Listener Mail: The Voicemail Edition

What is a Vardøger? Why does the CIA so desperately need electricians? In this special edition of listener mail, the guys dive into phone calls on everything from sleep paralysis to the devil's lettuce and more.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. We are
joined as always by our super producer, Paul Mission controlled
decond you are you, You're here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. As you can tell,
I did that thing so Ben after three tries everything
now because again Ben is the master and he's not

(00:49):
with us today, but he will be returning very soon
to do that whole thing correctly again. So today everyone,
we are diving deep into our voice mailbox because we've
gone through I don't even know. There's a folder that
I'm looking at right now that just has hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of messages from you, and we only

(01:11):
get to cover a few of them, maybe one a week, maybe,
if you know, three a week maximum. So today we
are going to go through as many as we possibly
can and respond as long or as short as necessary.
I guess we're just gonna respond to these in real
time basically. Indeed, let's see. So I'm gonna be completely candid.

(01:31):
I am coming into this cold as the sort of
the stand in for you. Yes, you the listener, the
conspiracy realist. And I've got an amazing list that Matt
has put together in our handy dandy um episode document. Matt,
what do you say? Do you want to you want
to pick one to start and then we'll just kind
of see what tickles our fancy as we go forward. Absolutely,

(01:53):
let's get started with a message from Jackie. Hi, my
name is Jackie from Madison, Wiscontlin's Not as a show.
I was just listening to the latest Listener mail episode
and you were talking about daffel gangers. Um. I just
wanted to let you know about Norwegian concept called waaldiger Um.
It's spelled v as a victor a r d as

(02:16):
a daub o g e r. It's kind of like
a spirit right assessor of like you can centse someone's coming,
like you hear a car in the driveway, No one's there,
but then ten minutes later that person arrives in a
car in the driveway. Um, it's a spooky It's something
I I'm my relatives are Norwegian. It's just something you

(02:42):
just predict. You know somebody's coming, you're ready to welcome them,
welcome them. It's not a scary thing. Um, but yeah,
it's kind of an interesting thing. I don't know if
you've heard about it, but thanks for the show, and
you can put this on the reader if you want,
thanks so much to have a good one fight. That
is so cool. It's it's like the opposite of deja

(03:03):
vu or something. I mean, it's a premonition, really is
what it is, and that's exactly what it is. Oftentimes
it is described as a sound or a site that
precedes someone's arrival. And first of all, thank you Jackie
for letting us know about that really interesting concept, not
one that I I think i've experienced. Maybe you know,

(03:27):
if you imagine if you've got maybe a relative or
a friend who's come from a long way and is
going to arrive, there's a lot of anticipation, internal anticipation
that's going on for that moment, right depending on how
it's how much you like that person who's coming to
see you, or even if it's um, even if you're
nervous about someone showing up because of you know, whatever

(03:48):
previous interaction you've had. I A. I imagine that the
mind can play many tricks on each of us in
in those moments you hear something you know down by
a driveway, or you hear something you know by the door.
But this specific thing, it looks like vartegre v A
R D O G E R. It is more substantive

(04:10):
than that like trick of the mind thing. So right,
I just I have you ever experienced anything like this? Well,
it's almost like like I got a funny if I
got a bad feeling about this, you know what I mean.
I mean it's like if, like you said, if it's
something it's emotionally charged, maybe the anticipation of something, or
if there's just sort of something in the air like yeah, sure,

(04:32):
I mean, or let's say, um, you you you song
is in your mind and then you hear it on
the radio, like that could be kind of like maybe
a sort of a rudimentary comparison. Um. Also, it actually
I've I've seen it described as a premonitionary deja vu,
So it has that thing. The deja vu is sort

(04:52):
of like I feel like I've been here before. This
is like ringing, you know, ringing a bell in my mind.
It's also a show associated with the Norwegian concept of
the hoog, which is a pre Christian Norse Um view
of the world that is basically dates back to in

(05:13):
Norse mythology um Odin's raven. Uh. What's his name? Our colleague? Uh?
Anchorman Ron Burgundy would say one of them, In fact,
there were several was named hoogan um, which is the
same word in Old Norse for for who. Uh. The
other one, moon In, represents the word remembrance, So the

(05:34):
idea of who is a current Norwegian word that it
refers to the mind or thoughts um, or the idea
to remember. So this is almost like reverse remembering in
a weird way. So they're kind of like combined these concepts.
It reminds you a bit of astral projection, almost like
the spirit or whatever that thing is that maybe resides
inside of us could could go forward before we are

(06:00):
sical body reaches that state right or that position in
time and space um. Because you'll see it described as
like a scent enters the room, right. You're just imagine
you're sitting wherever you are in your space, and all
of a sudden, a very familiar smell of maybe your
your partner or a friend that you're you know that scent,

(06:23):
it enters the room and you can smell that scent
clearly a full two minutes before somebody gets to your house.
That to me is fascinating. But I know our minds
are very powerful, and you know if I wonder if
our brain could somehow trigger neurons just out of anticipation. Uh,

(06:45):
like your your your sense memories. I wonder if they
can be triggered just out of anticipation of another person arriving.
I'm gonna screw this pronunciation up horribly, but I found
this amazing website in Norwegian folk Tales blogspot dot com.
I guess it's all a little website, it's a blog, um,
but it's got a lot of collected knowledge from publications

(07:08):
like from the early nine about Norwegian folk tales. And
a third concept wrapped up in this is the idea
of something called a filgage. Phil. It's got a J
after the G, and that's the part of the screw
me up. It's f y L g j E. So
I'm thinking maybe the second J is silent, So maybe
it's just Phil g or Field perhaps let us know, um,

(07:30):
But This is a spirit companion that follows individuals around
and can manifest itself on behalf of its host. So
it's sort of like tied to an individual and the
field jack can actually um manifest the ardger uh in
terms of like giving its earthly host a warning of

(07:53):
something that will happen UM in a similar way that
in UH, you know, time travel mythology or lore, and
you meet your past or future self, it screws up
the timeline and like opens up like a wormhole, and
then everything gets screwed up and people start disappearing from photos,
family photos. Uh. In this case, if you meet this
spirit companion, you will in fact die boa WHOA. Okay, well,

(08:17):
don't do that. But there there are a couple of
stories on here if you guys want to check it out,
go to Norwegian Fotales dot blog spot dot com and
just search for the words that we've been describing um
A v A R d g E R and f
y l g j E And there are a few
stories that are kind of like almost like dark grim
fairy tales surrounding the field You and the and the Vardager.

(08:40):
So really cool stuff. Amazing, Thank you, Jackie. This one
has definitely got us thinking, and I want to explore
some of that further, all right, And with that, we're
gonna jump to our next message, which comes from Matt.
Another Matt. Maybe it's one we've heard from before, maybe not.
There are millions of us. Here we go. This is Matt.

(09:01):
I am calling to tell my experience that I just
had two nights ago. Um I was falling asleep getting
my daughters to sleep, and I had podcasts cute and
the first one was the Screaming Girls of Malaysia and
the second one was about Gin. They're both, you know,

(09:23):
episodes of stuff they don't want you to know. And
I was listening to those, woke up multiple times help
my daughters during the night, and all of the sudden
I had in this dream I saw someone walk into
the room, the dark figure, and I watched him walk

(09:44):
into the room. Then they just sat on my chest
and I was trying to scream, trying to move, trying
to do anything I possibly could to get out of
the situation, but I couldn't move. I realized that I
was going to sleep paralysis in that moment. But it

(10:04):
was absolutely terrifying. I felt the weight of this presence
on my chest was trying to move my fingers, just
trying to blink, just to the smallest things. And the
thing that almost scared me the most is I could,
like I could smell its breath. It's like this rancid,

(10:27):
awful breath, and it was completely horrifying, and I thought
that I woke up from the sleep proalysis. And what
my recollection was is I looked at my phone and
I'm trying to just think of happy things and pulling
up family pictures and I go back to sleep and

(10:49):
the same exact thing happened again and I'm just trying
to scream. I feel this presence, I watch it walk
from the room to sitting on my chest, absolutely terrifying,
and I woke up that time my daughter was screaming,
so I think that's what triggered the sleep prolysist and end.

(11:10):
As I got up, I went to check my phone
because I specifically remember opening up my pictures, and what
do you know, there was no I hadn't opened up
my pictures, So it was almost a dream inside of
a dream. It was a wild experience, and I didn't
know if maybe the episode that I had been listening

(11:32):
to about Jen that triggered it. I don't know, but
it's very scary. Um. I would love to hear your
opinion and thoughts on the episode on an episode regarding
the story of the Utah woman whose headstone is inscribed
victim of the Beast fixed six six. Thanks but bye? Okay,

(11:54):
so to those two things are not related, right, No, no, no,
that's an extra suggestion that Matt tacked on at the
end that we're gonna hold until after we discuss what
he just told us. Man, that is one of the
most visceral descriptions of a sleep paralysis event that I
think I've ever heard personally. Oh, I would agree, especially

(12:16):
it's just told very saliently. The breath part really did
it for me. Yes, have being able to recollect that
this thing, this shadow that appears to enter the room
and sit on your chest and you can smell its breath. Um.
The the most horrifying thing I think for me. I

(12:40):
think we've probably all experienced this is waking up from
a nightmare and then going back to sleep and somehow
your brain just takes you right back to that same place.
That's that's awful. I've gone through that many a time
and it's just the worst. But I've I've never experienced
it with sleeper elysis, where you know you're having sleep paralysis,

(13:03):
or at least you're aware of it upon waking or
believing that you're awake, then going back to sleep and
having it happened again. That's that's awful. Um. We've discussed
in our previous episodes on sleep paralysis, maybe why it happens,
how it happens, And I like that Matt is giving
us a possibility here that what was entering his mind

(13:26):
through his ear holes right before bed may have influenced
or in some way triggered this event. Yeah, certainly. I
mean I've certainly had things from the waking world, UM,
weave their way into my dreams, whether it's up something
in a podcast, uh TV show or something like that
that I have, you know, as I'm falling asleep. UM.
I don't really have nightmares like this so much, or

(13:49):
if I do, they're they're just kind of weird and interesting.
But I don't know that I've ever lately in my
adult life have woken up like in a panic or
like felt you like terrified. So I really feel for
these folks that are dealing with this stuff that feels
so real. Uh and maybe is you know, I'm what
do you think? Where do you stand on this stuff?
I mean, it's it's so interesting how like when people

(14:11):
that take d M T trips they describe you know,
almost identical experiences where they see some beckoning force, you know,
like we referred to often by like Terrence McKenna as
a machine elves um, you know, sort of like showing
them the way and and telling them everything's gonna be okay,
and uh that they were learning from these you know,

(14:32):
these deities are these beings. Similarly, with sleep paralysis, always
the same. It's always sitting on the chest, it's always
hovering over the bed, these dark figures, Like where do
you think that comes from? Just demons mostly, you know, Okay,
the simplest explanation is usually the best one. Yeah, just demons. Well,

(14:54):
we know there are varied experiences with with sleep paralysis,
and we know there are specific uh forms, right like
shadow forms essentially that are described by numerous people. And
the sitting on the chest thing has gone I mean
that goes back centuries and centuries and centuries where people
have described you know, the cats sitting on the chest,

(15:15):
stealing the breath right when we talked about all this stuff,
um again, and I encourage you to go back and
listen to some of those episodes. The the lore behind
that shared experience is lore, but it is a really
fascinating exploration of the way people fought at at certain

(15:36):
like milestones throughout history and in this case, right now
in the present time as we're recording this. A scientific
explanation is what is I think primarily used right like,
this is just something your mind is doing. But man,

(15:56):
I think I think we need to continue to explore further.
That's that's odd. It's an odd experience, especially having that
inception level that Matt describes there, where you know, you're
not sure if you're awake, you're not sure if it's
a dream or not. Uh. You know this this gets
into the bigger conversation about consciousness and the explorations of

(16:17):
of that that are still happening right now philosophically and scientifically.
So I just want to explore it more. I appreciate
you sharing that, Matt, really quickly before we end this section,
because we need to take a break. Noll Um. The
thing that Matt mentioned at the very end. There the

(16:37):
gravestone in Utah that has some weird inscription on it.
You can go to Atlas obscura dot com right now
and you can find Victim of the Beast gravestone in
Salt Lake City, Utah. And there's a gravestone for a
person named Lily E Gray that was born June six

(16:59):
and passed on November nineteen fifty eight. And it does say,
in fact, victim of the Beast six six six. And
that's from the Book of Revelations, right. The whole idea
of the number of the beast in six six six
and all of that really juicy stuff from the Bible
is mostly in the Book of Revelations. Yeah, and uh,

(17:22):
you can find this place. It is real. It's in
Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery and you can actually go walk
to this gravestone and take a look at it. Not
much is known about it, but as Matt says, it
would be interesting to learn more. What does that mean?
It's a doubt, it's a joke. I wonder what happened

(17:44):
to this person. If you want us to do a
whole episode on that, let us know. I'm certainly intrigued. Yeah,
there's not a whole lot of information on the Atlas
Obscure article. It's just kind of like an urban like
a roadside that sort of atics Obscure originally was known for.
If I'm not mistaken, like kind of weird roadside oddities,
and this is certainly that. Um, yeah, very weird. Yeah,

(18:06):
it's exactly. The page on Alice Obscura is identified as
a stub. Alice Oscara requests help in improving, uh and
expanding the victim of the Beast gravestone with additional information
and our photos. So, uh, this is a mystery worth
looking into. Oh you know what, I may have gotten
this wrong. It looks like it might be in Salt

(18:29):
Lake City Cemetery. I can't tell. There are two cemeteries
that are kind of right against each other in that
area of Salt Lake. So, um, anyway, we're gonna we're
gonna learn more and if we can, because I do
think this will require some digging. But thank you Matt
for now. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll
be back with more messages from you. All right, we're back,

(18:57):
and we're gonna jump immediately to a message from Johnny Logic.
It's a great ammy. I want to be the DJ
HI guys, you can call me Johnny Logic. In the
mid nineteen eighties, I attended a electronics technicians school in Rochester, Minnesota,

(19:17):
and the c i A was their recruiting in four
through night six. At least once a year they would
show up looking for technicians to join the company. I
never really talked to the guy because I figured I
would be immediately just qualified for a variety of reasons.

(19:40):
But it wasn't just some elite colleges they were going to.
They probably visited other technical schools looking for electronics and
other technology people. Also, thanks for your time later, Logic
sounds like a character, Yeah, But I just thought that

(20:02):
was a great story from Johnny because we talked about
in our spying episodes some of the recruiting tactics of
the company, CIA and other intelligence agencies, and it's just,
you know, you imagine it being this elite thing right
there looking for the best of the best. But that's

(20:23):
a misconception, and that's a misthinking on my my part,
at least personally, because the CIA is going to need
people who can just get equipment running and make sure
equipment is operating and functioning properly. But they have to
be given the same clearances and have to be dependable
and you know, able to exist in this elite you know,

(20:44):
environment and not be worried they're going to be you know,
they're that The verification and all of that stuff, I'm
sure would be pretty intense, and it might keep some
people from wanting to work for them, because it sounds
like a bit of a nightmare. Yeah maybe, I don't know.
Do you think also I was gonna say, yeah, it
could be a great opportunity from a monetary standpoint. From

(21:06):
an ethical standpoint, I guess it depends on how you
feel about ye old company. I'm imagining that you may
not even need the same clearances if and only if
you are primarily setting up equipment, repairing equipment, doing some
things where you're not actually interacting with the signals, intelligence
or whatever other thing is being gathered. I mean, surely

(21:29):
there are layers or levels you know of clearances you
know that would very least be a bare minimum, you know,
more so than if you just went to work for, say,
you know, a corporation. Yeah, I I I think you're
right on the money here, and the reason the reason
why I wanted to play this one to think about
that is because we got another message from another person

(21:51):
that ties in almost perfectly with our message from Johnny logic. Hey,
y'all in the Air Force and dupe a station in
the end of day, but we didn't Sport. And I
would think it's funny when people picture a spot, they
picture like a pod or Jameson Borne, and they don't

(22:14):
think about those other little people, the guy who's talking
through the little uh secure keys and needing them information.
And then also so you've got those little sholes, and
then those people are getting information from other little people
that are just able three emails, that's the phone calls,
all that stuff. I was one of those uh other

(22:34):
little people. So her string I get Tuesday, but you
know I get every little bit help keep it up
me home. So this is this anonymous person, just call
them a NOD. They they were working directly with the
n s A as as they describe a third string

(22:54):
signals intelligence person people. Yeah, I don't know if I
agree with you, Anonymous. You're I mean, maybe you felt
the third string, but I highly doubt that you were
even third string for the n s A. Is like
first string for like any other gig. Probably yeah yeah, um,
And again this is about misconceptions and wrong thinking personally

(23:17):
on my part. Just it's hard to imagine how many
individuals doing that kind of work exists out there for
the n s A, for the FBI, for CIA, for whatever,
Department of Homeland Security, any of those things. Um, there's
so many people that are running the equipment that is
doing the monitoring. We know we've got you know, I

(23:42):
believe is it in Utah where the giant data centers
are for the n s A. And you know those
are data centers. They're doing their thing. But you've also
just got people like like our anonymous person says, reading emails,
listening to phone calls or at least monitoring phone calls,
and just combing through data of I'm assuming individuals who

(24:04):
are targeted by these, uh these alphabet agencies for surveillance
or maybe just you know, all of us, you know,
blanket style. Probably not right, that's what the data servers
are there for. Uh m hmm. It's really cool that
people listening to this potentially right now have worked or
do work in the intelligence services in some capacity that

(24:28):
does that. Weird you out at all. No, uh, weird
me out. No, I don't know. I think we're probably
only probably only the third stringers that are listening to
this show. Well we're the third stringers of people talking
about these things. Maybe, I don't know, mad Old Zella's short.
We're at the very least second string, um, But you know,
it is interesting and it's something that you know, we
we I think there's so much weight and kind of

(24:51):
grandiosity and ascribed to those kinds of agencies um in
a similar way to like you know, I mean when
you think about musicians and big rock stars, for example,
and you think they occupy this elite rarefied air uh
and all of their like handlers are like the best
of the best, and they're like you know, but when
you start to work with certain higher level talent, like

(25:12):
we've had the opportunity to do uh here at I Heeart,
you sometimes realize that people get where they get just
sometimes from being in the right place at the right time,
and they're not always necessarily like the elite you know,
or the very least you know what you might imagine, um,
everyone is just they're all human beings that make up
these teams and I think all that applies to these

(25:33):
types of agencies too. It makes me think of the
the idea that I think it was the n s
A or the CIA weren't getting enough good computer programmers
or good like you know, uh hackers for a better term,
people that could do like infiltrating, you know, running um
uh simulations to to to keep cybersecurity protocols up to date.

(25:54):
They weren't getting enough good applicants because of their drug
testing policies, because you know, computer nerds like to smoke
the Devil's let us uh, so they I believe, in
the mistaken they lax that a little bit, and then
they started getting more applicants or more like you know,
SUCCE because so many people don't need to work for
an agency like that. If you've got those kind of skills,

(26:14):
you can go out as a freelancer and make plenty
of good money. Yeah, And I wonder how much of
it is a philosophical divide between the individual and how
they view reality and security in the world versus how
maybe the company views it. Um, I'm glad you said
Devil's let us know. We're gonna jump to another message

(26:38):
right now that deals with Devil's let us. Okay, yeah,
this is I was calling you had snooky stories going on,
and I had one that's um that I've had when
I was younger. I might have been taking of the
Devil's Lettuce with some things of mine in a car

(27:00):
and I ended up seeing rs uh like thee a
little bars in the car. And when I missied that
to everyone, the god that was in the back seat said, oh,
is that right? Tell me what you see now? And
I swear what I saw was him owing a human

(27:21):
mask over space and he actually was a devon, so
that was a little scary. He got me out of
the car pretty quick. Anyways. That's always stump with me.
And I still could see in my mind right now,
that's uh, that's demon wearing a human masks. I think

(27:43):
somebody might have sprinkled a little of the Devil's PCP
on your Devil's lettuce or the Devil's something else. I
smoked big Devil's let us myself in my day. I
don't know they've ever experienced any like demonic um presentations
like that. That does sound scary. It's certainly put me
off my my Devil's lettuce. Well, it's um, I would

(28:11):
say personally as someone who has experienced the more psychedelic
side of that substance. Uh. Accidentally perhaps, Um, that's actually
the reason why I don't like it, um personally, just
that's just me. It affects some people very differently. And

(28:31):
the concept that that substance we're talking about cannabis, if
it could have someone seeing auras you know, right, the
energy essentially potentially that could be around some living thing
or even non living thing, and in this case also
allowing them to see through the veil too, you know,

(28:54):
this individual's true self. Mm hmm. I don't know, because
there's so many factors there. There's so many factors there. First,
you'd have to have somebody in the car with you
that is, in fact, a demon with a human face mask. Uh.
And you'd also have to be affected by cannabis in

(29:15):
a way that allows that. UM. I don't know a story.
You know, I was always teasing at the top of
the show, um, talking about it being laced or something
like that. But it's absolutely true that cannabis, especially nowadays,
you know the crazy strains that exist in like extracts
and you know, super super super potentum versions tinctures and

(29:35):
the like. Um, you can get a dose that will
absolutely almost have similar effects to say l S. D um.
And it made made me think of a tweet that
I saw referencing the Travis Scott um incident. I want
to read this to you. Um it was yeah, from
a Reddit group. Somebody reposted this tweet. Um it says

(29:58):
I was in the pit tripping apps lute nutsack watching
Travis Scott and truly believe Travis Scott is a demon
sent from Hell. I can't describe the evil and darkness
that possessed him. I first hand witnessed his evil spirits
passed to many of the fans at the concert. I
luckily got out before the darkness consumed me. I highly
suggest avoiding his concerts in the future. Jeez, I'm just saying.

(30:22):
I only reference that too, you know. And obviously Travis
Scott's getting right now. And I want to harken back
to the conversation we had around the astral World situation. Matt.
You were very even handed and coming in and saying, well,
sure Travis Scott may have a pat under this type
of behavior, and you know, there's a certain amount of
responsibility rests with him. But also there are protocols and

(30:44):
systems in place, you know, and then and he should
have been notified and told to stop the concert much
earlier than actually happened. So I heard NPR piece where,
you know, a music reporter was talking about not you know,
feeding into cancel culture and making it all about it's
all Travis's fault. But um, I understand the concept of
seeing through the veil and seeing someone's true colors when

(31:07):
you're under a certain substance, influence of a certain substance,
especially if things and situationally are veering in a direction
that perhaps is showing someone's true colors. Um it can
certainly manifest itself in that way. So there you go. Yeah,
well look I've been I'm waffling just so you know,

(31:29):
personally about that whole astro world situation and where because
you know, I'm not somebody who can sit here and
say who's to blame. But I I watched some more
videos of Travis Scott himself, how he's reacting to the
emergency situation that's developing, and it's not it's not great,

(31:51):
But I definitely do stand behind this concept that somebody
should have been on that stage, alerting him like in
his ear somehow that things need to calm down or stop.
It's it's funny. I actually saw a video not to
get too far off the top of the last thing,
because I don't know why I went down a rabbit
hole of watching like old Green Day live performance videos

(32:12):
because Billy Joe ms Strong is a little bit of
a diva and he kind of loses his temper sometimes
and like you know, does a little temper tantrum. Yestually
did one at one of the I Heeart Award events
or I Heart Music Festival events where they cut his
set short to make more time for Usher, who was
big at the time, and he lost his mind and
smashed the guitar. It was just cursing up a storm.
But I saw another event where he was playing in

(32:33):
Germany and they're playing and all of a sudden there
maybe it's in between songs, uh it is it's in
between songs, and all of a sudden, this German voice
comes on over the p A system and speaking in German,
and Billy joorms Strong was like, what the hell is like?
Looking around? We has no idea what's going on? Um?
And the German voice is saying, hey, everybody, I know
you're all here to have a good time, but there

(32:55):
was some motion going on in the first few rows,
and someone was injured, so please stopped doing that. Thank you. Um,
you know what I mean. And Billy Joe is not
happy about that. That seems like a very cultural thing.
I don't think they would ever do that in America. UM,
but I appreciate the bluntness and um safety first attitude
of that, you know what I mean, Like, like, who

(33:16):
cares about these diva artists? It's about the safety. And
I think a lot of times the reason they didn't
tell him is because they're afraid of losing their job.
They're afraid he would like freak out on them or something.
I think it's a culture within his team maybe or
within his crew, so I think even still, maybe the
onus is somewhat on him. Maybe he hasn't a you know,
a non approachable um attitude in that way, and people

(33:38):
are afraid of losing their job or getting nostracized because
nobody wants to jump the gun or call something like
that too soon, you know, and ask an artist to
stop a concert if it wasn't nearly as bad as
as as they thought. Nobody wants to be that person.
But at the end of the day, that has to
rest with somebody who isn't in the artist's entourage. I
completely agree. When when they're that number of people together,

(34:02):
it's just it's just way more dangerous than we imagine.
I want to really quickly stay on this for a second. Sorry,
corn Dog, we're moving away a little bit from your
message here. It's just I watched a video of an
Oasis concert from back in the day, and it was
a high camera looking down at the crowd and you

(34:23):
can watch the human beings move as a liquid essentially.
And on randomly on clubhouse, I was in a room
and there's a discussion about water and whether or not
water has some you know, water waters relationship with consciousness.

(34:45):
It's interesting conversations there. For for me personally, they're very
high level. It's not something that I necessarily believe, but
it is fascinating to think about. And for some reason
that conversation linked up with this vision of humans as
water module molecules essentially moving as a fluid. I don't

(35:09):
know if there's a connection there that I wonder if
anybody listening has any you know, thoughts on that or
insight into that, and just the makeup of the human body,
the special relationship that life has with hydrogen and oxygen
in that particular, you know, set up. I just finished
watching the Dune movie the other day. It took me

(35:32):
a couple of sittings. It's a little long. Uh. And
I will say I think that we are a little
bit at a disadvantage for having all of these first
run movies playing on demand. I do not think that
is the way of the artists intended, because it's so
easy to get distracted or watch them in like multiple sittings,
you know, or like look at your phone. I think
you really do to fully experience a piece of art
like that, be kind of a captive audience, like in

(35:53):
a in a theater where you are shamed if you
look at your phone. Um. But there is a part
near the end of the movie. This isn't spoiler. I'm
just gonna read the quote. Um. This is from Frank
Herbert's book and it's you Make Sense, And it reminded
me of that. Uh. This is the quote. A process
cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with
the flow of the process must join it and flow

(36:13):
with it. Um. That's sort of the idea of the
dynamics of consciousness as liquid or like as you know,
being part of like the flow of information and uh consciousness.
I think that is really interesting when when I heard
that in the in the movie, UM, it really kind
of perked my ears up. Dude, Oh man, I'm gonna
get so trippy with some of that stuff talking about

(36:34):
the flow of time and how we experience each individual moment,
but what we really experience is the perceived change between
two stag states. Right, yeah, exactly, Alright, guys, I amn't
had enough Devil's to let us for this conversation. UM,
let's let's take another quick break here we're from a sponsor,

(36:57):
and then we'll come right back with some more messages
from you, and we're back with more. Oh man, man,
I'm having such a good time. UM, just kind of
rattling through these. Uh, they're all so good, and you're right,
we don't get to get to nearly enough of these,

(37:17):
so it's nice to I don't know, I wonder if
we should maybe do this again. Um are we doing
all audio listener mail response episode? Um? But we have
one now coming from Chef Ben about an encounter at
a restaurant. Fellas, this is Chef Ben in Chicago. Got
a ghost story for you. So I'm not I'm not
much of a believer. I'm a little too pragmatic for

(37:38):
all of that kind of stuff. I kind of wish
I was. But I was working at a place in City, Michigan,
like fifteen years ago that we thought it was for
the tourists. Everybody said that this place was because it
was a fine dining restaurant B and B before, But
it has been like a big olden manor house before
the right. So after we closed up one day, I

(37:58):
was waiting for my at home, and I was standing
in the bar area. The whole back of the bar
was a big giant mirror, right and then all the
way to the right side of the bar was the
door that went back into the kitchen area. So I'm
standing there and to my left, reflected in the mirror,
I see a woman walking through the dining room behind me,

(38:19):
gray dress or light gray almost white dress. I turned
to my left and look because there wasn't supposed to
be anybody in there. All the servers were back in
the office doing their checkouts and such. I turned to
my left and look in the dining room is empty.
I looked back in the mirror, and she's continuing to
walk through the dining room. I froze at that moment.

(38:40):
I froze, and all I could do was watch this
woman walk behind me in the mirror to my right.
So she passes behind me, she walked to the right.
She gets in the mirror to the end of the
bar on the right where the door is that passes
through into the kitchen, and steps in to the door.

(39:01):
So I'm seeing a reflection in the mirror of nobody
behind me. And then she stepped to my view out
of the mirror and into that doorway and then just
walked back into the kitchen. Ah. I have never been
able to explain this, and because we all made fun

(39:23):
of the notion that it was haunted, because again, we
just placed that up for the tourists. I never told
anybody about that. But I'll be honest with you, you're
gonna have to beat me out here. Scar got of it,
and I went back in the kitchen and waited for
my ride and the kitchen rather than continuing to wait
in the bar. Thanks for your show it is my
daily commute companion and keep it up, thanks, Matt. I

(39:47):
have to say it's it's it's descriptions like this from
clearly intelligent, sharp, eloquent, and skeptical people, um that really
make me question whe their ghosts exist or not in
the positive direction, you know what I mean? Like this
is a guy describing something in such vivid detail who

(40:09):
is clearly not woo woo type dude um and is
coming at it like with his own internal skepticism, questioning himself.
But that's some specific details right there. I mean, Lord, yeah,
it is well and Chef ben I I worked at
a restaurant, big facility that had a bunch of different

(40:32):
bars in it, and one of them was called the
main bar. And it looks exactly the way you're describing
this place where you're working. Where the on the right
hand side, it's the way you get into the kitchen.
If you're facing the bar. Right behind the bar, it's
just a giant mirror. And it was an old establishment,
I think eighteen hundreds when it was built, and I

(40:54):
spent a lot of time, like after hours in that
bar area, you know, cleaning stuff up, making sure things
are ready. To go for the next service. And I
just have to say, I I got I get nervous
when I listen to that message because I can see
that happening. Even though I've never experienced it, I can
see I can fully imagine it because of the way

(41:15):
you described it, and as Noel said, you're describing it
very calmly, even though it did scare the f out
of you. Dude, I just want you to go back
there and just hang out of that bar, and I
I want to go too, because I want to take
all kinds of weird equipment and just record stuff. One
of those one those bank bank man thingies with the

(41:35):
antennas on the side, you know, Oh my gosh, Ben
Ben would go to town h on all of that. UM.
I don't know what else there is to say about
that one other than just hearing the story uh in
in your voice, Chef Ben. I think we're both very
taken by this um and definitely warrants further exploration. Go

(41:56):
check it out again, give us a follow up. We'd
love to hear more. This is what I want to
here from other people. Why would that apparition or whatever
it was that Chef Ben saw, Why would it only
be visible in the mirror through a reflection and not
you know, with his eyes as it's actually walking past.

(42:17):
Because if you can see it in the mirror, there's
a light in some way being reflected off of that
you know, character, that ghost, that woman whatever was, there's
light being reflected off of her that is visible in
the mirror, but it is not visible to his eyes
as she's walking past. I I'm perplexed by that. You

(42:38):
think about vampire legends or something where it's exactly it's
it's and oh man, I just I don't know enough
about it, you know, like that explanation, I don't know.
I mean to me, I've always described some kind of
mystical you know, um qualities to mirrors and prisms and
like the visible light spectrum, and you know, I mean

(43:00):
or there's science behind it, of course that describes the
phenomenon of what is happening when we see reflection, but
like you know, the infinity mirrors, when you have mirrors
reflecting against mirrors, I mean, to me, that's just like
mind bending lee cool psychedelic stuff. And to me, the
idea I actually just just googled ghost mirror or mirror
ghosts rather, and a bunch of stuff comes up. The

(43:20):
idea of haunted mirrors. Um. Of you know, mirrors are
often like a fixture in certain ghost stories or certain lore.
The idea of a black mirror, you know, or Ben
always talks about, you know what he's you know, say
my name in a mirror, you know, at midnight or whatever.
I mean, all of this stuff, like, there's a lot.
The idea of a mirror as a portal um is

(43:41):
a thing as well. Ghost portal mirror is a thing
on a ghost hunting wiki that I just found. Yeah,
I mean mirrors. Mirrors are trippy. You can scry in them,
put some black paint on them. It's all kinds of
fun things you can do with mirrors. Um. What I've
been told is that you never want to put two
mirrors facing each other directly like that. Um And and

(44:03):
of course people said, don't do that, So I guess
what I'm building right now. Anyway, It's fine that it's
super cool. I hear, that's the thing you're not really
supposed to do. And there's it's dangerous. I don't know
right right to us? What is that bad? It's that good? No? No, no,
what what? Whatever? All I know is like a buddy
of mine, friend of the show David Field. UM. Incredible

(44:26):
artists by the way, check out his photography work. UM.
He built this thing he called a tests or act
in this warehouse in New Jersey for this like project
that he's working on. UM. And it's literally a cube
composed of mirrored panels that you then sit in the
center of and it's like reflections upon reflections upon reflections

(44:48):
where you literally it's sort of like those Cusama Infinity
mirrors exhibits that they're the one that's like the travels
and so popular with the pumpkins and stuff. It's a
very small space, but when you do that, it creates
the illusion of massive scale just going on into eternity. UM.
And to me that's magic, oh totally. Well. And if

(45:09):
it is, by the way, a really old building, like
what if that mirror really is the original, one of
the original mirrors or something right that's been around for
ages and ages and somehow through whatever system magic whatever
it is, has the memory of that woman walking through

(45:34):
that bar, either a bunch of times or one very
important time. I don't know. It's a little out of
my range of like being able to think about it,
but I want to think about it, so again, right
to us, tell us what you think about this stuff,
or leave a voicemail. That's what we're gonna tell you
how to do that in just a minute after we
hear one more message. You ready for this? Yes, Sarah,

(45:58):
I guess I was just listening to one of your
recent listener on L episodes and you're talking about cartels,
and I just made me think about kind of unofficial
like mini cartel today. I don't know if you'd call
it a cartel. I guess they'll let's see you guys decide.
But I was kind of involved in so um you
guys a video games online video games or as the

(46:20):
sports to the very competitive market and there's you know,
millions and millions of people playing his games to try to,
you know, get up in the ranks. So what I
was a part of was one of those third party
groups who would connect to you, the casual player to
these pro players where they're officially sponsored pros or if

(46:43):
they were still upper ninetieth percentile players who are he's
still competing at that pro level, just not on a
sponsored team, And what we would do is offer services
um too, you know, whether it's the level your character
gets you specific high end gear for the game, you know,
boost your ranks, basically carry you through the content for

(47:08):
a price. Um. And those prices were determined by our
third party group. And once we started getting a lot
of money coming in, because you know, time is money,
people would rather pay a handful of cash to get
death service down and set us spending you know, ten

(47:28):
hours a day trying to grind it us themselves. So
more and more groups started catching on the third party groups,
and um, what would happen was the price that drive down. Uh,
we were just competing against each other to protect driving
the price down. So they decided to come up with
a little mini cartel where the majority of probably seventy
of third party groups would fan together to just set

(47:52):
these prices and not compete on the prices together. So
they've maintain it as much as we can, keep it
as high, keep for profits of go from there. But
I don't know if anyone has ever mentioned this, but
it's just a little thing that's kind of behind the
curtain and all these video games, um, this one specifically,
but it's one game we're probably flowing around fifty five

(48:14):
thousand usc uh per month. So it's a reasonable business
out there that not many people talk about. So it's
one of the toss that do you guys and kind
of take it as you may. Thanks, feel free to
reach out if you need to any questions about it.

(48:35):
I'm more than we willing to offer more details. Thanks.
By interesting right. Uh, you know this reminds me of
matt Is, like things like gold farming, you know, or
like uh where people you know will sell gold you
know in like um World of Warcraft or whatever like
bill a massive and then like sell it to others.

(48:56):
Isn't that a thing? Oh? Yeah, that's definitely a thing.
I've really wish I knew more about which game or
even type of game. Uh, this anonymous person is working
on it. Thank you by the way for sending us
that message. Is fascinating stuff and I never thought about
how widespread that practices. Having some third party company that

(49:20):
will I guess gain access to your character and whatever
video game you're playing and level that character up a
mass as you said, resources and other things other items
that you may need if you want to compete in
the whatever p VP player versus player situation that game
offers and just the concept that several of these third
party groups or companies would get together and say, oh,

(49:43):
we're we're going to set the prices so we can
all stay in business. That's a very logical thing to do.
You know, I don't know legal side of price fixing
in the arena, but that's my question, Matt, And that
was my question. You know, in the the Phoebus cartel situation,
like a cartel is called a cartel for a reason.

(50:05):
A monopoly is called monopoly for a reason. But in
my mind have a hard time differentiating between the two,
and it almost seems like both are kind of considered bad,
right I mean, I guess yeah. I mean we think
of cartel in terms of drug cartels, which inherently is bad.
But a cartel in and of itself isn't bad and
that's legal, whereas monopoly is not. Right, It's not that simple,

(50:25):
is it. You know, it's not. A monopoly would be
one group, one actual entity, right, that is the controlling
the soul controlling factor that is allowed, like ill able
to fix prices in that kind of thing. But they're
the monolithic one, right. A cartel is at least in
the way this one is being described. It's a group

(50:47):
of different companies that each have their own income right
their own profits, and they operate individually, and they are
coming together around a table and saying, Okay, if everybody,
I'm going to charge X amount for you know, ten levels,
you're going to charge that amount. You're going to charge
that amount. We're all going to get the same you know,

(51:09):
potential business. Hopefully we can maintain the business that we
already have and get more business. But not one of
us is going to profit solely because we're that person
is lowering their prices below all of the other ones.
So it's more like an olagoppoly then an olagopoly where
there's like a handful of sellers that could let uh

(51:29):
participate together for the greater good of all um and
they you know, sort of pool their resources and set
prices that they all can succeed. Yeah, and it's not
easy to get into that kind of group. You have
to really like be an established force. You can't just
like ask to be a me a member. You kind
of have to be asked to be a member. Yeah,

(51:50):
it is like being led into a private secret club.
If you are going to collectively make the decision to
fix prices, because again, I don't know the league reality
of it feels feels like it might be not the
best thing to be talking about openly. Um, But who

(52:11):
knows right to us if you have any you know,
insight into that stuff. And I can't remember our honestly,
I can't remember our past discussions about the ins and
outs of the legality of cartelly because I mean, you know,
in the United States, price fixing is illegal. That practice
is illegal. So oligopoly involves price fixing essentially agreeing to

(52:37):
set a cap, you know, to have like an arrangement.
You're supposed to let the market forces sort that stuff
out right, the free market economy. But if you have
forces outside of the market that I'm manipulating the market,
then that's illegal. It is, wouldn't you say? Maybe I
don't know. I just don't know. I'm not an attorney, Okay,

(52:58):
I don't know. I don't and understand. All I know
is that whoever that anonymous person is, uh, whoever you are,
we appreciate you telling us that story because that's fascinating.
And now I just want to, like, I don't know,
I need to put some money away to level up
a character on some game. I just have to figure
out which game it should be. If you're listening out there,

(53:19):
which game should we be trying to play on a
professional level, because whatever that is, we'll just get our
characters level up. And you know, I didn't even know
you could do that. Yeah, I'm good in terms of
professional level. I am finally about I think about maybe
a little over the halfway point of Last of Us too.
I finally got good enough at it where it wasn't
just bumming me out getting my throat ripped out every

(53:41):
five seconds, because the death scenes in that game are
so brutal that it really makes you not want to
keep playing it if you keep dying repeatedly because they
change every time, and it's like you go from getting
your head smash it my hammer to get in your
guts torn out. And I finally have like gotten really
good at the stealth aspects of it. And so I
know it's really divisive game because there's some choices they

(54:01):
made with the plot, but I think it's brilliant. I
really have been enjoying it a lot. I'm enjoying is
a strong word for what is ultimately a very stressful experience.
But that's what I'm playing right now. How about you, Matt,
I'm not really playing much but Magic the Gathering Arena.
I've been playing that a lot as we're recording this.
There's a new set of MTG coming out, and my

(54:24):
our good buddy Wayne the former security guard. Now I
t I can't remember exactly what your position is, Wayne,
but he he reminded me through voicemail that there's a
brand new set coming out having to do with the
vampires and I believe a wedding. But yeah, MTG and Minecraft, buddy,
that's all that's on my list. I need to get

(54:44):
into something competitive, so let me know what I should
be playing, please, So hey, let us know what are
y'all playing. I am personally excited about this new Radiohead
game that's coming out for Yeah. It's like, you know,
they've got this reissue of Amnesiac and kid A called
kid am Easier. That's like, you know, got a bunch
of extra bonus stuff and outtakes and things. But they

(55:05):
made this very trippy looking game for PS five um
called the kid Amnesia Exhibition. It's also on Mac and PC.
It looks super trippy and interesting. Uh, definitely interested in
checking that one out. But um, yeah, no, I will
look at that for sure. I know I'm gonna play Horizon.
Whatever the next one is, there's a new one. I
never finished Zero. Don I need to that. That one

(55:27):
was pretty tricky too, with the stealth and stuff and
all the weird mechanical animals that you had to kill
with your bow and arrow. Great, beautiful, beautif beautiful game,
cool story, great, great main character loved it. Uh alright,
so thank you so much to Jackie, Matt, Johnny Logic,
anonymous n S A signals intelligence person, whoever you are.

(55:51):
Actually I know who you are, we just kept it
out of this episode. Corn Dog chef Ben, and anonymous
video game level upper maker of lots of money apparently
industry that I want to get in. Hey, uh send
a shout out. I want to know, like, could I
do that in my spare time? Could I do that

(56:12):
at night? Let me know, I'll take a job. Let's
do it. So if you want to be like all
of these awesome people, please let us know what you think.
You can find us on social media on Facebook and
on Twitter, we are conspiracy stuff. Also on YouTube conspiracy stuff.
You can find us on Instagram where we are Conspiracy

(56:34):
Stuff show. And if you want to do exactly what
everybody else did on this episode, you can give us
a call. That's right. You can call us using a
telephone at one three S T D W y T K.
Leave a message at the sound of Ben's dulcet tone,
and um, let us know what to call you. Give
yourself a nickname, a first name, anonymous, whatever we will.

(56:54):
We will follow your lead and then you yes, you
might end up on one of these listener mail episodes.
And please, when you do leave a message, let us
know if we can use your name whatever it is
and your message on the air. That's very very helpful
to us. And if you don't want to do any
of that stuff, not into the social media, not into
using telephones, hey, that's fine. We've got another way you

(57:15):
can get to us. You can send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart radio
dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is

(57:40):
a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.