Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Such a good example of that with this week's episode. In 2018, I watched a fascinating docuseries on Netflix called Wild, Wild Country about a controversial guru building a utopian city in the Oregon desert. I thought about doing an episode about the Rajneeshees then, but I didn't want to be overly influenced by that one show. I'm glad I waited. More dirt on the cult has come to light in the years since, and we look into it today. Did Bhagwan Rajnees...
May 30, 2022•3 hr 38 min
Apologies for my weak voice today! Remnant of a second bout with Covid. Had to drink several cups of hot tea and honey, and take numerous breaks to at least sound somewhat understandable. Today, we look into how Germany dealt with the Holocaust once it was over. And how occupying powers, including the US and the Soviet Union, dealt with it as well. Who do you punish when millions have been complicit in some way(s) in committing one of the greatest atrocities in human history? We also look at hol...
May 23, 2022•3 hr 49 min
As early as 1933, Hitler and the Nazis - the National Socialist German Worker’s Party - began passing a series of discriminatory laws against Jews— inch by inch, chipping away at their freedoms. They took away their property. Their ability to practice certain jobs or exist in public places. They took away their ability to own pets or walk around without a badge identifying them as Jews. And they did all this while the world watched. While everyone hoped that maybe they’d finally just stop with a...
May 16, 2022•3 hr 7 min
Rodney Alcala - the Dating Game Killer. Not as well known, but just as vicious as any other killer we've ever covered here. Between 1968 and 1979, Rodney brutally raped, tortured, and killed at least nine girls and women - possibly over a hundred. His victims would literally be sexually tortured to death by the man they generally just thought wanted to take artsy pictures of them. Instead, he'd beat them, bite them, rape them, and strangle them until they were unconscious, and then bring them ba...
May 09, 2022•3 hr 54 min
Vladimir Putin. Who is the former KGB officer who has led Russia since 2000? Is he a friend of a foe of the West? Was he legitimately elected to office? Legitimately re-elected? Does he have any valid reason to be in Ukraine right now? What does he really want to accomplish in Ukraine? Today we dig into the story of Russia's leader, who is maybe one of the greatest propagandists the world has ever known. Can we actually trust anything that comes out of his mouth? Are his troops actually "de-nazi...
May 02, 2022•3 hr 52 min
After laying out so much of what we know about Epstein last week, this week we get more speculative and we examine multiple conspiracies regarding Epstein's death. Did he not, in fact, die - and he's alive and well somewhere today? Did the Clintons have him killed? Did Trump have him killed? Did someone else he may have been blackmailing or the FBI have him killed? We also look into the origins of the Clinton Body Count conspiracy, and more. Hail Nimrod! Bad Magic Productions Monthly Patreon Don...
Apr 25, 2022•2 hr 2 min
We know that Jeffrey Epstein was born on January 20th, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York City. We also know he died on August 10th, 2019 (or late the evening of the 9th) in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. But what do we know about the sixty-six years in-between? We don't know as much as Epstein as we do many of our previous biographical subjects - he was a pretty mysterious guy - but we do know quite a bit. We know he managed the multi-billion dollar fortune of Lex Wexner, foun...
Apr 18, 2022•3 hr 48 min
Fascinating stuff today! I knew almost nothing about Air America - the CIA's secret airline - before this week's research. Today, we go over the history of Air America, and also look at how Air America fit into the CIA's battle for ideological control of southeast Asia. We look at the Cold War battle that wasn't limited to just Korea and Vietnam. Significant fighting also took place in Laos and elsewhere as the US waged secret wars against communist forces backed by the Soviets or the Chinese, o...
Apr 11, 2022•3 hr 31 min
Long before he brutally murdered his wife Katie - crushing her head and disemboweling her on March 18th, 1993 - Ed was really struggling with his mental health. He'd been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia a year earlier. He'd been really sick long before that. He's been battling powerful hallucinations and delusions for over a year. He'd been tormented by visions of things like a giant rabbit. He was convinced the devil was using his wife to keep him from salvation. He thought he could read ...
Apr 04, 2022•3 hr 38 min
Robert Lee Yates often described himself as a "family man." And he was a family man. He was a married father of five. Married to the mother of his children for over twenty years. He was also a decorated veteran who served in the military for over twenty years as well, most of that span in active duty service as a helicopter pilot of the army. He was, for many, the last person you would suspect to be a sexually motivated serial killer. But that's who he also was. Yates killed at least a dozen wom...
Mar 28, 2022•3 hr 32 min
Death! How comfortable are you thinking about it? Talking about? What rights should be afforded to you when it's your time to "meet your maker?" Jack Kevorkian thought you, under certain conditions, should be able to have a physician help you peacefully release yourself from a life of unbearable, incurable pain. Do you agree? Or do you think everyone needs to soldier on, no matter what they're suffering from, until the bitter end? There are a lot of people on each side of the right to die debate...
Mar 21, 2022•3 hr 59 min
Did you know that Jesus was half-alien? And so was Buddha? And Muhammed, Joseph Smith, Moses, Abraham, and many other proclaimed prophets throughout history. There are 40 in total, and a failed French pop musician and wannabe race car driver, Claude Vorilhon, claims to be the final and most important one. He's "Raël," which he says means "messenger of the Elohim." And who are the Elohim, in Claude's mind? A race of highly evolved aliens who created humanity 25,000 years ago. And they're coming b...
Mar 14, 2022•3 hr 41 min
On December 31st, 2021, Hollywood legend and literally the most well-liked living person in America at one point, Betty White, passed away in her home in Brentwood, California. Even though she was 99 years old, it still felt like she was taken too soon. She was still so very much alive and looking forward to celebrating her 100th birthday in a little over two weeks. Most now seem to remember her from The Golden Girls, or The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or Hot in Cleveland. Or maybe that 2010 Snickers...
Mar 07, 2022•2 hr 28 min
On the night of October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd attending the final night of the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival on Las Vegas’s famous StripLas Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800, before turning a gun on himself. And then two more would die later of their injuries raising the final body count to 61. Although the shooting only lasted 10 minutes, the death and injury tolls made this massacre the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Today we look...
Feb 28, 2022•3 hr 48 min
A lot to unpack today! Who are the Amish? Why do they dress and live like it's still the 17th century? How are they related to Mennonites? What interpretation of Christianity led to them to the lifestyle they live today? Are they happy? Are they a cult? Today we'll explore the Anabaptist, Protestant Reformation origins of the Amish and how they differ from Mennonites. We'll look at their practices of Rumspringa and shunning. We'll examine why the refuse to drive cars or use computers. We'll also...
Feb 21, 2022•3 hr 48 min
At 1:40AM on February 2nd, 1980, a group of inmates at the New Mexico State Penitentiary attacked three guards doing their nightly count. What followed was one of the deadliest prison riots in US history. Drunk and angry inmates seized the prison, and 36 hours of Hell on Earth followed. 12 guards were taken hostage, 33 inmates were killed, and over 200 people were raped. Inmates were lit on fire, beheaded, and brutally tortured. When it was all over everyone wanted to know- what led to such carn...
Feb 14, 2022•2 hr 13 min
Attila the Hun! Does his name conjure up images of savagery in your mind? Of a bloodthirsty warrior-king who ruthlessly tortured and killed his enemies as he sacked city after city? An especially barbaric man who stood out for violence in a time known for so much violence? OR - was he a man of his times? Was he no more or less violent than the Romans, whose historians wrote his story? And when they wrote his story, how much was truth and how much was hyperbole and slander? Today we look into 5th...
Feb 07, 2022•2 hr 14 min
Arthur Shawcross was born on June 6th, 1945 in Kittery, Maine and he would grow up to terrorize the people of Watertown and Rochester, both in New York. Family, neighbors, schoolmates, and anyone else who met him knew he was "different" from an early age. He said odd things, he reacted unnaturally to various situations, he talked to himself, he didn't understand tone, sarcasm, irony, etc. And he was angry. And he was scary when he was angry. Soon, he was torturing and killing small animals and t...
Jan 31, 2022•3 hr 46 min
Did Scott Peterson REALLY kill Laci Peterson? Did you know that zero direct evidence tied him to these crimes? And a lot of the circumstantial evidence in this case was... very loose. And there were huge holes in the prosecution's case against him that they jury just didn't seem to care about. Did you know that numerous neighbors spotted Laci walking her dog in the neighborhood after Scott definitely left their home to head to the San Francisco Bay where and when he supposedly dumped her dead bo...
Jan 24, 2022•3 hr 33 min
Get ready for a brain buster. Or at least prepare to witness my brain being busted. Celtic mythology is... tricky to understand. And no one understands perfectly because the source material is scarce. A LOT has been written about Celtic mythology but so much of it is conjecture presented as fact. The ancient Celts themselves didn't write anything down. Their enemies did. As did the Catholic monks who came to island to conquer a people the Roman army could not. Today we familiarize ourselves with...
Jan 17, 2022•2 hr 26 min
Did you know that if lots of people have lots of unprotected sex and the men never ejaculate you can help Jesus create his kingdom on Earth? No? Well then you would NOT have been accepted into the Oneida Community Cult and you would've never gotten to live in a 93,000 square foot compound in Oneida, NY with around three hundred other followers. This is just one of the super crazy messages John Humphrey Noyes taught the followers living in his community. He also taught them that he was perfect. L...
Jan 10, 2022•2 hr 23 min
What, EXACTLY, is “prostitution”? How is it defined? Are prostitute and sex worker interchangeable terms? Why are most prostitutes women? Why are most clients men? Where does prostitution occur around the world? What is sex tourism? How does it harm? How does it help? What should the government’s role be regarding prostitution? Should it be legal or not? What do sex robots have to do with the future of prostitution? These are just a few of the questions we try to answer today with a particularly...
Jan 03, 2022•3 hr 42 min
Robert Smalls! He was born a slave in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839. Then he'd pull off a daring sea-faring escape to the Union during the Civil War, then become the first black captain for the Union, then becoming a member of the US House of Representatives. He would die in the house he was born in - his former slave master's - a house he bought after the Civil War. His story is one of perseverance and grit - of refusing to quit no mater how the odds are stacked against you. After his story,...
Dec 27, 2021•3 hr 30 min
The Flatwoods Monster. The Whirling Whimpus. Devil Dogs and Sheepsquatch. The Virginia Moonshine Man-Possum, GreenBrier Skink-Skank, the Tiddle-Whisper Dragon of Johnson City, the Rocky Branch Giant Rape-Beetle, the Snallygaster. Which one of these are cryptids thought to exist by people in Appalachia? Which are creatures I made up for this episode? How do you say Appalachia? What does it mean to be Appalachian? Why does the hillbilly stereotype come from Appalachia? Why is the banjo associated ...
Dec 20, 2021•2 hr 25 min
In early 1992, young married couple Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka seemed to have a lot going for them. They'd just gotten married, Paul was making good money, and they were living in a nice house in scenic Port Dalhousie, Ontario. But they were harboring some real, real dark secrets. Paul was the Scarborough rapist - authorities had been looking for the man that raped over a dozen women going back at least five years. And together, the pair had now raped and killed at least two women. And thei...
Dec 13, 2021•3 hr 35 min
Did you know that Hunter S Thompson of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas fame was one of the first people to bring national attention to the Hells Angels? Or that they were founded by soldiers returning home from World War 2? Or that a Marlon Brando movie in the 1950's also lead to growth of not just the Hells Angels but other Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, as the US Justice Department likes to call them? Who are the real Sons of Anarchy? Big informative episode today about the Hells Angels, the history ...
Dec 06, 2021•3 hr 36 min
Covering a lot of ground today! Going over the history of human opioid usage - the opium poppy is one helluva plant. What different types of opiates and opioids are out there? Why are we having a record number of opioid overdose deaths now when we've been using opiates going back at least as far as the ancient Sumerians? What changed in the 1980's to lay the ground work for the opioid epidemic we have today in the United States? What is Big Pharma's role in this epidemic? What are we doing to he...
Nov 29, 2021•3 hr 48 min
I had a lot of fun on this one taking a nostalgic look at US culture in 1989 and 1993. Also found the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez incredibly interesting. Why did two brothers viciously murder their parents with shotguns in the summer of 1989? Erik was about to enroll in UCLA. Lyle was attending Princeton. Their parents spoiled them with money for lavish shopping trips, vacations, fancy cars, condos, and more. They grew up in affluence. Their parents lived in a Beverly Hills mansion that Mich...
Nov 22, 2021•3 hr 48 min
Levi Boone Helm. The Kentucky Cannibal. Born in 1828 in Kentucky, and hanged in Montana Territory in 1864, this guy was mayhem on legs. He spent nearly his entire adult life fighting, robbing, killing, and running from the law. He killed at least 18 men in various shootouts and other violent encounters. He ended up stuck way out in the woods on numerous occasions with no option for food other than to eat another grown man, which he did if he got hungry enough. He spent his final days riding with...
Nov 15, 2021•2 hr 13 min
Aum Shinrikyo was a Japanese doomsday cult led by psychotic madman Shoko Asahara, a man who claimed to be Jesus who was nicknamed the Japanese Charles Manson. He was actually a much more dangerous cult leader than Manson was. He pulled tens of thousands into his dark insanity, instead of just a handful. He had thousands of followers willing to help him violently bring about the end times. Aum started in the 1980s as a small spiritual group based on tenets of Buddhism. And then he soon incorporat...
Nov 08, 2021•2 hr 22 min
