The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 622: COMPILATION: Staff Picks A to Z: From Aliens to Zombies, From Giants to Gobekli Tepe
Episode Date: December 29, 2025This special compilation brings together ten staff favorites that question everything we think we know about reality. From the dark corridors of DARPA where future technology is born to the frozen was...telands of Antarctica where Admiral Byrd allegedly encountered an advanced civilization, the official narrative often crumbles under scrutiny. We analyze the Pentagon’s declassified plan to combat the undead and investigate whether John Wilkes Booth truly died in a Virginia barn. The Smithsonian Institution faces accusations of suppressing evidence regarding giant skeletons found across the United States. Even our existence might be an illusion, with glitches like the Mandela Effect suggesting we live in a simulation. Ancient structures like Gobekli Tepe may warn of a cyclical destruction that wiped out our ancestors. We look at the strange anomalies of the moon, the unsettling nature of liminal spaces, and the possibility that humanity was engineered by visitors from the stars. These stories suggest the line between conspiracy and fact is thinner than authorities admit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfmJ_rLkKTI&t=287s
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Hey, thanks for checking out another compilation.
Oh, no.
Ahem.
Excuse me, human?
I'm not going to...
Excuse me, human!
What is it? I'm trying to set up the compilation.
You promised I could do this one.
Yeah, but I already started...
You promised!
Fine. Go ahead.
Thank you.
Ahem.
Roll it.
Hucklefish doesn't respond to the CIA.
Ah, hello, human. It's me, Morgan. I am a beaver.
Today, we're showing a compilation of videos as chosen by the Y-Files team. Come on, follow me.
Hey, Gertie. How they humping?
Hey, boys, hold the work. We have guests.
Hey, what are you doing?
Who said you could take a break?
Whoa, whoa, you're not my single malt.
Hey, get back here, you filthy rod.
Check it out.
This is where the human and hecklefish do the show.
Pretty cool, huh?
Ah, that's better.
Hang on a sec.
Can I get a coffee, please?
So hard to find good help, isn't it?
Okay, where were we?
Hang on.
There's something wrong with the prompter.
What does that mean?
Play us out.
Play us out?
I don't know what that means, play us out.
Forget it.
We'll do it live.
I'll write it myself and we'll do it live.
The whole thing stinks.
Here we go.
The first episode was picked by
Jen. You know, Jen,
aka Mrs. Y Files,
aka the Queen Bee,
and B doesn't stand for Brunette
if you catch my drift.
So the Queen Bee chose.
The Dark Side of DARPA?
Oh, come on, man. You trying to get us demonetized?
Fine, we'll play it.
Roll it.
In the early days of the space race,
the Soviet Union racked up a lot of firsts.
Sputnik, the first satellite.
Laika the dog, the first animal in space.
Uri Gagarin, the first man in space.
Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman.
Zahn 5, the first spacecraft to the moon.
Meanwhile, America's space program lagged,
plagued by setback after setback.
There were some successes, but not enough to keep pace with the Soviets.
America was still planning its first satellite while Sputnik circled the earth.
Then Sputnik too went up.
American citizens were terrified.
What if the Russians put weapons in space?
Maybe they already have.
Paranoia was starting to become hysteria.
President Eisenhower was under pressure to act and to act fast.
The United States government knew what it had to do.
create an organization to develop the most technologically advanced military systems in the world.
And just three months after Sputnik 2 was launched, the Advanced Research Project Agency, or ARPA, was born.
Later, ARPA became DARPA, the D stands for defense.
Because DARPA would be both a sword and a shield, creating offensive weapons and defensive systems.
No project was too expensive, and no program was too immoral.
DARPA's secret research would cost many lives
but sacrifices had to be made for the sake of security
but after all these years it's time to ask
who are they really protecting?
Here's the scene, you're driving
it's late and the road ahead is dark
you make a turn and then another
you finally realize you're lost
If this were the not too distant past, you'd pull over and grab your Thomas guide.
Yeah, for you kids, that's a map.
And if you didn't have a map, you'd try to find a gas station or 7-Eleven to ask for directions.
Then your fate would be in the hands of the guy working in the night shift.
Who may or may not be a serial killer?
Right.
But now, all the answers are in your pocket.
You tell your phone the address and GPS guides the way.
Some cars will even drive for you while you sit back, relax, and listen to your favorite pocket.
Oh, you know, the Wi-Files is also a podcast.
No plugs yet, please. We save those for the end.
Sorry, sorry. I could sniff out a plug opportunity like a travel pig.
The technology I described that got you to your destination, it was created by DARPA, all of it.
And there's a lot more of DARPA in your pocket than you think.
Your cell phone uses microprocessors designed by DARPA.
They also created the batteries to power those micro-processes.
Your phone uses wireless technology made possible by DARPA.
The touchscreen and the microphone came from DARPA.
Voice recognition and GPS come from DARPA.
And of course, all this data transfer happens using the Internet,
which was created by DARPA.
Excuse me, if I may.
Is this going to be a highly predictable and hack joke
about how Al Gore said he created the Internet?
I yield the rest of my time, thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, DARPA created the internet.
Well, technically, they were still ARPA then.
Remember, the D was added in 1972.
In the 1960s, researchers were trying to figure out a way
to ensure reliable communications in case of a nuclear attack.
Traditional telephone lines and radio transmitters would be the first to go.
They came up with a radical idea, packet switching.
Not all of us speak nerd.
Some of us went to our prom and said,
Instead of staying home to write code on our Apple 2.
Well, packet switching is not as complicated as it sounds.
Here's how it works.
You want to send a message or file from New York to L.A.,
but what if half the country's lines are down?
So you break that message into small chunks called packets
and send each one independently over the network.
On the receiving end, the message waits for all the packets to arrive
and then reassembles them back into the original message or file.
Each packet will independently try to find the most efficient route through the network at any given moment.
The internet still works this way.
Most people didn't use the internet until the late 1990s or early 2000s.
Some nerds like me were using our phones to dial bulletin board systems.
Hey, thanks for checking out another compilation.
Oh no.
Ahem.
Excuse me, human.
I'm not going to...
Excuse me, human!
What is it?
I'm trying to set up the compilation.
You promised I could do this one.
Yeah, but I already started...
You promised!
Fine. Go ahead.
Thank you.
Uh-oh.
Roll it.
Hecklefish doesn't respond to the CIA.
Ah, hello, human. It's me, Morgan. I am a beaver.
Today, we're showing a compilation of videos as chosen by the W-Files team. Come on, follow me.
Hey, Gertie, how they humpin?
Hey, boys, hold the work.
We have guests.
Hey, what are you doing?
Who said you could take a break?
Whoa, whoa, you're not my single malt.
Hey, hey, hey, get back here, you filthy rodent.
Check it out.
This is where the human and hecklefish do the show.
Pretty cool, huh?
Ah, that's better.
Hang on a sec.
Can I get a coffee, please?
So hard to find good help, isn't it?
Okay, where were we?
Hang on, there's something wrong with the prompter.
What does that mean?
Play us out.
Play us out?
I don't know what that means, play us out.
Forget it.
We'll do it live.
I'll write it myself, and we'll do it live.
The whole thing stinks.
Ahem.
Here we go.
The first episode was picked by...
Jen.
You know, Jen.
A.k.a. Mrs. Y. Files.
A.K.A. the Queen B.
And B doesn't stand for Brunette if you catch my drift.
So the Queen Bee chose
The Dark Side of DARPA?
Oh, come on, man, you trying to get us demonetized?
Fine, we'll play it.
Roll it.
the first satellite.
Laika the dog, the first animal in space.
Uri Gagarin, the first man in space.
Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman.
Zahn 5, the first spacecraft to the moon.
Meanwhile, America's space program lagged,
plagued by setback after setback.
There were some successes,
but not enough to keep pace with the Soviets.
America was still planning its first satellite
while Sputnik circled the Earth.
Then Sputnik too went up.
American citizens were terrified.
What if the Russians put weapons in space?
Maybe they already have.
Paranoia was starting to become hysteria.
President Eisenhower was under pressure to act and to act fast.
The United States government knew what it had to do,
create an organization to develop the most technologically advanced military systems in the world.
And just three months after Sputnik 2 was launched,
the Advanced Research Project Agency, or ARPA, was born.
Later, ARPA became DARPA, the D stands for defense.
Because DARPA would be both a sword and a shield,
creating offensive weapons and defensive systems.
No project was too expensive, and no program was too immoral.
DARPA's secret research would cost many lives,
but sacrifices had to be made for the sake of security.
But after all these years, it's time to ask, who are they really protecting?
Here's the scene. You're driving. It's late and the road ahead is dark. You make a turn and then another. You finally realize you're lost. If this were the not too distant past, you'd pull over and grab your Thomas guide.
Yeah, for you kids, that's a map. And if you didn't have a map, you'd try to find a gas station or 7-Eleven to ask for directions. Then your fate would be in the hands of the guy working in the night shift.
Who may or may not be a serial killer?
Right.
But now, all the answers are in your pocket.
You tell your phone the address and GPS guides the way.
Some cars will even drive for you while you sit back, relax, and listen to your favorite podcast.
Oh, you know, the White Files is also a podcast.
No plugs yet, please.
We save those for the end.
Sorry, sorry.
I could sniff out a plug opportunity like a travel pig.
The technology I'd...
described that got you to your destination? It was created by DARPA, all of it. And there's a lot more
of DARPA in your pocket than you think. Your cell phone uses microprocessors designed by DARPA.
They also created the batteries to power those microprocessors. Your phone uses wireless technology
made possible by DARPA. The touchscreen and the microphone came from DARPA. Voice recognition
and GPS come from DARPA. And of course, all this data transfer happens using the
internet, which was created by DARPA.
Excuse me, if I may.
Is this going to be a highly predictable and hack joke about how Al Gore said he created the internet?
I yield the rest of my time, thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, DARPA created the internet.
Well, technically, they were still ARPA then.
Remember, the D was added in 1972.
In the 1960s, researchers were trying to figure out a way to ensure reliable communications in case of a nuclear attack.
case of a nuclear attack. Traditional telephone lines and radio transmitters would be the first
to go. They came up with a radical idea, packet switching.
Not all of us speak nerd. Some of us went to our prom instead of staying home to write code
on our Apple 2. Ahem. Well, packet switching is not as complicated as it sounds. Here's how it works.
You want to send a message or file from New York to L.A., but what if half the country's lines
are down. So you break that message into small chunks called packets and send each one independently
over the network. On the receiving end, the message waits for all the packets to arrive
and then reassembles them back into the original message or file. Each packet will independently
try to find the most efficient route through the network at any given moment. The internet
still works this way. Most people didn't use the internet until the late 1990s or early 2000s. Some
nerds like me were using our phones to dial bulletin board systems in the late 1970s and early
80s. But this new network called ARPANET was conceived in 1966.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You were online all the way back then when you were like 12 or 13 years old?
Yep. I was even younger than that when I first got online.
And you're proud of this. Well, yeah, shouldn't I be...
Did you even know girls existed?
Yes, I knew they existed.
Yeah, now I see.
What?
Girls didn't know you existed.
I was a late bloomer.
Bloomer?
Bloomer.
What I say.
Under DARPA's guidance, TCIP became the universal language for online computers.
They also developed the concept of email and invented domain names.
DARPA worked with UC Berkeley to create the BSD Unix operating system.
BSD Unix heavily influenced the operating system you're using right now, no matter what OS it is.
It started with DARPA.
Now, these technologies may seem modern, but DARPA sent the...
the first internet message in 1969.
Now, this shouldn't be surprising.
DARPA technology is said to be about 20 years ahead of civilian tech.
Like self-driving cars, DARPA built one in 1984.
DARPA had GPS in 1973, microprocessors, motion sensors, and wireless communication.
DARPA had these decades ago.
But eventually, these innovations became available to the rest of us.
DARPA's technology has made our lives so much better,
it's easy to forget that those innovations weren't originally meant to improve lives.
They were meant to end them.
It's the middle of the night,
and you're lying prone on top of a dusty building in some far corner of the world.
You hug your 50-calibur-barret sniper rifle.
It's pitch dark, but you're light-gathering high-magnification.
Scope gives you full visibility of the alley 1,200 yards away.
A door opens. It's your target.
Right on schedule.
You hold your breath and put your finger on the trigger.
Suddenly, a van appears.
Your target leaps in and speeds off.
Years ago, he'd escaped.
Mission failed.
Not now.
You fire confident in DARPA's latest innovation,
a self-guided bullet.
With optical sensors and real-time guidance,
it maneuvers mid-flight locked onto its target.
Skilled snipers engage targets up to 1,300 yards away or more.
The farthest confirmed kill, 2.2 miles by Canadian Special Forces in 2017.
Impressive, but DARPA's extreme accuracy-tasked ordnance, or Xacto bullet,
hits targets five or six miles away.
Maybe farther.
DARPA keeps the details a secret.
Many DARPA projects seem like science fiction, some like magic.
SEPTA lets you see through walls.
The Mojave Project bends light, making objects invisible.
DARPA's engineering living materials program uses living fungus as a construction material.
Structures will no longer be built.
They'll be grown.
Instead of shipping finished materials, we can ship precursors
and rapidly grow them on site using local resources.
And since the materials will be alive,
they'll be able to respond to changes in their environment
and heal themselves in response to damage.
DARPA likes fungus, but it loves bugs.
Project Insect Allies modifies flying insects to attack crops.
These insects resist disease and repair each other's injuries in the field.
Then there's the hybrid insect microelectrical mechanical systems,
or hymems. This project, along with Project Dragonfly, creates miniature flying cyborgs.
Beatles, moths, and dragonflies become undetectable spies with cybernetic implants and solar-powered
guidance systems. They could be controlled remotely or operate autonomously using AI. They've created
remote-controlled rats. Darpa trains bees to find landmines. They're developing claytronics,
programmable shapeshifting matter. They're developing nuclear-powered spacecraft.
autonomous vehicles and weapons of all kinds.
DARPA's technology is meant to keep people off the battlefield.
Why risk a battalion of human soldiers when you can deploy a fleet of drones?
But sometimes you need boots on the ground, and that means people with guns.
But DARPA has a better idea.
Don't give a soldier a weapon.
Turn them into one.
The human body is an amazing machine.
Our musculoskeletal system allows us to do gymnastics,
lift heavy weights, and walk long distances.
Still, our bodies have limitations.
DARPA is developing technology to overcome these limitations.
The goal is to increase strength, endurance, alertness,
and the overall health of soldiers.
DARPA's Warrior Web Project is one of several exoskeleton programs in the works.
It's an exosuit, lightweight,
and flexible, similar to a scuba suit.
But this is a smart suit.
Using machine learning and onboard sensors,
the suit knows when and where to firm up to augment muscles.
It performs its function, then becomes flexible again.
DARPA has also developed hard exoskeletons,
just like you've seen in movies like aliens and Edge of Tomorrow.
These exoskeletons not only increase strength and endurance,
but they're modular.
They can be equipped with all kinds of weapons.
There's even a jetpack in development.
The Talosuit turns a soldier into a real-life Iron Man.
It's bulletproof and weaponized.
It increases strength, speed, and endurance.
It monitors the user's vital signs and has sensors that analyze the entire environment around them.
The Tactical Augmented Reality, or TAR project, is a headset that overlays information over your normal vision.
This gives soldiers real-time information like displaying maps, enemy locations, and other vital data right in their world.
line of sight. Project Z-Man was inspired by geckos. Darpa is creating a material that would let soldiers
climb walls without ropes or ladders. Now, everyone knows the Air Force gives their pilots amphetamins.
I feel the need, the need for speed. The need for speed. Yep. They literally take illegal
narcotics to stay alert. But the continuous assisted performance or cap program is focused on
keeping soldiers awake, alert, and effective for up to seven days straight with outside
effects.
DARPA's Brain Initiative program connects soldiers' brains to computers.
They can control drones and other systems with thought.
They can truly multitask where one part of the brain is operating a drone, while the
other part of the brain is analyzing the area looking for targets.
In the early 2000s, DARPA started exploring ways of giving humans superhuman abilities without
equipment. This is DARPA's
Bio-Revolution program. They
studied how animals attack, defend
themselves, and regenerate from injuries.
DARPA felt
that if they could find those answers,
these abilities could be transferred
to humans.
They could give soldiers
improved senses, perfect eyesight,
and limb regeneration without
external devices. Now, to do
that, you'd have to alter human DNA.
So DARPA is exploring
CRISPR gene editing technology.
CRISPR can snip out unwanted genes and insert new ones.
CRISPR could accelerate healing.
Injuries that might have sidelined soldiers for weeks or months could heal in days.
CRISPR technology has already sparked a revolution in medicine,
with the potential to cure genetic disorders and even combat aging.
Link below and how CRISPR AI are about to end the whole world.
Yeah, that episode is scary.
But it's interesting and it's real.
Now, some of these projects have failed, and some haven't.
and some are still in development.
I have no doubt that DARPA will turn soldiers
into superhuman weapons eventually, but they haven't yet.
So how do you put boots on the ground
and keep humans off the battlefield?
DARPA's answer?
Killer robots.
DARPA started working on robotics in the 1960s.
Its first project was shaky,
the first mobile robot to reason about its action.
Shaky wasn't sleek or fast, but it was a start.
Ah, you know, I feel like if you name your project, Shaky, you're kind of setting yourself up to feel.
Well, since then, DARPA's robotics has come a long way.
In the early 2000s, DARPA launched the Big Dog program.
In partnership with Boston Dynamics, these four-legged robots can carry heavy loads and navigate difficult terrain.
They can also be outfitted with weapons like sniper rifles or machine guns.
The LS3 can follow soldiers autonomously and carry up to 400 pounds of gear.
And then there's the Atlas robot, and now we're getting serious.
Atlas was launched in 2013, and you've probably seen various versions of this robot over the years.
Atlas could run, jump, and navigate obstacle courses.
A couple of years ago, Atlas used AI to teach itself how to walk, and then run, and then do gymnastics.
Yeah, you humans realize it's only a matter of time before these things take over and enslave you, right?
Some of us realize it.
Investigative journalist Annie Jacobson has covered DARPA for years.
She says there's no doubt that the Pentagon is investing heavily in robotics.
DARPA's plan through 2038 states without question that the Pentagon is moving towards robotic warfare.
They want to have hunter-killer drones.
that can swim, crawl, walk, run.
Drones that can fly 13,000 miles an hour,
which is 22 times faster than a commercial jet
to get to a target really quickly.
Ballistic missiles have limitations.
Speeds over Mach 20 require too much power
and make the rockets dangerously hot.
But thanks to DARPA, that's no longer a problem.
Missiles can now travel at hypersonic speed without overheating.
A target 500 miles away can be destroyed in six minutes.
Weapons like these certainly keep humans off the battlefield,
but DARPA's going to take it one step further.
It's creating the technology to wage war without needing humans at all.
Remember how DARPA is always about 20 years ahead of civilian technology, maybe more?
Well, as early as the 1960s, DARPA started developing computers that can learn independently.
In the 1980s, DARPA launched the Strategic Computing Initiative, or SCI.
The goal of SCI was to create military strategies by running simulations and learning from them.
You're describing war games.
What's doing?
It's a learning.
War Games was originally going to be a science fiction story about a dying scientist who's saved by a kid genius.
But then the writers met Peter Schwartz from the Stanford Research Institute, or SRI.
Yes, RI, I know those guys.
You do.
SRI has been the launch pad for many secret government programs.
I've talked about them a lot on this channel.
And they've long been connected to the CIA, NSA, and DARPA.
Well, Schwartz was fascinated by a new computer subculture called Hackers.
He suggested that they make a movie about a kid hacking a military supercomputer.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was called the Big Mac.
No, Wopper, War Operation Plan Response.
Oh, right.
I'd still rather have a Big Mac.
Me too.
Well, the Wopper spends all its time thinking about World War III.
24 hours a day, 365 days a year,
it plays an endless series of war games
using all available information on the state of the world.
At the very same time that this movie came out,
DARPA was working on its own military supercomputer.
Here's how they described it.
The machine envisioned by SC would run 10 billion instructions per second
to see, hear, speak, and think like a human.
The degree of integration required would rival that achieved by the human brain,
the most complex instrument known to man.
If you haven't caught on by now, we're talking about artificial intelligence.
Today, AI is everywhere and accessible to everyone,
and it feels like it came out of nowhere, but it didn't.
It came out of DARPA.
As of today, 70% of DARPA's projects use or are focused on AI and machine learning.
DARPA started working on AI.
in the 1960s. They built their first AI system, a speech recognition computer in the 1970s.
In 1983, the Strategic Computing Initiative project received billions for AI research.
Then in the 1990s, DARPA launched another supercomputing project.
It was and still is highly secret.
It's affecting you right now.
And once I tell you what it is, you're not going to like it.
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Now it's time to get this video demonetized and censored.
Yeah, boy.
Yeah, if I'm not on a list by now, I'm about to be.
No, they're watching you, human.
Yeah, I really don't want to talk about this.
Honestly, I'm about to put everything that I have at risk.
You're actually scaring me right now.
I'm scared, too.
Here we go.
Like the steam engine which sparked the industrial revolution of the late 1700s,
The Internet is changing everything it touches.
And at the cutting edge of the revolution is Wall Street.
So we are now six and three-quarters points above fair value.
The early 1990s was the beginning of the tech boom.
Internet startups were getting millions in investments.
And they had access to vast resources and vast amounts of data, personal data.
The intelligence community wanted to gather this data
to create a digital fingerprint of everyone using the internet.
If they could identify bad actors, criminals, terrorists, whatever,
they would compare that fingerprint against others.
They called this the birds of a feather approach.
If Joe's a bad guy and Bob's a bad guy,
and they both go to certain websites,
then other people visiting those same websites were potential bad guys,
so let's track them.
So, surveillance?
Yes.
Of Americans?
Yes.
Legal?
No.
Well, officially illegal.
as of 2010, but the law was murky in the 1990s.
And for the intelligence community, murky means opportunity.
Still, the intelligence agencies didn't have the ability to manage all this data.
But they knew people were out there working on it, and they were all looking for funding.
But if you're the NSA or CIA or DARPA, you can't drop by an internet startup
and ask them to build you an illegal digital surveillance program.
Yeah, it's kind of a bad look.
It is.
But it also gives away the internet startup.
gives away the game.
Surveillance is only valuable if the target
doesn't know they're being watched.
So this technology would need to be funded privately and quietly.
So in 1994, the Highlands Forum was founded.
Ever hear of the Highlands Forum?
You probably haven't.
And they like it that way.
The Highlands Forum or Highlands Group
was formed as a think tank, a bridge between technology companies
and the Pentagon.
The Highlands Forum is an interesting.
invitation-only group of government officials, academics, and executives from tech and defense
companies. Their discussions are private and off the record, operating under the Chatham
rule, meaning members can disclose information from the meetings as long as it doesn't harm
anybody, but they can never reveal who said it, not ever. Although hardly anyone knows about
the Highlands Forum, the group is highly influential on U.S. defense policy, especially regarding
technology. And there are private organization. No auditing, no oversight, no freedom of information
act requirements. They're a black box. The perfect conduit for transactions you want to keep
off the books. So, tech is booming. Data is flowing, and we've got our think tank to connect us with
the people capturing the data. Now we need the money to fund them. That same year, the massive
digital data systems or MDDS program was launched.
MDDS would fund scientists, researchers, and companies who worked with big data sets.
The Highlands Forum would help identify, facilitate, and coordinate these transactions.
To keep these transactions private and secret,
the MDDS moved money through unclassified mainstream agencies like the National Science Foundation.
Computer scientists were getting millions and grants from the NSF, totally normal.
They didn't know who is really behind the money.
An MDDS was highly compartmentalized.
It had tons of projects and departments.
Nobody knew what anyone else was doing or who was even in charge.
And this was by design.
But the overall program was managed by the CIA, NSA, and DARPA.
So we've got black budget money flowing through the NSF.
And we've got our private organization, the Highlands Forum, looking for opportunities.
So the word goes out to researchers in academia.
If you can handle big data, we'll give you big money.
Then a promising project emerged.
Two Stanford graduate students working on a search engine made a breakthrough.
In the early 90s, searching the Internet was difficult.
Popular engines like Alta Vista and Lycos produced hit or missed results.
Searching hiking gear would show pages mentioning hiking or gear, often irrelevant blog posts or articles.
Users had to scroll through pages of useless results.
It took forever, and I remember it well.
Two Stanford students developed a system that changed everything.
Their automated webcrawling system identified a web pages' context, not just the text.
Then, pages were ranked based on relevance to specific queries.
Pages actually discussing hiking gear would rank higher for that query.
High traffic pages and pages would lot
of incoming links ranked even higher.
These were signals to the algorithm that a page was a good match for that query.
Using this search engine felt like magic.
Usually the first or second result was exactly what you were looking for.
Somehow it knew.
The system used an optimization technique called association rule mining or query flocks.
This assumes birds of a feather stick together,
meaning people searching specific keywords tended to click the same result.
QueryFlox worked with people too.
The search engine learned that people with similar online habits search for similar things.
If you searched hiking gear, the system assumed you liked outdoor activities, or probably
within a certain age group.
And the more you use the search engine, the more it learned about you.
So your searches always gave you relevant results.
Using information you willingly provided, these students had developed a method to create
your digital fingerprint.
Jackpot.
The CIA, NSA, and DARPA learned about this project,
and through the National Science Foundation, the MDDS funded it.
If you haven't guessed by now, those two students were Sergey Brin and Larry Page,
and the search engine was Google.
You won't find MDDS in Google's origin story, but this is part of the search.
public unclassified information.
It's just hard to find.
In Brennan Page's famous 1998 research paper,
the anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual web search engine,
they thanked DARPA for their support.
You can see this for yourself.
It's on page 16, Section 7, under acknowledgments.
Now, there's a lot more to this rabbit hole.
The connection between intelligence agencies and technology companies is so...
Hang on, hang on.
What?
Pop quiz.
Go ahead.
How do you make your living?
YouTube?
And who owns YouTube?
Google.
Right.
Bye-bye channel.
Now it would be a good time to ask for Patreon support.
I don't do plugs until the end of the episode.
Make an exception.
We're in the deep water now.
He might be right.
Truly and honestly.
I won't know until it's too late.
But telling you this story might have been a terrible mistake.
So yes, please go to patreon.com slash the Wi-Files.
I don't know if we will, but we might need your help.
Anyway, this video isn't about Google.
It's about DARPA, specifically the dark side of DARPA,
and it's about to get a whole lot darker.
When John F. Kennedy took office in 1961,
America had allies everywhere.
Cuba, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Lebanon, and many others.
But the Soviet Union was fueling insurrections against U.S. friendly governments.
Kennedy promised to stop the spread of communism.
But the Soviets were pouring billions into military technology, rocket and missile systems, even space exploration.
JFK was committed to keeping pace.
He wanted more resources in science and technology.
He modernized the military and doubled DARPA's budget, and the timing couldn't be better.
The global Cold War had evolved into regional proxy wars,
with the Soviets.
A new type of warfare was being fought, guerrilla warfare.
Old military strategies wouldn't work.
The situation in Vietnam was especially bad.
The Viet Cong were hidden under the thick jungle canopy.
You can't kill an enemy that you can't see.
DARPA proposed a solution, Project Agile.
It was pitched to Kennedy as both a scientific and military endeavor.
Kennedy signed off immediately.
The first phase was called Operation Ranch Hand.
Its purpose was to clear the jungle.
DARPA developed the rainbow herbicides,
named for their container colors, to kill the foliage.
Agent Purple was first, then green, then pink.
DARPA was combining different herbicides, defoliants,
and toxins, looking for the perfect formula
to destroy Vietcon cover.
Agent Orange was the winner.
Millions of gallons of Agent Orange
was sprayed over miles of jungle every day.
Leaves fell from trees almost immediately.
Another application, and the trees died.
Next, Project Agile targeted farms.
Asian Orange could destroy miles of crops in a day.
They asked South Vietnamese President Diem
if he knew which farms were Viet Cong
and which belonged to innocent civilians.
He said, yes, he knew, and he didn't care.
If they weren't traders yet, they would be soon.
Kill them all.
Now, the U.S. didn't want to do this,
but it only had a few hundred military advisors
in Vietnam at this time. They didn't want to send more. Better to sacrifice North Vietnamese farmers
than U.S. Marines. So it was done. Guilty or innocent, friend or foe, if you were a North Vietnamese
farmer, you were targeted. Your crops were destroyed and your soil was poisoned. Replanting was
impossible. Agent Orange's effects were instant and devastating. And nobody knew it was only the beginning.
As the Vietnam War escalated, so did the use of Agent Orange on to DARPA's Project Agile.
Project Agile used other tactics.
DARPA contractors included social scientists and experts in human psychology.
Propaganda spread through leaflets, loudspeakers, and media control.
Subliminal technology kept people in heightened emotional states, from minor discomfort to absolute terror.
Subliminal war.
Mind Control, LinkedIn, down the alley, Sally.
Psychological warfare teams targeted villages,
turning neighbor against neighbor.
Civilians were forced into strategic hamlets for their safety.
Four million people were relocated against their will.
Meanwhile, soldiers complained of headaches, nausea,
stinging eyes, and rashes.
Agent Orange did more than clear jungle and killed crops.
It tortured people for life.
Thousands exposed to Agent Orange develop cancer.
Children were born with defects.
Agent Orange caused reproductive problems like infertility and miscarriages.
Heart disease and diabetes increased.
Agent Orange was first used in 1962.
In 1965, scientists discovered it contained dioxin,
a highly toxic compound that causes cancer and birth defects.
They kept using it.
In 1967, a study proved Diocin,
The toxin causes birth defects, even at low concentrations.
They kept using it.
In 1969, a Department of Defense report acknowledged Agent Orange's severe health risks.
They kept using it.
Public outcry forced President Nixon to stop the use of Agent Orange in 1970.
They kept using it.
They stopped spraying the following year, 1971.
Even in war, there are rules.
rules. POWs must be treated humanely. Medical staff and facilities are off limits.
Humanitarian aid must be allowed. Breaking these rules is a war crime. In 1907, the Haye Convention
banned the use of poison in war. The U.S. signed the treaty. Agent Orange was poison. That's
what herbicides are. So was using Agent Orange a war crime? No. The United States said
Agent Orange wasn't a poison. It was an herbicide. The treaty didn't specifically mention.
and herbicides.
Oh, that's some loyal loophole bullshit.
In 1925, the Geneva Protocol
banned the use of chemical weapons.
The U.S. signed this treaty.
But Agent Orange was a chemical.
Of the 12 companies producing Agent Orange,
the primary manufacturer was the Dow Chemical Company.
The word chemical is in the company's name.
So is using Agent Orange a war crime?
Nope.
The United States said Agent Orange wasn't a chemical.
It was an herbicide.
Well, wait.
How was that even possible?
It's not.
In 1949, the Geneva Conventions established
that civilians and their property
must not be intentionally targeted.
Only combatants and military targets were allowed.
The U.S. signed this treaty.
But civilians and their farms
were intentionally targeted with Agent Orange.
So was using it a war crime?
No.
The United States said the intent
was to disrupt the enemy's logistical support
and visibility,
not cause direct harm to people.
In other words, it was an accident.
So what about the destruction of plants and trees on civilian land?
Those weren't military targets.
Isn't this a war crime?
No.
The United States said it was a military necessity to defoliate the area
in order to deny the enemy cover,
which makes trees, any trees, anywhere, a military target.
What about destroying civilian crops?
Again, the U.S. only intended to destroy crops of the enemy,
not civilians. It was unintentional, so no war crime. In 1977, the Geneva Conventions were amended
to specifically ban the use of herbicides and reinforce civilian protection. The U.S. signed
this new treaty, but still denied any liability for the damage caused by Agent Orange.
However, in 1984, U.S. veterans sued the chemical companies, who settled for $180 million.
But the settlement was to support veterans, not at admission of
guilt. In 2004, Jill Montgomery, speaking for the Monsanto company, one of the major suppliers
of Agent Orange, she set the record straight. We're sympathetic with people who believe they've
been injured and understand their concern to find the cause, but reliable scientific evidence
indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious long-term health effects.
In 1991, finally, the VA started providing benefits to vets exposed to Agent Orange,
but the U.S. still denies liability.
My father-in-law served in Vietnam.
He was exposed to Agent Orange.
He's watching, so I won't list his illnesses, but he suffered almost all of them.
So in 1991, he applied for his benefits.
And I'll admit, the government kept its word.
he did receive his benefits.
In 2021, it took 30 years.
Like so many vets, when his country needed him, he didn't hesitate.
But when he needed his country, they said take a number, get in line,
and hope you're still alive by the time we call your name.
Do I sound angry?
That's because I am.
Between 1955, 55,
in 1975, 2.7 million people were deployed to Vietnam, 58,000 dead, 300,000 wounded, 3,000 missing
or prisoners of war, 1,500 still missing. That's tragic, but it's much worse. The VA estimates
300,000 to 400,000 veterans may have died from illnesses caused by the exposure to Agent Orange.
May have. To this day, to this day, no single person,
agency, company, or government
has admitted any wrongdoing or assumed
any liability for the millions
of lives destroyed by Agent Orange.
Now, ordinary people like us
have so many rules we have to follow.
Don't speed. Check grandma's shoes
before she gets on a plane.
Pay your taxes even though we're going to steal it and waste
your money. Pick up a gun. Shoot at those
people. Do what you're told.
If we break a law, the government
will take our money, seize our property,
force us into labor or lock us
in a cell. It all depends on the crime.
so we follow the law.
But if you're a big chemical company or a government agency,
don't worry about the law.
You can get away with murder.
I needed a minute.
The story of DARPA is hard to debunk,
and that's because most of it's true.
What we know about DARPA's projects come from them.
Their websites and official YouTube channel openly share,
information. They have a podcast called Voices of DARPA. Even the experts in covering DARPA,
Annie Jacobson and Sharon Weinberger, get their information from the agency they're writing about.
When Jacobson gives a speech, writes a book, or appears in an interview about DARPA,
she's not sharing classified information. She's not speculating she's reporting. She never claims
to know anything that we can't find out for ourselves. But still, most information is secret.
What we know about DARPA is what they want us to know. There's no transparency.
None. Also, DARPA is exempt from laws that other government agencies have to follow,
specifically about hiring practices, managing personnel, and managing budgets. They can run the agency
however they like. Darpa is only 220 people. That's it, with a budget of almost $4 billion.
Now, that's a lot of freedom and power, but it's much more than that.
DARPA is allowed to fund projects through what's called other transactions. No congressional approval
needed. No reporting required. Choose the projects you want to fund and fund them. So who's choosing
the projects? Annie Jacobson gives us an unsettling answer. The real problem is that the individuals
who are responsible for deciding what weapon systems are being financed and created in these
classified DARPA programs are the very CEOs of defense contractors who stand to financially benefit
from these contracts.
Annie Jacobson has said that DARPA is the agency driving the military industrial complex.
That agency is run by the companies that profit from the technology they create.
This is exactly what President Eisenhower said would happen.
If you make war profitable, you'll always have war.
But to be fair, DARPA's innovations have made our lives better.
Not just because of cell phones and GPS, DARPA's achievements in private.
Aesthetics have allowed paralyzed children to walk again.
They've created medical techniques to diagnose illnesses earlier.
They've bioengineered tissue and organs that can be used for transplants.
They've developed machines that can stabilize injured people in emergency situations.
Advanced medical imaging such as ultrasound, MRI, and brain imaging, all created by or
alongside DARPA.
Now, does the good outweigh the bad?
Do DARPA's contributions offset the damage they've done?
I don't know that's not for me to judge.
But the story reminds me of the courtroom scene in a few good men.
You can't handle the truth.
Right.
When the colonel says,
My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about it, parties.
You want me on that wall.
You need me on that wall.
Right.
So is DARPA a necessary evil?
Is evil even the right word?
I don't know.
When DARPA was formed in 1958, its mission was to make sure the United States was never again surprised by advanced technology.
And for 66 years, DARPA has succeeded in its mission.
The U.S. has never been surprised by technology.
Except for the UFOs.
Okay, the U.S. has never been surprised by another country's technology.
Better.
I can't forget all the suffering that DARPA has caused.
But DARPA has done so much good, can I forgive?
I don't know.
I'm disgusted by some of DARPA's actions, by our government's corruption, by the fact that because of DARPA, bad people get rich from war.
But if I'm being honest, which I always end with you, I have to acknowledge that, as an American, we need DARPA on that wall.
I told you that was going to be a dark one.
Okay, what's next?
Aha! Yes, zombies!
This one was chosen by my editor, Brandon.
He loves creepy stuff.
Yep, if DARPA wasn't dark enough for you,
here's the episode about Conplan 8888.
Hmm, Brains.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Staff Sergeant Ryan Martinez was the B-Doc-Desson on duty at AFB,
a few miles south of Omaha, Nebraska.
He sipped cold coffee, updated the blotter, and checked him with patrols.
Reports confirmed the monitors.
RC-135 sitting dark in the flight line, guards walking posts, and perimeter fences quiet.
At zero-400, this was routine.
Martinez was fighting a yawn when the claxon fired up.
Then an announcement, alarm read, perimeter breach.
Martinez checked the cameras.
A wave of shadows was stumbling across the field toward thousands of on-based
personnel and their families.
Then he saw them.
The shadows were people, or at least they used to be.
The loudspeaker barked commands to halt.
The horde kept coming.
Flares went up, warning shots were fired.
The horde kept coming.
Then came the command Martinez never expected to hear.
Weapons free.
Gunfire erupted, thousands of rounds creating a wall of sound and smoke and steel.
Bodies fell.
The entire base held its breath.
A few seconds later, the bodies rose again, and the horde kept coming.
Martinez tore through a cabinet searching for the protocols no one took seriously,
remembering the training no one thought necessary.
Every soldier at office was prepared for this exact scenario,
outlined in a military document most Americans had never heard of.
Conplan 8888, the Pentagon's Guide for Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse,
and tonight, the plan goes operational.
The plan that staff Sergeant Martinez pulled from that cabinet is real.
I have a copy of it.
You can download it and read it for yourself.
In 2009, United States Strategic Command released Conplan 8888-11,
count your zombie dominance operations.
31 pages of detailed military strategy for surviving a zombie apocalypse,
complete with operational phases, threat assessments, and rules of engagement.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
This is a real thing?
Army versus zombies?
Yep.
Okay, I'm terrified right now.
Hold me.
No.
The document opens with standard Pentagon formatting,
official letterhead, proper classification stamps.
Everything looks mundane until you get to the document's purpose statement.
U.S. Stratcom, con plan 8888, purpose.
To undertake military operations to preserve
non-zombie humans from the threats posed by a zombie horde.
Because zombies pose a threat to all non-zombie human life,
hereafter referred to as humans,
U.S. Stratcom will be prepared to preserve the sanctity of human life.
The document was declassified in 2011, thanks to a FOIA request.
Now, that's a quick turnaround from classified the public.
A section of Complan 8888 reveals why.
U.S. Stratcom,
Conplan 888, security instructions.
This document is unclassified to ensure maximum utility during times of crisis.
Classified capabilities used to counter zombies will be addressed in appropriate orders,
and crisis plan will be adapted to current operational conditions.
Conplan 8888 assumes a complete breakdown of society.
It lays out five distinct operational phases from monitoring through the restoration of civil authority.
Phase zero is shaped the environment.
Stratcom watches for non-state actors with chemical and biological W.H.
They monitor disease vectors, outbreaks, and epidemics.
Phase one is deter.
This prevents enemies from creating zombies,
and nuclear-armed countries get notified
that counter-zombie tactics aren't a preparation for war.
Phase two is seize the initiative.
StratCon provides security assistance to local authorities.
Quarantine zones get created and enforced.
Civilian areas stay protective until they're overrun.
Then Conplan 8888 enters phase three.
dominate, respond, and counter.
During phase three, the U.S. military locks down and retreats to fortified positions for at least 40 days.
U.S. Stratcom, conplan 8888, phase three.
Upon receipt of a U.S. Stratcom order, all forces will begin preparations to conduct combat operations against zombie threats.
U.S. Stratcom will shelter all personnel in place for at least 40 days.
After that, phases four and five focus on stabilizing and restoring government.
reconnaissance teams deploy to assess the zombie threat.
and communications.
If the threat is neutralized, rebuilding begins.
But as long as zombies exist, the military stays locked down.
Conplan 8888 outlines these phases step by step.
But notice what's missing during the military lockdown, civilian protection.
The document says that during the first critical weeks,
local law enforcement handles zombie attacks until martial law is declared.
After that, no civilian assistance, no rescue missions, no exceptions.
The plan assumes most government officials die within 24 hours.
Cities become uninhabitable.
Infrastructure collapses completely.
Complan 8888 ensures military command and control continues.
And that's great if you're inside a fortified facility.
But for anyone outside a military fence,
Conplan 8888 makes it clear.
You're on your own.
To survive the collapse of society, you need to understand the threat.
The military knows where zombie apocalypses could start and what will face beyond the safety of fortified installations.
that could transport the source of a zombie infection to North and South America.
But Conplan 88888 is clear.
Zombie threats come from anywhere and affect anyone.
The Pentagon organized zombies into distinct categories.
According to Conplan 8888, the most likely threat comes from pathogenic zombies,
created when viruses or bacteria infect humans.
And the Pentagon isn't guessing.
Existing diseases could mutate and trigger real outbreaks.
Take radies.
The virus attacks the central nervous system.
creating aggression and violence.
Infected animals foam with the mouth
and attack anything that moves.
That foam carries the rabies virus.
One bite from a rabid animal
means almost certain death.
Movies like 28 Days Later and World War Z
show virus-based zombies.
Animals also become zombies
through preon diseases.
A preon is a misfolded protein
that destroys brains and nervous systems.
Chronic wasting disease
makes deer and elk lose their natural fear.
They stumble around like
zombies. Easy prey for predators. Mount lions actually target infected deer, but eating these
animals is risky. Eat a preon disease brain and you become infected. Mad cow disease is a
preon disease. Humans who eat infected beef develop Croitsfeld-Yacob disease. The symptoms are
rapid mental deterioration, loss of coordination, and aggressive behavior. Sounds a lot like zombies.
Kuru affects cannibalistic tribes in Papua New Guinea. They eat the brains of dead relatives,
as a funeral ritual.
Stop, stop, stop.
Why do they...
How do...
What? Why?
Eating the brain
helps the spirit
reach the afterlife.
So, how was grandma's funeral?
Yeah, a little chewy.
I don't feel so good.
Yeah, technically it's against the law now.
But rumors are that some tribes still do this privately.
Keep my wife's brain out your mouth.
What?
Keep my wife's brain out your f*** mouth.
And that's how it continues.
Eating an infected brain spreads Kuru.
Victims experience severe mood changes.
They become violent and unpredictable.
Like ex-wives.
Like zombies.
Ah, that makes more sense.
The zombie land movies feature prion zombies.
And beyond bacteria, viruses, and prions, parasites can create zombies.
These are called symbiont-induced zombies.
What makes these parasites so dangerous is, you don't know your carrying one.
Conplan 8888 says pathogenic zombies are most common, and that makes sense.
Diseases affect every animal on Earth, and sometimes those diseases jump to humans through zoonosis.
AIDS, SARS, H1N1, Ebola, plague, anthrax, Lyme disease, malaria.
Dozens of deadly diseases jump from animals to humans, and most diseases kill their hosts.
but not all.
Conplan 8888 calls these
S-I-Zs, symbiont-induced
zombies. Instead of killing you,
the parasite uses you, at least
for a while. In Costa Rica's rainforests,
the jewel wasp attacks cockroaches.
The wasp injects venom directly
into the roach's brain. The roach becomes
docile and compliant.
Ah, you said this was the Cosby Wasst.
The Jewel Wasp.
I don't remember Jewel doing anything
this inappropriate.
The Jewel Wasp grabs the roach by its
antenna and leads it to a burrow, like walking a dog. The roach doesn't flee, it follows.
Then the wasp lays an egg inside the roach and leaves. The roach stays put, waiting peacefully.
When the larva hatches, it eats the cockroach alive from the inside out. That's mind control.
Conplan 8888 calls it zombification. And if you played the Dead Rising games, those zombies are
created by these parasitic wasps. Then there's ophiocordyceps. This fungus turns ants
into zombie ants. Infected ants abandon their colonies and climb high branches. They bite down
on leaves with a death grip. The fungus then consumes the ant's body and bursts from its head,
raining spores on the colony below. The Ant's final act spreads infection and creates more zombies.
The Last of Us games in HBO series feature the cortisps fungus jumping to humans.
African sleeping sickness affects thousands of people every year. It's transmitted by Tizi
flies. Victims become confused, disoriented, and violent.
Like zombies.
Those parasites kill the host eventually, but some keep the host alive forever.
The canthocephalum worm starts by infecting insects that birds like to eat, because the
worm's final destination is in a bird's gut. The parasite hijacks an insect survival
instincts. It abandons cover and wanders into open areas where birds hunt. Some climb to
the tops of plants and stay exposed. Birds eat the zombie-fied insects. The worm infects the bird.
More worms spread through the bird's feces, and the bird never knows the worm is there.
In fact, there's a dangerous parasite that's already living in almost half of the human population.
And if you don't have it, there's a good chance that somebody living in your house does.
Toxoplasma gondii is a single-celled parasite that lives in contaminated water and undercooked meat.
Between 30 and 50% of humans carry it.
Most don't know they're infected.
The reason it's so common, cats.
I knew it.
Those filthy hell beast of bio-weapons.
Okay, settle down.
About half of all cats have toxoplasma antibodies from past infection.
And this bug is tough.
It survives months in cat feces, years in soil and water.
It could withstand refrigeration and even freezing.
Chlorine will kill it.
Neither will soap or detergent.
Sulfuric acid kills it, but it takes almost two years.
It's easily spread by household insects like cockroaches and flies and rodents.
And there's an argument that toxoplasma gondi evolved to help cats.
Infected rats and mice lose their fear of cats.
They become slower, less alert.
They're actually attracted to cat urine.
Toxoplasma programs rodents to get eaten.
It's the perfect parasite, indestructible, persistent, widespread, undetectable.
The military knows that in a real outbreak, every cat becomes a disease vector.
You couldn't trust any of them.
If you trust a house cat, you deserve to get eat.
That's why Conplan 8888 takes biological threat seriously.
Once a pathogen enters the pet population, containment becomes impossible.
You could eliminate all the cats.
Stop that.
I'm just saying if you want to make an omelet, you've got to break some kittens.
But here's what keeps researchers awake at night.
Most people don't know they're carrying toxoplasma.
Studies show infected humans take more risks.
They drive aggressively.
Some researchers link it to personality changes,
decision-making problems, even mental health issues.
This is why Conplan 8888 exists.
This is why the Pentagon plans.
Because zombies aren't coming, they're already here.
Dr. Annie Lou was a molecular gerontologist and the latest darling of Silicon Valley.
She discovered a telomere extending virus, the Holy Grail of Life Extension.
She called it Project Lazarus.
The ultra-wealthy from all over the world
poured billions into Lazarus.
If there's one thing billionaires really hate doing, it's dying.
But Dr. Liu hit an impasse.
The Lazarus virus worked perfectly in a petri dish,
but once it was injected into a live rat,
the rat died within hours.
Could it be the delivery vector?
Maybe a cytokine cascade?
Why do the telomers lengthen, then truce?
trigger apoptosis. Immune storm in every test subject. Hours to death.
What am I missing?
I don't know.
S...
Dr. Lou checked the time.
It was after 3 a.m., her third all-nighter in a row.
She needed to get some sleep.
Better to deal with this with fresh eyes.
Hello?
I'm fine.
It was just a hard day at the lab.
But Dr. Liu didn't realize how hard a day it was.
She never noticed the three micron tear in her hazmat suit.
A human hair is about 60 microns wide, but not the Lazarus virus.
Those are 0.02 microns wide.
Plenty of room for a virus to enter.
In fact, that's enough room for hundreds of them to enter.
Of course I'm coming.
I wouldn't miss my little sister's wedding for anything.
Dr. Liu took every precaution.
N95 masks blocked particles 0.03 microns wide.
But that's not enough to stop Lazarus.
Even if Dr. Liu knew about the tear,
she wouldn't have been that concern.
Lazarus wasn't an airborne virus.
Lazarus only worked if it was injected directly into the bloodstream.
But now,
But now Lazarus was airborne.
The next zombie classification in Conplan 8888, RZ, radiation zombies.
Organisms become zombies after absorbing extreme electromagnetic radiation.
nuclear accidents, dirty bombs, cosmic radiation.
The Pentagon says any of these can create zombies.
Solar flares bombard Earth with charged particles.
A coronal mass ejection could expose entire populations to dangerous radiation.
The 1859 Carrington event knocked out telegraph systems all over the world.
A similar event today could deliver radiation doses that alter brain chemistry on a massive scale.
After Chernobyl, emergency responders who entered the reactor core experienced
rapid cellular breakdown.
Some survivors reported hallucinations
and aggressive behavior before dying.
But radiation doesn't always kill.
We covered how Chernobyl's dogs and wolves
adapted to high radiation.
An entirely new wolf species emerged,
highly resistant to cancer.
If radiation can create a new type of wolf,
it can create a new type of human,
and in the wrong hands,
that human becomes the perfect soldier.
Conplan 88888 calls these weaponized zombies.
WZs are specifically created for military use.
The Pentagon calls us a threat because the technology exists,
and they should know they created it.
Wuhan.
No, you're going to get us canceled.
Oh, oh, I meant that Wuhan.
Solo really showed Grito who's boss, eh?
Nice save.
Chemical weapons affect brain function and behavior.
During the Cold War, both superpowers developed psychochemical agents
to incapacitate enemy forces.
BZ, tested by the U.S. Army, caused hallucinations and confusion.
Similar compounds could create zombie symptoms.
CRISPR gene editing alters organisms at the genetic level.
Synthetic biology creates entirely new biological systems.
A hostile nation could engineer a pathogen that creates controllable zombies.
Controllable zombies.
And we already got those.
They're called Cable News viewers.
Conplan 8888 shows the military preparing for zombies that can come from any.
anywhere, even outer space.
Space zombies come from outer space
or result from alien contamination of Earth's environment.
U.S. Stratcom, Conplan 888, Section 4, subsection 6, zombie threat summary, part 4, space
zombies.
SZs are zombie life form.
originating from space or created by toxic contamination of the Earth environment via some form of
extraterrestrial toxin or radiation.
NASA and the military already have protocols to prevent contamination from space missions.
When Apollo astronauts returned from the moon, they spent 21 days in quarantine.
The concern was that lunar microorganisms might be dangerous to life on Earth.
You mean when the astronauts returned from the soundstage in Burbank, they had to make sure
They didn't pick up a bug from the San Fernando Valley.
Let's not do this now.
The valley flu, they call it.
Symptoms include attraction to shopping malls, degraded parking skills,
and an insatiable appetite for Baja Fresh.
They make good burritos.
Don, too, and they do.
But NASA protocols won't help if toxins land outside the jurisdiction of the United States.
Because SCs come from space, they can affect any place on Earth.
U.S. Stratcom, Conplan 8888, Section 4, subsection 5. Conditions for implementation, Part A, continued.
Asteroids and nuclear space radiation that can convert people into zombies can affect any land mass or population on Earth.
Given the rapidity at which zombie outbreaks spread, decisive, overwhelming, and possibly unilateral military force may be required to negate the zombie threat.
Real scientific research shows organisms survive where life should be impossible.
These extremophiles include tardigrades that withstand the vacuum of space.
If similar organisms exist elsewhere in the solar system, they might be incompatible with human biology.
Large asteroids or comets could carry alien microorganisms or radioactive materials.
The Togliska event in 1908 flattened over a thousand square miles of Siberian forest.
If a similar impact happened over a populated area, alien contamination would spread before anyone could respond.
Conplan 8888 states nuclear weapons would be the most effective counter to space zombies.
The logic, if contamination can't be contained, incineration at nuclear temperatures becomes the only option.
But there's one zombie type that concerns the military more than any other.
It can't be killed with conventional weapons.
It can't be killed with nuclear weapons.
The only way to fight this zombie is wrong.
with God.
Evil magic zombies.
The document actually uses those words.
The Pentagon has an official position on supernatural threats.
U.S. Stratcom,
con plan 88888.
Section 4, Subsection 6, Zombie Threat Summary, Part 3, Evil Magic Zombies.
Of the classes of zombies, one type is caused by occult phenomena
that cannot be reliably monitored, predicted, or proven to exist.
Zombies caused by occult phenomena are EMZs.
The only way to ensure a zombie is dead is to burn the zombie corpse.
EMZs are the only class of zombie that may not be vulnerable
to this measure. Despite being the hardest threats to eliminate directly by attacking the zombie life form,
EMZs can usually be eliminated if the source of evil magic is destroyed. There is evidence to suggest
the Chaplain Corps may prove integral to countering these threats. The military takes this seriously
enough to assign the Chaplain Corps as primary defense. Now, think about that. The Pentagon believes
defeating these zombies might require divine intervention.
Oh, John Snow intervention. Right.
Thousands of years ago, there came a night that lasted a generation.
Kings froze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts.
Women smothered their babies rather than see them starve and wept and felt the tears freeze on their cheeks.
So is it for the long night and the white walkers.
Oh, Nan?
I know what it is.
But yes, white walkers and whites and Game of Thrones are evil magic zombies.
Fighting the supernatural isn't new to the military.
During World War II, both sides employed.
occult research divisions.
The Nazis had the Adonerva.
The Allies had their own paranormal units.
Churchill consulted astrologers.
The U.S. Army investigated psychic warfare
during the Cold War.
Now, it may seem that the military
has everything figured out.
They have identified each type of zombie threat.
They understand how to fight them.
But not so fast.
Buried on page 16 is a single unsettling section.
U.S. Stratcom.
Conplan, 8888.
Section 4.
Subsection 13.3, shortfalls and limiting factors.
Adequate zombie defenses require sandbags, sand, marmed wire, anti-personnel mines,
riot-controlled chemical agents, and petroleum to create flame barriers.
These supplies may not be present in sufficient volume to defend against zombie incursion
and could severely tax available logistical support infrastructure.
U.S. STRATCOM forces do not currently hold enough contingency stores,
food, water, to support 30 days of barricaded counter-zomb
operations, and U.S. Stratcom has no ground combat forces
capable of repelling a zombie assault.
Several zombie types identified, specific tactical recommendations,
containment protocols, resource requirements,
but not enough soldiers in the army to actually win.
So, the military created a new army,
an army of millions of soldiers,
all trained to survive the zombie apocalypse.
And for years, these soldiers have been learning how to organize, how to fight, and how to rebuild civilization.
This army has been built in secret, but also in plain sight, because the soldiers of this army are us.
The military knows how to fight zombies.
They have a plan, but they don't have the soldiers.
So they created them.
Us. The military developed a psychological operation that trained millions of civilians without
them knowing it. The Walking Dead premiered on October 31st, 2010. The same year, Conplan
8888 finished development. World War Z started filming in 2011 and was released in 2013. The Last
of Us game launched in 2013. All during the exact time this military document was finalized
and declassified. Think about what these shows taught you. Survival tactics.
supply management, team dynamics, trust no one, secure your perimeter, always have an escape
plan. Millions of Americans absorbed zombie apocalypse protocols through entertainment. The training
was subtle but effective. I've watched every Walking Dead episode. Okay, I watched up until season
five. I played the Last of Us games. I played the first one. The Walking Dead, Last of Us, World
War Z, we've all consumed the same content, and we learned the same lessons. The military
didn't need boot camps. They had Netflix. But the SIOP might distract from the real secret.
Conplan 8888 contains multiple references to classified annexes never released publicly.
The document repeatedly mentions Annex C detailing space control capabilities.
Page after page references classified sections stripped from the public version.
Annex S covers special technical operations.
AnnexD handles classified logistics. Throughout the document, footnotes point to information
marked a secret or higher. The zombie scenarios were unclassified. The real military capabilities
stayed hidden. The most telling detail is buried in the technical sections. Conplan 8888 works
alongside other military plans. Conplan 8035 for space operations. Conplan 8531 for flu pandemics.
and Complan 8099 for combating WMDs.
These are active military plans, not training exercises.
Because the zombie plan is unclassified, it implies the threat isn't real.
But the classified military capabilities are real.
There's clearly some kind of threat.
So the big question is, how do you survive it?
When the outbreak,
starts, you have about 48 hours before everything falls apart.
Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand.
The creatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize y'all's neighborhood.
You got that out of your system? Almost. Great. The people who survive aren't lucky. They're
prepared. Your location determines your survival. If you're in a city, get out. Fast. Cities
become death traps. All those people pack together, that's a zombie buffet.
And in a dense population center, the infection will spread faster than it can be contained.
Hospitals fill with infected who don't know what's happening to them.
They stumble into emergency rooms and spread the virus to medical staff.
And don't call 911.
Police stations get overrun by panic citizens looking for weapons.
The smart cops go home to protect their families.
The rest become casualties.
You need to be somewhere remote, a cabin, a homestead, or a farm.
If you don't own one, better know someone who does.
Those places have what matters, food, water, and people who know how to defend them.
Guns are loud. They attract attention you don't want. A bow and hour works better. So does a knife, a bat, or a crowbar.
Quiet weapons keep you alive longer. Skip the supermarkets. They're already sworeing with desperate people.
You need supplies ready before disaster strikes. Prep a bugout bag. Forget the bottled water. Carry water purification tablets or a live straw water filter.
iodine pills for radiation exposure.
You'll need food.
MREs lasts 30 years, but food is heavy.
Better if you learn how to hunt, clean, and cook your own meals.
Pack power record rated for 500 pounds.
It could be used for everything.
Securing shelter, making tourniquets, starting fires, and it works as fishing line.
Pack a solar radio, solar flashlight, real band-aids, and N95 masks.
Take signaling mirrors and whistles, toothbrush, toothpaste, toilet trees.
When you're stuck in the wild, you'll be happy you remembered them.
In my kit, I keep thermal blankets, a small propane stove, and glow sticks.
I've got a fire starter, a multi-tool, three different kinds of knives.
Bring a needle and thread, good for repairing clothes and sewing up wounds.
And if you don't have the stomach to stitch a cut, crazy glue will do in a pinch.
And don't forget duct tape.
It fixes everything and reinforces barricades.
I even keep mini bugout bags in all my vehicles.
You can pick one up for about 40 bucks, and I'll link below to the gear I use.
Once you're out of the chaos, find a place where you can rest.
Watch your lines of sight.
Learn to set a perimeter, trip wires and snares, anything to alert you to danger, and find
other people.
Pull resources, exchange knowledge and skills, know your strengths, and find people to shore up
your weaknesses.
Some people are fighters, some are farmers, some are planners, some are builders, their safety
and numbers.
But when connecting with strangers, trust your gut, whether it's Conplan 888 or some
generic survival guide, they'll tell you the same thing.
When the end of the world comes, the most dangerous thing you'll face isn't zombies.
It's other people.
We followed Conplan 888 from a zombie outbreak at off at Air Force Base through classified space operations
and potential psychological warfare.
The military created detailed protocol.
for fighting the undead.
So, it's actually real.
Well, Khan Plan 8888 is exactly what the Pentagon says it is,
a training exercise.
Junior officers created it to learn planning procedures.
Using an impossible scenario avoids diplomatic problems.
So rather than create a plan to defeat Russians or Chinese,
the enemies are evil magic zombies.
Everyone understands its practice.
The zombie sci-op theory also doesn't hold up.
The timing of Khan Plan 8888 being released at the same time
as zombie movies and TV shows
wasn't coordination, it was coincidence.
Hollywood always follows the money.
Remember we had 10 or 15 years
of superhero movies, released one after
the other, now not so much?
Yeah, thanks a lot, Disney.
We had zombies before
Conplan 888, white zombie
came out in 1932.
George Romero created modern zombies with
Night of the Living Dead in 1968.
Dawn of the Dead in 1978
set the template for everything that followed.
The Walking Dead comics started in
2003.
Studios see profit and then flood the market.
But dismissing this as just a joke would be a mistake.
Conplan 8888 connects to real military plans.
Conplan 8035, conplan 8531, conplan 8099.
These aren't exercises.
They're operational.
The plan's real value is seeing the military acknowledge how fast society could collapse.
It admits there are scenarios where the military,
can't win. A plan to defeat zombies is hard for the public to take seriously, but maybe
that's the point. Maybe Conplan 88888 is a clever distraction. The story isn't in the document
they show us. It's in the documents they hide. Conplant 8888 repeatedly references classified
annexes that were stripped from the public version, but we know they exist. We just don't know
what they are. We know they reference space-based operations, but we don't know what threats
they address what capabilities they describe, and they're not going to tell us.
And that's why I believe Conplan 8888 is an important document.
In some ways, it paints the American people as distracted and selfish, and there's some
truth to that.
But things change in a crisis.
To save our families and our communities, people will step up.
Not everyone, but enough to matter.
And whether intentional or not, Conplan 8888 teaches valuable lessons about preparation and
resource management.
Those are good skills to learn.
and start learning them now.
When society collapses, nobody's coming to save us.
We are the first responders.
So train like one, prepare like one.
The difference between a life lost and a life saved could be you.
So get to know your neighbors.
Learn how to communicate, how to plan, how to survive.
If you don't learn these skills now, it could come back to bite you.
Zombies.
Right, El, next episode was chosen by The Hybrid.
You heard that right, the hybrid.
His real name is Rich.
Dick?
Okay, okay, come on, Morgan.
Be a professional.
Next episode is about liminal spaces.
Beaver keeping it creepy.
Roll it!
In the past year or so, three internet mysteries popped up that really got my attention.
They may seem very different, but trust me, they're connected.
The first one is about a girl who found a door in the basement of her Airbnb.
She opened it, and inside there was an abandoned shopping mall.
The second story is about Javier, who woke up in a hospital in the year 2027, in an alternate universe.
In his version of the future, everyone on Earth has vanished.
He's the only one left, and he has the video to prove it.
The third mystery is known as the back rooms, a reality adjacent to ours that if the conditions are just right, you can accidentally fall into.
Then you find yourself lost at an endless maze of dingy carpet, fluorescent light, and yellow wallpaper, and around every corner.
An abandoned mall, a deserted world, a maze in another dimension. What do these have in common?
Terrible places to have a vacation.
Um, uh, good places to hide a body.
What are you doing?
Hello, you asked what those places have in common.
I'm answering your question.
I was being rhetorical.
I'm trying to build drama and suspense.
Oh, well, you're on the wrong channel, buddy boy.
What these locations have in common is liminality, or more specifically, they're liminal spaces.
A liminal space is defined as a place of transition, a threshold between two distinctions.
distinctly different points, signaling the end of one and the beginning of another.
Liminal spaces do exist as physical locations, but they could also be an emotional experience.
They occur during periods of uncertainty and major life changes, events like a divorce or breakup,
the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, moving to a new city, ending or starting a new
career. All of these create liminality in our mind, meaning our life before this event is over
and a new period of life is about to begin.
Liminality is the unease and apprehension we feel during this transition.
Liminal spaces in the real world are a bit more difficult to define,
but you know one when you see one.
Think of an airport in the middle of the night,
school during summer break,
a house just after someone moves out,
or in this case, an accidentally discovered abandoned shopping mall.
You could tell by the video that she's having fun, but she's also a little uncomfortable.
She's experiencing the anxiety of a liminal space.
Now, while not all liminal spaces are so unsettling,
the type of space currently coursing through the internet will have a few common features.
They'll feel both familiar and strange.
If you browse through photos on the Liminal Space subreddit,
you'll come across many locations that you could swear you've been to,
evoking a strange feeling of nostalgia for a place you've never been.
Another common trait is that places are out of context,
like a waiting room with one chair, a plane with no seats,
a flooded metro station, or a submerged staircase.
Have you ever watched a video of the Titanic on the bottom of the ocean?
When you see the staircases and furniture completely underwater, this evokes liminality.
This out-of-context imagery triggers anxiety similar to Uncanny Valley,
the feeling that something is just not right.
Liminal spaces are often places you might have visited as a child.
Roller rinks are commonly thought of as liminal, bowling alleys,
arcades, or an empty Chucky Cheese.
The only thing's scary it in an empty Chucky Cheese?
is a crowded Chucky Cheese.
You got that right.
But something you'll notice about all these places, they're empty.
And that seems to be the most unsettling aspect of all.
These spaces are transitional because they're in between places,
not meant for anyone to stay very long.
But they're still meant for people.
Yet these sit empty waiting to fulfill their use,
waiting for people, people that in some cases never arrive.
Now, all of us from time to time stumble into a liminal space,
a supermarket in the middle of the night,
an empty office, an amusement park off-season.
But what if you woke up one day and the entire world was deserted
and every space was a liminal space?
TikTok has no shortage of, quote, unquote, time travel accounts.
Some are entertaining, but they're mostly just goofy.
But one account stands out from the rest.
Javier, a Spanish creator, whose account is Unico Sobriviente, which means...
Only survive.
Oh, you speak Spanish now?
I understand some words.
Well, this account...
I don't say I'm an expert.
Okay, I get it.
Do you mind if I...
No, no problem, amigo.
Well, this account is unique.
because he posts actual videos of deserted department stores, supermarkets, even entire football
stadiums. Javier woke up in a hospital in Valencia on February 13th, 2027, and claims to be in an
alternative universe. Apparently, at some point in the near future, every human on Earth just disappears.
He said that when he woke up, he couldn't remember his name or where he lived. He went outside and
everyone was just gone. Everything appeared just like 2021, but electronic devices.
devices showed 2027.
Now, his videos are fascinating, and I'll link to his account down below.
And when you're watching, remember that Valencia has a population of over 800,000 people,
and the surrounding area has almost 2 million people.
And despite Valencia being a big city, there are no people in these videos.
He goes to random apartments.
He crashes at exclusive hotels.
He accepts challenges to go to places that most people can't go, fire and police departments.
He even steals a few police cars.
He goes to a military base.
Some skeptics claim he's recording all this early in the morning.
He responds by recording himself walking by public signs with the time on them.
And there aren't many TikTokers who can reprogram a public digital sign.
He's challenged to go to a hospital, not an old deserted one, an actual modern hospital.
And he does it.
A lot of the places he visits do have off hours, but hospitals are full of people 24-7, but not these.
Javier also claims our two worlds are connected.
He's able to interact with objects in his world, which affects objects here.
For example, a Spanish television show challenged Javier by leaving a book hidden on their set
and told him to find it and move it.
He did.
From the morning, until for the night, we have security 24 hours.
So, it's impossible that nobody could enter.
My Retto is the next.
I'm going to put my book.
Oh, my God.
Look, I'm going to make the book here, and you're going to goges, okay?
Here, here comes.
Here, see?
Boom.
There is.
A bit of it's done list.
You can't find out.
Here in the ormiguer.
And when the studio went back to watch the security footage,
you can see the door open and close.
And just for a quick moment, you see some kind of figure
flash by.
Look, look.
Look.
It's that I'll do you,
you're going to flip.
Look,
there,
there,
right,
look it.
Look,
no,
no,
no,
no,
there is a
.
Wednesday
21,
on
13,
21,
now would be terrifying to wake up
alone in the world
where every place you visit
is a different
limited space.
But worse than that,
would be waking up in a single liminal space that goes on forever.
And that place has a name, the back rooms.
The back rooms is an internet mystery that began like many internet mysteries do on 4chan.
Someone asked members to submit disquieting images that just feel off.
An anonymous user posted this photograph.
Everyone who saw the image agreed it was strangely familiar but unsettling,
though nobody could explain why.
Finally, a follow-up comment described it.
If you're not careful and you no-clip out of reality in the wrong areas,
you'll end up in the back rooms.
Words nothing but the stink of old moist carpet,
the madness mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights,
and maximum humbuzz,
and approximately 600 million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.
God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.
Uh, no clip.
Well, no clip is a video game term. When two objects overlap, that's clipping.
No clipping means crossing boundaries in a game that you're not supposed to cross,
and ending up in areas not meant for the player. The backroom's theory says it's possible
to noclip into a different reality adjacent to ours, a reality you're not meant to ever see.
Remember, liminal spaces are transitional.
You're not supposed to stay there very long.
You instinctively want to get out to move on.
The back rooms are enerving because you can't.
It's an endless liminal space with no escape.
Something about the back rooms connected with people
and an entire culture was organically developed around the concept.
Completely community-driven,
the backrooms has become crowdsourced IP with its own canon and lore.
And there are now hundreds of levels of back rooms,
each with their own stories, their own rules, inhabitants, objects, even hazards.
Fans can contribute to the lore through a few different wikis, completely dedicated to the back rooms.
Still, the back rooms lived in dark corners of the internet.
What brought the concept to the mainstream was a series of short videos by a creator named
Kane Parsons. Using an ingenious combination of live action and 3D animation
wrapped in a low-tech package, these videos give us a glimpse of what being trapped in the back rooms,
would feel like. The videos also prove that liminal spaces are not a fringe theory. Millions of
people have watched these. Clearly, the concept of liminality is universal. The video series begins
with a group of kids shooting what looks like a student film in 1996. The camera operator suddenly
no clips through the ground and falls into the back rooms. A little more. A little more.
Yeah. Yeah.
Hello?
It doesn't take long for us to realize that we're not alone in the back rooms.
There's some entity aware of us and seems to follow us through the maze of empty yellow office space.
Hello?
Some moments are definitely scary, but even when not being outright terrifying, the entire series is unsettling.
As you, through the eyes of the lost cameraman, explore the back rooms, you have a sense that you have a sense that you have a sense that you,
been here before. I certainly have. There are certain angles and ways the walls are arranged that
remind me of offices that I've worked at different points in my life. I wore jobs where the only
light was overhead bulbs, and the only time you'd see the sun or the sky was if you were lucky
enough to run out for lunch. That was my job last year, actually. For anyone who's worked in an
office like this, there's a feeling of claustrophobia, of being trapped like a prisoner, where time
seems to slow down and hours feel like they last for days. Unfortunately for people trapped in
the back rooms, time doesn't exist at all. There is no past and no future, so no brief respite
for lunch, no exhilaration at the end of a long, boring day. The only time is the present,
and like the space itself, the present is infinite. Eventually our hero discovers graffiti on a wall
which tells him to stay still. That turns out to be a terrible idea.
After fleeing from the entity, we're taken to various locations, which are essentially
recreations of common photos of liminal spaces, the empty apartment, the deserted quad,
and Kane's short film then builds on tried and true horror movie tropes like Pursuit,
claustrophobia, disorientation, and of course, the jump scare.
subsequent videos build on the lore of the backrooms. The tone shifts from jump scare horror
into more of a dystopian sci-fi thriller. It seems that there are ruptures in our world
that allow people to accidentally pass into the backrooms. This explains why the number of missing
people is on the rise. Eventually, a corporation creates a prototype machine to access the backrooms,
and this is hailed as a world-saving technology, because the backrooms are so large,
hundreds of millions of square miles, they can be used for storage, housing, even transport.
Now, of course, things go wrong along the way.
We have researchers trying to map the backrooms, getting lost, and falling into different levels and all kinds of chaos.
Oh, my God.
Everything okay?
Over here.
Across?
If I, just hurry.
Okay.
The series.
The series is still ongoing, so subscribe to Kane Pixels if you want to see what happens next.
But you don't have to wait for Kane.
Other creators have picked up the mantle and attempted to continue the story.
What do you think we just saw someone running?
Missing Juanita Estabez, now age 16, last seen in Yuba City, California, November 27, 1984.
Hello?
Do you help me get down?
There's something up here.
Please.
Stay right where you are.
Stay right where you are.
We're going to try and get you down.
To me, all these versions are equally interesting and unsettling.
The backroom's concept has spawned other media as well.
A viral TikTok shows someone using Google Earth to zoom in on a location in Japan.
As they move inside the building, we see the familiar wallpaper, carpet, fluorescent lights,
and this time, different objects and entities.
and the developers are publishing video games based on the backrooms and liminal spaces.
Animoyopolis is one that looks interesting.
It combines the uncanny liminal space concept with classic first-person horror and puzzle-solving elements.
Eliminality may seem like the cool new thing,
and it's no coincidence that its popularity surged during COVID lockdowns
when everyone was feeling isolated.
But the concept has been around a long time.
The phrase was created by Arnold Van Genup in his book, Rights of Passage, released in 1908.
And get-up was more focused on life experiences, like transitioning from childhood to adulthood,
graduating high school or moving to a new city.
And this concept of an in-between place, whether physical or emotional,
has been explored in media and pop culture for years.
Rod Serling famously said,
It is the middle ground between light and shadow,
between science and superstition,
and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge.
The Shining is an entire movie based around the idea of liminality, the abandoned hotel,
spooky hallways that go on forever, and you never know what lurks around each corner.
Horror movies like It Follows and Silent Hill also used liminal spaces to amp up the creepiness.
And recently, the Apple TV sci-fi thriller Severance uses liminal spaces as a backdrop for the entire series,
the large, empty spaces,
hallways that create such a confusing maze
that you have to draw maps to find your way around.
And the dual reality concept of severance
is similar to the backrooms.
You have one reality where you live your life
as you normally would,
but when you get to work,
you are severed from this reality
and transition to a new reality.
A reality comprised completely of liminality.
And you can't have a post-apocalyptic story
without liminality.
That feeling of being the last person on Earth.
Walking through spaces once teeming with life, now left abandoned and forgotten.
The human brain is not wired for this kind of isolation,
which is why these tropes are so effective.
And speaking of the apocalypse,
let's circle back to our two other mysteries and see if we can figure out what's really going on.
Javier, the lonely survivor in Spain.
He has a very interesting and compelling TikTok account,
and people are constantly trying to debunk him.
Some say his hands look different in each video, implying that he's actually a team.
And there may be something to that.
You have to dig really deep, but it turns out that Javier is working with the city of Valencia
on a media project called The Lonely Survivor, which is why he has access to all these places,
and why he's able to clear out entire stadiums, busy streets, even sections of hospitals.
So it's not some future reality, it's just a TV production team with filming permits.
Now, Javier won't admit his account as just a project, and I don't blame him.
It's fun to maintain an air of mystery.
But if you watch enough of his videos, you realize it would be so easy for him to prove that he's
in a different reality or in the future.
He could show the dates on tombstones.
He could time lapse an entire weekend at a typically busy airport, or just fly his drone
around the city at rush hour.
He never does this.
His environments are highly controlled.
But still, the videos are fun.
And the young lady who discovered an abandoned mall in the basement.
of her Airbnb. The video has a supernatural feel to it, but it's really not that strange.
Her Airbnb is actually a hotel that shares a building with the Ocean Walk Mall in Hollywood Beach,
Florida. Now, Ocean Walk is what's called a Dead Mall, though a better name for a dead mall is probably
a zombie mall. It's a shopping mall that nobody really goes to anymore, but it's still open and
somewhat functioning. And dead malls are everywhere, all over the country, and it's not hard to understand
why malls are dying.
Amazon.
Well, pretty much, online shopping and the online economy.
But when I was a kid, you bought your groceries at the supermarket, and you bought everything
else at the mall.
Clothes, electronics, sporting goods, toys, everything.
And in many suburban towns, like the ones I grew up in, the mall was a community social
center.
Families would spend all day there.
You'd shop, eat, shop, and eat some more all day.
And as a teenager, we'd hang out of the mall.
We'd go around lunchtime, we'd see a movie, lurk in the arcade, and talk to girls.
You would talk to girls.
Well, I wanted to, but I wasn't very good at it.
Checks out.
Well, high school and college kids from the area often work at these shops.
In fact, this is the mall that we went to when I was a kid and worked at all through high school and college.
Back in those days, the mall was always packed.
What was that, the 1950s?
Not that long ago, but close enough.
But now look at it.
That's not the mall I remember.
There's a sadness to these spaces, there's nostalgia, there's the reminder that everything moves forward, everything changes. What once was will never again be. These transitions and rites of passage are an important part of life. They show our courage, our resilience, our perseverance, they make us who we are. But whether a location in the world or a transitional moment in our lives, every liminal space has the same point to find your way out.
Look, we all have habits we'd like to kick, or at least rethink.
For me, it was reaching for something when I was stressed or just needed a mental reset.
That's when I found fume.
Fume is a flavored air device designed to help you build better habits.
It uses no nicotine, no vapor, and no batteries.
Just clean, natural air, and satisfying flavors.
My personal favorite is spearmint ice.
When I'm working late nights in the studio,
like tonight, the cooling throat hit and subtly sweet minty flavor give me the perfect
pick-me-up. It's crisp, refreshing, and helps me reset. And the device itself feels great
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Hey-oh!
Ready for the next one?
This episode was chosen by Haley.
She's our spicy ginger.
Seriously, she writes the dirtiest jokes.
She's so nasty.
We're taking a trip down to the Grooveyard
for the episode about John Willes.
Wilkes Booth.
Roll it!
Everyone thinks they know how Lincoln died.
John Wilkes Booth shot the president, escaped, and was killed 12 days later on a Virginia farm.
But the FBI's own forensic tests discovered Booth's diary is missing 86 pages.
Pages filled with names, payments, and secrets.
Lincoln's assassination wasn't the work of a single extremist.
It was a plot to take control of America.
And it worked.
The evidence exposes secret allies, strange cover-ups,
and why the truth was buried for more than a century.
This isn't the story of how John Wilkes Booth died.
This is the story of how he escaped.
And who helped him do it?
In early 1865, the Civil War was in its fourth brutal year.
The Confederates were losing, but they continued to fight,
and union casualties continued to mount.
During this time, John Wilkes Booth
was one of the most famous actors in America.
He was known for his emotional performances
and striking good looks.
Dark hair, unusually dark eyes.
He was lean and athletic.
He was the first documented celebrity
to have his clothes torn by infatuated fans.
I am ever so grateful, sir.
It is my pleasure entirely.
Booth was obsessed with Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,
a play he performed.
formed with his brothers. He saw Lincoln as a tyrant, like Caesar. Booth was from Maryland, a slave
state. He identified as a southerner, so when war broke out, he became a Confederate spy.
As an A-list celebrity, he could move freely in polite society. He socialized with wealthy
businessmen, politicians, and all kinds of important people. He then sent their secrets to the
Confederates. Through a clerk with access to Lincoln's private correspondence, Booth saw the
president's plan for after the war, and it horrified him. Confederate leaders would be tried for
treason. Their land would be given to former slaves who would also get the right to vote. Everything the
South stood for would be erased from history. He had to act. Booth came up with a bold plan,
kidnap Lincoln. If the North wanted their president back alive, they would have to release
all Confederate prisoners of war and give the South better terms. Booth assembled a
team. And after months of planning, they were ready. Then, just before the plan went into motion,
General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Booth was devastated. The war was over, and now the
kidnapping plot was useless. Then Booth had a stroke of luck. He overheard that the president
would be attending a play at Ford's theater in Washington, D.C. Booth knew the theater well. He
performed there many times. He even knew where the president would be sitting because Lincoln attended one of
Booth's performances there. So Booth came up with a new plan, kill the president during the play.
He knew he could move around the theater freely without raising suspicion, so getting in wasn't a
problem. Getting out was. But John Wilkes Booth had friends in high places who wanted Lincoln dead
as much as he did. They would help escape. His contacts weren't Confederate spies deep in the south.
They were right here in Washington, inside Lincoln's own cabinet.
Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address was about unity.
He called slavery a sin, but he avoided placing blame on the South.
He famously said, with malice toward none and charity for all.
Lincoln wanted to pardon most Southerners and allow the states to regain their rights,
but no slavery.
The plan was not universally well-received, like Julia.
Caesar, Abraham Lincoln was surrounded by enemies.
On one side were the Democrats.
They wanted a quick return to the status quo.
They wanted most Southerners pardoned, and most Democrats voted against freeing the slaves.
On the other side were the radical Republicans.
They wanted all slaves freed and given the land seized in the war.
They wanted federal military control of the southern states and harsh punishment.
Radical Republicans weren't just in Congress.
they were in Lincoln's own cabinet.
Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton,
was the most powerful man in America after Lincoln.
He controlled the military and all federal law enforcement agencies,
but he could not control President Lincoln.
Stanton believed showing mercy to the South
was a betrayal of everything the Union soldiers died for.
Lincoln wouldn't budge,
but Vice President Andrew Johnson would.
His loyalty was flexible.
Stanton could control him and become the real,
power in Washington. Through his intelligence network, Stanton contacted John Wilkes Booth and gave
him everything he needed to kidnap Lincoln. With Lincoln gone, Congress would impeach him.
Johnson would step in, and Stanton would control the government. But if the public learned
of a coup, it would divide the country. But if Lincoln were kidnapped by a Confederate terrorist,
the country would unite, behind Johnson, essentially behind Stanton. Booth was the perfect choice.
He was wealthy, famous, and an outspoken critic of Lincoln's.
The whole country would believe it.
Booth agreed.
Stanton gave him Lincoln's schedule, security details, funding,
maps of escape routes, everything he needed.
But the war ended.
The kidnapping plot wouldn't work.
Stan was trying to think of another solution
when he learned that Booth was going to kill Lincoln instead.
It would happen in public during a play in a Washington theater.
Now, Stanton had a decision to make.
warn Lincoln and save his life, or let Booth go through with it. Stanton made his choice.
He made sure that the assassination would succeed. He removed military escorts and left escape routes open.
General Ulysses S. Grant was supposed to join Lincoln at the theater. Stanton gave him different orders.
Lincoln requested that Major Thomas T. Eckert be his bodyguard, but Stanton said he was needed elsewhere.
He left Lincoln exposed. The more Stanton thought about the plan, the more he liked it. It was clean and tremendous.
It was perfect.
But as the plot to kill Lincoln unfolded,
things would go very, very wrong.
He gives our
he gives our slaves freedom that they take up
that they take up arms against us?
I swear the man's gone mad.
You know what he'll do next?
Bring his carpet baggers down here.
Northern men with clean coats and dirty hands
buying up what's left for pennies.
I did not fight to live under a Yankee boot.
Lincoln cannot be allowed to continue.
This is tyranny.
If Lincoln will not listen to reason,
we must take our grievances to the Congress.
This is not merely about politics anymore, sir.
It is about the future of the Republic.
We have to move against him now while we still can.
And what would you have us do?
The wars lost, the Confederacy's ashes, what's left but survival?
Sometimes survival is cowardice.
Sometimes history demands blood to balance the scales.
You speak of treason.
I speak of patriotism.
Careful, John.
Union spies are everywhere.
These walls have ears.
Oh, let them hear. History listens to.
I'll not stand by while Lincoln crowns himself emperor of a mutilated nation.
You're an actor, not a soldier.
Don't play hero in the wrong tragedy.
Every play needs its villain.
History will decide which one I am.
On April 14, 1865, Washington, D.C. was celebrating.
Robert Lee had surrendered at Appomattox five days earlier.
The Civil War was over.
But something had Lincoln rattled.
During cabinet meeting, he mentioned a recurring dream he had
about a president being assassinated,
killed by a shot to the back of the head.
Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, listened but said nothing.
President Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd,
decided to celebrate by watching a performance of Our American Cousin
that night at Ford's Theater.
Booth's plan went into motion.
That morning, he drilled a peephole in the door of the presidential box at the theater.
He'd know exactly when to make his move.
Evening came, and the president and first lady settled into their seats.
Outside the door, Lincoln's bodyguard was replaced by John Parker,
who had a history of being drunk and sleeping on duty, a sign by Edwin Sten.
Once the play started, Parker left his post and headed for the saloon.
The only person left outside the door was Charles Forbes, Lincoln's valet.
Forbes wasn't a bodyguard.
His job was to run errands and plan travel.
So when Booth approached the presidential box,
Forbes let him pass,
just another celebrity stopping by to see the president.
Once inside, Booth quietly wedged a piece of wood behind the door
and broke the lock.
Now, all he had to do was wait for the right moment.
And that moment would come during the third act,
the biggest laugh of the night.
The line, you sock-dologizing old man-trap.
He knew exactly when this line was said.
At 10.15 p.m., the audience exploded in laughter.
Booth stepped forward and raised his pistol.
Ever thus to tyrants.
One shot. Lost in the roar of 1,500 people laughing.
President Lincoln slumped in his chair.
Booth jumped from the box and onto the stage.
At first, the crowd did nothing.
They thought this was part of the show.
Then Booth raised his knife and yelled,
Sixth Semper Tyrannus, thus always, to tyrants.
The line Brutus said when he stabbed Julius Caesar,
it's also the state motto of Virginia.
Booth turned to run and felt pain shoot up his left leg.
He broke his ankle, but adrenaline kept him moving
toward the unguarded back door.
Outside, a horse was waiting.
Within the hour, Edwin Stanton took control.
He shut down every bridge leaving Washington except one,
the one Booth used for his escape.
Everything had gone according to plan.
Lincoln was dead, and Stanton would control the investigation himself.
There was just one final loose end Stanton had to deal with, John Wilkes Booth.
Within hours of Lincoln's assistant,
assassination, Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, mobilized the largest manhunt in American
history. Every bridge out of Washington was sealed. Every road was blocked. Every farm was searched.
The reward for John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators was a staggering $100,000, almost $2 million
in today's money. The authorities preferred him alive, but Edwin Stanton preferred him dead.
Booth hooked up with another conspirator, David Harold. Together, they slipped through the
Union Dragnet and headed toward Virginia. Their first stop was Dr. Samuel
Mudd's farm in southern Maryland.
Mud set booths broken leg and gave them
a place to rest. By dawn,
word of the assassination had spread.
Mud, suddenly realizing the danger,
forced them to leave.
David Herald guided them deeper into Confederate country.
They moved at night. They hid in swamps during
the day. Other Confederate agents
gave them food and newspapers.
Six days later, they crossed the Potomac River
into Virginia. They thought
they'd be safe in Virginia. The Confederacy
was dead, but Confederate sympathy
was still very much alive. They found
on shelter, food, and horses from local farmers who still hated the union.
But the manhunt was closing in.
On April 24th, Booth and Herald reached the Garrett Farm near Port Royal Virginia.
Richard Garrett, a tobacco farmer, offered them a place to stay.
He thought there were Confederate soldiers heading home from the war.
For two days, Booth rested and played with the Garrett children.
His broken leg was feeling better.
He talked about going to Mexico or maybe heading west.
The future looked possible again.
But on the night of April 25th, everything changed.
26 soldiers from the 16th New York Cavalry surrounded the barn.
They called for the men to surrender or they would set fire to the building.
David Harold immediately gave up.
He stumbled out of the barn with his hands raised, yelling,
don't shoot, I'm David Harold.
But Booth refused to surrender.
As the flames started to grow, a soldier saw a figure moving around inside.
The man was holding a rifle.
The soldier raised his pistol and shot the man through the neck, severing his spinal cord.
He couldn't move, but he could still breathe,
but just barely.
The soldiers dragged Booth out of the barn.
He whispered, tell mother I'd die from my country.
By sunrise, John Wilkes Booth was dead.
Justice had been served, the case was closed, and America could finally move on.
But John Wilkes Booth had a secret.
At the height of his career, John Wilkes Booth was one of the highest paid entertainers
in the world, earning close to half a million dollars a year in today's money.
His career depended on his bachelor image, but in 1859, Booth secretly married actress Isola
Martha Mills. Within a years, Isola gave birth to their daughter, Ogarita.
Booth quietly supported them. The arrangement worked until the assassination.
And after reports of Booth's death, John Stevenson proposed to Isola. He'd loved her for years,
but she refused. She quietly told him she was still married. Booth was alive and a high
hiding in San Francisco under a false identity.
She was meeting him there in a few weeks.
On the other side of the country, a British passport was issued to John Byron Wilkes.
Wilkes and his wife boarded the Indian Queen, a former Civil War blockade runner.
John and Isla sailed to India.
But Isla couldn't stay.
The heat, the unfamiliar culture, the isolation.
She was pregnant again and couldn't imagine raising a child in India, so she returned to the States.
Months passed without a word from Booth, so John Stevenson proposed again.
This time, she accepted.
She needed stability for her unborn child.
Stevenson said he would claim the child as his own.
Not long after, Isla gave birth to her son, Harry Jerome Stevenson.
Back in Bombay, John Wilkes' booth wrote out a last will and testament.
He signed it John Byron Wilkes and mailed it to the States.
The will was detailed.
Money and property to his wife Isola, his daughter and son,
Ogorita, and Harry Jerome Stevenson.
He named Sarah Scott and Mary Louise Turner as his wife,
his other daughters by other women. He left money for his personal valet, Henry Johnson, and his wife
Sarah, who looked after the children. Word of the will spread. Ulysses S. Grant himself ordered
an investigation to locate all the heirs. Eventually, John Wilkes' Booth's estate was distributed
exactly as the will instructed, but Grant never let it go. How could a man named John Byron Wilkes
know every detail about Booth's secret life, his lovers, his children, his financial affairs,
information that only Booth would know.
But aside from the will, Grant had no real evidence.
He was forced to let it go.
So the official story was John Wilkes Booth was killed on Garrett's farm in 1865.
But in the summer of 1872, someone saw a ghost in a dusty saloon in Texas,
and that ghost was pouring whiskey and reciting Shakespeare.
The man behind the bar was John St. Hillen.
Average height, lean build, dark hair going a little gray at the temples.
He quoted Shakespeare from memory, and when he thought nobody was looking, he practiced
drawing a pistol from his coat.
St. Helen drifted into town in the spring of 72.
He said he was from back east, but didn't talk much about his past.
That suited everyone fine.
Texas in 1872 was full of men running from something.
After a few whiskeys, John St. Helen would recite full Shakespearean soliloquies.
It was during one of these performances that Finest Bates first walked into the bar.
Bates was a young lawyer from Memphis, smart, ambitious, easy to talk to,
the kind of man who bought drinks for interesting strangers and listened to their stories.
St. Helen and Bates hit it off immediately.
The bartender was well-read, articulate, and had opinions about everything from
politics to poetry. They spent hours talking after the saloon closed, sharing whiskey and
stories. Well, Bates shared stories. St. Helen mostly listened. They spoke about the war
and the future of the country. St. Helen never mentioned his past. That winter, St. Helen
caught pneumonia. For days, he ran a high fever and drifted in and out of consciousness. Bates sat by his
bedside, convinced his friend was dying. On the third night, St. Helen grabbed Bates by the wrist
and pulled him close.
He was still running a high fever,
but his eyes were bright and focused.
Finis, I need to tell you something before it's too late.
I'm not who you think I am.
My real name is John Wilkes Booth.
Bates thought John was delirious, but he wouldn't stop.
He told Bates everything,
the conspiracy, the escape, the years in hiding.
He described details that only Booth would know,
the layout of Ford's theater,
the feeling of the wooden stage beneath his feet,
the sound Lincoln made when the bullet hit.
Bates was stunned.
Either his friend was having the most elaborate fever dream in history
or he was the most wanted man in America.
By morning, the fever had broken,
and John St. Helen was going to live.
And that's when the panic said in.
He said too much.
What have I done?
Three days later, he was gone.
All that was left of John St. Helen was an empty room
and a bartender's apron hanging on a hook.
John Wilkes' booth
and once again disappeared.
Bates didn't tell anyone about John's confession,
but he never stopped wondering.
Was John St. Helen really John Wilkes' booth?
Or was that a sick man's delusion?
Well, in 1903, a painter in Oklahoma committed suicide.
When they searched the man's belongings, they found a handwritten note.
It said, if anything happens to him, contact a lawyer named Finus Bates.
The telegram reached Bates three days later.
After 26 years of questions, he was about to get an answer.
When Bates arrived at the funeral parlor, his hands were shaking.
The undertaker led him to a back room where a body lay on the table.
He was told the man was David E. George.
Bates pulled back the sheet and stared for a long moment.
The man on the table was older and thinner, but it was unmistakable.
It was John, going by the name David E. George had been living there for several years working as a painter.
He was quiet. He kept to himself. He was forgettable, but he had secrets.
David E. George drank too much. He talked to himself.
Late at night, neighbors in the boarding house heard him reciting Shakespeare.
The landlady, Mrs. Harper, said David George had been acting strange for weeks. He was nervous and paranoid.
He kept saying they were coming for him.
She thought he meant bill collectors.
On January 13, 1903, David bought a bottle of strychnine from the pharmacy.
He told the clerk that he had a rat problem.
That night, he drank the poison.
He lived long enough to call for a minister.
The minister found David writhing on his bed, foam coming from his mouth.
The minister held his hand when David made his confession.
He whispered that he was John Wilkes' booth, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln.
He begged God's forgiveness.
and then he was gone.
Among David's possessions were newspaper clippings about Lincoln's assassination and the
manhunt for Booth.
Some pages were yellow with age, there for decades.
Bates was convinced.
This was John Wilkes Booth.
He asked the local authorities to preserve his body.
If this really was Booth, then this was the most important corpse in American history.
The body was embalmed and put on display.
For months, crowds lined up to stare at the preserved remains of David E. George, a.k.a. John
St. Helen, aka John Wilkes Booth. The mummy toured across the country. It appeared at carnivals,
state fairs, and local museums. Doctors examined the body and found intriguing details.
The corpse had a broken left leg, just like Booth. A deformed right thumb, also like Booth.
And there was a scar on the back of the neck that matched the location of a scar Booth had from
a tumor removal. The mummy eventually disappeared into storage and then into legend. But the story
continued. John Mook's Booth had lived for 38 years after supposedly dying at Garrett's
farm. So how did Booth get out of that burning barn? Well, he didn't. The man who was shot on
Garrett's farm was someone else. When Union soldiers surrounded Garrett's farm that night,
they had orders, captured Booth alive. But Secretary of
war, Edwin Stanton let it be known that if Booth were found dead, the reward would still be paid.
After Booth was killed, the military demanded an autopsy. The body was quickly wrapped in a horse
blanket and transported from a wagon to a steamship, then to a government tugboat, and then
finally to the USS Montauk at the Washington Navy Yard. The identification was hasty, highly
controlled, and deeply suspicious. Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes conducted the autopsy. A photograph was
taken to the body, but it's never been released to the public. This was probably the most
important autopsy in U.S. history to that point, but the photograph has either been lost
or suppressed. Dr. Barnes allowed three civilians aboard, none of the three new Booth personally.
Booth had friends all over Washington, actors, politicians, socialites. Barnes didn't call
any of them. Instead, he called Dr. John Frederick May. May had removed the growth from Booth's neck a few
years earlier. He was brought to verify the scar. May examined the body and hesitated. In his memoirs,
he wrote that he didn't recognize it as Booth's. He wasn't sure about the scar. He noticed that
the body had an injured right leg, but Booth fractured his left leg. Now, maybe the witnesses
got that wrong, but the injury on the corpse was old. Booth's wasn't. He broke it less than two
weeks before. And despite his protests, Dr. May was pressured into signing off that this was
John Wilkes Booth. Other witnesses raised doubts. The man had the wrong proportions, the wrong
bone structure. The body was buried quickly, in secret, beneath the floor of a military prison.
Booth's family begged to see the remains. They were denied. If this wasn't John Wilkes Booth,
then who did the soldiers drag out of that barn? Well, they asked David Harold, and he told him.
David Harold came out of the tobacco barn with his hands up.
The first thing he said was, don't shoot.
Then he said, that's not Booth in there.
Then Harold named the man, James William Boyd.
The soldiers ignored him.
Boyd was an ex-Confederate soldier, the same build as Booth, same complexion,
and coincidentally, the same initials.
Harold said Booth was a day ahead of them in Harper's Ferry.
The plan was to catch up, and Boyd would help them say,
sale across the Potomac. But Boyd was a double agent. He was just released from prison by Stanton
personally. And there was a reason for that. Stanton and Booth had a deal. Booth would be allowed to
escape to India with his wife. Boyd would stand in and take the fall. So Boyd and Booth swapped
coats. But Booth forgot to take his diary, which revealed everything. Names, meetings, payments,
all pointing back to Edwin Stanton. When Stanton received the diary, he destroyed it. He destroyed all
the evidence and created the official story that Americans believed for 150 years.
John Wilkes Booth walked away from Garrett's farm. He sailed to India as John Byron Wilkes.
He returned to America as John St. Helen and died in Oklahoma as David E. George.
Three vertebrae were removed from the body during the autopsy. A DNA test could prove or disprove
that the bones came from Booth. No testing has been allowed. His body is allegedly buried in the
Booth family plot in Baltimore, and now people leave pennies on the gravestone they believe to be
John Wilkes Booth's, as if giving Lincoln the last word. And the family has requested that the body
be exhumed for testing. That request was denied. Nobody even knows where in the cemetery he's
buried. His brother Edwin didn't mark the grave out of fear it would be vandalized. And John Wilkes
Booth has a lot of descendants alive today, all through his marriage to his Ola. History says
Booth didn't have children, but his descendants believed that he did. And as far as they're concerned,
They're living proof.
I'm a big fan of American history.
If you made it this far, you are too.
And this story was fun.
But if Booth escaped, we have to rewrite history.
So, did he?
Well, let's pull it apart.
Dr. John Frederick May identified Booth's body.
It's true that he said he didn't recognize it at first,
but that was because it was badly decomposed.
When he saw the surgical scar, he was convinced it was
Booth. He would know he'd perform the surgery. And multiple witnesses confirmed the body's
identity. The broken leg was also confirmed. Now, John Wilkes Booth did keep a diary, and it was
tampered with. That's documented. But he didn't use his diary as a journal. It was more like
a day planner. The missing pages may contain incriminating evidence, but probably not. Still,
nobody knows for sure. James William Boyd was a real person. He was a Confederate captain and
prisoner of war. And Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, authorized his release. That's true.
But this wasn't unusual. Boyd had seven children. His wife had died, and they would starve without
him. He requested compassionate release, and Stanton granted it. The story of Boyd being a double
agent comes from finest Bates. The man who discovered John St. Helen wasn't just a lawyer.
It was also an entrepreneur. In 1907, 30 years after his supposed encounter in Texas, Bates published
a book, the escape and suicide of John Wilkes' booth.
There's always a book.
Oh, now you're here? Why so quiet?
Oh, well, dead presidents are only funny when you're in my wallet.
Fair enough.
The book was a hit and made Bates famous.
More importantly, it made Bates money.
Bates went on speaking tours.
He brought the mummy with him.
He charged admission.
The man who claimed his friend had confessed to being Lincoln's assassin,
built an entire career on that story.
But here's what Bates never mentioned.
When experts studied the handwriting samples he claimed came from John St. Helen,
they didn't match John Wilkes-Buth's confirmed writing.
Not even close.
They were from different people.
The Isola story that came from a 1937 book called This One Mad Act, written by Isola Forrester.
Forrester claimed to be Ogorita's daughter, the granddaughter of Booth and Isola Mills.
And just a few years ago, the descendants of both Ogorita and Harry Jerome Stevenson
had their DNA compared against confirmed Booth family DNA.
No match.
Neither family was related to John Wilkes Booth.
I love it when paternity test
come back negative.
So Booth never married
and didn't have children,
at least none that we found so far.
And remember, when he killed Lincoln,
he was only 26.
If I was a 26-year-old movie star,
with ladies grabbing at my gills,
I'd stay single too.
The entire romantic subplot
was fiction, just like Booth's will.
Most of the story elements
come from a 1977 book and movie
called The Lincoln Conspiracy.
And this wasn't a historical research project, it was entertainment.
The authors even admitted they created composite characters and invented dialogue
to make the story more dramatic. It was fiction.
Don't you do that?
Quiet.
The Lincoln conspiracy was fiction, but people treated it like fact.
The book recycled Bates' debunk claims and added new ones.
The body double theory, the government cover-up, the missing diary pages that implicates Stanton.
And speaking of Stanton, let's clear his name.
Edwin Stanton was a villain in the story.
story, but he was just as interested in helping freed slaves as Lincoln.
He definitely thought Lincoln was too lenient on the South, but he was much closer to
Lincoln's idea of reconstruction than Andrew Johnson, a self-described racist. Johnson's leniency
toward the South led directly to the Jim Crow era, and those are wounds that still haven't healed.
But the most damning evidence against the escape theory isn't what's missing, it's what's
there. The detailed day-by-day record of Booth's movements during his 12 days as a fugitive. They were
multiple witnesses at every stop, Confederate sympathizers who helped him, Union soldiers who
pursued him. You can't fake that kind of evidence. You can't. If you can fake a moonlight, then you
can fake this. Now, I think John Wilkes Booth died on Garrett's farm, but many people, including
some of Booth's alleged descendants, believe he got away. There's a reason stories like this
capture our attention. They let us reimagine history. Everybody likes to play What If? What if John Wilkes
booth got away. That's a fascinating and fun question. A more interesting question is,
what if Lincoln wasn't killed? What if he were able to serve out the almost four years left
in his second term? What if Lincoln oversaw reconstruction? What if Andrew Johnson, who owned slaves
before the war, never became president? Would Lincoln have allowed the KKK form in 1866? Probably
not, but Johnson did. Johnson vetoed almost every civil rights bill that came across his desk. He has
the dishonor of being the first president
ever to be impeached. Oh, back when
impeach your president meant something. Yep.
If Lincoln lived, I suspect
we'd be living in a very different country,
a better country, a more just
and united country. And John Wilkes
Booth took that from us, from all
of us, black and white.
150 years later, his
actions are still felt today.
Now, I enjoyed this mystery, but I
will not celebrate the man. Whether
shot to death in a barn, or
mummified, humiliated, and turned into
a sideshow exhibit, either is a fitting end for one of the most despicable villains in American
history. There's only one thing I can tell you for sure about this story. If there's a hell,
John Wilkes Booth is in it.
Boom! Shackalaka! Okay, Eric picked the next episode. Eric runs the merch store and does all
kinds of stuff around here. I swear the guy never sleeps.
Speaking of merch, go to shop.thewifiles.com for YFiles t-shirts, fistable coffee mugs, and all kinds of sweet swag.
We've got a big Black Friday sale going, by the way.
Beaver merch!
For his episode, Eric picked Simulation Theory.
Do you ever think we're in a simulation?
I sure do.
Roll it!
Is this reality?
Well, we're experiencing something right now, so maybe the better question is,
what is reality?
Could everything we see,
everything we experience,
everything that exists in our entire universe
be artificial?
Supporters of simulation theory
believe that not only is it possible
that we're living in a simulation,
it's likely.
And the more we look for evidence,
the more we find.
Let's find out why.
The idea of the universe
being a simulation is not a new one.
The theories exist in ancient culture,
around the world. Modern simulation theory comes from Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford who wrote
an influential paper on the subject in 2003. Assuming that living in a simulation is possible,
Bostrom presents the simulation trilemma, which says one of the following must be true.
One, we destroy ourselves before we're able to create a simulation. Two, we're able to create a
simulation but choose not to, or three, we are definitely in a simulation.
Bostrom believes each of these is equally likely to be true.
Now, I don't think that's controversial.
We use computer models to study the human population,
predict the weather, for entertainment.
We simulate everything.
And when a civilization can create a realistic simulation,
the most obvious one to create is that of its own early existence.
Bostrom calls this an ancestral simulation.
And a civilization that can do this wouldn't just create one simulation.
It would create many.
And those simulated civilizations might create their own simulations of the universe,
and on and on like Russian nesting dolls,
of reality.
Now, you're a character in that world and you think you have free will and say, I want
to invent a computer, so you do.
Hey, I want to create a world in my computer.
And then that world creates a world in its computer.
And then you have simulations all the way down.
When Elon Musk was asked what he thought the chances were that our reality is the original
base reality.
The odds that we're in base reality is one in billions.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is a little more conservative.
He thinks the odds that we are in base reality versus a simulated reality is 50-50.
A 50-50 chance that everything we experience is artificial, that's still pretty high.
And even though we mostly hear what scientists think about this, it's not scientific theory.
Simulation theory isn't math, it's philosophy.
It isn't physics, it's metaphysics.
So what we need is hard evidence that we live in a simulation.
And to find proof, all you have to do is look.
Let's start at the beginning.
There was no space or time.
The contents of the entire universe were concentrated to the size of a tennis ball
and had a temperature of a quadrillion degrees.
Then suddenly, the Big Bang.
Everything explodes outward faster than the speed of light.
Then about 14 billion years later, we've got galaxies and planets and ice cream and K-pop.
Ice cream, gillin, gillin, ice cream.
Yeah, I could do it off the kids.
K-pop.
Me too.
Okay, if before the Big Bang there was no space and no time, what was there?
What about the beginning of the universe from the religious point of view?
God created everything.
Fine.
Where was he before?
What caused the Big Bang to happen in the first place?
What made God decide to snap his fingers or wiggle his nose or whatever he did to make everything
happen?
If you ask a physicist to explain what existed before the universe, they'll give you an answer
about quantum foam, dark energy, or something just as bonkers as the Big Bang.
Ask a theologian what existed before God created the universe,
and you'll get an answer equally as confusing.
But what does make sense is that the universe was just sitting there dormant.
Then someone somewhere decided to boot up a program.
And in that program, our program, are all the laws of the universe.
Electromagnetism and gravitational force are written into the program.
The speed of light gets a value.
There's code for Planck's constants of mass, speed, and time.
Avagadro's number is in there, along with
a bunch of other rules that govern the behavior of everything that exists, all part of our program.
Even consciousness itself is part of our simulation. If you've never heard of simulation theory,
then this might sound far-fetched. But some of the world's most respected scientists,
technologists, and philosophers believe that it is more likely than not that we are living in
an artificial reality. So, how do we prove it?
If we live in an artificial reality, it would make sense for there to be occasional glitches.
Philip K. Dick is one of the most influential science fiction writers of all time.
Movies based on his books include Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, the Adjustment Bureau,
and plenty of others.
He believed there are many universes, and sometimes those other realities bleed into ours.
He claimed to have visions of this, and even wrote stories like The Man in the High Castle,
based on these visions.
That, in fact, plural realities did exist superimposed onto one another
by so many film transparencies.
One way other realities blend into ours could be the Mandela Effect.
The Mandela Effect is when a large number of people
have memories of events that don't match reality.
This is called the Mandela Effect because millions of people
specifically remembered Nelson Mandela died in prison.
He didn't.
People remember his wife walking beside his casket in a funeral procession
that was on television for two hours that day.
This never happened.
Or the Berenstain Bears,
which people insist were always called the Berenstein Bears.
People remember the tycoon from Monopoly
having a monocle that he never had.
What was Darth Vader famous for saying?
Luke, I am your father.
Nope, he never said that.
What?
What about Stouffer's stovetop stuffing?
Best part of Thanksgiving.
No, it isn't.
Because there's no such product.
Stovetop is made by craft.
Uh, no.
The evil queen from Snow White
who looked into her mirror and said
Mirror mirror on the wall
Nope
Magic mirror on the wall
Who is the fairest one of all
My reality is shattered
People remember Fabriz being spelled with two ease
People remember Jiffy peanut butter
But there's no such thing
And there are a lot more
A lot more
Personally I don't have most of these false memories
But there are a few that get me
The Flintstones.
There are two T's in the Flintstones.
I remember just one.
And what about the Fruit of the Loom logo?
I could swear it looks like this.
But it doesn't.
This is the actual logo.
No cornucopia.
Cornia what now?
Basket.
Didn't you say basket for crying out loud?
And at the end of Moonwraker,
a terrible but excellent James Bond movie,
I remember Jaws' girlfriend is having braces.
I mean, I specifically remember it.
She didn't have braces.
I just can't get my brain to accept it.
That's the Mandela effect.
So why do millions of people distinctly remember different things?
Glitch in a simulation?
Yep.
Philip K. Dick also felt when we experienced deja vu
is because something in our simulated universe changed
and a new timeline branched off of the current one.
We are living in a computer programmed reality
and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed.
Ever feel like you've lived a moment before?
That's because, according to Philip K. Dick and others, you have.
Deja vu is the simulation correcting itself with new information.
But skeptics can easily dismiss these theories.
The human mind is terribly unreliable.
They don't accept this as evidence.
But we're not done yet.
We live in a huge universe, 200 billion trillion stars.
And even if life is rare, you'd think there'd be some evidence of it somewhere.
This is Fermi's paradox.
But according to the Drake equation, there should be over a million technologically advanced civilizations just in our galaxy.
And on average, the nearest one should be just a few hundred light years away.
But there's nothing, at least not that we can see.
So where is everybody?
Are we really alone in the universe? Or does our program only focus on us?
And what about the physical rules that are in place?
Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at MIT, said the strict laws of physics point to the possibility of a simulation.
Putting a cap on the speed of light sure is a good way to keep your Sims from venturing out too far from home.
Theoretical physicist James Gates thought simulation theory was crazy.
Then he started studying quarks and electrons.
He found error-correcting code buried deep inside the equations used to the
describe string theory.
So you're saying as you dig deeper, you find computer code writ in the fabric of the cosmos.
Into the equations that we want to use to describe the cosmos. Yes. Computer code.
Computer code strings of bits of ones and zeros. Dr. Gates has changed his mind about
simulation theory. In 2017, a group of scientists at the University of Washington
approved, they can embed computer code into strands of DNA.
Everything in nature is math.
Look at the Fibonacci sequence.
You get the Fibonacci sequence by adding two previous numbers in the sequence together.
So 1 plus 1 equals 2, 2 plus 1 equals 3, 3 plus 2 equals 5, 5 plus 3 equals 8, and so on forever.
You get the golden ratio, also called Fee, by dividing two consecutive Fibonacci numbers.
So the number 89 is a Fibonacci number.
The next number in the sequence after 89 is 144.
144 divided by 89 is the golden ratio.
It's about 1.618.
We see Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio everywhere.
The number of petals on a flower is usually a Fibonacci number.
Lillies have three petals, buttercups have five,
chickery has 21, and a daisy has 34.
And the spacing of each petal is arranged in a circle according to the golden ratio.
As trees grow, the number of branches they form is a Fibonacci
number. And not just plants, animals too. The ratio of female to male honeybees in a colony
is the golden ratio, 1.618. The human body conforms to the golden ratio too. Most of the body
follows the numbers one, two, three, three limbs segments, five fingers, five toes. The proportions
of the body, like the length of your shoulder to your elbow, and from your elbow to your
fingertips, that's the golden ratio. Even a DNA molecule measures 34 angstrom's long by 21
Angstrom's wide, Fibonacci numbers, and the golden ratio. From the spiral of seashells to the
spiral of a galaxy and everything in between, Fibonacci numbers are everywhere. Now, some claim this
is a coincidence, that humans look for patterns in chaos because that's what we're programmed to do.
What were programmed to do?
It isn't that interesting. By trying to debunk simulation theory, they actually end up proving
it. No matter what we study, whether it's something the size of a galaxy or as small as an electron,
everything in the universe seems to follow patterns and rules.
In other words, a program.
To simulate an entire universe,
you'd obviously need more advanced technology than we have.
But that doesn't mean we won't get there.
Moore's law says that computing power doubles every 18 months.
And this is held true for about 50 years.
Now that is slowing down a little bit,
but only because of physical limitations.
Assuming we can learn to make microships smaller, and there's no doubt that we will,
it's predicted that artificial intelligence could surpass human intelligence within the next hundred years.
As Elon Musk points out, when he was a kid, the world's most advanced video game was Pong,
two rectangles on a screen.
40 years later, video game technology is barely distinguishable from reality.
He said that six years ago, and even in that short time,
video game engines have become even more realistic.
Look at this footage from Unreal Engine 5.
When a world we can build feels as real as our own.
Imagine what's going to look like in the next 60, or the next 6,000.
But simulating an entire universe, how big of a computer will we need?
Well, it's estimated that there are 10 to the power of 80 atoms in the universe.
Let me put that on the screen just for fun.
Okay, that's a lot.
If each particle needs 128 bits to calculate its position and momentum,
you're at 10 to the power of 83 bits.
And that's just for data storage.
We also need computing power to track what each of those particles is doing.
If we say two floating point operations per second, or two flops per particle,
we're at 2 times 10 to the 80th power flops.
There aren't even words for these numbers.
And this is the computing power for just the stuff in the universe.
this stuff in the universe. What about human intelligence? The human brain can perform a hundred
trillion calculations per second, or a hundred terraflops, multiplied by billions of people, the numbers
are ridiculous. To power all of this, the simulation would need access to multiple Dyson spheres,
the megastructures that capture 100% of the energy of a star, or the simulation would have to harness
the energy from black holes. This is why famous physicists like Dr. Michi Okaku are not on board
to simulation theory. He claims that simulating a universe is not scientifically possible. The only
computer capable of simulating a universe is the universe itself. Now, at first glance, this makes
sense. But with all due respect to Dr. Kaku, that's not how simulations work. When you're playing a 3D
video game, the entire game world isn't rendered. Instead, the game engine only calculates what the
player can see and interact with at that specific moment. If we are living in a simulation,
then it would make sense that the creators of the simulation would use a similar technique.
And wouldn't it be interesting if there was evidence that this is exactly what happens?
Well, wait a minute. Do we have proof? Sweet fancy Moses!
Supporters of simulation theory often point to video games as a way to explain,
if not prove that our reality is artificial. In a video game, the only data that is rendered is what the
the player sees or interacts with.
If you're playing a video game and there's a car
or building a mile away,
that entire object isn't rendered.
The game engine only renders the bare minimum
of information to make the object look real.
A distant building is rendered as just a few pixels,
not that complicated.
As you get closer, the engine renders more details,
but still, it's just a facade.
The engine doesn't bother calculating
what's inside the building to actually go in.
The game engine always knows how much data to send you
and doesn't bother with anything else.
If we live in a simulation, it would make sense that our reality is rendered the same way.
And we could test this.
Wait, well, what do you mean we can test this?
Specifically, we can use the double slit experiment.
Here's how it goes.
If we fire particles in a straight line at a screen,
after passing through a single slit, we would expect to see this clumping pattern on the screen.
If we try this with a wave, we expect to see a pattern like this,
where particles are most dense in the middle of the screen but radiate outward,
similar to the clumping pattern.
When we add a second slit, it starts to get fun.
When the waves pass through the double slit, each slit creates its own wave.
When those waves intersect, they cancel each other out.
That creates a pattern like this.
It's called an interference pattern.
So particles passing through two slits create clumping patterns.
Waves through two slits creates an interference pattern.
Make sense?
Yeah, I'm with you.
Good.
If we fire electrons through the slit, we see the clumping pattern as expected.
An electron has mass, so it's a tiny bit of matter.
So if we fire electrons through two slits, we should see two clumps.
But we don't.
We see the wave interference pattern.
This shouldn't be happening.
What's going on here?
For years, scientists assumed that the electrons were colliding with each other causing the wave pattern.
But in the 60s, the experiment was modified so that only one electron at a time was fired
through the slits.
There was no way the electrons could interact with each other.
Yet we still see an interference problem.
pattern. Scientists wanted to see what was causing this, so they added a detector to observe
electrons as they passed through the slits. That's when things go from weird to paranormal.
As soon as the detectors were installed, the interference pattern went away and the clumping
pattern returned. Take the detectors away and the wave interference pattern is back.
But that's a different result to what we had earlier. So here's the last bit of sneakiness
that we can play with atoms.
Surely now we're going to get to grips with it.
Leave the detector there,
but just very quietly go and unplug it.
Don't let the atoms know that you're not spying on them.
Run the experiment again.
Now, if you can explain this using common sense and logic,
do let me know.
let me know because there's a Nobel Prize for you.
It's as if the particles are aware they're being observed.
Then physicist John Wheeler had an idea.
He called it the delayed choice experiment.
How it works is photons are projected through the double slit,
but the detector is not activated until after they pass through the slit,
but before they impact the screen.
Photons were emitted as waves,
passed through the slits as waves, but when the waves were observed before hitting the
the screen? They suddenly behaved like particles again. Still don't think there's an intelligence
at work? Well, what Wheeler's experiment showed is that even though the electrons started
as waves but behaved like particles after being observed, at the moment the decision to
observe them was made, the electrons recorded themselves as having passed through the slits
as particles. The electrons changed their state by going back in time.
back in time.
I personally find that I gravitate more towards the information theoretic point of view
and believing that the universe that I exist in is a very good high-quality simulation.
Now, this experiment is happening on a table in a lab, a very short distance.
So what happens when we observe light coming from vast distances,
like say a galaxy 100 million light years away?
If light from a distant galaxy is projected through the double slit,
It creates the wave interference pattern.
But if we push those photons through a measuring apparatus to observe them,
the wave again collapses all the way back to its source.
This is called retrocausality.
Simply by choosing to observe the photons this way,
they reach back through time 100 million years
and alter their state on the other side of the galaxy.
But like a video game engine, it only does this if we're looking.
Even though our universe is full of galaxies,
those galaxies may not actually be there.
If we're living in a simulation,
then stars and galaxies could simply be projections,
and only when we get up close
where those projections become more detailed.
This is an excellent way to save computational resources,
and because we're stuck with the hard limit of the speed of light,
getting to far off places is really difficult.
Limiting the speed of light is a useful rule to have in place.
Quantum mechanics like the double slit experiment
and quantum entanglement only makes sense if there's a program,
at work because only the program can ignore the laws of physics and ignore the concept of time itself.
A convenient case for simulation theory is you can't disprove it.
The Big Bang, that was the simulation booting up.
We haven't found aliens? They're not in the simulation.
How come UFOs seem to violate the laws of physics?
Well, because they're programs operated by the simulation creators.
They don't have to follow the laws of physics.
Yeah, but who created the simulation?
Well, that's the big question, isn't it?
When you think of the simulation creator
as an omniscient intelligence
who exists outside of our understanding of space and time,
it sounds an awful lot like you're describing God.
And just like you can't prove we're not in a simulation,
you can't prove there is no God.
If something miraculous happens or something horrible happens,
you can say it's part of the simulation,
just as easily as you can say it's part of God.
part of God's plan. Something I find very interesting is that many believers of simulation theory
are fierce atheists. They dismiss the idea of God as corny superstition. There are plenty of devoutly
religious people who dismiss provable science like evolution and the age of the earth. People on the
religious side say that if there is no God and life is just a simulation, then nothing matters. Without
God to guide us and sometimes punish us, depending on what you believe, our actions don't have
consequences. I disagree. Even if we don't live in base reality, we still live in our reality,
and our actions here do have consequences. As for what happens after we die, simulation or not,
nobody really knows. Both sides argue that faith and science are not compatible. Isn't this
hypocritical? Whether you believe in God or you believe in simulation theory, the real question is,
what's the difference?
The next episode was picked by
Victoria.
Victoria pretty much runs things around here.
Don't cross her.
She'll cut you.
Okay, Victoria chose the episode about,
ooh, this is a good one.
Victoria chose Go Beckley-Tepay.
I hope I said that right.
T-Pay?
Tepe?
Whatever.
Roll it.
We are the descendants of an ancient civilization.
One which mastered technology, mapped the cosmos, and understood our relationship with the natural world.
Our ancestors traveled the world and built enormous structures.
They scaled their creations into cities.
They shared a common governance and similar religious beliefs.
Our ancestors lived, as we do today, as a global society.
Then around 14,500 years ago, this global superpower started to collapse.
First came uncontrollable change.
and then a cataclysm.
In less than a week, everything and almost everyone was gone.
Those left behind built monuments.
Monuments not as tributes to gods or homage to kings,
the monuments are a warning to future generations, to us.
That warning is simple.
Danger is coming.
Our civilization has ended before, and it will end again.
This is one story that big archaeology and world governments don't want you to know,
because once you hear it, you'll never trust them again.
Because the danger that's coming, there's not a thing they can do to stop it.
In 1994, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt was touring Turkish neolithic sites
when he spotted a limestone block poking out from a hillside.
The locals called the area Potbelly Hill, or in their language, Gobeckley-Tempe.
Schmidt and his team began excavating the hillside around the limestone,
and though they didn't know it at the time,
what they discovered would change everything we know about human history.
We've all been taught the official story,
the big archaeology story of the origin of human civilization.
Stone Age hunter-gatherers emerged from the last ice age
and eventually discovered farming.
These people organized into settlements in Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent.
Then, about 6,000 years ago, the first civilization,
was born, ancient Sumer.
Stone-aged humans before Sumer were primitive.
Their most advanced technology was stone tools.
At Quebec Leitepe, archaeologists uncovered four man-made stone enclosures
covering 100,000 square feet of land.
That's interesting, but there was a problem.
The earliest parts of Quebecli Tepe were built 11,600 years ago.
That's 6,000 years before the ancient Sumerians were due.
doing anything. Now this didn't make sense at all. 11,600 years ago was the end of the last
ice age. Big archaeology said this far back in time, humans were following the migration of
animals. They built temporary camps who were at most mud huts. Humans were not building enormous
permanent stone structures. They didn't have the knowledge. They didn't have the tools. They didn't
have the talent. Yet, here it was. So the more they dug, the more
things stopped making sense. Soon archaeologists learned that the enclosures weren't built at the same
time. This indicates long-term occupation of the site. Well, how long? Well, the newest structure
was built about 10,500 years ago. That means Gobeckley-Tepe was occupied for over a thousand years.
Now, a thousand years doesn't sound that long, but in human history, a thousand years is a very
long time. That's enough time for the Roman Empire to rise and fall, and rise and fall again.
The excavation of Gobeckley-Tepe continued, and from the perspective of the scientific
establishment, things just kept getting worse. Gobeckley-Tepe wasn't haphazardly thrown together
by Stone Age primitives. It was built strategically for a purpose.
The four enclosures are circular, between 20 and 200 feet across,
and all are angled toward the star Sirius.
Sirius is the brightest star in the sky.
Many cultures throughout history built temples angled at Sirius,
but not 12,000 years ago.
Yet here it was.
Over the course of 1100 years,
Sirius' alignment moved across the night sky,
So the builders of Quebec-Tepe created newer enclosures to follow each realignment.
To build these monuments required an understanding of astronomy, mathematics, and engineering.
A project of this size would also require skills like community planning, administration, and division of labor.
Big archaeology said people during this time had not yet acquired these skills.
Yet here it was.
Within each enclosure are T-shaped pillars.
some of them 16 feet tall, each weighing up to 10 tons.
43 pillars have been excavated so far,
but the Gobeckli-Tepe story is just getting started.
Only 5% of the site has been uncovered.
Recent LIDAR imaging revealed at least 15 to 20 additional structures and enclosures
buried beneath the main site,
and there are more than 200 additional stone pillars.
Now, about those stone pillars,
there's something very strange,
on. Engraved on the pillars are depictions of humans, animals, and human-animal hybrids.
There are foxes, lions, scorpion, snakes, boar, wild donkey, gazelles, there's all kinds of things.
And the work is very advanced.
But the most advanced carvings are on the oldest pillars.
As the site gets newer, the designs get less intricate.
It's like technology and craftsmanship suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Somehow, 7,000 years before Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza were built,
and 6,000 years before the invention of writing, humans were capable of building this.
Where did the builders get this sudden knowledge?
Dianunaki.
Well, the answer to that question is controversial.
The Ananaki.
Maybe the human story doesn't start at the end of the last Ice Age, like big archaeology wants us to think.
Maybe before the last Ice Age, the Earth was home to an older and much more advanced civilization.
That civilization then taught the primitive local hunter-gatherers about mathematics and engineering.
They also taught these primitive humans astronomy and told them to pay very close attention to the sky.
These ancients then told the local people their story of the time before the Ice Age, when their civilization flourished.
Pillar 43 in Enclosure D has become known as the vulture stone.
On the vulture stone, there's a detailed carving that tells the story of these ancient people.
Unfortunately, it's also the story of the end of the world.
Pillar 43 in enclosure D, also known as the vulture stone, depicts the worst day in human history.
Engraved on the pillar are asterisms, which are bright star clusters like constellations.
Pillar 43 points to Scorpius.
Now, to be fair to skeptics, every culture is going to have different representations for
their constellations.
But look at the drawing on the vulture stone.
Without a doubt, that is a scorpion.
When the constellation Scorpius is lined up with the night sky, all the other drawings
fall into place, each of them representing constellations.
A sun sits atop the vulture's wing in the design, showing its placement in the sky in relation to the stars.
If we use the central sun as a guide to line up the constellations, it reveals a star map,
and every star map is a date stamp.
Take the Hoover Dam, for example.
Engraved on the floor of the dam is the exact configuration of the stars as seen from that location on the day the dam opened.
Ew, why did they carve that in the dam floor?
So if the structure is found thousands or millions of years from now,
archaeologists will know the exact date.
The date the damn people made it.
Right.
Damn good idea.
The vulture stone shows the only time in history
that this specific configuration of stars
could be seen from Gobeckli-Tepe.
It was a 100-year window between 10,900 to 10,800 BC,
about 13,000 years ago.
But wait, this is more than a number.
a thousand years before Gobeckley-Tepe was built. So this tablet is telling a story of something
that happened in the past. It's the story of a time period commonly referred to as the younger
dryas, and the terror from the sky that changed the face of the earth. The ice age lasted about
2.6 million years. Most of the northern hemisphere was covered by miles thick sheets of ice. 30%
of the earth's surface was covered by glaciers. This sounds bad.
But for the human race, it was good.
Sure, the climate was cold, but it wasn't cold everywhere.
Most of Africa and the Middle East were warm, with plenty of plant and animal life.
And the climate was consistent for 2.6 million years.
Homedids had a nice, stable climate in which to evolve during this time.
Homo sapiens, modern humans, emerged during this time.
We were born in the Ice Age.
We thrived in it.
Then the climate started changing.
Temperatures became warmer year after year.
The ice sheets slowly melted.
Sea levels gradually rose.
This would have been a concern for the human civilization.
But they were helpless to do anything about it.
Oh, so you admit that even if the climate is getting warmer,
there's nothing we can do about it.
Well, that's an open debate.
How dare you?
Then suddenly, around 12,900,
years ago, the Earth got cold again. Not as cold as before, but cold enough that humans understood
how to survive and thrive in these conditions. This mini-ice age was essentially a return to normal.
But a thousand years later, this age of normalcy ended violently and suddenly.
The ice sheets melted as they had before, but not over 2.6 million years. This time the ice
melted in weeks. There was no time for civilization to adjust.
This was the cataclysm.
And there's evidence of this cataclysm in ice core samples taken from Greenland and Antarctica.
There's evidence in sediment cores from the bottom of lakes and oceans.
There's evidence in organic material that's been carbon-dated.
But there's also evidence of this disaster on Pillar 43, the vulture stone.
Along with giving us a date, the tablet also depicts the comet impact of the younger dryus.
At the bottom of the pillar is a headless man, linking the date to death.
There's also a snake coming from the south.
This has been said to represent three giant waves washing over the earth.
Those could have been the tsunamis that we know for sure happened.
But pillar 43 is only a piece of the story.
Pillar 56 depicts more of the younger driest impact, waves crashing, animals fleeing.
Now, those are scary, but to me, pillar 18 is the most ominous,
depiction at Gobeckli-Tepe.
First of all, it contains the only word on the whole site.
The word is God.
Maybe you were saying, oh, God, we're going to die.
Oh, God, please save us.
I think it was saying exactly that.
Wait, I was just joking.
Well, I think something very bad happened, and this pillar is a plea for help.
Oh, my joke isn't very funny anymore.
Pillar 18 in Enclosure D focuses on the constellation we know as Aquarius.
But when it was built, the pillar was probably centered on Taurus.
Now, if that's true, we now have a very big piece of this puzzle.
The comet Enki was discovered in 1786 and takes about three years to orbit the sun.
Anki is about three miles wide, not a huge comet, but not small either.
The thing is, it used to be bigger, much bigger.
It was part of what scientists call a megacomet, a hundred-de-a-commit.
miles wide and not just made of ice, but also glass, metal, and rock. About 20,000 years ago,
the megacomet broke up. This is good, right? Oh no, this is bad. Really bad.
When the 100-mile megacomet broke up, it created an enormous debris field. Now instead of one
megacomet, you've got millions of smaller comets, ranging in size from grains of sand to over a
mile across. When the earth
passed through that cloud of debris,
the people at Quebec-Letepe
would have seen a firestorm of comets
raining down on the earth, all
coming from the Aquarius constellation,
just as is depicted on
Pillar 43. But
here's the scary part. We
fly through that same debris field
every year.
It's called the Torrid Meteor
Shower, and it's caused a lot of
damage through the years. And if you're
watching this in September, October,
or November?
We're flying through it right now.
When Gobeckley-Tepi was discovered,
Big Archaeology had no choice
but to admit they had underestimated
the technological abilities of early man
by, oh, about 5,000 years.
It must be a mistake, they said.
After all, their grant money depends on them being right.
No need to fund a search for, let's say,
a mummy in a pyramid that's not
going to be there. But in 2019, more bad news for the mainstream. That year, excavation started at
Karahan Tepe, about 40 miles from Gobeckli Tepe. Initial estimates say it might have been settled
before Gobeckley Tepe. Gobeckle Tepe seems to have been built for a single purpose, maybe a place
of worship or an observatory. Karhan Tepe is very different. It shows obvious signs of a structured
society. Now, there are many different types of buildings at Karan Tepe. Some could be shops or
residences or food storage. Vessels, grindstones, flint, plates, and all kinds of other objects
have been found at Karahantepe. These types of artifacts haven't been found at Gebeckle-Tepe,
suggesting the two sites served very different social functions. But these places existed at the same
time. So it's possible Gobekli Tepe was a religious center, where Karahan Tepe was a residential
neighborhood, or maybe a shopping district. And if that's true, there must be more settlements in the
area yet to be found. There's more? Lots more. In 2021, the Turkish government announced the discovery
of at least 11 additional hillsides, which contain structures very much like Gobeckley-Tepe. The
hillsides make up a hundred-mile ring with Gobeckle-Tepe in the center.
These sites are known collectively as Tos-Tepler.
Now, instead of an area inhabited by nomadic primitives, Tos-Tepler is a metropolis.
Cyberch was uncovered by archaeologists in 2021, around 10 miles from Gobeckley-Tepe.
Cyberge is one of the most complex settlements in the area.
Archaeologists found communal buildings big enough to seat 50 people.
There are communal halls.
covered with countless engravings of humans and animals.
To the south of the communal buildings are ancient residential homes.
The layout of each of the Tos Tepleur archaeological sites
suggest hundreds of thousands of people live there, permanently,
right after the Younger Dryas changed the face of the world.
But there's a site discovered in 2008, about 180 miles away,
which really broke history,
and suggests Tos Tepleur may have been a capital in what was,
a very busy region.
While digging a dam in the area,
engineers rediscovered the settlement of
Bancuclut-Larla.
Damn, engineers.
Look, you don't have to keep tagging that joke.
Oh, you don't like my damn jokes, eh?
The Bancuclutarlah settlement
is between 12,000 and 13,000 years old.
That means it was built within the younger
driest cold period, before the flood.
The structure found has similar features
with Gobeckley-Tepi and the structures belonging to this period in the region.
The building has a unique architectural style, shape, and interior arrangement, unique with these
features.
We can say that it is a temple that dates back to 12,000 years.
This is where the existence of an ancient advanced civilization starts to become almost irrefutable.
Bancuclutarlah has all the things we find on Tos Tepler, private buildings, public spaces.
It's got storage rooms, tools, ornamental objects.
It's got mega and microlifts.
The people of Bunkuglutarlah were so advanced.
They even built a sewer system.
More than 130 skeletons have been found there,
each buried with hundreds of thousands of beads.
The manufacturing of beads proves that there was a division of labor,
an artisan class.
It proves that the people had time for more than just hunting and gathering.
They had time to make art.
Making beads is more of a craft.
They're not, but I get you meaning.
So big archaeology was wrong again.
Very, very wrong.
This area of Turkey shows that thousands of people live there in organized communities.
They built neighborhoods and temples.
They had shops and large halls for gathering.
They had division of labor.
They were experts at stonework.
They understood mathematics and astronomy.
They were talented engineers.
And this was 12,000 years ago.
But where's the evidence of people learning?
these skills. If the people at Gobeckli-Tepe were putting up 10-ton stone pillars 10 to 12,000
years ago, shouldn't we see communities learning these skills 15,000 years ago, 20,000 years ago?
We should see an evolution of technology that takes thousands of years.
But we don't. This advanced technology just appeared.
But that's not exactly true.
The people in the area around Gobeckli-Tepe, Bancuku-Tarla, and Cyberla
were taught this technology after the Great Flood.
It was a gift to them, a gift from the people of the sea.
Mainstream or big archaeology gets things wrong.
A lot of things.
Gobeckley-Tepe shouldn't be there.
Neither should Karhan Tepe, Bunkuku-Tarla, or any of the other settlements in the area.
We're told the Great Pyramids of Giza are tombs built for pharaohs.
but no mummy has ever been found in a tomb, not one, not ever.
But in the Great Pyramid, we did find evidence that it might have been used as an ancient power plant.
Big archaeology hates that idea.
Now, when I was growing up, we were taught that Native Americans first arrived in North America
by crossing the Bering Land Bridge in Alaska between 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.
This was called the Clovis First Model, because some stone tools were found in Clovis, New Mexico.
Big archaeology wasn't even close on how people got to the Americas, or when.
The Monte Verde site in Chile blew up the Clovis model when it was dated to 14,800 years ago.
Buttermilk Creek Complex in Texas was dated to about 15,500 years ago.
The bluefish caves in Yukon, Canada, have evidence suggesting human activity as far back as 24,000 years ago.
Plus, there's hard evidence.
that people from Polynesia in the South Pacific
traded with and mated with tribes in Guatemala
many years before Columbus.
And they didn't cross the Bering Land Bridge in Alaska.
They sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean.
This means they had advanced shipmaking skills and seamanship.
They had knowledge of astronomy and the weather.
You had to make that trip.
They also had to have balls of steel.
I would have preferred that you said nerves of steel,
but yeah, they were brave.
Big archaeology knows the Mayan culture had a large population,
but they were not considered to be very technologically advanced.
But in 2023, researchers deep in the Guatemalan jungle
discovered a sprawling Mayan civilization.
It covers more than 650 square miles.
And here's the crazy thing.
The cities were interconnected by a series of superhighways.
And these weren't just paths or dirt roads.
The roads were elevated to allow for drainage
and even paved with white plaster.
The Romans get a lot of credit for creating the first roads,
but the Mayans beat the Romans to it by about 2,000 years.
They're the world's first super highway system that we have.
What's amazing about them is that they unite all these cities together like a spider web,
which forms one of the earliest and first state societies in the Western Hemisphere.
So big archaeology was wrong about Mayan technology,
but they still had to get in the world.
in the last word. Mainstream said, sure, they had hundreds of miles of roads, but they didn't
have vehicles. They just walked. No animals or people pulling carts. They just walked hundreds of
miles. Big archaeology said this is because the Mayans didn't discover the wheel. But Mayan toys
have been discovered that have wheels. Big archaeology says the Mayans never thought to scale them
up to put them on carts. How do we know this? Big archaeology says we know this because we haven't
discover the carts. Oh. But a year ago, Big Archaeology would have said there's no way the
Mayans could have built a highway system. Why not? Well, because we haven't found one. Yet there
it is. Big archaeology is quick to take a lack of evidence at face value, regardless of
common sense. Like there was no such thing as the city of Dwarca, the advanced and prosperous
city in India that was consumed by a great flood. That was all a myth. Then Dwarca was found.
and dated to the younger Dryas.
There's no such thing as Atlantis,
but it's hard to explain the Bimini Road in the Bahamas,
or the ancient city off the coast of Cuba
that could be anywhere from 6,000 to 50,000 years old.
There's no such thing as Mu,
the continent that once connected Greece to Easter Island.
Yet the languages from those two cultures
share about a thousand words,
and the Anaguni monument off the coast of Japan
is right where Mu would have been.
There was no such thing as Darren Kuyu, the secret underground city that hid 20,000 people from danger for thousands of years.
That was just a local myth.
Then a man tried expanding his basement and realized, it's already been expanded, and the lost city of Darren Kuyu was discovered.
And that's why big archaeology says there was no advanced culture before the flood, because there's no evidence of it, except there is.
Every culture has a flood myth.
Long before Noah built the ark, a great flood turned up in Mesopotamia in the epic of Gilgamesh.
The ancient Samarians, Egyptians, Greeks, Hindus, they all have a legend of a deluge that
wiped the earth clean.
The flood myth really is worldwide.
The Norse have their own version of the Noah's Ark story.
The Inca, the Aztec, tribes across America, Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Australian Aboriginal,
this is just to name a few, the list is much longer.
Now, the legends vary, but they're all basically the same plot.
People are misbehaving, so a flood is sent to wipe them out
and start over with a few survivors.
Now, I don't know about the misbehaving part,
but we're pretty sure the flood really happened.
But some of the flood legends have a twist.
Those legends say that before the flood,
there were advanced civilizations who flourished on their own continents,
while primitive humans were still figuring out stone tools.
Atlantis was a powerful and advanced island nation.
It was larger than Asia and ruled by the descendants of gods.
Atlantis was prosperous and technologically advanced,
but the people became corrupt,
prompting the gods to sink the island into the ocean
in a single day and night of catastrophic earthquakes and floods.
Lemoria was a huge continent in the Pacific Ocean.
Lemoria was home to a spiritually advanced civilization
that was sometimes ally and sometimes enemy of Atlantis.
And then there was Mew.
Mew is a continent either in the Pacific Ocean or Indian Ocean.
It was once inhabited by an advanced civilization.
The survivors of Mew brought their wisdom
and began the civilizations of ancient Egypt and the Maya.
Atlantis, Lomoria, and Mew are all similar stories
in that they were highly advanced civilizations.
All existed around 9,600 BC,
all destroyed by a great flood.
But in all three stories,
there are a few survivors.
After the floodwaters recede
and their homelands are destroyed,
these survivors seek refuge on the mainland.
The people they find are kind but primitive.
So the survivors grant them the gift of civilization.
And when you show up somewhere,
it's always polite to bring something.
Flower, bottle of wine, civilization.
I agree, that's just good manners.
But it's at this time that agriculture explodes across the Middle East.
Megalithic structures now appear.
Complex cities emerge, all seemingly overnight.
In Hindu, Matsya takes the form of a fish
and guides King Manu to reestablish civilization.
In Mesopotamia, Awanus emerged from the sea as half man, half fish.
A mermaid?
Yep.
Hey, ask him if you has a sister, will you?
Awanis teaches the Samarians agriculture, writing, law, and all knowledge crucial for civilization.
Quetzikwadal, also associated with water, brought civilization to the Aztecs.
In Egyptian, Polynesian, Japanese, Chinese, Norse, Hawaiian, Native American,
there's a godlike teacher who comes from the sea to help restart civilization.
And these saviors or teachers or whatever you want to call them,
they all appear after the Great Flood at the end of the Younger Dryas,
and they all transfer wisdom and knowledge to the primitive people that they meet
and restart civilization.
And there's more evidence.
The cultures around the world seem to have been given the same knowledge.
For example, Sirius is the brightest star in the sky.
Every culture knows about it.
But every culture, new and old, refers to Sirius as a dog or a wolf.
In ancient Iraq, Sirius was called the dog star that leads.
In China, it was known as the heavenly wolf.
Assyrians and Acadians knew Sirius as the dog of the sun.
And in North America, native tribes used largely canine terminology,
like dog that follows mountain sheep or wolf star when referring to Sirius.
Most cultures holding a reverence for the brightest star in the sky is understandable.
But all of them referring to the same star as a dog or a wolf?
That seems like a big coincidence.
We don't believe in those.
We don't.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere,
Bunkhuclutarlah, a bustling city, appears in Turkey.
Karhan Tepe, with its homes and halls and magnificent art, appears.
And Quebectepe is built,
an entire complex dedicated to the star Sirius.
And within the complex,
10-ton stone pillars that tell the story of man,
the fire from the sky,
the flood that swallows the earth,
and of civilization given a second chance.
The pillars also offer a warning for future generations, for us.
All that has happened before will happen again.
The builders gave us symbols on stones and told us to watch the sky.
They showed us the constellations to study.
They gave us the exact date of the last disaster so we could prepare for the next one,
because there's always a next one.
The images carved in the stone pillars could be a guide to ensure humanity's survival.
But if all that's true, why was it all intentionally buried?
Around 10,000 years ago, the people of Gobeckle-Tepe took up a massive project.
They filled in the entire compound with stone and debris.
Then they covered it with earth and mud to make it seem like it was never there.
There are two theories for why they did this.
One, to preserve it.
to hide it.
An advanced society destroyed by an ancient cataclysm.
The survivors venture out into the world, spreading wisdom and knowledge and sowing the seeds
of civilization.
Then, in an instant, agriculture explodes.
Cities are born and a new era of man begins.
Just not the first era of man.
Not only is this a great story, it's one of my favorite stories.
I read Graham Hancock's book, Fingerprints of the Gods in the 1990s, and I was hooked.
I've been an ancient civilization junkie ever since.
But is it true?
Well, big archaeology says it's absolutely not true.
But we've shown that lack of evidence is proof enough for the mainstream to say that something never existed.
Only when dragged, kicking, and screaming.
screaming to evidence of the Great Flood, do they finally acknowledge it?
And only when Gobeckli Tepe is discovered, does the date of the first civilization get pushed back?
Then Bunkuklu-Tarla is found, and the date changes again.
And it may change again and again.
So big archaeology was wrong about how advanced the people of the Stone Age were.
They were clearly advanced enough to build monolithic monuments and huge complex cities.
It appears as if this skill and technology comes out of nowhere.
We don't see older, smaller structures that show an evolution of technology that leads to something as magnificent as Gobeckley-Tepe.
The technology just appeared, and it appeared at the end of the Younger Dryas, after the Great Flood.
So it must be a transfer of technology from survivors of an ancient society whose civilization was lost beneath the waves.
But let's be fair, there was an evolution of technology leading to Gobeckley-Tepe.
Natufian culture existed in the same area about 15,000 years ago.
They were unusual in that they settled the area permanently.
There's evidence of cemeteries, architecture, food production, animal domestication, and burials
with elaborate mortuary treatments.
The Natufians built organized stone structures decorated with art.
This is 2,000 years before Gobeckle-Tepe.
Ayamalaha was a Natufian settlement built around 12,000 years ago.
They, too, used circular structures, like those found at Gobeckli-Tepe.
Pre-Netufian culture goes back to 23,000 years ago.
Now, it's rare to find evidence of this culture, but it's not impossible.
There are engravings, ornaments, and beads that are older than Gobeckley-Tepe, thousands
of years older.
The monoliths at Gebeckle-Tepe are impressive.
But the Natufians also created huge slabs of decorated limestone.
Not as elaborate, but they were made with skill and craftsmanship.
Cortique Tepe is another mound discovered in the Anatolia area of Turkey.
Found there are pieces of very elaborate pottery, carvings, jewelry, tools, and fishing hooks.
Cortique Tepe has been dated from 12,400 years ago to 11,700 years ago.
So not only older than Gobeckley-Tepe, this settlement existed during the cold snap of the Younger Dryas.
Now, it is worth noting that Cortic-Tepe disappears around the time of the flood,
but before the flood, people lived there for a thousand years.
So there is evidence of an evolution of technology,
not just with jewelry and engraving, but even building large monoliths,
all thousands of years before Gobeckli-Tepe.
One of the great mysteries is why Gobeckley-Tepe was deliberately filled in.
Now, the working theory is, the earlier structures were pretty big and dug into a mound.
An earthquake hit, knocked everything into the mound, and made a mess of things.
Then everyone in the area filled in the rest of the hole and built newer, smaller structures around the older, larger ones.
Structures that were designed to withstand earthquakes.
Now, no one really knows for sure, but it's a theory that makes sense to me.
And there are some issues with the dates as well.
The date on Pillar 43, the Vulture Stone?
That's 13,000 years ago.
That doesn't line up with the end of the Younger Dryas,
so it's not describing the Great Flood.
But that date does line up with the beginning of the Younger Dryas.
Was there an impact at that time, too?
Well, there probably was.
It's believed that the abrupt cooling 13,000 years ago
was caused by a series of events that happened at the same time.
There are Ice Corps samples that show and impact 12,800
87 years ago.
And that date is accurate within five years.
And this happened at the same time
as a large volcanic eruption in Germany.
This caused the Earth to be covered in soot,
which caused years of darkness.
Meanwhile, the impacts disrupted the ocean currents,
so everything got cold again.
Not as cold as before, but still cold.
Then about a thousand years later,
another event, maybe another impact,
maybe a massive solar event,
we don't really know for sure,
but something did happen to work
the earth and melt the ice caps really fast. We do have evidence of cultures that existed
before, during, and after the younger dryness. Now, did we debunk the idea of an advanced culture
before that? Absolutely not. I'm just trying to give you the full picture. There absolutely
could have been someone else here long ago. And we've talked before about how it would take
only about 10,000 years before all evidence of the human race is gone. But here's the thing about that
number. Civilization disappearing in 10,000 years assumes the Earth is peaceful. If one of these years
the torrid meteor shower threw a rocket us like it did during the younger dryest, well,
it wouldn't take 10,000 years to erase our civilization. We'd be gone in a day. Here's how it
happens. It's a brisk November evening. Maybe this year, maybe 20 years from now. It doesn't matter.
Remember, the Earth passes through the torrid meteor cloud, and the Earth's sky lights up.
People gather all over the world to see the event.
Meteor watching parties are common.
You and a few friends decide to get together and see the show.
The sky does not disappoint.
Shooting stars zip across the night's sky like fireflies.
There are even larger comets that streak by for a full second or two before burning out.
And once in a while, a big one.
It's a fireball that lights up the sky.
and for a moment, night turns today.
Now, everyone's heart races,
but fireballs like these are known to happen
during the torrid shower.
People remember the torrids of 2015.
That year, fireballs hit the earth in swarms.
In 2020, a torrid fireball exploded over Japan
that sounded like a bomb going off.
That one set off car alarms for miles.
You continue to watch the sky,
and notice the shooting stars getting denser, thicker,
then a fireball, then another.
You feel a little anxiety,
but the toured meteors have been happening your whole life,
and they've been nothing more than a light show.
Then another fireball.
This one looks like it's close.
It vaporizes in a flash of light so bright
that you have to shield your eyes.
You and your group of sky watchers giggle nervously.
Then three seconds later, a crack, then a boom.
So loud, you feel it in your stomach.
Everyone agrees.
This was fun, but let's go home.
But now there's another fireball.
Everyone turns to see.
This one is different.
It's not really streaking across the sky.
It's expanding somehow.
No, it's not expanding.
It's coming closer.
It comes closer and closer,
and there's no way to tell how big it is.
From where you're standing, it's like a mountain made of fire.
Just as panic says,
that's in, it disappears somewhere over the horizon.
You let out a deep sigh.
You didn't realize it, but for the past 30 seconds,
you've been holding your breath.
You and your group are now frantically gathering your belongings.
That was more than enough excitement for one evening.
You even ask yourself if you even want to do this again next year.
But that question has already been answered for you.
You just didn't know it yet.
Over the horizon where the fireball disappeared,
a ball of light emerges.
Everything is lit up like the day.
No, brighter than that.
It's so bright, everything is just white.
The ball of white light grows larger and larger.
And you feel something deep in your brain.
That part of your brain that evolved two million years ago, that blizzard brain,
it sends you a single message.
Run.
You run.
About 3,000 miles away, there has been,
an event. The meteor hits and vaporizes everything around the impact point for miles. Water,
rock, cities, all vanish. Then the shockwaves start. Earthquakes radiate out from the impact point
over and over again as the earth reverberates like a bell. These earthquakes move faster than
the speed of sound. They're so powerful, they disrupt the tectonic plates of the earth. That sets off
a chain reaction of earthquakes and volcanoes across every major fall.
line. Forget LA and San Francisco. The San Andreas will either eat or burn the entire California
coast. Then you've got the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest. The Hayward
fault, the Calaveras fault, the Garloc, the Wasatch, they all erupt. From western Canada to
Baja Mexico is leveled. Everything within 20 miles of the coast crumbles into the sea.
Then the shock waves roll back around the planet again and again and again.
The biggest fault system in the United States is the New Madrid seismic zone.
The most powerful earthquakes in U.S. history have come from here.
When that fault goes, say goodbye to Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and down to New Orleans.
All gone, frumbled, on fire, or underwater.
The New Madrid fault connects to the Ramapo fault in the east and sets it off like a fuse.
Ramapo extends through Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.
Then the Charleston fault in South Carolina.
Carolina goes next. From Boston to Seattle, from Maine to Miami, and everything in between,
earthquakes rock the country over and over again. And this is happening everywhere in the world.
Then comes the wind. A Category 5 hurricane has wind speeds of 150 to 160 miles per hour. A Cat 5 hurricane
is going to seem like a gentle afternoon. Rushing around the planet is a storm with winds over
a thousand miles per hour. This is called the air blast. Anything wooden is gone. Cars, boats,
people all gone. Only the sturdiest stone structures could survive the wind, but most stone
structures have already been turned to rubble by the earthquakes. In some places, the wind lasts for
16 hours. And within the wind is everything. Buildings, cars, trees, everything. It's a food
processor that pulverizes everything for hours.
What happens next goes one of two ways.
Option one. The rock hits solid earth.
Now, if that happens, heat and ejecta cause wildfires for thousands of miles around the
impact point. Radiating out from the center is a fireball moving at twice the speed of
sound. This fireball is hotter than the surface of the sun. A land impact also launches
millions and millions of tons of ejecta into the atmosphere.
In fact, millions of tons of molten rock
will leave the atmosphere and go into space.
The rock cools and forms a shell of debris
in orbit around the earth.
No more space station, no more satellites.
The ejecta that remains in the atmosphere
blocks out the sun for months.
But it only takes a few days for plant life to start dying.
The entire food chain is disrupted within a week
and completely collapses in a month.
month. All food is gone. And that's a land impact. Option two is an ocean impact. This is probably
worse. The rock hits, vaporizes the ocean water, and collides with the bedrock. The earthquakes
begin like before, but what's really dramatic is the tsunami. But it's much more than a tsunami. More than
a mega tsunami. What this is, there's really no name for it.
A wall of water rises about a mile and a half in the air.
The water would be higher than the clouds if there were clouds.
The shockwaves and air blast dissipated all the clouds,
leaving only dark streaks of smoke that turn the sky blood red.
The wall of water extends in all directions.
It moves at 500 miles per hour.
By the time it makes landfall, it's even higher.
As the water tears across the land, it collects debris.
Every object the water touches is captured and becomes part of the wave.
Within minutes, the front face of the wall is a solid mass of debris moving hundreds of miles per hour.
The devastation is extreme.
As the earth reverberates, the secondary waves begin.
These are smaller waves compared to the first, but they're still hundreds of feet high,
and they pummel the coasts over and over and over again.
About 24 hours later, the Earth settles.
Volcanoes continue to erupt, and there are thousands of earthquake aftershocks,
but most of the violence is over.
This is the worst day in human history.
But here's what's really scary.
The scenario I just described has happened many times.
So a question for the skeptics, how much evidence of human civilization would be left after this type of event?
Skeptics say there would be evidence of trash, plastic, and steel.
But would there?
After the comet strike, the fireball, the shockwaves, the 1,000 mile an hour wind,
the string of megastomies, I'm not sure how much of anything would be left after that.
Now, you would think that this event would leave a mess of debris across the landscape.
But it would be nothing like that.
The land would be pristine.
Well, pristine in a way.
From horizon to horizon,
is mud, nothing but mud.
Everything has been pulverized into dust,
and the object larger than a basketball
is buried under mud a thousand feet deep.
Big archaeology says there was no early civilization
because they haven't found one.
Or maybe, they just haven't dug deep enough.
There's evidence of an ancient advanced civilization
and myths and legends from cultures around the world.
Not just evidence that a civilization was here,
but also how it was destroyed.
The Book of Revelation describes events
that could be interpreted as impacts.
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal and lo!
There was a great earthquake,
and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair,
and the moon became as blood.
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth,
even as a fig tree cast a thiroth of hair.
untimely figs when she's shaken of a mighty wind, and the heaven departed as a scroll when
it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
Revelation 6.
That sounds exactly like the impact I described earlier.
The stars fall to the earth, the darkness, the mighty wind, and earthquake strong enough
to move mountains.
In Indian texts, the Vedas and the Mahabharata, they contain descriptions of celestial events and
weapons that have been interpreted as a comet or meteor impacts.
Gigantic elephants burnt by that weapon fell all around, uttering fierce cries loud as
those of the clouds. Other huge elephants scorched by that fire ran hither and thither
and roared aloud in fear as if in the midst of a forest conflagration.
Mahabharata, book seven.
That sounds like molten ejecta hitting the earth and setting everything on.
on fire, just like we'd expect.
The Lascault caves in France are some of the most famous cave art ever found.
One drawing called The Shaf Scene features a dying man in several animals.
Researchers now say this describes a comet strike around 15,200 BC.
Petroglyphs all over the world depict celestial objects with multiple tails.
These have been suggested to represent the Torrid Meteor Swarm.
This petroglyph from Forsyth County, Georgia is a star map.
It suggests a common impact event in 536 AD.
Ice core samples from Greenland confirm an impact sometime between 533 and 540.
That impact had global ramifications and cooled the earth over 5 degrees.
There are more examples of impacts, and these are just the most obvious ones.
And notice that they're not all from thousands of years ago.
Some are from just hundreds of years ago.
The Tunguska event in 1908 is thought to be a Taurid meteor that strayed from the debris field.
These impacts happen periodically, and they usually happen in the autumn when we cross the torrid debris field.
And maybe that's the story being told on the vulture stone at Quebec-Tepe.
Not the story of what happened in the past, but the potential danger we face right now.
The Taurid comets come every year, September to November.
This year, the toured comets peak on November 6th.
You can see them for yourself.
Now, sure, most of them look like shooting stars,
but some of them are fireballs that light up the entire sky.
Now, why does big archaeology in every world government discount this story?
Because there's not a thing they can do about it.
Every time we pass through the toured comet cloud,
we're playing Russian roulette.
Every year, a new spin of the chamber, a new pull of the trigger.
Now, chances are, when we pull the trigger, all we hear is a click.
But there are objects in the torrid cloud that are a mile wide.
So even though the chance is small, there is a chance, a real chance, that one of those objects will find its way to us.
And when that happens, our civilization ends once again.
And there will be only a handful of survivors, the few people lucky enough to hide in mountain caves.
And maybe those survivors will create cave paintings or rock carvings,
describing this world-ending event.
However they do it, they'll want to tell our story,
and it's an important one.
Every year we take our chance with the torrents.
One year we're going to lose.
Then the only thing left of us, our entire civilization,
will be one more very short story.
Okie-dokey, little smoky.
The next one comes from Ryan.
So, Ryan is another one of my editors.
He chose...
Oh, you gotta be kidding me.
Seriously, dude?
Huh.
Ryan chose the episode about the Lacerda files.
You know why he chose that one?
Because the aliens are a freaking smoke show!
That's right, my editor has a thing for aliens.
Look, I'm not gonna kink shame.
It's not like I haven't had a little extraterrestrial crush now and then.
Hey, what happens on Zeta Reticuli stays on Zeta Ritucy.
reticulai. You dig me? And now, the Lacerda files. Roll it!
On December 16th, 1999, three things happened in Old Kay's office. His pencil levitated. His coffee
froze solid, and the woman sitting across from him wasn't human. Old Kay had built his career,
debunking every alien story, every paranormal claim, every supernatural sighting. He
seen every trick. He knew every technique. His articles had ruined careers and earned him a reputation
as a tough professional skeptic. But now his pencil was floating above his desk. The being across
from him called herself Lacerda. She told him how humanity was created and how it would end.
And she could prove it. The world's most notorious UFO skeptic was about to understand why
some stories can't be debunked.
Old Kay arrived early to set up his equipment.
One camera, one tape recorder.
That's all Lacerda allowed.
Every hoaxer had rules.
He didn't argue he figured he'd be out in an hour.
The story was obviously fake.
Lacerda claimed to be from a race of beings living deep within the earth.
Some say they're shape-shifters.
They don't change shape.
They change the way the human brain sees them.
They're highly evolved and intelligent with extremely advanced technology.
They are...
Leopardians.
Lizard people!
The Lacerda files appeared online in the early 2000s.
They're transcripts of two interviews, one from 1999 and one from 2000.
A journalist known as Olkai spoke with a female reptilian who calls herself Lacerda when she's with humans.
Apparently, we can't pronounce your real name, and mispronouncing someone's name in her culture is offensive.
But it sounds like a millennial lizard people.
How old is she? Is she on TikTok?
She's 28 years old.
She's out.
She was around 5 foot 5 and humanoid.
Her skin was pale green with brown dots,
and her eyes were larger than human eyes with vertical slits for pupils.
And when she blinked, a transparent membrane slid sideways across her eyes.
Her species is called The Turn.
They lived beneath the earth for millions of years
and vast cities carved from solid rock.
I linked to the full text, and you'll want to read it.
But here's what matters.
Lacerda knew things, things about ancient cultures, quantum mechanics, computer science.
She said humans didn't evolve.
We were engineered by aliens who needed slaves.
Yeah, you're notky.
Right, they have many names.
The beings you call the Eleham.
We knew them as the Illegim.
They needed workers.
They found primitive apes and began their experiments.
But you aren't the first attempt.
You're the seventh.
Well, wait, wait, wait, what?
Humans are version 7?
Well, each version was an experiment.
Create, test, destroy, then start again.
The Illegium left Earth before finishing version 7.
Now they're coming back to fix their mistake.
Lacerda's story began not with her species, but with ours.
She said human evolution is a lie.
We were created by aliens called the Illegium.
They come from the Star System we call Aldeberg.
I thought the death star blew up Alderman.
Alderman.
What I say.
The Ologim arrived on Earth 1.5 million years ago to mine copper.
This would require a large labor force.
So they altered a primitive ape's genetics and created a new species to do the work.
Version one was promising, but flawed.
So they wiped it out and started again.
And again.
Lacerda says the evidence of these earlier versions is all around us.
Archaeologists say the Great Pyramid of Geese,
was built around 2,500 BC.
Big news, it's way old, isn't it?
Well, Asserta agrees.
The Egyptians didn't build the pyramids, they found them.
The Great Pyramid was built 75,000 years ago
by the fifth version of humanity.
The underwater ruins near Bimini
were built 16,000 years ago by the sixth version.
Perfect angles cut into massive stone blocks
using techniques we only mastered in the last century.
The Illegium accelerated our revolution.
Look at our timeline.
timeline. Two million years to improve a spear. Then in a few thousand years, riding electricity,
landing a man on the moon. Well, that never happened. But you monkeys got to orbit. I'll get you that.
Fine. My point is, we went from hunter-gatherers to a space-faring species in a fraction of the time
it took to go from homo habilis to Homo erectus. Stop it. Our DNA contains genes that don't match
our ancestors. Dr. James Gates found error-correcting code embedded in human DNA. Proof we were
engineered and not evolved.
Now, this is not a new concept.
Almost every ancient culture tells the same creation story.
Beings of light arrived in massive ships.
They created humans, gave them knowledge.
Not from kindness, they needed intelligent slaves.
But not too intelligent.
That's why they destroyed versions five and six.
Millions died because they asked too many questions.
Oh, how'd they whack a whole planet?
Earthquakes, volcanoes, sometimes floods.
Yeah, ha, younger driest flood.
That was the last reset.
Every culture has a flood myth because it happened.
Lassert expects the illegitum to return and finish their work.
And we have no way to stop them.
We don't have the technology to fight,
and there's nowhere to hide.
We can't go underground.
Underground belongs to the lizards.
The Derenkuyu underground city in Turkey is a puzzle.
18 levels deep, almost 300 feet below the surface.
It has a ventilation system, a fresh water system.
Acoustic chambers are tuned to specific frequencies.
It was allegedly built with Bronze Age technology,
but the truth is nobody knows who built it or when.
Daring Kuyu linked down in the old washup.
According to Lacerda, Derenkuy isn't an ancient human city.
It's an entrance to the Turin civilization,
a vast network of cities underground.
Their main settlements are 14,000 feet below the Earth's surface.
And each city is about a mile
and a half wide, carved into solid bedrock. At the center is the column, a 700-foot tower.
It regulates climate, generates artificial sunlight, and manages the airflow.
Oh, it's like a lizard Alexa. I guess so, yeah.
Hey, Alexa! Don't do that.
Hey, Alexa, write a dirty limerick about the crab kit.
Why did you do that? We have kids watching.
See you, the crab kit.
The HypogeeM in Malta has similar mysteries. Discovered in 1902, this underground structure
also features unusual acoustic properties.
How the huge stones were cut is still debated.
Giants are more to link down in the old givogadlet.
Cave systems in China reveal extensive tunnels.
South American myths describe vast underground networks.
Geological surveys have detected hollow spaces deep beneath the surface,
but our technology can't reach them.
There is one place underground that our technology can reach
that's raised a few questions.
Geologists studying the Chick-Sulub impact crater in the Yucatan Peninsula found layers of rock transformed
by intense heat and pressure, but not from above, from below. According to Lacerda, these aren't
random formations, they're scars, evidence of a war, a war for copper.
We know what killed the dinosaurs. An asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula about 66 million years ago. The impact left
eridium in the geological record, but Lucerta says we have it backwards. The iridium wasn't
from space, it was fallout from a nuclear weapon that used copper as fuel.
What's so fancy about copper? When copper undergoes nuclear fusion under specific conditions,
it creates elements that shouldn't exist. Copper is a very important material. If you induce
a high electromagnetic field in the right angle, you produce an overcrossing of fluctuating fields. The fusion
of copper with other elements in such a magnetic radiation field chamber can produce a force
field of special nature that is very useful for various technological tasks.
Oh, thanks, that clears it up.
What is she talking about?
I don't speak lizard.
She said copper can produce energy fields that can manipulate gravity, space, and time.
UFOs use this for propulsion.
The craft creates a field oppositely aligned with the Earth's magnetic field.
I also know you speak lizard.
When the same poles from two magnets are close to each other, they create a repelling field.
UFOs use copper fusion to create a field that pushes against the Earth's magnetic field.
This is how they fly.
Eh, it actually makes sense.
But the magnetic field of the Earth is constantly moving.
The UFOs have to adjust their alignment, and this is hard to do.
Sometimes they fail.
That's what happened in Roswell in 1947.
Two ships crashed.
According to Lacerda, two alien species discovered Earth at the same time, millions of
of years ago.
Humanoids from Procyon arrived first.
They built copper mines in Antarctica and Asia,
and their ships filled the skies.
Then another species arrived.
Reptilians with their own copper fusion technology,
and they wanted Earth's copper.
The Procyons refused to share.
The war lasted months.
The Procyons were winning until the reptilians
deployed their ultimate weapon, a copper fusion bomb.
It detonated in the Yucatan.
They expected it to kill all surface life
life while preserving mineral deposits, but something went wrong.
Earth's seawater triggered a chain reaction, and the nuclear winter lasted 200 years.
And most dinosaurs died, but some escaped underground.
One species, an advanced igonadon, evolved into the turn, Lacerda's ancestors.
Before the extinction event, iguanodons were evolving to walk on two legs, and they were evolving
an opposable thumb.
Your human scientists today see the iridium concentration in the ground as an evidence for
an asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs.
That is not true.
But how should you know that?
Modern militaries are trying to recreate copper fusion technology, but LaSerta says they're following
blueprints they don't understand.
The process requires a deeper knowledge, not just of physics, but of biology.
Because the real power of copper fusion isn't just about manipulating matter.
It's about manipulating human consciousness.
During the second interview with Ol'K.,
Lacerda demonstrated the turn's psychic abilities.
First, telekinesis.
Lacerda held out her hand.
His hot coffee froze instantly.
A pencil rose from the table.
Old K. was stunned.
This isn't magic. It's biology.
We are able to use telepathy and telekinesis from our birth.
The structure of our brain is a little bit different and more active than yours,
especially when we are in sunlight.
When we are on the surface and we meet human beings, we are able to touch their mind
and induce them via telepathy the command, see us as one of your kind.
And the weak human mind will accept this order without refusing, and they will see us,
despite our reptilian look as normal humans.
Well, wait, lizard people could be anywhere.
Look at all human-y.
It could be.
What the most important thing in our lives is,
what for we have come to this world in general,
not only a New Year's Eve,
but basically every day to come to me.
I knew it.
Daddy Illuminati.
The turn are not the Illuminati.
Okay.
Different reptilians are.
Lacerda's people avoid you.
humans, but another reptilian race controls Earth.
If you know David Ike's work, her story confirms a lot of it.
Ike said that a race of shape-shifting reptilians from the Draco Star System
has infiltrated the world's power structures.
Say that the people that actually live on the island are part of this.
There are people, there's a network on the island that are...
Oh, big time.
I mean, the island white is a beautiful place,
and if you pick up the higher levels, the vibrational levels of it,
it's a very pleasant place to be.
place to be. But my goodness me, there is a network of Freemasons, Satanists, and
paedophiles that run this island. And this is they run its government.
They're disguised as leaders in finance, media, and politics. They manipulate global events,
steering us toward a one-world government. This is common knowledge. Ike says they operate
from the moon, an artificial base built by ancient aliens.
Hollow moon link down in your bentel box. The moon broadcasts frequencies that create negative emotions,
The reptilians feed on this.
Humans are lizard people lunch episode.
Link down and you, uh...
I got nothing.
Yeah, I've covered bits and pieces of Ike's work here and there,
but he needs his own episode.
He has a lot of interesting theories.
Bix.
Now, if you want to see that, let me know.
All right, where are we at?
Uh, the lizard lady was throwing pencils around,
and I'm manipulating you weak-minded humans.
Right.
Old Kay sees Lucerta's true form only because she allows it.
She normally appears as an attractive brunette.
Oh, what?
Nobody wants to appear as a chunky ginger.
Be nice.
Lucerta says that humans have these same abilities,
but the Illegium suppressed them,
and some governments are aware of this.
The Pentagon's ESP research wasn't just about human psychics.
They studied sites where magnetic field fluctuations
altered children's brainwaves.
The classified report concluded,
the Illegium left something in human DNA.
And whatever it is, it's waking up.
Earth's magnetic north pole is moving faster than ever recorded, about 35 miles per year.
The world magnetic model can't keep up and scientists don't fully understand why.
Lucerta says these disturbances are part of the ILOGIM's plan.
They built triggers into human DNA, programming that activates under specific conditions.
The shifting magnetic field affects human consciousness.
The ILOGIM didn't just want workers.
They wanted weapons, living weapons that would evolve exactly as planned.
Your rapid technological advancement wasn't an accident.
It was programmed into your DNA.
Three alien species are coming for Earth.
One needs human genetics, another wants hydrogen from our oceans,
and the third wants copper for weapons.
They illegitium engineered us to defeat them all.
Your creators didn't just give you intelligence.
They gave you aggression, territorial instincts,
pack mentality.
They built you to fight.
The seventh version wasn't their final creation.
It was their first successful prototype.
So the illegitim aren't coming to destroy humanity.
They're coming to complete what they started.
The question isn't whether we'll survive.
It's whether we'll still be human when they're done.
When the Lacerda files landed on the web in the early 2000s, it got people's attention.
Dinosaurs killed by alien wars, humans engineered by ancient astronauts, underground reptilian cities, magnetic fields controlling human consciousness.
It's an incredible story and has a lot of supporters.
But is it true?
Let's separate fact from speculation.
Darren Kuyu exists.
It's an underground city in Turkey, extending roughly 280 feet below the surface.
Its ventilation system still fascinates engineers.
Some say the stonework shows signs of advanced technology,
but most experts believe that people were just really talented.
The Maltohypogeum is famous for its acoustic properties.
Chambers are tuned to 110 hertz, and nobody knows why.
The site stonework is also very precise.
While no mainstream evidence suggests it's beyond neolithic capabilities,
the skill involved is still impressive.
A geological surveys confirm vast cave networks winding deep beneath the Earth's surface,
and this brings out the hollow earth theories.
Now until we can see with their own eyes,
own eyes. All we can do is guess. Deep-sea monitoring stations record unexplained sounds like
the bloop. Experts say they're icequakes or a marine life. Maybe, but parts of the ocean are
too deep to reach for now. The chick-shu-crate are marked an asteroid impact that killed
dinosaurs, and most scientists agree. But there are some say that the heat and pressure came from
below. A scientist laugh at those people, but honestly, the asteroid killing the dinosaur theory
is pretty new. When I was a kid, people got laughed at for believing this. It wasn't
until the early 1990s, but the creator was found.
So as always, the only thing separating a conspiracy
from the truth is time.
Our own evolution raises questions, too.
It took early humans hundreds of thousands of years
to refine stone tools, then suddenly agriculture,
written language, advanced technology.
Anthropologists say once we learn to write,
technology could accelerate because now we had a way
of passing information along.
I'm open-minded about the ancient advanced civilization theory,
but I'm not a full believer.
Still, I'll watch and read anything that Graham Hancock puts out.
Earth's magnetic pole moves between 25 and 35 miles per year,
the fastest rate ever recorded.
It's definitely happening.
Now, I don't think aliens caused it,
but if you want nightmares about pole shifts,
watch our episode on the Adam and Eve story.
Adam and Eve, nightmare fuel link down in your honeyhole.
Now, read the transcripts.
It's either scientific genius or nonsense,
and I'm not smart enough to tell.
It's full of terms like quantum technology
for bubble walking in the omniverse
and reptilian parathalamus
Matter Interaction.
Who wrote this thing, Terrence Howard?
Please don't say that.
He watches this channel.
Now, the biggest problem with the Lacerda Files story
is that old K's identity has never been confirmed.
He's called K after Tommy Lee Jones' character
from The Men in Black.
He came the men in black.
The Galaxy Defenders.
True or not, the Lacerda Files is a fun read.
Now, so far, there's no documented proof
of contact with non-human intelligence.
Every year we get teased about disclosure, but I won't hold my breath.
I think we've had contact, but I don't think they're going to tell us.
And you've heard me say that I don't think UFOs are from another planet.
If you look at the ancient structures underground, the patterns in our history, the anomalies in our DNA,
the evidence doesn't point to something from another world.
It points to something that never left.
You know when you find a gift so good you want to keep it for yourself?
That's how I feel about Quince.
I've been picking up holiday gifts there.
And let's just say a few never made it out of my closet.
Quince has something for everyone.
Buttery soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters for just $50.
Gorgeous silk tops, perfectly cut denim,
and Italian wool coats that are actual winter armor.
I grab the wool coat for myself.
Home, the office, out to dinner.
It keeps me warm and looking sharp.
tailored, soft, and feels like it should cost five times more.
What sets Quince apart is the quality.
You can see it in every stitch.
They work with ethical factories, use premium materials,
and somehow still keep prices way below other luxury brands.
And it's not just clothes.
Quince has incredible home, bath, and travel fines too.
So whether you're shopping for others or treating yourself,
Quince has you covered.
Find gifts so good you'll want to keep them with Quince.
Go to quince.com slash the Y Files for free shipping,
on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada, too.
That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash the Y-Files to get free shipping and 365-day returns.
Quince.com slash the Y-Files.
Oh, great.
I'm already getting comments on how to pronounce Go Beckley-Tep-I.
Stop commenting!
Next episode was picked by Gino.
You know, Gino, from Gino's story out.
on the AfterFiles?
Hmm.
Now that I think about it, Gino does a lot of stories about alien erotica.
I'm sensing a theme around here.
Gino chose the episode about the Hollow Moon Theory.
I know that sounds wacky, but trust me, you'll like this one.
Roll it!
Despite it being humanity's constant companion through all of recorded time,
the Moon is still a mystery.
Science hasn't been able to explain how the Moon was formed.
formed, its unusual orbit, its distance from us, its density, its composition, its structure.
These are all still questions.
Now, there are theories about the moon that solve some of these puzzles, but they don't solve
all of them.
There's only one theory that answers every scientific question about the moon, just one.
But the moon is a hollow artificial structure brought here by someone else.
Let's find out why.
Let's start at the beginning.
We're taught that the moon has been here forever.
But there's controversy about this
because scientists can't agree on how the moon was formed in the first place.
The first theory of how the moon became linked to the Earth
is the capture theory.
It says the moon was just floating along,
drifted near the Earth, and was pulled into orbit.
This is almost impossible.
Another explanation is the accretion theory,
that the moon and Earth formed out of dust clouds in the early solar system.
But when systems formed through accretion, they share similar traits.
If the moon was formed this way, it would have an iron core, like the Earth.
It would spin on an axis, like the Earth.
But neither of these are true.
The fission hypothesis was popular for a while,
and this says the early Earth was spinning so fast
that the moon was formed out of rock in the Pacific Ocean that was flung into space.
But we later learned that moon rock is much older than the bottom of the ocean,
so this is unlikely.
The most popular explanation is the giant impact theory.
This says that a large object about the size of Mars smashed into the Proto Earth,
the debris field from the collision coalesced to create the Earth-moon system.
Again, these conditions would have to be so perfect that the odds are...
Astronomical.
Right.
Now, a recent theory is a combination of all of these,
that a large object collided with the Earth about four and a half billion years ago,
essentially vaporizing it.
And this vapor is called,
a synestia, and the senestia was spinning very rapidly forming a torus, and the moon formed
on the edge of this torus.
Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, Taurus.
What's a Taurus?
Well, this shape is a Taurus.
Uh, that looks like a donut.
It does, but in geometry, if you revolve a circle around an axis in three-dimensional space,
it's called a Taurus.
Eish, and you wonder why you're not popular at parties.
I'm very popular at parties, aren't I?
So we still don't know how the moon was created.
You would think that actually going to the moon and collecting rock samples would solve some of these puzzles.
But when moon rocks were brought back and studied, it only created more questions.
Since landing on the moon in 1969, there...
The moon landing was as fake as a teenager's in...
I knew you were going to do this. Look, do you like the idea that the moon is a hollow spaceship?
Well, yeah, I got to admit, I do kind of like this idea.
Okay, so for us to explore this theory, you need to concede that we went to the moon.
Fine, I will concede we went to the moon.
Thank you.
But those were unmanned missions. The landings were actually filmed in a studio in Burbank, California.
Fine, I'll take what I can get.
Moon rocks and soil samples brought back from the moon are,
strange. On Earth, the newest rocks are at the surface, and the rock gets older as you go deeper.
But this is obvious and logical. But on the moon, the soil on the surface is older than the rocks
underneath. And the surface rocks are older than the rock underneath them. It's backwards.
The only way this happens on Earth is when we drill, dig, and mine, bringing older material
to the surface. But we see this all over the moon. Now, if the moon was somehow hollowed out,
older rock would be on top.
But the list of anomalies goes on.
Typical planetary structures have denser materials toward the core
and lighter materials toward the surface.
On the moon, this too is reversed,
and no one could really explain why.
The moon's surface is pockmarked by asteroid impacts
that have happened for billions of years,
so you would expect the rock around the impact craters
to be different ages.
But there is a strange uniformity in the age of these rocks.
The chemical makeup of lunar dust is also
very odd. If lunar dust is the result of billions of years of impacts, why does it have a different
chemical makeup of the rocks around it? The moon doesn't have a magnetic field, yet moon rocks are
strongly magnetized. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old, but the oldest rocks we found are much
younger than that. Moon rocks are older, much older. Some rocks have been dated to the very
beginning of the solar system, and some are said to be even older than that. Uranium 236,
and Neptuneum 237 are found on the moon.
This is notable because those radioactive elements
don't occur naturally.
The only way we see those isotopes on Earth
is if we create them.
Titanium, chromium, and zirconium are rare on Earth.
But these are found in abundance on the Moon.
If the Earth and Moon were formed together,
why is such a big discrepancy?
And those metals happen to be some
of the most strongest materials that are known to exist
and they're highly resistant to corrosion.
If you wanted to reinforce a structure, these are the metals you would use.
This structural reinforcement could explain why moon craters all seem to be the same depth,
no matter how why they are.
Shouldn't craters of different sizes be of different depths?
It's as if there's a resilient metallic shell just beneath the surface of the moon,
preventing anything from penetrating further.
Now, if there is some type of instruments on the moon's surface that could detect seismic activity,
we could test the hollow moon theory by intentionally collided.
hiding objects with the moon.
This sounds like a setup.
We did this, didn't we?
We did.
And is it hollow?
Well...
Heyo!
Then,
After returning to the command module,
the Apollo,
crashing it into the moon surface.
Then something very unexpected happened.
Seismic measurements showed that the moon rang like a bell and reverberated for more than an hour.
This was with a very small object compared to the size of the moon,
so during Apollo 13, an even heavier object was crashed into the surface.
This time, the moon rang for over three hours, and vibrations traveled to a depth of 20 miles.
This doesn't happen on Earth.
Reverberations last only a few minutes because of the Earth's density.
And on Earth, vibrations slow down as they move.
toward the Earth's center, where material is denser.
But the vibrations on the Moon actually got faster around 40 miles down, indicating the interior
of the Moon is not only far less dense, but perhaps has large hollow cavities.
The density of the Moon is something that's difficult to explain.
The Moon is about 25% the size of the Earth, but it's only about 1% of the Earth's density.
If the Moon were a hollow shell, this would explain that. Besides the density issue, the Moon has a lot of
characteristics and coincidences that we don't see anywhere else. The moon is actually more like
a planet than a moon. At one quarter the Earth's size, no other object in the solar system
has a moon this large. This occurs nowhere else, not in our solar system or any other solar
system that we found. And the moon orbits much more closely than it should. And its orbit
is also a mystery. It's the only object we've ever observed with a near perfectly circular
orbit. We don't see this anywhere else either. Because of this near-perfect orbit and its size and distance
from the Earth, the moon appears in the sky as almost the exact same size as the sun. This is what
allows us to have eclipses. Our distance to the sun is 400 times our distance to the moon.
And the size of the sun is 400 times the size of the moon. Could this be a coincidence?
Well, when enough coincidences pile up, we may have to adjust our thinking and be a little more
open-minded. And that's what happened in 1970. Two Soviet scientists looked at all the evidence
and all these coincidences and came to what they felt was the only logical conclusion. And they
agreed that their theory sounded crazy, but said not only is the moon hollow, but it's also a
spacecraft that traveled here in the distant past. So now we have to ask, who built the moon?
Every ancient culture on Earth has stories about the moon.
But it's interesting that the further back you go, the fewer stories there are.
And if you go back far enough, there are stories that talk about a sky before the moon arrived.
Roman and Greek authors in the 5th century BC have stories about the proselynes,
and they lived in an area called Arcadia.
And they said they've been here since before there was a moon in the heavens.
Now, on the other side of the world, the ancient culture of Tewanaka in Bolivia also refers
to a time when there was no moon. The Tuanaka claim the moon arrived between 11,500 and 13,000
years ago. If you're into ancient theories as much as I am, you'll recognize that this time
coincides perfectly with a period called the Younger Dryas, and all kinds of myths and mysteries
are said to have happened during the Younger Dryas, and we'll cover them on this channel.
Now, going back to Africa, there are Zulu legends that specifically say the moon is hollow,
and living inside is an intelligent race of reptilian extraterrestrials.
Lizid people.
Yep.
Lizard people built the moon!
That's what they believe.
Lizid people are very industrious.
They seem to be.
The Zulu believed the moon was put into orbit by two brothers who were gods.
And this legend is similar to what the Samarians believed.
The Samarians also had a legend of two brothers.
Enki and Enliel, who were called Anunaki.
Yep, Arunaki, the extraterrestrial gods who created mankind.
Everything is falling in a place with this one.
Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet.
How about this?
The Zulu also believed that before the moon arrived, the climate of the Earth was very different.
There were no seasons, and a blanket of thick water vapor covered the entire planet.
And we now know that the Moon does stabilize our climate.
Without the Moon's gravity, the Earth's axis would wobble.
There would be no consistent seasons, no tides, extreme weather.
The presence of the moon is what allows life on Earth to thrive.
So back to the Zulu.
The Earth was covered by a thick layer of water vapor,
and you could only see the sun through this hazy mist.
When the moon was finally placed into orbit,
all this water vapor fell at once,
and it created a cataclysmic global flood.
Always a flood.
Always, every time.
Every ancient culture has a flood myth.
And there's mounting evidence that,
this did indeed happen during the younger dryus. Cultures around the world have myths that are in
perfect sync with each other. The coincidences keep piling up. The Zulu legend talks about how
the arrival of the moon changed the tides and stabilize the climate. And this is something that
wasn't understood by science until the past hundred years. Yet somehow the ancient Zulu were
able to make the connection between the moon and the tides and the seasons. All of these myths and
legends plus strange coincidences and anomalies about the moon start to add up to a compelling
theory that the moon is hollow is artificial and was placed here by intelligent beings long ago
but coincidences aren't proof and myths aren't proof we need to know what's been happening on
the moon lately to see if we can make our case with hard evidence lucky for us the evidence is there
Science tells us that the moon is a cold, lifeless place.
It has no atmosphere.
There hasn't been seismic activity for millions of years.
Its core, unlike the Earth's, is cold.
For a supposedly dead world, there's an awful lot of activity up there.
On March 7, 1971, a cloud of water vapor appeared on the moon that covered 100 square miles,
and it was there for 14 hours before it dissipated.
There's not supposed to be atmosphere on the moon, but for those 14 hours, there was.
In fact, six astronomers in the past hundred years have documented a glowing mist in the crater
named Plato, the same mist, the same crater, over many years.
Boulder tracks are seen on the moon all over the place, and that's weird enough, but how do
boulders roll for miles and then go uphill, like in this photo?
And since the days of Aristotle, astronomers have seen strange lights and,
appear on the surface of the moon, sometimes visible with the naked eye.
NASA even reported that between the years 1540 and 1967, there were 570 sightings of light
flashes on the moon that couldn't be explained.
Sightings of strange lights continued to this day.
The Aristarchus crater was photographed in 1992, and it shows a glowing blue light, now called
the blue gem.
And this anomaly has been seen by Earth-based telescopes every few years since.
Some have even speculated it's a fusion reactor.
And these events of mysterious light and mist happen so frequently that there's even a name for them,
Transient Lunar Phenomena or TLP's.
But things get even more weird.
There are plenty of photographs of what appear to be artificial objects on the surface of the moon.
Towers that reach several miles high, pyramids, symmetrical structures.
These have been photographed by astronomers, probes, even the astronauts themselves.
And the biggest anomaly of all?
Why haven't we gone back to the moon?
Sergeant Carl Wolf was working as a technician for the Air Force,
and he was repairing equipment that transferred images from a lunar satellite.
Those photos, according to Sergeant Wolf, showed artificial structures on the moon,
what he described as a base.
And this is corroborated by another technician working with Wolf.
And Wolf wasn't a UFO-E-T moon theory guy.
He was just a tech.
He said he was excited to see the pictures of.
on the news and have NASA explain what they were.
He was surprised when the photos never turned up.
The photos were found in a very early release from NASA.
These structures are very large and very tall.
You can even see they cast shadows.
And these are photos I'd like to learn more about.
But I can't.
They no longer exist.
Now almost immediately after landing on the moon,
the Apollo 11 crew said they saw something that shook them up.
Watch the press conference they gave when they returned.
These men aren't acting like they
history or had a life-changing experience.
It's a beginning of a new age.
They look sad, frightened, uncomfortable, even depressed.
Why? Is there a reason we haven't returned to the moon?
And could it be that the Apollo missions discovered something that ancient cultures knew centuries ago?
Something that reputable scientists believe is the only answer to this list of mysteries.
That the moon is not what it seems or what we've been told.
The moon is hollow, artificially constructed, and appeared in Earth's orbit from somewhere else far away.
Eh, makes sense to me.
Does it make sense to you?
So what can science explain about the hollow moon spaceship theory?
Well, the formation of the moon is still unknown, so score theory one, science.
The density problem is said to be because after the giant impact, the Earth's upper mantle
form the moon. The mantle is much less dense than the core. Okay, the problem with this is,
the giant impact theory probably isn't what happened. And the theory about the Earth and the
moon forming out of that big donut shape? I'm in geometry that's called a Taurus.
Taurus. Well, that wouldn't explain the density discrepancy. We're told the moon
ringing like a bell is because the moon is much less dense.
and the moon's rock has much less water, so vibrations reverberate longer and farther.
This can't be proven, but okay. The perfect eclipses?
Well, here's where science wins. The eclipses aren't exact. They're close, but not perfect.
Besides, the moon is drifting farther away from the Earth every year,
so eclipses are becoming less and less perfect all the time.
And whether the moon arrived 14,000 years ago or was formed billions of years ago,
It was much closer to the Earth, so it was much larger in the sky.
Now, NASA claims that we know the Moon isn't hollow because of seismic observations.
And that's fair, but it's still conjecture.
Look, we don't know for sure what's at the center of the Earth,
much less what's at the center of the Moon.
If there's anything at all.
Right. Now, the structures are said to be shadows or optical illusions.
Nope.
And the lights are from meteor impacts or reflections from glassy patches on the surface.
Nope.
But the bottom line is this.
Yes, the hollow moon spaceship theory is a wild one.
I admit that.
And many of the anomalies found on the moon can be explained.
The explanations aren't perfect,
but they're enough to satisfy skeptics.
And I consider myself a skeptic,
but I'm open-minded.
I just want to know the truth.
And when I started researching this story,
I thought it would be a fun ride,
a pure tinfoil hat experience that we could button up with science.
That's not what happened.
There's just so much unknown and unexplainable,
that something doesn't feel right about what we've been told about the moon.
But, as always, the space agencies and the governments they serve
are very selective about the images and information they release.
So I have a message for them.
For NASA, the European Space Agency, Russia, China, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos,
and anyone with the resources to put people back on the moon.
The message is this.
If you want us to believe your explanations, you're going to have to prove it.
Houston! Houston! Come in Houston! Beep!
Houston, we have a problem! Beep!
Houston, we have an irate goldfish complaining about cheap vodka, please advise!
Beep! While we're waiting for the vodka issue to be resolved, let's play another episode, shall we?
Next one was chosen by Deputy Joe! Good old Joe! Joe! Joe does lots of different different
different things here with the stage. The control room. Heck, the guy even does carpentry.
Hands off, ladies. He's married. Okay, Joe's episode is about, yay, giants! Woohoo!
You know what comes next? Roll it!
In 1886, mining engineer John T. Reed was told the Paiute legend about a race of giants.
Giants who, after a long and bloody war, were defeated by the natives near Lovela Cave, Nevada.
Reed's belief in this legend stirred great interest in the secrets held within Lovela Cave.
Official excavations were undertaken in both 1912 and 1924 by the University of California,
with reports telling of thousands of artifacts being recovered.
Of these artifacts, the most puzzling were human remains.
Well, they were almost human.
Skeletons measuring between 8 and 10 feet tall were said to be found during the dig.
Skeletons belonging to who are now known as the Lovelock Giants.
Legends of people of enormous size are told across a myriad of cultures,
and despite what we've been told by mainstream science,
there is evidence to suggest they really existed.
The remains of giants have been found all over the U.S. and all over the world.
So why aren't these amazing finds on display in any museum,
museum, or taught in any classes, or mentioned in any history books.
Well, it's because the existence of giants, for some reason, has been covered up.
To say giants don't turn up in history books isn't exactly accurate.
Many ancient cultures refer to giants.
In Indian mythology or the Vedas, there was a time called the Satya Yuga, or the Golden Age,
when all of humanity existed in complete harmony.
Humans during this time were believed to be 32 feet tall.
In the Old Testament, there are beings called the Nephilim,
and they're mentioned in Genesis.
There were giants in the earth in those days,
and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men
and they bear children to them,
the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
One interpretation of this suggests that the sons of God
were giant fallen angels who seduced human women,
and their offspring were the Nephilim.
Well, how does a giant seduce a human woman?
Oh, right.
Giants show up quite a bit in the Book of Enoch,
one of the religious texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Nephilim were said to have been men of the old times,
who existed before the Great Flood.
Ancient Indian texts say the same thing.
The Book of Samuel also introduces us
to one of the most famous giants in history.
Andre?
Goliath.
Goliath was a Philistine warrior who challenged the Israelites to send out a champion for single combat.
David, armed only with a slingshot and faith in God, brought the giant down with a single stone.
Goliath was said to be between 7 and 11 feet tall and possibly descended from a people known as the Anakites or the Anachim,
and the Anakim were descended from the Nephilim.
But references to giants in history go back even further.
The ancient Samarians had an equivalent to the Anachim.
a race of gods who are sometimes described as giants.
Anonaki.
Yep, the Ananaki.
And if you don't know who the Ananaki are, here's a hint.
Look in the mirror.
According to interpretations of ancient Samarian and Babylonian texts,
the Ananaki were a race of extraterrestrial beings from the planet Nibiru.
Now, Nibiru is not some distant planet on the other side of the galaxy,
but is right here in our own solar system.
It passes near Earth every 3,600 years.
And this extra planet theory was dismissed as pseudoscience
for many years, but it's now widely believed
that there is an extra planet or some kind of large object
in the far reaches of our solar system.
In fact, NASA has been searching for this object for years,
though they call it Planet 9 or Planet X.
I can't give Zecharius Sitchin's any credit, eh?
They won't admit that, but I bet it's a big part of it.
In 2015, Caltech researchers thought they found evidence for this planet.
And in 2016, they said they were almost sure the planet was out there.
And then in 2017, researchers agreed that data and computer models prove, with almost 100% certainty,
a large, secret, dark planet is lurking in the distant solar system.
And they expect this to be confirmed within the next few years.
And perhaps then we'll finally learn if this could actually be planet Nibiru, home of the Ananaki.
According to the tablets, when the atmosphere on Nibiru started to deteriorate, the Ananaki came
to Earth for resources, specifically water, and especially gold.
And after their slaves rebelled, the Ananaki needed a new workforce, and they performed genetic
experiments on different earth animals to try to create a new slave race.
Eventually, they were successful.
By splicing DNA from the Ananaki with cavemen called Homo erectus, a new species emerged.
homo sapiens. In Sumerian and Babylonian texts, this new species was called the first
men, or Adamu. And the Hebrews translated this to be men of Adam.
Oh!
The first men were bred to work for the Arunaki. The Hebrew word Avod means work for. Avod also
means worship. And so humans worshipped their gods, the Aranaki, who were giants compared
to puny humans. Though it was forbidden, some Arunaki bred with humans, and their offspring became
known as the Nephilim. Now, obviously, the story of the Yanonaki needs its own episode.
So if you'd like to see that... Yes, please. If you'd like to see that, let me know.
The tablets say the next time Nibiru passed near the inner solar system, it caused severe
electromagnetic disturbances. Dark spots appeared on the sun, and waves of color street the sky.
This is referring to extreme Aurora Borealis and Australis, indicating a weakening of the Earth's
magnetic field. With less protection from the sun's energy, the ice caps melted and a great
Floods swept across the entire planet.
To escape the devastation, the Anonaki boarded sky ships
with their gold and returned to Nibiru.
But on Earth, great cities were destroyed
and sunk beneath the waves.
When the waters finally receded,
only a small number of humans were left to rebuild civilization.
And this creation myth is told in almost every culture on Earth.
And recently, we're starting to discover evidence
that a great flood did indeed occur.
But what about evidence of giants?
Well, there is evidence, and some of that evidence has been found right here in our own backyard.
Many Native American tribes tell of the long-forgotten existence of a race of humans that were
much taller and stronger and sometimes more cruel than ordinary men.
The Choctaw tribe has a legend about the Nahulah, a race of giants who ate human flesh.
The Choctaw killed these giants whenever they could.
Eventually, those giants were driven west.
The Paiute settled in the Nevada desert thousands of years ago
and passed down the story of a race of red-haired giants called the Citica.
The Citica literally means Tully eaters,
and Tully is a strong type of reed found in swamps.
Legend says the giants built rafts out of Tully
and arrived in Nevada thousands of years ago.
But Tully wasn't the only thing that the giants ate.
Like the Nahuilo, Citi-ca also ate,
humans. The cityca waged war on the piute and all other neighboring tribes. The human tribes
fought bravely, but the giants were too strong. The city car would often eat the people captured
in battle. So after years of conflict, the tribes united, and that turned the tide of war. And in the
final battle, the red-haired giants were driven into a cave. The tribes stuffed the cave entrance
with sticks and brush and set it ablaze. The last remaining city-cah either suffocated or burnt.
earned alive. Sarah Winamaka Hopkins, daughter of Chief Winamaka, was the first to write down
and print the story of the city car, but she said this wasn't a legend, it was history. She even
wore red hair taken from a giant woven into some of her clothes. When mining engineer John T. Reed
heard the story in 1886, he asked to be taken to the cave, the final resting place of the
city car giants. Reed wasn't able to finance the excavation of the cave at that time, but when
When valuable bat guano was discovered, people started digging.
Bat guano.
Yep, it was used to make gunpowder and explosives.
No, I mean, what is bat guano?
Oh, guano is the, uh, waste of bats and birds.
You can make explosives out of sh-h-h-uh.
You can.
Okay, okay, okay.
Do me a favor.
When you clean my bowl, uh, can you save it for me?
Fourth of July is coming up.
I'm going to make fireworks.
I'm not saving your...
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saving that for fireworks.
Fine.
Then to celebrate, I'll just like my thoughts.
You better not.
Why do you hate your country?
Lovelock Cave was excavated in 1912 and in 1924.
And in 1929, the findings were published and they were surprising.
Well, they weren't surprising to the Paiute.
At the entrance to the cave, there was evidence of extreme scorching.
At some point, a fire burned very hot and for a very long time.
On one of the cave walls, an enormous handprint was found.
Inside the cave, over 10,000 artifacts were recovered, including many human bones.
Some of the bones showed that marrow had been removed, a sign of possible cannibalism.
A sandal was found that would have fit someone who wore a size 29 shoe and would have been over 8 feet tall,
and clothing was found that was too big to fit a normal-sized human.
During the first dig, it was reported that the mummified remains of two giants were found,
A female almost seven feet tall, and a male almost nine feet tall, and both had red hair.
In addition to the initial findings, even more evidence exists in Lovelock Cave and its surrounding area.
According to a 1931 article published in a Nevada newspaper,
two giant skeletons had been found buried in a dry lake bed close to Lovelock Cave, Nevada.
What these giant shinges too?
Yep, they also had red hair.
But giants weren't just found in the Nevada desert.
They were found from coast to coast.
Apparently, long before native tribes arrived,
America was the land of the giants.
In Peoples, Ohio, the Great Serpent Mound is a 1,370-foot-long prehistoric effigy mound.
Nobody knows why it was built, but due to a nearby meteor-impact crater,
the area is full of gravitational and magnetic anomalies.
Some researchers like Richard Hamilton believe the location for Serpent Mound was chosen
specifically because of these anomalies.
And for many years, there have been stories of freak weather patterns, UFO sightings,
and strange lights in the area.
And also found near Serpent Mound, the remains of giants.
In 1872, a report appeared in the book Historical Collections of Noble County, Ohio.
Someone had stumbled across enormous skeletons.
The remains of three skeletons were found,
whose size would indicate they measured in life at least eight feet in height.
The remarkable feature of these remains was they had double teeth in front,
as well as in back of the mouth and in both upper and lower jaws.
Upon exposure to the atmosphere, the skeletons crumbled back to Mother Earth.
In 1891, anthropologist Frederick Ward Putnam found large skeletons in the same area
that measured seven feet or taller with skulls twice as thick as a huge.
In 1894, a local farmer found unusual graves.
The find was even covered by the New York Times.
Farmer Warren Cowan recently discovered
several ancient graves a mile from the famous serpent mound,
where Professor Putnam of Harvard made interesting discoveries.
Upon opening one of the graves,
a skeleton of upwards of six feet was brought to light.
In another grave was the skeleton of a man equally large.
It seems that the region was populated by a fairly intelligent people,
and that the serpent mound was an object of a man
Mound was an object of worship.
Ross Hamilton writes about giant skeletons found in Miami's Burg Mound about 70 miles from
serpent mound.
The body of a man more gigantic than any ever recorded in human history has been found
in the Miami Valley in Ohio.
The skeleton, it is calculated, must have belonged to a man eight feet one and a half inches
in height.
It was found within a half mile of Miami'sburg in a location which contains many relics
of the mound builders.
Edward Gebart and Edward Kaufman discovered it while they were working in a gravel pit.
Professor Thomas Wilson, curator of prehistoric anthropology, Smithsonian Institute, says of the find...
The authenticity of this skull is beyond any doubt.
Its antiquity is unquestionably great, though it is impossible to have a good guess as to its age.
To my own personal knowledge, several such crania were discovered in the Hopewell Group of Mounds in Ohio.
Hamilton said the bones were put on display at a local museum,
but they're no longer anywhere to be found.
And just a short trip down the Ohio River Valley,
another extraordinary skeleton was found.
In 1959, Dr. Donald Dragoo, curator for the Carnegie Museum,
unearthed a seven-foot two-inch skeleton
during the excavation of the Creesap mound in West Virginia.
In 1868, a report surfaced that quarry workers
with the Sauk Rapids Water Power Company
unearthed the remains of a 10-foot-tall skeleton along the shores of the Mississippi River.
A few days later, the bones were nowhere to be found,
rumored to have been whisked east on a late-night train and sold to the circus.
In 1897, the Worthington Advance describes the Smithsonian Institution's work
on the eastern mounds in Iowa.
The paper quoted the director of the Bureau of Ethnology, John Wesley Powell.
It is a matter of official record that in digging through a mound in Iowa,
the scientists found the skeleton of a giant who, judging from actual measurement,
must have stood seven feet six inches tall when alive.
The bones crumbled to dust when exposed to the air.
In Steelville, Missouri, there's a documented case from the Steelville ledger, June 11, 1933.
An ancient Ozark giant dug up near Steelville.
A boy, looking for arrowheads, turned up the complete skeleton of an eight-foot giant.
The grizzly find was brought to Dr. R.C. Parker here and stretched out to its enormous length in a hallway of his office.
Where it has since remained the most startling exhibit, Steeleville has ever had on public view.
Some believe these Midwest giants traveled west and occupied all of North America, that perhaps they made it all the way to the Pacific.
San Diego, California has reports of enormous remains found all over the area.
A giant skeleton found in 1895 measured 8 foot 4 inches.
The skeleton was carefully inspected and measured by Professor Thomas Wilson and other scientists.
Wilson was an anthropologist for the Smithsonian Institution.
Also in Southern California on Catalina Island, amateur archaeologist Ralph Glidden found
a total of 3,781 skeletons on the Channel Islands between 1919 and 1930.
In 1833, Mexican soldiers were digging a pit for a powder magazine at Lompoc Rancho, California.
They hacked their way through a layer of gravel and found a 12-foot-long sarcophagus.
The skeleton of a giant man was found inside.
The grave was surrounded by carved shells, huge stone axes, two spears, and thin sheets
of quartz.
And the sheets of quartz were covered with symbols.
And he had another interesting feature, a double row of teeth, both upper and lower.
Over the past 200 years, more than 1,000 accounts of 7-foot and taller skeletons have been found across North America.
Newspaper accounts, town and county histories, letters, scientific journals, diaries, photos, and Smithsonian Ethnology Reports have carefully documented this.
The Smithsonian Institution is mentioned dozens of times as the recipient of enormous skeletons from across the entire United States.
And if that's true, then where are the bones?
From New York to California and almost every state in between,
thousands of relics and over a thousand giant skeletons have been discovered and documented.
They've been found in mounds, caves, burial chambers, stone crypts, and even on ancient battlefields.
Many of the skeletons have strange physiology, like elongated skulls and double rows
of teeth. In dozens of cases, the bones were turned over to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
D.C. So, where are they? The Smithsonian was never really suspected of wrongdoing, but then something
strange happened in 1950. In 1892, ancient wooden coffins were discovered in a place called
Crump's Cave in Alabama. The coffins, along with some other artifacts, were sent to the Smithsonian.
This is all well documented. So in 1950, researcher Frederick J. Pole, wrote the Smithsonian.
to inquire about them.
It was a curious find because Native Americans
didn't use coffins or caskets.
Poe received a reply from the Spesonia.
We have not been able to find the specimens in our collections,
though records show that they were received.
The matter was pursued again in 1992
by another researcher, David Barron.
He was told the coffins were wooden troughs.
Truffs?
Yes, troughs are long rectangular containers
for feeding cattle, horses, or pigs.
But before the Europeans arrived, North America didn't have any cattle, horses, or pigs.
And even if they did, why would a trough have a lid on it?
What did this guy mention this to the Smithsonian people?
He did.
He was told, yeah, well, even if he wanted to see the coffins or troughs or whatever they were,
he couldn't because they were in a warehouse that was contaminated with asbestos and was closed for cleanup.
Close for how long?
Ten years.
Ten years to clean up asbestos?
Yep.
Oof, they must have been Union.
Yeah, it starts to smell like a cover-up.
The suppression of Native American archaeological evidence
allegedly began in 1881.
Up until that point, the Smithsonian was under the direction
of John Wesley Powell, the geologist famous
for exploring the Grand Canyon.
Powell had spent a lot of time with the Winnebago Indians,
and he found them to be thoughtful and intelligent.
So Powell and the Smithsonian actually promoted the idea
that Native Americans, who were at the time being exterminated
in the Indian Wars,
were descended from advanced civilizations
who communicated with
and traded with cultures all over the country
and possibly all over the world.
This widespread dispersion of culture
is called diffusionism,
which the Smithsonian supported.
But then Powell appointed Cyrus Thomas
as the director of the Eastern Mound Division
at the Spissonian, and then things got political.
Thomas wasn't a fan of Native Americans.
He thought of them as nothing more than howling savages.
Thomas thought it was impossible for savages
from one side of the Mississippi to visit savages on the other side.
And to think that people as primitive as Native Americans could sail over an ocean
was just ridiculous. This is called isolationism. Isolationism says
that civilizations develop independently from each other and have very little contact
with other civilizations, especially across oceans or lakes. The debates in the Smithsonian
raged and Cyrus Thomas eventually won the battle of isolationism versus diffusionism. Soon,
the Smithsonian took an official stance that any archaeological evidence supporting diffusionism
was fraudulent. It was believed that contact between the civilizations of the Ohio and Mississippi
valleys were rare, and contact between the Mississippian cultures and the Mayas, Poltecs or
Aztecs, in Mexico or Central America? Well, that was absurd. So the history books were written.
Native Americans were a primitive and sometimes savage people, and that was that. But not so fast. When
When those ancient mounds and pyramids in the Midwest were studied, it was shown that the Mississippi River valleys was at one time home to an ancient and sophisticated culture.
At the time, the culture's capital city, Cahokia, was bigger than almost any city in Europe.
When the Spiro mounds in Oklahoma were excavated between 1933 and 1935, a man over seven feet tall was discovered.
He was in full armor, and buried next to him was a pot of thousands of pearls and other artifacts.
This was one of the largest treasures ever discovered at that point in time.
We know that the man in armor was found and the Smithsonian was contacted, so where is he?
Many human remains were found in graves next to artifacts, but the remains were discarded, and
we're told that most of the rare and priceless objects disintegrated before scholars could reach the site.
How convenient that priceless objects vanished before anyone gets there.
When the excavation was finished, dynamite was used to destroy the burial chamber,
and any remaining artifacts that were considered valuable were sold off.
The Akambara artifacts were discovered in Mexico in 1994 and have been the center of controversy.
Over 33,000 unusual artifacts, including many ceramic and stone figurines, were found.
Initial laboratory testing suggests the artifacts were about 6,500 years old,
but here's where things get controversial. Some figurines depict dinosaurs living a large,
alongside humans. And there's a famous carving of a human warrior riding a triceratops.
Diverse ethnic groups are represented. Blacks, whites, and Asians are depicted. But those races should
have been unknown in the Americas 6,500 years ago. And there were strange creatures like mermaids,
human animal hybrids, even a bigfoot. Also found were teeth from an extinct ice age horse
and the skeleton of a mammoth. Neither of these animals should have been there. Archaeologists,
Charles C. DePeso and John H. Tierney examined the collection and authenticated the find.
Carlos Perea, the director of archaeology for the Akambaro zone, also authenticated it.
But the Smithsonian and other authorities dismissed the findings as fraudulent.
Despite laboratories dating the objects to 4,500 BC, the Smithsonian declared the artifacts 30 years old
and said the whole find was a hoax. John Tierney, who later collaborated with Professor Charles Habgood,
said the Spassonian institution and other authorities
had conducted a campaign of disinformation against the discoveries.
If you remember from the Adam and Eve episode we did,
Charles Hapgood was dismissed as a pseudoscientist
because he claimed the continent's drift over millions of years.
Oops.
Yeah. So John Tierney filed a Freedom of Information request
and asked for all the Akambara files from the Spesonian.
Well, turns out the files are missing,
and all the Akambara objects in the Spisonian's possession
have been put into storage and may not be viewed by the public.
Until when?
Didn't say.
Tierney went on to write a book called Akamaro,
archaeology's astounding scandal.
But good luck trying to find it.
The phrase, a skeleton in the closet,
refers to a secret that, if exposed,
would cause shame, guilt, or even a scandal.
And we all have a skeleton or two in the closet.
For us, that's just a metaphor.
But for the Smithsonian, they're actual skeletons.
Giants in America, a government conspiracy, a Smithsonian cover-up.
It's a fascinating story, but is it true?
Well, let's unravel it.
Ohio has been the epicenter for giant skeletons, especially in the 19th century.
When early discoveries made the news, the stories were a national sensation.
Now, this amount of attention also brings out the hoaxers and scammers.
Hey, you want to buy a hecklefish NFT?
I do not.
And by the way, if you bought an NFT relating to the...
the Wi-Files or hecklefish, you got scammed.
But not by me.
No refunds.
In 1882, enormous skeletons were discovered in a lake bed near Cincinnati.
The Columbus dispatch ran with the story.
The problem was, it was all a hoax.
The alleged discoverer was charging admission to visit his property and view the skeleton.
Now, it may or may not have been a real skeleton, but either way, it was about 5'8,
so not a giant.
Well, maybe the guy who found it was really short.
Maybe, but the story was so exciting that newspapers around the world
ran it without fact-checking.
Journalists running stories without checking the facts.
No, it can't be.
As more stories about giants popped up in the news,
it was hard to separate fact from fiction
because the newspapers ran every story.
Hey, you want the truth, or you want to sell papers, am I right?
Right.
Nothing ever changes.
That's true.
Ralph Glidden was the archaeologist
who found over 3,000 giant skeletons
in 800 graves on Catalina Island.
That turned out to be a huge hoax.
He did find one skeleton and took a picture of himself standing near it.
He showed the picture to a friend who said,
that looks like a giant, which it does,
but only because the skeleton is closer to the camera.
Clinton ran with the idea to make some money, but it was all a scam.
And since the early days of the internet,
photos have been floating around of people excavating sites with giant bones.
Some of the pictures are great and I used a lot of them today.
But most of the pictures are from a Photoshop contest held in 2002.
In fact, science says that,
that giant humans could not exist. Yes, there are human beings who grow very tall,
but that's due to medical conditions and genetic disorders. Gigantism often happens when
someone has a tumor on their pituitary gland, but this is a serious medical problem,
and people who suffer from gigantism often die very young due to the strain on their hearts
and other organs. Then there's Marfan syndrome, a genetic condition that can cause limbs
to be much longer in relation to the rest of the body. It's believed that Abraham Lincoln
might have had Marfan syndrome.
At 6'4, he was much taller than most of the men of his time.
He also died young.
Oof.
What?
Still too soon?
But the reason humans can't grow to be giants is the square cube law.
This states that as the size of any object grows, its volume grows faster than its surface area.
If a giant is 60 feet tall, or about 10 times the size of someone 6 feet tall, the giant's body volume would have to be 100 times the volume of the 6-foot man.
A cubic inch of bone can support 19,000 pounds.
That's a lot.
But at 60 feet tall, bone would need to support well over 550,000 pounds.
Human bones would shatter and crumble under this weight.
Yeah, but who says giants are a human.
Now, that's a fair point.
There are discoveries of giants where it was reported that the bones of the body and
the skull were much thicker than humans.
So is the Smithsonian covering this up?
Well, debunkers say no.
The story about John Wesley Powell, nominating Cyrus Thomas to the Smithsonian,
first appears in an article written by David Childress in 1993.
The article caught fire and has been in circulation ever since.
Now, that doesn't mean Childress is wrong, but it do get suspicious
when stories about the 19th century don't emerge until the late 20th century.
So have the authorities been suppressing knowledge
that the Americas were once inhabited by advanced civilizations?
Civilizations who made contact with cultures around the world?
Well, to get this answer, we're going to need a sweet potato.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, do I have sea monkeys in my ears,
or did you just say sweet potato?
For over a hundred years,
the Smithsonian and mainstream archaeology has supported isolationism.
But the cultures that emerged in North America
did not have contact with Central America or South America,
and definitely did not contact cultures across the ocean.
It's absurd to even think it.
But the Smithsonian has a problem, the sweet potato.
Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas,
but an ancient sweet potato is found in the Cook Islands,
which are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The potato was carbon-dated to the year 1000.
That would mean that 500 years before Columbus,
a Native American tribe traveled across the Pacific
and landed in Polynesia and brought sweet potatoes with them.
Or Polynesians traveled to the Americas and back.
The counter argument is that the sweet potato fell off a boat near Central America and floated to Polynesia, over 5,000 miles away.
It's one lucky potato!
The linguists have found that the word for sweet potato in early Polynesian languages is Kumala.
In Native American dialects spoken in Ecuador, the word is Kumara.
Now, it could all be a coincidence, but we're not done yet.
Even more compelling is DNA analysis of Polynesian chickens.
In 2007, chicken bones were found at a hit in a lot of.
bones were found at an excavation site in Chile.
The DNA of the bones matched chickens from the Pacific Islands of Samoa and Tonga
and were carbon dated to between 1304 and 1425 before the Spanish arrived in the new world.
In 2019, South American chickens were studied and found to have an unknown genetic component.
It turned out that component was from chickens found on Easter Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The study was so astounding that research was done on human DNA.
And in 2020, the study showed that some Polynesian people
had DNA inherited from people who lived in Colombia
about 800 years ago.
Specifically, Polynesians shared DNA with the Zeno tribe,
who lived in Colombia on the Caribbean side,
not even the Pacific Ocean side.
It's too much to cover in this episode,
but there's evidence of Chinese contact with the New World in 1,200 BC,
or Indian contact in 2000 BC,
and of Arab contact in the 9th century.
the 9th century.
There are even old maps from the Arabs and Turks, like the Piri-Rees map, that show North
and South America, a thousand years before Columbus was born, and there's much more.
Some mummies have been found with traces of coca and nicotine.
A re-examination of the mummy of Ramsey's II in the 1970s revealed the presence of fragments
of tobacco leaves in his abdomen.
Koka and tobacco are native to the Americas.
The mainstream science says an archaeologist handling the mummy must have spilled his pipe.
Well, that's hot cocoa.
That's what they say.
Now remember, we did an episode on Egyptian artifacts
allegedly discovered in the Grand Canyon in 1909.
The Smithsonian denies this and claims the whole story is a hoax.
But for some reason, the part of the Grand Canyon
where the discovery was made is off limits.
You can't even fly over it.
If you do wander into the area,
within a few minutes, unmarked planes and helicopters appear
in an area where flying is not allowed.
A link to the episode below, which goes into detail.
You'll even see the planes and helicopters I'm talking about.
Once again, those artifacts were sent to the Smithsonian, and nobody knows what happened.
In 1990, a law was passed, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
This law says that any federal agency in possession of Native American cultural items,
including human remains or sacred objects, will be returned.
to the tribes upon request.
Great! The Smithsonian is a federal agency.
So can we get all the skeletons from Ohio and have a look?
Nope.
United States Code, Title 25, Chapter 32, Section 3001, Subsections 4 and 8 state.
Subsection 4.
Federal agency means any department agency or instrumentality of the United States.
Such term does not include the Smithsonian Institution.
Subsection 8.
Museum means any institution or state or local government agency,
including any institution of higher learning that receives federal funds and has possession of
or control over Native American cultural items. Such term does not include the Smithsonian Institution
or any other federal agency. The law requiring the government to return skeletons to the
tribes, well, the Smithsonian is exempt. So if history books need to be rewritten, don't look to the
Smithsonian for help, and don't demand answers either. Mainstream science, and especially the media,
have a playbook. It's easy to recognize once you look for it. The four stages of suppression
are criticize, marginalize, attack, and censor. Now, here's an example. I don't claim to be
an archaeologist or a scientist. When Graham Hancock released his documentary series called
Ancient Apocalypse, it was a huge hit. It explores the theory that ancient advanced cultures
existed thousands of years ago but were wiped out in the Great Flood of the Younger Trias.
Now, you could agree with this theory or disagree with it.
Either way is fine with me.
But wherever you stand, we can all agree that it's an interesting theory worthy of discussion, right?
Well, wrong.
The Guardian reviewed the series in an article titled,
Ancient Apocalypse is the most dangerous show on Netflix.
Now, there's stage one, criticize.
Not only should we not discuss alternate theories, it's actually dangerous to discuss them.
But people like us don't care about criticism.
We don't care what the media thinks.
so they have to escalate to stage two, marginalize.
That same article has a spicy subtitle which read,
a show with a truly preposterous theory is one of the streaming giant's biggest hits,
and it seems to exist solely for conspiracy theorists.
So if you believe in or even have an interest in this preposterous subject,
you're marginalized as a conspiracy theorist.
The same article insinuates that people who are curious about civilizations
before the flood are the same as flat earthers.
It still might be flat.
We're 9-11 truthers.
Inside job.
Not now.
Being called a conspiracy theorist used to be a major insult, but we've heard it so much that we're not affected by it anymore.
I take it as a compliment.
I know.
So they escalate to stage three.
Attack.
MSN reviewed the documentary in an article with this headline.
Graham Hancock's series promotes racist conspiracy theories.
And there it is.
ABC ran with it.
The Holocaust series uses racist ideologies.
Now, I watched and enjoyed the documentaries.
I enjoyed discussing alternate history
and life before the younger dryest flood.
I'm not racist, are you?
I don't care what color the people were before the flood.
I just want to know about them,
and I would guess that you're the same.
But calling someone a racist without evidence
is very much in style now.
But because that word is thrown around so much,
that attack is also losing its teeth.
So you criticized it didn't work.
You marginalized it didn't work.
it didn't work, attacked, it didn't work.
That leaves stage four, which does work.
Censorship.
It's right there in that headline from the Guardian,
where the author poses the question,
why has this been allowed?
What does he mean allowed?
Who does he want allowing or disallowing free speech?
Netflix?
The government?
I suspect I know the answer.
Now, I don't agree with all of Graham Hancock's assertions
laid out in the documentary,
but all of them are worthy of discussion.
Mainstream media and science disagrees.
These discussions are preposterous, dangerous, and racist somehow.
So censor it.
For a hundred years, Egyptologists proudly claimed ancient Egypt as the first major civilization,
with a minor shout-out to the Samarians who were there a thousand years earlier.
Any culture older than that was nonsense and discussion was censored.
But then Gobeckley-Tepi was discovered in Turkey and is found to be 5,000 years older than Sumeria.
Oopsie.
Yeah, that was embarrassing.
Then Bunkuklu-Tarla was discovered, also in Turkey.
That culture dates back to over 12,000 years ago.
That's a period of time called the Pleistocene.
Now, we were taught that this was the time of the cavemen.
But in Bunkuklu-Tarla, they understood agriculture and animal husbandry.
They could cut stone and they engaged in city planning.
A few years ago, a sewer system was discovered.
These weren't cavemen.
They lived in houses built around a central religious center.
A Netflix documentary discussing different theories
isn't dangerous, but articles by mainstream television writers who get their facts from mainstream
scientists, those articles are dangerous.
They're dangerous because they suppress debate, which in turn suppresses discovery.
I'm so glad the archaeologists who found Boncuclou didn't read internet news.
Otherwise, those racist conspiracy theorists might never have found what is so far the oldest
culture on Earth, a culture that emerged, by the way, right after the great flood of the
Younger Dryas.
As more time passes, more evidence emerges to support theories about alternate history.
If giants walk the earth, sooner or later, that too will be discovered.
But mainstream media will do everything it can to prevent that news from getting out.
If The Guardian, NBC, ABC, USA Today, CNN, and all the others continue to be wrong over and over again,
maybe we have to start asking the question about those articles.
Should they be allowed?
Do-do-do-do
Oh, sorry about that.
We're still going?
Next one is Rob's favorite.
Rob is the official artist of the W-Files.
All that fun art you see on the shirts
and fistible coffee mugs?
That's all Rob.
Speaking of t-shirts and fistible mugs,
grab some merch now at shop.
Dot thewifiles.com.
Low prices.
Lots of deals.
Perfect holiday shopping.
That's shop.
com.
Go now!
I could have been a great pitch, man.
Rob chose the episode about Operation High Jump.
This was about the secret mission to Antarctica.
You're going to love it.
Riggedy roll it!
Operation High Jump commenced in August, 1946.
It was the largest most heavily armed naval task force ever sent to Antarctica.
Leading the mission was Admiral Richard E. Bird, one of the most famous naval officers in history.
The official purpose for the expedition was scientific research and military training.
But that was just a cover story.
Operation High Jump had other goals.
One was to extend American sovereignty over Antarctica,
something that was denied many times by the U.S. government.
Another was to locate and destroy a secret Nazi base
and capture the Nazi's new secret weapon, the flying saucer.
UFOs were seen all over the area, suspected to be Nazi test flights,
Admiral Byrd was sent to find out.
Did they find flying sources?
Oh, they found a lot more than that.
In December 1938, aware that he was on the brink of war,
Hitler dedicated considerable resources to searching for mysterious ancient artifacts,
said to have incredible power.
One of these expeditions launched on December 17th, 1938.
The SS Schwabinland was sent on a secret mission to Antarctica.
On board were scientists and engineers,
but also members of the Tully Society, a German occultist group.
The Tully Society believed that a highly advanced race of human-like beings,
called Aryans, existed somewhere deep inside the earth,
and the entrance to their world was at the South Pole.
The classified mission of the S.S. Schwabin Land was to find a location for a secret underground base
and make contact with the Aryans living in the hollow earth.
And once contact was made, negotiate for access to their technology.
The ship reached the Antarctic coast a month later.
For the next three weeks, they mapped hundreds of thousands of square miles of the continent.
About 150 miles inland, aerial reconnaissance found what is described as an Arctic oasis,
an area about 300 square miles that was free of ice,
filled with warm water, and even contained plant life.
and the ocean beneath the oasis was a geothermal vent that kept the area relatively warm.
This was the ideal place for a base, especially for U-boats.
This is where the Nazis would establish the infamous underground facility known as Base 211.
Over the course of World War II,
base 211 became a massive complex, as large as a small city.
Initially, it was designed as an offensive structure, where U-boats and missiles could be deployed.
But as the tide of war turned against the Axis powers,
it became clear that the base would be an ideal way to escape.
In the final months of the war,
huge amounts of equipment, supplies, and personnel were transported to Antarctica.
At the same time, thousands of Nazis escaped justice and were smuggled to South America,
with most of them hiding in Argentina.
One of the infamous German officers to disappear was Hans Kamler.
Kamler was in charge of Hitler's secret weapons program.
Kamler's engineers had created a prototype long-distance supply plane,
with a range of over 4,000 miles called the JU390.
Only two of these were made, one of them belonged to Kamler.
And as of April 1945, neither Kamler nor his plane have ever been found.
And just a few months later,
thousands of UFO sightings were reported all over South America.
The American government feared that Kamler and his scientists
had escaped to Antarctica, where they were continuing their work
operating out of a secret military base hidden deep underground.
But these were just rumors.
There was only one way to find out.
Go to Antarctica.
Okay, before we talk about what Admiral Byrd saw in Antarctica...
No, come on, just get to the weird stuff.
I will, but it's important that you understand what kind of man Richard Byrd was.
He was not some pseudoscience conspiracy theorist, kook.
He was a legitimate badass.
Here are the bullet points.
Richard Byrd reached the rank of rear admiral.
by the age of 41, the youngest admiral in Navy history.
Now, that by itself is impressive.
But how about this?
He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor,
the Navy Cross, the Flying Cross, and the Silver Life Saving Medal.
In all, he received 22 citations and commendations,
including nine for bravery and two for extraordinary heroism.
He was, to this day, one of the most highly decorated officers
in the history of the Navy.
Now, his resume goes on, but I think you get the point.
If Admiral Byrd says he wants to be the first man to fly over the North Pole, he does it.
And if the United States sends a major expedition to the South Pole to conduct a top-secret mission,
well, there's no more qualified person on the face of the earth to lead it than Admiral Richard E. Bird.
Operation High Jump commenced in August, 1946.
The official purpose of the mission was to train personnel and test equipment in cold temperatures,
to explore Arctic geology, study the weather, and develop techniques for establishes.
air bases in frigid climates.
Admiral Byrd led a Navy task force of almost 5,000 men aboard 13 ships,
including a brand new state-of-the-art aircraft carrier, loaded with dozens of planes, bombers, and helicopters.
This task force was armed to the teeth.
There were two destroyers, tankers, supply ships, icebreakers,
two heavily armed seaplanes and an attack submarine,
all fully stocked with the best weapons in the entire Navy.
That's a lot of firepower for training exercises and studying the weather.
Right?
That mission was the cover story.
No personnel training or equipment testing ever took place.
No practice maneuvers.
No military exercises.
No scientific study of any kind was ever done.
According to eyewitness testimony, declassified records, and Bird's own journal, Operation High Jump
had other purposes.
One goal was to extend American sovereignty over the Antarctic continent.
something that was denied many times publicly by the U.S. government.
Naturally.
The other goal was to locate and destroy the secret Nazi military complex known as Base 211.
And to capture any flying saucers, they could.
The Armada arrived on January 15th and immediately started building a base called Little America.
But then the Operation High Jump story takes a turn.
Originally meant to be a six-to-eight-month mission, after just 40 days, the base is evacuated
and the task force withdraws.
This massive, expensive, and important mission is suddenly terminated.
So what happened?
And this is where Admiral Bird, a legend in his own time,
becomes a legend for all time.
The Navy Task Force retreated to Chile,
and as soon as they made port,
rumors spread about strange findings and disasters
that forced the mission to be cut short.
Admiral Byrd himself spoke to the media, and rather than deny the stories,
he expressed deep concern about the real possibilities of devastating aerial attacks on the U.S.
This doesn't sound like a guy on a scientific mission.
It sure doesn't.
Bird warned that it was imperative for the United States to take immediate defensive measures
against hostile forces in the Arctic and Antarctic.
The Admiral went on to say that he wasn't trying to alarm anyone.
Too late.
But the cruel reality is that in case of a new war, the United States could be attacked by
flying objects that had the ability to move from pole to pole at incredible speeds. Admiral Bird
reiterated this in a few different statements. He warned that there was a new enemy
that could attack any country, at any time, anywhere, no matter the distance. When Admiral Bird
got back to Washington, he was immediately debriefed. And though he had just spent two weeks
making statements in the press, after a lengthy interrogation, Admiral Byrd never uttered another
word about Operation High Jump. The mission was immediately classified top secret, and any sailor
who spoke about the mission would be arrested and imprisoned. The Navy then published a brief summary
of the mission's achievements and admitted some sailors were killed, but they didn't say how many.
And officially, all the deaths were accidents, and the bodies were buried there, not brought home.
During one of his flights, Admiral Byrd was missing for three hours in an episode of lost time,
but that was officially blamed on radio failure.
The official reason for terminating the mission early was poor weather conditions, and that was that.
However, you know how Admiral Bird was missing for three hours and experienced lost time?
Well, Byrd was meticulous at documenting everything.
But when he returned to the states, his journals were confiscated and classified.
But the government didn't get it.
it everything. He had a secret diary that he gave to his son right before he died. And if any of what
he claims to have seen is true, well, it changes everything. According to Admiral Byrd's diary,
he fuels up for a flight early in the morning. The weather is clear and mechanically the plane
checks out. At 8.15, at an altitude of 2,300 feet, he checks in.
0.8.15 hours. Radio check with base camp. Situation normal.
At 10 after 9, he notices a color pattern in the snow.
Nothing extreme, but he circles the area to get a closer look.
He makes visual contact with camp and radios in his findings.
Then, his instruments start to act strange.
He writes that both his compasses are gyrating so much that he can't even use them.
So he uses the sun to navigate and maintains a visual of camp.
He reports that his controls are feeling strange.
sluggish. He's concerned about the wings icing up. There's a little ice, but no indication of a
problem, so he continues flying toward what he perceives as a mountain range.
0-949 hours. 29 minutes elapsed flight time from the first sighting of the mountains. It is no
illusion. They are mountains and consisting of a small range that I have never seen before.
He crosses the mountain range and descends toward what he describes as a green valley with
a small river running through it. There should be no green valley below.
Something is definitely wrong and abnormal here.
We should be over ice and snow.
To the port side are great forests growing on the mountain slopes.
Our navigation instruments are still spinning.
The gyroscope is oscillating back and forth.
He drops down a bit and circles back for a closer look.
He reports the green as being moss or tight grass.
The light seems different here.
He can see the ground easily, but he can no longer see the sun.
Now, this starts to worry him because he's using the sun to navigate.
But he gets distracted.
by something he didn't expect. On the green valley below, a large animal is grazing.
It appears to be an elephant. No, it looks more like a mammoth. This is incredible, yet there it is.
Decrease altitude to 1,000 feet and take binoculars to better examine the animal. It is confirmed.
It is definitely a mammoth-like animal. Report this to base cam.
Admiral Bird flies over green pastures that stretch for miles, and he's so amazed by what he's seeing,
It takes him almost 30 minutes to realize it's not cold anymore.
Frost on his forward window is gone.
Same with the bits of ice that were on the wings.
He removes his gloves.
The window of the canopy is warm to the touch.
He records an external air temperature of 74 degrees Fahrenheit.
His instruments are now back online, but his radio is out.
And remember, in the official report, Admiral Bird was out of radio contact for three hours.
So he flies for another hour over what looks to be a countryside or a pasture.
On the horizon, he sees the impossible, a large, shining city.
The plane shudders.
Admiral Bird grabs the controls, but they're not responding.
He notices the plane feels light and buoyant.
Then, on both sides of the plane, strange aircraft are rapidly closing in.
They're disks shaped and seem to be radiating light.
And somehow, they're running completely silent.
Now, thinking this is now a really good time to head back,
Admiral Bird tries the controls again.
No luck.
The plane's engine suddenly cuts out,
but somehow continues flying, controlled by some unseen force.
The craft are right up alongside his plane now.
Close enough that Admiral Bird can see markings.
In that instant, his wonder turns to terror.
The markings are swastikas.
According to documents leaked in 1991, things back at Camp Little America take a strange turn.
Just two days after arriving, bright lights were seen on the horizon.
The sailors thought it was another ship, but they were below the Antarctic Circle in uncharted waters.
The lights then ascended at a 45-degree angle into the sky very quickly.
They tried to make radar contact, but were out of range.
Three hours later, five more lights appeared in the sky and began flying directly toward the ships.
Anti-aircraft guns and 20-millimeter cannons were fired but had no effect.
A radio operator stationed on the USS Brownson gave testimony of how strange craft suddenly appeared from the ocean.
This is corroborated by Lieutenant John Sayerson, who said objects shot vertically out of the water at tremendous speeds.
One object flew between the mass of a ship with such force that the radio antenna oscillated back and forth from the turbulence.
An aircraft from the USS Kuratook took to the sky, but was,
was immediately struck by a beam of energy and destroyed.
About 10 miles away, the torpedo boat USS Maddox
burst into flames and began to sink.
According to the report,
this was the first attack of several
that would occur over the next few weeks.
February 26 would be the last engagement
with the unknown craft.
The Navy Task Force ordered retreat and left the area,
a full six months before their mission was supposed to end.
Although Lieutenant Sayerson couldn't identify the lights,
he wondered if they were what he called,
German wonder weapons, being operated by survivors of the recently defeated Third Reich,
operating out of a secret base under Antarctica.
His testimony has fueled speculation that still exists, and to this day, investigators are
trying to determine what really happened during Operation High Jumping.
Admiral Bird's radio, which hadn't been working for at least an hour, suddenly
comes back to life. Though the signal was distorted, a voice starts speaking English, with a
slightly German accent. Welcome, Admiral, to our domain. We shall land you in exactly seven
minutes. Relax, Admiral, you are in good hands. The plane gently lands itself, and Admiral Bird
is met by several men, all tall with blonde hair. Ariens. Sounds like it. Bird joins the strangers
on a platform that levitates and rushes them toward the city at great speed. He's directed
to an elevator that takes him quickly and silently deep underground.
He is to have an audience with the master.
Admiral Bird is led into another room where an older man is seated at a long table.
Admiral Bird is asked to sit down.
The master says his people are called the Ariani,
and they've been observing humans for a long time.
But only now are they choosing to interfere.
The master says that Admiral Bird's race is too immature for atomic energy
and are at risk of destroying themselves.
The master says,
every time they try to make contact, their ships are fired upon and pursued by fighter planes.
So instead, they chose Admiral Bird to carry this message.
Because he's a famous and well-respected figure, the master hopes that the world will believe him.
After the meeting, the Admiral is escorted back to his plane.
And after flying for a few minutes, a voice comes through the radio that control of the aircraft is now his.
A voice says Alfidesane and disconnects.
Definitely Arients.
When Admiral Bird arrives at the Pentagon in March,
1947, he is debriefed and interrogated for hours. He relays the message from the master and advises
the president. He's ordered to remain silent about the operation. And indeed, Admiral Richard E. Bird
never spoke a word about this mission again. The final entry in his diary is a number of years later.
Admiral Bird feels what he calls the long night coming, but doesn't want this knowledge to die
with him. Just as the long night of the Arctic ends, the brilliant sunshine of truth shall come again.
and those who are of darkness shall fall in its light,
for I have seen that land beyond the pole,
that center of the great unknown.
Admiral Richard E. Bird, United States Navy, 24th of December, 1956.
An Admiral Bird passed away three months later.
This secret diary was found by his son, Richard Bird Jr.,
and subsequently released, as was his father's wish.
And 18 months after that, the Antarctic Treaty was signed,
forbidding anyone from going to Antarctica without special permission from one of 12 signatory governments.
And even with special permission, you may only go in a few small designated areas.
Antarctica is bigger than Europe, bigger than Australia, bigger than the entire United States.
Yet all that land is off limits.
Why? Was there a secret Nazi base?
Is there a civilization living underground?
The UFOs described by the sailors in 1947 behave an awful lot like UFOs were seen.
seeing right now. Since we can't go to their world, they could be trying to come to us,
with the same warning they gave Admiral Bird. So maybe instead of trying to destroy these
craft and destroy each other, we might want to listen to what they have to say. And who knows,
the entire fate of the world may depend on it.
Okay, talk about a story having it all. UFOs, Nazi bases, government cover-ups,
even Hollow Earth. And I've done a lot of research on Hollow Earth, so if you want to see that
video, let me know in the comments. Anyway, I'll tell you right up front. There's a lot of the story
that can be debunked, but not all of it. Let's start with Admiral Bird's Secret Diary. It's not
real. First of all, the flight in the diary takes place in the North Pole, so we're already off to
a rocky start since Antarctica is as far south as you can get. And some of the log entries are
almost identical to actual published log entries from the Admiral. The same types of instrument
failures. Engine issues show up in both places for some reason. Also, whole paragraphs of what the
master said to Admiral Bird seem to be plagiarized from the 1937 film Lost Horizon, where the main
character is talking to the Dalai Lama who issues the same kind of warning. In 1964, a book about
the Hollow Earth was released by Walter Siegmeister under the pen name Raymond Bernard. Admiral
Bird is mentioned quite a bit in the book.
Bernard went on to write lots of books about UFOs and hollow earth.
And later, when Bird's Secret Diary appeared, guess who wrote the foreword?
Yep, Raymond Bernard.
But the dead giveaway for me, the secret diary is full of exclamation points, like lots of them.
If you read any of Byrd's other logs, no matter how excited he gets, he doesn't write
like he's posting on Reddit.
He writes like a gentleman.
So what about the Nazis?
Here's where it gets tricky.
The Schwabin Land did go to Antarctica in 1938, but its mission was to secure new ports for whaling
to supply Germany with its own whale oil for margarine.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. A Nazi mission to the South Pole for a delicious buttery spread.
Exactly. Germany wasn't at war yet, but Hitler was planning it.
A lot of oil and fat-based products were imported.
Hitler wanted to make sure that these industries could continue and his army could be fed
in case foreign supplies were cut off.
The Nazi mission did claim some land for Germany,
and it's widely thought that they did look for a location for a base
and maybe even tried to build one,
but no evidence of a base has been found.
However, Nazi artifacts have been found in the Arctic, in the north,
which could be why this story continues to circulate,
but so far, nothing in the South.
Could be underground.
It could be.
I'm not saying nothing's there, I'm just saying we haven't found it yet.
What, he found it and aren't telling anybody.
Well, that's always a possibility.
The U.S. government did lie about the real purpose of Operation High Jump.
And it's true Admiral Byrd never spoke about it publicly,
except for those cryptic comments in the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio.
El Mercurio is a real paper, and Admiral Bird did give them an interview.
Obviously, the article was released in Spanish.
But when it was translated back to English,
his words were twisted around to make the story sound more dramatic.
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Right.
Bird never said there are ships that can fly pole-to-pole at tremendous speeds.
He said the United States could be attacked by planes coming from the poles, and it should be ready for that.
An Operation High Jump had a press contingent, about a dozen reporters giving daily reports.
There really wasn't much going on, so rather than send back a three-word story, lots of ice, the reporters added their own flair.
For example, Bird did find a small lake that had uniquely warm to,
temperatures with algae growing in it, but it was reported as a land of blue and green lakes
and brown hills in an otherwise limitless expanse of ice.
And a UFO attack?
Right.
In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, millions of secret documents were released,
and one of those written in 1947 was a description of Operation High Jump, and in 2006,
a Russian documentary was released based on that secret intelligence report.
The Soviets did believe that Operation High Jump was a mission to find and destroy a Nazi base.
And look, with all that firepower, I don't think that's a stretch.
The reports of the battle with UFOs comes from the Soviet documents.
But it's iffy on the facts, and they got some of the names of the ships wrong.
But they did get some right.
And the U.S. military has a history of changing a ship's name
and rewriting the ship's story if it serves Navy policy.
Propaganda.
Always.
The Soviet report said that UFOs weren't trying to,
trying to destroy the American ships, which they easily could have done,
they just wanted the ships to turn back.
The mission was cut way short.
The official reason for that is weather.
But that's a lot of resources wasted because of weather.
Were there really UFOs protecting something down there?
Or is this disinformation deliberately leaked to the Soviets by U.S. intelligence?
I don't know.
I've debunked as much as I can for you.
Even though a lot of the story is false, not all of it is.
And it seems as the only way we'll get answers
is to go to Antarctica.
But if there's one thing that every government in the world agrees on,
it's that whatever is down there needs to stay there.
But I'll leave you with these final thoughts.
Just a few months after Operation High Jump,
a UFO allegedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico.
The location of the crash is only a few miles from the world's first nuclear explosion.
And Admiral Bird did go missing for three hours
and arrived back at camp three hours late.
He was in a small, short-range airport.
plane. So why didn't he run out of fuel?
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