0:00

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you by Shopify. Do

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is it a real POS?

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a real POS? You need Shopify for retail.

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today. That's

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shopify.com/ system. And

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now, a Blaze Media Podcast. What

0:34

if I were to tell you a story

0:36

about a man investigating a computer scandal and

0:39

then he ended up dead in a hotel room? Half

0:42

think it was suicide. The other half are

0:45

sure that he's murdered. What

0:47

if I were to tell you that this computer software scandal led

0:51

a journalist down a rabbit hole filled with

0:53

government corruption, stolen elections,

0:56

millions of dollars of cartel money, drugs,

0:59

guns operated by the mafia, under

1:02

the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency,

1:05

on an Indian reservation which had

1:07

its own sovereignty? What

1:10

if I were to tell you that this

1:13

all involved presidents, military

1:15

coordination, local law enforcement,

1:17

drug chemists, actors, computer

1:19

geeks, and operators

1:21

with no oversight or

1:24

no consequences calling the shots? This

1:29

story is so

1:32

crazy. It's 30 years old. And

1:36

the people I'm going to introduce

1:38

you to have spent 10 years just

1:40

trying to shape the

1:42

story. So you might,

1:44

unless you've seen their documentary,

1:47

you're going to be a little lost, but

1:50

believe me, it's worth

1:52

it. You have to

1:55

watch the documentary, and everybody I know said to me, for

1:58

weeks, Glenn, you've got to watch this, you're going to love this documentary. I

2:01

don't know how I feel about this documentary. Because

2:04

there are times over a four-hour

2:07

period, I watched it over four days, there

2:10

are times when you're like, oh,

2:13

I know exactly what's going on. Other times, you

2:15

have no idea whether to believe it or not believe

2:17

it. But it is

2:19

a sign of our times right now.

2:22

This is a story that's 30 years

2:24

old, but it speaks to

2:26

us. And

2:29

I'm not sure what it says. Can

2:32

you pick out the lies, the

2:35

half-truth? Is

2:37

it true? All of it?

2:40

Is all of it garbage? Is

2:43

the appeal of conspiracy so

2:45

tempting that we start putting

2:47

pieces together that just don't fit? What

2:50

is in us that does this?

2:54

And what is in our government that might

2:56

encourage it? My

2:58

guests today have pulled America down a rabbit hole

3:00

that is either the mother of all conspiracy theories

3:04

or a cautionary tale about what

3:06

happens when curiosity becomes an obsession.

3:10

I want to say, I

3:12

want to thank these guys for

3:14

doing what they did over the number

3:16

of years risking their lives. I

3:20

think, I think the filmmakers

3:22

of Netflix smash hit

3:24

American Conspiracy, The Octopus

3:26

Murders. It's

3:28

Zachary Trits and Christian

3:30

Hansen. This

3:33

episode is brought to you by Shopify.

3:36

Do you have a point of sale system you can trust

3:39

or is it a

3:41

real POS? You need Shopify

3:43

for retail. From accepting

3:45

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3:48

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3:50

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today. That's shopify.com. That's

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shopify.com/ system. But

4:02

first before we get there I want to talk to you

4:04

about pre-born. People

4:07

talking back and forth about abortion and what

4:10

should do with laws and everything else, I

4:14

really think we're missing the point and people

4:16

say oh well conservatives they don't care about

4:18

you know the moms they only care about

4:20

the babies. I care about the moms too

4:24

and I don't like shouting at

4:26

people or anything I think information

4:29

and then help changes

4:31

the world and the ministry of pre-born

4:33

that's what they do every single day.

4:35

They first because of people like

4:37

you they pay for a free

4:40

ultrasound. So a mom coming in not sure

4:42

what she's going to do but leaning towards

4:44

abortion if you show her

4:47

the the ultrasound of the

4:49

baby she hears the heart beat it

4:52

doubles the chances she's going to choose

4:54

life. But what people don't

4:56

talk about is about 60% of these women

4:58

come in and they

5:00

don't necessarily want to have an abortion they

5:02

just feel completely alone they don't have the

5:04

resources everybody in their life is saying get

5:06

rid of this. So

5:09

they do. Well the

5:11

reason why pre-born has rescued almost

5:14

300,000 babies is because of love

5:16

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5:18

but they also tell and mean

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preborn.com/Glenn. Thanks

6:00

for coming in. I've just spent

6:03

five days of my life watching

6:06

the documentary. Fascinated

6:09

by it. I

6:12

don't know what the hell I just watched though.

6:14

I have... I

6:16

don't know why... I know

6:19

it was wild, but I went

6:21

through so many different emotions. So

6:24

many times I'm like, oh yeah. And then, well

6:26

maybe not. No. I don't... You've

6:29

spent ten years of

6:31

your life. I

6:35

feel like I don't know what I

6:37

did with those five days and if

6:39

it was important or not. Was

6:42

this important for you? Yeah, it

6:45

was. I was only laughing because I was trying

6:47

to picture whether you were watching it on repeat

6:49

for five days or sort of like... You

6:51

know, watching the five episodes. There were times... Or

6:53

four episodes. Or is

6:56

it four episodes. We went back and forth, back

6:58

and forth. And

7:00

it just got more and more bizarre.

7:03

Yeah. I mean even when... I would

7:07

watch cuts as new cuts came

7:09

out and I

7:13

found myself... I know the story so well, but I would

7:15

be rewinding the... Right.

7:18

Wait, what? Did that really happen? I was like, no,

7:20

I told the editors and the director

7:22

that this is what happened. But then just seeing it

7:24

in the film with the music is just mind-blowing. It

7:27

is... I understood

7:30

that you thought 51% chance

7:33

he didn't kill himself, Danny. Right?

7:35

At the beginning. The default mode

7:37

is to be a little bit

7:40

more skeptical of those. And

7:42

you were 51%. This is when you started. 51% he did.

7:46

Yeah, I mean by the

7:48

time I kind of settled

7:50

into my whatever gal pace,

7:53

you know, I went through

7:55

a lot of emotions going through this process

7:59

of... investigating this story and

8:01

sometimes I was a hundred percent certain, you

8:04

know, but then what you know once I'd

8:06

kind of like matured into it and settled

8:08

into the investigation and I joined up with

8:10

Zach who was sort of a ballast

8:12

for me. Yeah. I

8:15

he took 51% suicide

8:18

so I went ahead and settled into

8:20

51% and where are you now? I

8:24

think, yeah, so

8:26

after a multi-year process

8:29

of investigating and making a film at

8:31

the same time which is I'd

8:34

say unadvisable for most people to do both at

8:36

the same time. Yeah, sure. Usually you want to

8:38

kind of be done with the investigation. But

8:42

the process kind of took us,

8:44

you know, we would vacillate widely

8:47

between, you know, even hour

8:49

by hour just talking

8:52

about the evidence and finding new things as

8:54

we would go along and we would kind

8:56

of debate back and forth. So many times,

8:58

you know, I'd be just certain that Danny

9:02

had been murdered and sometimes

9:04

I'd be absolutely certain, you know, hours

9:07

later that it wasn't, that

9:09

that was in the case. So

9:11

I would say that essentially the

9:14

official story of what happened to Danny

9:16

Castellaro that I found pretty compelling when

9:18

I first read the Department of Justice

9:21

and FBI report, it

9:23

says that, you know, Danny was

9:25

kind of misled and fell

9:28

into these roles of

9:30

con artists who were

9:33

essentially just pulling his leg and then he

9:35

wound up broke and

9:37

alone having realized

9:40

that he had basically

9:42

been led astray at the end

9:44

of this year-long investigation. And

9:47

their report was very detailed

9:50

and pretty, you know, seemed pretty

9:52

accurate to me at the

9:55

time. But that overall

9:57

conclusion, I think... I

10:01

feel like is ultimately very misleading.

10:05

So that idea that like, oh, he

10:07

was just dealing with con artists. It's like, I think

10:09

you see over the course of the four episodes that

10:11

we made that he was

10:13

dealing with extremely dangerous people who

10:17

the authorities investigating his death, I

10:19

think knew were dangerous people or knew that they were

10:22

criminals. It's clear

10:24

that they're criminals. And

10:26

why they didn't take those people

10:28

more seriously is an open debate.

10:31

So just going from the official story,

10:33

I do not believe the official story.

10:37

He was the same place? Yes. Yeah.

10:40

So that's where I ended up. But I don't

10:43

know what is true. I will tell you, what's

10:46

his name? Michael? Michael.

10:49

Mercana Chudo. Yeah. I mean,

10:51

he, when he first

10:53

came on camera, I'm like, that guy's the penguin. Danny

10:56

DeVito's penguin. That guy is so clearly,

11:00

you know, not right. And

11:02

he's an interesting guy. Yeah. He's

11:04

a very interesting guy. But I never, he

11:09

seemed to me to be the character that

11:11

was the most misleading

11:13

or playing a game.

11:17

But at the same time, the trajectory

11:19

of his life, the things that he

11:21

did experience are uncanny

11:24

and, you know, and

11:26

very real, you know, having the

11:28

sort of relationship

11:31

with the mysterious Dr. John

11:34

Philip Nichols actually being

11:36

out of the cabazon reservation

11:38

with the weapons research, having

11:40

his partner brutally murdered and

11:43

tortured and having, whose

11:45

assets were stolen by

11:48

a serial killer and

11:50

serial rapist with a relationship with

11:53

the FBI and possibly the CIA.

11:55

I mean, that, okay, that is

11:57

all stuff that actually happened to

11:59

this. right and then

12:01

the innocent he tells a few other funky

12:03

stories that we can't uh...

12:05

verify but that alone

12:08

is you know unlike when you put it was

12:10

in i think it was the last episode when

12:12

he calls you kinda done yeah

12:14

any calls up he's like people are being killed

12:16

i got a meeting with you and then the

12:18

cameras rolling when you meet with him and he

12:20

says i'll tell you after you finish the document

12:22

the uh... and that that's what i mean that

12:24

just must have been like i'm gonna punch the

12:27

face uh... so frustrating

12:29

yeah did he ever tell you anything

12:31

after the cameras yeah he we still

12:33

talk and he still has things to

12:35

say but i don't know if it's

12:37

like i don't know if he'll

12:39

be able to tell me uh...

12:42

any sort of anything of

12:46

such grand scale you know i

12:48

think like he's a human he

12:50

did have a lot of x

12:52

extraordinary experiences he's

12:54

got his i'm interested in his p

12:56

of e what what he actually

12:58

knows uh... you know

13:01

less what he might have a return to you with

13:03

the single key that unlocks the in and that's the

13:06

problem of the story i think that that scene regardless

13:09

of and michael if you do have the single

13:11

key you know he had a lot of the

13:13

door yeah but it but it is you're driving

13:15

america out of its mind that

13:17

that scene i think it is emblematic

13:19

of of dealing with

13:21

michael but doing a lot of people in the story which is

13:23

the feeling if i just had

13:25

this one more piece of information often what i

13:28

don't have who was the thing the journalist the

13:30

female that said you know you've got to make

13:32

a choice to get in a row you know

13:34

i thought i thought

13:37

that was brilliant you we have

13:39

a life of this or

13:41

you just say i i can't cuz it'll

13:43

always be the next thing right

13:46

yeah yeah is that

13:48

barbecues and ballgame is this the

13:52

last one is the lesson of this i

13:56

mean i think i

13:58

think i think the what we tried

14:00

to show ultimately is

14:04

a very subjective rather than like objective we

14:06

know everything we do not know everything but

14:08

a very subjective view. I think it was

14:11

really well done by the way. I appreciate

14:13

that. And I like the way I know

14:15

you hated it on the you know

14:17

doing it at the same time. Oh yeah.

14:19

But the fact that the phone rings and you

14:22

could see the look on your face and you're

14:24

like oh crap. You just

14:26

it is it's compelling because it was done

14:28

at the same time. You know it was

14:30

exciting doing the investigation. It was hard. It's

14:33

just nice to know exactly where you're going before

14:35

you when you call Netflix and say we

14:37

want to do this thing and they're like

14:39

great how's it in and you're like I

14:41

have no idea. And it

14:44

was amazing for me because I

14:46

was funded you know we were Netflix was paying

14:48

for us to make a film

14:51

a show but

14:54

you know and Zach was let

14:56

me continue investigating it throughout the

14:58

post production process. So

15:01

I basically had like a fully

15:03

funded investigation that I was working

15:05

on for years and that's very

15:07

rare in you know any country.

15:09

Right. Yeah. But

15:12

so what I was saying is just just what we wanted to say what

15:14

we wanted to do was make

15:16

a very subjective view of what it

15:18

feels like to go into this world

15:20

Hall of Mirrors that is

15:25

a portrait

15:27

of the sort of governmental

15:30

intelligence world the official one

15:32

and madness private intelligence world

15:35

and the criminal world and

15:37

where those three circles overlap

15:40

and the feeling and I think

15:43

it's I think we show this

15:45

by the fourth episode the intentional

15:47

in my mind feeling of helplessness

15:50

and madness that you you grasp

15:52

with when everybody is slippery

15:55

every truth is like heart is hard

15:57

to pin down and that's I

15:59

think an intentional thing. Oh yeah. And I think Doug

16:01

Vaughn, one of the journalists that we talked to, he says

16:03

it really well when he says that confusion

16:06

leads to paralysis, right?

16:08

And so yeah, I mean

16:10

you could say it's a really frustrating thing.

16:12

I mean I think that we maybe don't

16:14

give ourselves enough credit in the show for

16:16

the things that we did nail down or

16:18

did expose for the first time. Oh yeah,

16:20

you made huge progress. I just

16:22

don't, you

16:25

know, I was just so struck

16:27

by the honesty that you had

16:30

on, I gotta

16:32

have a choice. I mean I have to just go

16:34

back to my life and just never know. And

16:39

you know, I'd like you to expand a little

16:41

bit on, you said

16:45

I don't look at things the same way. Well

16:48

watching the documentary, I don't

16:52

look at things the same way either but

16:55

I'm not sure how I look at them yet. I

16:57

mean I just experienced, you know, in

17:00

four hours what you experienced over ten

17:02

years of your life. So but

17:04

I'm not sure what I'm

17:07

left with. I mean so this

17:10

to expand on your last question about

17:12

sort of what's the theme. Right. And

17:14

I'm not really very good

17:16

at packaging things into themes but one, what

17:19

I wanted to say was that at

17:23

least three individuals

17:26

whose loved ones, siblings

17:28

or parents and

17:31

also a grandparent were

17:35

taken out in hits

17:39

by nebulous

17:42

intelligence agencies have

17:45

reached out to us. They

17:48

stumbled on the show and watched

17:50

it and they thanked us for

17:52

having given them a way

17:55

to talk about their family history.

17:58

I mean we didn't investigate. those

18:01

stories but we are aware of

18:03

those. You would feel absolutely crazy.

18:05

I mean, by design,

18:07

you are meant to feel crazy. And

18:12

I found this in just some of the

18:14

things that we've investigated, where it just gets

18:16

so intentionally

18:18

complex, that

18:21

it makes it almost insane to try

18:23

to explain it. Because you're

18:25

like, no, I mean, I saw your

18:27

board where you're like, you know, your

18:30

tinfoil on your windows is always being

18:32

crazy. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Um, the

18:35

one guy that, well, let

18:37

me go back to Danny's death.

18:43

I haven't seen a lot of

18:45

suicide scenes. But

18:47

I was never really

18:49

addressed. There were bloody handprints

18:51

all over. The

18:54

guy cut his wrist to the

18:56

tenants. So how

18:58

are you cutting the other wrist? But

19:00

then, I mean, is the story

19:03

that he got up and he was like, hey,

19:05

I need a towel. I mean, I've never seen

19:07

it. Yeah. I mean, we don't go deeply

19:09

into the forensics of the crime scene

19:12

because we only had a certain

19:14

amount of time in the story.

19:16

And it was so complicated to tell the

19:18

story that Danny was telling. But

19:20

you know, and it would have kind

19:22

of been a totally different show, really.

19:24

And we're just not like forensic pathologists.

19:30

But just to explain further, since

19:32

we did look through the autopsy and

19:35

we read the report, they

19:39

sent that report to a

19:41

Connecticut forensics lab run

19:43

by Dr. Lee. Dr. Lee Henry

19:45

Lee. Yeah. Yeah. He's great. The

19:48

famous guy recently come over under

19:50

some criticism for potentially

19:52

having made

19:54

up something else in a trial that a couple of people

19:56

went to jail for a long time over. That's

20:00

not good. And I mean I... And I heard your

20:02

credibility a bit. But

20:04

you know, he was famous for being at the

20:06

OJ trial. He was at that show, The Staircase.

20:08

He's a little part of that. Anyway,

20:11

and we called him actually and he was...

20:15

Maybe this is too in the weeds, but

20:17

it was pretty amazing if you're aware of

20:19

him, like calling him and I

20:21

started telling him about the case. And

20:24

this is 30 years after he's done tens

20:27

of thousands of autopsy's and stuff. And

20:30

in crime scenes. And I

20:32

started describing it and he's like, oh,

20:35

in the bathtub. And there was a razor sitting

20:37

up and it was like he could picture the entire

20:39

crime scene. It was unbelievable.

20:42

But yes, his analysis

20:44

of it was that Danny had

20:47

stood up at some point and

20:50

like hit the wall or like brushed

20:52

the wall. But it's... Yeah,

20:55

I mean, you look at the... To

20:59

me, that doesn't necessarily mean that he

21:01

was alone or not. I mean, somebody can

21:03

stand up for a variety of reasons.

21:07

And so it's hard to kind of... What

21:09

did he say about cutting the tendons and how did

21:11

he cut the other? Well, we had...

21:15

We actually sent that to

21:17

another medical examiner later on.

21:20

A non-partial family

21:23

friend. Okay. Yeah, I had

21:25

nothing to do with the case. And

21:28

he was like, well, it's a suicide. And we're

21:30

like, oh, okay. Like tell us about that.

21:32

And he was like, well, Dr.

21:34

Frost who did the autopsy didn't do you

21:36

any favors. And we're like, what? And he's

21:38

like, there's just not a lot of detail

21:40

in this report. And we're like, well, that

21:43

is not a lot of favor. Like how can

21:45

you be so certain that this was? And so

21:47

he claimed that the depth

21:50

of the cuts in the autopsy

21:53

is not specific enough to... Say

21:55

cut. One way or another. So, you know,

21:57

the... But then there are also photos.

22:00

There's photos, but there's also the paramedic that we

22:02

talked to, Don, who we interviewed in the show

22:04

and he talks about his – that's why we

22:06

had to include his story really is because he

22:08

was the one who had the

22:10

experience of having tried to pick up the wrist and he

22:12

says – Yeah, I thought he was

22:14

compelling. Yeah. He's now actually – we don't

22:16

mention this. He was a paramedic at the time. He's now

22:18

a medical examiner himself. So it

22:20

almost lends him more credibility in my mind.

22:24

Yeah, so the official

22:26

documents do not

22:29

give us quite enough to know

22:32

the depth of the cut on

22:34

the ligaments. So we just had

22:36

to go by Don's. And then the woman who's

22:38

at the end, who her mother was an

22:43

eyewitness – Oh, yeah. – said she

22:45

saw two people. Right. And,

22:48

you know, the drawings

22:50

pretty remarkable. You know, you saw

22:52

the drawing. You're like, oh, I've seen him in

22:55

episodes one and two. Why

22:58

was that never pursued, do you think? I

23:02

couldn't say. We tried to talk

23:05

to every detective still alive that

23:07

was part of the Martinsburg

23:10

Police Department and we

23:12

tried to talk to that FBI agent who

23:15

reinvestigated the case and no one wanted to

23:17

talk to us. So we would just be

23:19

speculating as to the question of why. We

23:23

know that they had the information. But

23:26

my logical guess as to why is

23:28

because, you know, look at me. I spent

23:30

10 years trying

23:33

to say what happened.

23:35

It was much easier. You know, I

23:38

didn't accept the suicide conclusion. I

23:41

wanted more answers and that led

23:43

me down this like wild path.

23:46

But to just say suicide, it's just

23:49

a lot easier. You can finish the

23:51

investigation. Have a

23:53

nice summer. Maybe go on vacation. Yeah.

23:56

So as I'm watching this

23:58

because everybody says – you got to watch – You gotta watch

24:00

this and I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know

24:02

what I was walking into That's a good

24:04

way to go. Yeah, do you remember the case? From

24:07

the 90s. Do you remember it at all? No, you know, I I

24:10

was in broadcast at the time I don't

24:12

it doesn't ring a bell doesn't mean I don't

24:15

remember it But not

24:17

off the top of my head. I don't

24:19

this was Bill O'Reilly still in it. Yeah.

24:21

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, he covered it for

24:23

Inside Edition. Yeah, Geraldo covered the

24:26

the Yeah, the cabazon

24:28

portion. It was interesting to see

24:30

there's a little older like Leslie's

24:32

fall covered the insula case, right?

24:35

Yeah, so so this this

24:37

started out as a computer software

24:40

story we go Yeah,

24:43

I mean Yeah,

24:46

but no, but I mean it

24:48

makes sense that if you are

24:50

in an agency it makes sense

24:52

That's exactly what they would

24:54

do and are and needed at the

24:56

end needed at the time I'm probably

24:58

still doing stuff like that, you know,

25:00

yeah, I mean you would be remiss

25:03

Our tax dollars wouldn't be properly spent if you

25:05

weren't doing that kind of activity. That's what these

25:11

Yeah, but they not necessarily in the way

25:13

they were right right right when I was

25:15

to steal intellectual property, yeah, that's what happened

25:17

Yeah, right. Yeah You

25:20

believe that that is what happened well, I'm

25:22

just being careful, yeah, okay, it

25:25

seems like it yeah, but You

25:28

know, yeah, you never know. Yeah, so

25:31

Okay, so then that's happening during

25:33

the Reagan administration and that fits

25:36

right with Iran Contra Yeah, and

25:38

then you know Also

25:41

the the Indian reservation

25:43

fits You'd be making

25:46

weapons used by the all

25:48

of this stuff fits if I'm looking

25:50

for a place where you know I

25:52

don't think the government actually cares about

25:54

the Constitution anymore But at

25:56

the time when they at least pretended to

26:00

place to do it is in a

26:02

separate nation inside our own country. Yeah,

26:04

I think that's that's something that I

26:06

would love to see people, you know,

26:09

a little more scholarship on our

26:11

books or whatever investigations of,

26:14

you know, you this idea

26:16

of using sovereign land for

26:19

projects that are

26:21

not allowed to take place in the United

26:23

States because of whatever laws, you know. So

26:25

that didn't even occur to me and when

26:28

you guys showed it I'm like, oh my

26:30

gosh, that is brilliant.

26:33

It's brilliant. John Nichols, the guy

26:35

who was the tribal leader,

26:38

the tribal, sorry, the administrator

26:40

there, whose

26:42

backstory is, as we show in

26:44

this show, pretty strange

26:47

and seemingly connected,

26:49

seemingly he's in

26:51

all of the right places in all the right

26:54

times before anti-leftist coups happened

26:56

in South America. He

27:00

shows up at this Native American reservation

27:02

and has this, you know, we explained

27:05

that this idea of sovereignty, that they

27:07

can do whatever they want on this

27:09

Indian reservation in Southern

27:12

California and I think it's just, I don't

27:16

want to say sinister, but it's kind of

27:18

brilliant in its own way and it just

27:20

makes me wonder, of course, like yeah, what

27:23

else are they doing? Was this the

27:25

only place? I'm not really, oh, I can't

27:27

imagine it is. I mean, you

27:30

know, there's, there

27:34

is brilliance and evil, you

27:36

know. There's a lot of things that are

27:38

happening now and in the past. You have

27:40

to look back and go, this was

27:42

really quite brilliant, the way this was

27:45

put in the 1980 election. So tell

27:49

me about that because it would just kind of seem

27:51

to be brushed over. We

27:54

have to cover a lot of ground.

27:56

Yeah, I know. There's like a documentary

27:58

on every single The whole series, theory.

28:01

Oh yeah, there is, because I need to part.

28:03

A lot of people complain about

28:06

crime documentaries, is that they drag on for

28:08

too long. But ours is like, we just

28:10

packed so much. Oh I know, you'll just

28:12

be like, eh, it's the 1980 election, and

28:15

you're like, wait, what? Yeah,

28:18

well that, so there's really like, with what's called the

28:20

October Surprise, there's

28:22

two, I think, main stories

28:25

that I'd like to put out there, is

28:28

that there's our, the one that appears in

28:30

our show, is Michael Recanciuto's version

28:33

of what happened, which is he

28:35

says that the promise software, which

28:38

we've talked about, is a- Was

28:41

made to, is brilliant software,

28:43

made to tie all of

28:45

the court cases and all

28:47

of the files together, so- The Justice

28:49

Department. Right. So that you can search

28:52

them and find relationships. Right.

28:54

And so then it was used, it was- That

28:57

it's supposedly taken, and

29:00

used covertly for what purpose? For

29:02

spying on our, you know, the

29:05

United States enemies and

29:07

then friends, and their own spy agencies,

29:10

so that you can collect the data that, whatever,

29:13

their spy agencies are claiming. One of the things, a smaller

29:15

story that came out in the Snowden

29:17

revelations, was that the

29:19

app, the cell phone app Angry Birds, the

29:21

game, had a back door in it. So

29:25

basically the idea is that you give

29:27

a software, somebody, in one

29:30

case it could be Angry Birds, and

29:32

in another case it could be their

29:34

intelligence agencies, like database software, and

29:36

it has a back door into it. And so

29:38

whoever knows about the back door can go in

29:40

and siphon out, you know, whatever information they want

29:42

out of the back. So since it was stolen

29:45

for whatever reason, I'm sure Bill

29:47

Hamilton would have been amenable to

29:50

licensing this, whatever. Right. Who

29:52

invented the software. But it had to

29:55

be, I guess, sold through third parties

29:58

to other countries. I

30:01

guess that makes sense because if he

30:03

was the official licensee to the US

30:05

government, then you're trying to sell it

30:07

to Canada with the back door.

30:10

You'd want to sort of not have that

30:12

chain of title. He generally wouldn't go, oh,

30:14

well, I'm sure the United States is clean.

30:16

Yeah. Of course, Saddam.

30:18

Yeah. Who would think he might

30:20

like this software? So

30:23

going from that idea of this powerful,

30:26

valuable piece of software, and the

30:28

October surprise

30:30

part of that from Michael's perspective is

30:32

that that valuable piece of software and

30:34

that valuable off-the-book, off-label contract

30:36

where you could sell it around

30:38

the world is given

30:41

to this guy, Earl Bryan, who was a friend

30:44

of Ronald Reagan's, was in his cabinet in the

30:46

way he was governor of California, and

30:48

by the 80s, Reagan is president, and that

30:51

this contract, this piece of software, the source

30:53

code for it is given to him as

30:55

payment, I mean, this is where it gets

30:58

crazy, payment for

31:00

the work that he did getting Reagan

31:02

elected. And this is Michael's allegation.

31:04

Michael's the guy who says, I am

31:07

the one who installed the back door. I programmed

31:09

the thing, and I was over in Iran. And

31:13

absolutely believable. When

31:15

he was a kid, he was a brilliant

31:17

scientist. Brilliant scientist. Yeah. Okay. And

31:20

he's over in Iran. Yeah, the idea that he's over

31:22

in Iran with Earl Bryan, they're giving $40 million to

31:25

the Ayatollah

31:27

to hold the hostages that are

31:29

being held in the U.S. Embassy.

31:33

That's his version of the story. I just want to

31:35

say we've never seen any passports from

31:38

Michael that shows that he's in Iran.

31:40

We've never seen any photos with him

31:42

in Earl Bryan. We have no

31:44

evidence that he was there in Iran.

31:47

But there's a lot of

31:49

stories and evidence about what

31:52

generally the October surprise, which I would say,

31:54

let's call that Michael's October surprise. And then

31:56

there's this sort of more mainstream October surprise

31:58

that people that Like Bob Perry or

32:00

Perry was a broke the I rank

32:03

big part of that rank Contra story at AP

32:07

and Gary sick These guys

32:09

who are more main mainstream of the

32:11

conspiracy and structure surprise, you know talking

32:14

about William Casey He's talking

32:16

about the logic right of a guy

32:18

named like William Casey who was who's

32:21

kind of a background boogeyman for the

32:23

entire octopus Conspiracy

32:25

really throughout Danny's

32:27

investigation the journalist Danny who

32:29

Christian was looking into the murder of or

32:31

you know strange death of he's

32:35

William Casey's a guy I just think he's a prism

32:37

through which you can see all of this and the

32:40

October surprise is a really important part of that is

32:42

you have a guy who's Starts

32:45

out in the OSS. He's a lawyer who starts

32:48

out in the OSS Which

32:50

is the predecessor of the AI in World War two He

32:52

then is involved with various companies and

32:55

then he and he was an amazing

32:57

OSS agent. He Did

32:59

what was believed could not be done which

33:01

was to get agents into? Hitler's

33:04

inner circle, right Which

33:07

was like, you know, no one thought it could

33:09

be done and right an incredible spy incredible spy

33:11

and he He

33:13

was also we don't even mention this outside

33:15

counsel for this company called Wacken hut which

33:18

was out which was the joint venture at

33:20

the Native American reservation that

33:22

we already talked about they were they were in

33:24

partnership with It's

33:26

like the black water except it

33:28

is it's worse It's like

33:30

you know what black water does is a

33:33

much now Here's the stuff that you don't

33:35

know they might be doing right? It was

33:37

the it was the predecessor to that the

33:39

private a private security company and they They

33:43

were they also were the first private

33:45

prison in America. They invented that concept

33:48

for an immigration detention center

33:52

But uh, so so you have William

33:54

Casey and then he he becomes the

33:56

campaign manager I came a manager Reagan

33:58

for his president election and then

34:01

he becomes CIA director

34:05

and then the day he's supposed to

34:07

show up for his hearings in Iran-Contra

34:09

he conveniently dies. Let's

34:15

not go there. Just keep throwing logs on the

34:17

fire. I'm just throwing logs on the fire. But

34:21

I'm just saying that Reagan

34:23

was surrounded by intelligence people.

34:25

His vice president was

34:28

the former head of the... Oh

34:30

I think director of intelligence. George H.W.

34:32

Bush. Watch what

34:35

we say here in Texas. And

34:38

you've got William Casey who is his campaign

34:40

manager. It's just

34:43

not outside of the realm of William

34:45

Casey's area of expertise to manipulate world

34:47

events for outcomes that he wants to

34:50

happen and have the capability to do

34:52

that. So Bob Perry the journalist who

34:55

he wrote a book called... I can't...

34:57

Trick or Treason? Trick or Treason. It

35:00

came out in 1993. He

35:02

was able to basically prove

35:05

the October surprise down to

35:08

the point of finding

35:11

Bill Casey's passport.

35:15

And he was an

35:17

international businessman and super spy chief. He

35:19

traveled a lot so he had a

35:21

lot of passport books and the only

35:23

one that he didn't have in his

35:25

archive was that one. And

35:31

if he had been able to... That

35:34

passport will tell you definitively whether he...

35:36

Whether he was in Madrid. So

35:39

let me go to... We've

35:42

already gone so far afield sorry. I

35:44

know that's all right. I mean that's

35:46

the whole show. I know but I mean that's

35:49

what this whole thing is. You can

35:52

just take roads off

35:54

of any of this and just go... And

35:56

you don't know where reality begins

35:59

and ends. It's crazy. Well, we

36:01

tried to at least, I mean, we

36:03

tried to do it in a way that is

36:05

not as, hopefully not as crazy as how we're

36:07

making it sound, which is we tried to do

36:10

it step by step and back it up with

36:12

as much evidence as we could and

36:14

where we don't have evidence to be

36:16

very clear that we're being subjected or

36:18

hearing somebody's perspective on what you're seeing,

36:21

right? But it does very quickly get into

36:23

realms of, I mean, I think that some

36:26

of the most damning or strange or

36:29

mystifying things for me going through

36:31

this experience were the things that were actually reported

36:33

widely in the news. And just when you see

36:35

them, how Danny saw them, which is that they're

36:37

interconnected based on the people who are involved. Things

36:39

like Iran Contra, BCCI, this

36:41

bank that was working

36:44

with terrorists and drug

36:46

dealers and intelligence agencies. The

36:49

savings and loan crisis, which was allegedly tied

36:52

up with CIA operations,

36:55

all these banks, these assassins,

36:57

rogue spies, that these

36:59

things, many of those things were reported

37:01

on in the 80s and up until

37:03

Danny's death. But Danny

37:05

was one of the few people kind

37:08

of realizing they're all the same

37:10

people involved with all these things. And that's what the octopus

37:12

is, right? Well, not the savings and loan. There was

37:14

not a bush involved in that. Let

37:17

me go to the, let me go to what

37:22

was his name? Robert Booth Nichols. You

37:25

guys talked to some scary people. This

37:29

guy chilled me to the bone. He

37:32

seemed like, he

37:35

just seemed very confident that

37:40

things happen and nobody's

37:42

going to question me and, okay,

37:46

maybe I've killed people. I mean,

37:48

he just, he had that air

37:50

about him of stone

37:53

cold killer in a

37:55

business suit. Is that

37:57

what you guys, I'm like, which door is

37:59

he going to come? matter. Yeah, because he

38:01

may or may not still be alive. Do

38:03

you believe he is? I think

38:06

he's, I think he

38:08

might still be alive. There's a chance. I

38:10

think he would be 80, right?

38:12

Yeah, he'd be 80. So, he'd

38:15

be 80 if he's alive. He's

38:17

still spooky. That guy, was he

38:19

the, who's the scariest person that

38:22

you encountered? Well, okay.

38:25

Bob allegedly died in 2009. Yeah. We

38:29

didn't meet him, but we have a lot of

38:32

documents and things like that. We met him. We

38:34

met him. We talked

38:36

to a lot of people who did know him and

38:38

Sherry went, you know, who we interviewed has an amazing

38:40

story about going to his apartment, which I think is,

38:42

is, you know. Tell

38:45

the story. Yeah. So, Sherry Seymour

38:48

investigated mainly the West, the West coast portion

38:51

of, of the octopus or

38:53

this, this story, this Danny

38:55

story. And she

38:58

met with, she started working on it

39:00

about three months after Danny died and

39:02

she was calling all of his sources,

39:04

much like Christian did. But this is

39:06

in 1991 and 1982 and Robert Booth

39:09

Nichols is one of the guy who

39:11

Danny talked to extensively on the phone

39:13

and met in person and

39:15

was, you know, I would say a

39:18

suspect in Danny's death. And

39:22

at least for us. And

39:24

so she went over to his apartment to ask

39:26

him about these things. And amazingly

39:29

he agreed and he was there with

39:31

his wife. And at the

39:34

end of that meeting, he shows

39:36

her this tape, puts on this tape, which

39:39

I think they were

39:41

talking about sort of the manipulability of

39:43

reality and what's in perception and in

39:47

the media and things like that. And

39:50

he, it's the Zapruder

39:52

film, the JFK assassination film.

39:56

And he is playing it

39:58

and then it's. It's not the

40:00

one that you've seen before. It's

40:03

the one where the driver turns

40:05

around and shoots JFK in the

40:07

head. And then she's like, wait, what? And

40:09

this is 1982. When the Zapruder film is,

40:12

you couldn't just go on the internet and watch it

40:14

immediately. And it wasn't easy to make

40:16

fake films. And

40:19

then he shows her another tape.

40:22

And that tape, he says, is the

40:24

one that everybody's seen on the media.

40:27

And he pauses it, and there's half

40:29

of a tree missing. And he says, this is the

40:33

one everybody's seen has actually been manipulated. I showed

40:35

you the real one. This

40:37

one is the one that everybody's seen, and it's

40:39

been manipulated. And when I heard that story, I

40:42

went to the internet immediately. I was like,

40:44

wait, is there a tree missing in this

40:47

thing? And no, there's no tree missing. And

40:49

I think that Sherry's conclusion from that story

40:51

is similar to the one that I

40:53

take, which is that he's

40:56

showing her two manipulated tapes. He's

40:59

showing her one where the driver

41:01

is shooting him. That's been doctored. He's showing her

41:03

one where the tree has been cut off. That's

41:05

been doctored. And it's in order to make

41:08

it so that if she tells the story

41:10

of meeting Robert Nichols and what he

41:12

told her and all the things that

41:14

he said, then she tells that story.

41:16

And somebody's like, uh-huh, uh-huh. And what else?

41:19

And then the driver killed him, and you're crazy.

41:21

Okay, just to make, just credit her. So

41:25

I think it's a very

41:27

powerful portrait of Bob and who he

41:30

was and his ability to

41:32

kind of manipulate people and

41:35

manipulate reality and the world around him.

41:38

And it just makes

41:40

him endlessly fascinating. But

41:43

I think it

41:45

does a good job of making him seem just like a little

41:47

crazy and a little weird. But I think

41:49

he was a lot more than that. And I think

41:51

that- Yeah, I didn't think he was crazy. I didn't

41:53

think he was a little weird. He

41:58

was the one that didn't- come off. To

42:01

me, he didn't come off crazy. He

42:04

came off like, no, we had a deal.

42:06

This was what the

42:08

deal was. And you need somebody killed.

42:12

Okay. We actually have his voice in the show, which I think is like, anybody who

42:14

had heard these

42:19

stories would be like, oh, this guy sounds

42:21

like he's a JFK conspiracy theorist or something

42:23

like that. But hearing him talk and then

42:25

we have the deposition footage of what happened

42:27

in 2008 with him, he's chilling. I mean,

42:30

yeah. He's

42:33

bone chilling. You asked who the most dangerous

42:35

person that we encountered, not necessarily met,

42:38

but encountered in this. I would have

42:40

to give that prize to Philip

42:43

Arthur Thompson though. Yeah. Really?

42:45

Who's the serial killer in

42:47

San Francisco. He's got to be the

42:50

person I would never want to meet. Right.

42:53

Yeah. Tell his story. So

42:57

Philip Arthur Thompson, he

43:00

shows up in episode three. He's the one

43:02

that hog ties Michael

43:05

Arconisciutto's partner in such a way that his

43:08

legs are

43:11

choking him. And so he's

43:13

like slowly dying. The

43:15

gravity of holding up your legs, you

43:17

eventually just can't do it anymore. Jesus

43:21

died of suffocation on the ground. He couldn't

43:23

hold himself up. That

43:26

story's true too, who knows. Yeah.

43:34

So Philip Arthur Thompson

43:36

was a serial career criminal. And one

43:38

of the things that he

43:42

liked to do was to rape and murder

43:44

women. And he also was a

43:46

kind of a major thief.

43:48

He would rob antique stores,

43:50

jewelry stores. He'd

43:54

mainly in California. Mainly in California, all up and down. He

43:56

was a real And

44:00

he loved robbing drug dealers and stealing

44:02

their guns and drugs. Yeah. He

44:05

was a prolific criminal. He was also a

44:09

protected FBI informant. What

44:11

exactly he was

44:14

helping the FBI out

44:17

with, that

44:19

was so valuable that he

44:21

needed to be allowed to be unleashed

44:23

onto the world, I don't know. I

44:25

think a lot of jewelry store owners

44:27

would be very resentful of that. No,

44:30

I mean also just all kinds of people who's left for the

44:32

world. Yeah, I mean, the jewelry store, you

44:34

know, okay, I'm the federal government. He's

44:37

got something big to help us on.

44:39

Jewelry store, okay. The

44:42

rape and murder and... No, I

44:44

mean, that's... There was horrific... He

44:46

usually would murder the women after he raped them, but

44:49

one of them, I think he was

44:51

working with a guy, Mark

44:53

Masterson, or convinced him not to. And

44:57

I tracked that lady down and she

44:59

was 16 at the time. And

45:02

I tried to find her because

45:04

I'm continuing my investigation of Philip

45:06

Arthur Thompson. And

45:10

she drank herself to death, you know,

45:12

and I have to assume that those

45:14

two events are connected, you know. Oh,

45:17

yeah. You know, at 58, she

45:19

drank herself to death. But yeah, so he was

45:21

somebody who, when

45:23

he would get arrested, would

45:26

almost always find himself out

45:28

of jail almost immediately on

45:31

major charges, murder, you know. You

45:35

showed the newspapers saying, you know, being

45:37

in a rap sheet that shows that

45:39

it's like, and out, and out. Yeah,

45:41

and it's like you have somebody who's...

45:47

He's going on trial for murder or something

45:49

else, and then, you know, the lead witness

45:51

dies. And it's just

45:54

like, well, the lead witness was murdered before

45:56

he was satisfied. Could these

45:58

events be more possibly interrelated? And

46:01

so, yeah, he stayed out committing

46:03

all kinds of crimes for years

46:05

until he eventually went to jail

46:08

for life because

46:11

it was just, I think the evidence was

46:13

just absolutely overwhelming and it was

46:15

a DNA case. And I think that when he was

46:17

committing these crimes, DNA,

46:21

you know, evidence didn't exist, right?

46:24

So it was hard for them to argue against

46:26

that. So he wasn't hedging

46:28

against that possibility. But

46:30

he... Ah, the good old days.

46:32

Yeah, when you can just get away with

46:34

whatever. Yeah, you get away with murder and

46:36

just walk away. But it really is a

46:38

scary sort of open question about what he

46:40

was exactly doing with the various

46:43

federal agencies, not just the FBI. And

46:46

we made a little bit of headway into that.

46:48

And I don't want to speculate too much

46:50

on what it was, but it

46:53

seemed to be beyond just kind

46:55

of local street crimes. There

46:58

was around him, there was the idea

47:00

that he was helping the federal government

47:02

with larger

47:05

political things,

47:09

like realizing

47:11

money and gun running and things like that. So

47:14

anyway, you got to pick your business

47:16

partners wisely. And I would not choose

47:18

Philip Arthur Thompson. And we knocked

47:21

on the FBI agent's door that was

47:24

running Philip Thompson and that was also

47:26

terrifying. So, I mean, he's terrified.

47:29

Tell me about that. We can't really talk

47:31

too much about that. But hopefully more

47:33

on that in the future. Zach

47:37

was super scared that night. Mom

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four relief. relieffactor.com. How

49:25

much time did you guys spend? I mean

49:29

the whole series opens up with a phone call. You're

49:31

gonna get yourself killed. I don't

49:35

know. When you

49:37

started it, you were you know in

49:39

your 20s. Yeah, I think you're in

49:41

26. Yeah. You're a little invincible. How

49:45

many times did you look at each other and go, we

49:48

should not be doing this. What are we doing? A

49:51

lot. Yeah. But

49:54

there's also over our head was that like we

49:57

had to finish. Well,

50:00

partially and for our own own. I don't

50:02

think that's fair. No. Well,

50:04

they pulled the plug and you were gonna be like,

50:06

oh, I'm walking away. It's worth dying.

50:08

No. But we... No, but

50:10

we... No, we did have to

50:13

finish like because we started it and we weren't

50:15

gonna like get... We weren't gonna

50:17

back down. Right. Like we had to finish. Also,

50:21

was there... What was the closest moment where you

50:23

were like... If I live in a country where

50:27

you can get killed as like kind

50:29

of a... I'm a pretty non-threatening guy

50:33

investigating a case from 30 years ago.

50:36

Like, just take me out then. Yeah. Just

50:39

make it quick because this is... That would be absurd. Yeah. We...

50:43

This is America. It's a free country. We're

50:45

allowed to investigate things. I think... Is

50:47

that an invitation? Um... Careful

50:50

what you wish for. Um, I'm not wishing

50:52

for it. I'm just saying like... No, I know.

50:55

Like, let's... Yeah. One

50:57

would hope that you could do an investigation like

51:00

this without... And that was our experience. Yeah. We

51:02

had a lot of people tell us that we

51:04

would suffer dire consequences and

51:06

to whatever credit, we

51:09

have not suffered those consequences. The show has come out

51:11

and what it is is what it is. I mean,

51:13

that's... We're grateful for that.

51:16

The best place to survive is

51:18

in the spotlight. That's

51:20

how we look at it. Um,

51:24

what is, uh, what... Was

51:26

there a time where you

51:28

thought you were this

51:31

close to walking away? What was

51:33

that point if there was? I don't think walking away,

51:35

but there were some moments where... I

51:38

mean, you... Or at least walking away from this

51:40

line. Well, there were... It's not worth it.

51:42

There were times when I said to Christian,

51:44

I was just like, this story or

51:47

this part of the story is simply not worth

51:49

dying for. You know, it's just like, no...

51:52

Nobody is going to, uh, you Know,

51:56

benefit so greatly from us

51:58

uncovering this thing. That it

52:00

was worth our lives. Eight hours,

52:02

facilities all times logs. It'll consider

52:04

it a soggy about he'd. I

52:07

was like Zach, we gotta do this

52:09

whole Thompson for we gotta get full

52:12

Thompson. Inherently you know the serial murder

52:14

rates as hung from San Francisco. Ah

52:16

I'm an old is he know he

52:18

died. He died like two years ago

52:21

while we were editing and so than

52:23

it was like earth. So Zagged says

52:25

he could have. He was his state

52:27

prison in California which is the most

52:30

lax parole system and he could have

52:32

at any point. Paroled. Out

52:34

as he didn't like, the show wreaked havoc

52:36

upon our lives, But then he died of

52:38

a heart attack in prison and so that

52:41

we were like sectors. Okay, fine with that,

52:43

I'm in a shell. Wow, yeah and I

52:45

was a cool thing about having at kind

52:47

of. Ever evolving

52:49

long project from you. Now

52:51

that morphed and yeah, I'm

52:54

off chance and thirty years

52:56

old and thirty years or

52:58

younger. Other people died. There

53:00

was a legendary spies from

53:02

Israel name ruff a time

53:04

who is involved in different

53:06

ways. It in the story

53:09

allegedly and with the Promise

53:11

software. And

53:13

we got his cell phone number from

53:15

a friend of mine in Israel. And

53:18

ah we obviously want to do art.

53:20

We wanted to get our research like

53:22

under way. you know, like really know

53:24

what we wanted to ask him before

53:27

we called him. we felt like if

53:29

he's picked up we don't have one

53:31

shots and then. Within. A

53:33

month of getting that cell phone number,

53:36

he died. You know he was old.

53:38

You know people they are kind of

53:40

liked or that's ultimately won. It was

53:43

necessary, but had a smile. He captured

53:45

Adolf Eichmann in a while now. Roughly.

53:48

The sinker. Suisse. Com

53:50

so. He.

53:54

Didn't improve my.

53:58

Feeling. Of. Christ.

54:04

In really anything. You

54:09

know, is it? Because

54:11

it all seems. So

54:15

real. And. Plausible it

54:17

all seems. I mean the dirty

54:19

look at it as he has

54:21

an octopus. In, it's all

54:23

connected. It does. it's It

54:25

seems overwhelming that that could be.

54:29

We. Have troops. But as you

54:31

tasted like you did one piece

54:33

at a time, every piece you're

54:35

like, know that that works. There

54:38

that's how we wanted to feel. was your

54:40

sort of like paddling out and you kind

54:42

of go to this boy is still seat

54:44

landlord I'm fine out there than you'd Then

54:46

we go to the next pool. billiards will

54:48

for the way and then a few though

54:50

they are like. When. An animal,

54:52

the ocean and I have no bearings anymore

54:54

which I think is what we wanted to

54:56

capture of how we felt like Danny who.

54:59

Spent year doing this and. Christian.

55:02

Spent twelve years doing that as and

55:04

me spending several years during this that's

55:06

and central feeling that you get when

55:08

you go through this and you're just

55:10

like what is real anymore. says.

55:13

Your families. And them

55:15

twelve years. Your. Family or any

55:17

or friends or anybody disco. Tude.

55:20

You are. You're.

55:22

Gone and nice of first

55:24

ice to to us and

55:26

fifteen was my worst year

55:28

of of this legs emotionally,

55:30

physically and mentally. and is

55:32

Eileen that explain that to

55:35

me? I mean I was

55:37

just like I'd I'd like

55:39

withdrawn, I'd I'd had a

55:41

relationship with they. Have

55:44

a business relationship with a literary

55:46

agents and my background is as

55:48

a photo journalist and I had.

55:51

My. First book was going to be this

55:53

in. The. same way

55:56

complicated nonfiction investigation

55:59

about this at that point

56:01

26 year old case

56:04

and I was way in over

56:06

my head but I wanted to complete this

56:11

I wanted to get it out and I was

56:14

like just like really like and

56:16

I was just alone and

56:19

just struggling not sleeping

56:21

a lot like trying to like if

56:23

I just stay up a little longer I'll

56:25

figure it out and you know I was

56:27

like kind of miserable I think

56:29

and lonely and I you

56:32

know was broke and my

56:34

other career as a photojournalist was

56:37

suffering I wasn't taking good

56:39

care of myself I mean you I mean

56:41

I kind of block a lot of that

56:43

stuff out but you were there you and

56:45

I you know go over to Christian's house

56:47

and he's like sitting

56:49

in the same position for two days straight you

56:51

know like it's like did you sleep and it's

56:54

like I like a couple days ago you know

56:56

that kind of thing it was just it

56:58

was just bleak and and his sisters

57:00

and I and our friends all

57:02

talked about it was just like you know is

57:04

it time to intervene and like how do we

57:07

get Christian back there's you know the stages of

57:09

grief there's also

57:11

like the stages of conspiracy and I think

57:13

one of the stages where you go to

57:15

a dinner party or a

57:18

barbecue and you try you

57:20

pick you know anybody from the crowd

57:22

and you try to convince them of

57:24

this thing that you've been studying you

57:26

know because if you can convince someone

57:28

at the dinner party and they believe

57:30

you then it will help you believe

57:32

you because you're like struggling with this

57:34

like complex untangible and doesn't really work

57:37

out well does it no I

57:39

think especially for the guests and I know I'd

57:41

be like all right

57:43

I'm just gonna go to this barbecue I'm not gonna talk

57:45

about the case okay I'm just gonna go I'm just gonna

57:47

be normal and then like I you know I thought it

57:49

was a process like

57:52

you know kept repeating and I referred to it

57:54

earlier in the show like I've sort of matured

57:56

into this and I

57:58

can talk about other things

58:00

to now, you know, I think. Can

58:04

you? But

58:06

it's all, but it is

58:08

all consuming and it changes

58:10

your worldview enough to where

58:13

you, even our editors that worked

58:15

on it, sorry to keep interrupting you Glenn, but

58:17

like our, our, all the editors that we worked

58:19

with, you know, they're just like, they're guys that

58:21

they cut, they cut movies and shows. And

58:25

they all became like, you know,

58:27

very suspicious and they changed their

58:29

worldview of like geopolitics and, and.

58:31

You can't unsee things, you know,

58:34

and so when, and you

58:36

know, when it's, you know, there's

58:39

so many conspiracy theories out there that are

58:41

just so much bullcrap, but

58:44

there are a few, the

58:46

really well designed ones,

58:48

I think are

58:51

you, they, they have certain hallmarks

58:53

and it is the same

58:55

like 25 people, you

58:58

know, or 10 people that are just like, wait,

59:01

wait, wait, this connects

59:03

here because of that one person.

59:05

And once you start seeing that

59:07

matrix, it, it's,

59:10

it's hard because you feel either

59:12

alone or

59:17

you're, you feel like you're

59:19

seeing something that nobody else

59:21

is seeing and it's right

59:24

there. Does that

59:26

make sense to you? And

59:28

that's usually when your friends

59:30

go, maybe you should stop talking about

59:32

this. Maybe you should stop, maybe did

59:35

your friend, did you, before you were like, let's

59:38

roll up our sleeves and go, did you,

59:41

was there talk about let's get him off the,

59:43

Yeah, yeah, I mean, we did. And

59:45

it was a years long process. I

59:47

mean, I didn't start making this, Christian started

59:49

talking about this back in 2012 or whenever

59:52

he started. We've been friends since before. We

59:54

were friends for, you know, we grew up

59:56

together. And

59:59

so it was made, mainly a process for

1:00:01

me of like, oh

1:00:03

that's an interesting story, and then just

1:00:05

worried about Christian for like his own

1:00:08

mental health. And then when he's

1:00:10

telling me more about the people that he was reaching

1:00:13

out to, and then it was like worry

1:00:15

for his physical safety, it's like these people

1:00:17

don't seem like they might have

1:00:19

your best interest at heart that

1:00:21

you're talking to. And then the

1:00:23

problem is that you kind of

1:00:25

hear enough about this story to

1:00:28

where it grabs

1:00:30

onto you. There's, it puts

1:00:32

its little hooks in you, and then you're like, well

1:00:35

that is kind of weird, what happened with like, Dan's

1:00:37

family. I think you even said this,

1:00:39

it's gotta feel like, if I just

1:00:41

get this, we just get this.

1:00:43

The carrot is funny. And it just

1:00:45

opens up another door of craziness. I

1:00:48

think that what we tried to do though, was

1:00:50

try to put some blinders on, and that we

1:00:52

didn't make a movie that's

1:00:54

about conspiracy theories, or

1:00:57

about the social history of conspiracy theories,

1:00:59

or anything that's really passed 1992 or

1:01:01

three, Danny

1:01:04

died in 1981. We didn't graft

1:01:07

this story onto the present, in

1:01:09

this conspiracy, conspiracy

1:01:11

theories have become this bogeyman

1:01:13

that is in the popular culture

1:01:16

incessantly now. And why

1:01:18

are you in that? I don't

1:01:20

know for sure, but 1991, the

1:01:24

year that Danny died is such

1:01:26

a significant year for conspiracy theories.

1:01:29

The year that the movie JFK, by Oliver

1:01:31

Stone came out, it's the year

1:01:33

that, do you know who David Icke is? He's

1:01:36

like a British conspiracy theorist, he

1:01:38

talks about the lizard people. He

1:01:40

was a BBC sports

1:01:42

announcer, who goes on the Wogan

1:01:44

show. In 1991, it says

1:01:47

that he's the reincarnation of Jesus. Danny

1:01:49

Casolero dies, I

1:01:52

mean, the Hold a Pale Horse.

1:01:54

This Fuck Behold a Pale Horse came out. It

1:01:57

was just like, I think they called that

1:01:59

summer, 1991 the summer

1:02:01

of conspiracies because it was

1:02:04

right at the end of Iran

1:02:06

Contra and there was

1:02:08

an October surprise investigation going on the end

1:02:10

of my cases all these conspiracies were bubbling

1:02:12

up in Washington But but you know, I

1:02:15

don't exactly know why conspiracy theories,

1:02:18

you know are such a topic to

1:02:21

do now I do know

1:02:23

the feeling of What

1:02:25

they do to your brain and we don't really

1:02:27

talk about this in the show very

1:02:29

much but my theory is that

1:02:33

in the absence of knowledge

1:02:36

of information the human brain

1:02:39

Makes up the worst possible fills

1:02:41

in the gaps with the worst possible

1:02:43

possibilities, right and so you're or programmed

1:02:47

to The negative

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I've lost I'm losing my

1:03:21

hearing badly and What

1:03:25

happens is? your brain fills

1:03:29

in when you can't hear

1:03:31

and It just

1:03:34

it just takes bits and pieces and it like

1:03:36

I've heard my wife say In

1:03:39

just crazy thing, you know what I mean? I

1:03:41

and I'll let I go What

1:03:43

did you just say? What

1:03:46

good it like makes no sense that you

1:03:48

would say so and it's

1:03:50

just the brain filling in what

1:03:52

it thought it heard By

1:03:55

grabbing the absolute and I think that's I think

1:03:57

it's pretty serious or or the idea of like

1:03:59

the government is doing this or these people are

1:04:01

doing this or whatever group you don't like is

1:04:03

doing this. I

1:04:05

think it's a very natural mental process. I think it's

1:04:08

based on psychological concepts like negativity bias and things like

1:04:10

that and we won't go into it. But

1:04:12

what I'm trying to really get back to is for

1:04:14

us, we really tried to put blinders

1:04:17

on and just focus on this story

1:04:19

and it's a very complicated story. But

1:04:21

just saying like what can we actually,

1:04:23

what is a conspiracy theory and what's

1:04:26

an actual conspiracy which has a legal

1:04:28

definition and it's where multiple people

1:04:30

get together and do a crime. There's

1:04:32

a difference between a conspiracy theory and

1:04:34

a conspiracy fact. Right. That's what

1:04:36

we're trying to find. There are conspiracies. And

1:04:39

I've gotten so muddled some people refer

1:04:41

to, some people call conspiracy theories, they

1:04:43

just say conspiracy. I don't

1:04:46

believe in conspiracies or like in

1:04:48

our show when we called the

1:04:50

FBI agent Scott Erskine, he says,

1:04:52

oh you know Danny Casolero,

1:04:55

he was talking to a

1:04:57

lot of people who believed

1:05:00

in conspiracies and were involved

1:05:03

in conspiracies. And we're like

1:05:05

okay. But he means to

1:05:07

say conspiracy theories. Give him the benefit. No, I'm just

1:05:10

saying. I just think that is an example of how

1:05:12

people get muddled. Because

1:05:19

I drew some things to

1:05:22

today that maybe you didn't intend

1:05:24

at all and that would be

1:05:26

I guess a good thing. Or

1:05:29

is it what you want me to do? But

1:05:32

I drew, you

1:05:35

know, in times

1:05:38

where things, where

1:05:40

you just don't have good answers. Like

1:05:43

you know, the

1:05:45

Titanic, we're going way

1:05:47

too fast. What

1:05:50

the hell are we doing going, you know, in

1:05:53

around the icebergs at this speed? Well, they didn't want

1:05:55

to tell you that there was an out of control

1:05:57

fire, you know, in the burners.

1:06:00

It wasn't going to burn everything to the

1:06:02

ground. They just could not control it. So

1:06:04

just open it up and let it run.

1:06:08

When you don't have the facts, you

1:06:11

look at things and go, well, I'm not

1:06:13

getting the truth. And so you're more open.

1:06:17

And the way to stop all

1:06:19

this stuff is to just have

1:06:21

some transparency. But I

1:06:23

don't even know what's transparent anymore,

1:06:25

because the internet has

1:06:27

made things worse. You can

1:06:29

find whatever. And now with deep fakes, it's

1:06:31

going to get much worse, because

1:06:34

you'll be able to make that Zapruder film. Right,

1:06:36

right, right. You know what I

1:06:38

mean? So there's an

1:06:40

Unsolved Mysteries episode about the

1:06:43

Danny Castellaro case that came

1:06:45

out in And

1:06:47

at the end of it, they talk about

1:06:49

this event that occurred

1:06:52

at Danny's funeral, where a man

1:06:54

in a military uniform puts a

1:06:56

medal on Danny's casket. And

1:07:00

then Anne Clink, who's in our show,

1:07:03

and different friends and family

1:07:05

of Danny were like, who was that guy?

1:07:07

And why did he do that? And what

1:07:09

does it mean? And the

1:07:11

way that the Unsolved

1:07:13

Mysteries episode is the recreation. The

1:07:16

guy looks like Colin Powell, kind of. And

1:07:21

with the music and the editing, you're like, well,

1:07:23

was Danny actually a spy? Why

1:07:25

would he do that? What was he doing? And

1:07:29

then so it was very significant

1:07:31

to me that Danny wrote about

1:07:34

computers at a time when not many people did.

1:07:36

And then that led him to the story about

1:07:38

computers that led him to all

1:07:40

of the rest of it, the Promised

1:07:43

Software story. So when

1:07:45

I was working on the research for the

1:07:47

book in the early days, I was calling

1:07:49

people that he worked with at this computer

1:07:51

industry trade publication called Computer Age. And

1:07:54

there were a few names on the masthead of the

1:07:56

publications that I was able to track down, and

1:07:59

they introduced me. me to other people that work

1:08:01

there and they introduced me to other people that work

1:08:03

there and I met, I called this guy that worked

1:08:05

in the print shop. All I knew was his name.

1:08:07

I called him

1:08:09

and I said, hi, my name is Christian. I'm

1:08:11

writing a book about Danny Castellaro and he was

1:08:14

like, I've been waiting, you know, 25 years for

1:08:16

this call. And

1:08:19

I'm like, wow. Okay. And

1:08:22

he was like, have you ever seen the

1:08:24

Unsolved Mystery Show about this case? And I

1:08:26

was like, yeah, I have. He's like, I'm

1:08:28

the guy. And I

1:08:30

was like, what guy? Which guy?

1:08:33

You know, he's like, I'm the guy.

1:08:35

I'm the guy. I'm like, what guy? And he's

1:08:37

like, I'm the guy that put the metal on

1:08:39

Danny's casket. And I was

1:08:42

like, wait, you were? And he's

1:08:45

like, yeah. And I was like,

1:08:47

well, first of all, tell me the story and

1:08:49

then tell me why you didn't come forward. You know

1:08:51

that there's this big question about who this person is.

1:08:54

And he said, well, you know, me and

1:08:56

Danny, we were friends at work. We were

1:08:58

work friends and after work, we'd sometimes have

1:09:00

a beer in the parking lot of the

1:09:02

office building where their publication was based. And

1:09:05

Danny used to say that he'd wished that

1:09:07

he'd gone to war because he wished he'd

1:09:10

gotten a medal. And this

1:09:12

guy was like a highly decorated

1:09:14

soldier from

1:09:17

Vietnam. He was in deep,

1:09:19

heavy, horrible combat. And,

1:09:21

you know, he's like, Danny, you're

1:09:24

good. You don't want the medal. And he's

1:09:26

like, no, I wish I had the medal.

1:09:29

And this guy, you know, had been through hell and

1:09:31

he had a bunch of medals to show for it.

1:09:34

And so he thought about that conversation that

1:09:36

he did. He was going to the funeral

1:09:38

and he decided to put on his military

1:09:40

uniform, like his formal attire and put the

1:09:43

medal on, give Danny his best medal. Wow.

1:09:45

And, um, and that was just something he

1:09:48

did for himself. He just, and it was

1:09:50

something, a private moment between him and his

1:09:52

late friend that, you know, so

1:09:55

then I was like, well, why

1:09:57

did you wait? Like, why are you not?

1:10:00

You know, why did you let this mystery surround it?

1:10:03

And he said, look

1:10:06

man, if they can't figure out

1:10:09

who I was, they're not going to

1:10:11

figure out what happened to Danny. So

1:10:13

you know, you found me and I want you to

1:10:15

figure out what happened to Danny. Something

1:10:18

like that.

1:10:20

But so like you're saying with the conspiracy theories,

1:10:22

you know, your mind goes everywhere. Who's the guy

1:10:25

to put the metal in the casket? Who was

1:10:27

that? And so we

1:10:29

have, we have in my

1:10:32

job, I've had people come up to

1:10:34

me and say, I

1:10:36

know what you were saying about such and such. You're

1:10:39

like, what the hell was I saying? Well

1:10:42

I know what you said, but I

1:10:44

heard you. No,

1:10:47

I didn't know, you know,

1:10:49

there are people out there that do

1:10:51

want to go into this space.

1:10:53

I don't know why, but they do want

1:10:56

to go into that space and

1:10:59

connect everything to everything.

1:11:01

You know, some things are connected. Some

1:11:04

things are not, you know. Yeah,

1:11:06

right. I think that that was our main

1:11:09

issue, right? And we knew, we knew

1:11:11

in the office that people on the

1:11:14

internet would say that the show is

1:11:16

a limited hangout, which is a term

1:11:19

that means that, you know,

1:11:21

an intelligence agency admits to part

1:11:23

of a larger thing in order

1:11:25

to like distract and, you know,

1:11:28

obfuscate the larger crime. Sacrificial

1:11:30

lamb for the larger. And then sure enough,

1:11:32

you know, there, yeah,

1:11:35

it's on the internet that there's just supposedly a limited

1:11:37

hangout. But no, we did the best we could. So

1:11:41

you're not CIA spies. We

1:11:43

honestly, like it would make our lives so much easier.

1:11:46

No, I know. The recruiters are

1:11:49

out there and it would make it even cooler. They'd

1:11:51

be a lot happier to me.

1:11:53

No, I mean, if you were if

1:11:56

you were a spy and you had the answer, you

1:11:58

would assume you'd get more access. Yeah, you'd

1:12:00

have access. Yeah, I wouldn't want to do any

1:12:02

like wet work though. I'm pretty

1:12:04

much about broad. Yeah,

1:12:08

the wet work part would probably be... And

1:12:10

I've got morality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I

1:12:13

have morality. So

1:12:16

final thought, what

1:12:20

do you walk away with or hope that

1:12:23

the audience walks away? Because I'm not sure,

1:12:25

and those are usually the best things, you

1:12:27

go to a movie or you'll read something

1:12:29

and you're like, I don't

1:12:32

know. I know that affected me. I know that

1:12:35

may have changed me, but I'm not sure how

1:12:37

yet. I think, and that's very

1:12:39

rare that that happens, and I think you

1:12:41

captured that. Yeah, I mean, I think that

1:12:44

we can't inherently solve

1:12:46

every mystery that's brought

1:12:48

up by the octopus,

1:12:50

right? But

1:12:54

we also, I don't think are leaving it

1:12:56

with like, oh, like, just

1:12:59

wait for season two, or like, this is a

1:13:01

completely ambiguous ending and nobody knows anything. It's like,

1:13:03

I think that we bring people on a journey

1:13:06

and show for the first

1:13:08

time often new

1:13:10

information and new facts and draw

1:13:12

conclusions about the relationships between all

1:13:15

these people and these string

1:13:17

of murders and crimes. But

1:13:20

I do think that there is,

1:13:24

if you could say it's ambiguous, it's like,

1:13:26

I look at it like we're making almost

1:13:28

like a nature documentary. Like

1:13:31

we're studying an ecosystem and there's no

1:13:34

real beginning and end to an ecosystem.

1:13:37

You make a nature show and you see

1:13:39

the hunt and you see the aftermath and

1:13:41

you see the relationships between all the different

1:13:43

animals and treat them as characters.

1:13:46

That's a little bit what we're doing with some

1:13:49

of these conspiracies or political

1:13:51

scandals or intelligence operations. We're

1:13:54

showing our

1:13:56

view, our experience of how

1:13:59

they... relate and

1:14:01

they work as

1:14:04

people who have done the research or

1:14:06

whatever, done a lot of research. And

1:14:09

so I think taking away from that feeling

1:14:11

that you can get tangible

1:14:13

answers, but you have

1:14:15

to be comfortable in a

1:14:18

certain level of ambiguity. You have to

1:14:20

be comfortable floating just a little bit

1:14:22

and never coming

1:14:25

to grips with the feeling of, okay,

1:14:28

I can walk away because I

1:14:30

know at least this much information or I

1:14:33

can keep on living my life because I

1:14:35

mean for the moral for me was

1:14:39

you could do this forever, but

1:14:41

it's nice to have like other things going on

1:14:43

in your life like friendship, I think is a

1:14:45

big part of it and being able to walk

1:14:48

away and not have to know every answer to

1:14:50

every single thing. And that's

1:14:53

actually important on a personal level.

1:14:56

That makes sense. That was a huge,

1:15:00

it was a really blessing I thought, message

1:15:04

in there. Yeah, I think it's tragic

1:15:06

that Danny was doing this in 1990

1:15:08

and 1981 alone largely. And

1:15:12

I think that is sad to

1:15:14

think about somebody kind of

1:15:16

traveling through this world on their own.

1:15:19

He had to bounce his ideas off of

1:15:21

Robert Booth Nichols. I had Zach. You

1:15:24

had a better partner. Final

1:15:26

thought from you. I

1:15:29

intend to keep investigating this,

1:15:34

well, this constellation, this ecosystem and

1:15:36

I'd love

1:15:39

to eventually make my way into the modern

1:15:41

era. I don't know like,

1:15:43

because I only know if when I've

1:15:45

like investigated something what

1:15:47

I think about it. So

1:15:50

no, I don't know. It's been amazing to

1:15:52

have Zach

1:15:54

help me out with this. I mean, I was

1:15:56

pretty lost until he joined me. It's

1:16:01

too big of a thing to come up with

1:16:03

any sort of little final thought, I think. No,

1:16:05

but I like the idea that it's

1:16:09

more satisfying to think of this as a

1:16:11

study on the ecosystem. Because

1:16:13

something like this, you know,

1:16:15

just doesn't appear and then go away or

1:16:18

whatever. I mean... Especially when nobody

1:16:20

gets in trouble. Yeah. And

1:16:22

people are clearly like making money. I

1:16:24

mean, it's worthwhile to people to

1:16:26

be involved in it. Guys, thank you. Thank

1:16:28

you so much, Grammarches. Just

1:16:36

a reminder, we'd love you

1:16:38

to rate and subscribe to our podcast and pass

1:16:40

it on to a friend so it can be

1:16:42

distorted by other people.