Was Parler a long con funded by the same people responsible for Cambridge Analytica? A listener shares her disquieting story of an inexplicable encounter with a spectre. Over in Germany, the nation's public is in an outcry over revelations regarding a long-running program intentionally placing children in the care of known sexual abusers. All this and more in this week's listener mail.
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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 Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noah. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. This is our listener male segment for
the week. As the set a bite say, we have
(00:48):
such wonders to show you, as Willie walks to say,
we're doing the we're you know, come with us to
a land of pure imagination. But these are pure facts.
We will be uh exploring some things that may not
be suitable for all listeners in today's episodes. Just a
heads up on that. Today we're going to hear from Jen,
(01:12):
Lori and Anton, maybe not in that order. Where where
do you think we should start? Guys, We've got a
decades deep cover up, We've got a a spooky story. Uh,
we've got we've got a weird another weird possible corruption case.
Um that maybe on the minds of many Americans today.
(01:34):
We can start wherever. I was kind of hoping to
hold off on the spooky story as a palate cleanser
between the two. If that's okay, should we dive headlong
into pedophiles A weird way of putting it, I guess
it is. I'm sorry. Let's just rip the band aid off. Guys,
We've got another pedophile story. For a systematic uh pedophile story.
(01:56):
UM from out of Germany. UM. A listener by the
name of Anton sent us this. I know you guys
have tread carefully when covering news like this. I looked
into this a few months ago, and you can find
quite a few reputable news outlets covering this bizarre and
wildly unethical story, although it has had nowhere near as
much exposure as it deserves. Sorry to bring this to
(02:18):
your attention. Thanks Anton. We accept your apology, but I
would love to get your take. And he sends us
a link to an article with the headline Berlin authorities
placed children with pedophiles for thirty years. Take a second
to breathe that one in placed children with pedophiles for
(02:38):
thirty years. Now you might be asking yourself, was this
an oversight. They just weren't aware of their records, their
sex offender record, and they accidentally placed children with pedophiles
for thirty years. No, it was in fact a program
called the Kindler Project in West Berlin where the government
routinely placed homeless child dred with pedophile men um because
(03:03):
of of a of a concept that was spearheaded by
this one individual that posited that pedophile men would make
ideal foster parents. A study found that this practice went
on for many decades. Uh. So this all goes back
to a gentleman by the name of Helmut Kenler, who
(03:25):
in the nineteen seventies conducted psychological experiments. He was a
psychology professor. He put forth this idea that homeless children
ought to be placed with pedophile men because they would
make for a particularly loving foster parents. And then an
investigation by the University of Hildasheim found that authorities in
(03:46):
Berlin not only looked the other way, but actually condoned
this practice for around thirty years. Uh the idea of
sexual contact between foster parents and shoulder was essentially approved,
was essentially thought of as not that big a deal,
possibly even like a positive thing, like some sort of
(04:09):
form of nurturing, Berlin's child welfare offices UH and governing Senate.
According to this article in DW and in multiple corroborating articles,
and again that research from Hildasheim University, UH, they turned
a blind eye or even actually approved of these placements.
Now um, actually only a few years ago two of
(04:31):
the victims of this program have come forward to tell
their story. UH. And then the researchers are beginning to
dig back through their their archives to you know, fill
in the gaps and conduct new interviews. What they found
was a quote network across educational institutes, UH, the state
Youth Welfare office and the Berlin Senate in which pedophilia
(04:54):
was accepted, supported and even defended us. And they're going
gonna be a lot of there. They're going to be
people in the crowd who I want to know a
specific age. So I believe these a lot of these
were disadvantaged youths anywhere from thirteen to fifteen years exactly.
Just some some have been forced into sex trafficking UM
(05:16):
as a means of survival. UH. This has been reported Anton.
You might find this interesting. Irish Times the Degree piece
on this back in twenty sixteen. It's weird though, because
this was not something I think most many people in
outside Western Europe are are aware of. And you have
(05:37):
to wonder, is this like you know how Unit thirty
one in the Pacific theater of World War two? Uh?
You know how that was the research data they gathered
there was useless. They were just torturing people and calling
it research. So you have to wonder whether Helmett Kindler
believed in these theories or whether it was some sort
(06:01):
of um a rationalization for turning these very vulnerable children
over to as you said, noll um noon, child abusers
at least one who had a criminal record for this,
And I think it do we know the extent of
the program, Do we know how many children were talking
(06:21):
about over this multidecade span? You know, It's something that
I think would actually be worth a deeper dive because
I really only read the handful of articles that I
you know that we're cross referenced in this d W article. Um,
but it almost has the appearance of like to what
to what I think you were kind of getting appen
is it almost feels like so many of the foster
(06:44):
fathers were high profile academics from you know, high, highly
respected institutions like the Max Planck Institute or Berlin's Free
University h and also the Odenwald School in Hessa, West
Germany that was actually in and of itself at the
center of a massive pedophilia scandal in the not too
(07:06):
distant past. UM. So yeah, I mean like it's true,
this is exactly. This reminds me to a degree. Uh,
it's not exactly the same of the piece that you
covered on a recent either Strange News to listen to
male episode about OXFAM and some of their work in
Haiti essentially recruiting you know, people in absolute need as
(07:28):
you know, sex sex workers. UM, this I would I
would need to see more research in this and then
and dig deeper into you know, the study that was
done by the university. UM. But because of the high
profile academics, it almost seems like kind of like a
weird kind of pedophile ring for the elite at least,
it has that that feel. I'm not making accusations here,
(07:51):
I'm just saying, you know, it has sort of like
an organizational quality to it that makes me think perhaps
these were being vetted, you know, with support from what
it seems now the big questions. At first, off, Kendler
cannot be asked about this anton he passed away in
two thousand eight. Uh, you know, being the subject of controversy,
(08:13):
but not the subject of criminal investigation as far as
we know. We also don't know, at least the official
word from the investigators and the later studies is that
we don't know to what extent. Uh, the German government
turned a blind eye to this or tacitly agreed. We
don't know to what extent they were aware, you know,
(08:35):
at least the authorities, people in supervisory positions. But it
definitely happened. It's not a conspiracy theory. It was some
sort of conspiracy. I am immensely fortunate that I was not.
I wasn't familiar with Helmet Kendler's work before this story broke,
because this story did a couple of This story kind
(08:55):
of broke and then rebroke keeping up with the ongoing investigation. Um,
just you know, I think I speak for our whole
crew when we say our hearts go out to the
survivors of this horrific practice, many of whom are still alive.
You know, the seventies weren't too long ago. So yeah,
(09:18):
you'll have to forgive me over your I'm the disgust.
I think that we're all feeling. I'm just feeling it
very strongly right now. Um at this kind of the
condoning of this from from a highly educated person that
how do they describe him in a leading position, This guy,
(09:40):
Helmett Kendler, was in a leading position at Berlin Center
for Educational Research at the time in the seventies. Um
that this person would then put people, you know, with folks.
And again we're talking about thousands of kids, because I
haven't seen a lot of the numbers, but I did
see in the Irish Times article that around nineteen seventy
(10:02):
or in the seventies when this was occurring, there were
thousands of children who were who were placed throughout this program.
And they're talking about people that they were placed with,
so several it says here were high profile academics, high
ranking members of the Max Plank Institute, Berlin's free university
in this place called the Odenwald School, which is a
(10:25):
whole story of its own. This also occurs in the
context of a lot of these predators were using the
sexual revolution as kind of a cover for their own rationalizations.
And the public discourse about this specific genre of abuse
(10:46):
was held in a disturbingly transparent way, with people actively
lobbying for things like the decriminalization of adults and children.
And you know, of course the rationalization was that this
would be somehow consensual. But as we have proven in
(11:06):
previous episodes and as science has borne out, uh, informed
consent from a child is impossible, you know what I mean?
Like this, these people we're lying and they knew they
were lying. Um at this point, from what I understand,
(11:27):
that study in June I got released. No, I believe
that they're they're going to at least all for financial
compensation to the survivors. Is that correct? Yes, they are
looking to pay some I guess damages, you know, for
for lack of I guess that's the right term, but
also just to kind of get to the bottom of it.
And then the government is now kind of on board. Uh,
(11:50):
there's no more turning a blind eye, and they're they're like,
you know, wanting to Yeah, this is actually like I mean,
not only is this human rights you know, violation and
absolute you know, bung all, it's it's really a horrible
pr look you know that like oh, the government. Is
that las fair that they can done pedophilia. I think
any of us would agree that that is a bridge
(12:11):
too far. Yeah, this one, this one just makes me
angry in the same way that the uh Ox fam
story made us all angry, because it's again, you know, proposed,
this situation where you're supposed to be helping these underprivileged
children who need support and they're literally being thrown to
the wolves. And unfortunately, well, every every group like this,
(12:32):
every every crime ring of this sort, has its own
distinct characteristics. They are unfortunately not unique. Uh it is.
We've talked about this before. They can't remember whether on
or off the air. But we do take pains to
avoid being exploitative or sensationalistic or alarmist about this stuff
(12:55):
because it does not help the survivors of of these
a born acts, you know. With that being said, if
you have experienced this network, or if you live in
Germany and can give us some insight on this, we
we would love to hear from you, or if you
have experienced a network like this in some other part
(13:19):
of the world. But thank goodness, there are ethical and
conscientious investigators on the case in Germany, and you have
to say, Old, Uh, and Anton, you know about you guys,
But you know, I'm just walking through just just the
bar napkin math here. I guess. I guess the odds
(13:41):
are kind of against a lot of them being alive
right now, because we said the original guy passed Wayne
oh eight. So because these people would have been adults, right,
they're highly placed academics, they would have been adults in
the seventies, sixties and so on. Yeah, it's true. And
you know, I think this is absolutely important to bring
(14:01):
up now so people can start doing their own research.
But I would love to to dig in love as
a strong word here, but the research being conducted ongoingly
um by the University of Hilda shim um to see
you know what they found and uh, and maybe a
little bit more detail around the actual predators in this
story here here, uh, and thank you for bringing this
(14:23):
to our attention. Uh, gentlemen, I propose that we pause
for word from our sponsor and move to another story.
Holding true you know to your point, no, Old, that
this does deserve a deeper dive in the future. What
do you guys say, Yeah, I'm gonna do a third
eye squeegee and then we'll be We'll be right back
(14:45):
for a very different kind of story. Wait, okay, took
a break, the little reset, uh, and now how we
are back with something that is also corrupt and weird,
(15:06):
but not the same kind of the corrupt and weird.
And it is a letter from Jen, Jen b you
write to us and you say, is it possible that
Parlor is actually just a long conn intended to divide
and weaken us? Rebecca Mercer is financially tied to both
(15:27):
companies UH Cambridge Analytica and Parlor, and has backed multiple
political candidates. Ted Cruz says Jen was an early Parlor
adopter and a benefactor of Mercer as well. The platform
is pretty crappy, terrible security, and in general just seems
in general okay, sorry, Jen, I just think there was
(15:48):
an opportunity for upon there, but in general, uh seems
slapped together, maybe not planned to exist in the long term.
This is interesting, soap, Jen. First, we've got to catch
up everybody. Everybody else. Parlor. I'm sure if you've listened
to show you you are familiar with it. It is
a is class Slash was what's called an alt tech
(16:11):
microblogging social networking service. Or app and here in the US,
it's known for having a large a large user base
of people who would be described sometimes as very conservative
or further on the spectrum to far right wing, like
(16:32):
to the level of supremacist, anti Semites and so on.
There are, of course people on Parlor who were on
Parlor who were not part of that. But you guys,
remember what happened with Parlor recently, around the time Twitter
and various other large tech companies took then President Donald
Trump's uh took his handles and his accounts offline. Parlor
(16:57):
also found itself in a fix. This Uh, this service,
this social networking service, got its leash pulled hard by
Amazon Web services. Folks. You'll remember when we talked about
Amazon in the past. Uh. They make some money selling
people's stuff, but they make a lot of money running
(17:18):
web services for other companies and corporations. So Parlor was
going to take Amazon to court for this, uh to say,
you know, you don't have the right to deny us
our service. UH. And it looked like Parlor was set
to uh was set to disappear. Two go gentle into
(17:42):
that good night, as Dylan Thomas would say, But I
I wanted to ask you guys before we go further
with this story, were any of us on Parlor? Did
anybody make an account to check it out? Anything like that?
I had not touching, thank you, thank you. Oh god,
(18:03):
I don't have. But I don't have any of the
social on on my personal phone or anything, so I
wouldn't never it. You're a desktop social guy, right, not really?
All right, we'll play these we'll play these reindeer games.
I myself did not have a hand in Parlor either.
(18:24):
There security seemed notably lacks. You know, I think we
talked in an earlier Listener Mail or Strange News segment
about becoming a verified citizen and having to share your
I D and stuff like that. Not only was it lacks,
like I mean, you know, in the same way that
A w S pulled the plug, and also the app
(18:48):
stores pulled the plugs, so did their security platform. You know,
they basically said, yeah, no, we don't want to be
associated with you anymore. That's right, that's right. Uh. And
it looks that it looks as though that you're onto
something Jess with Rebecca Mercer in particular. Uh. Rebecca Mercer
is a co founder of Parlor and also was a
(19:12):
co founder of Cambridge Analytica. So so this person in
specific does have approvable hand in both of these. But
also this person in specific is a very wealthy person.
Very wealthy people do stuff like this all the time.
So how anomalous is it? How involved is mercer in
the day to day or is this just you know,
(19:34):
like a thing in the portfolio, you know what I mean? Like,
how how hands on hands off is this person? Yeah, exactly,
that is a good question. I'm just reading a lot
about this for the first time, Ben and some of
the latest reporting out of from Al Jazeera. Um it is.
It is very interesting too because they you know, there
(19:57):
are many people who work for Parlor. W were employees
creating this app, making sure it functions all the time.
It is interesting to note that, at least according to
the latest reporting as we're recording this, the employees did
not quit the There's an internal person they're commenting saying
the employees of Parlor did not quit when everything seemed
(20:18):
to be going to crap um and they were committed
to continuing their service in some way once they could
get it back up. There's the plots with Jen because
just like that old Mark Twain quote. The reports of
Parlor's death maybe greatly exaggerated. You see, just recently, just
(20:39):
like yesterday, I believe Parlor partially reappeared with help from
not a US based technology firm, but are Russian based
technology firm. Now, I look, folks, I know this week
I'm setting a terrible precedent by continually talking about various
(21:01):
aspects of Russia. But this this was interesting because Parlor
was on so many people's minds and it became it
became one of those public conversations right about the responsibility
of a tech company or a platform versus the rights
of a user, whether they're a verified citizen or what
(21:22):
have you. The Russian company in question is called d
d os Guard UH. They're distributed denial of service protection
company and like their big competitor will probably be something
like cloud Flare. So I don't know this. This is
the thing. If you believe that there is something suspicious
about Mercer's connection to Cambridge Analytica, which we did a
(21:46):
show on UH, and to Parlor, then I imagine this
is another feather in the conspiracy cap, isn't it. I mean,
does it seem suspicious to you? Guys. Or is this
just like capitalism at play suspicious? Well? Yeah, because with
Cambridge Analytic of the Big Deal, there was gathering up
of information right from other social media networks, specifically Facebook, Right,
(22:10):
But maybe I'm misremembering that. I think that's correct. Um.
And then with just having having this group for this person,
this individual connected back to another social media network that
appeared to be growing in popularity. Yeah, I think it
makes complete sense. Maybe I'm just not maybe I'm not
(22:31):
seeing the I'm not seeing the bad part here unless
we're talking about just gathering up more private information from users.
Do you think that's happening here? Well, I mean, every
every social media app does gather and scrape whatever they can.
That's why you don't have those apps on your phone, right.
But but I would say, yes, every everybody does this.
(22:52):
The concern for people at this point would be who
controls that gathered data? Is it a friendly government, is
an antagonistic government? Is it you know, the big tech
companies that already would have this data. I think that's
what people are worried about, and I think that's a
that's a valid worry to have, But it's I mean,
(23:17):
the big difference here. Let's be honest. The big difference
is mainly that Rush is not part of five Eyes.
It's like the main difference in terms of guess what
this is unrelated kind of I don't know if you
guys saw this when Parlor was initially shut down and
taken off the app store. Um, there aren't as many now,
but then there were quite a few on eBay unlocked
(23:38):
iPhones with Parlor app pre installed for like going for
quite a bit of money, And right now I'm only
seeing one, but it's a thousand dollars for an iPhone
eleven and its specificity says with Parlor app sixty four
gigs black unlocked. Uh, if the services down, I think
it's Yeah, it's the website. The website was reachable again
(24:03):
as of the I want to say January and the CEO.
All that would happen if you went to the website
was there would be a message from the CEO saying
that he was working to restore functionality. So if it's
if that site is restored and if their infrastructure comes back,
then users of Parlor will be able to see and
(24:25):
post comments on the site. The app. However, as part
of the reason you know all that that mentioned of
eBay is so interesting because the app is banned from
Apple and Google stores. Uh, there's probably going to continue
to be controversy about this. But yeah, if if Mercer is,
(24:48):
if Mercer is involved and his hands on, is her
team collecting this data? And to your point, Matt, where
they sending it? What are they doing? Are they giving
it to like campaigns in the future and see that
being a good business model for sure? I can see
that happening. Um, yeah, but I don't know. Man, Oh,
(25:10):
I'm I'm reading here. Been something about changing because you're
aws was the big issue, right, So they're looking to
another company. You said that was the d d o
S company. D d OS is security. I think d
d us is they're doing security. But then the domain
is actually it looks like it may be going to
another service called epic. Is that is that what I'm
(25:31):
actually reading here? Um, there's one called e p I
K that's where their domain is registered. Now I'm just
trying to follow some of these threads that are being
reported because new info is coming out pretty quickly, given
that just a few days ago is when it essentially
kind of came back. So there's another aspect here, will
this benefit this organization? Well? Does benefit this company, because
(25:57):
if there are a lot of people who see themselves
as um perhaps more on the pro America side or
the pro patriotic side, however it would be phrased more
conservative side, perhaps, are those users going to return? Are
they going to feel comfortable with this new Russian association
(26:17):
with the app? I mean it's a good question. I
don't know what the answer is, and I'm sure not
everybody will answer the same way. Uh, but then what
would what would Mercer do with that information? We want
to hear from you? This story is still developing. I
think they're gonna be plot twist a plenty as it continues. Obviously,
(26:40):
the three of us are not super into any non
governmental thing that requires your social Security number or photo
of your driver's license. I mean, what's the next blood
type list of fears uh known known uh frequencies of
defication or something like med medical technology gets involved with
(27:04):
social media and let's you know, your bpms are just
updating automatically. That's the world we're headed toward. Um, this
is a small piece of well. Yeah, also think the
extra funny part about that is, you know, we've talked
about there's a certain paranoia and like Internet kind of
fear mongering, kind of UM culture wrapped up in things
(27:26):
like Q and on and some of these super far
right conspiracy movements. And yet these folks are just giving
like their geo tag data to this app and utter
trust and like you know, completely having it leaked because
of lack of security measures. So, I mean, all of
these folks that are essentially outed and docks themselves by
(27:47):
taking selfies and live streams. Now we're starting to see
all those videos trickle out and some of the really
you know, from the heart of the capital um you know,
insurrection situation are quite troubling, like actual beatings, you know,
being being meted out to the security guards and things
like that are rather capital police. So I just think
it's fascinating. There's so much distrust and this desire for
(28:10):
anonymity UM in these kind of scenes. And yeah, this
is like the exact opposite where they're literally uploading their
driver's license, agreed, you know, And that's part of that's
part of what social media in general does. We talked
about in the past, like it drives you. The aim
is to drive you to ultimately erode your own boundaries
of privacy to whatever degree that company feels viable and
(28:34):
profitable for them. UM, which doesn't necessarily make them bad.
It just means that we should all be aware of
what their motive is. Uh so, what do you guys
want to take it in super conspiratorial? Then sure, let's go. Yeah,
let's let's get super conspiratorial. So let's say you do
(28:54):
have another state that wants to activate and a populus,
a small group of the populace that does happen to
be armed and is adamant in their viewpoint, and let's
make it. Let's make it Bhutan. Let's see Bouton wants
to do Sure, Bhutan wants to do it. And they
happen to have a web hosting service, and they happen
(29:17):
to have access to bots and access to other ways
of infiltrating a social network that they happen to host. Um,
you could ostensibly push the needle enough generate further resentment
towards whatever power that that bees whenever, whatever power that exists,
(29:41):
and fullman enough to where you could park perhaps a
revolution that's taking it really far. Isn't that is I mean,
isn't that what the Arab Spring was. But like that
was viewed positively because it was an insurrection against you know,
oppressive forces Olivia, there was a lot of social media
support for intervention. Uh, and then later it turned out
(30:03):
that the entire reason for intervention in Libya was to
for France to be able to control the currency or
retain control of the currency. UM. I don't know, I know,
I'm I'm not trying to nippick at all. I just
think it's interesting because it's almost like, you know, the
folks that are in this into this whole parlor thing,
or into this whole movement, they would argue that their
(30:24):
freedom fighters and they're rebelling against an oppressive regime. And
you know, oftentimes that argument holds water here. I would
I would argue it definitely, definitely doesn't. But you know
we always say one person's freedom fighters, another person's terrorists. UM.
So that you know the medium, does the medium play
a part in that, you know, in that role. Yeah,
(30:45):
that's a great question. I love your point about the
Arab springman, and I think that should be brought up
in the conversations more often. But if it's if it's
super conspiratorial Okay, Matt so Boutad has moved away from
gross national happiness and now they're into Now they're into
um asymmetrical warfare. I uh. And they do it through
(31:08):
social media. I mean there's a question then, how much
influence do they actually have and how much do they
need to have? Right if you're that deep in the
infiltration of the app itself, of the hosting of all
of these things, I think there are numerous ways that
you could gain the system enough to get a message out.
It doesn't mean the message would be effective, It doesn't
mean everybody would bite on that bait, but it does
(31:30):
mean that it the potential could be there, And like
you said, it could be. That potential could exist across
any social media network, across any web hosting service, and
that doesn't mean it's true. That's why we're calling this
section very super conspiratorial. Well also, also Jed, what I
(31:53):
what I love about this question is I think they're
I think they're absolutely is a plausible connection between Cambridge
Analytica and Parlor. Uh. Without having a hard proof of
this other than they share the same co founder, I
think it is. It is possible, if not plausible, that
you would use the information cleaned from one company to
(32:14):
help your other companies succeed if possible, because that's what
business owners do. You know what I mean. That's like,
that's the consolidation of various industries, like we see with
with trust, with the formation of trust. Like Henry Ford
didn't want to just own a car factory. He wanted
to own the minds. He wanted to build his own
(32:37):
rubber plantation. He did, by the way, called it Ford
Landia in Brazil is a huge failure because it did
work for a bunch of reasons. That's either here nor there.
But we do we do think this bears keeping an
eye on. Want to hear your opinion about Cambridge Analytic
a possible connection to other things. Go on a weird
(32:58):
Bob Ross conspiracy journey with us and string some string
some points together. We'd love to hear from you. With
that being said, with all that stuff we've said about
social media, if you were watching this on YouTube dot com,
slash conspiracy stuff, smash that like button, continue the conversation.
Oh here's where it gets crazy on Facebook. We're gonna
pause for a moment. It will be time to do
(33:20):
that and we'll be back with more listener mail. All right,
and we're back. So everybody, we're gonna take this party
to a whole different level. Are you ready for my
favorite listener correspondence that we've had in quite a long time?
(33:43):
Are you ready for it? I wasn't ready for it.
I was not ready when I Maybe I'm not. Maybe
I'm not. I know this one too, but I I
read it. I'm still not sure whether I'm ready for it.
But let's let's give it a go. I'm just gonna
read this and we'll talk about it afterwards. This comes
from LORI. Good evening, I've waited a process. What happened
(34:06):
before emailing you guys? The week after Halloween, that's my
favorite holiday. I woke up around five am from a
dream where my loved one and I were cuddling while
watching television. Note Lorie does not live with her significant other.
She is dreaming about being with her significant other, who
(34:27):
is not at her house. Coming back in. I woke
up lying on my left side. That's important, alone in
my bed in my home, and then my eyes shot
open and I tried to stay as still as possible
because as I lay there staring at the wall, I
felt my toes curled around his toes. I still felt toes,
(34:50):
but I was alone in my bed. I was scared
to roll over. I was afraid to move it all.
Then the toes were gone. I kept telling myself it
was just a fading dream. And then I'm not going
to see anything. When I roll over, and I roll over,
this lightning white figure in the shape of a very tall,
(35:11):
thin man sat up. We were face to face. I
could see through him. I kept reminding myself that I
was awake. Then the man spoke loud, with a deep voice,
and very very fast, so fast that I have no
idea what he was saying. I said no, no, no,
and he disappeared. I stay there for a bit. Then
(35:33):
I had to go get my oldest son to sleep
with me. Okay, we're gonna pause here for a moment.
First of all, what an experience, right this feels It
feels similar to what we just discussed with our d
M t entities that we've seen that humans have been experiencing,
where there's this energy being that somehow manifests. Um. It
(35:58):
reminds me of sleep paralysis, especially laying on the side.
They're experiencing something like that. But there are reasons that
we're going to get into why it doesn't feel like
either of those things, why it isn't either of those things.
Do you guys have any reactions to that first section there? Yeah, man,
(36:20):
I mean I think you. I think you nail some
of the common aspects here, like the idea that the
experience could be sleep paralysis, which which can be terrifying. Right,
It's one of the episodes that we we've had the
most response to over the years. It makes me wonder too,
about the the sense that we don't talk about often enough,
(36:43):
propri reception, which is the sensation of where your body
parts are in space, even if you are not looking
at them directly. Like that that ties into um things
like the phantom hand experience that some people report when
her phantom limb when they experienced the amputation. It also
(37:05):
ties into this this part of your story, Lauria. You
you feel these toes, but you know you're alone in
your bed, so you're feeling this sensation or something that
is not part of your body. I don't I'm interested,
but we gotta we gotta keep going because I gotta
tell you, Laurie, I don't know how you went back
to sleep. We we can keep going and we'll talk
(37:27):
about that. I just want to say I talked to
Laurie for quite a while today before recording this, and
she says that she has experienced sleep paralysis since she
was a kid. She knows exactly what it feels like,
she knows what the experience is. And this was not that.
She said, she was not still asleep when it occurred. Uh.
(37:49):
And she was able to roll physically roll over in
bed and then you know, was be able to sit
up and still was having having this visual emulation of
this being that she she described. I asked her, you know,
a couple of times, described to me more what you're
looking at, and she said, he was just lightning like
(38:10):
he was white, as white as lightning, and I could
see through him, but he was as long as me,
and you could tell it was in the shape of
a person. And I only say it was male because
the voice I heard was so deep, really really interesting stuff. Yeah,
And from what I understand based just on the letter here, Um, Laurie,
(38:31):
you said, when the when this figure is speaking there,
they're speaking in a deeper voice, but they're speaking very
very quickly. Is that correct? Uh? Matt, when you and
Laurie spoke, were you able to get a sense of what,
if anything, this figure was attempting to communicate, or even
just snatches of phrases. She said she was unable to
tell even if he was speaking English. It was difficult
(38:54):
to tell that. She said, the utterances were so quick
and deep that it was just she and she's she
was experiencing such fear, like such a reaction to it,
that she doesn't remember any of that. She doesn't recall
exactly what was being said. And it's fascinating to me
that perhaps this person or this thing wasn't even speaking English.
But this is the point where I think we we
(39:14):
should continue down the letter, because there's more here, and
Lori experienced more. She says, after this experience, she fell
back to sleep immediately. Crazy well, because she said her son,
her oldest son, came to join her in bed. He's
a teenager. She probably felt safe with him. Um she
(39:34):
was able to fall back asleep. However, the next day,
my son came home from school. He was pale and exhausted.
When I asked him what was wrong, he told me
that he couldn't go back to sleep after this whole
thing had happened, and he joined her in bed because
he kept hearing a voice that sounded like his voice,
and it was mumbling against the far bedroom wall. Okay,
(39:58):
and Lourie says, he's correct. The man's voice was very
similar to my son's, but in a deeper register. And
that is what Laurie confirmed to me, that both she
and her son experienced this weird thing where it sounded
like an old version, an older version of her son speaking.
So that right there kind of blew my mind, and
(40:21):
it made me start thinking about the Terminator franchise, when
there's time travel involved, and you know, there's the lightning
orb essentially that transports someone back through time. Just made
me think about a lightening being that somehow was her
son time traveling. Not saying that's what it is, but
it made my mind real you know, I was thinking
(40:41):
not just specifically of Terminator here, but I was thinking
of the the concept of non linear experiences with time.
So let's let's not stop, let's keep going through this.
So Laurie says that this made her realize that there
are a lot of other things that she had previously
discounted that she and her family had experienced. She says
(41:04):
that they were like coincidences that she rationalized, Um, there's
weird stuff. So on two different occasions, she said her
her children her child's bed. She's got two children, one
is older, when is younger. Her younger child's bed was
pushed out from the wall towards the middle of the room. Um,
it's a twin size bed, so not huge and heavy,
(41:26):
but it's still hefty, especially for a three year old.
And she was just wondering why it happened. She figured
her older son probably went in there and moved the bed.
She spoke with both her sons. Neither of them had
been in the room, neither of them had moved the bed.
They just saw, okay, that's a little weird. They pushed
it back. But then it happened again, and she couldn't
(41:47):
figure out what was going on. Her father was even involved, like, thinking,
there's something weird going on there. Um. Then on several
different nights, she's awoken to the sound of a man
mumbling at the furthest wall, the furthest sidewall of her bedroom.
Also the sounds of someone physically rustling around in that
(42:08):
area of the room. Um. She even experienced at one
point that same voice rushing towards her, So like a
voice beginning at at the far end of a room
and then moving towards her, just a disembodied voice moving
towards her. Sweart of guy. That immediately makes my mind
go to a very popular horror movie sound design technique
(42:31):
where the voice has reverb on it. That's that's flipped backwards,
so it kind of reverbs into the voice, and I
kind of picture that like as a rushing kind of
like you know, quality of like moving through space at you.
I've certainly never experienced anything like that, but that that's
just immediately with my mind hones into sound localization. Yeah,
it's another It's there's another thing that's important here for
(42:53):
this detail, uh Lori, which is that if you can
localize or sense the direction and location of a sound,
then it means that you are hearing these things through
both ears, which which is an important, um, an important
neurocognitive detail. Please con didn't met well because you know,
(43:16):
sometimes people have said they've only heard something in one ear.
It's a small detail, but an important one to consider.
One of the things I love about Laurie when I
spoke with her. She's very much attempting to rationalize everything.
So she's attempting to figure out what is the most
what's the common denominator here, what's the most rational thing.
It was probably my neighbor's television that was too loud,
(43:40):
and I was just hearing it, and I was experiencing
that when I hear the mumbling. Um. There are a
couple of times when her bed would move right around
five am, sometimes a little earlier, especially when her alarm
wouldn't go off. She said her bed would be physically shaking,
and she would wake up to the to the physical
movement of her bed, rather than on a arm or
(44:00):
her son coming in to wake her up the way
he would sometimes. Um. She's noticing a couple other things
where there are objects that are displaced around the house
are knocked over. Uh. And there's even an instance where
all of her lightbulbs went out on the same day,
all the light bulbs in the place where she lives, um,
which you know, that would be super unnerving if that occurred,
(44:23):
or it could just be an electric you know, you
could explain away with some kind of electrical surge that
caused all of the light bulbs to get too much
power to them too quickly and then bust them all.
A coincidence that doesn't happen often. Um, but this is
this is I think the last thing we're gonna read
from this email, and we're just will consider it that
(44:44):
this is how Laurie ended it. I felt this man's body.
I saw this man as bright as lightning. I heard
this man. My son heard this man, and I will
never unsee, unfeel, or unhear him. This happened. Yeah, I mean,
and what was your sense? I mean, obviously from from
the email, she really does strike a very analytical kind
(45:06):
of tone, like she really comes off as someone who
is describing a thing, not like a half remembered dream,
but like a thing that happened to her. And like
you said, Matt, very much trying to sess out and
try to rationalize every little detail. Is that how she
was on the phone as well? Man, She was very
much like that on the phone, And and it's something
that is has disturbed her pretty heavily. Um, specifically because
(45:30):
it appears to be affecting her son as well, and
they seem to have shared experiences, so it doesn't feel
like just something that happened in her sleep and then
went away, or something she experienced in a dream state
or in a sleep paralysis state. The fact that her
son that it bothered her son so much that he
was just you know, it ruined his day essentially um
(45:54):
hearing hearing the this voice. And the other thing here
is that I didn't go easy on Laurie. I was
asking her, as you know, detailed questions about all of
this stuff, and she was responding, you know, not as
somebody who was just making something up. You know, I can't.
I can't prove that to to you or to myself
that she wasn't making anything up. But she knows, and
(46:16):
I've certainly felt that she wasn't. And you know there
you know what asked her about the disappearing, because she
said that this this, this thing, this being appeared in
her bed. Then it just kind of disappeared when she
said no, no, no, And she said that it was
essentially half a second, couple of milliseconds of like a
fade out and then just like nothing. And I would
(46:39):
just say that I've experienced something like that before where
I've woken up from a dream, I'm still half asleep,
kind of got like my eyes half closed or something,
and my dream state is providing images. If you guys
have ever seen that kind of almost like images that
are flowing downward or in a circular pattern, that you'll
still get the light essentially. Um, I've experienced something like that,
(47:02):
but never in the shape of a person with a
physical sensation with an audible voice. You might be surprised
what you can do, because that is that is one
of the side doors and the lucid dreaming. I mean,
I know we use this, this phrase often gets overused,
but that really is a cognitive liminal state. If if
(47:22):
you're ever in that state, by the way, folks, which
everybody is, at some point, uh, give give yourself, give
yourself some credit. Try to try to just imagine some
cool scenarios. You're basically at that point you're in the
hollow deck where you can still steer to a degree.
But then once you're out like a light, it's not
you driving anymore. It's just subconscious or arguably you experiencing
(47:47):
a quantum. A quantum look into a universe just to
the left of hours or to the right or another timeline,
you know. Speaking of that, I had I've been having
a lot of very strange dreams lately, um, and you
have to kind of like really capture them or speak
them out loud right when you wake up, or they're
very easily just kind of totally forgotten. But I had
one last night where it was the three of us
(48:09):
and we were like in a band, and we were
playing the new Coachella festival, which was taking place inside
a giant church, and we were all there for a
sound check, and the Atlanta rapper Gucci Maine and his
crew were there in sound checking, only they were all
very British and not Southern at all. And you, the
three of us sat down in the balcony of the
church waiting for our turn to sound check, and the
(48:31):
Gucci man and his crew came up to us and
told us that we were sitting in their seats, to
which I made a big fuss and ended up getting
into a fist fight with Gucci Maine. And that's all
I remember. But you guys were definitely there. Don't don't
fight Gucci Maine at Churchilla's Chella. Come on. But yeah,
that that is the moral of the story. I think that,
(48:52):
But no, I mean, look, I also, um, I don't
know if you this is totally different. But if you
guys ever like had like a like a he's of
furniture in your room, or maybe like a coat rack
or something, and in the right light or lack of light,
it really does look like a figure. And if you
wake up from a dream and you see that at
the corner of your eye, you are, if for a moment,
convinced that that is an actual figure, that is an
(49:14):
actual entity in your room. I'm not saying that's what
this is. I'm just saying I have a hat rack
on my my closet door that's just like all my
baseball hats, and it's sort of in a V shape.
And because it's a hat, and you picture a hat
is being representing a head, I sometimes wake up and
see that and spook the crap out of myself. Yeah,
I've got something kind of like that that's been occurring
lately with light coming in from the morning through a
(49:36):
window and a tree that's obscuring a certain part where
it does form the shape it's a bit human like,
and if I'm still asleep, I can see that. Yeah.
I mean are like you said, Ben, our brains can
do some really interesting things. As as that information is
being processed and we're kind of transferring over from one
mode to another. What what I would say and what
(49:58):
I kind of want to leave us with on here
is that Laurie is she really wants to know what happened.
She has purchased equipment, audio and video equipment that she's
set up in her room where this occurred. She's got
she's got a motion activated night vision camera that is
(50:19):
currently full. The memory is full, so she is capturing
it right now and she's going through it to see
if anything shows up. So hopefully we will hear soon
back from Laurie if she's seen anything, or if we've
got some footage to look at, you have to send
it to us, Laury. Also, I want to say, just
on a personal note, I love your writing style. I
(50:41):
think it's clear and concise, and I think you're a
good storyteller. One of my favorite sentences that really surprised
me in your email, Laurie was when you said, my
alone time has literally been stolen, and I love my
alone time. For some people that might seem like the
weird thing to worry about in this situation, but Lorie,
(51:01):
I get it, and I bet that we get it.
I bet we all get that, right. That's it. I
just want to say, I think you're I think you're
a swell writer, Laurie. And when I was reading it, it
it almost had the cadence of like a creepy pasta story,
you know what I mean, like one of those very condensed,
contained spooky stories. Because I was on the edge of
my seat reading it the whole way through. That's why
(51:23):
I had to call her and talk to her, because
it did it. It felt unreal. And that's the first
thing that we talked about was this feels like something
that's been written. And and she was just like, no,
I am. She was so adamant about it. In genuine
she does. She does say that this happened very shortly
after beginning to listen to our show, so you know,
(51:46):
hopefully our show isn't haunted. Uh. And and it wasn't me.
I can't speak from Arnold, but Louria, I could tell
you it was not me, at least as far as
I remember. But yes, thank you for writing in where
you keep us updated other folks who have stories these
similar experiences. Uh. If you know, many of us find
(52:09):
ourselves doing our best to analyze something from every angle
and sometimes we can't come up with an explanation. We
want to hear about your ghostly or paranormal conundrums. Thanks
also to Anton, to Jen, to every single person who
has written in who was called UH. We have a
we have a wonderful, wonderful gift of a gargante wine
(52:33):
amount of feedback to go through. We're doing our best.
We want you to add. We want you to add
your your voice to this conversation, your takes, your thoughts,
give us your creepy stories on the internet, tell us
your experiences, and we try to make it very easy
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(52:55):
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(53:16):
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(53:38):
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(54:03):
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(54:28):
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(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noah. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. This is our listener male segment for
the week. As the set a bite say, we have
(00:48):
such wonders to show you, as Willie walks to say,
we're doing the we're you know, come with us to
a land of pure imagination. But these are pure facts.
We will be uh exploring some things that may not
be suitable for all listeners in today's episodes. Just a
heads up on that. Today we're going to hear from Jen,
(01:12):
Lori and Anton, maybe not in that order. Where where
do you think we should start? Guys, We've got a
decades deep cover up, We've got a a spooky story. Uh,
we've got we've got a weird another weird possible corruption case.
Um that maybe on the minds of many Americans today.
(01:34):
We can start wherever. I was kind of hoping to
hold off on the spooky story as a palate cleanser
between the two. If that's okay, should we dive headlong
into pedophiles A weird way of putting it, I guess
it is. I'm sorry. Let's just rip the band aid off. Guys,
We've got another pedophile story. For a systematic uh pedophile story.
(01:56):
UM from out of Germany. UM. A listener by the
name of Anton sent us this. I know you guys
have tread carefully when covering news like this. I looked
into this a few months ago, and you can find
quite a few reputable news outlets covering this bizarre and
wildly unethical story, although it has had nowhere near as
much exposure as it deserves. Sorry to bring this to
(02:18):
your attention. Thanks Anton. We accept your apology, but I
would love to get your take. And he sends us
a link to an article with the headline Berlin authorities
placed children with pedophiles for thirty years. Take a second
to breathe that one in placed children with pedophiles for
(02:38):
thirty years. Now you might be asking yourself, was this
an oversight. They just weren't aware of their records, their
sex offender record, and they accidentally placed children with pedophiles
for thirty years. No, it was in fact a program
called the Kindler Project in West Berlin where the government
routinely placed homeless child dred with pedophile men um because
(03:03):
of of a of a concept that was spearheaded by
this one individual that posited that pedophile men would make
ideal foster parents. A study found that this practice went
on for many decades. Uh. So this all goes back
to a gentleman by the name of Helmut Kenler, who
(03:25):
in the nineteen seventies conducted psychological experiments. He was a
psychology professor. He put forth this idea that homeless children
ought to be placed with pedophile men because they would
make for a particularly loving foster parents. And then an
investigation by the University of Hildasheim found that authorities in
(03:46):
Berlin not only looked the other way, but actually condoned
this practice for around thirty years. Uh the idea of
sexual contact between foster parents and shoulder was essentially approved,
was essentially thought of as not that big a deal,
possibly even like a positive thing, like some sort of
(04:09):
form of nurturing, Berlin's child welfare offices UH and governing Senate.
According to this article in DW and in multiple corroborating articles,
and again that research from Hildasheim University, UH, they turned
a blind eye or even actually approved of these placements.
Now um, actually only a few years ago two of
(04:31):
the victims of this program have come forward to tell
their story. UH. And then the researchers are beginning to
dig back through their their archives to you know, fill
in the gaps and conduct new interviews. What they found
was a quote network across educational institutes, UH, the state
Youth Welfare office and the Berlin Senate in which pedophilia
(04:54):
was accepted, supported and even defended us. And they're going
gonna be a lot of there. They're going to be
people in the crowd who I want to know a
specific age. So I believe these a lot of these
were disadvantaged youths anywhere from thirteen to fifteen years exactly.
Just some some have been forced into sex trafficking UM
(05:16):
as a means of survival. UH. This has been reported Anton.
You might find this interesting. Irish Times the Degree piece
on this back in twenty sixteen. It's weird though, because
this was not something I think most many people in
outside Western Europe are are aware of. And you have
(05:37):
to wonder, is this like you know how Unit thirty
one in the Pacific theater of World War two? Uh?
You know how that was the research data they gathered
there was useless. They were just torturing people and calling
it research. So you have to wonder whether Helmett Kindler
believed in these theories or whether it was some sort
(06:01):
of um a rationalization for turning these very vulnerable children
over to as you said, noll um noon, child abusers
at least one who had a criminal record for this,
And I think it do we know the extent of
the program, Do we know how many children were talking
(06:21):
about over this multidecade span? You know, It's something that
I think would actually be worth a deeper dive because
I really only read the handful of articles that I
you know that we're cross referenced in this d W article. Um,
but it almost has the appearance of like to what
to what I think you were kind of getting appen
is it almost feels like so many of the foster
(06:44):
fathers were high profile academics from you know, high, highly
respected institutions like the Max Planck Institute or Berlin's Free
University h and also the Odenwald School in Hessa, West
Germany that was actually in and of itself at the
center of a massive pedophilia scandal in the not too
(07:06):
distant past. UM. So yeah, I mean like it's true,
this is exactly. This reminds me to a degree. Uh,
it's not exactly the same of the piece that you
covered on a recent either Strange News to listen to
male episode about OXFAM and some of their work in
Haiti essentially recruiting you know, people in absolute need as
(07:28):
you know, sex sex workers. UM, this I would I
would need to see more research in this and then
and dig deeper into you know, the study that was
done by the university. UM. But because of the high
profile academics, it almost seems like kind of like a
weird kind of pedophile ring for the elite at least,
it has that that feel. I'm not making accusations here,
(07:51):
I'm just saying, you know, it has sort of like
an organizational quality to it that makes me think perhaps
these were being vetted, you know, with support from what
it seems now the big questions. At first, off, Kendler
cannot be asked about this anton he passed away in
two thousand eight. Uh, you know, being the subject of controversy,
(08:13):
but not the subject of criminal investigation as far as
we know. We also don't know, at least the official
word from the investigators and the later studies is that
we don't know to what extent. Uh, the German government
turned a blind eye to this or tacitly agreed. We
don't know to what extent they were aware, you know,
(08:35):
at least the authorities, people in supervisory positions. But it
definitely happened. It's not a conspiracy theory. It was some
sort of conspiracy. I am immensely fortunate that I was not.
I wasn't familiar with Helmet Kendler's work before this story broke,
because this story did a couple of This story kind
(08:55):
of broke and then rebroke keeping up with the ongoing investigation. Um,
just you know, I think I speak for our whole
crew when we say our hearts go out to the
survivors of this horrific practice, many of whom are still alive.
You know, the seventies weren't too long ago. So yeah,
(09:18):
you'll have to forgive me over your I'm the disgust.
I think that we're all feeling. I'm just feeling it
very strongly right now. Um at this kind of the
condoning of this from from a highly educated person that
how do they describe him in a leading position, This guy,
(09:40):
Helmett Kendler, was in a leading position at Berlin Center
for Educational Research at the time in the seventies. Um
that this person would then put people, you know, with folks.
And again we're talking about thousands of kids, because I
haven't seen a lot of the numbers, but I did
see in the Irish Times article that around nineteen seventy
(10:02):
or in the seventies when this was occurring, there were
thousands of children who were who were placed throughout this program.
And they're talking about people that they were placed with,
so several it says here were high profile academics, high
ranking members of the Max Plank Institute, Berlin's free university
in this place called the Odenwald School, which is a
(10:25):
whole story of its own. This also occurs in the
context of a lot of these predators were using the
sexual revolution as kind of a cover for their own rationalizations.
And the public discourse about this specific genre of abuse
(10:46):
was held in a disturbingly transparent way, with people actively
lobbying for things like the decriminalization of adults and children.
And you know, of course the rationalization was that this
would be somehow consensual. But as we have proven in
(11:06):
previous episodes and as science has borne out, uh, informed
consent from a child is impossible, you know what I mean?
Like this, these people we're lying and they knew they
were lying. Um at this point, from what I understand,
(11:27):
that study in June I got released. No, I believe
that they're they're going to at least all for financial
compensation to the survivors. Is that correct? Yes, they are
looking to pay some I guess damages, you know, for
for lack of I guess that's the right term, but
also just to kind of get to the bottom of it.
And then the government is now kind of on board. Uh,
(11:50):
there's no more turning a blind eye, and they're they're like,
you know, wanting to Yeah, this is actually like I mean,
not only is this human rights you know, violation and
absolute you know, bung all, it's it's really a horrible
pr look you know that like oh, the government. Is
that las fair that they can done pedophilia. I think
any of us would agree that that is a bridge
(12:11):
too far. Yeah, this one, this one just makes me
angry in the same way that the uh Ox fam
story made us all angry, because it's again, you know, proposed,
this situation where you're supposed to be helping these underprivileged
children who need support and they're literally being thrown to
the wolves. And unfortunately, well, every every group like this,
(12:32):
every every crime ring of this sort, has its own
distinct characteristics. They are unfortunately not unique. Uh it is.
We've talked about this before. They can't remember whether on
or off the air. But we do take pains to
avoid being exploitative or sensationalistic or alarmist about this stuff
(12:55):
because it does not help the survivors of of these
a born acts, you know. With that being said, if
you have experienced this network, or if you live in
Germany and can give us some insight on this, we
we would love to hear from you, or if you
have experienced a network like this in some other part
(13:19):
of the world. But thank goodness, there are ethical and
conscientious investigators on the case in Germany, and you have
to say, Old, Uh, and Anton, you know about you guys,
But you know, I'm just walking through just just the
bar napkin math here. I guess. I guess the odds
(13:41):
are kind of against a lot of them being alive
right now, because we said the original guy passed Wayne
oh eight. So because these people would have been adults, right,
they're highly placed academics, they would have been adults in
the seventies, sixties and so on. Yeah, it's true. And
you know, I think this is absolutely important to bring
(14:01):
up now so people can start doing their own research.
But I would love to to dig in love as
a strong word here, but the research being conducted ongoingly
um by the University of Hilda shim um to see
you know what they found and uh, and maybe a
little bit more detail around the actual predators in this
story here here, uh, and thank you for bringing this
(14:23):
to our attention. Uh, gentlemen, I propose that we pause
for word from our sponsor and move to another story.
Holding true you know to your point, no, Old, that
this does deserve a deeper dive in the future. What
do you guys say, Yeah, I'm gonna do a third
eye squeegee and then we'll be We'll be right back
(14:45):
for a very different kind of story. Wait, okay, took
a break, the little reset, uh, and now how we
are back with something that is also corrupt and weird,
(15:06):
but not the same kind of the corrupt and weird.
And it is a letter from Jen, Jen b you
write to us and you say, is it possible that
Parlor is actually just a long conn intended to divide
and weaken us? Rebecca Mercer is financially tied to both
(15:27):
companies UH Cambridge Analytica and Parlor, and has backed multiple
political candidates. Ted Cruz says Jen was an early Parlor
adopter and a benefactor of Mercer as well. The platform
is pretty crappy, terrible security, and in general just seems
in general okay, sorry, Jen, I just think there was
(15:48):
an opportunity for upon there, but in general, uh seems
slapped together, maybe not planned to exist in the long term.
This is interesting, soap, Jen. First, we've got to catch
up everybody. Everybody else. Parlor. I'm sure if you've listened
to show you you are familiar with it. It is
a is class Slash was what's called an alt tech
(16:11):
microblogging social networking service. Or app and here in the US,
it's known for having a large a large user base
of people who would be described sometimes as very conservative
or further on the spectrum to far right wing, like
(16:32):
to the level of supremacist, anti Semites and so on.
There are, of course people on Parlor who were on
Parlor who were not part of that. But you guys,
remember what happened with Parlor recently, around the time Twitter
and various other large tech companies took then President Donald
Trump's uh took his handles and his accounts offline. Parlor
(16:57):
also found itself in a fix. This Uh, this service,
this social networking service, got its leash pulled hard by
Amazon Web services. Folks. You'll remember when we talked about
Amazon in the past. Uh. They make some money selling
people's stuff, but they make a lot of money running
(17:18):
web services for other companies and corporations. So Parlor was
going to take Amazon to court for this, uh to say,
you know, you don't have the right to deny us
our service. UH. And it looked like Parlor was set
to uh was set to disappear. Two go gentle into
(17:42):
that good night, as Dylan Thomas would say, But I
I wanted to ask you guys before we go further
with this story, were any of us on Parlor? Did
anybody make an account to check it out? Anything like that?
I had not touching, thank you, thank you. Oh god,
(18:03):
I don't have. But I don't have any of the
social on on my personal phone or anything, so I
wouldn't never it. You're a desktop social guy, right, not really?
All right, we'll play these we'll play these reindeer games.
I myself did not have a hand in Parlor either.
(18:24):
There security seemed notably lacks. You know, I think we
talked in an earlier Listener Mail or Strange News segment
about becoming a verified citizen and having to share your
I D and stuff like that. Not only was it lacks,
like I mean, you know, in the same way that
A w S pulled the plug, and also the app
(18:48):
stores pulled the plugs, so did their security platform. You know,
they basically said, yeah, no, we don't want to be
associated with you anymore. That's right, that's right. Uh. And
it looks that it looks as though that you're onto
something Jess with Rebecca Mercer in particular. Uh. Rebecca Mercer
is a co founder of Parlor and also was a
(19:12):
co founder of Cambridge Analytica. So so this person in
specific does have approvable hand in both of these. But
also this person in specific is a very wealthy person.
Very wealthy people do stuff like this all the time.
So how anomalous is it? How involved is mercer in
the day to day or is this just you know,
(19:34):
like a thing in the portfolio, you know what I mean? Like,
how how hands on hands off is this person? Yeah, exactly,
that is a good question. I'm just reading a lot
about this for the first time, Ben and some of
the latest reporting out of from Al Jazeera. Um it is.
It is very interesting too because they you know, there
(19:57):
are many people who work for Parlor. W were employees
creating this app, making sure it functions all the time.
It is interesting to note that, at least according to
the latest reporting as we're recording this, the employees did
not quit the There's an internal person they're commenting saying
the employees of Parlor did not quit when everything seemed
(20:18):
to be going to crap um and they were committed
to continuing their service in some way once they could
get it back up. There's the plots with Jen because
just like that old Mark Twain quote. The reports of
Parlor's death maybe greatly exaggerated. You see, just recently, just
(20:39):
like yesterday, I believe Parlor partially reappeared with help from
not a US based technology firm, but are Russian based
technology firm. Now, I look, folks, I know this week
I'm setting a terrible precedent by continually talking about various
(21:01):
aspects of Russia. But this this was interesting because Parlor
was on so many people's minds and it became it
became one of those public conversations right about the responsibility
of a tech company or a platform versus the rights
of a user, whether they're a verified citizen or what
(21:22):
have you. The Russian company in question is called d
d os Guard UH. They're distributed denial of service protection
company and like their big competitor will probably be something
like cloud Flare. So I don't know this. This is
the thing. If you believe that there is something suspicious
about Mercer's connection to Cambridge Analytica, which we did a
(21:46):
show on UH, and to Parlor, then I imagine this
is another feather in the conspiracy cap, isn't it. I mean,
does it seem suspicious to you? Guys. Or is this
just like capitalism at play suspicious? Well? Yeah, because with
Cambridge Analytic of the Big Deal, there was gathering up
of information right from other social media networks, specifically Facebook, Right,
(22:10):
But maybe I'm misremembering that. I think that's correct. Um.
And then with just having having this group for this person,
this individual connected back to another social media network that
appeared to be growing in popularity. Yeah, I think it
makes complete sense. Maybe I'm just not maybe I'm not
(22:31):
seeing the I'm not seeing the bad part here unless
we're talking about just gathering up more private information from users.
Do you think that's happening here? Well, I mean, every
every social media app does gather and scrape whatever they can.
That's why you don't have those apps on your phone, right.
But but I would say, yes, every everybody does this.
(22:52):
The concern for people at this point would be who
controls that gathered data? Is it a friendly government, is
an antagonistic government? Is it you know, the big tech
companies that already would have this data. I think that's
what people are worried about, and I think that's a
that's a valid worry to have, But it's I mean,
(23:17):
the big difference here. Let's be honest. The big difference
is mainly that Rush is not part of five Eyes.
It's like the main difference in terms of guess what
this is unrelated kind of I don't know if you
guys saw this when Parlor was initially shut down and
taken off the app store. Um, there aren't as many now,
but then there were quite a few on eBay unlocked
(23:38):
iPhones with Parlor app pre installed for like going for
quite a bit of money, And right now I'm only
seeing one, but it's a thousand dollars for an iPhone
eleven and its specificity says with Parlor app sixty four
gigs black unlocked. Uh, if the services down, I think
it's Yeah, it's the website. The website was reachable again
(24:03):
as of the I want to say January and the CEO.
All that would happen if you went to the website
was there would be a message from the CEO saying
that he was working to restore functionality. So if it's
if that site is restored and if their infrastructure comes back,
then users of Parlor will be able to see and
(24:25):
post comments on the site. The app. However, as part
of the reason you know all that that mentioned of
eBay is so interesting because the app is banned from
Apple and Google stores. Uh, there's probably going to continue
to be controversy about this. But yeah, if if Mercer is,
(24:48):
if Mercer is involved and his hands on, is her
team collecting this data? And to your point, Matt, where
they sending it? What are they doing? Are they giving
it to like campaigns in the future and see that
being a good business model for sure? I can see
that happening. Um, yeah, but I don't know. Man, Oh,
(25:10):
I'm I'm reading here. Been something about changing because you're
aws was the big issue, right, So they're looking to
another company. You said that was the d d o
S company. D d OS is security. I think d
d us is they're doing security. But then the domain
is actually it looks like it may be going to
another service called epic. Is that is that what I'm
(25:31):
actually reading here? Um, there's one called e p I
K that's where their domain is registered. Now I'm just
trying to follow some of these threads that are being
reported because new info is coming out pretty quickly, given
that just a few days ago is when it essentially
kind of came back. So there's another aspect here, will
this benefit this organization? Well? Does benefit this company, because
(25:57):
if there are a lot of people who see themselves
as um perhaps more on the pro America side or
the pro patriotic side, however it would be phrased more
conservative side, perhaps, are those users going to return? Are
they going to feel comfortable with this new Russian association
(26:17):
with the app? I mean it's a good question. I
don't know what the answer is, and I'm sure not
everybody will answer the same way. Uh, but then what
would what would Mercer do with that information? We want
to hear from you? This story is still developing. I
think they're gonna be plot twist a plenty as it continues. Obviously,
(26:40):
the three of us are not super into any non
governmental thing that requires your social Security number or photo
of your driver's license. I mean, what's the next blood
type list of fears uh known known uh frequencies of
defication or something like med medical technology gets involved with
(27:04):
social media and let's you know, your bpms are just
updating automatically. That's the world we're headed toward. Um, this
is a small piece of well. Yeah, also think the
extra funny part about that is, you know, we've talked
about there's a certain paranoia and like Internet kind of
fear mongering, kind of UM culture wrapped up in things
(27:26):
like Q and on and some of these super far
right conspiracy movements. And yet these folks are just giving
like their geo tag data to this app and utter
trust and like you know, completely having it leaked because
of lack of security measures. So, I mean, all of
these folks that are essentially outed and docks themselves by
(27:47):
taking selfies and live streams. Now we're starting to see
all those videos trickle out and some of the really
you know, from the heart of the capital um you know,
insurrection situation are quite troubling, like actual beatings, you know,
being being meted out to the security guards and things
like that are rather capital police. So I just think
it's fascinating. There's so much distrust and this desire for
(28:10):
anonymity UM in these kind of scenes. And yeah, this
is like the exact opposite where they're literally uploading their
driver's license, agreed, you know, And that's part of that's
part of what social media in general does. We talked
about in the past, like it drives you. The aim
is to drive you to ultimately erode your own boundaries
of privacy to whatever degree that company feels viable and
(28:34):
profitable for them. UM, which doesn't necessarily make them bad.
It just means that we should all be aware of
what their motive is. Uh so, what do you guys
want to take it in super conspiratorial? Then sure, let's go. Yeah,
let's let's get super conspiratorial. So let's say you do
(28:54):
have another state that wants to activate and a populus,
a small group of the populace that does happen to
be armed and is adamant in their viewpoint, and let's
make it. Let's make it Bhutan. Let's see Bouton wants
to do Sure, Bhutan wants to do it. And they
happen to have a web hosting service, and they happen
(29:17):
to have access to bots and access to other ways
of infiltrating a social network that they happen to host. Um,
you could ostensibly push the needle enough generate further resentment
towards whatever power that that bees whenever, whatever power that exists,
(29:41):
and fullman enough to where you could park perhaps a
revolution that's taking it really far. Isn't that is I mean,
isn't that what the Arab Spring was. But like that
was viewed positively because it was an insurrection against you know,
oppressive forces Olivia, there was a lot of social media
support for intervention. Uh, and then later it turned out
(30:03):
that the entire reason for intervention in Libya was to
for France to be able to control the currency or
retain control of the currency. UM. I don't know, I know,
I'm I'm not trying to nippick at all. I just
think it's interesting because it's almost like, you know, the
folks that are in this into this whole parlor thing,
or into this whole movement, they would argue that their
(30:24):
freedom fighters and they're rebelling against an oppressive regime. And
you know, oftentimes that argument holds water here. I would
I would argue it definitely, definitely doesn't. But you know
we always say one person's freedom fighters, another person's terrorists. UM.
So that you know the medium, does the medium play
a part in that, you know, in that role. Yeah,
(30:45):
that's a great question. I love your point about the
Arab springman, and I think that should be brought up
in the conversations more often. But if it's if it's
super conspiratorial Okay, Matt so Boutad has moved away from
gross national happiness and now they're into Now they're into
um asymmetrical warfare. I uh. And they do it through
(31:08):
social media. I mean there's a question then, how much
influence do they actually have and how much do they
need to have? Right if you're that deep in the
infiltration of the app itself, of the hosting of all
of these things, I think there are numerous ways that
you could gain the system enough to get a message out.
It doesn't mean the message would be effective, It doesn't
mean everybody would bite on that bait, but it does
(31:30):
mean that it the potential could be there, And like
you said, it could be. That potential could exist across
any social media network, across any web hosting service, and
that doesn't mean it's true. That's why we're calling this
section very super conspiratorial. Well also, also Jed, what I
(31:53):
what I love about this question is I think they're
I think they're absolutely is a plausible connection between Cambridge
Analytica and Parlor. Uh. Without having a hard proof of
this other than they share the same co founder, I
think it is. It is possible, if not plausible, that
you would use the information cleaned from one company to
(32:14):
help your other companies succeed if possible, because that's what
business owners do. You know what I mean. That's like,
that's the consolidation of various industries, like we see with
with trust, with the formation of trust. Like Henry Ford
didn't want to just own a car factory. He wanted
to own the minds. He wanted to build his own
(32:37):
rubber plantation. He did, by the way, called it Ford
Landia in Brazil is a huge failure because it did
work for a bunch of reasons. That's either here nor there.
But we do we do think this bears keeping an
eye on. Want to hear your opinion about Cambridge Analytic
a possible connection to other things. Go on a weird
(32:58):
Bob Ross conspiracy journey with us and string some string
some points together. We'd love to hear from you. With
that being said, with all that stuff we've said about
social media, if you were watching this on YouTube dot com,
slash conspiracy stuff, smash that like button, continue the conversation.
Oh here's where it gets crazy on Facebook. We're gonna
pause for a moment. It will be time to do
(33:20):
that and we'll be back with more listener mail. All right,
and we're back. So everybody, we're gonna take this party
to a whole different level. Are you ready for my
favorite listener correspondence that we've had in quite a long time?
(33:43):
Are you ready for it? I wasn't ready for it.
I was not ready when I Maybe I'm not. Maybe
I'm not. I know this one too, but I I
read it. I'm still not sure whether I'm ready for it.
But let's let's give it a go. I'm just gonna
read this and we'll talk about it afterwards. This comes
from LORI. Good evening, I've waited a process. What happened
(34:06):
before emailing you guys? The week after Halloween, that's my
favorite holiday. I woke up around five am from a
dream where my loved one and I were cuddling while
watching television. Note Lorie does not live with her significant other.
She is dreaming about being with her significant other, who
(34:27):
is not at her house. Coming back in. I woke
up lying on my left side. That's important, alone in
my bed in my home, and then my eyes shot
open and I tried to stay as still as possible
because as I lay there staring at the wall, I
felt my toes curled around his toes. I still felt toes,
(34:50):
but I was alone in my bed. I was scared
to roll over. I was afraid to move it all.
Then the toes were gone. I kept telling myself it
was just a fading dream. And then I'm not going
to see anything. When I roll over, and I roll over,
this lightning white figure in the shape of a very tall,
(35:11):
thin man sat up. We were face to face. I
could see through him. I kept reminding myself that I
was awake. Then the man spoke loud, with a deep voice,
and very very fast, so fast that I have no
idea what he was saying. I said no, no, no,
and he disappeared. I stay there for a bit. Then
(35:33):
I had to go get my oldest son to sleep
with me. Okay, we're gonna pause here for a moment.
First of all, what an experience, right this feels It
feels similar to what we just discussed with our d
M t entities that we've seen that humans have been experiencing,
where there's this energy being that somehow manifests. Um. It
(35:58):
reminds me of sleep paralysis, especially laying on the side.
They're experiencing something like that. But there are reasons that
we're going to get into why it doesn't feel like
either of those things, why it isn't either of those things.
Do you guys have any reactions to that first section there? Yeah, man,
(36:20):
I mean I think you. I think you nail some
of the common aspects here, like the idea that the
experience could be sleep paralysis, which which can be terrifying. Right,
It's one of the episodes that we we've had the
most response to over the years. It makes me wonder too,
about the the sense that we don't talk about often enough,
(36:43):
propri reception, which is the sensation of where your body
parts are in space, even if you are not looking
at them directly. Like that that ties into um things
like the phantom hand experience that some people report when
her phantom limb when they experienced the amputation. It also
(37:05):
ties into this this part of your story, Lauria. You
you feel these toes, but you know you're alone in
your bed, so you're feeling this sensation or something that
is not part of your body. I don't I'm interested,
but we gotta we gotta keep going because I gotta
tell you, Laurie, I don't know how you went back
to sleep. We we can keep going and we'll talk
(37:27):
about that. I just want to say I talked to
Laurie for quite a while today before recording this, and
she says that she has experienced sleep paralysis since she
was a kid. She knows exactly what it feels like,
she knows what the experience is. And this was not that.
She said, she was not still asleep when it occurred. Uh.
(37:49):
And she was able to roll physically roll over in
bed and then you know, was be able to sit
up and still was having having this visual emulation of
this being that she she described. I asked her, you know,
a couple of times, described to me more what you're
looking at, and she said, he was just lightning like
(38:10):
he was white, as white as lightning, and I could
see through him, but he was as long as me,
and you could tell it was in the shape of
a person. And I only say it was male because
the voice I heard was so deep, really really interesting stuff. Yeah,
And from what I understand based just on the letter here, Um, Laurie,
(38:31):
you said, when the when this figure is speaking there,
they're speaking in a deeper voice, but they're speaking very
very quickly. Is that correct? Uh? Matt, when you and
Laurie spoke, were you able to get a sense of what,
if anything, this figure was attempting to communicate, or even
just snatches of phrases. She said she was unable to
tell even if he was speaking English. It was difficult
(38:54):
to tell that. She said, the utterances were so quick
and deep that it was just she and she's she
was experiencing such fear, like such a reaction to it,
that she doesn't remember any of that. She doesn't recall
exactly what was being said. And it's fascinating to me
that perhaps this person or this thing wasn't even speaking English.
But this is the point where I think we we
(39:14):
should continue down the letter, because there's more here, and
Lori experienced more. She says, after this experience, she fell
back to sleep immediately. Crazy well, because she said her son,
her oldest son, came to join her in bed. He's
a teenager. She probably felt safe with him. Um she
(39:34):
was able to fall back asleep. However, the next day,
my son came home from school. He was pale and exhausted.
When I asked him what was wrong, he told me
that he couldn't go back to sleep after this whole
thing had happened, and he joined her in bed because
he kept hearing a voice that sounded like his voice,
and it was mumbling against the far bedroom wall. Okay,
(39:58):
and Lourie says, he's correct. The man's voice was very
similar to my son's, but in a deeper register. And
that is what Laurie confirmed to me, that both she
and her son experienced this weird thing where it sounded
like an old version, an older version of her son speaking.
So that right there kind of blew my mind, and
(40:21):
it made me start thinking about the Terminator franchise, when
there's time travel involved, and you know, there's the lightning
orb essentially that transports someone back through time. Just made
me think about a lightening being that somehow was her
son time traveling. Not saying that's what it is, but
it made my mind real you know, I was thinking
(40:41):
not just specifically of Terminator here, but I was thinking
of the the concept of non linear experiences with time.
So let's let's not stop, let's keep going through this.
So Laurie says that this made her realize that there
are a lot of other things that she had previously
discounted that she and her family had experienced. She says
(41:04):
that they were like coincidences that she rationalized, Um, there's
weird stuff. So on two different occasions, she said her
her children her child's bed. She's got two children, one
is older, when is younger. Her younger child's bed was
pushed out from the wall towards the middle of the room. Um,
it's a twin size bed, so not huge and heavy,
(41:26):
but it's still hefty, especially for a three year old.
And she was just wondering why it happened. She figured
her older son probably went in there and moved the bed.
She spoke with both her sons. Neither of them had
been in the room, neither of them had moved the bed.
They just saw, okay, that's a little weird. They pushed
it back. But then it happened again, and she couldn't
(41:47):
figure out what was going on. Her father was even involved, like, thinking,
there's something weird going on there. Um. Then on several
different nights, she's awoken to the sound of a man
mumbling at the furthest wall, the furthest sidewall of her bedroom.
Also the sounds of someone physically rustling around in that
(42:08):
area of the room. Um. She even experienced at one
point that same voice rushing towards her, So like a
voice beginning at at the far end of a room
and then moving towards her, just a disembodied voice moving
towards her. Sweart of guy. That immediately makes my mind
go to a very popular horror movie sound design technique
(42:31):
where the voice has reverb on it. That's that's flipped backwards,
so it kind of reverbs into the voice, and I
kind of picture that like as a rushing kind of
like you know, quality of like moving through space at you.
I've certainly never experienced anything like that, but that that's
just immediately with my mind hones into sound localization. Yeah,
it's another It's there's another thing that's important here for
(42:53):
this detail, uh Lori, which is that if you can
localize or sense the direction and location of a sound,
then it means that you are hearing these things through
both ears, which which is an important, um, an important
neurocognitive detail. Please con didn't met well because you know,
(43:16):
sometimes people have said they've only heard something in one ear.
It's a small detail, but an important one to consider.
One of the things I love about Laurie when I
spoke with her. She's very much attempting to rationalize everything.
So she's attempting to figure out what is the most
what's the common denominator here, what's the most rational thing.
It was probably my neighbor's television that was too loud,
(43:40):
and I was just hearing it, and I was experiencing
that when I hear the mumbling. Um. There are a
couple of times when her bed would move right around
five am, sometimes a little earlier, especially when her alarm
wouldn't go off. She said her bed would be physically shaking,
and she would wake up to the to the physical
movement of her bed, rather than on a arm or
(44:00):
her son coming in to wake her up the way
he would sometimes. Um. She's noticing a couple other things
where there are objects that are displaced around the house
are knocked over. Uh. And there's even an instance where
all of her lightbulbs went out on the same day,
all the light bulbs in the place where she lives, um,
which you know, that would be super unnerving if that occurred,
(44:23):
or it could just be an electric you know, you
could explain away with some kind of electrical surge that
caused all of the light bulbs to get too much
power to them too quickly and then bust them all.
A coincidence that doesn't happen often. Um, but this is
this is I think the last thing we're gonna read
from this email, and we're just will consider it that
(44:44):
this is how Laurie ended it. I felt this man's body.
I saw this man as bright as lightning. I heard
this man. My son heard this man, and I will
never unsee, unfeel, or unhear him. This happened. Yeah, I mean,
and what was your sense? I mean, obviously from from
the email, she really does strike a very analytical kind
(45:06):
of tone, like she really comes off as someone who
is describing a thing, not like a half remembered dream,
but like a thing that happened to her. And like
you said, Matt, very much trying to sess out and
try to rationalize every little detail. Is that how she
was on the phone as well? Man, She was very
much like that on the phone, And and it's something
that is has disturbed her pretty heavily. Um, specifically because
(45:30):
it appears to be affecting her son as well, and
they seem to have shared experiences, so it doesn't feel
like just something that happened in her sleep and then
went away, or something she experienced in a dream state
or in a sleep paralysis state. The fact that her
son that it bothered her son so much that he
was just you know, it ruined his day essentially um
(45:54):
hearing hearing the this voice. And the other thing here
is that I didn't go easy on Laurie. I was
asking her, as you know, detailed questions about all of
this stuff, and she was responding, you know, not as
somebody who was just making something up. You know, I can't.
I can't prove that to to you or to myself
that she wasn't making anything up. But she knows, and
(46:16):
I've certainly felt that she wasn't. And you know there
you know what asked her about the disappearing, because she
said that this this, this thing, this being appeared in
her bed. Then it just kind of disappeared when she
said no, no, no, And she said that it was
essentially half a second, couple of milliseconds of like a
fade out and then just like nothing. And I would
(46:39):
just say that I've experienced something like that before where
I've woken up from a dream, I'm still half asleep,
kind of got like my eyes half closed or something,
and my dream state is providing images. If you guys
have ever seen that kind of almost like images that
are flowing downward or in a circular pattern, that you'll
still get the light essentially. Um, I've experienced something like that,
(47:02):
but never in the shape of a person with a
physical sensation with an audible voice. You might be surprised
what you can do, because that is that is one
of the side doors and the lucid dreaming. I mean,
I know we use this, this phrase often gets overused,
but that really is a cognitive liminal state. If if
(47:22):
you're ever in that state, by the way, folks, which
everybody is, at some point, uh, give give yourself, give
yourself some credit. Try to try to just imagine some
cool scenarios. You're basically at that point you're in the
hollow deck where you can still steer to a degree.
But then once you're out like a light, it's not
you driving anymore. It's just subconscious or arguably you experiencing
(47:47):
a quantum. A quantum look into a universe just to
the left of hours or to the right or another timeline,
you know. Speaking of that, I had I've been having
a lot of very strange dreams lately, um, and you
have to kind of like really capture them or speak
them out loud right when you wake up, or they're
very easily just kind of totally forgotten. But I had
one last night where it was the three of us
(48:09):
and we were like in a band, and we were
playing the new Coachella festival, which was taking place inside
a giant church, and we were all there for a
sound check, and the Atlanta rapper Gucci Maine and his
crew were there in sound checking, only they were all
very British and not Southern at all. And you, the
three of us sat down in the balcony of the
church waiting for our turn to sound check, and the
(48:31):
Gucci man and his crew came up to us and
told us that we were sitting in their seats, to
which I made a big fuss and ended up getting
into a fist fight with Gucci Maine. And that's all
I remember. But you guys were definitely there. Don't don't
fight Gucci Maine at Churchilla's Chella. Come on. But yeah,
that that is the moral of the story. I think that,
(48:52):
But no, I mean, look, I also, um, I don't
know if you this is totally different. But if you
guys ever like had like a like a he's of
furniture in your room, or maybe like a coat rack
or something, and in the right light or lack of light,
it really does look like a figure. And if you
wake up from a dream and you see that at
the corner of your eye, you are, if for a moment,
convinced that that is an actual figure, that is an
(49:14):
actual entity in your room. I'm not saying that's what
this is. I'm just saying I have a hat rack
on my my closet door that's just like all my
baseball hats, and it's sort of in a V shape.
And because it's a hat, and you picture a hat
is being representing a head, I sometimes wake up and
see that and spook the crap out of myself. Yeah,
I've got something kind of like that that's been occurring
lately with light coming in from the morning through a
(49:36):
window and a tree that's obscuring a certain part where
it does form the shape it's a bit human like,
and if I'm still asleep, I can see that. Yeah.
I mean are like you said, Ben, our brains can
do some really interesting things. As as that information is
being processed and we're kind of transferring over from one
mode to another. What what I would say and what
(49:58):
I kind of want to leave us with on here
is that Laurie is she really wants to know what happened.
She has purchased equipment, audio and video equipment that she's
set up in her room where this occurred. She's got
she's got a motion activated night vision camera that is
(50:19):
currently full. The memory is full, so she is capturing
it right now and she's going through it to see
if anything shows up. So hopefully we will hear soon
back from Laurie if she's seen anything, or if we've
got some footage to look at, you have to send
it to us, Laury. Also, I want to say, just
on a personal note, I love your writing style. I
(50:41):
think it's clear and concise, and I think you're a
good storyteller. One of my favorite sentences that really surprised
me in your email, Laurie was when you said, my
alone time has literally been stolen, and I love my
alone time. For some people that might seem like the
weird thing to worry about in this situation, but Lorie,
(51:01):
I get it, and I bet that we get it.
I bet we all get that, right. That's it. I
just want to say, I think you're I think you're
a swell writer, Laurie. And when I was reading it, it
it almost had the cadence of like a creepy pasta story,
you know what I mean, like one of those very condensed,
contained spooky stories. Because I was on the edge of
my seat reading it the whole way through. That's why
(51:23):
I had to call her and talk to her, because
it did it. It felt unreal. And that's the first
thing that we talked about was this feels like something
that's been written. And and she was just like, no,
I am. She was so adamant about it. In genuine
she does. She does say that this happened very shortly
after beginning to listen to our show, so you know,
(51:46):
hopefully our show isn't haunted. Uh. And and it wasn't me.
I can't speak from Arnold, but Louria, I could tell
you it was not me, at least as far as
I remember. But yes, thank you for writing in where
you keep us updated other folks who have stories these
similar experiences. Uh. If you know, many of us find
(52:09):
ourselves doing our best to analyze something from every angle
and sometimes we can't come up with an explanation. We
want to hear about your ghostly or paranormal conundrums. Thanks
also to Anton, to Jen, to every single person who
has written in who was called UH. We have a
we have a wonderful, wonderful gift of a gargante wine
(52:33):
amount of feedback to go through. We're doing our best.
We want you to add. We want you to add
your your voice to this conversation, your takes, your thoughts,
give us your creepy stories on the internet, tell us
your experiences, and we try to make it very easy
to find us. You no longer need a wegia board
(52:55):
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You can find us on the dual spots Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
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(53:16):
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(53:38):
Let us know if you don't want us to use
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If you don't want to do that, there's a great
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We are conspiracy at i are radio dot com, Easter Egg.
(54:03):
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