July 8, 2021 • 54 mins
Multiple Conspiracy Realists write in to ask about the death of John McAfee. A listener wonders about the history of newspaper slogans, and a call asks for more information about the bizarre story surrounding the death of John Lang. All this and more in this week's listener mail.
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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.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Long time listeners, this is
the part of the week where the show features you
(00:48):
ASTI usually three people, but this is the This is
the time of the week where we go through all
the correspondencies that we have received, all the emails, all
the phone calls, and we share your stories with your
fellow conspiracy realist. We're gonna be talking a little bit
about the slippery slope of framing headline. We're gonna be
(01:11):
talking about some mysterious deaths, and maybe we start there
because you know, guys, I'd like to make a clarification.
Earlier this week, at the very top of the show,
we mentioned the death of John McAfee and if it's
okay with everyone, I proposed that we start there, yes, please, yeah,
(01:35):
another person found dead by suicide in a prison Zell.
I suppose it's possible that by now that you know,
what what do you call that kill switch or the
dead dead hand will have been initiated. But I don't know.
The guy's got a history of crazy behavior and drug abuse,
so I also wouldn't put it past him to have
(01:55):
just kind of led to his own demise, which this
is why I decided, you know, and strange news. I
had said, we want everybody to know that we are
aware of this death. Uh, and we are doing a
full episode. We're still doing a full episode in the
near future. We thought, given how many people have written in,
it would be helpful for us to give a little
(02:18):
bit of context, a little bit of background point to
some of the controversies and some of the conspiracy. So
here we go, just choosing two quick emails because I
really enjoyed them. First, Thomas, Thomas, you wrote in with
a title your email that I quite enjoyed, it's the
death of Yeah boy. Why a apostrophe bo I? And
(02:43):
you know, Thomas chooses his words carefully. He wants them
to have the maximum impact, which I agree with and
here is his email in full. John McAfee didn't kill himself.
That's it. That's that's the email. And we also have
some people in the crowd who agree with you, Thomas,
(03:04):
such as Kurt, who said, did you hear the unfortunate
news that John McAfee took his own life? Or did he?
I think this would make for an interesting news update
or full episode. Keep up the great work, Thanks Curtis
uh And then he provides a little bit of context,
(03:26):
a little bit of the concerns this This of course
has shades of Epstein, right, Jeffrey Epstein, the child trafficker,
serial abuser, networker with billionaires. When he was found dead,
people were certain that he had been murdered and his
(03:47):
the scene of his death had been made to look
like a suicide. We covered this in three different episodes
in a series that still holds up today. I love
that book series Fifty Shades of Epstein, really gripping stuff.
And you know the thing is that these cases aren't
quite they aren't quite the same. They have some commonalities, right,
(04:08):
that are being hit upon in a lot of media
coverage and a lot of speculation. But when we look
at the case of McAfee. You know, we learned that
he was a very different person in comparison to Epstein.
And honestly, you know all the cards on the table, folks.
I don't know about you, Matt, Noel and Doc, but uh,
(04:31):
I still feel like the official conclusion on Epstein's death
leaves a lot to be desired and there there's some
real questions that need to be answered concerning irregularities and
the investigation, the prison guards, the highway bone, the list
goes on again. You can hear them in our full episode.
But today we're going to take a page from Curtis
(04:53):
and Thomas and look at the death of John David
McAfee to give you a bit of a pri or
before we do our full episode. So he was found
dead on June just a few days ago as we
record this, and he was in the Brian's Too Penitentiary Center,
(05:13):
which is near Barcelona, Spain. His death came mere hours
after the National Court of Spain had ordered that he'd
be extradited back to the US on criminal charges. And
what's interesting about this right now, this is an ongoing
emerging story, is that while he was alive on several occasions,
(05:38):
he would say things like He would say things like,
if I'm ever found dead by hanging, it will mean
that I was murdered. Do you want to say exactly?
He has a quote here from Twitter referencing Epstein hit
us with it. Yeah, says know that if I hang
myself Alah Epstein, it will be no fault of mine. Yeah. Yeah.
(06:03):
He also had a post where he said quote getting
subtle messages from US officials saying in effect, we're coming
for you McAfee, We're going to kill yourself. Yes, that's
how he wrote it. And then he says, I got
a tattoo to date just in case if I suicide myself.
I didn't, I was whacked with no eat. Check doesn't
(06:23):
have mad tattoos. Doesn't he have like fullback tattoos or like, yeah,
that's what I say that check my right arm part
directly references a tattoo that he has in kind of
a tribal style. He also, as he said with a
dead hand approach, noted that if I'm arrested I disappear,
thirty one plus terabytes of incriminating data will be released
(06:46):
to the press. He said that later this this dead
man switch or dead hand is something we talked about before.
It's the idea of taking posthumous revenge from beyond the
grave by have a mechanism in place which is not
that hard to do that requires you to check in
on a verified regular basis of some sort. And if
(07:10):
you fail to do that check in on schedule, then
it starts the ball rolling too. A release of whatever
juice or leverage you have over your enemies or whomever
you think is trying to kill you. It could be
something as simple as a scheduled social media post, you know,
like we do stuff like that all the time, or
(07:30):
even like a scheduled text message that like sends out
to a group or something you know absolutely and three
days before he passed away on June, his wife said
that Uncle Sam wanted him to die in prison. Specifically,
she said John's honesty has gotten him into trouble with
(07:51):
corrupt governments and corrupt government officials because of his outspoken
nature and his refusal to be extorted, intimidated, or silenced.
Now the U S authorities are determined to have John
Dye in prison to make an example of him for
speaking out against the corruption within their government agencies, and
then of course that posthumous Instagram post that was an
(08:12):
image of the letter Q. This has been, by the way,
taken down afterwards, so you won't see it on his
Instagram today. It's strange right now, the official conclusion is
that he died as a result of suicide, Like the
autopsy results are back. They've been released, and they appear
(08:35):
to confirm that he took his own life via hanging himself.
But his lawyer said he didn't have any suicidal ideation.
His family obviously, as you can tell, is not buying
the official explanation. But there's something else that happened just yesterday.
I've found this first in the New York Post, but
(08:57):
you can find it in multiple sources. Apparently there was
a suicide note found in his pocket when he was
discovered dead. You guys heard about that, right, Like that
just happened. Yeah, yeah, that was released. Was that with
the autopsy report or the official report on the heels
of it? Yeah? I don't know, man. Can I bring
(09:19):
up a tweet that that John McAfee's the official McAfee
I think it's yeah, at official McAfee went out on MA.
I just thought you guys might find this interesting. Because
I'm trying to analyze I don't know, maybe the thought
the thoughts that are happening here. Many of the tweets
are about how terrible prison is that? That are that
(09:42):
you can find on that official Twitter account. Now stuff
mentioning sorrow, uh sorrow masked with like I forget exactly
what it was, and you can find stuff like this
one today, a man facing a difficult situation asked if
I knew of painless ways to kill himself. Having little
experience in such I was of not much help. The
(10:04):
amazing thing is that the tone of the discussion was
like discussing the weather. Prison is a strange environment, um,
not that that has anything to do with his mindset
and when he was going through it is just put
I don't know, putting it out there that many of
the other people, perhaps that John was encountering, we're feeling
(10:26):
like self harm was perhaps an answer, I see what
you're saying. Yeah. And and to clarify he was being
extradited for tax evasion, It wasn't. That's another thing that
differentiates it from like the Epstein case. He wasn't. He
wasn't suspected at this point of the horrific crimes that
(10:49):
Jeffrey Epstein and his network committed. Prosecutors specifically in Tennessee
said that from fourteen to eighteen, McAfee had not been
reporting income and he had been evading taxes, and apparently
he was making money hand over fist, promoting cryptocurrency and
(11:11):
doing speaking engagements. But you can find statements from him
where he's like, I don't have some hidden crypto fortune.
He objected to that, but the the indictments were pretty heavy,
and if convicted, he would have been in prison for
up to thirty years, and if you know the US
(11:32):
justice system, then it's somewhat rare for people to serve
the entirety of that time. But he still would have
no matter how you slice it, he would have been
looking at years in prison, probably less than thirty, but
definitely wouldn't be getting out, you know, a week later.
And he said and he also once Twitter said, uh,
(11:54):
he admitted to this. Though he admitted to the charges,
he wasn't prevaricating or try to make things up. He said,
I have not paid taxes for eight years. I have
not filed returns. Every year I tell the I R S,
I am not filing a return. I have no intention
of doing so, come and find me. Wasn't he also
(12:15):
in trouble for like pump and dump schemes with crypto,
with like golf coins and all that, like yeah, yeah, yeah,
And he's he's talking shade about Elon Musk on his
Twitter account. Uh, listen to this? Can I just read
one more tweet from him? Not peranc man? He was
a character? Very is it? January three tweet? No, this
(12:35):
one's from May of this year, says Bill Gates is
sued for divorce because of multiple affairs and hanging with
the Epstein crowd. Surely this is a joke. Bill makes
Mark Zuckerberg look like a sex god. Wow. I mean
he really he really kind of went after him on
a physical level, there, didn't he It attacked his manhood,
(12:59):
you could say, right, his virility even that he's sort
of ancuous little guy. Yeah. McAfee is definitely. Um. You
know the story of his life is filled with controversy,
filled with crazy claims, crazy not quite proven speculation, and
then very very wild, very well proven things. Uh do
(13:23):
you want to give one more tweets? Here? In January three,
he said, quote, I have not filed a tax return
for eight years. Why number one taxation is illegal? We
should mention he was formerly aiming to be the Libertarian
candidate for the presidency. Uh too. I paid tens of
millions already and received jack in services. Three. I've done
(13:46):
making money. I live off of cash from McAfee Incorporated.
My neck income is negative. I am a prime target
for the i R S here. I am like there's
some baiting going on here. Oh yeah, there is. Yeah,
But just if you're trying to think about his mindset again,
he's saying all that right then he gets caught. He's
in prison. He's facing federal charges and extradition. May twenty three,
(14:11):
day after the bill gates one, he says, I once
had everything after uncountable lawsuits in the reach of the Feds.
I now have nothing but inside these prison bars. I
have never felt more free. The things you believe you
own in reality on you, which is I mean that
last part is a philosophy that I think, I think
(14:34):
most people can agree with at some point in their lives. Yeah,
but but just thinking about mindset, he you can't definitively
say anything from a series of you know, tweets that
are sent out by somebody, But uh, I don't know,
it's just maybe it's just interesting, interesting to talk about.
And I'm falling prey to this like desire to to speculate.
(14:55):
But I don't know, it's interesting to think about. I've
always wondered too. I mean, surely the McAfee company has
like a board of directors or you know, is a
publicly traded company. I'm not really sure. Um, but with
all of the negative press that he's received over the years,
I mean, did he just sell it and then they
kept his name or has he always been the head
(15:17):
of this company and continued to run it in some
form of fashion? Uh? Yeah, good question. He resigned in
so yeah, he sold his stake in the operation, and
then he proceeded to become one of its most ardent critics.
And he was actually telling people you need to uninstalled
(15:40):
any anti virus software from that company. I think it's bloatwear.
And he was against them using his name too. But
my question is why would they? I mean, like, for me,
when I realized it was the same person, my mind
was blown because you think of anti virus software as
being just that bloatwear and kind of like necessary. Uh.
(16:01):
Pretty ineffective UM software. This slows your computer down, honestly,
sometimes more than the things that's trying to protect you from.
And I'm like, how could this possibly be the same guy?
I thought it was a joke. Uh, And then sure
enough it's not. But why do you think that the
current company, you know, board of directors continued using his name,
given the fact that he's outwardly attacking them and uh,
(16:24):
and that he's just this kind of like really divisive character.
I think it's name recognition, because we have to realize,
you know, back in the nineties UM, a lot of
casual computer users probably wouldn't have known his life story.
And then, as we'll find full episode, he had plenty
of adventures ahead. Misadventures might be a better word, but
(16:46):
from what I understand, and they only need to do
some more digging here he was At some point McAfee.
The company tried to rebrand under Intel or something like that,
and they ran into a problem. People who people who
had already been familiar with this software under the name McAfee,
(17:10):
wanted to keep it because if you change the name,
they'll think it's something different, right, and then sales will plummet,
and the bottom line is, you know, as the main
focus for a lot of organizations of this size. But
be that as it may, Yes, there are there are
a lot of strange things surrounding John McAfee's death, and
(17:32):
the circumstances of his death, as well as the location,
are making it tougher for Uncle Sam to seize his assets.
That's some of the that's some of the breaking news now.
Earlier this morning, as we record, Bloomberg noted that the
US is going to have a tough time getting ahold
(17:53):
of whatever assets they think he still possessed at the
time of death. So we're going to return to this
very soon, because again, while there are arguably real suspicious
things about his demise, his life itself is a story
worth telling and worth exploring. We're going to run into
(18:15):
some interesting things, some plot twist you may not expect.
Look for that in the near future. And in the meantime,
let's take a pause for a word from our sponsors,
y odd if it was McAfee, wouldn't it, And we'll
return with more letters from you, And we're back with
(18:37):
stuff they don't want you to know. The Listener Mail Edition,
all the Listener Mail. It's fit to speak on a podcast.
That's our our our tagline, I see what you're doing,
and it isn't really but this is a thing, you guys,
and it's something that I really didn't give much thought
to until the Washington Post changed their tagline from something
(19:00):
much more innocuous. I think it was like we Dig
Deeper or something like that, to Democracy dies in darkness.
You guys, remember that. It was quite the news story. Um.
There's obviously a couple of ways you can read that.
You can read that as like, you know, in the
absence of light, democracy will shrink and die, or you
can look at it as a uh crushing admonition of
(19:23):
the Trump presidency. Obviously they were at odds with each other,
the Washington Post in particular, and also the New York Times. UM,
Trump would would attack them frequently. So you could also
just look at it as like a yep, democracy is
currently dying in darkness, because that is what we are
in right now. Is is a dark age. UM. But
it's interesting because it really does have, you know, dual meetings,
(19:43):
and and it led me and also our listener feather
Cap to wonder about the history of newspaper taglines. UM.
So here's here's a letter from feather Cap. Greetings, longtime listener,
since Wow, okay, love the show. I was listening to
Everything Is Alive on Saturday. It's a podcast that I
don't think I know, but I need to check it out.
(20:05):
At some point during the podcast, I heard an interesting
fact toyed newspapers have slogans. In this case, the guy
mentions the slogan for the Washington Post democracy dies in Darkness.
I had no idea that newspapers have slogans. This could
be an interesting topic. Not a complete show, but a
brief segment. I think O this would be interesting hearing
about newspaper slogans, history of best ones, worst ones, etcetera.
(20:25):
Thanks for the amazing show, keep on keeping on, peace
and love, feather cap Um. I completely agree. Probably not
a whole episode's worth, but definitely something UH worth discussing here. UM. Briefly,
I found a real cool article from c j R
dot org that's the Columbia Journalism Review UH that again
(20:46):
references this dramatic Washington Post slogan change um, and it
kind of led them to dig a little deeper and
go down the rabbit hole of where did these come from?
UM and n y U that in In this article
by Tony Reagan, UH, he quotes a professor from n
y USE, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute gentleman. Also his
(21:09):
name's Mitchell Stevens. By the way, he also wrote a
book called UH History of News, and he says this
newspapers and other products of the printing press were some
of the first mass produced products. Never thought about that way,
but it absolutely makes sense. The printing press allowed text
and print and stories and news to be you know,
(21:29):
duplicated many, many, many many times. It was one of
the first examples of mass production. UH. He goes on
to say slogans on the ears of the front page
were the most regular and visible way to advertise UM.
He goes on even to talk about how during frontier times, UH,
there were small newspapers that would pop up. For example,
if you think about UM the newspaperman in Deadwood, the
(21:53):
TV show about the Old West. UM. I can't remember
what it was, but pretty sure his little newspaper had
a had a slogan UM. So, for example, they talked
about in seventeen seventy five, there were three different newspapers
around the Williamsburg area UH in Virginia that were called
the Virginia Gazette. But each of them carried a different tagline,
and the whole point was to differentiate your brand and
(22:15):
make you stand out from the competition, oftentimes which had
the exact same name. So this was crucial. Uh. One
of them was containing the freshest advices foreign and domestic. Um.
The other was open to all parties but influenced by
none really like that one. And then the last one
was always for liberty and the public good of course,
(22:36):
public spelled with a C k um. But Yeah, I
don't know, guys, is this something you've ever noticed or
really paid much attention to, beyond when we obviously had
that very um, you know, soapboxy dramatic switch by the
Washington Post. Yeah. I'm interested in this because it's it's
an argument for language, and it's also is something a
(23:00):
little bit forensic about looking looking at the evolution of
slogans over time. There's a there's a cool article that
you might enjoy, a feather cap on the outline dot
com by Adrian Jeffreys that runs through this pinopoly, this
wide variety of of mottos, and you can find you
(23:24):
can find some funny history here. There's some that are
Many are vaguely inspirational, some are pretty ambitious, a couple
are vaguely threatening. Some are are just so confident. For
a long time, apparently the Chicago Tribunes motto was the
world's greatest newspaper. And then later there was an adult
(23:47):
magazine called Screw, And this is all from that article
and Screw when they started, they took the Chicago Tribunes motto.
So if you were in the you know, through in
the dirty part of the bookstore, you would also there
see something billy itself as the world's greatest newspaper. But this,
(24:07):
this is all framing, right, this all matters. This is
like a business card for these enterprises to assure readers
of their objectivity and their commitment to credibility and so
people I can only menage and spend a lot of
time thinking about economy of language, how to make the
most impact the smallest amount of words, just like our
(24:29):
pal Thomas from earlier. Uh, there there's some, there's some
great ones. As a matter of fact, in this article,
Jeffreys includes the motto for her own outfit that she's
writing for. For the outline and their tagline is it's
not for everyone, It's for you. Oh gosh, that's clever. Uh.
(24:50):
There's a really fun one and an interesting change that
kind of I guess. Uh. It is probably one of
the most famous of taglines, even if you don't know
where it comes from. Uh. For the New York Times. Uh.
Initially in eighteen ninety six Eightolf ox Or I think
it's probably Oaks O. C. H. S Um. He was
a Chattanooga newspaperman and he bought The New York Times,
(25:14):
which was at the time actually going under Um, and
he had a contest to see what the new slogan
might be, and the winner was it will not soil
the breakfast cloth. And the implication is cloth, the breakfast cloth.
That sounds like something up well, it sounds like in
(25:34):
the bed or something, you know. I mean, like, really,
it will not soil the breakfast cloth. Like it's when
you used to have breakfast every morning, you'd all first,
before you do anything, you'd roll out the breakfast claw,
possibly with a sort of a checkerboard pattern design on it,
you know, or some flowers. We did have tables like aristocrats. No,
(25:58):
I'm also thinking like like someone's like, and if I
had any regrets over the course of my long life,
would be not sharing the breakfast cloth. But the thing is,
they're also telling you the ink is dried. That's what
they're You're right, it is a quality control thing. They're
(26:19):
they're attesting to the quality of their ink and their
actual like and it's not gonna get your hands all inky.
But they're also saying it's not spewing all the same
kind of garbage that a lot of the yellow journalists,
like William Randolph Hurst's papers were, uh, The Journal and
and the Pulitzer's World for example. Again, I'm pulling a
lot of this information from this excellent Columbia Journalism Review
(26:41):
article that you should read in its entirety. Um. But
it was setting his paper apart from those because that
yellow journalism was all about salacious headlines and if it bleeds,
it leads and all that stuff. And he wanted The
New York Times to be much more like a thinking
man's newspaper, you know. Um. And so eventually he got
rid of the breakfast cloth, which probably already wasn't aging
(27:03):
particularly well. Shame yeah, I know, it really hasn't changed
it to again, what's a pretty popular phrase that I
didn't realize even was associated with The Times, which is
all the news that's fit to print. I got it.
I still I'm over the moon about breakfast cloth, like
it could be used for so many weird things. Why
don't we make it? Why don't we make it a
(27:24):
term of endearment? My little breakfast cloth. It's a little
it's a little weird. I gotta give it shout out though.
My favorite so far of these and thank you for
taking us down this rabbit hole. Of my favorite so
far of these is comes from Mason Valley News in Yarrington, Nevada.
(27:44):
This site in the article you mentioned earlier, it is
quote the only newspaper in the world. It gives a
damn about Yarrington. It's brilliant. No, listen, when I when
I go out there and I pick up my dollar
maybe two dollar newspaper just depends on where I am.
I want to know, is there a publication that is
(28:06):
in any way threatening, like their slogan is specifically a threat.
Does that exist? Yeah, it does, It does matter. I
think you know it does. I think I'm gonna needs
you to give it to us. Well, if you're If
you're hanging out in Aspen and you pick up a
copy of the Aspen Daily, as Matthew Cassel did and
then he tweeted a picture of it, you will find
(28:28):
that this publication, The Daily Aspen warns you and everyone
who may pick it up if you don't want it printed,
don't let it happen. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty great. Uh.
This one, on the other hand, from the Detroit News
definitely feels like a threat and it's we know where
(28:49):
you live. Fantastic again, implication being we know Detroit, which
is where you live, but it's also vaguely sinister. They're like,
we're coming for you, dear reader, if you're a subscriber. Yeah,
that's hilarious. Wow, I just said you guys. Another one,
(29:09):
this is fun the newspaper for those who can read.
This is from Nasha, Canada. Beautiful. Yeah, this is fascinating
And and also I think you could argue that in
this situation, some of these newspapers have made a little
bit of false advertising, right or they've like, like, newspapers
(29:30):
do take a stance, a journalistic stance on any number
of things. Um, but but it's fascinating because so much
time and energy is spent in the mechanics of language
for journalism, like I will always love a good snarky,
trashy British headline from from even like the very you know,
(29:53):
the papers of records and stuff. Even those folks will
we'll go nuts, will get susy it with a a
good headline. And uh, I think there's an order to it.
You know, I think there's an order to it. I
completely agree. I have to issue a slight retraction. All
of the other ones in this USA Today column were correct,
but it appears that the Detroit News we Know where
(30:15):
you Live isn't real. Every other one in here is real,
and it doesn't seem to be a parody column. Very strange.
It's by Jerry mitchell Um from the Jackson, Missippi Clarion
Ledger and the title is early column Slogans, State of Newspapers,
Truth and Changing Times. But I tried to Google because
it does seem just so perfect and and bizarre, and
(30:38):
I couldn't find any references to it. So I don't know, Doc,
you're from Detroit, you ever heard of the Detroit News
we Know where you Live? Or the Detroit Free Press. Well,
the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press are definitely
like the two biggest newspapers in Detroit. But I've never
heard that slogan before. Whamp wamp wamp Well anyway, check
your sources, Jerry Mitchell I in um anyway. But yeah,
(31:02):
all of the all of the rest of these are
absolutely correct and real, and um, you're right then. I mean,
remember when I don't know if they still do this,
but remember when newspapers used to endorse a political candidate. Yes, yeah, yeah,
but but some during you know, I know, because the
Trump administration was quite divisive, they chose to abstain. I
(31:22):
believe or there was definitely some of that tradition was
broken during that election. Yeah. We run into this sometimes
when we see something that's a national rather than a
regional publication. Right, So it's a matter of ethics and economics,
I would pause it, meaning that you want to keep
your circulation as high as possible across the nation, meaning
(31:46):
that there are three hundred and twenty million plus people
who rarely agree on anything, and so you're definitely drawing
a line in the sand if you say, hey, this
is our guy, please stay subscribed to our paper. You know,
what I mean, Like, I so maybe maybe it's a
safety thing, or maybe the the just tenor of news
(32:10):
has has changed because we have to consider, you know what,
the rise of television, a lot of newspapers ended up
taking a hit in circulation, and with the rise of
online news or online sources purporting to be news, than
what we found was that people were getting a lot
of their news and reporting from television channels that already
(32:34):
had well established their perspective and whatever biased they might
have or wherever they sit in terms of the political spectrum,
Like it's obvious, right, regardless of how you feel on
the subject of which is right or which is wrong,
it's obvious that Fox News is right wing, and it's
obvious that MSNBC is left wing. So the argument would
(32:58):
be that with television, they're get news sources that aren't objective,
and the papers are trying to show that they are
objective even when that is not the case. Which is
so funny because I mean, you know, it's not like
CNN calls themselves a liberal news network, or that Fox
calls themselves conservative news net. I mean, I guess they
do sort of, but it's not it's not front and center.
(33:20):
It's just more something that you have to kind of
like pull from their ideology that for certain networks can
be more nuanced. Like I always get confused, like what
is MSNBC. I think they're liberal, but I it's like,
it's weird that we have to make that distinction, almost
in the same way that like we do with candidates,
because it really is like a lot of different things
taken in totality that make you that one thing or
(33:41):
the other, And why can't it be like shades of
that thing, you know what I mean? It seem like
there's room for many political ideologies in the news, but
I honestly, there shouldn't be any at all. It should
all be objective, but there's always going to be kind
of an agenda, and I think we see that with
these taglines there. That's where they're sort of drawing their
line in the sand, right, like the whole spe specifically
(34:01):
some of the older ones where it was like I
think there was one that I mentioned that was implying
that it was open to both parties but leaning towards
not one in particular. I'm obviously they don't pay me
to write newspaper taglines. Oh I got what uh podcasting
read with your ears? All right, we'll workshop it everybody.
(34:23):
What was that when we did for Miller lighte bend?
I think that was so good you can drink it
with your mouth. Mhm, yep, we gave we we gave,
we gave that one to them. Wow, I think it.
See you like it? You like it? Right? Bat now
you're thinking about high school Miller Light and putting your
mouth on It wouldn't be a segment if we didn't
(34:46):
end it with a a couple of pithy AI generated
slogans of our own, because that's something we definitely do
all the time. I found a website called Slogan generator
dot org. So let's see what if I type in,
it only lets you put in one word. So for
this one, I'm gonna use beer. And then I'd love
each of you to give one and what we'll see
what it comes out. So I had generate slogan and
we've got we dedicate ourselves to splendid beer. Matt, what
(35:10):
you got? Uh? So you can only do one word,
one word, one word at a time. Sorry, Um, it's
very rudimentary. Slogan generator magic love that, okay, Magic generate slogan.
We know magic, There we go. I think i've I've
found the same site. Is it dot com? That's a
(35:32):
different one. I'm just using slogan generator dot org, which
is much more official because it's an org. Yeah, so
I'm going to try this different one, and I, uh,
let's see. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but
I've got a good got a good slogan for you. Okay,
breakfast cloth. Let the good times roll? Yes, let me
(35:59):
maybe it'll let you to do to you? Where's breakfast cloth?
Here we go? Is breakfast cloth in you? The breakfast
cloth specialists? Okay, I think we've had enough fun with this.
Let's take another quick break and then we'll be back
with that one more piece of listener mail from you. Well, hey,
(36:22):
welcome back everybody. This is the listener mail segment, and
I've got a voicemail for us to hear. Hey, this
is Palin Washington. I got a shout out to you
guys a long time ago, back when need to the
intelligence video. UM, I was wondering if you guys could
look into the John Lane case and the Fresno police,
specifically the cameras and the van. I want to know
(36:47):
it's specifically that was the thermal camera that they were
looking at. I know that in Waco. UM evidently, like
the British are using like thermal cameras to look into
the count the compound. And it'd be interesting to see
if like thermal cameras have gotten not small now to
where they can employ them in vans and stuff like that. So,
like that would be cool, that would be a great episode.
I think I'd appreciated things. But hey, an old friend
(37:11):
of the show, you know, that always always makes my
evening to hear that's right out during the daytime Talent
Washington was watching our videos when they were on the
How Stuff Works YouTube channel. Yeah, we worry even my time.
Weird deep cut for everybody here. We used to put
hidden messages, sometimes not subliminal, just hidden messages into our videos,
(37:33):
and sometimes we would shout people out. Sometimes we would
send people on a bit of a rabbit hole about
some extra information we didn't want to say out loud.
Check out our videos to find those, UM and I
we actually shouted out Talent Washington in a video, and
I think it's the plant like how sophisticated our plants
(37:54):
maybe I can't remember the actual title on the Old
House Stuff Works channel, but anyway, we've known this person
for a long time time. It was great to hear
their voice and talent is asking specifically about John Lange.
That's l a n G who was a person who
lived in Fresno, California, a person who died. Before we
(38:16):
get into a lot of the specifics, guys, I want
to jump to the official reporting from two outlets, ABC
Channel thirty in Fresno, California and The Fresno B also
in Fresno, California. I'm gonna read you, guys a couple
of articles from them, and it is the official story
(38:38):
of what's happening in real time when this person, John
Lange died. Don the Fresno BE a jokey newspaper? No
Fresno B is the Fresno B. There was one from
Fresno that I swear to God I found and it
was for another show, and like realized that it was
totally bold and that it was like a satirical newspaper. Oh,
(39:00):
I you may, I'm sorry. I just said they triggered
in me. I just remembered, Um, it was about wolf whistles.
It was like a ridiculous history episode we did. And
there was one article we found about the reverse wolf
whistle that was like women holler and a dudes and
it was this whole article. And I believe the Friends
no v and it was completely satirical, but it may
have been just like a column or please ignore me
(39:22):
if I'm incorrect. Friends and No B I believe is
owned by McClatchy. I think they're they're real. Um And
and the Fresno B comes into play in the bigger
story here about John Lane. And I'm just gonna go
ahead and put this out there. I don't think we
have time to cover this whole thing, but I'm gonna
take you through the story. Let you see why it
feels like we should be asking questions about this person's death. Okay,
(39:46):
so here we're jumping first to ABC thirty. There's an
article called man found stabbed in burning Central Fresno home Inside.
They describe how a man was discovered ward inside a
house that was on fire. He was pronounced dead at
the hospital and there's a video you can watch on
(40:08):
this article of the neighbor's reactions to what's going on. UM.
The smoke was first spotted by neighbors. They were right
around in that area, and apparently firefighters were just down
the road doing a completely other call. They're like involved
with other things. When they got flagged down in the
(40:29):
calls started coming through. They went into the home. And
this is important. The home had a large gate, large
large iron gate in front of it. Firefighters broke their
way through, got into the house, found a man unconscious
in the kitchen and bleeding from several stab wounds. Again,
(40:49):
this is according to ABC News. He was taken to
the hospital and pronounced dead there, and Lieutenant Joe Gomez
with the Fresno Police Department said they didn't know whether
the stab wounds or perhaps smoke inhalation from the fire
ultimately led to this person's death. Um, but they did
say it was suspicious, like investigators called it, called the
(41:14):
death in the whole situation suspicious, and they believe the
house was intentionally set on fire. Okay, So that's article
number one. That was January twenty one, two thousand sixteen.
Now let's jump to the Fresno b just a couple
of days later on January. This article is titled man
(41:36):
found dead after suspicious Central Fresno Fire identified and the
Fresno b says that this person is in fact John Lange,
who was fifty one years old. He had a multiple
stab wounds to his abdomen and upper back, according to
the authorities. That's the Fresno B saying that the body
(41:58):
was found around three pm, so in the afternoon, and
again he was not responsive, rushed to a hospital and
pronounced dead. And they again say it's unclear whether he
died as a result of stab wounds or the fire,
which damaged much of the home. So if you just
know that, you know, a person is found in a
(42:19):
house stabbed while the house is on fire, right, if
if anything has happened that was suspicious, I would say
that was probably be it. We'll also talk about adding
insult to injury. I mean, if a getting stabbed isn't
enough and they set your house on fire, it seems
that way, right. And then there's an investigation with the
Fresno Police Department. I believe. I don't know if the
(42:41):
Sheriff's department actually had anything to do with this, but
the Fresno Police did. And here is what is published
on April fools, not four April Fools. But on April one,
by again ABC Channel thirty there in Fresno, they said
that the Fresno County Coroner's Office confirms that John Lang's
(43:04):
death was a suicide. Uh okay. According to this article,
Corners determined that the wounds were self inflicted, and it
actually posts the Corners report and the full information here.
You can find that. It's on ABC thirty search for
(43:27):
John Lang's death ruled a suicide and you can actually
read the whole thing if you want to. We are
going to and that's something we'll be looking at if
we do indeed cover this more. They say that the
cause of death in this case was inhalation of smoke, right,
not the stab wounds, which, uh, which people will argue
(43:50):
were somewhat superficial. It's interesting, though, isn't it that the
the initial statement from Fresno p D, the the public
information officer, a guy named Lieutenant Joe Gomez. Initially, Gomez
says that he was killed by multiple stab wounds. And
then it's later when that report comes out and they say, no,
(44:11):
it's actually smoke inhilation because whatever fire was lit, wasn't
it didn't ultimately destroy the building, right, It didn't turn
into a structure fire. No. No, it's almost as though
the house fire was like a diversion or like it
was a knowing way of making it look like something
else happened. I don't know. Um, but isn't there that
(44:32):
it gets weirder though, doesn't it? Matt? Well, yes, there's
there's a potential for many different things in this story.
I would say it gets very much weirder because, Uh,
the rabbit hole gets really deep on this. One guy's
John really did believe that the Fresno Police Department of
(44:53):
Law Enforcement in his local area had a vendetta against him.
And you and find his YouTube page if you search
for it. It's I believe if you search for Lange
Marine m A r I n E l A n
G m A r I n E you can find it.
(45:13):
There are well, I don't know, a couple dozen videos
maybe less than a little less than that on that
YouTube channel that you can view. It's all surveillance photography
from his house. You can see the iron gate there.
You can see the camera that Talent Washington mentions. Talent said,
(45:34):
you know, is that camera thermal imaging or I believe
that's something to that effect. Was it a thermal imaging camera?
And this is a question that has just been nagging
at me ever since he asked it, because I don't
believe that I or anyone else can prove through that
YouTube video if this is in fact some kind of
(45:58):
thermal imaging device, because in order to know that, you'd
have to look at essentially the sensor in this YouTube
video that was posted April titled thermal imaging threat and
intimidation by Fresno Law Enforcement. Again, those are the words
of John lang Um saying what he believes is in
(46:19):
this video you can see a van open that sliding door.
There is a person holding a mobile rig camera system
that definitely has glass on the front, some kind of
lens and pointing it what looks to be directly at
the house where the camera is. And but just to
(46:41):
go back, the whole point is that I can't prove
nobody else can prove what the censor was on that device,
because all you can really see in this grainy YouTube
video is the lens itself. Yeah, it's interesting and like
the caption er, I guess in the metadata for the
YouTube video, he claims this was um an example of
has no California sheriff personnel checking to see if he's
(47:04):
home so that they could then enter his premises illegally.
And what fine compliment on him or like, I don't
know what that what is he accusing them of in
that department. There's a there is a huge story that
is it is told by John Lange in the in
a series of social media posts on Facebook and other places.
(47:27):
On the Fresno Bees commenting system on their site, as
well as in these YouTube descriptions. In comments and titles,
there's a there's a whole story that John Lange believed.
Whether it was true or not, we can't say. We
don't know, but he believed it and then he met
(47:48):
that demise. So you know, if we do cover this,
it's going to be about looking at his story, looking
at what happened, and seeing what we can prove and
what we can't. I think, oh god, those comments are
talking about Ben. He accuses an employee of the Fresno
b of leaking his IP address to law enforcement. That's
(48:08):
that's that's one of the claims that he makes. And
then one of these these captions, there's there's a lot
of stuff that I want to say about this, and
in fact, we can we cut some of it because
we're gonna do a full episode on this. So already
there are some some clear rabbit holes. There's some badgers
(48:28):
and bags here. Every life lost on some level there
is a track, even if you don't care for the
person who passed. Uh. And there I think we can
make a pretty solid argument that one of the best
things you can do is have a clear understanding of
what actually happened to someone, especially if we're not saying
this is the case, but especially if the person is
(48:52):
in a situation where the folks who took their lives
are walking around free today. You know what I mean?
There there is something to be said for justice. Uh this, Yeah,
this is going to be complicate. Talent. You know you
You're stuck with us for so long, man, I feel
like the least we can do is is dive into
(49:14):
this episode. I think we we should. I'm gonna answer
your question about the camera right now, though, because I
can't tell you for sure what it was, But you
asked if they were small enough, If a Fleer camera
thermal imaging camera was small enough to fit onto that rig. Yes,
in two right, yes, if you right now if you
(49:37):
head on over to Flear dot com f l i
R dot com, you can find something that is meant
to be specifically used by law enforcement and other security
forces called the Flear breach. That this is something that
you can attach to to a lens or you can
attach to a rig. It's a sensor basically that can
(49:59):
see thermal imaging. You can also find something called this
Scion PTM, which is a monocle like this you just
hold up that uses thermal footage so you can see
if somebody's inside a house or not the way John
feared that, you know, the law enforcement was doing to him,
like one of those things you'll see a director looking
(50:21):
through to to frame a shot like it's that small.
It's like a tiny telescope. You know. Now, now that
is not what was That was definitely not what was
used in that video, but it exists if we want
to talk about it being small enough. Uh. The other one,
the Flear breach, is more interesting to me. That doesn't
mean it was necessarily a Flear camera in the video,
(50:41):
but on their YouTube it shows how you can connect
this thing up to monitors. Because it seems to me
that in that video with the van. You can see
that they've got a camera and glass set up, a
lens with some handles to hold it and some kind
of monitoring situation there to you who knows if that's
(51:01):
what it was. The last site you can check if
you want to p R dash in for a red
dot com. On this site you can find handheld and
mobile thermal imaging UH products and you can look through here.
There are a ton of different ones from Flear and
Pulsar and Envision and Infra raise Vice. There's a ton
(51:26):
check them out. See what you see there, see what
you think and UH. Well, I look forward to discussing
this further with you guys, and I just want to
say thank you so much Talent for both you know,
leaving that voicemail and for talking to me on the
phone out a really nice conversation with you. Yeah, looking
forward to this feels like catching up with an old friend.
You know. We've been doing this show for quite a while,
(51:49):
and one of the reasons that we check in once
a week with letters from you is because you are
the most important part of the show. I know, I
say it all the time, but it's only because it's true.
Can't happen without you. So thank you to feather Cap,
thank you to Talent, thank you to Curtis, thank you
to Thomas. Thank you to everybody who has written in
(52:10):
or taken the time to reach out to us, particularly
with suggestions for topics you feel our fellow conspiracy realists
will enjoy in the future. If you would like to
take a page from your fellow listeners book and contact us,
we would absolutely love to hear from you. We try
to be easy to find online. It's right. You can
find this on Facebook and Twitter. We are conspiracy Stuff.
(52:34):
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and conversations to be had there. Also, while you're on
the internet, could you leave us a review? We would
(52:55):
really love that a positive one, please yes, sure, or
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(53:17):
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(53:38):
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(54:16):
to know is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Long time listeners, this is
the part of the week where the show features you
(00:48):
ASTI usually three people, but this is the This is
the time of the week where we go through all
the correspondencies that we have received, all the emails, all
the phone calls, and we share your stories with your
fellow conspiracy realist. We're gonna be talking a little bit
about the slippery slope of framing headline. We're gonna be
(01:11):
talking about some mysterious deaths, and maybe we start there
because you know, guys, I'd like to make a clarification.
Earlier this week, at the very top of the show,
we mentioned the death of John McAfee and if it's
okay with everyone, I proposed that we start there, yes, please, yeah,
(01:35):
another person found dead by suicide in a prison Zell.
I suppose it's possible that by now that you know,
what what do you call that kill switch or the
dead dead hand will have been initiated. But I don't know.
The guy's got a history of crazy behavior and drug abuse,
so I also wouldn't put it past him to have
(01:55):
just kind of led to his own demise, which this
is why I decided, you know, and strange news. I
had said, we want everybody to know that we are
aware of this death. Uh, and we are doing a
full episode. We're still doing a full episode in the
near future. We thought, given how many people have written in,
it would be helpful for us to give a little
(02:18):
bit of context, a little bit of background point to
some of the controversies and some of the conspiracy. So
here we go, just choosing two quick emails because I
really enjoyed them. First, Thomas, Thomas, you wrote in with
a title your email that I quite enjoyed, it's the
death of Yeah boy. Why a apostrophe bo I? And
(02:43):
you know, Thomas chooses his words carefully. He wants them
to have the maximum impact, which I agree with and
here is his email in full. John McAfee didn't kill himself.
That's it. That's that's the email. And we also have
some people in the crowd who agree with you, Thomas,
(03:04):
such as Kurt, who said, did you hear the unfortunate
news that John McAfee took his own life? Or did he?
I think this would make for an interesting news update
or full episode. Keep up the great work, Thanks Curtis
uh And then he provides a little bit of context,
(03:26):
a little bit of the concerns this This of course
has shades of Epstein, right, Jeffrey Epstein, the child trafficker,
serial abuser, networker with billionaires. When he was found dead,
people were certain that he had been murdered and his
(03:47):
the scene of his death had been made to look
like a suicide. We covered this in three different episodes
in a series that still holds up today. I love
that book series Fifty Shades of Epstein, really gripping stuff.
And you know the thing is that these cases aren't
quite they aren't quite the same. They have some commonalities, right,
(04:08):
that are being hit upon in a lot of media
coverage and a lot of speculation. But when we look
at the case of McAfee. You know, we learned that
he was a very different person in comparison to Epstein.
And honestly, you know all the cards on the table, folks.
I don't know about you, Matt, Noel and Doc, but uh,
(04:31):
I still feel like the official conclusion on Epstein's death
leaves a lot to be desired and there there's some
real questions that need to be answered concerning irregularities and
the investigation, the prison guards, the highway bone, the list
goes on again. You can hear them in our full episode.
But today we're going to take a page from Curtis
(04:53):
and Thomas and look at the death of John David
McAfee to give you a bit of a pri or
before we do our full episode. So he was found
dead on June just a few days ago as we
record this, and he was in the Brian's Too Penitentiary Center,
(05:13):
which is near Barcelona, Spain. His death came mere hours
after the National Court of Spain had ordered that he'd
be extradited back to the US on criminal charges. And
what's interesting about this right now, this is an ongoing
emerging story, is that while he was alive on several occasions,
(05:38):
he would say things like He would say things like,
if I'm ever found dead by hanging, it will mean
that I was murdered. Do you want to say exactly?
He has a quote here from Twitter referencing Epstein hit
us with it. Yeah, says know that if I hang
myself Alah Epstein, it will be no fault of mine. Yeah. Yeah.
(06:03):
He also had a post where he said quote getting
subtle messages from US officials saying in effect, we're coming
for you McAfee, We're going to kill yourself. Yes, that's
how he wrote it. And then he says, I got
a tattoo to date just in case if I suicide myself.
I didn't, I was whacked with no eat. Check doesn't
(06:23):
have mad tattoos. Doesn't he have like fullback tattoos or like, yeah,
that's what I say that check my right arm part
directly references a tattoo that he has in kind of
a tribal style. He also, as he said with a
dead hand approach, noted that if I'm arrested I disappear,
thirty one plus terabytes of incriminating data will be released
(06:46):
to the press. He said that later this this dead
man switch or dead hand is something we talked about before.
It's the idea of taking posthumous revenge from beyond the
grave by have a mechanism in place which is not
that hard to do that requires you to check in
on a verified regular basis of some sort. And if
(07:10):
you fail to do that check in on schedule, then
it starts the ball rolling too. A release of whatever
juice or leverage you have over your enemies or whomever
you think is trying to kill you. It could be
something as simple as a scheduled social media post, you know,
like we do stuff like that all the time, or
(07:30):
even like a scheduled text message that like sends out
to a group or something you know absolutely and three
days before he passed away on June, his wife said
that Uncle Sam wanted him to die in prison. Specifically,
she said John's honesty has gotten him into trouble with
(07:51):
corrupt governments and corrupt government officials because of his outspoken
nature and his refusal to be extorted, intimidated, or silenced.
Now the U S authorities are determined to have John
Dye in prison to make an example of him for
speaking out against the corruption within their government agencies, and
then of course that posthumous Instagram post that was an
(08:12):
image of the letter Q. This has been, by the way,
taken down afterwards, so you won't see it on his
Instagram today. It's strange right now, the official conclusion is
that he died as a result of suicide, Like the
autopsy results are back. They've been released, and they appear
(08:35):
to confirm that he took his own life via hanging himself.
But his lawyer said he didn't have any suicidal ideation.
His family obviously, as you can tell, is not buying
the official explanation. But there's something else that happened just yesterday.
I've found this first in the New York Post, but
(08:57):
you can find it in multiple sources. Apparently there was
a suicide note found in his pocket when he was
discovered dead. You guys heard about that, right, Like that
just happened. Yeah, yeah, that was released. Was that with
the autopsy report or the official report on the heels
of it? Yeah? I don't know, man. Can I bring
(09:19):
up a tweet that that John McAfee's the official McAfee
I think it's yeah, at official McAfee went out on MA.
I just thought you guys might find this interesting. Because
I'm trying to analyze I don't know, maybe the thought
the thoughts that are happening here. Many of the tweets
are about how terrible prison is that? That are that
(09:42):
you can find on that official Twitter account. Now stuff
mentioning sorrow, uh sorrow masked with like I forget exactly
what it was, and you can find stuff like this
one today, a man facing a difficult situation asked if
I knew of painless ways to kill himself. Having little
experience in such I was of not much help. The
(10:04):
amazing thing is that the tone of the discussion was
like discussing the weather. Prison is a strange environment, um,
not that that has anything to do with his mindset
and when he was going through it is just put
I don't know, putting it out there that many of
the other people, perhaps that John was encountering, we're feeling
(10:26):
like self harm was perhaps an answer, I see what
you're saying. Yeah. And and to clarify he was being
extradited for tax evasion, It wasn't. That's another thing that
differentiates it from like the Epstein case. He wasn't. He
wasn't suspected at this point of the horrific crimes that
(10:49):
Jeffrey Epstein and his network committed. Prosecutors specifically in Tennessee
said that from fourteen to eighteen, McAfee had not been
reporting income and he had been evading taxes, and apparently
he was making money hand over fist, promoting cryptocurrency and
(11:11):
doing speaking engagements. But you can find statements from him
where he's like, I don't have some hidden crypto fortune.
He objected to that, but the the indictments were pretty heavy,
and if convicted, he would have been in prison for
up to thirty years, and if you know the US
(11:32):
justice system, then it's somewhat rare for people to serve
the entirety of that time. But he still would have
no matter how you slice it, he would have been
looking at years in prison, probably less than thirty, but
definitely wouldn't be getting out, you know, a week later.
And he said and he also once Twitter said, uh,
(11:54):
he admitted to this. Though he admitted to the charges,
he wasn't prevaricating or try to make things up. He said,
I have not paid taxes for eight years. I have
not filed returns. Every year I tell the I R S,
I am not filing a return. I have no intention
of doing so, come and find me. Wasn't he also
(12:15):
in trouble for like pump and dump schemes with crypto,
with like golf coins and all that, like yeah, yeah, yeah,
And he's he's talking shade about Elon Musk on his
Twitter account. Uh, listen to this? Can I just read
one more tweet from him? Not peranc man? He was
a character? Very is it? January three tweet? No, this
(12:35):
one's from May of this year, says Bill Gates is
sued for divorce because of multiple affairs and hanging with
the Epstein crowd. Surely this is a joke. Bill makes
Mark Zuckerberg look like a sex god. Wow. I mean
he really he really kind of went after him on
a physical level, there, didn't he It attacked his manhood,
(12:59):
you could say, right, his virility even that he's sort
of ancuous little guy. Yeah. McAfee is definitely. Um. You
know the story of his life is filled with controversy,
filled with crazy claims, crazy not quite proven speculation, and
then very very wild, very well proven things. Uh do
(13:23):
you want to give one more tweets? Here? In January three,
he said, quote, I have not filed a tax return
for eight years. Why number one taxation is illegal? We
should mention he was formerly aiming to be the Libertarian
candidate for the presidency. Uh too. I paid tens of
millions already and received jack in services. Three. I've done
(13:46):
making money. I live off of cash from McAfee Incorporated.
My neck income is negative. I am a prime target
for the i R S here. I am like there's
some baiting going on here. Oh yeah, there is. Yeah,
But just if you're trying to think about his mindset again,
he's saying all that right then he gets caught. He's
in prison. He's facing federal charges and extradition. May twenty three,
(14:11):
day after the bill gates one, he says, I once
had everything after uncountable lawsuits in the reach of the Feds.
I now have nothing but inside these prison bars. I
have never felt more free. The things you believe you
own in reality on you, which is I mean that
last part is a philosophy that I think, I think
(14:34):
most people can agree with at some point in their lives. Yeah,
but but just thinking about mindset, he you can't definitively
say anything from a series of you know, tweets that
are sent out by somebody, But uh, I don't know,
it's just maybe it's just interesting, interesting to talk about.
And I'm falling prey to this like desire to to speculate.
(14:55):
But I don't know, it's interesting to think about. I've
always wondered too. I mean, surely the McAfee company has
like a board of directors or you know, is a
publicly traded company. I'm not really sure. Um, but with
all of the negative press that he's received over the years,
I mean, did he just sell it and then they
kept his name or has he always been the head
(15:17):
of this company and continued to run it in some
form of fashion? Uh? Yeah, good question. He resigned in
so yeah, he sold his stake in the operation, and
then he proceeded to become one of its most ardent critics.
And he was actually telling people you need to uninstalled
(15:40):
any anti virus software from that company. I think it's bloatwear.
And he was against them using his name too. But
my question is why would they? I mean, like, for me,
when I realized it was the same person, my mind
was blown because you think of anti virus software as
being just that bloatwear and kind of like necessary. Uh.
(16:01):
Pretty ineffective UM software. This slows your computer down, honestly,
sometimes more than the things that's trying to protect you from.
And I'm like, how could this possibly be the same guy?
I thought it was a joke. Uh, And then sure
enough it's not. But why do you think that the
current company, you know, board of directors continued using his name,
given the fact that he's outwardly attacking them and uh,
(16:24):
and that he's just this kind of like really divisive character.
I think it's name recognition, because we have to realize,
you know, back in the nineties UM, a lot of
casual computer users probably wouldn't have known his life story.
And then, as we'll find full episode, he had plenty
of adventures ahead. Misadventures might be a better word, but
(16:46):
from what I understand, and they only need to do
some more digging here he was At some point McAfee.
The company tried to rebrand under Intel or something like that,
and they ran into a problem. People who people who
had already been familiar with this software under the name McAfee,
(17:10):
wanted to keep it because if you change the name,
they'll think it's something different, right, and then sales will plummet,
and the bottom line is, you know, as the main
focus for a lot of organizations of this size. But
be that as it may, Yes, there are there are
a lot of strange things surrounding John McAfee's death, and
(17:32):
the circumstances of his death, as well as the location,
are making it tougher for Uncle Sam to seize his assets.
That's some of the that's some of the breaking news now.
Earlier this morning, as we record, Bloomberg noted that the
US is going to have a tough time getting ahold
(17:53):
of whatever assets they think he still possessed at the
time of death. So we're going to return to this
very soon, because again, while there are arguably real suspicious
things about his demise, his life itself is a story
worth telling and worth exploring. We're going to run into
(18:15):
some interesting things, some plot twist you may not expect.
Look for that in the near future. And in the meantime,
let's take a pause for a word from our sponsors,
y odd if it was McAfee, wouldn't it, And we'll
return with more letters from you, And we're back with
(18:37):
stuff they don't want you to know. The Listener Mail Edition,
all the Listener Mail. It's fit to speak on a podcast.
That's our our our tagline, I see what you're doing,
and it isn't really but this is a thing, you guys,
and it's something that I really didn't give much thought
to until the Washington Post changed their tagline from something
(19:00):
much more innocuous. I think it was like we Dig
Deeper or something like that, to Democracy dies in darkness.
You guys, remember that. It was quite the news story. Um.
There's obviously a couple of ways you can read that.
You can read that as like, you know, in the
absence of light, democracy will shrink and die, or you
can look at it as a uh crushing admonition of
(19:23):
the Trump presidency. Obviously they were at odds with each other,
the Washington Post in particular, and also the New York Times. UM,
Trump would would attack them frequently. So you could also
just look at it as like a yep, democracy is
currently dying in darkness, because that is what we are
in right now. Is is a dark age. UM. But
it's interesting because it really does have, you know, dual meetings,
(19:43):
and and it led me and also our listener feather
Cap to wonder about the history of newspaper taglines. UM.
So here's here's a letter from feather Cap. Greetings, longtime listener,
since Wow, okay, love the show. I was listening to
Everything Is Alive on Saturday. It's a podcast that I
don't think I know, but I need to check it out.
(20:05):
At some point during the podcast, I heard an interesting
fact toyed newspapers have slogans. In this case, the guy
mentions the slogan for the Washington Post democracy dies in Darkness.
I had no idea that newspapers have slogans. This could
be an interesting topic. Not a complete show, but a
brief segment. I think O this would be interesting hearing
about newspaper slogans, history of best ones, worst ones, etcetera.
(20:25):
Thanks for the amazing show, keep on keeping on, peace
and love, feather cap Um. I completely agree. Probably not
a whole episode's worth, but definitely something UH worth discussing here. UM. Briefly,
I found a real cool article from c j R
dot org that's the Columbia Journalism Review UH that again
(20:46):
references this dramatic Washington Post slogan change um, and it
kind of led them to dig a little deeper and
go down the rabbit hole of where did these come from?
UM and n y U that in In this article
by Tony Reagan, UH, he quotes a professor from n
y USE, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute gentleman. Also his
(21:09):
name's Mitchell Stevens. By the way, he also wrote a
book called UH History of News, and he says this
newspapers and other products of the printing press were some
of the first mass produced products. Never thought about that way,
but it absolutely makes sense. The printing press allowed text
and print and stories and news to be you know,
(21:29):
duplicated many, many, many many times. It was one of
the first examples of mass production. UH. He goes on
to say slogans on the ears of the front page
were the most regular and visible way to advertise UM.
He goes on even to talk about how during frontier times, UH,
there were small newspapers that would pop up. For example,
if you think about UM the newspaperman in Deadwood, the
(21:53):
TV show about the Old West. UM. I can't remember
what it was, but pretty sure his little newspaper had
a had a slogan UM. So, for example, they talked
about in seventeen seventy five, there were three different newspapers
around the Williamsburg area UH in Virginia that were called
the Virginia Gazette. But each of them carried a different tagline,
and the whole point was to differentiate your brand and
(22:15):
make you stand out from the competition, oftentimes which had
the exact same name. So this was crucial. Uh. One
of them was containing the freshest advices foreign and domestic. Um.
The other was open to all parties but influenced by
none really like that one. And then the last one
was always for liberty and the public good of course,
(22:36):
public spelled with a C k um. But Yeah, I
don't know, guys, is this something you've ever noticed or
really paid much attention to, beyond when we obviously had
that very um, you know, soapboxy dramatic switch by the
Washington Post. Yeah. I'm interested in this because it's it's
an argument for language, and it's also is something a
(23:00):
little bit forensic about looking looking at the evolution of
slogans over time. There's a there's a cool article that
you might enjoy, a feather cap on the outline dot
com by Adrian Jeffreys that runs through this pinopoly, this
wide variety of of mottos, and you can find you
(23:24):
can find some funny history here. There's some that are
Many are vaguely inspirational, some are pretty ambitious, a couple
are vaguely threatening. Some are are just so confident. For
a long time, apparently the Chicago Tribunes motto was the
world's greatest newspaper. And then later there was an adult
(23:47):
magazine called Screw, And this is all from that article
and Screw when they started, they took the Chicago Tribunes motto.
So if you were in the you know, through in
the dirty part of the bookstore, you would also there
see something billy itself as the world's greatest newspaper. But this,
(24:07):
this is all framing, right, this all matters. This is
like a business card for these enterprises to assure readers
of their objectivity and their commitment to credibility and so
people I can only menage and spend a lot of
time thinking about economy of language, how to make the
most impact the smallest amount of words, just like our
(24:29):
pal Thomas from earlier. Uh, there there's some, there's some
great ones. As a matter of fact, in this article,
Jeffreys includes the motto for her own outfit that she's
writing for. For the outline and their tagline is it's
not for everyone, It's for you. Oh gosh, that's clever. Uh.
(24:50):
There's a really fun one and an interesting change that
kind of I guess. Uh. It is probably one of
the most famous of taglines, even if you don't know
where it comes from. Uh. For the New York Times. Uh.
Initially in eighteen ninety six Eightolf ox Or I think
it's probably Oaks O. C. H. S Um. He was
a Chattanooga newspaperman and he bought The New York Times,
(25:14):
which was at the time actually going under Um, and
he had a contest to see what the new slogan
might be, and the winner was it will not soil
the breakfast cloth. And the implication is cloth, the breakfast cloth.
That sounds like something up well, it sounds like in
(25:34):
the bed or something, you know. I mean, like, really,
it will not soil the breakfast cloth. Like it's when
you used to have breakfast every morning, you'd all first,
before you do anything, you'd roll out the breakfast claw,
possibly with a sort of a checkerboard pattern design on it,
you know, or some flowers. We did have tables like aristocrats. No,
(25:58):
I'm also thinking like like someone's like, and if I
had any regrets over the course of my long life,
would be not sharing the breakfast cloth. But the thing is,
they're also telling you the ink is dried. That's what
they're You're right, it is a quality control thing. They're
(26:19):
they're attesting to the quality of their ink and their
actual like and it's not gonna get your hands all inky.
But they're also saying it's not spewing all the same
kind of garbage that a lot of the yellow journalists,
like William Randolph Hurst's papers were, uh, The Journal and
and the Pulitzer's World for example. Again, I'm pulling a
lot of this information from this excellent Columbia Journalism Review
(26:41):
article that you should read in its entirety. Um. But
it was setting his paper apart from those because that
yellow journalism was all about salacious headlines and if it bleeds,
it leads and all that stuff. And he wanted The
New York Times to be much more like a thinking
man's newspaper, you know. Um. And so eventually he got
rid of the breakfast cloth, which probably already wasn't aging
(27:03):
particularly well. Shame yeah, I know, it really hasn't changed
it to again, what's a pretty popular phrase that I
didn't realize even was associated with The Times, which is
all the news that's fit to print. I got it.
I still I'm over the moon about breakfast cloth, like
it could be used for so many weird things. Why
don't we make it? Why don't we make it a
(27:24):
term of endearment? My little breakfast cloth. It's a little
it's a little weird. I gotta give it shout out though.
My favorite so far of these and thank you for
taking us down this rabbit hole. Of my favorite so
far of these is comes from Mason Valley News in Yarrington, Nevada.
(27:44):
This site in the article you mentioned earlier, it is
quote the only newspaper in the world. It gives a
damn about Yarrington. It's brilliant. No, listen, when I when
I go out there and I pick up my dollar
maybe two dollar newspaper just depends on where I am.
I want to know, is there a publication that is
(28:06):
in any way threatening, like their slogan is specifically a threat.
Does that exist? Yeah, it does, It does matter. I
think you know it does. I think I'm gonna needs
you to give it to us. Well, if you're If
you're hanging out in Aspen and you pick up a
copy of the Aspen Daily, as Matthew Cassel did and
then he tweeted a picture of it, you will find
(28:28):
that this publication, The Daily Aspen warns you and everyone
who may pick it up if you don't want it printed,
don't let it happen. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty great. Uh.
This one, on the other hand, from the Detroit News
definitely feels like a threat and it's we know where
(28:49):
you live. Fantastic again, implication being we know Detroit, which
is where you live, but it's also vaguely sinister. They're like,
we're coming for you, dear reader, if you're a subscriber. Yeah,
that's hilarious. Wow, I just said you guys. Another one,
(29:09):
this is fun the newspaper for those who can read.
This is from Nasha, Canada. Beautiful. Yeah, this is fascinating
And and also I think you could argue that in
this situation, some of these newspapers have made a little
bit of false advertising, right or they've like, like, newspapers
(29:30):
do take a stance, a journalistic stance on any number
of things. Um, but but it's fascinating because so much
time and energy is spent in the mechanics of language
for journalism, like I will always love a good snarky,
trashy British headline from from even like the very you know,
(29:53):
the papers of records and stuff. Even those folks will
we'll go nuts, will get susy it with a a
good headline. And uh, I think there's an order to it.
You know, I think there's an order to it. I
completely agree. I have to issue a slight retraction. All
of the other ones in this USA Today column were correct,
but it appears that the Detroit News we Know where
(30:15):
you Live isn't real. Every other one in here is real,
and it doesn't seem to be a parody column. Very strange.
It's by Jerry mitchell Um from the Jackson, Missippi Clarion
Ledger and the title is early column Slogans, State of Newspapers,
Truth and Changing Times. But I tried to Google because
it does seem just so perfect and and bizarre, and
(30:38):
I couldn't find any references to it. So I don't know, Doc,
you're from Detroit, you ever heard of the Detroit News
we Know where you Live? Or the Detroit Free Press. Well,
the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press are definitely
like the two biggest newspapers in Detroit. But I've never
heard that slogan before. Whamp wamp wamp Well anyway, check
your sources, Jerry Mitchell I in um anyway. But yeah,
(31:02):
all of the all of the rest of these are
absolutely correct and real, and um, you're right then. I mean,
remember when I don't know if they still do this,
but remember when newspapers used to endorse a political candidate. Yes, yeah, yeah,
but but some during you know, I know, because the
Trump administration was quite divisive, they chose to abstain. I
(31:22):
believe or there was definitely some of that tradition was
broken during that election. Yeah. We run into this sometimes
when we see something that's a national rather than a
regional publication. Right, So it's a matter of ethics and economics,
I would pause it, meaning that you want to keep
your circulation as high as possible across the nation, meaning
(31:46):
that there are three hundred and twenty million plus people
who rarely agree on anything, and so you're definitely drawing
a line in the sand if you say, hey, this
is our guy, please stay subscribed to our paper. You know,
what I mean, Like, I so maybe maybe it's a
safety thing, or maybe the the just tenor of news
(32:10):
has has changed because we have to consider, you know what,
the rise of television, a lot of newspapers ended up
taking a hit in circulation, and with the rise of
online news or online sources purporting to be news, than
what we found was that people were getting a lot
of their news and reporting from television channels that already
(32:34):
had well established their perspective and whatever biased they might
have or wherever they sit in terms of the political spectrum,
Like it's obvious, right, regardless of how you feel on
the subject of which is right or which is wrong,
it's obvious that Fox News is right wing, and it's
obvious that MSNBC is left wing. So the argument would
(32:58):
be that with television, they're get news sources that aren't objective,
and the papers are trying to show that they are
objective even when that is not the case. Which is
so funny because I mean, you know, it's not like
CNN calls themselves a liberal news network, or that Fox
calls themselves conservative news net. I mean, I guess they
do sort of, but it's not it's not front and center.
(33:20):
It's just more something that you have to kind of
like pull from their ideology that for certain networks can
be more nuanced. Like I always get confused, like what
is MSNBC. I think they're liberal, but I it's like,
it's weird that we have to make that distinction, almost
in the same way that like we do with candidates,
because it really is like a lot of different things
taken in totality that make you that one thing or
(33:41):
the other, And why can't it be like shades of
that thing, you know what I mean? It seem like
there's room for many political ideologies in the news, but
I honestly, there shouldn't be any at all. It should
all be objective, but there's always going to be kind
of an agenda, and I think we see that with
these taglines there. That's where they're sort of drawing their
line in the sand, right, like the whole spe specifically
(34:01):
some of the older ones where it was like I
think there was one that I mentioned that was implying
that it was open to both parties but leaning towards
not one in particular. I'm obviously they don't pay me
to write newspaper taglines. Oh I got what uh podcasting
read with your ears? All right, we'll workshop it everybody.
(34:23):
What was that when we did for Miller lighte bend?
I think that was so good you can drink it
with your mouth. Mhm, yep, we gave we we gave,
we gave that one to them. Wow, I think it.
See you like it? You like it? Right? Bat now
you're thinking about high school Miller Light and putting your
mouth on It wouldn't be a segment if we didn't
(34:46):
end it with a a couple of pithy AI generated
slogans of our own, because that's something we definitely do
all the time. I found a website called Slogan generator
dot org. So let's see what if I type in,
it only lets you put in one word. So for
this one, I'm gonna use beer. And then I'd love
each of you to give one and what we'll see
what it comes out. So I had generate slogan and
we've got we dedicate ourselves to splendid beer. Matt, what
(35:10):
you got? Uh? So you can only do one word,
one word, one word at a time. Sorry, Um, it's
very rudimentary. Slogan generator magic love that, okay, Magic generate slogan.
We know magic, There we go. I think i've I've
found the same site. Is it dot com? That's a
(35:32):
different one. I'm just using slogan generator dot org, which
is much more official because it's an org. Yeah, so
I'm going to try this different one, and I, uh,
let's see. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but
I've got a good got a good slogan for you. Okay,
breakfast cloth. Let the good times roll? Yes, let me
(35:59):
maybe it'll let you to do to you? Where's breakfast cloth?
Here we go? Is breakfast cloth in you? The breakfast
cloth specialists? Okay, I think we've had enough fun with this.
Let's take another quick break and then we'll be back
with that one more piece of listener mail from you. Well, hey,
(36:22):
welcome back everybody. This is the listener mail segment, and
I've got a voicemail for us to hear. Hey, this
is Palin Washington. I got a shout out to you
guys a long time ago, back when need to the
intelligence video. UM, I was wondering if you guys could
look into the John Lane case and the Fresno police,
specifically the cameras and the van. I want to know
(36:47):
it's specifically that was the thermal camera that they were
looking at. I know that in Waco. UM evidently, like
the British are using like thermal cameras to look into
the count the compound. And it'd be interesting to see
if like thermal cameras have gotten not small now to
where they can employ them in vans and stuff like that. So,
like that would be cool, that would be a great episode.
I think I'd appreciated things. But hey, an old friend
(37:11):
of the show, you know, that always always makes my
evening to hear that's right out during the daytime Talent
Washington was watching our videos when they were on the
How Stuff Works YouTube channel. Yeah, we worry even my time.
Weird deep cut for everybody here. We used to put
hidden messages, sometimes not subliminal, just hidden messages into our videos,
(37:33):
and sometimes we would shout people out. Sometimes we would
send people on a bit of a rabbit hole about
some extra information we didn't want to say out loud.
Check out our videos to find those, UM and I
we actually shouted out Talent Washington in a video, and
I think it's the plant like how sophisticated our plants
(37:54):
maybe I can't remember the actual title on the Old
House Stuff Works channel, but anyway, we've known this person
for a long time time. It was great to hear
their voice and talent is asking specifically about John Lange.
That's l a n G who was a person who
lived in Fresno, California, a person who died. Before we
(38:16):
get into a lot of the specifics, guys, I want
to jump to the official reporting from two outlets, ABC
Channel thirty in Fresno, California and The Fresno B also
in Fresno, California. I'm gonna read you, guys a couple
of articles from them, and it is the official story
(38:38):
of what's happening in real time when this person, John
Lange died. Don the Fresno BE a jokey newspaper? No
Fresno B is the Fresno B. There was one from
Fresno that I swear to God I found and it
was for another show, and like realized that it was
totally bold and that it was like a satirical newspaper. Oh,
(39:00):
I you may, I'm sorry. I just said they triggered
in me. I just remembered, Um, it was about wolf whistles.
It was like a ridiculous history episode we did. And
there was one article we found about the reverse wolf
whistle that was like women holler and a dudes and
it was this whole article. And I believe the Friends
no v and it was completely satirical, but it may
have been just like a column or please ignore me
(39:22):
if I'm incorrect. Friends and No B I believe is
owned by McClatchy. I think they're they're real. Um And
and the Fresno B comes into play in the bigger
story here about John Lane. And I'm just gonna go
ahead and put this out there. I don't think we
have time to cover this whole thing, but I'm gonna
take you through the story. Let you see why it
feels like we should be asking questions about this person's death. Okay,
(39:46):
so here we're jumping first to ABC thirty. There's an
article called man found stabbed in burning Central Fresno home Inside.
They describe how a man was discovered ward inside a
house that was on fire. He was pronounced dead at
the hospital and there's a video you can watch on
(40:08):
this article of the neighbor's reactions to what's going on. UM.
The smoke was first spotted by neighbors. They were right
around in that area, and apparently firefighters were just down
the road doing a completely other call. They're like involved
with other things. When they got flagged down in the
(40:29):
calls started coming through. They went into the home. And
this is important. The home had a large gate, large
large iron gate in front of it. Firefighters broke their
way through, got into the house, found a man unconscious
in the kitchen and bleeding from several stab wounds. Again,
(40:49):
this is according to ABC News. He was taken to
the hospital and pronounced dead there, and Lieutenant Joe Gomez
with the Fresno Police Department said they didn't know whether
the stab wounds or perhaps smoke inhalation from the fire
ultimately led to this person's death. Um, but they did
say it was suspicious, like investigators called it, called the
(41:14):
death in the whole situation suspicious, and they believe the
house was intentionally set on fire. Okay, So that's article
number one. That was January twenty one, two thousand sixteen.
Now let's jump to the Fresno b just a couple
of days later on January. This article is titled man
(41:36):
found dead after suspicious Central Fresno Fire identified and the
Fresno b says that this person is in fact John Lange,
who was fifty one years old. He had a multiple
stab wounds to his abdomen and upper back, according to
the authorities. That's the Fresno B saying that the body
(41:58):
was found around three pm, so in the afternoon, and
again he was not responsive, rushed to a hospital and
pronounced dead. And they again say it's unclear whether he
died as a result of stab wounds or the fire,
which damaged much of the home. So if you just
know that, you know, a person is found in a
(42:19):
house stabbed while the house is on fire, right, if
if anything has happened that was suspicious, I would say
that was probably be it. We'll also talk about adding
insult to injury. I mean, if a getting stabbed isn't
enough and they set your house on fire, it seems
that way, right. And then there's an investigation with the
Fresno Police Department. I believe. I don't know if the
(42:41):
Sheriff's department actually had anything to do with this, but
the Fresno Police did. And here is what is published
on April fools, not four April Fools. But on April one,
by again ABC Channel thirty there in Fresno, they said
that the Fresno County Coroner's Office confirms that John Lang's
(43:04):
death was a suicide. Uh okay. According to this article,
Corners determined that the wounds were self inflicted, and it
actually posts the Corners report and the full information here.
You can find that. It's on ABC thirty search for
(43:27):
John Lang's death ruled a suicide and you can actually
read the whole thing if you want to. We are
going to and that's something we'll be looking at if
we do indeed cover this more. They say that the
cause of death in this case was inhalation of smoke, right,
not the stab wounds, which, uh, which people will argue
(43:50):
were somewhat superficial. It's interesting, though, isn't it that the
the initial statement from Fresno p D, the the public
information officer, a guy named Lieutenant Joe Gomez. Initially, Gomez
says that he was killed by multiple stab wounds. And
then it's later when that report comes out and they say, no,
(44:11):
it's actually smoke inhilation because whatever fire was lit, wasn't
it didn't ultimately destroy the building, right, It didn't turn
into a structure fire. No. No, it's almost as though
the house fire was like a diversion or like it
was a knowing way of making it look like something
else happened. I don't know. Um, but isn't there that
(44:32):
it gets weirder though, doesn't it? Matt? Well, yes, there's
there's a potential for many different things in this story.
I would say it gets very much weirder because, Uh,
the rabbit hole gets really deep on this. One guy's
John really did believe that the Fresno Police Department of
(44:53):
Law Enforcement in his local area had a vendetta against him.
And you and find his YouTube page if you search
for it. It's I believe if you search for Lange
Marine m A r I n E l A n
G m A r I n E you can find it.
(45:13):
There are well, I don't know, a couple dozen videos
maybe less than a little less than that on that
YouTube channel that you can view. It's all surveillance photography
from his house. You can see the iron gate there.
You can see the camera that Talent Washington mentions. Talent said,
(45:34):
you know, is that camera thermal imaging or I believe
that's something to that effect. Was it a thermal imaging camera?
And this is a question that has just been nagging
at me ever since he asked it, because I don't
believe that I or anyone else can prove through that
YouTube video if this is in fact some kind of
(45:58):
thermal imaging device, because in order to know that, you'd
have to look at essentially the sensor in this YouTube
video that was posted April titled thermal imaging threat and
intimidation by Fresno Law Enforcement. Again, those are the words
of John lang Um saying what he believes is in
(46:19):
this video you can see a van open that sliding door.
There is a person holding a mobile rig camera system
that definitely has glass on the front, some kind of
lens and pointing it what looks to be directly at
the house where the camera is. And but just to
(46:41):
go back, the whole point is that I can't prove
nobody else can prove what the censor was on that device,
because all you can really see in this grainy YouTube
video is the lens itself. Yeah, it's interesting and like
the caption er, I guess in the metadata for the
YouTube video, he claims this was um an example of
has no California sheriff personnel checking to see if he's
(47:04):
home so that they could then enter his premises illegally.
And what fine compliment on him or like, I don't
know what that what is he accusing them of in
that department. There's a there is a huge story that
is it is told by John Lange in the in
a series of social media posts on Facebook and other places.
(47:27):
On the Fresno Bees commenting system on their site, as
well as in these YouTube descriptions. In comments and titles,
there's a there's a whole story that John Lange believed.
Whether it was true or not, we can't say. We
don't know, but he believed it and then he met
(47:48):
that demise. So you know, if we do cover this,
it's going to be about looking at his story, looking
at what happened, and seeing what we can prove and
what we can't. I think, oh god, those comments are
talking about Ben. He accuses an employee of the Fresno
b of leaking his IP address to law enforcement. That's
(48:08):
that's that's one of the claims that he makes. And
then one of these these captions, there's there's a lot
of stuff that I want to say about this, and
in fact, we can we cut some of it because
we're gonna do a full episode on this. So already
there are some some clear rabbit holes. There's some badgers
(48:28):
and bags here. Every life lost on some level there
is a track, even if you don't care for the
person who passed. Uh. And there I think we can
make a pretty solid argument that one of the best
things you can do is have a clear understanding of
what actually happened to someone, especially if we're not saying
this is the case, but especially if the person is
(48:52):
in a situation where the folks who took their lives
are walking around free today. You know what I mean?
There there is something to be said for justice. Uh this, Yeah,
this is going to be complicate. Talent. You know you
You're stuck with us for so long, man, I feel
like the least we can do is is dive into
(49:14):
this episode. I think we we should. I'm gonna answer
your question about the camera right now, though, because I
can't tell you for sure what it was, But you
asked if they were small enough, If a Fleer camera
thermal imaging camera was small enough to fit onto that rig. Yes,
in two right, yes, if you right now if you
(49:37):
head on over to Flear dot com f l i
R dot com, you can find something that is meant
to be specifically used by law enforcement and other security
forces called the Flear breach. That this is something that
you can attach to to a lens or you can
attach to a rig. It's a sensor basically that can
(49:59):
see thermal imaging. You can also find something called this
Scion PTM, which is a monocle like this you just
hold up that uses thermal footage so you can see
if somebody's inside a house or not the way John
feared that, you know, the law enforcement was doing to him,
like one of those things you'll see a director looking
(50:21):
through to to frame a shot like it's that small.
It's like a tiny telescope. You know. Now, now that
is not what was That was definitely not what was
used in that video, but it exists if we want
to talk about it being small enough. Uh. The other one,
the Flear breach, is more interesting to me. That doesn't
mean it was necessarily a Flear camera in the video,
(50:41):
but on their YouTube it shows how you can connect
this thing up to monitors. Because it seems to me
that in that video with the van. You can see
that they've got a camera and glass set up, a
lens with some handles to hold it and some kind
of monitoring situation there to you who knows if that's
(51:01):
what it was. The last site you can check if
you want to p R dash in for a red
dot com. On this site you can find handheld and
mobile thermal imaging UH products and you can look through here.
There are a ton of different ones from Flear and
Pulsar and Envision and Infra raise Vice. There's a ton
(51:26):
check them out. See what you see there, see what
you think and UH. Well, I look forward to discussing
this further with you guys, and I just want to
say thank you so much Talent for both you know,
leaving that voicemail and for talking to me on the
phone out a really nice conversation with you. Yeah, looking
forward to this feels like catching up with an old friend.
You know. We've been doing this show for quite a while,
(51:49):
and one of the reasons that we check in once
a week with letters from you is because you are
the most important part of the show. I know, I
say it all the time, but it's only because it's true.
Can't happen without you. So thank you to feather Cap,
thank you to Talent, thank you to Curtis, thank you
to Thomas. Thank you to everybody who has written in
(52:10):
or taken the time to reach out to us, particularly
with suggestions for topics you feel our fellow conspiracy realists
will enjoy in the future. If you would like to
take a page from your fellow listeners book and contact us,
we would absolutely love to hear from you. We try
to be easy to find online. It's right. You can
find this on Facebook and Twitter. We are conspiracy Stuff.
(52:34):
We're also conspiracy stuff on YouTube, and we're Conspiracy Stuff
Show on Instagram. If you wish, you can also find
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy. All you
gotta do is name and name one or three or
a producer or two or the whole crew, or just
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and conversations to be had there. Also, while you're on
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(52:55):
really love that a positive one, please yes, sure, or
you can leave us of vocal review. No, don't do that.
Do it on the podcatchers that that helps us show more.
But you can call us because we have a phone number.
It is one eight three three st d w y
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(53:17):
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(53:38):
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We read every email we get, and you can send
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(54:16):
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