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: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noel.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Lexus, code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are here, and that makes this the stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know. We are returning from strange adventures,
Speaker 3: and with us we bring news, not the mainstream news,
Speaker 3: the strange news. We're so glad you're here, folks. We
Speaker 3: are going to explore issues of self transformation over in Japan.
Speaker 3: We're going to explore an ongoing dangerous mystery in California.
Speaker 3: We might talk a little bit about Ecuador. We might
Speaker 3: even we might even dive into a paranormal story of divorce.
Speaker 3: But before we do any of that, we are going
Speaker 3: to talk about one of our favorite things ever, the
Speaker 3: idea of preservation, the idea of saving human knowledge from
Speaker 3: the two frequent disasters of human civilization. But where could
Speaker 3: you Where could you put something if you wanted to
Speaker 3: save so many works of humanity, right, like where would
Speaker 3: you put it?
Speaker 2: I don't know, the mary on a trench.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you're nice, James Cameron, I'll take you
Speaker 4: down there to retrieve it. And if you change your mind.
Speaker 2: A perfect or some other species that figures out technology
Speaker 2: to get there might find it, you know, for the
Speaker 2: purposes of preserving that which was humanity. Or you could
Speaker 2: you know, just launch it into space, just name in
Speaker 2: any direction really and just shoot it out there maybe
Speaker 2: somebody will find it. Or you could you know, put
Speaker 2: it on the moon.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, well, at first you have my attention, Now
Speaker 3: you have my interest please.
Speaker 2: Hey, yeah, but we're actually not talking about human knowledge
Speaker 2: preservation or the preservation of the human race, if you will,
Speaker 2: We're talking about the preservation of human creativity. Because in
Speaker 2: the case of the Lunar Codex, which is the first
Speaker 2: thing we're going to talk about today, it's works of
Speaker 2: thirty thousand artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers from one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty seven countries that are going to be launched
Speaker 2: in four separate time capsules and go to the moon.
Speaker 2: They're going to be launched and go to the moon.
Speaker 2: And this is really happening, well, allegedly it's happening. It's
Speaker 2: the work of a man named Samuel Peralta, and it
Speaker 2: is a project, I suppose maybe we could call it.
Speaker 2: Right now, reading from the guardians Lunar Codex, digitized works
Speaker 2: of thirty thousand artists to be archived on Moon, it
Speaker 2: is saying that it's a real thing that's going to happen.
Speaker 5: At least it reminds me of.
Speaker 4: Like the Gold Disc and all that stuff, you know
Speaker 4: that Carl Sagan was involved in sending out to space
Speaker 4: in the hopes that some advanced civilization might be able
Speaker 4: to play it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like a gold record, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, the Gold Record and Voyager and all that
Speaker 2: stuff is fascinating because again it gives kind of a
Speaker 2: snapshot of humanity from a chemical, biological, intelligence, cultural factor.
Speaker 2: In this case, it's really precisely aimed at culture. But
Speaker 2: there is some cool mathematical stuff in the music that
Speaker 2: you could probably glean right if you were to just
Speaker 2: discover some of the pieces that are going to be
Speaker 2: included in that. But ultimately, and this is what Peralta
Speaker 2: says on the website for Lunar Codex, which is lunarcodex
Speaker 2: dot com. He says, our hope is that future travelers
Speaker 2: who find these time capsules again. He says, future travelers,
Speaker 2: we'll discover some of the richness of our world today.
Speaker 2: It speaks to the idea that despite wars and pandemics
Speaker 2: and climate up, evil, humankind found the time to dream.
Speaker 5: To create art, love it there to dream.
Speaker 2: Isn't that beautiful? There's really there's really not much else there.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of a positive, cool thing that's happening.
Speaker 2: A little message in the bottle to future humans or
Speaker 2: whatever comes after us, probably robots, right.
Speaker 3: Or some sort of fungal life form. Matt, I see
Speaker 3: on the website you shared with us lunarcodex dot com.
Speaker 3: That Pralta says he did already purchase payload space, which
Speaker 3: puts this puts this streets ahead to quote community streets
Speaker 3: ahead of other similar projects from the past.
Speaker 2: Streets ahead, Man, is that a thing?
Speaker 5: It is?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Well, if you don't know your streets, lad.
Speaker 2: But it's really cool stuff.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: I did want to read one other thing from the
Speaker 2: Guardian article. Here they were talking about how it's going
Speaker 2: to be stored here we go, Uh, it's going to
Speaker 2: be digitized and stored on memory cards. So first of all,
Speaker 2: when you find it, you got to be able to
Speaker 2: read one of the memory cards. Maybe they'll have a reader,
Speaker 2: you know, packaged within the thing just for help with
Speaker 2: a little USB two point zero that surely some robot
Speaker 2: in the future will be able to plug into it.
Speaker 5: So uh, but they'll definitely have a USB one port.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the future reason they're on a TV three at
Speaker 4: this point before a dongle for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe USBC. Okay, geez, I don't know. There's also
Speaker 2: going to be some laser etching onto nanofish files awesome
Speaker 2: aka tiny fish even tinier than micro kind of whatever.
Speaker 5: I hear fish, I just picture little little swimmy boys.
Speaker 4: You know it's not the tiny salmon.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, hey, let's get let's continue going tiny,
Speaker 2: maybe not nanosized, but micro sized and move on to
Speaker 2: human cells, specifically cancer cells and the cancer cells of
Speaker 2: one Henrietta Lax, who we have spoken about on this
Speaker 2: show many a time and to some really exciting news
Speaker 2: when it comes to the family of Henrietta Lax. Let
Speaker 2: me set you guys up to really just quickly tell
Speaker 2: the story of Henrietta Lax in a shortened manner. Henrietta
Speaker 2: Lax is a woman who is being treated for cancer
Speaker 2: in the early nineteen fifties. In nineteen fifty one, she
Speaker 2: passed away in Baltimore and some sampling of her cancerous cells.
Speaker 2: They were used early on for testing, and it turned
Speaker 2: out that these cells continued to live and continued to
Speaker 2: be able to be reproduced in laboratory settings. So basically,
Speaker 2: the original samples from this woman, Henrietta Lax, were reproduced
Speaker 2: so many times over so many years we're talking about.
Speaker 2: They're still being used today and grown today. They used
Speaker 2: them to create things like the polio vaccine. To develop
Speaker 2: the polio vaccine because they had human cells to run
Speaker 2: tests on and again in huge amounts. Because these things
Speaker 2: would just continue to reproduce in a laboratory setting. They
Speaker 2: were used by I think a bunch of groups because
Speaker 2: Thermo Fisher Scientific specifically was selling these cancer cells. They
Speaker 2: were profiting from them.
Speaker 3: Without the families consent. The first immortal technically, the first
Speaker 3: immortal human cells were quickly First they were researched by
Speaker 3: a guy named George Otto Gray, and then they were
Speaker 3: monetized and no one talked to Henrietta before she passed
Speaker 3: away about this, no one talk to her family. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and in a very real way, this person has saved
Speaker 3: millions of lives.
Speaker 4: I believe that was actually the name of the biopic
Speaker 4: starring Oprah Winfrey, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lax.
Speaker 2: Which was a book written by Rebecca Sclute and that
Speaker 2: was from twenty ten. Yeah, that's how we found out
Speaker 2: about it in the first place. It was that book
Speaker 2: originally when we were talking about it way back in
Speaker 2: the day on stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: And it is just really amazing because the news is
Speaker 2: the family has settled with Thermo Fisher Scientific. It's been
Speaker 2: an ongoing court case for quite a while, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was it was argued by Thermo Fisher, at least
Speaker 2: within court, that this family had no standing to have
Speaker 2: any you know, suit against them, basically, and the family
Speaker 2: was saying, hey, come on, that's how I'm summing up
Speaker 2: the argument, like, come on, Like the story is now
Speaker 2: in the public record, you probably owe the family something,
Speaker 2: and it looks like the family has something. Nothing has
Speaker 2: been made public as of yet as to what that
Speaker 2: settlement actually looks like. And you know, when it would
Speaker 2: be paid out, and really any details, it's just really
Speaker 2: great news that something has occurred to give I don't know,
Speaker 2: a little bit of justice for this woman that was
Speaker 2: taken advantage of in life, and you know, for seventy
Speaker 2: years after her death.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, said Matt. I believe from what I understand
Speaker 3: when I first heard about this story, I think it
Speaker 3: was seen in she has or her family has reached
Speaker 3: a confidential settlement, so there may be an NDA of
Speaker 3: some sort, which means the public may never know. But
Speaker 3: I saw a statement I want to say from Henrietta
Speaker 3: LAX's grandson that said, on her one hundred and third birthday,
Speaker 3: we got justice. And it's a question too full disclosure, folks.
Speaker 3: The three of us have birthdays in quick quick succession.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: And I wonder how birthdays count if you're Henrietta Lacks
Speaker 3: because a part of you is still alive in saving
Speaker 3: the world. That's really weird question for another day.
Speaker 2: That's really weird, guys. I don't have a lot else
Speaker 2: to add with either of these stories. I just think
Speaker 2: they're both actually pretty good news and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: I hope, I hope we all appreciate it.
Speaker 3: I agree, let's so say we all, yes.
Speaker 4: Much needed reprieve from the the hellish news of late
Speaker 4: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yes. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 2: right back after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 4: And we return with another piece of good, good news,
Speaker 4: good boy news.
Speaker 5: It's it's good for somebody.
Speaker 4: I guess if you're into just living your best life,
Speaker 4: who are we to be grudge anybody whatever that that
Speaker 4: looks like for them. This story made kind of went
Speaker 4: viral I think some months ago. Ben, I know you'd
Speaker 4: seen it about Toko, who is an anonymous and Japanese
Speaker 4: individual who has become dog. Well, okay, that's a little hyperbolic, perhaps,
Speaker 4: And honestly, this is also a story about, you know,
Speaker 4: spreading fake news over sources like TikTok. You know the
Speaker 4: original reporting on this Toko situation where man undergoes surgery
Speaker 4: to become the rough Collie.
Speaker 5: There's a reed of Collie. I didn't know rough Collie.
Speaker 4: I thought the rough was just the sound they made
Speaker 4: when they barked a little tiny rim shot dad joke.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's not true that no one has yet
Speaker 4: remember the movie Tusk. This really awful, kind of unpleasant
Speaker 4: Kevin Smith movie very on Kevin Smith. I you Kevin
Speaker 4: Smith about a guy played by Justin and Long who
Speaker 4: was transformed by a mad scientist into a walrus. And
Speaker 4: it's really gross and you don't need to say unless
Speaker 4: you want to unless you love it's. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 4: just it's just an unpleasant film. But that's all I'm
Speaker 4: gonna say about. I kind of scrolled through it just
Speaker 4: to kind of get the get the highlights.
Speaker 5: But yeah, not something I would highly recommend. But this
Speaker 5: is not what happened.
Speaker 4: What happened is this individual has chosen to remain as
Speaker 4: anonymous as humanly possible. Humanly possible A million of them
Speaker 4: just spend a lot of money around let's see two
Speaker 4: million Japanese yen which equates to about fourteen grand to
Speaker 4: have an incredibly lifelike, surreal, bizarre costume made, custom costume
Speaker 4: made that this individual can fit into. Followed a bunch
Speaker 4: of sources on this a really good YouTube video Toco
Speaker 4: of the human dog and for this is disturbing from
Speaker 4: tough on YouTube. His girlfriend actually made a drawing, but
Speaker 4: I took a screenshot of Toko, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: this dog situation is all all all four us looks
Speaker 4: like a dog. Does it quite move like a dog,
Speaker 4: But we'll get to that as well.
Speaker 3: Looks more real than the bear at that Chinese zoo
Speaker 3: getting all the question, and that's a real question.
Speaker 5: It's really weird, it's really very real. The proportions are
Speaker 5: just right.
Speaker 4: But again, so this this guy Tough on YouTube's girlfriend
Speaker 4: drew a picture overlay on a screenshot of one of
Speaker 4: Toko's videos showing how a person would have to be
Speaker 4: kind of positioned in there. And it's like front arms
Speaker 4: are front, paws, back legs are knees with the feet
Speaker 4: up and tucks kind of into the butt. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, if you guys want to get a look,
Speaker 4: there's a.
Speaker 2: Actually that makes a ton of sense, no, considering the
Speaker 2: movement that I've seen on.
Speaker 4: You the movements right, Okay, so you're looking at some
Speaker 4: of the same stuff. This this this tough video really
Speaker 4: collects it all pretty beautifully.
Speaker 5: And he goes to some not great lengths.
Speaker 4: Because one thing about this guy Toko, and I'm saying
Speaker 4: guy because the sound of this individual's voice seems to
Speaker 4: be a masculine voice. So this person whatever gender is
Speaker 4: irrelevant in general, but wants.
Speaker 5: To remain anonymous. Toco, you know, has done some sort
Speaker 5: of Ama style videos.
Speaker 4: There's one particular that's really funny where they're dressed up
Speaker 4: in the dog costume and like scrolling through these like
Speaker 4: pieces of paper that have captions on them in Japanese
Speaker 4: and English, using their paw and occasionally getting frustrated at
Speaker 4: not being able to like bend their wrists. So there's
Speaker 4: a couple of jump cuts where someone clearly helps them
Speaker 4: flip the page.
Speaker 5: It's funny, but it's also disturbing. Matt. You may be
Speaker 5: referring to some of the images of Toko trying to
Speaker 5: climb stairs.
Speaker 4: That one is upsetting. It's just like the way like
Speaker 4: those Japanese nightmare demons move and like the Grudge. There's
Speaker 4: just something really unwieldy and like inhuman about the movement, obviously,
Speaker 4: because it's it's not how human they're supposed to move.
Speaker 4: And this person is, you know, inside this this strange suit.
Speaker 4: But you know, you can look at images video of
Speaker 4: them zooming into the mouth and you can see very
Speaker 4: realistic teeth, you know, canines in particular, and the eyes
Speaker 4: are that of like a dead dog. They're just black
Speaker 4: like a doll's eyes like they're jaws eyes. You can't
Speaker 4: see yeah, pig time, you can't see into the into
Speaker 4: the and you can't see any hide nor hair totally.
Speaker 4: They're gonna be coming of who this individual is. No
Speaker 4: indication there is a reflection of the camera person briefly,
Speaker 4: and also there's some playing catch kind of moments in
Speaker 4: some of the videos, and you do see the camera
Speaker 4: person's hands, but it's really not clear what that person
Speaker 4: looks like. There's really no information. I'll just add and
Speaker 4: then I'd love to hear what you his thoughts are.
Speaker 4: This YouTuber did kind of figure out that this individual
Speaker 4: has a Twitch account and is a really big fan
Speaker 4: of a Pokemon game, one in particular.
Speaker 5: It's like so many of those are let's see it. No,
Speaker 5: it's called Pokemon Unite.
Speaker 4: And they actually maintain another YouTube channel that is not
Speaker 4: dog related, that is exclusively devoted to streaming a lot
Speaker 4: of Pokemon Unite that actually seems to get a little
Speaker 4: more attention than the dog content.
Speaker 5: But what do you guys think?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, we've talked about furries and the
Speaker 4: moral panic around that in America with the they're putting letter.
Speaker 5: Boxes in the schools.
Speaker 4: I just kind of got to wonder, this is going
Speaker 4: to fuel more of that kind of talk if it
Speaker 4: goes more mainstream, if people and government are gonna start
Speaker 4: pointing to it.
Speaker 5: What do you guys think?
Speaker 2: Well, for for me, it's it's fascinating. I went down
Speaker 2: a rabbit hole in that YouTube channel for quite a
Speaker 2: while watching videos, and that's why I think it was
Speaker 2: mildly disturbing. Only when thinking about how uncomfortable I imagine this
Speaker 2: person is in the costume. As I figured out that, oh,
Speaker 2: those are in order for him to be in those dimensions,
Speaker 2: he would have to be on his knees. As they're
Speaker 2: making videos titled you know, taking Toko for a walk
Speaker 2: or something going for a walk, and Toko's attempting to
Speaker 2: walk on concrete with again front hands seem to be
Speaker 2: very like fine, but then the back legs are just
Speaker 2: somebody's knees being jammed into concrete as they're attempting to
Speaker 2: walk in the dog suit and very slowly. Might I add,
Speaker 2: because again it's painful.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, it's like it reminds me of a
Speaker 3: Shrek the musical. If you guys haven't seen that, it's
Speaker 3: it's wonderful just to show my music theater or the one.
Speaker 5: Character little the short guy what's his name that the
Speaker 5: lord or whatever? Yeah, yeah, the actor. Kwah, yeah, the actor.
Speaker 3: The only way they could do that live action is
Speaker 3: to have the guy moving on his knees. But he
Speaker 3: is covered in a cape, so you don't see the
Speaker 3: cows and the you know, the the tarsels or whatever,
Speaker 3: but the sorry feet. But the the thing is with
Speaker 3: with Toko here, and it does sound like this individual
Speaker 3: wants to be identified as Toco with Toko like the
Speaker 3: The thing that I think is continued our run of
Speaker 3: good news is that I heard Noel Matt maybe you
Speaker 3: guys can confirm this. I heard that recently Toko had
Speaker 3: a grand debut it's being called toward the end of
Speaker 3: July on a German TV station. And in this Toko
Speaker 3: was not shamed nor mocked by humans. They were just
Speaker 3: you know, they're very curious species, so they were just staring.
Speaker 3: But dogs, more importantly, weren't mad about it. Dogs were like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're interesting. You maybe don't walk quite the same, but
Speaker 3: Toko passed the rough Collie test. And I don't know,
Speaker 3: man like to your point, to your point, yes, there
Speaker 3: will be cyclical moral panics about anyone who lived a
Speaker 3: life or has an identity that doesn't quite jibe with
Speaker 3: the status quo, especially in a culture like Japan, where
Speaker 3: the nail that sticks out shall be hammered down. But
Speaker 3: live your truth, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: If you've got an extra fourteen thousand dollars and you
Speaker 2: want twenty two twenty two thousand, whatever it is us,
Speaker 2: that's right you yeah, and you've just got it and
Speaker 2: you want to do something for you, man, as long
Speaker 2: as everyone else is gonna be okay, you know, with
Speaker 2: you spending that money, then let's do it.
Speaker 5: It's kind of interesting.
Speaker 4: There's a The company behind the suit is called Zippets
Speaker 4: or Zippet, and they it's nothing to do with pets,
Speaker 4: a coincidence, unrelated. They make like animatronic kind of things,
Speaker 4: digital modeling, robotics, things for movies, you know, and TV shoots,
Speaker 4: like all kinds of masks and set pieces and crazy costumes.
Speaker 6: And if you go on their site though, there are
Speaker 6: a handful of very elaborate costumes that they have made
Speaker 6: that are listed as a custom made for personal order.
Speaker 4: So you gotta wonder if there's a flap somewhere. Okay,
Speaker 4: we don't have to go there.
Speaker 5: We don't have to go there.
Speaker 6: It's good.
Speaker 3: It's a good question though, So maybe our fellow conspiracy
Speaker 3: realist can illuminate that for us. I just think, you know,
Speaker 3: the thing is, Toco isn't hurting anyone, right, gel Toko's
Speaker 3: not a guard dog.
Speaker 5: Just their knees.
Speaker 4: Just Toco is hurting no one. They talk as well
Speaker 4: about the production cycle. A thing took forty days to make.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, like really crazy amounts of
Speaker 4: labor and creativity go into this.
Speaker 5: I imagine that they helped.
Speaker 4: They designed it for Toco with some specifications.
Speaker 5: It was funny. There's there's other's a quote from him
Speaker 5: saying at one point that.
Speaker 4: The people from the company did inform me that this
Speaker 4: may be difficult as the makeup of the of the
Speaker 4: of a collie's skeleton differs wildly from that of a human.
Speaker 4: And you know this wolf costume and I'm looking at
Speaker 4: is meant to be standing upright the kicker here. And
Speaker 4: the thing that makes this whole thing that uncanny Valley
Speaker 4: vibe is the fact that it looks like a lumbering
Speaker 4: like dog and for a minute you didn't know, you
Speaker 4: would be fooled. Then you might be like, wait, it's
Speaker 4: moving a little wonky. Is it like a robot? What's
Speaker 4: going on here? And it would not immediately be clear
Speaker 4: to anybody. And you know, I mean, you could call
Speaker 4: this a fetish, you could call this perhaps there's some
Speaker 4: some kind of sexual gratification involved. But we know about
Speaker 4: certainly individuals that like to be dominated and put on leashes,
Speaker 4: and the idea of becoming a dog perhaps can be
Speaker 4: tied into that.
Speaker 5: This is not something that Toco has said. I'm not
Speaker 5: trying to psychoanalyze this person.
Speaker 4: I'm saying it's certainly part of what we think of
Speaker 4: when it comes to like, you know, even like the
Speaker 4: iggy pop song I Want to Be Your Dog.
Speaker 5: You know, it's meant to be kind of an S
Speaker 5: and M type song. So who knows.
Speaker 4: And obviously this stuff is very big in Japan, but
Speaker 4: I think it's really cool and and to your point,
Speaker 4: Ben Toko is hurting no one seems to be just
Speaker 4: a matter of not wanting to blow up their spot
Speaker 4: and have people talking to them about it all the time.
Speaker 4: And I think it's cool to be able to remain anonymous.
Speaker 4: You know, I was bummed when we found out who
Speaker 4: Daft Punk were. I think they maybe always knew who
Speaker 4: they were. But still I like the idea of anonymity
Speaker 4: in pop culture and stuff, and it's so rare these
Speaker 4: days because everyone is just too oversharing. So that's that
Speaker 4: one wants to add. It's it's I think it's awesome,
Speaker 4: and it's it is creepy. There are things about these
Speaker 4: videos that are a little okay, but all in all,
Speaker 4: I think it's just great.
Speaker 3: Well, wait before we go to ask that, No, I
Speaker 3: got a question for you, uh, for for everybody. Were
Speaker 3: you to become a theory in trope, you know, like
Speaker 3: a skin walker, where you to be able to transform
Speaker 3: into an animal? Friend across the Pacific made their choice
Speaker 3: they would transform into a rough collie. Do you guys
Speaker 3: have animals that you would want to be able to
Speaker 3: change into?
Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
Speaker 4: All I'm gonna say is you might think that, But
Speaker 4: then what if all of a sudden you were transformed
Speaker 4: to that animal and it just didn't feel the way
Speaker 4: you thought it would feel at all, and you just
Speaker 4: kind of went insane immediately, where you just couldn't cope
Speaker 4: with it that terrifies me. I was gonna say, flying
Speaker 4: squirrel is that they've got the best of both worlds.
Speaker 5: They can scatter it, scamper around up and down.
Speaker 4: The trees, Willy nilly and the sugar glider, whatever you
Speaker 4: want to call them, I think. But then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden you're one of those. Does your brain then
Speaker 4: become just like that, like, is it a hybrid?
Speaker 5: I don't know, Matt would.
Speaker 2: In this case. I think it's more what kind of
Speaker 2: costume would you want Zeppet to design for you to
Speaker 2: make you look like a human version of a flying squirrel?
Speaker 3: Oh you're not doing skin changing?
Speaker 2: Oh we're doing We're doing full skin changes. Okay, cool,
Speaker 2: I just want That's where I was going with it. Okay,
Speaker 2: can we point out I just had to say this
Speaker 2: out because it's been replaying in my mind since it happened. Ben,
Speaker 2: you were trying to come up with the word for feet,
Speaker 2: and you said meta tarsals and you just did it
Speaker 2: so casually.
Speaker 5: It was good at parties.
Speaker 3: They're the bones of the foot.
Speaker 2: I just thought it was great, you know.
Speaker 5: Feet. I'm sorry trying to change the subject. Matt, what
Speaker 5: animal will you because.
Speaker 3: You already change your skin, Matt. What animal are you? Man?
Speaker 3: When you're not on the.
Speaker 2: Show, I'm a squeed.
Speaker 5: I wonder I promise you no longer to eat your brethren. Yes, yes,
Speaker 5: I love the way you pronounced that.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 5: We're just we're on fire today, y'all. Let's take a break.
Speaker 4: Man, Let's take that break and have a word from
Speaker 4: our sponsor, and then come back with one more piece
Speaker 4: of strange.
Speaker 3: News and we have returned, fellow conspiracy realists. Okay, So
Speaker 3: there is a place over in California that is now
Speaker 3: becoming a hotbed of intelligence speculation. Have you ever heard
Speaker 3: of a group called Flannery Associates l LC?
Speaker 5: Yes I have not.
Speaker 4: When I saw this story, I thought had something to
Speaker 4: do with Flannery O'Connor.
Speaker 3: Me too, man, I was hoping. I was hoping. Severely
Speaker 3: underrated author even though she is canonical. This group, Flannery O'Connor,
Speaker 3: for a while has been buying out keep it. That's
Speaker 3: how close the association is. So nothing to do with
Speaker 3: Flannery O'Connor, just like Zeppe It in Japan, have nothing
Speaker 3: to do with pets. Flannery Associates Limited Liability Corporation has
Speaker 3: been quietly buying up thousands and thousands of acres of
Speaker 3: far land in Solano County. Solano County, for those of
Speaker 3: us playing along at home, is associated with Travis Air
Speaker 3: Force Base. For the USAF. The thing is okay. LLC's
Speaker 3: buy land all the time. Corporations, business entities, investment entities.
Speaker 3: They buy up commercial and residential land all the time
Speaker 3: in the United States, such that it's becoming a huge
Speaker 3: problem for anybody under forty who wants to one day
Speaker 3: buy a house. Atlanta is ground zero for some frankly
Speaker 3: predatory actions by groups like Blackrock. Flannery Associates currently has
Speaker 3: fifty five thousand acres of dry farmland adjacent to Travis
Speaker 3: Air Force Base. Not just adjacent, but sort of turning
Speaker 3: it into a peninsula. They bought up like three sides
Speaker 3: of the land bordering this air Force base. The purchases
Speaker 3: started in twenty eighteen, they're continuing as we record today.
Speaker 3: That's at least eight hundred million dollars as of July thirtieth,
Speaker 3: so like just a few days ago, as we record.
Speaker 3: And here's the kicker. If you ask the local authorities, Hey,
Speaker 3: who is Flannery Associates The one thing they can tell
Speaker 3: you with some degree of certitude is that it's probably
Speaker 3: nothing to do with Flannery O'Connor common misconception that would
Speaker 3: say the thing they cannot tell you is essentially everything else.
Speaker 3: They have no idea who owns it. I did a
Speaker 3: little bit of digging. I've got some like half assed answers, frankly,
Speaker 3: but they're not answers to my satisfaction. If you ask
Speaker 3: the federal officials who you know, if you ask the
Speaker 3: US Air Force and so on, then their public statement
Speaker 3: is that they don't. No. Everyone is collectively shrugging, yes.
Speaker 2: Okay, is it too early to just go over ideas
Speaker 2: of why you would buy land around air Force base.
Speaker 3: Also, the only thing we need to set up for
Speaker 3: that is that they threatened individual landholders and are taking
Speaker 3: them to court. Flannery is taking these folks to court,
Speaker 3: with the contention being that these individual farmers or farm
Speaker 3: land owners are illegally preventing them from buying more stuff.
Speaker 2: Wait, what so? But they're not. There's no eminent domaining
Speaker 2: going on. They're buying land that was for sale.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, if there was a willing seller for it.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is all this is so weird to me.
Speaker 3: What do you think you?
Speaker 2: Okay, I got some ideas. The first one that came
Speaker 2: to mind before I understood the scope and really understood
Speaker 2: where Solano County is, the west of Sacramento and everything.
Speaker 2: My first thought was a spying on a military base,
Speaker 2: because you could. You could just set up anything, any
Speaker 2: sensors to look up in the sky basically see and
Speaker 2: see any aircraft that lands or takes off from that base. Right,
Speaker 2: you could, theoretically, but you could do that without buying land,
Speaker 2: I think, or buying one small piece of land. So
Speaker 2: that doesn't make any sense. What about stuff that's underneath
Speaker 2: the surface of the land?
Speaker 3: Ooh, mineral rights, water, water, things like that. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean both the Chinese and the Saudi Arabian governments have
Speaker 3: been making agricultural deals which do essentially divest the United
Speaker 3: States of water. Whoa any of you think about it?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, well let's continue, because that's that's what I
Speaker 3: was thinking too. No, you got one. You gotta guess.
Speaker 3: Does that sound off base or are you thinking?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: I think it's I mean, I'm with you. I'm just
Speaker 4: kind of playing along at home.
Speaker 5: I want to hear more.
Speaker 3: All right, So so do a little digging and you
Speaker 3: will find that Flannery Associates, LLC is a branch of
Speaker 3: a place called Burst Creativity. Flannery Associates, LLC.
Speaker 5: Out of Delaware, Delaware. We're in Delaware.
Speaker 4: It turns out as a magical place when it comes
Speaker 4: to at least tax havens and shady dealings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I feel you man. Maybe I was
Speaker 3: profiling a little as well, But as soon as I
Speaker 3: saw Delaware, I thought, okay, corporate governance a little more
Speaker 3: friendly in that state. So what we find is that
Speaker 3: Flannery Associates has a fixer, an attorney out of DC
Speaker 3: who refuses to divulge what this land will be used for,
Speaker 3: what the purpose of it is, and ultimately also refuses
Speaker 3: to divulge the entire the identities basically behind the shell.
Speaker 3: Flannery Associates did reply to i think a Department of
Speaker 3: Agriculture request for more information, and when they replied, they
Speaker 3: said something like, look, ninety seven percent of our capital
Speaker 3: is based in the US. There they said something slippery,
Speaker 3: They said, there is no nun say foreign entity. I
Speaker 3: think they just said ninety seven percent is US based,
Speaker 3: which is a lot like answering a question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real similar, real real similar.
Speaker 3: From far enough away, it looks like answering the question.
Speaker 3: So the mystery continues. Officials don't know. People contact to
Speaker 3: Congress about this house represented, senators, etc. And no one
Speaker 3: is sure what's happening. We do know some existing laws,
Speaker 3: and we do know some existing public facts that have
Speaker 3: already been out there before this company formed. Oh also,
Speaker 3: this LLC pretty young stuff they don't want you to know,
Speaker 3: not just as a show but as a podcast, is
Speaker 3: older than Flannery Associate's LLC. It incorporated in twenty eighteen
Speaker 3: and it's just been blowing up. So we know that
Speaker 3: the offer's Flannery has been giving people in this area
Speaker 3: near Travis Air Force Base are way above asking price,
Speaker 3: way above what you would expect for this raw agricultural
Speaker 3: land or drive farmland as they would call it. We
Speaker 3: also know that this agricultural land has restrictions on its
Speaker 3: use in Solano County, meaning that if you buy this stuff,
Speaker 3: you can't immediately build you know, a string of those
Speaker 3: live laugh, love mixed use condo developments or.
Speaker 2: Well that's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well there's that, sure, But this is a mystery
Speaker 3: that continues, and right now the thing that is, maybe
Speaker 3: it's understandable, but I don't know how helpful it is.
Speaker 3: When you do see reporting on this, you'll often see
Speaker 3: people raising the flag of senophobia si no phobia meaning
Speaker 3: anti Chinese sentiment, and they'll say, oh, rabble, the Chinese
Speaker 3: are taken over this air force space and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Not necessarily the case. There's been no provable evidence of that.
Speaker 3: But I have a guess on the mystery. If you
Speaker 3: guys want to hear.
Speaker 2: It, is it the government itself? Well?
Speaker 4: Did you mention that some that officials have told news
Speaker 4: stations they are quote, highly skeptical about this company's intense.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, as reported in the in Politico and the Hill.
Speaker 3: When congressional folks have been asked about this, Representative John
Speaker 3: Garamendi's district includes the base is one of the people
Speaker 3: who who says similar things like why is this secret
Speaker 3: of organization buying up all the land? I love that
Speaker 3: you bring this up. No, because it sounds like, at
Speaker 3: least publicly, the folks we pay to represent us in
Speaker 3: US governments are just as clueless and they think something's up.
Speaker 3: But how much of that is theater. How much of
Speaker 3: that is sincerity?
Speaker 5: What do you think theater of the mind?
Speaker 3: Man, all theaters theater of the mind?
Speaker 5: Right, sure?
Speaker 3: So, okay, there's another thing. Sacramento sees a ton of
Speaker 3: air traffic. It's known across the world. It's home to
Speaker 3: some critical military ops. It's also currently deeply involved in
Speaker 3: the effort to transport stuff into Poland for the ongoing war.
Speaker 3: And you cry, which makes some other folks say, hey,
Speaker 3: maybe this is a Russian operation. I want to go
Speaker 3: back to your question, Matt, is it uncle Sam not
Speaker 3: knowing what its left hand is doing when people ask
Speaker 3: the right hand something.
Speaker 2: They couldn't get a budget to expand the Air Force base,
Speaker 2: so they're like, fine, we'll use our black budget and
Speaker 2: we'll just buy all the land and then we'll start
Speaker 2: moving stuff on to it. And we'll be like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're associated with Flannery associates. Now, No, I'm just joking.
Speaker 2: I have no idea, but that's that would just be
Speaker 2: a move for some reason. I don't know why, but
Speaker 2: like there's been some release. Yeah, forty chest is just
Speaker 2: buy all the land so nobody can bother us anymore.
Speaker 3: Here's my going concern on this I think it is.
Speaker 3: I have to be careful with this one. There is
Speaker 3: a strong what we could call non zero likelihood that
Speaker 3: intelligence does know us. Intelligence does know exactly who is
Speaker 3: doing this and why. And the thing in that kind
Speaker 3: of game is if you know what someone is doing,
Speaker 3: if you know the entity that is having that is
Speaker 3: playing this three card monte or shell game of land acquisition,
Speaker 3: and then what you want to do is never publicly
Speaker 3: say it. What you want to do is let them
Speaker 3: keep dig in the hole, right. You want them to
Speaker 3: get more and more comfortable and be more and more acclimated, right,
Speaker 3: and to think they got away with it, And then
Speaker 3: that's an opportunity for you to feed false information. So maybe,
Speaker 3: but in both Matt and both your example and in
Speaker 3: the example that I'm doing and these thoughts experiments, we
Speaker 3: are signed need a great deal of wait for it,
Speaker 3: intelligence to these actors. One thing that is more frightening
Speaker 3: than any conspiracy in the world is, as our old
Speaker 3: pal Dan Harmon said, the idea that there's no one
Speaker 3: at the wheel. What if it is, what if there's
Speaker 3: a secret organization a flannery O'Connor stands, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? And all they want to do is take
Speaker 3: over Travis Air Force Base so they can cause play
Speaker 3: good country people and a good man is hard to
Speaker 3: find and all those hits, I think that's beast likely maybe,
Speaker 3: But that's the thing. Without enough information, it is currently
Speaker 3: not something we can we can solidly confirm, and it's
Speaker 3: not something we can solidly deny. In fact, I would
Speaker 3: I would posit this is textbook stuff they don't want
Speaker 3: you to know. We're going to keep this one short.
Speaker 3: There was a ghost divorce we didn't get to. But
Speaker 3: the course of true love never did run smooth as
Speaker 3: they say there were. There was massive chaos in Ecuador,
Speaker 3: which did not get reported widely in US news outside
Speaker 3: of Univision, which I think all of us should be
Speaker 3: watching more often. The thing that we want to walk
Speaker 3: away with is this. We want your.
Speaker 5: Help, folks.
Speaker 3: If you could change into an animal, what animal? What'd
Speaker 3: you change into? If you could put something on the
Speaker 3: moon for posterity or creative work, what would it be.
Speaker 3: It's okay if it's a description of the animal you
Speaker 3: want to change into, and if you work with Lannry
Speaker 3: Associates LLC, or if you have a guess or a
Speaker 3: lead to take us further down the rabbit hole happening
Speaker 3: over there in Sacramento. We want to hear from you.
Speaker 3: Join us, you know, as the old proverb goes, if
Speaker 3: you want to move fast, move alone. If you want
Speaker 3: to move far, move together. So we can't wait for
Speaker 3: you to be part of the team. Tell us your thoughts.
Speaker 3: You're the most important part of the show. We try
Speaker 3: to be easy to find online.
Speaker 5: It's true.
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