Love a cold War story, and our our classic episode today has everything you would expect from a story of Cold War conspiracies back in the nineteen eighties, a story that doesn't get repeated very often now both Russian and US sources, we're all like, all very befuddled and apparently just terrified that non state actors had a new dangerous sort of substance in their tool kit. That's right, red mercury, not to be confused with red Sonya, which I believe is also Cold War adjacent, or yellow cake. This is not yellow cake, but is it related? Let's find out. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Welcome back to the show, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Matt, my name is Ben. You are you that makes this stuff? They don't want you to know. Our compatriot Knol is away from the moment, but never fear he will return. And meanwhile we are joined by our super producer Tristan big Red McNeil, Big Red McNeil. That's right, he's hanging out. Oh he gave us an approving nod. Oh he's he's your tepid about it? Okay, all right, it's like a sideways thumb Little Red. Maybe. I don't think anybody wants to be called little Red, little though little Yeah? What about young Red? Yeah, yep, that's it. That's the one. Uh. Well, this nickname that we are assigning is not just out of the blue or out of the red, as you would say. In this case, it pertains to this episode in in a weird, foreshadowy way. So, Matt, you drive, right, I do all the time, drive most most days, Yeah, almost every single day. And you are driving on inner States probably yep, those are the one the long roads that connect the states and drive through the states. Yes, yes, yeah. If you've ever been on the road like Matt and I and Tristan I assume, and Nol, then you've seen trucks or other vehicles hauling has matt or hazardous materials. These could be anything from toxic chemicals used in manufacturing two explosives are just really messed up waste. In most countries, the transport and storage of this stuff is extensively regulated because you know that it is dangerous. It most certainly is. And in the United States, for example, the FEDS, the government, the old big g it divides these hazardous materials into several different categories nine to be exact. You'll find explosives, gases, flammable and combustible liquids. Those are all kind of lumped together there. You've got flammable solids. Now this includes things that would say dangerous when wet, so something like you've got sodium and solid form. You don't want to get that stuff wet and spontaneously combustible. It might just happen. Yeah, that's the most terrifying of all of them. I think I'm just driving my truck and it it did its thing. You've got oxidizers and organic peroxides poison, that's the toxic sign that you've seen. The old is that the skull and crossbones one, yeah, old school, and then also inhalation hazard poison, which is again as as you said, Matt, it's kind of pushed together into a you know, this category is like a duplex. And then of course you get into the weirder stuff radioactive materials, corrosive materials, and the category that sounds like it was totally four seven on a Friday when they were finishing the list miscellaneous generally dangerous, which that could be so many different things. But all of the materials that are grouped in these nine categories are essential to the functioning of society and industry. It's not just a bunch of people with a weird hobby, you know, Holland sodium through the desert or something. It's not that mad, Max. Yeah. All those middle school science teachers really need that sodium to to throw it into a puddle at school one day, so you gotta get it to them. Yeah, yeah, exactly, think of the children. So there's a organized Asian here in the States. And if you live somewhere else, somewhere that is not the US, your country probably has an organization like this too. In the US, this stuff is regulated by UH and a group with the incredibly sexy name the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or FILMSKA or FIMPSKA, and uh yeah, I think no would appreciate that. And weird story. When I was checking out some of the material on their site and doing some research into hazardous materials, let's see why. Very soon, ladies and gentlemen, I was baffled and a little disturbed that the thing was like riddled with typos. Yeah, two major ones specifically that I didn't even notice when I looked at it. Ben had to go a note, look at that word again, Ill, that's the thing, man, because it is a federal level website. So I assumed that there were closely related words that I was not aware of, you know, like the you know, like how absorb and adsorb are two different things. I thought maybe combustible was it was a word combustible. See, they're just discussing the different ways you can transport it. Yeah, there we go, convenable, combustible comes to danable. It's a danable comes adanable comes a Danable. That's a weird one. But the point is, uh, let's just let's just imagine. Let's assume, in the most optimistic way possible that they have some typos there because they're focusing on keeping things from blowing up on America's roadway safety first, not spelling right. Yes, And whenever you're driving, you've probably seen it has matt sign. You can easily go to these websites and they will show you the classification. It's very it's got a very ikea approach. You know, they're they're heavier on symbols than they are on letters. But there is another class of hazardous material. It's one most members of the public will hopefully never encounter firsthand. These are weaponized hazardous substances. These are substances that just don't don't just like, hurt you as a byproduct of what they're supposed to do in manufacturing. They were created specifically two kill you and everything you love if you disagree with the people in charge. Yeah, or at least the people that have their hands on this stuff. And uh, thankfully this many of these things we're gonna go through here aren't going to be just shipped down, you know, hopefully hopefully. Perhaps we don't know the ins and outs of you know, whatever black budget up is doing this, but let's get into these. So there's VX. This is an odorless, tasteless nerve agent that in its pure form appears this weird brownish oily liquid. It was developed in the UK, the United Kingdom in the early nineteen fifties. And this stuff is particularly potent because it's a persistent agent. Yeah, what what does that mean? Exactly? Well, Okay, so once it gets released out into the atmosphere. It takes longer than a lot of these other substances to evaporate. So if you've just got regular weather conditions and you're outside, it will persist for days on top of surfaces wherever it just happens to land, and it can even last for months if you're in the right cold conditions. This stuff is very, very dangerous, and you've probably heard about it before. It is a it is a weapon of war, and that is its only purpose. Then there are things like Sarah, also known as g B. It's it's volatile, it's also a nerve agent, and it's highly toxic. Sue toxic. In fact, that a single drop the size of a of a head of a pen. P I n lest my accent betrayed me. Just that drop is enough to kill a human being like that, an adult human being. It's colorless, it's odorless, and that's when it's at room temperature. Apply a little heat. It evaporates rapidly and it will spread into the environment. The good news is it's a short lived threat. You may recognize this from some recent news reports. In two thousand thirteen, the United Nations confirmed that a chemical weapons attack involving saran uh spread via specially designed brockets, took place in the suburbs of the Syrian capital. This was called the most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them in Halabja in Yeah by Bonky Moon, right, bonky Moon you in Secretary General. Yeah. And I was wondering then, because you know, we have to take a skeptical look at a lot of these stories that come out when there's a suspected attack. I wonder if our listeners like believe that that is truly what happened. It's interesting, you know, there is a there is a wealth of contradictory reporting from all sides in the Middle East, and maybe that's an entire episode to itself, I think so. Uh. And then of course there's mustard gas. This is also known as sulfur mustard, and it gets its name from this smell that it emits. It's like it's like rotten mustard, kind of like mixed with garlic. It's I don't know, you don't want to smell it, all right, and you definitely don't want to smell it. You don't tell me. Let me live my truth, bro. Yeah, my truth does not hopefully involve inhaling sulfur mustard because it's pretty nasty, right, Yeah, it's it's in this group of agents called blister agents or vessicants, and they target the eyes, respiratory tract, skin, and it starts off as just this irritant, right, and your your body cells, your skin particularly gets a little red, but then it starts to poison your cells. When skin is exposed to it, like I said, it turns red, then it burns for a little while. Then these large blisters appear and it causes some serious scarring and the pain has been described as unbelievable. Um, your eyes will swell up, tear, you might even go blind if you are exposed to h mustard gas. And it is more well known than another chemical agent, one of the most dangerous chemical weapons in existence now. And this, of course is just counting the public stuff we know about. There's pretty compelling evidence that during the Cold War both the US and Russia conducted some very very unethical, highly illegal experiments in weaponizing different agents. And are you familiar with that show the Americans? Right, right, So there a lot of the twist and turns, and that show are inspired by Cold War era espionage. It's a it's a show. It's a fictional show about a family of deep cover Russian operatives living in the United States. Highly recommended. Yeah, yeah, it's on f X if you're interested. No one's making us say that we genuinely like spy shows. What are we talking up? What is one of the most dangerous existing chemical weapons that we know of. It's foes gene. It was first used in combination with chlorine gas in nineteen fifteen. This is old stuff too, This is an old evil and Germany dropped eighty eight tons of it on British troops, causing hundreds deaths. Really nasty stuff during World War One. In fact, it accounted just this substance loan for of all chemical fatalities. Geeze. And we know that there was a lot of mustard gas and other yeah like that at the quotamest poem right, and there of course other things. We're barely scratching the poisonous surface of chemical weaponry. They're also cyanides. But when we come to weaponized or dangerous substances, there is one substance that are a type of substance that is by far much much more dangerous. So VX can persist in a place, right, saren can spread rapidly. Rice in plays a big role in uh imps. Yeah yeah, polonium right, which is the Russia's version of I want you to know who through this stone. But the most important kind, at least for the survival of humanity, would be radiological and nuclear threats. And this is stuff like dirty bombs, improvised nuclear devices that that phrases terrifying. Yeah right, it's not like an improv show at Second City. It's it's not a yes and bomb. Yeah. Well, yeah, you just throw that that N word in there. And even something that's as scary as an improvised device or an i e. D throw that INN word in and good god. But wait, there's more. Since the late nineteen eighties, intelligence agencies and criminal organizations alike around the world been chasing after another type of dangerous substance, a mysterious material thought to have terrifying potential for destruction exceeding the capacity of almost every other sort of nuclear material available, something known as red mercury. See that's where we got to the name again. Yeah, We're we're there now, We're we finally got there. We're christening super producer Tristan with an awful weapon of potential mass destruction. That's kind of cool though, it's cool. It makes an impression in the room, you know, when you walk in. But first things first, First questions first, what is this stuff? Originally, when it was first reported by the US and Soviet sources, the West called this substance read because it came from Russia. Everybody in the listening is just going, yep, that's like the laziest propaganda. Allegedly it came from Russia. It's very important to say, because later reports suddenly claimed the material was called red mercury because it had a red tent, a reddish tinge. And as we'll see later in the episode here, that's where the problems begin. Reports of red mercury's composition vary widely. Yeah, and you can see that if you just start taking a look at the reporting that's been done on this substance. So if we go back to and look at the New scientists or new scientists, excuse me, there's no the alright, they have an article called cherry Red and very dangerous, and it says that new information was leaked from South Africa, Russia, and the United States, and it has convinced leading nuclear scientists that this stuff red mercury, the potential risks of it, should now be taken seriously. The scientists, by the way, we're talking about, are not just some guys. We're talking about Sam Cohen, he was nuclear physicist who invented the neutron bomb, and also Frank Barnaby, who was the former director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. And it says that these guys specifically were worried that red mercury could make it much easier for nations or terrorist groups to construct small but deadly thermonuclear fusion weapons. That's that sounds pretty terrifying when you read it in something as reputable as New Scientists. And there's a quote here from Sam Cohen who says, I don't want to sound melodramatic, but red mercury is real and it is terrifying. I think that it is part of a terrorist weapon that could potentially spell the end of organized society. Done done, done, WHOA. And he's not saying it, of course, he literally says he's not trying to be melodramatic. Frank Barnaby's group talked to for anonymous scientists in Russia and said they provide detailed information about red mercury, and at the time again this he concluded that it is a polymer with a gel like consistency in which mercury and antimony have been bound together after a radiation for up to twenty days in a nuclear reactor. And his belief again at the time was that this substance could yield enough chemical energy when compressed to fuse tridium atoms and produce a thermo nuclear explosion. Yeah, and and in this article, what these guys were calling for, like the reason why they're bringing all this stuff out into the public sphere is because they were trying to get tridium to be like to put more controls over the production and trade and tridium, which they think, you know, if you have this other substance, red mercury and tridium, put them together and you make this device. Right. And there are other stories too that you have possibly seen in headlines over the years, and we'll just we'll we'll list a couple, but there's one that I'd like to explore in a little more detail because it's the one that inspired us to follow up on this in the BBC two thousand and four, terrorists were arrested because they were trying to buy red mercury. Yeah, alleged terrorists. So there was this newspaper reporter who apparently like did one of those meetings. He was posing as somebody that he wasn't and tried to get them or interest them in purchasing this red mercury that he had. And anyway, these guys went to trial and it took a long time. I think in two thousand six is when it was finally over because all of these dudes got cleared because the substance that he had wasn't red mercury, He didn't have anything of the sort. The the newspaper, the journalist and these guys, I don't know, how do you. It's that whole entrapment thing that happened, and they were saying that they were trying to turn the reporter in that they didn't know as a reporter for trying to sell them really dangerous materials. You know. That kind of reminds me of the FBI attempts a few years back to infiltrate mosque and try to make the people at the mosque radicalize them. Yeah, and then they end up calling the cops and calling the Feds on the Feds. So there was another story, a local story two thousand seventeen. Just a few months ago here in Atlanta, where our podcast is based, streets downtown closed because March there were reports that a man had brought red mercury from Africa and he was walking into the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So people are freaking out, you know. I mean, many people have never heard of this. You might think, Okay, mercury, what is that? That's a planet, That's a thing that goes in thermometers, you know what I mean. There are probably a few people who honestly thought, and I'm not making fun of anyone, this would like this would seem plausible to me who honestly thought I thought Mars was the red one, you know what I mean. So we have a quote here from Atlanta Police Officer Stephanie Brown who said, we received a call regarding a mail coming into the facility carrying red mercury from Africa. We're still gathering details on the call. And in that article, red mercury is described as a substance used to create nuclear bombs. Homeland Security was called Hasmat team, bomb squad, fire trucks, who knows, man veterinarians, maybe an airplane pilot, like every authority you can imagine, like a really old angry librarian. Everybody showed up. Yeah, and major parts of Atlanta were shut down, parts of some of the big streets in downtown Atlanta. And then the next day turned out that there were no arrest made. Nope, nobody was arrested. What the guy had was quote not red mercury. Um. Uh they you know, it was a claim that somebody made. I guess and according to this article, you know, they go on to talk about red mercury what it might be um and they said it says US Homeland Security agents responded, which is, you know, that's a big time had you have all the people that have been talked about came through. I made the angry librarian up. I don't know if she was actually there. And and then after all of this, no arrests and the police would not say what substance was actually found. There's just definitely not this red mercury stuff. Yeah, or is this one of those nothing to see here folks? Right, that's a good question, Uh, just a shall we say, m big in the sphere here that let's let's look at red mercury reports. In other parts of the world, it's a big deal. So, for instance, in two thousand and nine, this was one of the more interesting stories we dug up about this in Saudi Arabia. Singer sewing machines pretty popular. Everybody's got it so right, everybody's gotta wear clothes. Um. In two thousand and nine, a rumor spread that these sewing machines, not all of them, but some of them contained red mercury, and it caused the prices to massively increase. And here here the too odd things. First, people believe the rumor were convinced that you could detect red mercury, that it was in small amounts in the needles of some sewing machines. And the way that you would detect it is you would have cellular phone and you would put the phone while you're on a call, near the needle, and if the line cut off when I got near the needle, you knew that red mercury was present. Weird science, right, if it's true. Second thing, nobody agreed, nobody agreed on what this what this looked like if it was really read, what it could be used for. But they came up with some ideas. Uh. They had said, perhaps it was an essential component of nuclear power, perhaps had the ability to extract gold, what or the ability to summon gin oh man like genies Jin And so this potentially could be either giving you lots of power from a military perspective or from a wish is granting perspective from a magical or occult perspective. And for anybody who's interested in learning more about Jin, I do want to refer you to our earlier episode. If you have not checked it out, you can find it on our website Deep Breath stuff they don't want you to Know dot com. And also watch American Gods because there is a gin in the episode that went out last actually a form of gin. Yeah, okay, I think I believe I've got my hierarchy correct there. It's also that's an awesome book before we move on. The book is great. The show is turning out much better than I expected. That's cool, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna check it out. Here's here's the thing, though. The official spokesperson for police forces in Saudi Arabia said that these rumors have been started by gangs who are trying to swindle people out of their money because they had a bunch of singer. Yeah, that's a weird one to uh, that's that's a weird one to go to jail four. Yeah, it really is. You know, do you remember that phase this was off air when I was trying to figure out like the most insignificant or petty crimes. Yes, and the one I don't know if this is a crap. Please tell me if this is a real thing, folks. I haven't looked into it yet. Stamp fraud, you know, like making fake postage stamps. Apparently that was the thing back in the day. It just seems weird, like what's your profit margin? Yeah? What do you tell people you got locked up for ward when you get caught? You know, I think that is all about bulk, Like how many can you sell? I made a million thirty seven cents at a time because that ink isn't cheap. No, and then you've got adhesives you gotta get I guess some special scissors to get that pattern red lines, reforated lines. I don't know. Stamp fraud it's not a time you wanna you wanna get locked up for. And it does sound like this was the sow a machine thing was here and gone hysteria or fad, you know, sort of like tulips with the Dutch or dangerous version of Beanie Babies or something like that. But because of these real life reports, these real life events in what over the past thirty almost forty years, Red Mercury has earned a place in pop culture. That's right. There were video games made about this. Well, one in particular, the Weekend Point to called Shadow Ops colon Red Mercury. This is a two four first person shooter for Xbox and Windows, and it's one of those you know, pretty standard wartime FPS is where you're a Delta Force operative attempting to recover what a briefcase nuclear bomb, so essentially uh an improvised nuclear device. And it was code named Red Mercury. And to note here this is two thousand four when it came out, but it's from a terrorist mercenary who's operating out of Syria. Interesting out of serious Syria pops up again, and there's a movie from two thousand five that has to do It's called Red mercury, and it has to do with people trying to chase down sources of the substance. Ah Man, have you checked it out? I have not seen that one. I'll check it out. I couldn't find it in any of my standard places, Sutton Criterion Collection or that. So what's what's interesting about these pop culture references is they show how the rumors of this substance spread from the realm of journalism into the world of fiction. And that happens on a fairly routine basis. But what if red mercury is different? And we'll get into that right after a quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. No one knows, No one agrees what exactly this stuff is, Matt. There is no indication that red mercury is even a mercury compound. However, there are some forms of mercury that fit a little bit of the purported criteria. Right. There's a red form of mercury that's very toxic, but it's not explosive. There's a red colored or of mercury, mercuric sulfide sinambar, which is toxic but not explosive. There's mercury fulminate, which is shocked, sensitive and explosive, and it's been used in some ammunition cartridges. Uh. And there are a couple of other things. There was one there was one substance, dimethyl mercury that was considered briefly as a rocket fuel in the nineteen fifties, but chemical companies who supplied test materials were not messing around with it. So none of the mercury compounds none, All caps in O any have that have some sort of partial red mercury property can be the actual red mercury. And that hasn't stopped people from having theories and describing it. So we can tell you a little bit about what the Soviets thought it was used for. Yeah. Back in according to quote Soviet sources, this red mercury had a street name called mercuric stypic heptoxid, which is a fun thing to say. This stuff is super conductive and allegedly it's used to produce high precision conventional and nuclear bomb explosives. It could also make stealth surfaces, which is you know, that's kind of cool, uh, and also to make self guided warheads. And let's let's just reiterate that. Yeah, convention all and nuclear bombs, stealth surfaces, self guided warhead can do. Those are also three very different things, right, and the properties that read mercury is typically assigned are some of the most common parts of the description of this substance. It's what is called Ballow technic, which is just that, you know, a fancy way of saying it produces immense pressure when ignited. However, when combined with other claims about red mercury's capabilities, it sounds more and more like a work of science fiction with an emphasis on fiction too good to be true. Right, So, in addition to releasing massive pressure, this stuff is also strongly insensitive to shock or fire. That strongly resistant is a better way to say it. So you know, you could substitute rend and stimpy, you could substitute you could take the log song and the syllables don't work out. And if you put red mercury in there, you know, you can do all that stuff with red mercury and it still wouldn't explode. But despite this durability, it apparently has a very fast ignition rate that seems contradictory. It does doesn't end again extremely high energy density. It's very difficult to identify a class of substances that has all of these qualities, sort of a silver bullet Holy Grail situation, and that we should say that that none of us on this team are chemist by trade, and we're neither physicists. Yeah, we might be physicist by hobby, but wait, are you a physicist? I mean, I'm interested in it. I'll read a book about physics. I definitely um deal with physics on a second delie basis. I mean, I'm not, you know, planning to hunt black holes anytime soon, darn it. You know, I don't get in Internet arguments with Stephen Hawkins yet. And he's probably brutal. I don't know it. Yeah, but you know, I think he's got a good heart. Absolutely, he's got a good heart. There. Here's something else. Remember we mentioned the nuclear physicist speaking of physicist H. Frank Barnaby earlier. Uh, he worked at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the nineteen fifties, and he claims that there are evidence that the show turned out vast quantities of mercury antimony oxide, the intermediate and equally elusive compound from which red mercury is supposedly produced by placing it inside a nuclear reactor. There's no doubt they made a large amount of that stuff. I've talked to chemists who have analyzed it in Eis to Germany. But what they did with it, he says, he's a mystery. Oh I like this guy. Let's bring him back for some things. So what are people saying about this stuff? Man? So some people think that the intermediate compound, the one that Frank there is kind of discussing, could actually multiply the yield of an explosion. So if you if you take this and use it inside a conventional let's say a nuclear warhead or rocket or something, it would work as a fuel additive. Which you know, that's interesting that that you could use that, I guess for that purpose, just to just to increase the yield. I guess that's the idea, you make it stronger. And others say, the compound was I radiated at the core of a nuclear reactor to produce pure red mercury, and this stuff would be capable exploding with enough heat and pressure to act as a trigger inside a briefcase sized fusion bomb. So your red mercury in this case would just be the thing that makes the reaction occur, right, right, The instigator in the crowd of nuclear reactions. There are massive problems with this stuff though, Yeah, all right, First, the story changes often reports red mercury don't seem to be consistent and in any substantive way other than this stuff is powerful bad guys wanted. According to experts like Barnaby, even if the substance was discovered, it wouldn't be that useful. And according to experts like Barnaby, the guy we keep talking about, even if this stuff was real, it really wouldn't be that useful. And we have another quote for terrorists, it would offer no significant advantages over an ordinary high explosive or if they wanted a dirty bomb a radioactive source to go to the trouble of spending huge amounts of money on red mercury makes no sense at all, makes no sense at all. I couldn't agree with Barnaby more if he's right. If he's right, and according to official sources, nobody has actually real facts obtained this substance. So could this be a cover up? If so, what kind is it? One of those things where one or two, maybe even five governments officially know that this stuff exists and what it can do. They have the documentation. They know how to make it, but they want to suppress that knowledge. I mean I could see that as being a possibility. Here's another odd fact that a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Authority said red mercury doesn't exist. The whole thing is a bunch of malarkey. Oh wow, so he's saying it's a leprechn Is that slaying? Is that? I mean, I'm just the malarkey took me to Lepric I'm not okay, I don't know, man, you're hipper than I am. So I don't know if like Lepricon was like the new thing you say, now mean it can be. Do you and your friends when you hang out at the are you are like, what up? LEPRICN Yeah, it's more like exclamation if something is tremendously cool and if green is involved whatsoever? Oh okay, okay, Like, man, that is so leprechn. You know, I don't want to steal your your bit. I'm gonna try it. Maybe step it works out, and if it, if it goes well, I'll tell people that. You know, I'll credit you. It goes poorly, I'll take the fall. I like it better than some of the current new slang words like what combustible? Yeah, combustible, combustible. But yeah, but that's the thing. Oh fleek, oh fleek. You don't care for fleek. I can't fleek man. I just don't like the way it rolls off the tongue. It's a little bit smoother than leprecn. I'm just saying that as your friends. Well, that's why I like leprechn because it takes a little more effort. Uh. And you know, there's a there's a guy with gold. But just like red mercury, is the effort worth it also also, unless you get too far off the rails, I don't want to bury the lead here. An official spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Authority said, this stuff doesn't exist. It never existed. What we'll be back after a word from a responsible and we're back. So what we're left with here, people, there are two roads that we can go down. Red mercury is either a long running propaganda sting operation on behalf of intelligence agencies, or it's this ancient relic of the Cold War when tensions were so high and rumors were everywhere. Yeah, that's the thing. We do have a couple of different paths. So let's look at the idea that this whole thing was a shaggy dog story that for decades, not just the US, not just Russia, but multiple other countries, including South Africa, made up a boogeyman to catch terrorists or criminal organizations or likely each other. We have, you know, we have some indications. Experts who searched for real red mercury, like Peter Zimmerman, found the story quickly deteriorated, and that, uh, everything about his search led him to conclude this was a disinformation campaign of phony news articles planned decades ago by the KGB and then by its successor, the FSB. And there are other variants in the story, including one where Washington and Moscow worked together, you know, circulating these stories to flush out nuclear smugglers. And the thing with that is this idea of these two ostensibly enemy governments cooperating this way is really popular with a lot of soldiers and officers and bomb disposal and counter w m D weapons mass destruction jobs. But Zimmerman felt like he couldn't prove it. He felt like he could definitely prove whatever this stuff is, it's not real, yeah, or it's a fishing expedition as a way to draw people to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is incredibly clever. You gotta you gotta admire the art in some things, even if you don't agree with the idea, just because these rumors have been so persistent throughout the years and it still exists that that we can have a story in seventeen where people, somebody somewhere in authority said, oh, red Mercury, okay, shut that thing down, shut it all down. It could also be um here's it's a different idea, maybe a middle ground force here. It could also be a code name for some other type of nuclear industry related material, right. It could have been a Soviet code name for something else, like lithium six, which was a controlled material that was actually used in nuclear weapons, and maybe traffickers repurposed the label for whatever irradiated crap they were trying to to sell to unsuspecting terrorists. Because if you read the accounts of people, even isis the terrorist organization, If you read the accounts of people trying to purchase this stuff the way that it's explained to them when they finally find it and buy it at enormously expensive prices by the way one. One great example would be uh when it was described as a small box that had to be carried in a special container and had to be opened in a special way with a special device. These are sold separately, I assume U, and could never be opened because when it did, everything would blow up in like a multikilometer radius. Hold on, I thought this thing was super stable. Well that's what you know. You gotta have the device sold separately. But that's that's also that snacks of classic of a classic con job, because yeah, if you can't look at the merchandise, but you're going to hand some money over or something arrested? What's that old? What's that old? Saying a pig in a pope? Is that just something to say in Tennessee? Yeah, I don't like that, never mind. It's it's like, don't don't buy a pig in a bag unless you look in the bag. It's you're given a poke first, like make sure it squeals, you know, I gotta check. I gotta check before we sign off on that as official stuff that I'll want you to know. Pig buying advice sounds good. Sounds good if you happen through into somebody who has a burlap sack and they tell you there's a pig in there and they'll sell it to you. Just I mean, what are you doing anyway? Don't engage with that person. Yeah, just leave it alone. Man, the pig bag man is going to be fine. Gonna leave to leave him to his own devices as long as they are not nuclear. And now we get to the scariest possibility of all, ladies and gentleman, Red Mercury. What if this thing is real? But somehow it's been continually over the decades suppressed. Right, this is I'm gonna go ahead and say this is the most disturbing as as you said earlier, but it's it's also, thankfully one would hope, the least plausible. But think about it, It's been in all these news stories over and over in the decades. It's never been verified. When law enforcement is attempted to acquire this stuff, it has in every single case you can find, turned out to be something else according to the story. Yeah, these are not the nuclear devices you're looking for. It's we're both doing that Star Wars droid wave. I feel like we need to explain that, you know, the one we're talking about later. It's the force. You're using the force to coerce somebody, You see the force? Yeah, and it's uh. It turns out that most experts believe red mercury is about as real as the Force. So, regardless of how you feel about Star Wars, regardless of what conclusions you draw about red mercury, regardless whether it is in fact real or if it is in fact an elaborate sting operation, that people are still falling for, one chilling fact remains. People are dying as a result. Actual people are actually dying because one rumor that spread we talked about the one in Saudi Arabia, kind of funny sewing machine tycoons, right, love it, love it. But in Afghanistan it was a little different because rumors spread that land mines contained red mercury, and numerous people died going up to these live minds and attempting to dismantle them and extract the stuff that they thought was in there. When dismantling a live mind is, as you may assume, a job for the experts. Yeah, but isn't it Isn't it weird? Because I had no idea that this existed. This is such a strange thing to do. I am persuaded. I'mlike, sure this does not exist, and twenty full of you know what iffory, Yeah, exactly. That's I hate to agree completely with you on this, just because I want to offer a different opinion. But everything that I've seen in the research that we've done for this leads me to believe that it's not real. But it's hard for me to wrap my head around it lasting this long, a rumor persisting this long, and then what if yeah, like what for lack of a better phrase, fueled this rumor for so long? Right? Uh? What if there is some sort of powerful substance capable of jump starting a fusion reaction and it's so dangerous that when people discovered it, they including uh, including Dr Cohen, when they discovered it, they said, Okay, everybody needs to shut it down. We know that we like, we know we don't get along all the time, but we'd like we look forward to not getting along for a long long time. And if anybody has this, it's the end. Imagine the implications if one of these small nuclear devices goes off in a city anywhere in the world and the the reaction of other countries, right, with all who also have nuclear devices, who are going to be trying to point the finger, and there's that it's only a few what is it, a few seconds when some of the nuclear systems in the world, some of the dead hand stuff, when some of that can be triggered. Ah, yeah, the dead hands system is very very dangerous thing. Uh. Well, you know that's and that was a Soviet thing and it's I'm assuming still a Russian thing. Uh. And then the United States, who knows what kind of systems that we have with all the all the minute men that exist around uh, around the globe. Now, the spooky thing about the way the US handles it's nuclear arsenal is that a large percentage of it is continually traveling around the globe. Yeah, which is spooky stuff, spooky, frightening, semi apocalyptic stuff. And it doesn't even matter at that point who set off a bomb, you know, right, because in in the early part of it, at least, whatever reaction occurs is going to be before you can you know, confirm who it is. And a lot of our listeners who have lived through the Cold War time period, you know, you've probably seen those accounts that came out years later of how close the entire species got to just call in it one long night, And we'd like to hear what you think about red mercury? Has this ever popped up in your in your leck of the woods? Has any body ever been on the news for attempting to smuggle red mercuries? You might try to sell you some? And did have you seen any other pop references to this? I couldn't recall if in Call of Duty or any of these other games that I've played, it like showed its face somewhere. I can't. I couldn't remember. I just you know, I I'm baffled still because neither explanation is particularly iron clad, you know what I mean. It sounds crazy to say that there's some real substance that is enormously powerful that has just been continually popping up in the news and then being removed. But it also sounds crazy for to be this elaborate, like we've said it before in the show, Rube Goldberg esque hoax. It's like that game mouse trap, you know what I mean. You could just arrest people, but maybe it's I'm still divided, man, because maybe it's safer to have a thing that you know is an inert substance, right, You can just get something that has a red pigment to it and then it seems like, oh, that's obviously red mercury. So like maybe these intelligence agencies just took a page from shady drug dealers. Go some Paprica. Do people do that? People are out there selling paprika as red mercury? I don't know, because no one knows what it looks like, right, But yeah, we want to We want to hear from you. We want to hear which of these sides you tend to fall on and if you think this is nicely an incident, you know this kind of subterfuge, or if there are other examples. And speaking of emails from you, it's time for shot at Konnas. Our first message comes from Andrew Allinson. He says, I'm writing to let you guys know how influential you've in to me and my team for the past two years. I'm not asking you to plug my project or anything like that. I just wanted to let you know that it exists and to give you a little backstory. Now we're gonna say the name of the game. We are not outright plugging Allen's game. We are telling you about his game. Is that cleared Allen? So you don't feel weird? This is We're going to continue. I'm working on a game called Why two k Now That is Why one one k Dash, a postmodern RPG. It's about a bunch of conspiracy theorists in the nine nineties searching for a woman who mysteriously vanished in an elevator. That sounds familiar, Ben Oh. The game revolves around a primitive early nineteen nineties occult message board that's kind of cool, and the various threads lead to different quests in the game. I've been a fan of reading about weird things happening since I was a child, and came across your podcast and YouTube channel when I was looking for some ideas to fill out the various threads in the games forum. Your podcasts and reactions to conspiracies were invaluable to getting into the minds of the forum users and making the world feel real. So I just wanted to say thank you for what you're doing and keep up the good work. Well that is supremely cool, Alan. Uh. You know that Ben and I are both gamers, as well as Noel Noel talks about that a lot, and uh, knowing that somehow what we've done has worked its way into a virtual world makes me personally tremendously happy. So let us know how the game goes. We'd love to hear an update, yes please. Our next one comes from our next shout out rather comes from Crystal K, who says Plumb Island is an animal disease research facility, at least according to Silence of the Lambs. This would certainly account for any perceived air of secrecy about the place. Also, Clarice was the one who suggested she could arrange for lectors vacation to the island in exchange for identifying Buffalo Bill M. Thank you so much, Crystal. You know, I'm I don't remember if we mentioned this on the air, but do you know that Anthony Hopkins do you know how how much he's actually in Silence of the Lambs the original Signs of the Lambs as Hannibal Lecter. Is it like a percentage he's it's like fourteen minutes the whole film. He really made an impression. Huh. I mean, those are the kind of rules you wanna live for, you know, do a cool creepy fourteen minute cameo. Yeah, who happens to be a cannibal? Well, it's like, who's the most important character in Waiting for Good Dough? The guy who doesn't show up? Or RoboCop or RoboCop. I'm pretty sure RoboCop shows up in robot You know, I was just trying to figure out, trying to figure out who the most important character is if not RoboCop. But listeners, you have to help me out out. I don't know. There's a French play called Tartwof and for the which I remember reading years ago, and for the first easily two thirds of it, people are talking about this Tartoof dude and he doesn't show up until the end. It was it was baffled. He kind of is up to the hype, but not really. It's it was sort of the RoboCop of its time. I get it, you know, we I don't know if we can keep doing these joslist one of us goes back and watches robo cop Oll. No problem. I'm not gonna take the fall. I'm gonna do it. And if you, if you write to us, I'll confirm or or deny whatever you say. Be a RoboCop expert. I'll be cop. We have time for one more shout out. Our next message says I am me, you are you, And this is an email to stuff they don't want you to know. Well, of course I love that opening. Yeah, I love the show. Guys, you help me, You help keep me sane whilst at work with the stuff you should know. Boys. Oh cool, that's a good company. Um, not down to business. Vaping you heard of it? Yes, we have heard of it. Vaping is a smoking cessation. It's a way for smokers to get off the cigarettes in a healthy and safe way. In a basic form, it gives the user the sensation of smoking, the nicotine delivery from smoking, but it leaves out the seven thousand plus nasty chemicals and carcinogen's smoking cigarettes delivers into your body. Vaping has turned into an international, multibillion dollar industry, creating thousands of jobs and businesses. It's created friendships and families throughout the world. Okay, uh, and above all else, it's saved hundreds of millions of lives. But ben, here's where things get crazy. Currently, at this moment in time, that's right, whilst you're reading this email, the US government and f d A are trying to destroy it. And I don't mean trying to get the booming industry that is vaping under control. I mean these guys want to wipe out the whole thing, one hundred percent gone in the blink of an eye. They want it gone, and they're trying anything to do it. And they oh, man, oh my gosh. Okay, So Jack, this is from Jack. By the way, do we ever say this is from Jack? Okay, okay, Jack, thank you for writing. And he goes on and he just he gives us so much great information about vaping, along with his fun storytelling. But we're gonna end it right here. So why is the US government so against vaping if it is a health benefit to the millions of citizens and the billions of people worldwide. Is it because it's dangerous and will kill people quicker than a bullet to the head. Or would you say it's because the cigarette companies who sponsor these state officials and senators and government organizations are losing millions of dollars worth of revenue each week two people not smoking. No, that can't be. People would think that's some sort of crazy conspiracy. Jack, that's that is fantastic. Yeah, thanks so much for writing in, Jack, Crystal and Andrew. Uh that that's a good point about vapory. Yeah, yeah, I mean there are so many conflicting studies that have been coming out over the past five years. Yeah, vaping is uh pretty interesting, you know, Yeah it is. And and I've heard a lot of people talk about how it has helped them quit smoking, or at least been a part of quitting smoking, right right, And then, uh, you know a lot of the rumors about vaporing, the science behind them evaporates after I'm so sorry, after I'm not really sorry. I'm inordinately proud of every stupid pun I've ever made, beautiful, but you know, a lot of the science is still contradictory in various studies, tons of conflicting stuff, and just like the stuff with sugar, we have to ask ourselves who is funding whom when these things come out. They thank you so much for writing guys. Again, this concludes our gosh and this concludes our episode, but not our show. We will be returning the very same time next week, and time is relative. I guess whatever. You check out your the podcast that you listen to, you will find the new episode of our show. Yeah, that's correct, and next week Noel will still be on an adventure. Adventures are great, and uh we will. We look forward to seeing him two weeks from now and in the meantime, If you would like to check out some of the strange, weird, fascinating, disturbing, and occasionally humorous stories that, for one reason or another, have yet to make it onto the air, you can find us on YouTube. You can find us on Instagram. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook mostly conspiracy Stuff, and Instagram is Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you'd like to check out some of the other episodes we referenced earlier in the show, you can find not just one, not just three, but every audio episode we have ever done on our website. Stuff they Don't want you to Know dot com And and that's the end of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into contact with us in a number of different ways. One of the best is to give us a call. Our number is one eight three three st d w y t K. If you don't want to do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at I heart radio dot com Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.