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 this 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 Noman.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 3: our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you. You are here. That makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. This is one
Speaker 3: of the most exciting evenings of the week for us,
Speaker 3: your faithful correspondence, we get to hear directly from you. Tonight.
Speaker 3: We are going to explore a place that has fascinated
Speaker 3: us for many, many years. We are going to learn
Speaker 3: about dangerous chemical exposures to veterans and to civilians across
Speaker 3: the world. We're gonna ask some questions about why the
Speaker 3: United Kingdom is getting so creepy around possible disasters. Before
Speaker 3: we we're gonna we're also gonna hear some conversations about
Speaker 3: airplane safety. We're gonna hear from soup sandwich. Before we
Speaker 3: do any of that, let's go to Oh God, Matt,
Speaker 3: you remember years and years ago went through that North
Speaker 3: Sentinel Island phase. Wanted to go so bad, wanted to
Speaker 3: go so bad, you can't.
Speaker 4: Go, don't go, shouldn't go, You shouldn't go.
Speaker 3: And Big Purp, Big Purp has a really cool thing
Speaker 3: that really stuck out to you, Neil, which also no spoilers,
Speaker 3: reminds me a little bit of some conversations we had
Speaker 3: about the nature of language at.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the film Arrival
Speaker 4: by Villanil Denis Virneuve, which posits that aliens, if they
Speaker 4: were paying attention to us and they did come and
Speaker 4: visit us, would have no analog to what our language
Speaker 4: might be, and it would be up to us to
Speaker 4: figure out what their language was. And I think Big
Speaker 4: Purp really nails something, whether a thought experiment or a
Speaker 4: real thing or not. I think it's very cool. Hey, guys,
Speaker 4: call me Big Perp and feel free to use this
Speaker 4: if you want. I would love to hear your thoughts
Speaker 4: on this. These are, by the way, some of our
Speaker 4: favorite types of listener mails, where we get a lot
Speaker 4: of information, a lot of like your thoughts and rabbit holings,
Speaker 4: and then we get to just sort of like bandy
Speaker 4: it about for like fifteen minutes. I only discovered your
Speaker 4: show about two years ago, and it has become one
Speaker 4: of my weekly must listens. As a newcomer, I also
Speaker 4: have the benefit of enjoying classic episodes as they were
Speaker 4: just dropped, which feels like double the STDWYTK content each week.
Speaker 4: Very nice, well it is, technically, but thank you. Glad
Speaker 4: that someone's paying attention. Earlier this evening, I listened to
Speaker 4: the classic North Sentinel Island episode for the first time. However,
Speaker 4: I was already quite familiar with the topic back when
Speaker 4: I first heard of the Sentineleese, which is actually a
Speaker 4: new term to me. Maybe we've mentioned it in the episode,
Speaker 4: but I did not recall that. I was flabbergasted that
Speaker 4: such people could still exist in the twenty first century.
Speaker 4: I think that's partially why the story is so fascinating
Speaker 4: to all of us. So I read up. That was me,
Speaker 4: So I read up on all of them, and eventually
Speaker 4: came to one simple conclusion. We should all leave them
Speaker 4: alone forever. Period. During the episode, you discussed their language
Speaker 4: and the fact that it's completely unintelligible even to tribes
Speaker 4: of nearby islands. I hadn't given it much thought when
Speaker 4: I first studied the topic, but your comment about their
Speaker 4: speech developing without any outside influence makes me think that
Speaker 4: it's just possible that someday the tiny population of NSI,
Speaker 4: North Island could have a life changing impact on every
Speaker 4: single person residing on planet Earth. And Guys, when I
Speaker 4: was reading this email, I think we all go through this.
Speaker 4: We like look through emails and we're always looking for
Speaker 4: like a gatcha moment or an aha like thing. That
Speaker 4: was it for me, life changing impact on every single
Speaker 4: person on planet Earth. How could such a niche thing
Speaker 4: have such a great impact potentially on the rest of us.
Speaker 4: Big Purp goes on. If we aren't alone in the
Speaker 4: universe and another species travels here to interact with us,
Speaker 4: what are the odds that we would have any chance
Speaker 4: of understanding each other? One could assume that the people
Speaker 4: of a faraway planet would also intermingle as they develop,
Speaker 4: and would have similar languages all over their world, much
Speaker 4: the same as we do here. Surely they would recognize
Speaker 4: a dialect of their planet that they aren't fluent in
Speaker 4: the same way an English speaker can recognize Spanish, German, Italian,
Speaker 4: et cetera without being able to understand a word of it.
Speaker 4: This is so smart, but would they be able to
Speaker 4: make any sense of it? What if the North Sentinelese
Speaker 4: have developed a language closer to that of an alien
Speaker 4: race than any dialect of the modern world. Could a
Speaker 4: deep dive study of these people possibly help us to
Speaker 4: be better prepared for a visit from beyond our galaxy?
Speaker 4: Would it be worthwhile to the human race as a
Speaker 4: whole to force a small number of the force I
Speaker 4: don't care for that word of the NSI population to
Speaker 4: communicate with us. Should we study them with spy technology
Speaker 4: attached to drones? Is it better to just leave them
Speaker 4: alone and let the alien visitors be the first completely
Speaker 4: unknown language we have to scramble to understand. Personally, I
Speaker 4: lean towards the drone spy option, but I have to
Speaker 4: wonder if we could actually make any progress without a
Speaker 4: person to work with face TOI face to make sure
Speaker 4: we understand each other. I would also feel horrible knowing
Speaker 4: that we contaminated and probably killed an innocent person just
Speaker 4: to prepare for guests that may never arrive. And this
Speaker 4: is all I can think about now. It was so
Speaker 4: much easier to want to leave them alone before I
Speaker 4: thought of this, And that's what I love about your podcast.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Keep up the good work, guys, and thanks
Speaker 4: for the informative stuff to keep my brain on its toes,
Speaker 4: Big Purp. First of all, love the idea of brains
Speaker 4: having toes. I yield my time, guys, this is so fun.
Speaker 4: I don't even want to start.
Speaker 2: Oh well, okay, well it's a little maybe I'm just
Speaker 2: not fully feeling it in the same way I do.
Speaker 2: Like this, Big Purp. I like this idea.
Speaker 4: I think thought experiment, That's what it is.
Speaker 2: No, it is a great thought experience, I think. Because
Speaker 2: it's humans that have roughly the same hardware that everybody
Speaker 2: else does, studying a language is going to be very different.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna have the same applic application. I think
Speaker 2: that we're talking about here, because we have no idea
Speaker 2: what the hardware is gonna look like on some other
Speaker 2: species that visited us. Right, yeah, but again, the process
Speaker 2: of translating and learning a completely new language that we
Speaker 2: have no reference for could be a great exercise, right,
Speaker 2: and that's been done in the past.
Speaker 4: Think about faral kids, for example, that like maybe grow
Speaker 4: up not having any exposure to the outside world, and
Speaker 4: then how do we interact with them? What is it
Speaker 4: that their hardware naturally inclines them to do? Sorry, was
Speaker 4: that too much of.
Speaker 2: A right, Oh, no, I'm just thinking about it.
Speaker 4: It's similar, right, Remember there are stories of like kids
Speaker 4: that have never been like kept like in Mowgli.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I know what you're talking about there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was thinking more about just indigenous populations when they
Speaker 2: encountered like Spanish or European colonizers for the first time
Speaker 2: and just have a completely different form of language and
Speaker 2: having to learn that right on both sides.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm kind of a species thing.
Speaker 4: I think Matt, You're you're totally right in the language
Speaker 4: springs from function, and we use language because we as earthlings,
Speaker 4: even like millennia ago, have a certain environment and we
Speaker 4: cannot possibly assume that an alien species would have an
Speaker 4: environment anywhere related.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that point. And what I like
Speaker 3: about this big per first off, is your interest in
Speaker 3: North Sentinel Island. North Sentinel Island is not the entirety
Speaker 3: of the Sentinelese population. There is there are other islands
Speaker 3: where Sentinalese people live and their language does share a
Speaker 3: bit of imagined I guess etymology or commonality, the same
Speaker 3: way that in European languages right, are mutually unintelligible now,
Speaker 3: but do have some common roots. And I love the
Speaker 3: idea to obviously shout out to every fellow conspiracy realist
Speaker 3: who is immediately thinking through the science fiction examples of
Speaker 3: exploration of language, right, shout out to Neil Stevenson's Anathema,
Speaker 3: which does something quite common in science fiction, positing that
Speaker 3: math would be the universal language. To your excellent observation, Matt,
Speaker 3: there's this idea of, like the hardware aspect, humans communicate
Speaker 3: through their existing senses, right, being able to read, being
Speaker 3: able to hear and transmit sound. What if there is
Speaker 3: what if there's a space faring civilization or a situation
Speaker 3: that communicates entirely through smell or taste or touch, How
Speaker 3: would one translate? What's the rosetta s for that?
Speaker 4: One?
Speaker 3: And one thing that I think is really really cool
Speaker 3: here too, is the idea of what would be called
Speaker 3: maybe an original language, an untouched language. There's a guy
Speaker 3: named There's a guy named King James four. Don't find
Speaker 3: him on Twitter. He's very very dead, and he was
Speaker 3: one of those dudes who said, what if we raise
Speaker 3: someone to your point, Noel, like raise someone with no
Speaker 3: access to existing languages.
Speaker 4: But if we.
Speaker 3: Create feral children, will they then naturally iterate a language
Speaker 3: like the quote unquote original language? Is there an original language?
Speaker 3: And this is way before there were any ethical constraints
Speaker 3: on those kind of experiments.
Speaker 4: But it would still spring from being a being with
Speaker 4: two arms and two legs, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the idea, Like the original language idea is
Speaker 3: if these people weren't being quote or these children right,
Speaker 3: Because there is the big thing about feral children, to
Speaker 3: your point, they are real throughout history. The big thing
Speaker 3: is the cognitive developmental window of learning a language. Now,
Speaker 3: the more romanticized version is like the romulus and remiss
Speaker 3: kind of thing, like the kids get raised by wolves
Speaker 3: and go on to found great civilizations. But the more
Speaker 3: common real life examples of this are sadly neglected and
Speaker 3: abused children who don't get the interaction required to become
Speaker 3: part of a society to learn some sort of language,
Speaker 3: and after a certain window of development, they lose the
Speaker 3: ability to learn a language. That's why, no matter what
Speaker 3: kind of polyglot you are. There are certain languages, certain
Speaker 3: phonemes or morphemes, sounds that you cannot reproduce if you
Speaker 3: did not learn the language during that window, and I
Speaker 3: think that is endlessly fascinating. Also, don't go to Norse
Speaker 3: set in the.
Speaker 4: Line, probably a movie that didn't age super well, but
Speaker 4: remember Nell was about them with Jodie Foster, where she
Speaker 4: sort of had her own little phrases and expressions.
Speaker 2: Something about in the wind that's the.
Speaker 4: Only one anyone remembers. But also, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 4: We are you guys familiar with the Miracle Worker? Yes,
Speaker 4: so that's a story about someone that's lacking a sense
Speaker 4: and then kind of creates their own language. And a
Speaker 4: lot of times when people that can't actually hear but
Speaker 4: can still speak, they formulate syllables and almost create like
Speaker 4: a language that isn't necessarily the same, but it's sort
Speaker 4: of based on the same foundation of the language the
Speaker 4: rest of us, you know, are using. But that's largely
Speaker 4: because they're taught by someone that does have all of
Speaker 4: their senses, and it's teaching them based on that. So
Speaker 4: you have to wonder, in a vacuum, if we had
Speaker 4: a whole group of people that like, couldn't hear would
Speaker 4: they formulate a completely different language without any input?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, The key is the social dynamic, the need to
Speaker 3: communicate with one perceived as peers. Unfortunately, in addition to language,
Speaker 3: there will also be the generation of hierarchy, which is
Speaker 3: kind of bad for civilization. But I like the reason
Speaker 3: I'm shouting out King James of Scotland in particular is
Speaker 3: because several years ago on a sister show of Ours
Speaker 3: Ridiculous History, we talked about these language experiments and North
Speaker 3: Sentinel Island gets again. These folks get romanticized pretty often, unfortunately,
Speaker 3: and that romanticization is the kind of things that it's
Speaker 3: the kind of phenomenon I would say that will lead
Speaker 3: very well intentioned and people like the late Christian missionary
Speaker 3: a few years back, to attempt to intrude upon their
Speaker 3: organization or their community. Is also incredibly important to nuke
Speaker 3: Big Purp. I can't remember if we got to it
Speaker 3: in our original video on YouTube or if we got
Speaker 3: to it in an episode, but is important to note
Speaker 3: that in the eighteen hundreds European colonizers, to your point,
Speaker 3: Matt did not only intrude upon the community of North
Speaker 3: Centinel Island. They abducted several people, They transmitted pathogens, they
Speaker 3: poisoned the community, and people got sick, they got burned.
Speaker 3: Of course, these folks may not, you know, be on
Speaker 3: TikTok or whatever, but they're just as intelligent as every
Speaker 3: other living human being. So of course they're not going
Speaker 3: to want to mess with these folks anymore.
Speaker 4: Well, and my final thought here is that, you know,
Speaker 4: once again we returned to science fiction. Oftentimes, conflicts in
Speaker 4: science fiction between let's say, like a Star Trek type
Speaker 4: situation result from not being able to understand each other
Speaker 4: and misinterpretation of intent. And that you know, one could
Speaker 4: argue this missionary going to North Central Island did not
Speaker 4: go there to do them harm. He was not going
Speaker 4: there to colonize them or try to convert them, well
Speaker 4: arguable whatever, but they saw him as a as a
Speaker 4: dangerous interloper, and they dealt with him as such.
Speaker 3: And John allen Chow was in his mind he was
Speaker 3: attempting to save them, no proselytizing for Christian religion.
Speaker 4: But he wasn't going to infect them with the plague.
Speaker 4: Right at the very least, you know, maybe a plague
Speaker 4: of the mind.
Speaker 2: Perhaps, so we're saying we need to send in the drones.
Speaker 2: Is that what we're saying?
Speaker 4: We need the drone?
Speaker 3: We need to do what we need to do. As
Speaker 3: a straight up Star Trek Darmock episode. If you guys
Speaker 3: remember that one hundred and second episode of Yeah, Yeah
Speaker 3: it is, it's where they speak in metaphor, they speak
Speaker 3: in metaphor, Right, you guys remember that one.
Speaker 4: No, of course I don't remember that one. I don't
Speaker 4: there's too many episodes of that show. But I would argue,
Speaker 4: and Max super producer Max of Ridiculous History would agree.
Speaker 4: Star Trek does a great job of encapsulating the like
Speaker 4: interpersonal exchanges of alien races and like humanity. And sometimes
Speaker 4: I can feel a little talkie preachy thinky it's not
Speaker 4: all excitement and like, you know, explosions, But I think
Speaker 4: it's very very important and probably what Gene Roddenberry intended.
Speaker 4: So that's it, Big Purp, As I suspected, this yielded
Speaker 4: a lot of good conversation, So thank you very much.
Speaker 4: We're going to take a quick break and have a
Speaker 4: word from our sponsor and come back with more messages
Speaker 4: from you.
Speaker 2: All right, we've returned, guys. Much like the whole water
Speaker 2: obsession I had there for I don't know, a couple
Speaker 2: of months, I now find myself in an airplane obsession mode.
Speaker 2: He did, right, Yeah, sure.
Speaker 4: The flappy windows, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't stop thinking about it. I don't fly
Speaker 2: very often, but when I do, I don't know why,
Speaker 2: I have a tremenous sense of dread. Maybe has something
Speaker 2: to do with that was his name, Miller.
Speaker 4: Did you hear the update about the guy the mushroom pilot?
Speaker 2: Mushroom pilot?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 4: No, the pilot that like put all of his passengers
Speaker 4: at risk because he was high on mushrooms quote unquote.
Speaker 3: He wasn't. He wasn't the pilot. He was a pilot
Speaker 3: on the plane.
Speaker 4: No, he was, he was the he was the co pilot.
Speaker 4: At the very least. He did a thing. He pulled
Speaker 4: a thing that was like an engine shut down, and
Speaker 4: then he asked the stewardess is to handcuff him.
Speaker 3: He was an off duty pilot who no, he he
Speaker 3: tended to cut off the plane engine.
Speaker 4: Okay, fair enough. I don't know how he got into
Speaker 4: the cockpit in that respect, but I thought he was
Speaker 4: flying the flight.
Speaker 3: He was in the jump seat, I thought fair enough.
Speaker 4: But my understanding is that he was either flying the
Speaker 4: plane or co piloting the plane and was having this
Speaker 4: existential crisis and he didn't know if he was in
Speaker 4: a dream or in reality, and he pulled a thing
Speaker 4: that shut the engine down. And now he's facing serious charges.
Speaker 4: But he apparently had taken mushrooms for the first time
Speaker 4: like six days beforehand while mourning his friend who died
Speaker 4: like seven years ago, and he apparently had a purely
Speaker 4: psychotic break and is now facing serious charges. All this
Speaker 4: to say, if you've never done psychedelics before, and you're
Speaker 4: in a bad mental state and maybe you're lacking mental
Speaker 4: health care, don't do it. If you're having to fly
Speaker 4: a plane in six.
Speaker 3: Days, don't follow Joseph David Emerson.
Speaker 4: No and no peer pressure. Don't succumb to peer pressure.
Speaker 2: Okay, But he wasn't or was on mushrooms at the time.
Speaker 3: He was not flying.
Speaker 4: He was not onmos He had taken mushrooms like six
Speaker 4: days before, and it apparently triggered something in him that
Speaker 4: did not subside. He was not actually under the influence
Speaker 4: of psychedelics like mushrooms are very short lived.
Speaker 3: Right, So he wasn't actively dropping mushrooms and absolutely not
Speaker 3: but whatever either actively on mushrooms, nor was he actively
Speaker 3: flying the plane fair enough, but whatever he did, he
Speaker 3: was in the cockpit and he pulled a thing and
Speaker 3: then he said, please put handcuffs on me. And you know,
Speaker 3: I thought that he was the pilot, but maybe I've
Speaker 3: misread the articles. He pulled some kind of engine shutdown
Speaker 3: thing like he got into the cockpit, I thought, and
Speaker 3: then he tried to exit through the like emergency hatch.
Speaker 3: He did several things that he is being charged with
Speaker 3: attempted manslaughter. Like, however many people were on the plane,
Speaker 3: he's being charged with attempted manslaughter of that many people, Yeah,
Speaker 3: eighty three counts are reckless and dangerment.
Speaker 2: Wow, well, we're not talking about that kind of dangerous
Speaker 2: on a flight. Today. We're gonna hear from two listeners
Speaker 2: who deal directly with flight safety in different aspects, just
Speaker 2: to give us some more perspective on our discussion about
Speaker 2: that plane that took off, remember with the missing windows
Speaker 2: flappity dues, the flappity dues. Here we go. First, one
Speaker 2: is from ground Control.
Speaker 5: Hey, Matt Ben and Nole. This is ground control. I
Speaker 5: work for a major legacy airline in San Francisco at
Speaker 5: their hub, and I work on the ramp. I can
Speaker 5: tell you a lot about the inspections that go into
Speaker 5: the aircraft. I'm not a mechanic, but I do bring
Speaker 5: in the aircraft. And you are correct, Matt. A pilot
Speaker 5: does also do a visual inspection prior to departure. As
Speaker 5: a marshaller, receiver and dispatcher, I do that when I
Speaker 5: get had an airplane, and before an airplane departs you
Speaker 5: are within fifteen minutes of departure.
Speaker 6: We also do a versule inspection.
Speaker 5: In case the crew has changed or you know, anything
Speaker 5: happens while we're loading up and loading down the aircraft.
Speaker 5: That being said, I have on multiple occasions called my
Speaker 5: control and had mechanics come out because I've seen cracked
Speaker 5: windows or missing outer plates and had the mechanics show
Speaker 5: up and go, oh yeah, that's fine, and the aircraft
Speaker 5: go out. So it's a little surprising that they didn't
Speaker 5: catch missing stick window panes before this airbus went out
Speaker 5: from London, but not entirely uncommon and from my personal experience,
Speaker 5: a lot of the time, what you might want to
Speaker 5: hear is the mechanics show up and go, oh yeah,
Speaker 5: you don't need that. Pieces of the wing panels, panels where.
Speaker 7: Power goes a whole, big chunks of cargo doors just
Speaker 7: darm They're like, oh yeah, I don't worry about that,
Speaker 7: and you're like, okay, didn't know a plane didn't mean
Speaker 7: most of its parts.
Speaker 5: But that is sometimes how it goes. Anyway, I hope
Speaker 5: you guy would do it well, and happy holidays. If
Speaker 5: you participate, feel free to give me a call back.
Speaker 5: All right, bye.
Speaker 4: Listener is not, however, positing that it was okay that
Speaker 4: one of these window coverings was missing.
Speaker 3: Right, They're just saying that the the mechanical checks are
Speaker 3: probably not as hundred percent God's passengers would imagine them
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe that's exactly it. And we kind of get
Speaker 2: into it a little bit in that episode where recover it.
Speaker 2: But to hearing it from someone who is a I
Speaker 2: think this is what I heard you say, ground control,
Speaker 2: a marshaler, and a dispatcher, and there's one other thing
Speaker 2: in there that you function as. But it sounds like
Speaker 2: somebody who helps ferry in the planes and in the
Speaker 2: planes out right, Oh.
Speaker 3: Matt, I gotta say also to ground control, I am
Speaker 3: so impressed when people know semaphore and I know you
Speaker 3: know semophore, dude, that's awesome.
Speaker 4: Well, it just goes to show that it's sort of
Speaker 4: a very procedural, checklist kind of thing that doesn't always
Speaker 4: involve all of your senses because you're trying to move
Speaker 4: things through as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, often you are. But I think there's a
Speaker 2: big safety aspect to to what ground control does as well.
Speaker 2: Just man, we were laughing. I don't know if we're
Speaker 2: gonna keep that laughter in while it's playing, but man,
Speaker 2: we're just cracking up hearing you know, the thought of
Speaker 2: mechanics looking at big chunks of an aircraft missing and
Speaker 2: just goes.
Speaker 3: It's fine, so you know you got you got the
Speaker 3: one wing. What are you gonna do tart a round?
Speaker 4: I think that's what I'm getting at, is that like,
Speaker 4: if you're that level of expertise, you're so focused on
Speaker 4: your thing, then like some other thing, just who cares about,
Speaker 4: no big deal, forget about it.
Speaker 3: Until something goes wrong. Well, then it's again like that's
Speaker 3: the danger of siloing.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The advantage, the advantage of task siloing is in theory
Speaker 3: that someone will focus one hundred percent on the thing
Speaker 3: that they're looking at. Right, and in a perfect world
Speaker 3: for something like an aircraft, there are going to be
Speaker 3: people who specifically one hundred percent focus on the one
Speaker 3: thing that is That is a difficult proposition to make,
Speaker 3: and as such, you know, not to sound too dungeons
Speaker 3: and dragons. People do end up multi classing. And I
Speaker 3: want to take a second to just shout out not
Speaker 3: just you ground Control, but everybody working in aviation, because
Speaker 3: these folks get scapegoaded so often when something goes wrong,
Speaker 3: and a lot of times those problems start at the
Speaker 3: top in the sea suite of the airlines for sure.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's crazy that we fly on
Speaker 4: planes that still have ashtrays in the arm rests. You know,
Speaker 4: it just goes to show like how long it takes
Speaker 4: to fully refit these planes. But Matt, isn't it also
Speaker 4: a thing that like, shouldn't this be an example of
Speaker 4: how AI or more like computerized systems would be helpful
Speaker 4: in a situation like this?
Speaker 2: It does. It reminds me of the systems Delta has
Speaker 2: been putting in place for years now to get drones
Speaker 2: to look at these planes. But that is only again
Speaker 2: in those major checkups, right, so.
Speaker 4: Which only happens periodically, like not yet every flight and landing.
Speaker 2: We're talking tens of thousands of flight miles, you know,
Speaker 2: like a long time in between. But what if you
Speaker 2: did have a system where at at every terminal, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a series of drones that go around and just
Speaker 2: do a quick exterior check on the planes. That doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like that bad of an idea, and it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't seem that expensive either, because I be the C
Speaker 3: suite argument, it doesn't seem too cost prohibitive at scale.
Speaker 3: And Matt, this reminds me of when we were talking
Speaker 3: about the technical rule for how you drive a car.
Speaker 3: You are supposed to do the four point check before
Speaker 3: you get in the vehicle to begin with, and how
Speaker 3: many people do that? You know? How often do you
Speaker 3: check your oil before the light goes on? You don't
Speaker 3: have to answer, folks, I don't want to shame anyone.
Speaker 4: And in the olden days that would have been more important,
Speaker 4: but now we depend on things like check engine lights
Speaker 4: or like you know, low tire pressure lights and the
Speaker 4: sensors and things like that.
Speaker 2: Let's continue down this flight path. Guys, we've got another
Speaker 2: listener who called in that has experience with planes in
Speaker 2: a slightly different way. I want to remind everyone of
Speaker 2: our conversation about the pre flight check so that before
Speaker 2: a plane takes off, the pilot and co pilot whatever
Speaker 2: that team looks like and is made up of, they've
Speaker 2: run through a huge checklist that's laid out in a
Speaker 2: book or you know, and that's written down right checking
Speaker 2: the systems. And you've also got a quick walk around
Speaker 2: by the pilot to do a visual check on the plane.
Speaker 2: That's that happens every time a flight takes off. But
Speaker 2: there's a little more nuanced to this that maybe I
Speaker 2: didn't understand, and we're gonna hear from Soup Sandwich that
Speaker 2: has some more insight.
Speaker 6: Hey, guys, you can call me Soup Sandwich. I wanted
Speaker 6: to speak my two cents about your last episode for
Speaker 6: Strange News about the airplane whose windows popped out. Now
Speaker 6: I work in military aviation. Standards might be different in civilian,
Speaker 6: but we still here to SAA. For us, prior to flight,
Speaker 6: we have to do a pre flight inspection. That pre
Speaker 6: flight inspection is good for twenty four hours, so that
Speaker 6: aircraft can take off, land, take off land, have a
Speaker 6: few flights within a twenty four hour period without meeting
Speaker 6: another pre flight.
Speaker 2: That okay, just hearing those words, they just you know,
Speaker 2: they hit They hit me, and I go, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: wait a second. That means you could do a pre
Speaker 2: flight check in the morning. Let's say with that the
Speaker 2: London flight, right, or that that flight that was going
Speaker 2: to Orlando, it's getting ready to take off in that morning,
Speaker 2: gets a pre flight check, It lands way the heck
Speaker 2: over in Orlando. Now it's going to take off again
Speaker 2: and head north somewhere within the contiguous United States, and.
Speaker 3: It hit twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: You don't have to check it again. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: It's pre flight. It's before all the flights that could
Speaker 3: occur in twenty hours.
Speaker 2: It's a pre flight check.
Speaker 4: It's a rubric though, you know, and like somebody has
Speaker 4: set these these factors, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, think think about it this way, and this
Speaker 2: is maybe something I'm just getting completely wrong. When you
Speaker 2: get off of an let's say you take a flight
Speaker 2: London to Orlando, you are a passer around that plane.
Speaker 2: As you're exiting, that plane doesn't turn off it gets
Speaker 2: refueled though, right, do you have to turn it off
Speaker 2: to refuel it the way you would have to turn
Speaker 2: off another vehicle like a car.
Speaker 4: You'd assume, but maybe not.
Speaker 2: I'd assume, But like, what if it's like something I'm
Speaker 2: just speculating like crazy here.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I was like, what if they just don't turn the
Speaker 2: thing off and that's what constitutes it still on its
Speaker 2: same flat. I'm just suck. But hey, I happened to
Speaker 2: call back Soup Sandwich just to get a little more information.
Speaker 2: And I really think the expertise of military aviation here
Speaker 2: applying it to this is worth our time.
Speaker 4: That's key because I mean military aviation came well before
Speaker 4: commercial flight, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And something she really wanted to get across is that
Speaker 2: if there was no direct indication of damage to that
Speaker 2: window on just a visual check, it was not and
Speaker 2: it would not be considered an oversight by the pilots
Speaker 2: doing that visual check. It is literally the things that
Speaker 2: you would get dinged on is that if it was,
Speaker 2: if any person would look at it visually and go, oh,
Speaker 2: there's something wrong with that window. That's basically what she
Speaker 2: was saying. Maybe I'm getting the wrong. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 2: hope I'm not soup sandwich. I'm just going to keep reading.
Speaker 2: Just a couple of things we talked about. If the
Speaker 2: pre flight instructions like that manual didn't tell them to
Speaker 2: regularly inspect like specific areas of the plane visually, then again,
Speaker 2: it's probably not something that anyone would have expected those
Speaker 2: pilots to do, so they probably wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just thought that was really interesting, basically saying, look,
Speaker 2: if it's not in the rules and the regulations are
Speaker 2: written down in some place where this is standard operating procedure,
Speaker 2: it's probably not going to occur. So maybe it should be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Also it is, I mean, it happens where people
Speaker 3: will go and soup sav much. We've never spoken, but
Speaker 3: I believe it is somewhat uncommon, right for so one
Speaker 3: who has again a focused amount of time, right two
Speaker 3: and they they are they are siloed into this one
Speaker 3: thing they do. Uh. It is asking a lot of
Speaker 3: them to go above and beyond right outside of the rules,
Speaker 3: which is why the rules are in theories so comprehensive
Speaker 3: and so thorough. Indeed, Uh, it could be a situation
Speaker 3: where and you know, ground control, uh, ground control the
Speaker 3: major ben here. I don't wanna I don't wanna put
Speaker 3: anything as scance here. But those mechanics are probably just
Speaker 3: also following rules, and they're looking specifically, not not for
Speaker 3: something that gives them a bad vibe, but for something
Speaker 3: that violates the explicitly.
Speaker 4: Written rules that's not design.
Speaker 3: How do you not punish the honors student in that situation?
Speaker 4: And my question is how often do those rules get revised?
Speaker 4: And I would argue because of the technology, unless there's
Speaker 4: something very new being introduced into the equation, probably not
Speaker 4: often at all.
Speaker 2: I don't know how often, though, well we can find out.
Speaker 2: I just want to mention this. When I talked to
Speaker 2: Soup Sandwich, she was working in the hangar at that moment.
Speaker 2: She was looking at her helicopter and she was like
Speaker 2: just assessing it, going, what would I what like could
Speaker 2: I have missed if I was just looking at this craft?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And she was saying, like, if you're looking at the windows,
Speaker 2: if there was no delamination or melting or like obvious cracking,
Speaker 2: there's no way she would have walked over and like
Speaker 2: pressed on the window to make sure it was okay. Right,
Speaker 2: You just look at the window. You go, oh windows good,
Speaker 2: but email.
Speaker 3: This what kind of helicopter was this? I'm so interested,
Speaker 3: but I would are you ever be.
Speaker 4: Able to fly using the plane for that purpose with
Speaker 4: the lights and stuff? Is sort of outside of standard
Speaker 4: operating procedure for that plane, and that no one's thinking
Speaker 4: about that as an outside variable.
Speaker 2: That's a really good point. That's a really good point.
Speaker 2: Like it's almost the film crew that should have well,
Speaker 2: but they how are they going to down Noll?
Speaker 4: There should have been somebody, If there's somebody within the
Speaker 4: company that like agrees to let this happen, they should
Speaker 4: think about things like that. Hm.
Speaker 2: Well, hey, last thing guys before we get out of
Speaker 2: here for this segment. Soup sandwich. This is really fun.
Speaker 2: I didn't know this. Maybe you guys already knew this.
Speaker 2: Soup sandwich is a great phrase for something that is
Speaker 2: completely messed up, like foo bar or where those things,
Speaker 2: because it's it's something that is impossible.
Speaker 4: It's not a soup and a sandwich. It's a sandwich
Speaker 4: filled with soup, which sucks.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll be right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 3: And we have returned, so we're going to hear first
Speaker 3: from Mark, and Mark has given us permission to use
Speaker 3: this name. Mark says, hey, guys, I love your shows.
Speaker 3: It got me through about sixty hours of sanding a
Speaker 3: pergola and a deck in my new backyard with great joy.
Speaker 3: Editorial note, thank you word of the day, Mark, Thank
Speaker 3: you for teaching us pergola. I didn't know that one.
Speaker 3: Mark says, I have been are in a registered nurse
Speaker 3: for the VA Veterans Affairs since twenty ten. I have
Speaker 3: countless stories talking with veterans about agent Orange, which is
Speaker 3: probably one of the worst things ever invented by man.
Speaker 3: The VA researches, their various researchers are continuously finding more
Speaker 3: and more ailments that are linked to herbicide herba side.
Speaker 3: Mark says say it with a strong age, and veterans
Speaker 3: from Vietnam are actually getting higher and higher service connected ratings.
Speaker 3: This is what the Veterans Service Organization looks at when
Speaker 3: they're diagnosing whether someone's medical maladies are a result of
Speaker 3: their time in service. And additionally, they're looking at what
Speaker 3: folks are reporting to their VA providers. This is how
Speaker 3: they fire out whether or not your claim will be
Speaker 3: covered if you were exposed to any number of very
Speaker 3: dangerous chemicals and substances. Mark says, the higher the ratings,
Speaker 3: the more money these folks will get monthly. You only
Speaker 3: get full dental benefits under some circumstances. Some states will
Speaker 3: waive your property taxes if your injuries and conditions are
Speaker 3: concluded to be one hundred percent connected to your service.
Speaker 3: Mark says, I know South Carolina does this. I don't
Speaker 3: know if if California does it. So it goes to
Speaker 3: state by state. And then Mark wanted us to dive
Speaker 3: into toxic exposure to tar pits in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Mark says, we screen for PTSD suicidal and homicidal ideation
Speaker 3: at every visit. Now we are asking about exposure to
Speaker 3: these tar pits, and this is something that I don't
Speaker 3: think is making a ton of news. Mark says, take
Speaker 3: a look at tar pits, you'll find the stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know. Have you guys heard much
Speaker 3: about this?
Speaker 2: This is something I think John Stewart brought up a
Speaker 2: while back. They call him burn pits at least he
Speaker 2: I think he didn't. He speak at Congress or something
Speaker 2: about this, like it was a big deal. The toxic
Speaker 2: pits the toxic burn pits.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, what are these toxic pits burning? Exactly?
Speaker 7: So?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like to your point that they're called burn pits often,
Speaker 3: and I think they're the same thing. Mark, please write
Speaker 3: in and correct us.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 3: There's a great article by the New York Times, well
Speaker 3: from the New York Times by the journalist John Ismay,
Speaker 3: it's what are burn pits? How did they harm US troops?
Speaker 3: The idea is that they were throwing all this trash
Speaker 3: from military operations into these pits to burn things instead
Speaker 3: of you know, hauling it to a dumpster, because there's
Speaker 3: not exactly a sanitation service. And when this stuff is burning,
Speaker 3: it produces this toxic smoke, and if you are around that,
Speaker 3: you don't really have a way to leave. You can't
Speaker 3: go to your commanding officer and say this smoke is weird.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna bug out for a second, because you know,
Speaker 3: it's a crime to go a wall.
Speaker 4: Like that, and there aren't like face masks they can
Speaker 4: wear or things that will filter it out.
Speaker 2: Uh No, this is a really really big deal. Like
Speaker 2: serious illnesses can come from the crap that gets burned
Speaker 2: in those things.
Speaker 3: And Matt I was keeping an eye. On chat, you
Speaker 3: posted a link to John Stewart's conversation about military burn
Speaker 3: pits from earlier in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: This is what I remembered, like, specifically that phrase when
Speaker 2: you said, when we are talking about burn pits here,
Speaker 2: it's John Stewart sitting there and basically just destroying memory
Speaker 2: of Congress who voted against expanding some of the benefits
Speaker 2: for men and women who served who were near these pits.
Speaker 2: That's what I had in my head, so that I
Speaker 2: just want to share that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's awesome, and thank you for sending that,
Speaker 3: because I think this is an episode in the future.
Speaker 3: What we see is that hundreds of thousands of veteran
Speaker 3: claims for service conditions related to exposure here have been denied,
Speaker 3: and two of the primary reasons for these denials have
Speaker 3: been quote no diagnosis of the claimed condition end quote,
Speaker 3: and then another quote no medical nexus between the claimed
Speaker 3: condition and military service. So it appears that Uncle Sam,
Speaker 3: after asking people to give life and live and mental
Speaker 3: health of in service of their country, Uncle Sam is
Speaker 3: going back and saying, I don't know, man, maybe you
Speaker 3: just burned all that crazy stuff in your backyard. Shit, right,
Speaker 3: that's kind of on you, bro.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you were trying to go for a compost
Speaker 4: type situation. No, that's not what that is. Isn't burning
Speaker 4: trash in your backyard like totally illegal? Like burning trash
Speaker 4: is not Okay?
Speaker 3: Check out our Extraordinary Rendition episode. At the very beginning,
Speaker 3: we say, we pointed out the real definition of a
Speaker 3: state or government is that force which has the monopoly
Speaker 3: on violence and crime. So like, we can't burn a
Speaker 3: bunch of ammunition and jet fuel and old tires legally
Speaker 3: in our backyards, but your government can't.
Speaker 2: You know, why would you anyway?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 3: Right? And this this I think I wanted just to
Speaker 3: take a second because I do believe this is an
Speaker 3: important issue. It does verge upon conspiracy, and as our
Speaker 3: as our pops, John's, our spiritual father John Stewart has
Speaker 3: pointed out, this is an issue that is roundly ignored
Speaker 3: and it is an ongoing issue. Or it reminds me
Speaker 3: of other things. Maybe we loop it all into one episode.
Speaker 3: Depleted uranium, white phosphorus, all those nasty, nasty things. Those
Speaker 3: two constitute war crimes, honestly, But these burn pits create
Speaker 3: the same sort of long tail consequences and perhaps intergenerational consequences.
Speaker 3: So we'd love to hear your stories, folks. We hope
Speaker 3: this message finds you healthy and safe in a mid
Speaker 3: grand adventure and let us know to the degree that
Speaker 3: you are comfortable and able what you have encountered with
Speaker 3: burn pits. Don't want to end auto bumber. I want
Speaker 3: to go to one more thing, Guys. Did you know
Speaker 3: that the United Kingdom was telling people to stock up
Speaker 3: on candles quite recently.
Speaker 2: Because the power kept going out?
Speaker 3: I mean, why else would you write? Or is it like,
Speaker 3: does someone in Parliament have a bunch of money and candles?
Speaker 4: Why does my mind immediately go to candle in the
Speaker 4: windy elm John? Like, is there gonna be another tragic death.
Speaker 2: Of a royal well? I was gonna maybe maybe they
Speaker 2: want group some kind of like candle magic, you know,
Speaker 2: like sending energy out. You could do energy work with candles, y'all.
Speaker 3: Yes, I guess you can technically because fire is a
Speaker 3: form of energy. Right, So let's go to Let's go
Speaker 3: to someone who wrote to us via our Instagram Conspiracy
Speaker 3: Stuff Show North Ireland fan says, hey, love the show
Speaker 3: made it into your top two percent of listeners. According
Speaker 3: to my Spotify wrapped thanks to everybody. Also, by the way,
Speaker 3: tuned in all year. Northern Ireland Fan goes on to say,
Speaker 3: I'm a geologist and spend most of my day walking
Speaker 3: around fields by myself, and I am so grateful I
Speaker 3: have your podcast to listen to to keep me company.
Speaker 3: I'm from the u K and this story caught my attention.
Speaker 3: Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister, wants us to stock
Speaker 3: up on candles in case of a national to your point, Matt,
Speaker 3: in case of a national power outage, and not to
Speaker 3: rely on our phones so much. That got the old
Speaker 3: That got the old man in me being like, yeah,
Speaker 3: get a paper Atlas for your car before it's too late,
Speaker 3: so we'll call you an if. Northern Ireland Fan says
Speaker 3: it got me thinking about how a few months back
Speaker 3: they tested out the UK emergency alert system sending messages
Speaker 3: to all our phones. Coincidence, I'm sure, but I'd love
Speaker 3: to hear your thoughts on if you think they know
Speaker 3: something we don't. And Northern Ireland Fan, you helpfully. We
Speaker 3: talked a little bit. You sent your preferred moniker. We're
Speaker 3: keeping you anonymous and and I gotta say, this reminds
Speaker 3: me of that time not too long ago when there
Speaker 3: was a mass warning text that got sent out to
Speaker 3: residents of Hawaii. Do you remember that or Hawaii.
Speaker 4: About volcanic activity? Perhaps?
Speaker 2: No, was it? I think it was like a nuclear
Speaker 2: bomb that.
Speaker 3: Yah, and everybody in Hawaii freaked out. It was in
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen. There was a false missile alert. It went
Speaker 3: out through the official the US is official beat me here,
Speaker 3: doc oh system is probably the best way to call it.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It makes me wonder too about those
Speaker 3: things because about those mass alerts. You know, we all
Speaker 3: get these tests, at least in the United States, Babe, right, babe? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: well you know on radio sure and also on our phones,
Speaker 3: which I think is a more direct way to contact people.
Speaker 4: Now that I believe he uses a similar system in
Speaker 4: terms of the tone.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, you want the continuity of system. I'm also
Speaker 3: thinking about Amber alerts for a time had no judgment here, folks.
Speaker 3: For a time, people could opt out of amber alerts.
Speaker 3: Do you remember that People would say, oh, I'm too
Speaker 3: busy about the subducted kit.
Speaker 4: I mean, most people opt out of amber alerts just
Speaker 4: by like hitting cancel, You're like, ignore, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, The only thing I wish is that you
Speaker 2: could silence it so it vibrated really loudly rather than
Speaker 2: beeped at you. And it's important that.
Speaker 4: You get it because what if you did see something,
Speaker 4: What if you like happened to have seen something, and
Speaker 4: then you wouldn't have known.
Speaker 3: The main thing I wish is that we didn't exist
Speaker 3: in a time where people kid nab children.
Speaker 4: Hey, I think maybe we all feel that way.
Speaker 3: I mean, the text message system is good, I get it,
Speaker 3: But there's also you know, there's a bigger question here,
Speaker 3: which is who flips the switch on these things?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: How did this twenty eighteen false missile alert? How did
Speaker 3: it happen? It reminds me of the old Cold War
Speaker 3: days when that one Russian sub got so close to
Speaker 3: launching nukes except for one of the commanding officers said,
Speaker 3: hold on a second, Perhaps we're being rash. I don't know.
Speaker 3: And to the question of whether whether or not the
Speaker 3: United Kingdom's government knows something the public does not know.
Speaker 3: Haven't found anything about this. I think it's a good
Speaker 3: idea in general to stock up on candles. I don't know.
Speaker 3: You guys have candles.
Speaker 4: I like t light candles, and I'll always buy scented
Speaker 4: candles when they're on sale. But that's unrelated. But no,
Speaker 4: I have enough. I have enough.
Speaker 2: I've just got a chest full of black candles.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, what are you up to but energy work? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've got I've got some candles for situations, right, and
Speaker 3: for specific situations. A lot of battery powered flashlights too,
Speaker 3: one solar powered flashlight that I just keep on the
Speaker 3: rooftop under a thing. I don't know, it better work.
Speaker 3: I should You know what I should do. I should
Speaker 3: put in a regimen wherein I check that thing on
Speaker 3: a regular basis before I need it to work, just
Speaker 3: like with planes.
Speaker 2: Zach pre flight candle powered flashlight checks.
Speaker 3: Yes, finally it rolls off the tongue. You heard it
Speaker 3: here first, uh I honestly, I don't know whether there
Speaker 3: is something sinister here. The idea of stocking up on
Speaker 3: energy sources or light sources that are not dependent upon
Speaker 3: energy grid makes a lot of sense, because if you
Speaker 3: are not living in the US, you may not be
Speaker 3: aware of this. Texas in particular, has earned a terrible
Speaker 3: reputation for crap in the bag on their energy grid.
Speaker 3: And not too long ago, actually, if you're listening to
Speaker 3: this now, probably within your lifetime, the US government did
Speaker 3: some really shady stuff on the West Coast with rolling blackouts.
Speaker 3: Do check that out, do you guys remember that sure
Speaker 3: deregulation of energy companies and then all of a sudden
Speaker 3: holding access to electricity hostage.
Speaker 4: Well that's some like future diabolical mister Burns type stuff
Speaker 4: right there. It's on the table, y'all.
Speaker 3: It's on the table, and it could be on the way.
Speaker 3: We're going to curtail this last part of Folks, we
Speaker 3: want to hear from you, especially if you are in
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom. Do you think there is some mystery
Speaker 3: of foot Why is the DEPUTYPM requesting that you buy candles?
Speaker 3: We'll look into We'll look into the financials a bit
Speaker 3: and figure out if this guy is part of Big
Speaker 3: Candle or if it is better just to be prepared.
Speaker 3: Thanks as always to everyone who has tuned in. Thank
Speaker 3: you to Ground Control, thank you to Soup Sandwich, Big
Speaker 3: Purp Mark and of course North Ireland fan. Would you
Speaker 3: like to join the show. We can't wait to hear
Speaker 3: from you. We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 4: That's right. You can find us the handle conspiracy Stuff
Speaker 4: on x Facebook and YouTube, Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram
Speaker 4: and TikTok.
Speaker 2: Call us one eight three three st DWYTK when you
Speaker 2: call in, you've got three minutes, give yourself a cool
Speaker 2: nickname and let us know if we can use your
Speaker 2: name and message on the air. If you don't want
Speaker 2: to do that, why not instead send us a good
Speaker 2: old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.