May 26, 2017 • 59 mins
Since the 1980s, Russian and US sources have repeatedly claimed that various groups of terrorists are dangerously close to acquiring a mysterious substance known as 'red mercury.' But what exactly is this stuff -- and why can't anyone agree about its chemical makeup, uses, or effects? Tune in and learn why there might be more to the story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Welcome
(00:26):
back to the show, Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Matt,
my name is Ben. You are you that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. Our compatriot Knoll
is away from the moment, but never fear he will return.
And meanwhile, we are joined by our super producer, Tristan
big Red McNeil, Big Red McNeil. That's right, he's hanging out.
(00:49):
Oh he gave us an approving nod. He did. Oh
he's he's your tepid about it? Okay, all right, it's
like a sideways thumb Little Red. Maybe. I don't think
anybody wants to be called little Red, little though little Yeah?
What about young Red? Yeah? Yep, that's it. That's the one. Uh. Well,
(01:10):
this nickname that we are assigning is not just out
of the blue or out of the red, as you
would say. In this case, it pertains to this episode
in in a weird, foreshadowy way. So, Matt, you drive, right,
I do all the time, drive most most days. Yeah,
(01:33):
almost every single day and you are driving on inner
States probably yep, those are the one the long roads
that connect the states and drive through the states. Yes, ye, yeah.
If you've ever been on the road like Matt and
I and Tristan I assume, and Noel, then you've seen
(01:54):
trucks or other vehicles hauling has matt or hazardous materials.
These could anything from toxic chemicals used in manufacturing two
explosives are just really messed up waste. In most countries,
the transport and storage of this stuff is extensively regulated
because you know that it is dangerous. It most certainly is.
(02:17):
And in the United States, for example, the FEDS, the government,
the old Big g it divides these hazardous materials into
several different categories nine to be exact. You'll find explosives, gases,
flammable and combustible liquids. Those are all kind of lumped
together there. You've got flammable solids. Now this includes things
(02:41):
that would say dangerous when wet, so something like you've
got sodium and solid form. You don't want to get
that stuff wet and spontaneously combustible. It might just happen. Yeah,
that's the most terrifying of all of them. I think
I'm just driving my truck and it it did its thing.
You've got oxidizers and organic paroxyids poison, that's the toxic
(03:02):
sign that you've seen. The old is that the skull
and crossbones one. Yeah, old school, and then also inhalation
hazard poison, which is again as as you said, Matt,
it's kind of pushed together into a you know, this
category is like a duplex. And then of course you
get into the weirder stuff radioactive materials, corrosive materials, and
(03:26):
the category that sounds like it was totally four or
forty seven on a Friday when they were finishing the
list miscellaneous generally dangerous, which that could be so many
different things. But all of the materials that are grouped
in these nine categories are essential to the functioning of
(03:48):
society and industry. It's not just a bunch of people
with a weird hobby, you know, Holland sodium through the
desert or something. It's not that mad, Max. Yeah, all
those middle schools science teachers really need that sodium to
to throw it into a puddle at school one day,
so you gotta get it to him. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Think of the children. So there's a organization here in
(04:15):
the States. And if you live somewhere else, somewhere that
is not the US, your country probably has an organization
like this too. In the US, this stuff is regulated
by UH and a group with the incredibly sexy name
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or FILMSKA or FILMSKA,
(04:35):
and uh, yeah, I think no would appreciate that. And
weird story. When I was checking out some of the
material on their site and doing some research into hazardous materials,
let's see why very soon, ladies and gentlemen, I was
baffled and a little disturbed that the thing was like
(04:59):
riddled with typos. Yeah, two major ones specifically that I
didn't even notice when I looked at it. Ben had
to go a note, look at that word again, Ill,
that's the thing, man, because it is a federal level website.
So I assumed that there were closely related words that
I was not aware of, you know, like the you know,
(05:22):
like how absorb and adsorb are two different things. I
thought maybe combustible was was a word combustible. See, they're
just discussing the different ways you can transport it. Yeah,
there we go convenable, combustible comes to danable, it's a
(05:42):
danable comes Adanable comes a Danable. That's a weird one.
But the point is, uh, let's just let's just imagine.
Let's assume, in the most optimistic way possible, that they
have some typos there because their folk gissing on keeping
(06:02):
things from blowing up on America's roadway safety first spelling right, Yes,
And whenever you're driving, you've probably seen it has MATT sign.
You can easily go to these websites and they will
show you the classification. It's very it's got a very
Ikea approach. You know, they're they're heavier on symbols than
(06:24):
they are on letters. But there is another class of
hazardous material. It's one most members of the public will
hopefully never encounter firsthand. These are weaponized hazardous substances. These
are substances that just don't don't just like hurt you
as a byproduct of what they're supposed to do in manufacturing.
(06:46):
They were created specifically two kill you and everything you
love if you disagree with the people in charge. Yeah,
or at least the people that have their hands on
this stuff. And uh, thankfully this many of these things
we're gonna go through here aren't going to be just
shipped down five you know, hopefully hopefully. Perhaps we don't
(07:10):
know the ins and outs of you know, whatever black
budget group is doing this, but let's get into these.
So there's VX. This is an odorless, tasteless nerve agent
that in its pure form appears this weird brownish, oily liquid.
It was developed in the UK, the United Kingdom in
the early nineteen fifties. And this stuff is particularly potent
(07:32):
because it's a persistent agent. Yeah, what what does that mean? Exactly? Well, okay,
so once it gets released out into the atmosphere, it
takes longer than a lot of these other substances to evaporate.
So if you've just got regular weather conditions and you're outside,
it will persist for days on top of surfaces wherever
(07:53):
it just happens to land, and it can even last
for months if you're in the right cold conditions. This
stuff is very, very dangerous, and you've probably heard about
it before. It is a it is a weapon of war,
and that is its only purpose. Then there are things
like Sarah, also known as g B. It's it's volatile.
(08:14):
It's also a nerve agent, and it's highly toxic, sue toxic.
In fact, that a single drop the size of a
of a head of a pen p I n lest
my accent betrayed me. Just that drop is enough to
kill a human being like that, an adult human being.
It's colorless, it's odorless, and that's when it's at room temperature.
(08:38):
Apply a little heat, it evaporates rapidly and it will
spread into the environment. The good news is it's a
short lived threat. You may recognize this from some recent
news reports. In two thousand thirteen, the United Nations confirmed
that a chemical weapons attack involving saren Uh spread via
(08:59):
specially designed brockets, took place in the suburbs of the
Syrian capital. This was called the most significant confirmed use
of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them
in Halabja in Yeah by Bonky Moon, Right, Bonky Moon
you in Secretary General. Yeah. And I was wondering then,
(09:23):
because you know, we have to take a skeptical look
at a lot of these stories that come out when
there's a suspected attack. Sure, I wonder if our listeners
like believe that that is truly what happened. It's interesting.
You know, there is a there is a wealth of
contradictory reporting from all sides in the Middle East, and
(09:48):
maybe that's an entire episode to itself, I think so. Uh.
And then of course there's mustard gas. This is also
known as sulfur mustard, and it gets its name from
this smell that it emits. It's like it's like rotten mustard,
kind of like mixed with garlic. It's I don't know.
You don't want to smell it, all right, and you
(10:08):
definitely don't want to smell it. You don't tell me.
Let me live my truth, bro. Yeah, my truth does
not hopefully involve inhaling sulfur mustard because it's pretty nasty, right, Yeah,
it's it's in this group of agents called blister agents
or vessicants, and they target the eyes, respiratory tract, skin,
(10:33):
And it starts off as just this irritant, right, and
your your body cells, your skin particularly, gets a little red,
but then it starts to poison your cells. When skin
is exposed to it, like I said, it turns red
and then it burns for a little while. Then these
large blisters appear and it causes some serious scarring and
(10:54):
the pain has been described as unbelievable. Um, your eyes
will swell up, tier you might even go blind if
you are exposed to mustard gas. And it is more
well known than another chemical agent. One of the most
(11:15):
dangerous chemical weapons in existence now. And this, of course
is just counting the public stuff we know about. There's
pretty compelling evidence that during the Cold War both the
US and Russia conducted some very very unethical, highly illegal
experiments in weaponizing different agents. And are you familiar with
(11:39):
that show the Americans? Right right, So there a lot
of the twist and turns and that show are inspired
by Cold War era espionage. It's a it's a show.
It's a fictional show about a fan emly of deep
(12:00):
cover Russian operatives living in the United States. Highly recommended. Yeah, yeah,
it's on f X if you're interested. And no one's
making us say that we genuinely like spy shows. What
are we talking about? What is one of the most
dangerous existing chemical weapons that we know of. It's foes gene.
It was first used in combination with chlorine gas in
(12:23):
nineteen fifteen. This is old stuff too, This is an
old evil and Germany dropped eighty eight tons of it
on British troops, causing hundreds of deaths. Really nasty stuff
during World War One. In fact, it accounted just this
substance loan for eight of all chemical fatalities jeeze. And
(12:44):
we know that there was a lot of mustard gas
and other things that, yeah, like that at the quotamest poem, right,
and there of course other things. We're barely scratching the
poisonous surface of chemical weaponry. They're also syani. It's but
when we come to weaponized or dangerous substances, there is
(13:07):
one substance that are a type of substance that is
by far much much more dangerous. So VX can persist
in a place, right, saren can spread rapidly rice and
plays a big role in uh imprecations. Yeah, yeah, polonium, right,
(13:28):
which is the Russia's version of I want you to
know who through this stone. But the most important kind,
at least for the survival of humanity, would be radiological
and nuclear threats. And this is stuff like dirty bombs,
improvised nuclear devices that phrases terrifying. Yeah, right, It's not
(13:50):
like an improv show at Second City. It's it's not
a yes and bomb. Yeah, well yeah, you just throw
that that N word in there, and even something that's
as scary as an revised device or an i e. D.
Throw that inward in and good god. But wait, there's more.
Since the late nineteen eighties, intelligence agencies and criminal organizations
(14:12):
alike around the world have been chasing after another type
of dangerous substance, a mysterious material thought to have terrifying
potential for destruction exceeding the capacity of almost every other
sort of nuclear material available, something known as red mercury.
(14:32):
See that's where we got to the name again. Yeah,
we're we're there now, We're we finally got there. We're
christening super producer Tristan with an awful weapon of potential
mass destruction. That's kind of cool though, it's cool. It
makes an impression in the room, you know, when you
walk in. But first things first, First questions first, what
(14:56):
is this stuff? Originally, when it was first reported by
the US and Soviet sources, the West called this substance
read because it came from Russia. Everybody in the listening
is just going, yep, that's like the laziest propaganda. Allegedly,
it came from Russia. It's very important to say, because
(15:16):
later reports suddenly claimed the material was called red mercury
because it had a red tent, a reddish tinge. And
as we'll see later in the episode here, that's where
the problems begin. Reports of red mercury's composition vary widely. Yeah,
and you can see that if you just start taking
(15:37):
a look at the reporting that's been done on this substance.
So if we go back to and look at the
new scientists or new scientists, excuse me, there's no the alright.
They have an article called Cherry Red and very Dangerous,
and it says that new information was leaked from South Africa, Russia,
(15:58):
and the United States and it has convinced leading nuclear
scientists that this stuff red mercury, the potential risks of
it should now be taken seriously. The scientists, by the way,
we're talking about, are not just some guys. We're talking
about Sam Cohen, he was nuclear physicist who invented the
neutron bomb, and also Frank Barnaby, who was the former
(16:20):
director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. And it
says that these guys specifically were worried that red mercury
could make it much easier for nations or terrorist groups
to construct small but deadly thermonuclear fusion weapons. That's that
sounds pretty terrifying when you read it in something as
(16:41):
reputable as New Scientists. And there's a quote here from
Sam Cohen who says, I don't want to sound melodramatic,
but red mercury is real and it is terrifying. I
think that it is part of a terrorist weapon that
could potentially spell the end of organized society. Done. WHOA.
(17:01):
And he's not saying it, of course, he literally says
he's not trying to be melodramatic. Uh. Frank Barnaby's group
talked to four anonymous scientists in Russia and said they
provided detailed information about red mercury, and at the time
again this he concluded that it is a polymer with
(17:23):
a gel like consistency in which mercury and antimony have
been bound together after a radiation for up to twenty
days in a nuclear reactor, and his belief again at
the time, was that this substance could yield enough chemical
energy when compressed to fuse tridium atoms and produce a
thermo nuclear explosion. Yeah, and and in this article, what
(17:45):
these guys were calling for, like the reason why they're
bringing all this stuff out into the public sphere is
because they were trying to get tridium, uh to be
like to put more controls over the production and trade
in tridium, which they think, you know, if you have
this other substance, red mercury, and try to um put
him together and you make this device right. And there
(18:09):
are other stories too that you have possibly seen in
headlines over the years, and we'll just we'll we'll list
a couple, but there's one that I'd like to explore
in a little more detail because it's the one that
inspired us to follow up on this. In the BBC
two thousand and four, terrorists were arrested because they were
(18:31):
trying to buy red mercury. Yeah, alleged terrorists. So there
was this newspaper reporter who apparently like did one of
those meetings. He was posing as somebody that he wasn't
and tried to get them or interest them in purchasing
this red mercury that he had. And anyway, these guys
went to trial and it took a long time. I
(18:52):
think in two thousand six is when it was finally
over because all of these dudes got cleared because this
upstance that he had wasn't red mercury. He didn't have
anything of the sort. The newspaper, the journalist and these guys,
I don't know, how do you. It's that whole entrapment
thing that happened, And they were saying that they were
(19:15):
trying to turn the reporter in that they didn't know
as a reporter for trying to sell them really dangerous materials.
You know. That kind of reminds me of the FBI
attempts a few years back to infiltrate mosque and try
to make the people at the mosque like radicalize them. Yeah,
(19:35):
and then they end up calling the cops, calling the
Feds on the Feds. So there was another story, a
local story two thousand seventeen, just a few months ago
here in Atlanta, where our podcast is based, streets downtown
closed because of March. There were reports that a man
(19:59):
had brought red mercury from Africa and he was walking
into the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So people are freaking out,
you know, I mean, many people have never heard of this.
You might think, Okay, mercury, what is that that's a planet.
That's a thing that goes in thermometers, you know what
(20:20):
I mean. There are probably a few people who honestly thought,
and I'm not making fun of anyone, this would like
this would seem plausible to me who honestly thought, I
thought Mars was the red one, you know what I mean.
So we have a quote here from Atlanta Police officer
Stephanie Brown who said, we received a call regarding a
mail coming into the facility carrying red mercury from Africa.
(20:43):
We're still gathering details on the call. And in that article,
red mercury is described as a substance used to create
nuclear bombs. Homeland security was called hazmat team, bomb squad,
fire trucks, who knows, man veterinarians, maybe an airplane pilot,
(21:04):
like every authority you can imagine, like a really old
angry librarian. Everybody showed up. Yeah, and major parts of
Atlanta were shut down, parts of some of the big
streets in downtown Atlanta. And then the next day turned
out that there were no arrest made. Nope, nobody was arrested.
(21:24):
What the guy had was quote not red mercury. Um uh,
they you know, it was a claim that somebody made
I guess and according to this article, you know, they
go on to talk about red mercury what it might
be um and they said it says US Homeland Security
(21:45):
agents responded, which is, you know, that's a big time
had you have all the people that have been talked
about came through. I made the angry librarian up. I
don't know if she was actually there. And and then
after all of this, no arrests, and the police would
not say what substance was actually found. There's just definitely
not this red mercury stuffy or is this one of
(22:09):
those nothing to see here folks? Right, that's a good question. Uh,
And just to shall we say in biggen the sphere
here a bit, let's let's look at red mercury reports.
In other parts of the world, it's a big deal. So,
for instance, in two thousand and nine, this was one
of the more interesting stories we dug up about this.
(22:29):
In Saudi Arabia. Singer sewing machines pretty popular. Everybody's got
it so right, everybody's got wear clothes. Um. In two
thousand and nine, a rumor spread that these sewing machines,
not all of them, but some of them contained red mercury,
and it caused the prices to massively increase. And here
(22:54):
here the too odd things. First, people who believe the
rumor were convinced that you could techt red mercury, that
it was in small amounts in the needles of some
sewing machines. In the way that you would detect it
is you would have cellular phone and you would put
the phone while you're on a call near the needle,
(23:15):
and if the line cut off when I got near
the needle, you knew that red mercury was present. Weird science, right,
if it's true. Second thing, nobody agreed. Nobody agreed on
what this what this looked like, if it was really read,
what it could be used for. But they came up
with some ideas. Uh. They had said, perhaps it was
(23:38):
an essential component of nuclear power, perhaps had the ability
to extract gold, what or the ability to summon gin
oh like genies jin And so this potentially could be
either giving you lots of power from a military perspective
or from a wish is aunting perspective, from a magical
(24:02):
or occult perspective. And for anybody who's interested in learning
more about Jin, I do want to refer you to
our earlier episode. If you have not checked it out,
you can find it on our website deep Breath stuff
they don't want you to know dot com. And also
watch American Gods because there is a jin in the
episode that went out last actually form of gin. Yeah. Okay,
(24:29):
I think I believe I've got my hierarchy correct. There's
also that's an awesome book before we move on. Book
is great. The show is turning out much better than
I expected. That's cool, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna check
it out. Here's here's the thing, though, The official spokesperson
for police forces in Saudi Arabia said that these rumors
(24:51):
have been started by gangs who are trying to swindle
people out of their money because they had a bunch
of singer. That's a weird one to uh, that's that's
a weird one to go to jail for. Yeah, it
really is. You know, do you remember that phase this
was off air when I was trying to figure out
(25:11):
like the most insignificant or petty crimes and the one
I don't know if this is a crap, Please tell
me if this is a real thing, folks, I haven't
looked into it. Yet stamp fraud, you know, like making
fake postage stamps. Apparently that was the thing back in
the day. It just seems weird, like what's your profit margin? Yeah,
(25:33):
what do you tell people you got locked up for?
Ward when you get caught? You know, I think that
is all about bulk, Like how many can you sell?
I made a million thirty seven cents at a time
because that ink isn't cheap, No, and then you've got
adhesives you gotta get I guess some special scissors to
get that pattern. Perforated lines, perforated lines. I don't know.
(25:56):
Stamp fraud, it's not a time you wanna you wanna
get locked up for And it does sound like this
was the sowing machine thing was here and gone hysteria
or fad, you know, sort of like tulips with the
Dutch or dangerous version of Beanie Babies or something like that.
(26:18):
But because of these real life reports, these real life
events in what over the past thirty almost forty years,
Red Mercury has earned a place in pop culture. That's right.
There were video games made about this, well, one in particular,
the Weekend Point To called Shadow Ops colon Red Mercury.
(26:40):
This is a two dozen four first person shooter for
Xbox and Windows, and it's one of those you know,
pretty standard wartime FPS is where you're a Delta Force
operative attempting to recover what a briefcase nuclear bomb, so
essentially uh an improvised nuclear device. And it was code
(27:00):
named Red Mercury. And to note here this is two
thousand four when it came out, but it's from a
terrorist mercenary who's operating out of Syria. Interesting out of
Sirius Syria pops up again. And then there's a movie
from two thousand five that has to do it's called
Red Mercury and it has to do with people trying
to chase down sources of the substance. Ah man, have
(27:24):
you checked it out? I have not seen that one.
I'll check it out. I couldn't find it in any
of my standard places, Sutton Criterion Collection or making like that.
So what's what's interesting about these pop culture references is
they show how the rumors of this substance spread from
the realm of journalism into the world of fiction. And
(27:45):
that happens on a fairly routine basis. But what if
Red Mercury is different, and we'll get into that right
after a quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it
(28:07):
gets crazy. No one knows, no one agrees or what
exactly this stuff is, Matt. There is no indication that
red mercury is even a mercury compound. However, there are
some forms of mercury that fit a little bit of
the purported criteria. Right. There's a red form of mercury
(28:33):
that's very toxic, but it's not explosive. There's a red
colored or of mercury, mercuric sulfide cinabar, which is toxic
but not explosive. There's mercury fulminate, which is shocked sensitive
and explosive, and it's been used in some ammunition cartridges. Uh.
And there are a couple of other things. There was
(28:54):
one there was one substance, dimethyl mercury that was considered
briefly as a rocket fuel in the nineteen fifties, but
chemical companies who supplied test materials were not messing around
with it. So none of the mercury compounds, none, all
caps in O any have that have some sort of
(29:16):
partial red mercury property can be the actual red mercury,
and that hasn't stopped people from having theories and and
uh describing it. So we can tell you a little
bit about what the Soviets thought it was used for. Yeah. Back,
according to quote Soviet sources, this red mercury had a
(29:39):
street name called mercuric stypik heptoxid, which is a fun
thing to say. This stuff is super conductive and allegedly
it's used to produce high precision conventional and nuclear bomb explosives.
It could also make stealth surfaces, which is you know
(29:59):
that kind of cool, uh, and also to make self
guided warheads. And let's let's just reiterate that conventional and
nuclear bombs, stealth surfaces, self guided warhead. Man, that's a
lot of things that this stuff can do. Those are
also three very different things, right, And the properties that
(30:24):
read mercury is typically assigned are some of the most
common parts of the description of this substance. It's what
is called ballow technic, which is just that, you know,
a fancy way of saying it produces immense pressure when ignited. However,
when combined with other claims about red mercury's capabilities, it
(30:45):
sounds more and more like a work of science fiction.
With an emphasis on fiction too good to be true. Right, So,
in addition to releasing massive pressure, this stuff is also
strongly insensitive to shock or fire. That strongly resistant is
a better way to say it. So, you know, you
could substitute red and stimpy, you could substitute you could
(31:08):
take the log song and the syllables don't work out.
But if you put red mercury in there, you know,
you can do all that stuff with red mercury and
it still wouldn't explode. But despite this durability, it apparently
has a very fast ignition rate that seems contradictory. It
does doesn't end again, extremely high energy density. It's very
(31:31):
difficult to identify a class of substances that has all
of these qualities. Sort of a silver bullet Holy Grail situation.
And that we should say that that none of us
on this team are chemist by trade, and we're neither physicists. Yeah,
we might be physicist by hobby, but wait, are you
(31:52):
a physicist? I mean, I'm interested in it. I'll read
a book about physics. I definitely um deal with physics
on a second delie basis. I mean, I'm not, you know,
planning to hunt black holes anytime soon. You know, I
(32:12):
don't get in internet arguments with Stephen Hawkins yet, and
he's probably brutal. I don't know he'll let you have it. Yeah,
but you know, I think he's got a good heart. Absolutely,
he's he's got a good heart. There. Here's something else.
Remember we mentioned the nuclear physicist speaking of physicist Frank
Barnaby earlier. Uh. He worked at the Atomic Weapons Establishment
(32:36):
in the nineteen fifties, and he claims that there are
evidence the show VICH turned out vast quantities of mercury
antimony oxided, the intermediate and equally elusive compound from which
red mercury is supposedly produced by placing it inside a
nuclear reactor. There's no doubt they made a large amount
(32:57):
of that stuff. I've talked to chemists who have eliged
the niche to Germany. But what they get with it?
He says, he's a mystery. Oh I like this guy.
Let's bring him back for some things. So what are
people saying about this stuff? Man? So some people think
that the intermediate compound, the one that Frank there is
(33:19):
kind of discussing, could actually multiply the yield of an explosion.
So if you if you take this and use it
inside a conventional let's say a nuclear warhead or rocket
or something, it would work as a fuel additive, which
you know, that's interesting that that you could use that,
(33:40):
I guess for that purpose, just to just to increase
the yield. I guess that's the idea, you make it stronger.
And others say, the compound was I radiated at the
core of a nuclear reactor to produce pure red mercury,
and this stuff would be capable of exploding with enough
heat and pressure to act as a trigger inside a
brief case sized fusion bomb. So your red mercury in
(34:03):
this case would just be the thing that makes the
reaction occur, right right, the instigator in the crowd of
nuclear reactions. There are massive problems with this stuff though, Yeah,
all right, First the story changes. Often reports a red
mercury don't seem to be consistent and in any substantive
(34:25):
way other than this stuff is powerful bad guys wanted.
According to experts like Barnaby, even if the substance was discovered,
it wouldn't be that useful. And according to experts like Barnaby,
the guy we keep talking about, even if this stuff
was real, it really wouldn't be that useful. And we
have another quote for terrorists, it would offer no significant
(34:48):
advantages over an ordinary high explosive or if they wanted
a dirty bomb a radioactive source to go to. The
trouble of spending huge amounts of money on red mercury
makes no sense at all, makes no sense at all.
I couldn't agree with Barnaby more if he's right. If
he's right, and according to official sources, nobody has actually
(35:13):
real facts obtained this substance. So could this be a
cover up? If so, what kind is it? One of
those things where one or two, maybe even five governments
officially know that this stuff exists and what it can do.
They have the documentation, they know how to make it,
but they want to suppress that knowledge. I mean, I
(35:35):
could see that as being a possibility. Here's another odd
fact that a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Authority
said red mercury doesn't exist. The whole thing is a
bunch of malarkey. Oh wow, so he's saying it's a
lepre con is that slaying? Is that? You know? I mean,
(35:56):
I'm just the malarkey took me to lepric, I'm not. Yeah, okay,
I don't know, man, you're hipper than I am. So
I don't know. If like LEPrecon was like the new
thing you say, now it can be do you and
your friends when you hang out at the are you
are like, what up LEPrecon? Yeah, it's more like an
exclamation if something is tremendously cool and if green is
(36:17):
involved whatsoever? Oh okay, okay, like, man, that is so
leprechn You know, I don't want to steal your your bit.
I'm gonna try it, maybe see what works out, and
if it if it goes well, I'll tell people that,
you know, I'll credit you. And it goes poorly, I'll
take the fall. I like it better than some of
(36:38):
the current new slang words, like what combustible? Yeah, combustible, man, combustible.
But yeah, but that's the thing. Oh fleek, Oh fleek.
You don't care for fleek. I can't fleek, man. I
just don't like the way it rolls off the tongue.
(36:59):
It's a little bit smoother than LEPrecon. I'm just saying
that as your friends. Well, that's why I like Leprichn
because it takes a little more effort. Uh, and you
know there's a there's a guy with gold. But just
like red mercury, is the effort worth it Also also,
unless we get too far off the rails, I don't
(37:19):
want to bury the lead here. An official spokesperson for
the International Atomic Energy Authority said, this stuff doesn't exist.
It never existed. What we'll be back afterward from a
responsible and we're back. So what we're left with here, people,
(37:49):
there are two roads that we can go down. Red
mercury is either a long running propaganda sting operation on
behalf of intelligence agencies, or it's this ancient relic of
the Cold War when tensions were so high and rumors
were everywhere. Yeah, that's the thing. We do have a
couple of different paths. So let's look at the idea
(38:10):
that this whole thing was a shaggy dog story that
for decades, not just the US, not just Russia, but
multiple other countries including South Africa, made up a boogeyman
to catch terrorists or criminal organizations or likely each other.
(38:31):
We have, you know, we have some indications experts who
searched for real red mercury, like Peter Zimmerman, found the
story quickly deteriorated and that uh, everything about his search
led him to conclude this was a disinformation campaign of
phony news articles planned decades ago by the KGB and
(38:54):
then by its successor, the FSB. And there are other
variants in the story, including one where Washington and Moscow
worked together, you know, circulating these stories to flush out
nuclear smugglers. And the thing with that is this idea
of these two ostensibly enemy governments cooperating this way is
(39:20):
really popular with a lot of soldiers and officers and
bomb disposal and counter WMD weapons mass destruction jobs. But
Zimmerman felt like he couldn't prove it. He felt like
he could definitely prove whatever this stuff is it's not real,
or it's a fishing expedition as a way to draw
(39:43):
people to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is incredibly clever.
You gotta you gotta admire the art in some things,
even if you don't agree with the idea, just because
these rumors have been so persistent throughout the years, and
it's still this that we can have a story in
where people, somebody somewhere in authority said, oh, Red Mercury, okay,
(40:07):
shut that thing down, shut it all down. It could
also be UM. Here's here's a different idea, maybe a
middle ground force here. It could also be a code
name for some other type of nuclear industry related material, right.
It could have been a Soviet code name for something else,
like lithium six, which was a controlled material that was
(40:29):
actually used in nuclear weapons. And maybe traffickers repurposed the
label for whatever irradiated crap they were trying to sell
to UH unsuspecting terrorists, because if you read the accounts
of people, even isis the terrorist organization. If you read
the accounts of people trying to purchase this stuff, the
(40:51):
way that it's explained to them when they finally find
it and buy it at enormously expensive isis by the way.
One one great example would be UH when it was
described as a small box that had to be carried
in a special container and had to be opened in
(41:12):
a special way with a special device. These are sold separately,
I assume UM and could never be opened because when
it did, everything would blow up in like a multikilometer radius.
Hold on, I thought this thing was super stable. Well
that's what you know. You gotta have the device sold separately.
(41:34):
But that's that's also that snacks of classic of a
classic con job, because yeah, if you can't look at
the merchandise, but you're going to hand some money over
or something arrested? What's that old? What's that old? Saying
a pig in a poke? Is that just something they
say in Tennessee. I don't like that, never mind. It's like,
don't don't buy a pig in a bag unless you
(41:56):
look in the bag. It's you're given a poke first, like,
make sure it's squeals, you know, I gotta check. I
gotta check before we sign off on that as official
stuff that I'll want you to know. Pig buying advice
sounds good. Sounds If you happen to run into somebody
who has a burlap sack and they tell you there's
(42:17):
a pig in there and they'll sell it to you,
just I mean, what are you doing anyway? Don't engage
with that person. Yeah, just leave it alone, man. Pig
bag man is going to be fine. You can leave
can leave him to his own devices, as long as
they are not nuclear. And now we get to the
scariest possibility of all ladies and gentlemen, Red Mercury, What
(42:38):
if this thing is real? But somehow it's been continually
over the decades suppressed. Right, this is I'm gonna go
ahead and say this is the most disturbing as as
you said earlier, but it's it's also, thankfully one would hope,
the least plausible. But think about it's been in all
(43:00):
these news stories over and over in the decades. It's
never been verified. When law enforcement is attempted to acquire
this stuff, it has in every single case you can find,
turned out to be something else according to the story. Yeah,
these are not the nuclear devices you're looking for. It's
(43:23):
we're both doing that Star Wars droid wave. I feel
like we need to explain that. You know the what
we're talking about late, it's the force. You're using the
force to coerce somebody. You see the force. Yeah, and
it's Uh. It turns out that most experts believe red
Mercury is about as real as the Force. So, regardless
(43:46):
of how you feel about Star Wars, regardless of what
conclusions you draw about red Mercury, regardless whether it is
in fact real or if it is in fact an
elaborate sting operation that people are still falling for, one
chilling fact remains people are dying as a result, actual
(44:08):
people are actually dying because one rumor that's spread. We
talked about the one in Saudi Arabia, kind of funny
sewing machine tycoons, right, love it, love it. But in
Afghanistan it was a little different because rumors spread that
land mines contained red mercury, and numerous people died going
(44:33):
up to these live minds and attempting to dismantle them
and extract the stuff that they thought was in there.
When dismantling a live mind is as you may assume
a job for the experts, which, yeah, but isn't it
(44:53):
Isn't it weird? Because I had no idea that this existed.
This is such a strange thing to do. I am persuaded.
I'm like, sure this does not exist, and full of
you know what, iffory, Yeah, exactly, that's I I hate
(45:14):
to agree completely with you on this, just because I
want to offer a different opinion. But everything that I've
seen in the research that we've done for this leads
me to believe that it's not real. But it's hard
for me to wrap my head around it lasting this long,
a rumor persisting this long, and then what if Yeah, like,
(45:36):
what for lack of a better phrase, fueled this rumor
for so long, Right, what if there is some sort
of powerful substance capable of jump starting a fusion reaction,
and it's so dangerous that when people discovered it, they
(45:58):
including including Dr Cohen, when they discovered it, they said, Okay,
everybody needs to shut it down. We know that we like,
we know we don't get along all the time, but
we'd like we look forward to not getting along for
a long long time. And if anybody has this, it's
(46:19):
the end. Imagine the implications if one of these small
nuclear devices goes off in a city anywhere in the world,
and the reaction of other countries, right with all who
also have nuclear devices, who are going to be trying
to point the finger, and there's that it's only a
few what is it, a few seconds when some of
(46:42):
the nuclear systems in the world, some of the dead
hand stuff, when some of that can be triggered. Ah, yeah,
the dead hands system is very very dangerous thing. Uh. Well,
you know that's and that was a Soviet thing and
it's I'm assuming still a Russian. Uh. And then the
United States, who knows what kind of systems that we
(47:04):
have with all the all the minutemen that exist around, uh,
around the globe. Now, the spooky thing about the way
the US handles it's nuclear arsenal is that a large
percentage of it is continually traveling around the globe. Yeah,
(47:24):
which is spooky stuff, spooky, frightening, semi apocalyptic stuff. And
it doesn't even matter at that point who set off
a bomb, you know, right, because in in the early
part of it, at least whatever reaction occurs is going
to be before you can you know, confirm who it is.
(47:45):
And a lot of our listeners who have lived through
the Cold War time period, you know, you've probably seen
those accounts that came out years later of how close
the entire species got to just call in it one
long night, And we'd like to hear what you think
(48:07):
about red mercury? Has this ever popped up in your
in your leck of the woods? Has anybody ever been
on the news for attempting to smuggle red mercuries? You
might try to sell you some, Yeah, And did have
you seen any other pop references to this? I couldn't
recall if in Call of Duty or any of these
other games that I've played it, like showed its face somewhere.
(48:28):
I can't I couldn't remember. I just you know, I
I'm baffled still because neither explanation is particularly iron clad,
you know what I mean. It sounds crazy to say
that there's some real substance that is enormously powerful that
has just been continually popping up in the news and
(48:51):
then being removed. But it also sounds crazy for to
be this elaborate. Like we've said it before on the
show Rube goldberg S hoax. It's like that game mouse trap,
you know what I mean. You could just arrest people,
but maybe it's I'm still divided, man, because maybe it's
safer to have a thing that you know is an
(49:12):
inert substance, right, You can just get something that has
a red pigment to it, and then it seems like
that's obviously red mercury. So like maybe these intelligence agencies
just took a page from shady drug dealers. Do people
(49:33):
do that? People are out there selling paprika as red mercury?
I don't know, because no one knows what it looks like.
But yeah, we want to we want to hear from you.
We want to hear which of these sides you tend
to fall on. And if you think this is nicely
an incident, you know this kind of subterfuge, or if
(49:57):
there are other examples and speaking emails from you, it's
time for chat at Corners. Our first message comes from
Andrew Allenson. He says, I'm writing to let you guys
know how influential you've been to me and my team
for the past two years. I'm not asking you to
plug my project or anything like that. I just wanted
(50:19):
to let you know that it exists and to give
you a little backstory. Now we're gonna say the name
of the game. We are not outright plugging Allen's game.
We are telling you about his game. Is that clear, Allen?
So you don't feel weird. This is We're going to continue.
I'm working on a game called Why two k Now?
(50:41):
That is Why one one K Dash, a postmodern RPG.
It's about a bunch of conspiracy theorists in the ninet
nineties searching for a woman who mysteriously vanished in an
elevator that sounds familiar, Ben mh. The game revolves around
a primitive, early nine nineties occult mess sage board that's
(51:01):
kind of cool and the various threads lead to different
quests in the game. I've been a fan of reading
about weird things happening since I was a child, and
came across your podcast and YouTube channel when I was
looking for some ideas to fill out the various threads
in the game's forum. Your podcasts and reactions to conspiracies
were invaluable to getting into the minds of the forum
users and making the world feel real. So I just
(51:22):
wanted to say thank you for what you're doing and
keep up the good work. Well that is supremely cool. Alan. Uh.
You know that Ben and I are both gamers as
well as Noel. Noel talks about that a lot, and
Uh knowing that somehow what we've done has worked its
way into a virtual world makes me personally tremendously happy.
(51:44):
So let us know how the game goes. We'd love
to hear an update, yes please. Our next one comes
from our next shout out rather comes from Crystal K,
who says Plumb Island is an animal disease research facility,
at least according to Silence of the Lambs. This would
certainly account for any perceived air of secrecy about the
place Also, Clarisse was the one who suggested she could
(52:06):
arrange for lectors vacation to the island in exchange for
identifying Buffalo Bill. Thank you so much, Crystal. You know,
I'm I don't remember if we mentioned this on the air,
but do you know that Anthony Hopkins do you know
how how much he's actually in Silence of the Lambs
the original Signs of the Lambs as Hannibal Lector? Is
(52:27):
it like a percentage he's it's like fourteen minutes the
whole film. He really made an impression. Huh. I mean
those are the kind of roles you wanna live for,
you know, do a cool, creepy fourteen minute cameo. Yeah,
who happens to be a cannibal? It's like, who's the
most important character in Waiting for Good Dough? The guy
(52:48):
who doesn't show up or RoboCop or RoboCop. I'm pretty
sure RoboCop shows up in robot I was just trying
to figure out, trying to figure out who the most
important character is if not RoboCop. But listeners, you have
to help me out. I don't know. There's a French
play called tartoof and for the which I remember reading
(53:12):
years ago and for the first easily two thirds of it,
people are talking about this tartoof dude and he doesn't
show up until the end. It was, it was baffled.
He kind of lives up to the hype, but not really.
It's it was sort of the RoboCop of its time.
I get it, you know. We I don't know if
(53:34):
we can keep doing these jokes. Last one of us
goes back and watches robo cop oll No problem. I'm
not gonna take the fall. I'm gonna do it. And
if you, if you write to us, I'll confirm or
or deny whatever you say a RoboCop expert, I'll We
have time for one more shout out. Our next message
(53:55):
says I am me, you are you, and this is
an email to stuff they don't want you to know. Well,
of course I love that opening. Yeah, I love the show. Guys.
You help you help keep me sane whilst at work
with the stuff you should know boys. Oh cool, that's
a good company. Um. Now down to business. Vaping you
heard of it, Yes, we have heard of it. Vaping
(54:17):
is a smoking cessation. It's a way for smokers to
get off the cigarettes in a healthy and safe way.
In a basic form, it gives the user the sensation
of smoking, the nicotine delivery from smoking, but it leaves
out the seven thousand plus nasty chemicals and carcinogen's smoking
cigarettes delivers into your body. Vaping has turned into an international,
(54:37):
multibillion dollar industry, creating thousands of jobs and businesses. It's
created friendships and families throughout the world. Okay, yeah uh,
and above all else, it's saved hundreds of millions of lives.
But ben, here's where things get crazy. Currently, at this
moment in time, that's right, whilst you are reading this email,
(55:02):
the US government and f d A are trying to
destroy it. And I don't mean trying to get the
booming industry that is vaping under control. I mean these
guys want to wipe out the whole thing, one hundred
percent gone in the blink of an eye. They want
it gone, and they're trying anything to do it. And
they oh, man, oh my gosh. Okay, so Jack, this
(55:25):
is from Jack. By the way, do we ever say
this is from Jack? Okay, okay, Jack, thank you for writing.
And he goes on and he just he gives us
so much great information about vaping along with his fun storytelling.
But we're gonna end it right here. So why is
the US government so against vaping if it is a
(55:46):
health benefit to the millions of citizens and the billions
of people worldwide. Is it because it's dangerous and will
kill people quicker than a bullet to the head, or
would you say it's because the cigarette companies who sponsor
these state officials and senators and government organizations are losing
millions of dollars worth of revenue each week two people
(56:06):
not smoking. No, that can't be. People would think that's
some sort of crazy conspiracy. Jack, that's that is fantastic.
Thanks so much for writing in, Jack, Crystal and Andrew.
Uh that that's a good point about vapory. Yeah, yeah,
I mean there are so many conflicting studies that have
(56:28):
been coming out over the past five years. Yeah, vaping
is uh pretty interesting, you know, yeah it is. And
you I've heard a lot of people talk about how
it has helped them quit smoking or at least been
a part of quitting smoking, right right, And then, uh,
you know, a lot of the rumors about va being
the science behind them evaporates after I'm so sorry, After
(56:53):
I'm not really sorry. I'm inordinately proud of every stupid
pun I've ever made beautiful, but you a lot of
the science is still contradictory in various studies, funds of
conflicting stuff, and just like the stuff with sugar, we
have to ask ourselves who is funding whom when these
things come out? Thank you so much for writing guys. Again,
(57:15):
this concludes our gosh and this concludes our episode, but
not our show. We will be returning the very same
time next week, and time is relative. I guess whatever
you check out your the podcast that you listen to,
you will find the new episode of our show. Yeah,
(57:37):
that's correct. And next week Noel will still be on
an adventure. Adventures are great, and uh we will. We
look forward to seeing him two weeks from now and
in the meantime, if you would like to check out
some of the strange, weird, fascinating, disturbing, and occasionally humorous
stories that for one reason or another, have yet to
(57:58):
make it onto the air, you can find us on YouTube.
You can find us on Instagram. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook mostly Conspiracy Stuff, and Instagram is Conspiracy
Stuff Show. If you'd like to check out some of
the other episodes we referenced earlier in the show. You
can find not just one, not just three, but every
(58:20):
audio episode we have ever done on our website. Stuff
they don't want you to note dot com. And if
you're saying, look, I get it, but don't like social media,
you know, I like to keep things simple, cut straight
through the sound and the fury of the modern digital world,
and just go from point A to point B through
(58:41):
Yahoo or whatever you're chosen. Poison is, you're in luck.
You can email us directly. We are conspiracy at how
stuff Works dot com.
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. Welcome
(00:26):
back to the show, Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Matt,
my name is Ben. You are you that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. Our compatriot Knoll
is away from the moment, but never fear he will return.
And meanwhile, we are joined by our super producer, Tristan
big Red McNeil, Big Red McNeil. That's right, he's hanging out.
(00:49):
Oh he gave us an approving nod. He did. Oh
he's he's your tepid about it? Okay, all right, it's
like a sideways thumb Little Red. Maybe. I don't think
anybody wants to be called little Red, little though little Yeah?
What about young Red? Yeah? Yep, that's it. That's the one. Uh. Well,
(01:10):
this nickname that we are assigning is not just out
of the blue or out of the red, as you
would say. In this case, it pertains to this episode
in in a weird, foreshadowy way. So, Matt, you drive, right,
I do all the time, drive most most days. Yeah,
(01:33):
almost every single day and you are driving on inner
States probably yep, those are the one the long roads
that connect the states and drive through the states. Yes, ye, yeah.
If you've ever been on the road like Matt and
I and Tristan I assume, and Noel, then you've seen
(01:54):
trucks or other vehicles hauling has matt or hazardous materials.
These could anything from toxic chemicals used in manufacturing two
explosives are just really messed up waste. In most countries,
the transport and storage of this stuff is extensively regulated
because you know that it is dangerous. It most certainly is.
(02:17):
And in the United States, for example, the FEDS, the government,
the old Big g it divides these hazardous materials into
several different categories nine to be exact. You'll find explosives, gases,
flammable and combustible liquids. Those are all kind of lumped
together there. You've got flammable solids. Now this includes things
(02:41):
that would say dangerous when wet, so something like you've
got sodium and solid form. You don't want to get
that stuff wet and spontaneously combustible. It might just happen. Yeah,
that's the most terrifying of all of them. I think
I'm just driving my truck and it it did its thing.
You've got oxidizers and organic paroxyids poison, that's the toxic
(03:02):
sign that you've seen. The old is that the skull
and crossbones one. Yeah, old school, and then also inhalation
hazard poison, which is again as as you said, Matt,
it's kind of pushed together into a you know, this
category is like a duplex. And then of course you
get into the weirder stuff radioactive materials, corrosive materials, and
(03:26):
the category that sounds like it was totally four or
forty seven on a Friday when they were finishing the
list miscellaneous generally dangerous, which that could be so many
different things. But all of the materials that are grouped
in these nine categories are essential to the functioning of
(03:48):
society and industry. It's not just a bunch of people
with a weird hobby, you know, Holland sodium through the
desert or something. It's not that mad, Max. Yeah, all
those middle schools science teachers really need that sodium to
to throw it into a puddle at school one day,
so you gotta get it to him. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Think of the children. So there's a organization here in
(04:15):
the States. And if you live somewhere else, somewhere that
is not the US, your country probably has an organization
like this too. In the US, this stuff is regulated
by UH and a group with the incredibly sexy name
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or FILMSKA or FILMSKA,
(04:35):
and uh, yeah, I think no would appreciate that. And
weird story. When I was checking out some of the
material on their site and doing some research into hazardous materials,
let's see why very soon, ladies and gentlemen, I was
baffled and a little disturbed that the thing was like
(04:59):
riddled with typos. Yeah, two major ones specifically that I
didn't even notice when I looked at it. Ben had
to go a note, look at that word again, Ill,
that's the thing, man, because it is a federal level website.
So I assumed that there were closely related words that
I was not aware of, you know, like the you know,
(05:22):
like how absorb and adsorb are two different things. I
thought maybe combustible was was a word combustible. See, they're
just discussing the different ways you can transport it. Yeah,
there we go convenable, combustible comes to danable, it's a
(05:42):
danable comes Adanable comes a Danable. That's a weird one.
But the point is, uh, let's just let's just imagine.
Let's assume, in the most optimistic way possible, that they
have some typos there because their folk gissing on keeping
(06:02):
things from blowing up on America's roadway safety first spelling right, Yes,
And whenever you're driving, you've probably seen it has MATT sign.
You can easily go to these websites and they will
show you the classification. It's very it's got a very
Ikea approach. You know, they're they're heavier on symbols than
(06:24):
they are on letters. But there is another class of
hazardous material. It's one most members of the public will
hopefully never encounter firsthand. These are weaponized hazardous substances. These
are substances that just don't don't just like hurt you
as a byproduct of what they're supposed to do in manufacturing.
(06:46):
They were created specifically two kill you and everything you
love if you disagree with the people in charge. Yeah,
or at least the people that have their hands on
this stuff. And uh, thankfully this many of these things
we're gonna go through here aren't going to be just
shipped down five you know, hopefully hopefully. Perhaps we don't
(07:10):
know the ins and outs of you know, whatever black
budget group is doing this, but let's get into these.
So there's VX. This is an odorless, tasteless nerve agent
that in its pure form appears this weird brownish, oily liquid.
It was developed in the UK, the United Kingdom in
the early nineteen fifties. And this stuff is particularly potent
(07:32):
because it's a persistent agent. Yeah, what what does that mean? Exactly? Well, okay,
so once it gets released out into the atmosphere, it
takes longer than a lot of these other substances to evaporate.
So if you've just got regular weather conditions and you're outside,
it will persist for days on top of surfaces wherever
(07:53):
it just happens to land, and it can even last
for months if you're in the right cold conditions. This
stuff is very, very dangerous, and you've probably heard about
it before. It is a it is a weapon of war,
and that is its only purpose. Then there are things
like Sarah, also known as g B. It's it's volatile.
(08:14):
It's also a nerve agent, and it's highly toxic, sue toxic.
In fact, that a single drop the size of a
of a head of a pen p I n lest
my accent betrayed me. Just that drop is enough to
kill a human being like that, an adult human being.
It's colorless, it's odorless, and that's when it's at room temperature.
(08:38):
Apply a little heat, it evaporates rapidly and it will
spread into the environment. The good news is it's a
short lived threat. You may recognize this from some recent
news reports. In two thousand thirteen, the United Nations confirmed
that a chemical weapons attack involving saren Uh spread via
(08:59):
specially designed brockets, took place in the suburbs of the
Syrian capital. This was called the most significant confirmed use
of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them
in Halabja in Yeah by Bonky Moon, Right, Bonky Moon
you in Secretary General. Yeah. And I was wondering then,
(09:23):
because you know, we have to take a skeptical look
at a lot of these stories that come out when
there's a suspected attack. Sure, I wonder if our listeners
like believe that that is truly what happened. It's interesting.
You know, there is a there is a wealth of
contradictory reporting from all sides in the Middle East, and
(09:48):
maybe that's an entire episode to itself, I think so. Uh.
And then of course there's mustard gas. This is also
known as sulfur mustard, and it gets its name from
this smell that it emits. It's like it's like rotten mustard,
kind of like mixed with garlic. It's I don't know.
You don't want to smell it, all right, and you
(10:08):
definitely don't want to smell it. You don't tell me.
Let me live my truth, bro. Yeah, my truth does
not hopefully involve inhaling sulfur mustard because it's pretty nasty, right, Yeah,
it's it's in this group of agents called blister agents
or vessicants, and they target the eyes, respiratory tract, skin,
(10:33):
And it starts off as just this irritant, right, and
your your body cells, your skin particularly, gets a little red,
but then it starts to poison your cells. When skin
is exposed to it, like I said, it turns red
and then it burns for a little while. Then these
large blisters appear and it causes some serious scarring and
(10:54):
the pain has been described as unbelievable. Um, your eyes
will swell up, tier you might even go blind if
you are exposed to mustard gas. And it is more
well known than another chemical agent. One of the most
(11:15):
dangerous chemical weapons in existence now. And this, of course
is just counting the public stuff we know about. There's
pretty compelling evidence that during the Cold War both the
US and Russia conducted some very very unethical, highly illegal
experiments in weaponizing different agents. And are you familiar with
(11:39):
that show the Americans? Right right, So there a lot
of the twist and turns and that show are inspired
by Cold War era espionage. It's a it's a show.
It's a fictional show about a fan emly of deep
(12:00):
cover Russian operatives living in the United States. Highly recommended. Yeah, yeah,
it's on f X if you're interested. And no one's
making us say that we genuinely like spy shows. What
are we talking about? What is one of the most
dangerous existing chemical weapons that we know of. It's foes gene.
It was first used in combination with chlorine gas in
(12:23):
nineteen fifteen. This is old stuff too, This is an
old evil and Germany dropped eighty eight tons of it
on British troops, causing hundreds of deaths. Really nasty stuff
during World War One. In fact, it accounted just this
substance loan for eight of all chemical fatalities jeeze. And
(12:44):
we know that there was a lot of mustard gas
and other things that, yeah, like that at the quotamest poem, right,
and there of course other things. We're barely scratching the
poisonous surface of chemical weaponry. They're also syani. It's but
when we come to weaponized or dangerous substances, there is
(13:07):
one substance that are a type of substance that is
by far much much more dangerous. So VX can persist
in a place, right, saren can spread rapidly rice and
plays a big role in uh imprecations. Yeah, yeah, polonium, right,
(13:28):
which is the Russia's version of I want you to
know who through this stone. But the most important kind,
at least for the survival of humanity, would be radiological
and nuclear threats. And this is stuff like dirty bombs,
improvised nuclear devices that phrases terrifying. Yeah, right, It's not
(13:50):
like an improv show at Second City. It's it's not
a yes and bomb. Yeah, well yeah, you just throw
that that N word in there, and even something that's
as scary as an revised device or an i e. D.
Throw that inward in and good god. But wait, there's more.
Since the late nineteen eighties, intelligence agencies and criminal organizations
(14:12):
alike around the world have been chasing after another type
of dangerous substance, a mysterious material thought to have terrifying
potential for destruction exceeding the capacity of almost every other
sort of nuclear material available, something known as red mercury.
(14:32):
See that's where we got to the name again. Yeah,
we're we're there now, We're we finally got there. We're
christening super producer Tristan with an awful weapon of potential
mass destruction. That's kind of cool though, it's cool. It
makes an impression in the room, you know, when you
walk in. But first things first, First questions first, what
(14:56):
is this stuff? Originally, when it was first reported by
the US and Soviet sources, the West called this substance
read because it came from Russia. Everybody in the listening
is just going, yep, that's like the laziest propaganda. Allegedly,
it came from Russia. It's very important to say, because
(15:16):
later reports suddenly claimed the material was called red mercury
because it had a red tent, a reddish tinge. And
as we'll see later in the episode here, that's where
the problems begin. Reports of red mercury's composition vary widely. Yeah,
and you can see that if you just start taking
(15:37):
a look at the reporting that's been done on this substance.
So if we go back to and look at the
new scientists or new scientists, excuse me, there's no the alright.
They have an article called Cherry Red and very Dangerous,
and it says that new information was leaked from South Africa, Russia,
(15:58):
and the United States and it has convinced leading nuclear
scientists that this stuff red mercury, the potential risks of
it should now be taken seriously. The scientists, by the way,
we're talking about, are not just some guys. We're talking
about Sam Cohen, he was nuclear physicist who invented the
neutron bomb, and also Frank Barnaby, who was the former
(16:20):
director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. And it
says that these guys specifically were worried that red mercury
could make it much easier for nations or terrorist groups
to construct small but deadly thermonuclear fusion weapons. That's that
sounds pretty terrifying when you read it in something as
(16:41):
reputable as New Scientists. And there's a quote here from
Sam Cohen who says, I don't want to sound melodramatic,
but red mercury is real and it is terrifying. I
think that it is part of a terrorist weapon that
could potentially spell the end of organized society. Done. WHOA.
(17:01):
And he's not saying it, of course, he literally says
he's not trying to be melodramatic. Uh. Frank Barnaby's group
talked to four anonymous scientists in Russia and said they
provided detailed information about red mercury, and at the time
again this he concluded that it is a polymer with
(17:23):
a gel like consistency in which mercury and antimony have
been bound together after a radiation for up to twenty
days in a nuclear reactor, and his belief again at
the time, was that this substance could yield enough chemical
energy when compressed to fuse tridium atoms and produce a
thermo nuclear explosion. Yeah, and and in this article, what
(17:45):
these guys were calling for, like the reason why they're
bringing all this stuff out into the public sphere is
because they were trying to get tridium, uh to be
like to put more controls over the production and trade
in tridium, which they think, you know, if you have
this other substance, red mercury, and try to um put
him together and you make this device right. And there
(18:09):
are other stories too that you have possibly seen in
headlines over the years, and we'll just we'll we'll list
a couple, but there's one that I'd like to explore
in a little more detail because it's the one that
inspired us to follow up on this. In the BBC
two thousand and four, terrorists were arrested because they were
(18:31):
trying to buy red mercury. Yeah, alleged terrorists. So there
was this newspaper reporter who apparently like did one of
those meetings. He was posing as somebody that he wasn't
and tried to get them or interest them in purchasing
this red mercury that he had. And anyway, these guys
went to trial and it took a long time. I
(18:52):
think in two thousand six is when it was finally
over because all of these dudes got cleared because this
upstance that he had wasn't red mercury. He didn't have
anything of the sort. The newspaper, the journalist and these guys,
I don't know, how do you. It's that whole entrapment
thing that happened, And they were saying that they were
(19:15):
trying to turn the reporter in that they didn't know
as a reporter for trying to sell them really dangerous materials.
You know. That kind of reminds me of the FBI
attempts a few years back to infiltrate mosque and try
to make the people at the mosque like radicalize them. Yeah,
(19:35):
and then they end up calling the cops, calling the
Feds on the Feds. So there was another story, a
local story two thousand seventeen, just a few months ago
here in Atlanta, where our podcast is based, streets downtown
closed because of March. There were reports that a man
(19:59):
had brought red mercury from Africa and he was walking
into the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So people are freaking out,
you know, I mean, many people have never heard of this.
You might think, Okay, mercury, what is that that's a planet.
That's a thing that goes in thermometers, you know what
(20:20):
I mean. There are probably a few people who honestly thought,
and I'm not making fun of anyone, this would like
this would seem plausible to me who honestly thought, I
thought Mars was the red one, you know what I mean.
So we have a quote here from Atlanta Police officer
Stephanie Brown who said, we received a call regarding a
mail coming into the facility carrying red mercury from Africa.
(20:43):
We're still gathering details on the call. And in that article,
red mercury is described as a substance used to create
nuclear bombs. Homeland security was called hazmat team, bomb squad,
fire trucks, who knows, man veterinarians, maybe an airplane pilot,
(21:04):
like every authority you can imagine, like a really old
angry librarian. Everybody showed up. Yeah, and major parts of
Atlanta were shut down, parts of some of the big
streets in downtown Atlanta. And then the next day turned
out that there were no arrest made. Nope, nobody was arrested.
(21:24):
What the guy had was quote not red mercury. Um uh,
they you know, it was a claim that somebody made
I guess and according to this article, you know, they
go on to talk about red mercury what it might
be um and they said it says US Homeland Security
(21:45):
agents responded, which is, you know, that's a big time
had you have all the people that have been talked
about came through. I made the angry librarian up. I
don't know if she was actually there. And and then
after all of this, no arrests, and the police would
not say what substance was actually found. There's just definitely
not this red mercury stuffy or is this one of
(22:09):
those nothing to see here folks? Right, that's a good question. Uh,
And just to shall we say in biggen the sphere
here a bit, let's let's look at red mercury reports.
In other parts of the world, it's a big deal. So,
for instance, in two thousand and nine, this was one
of the more interesting stories we dug up about this.
(22:29):
In Saudi Arabia. Singer sewing machines pretty popular. Everybody's got
it so right, everybody's got wear clothes. Um. In two
thousand and nine, a rumor spread that these sewing machines,
not all of them, but some of them contained red mercury,
and it caused the prices to massively increase. And here
(22:54):
here the too odd things. First, people who believe the
rumor were convinced that you could techt red mercury, that
it was in small amounts in the needles of some
sewing machines. In the way that you would detect it
is you would have cellular phone and you would put
the phone while you're on a call near the needle,
(23:15):
and if the line cut off when I got near
the needle, you knew that red mercury was present. Weird science, right,
if it's true. Second thing, nobody agreed. Nobody agreed on
what this what this looked like, if it was really read,
what it could be used for. But they came up
with some ideas. Uh. They had said, perhaps it was
(23:38):
an essential component of nuclear power, perhaps had the ability
to extract gold, what or the ability to summon gin
oh like genies jin And so this potentially could be
either giving you lots of power from a military perspective
or from a wish is aunting perspective, from a magical
(24:02):
or occult perspective. And for anybody who's interested in learning
more about Jin, I do want to refer you to
our earlier episode. If you have not checked it out,
you can find it on our website deep Breath stuff
they don't want you to know dot com. And also
watch American Gods because there is a jin in the
episode that went out last actually form of gin. Yeah. Okay,
(24:29):
I think I believe I've got my hierarchy correct. There's
also that's an awesome book before we move on. Book
is great. The show is turning out much better than
I expected. That's cool, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna check
it out. Here's here's the thing, though, The official spokesperson
for police forces in Saudi Arabia said that these rumors
(24:51):
have been started by gangs who are trying to swindle
people out of their money because they had a bunch
of singer. That's a weird one to uh, that's that's
a weird one to go to jail for. Yeah, it
really is. You know, do you remember that phase this
was off air when I was trying to figure out
(25:11):
like the most insignificant or petty crimes and the one
I don't know if this is a crap, Please tell
me if this is a real thing, folks, I haven't
looked into it. Yet stamp fraud, you know, like making
fake postage stamps. Apparently that was the thing back in
the day. It just seems weird, like what's your profit margin? Yeah,
(25:33):
what do you tell people you got locked up for?
Ward when you get caught? You know, I think that
is all about bulk, Like how many can you sell?
I made a million thirty seven cents at a time
because that ink isn't cheap, No, and then you've got
adhesives you gotta get I guess some special scissors to
get that pattern. Perforated lines, perforated lines. I don't know.
(25:56):
Stamp fraud, it's not a time you wanna you wanna
get locked up for And it does sound like this
was the sowing machine thing was here and gone hysteria
or fad, you know, sort of like tulips with the
Dutch or dangerous version of Beanie Babies or something like that.
(26:18):
But because of these real life reports, these real life
events in what over the past thirty almost forty years,
Red Mercury has earned a place in pop culture. That's right.
There were video games made about this, well, one in particular,
the Weekend Point To called Shadow Ops colon Red Mercury.
(26:40):
This is a two dozen four first person shooter for
Xbox and Windows, and it's one of those you know,
pretty standard wartime FPS is where you're a Delta Force
operative attempting to recover what a briefcase nuclear bomb, so
essentially uh an improvised nuclear device. And it was code
(27:00):
named Red Mercury. And to note here this is two
thousand four when it came out, but it's from a
terrorist mercenary who's operating out of Syria. Interesting out of
Sirius Syria pops up again. And then there's a movie
from two thousand five that has to do it's called
Red Mercury and it has to do with people trying
to chase down sources of the substance. Ah man, have
(27:24):
you checked it out? I have not seen that one.
I'll check it out. I couldn't find it in any
of my standard places, Sutton Criterion Collection or making like that.
So what's what's interesting about these pop culture references is
they show how the rumors of this substance spread from
the realm of journalism into the world of fiction. And
(27:45):
that happens on a fairly routine basis. But what if
Red Mercury is different, and we'll get into that right
after a quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it
(28:07):
gets crazy. No one knows, no one agrees or what
exactly this stuff is, Matt. There is no indication that
red mercury is even a mercury compound. However, there are
some forms of mercury that fit a little bit of
the purported criteria. Right. There's a red form of mercury
(28:33):
that's very toxic, but it's not explosive. There's a red
colored or of mercury, mercuric sulfide cinabar, which is toxic
but not explosive. There's mercury fulminate, which is shocked sensitive
and explosive, and it's been used in some ammunition cartridges. Uh.
And there are a couple of other things. There was
(28:54):
one there was one substance, dimethyl mercury that was considered
briefly as a rocket fuel in the nineteen fifties, but
chemical companies who supplied test materials were not messing around
with it. So none of the mercury compounds, none, all
caps in O any have that have some sort of
(29:16):
partial red mercury property can be the actual red mercury,
and that hasn't stopped people from having theories and and
uh describing it. So we can tell you a little
bit about what the Soviets thought it was used for. Yeah. Back,
according to quote Soviet sources, this red mercury had a
(29:39):
street name called mercuric stypik heptoxid, which is a fun
thing to say. This stuff is super conductive and allegedly
it's used to produce high precision conventional and nuclear bomb explosives.
It could also make stealth surfaces, which is you know
(29:59):
that kind of cool, uh, and also to make self
guided warheads. And let's let's just reiterate that conventional and
nuclear bombs, stealth surfaces, self guided warhead. Man, that's a
lot of things that this stuff can do. Those are
also three very different things, right, And the properties that
(30:24):
read mercury is typically assigned are some of the most
common parts of the description of this substance. It's what
is called ballow technic, which is just that, you know,
a fancy way of saying it produces immense pressure when ignited. However,
when combined with other claims about red mercury's capabilities, it
(30:45):
sounds more and more like a work of science fiction.
With an emphasis on fiction too good to be true. Right, So,
in addition to releasing massive pressure, this stuff is also
strongly insensitive to shock or fire. That strongly resistant is
a better way to say it. So, you know, you
could substitute red and stimpy, you could substitute you could
(31:08):
take the log song and the syllables don't work out.
But if you put red mercury in there, you know,
you can do all that stuff with red mercury and
it still wouldn't explode. But despite this durability, it apparently
has a very fast ignition rate that seems contradictory. It
does doesn't end again, extremely high energy density. It's very
(31:31):
difficult to identify a class of substances that has all
of these qualities. Sort of a silver bullet Holy Grail situation.
And that we should say that that none of us
on this team are chemist by trade, and we're neither physicists. Yeah,
we might be physicist by hobby, but wait, are you
(31:52):
a physicist? I mean, I'm interested in it. I'll read
a book about physics. I definitely um deal with physics
on a second delie basis. I mean, I'm not, you know,
planning to hunt black holes anytime soon. You know, I
(32:12):
don't get in internet arguments with Stephen Hawkins yet, and
he's probably brutal. I don't know he'll let you have it. Yeah,
but you know, I think he's got a good heart. Absolutely,
he's he's got a good heart. There. Here's something else.
Remember we mentioned the nuclear physicist speaking of physicist Frank
Barnaby earlier. Uh. He worked at the Atomic Weapons Establishment
(32:36):
in the nineteen fifties, and he claims that there are
evidence the show VICH turned out vast quantities of mercury
antimony oxided, the intermediate and equally elusive compound from which
red mercury is supposedly produced by placing it inside a
nuclear reactor. There's no doubt they made a large amount
(32:57):
of that stuff. I've talked to chemists who have eliged
the niche to Germany. But what they get with it?
He says, he's a mystery. Oh I like this guy.
Let's bring him back for some things. So what are
people saying about this stuff? Man? So some people think
that the intermediate compound, the one that Frank there is
(33:19):
kind of discussing, could actually multiply the yield of an explosion.
So if you if you take this and use it
inside a conventional let's say a nuclear warhead or rocket
or something, it would work as a fuel additive, which
you know, that's interesting that that you could use that,
(33:40):
I guess for that purpose, just to just to increase
the yield. I guess that's the idea, you make it stronger.
And others say, the compound was I radiated at the
core of a nuclear reactor to produce pure red mercury,
and this stuff would be capable of exploding with enough
heat and pressure to act as a trigger inside a
brief case sized fusion bomb. So your red mercury in
(34:03):
this case would just be the thing that makes the
reaction occur, right right, the instigator in the crowd of
nuclear reactions. There are massive problems with this stuff though, Yeah,
all right, First the story changes. Often reports a red
mercury don't seem to be consistent and in any substantive
(34:25):
way other than this stuff is powerful bad guys wanted.
According to experts like Barnaby, even if the substance was discovered,
it wouldn't be that useful. And according to experts like Barnaby,
the guy we keep talking about, even if this stuff
was real, it really wouldn't be that useful. And we
have another quote for terrorists, it would offer no significant
(34:48):
advantages over an ordinary high explosive or if they wanted
a dirty bomb a radioactive source to go to. The
trouble of spending huge amounts of money on red mercury
makes no sense at all, makes no sense at all.
I couldn't agree with Barnaby more if he's right. If
he's right, and according to official sources, nobody has actually
(35:13):
real facts obtained this substance. So could this be a
cover up? If so, what kind is it? One of
those things where one or two, maybe even five governments
officially know that this stuff exists and what it can do.
They have the documentation, they know how to make it,
but they want to suppress that knowledge. I mean, I
(35:35):
could see that as being a possibility. Here's another odd
fact that a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Authority
said red mercury doesn't exist. The whole thing is a
bunch of malarkey. Oh wow, so he's saying it's a
lepre con is that slaying? Is that? You know? I mean,
(35:56):
I'm just the malarkey took me to lepric, I'm not. Yeah, okay,
I don't know, man, you're hipper than I am. So
I don't know. If like LEPrecon was like the new
thing you say, now it can be do you and
your friends when you hang out at the are you
are like, what up LEPrecon? Yeah, it's more like an
exclamation if something is tremendously cool and if green is
(36:17):
involved whatsoever? Oh okay, okay, like, man, that is so
leprechn You know, I don't want to steal your your bit.
I'm gonna try it, maybe see what works out, and
if it if it goes well, I'll tell people that,
you know, I'll credit you. And it goes poorly, I'll
take the fall. I like it better than some of
(36:38):
the current new slang words, like what combustible? Yeah, combustible, man, combustible.
But yeah, but that's the thing. Oh fleek, Oh fleek.
You don't care for fleek. I can't fleek, man. I
just don't like the way it rolls off the tongue.
(36:59):
It's a little bit smoother than LEPrecon. I'm just saying
that as your friends. Well, that's why I like Leprichn
because it takes a little more effort. Uh, and you
know there's a there's a guy with gold. But just
like red mercury, is the effort worth it Also also,
unless we get too far off the rails, I don't
(37:19):
want to bury the lead here. An official spokesperson for
the International Atomic Energy Authority said, this stuff doesn't exist.
It never existed. What we'll be back afterward from a
responsible and we're back. So what we're left with here, people,
(37:49):
there are two roads that we can go down. Red
mercury is either a long running propaganda sting operation on
behalf of intelligence agencies, or it's this ancient relic of
the Cold War when tensions were so high and rumors
were everywhere. Yeah, that's the thing. We do have a
couple of different paths. So let's look at the idea
(38:10):
that this whole thing was a shaggy dog story that
for decades, not just the US, not just Russia, but
multiple other countries including South Africa, made up a boogeyman
to catch terrorists or criminal organizations or likely each other.
(38:31):
We have, you know, we have some indications experts who
searched for real red mercury, like Peter Zimmerman, found the
story quickly deteriorated and that uh, everything about his search
led him to conclude this was a disinformation campaign of
phony news articles planned decades ago by the KGB and
(38:54):
then by its successor, the FSB. And there are other
variants in the story, including one where Washington and Moscow
worked together, you know, circulating these stories to flush out
nuclear smugglers. And the thing with that is this idea
of these two ostensibly enemy governments cooperating this way is
(39:20):
really popular with a lot of soldiers and officers and
bomb disposal and counter WMD weapons mass destruction jobs. But
Zimmerman felt like he couldn't prove it. He felt like
he could definitely prove whatever this stuff is it's not real,
or it's a fishing expedition as a way to draw
(39:43):
people to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is incredibly clever.
You gotta you gotta admire the art in some things,
even if you don't agree with the idea, just because
these rumors have been so persistent throughout the years, and
it's still this that we can have a story in
where people, somebody somewhere in authority said, oh, Red Mercury, okay,
(40:07):
shut that thing down, shut it all down. It could
also be UM. Here's here's a different idea, maybe a
middle ground force here. It could also be a code
name for some other type of nuclear industry related material, right.
It could have been a Soviet code name for something else,
like lithium six, which was a controlled material that was
(40:29):
actually used in nuclear weapons. And maybe traffickers repurposed the
label for whatever irradiated crap they were trying to sell
to UH unsuspecting terrorists, because if you read the accounts
of people, even isis the terrorist organization. If you read
the accounts of people trying to purchase this stuff, the
(40:51):
way that it's explained to them when they finally find
it and buy it at enormously expensive isis by the way.
One one great example would be UH when it was
described as a small box that had to be carried
in a special container and had to be opened in
(41:12):
a special way with a special device. These are sold separately,
I assume UM and could never be opened because when
it did, everything would blow up in like a multikilometer radius.
Hold on, I thought this thing was super stable. Well
that's what you know. You gotta have the device sold separately.
(41:34):
But that's that's also that snacks of classic of a
classic con job, because yeah, if you can't look at
the merchandise, but you're going to hand some money over
or something arrested? What's that old? What's that old? Saying
a pig in a poke? Is that just something they
say in Tennessee. I don't like that, never mind. It's like,
don't don't buy a pig in a bag unless you
(41:56):
look in the bag. It's you're given a poke first, like,
make sure it's squeals, you know, I gotta check. I
gotta check before we sign off on that as official
stuff that I'll want you to know. Pig buying advice
sounds good. Sounds If you happen to run into somebody
who has a burlap sack and they tell you there's
(42:17):
a pig in there and they'll sell it to you,
just I mean, what are you doing anyway? Don't engage
with that person. Yeah, just leave it alone, man. Pig
bag man is going to be fine. You can leave
can leave him to his own devices, as long as
they are not nuclear. And now we get to the
scariest possibility of all ladies and gentlemen, Red Mercury, What
(42:38):
if this thing is real? But somehow it's been continually
over the decades suppressed. Right, this is I'm gonna go
ahead and say this is the most disturbing as as
you said earlier, but it's it's also, thankfully one would hope,
the least plausible. But think about it's been in all
(43:00):
these news stories over and over in the decades. It's
never been verified. When law enforcement is attempted to acquire
this stuff, it has in every single case you can find,
turned out to be something else according to the story. Yeah,
these are not the nuclear devices you're looking for. It's
(43:23):
we're both doing that Star Wars droid wave. I feel
like we need to explain that. You know the what
we're talking about late, it's the force. You're using the
force to coerce somebody. You see the force. Yeah, and
it's Uh. It turns out that most experts believe red
Mercury is about as real as the Force. So, regardless
(43:46):
of how you feel about Star Wars, regardless of what
conclusions you draw about red Mercury, regardless whether it is
in fact real or if it is in fact an
elaborate sting operation that people are still falling for, one
chilling fact remains people are dying as a result, actual
(44:08):
people are actually dying because one rumor that's spread. We
talked about the one in Saudi Arabia, kind of funny
sewing machine tycoons, right, love it, love it. But in
Afghanistan it was a little different because rumors spread that
land mines contained red mercury, and numerous people died going
(44:33):
up to these live minds and attempting to dismantle them
and extract the stuff that they thought was in there.
When dismantling a live mind is as you may assume
a job for the experts, which, yeah, but isn't it
(44:53):
Isn't it weird? Because I had no idea that this existed.
This is such a strange thing to do. I am persuaded.
I'm like, sure this does not exist, and full of
you know what, iffory, Yeah, exactly, that's I I hate
(45:14):
to agree completely with you on this, just because I
want to offer a different opinion. But everything that I've
seen in the research that we've done for this leads
me to believe that it's not real. But it's hard
for me to wrap my head around it lasting this long,
a rumor persisting this long, and then what if Yeah, like,
(45:36):
what for lack of a better phrase, fueled this rumor
for so long, Right, what if there is some sort
of powerful substance capable of jump starting a fusion reaction,
and it's so dangerous that when people discovered it, they
(45:58):
including including Dr Cohen, when they discovered it, they said, Okay,
everybody needs to shut it down. We know that we like,
we know we don't get along all the time, but
we'd like we look forward to not getting along for
a long long time. And if anybody has this, it's
(46:19):
the end. Imagine the implications if one of these small
nuclear devices goes off in a city anywhere in the world,
and the reaction of other countries, right with all who
also have nuclear devices, who are going to be trying
to point the finger, and there's that it's only a
few what is it, a few seconds when some of
(46:42):
the nuclear systems in the world, some of the dead
hand stuff, when some of that can be triggered. Ah, yeah,
the dead hands system is very very dangerous thing. Uh. Well,
you know that's and that was a Soviet thing and
it's I'm assuming still a Russian. Uh. And then the
United States, who knows what kind of systems that we
(47:04):
have with all the all the minutemen that exist around, uh,
around the globe. Now, the spooky thing about the way
the US handles it's nuclear arsenal is that a large
percentage of it is continually traveling around the globe. Yeah,
(47:24):
which is spooky stuff, spooky, frightening, semi apocalyptic stuff. And
it doesn't even matter at that point who set off
a bomb, you know, right, because in in the early
part of it, at least whatever reaction occurs is going
to be before you can you know, confirm who it is.
(47:45):
And a lot of our listeners who have lived through
the Cold War time period, you know, you've probably seen
those accounts that came out years later of how close
the entire species got to just call in it one
long night, And we'd like to hear what you think
(48:07):
about red mercury? Has this ever popped up in your
in your leck of the woods? Has anybody ever been
on the news for attempting to smuggle red mercuries? You
might try to sell you some, Yeah, And did have
you seen any other pop references to this? I couldn't
recall if in Call of Duty or any of these
other games that I've played it, like showed its face somewhere.
(48:28):
I can't I couldn't remember. I just you know, I
I'm baffled still because neither explanation is particularly iron clad,
you know what I mean. It sounds crazy to say
that there's some real substance that is enormously powerful that
has just been continually popping up in the news and
(48:51):
then being removed. But it also sounds crazy for to
be this elaborate. Like we've said it before on the
show Rube goldberg S hoax. It's like that game mouse trap,
you know what I mean. You could just arrest people,
but maybe it's I'm still divided, man, because maybe it's
safer to have a thing that you know is an
(49:12):
inert substance, right, You can just get something that has
a red pigment to it, and then it seems like
that's obviously red mercury. So like maybe these intelligence agencies
just took a page from shady drug dealers. Do people
(49:33):
do that? People are out there selling paprika as red mercury?
I don't know, because no one knows what it looks like.
But yeah, we want to we want to hear from you.
We want to hear which of these sides you tend
to fall on. And if you think this is nicely
an incident, you know this kind of subterfuge, or if
(49:57):
there are other examples and speaking emails from you, it's
time for chat at Corners. Our first message comes from
Andrew Allenson. He says, I'm writing to let you guys
know how influential you've been to me and my team
for the past two years. I'm not asking you to
plug my project or anything like that. I just wanted
(50:19):
to let you know that it exists and to give
you a little backstory. Now we're gonna say the name
of the game. We are not outright plugging Allen's game.
We are telling you about his game. Is that clear, Allen?
So you don't feel weird. This is We're going to continue.
I'm working on a game called Why two k Now?
(50:41):
That is Why one one K Dash, a postmodern RPG.
It's about a bunch of conspiracy theorists in the ninet
nineties searching for a woman who mysteriously vanished in an
elevator that sounds familiar, Ben mh. The game revolves around
a primitive, early nine nineties occult mess sage board that's
(51:01):
kind of cool and the various threads lead to different
quests in the game. I've been a fan of reading
about weird things happening since I was a child, and
came across your podcast and YouTube channel when I was
looking for some ideas to fill out the various threads
in the game's forum. Your podcasts and reactions to conspiracies
were invaluable to getting into the minds of the forum
users and making the world feel real. So I just
(51:22):
wanted to say thank you for what you're doing and
keep up the good work. Well that is supremely cool. Alan. Uh.
You know that Ben and I are both gamers as
well as Noel. Noel talks about that a lot, and
Uh knowing that somehow what we've done has worked its
way into a virtual world makes me personally tremendously happy.
(51:44):
So let us know how the game goes. We'd love
to hear an update, yes please. Our next one comes
from our next shout out rather comes from Crystal K,
who says Plumb Island is an animal disease research facility,
at least according to Silence of the Lambs. This would
certainly account for any perceived air of secrecy about the
place Also, Clarisse was the one who suggested she could
(52:06):
arrange for lectors vacation to the island in exchange for
identifying Buffalo Bill. Thank you so much, Crystal. You know,
I'm I don't remember if we mentioned this on the air,
but do you know that Anthony Hopkins do you know
how how much he's actually in Silence of the Lambs
the original Signs of the Lambs as Hannibal Lector? Is
(52:27):
it like a percentage he's it's like fourteen minutes the
whole film. He really made an impression. Huh. I mean
those are the kind of roles you wanna live for,
you know, do a cool, creepy fourteen minute cameo. Yeah,
who happens to be a cannibal? It's like, who's the
most important character in Waiting for Good Dough? The guy
(52:48):
who doesn't show up or RoboCop or RoboCop. I'm pretty
sure RoboCop shows up in robot I was just trying
to figure out, trying to figure out who the most
important character is if not RoboCop. But listeners, you have
to help me out. I don't know. There's a French
play called tartoof and for the which I remember reading
(53:12):
years ago and for the first easily two thirds of it,
people are talking about this tartoof dude and he doesn't
show up until the end. It was, it was baffled.
He kind of lives up to the hype, but not really.
It's it was sort of the RoboCop of its time.
I get it, you know. We I don't know if
(53:34):
we can keep doing these jokes. Last one of us
goes back and watches robo cop oll No problem. I'm
not gonna take the fall. I'm gonna do it. And
if you, if you write to us, I'll confirm or
or deny whatever you say a RoboCop expert, I'll We
have time for one more shout out. Our next message
(53:55):
says I am me, you are you, and this is
an email to stuff they don't want you to know. Well,
of course I love that opening. Yeah, I love the show. Guys.
You help you help keep me sane whilst at work
with the stuff you should know boys. Oh cool, that's
a good company. Um. Now down to business. Vaping you
heard of it, Yes, we have heard of it. Vaping
(54:17):
is a smoking cessation. It's a way for smokers to
get off the cigarettes in a healthy and safe way.
In a basic form, it gives the user the sensation
of smoking, the nicotine delivery from smoking, but it leaves
out the seven thousand plus nasty chemicals and carcinogen's smoking
cigarettes delivers into your body. Vaping has turned into an international,
(54:37):
multibillion dollar industry, creating thousands of jobs and businesses. It's
created friendships and families throughout the world. Okay, yeah uh,
and above all else, it's saved hundreds of millions of lives.
But ben, here's where things get crazy. Currently, at this
moment in time, that's right, whilst you are reading this email,
(55:02):
the US government and f d A are trying to
destroy it. And I don't mean trying to get the
booming industry that is vaping under control. I mean these
guys want to wipe out the whole thing, one hundred
percent gone in the blink of an eye. They want
it gone, and they're trying anything to do it. And
they oh, man, oh my gosh. Okay, so Jack, this
(55:25):
is from Jack. By the way, do we ever say
this is from Jack? Okay, okay, Jack, thank you for writing.
And he goes on and he just he gives us
so much great information about vaping along with his fun storytelling.
But we're gonna end it right here. So why is
the US government so against vaping if it is a
(55:46):
health benefit to the millions of citizens and the billions
of people worldwide. Is it because it's dangerous and will
kill people quicker than a bullet to the head, or
would you say it's because the cigarette companies who sponsor
these state officials and senators and government organizations are losing
millions of dollars worth of revenue each week two people
(56:06):
not smoking. No, that can't be. People would think that's
some sort of crazy conspiracy. Jack, that's that is fantastic.
Thanks so much for writing in, Jack, Crystal and Andrew.
Uh that that's a good point about vapory. Yeah, yeah,
I mean there are so many conflicting studies that have
(56:28):
been coming out over the past five years. Yeah, vaping
is uh pretty interesting, you know, yeah it is. And
you I've heard a lot of people talk about how
it has helped them quit smoking or at least been
a part of quitting smoking, right right, And then, uh,
you know, a lot of the rumors about va being
the science behind them evaporates after I'm so sorry, After
(56:53):
I'm not really sorry. I'm inordinately proud of every stupid
pun I've ever made beautiful, but you a lot of
the science is still contradictory in various studies, funds of
conflicting stuff, and just like the stuff with sugar, we
have to ask ourselves who is funding whom when these
things come out? Thank you so much for writing guys. Again,
(57:15):
this concludes our gosh and this concludes our episode, but
not our show. We will be returning the very same
time next week, and time is relative. I guess whatever
you check out your the podcast that you listen to,
you will find the new episode of our show. Yeah,
(57:37):
that's correct. And next week Noel will still be on
an adventure. Adventures are great, and uh we will. We
look forward to seeing him two weeks from now and
in the meantime, if you would like to check out
some of the strange, weird, fascinating, disturbing, and occasionally humorous
stories that for one reason or another, have yet to
(57:58):
make it onto the air, you can find us on YouTube.
You can find us on Instagram. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook mostly Conspiracy Stuff, and Instagram is Conspiracy
Stuff Show. If you'd like to check out some of
the other episodes we referenced earlier in the show. You
can find not just one, not just three, but every
(58:20):
audio episode we have ever done on our website. Stuff
they don't want you to note dot com. And if
you're saying, look, I get it, but don't like social media,
you know, I like to keep things simple, cut straight
through the sound and the fury of the modern digital world,
and just go from point A to point B through
(58:41):
Yahoo or whatever you're chosen. Poison is, you're in luck.
You can email us directly. We are conspiracy at how
stuff Works dot com.
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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