Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 2: name is Noel.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 1: super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are here and that makes this the stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know as we record today on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: June twenty First, there is a submersible in trouble. There
Speaker 1: are also some people in trouble in the world of
Speaker 1: the body part trade, and there are pre that you
Speaker 1: should not trust, which we know sounds a bit Shakespearean,
Speaker 1: but you'll see what we're what we're talking about. Maybe
Speaker 1: we start today with the with the thing that has
Speaker 1: increasingly taken the forefront of the zeitgeist here in the US.
Speaker 1: It's not the burgeoning geopolitical tensions. It's not the stuff
Speaker 1: we talked about with with Chia and Cuba. It's five
Speaker 1: people who went James Cameron style to explore the wreckage
Speaker 1: of the liner Titanic, which we talked about the Titanic
Speaker 1: in previous episodes.
Speaker 2: We did yeah, and there was Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean the biggest conspiracy of all is there was
Speaker 3: plenty of room on that door for Jack and Rose
Speaker 3: to survive.
Speaker 2: It's my hot take, but yeah, a tragedy, right, a massive,
Speaker 2: massive tragedy that lives in history books. For every student
Speaker 2: that goes through American public schools, You've likely learned about
Speaker 2: the titan You've likely seen the movie about it. It
Speaker 2: is still, let's say, a thing, an event in time
Speaker 2: that is a fascination for a lot of people, and
Speaker 2: specifically the wreckage of that site. When we think about
Speaker 2: James Cameron's obsession with it and all of the money
Speaker 2: and time he spent creating the technology to go down
Speaker 2: there in film a documentary years and years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some controversial interviews with James Matt where
Speaker 1: it appears that our pal Heavy Jay is saying he
Speaker 1: made the Titanic film primarily to get the funding for
Speaker 1: his expedition down there.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine having that kind of agency. I'm going
Speaker 2: to make a blockbuster film so that I might build
Speaker 2: a submersible and go to the depths.
Speaker 3: Well, and just to have the foresight to know that
Speaker 3: it would be so massive. He always does, like I
Speaker 3: was so skeptical about these Avatar sequels twenty years removed
Speaker 3: from the original number one grossing movie of all time.
Speaker 3: I mean, the guy's got vision, if nothing else but
Speaker 3: an interesting obsession, don't you think. I mean, I guess
Speaker 3: it is fascinating. I think we're all fascinating with historical blunders,
Speaker 3: you know, of this magnitude, especially ones that are so
Speaker 3: high profile, the unsinkable ship and all of that. So
Speaker 3: it does make sense that it kind of remains as
Speaker 3: do you know, a large portion of the wreckage because
Speaker 3: it's so deep that it's not like they're going to
Speaker 3: dredge it up, you know, just that's just kind of
Speaker 3: where it is, so you kind of got to go
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 1: And people forget just how easy it is to lose
Speaker 1: things in the ocean. It's often said, unfortunately with a
Speaker 1: great deal of accuracy, that the human species knows more
Speaker 1: about the surface of the Moon than they do about
Speaker 1: the majority of Earth's surface, which is covered by water.
Speaker 1: The Titanic for anyone who somehow got through life without
Speaker 1: knowing about this, it is a big ass ocean liner.
Speaker 1: And on April fifteenth, nineteen twelve. It sank after colliding
Speaker 1: with an iceberg. That's the official story. Would love to
Speaker 1: hear your alternative narratives. It wasn't until nineteen eighty five
Speaker 1: that the wreckage of this stuff was discovered. Not quite
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, not Pacific Ocean, middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: you know, not like Point Nemo or whatever. But it's
Speaker 1: about seven hundred and forty clicks or four hundred nautical
Speaker 1: miles from the coast of Newfoundland, and it is deep, deep,
Speaker 1: deep on the ocean floor. Twelve thousand, five hundred feet.
Speaker 1: For anybody who likes a good sea shanty metric, that's
Speaker 1: little over two thousand fathoms, so it is fathoms deep.
Speaker 1: There's a group of people called ocean Gate. Ocean Gate
Speaker 1: is not a weird like Watergate reference. It does seem
Speaker 1: to be an unfortunate self prophesizing name. Ocean Gate operates
Speaker 1: out of Everett, Washington, and they provide submersibles, not submarines,
Speaker 1: submersibles for tourism, for research, for general exploration. It's very
Speaker 1: close to exploring near outer space when you get to
Speaker 1: this level of the depths.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean down to all the completely bizarre looking
Speaker 3: creatures that reside down there, you know, with all these
Speaker 3: insane adaptations. I mean, I know we haven't discovered life
Speaker 3: and outer space quite yet, but if we were, wouldn't
Speaker 3: be surprised if they had similar.
Speaker 1: Vibin Yeah, and as we've said in previous episodes on cryptozoology,
Speaker 1: if you are a human interested in undiscovered animals, then
Speaker 1: your highest likelihood of finding a large undiscovered animal is
Speaker 1: not on the surface of Earth. It is in those
Speaker 1: abysal depths. It is in that lou Cthulhu, their Catulhu territory.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, I don't speak Lovecraft natively, I hope not,
Speaker 1: Dear God right, different different franchise who could call our species.
Speaker 1: But so first, in twenty twenty one, this outfit Ocean Gate.
Speaker 1: It says, look, we have this submersible that we're really
Speaker 1: proud of, and we trust that it can take paying
Speaker 1: customers to visit the Titanic shipwreck, just like James Cameron.
Speaker 1: They say, all for the low low cost of two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand US dollars per person. Now that's
Speaker 1: a high barrier for a lot of people. You know,
Speaker 1: there are watches that are more expensive. There are houses
Speaker 1: that are less expensive. Either way, it's less than going
Speaker 1: than pretending to go to space for eleven minutes.
Speaker 3: I was about to say, yeah, it's definitely cheaper than that. True.
Speaker 1: And their mission is to make underwater exploration, let me
Speaker 1: get this right, more accessible to private citizens. And there
Speaker 1: are a lot of echoes and parallels to the missions
Speaker 1: of private space exploration ventures like SpaceX or Blue Origin. Recently,
Speaker 1: quite recently, as we record, disaster struck on June eighteenth,
Speaker 1: just a few days ago, and we're recording on the
Speaker 1: twenty first of June, one of their submersibles went missing
Speaker 1: about two hours after it was supposed to take an
Speaker 1: eight hour trip down and up to visit to have
Speaker 1: a let me put this correctly, to have a one
Speaker 1: in five chance of successfully seeing the wreckage of the Titanic.
Speaker 1: Other expeditions had occurred, and they're called expeditions by Ocean Gate.
Speaker 1: And I think for a lot of the passengers, many
Speaker 1: of whom are famous, many of whom are people of note,
Speaker 1: I think it was startling for them to realize the sheer,
Speaker 1: vastness of the ocean, the idea that something as large
Speaker 1: as the Titanic could be a needle in a haystack.
Speaker 1: You know, you get down to the ocean floor and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, we're somewhere near here, right, We're somewhere near
Speaker 1: what we want to see. Let's use our Logitech off
Speaker 1: brand Xbox controller to try to find the most famous
Speaker 1: shipwreck in modern history.
Speaker 3: So is there there's no way to use like radar
Speaker 3: or like to like search for something of that magnetic
Speaker 3: I understand the issue of scale, but you think, if
Speaker 3: you're paying that much, you damn sure we want to
Speaker 3: be guaranteed a glimpse of the thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I I feel like there would be some kind
Speaker 2: of transponder or some kind of powerful thing that was
Speaker 2: left in the wreckage after somebody like James Cameron go
Speaker 2: down there. You know, But how in the heck do
Speaker 2: you do that? How do you transport that, get it
Speaker 2: all the way to that depth and leave it in
Speaker 2: a strategic place and ensure that it stays there? Like
Speaker 2: the mechanics that would be really simple if you were
Speaker 2: on the surface, right, if you were going to go
Speaker 2: leave a transponder somewhere at a location. But when you
Speaker 2: got to go that far in those pressures, I imagine
Speaker 2: that's really really difficult.
Speaker 1: Especially considering the surface of the ocean is itself fluid,
Speaker 1: right like the okay, difference between a submarine and a submersible,
Speaker 1: a craft that we will call a submarine can operate independently.
Speaker 1: As you hear this strange new segment everything we're talking
Speaker 1: about from Stem distern today, you need to realize you
Speaker 1: are in a world where there are a not insignificant
Speaker 1: number of what we call nuclear submarines that just sort
Speaker 1: of ghost around the world. And the whole reason that
Speaker 1: nuclear deterrence matt mutually assured destruction works is essentially because
Speaker 1: no one knows where those subs are, but they know
Speaker 1: they have nuclear warheads. It is tough to find stuff here, right,
Speaker 1: So this thing obviously self limits to people who people
Speaker 1: are doing well financially. So every time you have a
Speaker 1: dive or an expedition, again as ocean Gate likes to
Speaker 1: call it, you have a pilot, you have a guide
Speaker 1: they work for ocean Gate or work with ocean Gate,
Speaker 1: and then you have three paying passengers and they're called
Speaker 1: mission specialists. It's similar nomenclature to what you would hear
Speaker 1: in the world is space exploration. So it takes three
Speaker 1: hours to get to the Titanic the wreckage. If everything
Speaker 1: goes well, the full dive again takes about eight hours,
Speaker 1: and there are some safety safety protocols in place. There's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a ping scent ping every fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: to be monitored by the above water crew because this
Speaker 1: is not a submarine. It is a submersible, which means
Speaker 1: it needs something on the surface of the ocean like
Speaker 1: old school bathispheres. It needs something on the surface of
Speaker 1: the ocean to function as mission control, just like our Palpaul.
Speaker 3: But it's not tethered like physically like those old like
Speaker 3: diving suits right, Like, this is all electronic communications right.
Speaker 2: Kind of makes you wish it was tethered right.
Speaker 3: After this, it's sort of like wrapping the rope around
Speaker 3: your you know, ankle before you go into the ghost abyss,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Unfortunately, the depths that we are talking about here
Speaker 1: are with current technology, it's impossible to build a really
Speaker 1: effective tether such that you could just pull on the
Speaker 1: rope and bring people back to the human world.
Speaker 2: I called bulls. Wrap a rope around that thing like a.
Speaker 3: Good rope, leave a breadcrumb trail as well. That we
Speaker 3: talked about. We talked about this off air. I forget
Speaker 3: the guy's name now and I'm so sorry, but you
Speaker 3: can probably google this. They're a former showrunner for The
Speaker 3: Simpsons actually got into a scrape in one of these
Speaker 3: quite a few years back. So this is not like
Speaker 3: a brand new proposition.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: He actually told The New York Post in a recent article,
Speaker 3: because these people are kind of coming after him, now,
Speaker 3: get his perspective on this thing about how his craft
Speaker 3: got stuck in the mud and the driver using Essentially,
Speaker 3: if you look at the inside of these, it's like
Speaker 3: a little joystick, you know. I think there's like maybe
Speaker 3: three people can fit in one of these, and they're
Speaker 3: wedged against the sides of this you know, curved you know,
Speaker 3: fuselage kind of deal, and they had to kind of
Speaker 3: wiggle back and forth and got out of there. And
Speaker 3: he talks about how like his last and is what
Speaker 3: he thought were his dying moments. He whipped out his
Speaker 3: handy dandy comedy journal and wrote some jokes about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's Mike Rice. Yes, a former a writer, former
Speaker 1: showrunner for the Simpsons. He was down there with the
Speaker 1: five people that can fit and that's submersible, and it
Speaker 1: looks like when you look inside you can see photos
Speaker 1: and video of the interior of the titan craft. It
Speaker 1: is not It is not a five star hotel by
Speaker 1: any means. It's a tube that can again fit five people,
Speaker 1: two of whom are Stafford crew, three of whom are passengers.
Speaker 1: It has one porthole. It has a couple of monitors,
Speaker 1: three monitors. It has this again, this Logitech. It is
Speaker 1: literally a Logitech off brand video game controller that will
Speaker 1: help it navigate the seafloor. It cannot be opened from
Speaker 1: the outside. It does not have escape pods or anything
Speaker 1: of that nature. The reason that we opened with saying
Speaker 1: the oxygen becomes the main concern here is that, according
Speaker 1: to the most optimistic calculations, a craft like this, a
Speaker 1: subversible like this, will have around ninety six hours of
Speaker 1: breathable oxygen four or five people. Again, that feels like
Speaker 1: a lot of redundancy, right when we're talking about an
Speaker 1: eight hour tour, an eight hour tour. Shout out to
Speaker 1: Gilligan's Island inappropriately.
Speaker 3: Oh that you do a Gilligan's Island reboot where it's
Speaker 3: a submarine. They find some sort of Atlantis type civilization.
Speaker 3: That'd be fun.
Speaker 1: And so as we're recording, these folks have about fifteen
Speaker 1: at best fifteen or so hours of oxygen, which means
Speaker 1: by the time this comes out on Monday, then they
Speaker 1: will be found hopefully or they will be lost. And again,
Speaker 1: the ocean is another part of nature. It is hungry,
Speaker 1: It eats things. What we want to talk about here,
Speaker 1: what we need to highlight here is that it sounds
Speaker 1: like they were quite possibly alive as far as the
Speaker 1: most recent updates. We talked about this a bit off air.
Speaker 1: There were banging, clanging sounds coming every thirty minutes in
Speaker 1: an attempt ostensibly to show their location, which I think
Speaker 1: there are three scenarios right now that are most possible.
Speaker 1: And I think this lends a lot of credence to
Speaker 1: the idea that they got stuck somewhere in the muck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like with the Simpsons guy. But I guess they
Speaker 3: weren't able to wiggle their way out of it. Just man,
Speaker 3: doesn't this seem patently unsafe? Just the whole thing. Like
Speaker 3: another thing I read in one in the post article
Speaker 3: about mister Rice is like, yeah, was that yeah? In
Speaker 3: the waiver that he had to sign the word death
Speaker 3: appears about three or four times, right, Yeah, indemnification or
Speaker 3: whatever like it is definitely on the table death. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well it's a massive risk. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It's a thrill seeker type deal is what it is.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, jumping out of a plane. But
Speaker 3: even I think more dangerous.
Speaker 2: But anyway, all I'm saying is it doesn't matter how
Speaker 2: advanced the technology is. Right, of course, going down there
Speaker 2: is going to be crazy dangerous. I'm just surprised there
Speaker 2: wasn't some form of I don't know what you would
Speaker 2: call it, right, something that would ping, but on a
Speaker 2: wider scale, sure, right, that was on board.
Speaker 1: Some sort of automated black box, some sort of automated
Speaker 1: dead hand surfacing system that would have been That would
Speaker 1: have been ideal. Shout out to Mike by the way,
Speaker 1: because he went on three different dives or again expeditions
Speaker 1: with this company and he said they quote almost always
Speaker 1: lost communication. I'm pulling this from a great independent article
Speaker 1: by Tom Murray which came out about twelve hours ago
Speaker 1: when there was much more oxygen on the craft. When
Speaker 1: we look at this, we have to be again intellectually honest,
Speaker 1: even if the truth is ugly. The company has a
Speaker 1: record of being called to account for what opponents would
Speaker 1: call cutting corners. For instance, there were several safety complaints
Speaker 1: for a while. You can find no shortage of maritime
Speaker 1: veterans from a bunch of different US services and non
Speaker 1: US services who are pointed out there was a lack
Speaker 1: of redundancy, of safety redundancy here. In short, it seems
Speaker 1: as though they were not treating the deep ocean the
Speaker 1: way you would treat outer space. Again, as we record this,
Speaker 1: and in the time interval between when we record and
Speaker 1: when this publishes, it is hopefully possible, or it is hopeful,
Speaker 1: that these five people will return safely alive to the surface. However,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go just a second long here to
Speaker 1: point out the three possible scenarios and one interesting thing.
Speaker 1: The three possible scenarios. One, the safety preparations as we
Speaker 1: understand them could have failed. The integrity of the craft
Speaker 1: could have been compromised, in which case those people are
Speaker 1: almost certainly lost in Davy Jones locker. Second, the craft
Speaker 1: could be stuck, as noted in earlier expeditions. Third, they
Speaker 1: could be alive and simply lost. Get this somewhere on
Speaker 1: the surface of the ocean and extensive air searches may
Speaker 1: have somehow just not found them yet. That would be
Speaker 1: the most optimistic of the three possibilities. Already we see
Speaker 1: the proliferation of conspiracy theories associated with this what looks
Speaker 1: to be a tragedy, and one of them is I
Speaker 1: mean many of them honestly concerned the passengers on this
Speaker 1: on this craft. We know a little bit about them.
Speaker 1: Obviously they're well to do. One is Silliman Daoud who
Speaker 1: is the son of Shahzada Daoud Uh. These are British Pakistan.
Speaker 1: There's a British Pakistani father and son. Shahzada da Wud
Speaker 1: is a trustee at the SETI Institute. Hamish Harding is
Speaker 1: a British businessman, aviator and space tourist. And then we
Speaker 1: have the pilots, the pilot team, Paul Henri Nagere and
Speaker 1: Stockton Rush. Stockton Rush is the chief executive and founder
Speaker 1: of Oceangate, the folks who launched this idea in the
Speaker 1: first place. Our thoughts are with them. We want to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts as well. Again, this is an ongoing situation.
Speaker 1: By the time you hear this week's strange news segment,
Speaker 1: the oxygen will have run out on the submersible. We're
Speaker 1: going to pause for a word from our sponsors. We'll
Speaker 1: return with more strange news before we head to a
Speaker 1: commercial break. We wanted to give you this update. Between
Speaker 1: the time we recorded and the time this Strange news
Speaker 1: segment published, authorities have confirmed that the Titan submersible imploded
Speaker 1: during its descent into the North Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, debris
Speaker 1: of the craft appears to have been found. The most
Speaker 1: likely outcome here was the instantaneous death of all five
Speaker 1: occupants aboard, including the leader of Ocean Gate himself.
Speaker 2: Okay, and we are back. We should just reiterate our
Speaker 2: thoughts and prayers are with the people on that submersible
Speaker 2: in their families. Just again. We talked a little bit
Speaker 2: in the break there just about the situation, and I
Speaker 2: just send it out on our thoughts. So I wanted
Speaker 2: to ask you guys for something completely different. Did you
Speaker 2: hear anything about a potential UAP dog fight that occurred
Speaker 2: recently in early June?
Speaker 1: I have not met no.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I don't have enough on this to cover
Speaker 2: it today in the episode. But look up, what is
Speaker 2: this place called bad Acts? Bad acts ax AX. And
Speaker 2: there was something that occurred on June third that the
Speaker 2: NUFO RC reported on and I thought, Ben, specifically, you
Speaker 2: might know about this because of a project you're working
Speaker 2: on that I we're not gonna name yet, but very interesting.
Speaker 2: Apparently there were two F sixteen's that engaged in a
Speaker 2: dogfight with some kind of disc at least according to
Speaker 2: witness reports. And it looks really interesting. If anybody has
Speaker 2: any more info on that, please send it our way.
Speaker 2: Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm seeing this now, Matt, thank you for hitping
Speaker 1: me to this. Looks like original sources the hero hero
Speaker 1: on Daily Tribune.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing that, but also a June sixth report that
Speaker 2: came from that n uforc that happened. And then there's
Speaker 2: also something that was written in I guess it's called
Speaker 2: My Journal Courier. I don't know. I thought it was
Speaker 2: maybe an AP article or something, but it was written
Speaker 2: by Mark Birdsol.
Speaker 1: Well, let's figure this out before student loans come due
Speaker 1: in October. Triggery that great recession, just going to slide
Speaker 1: that one in there. It's happening.
Speaker 2: Oh, maybe the UAP can help us, help us up
Speaker 2: with our student loan debt. All right, but but for now,
Speaker 2: put all that stuff aside, because guys, I'm gonna need
Speaker 2: you to confess some sins today.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a priest and I've been hired by iHeart
Speaker 2: Radio to have all the employees of iHeart Radio to
Speaker 2: confess their sins.
Speaker 3: I read. Do you do parties, Matt, You show up
Speaker 3: like in your priest garb and go around absolving people?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, we go.
Speaker 3: No, I don't No, that might be a fun spin,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: I'm just joking. I'm completely joking. But it's a joke
Speaker 2: about the story that we're gonna cover today. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: read something to you, I guess. It's a press release
Speaker 2: that was written by the US Department of Labor's Wage
Speaker 2: in Hour Division. It was written on June twelfth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three. This is the first sentence quote Federal wage
Speaker 2: and our investigators have seen corrupt employers try all kinds
Speaker 2: of scams to short change workers and to intimidate or
Speaker 2: retaliate against employees. But a Northern California restaurant's attempt to
Speaker 2: use an alleged priest to get employees to admit workplace
Speaker 2: quote sins maybe among the most shameless.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's real Department of Labor too. You can tell
Speaker 1: because they don't use any commas. They really didn't use this,
Speaker 1: Like Matt, that's the real that's Uncle Sam say that
Speaker 1: there there's wait, there's a restaurant in California doing psyops
Speaker 1: leveraging Catholicism.
Speaker 3: What a time? Yes, what a time?
Speaker 2: So so nuts you guys. Within our doc there you
Speaker 2: can see a Google link where you can see where
Speaker 2: this is. It's in Sacramento, California. Shout out to more
Speaker 2: Broccoli who always calls us from there. The place is
Speaker 2: called Takorea. Garibaldi. I think that's how you would say it.
Speaker 2: I think it's Jeribaldi Jeribaldi.
Speaker 3: I think so this is with A er and ar
Speaker 3: G A R I B A L D I Garibaldi.
Speaker 3: You get it. Yeah, I'm probably like americanizing it, but
Speaker 3: I think it might be either jar or Garibaldi.
Speaker 1: I think people will be able to find it with
Speaker 1: the information we've provided.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just just type in fake priest, just spy.
Speaker 3: Hey, come on, you'll get it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is what happened the company that owns
Speaker 2: this Takaia and two others with the same name Ja Garibaldi, Inc.
Speaker 2: It's alleged that this group or person whoever it is,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, whatever that i NC represents, hired a
Speaker 2: person identified as a priest to get the sins out
Speaker 2: of employees during work hours. So imagine you're at work
Speaker 2: and there's a priest just roaming around saying, oh hello,
Speaker 2: could I speak with you for a moment, and tries
Speaker 2: to take you away just to the corner of the
Speaker 2: room in this case of the Tacorea and ask you
Speaker 2: some really strange questions. Have you ever stolen anything from
Speaker 2: the establishment, from Chay or the Tacorea. Have you ever
Speaker 2: been late to work? Do you have any ill will
Speaker 2: towards our employer or the Tacorea itself?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these these people may be sincere, and these
Speaker 1: you know, confess your sins my child, Well, I have
Speaker 1: coveted and resent the success of others. They're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about how how much of your tips you report.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about the tips you report. And let's
Speaker 2: also talk about maybe somebody else you've been talking to
Speaker 2: about grievances you have with the Tacorea and the company
Speaker 2: because guys, the Tacorea, it's alleged was paying management from
Speaker 2: the tip pool. We talked about this, you know a
Speaker 2: little bit when we were talking about tips. The servers,
Speaker 2: people working there in the front of the house often
Speaker 2: pool tips to where everybody makes money. When when the
Speaker 2: company basically is making money when people are being sat,
Speaker 2: when people are eating food and having drinks. Sure distributes it,
Speaker 2: redistributes to everybody, even tips. Well, you're not allowed to
Speaker 2: pay management with that tip pool, but this company was
Speaker 2: allegedly doing that. They were also allegedly not paying employees
Speaker 2: who were working overtime hours. So there were multiple employees
Speaker 2: that were working over forty hours a week who needed
Speaker 2: to be paid overtime wages for that time, and the
Speaker 2: company was not paying them for that.
Speaker 3: There's an episode of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares that's one
Speaker 3: of the most infamous episodes about the I Think Amy's
Speaker 3: Baking Company. That's this woman who just goes is completely
Speaker 3: out of touch with reality and loses her mind right
Speaker 3: there on camera because she thinks everyone is like a
Speaker 3: sabotaging her and attacking her. But it's revealed that she
Speaker 3: and her husband, who owned the restaurants together are are
Speaker 3: taking tips from customers and pocketing them rather than give
Speaker 3: them to their their staff, who, of course the customers
Speaker 3: believe those tips are going to.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just so grossh Yeah, it's not a
Speaker 2: good practice, right. So it seems as though someone within
Speaker 2: the organization, probably an employee that was feeling slighted because
Speaker 2: of those practices, ended up making a report about the
Speaker 2: company about these things, you know, alleging the company is
Speaker 2: doing this. And it appears that this tactic of sending
Speaker 2: in a priest is a retaliation, a way to root
Speaker 2: out the employees who have been maybe speaking in their
Speaker 2: opinion out of turn about the restaurant's activities. Here's here's
Speaker 2: the other thing, guys. The company also retaliated allegedly by
Speaker 2: threatening their employees with quote adverse immigration consequences if they
Speaker 2: cooperated with the Department of Labor's investigation into the company.
Speaker 2: Oh because somebody, because somebody snitched on the.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's an escallation. Man. Also, I do want to
Speaker 1: point out that no joke left behind on our recording. Today.
Speaker 1: You have changed your your moniker to father snitch a lot,
Speaker 1: which I am then.
Speaker 2: Father snitch a lot.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is egregious on so many levels, you know,
Speaker 3: just like, first of it's like a general workplace privacy
Speaker 3: violation level, and just not to mention that they were
Speaker 3: absolutely taking advantage of these folks, but then to besmirch
Speaker 3: the name of a man of the cloth in this
Speaker 3: way heresy, I say.
Speaker 2: Well, the Diocese of Sacramento was not too happy about it,
Speaker 2: and you can read their response to this whole thing
Speaker 2: on the Catholic News Agency.
Speaker 3: Do they use the word heresy?
Speaker 2: I hope so well. I mean they've got some strong words.
Speaker 2: It's just like, hey, we are not connected with whoever
Speaker 2: this joker was. It's not us. We have nothing to
Speaker 2: do with this. We didn't do we doism.
Speaker 1: Famously concerned about it's branding. Uh but that in that
Speaker 1: case then okay, that's one of the questions a lot
Speaker 1: of us are going to have listening this evening. Uh So,
Speaker 1: this apparently, per the diocese over there in Sacramento, this
Speaker 1: is not an acknowledged member of the clergy.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely. I'll give you a little quote here from
Speaker 2: that article. It is titled California restaurant had fake priest
Speaker 2: here workers' confessions Labor Department says it is from the
Speaker 2: Catholicnewsagency dot Com. There's no d in there, so Catholicnewsagency
Speaker 2: dot Com. Here's the quote. While we don't know who
Speaker 2: the person in question was, we are completely confident he
Speaker 2: was not a priest of the Diocese of Sacramento.
Speaker 3: I think he's gonna get it.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 2: And I'm going to read a little more from this
Speaker 2: actually because this is compelling. This is a quote from
Speaker 2: someone named Maria who is a server at the Takaria,
Speaker 2: and this is from her sworn affid David that's attached
Speaker 2: to the lawsuit that the Department of Labor has against
Speaker 2: this company, and she's talking about speaking with this person
Speaker 2: purporting to be a priest. She says, quote, I found
Speaker 2: the conversation to be strange and unlike normal confessions. Again,
Speaker 2: they're targeting somebody and probably several people who are used
Speaker 2: to going to confession, right, maybe Catholic civilians. She continues, quote,
Speaker 2: He asked if I ever got pulled over for speeding,
Speaker 2: if I drank alcohol, or if I had stolen anything.
Speaker 2: The priest mostly had work related questions, which I thought
Speaker 2: was strange.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, little less eternal soul, little more secular.
Speaker 3: It's pretty crazy, right, and heaven depends on your workplace conducts.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Well, hey, guys, so there is this federal
Speaker 2: investigation and the reason why we're talking about it today
Speaker 2: is because the findings were just released and basically the
Speaker 2: penalties the Takaria has to pay five thousand dollars in
Speaker 2: penalties for their actions of hiring a fake purpose total
Speaker 2: total five thousand dollars in penalties, which is just a
Speaker 2: basically a civil charge for being naughty and hiring a
Speaker 2: fake priest and you know, basically intimidating workers. But here's
Speaker 2: the better thing for the workers. There are thirty five
Speaker 2: employees who were affected by the other practices there, and
Speaker 2: including the fake priest thing, but you know the other
Speaker 2: stuff too, right, the problems that were occurring there. They
Speaker 2: are going to get a combined total of one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty thousand dollars split amongst.
Speaker 1: Kay, just make clapping and clapping for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, it's it's at least something, you know, it's
Speaker 2: not a crazy amount of money, but it's enough to
Speaker 2: hopefully make up for that missed overtime for the missed.
Speaker 2: It's their money, you know, right, exactly exactly, So, guys,
Speaker 2: I don't have much else for this one. Besides, this
Speaker 2: is nuts.
Speaker 1: I got I've got one thing for you, Matt. I
Speaker 1: looked up the menu. Right, this is a chain restaurant, right,
Speaker 1: regional chain restaurant. There's I think there are at least
Speaker 1: three at least three locations. So, uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: test here is to check on the case adella prices
Speaker 1: and one case idea dekat a like for two dollars
Speaker 1: and twenty five cents. Doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: right to me.
Speaker 3: Wait, he was suspiciously deliciously low. Yeah, so likely not
Speaker 3: using fresh ingredients.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they're not using real priest, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: You have a faux priests. Probably a lot like one
Speaker 3: of those. Uh, I mean, don't get me wrong, I
Speaker 3: kind of like them. Thost. Have you've ever been a cookout?
Speaker 3: They have a quote unquote casadea there it's literally just
Speaker 3: shredded cheese and hot sauce on a on a tortilla.
Speaker 2: You know what, I'm just hungry enough right now where
Speaker 2: that sounds delicious?
Speaker 1: You want to take a snack break.
Speaker 2: Oh please, God, please, all right, I am really angry.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I'll give the Department of Labor the last word here
Speaker 2: quote the US Department of Labor, in its Solicitor's office
Speaker 2: will not tolerate workplace retaliation and will act swiftly to
Speaker 2: make clear that immigration status has no bearing on workers'
Speaker 2: rights under the Fair Labor and Standards Act.
Speaker 3: Okay, tough words, right, let's go. Yeah, kind of hope
Speaker 3: that the archdiocese's words were a little bit more cutting.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you want to hear you want to hear
Speaker 2: some Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think yeah.
Speaker 2: They're quoted as saying shame on you, fake priest.
Speaker 3: I call it fake priest.
Speaker 2: All right, that's it for now. We'll be right back
Speaker 2: after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: And we've returned with one more p of strange news. Matt,
Speaker 3: If that last story made you angary, way do you
Speaker 3: get a load of this one? Okay, that's a very
Speaker 3: morbid setup for a very sad and morbid story about
Speaker 3: a person similar to years, though in some ways it's
Speaker 3: about a person occupying position of trust and authority absolutely
Speaker 3: bulldozing over that responsibility in the most egregious way possible.
Speaker 3: Harvard Medical School. You know, yes, you hear that. You
Speaker 3: think of one of the top Ivy League institutions of
Speaker 3: higher learning, you don't necessarily think about creepy morga managers
Speaker 3: selling body parts to oddity shops, do you No, No,
Speaker 3: That's exactly what was found out here. Federal prosecutors alleged
Speaker 3: that the manager of the Harvard Medical School Morgue was
Speaker 3: part of a network that bought and sold remains from
Speaker 3: the medical school and an Arkansas mortuary. So I guess
Speaker 3: they have maybe like a satellite mortuary. I'm not quite
Speaker 3: sure to get to that in a second. This is wild.
Speaker 3: This guy, Cedric Lodge fifty five and his wife, Denise Lodge,
Speaker 3: sixty three, of Goffstown, New Hampshire, and several others are
Speaker 3: being indicted by a federal grand jury in Pennsylvania on
Speaker 3: charges of conspiracy an interstate transport of stolen goods. Again,
Speaker 3: what manner of stolen goods, you might ask, Well, let's see,
Speaker 3: we're talking human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and
Speaker 3: a mortuary in Little Rock, Arkansas, where miss Scott was employed.
Speaker 3: So it seems like they've got you know, they must have,
Speaker 3: They've got that in common, this is a happy couple
Speaker 3: that met over their love of cadavers. Harvard Medical School,
Speaker 3: speaking of angry condemnation of people betraying the trust of
Speaker 3: the public, Harvard Medical School released a statement referring to
Speaker 3: this in the most academic fashion possible as an aberrant betrayal.
Speaker 3: I love that the word abarant only academics use that.
Speaker 3: That's a harsh one. So between twenty eighteen and twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, and some of these details actually come from
Speaker 3: a fabulous New York Times piece by Michael Levinson. Between
Speaker 3: those years twenty eighteen and twenty twenty two, the loges
Speaker 3: collectively stole parts from bodies cadavers that had been donated
Speaker 3: to the medical school and dissected. These are cadavers that
Speaker 3: are you know, people I guess who opt to donate
Speaker 3: their bodies to science. This would be one of those options.
Speaker 3: And again we've talked about this in the past, where
Speaker 3: you don't necessarily get to decide where your body goes.
Speaker 3: Isn't that right, Ben, when we're talking about body brokers
Speaker 3: and donating your body to science, you can't. Maybe you
Speaker 3: can decide where goes, which can't decide how it's going
Speaker 3: to be used. What were the kind of the caveats
Speaker 3: surrounding them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's correct. We have an episode on the very gray,
Speaker 1: sometimes red market known as body brokerage. There are not
Speaker 1: regulations for it. It is in the most unfortunate sense
Speaker 1: of the term, very much a wild West.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not to mention. Once you start getting these bad actors,
Speaker 3: you know, who are the kind of middle people in
Speaker 3: these exchanges. But again you think about institution like Harvard.
Speaker 3: This would be someone who had been heavily vetted, has
Speaker 3: some academic background, somebody trustworthy. But she goes to sow.
Speaker 3: You can't really trust anybody. We're talking about limbs, severed heads, brains,
Speaker 3: dissected faces, you know, individual parts of hands and fingers
Speaker 3: and right human skulls. An absolute chop shop. And the
Speaker 3: thing is too this guy would let some of his
Speaker 3: buyers in kind of sneak them into the morgue so
Speaker 3: they could have the pick of the litter. You know,
Speaker 3: they look around you, what do you want? What you
Speaker 3: need a toe? I can get you a toe, And
Speaker 3: then they tell him and then he ships it to them.
Speaker 3: One such customer, a woman by the name of Katrina McLean,
Speaker 3: a forty four year old resident of Salem, Massachusetts who
Speaker 3: owns the pretty cute, silly named cats Creepy Creations in Peabody, Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: We have a place kind of like that here in Atlanta,
Speaker 3: I call Rainy Day Revival. It sells, you know, mummified
Speaker 3: you know, usually taxidermy and stuff like that, crucifixes. I've
Speaker 3: actually got kind of a minor collection of crucifixes and
Speaker 3: I'm bioloed them from there. And they also lease a
Speaker 3: lot of their stuff out to film here in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: And I actually had the occasion to visit the home
Speaker 3: of somebody who used to work for them as a
Speaker 3: prop manager for movies. He was going through a bit
Speaker 3: of a tough time because of some the writer's strike,
Speaker 3: and so he was selling some synthesizers and I purchased
Speaker 3: one of them from him. And when I walked into
Speaker 3: his house, I couldn't help but notice a giant case
Speaker 3: of human skulls, to which he told me, let's he
Speaker 3: definitely wasn't selling any of those, and then he proceeded
Speaker 3: to clue me into some of the laws surrounding human remains. Apparently,
Speaker 3: it's kind of like that scene in pulp fiction where
Speaker 3: John Travold's character is talking about marijuana laws and Amsterdam.
Speaker 3: It's illegal to sell them, it's illegal to transport them
Speaker 3: across state lines, but it's not illegal to possess them.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot, and then it's probably differs state
Speaker 3: to state as well. So it does seem that there's
Speaker 3: again radio revival, great shop. No reason to believe that
Speaker 3: they're participating anything like this, but I can see how,
Speaker 3: you know, it might be potentially lucrative to get some
Speaker 3: real special pieces that you keep kind of in the
Speaker 3: back room sell to only the discerning customer. Right. Miss
Speaker 3: MacLean apparently paid mister Lodge six hundred dollars for two
Speaker 3: dissected faces. According to prosecutors in the case, they found
Speaker 3: a paper trail for some of this stuff, payments with
Speaker 3: memos on them, one of them that just read breaks,
Speaker 3: which is pretty wild and in portaste. All of this
Speaker 3: is in poor taste, guys. I'm not quite sure where
Speaker 3: to go from here. I mean, obviously there's something you
Speaker 3: know that's darkly humorous about this, but also it's an
Speaker 3: absolute betrayal. I mean, is it is totally you know,
Speaker 3: a really low nasty type of crime. You say it's
Speaker 3: victimless because these people are dead. But I don't think
Speaker 3: it's victimless. You know, you are going against directly against
Speaker 3: somebody's wishes and essentially having their remains serve as some
Speaker 3: sort of like weird you know, mantle ornaments. What do
Speaker 3: you guys think?
Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to talk about the toll amount of
Speaker 2: money if you don't mind, guys, just really quickly, yeah, please,
Speaker 2: how lucrative could this be? Right? And I think we
Speaker 2: examined that a little bit in our last the full
Speaker 2: episode we did on this topic. And do you have
Speaker 2: any reporting about how much this group.
Speaker 3: Made roughly forty grand between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: which isn't a ton if you think about it, like
Speaker 3: for that amount of time, you know, and obviously you
Speaker 3: can only do this so much before people catch on.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, interestingly enough, in the Body
Speaker 1: Broker's episode dove into the stats and the research. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, a very prestigious business school professor
Speaker 1: estimated that the total number of full bodies not chop
Speaker 1: chopped donated to the US in the United States, to
Speaker 1: all groups, law enforcement, automobile manufacturers, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: forensic stuff like the Tennessee body fart all that stuff,
Speaker 1: medical research too. It all total to twenty thousand bodies
Speaker 1: about year over year. The reason I say a prestigious
Speaker 1: business school, Noll, you might find this of interest. That
Speaker 1: professor is from the Harvard Business School, so right next
Speaker 1: to right right on campus with these absolutely ghoulish resurrection men.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's it's obviously it's it's not
Speaker 3: like it's just just chock full of staff. You know,
Speaker 3: it probably just takes one or two people to run
Speaker 3: a department like this. Yeah. I mentioned maybe on a
Speaker 3: previous episode that I recently went to the Mutcher Museum
Speaker 3: in Philadelphia, which is an incredible place. You know, it's
Speaker 3: a connected with the Association of Physicians I forget I'm
Speaker 3: getting the name exactly right, but a long standing organization
Speaker 3: dedicated to preserving the history of the medical profession, you know,
Speaker 3: in Philadelphia, which is of course very old city here
Speaker 3: in the United States. And there is one part of
Speaker 3: the museum where you can kind of look through and
Speaker 3: see this laboratory where there are people actively cataloging things
Speaker 3: that they get in because you know, collections will be
Speaker 3: donated to the Mutor Museum, whether it be collections of
Speaker 3: skulls or you know, human remains and all of that.
Speaker 3: And even the Motor Museum has been kind of in
Speaker 3: some hot water lately and took some stuff off of
Speaker 3: social media because they were getting kind of yelled at
Speaker 3: by people saying, you're exploiting these people in their memory.
Speaker 3: You don't know who these people are, you know, for example,
Speaker 3: some of these subjects are unidentified, and they do everything
Speaker 3: they can to be as descriptive as possible with the
Speaker 3: little placards. But my point is when you look through
Speaker 3: into this lab, it's like one person, you know, cataloging
Speaker 3: slides and whatever, you know, fetuses in jars, maybe one
Speaker 3: other person kind of in a back room, but real
Speaker 3: no pun intended pun intended skeleton crew. So my point
Speaker 3: is you could do this and and fly under the
Speaker 3: radar for quite a long time, which they clearly did.
Speaker 3: And just to wrap it up on my end, here
Speaker 3: is a little bit more of the statement from the
Speaker 3: Harvard Medical School community to two deans that were sort
Speaker 3: of explaining how they came to be aware of this
Speaker 3: and their their take on mister Lodge's activities. Quote, we
Speaker 3: are appalled to learn that something so disturbing could happen
Speaker 3: on our campus, a community dedicated to healing and serving others.
Speaker 3: The reported incidents are a betrayal of HMS and most importantly,
Speaker 3: each of the individuals who altruistically chose to will their
Speaker 3: bodies to HMS. So that answers one of my questions. Yes,
Speaker 3: you can will your body to a specific institution, UH
Speaker 3: through the Anatomical Gift Program to advance medical education and research,
Speaker 3: and that is a thing. Harvard Medical School does have
Speaker 3: a program called the Anatomical Gift Program, which is is
Speaker 3: what you would have had something in your last will
Speaker 3: and testaments and all of that to indicate you wanted
Speaker 3: your remains donated to this program for these exact purposes.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's a betrayal of those people and their
Speaker 3: wishes and that's gross. Not to mention the whole thing
Speaker 3: is just kind of ease. Are the creeps? What do
Speaker 3: you guys think? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just horrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's about the size of it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I can see the angle you're talking about.
Speaker 2: It's what we talked about before. I can see the
Speaker 2: unfortunate angle that somebody might come to the rationalization, I'm
Speaker 2: not hurting anybody by taking these body parts and selling them.
Speaker 2: Nobody's getting hurt, but they're not thinking about the families
Speaker 2: of that individual. And I don't just there's something. It
Speaker 2: is up on the borderline of the moras, right, and
Speaker 2: the things we just decide as a society we don't do.
Speaker 2: Don't mess with dead bodies, geez right.
Speaker 1: It is a great social taboo, you know, the kimmata
Speaker 1: vocation of what once was part of a living person.
Speaker 1: I cannot I don't always say this, but I cannot
Speaker 1: recommend the earlier Body Broker's episode from I think it
Speaker 1: was April twenty twenty two. Enough. We dive into a
Speaker 1: lot of the things we're talking about here, and every
Speaker 1: single subject matter expert that we reference there that we
Speaker 1: cite is agree again, this is an horrific wild West,
Speaker 1: you know, because oftentimes also by the way, this practice
Speaker 1: is only exacerbated in other countries. I mean, check into
Speaker 1: you know, look into your neck of the global woods,
Speaker 1: look and see whether there's a body exhibit at your
Speaker 1: local museum. Those come from non consensual body donations of
Speaker 1: often Chinese place prisoners. It's it's a dirty, dirty thing.
Speaker 1: There really is a conspiracy of foot and Noel, I
Speaker 1: am so glad that at least one came to light,
Speaker 1: but statistically we have to realize there are more out there.
Speaker 3: Now right that it agreed, agreed, And then this really
Speaker 3: is like a perfect companion piece for that episode that
Speaker 3: we've referenced a couple of times. So do check that
Speaker 3: out if you get the chance. And yeah, I think
Speaker 3: in the meantime, that's that's it for this one. I mean,
Speaker 3: it'll again wondering if any additional members of this network
Speaker 3: will be exposed. That might be the thing to keep
Speaker 3: an eye on. And how far does it go? You know?
Speaker 3: I mean, if an institution is prestigious as Harvard Medical
Speaker 3: School could be prey to this kind of behavior, what
Speaker 3: about the community college Morgues? You know what of that?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like, no, no one body is better
Speaker 3: or more attractive than another when it comes to like
Speaker 3: selling them for two enthusiasts, I guess call them, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, a body's a body, a skull's a skull,
Speaker 3: So you're right, Ben, I bet you. It will be
Speaker 3: interesting to see if any other participants are uncovered, because
Speaker 3: refer to it as like kind of a ring, you know,
Speaker 3: but they're really only about four people that are named
Speaker 3: in the indictment, And this.
Speaker 1: May be is where we cast our net in a
Speaker 1: fishing expedition. For your help, fellow conspiracy realist, what do
Speaker 1: you think will develop with the Titan submersible? How easy
Speaker 1: is it in the modern day? How damningly easy is
Speaker 1: it to lose a craft at sea? When's the last
Speaker 1: time you impersonated a priest? And for what reason? We
Speaker 1: hope you weren't doing it to oppress workers. Maybe you
Speaker 1: were just maybe you're just doing some social experiments on
Speaker 1: your local public transit, in which case, who are we
Speaker 1: to judge, certainly not members of the clergy. And this idea,
Speaker 1: what we just talked about, the idea of organ thievery,
Speaker 1: of body brokers. It's a really nasty thing and it
Speaker 1: is absolutely true, and you need to be careful whenever
Speaker 1: you or a loved one are signing yourself up for
Speaker 1: a posthumous donation, you need to know there's often more
Speaker 1: to the story. There are things they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know when you sign those papers.
Speaker 2: We can't wait to.
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