Listener Mail: Havana Syndrome Backpacks, Tankers, "College Board" and More

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now, or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Met. My name is Noah. They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee Pale Fagant. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It is the return of our weekly listener mail segment. And folks, we couldn't be more pleased to answer a lot of the emails that came through. Over the break, you reached out to us on voicemail. You reached out to us on social meds. Tennessee, we love the Knoxville out of you. You've just got to do it for the people. Can you give us that rude abaker? This is considering all the things. I'm your host, Pepper Pelican Schmidt. Our guest today is Jan Wormuth, professor of astrophysics at Granceston State. Professor Wormuth has shocked the world with his discovery that not only is an asteroid going to our planet, but it is actually a rude abaker. Thank you for being here, professor. Thank you. It's a breath of fresh air to be taken seriously. Now, is there anything we can do about this? This is a large and complex issue, but the stakes have never been higher for humanity. We have our brightest minds at work day and night trying to find a solution. Does that include Driller AJ Frost? I'm sorry, I'm unfamiliar. Well, AJ encountered something similar in 1998. It was an asteroid the size of Texas. Along with his mentor Harry Stamper and a man only known as Rockhound, they were able to set off a nuclear bomb inside of the asteroid. Are you recounting the plot of the movie Armageddon? Was that not a documentary? Oh man, I had my air assistant Rudy compile these notes. Sorry, let me dig through these again. Oh god. You got to dig through those Rudy bacon notes. The man, the legend, the Tennessee pal Dylan Fagan. Dylan, can you give yourself in applause, you right here? Because I know. Don't do it. Don't give yourself applause. Don't let Matt Nackew. Never, never do that. So I can't help but remember the DVD commentary that Ben Affleck did on the DVD release of Armageddon. Where he kind of poo poo's the plot of the whole movie. And I recently saw a deadline article where he is shocked that they let him do that. He says, I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become world drillers. And he told me to shut the fuck up. Because now we're doing here Matt. With the program. Whichever one you are. And thanks for the, uh, thanks for the beef there, Dylan. Guys, we are so excited and so thankful to be hanging out with all of you this evening. Now we've got a lot of what Lou Cole family time coming up in tonight's listener mail program. We've got some folks who want to talk about water. We've got some folks who want to talk about pizza, one of our favorite subjects. It's a pizza is like. Just on the cusp of becoming a quesadilla. Yeah, I feel like it should be one of the elements that are spoken for in Captain planet. Right. The character in Captain planet. Yeah. Earth, fire, air, water, heart. And then you should have pizza. You should have. Don't forget wind. Well, there's wind. There was something on the way. Really air. Yeah. What's going on, Matt? You're having some, uh, so there was some cell phone anomalies. Oh, no, it's still happening right now. I'm sure there are a lot of people who went through this on, well, today it is Wednesday, January 14th at 230 PM ET. And my cell phone has been down at least for the service that is supposed to get. Oh, like several hours now. Not down in a cool way. Not like I want to be down to clown, but. Oh, man. It is down with O.P.S. other people's services. And with SOS. Yeah, it is. It has an SOS instead of bars, so. And then if you go on down detector, it shows that. Which by the way, I was not familiar with this website until you sent it in the group tech. So if anyone out there doesn't know what he's talking about. This is a site that tracks outages in various web services and cell providers all over the world, right? Metaanalysis. Yeah. It's powered by Uclav. The same people that if you ever just type into Google speed test, you will find their speed test. It's usually sponsored. But yeah, it was Verizon T-Mobile AT&T, Xfinity, Google, AWS, and Apple support. We're all down kind of at the same time with the same spike. And it made us all just go. Huh? It's happening. We post call recording 15 whole minutes just to make sure the world is. Yeah. But here we are. Yeah. And here we are. And it is January 14th. It is now 231 p.m. Local. ET. And we're going to talk about tankers. We appreciate the correspondence there. We're going to have a lot of like several cool letters from home. We're going to talk about institutional. Conspiracies. This is one for all our college students in the crowd. So we're going to talk about former current and future. And before we get to any of that, we're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. And no, I have to tell you, man, I'm very excited about this. When we were talking off air, I use some inappropriate language. Like a room talk about how I need our pal, Jack O'Brien from Daily Zeiggeist to hear this piece of news. Hopefully he's tuned in. Oh, yeah. I bet he is. This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human. What if mine control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind games. A new podcast exploring NLP. AKA neuro-linguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to mind games on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news, body bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network. I heart open your free I heart app and search body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening. Babes, what are you doing? What? I'm just mowing the lawn. No, it's blazing hot and dry out here. Don't you remember Smokey Bear says. Avoid using power equipment when it's windy or dry. Where do you learn this? Oh, it's on smokeybear.com with many other wildfire prevention tips. Right. Thanks, honey bear. Because remember, only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your State Forester and the Ad Council. You know, we always say new year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey, everybody. It's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season, whole and empowered. New year, real you. Listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And yeah, let's take a little trip courtesy of our listener, SC. I'm not going to drop real names because they did not give permission to use their name or give them self a cool nickname, Tisk, Tisk. But basically just dropped us a link to a very interesting piece over on CNN and they summed it up thusly. DHS Department of Homeland Security purportedly bought the device that is thought to be the source of Havana Syndrome. And I think we all clocked some version of this piece, but the CNN piece that was updated as of yesterday, written jointly by Katie Bo Lillist, Natasha Bertrand, Priscilla Alvarez, Jim Skluto, and Zachary Cohen, headlined Pentagon, bought device through undercover operation. Some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome. I feel like this might be worth further exploration and update because I also have another bit of correspondence regarding an unusual syndrome. But essentially, let's just kind of give get into the gist of the article here. The Defense Department has been testing a device that they purchased in an undercover operation that other outside investigators seem to think might have been the cause of these mysterious ailments impacting US spies and diplomats. And ground troops that have collectively been referred to as Havana Syndrome or colloquially is the word they use there. But it is kind of a, that was the problem. When we've talked about this, we talked about it with Jack. It's really hard to pin down something that doesn't have a through line or like common symptoms. And there were a lot of varying symptoms that were associated with this history, this time in history and this place, which is, of course, Havana. And so we've kind of catch all terms of a Havana syndrome has been the one that's been thrown around a division of the Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security investigations is the agency that bought the device for believe eight figures is the term that they use declining inside sources, speaking to these reporters, declined to give further details about the number. So you know what we have. It's right. That's right. I mean, you believe it. It's apparently still being studied and there is ongoing debates in certain areas of the government, as well as skepticism over the potential link to these dozens of, again, anomalous health incidents that to this day remain officially unexplained and yet lumped in to this concept of Havana syndrome. CNN spoke to the Pentagon, HSI and DHS for comment, the CIA did not return. That's another. What? No way. Like a surprise. So the device acquired by Homeland Security investigations, it matches some of the theories that we've seen thrown around about Savannah, Savannah syndrome, this idea of radio waves, this idea of like the kinds of an escalation of weapons of for use for crowd control that we're all aware that exist. This idea of sonic weapons that can cause people to drop their knees and not be able to think straight. It's these like weaponized very, very focused beams of sound or radio waves in this case. There are some officials CNN says in academics that have speculated this could this kind of thing could well have been the cause of these incidents. And this device while not entirely originating from Russia does contain many Russian components according to one of the sources for this piece. So we have talked about guys and I'll throw to the group here. The idea of based on what we know about these types of sonic weapons or radio weaponized with radio waves. The big issue was how could it affect people from such distances. Is it a big crux of the argument or the question around how could a thing like this that we don't currently have evidence is technologically possible. How could that exist and how could this have caused that it would seem that this is the kind of stuff they don't want you to know in terms of government weaponry that maybe is being tested but that it's not made its way out into the public sphere yet. A lot of theories behind various UPAs and such often you know linked to testing of vehicles that maybe again the public is not entirely aware of this tracks for me guys. What do you think? Yeah I think the two biggest takeaways for me about this are that one they've been testing it for over a year right so these officials have been they first of all they learned about it well over a year right because they they ran some whole undercover operation to even acquire the thing which takes time. Then they've had it for over a year they've been testing it for that years long time they've realized that it uses pulse radio signals to deliver some of the same sensations it looks like or feelings or you know stuff that would be audible and also not audible that's affecting a human body with directed energy of some sort in this case post radio waves. And some of these symptoms including things like vertigo and headaches and nausea and then some things that even you know held on much longer not just the immediate aftermath of being hit by something like this. Exactly the thing number two is that this this device is portable it fits in a backpack right which means anybody could strap on their backpack and walk around wherever they're going to be they could go into a car with the backpack with them they could be in a crowded space. It would be very difficult to identify someone who is taking this device somewhere to place it somewhere right and then even looking for device you we heard for a while. It was officials looking on rooftops for a device large enough that would be powerful enough to caught to have these directed energy weapon effects right. In this case to to be diplomatic sc this goes to Nol's earlier points from our conversation or our episodes about Havana syndrome. The idea of dispersing versus concentrating over the over space right it's quite difficult and I think maybe the version of things that we pictured and that was being discussed was almost like a sniper. Kind of situation someone like pointing this and focusing it whether as this is more like a device that might disrupt you know like area or whatever you know what I mean like some sort of device that you place and then it just does its thing and you leave it that seems a little more like what this is like AOE. But we don't have enough information because we don't know if it is directed or if it is AOE that we just don't know right they're not. The public does not know yeah it does seem like something that would have if it is the device responsible for Havana syndrome reports it would have to be somewhat directed. That's true because it was specific like buildings where people were reporting specific right. That's right. Yeah this is also loosely called internally anomalous health incidents or AHI's in Havana syndrome is great for a headline right because it accuses or villainizes. Cuba and as we discussed in our previous episodes or previous strange news listener male programs SC. Look the science is still not out there but to your point and thank you again for writing. It is curious right it's a little bit curious that Uncle Sam would capture device publicize the capture after experimenting with it a little bit. It's a what is this not a leak or did they actually release information about this or is this not like something maybe they didn't mean to get out quite yet. I think the leaks are controlled sometimes they want people to know calls are coming from inside the house. So the big takeaway here is that we do know is that based on the way HSI purchased this device it would seem as though it could have been purchased by any other numerous other countries and potential bad actors. So you know this thing whatever is is probably out in the wind and has the potential to be weaponized to inflict what the CNN piece refers to as career ending injuries on high level individuals within government within military within the echelons of power. Interestingly enough guys Homeland Security investigations HSI they have you go to their website they are that group that is Department of Homeland Security that is highly involved with immigration enforcement in the United States and directly tied to ice. Which is just a fun thing to remember. It's cool to remember stuff for sure you got you got her yeah remember I'll wrap this this segment because I do think we can we can look deeper into this as maybe more information comes out and I don't it's not quite clear from this piece as to whether this was like public like a press release. I don't I feel like it's it's it's like four acres yeah okay there you go thank you very much been appreciate that miss that detail but again to your point then one person's leak is another person's press release if you do it right. You know if you're if you're in control of it but the big takeaway here is comes from a quote from an individual that was afflicted by the. Savannah syndrome one of the first CIA officers to go public with his injuries mark Paul and Mara police who I believe we've discussed in this in the story in the past he says if the US government has indeed uncovered such devices and the CIA owes all the victims of major and public apology for how we have been treated as pariahs. And that my friends I think we can all agree with this next piece that was linked from another listener going by the bible effect is so very in depth it's almost like a 30 minute read on from the BBC that I think I'm just going to do a little summation of it mention what this is how it relates as an update to a story we talked about in strange news in the past and then we'll save this I think for a deeper dive episode but this this is from the bible effect hi guys I remember you covered this story in strange news. Some time in the past year or so story referring to a mysterious brain disease found in a pretty rural part of Canada. Interesting new twist what if the brain disease didn't exist at all and this reporting comes from the BBC. In the headline from a piece by Joel Gunter and Nadine Yousef Joel Gunter being the senior international reporter for New Brunswick there in Canada and Nadine Yousef senior Canada reporter also in New Brunswick. The answer cannot be nothing the battle over Canada's mystery brain disease. So just for a little bit of a backstory catch up refresher in the early in early 2019 officials at a hospital in the small Canadian province of New Brunswick saw two patients that had contracted this incredibly rare brain disease known as Croitsfeld Jacob disease or CJD which is can be fatal or is fatal and also potentially contagious. So this leads to a task force medical task force being assembled and you know looking into this unfortunately as a result of this the you know reportedly the disease did not spread. But this actually was just the beginning of the story one of these experts Alia Marrero a Cuban born neurologist who've been working in the area for around six years shared a fact that was quite troubling. With other members of this group or this task force he been seeing patients with unexplained CJD like symptoms for years he said and that included young people who showed signs of a rapidly progressing form of dementia and the number of cases or the cluster as they refer to in the piece. Had already reached more than 20 and several of these patients had already died and then you start to see these incredibly. I don't aim more if this is maybe the wrong word but just unconnected not particularly contiguous array as they refer to it of symptoms among the patients. Dementia weight loss unsteadiness facial twitches muscle spasms blurred vision limb pain atrophying muscles dry skin hair loss this really connect to. To have a syndrome there's so many various symptoms that don't seem to be directly connected that's when you start calling things a syndrome and it starts to feel like you know we don't really know what this is. And yet there is geographical reason to believe that they are in some way shape or form connected. We appreciate you Babel effect thank you so much for writing that yeah for sure no it's it's a big deal to have this update and I really want to dig deeper into it but like I said it is incredibly important and in depth reporting and I really really would love for us to all take a look and dig a little deeper and perhaps since we only just mentioned the condition in the first place via strange news there's more than enough here and other sources. You know cited to do a deep dive on it but that I think you had some thoughts on this as well what I just remember this really well it's almost exactly four years ago to the day January 18th. 2022 when we made that strange news episode when it came out rather and it was very much a mystery then. Cruxfield Yacob disease and I'm only saying it that way because I literally last night watched X file season to our town and I don't want to spoil too much here but it has to do with a prior pre on prior disease that is just a brain parasite right it's cool. It's it's eating cannibal it involves cannibalism and a brain disease where you eat the brain of somebody who has this thing theoretically it could transfer on that's what the X files episode is about but it is all about. CJD which is really interesting that it's coming back up right now all the sudden and that's just me doing the whole no coincidences thing but. Go back and listen to episode for sure if you haven't heard it or just check this out because guys we you're right no this deserves an entire deep dive yeah this deserves an actual episode and one of the best things about our strange news listener male segments is that they. They create for us the episodes in the future and no I I've I've got to thank you for bringing this here and Babel effect this is something that has been on our minds or in our brains for some time and it is more than worth the more than worth the attention to look into. A novelist health incidents as they are so euphemistically deemed in the name of this thing or this mystery disease is pretty wild they are referring to it as new Brunswick neurological syndrome of unknown cause sounds like an album name it really does and a lot of the details of this sound like a movie like outbreak or something like that but the. The again way too much to get into here but I did just want to broach this in the hopes that you guys were into and I'm glad you are looking into this a little bit deeper on the question then becomes again something that we can also transfer to our conversation around Havana syndrome is this just a cluster of different diseases that seem to have a connection or is there an actual connection and I think that's what these researchers are hoping to prove. The patients are real equates says with the clustering as a mystery disease is not. Right yeah is there now a powerful term or word that functions like a coat rack where you can hang any fabric of malaise upon it right and say this is the thing wow that's good now. You guys the the BBC here is reporting that several patients have reported that the doctor doctor Marrero I think is the guy who's noted in here. Has at times put his hand up when he's having a conversation with a patient say to say stop talking and then he'll go look outside a door and say I believe we're being recorded and like not like be conspiratorial about the stuff. It's an episode yeah no 100% it's got those kind of undertones to it so I think we'll definitely pick this one back up at a later dates but I just did want to bring it up and and give props to Babel syndrome before hitting us to this update. So that's it for me y'all let's take a break here a word from our sponsor then we'll be back with more messages from you. What if mind control is real if you get control of behavior of anybody around you what kind of life would you have. Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car when you look at your car you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you get someone to join your cult and LP was used on me to access my subconscious. 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We talk honestly about mental health, about healing generational wounds and about learning how to show up with more presence and care. If you want a healthier relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delarocha on America's #1 podcast network, iHeart. Follow Sacred Lessons with Mike Delarocha and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, Director of the Men's Clinic at UCLA Health and Host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January guys everywhere make the same resolutions, get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year I sat down with Dr. Steve Polter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety and emotional pain they were never taught to name. 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Listen to how to money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, we are back and we're going to jump to guys. I think we're one of the best voice meals we've gotten in a long time. Are you ready for this? Yes, I'm so stoked. No, no setup, no anything. We're just going to hear this and then we're going to get into it. Here we go. This guy's a serious ass. Just a sec. You got to stop the tankers. Trojan horse. Why would they have that Russian tanker and turn it back over to us so easily? And it's been five days since we took over. How would they just be trying to sneak another tanker out now with the Trojan horse? One of those tankers we're going to take home to our port and it's going to blow up or it's got guys on it. We're getting these shift to EC. You've got to tell somebody. I don't know who to call. I've tried to call everybody, tell somebody, blow up the tankers. Yes, call me Don Quixote. And there we have it. Wow. Thank you, Doug. Isn't that an interesting message? It's some Don Quixote was washing the news, I suppose. It sounded like you could hear it in that clip and just had it just that moment realization, right? I think that we've all had about a great number of things and then said, oh, I've got to call anybody and he called us. So thank you, Don Quixote, for putting the call into us. I see his logic there, at least in that nervousness that perhaps he's feeling that some of these tankers are being let go. Even though we know it's a delicate situation, right? Geopolitically to make any big moves there. The U.S. is certainly not having a problem making some big moves with regards to the tankers. It seems a little weird. Like, could you can you can you guys foresee or like can you imagine that picture where there ends up being a dirty bomb on one of these or even perhaps a full pledge to nuke on one of these sounds like the plot of a 90s Steven Segal movie, right? Don, I'm with you. Beep me here, Dylan. Don, I'm with you. Windmills swing at them always. Shout out to nerds who like Don Quixote. Windmills and tankers of the mind. But what do you guys think about this for real? Yeah, I'm serious. It sounds like the kind of thing that would be dramatized in like a Steven Segal thing. It's like a plot of like, how would you do this? I love some more context, but I do think it makes sense. Yeah, Don, again, just to finish this out, addressing directly your concern and thank you for sending us the voice mails here. The Trojan horse argument decays a little bit when we consider the amount of security applied in the acquisition of a tanker. So, it, look, is it good news that piracy is back in vote? Probably not. Is it bad news that the people or the forces acquiring these tankers illegally in violation of international law? Is it bad news that they check everything that is not it is not out of the realm of possibility that a some sort of bad variable could sneak past that kind of security check, but it is highly implausible at this point. Let's say what interests us here, Don, is the idea that it wasn't just oil, right? So in a couple of the tanker situations from Russia's shadow fleet, the question is the cargo, right? Which has not been largely publicized to be quite honest. That's the opinion from publicly available information, but again, Matt, I love that you brought this to us because it does. It does beg the question about the Trojan horse maneuver, which is, you know, it's old because it works. I guess I'm just I'm sorry I keep harping on this, but it just really seems like I'm surprised we haven't seen this in like a political thriller like espionage type movie, like some plot surrounding this kind of thing. And interestingly enough, guys, according to G captain, I don't know anything about the website. I couldn't find it reported anywhere else. But the tanker that we discussed on this show known as the below one or the marinara is today again on Wednesday, January 14th, currently it is 259 PM. It is in UK territorial waters and it is going to port there. If there was going to be a situation, now would be the time, right? Today as we're recording. So I guess we'll have to wait and find out. Also, what's going on? What's going on with one of the four previous bowings in the US arsenal or in the US fleet, stopping by California a few days back. And you know, just on a cursory Google of like Trojan horse terrorism things like that. There is that, you know, this is something that's discussed and debated this idea of cargo containers being used to smuggle nuclear weapons into the countries using commercial shipping vessels in a modern day Trojan horse, ask maneuver. Well, yeah, imagine if you got one of these into, you know, a major port that also has a major US city or a major UK city. Yeah, I remember when we were at the port in there in Florida, I had never been to a port like that before. And the security is very similar to like the airport, you know, I mean, it's because of how vulnerable it is. I suggest I liked when a knoll called it Savannah syndrome, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So guys, I think we will switch to one more listener mail. This one comes to us from chef Ben chef Ben constant caller of the show and. Beloved by us here, I think, right? I think as unanimous. Oh, big time. I'm super biased chef. You know why I can't comment. He comes by it, honestly, though, the admiration, I think it's not just, it's not just nominative. It always has something interesting to say interesting. There's something about a lot of experience in the hospitality industry that lends itself to either an understanding specifically of stuff that we talk about in that industry or tangentially to other industries and then understanding how they function and work. To mention that if you're in the hospitality industry, you're often privy to a lot of comings and goings of like powerful people and events and things like, I mean, you're kind of got like the inside scoop on a lot of things because people often don't they don't notice that you're paying attention. Some of the some of the most dangerous people I've met actually work in hospitality. You know what I mean though? You're kind of in situations where you're not. You're sort of background and oftentimes you will still witness things, not to mention people that work at like events in Washington DC in various places like that. It just out of curiosity without outing anybody. What type of hospitality jobs are retarking about? I think it's hotels largely out. Yeah, it's going to be it's going to be hospitality. It's going to be catering. No, it's too too on that one. You're for big old of diplomatic type of events catering. What are you talking about? Talk about a Trojan horse. Forget the tangerine suit. Get a waiter. It's also why back in the days of assassin back in the days of the Kings. You'd have a food taster. A lot of a lot of people play assassin as well. Well, not as well about 43. Right. Hitman, whatever. It's less of 47. It's more about gathering information. Always. Gosh, we're introducing one of our favorite chefs. And we still haven't gotten to his voicemail. Hey, well, let's do that right now. Here's Chef Ben. That was good morning. Chef Ben and Chicago calling back. I know I just called yesterday. I listen to a lot. Not sorry. So you're talking about tracking pizza deliveries to the Pentagon. If they are using a pizza delivery service and they're not sending staffers out to go to the pizza restaurant itself, I do know that there are a number of different pieces of software in hospitality that are integrated in such a way that it's like your point of sale ordering system. It's your credit card processor. It's your inventory system. It's your delivery mapping and scheduling device. Right. So that your deliveries are as efficient as possible. Now, having said that, I'm no hacker, which I'm aware is a very dated 90s kind of a term. But I imagine that if possible to gain access to that software, fair and viciously or otherwise, and know how pizza restaurants are scheduling their deliveries within a radius, just based on getting into whatever that software is, there's a number of different softwares and they're generally run out of like a square system, right, like out of their POS point of sale system. That could be your ticket to real time where are pieces being delivered right now and is this an uptick as I'm sure there's historical data built into that. Is this an uptick over yesterday? Is this an uptick to things in hospitality go up and down so much? Is this an uptick over a comparable day last week, right? You sell more pizza on a Friday than you do on a Tuesday. That's just pizza, pizza economics are not complicated. So yeah, you don't want to look at the day before you want to look at the same day of the week before the same day the year before that kind of thing. So yeah, that that's off where if it is hackable is probably the key to having real time data on that kind of stuff. As always go free to use this on your show. Thank you so much and glad to have you guys back. That's so cool, man, because I just couldn't wrap my head around like how are they finding this information and like it ultimately boiled down to observational calling the place going there in person, maybe looking at Google mapy type results, like like peak business times and like put traffic and stuff like that, but this is ultimately what you want. I think so the only problem is in Shephman in all of the reporting about attacks on POS systems. I've only really seen them used to gather credit card data or personal information of individuals who let's say swipe their card or tap their card on a POS system and recently happened with Jimmy John's beloved Jimmy John's. The sandwich maker. Yes, big game hunter. Well, I really loved it. Maybe I'm wrong. Is there bad? Did they get canceled? Jimmy John is a great sandwich, but I believe that dude Jimmy John is like a notorious like big game type hunter dude. Also, I just like a hot sandwich, you know, if we're paying for it, throw it, throw it in the microwave. That's heard and and background folks who everybody knows for years upon years, low these many evenings. Our office was located very close to a Jimmy John's. So we were sandwich rich. We were not financially rich free smells. Yeah, we got free smells. Yeah, there's some images of him like posing with dead elephants and rhinos and leopards and stuff that did not we're not a particularly good look back in 2015. Right. Well, dang it. Whatever you can still enjoy the sandwich, but that's the same. This story actually isn't recent. I'm sorry you guys. I took the 2014 for a 2024 when I glanced at it as I'm going through that actually happened in 2014. So that was a long time ago, just before the elephant rhino pictures. Maybe that's why those were leaked. Yeah, POS is or are not hardened devices necessarily. And to your point about happy like hacking or would you go at chef hackability hackable stuff. I love that phrase in scraping that information that credit card information. One could potentially also gather metadata. Absolutely. Well, yeah, and you can get log ins for folks who are in charge of the POS, right? If people who are logging in to actually run it during the day, somebody who who's got a shift there. And if you got that, then potentially you could get in to the inner workings of that software and actually look at as you're talking about year over year statistics and things like that. I just haven't seen. I haven't seen that be the thing. At least as nobody's reported on that being the thing, but it's a really it's really smart thinking their chef been. Chef, my question from our earlier conversations remains. And you address that a little bit in the voicemail here. What is the baseline? Right 300% increase from. You know, if someone selling one pizza and then they sell 30 right is that magnificent indicative increase how many basil leaves are we reading here also I'm going to go back on record I do think it's I do think it's a bit of theater. Obviously, like if you have the one of the biggest office buildings in the world or you have some of the most dangerous office buildings in the world. And you have a food court. Why are you ordering outside also check out the Friday traffic before you know sometimes people just get home for the holidays and they don't want to cook. I just I would caution us from putting too much. Prejudity into the idea that the world's most dangerous military can be prognosticated without its knowledge based on pizza deliveries. A fun story though a wholeheartedly agreed and it reminds me a lot of our little exploration of down detector earlier in the episode remember we're talking about that if you go to down detector right now at 3 10 PM on January 14th is showing that the spike has subsided substantially. But there was one and it felt weird right and we're just putting pieces together taking a look and thinking about what could that mean that seems odd that that would happen in tandem but ultimately it looks like it was nothing or at least an unsuccessful something right. I mean think about how many times unsuccessful some things happen every day that either get afforded by the powers that be you know we're supposed to for things like that and we just know I had a ex girlfriend who called me an unsuccessful something. There you go. I'm just saying you know there's plenty of attempts of this nature like you know and to your point mad about not having heard anything about any hacking attempts into point of sale software like this maybe they did a good job. There were lots again there were lots of lots and lots and lots for God of the past 15 years successful attacks on POS systems issues for these purposes. Yes. Well anyway that's all I've got for you today let's jump to our next break and then our next messages from you. What if mind control is real. Can you control the behavior of anybody around you what kind of life would you have. When you look at your car you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. AKA neuro linguistic programming is a blend of hypnosis linguistics and psychology fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all NLP might actually work. This is wild. A Mike Delarocha host of Sacred Lessons. If you want to help your relationship with yourself and the people you love, then Sacred Lessons is the podcast for you. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delarocha on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. New year, new goals and in this economy a better money plan is more necessary than ever. Listen to how to money on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Steve Polter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience, helping men unpack shame, anxiety and emotional pain they were never taught the name. In a powerful two-part conversation we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others. Guys are toxic, they're immature, or they've got something they just haven't resolved. Once that gets resolved then their comes efficacy as in compassion. If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to the Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts. Or wherever you get your favorite shows. And we have returned folks, we don't have a ton of time right now, but we've got to share with you a pretty awesome story that will be in episode in the future. I hope let's let's pitch it to each other. This comes from Brady. Grady says, hello, I'm a fellow conspiracy realist. I only recently started listening to the show, but I found much of what you all talk about to be incredible. I am curious if you have done any shows on shady nonprofits. Let's pause there. Incredible isn't really cool or not credible. The levels do it right all. We have talked about nonprofits in the past, right? For sure. Many a time. And check out our episodes, Grady on some of those conversations, as well as strange news and listener mail programs. Grady, you continue. You say, I am a student applying to American universities and recently did some digging into the college board nonprofit. Now that's college board all one word. I was thinking about them says, Grady, as lots of colleges are going back to requiring test, which will greatly benefit the college board again, all one word. The conspiracy side of me began to wonder if college board could potentially be donating to universities and colleges as an act of bribery. However, it's also entirely possible that schools simply aren't able to gauge students as well without these metrics. Lots of top universities have seen the number of applicants more than double in the past 10 years and these metrics could be essential. So pause there. We all had to take something like an SAT or an ACT, right? Or an LSAT. How did you guys feel about it? I always, I did it a couple of times and I did way better unverbal than on math. But that's how I couldn't tell what my score was to be honest. I think it was like 1300 or something. Nice. Yeah. I got into Georgia State University. That's all you need to know. It's great school. You can learn about it. It just means I did fine. And if you need any more information from our brother Matthew, you will have to come with a warrant and a subpoena. That's cool. My bachelor's is on the wall over there if you want more info. You got a frame. It's up on the wall. I love that. We matriculated into similar institutions. Okay. So college board. This really bugs me guys before we return to the conversation with you, Grady. We get to say like regardless of the institutionalized testing regimes, which are weirdly quasi public, quasi private. Everybody who goes to any higher education institution is gonna get absolutely reaned on textbook prices. That's a griff. Do you guys remember having to buy textbooks? Of course. And then they resell valued plummets. You got to keep them. And then they're they're going to be worth something one day. You can sell them to the Atlanta vintage books. It'll be like, oh, look at this one from 2006. Oh, it's meant. Yeah, yeah, here. Let me find one theories of personalities. Third edition, worthless now. I'm sure because the appendix changed this idea of college board is interesting because there may be an institutional conspiracy. A play the college board. What do we say about innocuous names? They develop an administer the standardized test, not just used in higher education. But in the curricula used from kindergarten to 12th grade to senior year of high school. These folks are making money hand over fist. Yeah, baby. I do. I still have a stack of mine upstairs. I was looking at them the other day. And it does feel like the ones that I've kept around could be useful or have some kind of use, you know. But I do remember. I think. Did you guys ever have to get an updated version while you were in the class? So like you had a version three or something or whatever. Yeah, I think so. And that's like an extra 65, 75, hundreds of dollars. Like it just depend on what it was. And it's got to be so. So greedy is asking us a question that a lot of people have probably thought about lightly in the past. We're going to paraphrase a little bit of this for time. But you ask us why is a US public serving nonprofit keeping so much of its profits outside of the United States? You point to this particular issue. You say I did find some interesting articles talking about how the college board apparently has anywhere from get this guys. 250 million to 1.56 billion US dollars under management in the Caribbean. So the US nonprofit that is in charge of so many standardized test. You know, they get a little bolt hole out in the islands. Is it panel law specifically down there somewhere? We'd have to look at the papers. Uh-huh. Those papers. Yeah, some they have some really nice banks down there. They've got some great banks. You know, I always think because we're all in love with the Caribbean now. Like all of us. Tennessee has been the most recently returned. But I think we could agree. You know, we were sitting out there on a boat and we all had that cool ghost busters look at the license plate moment. And we said we should start a bank if podcasting goes away. Going down the many road. That's a reference. I love. We have more to say about this. Grady has more to say about this. Grady is giving us background. Grady, you say college board underwent a regime change in 2012 when a new CEO named David Coleman stepped in and many board members left. Coleman made over two million dollars last year, which would be 2025. And most of the chief executives made upward of 500,000 US dollars. A little bit odd for a nonprofit, yeah, Gents. A lot of profit to me. And I know a profit doesn't involve like making zero money, but I know. That's just out of step with the stated goals of what a nonprofit typically should represent. Yeah, I agree with you. And on another note to dovetail that it's why we have a separate thing called not for profit. Yeah. Wait a second. Those two things are different. I think there's some slight differences in their bylaws are in there. Yeah. What's the word I'm looking for? You know, they're they're charters. There we go. It's a Venn diagram. Oh my gosh. But we got to get back to our house and say, oh, whoops. Sorry, guys. We were on a boat. It was crazy. We kind of started a thing we meant not for profit. Oh god. All right, we'll text them. Oh, Powell's coming for me. Oh, I know it. That's a different thing. No, boy, they're all related, you know, at the top. Not for profits can be things like professional groups, you know, business leagues and social clubs and stuff like that. Whereas nonprofits typically have more abilities for tax deductions and they are meant to have a bit of a like mission that benefits. You know, the greater good. Which which ones for cults? That's us. Let's just do the religion thing guys. Let's cross that Rubicon. We've been dancing around it. I think it's time, you know, I'll shave the mustache. Um, I'm going to say keep it. I mean, if it's at this point, it's it'll be like when Alex Trebek shaved his mustache and I lost all trust in the man. Now, I would never lose trust in you, but it would be jarring. I've grown to really love that little guy. It is kind of perfect man. It's great. I got a weird chin. It works out. Uh, but we'll, uh, we'll table that one. We want to go back to you, Grady, because you point out that the AP exam has gone up in price every year since 2020 to almost $100 her test. Okay. So this is a nonprofit with a ton of money in the Caribbean and the test remain largely the same, right? The concept of how they score and what they're looking for, but the cost to the student and the student's parents keeps increasing. Did you guys ever take a, okay. Thank you for the subtitles there Matt. Wait, is that you Dylan? I don't do that. Yeah, I'm just assigning you all roles. Okay. Okay. Well, I, but I, I appeal for a different subtitle that'll be a joke for us. But, uh, no, just so you can see in the subtitle there, you are the chill cult leader and Matt, you are the charismatic cult leader. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I am currently in negotiations with Tennessee about that. Okay, for it to see how that, how that shakes out. Yeah. So say we all, uh, this is a pretty crazy question about, um, about where the money goes because it may be indeed, uh, I don't know, guys, it may be a choke point for opportunity of education. I imagine you've got brilliant kids, but you can't pay $100 a pop for, uh, your kid to get the test they need. That's pretty crooked. Well, that's not, that's going to be the first and no offense, but the tiniest hurdle that they'll face, right? When you get into secondary schools in like higher education or they're not, uh, scholarships that also cover maybe the cost of some of those tests. The deal, right? You're not necessarily going to get the scholarship unless you're taking the tests. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe let us know anybody out there in higher education. Surely there must be, uh, organizations out there that will help, um, you know, qualified students, you know, who have excellent grades in school, get what they need in terms of the testing that will get them to the place where they will, you know, get a, get a full ride if they're the kind of student that would get one of those. Is there a college book assistance program the way there is tuition? It can be built into, uh, it will be a stipend that will be built into certain types of scholarships with. Okay. We're going to write to you in full, Brady at conspiracy at iheartradio.com because you, you've brought up some fascinating statistics in one point we want to leave you with here, folks, is, uh, the idea of endowments, right? Why has why have endowments for a lot of storied universities increased massively over time in in step with the pay for say the dean or the president. And why have the students not seen the advantages of those massive amounts of money not to be all black Monday murders about it, but something is happening with higher education. I guess it is good that we compensate the publishers of the books that the learned folks sure create weight. As long as the authors slash, you know, teachers, researchers, professors, people who actually write the books, as long as they're getting a nice bit of that money, I'm actually okay with it. But if it's just the publisher doing their thing in the Caribbean, like, man, this my tie is so good, aren't you glad we rose, we raised their prices by 20% year over year. Cheers to all those young jumps in high school. Yeah, and all right, professors out there writing giant tones. Okay, McGraw Hill says we'll just change this one appendix and then we'll we'll we'll get these folks for $145 that they don't have crap. The cabana fund is getting low, guys. Oh my god. I don't know if it's just me guys, but I just can't imagine that being a textbook writer is like nearly as lucrative. Occupation is being a textbook publisher. I just don't know that I don't know those kick, you know, kickbacks, kickbacks, whatever. But theoretically, wouldn't a textbook creator be incredibly lucrative just because it's required purchasing, right? It's built into the system. I just think they're getting paid a fee to write the thing and then the actual per unit. I mean, I just don't know that they would have the leverage unless it's like an incredibly niche that only one type of individual could write. Like if it's more broad, they're going to find they're not going to be paying top dollar. Let's under Mifflin was around so we could consult them about paper. Potent Mifflin. Yeah. Potent Mifflin. Nice. Nice for you guys. Oh, I can help us just us out a little bit of this. We need your help fellow academics. There is a dividing line between professors. There are professors who will make you buy the most recently updated textbook, even if very little has changed the cool professors make you buy their own book. The cool perfect. Okay, a couple of them did and they were cool, but they were kind of military. I'm just going to be awesome. I mean, to be honest about that. It doesn't appear that there are certain situations where if you can command it, you might get a royalty. Right. Maybe. But typically it seems like on these Reddit posts, its individuals that are getting paid salary. Just be good. Yeah. Or a per project. Project. Yeah. Paper collected, referenced Bibleyography and so on. But the really cool professors, and I'm sure we can all agree with this. The really cool professors are the ones who rock up to your class and they say the publishing is a grift in a conspiracy. I can't tell you officially that this book is free at the library. I can't tell you officially that the printer costs this much per page. I can't tell you officially that we can hang out later. Don't do that. Don't do that. No. No. Professor after hours. Oh my gosh. Come on. All right, guys. We have just enough time for a couple of letters from home. If it's okay, we got a shout out Netflix. Are we all right with that? Yeah. We love Netflix. We sure do. This coming Monday January 26th, you will be able to hang out with us on Netflix. If you want to give us a little add a boy, we would love it. If you hit the little look us up on Netflix, stuff they don't want you to know. Hit the little bell reminder. And then on Monday January 26th, wherever it is in your neck of the woods, you're going to see us live and direct with our two episodes a week. We also got a shout out our hometown boy, the comedian, Dedric Flynn, who recently got on Netflix himself and did a great job on a thing called Killtony. Killtony. A really quick action will thing you could do. If you do open up your Netflix on whatever device you've got in the search bar, just type stuff. You'll see us stuff to blow the mind and stuff in history class. You can hit the little bell that will give you a reminder when we launch on January 26th. And I mean, that's the best way to at least make sure you don't miss it. Ring that bell. Ring that bell. On another platform, which we shall not name. Ring that bell. No, I mean, I don't know. We've got some cool new cameras and lighting stuff and you'll be able to see our faces and our very best little set pieces. It's a lot of fun. And it's been a nice injection of new energy into the show for the new year. So I'm personally super loving it and excited to bring these two, you know, full episodes to y'all in video form every single week. Yeah. And I know we love that we're returning to our video routes where we got away with a lot of pool off color stuff in the spirit of that. We've got two quick things letters from home that we just had to share. The following may not be appropriate for all audiences being very biased. I got to bring chef Ben back because he did a really cool joke. And then we'll end with a really nice thing as well. Are we ready? Yes. Oh, yeah. Good morning, fellas. This is chef Ben and Chicago just listening to the Shrunk and Head Episode. And I'm proud of you guys for you a long time to get to a head joke. But then you did it. So really this is for you. This isn't even for the show because this is probably too off color for you guys. But you did make a reference to nobody likes bad head head. Of course, being the oral gesture of love between consensing adults. So here's the joke. I've got a joke for you guys. It goes like this. Hey, did I ever tell you about the worst job I ever got? It was awesome. That's the whole joke. It's best told in a bar several beers. Have a good one, fellas. It's known in Chicago and I'm driving really slow. So I'm the board. Chef Ben, you saucy boy. Can we get away with that? I like how he said it's probably enough for the show. And we've put it on the show. So no joke left behind. Thank you, chef. And yeah, that is on the show now. So we're going to end this week's strange news segment with a surprise for our pal, Tennessee, Dylan Fagan. Man, we've we've got something for you. We got a crazy route of bag of pitch, man. And we're just going to play it. And if you would be so kind, we would like to hear your your honest reaction. Okay. So don't give us any guff. Dylan, are you ready? I am ready. Give us the straight bag on this. All right. Okay. Hey, what's up guys? It's a spurving lane right here. You can use it if you want. It's not really something that I figured you would. But I'm like catching up a little bit. I'm like seven months backlogged. And just recently I did that thing where y'all do the like the root of beggar thing. And one of the episodes said if you have any ideas for the root beggar, just call in and give it. You know that song by Bruce Wade. I think it's called hooked on a feeling. I think it's a cover. But in the beginning they start off like uga chaka uga chaka. You could do or you could have your boy do something like root up big. Root up big. And then have that have like the loose wave music in the background or like you can do it or something. But yeah, I just I just thought y'all might like that. That kind of popped into my head. And I just wanted to let you know I love what you guys do. I listen to you all the time. It's not a bad thing that I'm seven months backlogged. I think I'm up to like May 25 right now. I'm here to December. So I just listen to it all the time when I'm driving to work and everything. But I appreciate what y'all do. And take care of y'all. It was very, very Merry Christmas and happy holiday. And yeah, on a fine root of beggar to you as well. What do you think Dylan? That's for the alimic bill. Weird dancing CGI. Dancing baby. Yeah. If you made it, we'd have to do an animation where he's a dancing root of baby. I love it. So here's the thing. Like I want crowdsource root of beggars. And I love this idea. Like we did a root of beggar a little while ago. And that was a suggestion from I think listener Zvius Rex. So. Yeah. Man. Thank you, everybody. And thank you Dylan for your incredible skills in the root of beggar field. Thank you. I can't believe you all let me do this. But it makes me very happy. So. You're just the best, man. Uga Chaka to you. Happy root of beggar. Merry root of beggar. To everyone. Big thanks to Grady. Big thanks. Of course, to chef Ben Spurving, Wainwright, Dedric, Flynn, Don Quixote, SC, and the Babble Effect. Most importantly, big thanks to you folks. We can't wait to hear your Uga Chaka's, your root of beggars. We can't wait to hear your thoughts. Find us on the lines. Give us a call. Send us an email. That's right. You can find us on all the social media platforms. Of notes that either can spare a C stuff or can spare a C stuff. Show. New era. New CTA. That means call to action. We're tightening that one up a little bit. You can also find us in other places. Use your phone. Pick it up. Go ahead. Pick up the phone. Dial 1-833-ST-D-W-Y-T-K. It will be a voicemail. Just me, you can figure it out. You can do that. If you want to send us an email, we are. The entities read each piece of correspondence we received. Be well aware, yet out of frayed. Sometimes the void writes back. Uga Chaka, Uga Chaka, Uga Chaka. Ask for a random fact, and you shall receive. Join us out here in the dark. [email protected]. Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from myHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. If you can control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? They gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Mind games. A.K.A. neuro-linguistic programming. Listen to mind games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's no fluff. Listen to body bags with Joseph Scott Morian on America's #1 podcast network. Open your free iHeart app and search body bags with Joseph Scott Morian and start listening. Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back B-John Robinson. When I'm on the field and I'm feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath. When I was breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes it feel great before I run the plan. Just like B-John, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health. At loveyourmindplaybook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ad Council. You know, we always say new year new me, but real change starts on the inside. Hey everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. New Year, real you. Listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.