July 23, 2020 • 45 mins
What's the deal with those secret train stations rumored to exist beneath various cities? Could the upcoming US election be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic? Do gas manufacturers intentionally mix in additives to limit the shelf life of petrol? Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they explore these questions and more in the first installment of Stuff They Don't Want You To Know's new listener mail segment.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Control Decade. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. As we said previously on an earlier
episode of our new version of Strange News, we have
(00:48):
expanded stuff they don't want you to know. That's right,
Monday through Friday's we are going to have a new
episode of some sort or maybe a gold an oldie
of another sort hitting your podcast airways. And so this
is the first iteration of what, uh, if everything goes smoothly,
(01:11):
will become a weekly listener mail episode. It's often said
that you, specifically you are the most important part of
this entire enterprise. Uh. That is that is true, and
that's something we feel strongly about ever since the YouTube days.
So now we're putting our money where our proverbial conspiracy
(01:31):
mouths are, and we are going to hear from you.
Is that about the size of it. Yes, that's correct.
And these these messages are going to come from all
over the place. Some are just gonna be a social
media comment, maybe one of you has made, maybe another
of you has called into the voicemail system and left
one of those so you'll hear yourself on this episode,
(01:54):
or maybe you wrote an email that can get in
here too. Really, any communication you're having with us may
and up in one of these episodes post you know,
like like Raven, whatever you got smoke signal, We're here
for it. We want to hear from you, we said
at the end of every episode. And now, yeah, to
Ben's point, we are gonna use this as a way
of curating more discussions and we always, I think all
(02:17):
of us enjoy these episodes, and I for one, I'm
really excited to make it a more regular thing. Yes,
and it is of high importance now that when you
do communicate with us, uh, let us know if you're
cool with us using it on the air, specifically in
voicemails and emails. Just let us know if you're cool
with it, and we'll will make it happen. And if
you don't want us to use their name or want
(02:38):
us to be anonymous, just let us know about that too.
So who would like to go first? I've got one here.
I've got a message from Dave. Here's Dave. Hi, mad,
how you doing? Uh? My name is Dave from Washington,
outside washingtond c in Virginia, in my neighborhood. Where to
take a book leave a book box? I found a
(03:00):
National Geographic magazine from where April two and six reading
the letters to the editor, and I thought you were
finding this interesting? Articles at us a grand central. I this,
this guy says, I read with interest to our call,
particularly the reference and photo of the secret rail platform
(03:22):
beneath the Waldorf, the story of my grandfather, lou freed
Freedman owned Freeme's Ltd. The original man shop at the Waldorf.
My mother and her sister's stayed at the hotel periodically.
During one did it in hotel staff member invided my
mother to the secret platform, where she was one of
(03:44):
the handful of people who witnessed General Eisenhower's return to
the US following World War Two. I just thought that
was very interesting. You may find an interesting too, to
do an episode on with the secret railroad platform. I
wasn't aware of that. Um, love me hear more about him?
All right, Well, feel free to give a call back.
(04:05):
I love you guys, show and uh all for me.
Oh yes, So, Dave, let us know about a secret
rail platform that is underneath the Waldorf Astoria, specifically in
New York. That's the Manhattan location there. Uh, I'm gonna
(04:26):
go ahead and start on this one, guys, and that
we can talk about it. Ben Well, I think you
guys may know about this a little bit. I know, Ben,
you do for sure, just from our previous workings together.
But let's let's get into this. So the Waldorf Astoria
as we know it today sits between forty nine and
(04:46):
fiftie streets in between Park and Lexington Avenues there in
Manhattan's midtown. And it didn't always live there. Previously, it
was over in a different place. I think it's Fifth
Avenue and already third Street. Uh. It was a mansion
owned by this guy that you may recognize. His last name,
(05:07):
William Waldorf, astor of the Astors. And uh you may
notice that the waldorfer story doesn't live there anymore. Now.
That's the home of the Empire State Building. Just kind
of cool background in there that we're looking into. Dave Um,
the place where the Waldorf story lives now over there
(05:30):
between It's been there since ninete so a long time.
This this hotel has lived in midtown Manhattan. And it
is true. It's it's not some you know, weird story
that lived in that National geographic It's true. There is
(05:50):
a secret rail line, or at least a highly underused
rail line, that exists beneath that hotel. And it was
used well for a lot of reasons, mostly to get
V I p. S in and out of the hotel
without being seen. But it was used for a long
time to ship f Dr. Franklin Delnar Roosevelt in and
(06:16):
out of the hotel so that they could keep I
guess hidden his ailments, and to basically as a pr
way to let him drive a car onto a rail,
take that rail into the hotel, have it go into
an elevator, go up into the hotel itself, and then
drive out of the parking area essentially onto the street.
(06:39):
Fascinating concept, right. I wonder if you guys had heard
anything else about this Waldorf historia secret rail line or
the history of it. Yeah, track sixty one, Right, Matt,
you hipped us to this article on gotha mess that
referenced an article from the New York Times from September
of ninete that sort of sets up the whole thing.
(07:00):
Ing and this really great quote. Guests with private rail
cars may have them routed directly to the hotel instead
of the Pennsylvania Station or to Grand Central Terminal, and
may leave their cars at a special elevator which will
take them directly to their suites or to the lobby.
The arrangement is made possible because of the fact that
the New York Central tracks passed directly beneath the block,
which has been obtained by the Hotel Waldorf Astory of
(07:22):
Corporation from the New York Central Railroad on a sixty
three year leasehold, the lease being in reality only for
the air rights on the site, which is always interesting.
The idea of air rights is like, you know that
plays into the height of buildings and being able to
like own part of the sky or or you know, subterranean. Well, yeah,
I wondered Ben if you guys had encountered this when
(07:44):
you were looking at kind of the um hidden areas
or underground areas on a couple of the shows that
we've done in the past. Yeah, that's correct, Matt. A
while ago, a merry band of videographers at the i
AM explored facades and fake buildings of New York City.
(08:05):
These secret trains, by the way, are not just are
not just a New York thing. It makes sense to
have them there in urban centers, in cities throughout the world.
It's a matter of fact, if you'll recall, in the
days of YouTube, when you and I ventured to Washington,
d C. We got very close to arranging a tour
(08:26):
of a closed down secret rail line there in the
nation's capital. These underground or secret included rail lines make
a lot of sense from a security perspective. And the
thing is that now in twenty twenty, a lot of
(08:46):
the historical ones are you know, they're they're no longer secret.
They're no longer classified because there are new technologies or
new methods of transporting people, goods, nuclear weapons, what have you. However,
I would say that, uh, the DPRK has pretty there's
(09:07):
pretty good evidence that they have secret rail lines. Of course. Uh,
the of course Russia has secret rail lines as uh,
you know in subways, A legacy from the very paranoid
days of the Cold War and the U S s R.
When we were doing our when we're doing our exploration
of uh fake buildings or facades of New York City,
(09:30):
which I believe you can still view on YouTube. One
one incredibly interesting thing there was that there were buildings,
or there were fake buildings that were disguising secret railway
entrances and exits. Uh. So this means that even if
there's a you know, a publicly known metro uh you know,
(09:53):
in your neck of the Global Woods, it is still
going to have very likely some kind of hidden way
in or out, not necessarily for nefarious reasons, but more
so for safety reasons. And this one, the logistics of
it's really fascinating because and Ben, this is something you've
covered on car stuff back in the day. Uh FDR
(10:14):
drove an armor plated pierce arrow car um, which is
when you don't hear about anymore because they imagine they
don't make them um. But everything had to be made
so big to accommodate literally driving that car off of
the train onto the platform and into that special elevator.
Uh and then it would be you know, lifted up
(10:35):
and exit through the garage of the building. And there
was even a situation where they would lift his limo
and have to back it out into the grand ballroom
of the Waldorf astoria Um. And you know, some of
this stuff we actually have confirmed from Secret Service log
books that have been declassified as well, So really really
(10:56):
interesting stuff. And Dave, here's something that the National Geographic
Article may not have told you. Uh. For a long time,
it was possible to take a tour of this hidden railway. Uh.
There were some complications, of course, it's it's understandably tough
(11:18):
to tour these things at times. I believe you had
to have a membership with the Transit Museum, uh, just
to be able to take the tour. Uh. And then
you could see I think, I don't know how this
is affected by COVID. They're probably not doing it right now,
but uh, you could see a list of dates and
(11:41):
specific times. But it's very much it's like touring the
Federal meant it's not they don't take walk in's. You
have to you have to be sort of in the
in the inner circle of Transit Museum fans. But you
can go to ww dot web dot mt A dot
info and find I'm more there, or just put uh
(12:02):
secret rail tour into your local uh search engine of choice.
What was it like, it's like fifty bucks, I think
to become a member, right, I believe the tour itself
is fifty bucks. You just have to be a member first.
Oh that's right. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. And
I wonder if there's membership dues or any of that.
But like you said, it's like not like anyone can
(12:22):
just walk up and become one. That's interesting stuff. Um, yeah,
you know it makes me if you I don't know
if you guys ever seen there's a documentary called Dark
Days UM that's about like graffiti culture in New York,
like during the nineties, late nineties, arly two thousands, and
a lot of folks that like literally would set up
um squats in abandoned subway tunnels. So there's so much
(12:45):
cool mystery surrounding like the subterranean networks of like a
city as as old as as New York. And you know,
if anyone spent any time in New York, you know
what a stand still it causes whenever they try to
do maintenance on those on those lines. It's because the
stuff is just so old, so there's so much cool
history there and this is a really great example of that.
So thanks again Dave for calling in. We hope that
(13:07):
was helpful and interesting. We're gonna take a quick break
and hear a word from our sponsor, but we'll be
right back and we're back. Hey, who's next? Yeah, next,
we have a voicemail from Vincent. Let's check it out. Hey, guys,
(13:28):
this is Vincent, from which ta I just got done
listening to your part two update on the coronavirus that
you just released, and certainly a lot to consider, especially
if some of the worst case scenarios you discussed end
up coming true. Uh. One thing that I'm gonna be
keeping an eye on is how the balance of power
is going to be shifting globally, but especially in our
(13:50):
own nation, especially with what you guys were saying about
the election. Yeah, lets that gets pushed back. We're going
to have the Trump administration taking care of this entire
pandemic from likely start to finish, and I uh, I'm
eager to see if they're willing to pass some of
the more socialist, so called socialist policies that are going
to be needed in order to combat things like the
(14:12):
rising unemployment and the insane overwhelment of the medical industry.
That we're gonna definitely see. But I'd be interested to
see if our federal government can maintain the power throughout
this If if states aren't going to be stepping up
and making more and more of their own policies and
furthering themselves from the federal government, if the federal government
is incapable of stepping up to the plate. You know,
(14:35):
another thing is I know Ben often talks about how
the corporation will be the new government. I'd be eager
to see if you know, lower income states like mine,
like Kansas, if we won't have industries stepping in where
the state and federal governments lack, and if they won't
start soaking up some of the power. Because one thing's
for sure, this virus is going to be a precipitous
(14:57):
event for change. So only time will out what directions
that changes in stay safe. Wow, Yeah, And there's definitely
a lot of layers in that, in that call um
and and a lot to unpack. And I very much
remember that conversation that was very early on in the pandemic.
I think that was our second update episode. UM. But yeah,
(15:18):
the idea of you know, using this situation politically um.
And we've certainly seen that happening, uh in more ways
than one. But in the most extreme example of that
would be to uh postpone or god forbid, dare we
say cancel an election? Um? And I think that's an
(15:40):
interesting question and something that we sort of talked about,
like in the Realm of Thought experiment. UM. I did
in listening to this UH this voicemail, do a little
research and happened upon our our old pals it how
stuff works in an article? Can the U S presidential
election be postponed? And Um, as as you guys may know,
(16:00):
it turns out it's very very difficult to do that. Um.
It's never been postponed in the history of elections in
this country. And it would require the date is fixed
by law and can only be changed by making a
new law. UM. And so it would require agreement across
the aisle to do that. And as difficult to time
(16:22):
as we see lawmakers having passing any law, I have
a hard time believing that that could happen. But under
the twentieth Amendment, UH, the incumbent presidents is a quote,
a president's term ends at noon on January. There's no
provision of law permitting a president to stay in office
after this date, even in the event of a national emergency,
short of the ratification of a new constitutional amendment. Um,
(16:45):
what do you guys think? What about what about martial law?
What about some kind of coup? I mean that martial
law and a coup I have to imagine would be
an extreme stretch. Um. You know, an I don't want
to be in a doomsday mindset about any of that stuff.
I I very much believe, at least since had that
(17:09):
conversation we had perhaps a little while ago, that there
will be an election. It will just be I think,
fraught with controversy, just because of the nature of so
many votes having to come in through the mail and
not through you know, the ballot system that we've become
accustomed to, just as we we've already seen in this
(17:30):
country with the primaries, a couple of strange things occurring. Um,
most of it I'm hoping is you know, error within
a new system being adopted. But you know, you can't
completely discount the nefarious actions of you know, people who
have an agenda or someone who has an agenda. Ah,
(17:54):
I don't know. I guess that's my way of attempting
to be measured about it rather than you know, fearful
of of something like that. I don't know. Let's approach
this as a thought experiments. Let's do a decision tree
of if thens. So as as you point out, Noll,
it is uh, it is a herculean task to postpone
(18:17):
not just the presidential election, but uh, you know, like
like the rolling election for the House of Representatives, which
occurs every two years. We have seen we have seen runoffs,
we have seen delays in specific elections, right, but never
never a presidential one. If if there is not an election,
(18:41):
that doesn't mean that the president legally stays in power.
Remember the president is if the election is postponed, then
their term is still over towards the end of January.
And that means that Congress, which typically has a cartoonishly
low approval rate. I've got a great list I should
(19:02):
sent around about things that have a higher approval rating
than Congress. I think we covered it one time in
the past, Matt, and maybe it was maybe it was
on a different show, but it's it's hilarious. It'll surprise you,
and it's pretty accurate. But anyhow, so we don't If
there's not an election, then the president's term still ends
on January, and the House and the Senate have to
(19:26):
divide and conquer. So the House has to somehow pick
the new president and the Senate has to somehow pick
the VP, which is an interesting switch, right, but the
House is kind of considered to be closer, to have
a closer grasp on the zeitgeist or the desires of
the population. But but here's the problem. Here's the problem
(19:49):
with that entire If then depending on why an election
might be postponed, if there is, for instance, um, some
sort of violent coup or some sort of fundamental change
to the status quo, this is you know, this is
an allegation that surfaces literally every time there's a different precedent, Right,
(20:12):
Bill Clinton has gonna h cancel the election or uh
but they probably even people probably even thought Jimmy Carter
would do it. Personally, I don't think he I'm not
saying anything about his politics, but he just seems a
little too I don't know, nice gal, Yeah, genteel, that's
a good word. Uh. So we have to remember that
(20:33):
if that happened. If there was a violent changed government
or revolution, a coup, uh descent into chaos, then that
means that the laws that apply to presidential elections don't
matter anymore. Their rules for a different game. But like,
you know, again, worst case scenario, what if you had
(20:55):
a situation where like military leadership was so loyal to
a particulcular president that they would just continue listening only
to him, you know what I mean, Or they wouldn't
accept that seat change. They wouldn't accept that, like, like,
I know, it's not how the system is designed. But
people are people, and who knows, I mean, I know,
you know, generals are intend you know, for all intents
(21:17):
and purposes, meant to be somewhat a political I guess
that's not their job to have opinions about which way
to go. They're supposed to be able to take orders
from the commander in chief. But what if you know,
we see this in other countries where there are military cups,
you know, where a loyalist group, you know, loyal to
a particular dictator or a particular you know, very influential
(21:38):
figure is able to he's able to that person is
able to wield control over those individuals. Maybe it's only
a faction of the military, and then it's a divided
military at that point and it becomes some kind of
in fighting. I don't know, I'm being very you know,
dire here, but I'm just interested if that's even something
within the realm of possibility, or if I've just watched
(21:59):
you know, Air Force one too many times recently. I mean,
these are these are great points, I think. I think
that's an astute thing to point out, because it's true.
Military coups do happen, right, Uh, And there's an interesting
there there. There's an interesting potential special case here. So yeah,
(22:21):
most militaries are theoretically going to be loyal to UH.
They're governing documents rather than a charismatic figure or a cadre.
One exception would be the military of China. The military
of China works for the Communist Party. Uh. It's it
(22:45):
seems like a small distinction, but it makes a big difference.
The problem with the US in the case of this
kind of military intervention is one of the dirty geopolitical
secrets about the military intervening and the government gone off
the rails in other countries, is that a Western intelligence
agency often backs the military coup, and in the past
(23:07):
it's been us. So what happens, what happens when that
kind of reckoning or that kind of process occurs in
the country that's usually in charge of that happening in
other countries. It's an interesting question, you know. And we
know that there is a There are very strict laws
(23:28):
governing the military's relationship to domestic politics. They're there for
a reason. But again, in the case of a coup,
the we're talking about laws that applied to a different game.
I mean, imagine if we're all playing, uh, putt putt.
I'm just gonna say put putt because I missed the
hell out of playing putt putt. Imagine if we're all
(23:50):
playing putt putt and then all of a sudden, halfway through,
you know, towards the end of it, the rules completely change,
and we find ourselves in the deep end of a
pool and we're supposed to swim laps. We can hold
the clubs, but it does not matter if we have them,
and no one cares where the balls go. It's a
(24:11):
terrible analogy, but I think it's important, and these things become,
you know, rightly, very emotionally fraught for people, right, and
and the idea here of a of a military intervention
is I don't know, it's it's just different, like the
military will intervene in various countries. As you said, No,
(24:34):
there will be coups led by an opposition politician or
a particularly ambitious Western backed general. That happens a lot
in the in the past of But yeah, I don't know.
We're supposed to have a UM, we're supposed to have
in a political, secular military. But as I think someone
(24:56):
noted earlier, the military he's composed of people, and people
are the opposite of a political I would just say,
Noel and Vincent, I do not see something like that
occurring unless there is like Ben is describing outside influence
from a power player within the world's you know, within
(25:22):
the world governments, and I, you know, I it's something
like that does go down, we then just have to
be extremely skeptical about the reasoning behind postponement or you know,
whatever whatever action is taken UM to keep the current
party in power. Again, I don't see it happening. I
(25:43):
I do think we're going to go through a changing
of hands of power as this second wave that we're
seeing right now of the pandemic as we're seeing it
really still affecting all of us and having a major
economic impact. So well, I don't see um a power
grab or a coup or something like that. I do
(26:05):
see a very intense changing of power, changing hands of
power going on amidst all that stuff, and it just
feels it does still it's giving me anxiety thinking about it,
or calling into question the results, like you were saying,
saying it was somehow fixed, or that that that that
the results are not legitimate or something like that. Right, sure,
I think that happens to an extent every in every election,
(26:27):
but there I can imagine that this one will be
highly contentious no matter what happens. Yeah, I mean that's
that's another point against the idea of a violent coup
or postponement. Uh, it's this. The appearance of legitimacy is
profoundly crucial to stability. Note that I'm saying the appearance
(26:54):
of legitimacy. It's kind of like the pursuit of happiness.
We're very careful in the US government with how how
you got right to the pursuit, not the actual thing right,
and you have a you you want to aim for
the appearance of legitimacy, even if there is uh some
sort of shenanigan going on. So let's say, you know, Vincent,
(27:16):
let's say that you're running for president, and or less
say you're already president and you know there's an election coming.
You don't know which way it's gonna go. Uh. You
certainly don't want to lose, because people are in general
into that kind of stuff, But you don't want to win.
You generally will not want to win if it will
(27:38):
appear to be nakedly corrupt. You want to be able
to at the very least convinced some large portion of
the population that the process works. Because you know, this
country and a lot of other countries, but this this
country in particular, is fascinating because we put a lot
(28:04):
of uh faith in process, some of the same kind
of faith that empires of old put into religions and gods.
We put into the idea of rituals and assigning dates
to things and having you know, as much as possible
(28:25):
a clear cut path of if thens. But but yeah, again,
not to be alarmist. If there is something, if there
is a what's the phrase a black Swan event or
something like that. If that occurs, then again the rules
and the processes no longer matter. Wow. Well, there you
(28:51):
have it, Vincent, I don't think it's gonna happen. What
do you do you guys think it's gonna happen. I
think I'll try to have the election. Yeah, yeah, fingers crossed.
But like we said from the start, it's an interesting
thing to discuss, and we're not trying to freak anybody out,
but certainly worth considering history and considering, you know, the possibilities.
We're definitely living in uh as the old prophecies at
(29:13):
interesting times. And before we move on to the point
about elections, uh, this will come up in a future
episode of Listener Mail, probably next week. I want to
thank everybody wrote in about the nineteen eight rigged Mexican election,
and I especially want to thank those of our fellow
listeners who said, we get what you're saying about voting
(29:34):
being a right to complain, but watch out because it's
often misused as a a nefarious tactic. So maybe we
can explore that more in depth in a future episode.
But we'll be back with more Listener Mail. After a
brief word from our sponsor and we're back, we're moving on.
(30:00):
We have we have one last correspondence today. It is
also a voicemail. It comes to us via Chrissy. Hello. Okay, Hi,
this is Christy had one of your listeners. I've been
listening for a couple of years and I super love
your show. And I really have to say the last
since you guys have gone into COVID mode, I really
(30:23):
missed the synchronous st d w y t K with
all of you together. I don't know if there's a
way for you guys to think your sound to do
it with uh whatever audio you're using right now. It's
that it's a small thing, but it reminds me that
we uh can't we all be in the same room
(30:44):
always Kale Anyway, One of the things I was wondering
if you guys could look into is this concept of
gas going dad. Um. You know, I was very tempted
to just buy a kind of gaps when it was
fifty five sense that live in Canada. Um, and this
(31:05):
like less than half of what it normally costs to
buy a gas. But gas goes bad for I learned
later from a friend not natural reasons. So apparently they Okay,
(31:25):
put something in gasoline and make it go bad so
that you can't store it. Is that true? And you
guys look into that because that's some fault. Oh, chrissy. Uh.
This is an fascinating voicemail because my spider sense tells
me that when you called us, you uh, you probably
(31:48):
called around the same time that we were recording an
episode about the true cost of gasoline. This is what
Carl Young would call an example of super con sciousness,
or maybe, if we want to be a little less
metaphysical about it, an example of zeitgeist. Right, gases on
people's minds. But but the question here is something that
(32:11):
we talked about briefly in our episode on building a
go bag. What you should what you should or shouldn't
put in a go bag? Is it worth it to
carry gas? Without falling into the rabbit hole of whether
or not you should have gas and go bag. It
is important to point out that gas does have additives
(32:33):
in it, obviously, and gas does have a shelf life.
It can vary for a number of reasons. Gas can
go bad depending on the heat, the oxygen, the humidity.
In general. Generally speaking, pure gas, like top notch gas,
is we have to define what we mean when we
(32:57):
say it goes bad. What we really mean is that
as a result of oxidization and evaporation, it will lose
its pep. Think of the way a soda goes flat
if it's open too long, depending on humidity in the environment. UH.
The problem here is that when gas goes flat, it
loses its combustibility. So one thing that is pretty popular
(33:22):
or has been popular UH for a while in the West,
it would be ethanol, gasoline blends. Those have a shelf
life about two to three months. The regularly quote unquote
pure gas we mentioned UH will start to degrade from
three to six months. But you can add things into gas,
(33:43):
especially if like you have a car that you put
away for the summer, put away from the winter. You
can add stuff to gas that will not you know,
give us some sort of planned opts lessons, but will
instead allow that gas to remain to keep its combustible
nature between why to three years under like really good conditions. UNT.
(34:05):
I don't know. UM. My question for you guys when
I heard this email was what would be the motivation
for a gas killing additive which just sell more gas? Yeah?
I mean, I get presumably. And also, but the question
there is like, right, no, I if she's talking about
stockpiling gas, it would not be in the best interest
of gas company, wouldn't it though you're still paying for it.
(34:28):
I guess the prices fluctuate, you know, maybe it would
be the same as buying stock when it's at a low.
You know, they want you to be subject to all
the same ups and downs of the market. I guess.
I I don't, I don't. I'm just spitballing here. Um,
I don't know. What what do you think to me?
It's almost like h if you think about it, almost
(34:49):
like a subscription service. Depending on the vehicles you drive
and the gas powered you know, machines that you have
wherever you live, you were essentially subscribing to a certain
amount of gas every month really because of the travel
you do and everything, right, and so if you imagine
(35:10):
the you know, the projections that company X that's a
producer of gas or government, why that has a certain
amount of gas and subsidize a certain amount of gas.
You can look at an individual person essentially has that
subscriber and we know we're going to have this much
use in this much injected this much money injected into
(35:31):
the system every month by you, right, and if you
frontload that maybe it throws off projections. I don't know,
that's just me spitball. You say subscription, and I think
that's really interesting because I just signed up for a
new natural gas uh you know account from my house,
and by um locking myself in for a year, I
(35:51):
was able to get a lower rate locked in as
opposed to a variable rate, a lower rate. Why is
there no such subscription model for gasoline for your car?
Why can't I subscribe at a lock in a certain
rate price point by paying monthly or paying for a
whole year. Why doesn't that exist? That did exist for
(36:14):
for some time in a for a little while in
a in a couple of forms regionally, it just never
took off. Uh, it never took off nationally. I think
right now you can see services like let's see, there's
filled with f I L L D no E, so
you know it's cool and you're never on E when
(36:37):
you use filled. They can have that one. Yeah, it's
got that Yoshi which these this service will come to
you and they'll gas up your car. They'll also wash
it and they'll probably take care of smaller maintenance task
like changing your oil something like that. But the idea
(37:01):
I think of people buying a fuel subscription was sort
of like investing in futures. Uh. The cannot remember the
exact the exact circumstances in which this occurred, but it
happened in the US where people were able to purchase
gas in advance from some supplier during a time people
(37:23):
were very worried about spiking prices, and then later uh,
they would always be able to buy up to x
amount of gas, however much they have paid for at
that price. So it's just like what you're describing, Yould,
the idea of getting a fixed rate um. But you know,
the easy answer to why that doesn't happen is probably
(37:44):
because the people in charge of the current industry like
things the way they are. It's always profit motive right there.
You you risk losing money if you do a fixed
rate as as a supplier. But what I think is
fascinating about this question too, Uh, we haven't found any
(38:05):
proof of a gas killing additive that would be widespread.
Yet we know there's stuff that does mess up your
tank and mess up your car, right putting your sugar
and the cast tank for instances the old saw. But
but this question, to me at least, seems more like
a question of planned obsolescence, which is very real and
(38:26):
has been very real since the days of the Phoebus cartel,
when a bunch of people said, will make more money
if we sell light bulbs that aren't as good as
the ones we make now, And that's happening. I I don't.
I don't think it's too far off. I would, I mean,
I don't know. It's it happens with smartphones, right, those
(38:48):
are built to be outdated in what would you guys say,
two years, three, two years? But yet they don't really
cop to that, right. Isn't that sort of like something
that we all know and an experience, But pople won't
come right out and say we do that, right. It's
just the nature of the tech man. It just gets
better and better, dude, And then you put software on
(39:09):
that old hardware. What's up, man, It's just gonna break faster.
It's gonna break faster. Just joking. It's obviously it's obviously
a plan to get you to buy a new phone,
because it's important to you buy a new phone. It's
important that you buy more gas. I mean, do you guys,
imagine a world where I don't know I've got let's
just say, I've got ten barrels of gas in my
(39:32):
backyard that I've that's gonna live forever, that gasoline. It
doesn't matter that it's giving off, you know, or it's
breaking down, essentially at all times, I've got ten barrels
of gas and the apocalypse happens, Guys, I'm set. I
can trade any for anything with all that gas. At
the very least, you can power all your crazy you know,
(39:54):
like a demolition derby vehicles for the Thunderdome. You know. Yeah, sure,
I don't know what I'm even talking about here. But
if I, if I, as an individual, was able to
store enough gas safely that wasn't degrading, I could ostensibly
sell that gasoline as those any other product in a
(40:15):
secondary market, right. I mean I ostensibly could. Doesn't mean
it would be legal, It doesn't mean I would even
make that much money off of it, But it does
mean that if you were to add something to the
gas that would guarantee it degrades over a certain amount
of time. I can imagine that kind of hope that
(40:36):
maybe you prevent those secondary markets and fluctuations that could
occur within there. I can imagine that as a motive,
but I don't think so. And like Ben said, we've
never seen any evidence of something added to the gas.
This actually goes hand in hand with the episode we
just did not not long ago about the hidden cost
of gas, you know, the big picture cost of gas,
(40:56):
And there was something that was in there about the
idea of spillage, you know, and like how much evaporates off,
you know, and and how you have to factor that
in and things. It's just interesting. The whole house of
cards is fascinating, and as we know, I mean, it's
obviously the only reason we're still on it is because
certain corporations that have a lot of power want us
to still be on it, and a lot of people
(41:16):
that make the decisions and government are friends with those people,
and they want those people to be enriched. You know.
It's it's interesting, and there's a there's one last note
here To learn more about fuel additives, I would recommend
the article add how stuff works? Do fuel additives really
do anything? Written by a fantastic auto journalist, Shari's three Wit,
(41:38):
who has a cyclopedic knowledge of these sorts of things,
uh or from the old car stuff days. The weird
thing is to your question, Chrissie, is there a fuel
additive that can harm your vehicle? Uh? Well, a lot
of fuel additives that are sold in your local auto
(41:59):
parts store are kind of snake oil. They will at
worst maybe not harm your engine, but they don't seem
to help in the ways that they seem like placebos,
at least some of them, other than fuel stabilizers. Uh be.
It's it's strange because there there are some tangential or
(42:21):
I would say, small benefits, but often people buy a
fuel additive because they think, you know, it'll make my
car run better for longer, and it mainly just makes
you feel good. You feel like you're taking care of
your car. Well, speaking of feeling good, thanks so much
(42:43):
to Chrissie, Dave and Vincent for calling us and leaving
these messages, speaking with us and bringing these really interesting
things to everyone's attention. Really really, we thank you. We
thank you, And if you're listening out there and you
want to join in and the next one of these,
make sure you head on over to the our phone
(43:03):
number and hey, guys, what do you say, in Chrissie's honor,
why don't we try and and do std w y
t K and the number and everything together just as
a an experiment will show her why we don't do
it anymore. What do you think does that work? Okay?
Here we go in three different locations. If you want
(43:25):
to leave a voicemail, you can call us. Our number
is one eight three three s T d w y
t K. See, it almost worked. It was it was close.
There's it's like a a delay. Actually it was awesome.
We did our level best. But we know that you
(43:45):
are I think I said this on our Facebook page.
Sharees where it gets crazy. I'm a big fan of rituals,
so I like, well, we all do that together, and
even if the three or four of us are not
able to do it absolutely in sync during these are
days of quarantine. It uh, it's it's awesome to know
that many of our fellow listeners are are chanting along
(44:07):
with us. So here's the one day doing that in
person again. Oh and speaking of the Internet, we're all
over there. If you are a person who uses Facebook,
check out here's where it gets crazy. If you're into
Instagram or Twitter, you can find our show. You can
also find us as individuals. Yeah, if you want to,
you can find me on Instagram. Uh, the only place
(44:29):
I hang out really um at how Now Noel Brown,
I'm Matt Frederick Underscore iHeart I'm on Twitter as at
Ben Bully hs W and on Instagram is at Ben Bullet.
And if you don't want to do any of that stuff,
but you still want to contact us, and remember this
can still get on the air, send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Yeah,
(45:12):
stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Control Decade. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. As we said previously on an earlier
episode of our new version of Strange News, we have
(00:48):
expanded stuff they don't want you to know. That's right,
Monday through Friday's we are going to have a new
episode of some sort or maybe a gold an oldie
of another sort hitting your podcast airways. And so this
is the first iteration of what, uh, if everything goes smoothly,
(01:11):
will become a weekly listener mail episode. It's often said
that you, specifically you are the most important part of
this entire enterprise. Uh. That is that is true, and
that's something we feel strongly about ever since the YouTube days.
So now we're putting our money where our proverbial conspiracy
(01:31):
mouths are, and we are going to hear from you.
Is that about the size of it. Yes, that's correct.
And these these messages are going to come from all
over the place. Some are just gonna be a social
media comment, maybe one of you has made, maybe another
of you has called into the voicemail system and left
one of those so you'll hear yourself on this episode,
(01:54):
or maybe you wrote an email that can get in
here too. Really, any communication you're having with us may
and up in one of these episodes post you know,
like like Raven, whatever you got smoke signal, We're here
for it. We want to hear from you, we said
at the end of every episode. And now, yeah, to
Ben's point, we are gonna use this as a way
of curating more discussions and we always, I think all
(02:17):
of us enjoy these episodes, and I for one, I'm
really excited to make it a more regular thing. Yes,
and it is of high importance now that when you
do communicate with us, uh, let us know if you're
cool with us using it on the air, specifically in
voicemails and emails. Just let us know if you're cool
with it, and we'll will make it happen. And if
you don't want us to use their name or want
(02:38):
us to be anonymous, just let us know about that too.
So who would like to go first? I've got one here.
I've got a message from Dave. Here's Dave. Hi, mad,
how you doing? Uh? My name is Dave from Washington,
outside washingtond c in Virginia, in my neighborhood. Where to
take a book leave a book box? I found a
(03:00):
National Geographic magazine from where April two and six reading
the letters to the editor, and I thought you were
finding this interesting? Articles at us a grand central. I this,
this guy says, I read with interest to our call,
particularly the reference and photo of the secret rail platform
(03:22):
beneath the Waldorf, the story of my grandfather, lou freed
Freedman owned Freeme's Ltd. The original man shop at the Waldorf.
My mother and her sister's stayed at the hotel periodically.
During one did it in hotel staff member invided my
mother to the secret platform, where she was one of
(03:44):
the handful of people who witnessed General Eisenhower's return to
the US following World War Two. I just thought that
was very interesting. You may find an interesting too, to
do an episode on with the secret railroad platform. I
wasn't aware of that. Um, love me hear more about him?
All right, Well, feel free to give a call back.
(04:05):
I love you guys, show and uh all for me.
Oh yes, So, Dave, let us know about a secret
rail platform that is underneath the Waldorf Astoria, specifically in
New York. That's the Manhattan location there. Uh, I'm gonna
(04:26):
go ahead and start on this one, guys, and that
we can talk about it. Ben Well, I think you
guys may know about this a little bit. I know, Ben,
you do for sure, just from our previous workings together.
But let's let's get into this. So the Waldorf Astoria
as we know it today sits between forty nine and
(04:46):
fiftie streets in between Park and Lexington Avenues there in
Manhattan's midtown. And it didn't always live there. Previously, it
was over in a different place. I think it's Fifth
Avenue and already third Street. Uh. It was a mansion
owned by this guy that you may recognize. His last name,
(05:07):
William Waldorf, astor of the Astors. And uh you may
notice that the waldorfer story doesn't live there anymore. Now.
That's the home of the Empire State Building. Just kind
of cool background in there that we're looking into. Dave Um,
the place where the Waldorf story lives now over there
(05:30):
between It's been there since ninete so a long time.
This this hotel has lived in midtown Manhattan. And it
is true. It's it's not some you know, weird story
that lived in that National geographic It's true. There is
(05:50):
a secret rail line, or at least a highly underused
rail line, that exists beneath that hotel. And it was
used well for a lot of reasons, mostly to get
V I p. S in and out of the hotel
without being seen. But it was used for a long
time to ship f Dr. Franklin Delnar Roosevelt in and
(06:16):
out of the hotel so that they could keep I
guess hidden his ailments, and to basically as a pr
way to let him drive a car onto a rail,
take that rail into the hotel, have it go into
an elevator, go up into the hotel itself, and then
drive out of the parking area essentially onto the street.
(06:39):
Fascinating concept, right. I wonder if you guys had heard
anything else about this Waldorf historia secret rail line or
the history of it. Yeah, track sixty one, Right, Matt,
you hipped us to this article on gotha mess that
referenced an article from the New York Times from September
of ninete that sort of sets up the whole thing.
(07:00):
Ing and this really great quote. Guests with private rail
cars may have them routed directly to the hotel instead
of the Pennsylvania Station or to Grand Central Terminal, and
may leave their cars at a special elevator which will
take them directly to their suites or to the lobby.
The arrangement is made possible because of the fact that
the New York Central tracks passed directly beneath the block,
which has been obtained by the Hotel Waldorf Astory of
(07:22):
Corporation from the New York Central Railroad on a sixty
three year leasehold, the lease being in reality only for
the air rights on the site, which is always interesting.
The idea of air rights is like, you know that
plays into the height of buildings and being able to
like own part of the sky or or you know, subterranean. Well, yeah,
I wondered Ben if you guys had encountered this when
(07:44):
you were looking at kind of the um hidden areas
or underground areas on a couple of the shows that
we've done in the past. Yeah, that's correct, Matt. A
while ago, a merry band of videographers at the i
AM explored facades and fake buildings of New York City.
(08:05):
These secret trains, by the way, are not just are
not just a New York thing. It makes sense to
have them there in urban centers, in cities throughout the world.
It's a matter of fact, if you'll recall, in the
days of YouTube, when you and I ventured to Washington,
d C. We got very close to arranging a tour
(08:26):
of a closed down secret rail line there in the
nation's capital. These underground or secret included rail lines make
a lot of sense from a security perspective. And the
thing is that now in twenty twenty, a lot of
(08:46):
the historical ones are you know, they're they're no longer secret.
They're no longer classified because there are new technologies or
new methods of transporting people, goods, nuclear weapons, what have you. However,
I would say that, uh, the DPRK has pretty there's
(09:07):
pretty good evidence that they have secret rail lines. Of course. Uh,
the of course Russia has secret rail lines as uh,
you know in subways, A legacy from the very paranoid
days of the Cold War and the U S s R.
When we were doing our when we're doing our exploration
of uh fake buildings or facades of New York City,
(09:30):
which I believe you can still view on YouTube. One
one incredibly interesting thing there was that there were buildings,
or there were fake buildings that were disguising secret railway
entrances and exits. Uh. So this means that even if
there's a you know, a publicly known metro uh you know,
(09:53):
in your neck of the Global Woods, it is still
going to have very likely some kind of hidden way
in or out, not necessarily for nefarious reasons, but more
so for safety reasons. And this one, the logistics of
it's really fascinating because and Ben, this is something you've
covered on car stuff back in the day. Uh FDR
(10:14):
drove an armor plated pierce arrow car um, which is
when you don't hear about anymore because they imagine they
don't make them um. But everything had to be made
so big to accommodate literally driving that car off of
the train onto the platform and into that special elevator.
Uh and then it would be you know, lifted up
(10:35):
and exit through the garage of the building. And there
was even a situation where they would lift his limo
and have to back it out into the grand ballroom
of the Waldorf astoria Um. And you know, some of
this stuff we actually have confirmed from Secret Service log
books that have been declassified as well, So really really
(10:56):
interesting stuff. And Dave, here's something that the National Geographic
Article may not have told you. Uh. For a long time,
it was possible to take a tour of this hidden railway. Uh.
There were some complications, of course, it's it's understandably tough
(11:18):
to tour these things at times. I believe you had
to have a membership with the Transit Museum, uh, just
to be able to take the tour. Uh. And then
you could see I think, I don't know how this
is affected by COVID. They're probably not doing it right now,
but uh, you could see a list of dates and
(11:41):
specific times. But it's very much it's like touring the
Federal meant it's not they don't take walk in's. You
have to you have to be sort of in the
in the inner circle of Transit Museum fans. But you
can go to ww dot web dot mt A dot
info and find I'm more there, or just put uh
(12:02):
secret rail tour into your local uh search engine of choice.
What was it like, it's like fifty bucks, I think
to become a member, right, I believe the tour itself
is fifty bucks. You just have to be a member first.
Oh that's right. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. And
I wonder if there's membership dues or any of that.
But like you said, it's like not like anyone can
(12:22):
just walk up and become one. That's interesting stuff. Um, yeah,
you know it makes me if you I don't know
if you guys ever seen there's a documentary called Dark
Days UM that's about like graffiti culture in New York,
like during the nineties, late nineties, arly two thousands, and
a lot of folks that like literally would set up
um squats in abandoned subway tunnels. So there's so much
(12:45):
cool mystery surrounding like the subterranean networks of like a
city as as old as as New York. And you know,
if anyone spent any time in New York, you know
what a stand still it causes whenever they try to
do maintenance on those on those lines. It's because the
stuff is just so old, so there's so much cool
history there and this is a really great example of that.
So thanks again Dave for calling in. We hope that
(13:07):
was helpful and interesting. We're gonna take a quick break
and hear a word from our sponsor, but we'll be
right back and we're back. Hey, who's next? Yeah, next,
we have a voicemail from Vincent. Let's check it out. Hey, guys,
(13:28):
this is Vincent, from which ta I just got done
listening to your part two update on the coronavirus that
you just released, and certainly a lot to consider, especially
if some of the worst case scenarios you discussed end
up coming true. Uh. One thing that I'm gonna be
keeping an eye on is how the balance of power
is going to be shifting globally, but especially in our
(13:50):
own nation, especially with what you guys were saying about
the election. Yeah, lets that gets pushed back. We're going
to have the Trump administration taking care of this entire
pandemic from likely start to finish, and I uh, I'm
eager to see if they're willing to pass some of
the more socialist, so called socialist policies that are going
to be needed in order to combat things like the
(14:12):
rising unemployment and the insane overwhelment of the medical industry.
That we're gonna definitely see. But I'd be interested to
see if our federal government can maintain the power throughout
this If if states aren't going to be stepping up
and making more and more of their own policies and
furthering themselves from the federal government, if the federal government
is incapable of stepping up to the plate. You know,
(14:35):
another thing is I know Ben often talks about how
the corporation will be the new government. I'd be eager
to see if you know, lower income states like mine,
like Kansas, if we won't have industries stepping in where
the state and federal governments lack, and if they won't
start soaking up some of the power. Because one thing's
for sure, this virus is going to be a precipitous
(14:57):
event for change. So only time will out what directions
that changes in stay safe. Wow, Yeah, And there's definitely
a lot of layers in that, in that call um
and and a lot to unpack. And I very much
remember that conversation that was very early on in the pandemic.
I think that was our second update episode. UM. But yeah,
(15:18):
the idea of you know, using this situation politically um.
And we've certainly seen that happening, uh in more ways
than one. But in the most extreme example of that
would be to uh postpone or god forbid, dare we
say cancel an election? Um? And I think that's an
(15:40):
interesting question and something that we sort of talked about,
like in the Realm of Thought experiment. UM. I did
in listening to this UH this voicemail, do a little
research and happened upon our our old pals it how
stuff works in an article? Can the U S presidential
election be postponed? And Um, as as you guys may know,
(16:00):
it turns out it's very very difficult to do that. Um.
It's never been postponed in the history of elections in
this country. And it would require the date is fixed
by law and can only be changed by making a
new law. UM. And so it would require agreement across
the aisle to do that. And as difficult to time
(16:22):
as we see lawmakers having passing any law, I have
a hard time believing that that could happen. But under
the twentieth Amendment, UH, the incumbent presidents is a quote,
a president's term ends at noon on January. There's no
provision of law permitting a president to stay in office
after this date, even in the event of a national emergency,
short of the ratification of a new constitutional amendment. Um,
(16:45):
what do you guys think? What about what about martial law?
What about some kind of coup? I mean that martial
law and a coup I have to imagine would be
an extreme stretch. Um. You know, an I don't want
to be in a doomsday mindset about any of that stuff.
I I very much believe, at least since had that
(17:09):
conversation we had perhaps a little while ago, that there
will be an election. It will just be I think,
fraught with controversy, just because of the nature of so
many votes having to come in through the mail and
not through you know, the ballot system that we've become
accustomed to, just as we we've already seen in this
(17:30):
country with the primaries, a couple of strange things occurring. Um,
most of it I'm hoping is you know, error within
a new system being adopted. But you know, you can't
completely discount the nefarious actions of you know, people who
have an agenda or someone who has an agenda. Ah,
(17:54):
I don't know. I guess that's my way of attempting
to be measured about it rather than you know, fearful
of of something like that. I don't know. Let's approach
this as a thought experiments. Let's do a decision tree
of if thens. So as as you point out, Noll,
it is uh, it is a herculean task to postpone
(18:17):
not just the presidential election, but uh, you know, like
like the rolling election for the House of Representatives, which
occurs every two years. We have seen we have seen runoffs,
we have seen delays in specific elections, right, but never
never a presidential one. If if there is not an election,
(18:41):
that doesn't mean that the president legally stays in power.
Remember the president is if the election is postponed, then
their term is still over towards the end of January.
And that means that Congress, which typically has a cartoonishly
low approval rate. I've got a great list I should
(19:02):
sent around about things that have a higher approval rating
than Congress. I think we covered it one time in
the past, Matt, and maybe it was maybe it was
on a different show, but it's it's hilarious. It'll surprise you,
and it's pretty accurate. But anyhow, so we don't If
there's not an election, then the president's term still ends
on January, and the House and the Senate have to
(19:26):
divide and conquer. So the House has to somehow pick
the new president and the Senate has to somehow pick
the VP, which is an interesting switch, right, but the
House is kind of considered to be closer, to have
a closer grasp on the zeitgeist or the desires of
the population. But but here's the problem. Here's the problem
(19:49):
with that entire If then depending on why an election
might be postponed, if there is, for instance, um, some
sort of violent coup or some sort of fundamental change
to the status quo, this is you know, this is
an allegation that surfaces literally every time there's a different precedent, Right,
(20:12):
Bill Clinton has gonna h cancel the election or uh
but they probably even people probably even thought Jimmy Carter
would do it. Personally, I don't think he I'm not
saying anything about his politics, but he just seems a
little too I don't know, nice gal, Yeah, genteel, that's
a good word. Uh. So we have to remember that
(20:33):
if that happened. If there was a violent changed government
or revolution, a coup, uh descent into chaos, then that
means that the laws that apply to presidential elections don't
matter anymore. Their rules for a different game. But like,
you know, again, worst case scenario, what if you had
(20:55):
a situation where like military leadership was so loyal to
a particulcular president that they would just continue listening only
to him, you know what I mean, Or they wouldn't
accept that seat change. They wouldn't accept that, like, like,
I know, it's not how the system is designed. But
people are people, and who knows, I mean, I know,
you know, generals are intend you know, for all intents
(21:17):
and purposes, meant to be somewhat a political I guess
that's not their job to have opinions about which way
to go. They're supposed to be able to take orders
from the commander in chief. But what if you know,
we see this in other countries where there are military cups,
you know, where a loyalist group, you know, loyal to
a particular dictator or a particular you know, very influential
(21:38):
figure is able to he's able to that person is
able to wield control over those individuals. Maybe it's only
a faction of the military, and then it's a divided
military at that point and it becomes some kind of
in fighting. I don't know, I'm being very you know,
dire here, but I'm just interested if that's even something
within the realm of possibility, or if I've just watched
(21:59):
you know, Air Force one too many times recently. I mean,
these are these are great points, I think. I think
that's an astute thing to point out, because it's true.
Military coups do happen, right, Uh, And there's an interesting
there there. There's an interesting potential special case here. So yeah,
(22:21):
most militaries are theoretically going to be loyal to UH.
They're governing documents rather than a charismatic figure or a cadre.
One exception would be the military of China. The military
of China works for the Communist Party. Uh. It's it
(22:45):
seems like a small distinction, but it makes a big difference.
The problem with the US in the case of this
kind of military intervention is one of the dirty geopolitical
secrets about the military intervening and the government gone off
the rails in other countries, is that a Western intelligence
agency often backs the military coup, and in the past
(23:07):
it's been us. So what happens, what happens when that
kind of reckoning or that kind of process occurs in
the country that's usually in charge of that happening in
other countries. It's an interesting question, you know. And we
know that there is a There are very strict laws
(23:28):
governing the military's relationship to domestic politics. They're there for
a reason. But again, in the case of a coup,
the we're talking about laws that applied to a different game.
I mean, imagine if we're all playing, uh, putt putt.
I'm just gonna say put putt because I missed the
hell out of playing putt putt. Imagine if we're all
(23:50):
playing putt putt and then all of a sudden, halfway through,
you know, towards the end of it, the rules completely change,
and we find ourselves in the deep end of a
pool and we're supposed to swim laps. We can hold
the clubs, but it does not matter if we have them,
and no one cares where the balls go. It's a
(24:11):
terrible analogy, but I think it's important, and these things become,
you know, rightly, very emotionally fraught for people, right, and
and the idea here of a of a military intervention
is I don't know, it's it's just different, like the
military will intervene in various countries. As you said, No,
(24:34):
there will be coups led by an opposition politician or
a particularly ambitious Western backed general. That happens a lot
in the in the past of But yeah, I don't know.
We're supposed to have a UM, we're supposed to have
in a political, secular military. But as I think someone
(24:56):
noted earlier, the military he's composed of people, and people
are the opposite of a political I would just say,
Noel and Vincent, I do not see something like that
occurring unless there is like Ben is describing outside influence
from a power player within the world's you know, within
(25:22):
the world governments, and I, you know, I it's something
like that does go down, we then just have to
be extremely skeptical about the reasoning behind postponement or you know,
whatever whatever action is taken UM to keep the current
party in power. Again, I don't see it happening. I
(25:43):
I do think we're going to go through a changing
of hands of power as this second wave that we're
seeing right now of the pandemic as we're seeing it
really still affecting all of us and having a major
economic impact. So well, I don't see um a power
grab or a coup or something like that. I do
(26:05):
see a very intense changing of power, changing hands of
power going on amidst all that stuff, and it just
feels it does still it's giving me anxiety thinking about it,
or calling into question the results, like you were saying,
saying it was somehow fixed, or that that that that
the results are not legitimate or something like that. Right, sure,
I think that happens to an extent every in every election,
(26:27):
but there I can imagine that this one will be
highly contentious no matter what happens. Yeah, I mean that's
that's another point against the idea of a violent coup
or postponement. Uh, it's this. The appearance of legitimacy is
profoundly crucial to stability. Note that I'm saying the appearance
(26:54):
of legitimacy. It's kind of like the pursuit of happiness.
We're very careful in the US government with how how
you got right to the pursuit, not the actual thing right,
and you have a you you want to aim for
the appearance of legitimacy, even if there is uh some
sort of shenanigan going on. So let's say, you know, Vincent,
(27:16):
let's say that you're running for president, and or less
say you're already president and you know there's an election coming.
You don't know which way it's gonna go. Uh. You
certainly don't want to lose, because people are in general
into that kind of stuff, But you don't want to win.
You generally will not want to win if it will
(27:38):
appear to be nakedly corrupt. You want to be able
to at the very least convinced some large portion of
the population that the process works. Because you know, this
country and a lot of other countries, but this this
country in particular, is fascinating because we put a lot
(28:04):
of uh faith in process, some of the same kind
of faith that empires of old put into religions and gods.
We put into the idea of rituals and assigning dates
to things and having you know, as much as possible
(28:25):
a clear cut path of if thens. But but yeah, again,
not to be alarmist. If there is something, if there
is a what's the phrase a black Swan event or
something like that. If that occurs, then again the rules
and the processes no longer matter. Wow. Well, there you
(28:51):
have it, Vincent, I don't think it's gonna happen. What
do you do you guys think it's gonna happen. I
think I'll try to have the election. Yeah, yeah, fingers crossed.
But like we said from the start, it's an interesting
thing to discuss, and we're not trying to freak anybody out,
but certainly worth considering history and considering, you know, the possibilities.
We're definitely living in uh as the old prophecies at
(29:13):
interesting times. And before we move on to the point
about elections, uh, this will come up in a future
episode of Listener Mail, probably next week. I want to
thank everybody wrote in about the nineteen eight rigged Mexican election,
and I especially want to thank those of our fellow
listeners who said, we get what you're saying about voting
(29:34):
being a right to complain, but watch out because it's
often misused as a a nefarious tactic. So maybe we
can explore that more in depth in a future episode.
But we'll be back with more Listener Mail. After a
brief word from our sponsor and we're back, we're moving on.
(30:00):
We have we have one last correspondence today. It is
also a voicemail. It comes to us via Chrissy. Hello. Okay, Hi,
this is Christy had one of your listeners. I've been
listening for a couple of years and I super love
your show. And I really have to say the last
since you guys have gone into COVID mode, I really
(30:23):
missed the synchronous st d w y t K with
all of you together. I don't know if there's a
way for you guys to think your sound to do
it with uh whatever audio you're using right now. It's
that it's a small thing, but it reminds me that
we uh can't we all be in the same room
(30:44):
always Kale Anyway, One of the things I was wondering
if you guys could look into is this concept of
gas going dad. Um. You know, I was very tempted
to just buy a kind of gaps when it was
fifty five sense that live in Canada. Um, and this
(31:05):
like less than half of what it normally costs to
buy a gas. But gas goes bad for I learned
later from a friend not natural reasons. So apparently they Okay,
(31:25):
put something in gasoline and make it go bad so
that you can't store it. Is that true? And you
guys look into that because that's some fault. Oh, chrissy. Uh.
This is an fascinating voicemail because my spider sense tells
me that when you called us, you uh, you probably
(31:48):
called around the same time that we were recording an
episode about the true cost of gasoline. This is what
Carl Young would call an example of super con sciousness,
or maybe, if we want to be a little less
metaphysical about it, an example of zeitgeist. Right, gases on
people's minds. But but the question here is something that
(32:11):
we talked about briefly in our episode on building a
go bag. What you should what you should or shouldn't
put in a go bag? Is it worth it to
carry gas? Without falling into the rabbit hole of whether
or not you should have gas and go bag. It
is important to point out that gas does have additives
(32:33):
in it, obviously, and gas does have a shelf life.
It can vary for a number of reasons. Gas can
go bad depending on the heat, the oxygen, the humidity.
In general. Generally speaking, pure gas, like top notch gas,
is we have to define what we mean when we
(32:57):
say it goes bad. What we really mean is that
as a result of oxidization and evaporation, it will lose
its pep. Think of the way a soda goes flat
if it's open too long, depending on humidity in the environment. UH.
The problem here is that when gas goes flat, it
loses its combustibility. So one thing that is pretty popular
(33:22):
or has been popular UH for a while in the West,
it would be ethanol, gasoline blends. Those have a shelf
life about two to three months. The regularly quote unquote
pure gas we mentioned UH will start to degrade from
three to six months. But you can add things into gas,
(33:43):
especially if like you have a car that you put
away for the summer, put away from the winter. You
can add stuff to gas that will not you know,
give us some sort of planned opts lessons, but will
instead allow that gas to remain to keep its combustible
nature between why to three years under like really good conditions. UNT.
(34:05):
I don't know. UM. My question for you guys when
I heard this email was what would be the motivation
for a gas killing additive which just sell more gas? Yeah?
I mean, I get presumably. And also, but the question
there is like, right, no, I if she's talking about
stockpiling gas, it would not be in the best interest
of gas company, wouldn't it though you're still paying for it.
(34:28):
I guess the prices fluctuate, you know, maybe it would
be the same as buying stock when it's at a low.
You know, they want you to be subject to all
the same ups and downs of the market. I guess.
I I don't, I don't. I'm just spitballing here. Um,
I don't know. What what do you think to me?
It's almost like h if you think about it, almost
(34:49):
like a subscription service. Depending on the vehicles you drive
and the gas powered you know, machines that you have
wherever you live, you were essentially subscribing to a certain
amount of gas every month really because of the travel
you do and everything, right, and so if you imagine
(35:10):
the you know, the projections that company X that's a
producer of gas or government, why that has a certain
amount of gas and subsidize a certain amount of gas.
You can look at an individual person essentially has that
subscriber and we know we're going to have this much
use in this much injected this much money injected into
(35:31):
the system every month by you, right, and if you
frontload that maybe it throws off projections. I don't know,
that's just me spitball. You say subscription, and I think
that's really interesting because I just signed up for a
new natural gas uh you know account from my house,
and by um locking myself in for a year, I
(35:51):
was able to get a lower rate locked in as
opposed to a variable rate, a lower rate. Why is
there no such subscription model for gasoline for your car?
Why can't I subscribe at a lock in a certain
rate price point by paying monthly or paying for a
whole year. Why doesn't that exist? That did exist for
(36:14):
for some time in a for a little while in
a in a couple of forms regionally, it just never
took off. Uh, it never took off nationally. I think
right now you can see services like let's see, there's
filled with f I L L D no E, so
you know it's cool and you're never on E when
(36:37):
you use filled. They can have that one. Yeah, it's
got that Yoshi which these this service will come to
you and they'll gas up your car. They'll also wash
it and they'll probably take care of smaller maintenance task
like changing your oil something like that. But the idea
(37:01):
I think of people buying a fuel subscription was sort
of like investing in futures. Uh. The cannot remember the
exact the exact circumstances in which this occurred, but it
happened in the US where people were able to purchase
gas in advance from some supplier during a time people
(37:23):
were very worried about spiking prices, and then later uh,
they would always be able to buy up to x
amount of gas, however much they have paid for at
that price. So it's just like what you're describing, Yould,
the idea of getting a fixed rate um. But you know,
the easy answer to why that doesn't happen is probably
(37:44):
because the people in charge of the current industry like
things the way they are. It's always profit motive right there.
You you risk losing money if you do a fixed
rate as as a supplier. But what I think is
fascinating about this question too, Uh, we haven't found any
(38:05):
proof of a gas killing additive that would be widespread.
Yet we know there's stuff that does mess up your
tank and mess up your car, right putting your sugar
and the cast tank for instances the old saw. But
but this question, to me at least, seems more like
a question of planned obsolescence, which is very real and
(38:26):
has been very real since the days of the Phoebus cartel,
when a bunch of people said, will make more money
if we sell light bulbs that aren't as good as
the ones we make now, And that's happening. I I don't.
I don't think it's too far off. I would, I mean,
I don't know. It's it happens with smartphones, right, those
(38:48):
are built to be outdated in what would you guys say,
two years, three, two years? But yet they don't really
cop to that, right. Isn't that sort of like something
that we all know and an experience, But pople won't
come right out and say we do that, right. It's
just the nature of the tech man. It just gets
better and better, dude, And then you put software on
(39:09):
that old hardware. What's up, man, It's just gonna break faster.
It's gonna break faster. Just joking. It's obviously it's obviously
a plan to get you to buy a new phone,
because it's important to you buy a new phone. It's
important that you buy more gas. I mean, do you guys,
imagine a world where I don't know I've got let's
just say, I've got ten barrels of gas in my
(39:32):
backyard that I've that's gonna live forever, that gasoline. It
doesn't matter that it's giving off, you know, or it's
breaking down, essentially at all times, I've got ten barrels
of gas and the apocalypse happens, Guys, I'm set. I
can trade any for anything with all that gas. At
the very least, you can power all your crazy you know,
(39:54):
like a demolition derby vehicles for the Thunderdome. You know. Yeah, sure,
I don't know what I'm even talking about here. But
if I, if I, as an individual, was able to
store enough gas safely that wasn't degrading, I could ostensibly
sell that gasoline as those any other product in a
(40:15):
secondary market, right. I mean I ostensibly could. Doesn't mean
it would be legal, It doesn't mean I would even
make that much money off of it, But it does
mean that if you were to add something to the
gas that would guarantee it degrades over a certain amount
of time. I can imagine that kind of hope that
(40:36):
maybe you prevent those secondary markets and fluctuations that could
occur within there. I can imagine that as a motive,
but I don't think so. And like Ben said, we've
never seen any evidence of something added to the gas.
This actually goes hand in hand with the episode we
just did not not long ago about the hidden cost
of gas, you know, the big picture cost of gas,
(40:56):
And there was something that was in there about the
idea of spillage, you know, and like how much evaporates off,
you know, and and how you have to factor that
in and things. It's just interesting. The whole house of
cards is fascinating, and as we know, I mean, it's
obviously the only reason we're still on it is because
certain corporations that have a lot of power want us
to still be on it, and a lot of people
(41:16):
that make the decisions and government are friends with those people,
and they want those people to be enriched. You know.
It's it's interesting, and there's a there's one last note
here To learn more about fuel additives, I would recommend
the article add how stuff works? Do fuel additives really
do anything? Written by a fantastic auto journalist, Shari's three Wit,
(41:38):
who has a cyclopedic knowledge of these sorts of things,
uh or from the old car stuff days. The weird
thing is to your question, Chrissie, is there a fuel
additive that can harm your vehicle? Uh? Well, a lot
of fuel additives that are sold in your local auto
(41:59):
parts store are kind of snake oil. They will at
worst maybe not harm your engine, but they don't seem
to help in the ways that they seem like placebos,
at least some of them, other than fuel stabilizers. Uh be.
It's it's strange because there there are some tangential or
(42:21):
I would say, small benefits, but often people buy a
fuel additive because they think, you know, it'll make my
car run better for longer, and it mainly just makes
you feel good. You feel like you're taking care of
your car. Well, speaking of feeling good, thanks so much
(42:43):
to Chrissie, Dave and Vincent for calling us and leaving
these messages, speaking with us and bringing these really interesting
things to everyone's attention. Really really, we thank you. We
thank you, And if you're listening out there and you
want to join in and the next one of these,
make sure you head on over to the our phone
(43:03):
number and hey, guys, what do you say, in Chrissie's honor,
why don't we try and and do std w y
t K and the number and everything together just as
a an experiment will show her why we don't do
it anymore. What do you think does that work? Okay?
Here we go in three different locations. If you want
(43:25):
to leave a voicemail, you can call us. Our number
is one eight three three s T d w y
t K. See, it almost worked. It was it was close.
There's it's like a a delay. Actually it was awesome.
We did our level best. But we know that you
(43:45):
are I think I said this on our Facebook page.
Sharees where it gets crazy. I'm a big fan of rituals,
so I like, well, we all do that together, and
even if the three or four of us are not
able to do it absolutely in sync during these are
days of quarantine. It uh, it's it's awesome to know
that many of our fellow listeners are are chanting along
(44:07):
with us. So here's the one day doing that in
person again. Oh and speaking of the Internet, we're all
over there. If you are a person who uses Facebook,
check out here's where it gets crazy. If you're into
Instagram or Twitter, you can find our show. You can
also find us as individuals. Yeah, if you want to,
you can find me on Instagram. Uh, the only place
(44:29):
I hang out really um at how Now Noel Brown,
I'm Matt Frederick Underscore iHeart I'm on Twitter as at
Ben Bully hs W and on Instagram is at Ben Bullet.
And if you don't want to do any of that stuff,
but you still want to contact us, and remember this
can still get on the air, send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Yeah,
(45:12):
stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com