October 28, 2022 • 59 mins
At the close of the Paris Peace Accords, the US and Vietnam agreed to return any POWs to their home country -- however, for decades after the close of the conflict, people in country reported seeing missing American soldiers, sometimes held by foreign officials, sometimes on their own in the jungle. So what happened to the hundreds of missing soldiers in the Vietnam War... and how much did the US government actually know about i99th? They don’t want you to read our book.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, it's time for this week's classic episode. Riddle
me this, Matt. How many Vietnam War veterans have you
met or do? No? Fairly small handful. But of of
the folks I have met, not a lot of them
want to sit down with me and talk about their experiences,
(00:22):
and that that makes a lot of sense, I think
to me. There's some horrendous stuff that went down right
on all sides. If you're involved in that conflict, there
was horrible stuff going down right, no matter where you
are and who you're fighting for. But the US government
man some bad stuff, including perhaps leaving soldiers behind after
(00:46):
the conflict that ended. This is the focus of this
week's classic episode for stuff they don't want you to know.
The big question did the US abandoned soldiers in Southeast Asia?
At the close of the Paris Peace Accords, both the
United States and Vietnam agreed to return any prisoners of
(01:07):
war to their home countries. This is a heartbreaking thing
because you know, when when countries make ward is the
people that suffer. And for many, many years, decades on now,
there have been rumors, scuttle but speculation, conspiratorial ideas that
(01:28):
the United States knowingly abandoned its own and left them,
as the tradecraft slang would say, out in the cold.
So that's this week's classic episode. And on a personal
note from Matt and myself, if you have any leads,
if you have any feedback, we would very much love
to hear it. We typically give ways to contact us
(01:51):
at the end of an episode, but for this one
in particular one eight three three std w y t
K or our email address which is conspiracy at iHeart
radio dot com. Let's jump into the episode. From UFOs
to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with
unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the
(02:15):
stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, and welcome
back to the show. My name is met, my name
is known. They called me Ben, and you're you the
most important part of this show, which is of course
(02:38):
stuff they don't want you to know. Ladies and gentlemen,
if this is your first time listening, thank you so
much for dropping by. We we hope that you come
by later to then I have to clear the air here.
You did all of your intro with your eyes covered
but forcefully sort of a pained expression on your face.
What was that about I'm I'm good. Are my eyes
(02:59):
like act a regular? Do they do that flippy things where? Yeah, yeah,
are you doing the reptilian stuff in the studio? I
asked you that we got pretty deep into that reptilian episode.
We got a lot of a lot of really interesting
listener mail. Well, it came to a point where we
were all just thinking with a hive mind, and I
(03:21):
wonder if we should if we were on the fence
about whether we should have cut the part where for
like seventeen minutes we spoke in unison. Yeah, I wonder
if did you notice that? I just didn't know what
language it was. But today we are not talking about
lizard people. Today we were talking about uh something something
(03:44):
completely different as they used to see, perhaps a monty python.
We are talking about what is popularly known in the
US as the Vietnam War. Um, if you are someone
who is matt or no or eyes age, then you
likely have relatives if you're in the US, who have
(04:06):
been involved in that conflict, and if not, then even
at least seen Platoon right, yes, or any of the
pieces of popular media that have come out since the
nineteen seventies. Sure, Rambo First Blood Apocalypse now, which is
my personal favorite Forrest Gump, even Forrest Gump, even yes,
and this um So, the Vietnam War, what what the U.
(04:28):
S Usually refers to it as is the American incursion
with the idea of preventing the rise of communism in
Southeast Asia. That was the official advertisement on the tin
when it was sold to the American public. Uh. This later, Uh, this,
this later expanded past Vietnam into Cambodia and Lao. This,
(04:55):
this war has had a lastening and a lasting and
profound effect both on the people of the US and
the people of Vietnam, as well as arguably the people
of Russia or the Soviet Union at the time, because
it ended up being a giant proxy war, right, Yeah, exactly.
(05:19):
And the Vietnam Wars we consider it began in nineteen
fifty five. Direct US involvement officially ended with the signing
of a treaty called the Agreement on Ending the War
and Restoring Peace in Vietnam. A little yeah, it's it's
a little undernose. I guess they had to spell it out,
you know. Uh. And that was on January nineteen seventy three.
(05:45):
This document is most often known as the Paris Peace Accords.
The war itself didn't end until seventy five with the
fall of Saigon. But what what did this agreement do? Well?
The agreement itself actually resulted in the release of five
hundred ninety one American prisoners of war, of whom five
hundred sixty six were military and twenty five were civilians. Um.
(06:10):
In addition to that, it established a framework for cooperation
and resolving the po w m I A related questions,
So prisoners of war and missing in action, and there
were there were quite a few questions about that. So yeah,
and because of this, from February nineteen seventy three to
April nineteen seventy three, Uncle Sam conducted what was called
(06:31):
Operation Homecoming, and this returned prisoners of war to the
United States. It rescued five hundred and ninety one in total.
So as of sixteen, around one thousand, six d twenty
one Americans are still officially considered missing or unaccounted for
for some reason or another during this Vietnam conflict, the
(06:51):
Vietnam War, or whatever else it was called at the time.
And this may be a point where many many of
US lists in the audience may be saying, wait, you
guys just sort of glossed over the Vietnam War. All
of a sudden, it's ended. This is not exactly about
the Vietnam War or the conflict in Southeast Asia, because
(07:14):
the US has identified two hundred and nineties six individuals
as last known alive cases in all of Southeast Asia,
and following full investigations by March of the Defense Department
confirmed the wartime death of two hundred and forty five
of these individuals too there um to their official standards,
(07:37):
because this, friends is the official narrative. However, in the
decades since the withdrawal of US troops, numerous former military officials,
government officials, and members of the public believe that this country,
the United States of America, left service members behind in
Vietnam and Cambodia and in Laos and Cambodia and lasers,
(07:59):
particularly the sticky subjects, as in many many cases, the
US was not supposed to be up there, and they
were officially, um, but we're not there. And a lot
of these people don't just believe that they were left behind,
you know, as in oh oops, we left a bunch
of our servicemen behind. No, they think it was done
(08:20):
on purpose, and that the US government has not only
not been looking for these missing soldiers but actively obstructing
any searches and covering up the entire affair for the
last forty odd years, right, almost half a century. Double yikes,
double y Why would why would people think that this
(08:41):
is an extraordinarily common belief here in the US. And
and we don't know this is a very US specific topic, right,
so we we're not sure you know how Australian listeners
feel about this, European listeners or listeners in uh, China
or Vietnam in specific around the world. So do right
(09:03):
in and let us know if you have heard of
this before, which is considered a miscarriage of justice by
some and an out and out conspiracy theory by others.
So why on earth would the government do something like that?
Let's look at sort of the evolution of this suspicions
(09:24):
about remaining service and then start almost immediately after the
signing of the Paris Peace Accords with we we're just
going to call him that because, as you pointed out,
that name is a it's a mouthful. Yeah, no, I
like the Paris piece of cords. That's got a nice
ring to it. The other one is just like it's
d LDR. Are we going to save some money on paper?
(09:44):
Guys like, so this is right, You're right that things
were very tacky back man. Yeah, well there were longer names,
is what I'm saying for things? Um, yes, all it is.
It is true. This is a related point for anybody
who was not alive in three all names were actually longer,
(10:09):
every single one. The United States of America was actually
the United States of Cooperative Municipalities with the intention to
act in concert of America. COMMA named after Amerigo Vespucci. Yes,
thede dot com. Yeah, yeah, that's actually where the internet
(10:31):
comes from. Is that that name? Facts, ladies and gentlemen,
These are facts, alternative facts. Perhaps we're perhaps if this
sounds crazier, this is the first time you're hearing it.
We invite you to check out our earlier podcast on
the Mandela Effect. So President Nixon at the end of
(10:51):
this he states that all the POW's have been returned
and now at the time, the US listed two thousand
six d the six Americans as unaccounted for, including about
and fifty prisoners of war or missing in action and
roughly reported killed in action but the body not recovered,
(11:12):
which is, you know, in all seriousness, a a profound tragedy,
you know, because what happens to the closure for those families,
I would think not incredibly uncommon, though maybe that's a
high number, but you know, you're in a war situation
where bodies can be completely obliterated by you know, explosions,
(11:35):
where you're not going to have any remains, but it's
too difficult to retrieve them without any commanding officer even
knowing a general location or you know, a general fate.
That that's uncommon. I mean, war is one of the
most brutal inventions of our society. And you know, okay,
arguably humans didn't invent it, because it has been documented
(11:58):
that other primates have large scale uh conflicts or at
least tribal level conflicts, but humans have taken it to
an insidious art form. And you're you're absolutely right, it's
it's odd to have such precise numbers, and for people
(12:19):
who are not familiar with this, the Vietnam War from
the us I had some of the best documentation for
war of its kind, so we are able to know
more of these numbers than we would know, for instance,
in World War two, right, But Nolan is absolutely right.
People disappear in war, you know, and that's the that's
(12:45):
the question. So there's this there's this one thing that
that is kind of a a spark point. It's the
turn back now or or you know, delve into the
murky stuff that occurs when there's a very low number
or POW's return from Laos. And this causes immediate concern
because the Pentagon in secret meetings, right, not really revealed
(13:08):
to the public. I thought there would be as many
as forty or forty one prisoners held there, um only
if you have been known to be captured for certain
And a tiny like a negligible amount of people came back,
like three or something, and the responsibility for finding these
missing soldiers fell to you're gonna You're gonna like this
one fell to the Defense Prisoner of War SLASH Missing
(13:32):
Personnel Office and the Joint po w M I A
accounting commands. Can we at least make it a sexy acronym?
I know, right well, you will be happy to know
all that in the National Defense Authorization Act combined to
those two agencies into one, so thank god, and along
(13:52):
with one other thing. But yeah, just tack it onto
the end. Yeah, the ride the movie dot Com. So
then in the nineteen seventies and eighties, the relatives, the
family and friends of all of these missing personnel started
getting agitated because as you do, uh, they started becoming
(14:15):
politically active, and they start requesting that the United States
reveal what steps they were taking, what steps they took
and to continue to take to follow up on their
missing relatives and their loved ones, Like what kind of
intelligence do you have with regards to these missing and
action soldiers? Right, they started demanding accountability, and regardless of
(14:37):
what you personally believe in terms of politics or the
role of governments state versus federal, local, what have you, Uh,
accountability should be key in any of these things. And
accountability goes both ways, you know what I mean, to
the citizen as well as to the institutions. So this,
(14:58):
this is a good move, and this is this move
is saying initially saying, just well, tell us what you're doing,
you know what I mean, shed some light on this
process because these people could very well be alive. In
some cases, they just know when they were last seen alive,
(15:19):
and it was years ago? Right? Where was months ago?
So this is almost a black box for these relatives
and these loved ones. So initial inquiries revealed that important
information had not been pursued, and so many families and
their supporters asked for the public release of these records
and called for full investigation. So when we say important
(15:43):
information and not been pursued, we're saying stuff like UM
an intelligence agency intercepts a radio transmission from Thailand that
details they the details they've cited UM work camp, you know,
with like eleven people who are clearly not Vietnamese Cambodian relation,
(16:06):
and that they're being held after the war is something.
But then the intelligence agency on the us I would say, well,
that's Thailand, you know what I mean, We're gonna trust
this foreign intercept or whatever. We just sit on it
because it's not it doesn't seem like it's pertinent to
any major investigation you're doing. Right then, right? And then also,
(16:27):
you know, there's a fair question like how do you
discern the bologne from the what's a better meat than bologne?
Thereso riso? You know, a good generous salami? Yeah okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
How do you separate the Bolognai from the Thereso and
good Genoa Salami. It's tough. It's tough in the intelligence community. Yeah,
(16:52):
and you can't send people out to investigate every single one.
It's just not possible. I mean you can, you can
try your hardest, but it is a part of my
French here, it is it can sometimes be a no
win situation. Well, it's like you get bogged down in
this this idea that bureaucracy is inherently inefficient and massive
and you know, and a pain. And then he realized
(17:13):
that the only reason it exists is to manage the
massive and inefficient and painful, you know what I mean.
So it's like you can't really fault it every time
for not being able to be everything to everybody, right,
and and on that perspective too, it might be a
damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, because
like think about it. So if okay, everybody listening, let's
(17:36):
say all of us are the CIA in the seventies
and eighties. Congratulations, We're sorry you had to find out
this way. So one of us gets one of us,
one group of US gets a report that says, all right,
foreign radio intercept has said that has identified you know,
a dozen people in a remote area being working in
(17:58):
forced agriculture. The question becomes as as we already being
a large organization, say like, okay, well, if we don't
investigate this, and then there is a risk that we
will have we will have screwed up. But if we
do investigate this and we don't find anything, then we
(18:20):
will be roasted over the coals for you know, frivolous
government spending or something. Or since you know, listeners, you
and Matt Noel and I are now part of this
fictional CIA or Another thing is if we delve into this,
is it going to interfere with other active operations that
(18:41):
we have in the area. Yeah. Well, and here here's
the craziest part. This idea that the government isn't doing
everything it can do to get the loved ones of
these people back. That is a polarizing concept and that
if you latch on to that, let's say, as a
politician in the public sector, then you're you're gonna get
(19:05):
some votes from a good number of people if you're
championing this idea that the government is not doing everything
it can do, or even like a faction of the
government because of certain leanings. Maybe even you can kind
of characterize it as a political issue rather than just
a matter of unmanageable situations. You know. Well, and it
(19:27):
doesn't even matter if you, uh, the person running truly
believes there, right, Yeah, unfortunately, I mean that's the rule
with a lot of political stuff, you know. And and
this is this is an issue that UM, this is
an issue that politicians have investigated or advocated on any
political strike. Ross Perrow was very big into UM trying
(19:52):
to discover the truth behind this and did believe that
there were people left behind an abandoned uh. John Kerry,
John McCain, George H. W. Bush like it. It goes
across the spectrum. And George H. W. Bush was c
i A at least for a time. Yes, is anybody
do you ever become not c I A. We've had
(20:13):
this discussion before. I think you're right. You are always
like at least in the club, I feel like you
have to be. You've got information if you've been in
the CIA that we we can't let you into the
wrong hands. It's like being the president. Maybe when the
president and you're referred to as they don't really call
you the former president. Do they they call you the president?
(20:34):
Mr Presidents And yeah, yeah, people don't call you Jimmy anymore. People,
something happens to you. You you become someone else entirely
in your mind, is not your own. It's true, man.
And have you've seen those before and after pictures of
every president since the invention of photography? That's it will
wear you down, Actually, the black and white ones where
the bags under the eyes are so incredible, just like pools.
(20:58):
It's crazy. Man. Well, um, while we're on this subject,
we do have to examine this because this didn't just
stop in the in the seventies. This didn't just stop, um,
like with a hard stop and a couple of investigations.
This we're on and on and on, and they're tantalizing
(21:19):
hints two different parts of this story. And we're going
to give you a few after a word from our sponsors,
let's begin looking at a few examples here. The first
one comes from nineteen seventy nine. The gentleman whose name
(21:44):
is Bobby Garwood, Private Bobby Garwood. He returned to the
United States and seventy nine after fourteen years living as
a prisoner of war. Now he says he he says,
claims that he was one of many soldiers still being
held in viet M and several other countries in the
Jason area like you said Van Laos, several others um so.
(22:07):
The United States denied these allegations, and furthermore, they claimed
that Garwood was actually a collaborator. He was in on
the whole thing. He wasn't a prisoner, that he went
over the hill and turned coat. Right. He was reportedly
released in nineteen seventy three with some other American POWs,
but he did not return to the United States until
March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine. During that time, he
(22:31):
was listed as either having volunteered or been forced into
a work group repairing a generator at a re education camp.
Other reports described him as working in Island Fortress or
being a driver and vehicle mechanic whoa. When he gets
back in seventy nine, over a period of eleven months,
he faces a general court martial at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina,
(22:54):
because other Marines testified like other not just marines, other
service members testified seeing him in action with VC with
via Kong so he Uh. He was found not guilty
of desertion or solicitation of U S troops in the
(23:14):
field to defect or maltreatment U He was convicted in
one of communicating with the enemy and the assault of
an American pow at a camp, and that violates the
Uniform Code of Military Justice. He was The court martial
sentenced him the reduction to a private, forfeiture of all
pay and allowances, dishonorable discharge, but he was not confined.
(23:39):
He appealed his conviction was upheld. Robert Garwood says that
he saw other American POWs after nineteen seventy three, and
he insists that he himself had been a prisoner for
fourteen years. UM Many of the POWs who claimed have
seen him collaborated with the enemy also feel he should
(23:59):
not have been and court martial, because that's the thing,
you know, it's if he is if he was imprisoned,
and which is a story that the American public will
probably never know him full. If it was imprisoned, was
he forced to cooperate or did he choose to You know,
it gets it gets sticky, sou so according to this guy,
(24:22):
and according to the people who believe that there were
purposefully abandoned POWs or service members uh in in country
after seventy three. This guy has been silenced because he's
telling the truth. But to other people, two critics of
that belief, he is trying to cover his own you know,
(24:45):
cover his own high courts, which at this point you
can you can easily go down a rabbit hole of
who said what and what happened where, But the facts remain.
He was not convicted of collaborating with the enemy. Then
we have an investigation led by John Kerry in Senator
(25:06):
Kerry Um was the head of a select committee investigation
into the intelligence services process um searching for remaining POWs
in Vietnam. There were two former Defense secretaries, Melvin Laird
and James Schlessinger, who said the Nixon administration most definitely
knew that there were still POWs in Vietnam after the
(25:30):
close of Operation Homecoming. The investigation also revealed that thousands
of files from the n s A on missing soldiers
which were written during the war, were completely ignored by
intelligence services after the war. Um and then after two
years the Kerry Committee came to the conclusion that there
was no compelling evidence that any American soldiers were still
(25:54):
being held Um, not just in Vietnam, but in any
Southeast Asian countries, felt that this was definitively the case
Um And then a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Sydney Schoenberg,
accused the committee of assisting in a government cover up.
And I mean, if you kind of have a government
cover up, what better smoke screen for than a you know,
(26:16):
tireless investigation that supposedly puts all of these concerns too bad.
Just like Jeff k assassination, just like the nine eleven Commission,
we got a way of something around for the public
to latch onto and say, oh no, no, it's fine.
See see see look at all this paper. These are
very long names. Yes, and I know that sounds flippants,
(26:37):
but for people who were opponents of that investigation or
thought it was a cover up, this was. It was
exactly the same kind of tactic, right, And it's very
important to say that what we're doing is exploring the
differing views of this side. We're not casting aspersion on
any service member or the government official. We're just telling
(27:02):
you where these people stand on what they say and
where they disagree. And the people who said like that
this was a cover up. These were not fringe members
of society, you know, as an old said Politzer Prize
winning journalists, this became an increasingly common belief. It was
a very unpopular war. People were at people were at
(27:23):
odds on all sorts of levels, and distrust of the
government was very high. So of course it seems like
something that would happen, you know, and that one of
the big questions would be, well, what is the motivation?
And so when the official narrative came came down, and
(27:43):
you know, veterans like John Kerry veteran, right, John McCain, veterans,
these these um former military members who were serving in
federal government came back and said, you know, we gave
it our best shot, and we tried to figure out
what was going on, and this is what we found.
(28:04):
Even then, people wouldn't believe the whole story. They felt
like this was all spoken mirrors. And this got another, um,
I guess, another dose of high octing conspiratorial fuel just
uh like during the during the investigation in the belief
(28:27):
that they were abandoned soldiers or remaining POW's got a
new burst of high acting conspiratorial fuel. At a summit
June Boris Yeltson was talking to NBC News and this
was reported by the New York Times, and apparently he
said that some Americans captured during the Vietnam War were
apparently transferred from Hannoi to labor camps in the Soviet Union,
(28:50):
and he added that some of them may still be
alive at that time, possibly in psychiatric hospitals. Ladies and gentlemen,
we have a clip from that conversation. Yes, NBC, what
do you want, Yes, Mr Yelson. For years that have
been rooms in the United States that American POWs from
the Vietnam War would transferred from Vietnam to the Soviet Union.
(29:14):
Do you know that to be true? Now archives have
shown that it is true. Some of them were transferred
to the territory of the former USSRUH, some were kept
in labor games. Yeah, we don't have a complete data,
and we can only surmise that some may still be alive.
(29:36):
That is a bomb drop right in the in the
American public, in the heart of the American consciousness, which
that anatomy metaphor doesn't check out. So don't think about
it too much. But we do want to say to
have to have a diplomat like there are at the
time as the Prime minister at the high level for
an official, yeah, to have have to say this was
(29:57):
during glassmost so kind of a peace offer into Um,
I do want to win everybody out there listening to
know that we had a very in depth conversation about
who should do the exit. That's why I was trying
not to crack up. But um, you you guys would
make great re enactors, you know, you know, maybe maybe
(30:20):
we should get into re enactments. Oh man s at
the end, Johnny dangerous strick. So yes, who would these
soldiers have been? This is a strange thing. And I
followed up offline with some military sources to ask about this,
and it's people who would asked not to be identified
(30:43):
on the show. So the people I spoke with believe
that the US probably did leave some people behind, but
not not on purpose, like not as a institutional thing.
Like you don't get elected president and then someone gives
you an envelope and says, never ask about these missing
six people or something. What they said happened is that
(31:06):
anybody taken to the U s s R. Who was
captured would have to be a high value intelligence agent
of some sort, So maybe a company man from the CIA,
maybe military naval intelligence, because otherwise what what would be
the use of that expensive and dangerous transport, you know,
(31:26):
And they would probably take them by boat instead of
by plane, because if a boat goes down, there's a
lot less evidence than if a plane goes down. I
can imagine it being a an implanted agent, maybe even
so specifically was captured to be taken there if possible.
I know that sounds insane, It sounds like something even
(31:47):
that would never happen. But I can imagine it being
like something that happens a set up turn coat in
some way, or you know what I mean, like a
double agent. Yeah, And it's it's tough to know. It's
tough to know where someone's real allegiances lie or if
they have real allegiances. Is that a double double cross?
(32:10):
Many crosses are being doubled there? Yeah, is the quadruple across,
triple across, the quadruple across. I guess it just depends
on when you want to stop or when they stopped
believing theoretically go on crossing indefinitely and just be like
the most this the most untrustworthy person you can only
(32:33):
I think, I think eventually they're just getting get tired
of it, um, which would be very dangerous. But you know,
a lot of times these people, if so, we know
it's probably a small percentage of the missing people, but
of that small percentage went there, um, their lives very
well could have been a living hell, you know what
I mean, especially if they possess secrets that exist only
(32:55):
in their in their minds, the private secrets of one
of the world's great superpowers. That's a very dangerous collection
of thoughts to have ownership over. And because of questions
like this, right because Boris Yelson admits that there were
people spirited away, because they're continual or there they're numerous
(33:19):
radio intercepts saying, oh, we've seen people living, or there
are people in country who say, oh, I've seen this
guy is not Vietnamese. Why is he living in this cave?
You know, with these ripped up clothes, And also to
a degree in cultural consciousness because of you know, the
stories of World War Two survivors, especially in the Japanese army,
(33:40):
who were living as though the war had never ended,
and in some cases didn't know it had. Because of
all these cases it seems not impossible that there could
have been people left behind, whether purposely or accidentally, or
whether it's bonds anyone's control. But several of the privately
(34:04):
funded expeditions by veterans loved one survivors um several of
those expeditions got dogged by accusations of fraud. People would say, well,
the government, being this big, inefficient bureaucracy, is not going
to be able to effectively do this, or they don't
care because what is one human life and the great
(34:25):
abattoir of geopolitics. So with the best of intentions, people
got together and said, we're going to go find this,
and we're going to search either for following up on
evidence of living people or following up on evidence of remains.
And not in all cases, but in many cases you
(34:46):
would see stories of someone accepting a bunch of money
buying a boat and the boat never left the dock
and Thailand and they were beguiling people, They were conning
them with the worst thing. It reminds me of our
conversation we had had before about people who claimed to
contact the dead on behalf of the living. You know,
(35:08):
are they are they just exploiting people sometimes or do
they really believe it. No, this is not to say,
ladies and gentlemen, that these missions were not genuine. Many were,
and there are people who claimed that they that they
found evidence of recent survivors. But just for perspective, let's
(35:28):
talk about a fairly recent hopes. That's right, the John
Hartley hoax. UM in a documentary portrayed a man claiming
to be the missing assumed dead soldier by the name
of John Hartley robertson Um. And in the film, this
person met with surviving family members and convinced them he
(35:52):
was their relative. Later DNA test revealed that this was
not the case. And so this points to an you
that potentially could have come from a lot of these
things that we're talking about is folks bilking relatives supposed
long lost relatives, whether out of money or support in
(36:13):
some way. UH. And nowadays, with you know, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding,
that's a lot easier to do than it used to be,
and it's also a lot easier to find potential marks
for this type of activity. If you want to know
more about that documentaries specifically about John Hartley. UH, it
is called unclaimed. It's pretty great. I remember seeing trailer
(36:37):
for it not long ago and getting interested in it.
It's I think when I saw it, Um, when it
came out, I would recommend it. It's a fascinating, intriguing
story that looks at what happens when family members are
given this chance to reconnect with someone who they think
is a long lost loved one, but then it turned
(37:00):
out to be a nightmare. And it's one of those
things too, where put yourself in the position of a
family member like that, where someone who is for all
intents and purpose, has been dead to you for years,
you're given what you see as a second chance. I mean,
who among us wouldn't maybe be a little blindsided by
that to to to to a point where maybe you
might not have your wits about you. It's a pretty
(37:22):
horrible thing to take advantage of someone's vulnerability like that. Well, guys,
I think one thing that plays in just about all
of this discussion is the myriad ways that in a
war zone situation people can and will be ultimately left behind.
There's a lot of conditions, a lot of variables at play.
(37:44):
It's some scary stuff, Um, and I think we should
talk about some of that stuff. But first let's take
a quick sponsor break. So, yeah, you know, you're right.
One thing is for sure. A lot of people ended
up missing. A lot of American soldiers ended up missing
(38:07):
during the Vietnam conflict during the war, um, and for
very variety of reasons, a whole bunch of reasons. So
let's look at the most likely possibilities. One is that
some men were killed. They're killed in action and then
their bodies are either burned or disposed of somehow by
(38:28):
the enemy by in this case of viet Cong, and
they will never be found ever, probably unless you know,
a big excavation occurs, uh in the jungle somewhere buried
in unmarked graves, right, yep, buried, burned, I mean, they're
all kinds of reasons. Grilla forces often wouldn't have the
capability to transport a hostage or the desire, and this
(38:49):
this is why death is killed in action or KIA
is the most prominent possibility. Unfortunately, and even more unfortunately,
we can't know how many of these people still missing
are in fact, you know, expired or died in this way.
Another possibility is that they deserted, and there are very
(39:13):
strange stories here. Um. Some return to the United States
under false pretenses or false identities. So the Matt Frederick
who shipped off for comes back with the new identity,
which is what would your fake idb oh Enrique Iglesia, Riglesia,
(39:35):
I like is a subtle I would just be Esteban, Esteban.
It's nice with the with the accent mark over it. No, oh,
there's a story to Esteban. No with within question mark. Sure,
And I of course would be Max Powers. Comma asked her.
(39:56):
Not with the secret that's you know, blends in. But
some others escaped to nearby countries like Australia, right or
or a different neighboring country, or went to Canada, and
some indeed found homes inside Vietnam. This means that there
is a possibility, of very small possibility, that some former
(40:18):
soldiers living in Southeast Asia simply don't want to be found.
And we have to consider how much time has passed now, right, Uh,
so these people would be on the older end of
the human spectrum. There's one example of how things kind
of go off the rails and this and that's a
Vietnam era legend that we learned about in the course
(40:41):
of our research. It's a place called Soul City. This rumor,
this was rumored to be a district in suburban Saigon
that was the domain of many US deserters, mainly African American,
and that they became a drug a drug empire essentially
running heroin, racketeerian weapons, prostitution, and it was an enclave. Officially,
(41:08):
this has not been confirmed, so we we can't speak
I don't I don't know about you guys, but I
was not in Vietnam, so we can't speak to the
veracity of that. If anyone listening has firsthand experience or
can confirm it, we would like to hear about not
just that, but other enclaves if they were around. Yes, yes,
(41:33):
and there's and and also to what degree this stuff
was true, was it actually how big, was it actually
if it existed, or was it just a couple of
people who were entrepreneurs. And there's another A lot of
the reality here is unfortunate. When Saigon fell on April
nineteen seventy five, North Vietnamese forces swept through the country
(41:55):
and through other cities like wildfire, and they did not
take prisoners. Did they find deserters, probably most likely were
they friendly to those deserters, probably not, so this would
have ended some of those some of those UM communities,
(42:18):
those you know, even more secret communities, And this leads
us to our conclusion. The current US position is that
there were no purposely abandoned soldiers, and efforts to locate
the remains of those who died in country continue with
full international support today, so support from the Laoisian, Cambodian
(42:41):
and Vietnam and Vietnamese government. Now there's something to consider here, guys.
We haven't we kind of touched on, but not really.
What about the missions that only what how many people
would know at the top of the CIA if it
was a secret mission and like compartmentalized intelligence, Yeah, I
(43:02):
mean a handful of human beings would know if there
are secret missions going on. And you can almost guarantee
that this was occurring during wartime. There the CIA is
going to be having special operations that nobody knows about,
the black black bag, black black ops. And this doesn't
(43:25):
have to just be UM. This doesn't just have to
be the CIA's involvement. This could also be naval and
military intelligence right deep cover stuff or deep incursions. And
also let's consider how many other popular conspiracy theories this
(43:47):
is touching on, which would be what if some of
those missions involved drug trafficking to finance something illegal that
needed plausible deniability. So we were also talking off air.
UM Noah, a marine who now works in I T
(44:08):
did not have experience in Vietnam, but brought up a
very interesting point that I had not considered there. When
I asked this marine about the likelihood, I wanted to
hear what service members thought of the likelihood of purposefully
abandoned POWs rama's, and this marine said that they totally
(44:35):
believe it could happen, and that we should also look
into the current assets of the U. S military around
the world, estimated as a to be in one and
thirty five countries in some capacity, who are all sort
of unnamed assets, you know, uh, functioning and in g
(44:58):
O or in a consular position, who if the if
their cover gets blown, have to provide their own exit
strategy and they do not you know, they do not exist,
Um yeah, And would they? Would those people be counted
in those numbers? Right? That's that's a crucial question. And
(45:18):
then there's there's another question that we kind of talked about,
uh off air, which is sort of motivation. Right, Well,
I mean, I don't know. In all this, I've been
wondering what you guys think would be the most compelling
reason that the US government would a purposefully leave their
(45:40):
own troops behind and then be trying to cover up.
And I I guess the cover up is inherent in doing
the bad thing, So maybe we can skip too. But why,
what's to what end? But we're talking six separate presidential administrations, right,
and that's the very definition of a of a conspiracy.
Or it could just be deep state cover up. But why, yeah,
(46:01):
what's the motivation? That's I could I could imagine a
couple of things. So in the short term, in the
short game, if there's a desire for political leverage and
post war negotiations, then that could have occurred. But the
Paris Peace Accords had explicitly contained a framework for resolving
(46:21):
POW situations for the U. S side, then it's quite
possible that and there were things that would put that
would make Uncle Sam's hands too dirty, and then they
war crimes and that they cut they cut these people loose,
or they just didn't look into it very deeply. And
(46:42):
you know, we're talking a lot about We're talking a
lot about very murky, very questionable things on both sides,
especially if there are people who are alive, who are
who were held and rendered invisible to history. That's a
very dangerous thing, and it can happen moriasily than people think.
(47:02):
It's not just something that happened under the reign of Stalin.
It can happen today. Two people, um and two and
and honestly for not just the black bag operative types
uh In in the U. S. Army, but for anyone
whom I have died or been captured or disappeared from
(47:24):
the official narrative history to these unnamed heroic women and
men across the planet in every nation. We do hope
you and your loved ones find peace, because often these
people are used as pollens, and I think that could
be a motivation. Are you guys familiar with the Mali massacre? Unfortunately? Yeah,
(47:45):
I mean so there was actually a uh task force
I guess you could say, established the Vietnam War Crimes
Working Group in the wake of photographic evidence of what
was thought to be a massacre of women and children.
It's the kind of thing you see depicted in some
of these films. We were talking about like in a platoon,
there's a sequence where some of this goes down and
(48:07):
also in um uh apocalypse now umsimically in platoon though,
But anyhow, uh, you know, and the purpose of this
group was to investigate emerging claims of war crimes by
US military during Vietnam. And you know, if there was
(48:29):
a reason to perhaps let some people stay lost, maybe
some folks saw some things and could have corroborated some
things and had some attacks of conscience that would have
maybe made Uncle Sam, as you said, Ben have a
little bit more blood on their hands than they wanted.
And politically, you know, that could have been bad. It
was a very unpopular war. We were there for a
(48:50):
very very long time, far longer than we intended to be,
and we lost a lot of people, and you know,
it was just a very unpopular a place to be
and you know, there's a lot of clean up that
had to be done in order to kind of wash
our hands of some of that. And you know, this
kind of stuff, these kind of stories not exactly helping
(49:12):
with the pr narrative, right right, well said, And to
Matt's point, you know, this doesn't have to be an
entire government. This could be compartmentalized intelligence, deep state. You know,
it's it's distressing, but at certain levels, at certain institutions,
it only takes a few people to keep powerful secrets.
(49:35):
So it's more again of a black box. And we
could be in a situation where hundreds of thousands of
people are doing their level best. Like the Army has
special branches that go out into that part of the
world every year with full cooperation to find remains, and
they find them. That's the thing. They're They're still finding bodies.
(50:00):
What the question is that somebody else obstructed? So do
our presidents aware of it? Because um, the Barack Obama
administration also pressed for further cooperation investigating entities am I
A cases uh during a during another summit, so within
(50:20):
recent years and at president seems some probably did die
in combat, some probably did dessert, and some are probably
living or have lived under assumed identity, under assumed identities
in somewhere in the world. Many of those in that
(50:41):
third group may have already died of natural causes, living
an entirely different life from the one they left behind
in the jungle. As for the prisoners, no matter how
much we go back and forth, we may never know
for sure. You can go and find a wealth of
(51:03):
live sightings, a wealth of people insisting they've done this.
But Bobby Garwood was a controversial returning figure. And UH
the case that we mentioned earlier, the Hartley hoax, it
did turn out to be a hoax. The DNA didn't match.
UM have added fuel to both camps, the people who
(51:26):
believe that they were abandoned POWs and the people who
believe that they were not. And so we close our
episode today. We want to hear from you what is
what in your experience is plausible here? Is it? Is
it possible that the US cut operation cut servicemen and
operator operators loose to preserve what was seen as greater
(51:49):
stability at the time. Is this conspiracy theory that people
are milking for political gain? Um, And yes, we have
not touched on any of the other Vietnam or Lady conspiracies.
The legends of real life Colonel Kurtz is allah heart
of darkness. Apocalypse now the effects of Agent Orange and
more so right to us and let us know what
(52:12):
we should cover. If you do want to write to us,
you can find us on Facebook where we are conspiracy
stuff or on Twitter also Conspiracy Stuff. You can find
us on Instagram Conspiracy Stuff Show. And if you don't
like that stuff, you can always send us an email. Uh,
but we'll we'll tell you how to do that later. Yes, yes,
(52:32):
First it's time for shut ut Corner. Our first shout
out comes from Carlton. Carlton says, in your recent episode
you mentioned g and I have a quick and dirty
way for pretty much anyone to feel it dirty. You say, yeah,
so dirty, Thank you, Carlton. Uh. Carlton says, First, you
(52:53):
should sit upright or stand Okay, I'm gonna do this
as I say it, all right, with both feet pointed
straight out forward at your shoulders length. Okay. Second, you
need to reach out your hands and palms facing towards
each other. So palms facing each other, hands out. The
elbow should be bent at about forty five degrees, so
(53:13):
there's ninety let's do. Now. Your fingers should form a
claw pointed to each other. Then you close your eyes,
calm your breath, and slowly close the space in between
your hands, as if you're holding an imaginary apple sized sphere. Now,
if you're calm enough, you will feel that your fingertips
(53:37):
already felt pressure, but not because of direct contact. If
you reach this step, then you can move the entire
palm back and forth to experience an odd feeling similar
to the repellent force of two magnets. It almost sounds
like you're starting at Kama maya or you know, a
fireball can style? Yeah, how do you can style? That's
(54:00):
really cool. It's interesting because it ties into the one
of the largely unacknowledged senses of the human body, proper reception, right,
the sense of where your limbs are in space when
you're not looking at them. And I got up and
tried it. I think I'm gonna have to do it
when I'm not shotgunning so much coffee. Yeah, and you
(54:22):
know we're recording a podcast, but thank you, Carlton, we
have that now. Now you have that, you the listener
of this voice, and uh, let's all try it together
sometime or at least separately, and then come back and yeah,
let's try and write to us and let us know. Everybody,
give everybody give Carlton's technique a shot and let us
(54:42):
know how it works out for you. I'm gonna try
it some more later when we're off air. Our second
shout out today comes from Andrew. Andrew says, hi, guys,
I think that the I think the conspiracy that the
Russian version of nine eleven Russian apartment bombings was really
a false flag operation or irustrated by and for Putin.
(55:02):
That's Vladimir Putin to rise to power, and that would
make for a really great podcast and a timely when
given all the talk about Russia and Putin these days. Anyhow,
keep up the good work. That is crazy. By the way,
I didn't know anything about this until Andrew wrote to us,
and I just did some quick searching on the subject
to see what it was all about. I've never heard
(55:23):
of it. It's I think three separate cities that got bombed,
like four apartment complexes or more, all around the same time,
and it was all blamed on certain groups and it
started groups. Yeah, and it started the Chech another Chechen
in conflict. And apparently it really, it really did help
(55:46):
rise Putin to power, or at least somewhat. I yeah,
we'll have to look into that. Finally, we have a
shout out from Philip up Philippe up Um either either
one of those not either one of the two, probably,
but I'm throwing them both out there just to cover
my basis. Um, my husband isn't what you'd call psychic,
(56:07):
but his gut feelings are correct. Well, that's what I
would call psychic. But that's pretty cool. Uh. He also
has an annoying habit of knowing what I'm going to
say before I say it, even if it's totally off topic,
and he can predict who he'll see that day. He
works in a record shop, and if he hasn't seen
a regular customer for a while, he'll usually know before
(56:30):
he starts work that they will come by that day.
He also has a ghost who follows him around. Yeah,
that's what it says here, a ghost who follows him around,
and numerous people have seen weird stuff happen when they've
been with him. Well, here's to keeping it, keeping it interesting,
keeping it fresh and weird in your relationship. Uh. It
(56:51):
sounds like an interesting guy. And I would love to
hear more if anyone has clairvoyant partners out there, Um,
much more than just finishing each other's sandwiches. And we
want to hear about that kind of stuff because I
don't know anyone like that. I often, Um, I think
(57:12):
I know what my girlfriend's about to say, and uh
and and stumble into trying to to say it for her,
and she usually just shoots me a dirty look because
I'm wrong and it's rude. Yeah, it turns into you
trying to man splain something exactly her own thoughts. I'm
also interested to know, Philippa. Philip Philippa, I think I'm
also interested to know if your husband predicted that this
(57:35):
listener mail would be read out loud. Oh, I can
imagine it right now he wakes up, honey learned on
the podcast box Conspiracy talking about right now this moment.
That is not what Philip Philippa's husband sounds like. She
(57:57):
also but she says she's from rural southwest England, by
the way, and she says there was a wart charmer
in her neighborhood in her town. Wart charmer who could
charm the worts off you. Is that the same as
charming the pants off you? Exact same thing. That's a
pants charmer, I believe, not to split hairs or pants wards. Well,
(58:18):
this concludes our gosh, and this concludes our episode today,
but not hopefully knock on wood our show itself. We
will be back next week, What are we covering next week?
Do we have a little bit of a teaser we
could give people? Well, next week we're covering delicious, delicious
(58:39):
yet deadly deadly sugar m Yes. Well, now at first
it's it's like, yes, it's sickly sweet and there is
a conspiracy afoot, not a theory. If you would like
(59:00):
to know more, please tune in, and in the meantime,
go easy on the sodas just in case you don't
want anyone to be listening to a hospital. And that's
the end of this classic episode. If you have any
thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into
contact with us in a number of different ways. One
(59:20):
of the best is to give us a call. Our
number is one eight three three st d w y
t K. If you don't want to do that, you
can send us a good old fashioned email. We are
conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't
want you to Know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(59:43):
your favorite shows.
All right, it's time for this week's classic episode. Riddle
me this, Matt. How many Vietnam War veterans have you
met or do? No? Fairly small handful. But of of
the folks I have met, not a lot of them
want to sit down with me and talk about their experiences,
(00:22):
and that that makes a lot of sense, I think
to me. There's some horrendous stuff that went down right
on all sides. If you're involved in that conflict, there
was horrible stuff going down right, no matter where you
are and who you're fighting for. But the US government
man some bad stuff, including perhaps leaving soldiers behind after
(00:46):
the conflict that ended. This is the focus of this
week's classic episode for stuff they don't want you to know.
The big question did the US abandoned soldiers in Southeast Asia?
At the close of the Paris Peace Accords, both the
United States and Vietnam agreed to return any prisoners of
(01:07):
war to their home countries. This is a heartbreaking thing
because you know, when when countries make ward is the
people that suffer. And for many, many years, decades on now,
there have been rumors, scuttle but speculation, conspiratorial ideas that
(01:28):
the United States knowingly abandoned its own and left them,
as the tradecraft slang would say, out in the cold.
So that's this week's classic episode. And on a personal
note from Matt and myself, if you have any leads,
if you have any feedback, we would very much love
to hear it. We typically give ways to contact us
(01:51):
at the end of an episode, but for this one
in particular one eight three three std w y t
K or our email address which is conspiracy at iHeart
radio dot com. Let's jump into the episode. From UFOs
to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with
unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the
(02:15):
stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, and welcome
back to the show. My name is met, my name
is known. They called me Ben, and you're you the
most important part of this show, which is of course
(02:38):
stuff they don't want you to know. Ladies and gentlemen,
if this is your first time listening, thank you so
much for dropping by. We we hope that you come
by later to then I have to clear the air here.
You did all of your intro with your eyes covered
but forcefully sort of a pained expression on your face.
What was that about I'm I'm good. Are my eyes
(02:59):
like act a regular? Do they do that flippy things where? Yeah, yeah,
are you doing the reptilian stuff in the studio? I
asked you that we got pretty deep into that reptilian episode.
We got a lot of a lot of really interesting
listener mail. Well, it came to a point where we
were all just thinking with a hive mind, and I
(03:21):
wonder if we should if we were on the fence
about whether we should have cut the part where for
like seventeen minutes we spoke in unison. Yeah, I wonder
if did you notice that? I just didn't know what
language it was. But today we are not talking about
lizard people. Today we were talking about uh something something
(03:44):
completely different as they used to see, perhaps a monty python.
We are talking about what is popularly known in the
US as the Vietnam War. Um, if you are someone
who is matt or no or eyes age, then you
likely have relatives if you're in the US, who have
(04:06):
been involved in that conflict, and if not, then even
at least seen Platoon right, yes, or any of the
pieces of popular media that have come out since the
nineteen seventies. Sure, Rambo First Blood Apocalypse now, which is
my personal favorite Forrest Gump, even Forrest Gump, even yes,
and this um So, the Vietnam War, what what the U.
(04:28):
S Usually refers to it as is the American incursion
with the idea of preventing the rise of communism in
Southeast Asia. That was the official advertisement on the tin
when it was sold to the American public. Uh. This later, Uh, this,
this later expanded past Vietnam into Cambodia and Lao. This,
(04:55):
this war has had a lastening and a lasting and
profound effect both on the people of the US and
the people of Vietnam, as well as arguably the people
of Russia or the Soviet Union at the time, because
it ended up being a giant proxy war, right, Yeah, exactly.
(05:19):
And the Vietnam Wars we consider it began in nineteen
fifty five. Direct US involvement officially ended with the signing
of a treaty called the Agreement on Ending the War
and Restoring Peace in Vietnam. A little yeah, it's it's
a little undernose. I guess they had to spell it out,
you know. Uh. And that was on January nineteen seventy three.
(05:45):
This document is most often known as the Paris Peace Accords.
The war itself didn't end until seventy five with the
fall of Saigon. But what what did this agreement do? Well?
The agreement itself actually resulted in the release of five
hundred ninety one American prisoners of war, of whom five
hundred sixty six were military and twenty five were civilians. Um.
(06:10):
In addition to that, it established a framework for cooperation
and resolving the po w m I A related questions,
So prisoners of war and missing in action, and there
were there were quite a few questions about that. So yeah,
and because of this, from February nineteen seventy three to
April nineteen seventy three, Uncle Sam conducted what was called
(06:31):
Operation Homecoming, and this returned prisoners of war to the
United States. It rescued five hundred and ninety one in total.
So as of sixteen, around one thousand, six d twenty
one Americans are still officially considered missing or unaccounted for
for some reason or another during this Vietnam conflict, the
(06:51):
Vietnam War, or whatever else it was called at the time.
And this may be a point where many many of
US lists in the audience may be saying, wait, you
guys just sort of glossed over the Vietnam War. All
of a sudden, it's ended. This is not exactly about
the Vietnam War or the conflict in Southeast Asia, because
(07:14):
the US has identified two hundred and nineties six individuals
as last known alive cases in all of Southeast Asia,
and following full investigations by March of the Defense Department
confirmed the wartime death of two hundred and forty five
of these individuals too there um to their official standards,
(07:37):
because this, friends is the official narrative. However, in the
decades since the withdrawal of US troops, numerous former military officials,
government officials, and members of the public believe that this country,
the United States of America, left service members behind in
Vietnam and Cambodia and in Laos and Cambodia and lasers,
(07:59):
particularly the sticky subjects, as in many many cases, the
US was not supposed to be up there, and they
were officially, um, but we're not there. And a lot
of these people don't just believe that they were left behind,
you know, as in oh oops, we left a bunch
of our servicemen behind. No, they think it was done
(08:20):
on purpose, and that the US government has not only
not been looking for these missing soldiers but actively obstructing
any searches and covering up the entire affair for the
last forty odd years, right, almost half a century. Double yikes,
double y Why would why would people think that this
(08:41):
is an extraordinarily common belief here in the US. And
and we don't know this is a very US specific topic, right,
so we we're not sure you know how Australian listeners
feel about this, European listeners or listeners in uh, China
or Vietnam in specific around the world. So do right
(09:03):
in and let us know if you have heard of
this before, which is considered a miscarriage of justice by
some and an out and out conspiracy theory by others.
So why on earth would the government do something like that?
Let's look at sort of the evolution of this suspicions
(09:24):
about remaining service and then start almost immediately after the
signing of the Paris Peace Accords with we we're just
going to call him that because, as you pointed out,
that name is a it's a mouthful. Yeah, no, I
like the Paris piece of cords. That's got a nice
ring to it. The other one is just like it's
d LDR. Are we going to save some money on paper?
(09:44):
Guys like, so this is right, You're right that things
were very tacky back man. Yeah, well there were longer names,
is what I'm saying for things? Um, yes, all it is.
It is true. This is a related point for anybody
who was not alive in three all names were actually longer,
(10:09):
every single one. The United States of America was actually
the United States of Cooperative Municipalities with the intention to
act in concert of America. COMMA named after Amerigo Vespucci. Yes,
thede dot com. Yeah, yeah, that's actually where the internet
(10:31):
comes from. Is that that name? Facts, ladies and gentlemen,
These are facts, alternative facts. Perhaps we're perhaps if this
sounds crazier, this is the first time you're hearing it.
We invite you to check out our earlier podcast on
the Mandela Effect. So President Nixon at the end of
(10:51):
this he states that all the POW's have been returned
and now at the time, the US listed two thousand
six d the six Americans as unaccounted for, including about
and fifty prisoners of war or missing in action and
roughly reported killed in action but the body not recovered,
(11:12):
which is, you know, in all seriousness, a a profound tragedy,
you know, because what happens to the closure for those families,
I would think not incredibly uncommon, though maybe that's a
high number, but you know, you're in a war situation
where bodies can be completely obliterated by you know, explosions,
(11:35):
where you're not going to have any remains, but it's
too difficult to retrieve them without any commanding officer even
knowing a general location or you know, a general fate.
That that's uncommon. I mean, war is one of the
most brutal inventions of our society. And you know, okay,
arguably humans didn't invent it, because it has been documented
(11:58):
that other primates have large scale uh conflicts or at
least tribal level conflicts, but humans have taken it to
an insidious art form. And you're you're absolutely right, it's
it's odd to have such precise numbers, and for people
(12:19):
who are not familiar with this, the Vietnam War from
the us I had some of the best documentation for
war of its kind, so we are able to know
more of these numbers than we would know, for instance,
in World War two, right, But Nolan is absolutely right.
People disappear in war, you know, and that's the that's
(12:45):
the question. So there's this there's this one thing that
that is kind of a a spark point. It's the
turn back now or or you know, delve into the
murky stuff that occurs when there's a very low number
or POW's return from Laos. And this causes immediate concern
because the Pentagon in secret meetings, right, not really revealed
(13:08):
to the public. I thought there would be as many
as forty or forty one prisoners held there, um only
if you have been known to be captured for certain
And a tiny like a negligible amount of people came back,
like three or something, and the responsibility for finding these
missing soldiers fell to you're gonna You're gonna like this
one fell to the Defense Prisoner of War SLASH Missing
(13:32):
Personnel Office and the Joint po w M I A
accounting commands. Can we at least make it a sexy acronym?
I know, right well, you will be happy to know
all that in the National Defense Authorization Act combined to
those two agencies into one, so thank god, and along
(13:52):
with one other thing. But yeah, just tack it onto
the end. Yeah, the ride the movie dot Com. So
then in the nineteen seventies and eighties, the relatives, the
family and friends of all of these missing personnel started
getting agitated because as you do, uh, they started becoming
(14:15):
politically active, and they start requesting that the United States
reveal what steps they were taking, what steps they took
and to continue to take to follow up on their
missing relatives and their loved ones, Like what kind of
intelligence do you have with regards to these missing and
action soldiers? Right, they started demanding accountability, and regardless of
(14:37):
what you personally believe in terms of politics or the
role of governments state versus federal, local, what have you, Uh,
accountability should be key in any of these things. And
accountability goes both ways, you know what I mean, to
the citizen as well as to the institutions. So this,
(14:58):
this is a good move, and this is this move
is saying initially saying, just well, tell us what you're doing,
you know what I mean, shed some light on this
process because these people could very well be alive. In
some cases, they just know when they were last seen alive,
(15:19):
and it was years ago? Right? Where was months ago?
So this is almost a black box for these relatives
and these loved ones. So initial inquiries revealed that important
information had not been pursued, and so many families and
their supporters asked for the public release of these records
and called for full investigation. So when we say important
(15:43):
information and not been pursued, we're saying stuff like UM
an intelligence agency intercepts a radio transmission from Thailand that
details they the details they've cited UM work camp, you know,
with like eleven people who are clearly not Vietnamese Cambodian relation,
(16:06):
and that they're being held after the war is something.
But then the intelligence agency on the us I would say, well,
that's Thailand, you know what I mean, We're gonna trust
this foreign intercept or whatever. We just sit on it
because it's not it doesn't seem like it's pertinent to
any major investigation you're doing. Right then, right? And then also,
(16:27):
you know, there's a fair question like how do you
discern the bologne from the what's a better meat than bologne?
Thereso riso? You know, a good generous salami? Yeah okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
How do you separate the Bolognai from the Thereso and
good Genoa Salami. It's tough. It's tough in the intelligence community. Yeah,
(16:52):
and you can't send people out to investigate every single one.
It's just not possible. I mean you can, you can
try your hardest, but it is a part of my
French here, it is it can sometimes be a no
win situation. Well, it's like you get bogged down in
this this idea that bureaucracy is inherently inefficient and massive
and you know, and a pain. And then he realized
(17:13):
that the only reason it exists is to manage the
massive and inefficient and painful, you know what I mean.
So it's like you can't really fault it every time
for not being able to be everything to everybody, right,
and and on that perspective too, it might be a
damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, because
like think about it. So if okay, everybody listening, let's
(17:36):
say all of us are the CIA in the seventies
and eighties. Congratulations, We're sorry you had to find out
this way. So one of us gets one of us,
one group of US gets a report that says, all right,
foreign radio intercept has said that has identified you know,
a dozen people in a remote area being working in
(17:58):
forced agriculture. The question becomes as as we already being
a large organization, say like, okay, well, if we don't
investigate this, and then there is a risk that we
will have we will have screwed up. But if we
do investigate this and we don't find anything, then we
(18:20):
will be roasted over the coals for you know, frivolous
government spending or something. Or since you know, listeners, you
and Matt Noel and I are now part of this
fictional CIA or Another thing is if we delve into this,
is it going to interfere with other active operations that
(18:41):
we have in the area. Yeah. Well, and here here's
the craziest part. This idea that the government isn't doing
everything it can do to get the loved ones of
these people back. That is a polarizing concept and that
if you latch on to that, let's say, as a
politician in the public sector, then you're you're gonna get
(19:05):
some votes from a good number of people if you're
championing this idea that the government is not doing everything
it can do, or even like a faction of the
government because of certain leanings. Maybe even you can kind
of characterize it as a political issue rather than just
a matter of unmanageable situations. You know. Well, and it
(19:27):
doesn't even matter if you, uh, the person running truly
believes there, right, Yeah, unfortunately, I mean that's the rule
with a lot of political stuff, you know. And and
this is this is an issue that UM, this is
an issue that politicians have investigated or advocated on any
political strike. Ross Perrow was very big into UM trying
(19:52):
to discover the truth behind this and did believe that
there were people left behind an abandoned uh. John Kerry,
John McCain, George H. W. Bush like it. It goes
across the spectrum. And George H. W. Bush was c
i A at least for a time. Yes, is anybody
do you ever become not c I A. We've had
(20:13):
this discussion before. I think you're right. You are always
like at least in the club, I feel like you
have to be. You've got information if you've been in
the CIA that we we can't let you into the
wrong hands. It's like being the president. Maybe when the
president and you're referred to as they don't really call
you the former president. Do they they call you the president?
(20:34):
Mr Presidents And yeah, yeah, people don't call you Jimmy anymore. People,
something happens to you. You you become someone else entirely
in your mind, is not your own. It's true, man.
And have you've seen those before and after pictures of
every president since the invention of photography? That's it will
wear you down, Actually, the black and white ones where
the bags under the eyes are so incredible, just like pools.
(20:58):
It's crazy. Man. Well, um, while we're on this subject,
we do have to examine this because this didn't just
stop in the in the seventies. This didn't just stop, um,
like with a hard stop and a couple of investigations.
This we're on and on and on, and they're tantalizing
(21:19):
hints two different parts of this story. And we're going
to give you a few after a word from our sponsors,
let's begin looking at a few examples here. The first
one comes from nineteen seventy nine. The gentleman whose name
(21:44):
is Bobby Garwood, Private Bobby Garwood. He returned to the
United States and seventy nine after fourteen years living as
a prisoner of war. Now he says he he says,
claims that he was one of many soldiers still being
held in viet M and several other countries in the
Jason area like you said Van Laos, several others um so.
(22:07):
The United States denied these allegations, and furthermore, they claimed
that Garwood was actually a collaborator. He was in on
the whole thing. He wasn't a prisoner, that he went
over the hill and turned coat. Right. He was reportedly
released in nineteen seventy three with some other American POWs,
but he did not return to the United States until
March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine. During that time, he
(22:31):
was listed as either having volunteered or been forced into
a work group repairing a generator at a re education camp.
Other reports described him as working in Island Fortress or
being a driver and vehicle mechanic whoa. When he gets
back in seventy nine, over a period of eleven months,
he faces a general court martial at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina,
(22:54):
because other Marines testified like other not just marines, other
service members testified seeing him in action with VC with
via Kong so he Uh. He was found not guilty
of desertion or solicitation of U S troops in the
(23:14):
field to defect or maltreatment U He was convicted in
one of communicating with the enemy and the assault of
an American pow at a camp, and that violates the
Uniform Code of Military Justice. He was The court martial
sentenced him the reduction to a private, forfeiture of all
pay and allowances, dishonorable discharge, but he was not confined.
(23:39):
He appealed his conviction was upheld. Robert Garwood says that
he saw other American POWs after nineteen seventy three, and
he insists that he himself had been a prisoner for
fourteen years. UM Many of the POWs who claimed have
seen him collaborated with the enemy also feel he should
(23:59):
not have been and court martial, because that's the thing,
you know, it's if he is if he was imprisoned,
and which is a story that the American public will
probably never know him full. If it was imprisoned, was
he forced to cooperate or did he choose to You know,
it gets it gets sticky, sou so according to this guy,
(24:22):
and according to the people who believe that there were
purposefully abandoned POWs or service members uh in in country
after seventy three. This guy has been silenced because he's
telling the truth. But to other people, two critics of
that belief, he is trying to cover his own you know,
(24:45):
cover his own high courts, which at this point you
can you can easily go down a rabbit hole of
who said what and what happened where, But the facts remain.
He was not convicted of collaborating with the enemy. Then
we have an investigation led by John Kerry in Senator
(25:06):
Kerry Um was the head of a select committee investigation
into the intelligence services process um searching for remaining POWs
in Vietnam. There were two former Defense secretaries, Melvin Laird
and James Schlessinger, who said the Nixon administration most definitely
knew that there were still POWs in Vietnam after the
(25:30):
close of Operation Homecoming. The investigation also revealed that thousands
of files from the n s A on missing soldiers
which were written during the war, were completely ignored by
intelligence services after the war. Um and then after two
years the Kerry Committee came to the conclusion that there
was no compelling evidence that any American soldiers were still
(25:54):
being held Um, not just in Vietnam, but in any
Southeast Asian countries, felt that this was definitively the case
Um And then a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Sydney Schoenberg,
accused the committee of assisting in a government cover up.
And I mean, if you kind of have a government
cover up, what better smoke screen for than a you know,
(26:16):
tireless investigation that supposedly puts all of these concerns too bad.
Just like Jeff k assassination, just like the nine eleven Commission,
we got a way of something around for the public
to latch onto and say, oh no, no, it's fine.
See see see look at all this paper. These are
very long names. Yes, and I know that sounds flippants,
(26:37):
but for people who were opponents of that investigation or
thought it was a cover up, this was. It was
exactly the same kind of tactic, right, And it's very
important to say that what we're doing is exploring the
differing views of this side. We're not casting aspersion on
any service member or the government official. We're just telling
(27:02):
you where these people stand on what they say and
where they disagree. And the people who said like that
this was a cover up. These were not fringe members
of society, you know, as an old said Politzer Prize
winning journalists, this became an increasingly common belief. It was
a very unpopular war. People were at people were at
(27:23):
odds on all sorts of levels, and distrust of the
government was very high. So of course it seems like
something that would happen, you know, and that one of
the big questions would be, well, what is the motivation?
And so when the official narrative came came down, and
(27:43):
you know, veterans like John Kerry veteran, right, John McCain, veterans,
these these um former military members who were serving in
federal government came back and said, you know, we gave
it our best shot, and we tried to figure out
what was going on, and this is what we found.
(28:04):
Even then, people wouldn't believe the whole story. They felt
like this was all spoken mirrors. And this got another, um,
I guess, another dose of high octing conspiratorial fuel just
uh like during the during the investigation in the belief
(28:27):
that they were abandoned soldiers or remaining POW's got a
new burst of high acting conspiratorial fuel. At a summit
June Boris Yeltson was talking to NBC News and this
was reported by the New York Times, and apparently he
said that some Americans captured during the Vietnam War were
apparently transferred from Hannoi to labor camps in the Soviet Union,
(28:50):
and he added that some of them may still be
alive at that time, possibly in psychiatric hospitals. Ladies and gentlemen,
we have a clip from that conversation. Yes, NBC, what
do you want, Yes, Mr Yelson. For years that have
been rooms in the United States that American POWs from
the Vietnam War would transferred from Vietnam to the Soviet Union.
(29:14):
Do you know that to be true? Now archives have
shown that it is true. Some of them were transferred
to the territory of the former USSRUH, some were kept
in labor games. Yeah, we don't have a complete data,
and we can only surmise that some may still be alive.
(29:36):
That is a bomb drop right in the in the
American public, in the heart of the American consciousness, which
that anatomy metaphor doesn't check out. So don't think about
it too much. But we do want to say to
have to have a diplomat like there are at the
time as the Prime minister at the high level for
an official, yeah, to have have to say this was
(29:57):
during glassmost so kind of a peace offer into Um,
I do want to win everybody out there listening to
know that we had a very in depth conversation about
who should do the exit. That's why I was trying
not to crack up. But um, you you guys would
make great re enactors, you know, you know, maybe maybe
(30:20):
we should get into re enactments. Oh man s at
the end, Johnny dangerous strick. So yes, who would these
soldiers have been? This is a strange thing. And I
followed up offline with some military sources to ask about this,
and it's people who would asked not to be identified
(30:43):
on the show. So the people I spoke with believe
that the US probably did leave some people behind, but
not not on purpose, like not as a institutional thing.
Like you don't get elected president and then someone gives
you an envelope and says, never ask about these missing
six people or something. What they said happened is that
(31:06):
anybody taken to the U s s R. Who was
captured would have to be a high value intelligence agent
of some sort, So maybe a company man from the CIA,
maybe military naval intelligence, because otherwise what what would be
the use of that expensive and dangerous transport, you know,
(31:26):
And they would probably take them by boat instead of
by plane, because if a boat goes down, there's a
lot less evidence than if a plane goes down. I
can imagine it being a an implanted agent, maybe even
so specifically was captured to be taken there if possible.
I know that sounds insane, It sounds like something even
(31:47):
that would never happen. But I can imagine it being
like something that happens a set up turn coat in
some way, or you know what I mean, like a
double agent. Yeah, And it's it's tough to know. It's
tough to know where someone's real allegiances lie or if
they have real allegiances. Is that a double double cross?
(32:10):
Many crosses are being doubled there? Yeah, is the quadruple across,
triple across, the quadruple across. I guess it just depends
on when you want to stop or when they stopped
believing theoretically go on crossing indefinitely and just be like
the most this the most untrustworthy person you can only
(32:33):
I think, I think eventually they're just getting get tired
of it, um, which would be very dangerous. But you know,
a lot of times these people, if so, we know
it's probably a small percentage of the missing people, but
of that small percentage went there, um, their lives very
well could have been a living hell, you know what
I mean, especially if they possess secrets that exist only
(32:55):
in their in their minds, the private secrets of one
of the world's great superpowers. That's a very dangerous collection
of thoughts to have ownership over. And because of questions
like this, right because Boris Yelson admits that there were
people spirited away, because they're continual or there they're numerous
(33:19):
radio intercepts saying, oh, we've seen people living, or there
are people in country who say, oh, I've seen this
guy is not Vietnamese. Why is he living in this cave?
You know, with these ripped up clothes, And also to
a degree in cultural consciousness because of you know, the
stories of World War Two survivors, especially in the Japanese army,
(33:40):
who were living as though the war had never ended,
and in some cases didn't know it had. Because of
all these cases it seems not impossible that there could
have been people left behind, whether purposely or accidentally, or
whether it's bonds anyone's control. But several of the privately
(34:04):
funded expeditions by veterans loved one survivors um several of
those expeditions got dogged by accusations of fraud. People would say, well,
the government, being this big, inefficient bureaucracy, is not going
to be able to effectively do this, or they don't
care because what is one human life and the great
(34:25):
abattoir of geopolitics. So with the best of intentions, people
got together and said, we're going to go find this,
and we're going to search either for following up on
evidence of living people or following up on evidence of remains.
And not in all cases, but in many cases you
(34:46):
would see stories of someone accepting a bunch of money
buying a boat and the boat never left the dock
and Thailand and they were beguiling people, They were conning
them with the worst thing. It reminds me of our
conversation we had had before about people who claimed to
contact the dead on behalf of the living. You know,
(35:08):
are they are they just exploiting people sometimes or do
they really believe it. No, this is not to say,
ladies and gentlemen, that these missions were not genuine. Many were,
and there are people who claimed that they that they
found evidence of recent survivors. But just for perspective, let's
(35:28):
talk about a fairly recent hopes. That's right, the John
Hartley hoax. UM in a documentary portrayed a man claiming
to be the missing assumed dead soldier by the name
of John Hartley robertson Um. And in the film, this
person met with surviving family members and convinced them he
(35:52):
was their relative. Later DNA test revealed that this was
not the case. And so this points to an you
that potentially could have come from a lot of these
things that we're talking about is folks bilking relatives supposed
long lost relatives, whether out of money or support in
(36:13):
some way. UH. And nowadays, with you know, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding,
that's a lot easier to do than it used to be,
and it's also a lot easier to find potential marks
for this type of activity. If you want to know
more about that documentaries specifically about John Hartley. UH, it
is called unclaimed. It's pretty great. I remember seeing trailer
(36:37):
for it not long ago and getting interested in it.
It's I think when I saw it, Um, when it
came out, I would recommend it. It's a fascinating, intriguing
story that looks at what happens when family members are
given this chance to reconnect with someone who they think
is a long lost loved one, but then it turned
(37:00):
out to be a nightmare. And it's one of those
things too, where put yourself in the position of a
family member like that, where someone who is for all
intents and purpose, has been dead to you for years,
you're given what you see as a second chance. I mean,
who among us wouldn't maybe be a little blindsided by
that to to to to a point where maybe you
might not have your wits about you. It's a pretty
(37:22):
horrible thing to take advantage of someone's vulnerability like that. Well, guys,
I think one thing that plays in just about all
of this discussion is the myriad ways that in a
war zone situation people can and will be ultimately left behind.
There's a lot of conditions, a lot of variables at play.
(37:44):
It's some scary stuff, Um, and I think we should
talk about some of that stuff. But first let's take
a quick sponsor break. So, yeah, you know, you're right.
One thing is for sure. A lot of people ended
up missing. A lot of American soldiers ended up missing
(38:07):
during the Vietnam conflict during the war, um, and for
very variety of reasons, a whole bunch of reasons. So
let's look at the most likely possibilities. One is that
some men were killed. They're killed in action and then
their bodies are either burned or disposed of somehow by
(38:28):
the enemy by in this case of viet Cong, and
they will never be found ever, probably unless you know,
a big excavation occurs, uh in the jungle somewhere buried
in unmarked graves, right, yep, buried, burned, I mean, they're
all kinds of reasons. Grilla forces often wouldn't have the
capability to transport a hostage or the desire, and this
(38:49):
this is why death is killed in action or KIA
is the most prominent possibility. Unfortunately, and even more unfortunately,
we can't know how many of these people still missing
are in fact, you know, expired or died in this way.
Another possibility is that they deserted, and there are very
(39:13):
strange stories here. Um. Some return to the United States
under false pretenses or false identities. So the Matt Frederick
who shipped off for comes back with the new identity,
which is what would your fake idb oh Enrique Iglesia, Riglesia,
(39:35):
I like is a subtle I would just be Esteban, Esteban.
It's nice with the with the accent mark over it. No, oh,
there's a story to Esteban. No with within question mark. Sure,
And I of course would be Max Powers. Comma asked her.
(39:56):
Not with the secret that's you know, blends in. But
some others escaped to nearby countries like Australia, right or
or a different neighboring country, or went to Canada, and
some indeed found homes inside Vietnam. This means that there
is a possibility, of very small possibility, that some former
(40:18):
soldiers living in Southeast Asia simply don't want to be found.
And we have to consider how much time has passed now, right, Uh,
so these people would be on the older end of
the human spectrum. There's one example of how things kind
of go off the rails and this and that's a
Vietnam era legend that we learned about in the course
(40:41):
of our research. It's a place called Soul City. This rumor,
this was rumored to be a district in suburban Saigon
that was the domain of many US deserters, mainly African American,
and that they became a drug a drug empire essentially
running heroin, racketeerian weapons, prostitution, and it was an enclave. Officially,
(41:08):
this has not been confirmed, so we we can't speak
I don't I don't know about you guys, but I
was not in Vietnam, so we can't speak to the
veracity of that. If anyone listening has firsthand experience or
can confirm it, we would like to hear about not
just that, but other enclaves if they were around. Yes, yes,
(41:33):
and there's and and also to what degree this stuff
was true, was it actually how big, was it actually
if it existed, or was it just a couple of
people who were entrepreneurs. And there's another A lot of
the reality here is unfortunate. When Saigon fell on April
nineteen seventy five, North Vietnamese forces swept through the country
(41:55):
and through other cities like wildfire, and they did not
take prisoners. Did they find deserters, probably most likely were
they friendly to those deserters, probably not, so this would
have ended some of those some of those UM communities,
(42:18):
those you know, even more secret communities, And this leads
us to our conclusion. The current US position is that
there were no purposely abandoned soldiers, and efforts to locate
the remains of those who died in country continue with
full international support today, so support from the Laoisian, Cambodian
(42:41):
and Vietnam and Vietnamese government. Now there's something to consider here, guys.
We haven't we kind of touched on, but not really.
What about the missions that only what how many people
would know at the top of the CIA if it
was a secret mission and like compartmentalized intelligence, Yeah, I
(43:02):
mean a handful of human beings would know if there
are secret missions going on. And you can almost guarantee
that this was occurring during wartime. There the CIA is
going to be having special operations that nobody knows about,
the black black bag, black black ops. And this doesn't
(43:25):
have to just be UM. This doesn't just have to
be the CIA's involvement. This could also be naval and
military intelligence right deep cover stuff or deep incursions. And
also let's consider how many other popular conspiracy theories this
(43:47):
is touching on, which would be what if some of
those missions involved drug trafficking to finance something illegal that
needed plausible deniability. So we were also talking off air.
UM Noah, a marine who now works in I T
(44:08):
did not have experience in Vietnam, but brought up a
very interesting point that I had not considered there. When
I asked this marine about the likelihood, I wanted to
hear what service members thought of the likelihood of purposefully
abandoned POWs rama's, and this marine said that they totally
(44:35):
believe it could happen, and that we should also look
into the current assets of the U. S military around
the world, estimated as a to be in one and
thirty five countries in some capacity, who are all sort
of unnamed assets, you know, uh, functioning and in g
(44:58):
O or in a consular position, who if the if
their cover gets blown, have to provide their own exit
strategy and they do not you know, they do not exist,
Um yeah, And would they? Would those people be counted
in those numbers? Right? That's that's a crucial question. And
(45:18):
then there's there's another question that we kind of talked about,
uh off air, which is sort of motivation. Right, Well,
I mean, I don't know. In all this, I've been
wondering what you guys think would be the most compelling
reason that the US government would a purposefully leave their
(45:40):
own troops behind and then be trying to cover up.
And I I guess the cover up is inherent in doing
the bad thing, So maybe we can skip too. But why,
what's to what end? But we're talking six separate presidential administrations, right,
and that's the very definition of a of a conspiracy.
Or it could just be deep state cover up. But why, yeah,
(46:01):
what's the motivation? That's I could I could imagine a
couple of things. So in the short term, in the
short game, if there's a desire for political leverage and
post war negotiations, then that could have occurred. But the
Paris Peace Accords had explicitly contained a framework for resolving
(46:21):
POW situations for the U. S side, then it's quite
possible that and there were things that would put that
would make Uncle Sam's hands too dirty, and then they
war crimes and that they cut they cut these people loose,
or they just didn't look into it very deeply. And
(46:42):
you know, we're talking a lot about We're talking a
lot about very murky, very questionable things on both sides,
especially if there are people who are alive, who are
who were held and rendered invisible to history. That's a
very dangerous thing, and it can happen moriasily than people think.
(47:02):
It's not just something that happened under the reign of Stalin.
It can happen today. Two people, um and two and
and honestly for not just the black bag operative types
uh In in the U. S. Army, but for anyone
whom I have died or been captured or disappeared from
(47:24):
the official narrative history to these unnamed heroic women and
men across the planet in every nation. We do hope
you and your loved ones find peace, because often these
people are used as pollens, and I think that could
be a motivation. Are you guys familiar with the Mali massacre? Unfortunately? Yeah,
(47:45):
I mean so there was actually a uh task force
I guess you could say, established the Vietnam War Crimes
Working Group in the wake of photographic evidence of what
was thought to be a massacre of women and children.
It's the kind of thing you see depicted in some
of these films. We were talking about like in a platoon,
there's a sequence where some of this goes down and
(48:07):
also in um uh apocalypse now umsimically in platoon though,
But anyhow, uh, you know, and the purpose of this
group was to investigate emerging claims of war crimes by
US military during Vietnam. And you know, if there was
(48:29):
a reason to perhaps let some people stay lost, maybe
some folks saw some things and could have corroborated some
things and had some attacks of conscience that would have
maybe made Uncle Sam, as you said, Ben have a
little bit more blood on their hands than they wanted.
And politically, you know, that could have been bad. It
was a very unpopular war. We were there for a
(48:50):
very very long time, far longer than we intended to be,
and we lost a lot of people, and you know,
it was just a very unpopular a place to be
and you know, there's a lot of clean up that
had to be done in order to kind of wash
our hands of some of that. And you know, this
kind of stuff, these kind of stories not exactly helping
(49:12):
with the pr narrative, right right, well said, And to
Matt's point, you know, this doesn't have to be an
entire government. This could be compartmentalized intelligence, deep state. You know,
it's it's distressing, but at certain levels, at certain institutions,
it only takes a few people to keep powerful secrets.
(49:35):
So it's more again of a black box. And we
could be in a situation where hundreds of thousands of
people are doing their level best. Like the Army has
special branches that go out into that part of the
world every year with full cooperation to find remains, and
they find them. That's the thing. They're They're still finding bodies.
(50:00):
What the question is that somebody else obstructed? So do
our presidents aware of it? Because um, the Barack Obama
administration also pressed for further cooperation investigating entities am I
A cases uh during a during another summit, so within
(50:20):
recent years and at president seems some probably did die
in combat, some probably did dessert, and some are probably
living or have lived under assumed identity, under assumed identities
in somewhere in the world. Many of those in that
(50:41):
third group may have already died of natural causes, living
an entirely different life from the one they left behind
in the jungle. As for the prisoners, no matter how
much we go back and forth, we may never know
for sure. You can go and find a wealth of
(51:03):
live sightings, a wealth of people insisting they've done this.
But Bobby Garwood was a controversial returning figure. And UH
the case that we mentioned earlier, the Hartley hoax, it
did turn out to be a hoax. The DNA didn't match.
UM have added fuel to both camps, the people who
(51:26):
believe that they were abandoned POWs and the people who
believe that they were not. And so we close our
episode today. We want to hear from you what is
what in your experience is plausible here? Is it? Is
it possible that the US cut operation cut servicemen and
operator operators loose to preserve what was seen as greater
(51:49):
stability at the time. Is this conspiracy theory that people
are milking for political gain? Um, And yes, we have
not touched on any of the other Vietnam or Lady conspiracies.
The legends of real life Colonel Kurtz is allah heart
of darkness. Apocalypse now the effects of Agent Orange and
more so right to us and let us know what
(52:12):
we should cover. If you do want to write to us,
you can find us on Facebook where we are conspiracy
stuff or on Twitter also Conspiracy Stuff. You can find
us on Instagram Conspiracy Stuff Show. And if you don't
like that stuff, you can always send us an email. Uh,
but we'll we'll tell you how to do that later. Yes, yes,
(52:32):
First it's time for shut ut Corner. Our first shout
out comes from Carlton. Carlton says, in your recent episode
you mentioned g and I have a quick and dirty
way for pretty much anyone to feel it dirty. You say, yeah,
so dirty, Thank you, Carlton. Uh. Carlton says, First, you
(52:53):
should sit upright or stand Okay, I'm gonna do this
as I say it, all right, with both feet pointed
straight out forward at your shoulders length. Okay. Second, you
need to reach out your hands and palms facing towards
each other. So palms facing each other, hands out. The
elbow should be bent at about forty five degrees, so
(53:13):
there's ninety let's do. Now. Your fingers should form a
claw pointed to each other. Then you close your eyes,
calm your breath, and slowly close the space in between
your hands, as if you're holding an imaginary apple sized sphere. Now,
if you're calm enough, you will feel that your fingertips
(53:37):
already felt pressure, but not because of direct contact. If
you reach this step, then you can move the entire
palm back and forth to experience an odd feeling similar
to the repellent force of two magnets. It almost sounds
like you're starting at Kama maya or you know, a
fireball can style? Yeah, how do you can style? That's
(54:00):
really cool. It's interesting because it ties into the one
of the largely unacknowledged senses of the human body, proper reception, right,
the sense of where your limbs are in space when
you're not looking at them. And I got up and
tried it. I think I'm gonna have to do it
when I'm not shotgunning so much coffee. Yeah, and you
(54:22):
know we're recording a podcast, but thank you, Carlton, we
have that now. Now you have that, you the listener
of this voice, and uh, let's all try it together
sometime or at least separately, and then come back and yeah,
let's try and write to us and let us know. Everybody,
give everybody give Carlton's technique a shot and let us
(54:42):
know how it works out for you. I'm gonna try
it some more later when we're off air. Our second
shout out today comes from Andrew. Andrew says, hi, guys,
I think that the I think the conspiracy that the
Russian version of nine eleven Russian apartment bombings was really
a false flag operation or irustrated by and for Putin.
(55:02):
That's Vladimir Putin to rise to power, and that would
make for a really great podcast and a timely when
given all the talk about Russia and Putin these days. Anyhow,
keep up the good work. That is crazy. By the way,
I didn't know anything about this until Andrew wrote to us,
and I just did some quick searching on the subject
to see what it was all about. I've never heard
(55:23):
of it. It's I think three separate cities that got bombed,
like four apartment complexes or more, all around the same time,
and it was all blamed on certain groups and it
started groups. Yeah, and it started the Chech another Chechen
in conflict. And apparently it really, it really did help
(55:46):
rise Putin to power, or at least somewhat. I yeah,
we'll have to look into that. Finally, we have a
shout out from Philip up Philippe up Um either either
one of those not either one of the two, probably,
but I'm throwing them both out there just to cover
my basis. Um, my husband isn't what you'd call psychic,
(56:07):
but his gut feelings are correct. Well, that's what I
would call psychic. But that's pretty cool. Uh. He also
has an annoying habit of knowing what I'm going to
say before I say it, even if it's totally off topic,
and he can predict who he'll see that day. He
works in a record shop, and if he hasn't seen
a regular customer for a while, he'll usually know before
(56:30):
he starts work that they will come by that day.
He also has a ghost who follows him around. Yeah,
that's what it says here, a ghost who follows him around,
and numerous people have seen weird stuff happen when they've
been with him. Well, here's to keeping it, keeping it interesting,
keeping it fresh and weird in your relationship. Uh. It
(56:51):
sounds like an interesting guy. And I would love to
hear more if anyone has clairvoyant partners out there, Um,
much more than just finishing each other's sandwiches. And we
want to hear about that kind of stuff because I
don't know anyone like that. I often, Um, I think
(57:12):
I know what my girlfriend's about to say, and uh
and and stumble into trying to to say it for her,
and she usually just shoots me a dirty look because
I'm wrong and it's rude. Yeah, it turns into you
trying to man splain something exactly her own thoughts. I'm
also interested to know, Philippa. Philip Philippa, I think I'm
also interested to know if your husband predicted that this
(57:35):
listener mail would be read out loud. Oh, I can
imagine it right now he wakes up, honey learned on
the podcast box Conspiracy talking about right now this moment.
That is not what Philip Philippa's husband sounds like. She
(57:57):
also but she says she's from rural southwest England, by
the way, and she says there was a wart charmer
in her neighborhood in her town. Wart charmer who could
charm the worts off you. Is that the same as
charming the pants off you? Exact same thing. That's a
pants charmer, I believe, not to split hairs or pants wards. Well,
(58:18):
this concludes our gosh, and this concludes our episode today,
but not hopefully knock on wood our show itself. We
will be back next week, What are we covering next week?
Do we have a little bit of a teaser we
could give people? Well, next week we're covering delicious, delicious
(58:39):
yet deadly deadly sugar m Yes. Well, now at first
it's it's like, yes, it's sickly sweet and there is
a conspiracy afoot, not a theory. If you would like
(59:00):
to know more, please tune in, and in the meantime,
go easy on the sodas just in case you don't
want anyone to be listening to a hospital. And that's
the end of this classic episode. If you have any
thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into
contact with us in a number of different ways. One
(59:20):
of the best is to give us a call. Our
number is one eight three three st d w y
t K. If you don't want to do that, you
can send us a good old fashioned email. We are
conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't
want you to Know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(59:43):
your favorite shows.
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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