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 Noel. They called 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 the stuff they don't want you to know. It is a Thursday if you're listening to this on the day it comes out, which means it is time for our weekly listener male segment. It is, by the way, definitely not brought to you by this thing Lucky Jack. I don't know, Matt Noel. Can guys see this Doc? Yeah? Yeah, like coffee. Um, that's what it says on the label. But I'm starting to debate it. You know, maybe I've just been drinking trash coffee for so long. I can't drink the fancy stuff. But this is not brought to you by Lucky Jack instaid. If this is brought to you by coffee, it's brought to you by and the whole crew knows about this, this oversized graft that I just keep guzzly. You're gonna everybody's gonna die. Life's of one way trip. Your heart's just gonna explode like on air. And what a way to go. I mean, honestly, it'll it'll do a lot for the show. I'm sure, yes. Uh, But before we go gentle into that good night, Uh, let's rage against the diet of the light in the form of letters and calls from you. We are going to travel just outside of Bangkok. We're going to hear about what what one listening calls the greatest video conspiracy of all time, time, time time. And before we do any of that, we're going to, uh, we're gonna get a little red lodge with it. I would say, we're gonna we're gonna follow up on something we teased in a previous episode. Uh, something about masking, something about backwards not anti masking, though this is a different kind of I don't know about you guys, but I'm pro masked. Whether or not there's a pandemic. It's just time for this species to admit of eighty percent of human beings look better with a mask on. I would tend to agree. The type of masking we're talking about today is of the backwards variety or just back masking, which is a term that was probably invented by lawmakers, puritanical ones in particular evangelical ones that you know, back when records and rock and roll and uh, you know, all of that stuff was very much associated with wickedness and and the devil, and there was a lot of witch hunt type vibes, you know, satanic panic type um situations involving looking for hidden messages in albums. Um. There's a book I'm actually somewhat close to finishing. I've been listening to it on audiobook for probably most of the pandemic now because I tend to fall asleep and then I wake back up and I have to backtrack. But it is called A Boy's Life, and it's by Robert McCammon, who I think you're familiar with. Ben he wrote a book called Swan Song that I quite like. It's a very good post apocalyptic um kind of situation, sort of like The Stand. It came out around the same time, but it's a lot more gory and kind of uh bleak in my opinion. But this book is about supernatural occurrences. But it's all takes place um in a sort of a small southern town, and there is a part in it where there's a preacher that comes to town who takes of the single of good Vibrations by the Beach Boys and plays it backwards in front of this congregation and said, you see there, you see that sound. You hear that. That's the sound of these devil worshippers trying to you know, convince children to come and follow Satan or whatever. And you know, one of those things where if you listen to it enough you maybe could hear it repeatedly, you know, like when words start to lose their meaning when you say them over and over and over again, sort of the reverse of that. UM. But it very much was a thing, and there were actually trials that you know, we're founded on the notion that suicides, for example, uh took place as a result of hearing these subliminal messages. One in particular involved Rob Halford and the band Judas priest Um. And we had the email you're talking about, Ben, that we teased a wonderful email from a listener who has some experience in this subject, very specifically because he is a musician. And I used to be in a band in the eighties. Um that was very well known, a band from around here that toured with R. E. M. Made records for a Lecturra and Geffen and had a fantastic career in the eighties, and and very beloved. There an Atlanta band called Guadalcanal Diary. Um, and Matt, I believe you spoke to to Murray on the phone, didn't you. Yes, I did. Wonderful human being and and lots and lots of stories to tell about living a life as a professional musician, very cool stuff. And one of those stories, Um, is what was in this email. So I'm just gonna go ahead and get to it, he says, Hello St. Deers, which I love by the way, Um, I listened to the show for a long time and love it. Regarding your five thirty one classic, are there real devil worshippers? You mentioned that in Judas priests legal case. They stated that had they done backward masking, it would have been a message encouraging listeners to buy seven more copies rather than to praise the devil. Uh. He goes on to say, in the nineteen eighties, I was the lead singer in the band Guadalcanal Diary. While in the studio cutting our third album for Electra Records at a period when backward masking and satanic panic were current topics, we did something very similar, but for our own amusement. Our guitarist Jeff Walls Um, who was also an incredibly excellent band called The Woggles Atlanta kind of garage rock band, UM who sadly passed away, I believe in twenty nineteen. UM, but I got to play several shows with them back in the day in a band that I was an excellent, excellent guitarist. Um, Our guitarist Jeff Walls and I recorded the message Kevin, this is a hit song, Howard this is a million seller, and inserted it into the mix in reverse. Kevin and Howard were a and our guys, and we're responsible for encouraging the record company's promotions department to push specific songs. We were curious to see if it would have the desired effect. It did not keep up the great work Murray hadaway. UM. I thought that was just wonderful because it really does kind of hit home the fact that a if anyone was doing this, it was probably for fun or for their own amusement, or as like an Easter egg for listeners. I don't think anyone thinks that any artist was actually thinking that by putting something like this into an album it was going to actually they have some kind of like behavior transforming effect on its listeners. But that was exactly what Judas Priest was accused of doing in that court case twenty five years ago. Or actually the article that I'm reading in Rolling Stone came out in twenty fifteen, so this is like thirty five years ago or more a little more. Um. Rob Halford, the singer that Judice Priest kind of you know, looks back on this um and the claims that were made about the subliminal messages where things being included in their backwards like try suicide, do it and let's be dead, uh and again. You know, these are things that you could probably convince yourself we're in there, just because when you flip words backwards, they sound crazy and they sound they're they're like weird ghost ee syllables. I mean, just try it with anything. You could probably convince yourself that that that it's just about any phrase that you it's like looking at clouds, right. It's like you're looking at cloud formations and you say, oh, that's definitely a anoceras, and somebody else looks like like, no, man, that's a you know, car, or like a choo shoo train or something like that. It's all in the eye or the ear of the beholder. And when you start to push a narrative like, oh, this is definitely about trying to kill yourself, especially if the music has dark undertones in the first place. But I ever found Judice Priests to be particularly dark. They were almost more on the glam tip. I mean, like kind of this like high pitched, kind of like vocal and a little bit you know, not like death metal exactly. It was almost more like kind of glammy, big, you know, rollicking, kind of like theatrical rock. So I always thought it was funny that they kind of got saddled with this um. But they did get off for this charge. Um. It was also, by the way, in a cover song UH cover of the band's Spooky Tooths better by You Better than Me um, which supposedly, according to the courts or the prosecution, influenced two young men uh too and to take their own lives. It was Raymond belled Nap who was eighteen at the time and James Vance, who was twenty that they had spent a lot of time drinking alcohol and smoking weed and listening to this album Staying class Um, after which time they took a shotgun and shot themselves. And I would highly recommend anyone that's interested in this case to check out this article and Rolling Stone from two fifteen UM called Judas Priest Subliminal Message Trial. Rob Halford looks back by Corey grow and it's all you know from the perspective of Halford himself, and he literally says during the case, I really wanted to go over to the mother of the boy who killed himself and give her a hug and say I'm sorry for the loss of your kid. Um, let's go have a coffee and talk. Thisis over? Yeah? Really? Is it just too much experiments or something? And no, that's not it doesn't work for costume did I'm listening but just just cheap enough to feel like I have to fit is drinking it? I totally get it. And um, I just think you know that level of empathy, uh speaks volumes. I think to the fact that This clearly was not any kind of intentional Um, you know, there was no intent behind this other than to just try something clever, should be creative. And I think it's uh maybe the jury is still out on whether they actually inserted those things or if it was just sort of the interpretation of some of these right wing Christian groups. Ben did, did you have any insight on them? Uh? Yeah, I mean you're not far off with the clouds, it's sort of an audio roor shack people. People are hearing what they want to hear it. And you know, we know because we've dove into some explorations this kind of thing, and we have to remember that, you know, uh, we have the benefit of better forensic audio equipment now in terms of software primarily honestly, and at the time people didn't have that. So if they thought, for some maybe sincere reason, that this was a tool of Satan worshiping rock stars, then of course they would hear what they were primed to hear. There's a confirmation bias. But I would also advance you know, this is occurring during the era of Satanic Panic. There were a lot of people, especially politicians, who personally could not care less. They just wanted to get some votes, wanted to rally uh their political base. I mean, it's it's obvious first off that if somebody was trying to do something like this, sincerely, you know, if like a metal band or no metal band wouldn't work. I'm thinking a different like if it turned out that band, the Cardigans, they were a metal band once upon a time. If it turned out the Cardigans were secretly devil worshippers and they wanted to put in back masking instructions to make people do horrible satanic things or whatever that however you wanted to find that, then the big question is whether or not it would work, like would induce those behaviors and people, And the answer honestly is no, of course. I think it's clear. It reminds me a lot of these congressional hearings that took place in around violent video games. And there's a fabulous episode of this Netflix limited series High Score that's about kind of the history of video games from its inception or from their inception to close to modern day. I didn't go quite as far as I would have liked. I would have liked to see like Minecraft in some of the new kind of retro game trends sort of discussed, but it does talk about this time where it was like Mortal Kombat. We all remember walking into the arcade and seeing you know, Sub zero pulling out someone's head with the spinal cord attached. But they're the most that wasn't even the biggest. The game that made the biggest splash and those hearings it was this game called Night Trap that was like in the era of full motion video where it was there really dumb. It's a really dumb game and very bad. It's like, you know, trying to choose your own adventure, kind of like Wagonslayer, but like with actual uh actors and and and um. It's sort of like these scantily clad sort of co eds and like a dorm room type situation and there are these like murderers that are coming in. But like they just talk about the whole the impetus behind it and how they ended up where they ended up. They couldn't just have like straight up slashers because they knew that would like be way too controversial, so they ended up making them these like weird vampires that had these like kind of grabber claw gun things. But they weren't actually guns. There was this whole thing about what they could and couldn't be, and it was like they were bloodsucking devices. Essentially, they would like wrap around the victim's necks and suck their blood or whatever. But it was very clear from those hearings that the uh, the lawmakers that were questioning it, and they were saying this was, you know, absolutely corrupting the youth had never actually played the game, or I mean, of course they had played the game, but hadn't even really seen the context of the scene that they played, which was something involving mat You I could see nodding, like you remember remember what the scene was. It was something like, out of context, a scene where a woman gets grabbed through glass or something, and it makes it look like, you know, like like an eighties horror movie, but there's no bloodshed and there's certainly no like sexual violence or anything like that. But yet they used this out of context to show that this was depraved and and meant to corrupt the youth, you know, on purpose. So, first of all, to your point that the people making these this decision didn't play Night Trap, that's because not many people had to say a c d I'm just getting so many people did, but not that many, and not that many played Night Trap. I remember playing it a couple of times in a friend's house, and I never got to that scene. And I honestly haven't looked into it, but I do. I can tell you that it was fairly tame, no matter what it was. Well, let's also keep in mind that I think you can agree, I hope you can agree with me here murray about how silly and heartbreaking this is the utter hypocrisy of politicians, quote unquote concerned citizens at the time to say, we have to watch out for video games. Oh there's a secret message in a very radio friendly song that's gonna make you go crazy. But let's not talk about how many people we are killing abroad, right, Let's let's not talk about how many parts of the US population are being violently repressed. This is very much pay no attention to the crimes behind the curtain kind of thing. And to me, you know, to me, backmasking is cool. I love stuff like that. I love subversion of form. You know, like you're reading a novel, the page numbers get all screwy. That's amazing. And this is kind of another thing, you know, but that stuff is, that stuff is brilliant and fun and creative, and I applaud it, but I find it, you know, I I find these kind of moral panics cynical, disgusting and ultimately offensive. But you know that's my soapbox. Sorry, yield boy time. Also that also the game you guys are mentioning, I remembered I didn't think it was that crazy. It wasn't. That's the whole point. Like, and if you watch the documentary it shows you more of the context and it's actually laughably bad and like not scary or particularly violent at all. And they went to such great lengths to make it as an offensive and tame as possible. And yet these you know, kind of puritanical lawmakers still glommed onto one particular scene taking out of context. Um, there's a really good quote in the article I'm talking about with Rob Halford kind of reflecting back on the case, and in this article they ultimately and what you know, the case kind of rested on was was their intent? Uh, And then the defense of the band was more looking into the state of mind of these young men who are obviously massive judice priest fans, and the writer makes the point that that makes it all the more heartbreaking that this is how you know, or this was a circumstance under which which they lost their lives and the kind a legacy they left behind to kind of like run their favorite band up the flagpole and kind of pillaring them in this very public way. Um, but it all came down to these young men had substance abuse problems and depression issues, and that they likely would have done this either way without any intervention from some sort of d a sex machina in the form of like you know, hidden messages on a Juice Priest song, which, again, like you said, Ben, is very tame and radio friendly. Well, this is the last last thing I'll say here on this, and I appreciate that you're bringing up this point. Think of it this way. Somebody, um, somebody eats a tuna melt, and they've eaten tuna melts in the past, maybe not every day, but you know, they like a melt. And then one day this person was eating a tuna melt, uh, goes and commit some horrific crime or injures themselves or someone else. This is sort of like saying, now we need to get rid of tuna melts. It's it's it's like it's missed tributing the cause and and um. You know, in this article, Halford really goes quite in depth into his understanding of the history of back masking, and you know, traces it back to where he first heard about it, which was in like led Zeppelin songs for example. But what is that the one where it's like Stairway to Heaven it says like my Sweet Satan, there was a little tool shed where he made us suffer old my sweet Satan. It does kind of sound like that. I've definitely heard that that flipped. Uh. And but it's like one of those things where it's like, did Pink Floyd make the Dark Side of the Moon with the intention of sinking it up to the Wizard of Oz? It works, you can do it. It's really cool. But was their intent I don't know. Maybe with the Zeppelin Sweet Satan line there is, but he'd never hear that. That's a different kind of back masking, right. That's you're hearing it forward and then you play it backwards, So you have to choose to play the record backwards to even hear the message. Whereas I think with the Halford case of the priest case, it was in the record already backwards. Murray, please let us know if I'm getting that wrong. Um. But he makes a really great point Halford in this in this interview where he says, either way, My interpretation of subliminal messages as we presented it is how in the old days, you'd go to a movie and someone would insert a frame of film that suggested you buy popcorn. But even then it was real and it was physical because you could take that frame and go, look there it is. You can't do that with words because you have to actually hear them. And then if you can hear them, then how can they be subliminal or subconscious like in a dream. I think that's a great point, that the basic concept that backwards words somehow being turned in the listener's mind into front words words, and then those concepts become attached to, you know, an action that has taken a pretty laughable So yeah, and do you agree that's that's insane? Um? Yeah, bastward back bastward exactly. Uh. It may. Whenever I hear think about this, I always think of the what is he called the dream the dream Man from the Twin Peaks series who speaks backwards. You know, that guy had to learn how to do that, and it's really hard and it really takes you a lot of effort to even hear what he's trying to say. You really need the subtitles A lot of times. I think it's called just the Man from from the Dream Um. But I by the way it was, I was confusing some things. So I believe Murray was saying they inserted backwards syllables into their record, like in a like behind the actual mix. And I believe in the Judas Priest case they're saying that these phrases were hidden in forwards, you know, phrases that you had to play backwards to actually hear. I think, so let me know if I got that right, Murray. Um. But yeah, it's really great points, really amazing story. Um. Clearly a test case that didn't didn't turn out. I hope you sold at least a decent amount of records and singles. But maybe it wasn't the magic bullet that you were hoping it would be. But um, I love that the fact that he gave us a go um. But yeah, looking forward to hopefully one day meeting in person. And um, thanks again for the email, and I'll take a quick break and then be back with more listener mail. Welcome back to the show. And now we are turning to our voicemail system to get the next message. It comes from an anonymous individual. This is what they had to say. Hey, fellows, here's an idea for a show. I don't know if you're familiar with Thomas Merton, but there's some speculation that the c I am may have assassinated um, which is kind of crazy, but given know and he was a pacifist, he died in so conceivably I could see some nut job at the c I a thing like you have to stop this guy. He's gonna heard our chances in Vietnam. But anyway, I just thought, throw that outculator, the c I a assassination, Yeah, pacifists or somebody who did not who was speaking publicly and had some clout about something the government didn't want them to be speaking about. Okay, CIA is in Central Intelligence Agency, not Cheese Inventors Association, correct and also yeah, also not the Catholic Institution of Atrocities anointment. Yeah. Um, it's a really interesting thing that you're posing here. Whoever you are, we will we will call you monk tastic. No, we will call you, ok, yeah, sure, we'll call you snake bite. I like it. Let's snake bite fly. Let's let's let snake bite fly flying, snake bite terrifying. Um. So, yes, I personally did not know much about Thomas Merton. The name rings at rang a bell as soon as you said it. And seeing pictures of this person. If you look online and look at a picture of Thomas Murton, he may look familiar to you. Perhaps many of you listening out there who were born maybe in the fifties, would definitely recognize Thomas Murton. He was a name. He was a thinker and a pacifist and somebody who others listened to. And that has a lot to do with why he was in Bangkok, Thailand when he met his demise, because he was he was speaking at a public engagement there, or I guess it was. I don't know if it was public or private, but he was he was at a speaking engagement where he was a speaker. So what I want to do really quickly, just to kind of ground us in Thomas Murton, is to look at some reporting of the Irish Times from it looks like fifteen and then maybe actually a bit from Britannica, because hey, you can still use Encyclopedia Britannica. It's just online now it's not quite as extensive as it once was. Well, and it's free, right, you don't have to like buy the whole set from like a traveling salesman, or at least we always used to be like an hundred number. But remember the days of traveling salesman selling a cyclopedias. Yes, definitely I miss no, I don't. I don't miss the traveling salesman. No, sure, um, so yeah, let's go let's go to Britannica first, then we'll hop over to the Irish Times. So Britannica says that this person, Thomas Merton, also known as Father M Lewis, was born in nineteen fifteen January thirty one, to be exact, and he was a poet, writer, and most totably, he was a monk. He was a Trappist monk, which is a really cool thing. You may be familiar with the term Trappist from some of the beer that you enjoy if you are of drinking age, but ah, yes, excellent, excellent name there. Yes, and then there are many beers in the Trappist style, some of which are still produced in the Trappist style at um at monasteries, which is a very cool thing, very cool tradition. And it's a weird thing that you I think, me growing up in the church, I never would have thought monks would in any way be associated with alcohol, at least not in the creation and selling of alcohol. But it's a it's an old, old thing that's been going on for a long time. I mean, I don't want to read directly from Britannica here, but honestly I don't know much about Thomas Marton, so we're kind of learning this together as we go. Um. He did a lot of moving. He had an interesting life. American born mother, New Zealand born father. Um. There they were artists. They were living in France. He was baptized in the Church of England, you know, he was baptized in the Church of England. And then his life with some kind of church, some kind of religious movement continued until his death in nineteen sixty And you can, again, you can learn a ton about him, and maybe if we do a bigger episode on this. If it merrits it, we'll go into all of that in his background. Um, what you do need to know is that he was in Thailand and the circumstances surrounding his death are a little weird. Even now, if you're attempting to find out exactly what happened to him, you may have some trouble because the exact details are somewhat unknown. A lot of it comes from the report of the two people that came upon his body when when they found him, and how those stories have kind of changed over time, how that game of telephone has has altered some of the understanding there, as well as the official information coming from medical professionals who and an investigators who dealt with his body and with the investigation into his death. Officially, he died by heart attack. At least that's what it was. That's what was recorded. It's also maybe electric shock, right, It could be electric shock. It could be only electric shock. It could be electric shock that caused a heart attack, or it could be something completely different. There are rumors all over the internet that you could find that he had a head wound when he was found. Uh, that is I would say that's a rumor. Still, I I haven't been able to fully conclude that that is actually what happened. Shades of William McCrae there, right right. Uh So let's let's talk about where he was found. I want to go to the Irish Times. Now. There's an article you can find titled the Turbulent Monk Did the c I A kill vocal war critic Thomas Merton. He was published December third, two thousand eighteen, and if you go through here, they by the way, call Thomas Merton quote the most vocal critic of war, which is really interesting. So again I feel terrible coming into this without doing more research, but I I know for certain and everything I'm reading he was very very anti war and was not quite about it. And he was influential, so we can imagine, as you stated, listener, that could be a reason why someone would want to stop him from continuing to talk. In this article from the Irish Times, they state that he was found dead in his room near Bangkok, where he had been the main speaker at an international monastic conference. They state that the cause of death given by the Taye police was heart attack and there was no autopsy performed on him because I I can't say, because likely due to the fact that there was a conclusion made early on in the investigation that there was no foul play, even though when he was found he was wearing shorts and he was lying on a on his back, I believe, and on top of him was a fan, like a stand stand up fan. I don't know what you call that, just a fan on a stand It feels like I'm trying to rhyme um. But an electric fan that had toppled over onto his chest when he was found. Now, whether that was due to a struggle, I don't know. The investigators didn't really say whether that was due to an accident. It just fell on top of him, And whether or not that fan actually electrocuted him or not is unknown. However, the two people that came and found him when they initially saw his body lying there, when they saw him lying there, unknowing if he was alive or dead, attempted to pick up the fan, and according to their stories, there was a smaller electric shock that went in that went through their hand when they attempted to pick up the fan. Darrell, you know who who knows if you if you continue reading this Irish Times article, they state this person named Jim Douglas, who was an associate of Merton, publicly raised this concept that perhaps there was a cover up, that that Thomas Merton was in fact murdered by somebody, but again proving who it was, how why it seems to be impossible at this time. There's a person named Matthew Fox who's a theologian. He's the guy that stated that the CIA may have been involved because there were active agents in Thailand. According to Matthew Fox and Uh, he says that one of these agents at some point made contact with him and told him this story and where they infiltrated this this uh the living quarters of Thomas murder, the place where he was staying in Bangkok, Thailand and killed him. Again, that's a story from somebody else that ends up getting printed somewhere without full verification. This feels like a yeah, this does feel like a a full episode, Matt because I've been able to find I have been able to find documents from the Thai government regarding this. Uh. And then a really great article written by David Martin and Hugh Turley called What We Know About Thomas Murton's death is available on the Martyrdom of Thomas Murton dot com. Um. Yeah, there's a lot to the story, but right now, without digging in deeper, which of course we will do, right now, it's tough to say. It's tough to connect a lot of dots to the c I A right, unless we get more information. We know that the CIA is pro war. Uh, the CIA is pro assassination, by which I mean they're not opposed to either of those tactics in pursuit of a goal. And we know that this guy was very much a pacivist, very much anti war. But there are a lot of pacifists. There are quite a few anti war activists. And while many of them get monitored by the CIA or the FBI or what whatever, you know, spoonful of alphabet soup you like, Uh, they don't usually get killed. They don't always get killed. They have to be pretty prominent. So my first question is are there more dots that we can connect? And secondly, was there something that he was going to do? And is did his death prevent that from coming to pass? Because I believe he mentioned this he was only fifty three. Yeah, I did not mention that he was. He was only fifty three when he passed away, and his posthumous bibliography is impressive. The amount of works that have come out since his death, it's pretty incredible. You can find a full list of those at the Thomas Merton's Center at Bellarmine University b E L L A R M I n E University. It goes through and it shows a chronology of his publications starting in Oh, it just it gives his life timeline basically with the publications that he made, and then if you go further down, it has this posthumous publication starting in nineteen nine running all the way to so these would have been like works that his trust gathered up and published on his behath after he passed or this family. He was a prolific writer of everything from you know, personal notes to other people, to you know personal writing like journaling kind of things, to just meditations, meditations and things a minister would do, you know that a priest would do, essentially writing writing out thoughts in that way to be presented. And again a public speaker, So who knows what they actually would have prevented if they did prevent anything, if someone did in fact kill him, a lot of ifs there, of course, but hey, thank you so much, whoever you are that that sent that voicemail, and we do appreciate it, and I can't wait to look more into this. Thomas Martin seems like a very fascinating person. Anyone who takes up the life of a monk is interesting to me because I feel like that doesn't happen often in a vacuum. Interesting perhaps tragic things happen, you know, in everyone's lives, right, but when you decide to put the robes on and live that life, there's there's got to be something worth worth looking into there to at least tell a story about. I'm sorry, I'm just I'm just laughing because you said live that life. I had a picture of like, uh, you know, Franciscan or Trappis Bug saying yeah, I'm about that life. So but or like having like a chess tattoo that says like priest life, you know, but yeah, it's there. There is a place I'd like to shout out. I have a great interest in people who dedicate their lives to something spiritual on that level, to that level of extremity. So there is a fantastic monastery not too far from Atlanta called Our Lady and the Holy Spirit. I spent a lot of time there, and those folks are really chill like there other than other than like, their first answer for most things being that you should convert to Catholicism. They're super chill guys. I don't know. I mean, they wouldn't speak with us for a documentary back in the days, which one the Green Burial one? No, something something A couple of my friends and I were working on in college. But we really wanted to talk to somebody, but they wouldn't do it. We'll try and get Yeah, I've got to. I've got to connect if you want to get your college. If they wanted, they wanted to sell me a lot of stuff in the gift shop. But anyway, No, I'm not no shade, no shade. It's just a well, I didn't have as great an experience there. Oh yeah, I hear you. I gotta say that. Like of all the publications that are mentioned in this story, UM, I am fascinated by this book. You mentioned The Martyrdom of Thomas Merton Investigation. UM. Really interested to see how they kind of dissect this narrative, you know, around the accident because there are a lot of very fishy details in this story. Yeah, and you can go to places like Edward curtain dot com check out reviews of that. You can also actually, this one was tailored for us, you guys. There's a Huffington Post article published inven titled the Thomas Merton Book they don't want you to read. Okay, totally worth it. It's uh, you know, if you're looking for something to read, check out the Seven Story Mountain. That's I think it's autobiography. Maybe not. It's that's one that he wrote that people say is worth your time. So anyway, that's what we know about Thomas right now. We will come back to look his the circumstances surrounding his death more very soon. Thanks so much. We'll be right back after another word from our sponsor. Welcome back, fellow conspiracy realist. Quick update. I've made some peace with the with the good folks over at Lucky Jack and did not mean to be disparaging in my earlier comments. You like that instant retraction on the show, you guys. I don't want any bad blood does. It just doesn't get better after it's in your stomach for a while you know what, Maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. You know, maybe I was just being a curmudgeon and I need to try to drink more fancy coffee. But maybe there's a conspiracy of foot. Maybe lucky Jack just tastes better with every sip. You guys can have that tagline because it might be literally true in my case. But this final piece of listener mail is all so about a conspiracy and it comes to us from Silent sleven S l E Number seven e ED. So I'll cut right to the chase. Don't need a preamble. Matt doc This one in particulars for you guys. The title is this potentially the biggest conspiracy in gaming history, Silence says, Afternoon, gentlemen, and the not to be Forgotten doc. This one is quite a doozy, but could have huge implications if true. The short version, people suspect that Hideo Kojima, most notably the creator of the Metal Gear series, is behind a seemingly small indie studio releasing an upcoming demo to a mysterious game that many suspect is a tease for a new Silence Hill. The story is time sensitive, as this demo is now expected to release on Friday June, so by the time you hear the week's listener mail uh this uh this demo, if everything is legit will have come out. One of the larger overall implications, says Silent, is that Kojima's fallout from Konami has all been a stunt since and Silent you went on to include some links to some Reddit threads that talked more in depth about the story, and you say, if you've heard of this already, I hope you're enjoying the fun in the thought of this being true. If not, welcome to the rabbit hole. Best regards, Silent s this is a cool. One is a cool and we've got some Hideo Kojima fans in the in the stuff they don't want you to know a family. He's done a lot of pretty crazy stuff. What do you guys remember him for specifically? I mean, I think for sure it's metal gear right for me, and I mean for me, that's all day except for that weird one they made. I don't know if he even had a part of which is the one where like you're like crawling around on the ground for the first forty five minutes of the game. No. No, it's the one where you're you're a badass named Snake and you No, but there's one recent one where you're like in a hospital bed and and you escape and you're literally crawling around like kind of you know, without full use of your limbs. He really commits to the realism, I guess is what I'm getting at. He's super into perambulation, and it reminds me of you know, I was really excited when he released Death Stranding, which was so mysterious, and then critics called it a a walking simulator. But then in their review, I was just about to say something about this, Yeah, okay, wait did you play it talk? No, I didn't. I briefly considered it. It was like, Okay, when they first started talking about it, I was like, no, that doesn't really sound interesting at all to me because it kind of sounded like a UPS simulator almost. But then like once it actually came out and I heard other people talking about it, it was like, that actually sounds pretty good, and it got some really good reviews. I think it won some video game awards. If my memories as do you mean like like UPS, like you're like a delivery man deliver packages like in this sort of like post apocalyptic sort of space, you know, And that's a really big part of the game, is him delivering these packages and you having to figure out a way to like make it across this terrain. Sorry people, this isn't really spoilers, but you're like making it across this terrain without you know, falling over with all of your packages on your back. Yeah, it's hard to walk in the game. That's the crazy Like when you read the critics reviews, the thing that tracked me up about it, and I haven't I haven't ended up playing the game. I just read everything about it. Uh, the critics reviews are like death Stranding is mainly a walking simulator, five out of five stars. It was a very weird way to phrase the review. But uh, just just watch the video game donkey coverage of it, and you'll feel like you've played it, and you'll laugh and you'll cry and and that's all you need. But but also, you know, support the creators of the game, but video game dukeys all. But also, of course he's a genius and like a huge level of respect for him based on his history and the gaming industry, So uh, He also like takes himself and his work very seriously, which I'm not saying is a bad thing, But I know people who were very like sort of anti desh Randing and thought it sounded stupid when it first came out, and then they played it and loved it. So it's been sort of on my list to get to, but my backlog it's so long. I'm just I just don't think I'm gonna make it. He strikes me is almost like the type of luminary to the video game industry that like Hao Miyazaki as to like the animation industry. I think it's a fair comparison. Yeah, in terms of the conspiracy, here's here's where the rabbit hole leads us. The story starts with a PlayStation five game called Abandoned. Back in April. It's Sony said, We've got this project coming from a Dutch company called Blue Box Game Studios. We can't tell you much about it, but get hyped. And from there this beautiful, weirdly intricate conspiracy theory emerged, arguing that a the game does not actually exist, and that be it is instead a secret new project from Hideo Kojima. Uh and this thing just like it blew up, So silent S is not alone and being fascinated by this idea. People who believe in the theory or at least interested in it set up a subreddit just to examine the mystery. Uh. It's weird to me because in a way, Kojima has kind of created his own mythology. You know, like, if this were any other kind of video game creator, people would probably not be so quick to jump a board like conspiratorial training. But he's he's the weird conspiratorial stuff. In the past. He's made fake companies, He's hired actors, you know. Yeah, I want to go back to Death Stranding, right, There isn't it Guermo del Toro that ends up in Death Stranding like one of the trailers. Yeah, he's in the think because there was some weirdness with with Gearmo and the game they were working on before Death Stranding. I don't I don't remember all of the stuff. It's kind of hard for me to pull all the details, but I know that he does things like that, he nods, he does nods two rumors too, stuff that's happening in real life, like within the game world sometimes and you know, if you if you even look at the Middle Gear Solid franchise, the whole thing is this very poetic statement about war and nuclear weapons and mass destruction and the need for you know, dominance by one tribe over another tribe. It's done very symbolically through this storyline, right, And I love that he does that with his and melding real world and fiction worlds together in that way. I don't know, it feels more to me been that the gaming world than fans of Kojima and of video games in general. So very want a Silent Hill game to exist, Like I know, I do. That demo that came out, doc what was it called? There was a demo for the next Silent Hill game. It had the dude had the dude from The Walking Dead in it, and uh, anyway, I can't remember the name of it. Yeah, I don't remember. Sorry. I think it was called Silent Hills. There was a demo made for it that I went crazy over. I couldn't believe how it felt to experience the demo, but then it just it ended up getting canceled. Silent Hills, Yeah, that's what it was called. Like, I personally so badly want that game to be real. That the possibility that this other game abandoned might be a Cogima Silent Hill game just hiding because of for political reasons or whatever makes my heart go a flutter. But I can't imagine that that could be real. But who knows. It's hard to discount anything when it comes to Hideo. Hideo Cogima probably knows, I guess, but that's that's he doesn't seem super into telling people. So this this gets in a little bit. Uh, we're getting a little bit in the weeds here. But this is interesting because this theory blew up so quickly. Part of this hype comes from a tweet and tune fifteen from these folks Blue Box. They've deleted the tweet, but they said the following hear me out on this. They said, quote, guess the name abandoned equals parentheses first letter S, last letter L in parentheses reveal closing in dot dot dot, and then they say hashtag PS five hashtag exclusive for the big Silent Hill fans. That's like that feels like a smoking gun, right, Yeah. They would love this tiny little studio would love for you to think they're they're associated with Silent Hill. That's true. Yeah, that's a good that's a good point about it too. There is there is some leveraging, right, some opportunism or at least some they're capitalizing on stuff. The issue is that the head of the studio, the head of Blue Box, a guy named Hassan Karaman. He came forward and said, yeah, no, look we we don't actually have anything to do with this, and kojimas fans did not believe it. You're an actor, admit it, and he's like, no, I'm a game developer. That's like my job. I have this student, we make video games. And people still didn't believe them until they found out that he had been posting on some forums for game developers for months and months and months, so he looked like he was legit. This happens a lot of times with any kind of conspiracy. People want it to be so true, so profoundly that they ignore what's actually happening in Blue Box Games. Keep saying absolutely none of this is true. Maybe you all are spending too much time on the internet. But then I think you know to your point that everybody wants that game to be real, you know, so intensely. Did they want this that they're not going to let facts get in the way of a good story. And also that's what they would say, you know what I mean, like they wouldn't come clean just yet. So you know, that's a really good point. Guy. Yeah, guys, did you even take into account that this guy's initials A K are the same as Hideo. We're blowing this thing wide open. This is gonna be the episode that spells doom for our show. This is going to be the line we weren't supposed to cross while we're here. I think it gives us. It gives us a glimpse into how quickly these things can proliferate and how quickly they can fall apart. If you'd like to learn more, check out kotaku dot COM's article Hideo Kojima conspiracy theory ends with tears because it looks like these rumors just don't don't hold up. One great example of this, or one sad example for the true believers, comes to us from a reporter from Bloomberg named Jason Shrear. So. Shreer is not, you know, a huge video game fan, but he was really interested in watching this uh theory developed online in real time, and he started out kind of on board with it, but as he was digging in, you know, as investigative reporters do, he found more and more holes with these theories. First, Blue Box had a history of failed Kickstarter campaigns going back years and years and years, and that made it increasingly unlikely that it was a front for some new, top secret Kojima game. And so another nail in the coffin here is that Blue Box, when they were answering some of their own questions or riddles that they cryptically posted on the internet. Uh, their answers seemed to discount these theories right that Kojima would somehow be involved. So it may be all sound and fury signify nothing, because increasingly a lot of people are convinced that this studio was, as Katako puts it, quote bolsting around to build hype for its little budget or a game. Again, for the true believers this these are all red herrings, right, there's a school of red herrings, and they and only they can see the truth, and everybody else will have to eat crow, eat humble pie, whatever uh figure speech you want to use once this game comes out. And you know, Doc Matt, I am not the biggest gamer. Uh So I I was interested to read about this, but even for someone who's not as plugged in like me, it is a fascinating study and how these how these ideas generate. And I'm wondering if you all would like to play a little bit, Not to sound like that somebody from a horror movie, but if you all would like to play a game with me, I bet you that we could do a little uh A r G kind of stuff ourselves. I bet you we could create a conspiracy theory and propagated and people would believe it despite the act that I am on air pitching this idea to you right now. Well, yeah, but it's just in this episode, because I mean, we make so many at this point, it's gonna get buried so fast. Nobody will remember that we are actively doing a conspiracy in all, are we all in? It's already happening. Like I said, it's two right now, just remembering talking about this, Yeah, I'm down. So I just want to say there's something there's a real danger here. It's a good and bad thing. But I would say often it turns out to be a terrible thing for video game companies as they're trying to just hype the absolute living crap out of their games. And you know, I was gonna do a fun reveal or something, but uh, you know, there's this one game I remember that had so much hype for it, and I was so excited to get it and I couldn't wait. And then everybody's started popping out. And for anyone in case this isn't on our YouTube challenge, and just hearing the audio version, let me innarrate what happened. Matt just slowly he held up he held up an object really closely the camera, and then he pulled away and it was E E T for Atari. So much hype, so many God, please let's remember to believe of those d s. Okay, cool, Sorry about that guy, that's my fault. No, but seriously, the hype, just the hype on cyberpunk, like it hasn't necessarily ruined a company, but it's it's taken away a lot of the good will, like the tremendous amount of goodwill that gamers had for one specific company, CD Project Red, huge blemish record, and it was because of the hype. Man, I'm telling you, if this was just a cool game coming out, they could have said, oh no, well, um, we'll push it back again, which they should have what they didn't. I think about that a lot to you know. It's it's something that's become the norm over the past decade or so, as more and more people are accustomed to a world of ubiquitous, NonStop information about every tidy development. Uh. I reached a point. I'm a person loves spoilers. I reached a point where I thought, you know, if if there's a film or project or an album that's coming out and I know I'm gonna love it, just tell me about it, like a month before. Don't tell me, you know, in five years, yeah, like in six years, right, yeah, and even then, don't tell me that much about it. Just let me know that, Hey, you're probably gonna like this. You go, let me see keyword, keyword, yes, oh, action verse keyword I'm in And definitely don't say Kiana reeves out to get my hopes about it. Yeah. I remember you were pretty upset about that one. Everybody was kind of afraid to talk to you on the call. Yeah, and I was so excited. Yes, yeah, you know it's it's true and there is a marketing machine and it does help a lot of people by the fact of its existence, but I wonder if we really need it, you know, I mean, marketing itself is inherently conspiratorial. Um, I guess they want to get pre orders or something. And look, we've gone pretty far in the weeds on this, but Silent thank you for bringing this to our attention. We'll keep an eye out. And you know what if if Hideo comes forward and is like, wahha ha, I got you all, Silent Hills, that I'm gonna be the first person to go on air on our show and say that these theories were correct. At this point, it looks like it would be pretty difficult for them to be correct. But there's not there's not hard proof that they're not yet other than, you know, other than the studio saying we didn't sorry. But as Doc pointed out, of course that's what they would say, so right well, And in the meantime, if you're looking for a Silent Hill game, just go play Resident Evil Village, the Village, whatever it is. It's the eighth one. It looks like it's going to be pretty great. I haven't played it yet. And with that, we would love to hear from you. If you are interested in video game conspiracies, check out our earlier video on polly Bus. I believe it's called Polybius polly Bus. We called it Polybius, but I think it's polly Bias. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. Well, check out that video. Let us know what you think. Thanks to Anonymous, thanks to Murray, and as we said earlier, thanks to Silent. So if you would like to take a page from your fellow conspiracy realist book, why not write to us. We can't wait to hear from you, especially if you have suggests for topics we should cover in the future. And we try to make it easy to find us online that it is correct. We are pretty easy. Conspiracy stuff on Twitter and Facebook, conspiracy stuff show on Instagram, and you can also find us personally on Instagram and Twitter and places. Ben, what are your handles? All right? Well? With pro quo claries, Matt, if I say it, you have to say you have to give away yours as well. Cool, alright, alright, the covenant has been made, so you can find me at Ben Bolan bow l i n on Instagram. You can get a behind the scenes peak on the research that's going into stuff. They don't want you to know any other any other number of misadventures, including when I end up outside of the country at Ben bolland hs W on Twitter. But if you are a person of taste in class, then there is another Instagram you should follow, and that's the Instagram of our very own Matt Frederick. Get that's set up. Now you basically have now I have to. You can find me at night city net stunter sixty nine. That's uh, that's my Instagram handle, and check that out. What was it again, just so everybody remembers night city like night and then city net stunter. Okay, that's my that's my handle. You'll find it. You'll you'll find it. Uh. And then if you don't want to do social media, we also have a phone number that you can actually call us and and leave a message. Our number is one eight three three std w y t K. You'll have three minutes. Those three minutes are yours. 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