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. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is all. They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you, You are here and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. It's our listener male segment, and we have some doozies for you who as always, we have picked three today. Uh, and we've been we've been chipping away at this stuff, you know, like like some kind of conspiracy Santa Claus making a list, checking it twice. And we do have one surprise for you, a special shout out at the end of today's show. So stay tuned. But first, uh, let's see, let's see. We've got some music conspiracies, We've got some photographs, we've got some codes to crack. Where do you say we begetting today? Gents? Uh, you know, Matt, I'm tempted because you know, I'm I'm I'm a big fan of this one. So I'm tempted to, uh to defer to you. Alright, Yeah, let's let's let's get our unidentified aerial phenomena on. It's been a running thing on these episodes and our strange news episodes recently, and uh spoiler alert, we had a phone call with a celebrity and we talked specifically about the thing that we're about to talk about right now before it happened. So crazy times. Let's let's jump into this. We got a message from another Matt, so let's hear it. Hey, guys, this is Matt in Arizona. I just want to say that I love the show and I was reading an article yesterday about um an object to being cited by a pilot who's like a floating black cube. There's just been a lot of UFO news recently, and I wanted to know what you guys thought of it. And if you think disclosure is coming soon? All right, thanks, bye bye boom. Disclosure is it coming soon? That was literally the discussion that we had just the other day. And that's not just a veiled flex on Matt's part, by the way, that we had a conversation about disclosure with a celebrity that's going to come around and benefit you the audience on a podcast feed near you very soon. It will be one of the weirdest things you've heard in some time, just as this was. Sorry, I thought that was a Transformers reference. I know what you guys are talking about. Back, I'm back back in, I'm back in, I'm back on Lord. Okay, let's go back in the game. Back in the game. Okay. So uh I, Matt, thank you so much for calling. First of all, we appreciate your kind words, and uh we also appreciate that disclosure has been on our minds a lot recently, as all kinds of reports have been coming out recently. Um, this one, I think this is the one you're speaking about. It's a report from Popular Mechanics that I stumbled upon and actually sent to the guys. I think I think they probably saw it independently before I sent it to them, but we had a quick discussion about it. This is the title leaked government photo shows motionless cube shaped UFO and motionless cube shaped is in quotations. Now, there are photos of this supposed UFO that you can find on that Popular Mechanics site, as well as a couple other places. I believe the Debris had one of the first pieces of reporting on this back in early December, and they've got the great it's a really great wide photo of it right at the top of their page on the debrief, and then a zoomed in picture as well. We'll talk about it a little bit, but I would just say the first thing that strikes me here Ben and Noll is the similarities of this thing to the Black Night satellite. Do you do you remember that? Just in shape and form, it feels very similar to me. Uh In looking at the image, it does not look cube shaped at all to me, but I can I guess imagine how it could be cube shaped. Um, it doesn't feel that way to me at all. But let's just let's go through this on the popular mechanics side. So this is an unclassified image that has been going around US intelligence agencies for a while. It claims to show this thing unidentified aerial phenomena. Um it is. It has been described by US officials as silver and cube shaped, and that is from the reporting on the debrief. Looks like we're like a like a shield or something. It's almost like triangular. It's like con concave at the top and then comes down to a point. I don't see the cubeness of it. Yeah, that that's that's essentially what I was saying it to me. It more resembles the Black Knight satellite and not so much a cube shape. But you know, this is a single still image, and the report is going off of what these pilots experienced. Um, and then what you know, the images that we're there and we're only getting one still image essentially. So and a quick interjection here for anybody I'm familiar. Uh, the Black Knight satellites, according to the true believers, is a satellite that's in a near polar orbit of Earth and it's extraterrestrial origin. And the idea is that NASA is for one reason or another covering up its existence. Uh, there is space debris that might have been mis identified as that stuff. But as we I think we I think this is related to our Corona or Key episodes where we look at the main flaw of putting satellites in space, which is that it's very difficult to keep them secret because the technology you need to see most satellites is not out of the reach of the common person. Of their focus. But but this is different, as you were saying, Matt, because this is it is one still image, but it is Um, it is pretty clear, and I think the main conversation now is, well, without getting too far ahead of ourselves, what the hell is it? Well, yeah, there are a lot of possibilities. UM. One of the one of the primary writers there from the debrief that's been speaking about this is a guy named Tim McMillan who also contributes to Popular Mechanics, and uh, he's done a pretty great job of, you know, writing about this thing. And then several other people have been doing some great reporting. But they're just saying that there are um, multiple people confirming that this thing was a part of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon task Forces efforts to look at things. It was classified in that way it comes from. UM, I don't know what it is, but there's a lot of conjecture about that. Let's see, it was encountered by a pilot flying over the Atlantic Ocean on the East coast of the United States in that year. And the image that we're seeing that if you look on any of these websites, it was captured on a cell phone. It's not as though it was part of the onboard systems of that that fighter jet. The I think it's an f A eight ten F super hornet Um. It was just a cell phone image. It was snapped from from inside the cockpit, which is crazy to think about. And this guy that I was mentioning, the writer Timmillan, he describes it as inverted and bell shaped and having ridges or other protrusions along its lateral edges extending towards its base, kind of the way Noll you're describing it there. It's really interesting because the possibilities are all over the place. One of the major ones that that Popular Mechanics is pointing to is a GPS drop sand at the end. Yeah, d R O P S O N D e uh. And essentially what you were the theory there is that what you're seeing is actually a parachute um that has been deployed to one of these things. That makes a lot of sense actually looking at it. Yeah, it's possible that it could be that, but the issue is that the actual mechanical thing that is attached to that parachute doesn't appear to be in the photograph. And just to be clear, like if it were a GPS drops on a conventional one, then it would have that cylinder hanging down from that that parachute, and and it doesn't. It doesn't have that piece of it. Also, Matt, when you originally said that you objected to the idea of it being described as looking tube shaped. I think I think part of it is down to the distance and the perspective. It looks like the person in the back seat. There's a two seater fighter. It looks like a person in back seat is taking this photograph over someone's shoulder, as you said, from a cell phone as they're flying, and from that distance without zooming in, it would look cube shaped. So I think we're we've got the benefit of analysis here. But I did notice the same thing when you mentioned that. Yeah, no, for sure, and and again we only have the image and then what the fighter pilots had to say about it, um, And here is just another extra piece of information from that writer. McMillan says, quote pilots who encounter the object described that unlike a balloon under similar conditions, or perhaps even you know, a parachute of some sort, the object was completely motionless and seemingly unaffected by ambient air currents, which would you know, would speak to it having some kind of propulsion system that's allowing it to stay in one place rather than being taken just you know by the air current, right. Yeah, because the GPS drops on is like it's it's dropping the whole time. That's that's a it's a parachute. It's just kind of slows it down. It doesn't stop it in the middle of the air. And I always think about this, is it possible maybe the it given the rate of descent, if this were just a parachute and the angle and speed of the plane, is it possible that it could have appeared to be motionless? But if that feels like some of the pilots would already have known how to suss out, right, because they fly for a living. Yeah, for sure. You know. The only other thing I can imagine is that the if it was it drops on or something like this that's really heavy, somehow the parachute itself is actually being pushed towards so the air current is moving towards the pilots to where at such a rate that it's actually the drops on is obscured out of view on the other side, like away from the pilots. But then again they're they're passing by it, so they would see it on the other side. Then it would just be on the pilots too, look back, I guess, and check it out on the other side. But again I don't think that's physically possible, at least at the altitude where it was, where it was found, um, in the conditions, the air conditions. I I don't know, man, it's definitely weird, right it's in Just chalk it up to another very strange aerial phenomena that has been recorded and officially was in the on the books of the government program that's been out there looking at it since two thousand twelve, at least according to the official story. I don't know. I don't know what else to say about this guy's I just know I'm gonna keep looking for news on it, and I think we're gonna keep seeing stories like this. I think we're gonna keep It's like like we've said in the call we were talking about just in general on the show as who who was it the gentleman that was the head of the Israeli space program who came out and made some pretty extreme statements um about disclosure level events, and it just feels like the facade is cracking a little bit, and we're gonna keep seeing a little drips and drafts and stories like the don't make the news as much anymore, which I think is really telling. I don't know how you guys feel about that fact that these stories aren't like front page news is because everything else is so left up that like this is just sort of a drop in the bucket. Or I was in in conversation with a friend of mine about the idea of these sort of reports being just delegitimized over time, just the whole idea of them, or of the discussion even like not having a place in public discourse, it just being inherently fringe because of terms of abuse like conspiracy theories and you know all that stuff. UM, I'm wondering what your thoughts are man been on on why this stuff doesn't crack through when it clearly is legitimate news, especially the Israeli UM, you know, space program ahead and some of the things that we've been seeing coming out of retired Air Force people and and you know, these these footage from pilots and the like. There's a lot to say about all of that well, but there's no way currently to prove any of the statements that were made by or at least too publicly, too anyway to any I would say, actively working researcher that is not under some kind of gag order or you know, working on some kind of classified program to come out and verify any of the things that were stated by h Oh goodness Ben what was his name, former general in Israeli forces as well, even someone with those kind of credentials, there's no way to prove what he's saying. And the only thing that could be said is you deny that there's some classified material. You can't say yes or no to it. You just say we can't confirm or deny this. Um. There's no good way to address it, I don't think unless unless you come out and you just say, yes, what he's saying is true. Yeah, get ready held under your butts. Um. It's like the you know, there's a similar phenomenon we see in the debriefs report on this this photograph. Because they reached out to Uncle Sam and the official like the Pentagon's response was we can't give you any more details other than it was somewhere east of this one continent, and it was over the ocean. We can't say anything else because it might what what is it like? It might compromise our operations. They don't want to give enemy information. Uh So, so that kind of obstucation, even if necessary, does lend itself to speculation. And I will say that we live in a time and the culture now where we are all encouraged to believe in like instant gratification, or that things play out like a things play out the way that our favorite televised dramas or films do. There's not life does not bay a three act structure, right they are These reports may be increasing in frequency, but it is somewhat self centered to like it's the way that doomsday cults work because people like to think, naturally, I will be alive during this hugely important events. You know what I mean? Just because we feel that there's nothing wrong with having feelings here, they're great. But just because people feel that way doesn't automatically, uh make it true. You know what I mean? I do see an increase frequency, but I don't know what that means. Matt. I mean you think I think you make one of the most important points here, which is that if this were a magic eight ball, we would need the answer would be asked again later right now. And look, I really want there to be extraterrestrials, and I really want them to be like out in the open in my lifetime. That's fine. If it leads to my painful death, I don't care of how to come for a while. It'll just be willing to live in that time. I want them to be cool and smarter than us, but like willing to share and be chill and like make make life better. And that's my like benevolent uh you know, optimistic view of disclosure. I know the reality is it will probably be like we we are a cancerous plague upon the universe, and they're going to exterminate us, probably with good reason. But you know, I'm holding out hope for the at least somewhere in the middle of those two they we had a rough year, Aliens, you know, come come hang with us, share your wisdom. Want the galactic federations. I want the galactic Federation. What we're gonna get are the borg And that's just how it's going to be. Right, Well, we won't know what we're getting the concept of it being anything remotely like us is incredibly uh incredibly anthrocentric. So we that's what I'm saying. It's going to be the board. It's it's gonna be a thing that takes all the biological material around it and turns it into itself. Maybe maybe it'll be Maybe it'll be one of those happy accidents where like the extraterrestrial forces consider plastic and microplastics the most important like rare commodity, and then the pollution, and then they eat up the pollution to finish brilliant ben that is brilliant. Well, let us know what what you think about all of this, and I'm gonna leave us with a message from Pentagon spokeswoman Susan go Ready. To maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, d o D does not discuss publicly the details of reports, observations, or examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, and including those incursions initially designated as unidentified aerial phenomena. I hope that helps everyone's sleep, put me to sleep, and uh, look if they're aliots. We're not gonna tell you if you parted the sentence, which is all right. Thank you so much Matt for giving us a call. We will be right back after a word from our sponsor, and we're back, um, And we've got a little update to a story that I think has been on the minds of conspiracy realists and theorists and true crime junkies alike for many many years. And it's something very near and dear to our compatriot Matt Frederick's heart, in the form of a fantastic podcast series that he executive produced called Monster Colin The Zodiac Killer, Um. And it's something I think it's been just like in the zeitgeist as long as I've been thinking about crime and and and serial killers. And it is that for a reason, because it's largely I mean not largely, it's remained unsolved, and it's a real mystery. There's a lot of weird inconsistencies about it and the mode of victim choosing and all of that that's really baffled UM detectives and investigators for many many years. It's the subject of a fabulous David Fincher films called Zodiac, which I love because it's sort of slow, but it harkens back to like a kind of a Scorsese sort of seventies kind of now it's less it's it's more seventies than Scorsese. It's got a lot of like plotting kind of moments and then punctuated by bursts of stabbings and like violence, and then it goes back to being very placid and kind of cerebral. I'm a big fan of the film, even though it's not for everybody, but if you haven't seen, highly recommended. And a big part of the Zodiac Killer was his or there I guess fixation on taunting and communicating with the press and the government. Matt, you want to talk a little bit about that aspect of it, And that's my favorite part. And I think, what um and so intriguing one of the parts that's so intriguing about it. Sure. Yeah. The killer or alleged killer or a person impersonating the killer would often call the police departments. Um many times he did that. One of his favorite things to do was to send messages written handwritten messages to the San Francisco Chronicle and a couple like local papers out there in Valleo and a couple of other towns, and he would yeah, like you said, taunt them with written English words. But then he would also include things called the cipher's uh or you know, we're referred to as cipher's there, like codes essentially encrypted messages that he would then further taunt these publications and the police to try and solve it. Basically, UM, I bet you can't solve You're not smart enough, essentially, um. And several had been have been solved in the past. One was solved very early by a teacher and her husband. UM I believe, forgive me if I'm incorrect there, but it was solved very early, just by a couple of amateur, amateur people who were interested in it and they spent some time on it. But there was one called the three forty cipher that for fifty one years was unsolved. Um. And it's something that you know, it was frustrating and making that show just still not to have answers to it. I, you know, was very surprised to all out of the blue see see that it had been solved. Ben and I were texting, and I was very skeptical. I was just like, oh, yeah, Okay, there's nothing new here. It's just him boasting again being an a hole or who this person, whoever Zodiac was or claimed to be um. But there's some interesting stuff in there. I looked in at further be and you're right in what you were saying. Well, it is a little fascinating, and sorry, no, not to get in front of This is a listener mail show. We are getting to a piece of listener mail at some point. But it is um fascinating and it's uh tantalizing in the most the most tragic way. Because I whenever we talk about these things, I wanna make sure that people know we are well aware that real, innocent people died, and I hate how exploitative some of that stuff can become. I want to praise Monster because it is the opposite of that, and it is very smart and very well done. I don't want to put you on the spot or blow you up, Matt, but it's true. It's not a compliment or criticism, it's observation. It's very well done. And the thing about the thing about this this case is that at some points there was this huge belief. Correct me if I'm off base here, guys, but there was this huge belief that the zodiac disc closed their real name or a real clue to their identity one of these ciphers, and so that's that's part of why there's so much energy put into solving them even decades later. And this, uh, well he said, he said as much. He said, solve this one essentially, and you'll find out who I really am. And there's this one line of code that's supposedly his name. But if you speak with the experts who've been working on this for a long time, it's almost impossible to solve for that one line of code because you don't have enough information essentially to figure out what all the characters mean. That that's one of the big things with solving the original ciphers that were solved by those amateurs. There was so much there that they could just do kind of substitution and they were able to figure it out. It's also funny, like not to get too caught up in the pop culture side of them, but like I think it's pretty clear that this case was a big influence on a lot of serial killer type fiction, especially Seven, which is Dave A. Fincher's first big, very interesting movie. Because a feature of that killer was also taunting the detectives, you know that we're on the hunt for this killer. And I think that's also probably something that even goes back to like Hitchcock and older tropes and in this kind of storytelling. But this modern version of that, to me, a lot of that comes from the Zodiac. Um. So back to the listener male aspect of it all, only to say it was as a listener named Dan that just sent us a link to this article about uh Zodiac killer code breakers solved San Francisco killers cipher. Uh just said, on the off chance you guys didn't see this yet, So thanks Dan, We had seen it, we were chatting about it, but this gave us a great opportunity to talk about it on the show outside of listener mail. Um. So the bad news is, I don't know if it's even considered bad news. Is it's It's not like this is some sort of game changer for the case. It's not like there was some hidden message in the cipher that is going to really crack the thing wide open to let people know who of the Zodiac killer was. It's a lot of the same kind of egotistical taunting that that the killer was already doing. Would you agree with you? That is that fair to say? Matt? That was my initial reaction to seeing the solution that David ran Chat came back with somebody we we spoke with on the podcast. By the way, I didn't know that. That's awesome. UM So let you decide for yourselves. Here is the full message that ourran check posted in the metadata for a YouTube video that's sort of like, Uh, I guess the scoop on this? Uh? Is this announcement Let's Crack the Zodiac episode five? I guess it's a podcast or what is it? It's just like a YouTube channel to YouTube series. Yeah, so right now it has one point four million views, get approaching one point five. Um, and here is what it says. I hope you're having lots of fun and trying to catch me. That wasn't me on the TV show, which brings up a point about me. I'm not afraid the gas chamber because it will send me to Paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me where everyone else has nothing. When they reach Paradise, keep spelling paradise with a sea at the end, which is interesting. Yeah, so they are afraid of death. I am not afraid because I know that my new life is um lit some like you know, weird anachronistic grammar and spellings all throughout this life will be an easy one in paradise death. Yeah, I yes, interesting stuff, right, I mean he's talked about, at least in previous communications, z or Zodiac talked about gathering slaves and his belief, at least his stated belief that when he kills an individual, they become his slave in the afterlife. Talked about that a lot, and that was at least what he claimed. That was one of his motivations that he claimed. Um Again, it's hard to know because all we have are these messages that are essentially taunts. Right that he could be really what he thinks, really what he means, or he could just be talking a bunch of stuff, or he might not have that line of consistency, which is something we see happen pretty often. Right, people's stated motivations for doing something will change, and they don't feel like they're lying because they're already so unstable that whatever feels like the truth to them at that moment is the truth. Very possibly but the coolest things about this that you know on further looking at it, because I didn't see the thing about the TV show that's that's a huge standout. Uh. There was an incident on this this show called the Jim Dunbar Show where an attorney named Melvin bell I went on there and they were taking calls essentially trying to get Zodiac to call into the show, and someone called in claiming to be Zodiac and they specifically mentioned that they were afraid they didn't want to go to the gas chamber essentially, So this in the timeline matches up by the way, for this to be sent pretty soon after that incident on the Jim Dunbar Show. So the concept here that the Zodiac is replying to that instance saying that's not me. I'm not afraid of the gas chamber. It wasn't me on the TV show. That is fascinating and it further solidifies that this is the actual Zodiac. Why do that, particularly in such a difficult to crack code. If you're if you're trying to respond to something that you see as like an affront to your whole thing, Well, in a weird way, it's it's an intellectual game that's being played here. There's time like the amount of time that it would take to solve this. Even if you were successful at solving it's going to take you a lot longer to do that. Um. It speaks to your the character that you are building as this your real killer because really, if if I learned anything about Zodiac, it's that it's a person who needed attention terribly, like craved it and needed it even when they're killing people. Yeah, can we really quickly talk about why ciphers like this are so difficult to decode? Um? Because because I mean, what ended up happening I believe was a combination of algorithmic technology and human U involvement. And you know, we we've talked about things like this on the show plenty um and they're just not easy. And I guess it's because each set of characters is generated by an individual, and so it's difficult to you know, there's there's like so many combinations and potential possibilities that it's difficult. It's like running, it's like doing a brute force attack on a password or something like. It's not easy, but it's even more difficult than that. Well, there are a couple of aspects here. First, I want to get back to um, Sorry I should have been more clear. I want to get back to what I was saying. The there's to add to your point, Matt, because I don't want to lose it. Uh. There's also a mark of authenticity that comes through in these ciphers, which is very big. Right for the question or the remarks you're you're having to about the cipher. What's what's fascinating is not just the process of cracking it, but how like the questions about the typos are they a are they themselves and encoding error on the on the side of zodiac or are they purposefully meant to make the code more difficult? Uh? And also process aside. One of the one of the most amazing things, at least to me about this is that they were able to not just cracked the cipher and this something I want to throw to you, Matt, is but they were also able to find an example of something like this cipher in a military man Wolf from the nineteen fifties. Yes, but they did that after they cracked the code, right m hm. Yes, but it was kind of known for a while there that it was military encryption that was being used as one of the main things. There was also connection to military boots of a couple other connections to someone possibly being former military in the military or at least an enthusiast of some kind of post you know, post use military store or something like that. Who knows. But yeah, the encryption was this one in particular did end up going back there. And again it's a credit to David Ranshack and a couple of their guys, Sam Blake, I think it's Yarrel van Ike. That's another person from Belgium. They all worked really really hard on this and the encryption is crazy. The way they solved it. No, if I would just recommend because I can't explain it to you right now it's too difficult. But if you go and watch Let's Crack Zodiac episode five on YouTube right now, David lays out exactly what the algorithm is doing, what the human input was like, how they actually changed a couple of things. They did some cribbing on their own and then had to manipulate the code itself to get to the right thing. Because it's crazy, it's crazy, I will and I've been um your point. I think it's really interesting. So you're saying, perhaps the zodiac made those end uh typos on purpose to throw off an algorithm or to throw off like pattern recognition, because we wouldn't read as a certain word anymore or a certain sequence. I've said, it's it's possible. Uh, it's just one of the many things I learned from checking out monster. It's true, like, uh, yeah, that's one thing. But then the reason that stays in the realm of speculation is because we would have to some degree gauge intent. So it could be a purposeful kind of red airring to throw a little obstacle to bake into the labyrinth there, or it could be an honest mistake because these are pretty complex ciphers, you know what I mean. This is big pay at and lay Well, it does seem that that there was one line that was shifted over by a character, and that seemed I don't know if that was done in error. Maybe it was again another booby trap essentially, um, but that could have been a mistake. UM. And he misspelled things in his regular correspondence all the time, whoever zodiac was. But Christmas with two s is like the Paradise thing was spelled with a ce a ton and when he's actually writing it out, so you know, misspelling, I think is a common thing for whoever this person was um and either being a terrible speller or doing it on purpose, I don't know. A lot of the experts pointed to to the belief that he was doing it on purpose. Oh, and the FBI is fully acknowledged this, uh, this cracking of the code and made a statement the San Francisco Division of the FBI. The FBI is aware that a cipher attributed to the Zodiac Killer was recently solved by private citizens. The Zodiac Killer case remains on an ongoing investigation for the FBI San Francisco Division and our local law enforcement partners. The Zodiac Killer terrorized multiple communities across northern California, and even though decades have gone by, we continue to see justice for the victims of these brutal crimes. Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation and out of respect for the victims and their families, we will not be providing further comment at this time. Yeah, it's true, it's an ongoing case and if you try and talk to the San Francisco Police department as there the whole injustice. They're just like, nah, no, we can't talk about it. Sorry, And then you past them for a long time and they're like nah, because there's there's a possibility, you know, that there are other murders that might eventually be tied in with it might be the person's work, and there's of course the possibility that that person uh may still somehow you alive. There is a possibility, but it's like not a major possibility, right, but it's but it's cool to because there is, right, I mean, we can't discount it. A lot of the major, the major people who would have been considered suspects have passed already. Um, just so you guys know, right before this recording, I talked to Michael Butterfield, uh, the our zodiac expert that we talked to for a monster, the Zodiac Killer, and he had just spoken with with David ran Chack, and he did some great writing on Zodiac killer facts dot com. Uh, there's a huge article on there where he goes over a lot of the details and if anybody's interested, you can basically click through links for a long time on that and see everything you'd want to find out about it, and big, big shout out to Michael Butterfield for always being right on the money with his his writing and research. Um. But yeah, I mean this time obviously goes without saying, but there is no statute of limitation Zonne murder. So the SFPD will I'm sorry that whatever, yeah to them, but also the PI will continue to not talk about this until there's a break in the case, and even if that person is dead, you know, they will contend. I mean, I think that's fascinating that aspect of detective work and law enforcement, that like that doggedness that was requires, like you understand why they want to check off cases and close cases and and and pin things on people because otherwise it's just out there. You know, everybody wants closure. Oh yeah, no, you're so right. Can I can I just just say one more thing, you guys in the in the actual written out portion that was solved thereby Ranchack and the fellows, so they had to transpose the characters before they actually then tried to solve it. So there's a multi part there's a multi step way to solve this thing. They found that life is was written out on the top right hand side of the thing, and they just excluded that from the rest of the solve that they put through for the cipher, and David's initial concept was to put it after that my new and then they just inserted life is there. I think that's incorrect. I think it should say I am not afraid because I know that my new and then it would go to the next line, life will be an easy one in Paradise. Then that life is would be inserted there where it is. That's the end um life will be an easy one in Paradise. New line life is death. That's I think what it would because I think what it was, because that is what is it now. It's just is death, right. It says that my new life is life will be an easy one in Paradise death in Paradise death. That's right. I thought. I remember that feeling anachronistic there at the end, like there was something missing. That's that's that's good. He he would do that all the time, and the other ones that were solved, it just it felt like that's not the end of a sentence. That's like a whole new thought, and he would just put him in weird places. So just a concept I'm may be wrong. No, that sense makes a lot of sense to me. Um And and kudos to the team behind this for for cracking this obviously fascinating to a lot of people that have been following this case for so long. Um And who knows, maybe there could be more breaks, but um, I think it's time to take another break of our own. Huh. And then we'll be back with more listener mail. And we have returned. This is this is a fascinating one. It's one that's a Matt and I were gosh, Matt, you you say that we touched on this at some points, uh? And I honestly I don't remember whether we did or not, but I thought this would be interesting to our sound nerds, our conspiracy realist and our our our hurts fans in the why why not? I think I think no one might recall it better even than us, just because I called it something wrong? What did I call this something wrong? Ben? What? What is it? The Devil's try tone, Devil's interval? But here's no spoilers. I don't want to give everybody along prologue. OK, let's let's go ahead and play it. Please, let's hear this one Yo, what's up, Fellas. My name is Keith. I'm calling from Chicago, musician out here and Matt said something on the air the other day about pop ps in the microphone and I left it on the review. But those are called plosives. Cool term I learned when I was studying music in college. Anyways, UM, the other thing I wanted to know is if you guys have ever done a show on the conspiracy that we tune the pitch of A to four hundred and forty hurts and there is, you know, conspiracy theories that the Nazis wanted that to be the tone because it causes a little more dissonance between the animals. Now, UM, a lot of the time, people you'll see videos on YouTube and such that if you tune to four three to thirty two hurts, that you get a much calmer and cleaner tone. UM. I have honestly not done much for research into this, but I do find it interesting because comparatively, when you play two different pieces at those different tunings, you notice a sound. UM. I think it's a cool concept. I don't know if you guys have touched on it. Once again, man, my name is Keith, calling from Chicago. You guys are great from Chicago, So Keith Uh, first off, thank you so much. We are in the world of podcasting. We're very well aware of closives, the popped pas and the bupped bees. Bupped is a word I just made up that will work, But sure, and the UH. The thing that's interesting about this is we've there's there are quite a few conspiracies in the world of sound, Matt Miell. That's one of the reasons I wanted to share this hall with you today. We've talked about the brown note in the past, and we've talked about the ways in which sound and frequencies can uh you can influence the human mind and past a certain threshold, do physiological damage to people. But but at this point, what's fascinating about this is that this is a tremendously like popular conspiracy UH theory, and it ties into a couple of different things. I believe Keith that you said tuning was it for I think you've been to say four D and forty the standard for middle A. Yeah, and then you'll see these You'll see tons of if you just a cursory search on YouTube, you'll see tons of things about tuning a to order in thirty two hurts gives it some sort of assumed uh medicinal properties like healing or soothing properties, and that the entire reason we have four dred and forty hurts is because of Joseph Garbel's, the Nazi Minister of propaganda. So first questions for you guys on you heard it before, Uh, to where do you think it comes from? I had not heard this before, but in listening to Keith, I immediately started googling it and found a great article um from Global News dot c A about the great four or forty Hurts conspiracy. And uh, this is right at my alley because I'm really in particular into synthesis and like electronic music, and so the idea of like hurts and tuning is really fascinating because you can, like, if you play two tones that are just slightly de tuned by the intervals that we're talking about. These aren't even whole step intervals. These are like micro tones basically, So like you can play four forty along with like a four four thirty seven and you'll get a little bit of phasing and this sentence and kind of like almost a CHORUSI effect. But they're not like two completely different notes. They're like almost the notes in between the notes. And we can talk more about microtones and stuff as we go. But I think this is fascinating, and it's the idea, the notion that Girbel's had is that it would make people more aggressive. Isn't that right? Yeah, yeah, let's dig into it. Matt. You've said, however, that you had heard, you had heard something like this before. This is not something I've delved very deeply into. I had heard the rumors online, usually on message boards where I've seen it where somebody is, you know, purporting to or claiming that the four or forty thing was a sinister move um tim to make things more minor and to put more tension just in the public sphere, essentially to make things just more overly sinister. Yeah, but but again it didn't feel it never felt like, I don't know a way to make any change. I guess like, let's d tune these things a little bit. Yeah, like it's it's weaponizing music. Right to your point, Noll, there's this the So the conspiracy lore is that once upon a very dark time, then Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Garrible's said, we are gonna tune everything to four forty hurts because this makes them a prisoner of their consciousness. And then later in line with this story, there's the idea that the Rockefeller Foundation forced the US overall, every part of the US to adopt the four forty hurt standard in to lead to a musical cult controls. So the ideas that you can you can turn up the notch on people's agitation in their mental state through this very subtle way, uh, this subtle thing that they won't notice, but it will change their their behavior. We do know that music can be used to uh well sometimes it's called a prime people to make them more likely to do or not to do certain things. But it seems, I mean, Keith, this is fascinating to me. But it seems it seems a little um God who is true would be incredibly complicated, wouldn't it or would it be complicated? Well, I want to just clarify something I said at the top. I said that the difference between like say, four forty and four thirty eight isn't as perceptible to the ear as as like four forty and four thirty two. For example, but that's not entirely true. It's sort of like overstating the case because but when you're talking about hurts and and tonal scales, they're divided up into micro tones, and there's twelve I'm sorry, semi tones, and and an octave is a range of twelve semi tones in between two steps in a scale, and that is divided into one hundred songs, which is like a smaller unit of measurement between those scales. So the difference between four forty and four thirty two is actually thirty two songs. So a single salt D tuning between two notes would create more of that phasey kind of cool effect that I was talking about. But thirty two songs is gonna be like in the neighborhood of a couple of whole steps are like you know, it's it's two completely different tuning standards. So I don't want to overstate the case there with what I said you want to clarify. But I think the reason this is interesting to me is because it's changing the foundation, so everything else changes around it. Right, So it's it's not changing the relationship between notes, it's just changing the like um standard around which every other interval is based, so four thirty two would actually be lower in pitch than four forty, but that just means that the whole thing is lower and the standard is lower, so you can still play every note in the scale as high as you want to go. So that's why the idea of this having some sort of like, I mean, I can understand different intervals make you feel things like the idea of a blue note and a scale makes you feel sad, or there are things in music that can communicate ideas um like you know, the hero's victory and using different numerology and having them built up. But that has to be built into intervals, not just a single standardized fundamental that everything else is built around. So that part confuses me a little bit as a musician. I would love to hear Keith's perspective on that how that you know works because it gets so nuts, because the reasoning behind this will also bring in numerology, saying that, for instance, the number four and in thirty two itself has special properties because it is the some of four consecutive prime numbers one oh three, one oh seven, one oh nine, one one three. For anybody interested in that, uh, and then there's the idea that it is somehow operating on a different chakra that for forty works on the third eye chakra, the thinking chakra, and four thirty two simulates what's called the heart or the feeling chakra. However, I should say before you get to however, you will also see people arguing that, uh, there should be a different It shouldn't be four thirty two at all, that the healthy setting should actually be five eight. And it's also based on these things you're a little bit difficult to prove. I found this show called Exposing pseudo Astronomy podcast which I thought was really interesting. In episode one forty one, they dive into this and Keith I would recommend I tend to read things more than I listened to them. So there there's great writing about this. But if you're looking for stuff, I would recommend checking out the podcast, give us a call back. Let's no weight think of it. But this this person reads into this and they pointed out something that I think a lot escapes a lot of us, which is first just science aside when we exercise our critical thinking here, wouldn't this mainly only apply to Western music? So wouldn't would it be somewhat kind of uh eurocentric there, like this conspiracy couldn't even if the Nazis did it, he couldn't work in other areas of the world. Right, not to mention this. I was reading on message board, and there's a lot of things to consider us to which UM tuning standard works best, and a lot of it is practical things like violins only have four strings, and if you started, like changing the standard of tuning to be much higher, those strings are going to be too tight and they're not going to generate the proper freedom of vibration to get the purest tone. So like, if you had to tune a violin up, you're tuning it to tighten the string and it's not going to vibrate as freely and it's not going to be as pleasing to listen. To say the same with the guitar, like you can use a capo, which like literally bars over the fret to make it tire, But when you start tuning a guitar up by actually tightening the strings, it changes the fundamental quality of the strings and how they interact scientifically. So uh, it matters, right, And I think that's where the big argument was between like France and and uh in different parts of In Austria, for example, there was a disagreement between the French and the Austrians as to the standard and it came down to the fundamentals of like how a string actually vibrates, the optimum condition for the string to give the best sound. There are other things we could, like let's look at it from all angles. So there's another scientific aspect here. The idea that a vibration could the main argument is that affects the mind. Right, that's the that there is some insidious plan to me. People just kind of uptight, antsy and ready to tangle, right, give them that late night at a bar on during Marty Gras energy. So wait, now, that's unfair to Marty Gras late night at a bar at the end of a punk show energy. That's what they're saying. This this will do. But the human body is huge, and it's composed of tiny molecules in different arrangements, different sizes, and a vibration, a single vibration, if it could affect the at least the human body at a profound level like this, then we would be going crazy all of the time because we are around so many sounds and vibrations that we do not often consciously register, right, So that's that's fascinating to me here. But there's also a study I checked out that you might find interesting, Keith. It was published in the National Library of Medicine. You can find in a pub med dot gov so scientific papers. So the title is super Sexy Right music tuned to four forty hurts versus four thirty two and the Health Effects Colan a double blind crossover pilots study. Here's what they did. They took thirty three volunteers with no pre existing conditions, no acute UH and or chronic diseases, right, and they had them each to two sessions of music listening on different days. Both used the same music movie soundtracks, but one day it was tuned to four forty and another day to four thirty two. And this these sessions were twenty minutes long. And what they found is the data suggests quote that four hundred and thirty two hurts tuned music can decrease heart rate more than four forty hurts tuned music. The study results suggest repeating the experiment with a larger sample pool and introducing randomized controlled trials covering more clinical parameters. So at least one studies said there might be something nicer about four thirty two, although you can see a lot of problems with that study to it and I while we were talking, I just found a site, all right. It was on the same article that we were referencing, the Global News site, and it has two versions of the song the Scientists by cold Play, one of them out standard for forty and one of them at four thirty two. If this is correct, then the difference between four forty and four thirty two is much more subtle. It's more like what I was originally saying than what I backtracked on the second time, because when you play them at the same time, it gives this nice, gentle phasing effect. And if you play them one after the other, one just sounds ever so slightly lower than the other, and it doesn't like change the whole tuning or the whole like feel of the thing. But if you play them at the same time, they're just fairly different to the point where they still can coexist and just create this kind of warm phasing effect. And that's actually something that we do in music production a lot, or in synthesis if you have two synth tones playing at the same time, if you de tune one of them slightly, you keep playing them at the same time. It just makes it sound fatter, it makes it sound more lush, and it almost has this like that. We call it a chorusing effect um and it's something that's that's applied in music production a lot. So UM. I really would recommend listeners check out this Global News article of a great four or forty hurts conspiracy and why All Our Music is Wrong by Alan Cross because it's got some good Uh, it's got some good examples on there that we can't afford to play on the podcast. Oh I should, yeah, I should mention the authors of that study too. That's the Letta Calabossi and John Paolo Pomponium. So what I was asking about that study is what do you guys think about that? Like do you feel I mean, their problems with it, but do you think that it's there's something inherent to those tones that makes people have a lower heart rate or is it just something else that happened in the course of the study. It's the golden ratio. I would think something else likely everything that I've seen tends to categorize this as pseudo science a little bit um, but that's just no. What No, the golden ratio, nol. I do love that aspect of it, which which one is is for forty the golden ratio or no. That's fascinating and I do love that, and it doesn't make me think, like, why why did we pick for forty if thirty two is present in nature? And it's like, you know, it was to throw off the balance and only those in the know would use four thirty two so they could create the pyramids. Yeah, yeah, that's right, But I mean this gosh, man, to think about that. Imagine if the actual tones of music were being hidden from us, Like it's just you know what I mean, it's it's so tantalizing. It's like that, it's the thing you said before. It's just very good conspiracy, like grade a choice meat, that kind of concept. Yeah. I can't believe it was so often thinking that we've discussed this before, but I think it came back to the human residents. You guys, remember that the concept of the heartbeat of the earth. It was super low frequency thing that we apparently can detect because of thunderstorms, of all things um, because they're sentient. Got you there, we are there. It is um. But but some of the mathematics I think are the most fascinating to the mathematics of it are fascinating to me. The being able to divide these frequencies in specific ways that are going to get you back down to this thing that feels to being more natural, I think for the for the Earth's patterns. Yeah, so this is I mean, Keith, you set us on a journey here. Massively appreciate it, and also massively appreciate Matt uh for oh that one, massively appreciate every match, say hi Matt in your lives, and massive things to Dan for leading us through these are these are rabbit holes, were unraveling things that are still technically continually with without the uh. The instrument conspiracy, I guess if it's real, is still continuing. But totally can said one last tiny thing on the instrument stuff, only just a recommendation if listeners are interested. Um. There is something called microtonal music which doesn't have the same like rigid like step adheration between notes. So there's a band that I love and I think I've talked about on the show called King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Uh. And they have a record called Flying microtonal Banana where they essentially every song on it uses microtnes, which just means that instead of a whole step or a half step, it's every possible micro step in between. And it can make you feel different. And it has sort of a Middle Eastern quality to it because sit ours, for example, have microtnes and a lot of Eastern instruments use microtones. So this idea of like standardization and tuning to your point band is very much a Western thing. But absolutely that's that was absolute ball for me, that discussion, So thank you very much to the listener that sent that in. But we have one more surprise. We promised it at the top. We want to deliver you see, folks, as we were heading in to record listener mail today, we realized that we owe a huge shout out to the Bacologists on Instagram, the proprietor of Atlanta's own Bacology Cookies and Cakes. I'm showing you guys the box. Uh. A few months or a few months or weeks ago, sorry sorry Bay College. You had you had contacted me to ask if we had some sort of mailing address, and you know, typically said, well, you can send stuff to our office, but never feel obligated. And so we got these cookies from the bacologists themselves that are absolute works of art. We were talking about this. I don't even want to eat any of these, but we gotta figure out how to divvy these up, guys. So here's the first one. Can see. It's an chas h if you didn't already use your imagination to put that together, it's a Christmas tree where the top is an eye y'all seeing Illuminati I. And then next we have this, uh, we have this fantastic Happy Holidays, which appears let me try to get the light here better. Okay, it appears to be some sort of kim trail sprouting plane, which is perfect. Sky Blue got of course the stuff they don't want you to your logo on this cookie. These are all these are all pretty amazing. And then I got this UFO thing. I thought like that, like, these are works of art, and then a Q and on, a very classy Q and on. This is the most classy thing to happen to qu on on Ever, it's a Christmas cue though it's guy, it's like a candy striped candy Kane. And then and then I got a and then we got a big Foot cookie, which is just like classic side profile. I don't think any of us want to eat eat these. And we were talking off Mike about how isn't there a thing you can do to like preserve a cookie and make it a Christmas ornament. Matt, you chime to you seem to think the answer is yes, yeah, sure, you cover anything with you know, certain clearer substances that are very hard, you can you can preserve it enough. No ding on your baking skills in terms of the taste. But these are absolutely works of art and I think we would all benefit from the much more as a as as tree ornaments. Then I'm going to eat at least two. Okay, sorry, well we are. We're going to call it a day because we have to divvy up these cookies for posterity. But thank you so much to the bacologists. Thank you so much to everybody who takes time out of the day to check out the show, to write to us, to share stories with fellow listeners. If you want to be part of the conversation, find us on Instagram, find us on Facebook, find us on Twitter. I love to recommend here's where it gets crazy. That's where you can continue the conversation after the episode ends and we'll we'll pop in there occasionally you might see us. Yeah, you can do that. You can also find uh us as individuals if you wish. I'm on Instagram at how Now, Noel Brown, I am Matt and Bat Frederick Underscore iHeart. Maybe that's the one. If you want to uh, if you want to see my hot takes on relatively irrelevant things, you can find me at ben Bullet h s W on Twitter. UH. If you want to write me directly with questions, then just give just shoot me a line on Instagram where I'm at ben Bullet. Hey, if you want to contact us via phone, like several other people did on this episode, please call one eight three three st d w y t K and we're happy to report that people continue to call include this person. 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