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 I Heart Brady. Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
Speaker 1: me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Speaker 1: Lexus code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. It's one of our favorite times
Speaker 1: of the week, our weekly listener male segment where we
Speaker 1: hear from the best part of the show, which is
Speaker 1: you and your fellow conspiracy realist. We're gonna go to
Speaker 1: some weird places here, some of our favorite places to go.
Speaker 1: We're going to crack some questions about the mysterious Chinese
Speaker 1: balloon that caused such a ruckus in the past few weeks.
Speaker 1: We're going to ask uh. We'll bandy back and forth
Speaker 1: about politics and religion, but not in the way you
Speaker 1: expect maybe, so don't turn off the show yet. UH.
Speaker 1: And before we do any of that, UH, I think
Speaker 1: we wanted to. I wanted to share an excellent response.
Speaker 1: We got to our Skepticism, Part two episode where we
Speaker 1: we talk about the tricky business of using empathy and
Speaker 1: sincerity to speak with someone that you feel may have
Speaker 1: gone off the cognitive rails. Yes, we got a message
Speaker 1: from a certain a g w M. We'll call this
Speaker 1: person a g w another government worker. This person says,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to your podcast for a number of years.
Speaker 1: Always meant to send a response, but you know, work
Speaker 1: gets busy. You asked about input dealing with conspiracy theorists.
Speaker 1: And before we get too much further in this message,
Speaker 1: we should mention that it's written in a very particular way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a shout out to a g w UH
Speaker 1: for reading in this excellent piece of correspondence, kind of
Speaker 1: in the format of a an official government memo, Yes,
Speaker 1: with headings like this Emergency Management and Government. I left
Speaker 1: the classroom about seventeen years ago and joined the state
Speaker 1: government as a training specialist. My section of the department
Speaker 1: is emergency management preparedness. A few challenges of communication. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess that means that there were Okay, wait, now
Speaker 1: these are specific challenges we're about to talk about. Is
Speaker 1: that the way I'm to understand this, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the the headings here are examples of sometimes communication was challenge.
Speaker 1: So here's the first one, COVID fall. We were part
Speaker 1: of a national of all exercise. Oh interesting. A number
Speaker 1: of states and federal agencies participated. The exercise worked the
Speaker 1: emergency plan that had been developed and updated after the
Speaker 1: H one N one swine flew outbreak. It was a
Speaker 1: challenging week. We relied on the national stockpile system to
Speaker 1: be a major part of the process and getting needed
Speaker 1: medical supplies. We did learn a number of things we
Speaker 1: needed to improve, but when it got bad, the playbook
Speaker 1: had changed at higher levels of government. So does that
Speaker 1: mean when COVID actually hit, things had changed. I think
Speaker 1: I think so, because you know, most governments weren't really
Speaker 1: prepared for something of that magnitude, right, so they kind
Speaker 1: of had to go jazz improvisation with it. Next heading
Speaker 1: California Canyon Hermit's Peak Wildfire Wow started in the state
Speaker 1: e O C. As we dealt with many fires and chaos.
Speaker 1: What different folks said and what they heard kept us busy.
Speaker 1: In the two events above and so many situations, it's
Speaker 1: a challenge to get information out to the public. There's
Speaker 1: a challenge of politics, government private companies. In every After
Speaker 1: Action Report or a a R, we find there is
Speaker 1: one major problem communication. The next heading is New Mexico
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. I am a
Speaker 1: federal grant funded state employee with the Department of Homeland
Speaker 1: Security and Emergency Management. I've had various background checks in
Speaker 1: my life. My dad was in Army with a high
Speaker 1: security clearance, as well as my mom and husband. I've
Speaker 1: had to operate under for your situational awareness, not for
Speaker 1: public distribution, et cetera, as well as observing freedom of
Speaker 1: information acts and Sunshine Law. What I know and what
Speaker 1: I can share to just about anyone can be different,
Speaker 1: even if it is open source material. As a trainer,
Speaker 1: I am one of the folks for the department who
Speaker 1: gets asked questions, mostly in community preparedness trainings. Your podcast
Speaker 1: is so helpful in one staying up to date on
Speaker 1: the newest conspiracies and to hearing what your listeners are
Speaker 1: concerned about. Oh, oh, guys, guys, Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 1: is listening in and taking cues. Uh the oh dear, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're listening right now. Thanks for tuning in, all right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for thanks for coming to the show. Let's move
Speaker 1: on here. A g W says, I have to filter
Speaker 1: what I tell friends, my family, people at an event,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Family reunions are fun. In one, my brother
Speaker 1: in law started very aggressive and then I worked in government,
Speaker 1: But after talking a bit, he came to realize that
Speaker 1: at least my discipline had some value. At another family reunion,
Speaker 1: one family member understood what I do and another asked
Speaker 1: questions for better understanding. Well, that's good talking about that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. That's what we So we said in
Speaker 1: our Skeptics episode talk a questions. Listen, your family is
Speaker 1: doing the right thing there. So you continue with the question,
Speaker 1: how do I change folks minds? First, it again depends
Speaker 1: on who I'm talking with. If it's a first time
Speaker 1: caller venting frustration, I listen. For some I can find
Speaker 1: out what the big frustration for them is and improve
Speaker 1: the situation in some way. For some, it really is
Speaker 1: just listening. I always try to remember that each person
Speaker 1: deserves dignity. Wow, that's a really good viewpoint to have.
Speaker 1: I think a really great summation of kind of the
Speaker 1: broad strokes of what we talked about on the episode
Speaker 1: and also talking about a government worker whose jobs is
Speaker 1: to listen really put a new spin on the idea
Speaker 1: of a listening station, doesn't does. I guess we all
Speaker 1: have a little listening station in our heart and should
Speaker 1: try to try to use it when we can. And yes, uh,
Speaker 1: A g W ends with this one. It's it's rather personal,
Speaker 1: but I think we can take something away from this,
Speaker 1: they say. I can also share the story of my spouse.
Speaker 1: When we first met, they had the idea that only
Speaker 1: Hispanics were Catholic. Meeting a Catholic Scottish Irish person from
Speaker 1: New Mexico, he was a tad confused. They would be
Speaker 1: considered very conservative, full gospel Christian. Over the past forty years,
Speaker 1: we've both shifted in beliefs, but I would say more
Speaker 1: him than me. It was by me asking questions for
Speaker 1: understanding and clarifications signed another government worker. Nice, I mean,
Speaker 1: this feels like the right way to to navigate these things. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and especially you know, if you work in government
Speaker 1: in the US or abroad, you run into stuff like
Speaker 1: what A GW is talking about here. Something might not
Speaker 1: necessarily be top secret, but you, as as part of
Speaker 1: your job, are constrained from talking about it or commenting
Speaker 1: on it. It always reminds me we brought this up
Speaker 1: a while back. I think it always reminds me of
Speaker 1: when Wiki leaks hit the scene, and there was all
Speaker 1: this stuff that was now publicized, all these cables and
Speaker 1: all these reports and memorands, memorandum whatever, h and people
Speaker 1: who are not in government could just be a few
Speaker 1: clicks away from this information. But various government agencies had
Speaker 1: to put out warnings to their employees that it was
Speaker 1: very catch twenty two is very hell oresque. They had
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, we know this is out here on Google,
Speaker 1: but you still have to treat it like it's secret.
Speaker 1: And if you're not clear to read it, you can't.
Speaker 1: It was it was always it was a weird honor system.
Speaker 1: But also family reunions can always always be tough. And
Speaker 1: there's something that I think this was really impressive. There's
Speaker 1: something a g W talks about, um that line that
Speaker 1: stands out when the brother in law starts starts off
Speaker 1: a conversation by saying, oh, you work for the government, huh.
Speaker 1: As if as if everybody from you know, your local
Speaker 1: comptroller on up has a direct line to the joint
Speaker 1: chiefs and and whomever the president is. Which one big web,
Speaker 1: one big web, you gotta get in contact with the
Speaker 1: special agent in charge. That's appreciate. I talked to which
Speaker 1: the acronym for that is the sack? Did they say
Speaker 1: S A C Or did they like they say, we
Speaker 1: gotta call the sacks? Get the sack on the phone. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is I gotta say the thing that stood out
Speaker 1: to me, guys in this And I know I'm silly
Speaker 1: and a bit rabbit holy right here, but just talking
Speaker 1: about that national exercise in the fall of about some
Speaker 1: large outbreak using the H one N one swine flew
Speaker 1: outbreak as the model. Um, come on, I just want
Speaker 1: to know more. Look, if if you worked, how about
Speaker 1: this anyone out there that can hear this message. If
Speaker 1: you've been a part of some national level exercise in
Speaker 1: your country dealing with some kind of terrible thing that
Speaker 1: may happen in the future, and you've been a part
Speaker 1: of it recently, why don't you let us know about it,
Speaker 1: tell us all about it everything you can without you know,
Speaker 1: putting yourself in danger. We want to know because I
Speaker 1: want to start tracking those things. Guys. When when are
Speaker 1: the national preparedness events and what are they about? And
Speaker 1: has there ever been one that you were aware of
Speaker 1: or that you participated in that surprised you, you know,
Speaker 1: if I think it's safe to say, if the four
Speaker 1: of us, if Doc Knowell you met myself, actually the
Speaker 1: five of us you're listening along at home as well,
Speaker 1: if we were in one of those exercises that got
Speaker 1: weirdly specific, it would be creepy, right like if you're
Speaker 1: doing a game plan, even just a tabletop kind of
Speaker 1: walk through of something like a very specific type of
Speaker 1: plane crashing into an outback steakhouse in Omaha while a
Speaker 1: specific manager is is on shift. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know how specific these things get. But for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, it's true that learning about preparedness exercises for
Speaker 1: diseases or for natural disasters have always seemed sussed to
Speaker 1: a certain percentage of the population. When something like that
Speaker 1: does happen in real life, you know what I really
Speaker 1: want to hear specifically, were you a part of the
Speaker 1: I guess war games maybe that uh that we're taking
Speaker 1: place or supposed to take place on September eleven. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys remember reading about that, but
Speaker 1: Austin dot com long time ago reign with an AP
Speaker 1: news story written by John Lumpkin about some kind of well,
Speaker 1: let me just read this first statement quote in what
Speaker 1: the government describes as a bizarre coincidence. One U S
Speaker 1: intelligence agency was planning an exercise last September eleven in
Speaker 1: which an air and aircraft would crash into one of
Speaker 1: its buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism. It was to
Speaker 1: be a simulated accident. Mm hmmm. It's again weirdly specific, right,
Speaker 1: depending on your perspective, and it guess to be fair,
Speaker 1: we have to admit that a lot of those kind
Speaker 1: of exercises don't make the news when the thing they're
Speaker 1: preparing for doesn't occur. Right. It's it's kind of linking
Speaker 1: the it's putting the red string between the dots based
Speaker 1: on timeline, you know. Um. But still as creepy as
Speaker 1: it sounds and as messed up as its hound, it's
Speaker 1: honestly better than the alternative of not being prepared. Not
Speaker 1: to sound too like eagle scout about it, but imagine
Speaker 1: how much worse some of those things would be if
Speaker 1: something happened and nobody in the government had any idea
Speaker 1: or had never thought about that. It was just they
Speaker 1: just said, oh, well, we didn't plan on satellites coming down.
Speaker 1: We just thought they stayed up there are bad Sorry. Uh,
Speaker 1: but like that, that kind of stuff can happen. And
Speaker 1: then also, gosh, this is the coffee talking here. Also
Speaker 1: we have to consider that it's not outside of the
Speaker 1: realm of possibility that some shady stuff occurs and is
Speaker 1: called an exercise. That's why when geopolitical tensions get above
Speaker 1: a certain threshold, you hear these uh stories that make
Speaker 1: the news where it's like, oh, the US is conducting
Speaker 1: exercises outside of so and so country just over the border,
Speaker 1: or you know, China is conducting what it calls military
Speaker 1: exercises in insert disputed area of the sea. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like, I think maybe governments play a
Speaker 1: little bit fast and loose with the term exercise sometimes,
Speaker 1: according to the coincidence, American Airlines Flight seventies seven, the
Speaker 1: Boeing seven sixty seven that was hijacked and crashed into
Speaker 1: the Pentagon, took off from Dullus at eight ten am
Speaker 1: on September eleven, fifty minutes before the exercise was to begin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the exercise was from the National Reconnaissance Office, and it
Speaker 1: was in the Pentagon, was being run from the Pentagon. Okay, guys,
Speaker 1: it's fine, everything's fine, all right, right to us, Right
Speaker 1: to us if you can. That's it, guys, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: we need to take a break. I'm going down a
Speaker 1: rabbitable my and we have returned. This is, uh is
Speaker 1: one piece of correspondence we've received about something and a
Speaker 1: lot of our fellow listeners found interesting, fascinating, and a
Speaker 1: little bit disturbing. This conspiracy realist has asked that we
Speaker 1: do keep their identity anonymous, and we're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about this. We'll share this correspondence, throw the
Speaker 1: ball or balloon back and forth as it were, and uh,
Speaker 1: then we're I think we're going to have to do
Speaker 1: an episode on this because there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: misinformation coming out already. Here is what we received. HI
Speaker 1: love you all and the podcast. I know you will,
Speaker 1: But sooner rather than dot dot dot, can we discuss
Speaker 1: this by balloon incident? I witnessed the balloon fly by
Speaker 1: or fly over here in South Carolina and your Myrtle Beach.
Speaker 1: I witnessed the military fly around it. This was our
Speaker 1: last chance to take it down before it drifted out
Speaker 1: to sea, and we did. But what was China's goal?
Speaker 1: They must have known that we would detect it. Was
Speaker 1: it a gentle testing of the waters? Does it have
Speaker 1: anything to do with NATO country sending our tanks to Ukraine?
Speaker 1: Why would China do something so easily detectable unless it
Speaker 1: was a distraction, And and we're gonna We're gonna again
Speaker 1: keep the anonymity as best we can here. This source
Speaker 1: posted a lot of pretty great photos of the balloon
Speaker 1: from their vantage point in South Carolina. And if you
Speaker 1: look at the photos, you can see a white dot
Speaker 1: in most of them. But if you look at the
Speaker 1: one that ends with nine oh four, then you can
Speaker 1: see a little bit the undercarriage there, which is where
Speaker 1: all the goodies are, all the surveillance stuff in the basket. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the in the gondola of the point right. And
Speaker 1: so for anybody somehow doesn't know, uh. Up until about
Speaker 1: February four, there was a high altitude balloon operated by
Speaker 1: China over North American airspace and it took the tour.
Speaker 1: It went over Alaska, blew through western Canada, and like
Speaker 1: our source has got all the way to South Carolina
Speaker 1: before someone did anything. The official position of the Chinese
Speaker 1: government is metal doesn't uh. The official position of the
Speaker 1: Chinese government is that this was a civilian meteorological research
Speaker 1: airship that just got blown off horse because, as you know,
Speaker 1: with hot air balloons, even if they're really fancy high altitude,
Speaker 1: unless you put a way to steer on there, you're
Speaker 1: kind of at the mercy of the wind. Uh. This
Speaker 1: thing did ultimately get shot down off the coast of
Speaker 1: South Carolina. The US government's reasoning for waiting so long
Speaker 1: is apparently they didn't want to shoot it down over
Speaker 1: a civilized area for a number of reasons. Again, Meadow
Speaker 1: is not buying this story, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of us listening today are not buying it because he's
Speaker 1: important to be skeptical even as a dog. Yes, be
Speaker 1: skeptical in all things, except whether or not you are
Speaker 1: you are a good girl, which Meadow is. She's not
Speaker 1: a good girl. I just got that she's a villain.
Speaker 1: So here here's some of this stuff. Before we answer
Speaker 1: this specific question or attempt to answer it, post possibilities
Speaker 1: of what we can say is that it makes sense
Speaker 1: that the US would have waited till it was off
Speaker 1: of a coast to shoot it down because there would
Speaker 1: always be the likelihood that debris from the balloon could
Speaker 1: fall onto a populated area, right, which would be a
Speaker 1: pr disaster. Uh. There's also the possibility that the that
Speaker 1: the methods used to pop the balloon to bring it
Speaker 1: down could adversely affect a civilian area. So a lot
Speaker 1: of the reason for waiting really came down to safety.
Speaker 1: As we're recording today, the debris has been recovered. Well.
Speaker 1: The waiting also has to do with because this is
Speaker 1: a complex political, geopolitical move to shoot it down or not? Right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and this is the thing we're I was talking
Speaker 1: about this um list of folks I think on on
Speaker 1: Twitter or Instagram. The issue is like a lot of
Speaker 1: people got excited and it became what are pal Robert
Speaker 1: Evans called kind of a mini culture war. Right. But
Speaker 1: the thing about this high altitude surveillance craft is that
Speaker 1: a lot of governments have them, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them are legitimately just meteorological research. Like a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are experts in weather are cooperating around the
Speaker 1: world to launch these things on a regular schedule, and
Speaker 1: they want the balloons up in the air. Because they
Speaker 1: share their research, they can all learn more. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: spoiler alerte humans still are sure how world weather works
Speaker 1: know a little bit about it, right, But there's a
Speaker 1: reason that your local meteorologist is a brilliant person who
Speaker 1: can't elite predicts stuff with certitude past a certain number
Speaker 1: of dates. There's just too many variables, right, and so
Speaker 1: we need those balloons. But the idea, the other issue
Speaker 1: is for high altitude spycraft, like spy surveillance kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: if you can see it with the unaided i the
Speaker 1: way that so many people across the North American continent could,
Speaker 1: then it probably means someone screwed up, right, because you know,
Speaker 1: like the high altitude surveillance blimps that Uncle Sam is
Speaker 1: messing with, you're not gonna notice them, you really know.
Speaker 1: And I mean this was flying at a low enough
Speaker 1: altitude that like there were sightings from civilians, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this appears to be iPhone shots of the thing. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and in no shade on the fine folks of the Carolinas,
Speaker 1: but there's some pretty trigger happy folk out there. I
Speaker 1: would have thought maybe somebody, you know, would have taken
Speaker 1: a show at it themselves. I think some people did. Uh.
Speaker 1: I have one friend that I can't identify who said
Speaker 1: they were familiar with Montana and they were telling me,
Speaker 1: I know, I I know several people in Montana just
Speaker 1: had to give it literally had to give it a shot. Right.
Speaker 1: It was a long shot, but they said why not maybe?
Speaker 1: Uh And if they did the math, they would realize
Speaker 1: that the kind of firearms they have have no chance
Speaker 1: of reaching that sort of thing. That's why the US
Speaker 1: had to deploy the F twenty two Raptor to shoot
Speaker 1: it down. And the F twenty two Raptor is it's
Speaker 1: bad medicine. It's not something you want to see out
Speaker 1: in the sky. It can like wax F sixteens. It's
Speaker 1: you might even say it's it's a little bit of overkill.
Speaker 1: But they needed something that could get to that altitude.
Speaker 1: Another question people were asking, very reasonable question, is why
Speaker 1: why was it shot down? Why didn't someone just white
Speaker 1: in the US, with all its toys just try to
Speaker 1: capture it in flight? Right? The problem is the altitude
Speaker 1: is too high for something like a helicopter to humming
Speaker 1: bird over you know. Uh. And now, as we said,
Speaker 1: the US has retrieved it, and you can you can
Speaker 1: see plenty of footage of sailors picking up pieces of
Speaker 1: it out of the Atlantic. I think specifically one of
Speaker 1: them is Exclusive Ordinance Disposal Group to UM. But that's
Speaker 1: the set up here. So maybe we ask ourselves here,
Speaker 1: and let's crowdsources too. We need your help, fellow listeners.
Speaker 1: What was the balloon actually doing that a satellite could not.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. It was my understanding that it
Speaker 1: was monitoring strategic sites, you know, which is vague and
Speaker 1: don't of itself, but I believe eve it was potentially
Speaker 1: looking for military sites of weapons deployment, of long range
Speaker 1: weapons deployment. Okay, that makes and maybe satellites, you know,
Speaker 1: can capture swaths of information, but a lower flying surveillance
Speaker 1: balloon might be able to get more granular detail. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm just posing some possibilities that are crossing
Speaker 1: my mind. You know, those are really good ones, because
Speaker 1: I guess we could also say maybe maybe being closer
Speaker 1: to the ground than a satellite, it's able to bypass
Speaker 1: some kind of atmospheric interference of some sort. Possibly, UM.
Speaker 1: I mean, Matt, what do you think have you called
Speaker 1: g jim ping lately I have yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: who is he doing? How's his mom? And then Jenny
Speaker 1: I call him Jenny. Uh No, he's good, he's good
Speaker 1: doing this thing, you know. Uh A little little, a
Speaker 1: little cranky about this though, probably. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: it embarrassing more than anything, isn't it. This is just
Speaker 1: testing how we would respond to the balloon being in
Speaker 1: our airspace, and we kind of failed the test, and
Speaker 1: we shot that sucker down because now you know the
Speaker 1: messaging coming from China as well, we will now respond
Speaker 1: in kind to anything flying over our airspace. H Is
Speaker 1: that true? Yeah? Yeah, so the conversation has happened, then
Speaker 1: this is essentially that's the diplomatic response, is like okay,
Speaker 1: all right, then, well now we know what's next. You
Speaker 1: teach people how to treat you, right, Yes, I learned
Speaker 1: that from somebody one time. Jeez. Well that's someone should
Speaker 1: practice it more often, I think. But the the I
Speaker 1: just have this image of that texting with g and saying,
Speaker 1: hey man, how are you doing? Haven't talked to him?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, you know, just doing my thing, and no, no,
Speaker 1: he's all specific. I refer to it as just he's
Speaker 1: doing his thing. I see like the three dots in
Speaker 1: the chat as Matt's type says that balloon though, and
Speaker 1: then she responds La mao hashtag yollo, I love it, um.
Speaker 1: I hope that conversation is happening, and I hope we
Speaker 1: can all still get through Chinese customs. But this does
Speaker 1: seem like embarrassment. But also again, people aren't publicly confirming
Speaker 1: other than the Chinese government. People aren't publicly confirming what
Speaker 1: this would have been doing up there. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you raise some excellent points. Also, the satellite thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the first stumbling blocks on the
Speaker 1: idea of surveillance here. Um. But we do know that
Speaker 1: there was a lot of misinformation. It got politicized very quickly,
Speaker 1: and it continues to escalate because, believe it or not, folks,
Speaker 1: this is not the first balloon of its sort that
Speaker 1: has made it over the US border. According to a
Speaker 1: couple of recent interviews, this has happened four times total.
Speaker 1: The one that occurred just recently was the fourth one.
Speaker 1: It's happened at least three times during the previous presidential administration,
Speaker 1: and the US General confirmed that the intelligence and security
Speaker 1: community did not know about those three as they were
Speaker 1: taking place, and they only put together the pieces after
Speaker 1: the fact. They call it a domain awareness gap because
Speaker 1: governments loved terms like that. So there's a domain awareness gap. Uh.
Speaker 1: And even people in the intelligence community, at least when
Speaker 1: they're speaking publicly, seem a little bit baffled by this.
Speaker 1: They're saying things like, Okay, we know that China has
Speaker 1: you know, first in class espionage capabilities, So why is
Speaker 1: this so clumsy and clunky? They knew it would be detected.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is kind of like you know, a faint
Speaker 1: like in fencing, right or in basketball. You want to
Speaker 1: see how the other party reacts. So maybe this is
Speaker 1: a way to learn more about how the US controls
Speaker 1: or monitors its airspace. Maybe this is a good way
Speaker 1: to I mean, look, if they have a live feed
Speaker 1: on that bad boy when the when the F twenty
Speaker 1: two came up, then they learned a lot about the
Speaker 1: F twenty two, right, So so maybe that is worth
Speaker 1: one busted balloon. But when we're talking about escalation, I
Speaker 1: want to shout out three journalists at the New York
Speaker 1: Times who just published this very recently today as we
Speaker 1: record February Julianne Barnes, Edward Wong, and Helene Cooper. They
Speaker 1: have verified that the government of China is sending spy
Speaker 1: balloons over military sites, not just across the US, but
Speaker 1: across the planet. And here's where I think we get
Speaker 1: our answer. Because they're closer to Earth, it's easier for
Speaker 1: them to evade conventional radar. So maybe there's this Goldilock zone.
Speaker 1: We're not altitude oologists, we're not experts on how high
Speaker 1: or low things should be. But maybe there's this kind
Speaker 1: of balancing act you have to play between staying low
Speaker 1: enough to evade radar, but staying high enough that people
Speaker 1: on the ground won't say, oh, holy smokes, that's not
Speaker 1: the Goodyear blimp. You know, yeah, hang on um. So
Speaker 1: maybe this is a practice run. Maybe like Cosmos two nine,
Speaker 1: the Russian spy satellite we talked about earlier this week.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is all about gathering data for are some
Speaker 1: operation in the future. We're just not clear on what
Speaker 1: that operation might be, what the motivations might be. But
Speaker 1: we appreciate this letter, Anonymous. I think we are going
Speaker 1: to do a full episode about this, because the one
Speaker 1: certitude we have is that there's going to be more
Speaker 1: stuff like this or based on it. On the way.
Speaker 1: Speaking of on the way, we're going to pause for
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors, Big Balloon, and we'll be
Speaker 1: back with more messages from you. Guys were back. But
Speaker 1: I just want to ask, what would happen if you
Speaker 1: had a balloon that was that deep blue color of
Speaker 1: the sky, like straight up sky blue. Okay, that's the
Speaker 1: color of the balloon itself, and the all of the components,
Speaker 1: everything on there is painted that same sky blue color.
Speaker 1: Do you think it could be completely hidden up there
Speaker 1: in the sky. We've talked about that with like dazzle
Speaker 1: camouflage and some of the preported purported uses of glitter
Speaker 1: even for camouflaging ships on the horizon line and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So I'm wondering if there might be some
Speaker 1: sort of reflective quality that might even do the job
Speaker 1: better than a than a sky blue paint job. Oh,
Speaker 1: vanta black. Vanta black is like the darkest thing. It
Speaker 1: swallows almost all visible light, so much so that it
Speaker 1: doesn't reflect. So you could maybe paint something vanta black
Speaker 1: and put it up and it would look blue. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. It's a good question. It's
Speaker 1: a great questions, Matt uh, and I have another great question,
Speaker 1: uh from a listener. Call me Bobo. Well, I ever,
Speaker 1: that's a great name and fun to say. So what
Speaker 1: I used to call my grandpapa, my my, my, my
Speaker 1: nana and Bobo now that's from better call salt. But
Speaker 1: Bobo is this great question? Listen to the opening of
Speaker 1: The Skeptic Part two episode. I thought you were going
Speaker 1: to bring up an idea that I've been thinking about recently,
Speaker 1: but apparently we didn't quite get to it. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna get to it today, Um, with some nudging from Bobo.
Speaker 1: Is politics a new religion? People seem to identify with
Speaker 1: one side of the other so strongly that zella seems
Speaker 1: an apt word to describe them. Could future historians in
Speaker 1: a thousand years look at this time in American culture
Speaker 1: and interpret our politicians as gods? I doubt you'd get
Speaker 1: an episode out of it. You'd be surprised, Bobo, but
Speaker 1: it may leave you and your friends to some interesting conversations. Okay, Bobo,
Speaker 1: we uh, we see you and uh and we raise you. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't raise you. We're just gonna meet you right
Speaker 1: where you are. We doesn't have to be a game
Speaker 1: of one upsmanship. No. We we certainly talked about this
Speaker 1: all the time. We have an episode that may have
Speaker 1: just hit or at least a classic episode about the
Speaker 1: idea of money being a new religion. We've talked about
Speaker 1: sports being treated as religion. Um And throughout history we
Speaker 1: see examples of whether you know, politicians are kind of
Speaker 1: our modern stand ins for gods in certain sense, and
Speaker 1: definitely people like celebrities and sports figures and the concept
Speaker 1: of money and capitalism itself. Um. So, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: a thousand years it would have to like there would
Speaker 1: have had to be some apocalyptic event where there would
Speaker 1: be you know, all human knowledge was kind of wiped away,
Speaker 1: so there would be very little like context. They'd have
Speaker 1: to be viewing this almost like cold right. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: that's that's the way I'm I'm interpreting it, like some
Speaker 1: sort of apocalyptic event that may be wiped out you know,
Speaker 1: the record, you know, of of all of this evolution
Speaker 1: that led us to be in the situation we're in,
Speaker 1: with these politicians wielding so much power and commanding such
Speaker 1: kind of cult like uh zelotry, you know, on on
Speaker 1: one side or the other. But um, I think the
Speaker 1: answer would would likely be yes. You know who is
Speaker 1: this resident? Is he like the king of the gods?
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about the way uh, politics
Speaker 1: is laid out in America anyway, there's a hierarchy that's
Speaker 1: very similar to what you would see in pantheons of gods,
Speaker 1: you know, in ancient Greek culture or Roman culture, where
Speaker 1: you have kind of the head honcho and your zeus
Speaker 1: you know, or whomever that the top dog might be,
Speaker 1: and then you have your lesser gods and gods that
Speaker 1: represent certain facets of society, you know, like uh, the
Speaker 1: god of the forge or you know, the God of
Speaker 1: the hearth, Goddess of the hearth or whatever. In our situation,
Speaker 1: we have the head of Agriculture and the Department of
Speaker 1: Agriculture and stuff like that. So I think this is
Speaker 1: a very interesting conversation, um, and not to mention the
Speaker 1: whole side conversation of how religion is such a huge
Speaker 1: part of politics and how that is one of the
Speaker 1: biggest guiding forces as to which side folks ultimately choose.
Speaker 1: I yield my time, please, Uh. We may break, but
Speaker 1: we will not. Then we will not yield very brittle,
Speaker 1: but we don't bend very often, so brittle bro Anyway,
Speaker 1: the these are excellent points, because I'd like to take
Speaker 1: it a little bit further, Bobo, and pose it to
Speaker 1: you that religion is the first form of politics, ultimately,
Speaker 1: like the first form of an organized political body. You know,
Speaker 1: from quite some time the majority of human history, religion
Speaker 1: and affairs of the state were inseparable, right, That's where
Speaker 1: we get divine rights of a monarchy, the absolute rule
Speaker 1: of an emperor. And furthermore, if we consider those historical
Speaker 1: state leaders and in sort of the context of their time,
Speaker 1: if we consider them the way that people are supposed
Speaker 1: to consider them during their heyday, then yes, they are
Speaker 1: religious figures. And if we fast forward to the modern
Speaker 1: and we look back at a bunch of older nations,
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe we dunked on China a little
Speaker 1: bit in this week's Listener Male segment. So here's a
Speaker 1: nice thing about China. Uh it is such an ancient
Speaker 1: civilization that, if you go back far enough, their emperors,
Speaker 1: their politicians, if you will, are considered mythological uh demi
Speaker 1: god like figures and taken as such seriously. This this
Speaker 1: to me is kind of a fingers on a hand situation.
Speaker 1: It's an inversion, right, because politics as a genre of
Speaker 1: religion has now become something that most people in the
Speaker 1: modern day think of in the opposite way. They say,
Speaker 1: let's keep religion out of politics. But religion created or
Speaker 1: became the framework for early politics. So I would say
Speaker 1: it has already been a religion, and there's a total
Speaker 1: backlash to the concept of taking religion out of politics.
Speaker 1: You have one side that maybe is all about separating
Speaker 1: church and state, which is you know, in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: But then you have another side that is really always pushing, pushing,
Speaker 1: pushing to get God back in the classroom, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and have certain um political committees start with,
Speaker 1: you know, saying what the Pledge of allegiance, which includes
Speaker 1: one nation under God. So there are all these kind
Speaker 1: of contradictions within that. But that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: Then it's it's it's uh ironic, is it? Like a
Speaker 1: lot of more sets version of ira forget Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: used so incorrectly so often, But I think maybe it
Speaker 1: is that what beget politics as we know it is religion,
Speaker 1: and it was sort of a way of you know,
Speaker 1: codifying things that once relied on religious deities, you know,
Speaker 1: with mortals, so we can actually have an impact. And
Speaker 1: you know, we can't exactly control the weather, the seasons,
Speaker 1: there are things that we can do to predictably, you know,
Speaker 1: survive without having to worry about whether the gods are
Speaker 1: mad at us or not. Yeah, and uh, a couple
Speaker 1: of other things to think about in this regard the
Speaker 1: lord's spiritual of Parliament in the United Kingdom, they serve
Speaker 1: in the House of Lords. Their qualification is not their politics.
Speaker 1: It's that they are bishops in the Church of England.
Speaker 1: And it's been that way for a while. So that
Speaker 1: religious aspect again, we see the legacy of how religion
Speaker 1: creates politics. And we've said it in the past multiple times.
Speaker 1: But just and this is just my opinion, quick and dirty.
Speaker 1: What I see is the social evolution of the human species.
Speaker 1: You start with the family. That's the first group that
Speaker 1: hangs together, that becomes the tribe. They are a bunch
Speaker 1: of families that are kind of interrelated, hopefully not too
Speaker 1: inter related, not to habsburg E about it. And then
Speaker 1: that evolves into the church. Right then the church says, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know we're not all related, but we all agree
Speaker 1: on this same belief and that's why we're together. And
Speaker 1: then from the church comes the state. That's the politics,
Speaker 1: the body politic, and that says, Okay, I know we
Speaker 1: aren't all related, and I know we don't all believe
Speaker 1: the same things, but we all live in the same place,
Speaker 1: and therefore we can agree that our interest aligned. And
Speaker 1: from there the part where humanity is now we see
Speaker 1: the rise of the corporation, right, the technocracy, the neo feudalism,
Speaker 1: which is on the way, which you could argue is
Speaker 1: more the worshiped deity than religion even you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like that's really more of interest if we're
Speaker 1: being honest about it too. Politicians on either side, then
Speaker 1: which which church you go to or which God's you worship?
Speaker 1: You know. But big scale war often is a result
Speaker 1: of of of the logical differences you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of um you know, our relationship with the Middle East,
Speaker 1: and and in certain more extreme sets you know that
Speaker 1: that are associated with perhaps Islam or whatever it might be,
Speaker 1: that is at its heart a religious difference there that's
Speaker 1: causing a lot of those problems. If there's been sure
Speaker 1: there's other things wrapped up in it, but at a
Speaker 1: certain level of of hard line. That's what's most important.
Speaker 1: M The following might be offensive to some people who
Speaker 1: are very closest, but again, this is just the the
Speaker 1: objective consensus that we see throughout history. Most wars and
Speaker 1: conflicts seem to be based on control of resources and
Speaker 1: framed through any number of ways. My God says this
Speaker 1: water is mine and is supposed to be mine, and
Speaker 1: you are wrong for disagreeing with and you don't follow
Speaker 1: my religion, therefore it's bad. And so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of almost like ancient versions of pr but it comes
Speaker 1: down to the resources. And that's not to say, you
Speaker 1: know that people don't believe wholeheartedly that there are theological
Speaker 1: doctrinal reasons for their conflicts. It's just historically what we
Speaker 1: see happen in conflicts when they end is a balance
Speaker 1: of resources. They move somewhere, there's an exchange. War is transaction,
Speaker 1: as are most things. Um, I don't know this is
Speaker 1: so this is so fascinating because you know what this
Speaker 1: makes me think, Well, Matt Bobo, if what we're saying
Speaker 1: lines up, and we may be wrong because this is
Speaker 1: an abstract conversation, then is it not possible that anything
Speaker 1: could be mad lived in for what we call religion.
Speaker 1: Like if someone if someone really really loves Star Wars, right,
Speaker 1: you could claim that, or you could claim like the
Speaker 1: Jedi belief system is your religion. If you really, if
Speaker 1: you really love a certain band in somebody's mind, could
Speaker 1: that religion. Yeah, I mean fandom at a certain level
Speaker 1: is a stand in for religion. And I mean you
Speaker 1: don't go to church. You go to cons you know,
Speaker 1: to worship at the altar of Star Wars or Disney
Speaker 1: or the Marvel Universe or whatever, which is all now
Speaker 1: owned by one company, which is funny. Yeah, the altar
Speaker 1: of the mouse. Yeah. I don't know if this will
Speaker 1: make it to YouTube, but this is what we do.
Speaker 1: We hail the mouse to make the ears right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta work on it. We got, you know, district yourself.
Speaker 1: But that's a great point about fandom too, And and
Speaker 1: maybe I think maybe what makes it different in this
Speaker 1: case to Bobo's question, is when you have politics being
Speaker 1: treated like religion, with all the tribalism, all the doctrinal stuff,
Speaker 1: then you end up in a place where you make
Speaker 1: real world decisions based on matters of faith and belief.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean than hard facts. I just
Speaker 1: googled prostrate to make sure that I was using it correctly,
Speaker 1: and I was. But all I'm getting our pictures of
Speaker 1: prostates as though people who are searching for prostates just
Speaker 1: misspell it so often. Get your prostate checked. Okay, it's important,
Speaker 1: but also prostrate yourself to the god so you don't
Speaker 1: get prostate cancer. Web m d says, we have prostrate cancer.
Speaker 1: Prostrate is when you basically get down on all man
Speaker 1: hands and knees. Right, yeah, well I think it's really
Speaker 1: on the ground, face down and then doing the ears
Speaker 1: the Micky years, thou shalt not look upon my mouse. Sorry, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is this is important stuff. We're half choking because
Speaker 1: it is so absurd, and it's exactly the kinds of
Speaker 1: things you see in works of fiction like Gulliver's Travels,
Speaker 1: you know, or ur and the way that religion and
Speaker 1: politics kind of intersect and become bastardized, and what once
Speaker 1: was sort of a functional thing to kind of get
Speaker 1: a job done sort of balloons out of control and
Speaker 1: takes on a bizarro life of its own and then
Speaker 1: floats over South Carolina and then and then you know,
Speaker 1: Jimbo and the trailer park has got to shoot it
Speaker 1: down with his forty odd six. Is that a thing?
Speaker 1: That's the type of gun? Right? I got close enough
Speaker 1: the other day been in an episode you referred to
Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau as or you you warned everyone against viewing
Speaker 1: Justin Trudeau as a golden calf right and as a
Speaker 1: thing of worship, a thing to be treated as in
Speaker 1: an idol or something that would save you. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: I thought that was really interesting that we just talked
Speaker 1: about that. Well, yeah, we have to remember that up
Speaker 1: to now, every politician that we can prove existed, whatever
Speaker 1: political system we're talking about, they have all been human.
Speaker 1: The ones that we can prove existed have all been
Speaker 1: human in positions of power. Is that going to be
Speaker 1: the case for the rest of our lives? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're you know, I'd like to see chat
Speaker 1: GPT tackle a state of the Union. That might be fun.
Speaker 1: I wonder what what place the psychological drive we call
Speaker 1: religion has going forward, you know, and and for many people,
Speaker 1: many many people, uh religious or spiritual beliefs are you know,
Speaker 1: at the core of your identity, and so we if
Speaker 1: we talk about removing religion from politics and is a problem.
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer for it. I don't know
Speaker 1: if anyone does. If you talk about removing religion from politics,
Speaker 1: then how do we square with the humanity of people
Speaker 1: in politics, people who have spiritual beliefs? You, I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't tell somebody or I guess you shouldn't tell
Speaker 1: somebody that, hey, based on where you go once or
Speaker 1: twice a week and what you believe, like your specific
Speaker 1: rules about how to be nice to people and how
Speaker 1: to be decent. Based on that, you can't have this job.
Speaker 1: Is removing religion or the existence of something like religion
Speaker 1: from politics. Is that too close to removing humanity from politics?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Ice coman. No. No, that's the problem
Speaker 1: with politics. It is sort of inherently inhumane because of
Speaker 1: all of the rigamarole and all of the bureaucracy. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really think about people as much as much as
Speaker 1: it does processes, you know, and larger. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you the job of the politicians to sort of sell
Speaker 1: you a line about no, no, it's all about the people,
Speaker 1: and we're here to affect change. But then when the
Speaker 1: rubber actually hits the road. Uh, you really have to
Speaker 1: kind of dig pretty deep to justify that you've actually
Speaker 1: done that, you know what I mean, because it really
Speaker 1: ultimately is about things that don't really have to do
Speaker 1: with people at all. They have to do with money
Speaker 1: and corporations and war, which I guess you know, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you could argue that the
Speaker 1: point of government is to protect people, you know, to
Speaker 1: protect people from foreign invaders and to make sure that
Speaker 1: people ultimately can survive. But there's a drift, there's a
Speaker 1: mission creep, as you like to say, Ben over time,
Speaker 1: where the people become much less the focus. I think
Speaker 1: the solution is clear now that we're we're entering the
Speaker 1: parliamentary procedure part of stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: fellow conspiracy realists as well. I motion that we all
Speaker 1: vote for code named Doc Holiday to be in charge
Speaker 1: of politics. Sure, just the idea politics, Yeah, just the idea.
Speaker 1: Let's have some let's outsource it and even swimming, even
Speaker 1: the REX, all the rec centers and everything. That's a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the new religions. Are you Sony, Microsoft? Are you PC?
Speaker 1: Are you a Nintendo? Which virtual environment do you live
Speaker 1: in and God do you worship? Now I'm turning against myself.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to issue an objection to
Speaker 1: my earlier statement because we all know that Doc Holiday
Speaker 1: is an Xbox supporter, uh and therefore is biased against
Speaker 1: the people of Sody. I'm on TPS, I'm on Team PlayStation,
Speaker 1: have been my whole life. Honestly, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what an Xbox looks like. Then, how are you going
Speaker 1: to be represented in this government? Exactly? It looks like
Speaker 1: a box. It's kind of rectangular. Do you have an
Speaker 1: X on it somewhere? Huh? Okay, cool, I've got imagination, fellas,
Speaker 1: I can, I can, I can use the context clues. Uh.
Speaker 1: Misplay video games with you guys? Um we should we
Speaker 1: should get on that soon? Or do you want to
Speaker 1: go bowling at some point? It'll be great if you're
Speaker 1: ever feeling about that. Yeah, everybody, if you're ever feeling
Speaker 1: bad and you happen to be in Atlanta, you can
Speaker 1: always go bowling with us and or me specifically, because
Speaker 1: I used the little gutter blockers like a child. I
Speaker 1: would love it. I might need him. I have the
Speaker 1: opposite of nominative determinism. I am terrible at bowling. It's like,
Speaker 1: if I'm ever good at bowling, I'm accidentally good. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like how I'm accidentally good at darts, Like
Speaker 1: I'm only good at darts if I have no concept
Speaker 1: of what the rules are of the game, then I
Speaker 1: just kind of somehow magically, you know, rain Man my
Speaker 1: way into dart supremacy. But yeah, same with bowling. At
Speaker 1: the moment I start to care or try to use
Speaker 1: correct form, it all goes out the window. Yeah. Oh
Speaker 1: and uh, Doc Holidays, actually is that true? Doc? You
Speaker 1: just got a new bowling ball. Always one step ahead
Speaker 1: of us, tell you what? Man also shout out shout
Speaker 1: out to everybody who is actually good at bowling. Sounds
Speaker 1: like Doc is uh shout out, of course to our
Speaker 1: good friend of the show, Pam Peacock, who has started
Speaker 1: a Star Trek themed bowling league. I was going to
Speaker 1: join it, but unfortunately travel out of the way. Thank
Speaker 1: you to bo Bo, Thank you to anonymous, Thank you
Speaker 1: to A. G. W Right. Is that the moniker we're
Speaker 1: going about? That? So what what do we tell people? Uh?
Speaker 1: If they want to join up with stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know and become part of the show.
Speaker 1: How do they how do they do it? Do they
Speaker 1: have to run in an election? No? Just prostrating yourself,
Speaker 1: prostrating your prostrate. Not castrate, sorry, castrate yourselves and send
Speaker 1: us your severed genitalis to j. You can however, find
Speaker 1: us on Facebook, on YouTube, and on Twitter at Conspiracy
Speaker 1: Stuff On Facebook, we do still have a Facebook group
Speaker 1: where people you know bandy about conversation around the episodes.
Speaker 1: We also have a book you can buy in textual
Speaker 1: form with wonderful illustrations by the homie Admiral Turbo Nick Benson.
Speaker 1: And you should also check out on Instagram. He's selling
Speaker 1: some prints I think still that are amazing prints of
Speaker 1: some of his art that he did for the Stuff
Speaker 1: That It Wants You to Know book, So check that
Speaker 1: out on his Instagram. His link in the bio goes
Speaker 1: to his website which has all of his amazing work
Speaker 1: right that you can buy for yourself. Uh. You can
Speaker 1: also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Conspiracy Stuff Show.
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