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 Nol. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Paul. Mission control decands. Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. This is one of our favorite times of the week. This is our weekly listener mail segment where we comb through social media. We go deep into our voicemail q We get messages from email as well from you know, whispers in the Dark, a Crossroads at midnight, and we pick just a few each week to share with you, our fellow conspiracy realists. We're going to talk a little bit about peanut allergies. We're going to talk about urban exploration and strange abandoned places. And before we do any of that, we want to we want to share with you an excellent piece of correspondence from one of our fellow listeners in Iran now full disclosure. We went back and forth about whether to put this at the very end, or to put it at the very top. UM, we're gonna hear from a person going by the name of Unwilling Stardust a bit of background before we dive into this. UH. This is lengthy correspondence, so we are going to share excerpts if you would like to. UH. If you'd like to read the entire thing, you can pink us and penning permission of our conspiracy realist. Here we can share it in full. But if you have been paying attention to the news, regardless of where you live, you are likely aware that Iran is now embroiled in um a lot of instability due to protest and it's unfortunately accurate to say that much of the reporting about this from the West is often riddled with propaganda because the US and its allies are geopolitical enemies of Iran and its allies. As always, as we always say, no matter which country you look at at any time in history, the people are not the government. So you have to remember, no matter how vilified a country maybe in your local news or your news sources, that country is made up of people just like you, and many, many, many of them, the vast majority have no will say in the actions of their country, sometimes on the international sphere and often even in the domestic sphere. So with that preface, here we go. We're just gonna share, share as much as we can here of the story of unwilling Stardust. She begins, dear stuff, they don't want you to know. Hello. I hope you're well. I wish I could say the same by now. I imagine you've heard of what is happening of the demonstration in Iran, but I assume there aren't a lot of English resources with flash news covering the whole situation unbiased. Of course, I didn't want to send you this email. For a very long time. I tend to avoid these situations. But today is not the day for being scared. And this is the least I can do for my people, the ones that are dying in the streets fighting for the minimum amount of human rights. Today, I have no choice but to start talking. Today. I am going to break the silence my own and the one standing in the way of information between our nations as this goes. While I stand on the bloody pages of history as it's being written, I wish to do justice by covering this situation as much as I can. And here we'll we'll go to some excerpts. Unwilling Stardust says something that some of our other contacts in Iran have confirmed, uh, their widespread Internet restrictions more so than usual. Uh, there are tons of apps being banned or filtered on people's mobile devices, and of course there's a pretty pervasive monitoring program. As a matter of fact, Unwilling start Ust is conscious the entire time they're writing of the fact that their Internet may be cut off at any moment. So this act, as it might sound simple if you have not lived in an oppressive regime, but this act of sending an email is tremendously courageous and should be acknowledged as such. So she continues, I am a twenty year old girl living in Iran with a massive interest in sociology. I've been raised in a family deep into politics, meaning that I grew up learning how to see the truth behind the scene of what we are presented with. But today is different. There's no longer hiding, pretending, or covering. The government has become what it always was, behind the shadows. There have been situations like this throughout my life when people wanted to attend a peaceful protest, but their simple demonstration turned into a battlefield with an unfair war against them, getting shot, killed, tortured, and detacked. And she continues, as I am writing this email, gunshots are ringering in my ear, echoing from everywhere in the streets, as the screams of the protesters get lost in the sounds of sirens. This was, by the way, sent to us on September twenty two, so this is still very recent. Uh, and unwilling to start us, wants to document her experience of what's happening on the ground, and she UH, a structure or is this the same way we structure our episodes beginning with here are the facts? And she mentions how a young woman and her brother came to Tehran, the capital of the country, to research a new university that she was going to matriculate in, but their journey was cut short at the train station when the moral police of Iran arrested her for disobeying the hijab law, or the covering of one's head, and she begged them not to take her. She said, they're not you know, we're not from Tehran. We haven't done anything wrong, She is abducted into a van and unwilling to start us as this is the typical protocol. It's nothing new, It's how you were treated for being a woman in this country. She says. This is also not why I'm mad, and she goes by giving the blow by blow here. This is tremendously unpleasant, folks, she says. The authorities tell her brother her to come pick her up roughly an hour later at this address they give him. He finds the place and he's this is a young kid, he's sixteen years old. He eventually finds the place, and when he goes to pick up his sister, all he learns is that she is in critical condition. She is in a life or death situation. When he starts to argue about why his sister is beating up like that, they attack him with tear gas. He calls their father, gives him an address of the hospital, finds the hospital. They find his sister there, but they're told to go away because she is in a coma and they can't meet her. Later that day, they learned she has died. The official explanation a heart attack, and Uh, unwilling to start us, points out that a lot of people have a problem with that official conclusion, and she says that the police narrative here is clearly false or has a lot of holes in it. And then here's where he gets crazy. She says, I'm reporting this event live because I'm not sure how much of it will be censored until it reaches the other side of the world, which is us here on this show, and she lays out a very compelling case of a conspiracy on the part of law enforcement in the country, and how it resulted in this young girl's death, even pointing out that her clothing was not technically against the law. This is very well documented. It comes with our Our fellow conspiracy realists has given us multiple sources, many of which are Western, and has done all the legwork for us. I believe that we may need to cover the protests and ron and the fallout in an episode very soon. I want to stop here with the praise of the letter as well as the updates unwilling start US has given us with time codes, which I knew you would appreciate. Matt um right uh with with this again, not sharing too much of the letter here out of concerns for anonymity. How aware were you guys of the protests, the ongoing protests in Iran. I've started to see it really blow up on social media, and I'm sort of embarrassed to say that I have not dug in much deeper um than just the surface level, which is sad considering how it affects human lives, and yet it's just another in the long line of things in our feeds. Um. This has really slapped me into reality and made me much more aware that I need to do that thing I share maybe unwilling to start us sentiment here that and what you said at the beginning, there have been that a lot of the reporting I've seen on this does come from Western sources. We do know that the United States and Iran have a very strange relationship, and it weirds me out because any major protests occurring in Iran makes me feel suspect about possible outside involvement and push pushing narratives right, pushing things on social media on purpose to make sure it becomes the biggest story. But in this case, there are massive protests on the ground that that you can see on the social media side that you're talking about. All you can see the actual pictures. We aren't just relying on pictures from news outlets to see what's happening. Um, We're hearing reports from people on the ground experiencing right now, like startusts, so I'm less skeptical of it. It's just awful. It's a terrible situation to be killed for what you're wearing because it doesn't meet the stringent needs of any religion. Yeah, and the it's important to note the the conspiracy, the cover up that I'm willing to start us is right into us. About is a different individual from the one who died whose death is seemed to have sparked the protests. That is Massa amini uh and pardon of course, unwilling Stardust and other friends and fellow listeners in Tehran. We are not native Farsi speakers, so we are doing our best and we do have your back here. Am I wrong that this is somebody who died while like during the protests that was picked up or is this a whole separate thing? This is I mean, this is what we have to realize. This is reaching a systemic crisis level. There are multiple victims here, the origin, the genesis of the protests. You know, you would see the footage of women burning head scars and demanding reform, right, and there's been a lot of public descent about reform in Iran for quite some time now. The protests have spread to over eight towns and cities in the country. It's broad based, a lot of it is spontaneous. Is as a new TESHAMI, the professor at Gerham University in England puts it, These are not pockets of protest. This is not like a one city movement. Uh. This is engulfing the country and I share, you know, sadly some of the same skepticism you describe when I see news like this, Matt. Uh, it's spread now, like women and girls are the driving forced by the protests, but other students are joining in, male students, soccer celebrities, workers going on strike well. And these these types of protests are usually led by that echelon of of society, you know, and then other parts of the world as well. And things like this also really draw attended to the fact that while you know, you could be hyperbolic and say that the United States is inching towards totalitarianism or has been. Um, it's certainly you know, shows the stark difference between you know, how protesters are treated here versus how they're treated in other parts of the country. Um not to say that they're aren't massive inequalities here and massive problems and you know, police brutality and government crackdowns and things like that, but it's just not the same, agreed, And we also know the story that Williams start us as telling us is one example again of multiple horrific events. She links to a pretty comprehensive series of tweets and you know, honestly, in repressive regimes, twitter can be Twitter has a lot of problems, let's admit it, but Twitter can be an incredibly effective way of circumventing government controls over information and calms. So she talks about how a ten year old was murdered amid the protest. Students were getting expelled for fighting. Allegedly, people are injured, but they're not going to hospitals because they believe, with good reason, they'll be arrested. There are reports of unarmed citizens being shot in the middle of the street or shot at the police have also apparently murdered fifteen year old boy. You can like. The list goes on and it's terrifying stuff. I want to end with again, these are just excerpts of a much longer, excellently written letter I want to end with unwilling start us final statement tonight the wars fought with acid attacks and guns. More than two d people are killed and only one city that I am aware of in just one night, the night I am typing, this Internet is disconnecting in all cities. We're getting cornered. Wish us luck world, we need it the most now. It's powerful, it's somber stuff. And again, you know, we say often that you listening are the most important part of the show. It's true, it won't exist without you. But also over the years we have we have all I think, become pretty pretty close. You know, a long time list nerds. We've been there with you in some very amazing moments of your life and some harrowing moments, and honestly the same could be said of you being there for us. So to the people of Iran, we have your back. We know that we are on the outside looking in, but we would love to bring more visibility to this uh potentially in a future episode, and to do our best in this regard. We need your help. So if you are in Iran and you are able to write to us safely, uh, if you have family there, if you have experience there also prioritizing your safety, please do reach out to us. Conspiracy die Heart radio dot com three std W y t K. You can find us on social media if that's easier and again safer. Of course we're on Twitter. Um. If you are uncomfortable with any of those means of communications and you have something preferable, then find the one you're most comfortable with and let us know how best to communicate with you and what platform us. I wonder if there's a way like we could even get like a WhatsApp account or something like that. I mean, it seems like, you know, there's some places where you can make direct telephone calls, so you could call our number potentially, but I think it maybe has to be and uh in your contacts, or it has to be like confirmed or something. I'm not quite sure. I've only done what's app, like you know, directly to a person that I that I already know and have confirmed their their number. So let us know. If there's a way to you know, be more accessible, we will. Yeah, we will do our best to work with you and so far, just so you if you are in Iran and you're you want to get a sense of what the reporting is like now here in the US. Earlier this week, as we record, Iran Supreme Leader I told her come any Uh said that the US and Israel were responsible for the protest. And as of now, West Yeah, as of now, Western media is quoting Iradian State TV that says forty one people have died in the demonstrations. This is from MSNBC, just came out a few hours before we recorded. However, human rights groups are estimating the number to be much much higher and unwilling start us. It sounds like you are telling us from experience that the numbers aren't matching the official narrative. So with that, we are going to pause for word from our sponsors. We do hope you reach out if you can do so safely. We'll be right back with more messages from you. Stay safe, folks, and we're back with another message from you. This one comes from one of my favorite ills, non diplomes nonda internets of a coinky dink because I look at it and I see the word coin because coinky and then I see Kake. I don't know, it's just fun there. There's a lot going on there. Um, I'll just dive right into it. This is sort of about, um, the idea of allergies and what that actually means big picture. Hi S td W I T K T M. I appreciated the book reading Assassination episode. I've ordered the book, looking forward to reading it. Hey, our viral marketing is working. Pablo Co Winky Dinks, lead and get the book. It's out now. You can get the audio book if that's your bag. I'm an audio book guy. If you want to hear Ben and Matt and myself read you a story, multiple stories, you can do that, or you can order the actual book. It is a lovely piece of of of literature with the illustrations by our buddy Admiral Turbot Nick Benson. Going on with email, I wanted to share some thoughts. This one's been back burning in my mind for a while. The peanut allergy. So why the rise in people allergic to peanuts? You know, peanuts is off you know off the email. It is one that you like, they make a big deal about. If you have kids, there's certain you know, if you have a kid with a peanut allergy and your kids like peer group or whatever, no peanut butter, No you can't bring like eat my kid. You know, went to a smaller private school a while back, and there was one kid that had a peanut allergy and no one was allowed to bring peanuts because it can be inhaled. Like, I mean, there are like it's very serious. Peanut allergies can cause people to go into anaphylactic shock and potentially die. It's a serious like like a shellfish allergy. Like it's a big deal. So why the rise in people with peanut allergies? So my thoughts are this, the peanut growers changed something in their process, maybe modify the seeds, changed pesticides, fungicides or herbicides, or introduced something into the soil. So here's what I've found. The uptick of allergic reactions starts around the nineteen nineties. The peanut growers are advised to rotate crops with bahia grass. I'm not sorry if I'm not pronouncing that right. Bahia grass. Bahia grass causes severe allergic reactions. Uh. And then there's quite a few good links um that COINKI think is provided I think there's Bahia grass or similar allergens being grown into the peanuts, and this is my own commentary, or at the very least on the surface of them, you know, like being transmitted with them. UM. While doing some searching to explain to my grandmother why the modern flower UH was not nearly as good for her tortilla making abilities, I came across this video for modern wheat versus ancient iron corn. I had to google this iron corn um or also known as emma, or maybe they're just too related. Um. Early forms of wheat are apparently very very similar, higher in fiber and protein than standard modern wheat, and they have more antioxidants and nutrients. But here's the thing that interested me. Um. Iron corn according to a couple of sources that I found UH is the only wheat never hybridized and it has only two sets of chromosomes. UM. So that's very interesting. So going on with email my thoughts keep looking for explanations. We thought my daughter was allergic to strawberries, but most likely it's the pollens, mold, spores, or other contaminants on the berries, not the berries themselves. If I rub them while rinsing them, underwater, she'll have no reaction, but only running water on them, and she'll have hives. Another burning thought in the back of my mind, how did we survive so long without knowing about r H factors in blood. We'll get back to that in just a second. Does that explain more lost pregnancies that have may have been attributed to diseases, environment, or hygiene. Could this be another reason why it was favorable to inbreed or marry within one's family. Um, And then there's there's a few more great links and then love the show Colinky Dink. So the idea of r H blood factor, this is the thing. It's called the recess factor. And I'm reading this from Medical News today, so this is my first encounter with this. So I'm just gonna read it directly and I'd love to hear you all thoughts. UM. The recess factor or r H factor, is a protein that may be present on the surface of red blood cells. If RBCs contain red blood cells UM contain the r H antigen, they are RH positive, and if not, they are RH negative. It's important to know a person's r H factor to ensure that they receive compatible blood. So that's you know, to do with transfusions, but it seems that it also can have to do with allergies. Uh and how you know you are affected by certain allergens? Um, But I don't know what what do you guys think about? You know, the idea of rotating a crop as important, you know, staple crop as peanuts, you know, old George Washington Carver and like the gazillions of uses for peanuts and peanut oil and like, I mean, I feel like Bubba and you know Forrest Gump talking about the different you is of sump. But I mean peanuts. Obviously, peanut butter is a huge staple food. It's very affordable, it's very high in protein. It's massively popular in the United States and other countries. I'm sure, um, the are responsible for what I think is the best sauce on the planet. Oh yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. It's fantastic. Um. But the idea that it's recommended that they rotated with this other grass that I'm not aware of. We know about crop rotation. That's a that's a way of you know, making sure you're conserving your soil and keeping the nutrients rich and not depleting the soil because one crop without rotation will do just that, so if you rotate it out with another one, it kind of strikes this balance. But if you're rotating it with something that is more of an allergen, then is it that thing that is somehow leaching into the soil. And again, I'm not a I'm not a botanist. I don't know. I'm not literally just going by what what was in Quinkydink's email and some of the sources. But I'm interested to see what you and Matt think about that possibility. I mean, it is known that this this grass in particular does have a damaging effect, like it can cause allergic reactions. It might be a little bit different, though this is such an intriguing concept here, Quinky Dink, it might be a little bit different, But I see where we're going with the strawberry example. People would confirm peanut allergies can also often have what's called cross reactivity, meaning you could also you're going to have a higher than average likelihood of being allergic to soy or tree nuts as well even ps and lentils, which I wasn't aware of. But from what we understand, this is um a what's called a type one hyper sensitivity reaction of the immune system. Right, that's what happens to people who have peanut allergy. Gee, Um, you're right too, You're absolutely right that there is a increase in peanut allergies. But I haven't found too much linking that specifically to this crop rotation idea. And I'm wondering, you know again, know, like you, I'm not the expert here, but I'm wondering what causes Like that's just a very interesting, um concept. We know that people can be sort of desensitized to peanut allergies, right, it can be prevented through diet of the of the carrying parent when the child is in the womb. Um, I think you can also decrease the risk if you give them peanut proteins between like four to eleven months old. Fascinating stuff. I mean, Matt, what what do you think? Do you know? Do you guys know anybody with a peanut allergy? Personally? My I got a nephew who had a pen an allergy for a long time, even though his mom my sister uh took great pains to expose him to peanuts early on, Like did all the right things. Uh, he still ended up being pretty allergic. But now he's not allergic to peanuts, but he's got a tree nut allergy. And you know, it's it's just really tough because as a as a parent or somebody you know, living with an allergy like that, you really do have to be super cautious just going through life. And you know, in order for that child or person to be safe, you do have to take great pains, like getting on an entire school or you know, anybody who's going to interact with a certain class to agree, okay, we're not gonna, you know, have any of this stuff anywhere near anyway. I think that's why they stopped serving peanuts on flights too. They just do they do almonds. Now, you don't. You don't see little packets of peanuts anymore, because I think it grew to such a concern that they didn't want to be responsible for accidentally exposing someone to peanuts in a closed system. And I don't they to switch them out when they find out someone has a peanut allergy. I think there was like better safe than sorry. Yeah, it's a weird concept when you think about you know, when I'm talking about those great pains and like what we'll do to protect one person or very very small number of humans amongst us, you know the I it's weird to me that we do that. I think it's really good, right. Everybody deserves, you know, to to be treated in that way. It's just strange, like as a society that we I guess to do that. I don't know whether allergies are the causes of certain things or like the degree to which allergies I don't know. I just feel like the idea of I'm allergic to this. I feel like a lot of people say that just because they think that they've been around something. It's it's true, uh to a degree. Because we have to remember that you can take uh, you can take test right. You can go to a medical professional to help suss out specific allergies. Right. They basically give you a tiny little taste of the thing and then they see what the poke does. Ation you can see if something weird happens to your skin. Uh, But it is true your point. Uh. Sometimes they're they're self reported cases of analogy, right, Like someone may have uh may have incorrectly attributed like a spot of diarrhea or something to uh, some kind of allergy, right and make sense in their mind, but they didn't have a doctor check it out, you know. And of course, let's be honest, in the US, you often won't be able to afford to have a doctor check it out. But we do know allergies are real. People may people may think they have allergies and there may be another explanation, or they may be allergic to something else, right that they associate with the the culprit in their mind. Uh, this I mean, but still it is. It can be very, very dangerous. And one of the questions that I always think we should tackle with this kind of stuff, is our allergy is the peanut allergy trend? Is it rising? Or are there better diagnostic tools? Like? Think about it? If you look back at the nineties, right, if you look back and say, the eighteen nineties, how many people were dying of peanut allergies, We honestly do not know. They were too busy dying of the plague. I think for anyone to worry about brain fever, you know, left footedness or whatever. Uh No, it's a really good point. But we've sort of like a you know, kind of like done them done the homework at this point and have been able to separate, you know, what the thing is, and then we've been able to kind of isolate a little better over time, you know what the cause of certain maladies might be. I think it's a really really good point. Um. I do still think the prop rotation idea is interesting. I don't know if it's accurate or not, but I think it's it's it was worth chatting about for sure. I mean, because then the idea is implicitly that the crop rotation is changing something about the peanut, right, or adding some contaminant to the peanut. In that case, then logically what we would be saying is that peanut allergies are on the rise because something different is occurring with the peanuts themselves, right, or the things associated with them. So there are two like they're too fascinating questions here, and they're and they're difficult to answer, you know, I um I. We also know that uh, crop rotation leads to superior peanut yields, like it's better for if you're a peanut farmer, you know, like Jimmy Carter once upon a time, that it's better for you to rotate crops because you'll produce more product also though, I mean, you know, the f d A is very aware of these types of things and a concerned about allergies and all of that stuff, and would you know, certainly be overseeing if adulterants that could potentially hurt people ended up in scaled uh agricultural operations. And we know, like if you go to places like Peanut Allergy dot com, then you can you can see that people have been thinking about this for some time on on this website um one of their forms. I've found a very similar idea to yours quinkadin, which asked the question, could the process of crop rotation combined with food harvesting mean that peanuts end up getting in something else causing more peanut reactions or could it be contaminating something about the peanuts themselves. It's a it's a tough one. My mind feels like it's playing with a Rubik's cube, you know what I mean? Yeah, now, it's true, it's something worth considering and looking into. And even just you know, we did what when we do that? That episode recently about it was sort of based around crop rotation and sustainability perma culture exactly, so I mean even that in and of itself is a philosophical concept to a degree, But then once you get into these like scaled agriculture operations, it does become more about the yield and perhaps, as we know in finance, sometimes you'll do things that are less than scrupulous in in in the service of the yield, you know. So I mean, again not not casting any aspersions on big agriculture here specifically, but it is something interesting to think about, like are there things happening behind the scenes as we know with like GMOs and all of that, that we've yet to even fully wrap our heads around, like what what they do long term? Right? Yeah, you know, I I know we're spending some time on this, But now that I think about it, the so a peanut has its pod in the ground, right, that's how they grow, And it doesn't have a hard shell, you know, like a coconut or a walnut. Yes, you know, they're very different things. Uh, but does that mean that stuff in the soil could leach into like through that uh soft peanut skin? Is that possible? I'm thinking out loud here, but I'm thinking about all the all the pesticides and all the herbicides that we know about that we're later found to have damaging effects, like we were right about neo nicotinoids. They're killing bees. You know, there's a reason you don't need a nutcracker to open up a peanut. You can it's got a cassism. And also if you, you know, soak them, you can basically make that shell essentially dissolve like cardboard. So you can't really do that with a walnut, and if you did, it would take like way longer and possibly have to have some sort of acidic, you know, additive to even go there. But peanuts are kind of like nature's cardboard in terms of the shell. I like that. I like that that's poetic, and we are aware that it is understood to be caused by several specific proteins. Right. Uh so it's that cause is pretty well researched, the well known. Oh man, I've got to call it. Does anybody have a peanut guy. We got to talk to a peanut guy. A piece in peanut We live in peanut country. Yeah, and even in like five guys. Very big signs, you know, peanuts and and potentially and everything, you know, because they've got those big crates of the things, and they're all over the floor. Have you ever been to like a steakhouse that has like peanut shells on the floor. Back in the day, you know, they certainly wouldn't have had a whole warning going in, but nowadays they probably are a little more careful to do that. Um, well, let's take a quick pause here, a word from our sponsor, and then come back with one more piece of listener. Man, Hello, we're back. I was about to start the show again. I gonna say, welcome back to the show. My name Mac Feeling. Yeah, you're welcome to them back to the show. And it was very weird stuff happened over then. You know, it's like the court ACEPS was just taken over all right. So, um, we are going to jump to the voicemail lines and we're gonna hear a message from an agent of sorts. Here we go, Hey, Matt ben Noel, this is Agent Minuteman from Massachusetts. Just listen to your classic episode on Noah's Ark, and your comments about that theme park at the end reminded me of the Holy Land, not like Israel, but Holy Land, Connecticut. It was a theme park built in the fifties in the town of Waterbury. It was shut down in the eighties and it's well known for having a huge cross, big led panels can see it from miles around. But the park itself real spooky looking. Now a girl was murdered there and it's become kind of one of these spooky tourist attractions. I seem to write up you guys, allie, so I thought i'd let you know I love a story involving ramshackled amusement parks. There was a Stephen King, kind of lesser Stephen King novella called fun Land. I think it was called um great set piece anytime you're in like a haunted house, kind of a trashy haunted house, always really fun fodder for a spooky mystery. Yes, it's ben. I want to say this is a vocabulary word of the day that you've presented to us before in the past. Uh canopsia. I don't even know if I'm saying it correctly. Yeah, the eerie feeling of being in a place that was once busy with people. It's like the ghost of all the people that once inhabited this place are now gone and it's empty, abandoned, and that. Yeah, I I don't know how uh uh, I don't know how official that word is. Just totally honest with you. I think it's a little more dictionary but I but I love it. And everybody has had this feeling before. Um So just to drive home with an example here, um why in our conversation we were talking about this almost quiet holiness, right, is how people can experience this. You've encountered this if you have ever been in a twenty four hour grocery store and looked around and you you know, you know, there's probably a cashier somewhere, but there's just the music plane, there's something sad and very um It's it's like Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows type stuff. Like another example would be, you know, um, a city after a tragedy, or a city during a holiday in Times Square after nine eleven, you know, or or Time Square during the pandemic. It amazing amazing photographs of places that are usually just heavily traffic that we're just uh yeah, it's almost like it's kind of like um, deja vu. It's got a a sort of vibe like that where it's like you're experiencing another worldly thing that isn't really something you can fully tap into, you know, psychologically or or intellectually. Rather um dead malls great example, you know, giant, empty, cavernous spaces that used to be bustling with shoppers that are now essentially like overgrown, weird places that are too expensive for anyone to rent. Well in a weird way. That experience, to me, is a lot like time traveling for just a moment, because there is a point in time when humanity is wiped from the earth, but some of the structures will remain at least for a time. Right matter when that is in time, how far advanced we are or how do devolved we are, there will be a moment right where there's just structures and there's one person left observing it, or a small group of people check out the show of the World without us back back when History Channel was still doing stuff like that. So yeah, you get to have that that window, that moment in time. Well, this place that Agent Miniman describes your Holy Land, USA, that's the full title in Waterbury, Connecticut. Uh, kind of has that vibright. Now it's being I don't want to spoil it too much, guys, but it is being used right now for some worship ceremonies. Uh, it is like a Christian worship ceremonies, like mass things like that. But for a long time, from four until gosh, the past the two thousand tens, this place was completely abandoned. It was started by a gentleman in the nineteen fifties who decided, you know, I want to build a place where people can go and experience essentially the biblical town of Bethlehem, or a replication of the biblical town of Bethlehem. But I want to make everything looks really the town of Bedrock. When you look at that, like the actual it looks like the flint Stones themed kind of amusement park. It's very, very, very weird. Well, are you talking about the There's a link I sent you guys to discovery dot com. Is that the one you're talking about. I'm just looking at the image there is that not it's that's one part of it. But there there are other images on another site that I sent to you guys. It's called messi NeSSI chick dot com that that has some images of the actual mini Bethlehem that was created. Uh, it's got coral castle vibes. Yeah, with with a better pain job because it had something of a budget, but not an inexhaustible budget, and they did the best they could with with that. The thing that you can't tell from the picture is the scale, because this is I don't it's less than half scale, I believe. Yeah, yes, exactly. So if you're at the front where these large gates are these pictures, we're looking at it. It looks like there's a town that kind of moves up this hill or up this mountain, and from the perspective it looks like a regularly sized bunch of houses and buildings, but really they're just tiny and it's just meant to look like it. And to my understanding, the creator's idea was that anyone from any religious background, of any faith could come here and just kind of spend some time in this place, almost as in a meditative state, to just imagine what it would be like to be here in this time and place that is written about in the Bible. It's very cool to me, I don't know, I like it is yeah, I like it because it reminds me of I mean, fellow nerds in the audience backed me up here, uh, the historical reproduction towns that some of us visited in grade school with someone's like, you know, there's an agent tradition to tune in butter wow, I recall vividly, you know what I mean, And they're doing the acting thing. I love that stuff, and I think we all um really enjoy this idea of visiting the past or experiencing it in person, even if it is a past with which you do not agree or to which you do not subscribe, This stuff can be really really cool. Uh. There is one thing that's green about the messy nessy link you sent Matt is you do get a better sense of scale when you see two kids, right. That's why I think that's where we're going. There's a a neat picture of two kids standing outside and a small building and in a hotel. Uh. And and based on the perceived height of the children, I think if you took an if you a person, an adult person standing would probably be right at the ceiling of that thing or higher. So it's yeah, so cool. What happened to those reproduction places, you know? Can we go? Can we just go to one? Is that in the budget there were a couple in Florida, though I don't know their current state, after Ian and some of the other like terrible tragedies that are going on down there right now with the weather. Um. But yeah, I remember going to a bunch of down there. I want to talk to you guys really quickly a little more about this place in the history, because it is it is pretty cool. There. There's a guy named John Baptist Greco or Greeko g r E c O. I want to say, maybe it's Greeko, might be Baptiste. Oh yeah, maybe it is John Baptiste Greco. Man. I'm sorry, I'm only reading these things and English is weird. You can kill him say things in different ways. But this dude was an attorney there in Waterbury and uh, as I was saying, he wanted this place to be like a cool meditative thing. Um, it was. You like the materials used for this thing, you guys were saying it was maybe a little ramshackle. Uh, it is. It's mostly reused materials from other projects, other construction, other things like that. I mean we're talking everything like old fridges that are helping to fill this thing out, center blocks, things like that. Uh. And it was successful in the nineteen sixties and seventies. There are a lot of people, around forty thousand people visiting this place every year as a not really a pilgrimage, but just you know, maybe a curiosity in a a place of interest in The guy who created this place closed it down and the plan was refurbished the entire thing, make it better than it's ever been. We've actually made you know, a little bit of money through the project. We can make it better, then we'll reopen it. But unfortunately he passed away very soon after closing it down and gave it to a group of nuns. And this is where the eerie part comes in. It's not because the nuns are haunting it or something like that, which would be a great Blumhouse movie. But yeah, but it's because they essentially looked after the property. But they didn't keep it up. Does that make sense. They didn't they did a bad job. No, they like, you know, they did the rest that they could. But it was like a volunteer thing, like, oh, well this is ours now. Oh geez, okay, I guess we'll fit this into our schedules. You know, got it. It wasn't like fully vandalized or burned to the ground, but they didn't, like, you know, it was van jobs, it was vantialized at times, it was you know, it remained though, right, let's just I don't know how to put that in a nicer way. They didn't really do much with it. It kind of grew over, uh, and kids, you know, teenagers used it as like a spot to go because it's weird. Right. Well, then there were a bunch of community efforts to actually clean the place up. Our caller mentioned a giant cross right that's visible from really far away that crosses neon looking thing. Well, it is now. Originally it is not, but it's gone through several restorations, I think three complete rebuilds, and it is now this huge light lit cross that you can see from even further away. Now, man, that crosses lit. Yeah, but but the the oh god, you gotta switch gears here, because there was something terrible that occurred that's been confirmed on the grounds where in two thousand ten, a young woman of sixteen named Chloe was assaulted and murdered and her body was left there at the park by a guy who was then charged with those things and began serving a fifty five year sentence. Um, so I don't know at least that guys behind bars. The person was caught, but it does, like then give this place a whole other sense of ereness. Right. Uh, life was lost there in a in a terrible way. So just when I'm thinking about strange places like that, that feeling of connopsia that we you know, or maybe not really a feeling, but a word to describe a thing, this place has a lot of those different feelings. It's a it's a real mixed bag of them up there. The idea of a place feeling haunted, you know, I mean, like even even if something horrible hasn't happened in a place like this, you are almost experiencing, like you said, Matt, the the ghosts of those that came before. Like the idea of someplace being haunted I think is more of a psychological phenomenon than like a supernatural one, you know what I mean, where your your imagination kind of fills in the gaps and you you you're seeing a place that that should have tons of people there but doesn't, and then you you you get this sense of whatever. And that's a great word for this canopsia. One thing I thought was neat though on the website Holy Land Waterberry dot org Is. It has one um image where it shows kind of what the housing situation might have looked like. And it's the kind of housing you might see today in like San Francisco, saw Selto. Like these houses on these hillsides that are all different colors, are like the flavelas in Rio de Janeiro and it and it obviously is kind of an older style of architecture where everything was just like, you know, you had this finite amount of real estate literally and things just kind of got shoved on these hills, probably a little haphazardly in certain senses. And I think that's interesting because I never really thought about what the Holy land. I guess I've always pictured its being kind of flat, but that doesn't really make sense. And maybe this is historically accurate, maybe it's not. But when I see this image on the website, I immediately think of those favelas and uh Rio or like this, you know, houses in sALS Alto and um you know, or in Italy, you know, like the multicolored or Havanna, you know, like a lot of old world kind of things seem to mimic this type of architecture. Well, yeah, by the way, if you look this up on Google Maps or whatever your map of choice is, you can find it pretty easily. It's a clickable link you can get on your map. You can go to the website holy Land Waterbury dot org and it does seem as though there are thing is going on there. Has it been mapped like uh in three in three D? Like if you went there and did like Google Earth, could you actually walk through it and see like real real time kind of stuff? I don't know. I haven't, I haven't attempt Do you do that? If you have like a if you have an oculus, you can do that in the Google Maps or it's called like Discover or whatever it's called. It's like an app for Oculus, or you can literally virtually go to a street corner. This would be a really interesting thing to try to enter into that app. M that's amazing, guys. I don't know if holy Land USA is open today. I can't tell it's well, it seems like it might be open, or at least parts of it. Website says two Waterbury holy Land site designed and hosted, so I mean, at the very least there's a there's a link to make a donation and there's a fact and a contact us get in touch link, So maybe they're trying to get funds to reopen it. But the site is definitely kept up by somebody. It says, we'll see here's the thing, this is the best informational website that we'll get out of here. Guys on their f a Q, it says, can I visit Holy Land? It says it's not yet open to the public, but we're working to make that happen. But that was written a while ago, because it says no trespassing is strictly enforced after sunset. We hope to have the park open during the day in twenty nineteen, and then the pandemic happened. And so I don't I love I love abandoned places so much. You know, they've got those ozamandius vibes that are just U mommy to me, and that it's a very weird sentence. But you guys, get right, Oh god, that's that's an anime. We're done. I have one little last thing. This reminds me of um when I was a kid. I went to this when I lived in Germany, went to this place in Munich where they filmed like Bavariaus Studios where they filmed The never Ending Story. Um, the director was German and they filmed that entirely in Germany. And there is a little kind of theme park quote unquote for The never Ending Story where you can ride on the you know, Falcore, the Dragon or whatever, and they've got like a lot of like scale models of the rock Muncher and the snails and all that stuff. And I don't know if it's open, but there was an article on Dangerous Minds years ago. They just sort of had some really creepy pictures of it, like everything just covered in snow, and it just seemed kind of abandoned. And I just I went there when I was a kid and I rode Falcore and they is a blue screen and they blow like a fan in your hair and then they give you a VHS. And I wish to god I had that VHS. But you know, and I'm not saying that like the Bible is like a fantasy, like The never Ending Story, but there are things about this site that do have an air of fantasy see to it. It's almost like a stylized version of of of the Bible of History. For sure. Yeah, someone's vision made real right. What's the weirdest place you've been to? Fell a conspiracy realist? What's your favorite strange amusement park. I won't go on air with mine because I don't want to blow up the spot and I'm I'm not sure what side of the law I am on when I explore that place. But as always, we are legally required to tell you not to break into places if people ask you not to do so. We want to hear from you, not just about these abandoned places, and thank you very much, minute man, not just about peanut allergies quinky dink uh, and not just about the ongoing protest in Iran. 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