September 7, 2020 • 56 mins
An enterprising UK resident has found a new way to profit from the pandemic -- taking people on tours of the nearly-abandoned 'ghost ships' floating off the coast as the cruise industry struggles to survive the disastrous economic effects of COVID-19. The X-Files universe may soon have a new, animated spin-off. Investigations continue as US Marshals bust an enormous, insidious child trafficking ring in Georgia. Tune in for all this and more in this week's Strange News segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart 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 name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Our Strange news segment
at the top of the week. So hoping everybody had
(00:48):
an excellent weekend and survived to face yet another Monday,
we have some strange stories for you. These run the gamut.
So we thought maybe the best way to ease in
to today's exploration was to start with something a new
development about something close to all of our hearts. Yeah,
(01:08):
that's right. Uh So it turns out that Fox Television
was developing in a spinoff of the beloved X Files,
which is something that I think is near and dear
to many of you folks out there in in podcast
lands hearts. It was such a formative show um in
terms of kind of conspiratorial um plots and like it
(01:32):
really took things like the Twilight Zone and things that
were already kind of in that supernatural realm and kind
of combined it with like a procedural, like detective type
story and just you know, really there wasn't anything else
quite like it. Uh, you know, absolutely iconic. Even the
movies are pretty good. Um, never really lost its luster
in my Actually, I don't know, I kind of fell
(01:52):
off near the end. I really loved the Monster of
the Week type episodes best. But um, here's the the
twist everyone, This new X Files series. This is a spinoff.
It's going to be called the X Files, tentatively titled
The X Files Albuquerque. Uh. And it comes from comedy writers.
(02:13):
I don't know if anyone's watched the Netflix comedy series
Paradise PD uh and a show on Comedy Central called Brickleberry,
which I think is about like a bear, a foul
mouth cartoon bear of some kind. Um. But they are
helming this new X Files Albuquerque series and it's animated.
What yeh man, what's your what when I say this
(02:36):
animated X Files was your immediate reaction? Well, the first
thing I'm thinking about is the first X Files spinoff,
the one, the true X Files spinoff, the one that surpassed,
in my opinion, the X Files altogether. Here we go
(02:57):
The Lone Gunman. Are you serious? Oh god, I loved
that show. You're being sarcastic. No, I'm not being sarcastic.
Show I thought people hated it. What are you talking about?
Us Millennium was also a spin off. Technically they exist
in the same universe the you know. To be honest,
(03:20):
the animation approach does not surprise me. We've seen more
things going into animation. I would be interested to know
whether this was planned to be animation pre pandemic or
whether it changed like so many other properties. But from
what I understand, Uh, it's got its d n A
(03:41):
at least in the production side, squarely rooted in the
world of animation, right, Like is Paradise p D animated? Yeah,
both of these shows are animated, So that's very true.
But I mean, it's it's it seems like very very
early development. Bento Box is the animation studio that's going
to be handling the actual you know, out production. Um,
(04:01):
they don't have any scripts yet or any commitment from
the actual creators in terms of like where the story
is going to go. But I do wonder if it
was like pitched that way, or if it was something
like they were gonna do an X File spinoff and
then COVID hit and they're like, well, we better pivot
to something that's more manageable that we can at least
plan for. It's something that the Internet's kind of already
a buzz about a little bit. There was an article
(04:23):
on uh oh, some kind of pop culture nerd type
site I can remember the name now, but comparing it
just conceptually, and you know, you know how the Internet
loves to pre judge things before it even exists. But
like to the Real Ghostbusters. I don't know if you
guys remember the Ghostbusters cartoon from the eighties. I guess right.
I remember the action figures and all that, and it
(04:45):
was called the Real Ghostbusters because there was another cartoon
series called Ghostbusters that was real bad and I was
always confused by it because I was like, wait, what
is this? Why does this exist? And it had nothing
to do with the Ivan Rightman property or the film
and any of it. So they had to call it
the Real Ghostbusters. Yeah, that that's happened before. When we
(05:07):
have these closely competing properties, like not just with Ghostbusters
and real Ghostbusters, which I appreciate your point. I also
had the Toys at one time. It reminds me a
bit of the Adam's Family versus the Munsters, you know
what I mean. Someone identified a concept and then before
it got locked down, someone else said, we'll do something
(05:29):
different enough with with animation though with X Files, uh,
you know, I I wonder whether the voices of Fox
and Scully will return or whether this is like if
you want to have a reboot of something and you
can't get the original actors, then maybe you make a
case that it needs to be different enough visually that
(05:52):
the audience will it'll find a new audience that isn't
married to the current protagonist, you know what I mean.
It's probably for kids War two, right, you know, there's
so many of these mature cartoons now. I wonder if
they'll make it PG thirteen, You know, because the idea
behind this is like it's like the X Files B team.
It's like all the stories or I'm sorry, the cases
(06:14):
that are too stupid or like bizarre, but not in
like a cool like you know, mystery way, more in
like a wacky slapsticky kind of way. It sounds like
for Molder and Scully to deal with. And I think
they're gonna make appearances, but um, it does seem like
it's going to be sort of a spoof almost, so
it's it's hard for me to even commit to calling
(06:34):
it a spinoff. It almost seems like nostalgia bait kind
of reworking, like a reimagining almost. I don't know it.
I have mixed feelings about it. You guys, years down
the road, we're gonna be like, do you remember when
X Files used to be a regular TV show? Ah,
this new one is just so great. I kind of
(06:56):
don't even remember whom Older and Scully are. Maybe. Yeah,
it's a good point, Matt, about how quickly things become normal,
and really the story of history is always up to
the winners who write the history right and the future historians.
So it may be that maybe the fandom divides and
(07:17):
there are some people who only love the original run
of X Files for insert, maybe even only a piece
of the original run, like only seasons one through four,
and they'll be kind of like the people who only
like the first Star Trek iteration. And then there will
be the people who only for some reason like that
original six episode reboot. Was it six episodes? I think
(07:39):
it was of what next generation? You know, the original
X Files reboot they came out. Sorry sorry sorry sorry? Yes, yes,
of course the next generation is many many more than
six episodes, yes, any many more. Uh So we don't
we don't know who's gonna win, but it makes me think, Um,
I don't know. I guess it's time for us to
give a shout out to some of our favorite X
(08:00):
Files episodes. Maybe absolutely before we do that, just really quickly.
I just wanted this is something that will like make
you super popular at parties. Folks out there. The when
we're talking about the Ghostbusters cartoon versus the real Ghostbusters cartoon, Uh,
it actually the Ghostbusters cartoon from Filmmation, you know, from
doing he Man and she Ra cartoons and all that stuff. Uh.
(08:22):
They owned the name before the movie, before the Ivan
Rightman movie. The Ivan Rightman Movie had to buy the
rights to use that from Filmmation, and then Filmmation capitalized
on the success of the Ghostbusters movie, which came out
in nineteen eighty three, by putting out a sequel to
its live action The Ghostbusters movie from nineteen seventy five.
(08:45):
So Ghostbusters the cartoon was kind of like a thing
they already owned that they had sold the rights to
use the name to Columbia Pictures and then made a
cartoon version of their live action Ghostbusters movie from where
they have a guerrilla like that. It's like these like
very slapstick Larry Storch and Forest Tucker and then they
(09:06):
have a guy in a monkey suit wearing a beanie
with like a little propeller on him. So that's all
I got. But that's why I didn't even realize that
until very recently. No, I've never heard that story. It's true,
a little lost in the in some of the business stuff,
but I think I understand. I think they licensed the
name like they I don't know exactly because they obviously
were still able to go back and make their version.
(09:27):
Um it's I don't know. I don't do a little
more digging on that, but yeah, I would love to
hear what y'all's favorite X Files episodes are. I certainly
already have mine in my mind. Yeah, well, okay, my
favorite episode of the X Files, Um, it's the one
where Buyers, one of one of the characters Buyers. He
(09:47):
has to fake his own death, and he's doing this
because he's trying to uncover this conspiracy about an airline hijacking.
It's it's pretty crazy. So um, the this air liner
ends up getting hijacked via it's it's like automatic control system, um,
the autopilot system, and it's crazy. In the end, several
(10:11):
of the guys from the team end up getting on
the plane and they're trying to stop it. The crazy
thing about it is that this plane that was being
auto remote controlled was on a collision course with the
World Trade Center. And this episode came out in two
thousand one, in March of two thousand one, and it
(10:33):
was an episode of The Lone Gunman. I was waiting
for it. Are you kidding me? I can't tell if
you're serious or not. You really like The Lone Gunman
better than The X Files, Matt, Come clean, Look I'm
being I'm not being fully honest. The X Files. The
(10:55):
X Files was my great love as as a young one.
But the Lone gun Men, let's say I've I've become
to appreciate it much more in my later years, especially
as us the three Caucasian men speaking to you now
either via audio. Yeah, well yes, the three of us
(11:17):
talking I think maybe represent the Loan Gunman in some
weird way, just a different versions. So I think I
I have grown to like it more. Oh yeah, thanks
to you Aaron Cooper for the awesome poster, which I
still have a copy of here in this strange room,
I'm turning into a layer. Uh yet, I think I'm
(11:39):
on the same page with you there, Matt. I personally don't.
In principle, I have a really difficult time choosing a
single favorite. I'm never a fan of those lists where
it's some arbitrary like these are the best two to
seventeen these things, and they're clearly my opinion is the
author I I I also to your point, knowl I
(12:02):
enjoy the Monster of the Week episodes, the supernatural stuff,
of course when they're when they're dealing with otherworldly entities.
I don't if if you are listening to stuff they
don't want you to know and you have somehow not
seeing uh the X Files. I wish I could erase
my memory and watch it with you, because what a
(12:23):
wild ride, especially when you don't have to wait a
week between episodes. Binge it you know, can cancel all
your appointments, make your weekend a week long and just
watch X Files and tell me what you think about
that really Southern gothic, not even supernatural, that Southern gothic.
Uh incest story that was That was the one that
(12:44):
they pulled right where it's like almost like a Texas
chainsaw massacre type vibe, with like a house with like
a real creepy family and like someone that lives under
a bed and there's like born with no legs or
something I don't remember. It's really twisted. Is by far
the most disturbing episode of the entire series. It's called Home,
I believe is what it's called. Right. Uh, yeah, I
think it might be home. And I think that characters
(13:07):
started with legs. Uh once upon a time, That's right,
That's right, that's right. Yeah, that's your favorite. No no,
I said, that's that's an exceptional one. Now you can
watch it via the Internet without having to worry about
top down censorship. Uh. But since I can't pick a favorite,
and I don't have a favorite because I like so
many of them, uh little, I would pass it to
(13:29):
you because it sounds like you have one you wanted
to talk about. They're actually two that really stand out
my memory and I had to google. One of them
was called but It's called d p O and it
starts Giovanni Ribisi the first time I think I've ever
seen him in anything, and he plays this kind of
outcasty weirdo who likes playing video games and has magical
lightning powers. Um, and I I really need to rewatch it.
(13:51):
I'd be interested to see if it holds up. I
have watched a decent amount of them and in the
last handful of years, and I do think by and
large they do hold up. I mean, it definitely has
got that square aspect ratio, and it's got some hallmarks
of kind of nineties, which, by by virtue of the
closeness to the eighties, feels kind of eighties at times. Uh,
(14:12):
it's weird. Um, it's that, you know, with the hair,
kind of big hair sometimes and all of that, and
some of the dialogues a little corny. But man, it
really hits um and that that's one of my favorites
I think is he's sort of this this classic outcast
character who you almost want to root for, but then he,
like you know, it goes way to Ham and becomes
kind of like stalkery and see, you now realize how
(14:33):
psychotic he really is. But he just wants to be loved,
you guys. He just wants to be loved. Um. And
then I also really enjoyed that there was one with
a creepy a creepy doll that that like murders people
with its like creepy doll powers. And I don't remember
the name of that one. Let's see if I can
find it real quick. I was gonna type in X
Files creepy doll. And that one is called chinga vacation
(14:58):
and Skully meets a girl who makes Bole injured themselves.
Written by Stephen King and Chris Carter. It's very Stephen
kingy now that I think about it. Yeah, Ching guy. Wow,
you know I just thought of another episode, you guys. Um.
This one actually was written by Vince Gilligan, who you
may remember. Vince Gilligan. You know that other show Breaking Bad.
(15:21):
He did that one, And uh, this one is really
really cool. It's called Usual Suspects. I can't even go through.
It features the Loan Government, but it is an episode
of the Edge. Okay, but that's really great. I like
the characters. They're great. I like which who I think
(15:45):
I'm the short, the short, stubby guy. Matt, you're the
long haired weirdo, and Ben, you're the other guy. What
does the other guy look like? I'm thinking of the
poster that that Aaron Cooper made. Yeah, that's the agent
Buyers that Matt was referring to a couple of different
times earlier. In this episode, he's the good looking one,
(16:05):
so you get to be the good looking one. Also,
just so you know, in that episode it features Detective
John Munch, which you may remember from the Munch first Yeah,
which I think Chuck discussed with us right when he
was on he was on the show too. Uh yeah, yeah,
I like that. You know, this isn't this isn't uh
(16:26):
necessarily strange news because the to me, maybe this is cynical.
The money makes it inevitable that there will be a
reboot or some exten extension of the X Files universe,
because otherwise what are they gonna do just sell DVDs?
You know where is he streaming? By the way, where
(16:49):
do you stream the X Files? Is this on Hulu?
I think it's on Netflix anymore? So hard to keep track.
Let me type where to stream the X Files Ladies
and Gentlemen on Idea Flicks. Nope, it's Hulu on movie
exclusively on Quimby. There you go, Um real real quick.
(17:13):
We'll wrap this up and move on to the next article.
But for it or again at X Files Animated series.
Oh the old car stuff question Yep, Yeah, I'm I'm
for it. I'm for creative endeavors. Uh. I am for
the exploration of the mind and the world around us
through fiction. It's done great for the species so far,
(17:35):
which is a very abstract way to say. Yes, even
if I don't watch it, I think it's good that
it exists in the world. Okay, Matthew, Uh, spoilers ahead.
As long as buyers, fro Hickey any other one show
up as ghosts in this new line, and we're okay.
I think that's maybe on the table. This sounds like
(17:56):
there's gonna be some mad cap, uh you know, supernatural
high jinks. So I'm for it, man, I'm not going
to poopoo it before it even exists. It's interesting at
the very least. Um, and let's just see what happens.
I guess the thing is like, it's one of those
things that has It has such a special place in
so many of our hearts that you feel protective of
(18:16):
it and you're like, oh no, don't ruin it by
making a stupid cartoon out of it. But who were
we to say, you know, maybe the kids will love it,
and then I'll introduce a whole new generation to the
X Files. It'll get it'll get more people thinking maybe
the way you do, the way we do, maybe there's
something to all this stuff on the fringes, right, That's
(18:38):
what this show is all about. I would say one
interesting part about that when we talked about intergenerational fiction
is that people tend to have nostalgia for romanticize the
things they saw that they love, right, and they say, oh,
the old thing was better, Oh the first thing was better.
But often psychologically what's happening if you were being in
(19:00):
that person is that you are pining for how you
felt at the time that you originally watched the thing.
So you're not necessarily in love with the writing where
the special effects, whatever they may have been, you are
psychologically speaking, going to be assoc You're going to be
thinking of the time in your life that you've already
(19:23):
remembered multiple times. So so we have to be really
careful when we when we find ourselves being the person saying, ah,
the old stuff was better the original stuff. No, we're
just we liked ourselves better that. Yeah. Whatever. Sometimes it's
not Sometimes it's not even good at all if you
actually revisit it. Um, it wasn't Fringed technically an X
(19:43):
File spinoff as well, I don't believe so. I think
it was. I think it was. It might be arresting
munch verse, but yeah, maybe it's in the month off. Well,
I mean there's there's a lot of references, you know
J J Abrams that I'm just looking it up right now,
and it just says Fringe every X Files reference explained.
So it's inspired by the X Files and his reference
(20:06):
to the series in several episodes, implying that they've decided
maybe retroactively to share this. What what what makes the spinoff?
Does it have to come from the same team to
be like an official spinoff? I don't know. It's a
good question. So that's uh, what do you guys think
is Fringe an X File spinoff? Let us know. That's
all I got. All right, Well, we'll be right back
(20:33):
and we've returned a brief disclaimer before we dive into
this story. It contains descriptions of abuse towards children and
therefore may not be suitable for all listening audiences. With
all the stuff going on in the news today, catastrophic weather, uh,
(20:53):
domestic and foreign unrest, we can't be blamed for having
a hard time keeping track of every single piece of
news out there in the world. So you may, like
some people have missed the recent report that nearly forty
missing children were rescued during a child trafficking bust here
(21:15):
in our very own state of Georgia. These children were
found as a result of something called Operation Not Forgotten.
It was multi county. It spanned across more than twenty
counties throughout the Metro Atlanta area, and twenty six endangered
children were recovered. Another thirteen missing children were found. The
(21:38):
authorities believe that these children were potential victims for a
sex trafficking ring, or that some of them had already
been abused. They seem to come from high risk childhood's,
you know, little stability in the family structure, maybe abuse
(21:58):
by the parents or substans of use by the parents.
And as this story developed, the governor talked about it,
you know, last Thursday evening, as this story developed, the
arrest were still coming in and as we came to
air today, I was still keeping track of some of
(22:20):
the arrest because an operation of this size requires the
activity of multiple co conspirators, and any child trafficking ring
is a conspiracy. This is the kind of stuff that people, um,
people who are reposting q and on memes should be
paying attention to. If you want to make a difference
(22:42):
and the ongoing injustice and abuse of vulnerable children, then
I would say look at things like look at these
trafficking rings that get busted all the time, look at Epstein,
look at the Catholic Church, right and and donate to
organizations fighting Then as a matter of fact, Uh, this Saturday,
(23:03):
just as we were prepping to record this for more
people were arrested in Florida in relation to this trafficking ring.
So we don't know if the nine people arrested for
this trafficking ring were the totality of management. There may
be more people out there and and more terrifyingly, there
may be more children out there as part of this ring.
(23:24):
Because these people were arrested in Florida. This is multi county.
Atlanta has been a hub of human trafficking for a
long time due to our you know, we're at the
intersection of interstates. We have one of the world's busiest airports,
or at least we did pre pandemic. So I feel
like this is a series of beginning dominoes falling. I
(23:46):
I don't know you guys have you guys have heard
of this story, right, We talked a little bit about
it off air. I think, yeah, it's just really really disturbing. Um.
I've been looking at a lot of stuff from w
s B TV. You can that's channel two here in
where we live in Atlanta. And if you click through
you know the stories, when one's posted, you can kind
of go you can go through and read a lot
(24:08):
more personal stuff about this. And I was just reading
one actually earlier today about uh, um, there was a
girl that was found. She was I think this is
the seventeen year old. Seventeen year old that was found
and it appears or they believe that she's been trafficked
(24:30):
for sexual purposes since she was twelve. UM. And when
they when the police arrived at this home where she
was kept in a garage in Rockdale County, whereas in Rockdale, Georgia. Um,
she didn't believe that anyone could possibly be there to
(24:50):
save her. It was her. She thought that somebody was
just getting there's a warrant being served in the house
or something, and that was it. And you know, my
under standing is that she was afraid to say anything, right,
I mean, she was just gonna mind her place. She
was going to stay there in the garage and allowed
to happen because she was fearful for her life. I'm
assuming that's me placing myself in her she was at,
(25:12):
which I shouldn't do. But I'm that's what my understanding is. Um.
The amazing thing is that been this this whole task force,
everyone involved in this that you're talking about, it was
specifically to to rescue children. That was the whole point
of it. And um, she just couldn't believe that someone
would do that. But the the officers were able to
(25:34):
to let her know and then they they rescued her
from that, and they did that for so many other kids. UM.
Do you want to talk about the people that were
rounded up in this and like name them? Sure? Something, Sure,
let's talk about the adults. I do want to to
give a bigger picture of this. Uh. The seventeen year
old was the oldest of the children. The youngest was
(25:56):
three years old. When she give you an idea just
how widespread this operation was across the mcgraphics. Every forty
seconds a child goes missing in this country. That adds
up to what the FBI estimates to be seven sixty
five thousand children missing per year. So it's not surprising
(26:19):
that if they have credible leads, they would form specific
task force to find to find these victims. The people
that we're talking about will name their names. We need
to be very careful to say that, this being the US,
they are not guilty until they are proven guilty in
a court. Another thing, the people who have been arrested,
(26:43):
many of them already had related convictions, by which we
mean people like Mora Deo Amos Bendel, who was arrested
in Florida. He was he already had a warrant out
for sexual assault in Conyers, Georgia. Yeah, Uh, I mean
in in decav County where I live. There was a
(27:04):
person named tray On Moore who was wanted for sex
trafficking and probation violation. He already had warrants out for
him on that m And then you have James Garcia
was arrested at a motel and Clearwater, Florida, UM with
warrants on him out of Whitfield County, Georgia for aggravated
child molestation, aggravated sodomy, and incest with a minor. Yeah,
(27:30):
and that was that was one of the people you
mentioned Ben that we're more recently arrested in Florida. Yeah. Yeah,
So three of these folks were arrested in Clearwater, Florida.
James Garcia was at a motel with Face Smith and
Sally Garcia. Face Smith had a warrant for probation violation
and Sally Garcia had had been convicted of interference with
(27:53):
child custody. Yeah. And there's more UM down in Columbus, Georgia.
There's a person named Zachary Bailey. He uh, you know,
previously had issues with human trafficking, enticing of a miner
for indecent purposes, enticement of a miner for solicitation, just awful,
egregious stuff. And then we have a Stance and CAUSI
(28:17):
arrested in Jasper Georgia, a registered sex offender and also
arrested for probation violation. And to round out the current arrestees,
the last two are Kirkwaters rested Newton County felon and
possession of a firearm. Travanti Sharif also arrested Newton County
interference with custody and obstruction. So these people, as far
(28:42):
as we can tell, have had a history with the law,
you know. And the troubling thing about this is this
bust is not the biggest of its size, even in Georgia.
Two years ago, a sex trafficking steam operation in Metro
Atlanta rescued almost a hundred and sixty children, and of
(29:05):
course along with those came the news conferences, the vows
to clean up the streets, to never let this sort
of thing happen again. And here we are two years
later and it has happened again. I mean, I just
it's this, This level of opportunism and predatory behavior is
(29:27):
just beyond anything I could possibly wrap my head around,
you know, I mean, can I can't think of anything
more egregious than praying on children and and using them
as a commodity in this way. Part of the reason
this tends to happen in Atlanta is because Atlanta is
also in addition to being a travel hub, Atlanta is
(29:48):
also a convention hub. Right, So there are a lot
of people who are effectively living a transient existence. I
don't mean just you know, people riding the rails or something.
I mean people who are from somewhere else. They're here
for a week and then they're gone the next week.
We know that the U S has a tremendous problem
(30:09):
with trafficking in general. Just to contextualize this, Matt, you
you mentioned one of those charges was enticement of a minor. Right.
The word for that is grooming, befriending a vulnerable child,
making them feel like they will be safe if they
do what you say. Yeah, this is unclean. I agree this. Uh.
(30:31):
I bring this story up because there are two very
important things we need to know. First, this story does
appear to have some sort of positive conclusion, which is invaluable.
And I believe that the investigators in this task force
meant it when they said, you know, they're never gonna
(30:52):
stop looking for a kid. They're never gonna stop looking
for these missing children. And I hope it's true. But
the second reason I bring it up is because we
have to ask ourselves how long until the next one
or how many are occurring now in the US and
in Georgia maybe specifically that aren't getting the due diligence
(31:13):
of investigators, where they aren't getting the headlines of the
press and media outfits. Uh, this this stuff is happening
every day. It may not always be over a hundred kids,
it may not always be like dozens and dozens of children.
But I don't think it makes it any better if
(31:33):
it's happening to one kid, you know, where two kids
or three? Yeah, I completely agree. It makes me wonder
what would happen if this was one of the primary
things that our tax dollars were used for. For law
enforcement officers something like this, very specific task forces that
(31:57):
focus on a major problem, and they focus on it
so deeply that they are able to you know, arrest
whole you know, groups of people who were doing some
kind of major crime. UM. Because because I think what
this does is illustrates the importance of law enforcement right
(32:18):
in a time when you know, there's a lot of
much needed scrutiny being placed on you know, individual officers
and departments. UM. This is something that I think, I
don't think anybody can argue with, is a majorly positive
thing that law enforcement officials in entire groups of officers
can do. Now, you're right, but but it's all about
(32:40):
that training and the specialized training, and then in the
task force nature of it, to like fit the training
and the personnel with a certain end goal as opposed
to what we're seeing. I think with perhaps the training
for regular you know, officers that are going to domestic
disputes are doing traffic stops, they're not trained in a
(33:01):
way that fits with the reality of that job at times.
Uh oftentimes in my in my opinion, and I think
in many people's opinions, I would say that we have
to we have to take pains still a street. The
difference here, the folks who are in charge of Operation
(33:21):
Not Forgotten are not rank and file police officers. They're
members of the U. S. Marshals Service Missing Child Unit,
So they're like their training is going to be incredibly
different to begin with, my understanding, says them. And then
like six or more other agencies, including local FBI, I
(33:43):
mean all all of these various law enforcement groups that
are where GBI and local police too. To your point,
and my point is that it's not the local police
running this, you know what, I mean, the marshals. Oh,
that's great. Overall point is that if we did highly train,
you know, even local officers in a very specific thing,
(34:08):
that they would be amazingly good at. I mean what
I imagine that we could accomplish some some wonderful things
in putting people who probably should be in jail, such
as the ones that we named in this episode earlier,
in some kind of jail prison excuse me, need to
be more specific. Jail is where you are kept when
(34:29):
you're awaiting trial. Prison is where you go after you've
been given a sentence. Thank you, whoever you are. I'm
going to find your name. Uh. And a goolag is
where you go if the people in power don't care
for what you say. Yes, shout out to Dinah, who
wrote us a great email telling us the difference between
(34:51):
jails and prisons, which I think I'm the one who
is guilty of using them interchangeably. Yes, shout out to you,
and shout out to everyone who was talking about this
case social media, various other places. One other interesting aspect
here is that we had a lot of people who
were saying, why isn't the mainstream news reporting this? Why
(35:11):
aren't they giving it more coverage? And the fact of
the matter is that the mainstream outlets were covering this.
It's just so easy to lose these stories in the
deluge of headlines that we encounter every single day. Now,
and of course, this story being somewhat rare in that
(35:31):
there is a positive outcome. And ending, we're going to
pause for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll
be back with one more piece of strange news and
we're back. Okay, we're going to take a bit of
a light turn here, but it's one that we think
(35:54):
you're going to find fascinating. Now, you may have heard
this whole situation with the pandemic the coronavirus COVID nineteen.
It's had a bit of an effect on the cruise industry,
and by that I mean cruise ships, the you know,
the giant cities that roll around on the water with
(36:14):
casinos on them. Mostly that's that's really what you're don't
forget about the shuffle board, man shuffle board and boost
so much booze. Well, unfortunately, this fun activity for those
who have enough money to enjoy it. Um, it's had
to there's had to be a pause on it, right.
(36:37):
And here's the thing, these massive ships, it's not easy
to just dock one somewhere on the coast, you know
where let's say twenty other ships would be able to
be docked, a hundred other ships to be able to
be docked. You can't just put them there, right. One
of the one of the main things that happens with
a cruise ship that is not in service is that
(36:59):
it just it's anchored or moored somewhere out in the
ocean that's deep enough to make sure it's going to
be safe even when there's like a large storm or
something on the sea. Well, if you travel to the
English Channel, which uh, if you're looking at a map,
the UK would be above you, the English Channel is
(37:20):
here and below you, ben what would it be, oh
geography quiz Okay, Well, the English Channel is the part
that looks like you could just maybe swim across it.
Some people have below the UK, You've got you've got
a cavalcade of adventure there. You've got France, he had Spain, Portugal. Uh,
you've got the entire continent of Africa. Okay, okay, okay,
(37:41):
you know a lot about where things are, Ben, I
think everybody knows those I think we all know just
I mean, I know I know about them as individual units.
I couldn't tell you where they lay out on a
map with that level of precision. Ben, don't sell yourself
short at my friend. I know things about Ben, and
one of them is that he's got a map up
(38:02):
up in here in his head. So so kind, Oh dude,
come on, So if you are in this one specific town,
let me pull it up and make sure I know
where it is. It's called the Mudford or m U
d e f o r d uh Ferry, and it
is in this place called Mudford. It's in christ Church, Dorset, UK.
(38:23):
And if you are there at let's say the docks
were not it's not the docks whatever you call the
port there. Um you look out, you'll see a bit
of Spain maybe if you're if you're lucky. Otherwise you're
just gonna see lots and lots of water, and a
way out in the distance, you're going to see whole
bunch of these giant cities that are called cruise ships.
(38:47):
Now they're just out there floating and they're empty except
for a skeleton crew maybe of people who are making
sure that you mean, like actual skeletons, dude, on the
ghost ships. Yes, they should really capital at the at
least have them wear skeleton like outfits. You know, Okay,
I'm sorry, pleasetine know there's gonna be a small crew
of people on each one of those ships, just to
(39:08):
make sure everything's okay with the ship, or at least
at most times. I don't know the inner workings of
the big cruise industry or whatever you wanna call it
industrial cruise complex, but the important thing here is that
there's almost nobody on these giant ships. Right. So an
enterprising fellow named Paul Durham who operates this thing called
(39:32):
the Mudford Ferry or Mudford Ferry, I'm gonna butcher and
I apologize. Paul, whoever mood you can do, that's all
you can do for well, he decided he's gonna start
running a two and a half hour long ghost cruise
ship ferry trip. I love the idea of this. So
(39:55):
you hop on a ferry with with Paul and his
crew or whoever is running at that day. You take
the boat out and you just kind of right up
alongside these empty cruise ships and just look up at
them and just wonder what it might have been. Like
you fantasize, Oh, that water slide looks so much fun.
Oh man, I bet the the she crab soup on
(40:17):
this place would have been just wonderful tonight. Um. But
it is this weird, I guess, an eerie feeling that
you get just knowing that they're out there empty. Um.
And he's been charging people. You know, he's a pretty
good amount of money UK by the way, and he's
able to actually have a functioning business based off of
(40:39):
the current what what do we call it purgatory in
which the cruise industry exists. Oh yeah, I mean, let's
not forget like the cruise industry was one of the
first big like pr blunders of this whole pandemic where
people were like trapped and weren't able to like get
off the ships and return to their lives. That was
one of the first big ship moments where we were like,
(41:02):
this is real bad because they weren't allowed to leave
and that was really shocking story. And I wonder how
the cruise industry is ever going to even recover from
the optics of all that I wish that I wish them.
Do you think so, yes, yeah, don't don't waste a
ton of tears. I'm not the cruise operators, the crew staff,
(41:24):
the employees had its terrible time. The pay is terrible. Uh.
They have very little in the way of workers rights,
to be honest with you, and a lot of them
were stranded just like you're saying. You know, imagine, so
you're a passenger, right and you're stranded like the the
American couple off the coast of Japan, or like many
(41:44):
many other couples, you are denied entry your vessel is
denied entry to a country. Is the pandemic hits Uh,
it's way worse when you're at a job that you
can't leave. Uh. They're also refusing to pay you because
they're not changing the agreement based on the pay schedule.
It's very unethical stuff. I I think the cruise industry
(42:07):
will recover. And I don't mean to sound callous when
I say, you know, don't cry too much for those
cruise operators, but do be very concerned about the staff
of those places, who are often treated like surfs. That's
not the fun surf s E r F. I think
that they should absolutely have more rights. Uh, and I
(42:30):
think that they are probably not first in line to
go on this ghost cruise ferry. I wonder what they
think about it. I'm sure they they're not happy about
it as as an industry. And I wonder if there's
even I mean, I guess it's all public waters. You
can't like say no, you can't drive by our more
cruise chip, you know, with your tour. How can you
(42:51):
prevent somebody from making money off that? Really quick? Just
want to point out to we We may have talked
about this in the past, but most cruise lines don't
pay any federal income tax because of the structure of
their corporate entities. They are often have corporate hq s
that are outside of the US, and that's also a
big reason they didn't get any bailout money. M hmm.
(43:12):
I wonder if you could find a way to make
your corporate HQ of a cruise line just somewhere in
the middle of international waters, you know, just like more
one ship at all times, and then that's your HQ.
It's just a po box. Maybe just put a box
on the buoy, do it and do it in Delaware
like everybody else does, you know. But just to get
(43:34):
back to this this, you know, the industry is massive.
As you said, Ben, it's not it's certainly not perfect
the way it operates. It is a lot of people
maybe you uh, just have their vacations, their holidays on
a cruise ship because it's either a tradition or something
that you just do, or it's a conni A lot
(43:55):
of people do that, and what Paul Germ here has
done is just capitalized on that so much. And also
just maybe the humans desire to observe something out of normalcy,
which I think is just a fascination a lot of
us have. And well, it made me think, you guys,
I want to ask you this question. Do you think
one day now that all of these offices in cities
(44:18):
across the world are closed, When it's hard to imagine,
even after pandemic conditions are finished, when businesses will be
paying all of this money in rent or leases to
have all of their office workers in these giant buildings.
I can't imagine that happening. And what I am imagining
(44:38):
is like ghost cities essentially, where there's hardly any residents
at least office residents in massive buildings and cities, and
even a lot of people attempting to escape cities. Who
are you know, leasing apartments or living in a large
building in a situation that is just very crowded. What
(45:01):
do you think, Yeah, it's gonna happen. I mean, they're
all first off, they're already ghost cities, especially in the
in the interior of China, because they may or may
not be real estate scams or state attempts to prop
up the economies year over year growth, which is one
of the only things keeping a lot of the domestic
(45:23):
population in line. But I think more directly to your
question about commercial property values, it's gonna be very difficult
for people because if you are a company and you
start realizing that you're paying, you know, thousands and thousands
of dollars per square foot per month to have a
thing that people no longer need to use, and it
(45:45):
makes sense to have people work from home and cut
that cost. There's always gonna be a wave, typically generational
or catastrophe responsive. Uh, there's always gonna be a wave
of people who want to return turn to a simpler
time as they envision it, and leave the city. But
(46:06):
cities are a human necessity. The majority of the world
lives in them. Unless there is a much more deadly pandemic,
the majority of the world will continue to do so.
It's more economic opportunity. Um. You it's easier to find
the silly hoops you have to jump through for social advancement,
like being members of whatever club and whatever city. Uh.
(46:28):
And then there are also seats of progress human evolution
brief though it is occurs in cities, our social evolution,
our technological innovations. So I think cities are I think
cities are must have. What I would wonder is how
long it's gonna take how long it's going to take
(46:49):
for one of those cruise companies to go bankrupt and
for a a group of enterprising people, maybe like the
same people who created ceiling or whatever that that micro
nation is called. I wonder how long it's going to
take somebody to go and try to get squatters rights
on the cruise ship. I wanted the same thing about
like the phenomenon that is dead malls. Uh. You know,
(47:12):
they're these like massive structures that for whatever reason, not
COVID related or pandemic related, usually more just the changing
of economy and like things being less focused on like
huge brick and mortar buildings. Um, they or they get
replaced by a new or shining r mall and the
old ones just end up. There's there's a webcitcle dead
malls dot Com that, like, I mean, some of these
(47:33):
literally look like urban abandoned jungles, you know, with like
these empty COI ponds and stuff, and uh, it's very
very creepy and eerie. I could definitely see that phenomenon spreading,
you know, to office buildings and then maybe we have
a tour of of abandoned office parks and you know
(47:53):
what I mean, Like I mean, it's it's it's very eerie.
But I think very much within the realm of reality. Well,
there's more to to dive into there when we think
about property prices, rent prices, um, rent controls and all
that kind of thing. When you're talking about big cities,
when you're talking about even you know, maybe maybe suburban
(48:13):
areas that have giant malls in them, because that that
is one of the common areas where you'll find large
mall facilities and structures. Um. But just what happens when
prices become so low in an area, maybe in in
a city, or when they become so high an area
in the city and what you know, how everything changes
(48:34):
where people migrate to, even within a state or you know,
a county or even a city suburban area. UM, I
don't know. It's all fascinating stuff that I've been thinking
about a lot. In this case, I want to get
back to just the concept that you're saying haunt, like
ghost tours of a mall or ghost tours of cruise
(48:54):
ship from the Royal Caribbean or wherever. UM. I know
we're far away from Halloween right now, but I always
think about ghost tours, haunted tours like that. Um. At
some point I want to gather together and have like
a list of really good ghost tours in cities. Yeah,
(49:16):
legitimate ones self, yes, not one where somebody's taking you
on a tour and showing you all the things, giving
you the bullet points. But like, here's a map essentially
of these homes and structures that are believed to be haunted.
Like I want to talk about that so we can
maybe one day go on a a little ghost tour.
(49:38):
You guys love it, I would love it. I have
a list of that for Atlanta actually, sign me up.
There's a oh man, there are a few spots I
I actually learned about through the graffiti cruise used to
run with they because those were like the spots you
could hit. And you don't want to tell people about
(49:58):
the spots because you don't want to blow up the spots.
And everybody was convinced that everybody else was a cop,
probably because of all the drugs they did. But they
left us with a good list of supposedly haunted places.
I gotta dig that up. And if you're listening, like
right to us and tell us I don't care where
you live, tell us what you know. I want to
I want to hear about the most haunted places near you.
(50:20):
And then I also want to point out that there
are a lot of small countries in Europe that are
also under the United Kingdom. Who didn't talk about like Andra, Uh,
just just just to get in front of that email whatever,
somebody sends that to us. Uh, we're specifically talking about
that area of christ Church. That's where Mudford faerious Mudford. Yes,
(50:44):
And if you're a Mudford, right to us, if you've
taken the ferry uh through this ghost toward tell us
about it. Also, if you have ever worked in the
strange universe of the cruise ship industry, let us know
the stuff they don't want you to know about the
cruise industry. We already, the three of us already sussed
(51:05):
out a little bit of it. But who knows, Perhaps
it would be a perhaps it would be a full
episode in the future. That might might mean we never
have a cruise ship as a sponsor. I don't know,
what do you think it's worth the risk? I know
a lot of or at least a handful of folks.
Um My mother's a singing teacher and a pretty lucrative
(51:27):
early gig for singers is to you know, maybe they
don't make it on Broadway, but they get a job
saying on a cruise ship or like being in like
a variety show on a cruise ship, and that in
and of itself is a grueling situation because they're doing like,
you know, four or five shows a day or whatever,
and then subject to all the weirdnesses that you're talking
about then about just being in that world. I might
(51:49):
reach out to a few of those and see what
the inside scoopa is about all that. Yeah, what I'm
asking is, do you think it would be worth it
to do that episode. That's the question I was asking,
Do you guys think it would be worth to do
that episode if it meant that we might mix our
chances of ever having a cruise company as a sponsor.
I think it's worth it. I don't know, guys. I'm
imagining a scenario where the four of the five of us,
(52:13):
including Codename Doc, Holiday and Mission Control, go on a
cruise ship to let's say Scotland, Ireland, other parts of
the UK, the super haunted like old the places in
in that area of the world, where we're just cruising
around doing this show every day, maybe twice a day,
(52:33):
but then the rest of the time we're ghost hunting
conspiracy cruise Remember that we got so close to doing that.
I would do it in a heartbeat. That's that's a
true story, and we were very happy to do that.
But yeah, but let us know, like like you said, Nol,
like you said, Matt, we do know this is a
this is a strange world and it's different from the
(52:55):
world upon which a lot of land lovers walk. So
how can you tell us about this? How can you
tell us your opinion about the X Files animated spinoff,
how can you tell us more about the human trafficking
cases that are, unfortunately, unlike our story in Georgia, not
reaching the news. We want to hear from you, and
we do our best to make it easy to find us.
(53:18):
Ironically enough, given the nature of this show, you can
find us on the internet first, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. We
are Conspiracy Stuff on Twitter and Facebook, or Conspiracy Stuff
Show on Instagram. Uh. If you're looking for us in
that capacity, we recommend you check out Here's where It
Gets Crazy, where you can talk directly with the best
part of the show, your fellow listeners. You can also
(53:40):
find us as individuals on some of the same social meds. Yeah,
you can find me on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown,
I am Matt Frederick underscore my heart. Good luck finding it,
even better luck finding anything post Matt. Matt literally shadow
band himself, so you know it's an interesting way to go.
(54:02):
You can find me at Ben Bolan on Instagram exploring
some new strange foods along with updates on all the
weird esoteric stuff I'm reading. You can also find me
on Twitter at Ben bull in hs W. If you
find one of the other Ben bullets maybe listening to
this show. Uh, they're about five of us that I've
been in contact with online. They're all great. Check them
(54:26):
out too. Yeah, but there was that one, wasn't there. Uh,
there's one, but he's a distant relative of mine and
he knows what he did. The the other one, there's
a criminologist in the UK. There's a tattoo artist and Idaho,
both top notch dudes. Uh so, I you know, I
(54:46):
think it's awesome when you run into people, when you
run into people who share a name with you, partially
you're fully you shouldn't feel threatened, get some swag about
yourself and realize that you're very close to for me,
your own kind of Avengers or Justice League. Run with it, right.
Shout out to the other four hundred Matt Fredericks out
there that I find every time I try and look
at myself anything anywhere, at any time. Are there really
(55:09):
that Yeah? A buddy of my named Kyle exclusively only
has people on Facebook follow him by the name of Kyle.
I was very impressed by this feat. It was a feat,
an utterly ridiculous feat of social media like counterintuitiveness, and
I didn't believe it at first, but I went and
looked at his friends list, and almost all of them
(55:30):
are named Kyle, and I think he has about a thousand,
and the other ones are of like the parents exactly.
So if you hate social media and you're more of
a like directly shouting into the void kind of person,
oh boy, oh boy, do we have a deal for you?
That's not ideal. It's a phone number, Yeah, it's a deal.
It's a steel you can shout directly into your telephone
(55:52):
or head gear, you know, with one of those Madonna
mics that people wear. Um at one three S, td
W I t K. That's right. Leave us a message.
You might end up on one of our listener mail episodes.
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(56:14):
Just let us know. If you don't want to do
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(56:42):
know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I 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 name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Our Strange news segment
at the top of the week. So hoping everybody had
(00:48):
an excellent weekend and survived to face yet another Monday,
we have some strange stories for you. These run the gamut.
So we thought maybe the best way to ease in
to today's exploration was to start with something a new
development about something close to all of our hearts. Yeah,
(01:08):
that's right. Uh So it turns out that Fox Television
was developing in a spinoff of the beloved X Files,
which is something that I think is near and dear
to many of you folks out there in in podcast
lands hearts. It was such a formative show um in
terms of kind of conspiratorial um plots and like it
(01:32):
really took things like the Twilight Zone and things that
were already kind of in that supernatural realm and kind
of combined it with like a procedural, like detective type
story and just you know, really there wasn't anything else
quite like it. Uh, you know, absolutely iconic. Even the
movies are pretty good. Um, never really lost its luster
in my Actually, I don't know, I kind of fell
(01:52):
off near the end. I really loved the Monster of
the Week type episodes best. But um, here's the the
twist everyone, This new X Files series. This is a spinoff.
It's going to be called the X Files, tentatively titled
The X Files Albuquerque. Uh. And it comes from comedy writers.
(02:13):
I don't know if anyone's watched the Netflix comedy series
Paradise PD uh and a show on Comedy Central called Brickleberry,
which I think is about like a bear, a foul
mouth cartoon bear of some kind. Um. But they are
helming this new X Files Albuquerque series and it's animated.
What yeh man, what's your what when I say this
(02:36):
animated X Files was your immediate reaction? Well, the first
thing I'm thinking about is the first X Files spinoff,
the one, the true X Files spinoff, the one that surpassed,
in my opinion, the X Files altogether. Here we go
(02:57):
The Lone Gunman. Are you serious? Oh god, I loved
that show. You're being sarcastic. No, I'm not being sarcastic.
Show I thought people hated it. What are you talking about?
Us Millennium was also a spin off. Technically they exist
in the same universe the you know. To be honest,
(03:20):
the animation approach does not surprise me. We've seen more
things going into animation. I would be interested to know
whether this was planned to be animation pre pandemic or
whether it changed like so many other properties. But from
what I understand, Uh, it's got its d n A
(03:41):
at least in the production side, squarely rooted in the
world of animation, right, Like is Paradise p D animated? Yeah,
both of these shows are animated, So that's very true.
But I mean, it's it's it seems like very very
early development. Bento Box is the animation studio that's going
to be handling the actual you know, out production. Um,
(04:01):
they don't have any scripts yet or any commitment from
the actual creators in terms of like where the story
is going to go. But I do wonder if it
was like pitched that way, or if it was something
like they were gonna do an X File spinoff and
then COVID hit and they're like, well, we better pivot
to something that's more manageable that we can at least
plan for. It's something that the Internet's kind of already
a buzz about a little bit. There was an article
(04:23):
on uh oh, some kind of pop culture nerd type
site I can remember the name now, but comparing it
just conceptually, and you know, you know how the Internet
loves to pre judge things before it even exists. But
like to the Real Ghostbusters. I don't know if you
guys remember the Ghostbusters cartoon from the eighties. I guess right.
I remember the action figures and all that, and it
(04:45):
was called the Real Ghostbusters because there was another cartoon
series called Ghostbusters that was real bad and I was
always confused by it because I was like, wait, what
is this? Why does this exist? And it had nothing
to do with the Ivan Rightman property or the film
and any of it. So they had to call it
the Real Ghostbusters. Yeah, that that's happened before. When we
(05:07):
have these closely competing properties, like not just with Ghostbusters
and real Ghostbusters, which I appreciate your point. I also
had the Toys at one time. It reminds me a
bit of the Adam's Family versus the Munsters, you know
what I mean. Someone identified a concept and then before
it got locked down, someone else said, we'll do something
(05:29):
different enough with with animation though with X Files, uh,
you know, I I wonder whether the voices of Fox
and Scully will return or whether this is like if
you want to have a reboot of something and you
can't get the original actors, then maybe you make a
case that it needs to be different enough visually that
(05:52):
the audience will it'll find a new audience that isn't
married to the current protagonist, you know what I mean.
It's probably for kids War two, right, you know, there's
so many of these mature cartoons now. I wonder if
they'll make it PG thirteen, You know, because the idea
behind this is like it's like the X Files B team.
It's like all the stories or I'm sorry, the cases
(06:14):
that are too stupid or like bizarre, but not in
like a cool like you know, mystery way, more in
like a wacky slapsticky kind of way. It sounds like
for Molder and Scully to deal with. And I think
they're gonna make appearances, but um, it does seem like
it's going to be sort of a spoof almost, so
it's it's hard for me to even commit to calling
(06:34):
it a spinoff. It almost seems like nostalgia bait kind
of reworking, like a reimagining almost. I don't know it.
I have mixed feelings about it. You guys, years down
the road, we're gonna be like, do you remember when
X Files used to be a regular TV show? Ah,
this new one is just so great. I kind of
(06:56):
don't even remember whom Older and Scully are. Maybe. Yeah,
it's a good point, Matt, about how quickly things become normal,
and really the story of history is always up to
the winners who write the history right and the future historians.
So it may be that maybe the fandom divides and
(07:17):
there are some people who only love the original run
of X Files for insert, maybe even only a piece
of the original run, like only seasons one through four,
and they'll be kind of like the people who only
like the first Star Trek iteration. And then there will
be the people who only for some reason like that
original six episode reboot. Was it six episodes? I think
(07:39):
it was of what next generation? You know, the original
X Files reboot they came out. Sorry sorry sorry sorry? Yes, yes,
of course the next generation is many many more than
six episodes, yes, any many more. Uh So we don't
we don't know who's gonna win, but it makes me think, Um,
I don't know. I guess it's time for us to
give a shout out to some of our favorite X
(08:00):
Files episodes. Maybe absolutely before we do that, just really quickly.
I just wanted this is something that will like make
you super popular at parties. Folks out there. The when
we're talking about the Ghostbusters cartoon versus the real Ghostbusters cartoon, Uh,
it actually the Ghostbusters cartoon from Filmmation, you know, from
doing he Man and she Ra cartoons and all that stuff. Uh.
(08:22):
They owned the name before the movie, before the Ivan
Rightman movie. The Ivan Rightman Movie had to buy the
rights to use that from Filmmation, and then Filmmation capitalized
on the success of the Ghostbusters movie, which came out
in nineteen eighty three, by putting out a sequel to
its live action The Ghostbusters movie from nineteen seventy five.
(08:45):
So Ghostbusters the cartoon was kind of like a thing
they already owned that they had sold the rights to
use the name to Columbia Pictures and then made a
cartoon version of their live action Ghostbusters movie from where
they have a guerrilla like that. It's like these like
very slapstick Larry Storch and Forest Tucker and then they
(09:06):
have a guy in a monkey suit wearing a beanie
with like a little propeller on him. So that's all
I got. But that's why I didn't even realize that
until very recently. No, I've never heard that story. It's true,
a little lost in the in some of the business stuff,
but I think I understand. I think they licensed the
name like they I don't know exactly because they obviously
were still able to go back and make their version.
(09:27):
Um it's I don't know. I don't do a little
more digging on that, but yeah, I would love to
hear what y'all's favorite X Files episodes are. I certainly
already have mine in my mind. Yeah, well, okay, my
favorite episode of the X Files, Um, it's the one
where Buyers, one of one of the characters Buyers. He
(09:47):
has to fake his own death, and he's doing this
because he's trying to uncover this conspiracy about an airline hijacking.
It's it's pretty crazy. So um, the this air liner
ends up getting hijacked via it's it's like automatic control system, um,
the autopilot system, and it's crazy. In the end, several
(10:11):
of the guys from the team end up getting on
the plane and they're trying to stop it. The crazy
thing about it is that this plane that was being
auto remote controlled was on a collision course with the
World Trade Center. And this episode came out in two
thousand one, in March of two thousand one, and it
(10:33):
was an episode of The Lone Gunman. I was waiting
for it. Are you kidding me? I can't tell if
you're serious or not. You really like The Lone Gunman
better than The X Files, Matt, Come clean, Look I'm
being I'm not being fully honest. The X Files. The
(10:55):
X Files was my great love as as a young one.
But the Lone gun Men, let's say I've I've become
to appreciate it much more in my later years, especially
as us the three Caucasian men speaking to you now
either via audio. Yeah, well yes, the three of us
(11:17):
talking I think maybe represent the Loan Gunman in some
weird way, just a different versions. So I think I
I have grown to like it more. Oh yeah, thanks
to you Aaron Cooper for the awesome poster, which I
still have a copy of here in this strange room,
I'm turning into a layer. Uh yet, I think I'm
(11:39):
on the same page with you there, Matt. I personally don't.
In principle, I have a really difficult time choosing a
single favorite. I'm never a fan of those lists where
it's some arbitrary like these are the best two to
seventeen these things, and they're clearly my opinion is the
author I I I also to your point, knowl I
(12:02):
enjoy the Monster of the Week episodes, the supernatural stuff,
of course when they're when they're dealing with otherworldly entities.
I don't if if you are listening to stuff they
don't want you to know and you have somehow not
seeing uh the X Files. I wish I could erase
my memory and watch it with you, because what a
(12:23):
wild ride, especially when you don't have to wait a
week between episodes. Binge it you know, can cancel all
your appointments, make your weekend a week long and just
watch X Files and tell me what you think about
that really Southern gothic, not even supernatural, that Southern gothic.
Uh incest story that was That was the one that
(12:44):
they pulled right where it's like almost like a Texas
chainsaw massacre type vibe, with like a house with like
a real creepy family and like someone that lives under
a bed and there's like born with no legs or
something I don't remember. It's really twisted. Is by far
the most disturbing episode of the entire series. It's called Home,
I believe is what it's called. Right. Uh, yeah, I
think it might be home. And I think that characters
(13:07):
started with legs. Uh once upon a time, That's right,
That's right, that's right. Yeah, that's your favorite. No no,
I said, that's that's an exceptional one. Now you can
watch it via the Internet without having to worry about
top down censorship. Uh. But since I can't pick a favorite,
and I don't have a favorite because I like so
many of them, uh little, I would pass it to
(13:29):
you because it sounds like you have one you wanted
to talk about. They're actually two that really stand out
my memory and I had to google. One of them
was called but It's called d p O and it
starts Giovanni Ribisi the first time I think I've ever
seen him in anything, and he plays this kind of
outcasty weirdo who likes playing video games and has magical
lightning powers. Um, and I I really need to rewatch it.
(13:51):
I'd be interested to see if it holds up. I
have watched a decent amount of them and in the
last handful of years, and I do think by and
large they do hold up. I mean, it definitely has
got that square aspect ratio, and it's got some hallmarks
of kind of nineties, which, by by virtue of the
closeness to the eighties, feels kind of eighties at times. Uh,
(14:12):
it's weird. Um, it's that, you know, with the hair,
kind of big hair sometimes and all of that, and
some of the dialogues a little corny. But man, it
really hits um and that that's one of my favorites
I think is he's sort of this this classic outcast
character who you almost want to root for, but then he,
like you know, it goes way to Ham and becomes
kind of like stalkery and see, you now realize how
(14:33):
psychotic he really is. But he just wants to be loved,
you guys. He just wants to be loved. Um. And
then I also really enjoyed that there was one with
a creepy a creepy doll that that like murders people
with its like creepy doll powers. And I don't remember
the name of that one. Let's see if I can
find it real quick. I was gonna type in X
Files creepy doll. And that one is called chinga vacation
(14:58):
and Skully meets a girl who makes Bole injured themselves.
Written by Stephen King and Chris Carter. It's very Stephen
kingy now that I think about it. Yeah, Ching guy. Wow,
you know I just thought of another episode, you guys. Um.
This one actually was written by Vince Gilligan, who you
may remember. Vince Gilligan. You know that other show Breaking Bad.
(15:21):
He did that one, And uh, this one is really
really cool. It's called Usual Suspects. I can't even go through.
It features the Loan Government, but it is an episode
of the Edge. Okay, but that's really great. I like
the characters. They're great. I like which who I think
(15:45):
I'm the short, the short, stubby guy. Matt, you're the
long haired weirdo, and Ben, you're the other guy. What
does the other guy look like? I'm thinking of the
poster that that Aaron Cooper made. Yeah, that's the agent
Buyers that Matt was referring to a couple of different
times earlier. In this episode, he's the good looking one,
(16:05):
so you get to be the good looking one. Also,
just so you know, in that episode it features Detective
John Munch, which you may remember from the Munch first Yeah,
which I think Chuck discussed with us right when he
was on he was on the show too. Uh yeah, yeah,
I like that. You know, this isn't this isn't uh
(16:26):
necessarily strange news because the to me, maybe this is cynical.
The money makes it inevitable that there will be a
reboot or some exten extension of the X Files universe,
because otherwise what are they gonna do just sell DVDs?
You know where is he streaming? By the way, where
(16:49):
do you stream the X Files? Is this on Hulu?
I think it's on Netflix anymore? So hard to keep track.
Let me type where to stream the X Files Ladies
and Gentlemen on Idea Flicks. Nope, it's Hulu on movie
exclusively on Quimby. There you go, Um real real quick.
(17:13):
We'll wrap this up and move on to the next article.
But for it or again at X Files Animated series.
Oh the old car stuff question Yep, Yeah, I'm I'm
for it. I'm for creative endeavors. Uh. I am for
the exploration of the mind and the world around us
through fiction. It's done great for the species so far,
(17:35):
which is a very abstract way to say. Yes, even
if I don't watch it, I think it's good that
it exists in the world. Okay, Matthew, Uh, spoilers ahead.
As long as buyers, fro Hickey any other one show
up as ghosts in this new line, and we're okay.
I think that's maybe on the table. This sounds like
(17:56):
there's gonna be some mad cap, uh you know, supernatural
high jinks. So I'm for it, man, I'm not going
to poopoo it before it even exists. It's interesting at
the very least. Um, and let's just see what happens.
I guess the thing is like, it's one of those
things that has It has such a special place in
so many of our hearts that you feel protective of
(18:16):
it and you're like, oh no, don't ruin it by
making a stupid cartoon out of it. But who were
we to say, you know, maybe the kids will love it,
and then I'll introduce a whole new generation to the
X Files. It'll get it'll get more people thinking maybe
the way you do, the way we do, maybe there's
something to all this stuff on the fringes, right, That's
(18:38):
what this show is all about. I would say one
interesting part about that when we talked about intergenerational fiction
is that people tend to have nostalgia for romanticize the
things they saw that they love, right, and they say, oh,
the old thing was better, Oh the first thing was better.
But often psychologically what's happening if you were being in
(19:00):
that person is that you are pining for how you
felt at the time that you originally watched the thing.
So you're not necessarily in love with the writing where
the special effects, whatever they may have been, you are
psychologically speaking, going to be assoc You're going to be
thinking of the time in your life that you've already
(19:23):
remembered multiple times. So so we have to be really
careful when we when we find ourselves being the person saying, ah,
the old stuff was better the original stuff. No, we're
just we liked ourselves better that. Yeah. Whatever. Sometimes it's
not Sometimes it's not even good at all if you
actually revisit it. Um, it wasn't Fringed technically an X
(19:43):
File spinoff as well, I don't believe so. I think
it was. I think it was. It might be arresting
munch verse, but yeah, maybe it's in the month off. Well,
I mean there's there's a lot of references, you know
J J Abrams that I'm just looking it up right now,
and it just says Fringe every X Files reference explained.
So it's inspired by the X Files and his reference
(20:06):
to the series in several episodes, implying that they've decided
maybe retroactively to share this. What what what makes the spinoff?
Does it have to come from the same team to
be like an official spinoff? I don't know. It's a
good question. So that's uh, what do you guys think
is Fringe an X File spinoff? Let us know. That's
all I got. All right, Well, we'll be right back
(20:33):
and we've returned a brief disclaimer before we dive into
this story. It contains descriptions of abuse towards children and
therefore may not be suitable for all listening audiences. With
all the stuff going on in the news today, catastrophic weather, uh,
(20:53):
domestic and foreign unrest, we can't be blamed for having
a hard time keeping track of every single piece of
news out there in the world. So you may, like
some people have missed the recent report that nearly forty
missing children were rescued during a child trafficking bust here
(21:15):
in our very own state of Georgia. These children were
found as a result of something called Operation Not Forgotten.
It was multi county. It spanned across more than twenty
counties throughout the Metro Atlanta area, and twenty six endangered
children were recovered. Another thirteen missing children were found. The
(21:38):
authorities believe that these children were potential victims for a
sex trafficking ring, or that some of them had already
been abused. They seem to come from high risk childhood's,
you know, little stability in the family structure, maybe abuse
(21:58):
by the parents or substans of use by the parents.
And as this story developed, the governor talked about it,
you know, last Thursday evening, as this story developed, the
arrest were still coming in and as we came to
air today, I was still keeping track of some of
(22:20):
the arrest because an operation of this size requires the
activity of multiple co conspirators, and any child trafficking ring
is a conspiracy. This is the kind of stuff that people, um,
people who are reposting q and on memes should be
paying attention to. If you want to make a difference
(22:42):
and the ongoing injustice and abuse of vulnerable children, then
I would say look at things like look at these
trafficking rings that get busted all the time, look at Epstein,
look at the Catholic Church, right and and donate to
organizations fighting Then as a matter of fact, Uh, this Saturday,
(23:03):
just as we were prepping to record this for more
people were arrested in Florida in relation to this trafficking ring.
So we don't know if the nine people arrested for
this trafficking ring were the totality of management. There may
be more people out there and and more terrifyingly, there
may be more children out there as part of this ring.
(23:24):
Because these people were arrested in Florida. This is multi county.
Atlanta has been a hub of human trafficking for a
long time due to our you know, we're at the
intersection of interstates. We have one of the world's busiest airports,
or at least we did pre pandemic. So I feel
like this is a series of beginning dominoes falling. I
(23:46):
I don't know you guys have you guys have heard
of this story, right, We talked a little bit about
it off air. I think, yeah, it's just really really disturbing. Um.
I've been looking at a lot of stuff from w
s B TV. You can that's channel two here in
where we live in Atlanta. And if you click through
you know the stories, when one's posted, you can kind
of go you can go through and read a lot
(24:08):
more personal stuff about this. And I was just reading
one actually earlier today about uh, um, there was a
girl that was found. She was I think this is
the seventeen year old. Seventeen year old that was found
and it appears or they believe that she's been trafficked
(24:30):
for sexual purposes since she was twelve. UM. And when
they when the police arrived at this home where she
was kept in a garage in Rockdale County, whereas in Rockdale, Georgia. Um,
she didn't believe that anyone could possibly be there to
(24:50):
save her. It was her. She thought that somebody was
just getting there's a warrant being served in the house
or something, and that was it. And you know, my
under standing is that she was afraid to say anything, right,
I mean, she was just gonna mind her place. She
was going to stay there in the garage and allowed
to happen because she was fearful for her life. I'm
assuming that's me placing myself in her she was at,
(25:12):
which I shouldn't do. But I'm that's what my understanding is. Um.
The amazing thing is that been this this whole task force,
everyone involved in this that you're talking about, it was
specifically to to rescue children. That was the whole point
of it. And um, she just couldn't believe that someone
would do that. But the the officers were able to
(25:34):
to let her know and then they they rescued her
from that, and they did that for so many other kids. UM.
Do you want to talk about the people that were
rounded up in this and like name them? Sure? Something, Sure,
let's talk about the adults. I do want to to
give a bigger picture of this. Uh. The seventeen year
old was the oldest of the children. The youngest was
(25:56):
three years old. When she give you an idea just
how widespread this operation was across the mcgraphics. Every forty
seconds a child goes missing in this country. That adds
up to what the FBI estimates to be seven sixty
five thousand children missing per year. So it's not surprising
(26:19):
that if they have credible leads, they would form specific
task force to find to find these victims. The people
that we're talking about will name their names. We need
to be very careful to say that, this being the US,
they are not guilty until they are proven guilty in
a court. Another thing, the people who have been arrested,
(26:43):
many of them already had related convictions, by which we
mean people like Mora Deo Amos Bendel, who was arrested
in Florida. He was he already had a warrant out
for sexual assault in Conyers, Georgia. Yeah, Uh, I mean
in in decav County where I live. There was a
(27:04):
person named tray On Moore who was wanted for sex
trafficking and probation violation. He already had warrants out for
him on that m And then you have James Garcia
was arrested at a motel and Clearwater, Florida, UM with
warrants on him out of Whitfield County, Georgia for aggravated
child molestation, aggravated sodomy, and incest with a minor. Yeah,
(27:30):
and that was that was one of the people you
mentioned Ben that we're more recently arrested in Florida. Yeah. Yeah,
So three of these folks were arrested in Clearwater, Florida.
James Garcia was at a motel with Face Smith and
Sally Garcia. Face Smith had a warrant for probation violation
and Sally Garcia had had been convicted of interference with
(27:53):
child custody. Yeah. And there's more UM down in Columbus, Georgia.
There's a person named Zachary Bailey. He uh, you know,
previously had issues with human trafficking, enticing of a miner
for indecent purposes, enticement of a miner for solicitation, just awful,
egregious stuff. And then we have a Stance and CAUSI
(28:17):
arrested in Jasper Georgia, a registered sex offender and also
arrested for probation violation. And to round out the current arrestees,
the last two are Kirkwaters rested Newton County felon and
possession of a firearm. Travanti Sharif also arrested Newton County
interference with custody and obstruction. So these people, as far
(28:42):
as we can tell, have had a history with the law,
you know. And the troubling thing about this is this
bust is not the biggest of its size, even in Georgia.
Two years ago, a sex trafficking steam operation in Metro
Atlanta rescued almost a hundred and sixty children, and of
(29:05):
course along with those came the news conferences, the vows
to clean up the streets, to never let this sort
of thing happen again. And here we are two years
later and it has happened again. I mean, I just
it's this, This level of opportunism and predatory behavior is
(29:27):
just beyond anything I could possibly wrap my head around,
you know, I mean, can I can't think of anything
more egregious than praying on children and and using them
as a commodity in this way. Part of the reason
this tends to happen in Atlanta is because Atlanta is
also in addition to being a travel hub, Atlanta is
(29:48):
also a convention hub. Right, So there are a lot
of people who are effectively living a transient existence. I
don't mean just you know, people riding the rails or something.
I mean people who are from somewhere else. They're here
for a week and then they're gone the next week.
We know that the U S has a tremendous problem
(30:09):
with trafficking in general. Just to contextualize this, Matt, you
you mentioned one of those charges was enticement of a minor. Right.
The word for that is grooming, befriending a vulnerable child,
making them feel like they will be safe if they
do what you say. Yeah, this is unclean. I agree this. Uh.
(30:31):
I bring this story up because there are two very
important things we need to know. First, this story does
appear to have some sort of positive conclusion, which is invaluable.
And I believe that the investigators in this task force
meant it when they said, you know, they're never gonna
(30:52):
stop looking for a kid. They're never gonna stop looking
for these missing children. And I hope it's true. But
the second reason I bring it up is because we
have to ask ourselves how long until the next one
or how many are occurring now in the US and
in Georgia maybe specifically that aren't getting the due diligence
(31:13):
of investigators, where they aren't getting the headlines of the
press and media outfits. Uh, this this stuff is happening
every day. It may not always be over a hundred kids,
it may not always be like dozens and dozens of children.
But I don't think it makes it any better if
(31:33):
it's happening to one kid, you know, where two kids
or three? Yeah, I completely agree. It makes me wonder
what would happen if this was one of the primary
things that our tax dollars were used for. For law
enforcement officers something like this, very specific task forces that
(31:57):
focus on a major problem, and they focus on it
so deeply that they are able to you know, arrest
whole you know, groups of people who were doing some
kind of major crime. UM. Because because I think what
this does is illustrates the importance of law enforcement right
(32:18):
in a time when you know, there's a lot of
much needed scrutiny being placed on you know, individual officers
and departments. UM. This is something that I think, I
don't think anybody can argue with, is a majorly positive
thing that law enforcement officials in entire groups of officers
can do. Now, you're right, but but it's all about
(32:40):
that training and the specialized training, and then in the
task force nature of it, to like fit the training
and the personnel with a certain end goal as opposed
to what we're seeing. I think with perhaps the training
for regular you know, officers that are going to domestic
disputes are doing traffic stops, they're not trained in a
(33:01):
way that fits with the reality of that job at times.
Uh oftentimes in my in my opinion, and I think
in many people's opinions, I would say that we have
to we have to take pains still a street. The
difference here, the folks who are in charge of Operation
(33:21):
Not Forgotten are not rank and file police officers. They're
members of the U. S. Marshals Service Missing Child Unit,
So they're like their training is going to be incredibly
different to begin with, my understanding, says them. And then
like six or more other agencies, including local FBI, I
(33:43):
mean all all of these various law enforcement groups that
are where GBI and local police too. To your point,
and my point is that it's not the local police
running this, you know what, I mean, the marshals. Oh,
that's great. Overall point is that if we did highly train,
you know, even local officers in a very specific thing,
(34:08):
that they would be amazingly good at. I mean what
I imagine that we could accomplish some some wonderful things
in putting people who probably should be in jail, such
as the ones that we named in this episode earlier,
in some kind of jail prison excuse me, need to
be more specific. Jail is where you are kept when
(34:29):
you're awaiting trial. Prison is where you go after you've
been given a sentence. Thank you, whoever you are. I'm
going to find your name. Uh. And a goolag is
where you go if the people in power don't care
for what you say. Yes, shout out to Dinah, who
wrote us a great email telling us the difference between
(34:51):
jails and prisons, which I think I'm the one who
is guilty of using them interchangeably. Yes, shout out to you,
and shout out to everyone who was talking about this
case social media, various other places. One other interesting aspect
here is that we had a lot of people who
were saying, why isn't the mainstream news reporting this? Why
(35:11):
aren't they giving it more coverage? And the fact of
the matter is that the mainstream outlets were covering this.
It's just so easy to lose these stories in the
deluge of headlines that we encounter every single day. Now,
and of course, this story being somewhat rare in that
(35:31):
there is a positive outcome. And ending, we're going to
pause for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll
be back with one more piece of strange news and
we're back. Okay, we're going to take a bit of
a light turn here, but it's one that we think
(35:54):
you're going to find fascinating. Now, you may have heard
this whole situation with the pandemic the coronavirus COVID nineteen.
It's had a bit of an effect on the cruise industry,
and by that I mean cruise ships, the you know,
the giant cities that roll around on the water with
(36:14):
casinos on them. Mostly that's that's really what you're don't
forget about the shuffle board, man shuffle board and boost
so much booze. Well, unfortunately, this fun activity for those
who have enough money to enjoy it. Um, it's had
to there's had to be a pause on it, right.
(36:37):
And here's the thing, these massive ships, it's not easy
to just dock one somewhere on the coast, you know
where let's say twenty other ships would be able to
be docked, a hundred other ships to be able to
be docked. You can't just put them there, right. One
of the one of the main things that happens with
a cruise ship that is not in service is that
(36:59):
it just it's anchored or moored somewhere out in the
ocean that's deep enough to make sure it's going to
be safe even when there's like a large storm or
something on the sea. Well, if you travel to the
English Channel, which uh, if you're looking at a map,
the UK would be above you, the English Channel is
(37:20):
here and below you, ben what would it be, oh
geography quiz Okay, Well, the English Channel is the part
that looks like you could just maybe swim across it.
Some people have below the UK, You've got you've got
a cavalcade of adventure there. You've got France, he had Spain, Portugal. Uh,
you've got the entire continent of Africa. Okay, okay, okay,
(37:41):
you know a lot about where things are, Ben, I
think everybody knows those I think we all know just
I mean, I know I know about them as individual units.
I couldn't tell you where they lay out on a
map with that level of precision. Ben, don't sell yourself
short at my friend. I know things about Ben, and
one of them is that he's got a map up
(38:02):
up in here in his head. So so kind, Oh dude,
come on, So if you are in this one specific town,
let me pull it up and make sure I know
where it is. It's called the Mudford or m U
d e f o r d uh Ferry, and it
is in this place called Mudford. It's in christ Church, Dorset, UK.
(38:23):
And if you are there at let's say the docks
were not it's not the docks whatever you call the
port there. Um you look out, you'll see a bit
of Spain maybe if you're if you're lucky. Otherwise you're
just gonna see lots and lots of water, and a
way out in the distance, you're going to see whole
bunch of these giant cities that are called cruise ships.
(38:47):
Now they're just out there floating and they're empty except
for a skeleton crew maybe of people who are making
sure that you mean, like actual skeletons, dude, on the
ghost ships. Yes, they should really capital at the at
least have them wear skeleton like outfits. You know, Okay,
I'm sorry, pleasetine know there's gonna be a small crew
of people on each one of those ships, just to
(39:08):
make sure everything's okay with the ship, or at least
at most times. I don't know the inner workings of
the big cruise industry or whatever you wanna call it
industrial cruise complex, but the important thing here is that
there's almost nobody on these giant ships. Right. So an
enterprising fellow named Paul Durham who operates this thing called
(39:32):
the Mudford Ferry or Mudford Ferry, I'm gonna butcher and
I apologize. Paul, whoever mood you can do, that's all
you can do for well, he decided he's gonna start
running a two and a half hour long ghost cruise
ship ferry trip. I love the idea of this. So
(39:55):
you hop on a ferry with with Paul and his
crew or whoever is running at that day. You take
the boat out and you just kind of right up
alongside these empty cruise ships and just look up at
them and just wonder what it might have been. Like
you fantasize, Oh, that water slide looks so much fun.
Oh man, I bet the the she crab soup on
(40:17):
this place would have been just wonderful tonight. Um. But
it is this weird, I guess, an eerie feeling that
you get just knowing that they're out there empty. Um.
And he's been charging people. You know, he's a pretty
good amount of money UK by the way, and he's
able to actually have a functioning business based off of
(40:39):
the current what what do we call it purgatory in
which the cruise industry exists. Oh yeah, I mean, let's
not forget like the cruise industry was one of the
first big like pr blunders of this whole pandemic where
people were like trapped and weren't able to like get
off the ships and return to their lives. That was
one of the first big ship moments where we were like,
(41:02):
this is real bad because they weren't allowed to leave
and that was really shocking story. And I wonder how
the cruise industry is ever going to even recover from
the optics of all that I wish that I wish them.
Do you think so, yes, yeah, don't don't waste a
ton of tears. I'm not the cruise operators, the crew staff,
(41:24):
the employees had its terrible time. The pay is terrible. Uh.
They have very little in the way of workers rights,
to be honest with you, and a lot of them
were stranded just like you're saying. You know, imagine, so
you're a passenger, right and you're stranded like the the
American couple off the coast of Japan, or like many
(41:44):
many other couples, you are denied entry your vessel is
denied entry to a country. Is the pandemic hits Uh,
it's way worse when you're at a job that you
can't leave. Uh. They're also refusing to pay you because
they're not changing the agreement based on the pay schedule.
It's very unethical stuff. I I think the cruise industry
(42:07):
will recover. And I don't mean to sound callous when
I say, you know, don't cry too much for those
cruise operators, but do be very concerned about the staff
of those places, who are often treated like surfs. That's
not the fun surf s E r F. I think
that they should absolutely have more rights. Uh, and I
(42:30):
think that they are probably not first in line to
go on this ghost cruise ferry. I wonder what they
think about it. I'm sure they they're not happy about
it as as an industry. And I wonder if there's
even I mean, I guess it's all public waters. You
can't like say no, you can't drive by our more
cruise chip, you know, with your tour. How can you
(42:51):
prevent somebody from making money off that? Really quick? Just
want to point out to we We may have talked
about this in the past, but most cruise lines don't
pay any federal income tax because of the structure of
their corporate entities. They are often have corporate hq s
that are outside of the US, and that's also a
big reason they didn't get any bailout money. M hmm.
(43:12):
I wonder if you could find a way to make
your corporate HQ of a cruise line just somewhere in
the middle of international waters, you know, just like more
one ship at all times, and then that's your HQ.
It's just a po box. Maybe just put a box
on the buoy, do it and do it in Delaware
like everybody else does, you know. But just to get
(43:34):
back to this this, you know, the industry is massive.
As you said, Ben, it's not it's certainly not perfect
the way it operates. It is a lot of people
maybe you uh, just have their vacations, their holidays on
a cruise ship because it's either a tradition or something
that you just do, or it's a conni A lot
(43:55):
of people do that, and what Paul Germ here has
done is just capitalized on that so much. And also
just maybe the humans desire to observe something out of normalcy,
which I think is just a fascination a lot of
us have. And well, it made me think, you guys,
I want to ask you this question. Do you think
one day now that all of these offices in cities
(44:18):
across the world are closed, When it's hard to imagine,
even after pandemic conditions are finished, when businesses will be
paying all of this money in rent or leases to
have all of their office workers in these giant buildings.
I can't imagine that happening. And what I am imagining
(44:38):
is like ghost cities essentially, where there's hardly any residents
at least office residents in massive buildings and cities, and
even a lot of people attempting to escape cities. Who
are you know, leasing apartments or living in a large
building in a situation that is just very crowded. What
(45:01):
do you think, Yeah, it's gonna happen. I mean, they're
all first off, they're already ghost cities, especially in the
in the interior of China, because they may or may
not be real estate scams or state attempts to prop
up the economies year over year growth, which is one
of the only things keeping a lot of the domestic
(45:23):
population in line. But I think more directly to your
question about commercial property values, it's gonna be very difficult
for people because if you are a company and you
start realizing that you're paying, you know, thousands and thousands
of dollars per square foot per month to have a
thing that people no longer need to use, and it
(45:45):
makes sense to have people work from home and cut
that cost. There's always gonna be a wave, typically generational
or catastrophe responsive. Uh, there's always gonna be a wave
of people who want to return turn to a simpler
time as they envision it, and leave the city. But
(46:06):
cities are a human necessity. The majority of the world
lives in them. Unless there is a much more deadly pandemic,
the majority of the world will continue to do so.
It's more economic opportunity. Um. You it's easier to find
the silly hoops you have to jump through for social advancement,
like being members of whatever club and whatever city. Uh.
(46:28):
And then there are also seats of progress human evolution
brief though it is occurs in cities, our social evolution,
our technological innovations. So I think cities are I think
cities are must have. What I would wonder is how
long it's gonna take how long it's going to take
(46:49):
for one of those cruise companies to go bankrupt and
for a a group of enterprising people, maybe like the
same people who created ceiling or whatever that that micro
nation is called. I wonder how long it's going to
take somebody to go and try to get squatters rights
on the cruise ship. I wanted the same thing about
like the phenomenon that is dead malls. Uh. You know,
(47:12):
they're these like massive structures that for whatever reason, not
COVID related or pandemic related, usually more just the changing
of economy and like things being less focused on like
huge brick and mortar buildings. Um, they or they get
replaced by a new or shining r mall and the
old ones just end up. There's there's a webcitcle dead
malls dot Com that, like, I mean, some of these
(47:33):
literally look like urban abandoned jungles, you know, with like
these empty COI ponds and stuff, and uh, it's very
very creepy and eerie. I could definitely see that phenomenon spreading,
you know, to office buildings and then maybe we have
a tour of of abandoned office parks and you know
(47:53):
what I mean, Like I mean, it's it's it's very eerie.
But I think very much within the realm of reality. Well,
there's more to to dive into there when we think
about property prices, rent prices, um, rent controls and all
that kind of thing. When you're talking about big cities,
when you're talking about even you know, maybe maybe suburban
(48:13):
areas that have giant malls in them, because that that
is one of the common areas where you'll find large
mall facilities and structures. Um. But just what happens when
prices become so low in an area, maybe in in
a city, or when they become so high an area
in the city and what you know, how everything changes
(48:34):
where people migrate to, even within a state or you know,
a county or even a city suburban area. UM, I
don't know. It's all fascinating stuff that I've been thinking
about a lot. In this case, I want to get
back to just the concept that you're saying haunt, like
ghost tours of a mall or ghost tours of cruise
(48:54):
ship from the Royal Caribbean or wherever. UM. I know
we're far away from Halloween right now, but I always
think about ghost tours, haunted tours like that. Um. At
some point I want to gather together and have like
a list of really good ghost tours in cities. Yeah,
(49:16):
legitimate ones self, yes, not one where somebody's taking you
on a tour and showing you all the things, giving
you the bullet points. But like, here's a map essentially
of these homes and structures that are believed to be haunted.
Like I want to talk about that so we can
maybe one day go on a a little ghost tour.
(49:38):
You guys love it, I would love it. I have
a list of that for Atlanta actually, sign me up.
There's a oh man, there are a few spots I
I actually learned about through the graffiti cruise used to
run with they because those were like the spots you
could hit. And you don't want to tell people about
(49:58):
the spots because you don't want to blow up the spots.
And everybody was convinced that everybody else was a cop,
probably because of all the drugs they did. But they
left us with a good list of supposedly haunted places.
I gotta dig that up. And if you're listening, like
right to us and tell us I don't care where
you live, tell us what you know. I want to
I want to hear about the most haunted places near you.
(50:20):
And then I also want to point out that there
are a lot of small countries in Europe that are
also under the United Kingdom. Who didn't talk about like Andra, Uh,
just just just to get in front of that email whatever,
somebody sends that to us. Uh, we're specifically talking about
that area of christ Church. That's where Mudford faerious Mudford. Yes,
(50:44):
And if you're a Mudford, right to us, if you've
taken the ferry uh through this ghost toward tell us
about it. Also, if you have ever worked in the
strange universe of the cruise ship industry, let us know
the stuff they don't want you to know about the
cruise industry. We already, the three of us already sussed
(51:05):
out a little bit of it. But who knows, Perhaps
it would be a perhaps it would be a full
episode in the future. That might might mean we never
have a cruise ship as a sponsor. I don't know,
what do you think it's worth the risk? I know
a lot of or at least a handful of folks.
Um My mother's a singing teacher and a pretty lucrative
(51:27):
early gig for singers is to you know, maybe they
don't make it on Broadway, but they get a job
saying on a cruise ship or like being in like
a variety show on a cruise ship, and that in
and of itself is a grueling situation because they're doing like,
you know, four or five shows a day or whatever,
and then subject to all the weirdnesses that you're talking
about then about just being in that world. I might
(51:49):
reach out to a few of those and see what
the inside scoopa is about all that. Yeah, what I'm
asking is, do you think it would be worth it
to do that episode. That's the question I was asking,
Do you guys think it would be worth to do
that episode if it meant that we might mix our
chances of ever having a cruise company as a sponsor.
I think it's worth it. I don't know, guys. I'm
imagining a scenario where the four of the five of us,
(52:13):
including Codename Doc, Holiday and Mission Control, go on a
cruise ship to let's say Scotland, Ireland, other parts of
the UK, the super haunted like old the places in
in that area of the world, where we're just cruising
around doing this show every day, maybe twice a day,
(52:33):
but then the rest of the time we're ghost hunting
conspiracy cruise Remember that we got so close to doing that.
I would do it in a heartbeat. That's that's a
true story, and we were very happy to do that.
But yeah, but let us know, like like you said, Nol,
like you said, Matt, we do know this is a
this is a strange world and it's different from the
(52:55):
world upon which a lot of land lovers walk. So
how can you tell us about this? How can you
tell us your opinion about the X Files animated spinoff,
how can you tell us more about the human trafficking
cases that are, unfortunately, unlike our story in Georgia, not
reaching the news. We want to hear from you, and
we do our best to make it easy to find us.
(53:18):
Ironically enough, given the nature of this show, you can
find us on the internet first, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. We
are Conspiracy Stuff on Twitter and Facebook, or Conspiracy Stuff
Show on Instagram. Uh. If you're looking for us in
that capacity, we recommend you check out Here's where It
Gets Crazy, where you can talk directly with the best
part of the show, your fellow listeners. You can also
(53:40):
find us as individuals on some of the same social meds. Yeah,
you can find me on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown,
I am Matt Frederick underscore my heart. Good luck finding it,
even better luck finding anything post Matt. Matt literally shadow
band himself, so you know it's an interesting way to go.
(54:02):
You can find me at Ben Bolan on Instagram exploring
some new strange foods along with updates on all the
weird esoteric stuff I'm reading. You can also find me
on Twitter at Ben bull in hs W. If you
find one of the other Ben bullets maybe listening to
this show. Uh, they're about five of us that I've
been in contact with online. They're all great. Check them
(54:26):
out too. Yeah, but there was that one, wasn't there. Uh,
there's one, but he's a distant relative of mine and
he knows what he did. The the other one, there's
a criminologist in the UK. There's a tattoo artist and Idaho,
both top notch dudes. Uh so, I you know, I
(54:46):
think it's awesome when you run into people, when you
run into people who share a name with you, partially
you're fully you shouldn't feel threatened, get some swag about
yourself and realize that you're very close to for me,
your own kind of Avengers or Justice League. Run with it, right.
Shout out to the other four hundred Matt Fredericks out
there that I find every time I try and look
at myself anything anywhere, at any time. Are there really
(55:09):
that Yeah? A buddy of my named Kyle exclusively only
has people on Facebook follow him by the name of Kyle.
I was very impressed by this feat. It was a feat,
an utterly ridiculous feat of social media like counterintuitiveness, and
I didn't believe it at first, but I went and
looked at his friends list, and almost all of them
(55:30):
are named Kyle, and I think he has about a thousand,
and the other ones are of like the parents exactly.
So if you hate social media and you're more of
a like directly shouting into the void kind of person,
oh boy, oh boy, do we have a deal for you?
That's not ideal. It's a phone number, Yeah, it's a deal.
It's a steel you can shout directly into your telephone
(55:52):
or head gear, you know, with one of those Madonna
mics that people wear. Um at one three S, td
W I t K. That's right. Leave us a message.
You might end up on one of our listener mail episodes.
Let us know if you would like to be included,
if you would like to have us use your name
or not, whatever your comfortability level is, that's fine with us.
(56:14):
Just let us know. If you don't want to do
any of that stuff, you can always reach us with
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(56:42):
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