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 Noah.
They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. If you're listening to this the evening it comes out, Welcome to December, Monday, December second, the last month of twenty twenty four. The calendar may stop pretty soon, but the news does not. We just credit
where it's due. Dylan is so awesome, you guys. As we were get ready to record our strange news segment, Dylan said, Hey, did you guys see that news about dB Cooper? And I think we all immediately went, what, I.
Don't know anything about this. Oh my gosh, tell me more again.
Gretit to Dylla. But we've learned this just came out pretty recently this week, I think just yesterday. It's a new lead on the dB Cooper case, the only unsolved skyjacking in American history. But it's maybe a lead because it appears that the children of a guy named Richard McCoy, the second a convicted skyjacker, have been hiding a modified parachute for years, and this modified parachute maybe similar to the type authorities believe dB Cooper used in his nineteen
seventy one skyjacking. I'm pulling a lot of this from our pals at Interesting Engineering Capill Kajal.
What does a modified parachute consist of?
Unclear at this point. We need to do a little bit more digging. This is probably one of those do the reddit kind of situations, but probably the modification for the harness, I would imagine. I'm just guessing here.
What does it mean? Ben? Is this guy potentially the mysterious dB Cooper or just related, perhaps a co conspirator.
Perhaps? You know, skyjacking is not a typical run of the mill crime. Thankfully, the FBI says they do know a little bit more about the parachute modification because they know the guy who modified parachutes, a guy named Earl Cossi who's a skydiver working with the FBI until twenty thirteen, when he was murdered.
Yeah, and this particular thing was found by this dude named Dan Grider who's a YouTuber right, and he found it two years ago in a North Carolina property that used to be owned by this other person, Richard McCoy the second, who is he is a known skyheister, convicted skyjacker,
and he ended up dying in nineteen seventy four. But just the fact that this parachute was found on property from this guy he was also a skyjacker, means that maybe this dude McCoy was the real McCoy the Well, so maybe the need for modifying a parachute for a skyjacking have to do with the ability to like carry more cargo, hold more stuff.
You know. I just wonder it could be carrying more stuff, that's a great idea. It could be possibly making it less conspicuous if you carry it off you on a plane.
To smuggle in so nobody knows that you've got a big old hunchback situation going on.
I'm sure we'll find the answers there. We just we got this as breaking news deliver if we can get a breaking news sound cue. Great. Uh, there's another thing I think Matt, you want to talk about before we before we really dive in here. We've said it in the past, the there is a tragic and inspiring world record that has has a pretty high turnaround.
Oh yeah, So back in April of this year, the oldest man was Juan Vincente Perez. He was one hundred and fourteen years old, and then he died and then I know, but he a awesome long life, right now, that's true, it's true. Nice work, mister Perez. Then it got or the crown, I suppose, was moved on over to a gentleman in England named John Tenniswood, who up until just a few days ago was one hundred and
twelve years old. Again a nice ripe old age. But unfortunately the crown has now passed on to somebody new that we don't know yet.
Right because they're still searching, and unfortunately, in this particular world record, there's a non zero chance that the person who technically holds that record now may pass away before they get found. It's really tough too, because when we're talking about someone living that long of a life a centurion, than what you're seeing is the records get dodgy. The
further back you go. And I love that we're pointing out it's the world's oldest and which is rated differently because women human women tend to live longer than human dudes. The oldest living person right now is Tonika Etoka, Japanese national, who is currently one hundred and sixteen years old. Miss Atoka. We wish you the best. What a life, What stories you must have?
All right? What do you say we get to the news, guys.
Oh man, we should.
We'll be back after word from our sponsors, and we have returned. Been holding on to a lot of disturbing espionage news, particularly in the world of cyber attacks and China and the EU and the United States. That might be something we get to if we have time. First and foremost, I was thinking, guys, we look at DHL. I'm sure we all saw the news. There's some excellent reporting about this. A plane from DHL, a cargo plane, crashed near the Venilius airport in Lithuania. The investigators are
currently looking into it. But one thing that made this clock on our radar is huh radar aviation jokes, is that the the plane left from Germany and Germany's foreign Minister just in the wee hours on Monday as we're as we're recording this said this could have been an accident or it could have been quote a hybrid attack in volatile times. The plane itself, swift Air Flight five nine six zero, was a Boeing, but I get in front of that. It was a Boeing seven thirty seven.
It was operated by Swift Air on behalf of the quarrier company DHL. The investigation is ongoing as we record now. We do know, unfortunately, there was one fatality, there were two injuries. We're not sure exactly what went wrong. The big question right now is was it a technical issue, which unfortunately can happen with any aircraft, or was someone purposely messing with the plane or messing with something on
the plane? Was this an act of belevolence. That's what is keeping several authorities in the EU up at night right now. A great primer on this as of now is a piece from Lee Kemmins McManus, who is writing for The Daily Beast. Playe operated by DHL downed in mystery crash that killed one person. Now, this is a great article because it gives you the timeline the primer of the tragic events, but it also points us to the larger context. This was not happening in a vacuum.
Guys.
If we go back further in the month, still very recently to November fifth, shout out V for Vendetta, is that the right one?
I think it is. Remember remember the fifth I think that's right.
Okay, all right, I'm looking at you guys for all right. So, uh, if we go to an article by Frank Gardner, who is a security correspondence for BBC, we see that someone quote unquote any unnamed Russian intelligence agency may have been targeting courier companies already in Poland and the United Kingdom and in Germany DHL.
Is is it like consumer facing or is this more for large freight stuff. It appears to be a very large private logistics and shipping company. I'm just wondering who's it for.
They do express mail, they do package delivery with the ups etical court. It's like Germany, he says, we have ups at home. It's it's huge. They do over one seven billion parcels a year. They are a German logistics company. So if you were trying to disrupt or test run disruption on a Caurier network DHL would be a great thing to compromise. This is why people are so intensely curious as to whether the recent Lithuania crash was the result of a conspiracy, because these parcel fires that have
already been happening. Last month, in September, authorities arrested four people in an inter European investigation Western security officials. As a Western security people anyway, it's their job, is what we're saying. Those guys told US media that they think these fires that were occurring as early as this summer is July, were quote an orchestrated campaign by Russia's military intelligence agency that gru Now, let's walk it out, walk
it out, Let's dig up the rubarb on this one. Guys, why would you, if you were an intelligence agency, why would you do dry runs on a courier company like this? I don't know.
And I'm also like I've always wondered, like how large these types of courrier planes are. So like a seven thirty seven that's like a jumbo jet. I mean, that's the same type of plane that would be before, you know, transporting passengers. It does appear that the pilot and the co pilot survived and it was only one crew member that was killed, So it seems like it would be about the same level of staff as a commercial flight as well.
Yeah, and yes and no. Right, it is a whole different operation because we are talking about cargo planes where it's mostly cargo that's being taken out.
I'm just saying in terms of like personnel, like you know, you need a pilot, you need a copilot, and then obviously there was some additional crew. I'm just wondering about how many.
Like that's really it's a great question because typically, I mean, think of a locomotive here in the United States, they're going to have a shockingly small staff for the amount or small crew for the amount of stuff they're carrying. And often, depending on the nature of the cargo, you'll see the same thing in aviation as you would in locomotion.
I keep going back to these explosions, guys, because get this right now, the best guess for the series of explosions over summer was that someone quote unquote someone had loaded rigged electric massage machines into cargo, and not all of the machines were rigged, just like not every pager made by that company in one country or another was
rigged to explode. But these these had some sort of magnesium based thing some sort of to them, right, which is not what your electric massage machine is supposed to do. We don't know the nature of the massage machine, but we're looking into it. Apparently they had an incendiary device as well attached, and this led to the things catching fire or blowing up. So some of them just sort of caught light and then some of them absolutely exploded.
Okay, So I want to go back to the question you asked Ben where like why would they do this?
Right?
What's the goal for doing this stuff? So in my mind, I'm only seeing two scenarios, and maybe I'm wrong, So tell me what you think. The first one is to disrupt specific shipments, So get your shipments with the firebomb things onto other DHL shipments that they know have strategic either weapons or you know, like aid supplies or food or something that one of these courier services is sending to like a war zone, right sure.
Yeah.
The second would be to somehow disrupt operations at a large hub, like in this instance, where it's a huge DHL hub that you know, then has a massive fire and crash incident, which means probably most of their stuff is going to get delayed at least for some period of time, depending on how bad the situation is, right.
Right, Yeah, and I think you're getting to one of the most salient points here in this kind of operation. If there is an operation afoot, the content of the cargo may matter less than the infrastructure reach of the carrier. Right, So, if you are, for instance, compromising FedEx, you're not necessarily looking for one truck based on what it carries. You're looking for a truck based on where it goes. And so the ability to infiltrate the logistics operations of a
giant like DHL is quite appealing tasymmetric warfare. And before this sounds too dry, I saw, well, let's go to New York Post, not my favorite source, but to give the human in toll of this, I'd love to briefly play an audio clip of the Lithuania crash. Is that all right with you, guys?
I was going to ask. I just saw that that was available. Yeah, I'm anxious to hear it.
Right, Well, this will be short, it may not be appropriate for all listeners. So so just trigger warning ahead of time. If this is not your bag of badgers. Fast forward about a minute and a half.
When does.
Good morning delta the son thousands of four thousand feet tell me to one zero zero that's apportunately. Remember this is.
The moment air traffic control realize the loss.
Of the flight expected ailist runway one night firm and looking forward to the ailist.
I think in the shot you can see the plane weigh in the distance right, Yes, but that's correct, firm.
Uh if for what he does that, we are all put the after.
The centautus to two thousand, seven hundred feet can eat one two zero greet unless you one manner establish okay undred six.
Question too serious here and we have there for the island will report to fablish postman question the multiple goes. Cancel your start up, go back to your stand number. We just got a.
Crash of aircraft on the finals, so we will need sometime.
We'll stop there. The first thing to say here is that we have to commend the control of the professionals involved. You know, you're hearing people reporting facts. They're not panicking. We can clearly hear you know, the first forty to fifty seconds where it's just routine. And I don't know about you, guys, but in my experience kicking it with ATC folks air traffic Control, they already their routine is already very intense.
They're all customers.
Yeah, And in that video you can see the plane coming in right as everybody's doing, they're getting commps from the airplane. Airplane pilot and copriter are communicating and saying, yeah, we're going down to twenty seven hundred feet, we're like descending now. And then right as it goes over the top of that DHL building, like in the background, you see a huge fireball.
Yeah, guys, is there any possibility that this is a you know, nine to eleven esque attack of some sort? I mean, obviously not from the same personnel that did that here in this country, but you know, it did narrowly miss a residential property. I just wonder if it was like a weaponization of an aircraft.
That's the question. Right now. We're still in kind of a fog of war situation as the investigation continues, because some investigators or some sources have said, we think this is a technical issue, right Others are saying, clearly, this occurs within the context of that July arson attack series. We haven't had too much official statement language from the aircraft manufacturer Boeing other than condolences for crew members and
families supporting the investigation honestly the boiler plate stuff. But again, I think it's indicative of the larger milieu here, the incredibly high tension right now between NATO and Russia, between Germany and Russia, that they immediately went public and said, hey, we don't we don't know, right, we don't want to
accidentally trigger an escalation by making unfounded accusations. One of the latest updates is that the Lithuanian Special Services during they're briefing said there have been at this point no indications of foul play, so it could have just been a tragic accident. And with that, I have to ask you, guys, do you got any Spidey sense tingling on this?
Just a Boeing can't catch a break?
I don't know.
This is a weird situation. I think we're going to have to learn more because it it when you watch there are other videos that are available of this specific plane crash where it does look as though it's descending
in a normal flight pattern. And then then at the end it tail it You can see the tail go up as though it is going nose DIY, but it knows dies within We're talking one hundred something feet two under very low just all of a sudden just goes So it could have just been pilot error and we just don't know yet.
We do also on a gain of positive notes. You know, you guys have been trying to look for positive things lately. The two folks who did survive, it's entirely due to the action of the first responders and to dark lottery. Upon impact, the cockpit of the aircraft was separated from the fuselage and the fuselage ignited. So if these first responders had not been as professional and as quick and competent as they are, and if the cockpit had remained attached,
this would be a very different story. So with this in mind, fellow conspiracy realist, we want your help. You don't have to be extensively experienced in aviation or in sabotaging electric massage machines, I guess, but we'd love to hear the larger context. We'd love to hear your theories, from most plausible to the most out. There is it possible that we could be watching asymmetrical at least penetration test or dry runs of such a large supply chain network.
If so, let us know. Conspiracy atiheartradio dot Com won a three to three STDWYTK t intensia. For now, we're going to pause for word from our sponsors. Oh, do remember to tune in next week when we I don't know, we might talk about Macy's those guys speaking of can't catch a break. But speaking of breaks, We're gonna break for a word from our sponsors, and we'll return with more strange news.
And we've returned after a pretty spirited conversation off air about these potential tariffs coming our way and what that might mean in terms of, you know, potential compromand from the Russians on the US government, on the new incoming administration. It's something that I think we reserve for an on air discussion a little bit later. But it is fascinating stuff. But in the meantime, you guys remember Pokemon Go to the joy I.
Remember specifically a couple of times with Pokemon Go Noel we would be hanging out somewhere, would have all the way I kindly requested for people not to point their cameras at I know that.
I remember there was a snorlax on your shoulder and you were like, get that boy, go find a different find different marks. Yeah, you did say it respectfully, Ben, and I do appreciate that.
The ex wife was obsessed and she would travel to all different places to catch the old Pokemons.
Well, you know, we see oftentimes here in the fair metropolis of Metro Atlanta, those Google cars rolling around mapping stuff, taking photographs. And you know, I'm sure we've all Google mapped our homes and we see, oh, that picture is from a year ago, or that picture is from six months ago, or what have you, because there's a different tree or a different bench or something, or it was before I even lived here.
I waved to the Waimo driver today who was collecting stuff. I was running some errands and exercising. I do that pretty early in the morning now, and I almost got hit by the Waymo driver, and so I just waved that we.
Don't have driverless waymos here yet, though I don't think right I saw. I saw my first one in Austin, Texas recently, which I believe is ground z all that kind of stuff, but it was driverless.
I looked it looked to have a guy sitting sitting in there, but not with the hands on the wheel.
The one I saw in Austin was fully unmanned and it was freaky. I'd never seen one before and it was like right next to me, and I was like, what if it just you know, goes ai, goes bonkers and just sideswipes us or something.
So yeah, all to say thank you for not hitting me this morning, and also.
All to say thank you for not Pokemon going, Ben as well. This is a big obsession. I did it for a bit. It's fun because it capitalized on people's desire to play games but also to kind of touch grass. Right before that was as much of a a a kind of a buzz phrase as it is now. And so I remember when it first came out. Super smart, very very I guess tapped in people that I'm friends with,
We're super into Pokemon Go. Knowing full well the background of the parent company, Neantic and their ties to Google, their ties to government programs. I believe there's some personnel involved in Nantick that had previous connections to the NSA. Ben, do you remember what the deal was with that. What was the Nantic government kind of crossover.
Yeah, so Niantic is a pretty fascinating case. It is an American software company, right. I think a lot of people when you hear Pokemon Go, you assume it's a Japanese company, makes sense, but Neantic is not. They're based out of San Francisco, and there are questions about things like the board and the founding the company had spun out. It started with Google, but it comes from Google in twenty fifteen after Google said hey, we're restructuring to Alphabet Incorporated.
Yes, And if I'm not mistaken, the current senior vice president of engineering at Nantick also had ties to Google Earth, formerly a part of Google, where he was the co creator of Google Earth and street View and Google Maps. So sorry, a lot of preamble here to say that your suspicions and concerns Ben along with again many of my very smart friends who'd still use the service or use the free game, were in fact accurate on a
couple of fronts. So there is a recent article from Jalopnik, which is a site that you guys always used to cite on car stuff. It's a really really cool site.
Yeah.
I like jelopnick a lot, and the headline says it all guys, Pokemon Go was a plot to use your data to fast track an AI slop Google Maps competitor. And I don't know if you guys have been seeing this term flying around a lot more, but I love the term slop referring to like AI generated garba basically or kind of like lazy fake art or writing. They call it AI slop. So all of those individuals, millions and millions, chances are you out there probably played the
game at least once. I certainly did all of that information where you would go out into the world to catch these Pokemon. You gotta catch them all, and to go to these places called gyms or there are certain like waypoints where you had to like it was like usually it would be a big, big building or a target or some kind of like geographical location which is where you would have to go to fight other Pokemon men.
That was all part of it. So all of the information, the data generated by all of these people rolling around and checking in and scanning with their phones. This it's ultra what do they call it, augmented reality. So you got an overlay of the little fella. You know, you throw the ball at him, you try to catch it, and in that period of holding your phone up, the phone is recording what you're pointing it at, likely logging
the GPS data as well as the imagery. So rather than having to have a some sort of unmanned vehicle or a Google street View car driving around constantly scanning and photographing and mapping spatially all of the different streets, you've got human beings which are much more nimble, able
to get into much tighter places. And when you combine all of that into this massive neural network, you get really good information about about data points related to mapping the best walking distance because when you would put it in I remember, haven't played it in a long time, you would kind of get walking directions on the thing to get to the point that you were seeking this pokemon. They would be like, oh, you so and so a rare snorlax was found near you, and then it would map you there.
And further, you're incentivized to go to very specific places.
They're telling you they.
Can put it wherever they want. Yes, specually, you guys know, I'm on the I'm on the road a lot. Knowing people who play Pokemon go if they're if they're traveling, uh, they can actually end up getting Now I'm not fully sure about the details of this because I don't participate as a player in this game. They can depending on their point of origin, they can get different incentives to travel different places that a local might not receive. Well, yeah, and let me just give you this really quick.
But I mentioned the Jelopnik article and the headlines by Bradley Brown. Now he says it very very succinctly by strategically placing poke stops and Pokemon gyms, because the poke stops, if I'm I'm saying, that's where you'd have to go to get more stuff, to get more poke balls to get you get them for free. After the stop replenished after a period of time, you would then go there again, click on it and it would spin around a little coin thing and you'd get random gear loot drops basically,
so I'm sorry to finish. By strategically placing poke stops and Pokemon gyms, the gyms being where you'd go to fight other Pokemon. The company was able to grab images and scans of locations that even Google doesn't have street view images of Wow.
Yeah, So think about your Google Maps car that maybe many of us have seen, kind of like the Waymo car. It is on a track, right, it's it's a series of basically a giant three sixty series of cameras and it's on that track. It can see everything that is along that track. What they were able to do is take all the cameras off the track, including into your backyard.
Yes, in your living room, dude, these things would appear in you on your couch. Sorry.
Oh yeah.
But one of the things that they're pointing out here in their tracking data, which is again gotta say something we pointed out in twenty sixteen twenty seventeen when we talked about this. They are able to get not just in the front of that church that's along the road they are they can get on the side of it, in the back of the church because hey, there's a Pikachu back there. They can now get in like literally your backyard, in your sideyard, and have a three D
imaged version of all of that stuff. Google car can't come into your living room. Google car can't drive into your backyard, but it's your property.
You're there.
I would play it sometimes literally in my own home, so it probably is trying. I mean, it's got a three hundred and sixty degree three D map of my house. It knows where you poop, no question about it.
This other part two, I appreciate the point about getting off of the road right or getting away from Like, satellites are terribly clever invention, but they can't get everything. So this is tremendously valuable data, especially if you can incentivize to incentivize a user to go to a place like a you know, a part of East Asia, right, just say Tokyo for an example, that has a ton of side streets where you couldn't get that conventional Google Map car. You might have somebody with that big nerdy
backpack and have them walking around Kapakichi or whatever. But then extend that later, gentlemen, like as Homer Simpson says in Bigging it to perhaps some areas of the Middle East where you might have the same issue getting that heavy equipment over and keeping it safe in a place where automobile accidents happened. So now you've just got a bunch of people on their phones. Hey, US military or anybody who has the scratch this is how you get around the side streets in Basra or we're.
Gonn get to that aspect in just a second, but I do just want to add to that point when you're absolutely right. Another great quote here. This is a statement from Neantik itself basically coppying to everything we're talking about and say, what what would you think we were doing?
Over the past five years, Niantic is focused on building our visual positioning system, which uses a single image from a phone to determine its position and orientation using a three D map built from people scanning interesting locations in our games and scan averse.
I just love it's built from people.
It's from people. It reminds me of that thing in Batman and I believe it was the Dark Night, or maybe it was the original one. Everyone's phone was. They hacked everyone's phone, reverse engineered them, like it was a power that no one should have. That was the whole big thing about it that Lucius Fox said, like, how can once we do this, we can't ever go back? Turn everyone's phone into a listening device so they could find and a three D mapping device so they could
find That's right, so they could find the batty. One thing I have noticed recently too that other mapping apps are doing, like Google Maps and Apple Maps, is you can get more precision in city locations where the GPS kind of gets a little wonky by using this live view and scanning around and it'll it'll capture the buildings and it will then give you an ar augmented reality overlay of an arrow pointing you in the right direction.
That is what this is.
These guys have just been doing it longer.
I would argue New York once.
Well, and I know that it's effie, you know, I get it, But it's also very convenient and it really does work better. But that information that when we do that, we are contributing to the ecosystem of all of this. And there's so much more we could talk about here, but I do just want to mention what you said bet the military aspect of this in a I believe a presentation that was recently captured.
I believe it broke or it was leaked in some way.
Four h four Media covered this a presentation by Brian McClendon, the Anti Senior vice president of Engineering, again also formerly part of Google, the co creator of Google Earth, street View and Google Maps essentially did a presentation called Coordinates of Tomorrow Why spatial computing needs a new map, And this happened earlier this month. This article came out just of just like literally two days ago, today being November the twenty seventh, and that said, I'm just gonna read
from this piece on bleedingcool dot com. During the Q and A portion, a comment came from Bellingcat's open source analyst and former British Army officer Nick Waters, saying that LGM large geospatial models would be unbelievably useful to the military and asked if it was foreseeable for governments and militaries to purchase the information from Nantick, Ben, that is what you were describing, like, how do we find these secret path paths through these back alleys in places where
we don't have that kind of satellite capability. People play Pokemon Go all over the world. It's super popular in Asia, and I don't know exactly how it ports over to the Middle East or some of the other countries we're talking about, but I haven't heard of it being banned outright.
Imagine this spin it out? Okay, this is just the thought experiment that I think our heads are going the same place here. Cast aside the general unhelpful stereotypes about who would or who would not play this sort of mobile game, let's remember that there might be people in secure areas who, for one reason or another, and board because their job is just to push that red button in a worst case scenario, and now they're looking for you know.
Document, Ben, that's brilliant and terrifying.
Dude.
You're absolutely right, somebody breaking the rules, obviously breaking the rules with their own personal device that maybe they got slipped through whatever. I know there are clearances, and then you know, these things are not supposed to happen, but I can see it happening, dude.
So the first image I got in my head when you were talking about that, Ben, was the Pentagon. Right, somebody just like accidentally mapping the entirety of the Pentagon. But I think it could be. I think you're right. I think it's like critical infrastructure on a more local scale, So like those water treatment plants that we've always said were super vulnerable, or the.
Data centers whatever.
Yes, yes, Further, even if the security is up to snuff in some of those more sensitive locations. Imagine if you're looking at a foreign power, right and you're officially front of me's or whatever, but you know the water's boiling, there might be some shit going sideways on the horizon. Well, you don't need to have someone foolish enough to use a personal device in that secure area. You can map it by the absence of coverage. So what if everybody is to create a whole game until they get to
this one part? Now, why is there a hole? Let's send a satellite or it's like, hey, there's a.
Wild war total in the war room.
You know, dude, I mean that's how you find those secret buildings you guys covered. Uh, it's exactly what it is, like everybody, there's a poke stop somewhere, and we noticed that some users go into every single one of these rowhouses except for.
This one because the game rewards you with that kind of fastidious obsessive like mapping. That's literally what it is, man, the ude. We maybe should do an episode on some of this when information comes out. I think it's time to drop this one for now. But really, really great points all around, guys. Let's take a quick break here where from our sponsor, Oh and by the way, just credit where credit is due. This came to me initially from an Instagram Pal friend and fan of the show, Joseph.
I'm not gonna give a full name because he didn't give me permission, but dude, just want to thank you for hipping us to this very very interesting story. We'll take a break for a word from our sponsor and then come back with one more piece of strange news.
And we're back. Guys, We've got a few updates to cover really quickly. Remember our continuing quest to find the weirdest stuff drugs have either been smuggled into, shaped into, or just we found it paper mache, watermelons.
I speak, I know where you're going. Maybe I'm excited to find out, Matt, because I swear to god I almost texted you guys on that group chat where I'm texting you way too much.
Oh well, hey, credit where credit is due. I got this via text for my friend AJ and she just said, look at this. It is, guys, a four pound garden gnome fully shaped, looks like it's three D printed, and it is made of ecstasy slash molly slash MDMA.
Finally, right, I think I speak for all of us.
Finally, Can I also just say that ecstasy gnome would be a sick name for an electro band. Oh yeah, I.
Feel like I know a guy who goes by that. But it's one of these one of those nicknames that I don't, you know, I hate when this happens. I think it's a nickname that no one uses around him.
Yeah, he might not even know he has that. Yeah, I want to know.
Dyl So check this out in the Southern Netherlands. By the way, this comes to us via BBC. We'll read the title so you could find it. Dutch police find gnome made of M D M A during drug bust and uh so there is there's a lot of suspected narcotics in this one area, and hanging out with those suspected narcotics is a garden nome. It's got its hands over its mouth and it looks like it's going.
Gee and it's just as high as crap.
It's probably it's grinding its teeth because it just popped its own beam, which is I think a drug slang. So it is fully made, like formed of this stuff. And I'm just trying to imagine. I guess you have to break the whole thing down if you're going to process those drugs, you know, as somebody who's going to distribute.
But I want to say there was a subplot, and I think it was maybe the movie Traffic, where there was literally a thing formed out of cocaine and then you see them using some kind of solvent literally dissolve the entire thing down and then reprocess it and make it into a paste and what have you dried it?
And that's based in real world stuff. You can use those solvents. I mean, like you set this up earlier, you can clearly shape things, whether that be via cocaine, like with cocaine as a medium, et cetera. And then once you get it over the border then or wherever the end destination is, then you can use totally legal solvents to derive it into you care you want.
I just like the idea of somebody with a tiny, tiny little chiz and hammer like ding ding ding ding, hammer away.
That's gotta be a lot of MDMA though, right to make the garden.
No, yeah, four pounds of it. I don't know how much that is? Two kilograms?
Uh, I don't know what's the typical dose of MDMA.
Whatever a bean is, that's all I know. So like a pill.
Yeah, there's the pills still, and you know, in the nineties it was ecstasy and they were pressed into these pills with like pokemon on them or like a Mitsubishi. There are all kinds of different ones, Buddha double stack, you know, ferraris or whatever the crap. But they were cut with all kinds of crazy stuff. Today it seems like the term is flipped more towards molly or or you know, flip toward Yeah.
Sure, I think it is.
MALLI is meant to be a purer form of the active ingredient from ecstasy, which is pure MDMA. But I don't believe that it's still cut with something man like. There's no way they're not. They're just putting that stuff out completely unadulttery, and that's not how drug trade works.
Well, this, this MDMA is cut with a side of magic, because this gnome is truly magic and whimsy.
Yes, I I like how the authorities describe them as visibly startled.
Yeah, yeah, is on his hands over Oh no, I can cut me.
I'm mad drugs. Do we know if there were any.
Arrest I'm not sure. Probably I'm assuming, but I don't know.
I know the circumstances in which it was discovered.
Well, this guy's got to tell you. This BBC article is pretty it's pretty short, it's not really robust. Let's say it does mention that MDMA is illegal in the Netherlands, as it is in many parts of the world. And oh, as of twenty nineteen, according to the BBC, the Netherlands is among one of the world's leading producers of MDMA.
Well, the Netherlands is also, like, you know, the place where marijuana has been legal for decades.
They got big freeport vibes. It's the vestiges of their maritime empire. I'm looking on a source called Mixed mag which I'm not too familiar with, but apparently there.
Is a techno website. Okay, it's an electronic.
Music Oh yeah, well good, I trust them as legitimate for this. They're saying at a four pound or for the rest of the world, two kilogram statue of this size is the equivalent of around eight thousand ecstasy pills. So at the very least, this is a pretty significant investment, right, which.
I would guess go for around twenty five bucks a pop hill. Yeah, I think so wow.
That brought my Larry David out. No way, pass us dollars pass step down. What do you have for fifteen man? Do you have any rhinos statues? We're talking full sized rhinos, the good rhinos too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It gets hot in those rhinos.
Guys.
We're moving on to the next update. This one comes to us via the Guardian. We're just hanging out in the UK right now. Jolly good guys. What's a franken chicken? If you had to describe what a franken chicken is or what you think a franken chicken is, it's that chicken that is made of nothing but drumsticks. Oh interesting, Yeah, it's.
A I believe the idea that that's the old like back in the days of analog. That's the old food conspiracy theory urban legend chickens that were just breasted legs with no no heads. I believe they're I believe the real version. There's sometimes called broiler chickens. They're the ones that are huge victims of the livestock industry. Also, we got a nice letter from Peta. Unrelatedly, yes, it was very kind.
Thank you.
Wes uh and on the same page. But they're I think they're very large eugenics practice. They're they're modified to grow faster. Is that correct?
Yes, The way I understand the franken chicken term is just as you said, ben used to be one thing. Now it is the real chickens that are grown and mass so in tight little cages. But think way too many chickens per cage and given all kinds of sometimes hormones to grow them faster, often antibiotics. Because they're in such close quarters, they get sick all the time.
They can a lot of them can't walk, I believe.
Oh yeah, not enough area to move around often, not enough natural light to even have a semblance of existence and understanding of where they are in space and time.
I mean like with body mass, though I think several like it's not infrequent for them to physically be incapable of walking even with the space.
Chick exactly at their best are pretty big boys up top with little tiny legs. These would probably just atrophy to the point of being, you know, completely useless.
It is a pretty disgusting thing, but it is an evolution based on a necessity for the amount of chicken that is sold to every thing of every grocery store, every place that sells chicken, and the fast food joined every other place that sells chicken, and so each one of these individual restaurants and chains has to source their chicken from somewhere. This story is about sourcing of chickens.
Back in twenty nineteen, KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken or just KFC specifically in the United Kingdom made a pledge, Hey, by twenty twenty six, we are going to stop using these types of chickens. We are going to source our chickens from places that have enough space to move around, that have natural light, that have all of these things basically the way you would want a chicken to live. Even if that chicken from the moment of birth is going to be killed and eaten, that chicken is going
to have a better life right now. That doesn't mean it's a good thing for that chicken necessarily, right, But it does mean if human beings are going to be eating chicken, at least the people who make those chickens into food can treat them well.
Right.
Kind of an awesome move. KFC got a lot of accolades, or at least a lot of tips of the hat like, hey, good on you for at least treating the chickens while or pledging to do it. But they just came out and said, hey, everybody, there is just no way that we can meet this stuff. Because of the demand for chicken and the amount of chicken that's being produced and the type of producers that are out there, we cannot source enough chicken.
Like even if we raised the prices right the people the past, what people are willing to pay, even if we satisfied every other variable and obstacle, the supply chain itself is already so dependent upon this pattern that there's no way to alter it. You'd have to kind of build out a new chain of chicken chain.
Yep.
They they were gonna get slower growing breaths. They were gonna, you know, have chickens that lived in light where they can move around. And they just said, no, we can't do We have to buy We have to buy chicken. So sorry, it's just kind of awful.
And then that foresee these potential roadblocks, like people want chicken. People aren't gonna stop wanting chicken. You made a pledge, but that's why.
In twenty nineteen. It was a pledge rather than a here is what we're doing next year or something like that. Right, hopefully the stars will align or you know, the circumstances will change such that we can meet these goals. It just looks like they didn't.
It's declaration of intent, like a rose colored glasses pr move more than anything.
I mean, did they did? When did they know the facts? The sad reality is they see it right about the economics of scale and the chickens. Versus to your question, no, when did they decide, oh, we'll hold off a second and just let this good pr wash over us.
Yeah.
Well, here's a quote from Ruth Edge e Edge. She is the head of sustainability at KFC UK and Ireland. She was talking to the Egg and Poultry Industry Conference, or at the Egg and Poultry Industry Conference in Wales and this is actually as of last well maybe a week and a half ago as we're recording this. She said, quote, we're not saying we're never going to but we're saying for twenty twenty six and the way the market has developed or lack of, we're not going to be able to do it.
I guess I just don't fully understand what these unforeseen market forces were. It just seems like it's business as usual, Like what is the big surprise.
I'll give you just more from this VBC article we mentioned at the top. KFC says there's an inadequate supply to meet the commitment because farmers are not switching in big enough numbers to slower growing.
Breeds, probably because they can't afford to.
To be honest, yes, yes, according to KFC, they're working to source chickens from farms with quote lower stocking densities, but they're just having issues. They're not finding enough basically chicken growers, which is kind of a weird thing to think about, who are switching to the practices that they want to switch to because there's just literally not enough chicken.
Okay, well, I get it. I guess that makes sense. I just don't know how they thought that things were going to be so much different.
It's a weird one because it's again it's economy of scale. And it's also interesting that this is a UK specific situation right now for them, because I wonder, you know, and this is very tangentially related, but I wonder if the scope of this has anything to do with the EU Brexit situation, if there are maybe laws in the EU that are different or more amenable to this kind of pledge or appearance of a pledge, or.
If economic hardships brought on by Brexit led to a slow down, and what maybe was seeming to be.
In the in the car it chicken industry is so crazy too, Like there's this whole middle passage for chickens grown in the US getting taken over to China for processing sent back to the US, that some parts of that chicken are also re sold over the Pacific.
Where the laws allow right where Like, yeah.
It's bigger than the I know the British hate to hear it, but it's bigger than England.
Let's do a big chicken episode. I think, have we not know we've had a livestock, livestock, but let's do like just chicken.
Sure, so yeah, big chickens.
And I got one last thing, well, two last things to mention that we're not going to actually cover today. The first one is a missing person's case. Hannah Kobayashi. This is somebody that again I think we need a full episode on. This is somebody who went missing on well, she didn't go missing on November eighth, but it's the story of her going missing when she flew from Hawaii to Los Angeles began on November eighth of this year.
And there's a bunch of twists and turns that are happening right now, specifically stuff that happened with her father pretty recently. It's very strange and I think it's worth our time. We just we won't have enough time to cover in one of these episodes. But yeah, definitely look up Hannah Kobyashi if you have time, and you can also look up Ryan Kobyashi, who is Hannah's father who
recently passed away as well. So missing person and then father missing person who was looking for her passed away. Very sad messed up, but it seems like a human trafficking situation, so something at least to keep her eye on. Last thing to mention is the DEA has decided to stop doing that whole civil asset forfeiture thing at airports where they quote randomly search people.
And shack your stuff check out in English exactly. And a big part of that, by the way, is all the all the successful legal proceedings, yes that have taken place, but civil asset forfeiture still applies to other agencies and other situations. Folks, be careful.
Can I just say I've been really enjoying this TV series on Peacock called Lions that is about a CIA program of betting women in with like basically the close
relatives or girlfriends or wives of terrorists targets. But one thing that I thought was really interesting in an episode, there's a part where they have a joint operation with the DEA, and it feels like it's a show that has a lot of research behind it, but it really shows how certain agencies are not created equal in terms of the resources they get, and the DEA does not have the level of resources as say.
The CIA or even the FBI. Wow.
Yeah, And the way they show it in the episode that I'm talking about is really stark and fascinating.
Atf is in a similar situation to what you're describing. Also, I would say, in addition to unequal resources, some have more flexibility in their rules than others, or at least have historically.
Wasn't it some agency couldn't recently like justify where a gazillion dollars went, and they.
Are like a Pentagon every year.
Yeah, but there was a specific story happen. I wish I had better memory of which agency this was, but it was a big headline of a certain amount of money and discretionary funds, which basically is up to supervisors to determine where it goes. That they couldn't justify or couldn't exactly say where it went. And that's not that big a deal in some situations.
Oh gosh, looks like the Pentagon is set to again fail its annual audit.
That's what it was, Thank you, Ben, That's what it was. Yep, as simple as that. But again, not big news in general. No one's gonna get in trouble exactly. It's just a pass the buck kind of situation. And these discretionary budgets are a very real thing.
Well, I gotta say again, attempting to keep things positive, the Pentagon is setting a track record for the largest entity of its type to repeatedly fail its annual audit. Oh shit, they've got their numbers up there.
Yes, and I found a story from a month ago. Guys. This is from New York Posts, So okay, whatever, but here's the title, World Bank Bureaucrats lost track of at least twenty four billion dollars in funds fighting climate change. And here's a quote from one of the officials. It could be twice or ten times more.
When you say fighting climate change, do you mean fighting the concept of climate change?
Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, Okay, they were just bought. They put on like gloves and they were just fighting the concept.
No, no, no, no no no.
Truly though, is this like anti climate change propaganda or are they literally attempting to combat the effects of climate change? And just that that headline is vague.
It lends to check out our episode on greenwashing. It lends to that idea with somebody laundry money. Were they funding initiatives or inngos? Look, it's hard to it's hard to rock with most individuals because most individuals technically are not billionaires, but a lot of money goes through the
cracks every year. If you go to American Military News for a comp here, you can see that just a few days ago the Pentagon failed its seventh in a row and they cannot account for eight hundred and twenty four billion dollars.
Bro you mentioned refly the Macy's thing. Some employee, an individual managed to conceal one hundred and fifteen roughly million dollars, and it didn't affect them paying any of their suppliers, because you know, that was just a drop in the bucket of their billions of dollars and it's just it just disappeared.
One hundred and fifty four million dollars.
Geez.
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