Listener Mail: Best/Worst Candy, Human Cloning Puns, Eclipse Headaches and a Full Body Taste - podcast episode cover

Listener Mail: Best/Worst Candy, Human Cloning Puns, Eclipse Headaches and a Full Body Taste

Apr 18, 202458 min
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Episode description

P Brain asks for more information about the health effects of the recent solar eclipse. Anonymous in Central Illinois asks Ben, Matt and Codename: Doc to debate the best -- or worst -- candy. Scoop Murphy drops some knowledge about earmarking certain government positions. Keith the Plumber uses McDonald's for lucid dreams, and GGP Scootch shares an amazing, surely true, story about the perils of human cloning. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2

Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. Our colleague Noel is on quite an adventure, but will be returning shortly.

Speaker 1

They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis, code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Folks, it is Thursday, if you're hearing this, the evening this show publishes, which means it is time for Doc Matt and yours truly to present some messages from you.

Speaker 2

Matt.

Speaker 1

We have quite a we've got quite a cavalcade here. We always think. We always walk away wishing we could add a couple of more, But our journey continues. I don't know where would you like to start. I haven't a full disclosure. I haven't heard all of these.

Speaker 2

Oh well, many of these are just humorous to me. So maybe let's start there. Let's just get silly, Let's have a let's have a silly day this Thursday. This voicemail comes to us from an anonymous human being in Illinois.

Speaker 1

Yeah, man, while we're on the way to Illinois, Matt, when's the last time we just did something spontaneous and fun other than you know, in LA.

Speaker 2

Basically, I don't know. We were in Los Angeles, but not on Easter Sunday. We were not there that day, all right, So let's hear from this anonymous so and so in Illinois.

Speaker 3

Hey, guys, this is anonymous from Beyond Stay to America, Central Illinois to the eleven thirty three, which is a little ominous, but I'm extremely bored. I just had an epiphany. Lutens cherry cough suppressants from the old days, the cough drops. They look like really good ones. They classify as the world's best candy ever made.

Speaker 4

Debate me.

Speaker 3

Oh boy, lifetime obsession, lifetime appreciation for all you guys and what you do. So George chosen, God, bless or universe be timed to you and yours for eternity or until you stop having brain activity pace.

Speaker 2

There we go, Anonymous.

Speaker 1

A couple couple points on this one. Matt. You know, I no hate to any of the fifty states in this great American experiment. But I will say that I have most often heard not central Illinois, but Maryland described as the armpit of America. I'm not saying I agree. That's just what i've heard most interesting.

Speaker 2

Interesting. Well, I don't know about that. But what I do know about is the r Yes, Ohio, I haven't.

Speaker 1

Got doc chim oh man.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1

See Okay, all right.

Speaker 2

Look look I got a lot of family in Ohio.

Speaker 1

Okay, so we don't want to compromise.

Speaker 2

Come on, now, Ohio is pretty great, especially especially the Akron area. Uh okay, so Loudin's cherry cough suppressants. I have very specific memories of being sick as a child. I was a very sickly boy. I don't know if everybody knows this, A very very sickly boy had one of those machines that helped me breed because I had asthma. And when I was having trouble breathing or coughing a lot, I got it such a specific memory of a Luden's cherry cough drop and it was like candy, and I

loved it, and I always wanted to eat more of them. Yeah, but you know, my parents are like, no, no, no, no, no, that's not candy, that's a that's a medicine.

Speaker 1

I've met your parents and they do sound like they would say.

Speaker 2

That they're from Ohio. I don't know if I mentioned that, but it was I don't know, it's so good. I kind of I kind of agree with you, Anonymous Illinois. It's like, uh, that's I don't know, I'm amazing candy.

Speaker 1

It's always tough to pick the best of something, but I'm right there with you. I remember the same way. It looks like we were both playing those kids in a parable or a drug PSA. I had a Luden's Wild Cherry when I was when I was young, and then as soon as I was able to operate a car legally or not, I remember thinking, wait, you can just buy these. You don't need a doctor or your

parents to get one, and I went overboard. Honestly, it was like it was as though I were a chain smoker, but with Luden's throat drops oh, which I think they were called, which is also a weird name.

Speaker 2

I remember seeing the term cough drops on their packaging, and Doc just chimed in to say one used to just eat those.

Speaker 1

You get a doc.

Speaker 2

Yeah, here's something fascinating that I didn't know until just now. Luden's was created by a gentleman named William H. Luden way back in the eighteen hundreds. And guess what they made cough suppressants and candy.

Speaker 1

Uh So it turns out anonymous in Illinois, you are not DELUDINID. Oh. There is, especially in the United Kingdom and in the United States, there is a heck of a ven diagram between things that are considered candy versus things that are considered medicinal. Right, there are quite a few things you can like. I can't remember where we're talking about this. It was on this show. You know,

a lot of multivitamins. Oh, in our Supplements episode, a lot of multi vitamins you can eat just like candy, because those things are belicious.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah, they are. Oh my gosh. I also didn't know this.

Speaker 1

Guys.

Speaker 2

Frank Zappa, I don't know how we would describe him other than a musician and like go up and Comer'm pretty mind blowing in a lot of his concepts in music styles. His music was used in a Louden's Cough Drops commercial from nineteen sixty seven. That just blew my mind.

Speaker 1

Again, I didn't know that Pfizer bought Ludens at one point in two thousand and six. Again, medicine and candy. Matt, I do have an interesting question, I think for the class here, fellow conspiracy realist, the best candy is a fascinating question. But I feel it may be a little bit too subjective. So write to us and let us know what the worst candy is. Oh, that's interesting, somewhat controversial. It was supposed to be an episode, but we did

a somewhat controversial series about this some ridiculous history. Because no one agrees. They all have some opinions, like, Matt, do you have a Do you have a couple of candies that you absolutely loathe or bore? I don't know.

Speaker 2

I think maybe the only one that I won't touch after my son goes trigger treating and no offense out there to anybody who likes these or you know, the companies. But a standard Hershey's milk chocolate bar that is nothing but Hershey's milk chocolate, I will not eat it. I just I'm not going to do it. I need something with a little a little more pizazz going on in your candy that for some reason, I feel so weird. But American made milk chocolate has a very specific flavor to me that I'm not into.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and it is somewhat unique to the United States. To be honest with you, like, if you if you feel that you do not enjoy milk chocolate, try something from another country and see what the hubbub is about. Maybe maybe we go Uh, Doc, we're chiming in on the lutins. Do you have any strong opinions? Read best or worst candy?

Speaker 2

Oh, let's see, we'll give her a second here.

Speaker 1

I didn't see this one coming. Twis is the worst.

Speaker 2

Oh have you ever frozen a TwixT? Doc? If you have frozen a twist, you would not have that opinion. I'm telling you. It changes the entire caramel game.

Speaker 1

Oh, I actually can talk now.

Speaker 3

No, I have not frozen one, because generally speaking, when I don't like something, I don't say.

Speaker 2

You know, maybe if I tried this at a few different temperatures. Well, look, I'm just gonna request that you give it a try next Halloween season. Just see what happens.

Speaker 1

I love that idea, though, because you could apply that to a lot of things like, Yeah, I don't usually eat nickels, but I've never put them in a freezer or superheated them, super heated them crazy. I can't wait to hear your opinions, folks, Best worst candies, where to fall, Louden's and twits, gosh.

Speaker 2

All but ben, speaking of just candy or maybe junk food, I got one more that I think would fit in this segment. If that's okay, Yeah, all right, let's go to a message from Keith the Plumber has an interesting take that I I just have never heard this before, So let's let's go. Oh and by the way, please don't consume cough drops like they're candy. They're not candy. They have medications in them or some substances that you probably shouldn't odeon.

Speaker 1

Right again, the ven diagram of medicine and food. Also shouldn't have to say it. You're not my supervisor, right If you are about to eat a roll of nickels, just put them down.

Speaker 2

Yeah, try not to try not decurrency.

Speaker 1

I know it's like a one day at a time than for a lot of people.

Speaker 4

So here we go.

Speaker 2

This is a message from Keith the Plumber.

Speaker 5

Hey, guys, you can call me Chief the Plumber. I was listening to tent of your recent episodes and you were asking about that's food conspiracy. I've tried it on myself, and I've talked to people and they've tried it as well. If you eat McDonald's, especially McDonald's truckfort for any McDonald's you know, like pig mac whatever will work. Take map who are way more likely to plus dream. I do it regularly now. I call my McDonald's nap and I

just have a crazy good time with it. Sometimes it's not so good time, but it's it works.

Speaker 3

Check it out. I'll see you guys what I'm so.

Speaker 2

In but I'm down. I never eat there, but let's go. I want to try that.

Speaker 1

You know. It's it's interesting there, Keith the Plumber, Because there is probably a basis to this, it may not necessarily be tied to the physical ingredients of the food. A huge deal for any for any lucid dreaming enthusiast. Ritualization of experience pre sleep is a huge Dare I say ingredient you can program yourself?

Speaker 2

Well, yeah, And I think you combine that ben with the concept of napping like short bursts of sleep, because if you can wake yourself up like sleep, and then wake yourself up at an interval that like wakes you up at a specific point in your sleep cycle, you'll at least recall that dream a lot better.

Speaker 1

It's like twenty one to twenty three minute cycles, I think exactly.

Speaker 2

So, like maybe it's just a quick nap after a bunch of calories right from McDonald's, a bunch of sugars in all of the stuff. Maybe maybe there's something to it. Maybe it's a sugar nap.

Speaker 1

A sugarnap perhaps, But yeah, we know that you can. You can teach yourself to your point, Matt, to have lucid dreams. I am going to try this adventure you're describing teeth, and will report back. In the meantime. I have to ask, Matt, do you have lucid dreams on a regular basis or have you ever had one?

Speaker 2

Mine?

Speaker 4

Are?

Speaker 2

I wish they were more lucid than they are? I would say mildly affected dreams, dreams that I can have small amounts of infla on, but very vivid, usually horrifying. It's a lot of fun in this old nogin of mine. And when I say fun, I mean horrifying, but yeah.

Speaker 1

You can also reach similar results with just meditation.

Speaker 2

With deep meditation, yeah, I can't do that for some reason. My brain doesn't do that, but it does go to sleep for these weird little naps and just whoo craziness happens. Do you remember a while back we talked about several companies and gaming companies. I think it was Microsoft and Xbox. I can't recall exactly, but they were trying to like somehow get advertisements into dreams. That were testing it. Yeah, do you remember this. It was a while ago.

Speaker 1

It's somewhat redundant at this point to call you a mind reader there, but I'm thinking particularly of twenty twenty one where advertisers were attempting to sort of intersperse advertising into dreams. So it's a great Popular Mechanics article about this by Caroline Delbert. It was, I believe when we first spoke about it and discovered this, we were talking about the Mulson Cores beverage company. Okay, I wanted you to dream about beers.

Speaker 2

Yes, that's what it was. I remember the conversation. Now, Oh wow, oh that is so weird. Look for that in the feed if you're interested. That was so weird.

Speaker 1

Targeted dream implantation it's called or TDI, and people have been trying to do some version of this since way back when people first started peopling, you know, and we know that there are ways to implant certain things in your dreams because if you are human, the process you experience of dreaming is like a hard drive defragging itself, so you can put certain data in there and it'll run across your conscious mind, right, and it's always, you know,

it's always, at least me personally fascinating the kind of stuff that makes it into a non lucid dream. You know, there might be you might have an amazing, terrifying roller coaster of a day and then you walk through like a gas station and someone says, oh, cheetos, and then you have this in depth, super vivid dream about Cheetos, and that was the least important thing to your conscious mind at the time. It's crazy dreams as the editorial

process of the dream sequence is endlessly fascinating. I don't know, do you think we could implant a dream via stuff they don't want you to know? I bet we could.

Speaker 2

Well, I'm going to have a Cheetos dream for sure. Now, I just had all kinds of weird image dream my head with the orange powders.

Speaker 1

That's part of the implantation device. Is you think of sense memory?

Speaker 2

Ye?

Speaker 1

Think of the smell, Think of the sound of a bag opening, Think of the texture on your fingers, in your mouth and on your tongue. Well, we just gave people cheeto dreams.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah, the very specific crunch weird All right? Well, hey, it's some strange things, some silly things. Let us know what you think about Luden's cherry cough drops and twitch and twigs frozen not frozen or good or bad? Best and worst candies?

Speaker 1

Yes?

Speaker 2

And what is the What is the best food to eat just before a nap to induce a lucid dream?

Speaker 1

Why is it cheese?

Speaker 2

And what kind? All right, let us know what you think. We'll be right back with more messages from you.

Speaker 1

And we have returned Matt. We've got a lot of voicemails here because we enacted Operation sports Durth earlier. Do we want to round Robin an email?

Speaker 2

Yeah, that sounds great. Do you want to tell people what scorched earth is? Really quickly?

Speaker 1

So we have we have a totally reasonable term for a thing that you and I do when we want to want to go through all of the voicemails that we receive, and they add up pretty quickly. So sometimes Matt and I will we'll just hit each other up, often on like a night or a weekend and say, hey, we're doing it. We're going in. It's scorched earth, which means our goal is to go through all of the voicemails, every single message you send us, including when you call

and just hang up. Shout out to shout out to all the people, by the way, and I'm not even joking, shout out to everyone who calls in and just says, hey, guys up and hangs up.

Speaker 2

Oh dude, who all wait, I have to tell this story. I've got to find it though. Whole of one second, I just talk to someone who called in calamity. Chris but dialed us while he was making a purchase at a store and giving giving out like his loyalty number to the cashier and explaining, oh, well that's actually my mother's number, this is her name, and he's just having a whole conversation. Yeah, So I just called him, like, hey, Chris, are you okay? Is everything okay? And he's like, wow, yeah,

I'm fine. But it's weird that my parasocial friends are calling me more often than my actual friends. This is weird, Chris, Chris, We're here for.

Speaker 1

You, Bud's. We love these messages really because, again we maybe don't say it often enough, but this show does not exist without you. So thank you very much for calling, for reaching out on social media. Thank you absolutely for writing these emails. We do love the emails. We read every single one we get, and there is one in particular that stuck out because it hits something that has been on our collective minds for some time. I want to speak for everyone, definitely for me, the idea of

human cloning. What's stopping it? Well, we asked, and you responded, especially if your name is GGP Scooch. And we'll explain that at the end, but I'm going to start this way. Just a little Scooch, just a little Scooch, Just a little GGP Skeoch, Jents, says Scooch. Following a recent discussion you had concerning cloning, I was reminded of a scandal

from my graduate school days. Doctor Louis Duvall of McGill University in Quebec and doctor Brenton Riley of the University of Toledo have been partners in research in the late nineteen sixties dealing with cloning. They disagreed over the topic and morals of human cloning, however, with Duvall in favor of going forward with cloning and Riley urging caution, and Riley agreed with the majority of scientists and governments that

the subject was one to be avoided. This disagreement caused the two men to end their partnership under less than friendly conditions.

Speaker 2

And We're going to round robin here, so I'm going to continue on. By the mid nineteen seventies, much progress had been made in mammal cloning theory, and both men had published extensively concerning their views on extending these theories to humans. Deval's position seemed almost militant, and he often hinted that he had experimented far beyond legal and ethical

limits imposed by his peers and governments. Specifically, he covertly threatened Riley with some type of retribution for backing out of their cooperative research.

Speaker 1

I'm a clone, you dog ooh e already.

Speaker 2

Got your DNA. I'm just gonna make another one of you. It's going to repeat your experiments, and we're.

Speaker 4

Going to go for it.

Speaker 1

Cloned, might get cloned. Watch yourself. Scooch didn't write any of that. That's that's your faithful correspondence. But the message continues. In nineteen seventy eight, Riley began having strange experiences where people claim to have seen him at places and events

he had not been at. Others reported he was leading a secret second life, one where he was frequenting adult establishments, following women with whom he worked at the University of Toledo and making lewde suggestions through hundreds sexually explicit telephone calls and messages to close family friends, and other out of character comments. The stories cost Riley his marriage of twenty two years.

Speaker 2

What okay, okay, all right, let's keep going here. Yeah, we got to go back to that for a while. Here we go, continuing on with the message, Riley hired an attorney and investigator and discovered Duval had actually managed to somehow create a full grown human clone of Riley. Come on now, hold on, hold on hold the phone. The suspected clone was detained by law enforcement following a recorded call from a public phone booth. Riley accidentally came face to face with both Duval and the Clone when

he arrived at a courthouse for a hearing on the matter. Enraged, Riley attacked the Clone and threw him down a flight of stairs, causing the neck to break and the clone to die.

Speaker 1

Are okay, okay, all right? Well what happened after that? How does arrest of the letters?

Speaker 2

Well, since there had never been rights established for human clones, according to the letter, the only charge against Riley was making an obscene clone fall.

Speaker 1

The shot you had us in the front. Okay, I'm sorry Scooch. By the way, I've been GP Scooch, but probably must surrender that name to my son, who is about to become Grandpa's scooch. That would make me GGP Scooch. I'm not ready for that. Maybe I shall become Patter Familias or PF Scooch and not that you would need it, but permissions for everything are getting granted. Sorry for a bit of an April fool's a bit of a shaggy

dog story, but I gotta tell you a scooch. You had me at the first half not gonna lie an obscene clone fall and rimshot. Again, thank you so much, Thank you so much. That was that was worth it because the way that we handle these things, just so you can see a bit backstage, folks, is when we get those specifics, like we say, take us to the edge of the rabbit hole, We'll do the rest. We're looking into this and we're not finding these people, you know.

Speaker 2

Well, yeah, because you're like for me, imediately, I would have stopped there and I would have begun researching and trying to find, Okay, well, where how do I back this up and like actually be able to say that this is something that was occurring.

Speaker 1

Riley and Duval.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And the thing is, the structure of this is pretty great because Scooch, you were careful with the timeline mm hmm. You had some things in there that looked specific and we just we've asked for puns and by dad, by gum we got some and that was That was a great one. That just made my day.

Speaker 2

Oh that was so much fun.

Speaker 1

Thank you for that, so so thank you very much, Scooch. We are going to go to another voicemail. This brought to us by a full body taste who raises some interesting questions and maybe we can all play along at home and try to suss out whether this part is true full body taste.

Speaker 6

For the purposes of this message, you can refer me as full bodied taste. I just got done reading the twenty nineteen book by often Tom O'Neill Chaos, the CIA and Charles Manson kind of goes dives into the Manson family and all this other stuff, and it kind of draws a bunch of conclusions that I think you guys would find interesting. Doesn't definitively say Manson was connected to projects like Operation Chaos or mp Alter, but it does Tom o'mill was able to uncover quite a lot of

information kind of connecting those two worlds. I thought that was really interesting. Anyway, love your show. Yeah you feel pretty use this message. Sorry, I had left one where I just swore and hung up.

Speaker 2

Did you hear that one, Ben?

Speaker 1

Yeah, we set that up a little bit. Yeah, this okay. So we've talked in the past a little bit about the idea that certain violence actors characters in American history may have been affiliated with, or indeed the consequence of some various government Shenanigans, right, like Ted Kaczynski aka the Unibomber was exposed to some pretty nasty stuff in college, the Charles Manson CIA stuff. Have you ever heard about this, Matt?

Speaker 2

I have, Actually I've heard some theoretical connections there where Manson was somehow part of you know, Mockingbird or some of these other projects, like the early projects that became what was the LSD experimentation.

Speaker 1

In k Ultra.

Speaker 2

Yeah, like he was an early person in that, and you know, but again it's all rumor, right, none of those connections have been like fully tied in, I would say.

Speaker 1

Right, officially substantiated exactly. Yeah, this is this is something ran into and I swear years ago when we were years ago, we were talking about the Manson case, and there's a story that always stood out to me. As the group was deteriorating out there in the desert. One of the guys who mitigated the disaster of this cult, like thinking is a very interesting dude. He was a minor m I n er who just who was like

their closest neighbor. And he's a real spiritual person. I even found his website off to pull it up later, but he used the same sort of social engineering Darren Brown type mentalist tricks that Manson was probably using on his followers, or that cult leaders use on their followers.

Speaker 2

And I don't know.

Speaker 1

That always made me think, because there wasn't enough information about that guy, and he's very much a what do you call He's very much like an unexplained cameo in the story, and he does get mentioned in the trials. I think Vincent will Lego see who was Lee prosecutor mentions him and Helter Skelter. But this idea, this reference to Operation Chaos in specific, is very interesting because Operation

Chaos was a real thing. It was a genuine CIA conspiracy to target American citizens, and from what we know as the public, it was extant. It was active from nineteen sixty seven to nineteen seventy four. What they were doing was actually a smart thing, or at least a

necessary thing. They were looking at all the protest movements, the various civil rights movements, the anti war movements in particular, and they were asking themselves, is their foreign influence and what appears to be grassroots action.

Speaker 2

Is somebody messing with us? Why is all of this happening? Kind of all at once. Yeah, I remember having conversation with my parents just about the end of the sixties when they were teenagers and just how weird everything felt. And honestly, it feels quite similar to right now, like an upending of the way people think about institutions, right and the control mechanisms. I don't know, it's very similar right now.

Speaker 1

Actually, Yeah, shout out to the former and active meteorologist, right the Oh that's a joke for like three people. So the idea here, you're right, Matt. The idea here is that through asymmetrical means, a foreign power through the sixties and seventies it would have been Russia will conspire to push things. And why is this CIA so worried about this at the time, Because they did this in other countries. Those students, quote unquote have freedom fighters who

just happened to be anti democratic far right. They were funded, supplied, and trained by the CIA in multiple countries.

Speaker 2

Yep. Look the student groups that were out in California and Ohio and other places in the sixties. It's really interesting stuff.

Speaker 1

Ohio famously not the armpit of the United States.

Speaker 2

No, not at all. I was specifically thinking about Kent State University and what we went down there and like SDS and some of the other student active like activist groups, that were interesting stuff. Some early infiltration that occurred in those.

Speaker 1

Yes, and that can be proven. Right. Also check out our earlier episode that kind of speaks to this thematically. Did the FBI manufacture terrorist because they found themselves in a dangerously surreal situation where the FBI was the FBI sent in a mole as essentially to a mosque, and with that persona attempted to radicalize people who attended the mosque.

And the mosque, which is just composed of normal Americans, right, the mosque freaked out and their leadership contacted the FBI and said, hey, we got a terrorist, please help us. Isn't that why we pay taxes? And the FBI looked into it, it.

Speaker 2

Was like, ah, yeah, thanks for letting us know.

Speaker 1

Thanks, thanks for letting us know. Swing in a miss. I think there's more to say about this before we move on. Just what you need to know is that the book Chaos Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O'Neil proved to be very controversial. We agree with you full body taste it does raise a lot of fascinating questions. There are some holes in Helter Skelter. Tom O'Neill is writing in good faith, spent decades researching these links, and he had a lot

of falling out situations with various publishers. Isn't considered officially proven And honestly, Matt, I don't know. I read the book, I don't know where I fall on it. But I also find it interesting that the CIA made an official response to this. They published the thing and just before we move on, it might be an episode for future, a future show. But here is Here is the review by Leslie c from the CIA, just going to give

you the very first part. Authors or their agents and publishers seem unable to resist using the word secret to

modify that apparently pedestrian word history. Its use meaning secret promises something the finished work invariably fails to deliver, implying as it does, access to the Eldritch or the Gnostics when the reality is often more mundane, and it goes on it attempts to absolutely discredit anything that O'Neill wrote in Operation Chaos, and one of the questions you have to ask, if you like us, are on the fence about this kind of narrative is why is the company so heated up about this?

Speaker 2

Yeah, oh, they have such a problem. I admit I have not read the book, but I hopefully will. I don't read many books nowadays, but this is one that would actually I would open it and I would not stop.

Speaker 1

You want to do a book club, we'll do a book club episode.

Speaker 2

I don't read enough for a book club, but we could. Yes, if we do one book, we can do one book club.

Speaker 1

Sorry, Christian Bible. We're going with Operation Chaos. That's the one book we're going to read. So we're going to also while we are getting a copy that we want to hear from you, folks. Do you think it is possible that Manson had some ties to the CIA? Would you like us to do a full episode on this. I think we're going to. We just really need your thoughts, your perspective. In the meantime and pause for a word from our sponsor, we'll be back with a couple more messages from you.

Speaker 2

And we've returned, and I guess we should say we are recording this on Wednesday, April tenth, the total solar eclipse, at least for parts of the world just occurred on April eighth, at least here in North America when it was crossing over, and there were some weird things. Ben, how did you get to look at it at all or do anything for the eclipse? Any rituals?

Speaker 1

It's illegal for you to ask me that. Ah, dang, no, kiddy. I was a big fan of it. Had some a lot of contacts out in Texas who were racing to find areas without too much cloud cover. Here in Atlanta, the clouds parted as though by design, just long enough to check out a cool eclipse, and then the fog rolled back in to shout out for one person in the crowd and Viking that was yeah, yeah, And the rains came. But yeah, I was hanging out on the roof and just vibeing. Man, what about you, sweet?

Speaker 2

Did you get any of the glasses or any of the things, like did you make one of those little box holes?

Speaker 4

Yeah?

Speaker 2

I love that. I ended up ordering a couple of sets of shades, very specific types of shades, not the ones that were recalled in Illinois. I think that's where they were messed up. But my son and I and my girlfriend we all went outside and we were just looking at the eclipse for quite a while. We let off sparklers, hung out with the dogs, had a good time, and then all of a sudden, Uh, there were some weird like health effects there We're going on, like some

feeling super tired, getting headaches going on. Specifically, Well, let's let's let's get into this message. And I just want to see if there's any connection here for anybody else who's listening, or if this is psychosomatic or something weird going on because of all the talk about the eclipse running up to it, and I would say, all the anxiety that was put out into the world.

Speaker 1

I'd like to hear if there's some connections as well.

Speaker 2

So let's hear. This is a message from pe Brain.

Speaker 3

I'm mad. I've been in.

Speaker 7

The code name Pea Brain here.

Speaker 6

I just wanted to bring something up.

Speaker 7

To you all because I don't know. I'm gonna be honest, I haven't looked into any of this at all, but I was looking on Instagram today after the eclipse that happened. So it's April eighth or ninth, I can't remember eight, So I'm looking on Instagram. My sister in law post a picture of the eclipse with the caption that says, anybody else feel the headaches and a little naches from the eclipse? So many of my girlfriends from work are feeling this way as well. So she works in healthcare,

so you think she would know a little better. But I haven't spoken with her about this, by the way, But I don't know if this is like she's the type of person who believes everything she sees on Facebook type of thing, vaccination stuff like that, But I wouldn't put her in the classification as like a qan honor or anything. But she's not that far down the rabbit hole. But I'm wondering if this is some sort of like placebo effect that people are reading about and then all

of a sudden they're starting to feel this way. I'm trying to weigh in also to see if other listeners have, like Henny, relatives or friends or anybody who has experienced this. Love the show, take care, and I appreciate it, thank you.

Speaker 2

Right right. I think there's some specificity in this message that maybe is unnecessary. So I don't think it's women, men, anybody else that would be specifically pointed out as having headaches or health problems, whatever it is. After this whole solar eclipse shindig. I think it's way more general than that, but I just I want to talk about it because

it's interesting. At in my household, two of us experienced a bit of a headache afterwards, and we had very specific glassware on that was supposed to be protective for this activity to actually look at the sun, So we didn't expect that it would have anything to do with that, or at least of the actual act of looking towards the sun right right, But it does appear if you look online, there are a lot of other folks experiencing

something like this, So just let's talk about it. What are your initial thoughts been.

Speaker 1

Can happen? The first thing we need to say is that you should not stare at a solar eclipse without protection, without ocular protection, which I think is elementary. But I was surprised to learn as of twenty twenty four, about thirty percent of people in the United States did not know that this could cause permanent eye damage.

Speaker 2

Isn't that crazy? I feel like that's a known thing.

Speaker 1

Well, eclipses don't happen that often, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2

Well, but just the sun in general, it's still the sun.

Speaker 1

I hate that thing, man. Yeah, it's just yes, okay, but longstanding disagreements with the I get it. Folks, don't send the email. I know it's important. I just don't vibe with it personally, but I appreciate its work. The idea though, here about headaches is a little bit more interesting. So we know it's an established fact at staring at the sun if you are a human with the unaided eye,

can cause permanent damage. But the concept of a headache it's a little bit different because one of the big intervening variables I think we'll get to is is going to be the glasses, right or the device you used to view the eclipse. And just because somebody might call something a placebo effect doesn't make it any less real.

I would be if we were medical professionals. One of the things that we would analyze here would not just be the occurrence of temporary headaches, but the length of time that headaches occurred for people, Like how long after viewing the eclipse did the pain in your head persist?

Speaker 3

Yeah?

Speaker 2

I think that's a big deal because it could be what is there's a specific term for it. I was reading in time. Solar retinopathy, I think, is the name for it, when you're you're actually experiencing eye damage after looking at the sun. And this is something that is usually usually not just a headache. It is problems with vision after looking at the sun. So not just like owl my head hurts a little bit after that, or even I have a pounding headache after viewing a solar eclipse.

It is I'm having blurred vision or serious spots, you know, in my vision when I'm looking around, and it's accompanied with a headache. What was experienced at my house was just a headache, like a generalized headache, which, again for personal experience for one or two people, it doesn't mean anything, right, because there are so many variables. One of us could be affected by seasonal allergies, right, which is causing some kind of a headache. One of us could just have

a headache for another reason. One of us could be feeling whatever the effects are and going through some kind of psychosomatic thing.

Speaker 1

Even something as simple as mild dehydration to cause a headache, or people suffering from migraines, light can trigger migraine reaction. The issue is that there are headache is such a broad term that there are so many things that could give you a headache. Like if you've ever been on a work zoom meeting for an hour, that's a headache. You don't need eclipse for that, isn't it crazy?

Speaker 2

You can get nauseous from just sitting in front of a screen for too long, like, you know, especially if you've got a fairly large monitor that's putting off a ton of light that's very bright, right, and you're in a darkened room. Crap the way I am right now, you can get eye stream, which causes the same type of headache.

Speaker 1

It can also even hack your propriception, right, so you can what does that mean? That's you know, like the game Mirror's Edge, right, Matt's give me the keep going and thumbs up. Okay. So propri eception happens a lot in augmented reality or VR. Propri Eception is your body's sense of itself in space, and things that give contradicting information about your body's place in space will play all kinds of hazardous tricks with your mind. And again, you know, all your other equipment, yeah.

Speaker 2

Oh dude, And then imagine you've been you know, imagining the Moon and the Sun and where they are in space and where the Earth is in space, and then staring at it for a while and really having that moment where you're like, oh, wow, I'm this tiny little thing on a giant planet, but is nothing compared to that giant star? And why is the moon that exact size? And oh God, who am I? Where am I?

Speaker 1

What am I? Wow? You sound like I feel like I've had that conversation with a lot of dogs.

Speaker 2

But nothing was said. It was just like, you know, it was known to each other.

Speaker 1

There is also another thing here that's happening, p brain. The eclipse does have effects on people, That's what we're saying. It very much does. And these these effects can differ person to person outside of the one universal thing, which is that looking at this, making eye contact with the eclipse will damage your eyes, to be clear, making eye contact with the sun, which is whatever. Making eye contact with the sun outside of an eclipse will also damage

your eyes because the sun kind of stinks. You just don't feel it while you're staring at an eclipse, so you can expose yourself to that for a longer period of time. As far as headaches, I don't know. You know, it's interesting too, because there are a lot of people who don't wear any kind of spectacles or contacts or

corrective lenses. And if you've ever worn, you know, if you've got glasses, later in life, you may notice that if your prescription is off, or just the experience of wearing glasses, it can give you a headache too, because your eyes and your brain are saying, what's going on.

Speaker 2

Yeah, your eye is literally your eyes are straining to see things, and your brain is trying to basically overcompensate for the stuff that you can't see very well and then the stuff that's too sharp, depending on what your prescription is agreed.

Speaker 1

Yet, we also cannot dismiss the psychological or psychosomatic potential here because the eclipse took over the news in the United States, and so a lot of people who ordinarily may not have been as apprehensive or anxious about it, we're starting to think to themselves, Oh, it got to me.

Speaker 2

I don't know if you can tell. I was mentioning it every conversation we had, because I was like, oh, God, well, what's going on with certain doing? Oh you know, I was reading about indigenous populations in some religious sects that will not look at a solar eclipse, groups of people who will go inside and make sure all of their doors are locked for the entirety that the moon is passing across the sun like that. But again for for

religious reasons often or traditional reasons. But again it's like, maybe they know something that I just don't know. Maybe I should stay inside, but then we didn't.

Speaker 1

That's an anthropological point too. Whenever I hear about the practices of ancient civilizations, let me caveat this, the practices of ancient civilizations or cultures that are still around today, I'm gonna hear them out because they're still around, you know what I mean, they made it somehow.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I don't know. I feel fine though. I think my headache went away, so yeah, everything's okay, right, Yeah?

Speaker 1

Yeah, you know what if the if the headaches get to and if the solar eclipse makes it impossible for us to continue our strange career as podcasters, then you, Doc and I could try to get some jobs in the military. Right, Is that good idea?

Speaker 3

Oh?

Speaker 2

We could? Yeah, let's do this. I was worried we wouldn't have time, but let's hear one last message here from Scoop Murphy. I really like Scoop Murphy's.

Speaker 1

Not related to Scooch.

Speaker 2

No, no, no, Scoop like Murphy's got the scoop. I wonder if it had anything to do with Murphy.

Speaker 1

Brown or I don't know, just Murphy Brown.

Speaker 2

I know me too, and this person's voice. I don't know why I'm getting journalists vibes from you, Scoop, but that's what I'm getting. So let's hear this message.

Speaker 1

You're probably not Candice Bergen.

Speaker 2

We hope. Here we go.

Speaker 4

Hi, this is Scoop Murphy. Callin from Ethno, Pennsylvania. Guys. I just finished listening as I always do, but I just finished listening to your show dated March fourth, and I wanted to say there was a little bit in there about applying for positions with the government and how

someone without a high school diploma could apply anyway. Bottom line, I used to do a lot of contracting with the government and what they do when they have a position wired and penpointed for somebody or a group in particular, that's exactly what they do. They make sure it is so detailed that there are only so many people who are qualified for that position, so I hope that clears

it up. But those positions are already earmarked for let's say somebody's kids or college graduates who are coming through, but they can't really pressed that forward like that. And by the way, before I hang up, March fourth is what the most commanding day of the year. Thanks so much for listening. I love you, guys. I listen all the time. I don't do music much anymore. I just do your show. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3

I love what you do.

Speaker 2

Bye bye, oh school, We love you to scoop.

Speaker 1

You get that right, like you get that March fourth.

Speaker 2

Yes, oh, March fourth. Yeah, it's said in some rousing speech right before a battle, I think. But this is a it's just a great point. I don't even know if there's that much to discuss. I haven't applied for any government jobs or military positions, so I don't have the personal experience there with that kind of thing. And I've also, honestly, we have posted several jobs I think been or at least had to be in the process of post hosting a job before as part of our

executive producer roles. But like never I've never seen it where you make the requirements of the job so specific that only a few individuals could even apply effectively. But I imagine that's a thing, yeah.

Speaker 1

Very much so. First off, thank you so much, Scoop Murphy much Fourth as well, one thing that we have to say at the very offset here is that there are hard There are hard regulations and laws that require many organizations to publicly put out a job notes right

to announce that to theoretically whomever. However, in that same regard, you get to an increasingly rarefied air when you're talking about certain things, right like clearances for instance, you know, or specific types of experience in specific fields, to the point where you know, yeah, you might have to put

out this notice for again, theoretically anybody. But you know, good and well there are less than one hundred people who can do this, and you might already know twenty of them, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2

And you're like, these are the twenty people we hope apply, knowing full well they will.

Speaker 1

Yeah, anybody can apply, but with the correct qualifications. And to be honest, that is not conspiratorial. That is I guess if you wanted to be kind of a negative Nelson about it, you could say that that is leveraging a loophole, But yeah, I feel like it is the best and most responsible way to pursue that thing, because it's not like for some of those military positions. What are you going to do if some random guy just shows up and it's like, hey, I'm Johnny blue jeans.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but what if Johnny is amazing at thinking outside of the box about the thing you're trying to get this person to make fun?

Speaker 4

Yeah?

Speaker 1

What if Johnny is just a real dark horse sleeper hit. You know, he's like twigs and a freezer. We forgot who was there?

Speaker 2

Yeah, but then you taste, well, you've experienced Johnny.

Speaker 1

I'm not sure how well the comparison will work. I just wanted one call back.

Speaker 2

But sure, sure, all right, what was Who's who was the caller would taste? What was the taste?

Speaker 1

Full body taste?

Speaker 2

See Johnny has that full body taste. Okay, just like a twigs and there it is.

Speaker 1

So I'm sure this conversation happens with Jay Sock all the time. But we also know that we have a lot of veterans in the crowd. We have a lot of people we're active military, We have a lot of people who are you know, more civilian side d and so on, and you have probably run into exactly what Scoop Murphy is talking about. Uh Matt at a at a friend uh years ago who used to do background checks when somebody needed security clearance. And to be clear,

this was a drinking buddy. So the stories were pretty juicy, even when you know, even given the way they're locked down with what they can and cannot disclose, and there are there are a lot of people with dare I say the Liam Neeson level set of specific skills. Now I'm not talking about like any we're saying, right, yeah, right, yeah,

that's all. We're talking about nothing here. But but you know, just like just to be like a software security person or something, right, there are a lot of hoops you have to jump through because you are taking on a position of responsibility and trust. So I feel like you

do have to earmark those military positions. I mean, how nuts would it be if how nuts would it be if the US or indeed any government just came out and said, all right, we need someone who will just maybe if things go wrong, have to hit a red button and the rest of the time you're going to live under the ground, you know, somewhere in the interior

of the country, and we usually have qualifications. But tell you what, just give us your pitch, you know, just film like a three minute video of why you're great at pressing buttons?

Speaker 2

Amazing?

Speaker 1

What could go wrong?

Speaker 2

Guarantee you Johnny has like it's an arc with him with the pushing buttons, you know what I mean, It's not so much as science, it's an art. And that's why he's really good for this job.

Speaker 1

That's why he's so That's why he's so great for this job.

Speaker 5

You know.

Speaker 1

It's the new season of America's Got Talent. It's just people from people from across the country saying, look, I know I don't have all the qualifications, but I got a lot of heart.

Speaker 2

And sometimes that's all you need is the heart, you know, sometimes that's.

Speaker 1

All you need. And speaking of that, we have to call it an evening tonight, folks. I think we pushed Doc a little too hard on the twigs. So we're going to go make our Maya kulpas we will be returning with some more stuff they don't want you to know. Tune in. We've got a little bit of an Epstein update. I think our Supplements episode already came out. We might even have a recording a couple live conversations. We can't wait for you to hear it. We also can't wait

for you to be part of the show. We try to be easy to find online at Conspiracy Stuff, at Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram, check out our YouTube, and then, of course, if you want to take if you want to take a page from the book of full body taste, GGP, Scooch Pee Brain, Illinois, Anon, Keith the Plumber, or the legendary Scoop Murphy, reach out Touchspace and give us a call.

Speaker 2

Yes, our number is one eight three three st d WYTK. Go ahead and put that number in your contact list if you do choose to venture into the depths of voicemail, and because that number might call you back, and you never know who it'll be, and you never know when or why or how, neither the time nor the hour, that's right. But if you do choose to call the number,

you will get three minutes. Say whatever you'd like. Please give yourself a cool nickname, like all of our callers did today except for Anonymous in Illinois missed out there anonymous. We had to make one up for you, we'll make one up for you. If we have to do, let us know if we can use your name and message on the air within that message, and those are the only rules. If you don't want to do that, why not instead shoot us an email.

Speaker 1

And we love the email. You can contact us twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Give us those extra lengths. There is no word limit on the emails. We read every single one. We take us to the edge of the rabbit hole. We will do the rest. All you have to do is drop us, alide and be aware that sometimes the void writes back conspiracyed. iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2

Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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