
looking at images of this thing online, and we hope
you are, the pyramid structure, and then the other little
spartan missile silos that you can also see in a
(32:20):
lot of the images. That stuff is what we're talking
about essentially, is what got shut down and what was
no longer in operation. There was still testing going on
at that Pyramid site again, at least according to Rob Branting,
over there at the Ronald Reagan minuet Man Missile site,
which is the OSCAR zero Missile Alert Facility and the
(32:41):
November thirty three launch facility. Really interesting names for stuff
out there in North Dakota, and then that whole area
with missiles. That is one site that was doing its thing.
There's another thing called the PAAR or the Perimeter Acquisition Radar.
It's another strange concrete looking building. It's got this checkerboard
(33:03):
e looking thing on one side of it that's kind
of tilted a little bit, angled towards the sky. It's
got a little radar thing on top of it, some sort,
you know, one of those old golf ball things. This
structure is very interesting. It is specifically looking and was
looking to see what was coming in and out of
(33:25):
the atmosphere. It could for the first time begin to
characterize the type of things that are coming in and
out of the atmosphere. So with some of the older radars,
some of the different radar, even the one the pyramid structure,
it didn't have a lot of accuracy in what it's seeing.
It could just detect, oh there's stuff coming from the
north pole vicinity, or oh there's stuff coming from the
(33:46):
southwest out of the sky. This thing, this pr could
give you a better idea and tracking ability for those attacks.
So as it was more strategically important, this thing kept
on operating. It was handed over to the Air Force
in nineteen seventy seven, and then in twenty twenty one
(34:08):
US Space Force took over. And they're the ones who
still don't like operate this thing today.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Because you don't want to throw things away. If parts
of it work, you know, you want to do salvage.
And that's that ties back to what we were saying earlier,
the conspiratorial allegations on social media, that maybe there is
some other purpose than what was originally sold to the
public and indeed to Congress. And that's where we get
to that question again. If there was or is a conspiracy,
(34:38):
who benefits kle Bono, right, And that's what leads us
to the weirder stuff that caught fire on social media
around twenty twenty one and continuing on today, maybe we
get more into the details of that after a word
from our sponsors, good folks at Lockheed raytheon north of
(34:59):
Grumman Boeing. Are we still with Boeing?
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Yeah, baby, Yeah, all the hits and we've returned.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
All right, So going back to some points we mentioned earlier,
the story is told in these short TikTok clips is
unfortunately the most diplomatic way we can say it is.
It is a highly abridged version of the truth. Congress
did vote to shut down Michelson literally the day after
(35:31):
it opened, like you were saying, Noel, but the base
remained in operation until February tenth, nineteen seventy six. Contrary
to the popular implications, something this large, with this many
moving parts can't be flicked off at a switch. You
can't just walk into what It's kind of like our
conversation about MRIs right, there's not a kill switch for Mickelson. No.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
I'm just really surprised that none of this crossed my
social media radar. It just seems like the algorithm would
have fed it to me if it was making the rounds.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Given some of the stuff that we look at.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Maybe you guys saw it, but I don't know if
you guys are on Instagram as much.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
As I am.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
But for around a year, according to the Palm Beach Post,
this site was home to almost two thousand military and civilians.
Like living in any large community base, there was a
subdivision which included a commissaria chapel and all that kind
of stuff, and also a gas station and you know
(36:31):
the kinds of things any small town where you know,
village would need a town.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Yeah, like this is going to be familiar to anybody
who's lived on a large military base in the past.
But I spent some time in Fort Campbell and it
was a city all its own. It was big.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
They had a water tower, which to me at that
time was like the mark of authenticity for a city.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Oh you're a town for sure.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
For sure, you guys have the tower. Yeah right, well
it was spring exactly right, I know, coming Georgia. So
this this gets really weird because despite the fact that
people agreed the base was an imperfect answer, it was
(37:16):
still better than any of the alternatives aside from world peace.
But it turns out it had a secondary value, and
it's one that the public was not super aware of
because it'd be very unpopular to explain to them. This
was not just a off the cuffed attempt at destroying
(37:37):
enemy ICBMs. This had an equal value as a bargaining
chip in negotiation with the Soviets, and it actually kind
of worked. Russians watched this and they were amazed. They
were impressed.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, this was cutting edge technology at the time, and
the Americans actually spent that money and built this thing.
And they've got satellites just like we've got satellites looking
down from above, but yeah, seeing, uh, guys, what is that?
What is that pyramid thing? We've got some intel they're
(38:13):
building something out here. Those are definitely missile sites. But
what is that pyramid thing?
Speaker 3 (38:17):
What's going on? Yeah? And then they also, you know,
they did have it for anybody who's seen the show,
the Americans there were sleeper agents right who community take
a road trip to parts of North Dakota. Unproven, but
they did have pretty efficient ways of gleaning intelligence. And
(38:38):
they also did the math right, because the US was
happy to announce this math to journalists, so they did
the math and they said, Okay, even if it's going
to get cheaper every time they build another iteration of
this dirty dozen. If we try to build something like this,
if we try to build twelve of these, that's going
(38:59):
to be a phenomenon tall milkshake. That's possibly a bank
breaking endeavor. So we got to come negotiate with our frenopies.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, it makes it makes so much sense. You
think about satellite technology today, and you guys remember some
of these stories that came out about specifically places in
China where cities, massive entire cities were being built and
then nobody was using them, or there were so few
human beings in these these large metropolitan areas didn't make
(39:31):
any sense. The way you could tell that now is
with a sophisticated satellite technology, you can tell there's, oh,
there's no cars going down any of these major highways
that have been built. Oh wait, what is happening? Back
back then, specifically like nineteen seventy five or whenever it was,
you could still tell that it was an operating base.
(39:54):
Right with the images coming back, there are human beings
going back and forth from let's say a barracks to
the actual facility. But if you didn't have people doing that,
you could probably at least in some way say this
isn't worth our time. This is like for show.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Right right, this is performance, pomp and circumstance. But just
as we're describing, every time a satellite passes over their
correct path, they're instantly they're instantly playing the game that
a lot of people play as kids, where you look
at the two seemingly identical images and then you know
there are ten things different and you have to try
(40:33):
to find the ten things like always wearing a red
hat this time, or oh the blah blah blah. That's
what's happening with satellite imagery around this time on the
Soviet side, because they're looking at this and they're saying, oh,
why are these vehicles in different places? Who's moving where?
And how can we figure out when they're moving? So
(40:53):
that's how they know it's active.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Intelligence is so vast when it comes to the collection, right.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, it's also hilarious when it comes to the fact
that we're using the word intelligence, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Like information technology, information gathering, and weaponization.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
It reminds me of one of my favorite Snail sketches
just for the Voice with Adam Driver at Career Day,
where he's like incubation technology was still in its infancy.
I was placed it in iron lung until I was
a ripe enough to breathe.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
I remember this, is that Lorri stabs a crow?
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Yes? Yes, hr Pickens? Who is that exactly the idea here, right,
of separating through the noise? Is this a fake thing?
Like when the British said, oh, eating carrots just turns
out to make you really good at seeing in the dark.
(41:58):
Pay no attention to those rumors about radar, right, like, yeah,
is this is this a story they're selling us? They
were convinced it was true, and so they came together
and both countries eventually said, all right, you guys, I
can't wait too what we say about this? They said,
all right, guys, all right, all right, Yanks Ivans, we
(42:20):
each get one anti missile site each, just one, just one,
because you guys already built one.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
We'll build one two. It's cool.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
That's it. We're going to the next level of the
game again. That's officially. I don't know what do you
guys think when you hear about those kinds of agreements,
you know, like, oh, we're gonna step down the nukes.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
No, man, I don't know if anyways gonna willingly step
down anything.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Well, the site still has those the potential for minute
men missiles, and it's still partly operated by Space Force
and they're looking at stuff in orbit.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
It just makes you you've got there's a lot of
trust that would go into one side saying Okay, we
trust that you're not gonna do anything else.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Will be the bigger government. We've been going to big
government therapy. Yeah, we're really working on ourselves, and we
hope you guys also work on lowering the amount of
nuke two out.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Damn it wouldn't it be great if that were true? Though,
if we could all just go to big government therapy together.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Honestly, I yeah, like all the voters are well playing.
I gotta tell you, I've thought for years and I
I have no moral compunction about cannabis. Do as thou wilt.
It's not for me. But still being a non subscriber
to it, I suspect that a lot of international conflict
(43:59):
would be easier to solve if some of the world
leaders in despots just had a smoke sessh together, dude, Like,
if they just hung out, talked about common interest, shared
some of their culture's favorite snacks, do some bong rips. Yeah,
a little microdosing. I'm fully on board with this.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Let's let's freaking do it, guys. We can we can
make this happen. It's a global shroom session at a
cabin somewhere right somewhere. Everybody's just hanging.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Out and Truman cannabis.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
You got to get people choice. Yeah, throw up.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Some fractals on the projector magic IY gets to bring
back magic guy. You know what I mean. Never make
those work.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Just hang out with an oak tree for a couple hours.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Talk to some animals. Check out our episodes on that. Yeah,
look what we're saying is we don't have all the answers, folks,
but we do have the best ones. So there we go.
So Congress then did something really weird. After or they
reached this official agreement with Russia, they went back and
(45:04):
they said, look what we've done, despite building this behemoth
and then closing it almost immediately, what we've done is
actually saved the nation billions, possibly trillions of dollars, because
now we don't have to build the other eleven ones
that we were pretending we were going to build, which
(45:25):
is true, but it's sneaky true. It's parcore true, it's
conveniently true. And then they said, yeah, they have more stuff. Well,
there's a lot of statements that were like, oh baby,
come on, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Well because they were secretly working on Shyan Mountain or
in Colorado, they're working on all these other sites that
do various things for continuity of government and for protecting sure,
you know, the movers and shakers no matter where the.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Nukes fall, just not specifically that kind of thing that
Nicolson was exactly what I mean. It's like someone going
to court and saying, your honor, I'm never gonna drive
a Volkswagen drunk again. And then, you know, fast forward
six months, they're in the same court with the same
judge and they say, your honor in my defense. That
(46:14):
was a BMW, your.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Honor in my missile defense.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Oh yeah. So Congress, to the public and to any
factions of politics and defense, they said, okay, get this though. Yeah,
Nicholson was expensive, but a ton of the money we
spent was basically just figuring out how to build the thing.
(46:40):
If you think about it, I mean, come on, maybe,
if you think about it, half the money went into
research and design, and we would have done that anyway,
you know us, you know how we get down. So
really we invested in technology and we didn't blow that
much cheese on this thing when you think about it.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
We didn't mean to hurt you base.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
They come on, I know, gas light Central and so
it was, yes, a lot of money, this safeguard base.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
It was only working for a short time, and logically
people still speculate on the motives behind constructing it, especially
with so very many people arguing against its feasibility from
the jump. Large parts of Nicholson are abandoned right now,
and following up on our conversation about a visible or
(47:38):
abandoned America, this is great if you're a fan of
urban exploration. And I don't know about you guys, but
I think it's astonishing how low the prices were when
this stuff went to public auction.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
Yeah, we were talking about this off air about how,
you know, been a little more ego, I might have
been able to swoop in and get some deals here. So,
after most of its operational components were destroyed over the
following decades, like you said, Ben, the MSR and the
surrounding lands were sold at government auction for a total
(48:12):
of five hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
That seems very manageable.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
They think about that price. That's insane, that's insane. That
is the price of some of these big homes around.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
No question, I know, not that big, not that big,
not that big, not as big as you think. No,
unless you live in Vancouver or San Francisco, and then
you're like, oh, is it a trench under a bridge?
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:39):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
That number is crazy.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
It is. It's such a such a steep drop, you know,
the rate of depreciation. What is this a boat? Anyway,
They're purchased by the Spring Creek Hunter right colony originally
the big piece of it in this auction. They are
a religious farm community.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Are they humble farmers? Well you hope so actually love
that connection.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yes, Eventually they will be spacefaring humble farmers. Yeah, you
just wait.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
But they're not. They're not whole makeover missile base edition
by any means. They farmed the land, but reportedly they
just sort of allowed the structures to sit in the
way of all ancient monuments and fall into slow decay.
Look upon my works, you mighty, and don't repair, But.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
There are missile silos in there. Have you guys seen
some of those repurpose missile silos that end up flooding
quite a bit just because nobody's paying attention to them,
which is why.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
They started filling them with sand.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Yes, yeah, exactly. And it's not helpful to have, you know,
repurposed missile silos. They could actually have missiles. You probably
don't want that. If you're a government selling things, we
can purpose them for other things. Just make sure missiles
can't go in there anymore.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Right, that's the idea. Seal it up. And also, you
know the environmental problems of having having created super deep
wells that are full of contaminants and pollution. And now
the water gets in there, but it doesn't stay in
that well forever. There will come soft rains. Sorry, that
(50:21):
story is still stuck in my head, you guess. But yeah,
so we know the sales continue. Somewhere between twenty seventeen
and twenty twenty, parts of the site that, as you said,
all the Humble Farmers have purchased were sold to this
local county outfit called the Cavalier County Job Development Authority. Yeah, yeah,
(50:46):
totally legit. The CCJDA, and they say when they purchase this,
they said, look, we want to turn this into an
historic visitation center. And then they got on the site
and walked around and they looked at how wrecked it was,
and they said, Okay, this might take longer than we thought.
(51:07):
So we don't know how far they've gone yet. It's
going to be extensive. We'll update if we hear more,
but for now, the site is officially locked up tight
and officially has twenty four hour surveillance, and we cannot
officially say anything about how one would or would not
get in.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Yes, except for the parts that remember, are probably patrolled
by folks from the Space Force which are using that
one particular radar system and several surrounding buildings.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
One hundred percent. But you can still, Okay, if you
want to get a tour and you want to be
legit without any skullduggery or noctification, then you can go
to one of the remote sprint launcher missile facilities. Of these.
They were also sold at auction, and an absolute legend
(52:04):
named mel San bought one of these in twenty thirteen.
Forget this, folks, sorry, I'm going game show less than
twenty thousand US dollars. There are cars that are more expensive.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Wow, I don't even know what to say about that.
Nice work, nice one, Mel. It makes you wonder why
Mel would do that. Besides you know the kind of
the standard reasons why I would want one of these,
you know, in case stuff hits that old fan.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
Case.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
What would you do with it, Matt, if you, you know,
were to win the auction.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
I would make sure that there was a way for
myself and people that I cared about that lived hopefully
a very short drive away, if not within the facility,
could get there in time if missiles were on the way,
because you'd be a little safer in one of those.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
That's true, Yeah, especially if you got it up to
snuff up the code. And Mel is just a fascinating character. Guys.
There's this great interview and first hand account of taking
a tour with Mel of his of his facility. You
can read it on Unfamiliar Land, And as he explained
(53:21):
to the author of Unfamiliar Land, he wanted he He's
working on this thing as a labor of love. It's
a passion project. He's doing a lot of the work himself,
and he had not really thought that anybody would be
interested in touring this piece of Cold War history. But
as he's working out in the missile field that is
(53:42):
his new yard, or as he's trying to clean up
all this scrap and salvage, people kept stopping by and saying, oh,
you know, hey, what's going on man, what are you
up to? So he put together a tour that sounds
really cool. If you're fan of this kind of history.
You get a video not as propagandistic as the video
(54:07):
you have to watch, you know, like going into North
Korea or something, but it's all about the history of
Safeguard and the history of the site, history things like
the sprint missile test, and then he walks you through
the guardroom, which is now a bedroom the control bunker.
We do have to stress, and Mail stresses that as
(54:27):
far as we know, the missile field does not contain
working missiles, but he hasn't yet scrounged up the capital.
He would need to unseal them and see what's inside.
They're bolted down. You look on it. It he's restored the tops,
like the end caps of these things. But that's way
(54:48):
easier than figuring out how to crack it open, especially
if you don't know the best way to close it afterwards.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Yeah, I'm looking at a site called Cold War Tourists.
Oh yeah, yeah, they they've got some of the best
imagery of the site in there, including inside. I guess
this is the pyramid. Uh, just looking at again where
water is seeped in and rusted a bunch of stuff,
(55:16):
where it just looks like a dangerous place to be,
and then imagining the other silos around the site looking
probably similar, if not worse, because this is inside a pyramid, right,
and it looks like it's haggard as all heck. And
then if you imagine going down into the ground quite
a bit, what you might you might not like what
(55:39):
you find out there.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
No, it's it's pretty gnarly, you know. It looks like
the backdrop of a Ramstein or Nine Inch Nails music video, Uh,
to be quite honest, or Silent Hill or Silent Hill
very much so industrially ravaged. Yeah, yeah, there's something dystopian,
post apocalyptic. You can also go to the website SRMSC
(56:05):
dot org for more history on the site. That's pretty
in depth. That's gret some pictures of the heyday. It's
got a great explanation of the system components. It'd be
cool to hang out with Mel. Mel if you're listening,
Thank you for making this resource available to the public.
Good luck on your restoration project. Here's what we found.
(56:28):
For all the research we did, Mel and the other
locals seem to have lots of stories about the site,
you know, fun anecdotes, some tales of shadowy government activity,
like the FBI tracking down people who are trying to
take photographs, stuff like that, but no one has created
serious and sourced allegations of Mickelson as a site for
(56:52):
either secret quasi government activity or unfortunately, Illuminati activity. So
that's why you see the TikTok videos and someone is
giving you things that start out true about the history
of this site, and then they say, many people say
it's a stronghold for the Illuminati. That's the point where
(57:12):
you have to ask yourself which people specifically. It's a
bummer of a point, but it's important.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
Yeah, Hello, it might be of interest to somebody who
would build a weird pyramid structure on an island.
Speaker 3 (57:29):
You know, might go to might be of interest to uh,
someone who would build weird structures on the moon.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
You know which it looks like China is going to
beat us to the moon. Guys, I don't know if
you saw the.
Speaker 3 (57:44):
Looks like China's beating us to a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
It looks like I do it so great here with
the whole defense.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Their drone shows the same. Yeah, yeah, dangerous theater right.
Speaker 2 (57:58):
On that same site, Ben, he was looking at the
PAAR complex, that perimeter acquisition radar thing, Yeah, that Rob
Branton was talking about so much on here. It says
it can track back in the day when it was created.
It can track multiple targets the size of a basketball
at a range of two thousand miles, and it's pointed
(58:20):
north towards the North Pole, which means it's looking for
anything that's coming our way, you know, over that pole,
around that pole from Russia. And from that information you
can probably understand why Space Force is still so interested
in keeping this thing running.
Speaker 3 (58:36):
Sure, especially also rogue armaments that may have survived in
former Soviet satellite states, and they've updated this. We also
have to mention that the reason it's important to track
multiple things at such a small level of size is
because a common strategy is to not launch just your
one explosive boy, but to also launch decoys less than
(59:00):
the chance that you'll be because you know already you
can't get everything in the sky just yet.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (59:06):
This is the story of the Michelson Safeguard Complex. I
think we were all fascinated to learn not only can
you buy a piece of Gold War history, but you
can get it for a song unless there's something they
don't want you to know. One positive note about weird
things weird songs. I was showing this to Dylan earlier.
(59:27):
Can remember. I think I may have showed you met
my crow whistle. I got a crow whistle helps you
talk to crows.
Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yes, allegedly hear it?
Speaker 3 (59:37):
Of course, No, Jesus, oh.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
You a little kazoo, but like.
Speaker 3 (59:43):
A little kazoo. But the crows seem to like it.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
I can hear it. I can hear it.
Speaker 3 (59:47):
It does no, I literally, it's like it's it's it's
like a call.
Speaker 2 (59:50):
Not kidding. Did you order that online? Did you find
it somewhere?
Speaker 3 (59:53):
Oh? The cool story would be of a crow gave
it to me right, Yes, of course. Raven was like,
let's take this relationship to the next just hand.
Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
I found this on some forums in the projects continue.
Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Oh dude, I want that so badly. I've been They've
been all around this area recently, and I don't know
what species exactly. I don't know. You know, some of
them look much larger. So I'm just i it. I
want to know more. You're gonna have to tell us
more at some point, because once you discover what it
(01:00:25):
can do, we need to know.
Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
Man.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
I'm sure you can find one on the It's something
like it on the internet, so easy, right. If not,
we have a new business.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
I guess let's give one more shout out here to
the State Historical Society of North Dakota and that Ronald
Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site. You can take tours
of some of these places and get a glimpse not
of the specific you know, the pyramid and the place
that we talked about today, but you can get a
(01:00:56):
really close look into what these systems were designed to
do in the history of them and similar systems of
this missile defense shield concept and this idea of response
to a nuclear attack tremendously interesting. And there are a
ton of super smart people that will just let you
come through there for about ten bucks US.
Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
If a lot of historians man, and that ten bucks
is no one's making money off of it. That's just
like pay for cleaning. Also big thanks to the journalist
we mentioned earlier. Mark Charboneau is the guy over at
Unfamiliar Land. We talked about his experience on the tour,
but we didn't give him a shout out specifically. There's
(01:01:42):
so many sites like this all around the US. We've
got some here in Georgia, some abandoned sites. There is,
of course the Oak Ridge Historical Site. We know their
official historian. We met him on a weird side gig
to find a stolen head of a statue in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Whoo eh.
Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Progress ongoing. We can't wait to hear about your strange
adventures with abandoned places or places with strange uses. You
can always send us an email. You can call us
on the telephone. You can find us on the lines
that's right.
Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
Find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy,
on x fka, Twitter, and on YouTube with video content
colore for you to peruse and enjoy.
Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
On Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. When you call in,
you've got three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname, and
let us know within the message if we can use
your name and message on the air, and your voice.
Your voice is part of that, because we can alter
that if we absolutely have to. If you want to
send something a little more sensitive. If you want to
(01:02:57):
send us words, sentences, paragram, attachments, everything, why not instead
send us an email.
Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
We are I don't know. I'm still getting the hang
of it. The entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive be well aware. Yet I'm afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back, join us out here in the dark.
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Can we please request everyone play this episode outside if
you see a crow and see if Ben attracts some crows.
Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They goll be bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pl Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Gold War still here,
never left. Don't call it a comeback, right, etc.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Etc.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
This is one that several listeners suggested to us a
number of years ago, actually, when it was making the
rounds on social media. Maybe the best way we get
into it is to start with a question, what's the
weirdest building we've been in as individuals?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
The Shaken Crawdad over there on Buford Highway really like
a merry ground, super odd.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I remember that one. I've never been in it, but
I haven't, but I remark upon it every time I
go past them. I'd like to one day.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
The strangest building I've been in is the Omega mart Oh.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
I'm so glad we were frustrained, interdimensional fun.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That was a good time. Yeah wolf thing in Vegas. Yeah,
with our pal Paul Decant. And I remember being worried
that might be a weird pitch because I didn't know
what to expect either, Like, hey, let's go to this
fake fake I don't even want to spoil it. You know,
I think he nailed it. That is such an amazing building.
(01:54):
I've seen a lot of weird historical stuff that, you
know that I have to be honest about. It may
have only seemed strange to me as an outsider, you
know what I mean, Like the Washington Monument is really
weird if you're not from the US.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Sulti looking double lists have always struck me as a
little you know, ominous.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
What do we think of penile?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
What do we think of when we think of George Washington?
We do love it too. Mess monuments here in the
United States, Oh yeah, skyscrapers are going to look crazy
in two thousand years to understand what were they thinking?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Oh yeah, they have a preoccupation there. Maybe they were
compensating for something.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I think a better example if I if I wasn't
going weird, it would be the facility at Buford Dam
here in Georgia because it's one of those places that
is roped off to most individuals, but because of our
association with Marshall brain and how stuff works way back
in the day, was able to actually go in there
and look at the systems while they're functioning. So while
(02:58):
they're generating electricity with the hydroelect forces of the huge
lake reservoir moving just down through this dam and then
you get power. But nobody's allowed in there to see
that kind of stuff. So maybe that's one of the
weirdest places I've been.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Oh yeah, I like that mad. It also reminds me,
maybe not in just weirdness. We're happy to tell you
weird buildings around the world later, folks, but in terms
of scale and enormity. You've made me think of the
Hoover Dam, right, which the brain can't really get its
mind around the first time you drive up and see it. Yeah,
(03:36):
scaled upon that, it's nuts.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
It's like being in a real life video game, which
is such a kind of silly way of putting it,
but it's sort of the only thing I could compare
in terms of the like I'm even using video game terms.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
The draw distance of it all, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, yeah, and it's a great building. Just when we
think about government sponsored massive structures that have a very
specific purpose and cost the equivalent of billions and billions,
tens of billions of dollars today.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, you see where we're going with this. That's right, folks,
We're gonna get real weird with one for urban explorers.
For as odd as it may sound to say, Cold
War fans all the hits like stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Even Space Force fans and Space.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Force fans, good luck on your relocation coming up, folks Alabama, right,
uh huh, Yeah, that was the big announcement of letdown
Role Tide. Uh. So we're gonna pause for a word
from our sponsors, and then we're going to we're going
to learn the stuff they don't want you to know
about the Cold War. Here are the facts, all right,
(04:52):
let's cast our memories back to the days of the
first Cold War. We got two superpowers, right, the USA
and the USSR.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, and they had just won a huge victory over
the bad guys, uh, the ones, the ones A Norm
McDonald called the guys.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I don't know this crankly crankly guys.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I think he was doing an impression of Hitler. You remember.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
The less I like him. Yeah, we've been bringing that
joke of on a couple of different shows. Yeah, you're right,
there's this big there's a world changing conflict, World War two.
And as you said, Matt, the US s R. And
the USA had teamed up to fight the Axis Powers,
but they were never really close. They were never bosom buddies.
(05:49):
They were always frenemies with very different ideologies that were
mutually exclusive, and so they already saw a new kind
of war on the horizon. Even before World War Two
officially ended in nineteen forty five, these guys were figuring
out how to screw each other over. Well.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, and as we just talked about on a couple
of episodes ago, the other forces that were not like
the main allies that you hear about in history, like
China that we're fighting against Japan on the Pacific Front,
and how everybody was working together to defeat these Axis
powers again, like just as we're taught in schools, but
(06:27):
the big team up and just to have all of
that shatter because everybody is trying to watch the other
one with the corner of their eyes. They wait a second,
what are you are you trying something over there, buddy?
Oh oh oh, maybe we got to do something.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Right that the other people were saying, hang on, why
are they looking at us? Are they planning to do something?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And we should have planned to do something.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
We should plan to get in front of this a
little little reactionary. Maybe, I don't know very much. So
I mean that's where you get things like Operation paper Clip.
That's where you get the Soviet equivalent of trying to
extricate all the scientists. They can recover any and all
axis rocket science in particular, and these axis powers are
(07:12):
collapsing in Europe and East Asia. These two juggernauts are
instantly going at it with their allies what we would
call the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc back then,
but for shorthand we'll just say Russia and the USA.
So Western sources, we've talked about this too before. They're
going to tell you that the Cold War lasted between
(07:33):
like nineteen forty seven all the way to the fall
of the USSR in nineteen ninety one. However, a lot
of other people will tell you no, the Cold War
began as World War Two was dying down. And if
you go to sources that are not your Western textbook.
Some of them will tell you the Cold War never ended.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, the titles of some of the countries changed a
little bit. The Gulfs became you know, America instead of Mexico.
But it's just the history continued on, and some of
the same human beings lived, you know, continued to live,
(08:14):
and some of those same human beings had similar aspirations
that they did when countries were named other things.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And visited Alaska recently, some of those guys, Yeah, yeah,
I mean some speeches. You're absolutely right. The names change,
but the game's the same, right, Rose by any other
name is still a Rose of war. Whatever won't keep
it anyway. So it was apparent from the jump to
all the political class, the academics, the boffins, the eggheads,
(08:42):
the public that both sides, at least the powers, the
decision makers of both sides wanted to establish global supremacy.
And when they were trying to rationalize beat me here, Dylan, please,
when they were trying to rationalize the evil Street Director
they were doing, they said, look, if we don't break
a few eggs, the other guys are going to take
(09:04):
over the world. And that's going to be way worse
than what we're doing, you know, by testing these gases
on civilians and so on.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And that's sort of what kicked off the arms race.
So both groups searched for any possible leg up on
the other, regardless of how minor it might be. The
US as are and the United States jumped into all
kinds of weird reindeer games, as you would say ben shenanigans.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Dare we say.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Some of them sound a little bit odd or you know,
potentially downright evil even by today's standards, and you know,
to be fair, some of them actually continue. So we've
got private defense contractors, politicians and department heads of government
all agreeing on one thing, these buzz phrases like national
(09:58):
defense or the red threat. We're key in helping Uncle
Sam open that wallet on up.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah, we need a shield.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Uh huh, well, yeah we need a shield. We have
no per diem. There's no budget limit on this stuff
for real, as long as you say the right words
in the right rooms. And this sounds really paranoid today,
we do have to admit a lot of progress, scientific
and social was lost due to this mistrust. But everyone
looking back can agree the assessments of these two world
(10:31):
powers were correct. And the secret that a lot of
your textbooks will tell you is some of those forces
we just describe actively wanted a cold war because it's
great for business, It unifies domestic support. It is so
easy to get re elected if you can make the
public feel you're fighting a common threat.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
But it's also like way more convenient than a hot war.
You know, it's more sustainable in terms of, like it
gives you the rationale that's needed, but you don't have
people dying, and you don't have to like deploy troops
to the front.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Lines, right, deploying troops being one of the big differences there.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It's a quieter war, yes, quickly, Let's remember August sixth
and ninth, nineteen forty five is when Hiroshima and Nagasaki
are both bombs with the first show of force with
a nuclear weapon or an atomic weapon. It's only two
years later that the USSR tests their first nuclear bomb
(11:33):
or atomic bomb. So just remember like that that part
is probably the most important. These two superpowers have both
demonstrated this ability to cause mass casualties almost instantaneously if
the right bomb gets dropped in the right place, and
so just wielding that power alone creates this common threat,
(11:55):
common enemy thing for everybody.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Right, yeah, these are this is world end technology with
at that point no real viable deterrent on something's in
the air, and you know now you're bringing that up.
One of the weird doesn't fit. But one of the
most singular series of buildings I've ever visited is the
(12:18):
Hiroshima site. You know that that is a scale that
is in its own way, equally incomprehensible, similar to similar
to the Hoover Dam in some respects. But you absolutely
nailed it because then later we see Sputnik, which is
real egg on the face for the US, and there's
(12:39):
a space race happening, right and all the technology involved there.
This means that technological research, despite the despite the tensions
that won't let people work together, the research is at
a fever pitch, and it's so well funded. This is
the time to go to the Department of Defense and
(13:00):
and shark Tankum say like, hey, I got a wacky idea.
Have you guys heard of psychic powers? And they're like,
you know what, it's weird that you made it this
far into the building, but hit us.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
We gotta look at it. They might be doing it too.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
They might be doing it too.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I don't mean to be reductive about the space race stuff,
but doesn't it feel a little bit guys like most
of that is about, Hey, they might put nukes up there,
I'm sure, okay.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Or be able to command and control that part of
that sphere literal sphere of orbit for surveillance. And maybe
they don't even need a nuke, right, maybe they can
work with some of that technology that was still in
play at the time, the idea of just dropping rods
(13:49):
from God into things.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
But in the mid fifties, I suppose it would be
and Nixon era. That's around the time when we're thinking
how do we prevent missiles like nukes from hitting us? Right,
that's when that concept is like just a little seed. Hey,
I think we could probably stop nukes. We just got
to build something that could stop the nukes. So how
(14:13):
do we do that? And that's when that idea it
becomes alive. And then I just imagine I imagine people
at the time with the seemingly endless possibilities that space represented,
like that being another way, Hey, there's got to be
a way to stop the nukes from up there.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
And we combine it with the shiny new thing that
is space exploration, and we see stuff like sees the
high ground and we see, you know, a high rate
of attrition for ideas, lots of extremely weird, at times
useless stuff and some very brilliant ideas like how to
get to space and stay there without dying for a
(14:51):
second for a little while. But a lot of this,
we have to realize, comes from this almost like a
global poker game these world leaders were playing, because they
both attempted to send misleading signals about what they were
doing and how successful or unsuccessful it actually was. Because
(15:12):
if you can, let's say we're Russia and you can
appear to build an amazing new technology, right, but it's
impossible to build it. But no, you're gonna be rushing
this one, if that's right. Oh sure, absolutely all right.
So you you figure out, you get with your guys
(15:34):
and you say, we don't have to actually build this,
we just have to make the other side think we're
doing it, and then we'll bleed them dry financially.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Because they got to build one now, right, because.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
They don't want to defits gap. It's the old.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
What's the building in there? Trick tom Way would be proud. Yes,
I suppose he would.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Guys, we've mentioned that recently, we were talking about AI
right within this that I think this goes further and
deeper into the present than we would like to believe.
I genuinely think that I have read things about new
tech and in the science sphere that are these kinds
(16:18):
of red herring developments that are going on in countries
that are not just the United States and Russia or China,
but other countries that are closely allied that will put
out something and say, oh, we're fusion technology is now
at this point where it's in this incredible spot. You
guys were doing it. We've done it, and then somebody
(16:39):
else is going to have to start pumping those billions in.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Right, and then you have to you know, in times
of peace were even then your next solution is, oh,
we have to get someone there in person, not boots
on the ground, but we got to get some shoes
in the ground so someone can see if this fusion
thing is malarkey? Right? Is this or is this a
mechanical turk things of that nature. Sorry it's classified, no, No,
(17:05):
it's fine, I'm just I'm a tourist. I apologize. I
thought this was the restroom. Yeah yeah, that kind of stuff,
which did happen during the Cold War. What are the
weirdest results of this, Well, we're very excited to explore
with you tonight, folks. Is something called the Stanley R.
(17:26):
Mickelson Safeguard Complex. Not the sexiest name, but very expensive
and according to the war it costs around six billion
dollars to build and as you said, Matt, nineteen sixties
nineteen seventies money, and the story says it was only
in operation for one day and then became the center
(17:47):
for something else entirely. Is any of this true? If so,
how much?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Maybe?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Most disturbingly, what could it be used for today? I
don't think any of us have visited this building just yet,
have we not?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I we have not, but we're going to get into it.
We we have watched many a video from mister Robert Branting,
site supervisor of the Ronald Reagan Minuteman missile site, whom
we left a message with. We we we phoned the
We phoned the Minuteman site and left the message and
(18:24):
said thank you for your videos. So hopefully if you
got that message. You're hearing this now, Rob, and thank you. Well.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Also we've also seen, you know, extensive photographs and you
know what, how about this. Let's just pause for a
word from our sponsor and then let's continue years where
it gets crazy. We don't always get to say this.
The social media conspiracy story that was all over TikTok
(18:55):
and Instagram in twenty twenty one is sort of true.
It contains true elements, that's right.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
The conspiratorial allegations surrounding the Michelson safeguard recently spread on TikTok,
and from there the claims got spread. It's like the
way I see TikTok basically reposted on Instagram. I mean,
it kind of gets picked up and it gets weirder
and weirder as it starts to proliferate.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
So let's just start with what we know to be true.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Right, Yeah. If you see images without context of this site,
specifically of one part of the site, because it has
the site itself has multiple sections and multiple large concrete structures.
When you're looking at some of the imagery that will
appear on social media, the one that's most striking looks
(19:50):
like a dang pyramid.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, the MSR, the missile Site Radar complex. It's gigantic,
and it looks like a pyramid walked into a barber
shop and said just up. Yeah, pyramid walked into a bar.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well, they just said, took the take the top off.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, they took the top off and flattened it. They
pushed it down, you know, just f my ass up,
as the as the subreddit goes.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And well, but it's also got those little uh, the
little circular right things on the front that are actually
part well I we'll get into what that actually is,
but it the actual radar systems that are within that
thing are facing in four different directions. So it looks
like symbols, like giant symbols of some sort on.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
There, and it makes you, if you're an American, it
makes you maybe take out a dollar bill if you
have one handy and look at the artwork and go,
oh man, all yeah. Also there's a site. Uh from
the angle, it can look like a giant eye for
from a cyclops of old or some Lovecraftian creature.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Well, isn't that that's the symbol that's on the dollar.
Isn't that the all seeing eye? Like where there's a
disconnect between the top of the pyramid and the base.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
On the dollar, and on this boy, there are four
quote unquote eye things on the larger mass of the pyramid.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I'm just saying, this is a symbol. This kind of
iconography is something we've seen before.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yeah, and if you're already primed to think in those terms, right,
we could obviously say how close can a resemblance become
before we can no longer accept coincidence or technological necessity,
which is the real argument for the pyramid, but also
the under the stacks for the underground power plant. They
(21:41):
look like little monoliths. It looks very weirdly Egyptian themed
in its heyday. For some reason, It's like I was
thinking about this while we're doing research for this, when
we talked briefly about Stargate in a recent listener mail.
It's like future ancient Egypt. What's going on in the
(22:02):
North Dakota. Finally in Nakoma, North Dakota, which also if
I were a Canadian leader at that time, I would
be massively worried and irritated because Nakoma is pretty close
to Canada.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, but that's the point, right, get into it, but
you gotta be as close to the north Pole as.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Possible, right, Yeah, to get your to get your best coverage. Uh.
And this thing is as we're going with, as you said,
and old true stuff. This thing is or was for
a short time, Uncle Sam's first operational what we call
ABM defense System anti ballistic system. It's part of a
(22:45):
bigger thing called the Safeguard program. Think of that as
a clear predecessor to stuff like Israel's Iron Dome or
the proposed Star Wars program under the later administration. The
street name for this guy isn't Mickelson, by the way,
It's Nixon's Pyramid.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Yeah, and you'll hear it.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Mentioned all the time. The idea is not that these
guys are gonna missiles from this site will obliterate Russia
or Chinese forces half a world away. It's the idea
that if something gets shot towards the US, these little
things which we'll talk about, are going to be fast
enough to intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile, blow it up
(23:28):
in the sky, possibly with a thermonuclear explosion, and then
everything's great.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah. Oh yeah, These are like the Nikes, right, the
Nike like they're at not Nike shoes, but Nike missiles
like the Zeus, the Ajax, the X. These are the
things that are supposed to go up and take out
either bombers or missiles that are coming our away. The
craziest part, I think this is what we're getting to.
(23:55):
The craziest part is in the nineteen fifties all the
way up to the mid nineteen seventies, how do you
target a missile that's flying really, really really fast.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Excess of four hundred miles an hour for instance, Yes, so.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What how do you target that with that technology of
the day.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
You need to build a better radar, You need to
you need to build what we call phased array. Yes,
and this is this is what this is what the
big ten to big pyramid item right of Mickelson and
Nixon's pyramids. It was also we got to mention this
before we move into it. This was only the first
(24:36):
of twelve planned sites. Yes, and it was meant to specifically,
Michelson was meant to protect the missile airfields for the
Minutmen missiles at Grand Forks Air Base. So it's like, hey,
you want some missiles on the side with your order
of missiles, Well, listen.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Because the minute men were the response to being attacked, right,
so we have to protect our response, which is a
really interesting concept. And the way we're gonna protect our
response is by having our own nukes that are prepared
to go up and off in the sky, because theoretically
(25:16):
that's the only way we can actually knock the bombers
and missiles out, because you need to get close enough
and then and then detonate a nuke in the air
above your own property, you know, property and relation.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and weather patterns be damned also. As
so everybody in the room went yay khalu kalay huzzah
Brah Brah.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Missile defense shield shield.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
We made up a little chant at the end, we
did the wave across the boardroom.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And Northrop grumming and all the companies said, oh my god, guys,
we're gonna make so much money.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
The Lockey guys were love at it. Uh, they party crazy.
Sadly that was not the case. A lot of people
were pissed about this and have been for decades. Even
I think we've all had those conversations with frustrated experts
and professors who are like, yes, again, general, we all
(26:16):
agree this would be a cool idea if guess missiles
are cool. I get it, they're cool.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Yeah, So I mean you can't you can't kind of
mandate something into existence.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah, Like, however, not all cool things are real things.
So that's what they were talking about. The technology wasn't
where it needed to be.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I agreed. It's tough to fault some of the top
military thinkers at the time because you you can imagine
them racking their brains, getting the top science scientific experts
around and saying, well, how could we actually do this?
How can we achieve defense of this kind of technology
that we're developing and that we know they're developed. And
(27:01):
this was at least at the time, the best option,
or as close to the best option as you can get.
It just was freaking expensive. It reminds me, guys of
that old guitar game Missile Command. Do you remember that one?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Do you remember like a battleship situation? Like, isn't it
It's very basic, right, aren't you sort of like kind
of missiles.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
You're you're you're basically one of these things. You're like
this site, right, you play that site and then you
can shoot missiles up into the air that explode with
what looks like nuclear A small nuclear explosion starts at
the center, expands out, and you have to stop all
the missiles from coming in. It feels very similar to that.
That's a nineteen eighty game game.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
It is.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Ye, it's a missile defense game, which is literally what
we're talking about here. I guys, I just wanted to
get this in. I find it so interesting that you
can play this nineteen eighty arcade game in Well, there's
one place that I found it. You can play it
for free right now if you want to on the
a ARP website. I'm not kidding, I believe you, the
(28:10):
website of the American Association of Retired Persons. Uh, it's
games dot a ARP dot org slash games Slash Atari
Missile Command, and you could play it right now.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I think I might have it on I want to.
I've got it on an emulator. I was just gifted
to a switch to. So doesn't switch have Atari games
on it as well?
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I think there might be maybe it's If not, I'll
go on the emulator. Yeah, it looks like you can
play it literally through the browser. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah, just go just go to the AARP website. Man,
we just there's people who have nostalgia for the concept
of shooting missiles out of the sky with nukes. That's all.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Yeah, I see what you're saying, and good on you, AARP.
Uh and no further comment about emulators. I think, uh,
so this is the issue, and you put it so beautifully.
People are say, yes, this is expensive, Yes, this is imperfect. No,
we have no other options. And then someone says what
about global peace? And they're like, get out, get them out,
(29:10):
get them out, get them out of here. Anyway, as
we were saying, so Congress, to their credit, they have
some serious misgivings about this. Not everybody is happy. There's
a very controversial thing, right and journalists in the public
or clocking onto this. We have to remember at this
time there's also a very strong anti nuclear power in
general movement. They don't love it either. Still, public fear
(29:35):
and the potential for contract or profit won the day,
and the site gets approved out there in North Dakota
in nineteen sixty nine. They start building it in nineteen seventy.
The estimates for how much it ran to build usually
very in contemporary reporting, between five point seven and five
point eight billion dollars in nineteen sixty nineteen seventy money,
(29:59):
so it was way more than that.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
In real terms. Well yeah, and just so you know,
that's around twenty nine point three billion dollars in twenty
twenty one.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Dollars and then in twenty twenty five dollars. We actually
have to wait for the data to come in. How
screwed up the current economy is. But this is I
guess at first this seems like good news. Right as
we're picking up these breadcrumbs and connecting this red string.
The social media conspiracy lore isn't that far off. And
(30:31):
the thing is real. It is built, It costs around
as much money as it was alleged to have cost,
and it was completed. It opened on October the first
of nineteen seventy five, and the very next day, October second,
nineteen seventy five, Congress members in the House successfully voted
to shut it down.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, that's that, but that doesn't mean it shut down
that day. When Congress voted to shut it down, it
means funding is gone. So it's gotta roll down a
couple months at least.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
What an odd thing to do, though, I mean, after
all that money after all that labor that goes into
a facility like that, like what's going on.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Well, keep in mind the cost of labor and R
and D does not get refunded, So the money is gone, right,
the money has left the barn. It's a weird bait
and switch, right, and it gets a little money. When
we think about the reasons, and already this is just
the true information. According to the facts as they stand,
it does seem Mickelson's safeguard was either an offensive waste
(31:39):
of time and resources or just maybe something else. And
so if you don't dive any deeper, you see those
conspiratorial allegations on your favorite social media, you may say, hey,
these have some sand to them. But if there was
is a conspiracy to what end quibono, who benefits? That's
where we get to the really weird stuff.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well, one person, group of people organization that is currently
benefiting from this site is the United States Space Force. Why, well,
let's get into it. So the pyramid structure, if you're
looking at images of this thing online, and we hope
you are, the pyramid structure, and then the other little
spartan missile silos that you can also see in a
(32:20):
lot of the images. That stuff is what we're talking
about essentially, is what got shut down and what was
no longer in operation. There was still testing going on
at that Pyramid site again, at least according to Rob Branting,
over there at the Ronald Reagan minuet Man Missile site,
which is the OSCAR zero Missile Alert Facility and the
(32:41):
November thirty three launch facility. Really interesting names for stuff
out there in North Dakota, and then that whole area
with missiles. That is one site that was doing its thing.
There's another thing called the PAAR or the Perimeter Acquisition Radar.
It's another strange concrete looking building. It's got this checkerboard
(33:03):
e looking thing on one side of it that's kind
of tilted a little bit, angled towards the sky. It's
got a little radar thing on top of it, some sort,
you know, one of those old golf ball things. This
structure is very interesting. It is specifically looking and was
looking to see what was coming in and out of
(33:25):
the atmosphere. It could for the first time begin to
characterize the type of things that are coming in and
out of the atmosphere. So with some of the older radars,
some of the different radar, even the one the pyramid structure,
it didn't have a lot of accuracy in what it's seeing.
It could just detect, oh there's stuff coming from the
north pole vicinity, or oh there's stuff coming from the
(33:46):
southwest out of the sky. This thing, this pr could
give you a better idea and tracking ability for those attacks.
So as it was more strategically important, this thing kept
on operating. It was handed over to the Air Force
in nineteen seventy seven, and then in twenty twenty one
(34:08):
US Space Force took over. And they're the ones who
still don't like operate this thing today.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Because you don't want to throw things away. If parts
of it work, you know, you want to do salvage.
And that's that ties back to what we were saying earlier,
the conspiratorial allegations on social media, that maybe there is
some other purpose than what was originally sold to the
public and indeed to Congress. And that's where we get
to that question again. If there was or is a conspiracy,
(34:38):
who benefits kle Bono, right, And that's what leads us
to the weirder stuff that caught fire on social media
around twenty twenty one and continuing on today, maybe we
get more into the details of that after a word
from our sponsors, good folks at Lockheed raytheon north of
(34:59):
Grumman Boeing. Are we still with Boeing?
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Yeah, baby, Yeah, all the hits and we've returned.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
All right, So going back to some points we mentioned earlier,
the story is told in these short TikTok clips is
unfortunately the most diplomatic way we can say it is.
It is a highly abridged version of the truth. Congress
did vote to shut down Michelson literally the day after
(35:31):
it opened, like you were saying, Noel, but the base
remained in operation until February tenth, nineteen seventy six. Contrary
to the popular implications, something this large, with this many
moving parts can't be flicked off at a switch. You
can't just walk into what It's kind of like our
conversation about MRIs right, there's not a kill switch for Mickelson. No.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
I'm just really surprised that none of this crossed my
social media radar. It just seems like the algorithm would
have fed it to me if it was making the rounds.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Given some of the stuff that we look at.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Maybe you guys saw it, but I don't know if
you guys are on Instagram as much.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
As I am.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
But for around a year, according to the Palm Beach Post,
this site was home to almost two thousand military and civilians.
Like living in any large community base, there was a
subdivision which included a commissaria chapel and all that kind
of stuff, and also a gas station and you know
(36:31):
the kinds of things any small town where you know,
village would need a town.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Yeah, like this is going to be familiar to anybody
who's lived on a large military base in the past.
But I spent some time in Fort Campbell and it
was a city all its own. It was big.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
They had a water tower, which to me at that
time was like the mark of authenticity for a city.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Oh you're a town for sure.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
For sure, you guys have the tower. Yeah right, well
it was spring exactly right, I know, coming Georgia. So
this this gets really weird because despite the fact that
people agreed the base was an imperfect answer, it was
(37:16):
still better than any of the alternatives aside from world peace.
But it turns out it had a secondary value, and
it's one that the public was not super aware of
because it'd be very unpopular to explain to them. This
was not just a off the cuffed attempt at destroying
(37:37):
enemy ICBMs. This had an equal value as a bargaining
chip in negotiation with the Soviets, and it actually kind
of worked. Russians watched this and they were amazed. They
were impressed.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, this was cutting edge technology at the time, and
the Americans actually spent that money and built this thing.
And they've got satellites just like we've got satellites looking
down from above, but yeah, seeing, uh, guys, what is that?
What is that pyramid thing? We've got some intel they're
(38:13):
building something out here. Those are definitely missile sites. But
what is that pyramid thing?
Speaker 3 (38:17):
What's going on? Yeah? And then they also, you know,
they did have it for anybody who's seen the show,
the Americans there were sleeper agents right who community take
a road trip to parts of North Dakota. Unproven, but
they did have pretty efficient ways of gleaning intelligence. And
(38:38):
they also did the math right, because the US was
happy to announce this math to journalists, so they did
the math and they said, Okay, even if it's going
to get cheaper every time they build another iteration of
this dirty dozen. If we try to build something like this,
if we try to build twelve of these, that's going
(38:59):
to be a phenomenon tall milkshake. That's possibly a bank
breaking endeavor. So we got to come negotiate with our frenopies.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, it makes it makes so much sense. You
think about satellite technology today, and you guys remember some
of these stories that came out about specifically places in
China where cities, massive entire cities were being built and
then nobody was using them, or there were so few
human beings in these these large metropolitan areas didn't make
(39:31):
any sense. The way you could tell that now is
with a sophisticated satellite technology, you can tell there's, oh,
there's no cars going down any of these major highways
that have been built. Oh wait, what is happening? Back
back then, specifically like nineteen seventy five or whenever it was,
you could still tell that it was an operating base.
(39:54):
Right with the images coming back, there are human beings
going back and forth from let's say a barracks to
the actual facility. But if you didn't have people doing that,
you could probably at least in some way say this
isn't worth our time. This is like for show.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Right right, this is performance, pomp and circumstance. But just
as we're describing, every time a satellite passes over their
correct path, they're instantly they're instantly playing the game that
a lot of people play as kids, where you look
at the two seemingly identical images and then you know
there are ten things different and you have to try
(40:33):
to find the ten things like always wearing a red
hat this time, or oh the blah blah blah. That's
what's happening with satellite imagery around this time on the
Soviet side, because they're looking at this and they're saying, oh,
why are these vehicles in different places? Who's moving where?
And how can we figure out when they're moving? So
(40:53):
that's how they know it's active.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Intelligence is so vast when it comes to the collection, right.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, it's also hilarious when it comes to the fact
that we're using the word intelligence, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Like information technology, information gathering, and weaponization.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
It reminds me of one of my favorite Snail sketches
just for the Voice with Adam Driver at Career Day,
where he's like incubation technology was still in its infancy.
I was placed it in iron lung until I was
a ripe enough to breathe.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
I remember this, is that Lorri stabs a crow?
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Yes? Yes, hr Pickens? Who is that exactly the idea here, right,
of separating through the noise? Is this a fake thing?
Like when the British said, oh, eating carrots just turns
out to make you really good at seeing in the dark.
(41:58):
Pay no attention to those rumors about radar, right, like, yeah,
is this is this a story they're selling us? They
were convinced it was true, and so they came together
and both countries eventually said, all right, you guys, I
can't wait too what we say about this? They said,
all right, guys, all right, all right, Yanks Ivans, we
(42:20):
each get one anti missile site each, just one, just one,
because you guys already built one.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
We'll build one two. It's cool.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
That's it. We're going to the next level of the
game again. That's officially. I don't know what do you
guys think when you hear about those kinds of agreements,
you know, like, oh, we're gonna step down the nukes.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
No, man, I don't know if anyways gonna willingly step
down anything.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Well, the site still has those the potential for minute
men missiles, and it's still partly operated by Space Force
and they're looking at stuff in orbit.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
It just makes you you've got there's a lot of
trust that would go into one side saying Okay, we
trust that you're not gonna do anything else.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Will be the bigger government. We've been going to big
government therapy. Yeah, we're really working on ourselves, and we
hope you guys also work on lowering the amount of
nuke two out.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Damn it wouldn't it be great if that were true? Though,
if we could all just go to big government therapy together.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Honestly, I yeah, like all the voters are well playing.
I gotta tell you, I've thought for years and I
I have no moral compunction about cannabis. Do as thou wilt.
It's not for me. But still being a non subscriber
to it, I suspect that a lot of international conflict
(43:59):
would be easier to solve if some of the world
leaders in despots just had a smoke sessh together, dude, Like,
if they just hung out, talked about common interest, shared
some of their culture's favorite snacks, do some bong rips. Yeah,
a little microdosing. I'm fully on board with this.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Let's let's freaking do it, guys. We can we can
make this happen. It's a global shroom session at a
cabin somewhere right somewhere. Everybody's just hanging.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Out and Truman cannabis.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
You got to get people choice. Yeah, throw up.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Some fractals on the projector magic IY gets to bring
back magic guy. You know what I mean. Never make
those work.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Just hang out with an oak tree for a couple hours.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Talk to some animals. Check out our episodes on that. Yeah,
look what we're saying is we don't have all the answers, folks,
but we do have the best ones. So there we go.
So Congress then did something really weird. After or they
reached this official agreement with Russia, they went back and
(45:04):
they said, look what we've done, despite building this behemoth
and then closing it almost immediately, what we've done is
actually saved the nation billions, possibly trillions of dollars, because
now we don't have to build the other eleven ones
that we were pretending we were going to build, which
(45:25):
is true, but it's sneaky true. It's parcore true, it's
conveniently true. And then they said, yeah, they have more stuff. Well,
there's a lot of statements that were like, oh baby,
come on, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Well because they were secretly working on Shyan Mountain or
in Colorado, they're working on all these other sites that
do various things for continuity of government and for protecting sure,
you know, the movers and shakers no matter where the.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Nukes fall, just not specifically that kind of thing that
Nicolson was exactly what I mean. It's like someone going
to court and saying, your honor, I'm never gonna drive
a Volkswagen drunk again. And then, you know, fast forward
six months, they're in the same court with the same
judge and they say, your honor in my defense. That
(46:14):
was a BMW, your.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Honor in my missile defense.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Oh yeah. So Congress, to the public and to any
factions of politics and defense, they said, okay, get this though. Yeah,
Nicholson was expensive, but a ton of the money we
spent was basically just figuring out how to build the thing.
(46:40):
If you think about it, I mean, come on, maybe,
if you think about it, half the money went into
research and design, and we would have done that anyway,
you know us, you know how we get down. So
really we invested in technology and we didn't blow that
much cheese on this thing when you think about it.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
We didn't mean to hurt you base.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
They come on, I know, gas light Central and so
it was, yes, a lot of money, this safeguard base.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
It was only working for a short time, and logically
people still speculate on the motives behind constructing it, especially
with so very many people arguing against its feasibility from
the jump. Large parts of Nicholson are abandoned right now,
and following up on our conversation about a visible or
(47:38):
abandoned America, this is great if you're a fan of
urban exploration. And I don't know about you guys, but
I think it's astonishing how low the prices were when
this stuff went to public auction.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
Yeah, we were talking about this off air about how,
you know, been a little more ego, I might have
been able to swoop in and get some deals here. So,
after most of its operational components were destroyed over the
following decades, like you said, Ben, the MSR and the
surrounding lands were sold at government auction for a total
(48:12):
of five hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
That seems very manageable.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
They think about that price. That's insane, that's insane. That
is the price of some of these big homes around.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
No question, I know, not that big, not that big,
not that big, not as big as you think. No,
unless you live in Vancouver or San Francisco, and then
you're like, oh, is it a trench under a bridge?
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:39):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
That number is crazy.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
It is. It's such a such a steep drop, you know,
the rate of depreciation. What is this a boat? Anyway,
They're purchased by the Spring Creek Hunter right colony originally
the big piece of it in this auction. They are
a religious farm community.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Are they humble farmers? Well you hope so actually love
that connection.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yes, Eventually they will be spacefaring humble farmers. Yeah, you
just wait.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
But they're not. They're not whole makeover missile base edition
by any means. They farmed the land, but reportedly they
just sort of allowed the structures to sit in the
way of all ancient monuments and fall into slow decay.
Look upon my works, you mighty, and don't repair, But.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
There are missile silos in there. Have you guys seen
some of those repurpose missile silos that end up flooding
quite a bit just because nobody's paying attention to them,
which is why.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
They started filling them with sand.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Yes, yeah, exactly. And it's not helpful to have, you know,
repurposed missile silos. They could actually have missiles. You probably
don't want that. If you're a government selling things, we
can purpose them for other things. Just make sure missiles
can't go in there anymore.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Right, that's the idea. Seal it up. And also, you
know the environmental problems of having having created super deep
wells that are full of contaminants and pollution. And now
the water gets in there, but it doesn't stay in
that well forever. There will come soft rains. Sorry, that
(50:21):
story is still stuck in my head, you guess. But yeah,
so we know the sales continue. Somewhere between twenty seventeen
and twenty twenty, parts of the site that, as you said,
all the Humble Farmers have purchased were sold to this
local county outfit called the Cavalier County Job Development Authority. Yeah, yeah,
(50:46):
totally legit. The CCJDA, and they say when they purchase this,
they said, look, we want to turn this into an
historic visitation center. And then they got on the site
and walked around and they looked at how wrecked it was,
and they said, Okay, this might take longer than we thought.
(51:07):
So we don't know how far they've gone yet. It's
going to be extensive. We'll update if we hear more,
but for now, the site is officially locked up tight
and officially has twenty four hour surveillance, and we cannot
officially say anything about how one would or would not
get in.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Yes, except for the parts that remember, are probably patrolled
by folks from the Space Force which are using that
one particular radar system and several surrounding buildings.
Speaker 3 (51:43):
One hundred percent. But you can still, Okay, if you
want to get a tour and you want to be
legit without any skullduggery or noctification, then you can go
to one of the remote sprint launcher missile facilities. Of these.
They were also sold at auction, and an absolute legend
(52:04):
named mel San bought one of these in twenty thirteen.
Forget this, folks, sorry, I'm going game show less than
twenty thousand US dollars. There are cars that are more expensive.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Wow, I don't even know what to say about that.
Nice work, nice one, Mel. It makes you wonder why
Mel would do that. Besides you know the kind of
the standard reasons why I would want one of these,
you know, in case stuff hits that old fan.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
Case.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
What would you do with it, Matt, if you, you know,
were to win the auction.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
I would make sure that there was a way for
myself and people that I cared about that lived hopefully
a very short drive away, if not within the facility,
could get there in time if missiles were on the way,
because you'd be a little safer in one of those.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
That's true, Yeah, especially if you got it up to
snuff up the code. And Mel is just a fascinating character. Guys.
There's this great interview and first hand account of taking
a tour with Mel of his of his facility. You
can read it on Unfamiliar Land, And as he explained
(53:21):
to the author of Unfamiliar Land, he wanted he He's
working on this thing as a labor of love. It's
a passion project. He's doing a lot of the work himself,
and he had not really thought that anybody would be
interested in touring this piece of Cold War history. But
as he's working out in the missile field that is
(53:42):
his new yard, or as he's trying to clean up
all this scrap and salvage, people kept stopping by and saying, oh,
you know, hey, what's going on man, what are you
up to? So he put together a tour that sounds
really cool. If you're fan of this kind of history.
You get a video not as propagandistic as the video
(54:07):
you have to watch, you know, like going into North
Korea or something, but it's all about the history of
Safeguard and the history of the site, history things like
the sprint missile test, and then he walks you through
the guardroom, which is now a bedroom the control bunker.
We do have to stress, and Mail stresses that as
(54:27):
far as we know, the missile field does not contain
working missiles, but he hasn't yet scrounged up the capital.
He would need to unseal them and see what's inside.
They're bolted down. You look on it. It he's restored the tops,
like the end caps of these things. But that's way
(54:48):
easier than figuring out how to crack it open, especially
if you don't know the best way to close it afterwards.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Yeah, I'm looking at a site called Cold War Tourists.
Oh yeah, yeah, they they've got some of the best
imagery of the site in there, including inside. I guess
this is the pyramid. Uh, just looking at again where
water is seeped in and rusted a bunch of stuff,
(55:16):
where it just looks like a dangerous place to be,
and then imagining the other silos around the site looking
probably similar, if not worse, because this is inside a pyramid, right,
and it looks like it's haggard as all heck. And
then if you imagine going down into the ground quite
a bit, what you might you might not like what
(55:39):
you find out there.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
No, it's it's pretty gnarly, you know. It looks like
the backdrop of a Ramstein or Nine Inch Nails music video, Uh,
to be quite honest, or Silent Hill or Silent Hill
very much so industrially ravaged. Yeah, yeah, there's something dystopian,
post apocalyptic. You can also go to the website SRMSC
(56:05):
dot org for more history on the site. That's pretty
in depth. That's gret some pictures of the heyday. It's
got a great explanation of the system components. It'd be
cool to hang out with Mel. Mel if you're listening,
Thank you for making this resource available to the public.
Good luck on your restoration project. Here's what we found.
(56:28):
For all the research we did, Mel and the other
locals seem to have lots of stories about the site,
you know, fun anecdotes, some tales of shadowy government activity,
like the FBI tracking down people who are trying to
take photographs, stuff like that, but no one has created
serious and sourced allegations of Mickelson as a site for
(56:52):
either secret quasi government activity or unfortunately, Illuminati activity. So
that's why you see the TikTok videos and someone is
giving you things that start out true about the history
of this site, and then they say, many people say
it's a stronghold for the Illuminati. That's the point where
(57:12):
you have to ask yourself which people specifically. It's a
bummer of a point, but it's important.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
Yeah, Hello, it might be of interest to somebody who
would build a weird pyramid structure on an island.
Speaker 3 (57:29):
You know, might go to might be of interest to uh,
someone who would build weird structures on the moon.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
You know which it looks like China is going to
beat us to the moon. Guys, I don't know if
you saw the.
Speaker 3 (57:44):
Looks like China's beating us to a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
It looks like I do it so great here with
the whole defense.
Speaker 3 (57:51):
Their drone shows the same. Yeah, yeah, dangerous theater right.
Speaker 2 (57:58):
On that same site, Ben, he was looking at the
PAAR complex, that perimeter acquisition radar thing, Yeah, that Rob
Branton was talking about so much on here. It says
it can track back in the day when it was created.
It can track multiple targets the size of a basketball
at a range of two thousand miles, and it's pointed
(58:20):
north towards the North Pole, which means it's looking for
anything that's coming our way, you know, over that pole,
around that pole from Russia. And from that information you
can probably understand why Space Force is still so interested
in keeping this thing running.
Speaker 3 (58:36):
Sure, especially also rogue armaments that may have survived in
former Soviet satellite states, and they've updated this. We also
have to mention that the reason it's important to track
multiple things at such a small level of size is
because a common strategy is to not launch just your
one explosive boy, but to also launch decoys less than
(59:00):
the chance that you'll be because you know already you
can't get everything in the sky just yet.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (59:06):
This is the story of the Michelson Safeguard Complex. I
think we were all fascinated to learn not only can
you buy a piece of Gold War history, but you
can get it for a song unless there's something they
don't want you to know. One positive note about weird
things weird songs. I was showing this to Dylan earlier.
(59:27):
Can remember. I think I may have showed you met
my crow whistle. I got a crow whistle helps you
talk to crows.
Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yes, allegedly hear it?
Speaker 3 (59:37):
Of course, No, Jesus, oh.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
You a little kazoo, but like.
Speaker 3 (59:43):
A little kazoo. But the crows seem to like it.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
I can hear it. I can hear it.
Speaker 3 (59:47):
It does no, I literally, it's like it's it's it's
like a call.
Speaker 2 (59:50):
Not kidding. Did you order that online? Did you find
it somewhere?
Speaker 3 (59:53):
Oh? The cool story would be of a crow gave
it to me right, Yes, of course. Raven was like,
let's take this relationship to the next just hand.
Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
I found this on some forums in the projects continue.
Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Oh dude, I want that so badly. I've been They've
been all around this area recently, and I don't know
what species exactly. I don't know. You know, some of
them look much larger. So I'm just i it. I
want to know more. You're gonna have to tell us
more at some point, because once you discover what it
(01:00:25):
can do, we need to know.
Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
Man.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
I'm sure you can find one on the It's something
like it on the internet, so easy, right. If not,
we have a new business.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
I guess let's give one more shout out here to
the State Historical Society of North Dakota and that Ronald
Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site. You can take tours
of some of these places and get a glimpse not
of the specific you know, the pyramid and the place
that we talked about today, but you can get a
(01:00:56):
really close look into what these systems were designed to
do in the history of them and similar systems of
this missile defense shield concept and this idea of response
to a nuclear attack tremendously interesting. And there are a
ton of super smart people that will just let you
come through there for about ten bucks US.
Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
If a lot of historians man, and that ten bucks
is no one's making money off of it. That's just
like pay for cleaning. Also big thanks to the journalist
we mentioned earlier. Mark Charboneau is the guy over at
Unfamiliar Land. We talked about his experience on the tour,
but we didn't give him a shout out specifically. There's
(01:01:42):
so many sites like this all around the US. We've
got some here in Georgia, some abandoned sites. There is,
of course the Oak Ridge Historical Site. We know their
official historian. We met him on a weird side gig
to find a stolen head of a statue in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Whoo eh.
Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Progress ongoing. We can't wait to hear about your strange
adventures with abandoned places or places with strange uses. You
can always send us an email. You can call us
on the telephone. You can find us on the lines
that's right.
Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
Find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy,
on x fka, Twitter, and on YouTube with video content
colore for you to peruse and enjoy.
Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
On Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system. When you call in,
you've got three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname, and
let us know within the message if we can use
your name and message on the air, and your voice.
Your voice is part of that, because we can alter
that if we absolutely have to. If you want to
send something a little more sensitive. If you want to
(01:02:57):
send us words, sentences, paragram, attachments, everything, why not instead
send us an email.
Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
We are I don't know. I'm still getting the hang
of it. The entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive be well aware. Yet I'm afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back, join us out here in the dark.
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
Can we please request everyone play this episode outside if
you see a crow and see if Ben attracts some crows.
Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
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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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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