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

0:09

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

0:12

production of I Heart Grading. Hello,

0:24

welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

0:27

Noel is not present, but we'll be

0:29

rejoining us shortly. They called me

0:31

Ben. We are joined as always with our

0:33

super producer Paul Mission Control

0:35

Decond. Most importantly, you are

0:38

you. You are here, and that

0:40

makes this the stuff they don't

0:42

want you to know. If you're

0:44

listening to this show the day

0:46

it comes out, you are officially

0:48

part of our listener mail

0:51

segment. We do this every week. You

0:53

are the most important part of the stuff they don't

0:55

want you to know, and we love

0:57

to hear from you. Even more portantly,

1:00

we love to share your stories with our fellow

1:03

conspiracy realist. Every

1:05

week. When you don't hear us podcasting,

1:08

we're buried in research and we're

1:10

pouring through correspondencies

1:13

from across the world to us.

1:16

Today, we're going to explore some

1:19

messages to our Instagram Conspiracy

1:21

Stuff show. We're also going to

1:23

explore some of the emails, and yes,

1:26

Samurai, I do

1:28

read every single email. I

1:30

think Matt and I both read every single email

1:32

we get sent, so thank you and I quite

1:35

enjoy the way. Right. Uh, we

1:37

are going to uh, we're gonna

1:39

hear from some great folks here, Alexandra

1:42

Travis, Jessica h. Sam

1:45

in Japan, and we're going to

1:47

talk a little bit about some fascinating

1:49

responses to an earlier

1:52

listener mail regarding blood

1:54

donation and Oregon donation

1:56

and the rules surrounding that. We're

1:59

also going to hear from

2:01

an anonymous source about

2:03

a strange Amazon

2:06

TikTok conspiracy.

2:08

It's true that there is a conspiracy,

2:10

but we can't wait to hear what you think about it, folks,

2:13

before we do all that. However, we're

2:16

going to start today's show with

2:19

an email that I think Matt

2:21

caught both of our interests about

2:24

a relatively recent religious movement,

2:26

and uh, we were talking off

2:28

air peek behind the curtain

2:30

here, folks. I spend a lot of

2:33

time scouring

2:35

through some pretty sketchy stuff

2:38

to get a look at up

2:40

and coming cultic organizations.

2:42

That's kind of what I call them, because we

2:44

want to know whether these things

2:47

will become dangerous

2:50

and this is something that can

2:52

affect again, anybody from

2:54

any imaginable demographic. It's

2:56

always offensive to me, at least

2:59

when people say that only the credulous

3:01

are taken in by manipulative, charismatic

3:04

leaders. Anybody

3:07

can be taken in by a dangerous

3:09

organization like this. So

3:12

maybe we start there knowing

3:15

that we will probably have a

3:18

full episode on this and

3:20

organizations like this in the near future. Absolutely,

3:23

Ben, let's let's begin here. We received

3:25

an email from Alexandra. It

3:28

was on a Monday. I'm just gonna preface that there.

3:30

We received this on a Monday.

3:32

She wrote, Hey guys, I'm a moderately long

3:34

time listener. I love your show and when I saw

3:36

this story pop up on my Facebook, I thought, who

3:39

would be better to tell this story than std

3:41

w y t K. And here we are.

3:44

I'm attaching a link to a recently discovered

3:46

international cult that started twenty

3:48

minutes from where I grew up. It's called

3:51

The Body and if you haven't already

3:53

heard of it, it's a religious, faith based

3:55

cult. I won't go into details, most

3:58

of them are in a link below, and

4:00

uh you may be able to find some other information on it that

4:02

I cannot find. The wow factor

4:05

here is that this is a freshly unearthed

4:07

underground cult that started

4:09

many, many years ago with only a select

4:11

few families from the area. It does

4:13

have very awfully triggering events, and

4:16

I hope you can do a show on it. I'd love to hear

4:18

it come from you guys. Much

4:20

love, forever and always. Alexandra. Oh, that's

4:22

very very sweet, So thank you

4:24

for sending that first of all, but also no thank

4:27

you because I woke up on Tuesday

4:29

read this and I went

4:31

down a rabbit hole and I lost most of my Tuesday,

4:34

Alexandra, So thanks so much. I'm

4:37

joking. I'm totally joking. Thank you

4:39

seriously, because there was a rabbit

4:41

hole that was well worth my time and I

4:43

think our time. So you

4:46

mentioned it a cult, a religious

4:48

organization called The Body.

4:51

The link you sent us was The

4:53

Body I N t L or International

4:55

dot com and if

4:57

you follow that link, if you go there, you can

5:00

learn all about this group. There

5:02

are some humans running that site

5:04

that have been doing research on this cult,

5:06

this uh the Body for quite

5:09

a while and they've posted a ton

5:11

of information. They've

5:14

also included a video

5:16

that is prominently posted there on the site

5:18

titled The Land of the Body Colon

5:21

and Alaskan cult story.

5:23

It is I believe by Syrian Warner

5:26

s y R A n W A R n

5:28

e ER, And this is a

5:30

fairly extensive documentary that

5:32

goes through some investigations

5:35

of the Body that have been occurring for some time.

5:38

I guess been the best thing to do here

5:40

is to start with what

5:43

the website The Body I N

5:45

t L says about this group.

5:47

So I'm gonna read verbatim here from

5:49

that site quote. The Body

5:51

is an active Christian fellowship that holds its

5:54

services in the homes of members

5:56

belonging to the congregation. The

5:58

group started as an isolated collective made

6:00

up of a few families on the Kenai Peninsula

6:02

of Alaska, but has since become an international

6:05

faith organization. Despite the Body

6:07

being active and moving around the globe in recent

6:09

years, they've remained an underground phenomenon

6:11

for most of their history. So,

6:13

okay, it's an underground group starting

6:16

the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. What

6:18

makes this group interesting

6:21

or noteworthy? Well, first

6:23

of all, you you heard me say that the group

6:25

holds its services in the homes of members,

6:28

right, That's an important thing. Often groups

6:30

like this start that way a group of like

6:32

minded people begin holding meetings

6:34

in one of the dwelling places of

6:37

one of the members, and then it expands out

6:39

and uh, it grows in

6:41

the case of the Body, and at least according

6:43

to that YouTube documentary and I mentioned,

6:46

they began very quickly, as these

6:48

groups do, taking in large

6:50

donations from members, from

6:53

very committed members, and

6:55

those donations were

6:57

used to purchase a massive

6:59

amount of property on that Kenai

7:01

peninsula. And this

7:03

includes members selling their homes

7:05

where they live, often with their families, which

7:08

has included children, and donating

7:10

the money to the church, then being given property

7:13

by the group, by the body

7:16

on that large swath of property, so a small

7:18

space, right, a track of land out there

7:20

where they could go and

7:22

build their own tent or whatever structure

7:25

so that they and their families

7:27

again including often children, could

7:30

live and then just live

7:32

in a congregation on that property.

7:35

So that's physically how

7:37

this began, how it started, right. The

7:40

question is what makes this thing occult?

7:42

Right? What are the teachings that make this

7:44

thing occult? Is there a leader involved,

7:47

is somebody who has maybe manipulating the flock

7:49

in some way or another, or at least you

7:51

know, using money in a way that you wouldn't

7:53

want it to be used. There is a leader

7:56

that is mentioned by name on that site.

7:59

I think it's mentioned fully,

8:01

maybe once or twice. Other times

8:04

the name is referred to. I'll say

8:06

it as Mark B. Someone named Mark B.

8:09

I would say that. From information

8:11

gleaned on the website and in the

8:13

YouTube documentary and a few other places, you

8:16

can, if you wish, find out who this person is.

8:19

You can find out a lot of information about this person if

8:21

you wish to go down the rabbit hole at Deeply

8:24

and about the various

8:26

companies that have been found at

8:28

ll c s and other um what is

8:30

it five? I forget what it's called. It's

8:32

a it's the not for profit entities

8:35

that have been that's

8:37

it five O one C three things like sought

8:39

out a n PC. There

8:42

are all kinds of uh names

8:44

like that that you can discover if you wish, such

8:46

as Sage Mountain Studio LLC. You

8:49

can find all that stuff. You can track it down. We

8:52

may do that in a further episode, but not right

8:54

now. That's where kind of the money.

8:56

The money shifts around, right, The property

8:59

shifts around through these LLCs in front

9:01

companies. Uh. When

9:03

it comes to the religion aspect,

9:05

the teaching aspect, the body

9:08

as it was named, focuses

9:10

on the physical body.

9:12

The teachings have a

9:14

lot to do with a passage

9:16

that you can find in the Bible where Jesus

9:20

washes the feet of

9:22

of people. And it's

9:25

not like he's asking people to wash his feet. He

9:27

is washing the feet of others maybe

9:29

those who are would be considered

9:31

by society to be lesser than him.

9:33

And it is a pretty powerful part

9:36

of in my my opinion, powerful part of the Bible

9:38

of like help out those who need

9:41

help, right, no matter what your situation

9:43

is, you can always help someone who needs it. This

9:47

group, the body kind

9:49

of morphs that changes it and

9:52

makes that message along with many

9:54

other passages of the Bible, combines them

9:56

into this message

9:58

about how you need know yourself

10:01

physically, your own body, and

10:03

you also need to know the bodies of others

10:05

in your congregation, specifically

10:08

the body of your leader. And

10:10

you can just imagine where that

10:13

goes, right. Yeah,

10:16

I want to take a second and shout out an

10:19

earlier YouTube video we did which

10:21

holds up which will

10:23

give you some guiding points about how cults

10:25

are started or cultic organizations,

10:28

as well as the pretty

10:30

good, somewhat snarky, but pretty

10:32

good bullet point list of how

10:35

to tell what defines a

10:37

cult, because, as we mentioned earlier on air,

10:40

you don't need religion to make a cult.

10:42

It's just a very easy entry

10:45

point. Cults are really

10:47

kind of a collection of tactics, more

10:49

so even than any

10:52

solid specific beliefs.

10:54

But yeah, I wouldn't shout out Matt

10:57

before we continue. Just Alexandra's

10:59

ex leak there to the Body International.

11:02

Um, that website is a treasure

11:04

trove of information, and

11:06

there was a really interesting thing, I

11:09

know you saw it to where they start talking

11:11

about how the names

11:14

can be so difficult because names are

11:16

just like any other thing

11:18

you wear. Names are just a kind of clothing

11:21

you put on yourself for an organization. And

11:24

um, because this thing

11:26

was called the body,

11:28

it should be no surprise that there are

11:30

multiple cultic organizations

11:33

are religious movements calling themselves

11:35

the body. The same reason, by the way,

11:38

that if you look through the span

11:40

of ancient human history, most

11:44

ancient communities their word for

11:46

themselves is the people, or

11:48

like the real people or the

11:50

actual people, So the

11:53

body can be a tricky

11:56

thing research wise to

11:58

you know, to find the exact body that they've done

12:00

a good job and you've done a bang up job as well.

12:02

Here. Oh yeah, there's so much information, especially

12:05

when it comes to where the body itself

12:08

has moved after it morphed and

12:10

became that thing called sought out for a while,

12:12

then that dissolved, but then the body continued

12:15

on and then it became another

12:17

name that I honestly can't recall it in this

12:20

moment. I don't want to search for my notes for it,

12:22

but you can look at a place called tawn

12:25

Uskett t O n A s

12:27

k E T. Washington. Uh,

12:31

you can search around for that. There's

12:33

quite a bit of information on their activities

12:35

there and specifically that Sage Mountain Studio

12:38

LLC. I want to just

12:40

continue on down that path of the religious

12:43

teachings. In the documentary

12:45

I mentioned the land

12:47

of the Body. There's a section

12:49

in here that I just want to read kind of verbat

12:51

him and I don't mean to take away from the documentary and the producers

12:54

of that documentary watch it if you can please,

12:57

But I just want to talk about the

12:59

weirdness the ritual, the thing kind of

13:01

at the heart of the teachings. So

13:04

there were, as I said, tents

13:06

as structures on this land that was purchased.

13:09

There are many of them, other structures

13:11

that were created. And

13:14

in one of those structures it was kind of like the

13:17

holy place for the leader and a few other

13:19

high level members. We

13:21

mentioned the feet washing thing, changing

13:23

that to the full body I'm gonna give you.

13:26

I'm just gonna read my notes. As

13:28

I was watching this, there is a person

13:30

describing a very common thing

13:33

amongst cults where he says, if

13:35

there's once you get in, if

13:37

there's any contention inside, like

13:39

if you create some kind of tension

13:41

within the group, you'll get cut off from

13:43

the place. And you

13:46

know that often your family as is

13:48

involved there and they're probably gonna stay, but

13:50

you'd get kicked out. So there's

13:52

this heavy pressure to always stay in line,

13:54

always do what you're told, uh, to

13:57

do anything that, especially the

13:59

leader Mark would ask you to do. He

14:02

says, I would never have done the things. I never, never

14:04

would have done what I was asked to do if I

14:06

weren't afraid of being cut off. Um,

14:09

So this guy Mark comes out and he

14:12

daddy, Oh yeah,

14:14

Daddy, this guy Mark comes

14:16

out to this individual, and he

14:19

says, okay, it's your turn. He says,

14:21

I have no idea what they were doing. We're on this

14:23

church camp out, we're on the

14:25

property there that we've discussed. I

14:27

walk into the yurt these

14:30

two people and these

14:32

two men and two women are

14:34

dancing around like that. They're in a trance.

14:37

They're speaking in tongues. Um.

14:39

They disrobe me, and

14:42

now my father in law. He's saying,

14:44

this is my father in law, my boss, and

14:47

the elder in the church took my clothes off

14:49

of me. And the person doing

14:51

the interview says, well, why did why did you let them do that?

14:53

Like, why would you let them do that? And his response

14:56

is my job, my family. I'd

14:58

be cut off if I didn't do what they age only to

15:00

do. Then he just arrives mark, taking

15:02

his bare hands, washing his whole body,

15:05

even fondling me every bit

15:07

of me for a while. He was speaking in

15:09

tongues while he was doing it. And when

15:11

he was done, he said, now touch my

15:14

body, touch every part of my body.

15:17

And this is a

15:20

As the documentary continues, this was a ritual

15:22

essentially that would occur with

15:24

many members of the institution. Men

15:27

women, and then it's described

15:30

that children, at least people

15:32

who were around sixteen years old were subject

15:35

to it as well. That's why

15:37

it seems to be very dangerous at least

15:39

to my ears, to my mind, and

15:42

something that needs to be looked at. There's also

15:44

a lot of there's

15:46

a lot of reporting out there hasn't reached

15:49

a wider audience yet, but there

15:51

there's some great work regarding

15:55

show got like this is ongoing, this

15:57

is live fire right now, and you and I

15:59

talked about this off air before

16:01

recording this listener male segment. We want

16:03

to be careful regarding legality, but

16:07

there are some chilling things

16:10

that have already come out. I want

16:12

to shout out the journalist Dominic Bonnie

16:14

who over on their sub stack

16:17

talks about the idea of

16:20

children being regarded as

16:22

property, and then it ties into

16:25

multiple instances that, as far as

16:27

I could tell, um once

16:30

I have found the right cult called the Body.

16:32

As far as I can tell, there are multiple

16:35

instances of mothers

16:37

being manipulated to abandon

16:40

their children in the hands of

16:44

people who seem to be established

16:47

predators. At least again

16:49

from the reports,

16:51

from the reports and from recordings

16:55

that were made allegedly on the

16:57

property, and you know, involving

17:00

high the high leadership of this group.

17:03

There's a section on the

17:05

body i ntl dot com

17:07

where you can listen to recordings.

17:10

I think there are probably clandestine

17:12

recordings of members of this

17:14

group, especially the high level leadership. You

17:17

can search for it with quote

17:19

here the voice of occult leader tapes

17:22

from the body unquote. All

17:25

right, well, with that, thank

17:27

you again for writing to us,

17:30

Alexandra, and we will definitely

17:33

look more into this. For now, let's take

17:35

a break here a wordsmore our sponsor, and

17:37

we'll come back with more messages from

17:39

you. And

17:46

we have returned. We have some

17:49

more strange things ahead, but

17:52

I think for now, let's

17:54

let's go to something a little bit

17:56

less evil. Um,

17:58

while we're waiting to explore

18:01

explore the body further. Out

18:04

of context, that quote is going to sound

18:06

terrible, but let's

18:08

go to Jessica. H

18:11

Jessica, you wrote to us over on

18:13

the conspiracy stuff Instagram. You

18:15

said the following, and this is something

18:17

I was aware of. I don't know whether my

18:19

colleagues, I don't know how much you guys have

18:22

heard of this, but I don't think it will surprise you so,

18:24

Matt Paul Jessica says, Hi,

18:27

I've always listened to your show, but I've never

18:29

reached out before. I know you all

18:32

talked about cartel's earlier this week,

18:34

but one of my seventh grade Mexican American

18:36

students came into class talking about

18:38

a cartel monkey,

18:40

a literal monkey dressed in a diaper

18:43

and bulletproof vest, who was killed

18:45

in a clash between different cartels in Mexico

18:48

earlier this week. From

18:50

what's searching I did, it seems this is

18:52

not the first exotic animal

18:54

taken in by the cartels. I'd

18:56

love to hear more from you guys about what

18:59

connection thexotic animals and the

19:01

cartels have. So this

19:04

is a bit of a rabbit

19:06

hole, or a bit of a hippo

19:08

hole, if you want. One

19:10

of the first times that I personally

19:12

found out about the

19:15

fascination that a lot of narco

19:17

lords and cartel groups have with exotic

19:19

animals was due to Pablo

19:22

Escobar, you know, the guy who

19:24

became very close to

19:27

being a parallel government of Colombia

19:30

and then probably would have you

19:32

know, had a good chance of becoming the President of

19:34

Columbia had he not gotten popped. Pablo

19:37

Escobar is the reason that

19:40

Columbia today has

19:43

a population of wild hippos.

19:46

Hippos, by the way, are by far

19:49

the most dangerous non human

19:51

land animal. They're big.

19:54

They kill more people than tigers,

19:56

more people than bears, more people

19:59

than lions, you

20:01

know what I mean, more people than badgers. In case

20:03

you were worried about that one, and cassawary,

20:05

if you're worried about large birds, hippos

20:08

are crazy dangerous. Don't

20:11

be fooled because they sit in the water

20:13

like that with their most snouts out and

20:16

you can't really tell what it is until it emerges

20:18

in this giant beast. Also,

20:20

don't let the ungainly size fool you. Those

20:23

cats can book it. And uh, I

20:25

don't care how in shape you are, you cannot

20:28

one on one p VP of hippo. It's

20:32

just not going to happen. Give

20:34

it up, um. And you can see plenty

20:36

of YouTube videos confirming this. But so

20:38

that's the entry point that I had on this.

20:41

And then on another show we

20:43

do called Ridiculous History,

20:45

we looked at how Escobars

20:48

hippo heard continued after

20:51

his fall and his death. Um.

20:54

It's been a known thing for

20:56

years among Mexican law

20:59

enforcement that drug

21:01

cartels in that country

21:03

and in other parts of Latin America have

21:07

exotic animals large

21:10

feelines again, lions and tigers

21:12

like there are people from the Sonola

21:15

cartel who have started Instagram

21:17

and Twitter accounts like back in that

21:21

show that um jaguars

21:23

and so on. They're being kept sometimes

21:26

as well as

21:28

status symbols like as flexes.

21:31

Right. Uh. They can also

21:33

be used to smuggle

21:37

drugs. You can get snakes

21:39

across the border and stuff them with

21:41

cocaine. Very bad for the snake,

21:44

pretty good for business as long as

21:47

you don't get caught. We've

21:49

also talked about cartel's finding

21:51

alternative income streams, right

21:54

because you know, again, you hear

21:56

the phrase cartel associated with

21:58

drugs pretty often in the West. But

22:01

a cartel does not necessarily

22:03

need to be selling something illegal. Cartel's

22:06

engage in monopolization

22:08

and price fixing of any

22:11

precious resource, right, and

22:13

they want to ensure that they have the

22:15

highest profits possible. So OPEC

22:19

is a cartel, It's just a cartel

22:21

for oil, which is legal, right,

22:23

and countries that are members

22:26

of OPEC, some of them have also

22:28

started planning for the

22:31

decline of the fossil fuel industry,

22:34

and that's something that will eventually come

22:36

if civilization continues. Cartels

22:40

are the same way, like, if you legalize

22:43

certain drugs, you are cutting

22:46

cartels off your kneecapping them,

22:48

you're figuratively crippling them. So

22:50

what else can they do to bring in money?

22:53

Hey, say the cartels, We're not

22:55

just about cocaine. You want

22:57

to us endangered South American

23:00

bird? We can get you. That got

23:02

a macaw nine grand bro it's

23:04

yours, take it off a lot. Oh

23:07

no, you're into pythons for

23:10

you. How about

23:12

the spider monkey comes with its

23:14

own body armor. Yes, yes, now

23:16

that is what Jessica is talking about. Jessica,

23:19

we're talking about this because we wanted

23:21

to establish that this is not

23:24

a one off thing. Um, there

23:26

are There are several categories

23:28

of cartel interaction with exotic animals.

23:31

One flexes to smuggling

23:34

vehicles. Three A

23:37

a new income stream just like avocados.

23:40

Right, it's a new way to make money. And

23:42

the endangered animals part, the exotic

23:45

animals as they would be called, that

23:47

is an old trade. But like

23:50

you said, Matt, this

23:52

spider monkey, this poor guy

23:55

is a little bit different, Jessica.

23:57

You sent us uh some great

24:01

links. One that I think stood out

24:03

to both Map myself was Luis

24:06

Chapatos vice article.

24:09

Here's the headline. A narco monkey

24:11

was killed during a shootout and

24:13

now has his own narco

24:15

corrido, which is a

24:18

ballad. Right. There's a

24:20

genre of music which

24:22

is all about the exploits of lost

24:25

nacos, and it's like it

24:28

kind of glorifies them sometimes, and

24:30

it kind of, you know, tells the stories in

24:32

a tragic way. But these

24:34

are the stories of the great gangsters, the great

24:36

criminals, the cartels

24:38

and the drug dealers. And I'm going to tell

24:40

you a lot of the songs are actually

24:43

really catchy. I

24:46

listened to this

24:48

song about this poor monkey.

24:50

Um, but maybe we describe it.

24:53

This is pretty recent, this is earlier.

24:56

Just last month, in June, there

24:59

were photos that obligated on social

25:01

media showing a dead spider

25:03

monkey alongside ten

25:05

other people who were killed in a shootout.

25:08

The monkey was wearing, uh, like

25:10

you said, I was wearing a tactical vest

25:13

and a diaper and a little camouflage

25:15

hoodie. I don't know why the little camo

25:18

hoodie makes me feel bad because you

25:20

know, even with very very bad

25:22

people, most folks,

25:24

the majority of human beings have a soft spot,

25:27

you know what I mean, Like somebody you

25:29

think is an absolute pos they might

25:31

have, um, they might have a guinea

25:33

pig. A guinea pig which is

25:35

just like the most wire you here

25:38

animal on the planet. You know, It's

25:40

it's like, uh, it has

25:42

no defensive, no offensive capabilities.

25:45

It's a furry little potato. And

25:48

the worst person you know might

25:51

have poured all their capability

25:53

for empathy and affection into

25:55

a little rupert their guinea

25:58

pig. And I'm wondering if this is the

26:00

story like that, because as

26:02

reported this Vice article, Matt, the

26:05

monkey was found hugging the

26:07

chest of a human corpse and

26:10

then in another photo it's

26:12

lying beside that same corpse.

26:15

Yeah, that sad. Guinea pigs, by

26:17

the way, are apparently delicious in u

26:20

are eaten. We we've talked about that before.

26:22

Yeah, I think guinea pigs

26:24

before. Yeah, not not

26:27

number one and like my

26:29

imagined menu, but you gotta

26:32

do what you gotta do. So

26:35

was the monkey. This is the question, was

26:37

this poor unfortunate monkey

26:40

chaguito, which just means little

26:43

monkey was was this

26:45

monkey actually evolved

26:48

in exchanging live fire? Uh?

26:52

I don't think so. I think it was kind of

26:54

like a mascot, you know how like throughout

26:56

World War One and World War Two, various

27:00

groups of soldiers would have their their

27:02

mascots. Some were functional like dogs

27:04

that could sniff bombs or find survivors,

27:07

and others were just like, we

27:09

really dig this cat. We found

27:11

this cat normity and this is like

27:14

our cat. Now let's promote them.

27:17

These animals get promoted a lot too. We

27:19

should mention Lue

27:22

lieutenant monkey. That's adorable. Um,

27:25

it's a dangerous line of work, even if you're

27:27

a cat. Yeah. And it's

27:29

also it's a sad it's a sad

27:31

story to read. You can see the reports.

27:34

We'll we'll move on. But to answer

27:36

the question Jessica, Yes, there

27:38

are extensive ties

27:41

between cartels and

27:44

what you would call exotic or endangered

27:47

animals. And they're sometimes

27:49

functional, they're sometimes brutally and

27:51

cruelly used for

27:54

um financial gain, and

27:56

sometimes they're just flexes. But then

27:59

other times, like what seems

28:01

to have happened here, they're beloved

28:04

pets, which is um

28:06

kind of a bummer. But I

28:09

propose at this point, Matt, maybe we uh,

28:12

maybe we pause, give everybody a second

28:15

to check in on their own pets, their

28:17

Kitto's, their dogoes, their Monko's,

28:20

or what have you, and then we'll

28:22

return with more messages from

28:24

you. We're

28:31

back, and we are staying in

28:34

Instagram for a moment to read a message

28:37

from Sam Sam in Japan.

28:39

In fact, here we go.

28:41

This is what you said, Sam, So, I just heard your

28:43

listener male episode, and I want to say

28:45

I too, cannot donate blood or

28:48

organs or bone marrow due to

28:50

living in Germany on a US base in the

28:52

late nineteen eighties. My

28:54

father was stationed there and we lived on

28:56

base. The reasoning is that

28:58

the beef that was on base was

29:00

sourced from the United Kingdom during its

29:03

Mad Cow outbreak. As a result,

29:05

I've done a ton of reading on prions

29:07

and they're fascinating and terrifying and

29:10

honestly might make a good episode

29:12

all their own. Did you know that they

29:14

literally cause the proteins in your brain

29:16

to refold like our agami leaving

29:19

gaps, and that each protein

29:21

that misfolds then touches another, causing

29:23

it to misfold, and so on. Also,

29:26

I'm supposed to tell any surgeons that I

29:28

may have been exposed, because any gear they

29:31

use should be destroyed. WHOA

29:34

autoclaves intense heat and pressure

29:36

for sterilizing things like scalpels in the

29:39

like probably won't kill prions.

29:42

We have absolutely no idea how to kill

29:44

them if they exist. Finally,

29:47

they can activate at any given time, from

29:49

immediately after exposure two decades

29:51

later, which could be a huge problem

29:54

because at least where I grew up, chronic wasting

29:56

and dear is the same as mad cow

29:59

and basically everyone in the north

30:01

Woods of Wisconsin hunts. Well,

30:03

that's a terrifying idea. Sam,

30:06

Yeah, Sam, when I uh

30:08

so, I go through the conspiracy

30:11

stuff show messages as always,

30:13

thank you'd everyone who writes in uh and

30:15

this stood out to me because

30:18

it confirms more

30:21

in depth some of the stuff one of

30:23

our earlier conspiracy realists told us.

30:25

And it also

30:28

gets confirmed again uh

30:31

in again in Instagram, Travis,

30:33

you wrote to us and respond to the listener

30:36

mail saying the following, the vet

30:38

that was in Germany in nine

30:40

or couldn't give blood. Responding

30:43

to this, I was born in h

30:47

and a half months premature. I was given a

30:49

lot of blood transfusions. I have never

30:51

been allowed to donate blood. I wish

30:53

I could, as it saved my life.

30:55

I get you there, Travis. It's the rule

30:57

here in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Anyone

31:00

who had a blood transfusion in

31:02

the years between nineteen eighty to nine

31:05

six can't donate blood

31:07

ever, which is a huge chunk

31:10

of the population. This

31:12

is something that I think a lot of

31:15

people in the United States are not aware

31:17

of. Right. You hear about blood

31:19

shortages, right at least I

31:22

I hear about it a lot in the vampire forums.

31:24

But you know, we've been saying that since the

31:28

sixteen hundreds. You know, there's just never

31:30

enough blood. But now it's affecting

31:32

humans too, you know. UM,

31:35

And I wonder you know, Matt,

31:37

you and I talked about this, uh

31:39

a while back on our previous listener mail segment

31:42

um with how risk averse

31:44

a lot of the blood donation organizations

31:49

and institutions are by necessity,

31:52

um and how it's very difficult

31:54

to test for these prions.

31:56

Prions, But what, like,

32:00

what's your experience giving blood been.

32:03

It's been pretty tremendous every

32:06

time I've done it, you know, I've

32:08

not experienced any adverse effects

32:10

other than just being a little hungry

32:13

afterwards. But

32:15

that's what you get the crackers, you know,

32:17

you get the juice. Oh yeah, I

32:20

think just knowing that you are giving

32:22

life like as both listeners say,

32:24

like especially Travis, it's

32:27

a tremendous feeling knowing that you are giving

32:29

literally life blood so that somebody else

32:31

can be helped. Right, it's

32:34

a part of you. Someone else is going to benefit

32:36

from that. And you don't need all that blood because

32:38

your body keeps making it pal So

32:41

that's yeah, hopefully

32:43

you're right. Then. You know what I don't like is

32:45

giving blood for testing purposes, like

32:48

during an annual physical or something like that. Yeah,

32:51

it feels like they take way too much for

32:53

what they need to do. I know, I

32:56

know when you get the cavalcade

32:59

of tests and

33:01

by about vile three you

33:03

start to wonder what it is

33:05

really, what are you're really doing with this?

33:08

It seems like you could combine those processes,

33:11

right, If you're ever going to get an annual physical,

33:13

you take a certain amount of blood, which

33:16

you know proportion of it would be donated, and

33:18

whatever however much you need could

33:21

be tested. But testing first,

33:23

then donation. So if your test comes out well, then

33:25

you can donate. Yeah, so

33:28

let's break it down. The average person has

33:30

about if you're human, you have about

33:32

five liters of blood in your body,

33:36

or ten to eleven pints, which

33:39

maybe doesn't sound like as much. And

33:42

I think about taking down ten or

33:44

eleven pints of beer. I

33:49

knows, so h knowing that

33:52

I'm playing with different measurements here. When

33:55

you are donating blood,

33:57

the whole blood as it would

34:00

be called the target, the

34:02

ideal amount to collect is about five

34:05

hundred milli leaders, but

34:07

they'll go down to a minimum of four

34:10

hundred and sixty milli

34:12

leaders and the total

34:15

blood volume. Of course, your mileage

34:17

may vary. It depends on your height, your weight, etcetera.

34:20

For some people depend on your blood

34:22

type you are. I

34:24

don't want anyway to feel dismissed here, but

34:27

there's some blood types that are just practically

34:29

more usable, right Like

34:32

if you have blood type that has

34:34

no platelets, then you

34:36

are a universal donor. You know you're

34:39

in that type of city, then everybody

34:41

wants your blood, right and

34:44

and um, this stuff is incredibly

34:46

important and it gets

34:49

ignored often as a matter of fact, I can't.

34:51

I think I've mentioned this on air maybe

34:53

during that segment, Matt. But one

34:55

of the ways you can tell if a military

34:59

force is really getting

35:01

into a sustained

35:04

operation when they start setting

35:06

up their infrastructure, they start transporting

35:08

blood too for injuries. Really

35:11

weird. That's a weird way to tell if you

35:13

can get that information. Yeah, yeah,

35:16

if the blood is moving so

35:19

so to the army, that's really

35:21

weird. I know, don't tell CNN because

35:23

then they're going to make it a whole weird, kitchy

35:25

thing and they'll be like, all right, now

35:27

we've got our meteorologists doing the blood

35:30

report for the conflict

35:32

and you know, insert country here, whichever

35:34

one this week. I'm just thinking back to our

35:37

the awesome response we got from

35:40

I think it was Jasper about

35:42

how the body works, right

35:45

with the B I

35:47

A or the oh man, I've already

35:49

forgotten it. It was so smart, I've already forgotten

35:52

it. But it was just the body c I A

35:54

equivalent where the intelligence agency figures

35:56

out what all the stuff is in the body. I'm just

35:58

seeing these weird comparisons with the blood

36:00

flow, like literally blood flowing

36:03

on a macro scale somewhere before

36:06

the troops arrive or the in

36:08

this case, the white blood cells arrived to attack

36:10

something mm hm. So

36:13

you know, we did a classic episode in lieu

36:15

of a Listener Males segment last

36:18

week, so we did want to

36:20

get to listener mail today. We

36:23

do have I do and

36:25

I know you do, mattuh several other

36:27

stories that we wanted to share, but

36:30

they're in depth and we want to give them

36:32

their due, so we're going to hold those for

36:34

next week, and we're going to end

36:36

on an important update that

36:39

I wanted to provide following

36:41

on this idea of

36:43

blood donation and the institutions

36:47

being risk averse, uh as

36:49

we mentioned. I believe I mentioned it in that Listener

36:51

Male segment. For a very

36:53

long time, people were

36:56

not allowed to give blood on

36:58

the basis of their individual

37:01

sexual orientation who they're attracted

37:04

to basically uh, specifically

37:06

gay men. But what

37:09

we needed to include as an update

37:12

there and we mentioned this had

37:14

been the law of land for a long time, or the policy,

37:17

but it we mentioned it had changed, but we didn't

37:19

give you the specifics. So

37:22

when the pandemic hit, when COVID

37:24

hit around April

37:27

of the f

37:29

D, a relaxed its long standing

37:32

restrictions on gay men being

37:34

allowed to donate blood. And

37:37

this wasn't because they said, hey,

37:39

we're being pretty discriminatory.

37:42

It's because they said, hey,

37:45

we need blood. They relaxed

37:48

their standards. And that's because in March

37:50

of there were eighty

37:52

six thousand fewer blood donations

37:54

across the entirety of the United States.

37:57

Not because people stopped donating.

38:00

There are a lot of people who do it regularly

38:02

because you know, like you, Travis,

38:05

they want to help. Maybe

38:07

it helped them or a loved one in the past. It

38:10

wasn't people didn't want to help. It's

38:12

that blood drives had to be canceled due

38:15

to the spread of modern

38:17

pandemic. As we speak now,

38:19

human society is trying to recover from

38:21

this because there's always

38:24

there may not always be a continual supply,

38:27

but there's always going to be a continual demand.

38:30

So with that being said,

38:32

your body is your own, your choices or your

38:35

own. We've talked

38:37

about the hazards of organ donation

38:40

donation in the past, and

38:43

you know, you may be physically unable

38:45

to give blood, maybe religiously

38:47

or philosophically barred

38:50

from giving blood, but if

38:52

you are able to do. So

38:55

it truly is a a noble

38:57

thing to do. You are probably

39:00

never going to meet the people whose

39:02

lives you save. Uh,

39:04

And you may never

39:07

get some kind of like real

39:09

board or clap on the

39:11

back or something for doing it. But

39:14

it is a way to make the

39:16

world, if not a better place, a little bit

39:18

less worse. And you get crackers

39:20

at the end, at least here in the US, I don't know what

39:22

you get in other countries. You know, we need to do we need

39:25

to gamify blood donation. Each

39:28

time you donate, there's some

39:30

kind of tracking system with that

39:32

bag of blood. And then when it gets

39:35

used on your app, your your

39:37

blood app, you get a couple of

39:39

points or ever many points or whatever and

39:41

uh, and then you can use those points

39:44

to buy crackers. You know where

39:46

it gets dangerous. What if at certain

39:48

thresholds when you get those points,

39:51

what if you do it the way like uh, school

39:53

teachers who are all dramatically underpaid in the

39:55

US had to do fundraisers. You

39:57

you and I have family to this. So you have like

40:00

the construction paper thing,

40:02

but it's a blood bag and then it just

40:04

gets filled in with red as you get closer

40:06

to the funding and then wait when you get

40:08

to the top. When you hit that threshold,

40:11

you get a free lootbox on

40:13

some kind of multiplayer game. Oh

40:15

that's pretty good. I was gonna say pizza Party,

40:17

but I think I like loop box better. Well,

40:19

loot box. I think I would argue loot box

40:22

is more unethical because those

40:24

games are made to be addictive. And

40:27

then people will say, Okay, I'm out

40:29

of I don't have ten dollars

40:31

to throw into this machine, but I need

40:33

that new skin, so I'm gonna sell

40:35

my blood for skin beautiful.

40:41

All right, Well, no judgment of brainstorming,

40:44

but we are we are going to call

40:46

it a day. Uh. Please don't

40:48

let at least my dumb jokes

40:50

get in the way of the message of being a good

40:52

person, even if it's not

40:55

being rewarded. Um. And

40:57

please let us know what you

40:59

think about the connections between cartel's

41:02

drug lords, smugglers and exotic

41:04

animals. Perhaps even more

41:06

importantly, let us know please about

41:09

up and coming cultic organizations

41:11

in your neck of the global woods.

41:14

We are going to have several upcoming

41:17

episodes with this and we want you to be

41:19

a part of those. Also

41:22

reach out to us as always

41:24

if you're looking for resources

41:26

to help someone who has been taken in by

41:29

an organization like this. Thank

41:31

you, of course to Sam and Japan, Thanks

41:34

Alexandra, thanks to Travis,

41:36

thanks to several anonymous people

41:38

we haven't gotten to yet but will

41:41

introduce soon. And thanks

41:43

to Jessica h of course take

41:46

a page from their book. Join us on the air.

41:48

We'd love to hear from you. We try to be easy to find

41:51

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41:53

the hits. Stay tuned to our YouTube.

41:55

We have some fire coming up.

41:58

We're not exactly sure where or how

42:01

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42:03

that, so get in on the ground floor,

42:05

smash that subscribe button or whatever we're

42:08

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42:10

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42:12

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42:14

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42:17

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42:19

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42:21

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42:23

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42:26

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42:28

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42:31

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42:33

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42:35

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42:37

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42:39

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42:41

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42:43

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42:46

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