Rolls Royce is considering using nuclear power to mine the moon. A Singaporean academy comes under fire for hiring clowns to promote classes to children. Mining companies are intent on plumbing the seabed for new resources, but critics fear it will lead to disaster. All this and more in this week's Strange News.
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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 My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. We have emerged
from the weekend relatively unscathed. Longtime listeners, you know the drill,
(00:48):
which will be some terrible word play for today's show,
and we we have returned from the civilized world here
to the wilderness of the Internet to present what we
call strange news. Today. We're talking about space. Today, we're
talking about some very creepy clowns, and we're talking about mining.
(01:14):
We're on the edge of some very very strange things. Now,
no Matt, before we begin today, I always wanted to
ask you guys, because you know, we've known each other
forever at this point, and you all know that I
used to do that car show for a long long time.
Did you ever like anytime childhood adulthood. Do you ever
water Rolls Royce or did you have a ride on one?
(01:37):
Do you ever see one that's the one with like
the white tires, right, that's like a feature of old
Rolls Royces. If I'm not mistaken, they have like these
white tire walls that kind of have to be kept
really pristinely clean. Some yeah, some, some Rolls Royces do
have white wall tires U yeah, yeah, and those. It's
(01:58):
funny that you mentioned that, because so much about Rolls
Royce has always seemed to me meant to be purposely inconvenient.
It's kind of a flex right, Like ILike these peasants,
I don't have to worry about cleaning this. The the
footman does it. The wheelman really really cool hood ornament
on the rolls. It's like a winged kind of creature.
(02:20):
If I'm not mistaken, I guess I don't know that
they're They're probably only cars around still today that still
kind of looked like old timey cars. They have those
really cool like wheel wells and almost have like the
model T kind of like classic vibes. So I definitely
appreciate them aesthetically, But now I don't even think they're
even as fashionable as they used to be. Even in
like pop culture, people are more talking about like Bentley's
(02:42):
and Bugatti's than they are Roleses and the and the Maza. Yeah, yeah,
I I guess what I wanted to bring up is
that it did seem like a car that you, as
the purchaser, didn't really drive. It was driven generally, at
least in pop culture, by somebody else. You're just a
passenger in the back. And that's what all of the
luxurious things that existed in the car before, for you
(03:04):
to sit in the back and enjoy those well other
people did you know, the stuff like getting you from
place to place and keeping you safely alive. It's really
named Jeeves, well, Jesus the butler stereotypically name what's the
stereotypical driver name, Charles? It might be last name, I
don't know. Perhaps there we go and Hedges read and shotgun. Remember, yeah,
(03:27):
we talked about that with our buddy Nick the other night.
Remember that commercial, the Great Poopom commercial where they pull
up alongside the fancy you know, I think it's a
Rose Royce and pardon me, do you have any great poupon. Yeah,
that is the image I always associated with that level
of opulence and the spirit of ecstasy, which is the
name for that hood ornament. That sculpture is also synonymous
(03:49):
often with just disgusting luxury. And Matt you made a
fantastic point about how the idea of these vehicles was
one of um kind of detachment from the road. It
was very much a carriage, right, and the back seat
was you can see this sometimes in may box now
as well. The back seat was like it's an isolated
(04:11):
first class cabin. Uh. Rolls Royce is still around. One time,
in a burst of still informed impulsiveness, I actually got
kind of close to buying a used Rolls Royce and
we told you guys this because it's a it's a
story where I don't look particularly good. Luckily we had
(04:34):
our old pal Scott Benjamin there to talk me off
the ledge. Uh. This was a former I highly suspect
it was a former drug dealers car. Uh. It was.
It was all white on an all custom red white leather.
It had this just egregious bright red shag carpet like
so read that I could see it read shag carpet,
(04:56):
and the and the guy, the guy who was Sally.
It was that this car show and didn't I want
to answer any questions about where the car came from
or how he got it, and uh yeah, and you know,
anchoring is a real thing in psychology, so I was
I was very lucky to have someone there to say, look, no,
(05:17):
this many thousands dollars just sounds like less than it
actually is, because you're seeing it in comparison to like
Lamborghini or something super fancy like it never uh that
would never buy anyway. So so we know Rolls Royce,
we've all three associated it with opulence, maybe a little
bit of a taste of a bygone era, maybe a
(05:37):
little bit of a taste of old money. But Rolls
Royce is doing something pretty futuristic now. We talked about
it a little bit off air. Although this British auto
maker is known primarily for you know, automobiles, that's actually
a division called Rules Royce Motors. Rolls Royce is into
(06:00):
a lot of things, marine operations, they're into controls and
data services, and they're also they've been in the new
game for a while, just not like this. They recently
announced that they are getting into the nuclear reactor game
just kind of surprising. Hold on saying, I just want
(06:22):
to point this out. Another thing that Rolls Royce has
done to pop culture is being an expression like, oh,
that's the Rolls Royce of Whatever's So, now, when you
say that's the Rolls Royce of nuclear reactors, you can
actually be referring to a nuclear reactor manufactured by Rolls Royce.
That's a that's a good point. Yeah, yeah you could.
So they have been working with the United Kingdom Space
(06:44):
Agency on a pretty nuts plan, and we're gonna we're
gonna learn some really weird stuff about this plan. Their
idea is they could build a micro nuclear reactor that
would allow them to launch rockets at a very high
speed in space, and then from there they could maybe
(07:06):
use some of the same technology to reach the Moon.
So Rolls Royce gets on the Moon and then mine it,
dock atit, me here mind the ship out of it.
And this is like, have you ever looked at the
Moon and thought, Wow, what an investment opportunity. I don't
think a lot of people. I would like to think
(07:26):
a lot of people have not. But this this is strange.
We talked about it in the past. I believe we
did an episode on the old plan during the Cold War,
right to nuke the Moon. If you guys remember that one,
that's right as a weird mike. It was more of
a Cold War tactic, right, It was like, we're gonna
(07:46):
do this, it's a threat, you know, and they resually
followed through with it. It was meant to be a
show of force. If I'm not mistaken, Yeah, it was
definitely a flex. It's known as Project A one one
nine and it was developed in the late nineteen fifties.
The idea was that you would detonate, you being the
US Air Force, would detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon,
(08:08):
and then you would say, well, we're it's gonna help
us understand more about astro geology and planetary astronomy. But
the other side of that, since this was the Cold War,
was obviously a show of force to the USSR, like
look what we could do to the Moon. How I
feel I feel over in Moscow? So now we see
(08:28):
the and this also, by the way, we talked about
this off air. That's also inspired wonderful sketch by the
good folks over at MR Show, which was about blowing
up the Moon that is I suspect based on this
Cold War project. As far as Rules Royce's plan, well,
it sounds crazy, but they're not. They're not coming up
(08:51):
with this idea out of whole cloth. It turns out
that a lot of people have been thinking about mining
the Moon for for some time, and I believe we've
talked about this a little bit in the past. Right, Yeah,
I'm ben. I gotta say, I'm looking at some of
the materials here. I did not know Rolls Royce had
(09:11):
a defense division. Oh yeah, what I said. They're mostly
known for cars. Yeah, it's sort of like Westinghouse, I
mean speaking of reactors. Like Westinghouse builds reactors. They also
make TVs and microwaves and refrigerators and stuff. So I mean, yeah,
what this is news to me about Rolls Royce that
I did not realize they were dipping their toes into
(09:32):
into those scarier parts of the manufacturing world. Well, they've also,
you know, to be fair, even working with the United
Kingdom to develop nuclear arms submarines. They also helped maintain
the existing fleet of what are called Vanguard class nuclear
subs in the UK. Their their company that does more
(09:53):
interesting stuff than just super fancy pants cars. Uh. But
in situation that we're talking about what you could mine
on the moon, there's there's a little bit of coin
to be made. The moon contains metals like iron, titanium, aluminum, magnesium.
(10:15):
And because the Moon is not subject to claims of sovereignty,
this means that, uh, the legality of whether to do
this is still kind of up in the air. What
are people gonna do? Go to the moon and stop you?
But doesn't that make it like a diplomatic nightmare? And
(10:36):
and and and once you get get see you get
there first, then somebody else gets there? How do you?
Isn't isn't that just like doesn't that become like a
turf war at that point if no one actually has
any like boundaries around any of the stuff, it can Yeah,
that situation will inevitably come to a point of profit
sharing and then a little bit of quip pro que
(10:57):
horse trading. Uh. Since Oles Royce has been in the
nuclear game as far as subs are concerned for sixty
years or more, the the ideas that it's not a
huge lead for them to go into space because you know,
as as we'll find, as we'll find later in today's show, Actually,
(11:17):
building stuff that allows people to survive underwater at depth
has a lot in common with building stuff that allows
people to survive in space. You know, think about a submarine.
The air has to be recycled, there has to be
a consistent source of food and energy. These are things
that have a lot in common with the challenges of
(11:40):
building human almost said, infested, human occupied spacecraft. So the
question here, really, I think to the point about diplomatic
diplomatic disaster is a question and cost benefit because right
now there is a huge shortage of what are called
(12:00):
rare earth metals on this planet. They could be found
on other planets, they could be found on the Moon.
And in a typical show of panash, Dave Gordon Matt
He's the head of the Rules Royce Defense Division. They
mentioned earlier, Dave Gordon doesn't want to stop at the Moon, folks,
conspiracy realist. Dave Gordon's the type of guy would say,
(12:22):
why stop at the Moon. Let's go to Mars. You
know what I mean, Let's get some let's get some
nuclear mining up on Mars. Let's see what happens. Carpet
d m you don't want to go to Mars man,
there's ghosts there. Well, you know what for my money,
the tax prayer guy over here, just like everybody on
this call. Okay, nice flex, I'm working on it. You
(12:45):
pay those YEA believe for you. Wow. I will say
it was one time in my life where I was
a good three years behind in taxes. That has never
happened against since. And I of every day and fear
of the I r s knocking on my door, but
seems to have passed. But yeah, good job. Side note,
(13:08):
side note map before he continue. Um, the US tax system,
whether by design or incompetence, disproportionately targets the vulnerable. I
think that is quite clear. And that's not political point either.
It doesn't. It doesn't matter who's in office, who is
most likely to get audited. It's just more expensive for
the I r s to go after the people they
(13:29):
should be pursuing. Greed. You're right ability to like fight back, yes, exactly,
in good job, keeping all of that quiet and all
best of luck to you in the future. So my
whole point of saying I'm a taxpayer is that yes
mine mind Mars. All you want, please to your heart's content,
(13:50):
companies go to Mars mind it bring back resources from Mars. Please,
please don't mind all of the heavy metals out of
you know, the Moon that is locked in orbit with
our planet. That, yeah, that is so you know, important
for the tides and all the things that give life
on this planet. Please, for the love of whatever whatever
(14:13):
you insert there, mind Mars, please not the Moon. I mean,
I imagine we're doing a ps like there's a p
s A. We need to say it here. You know,
you'll want to look back on this period of time
and think I could have saved the last werewolves, but
instead I was super I was super into destroying the Moon.
(14:34):
And this is you know, this is a serious well
you know something like that. This is this is a
serious cause. Uh you you do make an excellent point, right,
and we know that just based on the rough cocktail
Napkin math, it's highly unlikely that somebody would very quickly
(14:56):
extract so many resources from our planet Harry sidekick from
the lunar robin to Earth's Batman. It's unlikely that it
would immediately drain so much mass as to affect the gravity.
But also we don't we don't really know. No one
has ever as far as humans know, now successfully mind
(15:20):
the moon. Right, A couple of people showed up there,
they played golf, they put some flags on it. As
nor McDonald pointed out, there was one guy who got
all the way up to the moon and then had
to stay inside and watch the other dudes, you know,
cavorta rounds. I mean, they're just the last thing been
here is that. I agree with you, that's not going
to happen immediately. But we know what industry does. If
(15:41):
it's lucrative, and we've got all these companies that are
vying for the ability to go up there and mind
minerals and have access to those, we can see how
it will Expand we're not talking immediately. We're talking about
years from now. The good thing is we can just
send our trash up there to the Moon to replace
all of the all of the mass it we're taking
in the form of helement. Alright, you know how much
(16:04):
stuff is out in orbit this and for any other
civilization passing by Earth, this planet looks like the bad
house in the neighborhood, you know, with a bunch of junk. Yeah,
like the equipped all those dead satellites, all that. To
try this, it's the equivalent of having like an old
and not a rules Royce, but you know, like an
(16:26):
old Honda up on the bricks just gathering. Does It
does make me think of like how you know, in
some like far to medium future when this is happening,
like it would probably change physically, like the way the
moon looks, you know from Earth um and and that's
the kind of thing you think of in like sci
fi or whatever, like anime. I always think of the
(16:48):
show The Tick where one of the ticks, Nemeses I
believe his name was chair face uh tries to write
his name on the moon but only gets like a
couple of letters in so stead of a running gag
if out the course of the show, the moon just
says c H on it or c h A or
something like that. But yeah, if there were mining operations
like of scale and and all of the stuff that
(17:09):
you're talking about, maybe you know, trash or whatever. I
can't imagine that it wouldn't change physically the way the
moon looks, and that would kind of be sad. But
I guess, you know, maybe worthwhile because we are in
a situation where there's a shortage of all like you said, Ben,
all of those rare Earth minerals that go into making microchips,
and you know a lot of the processing um components
(17:30):
that we need for computer systems and car um navigation
systems and all of that stuff. So having other options
would certainly be nice. But I think a big slow
down too has had to do with shipping. So wouldn't
it be prohibitively expensive to mind stuff on the Moon
and then ship it back to the Earth. Certainly would
cost a hell of a lot more than getting it
from you know, China or the other side of the planet,
(17:52):
right or no? Am I am I overthinking this? Well,
it depends on how much the cost is. There is
one thing for sure though, Rolls, Royce and the UK
are not the only players in this field. They are
actually in a bit of a competition to see who
can get their first. NASA recently gave a team of
(18:12):
researchers at University of Arizona half a million dollar grant
to develop new methods for mining asteroids and space. Also,
there are other their private companies like Honeybee Robotics, Mass
and Space Systems, Lunar Outposts, lasting especially Creative, who are
all trying to figure out those three in particular, trying
(18:32):
to figure out how to mine water ice from the
Moon using rockets, and their goal is to start doing
this by three, which if you're listening to this the
day it comes out, it's not that far away. If
you're listening to this after, send us an email, drop
us a line conspiracy die heart radio dot com and
let us know if it actually worked, because I would
(18:54):
love to hear about it. It's important you're talking about
their mining that delicious frozen treat. Let's popular in Philadelphia
water ice. Yeah, that's why water ice is primarily originally
located in Philadelphia. That's where the first lunar rock hit
that contained water ice and all of the flavors, all
of the flavors. Uh so except no substitutions. We're gonna
(19:15):
move on. The last thing will say, even though this
is an exciting, scary time, and I think this could
be a full episode as we see people get closer
to becoming the next subject of Ozamandius poem. Uh is
that people like Peter Diamandous, Neil Degras Tyson, and even
the financial firm Goldman Sachs have all at some point
(19:38):
predicted that the world's first living trillionaires kind of people
who would put uh, who would make Jeff Bezos look
like a pauper. In comparison, the first trillionaires will be
the people who make their fortune in asteroid mining. The
future is still a little far off as we record,
but we're gonna keep an eye on this. I think
(19:59):
this is an excellent episode for the future. For now,
we're gonna pause. If you're listening at night and got
a clear view of this guy, go ahead and just
should a glance up at the moon while it's the
way you remember it. We'll be right back, and we're
(20:22):
back with more strange news. It is the season there,
our favorite time of the year, approaching Halloween, or at
least you know, if you go in the grocery stores,
you would think it was like literally tomorrow with the
smell of cinnamon brooms and you know tiny uh, you know,
decorative skulls and spooky things to put all around your house.
My kid loves it too. I think we're all on
the same page there. But um, I got a bit
(20:45):
of a halloweeny story today. Do you guys remember those
rash A little rash of like clown pranks or maybe
there were there was like a whole story around like
people kind of coming at people and clown costumes and
like you know, and more than just pranked territory. It
almost felt like it was like an epidemic of some kind, right,
(21:06):
clown sightings. We did an episode on it. I think
that's right. It was then they did, but they were
already there, um and there there's still they're still around.
Clowns definitely get a bad rap, um, if I'm not mistaken.
Sixteen was also when the first movie came out, so
there was some kind of speculation that maybe it was
(21:27):
like viral marketing for the movie. They didn't do some
of that, but there was certainly some unrelated cases. Um.
But now it is twenty one and the clowns are back,
or at least that's what people were thinking, um in Singapore,
no less. Um. So it appears that there had been
sightings all around the Singapore of somebody dressed in a
(21:49):
clown conspicuously hanging out outside of like elementary schools, um,
which doesn't creepy at all. Right, Um, and it caused
quite a bit of chaos, and we'll walk through the
whole thing. Vice World News reported on this initially that's
where I found it. Uh. And they spoke to someone
(22:09):
named Lean Wong, who is the mother of a school
aged young lady named Ann um. And she went to
pick her daughter from school and got all these alarmed
texts from other parents that the police had put out
an a p B on a person or person's dressed
as clowns seen loitering around primary schools. UM. And she
(22:32):
kind of freaks out a little bit because she's running
late h and she doesn't see her daughter anywhere. UM
when her car pulls up to the you know, the
car pool line. So she's freaking out. She's seen all
these texts she's telling this device. Um. She checked her
phone and open Facebook, did all of the kind of
scans of social media posts um, and start seeing in
these parenting groups that she's a member of, pictures of
(22:55):
these different men dressed up as clowns that are approaching
children outside of the school. Um. And some of the
message claimed that the clowns were paid to literally stalk children,
like follow them around. UM. And there's a really great
quote here she says. Wong says clowns are terrifying even
to adults. This is any parents worst fear. What if
(23:18):
they turned out to be psychopaths and murderers wanting to
harm children. Um. There was also a bit of kind
of another story, um that that maybe caused some of
this panic to escalate. Apparently there I mean, we've talked
about this, how there's almost no gun violence in Asia, um,
but oftentimes when there are killings, they involve you know,
(23:43):
knives or blades of some sort of stabbings, you know,
and they can be very very grizzly. And apparently there
was such an incident at a nearby school in July
where a thirteen year old was allegedly killed by another
student using an axe. So that's a whole other story.
So a bit of tention already in the air because
of this. So the Singers Singapore Police say they had
(24:04):
gotten on these reports of these clown sightings. Um. There
are some images that you can find screenshots of a
kind of a tall man wearing a plaid shirt, UM,
wearing a clown makeup and they're not a mask with
like painted clown face, clown nose and kind of have
headcock to the side and wearing this like weird, tall,
goofy kind of felt looking top hat. Um. And here
(24:26):
here's the twist, guys. So it turns out there's this
private education center called Speech Academy Asia, and this was
them running what they thought was a very clever marketing.
Uh what do you call it? Stunt? I guess I
don't know. Maybe it's like, don't be a clown, learn
how to speak publicly. I'm just you know, kind of
(24:46):
uh editorializing what their slogan might have been, or what
the hell they were thinking. But uh, their director, a
guy named Kevin tan Um, came out made a statement
to a news organization called Rates Times um and cop
to this and said, there was no evil intention behind
the costumes and we sincerely apologize for it. We will
(25:07):
not do it again. Um, and then went on to
say that their employees did not offer any form of
monetary rewards for children to follow them and did not
take any children out of the vicinity few. Uh what
do you guys think? Sounds like someone someone working at
the school, Uh has it off the book's personal relationship
(25:32):
with the clown company and we're trying to make some bucks.
I saw the Facebook, the Facebook comments. Um, that was
where I think that original statement was posted from Speech Academy.
They're really interesting because because people did not react well.
I think, you know, especially in these troubled times, but
in general, if you were a parent, you want you
(25:55):
want one big thing, predictable safety for your kids, right,
especially when you're not around, which means that which is
part of the reason why parents have to sign off
on field trips, even if they seem relatively innocuous. Right,
That's why things like career day get announced. Um, and
I I understand, you know, between between us, between those
(26:18):
of us recording here to stuff and what you know,
we have educators in our past, some of us have kids,
and this this just seems I think what's missing for
me here, no, Matt, is that I don't understand what
what exactly the enrichment would be. Was it just a
misstep to say, like, hey, I think kids will enjoy clowns,
(26:43):
even though for a lot of the world in a
post John Wayne gaycy environment, clowns are synonymous with sinister
motives and creepiness. I I don't know. That's the thing
I don't understand. And this doesn't mean the motivation does
and exist, I just I don't understand the dots, Like
why wouldn't you just get like a magician or someone
(27:05):
who makes balloons, or what's another thing, kids like somebody
dressed up as a popular cartoon character, you know what
I mean, trends who do the Yeah, I get friends
who do the wh who are parts of companies where
they regularly go to children's parties dressed as you know,
uh or acting as like Elsa or Pocahuntas or Cinderella
(27:29):
or whatever you And it's a good business. It's really wholesome,
we agree, But I think it's less about the costume.
That's certainly part of it, and let's allowed it to
kind of rock it to such a you know, fever
pitch nationally because of exactly that it's approaching Halloween. It
makes for a good quick baby headline. And you know,
we think clowns are freaky, which is a problem for
people that are professional clowns. I mean, their reputation as
(27:52):
like a wholesome form of entertainment has really been sullied
over the years because of things like Stephen King's It
and John Wayne Gacy and just the idea of the
creepy clown. But I just think any adult in a
costume hanging around primary schools trying to pass out flyers
too small children is ill advised. And and oh my god, Ben,
(28:13):
you mentioned the Facebook group. Now you gotta check this
set to if you just type in a speech Academy
Asia Facebook. I mean they are just getting shreded. It's
like literally unrelated any of this. They're talking about their
COVID protocols. And please beat me on this, Alexa, but
I gotta do it. One um comment or just goes.
Stop your stupid clowns loitering outside primary schools. Another one,
(28:35):
stop clowning around and play praying on our children. You
call yourself an educational consultant, How much do you understand
about children and the parents needs. Smack yourself for approving
and conducting such marketing campaign. I regret sending my child
to your center. Waste of money. And all of their
responses are so like by the book, it's like, hello,
use her name. Thank you for your feedback. We understand
(28:57):
parents concerns for the safety and well being of their children.
Please is do allow us to apologize for the inconvenience,
cause our team is currently in the midst of discussion
to rectify this. I think the damage has been done, y'all.
I don't know I feel kind of bad. I mean,
it seems like they had the best intentions at heart,
but such a bone headed move. Clown costume or no,
just any weird adult hanging out outside of the school.
(29:20):
It's interesting that they're also um it's interesting that one
point of contention became the idea that the adults stressed
as clowns might be paying children to follow them around,
because that, honestly, that just gives us an excuse to
talk about one of the most disturbing fairy tales in
(29:43):
my opinion, which is The Pied Piper of Hamlin if
you guys remember that way. First all, all fairy tales
are super dark if you read the original versions. But
the thing about the pie Piper of Hamlin is that
there's been some research into what the truth of that,
(30:06):
what the origin point of that folklore could be. And
I wonder if that if if people in Singapore of parents,
I wonder if any of them thought, are they recreating
a pipe piper situation? Are they trying to? And then
also also there's just something creepy in general, I think
about adults, especially strangers, giving children money without their parents knowledge.
(30:32):
That sounds like a big Matt I think you would
call that a no no oh, yeah, the following was
an aspect of it. Guys, Is that what your your
interpretation has been? There they're saying they weren't paying kids
to follow them, but they were, so I mean, I
don't know, Like I definitely after reading all these reviews,
in these comments, you do start to see things get
(30:52):
blown wildly out of proportion. I mean, again, this was
absolutely stupid and ill advised. But I don't know that
the people were trying to lure the children anywhere, right
like that that's the pot that But I don't know.
I don't know what people experienced, but I'm not seeing
that anywhere like actually happening. I'm hearing that's exactly right
(31:14):
in the room. Right again, We've we've all, we're all
creatures of the internet. We know how quickly, you know,
people love a villain, people love to tear something down
on the internet. If you start to read these comments,
they start to piggyback on each other and escalate and
escalate and escalate, um and and and before you know it,
you know, it's that game a telephone we're always talking about.
And who knows where the truth actually lies? Um So,
(31:36):
I feel bad for the company kind of because it
seems like they certainly weren't out there to do any harm.
But it's also like dangerous when you're marketing directly to children,
because it's it could be misinterpreted, especially if your trust
is it as a creepy clown outside of elementary school
when there was a you know, ax murder earlier in
(31:56):
the year. Right, that's the part that seems what a
PR firm call it bad optics, you know. Um, I
just still like, I'm thinking of all the other things
that you could possibly do to promote enrichment and promote speech,
to promote the speech and enrichment classes. Maybe speech and
(32:19):
enrichment is kind of a and we don't know this,
I think at least we don't know this yet, but
maybe the speech enrichment classes are kind of like drama
classes or performance classes. And the logic was maybe that
we're getting performers to show these kids and then maybe
they can take, uh, maybe they can take something like
(32:41):
a clown or circus act related classes. Because I can't
remember if we mentioned which show we mentioned this on,
but there are really prestigious clown schools in Emily and
in parts of Europe and it very much is a
respected art form. Um. This is just this is not
the look there. There are tons of things and this
(33:01):
one is not. It agreed, Oh yeah, I agree, Ben.
I just want to say on that Facebook page you
can see an interview with one of the people who
was involved in the viral photo that went around, the
one that sparked all the outrage from the parents. Uh.
It is a very sweet little interview. I haven't watched
it all yet, but it's a person just explaining what
was happening. Uh. It feels very very innocent to me,
(33:25):
but again, who knows. Oh, I'm with you, Matt, and
I think really the takeaway from the story is just
how that kind of stuff can just really balloon out
of control when people start like you know, looking for
someone to blame and uh and creating scenarios maybe did
never really exist. But again, bone headed move on the
part of this company. Um ill advised, but not not
(33:47):
necessarily ill intentions at all. So with that, I think
we can we can pop to a quick break and
then we'll be back with one more bit of strange news.
And we've returned already. I mean, we didn't know I
don't think anybody had time to put on their clown
(34:08):
makeup you're talking about. I wear mine all the time.
It's just how I exist. Well, I apologize everyone. Uh,
let's take another break so we can all get our
clown makeup on. Okay, Okay, now we're ready. Okay. So
we're going to dovetail off of Ben's story from this week,
where Rolls Royce wants to mind the Moon, and we're
(34:31):
going to discuss a company that wants to mine deep
deep within the ocean, so deep within the ocean, down
to the abistle plane and beyond. For me personally, it
is a very frightening concept, and I'm having visions of
(34:52):
terrible things happening in the future. I am not psychic
like many are, but like unlocking some sort of like
g Lovecraft and riffed between universities or something like that. Oh,
we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about it. Okay, Okay,
let's let's jump through. I'm gonna read from a Guardian
article titled Race to the Bottom. The disastrous blindfolded rush
(35:13):
to mind the Deep Sea. Oh, it sounds so just ominous.
Here we go. I'm going to read directly from this.
It was written by Jonathan Watts, was posted September. That's
today that they were recording this. He says. In late June,
the island Republic of Nauru informed the International Seabed Authority
(35:34):
the i s A, based in Kingston, Jamaica, of its
intention to start mining the seabed in the Clarion Clipperton Zone.
That's a very specific thing that we're going to talk
about in two years time, via subsidiary of a Canadian
firm called the Metals Company. You can look up the
Medals Company if you wish. It's a t MC. It's
(35:55):
written as TMC and it's also also maybe known as
deep Green. At least previous sleeve it was known as that.
Oh that's nice name, right, sounds good, deep green and
deep green. The concept of green energy plays heavily into this,
as well as heavy metals. While they're all the words
that are coming together in forming thoughts, and we're building
(36:16):
a top to here, guys, here we go the Clarion. So,
the Clarion Clipperton Zone is an area between the Hawaiian
Islands and Mexico and parts of America over here on
this side. It's a fairly large zone. I mean very
very large, and it is the really what we're interested
(36:39):
in this these companies are interested in, is the very
bottom the actual seabed in this zone. And I'm going
to continue reading from the article just so we're all
on the level playing field here as we're thinking about this.
From the article, they're saying that this basically request, this
written statement that you're you have two years to give
(37:02):
us what we need in order to begin drilling or
at least exploring drilling on the sabed here, according to
the article, was a starting gun for a resource race
on the planet's last vast frontier, the abyssal plane that
stretches between continental shelves deep below the oceans. So what
could this mean, this concept of a company wanting to
(37:26):
drill for minerals down deep beneath the ocean. Well, they're
looking at the at least the things on the surface.
Hey see you, uh, fishery disturbances, water contamination while it's happening,
sound pollution that's going to affect any sea creatures in
like within a considerable distance, as well as habitat destruction
(37:49):
for numerous species that make their home close to the
bottom of the ocean, or at least within the the
abyssle zone, and we know there's a ton of life
down there. There's several document as you can watch on
that right now. You can also continue reading that article
that I already mentioned to learn about several major species.
But there are countless others that we are not yet
aware of just because they're so deep and we haven't
(38:12):
explored those areas yet. So the big question is why
would those potential risks be worth it? Right? Is it
just for bottom line? Is there a greater good argument
happening here? Why would mining companies want to mind for
stuff there in particular? Well, it's because, uh, they know,
because they've done I guess you're the initial exploration of
(38:35):
what types of minerals exist in these places deep beneath
the ocean. And they say that the minerals that are
there copper, nickel, magnesium, several others are essential for the
green transition that needs to occur on this planet in
order to prevent the things that have been outlined by
(38:56):
the Paris Climate Accords. Uh so the company, you know,
the company is at least making that argument as well
as probably the you know, the mining industry as a
whole as they want to go to the moon and
to the depths of the ocean to find these things
in places that they don't seem to exist on the planet,
or at least at very difficult to get to on
(39:17):
the planet in other places. Um. This is a statement
from that article. If the world wants to decarbonize and
reach net zero emissions by twenty fifty, they say, we
must start extracting these resources for car batteries and wind
turbines very soon. That's why they're putting this pressure on
by giving this two year notice essentially. Now, if you
(39:39):
want to learn more about the initiation of some of
these actions, there's another Guardian article you can read titled
deep sea mining could start in two years after Pacific
Nation of Nauru gives you an ultimatum. So that's really
the starting point for everything. This initial article, the one
that I mentioned at the top, is a little more
(39:59):
now lysists than what you get in this article the
deep sea mining one. Um. But either way you can
you can see everything you need to know here and
what you'll find is that the largest voices saying no
or we should fight back against this are people like
at Greenpeace International who see this as a major ecological
(40:21):
problem of serious damage that will be caused by this
mining operation. Especially given the unknowns that exist, it seems
like it's going to be extremely an extremely difficult thing
to achieve and do right and do safely to ensure
that major ecological damage is not incurred. Uh, I'm gonna
(40:45):
side with unavoidable just because not because not because there
are any like Captain Planet level supervillains here, but but
because the the attempt to do this stuff is relatively
you right, I believe it's nineteen seventies where different outfits
first tried to dive into this, and one thing that
(41:10):
they found was that the technology just wasn't there. And
even if the technology is there now, Matt, I really
appreciate the point you are racing, which is the great
unknown of deep sea ecology and what what lives down there?
Like it's it's not unusual in any given year for
(41:32):
a new type of animal to be discovered at these
depths of the ocean, including some of my favorite like
new varieties of octopuses, and and there is you know,
there is that argument they're making does have some sand, right,
because the the idea here is that if everything goes smoothly,
(41:55):
this will in some way mitigate the looming ecological disasters
just around just around the chronological corner. But the issue
with that is that everything will not go smoothly. It
is virtually assertitude. Everything will not go smoothly in this regard.
(42:17):
It's the money is just gonna get too good. That's
what's gonna happen. Well, the money will be too good
because they're talking about vital materials, vital minerals needed to
expand and to get us again humanity to a place
where we've decided we need to get to. And talking
about the nineteen seventies when the first attempts to do
(42:39):
this were occurring. I'm going to give you a quote
from that article. There was some chief executive that was
involved that isn't even I don't think they're even attributed
here for this quote. But this task was like quote
standing on top of the Empire State Building and trying
to pick up small stones on the sidewalk using a
long straw at night. Just that that the concept of
(43:05):
of of accurately from whatever vantage you are on either
the surface or even deep below the water, just nowhere
near the level you need to get to to actually
access these areas easily and just noodling around until you
can suck some things up that you need. And you
know what, some of the regulatory bodies are looking at.
(43:25):
Some of the data that they have can also be
found online. I would highly recommend checking out I think
it's Frontiers and Marines Science if you search for that
deep Sea Environments and Ecology. There is an article here
called Inactive Sulfide Ecosystems in the Deep Sea a review
(43:47):
And if you look at this, it kind of goes
deep into what they're actually what would be mind here
And do you guys remember the events like the the
heat vents at the bottom of the well are these
are the things where there's mineral build up from these
essentially exhaust pipes from the bottom of the ocean that
(44:10):
they want to that they will break off. And the
ones that they're targeting are ones that are inactive. They
are currently not you know, ejecting as far as we know. Yeah,
and and let me correct myself and misspoke hydrothermal vents,
not geothermal. That was a rookie mistake. But but the
problem here is that these things that are a lot
(44:32):
like geyser's right basically on the ocean floor. They're home
to some of the most unique, naturally occurring life on
this planet, you know, extreme aphiles, things that are literally
the closest to what we might find on on some
alien planets. Right, we are not alike. They are built different.
(44:54):
And if there's an inactive hydrothermal vent, sure that means
that the rules are going to change, right because that
heat is the that heat essentially replaces the sun and
the role the sun plays for the surface walkers. But
the like the Still though, Matt, do we know enough
(45:18):
we being current civilization, do we know enough about what
may or may not live around those inactive events? Do
they go through periods of activity and inactivity? Right? Is
the store permanently closed or is it just you know,
shut down for the weekend. Ah See, maybe I don't know.
I don't have those answers for you. I wish you did.
(45:40):
But but here's the thing I'm not. Here's and your
people are gonna say you're callous, Matt, You're evil. I
can't believe you. But I don't even care about all
the animals that lived down by the thermal vents. What
I care about is the concept that they're messing with
the systems, the system beneath those actual events that are
venting out that energy. I'm thinking about this as the
(46:03):
fracking industry. If this is really the first salvo from
a company to go down there and really start digging
stuff up and taking all these minerals out and there
they do a good job, and oh man, the shareholders
are all happy with this. The next company comes along
and they start doing it at another spot on the ocean,
they start disturbing it. What if they disturb some process
(46:25):
the way nobody knew fracking was gonna disturb the ground
and cause earthquakes. They cause some other stuff to happen,
and now we're talking about deep under the sea or
aforementioned interdimensional rift, you know, unleashing of elder beasties, you know,
from from the abyssal plane. UM. I've been listening to
(46:47):
the audio book version of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park lately. Uh.
I just finished it. It's really good. Uh. They did
a great job making it into a movie. But there's
a lot of cool science e stuff in the book
that that they kind of gloss over in the movie.
And Ian Malcolm makes a really good point about how um,
John Hammond says, you know, the whole thing, like, oh, well,
just use this genetic engineering to make entertainment. It's such
(47:10):
a simple idea. And then Malcolm kind of thrashes him
before because essentially the idea is like, they make this thing,
they figure out how to sell it, they patent it,
and they slap it on a lunchbox before they ever
even think about, you know, the implications to the greater
world at large of like, you know, bringing these ancient
creatures back from the dead essentially when there's probably a
(47:33):
reason that they were you know, they're not on this
earth anymore. Um. But it's the same thing with like this,
this type of thing that you're talking about, where it's like, yeah,
we can do this, Oh of course we're mitigating all
of the potential negative impact. But they never really fully are,
you know. They they do these studies, like with fracking,
two's always a safe quote unquote within a certain range.
(47:54):
But then over time you realize, oh wait, actually it's
causing all these problems that we are now not going
to fully acknowledge because we did our homework. It's gonna
be the same thing with this, And you're right, It
absolutely is scary, especially as little as we know about
those deep, deep, deep, deep sea environments. I mean, as
far as we're concerned, it should be there, like might
as well be on another planet. And I mean that's
(48:14):
that's not wrong. Yeah, that's they're set up the there's
a reason that a submarine has some strange commonalities with spacecrafts, right,
and there's a reason that the ocean is so comparatively
um unexplored. I think this is going to be on
the mind of a lot of people who have tuned
(48:34):
into the show. Uh. I mentioned as a mandy as earlier,
that's that's where we might end up with some half
done work on the moon. But in this case deep
in the ink. I suggest that we um that we
all think of the quotation by the infamous poet Abdul
al Hazred, which is this that is not dead, which
(48:56):
kind of eternal lie and with strange eons even death
may die. Props to anybody who cares about that line,
gets that, gets that terrible reference. Um and you know
the dreamless sleep and so on. But yeah, what what
will what will those ramifications be now? I would say
that the fracking science history has proven was the initial
(49:20):
stuff was largely made in bad faith, or it was
constrained in such a way that they were setting up
this very um ideal set of conditions. And we know,
we know that companies involved in fracking were fully aware
of the possibility manufacturing earthquakes, the possibility of poisoning drinking water,
(49:41):
and they went ahead with it. So it's it's troubling.
It's a troubling precedent, you know. And I don't want
to say that this is this means that these folks
are themselves acting in bad faith. I'm just saying, overall,
humans don't have the best track record, and by the
time some of these things come to light or are
(50:02):
publicly acknowledged, that damage is done. You know what I mean.
The the imagine human beings. Thanks to these mining projects,
discover new classes of extreme aphiles, can discover animals that
were before just relegated to rumors and tall tales of sailors,
(50:23):
and we only find them when they're dead. You know,
that's a kick. I think that's kicking, the kicking the tentacles,
um flicking the blowhole there, you know what I mean? Yes,
I agreed. Jumping back in here, guys, I don't want
every Look, you've already written your hate mail. I get it.
You heard me say that I think about the animals.
It's cool, but listen, just listen. We're in a pretty
(50:44):
bad state right now. If we, you know, as a species,
want to continue living. It seems a lot like we
need to do some things to move the needle when
it comes to how we get energy and use energy
on the planet. If this is one step towards those
goals and you know, saving humanity, I'm down with it.
And there's gonna be some problems, and you know, we're
(51:07):
talking about deaths of potentially millions of animals, if not more.
That's terrible. But does it save us maybe? Okay with that? Sorry,
this is just my opinion. This is where I'm at
right now. Guys. Okay, I have a son. I gotta
think about him. He's cutting off cutting off a limb
(51:29):
to save the body. Yeah, I mean, that's that's at
least that's the argument. And I'm not saying I agree
with that, But if that is, if that is true, right,
and that is what the actual aims are and it
could get us there, then I am interested in pursuing that.
But what you should listen to. Are the experts in
this field, and they've signed a petition that says, hey,
(51:52):
let's not do this, guys. You can head on over
to Sea bed Mining Science Statement dot org and read
a statement from marine experts calling for deep sea mining
to not occur. Just not petition safe. I know it's
a petition, but I'm not being I don't mean to
(52:12):
be a debbut downer. I just yeah, they're gonna do it.
I don't care about petitions. I know, I know, I know.
I mean, there's a bottom line here, right, and there's
there's potential there were there's there's a lot of potential
things going on here. If you go to the very
bottom of that page, you can find peer review journal resources,
which is I would say one of the best places
(52:33):
to start if you want to be serious about this
and you don't want to just read headlines in an article.
UM highly recommend going there and doing that and you'll
learn why. In you know, two years time from now,
when the first deep sea bed mining occurs, we unearth
the alien civilization that has been here the whole time,
and they were underneath those events. To paraphrase the old adage,
(52:57):
maybe we should let sleeping gods lie. But but you're right.
You know, the only thing I would say in response
to that argument of um endangering a portion of life
to save something else, to save the greater portion or
the life that humans tend to prioritize, is that argument
is a little tougher to maintain when you realize the
(53:20):
marine ecosystem is already at a crisis point and it
is part of a larger, interconnected system. It's not discreet,
it doesn't exist on it. So and but that's where
we are. Are we blow up the moon, drill in
the sea, send in the clowns. This is a pretty
good show this week. Just like the clowns, the aliens
are already there there the whole time, under the events.
(53:42):
And you know what's fascinating, Everything that we've named today,
everything we've explored today, is going to have repercussions in
the future. I'm really interested to see how this develops.
And Matt, you know, you point out something I think
I'll have astute listeners clocked as well. In just two
years time, right twenty, there are people who claim they're
going to be mining the moon, and people who claim
(54:05):
they're going to be mining the depths of the ocean.
So I wonder, I wonder what the I wonder what
the future brings. I hope you're still doing this show. Yeah,
from a submarine. Why because because we're in space where
we're a submarine in space? Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. I
(54:27):
don't know what we want we want to hear, you know,
it would be great. It'd be great to hear from
some folks in Singapore and see how those story has
been reported there about the about the ill fated marketing
of that academy. It also would be great to hear
from people who are already associated with resource extraction operations
(54:50):
in a maritime environment, you know, on oil platforms for instance.
It'd be great to hear from people who are involved
in the aerospace. Indus tree is it Is it a
pipe dream to to imagine mining resources from the Moon
in a economically feasible way? And what do all these
(55:12):
things mean for the future. We'd love to hear your take,
and we try to make it easy to find us online,
whether you're in a submarine, a spaceship, or you know,
a clown suit right. Yeah, And unlike weirdos hanging out
inside of schools in clown suits. The Internet, as far
as we're concerned, can be your friend. Uh if you
find us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at Conspiracy Stuff
(55:34):
Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram. Um, if you don't feel
like going on the internet, you can give us a
telephone call. You got one of those. Yes, our number
is one eight three three std w y t K.
You have three minutes. Please give yourself a cool nickname
and you will do. We appreciate that, and tell us
anything you want to. It could be a story, especially
a ghost story. We love those. Maybe an experience you've
(55:56):
had that's hard to explain. We'd love to imagine what
that could. We like that a lot, or you know,
anything you've heard on any of these episodes and you
want to just comment about it, we'll take it. Or
just a compliment, you know, not to interrupting that. But
I don't know you guys, I could use a win.
I think most people could these days right there with you. Yes,
we do. We love those kind of messages. They make
(56:19):
the world go round. So if you have too much
to say and you just want to say all the
nice things, you can send us instead an email. We
are conspiracy at iHeart Radio dot com stuff they don't
(56:49):
want you to know. Is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
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your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. We have emerged
from the weekend relatively unscathed. Longtime listeners, you know the drill,
(00:48):
which will be some terrible word play for today's show,
and we we have returned from the civilized world here
to the wilderness of the Internet to present what we
call strange news. Today. We're talking about space. Today, we're
talking about some very creepy clowns, and we're talking about mining.
(01:14):
We're on the edge of some very very strange things. Now,
no Matt, before we begin today, I always wanted to
ask you guys, because you know, we've known each other
forever at this point, and you all know that I
used to do that car show for a long long time.
Did you ever like anytime childhood adulthood. Do you ever
water Rolls Royce or did you have a ride on one?
(01:37):
Do you ever see one that's the one with like
the white tires, right, that's like a feature of old
Rolls Royces. If I'm not mistaken, they have like these
white tire walls that kind of have to be kept
really pristinely clean. Some yeah, some, some Rolls Royces do
have white wall tires U yeah, yeah, and those. It's
(01:58):
funny that you mentioned that, because so much about Rolls
Royce has always seemed to me meant to be purposely inconvenient.
It's kind of a flex right, Like ILike these peasants,
I don't have to worry about cleaning this. The the
footman does it. The wheelman really really cool hood ornament
on the rolls. It's like a winged kind of creature.
(02:20):
If I'm not mistaken, I guess I don't know that
they're They're probably only cars around still today that still
kind of looked like old timey cars. They have those
really cool like wheel wells and almost have like the
model T kind of like classic vibes. So I definitely
appreciate them aesthetically, But now I don't even think they're
even as fashionable as they used to be. Even in
like pop culture, people are more talking about like Bentley's
(02:42):
and Bugatti's than they are Roleses and the and the Maza. Yeah, yeah,
I I guess what I wanted to bring up is
that it did seem like a car that you, as
the purchaser, didn't really drive. It was driven generally, at
least in pop culture, by somebody else. You're just a
passenger in the back. And that's what all of the
luxurious things that existed in the car before, for you
(03:04):
to sit in the back and enjoy those well other
people did you know, the stuff like getting you from
place to place and keeping you safely alive. It's really
named Jeeves, well, Jesus the butler stereotypically name what's the
stereotypical driver name, Charles? It might be last name, I
don't know. Perhaps there we go and Hedges read and shotgun. Remember, yeah,
(03:27):
we talked about that with our buddy Nick the other night.
Remember that commercial, the Great Poopom commercial where they pull
up alongside the fancy you know, I think it's a
Rose Royce and pardon me, do you have any great poupon. Yeah,
that is the image I always associated with that level
of opulence and the spirit of ecstasy, which is the
name for that hood ornament. That sculpture is also synonymous
(03:49):
often with just disgusting luxury. And Matt you made a
fantastic point about how the idea of these vehicles was
one of um kind of detachment from the road. It
was very much a carriage, right, and the back seat
was you can see this sometimes in may box now
as well. The back seat was like it's an isolated
(04:11):
first class cabin. Uh. Rolls Royce is still around. One time,
in a burst of still informed impulsiveness, I actually got
kind of close to buying a used Rolls Royce and
we told you guys this because it's a it's a
story where I don't look particularly good. Luckily we had
(04:34):
our old pal Scott Benjamin there to talk me off
the ledge. Uh. This was a former I highly suspect
it was a former drug dealers car. Uh. It was.
It was all white on an all custom red white leather.
It had this just egregious bright red shag carpet like
so read that I could see it read shag carpet,
(04:56):
and the and the guy, the guy who was Sally.
It was that this car show and didn't I want
to answer any questions about where the car came from
or how he got it, and uh yeah, and you know,
anchoring is a real thing in psychology, so I was
I was very lucky to have someone there to say, look, no,
(05:17):
this many thousands dollars just sounds like less than it
actually is, because you're seeing it in comparison to like
Lamborghini or something super fancy like it never uh that
would never buy anyway. So so we know Rolls Royce,
we've all three associated it with opulence, maybe a little
bit of a taste of a bygone era, maybe a
(05:37):
little bit of a taste of old money. But Rolls
Royce is doing something pretty futuristic now. We talked about
it a little bit off air. Although this British auto
maker is known primarily for you know, automobiles, that's actually
a division called Rules Royce Motors. Rolls Royce is into
(06:00):
a lot of things, marine operations, they're into controls and
data services, and they're also they've been in the new
game for a while, just not like this. They recently
announced that they are getting into the nuclear reactor game
just kind of surprising. Hold on saying, I just want
(06:22):
to point this out. Another thing that Rolls Royce has
done to pop culture is being an expression like, oh,
that's the Rolls Royce of Whatever's So, now, when you
say that's the Rolls Royce of nuclear reactors, you can
actually be referring to a nuclear reactor manufactured by Rolls Royce.
That's a that's a good point. Yeah, yeah you could.
So they have been working with the United Kingdom Space
(06:44):
Agency on a pretty nuts plan, and we're gonna we're
gonna learn some really weird stuff about this plan. Their
idea is they could build a micro nuclear reactor that
would allow them to launch rockets at a very high
speed in space, and then from there they could maybe
(07:06):
use some of the same technology to reach the Moon.
So Rolls Royce gets on the Moon and then mine it,
dock atit, me here mind the ship out of it.
And this is like, have you ever looked at the
Moon and thought, Wow, what an investment opportunity. I don't
think a lot of people. I would like to think
(07:26):
a lot of people have not. But this this is strange.
We talked about it in the past. I believe we
did an episode on the old plan during the Cold War,
right to nuke the Moon. If you guys remember that one,
that's right as a weird mike. It was more of
a Cold War tactic, right, It was like, we're gonna
(07:46):
do this, it's a threat, you know, and they resually
followed through with it. It was meant to be a
show of force. If I'm not mistaken, Yeah, it was
definitely a flex. It's known as Project A one one
nine and it was developed in the late nineteen fifties.
The idea was that you would detonate, you being the
US Air Force, would detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon,
(08:08):
and then you would say, well, we're it's gonna help
us understand more about astro geology and planetary astronomy. But
the other side of that, since this was the Cold War,
was obviously a show of force to the USSR, like
look what we could do to the Moon. How I
feel I feel over in Moscow? So now we see
(08:28):
the and this also, by the way, we talked about
this off air. That's also inspired wonderful sketch by the
good folks over at MR Show, which was about blowing
up the Moon that is I suspect based on this
Cold War project. As far as Rules Royce's plan, well,
it sounds crazy, but they're not. They're not coming up
(08:51):
with this idea out of whole cloth. It turns out
that a lot of people have been thinking about mining
the Moon for for some time, and I believe we've
talked about this a little bit in the past. Right, Yeah,
I'm ben. I gotta say, I'm looking at some of
the materials here. I did not know Rolls Royce had
(09:11):
a defense division. Oh yeah, what I said. They're mostly
known for cars. Yeah, it's sort of like Westinghouse, I
mean speaking of reactors. Like Westinghouse builds reactors. They also
make TVs and microwaves and refrigerators and stuff. So I mean, yeah,
what this is news to me about Rolls Royce that
I did not realize they were dipping their toes into
(09:32):
into those scarier parts of the manufacturing world. Well, they've also,
you know, to be fair, even working with the United
Kingdom to develop nuclear arms submarines. They also helped maintain
the existing fleet of what are called Vanguard class nuclear
subs in the UK. Their their company that does more
(09:53):
interesting stuff than just super fancy pants cars. Uh. But
in situation that we're talking about what you could mine
on the moon, there's there's a little bit of coin
to be made. The moon contains metals like iron, titanium, aluminum, magnesium.
(10:15):
And because the Moon is not subject to claims of sovereignty,
this means that, uh, the legality of whether to do
this is still kind of up in the air. What
are people gonna do? Go to the moon and stop you?
But doesn't that make it like a diplomatic nightmare? And
(10:36):
and and and once you get get see you get
there first, then somebody else gets there? How do you?
Isn't isn't that just like doesn't that become like a
turf war at that point if no one actually has
any like boundaries around any of the stuff, it can Yeah,
that situation will inevitably come to a point of profit
sharing and then a little bit of quip pro que
(10:57):
horse trading. Uh. Since Oles Royce has been in the
nuclear game as far as subs are concerned for sixty
years or more, the the ideas that it's not a
huge lead for them to go into space because you know,
as as we'll find, as we'll find later in today's show, Actually,
(11:17):
building stuff that allows people to survive underwater at depth
has a lot in common with building stuff that allows
people to survive in space. You know, think about a submarine.
The air has to be recycled, there has to be
a consistent source of food and energy. These are things
that have a lot in common with the challenges of
(11:40):
building human almost said, infested, human occupied spacecraft. So the
question here, really, I think to the point about diplomatic
diplomatic disaster is a question and cost benefit because right
now there is a huge shortage of what are called
(12:00):
rare earth metals on this planet. They could be found
on other planets, they could be found on the Moon.
And in a typical show of panash, Dave Gordon Matt
He's the head of the Rules Royce Defense Division. They
mentioned earlier, Dave Gordon doesn't want to stop at the Moon, folks,
conspiracy realist. Dave Gordon's the type of guy would say,
(12:22):
why stop at the Moon. Let's go to Mars. You
know what I mean, Let's get some let's get some
nuclear mining up on Mars. Let's see what happens. Carpet
d m you don't want to go to Mars man,
there's ghosts there. Well, you know what for my money,
the tax prayer guy over here, just like everybody on
this call. Okay, nice flex, I'm working on it. You
(12:45):
pay those YEA believe for you. Wow. I will say
it was one time in my life where I was
a good three years behind in taxes. That has never
happened against since. And I of every day and fear
of the I r s knocking on my door, but
seems to have passed. But yeah, good job. Side note,
(13:08):
side note map before he continue. Um, the US tax system,
whether by design or incompetence, disproportionately targets the vulnerable. I
think that is quite clear. And that's not political point either.
It doesn't. It doesn't matter who's in office, who is
most likely to get audited. It's just more expensive for
the I r s to go after the people they
(13:29):
should be pursuing. Greed. You're right ability to like fight back, yes, exactly,
in good job, keeping all of that quiet and all
best of luck to you in the future. So my
whole point of saying I'm a taxpayer is that yes
mine mind Mars. All you want, please to your heart's content,
(13:50):
companies go to Mars mind it bring back resources from Mars. Please,
please don't mind all of the heavy metals out of
you know, the Moon that is locked in orbit with
our planet. That, yeah, that is so you know, important
for the tides and all the things that give life
on this planet. Please, for the love of whatever whatever
(14:13):
you insert there, mind Mars, please not the Moon. I mean,
I imagine we're doing a ps like there's a p
s A. We need to say it here. You know,
you'll want to look back on this period of time
and think I could have saved the last werewolves, but
instead I was super I was super into destroying the Moon.
(14:34):
And this is you know, this is a serious well
you know something like that. This is this is a
serious cause. Uh you you do make an excellent point, right,
and we know that just based on the rough cocktail
Napkin math, it's highly unlikely that somebody would very quickly
(14:56):
extract so many resources from our planet Harry sidekick from
the lunar robin to Earth's Batman. It's unlikely that it
would immediately drain so much mass as to affect the gravity.
But also we don't we don't really know. No one
has ever as far as humans know, now successfully mind
(15:20):
the moon. Right, A couple of people showed up there,
they played golf, they put some flags on it. As
nor McDonald pointed out, there was one guy who got
all the way up to the moon and then had
to stay inside and watch the other dudes, you know,
cavorta rounds. I mean, they're just the last thing been
here is that. I agree with you, that's not going
to happen immediately. But we know what industry does. If
(15:41):
it's lucrative, and we've got all these companies that are
vying for the ability to go up there and mind
minerals and have access to those, we can see how
it will Expand we're not talking immediately. We're talking about
years from now. The good thing is we can just
send our trash up there to the Moon to replace
all of the all of the mass it we're taking
in the form of helement. Alright, you know how much
(16:04):
stuff is out in orbit this and for any other
civilization passing by Earth, this planet looks like the bad
house in the neighborhood, you know, with a bunch of junk. Yeah,
like the equipped all those dead satellites, all that. To
try this, it's the equivalent of having like an old
and not a rules Royce, but you know, like an
(16:26):
old Honda up on the bricks just gathering. Does It
does make me think of like how you know, in
some like far to medium future when this is happening,
like it would probably change physically, like the way the
moon looks, you know from Earth um and and that's
the kind of thing you think of in like sci
fi or whatever, like anime. I always think of the
(16:48):
show The Tick where one of the ticks, Nemeses I
believe his name was chair face uh tries to write
his name on the moon but only gets like a
couple of letters in so stead of a running gag
if out the course of the show, the moon just
says c H on it or c h A or
something like that. But yeah, if there were mining operations
like of scale and and all of the stuff that
(17:09):
you're talking about, maybe you know, trash or whatever. I
can't imagine that it wouldn't change physically the way the
moon looks, and that would kind of be sad. But
I guess, you know, maybe worthwhile because we are in
a situation where there's a shortage of all like you said, Ben,
all of those rare Earth minerals that go into making microchips,
and you know a lot of the processing um components
(17:30):
that we need for computer systems and car um navigation
systems and all of that stuff. So having other options
would certainly be nice. But I think a big slow
down too has had to do with shipping. So wouldn't
it be prohibitively expensive to mind stuff on the Moon
and then ship it back to the Earth. Certainly would
cost a hell of a lot more than getting it
from you know, China or the other side of the planet,
(17:52):
right or no? Am I am I overthinking this? Well,
it depends on how much the cost is. There is
one thing for sure though, Rolls, Royce and the UK
are not the only players in this field. They are
actually in a bit of a competition to see who
can get their first. NASA recently gave a team of
(18:12):
researchers at University of Arizona half a million dollar grant
to develop new methods for mining asteroids and space. Also,
there are other their private companies like Honeybee Robotics, Mass
and Space Systems, Lunar Outposts, lasting especially Creative, who are
all trying to figure out those three in particular, trying
(18:32):
to figure out how to mine water ice from the
Moon using rockets, and their goal is to start doing
this by three, which if you're listening to this the
day it comes out, it's not that far away. If
you're listening to this after, send us an email, drop
us a line conspiracy die heart radio dot com and
let us know if it actually worked, because I would
(18:54):
love to hear about it. It's important you're talking about
their mining that delicious frozen treat. Let's popular in Philadelphia
water ice. Yeah, that's why water ice is primarily originally
located in Philadelphia. That's where the first lunar rock hit
that contained water ice and all of the flavors, all
of the flavors. Uh so except no substitutions. We're gonna
(19:15):
move on. The last thing will say, even though this
is an exciting, scary time, and I think this could
be a full episode as we see people get closer
to becoming the next subject of Ozamandius poem. Uh is
that people like Peter Diamandous, Neil Degras Tyson, and even
the financial firm Goldman Sachs have all at some point
(19:38):
predicted that the world's first living trillionaires kind of people
who would put uh, who would make Jeff Bezos look
like a pauper. In comparison, the first trillionaires will be
the people who make their fortune in asteroid mining. The
future is still a little far off as we record,
but we're gonna keep an eye on this. I think
(19:59):
this is an excellent episode for the future. For now,
we're gonna pause. If you're listening at night and got
a clear view of this guy, go ahead and just
should a glance up at the moon while it's the
way you remember it. We'll be right back, and we're
(20:22):
back with more strange news. It is the season there,
our favorite time of the year, approaching Halloween, or at
least you know, if you go in the grocery stores,
you would think it was like literally tomorrow with the
smell of cinnamon brooms and you know tiny uh, you know,
decorative skulls and spooky things to put all around your house.
My kid loves it too. I think we're all on
the same page there. But um, I got a bit
(20:45):
of a halloweeny story today. Do you guys remember those
rash A little rash of like clown pranks or maybe
there were there was like a whole story around like
people kind of coming at people and clown costumes and
like you know, and more than just pranked territory. It
almost felt like it was like an epidemic of some kind, right,
(21:06):
clown sightings. We did an episode on it. I think
that's right. It was then they did, but they were
already there, um and there there's still they're still around.
Clowns definitely get a bad rap, um, if I'm not mistaken.
Sixteen was also when the first movie came out, so
there was some kind of speculation that maybe it was
(21:27):
like viral marketing for the movie. They didn't do some
of that, but there was certainly some unrelated cases. Um.
But now it is twenty one and the clowns are back,
or at least that's what people were thinking, um in Singapore,
no less. Um. So it appears that there had been
sightings all around the Singapore of somebody dressed in a
(21:49):
clown conspicuously hanging out outside of like elementary schools, um,
which doesn't creepy at all. Right, Um, and it caused
quite a bit of chaos, and we'll walk through the
whole thing. Vice World News reported on this initially that's
where I found it. Uh. And they spoke to someone
(22:09):
named Lean Wong, who is the mother of a school
aged young lady named Ann um. And she went to
pick her daughter from school and got all these alarmed
texts from other parents that the police had put out
an a p B on a person or person's dressed
as clowns seen loitering around primary schools. UM. And she
(22:32):
kind of freaks out a little bit because she's running
late h and she doesn't see her daughter anywhere. UM
when her car pulls up to the you know, the
car pool line. So she's freaking out. She's seen all
these texts she's telling this device. Um. She checked her
phone and open Facebook, did all of the kind of
scans of social media posts um, and start seeing in
these parenting groups that she's a member of, pictures of
(22:55):
these different men dressed up as clowns that are approaching
children outside of the school. Um. And some of the
message claimed that the clowns were paid to literally stalk children,
like follow them around. UM. And there's a really great
quote here she says. Wong says clowns are terrifying even
to adults. This is any parents worst fear. What if
(23:18):
they turned out to be psychopaths and murderers wanting to
harm children. Um. There was also a bit of kind
of another story, um that that maybe caused some of
this panic to escalate. Apparently there I mean, we've talked
about this, how there's almost no gun violence in Asia, um,
but oftentimes when there are killings, they involve you know,
(23:43):
knives or blades of some sort of stabbings, you know,
and they can be very very grizzly. And apparently there
was such an incident at a nearby school in July
where a thirteen year old was allegedly killed by another
student using an axe. So that's a whole other story.
So a bit of tention already in the air because
of this. So the Singers Singapore Police say they had
(24:04):
gotten on these reports of these clown sightings. Um. There
are some images that you can find screenshots of a
kind of a tall man wearing a plaid shirt, UM,
wearing a clown makeup and they're not a mask with
like painted clown face, clown nose and kind of have
headcock to the side and wearing this like weird, tall,
goofy kind of felt looking top hat. Um. And here
(24:26):
here's the twist, guys. So it turns out there's this
private education center called Speech Academy Asia, and this was
them running what they thought was a very clever marketing.
Uh what do you call it? Stunt? I guess I
don't know. Maybe it's like, don't be a clown, learn
how to speak publicly. I'm just you know, kind of
(24:46):
uh editorializing what their slogan might have been, or what
the hell they were thinking. But uh, their director, a
guy named Kevin tan Um, came out made a statement
to a news organization called Rates Times um and cop
to this and said, there was no evil intention behind
the costumes and we sincerely apologize for it. We will
(25:07):
not do it again. Um, and then went on to
say that their employees did not offer any form of
monetary rewards for children to follow them and did not
take any children out of the vicinity few. Uh what
do you guys think? Sounds like someone someone working at
the school, Uh has it off the book's personal relationship
(25:32):
with the clown company and we're trying to make some bucks.
I saw the Facebook, the Facebook comments. Um, that was
where I think that original statement was posted from Speech Academy.
They're really interesting because because people did not react well.
I think, you know, especially in these troubled times, but
in general, if you were a parent, you want you
(25:55):
want one big thing, predictable safety for your kids, right,
especially when you're not around, which means that which is
part of the reason why parents have to sign off
on field trips, even if they seem relatively innocuous. Right,
That's why things like career day get announced. Um, and
I I understand, you know, between between us, between those
(26:18):
of us recording here to stuff and what you know,
we have educators in our past, some of us have kids,
and this this just seems I think what's missing for
me here, no, Matt, is that I don't understand what
what exactly the enrichment would be. Was it just a
misstep to say, like, hey, I think kids will enjoy clowns,
(26:43):
even though for a lot of the world in a
post John Wayne gaycy environment, clowns are synonymous with sinister
motives and creepiness. I I don't know. That's the thing
I don't understand. And this doesn't mean the motivation does
and exist, I just I don't understand the dots, Like
why wouldn't you just get like a magician or someone
(27:05):
who makes balloons, or what's another thing, kids like somebody
dressed up as a popular cartoon character, you know what
I mean, trends who do the Yeah, I get friends
who do the wh who are parts of companies where
they regularly go to children's parties dressed as you know,
uh or acting as like Elsa or Pocahuntas or Cinderella
(27:29):
or whatever you And it's a good business. It's really wholesome,
we agree, But I think it's less about the costume.
That's certainly part of it, and let's allowed it to
kind of rock it to such a you know, fever
pitch nationally because of exactly that it's approaching Halloween. It
makes for a good quick baby headline. And you know,
we think clowns are freaky, which is a problem for
people that are professional clowns. I mean, their reputation as
(27:52):
like a wholesome form of entertainment has really been sullied
over the years because of things like Stephen King's It
and John Wayne Gacy and just the idea of the
creepy clown. But I just think any adult in a
costume hanging around primary schools trying to pass out flyers
too small children is ill advised. And and oh my god, Ben,
(28:13):
you mentioned the Facebook group. Now you gotta check this
set to if you just type in a speech Academy
Asia Facebook. I mean they are just getting shreded. It's
like literally unrelated any of this. They're talking about their
COVID protocols. And please beat me on this, Alexa, but
I gotta do it. One um comment or just goes.
Stop your stupid clowns loitering outside primary schools. Another one,
(28:35):
stop clowning around and play praying on our children. You
call yourself an educational consultant, How much do you understand
about children and the parents needs. Smack yourself for approving
and conducting such marketing campaign. I regret sending my child
to your center. Waste of money. And all of their
responses are so like by the book, it's like, hello,
use her name. Thank you for your feedback. We understand
(28:57):
parents concerns for the safety and well being of their children.
Please is do allow us to apologize for the inconvenience,
cause our team is currently in the midst of discussion
to rectify this. I think the damage has been done, y'all.
I don't know I feel kind of bad. I mean,
it seems like they had the best intentions at heart,
but such a bone headed move. Clown costume or no,
just any weird adult hanging out outside of the school.
(29:20):
It's interesting that they're also um it's interesting that one
point of contention became the idea that the adults stressed
as clowns might be paying children to follow them around,
because that, honestly, that just gives us an excuse to
talk about one of the most disturbing fairy tales in
(29:43):
my opinion, which is The Pied Piper of Hamlin if
you guys remember that way. First all, all fairy tales
are super dark if you read the original versions. But
the thing about the pie Piper of Hamlin is that
there's been some research into what the truth of that,
(30:06):
what the origin point of that folklore could be. And
I wonder if that if if people in Singapore of parents,
I wonder if any of them thought, are they recreating
a pipe piper situation? Are they trying to? And then
also also there's just something creepy in general, I think
about adults, especially strangers, giving children money without their parents knowledge.
(30:32):
That sounds like a big Matt I think you would
call that a no no oh, yeah, the following was
an aspect of it. Guys, Is that what your your
interpretation has been? There they're saying they weren't paying kids
to follow them, but they were, so I mean, I
don't know, Like I definitely after reading all these reviews,
in these comments, you do start to see things get
(30:52):
blown wildly out of proportion. I mean, again, this was
absolutely stupid and ill advised. But I don't know that
the people were trying to lure the children anywhere, right
like that that's the pot that But I don't know.
I don't know what people experienced, but I'm not seeing
that anywhere like actually happening. I'm hearing that's exactly right
(31:14):
in the room. Right again, We've we've all, we're all
creatures of the internet. We know how quickly, you know,
people love a villain, people love to tear something down
on the internet. If you start to read these comments,
they start to piggyback on each other and escalate and
escalate and escalate, um and and and before you know it,
you know, it's that game a telephone we're always talking about.
And who knows where the truth actually lies? Um So,
(31:36):
I feel bad for the company kind of because it
seems like they certainly weren't out there to do any harm.
But it's also like dangerous when you're marketing directly to children,
because it's it could be misinterpreted, especially if your trust
is it as a creepy clown outside of elementary school
when there was a you know, ax murder earlier in
(31:56):
the year. Right, that's the part that seems what a
PR firm call it bad optics, you know. Um, I
just still like, I'm thinking of all the other things
that you could possibly do to promote enrichment and promote speech,
to promote the speech and enrichment classes. Maybe speech and
(32:19):
enrichment is kind of a and we don't know this,
I think at least we don't know this yet, but
maybe the speech enrichment classes are kind of like drama
classes or performance classes. And the logic was maybe that
we're getting performers to show these kids and then maybe
they can take, uh, maybe they can take something like
(32:41):
a clown or circus act related classes. Because I can't
remember if we mentioned which show we mentioned this on,
but there are really prestigious clown schools in Emily and
in parts of Europe and it very much is a
respected art form. Um. This is just this is not
the look there. There are tons of things and this
(33:01):
one is not. It agreed, Oh yeah, I agree, Ben.
I just want to say on that Facebook page you
can see an interview with one of the people who
was involved in the viral photo that went around, the
one that sparked all the outrage from the parents. Uh.
It is a very sweet little interview. I haven't watched
it all yet, but it's a person just explaining what
was happening. Uh. It feels very very innocent to me,
(33:25):
but again, who knows. Oh, I'm with you, Matt, and
I think really the takeaway from the story is just
how that kind of stuff can just really balloon out
of control when people start like you know, looking for
someone to blame and uh and creating scenarios maybe did
never really exist. But again, bone headed move on the
part of this company. Um ill advised, but not not
(33:47):
necessarily ill intentions at all. So with that, I think
we can we can pop to a quick break and
then we'll be back with one more bit of strange news.
And we've returned already. I mean, we didn't know I
don't think anybody had time to put on their clown
(34:08):
makeup you're talking about. I wear mine all the time.
It's just how I exist. Well, I apologize everyone. Uh,
let's take another break so we can all get our
clown makeup on. Okay, Okay, now we're ready. Okay. So
we're going to dovetail off of Ben's story from this week,
where Rolls Royce wants to mind the Moon, and we're
(34:31):
going to discuss a company that wants to mine deep
deep within the ocean, so deep within the ocean, down
to the abistle plane and beyond. For me personally, it
is a very frightening concept, and I'm having visions of
(34:52):
terrible things happening in the future. I am not psychic
like many are, but like unlocking some sort of like
g Lovecraft and riffed between universities or something like that. Oh,
we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna talk about it. Okay, Okay,
let's let's jump through. I'm gonna read from a Guardian
article titled Race to the Bottom. The disastrous blindfolded rush
(35:13):
to mind the Deep Sea. Oh, it sounds so just ominous.
Here we go. I'm going to read directly from this.
It was written by Jonathan Watts, was posted September. That's
today that they were recording this. He says. In late June,
the island Republic of Nauru informed the International Seabed Authority
(35:34):
the i s A, based in Kingston, Jamaica, of its
intention to start mining the seabed in the Clarion Clipperton Zone.
That's a very specific thing that we're going to talk
about in two years time, via subsidiary of a Canadian
firm called the Metals Company. You can look up the
Medals Company if you wish. It's a t MC. It's
(35:55):
written as TMC and it's also also maybe known as
deep Green. At least previous sleeve it was known as that.
Oh that's nice name, right, sounds good, deep green and
deep green. The concept of green energy plays heavily into this,
as well as heavy metals. While they're all the words
that are coming together in forming thoughts, and we're building
(36:16):
a top to here, guys, here we go the Clarion. So,
the Clarion Clipperton Zone is an area between the Hawaiian
Islands and Mexico and parts of America over here on
this side. It's a fairly large zone. I mean very
very large, and it is the really what we're interested
(36:39):
in this these companies are interested in, is the very
bottom the actual seabed in this zone. And I'm going
to continue reading from the article just so we're all
on the level playing field here as we're thinking about this.
From the article, they're saying that this basically request, this
written statement that you're you have two years to give
(37:02):
us what we need in order to begin drilling or
at least exploring drilling on the sabed here, according to
the article, was a starting gun for a resource race
on the planet's last vast frontier, the abyssal plane that
stretches between continental shelves deep below the oceans. So what
could this mean, this concept of a company wanting to
(37:26):
drill for minerals down deep beneath the ocean. Well, they're
looking at the at least the things on the surface.
Hey see you, uh, fishery disturbances, water contamination while it's happening,
sound pollution that's going to affect any sea creatures in
like within a considerable distance, as well as habitat destruction
(37:49):
for numerous species that make their home close to the
bottom of the ocean, or at least within the the
abyssle zone, and we know there's a ton of life
down there. There's several document as you can watch on
that right now. You can also continue reading that article
that I already mentioned to learn about several major species.
But there are countless others that we are not yet
aware of just because they're so deep and we haven't
(38:12):
explored those areas yet. So the big question is why
would those potential risks be worth it? Right? Is it
just for bottom line? Is there a greater good argument
happening here? Why would mining companies want to mind for
stuff there in particular? Well, it's because, uh, they know,
because they've done I guess you're the initial exploration of
(38:35):
what types of minerals exist in these places deep beneath
the ocean. And they say that the minerals that are
there copper, nickel, magnesium, several others are essential for the
green transition that needs to occur on this planet in
order to prevent the things that have been outlined by
(38:56):
the Paris Climate Accords. Uh so the company, you know,
the company is at least making that argument as well
as probably the you know, the mining industry as a
whole as they want to go to the moon and
to the depths of the ocean to find these things
in places that they don't seem to exist on the planet,
or at least at very difficult to get to on
(39:17):
the planet in other places. Um. This is a statement
from that article. If the world wants to decarbonize and
reach net zero emissions by twenty fifty, they say, we
must start extracting these resources for car batteries and wind
turbines very soon. That's why they're putting this pressure on
by giving this two year notice essentially. Now, if you
(39:39):
want to learn more about the initiation of some of
these actions, there's another Guardian article you can read titled
deep sea mining could start in two years after Pacific
Nation of Nauru gives you an ultimatum. So that's really
the starting point for everything. This initial article, the one
that I mentioned at the top, is a little more
(39:59):
now lysists than what you get in this article the
deep sea mining one. Um. But either way you can
you can see everything you need to know here and
what you'll find is that the largest voices saying no
or we should fight back against this are people like
at Greenpeace International who see this as a major ecological
(40:21):
problem of serious damage that will be caused by this
mining operation. Especially given the unknowns that exist, it seems
like it's going to be extremely an extremely difficult thing
to achieve and do right and do safely to ensure
that major ecological damage is not incurred. Uh, I'm gonna
(40:45):
side with unavoidable just because not because not because there
are any like Captain Planet level supervillains here, but but
because the the attempt to do this stuff is relatively
you right, I believe it's nineteen seventies where different outfits
first tried to dive into this, and one thing that
(41:10):
they found was that the technology just wasn't there. And
even if the technology is there now, Matt, I really
appreciate the point you are racing, which is the great
unknown of deep sea ecology and what what lives down there?
Like it's it's not unusual in any given year for
(41:32):
a new type of animal to be discovered at these
depths of the ocean, including some of my favorite like
new varieties of octopuses, and and there is you know,
there is that argument they're making does have some sand, right,
because the the idea here is that if everything goes smoothly,
(41:55):
this will in some way mitigate the looming ecological disasters
just around just around the chronological corner. But the issue
with that is that everything will not go smoothly. It
is virtually assertitude. Everything will not go smoothly in this regard.
(42:17):
It's the money is just gonna get too good. That's
what's gonna happen. Well, the money will be too good
because they're talking about vital materials, vital minerals needed to
expand and to get us again humanity to a place
where we've decided we need to get to. And talking
about the nineteen seventies when the first attempts to do
(42:39):
this were occurring. I'm going to give you a quote
from that article. There was some chief executive that was
involved that isn't even I don't think they're even attributed
here for this quote. But this task was like quote
standing on top of the Empire State Building and trying
to pick up small stones on the sidewalk using a
long straw at night. Just that that the concept of
(43:05):
of of accurately from whatever vantage you are on either
the surface or even deep below the water, just nowhere
near the level you need to get to to actually
access these areas easily and just noodling around until you
can suck some things up that you need. And you
know what, some of the regulatory bodies are looking at.
(43:25):
Some of the data that they have can also be
found online. I would highly recommend checking out I think
it's Frontiers and Marines Science if you search for that
deep Sea Environments and Ecology. There is an article here
called Inactive Sulfide Ecosystems in the Deep Sea a review
(43:47):
And if you look at this, it kind of goes
deep into what they're actually what would be mind here
And do you guys remember the events like the the
heat vents at the bottom of the well are these
are the things where there's mineral build up from these
essentially exhaust pipes from the bottom of the ocean that
(44:10):
they want to that they will break off. And the
ones that they're targeting are ones that are inactive. They
are currently not you know, ejecting as far as we know. Yeah,
and and let me correct myself and misspoke hydrothermal vents,
not geothermal. That was a rookie mistake. But but the
problem here is that these things that are a lot
(44:32):
like geyser's right basically on the ocean floor. They're home
to some of the most unique, naturally occurring life on
this planet, you know, extreme aphiles, things that are literally
the closest to what we might find on on some
alien planets. Right, we are not alike. They are built different.
(44:54):
And if there's an inactive hydrothermal vent, sure that means
that the rules are going to change, right because that
heat is the that heat essentially replaces the sun and
the role the sun plays for the surface walkers. But
the like the Still though, Matt, do we know enough
(45:18):
we being current civilization, do we know enough about what
may or may not live around those inactive events? Do
they go through periods of activity and inactivity? Right? Is
the store permanently closed or is it just you know,
shut down for the weekend. Ah See, maybe I don't know.
I don't have those answers for you. I wish you did.
(45:40):
But but here's the thing I'm not. Here's and your
people are gonna say you're callous, Matt, You're evil. I
can't believe you. But I don't even care about all
the animals that lived down by the thermal vents. What
I care about is the concept that they're messing with
the systems, the system beneath those actual events that are
venting out that energy. I'm thinking about this as the
(46:03):
fracking industry. If this is really the first salvo from
a company to go down there and really start digging
stuff up and taking all these minerals out and there
they do a good job, and oh man, the shareholders
are all happy with this. The next company comes along
and they start doing it at another spot on the ocean,
they start disturbing it. What if they disturb some process
(46:25):
the way nobody knew fracking was gonna disturb the ground
and cause earthquakes. They cause some other stuff to happen,
and now we're talking about deep under the sea or
aforementioned interdimensional rift, you know, unleashing of elder beasties, you know,
from from the abyssal plane. UM. I've been listening to
(46:47):
the audio book version of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park lately. Uh.
I just finished it. It's really good. Uh. They did
a great job making it into a movie. But there's
a lot of cool science e stuff in the book
that that they kind of gloss over in the movie.
And Ian Malcolm makes a really good point about how um,
John Hammond says, you know, the whole thing, like, oh, well,
just use this genetic engineering to make entertainment. It's such
(47:10):
a simple idea. And then Malcolm kind of thrashes him
before because essentially the idea is like, they make this thing,
they figure out how to sell it, they patent it,
and they slap it on a lunchbox before they ever
even think about, you know, the implications to the greater
world at large of like, you know, bringing these ancient
creatures back from the dead essentially when there's probably a
(47:33):
reason that they were you know, they're not on this
earth anymore. Um. But it's the same thing with like this,
this type of thing that you're talking about, where it's like, yeah,
we can do this, Oh of course we're mitigating all
of the potential negative impact. But they never really fully are,
you know. They they do these studies, like with fracking,
two's always a safe quote unquote within a certain range.
(47:54):
But then over time you realize, oh wait, actually it's
causing all these problems that we are now not going
to fully acknowledge because we did our homework. It's gonna
be the same thing with this, And you're right, It
absolutely is scary, especially as little as we know about
those deep, deep, deep, deep sea environments. I mean, as
far as we're concerned, it should be there, like might
as well be on another planet. And I mean that's
(48:14):
that's not wrong. Yeah, that's they're set up the there's
a reason that a submarine has some strange commonalities with spacecrafts, right,
and there's a reason that the ocean is so comparatively
um unexplored. I think this is going to be on
the mind of a lot of people who have tuned
(48:34):
into the show. Uh. I mentioned as a mandy as earlier,
that's that's where we might end up with some half
done work on the moon. But in this case deep
in the ink. I suggest that we um that we
all think of the quotation by the infamous poet Abdul
al Hazred, which is this that is not dead, which
(48:56):
kind of eternal lie and with strange eons even death
may die. Props to anybody who cares about that line,
gets that, gets that terrible reference. Um and you know
the dreamless sleep and so on. But yeah, what what
will what will those ramifications be now? I would say
that the fracking science history has proven was the initial
(49:20):
stuff was largely made in bad faith, or it was
constrained in such a way that they were setting up
this very um ideal set of conditions. And we know,
we know that companies involved in fracking were fully aware
of the possibility manufacturing earthquakes, the possibility of poisoning drinking water,
(49:41):
and they went ahead with it. So it's it's troubling.
It's a troubling precedent, you know. And I don't want
to say that this is this means that these folks
are themselves acting in bad faith. I'm just saying, overall,
humans don't have the best track record, and by the
time some of these things come to light or are
(50:02):
publicly acknowledged, that damage is done. You know what I mean.
The the imagine human beings. Thanks to these mining projects,
discover new classes of extreme aphiles, can discover animals that
were before just relegated to rumors and tall tales of sailors,
(50:23):
and we only find them when they're dead. You know,
that's a kick. I think that's kicking, the kicking the tentacles,
um flicking the blowhole there, you know what I mean? Yes,
I agreed. Jumping back in here, guys, I don't want
every Look, you've already written your hate mail. I get it.
You heard me say that I think about the animals.
It's cool, but listen, just listen. We're in a pretty
(50:44):
bad state right now. If we, you know, as a species,
want to continue living. It seems a lot like we
need to do some things to move the needle when
it comes to how we get energy and use energy
on the planet. If this is one step towards those
goals and you know, saving humanity, I'm down with it.
And there's gonna be some problems, and you know, we're
(51:07):
talking about deaths of potentially millions of animals, if not more.
That's terrible. But does it save us maybe? Okay with that? Sorry,
this is just my opinion. This is where I'm at
right now. Guys. Okay, I have a son. I gotta
think about him. He's cutting off cutting off a limb
(51:29):
to save the body. Yeah, I mean, that's that's at
least that's the argument. And I'm not saying I agree
with that, But if that is, if that is true, right,
and that is what the actual aims are and it
could get us there, then I am interested in pursuing that.
But what you should listen to. Are the experts in
this field, and they've signed a petition that says, hey,
(51:52):
let's not do this, guys. You can head on over
to Sea bed Mining Science Statement dot org and read
a statement from marine experts calling for deep sea mining
to not occur. Just not petition safe. I know it's
a petition, but I'm not being I don't mean to
(52:12):
be a debbut downer. I just yeah, they're gonna do it.
I don't care about petitions. I know, I know, I know.
I mean, there's a bottom line here, right, and there's
there's potential there were there's there's a lot of potential
things going on here. If you go to the very
bottom of that page, you can find peer review journal resources,
which is I would say one of the best places
(52:33):
to start if you want to be serious about this
and you don't want to just read headlines in an article.
UM highly recommend going there and doing that and you'll
learn why. In you know, two years time from now,
when the first deep sea bed mining occurs, we unearth
the alien civilization that has been here the whole time,
and they were underneath those events. To paraphrase the old adage,
(52:57):
maybe we should let sleeping gods lie. But but you're right.
You know, the only thing I would say in response
to that argument of um endangering a portion of life
to save something else, to save the greater portion or
the life that humans tend to prioritize, is that argument
is a little tougher to maintain when you realize the
(53:20):
marine ecosystem is already at a crisis point and it
is part of a larger, interconnected system. It's not discreet,
it doesn't exist on it. So and but that's where
we are. Are we blow up the moon, drill in
the sea, send in the clowns. This is a pretty
good show this week. Just like the clowns, the aliens
are already there there the whole time, under the events.
(53:42):
And you know what's fascinating, Everything that we've named today,
everything we've explored today, is going to have repercussions in
the future. I'm really interested to see how this develops.
And Matt, you know, you point out something I think
I'll have astute listeners clocked as well. In just two
years time, right twenty, there are people who claim they're
going to be mining the moon, and people who claim
(54:05):
they're going to be mining the depths of the ocean.
So I wonder, I wonder what the I wonder what
the future brings. I hope you're still doing this show. Yeah,
from a submarine. Why because because we're in space where
we're a submarine in space? Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. I
(54:27):
don't know what we want we want to hear, you know,
it would be great. It'd be great to hear from
some folks in Singapore and see how those story has
been reported there about the about the ill fated marketing
of that academy. It also would be great to hear
from people who are already associated with resource extraction operations
(54:50):
in a maritime environment, you know, on oil platforms for instance.
It'd be great to hear from people who are involved
in the aerospace. Indus tree is it Is it a
pipe dream to to imagine mining resources from the Moon
in a economically feasible way? And what do all these
(55:12):
things mean for the future. We'd love to hear your take,
and we try to make it easy to find us online,
whether you're in a submarine, a spaceship, or you know,
a clown suit right. Yeah, And unlike weirdos hanging out
inside of schools in clown suits. The Internet, as far
as we're concerned, can be your friend. Uh if you
find us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at Conspiracy Stuff
(55:34):
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(55:56):
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want to just comment about it, we'll take it. Or
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I don't know you guys, I could use a win.
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(56:19):
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