From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the 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 Alexis codenamed Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Folks, if you're listening now, congratulations, you have survived what Corporate America calls Q one of twenty twenty four, only Q being short for quarter, not qann. But you know, we don't get in the c suit don't know what all their acronyms mean.
And if you're listening to this right now, hopefully you have survived the eclipsep eclipse or is happening right now? Oh you're watching it as you roll this audio?
Yeah, right on. I actually sent a note to to our crew earlier today where I asked wherein. I asked whether we could move our recording time on Monday such that we could witness the eclipse here in the fair metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. It starts at one five goes about to four to thirty local time here in Ataant.
Yeah, and NASA's launching three rockets at the moon's shadow, which is totally fine.
And sernin cern is just.
Kicking back up now because they had problems earlier and they had to wait till now to kick back up. It's fine.
Should we be concerned? Check out that episode. While you're looking at that, we've got to talk about some very big things. There's a hawk in the sky. There's a problem with three bodies, but maybe it's two. There's a little bit of anthropodermic bibliophigi we'd be lured. And and maybe we start here with did you like that one?
Matt?
I did because I only know it because I've heard you say it before. And I just imagine how many people are like, have no idea what the hell he just said? But that's fine.
Skin, yeah, books that have some skin in the game, quite literally. Before we get to all of that, we have an important important piece of news code named doc. Could we get some like breaking news kind of sound perfect? God, you're amazing at this, all right. So for a while back, we have been talking about something called on the streets Havanah syndrome. Do we want to give a quick and dirty description of what Havannah syndrome is?
So not unlike Golf War syndrome.
I mean, it's not people who are on the front lines of a conflict per se. But I believe it was some diplomats that were stricken with this potentially due to an unknown source, whether it be a weapon of some kind or there are lots of other theories that went into it.
Yeah, astute, perfect and succinct. We talked about this. I think we did an actual episode on this. The idea was that not just ambassadors or consular officers, but their families were being targeted by some sort of thing that tierpoint nol, just like Gulf War syndrome, left them with debilitating medical conditions that they could not quite explain, nor indeed could these conditions be properly diagnosed by medical professionals.
Yeah, we've covered in several episodes over the years. And then in September twenty two we did an episode with Jack O'Brien, Yes, where we did the thing we're talking about, where it was kind of I don't.
Know, Jack O'Brien, Thank you, Matt. Jack O'Brien notable fan of Corvid's congratulations Jack, and I wish you well on your journey. Jack is also the creator of crack dot com and the creator of Daily's Eye, Guy's friend of the show, responsible for so many amazing conversations Jack and I and this show. We went back and forth on the nature of Havana syndrome, and we left it with the idea remind me here, Matt. We left it here with the idea that perhaps it was psychosomatic.
Well, that was Jack's conclusion on the show.
I don't know, Jack, I hope you I hope you taste this. I texted him earlier as soon as the news came out. So sixty Minutes recently recently aired something that is the result of a collaboration, a joint investigation from sixty Minutes there to speak over in Germany and The Insider. This joint investigation by journalists by Civi's found that the things being called ah i's or anomalous health incidents may actually not be psychosomatic. They may indeed be
evidence of a Russian made weapon. So let's start there before me.
I mean, like the way we've been thinking it might have been for a long time.
Go on, we gotta be nice to Jack.
No, nothing is Jack. Jack was using some of the best sources out there that you had come to these conclusions. It's just it's what it felt like when the story first dropped, right, that first report that we read. My god, I know how many years ago that was, but like it felt like this was it.
Yeah. Yeah, And also we we also can't say enough good stuff about that conversation. Please listen back, because we listen back to that conversation, and I think we were applying the same critical interrogation that we apply to any sort of any sort of conspiracy of this caliber. The idea is that there's a deployment of a particular technology. Think of it like a laser composed of sound, right, and this can as a result, it can go through class it can go through certain materials, right, and it
will not generate physiological effects. It will generate it will generate extreme discomfort, but that may not be lasting. We saw earlier, we talked about it in a Strange News program quite briefly. We saw earlier that studies have shown there are no long term neurological deformations right of exposure to this stuff. However, I don't know, man, I can't
wait to talk with everybody about this. The journalism here seems pretty apparent they correlate the attacks to presence of Russian officials, you know, kind of like your friendly CIA folks who work for it at embassy. I just want to check with you, guys. Do you think Havana syndrome is real or do you think it is created perhaps by a Russian technology.
Well, the effects reported by people who have gone through this, you know, who were at least self reporting victims of these attacks, do they report physiological interaction is just It's not the kind that you can see, right. It's like a patient coming into a doctor's office and saying, I've got these really massive headaches. There's a terrible ringing in my ears. My ear's hurt. This sound, whatever it is,
is so intense, and I'm also feeling dizzy. I can't concentrate. Again, like almost long COVID effects that were being reported in a weird way, but having some kind of audible source that these people at least self report to be causing it. I don't know. Ever, since it started coming out the idea that everybody could mass hallucinate or just jump on the bandwagon of this is why I feel dizzy, This is why my head hurts, this is why my ears, you know, I've got tenitis or whatever. That just didn't
seem right to me. It seemed like it felt like something was entering those people's living spaces. We just could not describe what it was because we didn't know that thing like.
What is variable?
Yeah, what is the what is the actual method to make this occur? But remember in our episodes, we found things like those weapons that could do something like this.
Yes, the precedent of this weapon. Mm hmmm, Yeah, you're right on the money. It's not outside of the realm of possibility, right. And science fiction again, as we always say, is only fiction for a certain window of time. And it looks like, I don't know again, listening back to our earlier conversations, I thought we were very fair and you know, we uh weirdly enough on Twitter or when they call it y x now x see said one
of those Yeah, yeah, what they call it now? Jack O'Brien and I were having I think a pretty in depth collegiate exploration of the possible causes. And one of the things that we're often saying is, you know, look at the precedent of quote unquote non lethal acoustic weapons, right, the so called pain ray. We talked about that, right.
What's the issue with that though?
That, like you know, with the tests or the things that we discussed in the episode, it would be you'd have to be like in the next room, right, that wouldn't really shoot them long range.
Well that was our assumption, Noel's right, that was our assumption in that conversation. We may have been incorrect, well.
Because then we learned Look, man, we learned about the sphere in Las Vegas and how they can beam audio, directed audio right to a single person seen in that giant place. They can beam audio that's in Japanese to one seat and next to it, they can beam the same audio but it's in English, no liars, Yeah, it's just directed guys.
Doesn't this cily the kind of thing that sounds like really cool and buzzy for tech reporting, but that could down the line have some consequences just yea, no way, yeah.
Man, everybody went to see you two last night as experiencing Havana syndrome, that's weird. No, I guess it feels so possible to me that the way it's being dismissed, and it has been dismissed in some of the other reporting, some of the you know, official statements that have come out of various governments, it just felt like it was shoveling it onder under the rug for diplomatic reasons. But what is there a new report or something? Is there new information?
Oh, I'm so glad you asked that there is. Indeed, so as we were saying Insider der Spiegel in sixty minutes, they spent more than a year, or about a year, investigating this talk as off books as they could, and they have uncovered. Let's give you the full story. Insider, March thirty first, twenty twenty four. Roman Dobra Kotov, Cristo
Grosev and Michael Weiss or Vice. They they published this collaboratively and they have the following new evidence links the GRGUS unit two nine one five five to mysterious attacks on US officials and their families.
Well, what is.
Gru Yeah, gru is gru is the nasty boys of Russia. Gru Is, Like I guess the best way to say it it's therefore in military intelligence. So it's kind of like militarized CIA. Okay, okay, they're the type to try some sort of Goldberg esc way to kill Castro. You know, the CIA came up with all those ACME level bugs bunny ways to kill Castro or discredit Castro.
Right, Oh, I got it the way you put it. Versti, the nasty.
Boys, the poison cigars. Yeah, big fans of polonium g r U. Let's put it that way. So what they found, like two nine, one, five to five is kind of a sabotage squad. They're they're sort of black ops, maybe wearing ties, and they're What we found in these investigations reading about these investigations is that one, Russia does have these weapons that are on the edge of sci fi. They do have weapons that could maybe do these things.
We also found that numerous Western folks were onto these programs. Believe that this non lethal acoustic weaponry has traversed the chasm between science fiction to science fact. And what they're finding is they don't like necessarily the term non lethal acoustic weapons. They like the umbrella term directed energy weapons, which to our earlier point is what we have been talking about, and indeed I think we were softly predicting
it for a number of years. Again, to be clear, folks playing along at home, the term havana syndrome is intensely unfair. The government of Cuba is not inventing these things, nor deploying them. It's kind of like how in the early nineteen hundreds that epidemic of influenza was called the Spanish flu because the first government to report it was Spain. They didn't invent it. Interesting, interesting, unfair. But here's what they find. They find that this technology, again, it is
a real thing. It is not science fiction. It is possible to build and deploy these ideas as weapons. And they found some really nasty stuff. And looking back through it, like looking through the GRUS track record, looking through two nine, one, five five, what we see is what we see is a really good case that havana syndrome may not be an instance of mass hysteria. It may not be a
bunch of stressed people suddenly giving migraines. It also jibes in a troubling way with some of the work of who is that guy we called the Alex Jones of Russia Foundation's a geopolitics guy. He kind of built their strategy of hybrid warfare.
Oh, Alexander Dugan, I think foundations of geopolitics, right, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.
The hybrid warfare idea is that if you are outmatched in terms of conventional warfare, then you will you will kind of nibble at the edges right of the snack.
You will.
You will not hit maybe Totus, but you will maybe hit someone adjunct or adjacent to Totus. You may not hit the ambassador, but you may hit their family, right yeah.
Or you may get revenge on someone who was working counterintelligence against some other operation, right, or someone who is successful in infiltrating some kind of signals that you were putting out at some point. Right. I remember seeing the report that it may have something to do with not necessarily revenge, but like getting people on their radar and they going, oh, well, guess what, We're not gonna let you do that again. We're gonna debilitate you with these
you know, weapons that no one will ever see. And what was the other what was the other big thing with in that report, Ben, they were matching up individual members of this unit, right, yes, in places and times like going, Oh, this agent from two nine, one, five five was here at the time that this person was either attacked or experienced Havana syndrome.
Again correlation. Yeah, and we have to like part of the hybrid strategy for the theorist in the crowd would be would be akin to gas lighting, right, Oh, you just have a headache.
Yeah.
Well, and also you don't have actual evidence. Oh you have a list of our agents that were in those places at those times. What does that mean? Does? What does that mean? And it means nothing, you know.
With that point, I think we've got a pause in a moment for a word from our sponsors, and perhaps this is an episode in the future. I thought we could end with a quote from Greg Edgreen, lieutenant colonel in the US Army, who says the following to sixty minutes quote, if I'm wrong about Russia being behind anomalous health incidents or again, Ahi, I will come onto your show and I will eat my tie. It appears, it
appears there's something there that is not entirely psychogenic. It's something that Russians don't want you to know anyway.
Ads, And we've returned with another piece of strange news.
This one, I don't know.
We've got think we've talked about this particular tome of nineteenth century literature in the collection over there at Harvard University, a little bit of light reading called not a French Speaker in my best Desdistines de.
La May by Align Hussey.
Hopefully that was somewhat passable and completely embarrassed byself. Oh yeah, a nineteenth century French novel. This particular edition, however, happens to be bound.
In human flesh. Yeah.
And whether or not we've talked about this one in particular, we know you said it at the top and it got Matt All at Twitter. There is a I guess, a school of book binding that involves that very thing you know.
Just previous episode. This is one of the very few confirmed books of this nature.
That's right, But it is a field of study. And whether or not there you know a plethora of examples. It is something thought to have been done more frequently, you know, in the past. And yeah, again this book is has been has been in the collection at Harvard, but no more.
They have, in.
Fact decided, after a study on the subject came out to remove this particular edition of the book bound in human skin.
The Houghton Library, actually, by the way, is.
The name of the facility there at this institution of learning, where this book has remained for more than one hundred years, often as a highlight of a tour.
If you go check it out, you're going to get.
Shown the book bound in human flesh. This study that I mentioned, or the report rather, I guess suppose you could call it, came out ten years ago scientists at Harvard confirmed, and just to say real quickly, I believe it was always conjecture that this was in fact bound with human skin, but it wasn't until relatively recently, about
ten years ago. The scientists at Harvard did in fact verify that this nineteenth century French book was in fact bound in human flesh, and the Washington Post described the contents of the book as a tale of the destiny of the human soul or a study of the destiny of the human soul. The binding, not the book the pages contained therein have been removed due to what the university refers to as the ethically fraught nature of the book's origins and subsequent history.
The flesh in question.
Was taken from the back of a psychiatric patient in a French hospital who passed away due to a stroke in the eighteen hundreds.
This was a woman.
Now the officials of the university say this portion of the volume has been taken and placed into what they referred to as we're spectful temporary storage until they decide how to dispose of it.
In a dignified manner.
Now, Ben and Matt and I had a little conversation off Mike just about the kind of nature of consent in these types of cases. You know, we've certainly talked about things like the body's exhibits, where we know that a lot of the I guess specimens on display in those were non consensually taken from formerly living prisoners.
Yeah, that's from China.
That's the word I'm using there when we're talking off air. Non consensually quote unquote donated the the person who has never been identified officially. This woman did not did not give consent for her body to be used in this way. Now, there are a lot of people listening, to be fair, who are thinking, perhaps I'd love to donate my body to science, and I'd love to myself become a book. And that's all well and good. If that's what you want to do. But check out our earlier episodes on
donating your body to science. You don't get to choose. It's just like paying taxes. You don't get to choose where that stuff goes. But the money is you.
That's right.
Because I'm kind of joking here, but I'm also a little serious. What if you got a tattoo on a part of your body that was roughly book sized, that states that you wish to have this part of your body, your skin used in the binding of a book, and it's.
Like notized you.
Yeah, this is why I'm a notary.
I think that that would be a way to do it. It'd be a way to get it, to do it properly.
I mean, you're joking, but I do think if it's a document and you signed it and it's official, yeah, I guess you know who.
I don't know who's gonna do it.
That just just to make it official, I'll do it. But just to make it official, get another get another page size thing on your skin that says this page intentionally left blank, that where people know it's official.
That's a cool idea for a tattoo, period, Ben, I have to say you because you just put that literally, just that text on your entire back this page left intentionally blood.
Love it. I really like it.
No, this is this where this is a rail that goes in many directions. Because, as we're saying, this is a conversation about ethics, we also know that a lot of university collections and dare we say or we just say museums were built off the backs of those that fell to colonialism and oftentimes artifacts that were wholesale stolen and then and not given back or the theft even acknowledged, you know, for many many many years. And I mentioned a study At twenty twenty two, Harvard put out a
report on Human Remains in University Museum Collections. And this is from the Steering Committee Report of the Steering Committee on Human Remains at University Museum Collections. As you can imagine, Harvard is a pretty big deal, you know, being such an old institution and one that continues to be, you know, so highly regarded.
And this generated some of.
The they're real up and covers, great minds, they're going places, right, so it's kind of up to them. And I, you know, I do applaud this paper to kind of set the tone right. They refer to the use of enslaved or likely to have been enslaved individuals, and then what to do in those situations. There's a section on ethical care. There's a whole section on you know, how to train you know, curators and educators on this kind of stuff.
A section on recommendations for memorialization, consulting the communities you know who are affected by these remains, you know, being in these collections, and you know, the first page with as a big poll quote from Lawrence Bacau, the president of Harvard, saying, we must begin to confront the reality of a past in which academic curiosity and opportunity overwhelmed humanity. And we certainly see that in academia, way back, from way way back. I mean things like the Tuskegee experiments.
You know, obviously there are extreme examples. There are more examples of curiosity and just maybe things that didn't age well. And then there are outright examples of dehumanization and treating people as test subjects first and humans second, if at all. And that is a big part of this debate, and the paper is what kind of caused this action to remove it? And just a little bit of background on
this document or the novel. Rather, he who say the writer gifted the printed text of the book to a friend of his, a guy by the name of Ludovic Bouland, a doctor who then by choice, and I guess we've talked about the idea of resurrection men. You know all of that that was kind of the order of the day.
He bound the book in human skin that he had acquired while studying as a medical student, and penned a handwritten note that is inserted into the volume describing his reasoning as such, a book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering. By looking carefully, you easily distinguish the pores of the skin.
He should have put his own skin in the game.
No joke, dude.
I mean it's a hannibal lectery kind of sounding, so rather buffalo bill.
I guess you know it's real gnarly guys.
The note goes on to say that he didn't have anything stamped on the cover to preserve its elegance. I guess when we think of making things out of human skin, we often think of like horrorfic atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis, or we know they made you you're talking about lampshades, lampshades, wallets, what have you. And then of course things like that that were perpetrated by folks like Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killers. And the way he's talking about this, that this guy
who did this, it doesn't really smack of academia. Smacks a little more of weird fetishism to me. I don't know about you guys, but you know the idea of the Human book about a human soul deserve to have a human covering. And to your point, Matt, who is this woman and who asked her if this was okay for her to be made into a book for like rich people to trade around, especially when she probably died in poverty and you know, pain and mental anguish. It just seems wrong.
It gets into a weird discussion if you, if you pull it all the way out, and it makes me think about these policies that many cities have that prevent churches and other organizations and even individuals from doing things like providing food for unhoused individuals, right or when they won't allow what I'm saying is the way, Yeah, they won't allow it. The way that society still views the least of us and the way well, I mean, really, that's.
Even the least of us who can't get into an Ivy League school, you know.
I mean there's an.
Othering adherent to that whole designation and of itself.
Well yeah, and I guess what I mean is that quote that you had before about the time when science, what is it the desire to explore science.
Curiosity sort of outpaced or at the very least, outweigh the you know what's right.
I don't know that we've ever fully escaped that. I think we have many institutions that have and individuals that have, but I think overall there's something unfortunately human about this entire thing exploring because we can and going to those lengths because someone's going to and then some you know, some younger mind decides.
To you know, it's interesting too.
Part of the controversy around this was a blog post with an excerpt from a book by Megan Rosenbloom called Dark Archives, The Librarians Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin and sorry I've been I started to say it, but I didn't get to it. The term that made Matt giggle is anthropodermic bibliopogy, and there was a post on a Harvard blog that referenced this book, Dark Archives, by Megan Rosenbloom, who is an
expert on that very subject, anthropodermic bibliopogy. Rosenbloom is also a part of the Anthropodermic Book Project, which to your point been, you know, there are numerous examples of things that might be this to test the origins determine if they are in fact human skin. They have confirmed eighteen
books to have been actually bound in human skin. And this drew a lot of negative comment from other folks in the academic community, one of whom was Paul need Him, a retired librarian who had worked at Princeton, and he said the blog post should be deleted because I guess the blog post was just referencing the society and the search for these types of books as sort of a
academic pursuit of value and one that isn't problematic. And he felt as though by publishing this on their website they were co signing it and Harvard, you know, that kind of co sign carries a whole heck of a lot of weight. And he said this although preservation is a central responsibility of libraries and museums. It is not one isolated from wider questions of ethics. And he wrote this in the New York Review of Books. There are times when the good of preservation must be weighed against
other compelling responsibilities. And that original post that he was critiquing has now since been deleted. And now, of course this is what's happening with the book. They're going to give it some kind of imagine. It'll be some sort of burial in keeping with what they historically believe might have been the wishes of this individual, which you know, I would think would be a little bit hard to know for sure.
But yeah, it's very.
Very interesting to have one more little quote from Tom Hiree, a librarian at Harvard, who said this in a news release about getting rid of this from the collection. The core problem with the volumes creation was a doctor who didn't see a whole person in front of him and carried out an odious act of removing a piece of skin from a deceased patient, almost certainly without consent, and used it in a book binding that has been handled by many for more than a century. And I don't
know this is true or not. But the Internet today guys reported on this. They were joking around, and this is the kind of thing you could do in a library.
You got it.
If you're taking a tour and or maybe you're studying this kind of stuff, people probably got to handle it. I mean, if it's in the collection and you ask, you probably have to put on some gloves.
But I bet they passed this thing around.
That would make sense.
Yeah.
So anyway, he just concludes saying, we believe it's time the remains be put to rest. I don't know, Ben, I think you have some really really great points. And we've talked about this, you know, on and off throughout the years, about consent when it comes to what happens with our bodies after we die. I mean, there are some people that could care less. We always joke about the Frank Reynolds character on Always Sunnying Philadelphia saying just
throw me in the trash. You know, there are some people that don't believe the kind of corporeal body matters after you die.
But we know also that so.
Many wars have been waged and so many have died in the name of you know, the afterlife and the name of religion and what happens to a body after one's death can have a lot of impact on what people believe will happen to their soul in the afterlife. So anyway, well done on that. And I don't know, Matt, and do you have anything else to add. I think I've kind of said all I had to say on this one. I feel like this is a good thing. I feel like to your point, Matt, this is the
Harvard taking. You're taking the steps to lead by example and maybe get a little bit out of that mindset that you're talking about.
Matt.
Hopefully it's a move in the right direction.
I don't think you should throw anybody's body in the trash if I'm just being honest. And I you know, yeah, we've talked about this at length, that book in particular. To be clear, none of us, the four of us recording today and you listening along at home, none of us have actually read the book.
You know.
I've never read a book and thought this would be better if a human sacrifice their skin to bind it.
I guess that's why it just does it. All the stuff from the doctor that don this just kind of has a little bit of a creepy vibe to it. There's really no as an artifact. It's just kind of a weird, creepy curiosity. It's not representative of any like ancient culture or anything that is of value academically speaking. It's just something a likely very wealthy doctor decided to do with a cadaver he had laying around from grad school,
which is just strange in and of itself. And by the way, this was donated and this kind of tracks too for what we're talking about here by an air to the stetson hat dynasty. Just something about that tickles me, and in the wrong way.
Nobody likes a wrong tickle.
No, definitely not the bad tickle. Now, all I'm saying is I got again. I'm not trying to stereotype, but for some reason, I picture the stetson hat folks as maybe being of that echelon of wealthy that would maybe get a gas out of trading and you know, human remains just as a flex.
Call it a hot take.
Let's say a quick break.
We'll be back with one more piece of strange news, and we've returned.
We're gonna split this up into two quick things. Here we go. Number one, the Three Body Problem one of the biggest shows on Netflix right now on streamers. There's some strange news revolving around one of these bodies, and there's about speak about it. There's gonna be a second one very soon.
For episodes in Loving it. By the way, you guys we talked about it when we were traveling this week, and you guys have both binged it and I am really quite enjoying it.
Yeah, no spoilers. Do watch it if you get a chance, because it is pretty great. Here's the news. We're gonna tell you about two individuals. The first one is the victim in this story. His name is Lynn Chi. I think that's how you would say his name, Lnqi. This person is the founder and chairman of a company called u Zoo Games. That's Yoozo.
This is a.
Company out of China. They're a game maker, publisher. They do all kinds of stuff. They also control a bunch of intellectual property, including that of the Three Body Problem book series, or the book series that is named that. It's been stylized a bit in the US with the number three rather than the word three very late, very late. Oh yes. He's also known as the quote billionaire millennial.
This person, lyn Chi, was thirty nine years old and had a net worth of around nine hundred and forty one million dollars US at the time of his death on December twenty fifth, twenty twenty, So right on the cusp of being a billionaire. But my goodness, Like this guy had a lot of money, is very successful. The other person we're going to talk about is currently a convicted murderer. His name is shu Yao. That's x u Yao. This person was, or at least is described as a
quote distinguished attorney at one point. He's also the former chief risk officer at that same company, yu Zoo Games.
Also, Matt, we got a pause real quick, Yeah, because a lot of folks don't understand cro chief risk officer.
Oh yeah, what do we think that is? Guys, it's an attorney. That's like, how risky is this attorney said?
It's not lea from take it.
Yeah, what's our exposure?
But he was a high up person when he first joined the company back in twenty seventeen. He then moved up in the company, like basically moving into a leadership position in a subsidiary that we're going to talk about. It but this is what we know about the story. According to Kelly ng who's writing for BBC News, so Lynn and Sue were apparently on good terms when they
were working together in twenty seventeen. The subsidiary that she was working for was specifically charged with securing some kind of intellectual property rights deals and film adaptations, moving this three body problem again we say IP or intellectual property, moving it into other avenues, other mediums, right, that's what he's trying to do. He was tasked with doing it.
He worked directly and very closely with Lynn she while trying to broke her some kind of deal, and eventually they got in a room with Netflix and they did a really great job that two men in their respective teams successfully landed an absolutely redonculous Netflix deal in twenty twenty. The first season that is out right now that we've been talking about on this show cost around one hundred
and sixty million bucks for US for eight episodes. It got but listen, it got released on March twenty first, twenty twenty four, and it topped the most watched list on Netflix the following week, the week of March twenty fifth, with fifteen point six million views, which is miss Squid Game.
Yes, yes, that's good because it's worthy. What's up with this other thing?
This other through the three body there's another version of it that's on another network that I keep seeing.
There's an earlier Chinese adaptation.
What it is?
Okay, Yeah, it seems like it was a little bit of brand confusion. I'm starting to mean to derail but a dero. But I was just wondering if they were related, and then I read the description and it does appear that it's a different version of it.
Yeah, it's a different version of fewer deaths.
Oh interesting, I don't know anything about that one.
I mean fewer off stage.
Oh understood. Okay, so the whole thing. I'm assuming Yuzuo Games probably broker that deal as well, unless they acquired the rights after that series was made, which is possible. I'm just uncertain on that. But anyway, it's a weird, mirror and smoke filled series of rooms. When it comes to intellectual property rights and film adaptations and streaming services, it's very weird.
Especially across international borders.
Oh yeah, exactly. You can have a completely different thing in another country and you could, you know, as someone who was basically licensing a property like this book series, you could get paid you know, a bunch for However, many countries decide to take it up, which is weird. Okay, So let's go back to lin and Shoe. They fell out when Linn put some other executives in charge of the business operations that Shoe was at one time in
charge of. So they basically had an inter office problem or whatever it was.
Because business disagreement for one.
Reason or another. This person that helped land the deal got pushed out. Okay, and Shoe. According to some of the reports that came out some of the trial documents, because this is a part of a huge trial that's been ongoing for quite a while now, since twenty twenty one, some of the reports say that Shoe set up an entirely new company in Japan to acquire what are quoted here as a lethal substances read poisons, and then even tested those substances on animals, like funded testing on animals
with these substances. Then Shoe disguised these substances after he found out they worked as probiotic pills and gave them to his boss Linn. She or I guess his friend, his acquaintance, whoever it was. I don't know what their relationship was towards the end there, but he gave them to Lynn, and Linn began taking them, thinking, oh, these are pills my friend gave me. Lynn then checks himself into the hospital because he's feeling super unwell after taking
these pills. And he was, you know, not feeling well, but initially stable, but then his condition got worse and worse and worse, until he eventually died ten days after being admitted to the hospital on Christmas Day twenty twenty, at the age of thirty nine. Insane. Insane that this occurred.
It's also insane that this person a shoe was picked up almost immediately because there there were I guess rumors there were things going on, and then there was some hard evidence that was discovered quickly went through this huge trial. And this is the craziest part to me, Guys like some kind of weird the timing of it. He was sentenced to death the day after three Body Problem hit Netflix.
Well, you got to make sure it works first, you know, they're done.
With them, so rewrites or something.
Why does Netflix never get to season two? Getting kidding inappropriate people.
That had not heard of any of this. That's it's true.
It's all true.
Poison them over a business disagreement.
Everything that is true. Depth to it, Yeah.
There's depth. There's pre so much pre metas, so many actions that had to have been taken for it to even occur.
Right, and also sloppy, isn't it? Well?
I don't know.
I guess it was slot. I mean, I guess, I don't know. I didn't I haven't actually gone deep into the trial documents to look at what was actually shown, like what evidence did they have? But it does feel like one of those things that I don't know, for a professional squabble. It's a it's an insane length to go and he's now sentenced to death. This is the
thing I forgot, y'all. Several people who also worked in the Yuzu game's offices got sick because there were beverages in one of the shared coolers that were apparently also poisoned. None of them died, but still, how horrifying is that this person or someone working for this person allegedly also put poisoned drinks in a common cooler.
Right, because the idea that this I'm really glad you brought up the coworkers, Matt, because this shows us a little bit more about premeditation in some ways, clearly an un stable actor. But the the from what I understand, the fatal dosage is cumulative. Right, so this guy was taking more than one you know, magic probiotic pill or whatever, and perhaps the revenge motivation was such that they rationalized themselves.
Anyone can drink this and get a little sick. But let me target this guy's favorite drinks, you know, his cherry coke zeros or his phantas or whatever, and then uh, if he drinks enough of these and I can sell them on these probiotics, then I'll get them. And clearly it's a terrible thing to do. It was a terrible plan.
Yeah, it certainly didn't work out for him. So officially, you know, there are now two bodies that will be associated with the three body problem. One that is our one persons deceased, and one who will be deceased. His time will be up. It just hasn't happened yet.
Quick question about the how these types of convictions work. Does the legal system typically work pretty quickly in China? Like if you're saydence to death, are there is there an appeals process, Could it's get dragged out the way it does here in the United States, or is it pretty much like pretty efficient and quick.
I have no idea.
It depends, to be honest. I mean it also depends in the US or in Japan. No, he is currently the murder is currently incarcerated on the Chinese mainland.
Correct, shut Gal is in prison. He has been for quite a while.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because this all goes down a couple of years ago. Right, So he's like in his early forties now, is that correct?
Yeah, thirty nine. He was also thirty nine when all of this went down, right.
Okay, Thankfully I cannot speak with authority on that. We do know that it appears the case is pretty ironclad. It does appear like it does appear that he did it.
Yeah, yeah, the trial's over. He's he was just now sentenced. Does that make sense, guys? You yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I.
Guess that is. You know, we know that you have to be sentenced here. A lot of people sit on death row for many, many, many years.
I'm just like, not like rooting for him to get killed, but I'm just curious about if it works similarly there if it's a little bit more you know, open and shut and not any opportunities.
It strikes me that it might be.
But well, that's a great question, like how does the appeals process work and doesn't exist in that nation?
Unsure? But guys, let's stay in prison for this next quick story.
I've been trying out of prison so long. Maybe bring it closer to home.
Matt, Let's do it, guys. Operation sky Hawk.
Is that that thing from Batman movie where they put the they extract him with the sky god.
Damn, I know, I was just teasing.
I like Operation Skyhawk could give me a dost, give us some awesome music, ragular, It is all right. So, Operation Skyhawk is an ongoing investigation that started in November twenty twenty two, and it culminated on Thursday, March twenty eighth, twenty twenty four. While we were we were on a little work Vaca.
Guys.
Hey, not on air, not on air, man, but not on air.
But we weren't here in Georgia. I'm just saying. When this went down, that's when search and arrest wars were served at two locations in the Metro Atlanta area quote, effectively shutting down a sophisticated multi state criminal enterprise that included civilians, inmates, and correction staff. What was this enterprise doing, you may be asking yourself, Well, they were using aerial drones to move cell phones, drugs, and weapons into several Georgia Department of Corrections facilities.
And you might also ask yourself what's the difference between criminals, correction office and civilians? Hell of a, then diagram.
I don't I don't know, I said whatever, I don't know, And guys, there were one hundred and fifty people arrested, including eight Georgia Department of Corrections employees. There were over a thousand total charges, including contraband introduction. Whatever that is just bringing contraband in I guess to a yes facility.
Contraband introduction can technically be a book that is not greenlit by the prison system.
Oh snap, what is that Silent Summer? What was that book? Silent Spring? That's the contraband body from Uh. There's also drug trafficking charges and charges for felons in possession of firearms, which is a no no in the books.
So wait, so are they just are they droning this into the yard?
Oh snap? Oh I thought Sorry, I thought you were making a play on droning. Yes, that is what they're doing.
Oh sorry, are they shoegazing?
Yeah, they're using drune harsh noising.
But here's why there are eight corrections facility officers taken in. Why do you think guys, Oh I didn't see that drone or oh I know exactly where that drone's going. That's when I'm on watch in this sector or whatever.
JDC is super underpaid, yeah, and it's very difficult to work as a corrections officer just to be fair, so they probably want to make a little extra money.
Oh, one thousand percent, one thousand percent. We don't know all, We don't know everything. This just went down. There are RICO charges involved, guys. Yes, there are also PICCIGA charges that's participation in criminal gang activity charges associated with this. And according to the Governor's Office here in Georgia, this quote may end up being the largest gang related RICO
in Georgia's history so far. Yeah, there's a total street value for all the contraband things that are picked up of seven million, eighty seven drones, twenty two weapons, two hundred and seventy three contraband cell phones, and one hundred and eighty civilian cell phones. Who knows the difference? I don't. We'll find out someday. Also a crap ton of tobacco, a whole bunch of marijuana, bunch of meth and ecstasy.
Do you have a sense of how these things were loaded down and like distributing these packages? It just seems like a very conspicuous way of delivering these Ah.
I didn't see anything in the reporting about what it looked like. I didn't see any pictures of a drone.
We don't have the specifics.
Can we conjecture it for a minute.
Are we to assume that someone on the inside is meeting this thing as it descends and then unpacking it. And then it just seems like it would be so obvious with all of the observation towers and things like that, to get one of these things over the fence.
Probably an air drop, because you don't want you don't want to risk landing the drone and trying to take it off again.
Yeah, because that would get everybody caught. Right, because where did the drones come from? We have an answer, guys from WSBTV. There's a place called Thunder Drones. It is in Georgia. It's in Norcross. You can go to their website. It still exists and you can see that across the street from Thunder Drones there is a microcenter. You guys familiar with microcenter.
Yes, it's like computery type stuff.
Yeah, it's a real good place to procure I'm gonna call them contraband cell phones.
Don't blow up.
I'm just saying it's done.
It's blown. Yeah.
According to WSB and Mark Wynn, who was reporting for them, this company was caught up in one of the raids and there were a bunch of drones that were from that facility that were used in this operation. And it is just a it's a whole mess that one of the people working there, I think probably the owner operator, I cannot confirm that or not, but it's someone associated with Thunder Drones named Robert Schwartz is now like going through it and he's accused of using his drones to
take the contraband in. There's way more to this story. You can look up a ton on it. It is fascinating stuff, but for now we're going to keep our eyes and ears open. We hope you do.
Two.
But as the all powerful. Yogurt once said, May the Schwartz be with you, Robert, because you should never underestimate the power of the schwartz. And also, I see your schwartz is as big as mine. Let's see how well you handle it.
Yet, never cross the schwartz isn't yes, but do cross paths with us. Let us know your favorite book, Bounded Human Skin. Let us know how you think AI is doing, especially with Lavender targeting civilians in the Middle East. Did you know Oregon has Oregone has recriminalized drugs? Shout out to Havana syndrome, whatever syndrome you may have. Let us us know what you think of Operation Skyhawk, all this and more, and if you have the space balls. Fellow
conspiracy realist, why not join us for future episode? Oh, why not join us for listener mail. We would love to hear from you. We try to be easy to find online. That's right.
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Hey, do you like calling people? Why not give us a call. Our number is one eight three three std wytk oh, guys, I totally forgot. I may have gotten us in trouble. I called the number that's listed for thunder Drones on their website, and sure there was a message on there that is I don't want to say it was definitely an FBI agent, like we're doing a voicemail message, but sure, sure it was.
That's fair enough, Agent dough or however you want to go, Please contact us for all your microcenter needs in the future.
Yeah, just a heads up, that was us calling for comment. So we're good, right, Yeah.
Matt represents us. We are unified front cool.
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