From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noah, and.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly, you are you. You are here that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Folks, thank you for joining us. You're the most important part of the show. And if you are listening to our listener mail the evening it comes out. Let us be the first to welcome you to May twenty ninth, twenty twenty five. We are going to have so many conversations here. I gotta
tell you maybe at the top. You guys, a guy did die in a possible kangaroo fight recently. Did you see things about that?
Yeah?
I don't mean finally, I just mean like, hopefully this has been, this has proof positive been that you should not try to PvP a kangaroo.
Well, research is ongoing, NOL and we want to think, oh gosh, it may it was either stuff they don't want you a sandwich or stoned coyote who sent that in? And we want you to know, fellow conspiracy realists that at First off Air Noel, while you were in Adventures Matt and Oarpal Dylan to Tennessee, Palell and I were talking about this briefly and it looked initially like it was a possible heart attack that hit this unfortunate man rough housing with a kangaroo, but it may have been
blunt force trauma. So just things to think about with our kangaroo PvP conversation, which is of course the precedent to the viral conversation about one hundred humans versus a gorilla. In both cases, don't do.
It, no matter how strong you think you are, don't, guys. I have some news recently. H Mart has Roota begas and they are looking good and they taste delicious.
H Mart produce is just a world away if you're not in the US, or maybe not in a community with an h Mart. H Mart is a supermarket, a grocery store with a lot of other stuff that is primarily marketing Korean produce and food, but they have they have pretty much everything. Yes, and uh and I love those kind of stores.
Man.
I don't know about you, guys, but I make an evening of going there. But uh, we do need to have a ruta bega mentioned with respect to our pal Dylan, who is on a wonderful adventure and will be returning.
It's a rude vegetable, right is it.
It's like a turnup or it's like a turn It is turn It's a cooler word. Okay, interesting, I didn't know that well.
But there are when you go to Hmart, there are other types of turnips.
Why yes.
And there are also Korean radishes and other things that might shirk you into thinking it's a rootabaga, but it's not quite Oh, I like a watermelon radish.
Yeah, gosh, man, we should Why aren't we recording this in the produce section of h bart. Also, you know what their food court slaps.
I'll see bad good.
It's amazing. Speaking of amazing, we're going to hear from a lot of dear friends of the show this evening. So without further ado, let's pause for a word from our sponsor. I guess that technically is a little ado. So with a little ado, we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors, and then we'll return to hear from you.
And we've returned, and I've come to you humbly bearing two pieces of listener mail. Humble farmer style, Humble humble farmers style. Guys rip Rebel Moon. But the humble farmer lives on in our hearts and our mouths because we're never going to stop talking about it as a concept. But this first one comes from a humble farmer of sorts, Bufort, who writes.
In Hello Ben Nolan Natt.
My friends call me Bufort, and i'd like to think that we are your friends, Buford, so we're gonna call you that as always. Feel free to use my words
on air if you'd like. On the recent or a recent listener Mail episode, you guys were discussing sketchy gas stations and by the way, guys really excited about the stuff gas stations don't want you to know upcoming episode where we will probably go into a little more detail about this very topic, which is the casino style games that are often found in what one might refer to as a sketchy gas station. Noel asked about those, this is a topic on which I can share some insight
I'm an it tech for those sorts of games. I can only speak for Pennsylvania where I live, since the game laws are different from state to state, but here in PA, we have some very specific guidelines we have to follow to stay on the right side of the law. First off, they are not slot machines. It is not gambling. He's doing it in all caps here. But I would also maybe potentially put those knots in quote fingers, which we'll get to.
And they are not games of chance. They are games of skill.
The skill is recognizing a winning move in Tic tac toe, but something along those lines.
But it is a skill nonetheless.
Another key factor is that we as operators have no way of adjusting the odds of payouts.
We legally are not allowed to have any control. Love what you fellas do. Keep up the great work piece Buford, Buford.
The gaming laws here in our fair state of Georgia are very similar to the ones you're talking about there in Pennsylvania. I think a question that I had from the start was like what do you get for these things?
You know?
And I think we talked about how you kind of get in script, you know, it's like almost like getting credits for the company's store aka the store where the little gambling parlor or the little you know, coin operated amusement machines parlor is located. That is the term used here in Georgia, as I'm sure is also the case in Pennsylvania. Cooams that operate under a specific set of state guidelines, and here's the breakdown for that. Coams in
Georgia are not traditional slot machines. They're regulated by the Georgia Lottery Corporation. I'm not sure what regulating body is going on there in Pennsylvania, but I would imagine it's something similar, and they are technically skill based games, not games of chance. Businesses operating coams must be licensed. How co ams work, players insert money and can potentially win credits based on the game's outcome. Winning credits cannot be
redeemed for cash. There is the key point there. They can only be redeemed for in store merchandise, fuel, lottery tickets, and because of a new change in the law that took place last year, they can actually be redeemed for gift cards or other types of rewards that are redeemable at other places. Like some of those gift cards you might see with like a Visa.
Logo with Georgia, you can get lottery tickets from the slot machines.
I think you redeem them for lottery tickets at the counter. But that does seem Yeah, I see what you're saying, Matt.
But are they slot machines their skill machines skilling.
Though the term com or coin operated amusement machines seems very politically loaded.
Yeah, three lawyers. Three lawyers got their Christmas gifts, no question. Also, skill machine was my old street name. It's a good one, Ben DJ's or MC skill machine. Kill machines also kind of fun. Maybe a little more on the metal side. But here in Georgia, uh, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has a wing called the CGU, or Commercial Gambling Unit, which is dedicated to enforcing laws related.
To these machines.
Uh.
And if you go to the GBI's website, you can find a little sub page for the c GU where there is a number that you can call to report any sketchy gas station activities.
I buzzkill guys, got an idea, guys, Yeah, let's go. Let's go in with some fellow listeners on a local gas station here in Atlanta. Let's uh, let's you know, raise whatever funds we need to buy the place, then build out an entire room in the back, like a hidden room in the back. Everything will be fully, completely above board. It will seem crazy sketchy though, and it'll all be to make friends with this group of folks, these regulators here in Georgia. The gaming conditions right, and
it's all. That's the goal, that's the whole goal.
But we make.
It to what end, well, that's the first step.
The rest we would have to write, but it would be very exciting thing to do.
But I agree with it, and I think match just asks I don't want to miss this match just asks the most important question there. The idea here goes again to legal ease. The idea goes into how one is paid or not paid right, or what the winnings comprise of So like an example in Japan would be pachinko partlers, which have a long standing organized crime affiliation. You can't
I'm doing air quotes so hard, wush wish. You can't win prize or money from pachinko, But you can get a ticket where you go to another It's like buying weed. In Amsterdam, you go to another nearby business and you have your little coupon or ticket and then you exchange it for stuff. That's how they get around the loss. And it seems like there's a similar bit of legal parkour.
Here for sure.
And I think the thing that really threw me, guys and why I was asking some of these questions in the first place, the three of us recently had a chance to go to Las Vegas together.
And I think it was the first time for at least two of us.
It certainly was for me and we you know, we did a little hanging out on the floor. You know, we really quite fancied that Frankenstein, it's a live video poker machine.
I yes, I did. That's okay.
Maybe I think you're the one who played it, right.
I don't think I thought we all played it a little bit, Mattie. I seem to remember you alive.
I'm the one who didn't get to play it.
I dropped so much money on it, and I want so much money.
And then lost it all again. That's how it was for me, at least. I don't want to speak for either of you. But the thing that I noticed though at least at one of the little gas stations near my house in Atlanta where I've seen these is there are identical games as ones that I saw on the casino floor, same branding, same like user interface. Remember the one with the buffaloes stampeding you guys. We saw that
one all over the place in Vegas. It was in the airport, and it was in all the different casinos that we popped into. And I've seen that there same one in a gas station. And the distinction there a slot machine, I think you just pull a lever or press a button and that's it.
With these you do there is that aspect of a skill.
I think it's as simple as just requiring you to make a decision based on being presented with an option, or maybe hitting a trigger with the right timing or something like that, or to Buford's point, something like solving a simple puzzle or you know, doing a simple tick tech toe.
But the degree to which that is implemented is so minimal.
Sure, it really is kind of outrageous to consider any of these anything but games of chance. The the the legal aspect of the companies not being able to determine the payouts and to manipulate anything like that.
That is also interesting and does seem to to ring true here.
But I did want to point to an article that I found, and I'm not sure what this is called appen media. Maybe this is just a press release that got spread around, but the headline is new Georgia law behind surge of gas station slot machine games North Fulton County, Georgia with legal skill based quote unquote slot machines popping up a conveniences growth states I Metro Atlanta's wants to know how they work. There was this law that was
passed last year. It expanded the kind of rewards that slot machines could offer players, inviting an increase of rewards based gaming. Coin based amusement machines differ than slot machines in Las Vegas and Native American casinos because they're classified as skill based games according to state law. State Statue defines two types of coin based amusement machines. Class A ones, like typical arcade games, kiddie rides and pool tables, do not allow players to carry over points after a play
or a game. Class B coin based amusement machines are also games of skill that may allow a successful player to carry over points one on one play to a subsequent play. For retailers, the licensing for a Class B machine is four one hundred percent more than Class A machines.
Y'all, what do you make of that?
It's a vice tax?
I mean it sure is, But why I mean it doesn't it seem to acknowledge that the B types are going to inherently be more lucrative.
I would say, so you also want to increase the barrier of entry, right, I don't know. Still, like I'm divided on this. I know there are people who have struggled with serious gambling issues. We do know in full disclosure that games of chance like the lottery have done a lot for education in Georgia, specifically through things like the Hope Program, wherein proceed yeah, proceeds from the lottery helped people access education that they may not have been
able to access otherwise. So I think that's I think that's cool. I'm a little on the fence about it, Nolan Buford, But Noel, before we go on, could I share a special message to Buford?
Absolutely?
Okay, Beauford, it's great to hear from you again. You and I in the group had a conversation earlier where you gave us some great clarification on juggalos. So whoop whoop to you, sir. And then also, not only do we appreciate this clarification, but we would like to on air offer you the newly established position of stuff they don't want you to know'se official ICP slash Juggalo correspondent. As we wrote to you and said earlier, this is
a volunteer position. We understand if you need to pass, but if you are down to clown, we'd love to have you as our expert correspondent going.
Forward, down to clown and down with the clown, Great Malenko.
We were rolling the dice on that one, just putting it out into the void.
I love it. Just to wrap this one up really quickly.
In the same piece, you know, opponents of this law say that in order to it's sort of like you know, winning stuff at arcade, Like to get the thing that's actually really cool, you would have had to spend so many coins or credits or whatever.
I would probably well exceed the value of the.
Thing, the video game or you know, the giant plushy or whatever, the thing that maybe has a more reasonable monetary value. It just becomes an absolute wash for players to be eligible for a two thousand dollars payout, they say they'd have to play four hundred times at a minimum. And proponents of the law, to your point, Ben, say that the best thing that reform bill did was to
regulate and bolster the Georgia Lottery's education revenue. And he thinks that the state may get the funding for universal pre K as a result. And that program that we're talking about here has generated billions of dollars twenty eight point three billions since nineteen ninety two, when Governor zel Miller, you know, was kind of spearheaded that whole initiative of the Georgia Lottery.
So, yeah, I'm with you, Ben, it is a mixed bag.
But it does feel like those Class B machines are the ones that very much would be the same user interfaces as like the types of proper gambling machines that
you'd see in Vegas. And when you start giving people the ability to take their winnings outside of the kind of contained ecosystem of just like a particular gas station, it does start to feel a little more like a workaround for cash payouts and have the potential to be triggering and potentially detrimental for folks that are just chasing those payouts.
Agreed, what we're going to move on from that one.
Thanks Buford to a real quick one that is a nice companion to an episode that we've got coming up about a little kissing cousin of Bigfoot that's been making waves in China. This one comes to us from have my Farts be staking? Yeah, that's what it says, self proclaimed of the micronation of two ty fruity land pending.
So there we go, said it. This is what they have to say.
Hey, y'all, I came across some local stories that you might be interested in. The links are below, and they linked us to a couple of cool cryptid stories.
The shunka Warakan creature is a new one for me.
There was a trend in this region where people made weird taxi pranks like the Jackalobe. I kind of lean towards that theory, but it's kind of a cool creature. Maybe we could cross the new dire wolf babies with this thing and have a totally new beast.
So he links to an article from Atlas obscura.
Beware Montana's Shunka Waracan, the Rocky Mountain hyena, bit of a chupacabra type fellow. Is this one of these crafty cryptids on display in a small museum? So let's just go into the piece there? In Alice Obscuro by J. W Auker, something has been preying on domesticated animals across the plains of Montana for centuries. It has been given many names over the years below, most of which burn angry red squiggly lines when typed into Microsoft word Shunka Waracan,
ring Docus, gastakutis. But also it's been called the beast and the Rocky Mountain hyena.
In fact, any name.
But wolf, although the creator could easily be called a wolf. Perhaps that's because wolves were extinct in the state for about half of the twentieth century, But that's a blip in the Shunko Moroccan's reign of terror. Wherever they are, they are known to attack dogs and cows and sheep and anything else served up on a fenced in platter. If only we had a carcass, we could figure out what this creature is.
Once and for all.
There is show us the body. You know, where's the carcass? We never really find one of those, so that's an interesting one. Probably when we could maybe add to a future Cryptids you Don't Know About episode. Then fartsb Stankin goes on to talk about another topic. We had some interesting discussions at family gatherings for graduations this weekend. My grandparents still live near where these mutilations happen. My mom brought up the topic this weekend, which prompted a dramatic
I roll from my dad. These kinds of mysteries are right up my alley, though, so I thought I would share this one with y'all. The article mentioned a theory that one group of people was traveling around using a helicopter to do bizarre things to cows. Were there any veterinarians recruited for Operation paper Clip? My theory is either doctors researching face transplants or a board millionaire the helicopter might be responsible. Thank goodness for TikTok dances releasing some
more positive creative energy from people. Well, thanks for the good show. In hours of entertainment, have my fart's been thinking? Self proclaimed of the micronation of Judy Friedland and the second piece that they linked to cattle mutilations across Wyoming and the West in nineteen seventies, still a mystery, and in this piece from Cowboy State Daily, there's an excellent comic strip that's attached from UFO and Outer Space magazine, the Case of the Cattle Killers.
On it, you see some humble farmers.
Pointing to these dead cow carcasses, and this one dude asking the question.
We're all asking what could have killed all these cows?
June nineteen seventy eight, It says a farming community near Saint Louis. It was here that a number of residents first witnessed the same phenomenon early one morning as they went to inspect their pastures. Not only that, but look how they died exactly. These are the questions that these humble farmers are asking of their slaughtered herd. And trigger warning here you all have some graphic language coming up
from this piece. The horror of mutilated cattle, cheeks cut off on one side, tongues, missing sexual organs removed, bloodless carcasses, and no visible signs of predation made big, bold headlines across Wyoming and the West in the mid nineteen seventies, Wyoming had reports of cattle mutilation in Newcastle, in the Bridger Valley in Uinta County, and in Sublett County. There were mutilated horses in me Titsi and Carbon County. Two years later, there was a report of a heifer outside
Casper found dead under similar circumstances. In the years immediately after the Vietnam War and Watergate, suspects included the US military, who some surmise were conducting experiments are collecting tissue Satanic cults of course at Ol Chestnut or UFO visitations. And yeah, this is a great read actually if you want to check it out Cowboy State Daily.
This is by Dave killing.
Back, really really cool, well researched piece, kind of an oral history of a lot of these cattle emulation stories.
So it's still the jury is definitely still out.
But I'm liking your I'm liking your theories about weird robing, surgeons researching. You know, it's almost like the whole resurrection man theory of Benjamin Franklin, you know, and all the bodies he had buried.
Dude, there is a recent story out of USA today that connects both of these messages or both both of these ideas within farts, bey, stinking or whatever it is.
Message Recently in California, in several counties, including Bodoc County, which is featured in the Unlikely Gems series on Instagram, there's a state of emergency because gray wolf attacks have been on the rise evoy a lot the great the gray wolf population is showing very little fear of humans right now and coming very close to They're taking on livestock primarily, but they're also coming very close to the human settlements and appear to be, I don't know, just
not fearing what they normally would.
That's exactly right, Matt, and that's certainly one of the possibilities that's outline in this article. Another one that our listeners suggested is this idea of helicopters. And this was new to me and it maybe is something we've talked about, but in the piece they talk about evidence of helicopters being discovered, credible reports of military style helicopters in the area,
and on one occasion three in different locations. The aircraft were reported to have had no numbers on the side, did not use lights, and were only seen at dusk. There's a statement coming from the under sheriff of this particular county said this, We found a lot of rotor wash around the carcasses. We found the marks of the landing skids that led me to believe it was something a little more involved, and predators wouldn't have anything to
do with those carcasses. Birds wouldn't peck on them. We never had any incidents like that before, and we never had any after. If it was predators, why didn't it continue on?
It just didn't.
Wait a minute, Are we making a connection to Buford and the helicopter rides of the gathering.
Exactly last thing in nineteen seventy five September of nineteen seventy five the Colorado Springs, Because that Telegraph reported that El Paso County under Sheriff Gary Gibbs pointed to another possibility of a Satanic cult, referring to nomadic people being responsible. In the past two years, we've found evidence of similar happenings in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
This isn't a small group. There are several thousand members across the country. This undershriff seems pretty sure of himself.
Some people laugh at the idea, but we have been working very hard on the problem and we have definite evidence.
We want to catch those people because we don't know.
What they'll do when they tire of mutilating cows. Well, they were referred to state crime labs, but apparently the crime labs.
Were used to get involved.
Said here, I heard from other sheriff offices that that was the case that they were running up against in all of our states. And yeah, it goes on the whole section about FBI file and the predator conclusion not being particularly valid.
So boy oh boy, this is a cool read. Do check that one out.
Dave killingback Cowboystatedaily dot Com.
Yeah, that's all I got for this one.
I don't know any any food for thought to leave the listeners with Ben about cattle mutilations.
Do you have any pet theories.
I'll go ahead and save them for an episode. I agree with you have my this is something that we would love to continue, and I think that's a great point about a new iteration of cryptids you've never heard of. Please check out those episodes if you haven't yet.
Awesome, We're going to take a quick break here a word from our sponsor and full disclosure, y'all. I have to take off for an appointment, so if you don't hear me, that's why. But I know you're gonna get some excellent listener mails from Matt and Ben.
And we've returned and we are jumping to the phone lines. First person we're gonna shout out here is Mohawk. Mick. Mohawk sent us a message a little while back. He has been working the I'm not gonna play this message, but he has been working the Gathering of the Jugglos since twenty thirteen. And Ben he said he has first hand experience with the helicopter ride and he said, oh waittiful.
He said it's epic.
Imagine So yeah, that's awesome. Thank you Mohawk Mick.
But he sent us another message just after listening to our episode where we mentioned the gathering of the Jugglos, which is happening by the way, on August thirteenth through the sixteenth of this year in Thornville, Ohio. If you're interested, we were talking about adding a low to the ends of things. Uh, just in to reference them while you are at the gathering or if you are a self identifying juggalo. So here's mohawk Mick's quick message.
I'm sorry I had into to the playing of the podcast. Believe my last message, and just so you know, that would be a mermal low. It would officially be a murmur low. And yes, we are so lame that we add all love to many things. I caught a fishal low. If you ride a bike, you're a bike a low. So it goes on as outrageous as you think. That gets it gets there. We are simple, so very simple.
I love it. I love it. The future of humble farmers. Thank you, mohawk Mick.
Well there you go. Uh, good information for mohawk Mick, another of our representatives in the juggler community. Let's jump to a message sent to us by KP. It's a short one, but it's a it's a good one.
I remember this one.
Gentlemen, this is KP. You have my permission voicemail in my voice on you may I think that the so you put a call out any octopus that happened to listen to podcasts, and I don't think that's quite a reality. Do you think there might be some octopus that listened to Cephala podcast. Ah, okay, if out.
No stay, you found your people, or you know you found your show.
There you go, Ben. Should we share what happened recently off air dealing with cephalopods and a certain song slash musical.
Oh gosh, I don't know. We're already running pretty long, but we can. We'll give you the short skinny and it'll be like guaca mole at Chipotle. Upon request. If you want to hear more, you can write to us.
But we went through a phase we were talking about. It was you and Dylan and myself we were we were talking about the strange science put into octopus civilization and the possibility of extending the octopus lifespan, which led us on a bit of a manic phase to rewrite the first song of the musical Hamilton, all to be all about octopus lobotomies. And if you want to read the lyrics, write to us and we'll share them with you.
Ah, just do a little, you give us a taste.
Sure, So for anybody who knows the first song of Hamilton, this will maybe make sense. If you don't, thanks for hanging out with us.
It goes.
Octopus lobotomy. I'm an octopus lobotomy. People wish I had a thousand dollars. It's just these eight, just these, and it goes on. I'm a squid, I have ten, Like we have the whole song. So if you want to hear it, or if you want to read the lyrics, just email us.
We should put it out.
I'm just saying we should write to Lin Manuel and be like, hey, big fans, weird pitch.
Let's let's write the Psychopathic records.
And yeah, yeah, and KP by the way, hashtag no pun left behind. Thank you so much for taking the time there. This kind of stuff makes our evening.
It does, and it's just fun for everybody who listens, right, I think so. So speaking of let's jump to a message from Josie who heard us talking on Strange News.
A little thing that Noel mentioned about us, A whole town that got infected with the weed, right, and if you'll recall that message, I had to do with a giant, deliberate burn of cannabis, and specifically that cannabis was laid upon tires and then doused with diesel fuel and then satellite and you know, at least according to the reporting that the following smoke, and the smoke it generated got the entire town a little high and was pretty annoying.
And this is in Turkey, where people in that town are not what you would call stoners.
Yes, precisely, So let's jump to this message from Josie.
My name is Josie, Time Listener, and I absolutely love you guys. I'm listening to your podcast about AI lovers
and marijuana burning. Diesel fuel and tires are both petroleum based products, which makes them oil based, and THHC becomes more chemically active when combined with oil based products, which is why when people who shall remain me go to make their edicals, we dry the cannabis and a very cool, dry frying pan and then we simmer it for about thirty minutes, sometimes an hour, depending on how much cannabis
you have. And my personal choice is coconut oil because it doesn't have any flavor and it has a high melt point. But I have also used olive oil, I've used butter. Now I don't know that I would use diesel, but it explains why so many people were high for so long, and I just got to do the shout out to Agusta Georgia for Noel Brown spent twenty five years in my life in that city.
There you go some information on oil and cannabis in a little shout out there that unfortunately you Ola has left so he can't respond to that. Sorry about that. I don't know much about oil and cannabis, but that does make sense, I suppose. I recall watching on Netflix there was a whole series on cooking with cannabis where they discussed some of the science behind that and why the fat soluble cannabinoids and all of that stuff they get released more efficiently when you add oil and heat
to them, and that would make sense. I think we discussed a little bit of that in that segment, but maybe not fully.
Yeah, thank you, Josie. I especially love the line someone who will remain me. That's fantastic.
And we've got one last message here from Hidalgo. This is a letter from home, if you will, but in the form of a voicemail. It comes right as graduation season is. It's upon us right now. There are people today as we're recording, they're graduating from various places, various levels of school, especially here in the US, like primary school, graduations are occurring and even high schools, So let's go to Hidalgo.
Hey, you guys can use this on the air if you'd like to, but this is Hidalgo. I'm calling to tell you, guys, thank you. My son is getting ready to graduate from high school. And over the last five six eight years, on our way to different sporting events for hockey and lacrosse and to other trips and stuff, we have listened to you guys quite a bit in
the car while we're driving. And the other day him and I were talking and you were on the radio, and he goes, Man, I love listening to this show, especially the weekly Strange News, because he goes, it keeps me up the date on a lot of weird stuff that I can bring up in conversations in class and
do a little bit of flex with. They're asking, Hey, what's going on in the world that you're concerned about, he goes, and I'm not just throwing out the normal political stuff because I've always got something a little weird in my back pocket. But he said that he's enjoyed listening to you over the years, and here recently he's gone back and has listened to the Student Loan Conspiracy podcast because we have been filling out a lot of that paperwork for his future and his journey off to college.
But I'd like to thank you guys for at least entertaining us for the last decade or so. But thanks, guys, have a great guy.
By thank you as I'll go and thank your son for us too, most importantly, congratulate him and wish him well. Matt, I saw this one too, And these kinds of kind words in email correspondence, we're even on the phone. They just make our evening. This is awesome and if we can help people in any capacity, uh, then we're here for it. We also want you to know a doalgo.
Not to make us all feel I feel too old, but since uh the since Strange News Daily turned into Strange News on stuff they don't want you to know, the five year anniversary of our weekly Strange News segment is coming up. Did you know that, Matt? It's next month?
Yeah?
Do that is amazing? Heck yeah, we're officially what twelve years in now to the whole thing and then for the show, and we got four years until we hit twenty.
Yeah, for the for the actual stuff they don't want you to know. As an idea and then the podcast is a little bit younger. But yeah, man, let's see here's to uh, here's two further explorations and another thing a DOGO wanted to ask you about. There are we on the radio? Dude? Did we can make it to the radio?
Sometimes we are? Sometimes you play it on the radio, but you know, theoretically if you're playing us through your car.
So technical kind of like that.
Yeah, well, hey, it all go. It sounds like an amazing father son situation you got going on there. That's a great thing to share because hopefully our show brings out some of the I don't know, the curiosity and y'all, and to speak directly to son of Hidalgo, uh, sir, as you're going out in your journeys in this world, try to keep that curiosity because I would say we have found that that is one of the primary driving forces that has led us to where we are now.
So just keep that curiosity, that interest in the strange stuff because again, as we found, the strange stuff is where progress occurs, where the science, you know, where the science meets the strange is where the good stuff is.
And for a personal message for me, if I may call you hilldal go v Two point oh that I would say we always use this line because it is a fundamental piece of everything we do in these strange endeavors, or at least the weird projects I find myself with. It's the axiom we were taught long long ago the world is both understandable and worth understanding. And I love that point about curiosity because it is the prime differentiator between people we call good and people we call great.
And yes, curiosity may have a diminishing return after a certain point, but like the old riddle or the old saying about the cat, you never know unless you try to be curious. And that is also the defining trade of all great science and all great inquiry. So congratulations to yourself and again, safe travels in your life as you move into one of the most exciting phases for
in a human life. Congratulations as well, as we mentioned earlier, to all the kids who are working through the college application process.
Absolutely, and do hey.
For another little strange news thing to check out if you haven't seen it yet, search Wired and then Schrodinger's Cat Paradox. You'll find a new article about some really cool stuff going on with the research team in China and Quantum Superposition. Check it out, Son of Hidalgo and Hoodalgo Father. Okay, that's it for this segment. We will be right back afterward from our sponsors for more messages from you.
And we've returned to the final act of our weekly listener mail segment. We're going to go through a couple very quickly here, one being full disclosure, folks, a teaser for an episode that I think will be pretty fascinating Matt and I'll see if you agree as we continue. So, first, we're going to go to our returning aviator friend. We
love having experts in the field. Fatigue them flying. Fatigued and Flying follows up on a conversation we had either in an episode or may I think was strange news about the recent terrifying failures in aviation here in the United States. Here's what you said, Fatigued and Flying. Hello, all, I'm sure I won't be the only one to email about this, but anyway, the article I have linked here, which we'll refer to in a second, is mostly comprehensive, but it is missing a few key points about ATC
shortage air traffic control shortages. This is says, Fatigued and Flying indicative of the general breakdown of US infrastructure we've seen in other areas. We need a reasonable overhaul schedule,
which we do have. The previous administration has been complying with the schedule laid out in next Gen, and here, Fatigued and Flying, you have provided a great link to the FAA dot gov forward slash next Gen that's shorthand for next Generation Air transp Rotation System, a large scale FAA initiative to modernize the US National Airspace System or NAS, which is where the rapper gets his name from. Nice yeah,
I mean listen to the lyrics, folks. So Fatigue and Flying continues and says, let's start by saying the current dot secretary is full of it. Their plan to rush the schedule is shortsighted. Honestly, there's nothing there that wasn't already being implemented. If anything, they're just trying to get to those goals in an unrealistic timeframe. NEWERK needs specific focus right now, and I'm going to paraphrase some of
this for time of Fatigue and Flying. You note that the next Gen schedule from the FAA is reasonable and it's a schedule of some very important and pretty complicated, time intensive things, an overhaul of a multi faceted flight scheduling regime.
You say.
Communications are a key part of this, but there are growing when you can't just pull a system offline, so you have to do this while planes are still flying. You have to fix the car while it is driving on the road. Right for another transit analogy, and this leads fatigued and flying to name a couple of other issues that people might not be aware of when you hear the news unless you're in aviation. You say, along
with the technological issues, there there's also staffing. The average controller air traffic controller takes up to two years or longer to get online to become a working ATC from their date of hire. That's very understandable because by the end they need to know every part of the sector they work in, and this builds in lag time to the entire situation. And then there's a really interesting point, Matt.
Then you are medically retired at fifty six, but the FAA has built a guard to this by requiring you be under the age of thirty one at the time of hiring. So, unfortunately to all our human conspiracy realists over the age of thirty one. It's going to be tough for you to become an air traffic controller. And then, on top of this, says Fatigued andm Flying, you have the actual ATC texts required to repair and upgrade all
these systems, and they are woefully understaffed. Fatigued Tom Flying, you gave us permission to share this, so we'll say, we'll disclose that you had a navigational aid in your area destroyed by a tornado and just got alerted that instead of being repaired, it was entirely removed from the national system. And then Fatigued im flying. I love the way, right man, he says, I fly airplanes for a living. I don't write stuff, so please excuse the Bramplet ten
ten no notes, you're nailing it. My point here, you say, is there is absolutely a schedule, There is a path forward. Maybe just avoid Newark for the near future. It's having a rough time. Other controllers are reminding their members there to focus on mental health and if that requires calling in sick or fatigued. ATC zero is a term I'm sure we've all heard by now. And frankly, if the airlines just canceled stuff, there will be no degradation of safety.
It's much more unsafe to have an understaffed control facility over just no one showing up. It doesn't help that their own union leaders are less than helpful. The FAA needs to up incentives and support to get more folks in. Privatization is not the answer here for many reasons. All in all, it's a rough time in New York right now, but there is and has been a plan Before we go to that CNN article. Matt any initial reactions.
I got a little distracted there by the sign off that he used, So I'll jump to that when we get there.
Copy Okay. In that case, we are going to continue to the CNN article you have linked, Fatigued and Flying. You sent a excellent article by Pete Muntian and Alexandra scores Dot secretary blames Biden administration for air traffic control failures as Newark experiences more delay. And this is a direct statement from Sean Duffy that we mentioned in our
previous Weekly Strange News segment. Duffy does say, speaking to reporters on May twelfth, twenty twenty five, the following quote, I think it's clear that the blame belongs with the last administration. Pete Buddha, Jedge and Joe Biden did nothing
to fix the system that they knew was broken. Duffy says that a Buddha judge advisor, in particular Chris Mager quote, needs to spend more time doing what the American people are paying him to do fix problems, and less time blaming others, which just logically is a little bit tricky because in that statement Duffy is blaming others, you know what I mean. So it's it's a bit of it's a bit of a pickle, and it's something we see,
you know, with a lot of presidential administrations. If you're in hot water, blame the other guy, right, and then if the other guy happened to do something that benefits your current administration, take credit for that. This is I don't know, this is crazy because the biggest point is that the plan that the FAA has isn't being as widely reported. It doesn't make as much news as the various terribly inconvenient and at times extremely dangerous mishaps that
cuts some power and so on. We do know that the US is reliant upon air transit and aviation. It's a huge industry. It employs a lot of people, and it affects the economy in ways that are very difficult to parse. With this, I don't know. I don't want to sound too cynical here Fatigued and flying, but I
feel like you have. You have nailed some of the issues so accurately in a way that makes me think a lot of them are not going to be fixed immediately until they have a further impact either on the larger public or to the point I made earlier when we talked about this on the people in power, right when the private airfields and private planes start having more and more issues than we might see more of an
impetus to action. Matt. The sign off you mentioned that you said distracted you is it reminds me of the old thing my biker friends used to say, which is keep the shiny side up sign off fatigue and flying, and that I think it's safe for us to reveal that our good pal brother Andrew treyfors Howard is himself a biker. And Andrew, if you're hearing this, keep the shiny side up as well. Also great advice for planes.
Yeah, absolutely. I didn't know it was a trucking thing too. Keep the shiny side up. I guess the part underneath the truck is not that shiny. You don't want it, you know, flipped over on the other side. But with planes, I didn't understand. I've never thought of it in that way. Specifically, it's advice basically for a pilot too, don't do anything in between leveling off your plane. And maybe I'm wrong there. You'll have to let us know fatigued and flying if
that's what it means. Just the idea of if you're in a climb, don't do a bunch of other stuff before you level off the plane. Then do that kind of you know, the needful other things that you have to do inside the cockpit, all the navigation stuff, all the you know, connecting up with other people and communicating go ahead, level that plane off, then do that stuff. Keep the shiny side up.
Always fantastic advice.
Uh.
From there, we're going to oh yeah, we'll include it. I know we're running along, but I want to include this message from Frosty Cold. I think it could inspire again a fascinating episode either here on Ridiculous History. I'd love your thoughts, Matt, Frosty Cold one number one. You write to us and you say hello, stuff. They don't want you to know. They call me Frosty Cold one. Well you know what we will too. You continue. I was wondering if you could look into what happened to
the missing Faberge eggs. Of the original sixty nine eggs created by the House of Faberge Czarist Russia, six of the imperial eggs are still lost. These eggs, as well as the jewelry surprises that were made with them, would be worth an absolute fortune today, but I can't find much information on them. Can you help? Thanks again, love the show, Frosty Cold One. Well, we could introduce all of our fellow conspiracy realists to the concept and then
hopefully we can do an episode on this. Because Matt, I don't know about you, I don't know about Andrew, but I always found just the concept of Faberge eggs so freaking weird. It's so weird.
Well, it's such a common trope in films just to use the term Faberge eggs, or even a Faberge egg that you're not even really sure what it is. It looks like a jewel encrusted egg What is that? But it's huge? Why isn't there? Why is it important? I knew nothing of the history until we got this communication and went down a bit of a rabbit hole about how they're created, when they were created, why they were created, and then how many are still missing?
Right?
Right? And my go to pop culture reference for this is always going to be Crusty, the clown in The Simpsons when he talks about his debilitating addiction to Faberge eggs which ruined his, you know, the financial side of his career. Faber Ja eggs are bejeweled encrusted eggs. They were first made in Saint Petersburg, Russia. We know, you know, Frosty Gold. You nailed it, Frosti Gold. One sixty nine were made, as many as we know of, right, and
from there spraying countless imitations, right or reproductions. But the ones that were originally made, sixty one of those are still known to have survived. So the other eight are lost or destroyed. And usually when something of this opulence or this value is considered lost or destroyed, there's a high, I want to be fair, there's a non zero likelihood that they're in a very wealthy person's private collection, you know what I mean, there's somewhere in like a Chik's compound.
There's a Russian oligarch who's like, this is my egg.
Well, in twenty twenty two, they found one of these things on a Russian oligarch's super yacht, a three hundred million dollar yacht. They found one these things hidden.
Yeah, exactly, this is This means that there is an active search for these eggs. I think it would make a good episode, Matt. I'd love to do this when together because to me, the I'll spare it the personal anecdotes. But historically, always my immedia question, and I hope a lot of other folks in media question has always been this, why would you make Why? Why would you make this? What?
What?
What is the point? It is not functional? You know, it's not a real egg. Really, if you open these eggs you see cool stuff inside. A descendant of it would be the Kinderreg candy or the Kinderreg you know, the chocolate egg shape things with the cool little toys inside. Did you ever have kinder eggs?
Yeah?
I'm trying to think that there's another company that also makes them like that but there's the one I think about.
Yeah, and this. So I'm just bringing this in because we want to hear from you at conspiracyiheartradio dot com if you would like a show on Faberge eggs and the mystery technically the conspiracy to hide them. Also, please please please tell us why. I don't want to be like Dunking on creativity. You know, I applaud all artistry
as long as it doesn't harm other people. But out of all the things you make, we got to find the origin story in our episode as to that inspirational moment where you're a goldsmith and you're making these gifts and then you have that you have that what was your light bulb or broken egg moment where you were like, I need to make a fancy egg. I need to make the fanciest egg. And someone's like Benedict and you go, no.
Gold, Yeah, all kinds of different precious metals and gems and jewels. Well, I think it's all about the surprise.
Man.
You're right, Like, I'm looking at a wiki of these right now, and there's one that had an automaton, an elephant automaton inside it, So like, really the egg is cool and everything, but if you can get it open, and if you're the person that owns it, you know what the surprise is. But then you get to show it off in your fancy ball room, your.
Fancy balls room. So we've so we're gonna hopefully return to that. We'd love your thoughts, folks. One last thing, a letter from a home that is also fascinating. Maybe we can have a quick discussion about this to close things out. Our pal mister Stuff, they don't want you to sandwich. Good returning guest of the show wrote it and said, hello, Stuff, They don't want you to know you always mentioned this specifically to me, always mentioned you fell asleep putting on a pair of pants one time.
I wanted to let you know that I too, feel like I achieved this level of accomplishment every time I listen to my Liked Songs playlist and wonder why all the songs on there are bangers. Keep on keeping on and have a sandwich, not a doctor, but I hear it can help. And this introduces us, Matt Andrew and
fellow listeners to something called the hungry judge effect. This is the idea that in a court of law, a judge's verdicts are going to be more lenient after they've had a break for a snack or for lunch, and the idea that you're in a better mood, right, You're not you when you're hungry. Just like Snicker said.
Well that's this human. I mean, have it. I got two nine year olds running around, and I'd say, we know very well in this house what hungary looks like, what it sounds like. I know how I get sometimes. Yeah, dude, if a judge is just a human with a fancy smock, what do they call as robes? A fancy robe and a lot of schooling and a lot of experience in wisdom and you know other things. But I can imagine how being a little hungry could affect the outcome or
how someone else is judged. Dude, No, I've noticed that specifically. I just had a conversation about this, about how we've talked about how all the input that we intake as humans, no matter who you are, is affected by a lens. There's a lensing effect that the way you receive information can be altered and changed and how you perceive it depending on how you're feeling, or your past or all these other things. That kind of color your lens. It's
the same with a judge. If they're hungry, something might seem a little more harsh to them, or a little more reckless, even anything, you know, anything that they're hearing about or receiving, or even evidence they're looking at.
So and the original inspiration for the idea of the a hungry judge effect comes from this retroactive study of decisions made by Israeli parole boards back in twenty eleven. And this study you can find it online. The the title is Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions. And you know, it confirms something a lot of people have a spidery
sense about. You know, if you have a job where you have to work with coworkers, which most people have a job where they have to work with coworkers, you're probably noticing some of the stuff that Sandwich and Matter describing there. This original study found that there was a natural slope to yes or no decisions for granting parole. It would start at about sixty five percent at the beginning of one of these parole board sessions, so kind of in the morning, right after people have had breakfast
or what have you. More than half of these parole applications would be approved. But then right before it was time to break for lunch, especially considering people knew the break was coming, the granted a parole dropped out to nearly zero. So the authors of this study, and let's give their names, the author of the study, Shy Danziger, Jonathan levav and Leora av naan Peso. These three authors said, maybe they're increasingly favoring just the status quo. The easiest
answer being no, it generates the least amount of paperwork. Right, Maybe they're going toward that because they are fatigued, they are mentally depleted from having to do all the other stuff, evaluate all the other cases leading up to lunch and rest and replenishment. Maybe a nice walk around the block or something that restored a willingness to make bold decisions.
It reinvigorated you, right, and you're not as you're not as hesitant to do things that may make a little more work down the line or may raise more questions. This gets cited all the time. It has literally been cited in thousands of other works, and people are still arguing about it. Some folks are saying, you know, maybe we should start considering algorithms or some version of quote unquote AI to avoid the hungry judge effect. And no, granted, a lot of folks who are saying we should use
AI as a result a hungry judge effect. Well, they're folks who run a AI companies, you know what I mean. They want to sell that stuff, so obviously they're going to make an argument in favor of their narrative. You can also see other studies regarding Ramadan and how people may or may not be kinder around that time. You might you know, this exists I think in the same rough sphere as the old folksy observation that people are
a little bit nicer around Christmas. Obviously, the best real world study of that is Scrooged starring Bill Murray.
Remember Scrooged, a real world version of that.
Yet absolutely fantastic documentary. Be careful with that joke gets an antique. But you know, Matt, I recently red watch the ending monologue of Scrooge, which is always seen as this pivotal moment, but it's it's very much in line with a politician speech if you read it instead of just hearing it and feeling the contagious energy he's not saying that much. He said, you want a thing, and you could get a thing. You can have it. It could be yours, it's Christmas. And then he kisses somebody.
He's like, that's great, and then Tidy Tim says something spoiler and and I don't know, man, I don't know if the I feel like the hungry Judge effect has to be real, but I don't know how far it goes.
Yeah, it seems like it's absolutely real. It's just I have not seen Scrooged in a long time. I will watch that monologue as well. I'd love to I'd love to see that again.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. And you know, I'm a I'm a fan of Scrooged. I'm a fan of that genre of creepy holiday film and fiction. You know what I mean? Before Christmas stem to stern Banger, no notes. I've tried to think of other creepy Christmas these crampis not that in that league, but still in that genre. Else.
Yeah, A jingle all the Way is mine very creepy.
That's a good one. I guess The Grinch Stole Christmas is also creepy because it's got scary parts.
Kids are terrified of that Grinch, that version of the Grinch, at least the one that Jim Carrey inhabited.
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's a weird looking dude. And they never explain why he looks so different from the who's you know what I mean? Why is he like their yarn? Why is he there Bigfoot? Christmas hating Bigfoot? Oh, we're going to a thousand directions here, We're going to pause.
We'll be off to activigate. So thanks to Frosty gold One fatigued and flying the stoned coyote, who is the one who pointed out the possible kangaroo related death stuff, They want you Sandwich KP Josie head all go have my I've fart been stinking self proclaimed to the micronation of two D fruity Land. We wish you luck, your highness or president or Prime Minister ed of course, thanks to Buford. Now we did roll over that earlier job offer Buford, so I want to say it one more
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