April 27, 2022 • 56 mins
The legend sounds like something out of The Twilight Zone. A group of renegade Ivy League scientists gather in secret, in a small, abandoned town, to conduct bizarre experiments... and they discover a path to an alternate universe. But where, exactly, did this legend come from? What's the line between fact and fiction? Tune in to learn more about Ong's Hat.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Maybe today we start with a question,
what is here? Where are we? Where are you? Are
(00:48):
we in the same universe? Are we in an alternate one?
Are we creations of fact? Are we creations of fiction?
And what are we in turn creating? What's the line
between fact and fiction? And what happens when a game
gets out of hands? A long time listeners, fellow conspiracy realists,
you know that your three faithful correspondents here are all
(01:09):
big fans of games. We're all, I think it's safe
to say, fans of things that other people might consider weird.
You know, whether we're talking about modern folklore, whether we're
talking about what was that episode we did a long
time not too long ago, um about the alternate reality
game in California, Remember You'd slide down. Yeah, it was
(01:33):
like a weird kind of psychedelic techie scavenger hunt. There
was like a pinball machine or something that opened up
or like they were old weird video games with like
you know, um at what do they call those old
like tube TV kind of things, like a Commodore sixty four. No,
I know what it was. It was an arcade cabinet.
It would be like this hidden arcade you'd find and
then you play the game and it would be this
(01:53):
like rabbit thing that would come up and give you
clues as to how to find the secret mystical room. Amazing.
We also looked at the company that created it and
found all the other r g s they had created
in the past and rather super cool concept the company
came up with and had writers who created it and
people who created the machines and created the clues. Uh
(02:18):
So it's very neat that a group of people can
get together and make something like that. The June Institute
that was that was one of these uh yeah, And
we we want to thank again the creators of some
of those a r g s for taking the time
to write to the show and give us an insider
look at this. We we were able to explore those
(02:39):
this way because those games had ended, so we weren't
violating what the world of wrestling would call cafeve But uh,
we're going deeper into something like this. We're exploring the
strange agglomeration of fact and fiction and the at times
(03:01):
dangerous story of something called Ang's Hat. If you're a
longtime denizen of the Internet, or you hang out in uh,
you hang out in underground bookstores known for their zines,
then you may already be aware of this. But here
are the facts. First things. First, we have to tell
(03:23):
you Ang's Hat is not right now, It's not a
hat that's circulating around right. Uh. It is instead the
name of a former town out in Burlington County, New Jersey,
Pine Barren Country. It's a ghost town nowadays. Supposedly it's
(03:46):
a it's a small ghost town. Right. There's so many
things that Angs Hat could be or may like may
have been. Theoretically, it's a ghost town out there in
the pine barrens. Yeah, yeah, shout out already to Sopranos
and the X Files. Uh, you know what, it's a
(04:06):
good point right now, if you look at if you
look at maps as recently as two thousand and six
or so, you'll see remnants of human construction ruins, you know,
brick foundations and old sheds, sometimes described as a hut.
But calling it a town on our part is pretty generous.
(04:30):
The history of this place, according to the official records
in this universe, uh, it dates back to well before
the Revolutionary War. It has also become home to one
of the very first conspiracy theories grown on the internet. Uh.
And there's something I think we should have some historical
(04:52):
context again from our universe. We'll call it universe A.
How did it get this weird name, Ang's Hat? We
were just talking about this in the previous episode. I
don't know about you, guys, but I love ridiculous town names.
I love. I love like being on a road trip
and running into some place called give Up. You know.
(05:15):
It's also Weed, California, which is that? Yeah? And Ang's
Hat is part of a long tradition of weird names
for small towns in in these United States and in
Canada as well. But there's a bit of folklore about
the etymology of this town's name, and just there there
(05:36):
are many different versions of this. They're like four primary versions. Uh,
there's one kind of myth busting version will give you
towards the end of this. But let's let's talk about
the fun one. Let's think about the Jacob Ang. What's
his deal? Ah? Well, well, while it wasn't invented, he
was a guy who would have consumed a lot of
(05:58):
cavasier that a sense. Yeah, he's the ladies the ladies man. Sorry,
that's that just dates me. Wow, I'm uh making SNL
jokes about the ladies man. Okay, um, but yeah, well
far you all right? This guy, this guy, um, he
enjoyed women, and he also enjoyed his hats, specifically a
(06:22):
silken hat, very very nice hat. And the way the
story goes, at least the one that I've heard, is
that he was in a bit of an argument, let's say,
with one of the people with whom he was keeping company,
and he threw his hat, landed on a tree and
it became Ang's hat. At least that's what i've heard, Ben,
(06:42):
what have you heard? Well, that's there are a couple
of similar versions, right, there's another version. Let's go with
the hat throwing. There's another version that he was out,
you know, wooing the fairer sex as as they would
say back in that day. And he had some haters. Man,
he had envious suitors who had lost the game of love,
(07:04):
and he one of these guys, one of these haters
grabbed Ang's hat and it was like you stink your rake,
and he stomped on it and he ruined it, grinding
it into the mud of the pine barrens. And then
Ang saw that his hat was ruined, and so he
frisbeed it up high in the air fiddle d D,
(07:28):
you can't stop me. And and in this story speaks
in rhyme, I guess and uh. It latches onto a
very high branch of a pine tree. You know, they're everywhere.
It's the pine barrens, and no one could reach it,
and there it stayed for years and years and years,
and it became because it was such a distinct hat,
(07:49):
it became a landmark there in the woods for people,
and they would just start referring to that area as
Ang's hat. This may not be true. There are other versions,
like you know, the one you mentioned that he threw
it while he was courting right, and there was no
envious lover involved. Then there's the idea that he had
a tavern and he put a little shingle out that
(08:11):
had a hat on it, and then the town became
named after the tavern. But we're telling you this historical
context to let you know, Ang's hat is perfect casting
for a conspiracy theory location for a setting, because it
already has always been associated with uncertain narratives and unreliable narrators. Later,
(08:36):
in fact, in the New York I think in the
sixties a descendant of the Ang family. Ang was a
kind of common name in New Jersey at this time,
apparently uh in there. But in the nineties sixties, Fast
awarded a descendant of the Ang family rights to the
New York Times and says, look, these legends are fun,
(08:58):
but that's because their legends. He says, Really, what happened
is my family was evolved in the grain trade, and
we were transporting grain, and then the trip was long
enough that we needed a midpoint or away station arresting place,
and so we built this hut so we could crash
(09:19):
with the grain and make the trip in a reasonable
amount of time. And it was and he said, this
was originally just called Ang's Hut, and for some reason,
over the Great Game of Telephone, it got corrupted into
Ang's Hat. That's an understandable thing, and that person seems
to have some credibility because they might have access to
(09:40):
oral oral memories or oral retellings that non family members
wouldn't have. But that's the point. People have been saying
conflicting things about this for a very very very long time.
And if you're familiar with deep Internet lore, I don't
want to date anybody, but if you're familiar with the
(10:02):
days when not everyone was on the Internet, you may
have heard of Ang's Hat in a very different context.
It's a story of mad science, alternate universes, and conspiracy. Yeah,
there's anybody out there. Remember b B B B s is.
Those were fun sort of use net early news groups
(10:24):
and Internet bulletin boards and all of that. It was
like pre aim. This is pre this was like Prodigy.
This is earlier than that. Now, this is back when
I think it was using that situation. The first tale
of this conspiracy emerged on one of those Internet bulletin
board systems. And also there were you know, zines which
were kind of like d I Y publications that folks
(10:45):
would print and distribute photocopy, and that was the way
a lot of people got there, like music, new music, news, um,
any niche kind of interest you would probably be on
a bulletin board or if you didn't have the Internet
or live some more rural these means you could like
mail order them and stuff. It was important. So according
to this tale, Songs had only appeared to be a
(11:06):
ghost town. UM in n there was a guy named
Wally Ford who bought over two acres of land uh
in this area and built an ashram um that became
quietly popular among those who kind of knew that world,
you know, particularly Princeton physicists who are looking for safe,
secret places to conduct experiments UM that wouldn't be allowed
(11:32):
and say, you know, they're the halls of knowledge with
the oversight of the brass and things like that, you know,
with prying eyes looking in on their um their work. UM.
So we're talking here about quantum physics, specifically things like
chaos theory, UM, multiverse type stuff, interdimensional travel. Yeah, and
and we we have to point out this what we're
(11:54):
saying here, all this stuff about a person named Wally Ford,
the human being Wally four this may or may not
be fictional. This is part of the story of Ang's Hat, right,
So the human being named Wally Ford who bought acres
of land and built an ashram may or may not
(12:15):
be real. Yeah, we'll we'll address that first, right, But
that's a great point right now. Right now, folks, consider
yourself sitting around with your pals, your old drugs around
the camp fire, and we're just strangers sharing a story
with each other. So yes, Once upon a time, these
(12:37):
Princeton scientists found an intersection, possibly very ancient intersection between
what modern humans recognize as science and what modern humans
recognize as spirituality, as ancient wisdom, and they wanted to
unlock the powers of the human mind. Just like various
(13:00):
other conspiratorial groups of mad scientists in the world of fiction.
They thought, we can blend these ancient learnings from the
Ashram and it's it's leaders. We can blend these with
bleeding edge science with our theories that would get us
blacklisted from the Ivy League, and we can using these
(13:23):
two sources of knowledge, train human minds too, eventually not
just access alternate realities, but to manipulate the nature of
reality itself and you'll see why this is so interesting
at the end of today's show, at least in this universe.
So right, we've got this set up. They continue and
(13:46):
sometime in the late nineteen eighties they built something. They
called it the egg. If you are a fan of fiction, Uh, well,
if you're a fan of like the uh I cake
experiments that have been conducted by various entities, or you
enjoy fiction like Stranger Things, which is a love letter
(14:07):
to a lot of these sorts of stories, then you'll
be familiar with the idea of a sensory deprivation chamber.
Sensory deprivation chambers are super cool. I'm a fan of them,
or pal Robert Lamb from Stuff to Bow your Mind
also a big fan. Uh. They their egg was special.
Their egg would help them originally determine the exact moment
(14:29):
when a wave becomes a particle. And you know, that's
something that physics has been wrestling with for quite a
long time, right, and it's neat, Right, that's cool, that's neat.
Why wouldn't Princeton let you do that? You know, at
their spot it seems like that would be amazing science anyway,
(14:51):
So they thought this was neat. They're doing this bleeding
edge science and one day during testing, egg disappears for
seven minutes with someone inside. Now what happens during those
seven minutes in the lab lost the history in this universe.
(15:15):
I gotta stop saying that, but has lost history in
this universe. Luckily, the agg reappears seven minutes pass comes back.
The test subject is in there and he's got a
whale of a tail because he says he saw something,
and we'll tell you what he saw. Right after a
word from our sponsor. He says, I went to another dimension.
(15:45):
He's freaked out for seven minutes. According to this anonymous
test subject, he was in a world that appeared just
like Earth from Universe A. He claimed it was except
for what important difference. It was void as far as
he could tell of human life, any signs of humanity.
(16:07):
And the scientists were gased. This was a huge breakthrough,
so they started experimenting, or they continued experimenting in secret,
seeing what they could move through this gateway that they
had created. Slashed found and according to this story, we're
just giving the high level parts here. But according to
(16:27):
the story, they through no real fault of their own,
ran into trouble with Uncle Sam. There was a nuclear
instant nearby, and so they all seeing I've the government
was applying closer scrutiny to this area, and they started
to notice there were strange things going on in this
(16:48):
little ghost town Ang's Hat. So the heat was catching
up with them. They could feel it around the corner.
They said, we can't give up our research. It's too important.
But we can't stay here. We've got to relocate. We've
got to find somewhere else to go. And eventually, perhaps
out of desperation, they turned to the Earth in Universe
(17:10):
B and peace by peace, the story goes, they slowly
moved the entirety, not just of their lab, but of
the Ashram into this alternate Earth. Eventually they were gone entirely,
leaving uh nothing but that humble little hut slash Shed
(17:32):
the gateway between worlds. And if you catch them, if
you happen to be in the area at the right time,
maybe when the stars are right for the Lovecraft fans
out there, you might see them traveling back to good
old Universe A. They only come when they need to
restock supplies, lab equipment, case and dias shoe feet, you know,
(17:57):
dipping sauces. Dipping sauces. Yeah, stiffeat. I love that universe
b does not have hobb and arrow avocado ranch. Guys,
someone's gonna make the trip. Yeah, it does feel weird
that you would move your scientific operation to a place
that doesn't have resources at all. I mean it would,
(18:19):
it would have endless resources if you could build the
things to collect those resources. You're right, you can't build.
You can't build much computer equipment in the universe with
no humans, right, Yeah, No, that's absolutely true. And that's
one of the reasons why time travel questions so often
(18:40):
have bad answers. You know, like if you travel if
you traveled back in time too a d even when
there was a ton of technology around you, you be
surprised how useless you would be in a lot of
respects most people, you know what I mean. Um, but
(19:00):
you would still have some superpowers, you'd be immune to
a lot of stuff. It's just it's something to think about,
and you make a really good point because it would
be starting from scratch. This story is bonkers, it's exciting,
it's cinematic. I'd love to see it depicted on stage
on screen, Um, any size screen, really and this is
(19:23):
a conspiracy theory. It has all the ingredients of a
kick ass camp fire tail. It reads like an episode
of Fringe or Black Mirror or the Twilight Zone. But
is it real? Some people would respond by saying, what
do you mean by real? Here's where it gets crazy.
(19:43):
Oh yeah, first off, all right, just universe a brass
tacks here. This is absolutely not real. This is so
absolutely not real that we It's been proven, proven, proven
multiple times. It's not real. It is uh is the
creation of several people. I would say it's it's present
(20:06):
form is mainly the creation of a writer, Uh, a
punk guy who loves computers, trans media artist named Joseph Matheny.
He he loved culture, jamming, who's growing up. He loved
the kind of contrarian intellectualism of things like the Church
(20:26):
of SubGenius, which we're fans of. Yeah, and I guess
we can we do a quick description of Church of
SubGenius just for any uninitiated. Yeah, it's sort of like
a joke religion, a joke cult, but also to be
taken pretty seriously depending on who you are. Um, It's
deity or overlord is j R. Bob Dobbs, who is
(20:49):
basically like a piece of clip art from the fifties
that's like a kind of a you know what, like
a how a husband kind of with a pipe, sort
of like a every man kind of like you know,
work a day Joe in the fifties, you know, the
American Dream kind of scenario. And they believed in some occurrence,
some sort of apocalyptic slash rapture event called X Day
(21:13):
when the some manner of aliens or some manner of
extraterrestrial beings are gonna swoop down and you know, bring
all the sub genius up to where wherever with them,
and they celebrated every year. But the joke is that
Bob dobbs um got the date wrong, you know, one
of those things, and then then he keeps promising that
will happen in a different year, and then that keeps
(21:34):
getting extended. But it's all very tongue in cheek. And
then they believe in a concept of life called slack,
which is how they live their lives. Uh, sort of
a do what thou wilt kind of Church of Satan vibe,
but a little more wacky and nudist and weed smoking
and you know, Devo listening. That's a lot of kind
of weird and hipster, hippie burning man type folks. I
(21:56):
hope I did an okay job there. Yeah, I agree.
Uh that and he also Mathany that is was also
into the philosophy of Discordianism. Uh. These these are both
subgenious and Discordianism both mixed true and fictional events or
beliefs to create alternative histories and aggressive reframings of current reality.
(22:24):
I guess perspective shifting, paradigm shifting culture jamming. Uh. We
were talking about Discordianism earlier off air in a way
because we were talking about the Illuminatus trilogy. If you're
a fan of that book, then you know that a
great deal of it is concerned with Discordianism. They're practitioners
(22:45):
of discordian magic, chaos magic, whatever you want to call it.
Joseph Mathani loved this stuff. He loved this stuff. He
hung out with intellectual sets of people who had the
same somewhat esoteric interest any of them from uh different
eras of time. There were some older people, there was
(23:06):
some younger people. They had any number of other unrelated
interests there or scientists will meet one in a second.
There were writers, there were artists, you name it. There's
just people who like to have really interesting thought experiments.
If you're listening to this show, and if you've listened
to us for a while, then it's safe to say
they're the kind of people you would probably like to
(23:27):
hang out with. They're fun to talk to. Their minds
go weird places, and Ang's Hat became an example of this.
The first iteration of this story was something It was
not even really a short story. It's presented as a brochure,
(23:47):
a nonfiction work called the Institute of Chaos Studies. And
you would have first seen it in a magazine called
Edge Detector in nineteen eight, which I just realized now
is supposed to be an edgy name. I didn't realize
it was a pun. It's like right on the Edge Detector,
(24:09):
like an edge lord. He detects the edge and then
he kind of edges up against the edge, but he
never really quite exceeds it. I can see how that
title pulled people in, right, the concept of pushing everything
out until you reach the edge, find where that edge is,
just find it so we know. Yeah, And originally when
(24:29):
this is published in this magazine, it is attributed to
a guy named Peter Lamborne Wilson, who also goes by
the pseudonym Hakim bay Uh. He is his own episode,
is far from a perfect person. He's actually intensely problematic
in some ways. But when he talks about this originally,
(24:51):
he says, look, I didn't write this. I found this.
I'm just passing it along, and that it's an important
part to building a mythos. You know, the original author
should be anonymous, or they should be driven mad, or
they should be dead. You know that they need to
(25:14):
somehow be distant, right, And that's why that's why so
many works of profits throughout time have been you know,
when when they're in the written word, you'll usually see
the prophet saying, I'm not making this up. I have
received this from somewhere else. You establish a chain of
(25:35):
metaphysical custody. It's quite clever and it works very well.
So later, by the way, we turn out that Wilson
would say that he wrote the original story. All right,
So where does Joseph Mathan he come in? Well, as
we said, he liked to hang out with a crowd
interested in esoteric things. He knows Peter Lamborn and Wilson
(25:55):
and they are friends with a guy named Nick Herbert
Nick has the same interests. He's also a smashing conversationalist.
They have a great time together. But Nick Nick is
also a scientist, a credible scientist, uh, and he is
known in his scientific field. He is the one who says,
(26:18):
let's add some you know what I mean, Let's let's
add some modern science to the myth. Let's let's make
this science fiction and fantasy. And then you know, Peter
and Joseph, we can only assume are like, heck, yeah, man,
hold my discordian beer. Let's get cracking in. They started
(26:40):
reproducing this edge detector article, and they literally zero Ston.
They just made physical copies, and they started pamphlet bombing
places where they thought interested folks would find it. So,
you know, imagine you're walking into your local coffee shop
and maybe it's just maybe it's just on the physical
(27:01):
bulletin board, the predecessor the Internet bullets board. And so
you see like lost Dog, you know, fencing classes, learn
judo or whatever, and then a concert is coming up
devo why not? And and then there's a there's a
catalog or there's a little pamphlet that says Institute for
(27:21):
Chaos Studies. What are they selling? They don't look like
they're selling anything. So you read it or you find
it at a concert venue, anywhere they thought a curious
person might run into this. Matthanie loved the idea of
popularizing this, of propagating it, and he thought of it.
As he described this an interview with Gizmoto, he said,
(27:44):
it was you get the sense, he thought, was all
in good fun. Right, we're cultured and we're doing pranks.
Doesn't love a good print? Think about it at this point.
There's no tie to revenue, personal revenue for anybody who's
distributing this thing. You're not making a way. They're losing
money by printing this thing and taking a place as
they're losing their time. Like it's it the goal here
(28:08):
you can tell and it must be it's not making money.
It is or you know, trying to profit in some way.
It's that thing that you just said, Ben, propagating this
concept for fun zies, slash o chaos. It's not about
the money. It's about sending a message, right, so so yeah,
(28:30):
they he called it a quote mind expanding in joke
for goth kids, stoner gamers, and sci fi loving computer
nerds who like talking about physics and telling spooky stories.
I feel attacked. I'm kidding a little bit. But they
(28:50):
they started also expanding this through the postal system. You know. UM.
It reminds me a little bit of the Crying of
a Lot forty line by Pension. Methany and Herbert and
Wilson were mailing this thing to people and you could
find you can find it mentioned in other catalogs or
(29:13):
distro list like if you were reading, for instance, um
publications from UFO interest groups. In the back of those
you would see like other stuff you could request through
the mail if you were interested, and you would see
something like this Institute for Chaos Studies. And then they
started producing their own thing, the Inconnabula catalog. Mathanie says,
(29:38):
he and Nick, the scientists started really going really going
nuts with us. They were going hard on the paint
with the idea at this point. So he took this
one piece of fiction and he grew it into this
entire alternate world online. It expanded in a crowdsourced way
(29:59):
similar to SCP and our friend of the show, Matt Riddle,
if you're listening, thank you again. For introducing me to
that time vampire. I enjoyed it, but I have lost
I've lost so much time in there. So you go
to that rabbit hole if you've got a several hours.
But anyway, so this is kind of like how the
(30:21):
Lovecraft methos expands, you know what I mean? At this
point in time, the majority of stories and the Lovecraft methos,
if you count everybody after old HP Sauce himself, there
are more authors in the Lovecraft methos who are not
Lovecraft than the guy himself. That's that's amazing crowdsourcing to
(30:45):
the what's the quality of the stories? They vary, but
there are some real amazing ones, um and anyway, it's it's.
A more recent example would be House of Leaves, the
collaborative novel that was originally written online, and itself is
also a very weird read. Isn't that the one with
like the swirly text and like the weird marginal things
(31:06):
and easter eggs abound that kind of do yeah, exactly
by primarily by Dan mark Z Daniel les Luski. I think, uh, anyway,
that's a great read too, But no, at this point
it starts becoming a thing where you're not quite sure
who is writing this, who is actually creating this, You're
(31:31):
not quite sure where the first story comes from, and
you're starting to wonder who added what has this been edited?
Some of this appears to be true. You say there
is a place called longs Hat. What else is true? Right?
And not everyone swallowed the tail hook line and sinker,
(31:54):
of course. But the thing is a lot of people
read about this, or some literate are associated with it,
or they saw a comment about it, and they started thinking,
what if, you know, the government of the United States
and Princeton had gotten up to some weird stuff before. Well, yeah,
(32:16):
you know, we talked about nuclear contamination or some kind
of nuclear accident that occurred near where Ang's Hat was located.
As that's that was part of the lore, right, and
it was revealed later on. There's a New York Times
article you can read about this that there was nuclear
material or radioactive material that was released and kind of
(32:36):
covered up and made hush hush for quite a while.
That seemed to line up with the timeline here when
they were doing stuff in the sixties. You can search
for old missile site at McGuire is still tainted Keene
says on The New York Times, it's a story from
nine five, and it's just weird how stuff like that
(32:57):
seems to match up with the tape. Right, It's like
finding the actual real world things that match up with
the air or g elements and there, you know, around
that time. It's very well, it's weird to think, but
Project Stargate is actually happening within the CIA, right, I mean,
(33:18):
their actual government experiments with remote viewing and stuff happening
around this time. And some of a lot of that
stuff is rumor, but it's not. Uh, it's not well
known by people in the United States, but it's stuff
that's written written about in these kind of magazines and
pamphlets that are going around. So you can totally see
how this tale seems to match up with real world stuff,
(33:39):
including the government's shenanigans. Absolutely. Oh, and I want to
make a quick clarification here. I believe the brochure that
was that ended up circulating, the one that became really popular,
was eventually called Ang's Hat, the beginning the Inconnabula papers,
Angs Hat and other gate Ways to New Dimensions. You
(34:01):
can find it on archive dot org. It's a first
person investigation is how how the tail begins. But you
you're absolutely right because along with those true things that
are happening that seemed to fit the universe a timeline,
there are also lots of references to books that don't exist, right,
(34:23):
books that if you searched for them, you you wouldn't
be able to find them, at least pre Amazon, because
there's a thing that happens on Amazon now where someone
will create something that purports to be one of those
books from fiction that doesn't exist, and you can you
can buy them if you want, right, but they're usually
(34:45):
just terrible cut and paste jobs. I haven't read every
one of them, but you have to watch out. So anyway,
at this point you can say that a book exists,
and short of going to the Library of Congress, it
will be kind of difficult for most people to prove
that it doesn't exist. They don't have the access to information.
(35:05):
There's no Wikipedia, bibliography or no easily searchable online database.
This is, in short, beat me here, Paul. It's a
mind of an extravagant and extreme degree. It's similar to
the initial reaction to the Blair Witch Project. And when
(35:28):
this came out, we were all film goers. I think
it's safe to say, guys, we all knew or knew
of some people who initially thought the Blair Witch Project
was a real deal documentary. Do you guys remember that.
I think I went in thinking that I saw in
the theater and it was packed. That was such a
hot movie. I mean, yeah, you're ready kicked off this
(35:49):
like dream genre for Hollywood. As the movies caused Pennies
to make, and if you market them right, they do
incredibly well. Clover Fields and that one wasn't pennies because
it had like big v fects budget, But that was
another one that had some pretty cool viral marketing behind.
I think we've talked about a few times with all
the like adjacent like slurpeas and stuff and like all
the Easter eggs and the thing falling out of this guy.
(36:10):
I really quite like that movie a lot. Um But
the point here Blair Witch, the like you said, the marketing,
I told you it was real. It was found footage, right,
This is actually found footage from something that went wrong.
Come in and watch what went wrong. You get to
watch it with your own eyes like that. I mean,
(36:30):
it was brilliant. Uh, it kind of stinks because weirdly enough,
blair Witch is probably one of the small handful of
things that started making us question reality, including the matrix. Uh,
you know, like things that made in popular culture it
was cool to question your own reality. Um, and we're
(36:51):
seeing you know, going back to the eighties now, late eighties,
early nineties, when questioning your reality and like um, multidimensions,
multi verse, all of that stuff. It's just it was
on this track that was building and building and building
and building. I love that you put blair Witch in
there as an example, Ben, because I feel like that's
another one of these milestones that leads us down this
path of uncertainty. There is no spoon, but there is
(37:15):
an ollngs Hat. It's in It's in New Jersey again,
but the well, there's an ogs Hat Road. I didn't
see ONGs Hat. I saw ONGs Hat Road. Longs Hat
Road has well longs Hat would have been visible in
maps around two thousand six, probably the last time you
see because now it's just ruined. But allings Hat Road.
(37:37):
I think the name changed at some point. Okay, if
we can see I looked up on Google you can
find ONGs Hat Road, So I guess that the name
of that one changed. That one's near south Southampton Township,
kind of between Southampton and Pemberton Township. Uh. And the
place where I said the nuclear you know, materials and leak,
(37:58):
that's in Jackson Township. If you're looking in New Jersey,
just if you're looking at your map, yeah, or if
you're in the area, you want to drive by Young's
Hat Road, which, as will come to find, people have
done without a sense of satire, with their tongues firmly,
not in their cheeks. They have done this. So the
this is weird because people are believing this, they don't
(38:20):
necessarily have all the tools to question it. And Mathony
is having a fantastic time with this. He is building
out lore left and right. He assumes the personna of
this investigator, and this investigator is just a guy just
(38:43):
in every man audience perspective, right, that is in that
is diving into the story of Ang's Hat, and he
he publishes new milestones and his investgation like chapters in
a book. And these new revelations always lead to more
(39:07):
details twist in the story, different rabbit holes, different little
pieces of string to follow along from point A to
point Z. And this continues. People are people are enamored
of this there they're in and they want to know
(39:27):
more about interdimensional travel. Right there are people who are
talking about how they're worried about this investigators safety, you
know what I mean. Maybe he's trying to find things
that don't want to be found. And that's still not
the end of the story, because we're going to get
to a strange and dangerous meta game twist. After a
(39:51):
word from our sponsor, all right, we're back, and now
we're gonna talk about what happens when enough people start
believing in your story that you know isn't real, but
you're having a whole lot of fun making it. The
weapons When enough people think, oh, yeah, I'm gonna go
(40:14):
to there, I'm gonna find that, I'm going to learn
these secrets. I'm going to get the truth out of
people who worked on this or know about this. Dontentent
Ton tent on, dontent don Yes, yes, Q Hall of
the Mountain King. Things start to get out of hand.
The law is expanding in depth and reach. The scope
(40:36):
is as Homer Simpson would say in beginning, and more
and more people like you said, Matt, begin to actually
believe the story, they struggle and in several cases fail
to separate fact from fiction. Eventually, this leads Mathani to
pull the plug. Now, look the whole time, in his defense,
(40:58):
and this this is true, this is universe a true
the whole time in his defense. If you did some
digging into the story, you would recognize in jokes, you
would recognize little narrative loop de loops, things like that.
This guy, what we're saying is this guy was having
what was sometimes described as a collective legend trip. You know,
(41:22):
let's let's tell a story together, let's play a game
hashtag no saw and this idea from his perspective, I
just want to be clear, he wasn't doing anything sinister.
He wasn't out to make a ton of money, He
wasn't trying to change people's behavior in a dangerous way.
(41:42):
He wasn't trying to start a call to none of
those things that people do when they attempt to manipulate folks.
He wasn't even really trying to manipulate folks. And you
can see him in interviews over the course of this
expansion where he's like, Yeah, this is fun. We're doing
this because it's fun. I love discordionism. I did chaos magic,
(42:03):
you know, or chaos theory, I think you would have said,
And so people are refusing to believe him. Eventually, this does,
as we said, lead him to pull the plug, and
he goes in another interview and he says, look again,
for anybody who somehow hasn't heard me say this before,
(42:23):
this is a game. The purpose is to have fun.
There is no universe. B that's basically what what he's
what he's telling people. And there's no real egg, no
alternate earth. Just guys, learn about postmodernism. He's saying, that's
that's what we're doing. We're playing in surrealist game. And
(42:46):
but it was too late. It was too late. The
lid of Pandora's jar had been unscrewed. And folks said,
but well, from their perspective, it's also understandable if they
thought there was a conspiracy of what they believe this story.
They said, someone got to you, man, you're either a
(43:06):
patsy or you're the victim of a cover up. Tell
us what's really going on. Blink three times, exactly, that's
exactly event. Somebody's making you say that. Somebody's making you
say that, right, he was tapping. He was he was
tapping on the table I heard during the interview. I
think it's Morse code, you know what I mean? Like
(43:30):
the agents of order, the agents of order, right, because
that's the like part of the whole backstory is that
there are those who want full order, that is the
way to control the universe, that is the way things
should be, and others want chaos, which is much much
more freeing. Uh. And if the people want order get
(43:51):
to you, then you have to say what they want
you to say. Uh, dude, this it's just so interesting
how that could function. Guys. I think this would work
with any cult where the founder of the cult comes
forward towards the end of their life and says, none
of this is real. I think the cult would still
sustain itself in the belief that it is real and
(44:12):
for some reason, the leader had to say that, or
chose to say that for some reason, but the core
values of that cult remain. I think. I think that's
just my theory. I believe that because it makes sense
from what we understand about human psychology and their cognitive capabilities.
People love a good sunk cost fallacy. Your brain is
(44:34):
wired to feel good if it feels like it's always
been right about stuff, and your brain is wired to
react with hostility to the idea of being wrong, even
when you intellectually know you are wrong, you know if
you have been and and the rules of this, the
(44:54):
constraints the parameters are so arbitrary, like, uh, it's as
simple as let's say, laws of ethics for human experimentation
don't apply. You do whatever you want. You know. What
I mean is the wild West again. You let's say
you take some kids and you raise one of them
(45:14):
the experiment group. You raise one group just to just
to know, for various reasons, that blue is the best color.
There's a hierarchy of colors. We haven't we're not explaining
any of the other ones. Were just there's a very
particular shade of blue that is the best color. Everything
in your young life is associated with that. And then
(45:35):
we just let you out in the wild where you
learn that other people have other colors they like and
and you know, and then you find that the rest
of the world, the rest of the human population, says well, yeah,
you know, some people have favorite colors, some people don't
really care, some people are color blind. It doesn't matter,
like blue is no more important color than the other colors.
(46:00):
This would feel you feel blasphemous, even if you intellectually
recognize it. I positive that those victims of that incredibly
unethical experiment would still, in some part of their mind
be like, these people don't know what they're talking about.
Blue is best, Uh the crew, But like I I
(46:22):
know that's not a perfect example, but it's just to
show how arbitrary this is. And this is a real problem.
It happens in the realms of politics and policy. It happens,
you know, it's similar to a sun cost fallacy. It
happens sometimes in belief systems, like you could make. You
(46:44):
could make the argument. A lot of ex scientologists make
the argument that people stay in that organization because they'll
get blackmail on you, but also because they don't learn
about stuff all at once. You're paying every step of
the way. With Tom, I'm with yeah, with the bridge,
you're paving the bridge brick by brick with stuff that
(47:08):
you can't get back. So at the end, everybody wants
to think of themselves as a smart, rational actor, and
usually that's very true. So your brain gets in this paradox. Uh,
state where it says, wait, I'm smart, I'm rational. I
must have done this for a reason. Also, by the way,
well we're throwing out hacks. That's the reason that Ben
(47:28):
Franklin effect works because they're the one with the key
you get struck by lightning. It's the one where if
you if you want someone to have a more favorable
opinion of you, you ask them to do you a
small favor. Make sure it's small and easy to do.
The scope of the favor should be something very easy
(47:50):
to say yes to, because for most human beings, what
will happen is they will retro actively rationalize why they
helped you. They'll rationalize the reason and they'll say, I
helped because I am a good person, but I also
have good taste, so you must be kind of a
good person too, because I don't help bad people. It's
(48:13):
not And don't ask for anything crazy like don't say
you listen to stuff they don't want you to know.
And now you're gonna go ask a stranger for their
car or their children or something. Asked to borrow a pet,
you know what I mean? Stuff like that, or like
if you must like a large scale thing would be
like a ride to her from the airport. That kind
(48:34):
of thing. That's a big ask man. That is a
big as It depends on where you live. If you
live in New York, that's like a huge favor. I
think a ride to the airport is less of an
ask than getting picked up from the airport, because there's
a lot of uncertainty and getting picked up from the airport,
you know, you gotta wait in the cell phone lot
or just circle indefinitely. Who knows how long it takes
(48:54):
to be playing these days. It all just depends on
what time it is, Also true, anybody really know what
time it is? I don't know. That's an oldest. I
can tell you what time it is for today. It's
I think it's about time to wrap this episode. Were close? Yeah,
So this goes into I wanted to mention something else here.
(49:14):
So not only do people refuse to believe him, but
they begin harassing them. Not a lot of not everybody,
but some people begin harassing him phone calls, letters, doxing.
Folks are showing up to his house saying, I know what,
I know what really happened about the cover up? Teach
me the secrets of interdimensional travel. There's another analog to
(49:36):
this a predecessor in the world of fiction. It's a
book called Foco's Pendulum and Faco's Pendulum spoiler alert here
be spoilers three to one spoils. So he the author
of Foco's Pendulum, Berto Echo, tells a story about these
(49:56):
very high minded literary nerds who be in making their
own conspiracy, and they know they're making it up. It's
it's a thought experiment for them. But things get out
of hand and folks start accepting this and behaving as
though the conspiracy is real. And then if people are
behaving as though a belief is real and it is factual,
(50:22):
then it gets a little closer to the truth, doesn't it.
Because their actions, however motivated, are still indeed real actions,
right They weren't imagining themselves showing up at this this
poor guy's house anyway. Well, I was just gonna send
people over to gizmoto right now. You can read an
article titled OG's Hat colin the early Internet conspiracy game
(50:45):
that Got Too Real. It's written by Jed album O E.
L B A U M. And in this you actually
see an interview with this person who created ogs Hat
or it was part of the he was the person
who popularized it. It's his last exactly, It's allegedly his
last interview because he's so tired of talking about the
(51:06):
dang thing and he doesn't want anybody showing up at
his house anymore. At the time, he said it was
his last interview. That's why you put it. Yeah, yeah,
and that's that's the article. Um we're mentioning at the tops,
So thank you for for saying that. That's probably the
best one stop shop to look at analysis of AG's
hat outside of the game. But again, you can read,
(51:29):
you can read the majority of this stuff, like the
in universe stuff here, and you are not going to
be alone in reading it because a lot of folks
who are students of gaming have read this, and they've
read it because Matthewy was able to, for the most part,
extricate himself from all this harassment. But if you go
(51:50):
to the right forms today, you'll see people who still
believe that it's true, and a lot of folks admire this,
and rightly so, because it's a prototype. It's a predecessor
of alternate reality games a r G right, which is
everything from LARPing to stuff that skirts the line in
fact and fiction for folks, just like John Carpenters in
(52:14):
the Mouth of Madness Orong's Hat. So I just rewatched
in the Mouth of Madness. Uh so too. I think
it holds up. It's a little goofy, but it's fun.
Oh it's so fun. Really dig it. Yeah, I feel like, maybe,
well the's more spoilers. Maybe at the end they shouldn't
have shown the monsters as much. That's that's where it
(52:36):
really did. It dropped out well, especially if you're watching
a more recent scan of it where it's a little
higher death and you start to see the seems a
little bit more on those rubber costumes back in the
day when it was pure film. There's that blur that
kind of like, you know, it makes it where that
stuff gets a little bit washed over. But yeah, some
of that stuff when you watch on TV and like
(52:58):
higher death and a little bit yeah, but still a
great story and ogs Hat is a great story as well.
It is us. It is a tale of fiction, is
also a tale of metafiction, and it's a story about
a game, but on the metal level, it's a story
about a conspiracy to create a conspiracy that met with
(53:22):
massive success, and perhaps success that foreshadows danger in the future.
Like we're saying, you can read all about ogs Hat
today on your browser of choice. It is an in
depth look at how disinformation, even the wackiest kind, can
spread without being seriously questioned. And this is an important
parable for the modern day. It's only gonna become more
(53:45):
important as the years continue on. Angs had Miss a
fictional story, but it's also a real harbinger of the
so called post truth world. To be careful out there, folks.
This is not the only example of this. Obviously we're
fans of this kind of stuff, but it can be
(54:05):
like playing with live fire. If you are, you know,
you don't know who's going to read it online. You
don't know where their headspace is, you don't know what
opportunities or tools they have to question things. So yeah,
I would not be surprised if there are many if
there are many more examples of something like this to come.
(54:28):
We want to know what you think. What are some
of your examples. What was your experience with angs Hat?
Did you hear about it back in the day. Did
you know people who fully believed it was true? And
if so, what do they think now. Can't wait to
hear from you. Let us know. We try to be
easy to find online. It's right. You can find us
on Facebook or we have a Facebook group. Here's where
(54:49):
it gets crazy. You can find us on YouTube. Man,
you can find us on Twitter. Uh see where that
company's future's head. That's worth an episode, huh Man, That
Elon musks or knows how to troll and flex on
like every pump but it's yeah, exactly pumping dump for sure.
But for now, Twitter is as you expect it, and
(55:10):
you can find us there and those other places out
of the handle conspiracy Stuff on Instagram, we are at
Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you don't like social media instead,
why not give us a call. Our number is one
eight three three st d w y t K. When
you call in, give yourself a cool nickname. Let us
know if we can use that name, your voice, and
your message on the air. Then you'll have three minutes
(55:32):
say whatever you'd like. We can't wait to hear your stories,
ideas for new episodes, comments on the previous episodes. We
want everything. Call us. Let us know what you think
and how you feel. Uh, and how your cats doing?
How's your cat? You can't do all right? Why not
literally everywhere? That's true? Oh oh, I'm sorry. Yes, And
(55:57):
if you don't want to use your phone for whatever reason,
why not instead to send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff
(56:26):
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 called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Maybe today we start with a question,
what is here? Where are we? Where are you? Are
(00:48):
we in the same universe? Are we in an alternate one?
Are we creations of fact? Are we creations of fiction?
And what are we in turn creating? What's the line
between fact and fiction? And what happens when a game
gets out of hands? A long time listeners, fellow conspiracy realists,
you know that your three faithful correspondents here are all
(01:09):
big fans of games. We're all, I think it's safe
to say, fans of things that other people might consider weird.
You know, whether we're talking about modern folklore, whether we're
talking about what was that episode we did a long
time not too long ago, um about the alternate reality
game in California, Remember You'd slide down. Yeah, it was
(01:33):
like a weird kind of psychedelic techie scavenger hunt. There
was like a pinball machine or something that opened up
or like they were old weird video games with like
you know, um at what do they call those old
like tube TV kind of things, like a Commodore sixty four. No,
I know what it was. It was an arcade cabinet.
It would be like this hidden arcade you'd find and
then you play the game and it would be this
(01:53):
like rabbit thing that would come up and give you
clues as to how to find the secret mystical room. Amazing.
We also looked at the company that created it and
found all the other r g s they had created
in the past and rather super cool concept the company
came up with and had writers who created it and
people who created the machines and created the clues. Uh
(02:18):
So it's very neat that a group of people can
get together and make something like that. The June Institute
that was that was one of these uh yeah, And
we we want to thank again the creators of some
of those a r g s for taking the time
to write to the show and give us an insider
look at this. We we were able to explore those
(02:39):
this way because those games had ended, so we weren't
violating what the world of wrestling would call cafeve But uh,
we're going deeper into something like this. We're exploring the
strange agglomeration of fact and fiction and the at times
(03:01):
dangerous story of something called Ang's Hat. If you're a
longtime denizen of the Internet, or you hang out in uh,
you hang out in underground bookstores known for their zines,
then you may already be aware of this. But here
are the facts. First things. First, we have to tell
(03:23):
you Ang's Hat is not right now, It's not a
hat that's circulating around right. Uh. It is instead the
name of a former town out in Burlington County, New Jersey,
Pine Barren Country. It's a ghost town nowadays. Supposedly it's
(03:46):
a it's a small ghost town. Right. There's so many
things that Angs Hat could be or may like may
have been. Theoretically, it's a ghost town out there in
the pine barrens. Yeah, yeah, shout out already to Sopranos
and the X Files. Uh, you know what, it's a
(04:06):
good point right now, if you look at if you
look at maps as recently as two thousand and six
or so, you'll see remnants of human construction ruins, you know,
brick foundations and old sheds, sometimes described as a hut.
But calling it a town on our part is pretty generous.
(04:30):
The history of this place, according to the official records
in this universe, uh, it dates back to well before
the Revolutionary War. It has also become home to one
of the very first conspiracy theories grown on the internet. Uh.
And there's something I think we should have some historical
(04:52):
context again from our universe. We'll call it universe A.
How did it get this weird name, Ang's Hat? We
were just talking about this in the previous episode. I
don't know about you, guys, but I love ridiculous town names.
I love. I love like being on a road trip
and running into some place called give Up. You know.
(05:15):
It's also Weed, California, which is that? Yeah? And Ang's
Hat is part of a long tradition of weird names
for small towns in in these United States and in
Canada as well. But there's a bit of folklore about
the etymology of this town's name, and just there there
(05:36):
are many different versions of this. They're like four primary versions. Uh,
there's one kind of myth busting version will give you
towards the end of this. But let's let's talk about
the fun one. Let's think about the Jacob Ang. What's
his deal? Ah? Well, well, while it wasn't invented, he
was a guy who would have consumed a lot of
(05:58):
cavasier that a sense. Yeah, he's the ladies the ladies man. Sorry,
that's that just dates me. Wow, I'm uh making SNL
jokes about the ladies man. Okay, um, but yeah, well
far you all right? This guy, this guy, um, he
enjoyed women, and he also enjoyed his hats, specifically a
(06:22):
silken hat, very very nice hat. And the way the
story goes, at least the one that I've heard, is
that he was in a bit of an argument, let's say,
with one of the people with whom he was keeping company,
and he threw his hat, landed on a tree and
it became Ang's hat. At least that's what i've heard, Ben,
(06:42):
what have you heard? Well, that's there are a couple
of similar versions, right, there's another version. Let's go with
the hat throwing. There's another version that he was out,
you know, wooing the fairer sex as as they would
say back in that day. And he had some haters. Man,
he had envious suitors who had lost the game of love,
(07:04):
and he one of these guys, one of these haters
grabbed Ang's hat and it was like you stink your rake,
and he stomped on it and he ruined it, grinding
it into the mud of the pine barrens. And then
Ang saw that his hat was ruined, and so he
frisbeed it up high in the air fiddle d D,
(07:28):
you can't stop me. And and in this story speaks
in rhyme, I guess and uh. It latches onto a
very high branch of a pine tree. You know, they're everywhere.
It's the pine barrens, and no one could reach it,
and there it stayed for years and years and years,
and it became because it was such a distinct hat,
(07:49):
it became a landmark there in the woods for people,
and they would just start referring to that area as
Ang's hat. This may not be true. There are other versions,
like you know, the one you mentioned that he threw
it while he was courting right, and there was no
envious lover involved. Then there's the idea that he had
a tavern and he put a little shingle out that
(08:11):
had a hat on it, and then the town became
named after the tavern. But we're telling you this historical
context to let you know, Ang's hat is perfect casting
for a conspiracy theory location for a setting, because it
already has always been associated with uncertain narratives and unreliable narrators. Later,
(08:36):
in fact, in the New York I think in the
sixties a descendant of the Ang family. Ang was a
kind of common name in New Jersey at this time,
apparently uh in there. But in the nineties sixties, Fast
awarded a descendant of the Ang family rights to the
New York Times and says, look, these legends are fun,
(08:58):
but that's because their legends. He says, Really, what happened
is my family was evolved in the grain trade, and
we were transporting grain, and then the trip was long
enough that we needed a midpoint or away station arresting place,
and so we built this hut so we could crash
(09:19):
with the grain and make the trip in a reasonable
amount of time. And it was and he said, this
was originally just called Ang's Hut, and for some reason,
over the Great Game of Telephone, it got corrupted into
Ang's Hat. That's an understandable thing, and that person seems
to have some credibility because they might have access to
(09:40):
oral oral memories or oral retellings that non family members
wouldn't have. But that's the point. People have been saying
conflicting things about this for a very very very long time.
And if you're familiar with deep Internet lore, I don't
want to date anybody, but if you're familiar with the
(10:02):
days when not everyone was on the Internet, you may
have heard of Ang's Hat in a very different context.
It's a story of mad science, alternate universes, and conspiracy. Yeah,
there's anybody out there. Remember b B B B s is.
Those were fun sort of use net early news groups
(10:24):
and Internet bulletin boards and all of that. It was
like pre aim. This is pre this was like Prodigy.
This is earlier than that. Now, this is back when
I think it was using that situation. The first tale
of this conspiracy emerged on one of those Internet bulletin
board systems. And also there were you know, zines which
were kind of like d I Y publications that folks
(10:45):
would print and distribute photocopy, and that was the way
a lot of people got there, like music, new music, news, um,
any niche kind of interest you would probably be on
a bulletin board or if you didn't have the Internet
or live some more rural these means you could like
mail order them and stuff. It was important. So according
to this tale, Songs had only appeared to be a
(11:06):
ghost town. UM in n there was a guy named
Wally Ford who bought over two acres of land uh
in this area and built an ashram um that became
quietly popular among those who kind of knew that world,
you know, particularly Princeton physicists who are looking for safe,
secret places to conduct experiments UM that wouldn't be allowed
(11:32):
and say, you know, they're the halls of knowledge with
the oversight of the brass and things like that, you know,
with prying eyes looking in on their um their work. UM.
So we're talking here about quantum physics, specifically things like
chaos theory, UM, multiverse type stuff, interdimensional travel. Yeah, and
and we we have to point out this what we're
(11:54):
saying here, all this stuff about a person named Wally Ford,
the human being Wally four this may or may not
be fictional. This is part of the story of Ang's Hat, right,
So the human being named Wally Ford who bought acres
of land and built an ashram may or may not
(12:15):
be real. Yeah, we'll we'll address that first, right, But
that's a great point right now. Right now, folks, consider
yourself sitting around with your pals, your old drugs around
the camp fire, and we're just strangers sharing a story
with each other. So yes, Once upon a time, these
(12:37):
Princeton scientists found an intersection, possibly very ancient intersection between
what modern humans recognize as science and what modern humans
recognize as spirituality, as ancient wisdom, and they wanted to
unlock the powers of the human mind. Just like various
(13:00):
other conspiratorial groups of mad scientists in the world of fiction.
They thought, we can blend these ancient learnings from the
Ashram and it's it's leaders. We can blend these with
bleeding edge science with our theories that would get us
blacklisted from the Ivy League, and we can using these
(13:23):
two sources of knowledge, train human minds too, eventually not
just access alternate realities, but to manipulate the nature of
reality itself and you'll see why this is so interesting
at the end of today's show, at least in this universe.
So right, we've got this set up. They continue and
(13:46):
sometime in the late nineteen eighties they built something. They
called it the egg. If you are a fan of fiction, Uh, well,
if you're a fan of like the uh I cake
experiments that have been conducted by various entities, or you
enjoy fiction like Stranger Things, which is a love letter
(14:07):
to a lot of these sorts of stories, then you'll
be familiar with the idea of a sensory deprivation chamber.
Sensory deprivation chambers are super cool. I'm a fan of them,
or pal Robert Lamb from Stuff to Bow your Mind
also a big fan. Uh. They their egg was special.
Their egg would help them originally determine the exact moment
(14:29):
when a wave becomes a particle. And you know, that's
something that physics has been wrestling with for quite a
long time, right, and it's neat, Right, that's cool, that's neat.
Why wouldn't Princeton let you do that? You know, at
their spot it seems like that would be amazing science anyway,
(14:51):
So they thought this was neat. They're doing this bleeding
edge science and one day during testing, egg disappears for
seven minutes with someone inside. Now what happens during those
seven minutes in the lab lost the history in this universe.
(15:15):
I gotta stop saying that, but has lost history in
this universe. Luckily, the agg reappears seven minutes pass comes back.
The test subject is in there and he's got a
whale of a tail because he says he saw something,
and we'll tell you what he saw. Right after a
word from our sponsor. He says, I went to another dimension.
(15:45):
He's freaked out for seven minutes. According to this anonymous
test subject, he was in a world that appeared just
like Earth from Universe A. He claimed it was except
for what important difference. It was void as far as
he could tell of human life, any signs of humanity.
(16:07):
And the scientists were gased. This was a huge breakthrough,
so they started experimenting, or they continued experimenting in secret,
seeing what they could move through this gateway that they
had created. Slashed found and according to this story, we're
just giving the high level parts here. But according to
(16:27):
the story, they through no real fault of their own,
ran into trouble with Uncle Sam. There was a nuclear
instant nearby, and so they all seeing I've the government
was applying closer scrutiny to this area, and they started
to notice there were strange things going on in this
(16:48):
little ghost town Ang's Hat. So the heat was catching
up with them. They could feel it around the corner.
They said, we can't give up our research. It's too important.
But we can't stay here. We've got to relocate. We've
got to find somewhere else to go. And eventually, perhaps
out of desperation, they turned to the Earth in Universe
(17:10):
B and peace by peace, the story goes, they slowly
moved the entirety, not just of their lab, but of
the Ashram into this alternate Earth. Eventually they were gone entirely,
leaving uh nothing but that humble little hut slash Shed
(17:32):
the gateway between worlds. And if you catch them, if
you happen to be in the area at the right time,
maybe when the stars are right for the Lovecraft fans
out there, you might see them traveling back to good
old Universe A. They only come when they need to
restock supplies, lab equipment, case and dias shoe feet, you know,
(17:57):
dipping sauces. Dipping sauces. Yeah, stiffeat. I love that universe
b does not have hobb and arrow avocado ranch. Guys,
someone's gonna make the trip. Yeah, it does feel weird
that you would move your scientific operation to a place
that doesn't have resources at all. I mean it would,
(18:19):
it would have endless resources if you could build the
things to collect those resources. You're right, you can't build.
You can't build much computer equipment in the universe with
no humans, right, Yeah, No, that's absolutely true. And that's
one of the reasons why time travel questions so often
(18:40):
have bad answers. You know, like if you travel if
you traveled back in time too a d even when
there was a ton of technology around you, you be
surprised how useless you would be in a lot of
respects most people, you know what I mean. Um, but
(19:00):
you would still have some superpowers, you'd be immune to
a lot of stuff. It's just it's something to think about,
and you make a really good point because it would
be starting from scratch. This story is bonkers, it's exciting,
it's cinematic. I'd love to see it depicted on stage
on screen, Um, any size screen, really and this is
(19:23):
a conspiracy theory. It has all the ingredients of a
kick ass camp fire tail. It reads like an episode
of Fringe or Black Mirror or the Twilight Zone. But
is it real? Some people would respond by saying, what
do you mean by real? Here's where it gets crazy.
(19:43):
Oh yeah, first off, all right, just universe a brass
tacks here. This is absolutely not real. This is so
absolutely not real that we It's been proven, proven, proven
multiple times. It's not real. It is uh is the
creation of several people. I would say it's it's present
(20:06):
form is mainly the creation of a writer, Uh, a
punk guy who loves computers, trans media artist named Joseph Matheny.
He he loved culture, jamming, who's growing up. He loved
the kind of contrarian intellectualism of things like the Church
(20:26):
of SubGenius, which we're fans of. Yeah, and I guess
we can we do a quick description of Church of
SubGenius just for any uninitiated. Yeah, it's sort of like
a joke religion, a joke cult, but also to be
taken pretty seriously depending on who you are. Um, It's
deity or overlord is j R. Bob Dobbs, who is
(20:49):
basically like a piece of clip art from the fifties
that's like a kind of a you know what, like
a how a husband kind of with a pipe, sort
of like a every man kind of like you know,
work a day Joe in the fifties, you know, the
American Dream kind of scenario. And they believed in some occurrence,
some sort of apocalyptic slash rapture event called X Day
(21:13):
when the some manner of aliens or some manner of
extraterrestrial beings are gonna swoop down and you know, bring
all the sub genius up to where wherever with them,
and they celebrated every year. But the joke is that
Bob dobbs um got the date wrong, you know, one
of those things, and then then he keeps promising that
will happen in a different year, and then that keeps
(21:34):
getting extended. But it's all very tongue in cheek. And
then they believe in a concept of life called slack,
which is how they live their lives. Uh, sort of
a do what thou wilt kind of Church of Satan vibe,
but a little more wacky and nudist and weed smoking
and you know, Devo listening. That's a lot of kind
of weird and hipster, hippie burning man type folks. I
(21:56):
hope I did an okay job there. Yeah, I agree.
Uh that and he also Mathany that is was also
into the philosophy of Discordianism. Uh. These these are both
subgenious and Discordianism both mixed true and fictional events or
beliefs to create alternative histories and aggressive reframings of current reality.
(22:24):
I guess perspective shifting, paradigm shifting culture jamming. Uh. We
were talking about Discordianism earlier off air in a way
because we were talking about the Illuminatus trilogy. If you're
a fan of that book, then you know that a
great deal of it is concerned with Discordianism. They're practitioners
(22:45):
of discordian magic, chaos magic, whatever you want to call it.
Joseph Mathani loved this stuff. He loved this stuff. He
hung out with intellectual sets of people who had the
same somewhat esoteric interest any of them from uh different
eras of time. There were some older people, there was
(23:06):
some younger people. They had any number of other unrelated
interests there or scientists will meet one in a second.
There were writers, there were artists, you name it. There's
just people who like to have really interesting thought experiments.
If you're listening to this show, and if you've listened
to us for a while, then it's safe to say
they're the kind of people you would probably like to
(23:27):
hang out with. They're fun to talk to. Their minds
go weird places, and Ang's Hat became an example of this.
The first iteration of this story was something It was
not even really a short story. It's presented as a brochure,
(23:47):
a nonfiction work called the Institute of Chaos Studies. And
you would have first seen it in a magazine called
Edge Detector in nineteen eight, which I just realized now
is supposed to be an edgy name. I didn't realize
it was a pun. It's like right on the Edge Detector,
(24:09):
like an edge lord. He detects the edge and then
he kind of edges up against the edge, but he
never really quite exceeds it. I can see how that
title pulled people in, right, the concept of pushing everything
out until you reach the edge, find where that edge is,
just find it so we know. Yeah, And originally when
(24:29):
this is published in this magazine, it is attributed to
a guy named Peter Lamborne Wilson, who also goes by
the pseudonym Hakim bay Uh. He is his own episode,
is far from a perfect person. He's actually intensely problematic
in some ways. But when he talks about this originally,
(24:51):
he says, look, I didn't write this. I found this.
I'm just passing it along, and that it's an important
part to building a mythos. You know, the original author
should be anonymous, or they should be driven mad, or
they should be dead. You know that they need to
(25:14):
somehow be distant, right, And that's why that's why so
many works of profits throughout time have been you know,
when when they're in the written word, you'll usually see
the prophet saying, I'm not making this up. I have
received this from somewhere else. You establish a chain of
(25:35):
metaphysical custody. It's quite clever and it works very well.
So later, by the way, we turn out that Wilson
would say that he wrote the original story. All right,
So where does Joseph Mathan he come in? Well, as
we said, he liked to hang out with a crowd
interested in esoteric things. He knows Peter Lamborn and Wilson
(25:55):
and they are friends with a guy named Nick Herbert
Nick has the same interests. He's also a smashing conversationalist.
They have a great time together. But Nick Nick is
also a scientist, a credible scientist, uh, and he is
known in his scientific field. He is the one who says,
(26:18):
let's add some you know what I mean, Let's let's
add some modern science to the myth. Let's let's make
this science fiction and fantasy. And then you know, Peter
and Joseph, we can only assume are like, heck, yeah, man,
hold my discordian beer. Let's get cracking in. They started
(26:40):
reproducing this edge detector article, and they literally zero Ston.
They just made physical copies, and they started pamphlet bombing
places where they thought interested folks would find it. So,
you know, imagine you're walking into your local coffee shop
and maybe it's just maybe it's just on the physical
(27:01):
bulletin board, the predecessor the Internet bullets board. And so
you see like lost Dog, you know, fencing classes, learn
judo or whatever, and then a concert is coming up
devo why not? And and then there's a there's a
catalog or there's a little pamphlet that says Institute for
(27:21):
Chaos Studies. What are they selling? They don't look like
they're selling anything. So you read it or you find
it at a concert venue, anywhere they thought a curious
person might run into this. Matthanie loved the idea of
popularizing this, of propagating it, and he thought of it.
As he described this an interview with Gizmoto, he said,
(27:44):
it was you get the sense, he thought, was all
in good fun. Right, we're cultured and we're doing pranks.
Doesn't love a good print? Think about it at this point.
There's no tie to revenue, personal revenue for anybody who's
distributing this thing. You're not making a way. They're losing
money by printing this thing and taking a place as
they're losing their time. Like it's it the goal here
(28:08):
you can tell and it must be it's not making money.
It is or you know, trying to profit in some way.
It's that thing that you just said, Ben, propagating this
concept for fun zies, slash o chaos. It's not about
the money. It's about sending a message, right, so so yeah,
(28:30):
they he called it a quote mind expanding in joke
for goth kids, stoner gamers, and sci fi loving computer
nerds who like talking about physics and telling spooky stories.
I feel attacked. I'm kidding a little bit. But they
(28:50):
they started also expanding this through the postal system. You know. UM.
It reminds me a little bit of the Crying of
a Lot forty line by Pension. Methany and Herbert and
Wilson were mailing this thing to people and you could
find you can find it mentioned in other catalogs or
(29:13):
distro list like if you were reading, for instance, um
publications from UFO interest groups. In the back of those
you would see like other stuff you could request through
the mail if you were interested, and you would see
something like this Institute for Chaos Studies. And then they
started producing their own thing, the Inconnabula catalog. Mathanie says,
(29:38):
he and Nick, the scientists started really going really going
nuts with us. They were going hard on the paint
with the idea at this point. So he took this
one piece of fiction and he grew it into this
entire alternate world online. It expanded in a crowdsourced way
(29:59):
similar to SCP and our friend of the show, Matt Riddle,
if you're listening, thank you again. For introducing me to
that time vampire. I enjoyed it, but I have lost
I've lost so much time in there. So you go
to that rabbit hole if you've got a several hours.
But anyway, so this is kind of like how the
(30:21):
Lovecraft methos expands, you know what I mean? At this
point in time, the majority of stories and the Lovecraft methos,
if you count everybody after old HP Sauce himself, there
are more authors in the Lovecraft methos who are not
Lovecraft than the guy himself. That's that's amazing crowdsourcing to
(30:45):
the what's the quality of the stories? They vary, but
there are some real amazing ones, um and anyway, it's it's.
A more recent example would be House of Leaves, the
collaborative novel that was originally written online, and itself is
also a very weird read. Isn't that the one with
like the swirly text and like the weird marginal things
(31:06):
and easter eggs abound that kind of do yeah, exactly
by primarily by Dan mark Z Daniel les Luski. I think, uh, anyway,
that's a great read too, But no, at this point
it starts becoming a thing where you're not quite sure
who is writing this, who is actually creating this, You're
(31:31):
not quite sure where the first story comes from, and
you're starting to wonder who added what has this been edited?
Some of this appears to be true. You say there
is a place called longs Hat. What else is true? Right?
And not everyone swallowed the tail hook line and sinker,
(31:54):
of course. But the thing is a lot of people
read about this, or some literate are associated with it,
or they saw a comment about it, and they started thinking,
what if, you know, the government of the United States
and Princeton had gotten up to some weird stuff before. Well, yeah,
(32:16):
you know, we talked about nuclear contamination or some kind
of nuclear accident that occurred near where Ang's Hat was located.
As that's that was part of the lore, right, and
it was revealed later on. There's a New York Times
article you can read about this that there was nuclear
material or radioactive material that was released and kind of
(32:36):
covered up and made hush hush for quite a while.
That seemed to line up with the timeline here when
they were doing stuff in the sixties. You can search
for old missile site at McGuire is still tainted Keene
says on The New York Times, it's a story from
nine five, and it's just weird how stuff like that
(32:57):
seems to match up with the tape. Right, It's like
finding the actual real world things that match up with
the air or g elements and there, you know, around
that time. It's very well, it's weird to think, but
Project Stargate is actually happening within the CIA, right, I mean,
(33:18):
their actual government experiments with remote viewing and stuff happening
around this time. And some of a lot of that
stuff is rumor, but it's not. Uh, it's not well
known by people in the United States, but it's stuff
that's written written about in these kind of magazines and
pamphlets that are going around. So you can totally see
how this tale seems to match up with real world stuff,
(33:39):
including the government's shenanigans. Absolutely. Oh, and I want to
make a quick clarification here. I believe the brochure that
was that ended up circulating, the one that became really popular,
was eventually called Ang's Hat, the beginning the Inconnabula papers,
Angs Hat and other gate Ways to New Dimensions. You
(34:01):
can find it on archive dot org. It's a first
person investigation is how how the tail begins. But you
you're absolutely right because along with those true things that
are happening that seemed to fit the universe a timeline,
there are also lots of references to books that don't exist, right,
(34:23):
books that if you searched for them, you you wouldn't
be able to find them, at least pre Amazon, because
there's a thing that happens on Amazon now where someone
will create something that purports to be one of those
books from fiction that doesn't exist, and you can you
can buy them if you want, right, but they're usually
(34:45):
just terrible cut and paste jobs. I haven't read every
one of them, but you have to watch out. So anyway,
at this point you can say that a book exists,
and short of going to the Library of Congress, it
will be kind of difficult for most people to prove
that it doesn't exist. They don't have the access to information.
(35:05):
There's no Wikipedia, bibliography or no easily searchable online database.
This is, in short, beat me here, Paul. It's a
mind of an extravagant and extreme degree. It's similar to
the initial reaction to the Blair Witch Project. And when
(35:28):
this came out, we were all film goers. I think
it's safe to say, guys, we all knew or knew
of some people who initially thought the Blair Witch Project
was a real deal documentary. Do you guys remember that.
I think I went in thinking that I saw in
the theater and it was packed. That was such a
hot movie. I mean, yeah, you're ready kicked off this
(35:49):
like dream genre for Hollywood. As the movies caused Pennies
to make, and if you market them right, they do
incredibly well. Clover Fields and that one wasn't pennies because
it had like big v fects budget, But that was
another one that had some pretty cool viral marketing behind.
I think we've talked about a few times with all
the like adjacent like slurpeas and stuff and like all
the Easter eggs and the thing falling out of this guy.
(36:10):
I really quite like that movie a lot. Um But
the point here Blair Witch, the like you said, the marketing,
I told you it was real. It was found footage, right,
This is actually found footage from something that went wrong.
Come in and watch what went wrong. You get to
watch it with your own eyes like that. I mean,
(36:30):
it was brilliant. Uh, it kind of stinks because weirdly enough,
blair Witch is probably one of the small handful of
things that started making us question reality, including the matrix. Uh,
you know, like things that made in popular culture it
was cool to question your own reality. Um, and we're
(36:51):
seeing you know, going back to the eighties now, late eighties,
early nineties, when questioning your reality and like um, multidimensions,
multi verse, all of that stuff. It's just it was
on this track that was building and building and building
and building. I love that you put blair Witch in
there as an example, Ben, because I feel like that's
another one of these milestones that leads us down this
path of uncertainty. There is no spoon, but there is
(37:15):
an ollngs Hat. It's in It's in New Jersey again,
but the well, there's an ogs Hat Road. I didn't
see ONGs Hat. I saw ONGs Hat Road. Longs Hat
Road has well longs Hat would have been visible in
maps around two thousand six, probably the last time you
see because now it's just ruined. But allings Hat Road.
(37:37):
I think the name changed at some point. Okay, if
we can see I looked up on Google you can
find ONGs Hat Road, So I guess that the name
of that one changed. That one's near south Southampton Township,
kind of between Southampton and Pemberton Township. Uh. And the
place where I said the nuclear you know, materials and leak,
(37:58):
that's in Jackson Township. If you're looking in New Jersey,
just if you're looking at your map, yeah, or if
you're in the area, you want to drive by Young's
Hat Road, which, as will come to find, people have
done without a sense of satire, with their tongues firmly,
not in their cheeks. They have done this. So the
this is weird because people are believing this, they don't
(38:20):
necessarily have all the tools to question it. And Mathony
is having a fantastic time with this. He is building
out lore left and right. He assumes the personna of
this investigator, and this investigator is just a guy just
(38:43):
in every man audience perspective, right, that is in that
is diving into the story of Ang's Hat, and he
he publishes new milestones and his investgation like chapters in
a book. And these new revelations always lead to more
(39:07):
details twist in the story, different rabbit holes, different little
pieces of string to follow along from point A to
point Z. And this continues. People are people are enamored
of this there they're in and they want to know
(39:27):
more about interdimensional travel. Right there are people who are
talking about how they're worried about this investigators safety, you
know what I mean. Maybe he's trying to find things
that don't want to be found. And that's still not
the end of the story, because we're going to get
to a strange and dangerous meta game twist. After a
(39:51):
word from our sponsor, all right, we're back, and now
we're gonna talk about what happens when enough people start
believing in your story that you know isn't real, but
you're having a whole lot of fun making it. The
weapons When enough people think, oh, yeah, I'm gonna go
(40:14):
to there, I'm gonna find that, I'm going to learn
these secrets. I'm going to get the truth out of
people who worked on this or know about this. Dontentent
Ton tent on, dontent don Yes, yes, Q Hall of
the Mountain King. Things start to get out of hand.
The law is expanding in depth and reach. The scope
(40:36):
is as Homer Simpson would say in beginning, and more
and more people like you said, Matt, begin to actually
believe the story, they struggle and in several cases fail
to separate fact from fiction. Eventually, this leads Mathani to
pull the plug. Now, look the whole time, in his defense,
(40:58):
and this this is true, this is universe a true
the whole time in his defense. If you did some
digging into the story, you would recognize in jokes, you
would recognize little narrative loop de loops, things like that.
This guy, what we're saying is this guy was having
what was sometimes described as a collective legend trip. You know,
(41:22):
let's let's tell a story together, let's play a game
hashtag no saw and this idea from his perspective, I
just want to be clear, he wasn't doing anything sinister.
He wasn't out to make a ton of money, He
wasn't trying to change people's behavior in a dangerous way.
(41:42):
He wasn't trying to start a call to none of
those things that people do when they attempt to manipulate folks.
He wasn't even really trying to manipulate folks. And you
can see him in interviews over the course of this
expansion where he's like, Yeah, this is fun. We're doing
this because it's fun. I love discordionism. I did chaos magic,
(42:03):
you know, or chaos theory, I think you would have said,
And so people are refusing to believe him. Eventually, this does,
as we said, lead him to pull the plug, and
he goes in another interview and he says, look again,
for anybody who somehow hasn't heard me say this before,
(42:23):
this is a game. The purpose is to have fun.
There is no universe. B that's basically what what he's
what he's telling people. And there's no real egg, no
alternate earth. Just guys, learn about postmodernism. He's saying, that's
that's what we're doing. We're playing in surrealist game. And
(42:46):
but it was too late. It was too late. The
lid of Pandora's jar had been unscrewed. And folks said,
but well, from their perspective, it's also understandable if they
thought there was a conspiracy of what they believe this story.
They said, someone got to you, man, you're either a
(43:06):
patsy or you're the victim of a cover up. Tell
us what's really going on. Blink three times, exactly, that's
exactly event. Somebody's making you say that. Somebody's making you
say that, right, he was tapping. He was he was
tapping on the table I heard during the interview. I
think it's Morse code, you know what I mean? Like
(43:30):
the agents of order, the agents of order, right, because
that's the like part of the whole backstory is that
there are those who want full order, that is the
way to control the universe, that is the way things
should be, and others want chaos, which is much much
more freeing. Uh. And if the people want order get
(43:51):
to you, then you have to say what they want
you to say. Uh, dude, this it's just so interesting
how that could function. Guys. I think this would work
with any cult where the founder of the cult comes
forward towards the end of their life and says, none
of this is real. I think the cult would still
sustain itself in the belief that it is real and
(44:12):
for some reason, the leader had to say that, or
chose to say that for some reason, but the core
values of that cult remain. I think. I think that's
just my theory. I believe that because it makes sense
from what we understand about human psychology and their cognitive capabilities.
People love a good sunk cost fallacy. Your brain is
(44:34):
wired to feel good if it feels like it's always
been right about stuff, and your brain is wired to
react with hostility to the idea of being wrong, even
when you intellectually know you are wrong, you know if
you have been and and the rules of this, the
(44:54):
constraints the parameters are so arbitrary, like, uh, it's as
simple as let's say, laws of ethics for human experimentation
don't apply. You do whatever you want. You know. What
I mean is the wild West again. You let's say
you take some kids and you raise one of them
(45:14):
the experiment group. You raise one group just to just
to know, for various reasons, that blue is the best color.
There's a hierarchy of colors. We haven't we're not explaining
any of the other ones. Were just there's a very
particular shade of blue that is the best color. Everything
in your young life is associated with that. And then
(45:35):
we just let you out in the wild where you
learn that other people have other colors they like and
and you know, and then you find that the rest
of the world, the rest of the human population, says well, yeah,
you know, some people have favorite colors, some people don't
really care, some people are color blind. It doesn't matter,
like blue is no more important color than the other colors.
(46:00):
This would feel you feel blasphemous, even if you intellectually
recognize it. I positive that those victims of that incredibly
unethical experiment would still, in some part of their mind
be like, these people don't know what they're talking about.
Blue is best, Uh the crew, But like I I
(46:22):
know that's not a perfect example, but it's just to
show how arbitrary this is. And this is a real problem.
It happens in the realms of politics and policy. It happens,
you know, it's similar to a sun cost fallacy. It
happens sometimes in belief systems, like you could make. You
(46:44):
could make the argument. A lot of ex scientologists make
the argument that people stay in that organization because they'll
get blackmail on you, but also because they don't learn
about stuff all at once. You're paying every step of
the way. With Tom, I'm with yeah, with the bridge,
you're paving the bridge brick by brick with stuff that
(47:08):
you can't get back. So at the end, everybody wants
to think of themselves as a smart, rational actor, and
usually that's very true. So your brain gets in this paradox. Uh,
state where it says, wait, I'm smart, I'm rational. I
must have done this for a reason. Also, by the way,
well we're throwing out hacks. That's the reason that Ben
(47:28):
Franklin effect works because they're the one with the key
you get struck by lightning. It's the one where if
you if you want someone to have a more favorable
opinion of you, you ask them to do you a
small favor. Make sure it's small and easy to do.
The scope of the favor should be something very easy
(47:50):
to say yes to, because for most human beings, what
will happen is they will retro actively rationalize why they
helped you. They'll rationalize the reason and they'll say, I
helped because I am a good person, but I also
have good taste, so you must be kind of a
good person too, because I don't help bad people. It's
(48:13):
not And don't ask for anything crazy like don't say
you listen to stuff they don't want you to know.
And now you're gonna go ask a stranger for their
car or their children or something. Asked to borrow a pet,
you know what I mean? Stuff like that, or like
if you must like a large scale thing would be
like a ride to her from the airport. That kind
(48:34):
of thing. That's a big ask man. That is a
big as It depends on where you live. If you
live in New York, that's like a huge favor. I
think a ride to the airport is less of an
ask than getting picked up from the airport, because there's
a lot of uncertainty and getting picked up from the airport,
you know, you gotta wait in the cell phone lot
or just circle indefinitely. Who knows how long it takes
(48:54):
to be playing these days. It all just depends on
what time it is, Also true, anybody really know what
time it is? I don't know. That's an oldest. I
can tell you what time it is for today. It's
I think it's about time to wrap this episode. Were close? Yeah,
So this goes into I wanted to mention something else here.
(49:14):
So not only do people refuse to believe him, but
they begin harassing them. Not a lot of not everybody,
but some people begin harassing him phone calls, letters, doxing.
Folks are showing up to his house saying, I know what,
I know what really happened about the cover up? Teach
me the secrets of interdimensional travel. There's another analog to
(49:36):
this a predecessor in the world of fiction. It's a
book called Foco's Pendulum and Faco's Pendulum spoiler alert here
be spoilers three to one spoils. So he the author
of Foco's Pendulum, Berto Echo, tells a story about these
(49:56):
very high minded literary nerds who be in making their
own conspiracy, and they know they're making it up. It's
it's a thought experiment for them. But things get out
of hand and folks start accepting this and behaving as
though the conspiracy is real. And then if people are
behaving as though a belief is real and it is factual,
(50:22):
then it gets a little closer to the truth, doesn't it.
Because their actions, however motivated, are still indeed real actions,
right They weren't imagining themselves showing up at this this
poor guy's house anyway. Well, I was just gonna send
people over to gizmoto right now. You can read an
article titled OG's Hat colin the early Internet conspiracy game
(50:45):
that Got Too Real. It's written by Jed album O E.
L B A U M. And in this you actually
see an interview with this person who created ogs Hat
or it was part of the he was the person
who popularized it. It's his last exactly, It's allegedly his
last interview because he's so tired of talking about the
(51:06):
dang thing and he doesn't want anybody showing up at
his house anymore. At the time, he said it was
his last interview. That's why you put it. Yeah, yeah,
and that's that's the article. Um we're mentioning at the tops,
So thank you for for saying that. That's probably the
best one stop shop to look at analysis of AG's
hat outside of the game. But again, you can read,
(51:29):
you can read the majority of this stuff, like the
in universe stuff here, and you are not going to
be alone in reading it because a lot of folks
who are students of gaming have read this, and they've
read it because Matthewy was able to, for the most part,
extricate himself from all this harassment. But if you go
(51:50):
to the right forms today, you'll see people who still
believe that it's true, and a lot of folks admire this,
and rightly so, because it's a prototype. It's a predecessor
of alternate reality games a r G right, which is
everything from LARPing to stuff that skirts the line in
fact and fiction for folks, just like John Carpenters in
(52:14):
the Mouth of Madness Orong's Hat. So I just rewatched
in the Mouth of Madness. Uh so too. I think
it holds up. It's a little goofy, but it's fun.
Oh it's so fun. Really dig it. Yeah, I feel like, maybe,
well the's more spoilers. Maybe at the end they shouldn't
have shown the monsters as much. That's that's where it
(52:36):
really did. It dropped out well, especially if you're watching
a more recent scan of it where it's a little
higher death and you start to see the seems a
little bit more on those rubber costumes back in the
day when it was pure film. There's that blur that
kind of like, you know, it makes it where that
stuff gets a little bit washed over. But yeah, some
of that stuff when you watch on TV and like
(52:58):
higher death and a little bit yeah, but still a
great story and ogs Hat is a great story as well.
It is us. It is a tale of fiction, is
also a tale of metafiction, and it's a story about
a game, but on the metal level, it's a story
about a conspiracy to create a conspiracy that met with
(53:22):
massive success, and perhaps success that foreshadows danger in the future.
Like we're saying, you can read all about ogs Hat
today on your browser of choice. It is an in
depth look at how disinformation, even the wackiest kind, can
spread without being seriously questioned. And this is an important
parable for the modern day. It's only gonna become more
(53:45):
important as the years continue on. Angs had Miss a
fictional story, but it's also a real harbinger of the
so called post truth world. To be careful out there, folks.
This is not the only example of this. Obviously we're
fans of this kind of stuff, but it can be
(54:05):
like playing with live fire. If you are, you know,
you don't know who's going to read it online. You
don't know where their headspace is, you don't know what
opportunities or tools they have to question things. So yeah,
I would not be surprised if there are many if
there are many more examples of something like this to come.
(54:28):
We want to know what you think. What are some
of your examples. What was your experience with angs Hat?
Did you hear about it back in the day. Did
you know people who fully believed it was true? And
if so, what do they think now. Can't wait to
hear from you. Let us know. We try to be
easy to find online. It's right. You can find us
on Facebook or we have a Facebook group. Here's where
(54:49):
it gets crazy. You can find us on YouTube. Man,
you can find us on Twitter. Uh see where that
company's future's head. That's worth an episode, huh Man, That
Elon musks or knows how to troll and flex on
like every pump but it's yeah, exactly pumping dump for sure.
But for now, Twitter is as you expect it, and
(55:10):
you can find us there and those other places out
of the handle conspiracy Stuff on Instagram, we are at
Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you don't like social media instead,
why not give us a call. Our number is one
eight three three st d w y t K. When
you call in, give yourself a cool nickname. Let us
know if we can use that name, your voice, and
your message on the air. Then you'll have three minutes
(55:32):
say whatever you'd like. We can't wait to hear your stories,
ideas for new episodes, comments on the previous episodes. We
want everything. Call us. Let us know what you think
and how you feel. Uh, and how your cats doing?
How's your cat? You can't do all right? Why not
literally everywhere? That's true? Oh oh, I'm sorry. Yes, And
(55:57):
if you don't want to use your phone for whatever reason,
why not instead to send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff
(56:26):
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.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.