This Paranormal Life - #246 Is Australia Real?

Episode Date: January 18, 2022

The Sydney Opera House,  Bondi Beach, drinking beer from a shoe, these are just a few of the wonderful things that spring to mind when we think of Australia... But what if these things didn't exist? What if everything you know about Australia is a lie? Today we tackle one of the strangest conspiracy theories we've ever come across - Australia is a hoax.Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeSupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If balloon animals exist, do balloon humans? If money is real, why don't I ever have any? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale, case, claim, beast, monster, cryptid, vampire, g-g-g cryptid vampire ghost and come to a

conclude don't interrupt i wasn't done with this the beginning of the podcast yet and now you've thrown me uh uh we interview a but no we don't interview them we we tackle a bunch of shit i said yes i said so little i usually rehearse this beforehand 30 seconds of the podcast and i'm not allowed to say a single word i'm just panicking a little bit because we know Yes, I said so little. I usually rehearse this beforehand. For about 30 seconds of the podcast, and I'm not allowed to say a single word. I'm just panicking a little bit because we know how important the start of a podcast is to get people in the front door.

You've got to get to your topic really quickly because people want snappy shit. They want snappy shit. So stop talking. Power normal case. Stop breaking the fourth wall. Clean, beast. And then come to a conclusion at the end of the podcast

as to whether or not it's true or not. I know you said it had to be snappy, but i think you should dial it back a little bit i am uh i'm still back in northern ireland we are recording this in my childhood house uh my mother does not have any of the coffee brands i recognize so i tried to make a coffee this morning this is a true story i tried to make a coffee this morning and added quattro the amount required to make a standard cup because I got the measurements wrong. And I drank it. It was like tar. It was so thick. What do you mean none of the brands you recognize? Coffee is basically coffee. It doesn't vary in strength that much that you would need to quadruple the amount in your cup. Yeah, well, that was my big mistake that I'd realized. I thought that maybe this was a weaker brand or something. So I quattroed the amount and I went

loco. So if I'm talking fast today or I have to stop because my heart's like a jackhammer, it's because of the coffee that I had this morning. Right. You are shuffle dancing from the waist down. You seem to be unable to sit still at all. I'm drinking a monster energy drink right now just to calm me down. Sorry about the messy beginning, guys. If you are new here, then what this podcast is is a comedy podcast where we tackle conspiracy theories and monsters

and cryptids every week and decide whether they're truly paranormal. My name is Roy Powers. Across from me sits my co-investigator, Kit Greer. And Kit, this week I have a doozy for you. We got an email from a listener called Georgia Gibson. Now Georgia emailed us requesting that we look into a conspiracy. One that has come up on our radar before.

It's actually harder to read with my glasses. What kind of f***ed up Spider-Man trick is that? Listen, when you drink a quattro coffee first thing in the morning, you don't need glasses. You wake up like Peter Parker. Six pack, glasses don't work anymore. Weird fluid shooting from your body.

You can read quattro the words in... Uno the seconds. There's a lot of crazy conspiracy theories out there. That the moon landing is fake. That the earth is flat. But this one is genuinely fascinating because of how bizarre it is. Believers of this conspiracy claim that Australia doesn't exist. What?

That's right. The whole country of Australia doesn't exist. What? That's right. The whole country of Australia doesn't exist. Not that it's flat, not that it's made out of marmalade. It doesn't exist and it never existed. Interesting. In terms of scale of conspiracy theory, that's pretty high.

This is up there with flat earth. It's up there with hollow earth. As a man who lived for years with australians this raises some questions of course who were those women that i lived with absolutely i think it calls to mind for everyone like their personal experience and it seems like for both of us sitting in this room, we cannot immediately disprove this. We've never been taught. Because neither of us have been.

And, you know, we can look at maps. We can get emails from our listeners in Australia, of which we have many. But unless we go step foot there ourselves, we'll never truly know. But hopefully this episode will answer the question as best it can. will answer the question as best it can. To fully understand this truly bizarre conspiracy, we have to go back all the way to the 17th century. Do we?

Did Australia even... Okay, well, the Australia that I thought existed, did that even exist in the 17th century? You're like, I insist we don't. To solve this riddle, we don't have to go back very far. It turns out this is a really unfunny, serious conspiracy. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait people of Australia claim that

Australia is actually an invalid concept. This isn't paranormal at all, Rory. Back in the 17th century the British were conquering the world basically being dickheads across the globe. With an empire expanding and growing every day, you'd think that things would be all peaches and cream, but it couldn't have been further

from the truth. Those peaches were rotten, and the cream, also rotten. The whole meal, yeah, the whole thing was bad. Around the 1740s, London had a huge problem. It was overcrowded. 1740s London had a huge problem. It was overcrowded. And I know that it feels like London is overcrowded now in today's world, but in the 1740s this was a different kind of bad. The city was overflowing with the unemployed and poverty and child labour. Alright f***ing Scrooge, was it overflowing with just the unemployed? Was it overflowing with scroungers, the unemployed? If they had a job it wouldn't be overflowing with just the unemployed? Was it overflowing with scroungers? The unemployed? If they had a job, it wouldn't be overflowing, would it?

Child labor. That's a pretty bad one. Can we all be on the same page about that? Okay, but it just seems... I'm sorry. That was worded bad in the script. Unemployment was high is the way that I i meant that not that it was overflowing with child labor that doesn't even make sense you can't dissect every line of this thing i wrote it last

night at like 3 a.m when i was quattro coffees deep it was overflowing with child labor there was a ton of it please you open a factory door they came out like a tidal wave crime was such a problem that by the 1770s there was around 220 different crimes that were punishable by death good lord i couldn't even dream up 220 crimes if i tried off the top of your head uh and half of those would be petty crimes. Yeah, unless you get weirdly specific like murder, murder by hammer, all punishable by death, all murder, but I guess different crimes technically. Presumably, this was a way to help them deal with the growing number of convicts in the country. These crimes included such offenses as the theft of goods worth more than 12 pence. Right. Which back then, as discussed in previous podcasts, was approximately Jeff Bezos's $200 billion empire. I did look this up. Even with old timey money, 12 pence was not very much money. So you should not have been put to death for stealing

12 pence worth of goods. Right. It's like saying you should be put to death for stealing anything over $1 in value. Yeah, not... Can you even get a stick of gum anymore for $1? I don't think so. I think I did that by accident once. I put a packet of AA batteries in my pocket and left the store. And I was like, oh shit, now I'm a criminal. This is punishable by death. This is more than 12 pence worth of batteries.

More rules included the cutting down of a tree. Also the theft of a rabbit from a warrant. The theft of a rabbit shouldn't mean death, right? That's not controversial. I agree. To be honest, I don't know where you're finding a tree or a rabbit in central London anyway. These were the olden days. Maybe there were more trees and rabbits around at the time.

No wonder they were cutting down the trees. They're overflowing with child labor. They need to make some space. I do love the idea of a policeman lecturing all the local kids where it's like, you're not allowed to steal anything more than 12 pence. You're not allowed to cut down a tree. And if you boys so much as look at a rabbit, I'll f***ing take your heads. Someone killed both my parents last night can you look

into it officer your parents they owned rabbits or no no they were people i'm sorry i'm just a rabbit enforcement officer you'll need to talk to the real police shouldn't you boys be working now most people retrospectively obviously realize this was a huge attack on the working class and underprivileged by all of the rich assholes. A way to kind of scare the public to not doing anything and just working all day. Towards the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, because of the economic chaos it caused, this meant that there was even more crime. Prisons were overflowing to the point where they even had to set up makeshift floating prisons. What does it even mean?

This is a real thing. In England, they basically built giant boats that worked as floating prisons so they could load prisoners onto these giant floating jail cells. Christ, man. I've never heard of such a thing. That's surprisingly kind of futuristic and dystopian feels like something that would be in like blade runner yeah yeah this depiction of of london and england at this time is very cyberpunk but without all the cool shit without all the cool technology which i think is all the depressing dystopia. Right. It's just bad. It's steampunk without the punk.

It's just steam. Eventually, the judges started to rethink some of the punishments. Look, gentlemen, I hate crime as much as anyone does, but I'm starting to think some of these punishments are maybe a bit too extreme. The death sentence for stealing a rabbit? Listen, Edward, crime is rampant. The only way to stop criminals is to kill the poor. You mean criminals?

What? You said the only way to stop criminals is to kill the poor. Criminals, criminals, of course I meant criminals. We need to show the poor criminals that being poor, I mean a crime, I mean a criminal, isn't wealthy. I mean rich. I mean legal. The judges and juries eventually agreed that the punishments were too harsh, and they changed it so that many crimes were considered less severe. But now they had a new problem.

How would they continue to scare off future criminals without punishment of death? Is this what history is? I didn't study history at school. Did we just punish everything by death i think that was like 20 years ago it was either crimes punishable by death and sin punishable by hell and that kind of kept civilization going for a while i think i don't know i didn't study religion either so it was just a one strike and you're out policy one strike and you're out policy. One strike and you're out of existence policy. Right, pretty much. History's brutal, man. You know, it's hard to think of a London city from the past

that has basically Judge Dredd walking the streets as the judge, jury and executioner, killing rabbit thieves where they stand or sending them off to floating prisons like f***ing magneto it's crazy i think the cognitive dissonance kicks in because like you say i think we all have a sense that this did only apply to the purr because we also have uh kind of ideas floating around our heads of like i think i've heard of a few mad stories about like i don't know aristocracy or kings of queens doing absolutely mad illegal shit and then just getting away with it.

Oh, yeah. These very much like today's world. The law is applicable to a small group. I assume a lot of the the hierarchy that was in England at the time were stealing all the rabbits they wanted. They were taking the piss. They probably were just walking around the streets with bags full of rabbits. I'm pretty sure they were hunting more than rabbits too. I think they were literally driving packs of dogs

on horseback through the countryside, hunting foxes and rabbits. Well, now they had a real problem. You know, they decided that they weren't going to keep killing all these people. It was getting a little bit extreme. What are you going to do? Are the prisons just going to fill up and overflow again? How are you going to deal with this situation? At this point, the River Thames is 100% floating prison. You know, there's a few different ways you could tackle it. Of course, you could deal with the fundamental issues that lead an individual towards a crime.

Deal with the fundamental issues that lead an individual towards a crime? Sure. Invest in local communities and education programs to show people that they don't need to steal rabbits to get ahead in life and in fact create economic situations that they can support them and their families with real jobs. New rule. If you crime, you get on a boat and you leave. Oh God. We transport you. You're gone.

I love that. I love that the evolution of this idea was really, there was, I didn't realize there were two steps to it. Like, like they, I think I did know that they shipped prisoners away. I didn't realize there was a first step where they just put them on boats and

didn't send them anywhere. It's such a half-assed plan it's not the genius move that you think it is it's like all right well we got a bunch of floating prisons what if we just unhook that rope what if we just unhook that their rope and give it a little kick out into open waters it's insane isn't it to think that this was an option that they were not an option it's the choice that they made was it's insane isn't it to think that this was an option that they were not an option it's the choice that they made was it's plan a i send you away i put you on a boat and i send you away baffling to think that this actually did happen but here we are this is the history you can 100 see how they got to this i mean if these are the people who thought that if you

steal a fucking banana you should have your throat slit i can see how dialing that one back a couple degrees they landed on um you don't get the privilege to live in um this great country anymore yeah very true look i can see why the rich assholes at the top would think this is a solution they were basically like i want less criminals in my lovely city so i'm gonna send them somewhere else uh and when they get to that new location we're gonna make them work for us basically as slaves building another city that we might move to eventually yeah um weird that it took them that long to figure that one out, that prisoners are worth more to you alive than dead. Like, I haven't done a lot of really bad illegal stuff in my lifetime, but it's crazy to think that there's a world where I could torrent a copy of Microsoft Word from the Pirate Bay and someone comes to my house and says you're gone brother pack up your shit you're getting on a boat and i just have to go to another place now and i have to work now because i

downloaded a rabbit from the internet i think worryingly i think the british government is actually taking steps to uh start taking away people's citizenship yeah uh going forward so that if they do some like bad illegal terrorist shit or let's face it, whatever is subjectively decided as such under the law, they could take away your citizenship, meaning you don't have the right to live in the uk if i piss anyone off they can go you're gone buddy pack up your shit you're going to a new country uh that doesn't exactly make me feel welcome here hard cut to two months from now rory downloads a torrent of microsoft excel and you see images of them dragging him out of his flat in london like julian assange big big beard the american embassy looking like santa claus yeah jesus i don't know if i've done i'm trying to think if i've done any bad shit in my life that could come back and haunt me like they could it could be uncovered and i could be

deported but i don't really i don't think i've done a lot about i torrented some software in my life in my younger days i'm not proud of it but also i would do it again in a heartbeat of course uh i once bought a chocolate bar as a kid with a five pound note and the lady thought i gave her a 10 pound note so she gave me the change that you would have got from a 10 pound note instead of a five pound note and i was too shy to correct her so i took the money so that's pretty that's theft i guess that was more than 12 pence. This is you at immigration. Like we didn't ask anything. Can I get your passport, sir?

Have you checked in already? I stole a rabbit. I stole a rabbit. When I was six years old, I panicked and I grabbed the little thing. I really feel like though, the last four or five years has proved, if anything, it takes quite a lot for people to really deep dive into your history to find out the bad shit you've said or done over the years.

I seem to remember Macklemore had had about two number one hits across the world before people went through his old tweets and found out he said 9-11 didn't happen. Good Lord. Or something like that. out he said 9-11 didn't happen good lord or something like that um i'm pretty sure donald trump got pretty far in life before anyone figured out what he really thought that's true yeah you you have to reach a certain level before the public interest in you is high enough for them to kind of deep dive into your your dark shady past where you took that money from the chocolate bar uh but so this is me getting it all out in the open now so that it's like i'm getting ahead of it so this is me right if you're

gonna cancel rory for it yeah please do so i you know i i i like to give money to charity that has has definitely eclipsed the amount that i received that day rory steals from small businesses mom and pop shops no don't listen to him. That shop closed down the next day. I don't know if Rory remembers that. They were £4.20 short from making rent that month. And they did go out of business the following week. It's true.

She had tears in her eyes handing over that change, knowing she'd have to put up the close sign immediately afterwards. Is there anything you want to get off your chest, get ahead of, before someone uncovers your shady past and you get deported? A couple things, a couple things. Do you want to start big or small? Just start small, I guess, and we'll just work our way to the bigger ones. A couple state secrets.

All right, that's small? That's the small ones? Mm-hmm. What does that mean? Oh, yeah. You know a couple? That's small, Fry Brother, for the rest of the shit I've been up to over the last couple of years.

Okay, but so what is... You know state secrets or you leaked state secrets? What is the crime? The royal family has got about six months till the whole house of cards comes crashing down and when it does you're gonna want to check in on old kit to make sure that the cia haven't swooped in through his window and swatted him in the middle

of the night because of something you you did in the past because i've leaked some information got it got it okay you could have just said that we could have just really nipped that in the bud and just said number one i leaked some information so that's the small stuff all right medium or do we want to go straight to large or or is there more small oh there's more small i went went on a PCP-fueled road trip to County Cork a couple summers back and held a family of four at gunpoint in the back of my van. A couple summers ago? That's so recent. I said shit from the past.

I said crimes from the past that were hidden. Every crime is a crime from the past. Except for the shit I got coming next summer. Okay, don't plan your crimes that far ahead. That was a mistake. That was a mistake. Let's just,

let's move on. My residency. The royal family of Spain have about 18 months before the house of cards comes crashing down. Every one of your crimes is sending a royal family

crashing down. The king of Spain already lives lives in exile by the way lots of cards came crashing down a long time ago that was the new rule if you crime you get loaded onto a boat sent to a different island the punishment was called transportation i mean i will say depending on what kind of work you have to do on the other side. Grueling. What type of island it is. No. If we're talking about serving Mai Tais in the Bahamas.

You must know we're not. Maybe I'll steal a rabbit because life in London is ass. I don't know if anyone knows that. It's a stationary prison, a regular one on earth uh no we were talking about a very long painful boat ride as a slave across entire oceans to set up colonies on new land okay it's grueling work in in hot weather for hours and hours and no days off. Fair enough. It goes without saying there's no days off. Really nail it, Oham.

You're a slave. Bad hours, long work days, no pay, poor commute times, hostile work environment. Right. It's like, we get it. Minor career progression, by the way. The ladder is very much closed. Glass ceiling?

No, concrete ceiling. Very little room for promotion. Also, the air is so acrid you can't breathe. Now, when the American Revolution happened, the British government was like, hmm, probably can't keep sending our criminals there. So they started looking for alternatives. And they found one. The east coast of New Holland. What Europeans called mainland Australia. Oh okay. Here we go. You kind of forgot

where we were going. I thought you just started a different podcast to be honest. It was a roundabout way of reaching there but I think you'll find there's very little girth to the actual conspiracy theory. So we took a bit of a history lesson to get us on track. Hey, we don't do enough history on this podcast. It's interesting stuff. The first settlers deemed it suitably desolate, an incredible insult to the islanders that were already living in Australia for many years.

Here they started a new colony. According to the National Museum of Australia, between 1788 and 1868, over 162,000 convicts were sent to Australia. God damn, that's a lot of people. That's a lot of people, isn't it? To set up a whole new kind of civilization on the side of a random place you just found. I would love to be uh in

london the day after they did all that uh to be one of those rich hoity-toity people right right and the realization when the penny drops that you're like maybe london's the problem the city isn't any nicer without that 160,000 people. Yeah, all of a sudden you've got this new place that everyone's settling in. You're like, I might crime so I could get a free ride over there. Because London's still pretty bad. And that just about ends our history lesson for today. Now that we know the history of transporting convicts to Australia, we can finally learn about how apparently, it's all a lie.

Oh, so the whole story is a lie. The whole story's a goddamn hoax. What if, Kit, there never was a new location found to transport these criminals? What? What if the government lied about their new colony what if australia never existed brother in 2017 a post appeared on facebook by a user named all right so to be clear the the sources for the previous historical story we just heard were probably like in national museum of Australia. Yeah. Uh, very, very scholarly articles from various universities from around the world.

Just to drive home. This next part of the story comes direct from facebook.com. Direct from Shelley, Florida, uh, in 2017, merely years ago. Okay.

With some pretty interesting claims. And you're going to want to hear them, all right? Because maybe this peer-reviewed historical information that we've been fed our whole lives and you've been force-fed for the last 30 minutes is actually a crock of shit. Interesting way to spend this podcast. Learning the crock of shit for half an hour. She wrote, Australia is not real. It's a hoax made for us to believe that Britain moved over their criminals to some place. In reality, all of these criminals were loaded off the ships into the waters, drowning before they could ever see land again. Australia does not exist.

All these things that you call proof are actually well-fabricated lies and documents made by the leading governments of the world. Wow, that is some claim. It's a big one. I mean, I'm not saying that the British government at the time wasn't evil enough to simply drown 160,000 people who committed crimes, but wow, that would be cold. Yeah. It raises a lot of questions as a conspiracy. Some of the questions we asked at the start, we have met people from Australia. I lived with two girls from Australia for years when I first moved to London.

We have fans from Australia. I've seen pictures from Australia. How this would have to be the highest level of conspiracy theory and all just so that people don't think that London dropped a bunch of convicts in the water. It's gone on for this long.

Yeah, there's layers to this. I agree. The scale of this is we're basically one degree away from saying we live in a simulation. Yeah. If we're saying that entire countries, nay, continents don't exist on Earth. Basically, what she's claiming here is that this is one of these situations where a lie has kind of gone out of control it's like when you say you know oh um you know you call your wife and you say hey susan um i'm sorry i couldn't make it to your sister's birthday

but i came down with a bad case of the flu and And then all of a sudden, you know, there's a picture of you playing golf out with your buddies. And it's like, oh, well, you know, I, that's an old picture. They tagged me in. So, you know, that didn't happen then. He's like, all right, well, where did you take any paracetamol? It's like, well, I didn't have any paracetamol, but I drove to the store.

And she's like, well, I had the car. And it's like, well, I drove in my buddy's car that picked me up. And she's like, well, why would you get him to drive you well i had the car and it's like well i i drove i drove in my buddy's car that picked me up and she's like well why would you get him to drive you if you had the flu and you're like i don't remember i was so i i just susan you're grilling me here you know and it builds and it builds and it becomes this thing and the lie becomes bigger and eventually you get a divorce in the end rather than admit you went to play golf with your buddies do you understand what i'm saying here i need somewhere to stay this weekend this is rory still at immigration at heathrow i feel like my my hearts been transported to another country because i don't i can't feel anymore you know that's what I said to her in the letters that I wrote to try and get her back. It's been a week.

I told her, I'm adrift on a floating prison, Susan. She can't possibly know that you were researching this story or the background of why that would make any sense. My heart is a rabbit and you stole it, Susan. And the penalty for that is being married to me, sweetheart. None of this worked. none of this works none of this works you didn't really understand what i was what i was talking about clearly um but but they had a similar problem in the olden days they told one little lie they said hey we're gonna go oh don't worry don't worry boys we found a new place to to send the criminals load them up into

that their boat and they'll go to the we'll so yeah we're gonna send them off to the new land yeah you guys are gonna have a yeah listen to this listen to this tony you guys are gonna have a great time it's is made i made of chocolate rivers and gumdrop mountains you little hey why does this ship not have any food or water on it shut the up get him in the boat put him put some rope in his mouth anyway you guys are well you, well, you're criminals, so you're bastards, but you're also good luck to you out there. Why do the uniforms we have to wear have boots made of concrete? Tie him up, damn it.

Put something in his mouth so he can stop talking. This lie got out of control. And throughout the years, it snowballed into this fake country existing in the world fake maps fake presidents wait they don't have a president they have a governor prime minister prime minister of course prime minister uh fake accents i see what you're saying so every little thing that we know about australia you're saying is a is a figment created by other world governments it's part of the lie now why would the other countries get in on this if this was just something that the uk did for example i don't know i genuinely do not know i don't know what to hear because that's the first

question yeah there's going to be a lot of questions that don't have don't have it feels like you talked for a long time about susan and how she wouldn't come back and then i asked one question about the story and you had nothing uh yeah well you know not every question has an answer that's just part of uh paranormal investigation that's a big part of it actually that's 98 is unanswered questions. We're just going to move on swiftly. All right. It's a bad attitude. You know, Shelley actually has a partial answer to your question. For example, your Australian friends that we have, why would these people have an agenda where they're spending their whole lives pretending to be from a country that doesn't exist?

She wrote, your Australian friends, they're all actors with computer generated personas. If you think you've ever been to Australia, don't interrupt. If you think you've ever been to Australia, I saw you making a move. If you think you've ever been to Australia, you're terribly wrong. The plane pilots are all in on this, and they have, in all actuality, only flown you to islands nearby. Or, in some cases, parts of South America, where they've cleared space and hired actors to act out as real Australians. There's not enough actors in the world for this.

One second. The kid's getting his phone out. Hey Siri, what is the population of australia as of 2020 the population of australia was 25 million 671 900 there's 25 million actors on earth she's in on it dude she's lying to you it doesn exist. You said that they simply fly you to islands in the neighboring regions of quote unquote Australia. There are people who've driven across Australia. It famously has the longest roads in the world. Hundreds of kilometers long.

Oh yeah, real big roads. So big you shouldn't even try to drive across them, buddy. Don't even attempt it. That would be nuts. Just stay at Sydney. Stay at the Opera House. These cardboard cutout buildings that we've set up to convince you and your friends Australia's real.

You don't think that out of 25 million Australian, quote unquote, actors, that one wouldn't break character like Edward Snowden himself and leak the truth? It's true. I mean, but then think about think about. But then, yeah. Well, what happens with like Chris Hemsworth?

Was he just the best of the Australian? That's your problem with this story? What about Chris Hemsworth? Like, was he hired to be a fake Australian? But they were like, he's really good. He should be in movies. There are Hugh Jackman. they're like bigger problems he's so good at being fake australian jacked actors i just now you think about it that is interesting good point kit good point needless to say needless

to say shelly's post shelly went on chris heemsworth proves to be a thorn in my side of the whole theory. How could they convince someone so hot, so jacked, and so good at acting to just simply go along with his ruse like all the others? You know, you make fun of it, but I will say, Shelley's post went viral on Facebook with over 200,000 shares and 40,000 comments. That doesn't mean everyone agreed with her. A lot of the comments were from angry Australians, I will admit. A lot of the comments on this podcast are going to be angry Australians. On March 21st, Shelley uploaded an image of the quote unquote real map

of the globe. Kit, I'm going to show you a picture and i want you to tell the the audience listening what you see i can't believe we're doing this i don't even need to look at this image to know what the map is going to be shelly isn't a cartographer why would everyone be waiting for shelly to drop the real map of the world i i haven't even looked at this and i'm going to tell you that it's a regular map of the world and she's photoshopped the nation of australia out how about give me the laptop how about that give me the laptop i'm gonna take a look uh-oh that's exactly what it is indonesia is still there all the islands surrounding australia are still there new zealand's they're real places because they're real places but huh that's strange

there's just a big blue gap where australia was now if you can see there's actually a comparison to a fake world map as well so you can see where australia would be on the fake map and then there's the one with the real map where australia are they're labeled with giant all caps words here fake map and real map just so you don't get them confused because there is only one i won't i won't really i don't know if you noticed there's only one minor difference between the two of them sure and it's the absence of an island so pretty big one at that uh all right look i understand that this is a pretty crazy conspiracy and sure, some groundbreaking evidence, but it doesn't seem

to be winning you over. So let's go over a few of the pieces of what we know about Australia and Australians. And we can really think whether this would tilt the needle towards the country being real and existing or being fake and a hoax. Kangos you're gonna tell me they're real too i'm sorry what is your point i'm saying that there's a creature apparently that only exists on this island that apparently exists called a kangaroo that keeps a little f***ing baby version of itself in his old Winnie the Pooh pouch? I will concede one small thing. It is suspicious that there's an entire class of mammals called marsupials that only exist in Australia. But it also doesn't really make sense because if you were just trying to brush this whole conspiracy under the carpet as some illuminati new world order type would you really make such out-of-pocket uh claims that there's an entirely new class of animals yeah hopping about keep it boring say they got

the same animals as everywhere else even less sometimes sometimes even less there ain't that many animals what's australia like oh i don't know. It's like Missouri. Just imagine Missouri for thousands of miles. Instead of being like, there is a country out there with a beast that hops about like a jacked man with a tiny version of itself in its pocket. That sounds insane. It does. But I guess, you know, they say the keys to a good lie is in the details. Right. So little details like this possibly make a country seem more believable. But we'll leave it at that, okay?

I would say that's pushing the needle towards hoax. But, you know, if you want to say it's believable, that's fine as well. Boomerangs. You're telling me there's a bit of wood I can throw that comes back at me? I've thrown a boomerang. It's not paranormal. there's a bit of wood I can throw that comes back at me? I've thrown a boomerang. It's not paranormal. That's a lie. We talked in a previous episode about how we need to end the no drought

on this paranormal life, how we've had endless podcast ending in a double no. It's drier than the Australian outback. I know we need yeses more than anything. Sure. And this is how you've chosen to counteract that well we're not at the end yet we don't know what kind of you know bam like last minute reveal that i'm gonna have uh because there is one more on this list they could push the needle all the way to hoax all right okay vegemite this is what is... What is it?

Brown paste? It's a yeast extract-based spread. Do you think it's a coincidence, Kit, that Vegemite is banned in the US? So it's like, hey, I might try some of that Australian paste. Nope, you can't. It's banned. I don't even think it is.

I'm pretty sure it is. I'm pretty sure it's illegal, brother. I don't think that's true. They'll stop you at the border. You'll get deported. That's 20 years on the floating prisons just for touching a jar of this shit. We know what Vegemite is. It's just Australian Marmite.

I feel like I'm not grabbing you with these. And that's worrying because that was one of the last bits that I was like, this might get him. That was the big reveal? Yeah, sure. That was most of the big reveal. thought you'd maybe go huh yeah that is pretty unbelievable this this thing that they all eat over there that i've never had this show is called this paranormal life at what point at what point at what point are we debating the existence of

vegemite can we can both concede that none of this is paranormal? Look, obviously this theory of a whole country not existing is bizarre. It's bizarre. It's wild. There's not a lot of credible information that I have provided admittedly today on the podcast to prove it. But believe it or not, Kit, Australia isn't the only country that some people believe just doesn't exist. There's another theory that claims that Finland is a hoax. Created by the Japanese and Russians to give themselves free reign to fish in the Baltic Sea. At least Australia didn't have any land borders. Australia didn't have any land borders.

Anyone in Norway, or Sweden for that matter, or Russia, could walk to Finland. You're telling me what, they're all actors? No, no, they're saying that the, maybe it ends a little sooner than you think. So... What ends? What ends? What ends? The land.

The land. So they've faked that there's landmass out in the ocean. So people go, you can't fish there, that's Finland. But these other countries

are like, we invented that, but we can actually go into the water and fish as much as we like. I'm not... I hate this. I'm not defending it.

I'm just telling you that this is another conspiracy i'm not saying that that there's any credibility or believability to it i'm just saying well hey if you think that's wackadoo there's a second one yeah yeah theorists go on to claim that the that the trans-siberian railway okay well don't be grumpy about it like don't don't like just give up on the whole like either if you if you're going to say the words, if you're going to say such insane shit on the podcast, don't be, like, sad about it.

I just, in hindsight, this sentence doesn't do my cause any good. So I was questioning whether or not I should read it. They claim that the Trans-siberian railway was built to transport the fish from the sea to japan under the guise of nokia hardware they said it was phones and stuff but it was actually fish from the secret ocean that not many people know exists so so nokia didn't exist either nokia is a shell corporation or should i say a shellfish corporation because all they actually deliver so you do like this theory well i'm back in now sure after a pun that good we both owned nokia phones

everyone did by the way in the 90s i think you're right actually i think i did that's a good point i take it out of my drawer it's a trout this is a salmon you open up the battery a scallop falls out i just thought it was worth mentioning that um you know that that isn't that australia isn't the only country that people don't think exists. There's Finland. There's also a small town, I believe, in Germany that became almost a bit of a meme because it was such a small town that people kind of joked that it doesn't exist, which I can see.

I feel like there are people that I talk to in London that don't think that Port Shirt exists because we are the only people they've ever met from Port Shirt. Right. So I can see how these rumors would start. Granted, the Australia thing is a bit more of a stretch. So clearly there's a theme here.

As you say, whether it's the time in Germany where it's the people talking about Australia or whether it's the rest of the world talking about Finland, where the global conversation exists in the big hitters. America, China. Sure.

I'm talking about like whatever, the global north, Japan, UK, etc. Central Europe. And it's like if you're not part of that club, we know so little about you and care so little that we're going to question whether you even exist or not. Yeah. Like it's like there's a set of circumstances that create the perfect storm for this conspiracy theory australia hits way above its weight culturally we think about it all the time like you say we interact with people from there there's an incredible amount of australians in london yeah it's kind of a joke even in london how many australians just live in like south london in

certain areas which is weird for a country with such a relatively small population. That's quite isolated as well. And it's the same thing with Finland. It's a little bit out of the way for Europe. It has a very small population compared to the rest of the more powerful countries in Europe. Sure. So it creates kind of this set of circumstances. Yeah, it's very true. I've been to Finland, which is worrying if that one is true because I don't know where I went then. To be fair, they probably could have made up a bunch of fake words

and you would have thought it was Finnish. Yeah, they could have just flown me about in circles for a while, dropped me in Dublin, and I think that I am exploring foreign lands. I can't read Gaelic. What do you call this place? The Temple Bar? How authentic. I'll have a traditional Finnish Guinness, please. You know what? I'll be honest with you. I don't know why I wanted to cover this conspiracy theory.

It's, I think I wanted to cover it because it's so dumb. It's so stupid. usually you know we do like to cover interesting cases uh ones with some evidence whether it's a cryptid or an alleged ufo sighting uh it's fun to take on these topics and really find out if there is any truth to it there is zero truth to this the original source allegedly came from a facebook post from a stranger on the internet. Why am I even doing this? Why do I even need to defend the reasons why this is nonsense? Of course it's nonsense. But I think it is.

I think it's funny and genuinely, for the most part, absolutely harmless for a conspiracy theory. I will say that most of the circulation that it's had and the popularity online is through it being almost meme level, people joking about it. I think you would really struggle to find any true believers out there who don't think that Australia is a real country or exists. You summed it up in a great way. I guess that makes sense. It's like a meme about the times that we live in it's a time when the most basic principles of the world that we supposedly share together are up for debate now uh we can't agree on anything and so it makes sense that someone is going to throw their hat in the ring someday and go i don't think australia is real yeah and

then suddenly we have to debate that it's a free-for-all yeah it makes sense this is the logical end point it's yeah unfortunately it is and it's incredibly frustrating but uh all we can do is um as a voice in this topic assure you that australia is real granted neither of us have been of course kangaroos are nuts um some of that shit is wild they could be CGI. They really could. But yeah, we are firm believers in the existence of Australia. That's not a point that I feel like I need to tiptoe around. I stand firmly with the people of Australia in claiming that they exist.

And far be it from us, two people who grew up in the magical green land of ireland uh far be it far be it from us to throw stones in a glass house and say that uh our little country exists and theirs doesn't oh you could probably throw a dart at a world map and wherever it hits there's online forums where people say it doesn't exist before ireland probably a great one. I'm sure there's so many people that are like, of course Ireland doesn't exist. Leprechauns, the Dullahan, banshees, of course it doesn't exist. It's something we all have to deal with in this 21st century. Great stuff. Hopefully we will get a definite answer to today's topic when we inevitably get to go to australia and do a

live show there that's like aside with some um uh locations in other places in the world that's pretty high up on our list of places we want to go visit yeah that one's been really exciting because you know it always feels inevitable that we're going to meet our american listeners before long just due to most people who listen to this podcast being in the States. We've met some of our UK ones, but then I think right under there in three or four is I think our Australian listeners. And we just need to make that happen. Yeah, it will be amazing. We've known a few podcasts that have gone over and performed in Australia and it'll be so amazing. It's on my bucket list to go visit Australia. So that would be great. I mean, there will be Australians who are listening to this podcast right now.

If you are listening and you want to prove that you exist, you can get in touch. We are on Twitter at This Paralife. We're also on Instagram. We have our secret society over on Facebook and also our email address, thisparanormallifepodcast at gmail.com. Get in touch. If we go to do a live show in Australia and it's real, Rory will do a shooey at the live show. What is a shooey? Do I have to drink a... If you have to ask, Rory, the shooey is going to hit different.

You say the wildest thing yet. I'm like, that should have been on the list. Underneath Vegemite, you drink a beerest thing yet. I'm like, that should have been on the list. Underneath Vegemite. You drink a beer from a shoe? So look forward to that. Hopefully in the new year or at some point in the near future, we'll be able to come to Australia

and meet all you lovely folks and do a live show there. Bit of a stupid one this week, admittedly, but hopefully it was a fun one. We didn't say it was a double no one. Oh, I think that was, I think it goes without saying. To be clear. It's a hundred percent a double no. You know, I like to cover some silly ones as well. We've covered some silly cryptids in the past. We've done some creepy pastas that we know from the start aren't real. So hopefully this episode

fits in there with the rest of those stupid ones. I hope you enjoyed listening to this week's episode of the show. If you're thinking, Hey, that was a great ones. I hope you enjoyed listening to this week's episode of the show. If you're thinking, hey, that was a great episode. I had a lot of fun listening to these two weirdos talk about the paranormal. And you want to hear more, but you've already listened to every episode of This Paranormal Life. Boy, do I have good news for you. Over on patreon.com, there is, I'm going to say, I think it's pretty much 50 episodes now of unreleased tapes. The classified shit that doesn't go out to the general public. Hidden behind bars.

And you can get access to it all from a couple of bucks a month. Patreon is the number one place to support the show. All the money goes directly towards us and funding it and our researchers and our editors and our equipment. So if you want to support the show and get some cool rewards, check it out. And even if you haven't already listened to all the main episodes, sometimes it's just fun to hear the latest ones. And some of the latest bonus episodes have been an absolute doozy. Yeah, they have a bit of a different vibe. They're a bit more loose, Yeah, they have a bit of a different vibe. They're a bit more loose, chilled out, classified, offensive.

No, not the last one. So go over and check it all out on Patreon.com. Thank you, as always, for listening to this week's episode. Big shout out to all of our Australian listeners for being great sports this week. You're trying to win back their favor, and you've really tarnished it over the last 45 minutes. I think you guys are great. Specifically, your acting abilities. You little snakes. All right.

That's quite enough. Are we going to talk about the spiders? Are we going to talk about the spiders that live there? That apparently if one of them touches you, you die? You just said you want to go more than anything. It's been your lifelong dream, I think you said, to perform in Australia. I just think it's pretty convenient to tell people there's a bunch of spiders

that will kill you on this island. That's a pretty good way to stop people from going to the f***ing island. You flipped. I have flipped again. And I need to stop before I flip back. So thank you for listening to this week's episode of the podcast.

We'll be back next week with a brand new paranormal tale. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats, but iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice. Yes, we deliver those. Goal tenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, we deliver those. Gold tenders? No. But chicken tenders? Yes. Because those are groceries

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