Capital Conspiracies: Washington, DC

It's no secret that DC is home to numerous conspiracy theories -- but how many are true?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
From UFOs two, Ghosts and Government cover Ups. History is
writ with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is mett On
Ben and we are here as always with our super producer,

(00:24):
Noel the Mason Brown in spirit. At least, yes, the
Masonic spirit of Noel Brown exists in this room. Right,
we'll go ahead and have our secret handshake here, m
I haven't seen that one before. Yeah, we can do
it in front of the microphones. Because this is an
audio podcast, so we're we're pretty informal today. Uh, what

(00:48):
we're gonna talk about is Washington, d C. Just a
just a little bit. We're just gonna scratch along the
surface of this gigantic thing, both as a subject, as
a town, as a historical um hub. It's it's strangely
small in size comparatively to the importance that it holds

(01:12):
for this country and perhaps for the world. Yeah, that's
a great point. No, Matt, you've been to Washington before,
and you know later this week tomorrow, in fact, as
we record this, this podcast will come out on Friday,
on the thirty one of July. If you're hearing it
the same day it comes out, and when it's out

(01:32):
we will be hopefully not arrested somewhere in the metro area.
We can only hope. We can only hope, but we're
not strangers to the town. We've both gone. So what
what was your experience like? Yes, I have been there
a few times, I think three in total, taking a
trip first school and for high school. Then I went

(01:55):
just on a whim one time, and then the last
time I was there was for the Rally for Sanity.
I forget the full title, but it was the Shin
Dig that John Stewart put together with Stephen Colbert. That
was amazing. That was one of my favorite experiences of
all time, the Rally to Restore Sanity and or Fear yes, yes,

(02:18):
Colbert bringing in the Fear wagon as well. It was
just it was amazing to see so many human beings
on the National Mall at one time for something that
you know, admittedly was for comedy, for jokes, but it
had this air of seriousness to it at the time.
It was strange and I was at what year was that,

(02:39):
two thousand and eight, two thousand, two thousand ten? Wow? Okay,
so That's when I was relatively new in my political awakening,
my just awakening to all of the larger things that
happened in the world. And I had been watching John
Stewart on The Daily Show for so long. It just

(03:00):
the whole thing resonated with me being in that place,
and I can't wait to be there again. Yeah, I
wonder if we'll see if we'll see John up there.
I hear good things about him. It's strange he's got
seven shows left. I think, Yeah, who knows what he's
gonna do, go back to directing, perhaps, uh, go back
to I don't know, maybe he'll take a vacation. Doesn't

(03:21):
seem like he actually gets many of those. Perhaps there
was this uh moving moment when he came up to
make a speech to the assembled crowd, which you saw live,
and it was clear, it was apparent how overwhelmed he
was by this. And and John Stewart is not a
guy who seems to be overwhelmed easily and keeps it together.

(03:45):
He keeps it together. He's talked to, He's talked to
people who later turned out to be essentially war criminals,
like Pervez musher Reef Musheriff, the former leader of Pakistan
and he when I when I saw that, I thought
for a second, Oh, and did you not anticipate that

(04:05):
as the most trusted journalist overall in the US, you know,
which he uh thing that he usually disavows, but a
lot of people im polls say that he is their
most trusted source of news. And you know, take that,
take that as as you will, I would say, But uh,

(04:25):
I can tell you a little bit about the times
I went to d C. I went there as a
kid in high school as well, and fairly certain it
was high school, though the past does blur like a
watercolor in the rain. And uh, I also went up
to d C a couple of times to do UH
in the process of joining the State Department, before I
became uh disillusioned by it. And I don't mean to

(04:49):
disparage the State Department professionals working there, the people that
I met in the course of that before I decided
not to go that route, we're all very and sere
and no, you know, nobody was a jerk or anything.
I just started to get the feeling that maybe the
goals that I had and the goals that the State

(05:11):
Department has might not align. Yeah, So this was before
going deep into international affairs. Yeah, this was this was
slightly before I started studying that at Tech. So we've
been there before, but we've never we've never lived there.
And d C is interesting in the US because it

(05:35):
is unique amidst all the other area classifications. Right, So
we we we'd like to do is talk a little
bit about the history of d C. So we know
that before the US was even a thing, before anybody said, hey, guys,
hold my beer, let me try this, the the place

(05:56):
was populated. Even though there are these myths about the
US being relatively sparsely populated, Uh, they are myths. Uh.
The human presence dates back at least four thousand years. Uh.
The European exploration of the region so far as we know,
started early in the sixteenth centuries, so sixteen hundred ish.

(06:19):
And there was a guy named Captain John Smith you
might remember from who was there in sixteen o eight. Uh.
The different tribes that lived around the area included people
like the uh nato Chunk, the potoa make after which
you know, the Potomac, the Poottan, and uh some other

(06:42):
some other groups right. Uh. And the present day Georgetown
is actually the site of a village called Tahoga, which
I which I honestly may be mispronouncing. We also know
a little bit about the first colonial land owners who
settled down there, right, Yeah, that would be George Thompson

(07:03):
and Thomas Gerard. These guys were both granted the Blue
Planes tract in sixteen sixty two, along with the St.
Elizabeth area of land there um and a couple other
tracks in Anacostia like Capitol Hill yeah yeah, and then
other tracks areas down the Potomac as time ground on. Now. Thompson,

(07:26):
probably much to the dismay of his later family, had
his later family he of his descendants, he sold his
properties at Capitol Hill in sixteen seventy to a guy
named Thomas not Lee. Uh. This this uh continued for
a while, you know, as more Europeans were establishing areas

(07:48):
and of course clashing with the people who already lived
there and said you're what are you doing? Right? And
the this led to uh, the construction of FOURT in
sixteen ninety seven, and was it was in the bounds
of what is now d C. But even though all

(08:11):
this stuff happened, right, even though all this stuff happened
in the sixteen hundreds. Washington, d C. Of course, as
many of our listeners surely know, was not the original
capital of the US. The US has had multiple capitals. Uh.
There was one in New York City when they decided
to form it in d C. And then Philadelphia, Annapolis,

(08:33):
the list goes on. The area it's called the District
of Columbia. Didn't become the capital until about uh seventeen
ninety right, yeah, that's right, and that was with the
Residents Act of July seventeen, and DC itself was founded

(08:54):
in seventeen one, the same year that President Washington commissioned
a guy named Pierre Charles l'infant uh to a French
board architect, to design the new capital. And oh design
he did. Yeah, yeah, this comes into play later, right, yeah.

(09:14):
He there were a lot of strange things with his
his design that were cool. Admittedly, they're just these huge
broad streets, um, these avenues that were were basically created
out of these rectangles, and it was the meat. The
whole idea was to provide space for landscaping, open areas. Um.

(09:35):
But man, it sure looks strange when you look at
it on a map. Some of the areas right right here,
and you guys see what we're foreshadowing here, which we'll
get to. So Pierre bases his designs on plans from cities,
great European cities, right Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, and so on.

(09:56):
But the layout later what wolf and later becomes a
source of controversy in the modern age and becomes uh
polluted might be a fair word, by later builders making
new street random buildings in places that he would never
want him so today, or at least as often Washington,

(10:21):
the actual city of Washington, D C. Has a population
of uh, just over six hundred fifty thousand. I think
you might have the exact number, six hundred and fifty
eight thousand, eight hundred and ninety three. Could say that
that those extra three people that came in last summer, right, yeah, yeah,
and uh that that seems like a deceptively small number

(10:43):
for the capital is such only large country. Deceptively small indeed,
because that number is only accounting for the actual city,
the city of Washington, d C. And the actual district
of Columbia. Yes, and you look at the metro area
that's surrounding it, you that number jumps all the way
up to I think five point eight million. Huge. So

(11:04):
that's the that counters places like UM. Not that rather
encompasses places like Maryland, Virginia. Nearby towns in those areas, UH,
one of which you and I went on a trip
to UH a few years back. Very strange experience. It's
a different story. One of the biggest controversies, at least

(11:27):
in the mainstream I for d C, is that UH,
in a burst of tremendous irony, local citizens District of
Columbia have no representation in Congress. Yeah, if you live
in that just that tiny little area. Sorry, the capital
of a country partially formed by UH, partially formed by

(11:50):
this principle of no taxation without representation, have no representation
because they're not state in Congress. Yes, Uh. And due
to H due to the nature of this organization, the
legal system of d C is byzantine. It is incredibly complicated.

(12:11):
If you are going through the criminal justice system in
d C, and I hope you never ever are in
any state really, then what you will find is the
things are a little bit different. First, since about nineteen
seventy three and at other times in DC's history, Congress

(12:34):
has allowed locally elected officials like a mayor and council
to carry out certain local government functions. However, because Congress
has constitutional authority to control the area, they literally can
overturn any of those laws any time they want and
they don't have to have a reason. Sorry, you don't.

(12:58):
You don't get to do that anymore. Now, what it is, Uh,
crime has historically been an issue. It has declined over time,
but it remains above the US average. Uh this and
you know, of course d C is a town chuck
full of lawyers, so it's not surprising that would be
so uh so complicated. Here's one example. So let's say

(13:21):
pick one of our coworkers that that that our audience
would know. How about Chuck? All right, Chuck Bryant from
stuff you should know. So let's say Chuck gets on
the wrong side of the law, and uh and he is,
he is going up the river, he's got to get
his he's got to get a lawyer, he's got to
go to trial. Serious business. So oh and by the way,

(13:44):
listeners right in and let us know what what crime
you would imagine Chuck committing. And with that being said,
we're just using him as an example. He has not
our knowledge done anything crazy, right, zero crimes, and instead
of the crime, this hypothetical crime being handled by a
state attorney as it would in any other similar case,

(14:06):
it goes directly to the U. S. District attorney. It
does not PASCO, It does not collect two hundred dollars.
Seems like that would be a lot for the U. S.
District attorney to handle. Yes, yeah, it's true. I'd love
to hear from somebody affiliated with that system. Uh so.
Of course, Washington today is also home to the three

(14:27):
branches of the federal government, nearly two hundred foreign embassies,
um Matt's favorite lobbyists and think tanks. Yeah, lobbyists. K Street.
Did you ever see that showcase Street that came out? Yeah, yeah,
pretty good. Went for about two seasons before it was pulled.
Tremendously popular in Washington. It was tremendously popular in Washington

(14:51):
because it's kind of looking behind the curtain. The staff
they had, the production staff and people writing knew what
they were talking about. Presented almost this weird dystopian version
of reality, which was sad. Now that's you know, that's
a great segue to the the other stuff we wanted
to talk about. Here's where it gets crazy. Maybe let's

(15:16):
talk about the conspiracy theories. Let's go back to the Freemasons. Okay,
that's the biggest one. I remember we did a couple
of episodes about Freemasons early on when this show started,
and we thought we would have about a month of
doing it before we got fired. Yeah, especially after that episode,
just because it's the reality of the let's say, the

(15:42):
Masonic hand that was inside the creation of d C
and that has historically been a part of at least
a a substantial number of our leaders. There's a Masonic
line that goes through there. If we were talking about
something that we really shouldn't have been talking about, then

(16:02):
there's one reason that we get canceled. Right. Second reason,
and I think the most important reason that the show
was just why would you make this? You know what
I mean? Well? Yeah, also, you know, I think there's
such inherent narcissism and paranoia sometimes I really don't think.
I hope, I hope these are words I don't have

(16:24):
to eat later, But I really don't believe that there's
any reason that somebody would see our show and say,
oh no, they have to be stopped, right, Absolutely not,
But you know it is called stuff they don't want
you to know. And we get comments on YouTube all
the time like what are all the major secrets just
on YouTube available for free? Well, I would say, I

(16:47):
would say, while that is a very good comparison up
there with the earlier comparison you and I have made
about Wi Jia boards and whether proof of Life after
Death comes from a mass market at Parker Brothers Game.
The while that is a reasonable thing, the truth is
that YouTube and podcasting, and I'm not saying our shows

(17:08):
in particular, but YouTube and podcasting and communicating directly to
people online is, despite its many pitfalls, uh, still a
better chance of getting less uh less manipulation or less
suppression of a story. Right, Yeah, there are fewer people
dictating what people who create content that goes there what

(17:31):
they can and cannot say, right, right exactly, Like whomever
is affiliated with a large a large industrial giant like
Westinghouse or something is not probably not going to be
able to give an objective report on any problems, essentially
systemic problems with a lot of Westinghouse equipment. It's just

(17:53):
not gonna happen new and if they're if they're controlled
by a car company, for some reason, then they're going
to give a very different report on recalls. So that's
that's the nature of it. But the idea that d
C is this Freemason town, the idea that it is
at heart run by the Masons, was historically a tremendously

(18:17):
popular idea, so much so that there was an anti
Masonic party, anti Masonic political party at time for a
time in the US. Uh. There of course no longer
around in serious capacity. So we've done this stuff on
whether Freemason's control Washington. We also did one on Albert Pike,
I believe, big figure in the Masonic tradition that had

(18:41):
I think a magical amulet some sort I forget the
whole episode, but he could communicate or allegedly he could
communicate somehow with the demons for his magical similar to
like a key of Solomon thing pretty cool, which is
I guess not a ring of Solomon, rather the legendary one.
It is true that there are some seeds of truth

(19:03):
to this because not to the amulet, not to the
ammuletas because it's true that the national headquarters of Masonry
is in d C. It's the the prime temple for
all of the other lodges or the Prime Lodge, I
should say, yeah, it's that's where you can find the
House of the Temple. It's also where you can find
the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite. It's there are

(19:26):
a couple other buildings. I think George Washington even has
a memorial right which we're gonna we're gonna have to visit,
not the George Washington statue, not the creepy obelisk, not
the obelisk, but a whole separate building, which is the
the Masonic memorial for George Washington. And the official name
of that House of the Temple, by the way, is

(19:46):
quote Home of the Supreme Council thirty three degrees ancient
accepted Scottish Rite Freemasonry. Uh yeah, that's oh. It's also
the Southern Jurisdiction Washington, d C. USA. Okay, so it
doesn't quite roll off the tongue. I can see how
people call it the House, or maybe people just refer
to it as the Temple. I've often heard it called

(20:10):
the Supreme Council or the House of the Supreme Council.
So there's another piece of truth here. It is also
true that Mason's were involved in the construction of numerous
other historic buildings in the area. We've got a great
quote from a guy named Mark Tabert, who was the
who was the director of collections at the George Washington
Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. He says, individually, Mason's had

(20:33):
a role in building the White House and building and
designing d C and small scale Masonic symbols can be
found throughout the city, as they can in most U.
S cities. So this, uh, this note here is important
because he's saying individual Masons were involved, not necessarily a
big collective, saying this is the pentagram we shall wrought

(20:57):
upon the face of this nation. Absolutely, He's also reminding
you that Masons have had their hand in creating buildings
and cities throughout the United States. If you go to Decatur, Georgia,
a smaller little town east of where we are right now,
and uh, there's a building. I think it's the I
don't know if it's the city council building. Uh, it's

(21:19):
one of the main building like county courthouse, I think.
And then directly across from it is the old uh
Freemason Temple or used to be a lodge there and
now it's a mixed use building. But on the corner
you can see there's a there's a big sign up
that has the what is it the Masonic compass, the
square in compass. Then on the bottom that you can

(21:40):
you can look at the cornerstone that has a bunch
of etching on their cornerstone. Have been important in these
this kind of construction for a very long time. So
so then this is either it makes you feel a
little better you're like, oh well, just Freemasons have a
hand in everything, or makes you feel a little worse.
Oh wait, Freemasons just have a hand in everything. Well,

(22:01):
this is more a statement I guess about my personal philosophy.
So this is just my opinion, ladies and gentlemen. I
don't have a fact to back it up. I am naturally,
instinctively and continually concern and skeptical about the motivations for
any group that requires secrecy. I hear that, you know,

(22:25):
it's not I, like many other people, believe it's not
enough for someone to pack the public on the head
and say, trust us, we're the good guys. Don't worry, Bobby,
We've got this right right. Because another thing that we
have learned throughout human history and modern day psychology is
that very few people that we would consider bad guys

(22:50):
or people who are people who have antagonistic aims or
something like that, very few of those people ever think
of themselves as villains. And the the good guys perhaps misunderstood, right, Yeah,
I misunderstood, or perhaps they're good goals or the goals
that they believe are for the greater good or for
some some great greater good. Yeah, these are This is

(23:12):
the right thing to do. Sometimes you have to break
some eggs, Benjamin, right, right, Matchamen, Sometimes you have to
break some eggs. And the So the Freemasons, I think
we should do a podcast entirely on the Masonic Orders. Absolutely.
We need to find a high ranking Mason in Atlanta

(23:33):
to come and talk to us. Who's willing to talk
to us. There's no shortage. We can also interview some
Masonic historians. That's great. Yeah, the the stuff that we
had found. You know, I had speculated for a while
the idea of UH joining Masonry, but I try to
be very respectful, so I would never join an organization

(23:56):
with the idea that I will be a mole. It
just doesn't seem Yeah, I would never do that either.
It doesn't seem like the right kind of motivation. Agreed, Right,
Your sarcasm is dripping off of you and rolling across
the table. What society have you infiltrated? Man, I haven't been.
I would never do such a thing, have you really? No? Okay, Well,

(24:20):
if you have, and if you are, then it doesn't
necessarily have to be the Masons, because we get caught
up in this idea, which is which is a valid
concern right of secret societies, But Freemasons are not the
only secret society. Really depends on what you would consider secret. Right.

(24:40):
Many of the many of the discussions that the United
Nations were various embassies hold in Washington, those are not
for public consumption. There's another group called the Second Stewards
that recently got into some heat for apparently trying to
fit the election at Georgetown. Yeah. I think the reporting

(25:05):
is a little bit skewed there. The Second Stewards were
supposed to have been abolished, but it came to light.
Uh in, let me make sure I got the factory
came to light in two thousand thirteen. That's someone who
is going to be in the student government head of
student government who was running for it, uh at Georgetown
was a member of the second Stewart Society. So, you know, colleges,

(25:29):
especially higher level colleges, are just lousy with this stuff.
But yeah, I mean, can we just talk about George W.
Bush versus Kerry for then with the Skull and Bones
Society membership? Yeah, you know, a bit weird. Well that's
another thing, you know, Should elected officials be allowed to
be members of a secret society? I mean I don't

(25:53):
think so. Where do your loyalties live? And right, right,
we do have some unfortunate news about the the actual
street layout. If you if you look at it, and
if you look at some of the history, it doesn't

(26:14):
it doesn't really seem that this it doesn't seem that
there was purposely a satanic pentagram or something constructed. It
is eerily close to that. I have to say, Um,
if you just look at it with a map, let's say,
satellite of Google Maps, but you can tell it's unfinished.

(26:34):
If they did mean to make it, then they purposefully
didn't finish it. Yeah, and I don't know, it seems
a little weird, right man. Well you can The thing
is you can read these You can read things from
the people who believe that a larger Masonic organization and
or Satanic secret religion built the layout. While you can

(26:58):
read these things, what you also see is that they
claim these somehow harness lay lines. For people who believe
in lay lines, these are geomagnetic lines criss crossing the
Earth that supply uh, some sort of energy, and the
interpretation of what sort of energy that might be changes
over time. Yes, and it's certainly something we have yet

(27:20):
to prove in any scientific fashion. Right. However, there is
there is solid proof, of course that many of the
many of the things cited as hubs for lay lines
in in the US are or in the world, I
should say, uh, do exhibit a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy.

(27:43):
So they're definitely built for that time, right to measure
the rise and the fall of the stars and the
sun and the moon, equinox, solstice, stuff like that, and
uh in many cases, to also predict those movements in
the heavens, which to me is really it and so
so intelligent that it's it's kind of frightening, especially because

(28:03):
in the modern age, for such a long time people
loved to deride. Uh, the past generations, right, those heathens
they knew not what we know now. Right. And again
this is this is just scratching the surface. We haven't
even talked about how incredibly weird the obelisk for the
Washington Monument is now incredibly old obelisks are, or the

(28:28):
original plans for the Washington Monument which had an obelisk,
but also this temple, right, a straight up old school
temple and uh, which to me is kind of what
became the Masonic Memorial for Washington. Yes, and uh, we're
going to have to head out because candidly we have

(28:49):
to pack and through some other stuff. But we wanted
to hear. We wanted to open a conversation. Ask you
what some of your favorite theories about washing into d
c R and what what you think the future of
the city is, especially getting some of these enormous contradictions.

(29:10):
Would you ever live there? Do have you ever lived there?
Do you live there now? Uh? Can we crash on
your couch? Uh? We're kidding. Hopefully, hopefully we'll get it
together enough that I don't care. Man, I'll sleep on
the trend. You know, I don't see much well. And
one other thing I hope some of you joined us
on our periscope missions that we were doing while we

(29:31):
were in d c. Uh. If you did not, hopefully
we'll be doing that again at some point. So make
sure you were following us on Twitter at conspiracy Stuff
to get updates of when those little quick live broadcasts
might happen. Well, we're gonna try and surprise you guys
a couple of times. Uh that that would be huge.
Also follow us on Facebook, y'alls. Yeah, you can find

(29:54):
Facebook and Twitter where conspiracy stuff at both of those
at a blog entry recently where put our for stuff
the time of our first periscope experiment. And I'll be
continually updating that blog as well as the social media
stuff to let you guys know where we're going, when
we'll be there, and if you would like, if you're

(30:15):
in the area, full free to swing by and say hello. Uh.
We we won't be too weird, I hope right, not
in an extreme way, but the weirdness you will catch on,
you'll you'll be able to feel it. I'm I'm a
regular guy. I'm an open book on a sunny day
in a meadow. Well I am not all right. So

(30:38):
we're gonna go ahead and get out of here. Um. Oh,
and there's one more thing. We said earlier that our
super producer Noll is with us in spirit but not
in the flesh, and we can't hear him, but you
guys probably can. D C. A reflection by super producer

(30:59):
Noel Brown Washington. D C is not an easy to play.
The piano is not an easy to play. The piano
is not an issue that the two men in black
screen is not the best way of saying it is
the most recent version in that first place. I have
no clue who I was, like, I don't have the
right way and it will take the bus drive or
just got to it was my mom and my friends

(31:20):
to be sorry everyone. The spirit world is really, really,
really weird. What is that? That is that him? Well,
I didn't hear anything, but it was cool sitting here
awkwardly with you in silence for a few minutes. I
did hear that door open and close really loudly a
couple of times. Let's be the spirit world. So we're

(31:43):
going to head out as always. Uh, give us topic
suggestions or if you want to just say hello, if
you have any advice about d C, we would love
to know it. You can tell us on social or
you can write to us directly. We are conspiracy at
how stuff works dot com. From more on this topic,

(32:04):
another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
handle at conspiracy stuff.