February 26, 2016 • 49 mins
In ancient days civilizations across the world believed Earth was some sort of plane, a flat space in the absolute center of the universe. In recent days some celebrities have revived the concept, alleging a vast conspiracy exists. Is this a genuine belief or a marketing ploy?
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hey, everybody,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
(00:21):
name is not you, argue, and I am Ben, which
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. And
before we get into it, you guys, we've had we've
had a lot of people asking for shoutouts shot at corners.
That's right. We are returning yet again for an episode
of shout Out Corner where we just have listeners introduced themselves,
(00:45):
say something nice. You know, we had we had a
really cool thing. Jeremy wrote in about his anniversary that
was pretty cool. And uh, we're gonna we're gonna keep
it brief, but if you wrote to us, keep writing
in who are we shouting out today? The first one
is Jimmy James Kramer. He wrote to us with a
really cool story. Well, it's a disturbing story about these
(01:08):
specific endoscopes that maybe leading to U superbug infections because
they're very difficult to clean. Apparently, endoscopes specifically things that
let's say, enter orifices in order to check out what's
going on inside of them in the human body. And
(01:28):
the problem with these in particulars because once he goes
in there and it gets the equal ied other bacteria
that might be living inside of one human, then you
take it out, remove it, try to sterilize it as
much as possible. But perhaps there are a couple places
within the scope, a little small nooks and crannies that
can't be cleaned well enough to be completely sterile, just
(01:50):
a little scary. And I think there were a couple
of recalls at least according to drug watch dot com.
And I cannot uh. I don't know how reputable this
site is, unfortunately, but the thing that he did send
us is pretty creepy. So thanks Jimmy. So is a
nook and cranny? Is that metric system or something? And
I think who's next? Well, next, we have a delicious
(02:14):
shout out to Goustaf von Essen from Sweden with love.
He suggested doing an episode on the IB affair. IB
was a secret Swedish intelligence agency that is a mouthful
that worked with the CIA and the Israel security agency.
So Gustaf on Essen, consider yourself out shouted or shouted out,
(02:36):
and our last one for today goes to uh Lynn, Now,
H may be mispronouncing your name. Lynn. M I a
o uh there on Twitter? Who said and I quote
uh conspiracy stuff. Could I please have a shout out
for good luck? It could really help on college mid terms? So, uh, Lynn,
we wish you the best of luck on your mid terms.
(02:59):
I hope your studies well, absolutely, I think we've been there.
I haven't off the books shout out real quick? Were
you about to say something? I'm sorry, Oh no, just
continuing to talk to Lynn. But you know it's cool nol. No, No,
I didn't know if you had something substantial to say.
That's not true. Guys, you talk about my mat like that.
(03:19):
Guys were live. Okay, what is it? Okay? No? I
just my dear friend Lee Albert Lee Landers of Augusta,
Georgia town. UM just sent me a text that said,
quote shout out corners skadooche and he was referencing my
off the cuff shout out corner theme that we have
now you know it's cannon now and yeah and so um.
(03:41):
You know, he asked if I would give him a
shout out because this is the first episode he'd ever
listened to and so Lee shout out to you. Hey, Lee,
you're in You're in trouble because we just violated one
of the rules of shout Out Corner, which is it's
around three because it's not a shout out room. So well,
actually though, if it was only a corner, it should
(04:03):
just be one. Well no, because then it would room
has four corners, but a corner like one one on
that side. And then I love that we're talking and
spatial reason because this is perfect. Okay, So before we
before we get lost in that, I I do, uh,
I do, I do have to admit that I love
(04:24):
the theme. And if you enjoy shout Out Corner, then
right to us. We have a little bit of a
list and who knows, maybe you can also meet the
rest of the listeners. Gosh, less time on stuff they
don't want you to know. No, you were on a
bit of an adventure and we couldn't really talk about it.
(04:46):
It was a bit of a secret a secret mission.
It was a bit of a secret mission. But the
cat is now out of the bag, or should I
say the clippy. The clipp is out of the bag,
badger is out of the No listeners, I'm referring to
the beloved uh Microsoft widget pre widget precursor to the
(05:10):
widget up right. And there's a name for it now
that I can't remember of that type of of digital assistant.
What I'm getting at is, Guys, over the weekend, I
took a last minute trip to New York with Josh
(05:30):
and Chuck from our brother podcast Sister podcast. We would
have to be gendered about this peer podcast, Keep pure podcast.
That's good stuff you should know to interview one Mr
Bill Gates, creator of The Clippy and also couple of Microsoft. Yah,
(05:54):
something about being one of the most wealthy men alive
in the free world. Um, but yeah, we talked to
him a out renewable energy. He launched a really big
renewable energy initiative and all that was embargo. We went
to a fancy hotel and talked to him, um, and
then all that stuff hit the news. What I think
is sort of a little bit of a bummer I
(06:14):
think for his folks is the comment that he made
about that Apple should crack that phone of the San
Berndino shooter has overshadowed largely, uh, the the stuff that
he was really trying to promote, which I think is
a shame. Now you said he was a cool guy.
Though he was super good. He was chilled in and
he was really surprised that there was so few handlers
(06:37):
and um security, I mean it was very low key.
He probably keeps a close cerca Yeah, oh for sure.
But just as about security protocol though there was none
really yeah, we just I mean I got no pat down?
Did you? Did you request one? Well? Well, I got
there early because I'm a little O c D about
that kind of stuff and I just want to make
(06:58):
sure the WiFi was fasten so that I could upload
the files real quick. It's really fast turnaround for the
for the recording. It was for the episode that came
out yesterday and the interview took place on Monday. Um,
so I uploaded them and our dear friend Jerry, who
is the producer and stuff you should know, received the
files and edited the interview into the episode and we
made the publish deadline, which was yesterday morning. Yeah, I
(07:22):
quick turnaround, And ladies and gentleman, you can check out
that episode on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you like to
listen to a podcast, and you can hear every Buddy's
Chuck and Josh as they chop it up with Bill Gates.
How weird is it that because you were in the
same room with Bill Gates And I don't know exactly
how the degrees of separation work necessarily because I think
(07:45):
the originally you had to send a letter I guess
to someone that you knew when you were gonna establish
the six degrees. But that connects you up to some
very powerful people, not that he isn't perhaps one of
the most powerful. It was just like the Kevin Bacon game. Yeah, no,
I'm scared. One thing that Josh commented on his bill
was drinking a diet coke um and he left it
(08:08):
behind and we could have taken it and harvested his DNA.
I don't know how much effective DNA would get, uh,
not that I've tried, but from someone's uh not all
the way consumed soda can. I mean there there's some
pretty hard you know what, let's see if let's see
if we keep that one. But let's also move on. Uh.
(08:33):
This week, we are covering an update series on the
flat Earth theory. Now, our video for this is going
to come out probably around Sunday night, maybe Monday, and
what we do in the video is walk through some
of the recent ideas, some of the longstanding misconceptions, and
(08:56):
the reason we wanted to do an update is uh
pretty pretty important, right Matt. Yeah, we okay, so a
long time ago. Take take yourselves back now a few years, yes, Ben,
because we find ourselves here at how stuff works and
stuff they don't want you to know intertwined into perhaps
(09:19):
the story of the modern flat earth theory simply because
we You and I specifically produced a video back in
two thousand nine which then got on YouTube in two
thousand ten about the theories behind the flat Earth in
the Flat Earth Society, and it was then posted on
various forums around the Internet. There's one in particular on
(09:43):
the Flat Earth Society dot org, I believe, where a
gentleman named Tom Bishop wrote that specifically, quote how stuff
works dot com endorses flat earth theory unquote, And it
kind of became a thing that perhaps our video is
being used to promote the flat earth theory, which is
(10:05):
an interesting idea because if you watch the video, uh,
that is clearly not occurring within it. I mean, it's
it's the same formula you guys apply to any video
you make where you take an idea, you talk about
its background, and you describe the people that espouses set idea,
(10:26):
but that does not make you said espousers. And that's
the great thing about that forum, because if you scroll
a little bit further down and watch the video, yeah,
there's at least there are at least three people who
are commenting endorses a really strong word, or maybe you
didn't watch the whole video, and uh, it's pretty funny.
They're even using the hero of the facts and here's
(10:47):
where it gets crazy lines in their commenting back and forth.
So it was quite amusing. I think the more appropriate
headline would be how stuff works makes video about flat Earth. Sure. Sure,
but this is also a surprising thing. As you may
have heard in recent months. Uh, the concept of a
(11:07):
flat earth, which is a very ancient concept, gained national
media attention and more people are talking about it on Twitter,
on Facebook, on Tumbler, probably on Snapchat. Uh. I don't
think it can quite compete with some of the other
pictures on Snapchat, but there's probably a few things. So
while we're there, back in two thousand ten, two thousand nine,
(11:29):
let's not stop there. Let's travel further back in time
to the Iron Age. Okay, here we are, so listeners,
imagine that you're living in the Iron Age, and imagine
that you're an average person, pretty successful in your community
(11:50):
by the standards of the time. Now, you're not extraordinarily
successful like a warlord or religious figure or a blacksmith.
In fact, you're overwhelmingly likely to be a farmer. And
you measure days not necessarily in hours, but in terms
of the world's natural rhythm day tonight, the position of
the sun, phase of the moon, winter to spring and
(12:13):
back again. And you do not travel widely because this
would make it difficult to take care of the vital
crops upon which you and your family depend. Not to mention,
it would take a long time to get very far
at all. Right, that's exactly right. And there's I also
have a video about how long it will take to
walk around the world for brain stuff. And even today
(12:36):
it's very, very difficult and pretty dangerous. So forget about
it in the Iron Age. And you know, let's say
you're content despite the high rates of child mortality. You
and your partner have had some kids and they're farming too,
and you know, you you feel like life is good
until imagine one day a stranger comes to your community.
(12:58):
This is a person so different to that at first
you think maybe they're not human at all, perhaps they're
some sort of divine creature, an angel, a demon. This
creature turns out to be a time traveler from uh
in this example, specifically, Matt Frederick. And Matt tells you
(13:19):
that the world beyond your flat plane and crops and
adjacent villages extends beyond the horizon farther further. We're talking philosophically.
Then you might imagine. And if you start walking today,
says the time traveling Matt Frederick, and you always head west,
you will end up not off the edge of the earth,
(13:42):
but back here in this very spot you are standing.
Horsewah And why is that? You ask? And the time
traveler says, because, of course the earth is round. You
forget the time traveler as you so you don't have
to do a voice because the world is round. Now,
(14:04):
you might not believe this guy at first, and even
if you did, your community might kill him anyway, because
that's how people are. Which here's the other thing. You're
going to need a swimsuit because there will be some
swimming involved. But however, you can do this, it's yeah,
so it's the end of the world, or at least
(14:26):
the the end of the edge of the world as
we know it. So let's talk about ancient civilizations. It
is true that in the Iron Age people did believe
that the Earth was flat. Numerous ancient civilizations did think
that right all over the world. Yeah, that includes parts
of India before the Gupta period, Grease up to the
(14:48):
Classical period, parts of China, Native American cultures, and on
and on. People actually also believe Earth was covered by
a solid dome called the firmament, which is you term
me seeing the Bible a lot, right, like if you
got high enough into the heavens, you would eventually hit
(15:09):
just yeah, it's almost like a glass ceiling of sorts
the way it's described. Sometimes I see it as a
snow globe almost just above. There's a picture on the
House Stuff Works website that kind of gives you a
great idea, and that is on the article how creationism works.
(15:30):
And it's just it's a cool illustration of the concept
of yeah, exactly. And most of China pretty much accepted
the idea of a flat earth until apparently meeting missionaries
in the seventeenth century, who are like, guys, we're gonna
blow your minds and double checked with myself. Just just
wanted to put this out there. The Bible does mention
(15:51):
the firmament seventeen times, but it actually is referring to
a expanse beyond the sky, So the expanse of the
heaven above the earth. Okay, they almost wore a little
head of the curve. Yeah, if you think about it.
And we'll find out more about that too. So there
are some myths we need to bust about belief in
(16:11):
the flat earth in the ancient world. Okay, we'll talk
about where this argument for a spherical world came from.
But first one of us that one of the biggest myths.
Ladies and gentlemen, If you were already listening to the show,
then we imagine that you know this is a fact.
But just in case you are still in a situation
(16:31):
where your history teachers are misleading you, probably with the
best of intentions, let's let's get it out of the
way now. Crystal ball Cologne Street named Christopher Columbus was
a gigantic jerk. As a monster, he was like, uh,
the noid, if the noid was a genocidal slaver. That's
(16:52):
a deep cut, my friend, that's a deep cut. Yeah,
I was just I was thinking about the noise. Remember
the video game was Second Genesis. I played it on
a different console. Thennoid was big dominoes. Look up Nooid.
Maybe a better thing would be she was the Martin
Scully of his day. Is that better? Okay? But despite
(17:17):
all the terrible things he did, all the just monstrous
atrocities he committed or helped commit, he was not a
stupid man. He was not like the dullest crayon in
the box. He, like most of the people at the time,
knew the Earth was round. It was common knowledge. He
did not prove it. He uh. But if anything, the
(17:40):
big argument was about how big or small the Earth was,
It was not about the shape. Sure seems to me
if anyone was going to know first that the Earth
was round, it would be somebody in the nautical profession,
you know, like like a captain and someone that spends
time out on the sea right where you could see
the actual curvature. Also was a big thing, A big
(18:02):
superstition among um seafaring types was that you would reach
the end of the Earth right and they fall off,
and that they were like there be monsters, kind of incognita.
It's true, but so why did this myth come about?
Where As a guy named James Hannum who wrote piece
called science versus Christianity, and we have a quote for
(18:24):
you directly from him. The myth that people in the
Middle Ages thought the Earth is flat appears to date
from the seventeenth century as part of the campaign by
Protestants against Catholic teaching, but it gained currency in the
nineteenth century thanks to inaccurate history such as John William
Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science in
(18:45):
eighteen seventy four and Andrew Dixon whites a History of
the Warfare of Science with Theology and Christendom in eighteen
ninety six. Atheists and agnostics championed the conflict thesis of
their own purposes, but history racal research gradually demonstrated that
Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fact in
(19:05):
their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked
in internal conflict. The myth that people in the Middle
Ages thought the Earth was flat appears to date from
the seventeenth century, as part of the campaign by Protestants
against Catholic teaching, but it gained currency in the nineteenth
century thanks to inaccurate history such as John William Draper's
(19:27):
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science and Andrew
Dixon White's A History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology in Christendom. Atheist and agnostics championed the conflict thesis
for their own purposes, but historical research gradually demonstrated that
Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fiction in
their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked
(19:49):
in eternal conflict. So essentially, what happened here The reason
that we have this longstanding stereotype about people in the
ancient world is because two guys with an agenda popularize
something to make it look as though science and faith
(20:10):
are always at loggerheads. And you know, if you go
back even further, it was a religious insult that the
Protestants channeled against the Catholics. So let's talk about the truth.
The concept of a round Earth dates all the way
back to at least Pythagoras and Aristotle, so you could
(20:33):
argue that in the eighth century BC, the biblical writer
Isaiah alluded to a spherical Earth. In Isaiah quote, he
sits enthroned upon the circle of the Earth. Then in
the third century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established without a doubt,
factual proof of Earth's spherical shape. So this comes to
(20:53):
us from astronomy. And we had talked about whether this
came from people in a nautical profession. But keeping my
at this point in time, astronomers and those in maritime
occupations were were intertwined in terms of skill sets. Absolutely,
I mean astronomy or rather the nautical mapping and you know,
(21:14):
making the charts is essentially functional astronomy. I mean it's
using the stars to you know, plot your course. Did
you guys know that? Did you hear the NPR story
about this recently where the Navy is going back to teaching, uh,
teaching the students like where I'm actually well we'll talk
about that later, but they're teaching people how to use
the stars and navigate again. Right, Yeah, Then that's a
(21:36):
that's a valuable skill once once you know it, you
can keep an eye on it. Because it's true that
constellations do change over time, but the scale of that
change is so vast in comparison to you know, human
lives that you can pretty much count on these as
a fixed point. I think it's great. I think they
never should have stopped teaching. Right from there, the belief
(21:59):
and around Earth's spread gradually throughout the world. People knew, yeah,
but Ben, is it really a sphere? Yeah? I guess
you're right. I guess it's better to call it an ellipsoid.
But still we knew, yeah, it's kind of squashed, right, Yeah,
so case closed? Right? Or is it? Here's where it
(22:22):
gets crazy, the flat earth theory. Okay, yes, we said
earlier Mesopotamian cultures believed that Earth was a disk. We
have had as a species, so many different shapes for Earth.
But obviously, if you're standing in one spot, you see
a mountain, you see an ocean. What's that old poem?
(22:42):
I looked around from where I stood and saw three
mountains and a wood. Um, it's a great poem. But
the the ideas that we were limited for a long
time because the signs that could prove to us the
position of the Sun and the and the moon and
Earth and the shape of those things were difficult to interpret.
So of course we thought it was flat for a while.
(23:05):
But well, let alone, what is the sun? What is
the moon? You know? What are what are these things
made of? What am I seeing far out there? We
know that something is there? But what is it? Is
it angry at me? I mean, that's the kind of
world people lived in. So gradually as the at least
in the West, the Hellenistic realization of earth as a
ellipsoid spread across the world. Some people even today apparently
(23:32):
didn't buy it. And he said, that's a bunch of
horse wash, uh, And so so let's look at some
of the modern day stuff. In ninety six, Samuel Shelton
founded a society that had a theory about the shape
of the Earth, namely, it's flat. We're a pancake. Yeah. Yeah,
And and he based these ideas just on walking around
(23:55):
observing things and going, hey, al right, well everything's looking
pretty flat around here. Common sense, yeah, personal observation. Yeah,
there's a tetic method, the idea that we can only
encounter things through our own senses. Yes, my, my, this
one uh, focal point of consciousness understands it in this way.
(24:16):
And he called scientific evidence for a globe shaped earth dogmatic.
So he said scientists were making this claim without adequate evidence.
Basically they were following a party line, right, Which is
very interesting right when it when you're thinking about some
of these criticisms that came from the religious angles back
when the Protestants were criticizing Catholic beliefs, it's just interesting
(24:40):
to then throw it right onto science. But this was
also a nineteen like this nineteen fifty six, So keep
in mind, Shelton lived long enough to see pictures of
Earth taken by satellites and what do you do then, Well,
of course he claimed that they were fake. I mean,
of course they were fake. Right, He and the members
of a Society continue to support the idea that Earth
(25:01):
is flat, and the people who disagreed are just part
of a vast conspiracy to hide the truth about Earth's
inherent flatness. Right, everybody's in the pockets a big globe manufacturers.
Uh So, Shelton passed away in nine A guy named
(25:22):
Charles Johnson took over leadership and led the society until
two thousand and one. Critics of the Flatter Society say
that it's members just deny any evidence that conflicts with
their worldview, and they, you know, members who are in
the Flatter Society and genuinely believe this would probably say
(25:42):
the same thing about their opponents. That's how these kind
of arguments typically go. It sounds like a bunch of
contrarians if you ask me, yes, yeah, I mean who
who isn't? Wait? Did you guys just both agree? Uh uh?
And by the way, right now, a gentleman named Daniel
Enton is running the Flat Earth Society. He brought it
(26:03):
back up in two thousand nine. And if you go
to the Flat Earth Society dot org you can find
the forums that are active there. I think in the
the Guardian article that I read there he said there
were only there are only a few active members. They
are non ironic, and I you know, in this case,
of course, I'm not gonna cast dispersion on someone for
(26:25):
their personal beliefs. You know what I mean. You believe
what you want. No one should control your mind. However,
he goes all the way back to ancient Greeks, and
even that's a little um western centric, because the odds
are that there were other ancient civilizations that figured this
(26:47):
out before the Greeks. Just it's possible, and it's possible
that we wouldn't know because there's a dearth of evidence.
But they learned by measuring shadows, and that's that's what
led them say, oh, the planet's surface must be curved.
And and the astronomers, as Noel mentioned, figured out the
world was round. And then we have to look at
(27:07):
the idea of creationism. Listeners, if you are creationists, that
is your belief system, and you subscribe to that, then
of course I'm not going to um. As I said,
I'm not going to cast dispersion on someone's personal faith,
but I'm willing to wage your odds are that if
you're listening to this show right now or any podcast,
(27:29):
you also know that the Earth is round modern um. Well, okay,
so back when the idea of a flat earth was
more common, when most people in the West where some
form of creationists, uh, they believed that the Earth was flat,
it was a mobile and it was at the very
center of the universe. It was the bull's eye on
(27:50):
the great cosmic dartboard, and it was covered by the
solid dome like sky. And and this goes to that
firmament that Noel mentioned earlier, and you see it mentioned
in Genesis. Uh, the sun, stars and moon or embedded
in this dome. But that turns out not to be
(28:11):
the case. We've actually sent somebody. We've actually sent some
nifty robots and rockets out into space. We've had people
in orbit who have had life changing experiences by looking
at the Earth all at once, allegedly allegedly, do you
know any astronauts? Well, it's so funny to me that
(28:32):
that point of logic, and it goes back to how
we were discussing. If you can if you can argue
something well enough, then perhaps you can be right even
if you are completely wrong. You can win the argument
whether you are the substance of your argument. Isn't that
the whole point of debate? Like the debate Club? I mean,
aren't there exercises where you just take on a completely
(28:53):
absurd position and your job is to just defended victorious.
If I could have a rebuttal. Another interesting thing to
know about the beliefs of how the flat Earth would
function physically is how gravity would work in this scenario.
So I I never really understood it until we began
researching again. And so the idea on this flat plane
(29:16):
as it's moving upwards, so the idea on this flat
plane is that there is no gravity per se, because
there's not one central location as there would be on
a spherical or a planet shaped the way that Earth
is shaped, where it's pulling everything in and spinning to
hold everything to the surface. In this scenario, the flat
plane is moving upwards at a speed that would when
(29:40):
you jump up in the air and you come back down.
The reason that that's happening is because the Earth is
coming up to meet you essentially, which is interesting. The
Earth is moving and you are not, so it's a
force of acceleration. Yes, I see. And and then we've
we've seen other computing beliefs. I guess we should talk
a little bit about the different cons ups of the
(30:00):
outlay or the geography of the flat Earth. Right, how
the there's the common belief that the north poles at
the very center, which of Earth is at the very
center of the universe, makes the North pole place the
most important place. And then it's uh, it's ringed around.
The edges of the world are ringed around by what
(30:20):
we mistake as the South Pole, and it's really a
wall of ice. And our colleague Christian Seger wrote a
great piece and now about this where he said, picture
picture the wall from the night's watch, but just lit out.
You know, trolls, monsters, they're called white walkers. Oh, yes, yes, yes,
(30:41):
there is a map that you can find of the
way the Earth looks in the flat Earth view, and
that if you superimpose that map in particular with the
U N map, it is pretty much the same thing.
But when if you look at it, it's just a
(31:01):
version of a projection from the top down, from the
North pole down. Now, we also found uh, we also
learned about a group of people called geocentrists who believe
that Earth may not be flat, but it's definitely the
center of everything, and it is immobile, and that the
(31:22):
Sun rotates around the Earth in twenty four hour periods,
and all other planets rotate around the Sun. It's a
it's a complex thing. Um. This is this is also
generally a religious based belief. Uh. They're the people, I
guess you would call radical geocentrist, Uh, refer to a
(31:44):
religious text alone and reject all modern astronomy, physics, and cosmology. Um.
And also some believe that the sky is still a
solid dome. Yeah, which takes us to modern believers. Listeners.
We received so many, so many questions on YouTube, on Facebook,
(32:08):
on Twitter, where conspiracy stuff at all of those? By
the way, if you want to, uh, you wanna give
us a little bit of Internet love, like comments, subscribe, etcetera.
We'd love to hear from you. We read a lot
from B O B A Tila Tequila. Who are the
reason this became a mainstream thing? Again? Well, the whole
(32:30):
thing kind of started when a MS Tequila angel Tila
love is her Twitter handle, She said, it's and nobody
has been able to prove to me that the Earth
is around. Where's the curvature in the horizon? Hashtag flat earth?
Proved me wrong? Dang it? And this continued, said not
(32:51):
gonna get over this. Why are all the buildings in
New York standing straight up? If Earth was round, some
of the buildings would have a slight tilt. Uh. And
then if Earth is a spinning globe, how come airplanes
can still land without crashing because the face of the
Earth is flat, not a globe. And yeah, I I
don't you know, I know it's it's such a safe
(33:13):
pitchforky thing for people to uh dogpile on someone. But
how sincere is this? I wonder if you have been
following Tia Tequila at all. She has been She's been
going down this interesting little I let's call it a
rabbit hole of looking into some of the things that
we have looked into in the past and covered and discussed,
(33:36):
um that seemingly internalizing them quite a bit per perhaps
I know that she. I can't speak for her, but
she seems to be very um invested in believing some
of these things and taking them at face value. And
there's another player in the game, another celebrity who mentioned this,
who is an MC that I have quite a high
(33:57):
opinion of the rapper b o B. Yes, yes, and
you have actually a verse on that, right or a
verse from that. No, it's not a bo b ver
so I had mentioned. There's a there's a group I
really enjoy from Chicago called the Anti Pop Consortium and
they have a line that's your world is flat. Haha.
You fell off hoping that the laws of gravity will
bring you back to Earth. If not, okay, your words
(34:20):
fall lighter than air, so float away and disappear into
a black hole sun Ah. So someone falls off the
edge of the planet and into a black hole. That's
that's terrible. That's a black hole disturbingly close to Earth,
ardless of what shape it is. Well, okay, so Bob
began also um tweeting about a flat Earth. What what
(34:42):
kind of stuff was he saying? Uh, there was a
picture that he posted and I don't know exactly where
it is. I'm assuming it's in Atlanta. I can't that.
I mean, I thought that's what it might be, but
I wasn't sure. But someone standing out top of the
mountain and then way in the distance you can see
I guess this said like a city, which would presumably
(35:02):
be Atlanta or another small, uh suburb somewhere in there,
and it says the city is in the background, are
approximately sixteen miles apart. Where's the curve? Please explain this? In?
My favorite response was I don't think he was legit
saying the Earth is flat. He's been on planes. I
think he was just asking, and so responded Tom foolery.
(35:23):
Even in a plane, you can't see a curve. That's true,
but it's like, what's the what's the deal, Ben, give
us the skinny? Uh, so there is. It's it's in
some ways a matter of perception again, sort of that
zetetic method that that says, well, who made this map,
(35:45):
who made this globe? Who is telling me what to believed?
And on a personal level, I identify with that kind
of instinct wholeheartedly. However, the problem is that the science
is fairly conclusive, and by fairly I am woefully understating it. Uh.
(36:07):
Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famous science science communicator I guess
would be the technical term or science popularizer, UH, went
on national television recently to UH speak about this. He
also had a Twitter conversation with b O b about it.
He did something of a virtual mic drop. I heard
about that in a real one on the nightly show. Right,
(36:29):
so it became it became a matter of public debate.
But a question posed in the video here, that's that's
the state of affairs right now, folks. A question posed
in the video coming out next week. UH really stuck
with me and I'm still wondering, because, yes, is this genuine?
(36:50):
Is it? A market employee? Bob was also talking about
clone factories, which I think is an order of magnitude
more plausible um that people could For me, it's certainly
more fascinating imagining organs YEA or clone. You know, the
parts of the body we need. But this there's a
third question here and that's the one that really bothers
(37:12):
me and listeners. Um, when we asked this question. We
really want to hear from you on this, and I
want to hear what you guys think to know, Matt,
is this a distraction move? What? What's not being paid
attention to? I bring up my roommate Frank a lot um,
and he tends to think that most public figures that
(37:35):
say things like this, like let's say Kanye West for example,
you know, tweeting that Cosby is innocent, whatever your opinions are,
that it's not a very popular thing to say in
all caps with no qualifying comments. Um, you know, saying
Donald Trump some of the inflammatory things that he says. Uh.
Someone like Frank, my skeptical roommate, would say that all
(37:58):
of these people are playing on um public outrage um,
and they are doing what you call garnering earned media,
because you know, when you say something outlandish like that
that's very divisive, you know, people are going to chime
in on one side or the other, and then those
(38:20):
people are gonna go at each other, you know, and
it just generates this whole domino effect where you generate
this media, you know storm, shall we say, and then
all of a sudden we're in a room talking about it, right,
or tweeting about it, or looking at comments or reading
things on BuzzFeed. And you know, I would never comment
on any of that stuff, but I sure as hell
(38:42):
read the comments a lot there, entertaining stuff or chiming
in with, you know, an opinion that that other people
are also either reinforcing and supporting. It becomes an echo chamber.
But again, the thing I ask is, you know know
that sounds like we're coming on your end, We're coming
down on the side of UM marketing employ Well what
(39:04):
I what I didn't get to yet and where Frank
and I sometimes differ is I think sometimes a combination
of both UM Like, I think that there is a
certain point where you can take a belief, take an opinion,
and kind of balloon it into Okay, I'm gonna really
like ride this crazy training all the way to Valhalla.
(39:24):
You know, witnessed me, du witnessed me on my Twitter
meltdown shining and Chrome. Yeah, that's that's in the Chrome browser,
in the chromes. I would positive that this is a
reaction to a blurring line between what we perceive as
reality and what is possible to create with computers. And
(39:45):
by that I mean I mean photoshopping is so advanced now,
video effects are so advanced. When you are handed a
piece of evidence, physical evidence that is digital, I think
it is not only right to be skept coal of
whatever you've just been handed, um, but not necessarily to
the point of completely disbelieving everything. Then seem like a
(40:09):
particularly functional conspiracy though, Like if the government and scientists
are going out of their way, above and beyond to
fake all this data to what, to what end? That's
the most important question. Well, I'm glad you asked it.
That's the most important question. That's the part I can't care.
(40:29):
If the Earth was flat, Let it be flat. We'd
we'd figure we'd figure out how to make it work. Right,
The vast majority of people are not going to it's
it's not going to matter to the day to day
life of the vast majority of people whether the Earth
is round or flat. Let's face it, the majority of
humanity is not going to attempt to circumnavigate the globe.
The majority of humanity will never be in danger of saying,
(40:52):
oh crap, the ancient Mesopotamian cultures were right, and I
learned too late. Now here I am leding off into
the universe. So how would someone cover this up? That's
a big question. How would you be able to keep
this secret so effectively considering that nations are almost constantly
a war, and then and you know, not really representing
(41:14):
each other's interests. And then, more importantly ten dollar questions
asked today, why why would you do this? You know,
for frenzies. Okay, because it's you know, it's just sort
of interesting to have secrets. I could just think of
better things to keep people in the dark about, and
this is just not one of them. Don't get me wrong.
There there there are quite a few. There are quite
(41:35):
a few strange um things about the way the world
is depicted. You know, no one, no one ever really
questions in the US why the maps and the globes
are oriented toward um with with the US dead center
right and on top of the thing. We call it
(41:55):
South America or something, when we know that there's no
up and down in space. So it really makes no
difference to an alien civilization or to anyone outside of
this planet. Which continent is on top. But it's psychologically
that's an important thing, you know. You know what My
favorite depiction of a flat earth comes from let you
know it, uh, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld. It's depicted as
(42:20):
a disc um perched atop the backs of Is it
two elephants? Is there a third one that I'm not seeing?
It's either two or three. It would make more sense
that it would be three because you got to, you know,
kind of making a star shape and there it has
let's be logically exactly, And then those elephants are standing
on the shell of a giant tortoise and all of
(42:42):
this whole array is floating in space, which is awesome.
I love it. It's just it's a fabulous image. Um.
So that's yeah, that's that's what I think. That's what
this This makes me think of other conspiratorial things regarding maps.
One thing that may interest you if you haven't checked
it out yet, listeners, please spend some quality time with
(43:04):
Google Maps, because Google Maps plays nice with all the
countries of the world that it can if you ask
them to hide a specific site, secret city, something like that.
And yes, there's still quite a few of those uh,
then Google will block it out for you as best
they can. But Google also shows different borders for countries
(43:25):
depending upon the origin point of the search, So you
know there are massive ongoing uh border skirmishes as people
say no, we own this, no I own this, etcetera.
And Google is actively participating in something very much like
a multi national conspiracy. But also you know they don't.
(43:49):
It seems like the most efficacious way to avoid getting
in trouble with the government is just tell both of
them that they're right. That that is. That's some of
the stuff that this leads me to think about what
today we've done our flat Earth update. We'd love to
hear from you guys. Do you mind if I wrap
up this discussion with a quote? I would love that.
(44:09):
So this is from a song by the much underappreciated
artist Thomas Dolby, and it's from his album The Flat Earth,
which I recommend highly So I've been listening to it
a lot lately, and it's from the title track hold
Me Baby. The Earth can be any shape you wanted,
(44:31):
Love me, Darling, Believe me, Darling, any shape at all.
Hold me Baby, dark and cold or bright and warm.
Love me Darling, long or thin or small, Believe me, Darling,
but it's home home. Maybe hold me, baby and all
(44:54):
I ever had? Love me, Darling, And maybe why for
me the leave me? Darling? The earth is flat? Interesting.
I give a moment of silence out of respect. We
have a couple of special announcements before we go. First,
we would like you to check out our our upcoming
(45:17):
guest host. We're gonna have a personal friend of mine
that we have mentioned before, Damien Williams. Uh. You can
find him on Twitter. He's at Wolven. He will be
joining Nolan I for an episode on alchemy and an
episode on technology and the occult cult cult Cult Cult
Cult Cult Cult. But you're wondering, hey Ben, why didn't
(45:38):
you mention Matt. Well, Matt, you're out a mission. Yes,
I'm on a completely disclosed mission to Charleston, South Carolina,
or around about that area because I'm gonna head over
to the to the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command. I'm
calling it a campus because I don't know the correct terminology.
(46:00):
It is a base, but they there is a campus
within the base there. But I'm going to go and
support my brother in law, who is I guess graduating
up to the next level. Again, I don't know the terminology.
It's not an accommodation or anything. He's just moving up
the ranks in uh in the school. So I guess
it's a graduation. Is it like getting a yellow belt.
(46:20):
I think it's a little more significant than that, but yes,
kind of yellow belts a big deal. I remember when
I got my yellow belt. It was okay, I never
got the yellow nice humble bag. But yeah, it's very cool.
So what I'm going to attempt to do on Friday
is broadcast live if you know, if it's not against
too many protocols or if the signal strength is strong enough.
(46:43):
Uh So, hopefully that will be interesting in some way
because it's a it's a neat place. It's a place
where a lot of people go who end up working
in the nuclear sector in the US. I think you
mean nuclear, Yes, in the nuclear uh power energy sector.
(47:04):
So uh stay tuned for that. And Matt, I'm sure
the rest of the listeners joining Noel and I am
wishing you the best of luck. And don't push it, man,
don't don't get don't get jammed up. We will see
what happens, al right, So we're gonna get out of here.
Riddle me this. Where can everybody find all of our
(47:24):
audio podcast? Well, um, you can find them on iTunes.
And if you get them on iTunes, you guys, leave
a nice leave a review, you know, leave us a
little review, a couple of stars, not not a couple?
Do three at least, you know, four would be great,
and write something, you know, because it really helps get
(47:45):
the podcast out where people can see it. You know,
the more reviews there are, the more the algorithm kind
of pushes the show out to folks that maybe haven't
discovered it yet. So that would be a great way
to help the show. If you don't, if ituns is
not your jam and you're more of a Stitcher, Spotify,
Google Play. Um, is that all of them? There's are
the ones that's coming out every day. But we're pretty
(48:05):
much available on any platform that you can get podcast
or you can go directly to our website. You can
stuff they don't want you to know dot com. What
can they find their Matt. You can find everything we've
ever produced, y'alls, and it's good. Is everything, videos, podcasts, pictures,
tasty cakes. Oh wait, no, no, you can't get tasty
cakes there. I'm sorry soon one day hope springs eternal.
(48:28):
That's correct, and if you don't want to do any
of that stuff, guys, just shoot us an email. We
are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. From one
on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy. You can also get in touch on Twitter
(48:52):
at the handle at conspiracy stuff and me
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hey, everybody,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
(00:21):
name is not you, argue, and I am Ben, which
makes this stuff they don't want you to know. And
before we get into it, you guys, we've had we've
had a lot of people asking for shoutouts shot at corners.
That's right. We are returning yet again for an episode
of shout Out Corner where we just have listeners introduced themselves,
(00:45):
say something nice. You know, we had we had a
really cool thing. Jeremy wrote in about his anniversary that
was pretty cool. And uh, we're gonna we're gonna keep
it brief, but if you wrote to us, keep writing
in who are we shouting out today? The first one
is Jimmy James Kramer. He wrote to us with a
really cool story. Well, it's a disturbing story about these
(01:08):
specific endoscopes that maybe leading to U superbug infections because
they're very difficult to clean. Apparently, endoscopes specifically things that
let's say, enter orifices in order to check out what's
going on inside of them in the human body. And
(01:28):
the problem with these in particulars because once he goes
in there and it gets the equal ied other bacteria
that might be living inside of one human, then you
take it out, remove it, try to sterilize it as
much as possible. But perhaps there are a couple places
within the scope, a little small nooks and crannies that
can't be cleaned well enough to be completely sterile, just
(01:50):
a little scary. And I think there were a couple
of recalls at least according to drug watch dot com.
And I cannot uh. I don't know how reputable this
site is, unfortunately, but the thing that he did send
us is pretty creepy. So thanks Jimmy. So is a
nook and cranny? Is that metric system or something? And
I think who's next? Well, next, we have a delicious
(02:14):
shout out to Goustaf von Essen from Sweden with love.
He suggested doing an episode on the IB affair. IB
was a secret Swedish intelligence agency that is a mouthful
that worked with the CIA and the Israel security agency.
So Gustaf on Essen, consider yourself out shouted or shouted out,
(02:36):
and our last one for today goes to uh Lynn, Now,
H may be mispronouncing your name. Lynn. M I a
o uh there on Twitter? Who said and I quote
uh conspiracy stuff. Could I please have a shout out
for good luck? It could really help on college mid terms? So, uh, Lynn,
we wish you the best of luck on your mid terms.
(02:59):
I hope your studies well, absolutely, I think we've been there.
I haven't off the books shout out real quick? Were
you about to say something? I'm sorry, Oh no, just
continuing to talk to Lynn. But you know it's cool nol. No, No,
I didn't know if you had something substantial to say.
That's not true. Guys, you talk about my mat like that.
(03:19):
Guys were live. Okay, what is it? Okay? No? I
just my dear friend Lee Albert Lee Landers of Augusta,
Georgia town. UM just sent me a text that said,
quote shout out corners skadooche and he was referencing my
off the cuff shout out corner theme that we have
now you know it's cannon now and yeah and so um.
(03:41):
You know, he asked if I would give him a
shout out because this is the first episode he'd ever
listened to and so Lee shout out to you. Hey, Lee,
you're in You're in trouble because we just violated one
of the rules of shout Out Corner, which is it's
around three because it's not a shout out room. So well,
actually though, if it was only a corner, it should
(04:03):
just be one. Well no, because then it would room
has four corners, but a corner like one one on
that side. And then I love that we're talking and
spatial reason because this is perfect. Okay, So before we
before we get lost in that, I I do, uh,
I do, I do have to admit that I love
(04:24):
the theme. And if you enjoy shout Out Corner, then
right to us. We have a little bit of a
list and who knows, maybe you can also meet the
rest of the listeners. Gosh, less time on stuff they
don't want you to know. No, you were on a
bit of an adventure and we couldn't really talk about it.
(04:46):
It was a bit of a secret a secret mission.
It was a bit of a secret mission. But the
cat is now out of the bag, or should I
say the clippy. The clipp is out of the bag,
badger is out of the No listeners, I'm referring to
the beloved uh Microsoft widget pre widget precursor to the
(05:10):
widget up right. And there's a name for it now
that I can't remember of that type of of digital assistant.
What I'm getting at is, Guys, over the weekend, I
took a last minute trip to New York with Josh
(05:30):
and Chuck from our brother podcast Sister podcast. We would
have to be gendered about this peer podcast, Keep pure podcast.
That's good stuff you should know to interview one Mr
Bill Gates, creator of The Clippy and also couple of Microsoft. Yah,
(05:54):
something about being one of the most wealthy men alive
in the free world. Um, but yeah, we talked to
him a out renewable energy. He launched a really big
renewable energy initiative and all that was embargo. We went
to a fancy hotel and talked to him, um, and
then all that stuff hit the news. What I think
is sort of a little bit of a bummer I
(06:14):
think for his folks is the comment that he made
about that Apple should crack that phone of the San
Berndino shooter has overshadowed largely, uh, the the stuff that
he was really trying to promote, which I think is
a shame. Now you said he was a cool guy.
Though he was super good. He was chilled in and
he was really surprised that there was so few handlers
(06:37):
and um security, I mean it was very low key.
He probably keeps a close cerca Yeah, oh for sure.
But just as about security protocol though there was none
really yeah, we just I mean I got no pat down?
Did you? Did you request one? Well? Well, I got
there early because I'm a little O c D about
that kind of stuff and I just want to make
(06:58):
sure the WiFi was fasten so that I could upload
the files real quick. It's really fast turnaround for the
for the recording. It was for the episode that came
out yesterday and the interview took place on Monday. Um,
so I uploaded them and our dear friend Jerry, who
is the producer and stuff you should know, received the
files and edited the interview into the episode and we
made the publish deadline, which was yesterday morning. Yeah, I
(07:22):
quick turnaround, And ladies and gentleman, you can check out
that episode on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you like to
listen to a podcast, and you can hear every Buddy's
Chuck and Josh as they chop it up with Bill Gates.
How weird is it that because you were in the
same room with Bill Gates And I don't know exactly
how the degrees of separation work necessarily because I think
(07:45):
the originally you had to send a letter I guess
to someone that you knew when you were gonna establish
the six degrees. But that connects you up to some
very powerful people, not that he isn't perhaps one of
the most powerful. It was just like the Kevin Bacon game. Yeah, no,
I'm scared. One thing that Josh commented on his bill
was drinking a diet coke um and he left it
(08:08):
behind and we could have taken it and harvested his DNA.
I don't know how much effective DNA would get, uh,
not that I've tried, but from someone's uh not all
the way consumed soda can. I mean there there's some
pretty hard you know what, let's see if let's see
if we keep that one. But let's also move on. Uh.
(08:33):
This week, we are covering an update series on the
flat Earth theory. Now, our video for this is going
to come out probably around Sunday night, maybe Monday, and
what we do in the video is walk through some
of the recent ideas, some of the longstanding misconceptions, and
(08:56):
the reason we wanted to do an update is uh
pretty pretty important, right Matt. Yeah, we okay, so a
long time ago. Take take yourselves back now a few years, yes, Ben,
because we find ourselves here at how stuff works and
stuff they don't want you to know intertwined into perhaps
(09:19):
the story of the modern flat earth theory simply because
we You and I specifically produced a video back in
two thousand nine which then got on YouTube in two
thousand ten about the theories behind the flat Earth in
the Flat Earth Society, and it was then posted on
various forums around the Internet. There's one in particular on
(09:43):
the Flat Earth Society dot org, I believe, where a
gentleman named Tom Bishop wrote that specifically, quote how stuff
works dot com endorses flat earth theory unquote, And it
kind of became a thing that perhaps our video is
being used to promote the flat earth theory, which is
(10:05):
an interesting idea because if you watch the video, uh,
that is clearly not occurring within it. I mean, it's
it's the same formula you guys apply to any video
you make where you take an idea, you talk about
its background, and you describe the people that espouses set idea,
(10:26):
but that does not make you said espousers. And that's
the great thing about that forum, because if you scroll
a little bit further down and watch the video, yeah,
there's at least there are at least three people who
are commenting endorses a really strong word, or maybe you
didn't watch the whole video, and uh, it's pretty funny.
They're even using the hero of the facts and here's
(10:47):
where it gets crazy lines in their commenting back and forth.
So it was quite amusing. I think the more appropriate
headline would be how stuff works makes video about flat Earth. Sure. Sure,
but this is also a surprising thing. As you may
have heard in recent months. Uh, the concept of a
(11:07):
flat earth, which is a very ancient concept, gained national
media attention and more people are talking about it on Twitter,
on Facebook, on Tumbler, probably on Snapchat. Uh. I don't
think it can quite compete with some of the other
pictures on Snapchat, but there's probably a few things. So
while we're there, back in two thousand ten, two thousand nine,
(11:29):
let's not stop there. Let's travel further back in time
to the Iron Age. Okay, here we are, so listeners,
imagine that you're living in the Iron Age, and imagine
that you're an average person, pretty successful in your community
(11:50):
by the standards of the time. Now, you're not extraordinarily
successful like a warlord or religious figure or a blacksmith.
In fact, you're overwhelmingly likely to be a farmer. And
you measure days not necessarily in hours, but in terms
of the world's natural rhythm day tonight, the position of
the sun, phase of the moon, winter to spring and
(12:13):
back again. And you do not travel widely because this
would make it difficult to take care of the vital
crops upon which you and your family depend. Not to mention,
it would take a long time to get very far
at all. Right, that's exactly right. And there's I also
have a video about how long it will take to
walk around the world for brain stuff. And even today
(12:36):
it's very, very difficult and pretty dangerous. So forget about
it in the Iron Age. And you know, let's say
you're content despite the high rates of child mortality. You
and your partner have had some kids and they're farming too,
and you know, you you feel like life is good
until imagine one day a stranger comes to your community.
(12:58):
This is a person so different to that at first
you think maybe they're not human at all, perhaps they're
some sort of divine creature, an angel, a demon. This
creature turns out to be a time traveler from uh
in this example, specifically, Matt Frederick. And Matt tells you
(13:19):
that the world beyond your flat plane and crops and
adjacent villages extends beyond the horizon farther further. We're talking philosophically.
Then you might imagine. And if you start walking today,
says the time traveling Matt Frederick, and you always head west,
you will end up not off the edge of the earth,
(13:42):
but back here in this very spot you are standing.
Horsewah And why is that? You ask? And the time
traveler says, because, of course the earth is round. You
forget the time traveler as you so you don't have
to do a voice because the world is round. Now,
(14:04):
you might not believe this guy at first, and even
if you did, your community might kill him anyway, because
that's how people are. Which here's the other thing. You're
going to need a swimsuit because there will be some
swimming involved. But however, you can do this, it's yeah,
so it's the end of the world, or at least
(14:26):
the the end of the edge of the world as
we know it. So let's talk about ancient civilizations. It
is true that in the Iron Age people did believe
that the Earth was flat. Numerous ancient civilizations did think
that right all over the world. Yeah, that includes parts
of India before the Gupta period, Grease up to the
(14:48):
Classical period, parts of China, Native American cultures, and on
and on. People actually also believe Earth was covered by
a solid dome called the firmament, which is you term
me seeing the Bible a lot, right, like if you
got high enough into the heavens, you would eventually hit
(15:09):
just yeah, it's almost like a glass ceiling of sorts
the way it's described. Sometimes I see it as a
snow globe almost just above. There's a picture on the
House Stuff Works website that kind of gives you a
great idea, and that is on the article how creationism works.
(15:30):
And it's just it's a cool illustration of the concept
of yeah, exactly. And most of China pretty much accepted
the idea of a flat earth until apparently meeting missionaries
in the seventeenth century, who are like, guys, we're gonna
blow your minds and double checked with myself. Just just
wanted to put this out there. The Bible does mention
(15:51):
the firmament seventeen times, but it actually is referring to
a expanse beyond the sky, So the expanse of the
heaven above the earth. Okay, they almost wore a little
head of the curve. Yeah, if you think about it.
And we'll find out more about that too. So there
are some myths we need to bust about belief in
(16:11):
the flat earth in the ancient world. Okay, we'll talk
about where this argument for a spherical world came from.
But first one of us that one of the biggest myths.
Ladies and gentlemen, If you were already listening to the show,
then we imagine that you know this is a fact.
But just in case you are still in a situation
(16:31):
where your history teachers are misleading you, probably with the
best of intentions, let's let's get it out of the
way now. Crystal ball Cologne Street named Christopher Columbus was
a gigantic jerk. As a monster, he was like, uh,
the noid, if the noid was a genocidal slaver. That's
(16:52):
a deep cut, my friend, that's a deep cut. Yeah,
I was just I was thinking about the noise. Remember
the video game was Second Genesis. I played it on
a different console. Thennoid was big dominoes. Look up Nooid.
Maybe a better thing would be she was the Martin
Scully of his day. Is that better? Okay? But despite
(17:17):
all the terrible things he did, all the just monstrous
atrocities he committed or helped commit, he was not a
stupid man. He was not like the dullest crayon in
the box. He, like most of the people at the time,
knew the Earth was round. It was common knowledge. He
did not prove it. He uh. But if anything, the
(17:40):
big argument was about how big or small the Earth was,
It was not about the shape. Sure seems to me
if anyone was going to know first that the Earth
was round, it would be somebody in the nautical profession,
you know, like like a captain and someone that spends
time out on the sea right where you could see
the actual curvature. Also was a big thing, A big
(18:02):
superstition among um seafaring types was that you would reach
the end of the Earth right and they fall off,
and that they were like there be monsters, kind of incognita.
It's true, but so why did this myth come about?
Where As a guy named James Hannum who wrote piece
called science versus Christianity, and we have a quote for
(18:24):
you directly from him. The myth that people in the
Middle Ages thought the Earth is flat appears to date
from the seventeenth century as part of the campaign by
Protestants against Catholic teaching, but it gained currency in the
nineteenth century thanks to inaccurate history such as John William
Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science in
(18:45):
eighteen seventy four and Andrew Dixon whites a History of
the Warfare of Science with Theology and Christendom in eighteen
ninety six. Atheists and agnostics championed the conflict thesis of
their own purposes, but history racal research gradually demonstrated that
Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fact in
(19:05):
their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked
in internal conflict. The myth that people in the Middle
Ages thought the Earth was flat appears to date from
the seventeenth century, as part of the campaign by Protestants
against Catholic teaching, but it gained currency in the nineteenth
century thanks to inaccurate history such as John William Draper's
(19:27):
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science and Andrew
Dixon White's A History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology in Christendom. Atheist and agnostics championed the conflict thesis
for their own purposes, but historical research gradually demonstrated that
Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fiction in
their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked
(19:49):
in eternal conflict. So essentially, what happened here The reason
that we have this longstanding stereotype about people in the
ancient world is because two guys with an agenda popularize
something to make it look as though science and faith
(20:10):
are always at loggerheads. And you know, if you go
back even further, it was a religious insult that the
Protestants channeled against the Catholics. So let's talk about the truth.
The concept of a round Earth dates all the way
back to at least Pythagoras and Aristotle, so you could
(20:33):
argue that in the eighth century BC, the biblical writer
Isaiah alluded to a spherical Earth. In Isaiah quote, he
sits enthroned upon the circle of the Earth. Then in
the third century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established without a doubt,
factual proof of Earth's spherical shape. So this comes to
(20:53):
us from astronomy. And we had talked about whether this
came from people in a nautical profession. But keeping my
at this point in time, astronomers and those in maritime
occupations were were intertwined in terms of skill sets. Absolutely,
I mean astronomy or rather the nautical mapping and you know,
(21:14):
making the charts is essentially functional astronomy. I mean it's
using the stars to you know, plot your course. Did
you guys know that? Did you hear the NPR story
about this recently where the Navy is going back to teaching, uh,
teaching the students like where I'm actually well we'll talk
about that later, but they're teaching people how to use
the stars and navigate again. Right, Yeah, Then that's a
(21:36):
that's a valuable skill once once you know it, you
can keep an eye on it. Because it's true that
constellations do change over time, but the scale of that
change is so vast in comparison to you know, human
lives that you can pretty much count on these as
a fixed point. I think it's great. I think they
never should have stopped teaching. Right from there, the belief
(21:59):
and around Earth's spread gradually throughout the world. People knew, yeah,
but Ben, is it really a sphere? Yeah? I guess
you're right. I guess it's better to call it an ellipsoid.
But still we knew, yeah, it's kind of squashed, right, Yeah,
so case closed? Right? Or is it? Here's where it
(22:22):
gets crazy, the flat earth theory. Okay, yes, we said
earlier Mesopotamian cultures believed that Earth was a disk. We
have had as a species, so many different shapes for Earth.
But obviously, if you're standing in one spot, you see
a mountain, you see an ocean. What's that old poem?
(22:42):
I looked around from where I stood and saw three
mountains and a wood. Um, it's a great poem. But
the the ideas that we were limited for a long
time because the signs that could prove to us the
position of the Sun and the and the moon and
Earth and the shape of those things were difficult to interpret.
So of course we thought it was flat for a while.
(23:05):
But well, let alone, what is the sun? What is
the moon? You know? What are what are these things
made of? What am I seeing far out there? We
know that something is there? But what is it? Is
it angry at me? I mean, that's the kind of
world people lived in. So gradually as the at least
in the West, the Hellenistic realization of earth as a
ellipsoid spread across the world. Some people even today apparently
(23:32):
didn't buy it. And he said, that's a bunch of
horse wash, uh, And so so let's look at some
of the modern day stuff. In ninety six, Samuel Shelton
founded a society that had a theory about the shape
of the Earth, namely, it's flat. We're a pancake. Yeah. Yeah,
And and he based these ideas just on walking around
(23:55):
observing things and going, hey, al right, well everything's looking
pretty flat around here. Common sense, yeah, personal observation. Yeah,
there's a tetic method, the idea that we can only
encounter things through our own senses. Yes, my, my, this
one uh, focal point of consciousness understands it in this way.
(24:16):
And he called scientific evidence for a globe shaped earth dogmatic.
So he said scientists were making this claim without adequate evidence.
Basically they were following a party line, right, Which is
very interesting right when it when you're thinking about some
of these criticisms that came from the religious angles back
when the Protestants were criticizing Catholic beliefs, it's just interesting
(24:40):
to then throw it right onto science. But this was
also a nineteen like this nineteen fifty six, So keep
in mind, Shelton lived long enough to see pictures of
Earth taken by satellites and what do you do then, Well,
of course he claimed that they were fake. I mean,
of course they were fake. Right, He and the members
of a Society continue to support the idea that Earth
(25:01):
is flat, and the people who disagreed are just part
of a vast conspiracy to hide the truth about Earth's
inherent flatness. Right, everybody's in the pockets a big globe manufacturers.
Uh So, Shelton passed away in nine A guy named
(25:22):
Charles Johnson took over leadership and led the society until
two thousand and one. Critics of the Flatter Society say
that it's members just deny any evidence that conflicts with
their worldview, and they, you know, members who are in
the Flatter Society and genuinely believe this would probably say
(25:42):
the same thing about their opponents. That's how these kind
of arguments typically go. It sounds like a bunch of
contrarians if you ask me, yes, yeah, I mean who
who isn't? Wait? Did you guys just both agree? Uh uh?
And by the way, right now, a gentleman named Daniel
Enton is running the Flat Earth Society. He brought it
(26:03):
back up in two thousand nine. And if you go
to the Flat Earth Society dot org you can find
the forums that are active there. I think in the
the Guardian article that I read there he said there
were only there are only a few active members. They
are non ironic, and I you know, in this case,
of course, I'm not gonna cast dispersion on someone for
(26:25):
their personal beliefs. You know what I mean. You believe
what you want. No one should control your mind. However,
he goes all the way back to ancient Greeks, and
even that's a little um western centric, because the odds
are that there were other ancient civilizations that figured this
(26:47):
out before the Greeks. Just it's possible, and it's possible
that we wouldn't know because there's a dearth of evidence.
But they learned by measuring shadows, and that's that's what
led them say, oh, the planet's surface must be curved.
And and the astronomers, as Noel mentioned, figured out the
world was round. And then we have to look at
(27:07):
the idea of creationism. Listeners, if you are creationists, that
is your belief system, and you subscribe to that, then
of course I'm not going to um. As I said,
I'm not going to cast dispersion on someone's personal faith,
but I'm willing to wage your odds are that if
you're listening to this show right now or any podcast,
(27:29):
you also know that the Earth is round modern um. Well, okay,
so back when the idea of a flat earth was
more common, when most people in the West where some
form of creationists, uh, they believed that the Earth was flat,
it was a mobile and it was at the very
center of the universe. It was the bull's eye on
(27:50):
the great cosmic dartboard, and it was covered by the
solid dome like sky. And and this goes to that
firmament that Noel mentioned earlier, and you see it mentioned
in Genesis. Uh, the sun, stars and moon or embedded
in this dome. But that turns out not to be
(28:11):
the case. We've actually sent somebody. We've actually sent some
nifty robots and rockets out into space. We've had people
in orbit who have had life changing experiences by looking
at the Earth all at once, allegedly allegedly, do you
know any astronauts? Well, it's so funny to me that
(28:32):
that point of logic, and it goes back to how
we were discussing. If you can if you can argue
something well enough, then perhaps you can be right even
if you are completely wrong. You can win the argument
whether you are the substance of your argument. Isn't that
the whole point of debate? Like the debate Club? I mean,
aren't there exercises where you just take on a completely
(28:53):
absurd position and your job is to just defended victorious.
If I could have a rebuttal. Another interesting thing to
know about the beliefs of how the flat Earth would
function physically is how gravity would work in this scenario.
So I I never really understood it until we began
researching again. And so the idea on this flat plane
(29:16):
as it's moving upwards, so the idea on this flat
plane is that there is no gravity per se, because
there's not one central location as there would be on
a spherical or a planet shaped the way that Earth
is shaped, where it's pulling everything in and spinning to
hold everything to the surface. In this scenario, the flat
plane is moving upwards at a speed that would when
(29:40):
you jump up in the air and you come back down.
The reason that that's happening is because the Earth is
coming up to meet you essentially, which is interesting. The
Earth is moving and you are not, so it's a
force of acceleration. Yes, I see. And and then we've
we've seen other computing beliefs. I guess we should talk
a little bit about the different cons ups of the
(30:00):
outlay or the geography of the flat Earth. Right, how
the there's the common belief that the north poles at
the very center, which of Earth is at the very
center of the universe, makes the North pole place the
most important place. And then it's uh, it's ringed around.
The edges of the world are ringed around by what
(30:20):
we mistake as the South Pole, and it's really a
wall of ice. And our colleague Christian Seger wrote a
great piece and now about this where he said, picture
picture the wall from the night's watch, but just lit out.
You know, trolls, monsters, they're called white walkers. Oh, yes, yes, yes,
(30:41):
there is a map that you can find of the
way the Earth looks in the flat Earth view, and
that if you superimpose that map in particular with the
U N map, it is pretty much the same thing.
But when if you look at it, it's just a
(31:01):
version of a projection from the top down, from the
North pole down. Now, we also found uh, we also
learned about a group of people called geocentrists who believe
that Earth may not be flat, but it's definitely the
center of everything, and it is immobile, and that the
(31:22):
Sun rotates around the Earth in twenty four hour periods,
and all other planets rotate around the Sun. It's a
it's a complex thing. Um. This is this is also
generally a religious based belief. Uh. They're the people, I
guess you would call radical geocentrist, Uh, refer to a
(31:44):
religious text alone and reject all modern astronomy, physics, and cosmology. Um.
And also some believe that the sky is still a
solid dome. Yeah, which takes us to modern believers. Listeners.
We received so many, so many questions on YouTube, on Facebook,
(32:08):
on Twitter, where conspiracy stuff at all of those? By
the way, if you want to, uh, you wanna give
us a little bit of Internet love, like comments, subscribe, etcetera.
We'd love to hear from you. We read a lot
from B O B A Tila Tequila. Who are the
reason this became a mainstream thing? Again? Well, the whole
(32:30):
thing kind of started when a MS Tequila angel Tila
love is her Twitter handle, She said, it's and nobody
has been able to prove to me that the Earth
is around. Where's the curvature in the horizon? Hashtag flat earth?
Proved me wrong? Dang it? And this continued, said not
(32:51):
gonna get over this. Why are all the buildings in
New York standing straight up? If Earth was round, some
of the buildings would have a slight tilt. Uh. And
then if Earth is a spinning globe, how come airplanes
can still land without crashing because the face of the
Earth is flat, not a globe. And yeah, I I
don't you know, I know it's it's such a safe
(33:13):
pitchforky thing for people to uh dogpile on someone. But
how sincere is this? I wonder if you have been
following Tia Tequila at all. She has been She's been
going down this interesting little I let's call it a
rabbit hole of looking into some of the things that
we have looked into in the past and covered and discussed,
(33:36):
um that seemingly internalizing them quite a bit per perhaps
I know that she. I can't speak for her, but
she seems to be very um invested in believing some
of these things and taking them at face value. And
there's another player in the game, another celebrity who mentioned this,
who is an MC that I have quite a high
(33:57):
opinion of the rapper b o B. Yes, yes, and
you have actually a verse on that, right or a
verse from that. No, it's not a bo b ver
so I had mentioned. There's a there's a group I
really enjoy from Chicago called the Anti Pop Consortium and
they have a line that's your world is flat. Haha.
You fell off hoping that the laws of gravity will
bring you back to Earth. If not, okay, your words
(34:20):
fall lighter than air, so float away and disappear into
a black hole sun Ah. So someone falls off the
edge of the planet and into a black hole. That's
that's terrible. That's a black hole disturbingly close to Earth,
ardless of what shape it is. Well, okay, so Bob
began also um tweeting about a flat Earth. What what
(34:42):
kind of stuff was he saying? Uh, there was a
picture that he posted and I don't know exactly where
it is. I'm assuming it's in Atlanta. I can't that.
I mean, I thought that's what it might be, but
I wasn't sure. But someone standing out top of the
mountain and then way in the distance you can see
I guess this said like a city, which would presumably
(35:02):
be Atlanta or another small, uh suburb somewhere in there,
and it says the city is in the background, are
approximately sixteen miles apart. Where's the curve? Please explain this? In?
My favorite response was I don't think he was legit
saying the Earth is flat. He's been on planes. I
think he was just asking, and so responded Tom foolery.
(35:23):
Even in a plane, you can't see a curve. That's true,
but it's like, what's the what's the deal, Ben, give
us the skinny? Uh, so there is. It's it's in
some ways a matter of perception again, sort of that
zetetic method that that says, well, who made this map,
(35:45):
who made this globe? Who is telling me what to believed?
And on a personal level, I identify with that kind
of instinct wholeheartedly. However, the problem is that the science
is fairly conclusive, and by fairly I am woefully understating it. Uh.
(36:07):
Neil deGrasse Tyson, the famous science science communicator I guess
would be the technical term or science popularizer, UH, went
on national television recently to UH speak about this. He
also had a Twitter conversation with b O b about it.
He did something of a virtual mic drop. I heard
about that in a real one on the nightly show. Right,
(36:29):
so it became it became a matter of public debate.
But a question posed in the video here, that's that's
the state of affairs right now, folks. A question posed
in the video coming out next week. UH really stuck
with me and I'm still wondering, because, yes, is this genuine?
(36:50):
Is it? A market employee? Bob was also talking about
clone factories, which I think is an order of magnitude
more plausible um that people could For me, it's certainly
more fascinating imagining organs YEA or clone. You know, the
parts of the body we need. But this there's a
third question here and that's the one that really bothers
(37:12):
me and listeners. Um, when we asked this question. We
really want to hear from you on this, and I
want to hear what you guys think to know, Matt,
is this a distraction move? What? What's not being paid
attention to? I bring up my roommate Frank a lot um,
and he tends to think that most public figures that
(37:35):
say things like this, like let's say Kanye West for example,
you know, tweeting that Cosby is innocent, whatever your opinions are,
that it's not a very popular thing to say in
all caps with no qualifying comments. Um, you know, saying
Donald Trump some of the inflammatory things that he says. Uh.
Someone like Frank, my skeptical roommate, would say that all
(37:58):
of these people are playing on um public outrage um,
and they are doing what you call garnering earned media,
because you know, when you say something outlandish like that
that's very divisive, you know, people are going to chime
in on one side or the other, and then those
(38:20):
people are gonna go at each other, you know, and
it just generates this whole domino effect where you generate
this media, you know storm, shall we say, and then
all of a sudden we're in a room talking about it, right,
or tweeting about it, or looking at comments or reading
things on BuzzFeed. And you know, I would never comment
on any of that stuff, but I sure as hell
(38:42):
read the comments a lot there, entertaining stuff or chiming
in with, you know, an opinion that that other people
are also either reinforcing and supporting. It becomes an echo chamber.
But again, the thing I ask is, you know know
that sounds like we're coming on your end, We're coming
down on the side of UM marketing employ Well what
(39:04):
I what I didn't get to yet and where Frank
and I sometimes differ is I think sometimes a combination
of both UM Like, I think that there is a
certain point where you can take a belief, take an opinion,
and kind of balloon it into Okay, I'm gonna really
like ride this crazy training all the way to Valhalla.
(39:24):
You know, witnessed me, du witnessed me on my Twitter
meltdown shining and Chrome. Yeah, that's that's in the Chrome browser,
in the chromes. I would positive that this is a
reaction to a blurring line between what we perceive as
reality and what is possible to create with computers. And
(39:45):
by that I mean I mean photoshopping is so advanced now,
video effects are so advanced. When you are handed a
piece of evidence, physical evidence that is digital, I think
it is not only right to be skept coal of
whatever you've just been handed, um, but not necessarily to
the point of completely disbelieving everything. Then seem like a
(40:09):
particularly functional conspiracy though, Like if the government and scientists
are going out of their way, above and beyond to
fake all this data to what, to what end? That's
the most important question. Well, I'm glad you asked it.
That's the most important question. That's the part I can't care.
(40:29):
If the Earth was flat, Let it be flat. We'd
we'd figure we'd figure out how to make it work. Right,
The vast majority of people are not going to it's
it's not going to matter to the day to day
life of the vast majority of people whether the Earth
is round or flat. Let's face it, the majority of
humanity is not going to attempt to circumnavigate the globe.
The majority of humanity will never be in danger of saying,
(40:52):
oh crap, the ancient Mesopotamian cultures were right, and I
learned too late. Now here I am leding off into
the universe. So how would someone cover this up? That's
a big question. How would you be able to keep
this secret so effectively considering that nations are almost constantly
a war, and then and you know, not really representing
(41:14):
each other's interests. And then, more importantly ten dollar questions
asked today, why why would you do this? You know,
for frenzies. Okay, because it's you know, it's just sort
of interesting to have secrets. I could just think of
better things to keep people in the dark about, and
this is just not one of them. Don't get me wrong.
There there there are quite a few. There are quite
(41:35):
a few strange um things about the way the world
is depicted. You know, no one, no one ever really
questions in the US why the maps and the globes
are oriented toward um with with the US dead center
right and on top of the thing. We call it
(41:55):
South America or something, when we know that there's no
up and down in space. So it really makes no
difference to an alien civilization or to anyone outside of
this planet. Which continent is on top. But it's psychologically
that's an important thing, you know. You know what My
favorite depiction of a flat earth comes from let you
know it, uh, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld. It's depicted as
(42:20):
a disc um perched atop the backs of Is it
two elephants? Is there a third one that I'm not seeing?
It's either two or three. It would make more sense
that it would be three because you got to, you know,
kind of making a star shape and there it has
let's be logically exactly, And then those elephants are standing
on the shell of a giant tortoise and all of
(42:42):
this whole array is floating in space, which is awesome.
I love it. It's just it's a fabulous image. Um.
So that's yeah, that's that's what I think. That's what
this This makes me think of other conspiratorial things regarding maps.
One thing that may interest you if you haven't checked
it out yet, listeners, please spend some quality time with
(43:04):
Google Maps, because Google Maps plays nice with all the
countries of the world that it can if you ask
them to hide a specific site, secret city, something like that.
And yes, there's still quite a few of those uh,
then Google will block it out for you as best
they can. But Google also shows different borders for countries
(43:25):
depending upon the origin point of the search, So you
know there are massive ongoing uh border skirmishes as people
say no, we own this, no I own this, etcetera.
And Google is actively participating in something very much like
a multi national conspiracy. But also you know they don't.
(43:49):
It seems like the most efficacious way to avoid getting
in trouble with the government is just tell both of
them that they're right. That that is. That's some of
the stuff that this leads me to think about what
today we've done our flat Earth update. We'd love to
hear from you guys. Do you mind if I wrap
up this discussion with a quote? I would love that.
(44:09):
So this is from a song by the much underappreciated
artist Thomas Dolby, and it's from his album The Flat Earth,
which I recommend highly So I've been listening to it
a lot lately, and it's from the title track hold
Me Baby. The Earth can be any shape you wanted,
(44:31):
Love me, Darling, Believe me, Darling, any shape at all.
Hold me Baby, dark and cold or bright and warm.
Love me Darling, long or thin or small, Believe me, Darling,
but it's home home. Maybe hold me, baby and all
(44:54):
I ever had? Love me, Darling, And maybe why for
me the leave me? Darling? The earth is flat? Interesting.
I give a moment of silence out of respect. We
have a couple of special announcements before we go. First,
we would like you to check out our our upcoming
(45:17):
guest host. We're gonna have a personal friend of mine
that we have mentioned before, Damien Williams. Uh. You can
find him on Twitter. He's at Wolven. He will be
joining Nolan I for an episode on alchemy and an
episode on technology and the occult cult cult Cult Cult
Cult Cult Cult. But you're wondering, hey Ben, why didn't
(45:38):
you mention Matt. Well, Matt, you're out a mission. Yes,
I'm on a completely disclosed mission to Charleston, South Carolina,
or around about that area because I'm gonna head over
to the to the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command. I'm
calling it a campus because I don't know the correct terminology.
(46:00):
It is a base, but they there is a campus
within the base there. But I'm going to go and
support my brother in law, who is I guess graduating
up to the next level. Again, I don't know the terminology.
It's not an accommodation or anything. He's just moving up
the ranks in uh in the school. So I guess
it's a graduation. Is it like getting a yellow belt.
(46:20):
I think it's a little more significant than that, but yes,
kind of yellow belts a big deal. I remember when
I got my yellow belt. It was okay, I never
got the yellow nice humble bag. But yeah, it's very cool.
So what I'm going to attempt to do on Friday
is broadcast live if you know, if it's not against
too many protocols or if the signal strength is strong enough.
(46:43):
Uh So, hopefully that will be interesting in some way
because it's a it's a neat place. It's a place
where a lot of people go who end up working
in the nuclear sector in the US. I think you
mean nuclear, Yes, in the nuclear uh power energy sector.
(47:04):
So uh stay tuned for that. And Matt, I'm sure
the rest of the listeners joining Noel and I am
wishing you the best of luck. And don't push it, man,
don't don't get don't get jammed up. We will see
what happens, al right, So we're gonna get out of here.
Riddle me this. Where can everybody find all of our
(47:24):
audio podcast? Well, um, you can find them on iTunes.
And if you get them on iTunes, you guys, leave
a nice leave a review, you know, leave us a
little review, a couple of stars, not not a couple?
Do three at least, you know, four would be great,
and write something, you know, because it really helps get
(47:45):
the podcast out where people can see it. You know,
the more reviews there are, the more the algorithm kind
of pushes the show out to folks that maybe haven't
discovered it yet. So that would be a great way
to help the show. If you don't, if ituns is
not your jam and you're more of a Stitcher, Spotify,
Google Play. Um, is that all of them? There's are
the ones that's coming out every day. But we're pretty
(48:05):
much available on any platform that you can get podcast
or you can go directly to our website. You can
stuff they don't want you to know dot com. What
can they find their Matt. You can find everything we've
ever produced, y'alls, and it's good. Is everything, videos, podcasts, pictures,
tasty cakes. Oh wait, no, no, you can't get tasty
cakes there. I'm sorry soon one day hope springs eternal.
(48:28):
That's correct, and if you don't want to do any
of that stuff, guys, just shoot us an email. We
are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. From one
on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com
slash conspiracy. You can also get in touch on Twitter
(48:52):
at the handle at conspiracy stuff and me
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.