Thinking Sideways: Pont Saint Esprit poisoning

groovy mystery. By the way, this is part of our summer series. So in order to pring up some of your precious time we started, we decided to drop a series of episodes. They are kind of shorter because the fact of the matter is there's a ton of mysteries out there and a lot of them aren't really and a half mysteries unfortunately. So we're gonna cover some of those and then you have more time for barbecues and swelling beer, blowing your fingers off with fireworks, you know,

all the usual stuff. So so let's get to it. It's gonna be a bang. Actually, I know that. I think I think the listeners are Thinking Sideways are smarter than the average bear, and I think that probably they're not the demographic that actually do blow their fingers off, hopefully. Well, let's stop talking about the demographic just in case. Yeah, we don't want to isolate them. Yeah, this mystery is so it's kind of old. It's over a half century old.

Hit involves a little death, and it's got the usual cia perfidy and it's so trigger warnings. You know, you guys know what that means. It starts depending on where you read about it, either August fifteen or August in fawon sent is three France. That is, it's actually it actually should be pronounced pont santas sprit, but franch are famous for mispronouncing everything. Yeah, a pretty bad at pronunciation.

Sorry French listeners, just kidding. Palm sat Spree is a small village in southern France uh as of the two thousand twelve censes population ten thousand, sixty one, but the town was somewhat less than half that size. One of these strange events began to take place. And by the way, have you have you guys gone and looked at on the street view. Yeah, it's it looks like a really beautiful, charming little town. I mean, it's in France, so it looks like a nice place to live. Yeah it does.

So our story actually begins a little earlier in August, because some of the citizens of Paul Sandy Spree began experiencing heartburn, stomach cramps, fevere chills in some cases vomiting, and diarrhea, and most people had their heart rates slowed dangerously down. Then some people felt that like their entire digestive tract was on fire. So obviously there have been somebody that ingested something. I believe that would be the Yeah.

Probably there was intense cramping of hands, feet, and calves in some cases, and the symptoms varied widely actually among all the various people, but quite a few people were affected. A lot of people were affected with insomnia that people were not able to sleep for several days. And within two days of this beginning, about two fifty three people

started to go insane. And yeah, it must have been It must have been really interesting to be living in Paul Saisbrey in those days to be one of the people who is not going insane, surrounded by a bunch of insane people. Yeah, and wondering if you're going insane insane, Yeah, that would be it would be weird. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of people still alive who remember that whole that whole thing. Few were all the time, of course,

because it happened. This sounds that that whole being around a bunch of people who are going nuts and worrying. If your next sounds like the plot of so many movies, Well, it's just like the dancing plague. Yeah, I mean we've and you know there's that the whole laughing sickness, laughter sickness thing that we've not done an episode on yet. But we haven't done that one. I mean, you know, I think that's one of those things that's so I just messes with your head kind of does. I hope

it doesn't happen to me. Psychosis. Yeah, there was a recent case where it was an entire let's say it was a junior high or a high school all came down with Tourette's supposedly, and it was it was another It was just kind of one of those weird group psychosis things. Very odd. Yeah, it would be weird to be the guy who's like, um, I'm not yelling, I'm not screaming anybody and I don't I don't get it, what's going on? Or am I and I just don't know it. It's entirely possible. Where was I out? The

Time magazine covered it. They and they told how people ran through the streets yelling that somebody was trying to get them u people were, according to a person who was interviewed who lived there at the time, people were hitting each other and insulting one another. A small boy supported supposedly attempted to strangle his mother, although in some tellings of this tale was his grandmother, and they were delirious, people being tied to their beds. People screamed that red

flowers were coming out of their bodies. Yeah, I know that would be I really don't want to have yeah, absolutely, uh yeah. Somebody said his head had turned to molten lead. Another person thought his head had turned to copper. And they were reportedly for suicide attempts and something. They were

actually some successful suicides. Also, one guy claimed he was just According to a witness who was interviewed in he was he was standing in the window of a building like two or three stories up and was shouting, look up, a dragonfly and yeah, you know this is not going to end well, right. Yeah. Luckily for him, he only broke his legs. He didn't didn't kill himself, but yeah, ouch apparently survived. Another man tried to drown himself because

he thought his body was being eaten by snakes. Another guy claimed that he saw his heart escaping through his feet. Yea, yeah, he went to Yeah, that would be another unpleasant one. Yeah. He's a serious set of trips. Uh. Yeah, these people are really really really tripping here. Yeah yeah, big time. Uh. There's a post been named Leon Mounier who was still

alive in when he was interviewed by the BBC. He said he was doing his route and riding a bicycle and all of a sudden he became nauseous and then he started hallucinating, and he said, and I quote, I had the sensation of shrinking and shrinking and the fire and the serpents coiling around my arms unquote. So that sounds pretty intense. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like a Jim Morrison song. Yeah. I was just gonna say it sounds

a bit like Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. But you know, what's what's what's remarkable about this and you know, maybe actually some people were hallucinating. They had pleasant hallucinations that they were like, you know, you know, like romping through a mountain met oh, and you know, by fluffy kittens, you know, but apparently otherwise I'm hearing about are really horrible. Yeah, so I want to have the trip where I'm surrounded by fluffy kittens. Yeah, me too, Not the not the

snakes coiling one. No, I'd rather not have that one. Back to our postman, he was taken to a hospital and putting a straight jacket, and he was put in a room with three teenagers who have been chained to their beds, and apparently they spent several days in there, and Leon the postman eventually came to a census. But needless to say, he does not have good memories of this whole thing. So this was the kind of thing

that people would go into and out of. And it wasn't like the everybody was crazy at the same time. It was kind of more I get intermittent, I think, and for different people at different times. And it lasted longer for some people than others. Yeah, and some people recovered fairly quickly. Some people actually didn't hallucinate. They just experienced some of the symptoms, like you know, the feverish kind of feeling, and you know, the heartburn and the cramps,

but they never got as far as a hallucination thing. Interesting, Okay, yeah, lucky for them, But some people really went around the bend. In the end, somewhere between four and ten people died. The accounts of Berry most of them that I see say that seven died, but I've seen but the number might actually be as low as four. I got that number of a report by the National Institutes of Health that was written two weeks after the incident. So this

this got into the press fairly quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently three of the four were old and in bad health already, so and they died of cardiovascular collapse. One was a young twenty six year old guy in good health, but for whatever reason, uh, he thought he also died of cardiovascular collapse. And that report was written beginning of September, so it's possible there are a few people that died

after that. So it's really kind of hazy exactly. You mean, from lingering effects of whatever they experienced, yeah, or suicide or whatever. So it's just I'm still not totally sure exactly how many people died, And of course people die anyway, so it's hard to incidentally died, but not a huge number of people, but still it's kind of weird. And

then forty six people were committed to asylums. I'm not sure how long for I don't I don't know that anybody had to be permanently committed because of this, but this was an era where people loved to commit people and just leave them there for a while. So like, yeah, it wasn't like you just oh, we're just we're going to commit you for some psychiatric help. You'll be there for a couple of weeks, no big deal. It's like, oh, no,

we're going to commit you. Will see you in six months to a year, billy, or maybe for the rest of your life, who knows. Yeah, it turns out it's incredibly hard once you've convinced somebody that you are insane, to convince them that you aren't insane. Yeah, it's raw hard. Whether Yeah, there's this story of the guy who was trying to get out of some crime and so he pled insanity and acted nuts and got himself put into a mental facility and then once he was there, he's like,

after a while, he's like, I'm cured. You guys have done a great job. We know better. Now you're you're you're not actually better? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. See how did he ever get out? Oh gosh, I don't remember, it's been so long since I've read about the story. Well, definitely if I were if I was a doctor and say that the crime carried a ten year sentence, I probably wait ten years and said, I guess you're cured

after all? Yeah? Oh, where was I? All? In all, about three d people were affected by this whole thing, um and again, the intensity of the attacks and the hallucinations varied quite a bit, but some people were permanently damaged and never really led normal lives again. They couldn't hold down a job. They were just kind of weird after that. You mean by damage, do you mean they

were suffering some kind of psychosis, still suffering intermitting. Yeah, it's just toughering intermitting, like hallucinations and things like that. So it wasn't just like a little post trauma extress disorder stuff that could have something to do with it, too, Or it could have been that they were just dead beats who didn't want to actually have to have a job, and they wanted to be on the form it was convenient.

That's it. I don't know. I don't know that unemployment was great in the fifties, but yeah, no, probably not. I think that there's there are people out there who are psychologically a little a little less stable than all of us. Have something like this happened to you, it could permanely. I can see where it could primarily damage you.

I don't even know that you would have to be, you know, less stable than normal quote unquote, you know, I think this is the sort of thing, particularly everybody breaking well, and if you saw, if you were in really seeing kind of the most horrible stuff that was happening, people screaming about these things happening to them, or you know, guys saying that they could fly and jumping and you know, things like that that could probably permanently damage almost anyone. Well,

I could see it would leave you some pretty traumatic memories. Yeah. Well, And and the other thing is that that area has a pretty it's a high Um, they're all fairly religious, it's mostly Catholics. Um, So there's there's a certain fire and brimstone aspect that you might have apocalyptic Yeah, so you're like, oh, I've gone to Hell and if you're very devout, that would have some pretty traumatic effects on you. Not good. Yeah, of course when you come back from hell,

then hey, then what have I done? What do I gotta do? Right? I can never do? I mean like this is one of those snowball situations. Or maybe you are still in hell and you just don't know it. Yeah, we're all in hell. Possible that was playing something. Yeah, yeah, Actually,

of course things did get back to normal. Inquiries were made, and it turns out that everybody had been affected by this insanity had bought bread from a local baker whose name was Rock Beyond, and some people suspected of intentionally poisoning his customers, although it doesn't look like he actually did do it on purpose. Is this is a square a rectangle sort of situation where everyone who was sick had bought bread from him, but not everyone who bought

bread from him was sick? Or was it like no, literally everybody who got sick were the only people who bought bread from him. You know, I don't know, but I would I would suggest nobody. I don't think anybody goes and buys bread and doesn't eat at least some

of it. Well, I just mean, you know, so if he's the only baker in town, right, and there's five thousand people there, and all five thousand have bought bread from him, but only three hundred got sick, versus only those three hundred people bought bread from him and ate it and got sick, Devin is asking is it all or some only is some of his customers? Because um, and we'll get into this more later on. But but there were certain products that he made that may have

been tainted, but not necessarily all of them. Okay, yeah, okay, I just feel like that's an important thing. But yeah, none of the other bakers in town had sold bread to these people were having problems. Yeah, it doesn't look like he did it on purpose, though. They traced his grain that he'd used back to a supplier in another town. I can't remember. I came across it and I should have written it down. Now I can't find it again. I hate that because the Internet has moved the link

on your computer to somewhere else. The Internet shift today. Yes, yeah, that turned They decided that they had sold broke beyond a tainted batch of grain. And I'm assuming this is the old old days. I mean, I don't know if they actually supplied him with flour or if they gave him grain and then he grounded up himself. That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know. In the fifties, probably the flower could it could be mass production was not as ingrained well as it is now. Yeah, especially in

some of these little old villages. And you know that, I think probably pretty old school. I guess it's just my bias to assume when somebody says his supplier, I think you would think that that produced. But you're right efficient to grind, to grind it all in one place and make it into flour, you know, and then send the flower out of the bakers. Chicken Little did teach me that it's true? Yeah, right, it was Chicken Little, good old Chicken Little. I don't know if this guy

is falling. Oh no, it was the other chicken, the one that made the bread did everything. Um, really, I think you're hallucinating. I don't. I don't think any chicken ever made any bread. But my chickens have never made bread. Well, any long story short, it appears that our good old friend Ergot was the cause of the poison. Officially officially if as you know, if you've listened to past episodes, the only culprit that we blame more than air goot

is choopy, good old choopy. It's not lupus. Yeah, but air goot if you don't know, it is a fungus that grows on rye plants um, which is, by the way, the reason I've stopped eating rye bread. I like rye, you know, I really do. I don't think I don't think I got something that like people get in modern days. Probably not. I think the kind of bread that you would be buying, kind of rye bread you would be buying would be pretty heavily processed and probably fungus free.

Oh cool, Maybe I'll start eating it again, you should. I think the main thing is just not to let it get too old. Yeah, well, obviously, don't let it get moldy. Yeah, I know that. There's don't just don't let any of your bread get moldy. That pretty much, yeah. Um. And the other thing to watch is peanuts. There's a there's a mold that grows on peanuts that is really deadly destroy your liver. So yeah, maybe that's why I feel like crap. All Yeah, I don't eat old nuts.

That are you work too much? Anyway. The most believed theory so far is air got poisoning. But of course there are others, of course, of course, but the first one is is is of course air got we're getting in our theories. Now, So did Rothebrian get a batch of flower that was tainted by ergo fungus? It seems possible, there's this though, well there are it's it's it's possible. I mean, there could have been a batch, a batch

that was processed that by a supplier. Then we're gonna, i guess, assume for the sake of assuming that it was sent to him as flour bags of flower. So imagine that you've got this whole, huge batch of grain and there's a tiny little bit of it that's affected with God, and so you grind it all up, dump it into bag, and just as luck has it, it all winds up in just one bag and not in

a whole bunch of bags. Well, or maybe some of it got distributed to other bags, but in small enough quantities that um, it didn't really afflict too many people. My two cents on that is one, again, we're making the assumption that this is a large scale supplier. It's possible that it's just a farm that only supplied him, right or you know, him and one other people. But we're also assuming that it came to him with or

got in it. Is it not possible that he got the flower or maybe the the grain and just let it sit for a little while he was ordered in bulk or something like that. And that's exactly what I was thinking. Actually it could have been Actually you could have caused it, not intentionally, but just to slightly negligent

behavior by letting it lay around. I mean we've all experienced, you know, like when something gets pushed to the back of the fridge and you kind of forget about it and then you discover it like long later, and oh wow,

it's like scary looking. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think one of the things, right, is it's possible also when you go to the store and they're like meat on sale super Slash, and you go, oh, that's a great deal, without thinking, well, it's probably on sale because they got to get rid of it, because it's going to go bad and sticks on it so you can't

see the I love how they do that. Sneaky, but I mean it's possible, right Also that you know, he just got a batch that was a little older and he didn't realize it was older, and then he let it sit for a little too long and then just made some bread with it. And that's you know, actually, I really you know, I'm really leaning towards that myself,

because yeah, I think that's probably what happens. Can I can I ask you a question, because it's been so long since we've talked about or got that I don't remember. Does cooking the bread not destroy the toxin? Well, that's the part that I don't know. I was trying to do a little research on that and I couldn't find out one way or the other. Um And I really honestly don't know because generally speaking, in cases of air got poisoning, it's usually bread that's already been baked and

sitting around for too long. Right, Yeah, So it's it's old bread. So that's why that's why I'm asking this, because the grain having it doesn't seem to be as much of a culprit to me. If then he threw it into an oven and cooked it. He's you know, he's cooked it off unless it's sitting it's in the grain, and then it jumps from the grain to the loaves of cooked bread that are sitting around that have cooled off and therefore are a perfect host to get. Well,

I see what you're saying. That's always possible too. I guess, so all our bakers don't store your freshly baked bread on top of your flower supply good idea. Yeah, well you know have you know, but you probably noticed that a lot of bread, what they do is after they baked it, before it actually like cools, they sprinkle like bread. Yeah, I mean, so that's a possibility. Is that actually the air got that was in it when it got baked

was maybe killed off, but they sprinkled fresh stuff on top. Uh. The other thing that I was seeing when I was like reading about air got and bread is that, at least in modern times, they see the most instances of the ergot being developed in baked bread when it's put directly with um, without being able to be cooled sufficiently, put directly into plastic bags because the moisture in um.

So I wonder if it's possible that he was bagging his bread before it was, you know, in plastic bags, and none of the other bakers in town were they were letting it air drying away. I don't think. I don't think they were using plastic bags, and those would

be a evalent. I mean the paper would you know, you got to the baker sometimes and you get that kind of waxy paper, you know, what your paper, and they'll they'll sometimes I've been to places where they'll just wrap it in that and give it to you in that. It could be a situation like that, I think, yeah, And that's because that traps the moisture from the Yeah. So that's an idea too, that he was packaging his bread differently, which was causing it to mold. Could be

all right, Well, so that's it. I mean, the air got theory is one of the prevalent theories out there. There's some other ones that are kind of interesting. Well, but here's here's the one thing about the air got that I have an issue with is that how, if indeed it came from the source that he gets his flower or his grain from, how is it he's the only one that got it? That is the problem with that.

I think that again my thoughts, my thoughts on it, or that probably just you share a lot coming to Probably the fungus started growing in some grain in a small mass and a small mass, and it hadn't had time to really spread out a lot. It got ground up and probably wind up in one bag of flower that went to his place. If this is what's happening, I could see that happening. Have you ever seen how flowers made? I mean, they grind that stuff up and

it gets stirred up. The chances of it, I guess what I'm getting at is the chances of it that that little mass of it staying together once it was ground into flower. He's pretty small. Yeah, But again we're assuming that it came to him as flower, and it came to him from a large enough supplier that they were spins, which we don't know either of those things. There's so many things we don't know. I'm going to stop complaining about a thing, all right, Let's move on

to another theory. It has been proposed that this pot of might have been some sort of contamination or maybe even intentional poisoning of the water supply. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this one because it actually is, in terms of actual percentages, not that many people were really affected with insanity, and I

think something like six or seven percent. And it's hard to say because I don't have a totally clear number of exactly how many people were affected, and I also don't know precisely what the population of the town was in those days. I can say the other thing we don't know is where in the town the people who were affected lived. Were they clustered in one neighborhood or

were they randomly spread about. I'm assuming they were all like fairly clustered around to run that one bakery, probably reasonably close because I'm sure the village had more than one bakery, and you probably went to the one that was closest to although this guy apparently apparently had a reputation as the best baker in town. Yea, so he might have got it. There might have been people coming form all over and it's not really a huge town, so it's not that hard to bicycle over to his bakery.

And it's true because when it was ten thousand people, yeah, five thousand people, yes, not that huge, not not really, I mean I could see maybe he was the only baker, right, I really really doubt it. I'd be surprised. I would be surprised too. Yeah. But anyway, the contamination of the water supply, that would have affected a lot more people than what my estimation of six or seven percent of the population were affected. So I think it would have

affected everybody except for the town alcoholic who only drank wine. Yeah, you know, I think we can rule that one out. What do you guys think? I'm okay? All right? Another theory that's been proposed is mercury poisoning. This would apparently be there caused by this thing, this product called Panagen, which was a cleansing agent that was used in weak containers. I don't know if they're using it anymore, but apparently it's mercury based. Probably not using it anymore, Yeah, probably not.

As soon as you said that, yeah, probably nixed that. Probably not. And And actually, you know, mercury poison poisoning that the symptoms of it, I've looked it up and then they were actually very consistent with most of the medical symptoms that people experience. It causes a lot of cramping, apping, and you know, chills and hypertension, you know, and a hypernailchycardia and all kinds of stuff and so of sweating, a lot of sweating and excessive salivating and stuff like that.

All these are all things that people were experiencing. But mercury poisoning does not include hallucinations total craziness. So I don't know what to say. There's still people that are kind of putting this theory out there, but at least I have never in my admittedly brief research and mercury poisoning, I've never seen anything about hallucinations or psychotic behavior or anything. Yeah. No, that's that's not something that you hear about, so I

could see why. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not willing to be on board with mercury poisoning just because of that. Okay, these series are just too thin. Uh. Another theory is that Briand of the Baker uh might have actually done something a little bit illicit which caused us to happen. So inadvertently, Yeah, inadvertently, of course, but but from all accounts, he took great pride in the whiteness of his bread and apparently back in the day.

I don't know if it's still the case now, but in those days of French like their bread as white as it could possibly be. Yeah, yeah, seriously, I don't know if you've been there lately that they still like it white. No, I haven't been there in like thirteen years, but when we were there, yeah, they liked it white. I have a friend who just went, and I mean, they seem they like their crusty bread, though I don't know.

I have no idea. They were yelling at me. I had no idea what they're saying, what their bread was yelling like there like white, my bread is about the past I'm like, why are they so angry? You weren't angry. They were just bragging about their white bread. They're just really proud. Yeah. Well yeah, so could it be that the baker used some chemicals to bleach his flour and

accidentally sort of poisoned everybody. The series was put put out by a guy named Stephen Kaplan who published a book in two thousand and eight, and it's not devoted entirely. It's apparently like a thousand page book. I haven't read it, but I've read some reviews and summations of it and stuff, and it's about a lot more than than just poncent espre. It's it's a lot about that that era in France.

And but yeah, that's some stuff in there. And he argues in the book that somebody, perhaps a certain baker, using nitrogen trichloride to bleach his flower and doesn't have other than that as a theory, doesn't really provide any evidence to speak of the no no no spoken gun no no discarded bottles of nitrogen trichloride or anything like that.

But it was actually used commonly to bleach flower, but way back in the day um And apparently, according to Wikipedia, it was banned for that use in nine um, although the page contradicts itself and says in the next sentence that it was banned in nineteen seven internationally banned, banned in France. That's a good question. I don't know, banned

in the small southern county of France. Why this is why we use Wikipedia for the very general overusing them dig in and it I mean I tried to dig in and I couldn't find anything that I'm guessing that they're citing multiple sources. And that's the problem is that there the location, what's making the discrepancy. Yeah, you can't tell you obviously, you can't really ban anything worldwide, just doesn't can't really be done now. Um, but it's it sounds like it was if it had fallen from favor,

apparently kind of dangerous. It turns out the problem that I have with this theory is that it was commonly used prior to when it was banned for bleaching flower, and so if this caused that kind of outbreak of insanity, then that wouldn't that would have We would have had lots and lots of instances of this kind of mass outbreak of insanity prior to ninety nine or wherever it was banned, Right, unless he was over bleaching his flower, well,

it might be. It might be that he wasn't actually doing it quite correctly and maybe he used too much, Right, that's why he had the whitest bread. Everyone else was like, how's he getting this bread so white? Without killing people? Oh? Killed somebody? Yeah? Okay, yeah. So but anyway, I'm not really liking this series because I really do think that there would have been at least some instances as it's happening in other places. Yeah, you would think that this

would not be an isolated event. Yeah, yeah, but so it's possible, but I don't think so. Um, he actually died broke and kind of an outcast. Apparently a lot of people were suspicious of them, even though I think it's it appears that he was probably innocent of any wrongdoing. But unfortunately for him, you know, obviously it's not just not good for business. Dude, and they all get sick, Well, that's going to kill your business. Yeah, what's the burrito

place that's having all the trouble? Oh yeah, okay, and they're not really having trouble anymore though. Well, but there was a huge backlash and for a while because they had to come in and get your free burrito because we're sorry, we got you sick, and your free burrito got you sick. There's just there's things. Is it just people don't forgive. There's people who will never go back to that joint. I'm one now, Yeah, I know, but you know that the thing is the coolie outbreaks like

that they take place all over the place. I know. It's like, I'm sure, I'm sure these guys are being extract or careful. Oh yeah, they were completely you know, it wasn't I don't think that was their fault. It's not like they were saying that their burritos got better diesel mileage than it actually did relying to the public.

That's a different company. Yeah, that's a good point. I don't I don't know what company you're possibly talking about, but yeah, well so anyway, saying nitrogen track chloride, I think we can knock out of the theory. I would say, yes, yeah, okay, that comes to you get another theory, which is it was the CIA. Yeah, and their theories out there about

this MK ultra. I'm sure you guys have heard of it. Yeah, and n LSD and there wasn't there There wasn't indeed an mk Ultra program that began in the nineteen fifties and it did exist in reality. It's like, it's not just a conspiracy theory. Mean, a lot of people have run with it, so it's like, you know, not quite as incredibly insanely conspiratorial as a lot of people make it out to me. But they did did some interesting stuff,

probably sounded it a little bit unethical. I was gonna say, it's by interesting to you mean un uh God, I can't even think of the word where nobody was on board with it. They didn't know they were unwilling participants, and yeah, they unwittingly and the people were unwittingly being poisoned or drugged up and things like that. So yeah,

I guess that was a little shady um. But there was a guy named there's a guy named Hank albert Elli, and you can see interview footage of interviews up on the internet if you want to, if you want to do a little google his name, and he published a book in two thousand nine claiming that the sea. Alternatively, I've heard that he claims that they used aerosol spraying of LSD over the village as an experiment, or or he poisoned. He actually poisoned the bread coming out of

this guy's bakery and his is there. He did a lot of research. He claims to have found all sorts of secret documents that make reference to this, and he he did a lot of he was doing a lot of research into the death of Frank Olsen, who some of you might have heard about. I think he's somewhere on our list of whole mysteries that we haven't actually jumped. Yeah,

then he doesn't ring a Bell. But yeah, he was a biochemist that worked with the Special Operations Division or s o D. And he jumped out of the thirteenth floor of a hotel in New York City in nineteen fifty three. And there's a theory out there that he was actually thrown out that window, yeah, or maybe he just jumped out of Now. Albaretti was looking into the death of Frank Olson when he came across some references to Saint sant A Spree and uh, and so he

made sort of made that connection. Apparently it is his belief that Frank Olsen was was working with s o D and that he was part of the operation that poisoned the people of the town. You know, that's his car, you know what was there actually an operation? Well we'll

talk about that. But apparently his this theory is is that Frank Olsen was murdered because he was actually become disillusioned and wanted to go public or at least had been been a little too loose lipped about the whole thing, and he was seen as a security threat, so he was murdered. Yeah. Well, the thing that people cite to back this up a lot is that this company called sand As in Switzerland, Sands Chemical. Yeah, they are the ones who apparently sold LSD to the CIA for the

mk Ultra project. And apparently they are also the ones who conducted the investigation in the town and said, oh yeah, no, it's totally got huh. Yeah. I have heard that too, and I don't know. I haven't seen anything to back that up. I haven't either, but I've seen that. I've seen that numerous places, but it all seems to emanate for one sorous, which is Hank Albertrelli. Yeah, so there's a couple of problems with this. There just a couple.

Oh well, there's a couple of money. Yeah, let's start with the fact that I have never actually heard of anybody successfully making LSD into an aerosol spray. But do you know how you have how what has to happen for LSD to affect you. You have to ingest it. You can't get it on your skin as far as I understand, and and maybe these maybe crazy high dosages will do it. But from what I understand is that you have to ingest it. It breaks, It can break

down relatively quickly in the sunlight. So think about it. It's August. It's probably warm, it's probably sunny. That's why there's always the stories of people who will have the blotterer paper that they'll they'll have out for a while, sitting in the sunshine, and then they'll they'll go to take their hits of acid and find out that it's no good anymore because it's broke down. I store my acid in the fridge. That's the only place to keep it.

What's to say that that, um, they weren't aerosol canning it, that they were dosing his bread with it. Okay, keep their bread out of the sun, Okay, So I'm not I'm not going to say that it's not has nothing to do with them directly treating the bread. I think that's assigning a higher level of conspiracy to the whole thing. Let's just say that they're flying over the town. They can't spray LSD. You have to ingest it if it touches your skin. Is at least the research that I did,

It doesn't do anything. It's not strong enough to penetrate. Was this research sticking LSD on your skin and seeing what happened and not just hailing it through This drug is not one that I went ahead and tested. There's another one that we'll talk about, but this one, no, well, there was there was some experimentation with the idea of using LSD as a weapon, and the idea of being that there are certain chemicals. As far as I know,

I can't there's there's one that I was. It doesn't come to mind right now, but if facilitates the absorption of a drug through your skin, so you mix that up with the LSD and then you drop like LSD bombs on the enemy, they explode and sad and spray to spray them down, and then all these enemy soldiers and you don't have to shoot him at all. You just walk in there and just and just haul him off to the prison camp or wherever you're gonna take it. Here's a flower, he filled out, here's a flower he

felled out. Yeah, here's a word. He fell down. So, you know, it could have been. It could be that some sort of experimentation with chemicals mixed with LSD that would actually cause everybody to get high. But my my big problem with this as an experiment, whether they did that the RSL spraying, or if they actually deliberately tainted the bread, If they taint, they tainted the flower that was made into the bread. The LSD would not survive

making process. Not no, it totally wouldn't. It would have to be applied posting process. So they unless the baker was actually conspiring with them, maybe they were putting it in the butter that he was giving out complimentary I like that idea. Yeah, here's your you know actually, you know, actually, when you think about it, this could actually totally be a case of contaminated butter. And then and the baker totally totally got a finger for this unfairly. Yeah, maybe

it was contaminated butter, because do we have read without butter? Um? Sometimes, but it's usually like a sandwich French Actually, the French put butter on their sandwich is usually so Yeah, it could have could have been butter, could be, but it

could have been something bad cow um. Yeah. The other thing I don't like about this is it was an experiment supposedly, and there they had this whole research program called them k Ultra and by the way, I'm kulture didn't actually begin or get funding until nineteen fifty three. There might might a better precursory program, some sort of predecessor.

But the thing about it was is they did conduct a lot of experiments and with drugging people and seeing what they could do in terms of brainwashing them or controlling them and stuff like that. It didn't really in the end worked out. Eventually they just dropped it because you just couldn't get reliable results. But if you're doing experiments like this, the way experiments work is you have

to control things. If you just put it in the bread and see what's happened, and and and some guy has a slice and another guy picks down half a loaf, well you you're not You're not controlling the dosage at all. And also, how are you going to observe the results? You know, a bunch of guys show up in this village,

total strangers show up, and everybody's going nuts. By the way, and as these guys with clipboards taking notes, how it's supposed to work, Well, maybe it's I mean, maybe it's that they were the ones who came in and investigated, right or quote unquote investigated, and so they're doing all these questionings like okay, well how much did he have? Okay, so what were his symptoms? And that's a way to anecdotally collect evidence. Obviously it's not good evidence data collection.

But I don't from what I understand about a lot of mk ultra's alleged things, not the actual i'm ka Ultra stuff, but the alleged mk ultra stuff, they didn't really care. I mean, it wasn't like scientific, we've got the test group and we've got the control group, and we really care about it. It was kind of like, I don't, let's see what happens. I don't. I really don't think it would happen that way because I don't think so either, because it's it's kind of useless information.

If you don't have a control group and you haven't controlled the dosage is to see what is just gonna do, it's kind of useless. Yeah, you think, although, in in fairness, if you're testing it for well, if you're testing it for something similar to let's just drop a bomb, you don't really care what exact dosage. You care about the overall effect on the group that's affected, right, because if you're if you're going to use it as a weapon, it's not okay, and each single person is going to

get exactly this dose. It's like, how does it affect these three hundred people that ingested it. Do they all go crazy? Do some of them go crazy? Maybe maybe they try to deploy it to you know, a thousand people and only those three hundred, So that would be valuable data as well, because you wouldn't it's not scientific the way that they're trying to deploy it. It's scientific, I mean, it's it's true to the science of them deploying in this kind of hypothetical we just dropped a bomb. Way.

But here's the other problem that I have with it is that France was a NATO ally, Um, it would just seem more logical to go do this in a village in Mexico or something someplace that actually didn't. Yeah, I mean that would that would make a lot more sense to me, I agree, or even ally even a small town in the US. I mean, you know, I'm doing it in France. That's ridiculous. It just seems it just seems strange random that that was the location chosen. Yeah,

that's why. I mean, maybe there's something about it. I don't know. You've done with that theory. Yeah, Well, I I have a slightly different theory LSD. It is drug based but it's different than LST. So let's roll back here with a little bit of senseus data that I found in in France, the population was essentially atheists were religious. I couldn't really in my quick digging find the number that were Catholic. But let's just say I'm just gonna

grab a number and say that the population is Catholic. Okay, okay, of the town is Catholic. Well, this happened on the fift August. Do you know what happens on the fifteenth of August every year August? It's also observed is the assumption of Mary. The assumption of Mary is well, what I think is going on? So the assumption of Mary is it's it's an observation based on the belief that Mary was actually assumed into Heaven after she passed away, rather than left in the ground like the rest of us.

Pleads um. And so what they do is they celebrate that. And there are there are feasts, and there are meals, and there are things like that. So we're gonna say that we've got a Catholic portion of the population taking part in that. The other thing that I looked at was I started trying to find what else has similar symptoms? And do you tell what has a very similar set of symptoms Magic mushrooms. Oh yeah, magic mushrooms cause stomach cramps.

They cause intestinal cramps. They caused some crazy hallucinations in people who get enough of them. I'm not going to say how I know this, but I do know that it does some terrible things to your maybe if you, oh, deed, I know if you ode that I have. Actually I'll admit it. I've done some shrooms. Yeah, I never but I never imagined. Of course, maybe I didn't take enough. I never imagined I was being eaten my snakes or

I had red flowers sprouting out of my body. Okay, So I have known people who have taken a lot at one time and we're seriously fried. They were frying for a while, and they were having some of these same physical symptoms. And think about magic mushrooms. It's a poison. That's what your body does, that is trying to get

rid of it. Like they they picked the wrong mushroom for some dish, and the group gets together and some people just like you were talking about with the bread, where it's one guy gets one a slice and the other guy wolves down half a loaf. Well, this could be that somebody made this giant batch of some dish and some people ate one and feel good, but they were all right, and then a couple of people just just wolfed it down and got massive amounts of a

hallucinogenic mushroom which would set them off. And it's it's not like mushrooms come on immediately. Then there is a build up period before it starts to happen, and the peak is long, depending on how much somebody has taken. So I'm looking at this and thinking, I actually think that this is not our God. I'm gonna actually want to clear it, but I think that this is more of a magic mushroom scenario, and maybe we're gonna say something.

I was just going to mention if we're going to the religious Catholic ceremony route, Um, it's not unheard of. He got to grow in wine, It's true. Yeah, there's that. Or you were telling us earlier the wafers, So there's a So this is why this is why you were talking about earlier, Joe, when you were saying maybe the Bakers kind of getting a bad rap, And I accord with that, because there's just so many other ways that

it could have happened besides this one thing. Oh yeah, absolutely, because probably when people were sitting out for eating their meals, they were probably eating other food, but they've gotten from other people in there and along with their bread, So you know, who knows. I mean, everybody pinpointed the baker, but it might not have been him at all. You might have had nothing to do with it. Yeah. The only thing I guess you would run into is in

the nineteen fifties feeding a hundred or three hundred people. Okay, but but think about it. If somebody goes out and they pick boatloads of mushrooms and they sell them all in a day at the market. Yeah, that's true. There and the bad ones are mixed in there, or as some people call them, the good ones are mixed in there, and they're randomly put into dishes for this celebration. It doesn't even have to be for the observation of the assumption of Mary. I just happened to find that correlated

with the date. But it could be that somebody's went out and found this batch of I found, oh, the mother load of mushrooms. It's awesome. Everybody takes them and eats them and whoo, the party is started. I guess it doesn't even have to be magic. I mean, it could just be poisonous mushrooms, poisonous mushrooms some kind. It's something as long as it's got the capability of initiating thing. I mean, you know, there's all these mushrooms that look

because I think magic mushrooms. The way they grow, it's pretty distinct. It would have to be pretty negligent to think, oh, yeah, those are the good ones, or you know, inexperience or whatever. Maybe. Yeah, locally speaking, there's a little brand that grows around here that you find a cow pastor's surrounded the the output from the cow. Yeah, don't mean milk or butter. Yeah,

but it's not. But it's really easy to go into the forest and find a bunch of mushrooms and think, oh, yeah, those look like the mushrooms that I get in the store. But hey, guess what if it's white and it's in the forest, don't pick that. That will kill you. Yeah. There's a lot of people out there who you know, we're out there, and they suddenly like they went to sleep and they woke up in the hospital with a

new liver. That's if you're lucky and they have to be a liver available otherwise well tfs yeah, yeah, so yeah, I don't eat those shrooms. Ye, so point it's a good theory. There's a whole bunch of things that are naturally occurring that somebody could have picked up sold that market. But in general, we are agreeing that a fungus of some kind was ingested by people and probably so or Yeah,

I agree. I think that's something. You know, whether it was it was probably an accidental fungus poisoning, I think so too. Yeah, the whole the whole CIA theory I think is silly. Yeah, it's it's absurd. Yeah, next band though, it's bunk accidental focused poisoning. It's good. Actually, the green name the podcast, yeah, that would really pigeonhold us. Yeah, for the cooking show. Actually, oh yeah, we have a cooking show. Yeah, that's what it's going to be called,

because that will draw the listeners in. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think you know, third degree burns, it's oh, I think we any of the theories, I guess, yeah, sort of kind of. Oh yeah, let's let let me do a little housekeeping here. H website. You can find this on our website at Thinking Sideways potcast dot com. You can download episodes and well, unfortunately we turned off comments a while back. Sorry about that. We're also on iTunes.

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