Brazen thieves make off with priceless religious artifacts in Brooklyn. AI pushes the boundaries of art. Recent sleuthing reveals the US government has a collection of contingency plans for any imaginable number of apocalyptic scenarios. Congress has no idea what they are -- which means American voters have no say in what might go down. All this and more in this week's Strange News.
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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 Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's the top of the week,
which means it's time for more strange news. Now. Unless
(00:47):
you have been living deep deep in the bowels of
the earth, or unless you are an astronaut with a
not great Internet connection, you know that quite a few
things have happened recently. A lot of those things aren't
making the news. I would once again, I know I
ruffled some feathers with this on the Internet, but once
(01:07):
again I want to point out that regardless of your
take on a celebrity trial, there are other things happening,
and unfortunately they often get swept away in the news
cycle and for profit media's constant search for clicks. That
being said, we have things that are not celebrity trials
(01:28):
that we would like to talk about today. We were
gonna tell you about a heist because we love a
good heist. Um, this one has a religious religious aspect
to it. We're gonna look at the future of so
called artificial intelligence or machine consciousness in the world of cartoons,
and we're going to talk about Uncle Sam's secret Plans
(01:53):
four when hits the fan uh of uh, maybe maybe
we can we can start there, you know, because we've
got conspiracy realists in the family here, from all across
the planet, from every imaginable demographic and one thing that
(02:13):
we see in common amongst all these people is a
a healthy distrust of their government, whether that's the US,
whether that's you know, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you
name it. Most of the average people on the planet,
they're a little bit skeptical right when it comes to
large power structures, and rightly so. I would say, we
(02:37):
recently learned about something I was kind of aware of,
but not not super up to date on, concerning our
own government here in the United States, contingency plans. Right. Imagine,
you know, you're in charge of a country of three
thirty something million people, and you know things can go wrong,
(02:59):
nuclear war, food supplied disruptions, which we talked about previously,
all sorts of things from like sci fi stuff like
a coronal mass ejection to um basic human problems like
the outbreak of secession right or widespread public descent. In
(03:19):
a recent article for The New York Times, Charlie Savage,
one of my new favorite journalists new to me at least,
broke the story just just a few days ago, as
we record that there have been some newly declassified, well
let me be fair, newly leaked documents that give us
(03:41):
a little bit more visibility on top secret executive branch
plans for any scenario you would possibly call apocalyptic. And
this includes scary scary stuff. This includes the institution of
martial law in partial UH deployment or across the country
(04:02):
entirely UH. This includes stuff like obviously nuclear warfare, but
it also includes the ability to do things like shut
down communications networks, not just shut down the Internet, like
shutdown phone lines if if you're not nor ad UH.
And the scary thing about it is this stuff has
(04:23):
been in development since at least the nineteen fifties. Congress
has zero input on it, which means that you have
zero input on it, whether or not you vote, whether
or not you consider yourself an activist, and I don't
know before we get into it, are you guys surprised
(04:44):
at all by this? Not based on what we already
kind of know with things like the long lines building
in New York that we explored several times, essentially like
a government bunker beneath the earth to house official and
you know, with like long term infrastructure and UH and
supplies for waiting out in nuclear holocaust or apocalypse event,
(05:09):
also dealing with communications and reaching the outside world on that.
Now that the part of this that's interesting to me
is how it would affect us. You know, this isn't
just like a panic room for the elite. This is
something that would affect regular people. If I'm hearing you correctly, Well, yeah, Ultimately,
it feels like the stuff we've learned about in the past,
where if the president and you know, the top brass
(05:33):
are all eliminated in some disaster or attack, you know,
where where do the presidential powers lie. We've talked about
that before, like the chain of command or custody, that
power kind of goes down, uh much of the way
you know, a king or a queen's power goes down
the line. Uh, we've talked about that before, but it
(05:54):
is it's really interesting to me to know that there
are secrets, uber secret, super secret plans that we will
never know about for disasters that are probably likely, Like,
I mean, we'll probably see something like this occurring within
the next let's say, d two hundred years, assuming the
(06:16):
US is around. Yeah, that's I mean, that's that's a
very good point, Matt. The the stuff we do know
we being the public, comes from the nineteen fifties and
sixties versions of these draft emergency Action orders, and they
include stuff like, of course, different versions of martial law,
(06:37):
but they also include stuff like restricting the passage of
information across the border. They also include stuff like suspending
court hearings for people who are detained, so your legal
rights would be curtailed. And right now, unless you are
in the executive branch, you're involved in the potential deployment
(06:59):
of these things, we don't you don't know, you don't
know what the plan is. And I hate to say it,
but there is some valid logic to that, because if
an enemy force, for instance, knew what your step by
step plan was, in case of saying attack, then they
could modify their plan to address what what your original
(07:25):
steps were, and then you would be a fish out
of water in a very dangerous way. Here's what we know.
It comes from the Britain Center for Justice, and they
spent a lot of time cleverly writing for Freedom of
Information Act request from the to get documents from the
Bush Presidential Library. The disclosure they got it rounds up
(07:49):
to about five hundred pages, which sounds really impressive until
you realize six thousand more pages were withheld from their
request and kept classified and we only really get these
um disclosures on the heels of something called the Protecting
Our Democracy Act. This was a bill that passed in December,
(08:13):
and it's meant to kind of nerve, as we would
say in the gaming world, nerf the powers of the
executive branch due to controversial activities of the previous administration.
Under the Trump presidency, this bill is not expected to
pass the Senate because for anybody outside of the US,
the House of Representatives can pass all kinds of stuff
(08:37):
and then it goes to like the fifty most powerful
politicians and they get to decide whether or not it happens.
Um you can write to them if you want. Your
mileage may vary. Tell us how it works out. But
this this stuff is fascinating to me because it's like,
it's as if we can glean a little bit from
(09:00):
reading metadata. We know, for instance, things that have happened
in the past due to these Presidential Emergency Action Documents
or pads. PADS. I think, I don't know if they
say p E A, D S or just pads. Hope
they go to pads so much more fun makes me
getting pound or Yeah, it just seems like they on
(09:25):
the entire Yeah, that is yeah, exactly. So let me
give you a sense of how in depth, at least
some of the older ones were. There was one from
nineteen fifty nine that said, here's what we do if
the Soviet Union attacks the US with nuclear weapons and
they break it down. But then they also start estimating
(09:47):
how many people might survive, like they have numbers, and
they base their actions off those numbers. And then they
also start making policy prescriptions U and how to preserve
the economy, how to also you know, get people to places,
get v I P s to places like the Greenbrier Bunker,
(10:09):
which you had mentioned just a minute ago Noll, and
the the big issue we know sometimes national security, even
though it's a such a boogeyman, we know sometimes it
is necessary. But the big issue here is that Congress
doesn't know either. Congress doesn't know what these pads are.
(10:29):
They're getting p added on two And there's a huge
concern for your elected representatives if you live in this country.
I would like to point to Senator Edward J. Markey
from Massachusetts and he says, quote, it's our duty as
lawmakers to demand that the executive branch turns over documents
(10:50):
so Congress, as representatives of the American people, can evaluate
the constitutionality of any future president's attempts to exploit an
emergency to us zoom extraordinary powers. And that is a
mission critical concern because, as little Finger said in Song
of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, chaos as a ladder,
(11:12):
and when we are like there's a reason wartime presidents
are more likely than not to do well in the polls.
There's also a reason that some bills in times of
emergency are passed without oversight. You know, like all the
controversy around loans given out to political henchfolk and various
(11:33):
connected businesses during during the pandemic. I'm startled, you know,
I can't imagine how many directives actually exists. Thanks to
the good folks at the Brennan Center, we know there
were forty eight secret plans when the George W. Bush
administration took office, and then a few years later, by
(11:57):
two thousand and eight, that number had grown to fifty six.
So they're adding stuff. And President Dick Cheney Vice President
Dick Cheney, thanks Matt was was heavily evolved involved in
reviewing and clearing the orders. He was the green light
(12:18):
for the He was the decision maker or the decider
as what the President Bush would say. Yeah, and this
this stuff expanded after the attacks on September eleven, and
it's therefore reasonable to assume that they expanded in the
wake of the pandemic, maybe expanding due to food supply.
(12:41):
One thing we can say about governmental powers like this
is that they always seek to expand. It doesn't matter
who is elected or who's sitting in the Oval office
at the time, and it doesn't matter what they say
about big or small fermant when it comes to their
(13:03):
you know, their piece of the yard. They want more territory,
and that's that's what we're looking at. So as conspiratorials,
it founds it is absolutely possible that five years from now,
ten years from now, two years from now, who knows,
one of these p d's could come into effect, either
(13:24):
through a proclamation, a message to Congress, and executive order,
and it will affect you, and you could protest, but
you can't vote about it. And at this point we're
gonna pause because I think this is a full episode
if we can finagle a little more classified information as
as is our remit on this show. Uh, while we
(13:48):
pause as we go to a commercial break, I want
to ask you, fellow conspiracy realist, do you think this
sort of secrecy is inherently bad or inherently good? Do
you think it is a necessary evil? What do you
think the plan is? Is there a scenario for say,
an alien attack, the rise of the undead? I hope so,
(14:10):
because like saying peeds instead of pe a d s,
it would just be a little more exciting. That's Gallows
humor for you. All Right, we're gonna pause, We'll be
right back, and we're back with another piece of pretty
(14:30):
freaking strange news um from the world of children's entertainment
sort of kind of If you guys ever heard of
an artist by the name of David O'Reilly, I have
super interesting fellow. Um if you go to his Instagram,
which I highly recommend everybody to do immediately and give
(14:51):
him a follow. He is sort of a culture jamming
outsider artist weirdo that is, um, practicing AI assisted or
fully generated art. And you know, sort of like in
the early days of electronic music, where you know, the
suits and the squares might say it's not real music. Yeah,
(15:12):
I got a machine making it for you. Well, you
know that's clearly someone who doesn't understand how electronic music
is made. You have machines that are tools, but you
feed them input. Um. And this isn't even referring to
like generative music like what Brian Eno might do, where
you feed the machine some sort of algorithm that you
create and then it follows a certain set of criteria
(15:33):
to make a certain type of music. Um that will
just continue to you know, regenerate itself over time. That's
used in video game production a lot for you know,
ambient kind of drones that sort of like adapt to
certain criteria that happened in the in the scene, or
in the in the in the level, or the game.
Um that is kind of what David O'Reilly is doing.
(15:53):
He's using a I technology to create some pretty nightmarish
and entertaining p is of of art um one. What
I really like from his page is he has a
He has a kind of a remix or a reinterpretation
of Tupac Shakur's changes, but um made using a i UH.
(16:17):
And in fact it says the very beginning produced by
Big d The Impossible, written by Tupac Shakur, Dion Evans,
Bruce Hornsby and written and produced by a i UH.
With the prompts the Tupac song changes but about AI
and if you guys know, it's probably one of Tupac's
most famous songs. The lyrics become I see the changes.
I see all the robots, lifeless eyes staring at me
(16:39):
with broken dreams. I think about the future and it
frightens me. I'm starting to lose faith in humanity. All
I see is screens and code. We used to have connection,
Now we're all alone. The effects of tech are starting
to show. Machines talking over and it's hard to let go.
People suffering on the minimum wage, with billionaires fight to
control this new age. Everyone desperate to make a quick buck.
And it's moving so fast I can't keep up. I
(17:01):
wonder when we'll all be free from this misery from
the grip of technology. Uh. And this is created by
technology and the video behind it is like kind of
deep dreamified tupac Um. You know, his mouth is moving
in in concert with these new weirdo lyrics. Um. So
that's kind of stuff the data David rallies into. The
(17:21):
latest news from this artist is that he has used
AI to create essentially like a super cut or kind
of a trailer for a um hey children's cartoon called Bartak. Uh.
And he posted this trailer on his Instagram account and
this is what he said, Thrilled to announce bar Tak,
(17:42):
the first fully ganimated show coming to Disney Plus this summer,
using the awesome power of AI to create the perfect
kids entertainment. A full season order of seventy five thousand
episodes is now being generated. Uh. And then like a
little a d n A emoji, enjoy this peak. All
you bartok stands out there, let me know what kind
(18:03):
of merge you'd like to see thanks to open Ai
Doll for making this dream ad reality. So definitely some
some talking cheek stuff going on there. Highly doubt Disney
Plus has anything to do with this. Went in touch
with a ten foot pole after you you hear what it's,
what it's all about, and then to hear some audio
from that we're gonna play. Uh. Not to mention the
idea of generating seventy episodes certainly could be done if
(18:27):
you're just hurting out, you know, stuff based on input
to A to an AI, but I'm also kind of
doubt that that's what's going on here too. Um, what
you get in bar Tech is it's as if you've
fed children's cartoons kind of European children's cartoon style animation
into deep Dream. You know remember Deep Dream that you
(18:49):
know that that Google based algorithmic kind of Yeah, it's
fun our generator. I mean it's basically like you know,
it was applied to video where essentially looks like you know,
everything is is made of lizards or everything is made
of like weird psychedelic dog snouts. You know, essentially, I
(19:09):
think Ben maybe to help me out here if if
you if you remember more, Um isn't it like it
sort of takes a swatch kind of of an image
and compares it to what the prevailing, like most popular
image that sort of looks like that is on the internet,
and then essentially like recreates it using textures from that image.
Is that right? Yet? The proper like fancy term is
(19:32):
a convolutional neural network and it uses this uh, algorithmic
approach to enhance what it's what it thinks of as
existing patterns. So that's why you know, if you have
a if you have a like a lot of people
would take selfies, right or maybe at the very first
they were taking pictures of their romantic partners until they
(19:55):
realized said partners might not always enjoy the end result.
Uh it. There's a great article on How Stuff Works
by Nathan Chandler that talks about how deep dream, how
deep dream actually functions, and it's doing basically what you describe.
It locates and alters patterns that it has identified. It
(20:17):
kind of leans individual trends, you could say. And that's why,
I don't know, deep dream is so fun. I'm gonna
go back and experiment with more of it here. Yeah,
so thank you, that's exactly that's a much clearer description there.
I think between the two of us, we gotta on
the nose. Um. So this is different though, because it
(20:39):
looks like it's like original animation. There's characters. You know,
I don't know exactly this. This dude doesn't really talk
about his process, but it seems to me like you
must have drawn some animation plates of some kind of that.
There's not that they don't move. The only move based
on the kind of that same deep dream kind of
snaky lizardy uh interpretive kind of like stuff. And of
(21:05):
course there's also an accompanying soundtrack and and dialogue if
you can call it that. Um, so let's let's just
hear a little bit of it and then we can
we can discuss. Now there are no captions, Yeah, no, no,
(21:31):
I think it's all it's the theater of the mind.
It's sort of like the language Seagar Ross uses the
Hope Landic or whatever. Like it's all about how you
want to interpret it. But you hear the name bart
Bartek Bartak Bartak is the name of the character apparently,
and if you look at it, I mean, there does
(21:52):
appear to be some hand drawn components that are then
kind of squishified, you know, by this deep Dream kind
of stuff. But then it also there's some characters that
just seem like no human I mean, not not to
discredit the the magical powers of the human mind, but
there's some of these weird little alien guys that look
like an animated version of the kind of stuff Deep
(22:12):
Dream generates. So I want to know more. There really
isn't much out there aside from this. This guy's you know,
putting this out there. He's sort of a notorious troll.
Um in the best possible way, like you know, in
terms of like some of the things he said about,
you know, doing seventy episodes and all that stuff. But
like I don't know what what how this process works exactly,
(22:34):
Like like I'll read a little bit more from the
from the Vice article. Uh, they describe O'Riley as and
three D artists who's well known for creating disturbing animations. Um.
He claims to have used something called doll E and
other natural language processing systems, which you know, can create
almost like you know, facsimiles of things that we would recognize,
(22:57):
you know, which which this sort of does. But then
it like takes really weird dark psychedelic turn um. Other
systems that we've talked about on the show like GPT three,
which are used with chat bots to create kind of
realistic you know, um reactions. Um. But also alo and
they also mentioned the Vice article that this can be
used to create a kind of AI choose your inn adventure,
(23:20):
kind of dungeon crawler type text adventures. UM. But we've
also seen stories about how these kinds of AI tend
to have some pretty gnarly sexist and racist stereotypes built
into them because they are pulling from the open Internet,
you know, in the same way that what was it
that Cli? What was that that that Microsoft Twitter boughts,
(23:42):
you know, just got real racist, real quick. Um came
a neo Nazi and cell in a little less than
and the the writer, by the way of this this
Vice article is Janice Rose, and I love it. The
headline is AI created this extremely cursed children's card. If
anyone you know follows Internet culture, which I'm sure most
(24:04):
of you do, the idea of a cursed images is
a thing like in in in meme culture, uh, and
then this would definitely fall under that, no question. But
the subtitle, which I love and which I think will
be a nice transition into Matt's piece is every day
we stray further from God's light, implying that these are
in some way abominations from like beyond, you know, from
(24:25):
the realms, beyond the lands between if you will. Um,
But yeah, it says as a weird art projects from
the article, O'Reilly's use of this tool seems relatively benign, however,
and as fans seem to be in on the joke.
Here's a an Instagram commenter. It's really inspiring to see
how well Bartok has helped my kids understand the world
around them and and taught me how to be a
(24:47):
better parent. My kids are so much smarter as a result.
You want to see the excitement in their eyes, especially
at the hands of a show like this. So, uh,
you know, more weirdo counterculture art kind of culture jamming
stuff or the future of children's entertainment. You be the judge.
(25:08):
But yeah, pure nightmare fuel is all I can call it.
That's exactly what I call and hilarious totally. I mean,
I was laughing. I could not stop laughing hearing those
sounds at least, so we should reuse those in some way.
I completely agree. Something good has come of this, yes,
no doubt, no doubt, but fun little one um on
(25:29):
the lighter side in a pretty heavy news cycle. Um,
So take this and do with it what you will.
Hopefully we'll see more of this kind of stuff. I
I personally love this kind of use of AI for
making interesting art um as opposed to using it to
try to like mind control us or you know, program
our our future robot overlords. So with that, let's take
(25:49):
a quick break and we're back with another piece of
strange news. And we're back, and for this story, we're
gonna get a bit holy, and we're also going to
get close, maybe too close to our own mission control
Paul Decand we're traveling to Brooklyn, New York, to the
(26:11):
neighborhood of Park Slope, right near a very very famous park,
beautiful park called Prospect Prospect Park m hmmmmmm. And just
northwest of this gorgeous park in Brooklyn, New York, there
is the Notre Dame of the area, as it is
(26:33):
known by the locals. Uh. It is a Catholic church,
very beautiful building. It's it's named the St. Augustine Roman
Catholic Church. And I say it's beautiful because the architecture
is just immaculate. It dates back to eight nineteen century,
the Old eighteen hundreds, the Fighting eighteens. Uh. Inside this church,
(26:58):
as beautiful as it is and as or nate as
the architecture is, they are all kinds of relics, and
I guess architectural features that date back to when the
church was first formed. And one of the relics inside
this church is a tabernacle. Now, guys, what do you
think of when I say tabernacle? Oh, I think of Mormons.
(27:22):
I think of Mormons. I think of venue in Atlanta.
But that's all. That's all. I podium. Is it like
a like a something that you stand by, like a
you know, pulpit. I've never fully understood what it seems
like it could be that, but that's not what it is.
I have to stop real quick, though, because I believe
(27:43):
the correct term is LDS or Latter day Saints. So
for anybody of that faith in the crowd, I understand
that saying Mormon is sometimes can be found offensive, but
that's obviously not what we mean. I thought a tabernacle.
I knew it was a structure, and I think in
old religious tomes. It can also not necessarily be stationary
(28:06):
like it can be movable. Yes that is, yes, it
does matter, and all the all of it matters, guys Um.
The tabernacle, and I did not know this until I've
read this story. Is the thing a physical structure. Oftentimes
it is mobile because it's usually necessary. It contains the
Holy Eucharist, the stuff that you need to administer and
(28:30):
take communion. So we're talking you know, the physical forms
of Jesus's body and blood. If if you're going to
take the holy sacrament of communion, so that would be
wine and crackers or bread whatever is used in that
particular faith. In this case, I'm assuming it's the cracker
(28:51):
like structures that are used in holy communion in the
Catholic Church. Um. And also all the accouterment that comes
with that, like chalice is the would contain the wine
when you're giving it out, and often some kind of
platter that would hold the crackers are bread or whatever
you're giving out. So this thing, this tabernacle, is literally
a mobile holder of food. Really, that's what it is. Well,
(29:17):
this one is very special. As I said, it's a
relic from the eighteen hundreds, probably dating back to at
least that's what's claimed when this church was first founded.
This thing is solid eighteen carrot gold. It's covered absolutely
covered in jewels and all kinds of other precious stones,
(29:38):
and it is valued and around two million dollars. Question
that that value, though that value probably doesn't explain the
full worth of it to the the Catholic community, to
the diocese and to you know, the faithful, right imagine
beyond cash. Absolutely the history of the church. I mean,
(30:03):
you're talking about a relic that's been around since the
late eighteen hundreds, where people of the Catholic faith who
are living in that area, you know, they were going
there and have been going to that church for I
mean that's over century. That's years and years and years.
And so this thing is precious for historical reasons, for
actual monetary you know, reasons for the precious things that's
(30:23):
made out of uh, and also for the holiness right
this is it does contain, theoretically, if you believe, the
body and blood of Jesus that is used in a
holy sacrament. So this thing is protected when the church
is open. This thing sits kind of back in a
little I guess a cubby hole of sorts that is
(30:46):
also very ornate. It's it's on display, it's on it's
on an altar, but it's inside kind of uh, an enclosure, right,
almost like a little mini cave. Is that the ombre?
That little alcove. So that's called Oh, sure, I don't know.
Maybe I'll check, I'll check. I just I I collect
(31:07):
all these Uh. The Catholic Faith has this beautiful uh nomenclature,
you know what I mean. I think I believe that's
another the nave. The the thurable is the name for
the instance things uh. And what's the other, Oh, and
(31:28):
trans substantiation, the magical process in which the materials that
Matt has described become physically, you know, in the body,
the body of Christ and the Blood of Christ the literal.
But I do think it's ombree, I did. I myself
am not a member the Catholic Faith, but I do
believe that that kind of cupboard we're talking about might
(31:49):
be an ambree. Well, let's just the ambree. This opening
that's kind of uh, it's curved, or the back of
it is a bit curved, it looks like, and it
sits inside there. So imagine in your mind looking at
an altar and inside this little alcove there's this beautiful, golden,
shiny thing. And to protect it, they have a very
(32:12):
specialized security system that involves to steal. I guess. They're
curved doors that close in front of this thing when
the church is closed or when the when the tabernacle
is not on display, and they it looks very heavy duty.
You can see pictures of it online right now if
you check it out. It looks like it protects this
(32:34):
thing as though it's the Mona Lisa like some very
expensive painting. It's it's a piece of art. It's a
piece of history. They protected as such. Well as of
Saturday May, this thing has been stolen. Guys. This is
one of the most brazen acts of thievery that I
have seen in many a year. Someone went into this
(32:59):
church with a power saw, it is believed, and cut
open those steel doors. So we were talking about, didn't
just like pry them open or something or break that
mechanism cut those Yeah, they cut through those steel doors.
They took the tabernacle out. I guess in doing so
(33:21):
in the process or just in another equally brazen act
through all the contents of the tabernacle, the actual U Chris,
the body and blood just kind of threw it out
and threw it all over the altar there. Uh, then
took it away and stole it. But that's not all
they did, guys. You know what else they did. They
(33:41):
took the power saw or whatever they had, and they
cut the head off an angel, just like when am
I going to be here again? Style? I guess I
was thinking about this really hard, you guys. This is
my theory. We're talking about a three person job. One
person was the brains, the inside person. They knew exactly
(34:05):
where everything was in the church and how expensive it
was and theoretically what they needed to do to get it.
The second person was either a welder or someone who
you know, had the tools to get the job done.
And the third person was the wild card. And I
think that wild card just like had saw the power saw,
(34:27):
saw the angel and just went WHOA, we gotta do
this and just went to town. It's like that scene
in the Sopranos when like A J and his buddies
they're breaking to the school and they're swimming, and then
all of a sudden, one of them just like, hey,
let's just throw all the trophies in the pool. Then
one person does, and then everyone else just goes hog wild.
You know, it's just chaos magic yea or Charlie Charlie Day.
(34:48):
I think that whenever there's a wild card reference just
eventually cutting the brakes on the van and then you know,
imagine this team is in a hurry, and so we
have to go what are are you doing? And the
guy saying hold on, I'm I'm almost finished. Angel was
looking at me funny, and it's you know, I'm thinking
(35:10):
too about the noise. Right, would this have been This
would not have been a silent operation by any means.
So I wonder how long it actually took. The church
was closed for construction, so I wonder if maybe there
was some you know, plausibility in the neighborhood. They're like, oh,
(35:30):
maybe they're doing some after hours construction. Is it clear
what time this took place? Man, And it is not.
There's some time security footage. Yeah, they do not know.
They just know it was before because that's when it
was discovered by Father Termino and there they it is
(35:51):
believed that it took place on Friday. That's like, I
guess the most likely scenario. There's this excellent ap article
that you shared with us by Michael R. Szak where
it looks like they were guessing sometime between sometimes like
after six thirty on that Thursday and before for on
(36:11):
that Saturday. So with Friday being the most likely, that
kind of makes sense. I'm also wondering, you know, the
it's clearly just a money job with an extra um,
extra dash and disrespect, right like, yeah, because I mean,
churches get vandalized. Their buildings get vandalized all the time. Um.
(36:34):
That usually just involves spray painting or you know, knocking
over some stuff or whatever. This is like a next
level heist that also involves some next level vandalism. Yeah. Absolutely,
So you gotta find everybody who's got a power saw
in the Gowanas and Park Slope area. No, I'm just jugging,
it's probably not. That's probably not a local job, unless
(36:55):
because the churches under construction, you know, somebody just noticed it. Yeah,
I don't know. It's a little thought to be a
crime of opportunity though impulse crime. I mean, I wonder
if the power staw was on site. I see what
you're saying, man, but I just do wonder if it
was under construction, you know, sometimes they leave, they leave
(37:18):
this kind of They would have had to know where
the thing was though, so it would have been I
don't know, Man, the more I'm thinking about it, the
more maybe it was someone that was on the construction
team who had access to I think multiple operators seems
really plausible. I'm with you, Matt, because they the inside
thing sounds increasingly plausible too, because they clearly knew what
(37:42):
they were going for. And there was also a a
safe right that was broken into. Oh yeah, yeah, I
forgot about that. They broke into a safe that you know,
appeared to be again filled with stuff you'd want to take.
Probably it's a nice, big safe. It's locked up. There
was nothing in that sucker, at least according to the
statement that was given by the Diocese of Brooklyn. Oh man,
(38:06):
you guys, this was something you brought up off Ernol, Like,
what do you do once you have this thing? Let's
say you successfully break in, You cut the thing open,
decapitate the angel, take the two million dollar thing. What
do you do with it now? Private art market? That's
the best way to laund your stuff. Check out our
episode Possible Or do you just melt it down for
(38:30):
the raw materials, because I mean that two millions maybe
is more referring to like it's you know, the value
of the stones and the gold and all of that,
because you can't really put a price on you know,
generations of of of history and tradition. Right, Well, that's
the thing. I mean, it's big. It's a lot of
solid gold, it's a lot of jewels. You could theoretically
(38:53):
break the sucker down, but the real value is in
the in the history. So it does feel like if
there are brains behind this operation, you would want to
find a way to sell it at its highest price.
But you can't just repaint it like people are gonna know.
It's a it's a one of a kind item. You
gotta just take it like you know, overseas, I guess
(39:13):
and hope that no one catches a glimpse of it.
To your point, Ben, maybe some sort of private collector
who would never have any outside eyes in there. You know,
they sense someone, but it doesn't Maybe they sense someone also.
We can't when we're talking about the extra the added
sort of disrespect. We cannot deny the ongoing intergenerational damage
(39:39):
done by some some factions of the Catholic Church against children.
So it may be someone with a literal act to
grind while a power saw in this case for a
personal matter. And I'm just speculating. I don't have you know,
any evidence here. I haven't been in contact with the
police or anything. But the the the idea of melting
(40:00):
it down, yeah, it dramatically lowers the value. And also
if you're smart enough, you know that if you melt
it down and you just try to sell it as
gold or precious gemstones at going market rate, then you're
taking a bath, you know, like that, you're not going
(40:21):
to make near as much money as It's a good point.
It's a good point. I just don't know how you
successfully fence something like this unless it was to some
somebody who did have an ax to grind. This is
an act of protests in some small way or a
large way. Um. And this was built for this church, right.
This isn't like an example of like maybe you know
how so many artifacts and like the British Museum were
(40:42):
pilford from other cultures. This isn't that right. This wasn't
like taken from some other culture and put on display
in this American Church. It was built for the church,
I'm asking. I believe so. The Diocese of Brooklyn just
says it was built in the late eighteen's. It dates
back to when the church was built. If it's an
(41:02):
example of somebody taking it back, we don't know the history.
All we know is was in these arts, like the
it was Vatican operators that came over. I don't know
many here, and they dude, that's the perfect place. You
just put it in the archives, right into somebody. Yeah,
(41:24):
unless somebody knows that it's there, they'll never see it again.
The Vatican Secret Archives. I still think it's the perfect plan. Yeah,
especially because it's so uncomplicated, and yeah, I feel like
wanted a thing that could just be like, YO, give
us the thing where you are beholden to us. So
(41:45):
probably probably I'm interested in learning more about the history
of that as well, because it's not it's probably on
their website. You could even call, well, you want to
be careful with timing. I could call them today and
ask about it. But it's like read the room at
that point, you know what I mean. Yeah, let's give
(42:06):
it a few more days this June twod Right now,
as we record this, this just occurred. We're gonna find
out more information in the end. This story is not
stuff they don't want you to know. Besides the fact
that people are breaking into holy places and stealing things
out of them, that seems like, guys, uh, I don't know.
That was a bridge too far, even for the most
(42:29):
seasoned organized criminal for a very long time. I feel
like we're breaching. We're broaching something, guys, I think people have.
I mean it's classic human people have historically been very
protective of the belief system with with which they personally identify,
but if it's another person's belief system, then they don't care.
(42:51):
I mean, look at the look at the sacking of
all the ancient civilizations throughout history, zero exceptions. At some
point everyone got got yeah, it's a really good point. Uh,
just you know, hide your tabernacles better from now on, everybody.
I have one question for you, Matt, why did you
(43:12):
do it? Well? Honestly, there were just so many ports
around the park was a perfect place to hide it. Temporarily.
Nobody's looking in Prospect Park for a tabernacle park. Yeah,
couldnt we just say to just one? Last year? I
(43:32):
think we we hit on this or you hit on
this map, but maybe not quite hard enough. Um, the
there was no surveillance footage because the tapes were stolen
or it was hampered with in some way, Am I right?
Or I just want to make sure I'm understand that
there it's there's some reporting on that. I'm a little
unsure the official statements that we're getting from the church
itself and then from the diocese UH talking about how
(43:55):
there was no UH footage, and then statements that were
given into the NYPD about why there's no footage. I'm
unsure if it's because of the construction, or because of
you know, some malfunction with the security system, or if
the tapes were in fact stolen. I'm just unsure because
I've seen different things written about it. I know it's
(44:16):
been it has been said that the tapes were in
fact stolen or the security system was tampered with. I
think we're all in agreement that this was to some
degree a pretty pro job. I think, yeah, it seems
like it. I mean, just you know, you have to
realize that in in heist like this, especially involving powerful forces,
(44:39):
right and make the mistake. You know, this not for nothing.
Is this Notre Dame Brooklyn right? Uh? There, their thefts
reports are going to be treated differently from say, an
average person in their apartment reporting a crime. So this means,
in my mind, it is very reasonable to assume that
(45:02):
both the diocese and the police have information there withholding.
That's just a standard operating procedure there. And you know,
we don't know about DNA probably searching for that. I
don't know about fingerprints, but this crew sounds like they
were wearing gloves. It's easy to make mistakes, even if
(45:22):
you're a seasoned pro. But these folks are clearly trying
to do their their criminal version of due diligence. I
wonder if it will get found. You know, It's just
it's almost like a missing person, a ticking clock starts
wants something like this gets stolen, and if you can
hold it long enough and cover your tracks, then you
(45:43):
can get away until you try to offense it or
move it. That's when they get you, because what if,
what if they're ordinarily a moral contact for moving this
it turns out to have deep Catholic roots, you know
what I mean? When is like just stares at it
for too long and then looks back at them and
(46:04):
it is perfect. We'll take it, closes the box slowly,
and then the next thing those guys know, that's a
sound of a silencer. Nice, I mean tragic. Well, I
think we could say one of our main takeaways from
this is, regardless of your own personal ideologies or lack thereof,
(46:26):
don't break it into religious sites and steal their stuff.
Come on, doesn't this feel like the the impetus for
a Dan Brown asked religious heist kind of story? Like
this is where it starts, and then someone sent in,
you know, a Vatican investigators sent in, and it turns
out there's much more than meets the eye to this case.
Oh yeah, there are codes written in the area of
(46:49):
the angel's neck where it was decapitated. They were hidden
there the whole time, which no one but the protagonist
and everybody reading can figure out know what? Like? Uh.
It also reminds me of John Connolly. I got really
into this guy recently. He's got a excellent, uh noir
crime supernatural series called the Charlie Parker Series. No relation
(47:13):
to the musician. But if you are looking for if
you're looking for some good reads in that kind of
vein if the sort of stuff interests you, but you
prefer it to be fiction, I'd recommend Connolly as well.
I can't wait till this next book comes out. Well
that's it for this one. Stay safe out there, Protect
your tabernacles. And uh if that concludes this section of
(47:33):
the show is protect your tabern accles, I think, yeah, yeah,
get out of my your Why are you all up
in my tabern acles? You know what I mean? Uh
So we want to we want to hear your thoughts
on this. I'm already writing in my head, just like
the the blurb at the back of the book, you
know where it says, while closed for renovations, Brooklyn's Neutra
(47:56):
Dom had a priceless artifacts stolen. The thiefs left no
fingerprints except for insert protagonist name here. Discovers through a
series of arcane clues, a conspiracy leading all the way
to the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia. You know,
read the book that the author's mother called finally done,
(48:20):
perfectly acceptable, romp the Germans point, severely adequate. What if
this thing is the Ark of the Covenant? We just
had it, you know, it was concealed the whole time
I was googling Ark of the Covenant while we were
talking with the story, because I was like, you know,
what is an arc versus a tabernacle? And they're different,
(48:40):
but they're both meant to house sacred relics, so they're
not that different. Yeah, I'm just saying, what if it
was obsfucation over all these years they made they wanted
you to think it was an Arc of the Covenant,
but it was actually a Tabernacle of the Covenant. Dune,
Dune done. I'll have to get over to uh Ethiopia
and see if I can get in to that building
(49:01):
that would make these thieves the raiders of the Lost
Arc the Lost Tabernacle, which might be enough to keep
us from getting sued. What do you think, folks, let
us know. We want to hear. We want to hear
what you think might be a foot with this height.
We want to hear what you think about the future
of artificial intel, well so called artificial intelligence. Uh. And
(49:21):
we also want to hear what you think about these pads,
these secret presidential orders that not even your congress person
has access to. What are you gonna do when? What
are you gonna do when the Tabernacle hits the fan,
let us know. We try to be easy to find online.
That's right. You can reach out to us in numerous
ways on the internet via Facebook, where you can join
(49:43):
our group Here's where it gets crazy. You can also
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(50:04):
please give yourself a nickname. Make it as cool or
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(50:46):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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 Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's the top of the week,
which means it's time for more strange news. Now. Unless
(00:47):
you have been living deep deep in the bowels of
the earth, or unless you are an astronaut with a
not great Internet connection, you know that quite a few
things have happened recently. A lot of those things aren't
making the news. I would once again, I know I
ruffled some feathers with this on the Internet, but once
(01:07):
again I want to point out that regardless of your
take on a celebrity trial, there are other things happening,
and unfortunately they often get swept away in the news
cycle and for profit media's constant search for clicks. That
being said, we have things that are not celebrity trials
(01:28):
that we would like to talk about today. We were
gonna tell you about a heist because we love a
good heist. Um, this one has a religious religious aspect
to it. We're gonna look at the future of so
called artificial intelligence or machine consciousness in the world of cartoons,
and we're going to talk about Uncle Sam's secret Plans
(01:53):
four when hits the fan uh of uh, maybe maybe
we can we can start there, you know, because we've
got conspiracy realists in the family here, from all across
the planet, from every imaginable demographic and one thing that
(02:13):
we see in common amongst all these people is a
a healthy distrust of their government, whether that's the US,
whether that's you know, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you
name it. Most of the average people on the planet,
they're a little bit skeptical right when it comes to
large power structures, and rightly so. I would say, we
(02:37):
recently learned about something I was kind of aware of,
but not not super up to date on, concerning our
own government here in the United States, contingency plans. Right. Imagine,
you know, you're in charge of a country of three
thirty something million people, and you know things can go wrong,
(02:59):
nuclear war, food supplied disruptions, which we talked about previously,
all sorts of things from like sci fi stuff like
a coronal mass ejection to um basic human problems like
the outbreak of secession right or widespread public descent. In
(03:19):
a recent article for The New York Times, Charlie Savage,
one of my new favorite journalists new to me at least,
broke the story just just a few days ago, as
we record that there have been some newly declassified, well
let me be fair, newly leaked documents that give us
(03:41):
a little bit more visibility on top secret executive branch
plans for any scenario you would possibly call apocalyptic. And
this includes scary scary stuff. This includes the institution of
martial law in partial UH deployment or across the country
(04:02):
entirely UH. This includes stuff like obviously nuclear warfare, but
it also includes the ability to do things like shut
down communications networks, not just shut down the Internet, like
shutdown phone lines if if you're not nor ad UH.
And the scary thing about it is this stuff has
(04:23):
been in development since at least the nineteen fifties. Congress
has zero input on it, which means that you have
zero input on it, whether or not you vote, whether
or not you consider yourself an activist, and I don't
know before we get into it, are you guys surprised
(04:44):
at all by this? Not based on what we already
kind of know with things like the long lines building
in New York that we explored several times, essentially like
a government bunker beneath the earth to house official and
you know, with like long term infrastructure and UH and
supplies for waiting out in nuclear holocaust or apocalypse event,
(05:09):
also dealing with communications and reaching the outside world on that.
Now that the part of this that's interesting to me
is how it would affect us. You know, this isn't
just like a panic room for the elite. This is
something that would affect regular people. If I'm hearing you correctly, Well, yeah, Ultimately,
it feels like the stuff we've learned about in the past,
where if the president and you know, the top brass
(05:33):
are all eliminated in some disaster or attack, you know,
where where do the presidential powers lie. We've talked about
that before, like the chain of command or custody, that
power kind of goes down, uh much of the way
you know, a king or a queen's power goes down
the line. Uh, we've talked about that before, but it
(05:54):
is it's really interesting to me to know that there
are secrets, uber secret, super secret plans that we will
never know about for disasters that are probably likely, Like,
I mean, we'll probably see something like this occurring within
the next let's say, d two hundred years, assuming the
(06:16):
US is around. Yeah, that's I mean, that's that's a
very good point, Matt. The the stuff we do know
we being the public, comes from the nineteen fifties and
sixties versions of these draft emergency Action orders, and they
include stuff like, of course, different versions of martial law,
(06:37):
but they also include stuff like restricting the passage of
information across the border. They also include stuff like suspending
court hearings for people who are detained, so your legal
rights would be curtailed. And right now, unless you are
in the executive branch, you're involved in the potential deployment
(06:59):
of these things, we don't you don't know, you don't
know what the plan is. And I hate to say it,
but there is some valid logic to that, because if
an enemy force, for instance, knew what your step by
step plan was, in case of saying attack, then they
could modify their plan to address what what your original
(07:25):
steps were, and then you would be a fish out
of water in a very dangerous way. Here's what we know.
It comes from the Britain Center for Justice, and they
spent a lot of time cleverly writing for Freedom of
Information Act request from the to get documents from the
Bush Presidential Library. The disclosure they got it rounds up
(07:49):
to about five hundred pages, which sounds really impressive until
you realize six thousand more pages were withheld from their
request and kept classified and we only really get these
um disclosures on the heels of something called the Protecting
Our Democracy Act. This was a bill that passed in December,
(08:13):
and it's meant to kind of nerve, as we would
say in the gaming world, nerf the powers of the
executive branch due to controversial activities of the previous administration.
Under the Trump presidency, this bill is not expected to
pass the Senate because for anybody outside of the US,
the House of Representatives can pass all kinds of stuff
(08:37):
and then it goes to like the fifty most powerful
politicians and they get to decide whether or not it happens.
Um you can write to them if you want. Your
mileage may vary. Tell us how it works out. But
this this stuff is fascinating to me because it's like,
it's as if we can glean a little bit from
(09:00):
reading metadata. We know, for instance, things that have happened
in the past due to these Presidential Emergency Action Documents
or pads. PADS. I think, I don't know if they
say p E A, D S or just pads. Hope
they go to pads so much more fun makes me
getting pound or Yeah, it just seems like they on
(09:25):
the entire Yeah, that is yeah, exactly. So let me
give you a sense of how in depth, at least
some of the older ones were. There was one from
nineteen fifty nine that said, here's what we do if
the Soviet Union attacks the US with nuclear weapons and
they break it down. But then they also start estimating
(09:47):
how many people might survive, like they have numbers, and
they base their actions off those numbers. And then they
also start making policy prescriptions U and how to preserve
the economy, how to also you know, get people to places,
get v I P s to places like the Greenbrier Bunker,
(10:09):
which you had mentioned just a minute ago Noll, and
the the big issue we know sometimes national security, even
though it's a such a boogeyman, we know sometimes it
is necessary. But the big issue here is that Congress
doesn't know either. Congress doesn't know what these pads are.
(10:29):
They're getting p added on two And there's a huge
concern for your elected representatives if you live in this country.
I would like to point to Senator Edward J. Markey
from Massachusetts and he says, quote, it's our duty as
lawmakers to demand that the executive branch turns over documents
(10:50):
so Congress, as representatives of the American people, can evaluate
the constitutionality of any future president's attempts to exploit an
emergency to us zoom extraordinary powers. And that is a
mission critical concern because, as little Finger said in Song
of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, chaos as a ladder,
(11:12):
and when we are like there's a reason wartime presidents
are more likely than not to do well in the polls.
There's also a reason that some bills in times of
emergency are passed without oversight. You know, like all the
controversy around loans given out to political henchfolk and various
(11:33):
connected businesses during during the pandemic. I'm startled, you know,
I can't imagine how many directives actually exists. Thanks to
the good folks at the Brennan Center, we know there
were forty eight secret plans when the George W. Bush
administration took office, and then a few years later, by
(11:57):
two thousand and eight, that number had grown to fifty six.
So they're adding stuff. And President Dick Cheney Vice President
Dick Cheney, thanks Matt was was heavily evolved involved in
reviewing and clearing the orders. He was the green light
(12:18):
for the He was the decision maker or the decider
as what the President Bush would say. Yeah, and this
this stuff expanded after the attacks on September eleven, and
it's therefore reasonable to assume that they expanded in the
wake of the pandemic, maybe expanding due to food supply.
(12:41):
One thing we can say about governmental powers like this
is that they always seek to expand. It doesn't matter
who is elected or who's sitting in the Oval office
at the time, and it doesn't matter what they say
about big or small fermant when it comes to their
(13:03):
you know, their piece of the yard. They want more territory,
and that's that's what we're looking at. So as conspiratorials,
it founds it is absolutely possible that five years from now,
ten years from now, two years from now, who knows,
one of these p d's could come into effect, either
(13:24):
through a proclamation, a message to Congress, and executive order,
and it will affect you, and you could protest, but
you can't vote about it. And at this point we're
gonna pause because I think this is a full episode
if we can finagle a little more classified information as
as is our remit on this show. Uh, while we
(13:48):
pause as we go to a commercial break, I want
to ask you, fellow conspiracy realist, do you think this
sort of secrecy is inherently bad or inherently good? Do
you think it is a necessary evil? What do you
think the plan is? Is there a scenario for say,
an alien attack, the rise of the undead? I hope so,
(14:10):
because like saying peeds instead of pe a d s,
it would just be a little more exciting. That's Gallows
humor for you. All Right, we're gonna pause, We'll be
right back, and we're back with another piece of pretty
(14:30):
freaking strange news um from the world of children's entertainment
sort of kind of If you guys ever heard of
an artist by the name of David O'Reilly, I have
super interesting fellow. Um if you go to his Instagram,
which I highly recommend everybody to do immediately and give
(14:51):
him a follow. He is sort of a culture jamming
outsider artist weirdo that is, um, practicing AI assisted or
fully generated art. And you know, sort of like in
the early days of electronic music, where you know, the
suits and the squares might say it's not real music. Yeah,
(15:12):
I got a machine making it for you. Well, you
know that's clearly someone who doesn't understand how electronic music
is made. You have machines that are tools, but you
feed them input. Um. And this isn't even referring to
like generative music like what Brian Eno might do, where
you feed the machine some sort of algorithm that you
create and then it follows a certain set of criteria
(15:33):
to make a certain type of music. Um that will
just continue to you know, regenerate itself over time. That's
used in video game production a lot for you know,
ambient kind of drones that sort of like adapt to
certain criteria that happened in the in the scene, or
in the in the in the level, or the game.
Um that is kind of what David O'Reilly is doing.
(15:53):
He's using a I technology to create some pretty nightmarish
and entertaining p is of of art um one. What
I really like from his page is he has a
He has a kind of a remix or a reinterpretation
of Tupac Shakur's changes, but um made using a i UH.
(16:17):
And in fact it says the very beginning produced by
Big d The Impossible, written by Tupac Shakur, Dion Evans,
Bruce Hornsby and written and produced by a i UH.
With the prompts the Tupac song changes but about AI
and if you guys know, it's probably one of Tupac's
most famous songs. The lyrics become I see the changes.
I see all the robots, lifeless eyes staring at me
(16:39):
with broken dreams. I think about the future and it
frightens me. I'm starting to lose faith in humanity. All
I see is screens and code. We used to have connection,
Now we're all alone. The effects of tech are starting
to show. Machines talking over and it's hard to let go.
People suffering on the minimum wage, with billionaires fight to
control this new age. Everyone desperate to make a quick buck.
And it's moving so fast I can't keep up. I
(17:01):
wonder when we'll all be free from this misery from
the grip of technology. Uh. And this is created by
technology and the video behind it is like kind of
deep dreamified tupac Um. You know, his mouth is moving
in in concert with these new weirdo lyrics. Um. So
that's kind of stuff the data David rallies into. The
(17:21):
latest news from this artist is that he has used
AI to create essentially like a super cut or kind
of a trailer for a um hey children's cartoon called Bartak. Uh.
And he posted this trailer on his Instagram account and
this is what he said, Thrilled to announce bar Tak,
(17:42):
the first fully ganimated show coming to Disney Plus this summer,
using the awesome power of AI to create the perfect
kids entertainment. A full season order of seventy five thousand
episodes is now being generated. Uh. And then like a
little a d n A emoji, enjoy this peak. All
you bartok stands out there, let me know what kind
(18:03):
of merge you'd like to see thanks to open Ai
Doll for making this dream ad reality. So definitely some
some talking cheek stuff going on there. Highly doubt Disney
Plus has anything to do with this. Went in touch
with a ten foot pole after you you hear what it's,
what it's all about, and then to hear some audio
from that we're gonna play. Uh. Not to mention the
idea of generating seventy episodes certainly could be done if
(18:27):
you're just hurting out, you know, stuff based on input
to A to an AI, but I'm also kind of
doubt that that's what's going on here too. Um, what
you get in bar Tech is it's as if you've
fed children's cartoons kind of European children's cartoon style animation
into deep Dream. You know remember Deep Dream that you
(18:49):
know that that Google based algorithmic kind of Yeah, it's
fun our generator. I mean it's basically like you know,
it was applied to video where essentially looks like you know,
everything is is made of lizards or everything is made
of like weird psychedelic dog snouts. You know, essentially, I
(19:09):
think Ben maybe to help me out here if if
you if you remember more, Um isn't it like it
sort of takes a swatch kind of of an image
and compares it to what the prevailing, like most popular
image that sort of looks like that is on the internet,
and then essentially like recreates it using textures from that image.
Is that right? Yet? The proper like fancy term is
(19:32):
a convolutional neural network and it uses this uh, algorithmic
approach to enhance what it's what it thinks of as
existing patterns. So that's why you know, if you have
a if you have a like a lot of people
would take selfies, right or maybe at the very first
they were taking pictures of their romantic partners until they
(19:55):
realized said partners might not always enjoy the end result.
Uh it. There's a great article on How Stuff Works
by Nathan Chandler that talks about how deep dream, how
deep dream actually functions, and it's doing basically what you describe.
It locates and alters patterns that it has identified. It
(20:17):
kind of leans individual trends, you could say. And that's why,
I don't know, deep dream is so fun. I'm gonna
go back and experiment with more of it here. Yeah,
so thank you, that's exactly that's a much clearer description there.
I think between the two of us, we gotta on
the nose. Um. So this is different though, because it
(20:39):
looks like it's like original animation. There's characters. You know,
I don't know exactly this. This dude doesn't really talk
about his process, but it seems to me like you
must have drawn some animation plates of some kind of that.
There's not that they don't move. The only move based
on the kind of that same deep dream kind of
snaky lizardy uh interpretive kind of like stuff. And of
(21:05):
course there's also an accompanying soundtrack and and dialogue if
you can call it that. Um, so let's let's just
hear a little bit of it and then we can
we can discuss. Now there are no captions, Yeah, no, no,
(21:31):
I think it's all it's the theater of the mind.
It's sort of like the language Seagar Ross uses the
Hope Landic or whatever. Like it's all about how you
want to interpret it. But you hear the name bart
Bartek Bartak Bartak is the name of the character apparently,
and if you look at it, I mean, there does
(21:52):
appear to be some hand drawn components that are then
kind of squishified, you know, by this deep Dream kind
of stuff. But then it also there's some characters that
just seem like no human I mean, not not to
discredit the the magical powers of the human mind, but
there's some of these weird little alien guys that look
like an animated version of the kind of stuff Deep
(22:12):
Dream generates. So I want to know more. There really
isn't much out there aside from this. This guy's you know,
putting this out there. He's sort of a notorious troll.
Um in the best possible way, like you know, in
terms of like some of the things he said about,
you know, doing seventy episodes and all that stuff. But
like I don't know what what how this process works exactly,
(22:34):
Like like I'll read a little bit more from the
from the Vice article. Uh, they describe O'Riley as and
three D artists who's well known for creating disturbing animations. Um.
He claims to have used something called doll E and
other natural language processing systems, which you know, can create
almost like you know, facsimiles of things that we would recognize,
(22:57):
you know, which which this sort of does. But then
it like takes really weird dark psychedelic turn um. Other
systems that we've talked about on the show like GPT three,
which are used with chat bots to create kind of
realistic you know, um reactions. Um. But also alo and
they also mentioned the Vice article that this can be
used to create a kind of AI choose your inn adventure,
(23:20):
kind of dungeon crawler type text adventures. UM. But we've
also seen stories about how these kinds of AI tend
to have some pretty gnarly sexist and racist stereotypes built
into them because they are pulling from the open Internet,
you know, in the same way that what was it
that Cli? What was that that that Microsoft Twitter boughts,
(23:42):
you know, just got real racist, real quick. Um came
a neo Nazi and cell in a little less than
and the the writer, by the way of this this
Vice article is Janice Rose, and I love it. The
headline is AI created this extremely cursed children's card. If
anyone you know follows Internet culture, which I'm sure most
(24:04):
of you do, the idea of a cursed images is
a thing like in in in meme culture, uh, and
then this would definitely fall under that, no question. But
the subtitle, which I love and which I think will
be a nice transition into Matt's piece is every day
we stray further from God's light, implying that these are
in some way abominations from like beyond, you know, from
(24:25):
the realms, beyond the lands between if you will. Um,
But yeah, it says as a weird art projects from
the article, O'Reilly's use of this tool seems relatively benign, however,
and as fans seem to be in on the joke.
Here's a an Instagram commenter. It's really inspiring to see
how well Bartok has helped my kids understand the world
around them and and taught me how to be a
(24:47):
better parent. My kids are so much smarter as a result.
You want to see the excitement in their eyes, especially
at the hands of a show like this. So, uh,
you know, more weirdo counterculture art kind of culture jamming
stuff or the future of children's entertainment. You be the judge.
(25:08):
But yeah, pure nightmare fuel is all I can call it.
That's exactly what I call and hilarious totally. I mean,
I was laughing. I could not stop laughing hearing those
sounds at least, so we should reuse those in some way.
I completely agree. Something good has come of this, yes,
no doubt, no doubt, but fun little one um on
(25:29):
the lighter side in a pretty heavy news cycle. Um,
So take this and do with it what you will.
Hopefully we'll see more of this kind of stuff. I
I personally love this kind of use of AI for
making interesting art um as opposed to using it to
try to like mind control us or you know, program
our our future robot overlords. So with that, let's take
(25:49):
a quick break and we're back with another piece of
strange news. And we're back, and for this story, we're
gonna get a bit holy, and we're also going to
get close, maybe too close to our own mission control
Paul Decand we're traveling to Brooklyn, New York, to the
(26:11):
neighborhood of Park Slope, right near a very very famous park,
beautiful park called Prospect Prospect Park m hmmmmmm. And just
northwest of this gorgeous park in Brooklyn, New York, there
is the Notre Dame of the area, as it is
(26:33):
known by the locals. Uh. It is a Catholic church,
very beautiful building. It's it's named the St. Augustine Roman
Catholic Church. And I say it's beautiful because the architecture
is just immaculate. It dates back to eight nineteen century,
the Old eighteen hundreds, the Fighting eighteens. Uh. Inside this church,
(26:58):
as beautiful as it is and as or nate as
the architecture is, they are all kinds of relics, and
I guess architectural features that date back to when the
church was first formed. And one of the relics inside
this church is a tabernacle. Now, guys, what do you
think of when I say tabernacle? Oh, I think of Mormons.
(27:22):
I think of Mormons. I think of venue in Atlanta.
But that's all. That's all. I podium. Is it like
a like a something that you stand by, like a
you know, pulpit. I've never fully understood what it seems
like it could be that, but that's not what it is.
I have to stop real quick, though, because I believe
(27:43):
the correct term is LDS or Latter day Saints. So
for anybody of that faith in the crowd, I understand
that saying Mormon is sometimes can be found offensive, but
that's obviously not what we mean. I thought a tabernacle.
I knew it was a structure, and I think in
old religious tomes. It can also not necessarily be stationary
(28:06):
like it can be movable. Yes that is, yes, it
does matter, and all the all of it matters, guys Um.
The tabernacle, and I did not know this until I've
read this story. Is the thing a physical structure. Oftentimes
it is mobile because it's usually necessary. It contains the
Holy Eucharist, the stuff that you need to administer and
(28:30):
take communion. So we're talking you know, the physical forms
of Jesus's body and blood. If if you're going to
take the holy sacrament of communion, so that would be
wine and crackers or bread whatever is used in that
particular faith. In this case, I'm assuming it's the cracker
(28:51):
like structures that are used in holy communion in the
Catholic Church. Um. And also all the accouterment that comes
with that, like chalice is the would contain the wine
when you're giving it out, and often some kind of
platter that would hold the crackers are bread or whatever
you're giving out. So this thing, this tabernacle, is literally
a mobile holder of food. Really, that's what it is. Well,
(29:17):
this one is very special. As I said, it's a
relic from the eighteen hundreds, probably dating back to at
least that's what's claimed when this church was first founded.
This thing is solid eighteen carrot gold. It's covered absolutely
covered in jewels and all kinds of other precious stones,
(29:38):
and it is valued and around two million dollars. Question
that that value, though that value probably doesn't explain the
full worth of it to the the Catholic community, to
the diocese and to you know, the faithful, right imagine
beyond cash. Absolutely the history of the church. I mean,
(30:03):
you're talking about a relic that's been around since the
late eighteen hundreds, where people of the Catholic faith who
are living in that area, you know, they were going
there and have been going to that church for I
mean that's over century. That's years and years and years.
And so this thing is precious for historical reasons, for
actual monetary you know, reasons for the precious things that's
(30:23):
made out of uh, and also for the holiness right
this is it does contain, theoretically, if you believe, the
body and blood of Jesus that is used in a
holy sacrament. So this thing is protected when the church
is open. This thing sits kind of back in a
little I guess a cubby hole of sorts that is
(30:46):
also very ornate. It's it's on display, it's on it's
on an altar, but it's inside kind of uh, an enclosure, right,
almost like a little mini cave. Is that the ombre?
That little alcove. So that's called Oh, sure, I don't know.
Maybe I'll check, I'll check. I just I I collect
(31:07):
all these Uh. The Catholic Faith has this beautiful uh nomenclature,
you know what I mean. I think I believe that's
another the nave. The the thurable is the name for
the instance things uh. And what's the other, Oh, and
(31:28):
trans substantiation, the magical process in which the materials that
Matt has described become physically, you know, in the body,
the body of Christ and the Blood of Christ the literal.
But I do think it's ombree, I did. I myself
am not a member the Catholic Faith, but I do
believe that that kind of cupboard we're talking about might
(31:49):
be an ambree. Well, let's just the ambree. This opening
that's kind of uh, it's curved, or the back of
it is a bit curved, it looks like, and it
sits inside there. So imagine in your mind looking at
an altar and inside this little alcove there's this beautiful, golden,
shiny thing. And to protect it, they have a very
(32:12):
specialized security system that involves to steal. I guess. They're
curved doors that close in front of this thing when
the church is closed or when the when the tabernacle
is not on display, and they it looks very heavy duty.
You can see pictures of it online right now if
you check it out. It looks like it protects this
(32:34):
thing as though it's the Mona Lisa like some very
expensive painting. It's it's a piece of art. It's a
piece of history. They protected as such. Well as of
Saturday May, this thing has been stolen. Guys. This is
one of the most brazen acts of thievery that I
have seen in many a year. Someone went into this
(32:59):
church with a power saw, it is believed, and cut
open those steel doors. So we were talking about, didn't
just like pry them open or something or break that
mechanism cut those Yeah, they cut through those steel doors.
They took the tabernacle out. I guess in doing so
(33:21):
in the process or just in another equally brazen act
through all the contents of the tabernacle, the actual U Chris,
the body and blood just kind of threw it out
and threw it all over the altar there. Uh, then
took it away and stole it. But that's not all
they did, guys. You know what else they did. They
(33:41):
took the power saw or whatever they had, and they
cut the head off an angel, just like when am
I going to be here again? Style? I guess I
was thinking about this really hard, you guys. This is
my theory. We're talking about a three person job. One
person was the brains, the inside person. They knew exactly
(34:05):
where everything was in the church and how expensive it
was and theoretically what they needed to do to get it.
The second person was either a welder or someone who
you know, had the tools to get the job done.
And the third person was the wild card. And I
think that wild card just like had saw the power saw,
(34:27):
saw the angel and just went WHOA, we gotta do
this and just went to town. It's like that scene
in the Sopranos when like A J and his buddies
they're breaking to the school and they're swimming, and then
all of a sudden, one of them just like, hey,
let's just throw all the trophies in the pool. Then
one person does, and then everyone else just goes hog wild.
You know, it's just chaos magic yea or Charlie Charlie Day.
(34:48):
I think that whenever there's a wild card reference just
eventually cutting the brakes on the van and then you know,
imagine this team is in a hurry, and so we
have to go what are are you doing? And the
guy saying hold on, I'm I'm almost finished. Angel was
looking at me funny, and it's you know, I'm thinking
(35:10):
too about the noise. Right, would this have been This
would not have been a silent operation by any means.
So I wonder how long it actually took. The church
was closed for construction, so I wonder if maybe there
was some you know, plausibility in the neighborhood. They're like, oh,
(35:30):
maybe they're doing some after hours construction. Is it clear
what time this took place? Man, And it is not.
There's some time security footage. Yeah, they do not know.
They just know it was before because that's when it
was discovered by Father Termino and there they it is
(35:51):
believed that it took place on Friday. That's like, I
guess the most likely scenario. There's this excellent ap article
that you shared with us by Michael R. Szak where
it looks like they were guessing sometime between sometimes like
after six thirty on that Thursday and before for on
(36:11):
that Saturday. So with Friday being the most likely, that
kind of makes sense. I'm also wondering, you know, the
it's clearly just a money job with an extra um,
extra dash and disrespect, right like, yeah, because I mean,
churches get vandalized. Their buildings get vandalized all the time. Um.
(36:34):
That usually just involves spray painting or you know, knocking
over some stuff or whatever. This is like a next
level heist that also involves some next level vandalism. Yeah. Absolutely,
So you gotta find everybody who's got a power saw
in the Gowanas and Park Slope area. No, I'm just jugging,
it's probably not. That's probably not a local job, unless
(36:55):
because the churches under construction, you know, somebody just noticed it. Yeah,
I don't know. It's a little thought to be a
crime of opportunity though impulse crime. I mean, I wonder
if the power staw was on site. I see what
you're saying, man, but I just do wonder if it
was under construction, you know, sometimes they leave, they leave
(37:18):
this kind of They would have had to know where
the thing was though, so it would have been I
don't know, Man, the more I'm thinking about it, the
more maybe it was someone that was on the construction
team who had access to I think multiple operators seems
really plausible. I'm with you, Matt, because they the inside
thing sounds increasingly plausible too, because they clearly knew what
(37:42):
they were going for. And there was also a a
safe right that was broken into. Oh yeah, yeah, I
forgot about that. They broke into a safe that you know,
appeared to be again filled with stuff you'd want to take.
Probably it's a nice, big safe. It's locked up. There
was nothing in that sucker, at least according to the
statement that was given by the Diocese of Brooklyn. Oh man,
(38:06):
you guys, this was something you brought up off Ernol, Like,
what do you do once you have this thing? Let's
say you successfully break in, You cut the thing open,
decapitate the angel, take the two million dollar thing. What
do you do with it now? Private art market? That's
the best way to laund your stuff. Check out our
episode Possible Or do you just melt it down for
(38:30):
the raw materials, because I mean that two millions maybe
is more referring to like it's you know, the value
of the stones and the gold and all of that,
because you can't really put a price on you know,
generations of of of history and tradition. Right, Well, that's
the thing. I mean, it's big. It's a lot of
solid gold, it's a lot of jewels. You could theoretically
(38:53):
break the sucker down, but the real value is in
the in the history. So it does feel like if
there are brains behind this operation, you would want to
find a way to sell it at its highest price.
But you can't just repaint it like people are gonna know.
It's a it's a one of a kind item. You
gotta just take it like you know, overseas, I guess
(39:13):
and hope that no one catches a glimpse of it.
To your point, Ben, maybe some sort of private collector
who would never have any outside eyes in there. You know,
they sense someone, but it doesn't Maybe they sense someone also.
We can't when we're talking about the extra the added
sort of disrespect. We cannot deny the ongoing intergenerational damage
(39:39):
done by some some factions of the Catholic Church against children.
So it may be someone with a literal act to
grind while a power saw in this case for a
personal matter. And I'm just speculating. I don't have you know,
any evidence here. I haven't been in contact with the
police or anything. But the the the idea of melting
(40:00):
it down, yeah, it dramatically lowers the value. And also
if you're smart enough, you know that if you melt
it down and you just try to sell it as
gold or precious gemstones at going market rate, then you're
taking a bath, you know, like that, you're not going
(40:21):
to make near as much money as It's a good point.
It's a good point. I just don't know how you
successfully fence something like this unless it was to some
somebody who did have an ax to grind. This is
an act of protests in some small way or a
large way. Um. And this was built for this church, right.
This isn't like an example of like maybe you know
how so many artifacts and like the British Museum were
(40:42):
pilford from other cultures. This isn't that right. This wasn't
like taken from some other culture and put on display
in this American Church. It was built for the church,
I'm asking. I believe so. The Diocese of Brooklyn just
says it was built in the late eighteen's. It dates
back to when the church was built. If it's an
(41:02):
example of somebody taking it back, we don't know the history.
All we know is was in these arts, like the
it was Vatican operators that came over. I don't know
many here, and they dude, that's the perfect place. You
just put it in the archives, right into somebody. Yeah,
(41:24):
unless somebody knows that it's there, they'll never see it again.
The Vatican Secret Archives. I still think it's the perfect plan. Yeah,
especially because it's so uncomplicated, and yeah, I feel like
wanted a thing that could just be like, YO, give
us the thing where you are beholden to us. So
(41:45):
probably probably I'm interested in learning more about the history
of that as well, because it's not it's probably on
their website. You could even call, well, you want to
be careful with timing. I could call them today and
ask about it. But it's like read the room at
that point, you know what I mean. Yeah, let's give
(42:06):
it a few more days this June twod Right now,
as we record this, this just occurred. We're gonna find
out more information in the end. This story is not
stuff they don't want you to know. Besides the fact
that people are breaking into holy places and stealing things
out of them, that seems like, guys, uh, I don't know.
That was a bridge too far, even for the most
(42:29):
seasoned organized criminal for a very long time. I feel
like we're breaching. We're broaching something, guys, I think people have.
I mean it's classic human people have historically been very
protective of the belief system with with which they personally identify,
but if it's another person's belief system, then they don't care.
(42:51):
I mean, look at the look at the sacking of
all the ancient civilizations throughout history, zero exceptions. At some
point everyone got got yeah, it's a really good point. Uh,
just you know, hide your tabernacles better from now on, everybody.
I have one question for you, Matt, why did you
(43:12):
do it? Well? Honestly, there were just so many ports
around the park was a perfect place to hide it. Temporarily.
Nobody's looking in Prospect Park for a tabernacle park. Yeah,
couldnt we just say to just one? Last year? I
(43:32):
think we we hit on this or you hit on
this map, but maybe not quite hard enough. Um, the
there was no surveillance footage because the tapes were stolen
or it was hampered with in some way, Am I right?
Or I just want to make sure I'm understand that
there it's there's some reporting on that. I'm a little
unsure the official statements that we're getting from the church
itself and then from the diocese UH talking about how
(43:55):
there was no UH footage, and then statements that were
given into the NYPD about why there's no footage. I'm
unsure if it's because of the construction, or because of
you know, some malfunction with the security system, or if
the tapes were in fact stolen. I'm just unsure because
I've seen different things written about it. I know it's
(44:16):
been it has been said that the tapes were in
fact stolen or the security system was tampered with. I
think we're all in agreement that this was to some
degree a pretty pro job. I think, yeah, it seems
like it. I mean, just you know, you have to
realize that in in heist like this, especially involving powerful forces,
(44:39):
right and make the mistake. You know, this not for nothing.
Is this Notre Dame Brooklyn right? Uh? There, their thefts
reports are going to be treated differently from say, an
average person in their apartment reporting a crime. So this means,
in my mind, it is very reasonable to assume that
(45:02):
both the diocese and the police have information there withholding.
That's just a standard operating procedure there. And you know,
we don't know about DNA probably searching for that. I
don't know about fingerprints, but this crew sounds like they
were wearing gloves. It's easy to make mistakes, even if
(45:22):
you're a seasoned pro. But these folks are clearly trying
to do their their criminal version of due diligence. I
wonder if it will get found. You know, It's just
it's almost like a missing person, a ticking clock starts
wants something like this gets stolen, and if you can
hold it long enough and cover your tracks, then you
(45:43):
can get away until you try to offense it or
move it. That's when they get you, because what if,
what if they're ordinarily a moral contact for moving this
it turns out to have deep Catholic roots, you know
what I mean? When is like just stares at it
for too long and then looks back at them and
(46:04):
it is perfect. We'll take it, closes the box slowly,
and then the next thing those guys know, that's a
sound of a silencer. Nice, I mean tragic. Well, I
think we could say one of our main takeaways from
this is, regardless of your own personal ideologies or lack thereof,
(46:26):
don't break it into religious sites and steal their stuff.
Come on, doesn't this feel like the the impetus for
a Dan Brown asked religious heist kind of story? Like
this is where it starts, and then someone sent in,
you know, a Vatican investigators sent in, and it turns
out there's much more than meets the eye to this case.
Oh yeah, there are codes written in the area of
(46:49):
the angel's neck where it was decapitated. They were hidden
there the whole time, which no one but the protagonist
and everybody reading can figure out know what? Like? Uh.
It also reminds me of John Connolly. I got really
into this guy recently. He's got a excellent, uh noir
crime supernatural series called the Charlie Parker Series. No relation
(47:13):
to the musician. But if you are looking for if
you're looking for some good reads in that kind of
vein if the sort of stuff interests you, but you
prefer it to be fiction, I'd recommend Connolly as well.
I can't wait till this next book comes out. Well
that's it for this one. Stay safe out there, Protect
your tabernacles. And uh if that concludes this section of
(47:33):
the show is protect your tabern accles, I think, yeah, yeah,
get out of my your Why are you all up
in my tabern acles? You know what I mean? Uh
So we want to we want to hear your thoughts
on this. I'm already writing in my head, just like
the the blurb at the back of the book, you
know where it says, while closed for renovations, Brooklyn's Neutra
(47:56):
Dom had a priceless artifacts stolen. The thiefs left no
fingerprints except for insert protagonist name here. Discovers through a
series of arcane clues, a conspiracy leading all the way
to the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia. You know,
read the book that the author's mother called finally done,
(48:20):
perfectly acceptable, romp the Germans point, severely adequate. What if
this thing is the Ark of the Covenant? We just
had it, you know, it was concealed the whole time
I was googling Ark of the Covenant while we were
talking with the story, because I was like, you know,
what is an arc versus a tabernacle? And they're different,
(48:40):
but they're both meant to house sacred relics, so they're
not that different. Yeah, I'm just saying, what if it
was obsfucation over all these years they made they wanted
you to think it was an Arc of the Covenant,
but it was actually a Tabernacle of the Covenant. Dune,
Dune done. I'll have to get over to uh Ethiopia
and see if I can get in to that building
(49:01):
that would make these thieves the raiders of the Lost
Arc the Lost Tabernacle, which might be enough to keep
us from getting sued. What do you think, folks, let
us know. We want to hear. We want to hear
what you think might be a foot with this height.
We want to hear what you think about the future
of artificial intel, well so called artificial intelligence. Uh. And
(49:21):
we also want to hear what you think about these pads,
these secret presidential orders that not even your congress person
has access to. What are you gonna do when? What
are you gonna do when the Tabernacle hits the fan,
let us know. We try to be easy to find online.
That's right. You can reach out to us in numerous
ways on the internet via Facebook, where you can join
(49:43):
our group Here's where it gets crazy. You can also
hit us up on Twitter uh and also find our
YouTube channel. All of these exist under the handle conspiracy
Stuff on Instagram where conspiracy Stuff show. If you do
not like social media, why not use your phone give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
S T d W y t K. When you call in,
(50:04):
please give yourself a nickname. Make it as cool or
as weird as you want. You've got three minutes. After
that you can say anything you want. We do ask
that you include whether or not we can use your
message and voice on the air and attend of that
quite does it for you? Why? You can reach out
to us the old fashioned way with a good old
email Where we are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com.
(50:46):
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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