Thinking Sideways: Bohemian Grove

or death consequences. It's the case of four people killed in a small town in Mississippi and why a black man on death row has been tried six times for their murder. You can find in the Dark now on Apple, podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you listen. This episode is also brought you by us in Nashville, Tennessee this weekend. Hey, boys and girls were going to crime Con. But that's not the important part because you can't get a ticket to crime

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in Becauld you'll be very confused. Thank you, sorry, thank hey, guys. Welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast. I Am Devin, joined as usual by Steve and known as Wolf No, I'm murder, Hug. Stay tuned for next year's April Fool's episode to hear the backstory behind that lots of truffle. Yeah, anyway, today we are going to talk about the Bohemian Grove. An important note here, I will I promise I will tell you guys the overview of

this story. But an important note here for those of you who are screaming and excited, this is not going to be an episode about the Bohemian Club, or the Skull and Bones or the New World Order, just the Annual Retreat with a brief exception for purposes of explanation. Not just about the Annual Retreat. It's about the actual Bohemian Grove itself, which is, you know, like supposedly got a huge underground complex underneath it. And some nuclear missile

silos and stuff like that. That was the Denver Airport. Oh yeah, wrong story, long story, wrong story. Yeah, the whole Denver thing is a red herring. Yeah this is the real. No, we're not. We're just talking about the annual retreat at the Bohemian Grove of the Bohemian Club. Sorry for all those you you who are already lost, a promise, bear with me for like ten more minutes and we'll get you there. Man. If it takes ten minutes,

I'm just you know, buffer, just in case. I also just want to thank t J, who suggested this case a long time ago. Well, thank you. So here we go. The general mystery here is that since eighteen seventy eight, a group of high powered men have gathered once a year in the forest for two weeks. That's it. Credits the stuff. Yeah No. The big thing here is that it's uh, super secretive, and there are rumors of occultism, deviancy scheming as mentioned, not about the Bohemian Club, but

I do want to give you some context. The club was founded in eighteen seventy two by some journalists from San Francisco. San Francisco actually um can Joe, can you read this little bit here? I it's a it's an excerpt from an article at from nineteen fifteen that I think summarized used my San Francisco voice. Okay, I was

gonna use my groovy voice, just a okay. The Hemian Club was organized in the Chronicle office by Tommy Newcomb, Sutherland, Dan O'Connell, Harry Damn, Jay Lyman, and others who were members of the staff. The boys wanted a place where they could get together after work, and they took a room on Sacramento Street below Kearney. That was the start of the Bohemian Club. And it was not an unmixed blessing for the Chronicle because the boys would go there

sometimes one they should have reported at the office. Very often, when Dan O'Connell sat down to a good dinner there, he would forget that he had a pocket full of notes for an important story. So that's yeah, that's what. It's a drinking club. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. It was a it's a fraternal club, but also yeah, it also has a you know bar, yeah, as all fraternal organizations tend to. Yeah. And while it was originally a fraternal order for artists, and journalists like you'd expect from a

club called the Bohemian Club. You know, they were bohemians like artists. You guys know, I don't need to explain what a bohemian is do I but do you need to explain? I'm not going to do that. It doesn't matter, it's not relevant. Eventually, this club did start to let businessmen in, then politicians, and now the membership is almost exclusively very rich, very powerful men. Many of them are still in a media business by the way, men men men only. Yeah, the current membership logs are secret, but

past membership logs are available. Pretty much everyone who has been a Republican president has been on this list at some point, at least since at least since eighteen seventy Yeah. Sorry, yeah that that oh that detail. Yeah, but yeah, it was. It's a so fraternal means boys only. People don't always get that anyhow. In eighteen seventy eight, the club members decided to start an annual retreat where they could cut loose because apparently the club wasn't enough of a cut

loose for them. They procured some land in the red Woods near San Francisco, again, where their clubhouse is located still to this day is located their clubhouse and made it a place called the Bohemian Grove. This is where the name of the retreat comes from, although when it was first started they did call it the Midsummer's High Jinks, which again should give you some framework onto hijinks screwing around games, which is a weird twist on that name.

But yeah, yeah, low jinks and high jinks. But but that was the whole The theme of the Summer Retreat was just you know, hi jinks. It's you know, boys will be boys. I kind of actually kind of wishing we weren't doing this story quite yet, because I'm gonna be going down there in about two weeks for a wedding, and I'm gonna be like ten miles from this place. So you think you're going to be able to get to the Bohemian girl, I'm thinking about down you're going

to Alex Jones. I don't think you need to sneak in, man, it sounds like you just drive right in. Yeah, yeah, pretty close. And we'll talk about that in just one second. That's okay, that's okay. The retreat is sixteen days long, so two full weeks so that is weekend, weekend and weekend. Yeah, that's that's the way it runs. And it's an opening weekend, a middle weekend in a closing weekend. That's why it's sixteen and not four. Yeah, exactly. Yep. On average annually,

two thousand, five hundred men attend. The camp is almost a hundred and sixty acres large in the Redwoods. Beautiful, huge. Yeah, and as we mentioned, no girls allowed for women, except for there was a lawsuit in the eighties, um, because they were actually not even hiring women. And then in the eighties some people brought a lawsuit against them and said, actually you do have to hire women, and the court said, yeah,

actually you do have to hire some women. So they've hired women to do really specific jobs like park cars or cook but in really specific areas of the camp, so they're not exposed to any of the hygiene, whatever the goings ons are, and that remains a little bit to be seen. And the guys, actually, the guys want to be a guys, so they're like public a lot of public her nation going on and stuff like that. Actually that that may be true. The biggest reason they

don't want women, you know. Yeah, well, we'll get into that a little bit. And actually it's probably worth mentioning also that there have been a few honorary female members of the Bohemian Grow or the Bohemian Club, four of them and none recently. Yeah, they are, but that was something. Actually there was a there was actual during that lawsuit they said, not only do you have to hire women at the Bohemian Grove, but you have to let them

into your fraternal order. And the court said, actually, okay, you do have to hire them, but you don't have to let them into your club, I guess, especially because they do have some events, not at the Grove, at this retreat, but they do have some events where they can bring wives or partners if they want. So there there is one other there are other ladies in attendance

at this event. Okay, So just to keep this brief, there are there are claims that there's motels and establishments such as that near the Grove that are frequented by the men over the course of their too possible up to two weeks stay. They don't bring them onto the premises, right, but these ladies what you're brought up for for as sex worker. I'm going to use a term, don't freak out on me, anybody to quote unquote service these gentlemen.

They are brought to that hotel. Yeah, and then but they are technically technically still no girls allowed in the ground, right, But I mean they are the equal opportunity involved. So that's that's one of the funny gray areas to me. Anyway, I find a bit of irony in that. I mean, I guess I totally get it. Maybe as a woman I don't as much, just because that makes sense to me the guy that there would be this big, powerful fraternal order where they would also be like no girls

a loud oh, except except for this one thing. You guys can come for this one thing. But even then I don't think they actually let them onto the premise. I don't think they do. But but I will say, there are other camps. This is the big retreat, but there are other A member of the club can rent

out part or all of the facility. I don't know why you would run out all the silly but you can't rent out part of the facility during different times of the year during this event, and you can and you can have daughters and wives and female family members except they have to be off campus by nine. They can't spend the night there. Oh, you're right, you're right, which is like, then, why I guess you would. It's like renting a park to host a picnick or memorial.

And the security might be good, might not be good. H But it's pretty secluded and I think it has a lot of amenities that a lot of other places in the middle of the Redwoods don't. And I bet you get a pretty good deal being part of the club on the facility itself. The price that it cost to be a member, and do you have that number in your brain? Well, I do, actually bucks initiation an older Well that's that's that's from your initiative, which is

probably low with inflation. But I also remember in the eighties it was an average continual annual membership fee of about two or twenty five hundred dollars a year. So if we upscale that like we did with the membership fee, you're paying five ten grand a year just to stay a member. Ye. Well, and it's not group and invitation only and either no, and the waiting list is really really long. And actually it turns out most of the people who become new members are just like sons of

people of men who are already members. Again, uh, it is, it is. But as I said, really rich, really powerful men are part of this club and go to this retreat. Okay, back to the what happens at the camp after all the money talk, Yeah, a lot actually goes on, and and actually most of it, we don't really know what goes on group. It's a secret. It's a secret club, and it's the retreat is also intended to be secret.

I mean, it's it's more secret than Vegas, right, It's just it's literally what happens up bohemian groves, stays of bohemian grow It seems like enough journalists and such a snuck in and with cameras or just tape records or whatever. They I sort of feel like I have a pretty good idea what goes on. I feel like that as well.

But for the sake of this story, for right now, let's just say we don't really well we you know, I feel like you have a sense in fairness, we don't know, right, there's no official we don't really know. One thing that people find the most weird. We do have some footage of it exists on the Internet. And the reason that we have this footage is because of a guy named Alex Jones. You probably know this guy if you don't do yourself a favor and do not

bother to look him up. He founded info Wars and UM has a lot to say about a lot of things show host since to do it all he has. Yeah, info Wars I think started UH two thousands, six, two thousand three, early two thousand's in two thousand after a lot of speculation. So there's since this this thing has been going on a bohemian growth for so so long, and it's been pretty secret, but the people who attend are so high profile. There's been a lot of speculation

about what happened, what's going on. And in the nineteen eighties, UH magazine called Spy Magazine did write an article. One of their journalists wrote an article because he had managed to sneak in like six days or something. I think he was sneaking in and out and so his I actually like what he has to say about it much more. But that's okay because we do have this actual footage, Yeah, he do. We do have this actual footage from Alex Jones. So he and a cameraman knock into Bohemian Grove where

quote unquote so many others had failed. It was like it was surprisingly easy for him to sneak in here. Everybody that's got in has said that. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's one thing. You can see footage like a b there's a ABC footage where they drive right up to the main gate and there's a security guard there and they say, Hi, we're here with ABC News on camera and the guy goes, no, get back, get

back there, You're not allowed in here. Get back right, And so I think a lot of people were like, oh my god, it's impossible to get in. I don't think that's true. You just have to have a little bit of knowledge, for God's sake, exactly. You can. You

can absolutely walk in. So that's what they did. They walked in and found this little transit there, because since it's so large, there's busses that take you everywhere, and they want to get on a bus, and the person who was driving the bus said, oh, what order are you a part of? Because there's a bunch of different SubCamps, which we'll talk about in a second. It reminds me a lot of burning Man, because Burning Man the established camps they usually are in the center of the Black

Rock city and their name like that. All. Yeah, so he knew that the Texas group was called the Hillbillies. So he and he's from Texas. He's Texan. He's a pretty thick Texas accent. Yeah, Alex Jones, sorry, and he says, we're We're with the Hillbillies. And the guy says, okay, you can get on the bus and they ride around a little bit and there's all this footage. It's really great. You know, it's from the two thousand. It's from two thousand,

so it's grainy already, and there's weird cropping issues. And it was a hidden camera. I find really funny is he says my cameraman and I Well, it wasn't as if he had the giant on the shoulder camera. They had a little at BT video camera, crappy digital cameras hidden in like a box. Probably was hitting Equality of or two thousand. I mean, I think probably had six eighty eighty six. It was. It was the most hokey what was the TV show back in the sixties show

with the guy who had the shoe for a phone? Oh, yeah, yeah, and they had those those silly little I'm gonna pull out my belt buckle camera like it. It's that kind of goofy cracks when they say his his cameraman, it's really not. It's his buddy, yeah company. I mean it could it could very well have been his actual cameraman front because he made a full documentary about this, right, for some reason, it had to be him. Um, But

it has a lot of footage from this. There's a full two hour documentary that Alex Jones produced about I did not watch the entire thing I watched. I would say I watched about eight hours worth of Alex Jones things over the course of this. I don't know how she's alive. Yeah, So anyway, let's get back to this. He like I said, there's a lot of footage that's

kind of whatever. But the one thing that he did manage to catch is this opening ceremony thing they do called the Cremation of Care, and this seems to be pretty much the number one thing that people point to one saying that what's going on at Bohemian Grove is like really creepy. It's not the best quality, but I do want to play you guys, just a really brief brief clip from the Cremation of Care, just to give you a sense of what it sounds like. Crap is

what it sounds like. Yes, but all right, we'll play it now. They don't care playing once that summer sets us free. Welcome back. This is. You enjoy this is and I would encourage you, if you are interested in the story, to go watch the video. Um, I'll we'll put a link on the website of a good quality one with subtitles, because it is such a weird quality and and if you google it you're going to find

ones that are really, really long and awful. But this is the bulk of what Alex Jones got on tape, except for the additional bunch of hours of him just writing around and then sitting in a little like forested aream. He's made a lot of noise about the nefarious things that are going on, but he was there for four hours and it's just boring most of the stuff that he got. But the cremation Care is a big part of the creepy factor here. It's like the opening ceremony. Yeah, yeah,

it's popular ceremony with the members. Let's just describe the ceremony for those of our listeners who are who are listening, yeah, not watching. The ceremony is basically this an effigy of what's called dull Care d u l l Care is brought across a small lake by hooded figures to nope, hooded figures, to a stage where other hooded figures are waiting for it, in front of a giant cement owl. It's not an eagle owl. The owl is the symbol of the Bohemian Club. It's it's forty ft tall, and

it is hollow. It's actually a steel frame with a cement coverage. And then yeah, I mean, but it's made to look like it's naturally occurring. Actually, it's pretty convincing. Yeah, it looks pretty good. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Well, it turns out if you make a concrete statue and you leave it in the woods for forty years and yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, the effigy is brought before the crowd of pretty much all two thousand, five hundred people who were attending, or

at least everybody that's attending that day that day. But I think that is one of the things that most people come to because it's a it's a big thing. There's uh oh so sorry. It's placed on an altar, and at the end of the ceremony it's set on fire. There's a voice over play happening, which I think sounds like it's a recording from like fifty years ago. It's hard to tell um for a while. The voiceover was actually Walter Cronkite, who was a member. The effigy, like

we said, is brought. It's actually a steel frame. It's like literally just re the effigy. Yeah, it's actually like rebar welded together in the very most basic frame of a stick figure human and then it's wrapped in cloth and that cloth is set on fire and it's meant to be dull care as in worries, dull your cares. Well, no, it's dull care like dull worries, like mundane worries. Of I took it the other way, but okay now, yeah, So basically they are cremating their worries in order to

enjoy their retreat. Everyone cheers as you can kind of hear in the very tail end of that clip that we played. And apparently there's reports of beers being passed around and and everything. After the cremation happens, there's a huge pyrotechnics. It's an insane which in the woods, Yeah, except for they own the woods, so they don't really care. No, seriously, they do. This is actually something interesting, but well, this

is interesting thing. They own a huge chunk of woods and you can't log in the red Woods, but they can log on that property and they do so frequently. They're trying to. They try to a hell of a lot more than they got blocked. They're pretty constrained, but they do to the fullest extent that they are allowed. They they do. Yeah, but the club motto is and the club and camp model both is weaving. Spiders come

not here, which people think is creepy too. But there's a lot of stuff that you will read online that says care is a child. This comes from one specific place that we'll talk about a minute, and that the owl is actually Moloch, which is a Cannonite Cannanite god associated with child sacrificing, who's actually a bull but whatever, like a human body. The bulls Yeah, doesn't look anything

like an owl, but whatever. There's also a lot of stuff that you will see if you go to do your own research on this where people say that the effigy could be a real human who knows? Again, more on this lady, Yeah why not? Yeah, I mean really why not? You know, actually you're going to burn something, might as well burn real person. Yeah, I might as well. No, back to the grove after the ceremony. The activities of the weeks that follow are pretty much a mixed bag.

They produced two plays. One that's the High Jinks and one that's the Low Jinks. So one is kind of a serious, really high production level play, and then the Low Jinks is um Oftentimes they'll do it in drag

or it's just supposed to be like an everywhere. Yeah, it's it's you know, low lowbrow humor but maybe not a subtle but but yeah, not not as funny probably even actually yeah, like exactly, like what if you told a group of boy scouts, twelve year old boys in the woods to make a play, what they would generate into? Whatd Yes? Exactly, there was a there was a really funny thing like Henry Kissinger had a little part in

one of these. Yeah, yeah, I won't tell. Yeah, there have been a lot of but again that's one of those things, right, There's actually been stories about what happens in these plays, and they there's a series of lakeside chats that go on. Usually they're hosted, yeah, I'm but usually they're hosted by the more powerful and no actually powerful. I mean so like usually if a president or ex president is an attendance, they get to do one of

the lakeside chats. So there was there's some pictures of George W. And George H. W. Bush, Thank you, I had a brain part doing a lakeside chat together between their presidencies. It's it's yeah, it is the Ted Talks. It's the more yeah, senior powerful, whatever you wanna call it. People. There's rumors that the those lakeside talks at Bohemian Grove did produce things like the Adam bomb in the thirties. There's ties that would have been the forties, but thirties

would have been the initiation project. Yeah maybe, and that you know, that was where Nixon and Reagan got to decide who ran when. Yeah, you know, lots of just little tiny tendril rumors coming out of the rumor mill, out of which is really interesting. I had never actually thought about the fact that Reagan may have actually been politically was politically active when Nixon got elected. And could you imagine what the world was if it had been Reagan running and one during the time that we now

know as the Nixon presidency. That that's a weird thing to think of. I don't know, Yeah, I don't remember exactly when Reagan was governor of California. Was I don't know he already out of it by by the time, by nine, but I think he was. I think he was still governor, but he resigned to run. Yeah, So that's it's just weird thing is that you know these timelines and then there's conversations of them deal making at this event and saying, no, I won't I won't interfere

you run, I won't stand in your way. But if Ronnie had got godhead and said he could have been it could have been kind of even young enough, he kind of been Kennedy esque. Yeah, and so that is something that I will say if if true, you know, there is probably a problem with that. You know, listen, that horse trading happens everywhere, but you can't regulate that because it actually happened, it can't happen in the airport bathroom.

Well it could if it was like d I A. But anyway, like we said, we don't actually know really what happens because the security quote I'm making air quotes here, but the security is so good. But really it's just because you know, the attendees, are they honor the promise that they made and it's they said we're going to come Vegas man. Yeah, and that makes sense to me, you know, especially if what we know goes on goes yeah, exactly the stuff that people say is going yeah. Yeah.

As of two thousand and seven, there were a hundred and eighteen sub camps that we that the general public knew about happening at Bohemian Grove to just give you a larger sense of kind of what is going on there, and we kind of talked about this, but the most prominent one is called Mandalay, which is touted as a secret club within a secret club that most members aren't even allowed to approach. By the way, the camp just for if we said it before and you didn't get it,

it's basically it's where people are sleeping their bunkhouse. If you ever went to camp as a kid, it's your camp, or these these SubCamps are you know, the the Weasel Camp or the Bunny camp or whatever. It's just your building. Well it's not just or not even building. Some of them are just like basically like platform center built up the hillside and you can pict your tent on this wooden It's actually kind of a rugged area. It's not

that much level ground. But I just want to people to understand what these are making subs, what that means. It's it's like your little camp area where and you're part of these sub clubs. Basically, um So Mandalay, I

do believe is an actual bunk house like that. It's it's super swanky, but yeah, it's touted as this sort of even the people who attend, they're the most rich and powerful, all of the rich and powerful, and you know, security is super tight, which again kind of makes sense to me because it's where like really really really rich, high powered people are, so they're probably a little you know, it's like two thousand, five hundred people are there, right,

It's not as though it's just a hundred of your closest friends. It's that's a large group of people. So you do still probably have to be careful about your own security for the course of two weeks. They're not all there the entire time. But even if everybody's there, even if they are camps, that's still my math suddenly just blew. It's okay because they're different sizes. All the

camps are different sizes. All I'm all I'm trying to get at is that just because you're at the super secret camp, which a lot with a lot of other high powered rich men, doesn't mean that you don't still need to be aware of your own security understanding, depending on which how high empowered or what your profile is a m That's okay. Some other camps are as we said, the Hillbillies, which is the Texas based chapter of the Bushes, are members of that one. Their mascot is a quote

satanic goat creature. WHOA, you'd be much nicer. The derogatory way to talk about chop is not. I'd be kind of a cheap. Yeah, it might be reference though it's a what's the what's the thing that plays the pan pipes? Ye kind of thing? And then they're in Narnia too, but it's one of those things whatever Mr Tumnuses, I can't remember. I'm sorry anyway, there's a there's also a

group called the Lost Angels. Again, this kind of allows everybody to just interpret stuff going on um as they will, because you know, when you you name your camps things like that, it begs for a little scrutiny. But it's also a hundred and eighteen camps. So at some point you're gonna stop coming up with really cool names. They're gonna be a little weird some of them. I think we could come up the three of Us team, but yeah,

I mean at the same time. And actually, you know what, if we were though, the Hillbillies would probably be one of them. A stay all right anyway, Yeah, three d episodes, a hundred of which we haven't recorded. Yeah, definitely get it right, Yeah, okay, okay, well all I guess that's all I have to say about the story. And then

we'll talk theories here. Yeah, there's theories theories about what's going on here, and we'll probably add a little additional information as we talk about theories, like we are wont to do. But first let's take a break, so we'll Lamit Radio Workshop. The award winning Will Lammet Radio Workshop returns for the nineteenth annual UFO Festival in McMinnville, Oregon.

Two live radio shows at the Hotel Oregon in Maddie's Room at three pm Saturday, the nineteen Isaac Asimov's Pebble in the Sky and Craig Kenworthy's Hearth the extra Dimensional Assassin Tales of future worlds with a modern edge. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder when the Mothership arrives. Free admission with food and beverage is available on live radio lives. I Make Minimums nineteen Annual UFO Festival. Don't miss it,

and we're back. So yeah, let's talk about him. So the first theory are there by the way to Okay, the first theory Steve is already mad about is uh. I forgot that face. I can't help it. I smell something bad. Face, I know. I'm sorry. I also forgot that I made a joke title for this so that I can't read on the show, so I have to rename it on the fly. We're gonna call this one the Satanic New World Order. Stuff things so things so things,

planning and stuff. Yeah. Basically, this theory would stipulate that the ritual is like super pagan sacrifice is real, it's a child sacrifice to Moloch, not an owl. And this group of men are actually planning the New World Order, which is kind of of some sort of pagan, satanic new world or currently, Yeah, that seems to be the thing. Again, as I mentioned, I'm not going to go too far into this because it's not We're not doing an episode

on the New World Order. But that does always seem to be the thing with the New World Orders everything. It's always really satanic and a CULTI And it's kind of like, well but why but why oh? Because that scares people a lot. Okay, got it? Yeah, I think about it is is and I'm not I'm not claiming the New World Order conspiracy does not exist. But George W. Bush must have caught a lot of grief from his fellow club members for letting it slip because he did well,

he's going to the term the New World Order. No, he didn't coin the term. He just let it lip in the speech. Okay, now, I mean, or another way of looking at it, He just coined the term because essentially the Soviet unity just collapsed. But he but he accidentally let it slip by using a phrase, you know, in the real world, yes, But another way of looking at it is, yeah, he just coined the term in a speech because the Sylviet unity collapsed and we were

looking at a new international order. So you could look at it that way. But you know, only a fool believe that, right, Yeah, it's a new world order. Yeah and yeah. Anyway, so the Bohemian Club is primarily made up of white conservative Christian men. There are reports, okay, and the only place that I've actually seen this report is I think from Alex Jones, I believe. I don't think I saw in any of the Spy magazine or anything like that. But the Spy magazine article he did

mention a little bit of love. They didn't say any actually, like yeah, so yeah, it's like actually a thing that fraternity you guys actually do you know? They blow each other kisses in the shower. But it's all just that kind of stuff. So Alex Jones makes claims of actual homosexual orgies happening at the club, although he was only there. But also he was only there for four hours and it was the very first day he stayed for the cremation of care and then left. I don't know how

he has a proof of these homosexual orgies. But he hid in the woods for part of the day. And the reason he did that is because he said that he was being cat called so pervasively that he was really uncomfortable, so he decided to go hide with his cameraman in the woods. He's a pretty hunky guy, I can understand. Well, so so okay, wait, wait, so here's what I love to think. There's there's one of two

ways that I see that that became an issue. One, he is so insecure that a couple of dudes making frat jokes and hey, sweet cheeks kind of jokes totally just dudes being dudes and screwed with either made him super uncomfortable or he had been doing what he does for a couple of years at that point, and somebody might have said, wait, that's Alex Jones. That a hole is in here, guys, we have to mess with him. Don't kick him out. We're gonna screw with him and

then we'll get him out of here. And they went after him. That's what I was to make him just hate life. Well, here's another thing I didn't see or hear any proof. As mentioned, I did not watch all of the every single bit of the footage you didn't hear. I did not know. I really didn't. And so actually a lot of me thinks that it's possible that he just like kind of got scared, like just got nervous, yeah, and was like all right, I mean, you know, he

was just camping. Like when you play a shooter video game and you got the one dude who's like camp snipering and he's just sitting there and the way that he wins the game is because he didn't die. I mean that seems to me kind of he just was like, wow, Okay, we're just gonna go sit in the woods and that'll be safe, and then we'll do this cremation of care thing and then we'll get out of here as fast as humanly possible and then literally skulking around camp. Yeah,

that seemed to be what was going on. It makes sense. You know, you get in there, you minimize the chot and the chance to getting caught to your campra camera confiscated, and you know, losing your footage and stuff, which is fine, you know, but overall, so it seems like, correct me if I'm wrong. The whole we're worshiping Satan and burning children and barbecuing them for the final dinner. That seems to have a lot of that has spawned out since these his videos. I actually do think that his video

is the only the very first point. It's the origin of that theory. Yes, there, I mean again, there have been people who have said, um, well, in the eighties there were people who were saying that they were doing stuff and we needed to watch them. But it was because they were powerful and political and apparently planning the atomic box. But some of those people also were so fanatical I could see where they might be starting circulating some more lurid rumors too well. And they had been,

they had admitted that they were in the eighties. I cannot remember the name of the lady who had the Watchdog group. Yeah, and she was. She seemed to allude to that they were they were pulling up stuff and more of and more of it seemed to be that they were smoking what they were growing. And maybe it

wasn't all founded in reality. Yeah, man is after a man. Yeah. Also, there's this chatter just to get back sorry, there's this chatter of the of the creation of care or care being a child sacrifice and the reason for this is there are basically like programs handed out at the beginning of UM the cremation of care, and also programs for the entire weekend. I mean, it's there's a lot of programming. You gotta, you know, decide what you want to go

to an organizational totally. But they do hand out a program at the creation of care, so everybody knows, you know, what's going on all along, and they have different images on them every year. But one year they had a little drawing of a skeleton burning and I honestly, honestly, when I first saw this drawing, I didn't even recognize it as a as a human skeleton because it's bad.

Um it's well, yeah, Alex Jones says that he had it examined by doctors and they the drawing to be clear, had the drawing examined by doctors, and they said that the ratio of the head to the body was that of a child, and that the arms, which I don't even recognize as arms, they're like little like lobster claws,

are are Also they just say that the purport. He says that they say that the proportions are of a child, therefore proving that it's care is actually a child science sacrifice or either Or it could be a tree, or it could be bad drawing, could be very it's a tree on fire, it's in front of a flame, it's a giant flame, it's treat Or it could be like a subtle endorsement of euthanasia. Yeah, yeah, because it's obviously the form child it's going to be like, you know,

disposed of. Yeah, so interpretations that, can I just say one thing? Yeah? Oh yeah, okay, So I know YouTube were worried about us getting sued for slanders. So if Alex Jones comes after this, this is this is all on me. If this is what he believes, he's an idiot. Well,

I mean the drawing thing. Here's what I will say drawing, because I've seen it and it's Here's what I will say about Alex Jones is that he has made a really successful, lucrative career for himself on conspiracy theories and this and this was pretty much the first big one for him. I mean, like I said, he got popular pretty much right after this stuff came out. He founded

Info Wars not to too much later than that. This has continued to be a thing that he talks about and points back to the footage from two thousand and um, as we're going to talk about in just one moment um some additional footage that came out in two thousand five. And you know, God love him. I mean honestly, like, if you can just make a career out of screaming into a microphone, like that's what we're doing right now. We really have been doing it wrong. We need to screaming.

We should be screaming more. Yeah, next time, on thinking sideways, just an hour of screaming. We're just gonna sit in the room and scream into the microphone. Pay for it. We are next April fools. It'll go over better. Yeah, people will not be confused, they want that's true. Well they might be actually, but that's true anyway. So this is just going to go into our next theory because I have no organizational skills whatsoever and just wanted to

talk about this story. Um. The next theory is that actually this is a boy's camp for a bunch of dudes who don't really know how to unwind and need to keep their own winding a secret. M h. I mean yeah, so well, and and so here's here's all I will say is that just honestly take a step back from it and say, if you remove the cremation of care, pantomime, opening ceremonies, what do we have nothing but you guys hanging out and drinking some some uh

some singing, playing bagpipe, swimming, hiking, drink, lots of eating. Yeah, and and ultimately and we can say, you know, okay, maybe some of the lectures are about the feasibility of the atomic bomb. Maybe they are ures, they are, But realistically, what does that come down to is powerful men who are knowledgeable about topics talking about the topics they are knowledgeable on, and deal making and talking about like interesting things to them. Yes, the deal making thing, I'm I'm

very happy to say is a problem. I mean, it's maybe it is, maybe it is there. I wouldn't call that a problem because I'm sorry, but powerful people get together where they all can congregate and be with their like kind. I'm sorry us poor people we get together in poor people bars. Rich people they get together in rich country clubs like there. You you should think with the people that are like you and you talk and listen.

We can make a deal. But our deal is worth ten dollars, because we don't have but ten dollars between us. When you've got a billion, it's a billion dollar deal.

And that's the thing about this that I find lessons sinister, is that is that, Yeah, these are people like especially like heads of state and you know, heads of big corporations and stuff, who have to every other day of the year watch their selves themselves really super closely because everything followed by the press, especially if you're a politician,

everywhere you go. This is one place where you can go and no reporters allowed, and nobody talks about you know, you got drunk and got naked and put a lamp shade over your head. Nobody talks about that. So you can totally make a fool of yourself and a good time. I what these guys would like that. That's how I feel as well. And then so let's add back in the whole cremation of care thing, and let's talk about

that for a second. Some additional footage was released in two thousand five, as I mentioned, just a couple of minutes ago, and from somebody who was reporting to be an employee of the grove. Most of it was equally mundane as the Alex Jones footage. But one thing that was cool is the person was able to gain access to see the effigies that were used in this cremation ceremony pre using this pre use in the ceremony. Yeah, and actually I thought that was really interesting and it

was actually confirmed. There are four different effigies. One is just in a horse drawn carriage, like an old tiny hearse with the horse drawn carriage hearse kind of thing. One is used on the boat. One is kept behind some curtains for the people running the ceremony, which is admittedly odd. I don't really know why. I think it's a backup too, but I will also the very least I want to say, Okay, it is a little weird.

If the Bernie one doesn't catch on fire, you can grab the backup one and literally fling it off the stage. And yeah, look yeah, I mean again, I'm willing to at least seed to the really hardcore conspiracy theorists out there that one could be odd. Probably not, but about the backups. But the other possibility is that if it's members, we have to put this thing on, then they have

to have their own ceremony afterwards. What they can they can stay their cares because obviously during the ceremony they be all serious and focused. Well I don't know, maybe they have a second maybe that's true. Yeah, And then the final one is the one they set on fire, and you can actually see the fire one in the video. It is that that rebar literally stick figure pretty much that is got to basically like Paul like like a pall bearer, like on a casket kind of things, um

welded to either side of it. And it is adult size, so not not a baby, not a child. Actually don't like a pretty large adult actually size, So that seems to debunk the child part at least. You know what, I just realized I really shouldn't have been so concerned about these guys lighting a fireworks. You know why, because the entire area it's a god yeah. No, it's also on a lake, I mean, and they bring in actual

pyrotechnic text and all of that stuff. They might actually get at the fire hoses and wet the trees down. Plus actually was a joke, okay, but also redwoods are actually kind of fire resistant. No, I just mean the ground just covered. But that's okay. The other thing I just want to mention. Again, you may or may not have noticed that. I keep calling it the cremation of care, because that's what it's called. It's called the cremation of ca.

You're cremating, do you know what? You cremate a dead body. You don't kill somebody with cremation, that's not how it works. Then then it's incineration or a moment in relation, sorry, burning somebody. I mean, yeah, it's the cremation, because they have as they've walked in. It's my understanding at least, And there have been accounts of people who are members who have said this about this actual seramy, and they say, yeah, you come in, you know, it's a it's at the

evening of that first night. So you come in and you're supposed to have already tried to get rid of most of your dull cares, you're supposed to kill them, most of your worldly worries, and then at this ceremony, it's basically just it's like a Christmas pageant almost. You know, it's it's the it's the it's the it's the cremation

of your already dead dull cares. That will and if you watch it, you will see there's a bit of a thing with dull care saying like, you try to burn me and they say and they say, yeah, you you're gonna we know word you know, no, it doesn't say that, but they say, yeah, we're burning you now, and we know that at the end of this Midsummer's retreat you will come back. And that's just how the

world works, which again whatever, but it is. It's like a Christmas pageant, right, I mean, think about how if you had zero context for a Christmas pageant and you just saw it, how weird and kind of creepy it could seem. Just think about that, right, That's just something

that I just keep thinking about with me. But you know, I was going to say though that you know, having seen having seen this it, it actually is no creepier, maybe less creepyer than just the big burning of the man at Burning Man, Yeah, which is equally you know, if you if you were looking at that as an outsider, and believe me, it's a huge ceremony and it's big, and then this huge thing gets burned and the whole thing and you know, in a certain sense it is

kind of just like what's the word for it, like, you know, it's like being on another planet and there's this weird, scary, really and thing going on in front of you. There's uh, there's one of the videos that I posted for you guys is a guy from Ireland talking about a festival that they do in his town where they have an actual stuff dummy that they burn. It's supposed to be actually like burning a man in effigy here every year, and that, I mean that is

explicitly pretending to be burning an actual human. Yeah, this is not even its Alina. Well, in the verbiage that these guys use in the what is obviously Pat wrote speech, and I think, well, yeah, but well, what I mean, what I'm getting at though, is that I've you know, and I was a high school and then early college.

I was involved in different organizations, and you know, the owl is very traditional from organizations that are eighteen or nineteenth century is forward because it was always the wise figure. And the wording that they use is very very similar to it's yeah, it's it's it's dated for us, and they use it, but it becomes wrote and pat and so people who don't know what the hell it is, that's weird. You talk like that in the late eighteen hundreds who wrote it considered it to be wise and astute.

And that's the reason I will say that originally when they were doing the cremation of care, the people who were participating in it, it was much smaller. It was not people um and the people who were participating were encouraged to write their own scripts. And then eventually, like we said, Walter Cronkite was the voice of it, and it was, uh, it's just become an actual passion. They

literally I really think they do. And I you know, you can't tell from the video, but it sounds like to me they literally just priss play on some voice acting from the fifties and then just kind of go through the motions and pretend like they're doing it and then that's it. Yeah, that's all of this to say, somebody holps George hw didn't put the magnet next to the actual cassette because that was a dub buckle. Yeah, that's why actor George Jr. Was terrible in that role.

That's why. Yeah, that's why Walter Cronkite doesn't do it anymore. Have to tell you it's the tape nips and you know, all this to say this, This doesn't necessarily mean that, Like, I don't believe in conspiracies. I don't believe that. You know, sometimes a lot of high powered people come together and maybe do say like well, you know, Nixon, you run this year in Reagan, and that's that's that is some kind of organizing and conspiring for the world. But it

happens everywhere. You can't stop people from doing that. And I also think this, like Joe was saying, is like the kind of lives that these people lead well in the time, but it's the only time that you that they have to actually unwind because the rest of their lives are literally under scrutiny all the time. And that's just all it seems like to me, is that it's just like a bunch of frat boys who never really grew out of that but suddenly have to try to

do better in public society. And yeah, that could be that, or it could be much deeper and more sinister, you know, Yeah, those are the two for example. Well enough, for example, it's even more sinister me like, for example, that articles inspired that was from my teenage written by a guy named Philip Weiss who winfiltrated the camp over and over again.

And yeah, and he reported seeing a lot of a lot of public irrination, a lot of drunkenness, had conversations with many many people, including that I had a short brief conversation with Ronald Reagan himself. And it may well be that they were up to some serious business there. But what they did is like they tagged him right away. They surrounded him with a clot of drunken Republicans who

went with him and surrounded him everywhere he did. Actually, there was there was part of me that was kind of like, well, it does seem a little suspicious, Alex, that you were allowed to go in with this tape and get it out and publish it and have continued

to be allowed to publish it. I mean, it's all over and you know, if this, if this whole New World Order blah blah blah blah blah, either they're like totally allowing him to do this because everyone's like, well he's crazy, or it's spreading false propaganda because if if it's this, if it really is this New World Order thing, don't you think they could have had YouTube take that video down. The best way to spread misinformation is to

have your enemy spread it is true. Yeah, totally. And so yeah, no I love that idea that that that's what's going on. I really don't think it. And by the way, just as a clarification so that we don't get any angry emails when we say frat boys drinking and we're talking about these high powered people stereotype, this is the stereotype. We're not saying that your frat delta delta delta, which I, by the way, don't freak out. I know it's not a frat that's a story. It's

a joke, but it's just we're playing the stereotype. So calm down, boys. Yeah, but let's beer down. But Marguerite is down, your apple teena is okay, let's continue on. Yeah, I don't have anywhere to continue just because I need has something. Yeah, no, I'll just say that, you know, this stuff has been around with us is kind of

behavior for a long time. If you if you buy in all this series, because it often is the case in America and other places too, that if the guys that you don't like win the election and suddenly all the paranoia starts, it sets in big and if you buy it and if you you know, and at the end of the world it's Hitley, you know, it's you know, I mean, this is just like Nazi Germany. And if you buy into that, and you buy into this kind

of stuff, you're just a tool. You know. You might think you're smart and everything else and you're the good one and they're the evil ones, but really you're just a tool. I mean, you know that's for somebody else's game. Yeah, not in the derogatory term of ye public of a private part, but yeah, that's that's where most of the

stuff is coming from. Yeah, you like, but but you know, on the other end, I could be wrong and maybe there is like a secret on ground complex and all sorts of stuff going on, because those those trees are actually not live anymore. They've been hollowed out, short up. You paint them all year long. It's why they don't log them. And they're actually ground complex. The buttons to

operate it are in that stone owl. Yeah, probably that's true. Yeah, well, okay, do you guys have anything more to add to that? The lake opens up and that's where the health conters coming out. Yeah, I just want to say I do want to go there and check it out. I wish they would invite me. I mean, I mean, we're pretty freaking high powered here. Yeah. So hey, if you are a member of the Bohemian Grove and you want to take I guess these guys not me because I'm a lady.

The security is not all that tight. I I get your eyeliner. We can paint a mustache on your curly one to boot being multiple round curls perfect. I'll let you. Okay, tuck your hair up under your cap. Nobody will. She's like Brad Pitt, she's an she's man growing hair out that with a man bun and everything. Yeah see that will. I'm sure that all of the really old, rich, right Republican Christian men are going to be like, yeah, that's one of ours. That guy thinks in it's true. Yeah. Anyway, um,

all of I guess. All of this having been said, it's time for us to give you some additional information. Like I said, we will post a video like our choice video of the cremation of care ceremony, so you can see it, as well as some other research links on our website. That website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can also find links to merch old episodes. I don't really know what else. I'm sorry. You just go there and find out for yourself. It'll be a mystery

for you. Yeah. Um, you can connect with us on social media about this case or any other or just to like talk to us because you like us. We are on Twitter where we're Thinking Sideways. We are on Facebook. We've got a page and a group. Like the page, join the group, answer the questions. The answers are yes and Thursday. You can find us on Reddit. We have our own subreddit that is thinking Sideways. You can also find us on Instagram, where I guess we're posting some things.

I don't really, I don't know. It's Thinking Sideways a podcast on Instagram. You know where you're streaming us? You can be you know, the website. Maybe could be iTunes probably iTunes, could be Stitcher premium. Could that's the right one, Um, could be who knows what. But if you are streaming from one of those places and you have not yet taken the time to give us a review and a rating, please do so. That's how other people find us. And really you should be on Stitcher Premium because you get

the episodes four days early. Add free and you get bonus content. If you don't have that yet, you can go to stitcher dot com. Slash Thinking Sideway is used the promo called sideways. You'll get a month free and last but not least, if you want to send us an email, you can do that. We have an email address. It is Thinking Sideways podcast at gmail dot com. Uh. Yeah, I think we're just gonna go ahead and get out of here and hopefully not being murdered by the New

World Order on my way home. Too late for that. Yeah, I'm going to water a tree by Smoky. Alright. Well, when I say bye, I mean bye forever everybody. Bye, guys,