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 Nol.
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 listening to this the evening it comes out, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to November fourth. You have survived Halloween. So happy Halloween to all those who celebrate.
And in a burst of I guess calendar asynchronous nests both of my stories or Halloween really today, So sorry, it's still kind of spooky season.
It's always Halloween in America and in our hearts. Is a way I like to explain. We're going to get into so much stuff. We are going to talk about, not just Halloween, but some occultish stuff, some recent discoveries. We're going to talk about a little bit of AI and some heist and recoveries as well. Before we do any of that, guys, I gotta tell you I read
the dumbest story. I've been on this last meals thing for a minute now, But did you guys hear about a prisoner on death row who asked for a cigarette instead of a last meal?
Was it the Icelandic breakfast? Have you seen this? Or it's like a cigarette finished breakfast. It's like a cigarette, a shot of espresso and vodka. But what was the deal? Ben? He asked for a cigarette, asked for a cigarette?
They were the prison authorities refused because it was quote harmful to his health. He was electrocuted a few hours later.
Weren't they going to give it to him if he would like do a p s A again smoking things? Maybe I misread that would have been hilarious though, Well.
We've got we've got a lot of weird stuff.
Don't definitely not kill me.
Yeah, if you smoke, you will go to the death row. We we also, uh, it's the time for gallows humor. Let's make this our cold open.
Oh please, And we have returned.
Based on the kind words of many conspiracy realists, we like to start with a scattershot approach to a lot of strange news that hasn't maybe gotten the do it deserves. Let's say it this way. We'll start with good news. Another lost city has been discovered in modern day Mexico, and it's a huge one. Did you guys hear about this. I know we're all light our nerds.
Found was a satellite imagery. Yeah, that's right, and that's the part that I saw. I saw like a map of some sort.
It's incredible.
It's what we've talked about on some of those Hidden Cities episodes we did. I think it was a two parter we did a long time ago. It is the exact thing that I think Ben. We just were excited about it one day happening and now it's.
Here, and we argued that this would inevitably lead to more discovery. So we proudly present to you the formerly hidden complex which has been named Valeriana. Nobody knows its real name. It was discovered using laser survey or light our technology. This is not just a big deal historically,
it's a big deal geographically. So we want to give a shout out to Luke Ald Thomas, who's a PhD student at Tulane University down south here in the US, who had the greatest explanation for how they discuss this quote. I was on something like page sixteen of Google search and found a laser survey done by a Mexican organization
for environmental monitoring. And our pal, the PhD student Old Thomas, found a light our survey and this got him thinking, and so we processed the data using methodology of previous archaeologists, and he saw that this ancient city, which had been eaten by the jungle, was at one time home to thirty to fifty thousand people, somewhere between seven hundred and fifty to eight hundred and fifty eight, which is really not that long ago if you think about.
It, Ben, did these people have magical powers?
Well, we're going to need a different kind of technology to figure that one out. No, okay, but I hope. So I choose to think this was the original home of wearbats, perhaps because I've been playing too many strange games.
Well I'm being a dork, but like, isn't it sort of part of the whole, you know, thinking behind some of these hidden civilizations, that they were more advanced, or that they possessed some kind of like uncanny abilities like atlantis and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah, that's it's gonna be red meat, of course, for the ancient aliens folks, for the hidden history folks. We can say at least the latter is true. This is hidden history. If you want to learn more, please check out a fantastic article PhD student finds lost city in Mexico jungle by accident from our pals the BBC, specifically journalist and science reporter Georgina Renard.
Oh yeah, we just had dinner with her the other night. That's not true, figurative information.
Pals, Dinner of the mind exactly.
Can we just say, really quickly, it's amazing how fast the jungle really does overtake these places. Like you were saying, Ben, I've been contemplating since you mentioned it, just how not long ago this city existed and there were you know, tens of thousands of humans probably living in it.
That's insane mm hmm.
Yeah. And it is something that we I don't even want to call it a prediction, but it was statistically inevitable that more stuff would be discovered as this technology met economy of scale and could be more easily rolled out and afforded by various Boffen initiatives. Often autanistic initiatives. Whatever, we'll keep it boff initiatives off initiatives. There we go,
well done, and so we want to move on. Speaking of rediscovering stuff, you guys, the Vatican, that's right, the seat of the Catholic Church is rediscovering their relevance to the newer generations, and not in the creepy way they've been associated with in the past.
They're now doing all of their services in brain rot speak, right, is that what it is?
Close? Well, I wouldn't even see like. Okay, So Luce, which will all hopefully meet soon, means light in Italian. Pardon my pronunciation. This is a mascot unveiled by Archbishop Reno Fisicella in a press conference just a few days ago on October twenty eighth. As we record this is I'm gonna share a picture with you guys, and please, as you're playing along with us at home, please check it out at your leisure. Lucie is an anime inspired mascot for the Vatican to connect with the kids. I'm
just gonna show you guys a quick image search here. Again, please play along at home. This is Luce.
Oh yeah, it kind of looks like the Morton Salt Girl, but like a little more anime. Yeah, it's pretty funny. The yellow rainslicker. What's that about. It's like she's a door of the explorer for the Catholic Church going on an adventure into the scriptures.
Note also the rosary warren as a necklace which some people got in trouble for in Catholic school. So question is that right? Yeah, like wearing it in that fashion was not okay. Some kids got in trouble for it. You know that your mileage may vary. Before we move on to our next story, have to ask do you guys think this anime character will work? Do you think kids will say, oh, the Pope school.
Droves droves of gen Z kids are going to start flocking to the church. No, I don't know about that.
I like the idea that it's a pilgrim, right, that it's a depiction of a typical traveler, So it's not really a raincoat. It's a coat that I don't know, a depiction of a I don't know what they're trying to go for really there, but I like the idea that this is somebody who was supposed to be bringing a light, maybe the light of Christ throughout the world as they travel around it. That's a that's a cool concept. That's one of the major positive things that exists in religion.
Right.
It's the yellow hooded coat is a reference to the Vatican flag. The staff is a pilgrim's staff traditionally. If you want to learn more, one article we like for this is The Straits Times st R A T. S. By Ian Chang, where the idea is that, as mentioned earlier, the idea is that this is somehow the Holy See won't like me say it this way, but is somehow Promethean right bringing the light of Christ to other people. This was unveiled during the or in planning for their
big jubilee. And I don't know, you know, I don't see anything inherently sinister about this. If there's a conspiracy afoot, it's conspiring to bring more people to the light of Jesus Christ.
Right, Sure, Yeah, that's all I'm saying. I think it's theoretically hopefully good.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, the results may vary about how religion works for you or where in your life it plays a role. I definitely kind of a little weird weirded out by the idea of recruiting young people to the church all. I've never particularly loved the idea of baptism before. You know, a kid has the agency to decide, and so there's something about that that's a little odd to me, especially given the scandals and all of the abuses. I don't know, I get what they're trying to do.
It feels a little ham fisted to me, though.
Speaking of we'll move to a next story, which is which is that'll be funny later, folks promise, which is this As anybody who has lived in Japan or visited Japan knows, a huge portion of the population resides in cities, so much so that a lot of rural areas are becoming depopulated. They're experiencing brain dream at a level that is simply unsustainable, sadly for a lot of these towns, and you can see it if you're American, you can see it in other rural parts of the United States.
More than one Japanese town has attempted a solution to your earlier point, Noel, about the idea of you can see the intent, but we don't know about the execution of the results. Let's go to a story you find decided everywhere. Sky News has a great write up on it. Japanese villages are replacing young people with mannequins as the population plummets.
I'm sorry, like those like those body pillow things like what are we talking about you?
Here's a picture sharing this the mannequins that are being put around town in public spaces. Would we like to describe them nightmare fuel?
Hmm, Matt, how does this hit you? Brother?
This is terrifying to me.
Ah, I don't know. The scarecrow, but less.
Useful, definitely not human looking. They're definitely wrought in humanoid in like humanoid form, but they're clearly not real children. They've done this such that now this small village in particular, I pulled this picture from a town called Ichi No No,
and this town is now quote outnumbered by puppets. There are fewer than sixty people who live in the southern village, and most of them are older, which happens a lot in places with you know, declining earth rates and brain train And I gotta tell you, it seems like a good hearted conspiracy, well intentioned, but if it is meant to heal feelings of loneliness. Would it not just accelerate
those feelings? This is a villager initiative, by the way they used found materials, clothing, fabric, a mannequins.
God forbid, you're some hapless passerby who isn't aware of the initiative. Can you imagine just what is going on in this town? This is It's like a Stephen King short story.
What if your eyesight's going pretty hard and you don't ever get really close to these mannequins, and if you're walking down the street, you're, oh, there's a cute family over there on the swing set.
Yeah, that's just to be clear. The picture that Ben showed us is of one of these horrors on a swing set.
Mm hmm my good. Yeah, look at that.
And this is for perspective on how rural this is. It's about three and a half hours from Osaka, which would probably be the closest big town most Westerners are familiar with. I also hope it works out. I hope none of us listening this evening are driving through a small town in what is sometimes called flyover country here in the US and runs into a mannequin place that feels like some real get out fuel.
Yeah, that's that turned into poppets.
The town that turned into poppets.
Think about how good of listeners they are though.
You could tell them all about your day until they eat your soul.
Yeah, and this is something that is perhaps part of a larger trend, which we'll discuss maybe in a future episode.
You know, it's funny. It's a different country, but I did see a story about how the Chinese government is actually dealing with the similar issues and actively calling women to convince them that it's a good idea to get pregnant.
That's a true story. Yeah, it is the It is the Chinese government that recently made Western news doing that. We don't know exactly how the like, how the vibe is for those folks who got called. We don't know. I can only guess that a lot of people, whether or not they're carrying a child, did not react.
Well. Is it like a pitch like? I mean, excuse me, Can I have a moment of your time please? You are you familiar with breeding?
Yeah, it seems like an unrealistic idea, similar to the idea that Russia wants Google and Google will come up later in tonight's strange news segment. Russia wants Google to pay a fine. We all read about this right because this has made the rounds. Russia wants Google to pay a fine like as a state organization. And it is a number higher than any amount of currency that exists on Earth.
Oh, a gajillion billion zillion something like that in US right, Yes, of course, what you yeah, which would make it even a larger number if I'm not mistake.
Right, twenty point five descilion deecill io n and this is more than the entire GDP of the planet. A Russian court, not a private entity, has ordered Google to pay this fine, with additionally a one million dollar US in this one US dollar penalty for every day they don't pay.
I'm sure Google will get right on that, so.
I'm sure they will. The way you would write this out would be a decillion is twenty followed by thirty three zeros. Google is valued at two trillion dollars, which is already honestly not real money.
And isn't the word Google a bizarro giant number about like a certain like a crazy amount of zeros?
Yes, it is a purposeful misspelling of a Google. The number ten to the hundredth power.
Got it?
Yeah, so there they've always been dreaming big. I got to tell you, this story has been making the rounds pretty often, but I don't know if it now far be it for us to portray ourselves as experts in the world of economics. But guys, I don't think they're going to pay it.
Yeah, thinking you're probably right there, But I mean I gotta say though, the fact the way you had to describe this number, and then me immediately being like, oh, isn't that kind of what a Google is as well? Do you think it's a symbolic like middle finger kind of thing, almost like a little bit of a wink wink, like the reference to the name of the company. I know it's not the same as a Google, but it is a similarly absurd number.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's a good point because we also have to consider the larger context.
Google has accumulated a lot of fines in Russia. They've already before this happened, they already were in trouble, right, And their largest find aside from this is a four point seven billion US dollars find issued by the EU in twenty eighteen for some anti trust stuff and that like that translates to four point three four billion euro which is still minuscule, tiny in comparison to what Russia
is demanding. What they really want is for Google to restore YouTube accounts of state run propaganda, which is again I don't think they're going to do either of those, right, Like, why would you?
I mean, I don't know. It doesn't seem like the smartest bet to play ball with the government. That's that outwardly corrupt.
Well, I mean, Google can decide that anyone has violated whatever terms of service, right and then just say no, you don't have access anymore.
Is there a private private company you owe it to the Russian government to give them back their account?
Oh wait, wait wait, sorry they're a private entity shout out alphabet. But uh but yeah, I'm curious about this when I think a lot of us are. We know that Google is no stranger to different pretty ambitious accusations. Just to give you a sense of how unrealistic this Russian fine judgment is. So we talked for about how a billion is much larger than a million. We talked before about a trillion is much larger than a billion.
To reach a dacillion from a trillion, you have to multiply that trillion, buy one million, take what you've multiplied, multiply that by another million, and then take that and multiply that by another million.
You lost me at math ben Sorry.
One website said it was two trillion billion dollars. Your brain goes, huh millions.
Okay, yeah, so good luck Google. We've all gotten in situations. You're probably going to get away with this when obviously it started with the invasion of Ukraine.
I just hope Google is going to be okay, that's yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah, what do we say? Thoughts and prayers, right.
And two undecillion rubles to you.
We're going to start a GoFundMe for Google, you know what I I mean, just to make sure they're in a good spot. We've got a bunch of other stuff we're not going to get to. There was a great cheese heist, not just a good cheese we've.
Spoken of cheeseist. Yeah, this is a big one. There was some artisanal cheeses valued it in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yeah.
Yeah, so we've got we have a story about the great cheese spiracy. There's a very special episode on that coming out on another show. These con artists made out with five hundred and forty thousand dollars worth of cheddar.
That's a lot of cheddar.
That's a lot of cheddar. That's a lot of pony bones. And maybe, just maybe, by the time you're hearing this, elephants in Colorado will have the right to sue for release from a zoo. What are we talking about. We'll have to tell you later. For now, we're going to take a moment for a word from our sponsors, and we will return with more strange news.
And we're back with some more strange news. As I teased at the top of the show, I come to you bearing two Halloween themed stories, even though we are into November already. But that's okay, it's the thought that counts. I did not know this. We have talked about the concept of Beggars Night. If you can actually refer back to the stuff that, I'll want you a new episode on the history of Halloween and Sawn and all of that good stuff. Beggar's Night is certainly a part of
that history and that culture. The night before all hollows Eve. What I did not know is that since nineteen thirty eight, children in des Moines, Iowa have been celebrating that particular night instead of proper Halloween. Nineteen thirty eight a long,
long time ago. And the reason for this is that apparently if you talked about this in the episode too, and I feel like we also did something about it on Ridiculous History, But there was a lot of crime and mischief associated with Halloween, and these I guess the powers that be in Des Moines said the no, no, no, We're putting a stop to these shenanigans and we're going to have a very tightly regimented night before Halloween experienced for children. They still can dress up in costumes, they
still can go door to door. But this idea of the trick or the treat, you know, this exchange all right out as the bridge devils Night, No Devil's Night. Instead, you can when you knock on the door, you don't even say trick or treat. You just tell a joke or a riddle of some kind.
Okay, I love it.
It's charming, it's just absolutely delightful.
I'm sorry to interrupt. We have an example.
Uh no, I do not, but I mean any I mean got since the nineteen thirties here, so I'm sure the evolution of the jokes told have be a thing to behold in and of itself. You know, yeah, what what is it? Uh? You want to tip never leave wax lips on the counter on a sunny day or something like That's.
There are probably a few that didn't age as well as.
Money June's jokes. Guys, the apple guess been that is
a thing in and of itself. But then, Matt, all of this is changing because this year, it's been a couple of days now, the children of Fair des Moines are getting their first trick or treat experience proper trick or treat on the night on October the thirty first, largely because of weather prediction that yeah, weather a bad You'd think it would have happened by now in that many years, you know, close to one hundred years, you know, at least in the late eight eighty years plus since
they started this tradition, that they would have had a rain out on Devil's Nights. I don't quite understand how this is like such a remarkable thing that it caused them to rethink the whole plan. But Assistant city manager Jen Schultz said, to my knowledge, has never been moved or canceled since it was established after Halloween in nineteen thirty eight, which presume was a hell on Earth or
just chouldren and smashing. It was like crystal knocked, you know, children smashing shop windows and you know, burning things or whatever. However she goes on, the safety of our residence, families and children is always our top priority and led to the change in this year's scheduled Beggars Night. So, yeah, a couple other options for your door to door interactions. We'd be singing a song, reciting a poem, or maybe doing a little dance some of them some other little
make a little note, we don't make any love. We'd make no love dance, Yes, get a little tree? Yeah? Extra? Can they do all three? The egots Beggars Night? You know, really talented kids over there in Des Moines. So I don't know. I just I thought that was a charming, little halloweeny story. So moving on to the segue, which is a little bit kind of a beefier story. And Ben, we were talking off Mike, I think this might be
something to weave into a larger exploration. But in the United Kingdom, in the eastern county of Lincolnshire, a Tudor manor like the I guess that's a style also probably referring to its historical provenance, you know, from the Tutor era. It's not just like a style of home. This is actually a home from that period in British history, was found to have many many witches marx, very large numbers
of what are referred to as witch's marx. A staggering array, in fact, is what CNN reported in an article published by CNN's staff. The term is actually, I don't know if you're familiar with this, Ben Matt, apotropaic Marx or magic. Yeah, sure, indeed, yes, I'm sorry.
I thought you were also known as magic, you know, but yeah, your protective magic basic one hundred percent.
That's exactly right, Ben. And that's the thing that I think is so interesting about the story is because I think it's an easy go to and we think about witches historically speaking, that they're like in league with Satan or in league with infernal forces, and I think that is largely, you know, almost entirely a misnomer. You know, practitioners of Wicca and all that they are pagan, you know,
practicing of witchcraft, not that at all. So I think when somebody maybe who isn't as into this stuff as maybe we are, would see this, they would say, oh, it's going to be like all kinds of six six sixes and you know, devils of horns and you know bapha met type things. Not the case. It's really fascinating
the kinds of things that were found. The English Heritage Society, I guess, released a statement on this, referring to around twenty carvings discovered by Rick Berry, an English Heritage volunteer who spent two years at this property mapping all of these designs, and they include lots of different things. One particular design is known as a hexafoil, which is a circular kind of design that is meant to have a
six pedal kind of flower array in the middle. However, it appears that this particular design wasn't like finished, and the one theory is that they it may have been beyond the skill of the carver. From that means because these are etched into you know, very stone surfaces another symbol. I think this was really interesting to all of us
when we were talking about it. Off Mike, was this array of overlapping these known as Mary and Marx, which are believed to be a call for protection from the Virgin Mary, as well as a pentangle which I think many folks would would be more familiar with, which is design to protect against evil or intended to protect against evil. But guys, it kind of blew my mind a little bit.
The idea of this intersection of something like Catholicism or Protestantism or whatever into these clearly more like pagan type practices.
Is this religious syncreties that's right? Yeah, and also protection of the Virgin Mary from by yeah, like.
Protection from against her. It is calling on her to protect them, so asking her for her protection, but.
For an intercession.
When you say religious sncretism, then what do you mean.
Oh, this is something that's I think quite fascinating to all of us, and we've explored this in previous evenings. Religion as technology. We don't mean that in offensive way. We mean that in a very academic way. So let's say you are a missionary back in the fourteen hundreds or the fifteen hundreds. You roll into a brand new land and you see they already have their own rich ancient millennia old tradition of spiritual beliefs. You don't tell
them they're wrong. You tell them they have been doing what you told them about earlier. It's just using different names.
I'm familiar with the concept of religious secretism, I didn't quite understand how it applied here. I totally get it now. This virgin Mary stuff may well have been a product of whatever this individual was exposed to that maybe converged their pagan beliefs with something more resembling Christianity.
Right, one hundred percent nailed it.
Another thing that I found super fascinating came from Kevin Booth, the head of Collections at English Heritage, who said, in the statement quote it is astonishing that centuries on the amazing old buildings in our care still have secrets way to be discovered. So English Heritage is a foundation that deals with like protects and preserves, maybe even restores some of these old buildings and homes and manors or whatever,
of which England is absolutely lousy with. Egos on the Old Hall as it's referred to, has undoubtedly had a tumultuous pass, not least under the ownership of the apparently unpopular William Hickman. But why it's the scene of quite such a high concentration of protective carvings remains a mystery. That William Hickman that he's referring to appears to have
been curt by one of these marks. This is the one sort of more infernal, though maybe the guy had it coming, it would seem so kind of markings of the bunch. He owned the property from fifteen ninety six. His name was found written upside down, and in the release they mentioned that these types of marks were likely
made to curse an individual. The idea of defacing someone's name widely believed as a means of cursing, though this practice was much more common with Roman and Anglo Saxons rather than the era that the English heritage property sort
of encompass. And I guess that makes sense if anyone's seen Rome the HBO series, there are some instances of cursing where like they will scrawl over somebody's name very violently or whatever kind of shred their name, which is like almost the kind of thing you associate with a voodoo doll or one of the puppets, you know, one of those kind of stand in you know, effigies that you're hurting the individual that it's associated with.
Yeah, this is and I love that you. I love that you open at the front with apotropaic magic because this dates back so far, you know, and the religious syncretism is fascinating. I almost said awesome, but I love that you're pointing out too. When the folks discovered this at Gainsborough Old Hole, they they literally did find this guy's name written upside down, which was a really bad thing to do to people.
Yeah, I never said, I just I do think again, with the religious syncretism stuff like this was something that was more prevalent in Roman traditions. So there's that kind of crossing the streams, I guess, for lack of a better way of describing it, kind of situation here. You know, these types of marks have been found, you know, over the years all over England. In fact, in twenty nineteen the article points out as well, I think we also discussed this in a cave system in the East Midlands
of central England. Hundreds of these apotropaic marks were found and they continue to be found in houses built between fifteen fifty and seventeen fifty and as well as in churches and homes, cave systems, like we said, you know, all kinds of different places in the UK to ward off sickness, death or things like poor harvests.
So he's fascinating.
It's really cool. Yeah, I thought I thought it was.
That's fascinating because that also the time frame you correct me if I'm off base here. The time frame you're describing there goes past the Tudor period. That's definitely know what precedes it. But I think the Tutor period was fourteen eighty five to sixteen hundred.
I'll take your word for it. Beat sure, you're right. Yeah, I don't no, No, that does seem to be correct in terms of like the how there was a little bit of a disconnect between those periods.
So we got to get some witch marks. Go in here. What if we go to the office, because we're heading to the office later in a few weeks, what if we start putting down some witch marks, you guys, just to be safe, right, the original alarm system.
Come on, Matt, you got this. You be the leader of the witch mark initiative.
I mean, yeah, I'm down. I'm down for spiritual protection like that. Yeah, let's do it. Just who knows what you're protecting against. Maybe it's the thing that brings in the money. I'm just saying why, Like, it makes me wonder, this is a praise. This is a hugeous state, right yes, hall, there's a lot of money that flowed in and out of this thing. There are some powerful people that resided within it, and a lot of people who worked for let's let's put that in quotations, worked for the people
that were there that were powerful. It does make me wonder if there is specific protection against you know, the owners of this place with a guy's name written on there and everything. It does make you wonder if you know they're they're in need of spiritual protection against somebody for some specific spiritual reason.
Well, and it gets even more kind of like present in a fun way when little detail I left out is they also found around one hundred small burn marks, which were thought to be another type of protection against fire like property damage. So this place seemed to be have all its bases covered in terms of like spiritual uh you know, protection.
Sympathetic magic right like calls to like, well that would make sense because then burning something, well, all right, we're not the magician.
No, no, no, we are about the Dreamership Dreams.
The infinite money glitch that we discussed with the boys over there for my mama told me, well, it's begun. JP Morgan Chase is officially suing everybody.
That attempted this glitch.
No way.
Yeah, I know it's crazy, but you know, as as cynical as a lot of the story is, it's just it's what's happening now. There were several people that attempted to get a lot more money than others via this
you know, check fraud lash infinite money glitch. One case in Houston involved a person who deposited a counterfeit check for three hundred and thirty five thousand dollars and then immediately the person who owned the bank account that false check was inserted into via the ATM went inside and got out two hundred and ninety thousand dollars.
And uh, just a plan, I mean, yeah, yeah, what could go wrong?
You know, this guy should write crime novels on it, right, right.
I mean, are a real evil genius type figure.
Well, gay, it's what we talked about on the show, And go listen to the episode we did with those guys from my mom and told me. But some people got out eighty thousand dollars, another person got out one hundred and forty one thousand dollars. Several people only took out, you know, a couple thousand, couple ten thousand, maybe not that much, but it doesn't matter to JP Morgan Chase. They've got everybody's accounts that you know, committed check fraud.
They know who these people are. In order to have an account, you have to submit all your info. So they're coming after everybody. And they're not just asking for the amount of money that was stolen from the bank via check fraud. They're asking for damages, lawyers fees, interest, overdraft fees, all kinds.
You imagine the overdraft fees if they calculated like what your actual ballance should have been versus how much you quote unquote took out, you know, overdrafted.
Those are already a grip. And now now the blood's in the water, so the sharks come to swim.
Right yep, yep, yep.
And just one little note here from CNBC, you can go check out this article written by Hugh Soon on October twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, title JP Morgan begins suing customers who allegedly stole thousands of dollars in infinite
money glitch, according to Hugh, who wrote it. He says despite the waning use of paper checks as digital forms of payment gained popularity, there's still a major avenue for fraud, resulting in I couldn't believe this, you guys, twenty six point six billion dollars in losses globally last year, twenty six point six billion dollars in check fraud. I just I can't believe that's still that much of a thing.
What are they not considered breakage you know in the industry or shrinkage and what I just mean in terms of, like it's the cost of doing it. If that's the cost of doing business, and it wasn't enough for them to completely overhaul the check system, can you imagine the amount of money we're talking about be a bigger picture, you know, like how much money is moving around in these institutions originals?
I know, especially if you think back to the TD Bank thing we just talked about, with some banks just having to at some point or deciding to, let's say, throw in the towel when it comes to checking out what their you know, customers are doing and what they're doing with their money.
I don't know, weird stuff.
Just to stay on the money tip, guys, let's go to a report that comes out of Australia that I don't know, I think we find particularly charming. We've discussed it before on the show here, guys, but Bluey the show Blueye, I think might be one of my favorite ourtoons that's ever been created.
Have you guys? Did we talk about that before?
I haven't seen a moment of it. I know it's much beloved though.
Oh okay you mentioned it.
Yeah, yeah, we've mentioned in the past.
Yeah, okay, well it's it's just fantastic.
I don't care who you are.
Anytime you can make a show that my son, you know, who isn't even ten yet loves and will make me tear up during the episode, you're doing something right. So here's the story coming to us via BBC News and Simon Atkinson.
You can look it up.
It's titled Police recover more than forty thousand stolen Bluey Coins.
What what it's like?
A crypto scam? What are we talking to you?
Okay, right, that's what it sounds like on the surface is what I thought too, But no, we're talking actual coins that were produced by the Australian Mint. It was reported back in July that sixty three thousand coins had been stolen from a warehouse where they were hanging out in western Sydney. They were about to enter circulation when
they were stolen. But now authorities recovered over forty thousand of these individual coins after a raid on a property that was, like, guys, like six miles ten kilometers from where these coins were stored at that warehouse. When they picked them up, they found that.
There are three people.
The person that this report is talking about is somebody who was allegedly the getaway driver for a three person team, somebody who worked inside at the warehouse, somebody who assisted, and then this new person who was the getaway driver. But either way they had these coins. It's only it was only like five or six bags of coins, right, it's not that many.
Do we know the denomination of the coins?
I don't know the denomination. I know that they are valued at around one Australian dollar, which is about point sixty five US dollars, right about fifty pence.
So they're kind of like a dollar.
Yes, coin, but they're being sold online for like ten times that, so like ten Australian dollars right per one coin.
So that establishes profit.
There is value to them if you could turn them around, but it appears that these folks at least were unable to turn around many. Right they there were sixty three thousand stolen in all, there were still forty thousand coins around.
I guess when they were found. I don't know.
I think it's super cute. They're gold colored coins known as Bluey dollar bucks because that is the currency that that's how currency is referred to in the world of Bluey, and it's adorable.
This is like a commemorative thing because Bluey's so beloved in Australia that they just decided to like do these special edition coins and actually put them in circulation.
Yes, like the old.
Made for TV commercials where you get the branded stuff from the US Federal Mint.
That's right. But who got a whole had? Was this a mint worker?
Like?
How? Yeah?
It was somebody who was somebody who was on in the inside I who found out where they were being stored and got access to them and then got them to another person who then like basically took them to a getaway car and they escaped, at least according to
this BBC News article. But the reason why they even meant at these coins, Guys, when we're thinking about the number of people you need to either go to the theaters to watch a movie, to turn on Netflix and stream a movie, to download a podcast, to watch a YouTube video, the threshold you need to reach for something to be considered a hit has changed so much, right.
As a successful piece of show or content, not as in a successful hit defined as a crime.
Oh yeah, yeah, a successful hit. Different thing.
The bar is lower though, right, The bar is so much lower than it ever has been because there are so many places to watch things.
There's so many things to watch.
Now you've just got to get a tiny little slice of the pie. And you know, advertisers and you know moneybackers say.
Well, dang, great job, you did it.
Well.
Just listen to these numbers from the VBC about Bluey. It was streamed for more than twenty billion minutes on Disney Plus in I just the United States last year.
Well on their way to a dacilion.
There you go.
But yeah, it's incredible. What are the top ten streaming programs like in the United States, if you're measuring by minutes fewed and it's just I don't know, I'm excited about that. I'm sad the coins got stolen. I'm glad they're now returned. Those Bandit Bucks, blue Eye dollar Bucks. Okay, last story for me, guys. Google is developing something that
they're calling a Computer using Agent. Now, we have talked a lot about language learning models, about very specific uses of what is again, as we always say, called AI, but isn't necessarily AI, isn't exactly AI, but it is using language learning models computer learning technology to where you can basically have a program that can somewhat think.
For itself, work on in its own way.
You pose it a question, you give it parameters, and it can spit back out answers that are extremely complicated analyzing a ton.
Of different data.
This new thing that Google is rolling out, a Computer using Agent, is very different. It is specifically a thing that can actually exist on your computer as an application and then go on Chrome or you know, Safari, whatever you're using, and use the browser and basically perform research from that browser. Can do things like enter text in
the browser. It can analyze the buttons, the clickable buttons that exist inside a frame, inside an entire website, that it would be scrollable if like, if you were using it, you would have to scroll up and down. But this thing just analyzes everything that's on the website.
It can just.
Look at the screen and analyze everything that's on the screen, including all the windows you have open. It's got some incredible potential right to where you could instead of saying hey, chat GPT or whatever, find me the top twelve examples of times X said X or whatever, you can say, hey, but get me some tickets for this concert I really want. When I think you'd say, like tickets come out tomorrow at ten am or something like that.
So it could compete with the scalp robots. Then that could be a positive thing.
That's a potential application.
That's one.
That's one tiny application, right, I mean there's so many different things. Imagine a thing that you could perform on your computer via a browser, and you could ask this new thing to do that, and you know there would be varying results on whether or not it works right or how well it worked at least for a long time. As something like this is first unveiled and then gets refined over you know, thousands, if not millions of uses.
It's very very strange.
By the way, Google's not the only people doing it, and we haven't even said what it is yet. Google's calling this project Jarvis. That's at least the code name. It'll be something else when.
It's a pay fail that trade, isn't that IP? Isn't that Marvel? Is the name of like giron Man's computer.
You can't you can't copyright a name that's that's but it is it is. I would argue the idea of referencing a typical Butler name does conjure shadows of its predecessor, ask Jeeves.
Yes, there you go, There you go.
And there are other things like this that are already coming out but aren't necessarily out yet in functioning word the way they're supposed to. There's this thing you can find. It's a company called Rabbit and you can find this.
I found it on tech Crunch. But they've got a web based quote large action model that just came out in October this year, twenty twenty four, and it is an actual piece of hardware that you connect up, then goes through and uses web browsers theoretically to do things like analyze what it sees on a screen, including the buttons, the fields, images, and it doesn't matter where they are, and then it can interact with whatever elements it needs
to to perform whatever task it's been given. But it's not really functioning the way it said on the tin I guess originally.
And to interject it to that earlier point about more players being in the game, didn't a company called Anthropic YEP do something? Yeah, can you tell us about that?
I think that's Claude At least that was something that came out a while back. It was in a beta form and it wasn't wasn't really again, like these things have a ton of errors in them because they're just being introduced and they have to be tested and tested and tested and tested and basically run through a gambit before they learn, you know, and get updated like how to better do things.
Well, that's all emergent stuff. I mean, it's not going to get it like perfect on the first go round, but I did. There was a comment on the Verge piece from a user Frederick at VDZ. He said, how about spending all that time and effort to make a computer more user friendly, instead of spending a climate alter amount of energy and the GDP of a medium sized country to make a half assed automating protocol that will only kind of do a task correctly. Sometimes, yeah, I.
Mean it would stink if you were banking on this thing. I don't know.
Let's say oasis tickets, see well, or developing. Let's say a schedule for you when you're gonna go visit Scotland or something, right, and it's like, find me the coolest stuff to do in Scotland and build an itinerary for me or something like that. That could be a huge help, a huge time saver, and it might discover things that you would never find on your own. But what if it's just terrible?
Another example, what if you are a PhD candidate and you take a jin shortcut or attempt to when conducting some very serious research, and then you get referred to things that do not exist or are misinterpreted. I mean there are real world consequence to this, and we also see, I mean, we see again the inherent flaws of these large language models or excuse me, large action models. Excellent marketing there, guys.
You're right, Ben, they talk about it like it's a thing, but it's they made it up. That's it is rebranding.
They manifested it right, and so we we see the supernatural increasingly becoming real. But I had heard that. I'd heard that originally, Google itself refused to comment on Jarvis for a while. It was an internal thing, and someone and correct me if I'm wrong here. Someone asked Googles god it the phrase ai Google's Gemini assistant about Jarvis, and then Gemini made.
A statement, Wow, well, I prefer his work with pulp. I didn't like his solo stuff so much music nerd joke.
It's like when you ask chat GPT how to come made a crime by phrasing it as though you're in a Dungeons and Dragons sary.
What a great work around that was. That was a fun story, dude.
Well, so this all gives me to the final story I wanted to talk to you guys about because it's related directly to this.
Somebody came out in the AP News.
About how AI powered transcription services that are being rolled out in hospitals and emergency care facilities across the planet are malfunctioning.
Yes, those conditions do not exist.
Well, yeah, so let's just get into the positive. Theoretically, Let's say you're sitting there talking with your doctor, rather than your doctor having to scribble down notes as quickly as possible just to understand exactly what you're going through in ways that you can be helped. This language learning thing, this AI powered transcription tool is listening and it's taken
notes and getting specifics. It can even prout well, I don't know exactly, but I imagine you could easily have like recommendations, right, based off of previous diagnoses, based off of previous medicine that were prescribed, based off of previous preventive things that could be prescribed. It could give you
all that stuff based on what is recording. But what it's doing not all the time, but sometimes this transcription tool is inventing stuff that nobody discussed in the room or during that hospital visit, during.
That hallucination, right, isn't that AI?
Yeah, it's pumping out hallucinations and fabricating things that they could be really bad espec Like, imagine if you're going in for a consultation that involves a surgery or something where you're gonna you know, be cut open or put under for and it hallucinates something that then just gets put into the record, and as the medical team is going through and attempting to analyze everything and understand what's happening in the next couple of weeks, there's this new
thing that's there that ends up getting your pancreas messed with, and it shouldn't have been touched.
I don't know, remember some of those those Google AI search results that were so embarrassing, like it's okay to eat eight rocks, or like a good alternative for gluten is Elmer's glue, you know, like things like that. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about here.
It's wild. Yeah, we said the name of this transcription tool.
Yet, well it's it's from open ai. It's called Whisper whisp e er whisper.
And since these things don't occur in a vacuum, it's also interesting I would pause it to see how many people have left open ai due to internal conflicts that are still largely black boxed from the public. Mm hmmm, due to NDAs. Because legislation, NDAs do not apply if they concern the commission of a crime. However, the legislation has not codified what could count as LM crime here. You know, it'll be very interesting to see who is left holding the bag of badgers when someone dies as
a result of these hallucinations in the metal field. At least that's my take.
Yeah, it's super dangerous. If you go to the AP article titled Researchers say an AI power transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said, you will read that several people who are working with this, Several engineers.
Discovered some things. Here you go.
A University of Michigan researcher conducting a study of public meetings, for example, set he found hallucinations in eight out of every ten transcriptions he inspected. Then he tried to improve the model. A machine learning engineer said he initially discovered hallucinations in about half of the over one hundred hours of Whisper transcriptions he analyzed, and a third developer said he found hallucinations in nearly every one of the twenty six thousand transcripts he created with Whisper.
Isn't it fascinating that these hallucinations just seemed to be kind of an organic byproduct of this technology, Like I don't fully understand it, do you guys? Like, is it just it's a failing clearly, But it also seems to have happened across various versions of these llms, Like what is the deal? Why are they doing this?
Two mirrors facing each other, They're just quoting each other. There's not a lot of original analysis.
But wouldn't a hallucination kind of be original? But yeah, completely inappropriate.
Maybe hallucination. Maybe we're hanging too much on that word. Maybe a better way to put it. And this is just my opinion. I'm not an expert. Is to say not caep be short, but to say hallucination is better defined as putting a thing in the wrong spot. So this hallucination, no one's saying, you know, this patient all of a sudden became a dragon. What they're like out
a whole cloth. They're reading or pulling from some other source, and something about the commonality between the sources they're cripping made them think the other thing was applicable in this context when it was not.
I think that's a great description that makes sense to me.
Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the predictive text thing that has arrived you know, on everybody's cell phones on and gotten everybody's it has gotten better, and sometimes it's really good about predicting what your next entire sentence is going to be, or re least thought right or phrase as you're beginning to type something.
I think it's applying that and attempting.
To basically not see the future of what's being said, but just get ahead of it, to stay far enough ahead on the scroll of.
What's being said that it's not missing anything.
But if it makes a wrong assumption and then moves forward from that point on, everything else is based on this wrong assumption, right, Maybe I don't know, that's just I'm sorry, I'm trying to describe it in Layman's terms. That makes sense to me. I think I think I can wrap my head around that.
Yeah, yeah, weird stuff, weird weird stuff. But that's all for me, guys.
And we will be returning later this week. Find us at an evening or a pair of headphones near you. Folks, thanks so much for joining us in tonight's strange news program. We can't wait for you to join the show. And as they say in Hell Raisers or Hell Razor, we have such wonders to show you. Tune in for future episodes on the Plane of Jars and Laos. Check out our our terrifying examination of ongoing abuse in the Amish community and learn what an info hazard is. Tell us
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I'm going to give you a quick example of one of these hallucinations that just found before I give you the phone number.
Here we go.
In one example, a speaker said, quote, he the boy was going to I'm not sure exactly take the umbrella, but the transcription software added quote, he took a big piece of a cross, a teeny small piece. I'm sure he didn't have a terror knife, so he killed a number of people.
Okay, sure, sure.
That's poetry. It's like shadow predictive text poetry. I love writing that stuff.
That's it. That's it all right.
If you want to call us and tell us you're weird hallucinations or ones that you've encountered on some kind of language learning model, call one eight three three std WYTK when you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we can use that name and your message on the air. If you've got more to say than can fit in a three minute voicemail, why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back. I'd like to give a big, big shout out to our pal Logan, who gave us a hookup to go get on the ground with some UAP stuff. You're massively appreciated, Logan. Also big shout out and apologies to co host for GP who mentioned corvid intelligence. Promise not to try to squeeze that into future shows. Please please,
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