It Could Happen Here - BlueAnon: Alt National Park Service

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Garrison talks with Jack from AltWatcher about a viral social media account posing as dissent Park Service employees sending coded messages on the internet. Sources:  https://jjoycelynch.substack.com/ https://bsky.app/profile/altwatcher.bsky.social See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone.

Now, hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate. Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast and the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Honey German, and I'm back with season two of my podcast. Grasias, come again. We got you when it comes to the latest in music and entertainment with interviews

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Please disregard, as this podcast is fighting battles on multiple fronts. This podcast is It Could Happen Here, and I'm Garrison Davis. Last episode, I talked with Mia Wong, about the trajectory of liberal conspiracy theories, specifically throughout the last 10 years. From Russia Gate to Trump's staged assassination and 2024 election denial, this resurgence of liberal conspiracyism has been dubbed Blue Anon. If you want more background on that, go listen to our previous episode. But this episode is about a new evolution of Blue Anon and possibly the most Qanani iteration we've seen yet. The Alt National

Park Service. A social media engagement farming account that gained traction on Blue Sky and Facebook last February and March amidst cuts to the Park Service from the Trump administration. This account gained followers by posing as a group of anti-Trump dissidents from within the Park Service. And soon enough, it inspired a collection of other Alt-Government accounts like Alt-CDC, Alt-N-IH, Alt-Yellowstone, and Alt-Noah. The original Alt-National Park Service account basically never talks about the Park Service itself, but during the first few months of Trump's second term, the account started going viral by posting sequences of random numbers as ostensibly coded messages to other hashtag resistance fighters, though the account has since

experimented with, altered, and refined their engagement strategies. To hear more about that and how Alt-National Park Service fits into this trend of liberal conspiracy theories, I talked with someone who has spent the past few months documenting and writing about this account. The person who runs the Alt Watcher account on Blue Sky and writes about their research on the blog dispatches from the online void. So here's that interview. My name's Jack. I'm the user behind the account Alt Watcher on Blue Sky, and I've been following the Alt National Park Service for about six months, just documenting what they do and how they steal from journalists and how they're driving a lot of people insane, including me. What is the Alt National Park Service? Or first,

what does the Alt National Park Service claim to be? Yeah, that's an important difference. The Alt National Park Service claims to be a loose affiliation of anonymous former parks employees that are either still employed by the Park Service and kind of working behind the scenes or who were fired or laid off by the Trump administration and are now part of a nationwide coalition to resist the government. That's what they claim to be. What they really are is just a Facebook shitposting account. We're not sure if it's one person behind it or if it's a group.

It's remarkably hard to find out anything about the person who is behind the account, who they are, where they are, and how they start. this, but what they do most of the time is repost the work of journalists, directly plagiarize from news outlets, and post these vaguely conspiratorial things online to try to whip up engagement from their followers. I first became aware of this back in probably March of 2025, specifically when on Blue Sky, they just started posting a lot of numbers. Yes. I was aware that this account was created like in the aftermath of some like some like doge related cuts to the park service or like anti-dei anti-woke stuff and then this account popped up claiming to be you know like resistance

from inside to people who watch politics like seriously for their jobs was very clear that this was not a legitimate organization and then they just started posting numbers sequences of numbers along with other cryptic messages. And this, like, immediately starts hitting, like, the QAnon bells. Back in July of 2024, there's a Washington Post article about the Trump assassination conspiracy theories. But specifically, it was, I think it was an opinion piece critical of terming liberal conspiracy theories as, as, quote, unquote, blue anonon. They said, quote, the main. similarity of QAnon and Blue Anon is that they rhyme. And for a while, I kind of understood this

criticism and agree with parts of it, because there was structural differences between some of how liberals, or like, quote unquote, the left engaged in conspiratorial thinking, and like the function of Q&N. The numbers think started to really mess with that analysis, because then you started to see the actual, like, methodology and, like, the ideological function of Q&N start to get replicated in what is most likely just, like, engagement farming. But for, for the people who are following this account and engaging with it, and, like, it becomes, like, an important part of, like, their life and their perception of, like, hashtag resistance. And I think that's where Bluon actually proved itself as a term was in March of 25. I guess let's talk

about the numbers. You know what? I would love, I would love to talk about the numbers. The numbers are also what stood out to me. And that is why I ended up making my account and diving into all this. During the pandemic, I got obsessed with Kavanaugh, you know, as just what is this? A lot of people did. A lot of people did. You know, look, pandemic did a lot of crazy things to us. Some people learned to knit. Some people got good at baking. I got really into learning about Q&O. And I, I I'm a huge fan of the QAA podcast. I listen to that constantly. As soon as I saw Alt-NPS post one of the numbers,

I realized I'm reading this in their Q voice. Yeah. Their voice modulated voice that sounds like this whenever they would post. And I started reading all the numbers post that way. And just like you said, something clicked. And I went, oh, this is. Oh, I see what they're doing here. Yeah.

And they posted numbers many times. I've got my giant spreadsheet pulled up here, and I think they've posted something like 30 numbers. It's been a while since they've done it, but the thing that really gave the game away for me was during one of these numbers posts, they posted some random number, and then replied to themselves and said, for discussion, what do you think these numbers mean? And I said, oh, I see what's happening here? Kind of giving away the game there a little bit. Exactly, yeah. This is not a group of government insiders communicating with, you know, their coalition. This is the user behind a Facebook account realizing in real time that they've stumbled on like a gold mine for engagement.

Yeah. Oh, we can just do this. And people will do the work for us. And we're just going to say that out loud. And throughout like March and April, their account just like rocketed in popularity. Yes. I've not actually looked on their Facebook account besides like the post that you've shared. I've only seen them on Blue Sky. What is the difference of their presence on Facebook versus Blue Sky? Blue Sky, I think they're at something like 900K on Facebook. The last time I checked, it was about $4.3 million. Jeez. Yeah. They are a massive presence on Facebook. And they've been monetizing their posts recently. They've been sponsored content on Facebook leading to their page. This is where I think one of the differences from like how QAnonon functioned

and All National Park Service because, you know, Q was not monetizing posts on the chance. No. I would have loved to see him try. That would be really funny. I do not see, like, this account existing as, like, a sort of operation

to influence the political trajectory of the United States, the same way that the Q-O-N-on account, at least evolved in that capacity, even if it started off as, like, a shit-posting thing. Exactly. It certainly evolved with more of a malicious intent. the people behind you know cue posting yeah i think that's a big difference between them is that this is

straightforwardly an engagement farm yeah using some of those tactics especially like early on but for a very simple reason and that's that's making money on the internet like everybody is trying to do it's it's it's just like internet hustle culture stuff with with no grappling with like the consequences that has for like the psyche of people who who engage with your content Exactly. And the psyche of people who engage with this content is really what keeps me coming back to this project. Because that is the real harm I see here. Like the online grifters are a dime it does. People who sell stuff online, it's everywhere. It's inescapable. What's unique about Al-NPS is that they are trying to make money on convincing people that this

is real. They're not just selling hashtag resist shirts or whatever. They're trying to get money out of people by convincing them that they really are part of a shadow resistance against Trump and that you can buy their shirts or you can straightforwardly just send them money for things like their Alt Junior Ranger program that they've said they're starting. And if you send them a dollar, you're helping fund that program and it's totally real. And the fact that they didn't mention it for seven straight months after initially announcing it is something you definitely shouldn't worry about. Do you know what else you definitely shouldn't worry about? this short ad break

My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly and now I'm seriously suspicious Oh wait a minute Sam maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit Well Dakota it's back to school week on the okay story time podcast So we'll find out soon This person writes my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot He doesn't think it's a problem but I don't trust her Now he's insisting we get to know each other

But I just want her gone Now hold up, isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate. Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor and they're the same age. It's even more likely that they're cheating. He insists there's nothing between them. I mean, do you believe him? Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him because he now wants them both to meet.

So, do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his professor or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello Ed. From a very rural background myself, my dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin, so like it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear.

Well, 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, couple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was.

Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny, you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors,

and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases, to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple, podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, it's Honey German. And my podcast, Grasias Come Again, is back. This season, we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities.

You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't audition in like over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters sharing their real stories of failure and success.

You were destined to be a start. We talk all about what's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement, a lot of laughs, and those amazing Vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles, and all the issues affecting our Latin community. You feel like you get a little whitewash

because you have to do the code switching? I won't say whitewash because at the end of the day, you know what I'm me? Yeah. But the whole pretending and cold, you know, it takes a toll on you. Listen to the new season of Grasas Has Come Again as part of My Cultura Podcast Network On the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So they have face pushback for their numbers posting,

but they have found a way to justify it publicly. I don't want to talk about like how they've framed the posting of just like four numbers, two numbers. and like the sort of like defense of the account that it plays. Yeah, that was, this maybe says something about me, but that was maybe the post that made me the angriest of anything they've done because I, I have a deep-seated reaction to feeling like someone who thinks I'm stupid. And all I could think is, do you think I'm an idiot when I saw their, their reaction to this? Because we are often criticized for the numbers we post online.

We can't tell you everything. Sorry. And then they went on this big half explanation about stingrays and cell site simulators. Cell site simulators. Yeah. But they didn't explain what those actually do. They did not explicitly claim they were being surveilled by one. And they didn't explain why the existence of stingrays and cell site simulators means that they should do all this on Facebook instead. posting numbers does not bypass the security concerns posed by the presence of a cell site simulator. No. Because you're still posting publicly on the internet. That doesn't matter at all. Yeah.

You're pulling something out of your ass that sounds technical. That's going to trick your, you know, average boomer and maybe, you know, three out of five GenX people who are scrolling Facebook slash blue sky. And, like, that's all they need to do. but for anyone who knows what a cell site simulator is or how like internet communications works it's very clear that this is just like completely bullshit. It's completely

bullshit because you're right that this is all they need to do they just need to deflect and I think that's what stood out to me about this post in particular is that it showed me that the person or people behind the whole time PS have a genuine level of PR skill you know they have a certain level of what I think is a real skill at deflection

public relations and being able to spin what they're saying. You know, that's a genuine skill. It's a shame that it's being applied to this instead of, I mean, anything else. But that is a skill that they have that they're able to deploy in defense of their conspiratorial posting.

The other thing that they post in relation to the numbers, is there one-time, four-word catchphrase general public can disregard? Do you want to talk about the context of those posts? Yes. Those were replied. that they would make to the numbers posts,

usually to the numbers post, but occasionally to just some other cryptic thing they would post. They would post their number, say, 44, and then they would reply to themselves saying, general public and disregard. Or they'd say, please disregard if you are a member of the general public.

And there were a lot of people online who saw that and thought, oh, that must mean it's a code. It has to be real. They're engaged in some sort, of like secret agent spy work and this is really important. Yeah. Yeah. And I would see a lot of people push back on any criticism that the account would get for this by saying things like, it's code for a reason. You know, guys, they're speaking

in code. Don't try to crack the code. It's not for us. You know, this is for the coalition. And whenever anybody would say, I don't think this is real or like any of the things we've talked about about why does this make sense, they would instantly be accused of being a right wing infiltrator or a troll or a maga spy or something like that you know there can be no actual criticism of the account there can only be infiltration yeah and that does have more like cue overlap i suppose absolutely i don't know it's it's odd because like throughout through writing about all this like blue and on stuff as much as this stuff is a legitimate problem like which which it is, it's just a symptom of a larger political problem in America and the people

engaged with it, if anything, are kind of victims as well as like perpetrators. And like this was the same thing with like Q and on where like your average person engaged with it as bad as it is and some of the stuff that they might like say or do. I also just feel bad for the people involved. And it's it's the same thing with this as as annoying as this kind of of like lib-slop can be, the people who have to have to believe in something like this in order to like keep going, that is kind of like a tragedy in a way. And this is obviously is serving some important psychological function for them. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that's, that sadness, I think is what keeps me wanting to engage with this. You know,

when I look at this and I see Alt-NPS trying to get people to buy their t-shirts or just farm engagement. That's not remarkable to me. That's normal. Yeah. That happens on the internet all the time. What keeps me coming back to wanting to fight this and wanting to document all this is the people I see in the replies. Yeah. The people who say that Alt-NPS brings them so much hope. It's what's keeping them from falling into despair. And it's not that I want to take that away from them. It's that I don't like that their need for that is being used. Yeah, this is like a predatory mode of trying to capitalize on that. Absolutely. Yeah. The account is trying to capitalize on people's need for hope. Yeah. You know, they need to believe that there is someone fighting for them. Because in a lot of

ways, it doesn't feel like anyone is. You know, it feels like our politicians are ineffectual. Our institutions are crumbling. We need someone to be there. We need, ironically, we need patriots to be in control. Yeah. We need to trust the plan. There is an appeal to that. And I do understand that. understand that these people are looking for a light in the darkness. And I really can't pretend that I'm not doing the same thing. Totally. Through my writing on this. I need something to cling to. And I can't blame anybody for feeling that way, too. I mean, that's why I feel like your project, though, comes from a much, like, better and, like, healthier place. Because you are, you are looking at this, like, decline in nationwide American sanity and trying to

do something about it, even if that's just a documentation, and then writing about it and trying to explain to people and, like, help people understand where the psyche of the country is. And I think part of what makes me so interested in your project is that, like, it reminds me a little bit of people who started studying Q&N, you know, back in, like, 2017, 2018. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Back when it was just this little, little cute small thing, and then you fast forward years later, they realize they've actually done some extremely important

like work documenting a phenomenon that is shaping the trajectory of our country. And I don't know if Alt National Park Service is going to evolve in the same way. But I think the slow embrace

of this sort of conspiratorial thinking among decently sized like chunks of the Democratic base I think is very notable. And work like what you're doing, I think, actually has a really important place in trying to, like, map where our country might be headed. And, yeah, in a few years, it might, somehow it might turn out to be super important when

the Libs finally do their own J6. So. Yeah, I mean, I, to be honest, I would be very happy if this whole thing petered out. Sure. You know, I would be very happy if one day the account just stops posting. And there is no years-long continuation with this, like there was with something like QAnon. But I do think ALTA NPS is a part of a broader ecosystem of this Blue Anon world. And I do agree with what you said earlier, that Blue Anon is a phrase that I think does get overused.

Yeah. That there are some things that are just normal people, you know, expressing their political opinions that kind of gets derided as, oh, Blue Anon, but it really is just people being normal or people be. extremely online. But Alt-NPS is a part of a bigger world of this sort of vaguely left-wing conspiracism. You know, I'm seeing a lot of crossover between people who post in reply to Alt-NPS and people who have this sort of mantra about Trump that he wasn't shot. He didn't win. He's on the list. And you see that exact phrase, you know, posted over and over and over again. It's in pictures. It's in memes. It's in people's posts. And I think Alt-NPS is a part of that. I think they're emblematic of that.

Yeah. That you are not immune to conspiratorial think. We are not better than that. No, and they're facilitating, I think, that mindset. I think liberals became so susceptible to it because they had this conception that they're immune to it, that conspiracy thinking is something that

only exists on the political right. Yes, that's for other people. And this is part of what I'm going to write about in general, but like the way that consensus reality was like sheared down so heavily during the first Trump administration and like parts of the Biden administration by people on the right that like weakened this notion we have of consensus reality that then liberals kind of got blindsided by

when events happened that were hard to understand or felt so surreal or like bombastic that it allowed a split that was already there to to grow into a pretty wide opening where you now believe that major historical events are fake and staged that an election is stolen and you're like, what does this remind you of? Like, what are the things you're saying remind you of? Isn't this part of why you're against the Trump movement in the first place? Yeah. And I think, God help you, if you ever try and point that out.

Yeah. You know, to a lot of the people in these replies, it's just like, hey, guys, doesn't a lot of this smell a lot like you or not, you know, doesn't this sound a lot like the way people talked about the 2020 election? You know, doesn't this smell the same way? and that is when people in, especially in Alt-NPS's replies, will go nuclear. I've seen some incredible dog piles in response to people bringing this up, even if it's anodyne, you know, even if it is just, hey guys, just a reminder, I think this is something

that we should, you know, maybe I'll take with a grain of salt, people go nuts. You know, they need to believe. It needs to be real and it needs to be unquestioned and that there can be no good faith questioning of this idea. Do you know what else is an unquestioned truth that we have to go on one more ad break before we return to conclude our discussion on the Alt National Park Service?

My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, My boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot.

He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now, he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Now, hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate. Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor, and they're the same age. And it's even more likely that they're cheating. He insists there's nothing between them.

I mean, do you believe him? Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him because he now wants them both to meet. So, do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his boyfriend? professor or not. To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short

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A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in the backlog will be. identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA.

Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases, to finally solve the unsolved. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

My name is Ed. Everyone say hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin. So like, it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit. I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. On 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage.

Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's easy to see how they reach just a certain ceiling on how much they can just numbers post and have that be a reliable method of engagement that they've started to like experiment with with different types of posting to see what makes people stick. we can help with engagement over a long period of time instead of just like rocketing to like virality first but then having a stable audience and now they're basically a news aggregator account but deceptively framing where they are getting their their news from yeah they are a news aggregator account with massive caveats yeah yes well i mean i think most news aggregator accounts are actually bad yeah i agree this is something we saw in 2020 was how

unreliable news aggregated accounts were and how much of a harm that they caused. And I see the current version of Alt National Park Service as kind of an extension of that taken to a slightly higher level, I suppose. I'm obsessed with this. You know, I've said that a few times, but I've documented what I think is most of the times that they have posted a news article without attribution and either just described something where they could have or should have posted a link to an actual article or more more often just copy pasting sections of an article and reposting it as though they wrote it. You know, those are the ones that really get me. Those are the aspects of their news aggregation where you say, this is just plagiarism. You know, this is just you stealing

verbatim from an article and acting as though you wrote it because you want your audience to think that you are a government insider with all this inside information and that information like that is coming first to you, not to the New York Times, not to CNN. Even though you're just posting sections of the New York Times and CNN. Yeah. I mean, they took the first, I think, three paragraphs of an article from Wired and did it word for word. Didn't link to Wired, didn't say where it came from, and implied that the information was being sent to the Rangers of the Alt National Park Service instead of to journalists at Wired. This happens constantly. You know, and every time I think,

well, they've been posting more links lately. They've been linking directly to actual sources of information. Every time I start thinking that, they do it again. You know, they steal another thing again. Or they've started posting to, um, court watcher or directly to government documents in what I'm thinking is an attempt to dodge accusations like the one I make. Somebody in my comments described it as the don't cite Wikipedia. Site Wikipedia's reference page problem. They're reading an article from NPR, and rather than just saying, hey, we've heard this in NPR, they're going to NPR's citation of the Department of Justice and linking directly to that instead to make it look like they're diligently watching government court records and posting

them for our benefit the moment they come out instead of just, we saw this in the Washington Post. And they've been engaging this for like a few months now with this sort of behavior. Oh yeah, they've been doing that since January, February. Yeah. They've also started claiming for a while, and then they stopped that one of their sources that they would list at the end of their posts was an unnamed official in whatever relevant government agency they were talking about. Our sources include this newspaper, this website, and an unnamed Department of Justice official, an unnamed Department of Education official. They suddenly stopped doing that as soon as they started. There was about a week or two where that was behind about every post.

anything else you want to add about either the existence of these like alt accounts or like any other like aspect of this world you want to mention before we before we close up yeah i do have two quick ones and the first is that among the alt accounts that you see online the alt national park service is overwhelmingly the most malicious and the most harmful you know there are maybe a couple others that get a little wild that are maybe a little conspiratorial i think um alt noah has been kind of in the spotlight for that lately. But a lot of them like Alt CDC, the Alt Forest Service, all these random little Alt government agency accounts are pretty harmless. You know, they really are just posting links to news articles or given updates on their relevant agency.

Alt Forest Service mostly talks about the Forest Service. Alt-CDC mostly talks about the CDC. Alt-NPS basically never talks about the National Park Service. I think I can count on one hand the times that they have said anything about the parks. There was a point when, I think it was in the big, beautiful budget bill, where there were these massive cuts being proposed to the National Park Service. And they talked about the bill as a whole and didn't mention anything about the cuts of

the Park Service. Well, you never know who's watching the communication channels. You've got to be careful. There's cell site simulators out there. There's cell site simulators out there. And then the second thing is that I'm always very careful in my writing and in my post to emphasize that the people who follow this account are not the problem. The account itself is.

I always want to make sure to have a lot of empathy for people who follow this account because I understand why they do. I understand the hope they're looking for. And I never want to do what I see some people do in the replies to Alt-NPS's posts, which is dunking on their followers. You know, how do you robs believe this? Do you idiots still think this is real? I never want to do that because that doesn't help anyone.

What that does is make them dig it. It makes them double down. So I always want to make sure to treat the followers of these accounts with respect. You know, treat them with empathy, talk to them like a person. Yeah. And that's how I've managed to get a few people to get out. I've managed to have people tell me that it was through my writing and other people's work on this topic.

that they were able to get out. They were able to disengage from this world of fake spies and code numbers. And I think that matters. I think that that helps with every little bit we do. And it starts by just being nice to people, just being kind to people who are looking for hope in the world we live in. Where can people find your work both on social media and then also your writing?

You can find me on blue sky at altwatcher.b.b.combe. social and I am unfortunately still on substack at my name it's jay joyce lynch dot substack.com. You can also look for dispatches from the online void is the name of the blog. There should absolutely be more people reading your dispatches from the online void. This is some very, very solid work, just straightly documenting the phenomenon that we've been talking about this episode and specifically the Alt National Park Service. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's fantastic, very non-editorialized, just showing you what's happening, extremely well put together.

Well, thanks. Thanks. That's nice you to say. Thanks again to Jack for talking with me about Alt National Park Service. I strongly recommend people seek out his research, both on dispatches from the online void and blue sky. Before I close this episode, I want to remind everybody that you two are not immune to propaganda. This past weekend, the internet has been a buzz with rumors and speculation that Trump died over the weekend or was actively dying and there's been attempts to cover it up when, in fact,

he just went on a brief Labor Day weekend holiday. People were sharing AI-altered images to make Trump look more sickly and were speculating about road closures around Walter Reed Medical Center, sharing a map with roads blocked off. But in fact, there were no irregular road closures, and this map of supposed closures that was spreading online just showed old security gates. People concocted elaborate theories that Putin poisoned Trump during their last meeting, and that when the quote-unquote president was supposed to give an announcement on Tuesday afternoon, it would be Trump resigning for health reasons, or Vance would come out and announce Trump died, and he is now the president. president. And sure enough, come Tuesday afternoon, Trump appeared perfectly normal for a press conference. Even in the lead up to the press conference, I saw people continuing these conspiracy theories, with sometimes a tad of irony. But as the press conference got delayed an hour,

there was more and more speculation about Trump's declining health. And yeah, he is an old man, but he's not going to drop dead this weekend. This isn't true. This is a copium strategy. And the way people have been talking about it is very similar to the liberal conspiracy theories that I've been reading about these past few weeks. And as fun as it can be to speculate about a president's health, as many people did. Last time we had a geriatric president, when was that? Oh, last year. But as much of fun as it is, things can quickly spiral out of your conspiratorial control, even when your participation is from the safety of ironic detachment. I'll talk a little bit more about Trump's imminent death theories on this week's episode of Executive Disorder.

But until then, just remember you are not immune to propaganda. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, Coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam.

Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate.

Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story.

Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Gemma's Bag, host of the Psychology of Your 20s. This September at the Psychology of Your 20s, we're breaking down the very interesting ways psychology applies to real life, like why we crave external validation. I find it so interesting that we are so quick to believe others' judgments of us and not our

own judgment of ourselves. So according to this study, not being liked actually creates similar pain levels as real life physical pain. Learn more about the psychology of everyday life and of course, your 20s this September. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.