Listener Mail: GameStop Squeeze as an Inside Job, Astrology and Prediction, the Questionable Fate of the Tasmanian Tiger

Published Apr 8, 2021, 3:00 PM

Over in Australia, Paul asks whether the Tasmanian Tiger, officially extinct in the 1930s, could survive in the dense, isolated bushland of Tasmania. Agent L wonders whether the GameStop short squeeze was an inside job. Stephanie asks about the study of astrology. All this and more in this week's listener mail.

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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 Meant, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We are 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 time for our weekly listener Mail, where we where we share stories from you with you, and today we have we have some there's some really interesting stuff. We have some allegations of inside jobs. We have the adcept of astrology, which we get asked about pretty frequently, so we're diving into that today. And then also a little story that has always fascinated me and I think might fascinate guys as well, about cryptids and extinction. So maybe we maybe we go in that order. What do you what do you say? Guys? We did an episode on Game Stop we uh were It was more than Game Stop Wall Street beats involvement in what some would call a financial revolution or attempt at such Uh, and this this sparked a lot of interest from our fellow listeners. Yeah, it did, because I think it really the whole game stop thing just sort of pointed out something that we've all always kind of known that the system is really designed for, like the power players, you know, the top folks that have the most to gain and potentially the most to lose, but they don't like to lose. So when you got the little guys kind of rigging the system against them, uh, they don't like that too much. And and there's uh some potential for collusion and just not playing very fair. But in this whole game stop situation, that's certainly led to the question of like, who has the most to gain from this, This whole idea of short squeezing and shorting socks with inherent which inherently feels super divisive and controversial, the idea of betting on someone's failure. But hey, we're all big boys, we know the stakes are we get into business, you know, you win some, you lose some, and sometimes people can benefit from others misfortune. Uh. It makes me a little squeamish, but it certainly is part of the game. Whether you think it's icky or not, but we had specifically a listener uh call in to one three s td W y t K. You can do that too if you wish. Just let us know what to call you and that we can use your story and try to say that three minutes if you can. But this one comes from our long time listener, Agent L. Hello, guys, it's Agent L here again. I was thinking about the whole game Stop short squeeze attempt and how obvious it seems that the creators of this idea, we're really only looking to make profit on the stock that they owned. I mean, the concept that they would squeeze these short sellers seems pretty ludicrous to me, because unless those short sellers were coming to the end of their term where they would have to repay that borrowed stock, then the idea that game Stop would have increased to such soaring limits for long enough that it would really hurt these hedge funds seems again ludicrous. I don't know how long ago it was, and I don't know if this is something you guys could find out how long ago it was that the hedge funds started using game stock as a short selling option, But it seems to me that the only benefit to this entire short squeeze attempt was to the ones who planned it, orchestrated it, and brought in the feeling of general ill will towards the hedge funds and all of that Occupy Wall Street esque feeling along with it. Interested to see what you guys think. Keep up the good work by nice Yeah, thanks, Agent l Um. It's a It's an interesting question, and I want to make sure and check with you, with you guys Matt and Ben, that I'm understanding the question correctly, because he's implying some level of an inside job. But I'm not sure if he's implying that the executives at game Stop were the ones that were rigging the game. No pun intended, un totally intended. Ha ha, I won't, Ben, I can't. I couldn't possibly or that. I think what he's saying is that the people who were organ orchestrating the short squeeze with it from from within this uh um Wall Street bets community, We're essentially just out to pump up the price of the stock that they already owned, and they weren't necessarily couldn't possibly have predicted that it would do such egregious damage to the hedge funds that were so heavily invested in the shorting of the stock. Is that what you guys took from that? Or am I misreading it somewhat? So I would say, yeah, this is a great question, Agent l Um. We know that deep thing value A K. Keith gil his name is out there now. We know that he was intensely interested in Game Stop before this short selling run began, So that's why he was the person who had his ear to the financial ground and felt the tremors coming. But from what I understand, and this is based on a lot of correspondents from our fellow listeners who have rode into the show or contacted me directly, it feels like it feels like the beginning of it may have been organic, but there were opportunists who jumped on board, maybe with different motivations or some sort of ulterior motive. Right these folks are you know, you'll see in the Wall Street Bets forums, you'll see people saying like people would jump in during a Game Stop conversation and say, like, you know, the next Game Stop is going to be this thing, and they're kind of like trying to move the crowd toward that thing that they obviously have already invested in. And then also, yeah, it's a great point, know all about the the CEOs and the stock owners of game Stop who were able to profit from this, right, depending on how their timing worked out. It's also possible that, like of course in professional investment bankers, people who work at hedge funds are very well aware of stuff like this. It feels like, and maybe I'm being too extreme here, it feels like it would be somewhat naive to assume that they would not seize an opportunity if they thought such existed. And it's totally illegal, by the way, the way they did it, if they did Yeah, that's right, And now I want to get your take, but I want to add to that. I mean, the history of this is that even a year before all this craziness went down, a lot of the folks hang on on Wall Street bets they kind of carrying a torch for game Stop in an interesting way, saying that like they felt like it was under value because these hedge funds were already starting to bet against it, like you know, at the beginning of the pandemic um because they felt like they were pretty too much emphasis on their brick and mortar you know situation, and that gaming and game purchases is really migrating to a all digital realm, or as a little snippet of a big box store that is diversified and sells other stuff whereas game stops. Whole deal is that these tiny little brick and mortar stores and only still video games. Um. I guess you could argue that they you know, it's the only place you can really trade games, but god, the value they give you on trade ends is embarrassing. It is a business, but it's like it's like you pay sixty of these games and they, you know, a pristine copy, They'll give you like ten if that, and then they turn around and sell it for you know, fifty. It is college bookstore rules. But you're not You're you're not wrong. But um, this guy, Ryan cullen um kind of had the same idea where he was like back in the beginning of he was trying to convince the board. He invested a lot of money into the company, hoping to kind of push this this digital first narrative onto the company and sort of suggest to them that hey, you guys need to get with the times. Um, I've been invest in you to show that that we I still believe in you, but you've got to kind of change your business model. He actually wrote this in an SEC filing. Game Stop needs to evolve into a technology company that delights gamers and delivers exceptional digital experiences, not remain at video game retail that over prioritizes this brick and mortar footprint and stumbles around the online ecosystem. Ouch. Um. But yeah, essentially, um, game Stop still has a bit of a relatively bright future. Especially, I mean, obviously this was like a symbolic, massive ground swell that wasn't necessarily tied to any real performance metrics, which is what makes me question in the whole stock market and in the idea of value or what is something actually worth. But there was a question I believe I asked on the episode we did Ben where it's like, what do these what does this inflated price mean for the company? And it does apparently mean that they could that they're actually gonna be able to pay off some debts and use some of that profit to invest in some of these new directions that they might you know, that might make them more viable you know in the in the world of the future or like the you know, ten years ago. Um, but Matt, what do you think about this? Do you think it's possible that there was some collusion outside of just the game stock kind of meme stock, you know, Internet Reddit people that were like trying to make a stand in that kind of occupy mindset way as protest and then it just kind of balloon out of control Or is there something more maybe a nefarious but more calculated at play. Well, I I think there are always going to be people who are invested way more than any retail investor, who have more to gain and lose, right for for anything that occurs like this. And we we talked about one person, Ryan Cohen, Like you said, yeah, at one point in January at the peak his seventy five million dollar investment in game stock, in game stop stock was worth about one point three billion at the peak of it. And you know, look at other billionaires, um Credit Acceptance Corp. There's a person there's a person there, man named Donald Fosse. Again, like went from twelve point five million investment in game stop stock at the peak was around one point five billion dollars worth, so you know when you're when you're when you're when you've got investors and stakes. At that level it all you always have to question, well, what else was going on here? But as always we're dealing in a weird realm where it's opinions, it's um. If you can get enough buzz going, if you can get enough people to think positively or negatively, you can completely change the fortunes of millions of other people, and technology outpaced the typical you know, stock market strategies like the the amount of nerd, blood, sweat, and tears put into knowing the information first and acting on it quickly is astonishing. Like if if aliens came to this planet, they would probably be low key impressed with just how much time has been spent on that specifically, there would be other questions like what is your weird coupon system? Why do people die for it? Are you at all concerned about the future of water on your planet? But they would at least I think, like all the way back to the spaceship they would go. You know that how Wall Street thing is pretty nifty some toays man, but to your point in defense, Ryan Cohen, uh he did not do what you know is often Crassley called a pump and dump. In fact, he's continuing to lead a revamp and they just poached, um, he just poached Amazon executive former Amazon executive. So he is definitely if he's definitely transparent about having a horse in the race. So I don't know if you could say he's conspiring. I feel like what we're with Agent L and to your point about the billions of dollars, Like what Agent L is touching on here is the idea that maybe folks from Hedge fund that was not like publicly in the fray. As far as this over short selling, I feel like it is completely plausible that someone working there saw what was going down and calculated, uh, some sort of opportunity. And then of course if you already have game Stop stock, Yeah you love the stock, everybody, yet that buzz put some stock on it, uh you know, And it's true. I mean, like like so many of these investors, these high level investors, they have access to information that we don't have access to, whether it's through those Bloomberg terminals that cost like thousands of dollars to subscribe to and then give you like just the most up to date information or I mean, you know, we say insider training is illegal, you know if you get caught, But I have I have a hard time believing that that stuff doesn't happen like all the time, you know, uh and casual a little wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more type moments. You know, Um, think about it this way this did we talk about George Sherman yet the CEO of game Stop at the time, great opportunity, Like if we want to talk about an insider benefit that maybe there was no you know, there's no connection to anything else he over you can only assume the over time he was gifted stock, you know, as part of his compens station. He also maybe was doing his own investing, who knows, but he owned two point three six million shares of game Stop. The CEO owned two point three six million shares, So that went from forty five million to one point one three billion, just like that. Um, if you know, if you own that much stock personally, you can imagine that you would want something like this to happen. But who's to say that you could ever make something like that happen. Well, that's a good and also got what talk about a red flag or I mean, you know, if he dumped that stock at its peak, I mean, as the CEO, he'd be run up the flagpole and crucified, you know, on the flagpole. I'm mixing my metaphors here, but I think you see where I'm coming from. And uh, the same with this, um this in the angel investor this like whatever, um what's the word? Activist investor? Cohen like, that's pretty cool. He could have sold. He he was smart. He he obviously wasn't a player in this. He just invested because he thought the company was undervalued and needed to move in a direction and was trying to use this money. He had to influence maybe the board to move in that direction. But you know, he can see that portfolio quadrupling, you know, stept tuppling and value, and he didn't sell. I don't I don't think so. I don't know that. But if he has the implication, Yeah, that's the implication for sure. Um. So he obviously literally put his money where his mouth was. That's interesting. It's tricky because both of those individuals, like Cohen and Sherman, they are both at the helm of game stop. Sherman is still the CEO, and so you can make the argument. It gets kind of tricky when you are a high level executive in a company that you you know, own a bunch of stock in like the rules around when and how you can sell that stock or divest yourself from it um or or can get a little complex. So if I were looking for more of an inside job, or if if the five of US Doc Noel, Matt, Me and you listening at home, if we were in charge of Game Stop and we knew we could we could make a profit on this, right, Uh, but we also knew we needed to be legal, And the first thing I would look for is kind of a way to put it at a remove, you know, And maybe that's somebody else taking actions that we're based on a conversation that we just casually had. Right because a lot of times with conspiracies, and a lot of times with financial conspiracies. The days of the shadowy, smokey back room are are over, so it's much much more casual now. It's kind of like a we're both at the barbecue. How is your week? Yeah? Pretty good? So do the US now hurry? Um, I want to just bring something up towards the end of this no something maybe that you can look into later, because I'm a little I feel out of the loop with it. But there's a person named Bill Whang h W A n G and archagos ark goos. I think it's called arc goos. I don't know how to say correctly. It's a Greek word. Really interesting story coming out about the collapse of this private like family owned or family investment fund. It's kind of like a hedge fund, but just very small and it it doesn't require the same things from the sec that some other big hedge fund requires. And there's some weird stuff going on there where the dude, this guy Bill like, borrowed a ton of money from a bunch of different lenders and then put it all into this huge hedge fund essentially, and then it tanked. UM and the guy also has a past with UM. I don't know if it was inside or trading. I know he has a past of some weird stuff in his world. UM. Anyways, it's worth looking into. It's just breaking right now. Is it insider trading? If you know some This is a dumb question, if I'm appreciate the answerous yes, if you know something is going to happen that hasn't been full fully announced, like maybe an acquisition of another company or a change in like trajectory or business strategy, and you know that and you act on that. You don't know how it's gonna affect the stock, but you know that's usually what effects stock is news items like things like oh, we didn't get this government contractor you know they're changing to pivoting to a different you know, industry even or whatever. We went through this with a company that we were owned by called Blue Cora that had an interesting uh stock pump out of nowhere because of an announcement. If we had acted on that internally, that would have been insider trading, right, Yeah, I believe that would have been the case. So while we none, oh what are we supposed to say, let's street Lake Wall Street beats. This is not financial advice, No, we just like the stock, diamond hands, etcetera. UM, so insider trading. Here's here's maybe an example off the top of my head, like we're let's say we're a defense contractor we're locky or something, and we know that because we are high muckety MUCKs in this world and at this organization. We know that things are gonna be a little rough. Maybe not an existential crisis, but they're gonna be a little rough because we just lost the contract bidding process for the new UM foot slapping drone that that is gonna revolutionize people walking around barefoot, which is apparently a huge problem in this example. Anyway, moving on, if we know that, and we know it before it is announced, and then we all go and dump our stocks suddenly, I think that's something the SEC will pay attention to. But keep in mind, you know, we can't be the only ones asking this question. How many cases does the s SEC prosecute per year? The number is staggering. It's fifty, that's it, out of all financial transactions in the U. S SEC worries about let's say about fifty a year. They say these aren't kosher. What a lot of people don't understand is that the SEC is literally one person, and she works hard, and she's basically an intern. Well, it's kind of like how the I r S is, so I would say, by design understaffed. Think about who benefits from an underresourced SEC. Under resourced I R S. It's not it's probably not you folks spoiler alert. As a matter of fact, part of that is, um, the way that laws are written. Policies are written. So we talked about insider treating the game. Stop, Let's talk about insiders in the financial system overall, because that's how it works, right. The old Carling quote is a big club. You ain't in it yet yet. I hold out hope for everyone listening. Well, I have to make this stock joke because it's too good and dad like not to make. But you can call me the catcher in the rye because I'm holding Caulfield, get it, holding my stocks, holding diamond hands. I was trying. There was a stock called Caulfield. It sounds like the kind of like like a company that would make soup or something. I don't know why. Um yeah, well, okay, this is interesting stuff. And it's obviously we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg with this kind of thing, and and it's and it's an iceberg that started kind of floating our way many years ago with the whole Occupy Wall Street thing, and like now we're actually seeing some activists, activist kind of behavior that's really affecting people's pocketbooks. And um, it'll be interesting to see how Oh, we didn't even mention the fact that I was sorry. There was a whole article I wanted to bring up. Is that the hedge fund that lost more than fifty of its value because of the game Stop stock you know, shorting situation, Melvin Capital is being sued by nine different retail investors who claimed that they UM initiated a conspiracy to limit trading that caused these these retail investors to lose money. UM and that was because of their connection with UH apps like Robin Hood that all of a sudden, oh sorry, you can't get game Stop anymore. So we'll see how that goes. That's sort of the latest news. But plenty more to come, and plenty more listener mail to come after this quick message breaking and we have returned. We're traveling internationally. Our next story today takes us to Australia, a k a. One of the places we've always wanted to visit. Right to your local representatives Australians, tell them to have our show go there. I don't know how the Australian government works. I don't know if they do that, but you know, give it a shot. It's an email. UH here is a fantastic letter from Paul W in Australia who asked about something that has fascinated me for a long time. And I think a lot of our fellow listeners. Let's hit the letter first and then let's get weird with it, I mean super weird. Good day fellas. That's Paul, not me. Um that stereotyping here. My name is Paul, and I think your show is awesome. Your efforts are reflected by the quality of your podcast I really enjoy, for which I thank you. So that kind of lie and I don't know about you guys, but that kind of lie always gets me like a little a little cautious. Is there gonna be like a butt? But there's always but not always there isn't. This is a butt free email. So Paul, you said stuff theyn't once, you know, keeps me alert at work as a delivery driver, which offers me a little extra scratch since retiring from a long career in the Australian Army as a field medic. I live in Woollongong and thank you for telling us how to pronounce that, which is about seventy kilometers south of Sydney. As the thunderbird flies, and I love all things crypted. I believe your listeners may be interested in the mystery that surrounds the Tasmanian tiger. I don't know if you can classify this critter as a crypted because it was or is a real thing that officially when extinct in the nineteen thirties. However, sightings of this creature have been recorded since the thirties up until recently in Tasmania and on the mainland of Australia. Something like of Tasmania is dense, impenetrable bush land, So I believe labeling this carnivorous marsupial extinct maybe a little presumptuous. Anyway, that's my opinion. Keep up the great work. PS. Next time you see John Oh, please tell him that I love Mike Whister hoodie. That's that's a little bit of an Easter egg there for our awesome complaint department and the creator of tech stuff who appears uh in his alter ego on another show we do called Ridiculous History. Sure, I did not know he has hoodies, but that's awesome. I didn't know. How did we even have hoodies? Are we able to print hoodies? Special arrangement. Think maybe he's just got that quizzble. But but Paul, this letter made my day because of a couple of different factors. But I wanted to check Matt Noel with you guys. First, have you done much reading about the Tasmanian tiger in specific? Not since we talked about it. Uh. One of the cryptid things that we did Ben that I can't recall, but we we mentioned just how cool of a creature it was. So I'm excited to hear what you've learned. I just know the Tasmanian devil from many tunes fame. What's the Tasmanian tiger look like? I don't recall this because I'm googling him right now. It looks more like a canine to me, Oh cool, or like a hyena almost. Yeah, it's like a dog with tiger stripes, uh, expanding at its hind quarters, just a little vaguely dingo like perhaps. Yeah. So there was a recent newspiece that claimed it was earlier this year that claimed the Tasmanian tiger had been sighted, had been spotted in the wild. Uh. This this claim, which came around in I think February or so, Uh, all can be attributed to a guy on YouTube named Neil Waters, who says that they had seen not just one thigh last scene, which would be uh, you know the name of a Tasmanian tiger when it has its uh, when it has its suit and tie on. But he said he saw an entire family. He said he had footage here as well as you know, we always want to look into the sources here. Neil Waters does have a Thi La scene in the race here because he is the president of something called the Thila Scene Awareness Group of Australia, so he very much believes they're out there, very much wants us to be aware of this. The story of the Tasmanian tiger is, you know, it's pretty tragic, uh, in no small part because the last one, you're right, Paul did die in the thirties. His name was Benjamin. He died in a zoo, so he was an animal jail. And ever since then, more than eighty years since, people have consistently been reporting sightings what they believe to be Tasmanian tigers. And what's important about what Water says is that he he thought he also saw a juvenile a baby, meaning that there was a breeding population. This video went relatively viral. He said that he handed images of the thyl scene over to an expert named Nick Mooney at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and surprise, surprise, not everybody agreed on what it was. We're going to give you another animal to check out in your browser of choice, and that is something called the Tasmanian patamelan, which I may be mispronounced pat patti melan mm hmm. Let us know Australians. So people are saying that this guy definitely did not see an animal long suspected to be extinct. And if you look up this uh, if you look up the picture of this other creature p A D E M E l O N that's it looks kind of like a waka think they're called. If you look up this creature, that's what that's what the skeptics are saying waters actually saw. And if you guys see just an image of this, I think you would agree it doesn't really look like a Tasmanian tiger, doesn't. Not so much. Yeah, it's a little look, it's very cute, very Pixar, very Disney. Uh, it's it's a little bottom heavy because it is still you know, it's some our supial um, so it has to has to carry it's young for a time. It looks like a kangaroo a mouse, just like a kang a mouse A brief I like, mas uh, yeah, it's the thing is it's really it's pretty small. It's only about fifteen something fifteen sixteen pounds. Uh, it's about a meter meter and a half in length. I guess you could mistake it for a Tasmanian tiger. But to be fair, you could easily mistake just something moving in the bush for one of these, uh, one of these supposedly extinct creatures, especially if you wanted to see what if you wanted it to be true. But the thing that gets me about this, even though people disagree with this specific claim, is not just the preponderance of alleged sightings, but it's the fact that animals can be lost and rediscovered, like the good old example, the most famous example, the Cela canth Right, that guy was quote unquote extinct for what millions of years while I was just living is happy, objectively kind of ugly life and river well just different, just different, just different. You're right, we can't apply surface level assumptions right on multiple levels to this guy. But the and the Thilas scene too, is it just looks adorable. I'll be honest with you. I it also looks so much like canid of some sort that it could I could imagine somebody seeing a dog, maybe without optimal viewing conditions, and thinking like being certain they had seen Tasmanian tiger. I just want them to not be extinct, you know what I mean. I want them to be around. If you look at Tasmania itself, yes it is. It is possible that they're around. But I think in our in our last episode on this, when we talked about Tasmanian tigers earlier, we had all agreed they would they would count as a cryptic right under celi Can rules for sure, this would be a This would be a crypted I'm looking at that video now that Neil Waters you were talking about, posted of these images he took. I don't know, man, I'm on the fence here. Whether it's a padamelon or phil a scene which is got padamel and silent thing that's like that's going to be a hook somewhere. Yeah, yeah, it's it's the new track by who God, we'll bringing that character back. Yeah, I wondered, I don't know, like you, so you're on the fence, Matt, what do you think is it possible to feel like yeah, I don't know. Every time we have these cryptic conversations, I mean, the last one we had, Matt, that you brought was about the really big, dire wolf looking things that like dragged a cow over a guardrail, and then it always ends up being the little detail of um, well, it was at night, there was distance, there's shadow. You might have mistaken it for you know, something else, and it seems like that's what's happening here now, the big wolves dragging a deer. It was not a cow, as a deer over a guard rail. Much more convincing than just like seeing a thing from a distance and saying, oh, that's definitely this this animal. So but that was just a story. I know what it was, but it was just Waters has some videos. He's got trail cameras, he's got images. I don't know where are they? Where they at? Man, let me see him. He's posting them on YouTube right now. Left there yet though? Are they? Yeah? Well, there is ah, there is another thing here that gets me, as far as I know, one of the most I guess, like the simple low hanging fruit step in a search for crypto is kind of gross, but it's necessary. Find the boot, you know what I mean? Find find the habitat. Uh, find the scratching if there's some like behavior like that. Uh. And we did in a previous episode we did some like cocktail napkin math about Bigfoot, and we said, okay, the austral Epithecus is extinct, but that's the you know, the biggest primate we know of. What about the current largest primate? Right? What? What kind of We've been really into gut slate? What kind of boop do they make? Where do they make? How does it work? You know? How often does it happen? How much is there? How much do they have to eat? Looking for physical animal that seems like that would be a trace they would inevitably have to leave, and to my knowledge, that has not been found. Nobody's seemed has Manian tiger poop, you know, the fresh bait kind since n so, I think I think it's possible, but I'm super biased because I want it to be true. And then also even if it is true. If there is some relic population, as they would be called, Uh, they probably don't have the genetic diversity to continue as a species. If they exist, the odds are not great that they will have enough um of a breeding population to beat a genetic bottleneck that would ultimately do them. Yeah. Well, you know the good thing is uh, for all of us with just a casual interest in this way, and you know, Waters or whoever else comes out with incontrovertible images or video or some kind of evidence of a Tasmanian tiger living right now, it will make the news because that is big news. It will it'll hit MSN or whatever you're checking every once in a while, and uh, and then we'll know for sure one way or the well. Actually, if we don't have proof, then we won't know and it will always be a mystery. So maybe let's just keep it like that. Are you say the real Tasmanian tiger was the friends we made along the way? Yeah? Uh, yeah, it's it's a fascinating story, and you know, it's a story that's not going to go away for the foreseeable future. As long as there is dense wilderness in Tasmania. People candidly, people like me will hold out hoping against hope that we see the return of this on, especially in this time of a great mass extinction. We are living through an era of history in the most unpleasant way. But with that being said, if you if you've seen a Tasmanian tiger, if you have a Tasmanian tiger, if you are a Tasmanian tiger somehow able to operate a keyboard or foam, we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to hear your experience. Um. Although I don't think any of us speak tiger, we will get duo lingo. We'll pick that stuff up and do well enough to understand you. Ben. By the way, before we leave, I found a video on that YouTube channel that we were talking about a thylacine Awareness group of Australia. The title is searching for Tazzi tiger poop. Yeah about that poop? Where's the poop? It's it? Where's the loop? There's a big turret on the thumbnail, so I don't know that have does that have little stink lines coming off of it? I'm like, well, flies like animal? And then how do you tell like, how do you how do you dissect that. Gosh, okay, this is a smell and taste. That's really the only so I would do it. I guess he's got experience in these matters. Matthew. Yeah, so uh that that search continues. Please let us know your experience, Please let us know your opinion, not just that, but any other cryptids in your neck of the global Woods. Will return to this story in the future, but for now, we're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors and will return with one more story from you, and we're back. Now we're going to hear another voicemail from one of you, and it's covering a topic that has been I want to see this nicely. It's been consuming my wife a little bit and I'm have a growing interest in this now because of her interest, and I can't wait to talk about it. So let's jump to the voicemail from Stephanie. Hey, guys, this is definitely from California. The idea for a topic just touched into my head and I'm sure you guys have gotten out the requests for it, and fairly ascertainments haven't been covered in the backlogs, and the topic is astrology. My dad. When I was younger, his best friend and like business partner for his h construction and painting company used to print out astrology charts and they give astrology like hardcore. I mean, like I remember like binders and binders of these astrology charts, and my mom and him both kind of believe in the stuff, and they would talk about how just like affecting the planet, and like I don't know, something was going on, and like with the planet, they'd be like, oh, like it's affecting me or the next going to you, like kind of in the sense of affecting people's feelings and emotions. I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that, but I kind of kept myself a little bit more rouse from it. But anyway, I don't even know where he got the chart, but I know there have to be more people that do stuff like tracking it. I don't know how common it is, but anyway, and I guess that might tie into with like ostrological size and how that felt changed. I mean, I remember reading an article massive sent out that was like everything then moved a lot, and yes, it still doesn't actually affect you at all, So I don't I remember when that article is written because it kind of cracked it. Anyway, once throw that idea out there. I really love listening to you guys. Um I've called in before and I apologize. This is like nice. I can call to you guys this weekend. But I thought this was a would be a really cool topic about because I don't even really understand why my dad did it besides having alice system like that. So I'd love to hear more about it if you guys were good chance do the topic looking for a day to your next episode. All right, let me nice. Thank you so much. Yeah, that was really great. What a nice send off there right at the end. Um, So thank you Stephanieve for for sending us that voicemail, for you know, getting us to talk about this this topic astrology and horoscopes and what's going on in the stars and can that have any effect on us a little humans way down here, the the bacteria on this rock just scooting around. Well maybe a lot of a lot of people believe that there's some kind of connection between the stars and humans in life itself. On the Earth. Science is a little more skeptical about it, as you could probably imagine, but it's something that we can talk about, and I figured, why not start at the place where most people learn about astrology for the first time, and for me that was through horoscopes. I wonder if that was the same experience you had been Uh, yes, but not Western horoscopes. I had a My introduction to the concept came from Chinese astrology and horoscopes, which there's a different system. And then I used to have I shared this with you back in back in the day. Remember what I had that program that would calculate your Mayan astrological sign. It's like a Mayan horoscope. That was really that was really fascinating to me at least because in that belief system, it's much less like kid gloves believe in yourself than a lot of other astrological systems. Because as there were, um in some mes of American cultures. You know, there's no belief in accident, right um. And I don't want to conflate the Aztec in the Maya, but there was a there was this idea that if you, for instance, were out on a hunting trip and you accidentally killed one of your colleagues or injured them, you would be punished as though you would plan to do so and did it on purpose. And when you read the Mayan horoscopes, it is possible simply to be born on a cursed day and you will get instead of something like, oh, you're incredibly special because sometimes you want to do things and you do them, and sometimes you want to do things and you don't watch out her red shoes or something like that. The other horoscopes are just like the person born on this day is unlucky and has committed sins in the past, and therefore they're here for punishment things like that. Anything they do is cannot redeem this. Wow, that's intense. Um I was. I was giving a spotlight for any video viewers that can see us on my mind calendar back there, just because I thought, um but I wanna. I'm gonna read you a Leo horoscope for for right now, for today as we're recording this. Oh so this is this is for all of us then, because in the Western system all three of us are considered Leo's I believe that's correct. The current version, there is a thirteenth astrological side where there was weird story. We're gonna get to that. Um So here it is, you're ready for all you Leo's out there, including US March. According to horoscope dot Com, money that you may have been hoping to use to better your living or working condition could suddenly come your way today. Leo. Ideas for how to put it to work in the most efficient, satisfying way could pop into your mind quickly. You'll probably want to write them down, consider your options carefully, and then choose the one that suit your needs best. Go to it. So you could make some money today that you've been trying to get, and you could have an idea about how to use it, but you should write it down, and hey, congratulations to you bro nice that this is so. This is an example. I don't know. I think I may have talked about this before, but I I used to have a gig of freelancing where I wrote horoscopes for a very small paper and you know I did not I did due diligence, right. They just wanted reports on what are called the sun signs. They need a twelve parisue and you know I would do little things like theme have Halloween themed horoscopes, things like that. It's very fun to write. Um, but got a I got a lot of correspondence that really surprised me when people were saying things like, you know, thank goodness, I read this. It was incredibly helpful in one way or another. And there we go into the nature of the of belief, because if you believe something works and you're not harming yourself and you're not harming other people, then full power to you, you know, Stephanie. I know we're taking a second to get to your questions, you know, but we're fascinated by this. We have been by fascinated by these systems, Western non western for a long time. I have a I have a theory, Matt Noel, doctor, that I think could just pot possibly many asterixs, possibly explain the mechanism through which the stars and the heavens and the movements of the planets could maybe affect the human mind. And I tried to be really rational about it, and I tried to, you know, be open minded. So first, we don't really understand how gravity works. We know what it does, but that that's it. Um, we don't understand a whole lot about gravity. We also don't understand a ton about the human brain in certain aspects this, and we don't understand a ton about the development of a human in the embryonic stage. Right there, we still have questions regarding things like umature, consciousness, the nature of consciousness. Perfect, yes, how does consciousness form? When? When? Why? It's what degree? And then also we I mean, we don't even really know what will happen if a child is conceived and birthed in space. That they're evolved. What I'm saying, they're evolved for a very specific gravitational environment. And we know that the actions, the movements of non terrestrial objects and to a degree effect have a gravitational effect on this planet and all the things living on it. So is it I know we're walking a very like tapering branch. This is great. Then the tapering branches is exactly where we need to be. Because I've got something to share with you. I don't think you I don't think you've heard this yet. Okay, Well, it's just sew it up real quick. Is it possible, like if the moon can affect tides, right, that is it? Given that has proven? Is it possible that massive objects can exert some kind of uh very small gravitational effect on the planet. And then is it possible that that gravitational effect could somehow influence uh formative stages of the human brain in what we would later call, you know, personality or consciousness. Have no proof of this. This is this was like literally me several years ago, probably like two beers deep thinking about maybe at the time, I got to like, what if maybe it was five? Who knows? Um? But yeah, so that's that's how I tried to explain some of this stuff to myself. We know that we know that tons of people use astrological services now you can get in the forms of apps, but also may print out these charts in an attempt to get a better understanding of themselves, their loved ones, um an idea of when they should do something or what they should do. We we know that a lot of world leaders have been influenced by this. The military junta of Myanmar relocated their capital some years back on the advice of an astrologer, and Ronald Reagan had an astrologer. It's people from all walks of life, is what I'm saying. I believe in practice this that's correct, and I want you to hear this, Ben and everyone listening. We had a question in there are a comment in there from Stephanie about kind of predictions. One of the reasons that you would have charts and everything to kind of get a sense of what may be coming well astrology dot com. He went to horoscope dot com. Now we're at astrology dot com. They posted in December December thirty one an article called Astrology Predictions Welcome to the Age of Light speed Change. Okay, you can find this. It's by a person named Gray G. R. A. Y. Crawford. In this there's one thing that I'm gonna point to, and it doesn't mean that the whole thing is correct, but this one thing is pretty astounding. I'm gonna read you part of the first paragraph, and then I'm gonna jump down. The year enters with the propulsive force of a new era, announcing itself as the immense impact of the great conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn, Inaquarius ripples outward. While we had to grieve the end of an old era in twenty while enduring difficult birth contractions, collectively, astrology of one will require continuously adapting to the far reaching changes that will be erupting across all aspects of society. The closeness of Jupiter and Saturn in the sky at the beginning of the year will serve as a guiding star of hope for creating the reforms and innovative solutions needed to address the numerous societal issues and inequities that have been exposed during the past year of the global pandemic. Now I'm jumping down a few paragraphs here, are you ready for this? January begins with a big bang, as Mars will enter Taurusts on January six and spend the rest of the month amplifying the volatile tensions brewing between Jupiter, Saturn and Urinous there will I I just I'm just laughing because I was delighted when we were like, we're not going to straight up say but likely, but January six. What happened on January six? Man, Well, the US capital was stormed for the first time in a long long time, and it was thoroughly stormed, right and yeah, and just conceptually Mars entering tourists, I don't know, they're something about that. Uh, that's crazy to me, that's crazy. Yeah. So So the idea then, is to what degree can astrological practices predict real world events on a macro or micro scale. People definitely do believe this, and there there are numerous historical examples. Right. The thing about astrology is whether you consider yourself more skeptical, whether you consider yourself a true believer. You can easily admit that multiple cultures across the world and across time independently either invented this or discovered this, invented or discovered some version thereof. And your verb choice there depends on your personal beliefs. I would I would argue, Um, yeah, that is a coincidence. That's a is there such thing as coincidence? Bro, that's like part of a conspiracy mantra, the conspiracy realism. Like, it's weird to me that we can that my brain cognitively can have this belief that there really is no coincidence. Like it's tough to really get a good coincidence. Um, that didn't have some kind of guiding hand way in the background even or just you know, immediately in the front of whatever action occurred. Um, but I have that belief. But then also this astrology and prediction in this way using the stars or charts feels like hogwashed me. That's my personal opinion. It feels like pseudoscience to me and the you know, the vast majority of scientists and researchers and educated individuals out there at those upper echelons would have probably agree with that. Um, especially those at NASA. Talk to the people who deal with space a lot um and they put out, oh, there's a Time article that you can read. Uh, and it is NASA has no time for your astrology. Nonsense. That's the Time article that you can read. Yeah, pretty yeah that's actually from NASA. That is from Time. Okay, okay, yeah, that's a quote from NASA. Yeah, that press release. Alright. No, they did not, They just say, could they? They let everyone down pretty gently. There are other great places you can go to that say the same kind of thing. There's a website with Berkeley, the College of Berkeley. Uh. The website is understanding sign. It's let's see I think it's U N D S C I dot Berkeley dot e d U. They've got a really great little snapshot on their website where it just talks to you about, well, you know, is astrology, is it scientific or not. It's almost like it looks like a workbook that you would find, you know, in grade school or something. But it's pretty great. Because it just gives you these bullet points of like, well, here's why a lot of people don't think it's scientific, here's why a lot of people believe in it. I really really appreciate what they did there was there is there any particular point there that really swayed you away from, away from or towards your hogwash position. Um, it's more in that it's it's impossible right now, at least to the best of our understanding. It's impossible to test things in astrology. Possible, but it's illegal area that there would be human experimentation. Okay, longitudinal study. Uh sure, get people from the same genetic background, make all the variables except for birth time and location as as close to uniform as you can, and then somehow, in trying to say this to us sounding like a supervillain, somehow ensure that children are born at this exact schedule so that you can shift the variable. This is no, we shouldn't do this. This is not not a good look. I don't think that's the right step. But but yeah, it's it's true. There's there's a lot of stuff we don't know. Human beings often are so good at making patterns funny story, folks, And we were just talking about this earlier this morning. Uh so good at recognizing patterns because it's an evolution It was an evolutionary necessity before humans became the apex predator. This stays with every human being. You are a pattern analyzing master, and it's easy, sometimes dangerously easy, for people to create a pattern in their head while they're they're searching to discover one. This doesn't mean that people are practicing astrology in some cynical way or bad faith. I think all of us in the audience, no, at least at least a few people who are very well read in one of these systems or another and very much believe it. Um and I would say, out of context, this is not weird. But in defense of astrology, uh Matt, I proposed that it functions as at times profound tool for psychological inventory. You know what I mean. You're learning about how you react to this information, and that's valuable. Yeah, And it's exactly and at least in the Western dial of things like horoscopes and checking your charts and things on some of those apps you mentioned, it seems to have a profound positive effect on the individual because it's almost always encouraging, um, at least at least what I've encountered. So so again, like, if you can use it in that way, even if you don't necessarily believe that it has an actual one to one relationship with what's going to occur in your life, if you can use it in a way to enhance your life, then jeez, that's that's amazing. And I'm also not pooh poo pooing astrology. I'm telling you what I believe just currently, Like I hope everybody understands that. But you know, if you're if you're really into it and you're interested, you want to learn more, There's a place you can go online called Astrology University dot com and you can get a degree. There are programs of study there there. Um, they are all kinds. Yeah, I don't know how much it costs, and maybe really expensive. I have no idea. I'm not promoting them. But you can go there and you can a four year training program if you want, and you know, be the best astrologer you can. I think that's I think that's a cool thing. I I don't know about you all. I always enjoy it when my when my friends get super into a niche thing and have expertise over that. You know, it's such an amazing thing to learn about people, you know. Once, once we're on the other side of this particular pandemic, before the next pandemic comes, We're gonna have so many great conversations with people who have picked up some like really weird knowledge in their time and quarantine and say hey, how is how are you or how's it going. It's such a load of question nowadays, but imagine how cool it's going to be when you can ask one of your friends, so, hey, what did I haven't seen you for over a year, what did you get into and think, well, you know, I was um putting together a model trained for my kid and Christmas. People still do that and uh, and now I know everything about trains in the eight hundreds. Ask me anything track gage, the dangers of steam. Uh yeah, and well what have you been up to? Oh? I'm a racky master now. So yeah, By the way, if anyone knows anything about raiky, I'm super interested. I'd love to talk with somebody, Just reach out. I love to know. Just can you actually do it through this? Like cold? Can you raiky energy through a camera into somebody's body and then back to the camera the way you can, uh, the way you can send vibes if you're a televangelist. Yeah, like, can you do that? I'm not saying. I'm not saying you can or can't. I'm just interested. Uh. Anyway, same thing with with a lot of these a lot of the things that are occurring in this new always online kind of environment. Can you transfer something electronically in that way? Sigils those astrology very key. I guess astrology is different because you're you're encountering the information in a mundane way. You're reading it right, and it's proven that people can read. Uh what what would another one be? It couldn't Acupuncture wouldn't work. You have to be physically there. Yeah, hypnosis maybe could you hypnotize people? That's completely different. I think that's a little too different. Yeah. Does the low quality mono audio of a zoom call like this, does it allow for hypnosis? I don't know. Is this probably an option somewhere in preferences where you can check enable hypnosis? Preferences on these things are crazy, but but yeah, just your point, Stephanie, People do, like I I personally know some people who create astrological charts, and they're very by the book, They're very in depth. They're the kind of people who will get a little annoyed if you if they say, hey, I want to do your astrological chart, and you say, all right, I was born sometime in August such and such, and they'll say that's not enough. I need the exact time, I need the hospitals or you know, the coordinates, the latitude and longitude. And then if you make the mistake to say, well, what does that matter, then the answer you will get is it all matters. And the reason that people some people are much more skeptical about astrology is because simply put the belief as they're doing it wrong. I you know, I don't know. The issue is if I'm assuming the skeptical side. The issue is here that if if this understanding were sound, reproducible, and everybody agreed this was so, then it would be the kind of technology that would always be used by corporations and governments and various other institutions, right like banks with time stuff based on what they were able to divine from the stars. Maybe they are and maybe we just don't know. I mean, we gave two examples of governments and government figures that did consider astrology when making policy decisions. But that doesn't seem to be the case for everybody. I don't know. I don't know, man. Maybe maybe there's a secret cabal of astrologers. They're the real power in the world. I don't I don't know, man. So we Hey, we started this segment with a horoscope for Leo's right from horoscope dot Com. I'm gonna end with a sentence from the astrology dot com horoscope for Marche for Leo's you ready. I think it is specifically aimed at us. An electric opposition with uranus brings fourth downloads at lightning speed, Leo Wild. Yeah. Also, the one thing a lot of people who probably william for us to bring up, why don't why why are so many astral horoscopes? Why are so many horoscopes from one source or another so very different on a given day, You know what I mean, it's a fair question. Ask. I really thought the opposition of your anus bringing forth downloads was going to make you laugh, Ben, And I'm sorry to know I took it seriously. I try not to try not to constantly crack off at this. I I do have to ask Matt, and I apologize. There's a dumb question. What does that mean exactly? It's gonna bring forth downloads baby at lightning speed, and there's an opposition with your anus, so I don't know something to do with that. So and it's electric too, so oh I had I did have some WiFi problems when last we recorded. Is that it is that are the stars speaking to us about fixing our WiFi? I don't know, dude, Just tune into your intuition, especially while today's moon sales through your astral fourth house of roots, innermost feelings and emotional awareness. You know that speaks to me. I felt. I gotta tell you. I was looking up some at some horoscopes just to see differences between the ones from is we record this, and I know everybody's saying, it's so leo of you guys to just do Leo horoscopes, read mine, you know, read Aquarius, read Torus, etcetera. Um. There was one that made me nervous because it was like, this might sound like something to laugh about, but be extra cautious around your boss today, which I never want to hear. No one wants to hear that. You know what, It says that as the daily bonus for us, ben money changes everything, especially when you don't have it, watch your cash. So okay, another financial thing. So maybe maybe there's a well, certainly there's a matter of people doing these readings, drawing these charts, and then putting it in their own kind of framework or their own sort of presentational style. So the argument would be that would the argument will be that skeptics are objecting to interpretation, not sure the factual basis. But again, I think it's cool. You're not You're not hurting people. Do do be aware though that Um, the story Matt and I mentioned earlier about astrological sign in the West is very much true. So this system did change right over time. It did. Well, hey, we've gone way too long been we got to end it right here. Oh good lord. In this episode, the pollen in Atlanta right now has just covered everything. My god. Uh, and it is hitting me really hard today. I'm so sorry. Might have to feel my nose running. It's disgusting. Wait wait a second, we've got something here from Doc Holiday. Uh. Doc says I was telling you else, so bad. Doc says I don't really believe in these. Let me get my liberal horoscope after the episode. What do you say, Man, No, we gotta do right there? Yeah, all right, let's go. Do you want to go few horoscopes dot com or go to one? Gonna go to astrology dot com best horoscopes. We'll see where that takes. All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna start here. You ready, doc. As a Libra, you're cosmically guided by the bond building planet Venus. Today's sky see Venus in a well supported alignment with stable Saturn helping you ground down and explore realistic opportunities for connection. On the romantic front, It's an ideal day to bring people on board with your creative personal projects or to have a serious conversation about a relationship's future as an air of commitment and follow through is present. That's nice one. I like that. Uh, I am over at something called astro talk dot com. Let's see what they have to say. Oh no, wait, no, let's go to a better one. This is whoa is weird? Okay, whoa whoa? Whoa. At the end of this one, it's talking about again opposition to electric electric uranus in your erotic eighth house. This is I don't understand some of the do uranus is blowing up these days. Huh. All right, as as you said, Matt Horoscope dot Com. Uh, this sot of scope, says Doc Holiday. That's weird. Have your name in here, Doc Holiday. Information received today excites your imagination and encourages you to start a new artistic or creative project. Stories, pictures, abstract concepts all could come together in your mind and form an inspired idea that could change your life. So gird your Lloyd's, write down your thoughts and see where it all takes you. You might be surprised by what you produce. Amazing. Here's the last part from mine, just to tack onto Ben's because I think it's perfect it says dear Libra. Your effort is much appreciated in your line of work. It's time for you to fully appreciate what you have to bring to the table too. We couldn't agree more. Heck yeah, what what a great place to end. Uh We ended out a positive note. Thank you as always everybody for tuning in. Uh. That's our show for today. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you take a page from your fellow listeners, Stephanie, Paul, Agent l and everybody else who has written in, has called us, who has reached out to us as a show or directly. As always, we cannot wait to hear from you. We try to be very easy to find online. That's right. You can reach us in all the usual social media locations of note. We've got the Facebook, we've got the Twitter where we're conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. And if you're not that kind of social person and you want to use your phone, you know the voice part of it where you can talk to people, you can talk to us. You can leave us a voicemail. We have a number. It's one eight three three sdd W y t K. Leave a message. You've got three minutes at the very top. Please tell us your name or what you'd like for us to call you. That's very helpful there. Let us know if we can use your voice on the air. We would love to if we can, and then leave us a message afterwards. You know you've you've got the most important things out of the way there. You can then give us a personal message. You can put it right at the end there. Hey, And if you've got a lot to say. Remember you can always fit more stuff in an email, and we've got one of those addresses. You can send us longer messages to our email address. We are conspiracy iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. 
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