0:00

From UFOs to psychic powers

0:02

and government conspiracies. History

0:04

is riddled with unexplained events. You

0:07

can turn back now or learn

0:09

the stuff they don't want you to know. A

0:12

production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

0:24

welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

0:27

my name is Noel. They called me Ben.

0:29

We're joined as always with our super producer

0:31

Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson.

0:34

Most importantly, you are you.

0:36

You are here, and that makes this the

0:39

stuff they don't want you to

0:41

know. I'd like to start out

0:43

today's episode with a shout out

0:45

to our good pal Jack O'Brien,

0:48

creator of crack dot com as

0:51

well as creator and co host

0:53

of the Daily Zeitgeist. Jack

0:55

and I were talking on Twitter a

0:57

little bit about today's episode.

1:00

This is our update on

1:03

something we've done recently, and maybe

1:05

the best way to get into it is to say

1:08

life is tough in public service. If

1:10

you are a firefighter, a

1:12

teacher, a public defender,

1:15

or even a diplomat, um thank

1:17

you for your service. You know that there's a ton

1:19

of stuff you have to deal with every day that just

1:22

doesn't get much media attention.

1:25

And so in the world of foreign service,

1:27

the question people have been asking in the US

1:29

is what happens when a

1:31

disease seems made just

1:33

for you? What happens when the

1:36

only demographic

1:38

indicator for some kind of

1:40

affliction isn't your

1:43

you know, it's not your makeup necessarily,

1:45

it's entirely your employment

1:49

a job based on disease. This

1:51

is a question we touched on the past, from

1:53

explorations a tailor made diseases to

1:55

the inexplicably efficient

1:58

curses like bone pointing in Australian

2:00

Papua New Guinea. Today we're diving

2:02

into a new iteration of this phenomenon

2:05

folklore that's occurring as we

2:08

record. It's something the world is still

2:10

trying to figure out. It's something called

2:12

the Havana syndrome. Here are

2:14

the facts, well, the Havana syndrome.

2:17

It's currently being described as a quote

2:19

set of medical symptoms with unknown

2:21

causes. Uh. If there's a description

2:24

that's any more vague and amorphous than that, I would

2:26

love for you to show it to me. Um.

2:28

Uh. You know, a syndrome being

2:30

a kind of catch all of a

2:33

group of symptoms, you

2:35

know, a series of kind of interrelated maladies,

2:38

sort of like a ben as you put

2:40

it, A extra value meal where

2:42

they used to call them extra value meals. Do they still call

2:44

them that? Yeah? Probably probably

2:47

a combo um, not necessarily

2:51

one singular condition with a

2:53

singular cause. Um. It

2:55

is inherently vague and kind

2:57

of, you know, a little bit mysterious.

3:00

The idea of a syndrome, the China syndrome,

3:02

for example, you know. Yeah, and in this

3:05

particular syndrome is pretty strange.

3:08

It's got a lot of different symptoms. You'll

3:10

hear a lot about migraines,

3:13

about brain fog, tiredness,

3:16

and inability to complete simple

3:18

tasks for your job, especially

3:20

you know, as a diplomat, just simple things

3:22

that your computer or sending emails,

3:24

making phone calls, things like that. Um.

3:27

There's other things too, hearing,

3:29

clicking, bringing in the ears.

3:32

It's a it's a whole bunch of weird

3:34

stuff going on at one time. Yeah,

3:36

yeah tonight, as uh,

3:39

the the sensation of pressure or

3:41

vibration in one's head, and

3:44

of course nausea, lack

3:46

of coordination, things like that. It

3:48

is a panopoly of

3:51

symptoms, right, And this

3:53

again seems to primarily

3:55

target government officials, members

3:58

of the intelligence community in the US,

4:01

and a couple I think a couple of folks

4:03

in Canada where this was

4:05

first reported. But but particularly

4:08

when they're operating abroad. Yes,

4:10

yes, exactly, So this is not happening

4:13

in Langley. Very important note.

4:16

So first things first, and I

4:19

I am so glad that we are returning to

4:21

this we talked about in Strange News, we talked

4:23

about it in a previous episode, but

4:26

one thing we didn't point out. Regardless

4:29

of what you think of Havannah syndrome

4:31

after hearing our show today,

4:34

we need to agree on

4:36

this one thing. The name

4:38

is utter bullet and it's

4:41

unfair. It's like it's called

4:43

the Havannah syndrome only because

4:45

the first publicly acknowledged reports

4:49

surfaced amid US and

4:51

Canadian embassy staff in Havana,

4:53

Cuba. And that's similar to the way

4:55

the world did Spain so very

4:58

dirty with the nineteen eighteen Spanish

5:01

flu epidemic. It didn't come

5:03

from Spain. It's called the Spanish flu

5:05

because Spain, out of

5:07

all the countries, did the right

5:09

thing and did not suppress reports

5:12

of a deadly influence of virus

5:14

spreading. Yeah, but we also know that, like I

5:16

mean, these types of names have political

5:19

clout to them or they are their political

5:21

capital in some ways, like you know how Donald Trump

5:24

very desperately tried to rebrand UH

5:26

COVID nineteen to the Chinese flu

5:28

or the China virus or whatever. Um.

5:31

You know, the idea of calling it the Havanna

5:33

syndrome UH in some way

5:36

sort of displaces the blame or

5:38

kind of you know, makes people think

5:40

of it in a certain light. Um.

5:43

You know, similarly to the Spanish flu,

5:45

even though it isn't necessarily wasn't necessarily something

5:47

that was caused by um

5:49

Spain, as in the case of the Havanna

5:51

syndrome, not necessarily caused by

5:54

you know, the government of Cuba.

5:56

Per se. It's it's it's still a little up in

5:58

the air. But also, I just want to backtrack really quickly, I said

6:00

at the beginning of the show, when describing what a syndrome

6:02

was, I I dropped the term China syndrome,

6:05

which is a movie about a nuclear meltdown.

6:07

Um, not a disease, but the word syndrome

6:09

it's so amorphous and catch all that it

6:11

can also refer to just like a set of circumstances

6:15

like not in my backyard syndrome is that Wikipedia

6:17

puts it um. So there are lots of ways of using

6:19

syndrome and and and of itself. It's kind of

6:21

like the vaguest of possible catch

6:24

all terms. Just for my money,

6:26

guys, Havana syndrome does make sense because

6:28

it was the American embassy in Havana, Cuba, where

6:30

it originated, right where we first

6:32

noticed it in reports first came out

6:34

at least. But I think we should

6:37

call it the the Moscow signal

6:39

to agree.

6:45

So, but I I think we are

6:47

making an important point. You know,

6:49

the government of Cuba, as he said

6:51

earlier, likely has nothing to do

6:54

with this, and they're probably rightly

6:57

a little peeved that they're being

7:00

that they the name of the capital

7:02

of their country is now attached

7:05

to an amorphous thing that people consider

7:07

either a uh possibly

7:09

a disease or injury

7:12

from some sort of Sci Fi level uh

7:14

directed energy weapon. But what you know, what

7:16

you call it? If you live in Cupid, you know what they call

7:18

it. They don't call if it is like the what do you call

7:21

a quarter pounder conversation?

7:23

Right this uh

7:25

in Cuba? If you are

7:27

working in this field or

7:30

if you're working in the field of medicine, etcetera.

7:32

You will probably not call it, well,

7:34

you definitely won't call it havana syndrome.

7:36

You'll probably call it unidentified

7:39

health incidences or you

7:42

h I it's our our new addition

7:44

to all the unidentified things we love,

7:46

unidentified submerged objects, unidentified

7:49

aerial phenomenon. Now we have unidentified

7:52

health incidents. Less sexy,

7:54

less provocative, much more accurate.

7:57

But maybe we did when we

7:59

talked about this when the news was breaking. But

8:02

maybe we should start

8:04

by doing a quick recap

8:06

of what went down in Cuba,

8:09

which, by the way, I love that we have a job

8:11

where I can say sentences like that

8:14

at work, Like, maybe let's

8:16

start with what went down in Cuba? All

8:18

right, Well, yeah, we first learned

8:20

about it in seventeen when the first reports

8:23

began coming out, but we do

8:26

know that it was in sixteen

8:28

when diplomats and people working there

8:31

in a Vana Cuba noticed

8:33

that something was happening. They were experiencing symptoms.

8:36

And let's see what was

8:39

it. There were twenty one individuals

8:41

initially I think, or around around

8:43

twenty one individuals or at least twenty one that were

8:45

acknowledged of having symptoms

8:47

in ten when those reports first

8:49

came out, but then uh, it

8:52

was up to twenty six individuals,

8:55

and that that's really what we would call

8:57

the the original class

8:59

of p a group of people who were affected

9:02

by this. Yeah. Yeah.

9:04

And then, just like

9:06

maybe a contagious

9:08

or transmissible disease, this

9:11

syndrome, reports of it at least

9:13

quickly expanded to other locations

9:16

across the planet, with one commonality.

9:19

It seemed to exclusively affect US

9:22

government personnel, like people

9:24

living in the neighborhood of embassies

9:27

nationals and say China or Taiwan

9:30

or something. They weren't being affected.

9:33

The people reporting this were virtually

9:36

all working for Uncle Sam

9:38

and the New York Times. That

9:40

have just been really quickly that has expanded

9:43

to some families of diplomats

9:45

now and intelligence agents. Yes,

9:47

that is correct, and that's a very that's a very important

9:50

point. But the point still

9:53

holds that people who are not

9:55

working with where were relationships with

9:57

these people, but we're living the

10:00

same geographic area, were

10:02

not infected, which is not the

10:04

way transmissible disease usually

10:07

works. Right. Disease or an

10:09

infection does not necessarily care

10:11

what kind of job you have, And that's

10:13

already you know, curious, or and

10:16

curious, or as Lewis Carroll would

10:18

say. New York Times had

10:20

a great article on this, summing

10:22

up some of the events, and they

10:24

said that the way they

10:26

put it is in seen

10:28

those twenty one folks that you mentioned,

10:31

Matt, they started to report neurological

10:34

symptoms. These were serious.

10:36

These weren't just you know, bouts

10:39

of migraine headaches that come and

10:41

go. In some cases, the

10:44

people involved seemed

10:46

debilitated and they had no real

10:49

um They had no real explanation

10:52

for what was happening. And

10:55

some of them are actually the majority of

10:57

the original folks they said. These symptoms

10:59

were she did by a

11:02

high pitched piercing sound,

11:04

which they reported differently. They have varying

11:08

kind of interpretations and recollections

11:10

of what they heard. But they

11:13

felt like they have walked through a quote,

11:15

invisible beam of energy.

11:17

This is under the Trump administration, and

11:20

the Trump administration reacted

11:22

quickly. Fifteen Cuban diplomats

11:26

foreign officers got kicked

11:28

out at d C, and then the

11:30

White House also moved the majority

11:33

of its staff out of the embassy in

11:35

Havana. Yes, it's interesting, there's a there's a really cool new

11:37

Yorker piece about this by Adam

11:39

and Twoson John Lee Anderson called

11:42

the Mystery of the Havannah Syndrome UM.

11:44

And one of the central characters or figures

11:46

I guess and it was a career diplomat named Audrey

11:49

Lee Um. And she described

11:51

on March seventeen of UM

11:55

she came home from working at the

11:57

embassy and made supper for our family. She had

11:59

twins or has twins, UM and

12:01

her husband who who was not there at the time,

12:03

he was away on business of his own. UM.

12:06

And then she started experiencing those symptoms

12:08

that you're talking about. She described it as feeling

12:10

as though she had been I was the

12:12

word she used, like something

12:14

had struck her. She had been struck, That's

12:17

how she described it. Um. And

12:19

she felt this burst of pressure in her head and

12:21

then stabbing sensations, very

12:24

very very painful, she described. And

12:26

Um it was determined by

12:29

her paste on these rumors I guess at

12:31

the time were rumors around the embassy

12:33

that these were due to some kind

12:35

of attack of some sort, some sort

12:37

of sonic weapon. And the reason I get

12:40

to this is um she overheard

12:42

it was such common knowledge around the embassy

12:44

that she actually heard security

12:46

guards kind of having a conversation about it and

12:49

saying the phrase get off the X.

12:52

That was what really hit me. Um. There's a really

12:54

good NBC mini doc about

12:56

this um as well, you can look down on YouTube.

12:58

But that refers to the dea of this being a localized

13:01

thing. Move off the X if you're feeling

13:03

these symptoms, moved to a different area

13:06

where maybe it'll go away because

13:09

whatever is affecting you isn't there. And

13:11

she did that and she felt better. Mm

13:14

hmmm. Yeah. And this is this is important

13:16

too, because there's a point you brought up that

13:18

I want to kind of highlight, which

13:20

is the role of communication.

13:24

Uh. There is validation

13:27

in all communication or

13:29

in you know, effective communication,

13:31

and that's something we're gonna see play out

13:33

in a big, big way here. So since

13:36

those initial reports in Cuba, more

13:38

reports came in. People

13:41

in Russia, people in Georgia, the

13:43

Country, people in Poland, Taiwan,

13:45

Australia, Columbia, Kyrgyzstan,

13:48

Austria, I thought you would

13:50

like that with me, of course, Austria, Uzbekistan

13:54

and China. And these

13:57

reports will probably continue coming

13:59

in. We don't know, given given

14:01

some of the necessary

14:04

secrecy around some of these events. We

14:06

probably won't know for a while the

14:09

full number of people who believe

14:11

that they have been affected by

14:13

this, and the U S Government has at

14:15

this time not released any

14:17

official tally of the number of people

14:20

reporting these symptoms. Uh,

14:23

the closest you can find is

14:26

some reports in US media,

14:28

like September of one,

14:32

MPR had a piece on

14:35

on the CIA chief

14:37

in Vienna getting recalled

14:40

because of the way he was handling this, and

14:42

they noted that there are currently

14:44

an estimated two hundred plus

14:46

cases around the world. In a world

14:49

of almost eight billion people, that's

14:52

not a lot. But in the world

14:54

of in this rarefied air of

14:57

diplomacy and intelligence and all

14:59

of that muky stuff, two plus

15:01

is a lot of people. It's not that

15:04

you'd be worried if you worked at an embassy.

15:07

I think that's that's the story how this came

15:09

back into our lives because of that that

15:11

small you know, the stories that Jimson in

15:13

about Vienna. Then we had that tiny little piece.

15:15

It was like, oh, yeah, it's happening in Vienna now too,

15:18

and now we're here talking about it again because

15:21

we didn't realize I didn't realize

15:23

personally how far this thing had spread. As

15:26

Ben just described, there all these different countries,

15:28

you'll even see it being reported. I think

15:30

there's a one off case that occurred in Vietnam

15:33

when current Vice President

15:36

Kamala Harris was in like visiting

15:38

in Vietnam and then one of her one of her

15:40

staff that was there was along with her, was

15:43

affected by this. Yeah, yeah,

15:45

you're right, and that that interfered

15:47

with the VPS trip

15:50

as well because they wanted to air on the side

15:52

of costume. Which makes sense at

15:54

this point, folks. Havana syndrome,

15:57

whatever it is or is not,

16:00

it doesn't appear to be lethal,

16:02

which is good news. What we mean

16:04

is no one has died as a result of

16:06

this set of ill defined get

16:08

it, ill defined symptoms,

16:11

but yet yet

16:13

it's very important. It's a very important figure

16:15

to raise there. But here's the strangest part.

16:18

It's a question we asked in our previous episode

16:21

on this what exactly

16:23

is Havannahs syndrome? Aside aside

16:25

from the terrible branding of the

16:27

name, what's causing it? Multiple

16:30

individuals right now, scientists

16:33

and several individuals

16:35

in the employee of the government a

16:37

really cool group called the Jason's.

16:41

They all will tell you

16:43

that they are pretty conclusive

16:46

on the answer, but there's a big problem here.

16:49

They don't agree with each other. There

16:51

there is no official conclusion

16:54

yet, there are a lot of

16:56

officials who have reached conclusions,

16:59

and these conclusions contradict.

17:02

So what's really going on. We're

17:04

gonna pause for work from our sponsor

17:06

and then we're diving in. Here's

17:14

where it gets crazy. Okay,

17:17

this is this is something we we also

17:20

need to talk about. Then it's something that I know

17:22

the three of us have talked about pretty

17:25

often off air and maybe on

17:27

air a little bit too. There is

17:29

a dangerous potential

17:31

side effect any time an official

17:34

makes a conclusion on

17:36

their own, right like if if

17:39

a president, if a police

17:41

chief, if an ambassador,

17:44

what have you, states

17:46

their opinion as a conclusion or

17:48

says I believe this, Then

17:50

that opinion or that personal

17:52

conclusion can be confused

17:54

with an actual official

17:57

conclusion. This means that

18:00

if you were just to watch one

18:02

person talking on one news

18:05

report, you read one article, one

18:07

statement by saying I don't know, like

18:09

a CIA chief in Vienna or something,

18:12

you might think that the case

18:14

is wrapped up, but you probably

18:17

don't know the whole story.

18:20

That's why that's why we're still doing this

18:22

episode today because it gets

18:24

so weirdly complicated.

18:27

Experts disagree, and we

18:29

say experts, we mean like the experts

18:31

capital T, capital E. So we talked

18:33

about this before, um, the idea of

18:36

directed energy attacks. I

18:39

used the phrase earlier sonic weapon, which

18:41

again is another kind of like vague sci fi

18:43

catch all kind of term that was used in

18:45

that New Yorker article. Um,

18:47

but what is a directed energy

18:49

weapon? Microwaves is

18:51

one of the most plausible causes

18:54

identified by a National Academies

18:56

of Science report that was commissioned by the Department

18:59

of State. But initially they've floated

19:01

out the idea that this could be that aforementioned

19:04

sonic weapon, which we'll get to in just a sec. And

19:06

this is also a reason that you'll find some folks

19:08

that believe that this is some sort of example

19:11

of mass hysteria, a

19:14

psycho somatic phenomenon where

19:16

people observe others freaking

19:18

out and essentially it becomes contagious.

19:22

You know, this idea of um

19:24

mimicking the behavior of others or it becoming

19:27

you know, in some way a thing

19:29

that can spread like a Salem witch trials

19:32

kind of thing or a Satanic panic type of situation.

19:34

So these are the two kind of big buckets

19:37

of explanations for these

19:39

symptoms um and currently

19:42

very important members of the

19:44

same governments seem to

19:46

not be on the same page about

19:48

which of these it is at

19:50

all. Well, and there's a I mean

19:52

you could hopefully you can see why

19:55

these are the two prevailing things, right,

19:57

just do the Due to the nature of some of these simple

20:00

ms, you can imagine why any

20:02

expert who's imagining the possible tech

20:04

out there that could cause something like this, you go to, Okay,

20:07

it's something that's using sound waves,

20:09

that would that would account for the high pitched,

20:11

you know, stuff going on with the ears and how it affects

20:14

the brain that way, or it's microwaves,

20:16

because we've seen this kind of thing before,

20:19

Ben and All. I think the big issue

20:21

here is the word weapon. I

20:24

think that's where we're getting tripped

20:26

up on all this, where someone who's

20:28

on the highly skeptical side saying this is, you

20:31

know, this is psycho somatic because these

20:33

that kind of weapon doesn't exist. I

20:36

think that's the problem.

20:38

The weapon because this kind of tech exists,

20:41

just not as a directed weapon

20:43

that you would fire at an adversary.

20:46

Right, Like, the first thing you want to find

20:48

in a murder is the murder

20:51

weapon, right, or it's one of the first things you want

20:53

to find. So the big, big question, this is

20:55

a question Jack and I

20:57

had as well, is like where

20:59

is the weapon? Right? If we

21:01

know this kind of technology exists,

21:04

Um, but due to the nature

21:06

of it, and we talk a little bit about the possible

21:08

physics here in our previous

21:11

episode, due to the nature of it, you

21:13

can get a kind of spider

21:16

sense for where this thing, like

21:18

the distance within

21:21

which it would have to be located

21:23

to have these effects on people. Again,

21:26

all theoretical at this point, but that didn't

21:28

stop people like Christopher Miller, it

21:30

was, a former Secretary of Defense in the Trump

21:32

administration, for claiming

21:34

publicly this was a directed

21:37

energy weapon. He also

21:40

called it an act of war. This

21:42

is hashtag no chill, by the way, and

21:45

multiple former and current

21:47

members of the intelligence community

21:50

appear to agree. In in a

21:52

political way, we're talking about people you might

21:54

consider being left wing people you might

21:56

consider being right wing um

21:59

who usually disagree about everything.

22:01

Right, That this camp has

22:03

both of those folks in it. They

22:06

and most of those most of the people who believe

22:08

it was a directed energy weapon also

22:11

believe Russia is behind the syndrome.

22:14

Uh spoiler alert. Russia denies

22:16

any involvement. When do they ever cop

22:19

to anything that you know, oh

22:21

man, yeah, yeah, but it's it's funny

22:23

like with I mean, this is terrible to say,

22:25

but with polonium assassinations,

22:28

that was pretty much copying

22:30

to evolvement. You know. Also,

22:33

if you're listening to Russia's stay away from the windows.

22:36

Yeah, but

22:38

it may very well not be Russia

22:41

at all. I mean, that's we got to keep

22:43

that as a possibility, even though it's

22:46

gonna get into there's there's a precedent.

22:49

But okay, let's let's get and I

22:51

am not trying to disparage the average Russian

22:54

citizens out there who may

22:56

may not be listening to the show. I just think Russia

22:58

as a government has

23:01

a history of being pretty tricksy. I

23:03

think we can all kind of agree on that. Not that we don't,

23:05

but uh, they sort of pride themselves

23:07

on, uh, you know, admitting

23:10

nothing. Um so it just doesn't really surprise

23:12

me there. But there's a lot

23:14

of descent as well,

23:16

you know, voices of dissent. Uh. Some people

23:19

believe that this is the result of

23:21

some sort of intentional attempt to

23:24

harm intelligence officials, which is what

23:26

we talked about, but others think

23:29

it's some sort of side effect

23:31

of some high tech attempt

23:33

to you know, steal

23:36

classified intelligence from phones

23:38

and computers. So perhaps a proximity

23:41

effect from some technology

23:43

that's being used within the agency,

23:45

as Ben said, it can be also it can also be

23:48

stolen from windows, not the software

23:51

hardware, right right.

23:54

And then what's interesting about that

23:56

too is just just

23:58

so we all have a scope of

24:01

how advanced some of that observational

24:05

technology can be. It's totally

24:07

possible to hear

24:10

a conversation by aiming

24:12

a laser at a window

24:15

and the people in the room with

24:18

the window will be discernible.

24:20

So like it's not out of the realm

24:22

of possibility as space age as it sounds.

24:25

One one thing we mentioned radio

24:28

frequencies too, by the way, Yes,

24:30

and name for it. There's a name for that piece

24:32

of equipment. It's called like a something catcher

24:35

or like a something fisher. There's

24:37

there's there's names for like there's a name for a piece

24:39

of equipment like that you can literally use to like intercept

24:42

radio frequencies or um, you

24:44

know, cell phone conversations. But I think

24:46

I may be miss book earlier when I was saying, um,

24:49

that this maybe would have been as a

24:51

result of stuff being used within the embassy.

24:53

This would have been stuff that was being targeted

24:55

at the embassy to try to steal their

24:58

intel. Correct, Uh, yeah, it could

25:00

have been with that explanation,

25:03

or in that case, it could be possible

25:05

that there was an inside

25:08

person who likes set the thing up.

25:10

Um, no one knows. Well, if

25:13

it's when someone knows, no one publicly

25:15

knows. So they're

25:17

not saying they're not saying that's

25:20

right. They have not made an official statement. So

25:23

if you are diving

25:25

into this, one of the first questions you're gonna

25:27

ask is, rightly, if it's

25:29

a weapon, where's the weapon? But another

25:31

question we need to ask immediately

25:34

is if there are symptoms,

25:38

what are the symptoms and can we find

25:40

physical traces of those. This

25:43

is where the Journal of the American Medical

25:45

Association or JAMA comes

25:47

into play. In eighteen,

25:49

they published a study I alluded to

25:51

this. When we're talking about this earlier led

25:54

by a guy who's pretty legit.

25:56

His name is Douglas H. Smith. He's the director

25:59

of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair

26:01

at University of Pennsylvania.

26:03

And his team looked

26:06

at people reporting these

26:08

symptoms and they found signs

26:10

of brain damage, but they

26:12

found no signs of impact to

26:15

the patient's skull. And they used

26:17

a really weirdly poetic term

26:19

for this. They called this kind of trauma

26:22

and immaculate concussion and

26:25

I know what what an album named uh?

26:27

And so. Smith also

26:30

said most of most

26:33

of the folks on his team were pretty skeptical

26:35

about this going in, and then later

26:38

they all unanimously concluded

26:41

something is there, so much so

26:43

that they did another study the next year

26:45

in nineteen and they largely

26:48

agreed with their earlier findings. That's

26:50

fascinating, And we're gonna get to the whole idea

26:52

of like mass hysteria and what that means.

26:54

But this stuff sure points

26:57

the finger at something. It

26:59

felt quite know what that is? Uh,

27:02

there's involved, I

27:04

mean, and you can touchless brain damage,

27:07

you know what I mean, Like an unseen

27:09

mover causing people's brains

27:11

to malfunction. Just wait until their

27:14

white blood cell levels are are heightened

27:16

in the next couple of years. And I think we maybe

27:19

brushed over it a little bit or maybe not, but

27:21

like, I mean, one of the big things that was described

27:23

here is the idea of brain fog

27:26

and of not being able to like read things,

27:28

you know, like the woman that I described, miss lee

27:31

Um in the New Yorker piece, she

27:33

at breakfast with her kids, like couldn't read

27:35

the cereal box and things like that.

27:37

Like this the sort of like bursts of uh

27:40

confusion and and this is sort of

27:42

like you know, almost like borderline

27:44

stroke like symptoms, you know, like where

27:47

you like kind of just like are all of a sudden like in

27:49

a fugue state. Yeah, and this,

27:51

Uh, I think this goes back to

27:54

what you were saying earlier, Matt, Like the one

27:56

of one of the key things is uh temporary

27:58

inability to pomplish

28:01

relatively simple task. Let's

28:04

let's go into this. Let's go into the idea

28:06

of something being psychogenic

28:09

or psycho semantic, attic, insane.

28:12

Uh. There there there's

28:14

another. There's the other side of

28:16

the camp. The other contradictory information

28:19

here or contradictory belief is

28:22

a growing number of people. Also

28:25

high level experts, also

28:27

high level scientists, think

28:29

that this is quite

28:31

possibly entirely psycho semantic. What

28:34

does that mean, Well, first, it

28:36

does not mean that people are purposely

28:38

making something up. It does not mean

28:40

that they are lying, and it does not mean

28:43

that their experiences are invalid.

28:46

It means that while people may genuinely

28:48

believe they've been affected by some sort

28:51

of James Bond level spy machinery,

28:53

they have instead succumbed somehow

28:56

to an outbreak of mass hysteria. And shout

28:59

out to the excellent, excellent

29:01

book Outbreak if you would

29:03

like to learn more about this. It's it's

29:05

the best encyclopedia I've found

29:07

of mass hysteria outbreaks throughout

29:10

history. It is such a good and disturbing read.

29:13

It's one of the things that almost just connected to like the placebo

29:15

effect, where if you truly believe that you're getting

29:17

the right medication or something that's

29:19

supposed to have an effect, then

29:22

you can trick your body

29:24

into experiencing a positive

29:26

result. Um and I believe there's

29:29

an opposite of that called the no sebo effect,

29:31

where you can literally trick your body into being

29:33

sick, which you know in this scenario

29:35

is kind of what this would be if people truly

29:37

believe based on remember all that communication

29:40

you were talking about Ben and overhearing kind

29:42

of the scuttle butt around the embassy about

29:44

sonic weapons and hearing whispers of all this kind

29:46

of stuff. If you really believe that you're

29:48

being targeted by this, and you start to hear other

29:51

people that validate your belief, then

29:53

it can make it persevere and

29:55

maybe you can get more intense. Can I tell

29:57

you guys that want to comment on this? Uh?

30:00

Yeah, no, you're right. Um.

30:02

A couple of days after we recorded that episode

30:04

featuring the stories from Vienna where we brought

30:06

Havana syndrome back up, I think

30:09

I experienced something kind of like this where

30:12

I was thinking about it a lot. I

30:15

was talking about it with you guys, and then uh

30:17

talking about it with a couple of other friends, and

30:20

late at night when I was getting just hanging

30:22

around in my house, I was in my bedroom

30:25

and my I heard a clicking sound in

30:28

my right ear I'm not kidding, and

30:30

then a high pitched tone like tenitis

30:32

like I get when with when I'm playing symbols

30:34

too much or something, and

30:36

it lasted for quite a while.

30:39

I felt nauseous and I had to lay

30:41

down, and I felt really weird. Um

30:44

And I don't know if it's possible

30:47

that my brain could just cause

30:50

these effects to occur, because I've been thinking about

30:52

it and talking about it a lot. You

30:54

know, I don't know what happened within my brain when

30:56

I experienced it, but I know I experienced something like

30:58

it. Um. And I highly doubt

31:01

that I'm being targeted, that my house

31:03

is being targeted for any reason. So

31:05

I'm just putting it out there that, like you

31:08

may think that, oh, that's impossible. I my

31:10

brain could never like trick itself into experiencing

31:13

something. But I just

31:15

would say to you, it can. Um.

31:18

And it feels very weird when you identify

31:20

that it has. Yeah. And then also,

31:23

I mean it goes back to in

31:25

some ways, it's like a version of peer pressure,

31:27

right, Uh, like that experiment

31:30

I talked about earlier, where

31:33

where it was clear that people

31:36

will, uh, people will

31:38

make a inaccurate

31:40

or incorrect conclusion just

31:42

so they can fit in with a group, like which

31:45

line is longer, which line is the same length.

31:47

That's scary and it's very human. Other

31:50

historical examples of mass

31:52

psychogenic illnesses or

31:54

phenomenon would be stuff like the dancing

31:57

plagues of the Middle Ages, or our

32:00

episode on the screaming epidemics

32:02

in rural Malaysia, or

32:04

for something more recent, what about

32:07

the various accounts of uh

32:10

teenagers developing facial

32:12

ticks after watching a lot

32:14

of videos of someone with Tourette

32:16

syndrome on TikTok. There's

32:18

a level of communication here that

32:21

is maybe not entirely

32:23

consensual, is what I'm saying. The

32:26

anti weapon school of thought,

32:28

let's call them, that found some

32:31

pretty high level proponents and this

32:33

is this is a story that I

32:35

think it's funny. I don't know if we need

32:37

to go too deep on this, but it's it's

32:40

interesting because it's a great illustration

32:42

of how science should work. The

32:44

initial claims of sonic weapons.

32:47

This came about because a

32:50

lot of the victims description included

32:52

those noises similar to what you're mentioning,

32:55

matt Uh. Not everyone reported

32:57

hearing a sound. Not everyone said

33:00

they heard the same thing, but

33:02

still that's a good place to start. So

33:05

were these folks in Cuba hearing

33:07

a weapon? Various

33:09

physicists have shot this down.

33:11

Dr Jurgen Altman particular

33:14

stood out to me. He said, I know of no

33:16

acoustic effect that can cause concussion

33:18

symptoms. Sound going through the air

33:21

cannot shake your head. And then there

33:23

was an alleged recording of the sonic attack.

33:26

Cool, that's evidence, right, That's

33:28

like the recording of a gunshot if

33:30

there is a weapon in play. But some

33:32

biologists got in the game. They

33:34

investigated this and they were

33:37

able to conclusively identify

33:39

the sound. It wasn't a sonic

33:42

weapon. Well, it wasn't a man made

33:44

sonic weapon. It was the

33:47

banging tunes of the humble

33:49

a neuro grillis Sellernicus.

33:52

Uh allowed cricket, a

33:54

very very loud cricket. Look, but look upon

33:56

my chirps, he mighty. It's basically

33:58

when those

34:01

uh, those cricket legs are deadly, uh

34:04

you know, and they're like the tiny world's tiniest

34:06

violin playing the saddest song on

34:09

massum. But no, I mean, anyone that lives around

34:11

the neck of the woods that we're at um, you know this

34:13

sound, or at least that's cicada's

34:15

and crickets they make a similar sound, and it's

34:17

a giant group of them, and it

34:20

creates something that the ear perceives

34:22

as being a kind of a continuous

34:25

um kind of hum. Right, m

34:27

hmm, yeah, and uh

34:30

we go to Fernando monte

34:33

Al grey Zapata, who was a professor

34:35

of sensory biology

34:38

at the University of Lincoln, and

34:41

this guy was involved in

34:43

the study the biologists conducted

34:45

and he confirmed that this

34:47

is a Caribbean species of cricket. Its

34:50

call is going through it about seven

34:52

killer hurts and it's at a high

34:55

rate, which means if you're walking

34:57

around rocking human

34:59

general issue ears, you're

35:01

gonna hear a continuous, sharp trill when

35:04

these crickets are emitting

35:06

their calls. So they're not superspies,

35:09

they're just very loud. They don't have indoor voices.

35:12

That's what happened and this, Yeah,

35:14

but it's it's interesting if you've got a loud

35:16

enough you know, sound

35:19

at the same frequency occurring for a long

35:21

enough period of time, it can

35:23

cause hearing damage. And some of those

35:25

things those sensations like losing

35:27

some losing a frequency or

35:29

two in your ears, so

35:33

you know there that could be part

35:35

of the problem. And

35:37

it doesn't that often, Like when you lose that frequency,

35:40

then you get tonitis like in that frequency

35:42

where you hear it constantly. It's

35:45

that's true, and that's valid. Point counterpoint,

35:48

I would say, why did no one

35:51

in Havana report that

35:53

before? Well, and

35:55

to your earlier point, been about the proximity

35:57

effect, right, like if if short

36:00

of these devices being stationed

36:02

directly in the homes of

36:04

these individuals that were being you know, afflicted,

36:07

Um, what about the people standing in between?

36:10

You know what? I mean? What about the people in the streets?

36:12

You know? What about the other people living

36:14

in the neighborhoods and nearby houses? These are presumably

36:17

maybe passed through. That's the

36:19

part again, because the technology is so

36:22

we don't know what this is, So we don't know

36:24

how with the mechanism of targeting would

36:26

be and how to even deploy it. So I think that's what

36:29

causes a lot of like head scratching at least

36:31

in like the with the people that are

36:33

able to talk about it. I mean, maybe

36:35

this does exist and there's just like

36:37

a small cadre of folks that know

36:39

about what this is, but we can't hear

36:42

about it. Uh, A conspiracy

36:45

of crickets, I love it, Ben,

36:48

What if the crickets can send that send seven

36:50

killer hurt signal, bounce it off

36:52

the windows, and then

36:54

record it in their little cricket robot

36:57

bodies are saying, aren't

36:59

real, Let me get my matrix

37:02

glasses out. Saved that for this

37:04

one. So yes, uh

37:09

uh man, all right, well I'm putting away the glasses there,

37:12

So we ruled out one

37:14

possible explanation. Crickets are probably

37:16

not superspies. But what about

37:19

the other possibilities? To

37:21

answer that, we have to turn on the microwave

37:23

after a word from our sponsors. Beep

37:33

beep beep, No,

37:35

Doc, don't cut those beeps. This is we're doing a bit

37:38

uh microwave. But for

37:40

your mind one of the strongest supporting

37:42

mind crow wave. There it is there,

37:45

it is cut print. No, that's

37:47

perfect. Uh the mind

37:50

crow wave brilliant. So

37:53

one of the strongest arguments for the idea

37:55

of a directed energy weapon

37:58

and the idea that Russia might be behind

38:00

it. Is something that

38:02

you mentioned earlier, Matt, the

38:05

Moscow's signal. What

38:07

is that uh messed

38:09

up thing that you barely

38:11

hear about, Like I barely know about

38:13

this, and I'm so interested

38:16

in this stuff, and I barely know about it.

38:19

Uh, because I've

38:21

never had proximity to the State Department,

38:23

I suppose I don't know, Um,

38:26

but it's it's an older story

38:28

from I want to say, the nineteen seventies, Ben.

38:30

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm just pulling this from the top of my

38:32

head. I think it was nineteen seventies

38:36

in Moscow, at

38:38

an embassy there and in

38:40

a couple of other places in Moscow where

38:42

Americans were operating. Uh

38:45

is that right? Yeah? Yeah,

38:48

okay, okay, yeah. But

38:51

the thing I remember, Ben, is a specific

38:53

listening device that was placed in

38:56

a couple like within the walls

38:58

of a building where diplomats were we're

39:00

functioning. That required

39:04

I think it was microwaves to be sent

39:06

into the building to activate the listening

39:08

devices. I think that's what you

39:11

tell me the actual story, Ben, That's just what I remember.

39:13

Well, well, first this is not we're

39:16

not experts on this, but this is not

39:19

a classified thing any longer,

39:22

I think. Uh, Noel, Matt,

39:24

I think, first off, most importantly, we

39:26

can agree that the Moscow

39:29

Signal is a great name for a

39:31

band and their album,

39:33

their debut album is Immaculate Concussion.

39:37

Right. Also, either of those could be a

39:39

good name for a nice stiff cocktail. That's

39:42

true. I would be frightened of

39:44

a cocktail called immaculate concussion.

39:48

I'll have yours then, Ben, Okay, well you

39:50

have to when I'll drive, because

39:52

I don't think you could drive after those. But

39:55

but yes, So the Moscow signal

39:58

is public knowledge now, to

40:01

the point that there is a Wikipedia page

40:03

on this that you can read that has some pretty

40:05

good sourcing, which you can't always

40:07

say about Wikipedia. So this

40:11

describes a microwave transmission

40:14

that was directed at the U. S. Embassy and

40:16

as Matt said, probably some other places

40:18

as well, starting in at least

40:20

nineteen fifty three to

40:23

about nineteen seventy nine. It was around

40:25

for a long time. Um, and I need

40:27

to lean on you guys for a little

40:30

bit of of a comparison

40:32

description of how this signal

40:34

was rated. So the Moscow

40:36

Signal over those decades

40:39

is varying between two point five

40:41

to four gigga hurts, and

40:44

that cricket over

40:46

there terrorizing the embassy in Cuba

40:48

allegedly is calling

40:50

at about seven killer hurts.

40:53

So what's what's the difference here?

40:55

What what gives? How do they compare?

40:58

Well, typically, like something that would be can said

41:00

at a high frequency in sound

41:02

way, It's just be something between thirty killer

41:04

hurts and three hundred mega hurts.

41:07

So what you're describing is a little

41:09

below that. And for reference,

41:12

Matt, what is the typical range

41:14

of the ability of human ears to perceive

41:17

sound in frequencies? My understanding

41:19

is twenty hurts on the low end

41:21

to like the super low frequencies all the way up

41:24

to about twenty killer hurts,

41:26

which would be twenty k when I'm thinking about it in

41:28

my editing brain. Got it awesome?

41:31

Okay? Plus I love the idea.

41:33

Uh. I love the idea of

41:35

this cricket talking. For some reason, when you guys

41:37

are describing this to me, uh,

41:40

it makes me think of the cricket

41:42

as some insect

41:45

version of those screaming goats.

41:47

Have you ever seen those that they're like eerily

41:50

human like in their bleats.

41:52

I'll send it to you, um, I'll send

41:55

it to you over the weekend, because I don't think you want

41:57

to hear it on a school night, and just just

41:59

for a little friends, for like your own personal

42:01

hearing. The human voice a male

42:04

voice covers a fundamental frequency

42:06

range of between one hundred hurts and nine

42:08

hundred hurts um. And

42:11

you know, once we get past the range of

42:13

human hearing, when we start getting into

42:15

things like mega hurts and and gigga

42:17

hurts. Between three hunder mega hurts and gigga

42:20

hurts is considered microwaves UM.

42:22

And above that, between three hundredig hurts and four

42:24

hundred terror hurts that's infrared. And

42:26

then you start getting into the visible light spectrum.

42:29

So all of these things are related. So the we're

42:32

talking about two point five to four gigga hurts

42:34

with this Moscow signal, and

42:36

that's definitely microwaves. That's definitely

42:38

you're not going to hear it necessarily,

42:41

but you could be affected by it theoretically. And

42:44

I just last thing on that seven seven

42:47

uh killer hurts thing. I

42:50

don't know about, you know, but when I'm

42:52

going going through and using a d S

42:54

er on somebody's voice, generally

42:56

it's around seven killer hurts, which

42:59

might make you like understand

43:01

why that cricket sound is so jarring

43:04

and so like irritating, because

43:06

that's the thing that many audio professionals

43:09

remove from speaking voices

43:11

just because it's kind of a it can be.

43:13

It's the sibilants it's sometimes the

43:15

the hard ask that you hear. They take

43:18

like that's the thing that's just coming at you

43:20

from several hundred thousand

43:22

crickets or whatever. Yeah,

43:25

and and I

43:27

felt a disturbance in the sound, as

43:29

though a million crickets cried out at once.

43:32

Uh So, later the

43:34

US government will conclude

43:36

that the Moscow signal is

43:39

likely an attempted espionage

43:42

and in this conclusion, they also

43:44

determined that there were no ill health

43:46

effects on their staff as a result.

43:49

Forty years after the fact,

43:52

this would be disputed, which is

43:54

important. You can find

43:56

a report on this called the Moscow Signal

43:58

Epidemiological a forty years

44:00

on by jose A. Martinez

44:03

from Reviews on Environmental Health.

44:05

So people are still debating that one

44:08

decades later. Here's the big

44:10

problem we mentioned already with the microwave proposal.

44:13

No one's found the weapon. No one's

44:16

literally no one has found the microwave. If

44:19

these are purposeful attacks, I

44:21

would say it's also interesting that no

44:23

one has determined a solid motive.

44:26

Would you blast people's brains

44:28

just to like troll them. There's

44:31

no there's no indication that

44:34

this was pushing them to perform certain

44:36

tasks. But yeah,

44:38

but still the inescapable

44:41

fact is that the Moscow signal was

44:43

a real thing, and this plays a big role

44:46

in the minds of people who argue

44:48

that there are current microwave attacks.

44:50

But I have to say I have to slightly disagree,

44:53

just slightly disagree. I think there's

44:55

clear motive with the Moscow signal,

44:57

which was signals intellig

45:00

on the behalf of you know,

45:02

an opposition force the United States. In this case

45:05

it was likely Moscow

45:07

or it was like likely the Russian government,

45:09

and they were they were blasting microwaves

45:12

at uh the embassy locations,

45:15

at diplomatic locations in order to gain

45:17

intel by using devices

45:20

theoretically inside that building. We know for

45:22

sure there was one and several others the typewriters

45:24

that were discovered, and there's

45:27

we know that for sure. Like you can

45:29

go head on over to I think it's the American

45:32

Foreign Service Association website.

45:34

Then you posted a link there. The title

45:36

is today Savanna syndrome is like deja vu all

45:38

over again, as Yogi Berra might have

45:40

put it by James Shoemaker. Yeah,

45:43

I'm not saying that the Moscow signal didn't have

45:45

a motive. I think that's very clear. I

45:48

But then I think, like, I don't know, I'm

45:50

pretty convinced by some of the writing in that particular

45:53

article and a couple others I've

45:55

been reading that if if

45:57

this is in fact an actual physical

45:59

thing where microwaves are bombarding

46:02

these locations now in twenties you

46:04

know sixteen too,

46:06

that it's the same deal. It's

46:08

a side effect of signals

46:10

intelligence gathering by some opposition.

46:14

I mean, to me, that makes the most sense, that this is like a

46:16

side effect of those lasery

46:19

things that they're shooting in to capture

46:21

phone calls, uh and and intel

46:23

of other kinds. That's the thing that makes the most sense

46:26

to me. It just doesn't seem like the thing in and of

46:28

itself is focused

46:30

enough or has enough of

46:32

a predictable outcome other than just

46:34

sewing what seeds of discord

46:37

within the government, like you

46:39

know what I mean, Like it's it's definitely becoming a bit

46:41

of a pr nightmare. But

46:43

that's not enough to to be a motive.

46:45

And it took a long time for it to even come out. Okay,

46:48

yeah, you know you inspired me here.

46:50

I've got a new conspiracy theory on this. What

46:52

if it's big ibew proofing, right,

46:55

like they're giving these incredibly important

46:58

people a lot of headaches his

47:00

cell No, No, well yeah,

47:02

I mean look according to I hear,

47:04

you've been according

47:06

to the author, uh

47:11

two D and fifty it's crazy.

47:13

Be careful. Um. But the one

47:16

of the side effects, allegedly,

47:18

at least according to some of the writing, I can't prove

47:21

this of the Moscow signal

47:23

was leukemia, and you know,

47:25

or theoretically was leukemia.

47:28

At least it showed up in many people who

47:30

were affected by the Moscow signal, including the

47:32

guy who wrote the article. So I

47:34

don't know. It's just yeah,

47:37

that's the pickle here. Lest

47:39

we forget about another syndrome. Wasn't

47:41

agent orange considered a syndrome? I

47:44

believe so you have for a time because it was

47:46

a collection again a combo

47:48

meal of symptoms. I'm thinking

47:50

about Gulf War syndrome.

47:53

It was. It was another syndrome. Obviously,

47:56

agent orange is now something that people collect disability

47:58

for collecting known offense from

48:00

from the v A four, But for a long

48:02

time that was buried in the same way. And you gotta

48:04

wonder, as new a story as this is, maybe

48:07

this is totally our fault. You know,

48:10

yeah, you know, that's an inescapable possibility.

48:13

There's one more possibility that

48:15

we we need to dive back into,

48:18

and it's a It's something

48:20

that I think the majority of opinions

48:23

you read now will agree with. Doesn't

48:25

make it correct, but it is important.

48:27

You do need to know this. What if it is

48:30

all a case of the made it up skis?

48:32

Everybody involved here is human. They're

48:34

inherently vulnerable to the usual human

48:37

misconceptions and frailties. And

48:39

that's why a growing majority of scientists

48:41

and skeptics have clapped back at

48:43

those conclusions by Jamma and those

48:46

statements from you know, various

48:48

politicians and military

48:50

officials. You can find an

48:52

example of this reasoning,

48:54

this argument that Havana syndrome is a

48:56

result of psychogenic phenomena

48:59

in a book that is published in March of March

49:02

of last oh March of two years ago,

49:04

Havana Syndrome, Mass Psychogenic Illness

49:07

and the Real Story behind the Embassy

49:09

Mystery and Hysteria. UM.

49:12

This can be sound offensive to people. If

49:14

we have people who are in the audience today

49:17

who know someone who's been affected by this,

49:19

this can sound like maybe those

49:21

authors are ignoring legitimate

49:24

claims of people who have been injured. This

49:26

is not the case. Instead, the

49:29

way we put it is, there

49:31

is a viable possibility

49:35

that people were already experiencing

49:38

various symptoms for any number

49:40

of unrelated reasons, and

49:43

upon communicating with people

49:45

with their colleagues, their peers, other

49:48

folks in the area, they

49:50

heard a phrase that could

49:52

explain what they were experiencing.

49:55

They were able, they had a name to

49:57

hang their experience upon, havan

50:00

a syndrome. You know, you thought you just had

50:02

some headaches, You thought you just maybe

50:04

we're getting to nitis, and then someone

50:06

said, I have a

50:08

headache too. It's not just a

50:10

headache. It's Havannah syndrome. And

50:12

then you have that light bulb Eureka

50:15

moment and you say, oh, that's what's happening to me.

50:17

It is not random, It is not damage

50:20

from you know, playing symbols too loudly

50:22

or too often. It is Havana

50:24

syndrome, and we are under

50:26

attack. I'm not saying that's

50:28

what's happening, but psychologically

50:31

there is a viable possibility. Again,

50:34

especially when you look at how um

50:39

if you look at the spread of

50:41

the symptoms for this syndrome,

50:43

you know what I mean, A lot of them are

50:46

could be caused by other events.

50:49

And then also a lot of them are tough to verify

50:52

unless you have doctors in

50:55

the room at the time doing

50:57

like brain scans and so on. Even then,

50:59

I mean, you know, I just had

51:01

a health scare with my mom, you know where

51:03

um, we genuinely thought she

51:06

had a stroke, uh, and we had her in

51:08

the hospital and they did a CT scan

51:10

on her and they found something that

51:12

indicated that we were likely right that she

51:14

had a stroke. But then they did another scan

51:16

on her that was totally clean. And any

51:18

fans of the show Succession will probably

51:21

remember the episode where Logan Roy, the main

51:24

character, one of the main characters UM,

51:26

appears to be demonstrating stroke

51:28

like symptoms and then it just turns out he had a really

51:30

bad urinary tract infection, which

51:32

is a thing that can present those kind of symptoms

51:35

and older people. UM. So it's just

51:37

there's so many factors that can go into

51:39

these kinds of things, and and it's impossible to

51:41

uh even like the pain scale that we

51:44

used to measure um people's pain.

51:46

As we know, if anyone watched that show Dope Sick or

51:48

it was followed, you know, the whole uh Sackler

51:50

family debacle. We know that that

51:52

was largely invented by pharmaceutical companies,

51:55

the idea of like, how can you describe your pain

51:57

on a scale of like one to to ten or whatever.

51:59

Uh, it's all very subjective. And I

52:01

was just going to mention when you mentioned the made it up skis,

52:04

like, couldn't you argue that the

52:06

initial impetus for some,

52:09

not all psychogenic events

52:12

is a single or a

52:14

couple of cases of the made it up skis

52:16

that are so convincing that

52:18

people just hop on board and believe

52:21

the hype. Quite possibly, I mean it's

52:23

a it's a it could be a case

52:25

of retroactive explanation,

52:29

irrationalization. One looks back

52:32

upon what they've experienced and now

52:34

has a new frame of reference through which

52:36

to view it. Again, this is

52:38

not this is not us saying that

52:42

it isn't happening. And we want to

52:44

uh first

52:48

and foremost, we want to be respectful to

52:51

the people who have experienced these

52:53

conditions. Uh. And you

52:55

know this is the opinion

52:57

of our show, but it's also echoed on

53:00

a macro stage

53:03

on a much larger stage. The debate

53:05

over what actually went down continues

53:07

today. UH. Congress and

53:10

the White House under the Biden administration

53:12

have also recently passed a bill

53:15

that set aside funding to assist

53:17

victims of this syndrome, whatever

53:20

it turns out to be. Uh.

53:22

And then also the scientists are

53:24

still clapping back and forth

53:26

at each other. Man. There's an often ignored

53:29

report from the Jason's

53:32

on the possibility of a psychogenic

53:34

illness being at play. There's a redacted

53:36

version of this. It's out now. You can read

53:38

it online. But essentially they

53:41

and several other scientists don't

53:43

agree with those two

53:46

studies from ten and twenty nineteen,

53:48

and they questioned the methodology.

53:50

But I what are

53:51

you to

53:55

oh man, We mentioned that Jason's previously

53:58

right. Yeah, we did a strange

54:00

news or listener male episode about it. I'll

54:02

tell you what they're hiding. There's some really

54:05

good sexy heads of hair is

54:10

Oh you got a picture of them? You know, I

54:12

just picture them all as being very good looking boys

54:14

named Jason. So for

54:20

anybody who doesn't know uh, and maybe

54:22

this is a lighter place for us to to

54:24

end today's show. For anybody who isn't aware

54:27

the Jason's Technically,

54:30

Jason is a independent

54:34

group of top notch scientists.

54:37

They formed because the US freaked

54:40

out when the Soviet Union

54:42

launched spot Nick and they said, okay,

54:45

no, no, no, we can't do this. And

54:48

uh. In my favorite like fictional

54:50

Tarantino Wes Anderson

54:53

version of the story, there's

54:55

a very um off the wall presidential

54:58

meeting and some and says we've

55:01

got a round up everybody named Jason. And

55:03

someone's like, uh, Mr President,

55:06

don't you think that's a bit extreme, And he goes, yeah,

55:08

no, good point. Just the scientist, just

55:10

the scientist named Jason. Uh.

55:14

But but it's it is a real

55:16

thing, and they continue today. Was

55:19

established nineteen sixty. No one's quite

55:21

sure how many members they are. They are not

55:23

all named Jason. UM.

55:25

I'm just imagining Brian Cox going

55:28

Jason chair.

55:35

So so shout up, so

55:39

shout out to the Jason's UM,

55:42

a group that still is conducting both

55:44

classified and declassified

55:47

research. It's important stuff. Uh.

55:49

And if we're if we're roasting you

55:52

a little bit about the name, that's

55:54

just because it's cool. But whatever

55:56

the case may be. With quote

55:58

unquote, havanis and him, which again

56:01

is an unfair term in my opinion. The

56:03

investigation continues as

56:06

we record, and this is where you come in, fellow

56:08

conspiracy realist, we would like to

56:10

hear from you. What do you think

56:12

about this? We've outlined the major

56:14

possibilities. We were able to eliminate

56:17

one um, we

56:19

found one villain a Caribbean species

56:21

of cricket. But now we now

56:23

we passed the the microwave

56:26

to you, is this is

56:28

this possible? I don't know, Like

56:31

I think all three of us are kind of this on

56:33

the same page here, because outside

56:36

of the sonic weapon being relatively

56:39

debunked, the other

56:41

explanations all have a

56:43

couple of sticky things about them,

56:45

things that I think still prevent

56:48

us from dismissing them entirely. I don't

56:50

know, what do you guys? Yeah, well, look for my money,

56:53

it's Moscow Signal two point Oh,

56:55

that's what it is. Uh, it's

56:58

I don't think you know, in my opinion

57:01

that it doesn't matter who's I'm some guy

57:03

in Georgia, But in my opinion,

57:05

it was just it was tradecraft and

57:08

it's a technology used with that. It's not a

57:10

weapon, it's it's a byproduct

57:13

of that technology being in use. I

57:16

tend to lead in the same direction because I do not

57:18

feel like the ends

57:20

justified the means if in fact

57:22

this technology exists and they are

57:24

targeting you know, uh, US

57:28

diplomats in Cube in Cuba,

57:30

like to what end? Ay, we don't have an answer

57:33

to that, and be could you do a little bit

57:35

better job, like have introduced a little

57:37

mind control into the equation, you know, something,

57:39

make them do a thing. That's

57:42

I was thinking about that too, and and again now not and

57:44

I'm not I'm not being a jerk here. Um. I

57:47

I do think maybe there are This

57:49

is the kind of thing where maybe we only see some

57:51

symptoms and maybe there is there are there

57:53

are future symptoms that could be the

57:55

real thing that actually is the

57:59

desired and ole of something like

58:01

this. Um, it just happens that

58:03

the hand was tipped by you know, these

58:05

early um symptoms.

58:07

Maybe there is something more nefarious at play, like

58:10

a man. I mean again, we don't have any evidence

58:12

of that ever actually having successfully taken place

58:15

throughout the course of human history. I mean we've got

58:17

like sir hand, sir hand and that kind of stuff, but like it

58:19

usually involves some level of mental illness

58:22

um on the part of the individual making

58:24

the claims. Um, But who knows.

58:26

I mean, maybe there is a deeper layer to

58:28

this, and now that it's making the news,

58:31

perhaps whatever party was at play

58:34

doing that has abandoned it and they're they're

58:36

they're taking this underground again,

58:38

you know, and maybe they're gonna tweak the

58:40

their technology so that it doesn't give

58:42

the game away so quickly. Again,

58:44

total blue sky sci fi

58:47

kind of conjecture there, so

58:50

what so yeah, let us know what you think, folks.

58:52

What is this conspiracy of crickets?

58:55

Um? Is Moscow's signal

58:58

a better name for an album? Or

59:00

is it a better name for bands? Uh?

59:02

These and other very important questions we'd

59:04

love to hear from you. We try to be easy to

59:07

find online. That's right.

59:09

You can find us on the Internet in the usual places

59:11

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59:13

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59:15

double T and Twitter. I think it really gives it a nice,

59:18

a nice ear feel. Um. You

59:20

can find us on those platforms under the handle

59:22

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59:24

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59:27

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59:29

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59:32

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59:34

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59:37

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59:39

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59:42

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59:44

like. We'd love it. If you're silly

59:47

like Optimus Prime. Uh,

59:50

thank you again for sending

59:52

in your message and telling us all about Omicron

59:55

H. Thank you Optimus, as well as thank

59:57

you everybody else who's been calling in U

1:00:01

we have to. We have two voicemails in

1:00:03

our inbox right now, guys too, and

1:00:06

it's just because they came in while we were recording. Uh.

1:00:08

So I'm really excited about that state. We're

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1:00:13

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