Dark History - 193: Dark Conspiracies and Unsettling Truths - a DH Compilation

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

Hi friends, happy Wednesday!Over the years, many of you have commented that you like to put Dark History on and just let it play in the background. Well... I heard ya. So instead of you having to shuffle through a mish mash of episodes... I did the hard work for you and created a special themed playlist, if you will.Welcome to... Dark Conspiracies! A compilation episode made up of my handpicked, mystifying favorites from over the years. I'm talking everything from the truth behind your grandma's favorite Betty Crocker cookbook to... what in the actual hell is going on up in Alaska? And here's the part that always gets me... there's always at least some truth with every conspiracy theory.So lock your door, light some candles and tighten that tinfoil hat. Because we're digging into some Dark Conspiracies and their unsettling truths. xoBailey________FOLLOW ME AROUNDTik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9vInstagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PRFacebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLVPinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnYYoutube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3OgSnapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9dGoodreads: http://bit.ly/3IVnO7NDiscord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarianRECOMMEND A STORY HERE: [e-mail] Related Emails: [e-mail] Related Mail: Bailey Sarian 4400 W. Riverside Dr., Ste 110-300 Burbank, CA 91505________Rehydrate with better hydration from Liquid I.V. Tear. Pour. Live More. Go to LIQUIDIV.com and get 20% off your first order with code DARKHISTORY at checkout. That’s 20% off your first order with code DARKHISTORY at LIQUIDIV.com.You’re going to love Hungryroot as much as I do. For a limited time get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to Hungryroot.com/darkhistory and use code darkhistory. That’s Hungryroot.com/darkhistory, code darkhistory to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life.Get started today at StitchFix.com/darkhistory and get 20% off your first order when you buy five or more items. That’s StitchFix.com/darkhistory.Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to Zocdoc.com/DARKHISTORY to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That’s Zocdoc.com/DARKHISTORY. Thanks Zocdoc for sponsoring this message.

I skipped breakfast this morning, stay out of my way. Don't threaten me with your bad choices. No worries. A booster bar from booster juice will fix me. I don't even know what that is. Yeah, because they're new. Snack-sized bars, packed with seeds, pecans, gluten-free oats, all sorts of good stuff. That sounds lovely, actually. Two different flavors to try, too.

Coconut Pecan booster bars and harvest booster bars. Want to skip breakfast with me? I take it back. You make good choices. Booster Juice, Canadian-born, blending since 1999. Oh, hey, how's it going? Amazing. I just finished paying off all my debt with the help of the Credit Counseling Society. Whoa, seriously?

I could really use their help. It was easy. I called and spoke with a credit counselor right away. They asked me about my debt, salary, and regular expenses, give me a few options, and help me along the way. You had a ton of debt. And you're saying Credit Counseling Society helped with all of it? Yep.

And now I can sleep better at night. When Debt's got you, you've got us. Give Credit Counseling Society a call today. Visit no more debts. Hi, hi friends, hi, hello, welcome to Dark History. So as you've probably noticed, I've been adding some compilation videos to kind of give me some time while I work on the new season of Dark History. So, in the meantime, I've been putting together some compilation videos for you because I like a theme and I think they're really interesting stories that maybe you should listen to. So in today's like little compilation, I've been noticing a little theme lately.

As you know, I'm sure if you're a dark history viewer, the more you learn about history, the more you realize that no one is telling the whole story. Everything's always edited, polished, wrapped in a neat little bow. When you dig just a little deeper or pull on the right string, ooh, buddy. Everything just starts to unravel and then you feel like I, where's my tin hat? And then you feel a little crazy. You're like, this is how people go crazy, I think. Maybe. I don't know.

So this week, I pulled together four of our juiciest. episodes that dive head first into the conspiracy zone. Oh, we've got creepy commercials, imaginary women, unsolved disappearances. I don't like those ones. And a mysterious part of Alaska that may or may not be controlling the world's weather. And also harboring like all the aliens or something. Like it's wild. So all you need to do is get comfy.

Light a candle. Grab a snack. Put on your jammies. Smoke a little if you want. You know, I don't know, whatever you do. And let's get into some dark conspiracies. First up, we have urban legends. In this episode, we're talking about the stories

you swear you heard from your uncle Jim, you know, who, like, totally saw it happen. From a cursed Japanese Kleenex commercial that people legit thought killed the entire cast, to the legend of La Eurona, alien abductions, and the demon who sits on your chest while you sleep. Yeah, I usually see him, too, after taking a Benadryl. But you know, you're like, I need sleep.

And like, that pink little Benadryl sometimes just really does a trick. But it comes at a cost, a demon on your chest. So, let's get into it. And welcome to another episode of Dark History. Come close, my children. Let me tell you a few tales that involve strange encounters. I mean, the strangest, some might say. And these stories take place in a river, in a forest,

or on your very street. The creatures that haunt these stories are straight from our nightmares. Oh, sometimes, literally. Today, we're talking about some of the spookiest conspiracy theories out there. I'm talking aliens, demons, and ghosts. Ooh! Look, Paul's an alien. And isn't that cute?

I love it. What are you, Joan? Psychotic? Listen, we're talking about conspiracy theories. Oh, niche ones, like, well-known ones, and some that, like, maybe you've never heard of in this much detail before. Yeah, that's the goal, okay? Now, I just want to clarify that when I say conspiracy theories, I mean, like, the kind

that you'd probably hear on the Discovery Channel after. 90-day fiance, you know? Weird, creepy, a little unexplained and fun, right? Not the crazy one that your uncle is like going to ruin Thanksgiving over. It happens every year. And listen, like all this naturally started because of a 2 a.m. Internet deep dive. Okay, listen. All about a Japanese Kleenex commercial. I know. I was looking it up. Don't ask. This commercial. This commercial. is from the 80s and it shows a woman, just a normal-ass woman, being a woman, and then there's a child, like, next to her. And we can't figure out, is the child dressed as a plant or like an, it has a horn? What plant has a horn? So anyways, it's a baby thing and a woman, I think. And

they're using the Kleenex tissues, which makes sense because that's what the commercials for. Okay. And then this whole thing, them like, laugh, and like giggling at each other just goes on for 30 seconds too long. And you're like, what the fuck am I watching right now? But it's underscored with this a cappella version of a very uncomfortable song. It's weird, especially at 2 a.m. You know, when you wake up a 2 and you're like, no, why? Demons?

That's always my first thought. So the voice is haunting and the whole commercial has no plot. And there's like no reason why this kid should be dressed up as this thing, this plant with a horn. I don't know. But stay with me. Apparently, when this first aired, many people felt the same way that I did. They were creeped the hell out by it. So TV stations were flooded with complaints.

There were requests to take it off the air. And then the Kleenex, like the brand itself, they started receiving complaints directly. I know. I don't even know when people were complaining, though. like that flying tissue moment in the commercial really spooked me out. Then the rumor started. There were whispers that the whole crew who had worked on the commercial were dying. Yeah.

And that like the actors who were in this commercial also, they had been like committed to a psychiatric hospital. So like something was going on. And some even said that the song itself was a German curse that was translated. into English. Sorry, that's goofy. There were claims from people who had heard the commercial like come on late at night.

And they were like, oh my God, the song just became distorted. And like, it was being sung by some creepy old woman who was like inside the room with them. It was coming from inside of the house. Okay. I guess none of that was true.

But I mean, the part where like people complained was true. People were like super. disturbed by this innocent little commercial. And like to this day, you can find it by searching for cursed Japanese Kleenex commercial. Not that you should. I mean, if you want to, go for it, live your life. But I will not be taking any responsibility for any ring-style curses that will follow you as a result.

Paul, you watched it, right, man? You good? All right. But listen. I guess no one actually died from mysterious circumstances. But, you know, it's still, I don't know why, but it's still kind of like fun to talk about. Right? It is creepy, though, the music.

Come on. And what's up with that kid? Like, what is he supposed to be? Why does it have a horn? Let me know your thoughts down below. So this next story, Loki kept me up for many, many nights, okay? It's about a ghost who haunts, captures, and even sometimes kills, children and men late at night.

Oh shit. Many have claimed to see her on their streets looking for her next victim. Mm-hmm. So be on a lookout, okay? Because she's out there, and she's known by the name of La Yerona. La Yerona is a tale popular in Mexico,

Central America, and South America. And it centers around a Mexican ghost named La Yerona. And look, there are like so many different types of stories about like different encounters. people have had with her. And because there's so many different variations as to like what she's based on, I'm going to tell you just the most common version. If that's okay with you. Oh, it is? Okay, great. So La Yarona is a story about a woman and I guess her real name was Maria. I know.

I thought it'd be like Lorena or something, right? No? Okay. Maria was actually born as the most beautiful woman in all of Mexico. And when she was younger, male suitors would like come to her begging for her to marry them. But she just denied them all. Nope, get in line. Bain.

That is, until a dashing young man came into town. He was really good looking too, okay? And he was said to be the only match for her. So Maria obsessed. She is Digmatized, okay? And she just had to have him. So the two of them get in love, get married, and then not long after that,

they have two beautiful sons. So it went from zero to 100 really quick. But it's love. Isn't that what love is? Uh, anyway, so now Maria, she's living her life, she's happy, she's married with two children. And then one day,

she catches her husband stepping out. out on her. Yeah. He rode into town on a horse with another woman. He was cheating on her. The disrespect. I know, hello, I had your two kids, I'm hot for you. And he just cheats, he did. And worse, he apparently had decided to get with this new woman who he just met because he believed that Maria was no longer beautiful, devastated. Maria lost it. She lost her fucking mind, okay? I mean, what was she supposed to do now? She was the most beautiful woman in all of Mexico and the mother of his children. Dude, guys suck. So the night that like all this happened, Maria, she's trying to go to sleep, right?

She's toss it and turn in and she can't. She can't do it. So again, she really just fucking snapped absolute state of devastation. gone. She decides that she wants her husband, this jackass, to feel pain like she was feeling. So Maria went to the bedroom where her two young sons were sleeping and she woke them up. She's like, you better get the fuck up. I'm sorry. I just imagine her like, you better get the fuck up right now. She wakes up her young sons. Get the fuck up. She told them that they were going down to the river like by their home for a bath. They're like, okay, mom, it's 2 a.m. But all right.

So Maria, she brought her sons to the river where she then submerged her boys into the water and drowned them. Right? Like one of those crazy Lifetime movies. And then pretty much, right after she did this, she, like, comes to her senses, and she was completely overcome with regret.

And then she, like, absolutely. I would say she lost it, but she already, lost it. So she found it and then lost it again and had an emotional breakdown. I mean, she wants to save her kids, but she can't because she killed them. You know, it's too late. So she, Maria is just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. And this is where she gets the name La Yerona because it translates to the weeping woman. I know. They couldn't just call her Maria. Maria comes to the conclusion that the only way she can confirm. continue forward is if she kills herself. Okay, look, real life. She hit her rock, rock, solid

bottom. So she decides to do just that and she drowns herself. But, okay, listen, wrong move because Maria had been forbidden to enter the afterlife because of what she's done, killing her kids. So she's stuck in purgatory forever. And like, Purgatory is a space in between heaven and hell, like where you have to, like, wait to be sentenced. Well, Maria's fate was, like, worse than hell. The legend goes that she's stuck on Earth still haunting, searching for children to call her own and join her in purgatory. Today's episode is sponsored by Liquid I.V. Now, I don't know about you guys, but the start of the new year has been wild.

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love tropical punch? Come on, everyone loves tropical punch. So don't let the beginning of the year craziness wear you down. Stay hydrated with liquid IV. Rehydrate with better hydration from Liquid IV. Tear, poor, live more. Go to Liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first order with code dark history at checkout. That's 20% off your first order with code dark history at liquid iv.com. A little fun fact here. She's known to show up three days after rains. I was like, all right, got to really plan this out. Okay, there's this tale that Maria, you know, La Eurona, She would take ghost form. And she would, sorry, that's ghost farm.

And she would wander around schools and foster homes, just weeping, you know, looking for her kids. And if she saw someone who looked like one of her children, she would cut that feature, snatch it out of their face. In many cultures, children fear her because there have been some instances where La Jirona just terrorized. them. And I mean, it's not just kids. Sometimes she appears to be a temptress spirit. I know. It's like, ooh, okay. Like she seduces men. So if she sees one of them alone late at night, she'll seduce them. She'll act like a helpless, a helpless, sad woman. She's walking around just like, Sir, I can't open this peanut butter jar.

I need your big, strong muscles. And they fall for it every time. She's like, my pickle jar won't open. I need someone with big, strong muscles to help me out. That's how I imagine she does it. Anyway, so as soon as a man, here's this cry, you know, they offer, they offer her help. And at that moment when they see her,

her face, it's said to have like morphed into a skull or a crazy looking horse head. Nay, nay. Okay, horse head. Nay, nay, you get it? Okay. So even spookier, sometimes if you don't get the horse or the skull, sometimes her face is said to just completely disappear. Usually the men get away, but they're left traumatized for years to come.

I don't blame them. just reminding everybody else of fear, La Yerona. They're like, listen, she's not coming for the kids. She's coming for us. If she mentions a pickle jar, run, okay? There are other stories about her tempting officers that are roaming like the streets at night. She would walk around in a white coat with a white shawl,

covering her head and face. I know, very angelic. She's like, and Lalirona begins engaging Engaging with him. Engaging. Until their relationship turns physical. Yeah. And I guess they start going at it, having sex in the streets.

I would like to see that happen. You're having sex with a ghost in the street? What is this even getting? What are we doing here? Dark history. In the middle of getting it on, okay? This one experience at a police officer. or had. He's like, take off your shaw. You know, I want to see your beautiful face. Sorry.

He's like, I want to see your beautiful face, babe. So she's like, oh my God, okay. She smiles. She takes off the shawl exposing a big old grinning skeleton head. No mask. Real head. Could you imagine? He probably still finished, though. I would bet. I bet you he got him right then. He's like, oh. Okay, okay. La Girona then leans over and gushes of icy breath come out of her mouth. And it's like this. Super icy cold breath is coming out.

It's almost like she just ate like a whole pack of those listerine strips. The green ones specifically. Yeah, I know. I know you accidentally grabbed two and you put those in and you're like, just me. Okay. Anyway, the icy cold breath. that's coming out, it turns the man frozen solid.

That's what he gets. Just putting his dick in someone, he just didn't even ask him. He didn't even see their face. But okay. Anyways, he's frozen solid. So then he defrosts and he comes back to life, obviously, absolutely traumatized. To this day, many people like still believe in Lali-a-Rona. And like, kids are still very terrified of her.

People still think they see her roaming, weeping in the streets. But I think the lesson here is don't have sex with ghosts that you just met. Maybe ask them to see their face first. Get some standards, gentlemen. Come on. Or Paul's coming for you. The next conspiracy theory I'm going to talk about. It's not really even a conspiracy.

Sue theory because it's like kind of a, it's a hot topic currently, right? And like it has been for decades. And look, finally, the American government has confirmed what Tom DeLong has been saying for years. Aliens are real. I know. I think we all kind of knew, right? No? You did it? Oh, okay. Well, honestly, it kind of feels like the world is on fire and everything is ending and everything is bad. So it's like it's hard to really care. It's like added to the list. Am I right? Anyways, it of course made me wonder like, oh yeah, when did this whole alien craze thing start? I start noodling, you know?

Why do we think of them as those big-eyed green monsters in like an electric spaceship? Well, what you're about to learn will prove our alien friends are quite mysterious and also quite terrifying. Can I just tell you my alien theory really quick before anyone else steals it? Great. So here's my idea of what an alien is. Okay, so they're us in the future. They have bigger eyes because they need the bigger eyes for all the screens that we're using. Right? Our eyes get big. And then they have those long, skinny fingers better to point all these fucking screens with, right? We don't need bones. Everything's a little floppy and skinny because we're not walking or anything. And then we have a big brain because of how much knowledge we're gaining from the, technology and constantly learning. Come from me. You can't because I think I'm on to something. Right, Paul? Great.

Our story today takes place in New Hampshire, 1961, where newlyweds Barney and Betty were starting to live their new lives together. So one night, they were driving back home from a fun vacation at Niagara Falls. I've never been, actually. been actually. Is it fun? Anyways, they said it was fun. And the route that they were taking was nothing. It really wasn't anything new to them, but something was different on this trip. Okay? During the ride, Betty, she looked out of her, she looked out of the passenger window and she looked to the sky. And she's like, oh my God, I'm cute. She sees a falling star. What do you do

when you see a falling star? Oh my God, wishes. And that's what Betty does. wishes. But Betty, looking at the star, she was mistaken. She was like, wait a minute, that star is being real weird. Okay, it was not a shooting star. This shooting star, it just stopped midair. Do you still get the wish? I know, I don't know. But it just stops, and it's hanging in the night sky. And Betty's like, what the fuck? What is that? During this time, President Kennedy was telling the public that he was going to put a man on the moon. So everyone was like, fuck yeah, he's doing it. So Betty was thinking at the time that it had to be something, she's like, maybe it's related to that, the man on the moon thing. But she was kind of excited to see it. So she tells her husband

Barney, who was driving. She's like, Barney, I love you. You love me. We're a happy family. And then she's like, you should pull over. So then they pull over because they want to get a better look at whatever, you know, was in, what was it? I don't know. Once they do so, Barney's like, I'm going to get my binoculars. And that's when you know it's kind of serious. So Barney was like, I think it's an airplane. And they're just continuing, they're continuing to watch.

But then suddenly the object just started moving erratically. Like what? different directions, what is it doing? You couldn't predict where was it going to go. And then all of a sudden it just stopped. And then it kind of just hovered in the sky above them. I would be shit in my pants, I swear. I don't like that.

I don't like that. Look, the both of them, they thought it was a little weird. So they just decided to go back into their car and just continue on their drive home. Only the hovering object thing, it didn't disappear. It's not like it stayed behind. It actually felt like it kind of was following them. And even worse, when they were driving, the thingy was getting closer and closer

and like closing in on them. And then that's when Betty and Barney started to panic because I think all of us would be. Barney, he stops the car. He pulls out a pair of binoculars again. And I know, I don't know why he just didn't put it around his neck, but he put him away. And he went to inspect what the hell was stalking him and his wife. I mean, really?

So, through the binoculars, Barney saw an object that he thought was about 100 feet away, and it was hovering, like, right above them. It was shaped kind of like a flat, circular disc, and inside he saw something. thing that was even stranger. He saw around 11 of these greenish-gray, human-like creatures driving the strange aircraft. Blue Man Group, is that you? No, because they were green, green gray. But kind of same vibe, I would imagine.

So look, I can't breathe because I've been all worked up over this story. Aliens freak me out. But listen, after watching. them for a while. Barney started to get like a sinking feeling. He suddenly believed that like these weird creatures were trying to capture him. So he starts running back to Betty. He's like, get in the car. So the two of them, they get in the car and Barney just, you know, great. Pedal to the metal tearing down the freaking road. They are going home. I mean, they were both like really freaked out. As they

like sped down the highway, they both heard some kind of buzzing tones. I don't know what kind of buzzing, but like they said buzzing that seemed to be coming from the trunk of their car. But there was like nothing in there that should be buzzing.

We're like, we just gotta get home, so they're driving faster. They were both so scared that they were driving in absolute silence. And you know, when you sit in silence, something ain't right, okay? Something ain't right.

Either you're in trouble or you're both scared. Then things get a little blurry for the two of them. According to Barney and Betty, the last thing that they remember hearing was that buzzing sound and then seeing an orange orb above them. It could have been like a Burger King sign. Maybe they were, maybe they just like didn't know. Anyways, but it was orange.

So they remember there was also a roadblock. They also remember discussing, like, finding somewhere to pull the car into. So eventually, they made it back to their home in Port Smith, New Hampshire. And they both, like, walk into the door and they look at the clock. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's probably like 3 a.m. Because that's the time that they were really expecting to come home from their drive. But they look at the clock. Okay.

And then they realize that it's actually 5 a.m. And they're like, that can't be really. right. That means like two hours have just passed and like we have no idea where that time went. We have no memory of it. So then they realized when they got home, Barney's shoes were all scuffed up and Betty's dress was torn like on the titty. And both of their watches had stopped working. They're like, what the long? They stepped outside and they look up at the sky and they're just like scared out of their mind. Okay. They don't want to see that scary ass little aircraft. thing again. It's the beginning of the year. Oh my God, yay. We made it, you know? And we're all just

trying to, we're all just trying, right? Maybe you're starting off with like a to do list. I like to make like a goal list for the year. And there were always realistic goals, kind of, not really. Last year, one of my goals was to do the splits in public. And guess what? I actually achieved it. Dream big, they say. Anyways, so this year I was really thinking and, you know, it's like I have all these crazy goals. But what? What that really means is that at dinner time, it becomes an afterthought. I never think about like, hey, Bailey, what are you going to eat today? Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

And you gotta do it three times a day forever. Oh yeah, I forgot about, you know, one of my goals should be like eat better, you know, consistently. Well, listen, that's where Hungry Route comes in to save the day. Hungry Route literally plans my groceries for the week, fills my cart, and delivers everything I need to eat healthier every single day. They're doing it all for you, okay? Yes, you've heard me talk about hungry root before. So, I mean, listen, you should know that I really like it

because it kind of really truly simplifies my life. With all these high goals I have for myself, like doing the splits, I'm just so busy that grocery shopping with Hungry Root has been such a time-saving game changer. Listen, they have from over 1,000 grocery items to choose from every, week. Oh, they got smoothies, sweets, ready to eat meals, supplements. All of it. The quality? Hungry root? Amazing. They screen out over 200 additives, including artificial sweeteners and preservatives. Now recently, I grabbed their organic Southwest salad kit. I love a salad kit. And it was so tasty

and very convenient to just have everything, you know, one kit. Shake it up. Good to go. So one of the things I'm adding to my to do list this year is to eat better, eat more consistently, and with Hungry Root, it really can make that doable. So give Hungry Root a try and say goodbye to like, you know, the nightly dinner spiral. We deserve better. You're going to love Hungry Root as much as I do. For a limited time, get 40% off your first box, plus get a free item in every box for life. Go to Hungryroot.com slash dark history and use code dark history. That's Hungryroot.com slash dark history, code dark history to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. Wow. So after some time passes, the two of them, they felt safe enough to like go to bed.

I imagine it would like be really hard to go to bed that night because you just can't remember shit. But what else do you supposed to do? I don't know. The next morning, over a cup of coffee, Barney and Betty. They kind of like debriefed. What happened to them? They both had these super strong feelings that whatever they had seen last night, maybe they felt like it was still around. So they kept going outside and checking and like looking around, but they didn't see anything.

And it was kind of like, what are we even looking for exactly? Just a flying disc, I don't know, green people. Paul? Because if that's what an alien looks like, I would be a little confused, honestly. I would be like, ah, I wasn't expecting that. But okay. Anyway, so then Barney had an idea. He told Betty that they should both get a piece of paper, arts and crafts time. They should separate and, like, draw what they had seen following them the night before. You draw and I'm going to draw. Beebees, separate. Bebe. Are you drawing baby? Bebe. I'm drawing BB. Okay, that's just a cute, like, couple's name, BB. So they're kind of just like testing their memory. So when they were done, they got together. and they combined the pictures,

and that's when they realized that their drawings were pretty much the same thing. I know. Both of them had drawn a long, flat aircraft, the one that they believed had been following them. I don't want to discredit them, but... I mean, you could just draw like a circle. Is it just a circle? No.

No? Okay. So, Barney, he did not want to tell anybody would happen, okay? I mean, he didn't want the stigma or embarrassment to follow them in their small town. Everyone knew everyone's business, and back then saying you saw an alien made you sound crazy. And you don't want to be labeled crazy. Small towns don't like that. Most of all, he didn't want to speak up, not just because people didn't believe in the aliens, but Barney and Betty were an interracial couple. Now this was 1961.

And as a black man, Barney may have been trying to avoid any additional negative attention. Plus, both Barney and Betty had already been married once. And it probably doesn't sound like a big deal to you and I, but back then, getting remarried? Not I. They had reportedly shown prejudice against Barney when they got together. Betty, though, you know, she was itching to tell people. about this alien experience. Okay, she didn't want to keep their experience a secret, you know?

And it's like, what? What do us women do best? Telling secrets. We love to tell people secrets that we're not supposed to tell anybody. Don't lie. When you got a secret, you can't wait to tell somebody, right? Anyway, so like, Betty's like, oh my god, I don't need to tell someone, okay? She had some of the best gossip of all time.

No one could beat her. So she's like, who do I call? Like, who do I call? I'm going to tell someone. Her sister. She's like, she's my sister. She's not a friend. So you told me not to tell my friends.

That's your fault. Also, apparently, Betty's sister, Janet, had like seen some shit around 10 years ago. I don't know what's going on with this family, but they've been, they've been seeing shit for a while. So whatever she had saw, it sounded a lot like the aircraft that Betty had saw. Okay? So Betty naturally is like, dude, if anyone's going to understand, it's my sister. So after listening to Betty's story, Jeanette went to work figuring out who exactly they should report this to. Like, who do you call?

I know you're all going to say, ghostbuster. You done? Okay, great. Who do you really call? Exactly. Okay. Pentagon? Are they in the yellow pages?

I don't know. FBI? I don't know. Men in black. What's their number? So Betty convinced Barney that they should ask some people for advice. Poor Barney, he's like, please, no. You have to. It's my experience.

I know how we are. We win every time. Anyway, so they decide, okay, if we're going to tell someone, we should maybe talk to our neighbors. In between all of these conversations, they were convinced to maybe go under hypnosis. Okay? So they believe that this was like the only way that they would ever get to figure out what happened during those lost hours. Those two hours that were just gone. They find a hypnosis person. They go into separate rooms for separate hypnosis sessions.

Okay. Not in the same room. Once under hypnosis, they both revealed some like terrifying shit. That's the best way I could put it. Betty in particular. There's even an audio. recording of the hypnosis session, and it's freaky. I wasn't afraid when I dropped a bit of the road.

I was so afraid in my life. Tell me about the minute. I'm like, this is a lot. I'm scared. So Betty had this memory of Barney pulling over the car. Okay? She's in hypnosis. A memory comes forward.

She's like, um, I remember Barney pulling over the car. She then remembered Bulls had stepped out of the car and onto the car. the road and in front of them they saw like some kind of shadows of what they thought were these very tall, somewhat scary men. Behind them there was like this fiery orange colored orb. Burger King, I'm telling you. Betty turned to Barney and asked him like, are we getting robbed? Who are they? And Barney just looked at her and said, quote, it's them. I'm like, Barney, Do you know these guys? You met them before, Barney?

Good told you. Anyway, so these strange, greenish-gray creatures approached Betty and Barney, and one of them took Betty by the hand and, like, guided her through the forest. Yeah, they're going through the forest. He's like, come onto my spaceship. Betty recalls losing consciousness, right?

And then she wakes up and she's inside the spaceship. When they woke up, Barney and Betty were immediately separated and taking it to different rooms. This is on the ship. It was clear right away that these creatures, they wanted to examine their bodies, but like not in a so hot way. So Betty recalls these creatures having her lie flat face down on the examination table. And these creatures, they pressed all these like weird tools against her body. And then she says that they took skin samples. Okay.

Once they're done with their skin sampling, they lead Betty into another room. And there, this part is like, oh, there she's introduced to a creature named or called the examiner. I was like, okay, what's this? You know? Examiner of what? Alien daddy. I'm just kidding. that's how many. So this examiner guy, alien, he tells her not to worry. He then, this is where it

gets little freaky because he turns her around. He then unzips her dress. Yeah. Then he tells her to lay down on the examination table face up. Listen, I was like, what is going on right now? I want to know. Okay, but it wasn't good because he examiners. Sorry, Paul. I'm imagining dirty things with your kind. Let me erase it. I apologize. So he examines her for a little bit, and then he turns around, and he tells her not to worry. He's like, we're just going to do one little test on you, okay, sweetie? Close those eyes.

So when he turns around, he's holding a huge syringe, like a big-ass needle. And he then says he's going to insert this needle. into her navel I was like no he is not no I was into this until you did that shit Mr. Alien

oh examiner okay so right away obviously because all of us would be freaking out Betty was freaking out this creature examiner guy he takes a syringe

and he slowly like insert it into her navel out Benny starts crying out in pain you know she's telling me them, but it hurts. And then another creature comes to her. She's yelling on the table. She's like,

no, the creature comes to her. And he stands by the top of her head and tells her not to worry. She won't feel any pain. And he puts this like creepiest little creature hand, she probably looks like this or some shit, over her face. Right? And then that's it. That's the last time, or that's the last memory she has, like on the spaceship. This is all what she said during her. hypnosis. So I believe it. Why not? You got nothing to lose. I believe it. Betty. While Betty was recounting in the last horrifying detail, she also told the doctor that she still had soreness, like in her naval area. She also claimed that when she asked one of the creatures, like, where he was from, he showed her a star map. And he's like, we're from over here,

showing her on that map. When Betty was doing the hypnosis, they asked her to, like, recreate the strange star map and she did. Okay, so I looked at the strange star map right now and honestly, it looks like a dick. It looks like she drew a dick and balls and it was a d-a-hitting all over the universe. Betty, I don't know if I can get behind you on this one. He just drew a dick. Really. It's kind of beautiful. Really, Betty, wow. Art. After Barney and Betty came out of hypnosis, their stories, they ended up being compared by a man named Dr. Simon. And even though, like he had supervised the hypnosis, Dr. Simon was not convinced of what they uncovered. He thought the entire abduction story was a shared delusion based on a nightmare that Betty had.

He also pointed out that there were differences in their stories. For example, Barney said the creatures who abducted them didn't have mouths, no mouths. While Betty said that they spoke English. Okay? So at this point, like you might be thinking, this whole alien encounter, it sounds familiar. I mean, it's been around. It was like the hardest thing in the media at the time. And since then, a lot of UFO encounters have been very similar to what they reported. There's this theory called accidental awareness. And when I heard this, I was like, wait a minute, I've never heard of this before. And it kind of makes sense because an analyst named David V. Forrest has pointed out something very interesting.

The stories of alien abductions are like actually very similar to what you would experience in an operating room when you're being put under anesthesia. Okay, but think about it. It sounds a little kooky, but listen, you're under a bright light, being poked and like prodded. People are speaking English. But when you're getting put under, it's like, are they speaking English? Because it's kind of like, You're like, I think that's English.

And then you just respond to a doctor. Yeah, do it. And then you wake up with big tits. I'm just kidding. Okay, but listen, even Barney's version of aliens not having mouths could be explained by the surgical mask that doctors wear. The greenish-gray color of aliens,

same color of like the scrubs that would be worn by everyone in the operating room. It's kind of making sense. Barney was asked if the alien encounter felt anything like the tonsillectomy he had gone through, and he confirmed it was, quote, like that, end quote, but his eyes were closed. Wow. Accidental awareness is something that is actually still studied today, but usually it doesn't come in the form of remembering alien encounters. It's typically about any situation where a patient is aware while a surgery is going on,

which honestly sounds more awful than an alien abduction. But many who experience this live with like PTSD and experience flashbacks. And like sometimes these are brought on by something that might stimulate their brain in the same way, you know? So maybe a bright light sent Barney into a flashback of the surgery he'd had. And he later remembered it as like an alien abduction. I don't, I mean, we don't know. maybe he really was abducted by aliens and that just triggered a flashback. I don't know. Don't ask me. I'm just like talking.

60 years later, and the jury is honestly still out on what like Barney and Betty experienced that night, to this day, there's a plaque. Yeah, there's a cute little plaque like on the New Hampshire road where the incident took place. Send me a picture if you see it. Throughout the years, Betty has been said to be visited by aliens numerous times and propped. Ooh, shopping always sounds like such a fun idea, but somehow it turns into a not-so-great idea because I end up scrolling on my phone because you can't find anything in store now, right?

Okay, thank you. So then you're on your phone and everyone is a model. So of course that outfit looks good on this model, so then I buy it. And then when I get it, I'm reminded, oh yeah, I'm not a five foot nine supermodel. That's why I don't look great in this dress. I look like a potato. That's usually how my shopping experience goes every time. And then I forget to return things sometimes, which they get me.

Listen, I know some of you out there like, yes, I understand. And that's why Stitchfix exists to save us. Us, we need it. We need that help. Stitchfix makes shopping so easy. It almost feels a little suspicious. You know what I'm saying? You take a quick style quiz online.

You share your size, your style, your budget, and then you get matched with like a real human and stylist, great, who actually reviews your survey and understands who you are and what you're looking for. Great, you know? Then they send you a personalized fixed box straight to your door, okay, and it shows up with a bunch of goodies inside. And you get to try everything on at home in your own space with your own clothes, right? So you can, does this match with anything, right? With your own lighting, okay? And then if you don't like something, shipping and returns or are they're always free and there's no subscription required so you're not going to get stuck in anything but you may find like one or two things from the box and you're like oh okay yeah oh if you're new

you can even get a free like try on for your first fix i love how stitch fix takes the stress out of getting dressed you don't have to guess you don't have to deal with shopping if you don't like shopping some of us don't and it's okay and you don't have to deal with like returns piling up while you procrastinate so listen no risk all style close that fit feel that feel like you or in your budget, all that good stuff, and don't require a full mental breakdown to find. Sounds good, huh? Yeah. So get started today at stitchfix.com slash dark history and get 20% off your first order when you buy five or more items. That's stitchfix.com slash dark history. If you're like me at all, the word accidental awareness made you immediately think of sleep paralysis.

I think it does. It goes. It makes sense, right? If you've never heard of it or, like, experienced sleep paralysis, lucky you, okay? Because what I'm about to tell you seems so out there. You're going to be like, no way. No.

But it's true. But it affects 40% of the population, and there's no known cure. Slap my ass and call me a little. a donkey because today I'm talking about sleep paralysis. Okay, my breast. Sleep paralysis, it varies from person at person, but the defying symptom that everyone has in common is atonia.

I know, it sounds like a really cute name. Atonia? Atonia, come here. May for a dog. Come here, Atonia. No, no, no, a girl. Atonia, time for school. Give me credit if you name your kid,

that. Thank you. Atonia is the technical term for like when you're suddenly not able to move or speak. Most often say it happens when you feel like you've just woken up from like being asleep. You're very groggy, everything's heavy and you're not fully like, you just sound like awake yet, but you are. Imagine you wake up. You can see everything in your room, but and everything looks normal and everything was on, but you can't move your body at all. It's horrifying. People who experience sleep paralysis sometimes also report like difficulty breathing and even chest pains. Like that's terrifying enough, but it is also usually accompanied by something. By seeing something. Okay, it's spooky.

What people see can vary, but it always is something absolutely nightmarish. If you've heard the phrase sleep paralysis demon, then you already know where I'm going. To most people who experience sleep paralysis, they see what, like, they describe as a demon, a succubus, an imp or Brad, their neighbor. He's always at the end of my bed. Anyways, so this is like when they see this thing, they can't move. And this is accompanied by like a feeling of overwhelming fear. dread, and suffocation.

Yeah, so it's not really a good time, I would say. Now, people can, like, really see a lot of different things when they're experiencing this. But across time, literally, across time in various cultures, many people report on seeing the same thing. A demon. But the weird thing is that the incubus phenomenon has been around for, like, ever.

Like, as long as we've known, There are many sleep demons that appear throughout different cultures that are pretty similar. During the Middle Ages in Europe, there was one extremely common nightmare that was written about. People would wake up and find a quote, supernatural entity sitting on their chest, attempting to take a shit on them. I'm just kidding, not that kind of demon. This is a different demon. It sits on their chest and it like attempts to suffocate them. So then a little later, during the Enlightenment, a man named Henry Fusley, who was a Swiss-English painter.

He created a piece called The Nightmare. Oh, it's spooky. And this painting shows something super similar to like what all of these people for years have reported seeing. An impish creature perched on the chest of a sleeping woman. On top of that, in this painting, there's always a also a terrifying horse in the background. Terrifying horse, which I don't think has anything to do with sleep paralysis, but like, is that you la painting? She was hiding in there. It's her, I think.

You can't prove me wrong. Pro me wrong. Exactly. Anyway, it's laurenna. All the way around the freaking globe is Brazil, right? There's a creature that's known for standing on people's chest, haunting them in their sleep. And it's called Pissadira. Pissadira. Come on, tell me like there's a, like, correlation. Pissadira. Pissadira has been described as a quote, a crone with long fingernails who lurks on

rooftops and trambles on the chest of those who sleep on a full stomach. Dun, don't, don't. I love cereal before I go to bed, though. I mean, look, it's like there are just a lot of coincidences, right? In a part of Canada called New Finland, they called a sleep paralysis demon in egg rug. I think that's how you say egg rug. I don't know. You guys always let me know. And in Egypt, they believe that this demon is caused by gin, not the drink. I know. But too much gin does make me feel like a demon is squatting on my chest. Thank you. Thank you. I'm here all day. Okay, gin are evil spirits that traditionally take snake form.

But apparently they can also like become scorpions, lizards, and even humans. And then they get freaky because even these, the gin can engage in sexual affairs with humans and produce offspring. Hot. I don't know how else to put it. Like, okay, what are we doing here? Oh, let me tell you my story because I unfortunately have experienced sleep paralysis one time, and I hope that's it never again because it was the scariest thing I've ever felt. All right. So I was home alone sleeping in my bed. Just being cute, thoughts and prayers.

And I wake up, right? I wake up. It had to be like two or three in the morning. And I could not move my body. I was like, okay, I'm awake. you know, I was like, move. I was saying what's happening. I was like, what the fuck is going on?

So I'm just laying there, like, this is weird. And then I hear the stairs creaking. It was like somebody was taking a step. It was like, like somebody heavy. I swear to you. And I couldn't move. I was like, I was like, someone coming. And then I could hear it getting closer and like coming up.

coming up the stairs. It was coming up, but I couldn't wake up. It was so stupid. I was like, listen! And then one of the things I was also thinking was like, thank God I locked my door. That demon or whatever it is can't get in. Whatever it was, it stopped right outside the door

of the room that I was sleeping in. And I was home alone. Did I say that? Because I was. And I swear to you, I was just laying there, like, please don't believe. And I could hear my, blah. and I could hear my door thing jiggling.

I don't want to experience this again. And I swear it was like, whatever it is was big and heavy and it was coming towards me and I couldn't move. Okay? And that's my review. Thank you. I give it two out of five stars. I would not recommend.

I give it two stars because it was kind of thrilling. Like, I felt like it was on a horror film. I was like, I get it now. So that's my experience. And I know some of you out there have had the same thing. So as scary as it is, because it's terrifying. Nobody gets hurt or has been killed by sleep paralysis, right? Well, no.

Oh my God. Because let me introduce you to the worst phrase since sleep paralysis. It's called sudden, unexpected death syndrome. They got a name for everything. Listen, health issues. They don't care about you. They sure don't. You'll be having the worst week of your life.

And listen, all of a sudden now you're dying of, I don't know. You're just dying now and you're like, great. Awesome. That's exactly what I needed. Now next thing you know, it's 3 a.m. You feel awful scrolling in bed like, what do I do? It's the worst week ever. Well, listen, that's when ZocDoc comes in to save the day.

Oh, they're a major help. I love Zocococ. I've been talking about Zococ for years because I truly use it for everything for all of my appointments. Uh-huh, that's the truth. But listen, if you don't know, Zoc Doc is a free app and a website that helps you find and book high quality in-network doctors so you can find someone that fits your needs that you like, who connect with, you know,

all that stuff. On Zoc-Doc, you can book like in-network appointments with more than 150,000 providers across all 50 states. So whether you're looking for a dermatologist, a dentist, primary care doctor, eye doctor, Foot doctor. Where they called? Pediatrician? No, that's a baby doctor. But if you need one of those, that's on ZocDoc too. Acupuncture. Everything is on Zock Doc. I scroll the list just to see, like, what else is there? Anyways, so you can easily search by any specialty, by your symptom, and then you can build, like, a care team that's right for you through the app. So great. Now, my personal favorite thing about Zoc Doc is that it's very flexible.

So if you want to see a doctor in person, great, you could do that, you could book it on the app. You want to see him, do a video visit, great, you could do that, you could book it on the app. You're not having to pay some kind of fee either. So next time your symptoms decide to show up at the worst time, like they always do. Zoc Doc lets you take care of it then and there without the stress. I use Zoc Doc. I love Zoc Doc. Zococ is my life. And you should use it too.

It's great. So stop putting off those doctor's appointments. You probably need to go to the dentist and go to Zocococ. dot.com slash dark history to find an instantly book a doctor you will love today. That's Zoc doc, Zoc, D-O-C dot com slash dark history. Zocdoch dot com slash dark history. A big thank you to Zok doc doc for partnering with me throughout the years. You know, I really appreciate them.

In the early 1980s, sudden unexpected death syndrome caused the death of 117 mung refugees. So that was over 100 people who died in their sleep, no cause, no explanation. Dead. So of the victims, 116 were men and one was a woman. And all of them were in good health at the time of their death. Their median age was 33 and all died within two years of arriving in the United States. So it was like very similar stories. Doctors were absolutely stumped at what was causing this case of some.

among the refugees. I mean, hence the name, sudden unexpected death syndrome. They could have just called it like, oh, I lost a nail. Since medical doctors couldn't explain the event from a physical point of view, Dr. Shelley Adler, who has a PhD in folklore and ethno-medicine.

So she studies the phenomenon of sons to try and answer, like, why does this happen from a cultural lens. Because it might make sense, right? Just like the many other cultures we've already talked about, the monk people also had a name for the sleep paralysis demon.

Dab-sog. And just like the others, Dab-Sog is believed to be like an evil spirit, which can take the form of a creature and it lays on people's chest, and then it suffocates them in their sleep. I mean, at their most vulnerable,

you're sleeping, you're having dreams and wishes. and then suffocated. So some of the refugees when they spoke to doctors, they mentioned having experienced like sleep paralysis happening or even being visited by the dab sog. So Dr. Adler decided to study the Hmong people and their relationship to dabsog.

So I guess there was like a belief that if the Hmong people didn't worship their gods properly and perform, you know, certain ritual or honor the memory of their ancestors, they would be left unprotected from the dabb sog. I know, it's a lot of pressure. You're like, damn, I got a lot to do today, though. So once a person sees the dab sog,

they would need to see a shaman in order to make it go away before it killed them. Unfortunately, because the majority of these Hmong refugees were randomly placed throughout the United States, most of them did not have, like, any access to a shaman or like any type of elder from their community. I mean, they barely had community at this point. The stress of being far from home and then seeing like an evil spirit at night

with no means to fix it. It's enough to up anyone's stress levels. So after her years of research, Dr. Adler came to the conclusion that it was this type of like stress, which most likely led to the deaths of the refugees. And she claimed that the stress of cultural displacement and resettling in the United States, along with the powerlessness they felt and war trauma that they were still dealing with, led to the men dying of sons. I mean, that kind of makes sense.

Like, your body is just, like, stress the fuck out and overworking and, you know, I could see that. And she believed that if they had been able to rely on cultural practices to alleviate some of the stress, like maybe, I don't know, they could have saw a shaman. The deaths may have, like, not happened at all. Another researcher, this one, like, studied the cases of 45 of the Hmong's son's death, found that 39 of the men had a strong belief and fear of evil spirits before their death. Spooky. I know. So it only reinforced the same conclusion that Dr. Adler had come to.

Now, there is, like, a conflicting theory that their deaths were caused by a genetic, cardiac arrhythmia science. Someone brings in the science idea and they're like, eh, boo, cardiac arrhythmia is a condition that's very rare, but it's more widespread in Southeast Asia, where the Hmong people had came from. So I don't think these two theories oppose each other, you know? Like both can be true at the same time, right?

These people could have had a pre-existing heart condition that wouldn't have been an issue at all, if not for the crazy amounts of stress they were under because of the freaking dab sog. High levels of anxiety can contribute to actual physical conditions. And that is exactly what like could have happened here. There's actually a study that is connecting the link

between anxiety and the physical response. And it's something called the nocebo effect. It might sound familiar because it's the opposite of the placebo effect. Nocebo, placebo. That's cute. So just like a person can experience positive results despite not receiving like actual medication,

like with the placebo effect. Patients who are told they are being exposed to something negative can experience, like real life, negative side effects. So like if you're thinking bad, you're gonna get bad, if you're thinking good, you're gonna get good. It's not same mindset, right? Patients who are made to feel

anxious by a doctor before a procedure will then require like a higher dose of opiates to feel better after surgery. So when a population of people have been told that they can be killed by like a negative spirit, it makes sense that they could experience real negative like physical effects, especially when you consider that many of these people would have seen people around them dying after having an encounter with that exact spirit. Now of course, like modern science has an explanation for like why sleep paralysis happens. It's when people are experiencing a REM state, but out of order. Stick with me here. I know. Sleep. Meemis. Yes. So while you're in deep sleep, in other words, REM sleep, your body pretty much shuts down your ability to move. But you don't

know it because you're sleep. So you're essentially kind of paralyzed for a minute. And it's actually a good thing. It is because like if you're having a dream that you're jumping out of a window, you don't want to be jumping out of a window in real life. Maybe you're being chased by a bear or brat, the neighbor. Another thing about sleep is that the body is designed to stay unconscious while you sleep, obviously. And many of us dream while we're asleep, which is technically a hallucination. So sleep paralysis can be explained scientifically as a result of these functions happen.

in the wrong order. Like, you're still paralyzed and still hallucinating. You're still having a dream, but your body, you know, your mind is awake. It's like your brain hasn't fully caught up to the awake part yet. And when he eventually does catch up, the sleep paralysis ends, which is why most accounts of sleep paralysis only lasts for a few brief terrifying moments. A sleep paralysis demon, whether it appears as a witch, a ghost, an animal, or Brad, is what's called a hypnopompic hallucination. So this is also known as the incubus phenomenon, but no Brandon Boyd involved.

I know, bummer for us. According to Dr. Mark Mollendig of a psychologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, The incubus phenomenon is rare. I mean, people, like, aren't reporting that they have sleep paralysis and, like, see their high school theater teacher yelling at them because they forgot their tap routine. You know? People just don't seem to be seeing goofy shit or even, like, scary animals during sleep paralysis. It's always just demons. Rude.

Ultimately, science can only... only guess because the truth is no one knows exactly what causes sleep paralysis. What we do know is that people whose sleep cycle is disrupted by jet lag or like or shift work can be at higher risk for sleep paralysis. But there's like no solid scientific explanation for why it's happening in the first place. So we have to turn to the occult. I know it seems like a big jump, but maybe it is demon. Look, this is just a very long way of saying that nightmares can indeed kill you.

Sorry, girl, it's over. We're all done so. The experience of waking up unable to move or breathe and seeing like a scary-ass monster hovering over you is timeless. Like a diamond, just timeless. Breathtaking. A worldwide phenomenon. Being a human, it's just so. special, isn't it? We've got opposable thumbs, logical thinking, and a universal nightmare demon

that, like, sits on our chest every night. But hey, look, look, look, take comfort in knowing that it might not happen. Instead, aliens might abduct you on your drive home, and a crying lady ghost might morph into a horse when you try to help her open a jar of peanut butter. Plenty can come and, like, get you before the sleep demons have a chance. You're slippery when wet. Anyway, you guys, I hope you have a happy spooky season. And thank you for listening. Next week, we'll be talking about someone.

Many of you have requested a follow-up episode on. And we see your comments. Okay? Next week, we'll be talking about the most mythical man in all of Russia. Was that song? Bam-Bram-Bow-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B. It's kind of a bop. Oh, he's known for being close to the Royal Romanov family.

And I hate to burst your bobble, but he never had a talking bat named Bartok. Or a kick-ass musical number. Honestly, a bop. If they played that in the club, you'd catch me. Okay, but I will say this. He does have one hell of... of a story. So what you're going to need to do is tune in next week because we're doing an

episode on Rasputin. Hey Rasputt. Can I call you spute? Sputti? Putin. I hope you learned something new in today's story. Don't take candy from strangers. And remember, you can join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs because maybe you want to see what I look like. Here I am. And then while you're there, what you're also gonna wanna do is catch my murder mystery and makeup because it's like true crime and there's makeup.

Great, I hope to see you there, can't wait. Now, I love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story. So make sure to use the hashtag Dark History over on social media so I can stalk you and see what you're doing. I will get my binoculars out. I am serious. Now let's read what our viewers have to say. Dara Temple had a lot of love

little suggestion for a new show. Quote, I can picture an animated series of Bailey Sarian and she's got Joan and Paul with her. So cool. The universe has got to let it happen. End quote. Honestly, I love this and I support this decision. I will only do the series of the people who animated Darya or Beavis and Butthead can do it for me. I hope to see some emails when I get home.

Thank you. Thank you. And Paul, too. but we all got to be there. Linda, Linda Bet, 4254, left a comment on our fast food episode saying, quote, there is actually an app called McBroken, which maps all the McDonald's in your area and lets you know if the ice cream machine is broken. I quote, you know what, Linda?

Linda, listen, I knew about this, but I was trying to keep it on the deal because I was like, if everyone knows the app's going to crash, it's barely hanging on. But you know what? I should stop being an asshole. Be more like Linda and let the people know. But then the lines are going to be longer, Linda. Linda, come on. Now I'm going to have to wait longer. Okay, well, thanks, Linda. Appreciate you. You're a gift. Amy Anger, 6-966. Had a suggestion for an episode.

Quote, Nelly Bly needs to be a dark history subject. She wasn't the darkness, but she exposed so much. many horrific underbellies as one of the first female investigative reporters. Her topics would make an awesome episode. End quote. Wow, Amy. I did a quick little search on Nellie. I was like, Blu-B-W-W-W-W-W-W. Asylum Expoise came up. And Amy, honey, listen, I'm intrigued. Give me a pot of coffee going, you know? Some donuts. I'm in. I hope you have a good rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye.

Wow, what a crazy story, huh? I know, I forgot how crazy it was. Last Halloween, I saw a lot of people dressed up as La Eurona. Lots of Halloween costumes like that. I was like, ooh, creepy. Okay, anyways, speaking of like allegedly make-believe aliens and sleep demons, let's talk about one of the craziest catfishes of all time. Oh, do you remember?

Miss Betty Crocker? That fake ass bitch. I know. It was devastating. This episode was devastating to me. I did not want to accept that Betty Crocker was made up by men. And it all makes sense. I spoiled it for you. But in this episode, we do peel back the, you know, perfectly frosted layers of Betty Crocker, the all-American apron-wearing, cake-mix queen who taught everyone, all the women how to bake. Women would write letters to her. And Betty Crocker would write back. She gave women just like how to be a great homewife and bake and all this stuff. And it was fun and it was easy. And everyone loved Betty Crocker. To this day, she never actually existed.

So let's talk about the corporate invention that broke the hearts of housewives all across America. Betty Crocker. Listen, I'm going to say it. School does not prepare us for real life. Point blank period. Thank you for coming to this episode. I mean, we spend so much time learning math that you never use. Like, why did I have to memorize the first 10 digits of pie?

When I'm baking a pie, I'm not using those numbers, okay? And, like, where was the class or where was, like, the, I don't know, the semester in the class where, like, I learned how to fill out a W2? Do you know? Now, I'm not saying math is useless, but let's be real. Most of us maybe need a little help with some life skills. Okay, the basic ones I'm talking about, right? I know I do. Like cooking?

My God. What happened to those home-et classes they had back in the day? I know there are like some schools out there who still have home-ec classes, and you guys are so lucky because I would have loved to learn some like basic life cooking slash baking skills. Because most of the time when I go into the kitchen, I start a kitchen fire. I've mentioned this numerous times on my channel. Hi, if you haven't heard it. I've started quite a few kitchen fires. Okay, look.

But then I was introduced to. the Betty Crocker, like cake mixes and whatnot. Not recently, you know, back in the day. And it was like, my God, where has this been all my life? All that you have to do is mix in one egg and like some water and like maybe it's oil sometimes. I'm not sure. You mix that shit up and bitch, you got a freaking cake. You feel like you are just Miss Susie Baker. Am I right? You feel incredible. It's really a confidence booster, I would say. But what I'm getting at is Betty Crocker has been around for freaking ever, right? And she's been saving the day since,

I don't even know how long, but she's been saving the day. And that got me wondering, like, who the hell is Betty Crocker? I want to thank her. I want to shake her hand and say, thank you, Betty. You sure did, you know,

save Thanksgiving that one year when I started the fire, and we all just wanted a little cake to celebrate the fire. That led me into today's episode. I just wanted to know everything about this American icon, right? So naturally, what do I do?

I got to Googling, of course. And I got to tell you. I found out some wild things about who I thought this lady was. Yeah. Yeah. Are we surprised? Well, grab that tub of frosting you've been saving for an emergency. Because with Betty by your side, you've got it made.

This is a story about Miss Betty Crocker, the American icon. The year is 1921. The first world war had just ended. and still fresh on people's minds. I mean, that shit was crazy. Everyone was like, did you see that shit? Oh, the wild. You'd think that humanity wouldn't want to do that again,

but America loves a sequel, right? Well, during this time, America was going through an interesting transition. She was growing. It was going from the gilded age into the roaring 20s. But there's one part of American life that people have always looked to for stability. And that is the home. Am I right? The home?

The dinner table? During this time, there was a very popular magazine called The Saturday Evening Post. And I believe Norman Rockwell, the artist, he would like make the cover. I have a bunch of them because my grandma used to collect them. Yeah, they're actually really incredible. Anyways, that's not the point. The point is, the Saturday Evening Post, from what I believe, was read by like everybody. Everybody read this magazine.

So if there was an ad in there or they were selling something, you know, everyone trusted. it, right? One day, like an ad appears in the magazine, Saturday evening post, and this ad was run by a flower company called Washburn Crosby Company, which was like based somewhere, and they would sometimes have recipe cards in their bags of flour. So it would be like a box of cracker jacks, but the prize inside was a recipe card for like corn muffins. Back then, no internet, right? No food network. So these little freebie recipe cards were very valuable to people. I mean, especially housewives who are at, they're at home, they're cooking, they're baking, and they were called homemakers, you know, because they're making the house a home. So Washburn Crosby, that big

flower company, they thought it would be fun to put a little jigsaw puzzle in the Saturday evening post in that magazine. So they're like, if you cut out the puzzle and you put together and you mail it back to us, you will get a price. So people are like, oh, Yeah, we love a price. You know, there's nothing else to do. Hell yeah. So naturally I wanted to know, like, what is the prize that you would win? And it was a little pin cushion shaped like a little flower sack, which sounds really cute. Pin cushion for all the pin that you use for sewing. I'm sure someone out there's like, what's that? Because I was just like, what's the pin cushion. Anyways, people must have loved pin cushions because 30,000 people ended up riding in. But guess what? They weren't just mailing in those jigsaw puzzles. The Washburn Crosby Company also, received thousands of letters asking for advice. The public figured that this was the company making those recipe cards. I mean, of course, they figured that because it's in their flour. So they must have some idea of how to mix their casserole or like, you know, my husband won't eat the jello salad. What should I do? They're writing and asking. Now, all the questions were different,

but they all had one thing in common. These people that were writing in, they were desperate for help in the kitchen. They needed help with like cooking and stuff. They needed advice. This is like the 20s, okay? So back then, everything was frowned upon, all right? So if you were a housewife and you went to your neighbor and was like, hey, I don't know how to make a cassero. That bitch next door would be like, you don't know how to make a casserole? That's so unfortunate, you know? So it was like kind of looked down upon if you asked anybody for help.

So when people were writing into this flower company, they were writing anonymous letters. So they were just hoping they'd get a response and then not. also be outed for not knowing how to make a casserole, you know? Like it was like this perfect combination going on. So during this time, you know, women were kind of groomed for the role of Homemaker. You know, like I mentioned earlier, that class Home Eck, it stands for Home Economics. It's a class you can take in school where you can learn how to make a pie. So a button, I don't know, because I never took it, but I wish I did.

Well, back then, it was essentially required if you wanted to get your lady card. And it wasn't just cooking and cleaning. Home Act also included stuff like learning how to build a budget, child development, home design, health and hygiene, which honestly, that should be mandatory for all of us, right? Like, this actually sounds like a great idea. Well, for women at this time, high school was usually the end of their education. I mean, only about 7% of women in America went to college, and most of them just got married right after graduation and just banging out those babies, you know? So, a woman not knowing her basic home-ex skills was a big source of shame. Like, that's the one thing you're supposed to be good at, quotes, like allegedly.

You know, I'm not saying that. That's what they were believing. So they were always looking for tips wherever they could get them without having to feel bad or embarrassed about it. What a wild time, huh? Now you could go up to anyone and be like, hey, how do you make that pie? You want to think twice about it. Wild times, huh?

Well, that flower company, Washburn Crosby, Crosby, they were swamped with letters. And they were like, what the hell are we supposed to do with all these letters? They're acting like we're Santa or something. The men in charge didn't feel comfortable answering any of the letters. They were like, this is a job for a woman. Not me. I work on cars and stuff. But there was this one manager in the advertising department. His name was Samuel Gale. Well, he decides, there might be an opportunity here, and maybe he should step in. But the one thing Samuel realized was that getting responses from a big, large company doesn't really feel personal, especially for these letter writers who are feeling very vulnerable.

So he decides that there needs to be some sort of mascot that these women could relate to, right? They don't want to hear from a man. They want to hear from a real woman at home, a homemaker, just like them. Samuel first decided this mascot needed to be an everyday woman who had all the answers, right? Someone confident, realistic, but essentially magical, who had the time to respond to every single one of these letters and weigh in on their problems. Someone to make the writers feel heard. Samuel thought if they could solve all the problems in these letters, the company would get in good with all the homemakers. Now, this would be a great opportunity because these women are the ones who are running the household.

And what are they doing? Spending money to run the household and take care of their family, right? What does this mean for a company? Profit, you know, they're seeing dollar signs. So Washburn-Crosby does something a little sneaky, a little suspicion, but also honestly very brilliant. They invent an everyday magical, all-knowing homemaker to lovingly answer all these letters. It's a homemaker Santa Claus. She would give some pretty solid advice, but she'd also win over the hearts of these women.

She would even handwrite and sign all of these letters with an authentic signature. So who was this godsend of a woman? Well, guess what, bitches, as you've probably guessed by the title of this freaking video, it's Betty Crocker that they invented. Yeah, that's right. Betty Crocker is not a real person. I know, quit, leave, everyone, bye. World's over.

Betty Crocker's a fraud. She's not even real. She's not even a real person. This whole time, I was like, oh my God, I love her, an icon of legend. Wow, she's like amazing. She saved us in so many different situations. She's not real. She's made up.

Yeah. How do you feel about that? Everything you know is a lie, Barbara. She's a figment of corporate America's imagination. But here's the thing. America had no idea, and the creators of Betty Crocker wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. Oh my God, yeah. I know I keep making references to Santa Claus,

but this was like my Santa Claus moment when I learned that she was fake, and I was like, kind of devastated. Like, when we were doing the story, I was like, oh, I can't wait to learn about Betty Crocker. And then it's like, she's not real. So everyone's just been lying? It's just so sad.

So you're probably wondering, well, how did they come up with a name Betty Crocker? You know, that's step one. Okay, so the company gets together and they're brainstorming, right? We need some names, you guys. You got some names? Mary?

No? Okay. Gertrude? No. Linda? No? Okay. Well, in 1921, another very popular name. Betty? Not too young. Not too old. Betty. Sweet sounding. You can trust the Betty. Do you know a Betty who's a bitch? No. I don't know a Betty who's a bitch. They come up with the name Betty Crocker. I don't know how they got there besides Betty being like a really popular name. Great. So then they know that they need a signature. Now back then, remember like before computers and all that, everyone hands. wrote everything like handwriting is an art and it's we're kind of losing it more and more every day that's besides the point but they knew that they needed to have like a true feminine-looking betty crocker's signature so remember the guy who kind of came up with this whole thing samuel gale well he decides to hold a competition amongst the women in the office place okay whoever comes up with the best signature for miss betty crocker wins this competition what do they win i don't

No. But a secretary named Florence steps up and knocks it out of the park, bitch. Oh, she creates a beautiful signature. It's not too snooty. You know, it's not sloppy. You can read it. It's just, it's perfect. It's exactly how a housewife would sign something. This employee did amazing. They're like, we're using your signature. Congratulations. I don't know what she I don't think she won anything good. She should have, but she didn't. The employee. Anyways, from there on out, every single letter was signed cordially yours, Betty Crocker. But it was in Florence's handwriting? Now, I don't know if they used a stamp. Was Florence actually signing every single letter? I don't know. But if she was, she probably got carpal

tunnel, that poor woman. I hope she's okay. Bless her soul. But this signature is actually still used on their packaging to this very day. Shout out to you, Florence. So, they have the name, they have the signature, and in order to really build the stronger identity, you know, people could actually relate to this person, she needed to feel like a real woman, right? Someone who had already mastered everything a housewife might need to do in the kitchen. But Samuel and a team of men in the flower advertising department, they didn't know anything about home economics, so they're like, you know what, we need to hire a team that could specialize in this and figure it out for us. So they came up with this idea of hiring about 25 women.

And these women were going to be like their experts, and they were going to start writing back to all the letters that were coming in. Not only could they get back to more people, more letters, but also these women knew everything there was to know about mixing, baking, broiling, basting, anything that had to do with baking, cooking, whatever, you name it. This team, this department, they could do it. And they could also guide other women. on how to do it at home.

You know, like, they're just like the people you wanna ask and hear from. Thanks to their hard work, the letters were answered. Almost overnight, Betty become like a trusted source of information for women all over America. I mean, it was a judgment-free zone, and they were making women happy, learning how to cook and stuff.

It was great. So, naturally, women were like, I wrote to Betty Crocker and she wrote me back. Did you know that? Word of mouth amongst all the friends, you know? spreading around and people are like, do you have a question? If you have a question, you should write to Betty, she writes back. Now people are writing in, right?

If you had questions about fondue, you know, Betty, she's got an answer for you. Your kids, they're dying for a snack. You don't know what to do. Well, Betty's got your back. Betty slowly started to build a diehard base of loyal, technically customers, but they felt like friends and stuff. because Betty seemed like she cared. Ugh, it's all a lie.

The perfect example of this could be seen in a letter I found from, like, way back in the day, just mother who wants to send her son some treats while he's serving in the U.S. military and while he's away at war. Instead of responding with, like, send cookies, Martha, or maybe just, like, sending a recipe card and moving on to the next letter,

Betty took the time to send this mother a couple of ideas and some words of wisdom about other people she had helped in, similar situations. The response is like an entire page long. Again, personally signed at the bottom. I mean, can you think of the last time you reached out to a company and they were this nice to you? I can't. Yeah, I can. Look, listen, side note, because this wasn't a company to people. This was Betty Crocker, a person. And that's why it worked. It wasn't a company. So it all makes sense, right? Because yeah, if you try to write like a flower company, we're they going to say back, you were writing a

woman, Betty. People love this bitch. This was all working out for that flower company, Washburn Crosby, because wouldn't you know it, all of Betty's recipes and tips used their products. Most importantly, their flour. Hello. Think of it like this. Betty is the influencer and the flower is like her main sponsor. Betty Crocker is Jacqueline Hill and the flower company is Morphy. Yeah, that's what this is. Okay, so to the public, it seemed like Betty was up day and night responding to everyone's letters. It's like, when does this woman sleep? She is so hardworking.

Because the team who was pretending to be Betty Crocker was actually doing just that. At its busiest, the department was dealing with 4,000 letters a day. Yeah. Once it got to this part, you know, things started to get a little crazy, and they're realizing that they're going to start losing, like, valuable, loyal customers if we don't keep up with this, right? The demand is high, and Betty Crocker's only one woman, or at least a team of 25. Samuel Gale, remember that guy?

He was really nervous that his whole department was just going to fall apart. So he needed someone to lead the department and take it to the next level. He no longer could do it. It was just, it grew so insane. So he finds this woman who's working at the flower company. I think she might be part of one of the 25 women, unclear, but this woman, her name's Marjorie, Child Husted, Houston or something like that. Samuel Gill saw something in her.

Hmm, and he had his eyes on her. So Marjorie, she was born April 2nd, 1892 in Minnesota, and she was always like super interested in the art of homemaking. So she went to the University of Minnesota, where she graduated in 1913 with a degree in home economics and education. Yeah, she's, first of all, she's a woman with two college degrees. and like women couldn't even, they didn't have the right to vote yet. Go off, Marjorie, go off.

She's killing the game. So Marjorie, she spent time working at the Red Cross during the war. And then she also got a job working at the dairy company in marketing before she was scooped up by Washburn Crosby. She had experience and a fantastic reputation, especially when it came to home economics. I mean, she started out at the company as a traveling chef. Oh yeah. She was like teaching cooking classes to homemakers in Kansas. Washburn Crosby promotes Marjorie and puts her in charge of the Home Services Department.

That group of professionals, Gil, Samuel Gill, put together. Her mission was to make the voice of Betty Crocker feel like a real person. She pulled her knowledge from those cooking classes, but she wasn't satisfied. There was still something missing. So Marjorie does what she does best. Packs her bags and hits the road again, ready to do some research on what women really want or what they really wanted to know from Betty Crocker. Like, for me, I'd be like,

Miss Betty, I want to shove a whole block of cheese up my passe. How do I achieve this? There's all kinds of letters. No judgment. We don't judge here. I hope they're okay. Marjorie was like, you know what? If I'm going to be in this industry,

I need to know the everyday woman and the everyday families. So she drove around Minnesota doing her own little case study, I guess. I don't know. Survey, would that be the word? I think so. Just going around the, Midwest, going, knocking on doors, you know, seeing what's up with the everyday American family. She was taking notes on how they were actually cooking at home, how they were actually running

their households, and really trying to understand what the everyday American family or homemaker wanted to know or needed help with, you know? She was learning about the customer. I think she really elevated the Betty Crocker brand to the next level. Like, yeah, they were doing some cute shit, writing letters back and signing it. But now they were actually trying to fully understand their audience, their customer, and really take this to something much bigger. You know, Betty Crocker, the brand, had a loyal fan base, and the company knew it. So it was time to really take it to the next level and make her a celebrity, get her in front of more Americans.

What do we really want? Money. So let's be real. That they're just like, how can we make more money with this? And the best way to do this, like to become a celebrity. in the 1920s. It's the radio, baby. They know they got to get on that radio.

So back then, Americans were listening to the radio a lot. Okay, think of it like today. We're on our phones all the time. Back then, they had radio. So they're listening to like five hours per day. So if you want to like market towards the everyday American, bitch, get on the radio. TV's not a thing yet, okay?

Radio is where you went for everything. Hom sick from school, you turn on the radio. You interested in some like hot cowboy drama. Well, you're going to find that on the radio. Sports? Radio. So this is when the Washburn Crosby Company has a light bulb moment. They found out that there was like a nearby radio station that had recently shut down. So Washburn is like, hey, not only can we own our own station, but we can give Miss Betty Crocker her own radio show.

Oh, shit. And guess what? They had the money. They had the funding. That's exactly what they did. They named it the Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air. That's too much of a name, but okay, you guys. And the whole concept was inspired by Marjorie's time on the road.

Marjorie is in charge of the scripts and the stories. And not only that, she actually became the first voice of Betty Crocker, and people's minds were blown. When they turned on that radio and they heard Betty Crocker for the first time, oh shit, you know, like she's real, well! Oh, it was cool. They could put a voice to like the woman who was writing these letters. Right?

It was just like, oh, incredible. It was so successful that the show almost immediately was picked up by 13 other stations around the country and even NBC. Do do, do, do do. Great. Not spal chard. But how do you turn a bunch of letters sent to a company into an entertaining radio show? Easy. You read the letters on air.

I'm just kidding. But you got to like make it personal, you know? So I guess Miss Marjorie, each night before. for the show, she would take home a suitcase full of letters that were sent to the company. And she would open up those letters and she would read every single one. That's what she said. We weren't there so we don't know. The only reason I'm, like, being sassy about that is because they're trying to make her look an angel.

But it was all a lie. You can't take it back. So she's reading all the letters. She's trying to get an understanding of what people want answers to. You know, and with all this info in hand, she would write the radio show scripts and address actual things that the American Housewives were asking. I don't know, but the Betty Crocker on the radio was like really motivational and really nice.

Now, Betty Crocker was a national superstar. Her radio show was taken off. She was not only helping with people make their food and whatnot, a home chef, you know. She was also a therapist, a best friend, confidant. Someone to look up to you, a mentor. Betty Crocker was this real amazing woman and you couldn't tell them otherwise.

especially after Marjorie put together an interactive program to get listeners even more involved. People who were listening were told to take the recipes featured on the show, cook them up, and then write to the radio station with a little review of the recipe. Oh, I love that. So, like, people would do reviews, the old school way. On top of that, it was free, so a lot more people could actually get involved. If the listeners did every recipe in the program, they would be invited to the radio station for a graduation ceremony, like it was a real,

like Betty Crocker cooking school, you know? And while this radio show was on the air, there were over one million people who completed Betty's cooking school. So in 1928, seeing all the Betty Crocker success, the Washburn Crosby Company, the flower company, you know, who technically owns the whole Betty Crocker situation,

they knew it was time for like the next step in their business, their company, right? So they end up merging with a couple of other businesses and they end up rebranding as General Mill. Yeah, General Mills, maybe you've heard of them. Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Pillsbury, Fiber One, which does not make you go to the bathroom. And a tons more.

So, yeah, things are going great for the Betty Crocker brand. It's in every American home. People are listening in on the radio show. They're getting involved. They're having fun. They're baking. They're taking care of their homes. I mean, they're loving what Buddy has to say.

But then comes something no one could have predicted. The entire country grinds to a halt with a great depression. During this time, people lost their jobs, their money, and they just didn't have a way to even feed their families. It was said that people were fighting for scraps of food in the garbage. The lines were hours long at soup kitchens. Everywhere in the country, food was scarce, groceries were expensive,

and everyone was looking for ways to save where they could. So during this time, it wasn't so much about being the perfect housewife, It was about freaking surviving, right? And just keeping your family alive. It was tough times. So what does this mean for the Betty Crocker brand? What's the point of a baking show and no one can even afford food?

Well, they've got to brainstorm a bit over there, right? Marjorie and our whole team of Bettys were on it. So the Betty Crocker radio show starts giving tips on how to save money and also still make good food if you don't have a lot of money or a big budget to spend on your cooking, right? Now, this was groundbreaking because nobody was doing this at the time. And one of the ideas with the Betty Crocker brand was like something called the Depression

Cake, which sounds like something I make on Tuesdays, you know. Depression cakes were literal chocolate cakes people could make without milk, butter, or eggs. Wait, how? Well, Betty taught people how they could substitute those things with vinegar and water. Oh, shit, really? Wow. With all of our episodes here at Dark History, we run it through experts, people who just know their shit. Okay, look, experts.

And for this episode, we had an expert. Her name's Krista. And she swears by this recipe, the vinegar and water situation. Have you guys made a cake this way? I feel like it would stink, no? Anyways, doesn't matter. I'm just curious. But anyway, yeah.

So this cake was a really big hit, okay? And it was there for the people when they really need something sweet during. a dark time. Betty's voice on the radio was like reassuring to people that everything was going to be okay. And because of this, she was just loved, loved by everyone. So in the 1930s, Betty Crocker heads to Hollywood where she, Marjorie. Marjorie is Betty Crocker, okay? So Marjorie heads to Hollywood to act like Betty Crocker and gives an interview to some like A-listers, Hollywood stars, like Carrie Grant, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford. I know, I know.

You're Crowford, but it's like, it's kind of the same, you know? You guys are twins. I didn't know you knew Betty like that. So I guess the whole goal of this trip was like to make people think that celebrities are just like us, that they love making Betty Crocker banana nut muffins and cookies, that they, too, are familiar with the Betty Crocker brand, that they like peasant shit like us, you know? And so that it was like some PR thing, I think.

I'm not even sure. But they did that. Now, because Betty Crocker was rubbing elbows with like some, woo, Hollywood elites, she enters a new level of status. And the company decides, like, we need a face to go with a name. Something we can put on our products, our magazines, our posters, something our customers can spot from a mile away. At this time, like, no one had actually seen Marjorie or Betty Crocker.

Like, because it was always through the radio. And even when she interviewed all the Hollywood stars, It was through the radio. So the company was like, we need to create a woman, like a painting or a drawing of what Betty Crocker looks like. So what do they do? They hire an artist. And they instruct this artist to go look at all the women in our factory.

Okay, look at them. And then if you can kind of draw a portrait of what Betty Crocker is going to look like, like maybe a mashup of all our faces. They wanted the company. they wanted Betty to look like everyone and like no one at the same time. So they would take like a little bit of that girl's butt chin, right? Or like, um, the eyebrow.

Just mixing everything up. And eventually they create the Betty Crocker version of the Mona Lisa. It's an iconic image. People will remember forever. She had a classic conservative. Oh, I'm sorry, Joan. I know, I keep blocking you.

Joan's been getting jealous because I keep blocking her and she's got to have her light, you know. She's such a good. Jiva. Anyways. So they create this image, right? Probably wondering what she looks like. Well, she's got that conservative housewife hair cut. It's like Burnett Bob situation. Her skin is as white as the company's flower. And she's not old, but she's definitely not young. She looks confident. She looks approachable. She's kind of smiling, but not too much. She's not that happy, but she's happy. She kind of reminds me of a kindergarten teacher, just really sweet and innocent. And you just want to give

her a house. She's kind of a little bit. Oh, and Betty's outfit also iconic. It was a red blazer with a prominent white collar. Sometimes that collar was ruffled, and other times it was a little plunging, a bit risque, but also tasteful at the same time. Over time, Betty needed a makeover. So there have been eight different portraits of Betty over the years, all white, all Burnett, and all with a red blazer. So they've kept that consistent at least. The 1965 Betty Crocker has big Jackie O vibes. complete with a pearl necklace. I really like the Betty Crocker portrait from 1986

because the outfit features a pussy bow. And any chance I get to say pussy bow, I'm going to take that opportunity. Pussy bow. The red blazer look has actually stuck around to this very day and shows no signs of going anywhere. But one really interesting note, not one portrait shows Betty wearing an apron.

Not one. I'm not judging. The staff at General Mills received hundreds of marriage proposals to Betty, but soon people's attention would be consumed by something way bigger than Betty's portrait. World War II. So during World War II, a lot of people were tuning in to Betty's radio show, and like they really, this was like a breath of fresh air, some positivity during this like really dark time.

The Betty Crocker brand, they created episodes based on real fan letters about people struggling with getting engaged to someone who's been shipped off to war or, let's. letters with wives on military bases, or letters about how to hold down a family on their own. It once again made people, especially women, feel very heard by Betty. And while all that World War II stuff was going down, Marjorie created a badass organization called the Betty Crocker's Home Legion, which was all about being a homemaker during wartime and how they could contribute to the war effort. Betty gave them a purpose and gave them a sense of community. It was like a very exclusive club, though.

women had to apply to be part of the Legion. And if your application was accepted, cool, you're in. If not, sorry, loser. And this wasn't some, like, kitschy little support group in the basement of a church. By 1944, this was a nationwide organization

with tens of thousands of members. Each one of them got a little pin and received a copy of something called the Homemaker's Creed. Creed is my favorite character on the office. It was sort of like this oath that every woman in the Legion swore to and probably hung up in their kitchens.

It said something like, I believe homemaking is a noble and challenging career, which, yes, very true. But it also asked members to believe that a homemaker must be true to the highest ideals of love, loyalty, service, and religion. Kind of sounds culty, but okay. And around the end of the war, Fortune magazine named Betty Crocker the second most popular woman in America. Oh, yeah. Oh, she was right behind the first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. Killing it, Betty. Too bad you're not real. You know, like that part kind of sucks.

I think we should give more credit to Marjorie, though. Yeah. Because, like, Marjorie really is the one who, like, took this to the next level. So Marjorie technically is, Betty. I'll let that slide. Because it's always up to me, if you didn't notice. Okay, but again, the drama, drama. Okay, listen, this list seemed to piss somebody off.

Because later that same year in the magazine, The one that, you know, Betty was number two, somebody outed Betty as a fake. Oh, shit. Yeah. Yeah. In 1945, Fortune Magazine publishes an article that calls out Betty Crocker as a, quote, fraud, a fictitious creation. Now this was a scandal. People, just like me when I first found out, people were very upset.

Everything was a lie. I mean, how was I writing to? I told them about the butter at my vagina. Like, oh God, who got that letter? It melted. It's fine. So, yeah, people's worlds were rocked. I mean, imagine you're one of those homemakers right into Betty.

Maybe you wrote for years. And you start to see her as your friend. She's like your mentor, your pen pal. And then one day, just all of a sudden you hear that it was just a PR stunt that some flower company came up with. That's truly, truly. unfortunate. Before this, people had no reason to distrust big companies like General Mills. They saw a woman on a cakebox named Betty Crocker, and they heard her voice on the radio,

so why else would they think Betty Crocker is fake? I see her, I hear her, I don't feel her, but like, you know, she's the real person. So, as you can imagine, this was very upsetting to some people. But you know what they say? There's no such thing as bad press. That's what they say, but I don't think that's true, but okay. So it must have not had a negative effect because not long after the war, Betty Crocker, the brand, gets now its own products and grocery stores all across America. And I know what you're thinking because we see it today. We got the cake mix, the frosting, the other stuff. But actually, her first product in 1941, it was pea soup. Yeah, she was peed in cans and selling it. Fucking wild. The minute this thing hit shell,

It was gone. Everyone wanted Betty Crocker's pea soup. I mean, it was such a hit that a few years later in 1947, they roll out their first cake mix. How did she go from pee to cake? I guess this cake mix was like a ginger cake. And it was essentially a gingerbread cake. Now, all you had to do at home was add water, stir, and bake. Oh, it was so easy, literally anyone could do it.

They even had this great slogan, a perfect, Cake every time you bake. Cake after cake after cake. Bitch, who came up with that? Cause that's good. That's a good one. They honestly should have just ended it at a perfect cake every time you bake, period.

That should just be it. Like, that's beautiful. Because it's true. I mean, you can't fuck that up to most. I guess this cake was a hit. I mean, people thought it was actually quite delicious. So back then, remember, like, I know all of us kind of are familiar

with the cake mixes, right? because we all grew up with it for the most part. But back then, like, making a cake and everything took so much time. And then on top of it, you had to take care of the kids. You had to clean the house. You had to look good for your freaking husband. Right?

So it's like when Betty Crocker's cake mixes showed up, okay? This was like when America went from covered wagons to cars. Like, incredible, right? Time was saved. People are losing their shit. I can make a cake really easy. Oh, man. And homemakers everywhere had one less thing to deal with in the kitchen.

If the Betty Crocker brand had stopped at this point, they would still be an icon, right? But they want more. They want to take Betty Crocker until this legend status. And how are you going to do that? A cookbook. Yeah. Okay, so in order to get Betty's recipes, you had to be listening in to the Betty Crocker radio show where she would verbally give out recipes.

You'd have to be listening and write them down. if you missed it, you shoot out of luck, right? Or another way to get recipes was by getting the local newspaper. Now, they would list a couple of recipes in there and you tear them out and just hope that no one threw away your little tearouts, right? Like, there just wasn't an easy way to get a recipe. It was just this whole ordeal. And General Mills, they knew this.

They were like, we're seeing people do this, okay? So in 1950, they created the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. Oh, we love a picture. I love a picture. Give me a picture. Okay. Helps me see. What am I making? So people are losing their shit. Everyone, these cookbooks hit the shelves. Oh, and people are loving it because for the first time there's this book. And then it's a fat book. She's a thick one, okay? Where you could open it up and just have so many different recipes. I'm talking different dinners. We've got baking stuff, pies, cakes, bleep, blah, bloop, dinners, lunches, snacks. I don't.

people are excited. Right away, this book starts being called the Kitchen Bible. Like, it was a staple in a lot of people's houses. In the first two years that this book was released, it sold 2 million copies, and it showed up on the best sellers list right next to the actual Bible. Dude. To date, it has sold over 75 million copies around the world. So after this cookbook is released, Betty Creeze,

Crocker, I would say, is solidified as part of American culture. I mean, she steered the country through both the Great Depression, World War II. You know, she empowered millions of American women by helping them feel seen and heard and and valued. And not to mention, make their lives a little easier by giving them recipes and reassurance that it's okay if you mess up, it's okay, you know? It's okay. In 1948, President Harry Truman gave Marjorie Houston the Woman of the Year award for her work as Betty Crocker.

She deserves that shit. She killed. You killed it, Marjorie? So Marjorie wins this award, okay? Naturally, you know, you're thinking like, how come they don't name it after Marjorie? Like, how come not more of us know about Marjorie's name? And of course, this is corporate America where women really aren't treated the best. and despite all of her amazing work, Marjorie allegedly has never been paid properly.

The salesman of the company, she helped create, made four times as much as her. Marjorie then retired from General Mills in 1950 and went on to create her own successful company. Good move, too, because surprisingly, the Betty Crocker brand went through some rough patches over the next couple of decades. We're rolling into the 1950s and TV is a new radio. Okay, look, Betty Crocker, smash hit record. radio show. So of course it would be a TV hit. The only minor detail, who would play her? Betty Crocker, aka Marjorie, didn't work for General Mills anymore. She was like, bye, bitches. I want to go make some real money. And plus on top of that, she was doing most of the

legwork, you know, and people thought they would be just fine without her and she showed them. Mm-hmm. They need Betty to be on TV. They're going to keep this going. They know they have to get ahead of it. So what do they do? They find an actress that looks like the portrait of their Betty Crocker. Boom, the Betty Crocker show was born. Not only did Betty have her own cooking show, but she also appeared on live commercials and guest starred on other popular programs at the time. The cooking show was mostly shot at the General Mills,

like they had a test kitchen, and it was modeled after like the real life cooking classes that Marjorie had taught. Betty would like sit at a desk and give instructions to a woman named Ruth, and the audience, watching at home, could identify with Ruth and like learn a recipe, all from the comfort of their living realm.

The woman hired to play Betty was an actress named Adelaide Coming, who, fun fact, had zero cooking experience. That's a shame. There was one big difference with the show, though. While Marjorie was in charge of the Betty Crocker division, she had made supporting women a huge priority because, like, it was a pivotal moment in American history.

And not only were women in America expected to be housewives, for the first time, they're flooding into the workforce. pursuing careers, even voting. That's a lot of pressure, you gotta do it all now. And Marjorie, she wanted to acknowledge that. She was all about encouraging the modern woman to budget her time wisely, make time for themselves, and demand respect.

But the new TV show had a bit of a different vibe. It opened with a man saying, quote, homemaking, a woman's most rewarding way of life, end quote. So yeah, people didn't really receive that the same, you know. They're like, this kind of sucks. And the Betty stands must have caught on because this show was a total flop. It ran for only two years and it ended in 1952. And they tried another version of a Betty Crocker TV show where they interviewed celebrities like Audrey Hepburn, but that also flopped.

And this was back when there was like five things on TV. So in order to flop, people must have had to really hate it. It was clear that people loved to read Betty Crocker and hear Betty Crocker on the radio, but seeing her. I don't know. It just, it wasn't the same. Anyways, General Mills decides like, you know what, we have to let it go. Stop trying to make Betty a TV star. It's not going to happen.

Then the radio show came to an end after 26 years in 1953. And Betty Crocker just kind of disappears from the spotlight by the 1960s. Even though she wasn't on air, she was in all the grocery stores. Like literally, all of them. She was still a staple in American kitchens. The company even put a red spoon on all of their products that were Betty Crocker approved. And guess what? That's the same red spoon you see on their products today.

Betty Crocker had created such a strong following that for years and years, women that toured the Betty Crocker test kitchen in Minnesota expected to find the icon herself, I guess just hanging out there. And then when they found out that Betty Crocker wasn't real, they would start crying. That's how important Betty was to people,

because Marjorie was that good at her job. And so were the other woman who contributed to the Betty Crocker story. Not just the persona, but every product and cookbook. cookbook that came after. Of course, Betty Crocker wasn't the only fake spokeswoman created by a big brand to sell things. Victoria, a Victoria Secret. She's not real. Her tits are fake. Just kidding. Well, she's not real, so yeah. And Jamil Maile was real. Problematic for so many reasons. What's interesting is that when the spokesperson was a guy, he was usually real. Like Duncan Hines, the frosting? Real dude. Orville Reddenbat Bacher? The popcorn guy?

Real. Oscar Meyer, the weiner? 100% real. Chef Boyardee, real! Hmm, seems to be like society trusted men to be founders and CEOs, but women had to be make-believe girl bosses. What's that about? You know, like, yes, I do feel like Marjorie, she carried the Betty Crocker brand and did big things with it, right? But we don't really know her name.

But the same time, we know Betty Crocker, so we kind of know her, her? I don't know. At the end of the day, Betty actually did have a pretty positive impact on the world. Like, she was really there for people. And like, that's huge, whether it was Betty or Marjorie. Like, honestly, it was really incredible. You know, while Marjorie was in charge, she encouraged women to challenge the status quo and the double standards of the day. I mean, she even created something called a bias quiz that was designed for men to recognize their internal biases against women. Marjorie wrote this, but the Betty Crocker brand, like, published this. They also did another article titled, Would You Like More Recognition in a Popular Magazine?

So, I mean, yeah, like, what I'm getting at is, like, fake name, but a pretty good agenda. Trying to really help people. And guess what? As of October 21st of this year, 2022, Betty Crocker turned 101 years old. Well, whoever this invisible woman is. You know, and even now, to this day, she's one of America's most trusted food brands. The girl is still a household name. Her products, recipes are everywhere.

And guess what? You can still send her a note. I'm not lying, you can write her a letter. Betty Crocker at General Mills Inc. P.L. Box 9452, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55440. I'm gonna send her a dick pick. Just kidding. I'm not going down.

That'd be rude. What I thought about it. So don't feel guilty about buying that tub of frosting and eating it in one day. Oh my god, can I tell you something that I did not long ago? Look, when I get really stressed, I binge on like really sugary sweet food. So I was, I look, I'm ashamed, but Betty Crocker's involved

because I got the Betty Crocker, you know, birthday cake mix. I made a cake full intentions to make like a chocolate cake, but instead I ate the cake mix, all of it, followed by I ate half of the tub of frosting. So, she was. shit happens. You know what I'm saying? Don't feel guilty. Thanks, Betty. You got me through that cry fest. Well, everyone, thank you so much for learning with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions to get the whole story because it's okay to be curious. Come on. I love to hear your guys' reaction to today's story. So make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can

follow along and see what you're saying, stalk you. Or maybe even join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, Don't forget to check out my murder mystery makeup. I hope you have a wonderful day today. You make good choices. Make yourself a cake. You deserve it. That's the fun part about being adult, you guys.

You can just make a cake to make a cake. Like, you don't even need an excuse. Like, that's pretty cool. So I suggest you do so. But other than that, I'll be talking to you next week. I hope you have a good rest of your day. And goodbye. Listen, Betty Crocker, the woman who could do it all,

mainly because she wasn't real. It still hurts me to this day when I see Betty Crocker. I'm like, you lying, fraud. Whatever. I just don't know what's creepy or the fact that they used a blend of like a bunch of different secretary's faces for Betty. Or that like some General Mills executive was pretending to be her. It's kind of funny, huh? Answering those letters that people wrote in.

Maybe that executive was kind of living by curiously through Betty Crocker. Just a thought. But while Betty was getting America hooked on General Mills products, There were real women out there breaking records, flying solo across oceans, without like a single marketing team behind them. Who am I talking about? Well, Miss Amelia Earhart. Amelia was like kind of the polar opposite of Betty Crocker. She was messy.

She was complicated. People thought she was a lesbian. You know, and back then it was like, oh my God, she's a lesbian kid. And most importantly, she was a real woman. What happened to Amelia Earhart? Well, let's talk about it. Okay, Amelia Earhart. Who was she?

I don't know. So I had to learn a lot. I had to start from the beginning. Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Acheson, Kansas. Both Amelia and her sister were tomboys growing up, and they loved playing sports, climbing trees, being outside, you know, all that stuff. Even though they were brought up in the early 1900s, their parents were totally fine with this. Them being like, little tomb boys.

You know, girls had to be girls, all that stuff. But Amelia's mom was pretty progressive for the time and encouraged her kids to do all those things that the boys love to do. But it wasn't until Amelia was 20 years old that she really started to get into planes. A friend of hers took her to a stunt flying exhibition. This was essentially pilots showing off stunt tricks in their little planes, you know, flipping upside down,

doing twist and turns, diving, all that. Apparently, one of the pilots dove right at the audience in a red plane, and it scared the bejesus out of everyone in the crowd. But Amelia, she was like, this is everything, this is like, she was into it. After that, she became obsessed. She would later say, quote, I did not understand it at the time,

but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by, end quote. end quote. Oh. I wonder what the plane said to her. Run away. Run away. Run away. Put stock in a house.

The plane comes by, You look like shit. You look like shit. Did anyone else hear that? From that moment on, Amelia swore to herself that she would one day fly a plane, but she had no idea that this newfound passion would cost her, her life.

At the age of 20, Amelia goes to a plane show. and gets hooked on watching these stunts. She started going to a bunch of these air shows. In 1920, when she was 23 years old, her dad took her to a show out in California. He bought her a $10 ticket for a ride in one of those planes, which today it would be like $160. So it was pricey to get on this plane.

She said, quote, By the time I had got two or 300 feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly. Oh, I love that. And she was like very serious about it. Just a month after that show, she started taking flying lessons at Kinner Field in California. At just six months after that, she bought her first plane. I know.

Wow, what'd she do for a living? I don't know. Oh, well, the plane was secondhand. It was a secondhand Kenner brand Airster, which was a two-seater plane painted bright yellow. She named it the Canary. Ah, that's very special. And to Amelia, it was like the perfect starter plane. I guess the canary was pretty rickety and old-fashioned at that point, so many of her pilot friends actually told her,

do not buy this. Amelia's flying instructor even told her, like, look, I'm not flying in this, okay? Nope. Eventually, Amelia sold her starter plane and upgraded to a larger plane that she could take on longer flights. In 1922, with a shaky old canary, she even set a woman's altitude record by flying all the way up to 14,000. You go, girl. In 1928, she set another record when she became the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic in a plane. Breaking news. It made headlines everywhere. But Amelia honestly had some mixed feelings about it. Obviously, she was like, this is exciting. She was in the paper.

She was a pioneer of aviation. She was really making a name for herself. But she had only been a passenger on that flight across the Atlantic. You know, it was still flown and operated by a man and he was getting all the credit. She was just the passenger. She called herself, quote, just baggage, like a sack of potatoes.

I do feel like that. That add times too, girl. I do feel like that. Amelia wanted to start setting her own records as a pilot, not just as a passenger potato sack. So she started entering competitive races. This got the attention of a publicist named George Putnam.

Now, I guess George had already, like, knew about Amelia because he was the publicist for the famous 1928 Atlantic flight. He liked Amelia and he saw her potential. He allegedly told her he believed that one day Amelia Earhart could be a household name. As George and Amelia worked together, the relationship got sexual. Good for her and him, I guess. I don't know. But George actually proposed to her six times. Amelia always saying no.

Not because he was like a bad guy or anything, but because Amelia didn't love the idea of becoming like a traditional life. And that's what it was at the time, you know? She didn't want to put her career on hold when she had so much going for her. One thing I did not know was that Amelia, she was a pilot, yes, but she also worked as a social worker. Apparently she was even planning on writing a book about social work, before leaving for her infamous flight around the world.

She was a lecturer and counselor of aviation at Purdue University. She was the first celebrity clothing designer. She had a luggage line and was truly a household name. So then in 1931, George proposed again. And Amelia finally said, Okay, fine, I'll do it. When they did eventually get married, Amelia wrote her own vows, and I just want to read them to you because they really capture who she was as a person.

Quote, you must know, my reluctance to marry. In our life together, I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you. I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all the confinements of even, an attractive cage. So romantic. Yeah.

That's so special. Feel free to use for your wedding bows. So yeah, Amelia's wedding bows, you know, she's literally saying like, I'm not sure about this. We're going to sleep in separate rooms. Is that cool? As it turned out, Amelia wasn't wrong

about what marriage would do to her career. Newsreels at the time started calling her Miss George Putnam, even though she hadn't taken his last name. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about her marriage, but just know that her relationship with George was just as much professional as it was romantic. It turns out being married to your publicist had some major perks. So by now, not only does Amelia have a really good publicist as a husband, but she's breaking records left and right.

In 1932, she became the first woman to make a non-sumption. stop solo transatlantic flight. What does that even mean? Transatlantic. She did that. She said another altitude record, became the first person to fly from Hawaii to California, the first person to fly from Hawaii to California,

and became the first person to fly solo from Mexico to New Jersey. That's very impressive. She was fearless. The president at the time, President Hoover, even awarded her a gold medal from the National Geographic Society. She was the first woman to earn the Distinguished Flying Cross, which was a big deal because this was a military medal only given to men who had done, quote, acts of heroism, end quote. Amelia would often return from flights to giant parades in her honor.

And by 1935, Amelia Earhart was one of the most well-known names in the United States. the entire world. Not only was she known for like flying, right, but she was kind of an it girl in pop culture. She was a great speaker and she told really interesting and fun stories about her flights. After she was forced into an emergency landing on another voyage, she said, quote, after scaring most of the cows in the neighborhood, I pulled up in a farmer's backyard, end quote. Emergency landings and crashes, very common at this time. Apparently, Amelia survived tons of minor crashes throughout her career. But even after all her achievements, there were still doubts about her ability to fly planes.

I mean, she is a woman. You know, what if she has her period in the air? What will happen? I mean, couldn't be trusted. What if she got, like, cramps or something in the air? What if she had, like, a mood swing in the air? I don't know, you know? People wondered if she was actually skilled or just, like,

having a moment in the spotlight. Which is so dumb, it's like she flew an airplane in Hawaii and back and stuff. Like, what do you mean if she's skilled? You do it then. You know? But Amelia was determined to prove herself. So in 1937, just three weeks away from her 40th birthday, she decided to go for a big record.

One that would make everyone really appreciate her. Amelia wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. the world. So Amelia is determined to prove, you know, the haters wrong. She wanted to prove once and for all that she was worth the name that she had built for herself. But she knew it was not going to be easy. I mean, flying around the world is a wild idea. For this flight, it would just be Amelia, the plane,

and one other person on the journey with her, a navigator. Amelia was working with a navigator named Fred Noonan. They ran in the same service. circles in Los Angeles, and Fred had a lot of experience working at Pan Am, and he was considered the best of the best. Fred was what's called a celestial navigator. I didn't know this was a thing. That's why I love learning here on Dark History. So a celestial navigator is someone who, like, relies heavily on the stars to tell them like where they're going. Pretty cool. On June 29th, 1937, Amelia and Fred began their journey from a place called Lay in New Guinea. The plane Fred and

Amelia were taking was a Lockheed Model 10E Electra. Maybe you know what that looks like. Apparently Purdue University sponsored the purchase of this plane. The idea was that Amelia would come home and continue in her position as an aviation lecturer there, which would motivate more girls to come to Purdue and study STEM. Now, this plane, the Electra was 38 feet long, about 10 feet high, and had a 55 foot wingspan. Even though that may sound big to us, it wasn't even big enough for Amelia or Fred to stand up in. Doesn't matter, though, they just need to fly. During flight, Amelia was the only one in the cockpit. Fred would sit near the back and they communicated with what was basically cups on a string. Now, one major

question many of us had was how did they go to the bathroom? Because there was no toilet on the plane and there was no autopilot. So I'm thinking a good old Gatorade jar situation. It's probably diapers maybe. On top of that, what about staying awake, you know? They're going around the world. Well, apparently Amelia didn't like tea or coffee, so she would use the next best thing. Smelling salts. Does smelling salt really wake you up? I'm going to go home and sniff some salt. I'll let you know. I'll report back.

They did bring canned food to eat, so at least they had that. And yeah, so go team. So a month in, the trip is going pretty well. The most challenging part of the journey is the fact that Amelia and Fred have to stop and refuel the plane every 24 hours. That was to be expected. Plus, I bet it was nice to, like, get out, stretch. move the body, maybe take a don't if you've been holding it for a while, you know. Amelia and Fred were bracing themselves for the most challenging part of the journey,

landing on Howland Island. Now, this was a teeny tiny chunk of land in the Pacific Ocean, and they needed to land on it in order to get more fuel. Now, when I say teeny tiny, I mean this island was about half a mile wide and less than a mile and a half long. So if you need a better visual, it's a little bit bigger than three football fields. Now, if you look at a map of the area,

you might actually notice that there are a lot of other islands in the same vicinity, and a lot of them were bigger and probably easier to land on, so why didn't they choose a different island? Well, at this time, in the late 1930s, tensions were really high between the U.S. and Japan. And those islands surrounding Howland, called the mandates, were owned by the Japanese government.

So the islands themselves were a big part of why tensions were so high in the freaking first place. I guess the Imperial Japanese Navy had banned Americans from visiting the mandates way back in 1920. So Amelia knew that they weren't welcome, which made Howland pretty much their only option. It was their only option. But that wasn't the only challenge. Maps at the time weren't totally accurate, which made navigating to Howland even harder. Basically, Amelia and Fred would need to fly more than 2,500 miles from lay to the island and then land a whole freaking airplane on what was basically a few football fields.

And then hope it was the right island. Okay? So they removed everything they possibly could from the plane. Only the absolute essentials were going to fly. They were trying to get the weight down as much as possible. which would give Amelia about 274 extra miles and those extra miles could be the difference between life and death. They had a boat from the US Coast Guard called Itasca which was waiting for them on the island. Plus they had two other US ships along the route turned on every light they had so that the team could see them from the air.

Now communications between Amelia's plane and the Itasca weren't great from the start. start. It seemed like the staff on the Itasca could hear her fine, but they slowly realized that Amelia couldn't hear them. Not ideal because this was a very dangerous situation. You know, communication is key. So on July 2nd at 10 a.m. local time, Amelia and Fred take off from Lay. Weather reports told them that they were in for like an easy ride. But early on in the flight, there were cloudy skies and some rain showers. Now, this made it even harder for Fred to navigate. As they're flying along, Amelia calls the Itasca to report, quote, cloudy weather.

Cloudy. That's what she said. She asked them to take bearings on her or calculate her location. So they did. The Itasca sent her a bunch of transmissions, but she still could not hear them. But Amelia is telling herself, Everything's going to be okay, you know? She's in control.

She's Amelia Earhart. Everything is going to be fine. She's like, er, like I'm fucking Amelia Earhart, okay? Nothing's going to stop me. All she has to do is find the island. After 20 hours in the air, Amelia and Fred reached the location where they expected to see Howland Island. So they're looking and looking, but it wasn't there.

And neither was the Itasic. At 6.14 a.m., the Itasca gets a message from Amelia that they're within 200 miles. Now, I imagine everyone is like sighing with relief. Amelia is okay and communications seem to be working again. Great. Then at 7.10 a.m., things start to go. Not great. Okay.

The Itasca record states, quote, Earhart now says she is running out of gas. Only a half hour left cannot hear us at all. At 7.28 a.m. 18 minutes later, the signal strength is good and Amelia is close to the island. This was around the time Itasca had expected the plane to arrive. So they're looking, they're looking, they're looking, they're looking. But it hasn't landed. So Amelia tells Itasca, quote, we are circling but cannot hear you.

Now, original radio transcripts from this exchange have the word circling typed over a different word, drifting. So some people think the radio operators misheard Amelia and corrected drifting to circling. They think she might have actually said, we're listening, but cannot hear you. They can't really make out what anyone's saying, okay. But that last part makes sense because it seemed that Itasca was receiving Amelia's messages, but she like wasn't getting theirs. At 7.42 a.m., the Itasca gets the message, quote, we must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low, been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying out 1,000 feet.

At 7.58 AM, Amelia still can't hear Itasca. She asked them to send the loudest signals they can so she could get an accurate location. And according to the Itasca reports, they did. They sent out their loudest signal even using Morse code. Now Amelia acknowledged that she got the signals, but couldn't tell where they were coming from. oh, nightmare, right?

So defeating the whole purpose. She's like, I hear it, but I don't see it. Where am I? Like, ugh, the stress. At 8.45 a.m., Amelia says, we are running north and south. And baby girl, that was the last transmission from the Electra. And then it disappeared without a trace.

Rescue efforts started pretty much as soon as the Electra went missing. In fact, the search that followed. Amelia and Fred's disappearance was the most extensive air and sea search in history. The U.S. government spent $4 million on this search and covered 250,000 square miles of ocean searching for literally any sign of Amelia, Fred, or the plane. Now it's said over and over and again that they tried, they tried really hard, but after just two weeks, they pretty much run through all possibilities. But the Navy didn't search the mandates.

Those Japanese islands that Amelia would not be allowed to land on. Amelia's husband slash publicist George Putnam did his own digging too. George hired local authorities on nearby islands to do like some private investigations. He even hired his own private boats to search the area. His search actually brought up some new information. He discovered that on July 5th, 1937 at 5 a.m. Three long dashes had been received on a radio transmission on Amelia's wavelength. Apparently, the Pan Am station in Hawaii had previously sent Amelia instructions to, quote,

send three long dashes if on land. So the thinking was, Amelia and Fred were alive somewhere, and they were trying to communicate. But if she landed, where was she? So Amelia and Fred's plane seemed to have vanished. Fred was declared officially dead on June 20th, 1938, and Amelia was declared officially dead on January 5th, 1939. Most people believe that they ran out of fuel, crash landed into the ocean, and died.

This is the theory supported by the U.S. government, as well as the Smithsonian Museum and most people, honestly. But there are some interesting evidence that something else may have happened. There are a few people and organizations who have basically dedicated their lives and careers to figuring out what happened to Amelia. And honestly, they put in the work. There's an insane amount of research out there to support a lot of, like, theories, okay? Even though they are unofficial and most experts have their doubts, we've heard we've heard crazier things on this show.

Okay, let people like try and figure it out. Okay. But the two biggest theories are one, Amelia and Fred were captured by the Japanese. Or two, Amelia and Fred landed on a nearby island and survived for a little while before dying there. Let's start with the Japanese capture story. At the time Amelia went missing, World War II was about to start. Japan and America were beefing over military expansion. Japan was invading China, which had a direct effect on America's economy.

It's really complicated, okay, but essentially World War II was ruin. The theory goes that the Japanese captured Amelia and Fred and kept them in captivity until they died. Which, sure, that might have happened, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense to kidnap America's sweetheart and, like, not brag about it or, like, use it as a bargaining chip. Or maybe they did and it backfired. I mean, I don't know. You just think that they would use them as a pawn. You would think, I don't know. I'm just a girl on the internet. I don't know. For a long time, this was the, like, the big conspiracy theory. I mean, authorities hadn't been able to search those Japanese islands because Americans were banned. And again, tensions were very high. A year before Amelia and her plane disappeared, the U.S. Navy had proposed to Japan that we should be allowed to visit the islands if, in exchange, Japan would be allowed to inspect U.S. islands off the Alaskan coast.

So Japan thinks about it, and they're like, No. No offense. Like, but like Alaska? That's what you're going to give us? Alaska? No, it's okay. We're good. Thank you. Here's the other side of it. Take Amelia and Fred out of the equation. The truth is the Japanese Navy could totally have benefited from getting their hands on the Electra. The airplane? Maybe that's what they wanted. That plane had a whole bunch of bells and whistles on board, including some new. inventions that were being tested for U.S. war planes, which means Japan would get their hands on like insight knowledge on American military technology and like who wouldn't want that at this time. Around this time the FBI and the U.S. Navy knew that the Japanese spies were trying to get information from the Lockheed plant. In other words, the manufacturer of the Electra plane.

some people in the Earhart family believe this theory. Amelia's cousin, Wally Earhart, is convinced that she and her plane were captured by the Japanese. Wally believes that the U.S. government is part of what he calls a massive cover-up. He thinks it's pretty simple. Amelia and Fred died in Japanese captivity on an island called Saipan, located in the northern Marianas. Another version of the Japanese theory is that the Electra did crash in the Pacific, but that Amelia and Fred survived the crash. Then the pair were rescued by a Japanese fishing boat, which hauled in the wreckage of the plane with a big net. Either way, both versions of the Japanese theory agree that Amelia and Fred ended up on Saipan, where the rest of the plane was cut up for scrap.

Amelia eventually died of dysentery, aka a. parasite. Some even say that Fred was beheaded. And again, this is all just a theory. We don't know. According to Wally, there are two reasons that the government has covered this up. First, they're embarrassed. Okay, they were just embarrassed. They were bad at their job and despite spending so much money and time and resources on the search, they never found anything. And that must be embarrassing. So to him, it's possible that they're covering it up so they don't looks stupid. The second reason, according to Wally, is that Amelia's flying around the world story was just a cover-up. According to Wally, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had specifically asked

Amelia to scout out, quote, Japanese military installations in the Pacific during her journey. What? Now, to be fair, Amelia and the Roosevelt's, I guess, they were very close, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence for this statement. It's really just hearsay. Yeah. Many experts disregard the Japan theory. They say it's unlikely that Amelia had enough fuel to make it to those islands in the first place. But then there's another theory with even more research to back it up. So for our next theory about where the hell Amelia is, Earhart and her plane actually went, we have Gardiner Island.

Nowadays, this island, it is called Nicomororo Island. I'm sorry, I'm really struggling with Nicomororo Island. But at the time of the story, it was called Gardner Island, and I'm going to say that. I'm sorry. Now, this is the theory that has the most research behind it. In fact, there's an entire nonprofit foundation with an initiative called the Earhart project, which is dedicated to researching this theory. And eventually, they hope, finding out what actually happened. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has been studying the Earhart

disappearance for decades and has conducted or sourced a lot of the research that people used to support the Gardiner Island theory. Their story is that Amelia and Fred landed successfully on Gardner Island. High tide swept the Electra into the ocean, and Amelia and Fred lived as castaways there until they eventually died from the elements. Now according to this theory, the wreckage of the Electra is in the deep water off the west end of Gardner Island. Now this organization says that after failing to reach Howland, Amelia and Fred continued along their original route until they reached Gardner, where they landed. Now, they're going off of Amelia's last transmission where she said we're running north and south, which would work with their theory. Amelia had said that they were, quote, on the line 157-337, which in airplane speak, describes a geographic position that passes over Howland Island. Flying along this line to try and find the island makes sense.

And Gardner Island also happens to be at the 157-337 line. So this organization believes that it's totally possible Amelia could have made it there. Plus, Gardner has a couple flat, smooth areas that would be easy to land on. So they believe that they had made a water landing on the reef near the island, and the radio could only work and send distress calls during low tide when it was not waterlogged. During and after the first search, radio operators around the Pacific and in the United States had reported hearing distress calls. Some of these turned out to be hoaxes, which sucks because it, you know, but the organization believes that some were real. Plus, one of those verified distress calls had apparently mentioned rising water, which fits with the theory that they were on Gardner Island and that the plane was eventually strong.

swallowed up by the tide. In fact, photos of the area from a British expedition three months after Amelia's disappearance shows an unidentified object on the reef edge. Gasparella! Organization researchers say that ships in the area were also picking up new signals on Amelia's frequency. So could it be that the plane, had actually landed safely and that Amelia and Fred were alive trying to get help.

But it gets crazier. Apparently, the U.S. Navy saw signs of people living on Gardner Island, which they wrote off as island locals. Now, the organization reports that archaeology done on the island showed that anyone who may have been living there had access to airplane wreckage, which they used for, quote, local purposes, which I can assume here. I'm assuming, here I go. Maybe it's to make tools, shelter, I don't know. You know, they had to get crafty. This is real life castaway. I guess some of the aluminum and plexiglass that they got off of the island is consistent with the materials that were on Amelia's plane. Hmm, that's very interesting. Now personally, I think the most interesting

evidence for this theory is what was discovered on the island three years after Amelia disappeared. So when the British were colonizing Gardner Island, they noticed some pretty intriguing stuff. They found the bones of a castaway, along with a campsite, parts of a woman's shoe, a man's shoe, and a box for a sextant, which is a flight navigation tool. There you go. Case closed. What do you guys think? I know. That's gotta be it.

Listen, these shoes were similar to the shoes Amelia had worn. The sextant thing was the same kind that Fred used for backup. And according to the International Group of Historic Aircraft Recovery, their analysis, the bones belonged to a white woman about the same height as Amelia. So, Tighar, the International Group of Aircraft Recovery, investigated Gardiner Island, and they say that they found a spot that matched the description of where the skeleton was found in 1940. They say that excavations in 2001, 2007, and 2010 found evidence of a woman living there in the 30s,

including, quote, several artifacts of the same type as items known to have been carried by Earhart, end quote. Did we just solve the mystery? And their research shows that the serial number reported to have been on the, sextant box matched the one that would have been on Fred's sextant. And honestly, that's the smoking gun, right? Doesn't that feel like that's it? We saw the mystery? It's closed. They were on an island. When does the movie come out? That all seems pretty convincing. I am convinced. At least, I was pretty convinced after reading all this research. I mean, we've got bones, shoes, artifacts, serial numbers. I mean, people seem to be building something out of like an aircraft. I don't know. It has to be them, right? So why has the Gardiner Island

theory not been accepted as the official conclusion? Well, Bailey, listen, I hate to be a buzzkill, but experts say the theory is impossible. All those experts say that Amelia wouldn't have even had enough fuel to get to Gardner Island in the first place. But we don't know that. Shut up. Official analysis of the measurements of the bones found on Gardiner also showed that they belong to a short, stocky guy. So, not Amelia. And Fred, her navigator, was said to be tall and skinny, so it couldn't have been him either. Maybe there was another guy.

I don't know. It seems like a pretty solid theory. But here's where I put my tinfoil hat on. Because the official explanation says that the bones belong to a short, stocky man, not Amelia. But the investigations never. examined the bones themselves. They were going off like old, old recorded measurements. So there's a chance as time and science and doctors and people and everything has gotten a little bit better and smarter. There's a chance like maybe it wasn't accurate. Maybe we should circle back.

Maybe we shouldn't. I don't know. Maybe we don't want to know the answer. Well, I think the worst part is that the evidence of the bones no longer exist. They got rid of it. So great. Cool, awesome. But, you know, the shoes that they found? They were the right size for Amelia. Our expert for this episode actually said that the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum has a pair of Amelia's shoes in their collection. And they are a size nine, same as the ones that were found. But maybe a lot of people wearing those shoes.

But like, who's wearing those shoes out there on that island? Who else is wearing those shoes on that island? Maybe it washed up. There's just so many things, you know? And listen, just because this happened decades ago, doesn't mean people have stopped looking. Oh, people are passionate about solving this. In 1999, Dana Timmer, a sailor and pilot,

led a million-dollar search for the Elektra after he thought he had seen the plane in like some sonar images, which are essentially x-ray images under the sea. So he had some money to spend. He's like, sure, fuck it. And after sinking a million bucks into the search, he could not find Amelia's plane. In 2002, 2005, in 2017,

an ocean exploration firm called Noticos did a bunch of their own searches, but all they found was shipping trash after millions of dollars, searching hundreds of thousands of square miles, many, many decades, many theories, Many, many thoughts. Okay, nobody knows for sure what happened to Amelia and Fred. For years after she disappeared, people still accused Amelia of doing this whole flight thing just for fame.

Oh, God. So what? Even if she did want it just for fame, so what? She was doing more than you Lamos back then. You know, shoot. And look, she did it. She's famous forever. Everyone knows her name now, huh?

So, poo poo on you, okay? Some people thought she was just trying to prove something to herself, that this whole thing was just a vanity project. Again, who cares? She's breaking world records. People hate seeing women do shit and be good at it. But plenty of people see it as a huge step forward for women and aviation in general.

Honestly, it was kind of bad PR. They're like, see what happens when a woman flies? She guys missing. Never see? It's like, damn, Amelia, he just look bad. Since that tragic final flight, Amelia's husband George and her sister have collaborated on some biographies

to keep Amelia's memory alive. But Amelia's family has publicly said that they wish that people would stop spending money, time, and resources on trying to find her. Amelia's niece said in a recent documentary saying, quote, it's money that could be much better spent. Nothing is being gained by this, end quote.

I get what she's saying, yeah, for sure. Like spend your millions on something that will actually like change the world or whatever. But people have hobbies and fascinations and you can't stop them, you know. I'm sorry. I think people are fascinated by the story of Amelia because not only was she amazing, but her disappearance has left us with so many questions. I mean, listen, I don't know about you. I don't know about you, but I can speak for me here.

Anytime there's a disappearance, I'm involved, always. A weird, odd disappear, strange disappearance. If that's a YouTube video, I'm like, yep, what happened? Like, I wanted, like, disappearance. I don't know what it is, but it gets me. You just vanish one day you're gone. It's weird. Let me know what you guys think in the comment section down below.

I know you have some good conspiracy theories. I'm always seeing someone. There's always someone in the comment section who was like, my uncle's uncle's best friend was best friends with Amelia Earhart, and they hung out, and she's living in Cabo right now. And I'm like, what? Like, so let me know. I read them.

I read your comments. I do. Well, thank you for hanging out with me today. Did you know you actually can watch these episodes on my YouTube? Oh yeah, the podcast goes up Wednesday, and then you can watch on Thursday on YouTube. And then while you're there, you can also watch my murder mystery and makeup. That's on Mondays, though. And then also subscribe, okay?

Listen, I'm fun. I'd love to hear you guys' reactions to today's story, so make sure to leave a comment down below, and maybe I'll read a comment in a future episode. But now let's read some comments you guys left me. I love it. G-B-B-E-Z. Left a comment on our ancient torture part two episode,

saying, The Torture Museum in Amsterdam is wild. Do a segment on the mouth pair. G-B-B-E-Z. Sorry, I don't know how to say your name. In our medieval torture techniques part one, we did do a little drive-by of the mouth pair situation and let me tell you, look, drop everything. Okay, this whole show could just be about medieval torture techniques and I would be here for it all day because they were crafty, they were weird, and they were wild. And when you look up the mouth pair, it looks like a cooking tool, like something you would whisk with or something, right?

It's awful. We need ancient torture part three. Okay, let me know. Actually, a passion project. Just let me do it. More. But thank you for the recommendation. If you're at home, Google mouth pair.

And you'll be like, what? Yeah. DZ236 said, I like listening to your podcast while drinking coffee and sit cozily on my couch. Aw, DZ, thank you so much. Thank you for listening. It really means a lot. That's nice.

I hope you learn something new every day. Do you use a lot of creamer? How much creamer? Are you a creamer person? What's your creamer ratio? Let me know. What's your favorite creamer? Right now I'm into pumpkin spice,

even though it's spring now. I'm still in pumpkin spice season. Let me live. Camille Fockner, 3267, had an episode request in all caps too, so you know it's serious. Do a Bailey history, please? Oh.

You mentioned your strict upbringing, but who is Bailey and how did she get here? Camille, I don't think you want to go there, do you? I don't think you're ready for the trip. No, I love that idea. I think that's so funny. Ha, ha, ha, I'm dying. L.O.L.

Look, I was thinking about this the other day because I was like, do I want to write a book? But if I write a book, I have to wait until, like, everyone dies. And, like, I can't write a memoir right now because it's like I'm not even, I'm not dead. I haven't even done that much. But I have so much to say. Let me tell you, I have so much to say.

Yeah, so if we did the Dark History of Bailey Sarian, it would just be more sad. Camille, I'm going to write a book one day and I'll send it to you, okay? Thank you for recommending something. I hope we have a good day. Thank you guys for commenting. I appreciate you. I hope you have a good rest of your day. I've said it a million times, but you make good choices.

And, hey, if you don't know, Dark History is an audio boom original. I want to give a big special thank you to our. expert, the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum. Do I get free tickets? Can I come? And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. Hope we have a good day. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you later. Goodbye. Oh Amelia, a pioneer, a mystery. It made me the most famous missing person in history. Yeah, maybe. I'm kind of going through my role decks right now. Yeah, I think so. Anyways, after all these I mean, we are still asking, like, what the heck really happened to her? Listen, what if I told you Amelia's disappearance wasn't like a one-time fluke, but part of a pattern?

Huh? Yeah. Because, listen, something funky's going on in Alaska. There's a stretch of land where people disappear constantly. Not like one, two, three people, cute, whatever. Thousands of people go missing in this area. Every year, thousands. Planes vanish.

hikers go missing. Entire search crews come up empty-handed, nothing, no answers. It's like, where these people go? What happened? Some people believe, like, it's the weather. Go with me on this. Some people say there's an underground pyramid in the area that is affecting everything. And then others believe there is a man out there hunting people down.

The man? Otter man. Hear me out. It's an otter. It's a man. But he's stalking people. It's weird. This is what we're working with right now.

Weather, pyramid, or otterman. Buckle in, okay? Grab your mittens. Okay, because we're going to head north to the extremely mysterious and very cold. Alaska Triangle. There's a lot going on. We got aliens. We got, okay.

So maybe, yes, we've all heard about the Bermuda Triangle, right? Listen, we actually did a dark history episode about it. I'll link in down below if you, you know, want to listen. But today we're talking about a different triangle. Oh, yes, there's more than one. And this one is much further north, much colder, and much more suspicious. Now, to compare the two triangles, about 900 people have gone missing in the Bermuda triangle in over like a 200-year period. But in the Alaska triangle, that many people go missing not every 200 years, but every 2,000.

years. What? Yeah, I don't even know why we've been talking about the Bermuda Triangle, the Alaska Triangle, something's going on. I'm talking about an area of land that covers 300,000 to 400,000 square miles from Barrow, also known as Utkiovic, to Juno, down near the coast. It's a big area. This specific area is bigger than California and almost the size of Texas. And, you know, this area itself is like one big obstacle course in the triangle area is the Alaska range of mountains, which is home to the tallest mountain in North America, Mount McKinley. Then there's glaciers, which I always thought a glacier was an iceberg, you know, something that like lives in water, but no, no, I was so wrong. A glacier is like a slow-moving river of ice that moves on land.

I know. I was like, what? These things can creep downhill under their own weight and pull rocks and like anything else into it, like cold quicksand. It's crazy. And then like on top of like the moving ice and the mountains and all that, there's avalanches, the snow. And then you can also like run into swamps and bogs. And in all of those areas, of course, there are wild animals just waiting to eat. you, you know? Now because of all this, I mean, it makes sense that the disappearance rate in this Alaska triangle is more than double the national

average. It's not somewhere you really want to go missing because you're gonna be hard to find, okay? But that's exactly what happened to the Douglas. So it's January 20, it's January 26, 1950. Everyone in the United States, States was living in a state of constant paranoia because of something called the Cold War. Bur. I'm not going to get into the weeds of the Cold War in this episode, but basically this is when the Soviet Union and the U.S. were in a standoff because they both knew that they had nuclear weapons and everyone was freaked out that at any second like someone was going to drop a nuke.

There you go. There's the quick little TLDR. Now, Alaska was the only thing between the U.S. and Russia, which back then was called the Soviet Union. Okay? So at one time, Alaska belonged to Russia. Okay? And then in 1867, America, USA, they bought Alaska for $7.2 million from Russia. And this was called the Alaska Purchase in 1867, which to me was like, well, why'd they want Alaska?

bad. There must be something going on there. But whatever, we bought it. So it was ours. Since there was just like a tiny sliver of oceans separating Alaska from the Soviet Union, Alaska basically became like a watchtower. So the military started building air bases, radar stations, and early warning systems in Alaska that would warn us in case there was a Soviet attack coming over the Arctic. So there were a lot of like U.S. military planes flying like all over Alaska in the 1950s. And one of them was a C-54 skymaster called the Douglas. Now this was a big military war course plane. It had four engines and it was just a big old flying tank. Now I'm talking big. It was 117 feet across and 94 feet long. On January 26th, the Douglas was scheduled to fly from an Air Force base in Anchorage, Alaska, all the way down to Great Falls, Montana. So, holy shit. On this plane, there were eight crew members, 34 military servicemen, and two civilians, a woman named Joyce, Espy, and her baby Victor.

So in total, there were 44 people on this plane. Now, going from Anchorage to Montana was not like a quick and easy flight. The flight path was known to be long and pretty dangerous. So, you know, good look. The Douglas was supposed to take off in the morning, but one of its engines needed repairs, so they had to delay it a bit. And then finally at 1 p.m., the plane takes off. Now, it was said to be a beautiful day in Alaska.

It was minus 25 degrees, so perfect. and for the first two hours, everything's, everything's gone good. At 3.09 p.m. local time, around two hours after takeoff, the Douglas made a routine report. On the radio, they're like, they're flying up. They said they were flying at 10,000 feet over the small town of Snag and Yukon. Snag. Anyways, and they expected to reach the next radio station at Ishukik in Yukon. in about like 30 minutes, and then they would check in again.

We're in, I Shuckick. So everyone's kind of waiting around, and that next check-in never came in. And no one heard from the Douglas again. But still, it was an industrial military plane, so people like still expected them to land. You know, it was like, okay, maybe they're still gonna land. But when the Douglas doesn't show up in Montana, people start to panic. The military launched Operation Mike, which was named after the pilot, Lieutenant Mike Tissick. Now, this was like a serious manhunt.

They had 85 aircrafts and 7,000 troops in the area looking night and day for the plane, the crew, any sign of the Douglas. But, you know, they're searching and searching, and they find nothing. No debris, no signal, no smoke, nothing. Just dead silence. By February 20th, just 25 days after the Douglas vanished, they shut the search down. Now, the families were told that their loved ones were presumed dead, and yeah, I mean, they had no answers. All 44 people on board, a mother, her baby, 34 servicemen, and eight crew members were never seen or heard from again. And like their poor families were left with zero closure.

The only explanation was that the plane vanished, you know? But how does like a big plane like that just vanish into thin air? Well, in 2012, relatives of the people lost on the Douglas came together and petitioned the U.S. government to reopen the search using modern technology. But they wouldn't unless, quote, significant new evidence is discovered. These fluffies, man, they are getting me. They are getting me good. So the organizer set up a Facebook page called Operation Mike, where to this day, they still fight to get the case reopened and answers for the families. Now, the craziest thing to me is that at this point, it's been over 70 years, and no wreckage has ever turned up from the Douglas.

And again, we are talking about like some huge plane, okay? So a big plane. Not like a little helicopter. Was it David Copperfield, the magician, who, like, made one of, like, the pyramids disappear or something? Maybe he was involved. Because it's, like, giving that. Like, how did you do that? Was it a pyramid?

I swear it's a pyramid. Whatever. It's giving David Copperfield, right? Like, where did it go? I don't know. Look, of course, everyone has their theories. Some say the Douglas Christ. into like a frozen lake and then sink,

which is possible, except that none of the lakes in question are, they're not very deep, okay? And most likely something would have, like, flowed up by now. Now another theory is that it went off course and it crashed into the ocean. But, you know, many say, like, the weather was clear that day, so why would they fly off course? And if they did, how come there was no, like, distress call?

Sure, the plane had a repair done before flying, but even if one of the engines started acting up mid-flight, there were three other engines to take over. And again, there was like no distress call. But then, not even two weeks after the Douglas disappeared, another plane went down in the triangle. So it's February 13, 1950, and a huge U.S. military bomber plane called the Convair B-306. was scheduled to fly from Fairbanks, Alaska, down to Texas. Now, this plane was one of the biggest bombers ever built. There were 17 military crew members on board, but the plane was also carrying something else. A huge nuclear bomb.

Yes. But somewhere off the coasts of British Columbia, three of the plane's engines catch on fire, which not ideal if you have a bomb. on board. So the crew was told to drop the bomb, okay? Release the bomb right into the ocean. And then moments later, the plane crashed into a mountain. Now luckily, before the plane crashed, the 17 crew members were able to like, you know, jump out and use the whole parachute situation, like seconds before the whole thing went down and they like landed somewhere in Canada. 12 of the military crew who were on the B-36 bomber were rescued. One body was

covered later, but there were four people who were never found. A couple years later in 1953, remains from the B-36 bomber plane were discovered. But the nuclear bomb that was dropped, you know, was never found, which is, um, kind of troubling. Now again, this was during the Cold War, so some experts say it's likely both planes had something on board that made them a target. A bomb maybe, huh? And maybe the Soviet Union took the plane out before a distress call could be made. But it wasn't until 1972 that the Alaska Triangle officially got its name when the FBI tries to cover up an assassination. I know what the fuck is going on. So now we're in October.

Yes, we are. October 16th, 1972. We're back in Anchorage, Alaska. and a Pan-Alaska Airways plane is leaving for Juno with some kind of like important people on board. First, we have Congressman Nick Begich from Alaska. Two, we have House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, a very important politician from Louisiana. Three, the assistant to both of these guys, whose name was Russell Brown, and for their experienced pilot Don Johns.

That's a great name. Don Johns. Don Johns. I like that. Don Johns. It's like a tequila. I don't know. Okay.

So, listen. So they were en route to a political rally in Juneau. But they never made it. Now, normally when a plane disappears, you know, there's a search, of course, yes. But this was next level. Now, when their plane disappeared, it triggered the largest search and rescue operation in U.S. history at that time. It lasted 39 days, utilized 40 military aircrafts, 50 civilian planes, and they covered over 325,000 square miles of glaciers, mountains, coastline, and ocean. It took a total of 3,600 hours of flight time, and some places even got double-checked on foot.

And it left everyone completely puzzled because nothing was found. Not even a bolt. Not even an airline peanut. Not even a shoe. Not even a to pay. Nothing. Nothing was found. Okay?

Nothing. So the government was like, okay, we're calling it. And the search was canceled on November 24th, 1972. Everyone on board was officially declared dead on December 29th. Now, this was the event that made people realize, like, they had no idea what they were dealing with, okay? Like, nobody knows what the hell is going on over there. And it's when the Alaska Triangle, like, officially gets its name.

Some people think, like, there was foul play involved in this specific crash, because it turns out that Hale Boggs, one of the four guys on the plane, now he wasn't just like any congressman. He was on a special commission that was dedicated to investigate JFK's assassination. And Boggs knew something was fishy with the whole situation. So publicly, Congressman Boggs, he supported the conclusion that, like, Lee Harvey Oswald, had acted alone, you know? He was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But behind closed doors, it was said he actually, like, didn't buy it. And he was really trying to, like, reopen the case. Now, this was going against the FBI's wishes. Congressman Boggs told people that the FBI, they were tapping his phone and other members of Congress, and he said that he had proof they were doing it. And Mr. Boggs, he was not holding back. He was calling out Jay Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI at the time, demanding for him to resign,

believing that he had too much unchecked power. And that guy just needed to go, okay? So, you know, Mr. Boggs was vocal. And, yeah, I mean, he made some enemies, some big ones. And there was evidence that someone wanted him dead, and that someone was the FBI. Hail Boggs. like those really healthy, Hale bog sounds like those healthy ice creams that have like 10 calories in them. Do you know what I'm saying?

I don't know. I just think Hale bog sounds like a healthy ice cream alternative, but it tastes like crap. Or it's just giving me ice. Maybe because we're in Alaska right now, like shaved ice. I want to hail bogs. I got to get rid of these things. If you're watching over on YouTube, I have to let them in. They are releasing fluff in every direction.

It's up my nose. It's in my mouth. It's in my eye. I'm so sorry. You know, I was committed to the idea, but I have to let it go. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, mittens. It's happened. It's a terrible idea. I'm giving those mittens one-star review. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. All right. All right. It's not coming off. Okay. Hold on. Free. Yay. So, listen. Okay. When the flight that Boggs was on pulled at Douglas and like poof disappeared, people were extremely suspicious. I mean, after all, Congressman Boggs was actively trying to get the FBI to reopen the JFK assassination case against the FBI's wishes.

And then he disappears. Very convenient, you know? Mm-hmm. You know, after searching and everything, nothing is ever found, and no one comes forward with, like, any information. That is, until 1994. Now, this is when a man named Jerry Max Paisley

decided to start talking. Jerry Max Paisley was a convicted mob hitman. He was a bomber. And then in 1994, he was sitting, in prison, yeah, in Arizona for murder. Yeah. Jerry Max Paisley sounds like a beautiful wallpaper that I would put in my Animal Crossing Home.

That would be like a cute little Paisley design, you know what I'm saying? But it definitely sounds like a cute like wallpaper, right? Or a pad. Get the Jerry Max Paisley. And since he's already in jail. he starts to talk, you know, in hopes to like get some kind of like plea bargain or something. So he tells a reporter that, quote, in 1972, I was given a locked briefcase by a member of the Bonanno crime family. I flew it to Anchorage and handed it off to two guys. They said something

big was about to happen, end quote. Now Jerry Max Paisley said he found out later that the briefcase he was paid to deliver, had a bomb in it, and that it ended up on the plane that vanished with Congressman Boggs. Mm-hmm. So, you know, did the plane blow up? Okay. And Jerry, you know, he had some credibility here because after the whole, like, bomb exchange, he ended up going into business with one of the men who, like, gave him the briefcase in the first place.

They ended up co-owning a bar and Anchorage. It was kind of weird. He ended up getting married to, like, one of the chicks whose husbands was on the plane that went missing. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of weird. Jerry said that there was like one day when the two of them were hanging out, him and like the business partner guy.

They were hanging out. They were drinking. They were fishing together. And the guy tells him, he's like, yeah, there was a bomb in that suitcase and it was planted. It was crazy, huh? And like to Jerry, this was new news to him. Maybe. Probably not, but like, he's like, what? It's crazy.

You know, the guy's like, hey, remember how we had you, like, bring us that suitcase? Well, guess what? It was a bomb. They didn't even see it coming. That's crazy. And then they just, like, keep fishing, you know? So, Jerry, you know, he goes on with his life and whatnot, and he confesses all this later on. And the journalist contacts the police in Anchorage, Alaska.

So by this point, it's 1995. And the Anchorage police are like, you know, what? Like, this is crazy. This could, like, solve everything. So the police sergeant in Anchorage, his name was Mike Grimes, he contacts the FBI, like, right away. He's like, oh, my God, he got to hear this. This is crazy. So the FBI, like, they immediately send agents to interview Jerry Max Paisley.

And the agent that Sergeant Grimes talked to agreed that, like, this was a huge turn of event. and that, you know, she was going to keep him posted as to like what was going on. So police sergeant Mike Grimes, you know, he is just reeling from this information. He is like dying for an update and weeks go by and he doesn't hear anything. So he's like, you know what, I'm just going to reach out to the FBI, you know, I'm going to talk to the agent I talk to and like figure out what's going on. And this is when it gets weird. So Sergeant Grimes ends up meeting up with the FBI agent in Anchorage.

and she basically tells him that she was told to just stay out of it. Okay? That was a stay out of it. Very unsatisfying. And they literally never heard from the FBI again. Now Jerry Max Paisley, he offered to take a polygraph test, but no record shows like it ever happened. So there were no charges, there was no follow-ups,

there was still no clear answers. And that's when the story was, uh, The story died. And so did Jerry Max Paisley in 2010. But my thought was, okay, if it blew up still, wouldn't you find pieces? So then I was also thinking, okay, it blew up. There were pieces. Did they have like a clean-up crew on deck who went and like hurried and like cleaned it all up?

And then made it look like it just disappeared? I don't know. But this again just added to the phenomenon of the Alaska Triangle. So once again, people were left asking like, what the hell happened? Did the pilot of this like Pan-Alaska plane fly into bad weather, slam into a glacier, was the flight sabotaged? Did it blow up? You know, was it a hit job? Disguise as a tragedy to keep the JFK assassination under wraps?

I mean, hello. I think that one seems like the best answer. Why else would the FBI shut down a very credible investigation? Just weird. Weird. But some believe that maybe the plane was taken down by a mysterious energy vortex. Yes, listen, listen, listen. Some people believe that maybe the reasoning behind all of this is an energy vortex.

Stick with me here, okay? Some people are completely convinced that the Alaska triangle is the home of a massive swirling energy. vortex, like a whirlpool of electromagnetic energy. You know, kind of like what happens in the Bermuda Triangle. You know, people say like their compasses go crazy or like any of their electromagnetic equipment just starts to like go nuts. The same thing happens in the Alaska Triangle. Search and rescue teams have reported that their compasses would spend 30 degrees off for

no reason. And some would even say that they would hear like strange noises in the triangle that sounded otherworldly. God, what's that animal that makes a really weird noise? It's like an elk or something like that. Elks make crazy, creepy sounds. And they're kind of like this weird animal mystery because the bigger the animal, the deeper the voice. Like a bear is like a deep growl. If it's a really big bird, it's like a really deep, like, ha ha.

But the elk is the only animal that's super big and makes a very high-pitched voice. I have elk knowledge for some reason. I don't know why, but this is a fact. So maybe it was an elk. It's a mystery. An animal mystery. Ooh, new show, Animal Mysteries with Bailey Sarian. Otters, they hold hands when they sleep.

Let me know down below if you want to see that. Okay, so Elks, not an elk, otherworldly. Many have claimed when they've gone into this area, it's given them auditory hallucinations. Like, you're out there, okay? You're on the tundra, and then all of a sudden you hear your name, like being whispered behind you,

but no one's around. Something's going on. People are like, they're hearing shit, okay? Some experts believe that all this magnetic weirdness might be tied to a mass. mysterious energy project built by the government. Maybe you've heard of it, but it's called harp. Harp stands for the high frequency, active auroral.

Come on. High frequency, active auroral, auroral. Aroral. You know, I had a speech impediment growing up and I had to take speech classes. It was really embarrassing because I couldn't say R words. So this one, yeah. Really getting me. Harb stands for the high-frequency active auroral research program.

Look, this is probably as good as it's going to get. It was built in the early 1990s, and, of course, it's located right inside the Alaska Triangle. Specifically, right outside a tiny town called Gakona. On the surface, harp was created to study the ionosphere, which is the technical term for the upper layer of the atmosphere. This is like where radio waves, you know, bounce around, satellites orbit. It's also where the northern lights happen, okay? Up there, okay? Now, if you were to go to the area that where harp is at, okay?

Which, honestly, I'm not even sure you're allowed to do that. But if you did go, you would see like a giant metal forest. It's made up of 180 radio antennas lined up in rows, all blasting high, frequency energy straight into the sky. So when they flip the switch, Harp can literally make artificial auroras. It's like their own like Northern Lights show. They say that they do these experiments to like help scientists figure out how like a GPS works, how to predict storms, how to keep military communications safe, which is why Harp has been paid for by the Air Force, the next and DARPA.

Now, DARPA is basically America's mad science lab. Officially, it's the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But really, it's the U.S. government's way of funding, like, wild, futuristic ideas. So, very official. But is HARP really just, like, studying the atmosphere, or is there something, like, more going on there? And if there was, would the government even tell us? Of course they wouldn't. If you ask the internet, or even like your uncle who collects a lot of old radios,

HARP isn't just beaming energy into the sky. Many believe, many say, it's controlling everything. Oh yes, there are theories that HARP is actually trying to weaponize the atmosphere. So they're literally trying to figure out how to cause storms, steer hurricanes, and even trigger earthquakes. That's what's believed. Some people swear that harp can even beam low frequency waves right into our heads, messing with brain function and behavior. So, I mean, people have a lot of beliefs as to like what the hell harp is, okay?

Did you ever watch that movie? It was on Disney Channel. It was called, ooh, what was it called? Christmas. It was a Christmas weather movie where this kid had this machine and it can control the weather and everything. Imagine if you had the power to change the weather. It's giving that. Like, that's what harp would be.

Do you know what I'm talking about? It was a Disney Channel original movie, and it had this little weather machine, and the guy, he wanted to be like Christmas forever, so then, like, this machine would control the weather. So it was snow, and it was, like, Christmas forever. And then, of course, the lesson was like, hey, that kind of sucks.

You don't want it to be Christmas forever. But that's what Hart reminds me of, kind of. But like, it was like a cute Disney version of harp. But this is Alaska. So harp is like only the tip of the iceberg. There are people who think harp is just like a distraction and that the real source of all these electromagnetic disturbances, missing planes, and vanished hikers isn't like that weather harvesting antenna farm.

But many believe it's something buried deep in the Alaskan wilderness. a massive underground structure known as the dark pyramid. The rumor is that there is like a top secret energy source hidden in the Alaska triangle, which people have been calling the dark pyramid. Now this pyramid is allegedly four times the size of the great pyramid of Giza and allegedly so powerful and so secret that the government has scrubbed it from satellite images entirely. Okay, so if it's been scrubbed, then how do we know about it?

Well, in 1992, I guess China, they were out doing their thing and they performed an underground like nuclear test. And then geologists in Alaska, they were like studying the shock waves created by this test when they like, that's when they came across something weird. And they realized there was something buried like 700 feet below Alaska. something huge. So they do more testing. And when they do more testing, it revealed that this something was pyramid-shaped.

Listen, so like years later, there was an anonymous, retired naval captain. He called into a show called Coast to Coast A.M. This was a very popular radio show, especially for, like, those who enjoy, like, a little conspiracy theory here and there. Paul, for sure, you know, he loves a conspiracy. conspiracy theory. He even came today with his full chart ready to talk about the Alaskan Triangle because he did his research, okay? He made a whole presentation. Sorry, Paul, we don't really have to get into it. I don't know what John Bonay-Ramsie has to do with the Alaska Triangle, but okay, Paul, you know, he's into it. We like the effort, okay?

As long as it stays a hobby and it doesn't consume you and take over your whole personality. But, you know, this naval captain guy he calls and on air, he said that back in the 80s, he was working on government radar systems in Alaska. And he kept running into like this mysterious electromagnetic interference. And none of his like superiors could explain it. He said this interference made planes glitch and messed up communications. And over his time working there, he became convinced that the source of all of this unexplained. energy was this dark pyramid. So the guy, he goes and he tells his higher-ups about his theory. And when he did that, they threatened him with a court-martial and told him to like stay in his lane.

In case you don't know like a court-martial is like getting suspended or even expelled from the military. So people who subscribe to the dark pyramid theory think that the government is keeping it secret because it is such a powerful source of energy. Many also believe that this is where like all the aliens live. This is alien home. I don't know, it could be. It's kind of weird. Why not? Life is short.

So one man named Nathan Campbell. He actually attempted to find the pyramid. Go for him. You know? He's like, you know what? I'm going to go see. So back in 2020, he hired a charter plane to drop him off as close to the coordinates of the pyramid as he could get. And then with him, he had four months of campus.

equipment. Now Nathan, he was 41 at the time and he had a wife and kids back home. So he brought like a two-way satellite communicator so he could like send messages while he was away, let them know. And on his way to Alaska, he told his pilot a guy named Jason all about his plan to find the pyramid. So, you know, they fly out there and on May 27th, 2020, Nathan was dropped off and he was feeling confident, right? The pilot, Jason, he arranged to to pick him back up on September 15th before the weather would get like too cold. So he's like, see ya, good luck, bye. And then like flies off.

But by mid-June, Nathan's family stopped getting his satellite texts. And he was never seen again. You know, search parties went out looking for him. They didn't find any blood or body. They didn't see any sign of like an attack. But they did find Nathan's journal. In the last entry, he said that he was leaving to get water. And that was it.

Yeah, a little anticlimactic. I know. It was kind of like a boring journal entry, not to judge. Like, I'm going to get water. Yay. Yeah, but that was it. He was going to get water. Maybe he fell in and froze or something.

I don't know. Nathan's disappearance left a lot of people convinced that he got like too close to something the government. doesn't want us to know about. Of course, you know, that is one theory. Another theory is that aliens got him. Another is that bears got him. Another is that, I don't know,

he went to get water and just decided to never come back. Anything could have really happened to poor Nathan out there. There are plenty of boring explanations for why so many people go missing, you know, out in this area. Like the geography of Alaska, which we talked about, it's nature's booby trap out there. so yeah. But in case you need one last reason to stay away from the Alaska Triangle,

allow me to introduce you to the ancient legend of the Otterman. For thousands of years, the indigenous people of Alaska, specifically by the Klingit and Simshian groups, they have passed down warnings about the Kushtaka, which translates to Land Otterman. I know, I love otters. They're so cute.

You know, like when they sleep at night, they hold hands so they don't float away from each other? That's really precious. We don't deserve otters. According to native stories, the Kushaka is a shapeshifter who can take the form of a human but usually looks like a harmless otter. Based on this image, it does not look like a harmless otter. It looks like freaking a buff man with an otter head. It's very confusing.

Yeah. You know on the cover of those romance novels where it's like Fabio all buff and like the hairs blowing through the wind, he's holding the woman? It's kind of what this like otter looks like. He's all buff and manly looking. He's got a thick-ass neck. It's kind of hot. Yeah, I don't know. Okay.

All right. The Kushchaka stalks the Alaskan wilderness sniffing out lost hikers. And it doesn't just like lunge at you out of like trees and then eat you or something. Oh no. According to the legend, the Kushchaka plays with its food psychologically. Like an orca. They play with their food too. Yes, they do.

Animals, huh? It'll shape shift into your friend, your sister, a crying chum. child, whatever it takes to like earn your trust. Then it leads you deeper into the woods. And that's when you either get ripped to shreds or you turn into a Kushaka yourself. Aliens, it's all going back to aliens, huh? So a lot going on in this Alaska triangle. A lot of theories, a lot of ideas, a lot of claims, you know.

But even the most boring version of the story with like no aliens, no pyramids, like just facts, It still reads, like, the FBI might have carried out a hit, you know, on a sitting congressman and, like, erased every trace of his plane from the sky. And if that's the baseline, then honestly, like, what is impossible? When you add in the magnetic vortexes, the disappearing aircraft, the ancient underground pyramid pulsing energy, no one can trace, Otterman, a government-powered weather machine. You start to realize that Alaska seems fun. Honestly, though, it feels like every attempt to explain this place just kind of opens a dozen more doors. And each one is just like more insane than the last. You go online and you start looking this stuff up.

You don't know where it goes, okay? Some lead to like secret military, you know, ops. Some lead to alien tech. Some just lead you back to the same question. And if we don't even really know what's going on in our. own chilly backyard. What else are we missing? So friends, what do you think? Is there a giant ancient alien energy weapon buried beneath the Alaskan tundra? Are there vortexes and aliens and interdimensional portals? Or is it a big fat bear? You know? Or is it just a case of mostly

bad weather and a once in a while strategic FBI murder? Let me know in the comments down below. I'm sure you got some stories and theories. I know you do. So let me know in the comments section. Let's talk about it. Now, I'd love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story. So make sure to leave a comment down below so I can see what you guys are saying, you know, and your comment might even be featured in a future episode. Now let's read a couple of comments you guys have left me. Telatubby, no way. Telatubby 1926. Love that. Commented on our momsters episode saying, As someone who recently found out they might be distantly related to Ma Barker, thank you so much for covering her.

I was having trouble piecing info together, but a little Bailey goes a long way, L.O.L. End quote. Really? What? Look at that. Dark history is teaching people more about their families than 23 and me ever could. Bold claim, but I said it. Are you really related, though? That's crazy. That's crazy. No, you got pictures or something?

I've heard people are finding out some wild information on those ancestry sites, you know? You never know who you might be related to. So that's interesting. Any crazy family stories? What do you got? Photos? Inside scoop? You can't just say that and not give us some kind of like inside scoop.

Let me know. Thanks for sharing. And I'm glad you liked the episode. Built from Brokness commented, I thought I saw Joanne in a Windex commercial one time, end quote. Joanne? Who's Joanne? Oh, do you mean the fabric store that closed down?

Oh, so sad. Joanne's was like so good and just like shut down. Is it Joanne's that closed down? Is that how you're talking about Joanne? She was in a Windex commercial? Or do you mean Joan? Joan? Joan, is that your stage name for when you're doing Windex commercials?

Okay. So Joanne, yeah, I guess she does commercials from time to time. So you may have recognized her as that crow flying into the glass. But good for you, Joan, or Joanne. Abigail Jolene left us an episode suggestion saying, On my hands and knees. Whoa, girl, what are you doing? Oh, asking for the third time for dark history of the witness protection program.

All right. Abigail. Get those knee pads out, girl. You know, it hurts. You know, when I think about the witness protection program, I think of, um, a Disney movie, Princess Protection Program. Did you watch that? It's the one where, like, a princess is almost kidnapped by a dictator, so they send her to, like, America to be a regular high school girl. Um, she becomes, like, prom queen, whatever. Anyways, witness protection. program. I think that's a great idea. I would love to do that. But here's the thing. With the witness protection program, it's all about secrecy and stuff. So how would we tell a story that's very, very secretive? Hmm. Okay. I mean, I like that suggestion and I'll definitely consider it. It could be fun. Thank you guys so much for watching and hanging out with me and commenting. Keep on commenting because maybe you will be featured in a future episode. And hey, Did you know, you can actually join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, you can also catch my murder, mystery, and makeup.

So don't forget to subscribe. And hey, if you don't know, Dark History is an audio boom original. A special thank you to our expert, Andrew Goff. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. I hope we have a good date today. You make good choices. And I'll be talking to you guys later. Goodbye.

Right? What is going on in Alaska? And now here's my least favorite part. In that episode, the Alaska Triangle episode, we had to cut out so much because the episodes can only be so long. So we had it cut out so much. And I could do a whole Alaska Triangle podcast of just like all the stories out there are so bizarre, you guys.

We need to talk about it, okay? But then you sound a little crazy. So at the same time, it's like maybe not. Yeah. Anyways, let me know down below if you would like me to make a calendar of Otterman. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about Otterman for each month doing different poses. Because yeah, I've thought about him maybe in my alone time.

I've thought about this Otterman. Whatever. What a ride, huh? Yeah. Otterman, Betty Crocker. What we've covered a lot? But Otterman. Honestly, whether it's a bedtime story gone wrong or a real-life disappearance that has never been solved,

One thing is certain. People love a mystery. We love a mystery. We like solving puzzles. Anyways, I get it. That's why I'm here. I'm just like you. Sometimes the official version,

it's not satisfying and you know it's a lie. Sometimes it's too clean, it's too convenient. Things don't make sense, you know? We're here collecting the facts and keeping our tin hats on tight, but you don't wanna go too crazy because people, you know. Listen, whether you believe in aliens,

Haunted Kleenex or Betty Crocker, remember, there's always more going on and meets the eye. And history is full of secrets. Anyways, you guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. As always, stay curious. Don't forget to check under your bed. I like to sleep naked just in case Otterman accidentally shows up in my room and I'm like, oh no. But that's just me, so whatever. Dark history will be back soon. We're working on it. In the meantime, I hope you have a good day. You make good choices. And I'll be seeing you guys later. Goodbye.