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.
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist, if you're hearing this the evening it publishes, let us be the first to welcome you to Monday, December ninth, twenty twenty four. It's the last month of this calendar. And oh man, so much stuff is happening, you know, I don't know if you guys heard. You know, the the employment market is really tough these days all around,
but not just for employees. It turns out that it is tough for some employers as well, especially the intelligence agencies in Britain and Australia, who, for the life of them, cannot seem to hire enough spies.
Would you say it's hard out here for a pimp, I'd say it's hard out here for a spook.
Spook being, of course, an old school trade craft slang for people active in espionage in some way.
Oh you know what, Bet, one of the podcasts I really like of the watch They just did an episode asking the question are we in a gold a new golden age of spy shows? And I think you and I would both probably argue yes, being fans of slow horse horses. And I've been watching this show, this Taylor Sheridan show Lioness, which is absolutely fantastic. And there's another one called I think The Agency or something like that with oh, gosh, what's the guy's name.
Garret No, Gary oldman.
They could always be goold. You never really could.
Michael Fastbender, there's a news but in a new spy series with him in it. But for me, Lioness and slow Horses absolutely incredible. So yeah, it may be hard out there. I r l for a spy, but they're really getting a lot of love in the fictional world.
And as we'll see later, that leads into an excellent exploration bittersweet exploration of nostalgia shared a pretty scant link, but the discourse about this is great. Just so everybody knows it turns out that security folks and spy agencies in the anglosphere overall are once again encountering UH, an issue that we talked about in the past, which is UH.
You guys will remember a few years back we had we had a little bit of hilarious schadenfreud when we noted that various US intelligence agencies were falling behind in the cyber warfare game because all the good hackers smoke weed exactly. I remember that.
They had to walk it back though, right They said, you know what, We're going to give these hackers a pass. Let them have their weed, let them eat their cake.
Yeah, they let it fade from the headlines, and then they bent the rules a little bit, which not all agencies can do. This story about spy shortages is pretty interesting. It's an ongoing thing, but it's just a mention because we have so much other stuff to get to. There was almost a coup in South Korea just yesterday for about four hours. There are asteroids they're going to in the world. Oxford, the boffins over there have weighed in with some incredible new picks for Word of the Year.
A favorite thing for US et homology fans somebody might ban kim trails. There's so much stuff.
What it finally gosh, I mean, let's take him in so long.
We're going to cover all of these things and even more. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
And we have returned before we get into bitter sweet nostalgia. Something on the mind of many of our fellow conspiracy realists hanging out on our strange news segment tonight. We heard you Facebook friends, we heard you emailers, we heard you. People were calling in with voicemail, all asking the same question, what's going on with these drones monitoring US air bases in England? You guys heard about this, right.
No, sir, Yeah, but I do not have answers?
Have you? What have you found? Been?
All?
Right?
Here we go, guys. So drone incursions, by which we mean unidentified, clearly remotely piloted vehicles monitoring airspace and rooting into usually pretty secure airspace. This has occurred at three different US air bases in the United Kingdom. With all due respect to the Empire, I still think British names for places are kind of funny. Raf Mildenhall, raf Locknheath, and ourf felt well felt well. All between the space of just a few days November twentieth to twenty second,
there were droughts. They weren't committing aggressive actions, but they were definitely not supposed to be there, and no one is sure what is happening. We also know civilians have reported seeing quote, triangle shaped aerial vehicles that were noisy, had lights And if you lived near an air force base like this or any kind of military installation, let's be honest, you're used to see stuff in the sky.
Guys, don't you more and more feel like a lot of maybe this is old beans here, but that a lot of reports of unidentified aerial phenomenon historically have been sightings of these types of technologies that the public was just not aware of yet.
Yeah, one hundred percent, that's something that often happens. And then later as the foyer requests go through or voluntary declassification, we see that there's usually a man made answer or a meteorological answer to a lot of things. We're not saying that all UAP are explained, because otherwise they would just be AP.
And I only say that just because of the triangular nature that just seems to be you know, in a lot of those reports, and now we're starting to become more aware of this technology that it exists and often is triangular boom.
But if we're talking about highly advanced classified aircraft that's being tested, we're probably I'm imagining, not testing those aircraft in places where there are a ton of civilians around in a village nearby that can look up and go, oh, that's a big old triangle in the sky that's dark gray, and I can I can tell I can hear the
dang thing. You're probably not going to do that, right, You're going to have some kind of official craft that if someone calls in from the village there's you know, you could have a response as that air base and say, yes, there was a test in operation, there was a whatever occurring last night, and everything's cool.
That's why you want, if you are an extra terrestrial, that's why you want to aim for isolated trailer somewhere in the desert and wait till your audience is about six Miller lights and then and then you fly through and you help Saturday Night Live write another abduction sketch.
It's true.
Yes, I guess My only point is that's why the SR seventy one was successful. That's why the spy you know, all the original utuoe and all those things were successful because they did them in the desert, far far away where nobody could you know, call in the local police.
At a very high altitude as well. Right, this this is interesting. Let me add a fourth base that has been monitored, RAF Fairford in southwestern England. The Air Force itself has not identified who they believed to be behind the incursions. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, there have been some things on the path toward explanation or at least elimination
of sources. To your point, Matt, they do not believe these drones are operated by hobbyists, which is a fascinating statement because, as we'll recall, not too long ago, a Chinese student got busted in the United States for being a hobbyist who just happened to fly drone over one of the most sensitive military ports in the.
Country like a kite, like you know, just for fun.
Well me, I mess around you guys. Also, I'll take a one way ticket home.
No problem, thank you. But in this case, you've got tons of witnesses, at least a handful of witnesses who are saying they're seeing these huge lights directly above controlled airspace, right, like there are runways over here by these air bases, and that airspace is so controlled that if you did have a hobbyist over there, that person is going to get in trouble like the example you just gave, and they're going to get.
Caught, right.
So what is the capability here now? Drones are They should be easy to track with this level of constant surveillance and scrutiny. So it is only logical to assume that some information is already known and has not been released to the public. Europe is very tense right now, and we do count the UK as part of Europe still, especially given speculation that they're quietly spinning up for the
possibility of a continent wide conflict. And we know that a few other red strings before we move on, because this is an active investigation, we know a few other red strings, such as Lakenheath, the first base we mentioned is home to the forty eighth fighter Wing. This is what the US Air Force itself describes as the foundation of its combat capability in Europe. We don't know how many DHL packages they receive each day, just going to
throw that one in there. So the question then to your earlier point Noll about man made technology being often the explanation behind these unidentified aerial phenomenon. It seems again that European authorities are quietly pointing to Russia, or they're quietly asking about Russian involvement or interest. If you happen to be a drone operator doing this, we'd love to hear from you. Will do our best to preserve your anonymity unless you're an absolute villain, but we will not
sentence you to death. That is something that is happening now to a property tycoon in Vietnam. I kid you not. I don't know how widely this story is spread in the West, but a sixty eight year old property developer named Truong my Lun Pardner our Vietnamese pronunciation there has been convicted earlier this year of ripping off the Saigon
Commercial Bank, which is a very powerful financial institution. She has been sentenced to death for fraud running to a total of twenty seven billion US dollars.
WHOA Yeah.
She appealed, the verdict was unsuccessful and the Vietnamese court system cut her a deal. They said, look, this islan if you give us nine billion dollars, then we will let you live.
We'll give you a pass.
I mean, that's sort of like a not a devil's bar. Again, what do you call that the Sophie's choice.
No, it's not even that.
I mean, it's just sort of like an unwinnable proposition, right.
Yeah, I mean because then also you're admitting to the crime.
And is the implication that this person just has nine billions squirreled away?
Yes, it is okay, well more that she has like a twelve billion. Yeah, they're askually for three quarters, right right.
It seems like a deal. Then if I were three quarters.
Of the twelve billion they think she has somewhere at Coff, Switzerland. Yeah, And it's confusing because the twenty seven billion dollar fraud verdict is based also partially on the money lost by the Saigone bank. The twelve billion is what they thought she took just as vigorous. I don't know's it seems like a deal. And it might be strange for many of us outside of Vietnam to hear that kind of eleventh hour execution offer, you know what I mean. Usually
here in the United States, it's not as blatant. No one is saying, hey, we're going to execute you or you know, just pay us.
We don't really execute people for financial crimes in the United States either.
Right, No, they commit suicide in prison.
Also true.
And just to be clear, Ben, this is billion US correct, Yeah, this is usd We're giving you the US dollar equivalent.
For all.
So for all the big fans of the American currency system, these are real billions walking down the three.
For that one.
And speaking of money, I think we all saw it. There is a new gold rush that's happening. It's not happening here, but it's happening in China, and gentlemen, I will pose it there may be a bit of a conspiracy of foot Have we heard about the super Giant gold deposit? Not yet, just a bit.
I like the name already.
Anything with super in front of it's got my attention.
Yeah, there we go. I also like it when people add mega to.
Stuff megafauna big fan, oh yeah, huge fan, literally huge fans.
And so this comes to us from our friend Harry Baker, writing for Live Science. Scientists in China have allegedly purportedly uncovered what they call a super giant deposit of high quality gold ore hidden near some of the existing gold mines in the country. This is, if true, this is the largest single reservoir of gold left any on Earth. It's worth billions of dollars. I was discovered by representatives
from the Geological Bureau of Hunan Province. We're not exactly clear when they discovered it, but they went public November twentieth and they said, look, we found more than forty veins of gold. This is probably three hundred metric tons down to a depth of two thousand meters. They use some smart light ar and some three D mapping.
Scrooge McDuck would have a blast swimming around in that bad boy.
Yeah, this would mean a couple of interesting things. But before we get to my favorite pet conspiracy theory for this, do you guys think the story is legit?
Oh, that's interesting and maybe completely made up?
What would be the purpose?
There is a destabilization effort?
What do you think it's It's a pump.
It's a pump and a dump pumping, a dump pumping the price of gold.
Baby, Oh my god.
Because they're saying there might be a thousand metric tons down there. And all of a sudden, the speculation that all this new gold is going to be hitting the system.
Letting the market, right yeah, And also okay, so that's one.
That's one of the two things. The second thing is that if you need to launder money or you need to you know, pass value in some form internationally, and you want to get around those pesky sanctions, especially if you got a good geopolitical buddy who is hard up for some scratch, then all of a sudden discovery this massive stockpile could be immensely advantageous. Just a coincidence, right, Like my old one of my creepy old statistics professor said,
I think we told this story on air before. This guy was such a such a bad as. He sat us down and he said, look, this institution requires me to give you a minimum of three papers to show that you understand statistical models. Your real assignment is due at any point in this course. Prove to me a coincidence and you will all fail.
And he was right, can you prove a coincidence?
Right?
Yeah, that's his That was his one hand clapping moment.
And I think Si SEROMNAMUSI something very smart guy worked with DARPA on again.
Creepy stuff. But here's what I'm thinking, guys. I'm thinking, one, this deposit is real. I'm thinking too, the timing is tricky. The timing is convenient, let's say, because given the we'll get to China in and a couple other stories later this week, but given the definite tension in the world right now, it is completely possible again logically, to have known about this deposit and waited for the right time
to quote unquote find it to the world. And then also, yeah, this would collapse the gold market if it all came out at once.
Oh yeah, this is fascinating. It makes me think of our brief discussion on tariffs a little while back and just some of the rhetoric around that stuff, and then China's announcement I want to say very recently about banning gallium, germanium and antimony.
Yeah, I don't know how to say it.
It looks like antimony, like something you'd pay after a divorce, but are the opposite of it. But these are like thing. These are precious metals, minerals that China exports like forty eight percent, or the United States imports like forty eight percent. Of them right from China, and if you had, if the US all of a sudden announces, hey, we found this huge deposit of Germanium somewhere, I could see that as the same kind of political maneuvering you're talking about.
Well, whatever happened to that old conspiracy chestnut of like, China has so much US currency and reserve that if they released it it would devalue the US dollar to an alarming or catastrophic degree. This just reminds me of that type of maneuver. Did that prove to be true in some respect or was that kind of a lot of horsepucky.
It is true in some respects, and you can see it not just in hard currency, but you can see it in rare earth metals or minerals. You can also see it in surprisingly the pork industry, which will come up later this week. There's definitely a geopolitical standoff because China and the United States have financially and economically for some time been in a codependent, somewhat toxic relationship. To be honest, Uh, it's it's nuts. Well, maybe it's an
episode in the future. We'll see how much gold they actually find or actually retrieve we'll also, uh, maybe we'll get to the South Korean coup right now before we go to a break, there is a surprisingly poignant story about orcas bringing back Sam and hats, So stay tuned. At the end, when we do our CTAs, we'll give a brief shout out to that. In the meantime, let's pause for a word from our sponsors, and we'll return with more strange news.
And we have returned with some more strange news for your conspiracy seeking ears.
Got two fun ones today. I guess I don't know.
Let's start with you tease both of these, ben, but I'll start with the idea of outlying tres this m yeah, well exactly.
This might give you.
Pause out there in conspiracy realist land because you're like, wait a minute, hasn't the existence of kem trails almost entirely been debunked And aren't they actually just colm trails, you know, con trails, rather from you know, planes dumping fuel and emergency situations or vapor trails, et cetera.
Right, just can we get that out of the way. We're here real quick, guys.
What has become of the old kem trails conspiracy theory?
Yeah?
If the word debunked is sensitive for some people or sounds dismissive. Let's use the lighter synonym explained. Keem trails have been largely explained. Are the things purported to have been kim trails. We do know, as you can find in our in our book we made a while back. We do know that there is a grain of truth to the idea of widespread aerosol dispersion. However, the primary, like the crux in the heart of a chemtrail conspiracy, is that it's actively happening to poison the bodies or
the minds of unknowing civilians. That appears to be the game of telephone.
Here you go, Yes, thank you, Ben beautifully explained, and that is exactly my understanding as well.
Well.
It would seem that that is not the understanding of a Republican senator State Senator from Miami, Ileana Garcia, who recently.
Filed a bill SB fifty six to.
Repeal long standing Florida statutes allowing for state licensed cloud seating and also quote unquote artificial weather interference other forms, and to ban any such measures in the future. Okay, let's parse this a little bit. We do know that cloud seating is very much real. It is a thing that has been practiced with varying degrees of success for a very long time. I believed since the Night teen fifties.
It's a way of shooting materials chemicals up into the clouds that believe largely salt, in order to add moisture to create or reduce things like fog, snow, hail, and rain. We have also seen this kind of technology, I believe we saw it used in one of the Olympic opening ceremonies. Bent was that in Beijing, exactly in order to create a spectacle. There was certainly some you know, chatter around that that it was sort of a show of force or a show of an ability to do a thing
greater than had been achieved prior. You know, Make of that what you will. The United Arab Emirates has also used electricity in order to cause rainfall, starting in twenty twenty one. Germany has also used technology involving infrared laser pulses as far as recently as twenty ten, So this is very interesting.
Obviously, this comes in the.
Wake of horrific disasters, weather related disasters that have truly aft many parts of the country, including our fair state of Georgia, including parts of North Carolina, Asheville, Chimney Rock, places that were more or less wiped off of the map by the recent weather events. And as a result of that, there was a lot of chatter again about how this may well have been the result of weather tampering, weather modification technology that was perpetrated by the government for
political reasons. You know, I always was a little unclear as to why, you know, the government would want to do something like this.
Is it to create a need? I don't know.
Can we talk about that real quick, guys, Do you have any thoughts? You know, if we were to lend some credence to these conspiracy theories, why would a country, a government want to enact this type of weather modification in order to absolutely screw over its own citizens.
Is it to create a need?
Is it to create a situation where there's panic and the government can then step in and do whatever they want. We're just thought experimenting here for a second, guys.
Well, there are several theories or reasonings behind it that I've seen. One is that it was something to the effect of whether modification was carried out by the United States via some kind of weird radar technology that I don't fully understand, to basically shape the way the storm formed and where the hurricanes ended up landing and dumping all of that water and causing all the havoc with
the wind. And it was the purpose, at least that we discussed on this show, was to end up making that land unusable, making all of the buildings flattened to the point where an insurance payout for basically entire towns or entire areas and regions would be untenable. So the government would step in and say we'll buy this instead,
and Penny's on the dollar exactly. And the reasoning behind to that whole thing that is all speculation, is that there is stuff underneath that land that was desirable for the US specifically. I think I can't remember exactly which mineral it was, but it was something very precious.
Yeah, like lithium. I think, yes, it was lithium. Lithium was one. It's a shame it wasn't germanium or gallium, right, yeah.
But but the other the other reasoning Noel there was that it wasn't actually the United States government, it was another government somehow making use of US technology or infrastructure to do the wet weather modification, or it was done by some other you know country to send hurricanes towards us. But again, we just have to say fully speculation, and it doesn't make sense personally to me.
No, I like how straightforward it is as a plan.
It is that straightforward kind of conspiracy evil. You know that that just feels a little too on the nose, right, yeah, I mean I'm saying this.
What what I love about this one as a as an enthusiast is the the idea that there's a cabal of hostile foreign powers. That part is true, that's not anure. And and they're steepling their fingers again anti burn style, and they're say, you know, we could just bomb the place. And then someone turns around in a swivel chair and goes, what if let's make it complicated.
Yeah, well, hey, yeah, we didn't cause a hurricane obviously, I mean it is a little more easily.
Well, it also feels like a good sort of fall guy type explanation for climate change not being real.
It's yeah, it's also that's that's a good point. It's also a great way to get votes from a specific demograph that will largely not be concerned about other policy that you want to put through. And I believe nol this is a Miami State senator.
That's right, right, Yeah, that's right, Miami store fifty Iliana Garcia State Bill fifty six. It would repeal more than a dozen pre existing provisions on the books that do allow for some of this type of weather modification. It would prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of any substance or apparatus into the atmosphere within Florida's borders quote for the express purpose of affecting the temperature, the weather, or
the intensity of sunlight. And again, I'm not trying to completely clown this person, because we do know that this cloud seating stuff does exist. But if you take a look at their social media presence, they do often reference things like chemtrails and the conspiracies relating to that they do kind of seem to go in for some of these ways modification cabal type conspiracies. They even referenced a list that NOAA published library catalog of one twenty six
entries of weather modification. However, this list does exclusively contain references to instances of cloud seating that technology that is very old and tried and true.
Here's the thing, here's the real quick to interject, here's something that we have to say. Just the level set this is. I don't want us to lose this line. This is important to remember. Shout out workaholics. The government of Florida does or has allowed for weather modification. To your point, that might be surprising to a lot of people. But the second point, which is not being explored as often as it should, is the old concept of the
tragedy of the commons. All weather, in every part of the world is a is one small piece of a asked into related system. You cannot pull one string without creating tension or even breaking strings in other parts of the system that you may not see. You may also may not recognize the effects of futtson with this system for years. Right, Oh, dred percent.
I think the cloud seating stuff is bizarre and and any kind of these sort of playing god type chemical interventions whatever, I'm always a little suspect of sure.
But what if there is a viable way to defend against an incoming hurricane or a system?
I love that idea, like in Twister too, you know, like.
To prevent a storm from forming funnel.
Breaking it out in some way, shooting it with something that cause it to disperse.
Right, I guess just what I mean is should we humans not pursue I think we should.
It's such a good point.
It's being pursued. The issue is because specifically in the case of a hurricane, right, or typhoon, depending on where you are in the world, specifically in that they are caused by not one single factor, so you would have to mitigate for multiple factors, things like ocean temperature. Right, that's that's one of the big boys. Yes, and then that's what.
Causes them to kind of spin up and like really like pick up steam.
Yeah, just so, and nerdles yeah sorry, And you would also need to triangulate your your approach vectors, probably from several different locations, right, because it's a problem to the humans when it hits land, right, when it hits human habitation, But the problem starts out in the ocean. There are a ton of humans, so right, you'd have to find the order of operations.
Well, that's a really good point, Ben, And also something that is referenced in the Hollywood masterpiece Twisters, where it really shows that the prediction of these types of storms. There's a lot of kind of ghost whispering type of skills that go into it in terms of knowing what to look for, kind of seeing literally which way the
wind is blowing. And it requires intuition in some ways more than it even requires science in the very early stages as to know which one's going to be the big one, and then which one follow and which one to attack with this type of technology, were it to exist.
And shout out to everybody who like, you know, I think we can see it now. I too, was disappointed to learn that Twisters as a franchise is about natural disasters. I was hoping it was about the board game Gone Wrong, which I still think is a great film idea.
Oh I think if it isn't out there, it absolutely should be, no question about it. It could also be about titty twisters, the weapon of bullies, middle school bullies since time memorial.
The trick is to learn to like it's.
Okay, really good, Thank you, Matt.
You can give me some really beautiful visuals here banging around in the old brain place. I gotta say, really quickly, though, I think this went on a little longer than I expected.
It is a very interesting conversation.
There is you know, obviously negative commentary coming from the left folks describing this these types of measures as absurd, you know, dislarmists, you know, propagandistic.
Et cetera.
But Matt and Ben, I really think you both brought up some very interesting points on both sides as to why this either should be explored further or there being these kind of seeds of truth in some of this kind of discussion of weather modification. But it does seem to be rhetoric that can be weaponized in pretty gnarly ways.
Yeah.
Also also know, since we're doing a little bit of a thought experiment, let's say that I am the proud proprietor of an off the books kind of weather modification outfit. Go on, you know what I mean? Yeah, Okay, gotcha, Van, you're.
Talking about the eternal next situation? Are piece suit?
Sure?
Yeah? Maybe even a gold chase. So let's say that this bill passes from our friend in the Miami State Senate and Senator Garcia catches our boy out on his running gun weather mod operation. What kind of trouble do you get into?
Oh, it's not much.
It's actually kind of laughable in a way, especially if you consider who these these fines and penalties would be aimed at. Each instance would count as a separate infraction, and I believe the penalty is up to sixty days in jail and a fine of up to ten thousand dollars, which you know to be fair, is higher than the usual five hundred dollars a penalty associated with second degree misdemeanors.
This would be considered a second degree misdemeanor. But again we know when it comes down to it, corporations, whatever, the folks it would actually have the ability to do stuff like this that isn't dropping the bucket. What are they going to do? Find the government? Like who's the target of these fines? It does kind of confuse me a little bit there.
I think this is great and appreciate the information. I think all of us bootleg weather mod fans do. It sounds like what I'll need to do in this an essay hypothetical situation. I think I'll first I'll need to hire an intern to take that sixty day fall. The secondly, need to make sure that the profit model is such that ten grand is just a cost of doing business, like when a bank gets shrinkage, you know, yeah, shrinkage. And then third got to find a cool name suggestions welcome sky High.
Oh sure, no, no, right in, let us know it's crowd source. Let's take it to the people. So again, it went on a little longer than I thought. Really love this conversation. I just want to end with just a reference to this other story. The Oxford University Press announced that the word of the Year for twenty twenty four is brain rot, which we have discussed at length here on the show. Being the father of a fifteen or actually soon to be sixteen year old, Happy birthday
either kid. This is very real and it's actually the generation below my kid are the ones that are really caught up in this in a way that maybe isn't
as ironic as my kid's generation. University Press Oxford University Press defines brain rot as the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of over consumption of material, now particularly online content considered to be trivial or unchallenging, including and this is from a BuzzFeed article, something characterized as likely to lead to
such deterioration. We're talking skibbity toilet, We're talking aboutris in Ohio, rising in Ohio, getting rizzed up?
What have you?
All of these kind of bizarro terms that have kind of really shot to the forefront, even beyond just the niche world of jen Alpha's last year's word of the year to that effect was riz and the previous word of the year in twenty twenty two. Some of these are kind of funny. I just want to read this list, Goblin mode. Some of these have kind of fallen out of prominence. Twenty twenty one makes sense. Was vacs twenty twenty They didn't choose a word.
Weirdly, there was a lot going on. I think that's true.
Twenty nineteen climate emergency That is two words, to be fair, as is goblin mode. These feel like more like concepts than words. Twenty eighteen, Toxic twenty seven, Yeah, like you know, toxic influence, a toxic person whatever. Twenty seventeen is one I absolutely.
Have not heard. I don't even remember what this is about. Youth quake. What is a youth quake? Guys? Any idea?
Well, it's a former word of the year, apparently.
I want to believe me.
In that twenty sixteen I do remember and sort of still joked about today. Post truth twenty fifteen was actually an emoji, very very innovative, the cry face laughy emoji, and twenty fourteen was vape so that I think we'll just leave it at that guy's brain. Rot twenty twenty four is word of the year. And I will just reference a couple of tweets that the BuzzFeed piece reference that I think are very telling. I'll just do one
to wrap it up here. And by the way, this piece was by Alana valco over at the BuzzFeed staff. And a tweet here that I think sums it all up beautifully is this from ex user Joyce. I was on a walk at this nature reserve and this crowd of fourth graders on a field trip passed by, and it was basically, dude, I'm gonna crash out, dude, No, don't crash out, you got to lock in, dude. Is that the bridge to Ohio? And yeah, So I think
this is sadly and hilariously accurate. And just to wrap up one last thing, so sorry, it's just too much good stuff here.
There's a statement from.
Casper Grothwall, who's a very lovely Oxford British name, the president of Oxford Languages, said brain rot speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life and how we are using our free time. It feels like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology. It's not surprising that so many voters embrace the term, endorsing it as our choices year. I would not say these are good sign posts for humanity and technology and
the crossover thereof. But thanks guys for the little extra time, and we're gonna take a quick pause, you're a word from our sponsor, and then come back with a little bit more strange news for you.
And we've returned. Guys, despite all the stair climbing I'm doing in the squats and working out, I found out that I have an anti guillacht or a fliot. I think is how they also say that, Yes, that's exactly it.
Can you explain what that is? No?
I can't because I don't understand it.
I just do you spell it so people can look it up on their own.
No, I don't want people.
Is it G Y A T T?
Yes?
But in this case, it's an f l y A t tt flea.
Okay, hey, keep on squatting, Matt. You'll get there, You'll get there.
Yes, okay.
So first story, you guys, Uh, we're gonna We're gonna go with a weird one. I've got two stories about death. Sorry, tend to do that sometimes, and then another one that there's like two stories at the end that are more
future facing or looking up, let's say so. The first one is about an ex Kansas police detective who was charged with some pretty terrible things and uh, he was discovered this Monday, as we record, on Wednesday, December fourth, he was discovered dead by apparent suicide in his home on the day a federal civil rights trial was to begin, where he was charged with sexually abusing uh several women, several black women over several decades, and accused with starting some form of sex ring.
Yeah.
I was hearing about this on our local MPR affiliate a little while back when the news broke. I think it was jury selection was at the point that we're at. He was due to show up for jury selection.
Yeah.
The reason why he was found is because he was supposed to be in court that day. He was allowed to stay at his home like essentially under house arrest as this trial was beginning and he was due in court and he didn't show up, so there was a warrant to go and get him, and they discovered him there in his home. Let's go into some of these details, and we're getting this from NBC News. The title is ex Kansas police detective found dead on first day of
federal civil rights trial. It was written by Eric Ortiz and Michael Kossner KOs Nar. We'll just start here and arrest warrant had been issued when Roger Glubski, seventy one, failed to appear at a federal courthouse in Topeka, Kansas, on the first day of jury selection. Law enforcement received a nine to one one call and responded to his home in Kansas. It's a place called Edwardsville to suburb there. Police reported he had suffered a fatal gunshot wound and
there were no indications of foul play. Again, like initially, nobody would say whether or not it was, you know, if he had taken his life by his own hand. But it's one of those situations where there are officials who make statements, but they won't tell you who they are. You know, they're not going to go on record with it, but they'll tell you as a reporter. It appears to have been suicide.
An individual familiar with the case.
Exactly, very very similar writing there. So let's get into what he was charged with and why it's a big deal. He was charged in twenty twenty two with federal civil rights crimes, accused of exploiting black women for sex and for framing people for crimes that they did not commit, or at least that the person who was accused of the crime and then went to jail for the that person says they didn't do it.
And this guy is.
At least accused and was accused of putting those people in jail when he knew that they were not actually the person who committed the crime.
Even to the point where that those false arrests or ad embedding that kind of crime and framing people would be weaponized or leveraged, right yes, to further abuse women.
Well, yeah, because he had basically we have to continue on. But he it appears that he had a criminal organization of sorts that he was at least somewhere involved in near the top where he was it's disgusting selling women for sex for at least a period of time that was known to the investigation.
So here we go.
He retired in twenty ten after thirty five years with the Kansas City Police Department. He pleaded not guilty to six counts of deprivation of civil rights, and federal investigators said the case was related to the rape of a woman from nineteen ninety eight to two thousand and one and another woman from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and two while he was while he was employed there
with the Kansas City Police Department. And he was also charged with three others in a separate case for allegedly and here it is quote running a sex trafficking ring from nineteen ninety six to nineteen ninety eight, that quote held women captive. So whatever that means, whatever the actual
details are of that situation, it sounds horrifying. Yeah, And this is a guy who retires and then fourteen years later, he's sitting at home on house arrest, getting regular dialysis treatments, facing life in prison if convicted, and he made the choice to take his own life rather than have to face the consequences in a public arena like that.
And to be clear that for everybody listening, want to go back to the two things you mentioned at the beginning of that. When we're saying that someone was sexually assaulted from X time to why time, what we're saying is this was happening repeatedly. Yes, this is all horrific, unclean stuff. But just no, folks, we're not talking about
one off situations. When Matt's giving us that timeline, he's talking about abducting people, coercing them into sex work very close to trafficking, especially with captivity involved.
Oh yeah, a police officer abusing power like that is we use the ben use the word unclean a lot that and I particularly like that when it comes to
these kinds of situations. But in this case, with this guy, for that many years, like at least three separate times were their stints of two three years at a time of this kind of abuse, I can imagine why this person didn't want to go into court and hear all that evidence you know, presented and talked about in front of him, and all of these other human beings looking at him, and you know, the world stage looking at him.
I can imagine.
That the analysis in prison is also pretty close to a death sentence.
Yeah, probably not great. The tragic thing in this situation is that all of the victims, all the families of the victims, all the people who were affected by this man, don't get that moment of clarity, that moment of like hearing it all coming to light and air it out and getting some kind of I don't know, I don't know what you get from that, but at least a tiny bit of feeling as though the truth came out.
Right, people were held accountable.
Yes, somebody gets held accountable, and it just again, it's just spoken. It's something about the truth being spoken out loud. I can imagine that being a very helpful, positive thing, as hard as it may be in the moment. But they're never going to get that now because this guy's gone and the trial, the trials are basically dropped or the it's just over. There's no defendant, there's no case.
And it's over to prosecute.
Yep.
Well, I'm sure the investigations continue, or hope the investigations continue into co conspirators, into other people who may have aided in the pursuit of these crimes. Because over this degree of time, over this long window of time, it is incredibly unlikely that someone, perhaps a colleague or a coworker did not know.
Ye.
Well, the one of the good things that's happening right now is that there are a bunch of other lawsuits coming up with regards to the Kansas City Police Department that have to do with some of this stuff. There's one attorney, Danny A. Diez I think is how you say she's with Jay Z's. I think they're called Team
Rock or something like that. They've got a fairly large lawsuit going on about the entirety of the Kansas City Police Department and basically accusing them of not giving records when they're supposed to be giving these records that have to do with corruption, they have to do with basically laws being violated within the police department. So hopefully that will be ongoing and will be something, you know, something will happen. Yes, all right, anyway, that's terrible situation, you guys.
And it's an active conspiracy.
Yes, second thing isn't really a conspiracy. Isn't really anything that we need to worry about. It's a little many nightmare scenario maybe in my head, and I wanted to see if you guys like share this or just what we think about it. I'll talk about the story first, then i'll give you the information to look it up. There's a woman named Elizabeth Pollard. She's sixty four years old. She was out, at least according to her family, looking for her cat, Pepper, because she couldn't find her cat,
cute little cat named Pepper. Well, i'll read part of this. Her car was found at a restaurant. Parked at a restaurant. Inside her car was her granddaughter, a five year old granddaughter. She was not found anywhere Elizabeth. There began a hunt for Elizabeth. Where the heck did she go?
Where is she?
Why was her granddaughter alone in the car?
She was out?
You know, it was known she was out looking for her cat. The people who were out looking for her found a manhole sized opening that was a sinkhole that led down into a mine shaft into like where there's known mine shafts. And it is believed that this woman was out looking for her cat pretty nearby to where her car was parked, and she ended up falling down into essentially a sinkle or a sinkhole opened up over this mind shaft as she's walking through the woods looking for her cat.
A dark lottery, right, do you think that's where the cat was?
Well, who knows? In this case, it's again it's not known whether she fell into a hole as she's looking around, maybe as it's getting dark, or if the sinkhole opened up as she's standing over top of it. It doesn't know. The authorities don't even know if she's in that hole. They're still searching for her. I think it's one of those unfortunate situations where the probable scenario is that she fell in somehow.
Yeah, And sinkholes also can kenneker suddenly, they can, they can run in packs. Sinkholes can move deep. As you remember, perhaps when I lived in Central America for a time, sinkholes were simply a part of what could happen at your house or when you're walking around. Luckily, happy to report I have not been involved in a fatal sinkhole situation. But there's not really a way to a way for the average person to be super aware of this happening.
If you're unlucky enough to be around when a sinkhole is occurring, when it's germinating. I'm using that word incorrectly for fun. When that happens, your odds being able to physically run away or cling to something stable are pretty low. Yeah, I think usually it sounds like what happened is this formed before this distraught individual happened across it, and maybe they were running toward trying to find their cat and not able to be entirely cognizant of the environment in which the maage.
Maybe, but it's unknown, and especially because it is about the size of a man, So imagine that that's like the size of your torso plus a little bit, basically, right, And when you look at the hole, it looks like a patch of grass and in the center there's just a hole punched and then it goes down thirty feet like nine meters and you know, visualize thirty feet that's pretty far to where you feel like you're just watching
walking on flat land. And then this, I mean almost a human sized hole opens up and you just PLoP right through it.
It's deep enough to cause to cause possibly death depending on how you fall, but definitely it's deep enough to cause mobility ending injuries, right like this can crack a femur, this can break a thigh, well, yeah, yeah.
Especially if the earth that if you imagine like it's essentially a bubble underneath there, right, and there's a tiny layer of earth above you, that tiny layer lets go, and then other parts of that earth collapse in on top of you as it collapses, and you essentially could be buried a lot in that moment. Sorry, it's just a new nightmare kind of thing that's unlocked for me personally.
I don't know about you, guys.
I think it is for a lot of people.
Well, I just feel I feel it in my chest, I guess when I think about it, because there's just all kinds of woods that I love to run around.
And who knows what's underneath there?
Haven't I don't have a geological survey that shows, you know, the Condy cave systems.
We haven't heard back from Accounting yet either on our pitch to get a light oar.
Device for everybody needs one.
Accounting right us back.
Yeah, so this is another tragic situation. You can go to AP news and read the article surch extends into the Night for Pennsylvania woman who may have fallen into sinkhole, written by Mike Skullfarro s C O. L.
F O r O.
That was written December third of this year.
As we record, guys, we don't have much time to cover the asteroids, so this is what we'll put out there. You can look this up if you want to. Asteroid burns up before hitting Earth, creating ball in the sky. This is written in USA Today by Eric Legata on December fourth today, as we record, this is a story about a very tiny, seventy centimeter roughly wide asteroid that hit the Earth and it just as it interacted with the atmosphere as you've seen in movies, it just burned
up and pretty much turned into nothing. Seventy centimeters that's like twenty seven and a half inches in diameter. Tiny, not a big deal. The thing that is a big deal about it is that humans only knew that it was coming a couple hours before it impacted.
By predicting a natural disaster exactly like a tornado.
Yeah, and it's the thing that just happens, and it's not going to stop happening. And we're going to do our best as humanity to identify and categorize and understand the trajectory of all of these objects that are flying around us in orbit and you know, we'll see what happens. Thing we always like to say is head on over
to spaceweather dot com or a similar source. You can see a giant list of the upcoming near Earth asteroids that are known about that we know about, because this one was not on that list.
Double checks this morning.
I like to call it reservations versus walkins.
There you go.
There are unfortunately a lot of spacewalkins. Another source. You and I were both leaning on the excellent folks at Live Science here, Matt, I think Live Science comes up again at the end of this program.
Oh yeah, there's Live Science. Will jump to them really quickly. And here's another story that was published yesterday. As we record massive quote potentially hazardous asteroid do to make closest ever approach to Earth tonight and you can watch it live. This was written by Pandora de Wan yesterday.
That's an awesome name.
Yes it is. I hope that's a real person and not like some program.
This time. It's a stadium sized asteroid named twenty twenty x ARE and it is coming into the closest approach to Earth on record, and that is happening today as we record on December fourth, So if something happens, it's too late. As you're hearing this, it already happened. But it does appear that nothing is going to happen.
It is just.
Creepy to think about a stadium, Like if you just imagine, I don't know a stadium.
I don't know stadiums, guys.
What's the Atlanta one? The football stadium?
Mercedes Benz?
Yeah, okay, imagine Mercedes Benz just like flying past Earth and you can look up and like, hey, it's the Falcons. It's like that, but it's not as crazy. It is crazy to imagine it traveling twenty seven and a half thousand miles per hour. Twenty seven and a half thousand miles per hour. Just can't even can't even imagine it. It's going to reach a minimum distance of one point three seven million miles from Earth, which is its closest approach, but it is nowhere near close enough to impact us,
at least according to the models. And that's what we'll rest easy on this week.
But you know who is close enough to impact us specifically, you, fellow conspiracy realists, Thank you, as always so much for tuning in to our weekly strange news segment. We have so much more we haven't gotten to. We can't wait for you to join us. We want to hear your reactions, want to hear your hot takes. We want to hear your news stories that need more attention. Find us on emails, find us on telephone lines, and find us on online lines. Onlines, onlines We're going with onlines.
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