August 26, 2021 • 47 mins
Wernher von Braun wrote a curious story about encountering Martians. A listener explains the power of hand-written letters. An email inspires the guys to dive deep into the macabre world of modern grave robbing. All this and more in this week's listener mail.
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 Brading, Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Noel, my name is Matt.
WHOA did we just put our things down flipping and
reverse it? Yes? We did, Mr Elliott. Our colleague Ben
is not here today, but he's out there somewhere, and
I have a feeling we might hear from him very soon.
And as always, we are joined today by our super producer,
Paul Mission controlled decand and guess what you are? You?
(00:47):
You are here and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know Listener Mail edition, or as we
like to refer to it, the U Edition. That's right,
that's right, And speaking of you you today is also
been because Ben is out seriously in a weird place
on an adventure. He talked about it last week, and
(01:08):
he sent a message to us from that location, and
we're going to hear from him right now. As I
mentioned earlier this week, I'm in a remote location fielding
a number of pursuits. But this letter from Garrett sent
me on one of my favorite rabbit holes, the kind
of thing that draws you into a place past time.
I looked up to realize hours had passed. Hours I
(01:32):
frankly didn't have the luxury of spending, but time well spent. Nonetheless, Garrett,
here's what you said, Hi, guys. I recently stumbled upon
a clickbait story about a VHS tape that was passed
around in the early nineties. It was a twenty five
minute or so video supposedly tutoring people on how to
(01:53):
properly rob graves. The video seems remarkably authentic, mostly because
the young man tutor en Us, seems so real. He
seems to be speaking candidly and has an occasional stutter
throughout the video. This kid is handling a very real
looking human skull. Apparently nobody has ever identified the star
(02:13):
of the video, despite his speech impediment, his accent, and
his unique appearance. Garrett says, I would be interested to
know if grave robbing is actually a modern occurrence, as
this young man seems to suggest. The lore of the
video is an interesting tale in itself. Garrett has attached
a link to a video called grave Robbing for morons.
(02:39):
Thanks for keeping me entertained while I run. Hey, Garrett,
thank you Matt Noel. I posted the video Garrett mentioned,
and I hope you guys have a chance to watch
somewhere all of it. Here's what's going on. While I
can't conclusively speak to the veracity of this video clip,
(03:00):
I can tell you it's fairly graphic. The video is
much like you've described, Garrett. The cameras handheld, the background
is dirty. The person in the video walks through what
they claim are best practices for removing a skull from
a corpse, from entering a cemetery or grave site surreptitiously
(03:23):
and getting away. Uh. They also talk about the best
practices for removing skin from the skull and so on.
The video is pretty long, and it goes in depth.
In fact, it goes on long enough to make me
feel like it maybe a sincere effort rather than a
prank or an attempt at anti comedy. But I'm still
(03:44):
on the fence here. It is worth a watch. It's
freely available on YouTube, if for nothing more than curiosity.
In terms of practical grave robbing, it's very clear this
video was made before the advent of smartphones. I'd say
it was clearly made after because if you look closely,
you can see a VHS tape of Evil Dead two
(04:06):
in the shot. The accent is indicative of New York
unless the person here is acting. The host, as far
as I can tell, remains unidentified, though there are some
interesting Internet sleuths who feel like they have some leads
on this. It's also tough to tell whether this skull
is real. The whole thing could be a student film.
(04:30):
But if it is a student film, Whitney classmate of
come forward by now. And in terms of removing flesh
from bone, the advice just isn't good. Don't follow it.
The advice about how to quietly do stuff at night, however,
does make sense. It's practical for any number of situations,
(04:53):
including stuff like bombing graffiti or breaking and entering urban exploration,
and so one. Back to the video itself, it's fascinating,
rabbit hole, you know whether it's fake or legit. But
the bigger question you've asked, Garrett is about grave robbing,
and I am unfortunately here to tell you and all
(05:15):
our fellow conspiracy realist that grave robbing is still very
much a thing in the modern day, it's a huge industry,
and the process of grave robbing, the motivations behind it,
and the nuts and bolts of the process may not
be occurring in the way we'd initially imagine. I mean,
(05:36):
I believe this could be a good, if grizzly full
episode of stuff they don't want you to know. Pictures
staffa from Saturday Night Live say, modern grave robbing has
everything angry archaeologist elicit activity under the cover of night
meth heads, the Chinese government, ancient Native American mounds in
(05:56):
the Bureau of Land Management. So first, the days of
resurrection men are long gone. Medical schools and research institutions
can legally buy human remains, even if the provenance is
often dodgy. In the US, for instance, most corpses receive
a prompt burial, and the bodies that get donated to
(06:20):
science usually end up on the dissection table. Uh their
bones get sought to pieces, they get destined for creation eventually.
So this means that most skeletons that are used for
medical study do come from overseas, and that means that
they often arrive without the informed consent of those people.
(06:46):
The skeletons back when they were alive, and often they're
they're received and violation of the laws of their country
of origin. I mean, honestly, you can go buy human
bones for yourself right now if you know where to look.
Check out, for instance, curiosities from the fifth corner dot com.
(07:06):
That's all one word, uh five is number five th,
so curiosities from the number five th corner dot com.
India has for a long time been the world's main
source of bones used in medical studies. Back in the
(07:26):
Indian government outlawed the export of human remains and the
global supply of skeletons collapsed. Western countries then turned to
places like Eastern Europe and China, but often medical professionals
considered those countries or those regions to be inferior sources
(07:50):
of skeletons and bones because the producers didn't have much
experience creating what the experts would describe as display qualities specimens.
And it turns out that what's known as India's bone
trade continued as a black market. This meant there was
a renaissance in grave robbing, one that in all likelihood
(08:13):
continues today. It was one place that was called the
bone factory, referenced in an article and wired that operated
successfully for more than a century before two workers at
this factory started drinking at a bar and casually running
their mouths off about their day jobs or night jobs,
(08:35):
which were robbing graves. This is a gruesome example, but
other grave robbery is less motivated by getting bones and
oriented more toward robbing forward are known as grave goods,
the artifacts and the treasures buried with the dead. This
could be anything from precious metals in jewelry to you know,
(09:00):
ancient vases in ancient relics. In an article for Vice,
reporter named Oscar Rickett spoke with an archaeologist named Delphin
Weiss about how meth amphetamine fueled grave robbers hit the
hit the grave robbing scene in the nineteen nineties and
then became enormously prominent in the two thousand's. Delphin noted
(09:24):
that meth makes people actually pretty well suited for grave robbing.
Think about it. They have a lot of energy, they
keep weird hours, and they tend to focus the majority
of their time on activities that help them fund their addictions.
Delphin noted that the biggest cases of meth motivated grave
(09:45):
robbing occur in places like Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, the
Four Corners region, and across the Southwest. In general, the
sites that are targeted are often civil war sites or
Native amer incites, and this archaeologist, Delphin, says, they've personally
come across meth labs in the middle of nowhere, and
(10:08):
sometimes the people in charge of those labs actually put
up booby traps. The grave robbers when they get whatever
they have found, be it in an ancient Native American
mound or be it at the side of a civil
war battle, they usually go and sell these objects directly
to their meth dealer, and the meth dealer functions as
(10:31):
a middleman, or they sell it to someone they know
who was already an established black market dealer of Native
American goods, and at that point it starts being distributed
through networks across the US, or it just gets sold
on eBay, and it's pretty hard to track down and
(10:52):
stop this illegal trade. You might ask yourself why desecrate
a grave? Well, unlike the guy and the grave robbing
for Moron's video, who mainly talks about the thrill of
doing this and talks a little bit about how it
could also be a lucrative business. This seems to be
entirely a business decision in many parts of the world,
(11:15):
and it's one that probably isn't going to stop unless
it somehow becomes unprofitable. And this also leads us to
an interesting question about statutes. I mean, who's to say
local people don't see foreign archaeologists as grave robbers themselves?
How long does a body have to be in the
(11:36):
ground before exhuming it becomes a scientific enterprise rather than
a crime. These are important questions that institutions, countries, and
individuals have wrestled with. But to answer your question directly, Garrett,
right now, it looks as though grave robbing is a
(11:56):
modern day industry with a long, grizzly tradition, and one
that is set to continue in the future. As for
the video that you have mentioned, there are there are
a lot of things that seem a little off about it.
Aside from the advice, I would also um, I'd love
to hear from our fellow conspiracy realist about whether or
(12:21):
not you think this is legit, what you think the
motivation is, and um whether they'll they'll actually find this person.
So I am signing off from an undisclosed location. Hope
to talk to everyone soon. In the meantime, please write
to us about this directly. You can email us we
are Conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com, or you
(12:43):
can call us. We are one eight three three s
T d W y t K grizzly stuff from Ben
Bolan in the field on the undisclosed field. We're gonna
take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor,
and then we will be back with more. Listen to you,
(13:06):
and we're back with more messages or stories all the things.
Communications from you the Conspiracy Realist the best part of
the show, and this one is just delightful of it. Honestly,
I was a little concerned that it was going to,
you know, be one of those kind of like you
guys totally got it wrong and screwed the pooch on
this one, but it turned out to just be a really, really,
(13:27):
really amazing bit of detail around the idea of handwritten
letters as advertising or in this case, as evangelizing. So
I don't just say anymore what We'll get into the
conversation in a minute, but here is a letter from Anna. Hi.
My name's Anna, and first of all, I just wanted
to say I love your podcast. Thank you, Anna. I
was listening to your latest episode today, the Troubling Future
(13:49):
of Advertising, and about three quarters of the way in,
I had to laugh to myself a little bit because
he started to talk about receiving handwritten letters from religious groups,
as it so happens at the time I was writing
one of these letters. I'm one of Jehovah's witnesses, and
if you've received any handwritten letters, they're probably from your
(14:10):
local witnesses. We are not evangelicals, but are a Christian religion.
It may be possible other religious groups maybe sending letters
to people too, but we do it on the largest scale. Anyway,
I heard you had a couple of questions on the
nature of these letters in your episodes, so I thought
i'd answer some of them for you. First off, the
reason we write these letters is because of wait for it,
(14:31):
COVID nineteen. Due to COVID nineteen, we can no longer
go door to door like we used to, so we've
had to adapt thus letter writing. Second, yes, we do
handwrite the letters, each and every one of them, though
some witnesses may opt to type them, but most prefer handwriting. Because,
like you mentioned, it makes it more personal. That being said,
(14:54):
we're making our letters personal for different reasons than an advertisement.
Unlike ads, we act really care about people and we
want to show it by taking the time to write
a letter just for them. We're not trying to sell anything.
We just want to offer some encouragement and hope. We
never asked for donations or charge for literature. Actually, most
(15:14):
of us lose money writing to people. I know I
do because we pay out of pocket for stamps, envelopes,
and paper. But we still do it because we care
about our neighbors. Third, you mentioned receiving letters written by children.
These letters are in fact written by children. Witnesses encourage
their kids to participate in letter writing with them. My
family usually does it together on Saturdays for a little while.
(15:35):
Though we aren't forcing kids to write letters, they do
it of their own free will. As you said, sometimes
the letters message may seem mature for the appearance of
the writing. That's because some kids need some help knowing
what to write, so they'll copy the parents letters. My
little brothers do this. Lastly, I have never and have
never heard of any witnesses using the term I'll pray
(15:56):
for you or anything along those lines, as it seems
very judgmental and a little creepy. So if you get
a letter that says that it's probably not from us anyway,
hopefully that answers some questions about what our operation and
quotes looks like. And I truly hope those who receive
my letters look at them as a message from someone
who cares about them rather than an advertisement. If you
(16:17):
have any questions about Jehovah's witnesses, you can learn more
about our beliefs at our website JW dot org. Again,
love your podcast. Every episode I learned something new. Keep
it up and have a great day. I'm not gonna lie, Matt.
I'm getting a little verklempt right now, and I don't
know why, only because I just I think this is
really lovely. This is a really lovely sentiment, and uh
(16:37):
Anna's apparent clearly a lovely person. And you know, while
I have my beefs with organized religion certainly, and I
have made no uh attempts to hide that on the show. UM,
I also realized that the community aspect of it and
the like you know, um support aspect of it, and
the kind of like trying to give people hope and
(16:58):
engender kind of positive qualities and like being living to
be the best version of yourself. All of those things
are really powerful positive qualities of certain organized religion. And
I'm not here to nag or dis on anything that
anyone's doing that's bettering themselves or making them you know,
literally treat their neighbors more kindly, you know, or with
(17:18):
respect or or in a way that tries to make
them feel seen. Uh. And I just thought this was
really lovely. Um. But also I love the fact that
Anna wasn't like mad that we brought this up in
the context of advertising, that she totally acknowledges that it
could be seen or taken that way and did some
things to clear it up without feeling preachy or judge
in any way. UM. So, I don't know, hats off
(17:41):
to you, Anna for this letter. Uh. It really kind
of made me feel things any think that that's awesome.
What my favorite thing is that she's listening to this
show of shows while she's doing that like outreach to people. Um,
not what I would expect, Anna, but you know, hey,
different strokes like strokes of the pen get it, yes
(18:06):
for sure? Um. You know, man, and I have. I
have a lot of questions and I'm not going to
pose them to you right now, but most of them
have to do with, you know, the baseline belief structure
of you know, someone who identifies as a Jehovah's witness,
and um, some of those things, like the acts, I
(18:29):
don't I don't know enough to like even have the
conversation right now. But we've discussed Jehovah's Witnesses in the
in the past. Uh, not not at the individual level,
but at on the structural level, right of the organization
and the beliefs, the belief system. I'm interested to know
how those letters play into some of those larger beliefs
(18:49):
about me. I might be getting this wrong, but treasures
in heaven versus you know what you how that's related
to your acts on this plane on earth? You know? Yeah?
I just wonder, like where the letter writing fits into
all of that. Yeah, And I have to wonder two Like,
I mean, you know, maybe it's not overt, but surely
it's made clear in these letters that this is somehow
(19:13):
an extension of the of the Jehovah's Witness organization. And
I would imagine the intent in some small way has
to be to you know, get people to pay attention
and maybe given a second thought because they felt seen
and they felt, you know, like they were given something
very personal. Uh. And I think that's obviously whatever the intent.
(19:36):
I mean, I think the intent of just like reaching
out and trying to make people feel good and trying
to help your name anythink that's all great and obviously
very important part of this. But I also think there
is certainly a component of it that is a form
of you know, some some form of recruitment. Yeah, but
I mean, but it's done in a very classy way.
And I think the intent of of the the utmost
(19:57):
you know, importance is what is described me. And I'm
not trying to contradict you on our say that you
know you're not being on the level, because I think
clearly you are, and it seems like it's something that's
very meaningful to you and members of your community. And
I love the idea of like, you know, getting together
and doing this with the family, and of course, you know,
we know, I think many of us have probably been
visited by Jehovah's witnesses, and I would argue this is
(20:19):
probably a better a better alternative. Uh. In this day
and age of it's it's not, people are a little
suspicious when people knock on their doors. Yeah. Earlier today,
I was in a meeting and I heard a loud
brack on my door and my dogs were barking, and
I ran over there to check it, and it was
my friendly neighborhood. A T and T salesperson let me
(20:41):
know about high speed. Thanks buddy. I had someone come
up come around a couple weeks ago, very similarly, very
aggressive knock to like a cop knock, you know, trying
to talk, trying to pitch some kind of smart home installations.
If I feel like we're getting back to the like
the days of Willie Lohman or something like that. You know,
I don't think it's a idea. I don't think it's
going to take off, but I have something to add
(21:03):
onto this. I think this is a really, really informative
perspective and I really again appreciate it. And um. I
did want to point out though, that in looking into
this a little further, there are quite a few companies
that specialize in software and hardware that essentially creates the
illusion of handwritten letters for ding ding ding marketing purposes.
(21:28):
There's a company called Scribe bless Um, and this is
how they describe their technol Oh my god, it's crazy looking, dude,
it's crazy looking. It's basically it looks like a robot
kind of It's like it's like a like a bar
with little feed on it, with a ribbon on it,
kind of like think you think of like the top
part of a typewriter, only instead of there being keys,
(21:50):
it's just this extension and this little grippy thing that
holds an ink pen and it literally moves back and forth,
kind of like a like an ink jet printer, but
it guides the actual physical pen and it adds little imperfections.
I just want to read a little bit from their site.
In an era where everything is digitized and accessible with
(22:12):
the click of a mouse, writing letters by hand is
archaic and a big waste of time. Marketing is evolved
in the past twenty years, changing the way businesses approach advertising.
Two decades ago, digital marketing was a secondary part of
the marketing mix, if not even less relevant. Though digital
marketing is the starting point of any campaign, marketers lost
the need to spend valuable time on personally writing letters
(22:34):
slowly making handwriting something of a lost art. Fortunately, a
few years ago, California based d i Y hardware manufacturer
wait for it, evil mad scientists decided to revive the
spirit of handwritten marketing. They created a robotic pen plotter
with one purpose to guide a pen along a surface.
(22:55):
But it's all lies. It's all a lie. It's not
a handwritten letter at all. It's a rope written letter.
That's very weird. It does look very much like a
handwritten letter, just done very well. It's it's like the
most perfect handwritten letter I've seen, but it's got these
minor little imperfections that trick your brain, little smudges. All
(23:19):
you have to do is take is literally like a
like a piece of particle board with little alligator clips
fixing the side of the letter on one side and
then the envelope on the other, and the thing does
zips zips his way across the paper, making those little
ink smudges and those little, you know, handwritten imperfections. But
I love the fact, this whole thing. And then it
(23:40):
goes on to say, uh, every day, consumers and professionals
get bombarded by promotional emails, digital ads, and meeting invites
between the average business professional received approximately ninety emails a day.
That's one every sixteen minutes. I think we can attest
to that, Matt, that is more than accurate, if not
a little on the low side sometimes. Um, but this
(24:01):
idea that it's a powerful way to extend your brands
person it's just very weird. It's like what is old
is now new again and weirder again. Um, you know,
I agree. My favorite thing on their website they've got
here under products direct Mail. They they mentioned that if
(24:21):
you have beautiful handwriting, you can use your own because
the AI can learn your handwriting style. What wow? Uh
is signature? Anybody forging signatures with a robot? Yeah? Exactly right?
How how how is that not being mentioned here? Yeah?
I mean granted, look, when was the last time anyone
(24:45):
actually verified a signature, validated a signature? Have you ever actually,
like when you signed for something, you know, on a
digital pen pad, like in a you know, a grocery
store or retail of any kind, Like, yeah, your signature
is not exactly the same every time. And I've signed
for other people's stuff before, and there's no it's not
(25:05):
comparing into some database of signatures. It's all kind of bulls. Well, yeah,
it's so when an auditor comes to you with a
digital version of a check, you say, is that your signature? Mr? Brown?
And you have to say no or exact yeah, exactly
(25:26):
interesting stuff. Um, but gosh, that was just the absolute
perfect length for a listener mail segment. Thank you so much, Anna,
thank you evil robot mad pen scientists. No, thank you.
I'm not into it's very strange. Uh, and I hope
you make you know, lots and lots of money. Um,
(25:47):
We're gonna take another quick break and hear from our
sponsor and then be right back with a final piece
of listener mail. And we're back, and we're gonna jump
to our voicemail inbox. And I am sorry to report
I'm still about a month behind on that sucker, but
we're getting closer and closer to real time. I promise
(26:11):
we're gonna get there soon. This message comes to us
from Todd and it's about a story that came out
a little while ago. I want to say May of
this year, but I had never heard of it and
it got me all thinking and excited. So let's go
to it. Hey, guys, my names Todd. Uh. I work
(26:33):
in the aerospace industry. I am originally from Atlanta, Georgan,
I love your show, uh and I live in Los Angeles.
Now I got a fun one to throw your way.
This one involves our our good dear friend Brunner von
Braun and a book that he wrote called Project Mars
a Technical Tale. And Uh, I'm wondering maybe there's some crazy,
(26:55):
wacky theory that could tie this book in von Braun
to Elon must Um and Brunner von Braun's book he
mentioned the position um in the Martian government. Uh, that
takes the title of Elon, which is basically the leader
(27:17):
of Mars. I believe that is what it is. Maybe
you guys could what's this connection up? Maybe see if
there's any anything going on here. Maybe you want travel
back in time and have his name inserted to get
fulfill the destiny he so wishes to do. And yeah,
just very interesting considering the coincidence. And you know Elon
(27:39):
must basically paving the way forward to colonize marks instead
of a student settlement here. So yeah, check it out.
Do do a little Google search and go down the
rabbit hole. I know. I just did love to hear
you guys just stopped on it. Uh no, thank you.
You don't want to go to this one? Oh no no.
I was like, you can have that one, that you
(28:00):
can have this fun. What do you think? What did
you find down that dark, dank, spooky rabbit hole. Well,
first of all, Todd and everyone, I did a quick
search on archive dot org to see if I could
actually find this book called Project Mars, a technical tale
written by Werner Werner von Brown, the you know, Project
(28:22):
paper Clip scientist that worked on rockets for the Nazi Party,
then worked on rockets for NASA in the United States. Uh.
It is indeed a real document that you can find.
You can get a kindle version or a PDF that
you can download. You could even torrent this thing if
you wish. And I gotta say, I don't love it
(28:46):
as like I'm gonna sit down and read fictional tale,
some you know, novel about Mars. It's not my cup
of tea. As far as the language, how it moves along,
it is. It is literally a technical tell. It's come
It's very much combining known known science when it comes
to rocketry and what was being developed in nineteen fifty
(29:10):
two nineteen fifty three, and then extrapolating that to what
a Mars mission would look like, and then adding on
top of it, you know, a fictional Martian world, right,
fictional Martian civilization that gets encountered. There's a lot of
interesting stuff in there, I would say, when it comes
to you know, black mirror style extrapolation of technology. There's
(29:32):
something that Mission Control and I were talking about nol
right before you you got on. It's their depiction or
Werner von Brown's depiction of what I guess face timing
would be like, which was really interesting to see from
you know, the early nineteen fifties. Oh sure, I mean
I remember thinking that as a kid that technology the
(29:52):
risk communicators from Star Trek were like, you know, such
future high tech stuff that was like not going to
appear in our lifetime, And now it's just like, you know,
it's something we totally take for grandson. Yeah, Well, I
want to read this excerpt. It's a it's not too long, Noll,
but it's going to be tedious listening to my voice
for this long, but just one moment, bear with me.
I just want you to hear this excerpt because I
(30:13):
think you'll enjoy it. Uh, there's there are two of
the main characters there on this Martian land there within
the Martian buildings. They're on Mars, and these two Earthlings,
they're one of them is on one side of the base.
The other one is really far away on the other
side of the base. And this happens. No sooner had
(30:34):
the door closed than the light went out, greatly to
Hubbard's consternation, for he felt that this might be some
sort of trap. He was about to make a rush
for the door when Holt suddenly appeared across the table
from him against a milky luminous background. I like milky
luminous background. Hello, Glenn, how goes it? How on Earth?
(30:56):
I mean Mars? Did you get here so fast? Colonel
I'm not really here at all, grinned Holt. What you
see is my astral body. We're talking by Martian telephone,
and that includes television. Hubbard was almost speechless with amazement
at the full sized colored stereoscopic telepicture, for he would
have bet his bottom dollar that Holt was really present.
(31:19):
So this is a nineteen fifty three mind describing video conferencing, right,
And you know we've seen that in all kinds of
science fiction but just to see it written out there
by one of you know, one of the greatest minds,
a literal rocket scientist, uh, describing it in this way
is pretty fascinating to me. I attend to agree that
(31:41):
that was really excellent reading. Though by the way, teeny
is give me a break. That was spelled well, nobody
knows who Holt is in this context. I really there's
nothing here for you besides being describing it as a
stereoscopic telepicture on a milky as you said, luminous Becker.
So out all that stuff aside. What Todd is really
(32:04):
talking about here is this strange coincidence that word of
Ron Brown describes the government as being led by this
elon whatever this Elon is, and it is spelled E
l O N. And you can find it on page
one seventy seven of Project Mars, A Technical Tale, under
(32:25):
the chapter How Mars is Governed. I believe that's the
twenty four chapter. Here's the quote Noel and Todd. The
Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of
whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and
entitled Elon E l O N. Again, two houses of
(32:47):
Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon
and his cabinet. So it also makes me think of
the was it the Eloi from the time Machine? Oh? Yeah,
that's weren't they the weird underground dwellers the Eloy. Oh,
You're gonna have to look that up. I'm gonna have
(33:07):
to get some AI involved, because I don't remember machine
there was the more Locks in the Eloy. I think
the more Locks for the underground people. The Eloy are
one of two post human races existing in More the
year eight oh two eight two thousand seven. They are
descended from upper class individuals live above ground and are
the main food source for the more Locks, so they're
(33:30):
kind of the boogie above ground dweller as well. The
more Locks of the sort of vampire i underground creatures
who occasionally will snatch up one of these. Uh these
elo eloit to be you know, grist for the mill
m what Well, it does remind me of Eloy, Elon Eloy,
But I don't think that's what we're talking about here,
(33:53):
uh I. I started trying to figure out how in
the heck did Wonder from Brown name this person Elon,
And there's not a lot of use of this word
there really isn't, especially within the context of leader. I
can't find much. Maybe I'm doing the wrong searches. Um
that might just be my fault, but I'm a bit
(34:14):
puzzled by it. So I started looking into the etymology
of the word Elon, of the name Elon, and this
is what I found. According to behind the name dot com,
the meat this is under meaning and history. It says
Elon means oak tree in Hebrew. According to the Old Testament,
(34:35):
this was the name of one of the ruling judges
of the Israelites. Okay, that would make sense. I have
not done a lot of digging in the Old Testament
for the word Elon. I'm certain that it exists there somewhere.
I just haven't seen it in a long time at least. Um.
Also on a beheam dash Publications dot com, you can
(34:59):
find the etymology of the word Elon. They say it
means oak. They say it comes from the the noun
alan a l l o n, which again is oak,
and from the verb a l a l a lull,
which means to protrude, So Elon the protruding oak. Um.
(35:22):
I I can't give you an explanation as to how
in the heck a guy named Elon ends up being
the one who seems to be running our mission to
Mars as humans. But he's the one that this rocket
(35:42):
scientist described as running Mars, or the name at least
was used. That is very puzzling to me. It's just
a coincidence, right, It's just a coincidence, that's all it is.
Or it could be some time machine stuff, you know.
That's the only reason I brought out the time machine
because it made me think of, you know, time traveling stuff.
(36:04):
Also weird upstairs downstairs classrooms that has finished the White
Lotus by the way, on HBO, everybody should give that
a look. It's fantastic. But this is a weird one
and super fun, really great fodder for like some speculative
sci fi. I think tend to believe that it's a coincidence.
But it's a weird one, man, And you you found
(36:25):
some good stuff. Yeah, I mean there's not there's not
much to it, I think, Todd, Oh gosh, I'm already
forgetting That's how my mind works. Now. Things go in,
they stay for a moment, and then they're gone. But
I believe Todd, you mentioned like is this just Elon
maybe knowing about this or hearing about it being named that,
and you know, having an interest in some of the
(36:48):
fields that would lead him towards this goal. And now
it's like part of his destiny or is it literally
just a coincidence? Very strange to me, but I don't
have any answers. I'm sorry. It's not really stuff they
don't want you to know. Unless Vernon von brown knew something.
You know, in ninety two he somehow was able to
(37:10):
bend light so that he could see that a man
named Elon Musk was on Mars at some point in
the future. Well, I have no doubt that Verona von
braun knew some stuff that he did not want us
to know. Um, and many of those things likely died
with him. But thanks for the voicemail. UM. That was
a real head scratcher. Matt. I believe you have a
(37:31):
bonus voicemail for us for today to wrap us up,
don't you. I do, And I consider this a bonus
because there's not a ton of discussion for us to
have on the show about it. But I very much
enjoyed the response that this person had to one of
our I think it was a strange news or maybe
it was a listener mail segment. It was one of
the two. About this thing. I think know you brought
(37:52):
it up I and I don't want to spoil anything.
Let's just jump straight to it. This is Dave A.
K A. The can stint caller. Hey, guys, Uh, look, fellas,
it's finally happened. You've actually expressed the viewpoint that I
just wholeheartedly. Can I get behind? This is Dave the
constant caller calling you know this, birds aren't real movement? Ah,
(38:18):
it's questionable because you know, as you guys know, there
are people in this country that will believe any got
things they're told or fed. Look at trump is um,
look at the January six insurrection, look at um well,
the flat earth movement even you know that you guys
(38:39):
even mentioned there are people that will really believe that crap.
And you know what's gonna happen is with these nuts.
So it's gonna become open season on songbirds because they
will no longer feel any ethical or moral obligation to
leave a malone. And you know what, the songbirds in
(39:01):
this country are already struggling. If this people, you know, granted,
if they're going for a money grab, Like you say,
you gotta pay tickets go to comedy show. That's okay
in that respect. Well, why did he come up with
something like clouds aren't real or uh, you know, something
harmless like that, like you know, carbon isn't real? You
(39:23):
know what I mean? They could have come up with
an equally uh ludicrous or absurd idea and accomplished the
same goal. Why why put a species at risk for
your own personal game. Just like I mentioned before on
one of my previous calls, I hope that they never
(39:43):
actually find any real bigfoot slash sasqua, sasquads, whatever you
want to call them, because if they do, it will
become open season. They'll be wanting to hunt them, capture them,
put them in zoos, et cetera. Guys, I'll love your show,
but I can't get behind this particular notion. All Right,
(40:05):
those take care. I still love the show and hopefully
you know you'll you'll see my point of view on
this matter. Take care, keep up the good work. Bye bye, Well, Dave.
I mean, we had a whole moment in that conversation
where I believe I brought up the idea that it
was something that that certain people might glom onto for
(40:26):
that very same reason. The whole flat earth thing. I mean,
it seems on the surface so absurd and and easily disapprovable. Uh.
Is it a sad Is it a satire belief system?
I think for some surely it is. But I think
for plenty it absolutely is not. So. I think we
had a whole moment in the conversation we were talking
about how there are certain folks that could truly believe this.
(40:47):
It did not occur to me that it would lead
to open season on songbirds per se. But um, I
see where you're coming from. Obviously you're a fan of
of of these creepy little dinosaurs. I really wanted to
play this on air because nol, I know how not
necessarily anti bird you are. I'm not anti bird, I'm
(41:09):
just I'm bird cautious, Okay. I view birds with a
skeptical caution. Um, I don't trust him. I don't like
their beady little eyes there, creepy little claws, and their
jerky little movements. Well, hey, you know, I'm just glad
that I don't know. There's something about Dave's passionate response
(41:30):
to it that just really got to me. No, I
loved it. Uh. And again, this is somebody I've talked
to several one time, but I've listened to him call
in many, many a time, and uh, he really, he
really is the constant caller in a great way because
he always he always has something to contribute. Um. I
just really, I think he's onto something here where, even
(41:55):
if it's with the best intentions, spreading a you know,
a eurie like that, like birds Aren't Real, can have
dangerous side effects because you never know how it's going
to be taken, whether literally or metaphorically, or you know,
to what degree someone would act on this concept. Just
food for thought, man, And I think we did talk
(42:17):
about it to a fairly long extent there and covered
a lot of the ground when we discussed it last time.
I think you're right now, but again, appreciate your passion
for for the birds, um and I completely agree. I mean,
we're living in a really scary time where information is
taking a face value so easily, despite the fact that
we have all these amazing tools to vet information like
(42:40):
super quickly. Uh, and yet we've become really lazy in
terms of like the way that we um fortify ourselves
against this kind of misinformation. And again, I think that's
sort of what this campaign or whatever you want to
call it, kind of performance our thing and sort of
pointing to is that, of course, this is so stupid
that no one could possibly believe it. But I think
(43:01):
maybe it's almost like it's it's it's what like kind
of proving its own point a little bit too two
pointed lee, ha ha, it's two point. I would just say,
even these places that we go online to to vet
our sources can have flaws. There was a big story recently,
not recently, but somewhat recently. They came out about snopes
(43:24):
dot com and one of the founders of that website
and how they were literally ripping off other websites just
just directly, and some of the writers were told to
do that, and you know, the information wasn't necessarily from
their own research in several instances. Not this is news
to me not snoops. Yeah, well, I mean again, like
(43:48):
no sources perfect right, every you know, no matter what
you're trying to use to vet sources, everyone is kind
of going and doing their level best, let's say, at
least in the best case scenario. But that's not always true.
So I think that's why it's so important that we
have this everyone listening right now, this you know, group
(44:08):
of people that is that we're all going to be
using our critical thinking skills too to take on any
and all subjects. And when we work together and we
think together and we can discuss, I think that's where
we get the closest to the truth. Maybe maybe not,
I don't know. I'd love to know what you think
(44:29):
about that and everything that we've covered on this episode.
And we are super easy to find and to give
feedback to. You can find us on Twitter and Facebook
and YouTube where we are conspiracy stuff on Instagram or
conspiracy stuff show. Let's right, And if you would like
to find me as an individual on social media, I
am at how now Noel Brown exclusively on Instagram. Matt,
(44:51):
what do you at? Birds aren't real? Matt Frederick h
w at Todd the constant Elan or No, I don't,
I don't know, you can. I'll tell you really, it's
Matt underscore Frederick underscore. Nope, I can't. I don't know
what it is. It's Matt Frederick something. Yeah, just look
up Matt Frederick. He's aren't that many of them. But
(45:13):
can people find you on like Twitch or d n
D online or one of those nerd things. There's yeah,
there's all kinds of weird stuff. I've been playing that
Magic Arena a lot. I saw something on Twitter about that,
and I've played a couple of games with a few people,
and I have just been destroyed by everybody I've played
(45:34):
thus far I've met. Well, if anybody plays Monster Hunter,
rise on the switch, hit me up with a d M.
I would love to to go on a Monster Hunt
with you. Um yeah, just you can do that via Instagram. Um.
You can also give us a call as a show
you could participate in one of these very listener male
episodes that you've just heard. You can call us at
(45:56):
one eight three three std w y t K leave
a message of the sound Ben's dulcet tones. You've got
three minutes or three minutes or yours. Do with them
as you will, but please do let us know that
it's okay to use your vocal likeness on the show
and let us know what to call you or if
you don't want us to call you anything at all,
and you know, never know, you might actually get a
call from our boy Matt Frederick because he's just good
(46:16):
like that. Yeah, I'm sorry in advance, because I will
call you. He will call her sorry reference. I don't
think I got that reference, Matt. Uh. Maybe maybe this
will be you will call her no amazing inflection, but
still don't think I know the pop cultural property that
(46:38):
you are referencing. Well, I'm sorry you don't get it.
I'm going to drink a few more glasses of this
milk and uh oh okay, because it's yeahs such a
hot day. Probably not the best choice of beverage. Sure,
that's another reference. We're crossing references here, so it's not
anchor man. No, So somebody will get it, somebody out here.
God speed to you. Let us know what maths of
(47:00):
reference saying, and we will send you a T shirt
or something. You can find our T shirts. Still, I
think if you go to t public dot com uh
and search for stuff that I want you to know
we do have merched. I think we're gonna start being
a little more um conscientious about getting some new designs
out there, but be on the lookout for that nice
But for now, all you have to do if you
want to reach out to us, especially if you've got
(47:22):
links or something lengthy, send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(47:48):
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 Brading, Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Noel, my name is Matt.
WHOA did we just put our things down flipping and
reverse it? Yes? We did, Mr Elliott. Our colleague Ben
is not here today, but he's out there somewhere, and
I have a feeling we might hear from him very soon.
And as always, we are joined today by our super producer,
Paul Mission controlled decand and guess what you are? You?
(00:47):
You are here and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know Listener Mail edition, or as we
like to refer to it, the U Edition. That's right,
that's right, And speaking of you you today is also
been because Ben is out seriously in a weird place
on an adventure. He talked about it last week, and
(01:08):
he sent a message to us from that location, and
we're going to hear from him right now. As I
mentioned earlier this week, I'm in a remote location fielding
a number of pursuits. But this letter from Garrett sent
me on one of my favorite rabbit holes, the kind
of thing that draws you into a place past time.
I looked up to realize hours had passed. Hours I
(01:32):
frankly didn't have the luxury of spending, but time well spent. Nonetheless, Garrett,
here's what you said, Hi, guys. I recently stumbled upon
a clickbait story about a VHS tape that was passed
around in the early nineties. It was a twenty five
minute or so video supposedly tutoring people on how to
(01:53):
properly rob graves. The video seems remarkably authentic, mostly because
the young man tutor en Us, seems so real. He
seems to be speaking candidly and has an occasional stutter
throughout the video. This kid is handling a very real
looking human skull. Apparently nobody has ever identified the star
(02:13):
of the video, despite his speech impediment, his accent, and
his unique appearance. Garrett says, I would be interested to
know if grave robbing is actually a modern occurrence, as
this young man seems to suggest. The lore of the
video is an interesting tale in itself. Garrett has attached
a link to a video called grave Robbing for morons.
(02:39):
Thanks for keeping me entertained while I run. Hey, Garrett,
thank you Matt Noel. I posted the video Garrett mentioned,
and I hope you guys have a chance to watch
somewhere all of it. Here's what's going on. While I
can't conclusively speak to the veracity of this video clip,
(03:00):
I can tell you it's fairly graphic. The video is
much like you've described, Garrett. The cameras handheld, the background
is dirty. The person in the video walks through what
they claim are best practices for removing a skull from
a corpse, from entering a cemetery or grave site surreptitiously
(03:23):
and getting away. Uh. They also talk about the best
practices for removing skin from the skull and so on.
The video is pretty long, and it goes in depth.
In fact, it goes on long enough to make me
feel like it maybe a sincere effort rather than a
prank or an attempt at anti comedy. But I'm still
(03:44):
on the fence here. It is worth a watch. It's
freely available on YouTube, if for nothing more than curiosity.
In terms of practical grave robbing, it's very clear this
video was made before the advent of smartphones. I'd say
it was clearly made after because if you look closely,
you can see a VHS tape of Evil Dead two
(04:06):
in the shot. The accent is indicative of New York
unless the person here is acting. The host, as far
as I can tell, remains unidentified, though there are some
interesting Internet sleuths who feel like they have some leads
on this. It's also tough to tell whether this skull
is real. The whole thing could be a student film.
(04:30):
But if it is a student film, Whitney classmate of
come forward by now. And in terms of removing flesh
from bone, the advice just isn't good. Don't follow it.
The advice about how to quietly do stuff at night, however,
does make sense. It's practical for any number of situations,
(04:53):
including stuff like bombing graffiti or breaking and entering urban exploration,
and so one. Back to the video itself, it's fascinating,
rabbit hole, you know whether it's fake or legit. But
the bigger question you've asked, Garrett is about grave robbing,
and I am unfortunately here to tell you and all
(05:15):
our fellow conspiracy realist that grave robbing is still very
much a thing in the modern day, it's a huge industry,
and the process of grave robbing, the motivations behind it,
and the nuts and bolts of the process may not
be occurring in the way we'd initially imagine. I mean,
(05:36):
I believe this could be a good, if grizzly full
episode of stuff they don't want you to know. Pictures
staffa from Saturday Night Live say, modern grave robbing has
everything angry archaeologist elicit activity under the cover of night
meth heads, the Chinese government, ancient Native American mounds in
(05:56):
the Bureau of Land Management. So first, the days of
resurrection men are long gone. Medical schools and research institutions
can legally buy human remains, even if the provenance is
often dodgy. In the US, for instance, most corpses receive
a prompt burial, and the bodies that get donated to
(06:20):
science usually end up on the dissection table. Uh their
bones get sought to pieces, they get destined for creation eventually.
So this means that most skeletons that are used for
medical study do come from overseas, and that means that
they often arrive without the informed consent of those people.
(06:46):
The skeletons back when they were alive, and often they're
they're received and violation of the laws of their country
of origin. I mean, honestly, you can go buy human
bones for yourself right now if you know where to look.
Check out, for instance, curiosities from the fifth corner dot com.
(07:06):
That's all one word, uh five is number five th,
so curiosities from the number five th corner dot com.
India has for a long time been the world's main
source of bones used in medical studies. Back in the
(07:26):
Indian government outlawed the export of human remains and the
global supply of skeletons collapsed. Western countries then turned to
places like Eastern Europe and China, but often medical professionals
considered those countries or those regions to be inferior sources
(07:50):
of skeletons and bones because the producers didn't have much
experience creating what the experts would describe as display qualities specimens.
And it turns out that what's known as India's bone
trade continued as a black market. This meant there was
a renaissance in grave robbing, one that in all likelihood
(08:13):
continues today. It was one place that was called the
bone factory, referenced in an article and wired that operated
successfully for more than a century before two workers at
this factory started drinking at a bar and casually running
their mouths off about their day jobs or night jobs,
(08:35):
which were robbing graves. This is a gruesome example, but
other grave robbery is less motivated by getting bones and
oriented more toward robbing forward are known as grave goods,
the artifacts and the treasures buried with the dead. This
could be anything from precious metals in jewelry to you know,
(09:00):
ancient vases in ancient relics. In an article for Vice,
reporter named Oscar Rickett spoke with an archaeologist named Delphin
Weiss about how meth amphetamine fueled grave robbers hit the
hit the grave robbing scene in the nineteen nineties and
then became enormously prominent in the two thousand's. Delphin noted
(09:24):
that meth makes people actually pretty well suited for grave robbing.
Think about it. They have a lot of energy, they
keep weird hours, and they tend to focus the majority
of their time on activities that help them fund their addictions.
Delphin noted that the biggest cases of meth motivated grave
(09:45):
robbing occur in places like Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia, the
Four Corners region, and across the Southwest. In general, the
sites that are targeted are often civil war sites or
Native amer incites, and this archaeologist, Delphin, says, they've personally
come across meth labs in the middle of nowhere, and
(10:08):
sometimes the people in charge of those labs actually put
up booby traps. The grave robbers when they get whatever
they have found, be it in an ancient Native American
mound or be it at the side of a civil
war battle, they usually go and sell these objects directly
to their meth dealer, and the meth dealer functions as
(10:31):
a middleman, or they sell it to someone they know
who was already an established black market dealer of Native
American goods, and at that point it starts being distributed
through networks across the US, or it just gets sold
on eBay, and it's pretty hard to track down and
(10:52):
stop this illegal trade. You might ask yourself why desecrate
a grave? Well, unlike the guy and the grave robbing
for Moron's video, who mainly talks about the thrill of
doing this and talks a little bit about how it
could also be a lucrative business. This seems to be
entirely a business decision in many parts of the world,
(11:15):
and it's one that probably isn't going to stop unless
it somehow becomes unprofitable. And this also leads us to
an interesting question about statutes. I mean, who's to say
local people don't see foreign archaeologists as grave robbers themselves?
How long does a body have to be in the
(11:36):
ground before exhuming it becomes a scientific enterprise rather than
a crime. These are important questions that institutions, countries, and
individuals have wrestled with. But to answer your question directly, Garrett,
right now, it looks as though grave robbing is a
(11:56):
modern day industry with a long, grizzly tradition, and one
that is set to continue in the future. As for
the video that you have mentioned, there are there are
a lot of things that seem a little off about it.
Aside from the advice, I would also um, I'd love
to hear from our fellow conspiracy realist about whether or
(12:21):
not you think this is legit, what you think the
motivation is, and um whether they'll they'll actually find this person.
So I am signing off from an undisclosed location. Hope
to talk to everyone soon. In the meantime, please write
to us about this directly. You can email us we
are Conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com, or you
(12:43):
can call us. We are one eight three three s
T d W y t K grizzly stuff from Ben
Bolan in the field on the undisclosed field. We're gonna
take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor,
and then we will be back with more. Listen to you,
(13:06):
and we're back with more messages or stories all the things.
Communications from you the Conspiracy Realist the best part of
the show, and this one is just delightful of it. Honestly,
I was a little concerned that it was going to,
you know, be one of those kind of like you
guys totally got it wrong and screwed the pooch on
this one, but it turned out to just be a really, really,
(13:27):
really amazing bit of detail around the idea of handwritten
letters as advertising or in this case, as evangelizing. So
I don't just say anymore what We'll get into the
conversation in a minute, but here is a letter from Anna. Hi.
My name's Anna, and first of all, I just wanted
to say I love your podcast. Thank you, Anna. I
was listening to your latest episode today, the Troubling Future
(13:49):
of Advertising, and about three quarters of the way in,
I had to laugh to myself a little bit because
he started to talk about receiving handwritten letters from religious groups,
as it so happens at the time I was writing
one of these letters. I'm one of Jehovah's witnesses, and
if you've received any handwritten letters, they're probably from your
(14:10):
local witnesses. We are not evangelicals, but are a Christian religion.
It may be possible other religious groups maybe sending letters
to people too, but we do it on the largest scale. Anyway,
I heard you had a couple of questions on the
nature of these letters in your episodes, so I thought
i'd answer some of them for you. First off, the
reason we write these letters is because of wait for it,
(14:31):
COVID nineteen. Due to COVID nineteen, we can no longer
go door to door like we used to, so we've
had to adapt thus letter writing. Second, yes, we do
handwrite the letters, each and every one of them, though
some witnesses may opt to type them, but most prefer handwriting. Because,
like you mentioned, it makes it more personal. That being said,
(14:54):
we're making our letters personal for different reasons than an advertisement.
Unlike ads, we act really care about people and we
want to show it by taking the time to write
a letter just for them. We're not trying to sell anything.
We just want to offer some encouragement and hope. We
never asked for donations or charge for literature. Actually, most
(15:14):
of us lose money writing to people. I know I
do because we pay out of pocket for stamps, envelopes,
and paper. But we still do it because we care
about our neighbors. Third, you mentioned receiving letters written by children.
These letters are in fact written by children. Witnesses encourage
their kids to participate in letter writing with them. My
family usually does it together on Saturdays for a little while.
(15:35):
Though we aren't forcing kids to write letters, they do
it of their own free will. As you said, sometimes
the letters message may seem mature for the appearance of
the writing. That's because some kids need some help knowing
what to write, so they'll copy the parents letters. My
little brothers do this. Lastly, I have never and have
never heard of any witnesses using the term I'll pray
(15:56):
for you or anything along those lines, as it seems
very judgmental and a little creepy. So if you get
a letter that says that it's probably not from us anyway,
hopefully that answers some questions about what our operation and
quotes looks like. And I truly hope those who receive
my letters look at them as a message from someone
who cares about them rather than an advertisement. If you
(16:17):
have any questions about Jehovah's witnesses, you can learn more
about our beliefs at our website JW dot org. Again,
love your podcast. Every episode I learned something new. Keep
it up and have a great day. I'm not gonna lie, Matt.
I'm getting a little verklempt right now, and I don't
know why, only because I just I think this is
really lovely. This is a really lovely sentiment, and uh
(16:37):
Anna's apparent clearly a lovely person. And you know, while
I have my beefs with organized religion certainly, and I
have made no uh attempts to hide that on the show. UM,
I also realized that the community aspect of it and
the like you know, um support aspect of it, and
the kind of like trying to give people hope and
(16:58):
engender kind of positive qualities and like being living to
be the best version of yourself. All of those things
are really powerful positive qualities of certain organized religion. And
I'm not here to nag or dis on anything that
anyone's doing that's bettering themselves or making them you know,
literally treat their neighbors more kindly, you know, or with
(17:18):
respect or or in a way that tries to make
them feel seen. Uh. And I just thought this was
really lovely. Um. But also I love the fact that
Anna wasn't like mad that we brought this up in
the context of advertising, that she totally acknowledges that it
could be seen or taken that way and did some
things to clear it up without feeling preachy or judge
in any way. UM. So, I don't know, hats off
(17:41):
to you, Anna for this letter. Uh. It really kind
of made me feel things any think that that's awesome.
What my favorite thing is that she's listening to this
show of shows while she's doing that like outreach to people. Um,
not what I would expect, Anna, but you know, hey,
different strokes like strokes of the pen get it, yes
(18:06):
for sure? Um. You know, man, and I have. I
have a lot of questions and I'm not going to
pose them to you right now, but most of them
have to do with, you know, the baseline belief structure
of you know, someone who identifies as a Jehovah's witness,
and um, some of those things, like the acts, I
(18:29):
don't I don't know enough to like even have the
conversation right now. But we've discussed Jehovah's Witnesses in the
in the past. Uh, not not at the individual level,
but at on the structural level, right of the organization
and the beliefs, the belief system. I'm interested to know
how those letters play into some of those larger beliefs
(18:49):
about me. I might be getting this wrong, but treasures
in heaven versus you know what you how that's related
to your acts on this plane on earth? You know? Yeah?
I just wonder, like where the letter writing fits into
all of that. Yeah, And I have to wonder two Like,
I mean, you know, maybe it's not overt, but surely
it's made clear in these letters that this is somehow
(19:13):
an extension of the of the Jehovah's Witness organization. And
I would imagine the intent in some small way has
to be to you know, get people to pay attention
and maybe given a second thought because they felt seen
and they felt, you know, like they were given something
very personal. Uh. And I think that's obviously whatever the intent.
(19:36):
I mean, I think the intent of just like reaching
out and trying to make people feel good and trying
to help your name anythink that's all great and obviously
very important part of this. But I also think there
is certainly a component of it that is a form
of you know, some some form of recruitment. Yeah, but
I mean, but it's done in a very classy way.
And I think the intent of of the the utmost
(19:57):
you know, importance is what is described me. And I'm
not trying to contradict you on our say that you
know you're not being on the level, because I think
clearly you are, and it seems like it's something that's
very meaningful to you and members of your community. And
I love the idea of like, you know, getting together
and doing this with the family, and of course, you know,
we know, I think many of us have probably been
visited by Jehovah's witnesses, and I would argue this is
(20:19):
probably a better a better alternative. Uh. In this day
and age of it's it's not, people are a little
suspicious when people knock on their doors. Yeah. Earlier today,
I was in a meeting and I heard a loud
brack on my door and my dogs were barking, and
I ran over there to check it, and it was
my friendly neighborhood. A T and T salesperson let me
(20:41):
know about high speed. Thanks buddy. I had someone come
up come around a couple weeks ago, very similarly, very
aggressive knock to like a cop knock, you know, trying
to talk, trying to pitch some kind of smart home installations.
If I feel like we're getting back to the like
the days of Willie Lohman or something like that. You know,
I don't think it's a idea. I don't think it's
going to take off, but I have something to add
(21:03):
onto this. I think this is a really, really informative
perspective and I really again appreciate it. And um. I
did want to point out though, that in looking into
this a little further, there are quite a few companies
that specialize in software and hardware that essentially creates the
illusion of handwritten letters for ding ding ding marketing purposes.
(21:28):
There's a company called Scribe bless Um, and this is
how they describe their technol Oh my god, it's crazy looking, dude,
it's crazy looking. It's basically it looks like a robot
kind of It's like it's like a like a bar
with little feed on it, with a ribbon on it,
kind of like think you think of like the top
part of a typewriter, only instead of there being keys,
(21:50):
it's just this extension and this little grippy thing that
holds an ink pen and it literally moves back and forth,
kind of like a like an ink jet printer, but
it guides the actual physical pen and it adds little imperfections.
I just want to read a little bit from their site.
In an era where everything is digitized and accessible with
(22:12):
the click of a mouse, writing letters by hand is
archaic and a big waste of time. Marketing is evolved
in the past twenty years, changing the way businesses approach advertising.
Two decades ago, digital marketing was a secondary part of
the marketing mix, if not even less relevant. Though digital
marketing is the starting point of any campaign, marketers lost
the need to spend valuable time on personally writing letters
(22:34):
slowly making handwriting something of a lost art. Fortunately, a
few years ago, California based d i Y hardware manufacturer
wait for it, evil mad scientists decided to revive the
spirit of handwritten marketing. They created a robotic pen plotter
with one purpose to guide a pen along a surface.
(22:55):
But it's all lies. It's all a lie. It's not
a handwritten letter at all. It's a rope written letter.
That's very weird. It does look very much like a
handwritten letter, just done very well. It's it's like the
most perfect handwritten letter I've seen, but it's got these
minor little imperfections that trick your brain, little smudges. All
(23:19):
you have to do is take is literally like a
like a piece of particle board with little alligator clips
fixing the side of the letter on one side and
then the envelope on the other, and the thing does
zips zips his way across the paper, making those little
ink smudges and those little, you know, handwritten imperfections. But
I love the fact, this whole thing. And then it
(23:40):
goes on to say, uh, every day, consumers and professionals
get bombarded by promotional emails, digital ads, and meeting invites
between the average business professional received approximately ninety emails a day.
That's one every sixteen minutes. I think we can attest
to that, Matt, that is more than accurate, if not
a little on the low side sometimes. Um, but this
(24:01):
idea that it's a powerful way to extend your brands
person it's just very weird. It's like what is old
is now new again and weirder again. Um, you know,
I agree. My favorite thing on their website they've got
here under products direct Mail. They they mentioned that if
(24:21):
you have beautiful handwriting, you can use your own because
the AI can learn your handwriting style. What wow? Uh
is signature? Anybody forging signatures with a robot? Yeah? Exactly right?
How how how is that not being mentioned here? Yeah?
I mean granted, look, when was the last time anyone
(24:45):
actually verified a signature, validated a signature? Have you ever actually,
like when you signed for something, you know, on a
digital pen pad, like in a you know, a grocery
store or retail of any kind, Like, yeah, your signature
is not exactly the same every time. And I've signed
for other people's stuff before, and there's no it's not
(25:05):
comparing into some database of signatures. It's all kind of bulls. Well, yeah,
it's so when an auditor comes to you with a
digital version of a check, you say, is that your signature? Mr? Brown?
And you have to say no or exact yeah, exactly
(25:26):
interesting stuff. Um, but gosh, that was just the absolute
perfect length for a listener mail segment. Thank you so much, Anna,
thank you evil robot mad pen scientists. No, thank you.
I'm not into it's very strange. Uh, and I hope
you make you know, lots and lots of money. Um,
(25:47):
We're gonna take another quick break and hear from our
sponsor and then be right back with a final piece
of listener mail. And we're back, and we're gonna jump
to our voicemail inbox. And I am sorry to report
I'm still about a month behind on that sucker, but
we're getting closer and closer to real time. I promise
(26:11):
we're gonna get there soon. This message comes to us
from Todd and it's about a story that came out
a little while ago. I want to say May of
this year, but I had never heard of it and
it got me all thinking and excited. So let's go
to it. Hey, guys, my names Todd. Uh. I work
(26:33):
in the aerospace industry. I am originally from Atlanta, Georgan,
I love your show, uh and I live in Los Angeles.
Now I got a fun one to throw your way.
This one involves our our good dear friend Brunner von
Braun and a book that he wrote called Project Mars
a Technical Tale. And Uh, I'm wondering maybe there's some crazy,
(26:55):
wacky theory that could tie this book in von Braun
to Elon must Um and Brunner von Braun's book he
mentioned the position um in the Martian government. Uh, that
takes the title of Elon, which is basically the leader
(27:17):
of Mars. I believe that is what it is. Maybe
you guys could what's this connection up? Maybe see if
there's any anything going on here. Maybe you want travel
back in time and have his name inserted to get
fulfill the destiny he so wishes to do. And yeah,
just very interesting considering the coincidence. And you know Elon
(27:39):
must basically paving the way forward to colonize marks instead
of a student settlement here. So yeah, check it out.
Do do a little Google search and go down the
rabbit hole. I know. I just did love to hear
you guys just stopped on it. Uh no, thank you.
You don't want to go to this one? Oh no no.
I was like, you can have that one, that you
(28:00):
can have this fun. What do you think? What did
you find down that dark, dank, spooky rabbit hole. Well,
first of all, Todd and everyone, I did a quick
search on archive dot org to see if I could
actually find this book called Project Mars, a technical tale
written by Werner Werner von Brown, the you know, Project
(28:22):
paper Clip scientist that worked on rockets for the Nazi Party,
then worked on rockets for NASA in the United States. Uh.
It is indeed a real document that you can find.
You can get a kindle version or a PDF that
you can download. You could even torrent this thing if
you wish. And I gotta say, I don't love it
(28:46):
as like I'm gonna sit down and read fictional tale,
some you know, novel about Mars. It's not my cup
of tea. As far as the language, how it moves along,
it is. It is literally a technical tell. It's come
It's very much combining known known science when it comes
to rocketry and what was being developed in nineteen fifty
(29:10):
two nineteen fifty three, and then extrapolating that to what
a Mars mission would look like, and then adding on
top of it, you know, a fictional Martian world, right,
fictional Martian civilization that gets encountered. There's a lot of
interesting stuff in there, I would say, when it comes
to you know, black mirror style extrapolation of technology. There's
(29:32):
something that Mission Control and I were talking about nol
right before you you got on. It's their depiction or
Werner von Brown's depiction of what I guess face timing
would be like, which was really interesting to see from
you know, the early nineteen fifties. Oh sure, I mean
I remember thinking that as a kid that technology the
(29:52):
risk communicators from Star Trek were like, you know, such
future high tech stuff that was like not going to
appear in our lifetime, And now it's just like, you know,
it's something we totally take for grandson. Yeah, Well, I
want to read this excerpt. It's a it's not too long, Noll,
but it's going to be tedious listening to my voice
for this long, but just one moment, bear with me.
I just want you to hear this excerpt because I
(30:13):
think you'll enjoy it. Uh, there's there are two of
the main characters there on this Martian land there within
the Martian buildings. They're on Mars, and these two Earthlings,
they're one of them is on one side of the base.
The other one is really far away on the other
side of the base. And this happens. No sooner had
(30:34):
the door closed than the light went out, greatly to
Hubbard's consternation, for he felt that this might be some
sort of trap. He was about to make a rush
for the door when Holt suddenly appeared across the table
from him against a milky luminous background. I like milky
luminous background. Hello, Glenn, how goes it? How on Earth?
(30:56):
I mean Mars? Did you get here so fast? Colonel
I'm not really here at all, grinned Holt. What you
see is my astral body. We're talking by Martian telephone,
and that includes television. Hubbard was almost speechless with amazement
at the full sized colored stereoscopic telepicture, for he would
have bet his bottom dollar that Holt was really present.
(31:19):
So this is a nineteen fifty three mind describing video conferencing, right,
And you know we've seen that in all kinds of
science fiction but just to see it written out there
by one of you know, one of the greatest minds,
a literal rocket scientist, uh, describing it in this way
is pretty fascinating to me. I attend to agree that
(31:41):
that was really excellent reading. Though by the way, teeny
is give me a break. That was spelled well, nobody
knows who Holt is in this context. I really there's
nothing here for you besides being describing it as a
stereoscopic telepicture on a milky as you said, luminous Becker.
So out all that stuff aside. What Todd is really
(32:04):
talking about here is this strange coincidence that word of
Ron Brown describes the government as being led by this
elon whatever this Elon is, and it is spelled E
l O N. And you can find it on page
one seventy seven of Project Mars, A Technical Tale, under
(32:25):
the chapter How Mars is Governed. I believe that's the
twenty four chapter. Here's the quote Noel and Todd. The
Martian government was directed by ten men, the leader of
whom was elected by universal suffrage for five years and
entitled Elon E l O N. Again, two houses of
(32:47):
Parliament enacted the laws to be administered by the Elon
and his cabinet. So it also makes me think of
the was it the Eloi from the time Machine? Oh? Yeah,
that's weren't they the weird underground dwellers the Eloy. Oh,
You're gonna have to look that up. I'm gonna have
(33:07):
to get some AI involved, because I don't remember machine
there was the more Locks in the Eloy. I think
the more Locks for the underground people. The Eloy are
one of two post human races existing in More the
year eight oh two eight two thousand seven. They are
descended from upper class individuals live above ground and are
the main food source for the more Locks, so they're
(33:30):
kind of the boogie above ground dweller as well. The
more Locks of the sort of vampire i underground creatures
who occasionally will snatch up one of these. Uh these
elo eloit to be you know, grist for the mill
m what Well, it does remind me of Eloy, Elon Eloy,
But I don't think that's what we're talking about here,
(33:53):
uh I. I started trying to figure out how in
the heck did Wonder from Brown name this person Elon,
And there's not a lot of use of this word
there really isn't, especially within the context of leader. I
can't find much. Maybe I'm doing the wrong searches. Um
that might just be my fault, but I'm a bit
(34:14):
puzzled by it. So I started looking into the etymology
of the word Elon, of the name Elon, and this
is what I found. According to behind the name dot com,
the meat this is under meaning and history. It says
Elon means oak tree in Hebrew. According to the Old Testament,
(34:35):
this was the name of one of the ruling judges
of the Israelites. Okay, that would make sense. I have
not done a lot of digging in the Old Testament
for the word Elon. I'm certain that it exists there somewhere.
I just haven't seen it in a long time at least. Um.
Also on a beheam dash Publications dot com, you can
(34:59):
find the etymology of the word Elon. They say it
means oak. They say it comes from the the noun
alan a l l o n, which again is oak,
and from the verb a l a l a lull,
which means to protrude, So Elon the protruding oak. Um.
(35:22):
I I can't give you an explanation as to how
in the heck a guy named Elon ends up being
the one who seems to be running our mission to
Mars as humans. But he's the one that this rocket
(35:42):
scientist described as running Mars, or the name at least
was used. That is very puzzling to me. It's just
a coincidence, right, It's just a coincidence, that's all it is.
Or it could be some time machine stuff, you know.
That's the only reason I brought out the time machine
because it made me think of, you know, time traveling stuff.
(36:04):
Also weird upstairs downstairs classrooms that has finished the White
Lotus by the way, on HBO, everybody should give that
a look. It's fantastic. But this is a weird one
and super fun, really great fodder for like some speculative
sci fi. I think tend to believe that it's a coincidence.
But it's a weird one, man, And you you found
(36:25):
some good stuff. Yeah, I mean there's not there's not
much to it, I think, Todd, Oh gosh, I'm already
forgetting That's how my mind works. Now. Things go in,
they stay for a moment, and then they're gone. But
I believe Todd, you mentioned like is this just Elon
maybe knowing about this or hearing about it being named that,
and you know, having an interest in some of the
(36:48):
fields that would lead him towards this goal. And now
it's like part of his destiny or is it literally
just a coincidence? Very strange to me, but I don't
have any answers. I'm sorry. It's not really stuff they
don't want you to know. Unless Vernon von brown knew something.
You know, in ninety two he somehow was able to
(37:10):
bend light so that he could see that a man
named Elon Musk was on Mars at some point in
the future. Well, I have no doubt that Verona von
braun knew some stuff that he did not want us
to know. Um, and many of those things likely died
with him. But thanks for the voicemail. UM. That was
a real head scratcher. Matt. I believe you have a
(37:31):
bonus voicemail for us for today to wrap us up,
don't you. I do, And I consider this a bonus
because there's not a ton of discussion for us to
have on the show about it. But I very much
enjoyed the response that this person had to one of
our I think it was a strange news or maybe
it was a listener mail segment. It was one of
the two. About this thing. I think know you brought
(37:52):
it up I and I don't want to spoil anything.
Let's just jump straight to it. This is Dave A.
K A. The can stint caller. Hey, guys, Uh, look, fellas,
it's finally happened. You've actually expressed the viewpoint that I
just wholeheartedly. Can I get behind? This is Dave the
constant caller calling you know this, birds aren't real movement? Ah,
(38:18):
it's questionable because you know, as you guys know, there
are people in this country that will believe any got
things they're told or fed. Look at trump is um,
look at the January six insurrection, look at um well,
the flat earth movement even you know that you guys
(38:39):
even mentioned there are people that will really believe that crap.
And you know what's gonna happen is with these nuts.
So it's gonna become open season on songbirds because they
will no longer feel any ethical or moral obligation to
leave a malone. And you know what, the songbirds in
(39:01):
this country are already struggling. If this people, you know, granted,
if they're going for a money grab, Like you say,
you gotta pay tickets go to comedy show. That's okay
in that respect. Well, why did he come up with
something like clouds aren't real or uh, you know, something
harmless like that, like you know, carbon isn't real? You
(39:23):
know what I mean? They could have come up with
an equally uh ludicrous or absurd idea and accomplished the
same goal. Why why put a species at risk for
your own personal game. Just like I mentioned before on
one of my previous calls, I hope that they never
(39:43):
actually find any real bigfoot slash sasqua, sasquads, whatever you
want to call them, because if they do, it will
become open season. They'll be wanting to hunt them, capture them,
put them in zoos, et cetera. Guys, I'll love your show,
but I can't get behind this particular notion. All Right,
(40:05):
those take care. I still love the show and hopefully
you know you'll you'll see my point of view on
this matter. Take care, keep up the good work. Bye bye, Well, Dave.
I mean, we had a whole moment in that conversation
where I believe I brought up the idea that it
was something that that certain people might glom onto for
(40:26):
that very same reason. The whole flat earth thing. I mean,
it seems on the surface so absurd and and easily disapprovable. Uh.
Is it a sad Is it a satire belief system?
I think for some surely it is. But I think
for plenty it absolutely is not. So. I think we
had a whole moment in the conversation we were talking
about how there are certain folks that could truly believe this.
(40:47):
It did not occur to me that it would lead
to open season on songbirds per se. But um, I
see where you're coming from. Obviously you're a fan of
of of these creepy little dinosaurs. I really wanted to
play this on air because nol, I know how not
necessarily anti bird you are. I'm not anti bird, I'm
(41:09):
just I'm bird cautious, Okay. I view birds with a
skeptical caution. Um, I don't trust him. I don't like
their beady little eyes there, creepy little claws, and their
jerky little movements. Well, hey, you know, I'm just glad
that I don't know. There's something about Dave's passionate response
(41:30):
to it that just really got to me. No, I
loved it. Uh. And again, this is somebody I've talked
to several one time, but I've listened to him call
in many, many a time, and uh, he really, he
really is the constant caller in a great way because
he always he always has something to contribute. Um. I
just really, I think he's onto something here where, even
(41:55):
if it's with the best intentions, spreading a you know,
a eurie like that, like birds Aren't Real, can have
dangerous side effects because you never know how it's going
to be taken, whether literally or metaphorically, or you know,
to what degree someone would act on this concept. Just
food for thought, man, And I think we did talk
(42:17):
about it to a fairly long extent there and covered
a lot of the ground when we discussed it last time.
I think you're right now, but again, appreciate your passion
for for the birds, um and I completely agree. I mean,
we're living in a really scary time where information is
taking a face value so easily, despite the fact that
we have all these amazing tools to vet information like
(42:40):
super quickly. Uh, and yet we've become really lazy in
terms of like the way that we um fortify ourselves
against this kind of misinformation. And again, I think that's
sort of what this campaign or whatever you want to
call it, kind of performance our thing and sort of
pointing to is that, of course, this is so stupid
that no one could possibly believe it. But I think
(43:01):
maybe it's almost like it's it's it's what like kind
of proving its own point a little bit too two
pointed lee, ha ha, it's two point. I would just say,
even these places that we go online to to vet
our sources can have flaws. There was a big story recently,
not recently, but somewhat recently. They came out about snopes
(43:24):
dot com and one of the founders of that website
and how they were literally ripping off other websites just
just directly, and some of the writers were told to
do that, and you know, the information wasn't necessarily from
their own research in several instances. Not this is news
to me not snoops. Yeah, well, I mean again, like
(43:48):
no sources perfect right, every you know, no matter what
you're trying to use to vet sources, everyone is kind
of going and doing their level best, let's say, at
least in the best case scenario. But that's not always true.
So I think that's why it's so important that we
have this everyone listening right now, this you know, group
(44:08):
of people that is that we're all going to be
using our critical thinking skills too to take on any
and all subjects. And when we work together and we
think together and we can discuss, I think that's where
we get the closest to the truth. Maybe maybe not,
I don't know. I'd love to know what you think
(44:29):
about that and everything that we've covered on this episode.
And we are super easy to find and to give
feedback to. You can find us on Twitter and Facebook
and YouTube where we are conspiracy stuff on Instagram or
conspiracy stuff show. Let's right, And if you would like
to find me as an individual on social media, I
am at how now Noel Brown exclusively on Instagram. Matt,
(44:51):
what do you at? Birds aren't real? Matt Frederick h
w at Todd the constant Elan or No, I don't,
I don't know, you can. I'll tell you really, it's
Matt underscore Frederick underscore. Nope, I can't. I don't know
what it is. It's Matt Frederick something. Yeah, just look
up Matt Frederick. He's aren't that many of them. But
(45:13):
can people find you on like Twitch or d n
D online or one of those nerd things. There's yeah,
there's all kinds of weird stuff. I've been playing that
Magic Arena a lot. I saw something on Twitter about that,
and I've played a couple of games with a few people,
and I have just been destroyed by everybody I've played
(45:34):
thus far I've met. Well, if anybody plays Monster Hunter,
rise on the switch, hit me up with a d M.
I would love to to go on a Monster Hunt
with you. Um yeah, just you can do that via Instagram. Um.
You can also give us a call as a show
you could participate in one of these very listener male
episodes that you've just heard. You can call us at
(45:56):
one eight three three std w y t K leave
a message of the sound Ben's dulcet tones. You've got
three minutes or three minutes or yours. Do with them
as you will, but please do let us know that
it's okay to use your vocal likeness on the show
and let us know what to call you or if
you don't want us to call you anything at all,
and you know, never know, you might actually get a
call from our boy Matt Frederick because he's just good
(46:16):
like that. Yeah, I'm sorry in advance, because I will
call you. He will call her sorry reference. I don't
think I got that reference, Matt. Uh. Maybe maybe this
will be you will call her no amazing inflection, but
still don't think I know the pop cultural property that
(46:38):
you are referencing. Well, I'm sorry you don't get it.
I'm going to drink a few more glasses of this
milk and uh oh okay, because it's yeahs such a
hot day. Probably not the best choice of beverage. Sure,
that's another reference. We're crossing references here, so it's not
anchor man. No, So somebody will get it, somebody out here.
God speed to you. Let us know what maths of
(47:00):
reference saying, and we will send you a T shirt
or something. You can find our T shirts. Still, I
think if you go to t public dot com uh
and search for stuff that I want you to know
we do have merched. I think we're gonna start being
a little more um conscientious about getting some new designs
out there, but be on the lookout for that nice
But for now, all you have to do if you
want to reach out to us, especially if you've got
(47:22):
links or something lengthy, send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(47:48):
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
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.