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 IHEARTRADI.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nol.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always without We're joining as always with our guest superproducer, Chandler. The Madman mays, most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It is the top of the weak, fellow conspiracy realist. Halloween moves ever closer right in the calendar, and the world is not stopping just because it's our favorite holiday. We're gonna talk a little bit about forever chemicals with some
good news. We're going to explore some sightings of a cryptid that might be familiar to some of us in the audience. And before we do any of that, we are going.
To plug Thirteen Days of Halloween because today the fifth episode is out right now in season four, and you should listen.
Yes, heck yeah, sorry, yeah.
That's perfect. No, we want more people to listen to Thirteen Days of Halloween. Brought to you by Aaron Manke, Alex Williams and our own mister Matt Frederick and Blumhouse Television and Blumhouse Television. Knowle's worked on this in concert or in conspiracy with the Madman Mays and Matt. You have ep the thing. We've got a cavalcade of incredibly talented writers, actors, producers, engineers, you name it. It's top notch. Please tune in if you like scary stories.
So Madman Mays's episode just came out. It's a banger as long and it is freaking creepy and weird, and it came out.
Yeah, by the time it was published finished.
My sound design scared. I was like, what did I miss?
It's also written by our very own Joe McCormick of Stuff to blow your mind fame. You will, in fact recognize quite a few of the Thirteen Days writers. If we've if we've done things correctly Ben before we but we also want to point out it's a it's a lovely autumnal afternoon here at the Ihearst Studios. We are recording in person.
I know it's the first time in a minute. I commented when Matt walked into the room, Matt, you're a person.
Well instead of just a face in a square, you guys get your ridiculous history time in and I'm way up far away now, so I'm sorry, but I want to do this more.
We're glad that you're here, and we're hoping to make this a regular thing. Let's dive right in without further ado or a do do or et cetera. It turns out, you guys know catalytic converters.
Yeah, yeah, people like to steal them, right because they have copper in them.
Isn't that the thing?
They all kinds of good ways.
Even like, no, there's some element in them.
Yeah, yeah, Catalytic converters are the gun. Them are the government mandated things that are the government mandated things that help reduce emissions in internal combustion vehicles. And you're right, and all they do have platinum. They also have rodium and palladium. You can get a lot of bang for your buck if you're a thief. You can sell these
for a couple of couple of hundred per unit. And just recently, three members of the same family in California have led guilty to a conspiracy for running a catalytic converter specific theft ring that shipped six hundred million dollars worth of these things, Holy cow.
To Jersey is going to Jersey. Why it's like the air bag scam from the Sopranos. We talked about that too, Like people like like steal air bags and then they sell them to like scrap yards that sell undeployed air bags. Yeah.
Absolutely, and this I'll be honest. I get these alerts whenever somebody officially gets charged with or convicted of conspiracy.
So is it what is the alert? What is your Google alert?
Like?
What does this say?
It just says it says conspiracy and then law enforcement or court got it. So because usually you know, when you do a Google alert, you can't just say conspiracy. Way way too much stuff a lot of hip hop, surprisingly, But let's go to a great article in the New York Times by Johnny Diaz h. This was a national network of thieves, dealers, and what they're calling processors. So to su Vang and then Andrew Vang and their mother Monica MOI, we're all from all from Sacramento, California. They're
all part of this ring. They would transport stolen catalytic converters and then they would get paid by wire. They all pled guilty, uh and they unfortunately one of them, the first, the first one, Tel Suvang, had also pled guilty to thirty nine different charges related to money laundry.
WHOA, yeah, well, that that's interesting. I wonder how that all were out. Would love to see the like inner workings of that.
Like, you know, it seems like the elements and such in the catalytic converters are of such value that that in and of itself.
Would be the grift.
I don't understand how the money laundering all.
Yeah, the money laundering is explaining to the government how, yes, generated the income. So like the breaking bad car wash kind of stuff.
Yeah, well, and think about all the shipping you're doing, like from California to New Jersey and catalytic converters. They're not huge, but they're also not tiny either.
It wasn't the whole point of the money laundering grip that it's legal, Like running a catalytic converter. Theft ring is not exactly a good cover story, right, so you have to have.
The good cover story, which is the money laundry. By saying like, hey, we I mean, I'm confused.
I'm sorry, no words.
So you get the you get the bad money, the money that needs cleaning. When you get money for the converters fifty.
Fifty dollars per gram of those precious metals.
Then you've got a front business. I don't know, do we know what their business was?
I think that was my question. I wasn't hearing what the front business was.
Oh yeah, yeah, we don't have the details yet on their front business, but we do know that they had they had a heck of one because they had they had a heck of one because they had to plead guilty to almost forty different money laundering charges. So something like a car wash, something like you know, the common ones would also be dare I say it? Casinos, but then I laundro That don't make sense to me because they're all quarters.
It could be another auto business, honestly, which is probably very you know likely. And they laundered thirty eight million dollars on their own, unbelievable.
How many catalytic converters are we talking that would yield six hundred million dollars?
They're not sure yet. We can go to we can go to some cocktail math, but maybe that's for future episode. What we can say for sure is that last year alone, sixteen hundred catalytic converters were stolen in California.
So these are the kingpins of this whole thing. I mean, it probably all traces back to them.
I mean, they're big fish.
They're big fish for sure. So just wanted to put that out there. Want to hear your stories about chop shops, folks on either side of the law, you know what I mean, to the point that you're comfortable writing and legally speaking. Also, yeah, don't don't steal cars.
And if you take a cat, don't some people like take catalytic converter out on purpose because it makes their engines rev louder or something.
Isn't that a thing?
Yes, but it's obviously an illegal mod but it's you know, and I despise those people cars the government. I hate that guy, whoever that is.
But yeah, and speaking of illegal there's one more story wanted to share before we before we move on to our second act. The Sineloa cartel. You know them, You're.
Terrified of them.
You should be, probably you definitely don't want to rock the boat too much because they are functioning often as a quasi governmental agency or a quasi governmental power state power. Now and they are the currently the top exporter of fentanyl to the United States. So let's go to the week just recently this news dropped. This is an article by Peter Weber or Peter Weber and the cartel has
and the production and trafficking of fentanyl. According to some Wall Street Journal reporting the cartel after putting out this warning, they killed several suppliers who kept trying to snake this over on the side.
Wow.
And I think we've always questioned, like it seems like bad business for fentanyl to be I mean, maybe they're not necessarily lacing their street drugs with fentanyl. They're just exporting fentanyl pure in its pure form, right.
Yeah, they're yes, And fentanyl makes sense if you put ethics aside and you're in the drug game, because you get so much more bang for your buck. It's so much cheaper to produce. You don't have to participate with the Golden Triangle or other sources of poppy. I would like to read the translation of one of their warnings
that came out. All right, okay, so in English, this says attention due to the epidemic that plagues our country and our neighbors, and the loyalty to our principles, we want to aid government efforts and CDs to eradicate the lethal drug known as fentanyl. Now it won't be now, it won't just be forbidden as it has always been within our business, but now we will persecute and punish the people who make, sell, transport, or lace this drug.
Wow, So this does kind of speak to the question that we've always had, like how is it good business if you're killing your customers? You know, for certain types of street drugs that get laced with us that don't make sense, like cocaine or methamphetamine that aren't opioids, that don't have the same analogous effect that fentanyl would produce. It just happens to be a similarly white powder that
you can lace something with. It always seems to me, and I think to all of us, to be a very head scratchy kind of choice, like why would you you want repeat customers? You don't want to kill your customer upon their first purchase of your product.
That just doesn't make sense. You want, at the very least you want.
To get them hooked and maybe you kill them down the line from addiction and things that are associated with it, but drop dead. They called it a hot shot back in the day, not good business. So this sort of speaks to they think that too.
It does, because it's what we have to say. The important point for the chain of comn or timeline is that fentanyl often it is getting it's put in there to adulter rate or step on the product before it gets to like the street level dealer. Yes, so they don't know necessarily unless they're doing some you know, quality assurance, which I imagine they do pretty frequently.
Sure, don't you. I don't see the cartels need to stop or I can't imagine to stop it. For me, it's more like maybe law enforcement is hip to stop fentanyl because it's getting so much news.
And they're coming at them so hard. They're like, that's bad. Yeah.
So further down back to the weak article, that's what is happening. Reportedly, it's in response to law enforcement going harder on the paint or harder in the paint because of these ventanyl overdose deaths that have risen so sharply in the US. Cartel operatives like the mid managers, because they're big enough to have that sort of Dilbert setup,
except with a lot of torture and death. The mid level managers are talking to the Wall Street Journal, Western Media, Mexican media, and one described how he is destroying the twenty five ventanyl labs that he was in charge of, because a lot of these guys, especially in mid level blow think of the more like independent contractors. They have a little bit of autonomy, and you have to give us this money, so like chicken men.
But isn't it funny though, how even that threatening thing you just read reads like a press release from a pharmaceutical company. Yeah, we care so much about our customers and the epidemic that this drug has caused. It's always been banned. We're mega banning it. It's like they're they're looking out for optics. It's strange.
We'll get you that prescription cocaine if you need it, but this ventol, sorry, guys, we're taking it off there not lost.
It's I think it's not lost on anybody. The irony of reading these official statements that translation I read to you, guys, is from banners that have been hung up at multiple drug spots yeah, and they're they're handwritten, they look pretty serious. But also the irony here is that of all people, the cartel is talking about our principles, that's our values. Like, hey guys, we're.
A family organization.
It's like they are this is a joke because this is specifically old Trapo's sons, right, and this is.
Like all those mob convert all those mob films. Oh yeah, they're called torpedoes, but it's like all those mob films where you see some of the older school Italian mafias. Yeah, the drugs, saying that drugs are a dirty business. We just stay with gambling, right, or you know, don't touch the opium or the cocaine. And it always represents a paradigm shift or a sea change.
That's why Don Carleonet got popped because he wouldn't play ball with you know, with whomever it was the other families that were aligning to, you know, do drugs, and Don Carleone was like, nah, I don't believe in that. I think it's going to ultimately destroy us if we get into this business.
Yeah, well so what of the other cartels that are like, hey, fentanyl's cool with us.
Well, then that's just going to be another doctrinal difference, you know, and they're going to beef over it. That's exactly what's going to happen. I mean, a lot of fentanyl also is produced in China, right, and the US has unsuccessfully attempted to get the PRC to cracked down on this. Results aren't in yet. And also, you know, we have to add ourselves. What about law enforcement? What about the DEA, the FBI or you know, the CIA still in the game. Right, you didn't hear it here first?
What did they do? Did they go there and they say because they're focusing hard on stopping Fendel. Did they sit down with their contacts, which they definitely do have, and say like, hey, guys, I've been to college. You know who doesn't love a little cocaine, But this fentanyl is getting out of hand. Did they talk to them like cool dad style, like hey, Champ.
Yeah, if you drink at our house, you.
Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a safe space. I do wonder if there was something like that, some kind of serious pressure, political pressure where because you know that there are connections there. We talked not long ago about the cartel connections to the upper level military yeah, in Mexico, so you know it, there's probably somebody it did exactly that Ben.
Someone came down and did the cool dad.
Yeah, And they're like, look, Browin is just less harmful, so keep doing that. Well, we'll ease up on monitoring some of that for you as long as you can promise, you know, commit getting rid of the fenyl.
Law enforcement is less likely to talk in euphemistic language than intelligence agencies. But I could totally see something when they say, guys, look, at the end of the day, it's all about harm reduction, you know. I I think it will reduce harm to to your consumers if we have less fentandol, and will certainly reduce harm to you.
Yeah, yeah, yah, yeah yeah.
And they're like, all right, well, great meeting. I gotta I gotta go, you know, back over the border. No, they meet within the US some predictions.
Yeah, but they're also like, oh, but do you remember who we are law enforcement agency and whoever you are.
Anyway, that's a that's a wild meeting at the Betigans right over in Phoenix. And the last thing before we move on, And this is something I think should be an episode in the future. How does back to the idea of cleaning the money like the catalytic converters. How do you clean this money derived from the massive drug trade. It's a crime ring based in China that's also used by his bola. That's the story. There are a lot of tether coins. They're called like yeah, another bitcoin. So
just the teaser for future episode on another evening. For now, don't do drugs. Try your best not to steal cars. We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor.
And we've returned with another piece of strange news. Sasquatch, Bigfoot, skunk ape, the Abominable Snowman, the yetti back in the news. Y'all's back in the news.
What was that amazing photo?
The most famous one from nineteen sixty seven?
It's got a name, is it?
The one whereas walking stride to see it in bumper stickers, you see it in fridge magnets. Well, we have another sighting that looks remarkably similar to that one. But we also have a video now and much like the recent Nessy convention, I guess that descended on lock nest to sort of reinvigorate interest in some of these cryptids that have maybe fallen out of the public consciousness a little bit,
largely because they've been debunked multiple times over. This seems to have the potential to, you know, also reinvigorate interest in uh YETI hunting or bigfoot hunting. We all had a lovely time going to a sasquatch museum.
In Blue Ridge, Georgia.
I believe it's called was it Operation Big Expedition big Foot elj el j. If you're ever around this neck of the woods here in Georgia and you go up into the Blue Ridge Mountains area on your way, there's this really cool museum that is much like, you know, the kinds of things you might see at Epcot Center in Disney.
This guy, what was his name.
David Bikera, Yeah, very very influenced by Disney Imagineering, and so there's a lot of these little exhibits. This guy is an active bigfoot enthusiasts. He has like vehicles on display with like radar dishes or whatever, whispered dishes that you use to kind of like amplify sound, and he's got them all built onto these little bespoke golf carts. This is the kind of guy that I think would
take great interest into this story. So this one, though, we always, you know, talked about bigfoot as being a bit of a regional phenomenon, like a lot of times in the Pacific Northwest, a couple of other locations. I don't know that I've ever heard of one being seen in Colorado.
Have y'all?
It would make sense potentially, because there's a no enough uh, there's enough rural area in wilderness.
That's sort of the key, right with most cryptids, it's like, where can they thrive where there aren't eyes on them all the time?
Where's the bigfoot in Bushwick?
You know what I mean exactly?
He's he's hanging out at a dive bar, djaying probably.
You know, guys, we should low key make that whatever that is like Bushwick Bigfoot.
Yeah, the big big Foot of Bushwick. That should be like a children's.
Might be a guy he's already very much could be.
But so a guy named Stetson Parker, which is a great name, Stetson presumably named after the hat maybe not, and his wife Shannon took a little a pleasure tour, I suppose, on a vintage railroad in Colorado called the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gage railroad that quote provides historic and entertaining rides. This story comes from the New York Times in an article by Claire Moses, and the Parker's got a little more of the they bargained for with the price of admission for that little tour.
They sighted a bigfoot. The bigfoot.
I mean, again, we don't know are there many of them? Is they're just the one? Seems like there would have to be many. And there's footage of this, you can see it online. It's been shared all across social media. And it's a you know, a shot out the window.
And if you've ever been on a train trip, you know in the maybe out west or in parts of the country that are a little more rural, lots of really awesome wide vistas, you can get really cool shots just from the train window using your phone that look like cinematic because of how huge the horizon is and the you know, the kind of scale of the shot.
And in this you see some brush some kind of scrubby brush land, and then if you look in kind of zoom in with your eyeballs, you see this bigfoot type cat or bear or ape just swing in his arms along in a very similar pose a very similar posture and gait to that nineteen sixties footage that we talked about. The arms out swinging like a polaroid picture. That's not a thing, but you can picture it, y'all.
Yeah, But he at the very beginning of the footage I just watched, he does like a quick footage like kind of thing to get over a couple of rocks and spray a little fella, but then immediately squats down and almost camouflage.
It ends with the squat and he does then or they do whatever. This creature then becomes quite camouflaged. It's really really fascinating. I mean, honestly, when I first looked at it, I was like, this is a deep fake that's using the same type of footage that we've seen before. Because the posture is so similar. The I guess proximity, or rather the scale of the arms, the length of the arms in relation to the rest of the body,
very very similar. The way the hair kind of drapes, you know, almost like a wookie type figure.
You know. It's also a very very short clip.
It's a very short clip, but all these types of clips tend tend to be.
It's at least super clear, right it is. It's in focus.
That's why I immediately my mind and again we've been tainted by all this AI stuff where now we just really can't trust footage and it would be super easy to fake a video like this, especially when the whole intent is for it to be kind of well to your point, Matt, it's not low res exactly, but it is a large scale vista with a very small thing
that's sort of the feature of it. And I could just my mind immediately was like, that looks like fake Tom Cruise, you know, on a late night show or something.
You know.
Yeah, let's talk about the captive audience that you have when it's a bunch of human beings on a train with devices that can probably record video, right, I mean, if you wanted to look like Bigfoot to a lot of people at one time, Yeah, this is a great place to do it.
To what end? And then also, how come there haven't been more sighting?
Well to what end?
I mean, just like yucks, I would argue, just for funzies, we get on TMZ.
Man, we did get on.
They did get on TMZ and it has led to the headline the TMZ headline cops urge scientists or sorry, bigfoot sighting scientists should be on the case, not cops, So say cops, which is a very TMZ headline, so you know there there are some folks associated with the National Forests there in Colorado. The TMZ article references then under sheriff like in the Colorado area, that is saying this the idea that scientists should be looking into this,
not cops. But I couldn't find much else about that that It wasn't mentioned in the in the New York Times articles, So definitely worth a little bit of a deeper dive. But yeah, one thing that came up. Do you guys know what a gilly suit is?
Yes, it's used to use to disguise people for infiltration or for sniping, you know.
The I think the first time I saw it was probably in like one of those Navy Seals kind of like commercials where it's like, really, you know, what's it? Like one of the video games? What is what are
those games called Call of Duty? Ask you know where it's like you want to do this kids, you know, you want to join this elite force because you're used to seeing this type of footage in these games and you'll see people like emerging from swamps or whatever wearing his kind of suits, and they look like like kind of wookie suits, but they're a little more like Spanish
moss or certain types of foliage. I guess there would be different ones for different parts, you know, that of the of the world or of the environment.
They're also pretty heavy, though, have you ever snow?
Oh dude, somebody I know up where I live now is a retired marine sniper trainer and he's told story, He's told me stories about spending days at a time in one of those suits you're talking about that are really heavy, right, and uncomfortable and literally not moving for days inside one of those things, so that anyone with a camera or observing is not gonna notice you whatsoever.
And don't get them wet because that just makes it heavier. And I hear they're very hot. Uncle Sam is not like, let's make sure this is breathable fabric.
Yeah, yeah, that's not what it's about.
But to that point, yeah, it makes sense. To your point, all that it would be a gilly suit would be one of the first immediate explanations. But with the footage, we just don't have enough information.
Well, but it doesn't move like a gilly suit.
It doesn't.
It moves.
It moves like a costume to me.
It does the way it hangs in the way, but that the arms are really long, you know. And then there is it does have the appearance of a skeleton, yeah, something like behind all of that. For and mister Stetson Parker was asked about this gilly suit theory and he h, you know, clapped back. Why would someone be wearing a gilly suit during the middle of elk hunting season? You know, it's a surefire way for anyone to get shot.
Oh, you know, and that's terrifying if it is a hoax, somebody was out there during hunting season.
And it does.
I mean, honestly, the way this thing is moving, it's moving so much like the classic bigfoot stuff that we've seen it unless that's just the way these guys move, and it's definitely real. It is somebody looking to get a viral video. But think about how many times they would have had to do it in order for someone to catch it, you know what I mean.
You have to predict the train schedules and stuff, which isn't impossible by any no.
But I would argue that if you know, if this was the one that popped, they've probably done it multiple times.
Possibly unless it's just unless it's just some dude wandering, because it's far enough away that it doesn't necessarily like when you look at this, you don't immediately think this is larger than a human being normally, is right, So we'd need, you know, to paraphrase Reddit, we'd need a banana for scale. We need like someone who's a confirmed human being, yes, repeating the same motions as right, to see how high the shrub.
So let's do it.
And to answer my own question, the nineteen sixty seven footage which we've seen screenshot it as a still maybe even more than we've seen the footage it was called the Patterson Gimlin film, which showed again the same gate the arms, you know, to the point where that's such a classic piece of cryptid ephemera that this whatever, if this is a hoax, unless again, this is just how these things move, and this is definitely real. Someone was mimicking this, you know, because the arms are swinging in
the exact same pattern. And I did not realize this, but in twenty fourteen Oxford Universe. Researchers investigated thirty hair samples, you know, that were purportedly belonging to these types of cryptids, and they matched every single one of them to other animals.
Yeah. I think we've probably mentioned the FBI did that too, write something similar a few decades earlier.
I think that must be right. But I'm only seeing the thing about the Oxford study.
Ye.
But yeah, but this New York Times article also quotes a guy named Ryan Willis who's twenty three and founded the Trent University Sasquatch Society, which hosts Sasquatch University, which is a reality show on the Wild Network that discusses
bigfoot sightings specifically in Ontario. And I do now remember from Bakar's place that Canada is another, you know, prime example of like, you know, a great location for sas sightings, and there certainly have been plenty because I mean, after all, Pacific Northwest, it's practically Canada.
You know, deciduous forests, you know, there's a lot of tree cover. And this I think, Matt, you may be onto something. I think maybe this is a field trip for us. We can see, we get we need one guy on the train, Yes, we need another person. I like, okay, how is this not you got the best stretch for that?
Yeah?
What if it's a hobo who is going to hop the rails and is waiting for Amtrak to pass by, but they're no because they're going at speed and I don't think there there's not a safe way to hop on a train.
Not these types of stretches, like there's no no access it is it is moving very fast.
Do you think?
Okay, what if it's a guy just like a regular dude out there and squatted because they didn't want to be seen, or squatted because they had to poop or whatever. Uh, what if they don't know that they have gone viral and have become you know, the subject of a New York Times article, or what if they do know? HOWM know? Whatever comes forward immediately and it's like, no, it's me, scummy Pete. I'm just riding the rails with a bendal and hobo.
Johnson, Yeah, yeah, you got me. I was out there speaking of poop.
Though. Ryan Willis, who I mentioned the Sasquatch University guy, is quoted in this New York Times article talking about how you know people send him footage all the time, different hair samples, and then he's quoted in saying, but nobody has sent us bigfoot poop right in the mail or anything.
That's one of our first that was our first questions encrypted episodes too, because anything that is closely related to a primate, especially when the great apes like humans or gorillas, they're going to exhibit predictable nesting behaviors. They'll Chimpanzees also are cleaner than humans when it comes to pooping. So maybe maybe Bigfoot is just more hygienic than the rest of the rest of the primates.
I mean, he's definitely got a luxurious main, no question about that. He's probably using that horse shampoo.
Yeah, you know, made.
Entail and if he's got some if he's got some specific wilderness and recon training, then he almost certainly buries his you know, buries his poop.
Yeah, because nobody, you know, you don't want to give away your.
Position or at least have a decent latrine. So we are going to become cryptid poop hunters. Is that the takeaway?
Why not?
You know?
At this point, what else is there?
What else is there?
Well, I think we've got I think we've gotten to the root of this one will be interesting to see if anything else comes of this. But it was enough for the old New York Times to write about it, so it's a very interesting clip. Let us know what you think. Look it up.
It's it's out there.
We're going to take a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and then come back to you with one more piece of strange news.
And we've returned. Guys, my obsession with water and water related things continues. I apologize to you and to everyone listening. I cannot get away from water for one reason or another.
Are most people obsessed with water?
Well made of like ninety percent of it or something along those yeah seventies.
I talked to my therapist this morning and he thinks it's it's a problem.
So it's okay. It's okay.
You're worried about those precious bodily fluids like the like the like the guy that goes crazy and doctor Strangelove.
That's exactly what's going on up in this brain.
We'll keep an eye on you, Matt Well, I think, yeah. But just to be fair, then if if you feel obsessed that I'm right there with you, man, because it's one of the It's one of the few requirements that no one can buy their.
Way out of yet.
Yeah.
Oh god, so you remember this other thing, per and polyfloral alkyl substances. Boy do I p fas you guys remember these forever chemicals?
Yeah, PFIs first.
I feel like we talk about them at least once a month here on stuff. I don't want you to know.
The frying pan and stuff right well, yes.
Exact frying pans stuff, but also eight ninety nine other chemicals besides teflon.
When you get a paper cup that doesn't instantly get soaked, the little barrier there is that it has, probably as PFA's definitely some microplastics.
Anything that a beat of water just like rolls right off.
Yes, probably a lot of it is the lining inside every Coca Cola can you've ever consumed.
I'm not going to think about it. Also the lined of popcorn bags.
Yeah, oh, it's in everything. Well, guys, the reason why those are scary and we've talked about on this show. Listen to several full episodes we've made on the subject.
Active conspiracies as well.
Oh yes, real conspiracies where human beings now understand the science behind why these carbon chains are so dangerous for humans because they don't break down when they get into your system, and they have a tendency to embed themselves within your system as they you know, move around in your blood stream or just go through your bowels or wherever they happen to find themselves as you consume more
and more every day. Every human being does this on the planet because they're in every source of water on the planet.
And if you're carrying a child, they're going to be in your kid too. So this is real cradle to the grave stuff. And it turns out that pfas may get you to your grave a little earlier.
Probably it's probably not going to have any effect on you immediately, right Generally they don't.
It's a long.
Game with these guys. As you said, cradles with the grave kind of thing. It's a huge problem. There are a lot of ways to clean up pollution that humanity has you know, found our way into right ways to clean up things like oil spills, what's what's some other horrible pollution of chemicals they get released when a train derails that aren't.
Bfas SHUTU East Postine and the countless other are the hundreds of other train accidents. Oh, nuclear waste.
There are ways that you can collect those substances pretty effectively and isolate them, Let's say, in a you know, ten to twenty foot concrete cube of some sort with pfas. There hasn't really been, at least within the up until a couple of years ago, a reliable way to destroy the chemicals once they contaminate something, especially a body of water.
Yeah, well, guys, huh it's changing. Oh, this is a positive story. This is a positive story.
Wanted to end on something positive, right.
The point is it is doom and gloom, but there's a glimmer of hope just over the horizon.
Silver lining.
There's a true Detective season one spoilers.
Yeah, is that when you get to see the universe open up above their heads?
Yea, and you hug it out with your best e Oh yeah, you know yeah, after the hospital visit. I remember that.
Oh, true to active season season coming, Tony Foster.
Yeah, it's called Night Country's cool. Apparently it's actually got ties back to the first one, at least in the has the same spiral.
Guys.
It's also in Alaska, so I hope to tie back to the meet those.
Oh man, we just learned that there's a Fallout TV show.
That was only a matter of time.
I mean it good material, guys, more good TV. Yay, And the Rider strikes sort of dealt with.
Let's just temper our expectations because you know that that's not about the video game, right, Oh isn't I No, it's about Fallout Boy.
Oh god, they were so good at the music festival.
They were pretty good.
Okay, So the hope in the future here on the horizon is a startup company from Tacoma, Washington called a Guaga again, a Guaga. That's how I would say, like you're irish, I don't think it's possible.
Oh no, wait wait wait, do it like Harry Careyguaga.
There we go.
That's good.
Seven million in contract. No, but this this company, I might say.
It more Aquaga's definitely I see you know what, Because I've got the little red line under it in my notes, it's reading as.
A g instead of a queue.
I want to say, I'll give you a soft que Yeah, I'll do it. I want to do it more like allow, like an accusation, you know, like god like.
So it makes a lot more sense that it's Aqua GA Aqua GA okay a q.
U A g g A. That's the company.
They have developed machines or a system that fits inside basically a one of these containers, like a shipping container, and so you would ship this device wherever there's a contaminated source of water. You run the contaminated water through their system, which subjects the water itself to tremendous pressure and heat, which is apparently enough to actually break down those crazy strong carbon chains, which again, up into this point, has been almost impossible to actually do, like to break
these things, and they can. They can set up shop and just process water and let it flow through it. I mean, guys, to me, it's amazing that it's even possible, because, like with oil, let's say you're cleaning up an oil
spill or something. Right often, at least what we've seen in gosh, the deep water Horizon situation at a couple others, there are attempts to like soak that stuff up and then either a send it to the bottom of the ocean so nobody can see it well, yeah, or gather it up and try and either reuse it or store it somewhere safely.
Or put it in an undeveloped or developing nation.
That is very true, like how the.
US will sometimes sell decommissioned craft for like a dot because and send it to shipbreakers because it's it's so much more expensive to properly break it down.
Dude.
Well, yes, sorry, we're being hot, but in this case they are actually breaking down the chemicals rather than having to store it safely somewhere the way you'd have to do with radioactive materials, right, with a really high rate of success too, right, yeah, crazy high rate of success, not as high as you can get.
Well, at least, here's the thing.
It's a startup company, right, So we have to remain a little bit skeptical because they are attempting to promote, to get more funding, to get more contracts. You know, they want me and you and everybody else to think everything is great. At a ninety nine percent destruction rate of pfas right, maybe it's a little off that mark, but even if they're close to that, for me, it's
a positive thing. Let me give you a little bit of this reporting out of Gee Choir where I'm learning some of this stuff, is titled Forever Chemicals Are Eternal, No more thanks to a pollution destroying the from Tacoma startup again. Already, just with that headline, it almost sounds like there's a press release involved somewhere in here, right, just because it's like, hey, it's this Tacoma startup. At least they didn't name the company right in the title.
That gives me a little hope that it's happened.
There are some agencies involved, some government agencies involved in their like sort of test, right.
Oh, yeah, the EPA.
They won basically grants from the EPA through showing off their technology and saying, hey, they're testing it, this is how it works. They were able to show that it was functional and they got money from the government. I'll tell you this from that article. They've landed four point seven million in contracts, awards, and demonstration projects that include partnerships with seven federal government agencies. So that's again, that's
pretty good sounding to me. They launched in twenty nineteen, and they won a contest, an EPA contest in twenty twenty, and then they just built their like basically in twenty twenty one, they built their first prototype and they've been testing it ever since. And let me just tell you the process here. According to the article, their weapon of PFAS destruction annihilates the pollutants in a device that can reach high pressure and temperature hitting five hundred and seventy
degrees fahrenheit. And then to that they add lie, which is a substance we've talked about many a time. It's in soaps, and it creates a caustic environment for these carbon chains, which then further breaks down these things. It says the conditions dismantle the pfas, breaking off the compound at its head and chopping up its spine of carbon molecules.
How they figure that out, I don't know that.
And finally lopping off the fluoride because remember these are per and polyfloral alkyl substances, so there's a fluoride involved in the chain, and it lops off that fluoride molecule that goes along the backbone of the entire chain, which is what keeps it stable. So, like, I don't really have much else to say on this, guys. Besides, this is super cool to me, and I hope there's more companies out there, and it sounds like it it sounds like there are a bunch of startups attempting to do this.
Yes, yeah, there's a lot of money going in from research institutes that a lot of which operate out of places like Georgia Tech here in Atlanta amazing, a lot of post stock work, a lot of private equity funds pouring money in. And Matt, I don't know if we got to it, but I got to give a shout out to the special The etymology of a.
Quaka oh yeah, tell you I I don't know it.
It's uh. It's named after an extinct animal, is a zebra at relative yeah, of the Zebras, So they call themselves the Zebras equaga a single quaga. Oh no pun left behind hashtag no pun left behind a quaga as because it sounds really awkward. But now when you hear why they named it that, it makes sense.
Well. They also categorize themselves as a zebra company instead of a unicorn company. Apparently unicorn company is a term like in VC type stuff for like some a company that's driven entirely by competition. But they say, we're more
of a zebra company. We want to cooperate, you know, with other organizations to help get rid of these PIFAs and another interesting partnership is the Federal Aviation Administration as well as the Alaska Department of Transportation and also the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, who I believe all three have contributed something at least to the two point five million dollar demonstration project that they did. That again, was I believe quite successful.
Man seems pretty positive.
Opposite of killer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's going to take more and more companies like this, more and more private public collaborations. I know it's easy for us to become cynical when you think about you know, one of the first answers, at least in the West is how do we monetize this right? And hopefully, as humanity has already arrived at an ecological tipping point, hopefully people can start redefining profit as something beyond simply financial terms.
Yeah, benefit to humanity overall would be a great metric.
How do you measure that?
Though?
Let us know, we would love to hear the answers. If you have if you have the solution to this, if you have participated in a chop shop, if you are the guy that those folks think was Bigfoot, or if you are Bigfoot, you know or whatever, or if you've seen something along those lines, let us know. You can reach us on all the social media outlets of notes. We are Conspiracy Stuff Show on x FKA, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram and TikTok.
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