April 20, 2022 • 48 mins
Nowadays, almost everyone knows the trope of the tinfoil hat -- it's common in all sorts of fiction, often meant as visual shorthand to indicate the person wearing this hat is... weird. But how did something as mundane as tinfoil become associated with paranoia and conspiracy? In today's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel get to the bottom of this strange, strange story.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. So if you're watching this on YouTube,
you might notice things are a little bit different. There
are no two ways about it. Fellow conspiracy realist. The
(00:48):
world is and has been in a pretty strange place,
and we have some dark episodes ahead no spoilers. But
today we thought we would take a moment and uh
be a little kinder to ourselves and do something a
little bit lighter, if not entirely wholesome. Today we're talking
about one of the most well known tropes in the
(01:08):
entire world of conspiracy lore, the tinfoil hat. Like, so
I got one, now I got a mohawks style one,
you know, uh go, it's very fashionable. Thank you guys,
thank you. Uh it was absolutely not thrown together last
minute for this episode. But like everybody knows knows what
(01:28):
these things are, we always we always see them so
often the world of fiction. And our question today, which
is also something we explore in our upcoming book, by
the way, is what's the deal? How did this become
a thing? Why is it stuck around for so long?
And perhaps most importantly, does wearing one of these actually
do anything other than make the wearer look a little
(01:50):
bit looney. To answer these questions, I think we have
to start with the stereotype. So here are the facts.
Not too long ago, we mentioned a group of protesters
up in Canada who were, or at least the rumor
was on social media, that they were using tinfoil hats
to prevent some attacks by the local government there. Hopefully
(02:12):
remember this. If not, you can search back through the
listener mail and find it. Or maybe it was a
strange news, who knows, but it's something that continues today.
And uh, some people I think we're probably sincerely wearing
tinfoil hats in an attempt to block some kind of
signals entering their head. But I do know for a
(02:32):
fact that others were doing it as a joke. It's
almost it is. It's like a trope. It's a fictional device, right,
we was we were just talking about the song Weird
Al made. Yes foil so many amazing stuff. I mean,
you can wrap your sandwich in it. You can uh
fashion an improvisational pipe out of it. I don't know
(02:57):
if anybody ever did that in their teenage years. You know,
always just reheat pizza with it. You mean in the oven. Yes,
you reheat your pizza and the oven. That is very posh.
That's the way it is usually use people this microwave it. No, no, no, no, no.
Look look I'm gonna dispel this. The best way to
reheat pizza is if you've got a pan on top
(03:20):
of the oven, then you reheat it that way. But
I put it inside my convection oven, and I wrapped
my crust in tinfoil. I also my pan in tinfoil,
and uh, it really does give you that crispy, delicious
cheese that you're looking for. That's the issue. I love it. Well,
that's that's the issue. Like it's it's really are you
(03:40):
a question? Are you willing to spend a couple extra
minutes to get the crispness? I'm I'm sensitive to the
texture right for the pizza. But but also there was
a study that showed the the science, the chemistry behind
why old pizza tastes better, Like why can eat cold
pizza for breakfast? It's it's something to do with the uh,
(04:04):
the cheese and the tomato sauce sitting together in that environment. Uh, anyway,
that maybe the sort of they sort of become one thing,
you know, at that point they're not like separate entities anymore.
And I think there's something about the acidity of the
tomato sauce. But we'll have to check in with our
pals over its savor for that one, because I bet
they know. As a matter of fact, I've become so
(04:26):
lazy with some food questions that I just text Annie
and Lauren at times and ask them to explain something
about food to me, even though all three of us
know that I have access to the internet. Uh So, Laura, Annie,
if you're hearing that, sorry and thank you. Uh. Yeah,
we we see people who wear tinfoil hats, but overwhelmingly, now,
(04:49):
like you were pointing out, Matt, they're going to be
tropes in fiction. You're not going to see them out
in the wild. It's it's sort of a visual shorthand
for writers or direc actors or actors to indicate the
person wearing this peculiar cap is themselves a little bit peculiar.
It's the mark of the capital C, capital ty, conspiracy theorist,
(05:11):
maybe a really crazy prepper survivalist, or maybe a hypochondriact,
or maybe someone suffering from deep, deep paranoia. And what's
funny is these characters, like just as we said this,
I'm sure a lot of us listening today immediately pictured
something from like Futurama or The Simpsons or The X Files, etcetera.
(05:32):
The funny thing about these characters is, in a lot
of shows, they're not always wrong. They may in fact
have some insight about some part of the plot or
whatever the mcguffin is, or some piece of the story,
but that true useful knowledge is a grain of cognitive
sand amid this huge mass of unrelated, unproven and at
(05:55):
times contradictory beliefs like we got the three of us
have been in the past compared to the lone Gunman
of X Files fame. And they also, I think they
have a couple of tinfoil hat moments. Maybe the most
famous is going to be in the world of fiction
right now is going to be Better Call Saul, which
(06:17):
we can first talk about. Yeah, I just started rewatching
that in preparation for the new season. I think it's
better than Breaking Bad. I really enjoy it. WHOA, I'm
on season five? Is that the new one or is
it six? The new one's not out yet, but the
season five is the most recent one, and the new
one is supposed to be the last one. Yes, se
(06:37):
five just hit Netflix. Oh that's what I just started
watching it because I said new episodes and I was like, yes, yes.
Bob owdin Kirk, let's hang. He's got a book coming
out called Comedy Comedy, Comedy Drama like that. It's such
a great all encapsulating title for his book. He's a
brilliant writer and he actually I think it's him. Who
(07:00):
a book on humor that is is a serious book.
It's It's how to be Funny and it's quite effective.
I think that's Bob oden Kirk. I'll check later. But
so the logic for these characters and their sartorial preferences,
it all hinges on the idea of electromagnetic waves and radiation,
(07:21):
And we did talk about this a little bit in
the past. But basically, to stop radiation you need a
material that shorts both electric fields and magnetic fields. So
in terms of stymying electric fields, almost any old metal
can do an okay job because metal conducts electricity, and
(07:43):
despite the name of course, tinfoil is often most often
made of aluminum and aluminums a good conductor. But to
short a magnetic field, you also need a ferromagnetic metal,
such or iron. Your nickel, your cobalts, iron you know,
not often use these days. Iron is heavy, it's got
(08:04):
some other things going against it, one of which would
be rust. But so that's exactly just so, so what
you would look at in terms of the best choice
would probably be something like steel, an alloy of carbon, iron,
tiny amounts of other components. Like if you ever have
cracked open uh a video recorder back in the day,
(08:28):
you look inside you can see there may be a
chassis that is constructed of aluminum, but there's a small
box behind the co X connector which is made of steel,
and that is to shield things from radiation. That's the logic.
At least there's some guy vernous about it. There's something
you know, uh, improvisational and even inspiring about the idea
(08:52):
of someone saying, I'm going to make my own protection.
It's to shield it from like magnetism as well, right,
so it doesn't get erased accidentally, and if I'm not mistaken,
Like the little kind of cape they put over you
at the dentist or the doctor when you're getting an
X ray is made of lead and that stops those
those particular type of reading radiation. Yeah, it it mitigates
(09:16):
the exposure level. And you know, when you think of
like a tinfoil hat, it's weird to do this episode
while I'm actually wearing one. But maybe, well, are you
anything or any waves not entering your head that normally
would be do you feel to to say, I feel
(09:37):
slightly less mad? Um, So I gotta get I gotta
get this off because we have more stuff to do.
But you know, it's like, you know what it reminds
me of, in the spirit of it putting aside the
science for just a second, it reminds me of how
in go to your warfare and in violent protests and
(09:58):
oppressive regimes, people improvise their own sort of devices, whether
those are weapons or whether they're improvised gas mask created
with you know, household objects. You can see versions of this,
by the way, in video games like Far Cry six
that has I think a lot of improvised material or
(10:22):
a coffee can filled with that um, charcoal or something
like that. Wouldn't that be one way and stuff like that. Yeah,
I think you're right. Yeah, and and so we know
that this is this somehow in the modern age, the
idea of a tinfoil hat became a universally recognized symbol. Right.
(10:44):
You would show a person a picture of someone wearing
a tinfoil hat, and even if they come from vastly
different cultures, they would probably immediately associated with the same things.
And that's because this is a surprisingly old old idea.
It's not something that came about with the wave of
(11:06):
UFO sightings in the nineteen sixties. Uh. This image of
the paranoid loner who puts on the tinfoil cone and
they hide away from the al c nive mass surveillance,
it's been around for almost a century. Tinfoil was invented
in nineteen oh three or so, and not very much
long after the idea of wearing it as a hat
(11:27):
showed up in fiction, and there's a we know this,
or at least we learned this because of a great
article by roisen Khyberd roisen kibbered over at Vice. Yeah.
He traces it back to nineteen when Aldus Huxley's half
brother Julian wrote a story called The Tissue Culture King,
(11:48):
and that story revolves around a scientist named Haskem who
kind of dabbles in mind control technology and eventually realizes
that putting on a hat made of foil will block
telepathic signals from entering his his mind, but it will
also block them from escaping and getting out. What is
he doing stunting himself and his own telepathic abilities? I'm
(12:11):
just kidding. I don't know, but it doesn't feel like
the trailer. No. I just feel like, if you're blocking
things from getting in, aren't you blocking things from getting out?
To man? So I don't know. Yeah, but who cares? Like, like,
my cell phone isn't sending or receiving anything right now?
You know? Because we oh wait, no, we just debunked that,
(12:33):
didn't we. Well dare to dream, right, It's it's strange
because this we can trace where this first appears in fiction,
and in the kind of story that you're describing here, Nol,
we see that this would be really cool science fiction
for its time. The idea is stuck around in the
(12:54):
modern day. You know, we mentioned better call Salt and
and better call salt. The prota aganist older brother is
a brilliant lawyer who, as he got on in years,
began to believe that he suffered from electro magnetic hyper
sensitivity e h s uh. And so a lot of
the early this isn't really a spoiler, but a lot
(13:17):
of the early seasons and episodes have this running plot
where this guy, who is again a brilliant legal mind,
has has become increasingly isolated from the modern world because
he feels that he cannot be around most modern technology.
And when he has to go outside or when he
(13:39):
has to expose himself to these waves that he feels
have damaging health effects, he always hides beneath those emergency
foil blankets, the kind of things you'd see in a
survival kit, kind you should definitely have in your car
if you're on a road trip. Excellent portrayal by Michael McKean,
and you'll know from like all the Christopher guest movies
(14:00):
and the spinal tap and and all that stuff. He's
just fantastic. It's it's simultaneously funny. He's kind of an ass,
but it's also heartbreaking because he is going through the
stuff and he fully is experiencing it. But it's one
of these things we've talked about the past that science
doesn't exactly acknowledge as being real. Yes, and we're we're
diving into that later in this episode two. It's a
(14:23):
it's an ongoing conversation. Right. Uh. These characters, again in fiction,
are often played for laughs, right, as though they are
foolish in their paranoia. But you have to wonder how
those so called kuks of yesteryear would feel about the
average person's online social media life today. You know, maybe
(14:47):
they weren't Maybe maybe they were wrong about a lot
of stuff, but maybe they weren't wrong about everything, especially
when it comes to surveillance. So you have to wonder, though,
why this image has such staying power Night to two
thousand two. Well, could it be that it's just a
shortcut for some sometimes lazy writing, or could it be
(15:09):
something else? Could it actually work? Will pause for a
word from our sponsor and figure this out together. Here's
where it gets crazy. All right, this might not be
the answer every everyone was expecting. But uh yeah, aluminum does,
(15:33):
in fact, to a degree, blocks some blocks and frequencies.
It's just not near as effective as some folks would
like to believe. Like, there's the experiment you can do
at home to get a sense of this. Take a
sheet of aluminum foil. Lay it out on a flat surface,
(15:54):
Take your smartphone or your burner, wrap your wrap the
phone and foil. Okay, Matt's doing it. This is the
tutorial part of the podcast. This is like step step
what step one? Wrap the phone? Okay, all right, and
then uh tell us when you got it wrapped up,
(16:15):
get wrapped up nice and tight. Yeah yeah. Do you
could get that seasonal job wrapping gifts at department stores.
It was very neat job. Okay. So true believers will
tell you that this has created a Faraday cage, that
(16:38):
this has blocked the entirety of that signal. However, we
can try this right now. All that needs to happen
is one of us needs to try to call Matt.
Oh yeah, call me, somebody call me. Wait, oh wait,
I need to turn on I need to turn on
so we can hear all. Okay, maybe it'll ring. Let's
(17:01):
see my phone is on that. Okay. This is why
we didn't want for us to do this. Yeah, I
thought it would. I thought it would disrupt the signal, right,
(17:21):
it would interfere with it. But I didn't know one
sheet alone could do the trick. I thought you would
need a lot more foil to shut it down. That
was one sheet. Okay, wait, hold on, wait, we gotta
do control call one more time. I'm unwrapping my phone
just really fast to make sure this isn't just weird.
I'm sorry to waste so much time. Dreams are made up. Yeah,
(17:43):
conspiracy dreams, here we go. Yeah, dude, can you hear
that it's ringing? It wasn't ringing before. It didn't ring alright,
that's crazy. We didn't ring this many times either. It
rang like three times and went to voicemail. Interesting. So
(18:03):
what this is? This is something we wanted to recreate
as an experiment. We hope you guys enjoyed it, because,
as you can tell, we were surprised that this works
so well. People try That's what's happening. People drive this
trick in the modern day though, and one of the
most recent infamous examples that I remember at least is
(18:28):
the story of Galain Maxwell. Remember when she was hiding
out before the law came for her, And I did
check before we recorded today to make sure that she
is still alive. Uh, she is for now. The prosecutors
in the Maxwell case noted they had this thing that
may have gotten lost in the shuffle, but they said
(18:50):
when agents started conducting a security sweep of her house,
the place she was hiding after she had been apprehended,
they noticed that she had a cell phone wrapped in
tinfoil on top of a desk, and they said it
was apparently an effort to evade detection. Forbes, with some
like diplomatic smart snark later said quote, it was not
(19:14):
a work of technical genius. Well, I wonder if it
blocks just the radio frequencies that are coming from the
cell towers, but it wouldn't block like a WiFi signal.
Maybe that's a good question. I mean that I'm gonna
all waves are created equal, right, Like they're different, you know,
they're different sizes, they're they're different levels of what's the
(19:39):
word penetration, you know, in terms of like the distance
they can travel and like a Bluetooth signal is still
a wireless you know, bit of radiation, but it's not
the same as a WiFi signal. One has to be
in close proximity, closer proximity. Yeah, they're not all created equal.
And there's these radio waves we're talking about now, our
(20:00):
form of E M F radiation. That aluminum foil, as
we just demonstrate, acts as a barrier and if you
have enough of it then it could block those waves.
There's the other example is just the basic Faraday cage,
which we mentioned earlier. Don't let the name cage necessarily
fool you. It's any kind of structure that can block
(20:21):
these uh, these types of energy. It's usually gonna be
a wire mesh of a metal, often aluminum, and the
ideas that can completely block radio microwave radiation. So you
might be thinking of references to Faraday cages in fiction
like Lost or in somewhere else, Oh, infringe, there's a
guy who builds an internal Faraday cage and it's pretty
(20:44):
gross and cyberpunk. Uh, I think about like chain mail armor. Yeah, yeah,
great example, Yeah, because it is it's a kind of armor.
The well, there there are those dudes that work on
like high tension wires um you know, really really high up.
They have to ground themselves and they wear literally a
suit that looks like chain mail armor that is kind
(21:04):
of a wearable Faraday cage, but I'm not mistaken. And
they have this big pole they used to ground themselves,
and they're able to handle the power lines without getting exploded. Amazing.
And those guys do make a lot of money, but
they are earning every sense of it. You need a
particular set of skills. So the most important factor of
any Faraday cage is that a mesh is fine. It'll
(21:28):
work as well as a full sheet of metal. But
the mesh will be fine as long as there are
no holes larger than the shortest wavelength of the radio
or the microwaves. They're trying to enter that barrier. And you,
if you only think of Faraday cages in the world
of fiction, you might be surprised to learn that you
(21:49):
odds are you are regularly using a Faraday cage in
your everyday life. If you're not, then someone you know
most certainly is yeah, when reheat your pizza, not like me,
when you throw that thing in the microwave. Why would
you do that. I'm shaming you right now, pizza shaming me,
(22:10):
Bro Pizza shaming me. You and your posh oven reheated
crispy pizza. Sir, I'm joking everybody. I totally King of
King of France over here, but he's a pizza supremacist.
Looking back, it all makes sense. No, I'm kidding, yeah, no, no,
(22:30):
I'm I'm team of it as well. But I I
do think that microwaves, they're tremendously useful. And whenever you
look at that little window right being paranoid myself, I
don't like to hang too close to the microwave just
in case. Never do it. But that little window with
that wire mesh on there is part of basically fairday cage.
(22:55):
It's a material that is small enough such that it
prevent microwave radiation from zapping you. So what you know,
we all know every heating pizza. You should never reheat
pizza in the microwave when it's wrapped in tinfoil because
that will cause a minor fire or perhaps explosion. Um,
(23:16):
what is it about the metal that the microwaves interact
with that causes uh these dangerous effects? I'm so glad
you asked. So, metals are great conductors of electricity essentially
because they have a lot of electrons and those electrons
move about freely. And so when microwaves, like in your
in your microwave oven, when microwaves hit metal objects, those
(23:40):
microwaves get reflected and they bounce back and forth, and
there's not enough material inside the microwave oven to absorb
those microwaves that are bouncing back and forth, and so
they arc between the metal object and another part of
the microwave oven. And anybody who's like accidently left a
spoon maybe in some che eas did you've seen this? Yeah,
(24:04):
you know it's funny. There's a how stuff works article
from back in the day by Marshall Brain himself. What
if I put a luminium full in the microwave and
I just had a hilarious misreading. It says radio waves
in this frequency range have an interesting property. Uh, And
then it says some things that can absorb them. It
says water, fats, and sugars. What I read fats as farts? Yes,
(24:26):
because I'm a child. What if you have to choose
between the two, It's probably better if you to fart
in the microwave instead of putting aluminum foil there. But
it's just like what It's just like the question what
do you do when you find yourself lost in the woods.
Your first thing is to ask yourself how you got
in that situation, and then just fart. And if you
(24:48):
fart in the forest and no one's around you here,
does it really make a sound you hear? Never mind,
that's that's an irrelevant question because you're there. If you
know what you did, you know disgusting creature, and nature
knows to all the animals in the forest, like this
guy eats beans h house everybody he the crime. So
(25:19):
in terms of a basic concept, yes, there is there
is science to this. If you're talking about the hat,
though the idea of a tinfoil hat, that science breaks down.
The issue comes down to coverage. A tinfoil hat is
only covering a small amount of your body, a very
important neighborhood of your body, but a very small part.
(25:41):
So unlike a true Faraday cage, this is no longer
a closed structure. That hat has a huge opening, and
the way this energy works, that opening renders this entire
thing much less effective. You would be better off if
you had like an aluminum ski mass. You'd be even
better off if you had a full body suit made
(26:04):
of aluminum foil or mesh. And guess what I found
some you can buy just if you're interested. There's a
really cool look at one on Amazon. Uh, it looks
like it looks like one of those old Lava men suits.
I swear you, guys, I'm pretty sure this is the
exact one that the props people on Better Call Saul used.
It looks exactly like if you click on if you
(26:25):
click on the link and you look at it, it's that.
For the low low price of three dollars and four
cents YouTube, you two can look like you're about to
fight in the volcano. It is for firefighters mainly. I
think there are entire companies that are dedicated to making
(26:46):
this stuff. Like they'll make em shielding socks, weird looking
onesies almost no, what's that? What's the name of that?
That cool happaneese onesie style? Like yeah, yeah, they may
they make things that look like foil kigaromi. And you know, uh,
(27:11):
it's up to you if you want to buy it again,
you would if you want to protect yourself from some
sort of perceived radiation. You will probably need to cover
cover your the entirety of your body, or make a
room that is coated with something protective. These are possible,
but they're pretty inconvenient to modern life. So it sounds
(27:33):
like we're poop poo in the idea and we kind
of are based on what people believe it's protecting them from.
But how can we say the normal hat doesn't work?
How can we say this with such certitude? You don't
have to take our word for it, fellow conspiracy realists. Instead,
you can check out this amazing little study done by
some M I. T. Students in two thousand five. It's hilarious.
(27:57):
It's called on the effectiveness of Aluminum foil Helmets and
empirical study. Brilliant, brilliant. You can hear just by the title.
It's pretty tongue in cheek, right, I mean you just
hear it. But it looked at three different versions or
models of tinfoil hats to check out whether or not
they could send you know, uh, signals through them. Right,
(28:19):
these are helmets. These are tinfoil helmets. Okay, let's get
it straight. That's the title. Okay, that's the title. That's
that's the bit of tongue in cheekiness there as Cleveland
calling them helmets. You know, I think it's a little Sillian.
Oh dude, Well it's pretty awesome because they did have three,
like again, let's just call them models. There's the classical,
(28:40):
which ben do you think that's close to yours? Or
do you think that's got like the more of the
pointed top. I've yeah, I've I've gone with again more
stylish sort of foe hawk because I think it looks aerodynamic,
you know, you want to kind of you know, it's
almost like a like a Spartan soldiers helmet. If I
had time, I would have tried to make something with
(29:02):
a brim. I feel like there's probably a big market
for brimmed aluminum hats, or maybe a cap like a
flat cap also known as the gentleman. So so they
use the class goal, which is the gentleman just a
flat surface on covers your head like a like a
swimming cap. Then there's the fez, which is it goes
(29:24):
up almost like a bucket hat, a little more cylindrical perhaps, yeah,
like one of those shriner's hats, you know, chet, Yes,
And then there's the centurion, which is kind of like Ben's,
only more elongated up top with a fan basically on
the center line. Yeah, and I don't know if that's
a good use of foil, you know what I mean,
(29:45):
But at some point it becomes a matter of aesthetics, right,
Uh So this is this to be clear, this study
is was made in good spirits. It was made as
a joke and M I T loves this kind of
stuff the student body does. But it's also still m
I T. Which means the students did conduct good science
(30:06):
and what they found might be kind of a kick
in the pants for anyone seriously considering wearing a tinfoil
hat on the regular. They specifically found that quote. Although
on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either direction,
either emanating from an outside source or emanating from the
cranium of the subject, certain frequencies are in fact greatly
(30:30):
amplified around two point six giga hurts and one point
to gigga hurts. It's true, I'm writing that down to
everyone knows. Those are the bad frequencies, man, those are
the ones that get Yet I know, I don't I
don't know that I know. I thought it was common knowledge.
You must not be reading the same blogs as me. Sorry,
(30:51):
And just to point that out, we're talking about two
point six giga hurts to one point two giga hurts.
That's the range that's amplified there with the tinfoil hats.
Just a reminder that the five G signals that are
being talked about a lot, and we mentioned them back
when we were discussing altimeters within or at least the
systems like altimeters within the aviation industry here in the
(31:13):
United States. The five G signals we were talking about,
then we're between three point seven and three point nine
eight gig hurts. Ah, And this leads to an exciting
conclusion from the M I T guys. They said, quote
these amplified frequencies again, two points six giga hurts one
point two giga hurts coincide with radio bands reserved for
(31:35):
government use. According to the Federal Communication Commission or FCC,
Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact
enhance the government's invasive abilities. We therefore speculate that the
government may in fact have started the helpmet craze for
this reason. So the conspiracy here at least m I
(31:56):
t is uh waggish Lee proposing is at Uncle Sam
started telling people who are already paranoid to wear tinfoil
helmets because it made their thoughts easier to read, right,
something like that, it's I love it, I love that idea.
Those are spark guys. Check out the study. It's worth
(32:17):
it just to get a picture of the of the
hats and the models they worked on. You might be
screaming at your phone right now saying, wait, guys, if
this is all true, why are people still buying and
selling clothing meant to repel these waves, especially if everybody
knows that the hats alone don't cut the conspiratorial mustard. Well,
(32:38):
the thing is not everybody is worried about invasive government
mind raise or brainwashing. Instead, a lot of people, just
like Jimmy's brother and better call Saul, are concerned that
they have a heightened sensitivity to electromagnetic energy. Again, this
is known as electromagnetic hyper sensitivity or e h S.
(33:00):
And I suggest that we pause for a word from
our sponsor, and then let's dive into the facts and
fiction surrounding e HS. What makes it seem so controversial
and even sometimes conspiratorial and we're back. Oh man e
(33:24):
h S. Do you guys know anybody who feels that
they have h S or high sensitivity to electromagnetic frequencies?
You know, Ben, I have never met someone personally who
has gone through it, but I know, haven't you guys
maybe interacting with some people or at least we found
out about a whole group of people. Yeah. Yeah, it's
(33:47):
it's strange because it's a hugely controversial condition. It's relatively
recent in the span of humanity. Because society continues to
indust realized wireless technology is becoming an increasingly unavoidable aspect
of modern life. And in step with the spread or
(34:09):
proliferation of wireless technology, we've seen the spread and proliferation
in the number of things that can emit some kind
of e m F. But then we've also seen a
rise in people who feel that this is somehow damaging
to them. I mean, think about it. Look around any
place on a given day, you are probably not very
(34:31):
far from some sort of wireless device. They make life
way easier, but they also come with this speculation about
health risk, and it's it's an international level concerned now,
so the World Health Organization talks about this UH, and
they have a pretty good summary of what e h
(34:54):
S means or what it's symptoms are, at least for
anybody listening in. If these symptoms album familiar to you,
we'd love to hear your personal take, but here they go.
They say the symptoms most commonly experienced include dermatological symptoms redness, tingling,
and burning sensations, as well as neuro aesthetic and vegetative
(35:15):
symptoms fatigue, tiredness, concentration difficulties, dizziness, nausea, heart palpitation, and
digestive disturbances. They also note, quote the collection of symptoms
is not part of any recognized syndrome, So there's that
um and it really is something that kind of the
jury is still out in terms of consensus with modern
(35:38):
medical communities. They they largely chalk it up to psycho somatic,
addict insane, right, so more a mental condition than a
physical ailment, but important to note it remains in ailment nonetheless. UH.
The reason that the majority of the medical community today
doesn't consider this to be part of any recognized syndrome
(36:04):
is due to the research. There have been multiple double
blind studies, and in these double blind studies, there has
been no proven correlation between exposure and symptoms, and you
can find, for instance, you can find numerous cases of
people who when told that they are being exposed to
(36:26):
e m F, they report these symptoms, but when they
are later told they were being misled, then the symptoms
kind of go away. And this this is, you know,
we want to be very respectful here, we want to
exercise empathy in these cases. Experts conclude that there may
be a no cebo effect at play, but regardless of
(36:49):
the actual cause, it's important to acknowledge these people don't
think they're just making it up. There are videos of
people online right now that you can watch who are
expressing the real pain that they experience when they believe
they're being bombarded by e MF. And they are being
bombarded by e MF like we all are. It's just
for some reason, they do feel pain for one reason
(37:13):
or another when they think they're in that situation. Um
and a lot of people may just dismiss it. But
I think that's just but I don't think that's right.
And you know, it's if they're genuinely in pain, if
they feel like they're in pain, then cynically making a
buck off people in distress is, to say the least,
deeply unethical. The good news is folks who believe they
(37:36):
suffer from e HS have found some abatement or mitigation
of symptoms through things like cognitive behavioral therapy or in
some cases through changing their environment, which lowers their perceived
rate of exposure to e m F. I don't know
about everybody else, but I first learned about the prevalence
(37:57):
of this concept in kind of a strange side quest
that you have mentioned earlier mat The U S National
Radio Quiet Zone is a really creepy area of the
United States. We did an episode on it previously because
I think we're all collectively baffled when we encountered it
with very little warning and ended up getting lost while
(38:20):
filming a road rally documentary. Uh. They have really heavily
no you were there, you remember this. They have really
having to enforced laws against almost any kind of wireless
signal transmission, like roam around monitoring corus because it's so
easy to find right because it's like there's so few
(38:43):
signals that they stick out like a like a sore thumb.
It looks like a ghost to magnetically speaking, Yeah, it
has a pay phone network. Every place we went to
was closed. We were lost for hours. And over the years,
this place it's a quiet zone because it has a
(39:04):
very powerful, ginormous radio telescope. But over the years, people
who believe they're suffering from e h S have moved
to this area to avoid exposure. It would be uh
somewhat of a paradise for them. But if you look
at the news about Green Bank, West Virginian nearby towns,
(39:27):
you'll see that these new folks do not get along
with the locals. Tensions are high. And first it's a
remote area, very few job opportunities. But then secondly they're
known for raising raising caine in the in the convert
in like the local town meetings and stuff. They want
(39:47):
all the fluorescent lights gone except I believe Werner Herzog
did a mini doc on this community of folks that
that suffer from from that that believe they suffer from
that condition. And they they have like a whole little
kind of almost commune kind of vibe. It's very hippie
kind of stuff. They're playing bluegrass music and living in
the hills, you know, and not using phones you're right right,
(40:11):
which you know. You don't have to believe you have
e h S. You have to think you have a
medical condition to acknowledge. That could be a really good time.
I'm sure everybody at some point has been tired of
having a phone around them constantly. Yeah, well, if you're
out there and you can hear this, can I come
hang and bring my Jim bay? Do you guys do
drum circles? Everybody does? Doesn't know how to snap? And yeah,
(40:39):
we we would seriously love to hear from people who
live in a community like this, would love to hear
your take. Again, We're we're not making judgment calls. We're
just saying what the current medical consensus is at this point.
There is one last note we need to make. It
is absolutely absolutely true that high levels of electromagnetic radiation
(41:01):
can hurt people. It's true that we are inundated with
more invisible energy than any previous generation of humanity ever,
full stop. So perhaps that's why the idea of the
tinfoil hat endures in the modern day. There's just enough science,
there's just enough concern to make a lot of us
(41:22):
think twice after we laugh at that loon on television. Um,
I kind of tell you guys, one one error. I
realized about this tinfoil hat. It's not a like a
breathable substance. I think, I think my hair is probably
a mess under this thing. Should we check it out? Uh?
(41:44):
Rather not? Got you've got tinfoil hat head? Yes, I've
got tinfoil hat head, just so, just before we wrap
it up. And I just think it's it's interesting to
this this phenomenon definitely came in this form from fiction.
It is very much in line with like the the
image of the madman scrawling on the walls, you know
(42:07):
what I mean, like like various ciphers and you know,
connecting the dots and sort of like the conspiracy red
threadboard and all of that stuff. It's definitely part and
parcel with that kind of iconography. And I think it's
super interesting that you were able to trace it back
to that Huxley short story, because I thought maybe it
was based in reality to some degree, but obviously it is,
(42:28):
but not necessarily in that form. It is strange, isn't
it the way that fiction and fact can kind of
intermingle back and forth in this odd dance where it
becomes increasingly difficult at times to separate one from the other. Still, uh,
we we know. I love you bring up this example
(42:48):
of other tropes like the madman scrawling on the wall,
or of course the conspiracy wall with the string and
everything attached to it. These these ideas all come from somewhere,
and sometimes it's not the fact that informs the fiction,
but the fiction that starts to inform the fact. I'm
just now, I'm just saying fortune cookie things. I'm doing
(43:10):
a word salad. Sorry, guys, I think I think the
I think the hats getting to me. So I seriously
would love to I think we all would love to
hear from someone who feels that they have experienced e
h S. Or from someone who feels that they have
successfully blocked some kind of damaging M damaging energy with
(43:35):
a Faraday cage of some sort. And you know, we
didn't even talk about the pain raise. We didn't even
talk about Havana syndrome. You know what I mean. Has
anybody at the State Department tried wearing a tinfoil hat?
That just sounds silly to say thought control rays, psychotronic scanning.
Don't mind that because I'm protected because I made this
(43:58):
hat something like that. Sorry weird, sorry weird or have
wherever you go by the angster. Uh yes, yes, So
with our shout out to weird al himself, we would
love to hear from you. Let us know what's on
your mind. Have you ever worn at infoil hat seriously?
(44:21):
Or known someone who has? Uh? Tell us what went down?
We try to be easy to find online. That's right.
You can find us on the internet on Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube under the handle at conspiracy Stuff. We're on
Instagram at Conspiracy Stuff Show. But wait, there's more. Yes,
order our book. Oh you can please if you want to,
(44:43):
if you're if you have the funds and the interest.
Where where do the where do the lovely people go
to do that thing? Matt oh Man? You can go everywhere.
There are a bunch of different websites. There's this one
called Amazon, Like, you don't have to use that one.
You can if you want, you can go to your
local bookstore. Him you want stuff they don't want you
to know. The book, not the British one, the one
(45:05):
from us, you'll see it. And honestly, if he does
google stuff that don't want you to know book, various
outlets will come up good Reads. Uh Barnes and Noble
is the top hit. And then there's even a little
section over to the right of a various outlets where
you can find it in preorder. It's even on Target. Wow,
(45:28):
real book. You can preorder it now. Amazing illustrations with
amazing illustrations by our dear friend and compatriot of the show,
UM Admiral Turbot, Nick Benson fantastic mural artists here in
town in Atlanta, and he is absolutely knocked out of
the park. You can actually see if you want. You
can preview some of the art on our various instagrams.
(45:49):
I just reposted on how Now Noel Brown on Instagram
UM one of Nick's kind of detail shots of one
of the images that he did for the chapters. And
I know Ben you've done the same. Yeah. You can
head over to at Ben Bullen bow l I in
on Instagram where you can get behind the scenes peak
at some of the research that I'm doing, some of
(46:10):
the various side projects and misadventures uh AM currently in
the midst of, including the exploration of a mysterious subterranean passage.
Is a true story that goes far beyond the physical
footprint of the building I found it in. It is
some Cathulu stuff that you are exploring, my friend, and
(46:31):
I fear for your safety, insanity, but I love every
minute of it. You guys want to go together? Alright, alright,
all right, I'll go, I'll bring up the rear. Well,
we need somebody to at the very least stand stand
guard at the entrance so that we don't get locked in. Um,
maybe we'll do more urban exploration. But yes, yeah, check
(46:54):
check that out. You know, we greatly appreciate your support. Uh,
this is really worton to us. It's our first time,
first time doing a project like this book, and it
took a lot of effort, and it is specifically for you. Yes,
you're listening, I don't know. Not that person standing next
(47:15):
to you. You can get them a copy too, if
you want. But we made this for you and we
hope you enjoy it. If you don't like the social
needs and if you uh, you've got some stuff on
your mind, something bouncing around and that tinfoil hat of yours, uh,
and you want to tell it to us, we'd love
to hear from you. And you don't need the internet
to contact us. You can just give us a call, like,
(47:37):
take the foil off your phone and then give us
a ring. Yeah, it works. Once the foils off, it works.
Call one eight three three st d W y t K.
Can they or can they not reach us on that
number using a landline if they don't want to even
get involved in any radiation of any kind. You know,
I haven't tested the landline situation. I wonder if any
(47:57):
of you have called from a landline, please call us
back and let us know if you have a t
n C is still a thing, and I think Verizon
a couple of other companies still do it too. Um
when you call it, give yourself a cool nickname. Then
you've got three minutes. Say whatever you'd like. Let us
know if we can use your message, your name, and
your voice somewhere within that message. And if you've got
(48:19):
more to say than can fit in that three minute message,
why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff
(48:46):
they don't want you to know is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. So if you're watching this on YouTube,
you might notice things are a little bit different. There
are no two ways about it. Fellow conspiracy realist. The
(00:48):
world is and has been in a pretty strange place,
and we have some dark episodes ahead no spoilers. But
today we thought we would take a moment and uh
be a little kinder to ourselves and do something a
little bit lighter, if not entirely wholesome. Today we're talking
about one of the most well known tropes in the
(01:08):
entire world of conspiracy lore, the tinfoil hat. Like, so
I got one, now I got a mohawks style one,
you know, uh go, it's very fashionable. Thank you guys,
thank you. Uh it was absolutely not thrown together last
minute for this episode. But like everybody knows knows what
(01:28):
these things are, we always we always see them so
often the world of fiction. And our question today, which
is also something we explore in our upcoming book, by
the way, is what's the deal? How did this become
a thing? Why is it stuck around for so long?
And perhaps most importantly, does wearing one of these actually
do anything other than make the wearer look a little
(01:50):
bit looney. To answer these questions, I think we have
to start with the stereotype. So here are the facts.
Not too long ago, we mentioned a group of protesters
up in Canada who were, or at least the rumor
was on social media, that they were using tinfoil hats
to prevent some attacks by the local government there. Hopefully
(02:12):
remember this. If not, you can search back through the
listener mail and find it. Or maybe it was a
strange news, who knows, but it's something that continues today.
And uh, some people I think we're probably sincerely wearing
tinfoil hats in an attempt to block some kind of
signals entering their head. But I do know for a
(02:32):
fact that others were doing it as a joke. It's
almost it is. It's like a trope. It's a fictional device, right,
we was we were just talking about the song Weird
Al made. Yes foil so many amazing stuff. I mean,
you can wrap your sandwich in it. You can uh
fashion an improvisational pipe out of it. I don't know
(02:57):
if anybody ever did that in their teenage years. You know,
always just reheat pizza with it. You mean in the oven. Yes,
you reheat your pizza and the oven. That is very posh.
That's the way it is usually use people this microwave it. No, no, no, no, no.
Look look I'm gonna dispel this. The best way to
reheat pizza is if you've got a pan on top
(03:20):
of the oven, then you reheat it that way. But
I put it inside my convection oven, and I wrapped
my crust in tinfoil. I also my pan in tinfoil,
and uh, it really does give you that crispy, delicious
cheese that you're looking for. That's the issue. I love it. Well,
that's that's the issue. Like it's it's really are you
(03:40):
a question? Are you willing to spend a couple extra
minutes to get the crispness? I'm I'm sensitive to the
texture right for the pizza. But but also there was
a study that showed the the science, the chemistry behind
why old pizza tastes better, Like why can eat cold
pizza for breakfast? It's it's something to do with the uh,
(04:04):
the cheese and the tomato sauce sitting together in that environment. Uh, anyway,
that maybe the sort of they sort of become one thing,
you know, at that point they're not like separate entities anymore.
And I think there's something about the acidity of the
tomato sauce. But we'll have to check in with our
pals over its savor for that one, because I bet
they know. As a matter of fact, I've become so
(04:26):
lazy with some food questions that I just text Annie
and Lauren at times and ask them to explain something
about food to me, even though all three of us
know that I have access to the internet. Uh So, Laura, Annie,
if you're hearing that, sorry and thank you. Uh. Yeah,
we we see people who wear tinfoil hats, but overwhelmingly, now,
(04:49):
like you were pointing out, Matt, they're going to be
tropes in fiction. You're not going to see them out
in the wild. It's it's sort of a visual shorthand
for writers or direc actors or actors to indicate the
person wearing this peculiar cap is themselves a little bit peculiar.
It's the mark of the capital C, capital ty, conspiracy theorist,
(05:11):
maybe a really crazy prepper survivalist, or maybe a hypochondriact,
or maybe someone suffering from deep, deep paranoia. And what's
funny is these characters, like just as we said this,
I'm sure a lot of us listening today immediately pictured
something from like Futurama or The Simpsons or The X Files, etcetera.
(05:32):
The funny thing about these characters is, in a lot
of shows, they're not always wrong. They may in fact
have some insight about some part of the plot or
whatever the mcguffin is, or some piece of the story,
but that true useful knowledge is a grain of cognitive
sand amid this huge mass of unrelated, unproven and at
(05:55):
times contradictory beliefs like we got the three of us
have been in the past compared to the lone Gunman
of X Files fame. And they also, I think they
have a couple of tinfoil hat moments. Maybe the most
famous is going to be in the world of fiction
right now is going to be Better Call Saul, which
(06:17):
we can first talk about. Yeah, I just started rewatching
that in preparation for the new season. I think it's
better than Breaking Bad. I really enjoy it. WHOA, I'm
on season five? Is that the new one or is
it six? The new one's not out yet, but the
season five is the most recent one, and the new
one is supposed to be the last one. Yes, se
(06:37):
five just hit Netflix. Oh that's what I just started
watching it because I said new episodes and I was like, yes, yes.
Bob owdin Kirk, let's hang. He's got a book coming
out called Comedy Comedy, Comedy Drama like that. It's such
a great all encapsulating title for his book. He's a
brilliant writer and he actually I think it's him. Who
(07:00):
a book on humor that is is a serious book.
It's It's how to be Funny and it's quite effective.
I think that's Bob oden Kirk. I'll check later. But
so the logic for these characters and their sartorial preferences,
it all hinges on the idea of electromagnetic waves and radiation,
(07:21):
And we did talk about this a little bit in
the past. But basically, to stop radiation you need a
material that shorts both electric fields and magnetic fields. So
in terms of stymying electric fields, almost any old metal
can do an okay job because metal conducts electricity, and
(07:43):
despite the name of course, tinfoil is often most often
made of aluminum and aluminums a good conductor. But to
short a magnetic field, you also need a ferromagnetic metal,
such or iron. Your nickel, your cobalts, iron you know,
not often use these days. Iron is heavy, it's got
(08:04):
some other things going against it, one of which would
be rust. But so that's exactly just so, so what
you would look at in terms of the best choice
would probably be something like steel, an alloy of carbon, iron,
tiny amounts of other components. Like if you ever have
cracked open uh a video recorder back in the day,
(08:28):
you look inside you can see there may be a
chassis that is constructed of aluminum, but there's a small
box behind the co X connector which is made of steel,
and that is to shield things from radiation. That's the logic.
At least there's some guy vernous about it. There's something
you know, uh, improvisational and even inspiring about the idea
(08:52):
of someone saying, I'm going to make my own protection.
It's to shield it from like magnetism as well, right,
so it doesn't get erased accidentally, and if I'm not mistaken,
Like the little kind of cape they put over you
at the dentist or the doctor when you're getting an
X ray is made of lead and that stops those
those particular type of reading radiation. Yeah, it it mitigates
(09:16):
the exposure level. And you know, when you think of
like a tinfoil hat, it's weird to do this episode
while I'm actually wearing one. But maybe, well, are you
anything or any waves not entering your head that normally
would be do you feel to to say, I feel
(09:37):
slightly less mad? Um, So I gotta get I gotta
get this off because we have more stuff to do.
But you know, it's like, you know what it reminds
me of, in the spirit of it putting aside the
science for just a second, it reminds me of how
in go to your warfare and in violent protests and
(09:58):
oppressive regimes, people improvise their own sort of devices, whether
those are weapons or whether they're improvised gas mask created
with you know, household objects. You can see versions of this,
by the way, in video games like Far Cry six
that has I think a lot of improvised material or
(10:22):
a coffee can filled with that um, charcoal or something
like that. Wouldn't that be one way and stuff like that. Yeah,
I think you're right. Yeah, and and so we know
that this is this somehow in the modern age, the
idea of a tinfoil hat became a universally recognized symbol. Right.
(10:44):
You would show a person a picture of someone wearing
a tinfoil hat, and even if they come from vastly
different cultures, they would probably immediately associated with the same things.
And that's because this is a surprisingly old old idea.
It's not something that came about with the wave of
(11:06):
UFO sightings in the nineteen sixties. Uh. This image of
the paranoid loner who puts on the tinfoil cone and
they hide away from the al c nive mass surveillance,
it's been around for almost a century. Tinfoil was invented
in nineteen oh three or so, and not very much
long after the idea of wearing it as a hat
(11:27):
showed up in fiction, and there's a we know this,
or at least we learned this because of a great
article by roisen Khyberd roisen kibbered over at Vice. Yeah.
He traces it back to nineteen when Aldus Huxley's half
brother Julian wrote a story called The Tissue Culture King,
(11:48):
and that story revolves around a scientist named Haskem who
kind of dabbles in mind control technology and eventually realizes
that putting on a hat made of foil will block
telepathic signals from entering his his mind, but it will
also block them from escaping and getting out. What is
he doing stunting himself and his own telepathic abilities? I'm
(12:11):
just kidding. I don't know, but it doesn't feel like
the trailer. No. I just feel like, if you're blocking
things from getting in, aren't you blocking things from getting out?
To man? So I don't know. Yeah, but who cares? Like, like,
my cell phone isn't sending or receiving anything right now?
You know? Because we oh wait, no, we just debunked that,
(12:33):
didn't we. Well dare to dream, right, It's it's strange
because this we can trace where this first appears in fiction,
and in the kind of story that you're describing here, Nol,
we see that this would be really cool science fiction
for its time. The idea is stuck around in the
(12:54):
modern day. You know, we mentioned better call Salt and
and better call salt. The prota aganist older brother is
a brilliant lawyer who, as he got on in years,
began to believe that he suffered from electro magnetic hyper
sensitivity e h s uh. And so a lot of
the early this isn't really a spoiler, but a lot
(13:17):
of the early seasons and episodes have this running plot
where this guy, who is again a brilliant legal mind,
has has become increasingly isolated from the modern world because
he feels that he cannot be around most modern technology.
And when he has to go outside or when he
(13:39):
has to expose himself to these waves that he feels
have damaging health effects, he always hides beneath those emergency
foil blankets, the kind of things you'd see in a
survival kit, kind you should definitely have in your car
if you're on a road trip. Excellent portrayal by Michael McKean,
and you'll know from like all the Christopher guest movies
(14:00):
and the spinal tap and and all that stuff. He's
just fantastic. It's it's simultaneously funny. He's kind of an ass,
but it's also heartbreaking because he is going through the
stuff and he fully is experiencing it. But it's one
of these things we've talked about the past that science
doesn't exactly acknowledge as being real. Yes, and we're we're
diving into that later in this episode two. It's a
(14:23):
it's an ongoing conversation. Right. Uh. These characters, again in fiction,
are often played for laughs, right, as though they are
foolish in their paranoia. But you have to wonder how
those so called kuks of yesteryear would feel about the
average person's online social media life today. You know, maybe
(14:47):
they weren't Maybe maybe they were wrong about a lot
of stuff, but maybe they weren't wrong about everything, especially
when it comes to surveillance. So you have to wonder, though,
why this image has such staying power Night to two
thousand two. Well, could it be that it's just a
shortcut for some sometimes lazy writing, or could it be
(15:09):
something else? Could it actually work? Will pause for a
word from our sponsor and figure this out together. Here's
where it gets crazy. All right, this might not be
the answer every everyone was expecting. But uh yeah, aluminum does,
(15:33):
in fact, to a degree, blocks some blocks and frequencies.
It's just not near as effective as some folks would
like to believe. Like, there's the experiment you can do
at home to get a sense of this. Take a
sheet of aluminum foil. Lay it out on a flat surface,
(15:54):
Take your smartphone or your burner, wrap your wrap the
phone and foil. Okay, Matt's doing it. This is the
tutorial part of the podcast. This is like step step
what step one? Wrap the phone? Okay, all right, and
then uh tell us when you got it wrapped up,
(16:15):
get wrapped up nice and tight. Yeah yeah. Do you
could get that seasonal job wrapping gifts at department stores.
It was very neat job. Okay. So true believers will
tell you that this has created a Faraday cage, that
(16:38):
this has blocked the entirety of that signal. However, we
can try this right now. All that needs to happen
is one of us needs to try to call Matt.
Oh yeah, call me, somebody call me. Wait, oh wait,
I need to turn on I need to turn on
so we can hear all. Okay, maybe it'll ring. Let's
(17:01):
see my phone is on that. Okay. This is why
we didn't want for us to do this. Yeah, I
thought it would. I thought it would disrupt the signal, right,
(17:21):
it would interfere with it. But I didn't know one
sheet alone could do the trick. I thought you would
need a lot more foil to shut it down. That
was one sheet. Okay, wait, hold on, wait, we gotta
do control call one more time. I'm unwrapping my phone
just really fast to make sure this isn't just weird.
I'm sorry to waste so much time. Dreams are made up. Yeah,
(17:43):
conspiracy dreams, here we go. Yeah, dude, can you hear
that it's ringing? It wasn't ringing before. It didn't ring alright,
that's crazy. We didn't ring this many times either. It
rang like three times and went to voicemail. Interesting. So
(18:03):
what this is? This is something we wanted to recreate
as an experiment. We hope you guys enjoyed it, because,
as you can tell, we were surprised that this works
so well. People try That's what's happening. People drive this
trick in the modern day though, and one of the
most recent infamous examples that I remember at least is
(18:28):
the story of Galain Maxwell. Remember when she was hiding
out before the law came for her, And I did
check before we recorded today to make sure that she
is still alive. Uh, she is for now. The prosecutors
in the Maxwell case noted they had this thing that
may have gotten lost in the shuffle, but they said
(18:50):
when agents started conducting a security sweep of her house,
the place she was hiding after she had been apprehended,
they noticed that she had a cell phone wrapped in
tinfoil on top of a desk, and they said it
was apparently an effort to evade detection. Forbes, with some
like diplomatic smart snark later said quote, it was not
(19:14):
a work of technical genius. Well, I wonder if it
blocks just the radio frequencies that are coming from the
cell towers, but it wouldn't block like a WiFi signal.
Maybe that's a good question. I mean that I'm gonna
all waves are created equal, right, Like they're different, you know,
they're different sizes, they're they're different levels of what's the
(19:39):
word penetration, you know, in terms of like the distance
they can travel and like a Bluetooth signal is still
a wireless you know, bit of radiation, but it's not
the same as a WiFi signal. One has to be
in close proximity, closer proximity. Yeah, they're not all created equal.
And there's these radio waves we're talking about now, our
(20:00):
form of E M F radiation. That aluminum foil, as
we just demonstrate, acts as a barrier and if you
have enough of it then it could block those waves.
There's the other example is just the basic Faraday cage,
which we mentioned earlier. Don't let the name cage necessarily
fool you. It's any kind of structure that can block
(20:21):
these uh, these types of energy. It's usually gonna be
a wire mesh of a metal, often aluminum, and the
ideas that can completely block radio microwave radiation. So you
might be thinking of references to Faraday cages in fiction
like Lost or in somewhere else, Oh, infringe, there's a
guy who builds an internal Faraday cage and it's pretty
(20:44):
gross and cyberpunk. Uh, I think about like chain mail armor. Yeah, yeah,
great example, Yeah, because it is it's a kind of armor.
The well, there there are those dudes that work on
like high tension wires um you know, really really high up.
They have to ground themselves and they wear literally a
suit that looks like chain mail armor that is kind
(21:04):
of a wearable Faraday cage, but I'm not mistaken. And
they have this big pole they used to ground themselves,
and they're able to handle the power lines without getting exploded. Amazing.
And those guys do make a lot of money, but
they are earning every sense of it. You need a
particular set of skills. So the most important factor of
any Faraday cage is that a mesh is fine. It'll
(21:28):
work as well as a full sheet of metal. But
the mesh will be fine as long as there are
no holes larger than the shortest wavelength of the radio
or the microwaves. They're trying to enter that barrier. And you,
if you only think of Faraday cages in the world
of fiction, you might be surprised to learn that you
(21:49):
odds are you are regularly using a Faraday cage in
your everyday life. If you're not, then someone you know
most certainly is yeah, when reheat your pizza, not like me,
when you throw that thing in the microwave. Why would
you do that. I'm shaming you right now, pizza shaming me,
(22:10):
Bro Pizza shaming me. You and your posh oven reheated
crispy pizza. Sir, I'm joking everybody. I totally King of
King of France over here, but he's a pizza supremacist.
Looking back, it all makes sense. No, I'm kidding, yeah, no, no,
(22:30):
I'm I'm team of it as well. But I I
do think that microwaves, they're tremendously useful. And whenever you
look at that little window right being paranoid myself, I
don't like to hang too close to the microwave just
in case. Never do it. But that little window with
that wire mesh on there is part of basically fairday cage.
(22:55):
It's a material that is small enough such that it
prevent microwave radiation from zapping you. So what you know,
we all know every heating pizza. You should never reheat
pizza in the microwave when it's wrapped in tinfoil because
that will cause a minor fire or perhaps explosion. Um,
(23:16):
what is it about the metal that the microwaves interact
with that causes uh these dangerous effects? I'm so glad
you asked. So, metals are great conductors of electricity essentially
because they have a lot of electrons and those electrons
move about freely. And so when microwaves, like in your
in your microwave oven, when microwaves hit metal objects, those
(23:40):
microwaves get reflected and they bounce back and forth, and
there's not enough material inside the microwave oven to absorb
those microwaves that are bouncing back and forth, and so
they arc between the metal object and another part of
the microwave oven. And anybody who's like accidently left a
spoon maybe in some che eas did you've seen this? Yeah,
(24:04):
you know it's funny. There's a how stuff works article
from back in the day by Marshall Brain himself. What
if I put a luminium full in the microwave and
I just had a hilarious misreading. It says radio waves
in this frequency range have an interesting property. Uh, And
then it says some things that can absorb them. It
says water, fats, and sugars. What I read fats as farts? Yes,
(24:26):
because I'm a child. What if you have to choose
between the two, It's probably better if you to fart
in the microwave instead of putting aluminum foil there. But
it's just like what It's just like the question what
do you do when you find yourself lost in the woods.
Your first thing is to ask yourself how you got
in that situation, and then just fart. And if you
(24:48):
fart in the forest and no one's around you here,
does it really make a sound you hear? Never mind,
that's that's an irrelevant question because you're there. If you
know what you did, you know disgusting creature, and nature
knows to all the animals in the forest, like this
guy eats beans h house everybody he the crime. So
(25:19):
in terms of a basic concept, yes, there is there
is science to this. If you're talking about the hat,
though the idea of a tinfoil hat, that science breaks down.
The issue comes down to coverage. A tinfoil hat is
only covering a small amount of your body, a very
important neighborhood of your body, but a very small part.
(25:41):
So unlike a true Faraday cage, this is no longer
a closed structure. That hat has a huge opening, and
the way this energy works, that opening renders this entire
thing much less effective. You would be better off if
you had like an aluminum ski mass. You'd be even
better off if you had a full body suit made
(26:04):
of aluminum foil or mesh. And guess what I found
some you can buy just if you're interested. There's a
really cool look at one on Amazon. Uh, it looks
like it looks like one of those old Lava men suits.
I swear you, guys, I'm pretty sure this is the
exact one that the props people on Better Call Saul used.
It looks exactly like if you click on if you
(26:25):
click on the link and you look at it, it's that.
For the low low price of three dollars and four
cents YouTube, you two can look like you're about to
fight in the volcano. It is for firefighters mainly. I
think there are entire companies that are dedicated to making
(26:46):
this stuff. Like they'll make em shielding socks, weird looking
onesies almost no, what's that? What's the name of that?
That cool happaneese onesie style? Like yeah, yeah, they may
they make things that look like foil kigaromi. And you know, uh,
(27:11):
it's up to you if you want to buy it again,
you would if you want to protect yourself from some
sort of perceived radiation. You will probably need to cover
cover your the entirety of your body, or make a
room that is coated with something protective. These are possible,
but they're pretty inconvenient to modern life. So it sounds
(27:33):
like we're poop poo in the idea and we kind
of are based on what people believe it's protecting them from.
But how can we say the normal hat doesn't work?
How can we say this with such certitude? You don't
have to take our word for it, fellow conspiracy realists. Instead,
you can check out this amazing little study done by
some M I. T. Students in two thousand five. It's hilarious.
(27:57):
It's called on the effectiveness of Aluminum foil Helmets and
empirical study. Brilliant, brilliant. You can hear just by the title.
It's pretty tongue in cheek, right, I mean you just
hear it. But it looked at three different versions or
models of tinfoil hats to check out whether or not
they could send you know, uh, signals through them. Right,
(28:19):
these are helmets. These are tinfoil helmets. Okay, let's get
it straight. That's the title. Okay, that's the title. That's
that's the bit of tongue in cheekiness there as Cleveland
calling them helmets. You know, I think it's a little Sillian.
Oh dude, Well it's pretty awesome because they did have three,
like again, let's just call them models. There's the classical,
(28:40):
which ben do you think that's close to yours? Or
do you think that's got like the more of the
pointed top. I've yeah, I've I've gone with again more
stylish sort of foe hawk because I think it looks aerodynamic,
you know, you want to kind of you know, it's
almost like a like a Spartan soldiers helmet. If I
had time, I would have tried to make something with
(29:02):
a brim. I feel like there's probably a big market
for brimmed aluminum hats, or maybe a cap like a
flat cap also known as the gentleman. So so they
use the class goal, which is the gentleman just a
flat surface on covers your head like a like a
swimming cap. Then there's the fez, which is it goes
(29:24):
up almost like a bucket hat, a little more cylindrical perhaps, yeah,
like one of those shriner's hats, you know, chet, Yes,
And then there's the centurion, which is kind of like Ben's,
only more elongated up top with a fan basically on
the center line. Yeah, and I don't know if that's
a good use of foil, you know what I mean,
(29:45):
But at some point it becomes a matter of aesthetics, right,
Uh So this is this to be clear, this study
is was made in good spirits. It was made as
a joke and M I T loves this kind of
stuff the student body does. But it's also still m
I T. Which means the students did conduct good science
(30:06):
and what they found might be kind of a kick
in the pants for anyone seriously considering wearing a tinfoil
hat on the regular. They specifically found that quote. Although
on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either direction,
either emanating from an outside source or emanating from the
cranium of the subject, certain frequencies are in fact greatly
(30:30):
amplified around two point six giga hurts and one point
to gigga hurts. It's true, I'm writing that down to
everyone knows. Those are the bad frequencies, man, those are
the ones that get Yet I know, I don't I
don't know that I know. I thought it was common knowledge.
You must not be reading the same blogs as me. Sorry,
(30:51):
And just to point that out, we're talking about two
point six giga hurts to one point two giga hurts.
That's the range that's amplified there with the tinfoil hats.
Just a reminder that the five G signals that are
being talked about a lot, and we mentioned them back
when we were discussing altimeters within or at least the
systems like altimeters within the aviation industry here in the
(31:13):
United States. The five G signals we were talking about,
then we're between three point seven and three point nine
eight gig hurts. Ah, And this leads to an exciting
conclusion from the M I T guys. They said, quote
these amplified frequencies again, two points six giga hurts one
point two giga hurts coincide with radio bands reserved for
(31:35):
government use. According to the Federal Communication Commission or FCC,
Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact
enhance the government's invasive abilities. We therefore speculate that the
government may in fact have started the helpmet craze for
this reason. So the conspiracy here at least m I
(31:56):
t is uh waggish Lee proposing is at Uncle Sam
started telling people who are already paranoid to wear tinfoil
helmets because it made their thoughts easier to read, right,
something like that, it's I love it, I love that idea.
Those are spark guys. Check out the study. It's worth
(32:17):
it just to get a picture of the of the
hats and the models they worked on. You might be
screaming at your phone right now saying, wait, guys, if
this is all true, why are people still buying and
selling clothing meant to repel these waves, especially if everybody
knows that the hats alone don't cut the conspiratorial mustard. Well,
(32:38):
the thing is not everybody is worried about invasive government
mind raise or brainwashing. Instead, a lot of people, just
like Jimmy's brother and better call Saul, are concerned that
they have a heightened sensitivity to electromagnetic energy. Again, this
is known as electromagnetic hyper sensitivity or e h S.
(33:00):
And I suggest that we pause for a word from
our sponsor, and then let's dive into the facts and
fiction surrounding e HS. What makes it seem so controversial
and even sometimes conspiratorial and we're back. Oh man e
(33:24):
h S. Do you guys know anybody who feels that
they have h S or high sensitivity to electromagnetic frequencies?
You know, Ben, I have never met someone personally who
has gone through it, but I know, haven't you guys
maybe interacting with some people or at least we found
out about a whole group of people. Yeah. Yeah, it's
(33:47):
it's strange because it's a hugely controversial condition. It's relatively
recent in the span of humanity. Because society continues to
indust realized wireless technology is becoming an increasingly unavoidable aspect
of modern life. And in step with the spread or
(34:09):
proliferation of wireless technology, we've seen the spread and proliferation
in the number of things that can emit some kind
of e m F. But then we've also seen a
rise in people who feel that this is somehow damaging
to them. I mean, think about it. Look around any
place on a given day, you are probably not very
(34:31):
far from some sort of wireless device. They make life
way easier, but they also come with this speculation about
health risk, and it's it's an international level concerned now,
so the World Health Organization talks about this UH, and
they have a pretty good summary of what e h
(34:54):
S means or what it's symptoms are, at least for
anybody listening in. If these symptoms album familiar to you,
we'd love to hear your personal take, but here they go.
They say the symptoms most commonly experienced include dermatological symptoms redness, tingling,
and burning sensations, as well as neuro aesthetic and vegetative
(35:15):
symptoms fatigue, tiredness, concentration difficulties, dizziness, nausea, heart palpitation, and
digestive disturbances. They also note, quote the collection of symptoms
is not part of any recognized syndrome, So there's that
um and it really is something that kind of the
jury is still out in terms of consensus with modern
(35:38):
medical communities. They they largely chalk it up to psycho somatic,
addict insane, right, so more a mental condition than a
physical ailment, but important to note it remains in ailment nonetheless. UH.
The reason that the majority of the medical community today
doesn't consider this to be part of any recognized syndrome
(36:04):
is due to the research. There have been multiple double
blind studies, and in these double blind studies, there has
been no proven correlation between exposure and symptoms, and you
can find, for instance, you can find numerous cases of
people who when told that they are being exposed to
(36:26):
e m F, they report these symptoms, but when they
are later told they were being misled, then the symptoms
kind of go away. And this this is, you know,
we want to be very respectful here, we want to
exercise empathy in these cases. Experts conclude that there may
be a no cebo effect at play, but regardless of
(36:49):
the actual cause, it's important to acknowledge these people don't
think they're just making it up. There are videos of
people online right now that you can watch who are
expressing the real pain that they experience when they believe
they're being bombarded by e MF. And they are being
bombarded by e MF like we all are. It's just
for some reason, they do feel pain for one reason
(37:13):
or another when they think they're in that situation. Um
and a lot of people may just dismiss it. But
I think that's just but I don't think that's right.
And you know, it's if they're genuinely in pain, if
they feel like they're in pain, then cynically making a
buck off people in distress is, to say the least,
deeply unethical. The good news is folks who believe they
(37:36):
suffer from e HS have found some abatement or mitigation
of symptoms through things like cognitive behavioral therapy or in
some cases through changing their environment, which lowers their perceived
rate of exposure to e m F. I don't know
about everybody else, but I first learned about the prevalence
(37:57):
of this concept in kind of a strange side quest
that you have mentioned earlier mat The U S National
Radio Quiet Zone is a really creepy area of the
United States. We did an episode on it previously because
I think we're all collectively baffled when we encountered it
with very little warning and ended up getting lost while
(38:20):
filming a road rally documentary. Uh. They have really heavily
no you were there, you remember this. They have really
having to enforced laws against almost any kind of wireless
signal transmission, like roam around monitoring corus because it's so
easy to find right because it's like there's so few
(38:43):
signals that they stick out like a like a sore thumb.
It looks like a ghost to magnetically speaking, Yeah, it
has a pay phone network. Every place we went to
was closed. We were lost for hours. And over the years,
this place it's a quiet zone because it has a
(39:04):
very powerful, ginormous radio telescope. But over the years, people
who believe they're suffering from e h S have moved
to this area to avoid exposure. It would be uh
somewhat of a paradise for them. But if you look
at the news about Green Bank, West Virginian nearby towns,
(39:27):
you'll see that these new folks do not get along
with the locals. Tensions are high. And first it's a
remote area, very few job opportunities. But then secondly they're
known for raising raising caine in the in the convert
in like the local town meetings and stuff. They want
(39:47):
all the fluorescent lights gone except I believe Werner Herzog
did a mini doc on this community of folks that
that suffer from from that that believe they suffer from
that condition. And they they have like a whole little
kind of almost commune kind of vibe. It's very hippie
kind of stuff. They're playing bluegrass music and living in
the hills, you know, and not using phones you're right right,
(40:11):
which you know. You don't have to believe you have
e h S. You have to think you have a
medical condition to acknowledge. That could be a really good time.
I'm sure everybody at some point has been tired of
having a phone around them constantly. Yeah, well, if you're
out there and you can hear this, can I come
hang and bring my Jim bay? Do you guys do
drum circles? Everybody does? Doesn't know how to snap? And yeah,
(40:39):
we we would seriously love to hear from people who
live in a community like this, would love to hear
your take. Again, We're we're not making judgment calls. We're
just saying what the current medical consensus is at this point.
There is one last note we need to make. It
is absolutely absolutely true that high levels of electromagnetic radiation
(41:01):
can hurt people. It's true that we are inundated with
more invisible energy than any previous generation of humanity ever,
full stop. So perhaps that's why the idea of the
tinfoil hat endures in the modern day. There's just enough science,
there's just enough concern to make a lot of us
(41:22):
think twice after we laugh at that loon on television. Um,
I kind of tell you guys, one one error. I
realized about this tinfoil hat. It's not a like a
breathable substance. I think, I think my hair is probably
a mess under this thing. Should we check it out? Uh?
(41:44):
Rather not? Got you've got tinfoil hat head? Yes, I've
got tinfoil hat head, just so, just before we wrap
it up. And I just think it's it's interesting to
this this phenomenon definitely came in this form from fiction.
It is very much in line with like the the
image of the madman scrawling on the walls, you know
(42:07):
what I mean, like like various ciphers and you know,
connecting the dots and sort of like the conspiracy red
threadboard and all of that stuff. It's definitely part and
parcel with that kind of iconography. And I think it's
super interesting that you were able to trace it back
to that Huxley short story, because I thought maybe it
was based in reality to some degree, but obviously it is,
(42:28):
but not necessarily in that form. It is strange, isn't
it the way that fiction and fact can kind of
intermingle back and forth in this odd dance where it
becomes increasingly difficult at times to separate one from the other. Still, uh,
we we know. I love you bring up this example
(42:48):
of other tropes like the madman scrawling on the wall,
or of course the conspiracy wall with the string and
everything attached to it. These these ideas all come from somewhere,
and sometimes it's not the fact that informs the fiction,
but the fiction that starts to inform the fact. I'm
just now, I'm just saying fortune cookie things. I'm doing
(43:10):
a word salad. Sorry, guys, I think I think the
I think the hats getting to me. So I seriously
would love to I think we all would love to
hear from someone who feels that they have experienced e
h S. Or from someone who feels that they have
successfully blocked some kind of damaging M damaging energy with
(43:35):
a Faraday cage of some sort. And you know, we
didn't even talk about the pain raise. We didn't even
talk about Havana syndrome. You know what I mean. Has
anybody at the State Department tried wearing a tinfoil hat?
That just sounds silly to say thought control rays, psychotronic scanning.
Don't mind that because I'm protected because I made this
(43:58):
hat something like that. Sorry weird, sorry weird or have
wherever you go by the angster. Uh yes, yes, So
with our shout out to weird al himself, we would
love to hear from you. Let us know what's on
your mind. Have you ever worn at infoil hat seriously?
(44:21):
Or known someone who has? Uh? Tell us what went down?
We try to be easy to find online. That's right.
You can find us on the internet on Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube under the handle at conspiracy Stuff. We're on
Instagram at Conspiracy Stuff Show. But wait, there's more. Yes,
order our book. Oh you can please if you want to,
(44:43):
if you're if you have the funds and the interest.
Where where do the where do the lovely people go
to do that thing? Matt oh Man? You can go everywhere.
There are a bunch of different websites. There's this one
called Amazon, Like, you don't have to use that one.
You can if you want, you can go to your
local bookstore. Him you want stuff they don't want you
to know. The book, not the British one, the one
(45:05):
from us, you'll see it. And honestly, if he does
google stuff that don't want you to know book, various
outlets will come up good Reads. Uh Barnes and Noble
is the top hit. And then there's even a little
section over to the right of a various outlets where
you can find it in preorder. It's even on Target. Wow,
(45:28):
real book. You can preorder it now. Amazing illustrations with
amazing illustrations by our dear friend and compatriot of the show,
UM Admiral Turbot, Nick Benson fantastic mural artists here in
town in Atlanta, and he is absolutely knocked out of
the park. You can actually see if you want. You
can preview some of the art on our various instagrams.
(45:49):
I just reposted on how Now Noel Brown on Instagram
UM one of Nick's kind of detail shots of one
of the images that he did for the chapters. And
I know Ben you've done the same. Yeah. You can
head over to at Ben Bullen bow l I in
on Instagram where you can get behind the scenes peak
at some of the research that I'm doing, some of
(46:10):
the various side projects and misadventures uh AM currently in
the midst of, including the exploration of a mysterious subterranean passage.
Is a true story that goes far beyond the physical
footprint of the building I found it in. It is
some Cathulu stuff that you are exploring, my friend, and
(46:31):
I fear for your safety, insanity, but I love every
minute of it. You guys want to go together? Alright, alright,
all right, I'll go, I'll bring up the rear. Well,
we need somebody to at the very least stand stand
guard at the entrance so that we don't get locked in. Um,
maybe we'll do more urban exploration. But yes, yeah, check
(46:54):
check that out. You know, we greatly appreciate your support. Uh,
this is really worton to us. It's our first time,
first time doing a project like this book, and it
took a lot of effort, and it is specifically for you. Yes,
you're listening, I don't know. Not that person standing next
(47:15):
to you. You can get them a copy too, if
you want. But we made this for you and we
hope you enjoy it. If you don't like the social
needs and if you uh, you've got some stuff on
your mind, something bouncing around and that tinfoil hat of yours, uh,
and you want to tell it to us, we'd love
to hear from you. And you don't need the internet
to contact us. You can just give us a call, like,
(47:37):
take the foil off your phone and then give us
a ring. Yeah, it works. Once the foils off, it works.
Call one eight three three st d W y t K.
Can they or can they not reach us on that
number using a landline if they don't want to even
get involved in any radiation of any kind. You know,
I haven't tested the landline situation. I wonder if any
(47:57):
of you have called from a landline, please call us
back and let us know if you have a t
n C is still a thing, and I think Verizon
a couple of other companies still do it too. Um
when you call it, give yourself a cool nickname. Then
you've got three minutes. Say whatever you'd like. Let us
know if we can use your message, your name, and
your voice somewhere within that message. And if you've got
(48:19):
more to say than can fit in that three minute message,
why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff
(48:46):
they don't want you to know is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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