September 3, 2020 • 60 mins
Is pop superstar Britney Spears really being held hostage? What is it like to witness a derecho firsthand, and live to tell the tale? Can human beings really, without warning, burst into a ball of mysterious, fatal flames? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this week's listener mail segment.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer,
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson, and yes she does
require us to say the nickname in full most of
her Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
(00:48):
If you're listening to this On the day our episode publishes,
it is Thursday, which means this is our listener male segment.
For years and years, since back in the YouTube days,
we always said you, specifically, you are the most important
part of this show. And we're putting our money where
our collective figurative proverbial podcast mouth is any landing you
(01:12):
can walk away from. H We've got some good ones today,
some some pretty startling things, and we always know it's
a good one. Like I was looking back at some
of the prep we've done for this and I realized,
I realized that at least two of these are things
that we should have already done an episode on. So
thats a way of exploring these. I can go ahead
(01:33):
and kick us off if you all would like to
hear a tale of a very strange phenomenon most most definitely,
and I think I know what it is and it's
something that has fascinated I know us for a long time. Yeah, agreed.
So this this is actually a series of emails. It
(01:57):
comes from someone named Caesar. Caesar L. Caesar. You said, hello, guys,
big fan of the show, would love it if you
guys could discuss this strange and bizarre case of the
death of Jenny Saffin. I remember this being one of
the first stories of the strange and paranormal growing up
and reading about this in a paranormal and conspiracies book
(02:18):
when I was a kid at my public library. Spontaneous
human combustion, Yes, when a living person just explodes entirely.
It's an odd phenomenon. Signing off, thank you so much
for writing into the show, Caesar. I have to say,
just speaking for myself, I didn't believe we hadn't covered
(02:41):
this at first because there's so many episodes, and I
went back and I was like, but surely people are
catching on fire. Well yeah, no, I mean I didn't
realize that there was evidence of this being confirmed phenomenon.
I thought this was more of like a in the
realm of speculation and kind of fringe e stuff. But
this apparently is because coroner's ruling. Right, Well, yes, we're
(03:04):
I think we're gonna get into kind of the history
of it and how we get to this story of
Janine Staffen. Right, Ben, what what are you thinking? Do
you want to start with Janine Staffin and then go backwards? Well,
let's start. Let's start with spontaneous human combustion. Then God
the genes happen, and then we'll talk about why this
remains such a God forgive me hot topic. Uh here
(03:29):
in so not the mall store, but if you work there,
I hope you're doing well. So spontaneous combustion, right, Spontaneous
human combustion is just a creepy, controversial proposed form of
something that's very real. Spontaneous combustion when any object, due
(03:50):
to some sort of chemical reaction, burst into flames without
without being visibly ignited by an external heats worse. Right,
you you hear about these kinds of disasters happening all
the time on very small levels of very large levels.
The idea of this happening to living human beings, spontaneous
(04:13):
human combustion is generally meant to describe living human beings
catching on fire. Uh. You find the first descriptions of
this date all the way back to sixteen sixty three
a Danish anatomist named Thomas Bartholin, and he was the
first person to document in writing the concept of what
(04:34):
we call spontaneous human combustion. He describes how very unfortunate
woman in Paris apparently went up in ashes and smoke
while she was asleep. The interesting thing here, all right,
I don't want to sound cold when I say interesting,
but one of the strange things here is that she
was sleeping on a straw mattress and this mattress was
(04:57):
not damaged in any way by the fire. So how
crazy is that a fire occurred on top of straw
and it didn't burn. And this is not an uncommon
occurrence when it comes to spontaneous human combustion alleged cases,
whether the idea that it's somehow like only affects the
(05:19):
individual and not the substances or surfaces around them, right,
we'll see some of this conversation the in the specific
case that you mentioned, Caesar. It is fascinating because what
we know that I guess the way I always always
learned it. We know that fire makes friends, right. Fire
(05:41):
is a gregarious thing, so it usually will branch out
whenever it's given the opportunity to do so. So this
case in Paris is not the only case wherein someone
has apparently burned themselves out without making a mark on
the external environment. If you fast forward just a few years,
(06:01):
the sixteen seventy three, there was a French writer named
Jonas DuPont who published a collection of what he thought
of as confirmed cases of s HC. Spontaneous human combustion.
And there seems to be a pattern because hundreds of
other descriptions of varying credibility have come in the intervening decades.
(06:25):
And typically here's what happens. The victim is almost completely consumed.
They are usually in their home when this happens, and
coroners who get to the scene have occasionally described a sweet,
smoky smell in the room where this event occurred. Uh yeah,
there are also things people think they notice based on
(06:47):
the photographic evidence right of these alleged incidents of combustion,
often the corpses, torso or head maybe severely charred like
beyond recognition, but some of their extremities are intact hands, feet,
maybe parts of the limbs like the legs and the arms.
(07:09):
And two get even stranger with it. There have been
reports about s HC saying that victims didn't completely burst
into flame, they just developed strange burns on some specific
part of their body. So we know that there are
a couple of things that need to happen for spontaneous combustion. First,
(07:32):
an object has to be heated to its ignition temperature,
whatever that is right, and once it hits that point,
it will catch on fire without being exposed to an
external flame of any sort. If the heat building up
inside an object can't escape, and if it's being exposed
to a steady flow of oxygen that isn't fast enough
(07:53):
to cool it down, that we're looking at the perfect
storm for spontaneous combustion. J Ny Saffin passed away on
September twenty three, two and now this is one of
the this is one of the go to cases of
spontaneous human comquestion that paranormal researchers and authors tend to cite. Uh.
(08:16):
The jury is still very much out on this. We
know fair amount about Jenny Saffin the person. She was older.
She was sixty one years old when she passed away,
and you can read varying accounts of the family's reaction.
(08:36):
She was sitting in the kitchen with her father, and
her father was looking away, and then when he looked back,
suddenly she was aflame, and so he and his son
in law put out the fire using water from the kitchen.
They called an ambulance. She was treated on the way
to the hospital by paramedics, who was transferred to a
(08:57):
burn unit, and then she unfortunately passed away eight days
after the original fired injury. So the combustion did not
consumer in the moment, right. And there's a specific type
of fires associated with this in all these cases, especially
in this nice naty two case. Uh. The idea of
it being this very bright kind of blue flame. Um,
(09:21):
and like you said, been her brother in law has
been on the record, a guy named Don Carroll Um
didn't interview, talking about that very blue flame and how
it was shooting out of her mouth and her body
her her torso uh and he described her as roaring
like a dragon um and said that none of the
(09:42):
surfaces or materials or parts of the kitchen where they
were seated were damaged, but that her clothing melted off
of her. And it was never something that was ruled
spontaneous human combustion in the coroner report. But this gentleman
feels very certain about what he witnessed. Yeah, that's an
interesting point that we need to hit about the clothing,
(10:04):
because the the idea for what I would call orthodox
spontaneous human combustion necessitates objects in the external environment not
being burned. And originally people were arguing that Saffin herself
was burned inside unburned clothes. However, later research shows us
(10:28):
that her clothes were in fact severely burned. And you
can read a bunch of read a bunch of different
theories about what could lead to this spontaneous combustion, everything
from someone saying like a really out there idea comes
(10:48):
from a writer named Larry Arnold who says that spontaneous
combustion is the result of a new sub atomic particle
called a pyrot Uh. There's no scientific evidence, so this
this is his idea. Another explanation that might be more
plausible for some of the skeptics in the crowd is
what's called the wick effect. The ideas that when lit
(11:14):
by some kind of heat source a cigarette and ember
or something, the human body acts kind of like an
inside candle candles composed of a wick on the inside
surrounded by a wax right of flammable fatty acids, and
the wax ignites the wick and keeps it burning. In
the human body, the argument is, our body fat acts
(11:35):
as that flammable substance, and our clothing or our hair
acts as the wick. So as the fat melts away
from the heat, it soaks into our clothing and acts
like a substance that keeps the wick burning slowly. This
could be why victims bodies are destroyed, but their surroundings
seem to be barely burned because they're becoming kind of
(11:58):
like candles. But let's just talk about something here. Isn't
the human autoignition temperature, like what it would cause for
me sitting right here to catch fire all of a sudden.
Isn't it around degrees Fahrenheit's something close to that? Not
a kitchen temperature? Yeah? Right? And according to the stories
(12:19):
that came out of the Jenny Staffen ordeal. From the
I think is, would you say brother in law and
the father, it was that there was no ignition device
like a lighter or anything like that within any where
in that kitchen. There was just a pilot light on
their oven. That was the only source of flame that
(12:41):
could have ignited something. However, there's possibly a pipe, right,
There's possibly a pipe. From a couple of stories I read,
there was an un smoked or an unlit pipe that
was sitting on the kitchen table there, which would lead
one to believe that and it had fresh tobacco in it.
We would lead one to believe that perhaps a pipe
(13:02):
was smoked previously and then repacked. And I believe be
correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the idea
is that somebody knocked the pipe to get the ash out.
Perhaps the father, I believe it was his pipe, knocked
it to get it out, and then maybe an ash
or an ember or something made its way towards Jenny,
and then he continued to just work and nobody noticed,
(13:24):
and then that maybe ember had something to do with it. Well, wait,
but the way that would require like a serious accelerant,
like being doused in kerosene or a major gas leak.
I mean, just getting singed by an ember from a
pipe on its own isn't gonna do it a thing,
well except maybe say ouch. Well, you know she was
(13:44):
wearing nylon specifically, which is very and the wind well
we don't know about the wind, but the kitchen window
and the door they were open, so there could have
been across reason. But yeah, it seems like a terrible
lottery to win, doesn't it Like the idea that a
(14:06):
single ember could compromise you. And and honestly, you know,
if you've ever discovered part of your body on fire, Uh,
it's a plot twist. It's like at first, you know,
it's so shocking that you're not scared. You're just thinking, whoa,
what happens? Yeah, I mean, dude, what we're describing here
(14:27):
is like a Rube Goldberg final destination asque sequence of events.
Everything would have to be perfect, you know, for that
to actually result in her going up in flames in
that way. I do want to say, Matt, from the article,
we will get to the current day example, but from
the article you posted, I love some of the ex
explanations that have been used typically in the realm of
(14:49):
spiritual or pseudoscience. You have to explain these occurrences, things
like which is lightning psychic suicide my personal favorite, or
electrical surges um or actually this is my personal favorite,
the wrath of God. Um. Yeah, you don't want to, Yeah,
you don't want to incur the wrath of God. That's
bad news. So we know that we know that one
(15:14):
things do spontaneously combust. That's just chemistry and a again
a terrible lottery of various circumstances. Uh. Two, we know
that there is scientific proof of that explanation I mentioned earlier,
the Wick effect. In two thousand one, the Journal of
Forensic Sciences published in an account of a test that
(15:38):
the State of California's Bureau of Forensic Services performed on
a pig carcass, not a person. Uh. They wrapped it
in a blanket and they, you know, did the source
of ignition, and after a number of hours, the smoldering
fire extinguished and the part of the pig that had
burned bones and all have been reduced to ash. And
(16:01):
when they repeated this on British television and they saw
that the body In this kind of spontaneous combustion, the
body burns very slowly, with only a tiny flame or
no visible flame at all. And this is important. The
heat that's affecting this object, whether it is a person
or you know, a tub of marmalade, I guess the
(16:25):
heat that's affecting the object is so localized the very
like you will not feel the heat if you are
standing in these are days of quarantine. If you are
standing six ft or so from somebody who spontaneously combust
you will see something happening, but you won't feel the burn.
(16:45):
This this is something that like it gets associated with
paranormal activity, but there's there's solid science behind it, and
we also know there are more recent cases. It's rare,
but it's a real thing. Oh yeah, And it's not
like it's something that just happened in the eighties or
the eighteen hundreds. From the sixteen hundreds, as we've been
(17:07):
mentioning here, there are continue to there continue to be
reports of spontaneous human combustion. And we found a report
from where um an older gentleman, seventy six year old
in Ireland was found dead in his home and he
had been burned. His head was near a fireplace, which,
(17:29):
by the way, is another common thing when it comes
to cases of alleged spontaneous human combustion, being near a
fireplace but not being um. No evidence that the person
had like interacted with the fireplace in a way that
would suggest something landed on them or they put their
arm in or something caught fire. It's generally proximity to
(17:53):
a fireplace. So he was found, he was um His
charred remains were discus covered in his living room, and
the forensics, the forensics experts actually concluded in this case
that it was in fact spontaneous human combustion, unlike in
the case of Jenny Saffie. Yeah, and that was what
I was referencing at the top of the show. This
(18:14):
is an article that I think you had found, Matt,
And I was surprised to see that this was an
official inquest that was, you know, as they call it
in the uk uh an investigation into a death, that
this is on record as being that's like what they
think it was. Yeah, exactly, And to your appointment, in
(18:34):
this case, the body was burned, the floor directly below
it was charred a bit, and the ceiling was burned
a little bit, but the rest of the house was
untouched other than some smoke damage. Yeah, and that coroner
Sierra and mclaud is part of the reason that we
know about this case. I mean, let's be honest, Uh,
(18:55):
news of a tragic death in someone's home doesn't often
go past the local paper or the local obituaries. But
because mclawhan specifically says no quote here, this fire was
thoroughly investigated, and I'm left with the conclusion that this
fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion for which
(19:18):
there is no adequate explanation. Because of that quote, people
grabbed onto this, they latched onto it. And people are
still of course having that uh errant imber theory right
from the fire. Kind of bold though right for a
man of science like that to go down this road.
And this is always sort of hovered in that gray
(19:39):
area between science and pseudoscience, and that you know, a
lot of scientists have have always said that there there's
there's got to be some explanation, even if we don't
know what it is, there's got to be something, whether
that's an errant you know, ember like you're saying, or
a gas leak that wasn't detective, but there's always that
that stuff leaves leaves clues, and in this case, there
were no such clues, nor were there any excell It's
(20:00):
found on the premises at all. So it's kind of like,
I don't know, it's an interesting thing to put on
an official document um. That's what kind of grabbed me
about this one. Matt mm hmm. Agreed, And we can
go we can go deeper into the debates around spontaneous
human combustion, but the takeaways are something like this happens.
(20:23):
People acknowledge that something like this happens, and the the
big controversy and the ongoing conversation is focus specifically on
the causes of this phenomenon. We have some good explanations,
we have some remaining questions. The strangest thing about it,
I would say, is that there's not really a way
(20:47):
to prepare yourself against the possibility of spontaneous human combustion.
So what watch out day, I don't know. That's that's
that's scary. That's the scary part. It's like, whoops, okay,
I guess yeah, I gosh, that's that's certainly a fear
(21:08):
of my I have a fear of drowning and of
of of burning to death. I don't think I don't
think that's un common though. I think most people in
general are anti drowning and anti burning to death. That's
why you're not. Not all of them are anti birds,
such as yourself, noble, But you know that's okay. Like,
(21:29):
I want to clear the air here real quick. Okay,
I might play up my bird phobia a little bit
for effect here. But my kid even was like, we
were at the park and then I was pointing out
some cool looking birds and she's like, aren't you scared
of the bread? I'm like, look, I can look at birds, okay,
but they don't they don't make me totally freak out
and collapse into a quivering pool of jelly. I just
(21:51):
don't want them like under my covers or coming at me,
flying in my face. You know That's that's where I
draw the line. Well, every human being is an encyclopedic,
eclectic compendium of specific fears. Uh, And this makes me think,
you know, listeners, I'd love to hear your specific fears.
The more specific, the better. Conspiracy. At iHeart media dot com,
(22:13):
we'll tell you where to hit us on social media
later in the show, but for now we can perhaps
close the chapter on spontaneous human combustion. Thank you so
much for your suggestions, Caesar. We hope to hear more
from you in the future. So everybody, do your best
not to be on fire, or if you are somehow
on fire as you're listening to this, please stop, drop
(22:37):
and roll during our sponsor break and we'll be right back. Okay,
we're back and you're no longer on fire. Kudos to you.
Good job, you paid attention in elementary school, and now
we're going to move on to something completely different, if you,
(22:58):
if you gentlemen, don't mind, I'd like to talk a
little bit about Britney Spears. Uh yeah, let's do it
one more time. We I love talking about Britney Spears.
Do a one more time. There we go. I'm sorry,
Oh no, I'm glad you're here. That was awesome. I
don't know, man, I just remember when Brittney came out.
(23:20):
I was I don't know if I was a little
young for that demo or whatever, but I certainly was like,
who is this? And then it was more like, you know,
because she looked like this kind of nymphette kind of
almost Lolita esque figure where she was meant to be
seemed really young, and she had this weird baby voice,
(23:41):
and she was wearing like Catholic school girl outfits but
doing some very provocative dance moves. Mind you. Um, but
you know, it was one of those things where it
was like it was manufactured to be a little titillating
but also safe and not to you know, provocative, but
also kind of occupy this really interesting middle ground. Uh.
(24:03):
In same with like boy bands and and and Backstreet
Boys and in Sync and all that. Like they there's
something about them that was designed to just dip your
toe in the water of sexuality. I think Brittany, though,
with her midriff shirt and the whole kind of thrust
nous of the dance moves, might have pushed it a
little further than the boy bands did. But that was
(24:24):
me coming from like a pre pubescent tween, I guess.
So that's my memory of of early Brittany. Um, but
y'all may remember. I think it was in like two
thousand seven ish Brittany Spears had a pretty public um
struggle with mental health. She you know, kind of went
(24:46):
off the grid and was difficult for her handlers to control.
Let's say, she shaved her head, got very publicly married,
like in a Vegas ceremony, and all of that. That
was all I'm kind of con using the timelines here,
so forgive me. But at the end of the day, Uh,
she was forced into a conservatorship situation where her father
(25:11):
and some other, um, you know, kind of representatives basically
controlled not only her fortune and all of her business decisions,
but in many respects her her daily life and the
way she was able to, you know, be an independent
human being. And we got a call um about this
from Chase who wanted us to talk a little bit
(25:32):
about the hashtag free Brittany movement or conspiracy theory. Hey guys,
this is Chase calling from Seattle, Washington, and I was
interested listening to your K pop episode about because you
mentioned Britney Spears and a lot of people have been
talking recently on the internet about Britney Spears conservatorship. I
(25:53):
think that's the word. Um, the control that she's been
placed under since her breakdown in two thousand eight, and
the lack of control she has over her finances and
her life. Um, it's being brought to light recently because
of her somewhat coded posts she made on Instagram calling
for a general strike. Um in a way that is
(26:14):
a huge risk for herself. And I think this would
be a really interesting thing for you guys to look into,
whether or not you do an episode. It's just a
fascinating look at the music industry in America and what
happens to our own pop stars. UM, all right, I
hope you'll staying safe and have a good one. Thanks
for writing in Chase. This is this is an episode
(26:35):
that we had we thought about exploring in the past,
and I agree it Uh, it's illustrative of so many
problems in the entertainment industry, similar to some of the
things we explored in our episode on the Dark Side
of k Pop. Also wrote out boy bands because the
manager of several boy bands could get an episode of
(26:56):
his own. He's kind of a monster. Uh. The spears
is is still under conservatorship right now. Right, she's in
her late thirties, she's uh, she's an extremely lauded multimillionaire,
uh superstar basically, but uh, but she still has that conservatorship.
(27:21):
I believe it's her her father, right, that's the one
who controls everything, that's the main one. And I feel
like there's been a change, um in some of that
arrangement where there was a gentleman that was handling parts
of it, of the business side of things, um that
that quit very abruptly. And that's that's a that's a
(27:44):
big part of the the whole conspiracy angle of this
whole thing. And which is a great name for someone
who controls somebody else's money. By the way, Andrew Wallett,
that's that's pretty fantastic. Could you speak to his his
part in this and and maybe how his departure kind
of led to some of the speculation that there was
something kind of rotten and brittany Ville. Yes, so here's
(28:09):
what we know to be true. Britney Spears, father James
Spears Jamie to his friends, was appointed a co conservator
in two thousand and eight along with that lawyer Andrew Wallett.
Andrew Wallett has, to your pointals since resigned. I want
to say. In September of twenty nineteen, Jamie Spears temporarily
(28:33):
stepped aside, partially or apparently the media believed, due to
his own health issues, but questions about who controls what
in this person's life. She's clearly an adult, She's earned
this stuff. Shouldn't she be able to be the soul,
the sole decider of what she does with her fame,
(28:54):
her wealth, and her influence. Well. Uh, that's the origin
of the hashtag free Brittany, right, the idea that she
was being held against her will uh, and that her
father and some co conspirators were making money off the
estate but making her live like a prisoner in her
(29:17):
own home. This really upset the father by the way
he referred to Uh. He referred to the free Brittany
thing as a conspiracy theory, but he does admit there's
a conservatorship. And he specifically said there was a quote
from uh just this month actually where wherein he said,
all these conspiracy theorists don't know anything. The world don't
(29:41):
have a clue. It's up to the court of California
to decide what's best for my daughter. It's no one
else's business. Yeah, And it's interesting. There's a podcast called
Brittany's graham Um where these two comedians, Tess Barker and
Barbara Gray, talk about Brittany's Instagram posts. Since Brittany in
the past handful of years has become very very active
(30:02):
on Instagram, um as she's been largely kind of isolated
in her home, and it's become even more active during
COVID a lot of yoga videos and dance videos and
just her kind of musing on things, and I follow
it and it's a it's a pretty delightful account. Um
she just has this kind of way about her that's
very human. She's a little she comes off a little
(30:25):
I don't know, like she's the she she She strikes
me as the type of person that's been famous for
a very, very very long time. And I'm not saying
that like she comes off as like in human, quite
the opposite. She seems like someone who has handled this
in a relatively even handed way. And she obviously loves
to dance and loves to perform, but doesn't seem to
be particularly crazy about all of the other things that
(30:47):
go along with it. And those other things, by the way,
are an estimated fifty seven million dollars and assets that
are at stake here or you know, under this supervision
of this conservatorship, and I think two point seven million
dollars in cash. But on that Britney spears uh Instagram
podcast Brittney's graham Um. The host actually received an anonymous
(31:10):
phone call earlier this year from someone a paralegal that
claimed to be familiar with the situation with Andrew Wallatt
and the conservatorship, and he spoke to some potentially abusive
behavior and the idea that she was basically being forced
to take medication that she didn't want to take. UH.
(31:34):
Then they weren't specific about it, but there are some
instances of her appearing kind of drugged up UH in
certain public appearances or in certain like videos that have
been posted, etcetera. And it's this idea that she went
off her meds, whatever those might be, and then her
father or you know, in conjunction with the conservator um,
(31:55):
forced her to check herself into a mental health facility
in January. And there there's there's they point to. You know,
Brittany likes these emojis. It's very clear when she's the
one posting on her account, and there was a post
that was quite clearly not from her. It used emoticons
instead of emojis, and that was a big red flag
(32:16):
to the sleuthy hosts of the Brittany Graham podcast that
it wasn't her and something was a miss um And
you know, now she's back to posting regularly and seems fine.
But it's very interesting, you're right, Ben. It really rubbed
her father Jamie the wrong way when all this stuff
(32:36):
was out, and he called it a conspiracy theory and
said that, you know, he was just doing what's best
for his daughter. But there is a lot of money
at stake and a lot of potential for abuse when
someone maybe isn't uh fully there are able to make
those decisions, and that's what's kind of been And so
basically now there's the a c l U is gonna involved.
They're saying they're they support free Brittany movement, the idea
(32:59):
that she should get out from under this conservatorship um,
that she should be able to make her own decisions,
and that it is potentially a negative situation. There were
a few instances where users had pointed out, like someone
and posted on her Instagram comments, if you need help,
wear yellow in your next post, and then sure enough,
(33:21):
she wore a yellow top in her next post. So
you know, it's a lot of grist for the conspiracy
mill here for sure, But uh it's I don't know.
It's it's interesting because it does speak to that whole
idea of kept uh kept pop stars, keeping them under
lock and key, making sure they don't do anything to
you know, turn off the money. Fawcett. I don't know.
(33:44):
Does it just happen to pop stars? Where's a Where's
Ted Turner? When's his last public app? Oh? He's hanging
out with But what to your point too? I think
we should portray the other side of this too. Uh.
If you want to be involved. There is a change
dot org petition that has more than a hundred thousand
(34:04):
signatures right now. They are claiming that Britney Spears is
not allowed to drive, all of her communications are monitored,
she can't vote, she needs permission to spend any amount
of money, and if she is the threat, the control mechanism,
at least according to these folks, is uh, the threat
(34:26):
of having her children taken away? Uh. And you know,
the concern for people who believe in this free Brittany
idea is that her father and the business manager that
works with I guess the entity of Britney Spears Lou
Taylor of try Star Sports and Management, that they are
embezzling from her, and the father says that's untrue. But
(34:50):
I think you're right. I mean, should this maybe this
is an episode, Yeah, maybe we can, maybe we can
get Britney Spears as herself of the show. Well, she
showed me asn't leaving the house very much, except for
doing yoga on the beach um which seems to be
a public beach because there's other humans around um. But
(35:12):
even as far back before COVID, she certainly wasn't leaving
the house very much. She did do quite a few tours,
even as recently as seen that kind of a comeback tour.
And that's also something that people point to, is that
she was able to keep her you know, stuff together
long enough, you know, in order to be a functioning performer.
And you know, you can't be on the brink of
(35:35):
you can't be completely unable to live day to day
and and take care of yourself and have a relatively
normal existence and be a touring you know, musician, someone
that's at the center of a very highly choreographed live performance.
I mean, you gotta have your wits about you, you know.
So I think that certainly points to why does she
(35:55):
need this I mean, she shaved her head one time.
You know, what's the what's the big deal? I I
totally see that point. Um, I would just say, my
wife showed me this a little while ago, and we
spent some time just looking through it, and I didn't understand.
And in all honesty, and I hate to say this,
I didn't. I didn't care that much when I initially
(36:18):
looked at it. But after, you know, knowl what you've
what you've kind of shared with us today and what
we've learned from our listener and from several other people,
I'm feeling way more invested in this story, and Ben,
I think it is worth our time because we have
to remember, we don't know what happened to Brittany while
she was an up and coming artist, what it took
(36:38):
to get to the level of fame where she was, like,
what kind of manipulation and abuse she may have been
um subjected to. We don't know all the situation with
her family. We don't know a lot of things about
what's happening now. We don't know what happens behind closed
doors unless it's broadcasted, you know, on an Instagram page
or um somewhere else public maybe even with the help
(37:01):
of a PR team. So yeah, there's definitely stuff to
look at here, and I'm in now so on it.
Thanks for thanks for sharing. I agree this is something
we should look into a little deeper, I think, But
I just want to point out one thing. There's a
bunch of video of her when she was very young
on Star Search, and her voice is completely different. She
(37:21):
has a much deeper, more soulful voice, and it was
very clear that her producers pushed her into doing that
kind of infantile baby voice. Um, that is sort of
her hallmark. And even later in her career, it was
clear that she was pushed away from singing at all
and just started lip syncing. I know that's not uncommon,
but um, you know, it's definitely a little weird to
(37:45):
see someone being controlled to that degree and having zero
agency over any aspect of their career, and just obviously
kind of being treated like a cash cow by by
all of these people. I would imagine her father included,
And I don't know the specifics of that, but it's
sure seems like she's treated much more like a commodity
than a human being. I think it's incredibly optimistic, almost
(38:08):
inspiring to describe that as uncommon, I mean the the
entertainment industry as a meat grinder. Am I bringing this?
Am I making this up out of whole cloth? Didn't
she have an album that was supposed to be released
and it had actual singing? No, No, they held it back.
(38:28):
They held it back. Yeah, exactly. It was much more
her doing her full vocal performance, and I think it
was because they didn't want it to interfere with the brand. Well,
the industry assumes what the brand will be, right, and
if you want to succeed in that industry, often you
have to play ball and you have to be what
(38:49):
they You have to be the product that they wish
to sell. That's why that's why we see so much
homogeneity in popular music, because there is a definitive approach,
there is a strategy. It is constantly evolving. But it
reminds me of when I found out that there are
(39:10):
like a small handful of people who write the majority
of pop song hits and uh, Max Martin, They're not
They're not who you think they are, and they are
living like some of them live in Scandinavia. It's crazy.
They're amazing songwriters. I'm not knocking them, but I think
(39:30):
it's I think it's common for people at that level
not to have agency, are definitely not to have as
much as one might hope an ordinary human would have it. Really,
I think, you know, it was a little bit of
a divisive episode, but I quite enjoyed it. The episode
of Black Mirror with Miley Cyrus in it, where she
kind of played a Britney Spears esque character, uh named
(39:54):
Ashley Oh I believe it was her name, and it
was very clear she was being controlled in a type
of conservators ship by her kind of a wicked stepmother
type situation um who ultimately like ended up drugging her.
I don't want to spoil anything about the episode, but
the the end of the day, Ashley Oh as a
brand was very different than Ashley as a human, and
(40:15):
she was writing much more moody material and wanted to
sing in her real voice instead of being this kind
of bubblegum pop propped up kind of you know, cartoon um.
And and that's I don't know, Like I said, you
can definitely tell the stuff Brittany's posting on her personal
account is her, but she never leaves the house, and
it's it's a little. It's a little odd, but I
(40:37):
really hope you're okay, Brittany. I hope that yellow top
doesn't mean that you really do need our help. But
there's a lot of voices and you know that have
a pretty big megaphone that are that are supporting this,
like um, what's her name, um, Paris Hilton has come
out in support of this. Uh, there's um. Rose mcgallen
has has made a lot of to do about, you know,
(40:59):
believe thing that Brittany is being held, you know, against
her will essentially, and a lot of that stuff isn't confirmed.
But I don't know, it's an interesting story, sounds good.
I just want to learn more about the spinny dance
move that she does in a lot of her videos.
It's really fun, but it does seem a little odd,
and I don't know if you're telling me something or
(41:20):
maybe it's just your awesome dance, you're happy dance. I
have one of those two. We could also do coded
messages or perceived coded messages from celebrities, from people of
note and influence, but before we do that, I believe
it's time to take a pause for word from our
sponsor and check back in with the weather and we're
(41:48):
back now. You may recall, if you were listening last week,
that we talked about a strange weather phenomena called a
diretto which occurred a few weeks ago in Iowa and
a lot of the midwestern United States. And we put
out a call on that episode to anyone listening that
may have experienced it or you know, been in the
(42:10):
area seeing something firsthand. And my goodness, did you reach
out to us? And we want to take a bit
of time today just to to go over some of
the messages that we got. Let's go ahead and begin
with a message we got from Courtney. I'm just gonna
read part of this. Hey, guys, my boyfriend and I
were unfortunately one of the thousands impacted by the recent
(42:32):
directo event. We live in the midwestern suburbs of Chicago,
and it ended up being one of the areas where
an e F one tornado came through along with the directo. Um. Wow.
We found out afterwards that this tornado started two blocks
from our house. In addition, Chicago UM Weather Service reported
(42:55):
fifteen tornadoes fifteen tornadoes from this system for the Chicago
metro area. Wow. Uh. They were warned, thankfully, about thirty
minutes ahead of time by friends who happened to be meteorologists. Uh,
my goodness, make some meteorologist friends everybody. Uh, they went
and took shelter. Um, it's been very similar to what
(43:16):
we were talking about in the show. About five to
ten minutes before anything actually occurred, it was extremely still,
almost like if you're at the center of a hurricane.
Then suddenly bam, all hell broke loose out of nowhere.
Everything was so deafening it was hard to tell what
was just wind, what was rain, thunder or hail. I
think we're in our basement for about thirty minutes before
(43:38):
it seemed like the worst of it had passed. Um. Thankfully,
we can report that Courtney and her family came away
physically unscathed, but their backyard and parts of their house
it was damaged. At Courtney actually sent us some pictures
of their backyard in their home where some trees crashed
down onto the yard through then and actually slammed into
(44:01):
the porch. Um. And so she was just saying, after
photos too, it is it's it's fantastic, thank you for
sending those. And she finishes the message with our medio friends,
I guess meteorologist friends make a very poignant comment to
us following the event, stating that this storm was absolutely
remarkable in all of the ways meteorologists don't want to see. Yeah,
(44:26):
it makes a lot of sense. So, uh, we're glad
you're okay, Courtney and family, and thank you so much
for reaching out to us. But that's again not the
only message we got. Yeah, we received some statistics, Chris
b You wrote to us as well, and Chris lives
in Cedar Rapids and gave us a few quick statistics.
(44:49):
The top speed hit at a hundred and forty miles
per hour. That's more than we said because the reporting
hadn't even come out fully yet, right right, This was
from the National a Weather Service later after we had
reported this. Ten million acres of crops are unusable. I
believe that's the point we brought up, as well as
(45:09):
far as what they would call long tail or knock
on consequences of this. Square miles of Cedar Rapids took
extensive damage. Fifty of the trees Chris estimates in the
area are gone. And Chris, I think you're a great
writer because you have lines like usually when the sirens
(45:32):
go off, in Iowa, you grab a beer and watch
the storm roll in. UH. But they couldn't because about
five minutes after the sirens went off, the wind came
in like a freight train. Where Chris is at, it
lasted for about an hour. People from across the country, arborist, electricians,
and linemen are coming to help restore things like help
(45:56):
get the power grid back and get things functioning. Chris,
you did something that I love, and I think it's
very important that we share this with our fellow listeners. Chris,
you said, if you are interested in seeing some videos
UH on pictures of the storm and the effect. We
have a group on Facebook called Iowa Directo Storm Resource Page.
(46:18):
That's where we would recommend going if you'd like to
learn more about ways that you could perhaps help UH
the area is affected by the dachel. Do you guys
have any thoughts on why this isn't getting more media coverage?
Is it just because of the election cycle and you know,
so much other stuff going on with COVID and Black
Lives Matter that it just feels like a lesser story.
(46:39):
I'm not saying, I'm just wondering, like I don't obviously
I don't think it is for those people that live there.
It's a massive story and it's also has been a
much more rare type of weather system in the past.
I just wonder why it's not getting more prominence in
the media coverage. Well, I'll tell you one reason, and
I won't fully elaborate on this. I would actually love
for you to go online and read this article that
(47:01):
I'm going to mention to support the local news in
the area. Um, if you go to the Gazette dot com,
you can read uh. It says publishing a newspaper in
the middle of a disaster. That's what the title is.
It was posted on Sunday, August of this year, and
(47:24):
it is talking specifically about the Gazette staff there in
Cedar Rapids attempting to still put out news while not
only while there has been this devastating storm where power
is still out in some places, where people are trying
to find homes, to fix their homes, to fix the
(47:46):
roads and everything. There's also a pandemic going on where
everyone is trying to be careful and function and then
to have to work amidst all of that, and when
your work is as important as journalism is, it's just
it's a lot to take in and to get done.
And I would just highly recommend everybody read that article
(48:07):
while you can and support them in any way you
can if possible, because if nobody is there to report
on what's happening from the inside, you know, then how
are we going to know what The New York Times
what's going on right or whatever else you read exactly?
Things can so easily be relegated to a remember when
throw away mentioned years later or something, And and it's
(48:31):
tough to answer that question. The news cycle continues for
there are a number of factors affecting this. First, people
are reading more news, often from more sources than they
had pre pandemic. Secondly, we have many more things occurring
(48:54):
that would like widespread countrywide protests. The fact that that
is not continually a headline in the news shows us
how the and I'm hesitant to say the media capital end,
but it shows us how a lot of those large
communication institutions are prioritizing news because they're having things that
(49:19):
they're having things they would consider headline events occurring multiple
times per week, if not per day, And there's a
hard limit on how much information a human being can process. Uh,
it's it's something that we don't quite have a workaround
for yet, like sleep, so we are we are seeing
(49:41):
these things happen. I mean, for another comparison, Uh, what
about what about the tremendous damage Donde Puerto Rico right
seems a world ago now for many people who don't
live in the area or don't specifically scan for that
in their news of choice. And there are more terrible
(50:03):
storms coming right now as we're talking about this heading
towards the United States, and that are happening across the world.
It just feels like an important time to be aware
of the weather. Hm. I would say inner and alter
m hmmm, and invest in whatever app or website or
whatever you need to do to get just a radio
(50:25):
of those emergency radio Yeah. Dark Skuys is solid. I
think it's like four bucks. I know, it's what a
lot of the film production people use. Uh, and it's
usually pretty pretty accurate. I recommend keeping a solar powered
and crank operated radio. You can get a great deal on.
This is what I include in survival kits make for
my friends. It's relatively inexpensive, and the solar stuff it's okay,
(50:52):
it's not space age technology. The important thing is the
crank if you're ever in a situation where you lose power.
A lot of these crank devices can also have a
USB attachment to charge your phone. I think it's worth
the investment to be prepared for this stuff. And and
now I'm curious about how many stories just ended up
(51:14):
being kind of come and gone flashes in the pan
of the national perspective. It's chilling to think about how
many how many things got that. I mean, the main
takeaway is that just because the news side, just because
the news cycle shifts, just because the um the segment
on a program stops for an AD break, that doesn't
(51:37):
mean the story ends. And these are real people. These
are These are people in Iowa, these are people in
Puerto Rico, these are people across the world who are
literally weathering the storm. And it's all too easy for
people to be other people to um assume that the
problem is solved because the news stop telling you about it.
(52:00):
That makes sense, Uh, it makes more than sense. I mean,
we have we're trained to like thinking and process information
and sound bites, and it's so easy to just to
move on. We just kind of have a short memory
for things. I think more and more as a as
a species. Maybe I don't know, not the third one
of the bus. I mean, it's just it's hard, and
(52:20):
news coverage kind of capitalizes on that because it's how
they make their their money. Again, so many of you've
written into us, and thank you. Just a shout out
to Kate Hayden who wrote into us about some very
specific concerns going on right now in Seedar Rapids, specifically
with some of the immigrant population that is there and
(52:41):
what families are dealing with right there. M you're the
one actually who who turned us onto that uh Cedar
Rapids Gazette story about trying to write a paper in
these conditions, so thank you for for that. There's also
a go fund Me page that you linked to us.
Check this out. This is specifically to aid Cedar Rapids
(53:02):
Refugees and immigrants. You can find that on go fund
me right now again aid Cedar Rapids Refugees and Immigrants
on go fund Me, or just google Intercultural Center of
Iowa right for the go fund me perfect that's probably
one of the easier ways to do it. Thank you again, Kate.
(53:22):
And then uh Noel, I was wondering if you would
want to read from Michael McCann, another one of our
listeners who wrote to us. He's got a very narrative
like story that he's written for us about his experience. Yes, uh,
he definitely spends quite a yarn. And he starts with
a previous experience being in an e F three tornado
(53:45):
back in two thousand eighteen, and then fast forwards to
two weeks ago, and we'll pick it up there. And
he lives in Marshall Town, which is about an hour
west of Cedar Rapids. Here we go. We were in
a thunderstorm morning, but in the Midwest we get those
almost weekly in the spring and summer. I checked the clouds,
which didn't appear to be menacing overhead. Plus the alert
(54:07):
was set to expire in about thirty minutes, so I
decided to make the fifteen minute drive from work to town,
and Holy I eventually saw in the entire western sky
what looked like an approaching tidal wave. I've never seen
anything like it in my forty years on the prairie.
The sky was turning black quickly, but I thought I'd
(54:27):
have enough time to get to my destination. As I
was pulling into the parking lot of freaking subway. My
wife called and said she was in the basement with
our son and dogs. The wind had picked up, but
nothing crazy yet, but I was glad she was being careful.
Then I got whooshed Holy again. Most thunderstorms begin with
(54:49):
some wind gusts and then the thunder boom ees it,
then it passes. This was just out of nowhere, merciless wind,
and it accelerated then more and more. I drive an
SUV and was part facing east with the storm coming
from the west. I slid down in my seat in
case something decided to come in the back window and waited.
(55:10):
Never mounted a mechanical bull but I imagine it's a
very similar ride. It was ten minutes at least of
just insane, persistent wind rocking me in my car. Wow.
I I love that, Michael. You wrote this to us
because I was wondering what it would feel like or
what it would be like, and you've described it so well.
(55:31):
Uh Wow. And and Ben to your to your point.
He ends with a couple of pro tips. Buy a
couple of bags of tea lights and stashed them. They're
worth their weight in gold. If you ever lose power
for eleven days and always have podcast downloaded to your
phone and a cell phone charger for your car. Uh.
This is stuff we want you to know, he says,
thanks so much, gentlemen, uh, and for your show. So yeah,
thank you again to everybody who wrote to us to
(55:54):
to tell us your experiences to share them with everyone
else here. Again, We're thankful that everyone is safe at
least that we've been speaking with, and we hope that
anyone out there who is dealing with loss of any
kind as a result of this storm. Um, we just
hope you're doing okay and I wish you the best,
and we need you here because if the past events
(56:18):
of taught us anything, there are only more plot twists ahead.
You are the most important part of the show. The
best ideas for stories come from you. So we want
to say thanks to you. Kate, Chris, Cynthia, Michael, Courtney,
Chase and Caesar. We have just touched upon several things
(56:40):
that we could spend hours exploring on air, and it
sounds like I always just peek behind the curtain here.
I always keep a notepad around to uh, to keep
track of things that should turn out to be future episodes.
So no promises on ease, but we didn't get to
(57:02):
a lot of the research that we had for some
of these topics. Just acts surprised in a few months,
in two weeks. And I know that if there is
an episode of stuff, they'll let you know that comes
out that you particularly love. Uh. The idea for it
very likely came from one of your fellow listeners. And
(57:24):
if you want to get in on that, you can
do it in multiple ways. I'd say, first and foremost,
give us a call at one eight three three st
d w y t k Um where you can leave
a voicemail that might end up on the show if
you don't want that to happen, and it's for our
ears only and you'd rather we just kind of recount
it and not play your voice, let us know, or
maybe you don't just want to, you know, say hi
(57:46):
to us, that's fine too, but just let us know
if you're okay with szothing on the show, and if
you want us to like, you know, hide your name
or what have you. And there are other ways to
get in touch with us as well. If you're a
fan of social media, you can find us on Facebook
and Twitter. We are at Conspiracy Stuff on Instagram. We
are at Conspiracy Stuff Show. You can message us in
(58:06):
several ways. They're One of the best things to do
on Facebook is to go to our page. Here's where
it gets crazy. You'll be able to talk with tons
of other conspiracy realists just like yourself, and you know,
discuss what what each episode is about, what you want
to talk about, share some memes, anything you want to do.
It's a great community, and we've got some fantastic people
(58:27):
running the show for us over there, and just do listeners.
You may have noticed the UH, ever so often anomalous
visual reference that we are making to ourselves in UH
in these podcasts. If you want to find out why
we're doing that, what that whole bag of badgers is about,
visit us on YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. And
(58:51):
if you are a person who enjoys YouTube comments, then
odds are I will meet you on that field of
battle sooner rather than later. I can't wait. I think
I'll give it a pass and I can't wait to
hear from you. In the meantime, while we're getting all
of those strange mechanisms in place, we don't want you
(59:12):
to delay or hesitate in contacting us. If you have
a story or a topic suggestion that is moving you,
we want to hear from you. If if phones aren't
your thing, if social media is not your thing, we
totally understand of all people. That's why we have one
way you can always contact us, regardless of the day,
regardless of the season, regardless of the time. That's our
(59:36):
good old fashioned email address. Where we are conspiracy at
i heeart radio dot com. Stuf if they don't want
(01:00:00):
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
your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer,
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson, and yes she does
require us to say the nickname in full most of
her Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
(00:48):
If you're listening to this On the day our episode publishes,
it is Thursday, which means this is our listener male segment.
For years and years, since back in the YouTube days,
we always said you, specifically, you are the most important
part of this show. And we're putting our money where
our collective figurative proverbial podcast mouth is any landing you
(01:12):
can walk away from. H We've got some good ones today,
some some pretty startling things, and we always know it's
a good one. Like I was looking back at some
of the prep we've done for this and I realized,
I realized that at least two of these are things
that we should have already done an episode on. So
thats a way of exploring these. I can go ahead
(01:33):
and kick us off if you all would like to
hear a tale of a very strange phenomenon most most definitely,
and I think I know what it is and it's
something that has fascinated I know us for a long time. Yeah, agreed.
So this this is actually a series of emails. It
(01:57):
comes from someone named Caesar. Caesar L. Caesar. You said, hello, guys,
big fan of the show, would love it if you
guys could discuss this strange and bizarre case of the
death of Jenny Saffin. I remember this being one of
the first stories of the strange and paranormal growing up
and reading about this in a paranormal and conspiracies book
(02:18):
when I was a kid at my public library. Spontaneous
human combustion, Yes, when a living person just explodes entirely.
It's an odd phenomenon. Signing off, thank you so much
for writing into the show, Caesar. I have to say,
just speaking for myself, I didn't believe we hadn't covered
(02:41):
this at first because there's so many episodes, and I
went back and I was like, but surely people are
catching on fire. Well yeah, no, I mean I didn't
realize that there was evidence of this being confirmed phenomenon.
I thought this was more of like a in the
realm of speculation and kind of fringe e stuff. But
this apparently is because coroner's ruling. Right, Well, yes, we're
(03:04):
I think we're gonna get into kind of the history
of it and how we get to this story of
Janine Staffen. Right, Ben, what what are you thinking? Do
you want to start with Janine Staffin and then go backwards? Well,
let's start. Let's start with spontaneous human combustion. Then God
the genes happen, and then we'll talk about why this
remains such a God forgive me hot topic. Uh here
(03:29):
in so not the mall store, but if you work there,
I hope you're doing well. So spontaneous combustion, right, Spontaneous
human combustion is just a creepy, controversial proposed form of
something that's very real. Spontaneous combustion when any object, due
(03:50):
to some sort of chemical reaction, burst into flames without
without being visibly ignited by an external heats worse. Right,
you you hear about these kinds of disasters happening all
the time on very small levels of very large levels.
The idea of this happening to living human beings, spontaneous
(04:13):
human combustion is generally meant to describe living human beings
catching on fire. Uh. You find the first descriptions of
this date all the way back to sixteen sixty three
a Danish anatomist named Thomas Bartholin, and he was the
first person to document in writing the concept of what
(04:34):
we call spontaneous human combustion. He describes how very unfortunate
woman in Paris apparently went up in ashes and smoke
while she was asleep. The interesting thing here, all right,
I don't want to sound cold when I say interesting,
but one of the strange things here is that she
was sleeping on a straw mattress and this mattress was
(04:57):
not damaged in any way by the fire. So how
crazy is that a fire occurred on top of straw
and it didn't burn. And this is not an uncommon
occurrence when it comes to spontaneous human combustion alleged cases,
whether the idea that it's somehow like only affects the
(05:19):
individual and not the substances or surfaces around them, right,
we'll see some of this conversation the in the specific
case that you mentioned, Caesar. It is fascinating because what
we know that I guess the way I always always
learned it. We know that fire makes friends, right. Fire
(05:41):
is a gregarious thing, so it usually will branch out
whenever it's given the opportunity to do so. So this
case in Paris is not the only case wherein someone
has apparently burned themselves out without making a mark on
the external environment. If you fast forward just a few years,
(06:01):
the sixteen seventy three, there was a French writer named
Jonas DuPont who published a collection of what he thought
of as confirmed cases of s HC. Spontaneous human combustion.
And there seems to be a pattern because hundreds of
other descriptions of varying credibility have come in the intervening decades.
(06:25):
And typically here's what happens. The victim is almost completely consumed.
They are usually in their home when this happens, and
coroners who get to the scene have occasionally described a sweet,
smoky smell in the room where this event occurred. Uh yeah,
there are also things people think they notice based on
(06:47):
the photographic evidence right of these alleged incidents of combustion,
often the corpses, torso or head maybe severely charred like
beyond recognition, but some of their extremities are intact hands, feet,
maybe parts of the limbs like the legs and the arms.
(07:09):
And two get even stranger with it. There have been
reports about s HC saying that victims didn't completely burst
into flame, they just developed strange burns on some specific
part of their body. So we know that there are
a couple of things that need to happen for spontaneous combustion. First,
(07:32):
an object has to be heated to its ignition temperature,
whatever that is right, and once it hits that point,
it will catch on fire without being exposed to an
external flame of any sort. If the heat building up
inside an object can't escape, and if it's being exposed
to a steady flow of oxygen that isn't fast enough
(07:53):
to cool it down, that we're looking at the perfect
storm for spontaneous combustion. J Ny Saffin passed away on
September twenty three, two and now this is one of
the this is one of the go to cases of
spontaneous human comquestion that paranormal researchers and authors tend to cite. Uh.
(08:16):
The jury is still very much out on this. We
know fair amount about Jenny Saffin the person. She was older.
She was sixty one years old when she passed away,
and you can read varying accounts of the family's reaction.
(08:36):
She was sitting in the kitchen with her father, and
her father was looking away, and then when he looked back,
suddenly she was aflame, and so he and his son
in law put out the fire using water from the kitchen.
They called an ambulance. She was treated on the way
to the hospital by paramedics, who was transferred to a
(08:57):
burn unit, and then she unfortunately passed away eight days
after the original fired injury. So the combustion did not
consumer in the moment, right. And there's a specific type
of fires associated with this in all these cases, especially
in this nice naty two case. Uh. The idea of
it being this very bright kind of blue flame. Um,
(09:21):
and like you said, been her brother in law has
been on the record, a guy named Don Carroll Um
didn't interview, talking about that very blue flame and how
it was shooting out of her mouth and her body
her her torso uh and he described her as roaring
like a dragon um and said that none of the
(09:42):
surfaces or materials or parts of the kitchen where they
were seated were damaged, but that her clothing melted off
of her. And it was never something that was ruled
spontaneous human combustion in the coroner report. But this gentleman
feels very certain about what he witnessed. Yeah, that's an
interesting point that we need to hit about the clothing,
(10:04):
because the the idea for what I would call orthodox
spontaneous human combustion necessitates objects in the external environment not
being burned. And originally people were arguing that Saffin herself
was burned inside unburned clothes. However, later research shows us
(10:28):
that her clothes were in fact severely burned. And you
can read a bunch of read a bunch of different
theories about what could lead to this spontaneous combustion, everything
from someone saying like a really out there idea comes
(10:48):
from a writer named Larry Arnold who says that spontaneous
combustion is the result of a new sub atomic particle
called a pyrot Uh. There's no scientific evidence, so this
this is his idea. Another explanation that might be more
plausible for some of the skeptics in the crowd is
what's called the wick effect. The ideas that when lit
(11:14):
by some kind of heat source a cigarette and ember
or something, the human body acts kind of like an
inside candle candles composed of a wick on the inside
surrounded by a wax right of flammable fatty acids, and
the wax ignites the wick and keeps it burning. In
the human body, the argument is, our body fat acts
(11:35):
as that flammable substance, and our clothing or our hair
acts as the wick. So as the fat melts away
from the heat, it soaks into our clothing and acts
like a substance that keeps the wick burning slowly. This
could be why victims bodies are destroyed, but their surroundings
seem to be barely burned because they're becoming kind of
(11:58):
like candles. But let's just talk about something here. Isn't
the human autoignition temperature, like what it would cause for
me sitting right here to catch fire all of a sudden.
Isn't it around degrees Fahrenheit's something close to that? Not
a kitchen temperature? Yeah? Right? And according to the stories
(12:19):
that came out of the Jenny Staffen ordeal. From the
I think is, would you say brother in law and
the father, it was that there was no ignition device
like a lighter or anything like that within any where
in that kitchen. There was just a pilot light on
their oven. That was the only source of flame that
(12:41):
could have ignited something. However, there's possibly a pipe, right,
There's possibly a pipe. From a couple of stories I read,
there was an un smoked or an unlit pipe that
was sitting on the kitchen table there, which would lead
one to believe that and it had fresh tobacco in it.
We would lead one to believe that perhaps a pipe
(13:02):
was smoked previously and then repacked. And I believe be
correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the idea
is that somebody knocked the pipe to get the ash out.
Perhaps the father, I believe it was his pipe, knocked
it to get it out, and then maybe an ash
or an ember or something made its way towards Jenny,
and then he continued to just work and nobody noticed,
(13:24):
and then that maybe ember had something to do with it. Well, wait,
but the way that would require like a serious accelerant,
like being doused in kerosene or a major gas leak.
I mean, just getting singed by an ember from a
pipe on its own isn't gonna do it a thing,
well except maybe say ouch. Well, you know she was
(13:44):
wearing nylon specifically, which is very and the wind well
we don't know about the wind, but the kitchen window
and the door they were open, so there could have
been across reason. But yeah, it seems like a terrible
lottery to win, doesn't it Like the idea that a
(14:06):
single ember could compromise you. And and honestly, you know,
if you've ever discovered part of your body on fire, Uh,
it's a plot twist. It's like at first, you know,
it's so shocking that you're not scared. You're just thinking, whoa,
what happens? Yeah, I mean, dude, what we're describing here
(14:27):
is like a Rube Goldberg final destination asque sequence of events.
Everything would have to be perfect, you know, for that
to actually result in her going up in flames in
that way. I do want to say, Matt, from the article,
we will get to the current day example, but from
the article you posted, I love some of the ex
explanations that have been used typically in the realm of
(14:49):
spiritual or pseudoscience. You have to explain these occurrences, things
like which is lightning psychic suicide my personal favorite, or
electrical surges um or actually this is my personal favorite,
the wrath of God. Um. Yeah, you don't want to, Yeah,
you don't want to incur the wrath of God. That's
bad news. So we know that we know that one
(15:14):
things do spontaneously combust. That's just chemistry and a again
a terrible lottery of various circumstances. Uh. Two, we know
that there is scientific proof of that explanation I mentioned earlier,
the Wick effect. In two thousand one, the Journal of
Forensic Sciences published in an account of a test that
(15:38):
the State of California's Bureau of Forensic Services performed on
a pig carcass, not a person. Uh. They wrapped it
in a blanket and they, you know, did the source
of ignition, and after a number of hours, the smoldering
fire extinguished and the part of the pig that had
burned bones and all have been reduced to ash. And
(16:01):
when they repeated this on British television and they saw
that the body In this kind of spontaneous combustion, the
body burns very slowly, with only a tiny flame or
no visible flame at all. And this is important. The
heat that's affecting this object, whether it is a person
or you know, a tub of marmalade, I guess the
(16:25):
heat that's affecting the object is so localized the very
like you will not feel the heat if you are
standing in these are days of quarantine. If you are
standing six ft or so from somebody who spontaneously combust
you will see something happening, but you won't feel the burn.
(16:45):
This this is something that like it gets associated with
paranormal activity, but there's there's solid science behind it, and
we also know there are more recent cases. It's rare,
but it's a real thing. Oh yeah, And it's not
like it's something that just happened in the eighties or
the eighteen hundreds. From the sixteen hundreds, as we've been
(17:07):
mentioning here, there are continue to there continue to be
reports of spontaneous human combustion. And we found a report
from where um an older gentleman, seventy six year old
in Ireland was found dead in his home and he
had been burned. His head was near a fireplace, which,
(17:29):
by the way, is another common thing when it comes
to cases of alleged spontaneous human combustion, being near a
fireplace but not being um. No evidence that the person
had like interacted with the fireplace in a way that
would suggest something landed on them or they put their
arm in or something caught fire. It's generally proximity to
(17:53):
a fireplace. So he was found, he was um His
charred remains were discus covered in his living room, and
the forensics, the forensics experts actually concluded in this case
that it was in fact spontaneous human combustion, unlike in
the case of Jenny Saffie. Yeah, and that was what
I was referencing at the top of the show. This
(18:14):
is an article that I think you had found, Matt,
And I was surprised to see that this was an
official inquest that was, you know, as they call it
in the uk uh an investigation into a death, that
this is on record as being that's like what they
think it was. Yeah, exactly, And to your appointment, in
(18:34):
this case, the body was burned, the floor directly below
it was charred a bit, and the ceiling was burned
a little bit, but the rest of the house was
untouched other than some smoke damage. Yeah, and that coroner
Sierra and mclaud is part of the reason that we
know about this case. I mean, let's be honest, Uh,
(18:55):
news of a tragic death in someone's home doesn't often
go past the local paper or the local obituaries. But
because mclawhan specifically says no quote here, this fire was
thoroughly investigated, and I'm left with the conclusion that this
fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion for which
(19:18):
there is no adequate explanation. Because of that quote, people
grabbed onto this, they latched onto it. And people are
still of course having that uh errant imber theory right
from the fire. Kind of bold though right for a
man of science like that to go down this road.
And this is always sort of hovered in that gray
(19:39):
area between science and pseudoscience, and that you know, a
lot of scientists have have always said that there there's
there's got to be some explanation, even if we don't
know what it is, there's got to be something, whether
that's an errant you know, ember like you're saying, or
a gas leak that wasn't detective, but there's always that
that stuff leaves leaves clues, and in this case, there
were no such clues, nor were there any excell It's
(20:00):
found on the premises at all. So it's kind of like,
I don't know, it's an interesting thing to put on
an official document um. That's what kind of grabbed me
about this one. Matt mm hmm. Agreed, And we can
go we can go deeper into the debates around spontaneous
human combustion, but the takeaways are something like this happens.
(20:23):
People acknowledge that something like this happens, and the the
big controversy and the ongoing conversation is focus specifically on
the causes of this phenomenon. We have some good explanations,
we have some remaining questions. The strangest thing about it,
I would say, is that there's not really a way
(20:47):
to prepare yourself against the possibility of spontaneous human combustion.
So what watch out day, I don't know. That's that's
that's scary. That's the scary part. It's like, whoops, okay,
I guess yeah, I gosh, that's that's certainly a fear
(21:08):
of my I have a fear of drowning and of
of of burning to death. I don't think I don't
think that's un common though. I think most people in
general are anti drowning and anti burning to death. That's
why you're not. Not all of them are anti birds,
such as yourself, noble, But you know that's okay. Like,
(21:29):
I want to clear the air here real quick. Okay,
I might play up my bird phobia a little bit
for effect here. But my kid even was like, we
were at the park and then I was pointing out
some cool looking birds and she's like, aren't you scared
of the bread? I'm like, look, I can look at birds, okay,
but they don't they don't make me totally freak out
and collapse into a quivering pool of jelly. I just
(21:51):
don't want them like under my covers or coming at me,
flying in my face. You know That's that's where I
draw the line. Well, every human being is an encyclopedic,
eclectic compendium of specific fears. Uh, And this makes me think,
you know, listeners, I'd love to hear your specific fears.
The more specific, the better. Conspiracy. At iHeart media dot com,
(22:13):
we'll tell you where to hit us on social media
later in the show, but for now we can perhaps
close the chapter on spontaneous human combustion. Thank you so
much for your suggestions, Caesar. We hope to hear more
from you in the future. So everybody, do your best
not to be on fire, or if you are somehow
on fire as you're listening to this, please stop, drop
(22:37):
and roll during our sponsor break and we'll be right back. Okay,
we're back and you're no longer on fire. Kudos to you.
Good job, you paid attention in elementary school, and now
we're going to move on to something completely different, if you,
(22:58):
if you gentlemen, don't mind, I'd like to talk a
little bit about Britney Spears. Uh yeah, let's do it
one more time. We I love talking about Britney Spears.
Do a one more time. There we go. I'm sorry,
Oh no, I'm glad you're here. That was awesome. I
don't know, man, I just remember when Brittney came out.
(23:20):
I was I don't know if I was a little
young for that demo or whatever, but I certainly was like,
who is this? And then it was more like, you know,
because she looked like this kind of nymphette kind of
almost Lolita esque figure where she was meant to be
seemed really young, and she had this weird baby voice,
(23:41):
and she was wearing like Catholic school girl outfits but
doing some very provocative dance moves. Mind you. Um, but
you know, it was one of those things where it
was like it was manufactured to be a little titillating
but also safe and not to you know, provocative, but
also kind of occupy this really interesting middle ground. Uh.
(24:03):
In same with like boy bands and and and Backstreet
Boys and in Sync and all that. Like they there's
something about them that was designed to just dip your
toe in the water of sexuality. I think Brittany, though,
with her midriff shirt and the whole kind of thrust
nous of the dance moves, might have pushed it a
little further than the boy bands did. But that was
(24:24):
me coming from like a pre pubescent tween, I guess.
So that's my memory of of early Brittany. Um, but
y'all may remember. I think it was in like two
thousand seven ish Brittany Spears had a pretty public um
struggle with mental health. She you know, kind of went
(24:46):
off the grid and was difficult for her handlers to control.
Let's say, she shaved her head, got very publicly married,
like in a Vegas ceremony, and all of that. That
was all I'm kind of con using the timelines here,
so forgive me. But at the end of the day, Uh,
she was forced into a conservatorship situation where her father
(25:11):
and some other, um, you know, kind of representatives basically
controlled not only her fortune and all of her business decisions,
but in many respects her her daily life and the
way she was able to, you know, be an independent
human being. And we got a call um about this
from Chase who wanted us to talk a little bit
(25:32):
about the hashtag free Brittany movement or conspiracy theory. Hey guys,
this is Chase calling from Seattle, Washington, and I was
interested listening to your K pop episode about because you
mentioned Britney Spears and a lot of people have been
talking recently on the internet about Britney Spears conservatorship. I
(25:53):
think that's the word. Um, the control that she's been
placed under since her breakdown in two thousand eight, and
the lack of control she has over her finances and
her life. Um, it's being brought to light recently because
of her somewhat coded posts she made on Instagram calling
for a general strike. Um in a way that is
(26:14):
a huge risk for herself. And I think this would
be a really interesting thing for you guys to look into,
whether or not you do an episode. It's just a
fascinating look at the music industry in America and what
happens to our own pop stars. UM, all right, I
hope you'll staying safe and have a good one. Thanks
for writing in Chase. This is this is an episode
(26:35):
that we had we thought about exploring in the past,
and I agree it Uh, it's illustrative of so many
problems in the entertainment industry, similar to some of the
things we explored in our episode on the Dark Side
of k Pop. Also wrote out boy bands because the
manager of several boy bands could get an episode of
(26:56):
his own. He's kind of a monster. Uh. The spears
is is still under conservatorship right now. Right, she's in
her late thirties, she's uh, she's an extremely lauded multimillionaire,
uh superstar basically, but uh, but she still has that conservatorship.
(27:21):
I believe it's her her father, right, that's the one
who controls everything, that's the main one. And I feel
like there's been a change, um in some of that
arrangement where there was a gentleman that was handling parts
of it, of the business side of things, um that
that quit very abruptly. And that's that's a that's a
(27:44):
big part of the the whole conspiracy angle of this
whole thing. And which is a great name for someone
who controls somebody else's money. By the way, Andrew Wallett,
that's that's pretty fantastic. Could you speak to his his
part in this and and maybe how his departure kind
of led to some of the speculation that there was
something kind of rotten and brittany Ville. Yes, so here's
(28:09):
what we know to be true. Britney Spears, father James
Spears Jamie to his friends, was appointed a co conservator
in two thousand and eight along with that lawyer Andrew Wallett.
Andrew Wallett has, to your pointals since resigned. I want
to say. In September of twenty nineteen, Jamie Spears temporarily
(28:33):
stepped aside, partially or apparently the media believed, due to
his own health issues, but questions about who controls what
in this person's life. She's clearly an adult, She's earned
this stuff. Shouldn't she be able to be the soul,
the sole decider of what she does with her fame,
(28:54):
her wealth, and her influence. Well. Uh, that's the origin
of the hashtag free Brittany, right, the idea that she
was being held against her will uh, and that her
father and some co conspirators were making money off the
estate but making her live like a prisoner in her
(29:17):
own home. This really upset the father by the way
he referred to Uh. He referred to the free Brittany
thing as a conspiracy theory, but he does admit there's
a conservatorship. And he specifically said there was a quote
from uh just this month actually where wherein he said,
all these conspiracy theorists don't know anything. The world don't
(29:41):
have a clue. It's up to the court of California
to decide what's best for my daughter. It's no one
else's business. Yeah, And it's interesting. There's a podcast called
Brittany's graham Um where these two comedians, Tess Barker and
Barbara Gray, talk about Brittany's Instagram posts. Since Brittany in
the past handful of years has become very very active
(30:02):
on Instagram, um as she's been largely kind of isolated
in her home, and it's become even more active during
COVID a lot of yoga videos and dance videos and
just her kind of musing on things, and I follow
it and it's a it's a pretty delightful account. Um
she just has this kind of way about her that's
very human. She's a little she comes off a little
(30:25):
I don't know, like she's the she she She strikes
me as the type of person that's been famous for
a very, very very long time. And I'm not saying
that like she comes off as like in human, quite
the opposite. She seems like someone who has handled this
in a relatively even handed way. And she obviously loves
to dance and loves to perform, but doesn't seem to
be particularly crazy about all of the other things that
(30:47):
go along with it. And those other things, by the way,
are an estimated fifty seven million dollars and assets that
are at stake here or you know, under this supervision
of this conservatorship, and I think two point seven million
dollars in cash. But on that Britney spears uh Instagram
podcast Brittney's graham Um. The host actually received an anonymous
(31:10):
phone call earlier this year from someone a paralegal that
claimed to be familiar with the situation with Andrew Wallatt
and the conservatorship, and he spoke to some potentially abusive
behavior and the idea that she was basically being forced
to take medication that she didn't want to take. UH.
(31:34):
Then they weren't specific about it, but there are some
instances of her appearing kind of drugged up UH in
certain public appearances or in certain like videos that have
been posted, etcetera. And it's this idea that she went
off her meds, whatever those might be, and then her
father or you know, in conjunction with the conservator um,
(31:55):
forced her to check herself into a mental health facility
in January. And there there's there's they point to. You know,
Brittany likes these emojis. It's very clear when she's the
one posting on her account, and there was a post
that was quite clearly not from her. It used emoticons
instead of emojis, and that was a big red flag
(32:16):
to the sleuthy hosts of the Brittany Graham podcast that
it wasn't her and something was a miss um And
you know, now she's back to posting regularly and seems fine.
But it's very interesting, you're right, Ben. It really rubbed
her father Jamie the wrong way when all this stuff
(32:36):
was out, and he called it a conspiracy theory and
said that, you know, he was just doing what's best
for his daughter. But there is a lot of money
at stake and a lot of potential for abuse when
someone maybe isn't uh fully there are able to make
those decisions, and that's what's kind of been And so
basically now there's the a c l U is gonna involved.
They're saying they're they support free Brittany movement, the idea
(32:59):
that she should get out from under this conservatorship um,
that she should be able to make her own decisions,
and that it is potentially a negative situation. There were
a few instances where users had pointed out, like someone
and posted on her Instagram comments, if you need help,
wear yellow in your next post, and then sure enough,
(33:21):
she wore a yellow top in her next post. So
you know, it's a lot of grist for the conspiracy
mill here for sure, But uh it's I don't know.
It's it's interesting because it does speak to that whole
idea of kept uh kept pop stars, keeping them under
lock and key, making sure they don't do anything to
you know, turn off the money. Fawcett. I don't know.
(33:44):
Does it just happen to pop stars? Where's a Where's
Ted Turner? When's his last public app? Oh? He's hanging
out with But what to your point too? I think
we should portray the other side of this too. Uh.
If you want to be involved. There is a change
dot org petition that has more than a hundred thousand
(34:04):
signatures right now. They are claiming that Britney Spears is
not allowed to drive, all of her communications are monitored,
she can't vote, she needs permission to spend any amount
of money, and if she is the threat, the control mechanism,
at least according to these folks, is uh, the threat
(34:26):
of having her children taken away? Uh. And you know,
the concern for people who believe in this free Brittany
idea is that her father and the business manager that
works with I guess the entity of Britney Spears Lou
Taylor of try Star Sports and Management, that they are
embezzling from her, and the father says that's untrue. But
(34:50):
I think you're right. I mean, should this maybe this
is an episode, Yeah, maybe we can, maybe we can
get Britney Spears as herself of the show. Well, she
showed me asn't leaving the house very much, except for
doing yoga on the beach um which seems to be
a public beach because there's other humans around um. But
(35:12):
even as far back before COVID, she certainly wasn't leaving
the house very much. She did do quite a few tours,
even as recently as seen that kind of a comeback tour.
And that's also something that people point to, is that
she was able to keep her you know, stuff together
long enough, you know, in order to be a functioning performer.
And you know, you can't be on the brink of
(35:35):
you can't be completely unable to live day to day
and and take care of yourself and have a relatively
normal existence and be a touring you know, musician, someone
that's at the center of a very highly choreographed live performance.
I mean, you gotta have your wits about you, you know.
So I think that certainly points to why does she
(35:55):
need this I mean, she shaved her head one time.
You know, what's the what's the big deal? I I
totally see that point. Um, I would just say, my
wife showed me this a little while ago, and we
spent some time just looking through it, and I didn't understand.
And in all honesty, and I hate to say this,
I didn't. I didn't care that much when I initially
(36:18):
looked at it. But after, you know, knowl what you've
what you've kind of shared with us today and what
we've learned from our listener and from several other people,
I'm feeling way more invested in this story, and Ben,
I think it is worth our time because we have
to remember, we don't know what happened to Brittany while
she was an up and coming artist, what it took
(36:38):
to get to the level of fame where she was, like,
what kind of manipulation and abuse she may have been
um subjected to. We don't know all the situation with
her family. We don't know a lot of things about
what's happening now. We don't know what happens behind closed
doors unless it's broadcasted, you know, on an Instagram page
or um somewhere else public maybe even with the help
(37:01):
of a PR team. So yeah, there's definitely stuff to
look at here, and I'm in now so on it.
Thanks for thanks for sharing. I agree this is something
we should look into a little deeper, I think, But
I just want to point out one thing. There's a
bunch of video of her when she was very young
on Star Search, and her voice is completely different. She
(37:21):
has a much deeper, more soulful voice, and it was
very clear that her producers pushed her into doing that
kind of infantile baby voice. Um, that is sort of
her hallmark. And even later in her career, it was
clear that she was pushed away from singing at all
and just started lip syncing. I know that's not uncommon,
but um, you know, it's definitely a little weird to
(37:45):
see someone being controlled to that degree and having zero
agency over any aspect of their career, and just obviously
kind of being treated like a cash cow by by
all of these people. I would imagine her father included,
And I don't know the specifics of that, but it's
sure seems like she's treated much more like a commodity
than a human being. I think it's incredibly optimistic, almost
(38:08):
inspiring to describe that as uncommon, I mean the the
entertainment industry as a meat grinder. Am I bringing this?
Am I making this up out of whole cloth? Didn't
she have an album that was supposed to be released
and it had actual singing? No, No, they held it back.
(38:28):
They held it back. Yeah, exactly. It was much more
her doing her full vocal performance, and I think it
was because they didn't want it to interfere with the brand. Well,
the industry assumes what the brand will be, right, and
if you want to succeed in that industry, often you
have to play ball and you have to be what
(38:49):
they You have to be the product that they wish
to sell. That's why that's why we see so much
homogeneity in popular music, because there is a definitive approach,
there is a strategy. It is constantly evolving. But it
reminds me of when I found out that there are
(39:10):
like a small handful of people who write the majority
of pop song hits and uh, Max Martin, They're not
They're not who you think they are, and they are
living like some of them live in Scandinavia. It's crazy.
They're amazing songwriters. I'm not knocking them, but I think
(39:30):
it's I think it's common for people at that level
not to have agency, are definitely not to have as
much as one might hope an ordinary human would have it. Really,
I think, you know, it was a little bit of
a divisive episode, but I quite enjoyed it. The episode
of Black Mirror with Miley Cyrus in it, where she
kind of played a Britney Spears esque character, uh named
(39:54):
Ashley Oh I believe it was her name, and it
was very clear she was being controlled in a type
of conservators ship by her kind of a wicked stepmother
type situation um who ultimately like ended up drugging her.
I don't want to spoil anything about the episode, but
the the end of the day, Ashley Oh as a
brand was very different than Ashley as a human, and
(40:15):
she was writing much more moody material and wanted to
sing in her real voice instead of being this kind
of bubblegum pop propped up kind of you know, cartoon um.
And and that's I don't know, Like I said, you
can definitely tell the stuff Brittany's posting on her personal
account is her, but she never leaves the house, and
it's it's a little. It's a little odd, but I
(40:37):
really hope you're okay, Brittany. I hope that yellow top
doesn't mean that you really do need our help. But
there's a lot of voices and you know that have
a pretty big megaphone that are that are supporting this,
like um, what's her name, um, Paris Hilton has come
out in support of this. Uh, there's um. Rose mcgallen
has has made a lot of to do about, you know,
(40:59):
believe thing that Brittany is being held, you know, against
her will essentially, and a lot of that stuff isn't confirmed.
But I don't know, it's an interesting story, sounds good.
I just want to learn more about the spinny dance
move that she does in a lot of her videos.
It's really fun, but it does seem a little odd,
and I don't know if you're telling me something or
(41:20):
maybe it's just your awesome dance, you're happy dance. I
have one of those two. We could also do coded
messages or perceived coded messages from celebrities, from people of
note and influence, but before we do that, I believe
it's time to take a pause for word from our
sponsor and check back in with the weather and we're
(41:48):
back now. You may recall, if you were listening last week,
that we talked about a strange weather phenomena called a
diretto which occurred a few weeks ago in Iowa and
a lot of the midwestern United States. And we put
out a call on that episode to anyone listening that
may have experienced it or you know, been in the
(42:10):
area seeing something firsthand. And my goodness, did you reach
out to us? And we want to take a bit
of time today just to to go over some of
the messages that we got. Let's go ahead and begin
with a message we got from Courtney. I'm just gonna
read part of this. Hey, guys, my boyfriend and I
were unfortunately one of the thousands impacted by the recent
(42:32):
directo event. We live in the midwestern suburbs of Chicago,
and it ended up being one of the areas where
an e F one tornado came through along with the directo. Um. Wow.
We found out afterwards that this tornado started two blocks
from our house. In addition, Chicago UM Weather Service reported
(42:55):
fifteen tornadoes fifteen tornadoes from this system for the Chicago
metro area. Wow. Uh. They were warned, thankfully, about thirty
minutes ahead of time by friends who happened to be meteorologists. Uh,
my goodness, make some meteorologist friends everybody. Uh, they went
and took shelter. Um, it's been very similar to what
(43:16):
we were talking about in the show. About five to
ten minutes before anything actually occurred, it was extremely still,
almost like if you're at the center of a hurricane.
Then suddenly bam, all hell broke loose out of nowhere.
Everything was so deafening it was hard to tell what
was just wind, what was rain, thunder or hail. I
think we're in our basement for about thirty minutes before
(43:38):
it seemed like the worst of it had passed. Um. Thankfully,
we can report that Courtney and her family came away
physically unscathed, but their backyard and parts of their house
it was damaged. At Courtney actually sent us some pictures
of their backyard in their home where some trees crashed
down onto the yard through then and actually slammed into
(44:01):
the porch. Um. And so she was just saying, after
photos too, it is it's it's fantastic, thank you for
sending those. And she finishes the message with our medio friends,
I guess meteorologist friends make a very poignant comment to
us following the event, stating that this storm was absolutely
remarkable in all of the ways meteorologists don't want to see. Yeah,
(44:26):
it makes a lot of sense. So, uh, we're glad
you're okay, Courtney and family, and thank you so much
for reaching out to us. But that's again not the
only message we got. Yeah, we received some statistics, Chris
b You wrote to us as well, and Chris lives
in Cedar Rapids and gave us a few quick statistics.
(44:49):
The top speed hit at a hundred and forty miles
per hour. That's more than we said because the reporting
hadn't even come out fully yet, right right, This was
from the National a Weather Service later after we had
reported this. Ten million acres of crops are unusable. I
believe that's the point we brought up, as well as
(45:09):
far as what they would call long tail or knock
on consequences of this. Square miles of Cedar Rapids took
extensive damage. Fifty of the trees Chris estimates in the
area are gone. And Chris, I think you're a great
writer because you have lines like usually when the sirens
(45:32):
go off, in Iowa, you grab a beer and watch
the storm roll in. UH. But they couldn't because about
five minutes after the sirens went off, the wind came
in like a freight train. Where Chris is at, it
lasted for about an hour. People from across the country, arborist, electricians,
and linemen are coming to help restore things like help
(45:56):
get the power grid back and get things functioning. Chris,
you did something that I love, and I think it's
very important that we share this with our fellow listeners. Chris,
you said, if you are interested in seeing some videos
UH on pictures of the storm and the effect. We
have a group on Facebook called Iowa Directo Storm Resource Page.
(46:18):
That's where we would recommend going if you'd like to
learn more about ways that you could perhaps help UH
the area is affected by the dachel. Do you guys
have any thoughts on why this isn't getting more media coverage?
Is it just because of the election cycle and you know,
so much other stuff going on with COVID and Black
Lives Matter that it just feels like a lesser story.
(46:39):
I'm not saying, I'm just wondering, like I don't obviously
I don't think it is for those people that live there.
It's a massive story and it's also has been a
much more rare type of weather system in the past.
I just wonder why it's not getting more prominence in
the media coverage. Well, I'll tell you one reason, and
I won't fully elaborate on this. I would actually love
for you to go online and read this article that
(47:01):
I'm going to mention to support the local news in
the area. Um, if you go to the Gazette dot com,
you can read uh. It says publishing a newspaper in
the middle of a disaster. That's what the title is.
It was posted on Sunday, August of this year, and
(47:24):
it is talking specifically about the Gazette staff there in
Cedar Rapids attempting to still put out news while not
only while there has been this devastating storm where power
is still out in some places, where people are trying
to find homes, to fix their homes, to fix the
(47:46):
roads and everything. There's also a pandemic going on where
everyone is trying to be careful and function and then
to have to work amidst all of that, and when
your work is as important as journalism is, it's just
it's a lot to take in and to get done.
And I would just highly recommend everybody read that article
(48:07):
while you can and support them in any way you
can if possible, because if nobody is there to report
on what's happening from the inside, you know, then how
are we going to know what The New York Times
what's going on right or whatever else you read exactly?
Things can so easily be relegated to a remember when
throw away mentioned years later or something, And and it's
(48:31):
tough to answer that question. The news cycle continues for
there are a number of factors affecting this. First, people
are reading more news, often from more sources than they
had pre pandemic. Secondly, we have many more things occurring
(48:54):
that would like widespread countrywide protests. The fact that that
is not continually a headline in the news shows us
how the and I'm hesitant to say the media capital end,
but it shows us how a lot of those large
communication institutions are prioritizing news because they're having things that
(49:19):
they're having things they would consider headline events occurring multiple
times per week, if not per day, And there's a
hard limit on how much information a human being can process. Uh,
it's it's something that we don't quite have a workaround
for yet, like sleep, so we are we are seeing
(49:41):
these things happen. I mean, for another comparison, Uh, what
about what about the tremendous damage Donde Puerto Rico right
seems a world ago now for many people who don't
live in the area or don't specifically scan for that
in their news of choice. And there are more terrible
(50:03):
storms coming right now as we're talking about this heading
towards the United States, and that are happening across the world.
It just feels like an important time to be aware
of the weather. Hm. I would say inner and alter
m hmmm, and invest in whatever app or website or
whatever you need to do to get just a radio
(50:25):
of those emergency radio Yeah. Dark Skuys is solid. I
think it's like four bucks. I know, it's what a
lot of the film production people use. Uh, and it's
usually pretty pretty accurate. I recommend keeping a solar powered
and crank operated radio. You can get a great deal on.
This is what I include in survival kits make for
my friends. It's relatively inexpensive, and the solar stuff it's okay,
(50:52):
it's not space age technology. The important thing is the
crank if you're ever in a situation where you lose power.
A lot of these crank devices can also have a
USB attachment to charge your phone. I think it's worth
the investment to be prepared for this stuff. And and
now I'm curious about how many stories just ended up
(51:14):
being kind of come and gone flashes in the pan
of the national perspective. It's chilling to think about how
many how many things got that. I mean, the main
takeaway is that just because the news side, just because
the news cycle shifts, just because the um the segment
on a program stops for an AD break, that doesn't
(51:37):
mean the story ends. And these are real people. These
are These are people in Iowa, these are people in
Puerto Rico, these are people across the world who are
literally weathering the storm. And it's all too easy for
people to be other people to um assume that the
problem is solved because the news stop telling you about it.
(52:00):
That makes sense, Uh, it makes more than sense. I mean,
we have we're trained to like thinking and process information
and sound bites, and it's so easy to just to
move on. We just kind of have a short memory
for things. I think more and more as a as
a species. Maybe I don't know, not the third one
of the bus. I mean, it's just it's hard, and
(52:20):
news coverage kind of capitalizes on that because it's how
they make their their money. Again, so many of you've
written into us, and thank you. Just a shout out
to Kate Hayden who wrote into us about some very
specific concerns going on right now in Seedar Rapids, specifically
with some of the immigrant population that is there and
(52:41):
what families are dealing with right there. M you're the
one actually who who turned us onto that uh Cedar
Rapids Gazette story about trying to write a paper in
these conditions, so thank you for for that. There's also
a go fund Me page that you linked to us.
Check this out. This is specifically to aid Cedar Rapids
(53:02):
Refugees and immigrants. You can find that on go fund
me right now again aid Cedar Rapids Refugees and Immigrants
on go fund Me, or just google Intercultural Center of
Iowa right for the go fund me perfect that's probably
one of the easier ways to do it. Thank you again, Kate.
(53:22):
And then uh Noel, I was wondering if you would
want to read from Michael McCann, another one of our
listeners who wrote to us. He's got a very narrative
like story that he's written for us about his experience. Yes, uh,
he definitely spends quite a yarn. And he starts with
a previous experience being in an e F three tornado
(53:45):
back in two thousand eighteen, and then fast forwards to
two weeks ago, and we'll pick it up there. And
he lives in Marshall Town, which is about an hour
west of Cedar Rapids. Here we go. We were in
a thunderstorm morning, but in the Midwest we get those
almost weekly in the spring and summer. I checked the clouds,
which didn't appear to be menacing overhead. Plus the alert
(54:07):
was set to expire in about thirty minutes, so I
decided to make the fifteen minute drive from work to town,
and Holy I eventually saw in the entire western sky
what looked like an approaching tidal wave. I've never seen
anything like it in my forty years on the prairie.
The sky was turning black quickly, but I thought I'd
(54:27):
have enough time to get to my destination. As I
was pulling into the parking lot of freaking subway. My
wife called and said she was in the basement with
our son and dogs. The wind had picked up, but
nothing crazy yet, but I was glad she was being careful.
Then I got whooshed Holy again. Most thunderstorms begin with
(54:49):
some wind gusts and then the thunder boom ees it,
then it passes. This was just out of nowhere, merciless wind,
and it accelerated then more and more. I drive an
SUV and was part facing east with the storm coming
from the west. I slid down in my seat in
case something decided to come in the back window and waited.
(55:10):
Never mounted a mechanical bull but I imagine it's a
very similar ride. It was ten minutes at least of
just insane, persistent wind rocking me in my car. Wow.
I I love that, Michael. You wrote this to us
because I was wondering what it would feel like or
what it would be like, and you've described it so well.
(55:31):
Uh Wow. And and Ben to your to your point.
He ends with a couple of pro tips. Buy a
couple of bags of tea lights and stashed them. They're
worth their weight in gold. If you ever lose power
for eleven days and always have podcast downloaded to your
phone and a cell phone charger for your car. Uh.
This is stuff we want you to know, he says,
thanks so much, gentlemen, uh, and for your show. So yeah,
thank you again to everybody who wrote to us to
(55:54):
to tell us your experiences to share them with everyone
else here. Again, We're thankful that everyone is safe at
least that we've been speaking with, and we hope that
anyone out there who is dealing with loss of any
kind as a result of this storm. Um, we just
hope you're doing okay and I wish you the best,
and we need you here because if the past events
(56:18):
of taught us anything, there are only more plot twists ahead.
You are the most important part of the show. The
best ideas for stories come from you. So we want
to say thanks to you. Kate, Chris, Cynthia, Michael, Courtney,
Chase and Caesar. We have just touched upon several things
(56:40):
that we could spend hours exploring on air, and it
sounds like I always just peek behind the curtain here.
I always keep a notepad around to uh, to keep
track of things that should turn out to be future episodes.
So no promises on ease, but we didn't get to
(57:02):
a lot of the research that we had for some
of these topics. Just acts surprised in a few months,
in two weeks. And I know that if there is
an episode of stuff, they'll let you know that comes
out that you particularly love. Uh. The idea for it
very likely came from one of your fellow listeners. And
(57:24):
if you want to get in on that, you can
do it in multiple ways. I'd say, first and foremost,
give us a call at one eight three three st
d w y t k Um where you can leave
a voicemail that might end up on the show if
you don't want that to happen, and it's for our
ears only and you'd rather we just kind of recount
it and not play your voice, let us know, or
maybe you don't just want to, you know, say hi
(57:46):
to us, that's fine too, but just let us know
if you're okay with szothing on the show, and if
you want us to like, you know, hide your name
or what have you. And there are other ways to
get in touch with us as well. If you're a
fan of social media, you can find us on Facebook
and Twitter. We are at Conspiracy Stuff on Instagram. We
are at Conspiracy Stuff Show. You can message us in
(58:06):
several ways. They're One of the best things to do
on Facebook is to go to our page. Here's where
it gets crazy. You'll be able to talk with tons
of other conspiracy realists just like yourself, and you know,
discuss what what each episode is about, what you want
to talk about, share some memes, anything you want to do.
It's a great community, and we've got some fantastic people
(58:27):
running the show for us over there, and just do listeners.
You may have noticed the UH, ever so often anomalous
visual reference that we are making to ourselves in UH
in these podcasts. If you want to find out why
we're doing that, what that whole bag of badgers is about,
visit us on YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff. And
(58:51):
if you are a person who enjoys YouTube comments, then
odds are I will meet you on that field of
battle sooner rather than later. I can't wait. I think
I'll give it a pass and I can't wait to
hear from you. In the meantime, while we're getting all
of those strange mechanisms in place, we don't want you
(59:12):
to delay or hesitate in contacting us. If you have
a story or a topic suggestion that is moving you,
we want to hear from you. If if phones aren't
your thing, if social media is not your thing, we
totally understand of all people. That's why we have one
way you can always contact us, regardless of the day,
regardless of the season, regardless of the time. That's our
(59:36):
good old fashioned email address. Where we are conspiracy at
i heeart radio dot com. Stuf if they don't want
(01:00:00):
you to know, is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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