From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They call 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. If you are tuning in to our strange news program, The Evening It publishes, let us be the first to welcome you to Monday, April twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Welcome to April.
It's so spooky. Wait, this isn't the spooky?
Is that an RSKA impression? That's pretty good?
No, No, just spooking would be like welcome.
If he has a waiver, he has a bit of h he's got to make him a cryptkeeper knows it's very hard to do that voice without choking on your own spit.
I also learned recently guys on the Daily zeite guys that, apparently as a ute Tom Waits would scream into his pillow to help create his raspy voice.
Do that every night, just in the state of the world.
What it's like, the most screamable pillow.
Oh, it's just the my pillow.
Yeah great, that guy's in the news as well as Yeah.
Oh real quick up top, I just wanted to ask you guys something, since you're having a minute to catch us. I was watching some YouTube doom scrolly type things. A little shorts have been up on the shorts lately, and somebody pointed out a new arrangement for the press briefing room at the White House, which is essentially a standing
room section that is devoted to quote unquote new media. Yeah, but a lot of these folks, one of which I saw a quote from whose name escapes me, represents particularly far right unless, let's just say journalists, journalist d kind of news.
I thought I thought you were going to say, No, I thought you were going to say, represents the Lollipop Kids.
That's also true, definitely Lollipop Guild. Indeed, lollipip gild.
You're absolutely correct. By the way, I did write to the current administration because they have an open h application online where you can request to be a as a new media member podcaster, you can request credentials, and to be all out there.
I guess what I was getting at is it seems like, since it is at the discretion of the White House Press Secretary as to who gets to ask questions, when the deck is stacked.
A little bit with some of these let's call.
Them sympathetic folks end up opinion generating lot of news bites that are very pro administration, and some of these folks literally ask just I mean, beyond softball questions like isn't it.
True that's the best president in the history of the concept of humanity? Isn't it true that you're also fun at parties?
It is very much that vibe, and it just I don't know, maybe I'm stating the obvious here. Doesn't it feel like at ploy or a tactic to erode journalism, to erode the idea of what constitutes journalism, And obviously it fits in with the whole concept of the fake news and it just feels another like a very nineteen eighty four kind of thing.
That's all.
Yeah, guy, Speaking of tertiary characters in your favorite movies, can we talk about how dirty The Lost Boys did?
Rufio didn't talk about this.
Yeah, oh my gosh, this is going to be our cold open.
I just listened to a discussion on my favorite podcast, blank Check with Griffin and David about Hook and.
I seriously, yeah, I watched it last night.
Well, Banger Rang Bang Rang.
Indeed, listen to the episode, Matt, You're going to be fresh on all the details. And it's a great podcast in and of itself. But they're doing the latter day career of Steven Spielberg. They do directors kind of filmographies in series, and there was so much I forgot about Hook and I've been It's been on my.
List to rewatch as well. It's not good right, like.
It's it's amazing.
Okay, what do you it's banger range. They invented the word banger range.
I remember their clubhouse was a kid's dream come true.
Everybody's eating like brightly colored gag.
That's exactly right, and skateboarding.
I want to say it reminded me of the Foot Clans hideout in the first Ninja Turtles movie, which made made me when to join the gang.
It really made.
It's a very specific vibe for the nineties.
This is nineteen ninety one.
And yes, uh, they're imagining eating magically colored stuff.
And if you believe Robin Williams, if you believe in the power of imagination, then you'll never be hungry again.
Okay, that's nice, dude, Rufio spoiler alert ready three two to one. When Ruffio takes that hit from Dustin Hoffman, right, Captain, Yes, he dies immediately and everybody just he's going and that's it.
They did him so dirty in hook. I do remember, I do remember watching that thinking what happened to the power of imagination? Can't they just like believe this guy back into life?
Dang man, that's a good point. You think they could just does it? Snap your fingers? Clap your hands, that's you clap your hands. Yeah yeah, watch out for that uh, watch out for that gator. We're going to talk about some likewise surreal things. We had had some conversations off Mike about people who that we've already we've already dunked on this industry before getting to not white space, edging
into space for maybe ten to eleven minutes. Uh, as we're recording this, there's going to be a huge merger on the horizon for credit card companies so any credit card companies in the audience tonight, that one's going to be for you. Please don't get on a list when you are.
Please don't get on a list with your personal medical records. We've got so much to get to. A new crime just dropped that I think we all will learn about. We're gonna have ken you come up in a little bit. But before we do any of that, why don't we take a break for a word from our sponsors, and we'll come back with some credit where do and some FDA news.
And we're back.
We're getting federal government up in here, everybody.
The sexiest thing to say at a party.
Oh yeah, let's talk federal government, guys. On April twenty second, Reuters reported US f DA suspends milk quality tests amid workforce cuts. Right, you know what I like? Untested milk?
Yeah, yeah, we're talking about this earlier. You know, would I walk through a grocery store. What I like to feel is the sensation of risk, you know what I mean. I like to think we're rolling beat me here, Dylan. I like to think we're rolling the in dice, you know what I mean?
Oh?
Yeah?
Is there cyclospora in this milk or cheese, maybe bird flu.
Does this figure into the conversation around raw milk? Isn't DARFK a big fan of raw milk, and it's sort of been like state by status to whether it's legal or not unprocessed, unpasteurized milk.
Raw it may. But in this case, this is the agency, the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, that is suspending its proficiency testing for Grade A raw milk and finished products. So any milk you can buy that would be considered Grade A that you buy in your store shelves, the kind for human consumption, it is suspending the testing for that.
So the assumption is it's probably fine, nothing to worry about.
Uh, yeah, everything's fine.
I can't about yeah.
To be clear, nothing is improving for the cows.
Yep, cows still in their enclosures, continually just given milk through all kinds of weird tubing.
And are they okay? So they're suspending their quality control. But Matt, from what I understand, the argument is that the FDA is outsourcing this or transferring Hey.
Yeah, okay. According to the FDA, it's being transferred to this place, the FDA's Moffit Center Proficiency testing laboratory is quote no longer able to provide laboratory support for proficiency testing and data analysis.
This is all according to an email official that was sent.
However, a Health and Human Services spokesperson said the laboratory was Don't worry, guys, already set to be decommissioned before the staff cuts, and proficiency testing will be paused during the transition to a new laboratory. But product testing will continue, guys, It will continue.
All right. Wait, question, what's the difference between proficiency testing and product testing?
Who knows?
Who knows? There's a proposed forty billion dollar cut currently happening at the agency via the Trump administration. And this is also really coming about because of the twenty thousand employees that were lost from the Department of Health and Human Services. So you know, milk testing will happen. It just won't be happening in the same way by the same people at the same places. It'll just be new, guys, and new is better, he said, hopefully, speaking of changes
in the federal government. Guys, the SEA recently had to say sorry, we can't help you to a couple of cities. They were dealing with some lad stuff officials in Milwaukee and Wisconsin's state health department formally requested the CDC's help on March twenty sixth, after many of the city's schools were found to have quote significant lead hazards exposing children, and according to CBS News and Alexander ten on April eleventh, the CDC basically reached out and said, no, we cannot
help you. A statement from the email received by CBS News is quote, I sincerely regret to inform you that due to the complete loss of our LED program, we will be unable to support you with this. As in, because of the staff cuts at the federal level at the CDC, there is no longer a LEAD program that can help out any city, state, whatever, with testing lead and providing basically ways to fit a LET exposure problem like within a school per chance, or maybe a citywide problem.
Yeah, despite the fact that there are pretty rigorous studies showing LET exposure, especially during formative years, can have consequences down the road. It's it's kind of a thing we were talking about off air. We have an episode coming up on let exposure and it's a I mean, Matt Noel, Dylan, Folks at home it's a blood bath over there right now.
Like the amount of cuts. I think we all probably have a couple of friends who were working in public service who were unceremoniously given their walking papers or they got that really weird email for voluntary resignation, depending on their department. I'm gonna say it, I don't think this is like a good idea long term. If you if you support the US as a as a ONCET.
I would agree with you. Other officials, like within this story about Milwaukee schools, they are saying, this is why it is so important to have state level and local level folks who do things like test products, you know, milk, test for lead in pipes and then know how to actually go through a triage and help the students or you know, human beings who've been exposed to that lead, and then fix the pipes that have the lead in them that are seeping it into the water supply. They're
basically it's an interesting argument. It's both we no longer have help at the federal level, but also this is why we need to be as good as whoever those folks were at the local and state level, Which is an interesting argument, right because there are budgets, you know, local and state budgets to maybe create things like this. It's just how much of that money coming in via whatever taxes or whatever incentive programs do you actually put towards health and human services stuff?
Right? And how different should should thresholds and priorities and accuracy be from state.
To state city right?
Or city to city? Right? Yeah. People who are critics of the current direction are going to argue that this feels like Balkanizing the United States, turning each of the fifty states into their own sort of sovereign territory with an erosion of federal law. And there is I mean, not to be alarmists, there is some validity to that argument. Like what if you imagine, oh gosh, what's a city.
A lot of people don't think about Bismarck. Right, Okay, so we're in Bismarck and people love Bismarck because now it's a tourism advertisement thing to say, hey, we're known for not having poison in the milk. Yeah, come to Bismarck. You know what, the town of clean milk. M hm.
Yeah.
It's just weird because how do you test all of the products coming into Bismarck. I mean, how you test every single how do you do that?
How do you afford it?
You know, I feel like you.
Need a federal program or something larger, at least sitting on top of everybody who's producing a product and say, hey, those folks are going to look at everything.
If not, I don't know, welcome.
To El Paso. You might get a finger in the chili.
But the milk is just following.
Guys, let's continue a little bit on a previous discussion we've had before about Red thirty, that is an artificial petroleum based food dye that recently we talked on the show about how the US government is looking to cut that out, cut it out of our food supplies. If you imagine that scene, if you have seen the nineteen ninety one Banger Rang of a film hook, you may imagine the props department using a whole crap ton of petroleum based food dies to create those I don't know, sloppy pies.
They're basically they're like neon colored gack, but also rufio.
Yes, that was prime Nickelodeon's slime time, you know, zwise, Yeah, for sure.
Well they sure used it a whole bunch and now the FDA again, the Food and Drug Administration at the federal level of the US government, is phasing out the use of petroleum based synthetic dies by the end of the year, according to an announcement by the agency that occurred yesterday as we're recording Tuesday for twenty second. This comes to us via CNBC. By the way, guys, this
could be huge, it's not. It's one of those things we talked about even before all of this other stuff, when we talked about food additive so that are allowed within the United States government according to the FDA, and those same food additives that are banned in most other countries. Yeah, and how maybe it's a good idea to jump on the old bandwagon and get those out of our systems as well. The FDA appears to be taking steps.
The people left at the FDA appear to be taking steps.
Yes, and specifically I was gonna say Robert Downey Junior, but it's not him. It's the other guy and Robert Kennedy Junior. But but anyway, it is interesting that it's happening now. We're talking red forty, yellow five, yellow six, jazz all getting out of here, including red three.
So I'm not read three.
Yes, read three is the reason we started this show.
I only drink sports beverages that have read three in them.
I will die on that hill, possibly literally.
As an entity that doesn't have, like you, guys, full spectrum of color. I appreciate that the additives have numbers beside them.
They just make the bevy hit different.
You know that's right?
Well, guys, According to FDA Commissioner Marty McCarey, the agency FDA plans to authorize four additional color additives using natural ingredients in the next few weeks, so maybe even by the time you're hearing this, they are also expecting to review and approve other natural ingredient colors.
Cool. How do we define natural.
Well, it's not based in the stuff we pull out out of the ground and then refine and put in our vehicles. Cool, which is very natural, I suppose in a way. One last thing, and they were getting out of here for the segment Huge news. Yes, I don't know what's in your wallet, but this one company is really stoked if they've got one of their pieces of plastic in your wallet.
Uh.
Capital one.
Uh.
They had this little idea. They said, why don't we buy Discover Financial Services and Discover Bank for around thirty five billion dollars thirty five point three to be exact reason, Let's buy that and let us become the credit card company that exists on the planet, like the biggest one. And the Federal Reserve had to check it out. The guess who else guys the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency You had to check out the dealer.
Unclear still to this.
Day, yeah, yeah, yeah, and the parliamentarian.
What's the deal again, I'm sorry, we gotta we got to remind everybody.
The comptroller is the person with the stamps and the signage.
They go, yes, they troll the comps, so they're like a mega notary basically.
No, No, they're the one that checks off every thing, like the last line of defense for fiscal things services depending on when you're.
In right to them, Matt, I like that, the last line of defense that's got to them. They probably make custom stamp too, last light of fiscal defense. And they, despite that excellent tagline match just gave them. They co signed what is arguably a problematic monopolization of one of the most sensitive parts of Western life.
Yeah, it's pretty weird. It's pretty weird.
Capital One has around one hundred million card holders, Discover had around three hundred millions. So then you put them all together, that's four hundred million cards out there. That's not individual cardholders if you had those two up, because
many many folks have multiple cards. It is interesting with the two of these companies combined because they have often targeted folks who are considered by these financial services to be either lower income or lower on the credit scale, so around a credit score around six hundred, and they offer cards often with cash back and things like that that the financial services like Capital One and Discover and Visa and all of them say are more popular with
folks of lower income. That is what that's the way they talk about it. Sure, it's really gross.
Actually, he Evikre just had a happy accident. Companies money.
Sure, well, but basically they're they're teaming up to make one giant financial credit services group with huge interest rates. And I don't want to say praying on anybody.
I just mean, I mean, you kind of have to if you're being accurate, but we don't want to say it. That doesn't make it not true.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, because there's a There are a bunch of credit card issuing banks like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, City Group, Wells Fargo, a bunch of them that are like, we're a bank, but we also offer credit cards.
This is like.
One of the primary ones that are going after people who don't have a lot of money and can't afford to, you know, pay seventeen twenty three thirty percent interest rates on stuff.
Isirious.
Yeah, anyway, have fun with that one. We'll see where all of that goes. Guess who's really happy the shareholders. Everybody who owned Discover stock just got a bunch of capital one stock. Discover stock was upwards of one hundred dollars per share, and your capital one is well above that. So everybody who held shares is going to make a crap ton of money.
Everybody at the meeting is having a great day.
That's a great way to put it.
Everybody at the met have a great day. Also, if we could always be closing. If you want to learn more about the history of credit cards as a concept and why credit scores are absolutely ridiculous, check out our pure podcast Ridiculous History. Matt. We're still trying to get you to come back on the show.
It's gonna happen.
We're gonna twist one day. I'll do that thing, but not right now. Right now, we're gonna hear a word from our sponsors.
And we've returned with a with a oh man, this is a real chestnut. Is that a thing? It's an old chest nut. Whatever they are, they are, and they're
tough nuts to crack. Apparently, as often is the case with a conspiracy theory run amuck, we do live in a time where disinformation seems to be more prevalent than ever, with all these accusations of fake news media and fake news story and miss and disinformation and dare we say, outright propaganda all over the world, and very much in this country of ours, the United States of America, with all of that stuff flowing around, kind of muddies the waters to an alarming degree in terms of what is
to be believed, what is to be taken at face value, And for good reason.
I mean, we have deep fakes.
We have more and more convincing uses of artificial intelligence machine learning rather to create images that never really existed that absolutely look convincing.
Video footage have even gotten hands better.
I don't know if you guys have seen that, but the AI modeling tools are much much better at generating hands. That was always the big tell as to whether something was AI slop or not. This story isn't about AI necessarily. This story is about space and conspiracies surrounding a particularly I don't know, self congratulatory Let's just call it PR space flight from Jeff Be's Blue Origin Space Program space company. He's a competing, of course with Elon Musk's SpaceX and
definitely making some headway in terms of privatized spaceflight. Whatever you think about that as a concept, it is happening, and Bezos is one of the figures at the forefront of that.
I guess.
As a way of drawing attention to his efforts, he and his company devised a PR stunt photo op.
Let's just call it.
We're in a handful of celebrities who are women were gathered together, six of them in fact, for an eleven minute spaceflight into near Earth orbit.
I believe about.
Space, not quite space, near Earth orbit. I believe about sixty three miles above the Earth's atmosphere, which is high enough to achieve zero gravity. Type effects and all of that good stuff. The Internet, however, as it is wont to do, is calling foul on this whole thing, saying
that it never really happened, that it was simulated. The very familiar sounding conspiracy theories, given all of the talk around the faked moon landing, the supposed faking of the moon landing, the idea that it was something that was devised and set up on a studio backlot in Hollywood, potentially even directed by the great Stanley Kubrick, all of that one of the classic conspiracy theories that we have talked about a great length on this show.
But that is true. By the way, Stanley Kubrick did fake the moon landing. Cool okay, such an awe tour. He said, the only way they could do it realistically is to fake the moon landing on the moon.
Oh yeah, he was like the proto Christopher Nolan. That's what Christopher Nolan would do.
Like, there were all these jokes surrounding the idea that he actually wanted to detonate an atomic bomb, you know, for the shot in Oppenheimer.
So the women in question are Katie Perry. One.
Katie Perry, pop star of Matt pointed out, I kissed a Girl. I think was her first big hit, Firework, which I think is an absolute banger. I'm quite a big fan of Firework, and then Our Fireworks perhaps, And then a little later she had a song that was pretty inescapable called dark Horse, with a pretty laughable verse or feature from the rapper Juicy Jay, wherein he compares the Beast of Karma to Jeffrey Dahmer in that it can eat your heart out. So that's a real clever
turn of phrase in there. But I quite enjoy some
of the music of Katie Perry. She has a late kind of been lampooned quite a bit by pop culture aficionado's media critics, et cetera, because I don't know, she did this whole kind of like the feminist kind of rollout for her most recent record, and it just came off very very heavy handed and very very kind of look at me, rather than actually speaking to real things behind the idea of feminism and empowering women, etc. It was just, I don't know, kind of a little bit
tone deaf, you know, the rollout of that record she had. I think she were, like, you know, she was dressed up as like Rosie the Riveter and things like that in a music video, and it just pretty much got absolutely crapped on by just about anybody, and the record.
Did not do well.
She does have a world tour coming up, and I guess what better way of promoting your world tour than participating in an elaborate spaceflight pr event. So was Katy Perry, along with Gail King. Gail King is Oprah's best friend. Oprah and Gail that's right, I'm sorry, a friend of the show, Anna Host. I have a daily Zeitgeist, fame and other things, lots colch Srista's all the big hits
these days. Just I saw she posted from a Broadway play that she recommended, the name of which is Escaping Me, but said that Gail and Oprah were sitting right behind her, so it had their seal of approval. So along with Katie and Gail, we also had Lauren Sanchez, who is a journalist, helicopter pilot, and also the author of a children's book called like Fritz the Fly or something like that. I like beginning the name wrong, but she's also Jeff Bezos,
Blue Origin and Amazon CEO's fiance partner. We also have Amanda Wynn, who is a civil rights activist, two advocates for victims of sexual assaults and bio astronautics research scientists, something that she also does, and she has worked with NASA in the past on the Space Shuttle mission STS one thirty five as well as NASA's exo planet Terry
Kepler space telescope. So no slouch there. We also have film producer Carrie Ann Flynn and a former NASA rocket scientist and CEO of engineering firm stem Board and founder of a company called Lingo that teaches students technology skills.
Her name is Aisha Bo. So all of these women canned in one of Blue Origins, West Texas launch facilities for a big televised event wherein they boarded the ship the Shuttle I guess should call it, were blasted off into space and then posted videos from their near earth orbit zero G experience and then returned back to Earth. The whole thing lasted a whoppings twelve minutes I believe, and this took place on April fourteenth, as we sit here on April twenty third.
What's the Internet stand.
Well, there's a couple of points as to what they believe or the collective they believe.
Is happening here.
There was one particular clue that was highlighted quite frequently, which is that when the ship landed, or it's called the believe the New Shepherd is the name of the pod or the shuttle when it landed. As part of the ceremony of it all and the kind of photo op of it all, Jeff Bezos was supposed to open the the door, the pod door, let's just call in for saying sci fi about it, with this special tool. But before he got to it, you can actually see
the door opening inward and then quickly being closed. Okay, So a lot of folks on the internet seem to believe that the door should not have been able to open from inside because it it's supposed to be pressurized, and if it were to be openable in that direction, that the pressure of space could potentially, you know, force it open.
So that's one thing.
However, according to NASA, hatch doors should in fact be able to be opened by a single crew member without any special tools from both sides. So the idea here would be that they opened it kind of jumped the gun and then realizing they had made a mistake, closed it really quickly and allowed Jeff Bezos.
To have his photo op.
The Daily Mail reports on this, and that is their conjecture, and that is confirmed by some NASA scientists that they spoke with. This whole mission, by the way, is called taking up Space, and the idea was that it was meant to promote stem education for young women. All of the crew members were these fashionable, more fashionable than your average space suit, very star treki honestly blue skin tight
jumpsuits that were designed by Lauren Sanchez. The central image that I'm talking about is the one that is causing folks to do a little bit of a head scratch, at least.
On the Internet.
With all this talk of illuminati conspiracies surrounding celebrities and you know dark satanic rituals, even dating back to things like Pizzagate, the idea of the elite participating in these you know, dark occult kind of activities. If you look at the image, it is kind of a you know, a space pod kind of image stylized with stars and all of that stuff. It has the names of the crew members emblazoned around the edges with a little corresponding
icons for each of them. Katy Perry gets a shooting star microphone kind of thing, and the filmmaker gets a little real of film. But if you flip it upside down, it really does start to resemble the head of our good old buddy, the dark Prince himself, Lord Baphamet, who is often used as a symbol of the Church of Satan, which as we know, isn't necessarily interested in the actual worship of Satan in the occult. They are more of an organization about civil liberty and about you know, owning
one's own destiny. Do what thou wilt, Let that be the whole of the law and all of that good stuff. Bapha Met for them is more of a symbol of protests and of you know, kind of being down on the man or you know, rejecting authority and all that.
So when you flip it upside down, it does kind.
Of look like a goat shaped head with a snout at the bottom. The wings of the craft be come the horns, and yeah, it's causing some folks to really, you know, call into question whether or not this thing was a pr stunt or some sort of elaborate Satanic ritual. There's an image that's also being noted where Katy Perry is seen holding her hand over the patch, supposedly indicating
her swearing her allegiance to the Lord Bapha Met. One observer on x commented, Katy Perry swearing her allegiance by placing her hand adoringly and lovingly over her Bapha met logo. They tell you in so many ways who they worship. Some folks even pointed out that in twenty eleven, Katy Perry had a music video for her song e Tea,
wherein she is depicted with goat legs. Goat like legs, of course, a long standing symbol often related to like Pan or other kind of pagan depictions of satyrs, and of course Bapha Met himself.
So what do you guys think? Do you see it? It is kind of entertaining.
There's also people talking about how an upside down cross can be seen as well, if you really you know, if you squint at it enough.
Yeah, while you were walking us through, shared one of those images with that badge upside down and I can totally see the paradelia of it for sure.
Just here. Let's uh, let's that about pattern seeking right, that's where you that's the human tendency to maybe see faces or see patterns where there might not be. So I'm going to reshare uh this uh, this thing you were describing there for everybody as we can like as we're as we're all looking at it now, would love to hear just like group reactions. You know, I I I get that if you are looking for something, you are going to find the thing you are looking for
for sure. Not to sound like roomy, but.
No, yeah, I get it's very as end of you.
Ben another comment or had this to say, really sums the whole thing up. Did you notice the logo on Katie Perry and her fellow Blue Origin space traveler's patch is the Satanic goat with an upside down cross If you flip it over, goat horns celebs fake space. I don't think space is in question here, but perhaps fake space travel also acknowledging a reference to Two Corinthians eleven fourteen, Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Yeah, but Baphabet's not Satan.
No, no, he's not.
So like, let's get our lore together real for.
Sure, Baha met would be perhaps considered like one of the lesser demons, kind of like in the what is it the Key of Solomon? Sort of like Paymon and all of that stuff. Baphamet is is he like a prince of Hell? What's what's Baphamet's deal?
Well, bapha Met the name is relatively young as far as the the demon game goes, but Bathamet had had the distinct privilege of being part of the accusations against the Knights Templar.
That's right, and also considered a misinterpretation of Islamic beliefs. Some scholars believe that the name is a corruption of Mahammet or Mohammed right, right.
This leads some historians or speculators to argue that the Templars were indeed to some degree following is law.
And if I'm not mistaken, ben, aren't the Knights Templark often lumped in with Illuminati conspiracies?
Isn't that sort of part of it?
They know what they did, that's fair?
Okay, So this is it does feel like part of that larger conspiracy bubble of you know, celebrities being in some way inducted into some sort of shadowy secret cabal accusations have often flown around surrounding even like choreography of like Beyonce. I think there was some some stuff talking
about Beyonce and jay Z are part of this. And recently Coachella took place in the Indio Valley there in California, and a lot of articles started swirling after Lady Gaga's performance accusing that of being some sort of Satanic ritual. So this isn't like the first, you know, satanic rodeo. It's maybe just the first one that's accused of happening in space, So you know, I know we're running along
in this. There's a couple other quick points I'd like to hit, one being that when Katie Perry was in space, she holds up a little butterfly sticky note kind of thing, apparently it's really hard to read, has text on it indicating her set list for her upcoming tour that I
was mentioning earlier. However, some Internet conspiracy theorists have said that that is actually a reference to MK Ultra and a form of mind control, because apparently the image of the monarch butterfly representing metamorphosis and change has been long associated with that program, which is actually something I didn't fully realize, but it does make sense.
So there's that.
There's also a thing about like a fake hand that was visible, Ben, Do I see you nodding? That one sort of flummecks me a little bit. I didn't quite get to the bottom of that one.
There's a still that's going around as well as some video footage after the capsule comes down of a view through the window where there's a shiny looking hand that many people in line have said, Hey, that's a mannequin's hand.
That's a fake hand in the window.
But again it's pretty baseless. It's just kind of the whole. I don't know the rumor thing starts.
Guys.
I'm looking at that image again of the capsule flipped around, the actual mission image.
This is the patch. Yeah, they're the logo.
Right.
This is an all female mission. It is about taking up space and promoting promoting stem for girls.
Right.
Yes, think about what the blue Origin space crafts look like. They look like, so they do and not all.
Of that, Not all of that is due to necessary function.
There's a little bit of aesthetic interesting carry me.
Ben, this this image of the spacecraft is tilted in such a way that it looks a little less phallic. I think that was done purposefully. So I think any shapes you're getting when you flip it over are due to the desire to make it look a little less like a huge dog.
That's a really good point, Matt. So it's a PR move.
It is further apart and parcel of the policity stunt ness of it.
All right, Well, it's.
One hundred percent of PR move. We were talking off Mike before we recorded tonight's program where I had asked someone to explain who Katy Perry was because I'm super plugged into human culture. And then the next part becomes this, It would be fascinating to look at the financials a Blue Origin and see whether this sort of PR stunt is actually financially advantageous to them. Right, you can take
the hit. You can take the PR hit if the investors are still coming through, because now they like your mission more and they get to say, oh, look at that badge. Blue Origin doesn't look that much like a penis we should give them money.
That's a very good point, Ben, and I will will say too that the biggest takeaway from this whole thing is just the sort of tone deafness of it all.
Kardashian, the.
Pepsi percent that aspect, you know, Katy Perry coming down and making these very kind of lackadaisical claims of like, you know, we've heard of this idea of the overview effect, and it is I'm sure it's very cathartic, and it's something that maybe we can all one day experience as well, But right now, the ability to experience that for regular
folks is absolutely out of range. Out of reach in terms of price, like I believe it costs about a million dollars once space tourism truly begins, you know, in earnest.
That's about what you're looking to pay.
Are we making The real question here philosophically is if we are making space, are we making space in this conversation for other people who are not celebrities at multimillionaires or is it just sort of like Jeff Bezos and Blue Orged pitching ideas and not really hearing responses.
One hundred percent that and then funny that you should say, Ben, I think your version of the mission name is a little less tone deaf. The real version was taking up space, which is kind of what these billionaires do, you know, in terms of taking stuff that other people could benefit from and not giving back.
So to me, like taking up space is just sort.
Of absolutely ill conceived, and like I was getting Tokadiy Perry making these comments of you know, you never know truly how much love you have to give until you've gone to space.
It's like, cool, I guess we'll just have to, you know, settle.
On the amount of love that we are aware that we have to give without having that experience that you shared, Katie Perry.
So there you go.
I don't know, it just felt a little gross to me. I don't think it was faked. I do think that stuff is interesting and very much part and parcel of the kind of thought experiments that we enjoy on this show.
But all of it checks out.
I think it happened, and I think the fact that it did happen is maybe even more offensive and obnoxious than if it were faked, which why would they do that. I will say one thing that hasn't been addressed that I do think is interesting. I did see a video of an actual, actual astronaut, a woman whose name is escaping me. I apologize from I believe the International Space Station, where her hair is absolutely up completely, you know, in like, you know, a huge mess of hair. Katie Perry's hair
was much less unkempt looking. It was just gently kind of hovering. I would argue that maybe the difference is how deep in space you are that would increase the gravitational effect.
Am I right?
That if you're further into space more than just sixty three miles, you're gonna have a heavier amount of zero gravity effect that would maybe cause your hair to react differently.
What do you guys think about that?
We'll never know.
I guess not. I guess not.
Well, what we do know is we're going to take quick break here a word from our sponsor, then come back with another piece of strange news.
And we have returned. There is a lot of stuff we're not going to get to, but we will follow up on the promise of a new crime that just dropped Dylan. If we could get an air horn, perfect, we welcome to wildlife piracy cool a crime that that we like for a very real thing. Just earlier this April, as reported by Evelyd Moussambif for ap News, two Belgian teenagers were charged with this crime wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants. They were smuggling ants.
They're nineteen year olds, apparently they they were arrested on April fifth in Kenya at a guesthouse with five thousand ants in their possession and they going.
Into the ant farm business. They what to what end?
They said they were collected ants for fun. They didn't know it was illegal. If you guys go to the article I mentioned there and shared, it looks like a professional operation. They have the ants and these tiny graduated cylinders.
When is this a score for ants?
And what it gives me? One of my favorite recent government statements, which is this the illegal export of the ants not only undermines Kenya's sovereign rights over its biodiversity, but it also deprives local communities and research institutions of potential ecological and economic benefits. So word to the wise. Remember when in Rome followed Roman law right, So so no breaking the laws of the land that let you in. Also, don't steal ants. I guess I don't know.
I just love how is one to know?
I mean, I feel like we've all about scale, we've all accidentally stolen ants.
It must be about scale, right, Like it's at a certain point you're like mining a resource and maybe you have to report that to the proper wildlife authorities. Like is it illegal for me to collect ants from my backyard and make myself a little ant farm situation?
It depends on what kind of ant, honestly, and where you're dangered ants, right, Because there's a very good, fascinating, I should say, if not very good argument about which life worm on Earth is the most successful. And when it comes to higher order multi cellular life forms, ants get a lot of a lot of credit for that because of their adaptations. They do things without anthropomorphizing that could seem very human and not. We're not talking about
just the nice things. There are ants that enslave other creatures, things like that, like they got the classic human. I'm bringing this up, Matt. Do you have any thoughts before we move on this one.
I didn't know that that amount of ants is worth around seven dollars.
And I think we've all accidentally smuggled some insects before, not naming names, but you know, we might go on hikes and fine, we've accidentally smuggled some ticks.
I smuggled a tick on my butt.
Basically, it's your story to tell.
Bro.
I didn't know.
I was in the shower and he was like, hey, I'm down here, man, what's going on?
And I was like, stop, dude, that out.
That is a perfect tick act. By the way, Yeah, people.
Don't I don't know.
He was just doing his thing. But yeah, and now I'm on antibiotics.
So thanks tick. Oh seriously, yes, just in.
Case, in case I don't want to get that lime disease.
Also, yeah, lime disease episode has been the works for a few years here. But yeah, we're mentioning this because it's a funny story. I regret to inform friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realists that these two young men did not, in fact have the ants in their pandemic, so missed opportunity on that. We're going to take a sudden shift in direction. We're going to stay with Kenya in a
few years back. You guys may remember in twenty twenty three, we covered a story in our Strange News program about a death cult in Kenya, mass suicide, Oregon theft. This is one of those rare situations that made international news.
Remember talking about this. Possibly that's been a minute. I do remember that the basics though.
Yeah, more than two hundred people died at the time of reporting, six hundred were reported missing. And now we have another story coming to us via Reuters. Reuters has reported that two bodies were recovered from a church in Kenya and the discovery has not just the local population but the authorities worried that there may be another kind
of starvation or self harm cult in play. The bodies were retrieved from the premises of Saint Joseph Missions of Africa Church in Macgory County and this like just happened. We're recorded on April twenty third. This happened a couple days ago. And you know we I always try to keep the eye on these on the cult activities. In addition to the two cadavers, they rescued almost sixty people who were being held there against their will.
Okay, doesn't sound good.
Yeah, it's not good.
And apparently they went to the hospital right, or they were sent to the hospital, but then they reacted differently.
Right when they were This is the part about what the nature of consent, right, because, as you're saying, Matt, when they rescued these fifty seven people and took them to a nearby hospital for medical care. Many of them refused treatment and instead began to sing religious songs. This is creepy, yeah, yeah, but if people are adults, then you know, they can do what they want, right as long as they're not harming others, Oh for sure.
But I just mean it just seems a little bit like.
A spooky I don't know, like, were they doing this in protest like or is it this is seeming spontaneous, like they're reacting to some unforeseen indoctrination or force or something.
I guess I'm just confused.
Yeah, things are getting things are getting hairy there. And this is a story that we need to keep an eye on because these charismatic cult like institutions, right, they can they can do serious harm to people, and you're not going to be able to tell sometimes as an investigator or as just you know, bystander walking by, unless you're in the inner circle, and it can these conspiracies
can have real life consequences. Obviously, we're not here to denigrate anybody's you know, personal beliefs, but if your institution of belief is asking you to do things that cause harm to yourself or others, it's time to take a quick think. Maybe take a walk around the block, you know what I mean, Get a case ida right, listen
to some jazz. I don't know. I don't know what the answers are, but I wanted to bring this up because we have an upcoming episode, a continuing an installment, and a continuing series on cults you've never heard of. So this is a claring poll to all of our fellow listeners to please let us know about some other cults that you think the public should be aware of before there's another Waco situation or another Jonestown, which unfortunately, historically is always a non zero possibility.
Ben, I sent to you guys in our group text another kind of alarming cult. I think maybe that was it. It was one that I was like questioning whether or not we had covered because it had some things in common with.
The Mother Love. I believe the one that there was.
A documentary made recently about. I'll have to put my finger on what that was. To your point, though, Ben, there's more than enough new entries for an updated episode coming.
Up right O. Yeah, agreed, And we actually didn't get to the story of that cult whose name begins with a Z, and we're short on time a little while back. But while we have everybody I've got, I've got one more thing that I think we do need to talk about. We can save some of the rest of it for a different program in the future. Guys, Mexican cartels, I'm just going to give you some keywords. Mexican cartels one,
casinos two, China three fentanyl four. I see, yeah, my money's run into the laundry like there's something smelly on me. Mexican cartels are using casinos to launder money made from fentanyl. In the US, at least one point four billion US dollars linked to various cartels that are working in a Charlie Day level red string map of proxy companies with with if not the knowing cooperation of Chinese regulatory bodies, at least with a wilful blind eye.
I mean money spends Jeeze.
Casinos a great place to launder money.
That's the old Vegas ad right.
Second to what happens in Vegas. Stays in Vegas.
Send your kids to the pool, launder the money. Circus circus, circus circus.
What a weird place, What a weird what a weird place.
Apparently, the relationship between Mexican cartels and Chinese businesses involved in the fentanyl supply chain goes way beyond just selling the stuff that you can use to make fentanyl, you know what I mean? Like, you can sell various metals, right you can. Yeah, you could sell various metals which could be a precursor to a firearm. You're not responsible for what happens to that metal after you sell it, right, If someone chooses to manufacture a gun, that's no longer
your remit. However, selling precursor chemicals and claiming well, I didn't know, only goes so far.
Yeah, you going, what else are they good for?
Right?
I mean is that the issue?
Fent Ugh? What is it good for? Yet? We're what we're finding is a couple of different things. I want to shout out the Latin Times and the journalist Ector Rios Morales, who had a great piece on this on April twenty first, twenty twenty five. According to reports that are coming from the US Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Finn Sin, I wonder when those guys
are going to start getting layoffs. They looked at fentanyl related illicit transactions tied to the two largest partels in Mexico. And what they found was that between January and December of twenty twenty four, various financial institutions filed well over twelve hundred suspicious activity reports related to that point, the purchase of precursor chemicals, the trafficking of fentanyl, and of
course money laundry. It goes so deep. It's not just like, Okay, I'm bringing this up because we have a lot of friends and family who are more familiar with casinos than the four of us here. We actually did it. I think you and I hung out at a casino for your very first time a few years back. Is that correct?
Yeah, you gave me like ten dollars and a clearing machine. I hit the wrong button and I didn't get anything. It was a big bang theory machine.
So we yeah, yeah, we called it Goodbye money. I think that's how you approach vegas. But this is for these cartels and people participate in this global successful criminal conspiracy. It's not goodbye money. It's hell o money, you know what I mean. And my question for you guys, I don't want amount of like My question for you guys is how do you launder money in a casino? Do you like, take dirty money and get a bunch of chips and then take those chips back and get cash for the chips? Is that it?
I guess.
I mean just the fact that it is such a cash business and there's so few of those that are by their very nature that thing that aren't going to be looked at askance, that it totally makes sense that this would be a way of going about that.
But I don't know what the actual mechanism would be.
Okay, Matt, you're shaking your head no as well, by okay, what if we like, is there there must be? Is there a financial threshold such that pass that amount of money? If you try to get chips or cash in chips, you have to fill out like a lot of heavy paperwork. I know you have to fill out some stuff.
Certainly for gambling winnings they are they do have to be reported to the IRS.
But I don't know what threshold.
To yeah still works at the I R S Yeah, exactly exactly in those poor guys. Look, this feels like a further investigation ahead. I pause it to all of us together tonight that it seems increasingly implausible and indeed naive to argue that US authorities are not aware of this. Maybe factions are complicit in this. I don't know what do you guys think.
Before I start well pulling an Oprah and be like you're a corrupt, you're corrupt, and you're a corrupt.
I will say that I do know that you know, gambling, gaming licensing is a big deal, and that proprietors of casinos are always very concerned with losing their gaming licenses, and so they do, I believe, to the best of my understanding, go to great lengths to make sure they're
in compliance. So this certainly wouldn't be something that would be done willy nilly or without an appropriate amount of kind of smoke screen, you know, because I think it would be pretty easy, to your point bent for Uncle Sam to to find out and then you know act.
To me, casinos are just a weird thing to be okay. I don't understand why it's okay.
How is that a thing other than.
There are people who agree that they're okay that get paid. You pay somebody to say yes, it's okay. Then they make a bunch of money and you get some of that money.
And therein lies the issue with the licensing where it's like it's only okay up to if these conditions are met. And it's the same reason that like when you have advertising for any kind of gambling, you have to be very clear and expressly state the resources for folks to find help if they have gambling problems.
Well to MAT's earlier point there too, it's a great observation that there aren't any I am not aware of any like grassroots nonprofit pro casino organization. Like I've never seen an interview with someone on the news saying I don't make any money off of this. I just think it's important for people to have a hot hand blackjack. That's what means, you know, step beside human trafficking. I chose my thing that I am going to fight for. You're right, you know, money is money is a superpower.
It's a physical or conceptual representation of labor over time. Right. Therefore, money as power can be corrupting. It does make institutions and individuals corruptible. So it feels like people are aware of part of the connection with Cartel's Chinese companies, proxy entities and casinos laundering money, but it also feels like a lot of powerful people don't want those links to be in mistigated in depth understandably, So so what do we think, guys? We'll get to one piece of good
news before we wrap up. There's a lot we didn't get to. But overall, does this feel this fentanyl casino money laundering thing? Does this feel like an episode in the future.
Absolutely, let's break it down.
Yeah, let's get into it. Yeah, let's see if we can make it back to Vegas. Right.
Oh, I think we all have different personas in Vegas, so we should be fine. It's not longe as that can be the bag man, sir, We've saved the seat for you.
I got it. I got a little lost.
I just want to go to Vallejo now and find these dang Zizians.
The Zizzy and cult. Yes, that's what we didn't get to last time.
Its strange news.
It's a it's a disturbing story. Tune in for colts you've never heard of. Part three will end on some good news, I think, I hope.
Uh.
Studies show that more US residents are using psilocybin than ever before. The rates are shooting up due to some decriminalization acts right, which also makes people less hesitant to self report or to you know, tell the truth on a survey or something. There's a great study I found out about it from Science Daily, but it was originally published in the Annals of Internal Medicine just a few
days ago, on this Monday past. And what they found is that people who are experiencing mental health conditions appear to be finding some sort of mitigation or comfort in the use of psilocybin aka magic mushrooms, probably the most common version of that.
Here in the US, absolutely, and there's it's becoming more and more prevalent, and I think for a good reason than when used appropriately under the supervision of like the right kind of therapist.
I have great results.
From folks that I've spoken to that have participated in that kind of stuff.
And with that, we would love to hear from you, fellow conspiracy realist, to the degree that you are comfortable, tell us your experiences with hallucinogenic substances, tell us your hot take for or against it. Let us know if you have experience working with the federal government, let us know what you're going through. We've had a lot of great correspondence there. Let us know if you work at
a casino, give us the dirty business on that one. Right, We did an episode on Stuff that Don't want you to know about casinos and I think it holds up so we can't wait to hear from you. For all of that and for more. You can find us on the internet. You can call us on the telephone. You can also give us a line any old time you like at our good old fashioned email address. That's right.
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Get in on the conversation, join your Hello Australian listeners and recommending some Australian cinema for us to enjoy. You want to thank all the folks who have reached out giving us some really great recommendations for classic Australian films to check out.
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