And That's Why We Drink - E122 Alien Bumper Cars and MTV Crypts

Episode Date: June 2, 2019

Welcome to the birthday crypt! We're feeling old but birthday ready this week so it's no wonder MTV Crypts wants to showcase us! This week Em treats us to a current UFO story by covering the recent UFO Navy pilot reports. Meanwhile Christine brings us a semi follow up to the Chicago Tylenol Murders in the case of the murder of Susan Snow. So strap in... it's birthday week, folks!Please consider supporting the companies that support us!Get an extra 30% off your first ThredUp order when you go to thredup.com/drinkGet $10 off your first FabFitFun box when you go to fabfitfun.com and enter code DRINKGet a 4-week trial, free postage and a digital scale when you go to stamps.com, click on the microphone on the top of the homepage and enter promo code DRINKGet 3 Daily Harvest cups free in your first box when you go to daily-harvest.com and enter promo code DRINK

oh my oh my oh my happy birthday to us it's our birthday time it's our birthday time i wrote this song for you wow oh my goodness my goodness. That's just great. I didn't even remember that this was going to be our birthday episode. I did. Yay! You silly goose, Christine. Silly goose. Happy birthday.

Oh my goodness. Happy birthday to you. You're fucking old now. I know, right? How old are you? You're not actually. I'm 49. 49?

Wow. That's almost 500. Are you 28 now? I am. That sounds so old. Oh, shush. Everyone who's listening is like, please stop. It sounds like you sound like a little bread. Yeah. Are you the Crypt Keeper now, Christine? Yes. Wow. I'm very dusty. Welcome to your promotion. Thank you. I feel very old being 27. I'm like one of those people who takes every year very personally. And I know you take a, yeah, I just feel my whole, all of my joints have withered away. It's not even really the number anymore.

It's like my knees hurt. And I'm like, oh, for me, it's both. It's the, I mean, everything's got to be terrible for me because I'm dramatic, but the number for me, I like think of all the things like when I was five, what did I think a 27 year old was up to? And this was not it when i was little my mom that had me at age 27 i'm like god damn my my mom was like married for like four years already yeah and i was like oh boy oh boy she's i'm in for a rude awakening apparently when i grow up apparently wow um although we don't really need to relive uh our mother's marriages no i mean she was married the first time of many.

Love you. Okay, so. Renato is on her second by now, I think. Was she? Okay, we don't need to talk about that. I'm sorry, Mom. I love you. Our therapists are listening and they're like, yep, I already knew that one.

My therapist is absolutely not listening. She's like, please don't make me hear her again. Anyway, it's our birthday week. And we also haven't actually celebrated our birthday yet. Right now, I'm still 26. I can still say it that's right i am uh still not the crypt keeper but i'm on my way no you've been promoted though you're in training pieces of my body are just falling off um i'm the apprentice but uh yeah well well i'm yeah anyway oh i'm excited we we don't know what we're doing i well i think christine knows what we're doing for our birthday.

I do. Christine texted me a while ago and said, are you free on this day? And so now I know that something's happening, but I don't know what. Ooh, it's happening. I haven't figured out any event for us yet, though, on my end. Trying to lay low. Oh, my. You are.

I'm pretty clueless. Usually I think I've got you figured out by now. No. Yeah, I only have presents for you this time. So the experience is all yours. I'm pretty clueless. Usually I think I've got you figured out by now. No. Yeah, I only have presents for you this time. So the experience is all yours. I'm very excited. It'll be fun. And, and, and tomorrow I'm leaving town to go to Cincinnati to go see Fall Out Boy with Renee.

Oh, right. I knew you were going to Cincinnati. I didn't know why. We're going to see Fall Out Boy. So your birthday is just skyrocketing already. My birthday week is rocking. Wow. I mean, I'm going out with a bang before i end up in a tomb or whatever you know what i just it did just hit me that it's my birthday week i should go like eat a steak or something tonight that's what i'm

saying dude i went to the dodgers game yesterday being responsible and i was like money oh my god 17 beers hell yeah it's birthday week i'm offended allison if you're listening's birthday week. I'm offended. Allison, if you're listening, my birthday week has been like the last two days and we haven't done anything yet. Oh, no. I have yelled it at Blaze many times. I'm about to. I'm going to text Allison right now. Okay, good.

I'll text her live so everyone can hear her response. Super. Unless it's bad and then we're going to edit it out and I'll say something else. Oh, Em, I love you so much. All right, we'll have Microsoft Sam throw it in. We'll have Eva pretend to be Allison. I'm going to say, I'm so mad at you. Oh,'t do this i'm just kidding oh my god uh what do i say um i don't know this is your weird plan let's let's let the let's let them call in let's you know

those old tv shows where like you would pause for five seconds and you could like text in your like american idol oh yeah dial you could like text in your number if, American Idol. Oh, yeah. Dial. You can, like, text in your number. If you want this option, press 1 and text this number. Dial 499 right now. Why haven't we celebrated my birthday yet? That's what I'm going to say. She's like, I'm, anyway. Well, by the time I get back, it'll be, so I get back Sunday, which is the day this comes out.

And then I will have already seen Fall Out Boy. And then the next day is your birthday. Yeah. It's going to be even better than Fall Out Boy, I promise. And then I will have already seen Fall Out Boy. And then the next day is your birthday. It's going to be even better than Fall Out Boy, I promise. And then the next, obviously. And then the day, I'm building up, you know. And then the day after is even better than your birthday, which is my birthday. And then the day after is both of our birthday celebrations.

Yes, that's the one. Oh God, our poor friends and family hate us so much. Look, we've been like, because we've been calm as hell. We've been so calm. You guys have been very lucky with the live shows coming out every episode because you haven't gotten to hear us talking about our birthday. And we've been traveling. So we haven't been like in the zone.

Yeah. Then we came back and we were like, oh, it's birthday week. Time to get fucking weird. We're back. So anyway. And we're singing. We haven't talked about cake yet. Are we going to eat cake together?

Oh, yes. Obviously. What a dumb question. One day you should have, you should pick your favorite cake and I'll pick my favorite cake and then we stack them and we'll have a double cake. Okay. But you're going to put fucking anchovies in your cake. I'm not. Anchovies.

Never mind. I don't want it. Here's the thing. What's up? Remember, I got a little memory thing that was like two years ago. Two years ago was our Irvine show on your birthday but like coming up where I got I got that ice cream cake like a haunted house which by the way I think is still one of my favorite cakes I've ever gotten I like I forgot about it so mad that we didn't get

to eat more of it oh yeah I was all the way in Irvine well we were in Irvine and also I was so nervous so nervous I couldn't eat it and I felt so bad because Christine, I guess you went to a Ben and Jerry's or something and you got like a Baskin Robbins or something. They had a haunted house cake and they were like are you sure it's June? And I was like, yes. It looked so good. Can we relive that and maybe get one of those again? Yeah! It looked so

There was like a boomerang of Eva. That was Eva's first day basically. That was literally Eva's first day. Our first live show. And she handed me a whole like meant for 20 people cake. I was like walk in and i felt so bad because even didn't know me yet so she didn't know my reputation of that like i could eat that whole like a psychopath oh i could eat well she didn't know that either yet she learned real quick i was like eva i know i'm not eating any of this cake but this is an off day for me usually this would be one serving right right right right right and they had a little chimney made of frosting and it had ghosts it

had little ghosts on it oh it was so good that was really cute that they made that actually i'm wait i need that i remember being really worried because i made eva drive on the way to irvine stop at a basking robbins and be like demand the ghost cake and if they won't make it that was her first day she's like what the fuck did i get into like i don't know why i'm doing this um but she's still here thank god and there was a lot of fudge on it. A lot of chocolate. There was a lot of fudge. And then I did this song Finch.

Oh, my God. Wait, you were so nice back then. Last year. What happened? I don't know. Oh, shit. Wow. All right.

Well. Got to up your game, man. Listen, I'm excited. You don't know what's coming. Oh. I already know whenever Christine plans something for me, I know I'm going to love it. I have no doubts. Well, it's because you do it, too. And then I'm like, well, I know I'm going to love it. I have no doubts. Well, it's because you do it too.

And then I'm like, well, I got to step up, I guess. We definitely have that connection. It's a twin. The Gemini twins. All right. Anyway, is there any negative things going on in your life? Any reasons why you drink in a poor way? There probably are, but I'm trying to be positive.

Oh. You just came out of therapy, didn't you? I didn't. Well, I went to my my psychiatrist oh does that count well sure yes yeah feeling good about yourself we're feeling good we're tweaking my meds yay we're good we're happy we're feeling good what about you uh i think i'm okay i mentioned in the last episode that my glasses are broken i'm going today i'm going your goddamn glasses they're hanging on a thread right now. I'm going after this.

Oh, you are to go get my glasses. Oh, they're the same frame. You're going to send me 10 photos and be like, which ones are the best? No, I'm I'm such a I hate change. So I love change. That's where we do. I know you have like five different glasses and it scares me every time. I'm so out of my comfort zone when I get used to one.

And then you're like in your clear ones. I'm Gemini of you. I'm just like I'm so fucking fickle. I'm like, I don't I change my comfort zone when I get used to one and then you're like, and you're clear ones. That's so un-Gemini of you. I know. I'm just like, I'm so fucking fickle. I'm like, I don't, I change my mind every 10 minutes. I probably have some weird problem in my upbringing where it's like my only normal. It's my comfort zone. Oh, mine was like, oh yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. Just run, run.

Yeah, no. So before I even broke my glasses, I knew when I got new glasses, they'd be the exact same pair. So, oh, you're getting the same ones. Yeah. Oh, well, I hate change. I love change uh i wish you would change i'm me too so i'm hilarious um what else was i gonna say oh is that all your announcements i guess so yeah my face is broken or my glasses oh come on now you're really being dramatic my face is broken oh i did see Aladdin. I texted you the second I came out of the theater.

I texted Blaze, or I talked to Blaze and I said, we have to see it. It was so fucking good. I didn't even plan on seeing it. And then when you said that, I was like, well, now I have to see it. It makes, I mean, if this is good, I can't even imagine what Beyonce and Lion King was going to do to me. Oh, I was going to say, well, that's going to be like. It's going to be bone chilling.

Next level. We should go see. Well, I don't know. I feel like you don't like seeing movies with certain. I usually don't like seeing movies more than once. You are you kidding with me? Haven't you gone to see your movies like 42 times? Well, so I usually don't like seeing movies more than once.

But if it's a movie I'm really fucking invested in, I want to see it over and over to catch all the little nuances. So like Avengers, obviously. But usually if i see a movie in theater i don't really see movies outside of marvel movies and theaters yeah but because it's disney and like a classic and nostalgia and all that i'd want to see it again so if you want to go really yeah okay we can go see a lot hell yeah i didn't think blaze was that thrilled about it so i'll go with you yeah yay thank you yeah um i have one announcement before

we get into the creepy stuff and that is that on June 10th, we are announcing our last city of the year. Yes. Our last tour. We can't tell you yet. Check your Instagrams. That's right. It's going to. Yeah, it's on Instagram.

A.T. W.W.D. Roll up. You know, you know what it is. That one. A.T. W.W.D. Podcast.

And we have New Orleans, which I think is almost sold out. Yep. And that's on the 6th. That's September 6th. Yeah. And then on September 19th, I think we have both of our Salt Lake City shows that we're redoing because we had to cancel them because of weather problems. Exactly.

So those, I don't know if those have tickets left. I don't know. But then we're announcing one last show for the year. You better get your plane tickets ready. And I'm excited about it. So get ready. It is going to be a really big one for us. Somewhere where we haven't been yet. We're very, very, very excited. So

please come. Anyway, so that's happening. That's all I have. Okay. Okay. So is that just time for us to talk about our stories now? I think so. I love talking about myself, but I think I guess we have to talk about other people now. Isn't it funny? We got a podcast thinking we'd talk more about ourselves, but we, it has to be focused on something else sometimes. That's true. Although we do definitely use it as a ruse to mostly talk about ourselves. It is. We do veil us talking about ourselves in ghost stories.

Yes. Um. Um, sorry. I just got a bunch of texts and I looked down and everyone's like, how horrible, how horrifying. Uh oh. Apparently my sister's German teacher was arrested on child pornography. Oh no. My mom just sent me the news article and is like, oh God,

Francisca says that's my German teacher and sent an article in Cincinnati Inquirer. That's awful. Oh no. And was, was, was teaching your, your sister yes oh no oh no holy crap arrested by the airport police oh no oh my that's a twist that is a twist okay well i gotta keep an eye on that thing holy crap anyway sorry i thought that might be a little true crime update. I mean, it was very true crime-y.

That was the most personal... Speaking of talking about yourself. Yeah. Right, we're back to me again. That was the most live-action true crime we've ever covered. What can I say? I also... Allison, by the way, has not gotten back to me.

I said, I need seven constant days of unadulterated joy for my birthday. Oh, she blocked your number. oh bananas okay anyway let's switch from child pornography charges to two ghosts ghosts sorry i didn't mean for there to be this weird pregnant pause my whole face just got itchy all of a sudden it's broken it's broken i know it's just healing um oh also i do have a reason why I drink. Oh, for God's sakes. We're back to us again. Talking about me. It's my birthday and I can do what I want. Um, so, uh, since I've been gone, since you've been gone, I can't breathe for the first time. Is that the, that is the go-to for you always. So since I have been away from my apartment, we've been traveling a lot.

And Allison is throwing me a superhero sleepover birthday party this weekend, which I'm very excited about. And I'm missing it because I'm seeing Fall Out Boy. This is the most Christina and Em weekend ever, actually. I'm having a Captain America weekend. I'm having a slumber party with renee watching fallout boy i do want to give a shout out to all of my friends who are also in their now late 20s not a single one of them even questioned when i said hey i want to have a sleepover like we were little kids and i wanted to be superhero themed to be fair we all know you pretty well every single person was like fuck yeah so i'm very excited about that it'll be fun i'm sad i'm missing it

and to make sure that the whole place looked clean since since i've been gone for so long and haven't really gotten to do a full scrubbing of the apartment in a while and we have a party coming up this weekend i did a full-blown like eight hours clean deep clean like got behind things yeah so i cleaned so intensely that three days later, my body still hurts. Yeah. Like I did a lot of work out squatting and a lot of bending. God, it was the most exercise my body has experienced in a while. And it was like, what is going on? So my whole body, my body does feel broken a little bit. So I'm so sorry about that that sitting down to get in the car to come here was quite a task oh i know why i drink because i fucking just booked my colonoscopy for oh a couple weeks from now well i just remembered i'm like body things oh yeah well i have to do

that and for three days i can't eat certain foods and then i have to for 24 hours only drink fucking like clear jello is it your near your birthday it's the 21st of june that's your birth month this sucks even more my month you can't take that from me except they did anyway here is my story my paranormal story i'm very excited about this one because just like how you very in live time caught a true crime story i am i am doing a relatively live paranormal story what does that mean which i've never done before and it doesn't have like a title usually i'm like this is the story of blank but i don't have a title um because these are recent reports that came out only three days ago oh okay um so we are calling this the story of recent ufo reports filed by navy pilots holy

shit are you serious i don't know anything about this yes okay so let's go uh good luck trying to figure out how to label this in your brain i don't know how what the title would be good luck eva uv ufo navy pilot reports i guess um so this story was covered three days ago it was like relatively breaking news if you're a paranormal person i feel like maybe it was um and the story was covered by like new york times rolling stone cnn how did i miss this news because there's so many more important things probably going on in the world i get tagged in um and i'll i'm saying if you're in the paranormal world it might have been breaking news you'll understand why in a second okay so um basically between 2014 and 2015 um there were several series of ufo sightings by navy pilots that were in virginia on the way

to florida okay and they i just because i don't want to get sued and like people like the new york times and should have covered this so i feel like at least my like alexa is listening to this i just want to say you just set off everyone's goddamn sorry everyone's echo that doesn't help stop i'm gonna stop uh don't sue me so i'm going to give a little disclaimer here that ufo means unidentified flying object not aliens right sure they there are ufo reportings but that does not actually confirm whether or not they're extraterrestrials right exactly okay just want to say that before people think that i'm saying anything beyond what i really want to say which is oh my god aliens okay oh i see okay so that's my opinion but i'm going to tell you the real facts and you can just follow

along with my brain or facts, whatever you want. Listen, we know you're, we're all going to fall into your own brain. Don't worry. Guys, listen to this alien story. So in 2014, between 2014 and 2015, the main characters in this story are Lieutenant Ryan Graves and Lieutenant Danny Akoin. Um, Lieutenant Dan. Um, sorry.

Nope. Forrest. Sorry. Nope. Forrest Gump. Okay. Is that what that was? I was like, I'm going to say Forrest Gump, but then I'm going to be wrong and it's going to be really embarrassing. You got your legs, Lieutenant Dan. Yes.

Okay. Okay. Good one. Sorry, I did not react appropriately. I just stared at you. I just saw blank eyes and I was like, am I an asshole? Okay. I'm not from this country.

Lieutenant Dan is the main character with Lieutenant Ryan Graves. They were both Super Hornet pilots, which I'm not in the military and I don't know about airplanes, so I don't know what that means. It sounds pretty cool, though. It sounds nice and masculine. Super Hornet. Sounds superhero-y. Right, right, right. And they were part of the VFA-11 Red Rippers Squadron. Jesus, okay.

I guess they were known as the Red Rippers, which was apparently based in Virginia. So they, those two and three other pilots in the same squadron all spoke to the New York Times recently about the objects that they saw, but have declined to, the other three have declined to be named. Oh, so there's five of them total there's five of them but only two of them have come out and said lieutenant ryan and lieutenant danny got it well they've said lieutenant graves whatever i'm an asshole so ryan and danny um so the pilots uh had apparently radar systems from the 80s and so all their equipment was really really old um they ended up getting it updated. And once the new radar systems were put in, they began noticing objects that the old radar system could not pick up. So the squadron was training for a deployment to the Persian Gulf.

So they were doing training maneuvers by flying from Virginia to Florida back and forth. Got it. And there's a quote. People have seen strange stuff in the military aircraft for in military aircraft for decades. We were doing this very complex mission where we were going 30,000 feet up and then diving down. It would be a pretty, it would have been a pretty big deal to have seen something up there. So ideally there's no other aircraft that's going 30,000 feet in the air in that area, at least because it's a blocked off training space yeah um so while they were 30,000

feet up they saw multiple ufos okay which just means identified unidentified other things flying in the air that they were not aware of um they would even these ufos would also change altitude with the pilots so they were going from 30,000 feet to 20,000 feet to sea level just like they were so it was almost like it was following them i don't love that uh the pilots reported that the objects had no visible engine or exhaust yet had impossible power power that was apparently stronger than their their aircraft okay um the ufos were able to accelerate, stop midair, and reach hypersonic speeds. Oh. Hypersonic.

Hypersonic. Oh, my. That's great. There was a roller coaster growing up in King's Dominion called the Hypersonic SLC. I don't remember what SLC stands for. Salt Lake City. Sure. But I remember my dad let me play hooky from school, and we went to King's Dominion, and we were the first people to ever ride the hypersonic.

Yep. Cool. It's defunct now so well but i have the memory that's because we're old crypt keepers now right exactly i'm on my way next year i'll be the new apprentice welcome so uh lieutenant graves he said about these ufos these things would be out there all day keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy but with the speeds we observed 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we would expect holy crap so with the amount of power that these things were giving off they should have only been able to be in the air for an hour at a time and they were

staying out there all day what the hell 12 hours so long day. I'm like, that's Blaze's shift at the ER. No, thank you. Aliens must be sleepy. So. Oh, shit. I almost just dumped my coffee everywhere. Oh. So, one of the pilots, Lieutenant Dan, he had two different encounters with the UFOs himself.

The first time he wanted to follow it, so he set his plane to merge with it, and he flew a thousand feet below it the entire time okay but his helmet camera didn't actually pick up anything so even though his radar system and like there so the radar system on the screen it shows you exactly what it's looking at right but his helmet camera wasn't picking it up so it was almost kind of like i imagine how dogs can see something but we can. The radar system was picking up on something that his eyes and the camera couldn't see. Oh, creepy. So that's the only way that they knew these things.

It was like invisible, essentially, for lack of a better word. Yeah. So. OK, so his helmet camera wasn't picking it up. The second time that he encountered it, there was this is a quote, the training missile on his jet locked onto the object. So his equipment just immediately synced up with it. OK. And his infrared camera saw it.

So this time it was seen by something else. Lieutenant Dan said, I knew I had it. I knew it was not a false hit, but I could not pick it up visually. So both times the radar saw it, even though his eyes couldn't. But there are other UFOs that had similar, I guess, characteristics that people were also able to see. So basically last March, this is three years after the fact, because remember our stories in like 2014, 2015. Right, right, right, right. So last March, there was another report of a UFO 30,000 feet in the sky that had similar

reports to the 2014 report. So people are kind of comparing them. I see. However, this one, everyone could see with their own eyes. So. Oh, the most recent one. The most recent one that happened last March. Got it.

So there were two pilots. There was a pilot from Phoenix Air and a pilot from American Airlines. And both of them reported seeing the object while they were in the middle of their flights now they reported that the ufo was flying spinning in the opposite direction of them what flying and flying past them so basically as the plane was going one direction it was they crossed paths it's funny to me because i'm just picturing it like whoa like spinning like almost like the aliens like kind of like it got like bumped into something. Like their bumper cars.

Oh, they say bumper cars. Yeah, like spinning. Anyway. So they reported that the UFO was flying and spinning in the opposite direction of them. And the FAA actually released the radio broadcasts recorded of the pilots when they saw the UFO go by. Oh, that's creepy. Holy shit. I, February 24th. It happened, but it was released in March.

Holy shit. And the FAA released broadcasts of the pilots talking to the Albuquerque Center Air Traffic Control and the Phoenix Air pilot. This was at 3.30 in the afternoon. So they, like, actually made the call. It's not like someone's making this up. No, this is, like, officially called. Like, really radioed in. Okay.

So the pilot from um from phoenix air um and i listened to it you can find it on uh there's a news report that played it and we don't put it in here because we're gonna probably get sued i don't want to get sorry but you can google it um the okay the pilot from phoenix air 3 30 that afternoon uh down to uh traffic control he said was anybody above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago looked like a ufo and then the faa reported back saying negative oh so he saw something in the sky definitely saw something then because he had said that something passed him like 30 seconds ago the faa told other nearby flights to keep an eye out for anything in the sky and not even not

alarming right just by the way while you're flying a giant airplane make sure to keep an eye out for anything in the sky and not even not alarming right just by the way while you're flying a giant airplane make sure to keep an eye out try to dodge that for things flying at you spinning in the opposite direction so then not even 60 seconds later no american airlines flight 1095 reported back to air traffic control saying yeah something just passed over us i don't know what it was but it was at least two or three thousand feet above us whoa the american airlines pilot said they couldn't tell if it was flying or hovering but that it had a big reflection whoa it could have been a ufo so also this ufo that they saw happened to only be a couple hundred miles away from roswell i didn't even think about that because

he said albuquerque okay wow yeah also can you imagine you know the odds are with all that we've been flying we were probably on that plane and probably i mean the odds are just the odds don't lie towards us i think i think so anyway can you imagine though if you are back on the plane like watching like a bohemian rhapsody and you don't know that there's like a fucking and then there's like fucking aliens playing bumper cars next to you out the window the pilot is just like by the way what's this giant object above us i just can't even imagine i just wanted more snacks i was too focused on that and not looking out the window to see like aliens waving you and i and eve are all in the aisle because we have to either pee or stretch our legs or it's true fun, we never sit next to each other.

We're always in different aisles, all in the aisle seat. We sat next to each other the first flight ever. And then we're like, nope, never again. Like, why did we do this? Why did we do this? Also, we all cried. We all cried on that flight. We were all watching different movies that made us sad.

I was watching Infinity War. You were watching an actual sad movie. I was watching Love, Simon, I think. Yeah, yeah. And Eva was just like crying because she was like, whyon i think yeah yeah and he was just like and he was like she was like why am i trapped on this airplane she was like i'm brand new please please don't let me be here anymore i just want to go pee and you guys are crying in my way aliens come get me maybe that's what the aliens were doing they were trying to save eva okay it wouldn't

surprise me anyway so that happened in 2018 so i only bring that up because there are some similarities in that they thought it was ufo it was able to reach the same altitude it was spinning which you're gonna i'll tell you later the ones in 2014 were also on record spinning um so they were playing bumper cars back then oh fine uh but so i bring that up just to say like oh apparently there are also more reports coming in. So there you go. Got it. So the FAA still doesn't know what that object was, the one that just happened in March. And the only comment they had was,

we don't have any comment beyond what you hear. Woof. Oh, God. Creepy, creepy. So, okay. Okay. Okay. So back to 2014.

At this point, the, so Lieutenant Dan in 2014, he saw, or his radar kept tracking this thing multiple times. His equipment kept finding this thing and tracing it. So at this point, since they can't see it, maybe it's super small and they're not aware of it. Um, at this point, the entire squadron is just assuming that these must be part of some classified advanced drone program that they don't know about which is like also scary also terrifying yeah but it must they just assume

like oh it must be something that we're not a part of but it's a drone program sure but then at the same time it's like how are drones going at hypersonic speeds and all this stuff maybe they just have technology that we don't know about i mean we they definitely do right hashtag time travel project pegasus so regardless of what it was they still reported the sightings to the to congress and the pentagon like hey congress um just in case you have a minute just in case you didn't know congress you up i you up eggplant emoji pentagon squirt emoji pentagon p stands for peach so uh let's see so they reported them to the congress and pentagon um to the congress who am i my fucking dad okay yeah we're a thousand now so months later after they reported those sightings one of lieutenant graves's squadron

mates said that he almost had a head-on collision with quote one of those things so even if they were after they reported it they never got any information about it and they were still seeing it on pretty much a daily basis so when they almost had the collision could he see it or was it like just on the i think at this point he was starting to see them oh okay um the guy that almost had a head-on collision him and his wingman were flying 100 feet apart when a ufo flew between them and yeah they could see it okay sorry i hadn't ufo flew between them and yeah they could see it okay sorry i hadn't looked no no you're fine so they could see this ufo and apparently it looked

like a quote sphere encasing a cube sphere and so think of too many look we have the shape poster okay there's a cube equals square i think okay cube in case wait no so a sphere equals circle is this sphere around this cube like an oval i don't know yeah yeah like a ball sure imagine a square and a ball and the squares inside it yeah okay a square and a ball yep like an egg but the yolk is a square oh that's fun yep okay everyone looks and he's like fuck you guys um we'll just use food we'll figure it out the food works okay so interesting so it's like and apparently just flew right through both of their like through but between both their

it's almost like a square but then like the sphere is like a bubble like protecting it yes exactly like a square and bubble wrap got it but in a circle shape yes okay uh like glinda the good yeah but instead of glinda it's a it's a cube it's a futuristic glinda the cube okay so after this uh okay so yeah so then they almost had a head-on collision with it and this whole time they've been thinking okay maybe it's just a drone program we don't know about then this collision happened and at this point the squadron was like this is not a classified drone program and they filed another report they decided it must be it couldn't be a drone program one because it didn't look like a fucking drone looked like glinda the cube um glinda the good cube uh so it couldn't it also couldn't be

a drone program because the government wouldn't let other aircraft fly in a training area and risk the potential collisions okay right yeah right that wouldn't be yeah safe in any sort of capacity got it they're like whatever this is it's not our government involved not our government not our not our government not all governments guys so uh the pilots to this day will not outwardly say if it was extraterrestrial but when asked oh my are you sorry no my lumbar was oh god almighty i'm a thousand i'm so sorry two years to 30 and five minutes away from death apparently i'm falling apart uh i'm sure there's some song called that that you'll hear at fallout boy this weekend i'm falling apart i'm five years to 30 i'm fall out boy okay falling out no okay so

the pilots at this point did you guys miss us while we were traveling they're like god give us the live show where you have that professional guy so where you don't sing every 10 minutes behind these hazel eyes oh god i forgot we did that so the pilots will not outwardly say if uh what they saw was extraterrestrial but aka don't sue me but uh when asked what they think it is lieutenant graves has said quote we have helicopters that can hover and we have aircraft that can fly at 30 000 feet and at and right at the surface but it's like combining quote all that in one vehicle of some type with no jet engine or exhaust plume creepy so it's just something that they haven't seen before yeah and it has the energy to be up there for 12 hours for

12 times the amount it should yeah um also they're probably not allowed to say like i think it's an alien if they're like still employed by right you'd think so right they'd probably not allowed to say, like, I think it's an alien if they're, like, still employed by. Right. You'd think so, right? They'd probably be like, you can't say that. You can't, like, leak the secrets that everyone knows. Not our government. Not all governments. Not all government. Even the Department of Defense will not speculate on what the literally daily UFOs could have been.

The fact that they were so, like, they knew people could see them or if they didn't know, they were still around all the time. They were consistently happening for at least a year. So the Department of Defense did not speculate on if it was extraterrestrial, but they probably know. They absolutely know. Although they didn't speculate on what the UFOs could be. Coincidentally, after the incidents, the Navy sent out, quote, new classified guidance on unexplained aerial phenomenon and how to report it. No, that is spooky. And also they're not calling it UFOs.

They're calling it unexplained aerial phenomenon, UAP. Oh, yeah. I've heard of that. Yeah. I think people are using that now to be less like because UFO has such like a connotation to it. It's just just stigma of aliens yeah so yeah so calling up uaps uh so the biggest evidence from these incidents like everything that i just said the like the closest thing we have to like being able to figure it out for ourselves as

the public um the thing that just came out in the new york times is that two of the videos that they caught on their helmet cameras or on their radar systems have been declassified. Oh, so two of the videos have now come out and that's why all these people are now getting interviewed a couple of years later. I have watched both videos. They are kind of cool.

Um, two of the video. So there are two videos from 2015. One of them is in Jacksonville. One of them, I don't remember the location, but they're, um, of the pilots mid flight catchingfos on their radar and being surprised by what they're seeing

and it's so funny to me because i'm used to when i think of like a military person in a fighter jet or whatever they i just think of like the most stern serious person and these guys are just broing out like they're freaking out that they're seeing a ufo that's so funny and uh and so it just took away like it totally like ripped the veil off of how i imagine like yeah like sir yes sir but these guys are like bro what the fuck is that so get snapchat open so uh the so i'm gonna talk about i don't know why i did this but i talk about the second video i saw first i don't know okay one one of the videos i saw i think this is like in order if you were to open up new york times and look at the video it would be the second video that shows up

on the feed that i talked about first i don't know why i did this um i just like it's like i can't figure out floors of a house so right we do things out of order it's fine so the second video it shows uh ufos quote it accelerate and this is i mean i'm describing what happens in the video but i'm also quoting the new york times description of it so i just i'm describing the new york times describing the video yes because they did it so well right um they did they did can you believe it the york times knows what they're doing real journalists um yeah right uh so the ufos are quote accelerating to hypersonic speed making sudden stops and instantaneous turns something beyond the physical limits of a human crew oh so whatever it is there can't there's no human involved inside of it there's no there can't be apparently the way it's moving it the way that

it's moving even lieutenant graves himself has said like they it would probably kill a human really with the g-forces that are going through so uh oh i thought that's the next thing i say these movements would cause g-forces uh that near that are nearly impossible for a human pilot to handle oh my god in the other video a ufo is tilting on its side spinning whoa like a die like like a top yeah yeah um i don't i saw it it doesn't really look like it's spinning i think they assume it's spinning i'll show you the video um it does look like a top so maybe they just meant like like a spinning top oh it does okay um but it is tilting and it is ufo craft like the the ufo we all we all imagine it's like it looks like that okay so if it's tilting it kind of does look like a spinning top oh i see

wait so you can see this thing yeah so my god you can see it on the radar so you can't see oh i see you're not seeing like all these like fancy lights or anything that you want to see you just see like a blip on a radar but it is like ufo craft shaped oh so it has a shape of it and the whole time you can hear them talking like about what they're seeing oh i see okay so and so you can see the ufo tilting on its side and it's moving against the wind and then you can see it rotate on its other side so it goes from leaning one way to then leaning the other way which they're freaking out about too when they see it on the radar yikes um so keep in, these two videos only show two reports. But like the pilot said earlier, this was daily for years. Years?

Either years from 2014 to 2015. So either a full two years or like a year. A daily occurrence. It was a regular, if not daily occurrence. Holy shit. I mean, the quote that I said earlier was Lieutenant Graves did say, I said earlier, Lieutenant Graves was quoted saying these things would be out here all day. So I, I mean, like, I guess maybe not daily, but regularly enough that they knew that it was going to be like a one-time thing, essentially.

I mean, they, they knew of them well, apparently, and only two reports of many sightings were, uh, pay attention to in this New York Times. Creepy. So let me see. Where was I? So here's another quote. There were a number of different reports. Some cases could have been commercial drones, but in other cases, we do not know who's doing this. We don't have enough data to track this. So the intent of the message to the fleet is to provide updated guidance on reporting procedures for suspected intrusions into our airspace.

Oh, my God. So I'll show you the videos afterwards, but I'm just going to like kind of for people who are in the car and can't see the video yet. I'm going to do my own version of a narration of this. Super. I'm just going to read to you guys. I wrote out the audio from the video so you can hear what they're saying. Okay. So in video one, there's the UFO that looks kind of like it's a spinning top.

It's on its tilt and it's flying over the oceans. They're flying super fast. Ew. Okay. That creeps me out. Like creepy fast. I thought they were just standing still. No, they're flying super fast.

And you can see, they kind of look like orbs. Like they're white and they're moving super quickly. But you can see like several of them fly by before they like actually kind of catch one on their radar. Oh, God. And so the narration is these, I guess, two pilots talking to each other through the planes. And one guy goes, dude, this is a fucking drone, bro. And then someone went, no, there's a whole fleet of them and then my gosh they're all going against the wind the wind's 120 miles to the west then look at that thing dude and then is this zach baggins new new spin-off series zach baggins the fighter pilot god help

us all then they say that's not a blank is it i don't know it was a type of aircraft i think like oh that's not a blank is it a plane is that what they said some type of plane it was you can kind of hear it in the audio but i don't i couldn't translate it because i'm stupid but i think they were trying to figure out like oh maybe it's this kind of plane right and they were like no it's not look at that thing it's rotating well that is horrifying so that's the first video okay the second video there the ufo is again flying at a crazy speed and then the radar actually like when i say the radar catches it basically like there's like a little box and they're able to like kind of trap it in a box on their radar so they can follow it and keep seeing it right so

it doesn't like get away from them um so on the radar like the the system like kind of traps it in a little digital box so they can follow it and it's really funny because i guess that's a manual thing i guess the pilot was trying to catch it yeah and so you can hear the guy go whoa got it and then like a video. And then you can hear like a bunch of laughter. Like he's stoked he caught it. It's like Angry Birds. Yeah. And then the next voice goes, what the fuck is that?

And then the pilot in the other plane goes, did you box a moving target? And he said, I took an auto track. Okay. And then the pilot said, oh my gosh, dude, what the fuck is that? Look at it fly. I'm spooked by this so uh leon gollub he's a senior astrophysicist at the harvard smithsonian center for astrophysics yikes right that's my part-time job um he said that's what i was doing but i quit to do this podcast right exactly

exactly you're welcome world uh leon says there are so many other possibilities to what this could be they could be bugs in the code for the imaging and display systems atmospheric effects and reflections neurological overload from multiple inputs during high speed flight basically he's giving a bunch of reasons why this could not be an alien but if you're listening to the show it was an alien come on uh so lieutenant graves lieutenant a coin or lieutenant dan and former intelligence uh officials have all now appeared in a six-part history channel series called unidentified inside america's ufo investigation and this actually comes out friday oh really but when you guys hear this it will have already come out i think two

days ago two days ago so so yeah so they they're all going to be part of a segment for that wow and what's interesting about this is that it's in the news right now after being reported a few years ago. Yeah. So reports of these encounters were also filed with a program through the Pentagon called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. To the AATIP. Yeah. They analyze all UFO data from radar, camera footage, and testimonials, and they focus... Basically, they only work with UFO sightings by U.S. military. Okay.

So the fact that there is a whole department of just military-specific UFO sightings... Yeah. ...that are classified and people can't find out about is super creepy to me. And they've handled, apparently, decades of reports, or they've at least looked at a bunch of reports that have come in. The program only began in 2007, but was announced in 2012 to be shut down after only five years and is said to no longer be active. However, it has been said that it currently still investigates UFO reports and has, quote,

continued on in other classified forms so it's technically so it's quote defunct wink wink i mean if it shut down it's very interesting that and if it shut down in 2012 i find it interesting that in 2014 2015 people were reporting their ufo sightings to it yes i agree um so i haven't decided yet but i actually so that's the end of the story and i haven't decided for next week yet but i think this might be a continuation story because if i can find enough information about the advanced aerospace threat identification program i want that to be next week's episode and see like if i can get any cool conspiracy stories out of that so maybe i'll segue into that next week.

But it could be a mini two-parter-ish kind of thing. But that's the conspiracy slash UFO story I have for this week. And next week maybe I'll continue. Holy smokes. Maybe watch. You're going to be like, nope, never mind. Anyway, there you go. Alien stuff freaks me out, as you know.

I really, I'm kind of bummed like i was excited that this is the probably the only time i'll ever get to cover a story that's like a breaking supernatural but also breaking news right so i didn't want to not talk about it but at the same time i wanted like an alien to be involved you know it sounds like there are aliens involved in many right yeah i think it sounds like there was a whole fleet of them. Yeah. So anyway, if you're listening to me, it's an alien. But if you're listening to anyone else, including the Department of Defense, it could be a drone.

Well, if they're being interviewed on the History Channel, they're going to talk about aliens. I mean, they're not going to debunk it on the History Channel. Despite its name, I think we all know what's going to happen. Right, right, right, right. Okay, well well i guess we'll segue into my story yay um and this one is one that i'm very excited about i originally heard about it on uh my favorite murder last year oh yeah mfm there i just look you see that what i got there i pre-ordered their book oh really yeah stay sexy don't get murdered they their book just came out so i pre-ordered their book. Oh, really? Yeah. Stay Sexy, Don't Get Murdered. Their book just came out, so I pre-ordered that. I'm going to read that this weekend on my trip.

For a second, I thought you meant you were going to read it, like, right now to us. What if I did that? Wow, is that your story for this week? Talk about getting sued. They're like, please don't do that. We have a literal audio book. Nobody needs to hear this from you. Right, exactly.

So I heard that originally there, and it was one of my favorite episodes of theirs that that they ever did and then i recently was listening to case file and i just picked a random episode it was episode 93 and they covered this again like oh wow in super detail and i was like holy crap and then i found an episode of forensic files on it and i was like okay so that's a sign the trifecta the triad if you will the trinity if you will karen georgia and forensic files yes and case file and case file the quad the quadrant i don't know we'll work on it quadrinity The triad, if you will. The trinity, if you will. Karen Georgia and Forensic Files. Yes. And Casefile. And Casefile. The quad, the quadra, I don't know. We'll work on it.

Quadrinity. Oh, yeah. I'm looking at my basic shapes poster. The quad. Sure. Okay. Trapezoid. It's a rhombus.

It's fine. Okay. A slanty guy. A slanty boy. So this is the story of Susan Snow. Dun, dun, dun. All right. So Wednesday morning, June 11th. Oh oh it's a june story gemini

gemini wednesday morning june 11th 1986 in auburn washington which is the suburb of seattle 40 year old susan snow uh she works as a vice president at a local bank she wakes up with a headache and she tends to get frequent headaches so this was not like abnormal that she woke up with a headache okay um she wakes up with a headache. Okay. She wakes up with a headache. She takes two Excedrin, which was her favorite form of painkiller. Same, by the way. Same. Oh, yeah.

Blazes too. Love a good Excedrin. Number one, you tried to take an Excedrin, but it was like vinegary. Okay, so here's the thing. Here's a PSA to everyone taking any headache. I don't know. I don't know how far it ranges, but if you have any medicine that happens to taste a little vinegary, apparently that means it expired. You're fine and you're not going to die.

Blaze said it's fine. And also Blaze said, Em, please do not make yourself throw it up like you suggested. So when we were on tour, I got a really bad headache and I was like, oh, I'm going to take two Excedrin. And I had some in my toiletry kit and I took them and I was like, Oh, that tasted fucking nasty. What on earth was that? So I looked up like Excedrin gross taste and then someone else determined for me that it was a vinegar taste, which after I read it, I was like, Oh yeah, that is what it is. So apparently it's a breakdown of a certain type of acid.

And then I looked up what that acid broken down does to your body. And then it said you die. And so I went on my own. Oh, my God. I went on my own Google extravaganza where I somehow self-diagnosed that I was absolutely going to fall over and die. Like we all do on WebMD. And so I texted Blaze. By the way, Blaze and I have a very minimal friendship.

It mainly consists of me texting him when I'm in a different state and asking him if I'm going to die. I'm like, hey, you're the only person I know with a medical background. I think I'm going to fall over. Can you help me? And then he texts Christine and then Christine talks to me later and is like, you thought you were going to die again? Yeah.

So I asked him if I needed to throw up the pills. He was like, please, God, don't do that. He was like, just don't take any more. Just throw away the rest. You're going to be OK. And I was. And you were. I was fine.

You're here to tell the tale. But anyway, if you taste something vinegary in your medicine, it means it's expired. But you're OK. I'm OK. I mean, I mean, to you, PSA, you're not going to die. I'm not going to die. No, not you. The people taking the vinegary medicine.

You won't either. I know you're not going to die. You're fine. I made it. Months ago. Right. The Crypt Keeper and I are tight. we have very important jobs to get to right nothing can happen to us yet okay so so she takes two excedrin um her favorite form of medication all our favorite forms apparently yep she starts to get ready for work and meanwhile her 15 year old daughter hayley

is getting ready for school uh hayley hops in the shower and as she's showering she hears a faint thump she shakes it off she's like a little bit weirded out um but she shakes it off and when she gets out of the shower um she realizes that her mom's lights and water are still running and she's like that's weird she's late for work so she goes to check on her and she finds her mom collapsed on the bathroom floor oh no her eyes are still open oh no and she's like has this like face of fear oh no on her face so hayley calls 9-1-1 uh the paramedics arrive they find susan unresponsive but she has a faint pulse uh unfortunately she died later that day oh my god i know she never regained consciousness out of her coma uh her death was extremely sudden and tragic she was only 40 um she had two young

daughters she was a successful bank executive she was like very popular in the community um she had also recently remarried and was like pretty happy so during her this is like suddenly very tragic and very um just an abrupt right tragedy for her family. So during Susan's autopsy, assistant medical examiner Janet Miller noticed something odd. She smelled the scent of bitter almonds. Okay. Cyanide. Cyanide. The one thing I've learned out of this podcast.

You're like, me, me, take me. Never any other time but right now. Right now. Oh, boy. Yeah. So cyanide. The scent is very peculiar she described it as or particular she described it in forensic files as like how when you're driving down the highway

and you smell skunk it's like that specific of a smell got it um and so and actually only 20 and 40 percent of the population or sorry between 20 and 40 percent of the population does not carry the gene needed to smell cyanide so you gotta be a super smeller well well so 60 to 40 percent of the population does not carry the gene needed to smell cyanide so you gotta be a super smeller well well so 60 to 80 percent of people can smell it so you have to be a bad smeller to not notice it sure i don't know i don't know i don't know there's a specific gene and 20 to 40 percent of the population does not have it so they're the unlucky ones i guess i mean usually you don't need to really like encounter this. So it's just lucky that she happened to be a person who could smell it.

I am very nervous, though, that I'm one of the 20 to 40 percent of people who can't smell it. Why? I don't know. Like, what if one day you fall over? You're not a medical examiner. I don't know. What if I need it? You know?

You could. I could. What if you fell over and I needed to sniff your pills? Just find some cyanide. Okay. Okay. Um, da-da-da-da. So, at first, her suspicions were brushed aside by, like, she was the assistant medical

examiner, so everyone else was like, no, that's not what it is. You stupid intern. You stupid little girl. Yep. Um, so she was told her theory was far-fetched, but when they couldn't find a reasonable answer to Susan's death, Janet brought it up again and said can we please just test it they were like fine they tested susan's blood lo and behold it confirmed her suspicions that susan snow had died of cyanide poisoning so suddenly this is no longer like a medical mystery it's a homicide

seemingly anyway um so susan's identical, she had an identical twin sister, Sarah, and they talked every single day. And she flew to town absolutely devastated about her sister's death. And she was staying at Susan's house during all the proceedings and everything. And she, on the day of the funeral, so she also tended to get frequent headaches. So on the day of the funeral, she had a pretty bad headache. headaches so on the day of the funeral she had a pretty bad headache oh no so she went looking in the cabinet for some headache medication oh no she saw the bottle of excedrin but she noticed something was off the excedrin was in capsules not tablets she said she sarah said she and her twin sister never took the gel capsules and that's like something i mean they're like identical twins and they're right very close and she's like we like openly don't take the gel

capsules we only take the tablets weird okay so it's just very odd um and she's like something's wrong about this so she like tells the um i don't know authorities and they test the gel capsules and lo and behold nine of them in the bottle had been laced with cyanide oh Oh, shit. So thank God Sarah noticed that or else she would have died, too. Yeah. Basically. Or odds are she would have. So now the family is like, holy shit, who put cyanide in her Excedrin? Right.

And like I said, Sue had recently gotten remarried to a long haul trucker named Paul Webking. Oh, no. And Sue had. Marriage. Marriage. Get out. Not again. Get out of town.

marriage marriage not again get out of town um sue had recently discovered that paul had had an affair with an ex-girlfriend on one of his cross-country trips which had caused a lot of tension and like strain in their relationship however they got married anyway a few months later and they'd been fighting a lot about it and she was like very unhappy about it and this was only months before her death so a lot of strain a lot of suspicion is headed toward paul so when they questioned paul he admits it was his decision to switch from the excedrin tablets to the gel capsules uh he said yeah i talked her into trying the gel capsules what of it yeah i like them better instead of the tablets and they were like hmm that's a little weird that you would right just like pressure her instead of the tablets. And they were like, hmm, that's a little weird that you would just like pressure her into

taking the gel capsules. I don't know. Especially some, there are some people out there who genuinely like their gag reflex is so sensitive. They can't handle it. Like my stepmom to this day cannot take pills. She literally has to like crush them and like mix them in a drink or something. Like she can't like the swallowing aspect of it.

When I was like 15 my doctor made me start practicing with mini m&ms because i still couldn't swallow my mom my mom when i was a little kid she made me practice with corn and peas yeah it's really awful i hate swallowing pills to this day oh i'm fine with it i can't even i get the liquid nyquil because i can't absolutely not gigantic pills i would rather be violently ill than have to take anything liquid it's so gross m comes in and i'm like chugging like nyquil oh it's so gross and also deirdre used to like love the taste of pepto bismol okay that gross just watching people drink any medicinal liquid is so vomitous to me especially because i'm one of those unlucky people where i absolutely hate more than anything

cherry and grape artificial flavors. And that was the flavor of every goddamn liquid. So I remember one time there was finally like a liquid orange. They make orange for kids. Yeah. Now, not when I was little. My mom used to buy it for me and it was nasty.

My mother lied to my stupid face and said that they didn't exist. They had orange and cherry. No, there was only orange and grape or cherry and grape. And so if those were options i was like i'd rather just projectile vomit all night i don't care if it was orange fine fucking gross i hate orange flavor that's what my mom bought me what the hell i'm telling you we had the wrong moms we really did huh i've been like renata let me just chug orange liquid i'd rather you not chug anything because your immune system will figure it out yourself well because i was so bad at drinking liquid that's

why my mom made me start practicing when i was little about pills because she was like you're not gonna get a hang of this liquid shit so i just puked up everything so my mom was like i don't even want to try i just i couldn't the ironic part for me was when i got my tonsils out they gave us like anti-nausea medicine and only that made me vomit yeah so anyway if you're getting your tonsils out good luck anyway m's life is really hard but this person died it's the hardest let's go back to that um okay so he said i we switched from the tablets to pills and the reason they actually um took the tablets as she said she and so sarah said she and susan had gotten freaked out by the

chicago tylenol murders and we're like okay let's only take the tablets from now on got it um wait i love i love i mean i love that i know that story yeah because didn't you cover it i did in chicago yeah so i think we released it as a live episode i feel like we're uh i don't know i know it's like uh i feel like i'm revisiting i'm in an actual classroom like oh because of our previous lesson now this lesson makes sense you're like calling me calling me yeah wow i feel really smart today yay um that's what i do educate so anyway he said he made the decision that the family would switch from the tablets to the gel capsules he said he claimed he had taken two himself that morning but he was fine and they were like that's weird because most

of them in that bottle were signing yeah so they were like that's odd that like you're either very lucky or you knew which ones to avoid or you didn't take any exactly and the case file guy was like either he was the luckiest man on the planet or he had either thrown them away or hadn't taken them right so meanwhile bristol myers who made excedrin uh issued an immediate recall of all excedrin capsules in the u.s uh they urged consumers to throw away any they'd already purchased in case the contamination had happened at the source like at the plant um they lost like millions of dollars it was the same as the tylenol when they just were like nope take everything off the shelves and they lost like as a big corporation

is just so wonderful yeah they still use that tylenol one is like pr and pr lessons as like this is how you need to respond to yeah it's like even if you're gonna lose millions of dollars yeah you gotta be put people first fucking face yeah and look tylenol and excedrin are still fucking big it's not like exactly you're welcome going somewhere so anyway the fca inspected the plant where the tainted pills had been packaged they found no traces of cyanide but investigators are still looking at paul the husband and after susan's murder paul seemed like weirdly jovial and upbeat like he didn't seem super devastated he was walking around in hawaiian shirts all the time which was an odd by the way

was exactly what i did all of middle school detail Detail. Every picture of me in middle school, I had a Hawaiian shirt on. I know. But your wife had not just died. Not. No. Not that I know of. So appropriate maybe then. Not appropriate now.

I don't think. Anyway. I mean. I like how that's the signifier. I know. It was kind of weird because I was like. The peak of happiness is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Yeah.

I guess. I was like, well, it doesn't matter. Who cares what he's wearing? But the daughters were like, like yeah it was very weird he was like walking around in his hawaiian shirts and like it the way they described it seemed more like they knew him and they were like he's the way he's acting is not right appropriate essentially um and he didn't seem to be very upset so additionally it was pretty odd that he claimed to have taken the two pills like i said and what's more everyone although everyone in the immediate family had the means to have killed susan because they all had access to

her medicine cabinet including our own daughters police could only come up with one person who had a motive and that was paul so paul surprisingly unsurprisingly completely not surprisingly was a beneficiary of susan's life insurance policy and susan's will left everything to him uh paul said he would use the money to pay off some credit card bills and the rest would go to Susan's daughters. Got it. But shortly after he received the money, the daughters were like, hello, we didn't get anything. And he was like, sorry, money's tight and kept all of it for himself. For all my Hawaiian shirts.

Yes. For my wardrobe. Actually, he did buy a new wardrobe with that money. Hawaiian pants? Hawaiian pants. wardrobe with that money. Yep. Hawaiian pants? Hawaiian pants. He needed to match. Wow. He purchased nice new clothes.

He purchased a new car and started dating a new woman. And the daughters were like, one of them's 15, and they're like, we didn't get any of our mother's money. So just not a good look. News coverage of Susan Snow's death is going crazy. The media is all over it. And keep in mind, like I said, the Chicago Tylenol murders had only happened four years earlier. So it was like still extremely recent and like fresh in everyone's mind.

And those were and are still unsolved. The Chicago Tylenol murders. So people are freaking out. Police are thinking that unlike the Chicago Tylenol murders, this is an isolated incident. It was probably Paul doing it to, you know, to his wife thinking he could pretend like it happened at the store at the facility, but it was actually him. So they're thinking this is an isolated incident. That is until they receive a call, a very hysterical call.

It's from a woman named Stella Nickel. She calls police absolutely frantic. She tells them that she saw the news about Susan and she wants to report that her husband, Bruce Nickel, had died under mysterious circumstances after having taken some Excedrin capsules only a week before Susan's death. So police visit Stella's home to pick up the bottle of Excedrin that Bruce had been using. She gave them the two bottles that they had in the home and asked them to test both. And she insisted that Bruce's case be reopened so that his blood could be examined for cyanide poisoning.

And she was right. Bruce had also died of cyanide poisoning, just like Susan. The pills in the bottles were also laced with cyanide and they had come from the same store. Got it. So they x-rayed all the bottles on store shelves like that they had taken off store shelves in the area. And they found two more bottles laced with cyanide so thankfully those had not been purchased yet so they were able to get rid of those and that proved that there's something bigger going on it wasn't just the one

bottle this is potentially a serial killer um and it could still be paul but whoever it was was attacking more than one person got it um so the capsules were sent to the fbi for analysis and each capsule was found to contain 700 milligrams of cyanide which is four times the lethal dose so if you're taking two that's basically eight times the lethal dose in one jeez one dose of cyanide it's really awful to die that way too it like it basically like suffocates you so you like they said like you basically gasp for i mean you're unconscious but you're like trying to gasp for air and it shuts down oh my god it's really bad oh my god so it's just really not a good way to go um so in addition to the cyanide in the

pills they noticed another weird substance they noticed mysterious flecks of like green crystals and they were like what the hell is that well so they didn't know so they sent it to um a lab to test it and it showed the test show that the substance was some sort of an algaecide which was used in home aquariums to kill algae oh so like it sounds like a rat poison but for fish or or like for. No, it's not going to kill your home aquarium fish. Oh, it kills just the algae. I'm tired of these fish. I'm just going to murder them all. And it kills just the algae.

It's an algicide. Yes. Okay. So it's like algae. I see. I was like, are you putting that in water with fish? Oh God. No.

Sorry. I also don't know anything about fish to add on to my lack of knowledge for planes. Well, you don't really murder your pet fish is part of the thing. I also don't own fish. So. Me neither, but I'm pretty sure you don't know anything about fish, to add on to my lack of knowledge for planes. Well, you don't really murder your pet fish, is part of the thing. I also don't own fish, so. Me neither, but I'm pretty sure you don't murder them with rat poison, with fish poison. I don't know what's wrong with me. But yeah, so it's called an algicide, and it's used to kill algae. It's called...

So I keep rocks squeaky clean. Right. So to clean the glass and stuff, the brand name is called Algae Destroyer. So you basically like, it's tablets, you put them in water and it like... Got it. Eliminates algae on your... But also really strong chemicals, like probably really strong chemicals. I would imagine algaecide is.

I don't think, I don't think it's particularly strong chemicals. It's just like... It just sounds really foreign to me. So I'm scared of it, I think. I think it just, I mean, yeah, you'll scared of it i think i think it just i mean yeah you'll see it's it's just like a plant not as big of a thing as i'm imagining it probably okay but it's called algae destroyer and they were like that's so weird why would this be in the pills with the cyanide like it's not poisonous he was trying to give them to his fish he was trying to

kill him to kill his fish i don't know so he's like here maybe i'll put some algae in here that'll fix it that'll fix it talking about so they were like well maybe they were like that's so weird why would there be algae flex of like algae destroyer with the pills anyway so da da da algae destroyer they uh so this was super puzzling to authorities one of the detectives back in seattle then was like wait hang on a minute guys i remember something weird when he had visited stella nickel to pick up the excedrin bottles that had killed her husband One of the detectives back in Seattle then was like, wait, hang on a minute, guys. I remember something weird. When he had visited Stella Nickel to pick up the Excedrin bottles that had killed her husband, he had noticed an elaborate aquarium prominently displayed in her living room. Oh, okay. And she lived in, I believe she lived in a trailer home.

And so the aquarium was like this huge prominent part of her home. Got it. And her friend said she aspired to own her own fish store like she was kind of obsessed with her fish tanks uh and so they were like that's a weird coincidence we're gonna look into it so they visited 57 different fish and pet stores near stella's home with a montage of photos one of them was stella so they just kind of said like do you recognize anyone in this lineup one fish store owner named tom noonan recognized stella's picture and said she's a customer here he confirmed that he had recently sold her a little something called algae destroyer

and he remembered it because he doesn't usually carry it in the store but she had insisted that he order it until he was finally like fine i'll order it for you i'll special order it for you basically um he said he doesn't like stocking the product because it had to be ground up before use. And he said, it's just a pain to use. Like there's other ones that you can just drop in the water. This one needs to be ground up. And so he's like, it's a pain. I don't usually sell it, but she insisted that she wanted it. So the focus then shifted from Paul. And so Paul had actually just recently offered to take a lie detector test he passed with flying colors there's nothing they can hold him on so to the shock of susan's family paul is let go as a suspect and they turn their attention to stella so they're like well if she

had killed her husband and gotten away with it why the hell did she call the police i right to say like i guess to make herself look like a like definitely not the but so like the suspect it was weird because she had already gotten away with it yeah so they were like why and god's greener for what she call i feel like if i were someone that maybe was a suspect i would like overcompensate and be like oh and here's another way it wasn't me and here's another way it wasn't me so maybe yeah i don't know well and it was also weeks later so it was like weird because it was like there's no but I'll tell you. I mean, I'll tell you why.

I mean, I'm going to figure it out by the end of the story. I'll tell you why. So they were like, why on earth would she call and involve herself in the case if she'd already gotten away with it and murdered her husband? Well, it turns out Bruce's life insurance policy would grant her $100,000 extra if his death was ruled accidental and it had been ruled natural causes by natural causes so she was like well shit she's like well i need my money hey he was poisoned too yeah exactly so it turns out the nickels were in pretty serious financial trouble they had just received a fine final delinquency notice on their mortgage and some other loans and investigators found a letter stella had written to her creditors only five days before Bruce's death that read, quote, Dear sirs, I know that I am tremendously overdue with my payments.

There is a good reason for it. I am having marital problems, but they are about solved. Bruce is no longer involved. And then she's like, I'm going to start paying you next week. And then he died a few days later. So again, all circumstantial, but just not looking good for Stella. So again, all circumstantial, but just not looking good for Stella. So handwriting experts also noticed that Bruce Nichols own signature on his life insurance policies did not match his handwriting.

It matched Stella's. Got it. Forged. Of course. The FBI interviewed Stella's daughter, Cynthia, and she broke down and told them she was pretty sure her mom had killed her stepdad, Bruce. She told investigators that Stella had often talked about Bruce dying and had wished aloud during phone calls together that she could just get rid of him somehow oh apparently she was not happy in their marriage and when stella and bruce had first gotten together they were like these party animals they went out every night they drank constantly but at a certain point bruce's drinking

got out of control and after a pretty serious bender he went to rehab and after that he basically stayed away from alcohol the rest of his life he He never touched a drink again. Got it. And Cynthia told investigators that Stella had grown bored of the new Bruce. He didn't want to go out and party with her anymore. She wanted to go drink and hang out with people, but he was committed to his sobriety. And so she grew bored of their marriage and wished she could get rid of him, which is just like what awful actual just awful. and wished she could get rid of him which is just like what awful actual just awful so cynthia told uh told police to check her mom's library card so they did turns out stella had been checking out books about poison wow lots and lots of books okay one of the books was called human poisonings from native and cultivated plants and deadly harvest that's the most 80s book title i ever heard i wonder what it would be like to be an author and write a book like that and know that maybe a murderer is going to try to read this or those articles those blogs online that are like this is how you build a bomb and i'm like why are you putting that on the internet it's like you realize not every great

person is going to be your demographic and reading that article but i mean they put it out there for like actual instruction on how but like there's stuff about how to build a noose. There's stuff about how to commit suicide. Like there's all sorts of crazy instructional blogs on the internet that are like, I wonder how you intend it for good reason. I don't think, I mean, I can't be, it can't be anyway. Anyway, that's our take a hot take fiction. In fact, from our almanac take a hot take fiction and fact from our almanac stupid is this a real hundred dollar bill it's a hundred euro bill oh okay it's more than a hundred dollar bill well i don't know why it's just bent up in that box my grandmother mailed it to me as a wedding gift and i was like i can't use this in america so then i'm like i'll just save it for my trip to austria you should bring it the next time

we were at oh well yeah i was gonna say when we were at an airport, you should have gotten the currency changed. They have terrible currency exchange rates at the airport. Okay. Never mind. I mean, I've been meaning to go to the bank, but I'll just do it at, uh, and I'll take it to Germany. Well, I found a hundred for you. Thank you.

You're welcome. Um, do you like that? It's just kind of floating around all my, oh my God. It's in the middle of your, what I imagine is your junk drawer. Yeah, basically. Cool. Surprise. That's a fun thing to find. imagine is your junk drawer. Yeah, basically. Cool. Surprise. That's a fun thing to find.

I just have $100 bills floating around. It must be crazy to be a rich crypt keeper. It's so funny. Welcome to my crypt. There's just dollar dollar bills everywhere. MTV crypts. MTV crypts! Stop it.

I won't. Eva, if that's not the title of the second half of this episode, you're fired. Just kidding. I love you. Don't leave me. Just kidding. But also, let's produce that show later of the second half of this episode, you're fired. Just kidding. I love you. Don't leave me. Just kidding, but also let's produce that show later. But also, TM, TM, TM, TM. Do not fucking steal that.

Anybody. Every. At all. MTV Crips. That's so good. Okay. Oh, that's so good. Okay.

Anyway. So, there's this book about poison. Yes. That Stella is checking out. It has different varieties of poisons. When they examine the section on cyanide, her fucking dumb ass fingerprints are all over the pages like there's literally a picture on forensic files where they like circle all the fingerprints and they're just like all just scattered like as if she's like just like she's playing piano or something yeah yeah so

they're like jesus christ like she literally put fingerprints all over the cyanide it's like a scooby-doo episode like it's just very clear so they looked at a number of other books she had checked out same thing every chapter on cyanide had her dumb fingerprints all over it they're like you're not doing a very good job here so then they went to her house again they examined the bowl she had like a little bowl that she ground the cyanide in they discovered she had used it to ground up her algae destroyer earlier that day but hadn't washed it and so that's how when she ground up the cyanide and put it in the pills the little green flecks got into it with the cyanide on earth if that makes sense so that's actually what led them to

her which is pretty wild the pet the whole pet store thing it's just crazy so anyway they finally had a case that wasn't fully circumstantial they had fingerprints they had her bowl with the algae stuff so they arrested her for the murder of her husband bruce and then they were like but what about susan like what did she what did susan's murder have anything to do with right so like i said the coroner had ruled that bruce stella's husband had died of natural causes so stella collected 76 000 from bruce's life insurance policy but then she got a little greedy and there was an extra hundred thousand dollars that she would get if her husband's death was accidental an accident so she needed to come up with some sort of excuse to have her husband's body re-examined

so she decided to poison someone else to create the impression that a cyanide murderer was on the loose so purely it was just to get an extra reasons you killed another person for only a hundred thousand extra dollars mother yeah wow i mean she didn't know who it would be but yeah ended up being this poor 40 year old mother of two it's terrible so like just as collateral damage right exactly and it didn't even work for her geez dumbass um and she'd already gotten away with killing her husband and got $76,000. So, like, she had gotten what she wanted, but then she was like, well, I want the other $100,000. Wow.

And so she killed someone else. And she knew it would kill someone else. So she had put several bottles on the shelves to, like, poison people. Right. Of stores near her home. And when Susan's murder was broadcast in the media media she finally had her excuse to call and say please reopen my husband's case please check his blood i bet he was murdered too and they were like holy shit he was um by you uh so after a four-week trial during which her own daughter cynthia

testified against her stella nickel was convicted of two counts of murder and was sentenced to two terms of 90 years in prison wow and three 10-year terms on the product tampering with the pills sure so she was actually the first person brought to trial and the first convicted under the federal product tampering laws that had been instituted after the chicago tylenol murders which is kind of wild that it was only four years later that like someone was already convicted yeah it makes you think what's happening every four years like that was really recent like they just made that fucking rule oh my god anyway it's scary yeah so she was the first person to basically be charged with like a felony for tampering with got it medication as of april 2019 stella nickel is 76 years old so like basically right now and she's housed at female

at a female only minimum security prison in Dublin, California. Her release date is listed as July 10th, 2040. So unless there's some magical life potion that we all get, she probably won't make it out of there alive. Nope. And there are no parole hearing dates provided. So it doesn't look like she is going anywhere. Wow. And that is the story of the death of Susan Snow and Bruce Nichol.

Wow. It's a follow. If you haven't listened to Chicago, if you don't listen to the live shows death of Susan Snow and Bruce Nichol. Wow. It's a follow. If you haven't listened to Chicago, if you don't listen to the live shows, you missed the Chicago Tylenol. Which was a good one. That was one of my favorites. That was a good story. I mean, fucked up, but good.

Fascinating because it's still unsolved. Anyway. So that's that on that. Yeah. That on that. Thank you guys for having us in your little ears. I was going to say in your living room, but your speakers. Probably in your little ears and your little i was gonna say in your living room but your speakers probably in your car if you're at work thanks for bringing me

on the highway with you yeah oh life is a highway don't even do it i want to ride it all late all night long you did it i said don't you said don't do it i know but i didn't want you to sing that's what i didn't want uh behind these hazel eyes so if you want to uh listen to more of us i don't know why a whole new world i was just like what else could we have sung about oh my goodness i'm lost i'm lost uh listen to us on spotify or wherever you're listening these days uh uh if you want to follow us on social media you can find our instagram twitter at atwwd podcast oh yeah we're releasing our new show soon so keep an eye out yep because that one we're hoping will sell out pretty quickly um and that does release on june 10th so yeah uh please coming up listen to also this week is our birthday and we're going to be

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