0:00

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are the greatest, but

0:02

let me play devil's advocate here. Let's eat,

0:04

so... No, that's a good

0:06

thing. Uh... Hah, that's

0:08

definitely not a problem. Uh...

0:11

Reese's, you did it! You stumped this

0:13

charming devil! I'm

2:01

just pressing record on my quick

2:03

time. How's thanks for coming on? No

2:07

thanks for having me. Great

2:09

to be here. Oh that's very kind.

2:11

Let me just find out where David is. Sorry.

2:13

I like your hat. I like your beanie. I'll

2:15

represent. It's my R and L I. I'm

2:17

sort of semi obsessed with it. I'm

2:20

not a fan of the R and L I. I'm a fan of

2:22

the R and L I. It's

2:25

my R and L

2:27

I. I'm sort of semi obsessed with the

2:30

R and L I. That's what happens when you get

2:32

in your late 40s. I'm

2:34

from Hastings originally. So like a

2:37

big old. Yeah, there's a big

2:39

sort of R and L I station there. So

2:42

I know the logo. I've got a question for

2:44

you about Hastings then. Right. Me

2:47

and David want to do a thing.

2:49

Because I'm really scared of roller

2:51

coasters. Right. Yeah.

2:53

Like I don't want to be scared basically. But we

2:56

want to get me on a roller coaster. Is there

2:58

anything in and I might be going to Hastings next

3:00

week. Is there any

3:02

roller coasters in Hastings that are quite

3:05

scary? Do you remember? There

3:08

is a roller coaster in Hastings. Is

3:10

it scary though? I

3:13

don't think it's scary. I think it's manageable.

3:15

It's kind of like an entry level roller

3:17

coaster. Bit

3:19

of dips. Bit of that stuff. But now I

3:21

need a closer to it. Right. Because

3:24

there's also one that is not really

3:26

a roller coaster. It's like a fairground

3:28

road which you sort of

3:31

spin and you flip over. Is that

3:33

one scary? I've

3:35

been on that. It's been decommissioned. It's been taken down.

3:37

I don't know

3:39

what happened. Hey, how are you

3:41

doing? Good. We're out. I

3:45

was asking Tom about if

3:48

there's a ride that's scary. Yeah.

3:50

But the one that's scary enough for

3:53

what we want to do. And

3:55

I don't think it doesn't sound like there is. Is there really? What

3:57

do you think about doing? What's the... David

4:00

did a ghost thing. It

4:02

wasn't a ghost thing, you just went to an old

4:04

house at night. No, I

4:07

went to a haunted castle in the middle of the

4:09

night. Yeah, okay. That's the old

4:11

house we were at and got a

4:13

bit freaked out. Don't

4:17

be little, you probably don't. Tommy's

4:20

my friend, not your friend, he's my

4:22

friend. I was on first, so he's

4:25

my friend. And

4:28

yeah, so I'm terrified of

4:30

heights and things like that, so I want to see

4:32

if I can get on a roller coaster. But

4:36

we're talking about how it has to be like a proper

4:38

one that scares the bejesus out of me. Because it's no

4:40

good. Like that one, I think I'll be able to manage

4:42

it and that's not the point. I want to see if

4:44

I can... Yeah, I

4:47

tell you what, the smugglers, caves and

4:49

Hastings can never go back. It's

4:53

Hastings equivalent of the London Dungeon. It's

4:55

old 80s, 90s kind of... My

4:59

mum's not coming back. It's quite scary.

5:01

I remember going when I was quite young, there's these people

5:04

rattling the walls and stuff.

5:06

Hastings, Muggler's caves. There's

5:08

no way, Joe. He's scared of no.

5:12

Bit of me wants to go, no,

5:14

I think that's worse than the roller

5:16

coaster to get me out of the

5:18

way. That's your starter. How

5:21

much is it? Before we agreed. But

5:25

we should talk... Sorry, I've devailed it talking

5:27

about a ride. But

5:29

yeah, we don't quite

5:31

know what your

5:34

podcast is about. So we're hoping... We

5:37

know you're the puzzle man. Puzzle man.

5:40

Can we call you puzzle man? Is

5:42

that right? We

5:45

were kind of really intrigued by it. But

5:49

it felt like it was quite dense. I'm

5:51

wondering if you could tell

5:53

us everything about it. Yeah, definitely

5:57

puzzle man internet mystery guy. Yeah,

6:00

I mean that you can do any

6:02

of it. So given that nickname or

6:05

was it something? I'll

6:07

take puzzle man. I'll take puzzle man. So yeah, this this I've just

6:09

come out of a big

6:17

rabbit hole, basically. And

6:19

this is the second podcast I've made. And

6:22

it's all about it's called the

6:24

world's hardest puzzle. And

6:26

it lives up to the name. It's a big puzzle. I

6:29

mean, I mean, yeah, it's

6:31

called the world's hardest puzzle. And

6:35

it's all about basically in 2012,

6:37

this post appeared online. And it

6:39

said in sort of this black,

6:41

black box with white text, we're

6:44

looking for highly intelligent people. We've

6:46

devised a challenge. Bring

6:48

it on. And people found

6:50

that that post inside of the file

6:53

was like a link. And

6:55

the link led them to these weird internet

6:57

challenges that took place across the

6:59

internet and the dark web. And

7:02

then eventually these posters began popping

7:04

up in South Korea, Australia, China,

7:07

China, Russia, these

7:10

posters with QR codes and people like what

7:13

on earth is going on physical posters in

7:15

real life, real real posters. People

7:17

like got obsessed with this thing that popped

7:19

up in 2012. And it just led

7:23

these people on this big kind

7:25

of this big scavenger hunt online. And

7:30

they basically, after the

7:32

thing happened, they said

7:34

they found the people that were looking for and they

7:36

went completely silent. And

7:39

it's just this weird thing that happened

7:41

online that I just became pretty obsessed

7:43

with. So the hunt was to find

7:47

some people individuals, group of individuals, and

7:49

then they found them. And then it

7:51

just went, why went away? That's pretty

7:53

much that they were looking for these

7:55

these highly intelligent people. And so my

7:58

investigation or I. investigation. It's

8:00

me and Nicki Anderson looking

8:03

into it. We kind of

8:05

wanted to figure out, well, okay, what was it for?

8:07

Like, who are these people? What is this recruitment stuff

8:09

all about? And we managed to

8:11

find some pretty interesting stuff. There

8:14

was some sort of like internet privacy think

8:16

tank that were looking for bright people to

8:18

come on board to make

8:20

something. Wow. And that's

8:23

kind of what what I've just spent the

8:25

last year just looking into speaking to people

8:27

who are involved. I'm speaking

8:29

to a guy called Thomas Schoenberger, who claimed

8:32

to like be the founder of the thing.

8:35

But claims,

8:38

crucially claimed to be and you

8:40

thinking, he isn't now he's spoken

8:42

to. We spoke to him.

8:44

He's got a lot of big claims. He claims to

8:46

be the guy that was behind it.

8:48

But I thought you could say bullshit. Yeah.

8:56

Well, you never know you can

8:58

never prove. So we sort of

9:00

dived into it. And but

9:04

yeah, that that that's kind of that mystery. It's

9:07

this big thing that happened online. When

9:09

was it 2012 2012 and then popped up a few years later from

9:11

like 2014. Right.

9:16

Sorry, can we just get my head around

9:18

it? So they put a post out saying,

9:21

what's the first post say? First

9:23

post appears online. Yeah, we are

9:25

looking for highly intelligent individuals. And

9:28

we've divided where does it appear?

9:31

Do you know, Jeff for chance?

9:33

Pardon, I've heard of it. It's

9:36

basically where loads of like internet trolls

9:38

that's like the the internet.

9:40

Just just a grotty grotty

9:43

website with nasty stuff. And

9:45

this and the post. What's

9:48

it called again? The whole thing

9:50

is called cicada 3301. That's what

9:54

they kind of dubbed it as. Why would the

9:56

post be put there? Why don't they just put

9:58

it My

10:01

thinking is it's a pretty obscure

10:03

way. Yeah, this is plenty more of

10:05

this in the podcast Like

10:09

this is all fine like this

10:11

is what you go into in the pod is this

10:13

is what this is the starting point There's plenty more

10:15

into it. I Spoiler I

10:17

feel like a real sickie because I'm already

10:19

lost You know, I like a

10:21

bad way, but I'm like wow Well, the fact that

10:24

a post is even back that the initial post is

10:26

already baffled me is probably not Definitely

10:28

something I found about this this mystery is there's

10:30

a lot to get into so There's

10:35

the essential stuff All you need to

10:37

know is this basically is crazy scavenger

10:39

hunt built around solving these These

10:42

challenges and it's some sort of recruitment. That's

10:44

pretty much the the bare bones of it

10:48

Sorry to get my brain around it for

10:50

what does for Chan look like what is it?

10:52

Okay, so if you go up on on for

10:54

Chan what you'll see, yeah, it's kind

10:56

of like a social media site kind of like a You

10:59

know And

11:02

it's divided into like Just

11:05

kind of mad stuff. So like there's

11:08

a hentai page which is like Japanese

11:11

Just it's all quite grotty to be honest. Yeah,

11:13

it's not Yeah,

11:15

so where would this post end

11:17

up on fortune? Whereabouts? So

11:20

the people that were behind these puzzles

11:22

they posted it on via the paranormal

11:24

page I'm

11:30

so warm right now Be

11:35

taken on a little adventure Yeah,

11:40

so it's so if I found if

11:42

we went back to 2012 and I

11:44

found it now it said in the

11:47

post We are looking for Diddly-doo.

11:50

I intend then what do you do? So

11:52

if I if it piqued my interest I go. Oh,

11:54

what do I do then? Yeah,

11:56

you got this post. Yeah, what people did

11:58

because it's just this image like what do

12:00

you do? So people actually like got

12:03

that image file and

12:05

they found some way to sort of look inside of it

12:07

you know like the bits and the dots and stuff basically

12:09

they found a link inside of it. Oh right so when

12:11

you see the link I was like first things like that

12:14

oh there's a link but no it I was like well

12:16

but it's actually hidden in the code.

12:19

It's hidden inside that file. Inside the

12:21

file they look sort

12:26

of in the in the data and someone had

12:28

left a link behind and people

12:30

were like wow we found something.

12:33

They clicked it and

12:35

it took them to a picture of a

12:37

duck just a

12:39

duck and they were saying sorry

12:41

you know decoys this way bad luck and

12:45

then people looked inside that file and

12:47

there's another link and that's pretty much how the whole

12:50

thing went. Just

12:52

sort of looking inside of things thinking

12:54

outside the box and

12:56

they progressively got harder and harder until

12:59

sort of posters began to appear around the

13:01

world. Physical posters

13:03

began to appear. Physical posters.

13:05

Where abouts? I know you

13:07

did that. One of them was in South

13:09

Korea. No on a tree on

13:12

a on a telegraph pole that

13:15

one of them was in South Korea and

13:17

stuck to like a bus stop. Someone

13:20

had just stuck this picture. So it's

13:22

like someone like when our

13:25

next clue I'm going to stick it in a

13:27

random bus stop in South Korea and

13:29

hope that someone finds it. Yeah pretty

13:31

much. They didn't tell anybody they just

13:33

were expecting people to basically stumble upon

13:36

it and have like a people

13:38

and there's like QR codes where you scan it

13:40

and it takes you on. I struggle with those

13:42

to be honest with you. I've

13:44

learned this year doing this. I'm not a

13:46

technical kind of guy you know. The Puggle

13:49

man is yet to be sort of fully

13:51

there. I just like looking at it and

13:54

telling the stories of the people. So you

13:56

were you weren't hunting. You were you were

13:58

finding out about the people hunting for it.

14:00

So you, when did you hear

14:02

about this story? And

14:04

so if you found people that were

14:06

on the hunt and stuff like that?

14:09

Yeah, so because my background is being a

14:11

YouTuber, which is a whole other thing. It's

14:14

really big on YouTube. So I discovered

14:16

it from these videos, people

14:18

will like, what is this thing? Like, why is the

14:20

challenge is appearing? And

14:22

so I, along

14:24

with with Nikki, just

14:27

got in contact with the people that kind of

14:29

tried to solve it, people who were there at

14:31

the time, who pretty much spent

14:33

the last 10 years trying to like

14:36

scratch their head and figure out what the hell

14:38

this thing is. What's it? What are they like,

14:40

typically, the people you came across? I've met some

14:43

really, they're just fun. I

14:45

think that's good. Yeah, I

14:48

think there's like a spectrum of people that get

14:50

super into it. But the people that

14:52

I've met were, I don't know, they just

14:55

kind of like to hang out. They've just made this

14:57

community online where they just chat about this thing, and

15:00

like, share their theories. It's like

15:02

a really like established group, there's

15:04

a proper like community. And

15:07

so I've met some folks. And they've

15:09

all got like nicknames like the clockwork bird

15:11

and stuff. He's

15:14

a cat puzzle man. My one,

15:16

my nickname was Rilon

15:18

77. My previous podcast, right,

15:21

was about a character, an alien called

15:23

Rilon. I

15:26

read about that. Yeah. The thing that appeared

15:28

on the TV in 1979 or something. Yeah,

15:32

in so the interruptions, my first

15:34

podcast, and it's about like, this

15:37

in 1977, on like, some TV

15:40

site the south of England, TV

15:43

sets, the TV broadcast got

15:45

hijacked by this voice,

15:47

this alien voice claiming

15:50

to be from space and warning

15:52

people about the end of the world. And

15:54

there's like real audio of this. And it's

15:56

really crackly and strange. And

15:58

it had this sort of like

16:00

message of peace love and USOs and that kind

16:02

of stuff. But nobody

16:04

came forward. Nobody found out who did it.

16:07

So 45 years pass. And

16:09

it's just this mystery. But I'm

16:12

sorry, you're going

16:15

on. So this happened in the south of England.

16:17

So this is gonna be my mum and dad

16:19

watching Coronation Street and it came on. It's

16:22

the news. It was the news, right? The

16:24

news. It was the news. Yeah. Online ITV

16:26

News. Yeah. And then suddenly

16:28

it went. So I'm Z on

16:30

the way. No, it's real.

16:32

It's mad. There's real audio of it. And

16:35

in that's my first podcast. Again,

16:38

big rabbit hole, huge rabbit hole. But

16:41

I spoke to people who yeah, like like

16:43

your like your mum and dad were watching

16:45

the TV and just being like, like,

16:47

what is this? Why is there an alien on my TV?

16:49

Why is it warning humanity of the end of the world?

16:52

And the real audio

16:54

is like a bassy, echoey voice

16:57

called Vrilon with a message of

16:59

peace, love and UFOs. So what

17:02

kind of your YouTube

17:04

stuff isn't about this

17:06

sort of stuff? Is this what was the first

17:08

thing that said, Oh, this is what this is what I'm going

17:10

to dedicate my wealth time to?

17:13

Yeah, it's, it's all kind of a

17:15

mishmash of lots of things. But my

17:18

YouTube channel is all about these

17:20

obscure topics that deserve more attention

17:22

kind of just stuff I'm

17:24

into and unanswered

17:27

questions. So I look into

17:29

it. And so it

17:32

kind of started in lockdown, just posting videos,

17:34

not planning for anybody to see it. And

17:37

then suddenly people did see it. So I've

17:39

made videos about like, what angels

17:41

actually look like in the Bible and all

17:44

that stuff and kind of yeah,

17:46

took it from there. The channel became really

17:48

popular. How people love these rabbit holes, I

17:50

guess. Yeah, I do you know what

17:53

I was thinking? I love rabbit holes. If someone else

17:55

is going down them, and then I could just hear

17:57

about them. You know what I mean? Like, I think

17:59

that's sure. I like the idea of someone, I

18:02

don't want to do the hard work, but I want

18:04

to find out the next thing via people like you.

18:06

So I think that's probably why. You

18:08

know, like, I'll do it so you don't have

18:10

to. Yeah, like cooking shows, yeah. You go, oh,

18:12

I've basically- Here's one I made up. Yeah, yeah,

18:14

yeah. I just thought I'd have imagined I'd made

18:16

a beef Wellington or whatever. I love it if

18:18

you became the puzzle man, Joe. Well,

18:21

I basically- You took

18:23

the work off. I can't imagine you- Yeah,

18:26

I can't imagine me grafting at something

18:28

I'm finding. Yeah. And I

18:30

don't think I have the passion. I'll be like, oh,

18:32

it doesn't matter. What would your nickname be? So if

18:35

I'm the puzzle man, what would

18:37

you like to have mine be? Me and

18:39

David have sort of, we last year sort

18:41

of called ourselves middle-aged grafters. So

18:44

maybe middle-aged puzzle grafters. Middle-aged

18:48

puzzle grafters. Sorry

18:53

to interrupt the pod, I hope you're enjoying it.

18:55

But just wanted to tell you that we have a

18:57

Patreon page that we can join if

18:59

you're enjoying what we do and you can get even more of

19:01

us. Lucky you added. So

19:05

as little as three pounds a month, you can

19:07

get early access to podcasts, behind the scenes bits

19:09

and bobs. We post books and videos and what

19:12

we're up to. There's even an opportunity to come

19:14

on the show. So

19:17

if you fancy that, go to

19:19

patreon.com/chat a bit. Now

19:22

enjoy the rest of the pod. Hey,

19:25

Trish. You're such

19:27

a hombre. You're such

19:29

a hombre. I'm just

19:31

a hombre. You're such a hombre.

19:35

You're such a hombre. Sweet, sweet

19:37

hombre. I'm gonna

19:39

get out of here. eBay

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20:14

apply. Reese's

20:18

Peanut Butter Cups are the greatest, but

20:20

let me play devil's advocate here. Let's

20:22

see. So, no, that's a good thing.

20:25

That's definitely not a problem. Reese's,

20:28

you did it. You stumped

20:30

me. I've

20:36

been meaning to say this. It's

20:39

probably not a puzzle. It is a puzzle,

20:41

but everyone knows about it. It's not that

20:43

special. Have you heard of the Masquerade Book

20:46

from the 1970s? No.

20:49

Never. What's that?

20:52

What is it? I think. Well, I had

20:54

the book. I

20:59

had the book. It's really not

21:01

interesting. I wish I hadn't said

21:03

it now. Thomas has been interesting

21:06

up to now, David. This grade

21:08

is a picture book written and

21:10

illustrated by Kit Williams in 1979,

21:13

and it sparked a treasure hunt by

21:15

including concealed clues. Basically,

21:17

the author buried some

21:21

golden hair, a bit of jewelry

21:23

that cost thousands and thousands of pounds. If

21:25

you bought the book, you could find it

21:28

somewhere in there. Landshark. It's

21:30

not. Landshark. It's a

21:33

treasure hunt. No, that's those kids.

21:35

Landshark was a podcast there.

21:38

Landshark buried a car, didn't they?

21:40

Somewhere on the planet. Did you

21:43

remember that? About 10 years ago, they buried

21:45

a Range Rover. There's clues

21:47

on Google. God, mine's worse

21:51

than David's. Let's go back. I'll go down

21:53

the rabbit hole so you don't have to.

22:00

that has interesting. Yeah, exactly.

22:02

Yeah, sorry, sorry. So

22:04

they put the post physical posters out. And

22:07

then it got to a point where they

22:09

said, Thank you, we've achieved what we wanted

22:11

to achieve. We've got our individuals. Yeah. And

22:13

then it just went silent. Dead silence for

22:15

about a year. They actually hooked up a

22:18

few more times to do little extra puzzles.

22:21

But but that's pretty much it. Yeah. We're

22:23

looking for people. puzzles

22:25

happen. We found the people. What was

22:27

it? A

22:30

dickhead in a bed set. I mean,

22:32

that could also be it to be honest.

22:35

If I'm not, if you're next to all

22:37

these different dickhead in a bed. Although that

22:39

someone had to put the physical posters out.

22:41

Whatever it is, they put a lot of

22:43

work into it, even if it is a

22:46

dickhead in a bed set. And

22:49

all the posters appeared about half an

22:51

hour from airports. So

22:53

there could have been a guy or

22:55

girl or whoever going out on plane

22:57

around the world with a bunch of

22:59

a four sheets of paper and some

23:01

sellotape and just been up there there there. So dickhead

23:04

in a bed set. Like good effort.

23:12

God, you really want that right? I don't want to know because

23:14

I need to listen to the podcast. But how

23:17

far were you happy with

23:20

the conclusions you got the point you got

23:22

to with you know the main like I

23:25

found this out or you like fuck I

23:27

found out more than I thought I would

23:29

be sort of like secretly kind of chuffed.

23:33

I'm really chuffed with it. I feel like definitely

23:37

sort of starts off with that big question of like

23:39

who did it and that's like your starting point. And

23:41

then I found that as I and

23:44

Nikki went through it, you kind

23:46

of just find that there's like really interesting

23:48

like people and stories in this mad

23:51

world. And I think

23:53

that's that's really what like the podcast is

23:55

about. Yeah, I'm quite a lot

23:57

of fun. Yeah, with that guy, Thomas

23:59

Schoenberger. who like claims to be the guy

24:02

that made it. And it was

24:04

quite fun. There's a lot of claims

24:06

too, rather than a lot of claims.

24:08

Yeah, yeah. But I'm sensing like

24:11

he he wasn't the last. You

24:14

weren't convinced. Yeah, like the last piece of the

24:16

jigsaw. He was like, I need to carry on

24:19

searching. I haven't found the genius behind it. Yeah,

24:22

I mean, I think

24:24

it's lots of lots of

24:26

sort of vague statements that we sort of have

24:28

to chase up a bit. But but but there

24:31

are some real kernels of like, this man has

24:34

real credentials that could make it him.

24:37

Sort of this like, because part

24:39

of the puzzles involved like decoding

24:41

some music. And he's like a

24:43

musician that makes the code. Yes,

24:47

it's weird. It's honestly like a James Bond thing,

24:49

but it actually happened. It's bad.

24:51

With this guy, I still have the one thing that

24:53

makes me think it's not him is the fact he's

24:55

gone. It's me. Because

24:57

I feel like the person who did it might not just

24:59

go, yeah, it's me. Yes, I feel like

25:02

he would keep the well,

25:05

it's something it's something we definitely talk about.

25:07

We we presented to him and that

25:10

sort of leads on a whole whole angle. But yeah,

25:12

it's a it definitely this kind

25:14

of story, like when there's

25:17

like puzzles and scavenger hunt, it

25:19

definitely attracts like, you know,

25:22

unique people in but I guess myself

25:24

included people that sort of dive deep

25:27

headfirst in this like, weird

25:29

shit. And see what you find. So

25:32

are you along the way? Is there anything

25:35

that one or two things that you found

25:37

that really excited you? Is there

25:39

anything you can? So

25:41

any bits of in the in the

25:44

podcast, we speak to the people that you

25:46

know, like the dark web scares me

25:48

to the people that are really on it these

25:50

days. I'm out. I'm

25:54

not touching that girl. No, literally scares me.

25:56

I'll get I'll get scared. You know, I

25:58

don't even understand what it is. No. My

26:01

brother-in-law tells me there's

26:03

proxy. No, well I don't tell, I don't meet up with

26:06

him and he tells me about it. He

26:09

has, I always think he says things

26:11

like this, like I wanna

26:14

say proxy, sorry proxy, which

26:16

basically people hide there.

26:19

You know everyone's got like an internet where

26:21

you go, oh you looked at that. It's

26:24

loads of people blocking, it just feels like loads

26:26

of people blocking that. So no one knows who's

26:28

blocking. I don't even understand what it is I've

26:30

heard. No, I obviously don't in my explanation of

26:32

it. I just, even having dived into it for

26:34

a year, I don't understand it. So

26:37

I built it in the same place. I was

26:39

scared I'd end

26:42

up somewhere I shouldn't be and get told

26:44

off. Well the thing

26:46

with the dark web, and this is why

26:48

people like it, it's why I like drugs,

26:50

guns. Yeah, exactly. When they use it. I'm

26:52

human trafficking and I didn't realize. It's

26:56

like a hit man coming for you. Yeah, that's

26:58

that. Nobody can see what

27:00

you're doing. The way it works is it like, it

27:03

basically turns off eyes. So you can

27:05

go and search the internet. Yeah, that's

27:07

what I mean. Like there's a way

27:09

of stopping people going, well that's what

27:11

David looked at. Well that's what Joe

27:13

looked at, or Tom did. So

27:15

you can kind of buy guns and whatever.

27:18

And all kinds of fun stuff. But we

27:20

spoke to the people that made, or

27:23

sort of run that, the tour browser was called.

27:25

And there's some really great stuff. They run it,

27:27

it's all illegal though. Isn't all the dark web

27:29

illegal? There's stuff

27:31

that happens on the dark web, which

27:33

is not good. But what they, they

27:37

big up other stuff like, people

27:39

will use the dark web to avoid oppressive

27:42

regimes. For like a whistleblower, and you're

27:44

like, you can pressure, and

27:46

you don't want people to see what you're doing.

27:48

Right. If you're kind of like career or something.

27:51

Yeah, there's either really great people using it, or

27:53

just like the worst people using it. There's no

27:55

in between. Who are these people

27:57

that have created it? What dark web? to.

28:00

Yeah, where are they? What do they do?

28:02

What's the kind of all

28:04

over the world? And so

28:06

I spoke with one person called Raya

28:09

from from Jordan. And she's

28:11

heard of cicada three through one. She's heard

28:13

of chat a bit sexually. She doesn't listen.

28:15

She just heard of it. The

28:21

dark web to get to it. She

28:27

spoke to her. Yeah.

28:30

And the people that make the dark web, they've

28:34

been chatting with this,

28:36

these groups, the cicada group. So there's

28:38

a little nugget there, which we follow.

28:42

Cicadas. Again, sorry. Oh, yes, the

28:44

puzzle, the people that make the

28:46

puzzle. Oh, the puzzle was because

28:48

I was thinking it was the

28:51

internet. Sorry, fucking else. To

28:54

be honest, it is a dense

28:56

story. So we have to like really

28:58

like, go back to basics and

29:01

present it like a treasure hunt. Yeah, how do you

29:03

tell the story? Because it's like such a head. Fuck.

29:07

It's mine. Yeah, it's, I

29:09

think kind of, there's like

29:11

so many things that are

29:13

potentially going on. Just so much information you're

29:15

looking at. And I think like our job

29:18

is just to find out the thread of like,

29:20

does this does this make sense? Does this like

29:22

make sense? So I

29:25

found that the way to do that was just like, facing

29:28

it around like different people you meet, like, Oh,

29:30

we're gonna go to this place, and we're gonna

29:32

chat to these people. And then we're gonna go

29:34

to this place, rather than like,

29:36

a really dense timeline of everything going

29:39

on, completely lost.

29:42

I think I quite enjoyed and this is

29:44

true for my previous podcast interruption, just like, kind

29:47

of just talking to people and just seeing what they're

29:49

about and just sort of enjoying their hobbies

29:52

with them. Yeah, yeah, nice. Okay,

29:54

so, because I don't want to

29:56

give away your podcast, but I really want to know. But

29:58

I think that's a good question. I wouldn't mind some

30:01

titty bits. Pardon? Oh,

30:03

you find those in the dark, wouldn't you? Yeah,

30:05

if you were right. It's a limit of hundreds. I

30:10

knew it. Sorry,

30:12

sorry. Titty

30:15

bits galore. I'll be your other room client.

30:18

Titty bits by the pod of man. Yeah,

30:20

yeah. There's your third pod.

30:22

So you spoke to the people... Yeah,

30:25

whoever else you spoke to, sort of,

30:27

peaks your interest. A lot

30:29

of it... So,

30:32

like, internet privacy is a big part of

30:35

this story. This group has had something to

30:37

do with internet privacy. And to be honest,

30:39

I haven't really thought about it that much.

30:41

I don't really, like, check, you

30:43

know, like, what am I doing? Is there some sort of

30:45

data logged? So

30:47

speaking to quite a lot of people in

30:49

that world who are, like, trying to,

30:52

like, fight the fight. You know what I

30:54

mean? So, spoke to... This isn't really...

30:56

What are they fighting for, like, for

30:58

more privacy? These are

31:01

people that are, like, campaigning

31:03

for internet privacy, like, targeting...

31:05

Not targeting governments. Sounds like

31:07

terrorists. Like,

31:10

like, law... It's

31:13

not too theatrical, but, like, really,

31:15

like, prominent lawyers. There's Cindy Cohen

31:17

from America, who's, like, really big

31:19

into this world, who's, like, dedicated

31:21

to her life to basically

31:23

ensuring that we have stuff like WhatsApp,

31:25

where we can communicate privately and

31:28

people that kind of, like, set up the internet how we know it.

31:32

But before this, I didn't really

31:34

know much about that world. And that was quite fun, just

31:36

to explore that on

31:38

the sort of down the rabbit hole. And

31:41

the other one is that guy, that guy who

31:43

claims to be the owner of it. He's, like,

31:45

the weird, mad, mad, mad dude. How

31:48

did you come across him? Did he come to you? So,

31:52

Nikki, she... And

31:54

I can't say too much, obviously, because I would give

31:56

it all away. But Nikki, like... found

32:00

this video of this

32:03

man and sort of putting posters around the

32:05

place, sort of doing the

32:07

things you would expect from the group. And

32:09

she tracked him down and we got

32:11

an interview with him for the first

32:14

time. And he's got

32:16

quite a big following. He's got like sort of a

32:18

LinkedIn community where they're sort of

32:20

like, you know, challenging

32:22

privacy staff and being

32:24

super involved. Quite controversial in that

32:27

world. The people I've met are quite sort of upset

32:29

by him. So

32:32

that's probably like the big guy that we chat

32:35

to in this weird world. I

32:37

think it's like, I feel

32:40

like I want to, is there

32:42

a story you can tell us from one of your,

32:44

your, because it's quite, I'll be honest, I

32:46

want to know more. I'm going to listen to your podcast. Yeah.

32:49

Because I like, I really want to know, but is

32:52

there like a story from like, like your, like

32:54

your YouTube stuff that you can, was it sort of

32:57

out there that you can tell us the whole thing?

32:59

Because I think I want to, yeah, okay. Yeah. Is

33:01

that because it's like, I don't want to, I don't

33:03

want to ruin your podcast, but I do want to

33:05

know in detail something. Yeah.

33:08

You puzzled. Yeah. Or

33:13

if we don't have time, just Tommy's one. I

33:19

can, well, I can't

33:21

think about the previous one, the interruption, which

33:23

I can tell you the story of that

33:26

and how that goes. Yeah. So yeah, that,

33:28

that voice that appears on the alien voice,

33:30

that's the big one. So

33:33

yeah, you got this voice, hijacking

33:36

TV, pretending to be an alien from

33:38

space. Nobody came forward,

33:40

no more sound, that sort of stuff. I

33:43

got really into it. And over,

33:46

over quite a lot of journeying,

33:48

eventually came

33:51

to a satisfying ending, found

33:53

out the origin of what, who

33:56

this person was. Yeah. And that's the

33:58

story of the previous podcast. And

34:00

nobody's done that before. Nobody

34:03

had. It

34:05

was a secret. Nobody came forward. It just was

34:07

this thing that I really want. My mama, she

34:09

remembers it. My mom would have heard it on

34:11

the telly, but it was it was national news.

34:13

Right. Yeah, it was it was five,

34:16

five o'clock news. 1977. But then

34:18

it got in the papers that this had happened

34:20

and everything. You know, I wonder if that like

34:22

your mom would have actually might have been watching

34:25

though, like because she would have been in the

34:27

area, wouldn't she? I want

34:29

to say remember. So

34:32

same for because I've got family like Hastings

34:34

that area. Yeah, I think they sort of

34:36

knew about this weird thing that happened. This

34:38

alien voice like hopping on the TV. So

34:41

what where did you look? Where did you

34:44

go looking? So the first

34:46

thing I did was I was quite

34:48

taken by this like spiritually UFO language.

34:50

So the first place I went to

34:52

was Yuri Geller. Yes.

34:54

You know, I've had an email from him.

34:57

Have you? Yes. What have you been chatting

34:59

about with Yuri Geller? To come on my

35:02

football podcast. And was it a

35:04

refusal? And he said, thank

35:06

you, thank you. Oh, so

35:08

similar. He

35:12

loves me a chance. I mean, I know.

35:16

He's got he's got a not very

35:18

nice relationship with the football team. So

35:20

I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

35:22

PR PR. My

35:26

my question to him was about this thing

35:29

because his name actually got connected to it. And

35:32

he like straight up knew everything

35:34

about it. And he knew the people that could

35:36

have been involved. And

35:38

so he was he was the first because I

35:41

hadn't really done interviews. Yeah, I

35:43

know. Hadn't done any interviews or anything

35:45

before that. So I was really like

35:47

completely in the deep end with

35:49

this guy. And he

35:51

was asking me about at the end of

35:53

the interviews, asking about myself, my

35:55

my story, my family. And he sort of

35:58

gave me a blessing over the over the.

36:00

podcast, which is quite nice. Did you know you're

36:02

sorry, how old do you tell me? 26.

36:05

So did you know Yuri Geller? Because me

36:07

and David grew up with Yuri Geller. It

36:09

is very big. Do you know

36:11

who was before you into the table or

36:13

your you registered? I

36:16

only knew about I knew

36:18

some two things. One that he liked Ben

36:20

Spoons. That's his thing. That's

36:22

the key. Yeah. And the other one, I think I

36:25

saw him in the news kind

36:27

of beforehand. But he tried to reverse

36:30

the Brexit referendum with his mind. That

36:32

was his target. I wanted to do that.

36:35

So then the only two places I heard about him.

36:37

When he said out loud. Yeah,

36:42

diving into that and just having a chat with

36:44

him about this, this alien that kind of took

36:46

over the TV. And did he move it on

36:48

the story on for you quite a lot? Sadly,

36:52

no. The

36:55

real answer was elsewhere. But it

36:57

was quite a fun chat. And I think

36:59

it helped me know what it wasn't. It

37:01

wasn't. Is there loads of

37:03

that guy? It's definitely not that basically. No,

37:05

not like I know I go. That's

37:09

what did you think it could be that it wasn't? So

37:13

I thought my theory was,

37:15

okay, you've got like this

37:17

alien voice. And it's sort

37:19

of this sort of new age, quite

37:21

hippie warning, you know, no nuclear weapons,

37:24

abandoned money. So I was thinking it was like kind of

37:26

like a like a hippie kind of

37:28

guy, like a new age, like astrology

37:32

people. So I spent quite a

37:34

lot of time doing look in that area. I went

37:36

to the UK's biggest

37:38

UFO temple in Fulham. Yeah,

37:43

no, they've got a little UFO

37:45

temple actually. A UFO temple

37:48

is not something I've heard before. Like,

37:52

it was like I went to this UFO temple,

37:55

like it was normal.

37:57

But that's not normal. This is what happens. I

37:59

think when spending too much time down weird

38:01

rabbit holes. I think you normalise quite a

38:04

lot of weird stuff. Have

38:06

you been like, I've spoken to people of

38:08

what's their area, whatever in America. Area

38:13

51. Because we went out to

38:16

that area last year. We

38:18

didn't go there, but everyone said, like, who've

38:20

lived over there said, you go there. And

38:22

it does get really secretive. Like, they

38:25

will, there are people blocking roads and

38:28

stuff like that. You know what I mean? And I'm

38:31

like, well, what's going on there then? Why haven't we

38:33

dug into that more? Like, I

38:35

mean, What? And chat to me. A podcast.

38:37

Well, yeah. Yeah, that's us.

38:39

It's the two great minds of that

38:42

could be the thing that we can do. I

38:45

mean, generally, like, it all gets sort of

38:47

surfaced, doesn't it? Like, no one's, no

38:50

one's sort of gone. Why aren't we having a go

38:52

and have that? What could be in

38:54

Area 51? What are they hiding in Area

38:56

51? Exactly. Did you just say, why

38:58

aren't we having a pop up then? Well,

39:01

I mean, like, but

39:07

I meant like, because what happens is what I

39:09

understand you drive up with your other half, and

39:11

you go, let's have a look up here. A

39:14

couple of people come out and go, fuck off.

39:17

I had that Paul McCartney shout. Yeah. Same

39:20

reason. Say you'll know. But

39:24

I thought then was why don't

39:26

we get like 3000 of

39:28

us to go out there and go, no,

39:32

what's going on? Why

39:36

is no one thinking like this? Why

39:40

does it need me on this podcast changing

39:42

the world? Everyone

39:46

in Chadbix right now. Yeah. These

39:49

guys are making a difference. Sorry,

39:54

back to the story of the

39:56

USA. It wasn't you again. It

39:58

probably wasn't a hippie. Wasn't wasn't

40:00

any or any of that. I even

40:02

actually tried speaking to the alien Himself

40:05

through it through a medium. Sure.

40:07

Someone who claimed claimed to be briller on

40:10

the alien. I asked him all about british

40:12

tv Was

40:15

your go-to questions what their favorite tv show

40:18

What was your favorite tv show on southern

40:21

television back in the 70s? Um, and he's

40:23

an american guy Eureka

40:26

was a show about inventions. Yeah Worsal

40:29

gummage, um bit of that maybe Didn't

40:33

know that either. I didn't know I was a gun with

40:35

myself I get

40:37

it. I'm scared me and the reboot. Um I've

40:41

got a conversation Gone

40:44

to the reboot and then

40:46

um, so eventually after getting pretty desperate

40:48

been like, okay It's got to

40:50

be one of these people, right? So then I

40:52

start looking into like pirate radio Um,

40:55

you know people like run across like roofs with

40:57

the aerials. Yeah, yeah and put on their own

40:59

stuff that ended up being

41:01

like Way that

41:03

led to the answer that led to like where you want

41:05

to go Really with

41:08

it Yeah Was

41:19

it your like full-time job really doing

41:21

this madly yeah Along

41:24

with uh along with youtube. Um,

41:26

it kind of just I

41:28

was at uni at the time just making videos for

41:31

myself. Just like this is something I find interesting Just

41:33

going to throw it out into the online abyss and

41:36

then Suddenly really quite quickly

41:38

people started watching what I was doing Um

41:41

soon about the space of a month

41:44

Um, the channel went from kind

41:46

of me my dad my girlfriend to about

41:48

100 000 people um,

41:51

wow Really rapidly.

41:54

Um, how was that for you when that sort

41:56

of tipped? It was it was

41:59

quite exciting It was like

42:02

putting in like a lot of sort of graph

42:04

to make the videos, but it was

42:06

quite weird how quickly it happened and

42:09

realizing that like, oh gosh, this, this

42:11

isn't really now just me watching it,

42:14

there's like people that are

42:16

like sort of enjoying it and sort

42:18

of kind of waiting for the next thing.

42:22

But it was quite rapid. Yeah. And then eventually

42:24

like after uni was at

42:26

a point where I could do that as my

42:28

sort of full time. Oh my God. He went

42:30

from you. Wow.

42:35

Did you feel sort of pressure to

42:37

come up with another interesting topic to

42:39

keep them? Definitely. I think there's

42:41

a big case of that. I think on

42:44

my on my notes after my phone, any

42:46

interesting idea I have. I'll jot that down.

42:50

But my sort of like barometer is like,

42:52

okay, if it interests me, then

42:54

it'll be fine. Not all

42:56

the things that interest me do fantastically.

42:58

I made a video about this

43:01

true story about a guy who sells

43:03

pickles in the 30s, who became like

43:05

a king in some sort of

43:07

breakaway nation in sort of China. Army

43:10

is the guy. Yeah, no, it's quite interesting. Yeah,

43:13

well, pickles pickles. Yeah. But

43:17

that died to death, didn't it?

43:20

I thought it was going to be the next big thing.

43:23

But the pickle market isn't as big as it used to be. No, I reckon.

43:28

See, I want to know about that. Can I

43:30

ask a question? When you've been sort

43:33

of scouting around for maybe new interesting

43:36

ideas or puzzles or you've been

43:38

having a nose down the

43:40

naughty web and whatnot. Have

43:43

you come across anything we thought now I'm super

43:45

interested in this, but I've got back off from

43:47

it. Oh,

43:50

like potentially, you know, like

43:53

dangerous or yeah, the handbag

43:55

and stuff. Yeah, naughty, naughty

43:57

bits. Naughty tell me. I

44:00

would quite like to, you know,

44:02

like the Catholic

44:04

Church and the Vatican stuff, like

44:07

what's going on underneath in

44:09

the sort of vaults and stuff? What's hiding

44:11

there? Potentially quite controversial stuff you hear in

44:14

the news, but like I quite like to have

44:16

a little peep in the little Vatican

44:18

archives, see kind of what treasures are kicking

44:21

down there. I'm not sure it'd be great

44:23

as a podcast. I'm not really sure like it would work.

44:25

Well that doesn't worry us generally, so you should do it

44:27

like. Do you think? We

44:30

just do it and people. There's

44:32

nothing you come across where you go, God, if I

44:35

follow my nose that way, I've

44:37

got to watch, look over my shoulder. I

44:42

still think, you know, like if you're

44:44

looking in like the Vatican archives, I reckon they've got sort

44:46

of their, I don't know,

44:48

secret religious lot that we

44:50

sort of check up on you. That and maybe

44:53

Scientology. Scientology, yes, yes. I've

44:57

been in Saint Hill, I've been in Saint Hill.

45:01

I just had a tour outside. Oh

45:04

yeah. Which is their European headquarters.

45:07

In East Prince, did I say it, is it? Yeah,

45:09

and we sat there at a little mini cinema and

45:12

I'm pretty sure they watched us, they made

45:14

us watch and make us, but

45:17

we watched this video advertising and I'm

45:19

pretty sure they locked the door. Really?

45:24

Going to people telling you to fuck

45:26

off, in like an Area 51, I

45:29

saw some documentary about, they've got their headquarters in

45:31

America. If you get too close to their

45:34

gates, people come out with guns

45:36

or whatever and tell you to bugger off. So,

45:38

yeah. Well,

45:42

were you convinced that you now are a Scientologist?

45:44

Do you kind of into that space? You

45:48

know, what they called

45:50

something meters? Oh, are you?

45:53

I know. E-meter, I had to go with

45:55

one of those. What's an E-meter? A meter. I

45:57

can't remember that. Did they check, see if you're,

45:59

what? I can't remember now. It's

46:03

kind of like if they ask you questions and

46:05

you have a little dial in front of you. Yes. Is

46:08

it true? Yeah, it's kind of

46:10

a polygraph. Lie detector. Yeah, pretty

46:12

much like that. Yeah, but they attached it

46:14

to a plant of tomatoes. I

46:16

think I saw your bottom. Oh, so the tomatoes.

46:21

Oh, will you laugh? Yeah, I will,

46:23

openly. I bet you. They

46:26

attach it to a tomato. I

46:28

feel like you're not interested that I went to St.

46:30

Hill, Joe. I've

46:32

been to the European headquarters. Okay, what am

46:34

I actually thinking? Yeah. Well,

46:37

my thing is, it

46:40

reminded me of when my dad, because you

46:42

look a bit like my dad, when my

46:44

dad got tricked into being shown around a

46:47

timeshare place and he was so humpy

46:49

about it, and they gave

46:51

him a bottle of fizz at the end. We did

46:53

it for the bottle of fizz, but

46:56

he was not rude to the people, but he was... Do you

46:58

not want to know what it looks like in there? Do you

47:01

want to know or not? Do you want to know my dad's

47:03

timeshare story? No. Sorry,

47:09

Tommy. Tommy, would

47:11

you consider going to St. Hill in his

47:13

graces? Oh, I

47:16

like to, to be honest. I love to be hooked up to

47:18

a little machine and kind of see what's going on there. I

47:20

feel a bit nervous though. Yeah, I don't know. I

47:23

was 17 or 18 with two mates. Why

47:27

don't you go in there? You're walking past this. We made a

47:29

little film for A-Level. And they

47:31

let you in. And you go

47:33

into the entrance. Well, now I'm in. And to

47:35

your left is L.

47:37

Ron Hubbard's office, or they put it

47:39

to be his office. And

47:42

his chair's there, his big deck, his wooden

47:44

desk. That's amazing.

47:48

Now you look at me like I'm

47:50

enjoying it. Can't I? I went into

47:52

this sort of really huge dining

47:54

room. And on the back

47:57

wall is this enormous...

47:59

a homeless portrait of L Ron Hubbard

48:01

looking over the tables. I'm giggling,

48:05

I'm imagining you can get me. That could

48:07

be your future, Tommy. Me, I can start

48:09

a movement. Wait, so,

48:11

that's mad. Did they completely just

48:13

let you in with like a camera? Yeah,

48:16

but that's completely what they told me. They

48:18

told me 1991, yeah. I wonder if you're

48:20

the catalyst for not letting people do that,

48:22

ever again. Don't

48:24

end that. Three,

48:30

17 year olds making a video. What was,

48:33

were you happy with the video at the

48:35

end of it? I

48:37

don't think we put enough work to the end. Yeah, it's

48:39

always that. Creative differences. That

48:41

is a problem at 17, you never put

48:44

the effort in. Are there any other mysteries

48:46

or puzzles that you've looked at, or you

48:48

might be looking at where you go, oh,

48:50

this is something? Yeah,

48:52

the next little seed. The next episode.

48:54

I tell you what,

48:57

when I was speaking to Yuri Geller, because I'm

49:00

quite interested in the old school sort of folk-clorid

49:02

history, I was

49:04

speaking to Yuri Geller, who, he's trying

49:06

to find the Ark of the Covenant.

49:09

You know, like in Indiana Jones, that box, that

49:11

when you open it, your face melts. He's trying

49:14

to find it. He's looking for it. He's

49:16

an interested lad, isn't he? Let's be honest.

49:18

He's got a story. What

49:21

do you reckon his home life is like? Like

49:24

today with Yuri Geller. Do you reckon he's on? He's like

49:27

he's Yuri Geller, public-facing,

49:30

like, you know, crazy, and

49:32

then quite normal at home from your

49:34

experience. Just completely, he's got

49:37

a full sort of cutlery draw, just untouched. Yeah,

49:40

just think of it. He's

49:44

thinking about looking for that. Or he is

49:46

in the process of... I think he's dedicated,

49:48

I think he's accumulated all of his wealth,

49:51

and has dedicated his life now to that.

49:53

That's his big thing. He's bought

49:57

an island in Scotland, where it's alleged

49:59

to be... to be kept. And

50:02

so he's spending his like three time on

50:04

that island with the metal detector. He's jumped in with

50:07

both feet then. Yeah, all

50:09

the island. Willing to make

50:11

an investment and good on him. How much money

50:13

has he got then to buy an island? I

50:15

don't know. I reckon like, because he was, wait,

50:17

was he like on TV all the time in

50:20

the 70s? Was he like, Quite a bit. Yeah,

50:22

but not enough to go because

50:24

he sort of didn't need sort of also

50:26

buy full of with Mark Jackson

50:28

at one point. So he's got

50:30

Exeter. Is it Exeter? Oh, yeah.

50:32

Yeah. Got it. It's a

50:34

pointless. Yeah, got it. Got your reference

50:37

earlier. Yeah. Basically, do you now get

50:39

people suggesting things to you? And a

50:41

lot of the time you go, Nah,

50:44

not that's rubbish. I thought you get

50:47

good ones. A lot of nowadays,

50:50

I quite like getting suggestions for

50:53

stories. Because I

50:55

think like I've got quite a few, but quite niche,

50:57

you know, I don't want it to be another pickle

50:59

video. I can't have pickles.

51:02

Well, I like the pickle one. Well,

51:05

you know, it could work. But

51:07

I think with this particular one, that's something I

51:09

saw online and got really interested in. I

51:13

think like, sometimes you'll get stories

51:15

where I just don't think I could do

51:17

it. I think like, when it

51:19

gets super like, like complicated, I think

51:21

this particular story is maximum amount of

51:23

sort of info that I can deal

51:26

with. But I don't know if you've

51:28

got any mysteries. I'm looking for tip

51:30

offs. Well, fairy hands, you know what

51:32

I'd love you to do, or whether

51:34

you don't love you to find a

51:37

tunnel that's never been traveled down. I

51:40

love tunnels. Tunnel video. A tunnel

51:42

that's never been traveled. How would you know it's never been

51:44

traveled? No one finds a tunnel. What

51:46

about the people that made the tunnel? They've gone

51:49

down it. I just like you to do a

51:51

tunnel video, please Tommy. So why a tunnel that

51:53

no one's gone down? I just like tunnels. You

51:55

find a tunnel in a cliff's edge and you

51:57

just enter it. Ever since I've been to... to

52:00

smuggler's caves and Hastings. I'm, um,

52:02

yeah. Did

52:05

the tunnel spark anything? I

52:08

think that, I

52:10

can imagine like with a flashlight, there could be

52:12

like someone down there, do you know what I

52:14

mean? Someone who's just like living there, or even

52:16

something that's living there. Um, I

52:19

think it's like, more as a video, not a

52:21

podcast. No. Because it's all dark and

52:24

stuff, maybe it won't matter, but... Yeah.

52:27

What sort of thing are you? What sort of thing does

52:29

interest you though? Yeah, well if you got

52:31

an email tomorrow, what would... Because I'm

52:33

just thinking of... But, um,

52:35

yeah, you go, ooh, as soon as I hear that, something

52:38

like that, I go, ooh. I think for

52:40

me, what I find really interesting, I'm

52:43

quite attracted to quite weird stuff. Like

52:45

if it's the sort of weirder,

52:47

the more Hollywood, the better. So

52:50

like this story about puzzles and

52:52

recruitment, I'm quite attracted to that.

52:55

Like, I think for me, what's really

52:57

interesting is like, when

53:00

it's like something that probably could be in a

53:02

movie, but it's real life, when

53:04

you have like these crazy characters that, like Yuri

53:06

Geller, just, he looks like a fictional character, but

53:08

he's real. Or

53:11

like the alien on the TV, that

53:14

actually happened, that's a real story. So

53:16

I think for me, like, stuff that

53:18

feels like it should be made up,

53:21

and completely like, invented, that

53:23

actually happened. I feel like that's

53:25

my thing. Like tunnels, if

53:27

there's a monster down there, there's room

53:30

to be down there. Any treasure. Do you know

53:32

any treasure? Oh, treasure hunts. That's good. More like Yuri's

53:34

runters. I was Googling if there's any

53:36

sort of, apparently any

53:39

treasure hidden away in the UK. Any treasure.

53:42

Was this off the back of metal detecting? Yeah,

53:45

I think it was actually, yeah. Do

53:47

you think you could do a bit of treasure hunting? I reckon

53:50

you both could start something. Like a show was. It was. It

53:53

was off the back of bunker hunting that we've been

53:55

doing, looking for World War II

53:57

bunkers. I thought I'd love to go

53:59

treasure hunting. Have you got

54:01

any treasure, Tommy? Like Goonies?

54:04

Have you seen Goonies? A long time ago.

54:06

What is Goonies? What happened there? It's

54:09

like six kids go on an adventure

54:11

to find treasure and they find like

54:14

a hidden cave that's

54:16

got a big old

54:18

pirate ship in it full of money. That.

54:21

You can start buying football teams. You

54:23

exit the city, you manage them. Do

54:27

you know any pirate ships

54:29

anywhere full of gold? I

54:33

wish I knew. If I knew where

54:35

pirates would be telling you on a little

54:37

podcast. But

54:41

I reckon there's, I reckon

54:43

out there in the UK there's

54:45

just this big like treasure chest,

54:47

like the proper pirate treasure chest that's not

54:49

been found yet. Or like some sort of

54:51

like earth shattering like maybe like a UFO

54:53

buried in like Wales or something, but you

54:56

just need to go out with a message detector

54:58

and find or maybe like a big tunnel that

55:00

leads to that UFO. So

55:02

that would be your perfect tunnel UFO.

55:05

It's just like being a little boy again, isn't it? All

55:07

this. It's just, I

55:09

need little mysteries. I was so jealous of

55:11

the Goonies going on that adventure

55:13

and I watched that film. I

55:16

want to be a little gadget kid. That's

55:19

me. So going back

55:21

to this puzzle that they posted,

55:23

as your podcast finished, you

55:26

got to the end of the story. Yeah.

55:28

And sorry, I don't know if

55:31

you asked a question, but you're satisfied with

55:33

where you got to with it. Yeah,

55:35

satisfied where I got to it with it. The

55:38

aim to it was finding maybe

55:41

not like who did it. It might

55:43

not be about that. Actually, sort of

55:46

the people who've gone and sort of

55:48

been there and done it and have solved

55:51

it and people that were involved and people

55:53

that claim to be the founder. So

55:56

the podcast itself is a journey into

55:58

that world. So

56:03

the ending or the podcast itself

56:05

is just a deeper dive into

56:07

the story itself and then all

56:09

the sort of like loose ends about what actually happened, who was

56:11

a part of it, like what

56:14

was it all for and that's kind of what we

56:16

explore in the podcast. And

56:19

yeah, it's all done. All the episodes

56:21

are out on February 19 to binge away.

56:25

It's pretty soon. Drop them all in one

56:27

go. Amazing. All in one go. Yeah. We've

56:30

wrapped up the sound designers just done

56:32

this magic with it. Lots of like

56:34

sort of matrixy kind of effects. And

56:37

yeah, all available to binge. How

56:40

long did the whole thing take you? So

56:43

I got the idea in my head around about sort of February last year, so

56:46

about a year ago.

56:51

And then we got sort of stuck in property. Around

56:53

about sort of like April. And

56:55

then there's quite a while. Like I

56:57

think it took a lot of research, a lot of

57:00

slamming your head against the wall trying

57:02

to figure out like what is this thing? And then

57:04

sort of take it from there, really. Yeah,

57:07

that's a lot of graft. Yeah, it's

57:09

a lot of graft. I think

57:11

like from doing YouTube, it's kind

57:13

of mad. You've got your sort of fingers in

57:15

so many sort of pies. You're like writing a

57:17

script that you've kind of stuck in a script.

57:19

And then you're sort of editing it. And

57:22

like for me, in my case, animating it as well. So

57:25

you're kind of doing quite a lot of

57:27

things all at once. Yeah. It's quite

57:29

fun. Yeah, as you're saying, it's kind of

57:32

like, it feels like you're like a

57:34

big kid, just sort of exploring weird stuff. Yeah,

57:37

great job. I really enjoy it. Yeah. And

57:40

it's meeting lots of interesting folks down

57:42

the way. But I'm really, yeah, I'm

57:45

really excited about it. I'm really excited

57:47

about it. Yeah, just getting entangled in.

58:00

Just be careful to me. Lovely.

58:02

That's from an old one. Because I think you're going

58:04

to become insatiable and you're just going to start, I

58:06

don't want to follow that. And then just be careful.

58:09

You're going to pull the wrong thread. Is that what

58:11

you mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The

58:13

Jenga Tower. Can I ask one last

58:15

question that I've been thinking about the

58:17

whole time? Is there

58:19

a film in it? In

58:22

this later, do you think someone might go, need to

58:24

make a film of this? Hmm.

58:26

There is already a film about it. I've

58:29

read about that, yeah. Yeah, there's already a film

58:32

existing about it. I reckon this

58:34

particular story, like just on

58:36

the sheer, like really

58:39

interesting characters and that

58:42

journey. So I mean, the story itself is kind of

58:44

like a movie. And then so in

58:46

the podcast, we meet all the people that were involved. I

58:50

definitely think there's got to be a film in

58:52

it. I reckon you can take it into a

58:54

really crazy direction. Yeah, filling

58:56

the banks. Sort of however you

58:58

want. It's kind of the podcast is

59:00

kind of like what happened next. What

59:03

happened afterwards? It's

59:05

proper Hollywood stuff. It's pretty bad. Definitely.

59:08

Definitely a film in it. Do you

59:10

want to promote your YouTube channel? Oh,

59:12

yeah. So

59:15

the YouTube channel is called

59:17

Hochilaga, which is a strange

59:19

name. H O C H. Oh,

59:23

I can't even spell it. H O

59:25

C H E L A G A Hochilaga

59:27

kind of just came out of it with

59:29

top of my head. And

59:31

that's where I post my videos. But

59:34

the podcast itself is called

59:36

The World's Hardest Puzzle out

59:39

19th of February. Bingeable. And

59:42

if you've ever wanted to know about what

59:44

happens next in this crazy story, that's

59:47

the best to go. Brilliant. Right. Yeah.

59:50

And it ends on the TV. Yeah. I

59:53

mean, your other podcast is

59:55

called the Interruption. The Interruption.

59:58

And that's out already. That's

1:00:00

right. Tommy, I'm looking at your YouTube. You

1:00:02

have big numbers on your episodes, don't you?

1:00:05

Yeah. Wow. What numbers are

1:00:07

you talking about? Do half a million, 2.2 million.

1:00:11

Oh, wow. The biggest one

1:00:13

is 15 million. Flynn,

1:00:16

which is called

1:00:18

Why Bible Accurate Angels are so

1:00:21

creepy. That

1:00:23

was that was like one of the early ones, which is

1:00:25

how the channel kind of like went

1:00:27

stratospheric. Is

1:00:30

that 15 million? Sorry, can I just

1:00:32

quickly ask a question about that? Like,

1:00:35

having a YouTube site, a channel

1:00:37

that just explodes. Can you

1:00:39

live off it? And what does it look

1:00:42

like when it's how much you obsessing

1:00:44

over numbers and does it take over

1:00:46

your brain space? I

1:00:49

definitely think like it's. I

1:00:52

think you can let it. I try

1:00:55

and keep a sort of a distance to it. I think lots

1:00:58

of YouTubers might sort of I don't

1:01:00

really appear in my videos as a person, I think

1:01:02

a lot of people who who kind of

1:01:04

like put everything out there can kind of

1:01:06

lose their sense of identity, where

1:01:09

just kind of for me, it's very

1:01:11

much like this is this thing I've

1:01:13

made and I'm going to put it out into the world, but

1:01:15

it's not kind of connected to like to

1:01:17

me so much. So I think having that

1:01:20

like healthy distance from it, I

1:01:23

really like. And but

1:01:26

it is really fun. I feel like it's it's a it's

1:01:28

a it's really cool to be able to

1:01:30

sort of do what you're

1:01:32

interested in and knowing that other people are interested

1:01:34

as well. So

1:01:37

it's it's I've really enjoyed it.

1:01:39

And I think like now I'm in my sort of

1:01:41

podcast era. So

1:01:44

so I sort of. Yeah,

1:01:47

it just feels like a real privilege to be able to

1:01:50

make something that you really care about and you're interested in

1:01:52

and sort of having other people sort of give

1:01:55

a shit as well, which is really cool. I

1:01:57

mean, how many TV shows, you know,

1:01:59

get. those kind of numbers. It's just,

1:02:02

it's enormous. Apart from the traitors, nothing.

1:02:04

It's amazing. I think with

1:02:07

that, with some of the really big videos, oh

1:02:09

at first, like when it's sort of

1:02:11

two or three people, you can visualize that, you

1:02:13

go, oh I know two or three people in

1:02:15

my life, and maybe like a hundred

1:02:17

I can picture that. But then I do think when

1:02:19

you're kicking onto the sort of like the million and

1:02:21

the ten million, it comes to a point

1:02:23

where it's really

1:02:26

hard to picture that. You're walking past

1:02:28

people who have watched your video, basically.

1:02:30

Because if 15 million people are on

1:02:32

your way to the shops, you'll

1:02:35

have walked past someone who's watched your video.

1:02:37

That's weird. Yeah, he's mad. I've

1:02:40

met people at like a party, and

1:02:43

I haven't really said anything about my channel,

1:02:46

and they will have sort of mentioned it,

1:02:49

or they sort of, I've met people who have

1:02:51

watched the stuff that I've made. It's really

1:02:53

surreal that. It's really mad. I don't know it's

1:02:55

you. They don't know you're the one behind it.

1:02:57

Or when you talk. When

1:02:59

I talk, when I do the sort of voiceover voice,

1:03:01

one of my friends sent me a picture of a

1:03:03

thumbnail, like a weird

1:03:05

picture that I'd made, and I assumed he knew it

1:03:07

was me. And

1:03:10

then I said, oh that's me by the way. And

1:03:12

that was quite mind blowing. It

1:03:14

was really, really mad. It's quite

1:03:16

a surreal place to be doing

1:03:19

something where people sort of see it, and your

1:03:21

work is out there. Yeah, it's weird.

1:03:26

Thank you so much for coming. That was great.

1:03:28

Thanks, guys. Honestly,

1:03:31

I'd love you to come back on again with

1:03:33

your new new puzzles

1:03:35

or new mysteries and be great

1:03:38

in the tunnel with Yuri Geller,

1:03:40

looking for the afternoon. That's

1:03:44

just a story. That's that Hollywood

1:03:46

thing you're looking for. Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:48

I mean, if you do go guys, a

1:03:51

week sunday, I'm gonna walk down to the tunnel

1:03:53

with a flashlight

1:03:56

if you're interested. Yeah, absolutely. You heard

1:03:58

it. Yeah, yeah.

1:04:02

Who's bringing the lizard again? Thank

1:04:06

you so much, Tommy. Yeah, thanks, Tommy. Thanks, guys. Yeah,

1:04:08

good luck with the new pod. I'm sure it'll be

1:04:10

a smash. I'm not too cool again. Sorry. So

1:04:13

I'm... Oh, no, it's

1:04:15

good. It's called The World's

1:04:17

Hardest Puzzle and out February

1:04:19

19th. Brilliant. All

1:04:21

episodes available to watch made by myself,

1:04:24

Nicky Anderson and Stack. That's

1:04:26

the company I'm making the podcast for

1:04:28

and with. Brilliant. Brilliant.

1:04:31

Thank you very much, Tommy. Yeah, thank you, guys.

1:04:33

Cheers. Thanks for coming. Thanks for

1:04:35

having us. Cheers, mate. Bye-bye.