La Casa de las Canicas and the Ciudad Juárez Cobalt-60 Contamination Incident

La Casa de Las Canicas was built in the 1930s and can be found in Coahuila, Mexico. It's said to be haunted, but the name canicas does not come from where you think it does. Carmen shares this legend and Cristina shares the Cuidad Juarez Cobalt 60 incident known as the Chernobyl of Mexico, she also mentions the Chernobyl milk Mexico situation. First they read a listener story and end with spooky recommendations. 

If you have a spooky story to share, email [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail at the Espooky Hot Line [phone]. You can also submit it on Discord!

Join the Espooky Tales Book Club for Busy People: https://substack.com/@espooky?utm_source=profile-page

Listen to Carmen and Cristina's other podcast Historias Unknown

The book club read is the Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, if you want to purchase the book, check out our bookshop link https://bookshop.org/lists/espooky-book-club-list

For more spooky stories, check out the Tiktok! https://www.tiktok.com/@espookytales

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/espookytales/

Chat with us on Discord! https://discord.gg/cWk7CvVgaR

Want to be a Patron? Get episodes AD-FREE, listen before they are released to anyone else, get bonus episodes, exclusive stickers, virtual hangouts, and more! Support Espooky Tales. Learn more by visiting https://www.patreon.com/Espookytales

By joining, you can help Espooky Tales donate 20% funds to charity. Last month's donation went to Al Otro Lado's Water Drop program, The program is aimed at saving lives by proving water, clothing, food and First aid kits deep in the desert, where they are at most risk of death while seeking asylum.

Find more information here: https://alotrolado.org/

Get Espooky Merch: https://www.bonfire.com/store/espooky-tales/

Find us on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@espookytales

Thank you for listening! (timestamps may be a little off due to dynamic ad instertion)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi. This is Christina and Carmen and this is another
episode of a Spooky Tales, the podcast for all things
A Spooky Hunted places myths, legends in Latin America and
occasionally natural disasters, because that's what I'm doing today. Oh,
times are rough, and i've been at the time of recording.
It's June eleventh, by the way, this isn't going to

(00:24):
come out until later though, but yeah, times are rough,
and I was like, I don't want to look up
a crime. I want to look up a natural disaster.
And I don't know why that made me feel better
than a crime, which is horrific to it in its
own right. Yeah it is. So I don't know what
that says about me. But you know what, because it
was mother nature. Yeah, no ill intentions. It wasn't mankind

(00:46):
or a man hurting a woman or child as typically happening.
What Okay, maybe I should have said man made disaster. Disaster.
That's a disaster. You're right, and it is terrible. I
don't know. This isn't consoling me at all. What I'm
what have I done? What have you done? Yes? So? Yeah,
But before all that, we do have a listener story okay, sorry, no, no,

(01:12):
before you read it. If you have a story that
you want to send us to read, email a spookita
do at gmail dot com. You can d m us
on any of our socials. You can submit it on Discord.
If you want to put it on Discord but you
don't want everyone to see it, that's on our discord.
You can also just set it to me on Discord personally.
That's fine, I'll see it. All those things are fine.

(01:36):
You can call the Spooky Hotline. Yeah, all of those
things are fine. We we rub That's what I was
going to say. We love receiving your stories. Okay, Scooby
doo bitch, Okay, we love Sorry, yeah, we love receiving
your stories. So yeah, send them, keep sending them. Okay,

(01:56):
sorry my voice. Whoa. I'm a little sick because craziness
me sick. So it is the price of seeing them, Yeah,
like you said, yeah, and I'm like, is it worth it?
I'm questioning. I would be questioning it too sometimes I'm
madream if it's worth it, it's worth it. They're always sick,
or they're not always sick, but they're sick right before

(02:17):
we see them. Yeah, No, they're always sick. Okay, they're
always sick. Yeah yeah, okay, So listen to story. This
comes from Fred. I would like to share the time
my aunt was on the verge of death and why
we suspect that her sister in law did a witchcraft
on her. Oh, my god, because you're eating. The story

(02:38):
took place around fifty five years ago, when my mom
was still around seven years old. My aunt got married
to my uncle and they decided that my aunt would
move in with him and his family. That's always uh,
I don't regre For some unknown reason, her in laws
hated her with a passion and would not allow her
to talk with my grandma or the rest of our family.

(03:00):
Probably domestic violence. Sorry, I don't want to put stuff
on this, but usually that's the reason. Okay, back to
the story. One day, early in the morning, my grandma
ran into my youngest uncle's godfather. While talking, it came
up that my aunt was experiencing something weird, and so
my grandma decided to go visit them, no matter who
tried to stop her. When my grandma arrived at the ranch,

(03:22):
she found my aunt laying on a mat, unconscious and
a bunch of lit candles and people around her praying what.
From time to time, my aunt would start yelling, still unconscious,
helped me, bancho, it's trying to kill me, and she
would toss around on the mat. She started pulling clumps
of hair from her head, and a couple of times

(03:43):
she'd yell, stopped it. Stop hitting me, please, I'm banging you. Stop.
I didn't do anything to you. And then bruises would
pop up on her arms, legs, and even a couple
on her back. My grandma started freaking out and decided
to try to do something about it and went out
to grab some holy water, some holy water from the
nearest church. Two hours later, she came back to the
house with a glass bottle of holy water, but as

(04:05):
soon as she had put the bottle in my aunt's hand,
it exploded. The weirdest thing is not a single drop
of water was visible. It's as if it evaporated immediately.
My grandma was fed up at this point and demanded
my uncle go out and grab his truck to take
my aunt to the same church. She grabbed the holy
water from my uncle immediately ran now to try and
grab his truck. During that time, my grandma stayed beside

(04:28):
my aunt, grabbing her hand, when all of a sudden,
my aunt started screaming again. Somebody helped me. She's going
to drown me, and her legs and under her fingernails
started getting sandy. Finally, my uncle came back with this
truck and they loaded my aunt into the backside of
the truck, but all of a sudden, the truck turned
off and my uncle was unable to turn it back on.

(04:49):
As the last resort, they decided to go find a cab. Luckily,
it only took them a couple of minutes to find one.
They loaded her up in the cab and drove towards
the church, but the tire popped. The cab driver quickly
changed the tire and they went off again. On the
way to church, you had to pass through a small
dried out river that didn't have any water for years.

(05:10):
But as soon as they tried it driving through it,
it got stuck and muddy. The cab driver furiously said
Signora Sevedra sabilukez mioto. Damn, this is crazy and in inglass, ma'am.
If I had known this involved demons, I wouldn't have
put you in my car. My uncle and the cab
driver got out and pushed the cab out of the river,

(05:33):
and they continued to drive to the church. Finally they
arrived at the church. When they tried to take her in,
it seemed as if there was an invisible while preventing
them from even getting close. It ended up taking my grandma,
my uncle, the cab driver, and four other men that
were inside the church to even get her near. This
is wild, this is insane. As soon as they got
close to the church, the doors slammed close again. It

(05:56):
took everyone's strength to open the door and carry her
in quickly. They dropped her in the middle of the church,
and the father and nuns told them to exit the
church and let them do what's necessary. Finally, hours later,
the father exited and let my grandma enter the room
they placed my aunt in. My aunt looked exhausted and pale,
as if her life was sucked out of her. She

(06:16):
stayed there a couple of days, and then once she
felt better, she went back home. To this day, we
all think that it was her sister in law that
did something to her because of her unwarranted hatred towards
my aunt. That's my family story. I hope you liked it.
Special things for you two for doing such great work
on spreading stories from our cultures, keeping amazing people. Lots
of love, heart, Thank you Fred for your story. That

(06:39):
was crazy. Did I catch that the sister in law's
name was Teresa? Yes? Is that what you were going
to comment to? No? No, I was not commenting, but yes,
good catch.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Are there any good that ISAs? I'm not sure? Let
us know. I only say that basing it on the
NOVELA Teresa, which we yopped about extensively for almost two
years on novel, and that from that experience, I know
that there are no goods and if there is one,

(07:13):
no shade but the has And this one from this
listener story, this one was an evil witch. Yes, it
has now taught me to fear alter. Yeah. Should I
get into let's get into your story key story today. Yeah.
So today we're going to be talking about like I

(07:34):
feel like it's like the guy who mixing up. Today
we're talking about come with me to talk to talk
about come with me as I talk about like No,
but we're talking about like I guess say all that
say all that normal? Okay. Today we're talking about like

(08:00):
in Guahuila, Mexico. This house was built in the nineteen
thirties and is located near the corner de Las cay
Is Victoria Heic den Gal. It's located in Saltillo, the
capital city of Guahuila. And the house got its nickname
because the last people who lived in the house. Wait,
how do you let me first? How do you think

(08:22):
it got its names? I'm assuming someone hears marbles in
the middle of the night and so they started calling it,
you would think, But okay, this house earned its nickname
because the last people who lived in the house were
two sisters. Wait, where's this going? Two sisters who were

(08:44):
apparently short, fat, fair haired, and light skinned. So the
neighbors nicknamed them cankas, and the house came to be
known as came to be known as Yeah, imagine your
your Mexican nickname because now the subject of a hunted legend.

(09:08):
I'm not surprised, no wonder you said, how do you
think this came to me? If this happened to me,
the house would be called short yeah, and then in
parentheses melonde. Yeah. So that was just hilarious, absolutely insane.

(09:28):
I was not expecting that. Yeah, I don't think we've
come across a story where it's named after a Mexican nickname. Yeah,
because we know those Mexican nicknames can be brutal. I'll
never forget, and actually all all of Latin America. But
our dad telling us like, yeah, this guy in the neighborhood,
he was so ugly, he looked like a lizard, and
we called him Lagarticas. Yeah, and to this day he's

(09:52):
still Lagartica. And then the guy with the big head
was yeah, yeah, so yeah Casias. And uh, the Kanka
sister's dad, dad Kanikas, if you will, Apakanas. He built
the house and the family La family Kankas got their

(10:15):
wealth from way back, being Asiandados. Oh, and the house
was very beautiful and it's heyday. The family often held
many soares with their high class friends. Okay, Around nineteen seventy,
the house was abandoned after one of the Khankas died.
One of the sisters died and the other one moved

(10:36):
away to live with relatives. The house then fell into disrepair,
giving it a creepy appearance, and the legend started. So
two of these legends involved Daddy Kankas. It said that
La Casankas had a lot of servants and that Daddy
Kankas wasn't exactly at the goal with the servants house staff.
Wow wow. And one of these maids was Yolanda. She

(11:00):
was said to be extremely beautiful and unfortunately for her,
her beauty caught the eye of Papaas. Sorry, yeah, I
don't know his name. I did never found his name,
so none of them have names. So they had what
some would call it romance, what reasonable people, though, would

(11:23):
call being sexually abused or exploited by your boss. And
this led to Yolanda becoming pregnant, and Yolanda hid her
pregnancy for about six months. But you know, you can
only hide it. So so far true. So not too
long after, Deanas found out about the pregnancy and he
confronted Orlanda and the stables of the property. It is

(11:45):
said that after the confrontation, Yolanda was so devastated that
she had a miscarriage in the stables. I should have
said at the beginning tree running for sexual workplace, sexual
abuse and miscarriage. Yes. Since then, it is said that
the cries of a child can be heard as one
walks by the stables, but once you get closer, the

(12:08):
crying abruptly stops. And the other legend involving Daddy Kanikas
has to do with his paranoia of banks. Maybe you
can guess where this is going. Hidden treasure. Yes, okay,
I love a hidden treasure story. So it was rumored
that because of his paranoia surrunning banks, Papakka's hid or

(12:29):
buried trunks of treasure full of gold coins all over
the property. After Lasi Manaskanikas left the home, leaving it abandoned,
people went into the property and started digging. And some
of these people don't have found anything, but they went
on to suffer from terrible accidents later on. I don't
know what, but that's me. I couldn't find more specifics. Yeah, yeah,

(12:51):
terrible accents. Terrible. So you know they're like, well, they're
cursed from looking for this treasure. And the last legend
from Nakasakas involved a group of high school students and
a wigi board. Oh this Caskankas has it all right,
I'm seated. I have my juice. No, its my juice,

(13:12):
my lacrow, sparkling water, my lacrow. Okay, I'm ready. So
this happened in the nineteen nineties. The students went inside
the house and walked through until they found the perfect
room for wigi activities. So they settled in and pulled
out the wigi board. But as soon as they started
playing with it, strong winds blew through the house. A

(13:33):
bright light appeared down the hallway and one of the
girls became possessed. Then the light in the hallway got
brighter and brighter, when all of a sudden, the pass
grow disappeared. When the light finally went away, the students
went to look at the spot that the light had
been at, and what they saw was the image of

(13:55):
setan Nas himself burned into the wall. And I see
it was said that the image of the devil remained
there for at least ten years before fading away. Wow weird, okay,
And that is like I said kanas in Kuahila, Wow,

(14:17):
thank you so much. That had it all. That was fun.
That was a good one. I don't think I will
ever hear khanikas the word the same again. Okay. And
before we get into my disaster, we'll take a little
outbreak here and we're back. Sorry, we've been out of

(14:41):
the game for a little bit. It has been a
while since we've recorded. Yeah, okay, so my case here,
I'm just going to jump straight into it. I hope
you didn't read any of it. No, I didn't. Oh good, Okay.
By now, we have all heard about scher Noobyl, one
of the worst diss that happened in like recent times.

(15:02):
For those that don't know, I guess, the Chernobyl nuclear
plant was located near Pripia, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union today Ukraine,
and it exploded. It is one of only two nuclear
energy accidents rated at the maximum severity level on this

(15:23):
scale called the International Nuclear Event Scale. Oh that doesn't
sound good at all. No, And counting the cancer that
was caused by radiation over the decades, there's over sixty
dead from this one disaster. Wow. It's also one of
HBO's best shows from what I've heard, I haven't watched it.
What's a show called Chernobyl? Oh? I thought you were

(15:44):
talking about the I didn't realize you were. I thought
you were comparing it to Chernobyl, But I time, although
you said Ukraine, I didn't put two to together. Still wow,
But yeah, I've heard your things about that show as well. Yeah,
but also like devastating, which of course makes yeah, yeah,
but that's not today's topic. What is today's topic is
considered to be Mexico's own Chernobyl disaster. If you look

(16:08):
up the Chernobyl of Mexico, this will come up. But
it's also known as the Studa Aquatis cobalt sixty contamination incident.
Oh wow, have you heard of this. I've heard about
the Chernobyl of Mexico, like, I've heard that term, but
I I don't know, like anything else about it. I
don't know, I mean other than you tell me it

(16:29):
wasn't what is perfect, But yeah, that's that's good. And no,
unlike Chernobyl, it wasn't nuclear, but still radioactive and tragic
of course. So before I talk about the incident, first,
what is cobalt sixty? And I'm sorry because I'm about
to talk about science that I don't understand because I'm
a dumb bench. Okay, queen, Yes, So, cobalt sixty is

(16:52):
a synthetic radioactive isotope of cobalt with the half life
of five point twenty seven years to produce artificially in
nuclear reactors while cobal itself is naturally occurring. Does that
make sense so far, because yeah, I don't know what
I'm saying. I remember cobalt from my art science class

(17:12):
at junior college, and I dropped out of the nursing
pre nursing program when I had to take chemistry because
I don't know what was going on. So I don't
actually don't remember that. I just said that. Oh wow, okay, anyway,
that and it has different purposes like to sterilize medical equipment.
It's a radiation source for medical radiotherapy. It's used for

(17:35):
industrial radiography pest insects sterilization, and a radiation source for
food irradiation and blood irradiation, and those things are used
to make food or blood lasts longer and blood as
in like blood banks. Not vampires, yes, or vampires. Yes,

(17:59):
so we know what that is. What happened in November
nineteen seventy seven, Dicentro Medico, the especially that is Medical
Center for Specialties, a private hospital in sues Chiuawa, Mexico,
purchased a radio therapy unit called the Picker CEE three thousand.
A doctor, doctor Abelardo lem Mouse, wanted to treat his

(18:22):
cancer patients with radio therapy, and he purchased the Picker
c three thousand for sixteen thousand dollars. And this machine
is crazy looking. The patient lays down on it, and
then there's this thing that looks straight out of a
sci fi movie pointing at the person laying down on
this table. I'll post a picture on the dial called
the picker. Maybe actually I'm picturing like like a score food.

(18:45):
I put the picture in the document. If you want
to look at it right now. Okay, that's what that's picturing. Yeah, yeah,
it's crazy looking. Again. I will put it on social
media and in the video. This machine is supposed to
to focus a narrow beam of gamma radiation at a
tumor to kill the tumor's cell and not the surrounding tissue.

(19:06):
And of course the machine was full of cobalt sixty,
which was contained in a sealed capsule inside the machine.
And no one was supposed to use this machine without
training first, and the machine was not supposed to be
installed or worked on without special protective equipment. And the
manual alone for this thing is like over one hundred pages.
I skimmed through it. But for some reason, this machine

(19:30):
was introduced to Mexico without sharing this information, without complying
to the existing regulations for machines like it. So nobody
knew and the machine, it just sat in a storage
closet for six years at this hospital because nobody there.
There was no qualified personnel to operate it, nobody knew
how to use it. So I just sat there for

(19:52):
those years. Right, And after all those six years, some
content training its power to choose this. Yeah, So after
those six years, someone told an employee of the hospital
to dismantle it and sell it for parts, and so
we sent this Sotello. Alardin did what he was told.
He dismantled the picker C three thousand on December sixth,

(20:14):
nineteen eighty three, and he had no idea what the
machine was or the dangerous within it. So he started
off by disassembling the head of the radioactive unit and
then taking out a cylinder full of cobalt sixty. Then
he loaded all of this into his truck. In his truck,
he drilled into the cylinder containing the cobalt sixty, which
caused cobalt sixty granules to spill onto the bed of

(20:37):
his truck. So now the truck is contaminated with cobalt
sixty okay, he drove to the Junkyard after that at Yonke,
he left the parts there and then when he returned,
his truck stopped working. So the contaminated truck stayed parked
in front of his house in a Sida Quadis neighborhood,
and it spent forty days there. And during that time,

(20:57):
hundreds of people walked by the truck, leaned on it
while she's mando, just like as you do if you're
outside and you're just like there's a car, let me
lean on it. Or kids played next to it, maybe
touch the bed. I don't know. Remember when we used
to play in the truck of one of our DIA's neighbors,
but he lived whatever the way it was, he parked

(21:19):
there and we used to get inside, play like that
was a boat, and you know, so we were getting
the trunk. So magic kids doing that in this situation, yeah,
which I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did too.
In the meantime, Elon at the Junkyard electro magnets, you
know how, like remember the movie Brave Little Toaster. Yeah,
when they're in the dumpster and then there's just a

(21:41):
big magnet pulling them up and they're like, Oh my god,
save us. That's what they say. Anyway, I love that movie.
I got to rewatch it. So those things, those things
are at this junk yard, and you know, they're handling
all of this grab us at the junkyard, including the
cobalt sixty granules and all the parts of this cobalt
sixty machine. And so they're moving everything around and they're

(22:04):
spreading the cobalt sixty across a lot of things in
that junkyard. Oh oh yeah. So eventually all the electromagnet
cranes were affected and they were mixing in other metals
with that cobalt sixty. Then the radioactive scrap was sent
to two different places, Acerosa Chiwawa, a construction rebar factory,

(22:25):
and the Machila Doras falcon Nejuades, a manufacturer of table bases.
Oh my god. Then products from both of these factories
were sent to other parts of Mexico and the US.
Uh oh. And for three weeks no one knew any
of this happened. Then, on January sixteenth, nineteen eighty four,

(22:47):
a truck carrying construction rebar was heading for a site
in Los Alamos, and for some reason that truck took
a detour like maybe it was lost, and it took
a turn it wasn't supposed to, and and it ended
it up near the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
And as the truck passed through this national Laboratory, it

(23:08):
triggered their radioactive alarms. And if you're wondering why they
have radioactive alarms with the yeah, and it's one of
the sites where the nuclear bomb was designed during World
War Two, Los Alamos, New Mexico, right, So yeah, they
had this all over and so those radio radioactive detectors
went off and the lab was then like, oh my god,

(23:30):
what is giving off all this like radioactive energy. This
isn't normal. And then like there it's this truck. Oh,
it's this rebar. Where did this come from? Oh? They
were able to track it to a source in Mexico,
and the lab notified Mexico's National Commission on Nuclear Safety
and Safeguards two days later. Once they did all the
other work, so by then another truck in the Basso

(23:53):
was found transporting the same contaminated rebar. They were able
to stop that from spreading anywhere else. Luckily, the National
Commission in Mexico tracked down the rebar to the scrap
metal where the scrap metal came from that junkyard who
took it to the junkyard. They're like, oh my god,
the hospital. But by the time they found the hospital
worker and he told them what he did, thousands had

(24:15):
been exposed. Oh my god. So ten days after the
discovery of the truck in New Mexico, on the twenty
six they found the park truck, that hospital Bookers park truck,
and it had been emitting one thousand, one thousand rentkans
per hour. And that is a unit of measurement for

(24:35):
the exposure of X rays and gamma rays. That's like
the most basic explanation. Not good, Yeah, not good, and
one thousand of that not good, not good time to
one thousand yes, yes. And so because of how toxic
the truck was, it was towed away with the crane
that picked it up like a magnetic crane picked the

(24:57):
truck up and then just like floated it like drove
away so it wouldn't touch anything else. That makes sense, yes,
And so then that same commission discovered that aside from
the truck, the junkyard and the two factories, I knew
about three other companies had also received contaminated material. Wow.
These were in Monterre and Durango. And material from these

(25:21):
companies made its way to thirty thousand table bases. Oh
my god, it is like so spread out now, yes,
And six thousand, six hundred tons of reebar wow, and
all all of these were contaminated from just six thousand
cobalt sixty pellets. That's and that's what contaminated everything. Yeah.

(25:47):
Like I said, thousands of people were exposed to the radiation,
and the effects were not as devastating as other disasters
like Chernobyl, but still like not great. The exact number
of people affected is unknown to this day. Some sources
say one thousand people were affected. Other sources said four thousand,

(26:08):
but some other people so some of the workers at
the scrap yard, they suffered from sterility after working there
and being exposed long term to the rebar or all
the scrap I mean. And then many in the neighborhood
where the truck was parked received radiation burns. Wow. And
there's at least one documented case of bone cancer and

(26:31):
some children who developed blood disorders. Wow. But no exact numbers, unfortunately.
I would be inclined to believe the higher number just
because how far everything went same and it's just so
wild to see one machine caused all this. Yeah, that's crazy.

(26:52):
By the end of the investigation, they found that the
contaminated rebar reached seventeen Mexican states. Wow, and two were
still in the US. So they I mean to seventeen
Mexican states and to the United States States. The Commission
managed to recover two three hundred and sixty tons of
the rebar. They had to demolish eight hundred fourteen buildings

(27:16):
that had been built with that contaminated bar. Yeah. But
in order to find those eight hundred fourteen buildings, they
inspected seventeen thousand buildings. Wow. That is a lot. Yeah,
And sadly, it's very very likely that some contaminated rebar
was never found and remained in people's houses. Damn. I

(27:38):
mean yeah, I could see that. Yeah. The thirty thousand
contaminated table bases were all recovered, and I guess ninety
percent of those table bases were in the US oh wow. Yeah,
but they were recovered before they got to any one.
Oh that's good. Yeah. By the summer of nineteen eighty four,
there were still over a thousand tons of rebar unaccounted

(28:00):
more most likely in a ton of states in Baja California,
Baja California, sou Chiaja, Lisco, Nova, leon Qures and Sacatecas.
Wow and shut hell the places. Yeah, information and yeah

(28:23):
and seen they did find some of the rebar in Sacatecas,
and more homes were demolished on top of whatever number
I already said. Wow, And in order to put all
this radioactive material somewhere after it, all you know, was collected,
found and all those houses were demolished, and like to
not expose anyone else, they had to build a new

(28:46):
proper storage building for it. And this was in the
sat Mala Yuka Desert, and they called it a cemetery
for contaminated material, and it was known as La piedre Ra.
And there was two other similar facilities made in Mexicali
and the state of Mexico, so that all those contaminate
pieces didn't have to go very far. But La Piedrera

(29:10):
ended up with the most And I'm sorry for all
these numbers I'm about to say, but nine hundred and
thirty tons of contaminated rebar, seven hundred and thirty eight
tons of contaminated unprocessed metal and two hundred tons of
metal table bases were all that La piedre Ra, as
well as almost two thousand pieces of scrap, eight hundred

(29:34):
and sixty tons of containers of other contaminated material, and
twenty nine thousand tons of contaminated soil. Wow, it's a
lot of contaminated things. Too many contaminated things. Damnomach. Yeah,
it's even worse because in some places they were supposed
to build something similar and they didn't, and they kept

(29:56):
this all in like grouped up outdoors and so then
like riggy and exposed, still being exposed or still exposing
yeah wow. Yeah, And like there's some parts of Samala
Yuka that their radiation levels are still pretty high because
it was left on outdoors so low there no, like
it's in the middle of the desert. Okay, but I

(30:16):
don't know about like you know, there's life.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah yeah, But because the half life of Cobal sixty
is five point two seven years, by now twenty twenty five,
it should be less way less and by twenty thirty
completely fine.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Okay, Yeah, but this happened in nineteen eighty something, so
it did remain there for that long. Yeah, so yeah,
yeah wow. And because of this incident, the US and
Mexico worked together on regulations and procedures with this type
of machine. I think that's good. Yeah, eventually we're all

(30:57):
replaced with like better, more modern units that weren't as dangerous. Sadly,
and like many lesser developed countries, they still have this
kind of stuff and there's like cases of them being
taken apart like this, oh, like in the Globals House.

(31:18):
But because I mentioned Chernobyl in the beginning, I do
want to say one more thing about Chernobyl and Mexico
that I had no idea happened. So, like I said
at the top of the episode, Chernobyl was devastating not
only for the surrounding areas in Europe, but like all
of Europe, not just like right next to you know, Ukraine,

(31:38):
but also Asia and Mexico. There were radioactive clouds from
Chernobyl that traveled as far as Asia, and then also
like toxic clouds traveling all over both Europe and Asia,
and so you know, toxic fumes made their way to
places like Ireland, I mean everywhere in Europe, and then

(32:04):
in these places this contaminated toxic cloud rain or whatever
contaminated food animals obviously also people, and so the Irish
government authorities noticed that milk stored at some place was
giving high radioactive emissions and apparently made the choice to

(32:28):
sell this radioactive milk. That's one version you made. So
they saw that it was zeroactive and then they chose
to keep selling it. Yes, that's one version of events.
There's other versions from other sources that I also found
that said the first time they tested the milk it
was fine, and because nobody knew how far the effects

(32:50):
of chernobyl could go, they didn't retest it after these
toxic clouds made their way over all over Europe. I
have to believe that version. I would think so, because
it's like, how would they know? Yeah, so I would
be more inclined to learn that they just didn't retest it,
and so they thought it was fine when they sold it,

(33:13):
because that sounds like nicer. Yeah. But it was sold
to Gona Soupo, a government organization that was in charge
of securing foods safety for or extra food for Mexicans.
Basically like it provided food for low income areas in Mexico,

(33:37):
and so it seems like the purchase for this powdered
milk had already been agreed upon before Chernobyl happened, and
it was tested back then and it was it seemed fine,
and they didn't retest it, and then some sort of
radioactive rain happened, and that's how the milk was contaminated,

(33:59):
not retest then sent to Mexico. Eh No, there are
other versions of events where they say Ireland knew, the
government of Ireland knew it was contaminated, tried to sell
it to Brazil, and Brazil was like, no, we don't
want it, and that's when they sold it to Mexico.
But I've read both, so I want an is shore
both because I don't know which one is right either way,

(34:20):
the milk arrived in Mexico the somehow Antonio Gonzales Kintania,
the Mexican ambassador in Brazil, had heard about this contaminated
milk and warned the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So
seeing this, honestly does make it seem like the worst
version of events is a little bit because how did

(34:42):
he know to warn like he knew it was going
to Mexico. So that's a that's a little at all. Yeah,
but this warning when ignored, what for some reason, the
forty tons, sorry, the forty thousand tons of powdered milk
went into Mexico. Like I was saying, some sources say
it was intentional, that both the Irish government and the

(35:04):
Mexican government were both being corrupt trying to save money.
Maybe then it's not how I can go. Honestly, it's
not unheard of. It's not unheard of either. Yeah. The
British Food Minister Joe Walsh would later go on to
state that the product was under the allowed levels of radiation.

(35:25):
I don't know, okay, either way, this radioactive milk made
its way to Mexico to mostly low income communities. And yeah,
I would assume that that's how the ambassador knew because
they tried to sell to Brazil first. Like again, it
just doesn't look good for either government. No, but apparently

(35:45):
two employees of a nuclear power plant like knew about
the warning of the ambassador, a physicist and a vice admiral,
Manuel ro Digues Gordo and miguelance Vladawinos, and they tested
the milk and they warn't gona soup all the organization
that bought it. They warned them not to send it
out because it was like forty times above the allowed

(36:10):
reniation level. That's a lot, a lot, And they were ignored.
And then they tried to go public with this information
and they were put in jail. So for whistleblowers, seriously,
that's a risky position they put themselves into try and
warn the people. So yeah, they were put in jail.

(36:31):
They just went ahead and with the delivery of the milk.
And so the powdered milk went to Nestley Your cold
ya cool to remember those drinks? Yeah, and even craft foods,
which I was like, what are they doing? What are
they doing in Mexico? Nobody eats mac and cheese there.
I don't know. I did see mag and cheese at
the store, but oh, okay, it looked different. That's what
we didn't buy it. Oh and so yeah, over forty

(36:54):
thousand tons of powdered milk were sent out to these
companies who might have not even been where because this
was the government. Yeah. Yeah, And so it ended up
being distributed all over the country, again to mostly low
income communities, and to this day, the exact number of
affected people is unknown. What is known is that the

(37:16):
percentage of childhood cancer between nineteen eighty seven and nineteen
ninety seven increased by three hundred percent. That's a lot.
That is that is a lot. I was just going
to ask you, well, but do we know what happened, like,
what were the effects of this? Wow? Yeah, I mean
that can't be a coincidence. No, right, and there's no

(37:39):
there's no statistics for this next part. But deformities in children, deaths,
and sudden illnesses did go up in nineteen eighty seven
after the milk was like they looked back and saw
that after the milk had been you know, delivered and
got to where it was supposed to go, that these
things were happening suddenly deformities, deaths, and sudden illnes is wow.

(38:02):
When you know when the milk would have been unknownly
consumed by Mexicans, right, and yeah, that is the Chernobyl
of Mexico and the effect of actual Chernobyl in Mexico. Wow,
that's horrible. Yes, I don't know why I thought I
would feel better doing this instead of a crime. I'm

(38:22):
not sure, but yeah, those are today's cases. We'll take
a little break here and then we'll be back with
spooky recommendations, and we're back. Do you have a speaky recommendation?

(38:42):
As a matter of fact, I do, okay, and it
is the same speaker recognition I had I had in
our Spanish episode, but this time ending less. So recently
I listened to an audiobook by v cast show and
I think it's her news. It's called Their Mortal Pleasures. Okay,

(39:02):
So here's the description. Hundreds of years ago, she was
known as La Malinche, a Nawa woman who translated for
the Gistallo Cortes. In the century since, her name has
gone down in infamy as a trader, but no one
ever found out what happened to La Malinche after Cortes
destroyed her people in the Ashes of the Empire. She
was usually born as Mali nali An, a mortal vampire,

(39:26):
and she has become an avenger of conquered peoples, traveling
the world to reclaim their stolen artifacts and return them
to their homelands. But she has also been in search
of something more. For this ancient vampires still has deeply
human longings for pleasure and for love. When she arrives
in Dublin in search of a pair of aztex Golds,
artifacts intimately connected to her own dark history. She finds

(39:50):
something else, two men who satisfy her cravings in very
different ways. For the first time, she meets a mortal man,
a horror novelist who is not repelled by her strange
condition but attracted by it. But there's also another man,
an immortal like herself, who shares the darkness in her heart.
Now Mali Nani is on the most perilous adventure of all,
a journey into her own desires. So it's very sexual.

(40:13):
But my favorite parts were the historical fiction. Of course,
it's like a retelling of Malon Nani's story and then
also you know what happens here after, And it didn't
remind me of Sinners, but there is one part where
it's like that timeframe and she's like in jazz club,

(40:36):
so that Saise, It did give me Sinners vibes for
that part, and like, yeah, it's like her life as
a viper throughout the decades, and but she's like, but
something's missing. I gave up on love blah blah blah,
and you love too, right, But yeah, she also talks
about the past, like the colonial pre colonial and colonial
times and how her mom sold her and that's how

(40:58):
she ended up being given into cortes By. That was
like a stepmom. So this book and the other book
I read called Mali Nali both say it was her mom,
so I'm not sure. Yeah, I thought it was like
the new wife of her dad. Her dad died, her
mom remarried, had a new kid, and then gave her

(41:19):
up yet out to both of these books, and yeah,
I just that historical piece was so interesting. And wait,
let me see if I wrote. I didn't write a
review because I don't like I don't write reviews. I
just read books. But I think I wrote like notes

(41:39):
on it. Okay, I'm just gonna this was like my
free thought. Okay, my what did they call it? Free
free thought? I don't know, but like I like my
just my thoughts. As I finished it, I just was like,
you know what I mean, yeah, freestyle thinking. I don't
know it. There's a word for it. I don't remember anyway,
I couldn't tell you. I put Jesus a vampire exclamation point.

(42:03):
Judas also a vampire, but not a trader. He was
also Judas Judas, Yeah Judas, Okay, because you know, we
know him as the one who traded traded, and so
there's an interesting parallel here between both of them being
known as traders. He bonds with Nani because they're like, oh,

(42:23):
both of our stories are remembered wrong by history. Okay, Okay.
V Castro and nan Cortes a villainous vampire. Mali Nani
a vampi badass getting revenge against her colonizers. Yeah, so
that's like the descript said, she gets her the artifacts back. Yeah.
But also he's the one that makes for a vampire

(42:46):
oh my god. Yeah, he controls uh Mexico and make
sures no like the vampire wise, I mean, make sure no,
makes sure I'm gonna talk, make sure that no like
colonizing vampire like vampires get into Mexico. He's like, never again,

(43:06):
they am I living you guys? Okay. But yeah, there's
also like there's a powerful like feminist retelling I guess
of her story. But to me, so one thing I
also read a while ago another book about Malee Nali
called Malee Nali. I listened to it, I mean, but

(43:27):
that one I didn't like because well, there was a
lot of things I didn't like as much. I don't
know if I wrote those down or not. It was
a while ago I read it. Yeah, one thing I
didn't like is that I feel like Mali because that's
all in the past. There's no you know, she's not
a vampire, and that one that's what was missing. Anything
could be made better by vampires, but no. But so

(43:51):
it was obviously set in the past during her life,
and I felt like she thought in a modern American
feminist way when it's that's not how she would think,
That's not how she would I see, you know what
I mean. And then the writing was kind of clunky,
like very showy instead of no, very telling, instead of
showing I think that's what they say, or have the

(44:13):
phrase ghosts. So that's why I didn't like. And this
one's kind of like that too, but not as much.
And so all of that what I just said, you know,
vampire stuff basically, and the historical fiction was really cool too.
All of that it was enough for me to ignore
the cringy sex scenes, which is what a lot of

(44:34):
people hate about this book. And man, is it wild?
The only thing I remember right now wild cringey, though
not wild good. Yeah, wild cringeing okay, it's crazy. Well,
another thing I didn't like in I think I said
it in the Spanish epiloade is that this is a
vampire who's lived hundreds of years, you know what I mean.

(44:55):
I don't believe that she would find a random white
man so hot and they living for that long. I
don't know. Yeah, and so they have the craziest fucking sex. Okay.
I remember there's this one line that I remember because
it haunted me. Afterwards. They have like anal sets, right,
and she's all like, I remember what they were doing.

(45:16):
She's like they're making out or something. They did it
already once and then she's like I want to counter
and I put butter in my asshole like as lube,
and I was like, excuse me, And maybe people are
into that. You know, I don't wanna. I hate this phrase,
but I don't want to yuck your yum lat. I

(45:37):
don't like that phrase. It gives me the it's itchy
for me to say that, but you know, like whatever,
I don't wanna. You could have just said we don't
want to kink shame. I couldn't remember that word. Okay, yeah, yeah,
if you're into that, Okay, whatever, maybe I'm maybe something's

(45:58):
wrong with me. I mean too, but the way that
it's and then yeah, there was so there was a
lot of that going on. I just put some butter
in my asshole, so I went to the counter better.
I was like, what girl? What? So, yeah, there was

(46:21):
a lot of that, like my lips opened up for him,
like things like that, And but I thought it was
really cute how she meets Judas and how he helps
her defeat at National Days. And then oh Nan Cortes
had an evil sidekick, his helper or whatever. They did

(46:43):
evil operations together. They had a they had a business
preying on vampires because they were making like skincare for
humans for to maintain their youth from the blood of vampires.
So you know what would Yeah, he would. It's very accurate,

(47:06):
and it's so funny because when it's his point of view.
First of all, I didn't expect it to be in
his point of view as well, so I was like whoa, whoa, whoa.
And then he's he's just horrible. He's all like, yeah,
I regret nothing. Those the colonizing I did. It was
the best time of my life. The only thing I
regret is I couldn't colonize him more. And I was like, no,

(47:29):
but he would, right, he would, he would, he would
say that. So it didn't try to redeem out him
at all. That's good because that would have been some
funniest shit ever though. But then, yeah, there's another historical
figure who I want to say he's British but I
forgot his name. And then him at the end he
turns against a non Cortes and he helps out Maley,
Nali and Judas, and there's a group of black vampires

(47:53):
who have been hunting this British man who I forgot
his name, okay, And they're like at the end, they
all come together, beautiful, and they're like, just because you
did this one good thing doesn't absolve you of the curocities.
You have done your entire life. And so we're taking
now and he's like, you're right, I'm going with you guys, okay,

(48:14):
And I was like, yeah, it was a good time.
It was a wild ride. Again. Some that the veccceines
are too much for some people, and it ruins the
whole book for me, to ruin it because everything else
was like top notch for me. Yeah, but I liked it. Okay,
but again it was a wild ride. Okay, okay, wow,

(48:39):
I do recommend it, so though, I rated it out
of five because it was such a wild ride and
like for me, people like some reviews were like it
was like a you know, when you watch something or
you watch reality TV just because like you want to
read something trashy. I didn't feel like it was trashy
for me, but some people said that that that was
like their kind of like how they read read it.

(48:59):
For me, it was like campy VAMPI I'm sorry, I
love a campy thing too. It's the media. I'm there,
I am seated and I was yeah yeah. So a
lot of the reviews said that that they didn't like
it because of that it was like too much, too cheesy.
The sex was like cringing. I liked it for out

(49:21):
of five. Things don't have to be like, you know, literature, yeah,
high row literature for me to give it four stars
if I liked it, I had a good time for
four stars. Okay, okay, four pieces of better around of
five pieces of yes, yeah, all right, I do. I

(49:44):
have a speaky recommendation. Oh the menu. I talked about
it in the Spanish episode and watched the menu, and
I thought, I don't think it was horror per se.
I would consider it more of a thriller. But thrillers
can be horror because they scare you anyway, writing like
I'm not one of those like very strict uh definition,
like no, that's a thriller movie. No, that's a drama

(50:06):
a movie. So yeah, it was a good time. I
also watched Night Bitch, which was a little silly and
if you just lean into that silliness, and I kind
of wish she really would have been turning into werewolf
because that was all in her head, right, That's what
I was way more fun. Yeah, it would have been

(50:26):
way better if she was really turning into a were wolf.
I think it could be made better by a werewolf
or a vampire. Yeah, it would. It would have made
the same points in the movie even if it was
really a werewolf. Yeah, I think so. Really, it would
have been just better to actually do it. They should
have just leaned it all the way. Then I would
have loved it more me. Yeah, I would have loved
it more. Yes, but it is and bars were a

(50:49):
little too cringy, but it was overall. I would recommend
it just know that it's not. It was. It was
marketed as a horror movie. It's not, it's not. That's
what I also didn't. It's a dark comedy. Yeah. Yeah,
And I read the book and I watched the movie,
but it's the same thing, you know. Yeah, the book
also not horror. It's yeah, and you know, I thought

(51:11):
it was horror. I ended up reading it because it
was one of my work book club picks, but my
eyes were already on it, like I was already on
my TVR because I thought it was horror. Yeah, and
it was marketed in that way, and you know, sorry,
go ahead, no, go on. Oh. I was just gonna say,
I hate when something says it's horror and it's not.
But when something doesn't say it's horror and it is,

(51:33):
I love that, you know what I mean? No, exactly,
just too dump it, just saying exactly, yes, I agree,
and yeah, if it would have been like if she
really would have been turning into a were wolf, and
it would be a horror, and I would have loved
that more. So. Yeah, those are the two things that

(51:53):
I watched, and honestly, I would recommend both of them.
If you know that it's not toined to serious. Yeah. Yeah,
I started to watch a movie in Spanish because we
has an episode about it, Virus thirty two. It's a
zombie movie somewhere in South America. I don't remember if

(52:14):
it's Chile or Hurricane Tina or not even those two.
South America for sure, though, but I started putting it
on when I was trying to do something else and
I couldn't pay attention to I really need to focus
on that Spanish because it's not the same as even like,
you know, Mexican Spanish is what I know best, so

(52:35):
it's not the same. And so a lot went over
my head, and I'm like, I really need to watch
it with subtitles because there's a lot of slaying that
I don't know the context of as well. So I
started that and it was about to start getting crazy,
but I was like, I need to pause this because
I don't know what's going on. But I'm excited to
finish that one. And there's another zombie movie that I
never finished, and I'm like, why didn't I finish this?

(52:56):
And people were describing it as more drama with zombie,
which I was like, Okay, I still love that because
that's what The Walking Dead was. It wasn't just zombies.
It was drama with zombies in the background. I love that,
and of course that's what all zombie shows are going
to be, because yeah, humans are going to be humans
wherever the situation is, right right, And this was a

(53:17):
Filipino zombie movie. It's on Netflix. It's the only Filipino
zombie movie on Netflix. So you can find it that
way because I don't remember the name. Actually, I should
just search for it really quick. Hold on, ah, yes,
it's called Outside. Yeah, it's a Filipino zombie movie. I
was trying to see what it was like a rading,
but I don't see five point one out of ten

(53:38):
on IMDb. I'm still gonna watch it. I don't care
because I mean, how many Filipino movies or is Filipino
zombie movies are out there? I gotta watch it. So yeah,
I started watching that a long time ago and I
never finished. So those are two things that are zombie
things that I need to finish. Yeah, I guess that
brings us to the end of the episode, all right,

(54:00):
Right before we go, I did want to add if
you want to support us on Patreon, we were gone
during our break, but we were not gone from Patreon.
We were still over there, and so there's a vlog
from our La road trip that's basically just the road trip.
We didn't we didn't record anything else because we suck

(54:21):
up logging. And then there's also other things, a lot
of things over there. Bonus episodes. We have like extended
versions of ad like the full normal episode, but sometimes
we yap before we get to the stories. So those
extended versions are on Patreon AD free, and that's at
the lowest level. So yeah, if those things sound cool,

(54:44):
then yeah, check us out. We also have an exclusive
keychain for the eight dollars members that you know, if
you want the keychain and then you want to downgrade it,
that's fine, You're just gonna do the payment once. So
so yeah, other than that, watch out for watch out
for said Makas and Papaka Nicas. Honestly, Paknas is who

(55:06):
you need to just one to watch out for. Yeah, yeah,
and yeah, stay a spooky We'll catch everyone next time. Bye.
Spooktels is hosted by Christina and Carmen, produced and edited
by Christina, researched by Christina Carmen, and with the help
of Don shout out with Don. If you aren't joying
the podcast considerably, going to say five star review, we
would really appreciate it. If you don't want to the

(55:27):
professor review, just don't leave a review, but don't leave
anything lower than that, please, I'm just kidding. You can
reach out to the podcast at Spoaktos at gmail dot com.
You can go to our website at bukitos dot com
and fill out the contact form. If you want to
support the podcast, you can join our Patreon where we
send exclusive stickers, have bonus episodes. Eight dollar members get
an exclusive key chain. It's super cool. I got new

(55:50):
ones and these ones are huge. And if you want
to support but you can or don't want to join
the patreon, that's fine too. You can also get some merch.
You can find sure says as spooky and old English letters.
There's a beanie. I love the beanie. There's also a hat.
There's a no Mamous shirt which is a fan favorite.
There's a lot of options, crap tops, sweaters, it's almost

(56:12):
swetter weather. We're nearing a spookie season, so yeah, get
your hoodies. You're gonna need them. If you don't want
to do all that. That's fine too. You can just
listen like you're listening now, and that's the best support
that you can give us, like I always say in
our ad break and yeah, if you like history, you
can follow Estoria's Unknown Mining, Carmen's other podcasts, and you
can find a Spooky Taels on all of our socials

(56:34):
at Spooky Tells All. This is in the show notes
and we appreciate every single listen. Thank you so much.
Stay as Spooky