Could fur farms be responsible for COVID-19? Why are people burning down Masonic lodges? And over in Texas, in turns out Tesla may be building a real-life company town to support SpaceX -- and, by hook or by crook, driving the existing residents out. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexis
code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It is time for our
weekly listener mail segment and we have some doozies for
(00:48):
you today, folks. Before we begin, though, I would like
to I would like to put out a very special
thank you to everybody who responded with clarifications on our
previous last week's Strange News where we talked a little
bit about ghost guns. Thank you for everybody who took
the time to write in with those clarifications. Uh. We
(01:10):
look forward. We always look forward to this because this
these kinds of messages are mission critical to our show,
and more importantly, uh, they're helpful to your fellow conspiracy realists.
So please look forward to episode that's going to be
coming out in a few weeks yeah, days for sure,
(01:31):
called the rise of ghost guns. Yeah, And I would
just say, personally, Um, you know, I listened to back
to a few parts of that, and I can see
where the criticism was coming from on my part, so
I just want to say, here, we hear you. I
hear you, and um, we're we're going to address some
of those things. Now, what did you do? I would
(01:52):
just say, on my part, what I did and what
was I I think I may have conflated a little
bit of my story with Ben's story, maybe two much,
So that's on me. Um, and did I didn't mean
to do that. I think it was overall confusing. So
I see, and as usual, I was out of my
mind on ether typical bed, typical, typical, typical. I gotta
(02:15):
I gotta ask that I've heard a little bit about
ghost guns just in the news recently, and how it
was the first time I heard the term. I think
because it was coming up, you know, in the wake
of some of these recent mass shootings in terms of like,
here's the thing that we can make illegal, right and
probably would be an easy fix at least for that
type of thing. There's probably a lot more to be done.
But that certainly seems like one that's problematic. But it
(02:36):
reminds me of the movie. Oh, I think it's called
In the Line of Fire. Yeah, yeah, where Clean Eastwood
plays uh a F B or C I agent who
was protecting John F. Kennedy and you know, like failed
and then in the modern day he's like a grizzled
kind of bitter old man, you know, Clean Eastwood, um
and John Malkovitch plays this like genius assassin who has
(02:58):
this like plastic composite gun that he, you know, can
sneak through security and then he hides the bullet in
a Lucky Rabbits fire. I don't think that's the same
as ghost guns, but I kind of that's what I
always think of when I hear that geez, spoilers. No, well,
it's it's a spoiler on Clint Eastwood's range. Do you
want him as grizzled or extra grizzled? Yeah, it's it is.
(03:23):
It's like going, uh, well, h he's a great American
actor and director and a great American let's just leave
it at that. Well, I've never met him, but Grand
Torino is a fantastic film. Get off my one, so
so yes, thank you. We do as we said, read
every email we get to, every piece of correspondence. Uh.
(03:45):
They're important to us because your time is important, and
you have taken the time to reach out to us
and in that way to reach out to your fellow listeners.
So the least that we can do is gratefully take
the time to hear you and hear what you have
to say. With that in mind, UH, today we're going
to hear from We're gonna hear from several of our
(04:07):
fellow conspiracy realists. And I've got to say, you know,
no knowing who we're gonna be, you know, vicariously speaking
with today, I think uh, I think the correspondent that
you chose has my favorite name because they're the only
one who like picked a nickname. Uh that's not true,
though there's two in there. This week we have been
(04:30):
getting some doozy nicknames. So I guess that you would
like me to to to go first. I am absolutely
fine with us. Uh. My listener mail comes from someone
who very specifically asked not to be named by name,
but signed this email. I'm just gonna read the email
and then do the sign off, because you really need
to hear the content before you understand the meaning of
the nickname. Uh, and it goes a little something like this, Hi, guys,
(04:53):
thanks for all the quality entertainment this past year. I
was wondering if you could touch upon the possibility of
fur farms in China, not labs, being the source of
COVID nineteen and variants. It seems to me that this
is the most likely source for the outbreak, and China
is the current world leader in mink for best concerned mink,
(05:15):
concerned men, mink, a concerned mink. Yeah, I completely agree,
and minks to me always kind of have the appearance
of being concerned because it turns out there good for
a lot of things, uh, not just making mink coats,
which I thought for it really fallen out of fashion,
even with like the high end you know, bespoke fashion lines.
(05:37):
It seems like sort of a no no, right, Like
don't you get red paint throw on you if you
walk down the street in a fur coat or a
mink stole. Uh? Well, it depends on where you go,
because we have you know, a lot of different parts
of the world have different opinions about not just animal rights,
but also what does or does not qualify as like
high fashion versus something ghosh. So the fur indie street
(06:01):
at least pre pandemic, the fur industry was still doing
pretty well. They're always going to be moves to uh
prevent that practice of growing animals and slaughtering them prefer
but there's a lot of money to be made. There's
more money to be made selling those coats than there
is to stop selling them. As cold as that sounds,
(06:24):
would you guys agree, no, I would, And into your point, Ben,
in terms of cultural uh, you know, mileage may vary
situations in terms of opinions on for I mean that's
true of like what would or would not be considered food,
you know, like you know, for in some Asian countries,
like dogs are slaughtered pretty regularly, um for for meat. Uh,
(06:46):
and that is very much the case with fur as well. UM.
In China, the main species that are harvested for their
fur our mink, fox, and raccoon dog um and respect
of a According to a fabulous article that the concerned
Minks sent us on the Conversation, seventeen and twelve million
(07:08):
respective animals slaughtered each year. Uh. And that's from so
that would be twenty one million mink why far the
largest number UM in that in that group of most
popular animals to harvest for their fur. And as we know,
in many situations like with these wet markets that we've
(07:28):
heard so much about, there isn't as much environmental, humanitarian,
or even sanitary oversight over some of these facilities in
Asian countries, in China in particular, and because of that,
it does lead to some situations that could result in
UM virus is being spread unexpectedly, especially when there's like
(07:51):
a new you know, variant of one. Because it turns
out that minx, which are referred to as amused lids.
Have you guys heard of this mimmu m U s
t E l ideas I've never heard that word before,
are susceptible to the stars c O V two virus um,
which is which is the coronavirus um. And there's you know,
(08:13):
more science e specifics in this article if you want
to get more into the minutia of it. But it
makes a pretty good case as to how this could
have resulted from an unchecked mink farming operation rather than
specifically that wet market. UH. And it is UM It
(08:33):
has to do with the fact that, as we know, um,
the coronavirus is a zoo aotic disease. It can bounce
from an animal to a different species like a human,
and that's what makes it particularly dangerous and easy to spread.
And this also means to be clear that animals can
spread uh, this infection to one another humans of course,
(08:55):
is the part we focus on. But musclids are it's
it's umbrella term. It's a family of everything from otters
to wolverines to badgers, ferrets and Martin's as well. Yeah,
you're absolutely right, um concerned mink is raising a very
(09:18):
important point. It's something that other places have speculated um
about in the West, like National Geographic also did an
article where they asked whether there was a missing link
in these fur farms. And honestly, to steal a line
from our buddy Neil's, the thing about the origin and
spread of COVID nineteen is that at this point it's
(09:42):
such a recent and ongoing event that there's still a
lot of questions people are trying to answer, and asking
those questions does not necessarily make you, uh, you know,
the next candidate for a tinfoil hat. I think a
lot of people actually you know what a lot of
people might not remember. Uh they there's maybe the stereotype
(10:03):
that's wrapped up in a little bit of late and racism. Uh.
That said, that makes people assume that China is the
world's number one exporter of of mink and specific that's
not true. It's Denmark and that's why, like not too
long ago, they slaughtered fifteen seventeen million minks because some
(10:25):
a tested positive for a variant of coronavirus. I mean,
it's a really it's a very real concern. Like you
were saying, no, Uh, these animals are vulnerable to this
and they can spread it to humans. So even if
the origin of covid in mustelids was, you know, attributable
to what scientists currently believe it's attributable to, that doesn't
(10:49):
mean that it couldn't have made that leap from someone
working in one of these fur farms. That's right. And um,
it's interesting because study, a recent study showed that in fact,
quite a few species are susceptible to the star's code
to including primates and other carnivores um. But the authors
(11:12):
of the study, Uh again, this is from this article
in The Conversation. UM want to make it clear to
not over interpret these types of predictions and use it
as a means of spreading kind of alarmism, but also
just you know, kind of be aware. It said that specifically,
the quote is uh. They wanted to stress the importance
(11:33):
of avoiding over interpreting the predictions put forward and point
out that the experimental and observational data in the field
are required. So it's like, Okay, yes, we know that
these animals are susceptible, but we need to actually track,
you know, the spread of this through these uh, these
various animal communities before you know, rushing to judgment and
(11:55):
thinking this is definitely what it's all about. Um, but
whatever the case might be. Over are all infectious diseases.
They are up significantly from the mid twentieth century, and
they're particularly um prevalent in parts of the world that
are let's just say affected by the human race. Um,
(12:21):
you know, where man is kind of bulldozing natural areas,
um and limiting animal biodiversity let's just say, and capturing
wild animals. And that's why I think the wet market
with such a target is because that is a hot
spot or a hub where there's tons of different species
(12:42):
all kind of commingling, sometimes in cages right on top
of each other. We've talked about this in some of
our COVID nineteen episodes. Uh, and that can lead to
the spread of these these diseases. Yeah, for sure, that's
That's the thing that I think a lot of people
need to understand. There's a nuance here. So yes, the
(13:03):
World Health Organization concluded that the odds of a lab
manufactured origin of COVID are very very low. It's highly
unlikely that that happened. But there are still these very
serious unanswered questions about exactly when, where, and how stars
(13:24):
UH COVID nineteen first got into human beings, how it
made the leap, and one thing that could happen I
would I would argue, and I think this goes to
your question concerned me on one thing that could easily
have happened and actually probably did happen, is that wet
markets or regions where people were interacting with wild animals
(13:48):
became these clusters, like these secondary clusters, so an additional explosion,
right that further gassed up the spread of the infection.
I'm saying that human being was infected by COVID nineteen
at a wet market or at a fur factory or
something like that is not the same thing as saying
(14:10):
that is definitely the origin. But looking at the math,
looking at the science, looking at the vectors, it had
to have happened. It had to have been spreading. And
then yes, it's terrible for the business to have to
destroy a bunch of minks like Denmark did. But what
what other choice are you gonna have. What are you
gonna tell somebody who is wait desperately hoping and praying
(14:33):
that they're dying relative can get a ventilator? Are you
going to tell them? Sorry, I'm a I'm a cope man.
I just want to reiterate here that no matter what
you believe the origins are of this pandemic. You know,
COVID nineteen and all of this, the best experts appointed
by the w h OH, by all of these organizations
(14:53):
that you may not even necessarily trust, all are saying
that we don't have the full answers. We have most
likely probabilities essentially based on what we have found, what
we can prove. So you know, if you're feeling if
you're still feel a little weird about it, that's okay.
But you know, just remember that nobody knows right now,
(15:17):
but we're still trying to track it down. That's exactly right.
And Uh, all of this anti Asian sentiment, you know,
and the rhetoric around it and the actual actions that
has led to in certain members of the population, UM
is just heartbreaking because it's, you know, whatever the case
(15:37):
might be, if there are conditions that might make these
markets and these types of factories and our factory farming
situations more susceptible to spreading these kinds of viruses, is
certainly of no fault of the you know, individual human
beings that live in that country. UM. So that kind
of misplaced anger just really boggles my mind. But one
(15:59):
thing that interesting about this type of disease, this is
zoonotic virus, is it can be traveled. It can travel
both ways, like humans can get animals sick with it
as well. We have had cases. I think you guys
might remember there was a tiger. I think it was
in the Detroit Zoo, but I might be wrong. Uh.
There have been cases of found in domestic cats and dogs. Uh.
(16:21):
And and also there's a cat captive lions I believe, uh,
and farmed minx and guerrillas, where it's humans that are
actually giving the disease to the animal, the virus to
the animals. And that's called reverse zoonosis. And that's exactly right.
I knew was a b thing, Um, I said, d
I said, Detroit, I'm just wrong, Matt, you got me
(16:43):
um uh. And this is particularly true of these must
lets or muselets. How however, the pronunciation goes um. And
I think this is something that is potentially of concern
to try in his economy because you know, this, uh,
this fur farming industry is is quite a lucrative operation,
(17:08):
you know, and and it accounts for quite a bit
of of income for the economy. And there are discussions
being had as to whether more oversight needs to be
brought to it, or whether it needs to be shut
down or certain operations need to be shut down. So
it's something to kind of keep an eye on. But
I'm sure that it is making some proprietors of these
(17:29):
facilities pretty nervous. Let's just plant more hemp, guys, Let's
make more hemp clothes and get rid of the fur.
Let's do it. It's a shame you can't plant either,
you know what. I mean you mon um, it's got
an ether farm up in the up in the foothills, exactly.
(17:49):
We can keep this one short. I think we, you know,
because again I think people are kind of getting COVID
fatigue at this point. But I do think this is
an interesting development and something to keep an eye on.
So thank you, too, concerned Mink for passing this one
along too. I said, we're gonna take quick sponsor break
and be right back with more strange news. And we're back,
(18:12):
and without any kind of introduction, let's just listen to
the message left to us by our good friend Mal.
Hey guys, um, but this is what I had an
interesting thing to your Strange News podcast, which I love,
by the way. It's been all a couple of weeks
ago here in Vancouver and basically a couple of or
(18:33):
three actually Masonic halls got burnt down by one guy.
I'm really looked into. It's his mode. I can't really
find much of why he did it or anything if
he was a Freemason or whatever. But I thought if
you could find anything out, or if you have any
discussion points on that would be pretty interesting. Um, you
can use my voice on the if you if you
(18:55):
want to, you can refer to me as Mel Reynolds.
That's not my name, but I'm a big thanks guys,
love you what see you let him? Now I see
what you're saying. Uh now, now I see what you're saying, Matt,
about that nickname. I thought it'd be more fun if
you discovered it. You were that moment call me Mel Reynolds.
(19:19):
That's uh, one of my favorite characters ever put to
the screen, or the small one, or we played it
on a big one in vie. So this is something
that I had Definitely I was not aware of this.
This is pretty troubling. I saw one little news segment
(19:39):
on it flash past the r slash news reddit subreddit,
and uh clicked on it, looked for a second, but
there was no information of what was going on when
I first looked at it. This is again, as Mal said,
several weeks ago, and actually it was a while ago
now at this point, but I don't know. I figured
we'd at least discuss and I found a few others
(20:00):
waras that I want to mention before we finish this
whole section here. So let's start with the most recent
fires that were occurring in Masonic lodges in Vancouver, and
this is around March, like late March of when this
is occurring. So first I'm gonna jump to a Vice
(20:20):
News article. It is titled police investigating Arson's after three
Masonic temples in Vancouver set on fire. And as you
go through this um you can see that there are
a few places. The Masonic Lynn Valley Lodge in North Vancouver,
there was a fire there early early in the morning,
around sixty Then fifteen minutes later they were at another lodge,
(20:45):
this time Duke of Connat Lodge number of sixty four.
Then fifteen minutes after that, so we're talking one too,
three within the span of forty five minutes. Uh. Fifteen
minutes later at twelve kilometers away, Park Lodge Massonic Center
went up in flames. But this one wasn't. That third
one wasn't damaged quite as much as the others. So obviously,
(21:07):
right off the bat, if you're an investigator or if
you're you know, someone working, you're a fire person, and
you're responding to these things, you're on a rescue team
or something something is wrong, right, you're getting all of
these emergency calls coming in. You realize, okay, there's a
targeting that's happening here. Very quickly, though, one man was
(21:29):
picked up, and at least according to the story, he
was seen walking away from one of the scenes by
a few witnesses. So CBC reported, and I'm gonna jump
over to an article from them. It is titled Alleged
arsonist arrested after three fires at Masonic lodges in Metro
Vancouver area, and I'm going to read directly from this
(21:50):
article says that the arrest came after an off duty
police officer driving past one of these Masonic temples that
have been targeted. He noticed a man walking away from
the building as it burned, and uh, he was like, hmmm,
that's interesting. And you can actually see video. I wasn't
able to locate this exact video that's referenced here, but
(22:15):
there's a video allegedly that shows one of the temples
on fire. This alleged person is walking away carrying what
they call a jerry can so like a gasoline canister,
and you think, oh, likely, suspect bits us. And in
that occurrence, a man got away, but he they ended
up catching up to him and they put him under arrest.
(22:37):
And you can only imagine how many more of these
fires would have occurred if this person didn't get arrested
pretty quickly, because again, three fires in forty five minutes,
that's efficient and someone on a mission. And just like
that Dre and Eminem song, I believe he was caught
(22:58):
literally holding a camp full of gas. There you go,
it's exactly like that Dre song is Eminem in that one. Yeah, yeah,
canful of gas, a handful of matches, still one found out.
Yeah it's true and it's really good man, but thank you.
But I I'm just saying that because it sounds like
(23:19):
something that doesn't usually happen in real life. He was
found literally holding a can. And one thing that may
be familiar to our listeners of Vancouver that is pretty depressing.
I think to some of us is that we know
this guy's name and I hate to say it, but
he is a Ben. He has a fellow Ben. I
(23:40):
apologize on behalf of everybody for Benjamin Coleman. I have
a plot twist for you, Matt, Noel and Doc if
you check the chat. First off, I found his Facebook
page and he really did, because Ben's are tight like that,
and I well, we have a bend sense and uh,
(24:02):
the legally we have to say this guy is not
being convicted of anything yet, right, But I would draw
your attention to a post he made on March or
at least this Facebook page. I think it's him. I
think it's him, but uh, I don't have hard confirmation yet.
Just a lot of things seemed to indicate this is
(24:23):
the guy's personal page. March thirty, he posted publicly quote
I just cleaned three Satanic clubhouses and nobody could do anything.
Whoa he cleaned him? Actually that quote is referenced by
Victoria News Ben, So I think you're right on the money.
So I guess it must be him, you know, and
(24:44):
it's um it's a lesson an ops set if nothing
else that was made on the day of the fires too,
which is a shame. Do we know much about his
uh motivation? I believe that journalists found he had been
pretty deep into some ant Masonic theories earlier. And yes,
in the Victoria News they've posted an article that says
(25:05):
online posts appear to link alleged arsinis to Masonic hall
fires in Metro Vancouver, and it goes into a few
other things like they're just saying he has a plethora
quote plethora of other conspiracy theory posts questioning everything from
five G to the moon landing to whether the Earth
is around Is he a flat earther? Maybe? Uh? And
(25:29):
now that was a very sexy Oh you just did this. Sorry,
I didn't mean quiet for our caller from oh Man.
But yeah, you know, the thing that stands out about
this is, first off, believing in something that most of
the other people in the planet don't believe in. It
(25:50):
just don't necessarily mean you are mentally ill, no, I,
but these sort of actions are indicative of at least
some sort of instability, right unless there's something some other
intervening variable of which we're not aware, like maybe personal
abuse by someone who in his childhood, by someone who
became Amazon. Maybe you know that's that's just an example.
(26:13):
But there are any number of things that can function
as a tipping point or a threshold for these sorts
of falling down moments. I'm referencing the film, Yeah, I
remember that is a great well film for me. So
what happens now he's in custody. You also said there
was something else to the story with Masonic halls before
(26:33):
this occurred. I did, and I'm gonna do this so fast. Been. Uh,
this guy, we didn't mention he was there. We we
mentioned that he was seen carrying a jerry can. He
ended up getting in a fight with a police officer,
arson MP officer. So he's been charged with one count
of arson, the one that they saw him at and
assaulting an officer of the law. So that's what's happening
(26:55):
right now with Ben other Ben, this guy Coldman, and Uh,
there's to be more to the story, but right now
we don't have much more to report. There. What I
would draw your attention to if you go to Freemason's
for Dummies dot blog spot dot com. If anyone remembers
the book Freemason's for Dummies, it's fantastic. I would recommend it. Um.
(27:17):
This is just a blog spot, I guess dedicated to
this book series, and there's just a small little post
there from June. There's an Oklahoma Masonic hall they got
hit by arson. And then I started going down a
rabbit hole of seeing all of these cases of arson
at Masonic halls and other Masonic temples and places of
(27:39):
you know, just meeting places, places of worship. Fascinating, how
they've been targeted over over the years that the Internet
has been popular. And the earliest craziest thing I saw
comes from and this comes out of Manchester, New Hampshire.
It's an AP news story. We're not going to go
(28:01):
fully into this story, but this is something you can
look up in something that I want to do maybe
a bigger story on feels like there's a rabbit hole here.
The title of the article is Mason's Rocked by embezzlement,
death threats, fire bombs, murder, and it opens with a
man who was found dead in his burning house, who
(28:27):
was uncovering a series of embezzlement cases at his own
Masonic lodge. Right, sounds like the plot of like an
episode of some sort of procedural crime show. Yeah, let's
make a whole other podcast, guys, or let's do a
whole episode on it. It feels really great to me. Uh,
there's lots of stuff to look up, So anyway, we'll
(28:48):
leave you there. Thanks so much, Mel Reynolds. We are
going to take a quick break, will be right back,
and we have returned. We did not come alone here,
We're coming along with Dan. Dan. Here's what you said,
(29:10):
low guys, absolutely love the show. You guys do an
amazing job. I love the riffing. Thank you for buttering
us up there, Dan, I just listened to an episode
of The Journal podcast by Wall Street Journal that discussed
get this guy's Ellen Musk's space X complex in Boca Chica, Texas.
Mind blow? That's all Dan? You know? Little known fact.
(29:37):
Dan is a ghostwriter for both Dr DRE and M
and m uh He describes He describes this, Uh, the
story is the following uh quote, A mind blowing story
of SpaceX coming to town and taking over. The Next step,
he says, is incorporation of the town and potentially seizing
the last remnants of property through eminent domain. Looks like
(29:59):
they are a few s ups ahead of blockchains LLC
and Nevada Nevada, Sorry everyone, uh creating a corporate autonomous government.
Give it a listen. Let me know what you think.
Maybe worth a listener mail or strange news discussion. Dan,
I had not heard anything about this. Had you guys
heard about this? Not at all? Nope. I was aware
(30:21):
of you know, we we were aware of the legislation
with innovation zones, which got you know, jammed up after
public criticism. Uh, but the story of SpaceX without being alarmist,
while the story of Boca Chica really is is troubling.
Residents are facing pressure from local officials in the you know,
(30:42):
in the in the government, and from operators in SpaceX
to sell their property. Right now, as of last week,
SpaceX has purchased more than a hundred parcels of land
in the area. This is public record, this has been confirmed,
and it mostly uses that land to house SpaceX employees.
(31:03):
But then several other residents are saying when they were
speaking with Wall Street Journal, they're saying SpaceX had come
to them time and time again trying to buy their property,
and they're worried things might get ugly for the people
who refuse to sell their homesteads. This happens all the time, right,
It happens all the time for for a company moving
(31:24):
in to try to buy up somebody's land, right like
a Walmarts being built. Someone comes in and says, our
footprint is going to have to be this many acres,
we need to buy up this much stuff around it, right,
And that's not necessarily nefarious, that's how business works. But
the issue here is one of maybe mission creep. You
(31:48):
could call it because how like, at what threshold does
something become a company town. We talked about the Blockchains
LLC proposal. We've also talked about the Red Greek Improvement District,
which is probably the most successful version of a corporate
or a company town, and that is owned by the
Big Mouse. So everybody be kind, don't get us sued
(32:10):
into the ground. But here's where we're at right now
in Boca Chica Village. They're in Texas. Would you care
to guess you guys probably already know. Would you care
to guess how many people live there that are not
connected to SpaceX zero seven? You guys both like, I
know we're going low, but you're so close. It's amazing.
(32:34):
About fourteen people, Matt, you win seven homes two people each.
I yeah, So they're there. Are these stories that are
coming out, and one of them comes from a local
named Celia Johnson. She told the journal that she started
(32:54):
having issues with employees of SpaceX when she rejected their
attempt to buy two of her houses or two of
her properties rather that were near the launch site. And
then uh a huge water tank, like a six gallon
water tank on one of her homes, which was a
rental vanished in and then she came back as she
(33:18):
thought the SpaceX folks stole it. And then she came
back and she found that someone had vandalized her house
when shared it with a brick had been sleeping there.
She and her neighbors accused SpaceX workers of crashing there,
which honestly that that seems a little far fetched, or
I should say, there's no proof of that being tell
there's underlying tension. The company denied all responsibility, but they
(33:43):
did reimburse her for the tank and the damage to
the house. So so the locals are saying that they're
getting they're getting bullied by a large corporation. And you know,
it's weird because I was thinking of our experience. You know, Doc, Noel,
Matt and I all live roughly in the same area
(34:06):
of Atlanta Metro So you guys have probably gotten those
weird maybe a text or something in your mailbox that
says love your whole would like to buy it now,
I buy houses stuff like that. If you guys gotten those,
oh so many voicemails like that, unsettling. M Yeah, I
don't own a house currently, but I know plenty of
(34:28):
folks that do who gets solicited all that. In fact,
that's not true. At the house that I rented, we
would often get pieces of mail um or or even
like flyers taped to the door, uh you know, attention
to our landlord. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's and it's
funny too because I've been in the same boat as
you know or where I would get those and it
(34:50):
would trigger just a many existential what am I doing
with my life? Totally. It's like, because there have been
points of my life where I get one of those
wild cold calls or a message or like you said,
something taped on the door, thrown on the porch, and
it may as well have been saying I'm interested in
buying your rolls Royce, And I'm like, come on, man,
(35:12):
I felt broke when I woke up today and you're
just making it worse. It's sell. It's on my nine
D three cell. Uh. So you nailed it. That was
a perfect hard joke. So in in this case though,
it's different because what we're talking about and our experience
in Atlanta is usually going to be uh what are
(35:32):
known as house flippers, and so they mean to buy
a house, maybe do some renovation on it, and then
sell it for a profit. There's nothing wrong or i
llegal about that. But what's happening here is that a
company is using a tremendous amount of financial muscle to
maybe force people into doing things that they ordinarily wouldn't
do to other locals. Mary and Harvey Bloomer said that
(35:55):
they got an email back in September offering them an
a little south of add fifty dollars for their home,
and it came with a warning. It was from the
Director of Finance, David Finley, and he said, your property
will frequently fall into a hazard zone in which no
(36:16):
civilian would be permitted to remain. So they're like, buy
it because otherwise a rocket might explode on you. Just
saying Jesus, just say accidents happened, and this has happened
to other folks, other residents. You can read the full article.
I do recommend the podcast, and thanks to Dan for
(36:37):
hipping us to that. Uh. Some residents have found that
they are getting what are called non negotiable deals and
then additional offers. They're really getting the hard sell. And
then to compound the problem, residents are claiming that they
(36:58):
think county officials might be in Spain, a sex's pocket
like that. They are also working with SpaceX to get
these folks out of their homes or off their properties.
And honestly, that's not that's not implausible because if you
think of the tremendous economic boom SpaceX is bringing to
(37:19):
this to this town, it very well could be a
bit of a devil's bargain. Arguably not as bad as
say a prison that gets constructed in a town that
desperately needs employment. But still, you know, these people bought
their houses because they weren't planning to move. That's why
they're not reading. Yeah, but it's so messed up to
(37:40):
do the cold calculus. Um, I would I don't even
know if Elon Musk himself would be making these decisions,
are looking at the actual numbers, maybe um, But the
team of experts goes, okay, so we've got we've got
seven to fourteen houses that are currently being occupied that
we need to get rid of, get rid of those people.
(38:02):
And then then on the other side, the government is thinking,
or whoever is representing the group here, well, if those
houses are gone, but we have residential areas for all
of these other employees, that's gonna number residents in the hundreds,
and they're all buying food locally. Taxes plus sales tax
(38:26):
from property tax. We can make a lot more money
with spacexes employees, right, And there's you know, there is
honestly a little bit of a long term investment slash
greater good argument the Boca Boca Chica. The community is
overseen by the government of Cameron County, and they have
(38:49):
raised their county appraisals of the values of homes. In
one case, home was worth thirty four thousand, four and
seventy three dollars when SpaceX made its first offer. Uh,
and then just uh, just a little bit later in
one the appraisals shot up to one hundred and forty
one thousand, five hundred seventy three dollars. Homeowners in the audience.
(39:14):
That sounds pretty awesome, right, especially everybody remembers two thousand eight,
Screw SpaceX. I'm moving to Boca Chica. I can afford
a house there. That's right, we do live in a
metro area. But but also, you know, they may be
attempt they may be just doing a hard calculation of
value because of what they're predicting about the economy, and uh,
(39:35):
property prices in the future. But Texas also, this area especially,
really doesn't want to lose uh SpaceX. You know what
I mean. It's a prestigious thing for a state to have.
Texas already gave twenty million and incentives for the company
to expand in Texas, and Elon Musk is interesting. Back
(39:57):
in March, he went on Twitter and pledged to donate
twenty million dollars to Cameron County schools specifically, and ten
million dollars to revitalize the downtown area of the county's
largest city, Brownsville. And this is before he was on SNL.
I don't know why I added that. I just remember,
did you guys see him on SNL? I did. I
(40:19):
saw him on SNL. You you said you were okay
with it. I really enjoyed it, actually, um shill, it
was good. It was funny. Man. I'm sorry he's got
still to deliver. Did you hear what he said? Like
he was the He said he was the first person
(40:40):
with Asperger's to host a knitted on stage, at least
the first person to admit it. That's what he said.
It was funny that I was reading up about it
and on the Instagram account for SNL. I believe like
all of the comments were very negative towards him before
the show aired, and then when he came out into
(41:00):
that thing about having Asperger's and immediately all turned very positive,
which is kind of interesting considering that people are just
so afraid of being canceled or are seen as being
able list in some way that they can like spew
all this venom about a guy and then one little
thing while it was oh we actually we we we
we loved them all along, Um, Psyche, well whatever. Pete
(41:25):
Davidson has a recurring character that they produced an incredible
like digital short for. I mean some of the stuff
they can turn around in just a few days with
visual effects. I'm like so impressed with that team. Oh whatever, Yeah, yeah,
it's and it's it's a great operation. I think we
nd update is killing it. Murder Dirt Dirt was a
(41:47):
great sketch. Checked that one out if you haven't seen it. Um,
we're just shouting shouting out because I think we all
you know, watched watched sn L and we were interested
to see what the person one of the world's wealthiest
people would actually do. So SNL aside, here's where we're
(42:08):
at to sew up the story of Boca Chica as
it stands now. According to the laws of Texas, to
incorporate this village, SpaceX would have to prove to the
state that more than two people live in the area.
It would have to get a majority vote from that area.
And then there's a lot of if then's here, and
then if those two steps are successful, then the officials
(42:31):
of SpaceX could secure the power of eminent domain. Eminent
domain is the epitome of greater good right. Eminent domain
is what happens when you lose uh several feet or
of your front yard because a road needs to be widened.
Eminent domain is saying that the your local government has
(42:54):
certain powers that it can use uh to you know,
take your property or to make certain alterations in the
interests of the greater community. And that kind of That
kind of stuff is a necessary evil. It does have
to exist in many cases. But the fear here for
(43:15):
the non SpaceX residence of the community is that this
imminent domain could be used to eject the last people
who are still holding out and then allow SpaceX to
build a modern day company town. With that mind, do
you want to say, the long term goal here is
(43:36):
to get off this planet and go into the stars,
go deep into the galactic ink. Is it worth it?
It really depends on who you ask, just like our
problem with just like our question rather about mink and
fur farms and the spread of COVID. At this point,
(43:57):
we're gonna keep an eye on this. Thank you so
much to Dan for hipping us to this story. Thank
you to Mal for at the very least reminding us
to rewatch Firefly. It holds up. It holds up. If
you have somehow never seen it, watch it tonight in
Star based, Texas at your Airbnb, and we hope you
keep an ear out for an upcoming episode on Masonic
(44:21):
Masonic lodges and what's going on with the violence against them.
Also keep an eye out for our keep an ear
out for our ghost Guns episode. As always, we want
to hear from you. Let us know what you think
about these things. I'm particularly interested, um Noel in in
what's going to come out the emergent news about the
(44:43):
origin of COVID nineteen, which were still tracing you know, yeah,
I'm interested to see if exactly right then, if it
does get traced somewhere other than that wet market, or
maybe it was a combination. Who knows these animals get around.
I can imagine that the types of animals that are
and sold at wet markets could also end up in
(45:04):
mink farm situated. I don't know, just just just just
I'm speculating here, but also insu to see how this
industry will be impacted. So give us your take. Fellow
conspiracy Realist. Will be back with more listener mail next week.
In the meantime, if you would like to take a
digital page from the book of Concerned Mink of Mal
(45:25):
and Dan, please feel free to reach out to us.
We make it easy to find us online. We're Conspiracy
Stuff on Twitter and Facebook and on Instagram. We are
Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you would like, you could maybe
give us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you
listen to this show. That would be wonderful. You would
(45:46):
very much appreciate it and it would help our show
a great deal. So if you have a moment, please
take a chance and do that. If you don't want
to do that, hey, guess what. We've got a phone number.
That's right, it's one three s T D W y
t K. You can leave a message of the sound
of Ben's dulcet tones. Try to keep it within that
a lot at three minutes, and let us know what
your name is, what to call you, and if it's
(46:06):
okay to use your voice on air, and you might
well hear yourself on one of our weekly listener mail episodes.
And if none of that white launches your spaceship, you
can always reach out to us directly. No social media,
no telephone, just our good old fashioned email address, available
twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, where
(46:27):
we are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(46:49):
don't want you to know is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
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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, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexis
code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It is time for our
weekly listener mail segment and we have some doozies for
(00:48):
you today, folks. Before we begin, though, I would like
to I would like to put out a very special
thank you to everybody who responded with clarifications on our
previous last week's Strange News where we talked a little
bit about ghost guns. Thank you for everybody who took
the time to write in with those clarifications. Uh. We
(01:10):
look forward. We always look forward to this because this
these kinds of messages are mission critical to our show,
and more importantly, uh, they're helpful to your fellow conspiracy realists.
So please look forward to episode that's going to be
coming out in a few weeks yeah, days for sure,
(01:31):
called the rise of ghost guns. Yeah, And I would
just say, personally, Um, you know, I listened to back
to a few parts of that, and I can see
where the criticism was coming from on my part, so
I just want to say, here, we hear you. I
hear you, and um, we're we're going to address some
of those things. Now, what did you do? I would
(01:52):
just say, on my part, what I did and what
was I I think I may have conflated a little
bit of my story with Ben's story, maybe two much,
So that's on me. Um, and did I didn't mean
to do that. I think it was overall confusing. So
I see, and as usual, I was out of my
mind on ether typical bed, typical, typical, typical. I gotta
(02:15):
I gotta ask that I've heard a little bit about
ghost guns just in the news recently, and how it
was the first time I heard the term. I think
because it was coming up, you know, in the wake
of some of these recent mass shootings in terms of like,
here's the thing that we can make illegal, right and
probably would be an easy fix at least for that
type of thing. There's probably a lot more to be done.
But that certainly seems like one that's problematic. But it
(02:36):
reminds me of the movie. Oh, I think it's called
In the Line of Fire. Yeah, yeah, where Clean Eastwood
plays uh a F B or C I agent who
was protecting John F. Kennedy and you know, like failed
and then in the modern day he's like a grizzled
kind of bitter old man, you know, Clean Eastwood, um
and John Malkovitch plays this like genius assassin who has
(02:58):
this like plastic composite gun that he, you know, can
sneak through security and then he hides the bullet in
a Lucky Rabbits fire. I don't think that's the same
as ghost guns, but I kind of that's what I
always think of when I hear that geez, spoilers. No, well,
it's it's a spoiler on Clint Eastwood's range. Do you
want him as grizzled or extra grizzled? Yeah, it's it is.
(03:23):
It's like going, uh, well, h he's a great American
actor and director and a great American let's just leave
it at that. Well, I've never met him, but Grand
Torino is a fantastic film. Get off my one, so
so yes, thank you. We do as we said, read
every email we get to, every piece of correspondence. Uh.
(03:45):
They're important to us because your time is important, and
you have taken the time to reach out to us
and in that way to reach out to your fellow listeners.
So the least that we can do is gratefully take
the time to hear you and hear what you have
to say. With that in mind, UH, today we're going
to hear from We're gonna hear from several of our
(04:07):
fellow conspiracy realists. And I've got to say, you know,
no knowing who we're gonna be, you know, vicariously speaking
with today, I think uh, I think the correspondent that
you chose has my favorite name because they're the only
one who like picked a nickname. Uh that's not true,
though there's two in there. This week we have been
(04:30):
getting some doozy nicknames. So I guess that you would
like me to to to go first. I am absolutely
fine with us. Uh. My listener mail comes from someone
who very specifically asked not to be named by name,
but signed this email. I'm just gonna read the email
and then do the sign off, because you really need
to hear the content before you understand the meaning of
the nickname. Uh, and it goes a little something like this, Hi, guys,
(04:53):
thanks for all the quality entertainment this past year. I
was wondering if you could touch upon the possibility of
fur farms in China, not labs, being the source of
COVID nineteen and variants. It seems to me that this
is the most likely source for the outbreak, and China
is the current world leader in mink for best concerned mink,
(05:15):
concerned men, mink, a concerned mink. Yeah, I completely agree,
and minks to me always kind of have the appearance
of being concerned because it turns out there good for
a lot of things, uh, not just making mink coats,
which I thought for it really fallen out of fashion,
even with like the high end you know, bespoke fashion lines.
(05:37):
It seems like sort of a no no, right, Like
don't you get red paint throw on you if you
walk down the street in a fur coat or a
mink stole. Uh? Well, it depends on where you go,
because we have you know, a lot of different parts
of the world have different opinions about not just animal rights,
but also what does or does not qualify as like
high fashion versus something ghosh. So the fur indie street
(06:01):
at least pre pandemic, the fur industry was still doing
pretty well. They're always going to be moves to uh
prevent that practice of growing animals and slaughtering them prefer
but there's a lot of money to be made. There's
more money to be made selling those coats than there
is to stop selling them. As cold as that sounds,
(06:24):
would you guys agree, no, I would, And into your point, Ben,
in terms of cultural uh, you know, mileage may vary
situations in terms of opinions on for I mean that's
true of like what would or would not be considered food,
you know, like you know, for in some Asian countries,
like dogs are slaughtered pretty regularly, um for for meat. Uh,
(06:46):
and that is very much the case with fur as well. UM.
In China, the main species that are harvested for their
fur our mink, fox, and raccoon dog um and respect
of a According to a fabulous article that the concerned
Minks sent us on the Conversation, seventeen and twelve million
(07:08):
respective animals slaughtered each year. Uh. And that's from so
that would be twenty one million mink why far the
largest number UM in that in that group of most
popular animals to harvest for their fur. And as we know,
in many situations like with these wet markets that we've
(07:28):
heard so much about, there isn't as much environmental, humanitarian,
or even sanitary oversight over some of these facilities in
Asian countries, in China in particular, and because of that,
it does lead to some situations that could result in
UM virus is being spread unexpectedly, especially when there's like
(07:51):
a new you know, variant of one. Because it turns
out that minx, which are referred to as amused lids.
Have you guys heard of this mimmu m U s
t E l ideas I've never heard that word before,
are susceptible to the stars c O V two virus um,
which is which is the coronavirus um. And there's you know,
(08:13):
more science e specifics in this article if you want
to get more into the minutia of it. But it
makes a pretty good case as to how this could
have resulted from an unchecked mink farming operation rather than
specifically that wet market. UH. And it is UM It
(08:33):
has to do with the fact that, as we know, um,
the coronavirus is a zoo aotic disease. It can bounce
from an animal to a different species like a human,
and that's what makes it particularly dangerous and easy to spread.
And this also means to be clear that animals can
spread uh, this infection to one another humans of course,
(08:55):
is the part we focus on. But musclids are it's
it's umbrella term. It's a family of everything from otters
to wolverines to badgers, ferrets and Martin's as well. Yeah,
you're absolutely right, um concerned mink is raising a very
(09:18):
important point. It's something that other places have speculated um
about in the West, like National Geographic also did an
article where they asked whether there was a missing link
in these fur farms. And honestly, to steal a line
from our buddy Neil's, the thing about the origin and
spread of COVID nineteen is that at this point it's
(09:42):
such a recent and ongoing event that there's still a
lot of questions people are trying to answer, and asking
those questions does not necessarily make you, uh, you know,
the next candidate for a tinfoil hat. I think a
lot of people actually you know what a lot of
people might not remember. Uh they there's maybe the stereotype
(10:03):
that's wrapped up in a little bit of late and racism. Uh.
That said, that makes people assume that China is the
world's number one exporter of of mink and specific that's
not true. It's Denmark and that's why, like not too
long ago, they slaughtered fifteen seventeen million minks because some
(10:25):
a tested positive for a variant of coronavirus. I mean,
it's a really it's a very real concern. Like you
were saying, no, Uh, these animals are vulnerable to this
and they can spread it to humans. So even if
the origin of covid in mustelids was, you know, attributable
to what scientists currently believe it's attributable to, that doesn't
(10:49):
mean that it couldn't have made that leap from someone
working in one of these fur farms. That's right. And um,
it's interesting because study, a recent study showed that in fact,
quite a few species are susceptible to the star's code
to including primates and other carnivores um. But the authors
(11:12):
of the study, Uh again, this is from this article
in The Conversation. UM want to make it clear to
not over interpret these types of predictions and use it
as a means of spreading kind of alarmism, but also
just you know, kind of be aware. It said that specifically,
the quote is uh. They wanted to stress the importance
(11:33):
of avoiding over interpreting the predictions put forward and point
out that the experimental and observational data in the field
are required. So it's like, Okay, yes, we know that
these animals are susceptible, but we need to actually track,
you know, the spread of this through these uh, these
various animal communities before you know, rushing to judgment and
(11:55):
thinking this is definitely what it's all about. Um, but
whatever the case might be. Over are all infectious diseases.
They are up significantly from the mid twentieth century, and
they're particularly um prevalent in parts of the world that
are let's just say affected by the human race. Um,
(12:21):
you know, where man is kind of bulldozing natural areas,
um and limiting animal biodiversity let's just say, and capturing
wild animals. And that's why I think the wet market
with such a target is because that is a hot
spot or a hub where there's tons of different species
(12:42):
all kind of commingling, sometimes in cages right on top
of each other. We've talked about this in some of
our COVID nineteen episodes. Uh, and that can lead to
the spread of these these diseases. Yeah, for sure, that's
That's the thing that I think a lot of people
need to understand. There's a nuance here. So yes, the
(13:03):
World Health Organization concluded that the odds of a lab
manufactured origin of COVID are very very low. It's highly
unlikely that that happened. But there are still these very
serious unanswered questions about exactly when, where, and how stars
(13:24):
UH COVID nineteen first got into human beings, how it
made the leap, and one thing that could happen I
would I would argue, and I think this goes to
your question concerned me on one thing that could easily
have happened and actually probably did happen, is that wet
markets or regions where people were interacting with wild animals
(13:48):
became these clusters, like these secondary clusters, so an additional explosion,
right that further gassed up the spread of the infection.
I'm saying that human being was infected by COVID nineteen
at a wet market or at a fur factory or
something like that is not the same thing as saying
(14:10):
that is definitely the origin. But looking at the math,
looking at the science, looking at the vectors, it had
to have happened. It had to have been spreading. And
then yes, it's terrible for the business to have to
destroy a bunch of minks like Denmark did. But what
what other choice are you gonna have. What are you
gonna tell somebody who is wait desperately hoping and praying
(14:33):
that they're dying relative can get a ventilator? Are you
going to tell them? Sorry, I'm a I'm a cope man.
I just want to reiterate here that no matter what
you believe the origins are of this pandemic. You know,
COVID nineteen and all of this, the best experts appointed
by the w h OH, by all of these organizations
(14:53):
that you may not even necessarily trust, all are saying
that we don't have the full answers. We have most
likely probabilities essentially based on what we have found, what
we can prove. So you know, if you're feeling if
you're still feel a little weird about it, that's okay.
But you know, just remember that nobody knows right now,
(15:17):
but we're still trying to track it down. That's exactly right.
And Uh, all of this anti Asian sentiment, you know,
and the rhetoric around it and the actual actions that
has led to in certain members of the population, UM
is just heartbreaking because it's, you know, whatever the case
(15:37):
might be, if there are conditions that might make these
markets and these types of factories and our factory farming
situations more susceptible to spreading these kinds of viruses, is
certainly of no fault of the you know, individual human
beings that live in that country. UM. So that kind
of misplaced anger just really boggles my mind. But one
(15:59):
thing that interesting about this type of disease, this is
zoonotic virus, is it can be traveled. It can travel
both ways, like humans can get animals sick with it
as well. We have had cases. I think you guys
might remember there was a tiger. I think it was
in the Detroit Zoo, but I might be wrong. Uh.
There have been cases of found in domestic cats and dogs. Uh.
(16:21):
And and also there's a cat captive lions I believe, uh,
and farmed minx and guerrillas, where it's humans that are
actually giving the disease to the animal, the virus to
the animals. And that's called reverse zoonosis. And that's exactly right.
I knew was a b thing, Um, I said, d
I said, Detroit, I'm just wrong, Matt, you got me
(16:43):
um uh. And this is particularly true of these must
lets or muselets. How however, the pronunciation goes um. And
I think this is something that is potentially of concern
to try in his economy because you know, this, uh,
this fur farming industry is is quite a lucrative operation,
(17:08):
you know, and and it accounts for quite a bit
of of income for the economy. And there are discussions
being had as to whether more oversight needs to be
brought to it, or whether it needs to be shut
down or certain operations need to be shut down. So
it's something to kind of keep an eye on. But
I'm sure that it is making some proprietors of these
(17:29):
facilities pretty nervous. Let's just plant more hemp, guys, Let's
make more hemp clothes and get rid of the fur.
Let's do it. It's a shame you can't plant either,
you know what. I mean you mon um, it's got
an ether farm up in the up in the foothills, exactly.
(17:49):
We can keep this one short. I think we, you know,
because again I think people are kind of getting COVID
fatigue at this point. But I do think this is
an interesting development and something to keep an eye on.
So thank you, too, concerned Mink for passing this one
along too. I said, we're gonna take quick sponsor break
and be right back with more strange news. And we're back,
(18:12):
and without any kind of introduction, let's just listen to
the message left to us by our good friend Mal.
Hey guys, um, but this is what I had an
interesting thing to your Strange News podcast, which I love,
by the way. It's been all a couple of weeks
ago here in Vancouver and basically a couple of or
(18:33):
three actually Masonic halls got burnt down by one guy.
I'm really looked into. It's his mode. I can't really
find much of why he did it or anything if
he was a Freemason or whatever. But I thought if
you could find anything out, or if you have any
discussion points on that would be pretty interesting. Um, you
can use my voice on the if you if you
(18:55):
want to, you can refer to me as Mel Reynolds.
That's not my name, but I'm a big thanks guys,
love you what see you let him? Now I see
what you're saying. Uh now, now I see what you're saying, Matt,
about that nickname. I thought it'd be more fun if
you discovered it. You were that moment call me Mel Reynolds.
(19:19):
That's uh, one of my favorite characters ever put to
the screen, or the small one, or we played it
on a big one in vie. So this is something
that I had Definitely I was not aware of this.
This is pretty troubling. I saw one little news segment
(19:39):
on it flash past the r slash news reddit subreddit,
and uh clicked on it, looked for a second, but
there was no information of what was going on when
I first looked at it. This is again, as Mal said,
several weeks ago, and actually it was a while ago
now at this point, but I don't know. I figured
we'd at least discuss and I found a few others
(20:00):
waras that I want to mention before we finish this
whole section here. So let's start with the most recent
fires that were occurring in Masonic lodges in Vancouver, and
this is around March, like late March of when this
is occurring. So first I'm gonna jump to a Vice
(20:20):
News article. It is titled police investigating Arson's after three
Masonic temples in Vancouver set on fire. And as you
go through this um you can see that there are
a few places. The Masonic Lynn Valley Lodge in North Vancouver,
there was a fire there early early in the morning,
around sixty Then fifteen minutes later they were at another lodge,
(20:45):
this time Duke of Connat Lodge number of sixty four.
Then fifteen minutes after that, so we're talking one too,
three within the span of forty five minutes. Uh. Fifteen
minutes later at twelve kilometers away, Park Lodge Massonic Center
went up in flames. But this one wasn't. That third
one wasn't damaged quite as much as the others. So obviously,
(21:07):
right off the bat, if you're an investigator or if
you're you know, someone working, you're a fire person, and
you're responding to these things, you're on a rescue team
or something something is wrong, right, you're getting all of
these emergency calls coming in. You realize, okay, there's a
targeting that's happening here. Very quickly, though, one man was
(21:29):
picked up, and at least according to the story, he
was seen walking away from one of the scenes by
a few witnesses. So CBC reported, and I'm gonna jump
over to an article from them. It is titled Alleged
arsonist arrested after three fires at Masonic lodges in Metro
Vancouver area, and I'm going to read directly from this
(21:50):
article says that the arrest came after an off duty
police officer driving past one of these Masonic temples that
have been targeted. He noticed a man walking away from
the building as it burned, and uh, he was like, hmmm,
that's interesting. And you can actually see video. I wasn't
able to locate this exact video that's referenced here, but
(22:15):
there's a video allegedly that shows one of the temples
on fire. This alleged person is walking away carrying what
they call a jerry can so like a gasoline canister,
and you think, oh, likely, suspect bits us. And in
that occurrence, a man got away, but he they ended
up catching up to him and they put him under arrest.
(22:37):
And you can only imagine how many more of these
fires would have occurred if this person didn't get arrested
pretty quickly, because again, three fires in forty five minutes,
that's efficient and someone on a mission. And just like
that Dre and Eminem song, I believe he was caught
(22:58):
literally holding a camp full of gas. There you go,
it's exactly like that Dre song is Eminem in that one. Yeah, yeah,
canful of gas, a handful of matches, still one found out.
Yeah it's true and it's really good man, but thank you.
But I I'm just saying that because it sounds like
(23:19):
something that doesn't usually happen in real life. He was
found literally holding a can. And one thing that may
be familiar to our listeners of Vancouver that is pretty depressing.
I think to some of us is that we know
this guy's name and I hate to say it, but
he is a Ben. He has a fellow Ben. I
(23:40):
apologize on behalf of everybody for Benjamin Coleman. I have
a plot twist for you, Matt, Noel and Doc if
you check the chat. First off, I found his Facebook
page and he really did, because Ben's are tight like that,
and I well, we have a bend sense and uh,
(24:02):
the legally we have to say this guy is not
being convicted of anything yet, right, But I would draw
your attention to a post he made on March or
at least this Facebook page. I think it's him. I
think it's him, but uh, I don't have hard confirmation yet.
Just a lot of things seemed to indicate this is
(24:23):
the guy's personal page. March thirty, he posted publicly quote
I just cleaned three Satanic clubhouses and nobody could do anything.
Whoa he cleaned him? Actually that quote is referenced by
Victoria News Ben, So I think you're right on the money.
So I guess it must be him, you know, and
(24:44):
it's um it's a lesson an ops set if nothing
else that was made on the day of the fires too,
which is a shame. Do we know much about his
uh motivation? I believe that journalists found he had been
pretty deep into some ant Masonic theories earlier. And yes,
in the Victoria News they've posted an article that says
(25:05):
online posts appear to link alleged arsinis to Masonic hall
fires in Metro Vancouver, and it goes into a few
other things like they're just saying he has a plethora
quote plethora of other conspiracy theory posts questioning everything from
five G to the moon landing to whether the Earth
is around Is he a flat earther? Maybe? Uh? And
(25:29):
now that was a very sexy Oh you just did this. Sorry,
I didn't mean quiet for our caller from oh Man.
But yeah, you know, the thing that stands out about
this is, first off, believing in something that most of
the other people in the planet don't believe in. It
(25:50):
just don't necessarily mean you are mentally ill, no, I,
but these sort of actions are indicative of at least
some sort of instability, right unless there's something some other
intervening variable of which we're not aware, like maybe personal
abuse by someone who in his childhood, by someone who
became Amazon. Maybe you know that's that's just an example.
(26:13):
But there are any number of things that can function
as a tipping point or a threshold for these sorts
of falling down moments. I'm referencing the film, Yeah, I
remember that is a great well film for me. So
what happens now he's in custody. You also said there
was something else to the story with Masonic halls before
(26:33):
this occurred. I did, and I'm gonna do this so fast. Been. Uh,
this guy, we didn't mention he was there. We we
mentioned that he was seen carrying a jerry can. He
ended up getting in a fight with a police officer,
arson MP officer. So he's been charged with one count
of arson, the one that they saw him at and
assaulting an officer of the law. So that's what's happening
(26:55):
right now with Ben other Ben, this guy Coldman, and Uh,
there's to be more to the story, but right now
we don't have much more to report. There. What I
would draw your attention to if you go to Freemason's
for Dummies dot blog spot dot com. If anyone remembers
the book Freemason's for Dummies, it's fantastic. I would recommend it. Um.
(27:17):
This is just a blog spot, I guess dedicated to
this book series, and there's just a small little post
there from June. There's an Oklahoma Masonic hall they got
hit by arson. And then I started going down a
rabbit hole of seeing all of these cases of arson
at Masonic halls and other Masonic temples and places of
(27:39):
you know, just meeting places, places of worship. Fascinating, how
they've been targeted over over the years that the Internet
has been popular. And the earliest craziest thing I saw
comes from and this comes out of Manchester, New Hampshire.
It's an AP news story. We're not going to go
(28:01):
fully into this story, but this is something you can
look up in something that I want to do maybe
a bigger story on feels like there's a rabbit hole here.
The title of the article is Mason's Rocked by embezzlement,
death threats, fire bombs, murder, and it opens with a
man who was found dead in his burning house, who
(28:27):
was uncovering a series of embezzlement cases at his own
Masonic lodge. Right, sounds like the plot of like an
episode of some sort of procedural crime show. Yeah, let's
make a whole other podcast, guys, or let's do a
whole episode on it. It feels really great to me. Uh,
there's lots of stuff to look up, So anyway, we'll
(28:48):
leave you there. Thanks so much, Mel Reynolds. We are
going to take a quick break, will be right back,
and we have returned. We did not come alone here,
We're coming along with Dan. Dan. Here's what you said,
(29:10):
low guys, absolutely love the show. You guys do an
amazing job. I love the riffing. Thank you for buttering
us up there, Dan, I just listened to an episode
of The Journal podcast by Wall Street Journal that discussed
get this guy's Ellen Musk's space X complex in Boca Chica, Texas.
Mind blow? That's all Dan? You know? Little known fact.
(29:37):
Dan is a ghostwriter for both Dr DRE and M
and m uh He describes He describes this, Uh, the
story is the following uh quote, A mind blowing story
of SpaceX coming to town and taking over. The Next step,
he says, is incorporation of the town and potentially seizing
the last remnants of property through eminent domain. Looks like
(29:59):
they are a few s ups ahead of blockchains LLC
and Nevada Nevada, Sorry everyone, uh creating a corporate autonomous government.
Give it a listen. Let me know what you think.
Maybe worth a listener mail or strange news discussion. Dan,
I had not heard anything about this. Had you guys
heard about this? Not at all? Nope. I was aware
(30:21):
of you know, we we were aware of the legislation
with innovation zones, which got you know, jammed up after
public criticism. Uh, but the story of SpaceX without being alarmist,
while the story of Boca Chica really is is troubling.
Residents are facing pressure from local officials in the you know,
(30:42):
in the in the government, and from operators in SpaceX
to sell their property. Right now, as of last week,
SpaceX has purchased more than a hundred parcels of land
in the area. This is public record, this has been confirmed,
and it mostly uses that land to house SpaceX employees.
(31:03):
But then several other residents are saying when they were
speaking with Wall Street Journal, they're saying SpaceX had come
to them time and time again trying to buy their property,
and they're worried things might get ugly for the people
who refuse to sell their homesteads. This happens all the time, right,
It happens all the time for for a company moving
(31:24):
in to try to buy up somebody's land, right like
a Walmarts being built. Someone comes in and says, our
footprint is going to have to be this many acres,
we need to buy up this much stuff around it, right,
And that's not necessarily nefarious, that's how business works. But
the issue here is one of maybe mission creep. You
(31:48):
could call it because how like, at what threshold does
something become a company town. We talked about the Blockchains
LLC proposal. We've also talked about the Red Greek Improvement District,
which is probably the most successful version of a corporate
or a company town, and that is owned by the
Big Mouse. So everybody be kind, don't get us sued
(32:10):
into the ground. But here's where we're at right now
in Boca Chica Village. They're in Texas. Would you care
to guess you guys probably already know. Would you care
to guess how many people live there that are not
connected to SpaceX zero seven? You guys both like, I
know we're going low, but you're so close. It's amazing.
(32:34):
About fourteen people, Matt, you win seven homes two people each.
I yeah, So they're there. Are these stories that are
coming out, and one of them comes from a local
named Celia Johnson. She told the journal that she started
(32:54):
having issues with employees of SpaceX when she rejected their
attempt to buy two of her houses or two of
her properties rather that were near the launch site. And
then uh a huge water tank, like a six gallon
water tank on one of her homes, which was a
rental vanished in and then she came back as she
(33:18):
thought the SpaceX folks stole it. And then she came
back and she found that someone had vandalized her house
when shared it with a brick had been sleeping there.
She and her neighbors accused SpaceX workers of crashing there,
which honestly that that seems a little far fetched, or
I should say, there's no proof of that being tell
there's underlying tension. The company denied all responsibility, but they
(33:43):
did reimburse her for the tank and the damage to
the house. So so the locals are saying that they're
getting they're getting bullied by a large corporation. And you know,
it's weird because I was thinking of our experience. You know, Doc, Noel,
Matt and I all live roughly in the same area
(34:06):
of Atlanta Metro So you guys have probably gotten those
weird maybe a text or something in your mailbox that
says love your whole would like to buy it now,
I buy houses stuff like that. If you guys gotten those,
oh so many voicemails like that, unsettling. M Yeah, I
don't own a house currently, but I know plenty of
(34:28):
folks that do who gets solicited all that. In fact,
that's not true. At the house that I rented, we
would often get pieces of mail um or or even
like flyers taped to the door, uh you know, attention
to our landlord. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's and it's
funny too because I've been in the same boat as
you know or where I would get those and it
(34:50):
would trigger just a many existential what am I doing
with my life? Totally. It's like, because there have been
points of my life where I get one of those
wild cold calls or a message or like you said,
something taped on the door, thrown on the porch, and
it may as well have been saying I'm interested in
buying your rolls Royce, And I'm like, come on, man,
(35:12):
I felt broke when I woke up today and you're
just making it worse. It's sell. It's on my nine
D three cell. Uh. So you nailed it. That was
a perfect hard joke. So in in this case though,
it's different because what we're talking about and our experience
in Atlanta is usually going to be uh what are
(35:32):
known as house flippers, and so they mean to buy
a house, maybe do some renovation on it, and then
sell it for a profit. There's nothing wrong or i
llegal about that. But what's happening here is that a
company is using a tremendous amount of financial muscle to
maybe force people into doing things that they ordinarily wouldn't
do to other locals. Mary and Harvey Bloomer said that
(35:55):
they got an email back in September offering them an
a little south of add fifty dollars for their home,
and it came with a warning. It was from the
Director of Finance, David Finley, and he said, your property
will frequently fall into a hazard zone in which no
(36:16):
civilian would be permitted to remain. So they're like, buy
it because otherwise a rocket might explode on you. Just
saying Jesus, just say accidents happened, and this has happened
to other folks, other residents. You can read the full article.
I do recommend the podcast, and thanks to Dan for
(36:37):
hipping us to that. Uh. Some residents have found that
they are getting what are called non negotiable deals and
then additional offers. They're really getting the hard sell. And
then to compound the problem, residents are claiming that they
(36:58):
think county officials might be in Spain, a sex's pocket
like that. They are also working with SpaceX to get
these folks out of their homes or off their properties.
And honestly, that's not that's not implausible because if you
think of the tremendous economic boom SpaceX is bringing to
(37:19):
this to this town, it very well could be a
bit of a devil's bargain. Arguably not as bad as
say a prison that gets constructed in a town that
desperately needs employment. But still, you know, these people bought
their houses because they weren't planning to move. That's why
they're not reading. Yeah, but it's so messed up to
(37:40):
do the cold calculus. Um, I would I don't even
know if Elon Musk himself would be making these decisions,
are looking at the actual numbers, maybe um, But the
team of experts goes, okay, so we've got we've got
seven to fourteen houses that are currently being occupied that
we need to get rid of, get rid of those people.
(38:02):
And then then on the other side, the government is thinking,
or whoever is representing the group here, well, if those
houses are gone, but we have residential areas for all
of these other employees, that's gonna number residents in the hundreds,
and they're all buying food locally. Taxes plus sales tax
(38:26):
from property tax. We can make a lot more money
with spacexes employees, right, And there's you know, there is
honestly a little bit of a long term investment slash
greater good argument the Boca Boca Chica. The community is
overseen by the government of Cameron County, and they have
(38:49):
raised their county appraisals of the values of homes. In
one case, home was worth thirty four thousand, four and
seventy three dollars when SpaceX made its first offer. Uh,
and then just uh, just a little bit later in
one the appraisals shot up to one hundred and forty
one thousand, five hundred seventy three dollars. Homeowners in the audience.
(39:14):
That sounds pretty awesome, right, especially everybody remembers two thousand eight,
Screw SpaceX. I'm moving to Boca Chica. I can afford
a house there. That's right, we do live in a
metro area. But but also, you know, they may be
attempt they may be just doing a hard calculation of
value because of what they're predicting about the economy, and uh,
(39:35):
property prices in the future. But Texas also, this area especially,
really doesn't want to lose uh SpaceX. You know what
I mean. It's a prestigious thing for a state to have.
Texas already gave twenty million and incentives for the company
to expand in Texas, and Elon Musk is interesting. Back
(39:57):
in March, he went on Twitter and pledged to donate
twenty million dollars to Cameron County schools specifically, and ten
million dollars to revitalize the downtown area of the county's
largest city, Brownsville. And this is before he was on SNL.
I don't know why I added that. I just remember,
did you guys see him on SNL? I did. I
(40:19):
saw him on SNL. You you said you were okay
with it. I really enjoyed it, actually, um shill, it
was good. It was funny. Man. I'm sorry he's got
still to deliver. Did you hear what he said? Like
he was the He said he was the first person
(40:40):
with Asperger's to host a knitted on stage, at least
the first person to admit it. That's what he said.
It was funny that I was reading up about it
and on the Instagram account for SNL. I believe like
all of the comments were very negative towards him before
the show aired, and then when he came out into
(41:00):
that thing about having Asperger's and immediately all turned very positive,
which is kind of interesting considering that people are just
so afraid of being canceled or are seen as being
able list in some way that they can like spew
all this venom about a guy and then one little
thing while it was oh we actually we we we
we loved them all along, Um, Psyche, well whatever. Pete
(41:25):
Davidson has a recurring character that they produced an incredible
like digital short for. I mean some of the stuff
they can turn around in just a few days with
visual effects. I'm like so impressed with that team. Oh whatever, Yeah, yeah,
it's and it's it's a great operation. I think we
nd update is killing it. Murder Dirt Dirt was a
(41:47):
great sketch. Checked that one out if you haven't seen it. Um,
we're just shouting shouting out because I think we all
you know, watched watched sn L and we were interested
to see what the person one of the world's wealthiest
people would actually do. So SNL aside, here's where we're
(42:08):
at to sew up the story of Boca Chica as
it stands now. According to the laws of Texas, to
incorporate this village, SpaceX would have to prove to the
state that more than two people live in the area.
It would have to get a majority vote from that area.
And then there's a lot of if then's here, and
then if those two steps are successful, then the officials
(42:31):
of SpaceX could secure the power of eminent domain. Eminent
domain is the epitome of greater good right. Eminent domain
is what happens when you lose uh several feet or
of your front yard because a road needs to be widened.
Eminent domain is saying that the your local government has
(42:54):
certain powers that it can use uh to you know,
take your property or to make certain alterations in the
interests of the greater community. And that kind of That
kind of stuff is a necessary evil. It does have
to exist in many cases. But the fear here for
(43:15):
the non SpaceX residence of the community is that this
imminent domain could be used to eject the last people
who are still holding out and then allow SpaceX to
build a modern day company town. With that mind, do
you want to say, the long term goal here is
(43:36):
to get off this planet and go into the stars,
go deep into the galactic ink. Is it worth it?
It really depends on who you ask, just like our
problem with just like our question rather about mink and
fur farms and the spread of COVID. At this point,
(43:57):
we're gonna keep an eye on this. Thank you so
much to Dan for hipping us to this story. Thank
you to Mal for at the very least reminding us
to rewatch Firefly. It holds up. It holds up. If
you have somehow never seen it, watch it tonight in
Star based, Texas at your Airbnb, and we hope you
keep an ear out for an upcoming episode on Masonic
(44:21):
Masonic lodges and what's going on with the violence against them.
Also keep an eye out for our keep an ear
out for our ghost Guns episode. As always, we want
to hear from you. Let us know what you think
about these things. I'm particularly interested, um Noel in in
what's going to come out the emergent news about the
(44:43):
origin of COVID nineteen, which were still tracing you know, yeah,
I'm interested to see if exactly right then, if it
does get traced somewhere other than that wet market, or
maybe it was a combination. Who knows these animals get around.
I can imagine that the types of animals that are
and sold at wet markets could also end up in
(45:04):
mink farm situated. I don't know, just just just just
I'm speculating here, but also insu to see how this
industry will be impacted. So give us your take. Fellow
conspiracy Realist. Will be back with more listener mail next week.
In the meantime, if you would like to take a
digital page from the book of Concerned Mink of Mal
(45:25):
and Dan, please feel free to reach out to us.
We make it easy to find us online. We're Conspiracy
Stuff on Twitter and Facebook and on Instagram. We are
Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you would like, you could maybe
give us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you
listen to this show. That would be wonderful. You would
(45:46):
very much appreciate it and it would help our show
a great deal. So if you have a moment, please
take a chance and do that. If you don't want
to do that, hey, guess what. We've got a phone number.
That's right, it's one three s T D W y
t K. You can leave a message of the sound
of Ben's dulcet tones. Try to keep it within that
a lot at three minutes, and let us know what
your name is, what to call you, and if it's
(46:06):
okay to use your voice on air, and you might
well hear yourself on one of our weekly listener mail episodes.
And if none of that white launches your spaceship, you
can always reach out to us directly. No social media,
no telephone, just our good old fashioned email address, available
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(46:27):
we are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(46:49):
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