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 Iheartrading.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
Speaker 2: Our co host Ben has gotten himself into another one
Speaker 2: of those international situations. We are certenglement perhaps, Oh yes,
Speaker 2: oh yes, We're certain he'll find his way back home soon.
Speaker 2: We are joined today, as always by the one and
Speaker 2: only Paul Mission Control A decand and guys, today we're
Speaker 2: diving into the old voicemail box.
Speaker 3: Is a boxer a bag? I guess if it's a
Speaker 3: letter as it's a bag, but voicemail it's a box.
Speaker 2: Weird, my son says, dude, I babes. Yes, but we're
Speaker 2: going to pull out some of the most thought provoking
Speaker 2: stuff that you have been sending us over the past
Speaker 2: couple of months. And before we get started, just want
Speaker 2: to put it out there if you want to send
Speaker 2: us a message, it's super simple.
Speaker 3: Dial that's one eighty three three std WYTK. It's literally
Speaker 3: that easy. The S and the T and the D
Speaker 3: and the W and the Y and the T and
Speaker 3: the K correspond to alpha numerica characters on your phone keypad.
Speaker 3: But you can figure that out right.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, And let us begin with a sighting in
Speaker 2: the skies above the Atlanta metro area.
Speaker 3: What I didn't hear about this? I live in the
Speaker 3: Atlanta metro area.
Speaker 2: Well, this message comes to us from Brett Watcher of
Speaker 2: the Skies.
Speaker 4: Hi, Ben, Matt Noel, This is Brett Watcher of the Skies.
Speaker 4: I was just leaving you a voice mail to let
Speaker 4: you know that I have sent you some photos of
Speaker 4: UAV that I took. I thought I had sent them
Speaker 4: to you in early May, along with a little letter
Speaker 4: of explanation, but I found out today that it wasn't sent.
Speaker 4: So I'm hoping you get the letter and the photos.
Speaker 4: I think they're quite remarkable. And it actually got picked
Speaker 4: up and published in Mufon in their May magazine. It
Speaker 4: was the top or first story on page six. And
Speaker 4: my name again is Brett Watcher of the Skies. Thank
Speaker 4: you well.
Speaker 3: First of all, Brett, can I say I really hope
Speaker 3: that you got your nickname from the Incredible Genesis song
Speaker 3: from the Good Days of Genesis when Peter Gabriel was
Speaker 3: the front person on the album. Foxtrot is an amazing
Speaker 3: opening track called Watcher of the Skies that's like Prague
Speaker 3: King Crimson meets like Tool or something. It's not the
Speaker 3: genesis of Phil Collins fame that many might be familiar with.
Speaker 3: So if you're into that kind of music, sort of
Speaker 3: like science fiction y fairy music that sounds like it
Speaker 3: could be in like a D and D campaign, check
Speaker 3: out Foxtrot by Genesis.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a lot of fun. But I will
Speaker 2: take the drummer singer any day of the week.
Speaker 3: No, he's great, don't get me wrong. Phil's got his thing.
Speaker 3: But like the Peter Gabriel era, it's weird actually because
Speaker 3: Phil Collins, I guess, from singing backup for so long
Speaker 3: with Peter, sort of learned to sing exactly like Peter Gabriel,
Speaker 3: which I've always found a little suss and that's awesome. Weird,
Speaker 3: it's interesting, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: I just got memories of being on the beach and
Speaker 2: listening to for some reason, the song I Can't Dance,
Speaker 2: I Can't talk.
Speaker 3: That's that's that's the period. That's that's not my favorite.
Speaker 3: Some good ones in there, there's an incredible video for
Speaker 3: a song from that era that's like with those weird
Speaker 3: rubbery puppets that were kind of a thing like in
Speaker 3: the late eighties, with like there's a Ronald Reagan and
Speaker 3: like George Bush and all these really macabre, kind of
Speaker 3: jim hensity puppets. I think it's called Land of Confusion.
Speaker 3: Check that out. It's a it's a real real relic nice.
Speaker 2: Also check this out. Brett really did all of these things.
Speaker 2: He was hanging out on March twenty seventh, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: northwest of Atlanta, in a little suburb area over there,
Speaker 2: actually really cool suburb, I guess we can say it
Speaker 2: Brett in Marietta.
Speaker 3: And he looked up the ships there.
Speaker 2: In the Strand Theater. That's that's how I know.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 2: But he's looking up in the sky. He had his
Speaker 2: iPhone fourteen and he was waiting on the I guess
Speaker 2: it's the alignment of planets that was happening that night.
Speaker 2: He was just getting really excited, so we wanted to
Speaker 2: take some pictures. And let's read a bit from the
Speaker 2: email that he sent to us. He says, it was
Speaker 2: a beautiful, clear night and I I noticed some cool
Speaker 2: jet trails illuminated by the moon. I decided to take
Speaker 2: a few photos. It took a little over a minute
Speaker 2: to take them. The pictures came out awesome, I thought,
Speaker 2: and I showed them to my wife. She liked them
Speaker 2: and asked what the object in one of the photographs was.
Speaker 2: As we looked through the set of about seven pictures,
Speaker 2: we noticed objects in five of the pictures along the
Speaker 2: jet trail. When I was taking the pictures, I didn't
Speaker 2: see these objects at all, but looking carefully at the photos,
Speaker 2: I said, wow, I had captured three different UAPs or
Speaker 2: I'm old school UFOs.
Speaker 3: I called my brother in law and emailed him the
Speaker 3: images I'd captured. He is an aeronautical engineer and a
Speaker 3: highly experienced photographer. We both decided that we had to
Speaker 3: report the sighting. He said to report it to Moufon. Now,
Speaker 3: what's the acronym moufon standforge. I know it's like the
Speaker 3: pre eminent UFO ufology society.
Speaker 2: I've always said the mutual UFO network. I don't know
Speaker 2: if the UFO is actually spelled out in their name,
Speaker 2: though fair enough going on.
Speaker 3: I went to their website and filled out all the
Speaker 3: info of my sighting and uploaded the photos to them.
Speaker 3: The next day of Moufon field investigator emailed me to
Speaker 3: get more information about my sighting. Over the next few days,
Speaker 3: he made a thorough investigation of my photos. He also
Speaker 3: checked with the FAA Dobbins Air Force Base, which is
Speaker 3: very close to my house, the weather conditions and the
Speaker 3: astronomical conditions, making sure that no satellites were in the
Speaker 3: area of sky where my photographs were taken.
Speaker 2: Isn't that cool? Isn't that cool? You can go outside,
Speaker 2: just like Brett Watcher of the Skies did, take some photographs,
Speaker 2: see something that you don't understand, Send them to this
Speaker 2: awesome thing called a move on and they will investigate
Speaker 2: it for you. Oh that makes me so happy. That
Speaker 2: makes me so so happy. Again. You might be hearing
Speaker 2: my son in the background. He's hanging out reading the
Speaker 2: Gravity Falls Journal three book and you're having a good
Speaker 2: time writer, Okay, kid.
Speaker 3: After your in heart. Gravity Falls is like vaguely conspiratorial, right,
Speaker 3: isn't that.
Speaker 2: Sort of It's highly conspiratorial. Okay.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen a ton of it, but I hear
Speaker 3: good things. I know. I mentioned this every time we
Speaker 3: get someone reporting one of these things. But I years ago,
Speaker 3: when I was touring with the band, I had like
Speaker 3: this mini DV camera that I had bought to like document,
Speaker 3: you know, the tour and stuff. And I was filming
Speaker 3: out the window of the tour van that we were
Speaker 3: in over a cornfield in Nebraska, and I saw this
Speaker 3: weird like hexagonal thing like hovering in the distance. And
Speaker 3: you know, it's really flat in that part of the
Speaker 3: country and hard to kind of gauge distance. You know,
Speaker 3: I have this tape somewhere. I think it might be
Speaker 3: lost to time because I I've looked everywhere through several moves.
Speaker 3: I had a big bag of all my mini DV
Speaker 3: tapes from those days, which sucks, But who knows. It's
Speaker 3: kind of thing that could pop up sometime. But I
Speaker 3: am convinced that it was something unusual because I can't
Speaker 3: to this day place what it might have been.
Speaker 2: Well, if only you'd sent it into MoveOn NOL.
Speaker 3: Well, I didn't know about Mouffon at the time. There
Speaker 3: wasn't even the Internet. I'm kidding, there was the Internet.
Speaker 2: Well, this is just so cool because Brett did send
Speaker 2: us the Moufon Journal, where his story is featured on
Speaker 2: page six with his photographs and where there's a nice
Speaker 2: little write up in there. It's super cool. We would
Speaker 2: recommend checking out the May twenty twenty three Moufon journal
Speaker 2: and you can find it for yourself. Marietta is mentioned
Speaker 2: in the story and you will see a photograph of
Speaker 2: the moon, a contrail, and some weird lights along that contrail.
Speaker 3: Can you describe it to us a little bit, Matt,
Speaker 3: since this is a audio podcast and I have not
Speaker 3: had a chance to look at the images yet.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Okay, So we've got kind of in the center
Speaker 2: of the photograph a moon that almost has a diamond
Speaker 2: shape to it, the way the lensing, the way it's occurring.
Speaker 2: You've got a couple contrails that are going diagonally from
Speaker 2: the kind of the top left the upper left portion
Speaker 2: down to the right lower portion. And if you scroll
Speaker 2: through several of the photographs, along the lower contrail, there
Speaker 2: are a series of objects that appear to be three
Speaker 2: bright lights that are close together. And in one of
Speaker 2: the photographs there are clearly three bright lights that are there.
Speaker 2: In a couple other ones, they are almost like three
Speaker 2: bright streaks that are along the same I guess you
Speaker 2: would say horizontal line going across the sky, so they
Speaker 2: look like they could almost be jets following along that
Speaker 2: same path that the aircraft that left the contrail was following,
Speaker 2: but they are not, and according to that Mofon report,
Speaker 2: they don't match up with aircraft that were flying across,
Speaker 2: you know, from Dobbin's Air Force Base or anything like that,
Speaker 2: So it is, I don't know, it's pretty weird, pretty
Speaker 2: dang weird.
Speaker 3: I think it's so cool that like we're in an
Speaker 3: era now where there is some confirmation to these kinds
Speaker 3: of stories, like to some degree obviously they're not telling
Speaker 3: us everything, but the degree to which the government has
Speaker 3: had to respond or acknowledge some of this stuff, and
Speaker 3: the level of expertise of folks that are coming out
Speaker 3: and confirming these types of sightings, I think it's such
Speaker 3: vindication for people that have been like, you know, cast
Speaker 3: as cranks or crack pots for so many years. I
Speaker 3: think that's just super cool. It's just another example of
Speaker 3: how everything's not entirely a garbage fire right now in
Speaker 3: the world. There are some positive changes if weighed against
Speaker 3: some pretty awful things as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so hey, shout out to Fred Kohler. Who is
Speaker 2: the moufon person who did the investigation there. Shout out
Speaker 2: to Brett, and huge shout out to Brett's daughter, who
Speaker 2: apparently turned him on to stuff they don't want you
Speaker 2: to know. And he's been listening now for like five
Speaker 2: years because of his daughter. So thank you very very much.
Speaker 3: The kids love stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: We're basically at children's podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. Oh and by the way, I
Speaker 2: did speak to Brett for a while. Brett is a
Speaker 2: quite fantastic human being.
Speaker 3: You're such a thorough voicemail Steward. I love it, Matt.
Speaker 3: People are always so thrilled to hear from you.
Speaker 2: But I didn't get to talk to everybody. But you know, hey,
Speaker 2: keep your phones near you if you did leave us
Speaker 2: a voicemail, because one of us will try and get
Speaker 2: in touch with you at some point. The next person
Speaker 2: who left us a voicemail is Alan.
Speaker 3: Ken's buddy All his Clothes Fit Him, played by Michael
Speaker 3: Sarah in the in the delightful Barbie movie, which I
Speaker 3: very much enjoyed. Have you seen it yet, Matt.
Speaker 2: I've not seen it yet, but I do like me
Speaker 2: some Michael Sarah that guy can't.
Speaker 3: Alan's a real fan favorite.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, here we go. Here is Alan.
Speaker 5: Hi, my name is Alan. I was listening to your
Speaker 5: Strange News episode on blocking the Sun, and I think
Speaker 5: it was Noel that mentioned that what if you made
Speaker 5: a giant umbrella for the Earth to block up the sun?
Speaker 5: I'm and I was a little surprised to hear you
Speaker 5: laughing about it, because that's that's the cheapest and easiest
Speaker 5: way to do it, because in outer space you can
Speaker 5: build a giant umbrella. It's not terribly difficult, and you
Speaker 5: can just build it out of aluminum foil or styrofoam
Speaker 5: or what have you, and he'll stay there. I think
Speaker 5: the last time I did a.
Speaker 6: Back of the envelope calculation on how much it would
Speaker 6: cost to build a giant aluminum foil umbrella to decrease
Speaker 6: global warming, I think it was something like the entire
Speaker 6: United States military's budget on Vagra eighteen billion dollars, which.
Speaker 5: Is about one and a half Jerald R four aircraft carriers.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that's just my two cents on the subject.
Speaker 3: All Right, Well, first of all, what kind of envelopes
Speaker 3: are you doing calculations on to get these figures. That
Speaker 3: must be a mailer, like one of those big bubble mailers,
Speaker 3: and you must have very tiny This is very impressive.
Speaker 3: I do think it came up in the episode, if
Speaker 3: that was a thing, if I'm not mistaken, or maybe.
Speaker 2: We did well. No, no, as Alan is correct. As
Speaker 2: as we were talking about it, it felt like, I think,
Speaker 2: to me personally, you brought it up, and it felt
Speaker 2: like such a preposterous thing, like the idea of just
Speaker 2: building something that will block the sun like that. In
Speaker 2: my head, it's just because it would not only are
Speaker 2: you blocking the sun from the heat and you know,
Speaker 2: from warming up the planet, you're blocking the sun for
Speaker 2: photosynthesis and all these other things that in my mind
Speaker 2: would be a terrible idea. But I kind of pupoot it,
Speaker 2: and I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 3: I apologize, but well, I mean, even if you use
Speaker 3: an umbrella, you're not blocking the entirety of the sun.
Speaker 3: Like you can have plants in shade that are getting
Speaker 3: like indirect sunlight or whatever. Like I've been trying my
Speaker 3: best to not be a plant murderer anymore. So Unfortunately
Speaker 3: my house doesn't get a ton of direct sunlight, so
Speaker 3: I've had to be very strategic with where I put things,
Speaker 3: and I'm realizing more often than not, when my plants die,
Speaker 3: it's because they're not getting direct sunlight. In the event
Speaker 3: of this umbrella, all those plants in my house are
Speaker 3: definitely going to die and they're already not getting enough
Speaker 3: sun with just like regular indirect sunlight. So this would
Speaker 3: cause a problem, but it wouldn't like kill photosynthesis entirely.
Speaker 3: You'd have to be very strategic about where you placed it.
Speaker 3: It does make me think of those reflectors people put
Speaker 3: in their dark colored cars, and those sure as hell work.
Speaker 3: I mean they really really do. We know that these
Speaker 3: kinds of things do reflect light and reflect you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now to my back of the old Napkin calculations,
Speaker 2: you'd have to make it out of something that's more
Speaker 2: of a filter and less of a full on reflector,
Speaker 2: which I'm assuming would be way more expensive, I guess,
Speaker 2: depending on the material.
Speaker 3: And couldn't if you reflected it fully? Couldn't that cause
Speaker 3: problems elsewhere in space? I mean, maybe that's a silly
Speaker 3: thing to think, but that energy is going somewhere, and
Speaker 3: like you know, couldn't wouldn't it travel and potentially cause issue?
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's a it's.
Speaker 2: A Here's another question for the more scientificly minded out
Speaker 2: there who know stuff about this. If you had something
Speaker 2: like a giant reflective or filtering umbrella in space between
Speaker 2: the Earth and the Sun. If there was a chronal
Speaker 2: mass ejection or something like that, a huge solar flare
Speaker 2: that was sending charged particles towards the Earth, could you
Speaker 2: deflect that energy or would it just travel right through
Speaker 2: that stuff?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, isn't the ozone layer essentially a filter,
Speaker 3: Like it's filtering out certain bad things that are in
Speaker 3: you know, the solar rays that come. And the problem
Speaker 3: that we're having is because of the depletion of the
Speaker 3: ozone layer, so it's no longer acting as efficiently as
Speaker 3: it once did. I mean, how cool is that? Like
Speaker 3: speaking of like, you know, Goldilocks type situations like that,
Speaker 3: our planet not only came with all of the I
Speaker 3: guess conditions to promote life, but also is wrapped in
Speaker 3: this like thin candy shell that prevents us from getting
Speaker 3: fried by the sun that also supplies its power and
Speaker 3: like another aspect of life and growth on Earth.
Speaker 2: Nice work science or I guess yeah, whatever that thing is.
Speaker 3: This This is call it that this is. Call it
Speaker 3: the Goldielocks, the Three Bears in the Sky.
Speaker 2: That's a great song. If it hasn't been written already,
Speaker 2: somebody out there write it. All right, Hey, with that,
Speaker 2: we're gonna take a quick break here a word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor, and then come back with more of your voicemails.
Speaker 2: And we've returned just to harken back to Alan's message.
Speaker 2: As we record, it is ninety four degrees fahrenheit in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: which is thirty four point four to four degrees celsius.
Speaker 2: Everyone else out there in Phoenix, Arizona today it's a
Speaker 2: balmy one hundred and ten degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, balmy in hell, yes, Jeeze Louise. I mean we
Speaker 3: hear stories about like Arizona. You know, people cooking eggs
Speaker 3: on the hoods of their car and like plastic product
Speaker 3: just melting outside. You know what I mean. It's insane.
Speaker 3: It's like the opposite of that level of cold you
Speaker 3: hear about in like Antarctica, where if you pour a
Speaker 3: coca cola, it like freezes midstream before it hits the glass.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's wild. Have you heard the term
Speaker 3: that's being thrown around lately, Matt global boiling oh as
Speaker 3: opposed to warming. I think the warming it was a
Speaker 3: very generous, kind of like sugar coating. That now is
Speaker 3: like a kind of absurd. It's hot. It's not warm,
Speaker 3: It's it's hot.
Speaker 2: It's really hot. Strangely enough, in Maui, Hawaii, where there
Speaker 2: were just terrible, terrible fires, a massive tragedy. It is
Speaker 2: only eighty three degrees fahrenheit, which is twenty eight point
Speaker 2: three to three celsius. One hundred and ten degrees fahrenheit,
Speaker 2: by the way, is forty three point.
Speaker 3: Three to three celsius. The math brain on Matt.
Speaker 2: Uh yehah, I could do temperatures. Boy, I love that.
Speaker 3: Are you doing that on the fly or do you
Speaker 3: have some sort of calculator that.
Speaker 2: You I wrote it in the dock, dude.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I was impressed, and now I'm still impressed.
Speaker 2: Come on, Dipper, let's call all right, that's okay, it's
Speaker 2: just one person. We'll understand that I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2: Seuss uh Okay, here we go. Next message comes to
Speaker 2: us from Ranger.
Speaker 3: Smith out there defending picnic baskets. You know from what
Speaker 3: was it a large marge no hank the tank that
Speaker 3: ended up not being a hank it all.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the bear just snatching up picknip.
Speaker 3: Grass smarter than the average.
Speaker 7: Here we go.
Speaker 2: Ranger Smith has this to say.
Speaker 7: My name is Rangers Smith.
Speaker 8: And the episode you guys were talking about banned books.
Speaker 8: I was I'm kind of surprised that you didn't mention
Speaker 8: the National Library of Congress's Delta Library, where there's the
Speaker 8: sets of books where they cannot be allowed to the
Speaker 8: pup through their high pornography or other's certain content, and
Speaker 8: the other thing is banned book wise. There are books
Speaker 8: in the National Library and I believe the University of
Speaker 8: Michigan Library they are boomed in human flesh that are
Speaker 8: not available to the public. I thought you guys might
Speaker 8: want to be considered about those things as banned books
Speaker 8: as well. Polculator Bye Red.
Speaker 3: Band books you know, like those trailers that are.
Speaker 2: Really oh yeah not adult trailers.
Speaker 3: Yeah at the Big Red you know warning on the beginning,
Speaker 3: that's how you know it's going to be good. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: Bound in human flesh like the Necronomicon and the Evil
Speaker 3: Dead movies? Like are these like grimoires? Like what are
Speaker 3: we talking? I guess maybe they could also be from
Speaker 3: like other cultures, and you know, perhaps even some Nazi stuff.
Speaker 3: Who knows.
Speaker 2: Well, it's some real stuff. It's called anthropodermic bibliopagy.
Speaker 3: Bibliopogy not only take you ten tries off, Mike.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. I don't know the words.
Speaker 2: Very strange. It's a real thing. You can look up
Speaker 2: an Atlantic article titled it was once somewhat common to
Speaker 2: bind books with human skin.
Speaker 3: Where is human skin coming from?
Speaker 2: That's where I learned about this for the first time.
Speaker 2: The human skin is just you know, any old human skin. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm just joking.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I haven't read much about this. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: confirm that it was an actual thing, and it was.
Speaker 2: It was a type of bookbinding that occurred, which is
Speaker 2: kind of creepy. If you imagine you didn't have any
Speaker 2: leather from like cow or you know, other animals that
Speaker 2: have a thick hide, maybe you could use human skin,
Speaker 2: and I guess people did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I was thinking about the other day,
Speaker 3: concerning band stuff or like censorship or whatever. Are you
Speaker 3: familiar with the concept of video nasties video nasties?
Speaker 2: No, what is this I thought we.
Speaker 3: Maybe had discussed it at some point. There is this
Speaker 3: era in the UK in the eighties where like there's
Speaker 3: this organization called the National Viewers and Listeners Association that
Speaker 3: is essentially kind of like what happened with like censorship
Speaker 3: of music. Here in the States, we're cracking down on
Speaker 3: violent films, and the British Board of Film Classification they
Speaker 3: were being a bit more strict about what kinds of
Speaker 3: things could make it into theatrical release, but there was
Speaker 3: a loophole that apparently allowed videos VHS's, things that went
Speaker 3: direct to video to bypass this whole process, and that
Speaker 3: created this whole kind of like culture of really horrifically
Speaker 3: violent kind of DIY horror that were referred to as
Speaker 3: video nasties. And there would be these like raids that
Speaker 3: would take place sometimes on video stores or places where
Speaker 3: you you know, you could get this stuff. And since
Speaker 3: these things weren't like promoted really and you had to
Speaker 3: kind of be in the loop to know what they were,
Speaker 3: a lot of times the agents or whomever we're doing
Speaker 3: the raids would like confiscate copies of things that had
Speaker 3: like dubious titles but that were completely innocuous like the
Speaker 3: best little Whorehouse in Texas and things like that that
Speaker 3: were you know, Oh no, this is definitely pornography. But
Speaker 3: it's not even about pornography per se. It's really more
Speaker 3: about these kind of like Grizzly sort of like you know,
Speaker 3: Dawn of the Dead kind of like you know, DIY,
Speaker 3: Blood and Guts kind of films and just an interesting
Speaker 3: period that a lot of people don't really think about.
Speaker 2: Dude, Yeah, I had no idea. Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 3: No, wow, okay, I only it might be something that
Speaker 3: we might explore one day, because it really is. Like
Speaker 3: the Wikipedia article runs deep, my friend, it's a big
Speaker 3: old It's not a stump or a stub at all.
Speaker 3: It's a it's a big beefy boy.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what also runs deep The Library of
Speaker 2: Congress's interest in sexuality in the world, at least right
Speaker 2: around the time of World War Two.
Speaker 3: Isn't that interesting considering what a prudish country we've historically
Speaker 3: been that like, behind the scenes, are they looking for deviants? Like?
Speaker 3: Where does this interest come from?
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly what it was. It's it was
Speaker 2: a way of keeping these things as record, but also
Speaker 2: protecting the public from them. You can read all about
Speaker 2: the Delta Collection d lta collection that the Library of
Speaker 2: Congress has had, has maintained at least until the sixties,
Speaker 2: and then it kind of changed a little bit. You
Speaker 2: can read all about it. There is a really cool
Speaker 2: project I found online called Delta Collection dot Omika O
Speaker 2: m e ka dot net and you can browse some
Speaker 2: of the items that have historically been kept there as
Speaker 2: part of the Delta Collection. Very very interesting things. The
Speaker 2: top title here is Whipping Club, an account of some
Speaker 2: of the activities of a number of lovely women who
Speaker 2: have men in their power.
Speaker 3: So this is like S and M type stuff, or
Speaker 3: like bondagey type culture.
Speaker 2: Well, you also have things like nudism exposed as told
Speaker 2: by an ex nudist, the author and anonymous doctor.
Speaker 3: I love all of that's fabulous. The anonymous doctor is
Speaker 3: the cherry on top. But I love the idea of
Speaker 3: being a nudist. It's like, you know, we're all nudists
Speaker 3: of a certain hour, I imagine. But I saw an
Speaker 3: article that came out today, I think on Vice that
Speaker 3: was apparently there's this whole hubbub in Spain where like
Speaker 3: nudists who there's these like famous nude beaches in Spain
Speaker 3: are tourists who come with their clothes on to get
Speaker 3: right out of town. Like, if you're not gonna be
Speaker 3: part of our world, then don't come trying to dip
Speaker 3: your toe in our ocean. Yeah, Matt, speaking of these
Speaker 3: types of collections, I want Sorry, I keep doing pop
Speaker 3: culture stuff, but that's just sort of my thing. I
Speaker 3: have been revisiting and also visiting for the first time
Speaker 3: the films of Park Chan Wook, who as an excellent
Speaker 3: Korean director who did Old Boy, directed the film Old Boy,
Speaker 3: which is a favorite, and you know, did the Vengeance
Speaker 3: trilogy Old what was the third aided sympathy for Mister Vengeance,
Speaker 3: then Lady Vengeance, and then Old Boy. He has a
Speaker 3: film called The Handmaiden that is it's like he's really
Speaker 3: big into adapting like British kind of period novels and
Speaker 3: making them Korean and like kind of I don't know,
Speaker 3: folding it into Korean culture. And he does it so seamlessly.
Speaker 3: It's kind of incredible. You'd never know that it was adapted.
Speaker 3: But it's sort of almost this Oliver Twist type story
Speaker 3: where there's like a Fagan type character like a den
Speaker 3: of thieves that you know, this guy's the leader and
Speaker 3: he has this really elaborate grift and I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: spoil any things. It has more twists than a Pratzel.
Speaker 3: But there is a plot line in it involving erotic
Speaker 3: Japanese books, which is a thing. There's a whole culture
Speaker 3: of like, you know, ancient erotic books with illustrations that
Speaker 3: are very graphic and descriptions that are like, you know,
Speaker 3: meant to to titillate and arouse, and that's a big
Speaker 3: part of the film. And I did not realize quite
Speaker 3: how far back and deep that culture goes.
Speaker 2: See, I had no idea either. I'd love that. I
Speaker 2: love all of that.
Speaker 3: You should watch The Handmaid and it's excellent and has
Speaker 3: one of the most truly tender and intense same sex
Speaker 3: erotic scenes that I think I've ever seen in a film.
Speaker 3: It's a very very cool, empowering, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: queer positive type message, but also a rollicking adventure with
Speaker 3: daddy's galore and absolutely stunning cinematography.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm just over here getting excited to read sex
Speaker 2: control curious customs of medieval times. Sorry, no good, please.
Speaker 3: It's important to enrich ourselves with this stuff. And you know,
Speaker 3: we think of the past as being inherently like prudish,
Speaker 3: like I was saying about, but that's sort of more
Speaker 3: of a modern constructor a thing that religions sort of
Speaker 3: you know, uh created, I guess, you know, taking all
Speaker 3: of these things just kind of went underground. And honestly,
Speaker 3: people in the past were even hornier than we are,
Speaker 3: man and like really you know, figured out interesting ways
Speaker 3: to use the stuff they had to to get get
Speaker 3: get frisky.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, let's let's uh, let's break from this one.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for that message, Ranger Smith. Let
Speaker 2: us jump over to Frank.
Speaker 3: Can I just say that this is my favorite nickname
Speaker 3: in the history of nicknames, I think for this show,
Speaker 3: you know what I think?
Speaker 2: I agree?
Speaker 9: Hey guys, this is the code name Frank Lloyd Wrong.
Speaker 9: There is a program in the sustainable building world, or
Speaker 9: the effort of making buildings more green and sustainable, called
Speaker 9: the LEAD Program spelled LED, And while on the surface
Speaker 9: it seems like a very good program to support the
Speaker 9: sustainable architecture and development of buildings, there's a little bit
Speaker 9: of a darker side to it. Buildings a lot of
Speaker 9: times can get tax cuts or different reimbursements for following
Speaker 9: LEAD guidelines or getting their building LEAD certified. And these
Speaker 9: certifications are based on things like whether you have a
Speaker 9: green roof or solar panels, or things like electrical vehicle
Speaker 9: parking spots and charging stations. I guess the dark side
Speaker 9: of it is that a lot of buildings will kind
Speaker 9: of cheat the system and get the LEAD certification even
Speaker 9: though they are not any more sustainable than most other buildings.
Speaker 9: For example, there's a lot of buildings on the Las
Speaker 9: Vegas Strip that are lit up like Christmas trees and
Speaker 9: found to be way less efficient than regular buildings, but
Speaker 9: by doing little things like having a certain number of
Speaker 9: electrical vehicle spots or just little things here and there,
Speaker 9: they can get that LEAD certification. So kind of interesting
Speaker 9: that some of these guys are cheating the system a
Speaker 9: little bit. And I'm sure you guys have seen it.
Speaker 9: The orb or the ball that they're building in Las Vegas.
Speaker 9: I think that you guys might have seen pictures of that.
Speaker 9: Looks kind of creepy and kind of cool at the
Speaker 9: same time. I think will probably be one of these
Speaker 9: buildings as well. Once again, keep up the great work.
Speaker 9: Love the show, thanks guys.
Speaker 3: By is the the orb of the thing that can
Speaker 3: like project crazy stuff like in like a kind of
Speaker 3: a dome thing that you can see from.
Speaker 10: Like the air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my understanding is that it's a venue inside that thing.
Speaker 2: And then on the exterior of it, Yeah, you can
Speaker 2: turn it into a giant eyeball or a snow globe
Speaker 2: or you know, a promo for a boxing match or
Speaker 2: whatever you need.
Speaker 3: But is it like three dimensional? Is it like actually
Speaker 3: like a hologram? I saw a thing that somebody it
Speaker 3: was It was definitely faked. It was like somebody you know,
Speaker 3: went to town with CGI on it. But it was
Speaker 3: like literally looking like a giant hand or something like.
Speaker 3: It's not done yet, right, like so that these things
Speaker 3: aren't actually being projected. But I'm trying to understand how
Speaker 3: close to the crazy over the top version that this
Speaker 3: person made it will it actually be?
Speaker 2: Well, Okay, maybe I'm wrong, guys, but I thought it's
Speaker 2: called the Sphere at the Venetian Resort, and my under oh,
Speaker 2: it is a venue. Yeah, here we go five hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty thousand square feet of programmable LED panels.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's not a hologram. It's just it's constrained
Speaker 3: by the surface area of the thing. But it can
Speaker 3: like yeah, it can be a giant eye, it can
Speaker 3: be you know, but it can't like shoot out crazy
Speaker 3: like blade runner holograms beyond the bounds of this epcot
Speaker 3: kind of thing. But wild and so okay?
Speaker 10: Are we.
Speaker 3: Are we to say that we are surprised that people
Speaker 3: that make their money from building things as quickly and
Speaker 3: cheaply as possible are trying to save money and doing
Speaker 3: it maybe legally. Well, well it's not illegal, though, it's
Speaker 3: a loopholes. That's you know, it's all about like the
Speaker 3: law is sort of you know, irrelevant here because it's
Speaker 3: so easy to find these loopholes, and it just goes
Speaker 3: to show how inefficient some of the these certifications are
Speaker 3: sort of toothless and meaningless because you can offset it
Speaker 3: in so many other ways.
Speaker 2: Well, this gets so murky, some of this stuff, the
Speaker 2: greenification of different things that have not been quote green
Speaker 2: for a long time, right, changing practices like building practices
Speaker 2: or building vehicles, and how fuel efficient they are, all
Speaker 2: of these things. It does feel like over time we've
Speaker 2: seen cheaters, you know, who try and cheat the whole system,
Speaker 2: like that one car company, the Deutscho one, the Volkswagen
Speaker 2: bod yes yes, yes, where people at Chicha.
Speaker 3: Box it's my Cheeta box attempt to cheat.
Speaker 2: The system to you know, meet minimum requirements in order
Speaker 2: to do things like being able to continue selling their
Speaker 2: product or to get certain tax breaks right so that
Speaker 2: creating and selling your product can be affordable and you
Speaker 2: can make enough of a profit.
Speaker 3: The Volkswagen thing was like totally illegal though, and they were,
Speaker 3: they were, you know, cheating the system in a way
Speaker 3: that was not even like following the loophole rule, Like
Speaker 3: they went above and beyond installing a thing that was
Speaker 3: meant to be a secret. But we just know that
Speaker 3: even with like carbon offsets and like the idea of
Speaker 3: like how do we you know, act like we're being
Speaker 3: good stewards of the environment while being able to continue
Speaker 3: to operate business as usual. You know, that's the kind
Speaker 3: of stuff that I think is most galling because you're
Speaker 3: gonna have folks that are like brazenly breaking the rules,
Speaker 3: but the rules in general are kind of not really
Speaker 3: doing a whole hell of a lot, or there's always
Speaker 3: a way to kind of figure out how to get
Speaker 3: around it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we didn't even see what LEAD is. By
Speaker 2: the way, what it stands for it is all caps
Speaker 2: L E ED. It's an acronym stands for Leadership in
Speaker 2: Energy and Environmental Design. Yeah, everywhere I've looked it is
Speaker 2: a worldwide program, So it's not just in the US,
Speaker 2: not just any you know, any one town, one city,
Speaker 2: one state, or country. You can get LEAD certified pretty
Speaker 2: much anywhere where you're doing construction or you know, some
Speaker 2: kind of fixing of a building, updating of a building.
Speaker 3: I remember our previous office, they had a thing where
Speaker 3: in order to get certain certifications, they had to kill
Speaker 3: the air conditioning in the whole office space, like after
Speaker 3: like four five o'clock or whatever. It was not on
Speaker 3: at all on the weekends. That was specifically to get
Speaker 3: some kind of tax break or certification, and it sucked
Speaker 3: when we were there. I mean, I'm all about, you know,
Speaker 3: saving energy and all of these things, but little stuff
Speaker 3: like that seems to me to be more saving them
Speaker 3: on their heating, on their cooling bill than it is
Speaker 3: to actually like do any kind of like big picture,
Speaker 3: you know, positive change for the environment. But maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: No, No, it's it's everything, and that is great. It's
Speaker 2: everything like that energy efficiency, water efficiency materials that are
Speaker 2: being used in creating the project, right. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: that's really some of the main things. But I think
Speaker 2: what what Frank Lloyd wrong is pointing to is that
Speaker 2: you can you can kind of mess up your energy
Speaker 2: efficiency and it can be pretty pretty crap. But if
Speaker 2: you put in enough you know, as you said, electric
Speaker 2: charge whatever you know, stations and then.
Speaker 3: Here don't look at any of this thumb over here
Speaker 3: though it's yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like it's this concept of carbon offsetting, right
Speaker 2: where I can generate a ton of pollution as a company,
Speaker 2: but if I pay a bunch of money and offset
Speaker 2: my carbon by you know, investing in this other stuff
Speaker 2: or doing these other things, then my carbon gets canceled out.
Speaker 2: Only it doesn't not really, which is kind of weird.
Speaker 3: Even certain municipalities have like regulations in place that at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, are kind of just inconvenient
Speaker 3: to like homeowners. You know, I had an issue where
Speaker 3: my water was in the wrong name with this house
Speaker 3: that that I bought a year a little over a
Speaker 3: year ago, and my water got cut off and in
Speaker 3: order to get it cut back on. I had to
Speaker 3: have They wouldn't just cut it back on. They had
Speaker 3: to send somebody to inspect my fixtures and like my
Speaker 3: toilet and make sure it was like a low flow toilet.
Speaker 3: When I bought the house, I saw that the toilets
Speaker 3: had the little you know, two for pooh, one for
Speaker 3: for pee or whatever buttons. I just thought that was
Speaker 3: like a cool modern update. But those are like mandated here.
Speaker 3: Oh really at yeah, And like they had to come
Speaker 3: check make sure those were installed. And they also like
Speaker 3: they even to pass us. He kind of like did
Speaker 3: it on the hush hush, but switched out our shower
Speaker 3: head to one that he had on him so he
Speaker 3: could take a picture of it, and then like gave
Speaker 3: us the shower. I'm not I'm not doxing the guy.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying these little things they don't ultimately amount
Speaker 3: to a hell of a lot except for like more
Speaker 3: red tape and like you know, a pain in the
Speaker 3: butt for like the small guys like me and you.
Speaker 3: With the big companies, they can get around doing it
Speaker 3: in so many ways. You know, it's it's sad.
Speaker 2: I had an uncle in law once tell me the
Speaker 2: secret of removing all the what was it, the the
Speaker 2: water suppression that's going on in your house on all
Speaker 2: your faucets, Like you can take it all off. You
Speaker 2: get as much water in your shower as you want.
Speaker 2: Man for like water pressure, Yeah, to get crazy water
Speaker 2: pressure in your shower. Those Uh, there are pairly tricks
Speaker 2: to do that. But I don't want to waste the water.
Speaker 3: Well no, I mean again, water we know, we talk
Speaker 3: about this all the time on the show, is probably
Speaker 3: gonna be one of the big bones of contention and
Speaker 3: like a situation leading to some future you know mad
Speaker 3: Max type war. You know, in terms of like who
Speaker 3: controls the water resources. That is something we absolutely need.
Speaker 3: And we see water disputes all the time between you know,
Speaker 3: states that share water supplies and all of that. And
Speaker 3: as we know, you know, if there is it's I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess there's the is there more water being made?
Speaker 3: Is there a finite amount of water?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude? Can you can't you synthesize water? H and
Speaker 3: the two and the O is not a thing you
Speaker 3: can do? Or no, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, dude, we're producing water all over this place
Speaker 2: with these desalination plants. No, I'm just joking. It is
Speaker 2: really expensive to do that, apparently, and difficult. So we've
Speaker 2: talked about that before in the past, Like why don't
Speaker 2: we just have desalination plants everywhere? No, it's not as
Speaker 2: easy as that.
Speaker 3: I am being a bit of a dumb dumb and
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not joking, Like it's is it all
Speaker 3: from like the water cycle and like you know, rain
Speaker 3: and like things like moving through the ecosystem, Like if
Speaker 3: rain stops happening, is water inevitably going to dry up?
Speaker 10: Like?
Speaker 3: Is it all just based on the balance of like
Speaker 3: these systems kind of and we're depending on them and
Speaker 3: the temperature and the global conditions being right, and if
Speaker 3: something screwed it up, could is it? Is it gonna
Speaker 3: go real real wrong? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's all one. It's all one connecting system, right,
Speaker 2: And there are ways, there's technology and we've figured out
Speaker 2: ways to I guess get like pull more water from
Speaker 2: the air right through the humidity. If you think about
Speaker 2: something like a dehumidifier, how does that work. It pulls
Speaker 2: the humidity out of the air well. Yeah, it pulls
Speaker 2: humidity out of the air and it turns it into liquid.
Speaker 2: Water in a reservoir, right, So theoretically you could do that.
Speaker 3: It did say in the instructions from a dehumidifier not
Speaker 3: to drink the water that is produced in the little
Speaker 3: trough or whatever. But then it goes back to things
Speaker 3: like graywater. You know, where you can use graywater for
Speaker 3: certain things. You wouldn't want to drink it or bathe
Speaker 3: in it, but you can use it to like water
Speaker 3: plants and things like that.
Speaker 2: Now, look, I don't know this for sure. I would
Speaker 2: speculate that that warning is more about the receptacle where
Speaker 2: the water goes and how it just sits there, because
Speaker 2: theoretically that is distilled water, and it would be some
Speaker 2: of the cleanest water you could have access to right now,
Speaker 2: because it's literally just water pulled directly out of the air.
Speaker 2: If you could find a way to make sure the
Speaker 2: receptacle was always clean, then that water would be super drinkable.
Speaker 2: In my head, If I'm wrong, I'm sorry, that is
Speaker 2: what that's my understanding of how dehumidifiers work.
Speaker 3: At the very least, surely there would be a way
Speaker 3: to purify it or to like filter it, or to
Speaker 3: run it through something in a pinch, right like I
Speaker 3: always think of water World where they pee into the
Speaker 3: thing and they drink it. That's not real. But it
Speaker 3: also I recently had some landscaping work done in my
Speaker 3: backyard and I installed what's called a rain garden. It's
Speaker 3: these giant they're called burns, and they're these sort of
Speaker 3: like pits where there's a tree plant in the middle
Speaker 3: of it, but there are these two sort of mulchy
Speaker 3: kind of like pits, and they're not ugly that they
Speaker 3: look nice, but they fill up with water. And there's
Speaker 3: a rain garden registry which I'm a part of, and
Speaker 3: apparently rain gardens put an insane amount of water back
Speaker 3: into the water table. They would normally just go to
Speaker 3: runoff or like go you know, down storm drains and
Speaker 3: stuff and become useless. So that's me doing my part, y'all.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna drink my humidifier water and use my rain garden.
Speaker 3: Matt told me it was okay to drink. I heard
Speaker 3: what I heard.
Speaker 2: If it's truly distilled and it is clean. Okay, let's
Speaker 2: take another break. We'll come right back with just a
Speaker 2: few more messages from you. Okay, we are back, and
Speaker 2: this is a message we got from Tim, and it
Speaker 2: does come with a warning, sorry to do this, you know,
Speaker 2: towards the end of an episode. But sometimes we get
Speaker 2: suggestions from you that are a little tougher than others.
Speaker 2: This is a really it's it's a messed up story.
Speaker 2: It's horrifying, actually, and it's worth our time because it
Speaker 2: is disturbing. It deserves more attention because a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't know about it, and we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about it. But just a little warning. There's a message
Speaker 2: from Tim that is gonna upset you.
Speaker 10: Here we go, Hi, It's Tim. I live in Michigan.
Speaker 10: I grew up sailing in the Great Lakes. Jeffrey Epstein
Speaker 10: wasn't the first person to run an island of underaged children.
Speaker 10: Boss Islands in Michigan. Gentleman named Sheldon from the Detroit
Speaker 10: area bought them and turned them into a child porn
Speaker 10: video ring. He got busted and got into a bunch
Speaker 10: of trouble. It's kind of interesting reading about it. It's
Speaker 10: even more interesting when you start looking at pictures of
Speaker 10: the island today because they're still sitting there with a
Speaker 10: bunch of the buildings on them, built an airstrip, basically
Speaker 10: just shuttle kids back and forth to film the having sex.
Speaker 10: World's pretty dumb. Anyways, I live in Traverse City. I've
Speaker 10: always found this case to be kind of interesting, and
Speaker 10: you guys may have covered it at one point, but
Speaker 10: pretty du they also tie him to the child murders
Speaker 10: of this time, there's four missing children in the Detroit area.
Speaker 10: They may have tied it to somebody else officially, but
Speaker 10: there was a lot of speculation for a long time.
Speaker 10: Made for a good story. Every good night, do anything
Speaker 10: I wouldn't do.
Speaker 3: Okay, I do not know this story at all. Okay,
Speaker 3: it sounds like something out of a girl with the
Speaker 3: Dragon tattoo type, you know, crime fiction situation that is insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does sound a lot like that. This is
Speaker 2: something nol I know, Ben and I have had conversations about,
Speaker 2: and I want to say we've talked about it briefly
Speaker 2: in the past. But when I was looking through all
Speaker 2: of our records, I couldn't find a specific story like
Speaker 2: a video, you know, a podcast episode. What Tim is
Speaker 2: mentioning here is a place, a physical place called North
Speaker 2: Fox Island that you can find in Michigan, and there's
Speaker 2: also South Fox Island just below it. This was a
Speaker 2: private island for a time, and it was owned by
Speaker 2: the person Tim mentioned, mister Francis Duffield du f F
Speaker 2: I E L D. Sheldon s H E L D
Speaker 2: E N. And there was a documentary that was made
Speaker 2: on what was that investigation discovery I D Discovery, I
Speaker 2: think is what it was called for a while. There
Speaker 2: is a I think it's a two part series titled
Speaker 2: Children of the Snow Snow. You can find that it
Speaker 2: was produced gosh, I want to say back in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Maybe it might have been even been created in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: but it's a it's a pretty extensive accounting of what
Speaker 2: this person was doing on that island, and a breakdown
Speaker 2: of the other child murders there were, as Tim said,
Speaker 2: there were child murders in the same area where this
Speaker 2: child exploitation abuse terror generation machine was functioning, run by
Speaker 2: this person, Sheldon, at least allegedly, I guess you have
Speaker 2: to say allegedly because the guy ended up escaping. This
Speaker 2: is why it's so horrifying and messed up.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I missed this. When is this what era
Speaker 3: is this meant to have taken place?
Speaker 2: This is nineteen seventies. I want to say maybe sixties
Speaker 2: as well. I think it's right around the time of
Speaker 2: the Atlanta Missing murdered stuff too. This is really crazy, Okay,
Speaker 2: So let's read from a local newspaper there in Traverse City.
Speaker 2: This is the Traverse City Record Eagle. You can find
Speaker 2: this article right now if you check it out. The
Speaker 2: title is Children of the Snow uses DNA to shed
Speaker 2: light on cold Oakland County case and it was published
Speaker 2: February nineteenth, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: All right, I'll read a bit. Sheldon was a land developer,
Speaker 3: oil consultant, market investor, and author who never married. He
Speaker 3: was the sole owner of North Fox Island. The island
Speaker 3: is now owned by the state of Michigan and is
Speaker 3: part of the Beaver Island State Wildlife Research Area. File
Speaker 3: ring included well to do businessmen, politicians, and other rich
Speaker 3: and powerful men who would take children to the island
Speaker 3: to have sex with them and make films or distributed
Speaker 3: around the world. As the story goes.
Speaker 2: Jesus, Yeah, right, So, according to the Treverse City Record Eagle,
Speaker 2: Sheldon and others were able to attract children through his
Speaker 2: brother Paul's Children's Mission.
Speaker 3: Like in a religious organization hmmm.
Speaker 2: And a supposed nature camp for quote underprivileged children that
Speaker 2: was on the island. Many people, according to the paper here,
Speaker 2: saw Francis Sheldon as a generous benefactor who took youths
Speaker 2: on hunting trips to the island, skiing trips in Aspen,
Speaker 2: and beach parties at his family's estate in the Caribbean.
Speaker 3: This is true Detective Season one man, so they must
Speaker 3: have been aware of the story, like all of the aspects,
Speaker 3: the attracting using a benevolent you know, forward facing organization.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and it also sound so familiar to me.
Speaker 2: That's why it's like weird to me. Out feels like
Speaker 2: I've talked about this, or at least we wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about it, but maybe used too dark for one
Speaker 2: reason or another at some point, or I don't know,
Speaker 2: but we need to talk about it further because this
Speaker 2: guy also set up trust funds for these kids that
Speaker 2: he abused, for several of them. At least. Let's get
Speaker 2: just to the end of this article here to find
Speaker 2: out why we should all be really mad.
Speaker 3: Search warrants and an arrest warrant for criminal sexual conduct
Speaker 3: were issued for Sheldon in nineteen seventy six, but Sheldon
Speaker 3: had already cleared out his Ann Arbor home and his
Speaker 3: cabin on North Fox. Apparently prompted by the arrest of
Speaker 3: an associate, Gerald S. Richards, on criminal sexual conduct charges.
Speaker 3: Sheldon fled to the Netherlands, which at the time rarely
Speaker 3: extradited those one for crimes in the United States. He
Speaker 3: was reported dead in nineteen ninety six, but some think
Speaker 3: he may have established a new identity and continues to
Speaker 3: operate as a pedophile. He would be eighty or eighty
Speaker 3: one today. I mean, if there's someone that could arrange
Speaker 3: these types of things, Matt, it's someone like this. I mean,
Speaker 3: let's just go back to the laundry list, land developer,
Speaker 3: oil consultant, market investor. I mean that I see what
Speaker 3: you mean about the anger. I mean it's all absolutely
Speaker 3: rage inducing. But the idea that someone could get tipped off,
Speaker 3: potentially by the authorities or someone who's part of this
Speaker 3: ring and then just figure out how to disappear and
Speaker 3: set up shop somewhere else, you.
Speaker 2: Know, according to Tim I talked to Tim by the
Speaker 2: way on the phone, and according to him, and according
Speaker 2: to that documentary that was produced and from you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of the reporting on this, we're talking about
Speaker 2: very wealthy, powerful individuals that were taking part in this
Speaker 2: thing allegedly. And that means if you've got, you know,
Speaker 2: a ring leader like this person Sheldon, who was rich
Speaker 2: and powerful, and all the people working with him are
Speaker 2: rich and powerful, it means you probably would get tipped
Speaker 2: off and you maybe could fly either privately or secretly
Speaker 2: to the Netherlands and then stay there for twenty years
Speaker 2: and never have to face consequences. And that it's infuriating,
Speaker 2: and it just it makes you want to bring the
Speaker 2: batman out right, the batman inside all of us. We're
Speaker 2: just we're not billionaires, unfortunately.
Speaker 3: No, but it's like this level of just ability to
Speaker 3: skirt the law due to power and influence can only
Speaker 3: ever be matched by vigilanteism, unfortunately, because the system isn't
Speaker 3: designed to catch these people. Well, you're at a certain
Speaker 3: level of influence, You've got people within the system in
Speaker 3: your pocket, you know. And I mean, I'm not to
Speaker 3: say that everyone in politics or everyone you know in
Speaker 3: law enforcement is some sort of psychotic pedophile. Certainly not
Speaker 3: the case case. But all you need is one or two,
Speaker 3: you know, people that have your back and can give
Speaker 3: you the heads up, and just that happens, it happens.
Speaker 2: All that has happened is there needs to be a
Speaker 2: network of money, right, and we're talking about donations, like
Speaker 2: campaign donations something like that that get started at one
Speaker 2: small level and moves its way up and now everybody's connected,
Speaker 2: and no powerful politician that has nothing to do with
Speaker 2: this wants to be involved with somebody who is involved
Speaker 2: with this stuff through a campaign donation, which means you
Speaker 2: kind of get somebody on a hook if you know,
Speaker 2: let's say you're a powerful person that finds out you
Speaker 2: just got you know, your campaign got supported heavily by
Speaker 2: someone taking part in something like this. Would you want
Speaker 2: anyone to know? Probably not.
Speaker 3: Maybe you would help the money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But again that's all that's all alleged, that's all theoretical.
Speaker 2: Everything I just said, it's just you could feel that
Speaker 2: something like that might be true. One last thing I
Speaker 2: want to say about this, NOL there's a huge FBI
Speaker 2: vault entry for this, that's vault dot FBI dot gov.
Speaker 2: Who talks about Francis Sheldon And it's just all kinds
Speaker 2: of intel that they've got on this person. Conversations with
Speaker 2: other people about him, some what appears to be some
Speaker 2: spying that was done on this guy. Just lots of
Speaker 2: information gathering. There's a connection to someone that popped up
Speaker 2: in our research for that ab scam episode, a guy
Speaker 2: named Adam Aristotle Starchild aka Malcolm McConaughey. And this is
Speaker 2: this is very weird, nol. It's a weird connection. And
Speaker 2: it makes me feel like this ring is not just
Speaker 2: isolated there to the Great Lakes, to the Detroit area
Speaker 2: and you know, to Traverse City, Michigan.
Speaker 3: I mean, I would I would imagine that things of
Speaker 3: this Who if you figured out how to make it
Speaker 3: work to this degree, why wouldn't there be people from
Speaker 3: international people involved? You know what I mean? Like, it's
Speaker 3: like this is the the you're in the catbird seat.
Speaker 3: If you're a freaking pedophile, this is like where you
Speaker 3: want to be, you know, this is like the kind
Speaker 3: of stuff that Epstein was was involved in. This is
Speaker 3: this worse? Is it worse? It's it's I think it's worse.
Speaker 3: This is worse.
Speaker 2: This is Look, I don't know, it's hard. It's hard
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 3: It's hard.
Speaker 2: In my mind, it's worse because it's kids it's filmed,
Speaker 2: it's sold. There are other people around, you know the world,
Speaker 2: that were watching this stuff, and there were stakeholders basically
Speaker 2: in this ring, this horrifying evil thing. But let's let's
Speaker 2: just let's stay here with this abscam connection because I
Speaker 2: found this fascinating. I stumbled on this through the Wikipedia
Speaker 2: entry for Adam Starchild. This guy, uh, Malcolm McConaughey. I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna read directly from this quote. In nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 2: the Traverse City Record Eagle, the one we just read
Speaker 2: from that same local paper, reported that this guy Starchild
Speaker 2: was involved in a number of supposed charitable organizations funded
Speaker 2: by a wealthy Michigander, Francis Duffield Sheldon. Here are those things.
Speaker 2: The Church of the New Revelation of Kearnie that's in
Speaker 2: New Jersey, Brother Paul's Children's Mission on North Fox Island,
Speaker 2: that's the one we just mentioned, The Educational Foundation for
Speaker 2: Youth of Illinois, and the Ocean Living Institute of New Jersey,
Speaker 2: the last allegedly devoted to underwater habitats, agriculture, ocean architecture,
Speaker 2: and ocean law, which were said to be tax dodges
Speaker 2: and fronts for sexual activity involving boys. So that's in
Speaker 2: New Jersey and in Illinois. In Michigan, it looks as
Speaker 2: though it sounds as though, again we're going by a
Speaker 2: Wikipedia article here that's, you know, based off of writing
Speaker 2: from the Traverse City Record Eagle. But it seems as
Speaker 2: though this operation was huge.
Speaker 3: Certainly, does Matt please tell me you got something a
Speaker 3: little lighter to wrap this? I mean important. One hundred
Speaker 3: percent of this stuff is absolutely critical to understand that
Speaker 3: this kind of evil exists in the world. But we'd
Speaker 3: love a little palate cleanser after that one. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much to the listener that wrote it.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, no, you're right, Thank you, Tim, You're
Speaker 2: you're absolutely right, Nol. We do have a palate cleanser.
Speaker 2: We've got a message here from Zach to end the episode.
Speaker 2: We love messages like all of these that we've listened
Speaker 2: to today. Thank you so much to everybody who sent
Speaker 2: them in In particular, lately, messages like the one we're
Speaker 2: about to play from Zach have been extremely helpful for
Speaker 2: us to come up with new ideas for like what
Speaker 2: what can we cover, what's interesting, what you know, what's
Speaker 2: in your neck? Of the woods. What should we be
Speaker 2: thinking about? So again, Tim as well, we need to
Speaker 2: be talking about this. We're going to talk about it.
Speaker 2: But here's Zach's message.
Speaker 9: This is Zach.
Speaker 7: I'm originally from Alaska, and I wondered if you guys
Speaker 7: had the idea of just how many wild miss legends
Speaker 7: and other weird stories there are. There is a local
Speaker 7: legend in Anchorage, Alaska of a theater at the university
Speaker 7: called the Wendy Williamson Auditorium that has some wild ghost stories.
Speaker 7: We also have our own lake Monster. We have our
Speaker 7: own triangle where people get lost, disappear, et cetera, and
Speaker 7: quite a few rather unique UFO settings. Native of Alaskans
Speaker 7: also have this legend of tiny men that bring really
Speaker 7: bad luck along with them. I think it would be
Speaker 7: a great episode. I hope you guys do awesome and
Speaker 7: you know, watch your backs.
Speaker 3: They don't watch it now, some regional lore you do.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's uh, it's just lighthearted enough to you know,
Speaker 2: to be fun. It's a little ghost haunting. We can
Speaker 2: handle that.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 2: It makes you want to travel to Alaska, though.
Speaker 3: I spend some time and a super producer Paul Mission
Speaker 3: controlled Deck and spend some time in Alaska for the
Speaker 3: Missing series. Wonder if those fellas heard anything about this stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean they were probably slammed getting podcast audio, But no,
Speaker 3: I've never It makes sense being such a it's an
Speaker 3: unusual place, you know, the way it stays light out
Speaker 3: like all the time. There's certain other worldly qualities about
Speaker 3: Alaska for sure, So and it's not exactly a lot
Speaker 3: going on, so it makes sense that there would be,
Speaker 3: you know, stories that would develop over time, you know,
Speaker 3: through like the oral tradition.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well I want to go, and Paul, you
Speaker 2: won't have to rent a boat this time. I think
Speaker 2: that was the biggest headache, at least for my discussions
Speaker 2: with you and Ben. But uh yeah, we've got to
Speaker 2: do that. Check out Alaska's lore. We want to we
Speaker 2: want to do more travel. So if we've got an
Speaker 2: excuse to go somewhere as a show, we're gonna take it.
Speaker 2: Why not give us some cool excuses for us to
Speaker 2: give our bosses or like reasons to travel. It would
Speaker 2: be awesome. Well's Steah.
Speaker 3: You can find us. You know where you can find
Speaker 3: us on the internet. We exist at the handle conspiracy
Speaker 3: stuff on Facebook and the social media platform formerly known
Speaker 3: as Twitter, uh and YouTube. That's conspiracy stuff. We're conspiracy
Speaker 3: stuff show on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: Yes, if you want to call us, like everybody in
Speaker 2: today's episode did call one eight three three st dwy tk,
Speaker 2: it's a voicemail system comes directly to us, but you
Speaker 2: won't get to talk to us in that moment. You
Speaker 2: can just leave three minutes worth of the coolest stuff
Speaker 2: you want to say, give yourself a great nickname, and
Speaker 2: let us know in that message if we can use
Speaker 2: your voice and message on one of these episodes.
Speaker 3: And if you leave a couple of pennies under your pillow,
Speaker 3: you might get a call from the Matt Frederick Ferry.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, put the number in your phone if you don't
Speaker 2: mind as a contact, just in case, because we do
Speaker 2: call back sometimes. Thank you so much to Tim from Michigan,
Speaker 2: Zach Frank, Lloyd Wrong Ranger, Smith Allen, and Brett Watcher
Speaker 2: of the Skies. Thanks so much for reaching out to us.
Speaker 2: If you don't want to use the phone, you don't
Speaker 2: like social why not instead to send us a good
Speaker 2: old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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