The Lets Read Podcast - 328: MY FRIEND LOST HIS MIND AT A FESTIVAL | 7 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories / Rain Ambience | EP 313

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about music festivals & cybercriminalsHAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?[e-mail] ME ON -►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/♫ Music & Cover art: INEKThttps://www.youtube.com/@inektToday's episode is sponsored by:- Betterhelp

I'm going to be able to I don't know. Way back in 2005, I was a 19-year-old lad living in Sheffield when I discovered a little band called Dimmu Borgir. Dimu Borgir are a band who play black metal, and their songs are called things like bloodhunger doctrine, progenies of the Great Apocalypse, or the charmingly named The Death of All Saints and the Kingdom of Hell. They dressed like you might imagine them too as well, as in nothing. but leather, boots with spikes on, and lots and lots of what they call corpse paint. Picture the band Kiss and the way they paint their faces. Now imagine the most monstrously unsettling version of that possible, and that's what corpse pain is. They're not trying to look

cool as such. They're trying to look genuinely unsettling, and from the moment I saw it, I was entranced. But it wasn't just the music or the clothes that fascinated me. It was the culture. and that culture can be best summed up with the story of a band called Mayhem. Or maybe it's more of a chapter in the story of mayhem, but it's a big one. So, long story short, one current member of the band Euronymous and a former member of the band Var Vekernes got into a dispute involving royalties. But then rather than see each other in court, they got all gangster rap about it and started issuing death threats to one another.

Eventually, the former band member tracks down the current band member and pays him a visit at home. Then after a violent struggle, the current band member is murdered. The police then raid the murderer's house only to find a ton of ammunition and explosives, and while he denied planning some sort of attack in court, the police put forward a pretty convincing argument that he was planning one, and he was sent to prison. Now, I know how childish this is going to sound, but I'm almost of the very much of the the opinion that if you don't regret at least some of the stuff that you did and thought as a teen, you neither lived nor grown. But back when I first read all that stuff about dead and

eronymous and varvigerness, I thought it was cool. These guys didn't just talk the talk. They walked the walk. They didn't just write about pain and suffering and death. They were actively inflicting and reveling in it. And something about that authenticity was magnetic to me. The same could be said for tens of thousands of other fans, too. Fans who saw their own anguish and frustration reflected back at them through black metal music. A big theme in black metal was a rejection of modern society, with fans saying they felt more at home in the woods than in a town or city. And so there were all these interlinking themes of violence and isolation,

anger, and depression, all wrapped up in a Satan-worshipping bow. And while that all might sound quite standard for a teenage boy in his innate sense of rebellion, black metal attracted a much more genuine sort of malice. As I got more and more into black metal, I started making friends who shared my much more darker tastes. I still chilled with my old metal head schoolmates, and I still count one of them as a close friend even all these years later. But then once a week I'd head over to a black metal night at a metal pub we used to frequent, and that's where I met. Toby. Toby called himself corpse eater, but I'll just call him Toby here. Of all the black metal fans

that used to drink in the dove and rainbow, he was the most hardcore. He also had what you might call an aura of darkness about him. Toby didn't just make black metal his whole personality. He'd actually been to Norway, the genre's birthplace, and had visited the site of the Holman Kolan Chapel. It had been rebuilt by the time he visited, and it had been burned. down in the early 90s by the same guy who murdered his former bandmate, Varg Vikernes, and to Toby, seeing it was akin to a religious experience. He considered a kind of pilgrimage because he wanted to do exactly the same thing in the UK. It was also a pilgrimage that was recognized and respected by black metal fans everywhere because Toby had basically spent all his money on a

ferry ticket from Newcastle to Norway via Amsterdam, then begged, borrowed, or stole in order to eat and travel. He told people he slept outdoors in Norway in the middle of winter, and that he nearly died as a result. I didn't quite believe all that at first, but Toby had the photographs on his phone to prove it. There were several grainy selfies of him taking shelter in a shop doorway in Oslo, and he had actual snow clinging to his big black beard. I had to admit, I was impressed. Not quite in awe like some of the other black metal fans who drank in that bar, but impressed nevertheless. Then over weeks and months that followed our initial meeting, me and Toby got to be good friends.

Toby was good fun, but he was wild, and I mean really wild. He didn't work, but he didn't claim benefits either. Yet somehow he always had a bit of money to spend on vodka or second-hand leathers. and if you ever asked him where he got it, he'd always reply with a variation of mind your own business. And that's why I didn't ask any questions when he told me he got two tickets for a music festival called Bloodstock, which was taking place down near Derby for a few days in August.

And while Bloodstock isn't strictly a black metal festival, it's about as close to one as we were going to find. He made me give him the money for the ticket, and it was also my job to get a hold of a tent and a lift down to Derby, but I was well up for it, and I was chuffed that he'd actually bought me a ticket. Toby could have picked anyone to take to Bloodstock, but he picked me, and while that was probably because he knew that I had access to both a car and a tent, it still felt special, I guess. We drove down on Friday the 14th, and we parked my car and started making

our way towards the gates, and I thought we were in for the time of our lives. It was my first ever music festival, and I was buzzing to be there. Toby, on the other hand, being a few years older, had been to Lode, so he took the lead. We found ourselves a spot to camp at the very edge of an open field, so we had trees on one side of us and a sea of tents on the other. We then set up the tent, found ourselves a burger van, and had some food, and then wandered around the festival site catching bands as we went. We were drinking all day, and then the last thing I remember before almost blacking out completely, was catching arch-enemy on the main stage. And the next thing I remember is waking up in my tent the next morning, on my own.

Toby had decided to sleep among the trees, on the ground, with his shirt off, and he was still passed out when I went looking for him and eventually found him. We were both pretty hungover, so obviously not feeling our best, but there was something about the way he was acting that put a bit of tension in the air. You see, Toby was always a very dark and moody sort of person, and while you met a lot of people like that in the black metal community, being either angry or depressed or hateful was kind of their whole personality. He had his moments of kindness and compassion, but only here and there, and you only ever saw him like that if you were very close with him. But then even after all of his brooding and moodiness, there was something

extra dark about Toby that morning. Toby didn't really like the sound of his own voice, and by that, I mean, he was a real talker. I didn't mind to be honest. He was always coming out with juicy pieces of black metal lore and stuff, so it was interesting for the most part. But then that morning, there was hardly a word out of him. I kept asking if he was all right, if anything had happened the previous night that I wasn't remembering. But he said he was fine, and that he was just regretting the amount that he had to drink the previous night. Apparently, he'd wandered around until sunrise after I'd crashed in our tent and had enjoyed some very interesting conversations with someone he'd met on his travels.

I asked if it was anything I'd find interesting, but when he just shook his head, I decided to leave it. Toby seemed to perk up a little bit after we got some breakfast and had ourselves a little bit of a baby-wipe shower. And then after covering ourselves in corpse paint, we started to get very excited as we made our way to the stage where Cradle of Filth was playing. It was the most animated I'd seen him for quite some time, and at first he was in a good mood, and people around us were enjoying his antics, some of which included growl screaming the words, Av satanus, and pouring packets of fake

blood all over himself when he was already covered in corpse paint. But then once Cradle of Filth took the stage and started their set, Toby went absolutely haywire. At first, All he did was head-bang and scream along with the songs. But then about halfway through the set, he started getting physical with me. He'd grab me by the shoulders, scream in my face, and sometimes he'd bang our foreheads together so hard it'd actually hurt. But as weird as it sounds, I didn't really mind. We'd actually do stuff like that quite often back in my flat after the pub,

so I just screamed back at him and joined him in the head-banging. But then he started doing it to other people. and some of them didn't seem to appreciate it at all. A few guys seemed to enjoy it at first, when Toby grabbed them and started screaming, but when he headbutted them hard enough for it to hurt, they'd either shove him off or try and go for him, at which point his mates would hold him back to stop everyone getting carted out by security. I tried to calm him down a bit to get him to stop hassling people near us,

but not only would he not listen, he got worse and worse and worse, and worse. Eventually, I kind of snapped at him, and after dragging him away to the side of the marquis away from the people, I told him to chill out where I was leaving. And his response was to throw a punch at me, a really bloody hard one, too, and if he hadn't been so drunk, it might have connected. And well, that was it. I went mental.

And after we started scuffling, it took maybe a minute or two before the pair of us were getting dragged out of the tent by members of security. And the next thing I know, I'm outside, and I'm trying to explain to the security guy that me and Toby are just friends that have gotten to a bit of a bust-up, but all he's interested in is separating us. I suppose that was their job, wasn't it, to keep people separated if they're fighting, but by the time he'd finish giving me a warning and told me to cool down before coming back into the tent, Toby was nowhere to be seen. I had a little look around, calling out his name, and while you might think that it would be easy to spot a six-foot man in corpse paint

who's also covered in fake blood, I had no luck. Toby had apparently vanished. I spent the next few hours looking for him, then giving his phone a call every so often to see if he'd pick up, but he didn't. As I walked, it slowly began to dawn on me that I was probably going to have to spend the day alone, and in the end, that's what I did. I had a mooch about, went to see the bands I wanted to see, and although I kept an eye out for Toby and all the places I thought he might be, I didn't catch sight of him. To say it was disappointing would be an understatement, a massive one, and then after catching the last few bands on the main stage, I made my way back to our tent in the hopes that I'd bump into Toby on the way back.

When I got there, the tent was empty, but it was also unzipped, so I knew Toby must have been back at some point. Then right as I'm about to give him a call, I hear someone calling my name from the trees near a tent. It was Toby. I was just relieved to know that he'd made it back okay, and the first thing I did was apologized for that scuffle, so we'd start off the interaction on good terms. I'd never gotten anything like that with him before. Physical violence, I mean, so I didn't really know how he was going to take it. But from the sound of his voice, he didn't seem to mind at all.

he said something like don't worry about it all forgotten and i could tell that he was drunk from the way that he was slurring his words but then he said listen i found something and you need to see it i asked him what and in a voice that sounded unusually giddy toby said it was a surprise and when i say unusually giddy i mean i'd never heard toby sound like that before ever so my first thought was Okay, he's probably on mushrooms or MDMA or something because this is not like him at all. I asked him what kind of surprise as I walked towards him and even though it was almost pitch black, I could see his bright white torso and face still covered in the corpse paint. Looking back on it, he looked terrifying, but I was too drunk, tired, and relieved to do anything but walk towards him.

As I got closer, he turned away from me, then as I started following him. him into the trees, I asked a second time what his surprise was. He replied, and I'll never forget the way he said this, something I've wanted to show you for ages now. Then he sort of started mumbling to himself. Stuff I mostly couldn't hear, but could make out the odd word. I know he said stuff like effing posers at one point, but Toby was always complaining about what he called black metal posers, so I didn't think much of it. I just carried on following him, thinking he might have stolen someone's stash or something, and he'd hidden it among the trees.

Then when he knelt down in the dark by a tree and picked something up off the ground, I thought my little theory had been proven right. But then Toby stood up and turned around, and I saw what was in his hand, and it didn't much look like a stash of anything. It looked like some kind of cloth or leather wrap, and it seemed to be too flat, though, not like it didn't much look like. like a bag or a pouch or anything. So as Toby's unwrapping whatever's inside,

I'm watching in my booze-induced haze with my brain only working half as fast as it should. Because when that wrapping fell away, revealing a long, curved, and silvery-looking blade in Toby's hand, all I said at first was, cool, where'd you get that? But Toby didn't say anything. Instead, his face twisted up with this horrible look of determination,

and the big gothic-looking bowie-knife thing that he had started trembling in his hand. I remember taking a step back and asking him, "'Mate? What are you doing?' But he still didn't say anything. All I could hear was his breathing getting deeper and louder as he worked himself up to do something I never thought possible. I asked him again what the F he was playing at. But that time, he lunged at me with a knife, swinging it wildly.

as he did so. He swung it so hard it made that little swishing sound as it split the air, which should also give you a clue to how large it was, not just how sharp or how fast he swung it. I had enough distance between us to avoid his swing, but afterwards I had to speed up to keep a safe distance because Toby was starting to speed up and getting more and more keyed up as he did. I went from asking what the hell had gotten into him to screaming for him to keep his distance and stop swinging the blade. We'd now gone past our tent, and I was walking backwards past other people while trying not to trip over their guide ropes. I was still shouting at him to stop, and since there were literally hundreds of people around gathered in little circles outside

their groupings of tents, it took just a few seconds before people clocked what was going on. I was literally begging them to help me when this big fella stepped in. I remember he had a mohawk, a long one tied back in a ponytail with the sides of his head shaved. He stepped towards Toby saying something like, That's a big knife you got there, mate. Why don't you give it here before someone gets hurt? He then took one fast final step towards Toby and tried to grab him by the knife arm,

but Toby turned and slashed at him. This big fella immediately backed away, holding his arm and looking shocked while shouting, You're going to cut me! Something like that. Toby turned back to me, and when I took a step backwards, I felt my leg got caught on something before I fell backwards onto my arse. I thought, I'm dead, and I'll never forget how incredibly scared I was looking up at him. But after taking a couple of more steps towards me, Toby was suddenly mobbed by a crowd of people. It was the most

stupidly brave thing I'd ever seen in my life. One of the mob was a girl, maybe only five foot, it something, and I think that she might have been the girlfriend of the big fellow who got cut. She was right there in the front line of the little circle that closed around Toby, screaming stuff like, come on then. I remember watching an awe for a second before someone dragged me up and asked if I was okay. It might sound a bit weird, but at the time, I was terrified for Toby. It was like the fear of him suddenly became fear for him, and I can't overstate how much it twisted up in my head to think that people protecting me

were also threatening my best mate's life, just as he was threatening theirs. There was also this feeling of absolute helplessness to cap off what's probably the worst experience of my whole life, because there wasn't a single thing that I could do except just stand there and watch it all unfold. The group of strangers kept the circle around him, but all the people Toby was facing backed off a bit to stay out of slashing range, the people behind him started rushing in and trying to kick him or shove him. They were hit and run attacks, so Toby would spin around slashing, but they'd immediately back off. Then the people he was facing only a second before

started doing the same thing, rushing in with flying kicks before backing off again. It didn't go on for long before a kick knocked him off balance and then a shove sent him to the ground. Then when that happened, people just dived on him, and it was complete and utter chaos for a few minutes until a mix of festival, security, and police ran up shining torches and screaming at people to get back. It was madness, complete and utter madness. And I had this horrible feeling of dread that when they cleared away all those people, there might be one or two who didn't get up again, Toby included. Once the police arrived, it didn't take long before people either ran or backed off from kicking the crap out of Toby. I remember seeing a policeman putting handcuffs on him as he lay on his front

with his face all covered in blood. He'd gotten the kicking of a lifetime, and he didn't so much as squirm when the policeman locked his wrist together. I don't think he even knew what was going on, and I remember thinking that he must have been knocked out and was only just coming too. Someone gave one of the policemen the knife that he'd been trying to stab me with, and then someone else directed one of them over to me like, he's the one he was. He was the one he was trying to stab. That policeman ended up asking me questions, then the next thing I remember, a load of medical people were treating Toby, along with, I think, three or four people he'd managed to cut or who'd been hurt in the chaos. I remember telling the policeman that

we'd had a bit of a scrap earlier that day. Then I hadn't talked to him all day till I returned to my tent at the end of the last show. He asked if Toby was on drugs, and at first I'd sort of instinctually said no. But then realizing how stupid I was being, I changed my story and told them that, yeah, Toby was probably on all sorts of things. But that still didn't explain why he'd tried to kill me. He was a weird guy, one that many people might call a psycho, but I hadn't known him to have any violent tendencies, not till that night at bloodstock back in 2009. And looking back on it all these years later, saying that I didn't know that he had violent tendencies seems kind of naive. Toby glorified violence, and he did it constantly. Deep down, I think I always knew

that he had it in him to really hurt someone. I just didn't think that person would be me, and neither did I expect the entire black metal community in Sheffield to take his side and not mine. When I realized they all cared more about his arrest and trial than they did about whether or not I was okay, I stopped drinking at that bar and stopped hanging around with the people who drank there. They never said it outright, but I knew they blamed me somehow for what had happened to him, and I had to explain to one girl how it wasn't even me that was pressing charges. It was the CPS on behalf of the people he'd slashed. I heard he got two years in prison from one of the few people I stayed in touch with. Then after that, I never saw or heard from him ever again,

and went back to hanging out exclusively with my friends from school, half of which knew what a wrong in Toby was from the moment they'd met him in that bar. I still listen to a bit of black metal every now and then, but since my tastes have evolved over the last 20 years or so, it's mainly for the nostalgia value. I don't idolize the bands anymore, and I find the vibe of some of the darker bands just kind of cringe-worthy these days. Music is supposed to make people happy and bring them together,

and for the most part, that's exactly what black metal does. But I know firsthand that for some people, all that worship of Satan, violence, and death, it's not just theater. It's a reflection of something much, much darker they carry inside of them. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. In 2026, rather than chasing a new you, how can you let go of what's weighing you down instead? This year, feel lighter. The new year brings a fresh start.

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You can't step into a lighter version of yourself without leaving behind what's been weighing you down. Therapy can help you clear space. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash read. That's BetterH-E-L-P.com. have you ever heard. Have you ever heard about that guy threw away a laptop which had the key to a Bitcoin wallet on it? Some British dude called James Howells threw an old laptop into the trash, then didn't realize the key was on its hard drive till it was all the way down at the city dump. When he accidentally tossed it out, the Bitcoin was worth around $8 million.

And by 2017, it was worth $100 million. And now in 2025, it's worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars. And that's right, billion with a B. And that guy's offered a huge reward, paid for his own private forensics team. He's even tried suing the city council members that he think stole it. But it doesn't look like he's ever going to find that laptop, which basically means the dude's got to live with the fact that he tossed almost a billion dollars into the trash. It's a cruel world, right? And it doesn't get much crueler than that. But when I first read about it, all I remember thinking was, holy crap, dude, I could get rich from that crypto stuff. And this was back around spring of 2021 when I first started looking into cryptocurrencies and reading

about the markets. I met some really cool people, and then in May of 2021, one of my crypto buddies hit me up with a tip that he thought I might find helpful. A few months prior, before we started talking, he'd spotted a cryptocurrency named Luna that had jumped from 50 cents per token to six bucks per token. Such a large spike was obviously of interest to him, so he started reading up on Luna to see what the deal was. And what he read, amazed him. It turned out that Luna was just a reserve asset for something called TerraUSD, an algorithmic stable coin designed to retain a one-to-one peg with the U.S. dollar. I guess a lot of people will appreciate me translating that into English, so here you go.

TerraUSD was backed by a ton of investors, who all poured millions of dollars into the company who created it. And that's kind of why it was called a stable coin. With all that money behind it, it couldn't fail, so it remains stable in price. Luna, on the other hand, was an asset that could fluctuate in price per token, but since it was tied to TerraUSD, it could never fluctuate too severely and was almost guaranteed to rise in value over time. My buddy told me that he'd waited for a slight dip to buy in, and he did so at five bucks per token.

But just over a month later, that same $5 token was worth over four times as much at $20.71. cents. The currency had then remained somewhat stable for a while before suffering a minor crash, dropping down to around five bucks again in May. And that is when my buddy texted me, saying it was the perfect time to buy in. He told me he was 99% sure that despite the brief wobble, Luna was about to bounce back in a big way. There was already talk of interest returning, no doubt because of its ties to Terra USD, and my buddy was so confident, he bought a bunch more tokens before he decided to text me. That was the thing that really swayed me,

and I remember joking with him saying, well, if we go down, we go down together. And then since I had a grand total of $490 saved, I bought a hundred Luna tokens at $4.81 apiece. When I told her, the girl that I was seeing at the time thought I was nuts, and so did an offline friend of mine named Chris. And when I say offline friend, I mean, Chris was a man. both a friend in real life that I knew from high school and someone who didn't pay much attention

to stuff online. He had an Instagram account and had played a little Madden with random douchebags from time to time. But apart from that, he was just a regular dude more comfortable with the insides of a car than a computer. He thought I was out of my mind for spending almost $500 on invisible coins. But he wasn't saying that come August time when Luna's value rose from 10 to 20, then 30 bucks per token. And I remember showing him my wallet, and he said, so can you just cash out whenever you want? And I explained that no, I had to find a buyer first, but that was easy when a token's value was on the up and up. Then, since the app I was using did that for me, there was a chance that I could make $2,900 profit within less than an hour.

and that's when he went from thinking was all just a scam to realizing there really was something that this whole crypto thing had going on. He sat on my couch, asked me a bunch of questions about it, and I answered everything as best I could, given my own limited experience. I was honest, too. The same kind of honest people had been with me and told him it was all effectively just gambling. But that in Luna, myself and a whole bunch of other people had found something with potential

for long-term stability. It was still a gamble, but it was just about the safest bet out there for the time being. And for the remainder of 2021, Chris would always ask about my crypto wallet every time we hung out, and it was always good news. Every time he was over,

he'd see how much Luna had risen in value, and he'd always make some offhand comment about giving me a bunch of money so I could turn him a quick profit. I didn't think that was such a hot idea, and had always given him the advice that I'd always given him the advice that I got. Watch the markets for a while, get to know the system, and then be headstrong and patient enough to make the right buys at the right time. To really profit, you had to wait for a

crash, and by the holidays of 2021, when Luna had risen from 30 to 60 to $93 in change, it didn't look like one was coming anytime soon. I told him I'd hit him up the moment one happened, After a very brief drop, which I didn't quite think was the right time, Luna dipped all the way down to around $45 a token at the end of January 2022. I gave him a call and told him it was the perfect time to buy himself in. Then, after talking him through the process of obtaining a crypto wallet, I asked him how many coins he wanted to buy. I don't really know what I was expecting to hear.

Maybe a figure similar to my own. A nice round number, like 100 or 50, given how much. much more expensive it was by then. And so when Chris told me he wanted not 100, but 300 tokens, I was a little taken aback. I thought I was being kind of wild fronting $4,000. Then there was Chris making an investment of almost $14,000, and he was not a rich guy. When I asked if he was sure, he seemed confident as can be, and I guess he based that confidence on what I told him. Every time Luna took a dip, it came back stronger than ever. So just over a month later, when it had risen from less than 50 to over $100 a token,

we both figured he'd made the right choice. Chris's investment was now worth almost $30,000. He doubled his money, and as he can imagine, he was very, very happy with me. By the start of April 2022, Luna was almost $120 per token. and my buddy Chris was not only singing my praises every chance he got, but seemed convinced that we were going to be millionaires by the end of the year. I remember one time we were drinking in a bar after a Red Sox game, and he started getting kind of emotional saying something like,

dude, I really appreciate what you done for me. This could change my whole life. I told him I doubted that we'd be that rich come the end of the year, and that I was planning on selling my tokens as soon as they hit $150. I'd make an insane profit that way, and if Chris did the same thing, he'd more than triple his money. And then, with a little patience, we could wait for another stable coin to be minted, which wouldn't be long in light of Luna's success, and then start the process all over again. That was my theory anyway, but Chris took it as gospel.

I said what I said to try and bring him back down to Earth, and maybe it was the Bud Light talking, but he says, told you, dude, it might not be. this year, but we're going to get rich off the back of this thing, and I got you to thank for it. In the moment, I felt really proud of myself, honestly. It was probably going to make a ton of money off the back of my Luna purchase, but I'd also helped a friend out, too. Not in a life-changing way by any means, but over time, if we played our cards right, the passive income would probably prove to be life-changing. And that was the start of April, and by the end of the year, if the market trends persisted, Luna was estimated to rise to somewhere around $200 a token.

But as the saying goes, man proposes and God disposes. Just a few days after our drunken heart-to-heart in that sports bar, when I felt on top of the world for helping make Chris a little money, Luna took a sharp dip. And then over the next two weeks or so, it went from around $120 per token to about $75 bucks per token. Chris called me for reassurance, and I told him what I always did. Every dip was followed by a new peak. It had been that way since Luna was created, and all we had to do was wait a few days for

the value to creep back up. It didn't even take 24 hours. The next day, Luna had shot up from the floor price of $75 per token to about a nicer $90 per token. And then after a little more fluctuation, it stabilized at around $95 per token. with every expectation of increasing further in value through May of 2022. Now May starts, and just as predicted, Luna's prices rose again. And then somehow I ended up coming down with this really terrible case of something

and was basically bedbound for a couple of days with the exception of trips to the bathroom to puke or poop. And I remember checking my portfolio at one point and seeing Luna had dipped to just under 70 bucks per token. but I wasn't worried, and I had every faith that it had do its usual thing of skyrocketing to a new high after a period of fluctuation. A lot of stuff after that is kind of hazy, and I remember passing out for at least 13 hours or so once the worst of the sickness was out of me. But then, when I woke it up at around 3.30 a.m. on May 11th, 2022, a date that'll forever be burned into my brain, I realized my entire world had been turned completely upside down. After tracking Luna's value, I realized that maybe only an hour after I passed out around 13 hours before, it had dropped from just below $70 to $33 per token.

A couple of hours later, it sank to $16 per token, and then I literally watched it in real time as it dropped to $15, then unlucky 13, right before my very eyes. I never thought that I was the fainting type. I had been in a bad accident as a teenager and seen the meat on the inside of my leg when the broken bone tore its way through of the skin. I didn't feel lightheaded. I didn't pass out.

I just thought, uh-oh, I need an adult. But when I looked at my phone that morning, I saw Luna's value falling and falling and falling, and I had to sit back down on my bed to keep from falling down actually. My head was spinning, my chest felt tight, and I had to keep taking super deep breaths to keep myself from, I don't know, either puking or passing out or descending into some kind of manic freak out. I started checking forums, message boards, and group chats I was in for any clue as to what had happened. I hope to God I'd read something reassuring. Something about Luna being set to bounce back after suffering a glitch or miscalculation in the blockchain or whatever. ever. But I saw the opposite. Luna had crashed and it wasn't coming back. But how the hell had such

a stable asset suddenly crashed and burned like that? Okay, so remember how I told you about Luna being tied to that Terra USD and how that was tied to the US dollar to keep everything nice and stable? Well, that turned out to be a lie. The dudes who created it told everyone it was supposed to maintain a one-to-one peg with the U.S. dollar, but that was nothing but a ruse to lure investors into what was ultimately a kind of unconventional Ponzi scheme. In other words, it was a scam, a very well-disguised one that fooled a lot of people, and I fell for it too. But then in doing so, I hadn't just lost 400 bucks of my own money. Chris had lost tens of thousands of dollars, and he was pissed. When I woke up from my super sleep, one of the things that had me suspecting something was wrong

was the fact that I had like 50 missed calls from Chris, along with almost two dozen text messages too. I guess he got an alert that Luna was crashing and then went into full-blown panic mode while I was passed out. His text progressed from stuff like, bro, are you seeing this? And, dude, this cannot be happening right now, to stuff like, pick up, the effing phone, bro. And are you ducking me right now? Pick up the phone. I remember tapping the little call symbol, very frantic, and then getting nothing but rings until I hit voicemail. I told Chris to call me back as soon as he was awake, because even though his last call had come almost 40 minutes prior, I figured that he had to sleep since 4 a.m. was fast approaching

at that point. But part of me doubted that he was asleep, mainly because there was no way that I'd be sleeping if I was in his position. and I was right because maybe only 15 to 20 minutes later someone started buzzing my apartment from downstairs. I have one of those little intercoms, the kind with a little screen so you can see

and talk to the person buzzing you and I had a pretty good idea of who it was before I saw. It was Chris, but he didn't look angry. He just looked almost deflated. I pressed the intercom button and told him to come on up and then I walked back into my kitchen to turn on my coffee machine and let it warm up because I figured that we had a long and painful heart-to-heart ahead of us.

I grabbed two cups from the cabinet and then heard Chris's footsteps in the hallway outside. I started walking to the door and then said something to him like, Hey man, I'll open up. And he responded by slamming what sounded like a fist into the door before growling, open the F up. He sounded completely sauced, like drunk as a goddamn skunk, so instead of just opening the door, I took a look through the peephole and then saw Chris literally swaying back and forth on the other side of the door. It wasn't like a dramatic swaying, it was very subtle, but that's how drunk he'd gotten himself, so drunk he could barely stand.

I remember how my hands reached for the latch and door handle before suddenly, I paused. I had this flash of an ultra-drunk Chris, smashing up my apartment like a bowl in a china shop after some boozed up argument to send it into violence. I thought maybe I was just overthinking it. But no sooner had that thought popped into my head. Chris slammed his fist into the door again with a loud yell saying, Open the effing door, we need to talk. And that feeling came back fast.

The one that made me think letting him inside wasn't such a little. a good idea. And so I suggested he'd go back home and just sleep it off so we can talk about it over the phone come the morning. I even suggested I'd order him an Uber on my dime by way of an apology for not picking up his calls. And then I was halfway into explaining how sick I'd been when something slammed into the door so hard it made me jump back. I figured he was trying to kick my door in because I heard bam, then bam, and then bam, one each harder than the last. I started yelling a Krista stop, and he gave the door a few more kicks before he stopped. But then he launched into some sloppy, drunk rant about how he was going to kill me when he'd finish kicking my door down.

I tried explaining what happened with Luna, as in why it had crashed and all of that, but it was no good. He was yelling too loud to hear me, and even if he wasn't, I don't think he was lucid enough to even understand. He kept saying, open the door, James, open the door. in a way that honestly sounded like he was losing his mind, and that alone scared the crap out of me. But I also was faced with the very real possibility of having to violently defend myself against one of my best friends, and that's a feeling that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, the kind that makes tears well up in my eyes just thinking about it now, even all

these years later. And in the moment, I knew I should call the cops, but I couldn't. I couldn't do that to him. Part of me figured that I could just talk him down, but the other part knew I couldn't. I remember thinking that maybe just seeing me holding a knife might shock some sense into him, but I couldn't bring myself to go get one either. I just kept saying, please, man, don't do this. This isn't you.

But Chris didn't stop. Not until I heard someone else out in the corridor yelling at him to stop. I recognized that voice of my neighbor from down the hallway, but, I also recognized the fear and surprise in Chris's voice when I heard him angrily say back, Okay, okay, I'll stop. I knew my neighbor must have been pointing a gun at him or something because when I look through the peephole, Chris literally had his hands in the air as he backed away from the door. And then I heard my neighbor yell at him to get out of there before he gets himself shot.

Chris kind of came to his senses, I suppose, in that moment. And I thank God that he didn't bring his own gun. And I know he owns one, so we're not. all quite literally dodged a bullet with that one. And then maybe 10 or 20 seconds after my neighbor came to the rescue, Chris staggered out of my apartment building and presumably went to his car. I thanked my neighbor a whole bunch and he'd already called the cops, so one arrived not long after to ask what had happened. And while I told him everything, start to finish, I also said that I didn't want to press charges against Chris because he wasn't in his right mind. I remember

Heard told him the cop about all the crypto he lost, and when I told him the amount, he said, How much did you guys lose? He couldn't believe it. He didn't even know what crypto was, really. Before he left, he advised me to keep my distance from Chris for a couple of days. A phone call might be an idea, as he might be happy to hear that I wasn't pressing charges. But I wasn't to do something stupid like show up on his doorstep, otherwise it might be me getting a gun pointed in my face. Now, I tried calling, but he didn't answer. I tried texting, but he didn't reply. I tried

contacting Chris on Instagram, and he blocked me, and then I tried asking his girlfriend and mutual friends to pass on messages, but none came back. I figured he'd stay mad for a few days, maybe a week or two tops, because sooner or later, he had to figure out that it wasn't my fault. But as much as it breaks my heart to say it, that didn't happen. And the way Chris saw it, I was either dumb enough to have lost him his money, or I was in on the scam, and I'd stolen it somehow, and either way, he was done with me. I didn't know it at the time, but that night when he screamed at me from behind a locked door, that was the last time we'd ever talk. And there marked the end of my crypto journey. I didn't throw away a laptop with almost a billion dollars, but I threw

away a friendship, and those are worth more than money could ever buy. Born on September 20th of 191 in Baltimore, Maryland, and Sharon Rina Lopatka was the first of four daughters born to Mr. and Mrs. Abraham J. Denberg. As a young lady, she was a canter at the Beth Tefillo Synagogue in nearby Pikesville and was a part of her high school sports teams and choir club. Pears described her as being as normal as you can get, and then sometime following her graduation in 1979, she began dating a construction worker named Victor Lopatka.

Sharon's Orthodox parents didn't entirely approve of the relationship, but that didn't deter her in the slightest. She moved into his Hampstead Tract House in 1990, and they married the following year. In 1995, Sharon and Victor were living in Ellicott City, and to bring in a little extra cash each month, Sharon began an online advertising business based out of their home. Her first venture, House of Dion, sold mail-order home decor guys. for $7 a piece. An advertisement on the website read, Home Decorating Secrets

seen in the posh homes from the New England states to the Hollywood homes can now be yours. Never published before. Quick, easy ways to decorate your home. Sharon proved such an effective advertiser that she was able to begin

selling her copywriting skills for $50 per copy and did so under the trading name classified concepts. Victor, who was initially skeptical of a nascent internet's money-making potential was as proud as he was surprised by his wife's success. He encouraged her to continue her enterprising ways, which resulted in Sharon spending more and more time on the internet. In addition to her copywriting and home decor guide businesses,

Sharon began managing the sales department for several websites offering psychic readings to its users. She also negotiated herself a percentage of sales from other services, some with premium rate telephone numbers by advertising them on her websites. Within just a few short months, Sharon had transformed their home computer into a home enterprise, and it's clear she recognized the Internet's near limitless capacity for commerce. Yet unfortunately, in her quest to provide for her family, Sharon began venturing into the seedy underbelly of the Let's Read YouTube channel. Yet unfortunately, in her quest to provide for her family,

family, Sharon began venturing into the seedy underbelly of the World Wide Web. Even in the Internet's earliest years, the adult entertainment industry fielded a strong presence, having recognized the potential for widespread distribution and subscription-based payment systems. Sharon was no different, and immediately saw what a huge demand there was for an online adult entertainment. With her strengths lying in marketing, Sharon offered her services to a number of distributors, and once again found a huge demand for her lucrative skill set. Yet it wasn't long before Sharon observed another pattern of online behavior. The more extreme the adult entertainment, the more money there was to be made. Sharon noticed that those

interested in the more extreme varieties, which depicted subjects being restrained, hypnotized, or chloroformed, would pay double, or sometimes triple what consumers of milder varieties were willing to hand over. And to her, it was a no-brainer. She could receive up to three times her regular rate to pay for the same amount of work, and so, under the pseudonym of Nancy Carlson, she once again raised her salary ceiling, much to the delight of her husband. As Sharon began tailoring her online expertise to the more perverse and depraved, she began selling her undergarments, and it's here that her interests appeared to shift from professional. to personal.

She transformed the mere pseudonym of Nancy Carlson into a full-blown online persona, and while visiting obscene chat rooms would pretend to be a 300-pound dominatrix who starred in several adult films. It's believed Sharon would offer a certain kind of online chat session in exchange for cash, which once again contributed to her ever-rising revenue.

But somewhere along the way, her behavior took a dark turn. She began posting advertisements which claimed her ultimate fantasy was to be kidnapped, tortured, and killed by a masked stranger, and did so with such authenticity that had generated a huge amount of activity. Some offered to fulfill her fantasies, while others, such as a user named Tanneth, felt Sharon was going too far. Tanneth, who claimed to be some kind of online activist, appeared concerned for Sharon's mental health and gently warned her of the potential consequences. But Sharon did not explain that her posts were eccentric entrepreneurialism, nor did she claim that they were just unrealistic fantasies. Instead, she replied, I want the real thing. I did not ask for you to preach to me. It was a Sunday morning on October 13th of 1996 when Sharon told her husband she was driving over to Georgia to meet some old friends.

Her husband wished her a safe trip, then went about his day as normal, but Sharon was not headed to Georgia. Instead, she drove for 45 minutes towards Baltimore's Pennsylvania Station, then arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina at around 8.45 p.m. Around the same time she arrived in Charlotte, Sharon's husband noticed a handwritten note she left lying on the kitchen table. It's not clear exactly what was written, but not only did she's. did Sharon request that her husband refrained from searching for her, but she wrote, If my body is never retrieved, don't worry. Know that I'm at peace. Victor rushed to inform police that his wife was missing and potentially in danger, but it was already too late. Sharon had already met with the man she'd made an unholy arrangement

with, Robert Glass. For nearly 16 years, Robert Frederick Glass lived an unremarkable life as a computer analysts working for the government of Kataba County. He wed a woman named Sherry, with whom he'd shared three children and their marriage lasted 14 happy years until May of 1996, when Sherry locked onto her husband's computer. There in Robert's email account, Sherry found several emails she later described as raw, violent, and disturbing. Under the username's Toy Man and Slow Hand, Robert had secretly been visiting illicit chat rooms for years.

But he wasn't simply swapping pillow talk with like-minded strangers. He seemed to delight in the prospect of inflicting suffering on the innocent, and he did so in a way that suggested it was far more than just a mere fantasy. Sherry promptly filed for divorce, and given the nature of his indiscretion, Robert Glass lost access to his children. This proved understandably devastating for Robert. But instead of pulling himself away from such perversions and living a cleaner existence, he poured himself into his depravities as a coping mechanism.

Over the months that followed, Robert sank deeper and deeper into debauchery and grew steadily more fixated on the thrill of inflicting suffering and taking lives. Then eventually in August of 1996, Robert Glass found one of Sharon's posts, and the two began an unhealthy and obsessive, online affair. They exchanged 900 pages' worth of emails in just over a month before eventually coming to a nightmarish agreement. They would meet up, then after a few final days of depravity, Robert would end Sharon's

life. During the missing person's investigation that followed her husband's report, detectives gained access to Sharon's computer, and it's here they discovered the exact nature of her communications with Robert Glass. Maryland detective swiftly contacted their North Carolina counterparts, who arranged for Glass's home to be put under surveillance. Officers then spent 24 hours staking out his house, but there were no sightings of Sharon Lepotka. And then finally on October 25th, a judge issued a search warrant for the home, and police

swooped in. Inside the house, officers discovered several of Sharon's belongings. in addition to bondage equipment and drug paraphernalia. They also uncovered a 357 magnum handgun, along with several computer discs which appear to contain child exploitation material. But it wasn't until officers searched the home's backyard that they made the most chilling discovery of them all. Buried under a mound of soil around 75 feet from the house,

officers unearthed body parts belonging to Sharon Lapotka. Glass was at work when he was arrested, and then after being charged with first-degree murder, he was held without bond at the Caldwell County Jail. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and exploitation charges on January 27th of the year 2000, and was sentenced to between three and six years in the Avery Mitchell Correctional Institution. Glass was also sentenced to an additional 27 months on federal charges of second-degree, minor exploitation to be served consecutively. In an interview conducted during his imprisonment,

Glass admitted to fulfilling Sharon's torture fantasy, but was quick to add that her death was an accident. I don't know how much I pulled the rope, he said, but I never wanted to kill her. John Butts, the chief state medical examiner of North Carolina, agreed with Glass's claim that the strangling was accidental. Police did not. They described the death as intentional, and, unfortunately, for Glass,

they had 900 pages of written evidence to support their claim that Sharon's murder was both intentional and premeditated. The Lopatka case was reportedly the first in which a murder suspect was put in custody by a police department based purely on email evidence. Then, in its aftermath, most of the media coverage emphasized the dangerous consequences of meeting strangers from the Internet. Several people requested that a type of censorship be created to better protect humans from killings like that of Lopatka's. Scott Bradner, a consultant with Harvard University's Office of Information Technology, vehemently disagreed. Blaming the medium for the difficulty of some people who exist in society is wrong, he said. It's the Luddites of the world who claim new technology is inherently evil. Sharon's case might be symbolic of the risks associated with some.

spending too much time online, but her malady is not a new one. One evening in September of the year 1791, a Czech composer living in London named Frantyshec Cotswara decided to visit a lady of the night. A few hours later, once the pair had eaten dinner, Cotswara paid Susanna Hill two shillings before requesting she castrate him. Hill refused, but agreed to strangle Cotswara during intimacy. But then, by the time they were finished, he was dead. One of the first recorded cases of what we might call carnal asphyxiation, Susanna Hill was charged with Fantashek Kotswara's murder. But following her trial at the old Bailey on September 16th,

the jury accepted her testimony and she was acquitted on all charges. Robert Glass, on the other hand, received no such mercy. He was incarcerated at the Avery Mitchell Correctional Institution in North Carolina, then spent the next two years as an exemplary prisoner who appeared wracked with regret. The guilt seemed to have weighed heavily on Glass's heart, too, because on February 20th of 2002, just two weeks before he was set to be released, he suffered a massive myocardial infarction. Glass was rushed to the Spruce Pine Community Hospital, but was later pronounced dead at exactly 1.30 a.m. the following morning. His death marked the

the end of a terrifying chapter in the history of digital criminality and illustrates what can happen when dark violent fantasies collide with the harsh light of reality. My name's Ben, and in the summer of 2008, me and a few friends decided that we'd go to the Leeds Festival. And for those that don't know, Leeds Fest is a three-day music and camping event that's named after where it's held. In years prior, the mostly indie band lineup had never interested us, but when the 2008 lineup was announced, that all changed. Leeds 2007 featured the likes of arcade fire and Kings of Leon, with Fallout Boy delivering a twist of pop-punk. But then in 2008, some of the first acts announced were Slipknot, Metallica, and most importantly,

rage against the machine. I had been a huge fan of rage ever since I saw the music video for Sleep Now on the Fire around the year 2000. But since I was only 12 when I got into them, and considering they broke up just a year after that, I thought my chance to see them live had very much come and gone. I was ecstatic in 2007 when rumors of their reformations circulated, but even when they did, I thought that they'd just do a few shows up in the U.S., but never tour Europe. So when it was announced that they were playing leads, I fought tooth and nail to get a ticket, and so did my friends. And to get there, we convinced my friend's dad to drive us down in the back of his van, but not like a people carrier. I'm talking like a big white van

with nothing but storage space in the back. And this was very illegal, but very cool, like we were being smuggled into an actual music festival. The vibes were great from there on out, and that first day, we caught Dropkick Murphys, feeder, tenacious D, and Metallica. But sadly not Slipknot, as Joey Jordison, rest in peace to the drum god,

had to pull out with some health issues. We all headed back to the tents, had a few drinks, and then woke up on that Saturday, raring to go. We all like Metallica, but we had Queens of the Stone Age and rage to look forward to so we spent the whole day floating from show to show in anticipation of the big two come the end of the day. The thing is, we weren't the only ones. With them being such a massive band, Queens of the Stone Age pulled a huge audience, and as their set came to a close, the legions of people who'd bought a ticket purely for rage against the machine started filtering through the crowd and closer to the stage.

My friends and I did the same, not pushing, but just weaving through the groups of people until we were as close as possible to the band we'd all come to see. The only problem was, that's exactly what everyone else did, too. As more and more people pushed their way towards the front, people nearer the back started bunching up, too. And before long, my friends and I were all squished together, and there was barely room to move. We weren't uncomfortable just yet, having your personal space violated as all part of the festival experience. But after the band took the stage, then opened with Bulls on parade, everything

changed. As you can imagine, everyone went mental when Rage played their first song, and there was enough moving and jumping around that it opened up a bit of space. But when they finished and went into their second, the crush started. One of my friends, who wasn't that much of a rage fan, recognized what was coming immediately and said something along the lines of, I'm getting out of here, but the rest of us stayed thinking it couldn't get any worse, but it did. I remember hearing a girl scream, but not out of enthusiasm. Her friend had passed out, and she wasn't strong enough to hold her up. I saw someone trying to help the two girls, but almost everyone else was too distracted by the music and the band on stage to pay attention to anything else.

They were right in the middle of the mosh pit too, so people were smashing into them, and after they fell down, they were in real danger of getting trampled by the people who surged forward whenever there was space. I tried to push through the crowd to give the lad helping them a hand, but I realized I couldn't. The crush where I was at was so bad it was getting hard to breathe. If memory serves, rage were about to launch into their second song, but then they suddenly stopped playing to call attention to what was occurring. People at the front, the ones being crushed up against the metal barriers, were passing out because they couldn't breathe.

Security was having to shove people back before dragging the unconscious ones over the barriers, and when Rage's lead singer saw this, he stopped the show and ordered the stage lights to be turned up so people would see what was going on. I had totally lost my friends by then. The crush took us all different ways as people were pushed together and apart and away from one another.

The sense of helplessness was horrible, and although I never really got the sense that I might die, I knew that there was a chance others hadn't got so lucky. But as a friend of mine pointed out, there was a kind of naive ignorance in me thinking that, which probably amounts to some kind of mental shield. If the band hadn't stopped the gig when they did, then I really could have been one of those getting crushed or trampled on, and the longer it went on, the worse it would have gotten.

Just look at what happened with that Astro World Festival in America. It's absolutely terrifying to know that me and my friends were just minutes away from a very similar, if not identical outcome. The second there was enough space, I started pushing my way through the crowd quite forcefully, and I won't lie. I was properly panicking by then, and I didn't care if I'd waited almost a decade to see rage against the machine. It wasn't worth losing my life over. The crowd was still so dense in parts that I had to literally shove my way through, and some people didn't take too kindly to that. But I remember one guy tried patting me on the back as I brushed up against him, so he must have read it on my face that I bet in the crush

and was just in survival mode. Once the crowd started to thin out, I remember stopping by another set of barriers with a gap near it, one which loads of people were walking through as they headed back to their tents. I could still see rage playing, but I mainly stopped there to keep an eye out for my friends. I didn't know if any of them had been the ones dragged over the barriers or if they'd been trampled in that mosh pit gone wrong. So as they filed past, one by one over the course of Rage's set, it was a huge relief, and there were many manhugs to go around.

We were all quite shaken, and while no one was seriously hurt, our one friend Danny came out the worst of it because he'd fallen into the pit and had his face literally jumped on at one point. There was this massive half-scrape, half-burn-type injury on his cheekbone, where it really did look like a rubber soul had smashed into his face before slipping. I never seen a wound like that, honestly. We asked if he wanted to go to the medical tent or whatever, and he was a bit worried about a concussion and all that, so we went and got him checked out before heading back to our tents.

There, we drank away our sorrows that the show of a lifetime had been so scary and anti-climactic. I'd look forward to it for months, and then three minutes in, I'd rather have been anywhere else in the planet, and it sucked. We spent the next day just kind of chilling, catching a band here and there, mostly just moping around and being gutted that rage had gone so badly. But it wasn't just that. And looking back on it, it's weird that we kind of pushed all these thoughts to the back of our minds, probably so we wouldn't have to address it and we could at least try to enjoy the rest of the festival.

But then after we got back and found out people had heard about the crush, there was no hiding from it. A few people had to go to the hospital because of how badly they'd been crushed. And the fact that we hadn't been in the worst parts of the crush was a matter of pure love. If we'd been a little closer to that stage and rage hadn't had the presence of mind to stop the gig when they did, the situation could have been much, much worse. In the pre-dawn hours of a cool September morning back in 1998, the sleepy English town of Chalbury in Oxfordshire was stirred by the low hum of police fans as they converged on a small two-story home on Crawbera Villas.

The detached house of faded Victorian property with peeling paint in the small front yard was their target's last known address. intelligence suggested he lived alone and was deeply paranoid, often keeping erratic hours and using multiple exits and entrances on the off chance he was being tailed. A dog unit stood ready in case he attempted to flee via the back garden, through which he had access to the dense woodlands which surrounded the town.

Acting on a tip from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the dawn raid was timed for 5 a.m. sharp, an hour when only the farmers' working surrounding fields would have stirred from their slumber. Oxfordshire Police had managed to piece together a vast web of clues and evidence, including private emails and computer metadata. All had pointed back to the terrorist house on Krobera Villas, while suggesting its resident was part of a colossal global network of child-abusing cybercriminals. At 455 a.m., a team of 12 tactically clad officers from Oxfordshire police assembled outside the house. One stepped forward, his fist hammering on the door before

he yelled, police opened the door now. While no response came, a battering ram splintered the front door's lock and the officers flooded inside. The ground floor was a mess of stacked newspapers and unwashed dishes with the smell of old cigarettes hanging in the air. Torch beams swept the darkened rooms as officers moved methodically, clearing the living room and kitchen. Upstairs, they found 28-year-old Ian Baldock in a back bedroom, startled awake and scrambling to pull on a jacket. Hands up don't move, and officer barked. Baldock froze, his face pale in the flashlight's glare. He knew the game was up, and that escape was impossible.

By 6.30 a.m., as first light crept over the village, Baldock was being loaded into a police fan. Drawn by the commotion, neighbors peered from windows, whispering about the man they'd known as a quiet, shifty figure who was rarely seen in local pubs such as ye old three horseshoes. The raid disrupted the morning calm, with police tape fluttering across the property and officers standing ground as forensic teams arrived to carry away Baldock's computer. The seizure and arrest resulted for months of solid work, with Baldock being the first domino, in a chain that would eventually take down one of the world's largest child exploitation networks. This is the story of Operation Cathedral.

Launched in 1998, the advent of Operation Cathedral stands as a pivotal moment in the fight against child exploitation on the internet. It specifically targeted the Wonderland Club, a secretive international child exploitation ring that operated entirely online. The club's name, taken from the Lewis Carroll story, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, massed a horrifying reality. They constituted a network of individuals who produced, shared, and traded in child exploitation material on an unprecedented scale. The operation which involved law enforcement agencies from multiple countries not only dismantled the club, but also exposed the complexities of combating cybercrime

at a time when the Internet was still relatively new. The investigation that led to Operation Cathedral began in the United States in 1996. When the FBI uncovered evidence of a large-scale child exploitation material network during an unrelated investigation into domestic cybercrime, this initial discovery became part of a broader FBI operation known as Innocent Images, which aimed to combat the growing problem of child exploitation on the Internet. As the operation progressed, the FBI uncovered a group of people, of individuals who are using the internet to share material.

Yet after just a short period of surveillance, it became clear that they were part of a much larger international network, the Wonderland Club. The Wonderland Club was not some loosely affiliated group of perverts, but rather a rigorously structured hierarchy that enforced strict membership rules. In order to join, prospective members not only had to provide the organization with at least 10,000 images of child exploitation, but they had to ensure these images

had not already been circulated within the group. This requirement made sure that the club's library of exploitation material grew continuously and exponentially, making it one of the largest repositories of such material in human history. The club operated online using encrypted communication channels, which made it difficult for law enforcement

to track the identities of a lot of, its members. They also instituted a strict hierarchical structure, including ranks based on the quantity and quality of the material contributed, with higher ranking members having access to more exclusive content. It was later revealed that the club had members in at least 14 countries, so given the international scope of the network, the FBI reached out to law enforcement agencies in those countries to coordinate a global response. The UK's National Crime Agency took the lead, working closely with the FBI and other international partners to gather intelligence and plan a coordinated takedown of the network.

This collaboration was essential, as the Internet's borderless nature meant that no single country could tackle the problem alone. One of the most significant challenges detectives faced in investigating the Wonderland Club was the group's use of encryption and other methods to conceal their activities. Members communicated almost entirely through what are known. as anonymous re-mailers, which strip identifying information from emails and use encryption to protect the content of messages and files. Additionally, the club's decentralized structure meant that there was no single server or hub that could be easily targeted. Instead,

members shared material directly with one another through peer-to-peer networks. To overcome such obstacles, law enforcement employed a combination of traditional investigative techniques along with cutting-edge cyber forensics. Undercover officers began infiltrating the club by posing as potential members. Then, once they gained access to the group's communications, they were able to begin gathering evidence on individual crimes. But this was a delicate and dangerous process, as any potential misstep could alert the club's members to the investigation

and cause them to scatter into the darkest depths of the Internet. Another challenge was the sheer volume of material officers had to sift through. The Wonderland Club's library was estimated to contain over a quarter of a million images and almost 1,800 videos of child abuse stored on computers, disks, and other media. Analyzing this material in order to identify victims and perpetrators required significant resources and expertise. It also forced agencies to develop new tools and techniques to handle the scale of forensic data, including cutting-edge software programs that categorized and matched images to known victims. Yet, while it would undoubtedly be a force for good, the investigation

also raised important legal and ethical questions. For example, in order to gather evidence, undercover officers had to engage with the club's members, and in some instances, view or even share exploitation material. This raised concerns about the potential. for law enforcement to inadvertently contribute to the exploitation of children, even if it was in the pursuit of justice. To address this, strict protocols were put in place to ensure that any actions taken by undercover officers were carefully controlled, and that the focus remained on identifying and rescuing victims. Yet the issue is still reminiscent of a Friedrich Nietzsche quote from his work beyond good and evil. He who fights with monsters might take care

lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. After two years of solid investigation, Operation Cathedral culminated in a series of coordinated raids, which took place on September 2nd of 1998. Law enforcement agencies in 13 countries, including the U.K., the U.S., Australia, Germany, and Italy,

executed simultaneous search warrants, then swiftly arrested suspects to prevent the club's members from warning one another. In total, over 100 individuals were arrested, and a vast amount of evidence was seized, including computers, hard drives, and other digital storage devices. One of the most high-profile arrests was that of Gary Salt, a British man who was found to be a key member of the club. Salt's home contained a large collection of exploitation material,

and he was later sentenced to 12 years, in prison for his despicable contributions. While over in the United States, the FBI arrested a man from California who was found to have over 100,000 images on his computer. Thankfully, the raids led to the identification of several child victims, including a 10-year-old American girl who was rescued after images of her abuse were found in the possession of a club member. This underscored the real-world impact of the operation, as a not only dismantle of the operation as a not only dismantling

the network, but also saved children from ongoing exploitation. Despite the operation being a complete success, the legal outcomes of Operation Cathedral varied wildly depending on the jurisdiction. For example, in the UK, several members of the Wonderland Club were convicted and received significant prison sentences. But while the likes of Gary Salt were sentenced to 12 years, another member, David Hines, received a sentence of just 30 months in prison. In the United States, sentences were much more severe, with some individuals receiving up to 20 years in prison for even the most minor of involvements. But not all arrests led to convictions, and in some cases, insufficient evidence or legal technicalities resulted in charges being dropped. There is, however, a silver lining to that dark, dark cloud, in that it exposes gaps in legal frameworks,

especially in countries where laws against child exploitation are either outdated or insufficient to address the scale and nature of the crimes. Naturally, this has led to calls for stronger legislation and better international cooperation to combat online child exploitation, and brick by brick, gaps in the defenses are being filled. Operation Cathedral also had a profound impact on law enforcement practices. It served as a model for future efforts, such as Operation Avalanche in 2001 and Operation Orr in 2002, both of which targeted similar networks. In response to the operation, several countries introduced new initiatives aimed at improving online safety, including public awareness campaigns and the development of software to block access to harmful content.

The operation also raised public awareness about the dangers of the dangers of the the internet, particularly for children, and highlighted the need for education and resources to protect them from online predators. By dismantling the Wonderland Club, law enforcement agencies not only brought perpetrators to justice, but also rescued victims and prevented further harm. The operation's legacy lives on in the continued efforts to combat child exploitation online, serving as a reminder of both the progress that has been made and the challenges that lie ahead. As the Internet continues to evolve, so too must the strategies used to protect the most vulnerable. But with determination, cooperation, and innovation, even the most

secretive and sophisticated criminal networks can be brought to justice. My name's Sarah, and going to a music festival a few years back was somehow one of the best and worst decisions I have ever made in my life. It wasn't a huge festival, and the guys who organized it were total idiots, so I don't want to give them any free promotion by saying which one it was. But it took place in the middle of nowhere and a whole bunch of fields and it was mostly EDM all night until dawn. We bought our tickets online, bought camping equipment, and the whole deal. And we were super stoked to attend, and while that first night was amazing, the second night, not so much.

A friend and I had been dancing in a big tent together to a DJ we both liked, and after a set was over, we decided to take a break and get some water. Once we were outside, she realized that she needed to go do something related to feminine hygiene. I offered to join her, if only for the company, and she said no, it was fine, that she'd just go to our tent and come straight back again. I was like, okay, cool, and then watched her walk off before heading back inside with my water. Now, I'm a girl in my 20s. I work out, and I've been told I'm pretty, so I'm used to a certain amount of male attention, and I'm not obnoxious. about it. I usually just lie and tell the guy I have a boyfriend, even in situations where I might

kind of be into a guy, because I don't want to have to play the dating game when I'm just trying to have fun with friends, you know. I'd already had one or two guys shoot their shot with me, and they'd taken it like gentlemen when I kind of told them to buzz off. But then this one guy started trying to dance with me, some dumb, sloppy drunk and a dirty white tea who smelled like stale beer and cigarettes, and he would not take no for an answer. It got to the point where I just wasn't having fun anymore, so I waited for an opportune moment to slip away from the guy, and then walked all the way outside the tent to wait for my friend outside. I thought that I'd given the guy the slip at first, like I really did wait till his back was turned away and darted off into the crowd and toward the exit.

But somehow he managed to tail me outside, and then started asking where I was going and why I was ditching him. Now, I said, I told you a 20 times already. I have a boyfriend. But then he says, that's chill. We're just vibing out, you know. But in the way that was clearly not friend zoning me in the minimal, things were actually starting to get pretty heated with the guy saying something along the lines of, what hell's your goddamn problem? You think you're better than me? And then suddenly, a stranger stepped in. Lisa, the stranger said. Like they were pleasantly surprised to see me. Oh my God, what the hell are you doing here? Mom didn't tell me you were home from college. And to make it clear, I had never seen this person before in my life,

and I had never been to college. But they seemed to insist that me and him were cousins. He mentioned it like twice in quick succession, then turned to the guy bothering me, saying, and who's this guy? Are you going to introduce me? I told him I didn't know the guy. And then my new cousin turned to him and said, Hey man, I get you two, we're hanging out, but do you mind if we have ourselves a little cousin catch-up time? It's been a while since me and Lisa have seen each other. Now, my name is not Lisa, but I just went with it,

and the guy bothering me seemed to swallow that hook, line, and sinker. The stranger even topped it off with a bit of a playful but firm, you're not about to start hitting on my cousin right in front of me, are you, bro? Incredibly, the guy that had been bothering me who'd been aggravated to the point I thought that he might start a fight just laughed. It was like the kind stranger had rolled a charisma check in D&D and then hit a perfect natural 20 right there in front of me. The guy bothering me then says,

Me? Oh man, it's all good. I'm just out here vibing. Then after reaching in to give us both fist pumps, he wandered back into the big tent to rejoin the party. I remember turning to the kind stranger, half stunned and half impressed, before thanking him for stepping in so masterfully. He said it was no problem, and that the cousin trick had worked a bunch of times before. He then introduced himself as Aaron, and I jokingly introduced myself as Lisa, before telling him my real name.

I explained the situation, and not just that the guy had been bugging me, but that I had been waiting for my friend to come back. out from our tent. It then occurred to me that she'd been an unusually long time, like way longer than neither of us expected, and then it might be an idea to go check on her now. And I said that to Aaron, saying it was nice meeting him, and I was grateful for him stepping in, but that I had to go find my friend because I was worried about her. He then suggested he accompanied me to keep annoying guys at bay, kind of like a free bodyguard, and I'd just say, all right, sure, why not? We started walking and talking, swapping festival stories and talking about which DJs we enjoyed so far, and Aaron seemed like a great guy.

He'd gotten a ride with a few friends of his, who were apparently off seeing a DJ he wasn't a huge fan of, so he decided to kind of wander around soaking up the vibes and discovering some new music. That's when he saw me. I told him, before he got the wrong idea, that I had a boyfriend. This was a lie, but like I said, it's pretty liberating not. feeling that dating pressure or having to assume a guy has ulterior motives when it seems like he's just being nice. Aaron then says, I figured you might be taken, but that's not what I'm about. And explained he too was in a relationship, but that it was complicated. I asked if all his vocabulary was taken from Facebook relationship statuses, and he just sort of laughed and asked if

that's how I was thanking him for saving my ass with insults. And we went back and forth like that for a while and I'll admit, I started really enjoying Aaron's company. But as he passed the area his tent was at, he asked me to wait a minute while he went and got something from his bag. I said, sure, and then a minute later, he came back with two bottles of water. Now, it was a super warm evening, but the humidity was out of this world. So while there was a lot of alcohol being drunk, there was a but ton of water being drank too, mainly by people who were on things other than booze. Aaron then comes back with two unopened bottles of water and offers me one. I had my own water bottle, but it was only a quarter full and warm, and I probably could have used a fresh one.

But accepting a fresh bottle of water from Aaron would have also broken the number one rule of festivals or raves for me. Do not, under any circumstances, except drinks from people you do not trust with your life. It's probably the oldest, most tried, and most tested rule of raving and nightclubbing. and it's usually the first thing most girls learn whenever they head out into the night for the first time. Rules, as they say, are written in blood. And if that is true, this chapter is a long one. I feel like everyone knows someone who's been spiked at a party these days, or someone who at least got scared that they were having too much to drink on an empty stomach.

So it's one of these things that's firmly built into what you might call the collective consciousness of girls. and this meant that the second Aaron offered me the water bottle, I was instantly sort of like, no-uh. I didn't voice any of my suspicions out loud. I didn't want to offend the guy, but I also think that he took a major hint when I said, No, thanks, I'm good. And then he responds,

Huh, okay, I guess I'll keep it handy if you change your mind. And then remember thinking, I definitely won't be changing my mind about that water anytime soon, but I thanked him anyway and we kept on walking towards where me and my friend were camped out. I guess that might sound super odd to some. Like I mistrust the guy enough that I won't drink his water, but I'm okay with him walking me up to my tent. I suppose it is kind of contradictory,

but I didn't make the rules when it comes to keeping safe at events like this. I just follow them and they've worked out for me so far. Anyway, Aaron and I wandered back to my tent, chatting back and forth the whole time, and I remember getting some really good vibes from him. But then, when we get back to the tent, I excused myself to go check on my friend. I was worried she might not be there,

in which case, where the hell was she? But not only was she in the tent, but she was fast asleep and snoring. I woke her up to check on her, and she apologized for not texting after explaining that she was just exhausted. She only planned on taking a power nap, but she must have totally slept through the alarm.

I said it was fine. I was just relieved to know that she was okay. But since I didn't feel like settling down just yet, I'd be back in a few hours after taking a walk around the festival site. I already made it up in my mind that Aaron was chill enough to take another walk with, even if I didn't quite trust him enough to drink his water yet. And so I wished her good night, zipped our tent back up, and then stepped my way through the mess of guide ropes to where Aaron was waiting for me.

And in so many words, I explained the situation and thought I had a couple of hours to spare. And then Aaron said that we should just keep going on what we'd been doing, walking and talking, and since I thought that was a good idea, I accepted. I didn't feel much like dancing, and it was so late that all the food places had closed up for the night. And so we ended up just wandering around, soaking up the vibes on what was an unusually warm summer night. And so after maybe an hour walking around, I asked for the second bottle of water that it was carrying. And I remember him kind of laughing like,

I thought you'd never ask. But after I reminded him how careful girls and boys have to be about spiking, he agreed my caution was fair. And I drank some of Aaron's water. We walked and talked some more, and before long, I noticed that we'd walked all the way to the very edge of the festival site, where it was super dark and very quiet. We traced the edge of the area,

and Aaron started to get a little flirty, but I figured that he'd earned a chance to shoot his shot once he'd been walking around with me for so long. But then, it struck me. This very, very concerning thing that we made our way to the quietest part of the sight, just as I started to feel kind of sick and light-headed. And it also struck me as really concerning

that the feeling of nausea and shakingness had come on right as I was halfway through the water Aaron had given me. I didn't tell him what I suspected. I just asked if we could walk back to the tent and then started walking very quickly back towards a well-lit public area. Aaron asked if I was okay. And although I told him I was fine, I was feeling more and more shaky and light-headed with each step I took. I realized that if whatever I was feeling was the result of something I drank, I needed to empty my stomach and fast. So I made a B-line for the tree line to stick two fingers down my throat, but not after telling Aaron, don't you follow me, before I did.

And I puked my guts up, till nothing but bile came out of my stomach and it was completely empty. And then as I wiped my face clean and wandered back towards Aaron, I felt my head clear. I realized it was probably just the crappy alcohol and lack of decent food making my stomach rebel on me, because almost as soon as I'd puked, I started to feel a bit better again. But as I I started to feel better. I started to feel this mix of dumb, mean, and paranoid. I didn't know how to explain it. Aaron hadn't spiked that water. He'd given it to me out of the kindness of his heart, and all the while I'd been half considering him a predator like that wasn't somehow insulting to him. Aaron asked if I was okay, and what was going on that made my mood change on a dime,

so I told him straight up. I was so terrified of being spiked that the second I felt unwell, I just assumed it was his fault, and he was some predator who played the long game and tricked me into drugging myself. And I apologized, like it was legitimately heartfelt and said that I totally considered if he wanted to escape the psycho B word that he'd met while he still had the chance. But Aaron did the typical Aaron thing and not only accepted my apology, but said that he'd be too scared if all he heard were men are bad horror stories from all those Netflix crime documentaries, which I'd mentioned being into, and I guess had fueled my paranoia a little. He was super understanding about it, but said I owed him a new first date because I'd ruined

the first one by accusing him of roofying me. I agreed to what was a very fair point, and then right as I felt that first romantic spark between us, I saw someone walking over to us. It was the annoying, sweaty, drunk guy from before, and not only had he heard Aaron using my real name, he'd heard him talking about our little date. Aaron couldn't see him, but I guess he had read my face when I realized who was walking over, and then by the time he turned, he only managed to get out a word before the drunk guy threw a punch. He might have been sloppy drunk, but the punch that he aimed at Aaron's face

was both powerful and accurate. And that might make it sound impressive, but the sound that it made was disgusting, like a slap so loud that it sounded almost like wet. Aaron hit the dirt immediately. He was knocked out cold, and then the guy started talking. I don't seem like no cousin to me, asshole. He said, all sloppy and all drunk. You think I'm stupid or something, huh? Is that it? You think you're better than me? And I remember yelling. He can't hear you at him, but the guy told me to shut up. and then, to my absolute horror, he put his sneaker right on Aaron's head, and then started leaning his weight onto that foot like he was trying to crush his skull. I ran over screaming

for him to stop it, pushing the drunk guy off of Aaron before screaming at him to leave us alone. The guy took one look at me and then punched me so hard in the nose that it was immediately dripping with blood by the time I found my feet again. My whole face was on fire from the pain if having my nose punch like that. It didn't break, but holy hell did it hurt like a bitch, and checking it for blood distracted me long enough that I didn't see the drunk guy dropped to his knees and start ground-pounding on Aaron. That's what it's called, right? When one guy knocks the other down and just starts punching him while he's done over and over to finish the fight? Well, Aaron was finished the second he got hit. All the guy was doing now was essentially killing him.

And I ran over, shoving the drunk guy over, which was easier this time since he was on his knees already. And I've never fought a guy like that before in my life, and I definitely paid for it with a busted nose. But my God, did it feel good to get a few solid smacks in while he was down. I'm glad I did, too, because the next second, he was up and had a hand around my throat. But it couldn't have been there for more than a second before someone noticed us and started yelling. The next thing I know, the drunk guy is throwing me to the ground, and by the time I got up again, I saw maybe five or six guys running over and pushing him off, saying, you're hitting a girl, bro? What are you wrong with you, dude?

All that kind of stuff. The drunk guy threw a punch at one of them. Then he took one back that knocked him on his ass. But the group showed restraint. They didn't mob him. Instead, one of them got the drunk guy in some kind of judo hold, like grabbing the guy's arm and pulling it. and then he was in way too much pain to do anything but lied there till security essentially showed up. And while security took care of the drunk guy, I asked the guys who came to help me to go get medical help, and they did.

A few minutes later, a bunch of first-aiders showed up as Aaron was starting to wake up, but by that point, his face was a total mess. The drunk guy had connected with a solid few punches, and his nose, eyebrow, and bottom lip were all bleeding pretty heavily. The medical folks got him on his feet, and then I accompanied him to the little medical tent where he got some basic treatment while being checked out for more serious injuries. It was almost 3.30 in the morning by that point, so Aaron had to call his brother over and over until he woke up. He really did not want to drive all the way out to that festival to give him a ride home, but the moment he heard how badly Aaron was hurt, he jumped out of bed and promised to be there within an hour. Aaron and I waited together on that dirt road that led to the site. Then not long after, his brother showed up, mad as hell about what had happened.

We swapped cell numbers before they drove off. And the next day I spent almost the whole ride back texting with Aaron back and forth and arranging that date that I'd promised to let him take me on. And we've been dating ever since. In fact, Aaron is the longest relationship I've ever been in, and we're still going strong almost three years later. he sometimes makes fun of the way we first met like sometimes he'll bring me coffee and say something like

careful now you don't know what I might have laced that with but I take it on the chin because nothing worth having comes easy and trust when I say it's hard to come by Over the past few years, Over the past few years, lurking among the digital shadows of the World Wide Web, a predator had been exploiting the very platforms meant to offer comfort and community to those in need. It's a case so brutal, so calculated, that Hamburg's chief prosecutor would say the acts exceed human imagination, and while that might sound like hyperbole, the details you're

about to hear will prove otherwise. This is the story of the Hamburg grooming case. Our story begins in the German city of Hamburg, but its reach stretches across the globe. Arrested in June of 2025, the perpetrator is a 20-year-old man known online by the pseudonym White Tiger. His identity remains a secret due to strict German privacy laws, but his actions are now infamous. White Tiger wasn't just any predator. He was methodical, sophisticated, and deeply indefinitely. insidious. He stalked anonymous online help forums and chat rooms, places designed to support individuals struggling with mental health issues. These were supposed to be safe havens. Instead,

they became his hunting grounds. Posing as a sympathetic and similarly aged peer, White Tiger would initiate contact with vulnerable young people and would specifically seek out those already suffering with depression or other mental health conditions. Then, what started as feigned empathy turned into coercion, blackmail, and control. He'd slowly build trust, engaging them in conversation about their struggles, and then once he had them ensnared, the mask would slip. Once in possession of embarrassing or compromising information, the white tiger would coerce his victims, some as young as 11 years old, to produce obscene or violent content. For example, he would force victims to send illicit or disturbingly violent photographs,

which he then downloaded as trophies, which would facilitate further blackmail. So far, German police have identified a total of eight confirmed victims, aged from 11 to 15. Each one was targeted because of how vulnerable they were, before the white tiger dragged them into a nightmare. Among them, two cases stand out for their particularly devastating, outcomes. First, there was the 14-year-old girl from Canada who required hospitalization after enduring months of abuse. She survived, but the scars, both physical and emotional, will remain for the rest of her life. But it's the 13-year-old girl from the United States

who suffered the most tragic turn of events. After being groomed horrifically over an extended period of time, the boy was coerced into prematurely terminating his own existence during a live-streamed video. The boy, who has never been publicly named due to his age, was already struggling with mental health issues. He turned to an online community for help, but the only thing waiting for him was a monster, one who recorded his death and kept the video as a trophy. Perhaps even more sickening is the fact the white tiger's victims might number in the hundreds, yet these children aren't just statistics. They were kids seeking connection, understanding, and support.

Instead, they found a predator who weaponized their trust and inflicted lifelong trauma. What makes this case even more disturbing is how the white tiger operated. He didn't just download his trophies for personal use. He live streamed them on the dark web to broadcast his victim's suffering in real time, creating a grotesque spectacle and users could relive. over and over. And he wasn't acting alone. The White Tiger was part of a larger, more sinister network known as 764, a vile group of online predators identified by the FBI as specialists in exploiting minors. This wasn't just one predator. It was organized abuse, perpetrated by people

who share tactics and content across international borders. FBI director Cash Patel recently called network, deeply disturbing, before stating that federal agents were investigating hundreds of cases tied to 764. On June 17th of 2025, and acting on a tip from the FBI, Hamburg police stormed an apartment somewhere in the city. Inside, they found White Tiger, who turned out to be a 20-year-old man living with his parents. The FBI's intelligence gathered from monitoring 764 and other similar networks was crucial, yet the arrest of the White Tiger was only the first step in delivering justice to his victims. In court, and despite the overwhelming evidence against him, White Tiger denied any and all wrongdoing, and as of June 2025,

prosecutors are still finalizing charges while grappling with the international scope and sheer volume of offenses. The Hamburg rooming case isn't just a tragedy. For parents, educators and policymakers, it's a stark reminder of the need for vigilance. It exposes how predators exploit the Internet's anonymity to target the vulnerable, turning safe spaces into their hunting grounds. Children need to be taught the signs of grooming, such as extensive personal attention, request for secrecy, or pressure to share explicit content. While adults must learn to monitor online interactions without stifling independence,

Social media platforms bear some of the responsibility too and can implement robust safety guards such as real-time moderation and anonymous reporting to detect and penalize predatory behavior. But perhaps the most critical lesson is the need for international cooperation. The group's leader was arrested in Greece, while another member was sentenced in Michigan, and many argue this is proof that cybercrimes demand a unified global response. The online exploitation of children might well span the globe and include hundreds of thousands of faceless victims and nameless perpetrators.

But it's the singular personal stories that are somehow the most moving, such as those of the 13-year-old boy whose life was stolen, the 14-year-old girl who fought to survive, or the six other children whose trust was shattered. Their stories are a wound on our collective conscience, but they also offer hope. The arrest of the white tiger and the dismantling of 764 show that we can fight back, because in a world where predators hide behind screens, VPNs, and faceless avatars, vigilance is our strongest weapon. Hey, friends, thanks for listening. Don't forget to hit that follow button to be alerted of our weekly episodes every Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST. And if you haven't already, check out Let's Read on YouTube, where you can catch all my new video releases every Monday and Thursday.

Thursday at 9 p.m. EST. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you in the next episode.