September 14, 2020 • 52 mins
A 'gender reveal' party in California has created a massive wildfire. Someone dumped loads of mail in the parking lot of a beauty salon. Science reveals how plants grow differently around corpses -- and how this may help us learn more about humanity's grisly past. 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.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is They called me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer Alexis
code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. It's the top of the week,
which means it's time for our Strange News segment, all
(00:47):
the weird, sometimes still developing stories that we wanted to
share with each other and most importantly with you. UH
quick update, if you all allow, we have a We
have a follow up on one story that we reported
earlier regarding some arrest for sexual trafficking in our home
(01:08):
state of Georgia. The information we worked with at the
time was relatively limited, as this was an unfolding event.
Later reporting has verified that this was not a large
human trafficking ring, and crucially, there were not thirty nine
children found in a single trailer, as had been originally reported.
(01:30):
There's an excellent article on Huffington post that came out.
Let's see the yesterday as we record this that clears
the matter up. We suggest that for further reading. Yeah,
I don't know, Like I just wonder, Ben, was there
a sense that the task force and that the governor
sort of misrepresented this a little bit. That's sort of
(01:52):
because it felt like we were operating largely under on
the pr angle that the you know, that our state
government is putting out and then a lot of those
things that we reported were coming directly from this kind
of yea US kind of attitude that they were espousing. Um.
And I saw a Twitter user put out a tweet
(02:12):
saying or actually this article on HuffPo whereas said the
government just found thirty nine traffic children and a double
wide trailer. How is this not the biggest news story
in America? And the Huffo article corrected it to thirty
nine missing children in two weeks across seven states, houses
on the biggest new story in America. Um, it's been
a pretty big story. I was wondering where where was
the disconnected because it's I I still don't know if
(02:33):
I fully get it right. The Huffing to Post article
you're mentioned is the one that I'm referring to. Yes,
the part of it is the access to information that
occurs as events unfold. Uh. You know, this is something
that's pretty common in the world of news. We just
have to be open to more information and to addressing
(02:56):
it when it occurs. Yeah, for sure, there was a
ton of new information coming out about this. The the
original press release was like, here's everything that you need
to know, and this is why it's newsworthy. As of
right now, we're taking care of these bad guys and
getting the children to a safe place. That was like
it right, I mean, we did this great thing. Here's
(03:16):
a bit of the info, and then the details started
coming and there may have been a bit of a
game of telephone with some of the reporting as well,
working off again that limited information. But thank you to
everyone who wrote in about the article that posted and
cleared things up on Monday, September seven. Greatly appreciate your
(03:36):
diligence and your time. So, as always, we have a cavalcade,
a bevy but three news that we think you will enjoy.
We haven't talked about how we would like to present
these to each other and to you, but you know,
(03:56):
there's one that's been on my mind. I think it's
on the end of a lot of our fellow conspiracy
realist today, and that's the state of the constitutionally created
service known as the United States Postal Service. No, there
was a store you found. That is something I think
a lot of our fellow listeners need to hear. Yeah. So,
(04:19):
there was some surveillance footage taken from behind a spa
in Glendale called the seven Q salon Um, and it
shows a one of those budget rental trucks, kind of
box trucks, backing up into the parking lot sort of
like a loading dock situation behind the building. Um. These
are you know, traditional commercial storefront type strip mall building
(04:43):
and Um. Then you see in the footage bag after
bag of paper being thrown out of the back of
this truck and into a pile in these plastic bags.
Apparently the co owner of the salon Um, an individual
by the name of Leliah sarobian Um, went back and
(05:05):
found these bags and took some cell phone video of them.
And that was the week we're recording, this being September
the eighth. That was this past Thursday, UM, and the
Thursday before Labor day weekend, and I took some cell
phone footage of it and then realized that these bags
were actually filled with hundreds of unopened letters and packages
(05:28):
originating from the US Postal Service or somebody sent them
through the Postal Service to somewhere else and then they
arrived in that truck somehow. Is that what we're saying, Well,
I don't know exactly what we're saying. We're not quite sure.
It's sort of topping, but it could. There's a lot
of things that could be in and I'm interested to
hear you guys take. But the owner of the salon
(05:51):
was quoted as saying it was completely unusual if they're
taking for their personal use, basically, why they have to
drop off all the unopened packages somewhere um, and talked
about it being suspicious. He started thinking, Okay, something's going
on because no one has access to all those boxes
and packages. Uh, And and there is a probe underway.
(06:13):
Glendale Police said that before these you know, items were discovered, uh,
they received a call about several bags of mail being
tossed in an alley half a mile from the spot,
and it wasn't particularly clear that it was the same
truck Um, but it seems like it's highly likely that
(06:35):
that it might have been. This is from the c
CBS News. Uh, there's one of the l A Times.
There's a handful of of outlets reporting this local too,
to the Los Angeles area. But um, the U S
Postal Service was reached out for comment and I haven't
responded yet. UM, So I don't know, fellas. Uh, it's
it's the kind of thing that's sort of red meat,
(06:55):
you know, when we're dealing with a situation where there's
a sense that the post services potentially being hobbled. Um
that we've seen footage of, you know, trucks driving around
picking up mailboxes, letter boxes off of the street, you know,
and there was a big cost cutting um initiative underway
in the postal service that many folks believed to be
(07:16):
tied to trying to cripple the mail system and so
that mail in ballots and absentee ballots would take longer
account um in the upcoming election, where we know one
party has been vehemently opposed to those things, citing them
as being fraudulent, and there's a sense that perhaps uh,
folks on the Democratic side of things would be more
(07:39):
likely to vote in that way, and folks on the
Republican side of things, not not all but but there
seems to be more of a likelihood that they would
go to the polls um And then obviously the Postmaster
General did come out and say those cost cutting measures
were going to be postponed until after the election. But
this is kind of where the mind goes, at least
(08:01):
my mind when I see stories like this. Obviously it's
an isolated event. It could have easily been somebody alone,
wolf figure going around and pulling things out of people's mailbox,
some stuffing a bag with them and then tossing them.
Or is this something more coordinated. Yeah, there are a
couple of points here that I think are crucial. So
we know, the USPS has been in the news, not
(08:22):
just domestically but in the world news because of concerns
that the service it's not a business, it's a service,
is being gutted, with the long term aim being to
privatize the entire endeavor, meaning that instead of sending your
mail through the USPS with the option to use a
(08:45):
private carrier like FedEx or UPS, etcetera, one would be
required to use private carriers, which are more expensive because
there is no government alternative For people who believe this
is a move toward privatization. Uh, it seems to be
a long strategy, an example of what's often called starve
(09:07):
the Beast tactics, which is a long story short. The
concept of starved the beast is the following that you,
as a political influencer, can degrade and cripple a public
service such that it can no longer function, and then
use the fact that it no longer functions as a
(09:29):
rallying cry to privatize the whole thing. It's very tricky.
It's like create the problem that you claim to solve,
which is tail as old as time in so many
political circles. We have an example of this that's pretty
controversial again for the people who believe in this theory. UH.
The two thousand six Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, or
(09:51):
you'll love the acronym here NOLU the pay paia not
quite pay uh. This required two thousand, six thousand seven.
Is this required the US Post Office to pre fund
all the medical financial requirements for their retirees. That's something
(10:14):
that that's something that's not normal, by the way, So
this put a tremendous financial burden on the USPS, way
way back more than ten years ago now, and the
USPS continued. But now with all the concerns that you're
rightly raising, both in every state in the nation here
(10:35):
and around the globe for people who are, you know, uh,
proponents of things like democracy, the USPS is is being
seen as the subject of concerted effort to close it down.
And just like you said, a lot of people are
penning that specifically on the election which is coming uh
(10:57):
pretty soon as we record today's app is suit. Does
mail get lost? Sure? Does mail get purposefully messed with? Yes,
but it's a felody. So whomever is dumping these bags
of mail is, if the rules apply to them, running
the risk of jail time and enormous finds. The reason
(11:20):
I say if the rules apply to them is because
de Joy, who is the Postmaster General himself, is in
a lot of hot water now if the rules apply
to him. So there's some weird stuff going on with
these bags in this particular thing. Noel, did you talk
about the whole contractor situation yet? Okay, So the Western
(11:46):
Regional Coordinator for the American Postal Workers, I guess that's
the union, the American Postal Workers Union. He was contacted
by CNN and he stated that no USPS employees were
involved in this whole scenario. The budget truck, the person
in it, and that mail. He's saying that this was
(12:09):
a contractor of some sort that was either delivering mail
to a facility or taking it from the facility. He
specifically talking about the weird plastic bags, not weird up
the clear plastic bags that maybe you and I, as
end users of USPS mail, don't ever get to see.
(12:31):
They are for bulk mailing that occurs through um maybe
third parties in other places that mail a bunch of things.
The way it was recovered, I guess after being dumped,
this guy from the American Postal Workers Union, he is
saying that that is definitely bulk mail. It was definitely
going to a facility or leaving a facility. And the
(12:52):
big thing here, because it's bulk, that's weird about it
is that whoever this person was in that truck, they
a dumped it all there for absolutely zero reason. It
can't get picked up from that location if it was
let's say, was incoming mail right to end up at
the Postal Service and then get shipped somewhere else. It's
not like somebody is gonna come and pick it up
(13:15):
from that parking lot. So it wasn't outgoing mail from
a facility. Um and the where it was dumped there
were clearly cameras focused directly on that location where the
truck was. Well and if you wanted to disappear a
bunch of mail, I could think of a hell of
a lot of better ways of doing it, as things
(13:35):
called incinerators. Just throw it on a fire, I mean,
dumping it in this bulk shipment bag in full view
of the camera. Buying a spa in Glendale. I mean,
is is it like a look at me situation? Like?
Is it like a warning? Like I I'm confused about
the intent here. So with all those tensions, I was
just gonna put out there that maybe it is a uh,
(13:58):
some kind of pr play by somebody. Someone got paid
to dump a bunch of mail that is supposed to
go somewhere, but it never got to go somewhere, and
it would make the postal service look bad. That's what
it feels like. Considered that too, Yeah, because you know,
there's an interesting point we can't neglect here. The person
that you're talking about, Matt, as you said, is a
(14:18):
representative of the Postal Workers Union, not the post Office.
The post Office has an official line for these things,
which is we do not comment on ongoing investigations. And
I believe LILYA Serabian, the owner of seven D, the
person who had the camera footage, also confirmed that this
(14:40):
was unusual, like this isn't the bag dump by night
that everyone's familiar with the pr angle. I considered that too.
It's fascinating. And to that end, there's a really odd
quote that they just kind of blast past in the
CNN article and they don't say anything about it. Um
hang on. It says we wanted to make sure it
(15:02):
wasn't a bargaining employee. What is that like collective bargaining?
Like this is like a like a union beef that
they're trying to, you know, get some leverage with. Like
what what an odd quote to just toss off like that.
I don't have the knowledge of exactly what's going on
behind closed doors with with bargaining that must be happening
(15:23):
right now, because you're talking about massive changes coming down
from the top about what the USPS can do again,
like for its employees, what what services it offers all
these kinds of things. Then you've got the union on
the other side, who represents all these employees. And then
I'm sure when a big change like that comes down,
the union has to have a big hand in shaping
(15:45):
what actually occurs, you know, uh, or or what the
what the workers can get when it comes to all
these changes, right, And I mean, I'm assuming that there
could be something like at but I don't know what
the bargaining chip would be by dumping a bunch of mail,
(16:06):
maybe the Boston to add uh some sort of public
support for the mail being uh, you know, attacked again,
going back to that ongoing theory and conversation, as far
as the nomenclature of unions, I know that a bargaining
unit is the common term for a group of employees
(16:30):
who are seeking some sort of modification to their employment agreement.
But a bargaining the reason I bring that up is
the term bargaining employee maybe union terminology, you know what
I mean? That's that would be my guess again, not
being the head of the postal service unions, Sorry to
bust that myth to everybody. I'm not in charge of
(16:52):
the Post Office union. But what about the image of
the protest vibe like I'm not have only half joking
when I say Boston tea party. You know, it's like
somehow pushing back against the government making these cuts and saying,
you know, if if you're not gonna pay us, or
you're gonna, you know, reduce our ability to do our
jobs correctly, we're just gonna say f you and just
(17:13):
throw the mail out into the streets. You know, maybe
it was all mail for a representative or a senator
from there's no way for us to know that. So
how's that helpful? Or maybe it's UH. But if that's
the case, it's an active vigilantism because the union or
the other power structures that would be perhaps sharing that
(17:36):
long term goal UH obviously have left this operative in
the cold. Perhaps there is some sort of black back,
black mail carrier back operation where where the UH, somewhere
at the Post office is saying, you know, this is
your mission, should you choose to accept it, neither rain, sleet,
(17:58):
snow or hail will stop you. However, if you are caught,
we will disavowt any knowledge of this operation in your existence.
All right, now go dump all this stuff in the
salon parking list, not not even like in the Atlantic
or you know, the Pacific, like in the this one
particular salon parking and just really quick and then I'm done. Um.
(18:19):
I could also see this as being a really like
sinister twist ending to like a sci fi story where
like one party wins the election by a mile and
then like the insider character and the story stumbles into
this warehouse that's just full of bags and bags and
bags of mail in ballots that never made it to
where they were going. Yeah, just so everybody knows. According
(18:45):
to CNN, and his name is Omar Gonzalez, uh, the
guy we've been referring to who represents the union. He says,
the recovered mail appears to be viable, and we'll go
through a verification process and will be delivered no doubt.
So possibly, Yeah, rerouted, I love this idea of viable man.
That's the way you talk about a fetus, not like
(19:07):
a bag of mail. It's interesting that you mention that
because the USPS logistical problems that are occurring now with
all the machines being pulled and the the refusal to
give people over time, etcetera. Uh, that has resulted in
dead livestock, dead chicks in particular, being shipped through rural areas.
(19:29):
So there are not fetus is, but but there are
lives at stake, even if they're well. They're human lives
at stake too, because people get insolent through the mail.
That's right, stuff, you guys, interesting to follow. I mean,
if it's an isolated event, then big whoop, I guess,
but I don't know. We start seeing more and more
random bags of mail popping up behind like best buys
(19:51):
across the kind you know. I mean like that, that's
something to take note of. I hope it stays with
beauty parlors though I like the theme of it. Uh
add some tang to the conspiracy a little bit, o
mom me, oh my, cos I just want to give
from us a big shout out to all usps ups, FedEx,
(20:16):
whatever kind of shipping service you work for, all all
you folks out there keeping the wheels going right now
to get stuff shipped one place to the other. Big
things huge. I was trying to find where I found it,
but I either heard somebody that works for the postal
service talking about this or I read it somewhere and
I couldn't find it. But anyone out there that that
does work for the Postal Service, let me know if
this is true. I heard that a lot of times,
(20:39):
like like, the Postal Service will actually take things further
into rural areas than Amazon or ups or fed x well,
and that that's like a thing people forget about. An
important quality of the Postal Service is that it allows
people to live in less quote connected parts of the
country to get their mail in their packages, and they
actually piggyback, they actually help these companies that are genuinely
(21:01):
shutting them down. It's pretty it's true. I mean, that's why.
That's how I said earlier. You know, one of the
rally and krysil here is that it is not a business.
It's not supposed to be profit driven. It's a service
that is constitutionally guaranteed. Uh So, so what that comes
down to in terms of financial brass tacks is that
(21:22):
if you live in rural America, as do millions and
millions of people, it is more much more expensive to
use a private carrier, and you know, if it does
occur in cooperation with the US Postal Service. So ending
that thing regardless of how you feel about government services
in general, ending that adds an enormous concrete year over
(21:45):
your expense to the lives of other fellow US residents. Sorry,
let me get off my soapbox here real quick. I
didn't mean to make that a ted talk, but yeah,
I'm looking for to burning down your soapbox and a
bunch of other things millions of acres with my story,
(22:06):
which is coming up next and we've returned, Matt. That
was an excellent segue. And I think this story is
one that many of our fellow listeners are somewhat familiar with.
(22:28):
But this is this is wild, and it's a bit
of an unfortunate origin story for one individual in particular.
It's an extremely terrible origin story for the superhero who
is budding, who will you know, be fighting crime for us?
I'm assuming very very soon. How many years does it
take to become a superhero from birth? Like, is it
(22:49):
teenagers or's the early twenties? I think it just depends.
It often happens in adolescence, but really it's it's a
I guess the rules of Joseph Campbell and Worry and
Hero with a Thousand Faces tells us that as soon
as you were old enough to go into the Figurat
of Dark Woods and return change. Uh. In the case
(23:10):
is superheroes return changed with amazing powers, then boom you're in.
Just make it back. That's amazing. The only problem is
this character may end up being a super villain and
it's not his or her fault. I'm gonna begin with
a California Fire news release which was sent out on
(23:30):
nine six, just two days from the recording of this episode.
California Fire Law Enforcement has determined the El Dorado Fire,
burning near Oak Glen in San Bernardino County, was caused
by a smoke generating pyrotechnic device used during a gender
reveal party. The fire began at ten am on September
(23:52):
five in the El Dorado Ranch Park in u Kaipa.
Am I saying that right, Californians, anyone you let us
know in the comments. The fire spread from the park
to the north onto Yukaipa Ridge that separates Mountain Home
Village and Forest Falls from the city of Yukaipa. California
(24:13):
Fire reminds the public that with the dry conditions and
critical fire weather, it doesn't take much to start a wildfire.
Those responsible for starting fires due to negligence or legal
activity can be held financially and criminally responsible. Pretty obvious. UM,
So the story here is that a very large fire
began when a smoke causing or emitting device was used
(24:39):
at a gender revealed party, which is UM, a gender
revealed party if you don't know what that is. That
is when UM, a couple who is having a baby
decides to reveal to friends and family, usually right now,
at least online through some kind of video or something
to that effect. UM, they keep it all secret until
(25:02):
that revealed party, and then usually with a color. That's
the way I've seen it most commonly. I don't know
if you guys have seen anything different, but by using
a lot of times the color blue or pink, they
will reveal them. I guess the I don't even know
how to say it. The gender, the biological gender, or
(25:22):
whatever you want. It's not. It is a field. But
the thing is called a gender revealed party. So we
can stay within that nomenclature because I think the practice
itself has sort of been canceled or is a bit problematic,
and we can get into that. We can get into
that and in its own in its own way in
a minute. So all the problems with the gender Revealed
(25:43):
party itself exists here, right, We're gonna put that to
the side. The other major problem is that there are
drought conditions in much of the western United States, and
specifically in parts of California where there are already massive
wildfires burning right now at a time when this gender
reveal party was occurring. Um. Deciding to use a pyrotechnic
(26:05):
device of any kind is probably a bad idea, but
how it was done, where it was done was just it.
It feels like people were either out of their mind
or not thinking at all. Whoever did this. It's also illegal, Yes,
very much illegal. No, you found a video of this
and shared it with us. Could you talk to us
(26:26):
about what we're what we're looking at here and how
people can also watch this? Yeah, I just happened upon it,
um when in googling another aspect of it that would
add at the end. Um. But yeah, it's apparently relatively
knew that this video came out. I don't know if
it's some like cell phone video from one of the
people involved, but it looks like a box but like
(26:48):
you know, one you could probably sit on like it's
it's just laying on the ground, um, and it's in
it's on this this hill and it's surrounded by super dry,
very very tall grass and essentially it creates this huge
explosion with pieces of debris flying everywhere, and it's big
blue cloud and I mean, I would say it would
(27:12):
envelope the three of us if we were standing there.
It would like be enough material to like fully like
think of in a cartoon where you have the dogs
and cats fighting and it's a big cloud of dust
and then you know, people disappear inside of it or
dogs and then one jumps out and gets dragged back
in like that size. Um. And then it immediately catches
the grass on either side of it on fire immediately,
(27:33):
and it just just like you know, you can see
it happening. You can see it shooting out in all
directions the fire. Wow. Yeah. Um, it was my first
time actually seeing the video of it occurring. And it
is a massive thing. Um. Honestly, whenever red smoke smoke
generating device or whatever, I thought it was gonna be
(27:54):
a tiny little smoke ballumb you know, like you maybe
you played with as a kid. I used to use those. Yeah,
but no, it is not that it is as a
bomb uses Tanna righte. It looks like the kind of
thing that maybe someone involved was involved in theater or
movie production or something. It looks like that grade of
(28:15):
incendiary device. That's exactly what I was thinking too, especially
when consider how many people are probably left with equipment
and although it's weird to say in this situation, expertise
and access uh in the in the wake of the
enormous uh enormous closure of the entertainment industry in California. UH.
(28:39):
This this fire, by the way, as of yesterday is
only seven percent contained. UH. And I believe that they
found a suspect of family. I believe that they have
uh not to my knowledge, specifically publicly identified the family,
but the authorities have found and contacted them. They were
(29:00):
still on the scene when the firefighters arrived. If I
were that group of people, I would probably also not
want my name in public, especially in my local area.
Oh for sure. UM. And again it was a massive mistake.
I do not think this is me just speaking. I
do not think that was done on purpose. I don't
(29:20):
think they understood what was about to happen when they
began when they sat down that set of things that occurred.
I would just say this, like you said, Ben, as
seven percent contained as of yesterday. The you know, and
this is one of numerous fires, the Creek Fire, which
is burning also right right now on both sides of
(29:42):
the San Joaquin River. Um, it's been going since the
Friday last since last Friday, and getting I'm getting a
lot of this from the Sacramento B and the Fresno
B by the way, those are two local papers there.
Um As a Sunday, the we are consumed seventy three
thousand acres and is at zero percent containment. And they're
(30:07):
saying that the fire suppression costs were in the millions
of dollars at this point. So the idea of these
these people being financially on the hook for this could
be life changing and and and the worst possible way.
I would also add that California overall is having a
tremendous issue with resources for firefighting and fire suppression, such
(30:30):
that there is one group called Van from Japan that
has started attempting to sell small Japanese firefighting vehicles. More
and more people in the area, uh in California in
general have been investing in their own private firefighting equipment,
which I think underlines both the gravity of the situation
(30:52):
and the UH and lets us know that people are
considering this to be the new normal going forward. Only
you can stop forest fires. The old smokey the bear
tagline appears to unfortunately be increasingly literal for some people
who simply can't get firefighters support in in time to
(31:16):
save their their you know, their buildings, their families and themselves. Yeah,
it's it's a it's a devastating thing. You can go
online right now if you don't live in California or
not being affected by this in any way, and you
can see the harrowing stuff that a lot of the firefighters,
both professional and amateur, are going through to try and save.
(31:40):
Like you said, been there themselves in their their structures. Um,
it is really really tough. This is a stat from
San Francisco Gate. Up until this point, the most destructive
wildfire season ever recorded in California was just two years
ago in two thousand eighteen, when one point eight nine
(32:02):
million acres burned. Think about how much land that is
almost two million acres. Will guess what h with twenty
five major fires already in and a lot of that
had to do with electrical storms and just small things
like this that we're discussing today occurring. Um, two point
(32:24):
three million acres have already burned in so that's insane.
Last year, do you remember hearing about wildfires in California
last year? Of course there were a bunch of last year.
To only a hundred and eighteen thousand acres burned last
year in totality. Well, and it's it's it's bonkers too
because California is so huge that these numbers they're staggering.
(32:48):
But I also, like, of all the people that we
work without in Los Angeles and of all the friends
that we all have out in California, I don't know
anybody personally that's actually been directly affected by these other
than the air quality which is apparently just horrible right now.
It's it's brown. And I was out there once. I
think we we all were once during some of these
wildfires last year. And in the air quality is noticeable, Um,
(33:11):
no matter where you are, you just smell smoke everywhere
you go. Um, and now it's apparently worse than ever.
So really, and any listeners out there, um, if you're
having to leave your homes or if things are scary, Um,
we're we're thinking about you. And um, it's it's no joke.
Don't do stupid like this. I would like to additionally
(33:31):
point out for frame of reference here, Matt, you said
one point eight nine million acres square acres. That's that's
around the size of the country of Luxembourg, slightly slightly
smaller than an entire European country burning to the ground.
(33:51):
And to be very clear, we are not saying that
having a gender reveal party makes you a bad person.
I think what we're saying though, is that maybe a
cake will be fine. Maybe maybe just slice a cake open, uh,
and and think about the fact that your child will
(34:11):
not be haunted by this story or would like it.
And and just to wrap it up on an ever
so slightly comical note. Uh. The woman credited with inventing
the gender revealed party, a fashion lifestyle blogger from San
Bernardino County, herself named Jenna carbonitis Um, has spoken out
(34:33):
after being dispossessed of her house as well or the
very least having to evacuate, saying, stop having these stupid parties.
For the love of God, stop burning things down to
tell everyone about your kids, penis no one cares about you.
What I'd like to do yours? Take us in a
(34:55):
slightly darker direction as well for our next. For our next,
because people die in forest fires, and if you are
a fan of Carl Sandberg, you likely remember his poem
about grass in the fundamentally ephemeral nature of human beings,
(35:16):
Our next story contains a strange way to tell the
unwritten history of human beings in the natural world, even
decades or centuries past the time those human beings walk
the earth. And the answer is not exactly what you
(35:37):
might think. What are we talking about? We'll tell you
afterward from this sponsor. I'm gonna go catch up on
my Carl Sandberg. I'll be right back, guys, and we're
back to tell today's story in headline form. It's probably
(35:59):
best to say this if you're looking for decaying corpse
in the woods and the wilderness. For one reason or another,
foliage may help you. Trees and other types of plants
may grow differently around dead bodies. This is one of
(36:20):
those research questions that just gives you more questions about
the scientists involved, right, Like how many ideas did they
kick around and one person, you know, they said, oh,
we need some grant money. And then there was silence
in the room. Right this various pitches fell flat, and
then someone said, you know what I've been wondering about
for a while, you know how like you're in the
(36:42):
woods and you look for a dead body and like
the graves not fresh, and and you're like, oh, how
can I tell there is now there is now apparently
an answer to tell the story in non headline format.
We go to something very interesting in place that I
have personally always wanted to visit, just the next state
(37:03):
over from where we record this show in Tennessee. The
University of Tennessee has since so the forty years now
run a body farm. You've probably we've probably all heard
of this in some form or another, but they have
a forensic anthropology center and they study the decomposition of
(37:26):
human bodies in various different ways. Lots of questions they
are right. First off, where do the bodies come from?
They're donated officially, and they're donated I think with a
little bit more credibility than the the cadavers that are
part of the controversial bodies exhibits and museums throughout the US.
(37:50):
We know that these these were meant to be donated
to science. And one of the groups working at the
University of Tennessee said, well, we're looking at what happens
to bodies, you know, after various um after various types
of death, right violent, non violent, uh, you know, and
(38:13):
drowning so on, But what what happens to the soil
around them? And they thought of something that calls to
mind the image of a whale carcass sinking to the
ocean floor. When this happens, it is a tremendous boon
to the seafloor ecology. Right there there creatures that live
(38:38):
and die based on the passing of a whale and
other you know, large marine mammals. Of course, this group
in Tennessee they said, well, even though we know this
is a human being, every life is tragic when it's lost.
This is nutritionally speaking, a gigantic boom to all the
(39:02):
wildlife or foliage around. And this made me think like,
did you guys ever when you're young and like walking
through cemeteries, did you ever notice how the grass grows
differently on over some graves? YEA, yeah, it's like a
little bit denser, right, it's weird. I think we all
make our own terrible inner beliefs when we're children, only
(39:22):
to later find out they're fanciful. But when I was
a kid, I thought that when I saw a grave
that had a lot of a lot of stuff growing
rich foiliage, I assumed that meant the person who was
buried there was a good person. And if I saw
agree that that had like a bad yard for the cemetery,
(39:44):
I assumed they were a horrible person. Right, yeah, pet
cemetery style. And uh, I was wrong. There are reasons
I want to clear that up. I was very wrong,
and I apologized to all the people who passed that
I fairly thought of a supervillains. But but there may
be a little bit of science to this morality aside
(40:08):
on multiple levels, this blast of nutrients could change the
color and what's called the reflectance of tree leaves. So
it's possible then that law enforcement authorities weren't just people
looking for bodies, could use a drone to scan a
forest and then find dead bodies based off that this
(40:33):
this sounds weird. You can read the full article in
a journal called Trends Implant Science but wire dot com
has a really good rite up of where we are
now with it, and it introduced some pretty crazy stuff.
I've never heard this phrase before. I proposed this be
our word of the day, necro Bio, have you ever
(40:53):
heard of that? I I think I can see what
you're putting down then, or where you're heading with this. Well, yeah,
it's all all the stuff that already lives inside of
us that eats its way out, and then all the
things outside of us that eat their way in. Yeah,
because we have to remember, if you, if you put
(41:14):
aside the concept of consciousness and you look at the
body itself. We talked about this years ago. The number
of bacterial cells in your body out number the cells
that you would consider you. No. Granted, the cells that
you consider you are much larger, right, but still we're
much less like a single individual and much more like
(41:37):
a very very very crowded apartment building or a walled city,
a nation state, a universe to ourselves. And that universe
does not stop when the brain function stops. Like you said, Matt,
the stuff living inside you, the immune system, is no
longer I guess, oppressing it from its viewpoint, so it
(41:58):
might rants out, and this stuff living out outside of
you no longer has the bouncers at the gate, right yeah,
and so it comes inside right now your body, like
especially in this part in that little center area, especially there,
there's around nine point five to ten million micro like
(42:22):
bacterial creatures and other microbes that are just crawling around
inside and out right now? Can you feel it? Why
are you doing this to me? Man? Or is it
or is it just you? Or is it are they
just you too? Ben's point, I don't know, man, but
that's us. That's us. And then and this is there's
(42:44):
an old brain stuff video this reminds me of. If
you're watching this on YouTube, go visit this one. It's
it's about the science of farts, and it waxes philosophical
at the end because the true story, the conspiracy about
parts is that you're not the one actually farty. Your
body is just sort of expelling gas produced by that
gut flora that lives inside of you. And so if
(43:06):
you like the vast majority of humanity farting average is
seventeen to twenty three times a day, we need to
realize it's not actually you doing that. And that leads
us to the bigger question, what are we farting inside of?
You know what I mean? Like if is this like
a matrix type question? Is this like a simulation? It's
like a supersymmetry question. Yeah, kind of matrix. Because we
(43:31):
we know that we know that we are an aggregation
right of things, of experiences of elements, particles and quarks
and so like. Uh, but we don't often think about
what we are uh aggregated inside of what what are
we the bacteria of? And how does our environment change
(43:54):
our larger environment, the inner outer weather? I guess stop
this poetry kick, but this fascinating and sounds morbid, but
I think it's really important because years ago, entire civilizations
and cities were being rediscovered by a technology called lidar,
which is able to from from elevation observe minute things
(44:17):
that are invisible to the human eye that let us
find huge missing chunks of the past. And so now
we have to naturally ask ourselves, are are we reaching
the future where we can compound disability, where we can
expand it such that like I am never going to
(44:39):
be able to look at a large shot of a
forest with an anomalous patch of color and not suspect
it might be a mass grave, even though I know
it's probably because they're just different trees. Right, Yeah, I
was reading a little more about this, Ben from that
Wired article you were talking about, and correct me if
(44:59):
I wrong with this. Phenal lalanine is an amino acid
that they believe, the people studying this out there in
Tennessee at the Body Farm, they believe something like that
that exists in the human body when it's when it's
released essentially by the dead body. Is that one of
the things, one of the uh components that actually causes
(45:21):
that higher fluorescence level within you know, the greenery, which
is such a fascinating concept that that you were saying
been like getting a drone or something that can detect
that fluorescence like rolling around. I'm just imagining I'm imagining
that being a very common thing because if you, if
(45:42):
you could truly unlock this with these studies at the
body Farm to where you could find a dead body
anywhere that's been buried. Basically, um, we will just have
roaming drones that are like the body detection part of
your local police department, the official we called right, who
knows there's the other part two? We should emphasize I'm
(46:04):
glad you brought this up, just so you don't think
we ruined all wide shots of forests and nature and
so on. This fluorescence that you're describing that is invisible
to the human eye, if you will. Unless you have
some enhancements and you get all like shadow runs cyberpunk
with it, you're not going to be able to notice
this stuff. So, um, that may be really positive for
(46:28):
some people, and it may be really negative for others
because that means you won't know, well, you're right, you're
absolutely right. It's it's also negative because this same technology
that we're describing here is used to detect cannabis plants
and other black market plants that exist, because the fluorescence
(46:49):
levels are slightly different in those plants as compared to
the rest of a lot of the greenery that would
be around them. So it just means that the human
body detectors are going to be born from the weed,
the rogue weed detectors, and they're gonna be dual use technology,
(47:09):
which has historically made complications whenever it exists. Right, nuclear Uh,
nuclear attack is probably the best example of that. But now, uh,
these sorts of drones and this sort of science. Maybe
another example very soon. Current research is centering on how
(47:29):
to differentiate the body of one living thing from a
human being, and it goes into some really like if
you're a fan of the crypt Keeper Tales from the
Crypt kind of stuff, it goes into some science that
is perfect for you in the crowd. Uh. And that again,
I think on the whole this is this is a
(47:49):
good thing, but it runs the risk of being a
dangerous thing because if drones can fly anywhere and the
pr reason they're doing so is to help recover the
body of a loved one, and then that becomes very
hard to fight back, even if they're being disingenuous. It's
a good point. I'm just imagining all those folks in
Tennessee looking at various dead mammals and then looking at
(48:13):
the spectrogram and studying it for a long time. We
have to run it through the spectrogram, hope it doesn't
get thrown in a bag in a parking lot in
California and then set and set on fire. Is how
we would bring that future situation back around and launched
out of a cannon. And I'm just gonna add that
(48:34):
in just for for fun. Oh, I was thinking more
of just and then it farted a bunch cannons the
new kind of fun it you said, Ben, that definitely
should be on a T shirt? What are we farting
inside of? Is this the right expression? I love that.
I'm going to pose that question in my next philosophy
(48:57):
book group. You know, please tell me the tell me
the results were. We contain multitudes and most of them
definitely are parting. And I'm definitely in a philosophy book club.
Don't you dare question that associate on my part? There
there there somewhere as a species of giant extraterrestrials and
(49:21):
what they do. They've got the special drone that flies
around and checks planets and stars for the methane and
other gas releases from planets and atmospheres to check whether
or not there are viable micro organisms on the organisms.
And they're not looking for us. We're the vehicles. But
(49:43):
the things they in, all that stuff inside, just the
guts coming one frend your pals, Uh, Matt, Nol and
Ben and of course code ename doc Holiday. So stay
tuned in a theater or zoom call hear you. We've
got to write the script. So that means I think
(50:03):
that we should call it a day. We've got to
get to our writer's room. This has been an episode
of Strange News. The conversation, as we established, does not
end when the podcast ends. We want to hear from you.
Hopefully We've We've made it kind of easy to find us.
That's true, I would say so. I think we've checked
all the boxes. We've got all of the available communication
(50:25):
methods available to you. If you want, you can find
us on social media Instagram, Twitter, um, all that stuff
Facebook were conspiracy stuff. I think we're conspiracy stuff show
on Instagram. Um. You can also join our Facebook group.
Here's where it gets crazy, where it gets crazy. That's
the place where that happens on the regular. If you
(50:47):
don't care for the uh, the social meds, if that's
not your cup of tea or your your can't canteen
of communication, God, we got there. Then you can also
call us on the phone. We've come up in the world.
We have a phone number. Yes, it is one eight
three three st d w y t K. Leave a message, well,
(51:12):
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the listener Maile episodes. Either way, we're gonna hear it.
We're excited to hear from you. Anything you want to say,
please feel free send it our way. And if you
don't want to do any of that stuff, or if
you're kind of a little more old school and you
don't want to you don't go out for the social
media or any stuff, or maybe you don't like handling telephones,
you can reach us the old fashioned way with a
(51:33):
good old email. We are conspiracy at i heeart radio
dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is
(51:58):
a production of I Heartread You. 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.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is They called me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer Alexis
code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. It's the top of the week,
which means it's time for our Strange News segment, all
(00:47):
the weird, sometimes still developing stories that we wanted to
share with each other and most importantly with you. UH
quick update, if you all allow, we have a We
have a follow up on one story that we reported
earlier regarding some arrest for sexual trafficking in our home
(01:08):
state of Georgia. The information we worked with at the
time was relatively limited, as this was an unfolding event.
Later reporting has verified that this was not a large
human trafficking ring, and crucially, there were not thirty nine
children found in a single trailer, as had been originally reported.
(01:30):
There's an excellent article on Huffington post that came out.
Let's see the yesterday as we record this that clears
the matter up. We suggest that for further reading. Yeah,
I don't know, Like I just wonder, Ben, was there
a sense that the task force and that the governor
sort of misrepresented this a little bit. That's sort of
(01:52):
because it felt like we were operating largely under on
the pr angle that the you know, that our state
government is putting out and then a lot of those
things that we reported were coming directly from this kind
of yea US kind of attitude that they were espousing. Um.
And I saw a Twitter user put out a tweet
(02:12):
saying or actually this article on HuffPo whereas said the
government just found thirty nine traffic children and a double
wide trailer. How is this not the biggest news story
in America? And the Huffo article corrected it to thirty
nine missing children in two weeks across seven states, houses
on the biggest new story in America. Um, it's been
a pretty big story. I was wondering where where was
the disconnected because it's I I still don't know if
(02:33):
I fully get it right. The Huffing to Post article
you're mentioned is the one that I'm referring to. Yes,
the part of it is the access to information that
occurs as events unfold. Uh. You know, this is something
that's pretty common in the world of news. We just
have to be open to more information and to addressing
(02:56):
it when it occurs. Yeah, for sure, there was a
ton of new information coming out about this. The the
original press release was like, here's everything that you need
to know, and this is why it's newsworthy. As of
right now, we're taking care of these bad guys and
getting the children to a safe place. That was like
it right, I mean, we did this great thing. Here's
(03:16):
a bit of the info, and then the details started
coming and there may have been a bit of a
game of telephone with some of the reporting as well,
working off again that limited information. But thank you to
everyone who wrote in about the article that posted and
cleared things up on Monday, September seven. Greatly appreciate your
(03:36):
diligence and your time. So, as always, we have a cavalcade,
a bevy but three news that we think you will enjoy.
We haven't talked about how we would like to present
these to each other and to you, but you know,
(03:56):
there's one that's been on my mind. I think it's
on the end of a lot of our fellow conspiracy
realist today, and that's the state of the constitutionally created
service known as the United States Postal Service. No, there
was a store you found. That is something I think
a lot of our fellow listeners need to hear. Yeah. So,
(04:19):
there was some surveillance footage taken from behind a spa
in Glendale called the seven Q salon Um, and it
shows a one of those budget rental trucks, kind of
box trucks, backing up into the parking lot sort of
like a loading dock situation behind the building. Um. These
are you know, traditional commercial storefront type strip mall building
(04:43):
and Um. Then you see in the footage bag after
bag of paper being thrown out of the back of
this truck and into a pile in these plastic bags.
Apparently the co owner of the salon Um, an individual
by the name of Leliah sarobian Um, went back and
(05:05):
found these bags and took some cell phone video of them.
And that was the week we're recording, this being September
the eighth. That was this past Thursday, UM, and the
Thursday before Labor day weekend, and I took some cell
phone footage of it and then realized that these bags
were actually filled with hundreds of unopened letters and packages
(05:28):
originating from the US Postal Service or somebody sent them
through the Postal Service to somewhere else and then they
arrived in that truck somehow. Is that what we're saying, Well,
I don't know exactly what we're saying. We're not quite sure.
It's sort of topping, but it could. There's a lot
of things that could be in and I'm interested to
hear you guys take. But the owner of the salon
(05:51):
was quoted as saying it was completely unusual if they're
taking for their personal use, basically, why they have to
drop off all the unopened packages somewhere um, and talked
about it being suspicious. He started thinking, Okay, something's going
on because no one has access to all those boxes
and packages. Uh, And and there is a probe underway.
(06:13):
Glendale Police said that before these you know, items were discovered, uh,
they received a call about several bags of mail being
tossed in an alley half a mile from the spot,
and it wasn't particularly clear that it was the same
truck Um, but it seems like it's highly likely that
(06:35):
that it might have been. This is from the c
CBS News. Uh, there's one of the l A Times.
There's a handful of of outlets reporting this local too,
to the Los Angeles area. But um, the U S
Postal Service was reached out for comment and I haven't
responded yet. UM, So I don't know, fellas. Uh, it's
it's the kind of thing that's sort of red meat,
(06:55):
you know, when we're dealing with a situation where there's
a sense that the post services potentially being hobbled. Um
that we've seen footage of, you know, trucks driving around
picking up mailboxes, letter boxes off of the street, you know,
and there was a big cost cutting um initiative underway
in the postal service that many folks believed to be
(07:16):
tied to trying to cripple the mail system and so
that mail in ballots and absentee ballots would take longer
account um in the upcoming election, where we know one
party has been vehemently opposed to those things, citing them
as being fraudulent, and there's a sense that perhaps uh,
folks on the Democratic side of things would be more
(07:39):
likely to vote in that way, and folks on the
Republican side of things, not not all but but there
seems to be more of a likelihood that they would
go to the polls um And then obviously the Postmaster
General did come out and say those cost cutting measures
were going to be postponed until after the election. But
this is kind of where the mind goes, at least
(08:01):
my mind when I see stories like this. Obviously it's
an isolated event. It could have easily been somebody alone,
wolf figure going around and pulling things out of people's mailbox,
some stuffing a bag with them and then tossing them.
Or is this something more coordinated. Yeah, there are a
couple of points here that I think are crucial. So
we know, the USPS has been in the news, not
(08:22):
just domestically but in the world news because of concerns
that the service it's not a business, it's a service,
is being gutted, with the long term aim being to
privatize the entire endeavor, meaning that instead of sending your
mail through the USPS with the option to use a
(08:45):
private carrier like FedEx or UPS, etcetera, one would be
required to use private carriers, which are more expensive because
there is no government alternative For people who believe this
is a move toward privatization. Uh, it seems to be
a long strategy, an example of what's often called starve
(09:07):
the Beast tactics, which is a long story short. The
concept of starved the beast is the following that you,
as a political influencer, can degrade and cripple a public
service such that it can no longer function, and then
use the fact that it no longer functions as a
(09:29):
rallying cry to privatize the whole thing. It's very tricky.
It's like create the problem that you claim to solve,
which is tail as old as time in so many
political circles. We have an example of this that's pretty
controversial again for the people who believe in this theory. UH.
The two thousand six Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, or
(09:51):
you'll love the acronym here NOLU the pay paia not
quite pay uh. This required two thousand, six thousand seven.
Is this required the US Post Office to pre fund
all the medical financial requirements for their retirees. That's something
(10:14):
that that's something that's not normal, by the way, So
this put a tremendous financial burden on the USPS, way
way back more than ten years ago now, and the
USPS continued. But now with all the concerns that you're
rightly raising, both in every state in the nation here
(10:35):
and around the globe for people who are, you know, uh,
proponents of things like democracy, the USPS is is being
seen as the subject of concerted effort to close it down.
And just like you said, a lot of people are
penning that specifically on the election which is coming uh
(10:57):
pretty soon as we record today's app is suit. Does
mail get lost? Sure? Does mail get purposefully messed with? Yes,
but it's a felody. So whomever is dumping these bags
of mail is, if the rules apply to them, running
the risk of jail time and enormous finds. The reason
(11:20):
I say if the rules apply to them is because
de Joy, who is the Postmaster General himself, is in
a lot of hot water now if the rules apply
to him. So there's some weird stuff going on with
these bags in this particular thing. Noel, did you talk
about the whole contractor situation yet? Okay, So the Western
(11:46):
Regional Coordinator for the American Postal Workers, I guess that's
the union, the American Postal Workers Union. He was contacted
by CNN and he stated that no USPS employees were
involved in this whole scenario. The budget truck, the person
in it, and that mail. He's saying that this was
(12:09):
a contractor of some sort that was either delivering mail
to a facility or taking it from the facility. He
specifically talking about the weird plastic bags, not weird up
the clear plastic bags that maybe you and I, as
end users of USPS mail, don't ever get to see.
(12:31):
They are for bulk mailing that occurs through um maybe
third parties in other places that mail a bunch of things.
The way it was recovered, I guess after being dumped,
this guy from the American Postal Workers Union, he is
saying that that is definitely bulk mail. It was definitely
going to a facility or leaving a facility. And the
(12:52):
big thing here, because it's bulk, that's weird about it
is that whoever this person was in that truck, they
a dumped it all there for absolutely zero reason. It
can't get picked up from that location if it was
let's say, was incoming mail right to end up at
the Postal Service and then get shipped somewhere else. It's
not like somebody is gonna come and pick it up
(13:15):
from that parking lot. So it wasn't outgoing mail from
a facility. Um and the where it was dumped there
were clearly cameras focused directly on that location where the
truck was. Well and if you wanted to disappear a
bunch of mail, I could think of a hell of
a lot of better ways of doing it, as things
(13:35):
called incinerators. Just throw it on a fire, I mean,
dumping it in this bulk shipment bag in full view
of the camera. Buying a spa in Glendale. I mean,
is is it like a look at me situation? Like?
Is it like a warning? Like I I'm confused about
the intent here. So with all those tensions, I was
just gonna put out there that maybe it is a uh,
(13:58):
some kind of pr play by somebody. Someone got paid
to dump a bunch of mail that is supposed to
go somewhere, but it never got to go somewhere, and
it would make the postal service look bad. That's what
it feels like. Considered that too, Yeah, because you know,
there's an interesting point we can't neglect here. The person
that you're talking about, Matt, as you said, is a
(14:18):
representative of the Postal Workers Union, not the post Office.
The post Office has an official line for these things,
which is we do not comment on ongoing investigations. And
I believe LILYA Serabian, the owner of seven D, the
person who had the camera footage, also confirmed that this
(14:40):
was unusual, like this isn't the bag dump by night
that everyone's familiar with the pr angle. I considered that too.
It's fascinating. And to that end, there's a really odd
quote that they just kind of blast past in the
CNN article and they don't say anything about it. Um
hang on. It says we wanted to make sure it
(15:02):
wasn't a bargaining employee. What is that like collective bargaining?
Like this is like a like a union beef that
they're trying to, you know, get some leverage with. Like
what what an odd quote to just toss off like that.
I don't have the knowledge of exactly what's going on
behind closed doors with with bargaining that must be happening
(15:23):
right now, because you're talking about massive changes coming down
from the top about what the USPS can do again,
like for its employees, what what services it offers all
these kinds of things. Then you've got the union on
the other side, who represents all these employees. And then
I'm sure when a big change like that comes down,
the union has to have a big hand in shaping
(15:45):
what actually occurs, you know, uh, or or what the
what the workers can get when it comes to all
these changes, right, And I mean, I'm assuming that there
could be something like at but I don't know what
the bargaining chip would be by dumping a bunch of mail,
(16:06):
maybe the Boston to add uh some sort of public
support for the mail being uh, you know, attacked again,
going back to that ongoing theory and conversation, as far
as the nomenclature of unions, I know that a bargaining
unit is the common term for a group of employees
(16:30):
who are seeking some sort of modification to their employment agreement.
But a bargaining the reason I bring that up is
the term bargaining employee maybe union terminology, you know what
I mean? That's that would be my guess again, not
being the head of the postal service unions, Sorry to
bust that myth to everybody. I'm not in charge of
(16:52):
the Post Office union. But what about the image of
the protest vibe like I'm not have only half joking
when I say Boston tea party. You know, it's like
somehow pushing back against the government making these cuts and saying,
you know, if if you're not gonna pay us, or
you're gonna, you know, reduce our ability to do our
jobs correctly, we're just gonna say f you and just
(17:13):
throw the mail out into the streets. You know, maybe
it was all mail for a representative or a senator
from there's no way for us to know that. So
how's that helpful? Or maybe it's UH. But if that's
the case, it's an active vigilantism because the union or
the other power structures that would be perhaps sharing that
(17:36):
long term goal UH obviously have left this operative in
the cold. Perhaps there is some sort of black back,
black mail carrier back operation where where the UH, somewhere
at the Post office is saying, you know, this is
your mission, should you choose to accept it, neither rain, sleet,
(17:58):
snow or hail will stop you. However, if you are caught,
we will disavowt any knowledge of this operation in your existence.
All right, now go dump all this stuff in the
salon parking list, not not even like in the Atlantic
or you know, the Pacific, like in the this one
particular salon parking and just really quick and then I'm done. Um.
(18:19):
I could also see this as being a really like
sinister twist ending to like a sci fi story where
like one party wins the election by a mile and
then like the insider character and the story stumbles into
this warehouse that's just full of bags and bags and
bags of mail in ballots that never made it to
where they were going. Yeah, just so everybody knows. According
(18:45):
to CNN, and his name is Omar Gonzalez, uh, the
guy we've been referring to who represents the union. He says,
the recovered mail appears to be viable, and we'll go
through a verification process and will be delivered no doubt.
So possibly, Yeah, rerouted, I love this idea of viable man.
That's the way you talk about a fetus, not like
(19:07):
a bag of mail. It's interesting that you mention that
because the USPS logistical problems that are occurring now with
all the machines being pulled and the the refusal to
give people over time, etcetera. Uh, that has resulted in
dead livestock, dead chicks in particular, being shipped through rural areas.
(19:29):
So there are not fetus is, but but there are
lives at stake, even if they're well. They're human lives
at stake too, because people get insolent through the mail.
That's right, stuff, you guys, interesting to follow. I mean,
if it's an isolated event, then big whoop, I guess,
but I don't know. We start seeing more and more
random bags of mail popping up behind like best buys
(19:51):
across the kind you know. I mean like that, that's
something to take note of. I hope it stays with
beauty parlors though I like the theme of it. Uh
add some tang to the conspiracy a little bit, o
mom me, oh my, cos I just want to give
from us a big shout out to all usps ups, FedEx,
(20:16):
whatever kind of shipping service you work for, all all
you folks out there keeping the wheels going right now
to get stuff shipped one place to the other. Big
things huge. I was trying to find where I found it,
but I either heard somebody that works for the postal
service talking about this or I read it somewhere and
I couldn't find it. But anyone out there that that
does work for the Postal Service, let me know if
this is true. I heard that a lot of times,
(20:39):
like like, the Postal Service will actually take things further
into rural areas than Amazon or ups or fed x well,
and that that's like a thing people forget about. An
important quality of the Postal Service is that it allows
people to live in less quote connected parts of the
country to get their mail in their packages, and they
actually piggyback, they actually help these companies that are genuinely
(21:01):
shutting them down. It's pretty it's true. I mean, that's why.
That's how I said earlier. You know, one of the
rally and krysil here is that it is not a business.
It's not supposed to be profit driven. It's a service
that is constitutionally guaranteed. Uh So, so what that comes
down to in terms of financial brass tacks is that
(21:22):
if you live in rural America, as do millions and
millions of people, it is more much more expensive to
use a private carrier, and you know, if it does
occur in cooperation with the US Postal Service. So ending
that thing regardless of how you feel about government services
in general, ending that adds an enormous concrete year over
(21:45):
your expense to the lives of other fellow US residents. Sorry,
let me get off my soapbox here real quick. I
didn't mean to make that a ted talk, but yeah,
I'm looking for to burning down your soapbox and a
bunch of other things millions of acres with my story,
(22:06):
which is coming up next and we've returned, Matt. That
was an excellent segue. And I think this story is
one that many of our fellow listeners are somewhat familiar with.
(22:28):
But this is this is wild, and it's a bit
of an unfortunate origin story for one individual in particular.
It's an extremely terrible origin story for the superhero who
is budding, who will you know, be fighting crime for us?
I'm assuming very very soon. How many years does it
take to become a superhero from birth? Like, is it
(22:49):
teenagers or's the early twenties? I think it just depends.
It often happens in adolescence, but really it's it's a
I guess the rules of Joseph Campbell and Worry and
Hero with a Thousand Faces tells us that as soon
as you were old enough to go into the Figurat
of Dark Woods and return change. Uh. In the case
(23:10):
is superheroes return changed with amazing powers, then boom you're in.
Just make it back. That's amazing. The only problem is
this character may end up being a super villain and
it's not his or her fault. I'm gonna begin with
a California Fire news release which was sent out on
(23:30):
nine six, just two days from the recording of this episode.
California Fire Law Enforcement has determined the El Dorado Fire,
burning near Oak Glen in San Bernardino County, was caused
by a smoke generating pyrotechnic device used during a gender
reveal party. The fire began at ten am on September
(23:52):
five in the El Dorado Ranch Park in u Kaipa.
Am I saying that right, Californians, anyone you let us
know in the comments. The fire spread from the park
to the north onto Yukaipa Ridge that separates Mountain Home
Village and Forest Falls from the city of Yukaipa. California
(24:13):
Fire reminds the public that with the dry conditions and
critical fire weather, it doesn't take much to start a wildfire.
Those responsible for starting fires due to negligence or legal
activity can be held financially and criminally responsible. Pretty obvious. UM,
So the story here is that a very large fire
began when a smoke causing or emitting device was used
(24:39):
at a gender revealed party, which is UM, a gender
revealed party if you don't know what that is. That
is when UM, a couple who is having a baby
decides to reveal to friends and family, usually right now,
at least online through some kind of video or something
to that effect. UM, they keep it all secret until
(25:02):
that revealed party, and then usually with a color. That's
the way I've seen it most commonly. I don't know
if you guys have seen anything different, but by using
a lot of times the color blue or pink, they
will reveal them. I guess the I don't even know
how to say it. The gender, the biological gender, or
(25:22):
whatever you want. It's not. It is a field. But
the thing is called a gender revealed party. So we
can stay within that nomenclature because I think the practice
itself has sort of been canceled or is a bit problematic,
and we can get into that. We can get into
that and in its own in its own way in
a minute. So all the problems with the gender Revealed
(25:43):
party itself exists here, right, We're gonna put that to
the side. The other major problem is that there are
drought conditions in much of the western United States, and
specifically in parts of California where there are already massive
wildfires burning right now at a time when this gender
reveal party was occurring. Um. Deciding to use a pyrotechnic
(26:05):
device of any kind is probably a bad idea, but
how it was done, where it was done was just it.
It feels like people were either out of their mind
or not thinking at all. Whoever did this. It's also illegal, Yes,
very much illegal. No, you found a video of this
and shared it with us. Could you talk to us
(26:26):
about what we're what we're looking at here and how
people can also watch this? Yeah, I just happened upon it,
um when in googling another aspect of it that would
add at the end. Um. But yeah, it's apparently relatively
knew that this video came out. I don't know if
it's some like cell phone video from one of the
people involved, but it looks like a box but like
(26:48):
you know, one you could probably sit on like it's
it's just laying on the ground, um, and it's in
it's on this this hill and it's surrounded by super dry,
very very tall grass and essentially it creates this huge
explosion with pieces of debris flying everywhere, and it's big
blue cloud and I mean, I would say it would
(27:12):
envelope the three of us if we were standing there.
It would like be enough material to like fully like
think of in a cartoon where you have the dogs
and cats fighting and it's a big cloud of dust
and then you know, people disappear inside of it or
dogs and then one jumps out and gets dragged back
in like that size. Um. And then it immediately catches
the grass on either side of it on fire immediately,
(27:33):
and it just just like you know, you can see
it happening. You can see it shooting out in all
directions the fire. Wow. Yeah. Um, it was my first
time actually seeing the video of it occurring. And it
is a massive thing. Um. Honestly, whenever red smoke smoke
generating device or whatever, I thought it was gonna be
(27:54):
a tiny little smoke ballumb you know, like you maybe
you played with as a kid. I used to use those. Yeah,
but no, it is not that it is as a
bomb uses Tanna righte. It looks like the kind of
thing that maybe someone involved was involved in theater or
movie production or something. It looks like that grade of
(28:15):
incendiary device. That's exactly what I was thinking too, especially
when consider how many people are probably left with equipment
and although it's weird to say in this situation, expertise
and access uh in the in the wake of the
enormous uh enormous closure of the entertainment industry in California. UH.
(28:39):
This this fire, by the way, as of yesterday is
only seven percent contained. UH. And I believe that they
found a suspect of family. I believe that they have
uh not to my knowledge, specifically publicly identified the family,
but the authorities have found and contacted them. They were
(29:00):
still on the scene when the firefighters arrived. If I
were that group of people, I would probably also not
want my name in public, especially in my local area.
Oh for sure. UM. And again it was a massive mistake.
I do not think this is me just speaking. I
do not think that was done on purpose. I don't
(29:20):
think they understood what was about to happen when they
began when they sat down that set of things that occurred.
I would just say this, like you said, Ben, as
seven percent contained as of yesterday. The you know, and
this is one of numerous fires, the Creek Fire, which
is burning also right right now on both sides of
(29:42):
the San Joaquin River. Um, it's been going since the
Friday last since last Friday, and getting I'm getting a
lot of this from the Sacramento B and the Fresno
B by the way, those are two local papers there.
Um As a Sunday, the we are consumed seventy three
thousand acres and is at zero percent containment. And they're
(30:07):
saying that the fire suppression costs were in the millions
of dollars at this point. So the idea of these
these people being financially on the hook for this could
be life changing and and and the worst possible way.
I would also add that California overall is having a
tremendous issue with resources for firefighting and fire suppression, such
(30:30):
that there is one group called Van from Japan that
has started attempting to sell small Japanese firefighting vehicles. More
and more people in the area, uh in California in
general have been investing in their own private firefighting equipment,
which I think underlines both the gravity of the situation
(30:52):
and the UH and lets us know that people are
considering this to be the new normal going forward. Only
you can stop forest fires. The old smokey the bear
tagline appears to unfortunately be increasingly literal for some people
who simply can't get firefighters support in in time to
(31:16):
save their their you know, their buildings, their families and themselves. Yeah,
it's it's a it's a devastating thing. You can go
online right now if you don't live in California or
not being affected by this in any way, and you
can see the harrowing stuff that a lot of the firefighters,
both professional and amateur, are going through to try and save.
(31:40):
Like you said, been there themselves in their their structures. Um,
it is really really tough. This is a stat from
San Francisco Gate. Up until this point, the most destructive
wildfire season ever recorded in California was just two years
ago in two thousand eighteen, when one point eight nine
(32:02):
million acres burned. Think about how much land that is
almost two million acres. Will guess what h with twenty
five major fires already in and a lot of that
had to do with electrical storms and just small things
like this that we're discussing today occurring. Um, two point
(32:24):
three million acres have already burned in so that's insane.
Last year, do you remember hearing about wildfires in California
last year? Of course there were a bunch of last year.
To only a hundred and eighteen thousand acres burned last
year in totality. Well, and it's it's it's bonkers too
because California is so huge that these numbers they're staggering.
(32:48):
But I also, like, of all the people that we
work without in Los Angeles and of all the friends
that we all have out in California, I don't know
anybody personally that's actually been directly affected by these other
than the air quality which is apparently just horrible right now.
It's it's brown. And I was out there once. I
think we we all were once during some of these
wildfires last year. And in the air quality is noticeable, Um,
(33:11):
no matter where you are, you just smell smoke everywhere
you go. Um, and now it's apparently worse than ever.
So really, and any listeners out there, um, if you're
having to leave your homes or if things are scary, Um,
we're we're thinking about you. And um, it's it's no joke.
Don't do stupid like this. I would like to additionally
(33:31):
point out for frame of reference here, Matt, you said
one point eight nine million acres square acres. That's that's
around the size of the country of Luxembourg, slightly slightly
smaller than an entire European country burning to the ground.
(33:51):
And to be very clear, we are not saying that
having a gender reveal party makes you a bad person.
I think what we're saying though, is that maybe a
cake will be fine. Maybe maybe just slice a cake open, uh,
and and think about the fact that your child will
(34:11):
not be haunted by this story or would like it.
And and just to wrap it up on an ever
so slightly comical note. Uh. The woman credited with inventing
the gender revealed party, a fashion lifestyle blogger from San
Bernardino County, herself named Jenna carbonitis Um, has spoken out
(34:33):
after being dispossessed of her house as well or the
very least having to evacuate, saying, stop having these stupid parties.
For the love of God, stop burning things down to
tell everyone about your kids, penis no one cares about you.
What I'd like to do yours? Take us in a
(34:55):
slightly darker direction as well for our next. For our next,
because people die in forest fires, and if you are
a fan of Carl Sandberg, you likely remember his poem
about grass in the fundamentally ephemeral nature of human beings,
(35:16):
Our next story contains a strange way to tell the
unwritten history of human beings in the natural world, even
decades or centuries past the time those human beings walk
the earth. And the answer is not exactly what you
(35:37):
might think. What are we talking about? We'll tell you
afterward from this sponsor. I'm gonna go catch up on
my Carl Sandberg. I'll be right back, guys, and we're
back to tell today's story in headline form. It's probably
(35:59):
best to say this if you're looking for decaying corpse
in the woods and the wilderness. For one reason or another,
foliage may help you. Trees and other types of plants
may grow differently around dead bodies. This is one of
(36:20):
those research questions that just gives you more questions about
the scientists involved, right, Like how many ideas did they
kick around and one person, you know, they said, oh,
we need some grant money. And then there was silence
in the room. Right this various pitches fell flat, and
then someone said, you know what I've been wondering about
for a while, you know how like you're in the
(36:42):
woods and you look for a dead body and like
the graves not fresh, and and you're like, oh, how
can I tell there is now there is now apparently
an answer to tell the story in non headline format.
We go to something very interesting in place that I
have personally always wanted to visit, just the next state
(37:03):
over from where we record this show in Tennessee. The
University of Tennessee has since so the forty years now
run a body farm. You've probably we've probably all heard
of this in some form or another, but they have
a forensic anthropology center and they study the decomposition of
(37:26):
human bodies in various different ways. Lots of questions they
are right. First off, where do the bodies come from?
They're donated officially, and they're donated I think with a
little bit more credibility than the the cadavers that are
part of the controversial bodies exhibits and museums throughout the US.
(37:50):
We know that these these were meant to be donated
to science. And one of the groups working at the
University of Tennessee said, well, we're looking at what happens
to bodies, you know, after various um after various types
of death, right violent, non violent, uh, you know, and
(38:13):
drowning so on, But what what happens to the soil
around them? And they thought of something that calls to
mind the image of a whale carcass sinking to the
ocean floor. When this happens, it is a tremendous boon
to the seafloor ecology. Right there there creatures that live
(38:38):
and die based on the passing of a whale and
other you know, large marine mammals. Of course, this group
in Tennessee they said, well, even though we know this
is a human being, every life is tragic when it's lost.
This is nutritionally speaking, a gigantic boom to all the
(39:02):
wildlife or foliage around. And this made me think like,
did you guys ever when you're young and like walking
through cemeteries, did you ever notice how the grass grows
differently on over some graves? YEA, yeah, it's like a
little bit denser, right, it's weird. I think we all
make our own terrible inner beliefs when we're children, only
(39:22):
to later find out they're fanciful. But when I was
a kid, I thought that when I saw a grave
that had a lot of a lot of stuff growing
rich foiliage, I assumed that meant the person who was
buried there was a good person. And if I saw
agree that that had like a bad yard for the cemetery,
(39:44):
I assumed they were a horrible person. Right, yeah, pet
cemetery style. And uh, I was wrong. There are reasons
I want to clear that up. I was very wrong,
and I apologized to all the people who passed that
I fairly thought of a supervillains. But but there may
be a little bit of science to this morality aside
(40:08):
on multiple levels, this blast of nutrients could change the
color and what's called the reflectance of tree leaves. So
it's possible then that law enforcement authorities weren't just people
looking for bodies, could use a drone to scan a
forest and then find dead bodies based off that this
(40:33):
this sounds weird. You can read the full article in
a journal called Trends Implant Science but wire dot com
has a really good rite up of where we are
now with it, and it introduced some pretty crazy stuff.
I've never heard this phrase before. I proposed this be
our word of the day, necro Bio, have you ever
(40:53):
heard of that? I I think I can see what
you're putting down then, or where you're heading with this. Well, yeah,
it's all all the stuff that already lives inside of
us that eats its way out, and then all the
things outside of us that eat their way in. Yeah,
because we have to remember, if you, if you put
(41:14):
aside the concept of consciousness and you look at the
body itself. We talked about this years ago. The number
of bacterial cells in your body out number the cells
that you would consider you. No. Granted, the cells that
you consider you are much larger, right, but still we're
much less like a single individual and much more like
(41:37):
a very very very crowded apartment building or a walled city,
a nation state, a universe to ourselves. And that universe
does not stop when the brain function stops. Like you said, Matt,
the stuff living inside you, the immune system, is no
longer I guess, oppressing it from its viewpoint, so it
(41:58):
might rants out, and this stuff living out outside of
you no longer has the bouncers at the gate, right yeah,
and so it comes inside right now your body, like
especially in this part in that little center area, especially there,
there's around nine point five to ten million micro like
(42:22):
bacterial creatures and other microbes that are just crawling around
inside and out right now? Can you feel it? Why
are you doing this to me? Man? Or is it
or is it just you? Or is it are they
just you too? Ben's point, I don't know, man, but
that's us. That's us. And then and this is there's
(42:44):
an old brain stuff video this reminds me of. If
you're watching this on YouTube, go visit this one. It's
it's about the science of farts, and it waxes philosophical
at the end because the true story, the conspiracy about
parts is that you're not the one actually farty. Your
body is just sort of expelling gas produced by that
gut flora that lives inside of you. And so if
(43:06):
you like the vast majority of humanity farting average is
seventeen to twenty three times a day, we need to
realize it's not actually you doing that. And that leads
us to the bigger question, what are we farting inside of?
You know what I mean? Like if is this like
a matrix type question? Is this like a simulation? It's
like a supersymmetry question. Yeah, kind of matrix. Because we
(43:31):
we know that we know that we are an aggregation
right of things, of experiences of elements, particles and quarks
and so like. Uh, but we don't often think about
what we are uh aggregated inside of what what are
we the bacteria of? And how does our environment change
(43:54):
our larger environment, the inner outer weather? I guess stop
this poetry kick, but this fascinating and sounds morbid, but
I think it's really important because years ago, entire civilizations
and cities were being rediscovered by a technology called lidar,
which is able to from from elevation observe minute things
(44:17):
that are invisible to the human eye that let us
find huge missing chunks of the past. And so now
we have to naturally ask ourselves, are are we reaching
the future where we can compound disability, where we can
expand it such that like I am never going to
(44:39):
be able to look at a large shot of a
forest with an anomalous patch of color and not suspect
it might be a mass grave, even though I know
it's probably because they're just different trees. Right, Yeah, I
was reading a little more about this, Ben from that
Wired article you were talking about, and correct me if
(44:59):
I wrong with this. Phenal lalanine is an amino acid
that they believe, the people studying this out there in
Tennessee at the Body Farm, they believe something like that
that exists in the human body when it's when it's
released essentially by the dead body. Is that one of
the things, one of the uh components that actually causes
(45:21):
that higher fluorescence level within you know, the greenery, which
is such a fascinating concept that that you were saying
been like getting a drone or something that can detect
that fluorescence like rolling around. I'm just imagining I'm imagining
that being a very common thing because if you, if
(45:42):
you could truly unlock this with these studies at the
body Farm to where you could find a dead body
anywhere that's been buried. Basically, um, we will just have
roaming drones that are like the body detection part of
your local police department, the official we called right, who
knows there's the other part two? We should emphasize I'm
(46:04):
glad you brought this up, just so you don't think
we ruined all wide shots of forests and nature and
so on. This fluorescence that you're describing that is invisible
to the human eye, if you will. Unless you have
some enhancements and you get all like shadow runs cyberpunk
with it, you're not going to be able to notice
this stuff. So, um, that may be really positive for
(46:28):
some people, and it may be really negative for others
because that means you won't know, well, you're right, you're
absolutely right. It's it's also negative because this same technology
that we're describing here is used to detect cannabis plants
and other black market plants that exist, because the fluorescence
(46:49):
levels are slightly different in those plants as compared to
the rest of a lot of the greenery that would
be around them. So it just means that the human
body detectors are going to be born from the weed,
the rogue weed detectors, and they're gonna be dual use technology,
(47:09):
which has historically made complications whenever it exists. Right, nuclear Uh,
nuclear attack is probably the best example of that. But now, uh,
these sorts of drones and this sort of science. Maybe
another example very soon. Current research is centering on how
(47:29):
to differentiate the body of one living thing from a
human being, and it goes into some really like if
you're a fan of the crypt Keeper Tales from the
Crypt kind of stuff, it goes into some science that
is perfect for you in the crowd. Uh. And that again,
I think on the whole this is this is a
(47:49):
good thing, but it runs the risk of being a
dangerous thing because if drones can fly anywhere and the
pr reason they're doing so is to help recover the
body of a loved one, and then that becomes very
hard to fight back, even if they're being disingenuous. It's
a good point. I'm just imagining all those folks in
Tennessee looking at various dead mammals and then looking at
(48:13):
the spectrogram and studying it for a long time. We
have to run it through the spectrogram, hope it doesn't
get thrown in a bag in a parking lot in
California and then set and set on fire. Is how
we would bring that future situation back around and launched
out of a cannon. And I'm just gonna add that
(48:34):
in just for for fun. Oh, I was thinking more
of just and then it farted a bunch cannons the
new kind of fun it you said, Ben, that definitely
should be on a T shirt? What are we farting
inside of? Is this the right expression? I love that.
I'm going to pose that question in my next philosophy
(48:57):
book group. You know, please tell me the tell me
the results were. We contain multitudes and most of them
definitely are parting. And I'm definitely in a philosophy book club.
Don't you dare question that associate on my part? There
there there somewhere as a species of giant extraterrestrials and
(49:21):
what they do. They've got the special drone that flies
around and checks planets and stars for the methane and
other gas releases from planets and atmospheres to check whether
or not there are viable micro organisms on the organisms.
And they're not looking for us. We're the vehicles. But
(49:43):
the things they in, all that stuff inside, just the
guts coming one frend your pals, Uh, Matt, Nol and
Ben and of course code ename doc Holiday. So stay
tuned in a theater or zoom call hear you. We've
got to write the script. So that means I think
(50:03):
that we should call it a day. We've got to
get to our writer's room. This has been an episode
of Strange News. The conversation, as we established, does not
end when the podcast ends. We want to hear from you.
Hopefully We've We've made it kind of easy to find us.
That's true, I would say so. I think we've checked
all the boxes. We've got all of the available communication
(50:25):
methods available to you. If you want, you can find
us on social media Instagram, Twitter, um, all that stuff
Facebook were conspiracy stuff. I think we're conspiracy stuff show
on Instagram. Um. You can also join our Facebook group.
Here's where it gets crazy, where it gets crazy. That's
the place where that happens on the regular. If you
(50:47):
don't care for the uh, the social meds, if that's
not your cup of tea or your your can't canteen
of communication, God, we got there. Then you can also
call us on the phone. We've come up in the world.
We have a phone number. Yes, it is one eight
three three st d w y t K. Leave a message, well,
(51:12):
we'll listen to it. You might get on one of
the listener Maile episodes. Either way, we're gonna hear it.
We're excited to hear from you. Anything you want to say,
please feel free send it our way. And if you
don't want to do any of that stuff, or if
you're kind of a little more old school and you
don't want to you don't go out for the social
media or any stuff, or maybe you don't like handling telephones,
you can reach us the old fashioned way with a
(51:33):
good old email. We are conspiracy at i heeart radio
dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is
(51:58):
a production of I Heartread You. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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