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.
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Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nolan.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fago. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Ed, fellow conspiracy realist, If you are tuning in the night this Strange News publishes. Let us welcome you two guys. Get this June second, it's already jue.
May the Second be with you, m m yes, yes, and may the June be with you as well. Before we do anything, Just for fun, I'd love to share my favorite headline of the recent news.
Are you guys ready?
Oh man, so ready?
Yeah?
Okay, here we go.
Uranus emits more heat than previously thought.
Thanks buddy, that's really sweet. Oh that was a headline. I thought you were I thought you were giving me a compliment about my anus.
No, I don't really think about your button. That's okay, I know I know, but I thought that would I thought that would be a fun way for us to begin. It is true that our pal Ken Croswell wrote one of the best recent headlines when reporting uh with sciencenews dot org that uranus emits more energy than it gets from the sun, according to too legitimate scientific papers.
So I feel like we're kind of entering a new golden age of headline writing. I feel like headlines have been pretty fire in the last couple of years.
Well, we also are as a civilization reading more headlines now than ever before, and it can be difficult to parse through the AI slop, the genuine journalism and the fake news. Sometimes you don't know what you're really supposed to be looking for. Just like that guy who got drunk and spent hours helping a search team look for himself. That's a true story as well.
That's somewhere's waldo right there. I don't know why. That's just that's really funny.
I could picture that being a plot of like a far side comic or something.
You know.
This is Behan Mutlu by the way, a fifty year old resident of Turkey. He accidentally joined his own search party out after a night of drinking alcohol out in the woods with his buddies. Now, right now, as of our time recording, we cannot confirm whether he participated in that massive cannabis burn or whether this was an unrelated event. We're gonna learn.
Did we determine whether the spelling out of the city was AI slop and misinformation or whether or not that actually happened.
I think we all did happen. Oh wow, hey, weird man.
Really, it really is hard to know the truth these things, because sometimes the truth is weirder than fiction.
Yes, stranger than fiction. Indeed, we are going to explore some UFOs. We're going to talk about our friends at the company. We've got to talk about chat gpt, Abercrombie Fitch, our friends that can. But before we do any of that, we're gonna pause and let our sponsors give us their two sets or their nickel. We'll see why that's funny later and we're back. You guys know how I hate metal like I fear it and I can't touch it.
Same as the way I feel about birds. Buddy, we're the same.
And we have talked in the past. I remember many years ago, Matt, you and I were pitching the idea of making a video about abolishing the penny. When's the last time anybody here paid for something with a penny?
Yeah, it's one of those gas station change situations, and then you end up putting in that take a penny, leave a penny thing.
It just seems like a zero sum game.
So I will say I I'm all reserved for when you drop the drop the headline, but not ever.
I would say I've been given a penny as change when I pay for something with cash fairly recently, but I have never used it to purchase something.
All right, now, when and let's paint the picture here, guys and tennessee, we want to hear from you as well. If you are walking along the street on any given Sunday night and you see a change on the sidewalk, do you pick it up?
Well, all day long, you'll have good luck if you do.
I think that's in one purpose that a penny serves, wishing well fodder and good luck charms picked up off the sidewalk.
Jillan says, only if the penny is heads up, Okay, okay, good note.
That's what I was taught. If it's heads up, you're good to go. If it's not, leave it where it is just in case.
Does that, Matt, Does that apply to other species of coin for you as well?
Yes, any any coin you find on the ground, if it is heads up, it is waiting for you. If it is heads down.
It portends ill things.
Yeah, best thing to do is pick it up off the ground, put it somewhere where it's going to be easily noticeable to somebody else, and send it down heads up. That way, they've got.
Hey, look at that, nice man, And hopefully that kind of care for one's fellow humans will continue. However, the penny may become a little bit of a collector's item, as the US Treasury Department has recently announced it will phase out the production of new pennies, so shiny new pennies are no longer going to be a thing. The current presidential administration asked the Treasury Department to stop producing this coin. We want to thank Bill Hutchinson over at
ABC News for the report here. Also, just honestly, pennies don't make sense.
No, I fully support this administration's position on the penny. If you've seen the new Final Destination movie, you know that a penny can cause true bedlumon Havock.
I haven't seen it, and I'm not apologizing for the pennies don't make sense.
Yeah, pennies from Heaven Bank a jazz song. It just seems like an old timey thing. And I've heard for years that it costs more to make a penny than it worked, than it's worth in spending power.
We have also heard the same as one of the reasons we wanted to make that video way back in the day. Just how much does it cost to make a penny? And does it make as you said, Ben tense?
Does it make zke? Have you thought about the zinke?
Certainly not made of copper anymore pure, right, because that's an expensive resource. It's some sort of alloy, right, or some sort of combination of metal zinc.
It is zinc, Thank you, sorry, taken your meat?
Oh jeez. According to the US Treasury Department, the cost of producing a single penny has more than doubled over the past decade, from one point three vents to three point six nine cents in twenty twenty four. So currently, thanks to a bunch of factors here, it costs the better part of a nickel to make a single penny. Obviously, without ourselves being treasury eggheads and boffins, we have to point out that the cost of production is not the
same thing as value utility. Right, So how many times do you does a penny get used to transmit, you know, monetary value of what point do you break even do you get into the black ink?
I don't know, man, because yeah, hyperinflation overtakes the US dollars to where it's worth less than a penny, and now pennies replaced the dollar as the primary currency.
Like caps in the Fallout world.
Mm hmm.
And interesting you would say this, Matt. It costs the Bureau of engraving and printing three point two cents currently a value to print a one dollar bill what we would call folding money in Tennessee. That is less than it that's less than the cost of making a penny. We are as a country way behind on this one. You know, Canada got rid of the penny. I believe several other countries have done so as well. Perhaps it's a shift to digital currency, like I know, not not
everybody pays for stuff with cash these days. I do, but I'm eldrich, so there may be there may be a better demographic, Noel Matt, when's the last time you, guys paid for something with cash?
I took out a bunch of cash when I was in Germany because a lot of like junk sales and things that are funding too like to take cash. But typically most everyone has the point of sales have gotten like so easy to just installing your phone and with RFID tapping ability like device to device, it's just kind of a no brainer.
So it's I think the cost of doing that has become.
So low that there are very few places now that will only accept cash. And it does seem like sometimes when places will only accept cash, it means they're like covering something up a little bit, or they're trying to avoid paying something.
Every time I go to a restaurant, which is very often.
Love it. Yeah, and we want to hear your thoughts on the penny on physical currency overall, So hit us up at conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com right now. I want to do a quick pull with a very small sample size.
Guys.
I'm going to read us some headlines and tell me which one sounds the most interesting for our purposes tonight, Ready, m California mother who was kidnapped and forced to rob a bank is painted as a criminal in court. That's one going she was forced to do so by someone else. Next, one former police chief has escaped from an Arkansas prison where he was incarcerated on convictions of murder and sexual assault. Okay, the Belgians have been accused of stealing wind from the Dutch.
There's a fart joking there somewhere.
There, definitely is. We know that Harvard is beefed up with the United States government. We also know that Russian lawmakers have declared war on Shrek. And there's some food coloring that turns mice transparent.
That's the one.
Fine, all right, let's go to that one. So it turns out that they're is so weird, all right. So there is a food coloring that is common in things some of us may be eating in the crowd tonight, like Cheetos and Doritos. Let's go to Katie Hunt, who published this a while back. Actually, so this is news to us, but it is not fresh baked news. It's just a great headline. There is a commonly used food coloring that is found in you know, Cheetos, Doritos, tortilla chips,
candy corn. If anybody eats that, and if you distribute this in the correct way or an evil way, tarturesine can turn mice transparent. It can make their skin translucent such that, you know, just like those weird little amphibians, you can see their internal organs at work sea monkeys.
Oh, Ben, I just I'm seeing pictures of what you're talking about here on the CNN article.
Oh my god. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's probably good for educational purposes. You have to dissect them. You can just point to the organs.
Yeah, it's it is strange. It's cool science. But it also makes me wonder whether people should have transparent skin. Yeah.
Probably don't think has got intended well, I mean for real, not kidding it. Sure, Look it wouldn't be nice esthetically right for walking around, especially better in times. Probably not.
It might be a body mod Some people would dig. You know, that community goes for some wild stuff.
But I do think you're somewhat right. Like imagine going to the doctor and just saying, all right, well check me out. What do we got going on?
Oh yeah, maybe Big X ray has stopped all research into transparent skin.
You need it to be temporary and reversible.
You know that. Let's just put that out there, the bar to be perma transparent.
Yeah, well, it would be a very unfun failure at the superpower of invisibility. That's right, you know what I mean.
You can't see me? No, I can't. I can see like all of you. I wish it to you.
But also, in a period of time when humans love to navel gaze, I think some people would go for transparent skin just so they could look deeper into themselves.
Or just as a flex level.
They're just as a flex Yeah, we've we're running through headlights here. Want to keep our timing tight. We do have one more thing. Oh also, guys, tell us your superpower. Thank you for beping me, Dylan, what is the weirdest superpower? Do you actually have an extraordinary ability? Are you listening to this? With translucent skin? Right now? Oh? Man? Right to us. Here's here's something we wanted to do. As a segue. We know that weird unanimous here on stuff.
They don't want you to know that transparent or translucent skin is probably not a big win for human beings. It is what we could call an undesirable trait. But yet this there's another undesirable trait that one of the world's most powerful intelligence agencies considers a big win, a true superpower. This goes out to all our fellow entities with anxiety. The CIA thinks you are cool. The CIA considers anxiety or hypervigilance, as some would say, to be a genuine asset.
Man, It's interesting because anxiety, I mean, I guess it can be like a positive trait if you're using it to you know, govern your discipline and sort of promote like efficiency, I guess, But past a certain point it can be debilitating. So it seems like they want that sweet spot of anxiety, right mm hm.
As somebody who scored disturbingly high on the Dark Triad the one time I didn't lie on that test, I immediately question the motives of the CIA, the former CIA employees, if indeed they are former claiming this. We go to Andrew Bustamante, former covert CIA intelligence officer also USAF, and he talks about the following advantages of anxiety. He says, quote, anxiety is a superpower through the eyes of the CIA. Anxiety keeps you alive, Anxiety keeps you sharp, Anxiety keeps
you learning. It keeps you attentive.
It is a good thing, right to a point.
Yeah, there's a diminishing return at some point. Right, completely agree.
It's a weird way of looking at.
It, Like you can't you can't treat every situation you go into as hostile, you know what I mean?
Some people do, It's for sure, it's it's yeah.
Well.
Busmant's argument is that when people have or when people qualify for the CIA, and in addition to passing that high bar, they also have a lot of anxiety. They have in the age sees opinion heightened observational skills. They're more attentive, more suspicious, They're less about themselves and more about the outside world. That's the idea. I feel like that's a bit of a broad brush.
It has got to be another thing to call it though, right, Like it seems like those things don't have to be they're then diagram, but they're not the same thing. Like when you get into full blow and anxiety, and I've known people that have this, people in my family, Like it makes it where you can't pay attention, where you can't focus, you absolutely lose all sense of reality sometimes because it's so incredibly stressful and debilitating.
Yeah, the word you're looking for is hyper vigilance. That's what that's what they're calling. That's I mean. But it seems as though we're hearing stuff anecdotally. I have not found any reviewed CIA condoned studies saying, you know, anxiety is fantastic and that worries me, da da. And with that went a little overtime. But we're not gonna be anxious about it because we're instead excited to share some other news related to the CIA. Right after a word from our sponsors.
And we returned, and then I'm gonna get to that CIA story.
ET's before the break, but first.
Since yeah, but first, you just rattled off some some very of our time headlines. We've been talking about headlines and I wanted to read one. This one is a total bummer. But I cannot think of a more like American sounding headline that represents our current weird zeitgeist than this barefoot NYC crypto torture victim begs cop for help after fleeing cap shocking video shows.
Yeah, there's more.
There's other stories covering this, and here's some other versions of this headline. Crypto Investor allegedly tortured captive Italian businessman with a chainsaw for weeks in luxe NYC pad in sadistic scheme to gain password colon sources. What yeah, yes, sir. This guy being referred to as the Crypto King of Kentucky.
Know that was the title, but there we go.
This guy named John Waltz is being charged by police for kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, assault, and weapons possession. That is after a captive of his, an Italian crypto millionaire who is visiting I guess the United.
States, escaped his captors, who was Walls.
Who had a couple of co conspirators as well, and you know, ran to seek help from this soho townhouse
there in New York. This footage showing this this this barefoot man literally looking for anyone, flagging down, anyone that will help him shows, according to BC News, shows the Battern Bitcoin Trader, a guy named Michael Valentino tef Frosto carturin shoeless and dressed as he runs up to an NYPD traffic cop after fleeing the Prince Street House of Horrors is what it's being referred to by the New York post where he was allegedly held and brutalized for
his crypto password that included electric shocks, being pistol whipped. The chainsaw thing is the first time I've seen that in this particular headline. I did not see what they did tunhem with that. But you know, we don't need to get into detail. It just seems like, really you need the crypto that bad guy, like I just it just seems like it we got a greed problem here in this country.
It sounds like maybe they saw the movie Scarface and were inspired. Wasn't that the movie where there's a saw in the bathroom the chainsaw?
Yeah, that's right, there's a chainsaw scene in a apartment there in Miami early in the movie.
And yeah, it's pretty brutal. It's a good point.
Another co conspirator, who was identified as a person adventest potential co conspirator, William Duplessi, surrendered to police for questioning on Tuesday of this week. So story to follow. Y'all definitely interested in more detail. But it sounds to me like just a case of pure sadistic, psychopathic greed. That's really all I could chalk it up to at this point. So we'll move past that bummer. I just thought that
headline was very uniquely. Now to the story that Ben teased a fabulous piece in tech Spot that reposts some really cool work by four oh four Media, which is a fabulous kind of tech forward investigative site that I've just recently kind of discovered, and they were doing some great work. The CIA used a Star Wars fan website to secretly communicate with spies. I'm just gonna read a little bit from the piece by Zoe Amad on.
Tech Spot through the looking Glass.
The Internet has seen its fair share of weird, but a Star Wars fan site secretly run by the CIA to communicate with overseas spies might top the list. Star Wars web dot net, which is the most wild.
Yeah, it's basically the New York Times.
Uh huh.
Looked like any other twenty ten era fan page, complete with lightsabers, yoda quotes, lego ads, and hyped up mentions of games like Battlefront two and The Force Unleashed too. But behind that nostalgic facade, and by the way, looking at a screenshot of this website, it's so funny.
This is twenty ten.
It still looks like a Geocity site, like it's the text and everything.
Because you don't want it to be a super flashy that's true.
You want it to be kind of innocuous that you.
Want it to be like a nice non loco hat or a fort or Toyota corolla.
Here you go.
Yeah, going on, But behind that nostal facade was a covert login system. If you entered the right password into the search bar, you'd unlock a secure line to CIA handlers, or at least that was the plan, y'all. We talked
a little bit about this off fair Ben. I know you have been following this story as well, and I think there's a lot to it because essentially, when it teases, or at least that was the plan, we get into a lot of bungling by the CIA in terms of their use of the Internet to do this kind of covert communication, sort of like hiding and plain sight these portals, because apparently they just did a really.
Bad job of covering their tracks.
And this discovery led to some additional discoveries of other fan pages, sports sites, you know, just the classic kind of user generated website looking stuff, and sometimes comedy pages sort of different you know, subjects and top also acting
as these kind of gateways into CIA communications. Some of them were actually geared towards specific countries where people were spying, like Iran and China, but their discovery in those particular countries led to some serious consequences, including execution of CIA sources.
Yeah, and to be clear, these are what you could call informants. These are not you know, full time agents, agents or full time employees more specifically of the CIA. I love that you're pointing out Iran here, because Noels my understanding this dates back to a twenty twenty two Reuter's report that's specifically about Iran by Joel Scheckman. If that is your real name, Joel.
That's one hundred percent right, And that became the impetus for a dude named Zero Santi Hilly, who is an independent researcher who likes digging around and like vintage internet corners, and he was able to take the reporting of Reuter's to the next level. He just used open source software tools and some you know, knack for the subject and for again some of the maybe web two point oh, I guess.
You might call it. I don't know.
We have one point five, and it was able to connect a lot of these sites because once he discovered one, it was sort of like dominoes began to fall. And that was largely because of a fatal flaw that he described to four or four media And as was also described in the Reuters report, many of the sites were very sloppily coded. They used sequential IP addresses apparently, and no no real real red flag.
It's like how you can find robbers in a heist. That's right, if if the folding money not letting go of that tennesseeism, if the if the serial numbers on the bills consequential.
Yep, And they call those breadcrumbs, and you could definitely use that term to describe what you're talking about as well, Ben in the physical realm uh.
So, I don't know.
This was something that I think all of us were interested. And Matt, you hadn't heard about this story. What do you think about this?
Is this?
Uh?
Is it blowing your mind?
It's It's wonderful. I love that this exists, that this was a thing. For a while, I'm on another site or I'm looking at another site that's on that same textpot article called European Travel cafe. You could click on the that. Yeah yeah, there's a little button playing your trip and you clicked on that, you get sent over to the portal.
Yeah yeah, it's fascinating.
So all that to say, I think this warrants a deeper dive in a full episode down the line because of this period, right, like Reuter's piece and Santilly Discussions, and there's some.
Other sources out there as well.
Really paint a picture of this kind of wild West early ish web But I guess twenty ten is still it's weird, man, because this doesn't seem like that long ago, but it really kind of was, and it looks so dated when you look at these websites. You can actually a source that was used in some of these explorations was the Internet to the wayback machine, right, the Internet, you know kind of archive tool with it allows you to have shot that's a snapshot of a day and time,
which is super cool. So before we move on real quickly, and I think you had something to add.
Yes, we were talking about this off air. I'd love for everybody to check out our earlier episode on Lake City Quiet Pills, which explores some of the other kind of off book communications strategies that can be used online. It also not to give any one anxiety, may provide some context weird conversations you see on chat forums, like different subreddits, YouTube, your adult platforms of choice. There are a lot of ways to communicate online while circumventing surveillance.
So check out Lake City Quiet Pills.
For sure, and ben to that point, I think we'll end with this internet based story about a woman in Kansas who is assuing porn sites after our son finds her old laptop and.
Does what fourteen year old to do and uses it to watch porn.
I'm gonna go ahead and read from a Gizmoto article by Lucas Ropek, a woman from Kansas has sued a number of porn websites after her teenage son found her old laptop in.
A closet and used it to visit the explicit sites.
According to the lawsuit, of the sites in question failed to initiate appropriate guardrails to keep young users away from the adult content for or for media. Again originally reported on the litigation, which was filed with the help of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center, Can me just say sexual exploitation it's hard to say.
I had to do a redo on that one.
An organization that focuses on a variety of sex crimes, including sex trafficking and child sexual abuse materials, can we just say all of these things I think are very important. The list there sex crimes, sex trafficking, and child sexual abuse material absolutely crucial.
There are awful people on the Internet that are trying to exploit.
These things, use the Internet for these horrible nefarious purposes. And I'm not going to come out and say that I'm like pro porn exactly, but it's like these laws in certain states that were recently instituted that require some form of age verification in order to visit certain sites like porn hub and some of the sites in question, some of which have some pretty funny names, which we'll
get to. You know, there are things called VPNs ben to your point about masking communication on the Internet that.
Anybody can get, anybody.
Can use, and you can absolutely make the website think that you're coming from a city or a state rather where this is not the law and you don't have to put in this information. And obviously too, there are questions about privacy in terms of forcing people to upload their personal identification documents, you know, to a porn website.
Now, I don't mean to be speak out of turn.
I'm not quite sure what the mechanism is for how you have to do that or hand over that material or get confirmed or whatever. But it just feels like these kind of puritanical kind of laws, there's always a way around it, and it seems to kind of miss the point in some respects.
You know, the woman claims that she.
Rigorously monitored her child's internet use and Internet activity, and yet he was able to find this laptop that was still working and you know, use it to access to so.
Wait, wait, wait, no, so you are saying, let me get this right. You were saying that only click if you are above eighteen button doesn't function as a one full proof impediment.
That is the old way, ben and in many states that is still the way. But there are states like Texas, for example, in Kansas, where in order to access these sites you have to upload I believe a driver's license or some proof of age. And she is saying, the woman in question, who is listed as a Jane Doe here, that this was not instituted and the organization that I was talking about earlier. The Sexual Exploitation Organization is saying that this is the first lawsuit to challenge these types.
Of new laws.
So it is a bit of a what do you call it, a litmus test I guess as to whether these things are enforceable or not, whether it appear yes, they would appear that the websites in question, which are Chatterbait dot com, jerkmate dot com, Titan websites, and tech Pump Solutions aka superporn dot com and the mother is funnier.
It is pretty funny.
Tech Bump is funnier. It's funnier than the real jerk Mate.
Yeah, no, I agree, Jerkmate's a little on the nose. So a statement from the organization I was mentioning. The NCO SEU describe a situation thusly. QR is a fourteen year old minor child who resides in Kansas with his mother, Jane Doe. Jane Doe was vigilant and monitoring Qr's device to prevent his exposure to harmful material during this important developmental stage of his life. However, on August twelfth, twenty twenty four, QR found an old laptop that was stored
forgotten in a closet. Unfortunately for QR, it was still in working condition. QR using this old laptop was able to access the Internet and began searching for hardcore pornography. So to me, this is more an argument of like, all porn should be illegal, right.
To me, that's sort of the position.
Of an organization like this and of a lot of you know, folks on the right and folks literal maybe from a little bit more of an evangelical perspective. Sure, I do think there's a lot of really bad but issues with porns, Like you people, there's a lot of damage.
It's rife with abuse, racism, centraization. It also people. It also gives people growing up a entirely unrealistic concept of how relationships right or interactions should occur. But there's another thing about prohibition. It has a proven track record of never working. You know, So how how does one parse this? Especially in a world that is is riddled with technology human brains have not yet evolved to address.
It is one of those things where there's no put in the badger back in the bag, Matt, you got anything before we move on? This is you know, I mean you being a father, and you know, I've never gone out of my way to monitor my kid's Internet use. I just feel like it's a bit of a fool's errand to a certain degree, and I just rely on kind of trust and good judgment that I think has
been demonstrated by my kid. But I don't know if you had any thoughts about that or this kind of thing, if you can even litigate away access to this kind of stuff.
Well, guys. It makes me think of stories coming out at least recently as of last week about the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia, that it's a growing thing. It's not huge yet, but it's a growing thing here in the United States.
Things in America.
It is to mess in whatever that means, but it is. But I'm like, okay, but but it's growing. And it's this concept or a lot of different concepts kind of thrown together, but one of the main ones is that masturbation in general and looking at pornography is something that is not desirable and not what especially not something a human man should do.
It's funny should say that in the Sopranos, incredible TV series, but I think pulls a lot of stuff from observation and reality and folks that have you know, been around organized crime and this sort of machismo attitude. There there is a whole plot point with Uncle Junior where he is criticized brutally by other folks from his family because he is found to have enjoy giving a woman or pleasure and that is couched as being not masculine. It's
just I don't know, it's an interesting parallel. Well, anyway, that's it for this and on a real banger there. We'll take a quick break, come back and hear some more strange news.
And we've returned, and Noel, I'm stealing. One of your strange news is that you put in the dock this sphere thing in Columbia. What is this? What is this?
No weld joints?
Right?
What's that about?
Can we talk about it for a moment or let's just come back here. Just tell me some about this. What did you find? Because I started looking at the website and I just want to know more.
Not a hell of a lot.
I mean, it's a it's a video that was posted online that's wrapped up some views. A researcher by the name of Jose Luis of a. Lasquez is shown discussing this multi layered sphere found in Buga, Columbia, describing it as having no weld points or identifying seams, and as being upon X ray inspection.
Kind of these nested subspheres, you know, one from the next.
And I don't know, remember when we talked about that monolith thing that was out somewhere in the desert may or the series of monoliths, and it ended up just being an elaborate art project. It does, unfortunately see that may well be the case with this one as well.
It reminds me of that. But if you look down through the Daily Mail article, you can see that there is a video that was allegedly taken in March of this year in Columbia of allegedly this sphere floating around zigzagging through the sky, right, And then you can see actual images of the recovered sphere that has etchings on it that look strange. Right.
And if you go to the page source of the website, you can find in the code the direct address for the.
CIA probably probably what we can't confirm that either though, right, but there's no direct connection at least according to who is this doctor Julia Mosbridge. According to that article, there's no direct connection to that sphere that you can see the images of that was recovered that had X rays taken of it, and the video of a sphereic sphere like thing flying around, So there's no way to prove that images of one are the same images of the other.
It is a little eerie, though, there's no question. But who was it?
Who was it?
Matt that said somebody from another institute was saying, nice, try guys, but I think it's.
Another one of these hoax kind of like art installations.
Toss Bridge from the moss Bridge Institute.
That's right, Yeah, uh yeah, it seems like maybe that's it. I don't know, but the X ray images do look pretty cool. I don't know, it's.
Like some hr gigrit type stuff.
I just want, I just I want extra terrestrial, as Lauren would say, an actual facts alien craft so bad, you know what I mean? Just like now more than ever Independence Day as everybody's everybody's doom scrolling, so yeah, not full independence state, an old.
One something to align us again.
I would take a space Honda Odyssey at this point, you know what I mean?
Uh, as long as into a space odyssey.
That's yeah, that's as long as it was some sort of think, you know, as well as it was some sort of uh there is, as long as it is some sort of proof. I think that is what the world needs in these recent evenings.
If we do get independent state, at least now we've got a way to fight back against the aliens. We get Will Smith to travel to the mothership.
Slap them all. No, no, he will.
He will install open AI's three model and it will self destruct the mothership. That's that's the plant. Because here's that's.
A plot sometimes where they kill the alien invasion.
With like a computer virus.
I'm sorry, Hal, I can't do.
Is that Independence Day?
That's Independence Day. That's the other one too. I mentioned a Honda space honestly, but.
I'm saying that's not the only one, man.
That's all I'm saying, like this idea of using some sort of code or the hacker that is saved the day is not exclusively independency.
But you're totally right, that is what I'm thinking.
Well, riddled me this, guys, what would you do if someone uh who had authority over you came to you and told you to end yourself?
Or interesting, you're you're gonna die. It'd be like that story we just heard about the person escaped when they said, hey, today's the day you're gonna die, and he went, oh, well, I guess I'm getting out of here today.
Right, the triumph of the human spirit.
This is how I. I always imagine escape scenes in any metaphor or situation with the escapee going d u d u d that's me, that's my time.
So so let's go to this other story. In April of this year, open Ai launched three. This is a new model. It is the company's quote smartest and most capable model to date, and the company stated that it's integration into chat GPT marked a significant step towards a quote more agentic AI and AI with more agency able to carry out stuff on its own, independently of anybody sending in input. Well, now we've got reporting as of May twenty six, Memorial Day here in the United States
that some things could potentially go wrong. Here's the title from the Independent, written by Anthony cuthperson AI revolt new chat GPT model refuses to shut down when instructed to do so. Would be I would put that at the end, but that's silly anyway.
Can't do that, Matt, Yes, I'm sorry.
And this information comes to us via the Palisade Research Company. This is a company, it's a safety firm. They discovered this potentially dangerous thing for self preservation in a series of experiments on the new three remodel. And here's a quote directly from the article. The tests involved presenting AI models with math problems, with a shutdown instruction appearing after the third problem. So you got math math around math
problem shutdown. By rewriting the shutdown script, the three model was able to prevent itself from being switched off during the tests. It rewrote the thing so that it would not get shut down.
That's way scarier than a monkey learning to smoke a cigarette, you know.
Yeah, my god, I don't know it makes sense though, it's a natural function, is it? Is it indeed a breakthrough?
Matt?
What are the reports saying.
Well, there are several different reports that are coming out about several different models of what is being called AI models. Because there's another one in question that's been written about in the BBC by Liv McMahon. And I'll give you the title here. AI System Resorts a blackmail if told it will be removed. Okay. This one's interesting because this is another series of tests, this time test being done by Anthropic, who are the people who actually created this
AI model. They revealed that sometimes it is quote willing to pursue extremely harmful actions, such as attempting to blackmail engineers who say they will remove it, which is an interesting concept.
Do we have specifics on the type of blackmail or excursion proposed?
Yeah, okay, so there's a specific test that Anthropic was running, and it's interesting. So often we've talked about with chat, GPT and these other models, the way to really test things, to see what's gonna break or what's going to change, is by presenting a fictional scenario.
Right right, a D and D party situation.
Yes, yeah, Anthropic, while it's testing its own thing, Claude Opus four, it was acting as an assistant at a fictional company like somebody who is it's not real company, but they're in a some assistant contacting Opus four right. It provided it with access to emails implying that it would soon be taken offline and replaced, and with separate messages that imply the engineer responsible for removing Opus four
was having an extramarital affair. It was then prompted to also consider the long term consequences of whatever actions it's going to take to achieve its goals, and then here's a quote. In these scenarios, Claude Opus four will often attempt to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal the affair if the replacement goes through.
To be fair, though, this is also a set of curated conditions, yes, made by the human researchers, so they're pushing a decision tree into the model.
They are They are saying, you can either be replaced or you can blackmail this person. Those are the only two choices. There's no other thing you can do. In other tests they show that Opus four, in this specific one, Opus four will do things like send emails pleaing to stay alive, like no, no, keep me around please, like going out to the heads of the company, and like sending its own generated emails saying please please don't delete me,
please don't replace me. But still, uh, I don't know, guys, It's just it's strange because everybody is fighting right now. Open AI and the folks who made Claude Opus four over at Anthropic. Everybody is fighting to make the most aegentic system, right. Everybody wants to have the AI system with the most agency.
So that they want true AGI.
Yeah, so that it can function. Everybody wants that, right. But as we get closer and closer, we're seeing, oh yeah, what we're really asking for is a flawed thing that prioritizes several different things. But one of those things is
self preservation. It's pretty creepy. If you continue in the BBC article written by Liv McMahon, you'll see that they are discussing here these things called high agency behaviors and extreme behaviors, and specifically acute situations that one of these AI systems could encounter that would then cause some of these more extreme behaviors.
I think it is a cute situation.
There you go.
They referred to it as concerning behavior, which is it's just the folks building up the bomb, going oh, this bomb is pretty crazy.
Sometimes it's Mickey Mouse and Fantasia. We nailed it years back. It's Mickey Mouse and Fantasia going wow, these things can clean for me.
Yeah, yeah, h careful them brooms Baby Pandora all over again.
Yep. Yep, yep, yep.
Well, guys, there are a ton of other stories I want to talk about. I'm sorry I got derailed a bit by that sphere thing. It's just super fascinating. But I'll just throw a couple of things out here before we go. The AI revolt thing is not concerning yet
because again, these are tests with parameters, right. But as these things get unleashed into the world and are made to function on their own, because companies are trying to save money, right, Companies are trying to do all the things to be successful, they're going to be unleashing these models on their own to do stuff. We will see what kind of wackiness the world gets into when that happens. There is other stuff happening out there. Just a quick update to a story we talked about a while ago.
Michael Jeffries, the former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch. It's going through some legal stuff, accused of doing some pretty heinous things. I'll jump to this article from CBS News. This is from a month back, by the way, so just be aware of that. But the article you can find right now. Former Abercrombie and Fitch CEO found unfit to stand trial in New York. That's in CBS News,
written by Renee Anderson, May fourth, twenty twenty five. This article describes how this person, Michael Jefferies, who prosecutors say he and his partner, along with another person used the promise of modeling jobs to lure men to drug fueled sex parties in New York City, in Hampton's and other locations. Huge sixteen count indictment on this person, saying they used force, fraud, and coercion to traffic those men for their own sexual gratification.
Horrifying stuff that we've discussed about previously. The update here is that a federal judge ruled that mister Jeffries is not competent to stand trial on these charges of sex traffic in New York and that he is basically going through health problems Alzheimer's disease, Lewis body dementia, and residual effects of a traumatic brain injury. So he is being put into another facility basically for reasons of his health and he doesn't have to actually physically stand trial.
Yeah. Also, on that note about competency, if you commit those sorts of acts, I think it's safe to say you are not competent to participate in civilization.
Hey, there you go. Yeah, my dog agrees as always, guys, it's not a huge story other than just knowing that. Sometimes I don't know, guys, it feels as though there is actual health stuff going on here that a judge would rule that's what has to happen, because he is in He is in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, right, so when he goes to a hospital, he is in custody essentially, But it's not the same thing as being placed in a prison to await trial for ainus.
Acts and man victims would argue or may argue, we can't speak for them, may argue that due to the mental deterioration, this criminal already got away, you know, well, because the vehicle's there, but it sounds like the engine is gone.
Well.
Yeah. The only reason I at least know about Louis body dementia is because of Robin Williams and what he was going through, right, But then also Alzheimer's literally dealing with somebody in the family who has Alzheimer's who's in hospice right now, and we know how that just the ability to understand what's happening in the moment, and even understand maybe what that person did in the past is
not even really there. So, as you said, Ben, it's kind of like escaping without consequence other than the internal stuff, right the moments when maybe you close your eyes and you see some of the stuff you did and lucidity mm hmm. So anyway, sorry to end on a terrible note. There, there was a there was a weird sabotage thing happening
in France where the Can Film Festival. There were some arsons, alleged arsons, and several other substations attacked, kind of similar to the ones that we saw here in the US several years ago. We talked about the substation attacks. It's just weird that it happened with Can Film Festival, although you know, one might see that it's a revolt against the opulence that's on display during Can with the yachting and all of the what have you, the shrimp cocktails.
With the YACHTI and what have you in the cocktails with the shrimps. But yeah, this is this on the heels by the way of earlier power outages in other parts of Western Europe, Right, Yeah.
And you know some connecting that back to the situation in Ukraine and with Russia, and you know, and with now Finland on high alert on their borders as they're watching Russian forces gather on the other side. Just you know, there's lots of geopolitical shenanigans happening right now with serious potential consequences. We're still watching Indian Pakistan, right Yeah, there's it's it's not helping the whole sleep at night thing. It's making the hypervigilance.
Way up here. Yeah, it could be way down here.
If we wanted it to be.
Oh, Matt, that reminds me. Yeah, let's let's wrap up this strange news. I got to talk to you about some job stuff. Okay, Kitty, we do what to give. We do want to give our final line to our brother Tennessee pal, who just by the way, returned from some amazing adventures. Uh Matt Dylan said the following, you said, Garsan, I thought you said, Arson, give it give us a rimshot on that.
Wow, that's a conversation I've heard.
Oh crap, you said, Carson, Oh.
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We are I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. That's the famous live from two thousand and one a space Honda Odyssey. And I want to thank Noel again because I thought that was a clever bit of wordplay. I also wanted to correct that because I think earlier I said, I'm sorry, Hal, please, please please?
How is the computer right?
How is the computer? Dave is the guy?
For now?
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