From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. We are joined as always by our super producer, Paul Mission controlled decond you are you, You're here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. As you can tell, I did that thing so Ben after three tries everything now because again Ben is the master and he's not with us today, but he will be returning very soon to do that whole thing correctly again. So today everyone, we are diving deep into our voice mailbox because we've gone through I don't even know. There's a folder that I'm looking at right now that just has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages from you, and we only get to cover a few of them, maybe one a week, maybe, if you know, three a week maximum. So today we are going to go through as many as we possibly can and respond as long or as short as necessary. I guess we're just gonna respond to these in real time basically. Indeed, let's see. So I'm gonna be completely candid. I am coming into this cold as the sort of the stand in for you. Yes, you the listener, the conspiracy realist. And I've got an amazing list that Matt has put together in our handy dandy um episode document. Matt, what do you say? Do you want to you want to pick one to start and then we'll just kind of see what tickles our fancy as we go forward. Absolutely, let's get started with a message from Jackie. Hi, my name is Jackie from Madison, Wiscontlin's Not as a show. I was just listening to the latest Listener mail episode and you were talking about daffel gangers. Um. I just wanted to let you know about Norwegian concept called waaldiger Um. It's spelled v as a victor a r d as a daub o g e r. It's kind of like a spirit right assessor of like you can centse someone's coming, like you hear a car in the driveway, No one's there, but then ten minutes later that person arrives in a car in the driveway. Um, it's a spooky It's something I I'm my relatives are Norwegian. It's just something you just predict. You know somebody's coming, you're ready to welcome them, welcome them. It's not a scary thing. Um, but yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing. I don't know if you've heard about it, but thanks for the show, and you can put this on the reader if you want, thanks so much to have a good one fight. That is so cool. It's it's like the opposite of deja vu or something. I mean, it's a premonition, really is what it is, and that's exactly what it is. Oftentimes it is described as a sound or a site that precedes someone's arrival. And first of all, thank you Jackie for letting us know about that really interesting concept, not one that I I think i've experienced. Maybe you know, if you imagine if you've got maybe a relative or a friend who's come from a long way and is going to arrive, there's a lot of anticipation, internal anticipation that's going on for that moment, right depending on how it's how much you like that person who's coming to see you, or even if it's um, even if you're nervous about someone showing up because of you know, whatever previous interaction you've had. I A. I imagine that the mind can play many tricks on each of us in in those moments you hear something you know down by a driveway, or you hear something you know by the door. But this specific thing, it looks like vartegre v A R D O G E R. It is more substantive than that like trick of the mind thing. So right, I just I have you ever experienced anything like this? Well, it's almost like like I got a funny if I got a bad feeling about this, you know what I mean. I mean it's like if, like you said, if it's something it's emotionally charged, maybe the anticipation of something, or if there's just sort of something in the air like yeah, sure, I mean, or let's say, um, you you you song is in your mind and then you hear it on the radio, like that could be kind of like maybe a sort of a rudimentary comparison. Um. Also, it actually I've I've seen it described as a premonitionary deja vu, So it has that thing. The deja vu is sort of like I feel like I've been here before. This is like ringing, you know, ringing a bell in my mind. It's also a show associated with the Norwegian concept of the hoog, which is a pre Christian Norse Um view of the world that is basically dates back to in Norse mythology um Odin's raven. Uh. What's his name? Our colleague? Uh? Anchorman Ron Burgundy would say one of them, In fact, there were several was named hoogan um, which is the same word in Old Norse for for who. Uh. The other one, moon In, represents the word remembrance, So the idea of who is a current Norwegian word that it refers to the mind or thoughts um, or the idea to remember. So this is almost like reverse remembering in a weird way. So they're kind of like combined these concepts. It reminds you a bit of astral projection, almost like the spirit or whatever that thing is that maybe resides inside of us could could go forward before we are sical body reaches that state right or that position in time and space um. Because you'll see it described as like a scent enters the room, right. You're just imagine you're sitting wherever you are in your space, and all of a sudden, a very familiar smell of maybe your your partner or a friend that you're you know that scent, it enters the room and you can smell that scent clearly a full two minutes before somebody gets to your house. That to me is fascinating. But I know our minds are very powerful, and you know if I wonder if our brain could somehow trigger neurons just out of anticipation. Uh, like your your your sense memories. I wonder if they can be triggered just out of anticipation of another person arriving. I'm gonna screw this pronunciation up horribly, but I found this amazing website in Norwegian folk Tales blogspot dot com. I guess it's all a little website, it's a blog, um, but it's got a lot of collected knowledge from publications like from the early nine about Norwegian folk tales. And a third concept wrapped up in this is the idea of something called a filgage. Phil. It's got a J after the G, and that's the part of the screw me up. It's f y L g j E. So I'm thinking maybe the second J is silent, So maybe it's just Phil g or Field perhaps let us know, um, But This is a spirit companion that follows individuals around and can manifest itself on behalf of its host. So it's sort of like tied to an individual and the field jack can actually um manifest the ardger uh in terms of like giving its earthly host a warning of something that will happen UM in a similar way that in UH, you know, time travel mythology or lore, and you meet your past or future self, it screws up the timeline and like opens up like a wormhole, and then everything gets screwed up and people start disappearing from photos, family photos. Uh. In this case, if you meet this spirit companion, you will in fact die boa WHOA. Okay, well, don't do that. But there there are a couple of stories on here if you guys want to check it out, go to Norwegian Fotales dot blog spot dot com and just search for the words that we've been describing um A v A R d g E R and f y l g j E And there are a few stories that are kind of like almost like dark grim fairy tales surrounding the field You and the and the Vardager. So really cool stuff. Amazing, Thank you, Jackie. This one has definitely got us thinking, and I want to explore some of that further, all right, And with that, we're gonna jump to our next message, which comes from Matt. Another Matt. Maybe it's one we've heard from before, maybe not. There are millions of us. Here we go. This is Matt. I am calling to tell my experience that I just had two nights ago. Um I was falling asleep getting my daughters to sleep, and I had podcasts cute and the first one was the Screaming Girls of Malaysia and the second one was about Gin. They're both, you know, episodes of stuff they don't want you to know. And I was listening to those, woke up multiple times help my daughters during the night, and all of the sudden I had in this dream I saw someone walk into the room, the dark figure, and I watched him walk into the room. Then they just sat on my chest and I was trying to scream, trying to move, trying to do anything I possibly could to get out of the situation, but I couldn't move. I realized that I was going to sleep paralysis in that moment. But it was absolutely terrifying. I felt the weight of this presence on my chest was trying to move my fingers, just trying to blink, just to the smallest things. And the thing that almost scared me the most is I could, like I could smell its breath. It's like this rancid, awful breath, and it was completely horrifying, and I thought that I woke up from the sleep proalysis. And what my recollection was is I looked at my phone and I'm trying to just think of happy things and pulling up family pictures and I go back to sleep and the same exact thing happened again and I'm just trying to scream. I feel this presence, I watch it walk from the room to sitting on my chest, absolutely terrifying, and I woke up that time my daughter was screaming, so I think that's what triggered the sleep prolysist and end. As I got up, I went to check my phone because I specifically remember opening up my pictures, and what do you know, there was no I hadn't opened up my pictures, So it was almost a dream inside of a dream. It was a wild experience, and I didn't know if maybe the episode that I had been listening to about Jen that triggered it. I don't know, but it's very scary. Um. I would love to hear your opinion and thoughts on the episode on an episode regarding the story of the Utah woman whose headstone is inscribed victim of the Beast fixed six six. Thanks but bye? Okay, so to those two things are not related, right, No, no, no, that's an extra suggestion that Matt tacked on at the end that we're gonna hold until after we discuss what he just told us. Man, that is one of the most visceral descriptions of a sleep paralysis event that I think I've ever heard personally. Oh, I would agree, especially it's just told very saliently. The breath part really did it for me. Yes, have being able to recollect that this thing, this shadow that appears to enter the room and sit on your chest and you can smell its breath. Um. The the most horrifying thing I think for me. I think we've probably all experienced this is waking up from a nightmare and then going back to sleep and somehow your brain just takes you right back to that same place. That's that's awful. I've gone through that many a time and it's just the worst. But I've I've never experienced it with sleeper elysis, where you know you're having sleep paralysis, or at least you're aware of it upon waking or believing that you're awake, then going back to sleep and having it happened again. That's that's awful. Um. We've discussed in our previous episodes on sleep paralysis, maybe why it happens, how it happens, And I like that Matt is giving us a possibility here that what was entering his mind through his ear holes right before bed may have influenced or in some way triggered this event. Yeah, certainly. I mean I've certainly had things from the waking world, UM, weave their way into my dreams, whether it's up something in a podcast, uh TV show or something like that that I have, you know, as I'm falling asleep. UM. I don't really have nightmares like this so much, or if I do, they're they're just kind of weird and interesting. But I don't know that I've ever lately in my adult life have woken up like in a panic or like felt you like terrified. So I really feel for these folks that are dealing with this stuff that feels so real. Uh and maybe is you know, I'm what do you think? Where do you stand on this stuff? I mean, it's it's so interesting how like when people that take d M T trips they describe you know, almost identical experiences where they see some beckoning force, you know, like we referred to often by like Terrence McKenna as a machine elves um, you know, sort of like showing them the way and and telling them everything's gonna be okay, and uh that they were learning from these you know, these deities are these beings. Similarly, with sleep paralysis, always the same. It's always sitting on the chest, it's always hovering over the bed, these dark figures, Like where do you think that comes from? Just demons mostly, you know, Okay, the simplest explanation is usually the best one. Yeah, just demons. Well, we know there are varied experiences with with sleep paralysis, and we know there are specific uh forms, right like shadow forms essentially that are described by numerous people. And the sitting on the chest thing has gone I mean that goes back centuries and centuries and centuries where people have described you know, the cats sitting on the chest, stealing the breath right when we talked about all this stuff, um again, and I encourage you to go back and listen to some of those episodes. The the lore behind that shared experience is lore, but it is a really fascinating exploration of the way people fought at at certain like milestones throughout history and in this case, right now in the present time as we're recording this. A scientific explanation is what is I think primarily used right like, this is just something your mind is doing. But man, I think I think we need to continue to explore further. That's that's odd. It's an odd experience, especially having that inception level that Matt describes there, where you know, you're not sure if you're awake, you're not sure if it's a dream or not. Uh. You know this this gets into the bigger conversation about consciousness and the explorations of of that that are still happening right now philosophically and scientifically. So I just want to explore it more. I appreciate you sharing that, Matt, really quickly before we end this section, because we need to take a break. Noll Um. The thing that Matt mentioned at the very end. There the gravestone in Utah that has some weird inscription on it. You can go to Atlas obscura dot com right now and you can find Victim of the Beast gravestone in Salt Lake City, Utah. And there's a gravestone for a person named Lily E Gray that was born June six and passed on November nineteen fifty eight. And it does say, in fact, victim of the Beast six six six. And that's from the Book of Revelations, right. The whole idea of the number of the beast in six six six and all of that really juicy stuff from the Bible is mostly in the Book of Revelations. Yeah, and uh, you can find this place. It is real. It's in Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery and you can actually go walk to this gravestone and take a look at it. Not much is known about it, but as Matt says, it would be interesting to learn more. What does that mean? It's a doubt, it's a joke. I wonder what happened to this person. If you want us to do a whole episode on that, let us know. I'm certainly intrigued. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of information on the Atlas Obscure article. It's just kind of like an urban like a roadside that sort of atics Obscure originally was known for. If I'm not mistaken, like kind of weird roadside oddities, and this is certainly that. Um, yeah, very weird. Yeah, it's exactly. The page on Alice Obscura is identified as a stub. Alice Oscara requests help in improving, uh and expanding the victim of the Beast gravestone with additional information and our photos. So, uh, this is a mystery worth looking into. Oh you know what, I may have gotten this wrong. It looks like it might be in Salt Lake City Cemetery. I can't tell. There are two cemeteries that are kind of right against each other in that area of Salt Lake. So, um, anyway, we're gonna we're gonna learn more and if we can, because I do think this will require some digging. But thank you Matt for now. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back with more messages from you. All right, we're back, and we're gonna jump immediately to a message from Johnny Logic. It's a great ammy. I want to be the DJ HI guys, you can call me Johnny Logic. In the mid nineteen eighties, I attended a electronics technicians school in Rochester, Minnesota, and the c i A was their recruiting in four through night six. At least once a year they would show up looking for technicians to join the company. I never really talked to the guy because I figured I would be immediately just qualified for a variety of reasons. But it wasn't just some elite colleges they were going to. They probably visited other technical schools looking for electronics and other technology people. Also, thanks for your time later, Logic sounds like a character, Yeah, But I just thought that was a great story from Johnny because we talked about in our spying episodes some of the recruiting tactics of the company, CIA and other intelligence agencies, and it's just, you know, you imagine it being this elite thing right there looking for the best of the best. But that's a misconception, and that's a misthinking on my my part, at least personally, because the CIA is going to need people who can just get equipment running and make sure equipment is operating and functioning properly. But they have to be given the same clearances and have to be dependable and you know, able to exist in this elite you know, environment and not be worried they're going to be you know, they're that The verification and all of that stuff, I'm sure would be pretty intense, and it might keep some people from wanting to work for them, because it sounds like a bit of a nightmare. Yeah maybe, I don't know. Do you think also I was gonna say, yeah, it could be a great opportunity from a monetary standpoint. From an ethical standpoint, I guess it depends on how you feel about ye old company. I'm imagining that you may not even need the same clearances if and only if you are primarily setting up equipment, repairing equipment, doing some things where you're not actually interacting with the signals, intelligence or whatever other thing is being gathered. I mean, surely there are layers or levels you know of clearances you know that would very least be a bare minimum, you know, more so than if you just went to work for, say, you know, a corporation. Yeah, I I I think you're right on the money here, and the reason the reason why I wanted to play this one to think about that is because we got another message from another person that ties in almost perfectly with our message from Johnny logic. Hey, y'all in the Air Force and dupe a station in the end of day, but we didn't Sport. And I would think it's funny when people picture a spot, they picture like a pod or Jameson Borne, and they don't think about those other little people, the guy who's talking through the little uh secure keys and needing them information. And then also so you've got those little sholes, and then those people are getting information from other little people that are just able three emails, that's the phone calls, all that stuff. I was one of those uh other little people. So her string I get Tuesday, but you know I get every little bit help keep it up me home. So this is this anonymous person, just call them a NOD. They they were working directly with the n s A as as they describe a third string signals intelligence person people. Yeah, I don't know if I agree with you, Anonymous. You're I mean, maybe you felt the third string, but I highly doubt that you were even third string for the n s A. Is like first string for like any other gig. Probably yeah yeah, um, And again this is about misconceptions and wrong thinking personally on my part. Just it's hard to imagine how many individuals doing that kind of work exists out there for the n s A, for the FBI, for CIA, for whatever, Department of Homeland Security, any of those things. Um, there's so many people that are running the equipment that is doing the monitoring. We know we've got you know, I believe is it in Utah where the giant data centers are for the n s A. And you know those are data centers. They're doing their thing. But you've also just got people like like our anonymous person says, reading emails, listening to phone calls or at least monitoring phone calls, and just combing through data of I'm assuming individuals who are targeted by these, uh these alphabet agencies for surveillance or maybe just you know, all of us, you know, blanket style. Probably not right, that's what the data servers are there for. Uh m hmm. It's really cool that people listening to this potentially right now have worked or do work in the intelligence services in some capacity that does that. Weird you out at all. No, uh, weird me out. No, I don't know. I think we're probably only probably only the third stringers that are listening to this show. Well we're the third stringers of people talking about these things. Maybe, I don't know, mad Old Zella's short. We're at the very least second string, um, But you know, it is interesting and it's something that you know, we we I think there's so much weight and kind of grandiosity and ascribed to those kinds of agencies um in a similar way to like you know, I mean when you think about musicians and big rock stars, for example, and you think they occupy this elite rarefied air uh and all of their like handlers are like the best of the best, and they're like you know, but when you start to work with certain higher level talent, like we've had the opportunity to do uh here at I Heeart, you sometimes realize that people get where they get just sometimes from being in the right place at the right time, and they're not always necessarily like the elite you know, or the very least you know what you might imagine, um, everyone is just they're all human beings that make up these teams and I think all that applies to these types of agencies too. It makes me think of the the idea that I think it was the n s A or the CIA weren't getting enough good computer programmers or good like you know, uh hackers for a better term, people that could do like infiltrating, you know, running um uh simulations to to to keep cybersecurity protocols up to date. They weren't getting enough good applicants because of their drug testing policies, because you know, computer nerds like to smoke the Devil's let us uh, so they I believe, in the mistaken they lax that a little bit, and then they started getting more applicants or more like you know, SUCCE because so many people don't need to work for an agency like that. If you've got those kind of skills, you can go out as a freelancer and make plenty of good money. Yeah, And I wonder how much of it is a philosophical divide between the individual and how they view reality and security in the world versus how maybe the company views it. Um, I'm glad you said Devil's let us know. We're gonna jump to another message right now that deals with Devil's let us. Okay, yeah, this is I was calling you had snooky stories going on, and I had one that's um that I've had when I was younger. I might have been taking of the Devil's Lettuce with some things of mine in a car and I ended up seeing rs uh like thee a little bars in the car. And when I missied that to everyone, the god that was in the back seat said, oh, is that right? Tell me what you see now? And I swear what I saw was him owing a human mask over space and he actually was a devon, so that was a little scary. He got me out of the car pretty quick. Anyways. That's always stump with me. And I still could see in my mind right now, that's uh, that's demon wearing a human masks. I think somebody might have sprinkled a little of the Devil's PCP on your Devil's lettuce or the Devil's something else. I smoked big Devil's let us myself in my day. I don't know they've ever experienced any like demonic um presentations like that. That does sound scary. It's certainly put me off my my Devil's lettuce. Well, it's um, I would say personally as someone who has experienced the more psychedelic side of that substance. Uh. Accidentally perhaps, Um, that's actually the reason why I don't like it, um personally, just that's just me. It affects some people very differently. And the concept that that substance we're talking about cannabis, if it could have someone seeing auras you know, right, the energy essentially potentially that could be around some living thing or even non living thing, and in this case also allowing them to see through the veil too, you know, this individual's true self. Mm hmm. I don't know, because there's so many factors there. There's so many factors there. First, you'd have to have somebody in the car with you that is, in fact, a demon with a human face mask. Uh. And you'd also have to be affected by cannabis in a way that allows that. UM. I don't know a story. You know, I was always teasing at the top of the show, um, talking about it being laced or something like that. But it's absolutely true that cannabis, especially nowadays, you know the crazy strains that exist in like extracts and you know, super super super potentum versions tinctures and the like. Um, you can get a dose that will absolutely almost have similar effects to say l S. D um. And it made made me think of a tweet that I saw referencing the Travis Scott um incident. I want to read this to you. Um it was yeah, from a Reddit group. Somebody reposted this tweet. Um it says I was in the pit tripping apps lute nutsack watching Travis Scott and truly believe Travis Scott is a demon sent from Hell. I can't describe the evil and darkness that possessed him. I first hand witnessed his evil spirits passed to many of the fans at the concert. I luckily got out before the darkness consumed me. I highly suggest avoiding his concerts in the future. Jeez, I'm just saying. I only reference that too, you know. And obviously Travis Scott's getting right now. And I want to harken back to the conversation we had around the astral World situation. Matt. You were very even handed and coming in and saying, well, sure Travis Scott may have a pat under this type of behavior, and you know, there's a certain amount of responsibility rests with him. But also there are protocols and systems in place, you know, and then and he should have been notified and told to stop the concert much earlier than actually happened. So I heard NPR piece where, you know, a music reporter was talking about not you know, feeding into cancel culture and making it all about it's all Travis's fault. But um, I understand the concept of seeing through the veil and seeing someone's true colors when you're under a certain substance, influence of a certain substance, especially if things and situationally are veering in a direction that perhaps is showing someone's true colors. Um it can certainly manifest itself in that way. So there you go. Yeah, well look I've been I'm waffling just so you know, personally about that whole astro world situation and where because you know, I'm not somebody who can sit here and say who's to blame. But I I watched some more videos of Travis Scott himself, how he's reacting to the emergency situation that's developing, and it's not it's not great, But I definitely do stand behind this concept that somebody should have been on that stage, alerting him like in his ear somehow that things need to calm down or stop. It's it's funny. I actually saw a video not to get too far off the top of the last thing, because I don't know why I went down a rabbit hole of watching like old Green Day live performance videos because Billy Joe ms Strong is a little bit of a diva and he kind of loses his temper sometimes and like you know, does a little temper tantrum. Yestually did one at one of the I Heeart Award events or I Heart Music Festival events where they cut his set short to make more time for Usher, who was big at the time, and he lost his mind and smashed the guitar. It was just cursing up a storm. But I saw another event where he was playing in Germany and they're playing and all of a sudden there maybe it's in between songs, uh it is it's in between songs, and all of a sudden, this German voice comes on over the p A system and speaking in German, and Billy joorms Strong was like, what the hell is like? Looking around? We has no idea what's going on? Um? And the German voice is saying, hey, everybody, I know you're all here to have a good time, but there was some motion going on in the first few rows, and someone was injured, so please stopped doing that. Thank you. Um, you know what I mean. And Billy Joe is not happy about that. That seems like a very cultural thing. I don't think they would ever do that in America. UM, but I appreciate the bluntness and um safety first attitude of that, you know what I mean, Like, like, who cares about these diva artists? It's about the safety. And I think a lot of times the reason they didn't tell him is because they're afraid of losing their job. They're afraid he would like freak out on them or something. I think it's a culture within his team maybe or within his crew, so I think even still, maybe the onus is somewhat on him. Maybe he hasn't a you know, a non approachable um attitude in that way, and people are afraid of losing their job or getting nostracized because nobody wants to jump the gun or call something like that too soon, you know, and ask an artist to stop a concert if it wasn't nearly as bad as as as they thought. Nobody wants to be that person. But at the end of the day, that has to rest with somebody who isn't in the artist's entourage. I completely agree. When when they're that number of people together, it's just it's just way more dangerous than we imagine. I want to really quickly stay on this for a second. Sorry, corn Dog, we're moving away a little bit from your message here. It's just I watched a video of an Oasis concert from back in the day, and it was a high camera looking down at the crowd and you can watch the human beings move as a liquid essentially. And on randomly on clubhouse, I was in a room and there's a discussion about water and whether or not water has some you know, water waters relationship with consciousness. It's interesting conversations there. For for me personally, they're very high level. It's not something that I necessarily believe, but it is fascinating to think about. And for some reason that conversation linked up with this vision of humans as water module molecules essentially moving as a fluid. I don't know if there's a connection there that I wonder if anybody listening has any you know, thoughts on that or insight into that, and just the makeup of the human body, the special relationship that life has with hydrogen and oxygen in that particular, you know, set up. I just finished watching the Dune movie the other day. It took me a couple of sittings. It's a little long. Uh. And I will say I think that we are a little bit at a disadvantage for having all of these first run movies playing on demand. I do not think that is the way of the artists intended, because it's so easy to get distracted or watch them in like multiple sittings, you know, or like look at your phone. I think you really do to fully experience a piece of art like that, be kind of a captive audience, like in a in a theater where you are shamed if you look at your phone. Um. But there is a part near the end of the movie. This isn't spoiler. I'm just gonna read the quote. Um. This is from Frank Herbert's book and it's you Make Sense, And it reminded me of that. Uh. This is the quote. A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process must join it and flow with it. Um. That's sort of the idea of the dynamics of consciousness as liquid or like as you know, being part of like the flow of information and uh consciousness. I think that is really interesting when when I heard that in the in the movie, UM, it really kind of perked my ears up. Dude, Oh man, I'm gonna get so trippy with some of that stuff talking about the flow of time and how we experience each individual moment, but what we really experience is the perceived change between two stag states. Right, yeah, exactly, Alright, guys, I amn't had enough Devil's to let us for this conversation. UM, let's let's take another quick break here we're from a sponsor, and then we'll come right back with some more messages from you, and we're back with more. Oh man, man, I'm having such a good time. UM, just kind of rattling through these. Uh, they're all so good, and you're right, we don't get to get to nearly enough of these, so it's nice to I don't know, I wonder if we should maybe do this again. Um are we doing all audio listener mail response episode? Um? But we have one now coming from Chef Ben about an encounter at a restaurant. Fellas, this is Chef Ben in Chicago. Got a ghost story for you. So I'm not I'm not much of a believer. I'm a little too pragmatic for all of that kind of stuff. I kind of wish I was. But I was working at a place in City, Michigan, like fifteen years ago that we thought it was for the tourists. Everybody said that this place was because it was a fine dining restaurant B and B before, But it has been like a big olden manor house before the right. So after we closed up one day, I was waiting for my at home, and I was standing in the bar area. The whole back of the bar was a big giant mirror, right and then all the way to the right side of the bar was the door that went back into the kitchen area. So I'm standing there and to my left, reflected in the mirror, I see a woman walking through the dining room behind me, gray dress or light gray almost white dress. I turned to my left and look because there wasn't supposed to be anybody in there. All the servers were back in the office doing their checkouts and such. I turned to my left and look in the dining room is empty. I looked back in the mirror, and she's continuing to walk through the dining room. I froze at that moment. I froze, and all I could do was watch this woman walk behind me in the mirror to my right. So she passes behind me, she walked to the right. She gets in the mirror to the end of the bar on the right where the door is that passes through into the kitchen, and steps in to the door. So I'm seeing a reflection in the mirror of nobody behind me. And then she stepped to my view out of the mirror and into that doorway and then just walked back into the kitchen. Ah. I have never been able to explain this, and because we all made fun of the notion that it was haunted, because again, we just placed that up for the tourists. I never told anybody about that. But I'll be honest with you, you're gonna have to beat me out here. Scar got of it, and I went back in the kitchen and waited for my ride and the kitchen rather than continuing to wait in the bar. Thanks for your show it is my daily commute companion and keep it up, thanks, Matt. I have to say it's it's it's descriptions like this from clearly intelligent, sharp, eloquent, and skeptical people, um that really make me question whe their ghosts exist or not in the positive direction, you know what I mean? Like this is a guy describing something in such vivid detail who is clearly not woo woo type dude um and is coming at it like with his own internal skepticism, questioning himself. But that's some specific details right there. I mean, Lord, yeah, it is well and Chef ben I I worked at a restaurant, big facility that had a bunch of different bars in it, and one of them was called the main bar. And it looks exactly the way you're describing this place where you're working. Where the on the right hand side, it's the way you get into the kitchen. If you're facing the bar. Right behind the bar, it's just a giant mirror. And it was an old establishment, I think eighteen hundreds when it was built, and I spent a lot of time, like after hours in that bar area, you know, cleaning stuff up, making sure things are ready. To go for the next service. And I just have to say, I I got I get nervous when I listen to that message because I can see that happening. Even though I've never experienced it, I can see I can fully imagine it because of the way you described it, and as Noel said, you're describing it very calmly, even though it did scare the f out of you. Dude, I just want you to go back there and just hang out of that bar, and I I want to go too, because I want to take all kinds of weird equipment and just record stuff. One of those one those bank bank man thingies with the antennas on the side, you know, Oh my gosh, Ben Ben would go to town h on all of that. UM. I don't know what else there is to say about that one other than just hearing the story uh in in your voice, Chef Ben. I think we're both very taken by this um and definitely warrants further exploration. Go check it out again, give us a follow up. We'd love to hear more. This is what I want to here from other people. Why would that apparition or whatever it was that Chef Ben saw, Why would it only be visible in the mirror through a reflection and not you know, with his eyes as it's actually walking past. Because if you can see it in the mirror, there's a light in some way being reflected off of that you know, character, that ghost, that woman whatever was, there's light being reflected off of her that is visible in the mirror, but it is not visible to his eyes as she's walking past. I I'm perplexed by that. You think about vampire legends or something where it's exactly it's it's and oh man, I just I don't know enough about it, you know, like that explanation, I don't know. I mean to me, I've always described some kind of mystical you know, um qualities to mirrors and prisms and like the visible light spectrum, and you know, I mean or there's science behind it, of course that describes the phenomenon of what is happening when we see reflection, but like you know, the infinity mirrors, when you have mirrors reflecting against mirrors, I mean, to me, that's just like mind bending lee cool psychedelic stuff. And to me, the idea I actually just just googled ghost mirror or mirror ghosts rather, and a bunch of stuff comes up. The idea of haunted mirrors. Um. Of you know, mirrors are often like a fixture in certain ghost stories or certain lore. The idea of a black mirror, you know, or Ben always talks about, you know what he's you know, say my name in a mirror, you know, at midnight or whatever. I mean, all of this stuff, like, there's a lot. The idea of a mirror as a portal um is a thing as well. Ghost portal mirror is a thing on a ghost hunting wiki that I just found. Yeah, I mean mirrors. Mirrors are trippy. You can scry in them, put some black paint on them. It's all kinds of fun things you can do with mirrors. Um. What I've been told is that you never want to put two mirrors facing each other directly like that. Um And and of course people said, don't do that, So I guess what I'm building right now. Anyway, It's fine that it's super cool. I hear, that's the thing you're not really supposed to do. And there's it's dangerous. I don't know right right to us? What is that bad? It's that good? No? No, no, what what? Whatever? All I know is like a buddy of mine, friend of the show David Field. UM. Incredible artists by the way, check out his photography work. UM. He built this thing he called a tests or act in this warehouse in New Jersey for this like project that he's working on. UM. And it's literally a cube composed of mirrored panels that you then sit in the center of and it's like reflections upon reflections upon reflections where you literally it's sort of like those Cusama Infinity mirrors exhibits that they're the one that's like the travels and so popular with the pumpkins and stuff. It's a very small space, but when you do that, it creates the illusion of massive scale just going on into eternity. UM. And to me that's magic, oh totally. Well. And if it is, by the way, a really old building, like what if that mirror really is the original, one of the original mirrors or something right that's been around for ages and ages and somehow through whatever system magic whatever it is, has the memory of that woman walking through that bar, either a bunch of times or one very important time. I don't know. It's a little out of my range of like being able to think about it, but I want to think about it, so again, right to us, tell us what you think about this stuff, or leave a voicemail. That's what we're gonna tell you how to do that in just a minute after we hear one more message. You ready for this? Yes, Sarah, I guess I was just listening to one of your recent listener on L episodes and you're talking about cartels, and I just made me think about kind of unofficial like mini cartel today. I don't know if you'd call it a cartel. I guess they'll let's see you guys decide. But I was kind of involved in so um you guys a video games online video games or as the sports to the very competitive market and there's you know, millions and millions of people playing his games to try to, you know, get up in the ranks. So what I was a part of was one of those third party groups who would connect to you, the casual player to these pro players where they're officially sponsored pros or if they were still upper ninetieth percentile players who are he's still competing at that pro level, just not on a sponsored team, And what we would do is offer services um too, you know, whether it's the level your character gets you specific high end gear for the game, you know, boost your ranks, basically carry you through the content for a price. Um. And those prices were determined by our third party group. And once we started getting a lot of money coming in, because you know, time is money, people would rather pay a handful of cash to get death service down and set us spending you know, ten hours a day trying to grind it us themselves. So more and more groups started catching on the third party groups, and um, what would happen was the price that drive down. Uh, we were just competing against each other to protect driving the price down. So they decided to come up with a little mini cartel where the majority of probably seventy of third party groups would fan together to just set these prices and not compete on the prices together. So they've maintain it as much as we can, keep it as high, keep for profits of go from there. But I don't know if anyone has ever mentioned this, but it's just a little thing that's kind of behind the curtain and all these video games, um, this one specifically, but it's one game we're probably flowing around fifty five thousand usc uh per month. So it's a reasonable business out there that not many people talk about. So it's one of the toss that do you guys and kind of take it as you may. Thanks, feel free to reach out if you need to any questions about it. I'm more than we willing to offer more details. Thanks. By interesting right. Uh, you know this reminds me of matt Is, like things like gold farming, you know, or like uh where people you know will sell gold you know in like um World of Warcraft or whatever like bill a massive and then like sell it to others. Isn't that a thing? Oh? Yeah, that's definitely a thing. I've really wish I knew more about which game or even type of game. Uh, this anonymous person is working on it. Thank you by the way for sending us that message. Is fascinating stuff and I never thought about how widespread that practices. Having some third party company that will I guess gain access to your character and whatever video game you're playing and level that character up a mass as you said, resources and other things other items that you may need if you want to compete in the whatever p VP player versus player situation that game offers and just the concept that several of these third party groups or companies would get together and say, oh, we're we're going to set the prices so we can all stay in business. That's a very logical thing to do. You know, I don't know legal side of price fixing in the arena, but that's my question, Matt, And that was my question. You know, in the the Phoebus cartel situation, like a cartel is called a cartel for a reason. A monopoly is called monopoly for a reason. But in my mind have a hard time differentiating between the two, and it almost seems like both are kind of considered bad, right I mean, I guess yeah. I mean we think of cartel in terms of drug cartels, which inherently is bad. But a cartel in and of itself isn't bad and that's legal, whereas monopoly is not. Right, It's not that simple, is it. You know, it's not. A monopoly would be one group, one actual entity, right, that is the controlling the soul controlling factor that is allowed, like ill able to fix prices in that kind of thing. But they're the monolithic one, right. A cartel is at least in the way this one is being described. It's a group of different companies that each have their own income right their own profits, and they operate individually, and they are coming together around a table and saying, Okay, if everybody, I'm going to charge X amount for you know, ten levels, you're going to charge that amount. You're going to charge that amount. We're all going to get the same you know, potential business. Hopefully we can maintain the business that we already have and get more business. But not one of us is going to profit solely because we're that person is lowering their prices below all of the other ones. So it's more like an olagoppoly then an olagopoly where there's like a handful of sellers that could let uh participate together for the greater good of all um and they you know, sort of pool their resources and set prices that they all can succeed. Yeah, and it's not easy to get into that kind of group. You have to really like be an established force. You can't just like ask to be a me a member. You kind of have to be asked to be a member. Yeah, it is like being led into a private secret club. If you are going to collectively make the decision to fix prices, because again, I don't know the league reality of it feels feels like it might be not the best thing to be talking about openly. Um, But who knows right to us if you have any you know, insight into that stuff. And I can't remember our honestly, I can't remember our past discussions about the ins and outs of the legality of cartelly because I mean, you know, in the United States, price fixing is illegal. That practice is illegal. So oligopoly involves price fixing essentially agreeing to set a cap, you know, to have like an arrangement. You're supposed to let the market forces sort that stuff out right, the free market economy. But if you have forces outside of the market that I'm manipulating the market, then that's illegal. It is, wouldn't you say? Maybe I don't know. I just don't know. I'm not an attorney, Okay, I don't know. I don't and understand. All I know is that whoever that anonymous person is, uh, whoever you are, we appreciate you telling us that story because that's fascinating. And now I just want to, like, I don't know, I need to put some money away to level up a character on some game. I just have to figure out which game it should be. If you're listening out there, which game should we be trying to play on a professional level, because whatever that is, we'll just get our characters level up. And you know, I didn't even know you could do that. Yeah, I'm good in terms of professional level. I am finally about I think about maybe a little over the halfway point of Last of Us too. I finally got good enough at it where it wasn't just bumming me out getting my throat ripped out every five seconds, because the death scenes in that game are so brutal that it really makes you not want to keep playing it if you keep dying repeatedly because they change every time, and it's like you go from getting your head smash it my hammer to get in your guts torn out. And I finally have like gotten really good at the stealth aspects of it. And so I know it's really divisive game because there's some choices they made with the plot, but I think it's brilliant. I really have been enjoying it a lot. I'm enjoying is a strong word for what is ultimately a very stressful experience. But that's what I'm playing right now. How about you, Matt, I'm not really playing much but Magic the Gathering Arena. I've been playing that a lot as we're recording this. There's a new set of MTG coming out, and my our good buddy Wayne the former security guard. Now I t I can't remember exactly what your position is, Wayne, but he he reminded me through voicemail that there's a brand new set coming out having to do with the vampires and I believe a wedding. But yeah, MTG and Minecraft, buddy, that's all that's on my list. I need to get into something competitive, so let me know what I should be playing, please, So hey, let us know what are y'all playing. I am personally excited about this new Radiohead game that's coming out for Yeah. It's like, you know, they've got this reissue of Amnesiac and kid A called kid am Easier. That's like, you know, got a bunch of extra bonus stuff and outtakes and things. But they made this very trippy looking game for PS five um called the kid Amnesia Exhibition. It's also on Mac and PC. It looks super trippy and interesting. Uh, definitely interested in checking that one out. But um, yeah, no, I will look at that for sure. I know I'm gonna play Horizon. Whatever the next one is, there's a new one. I never finished Zero. Don I need to that. That one was pretty tricky too, with the stealth and stuff and all the weird mechanical animals that you had to kill with your bow and arrow. Great, beautiful, beautif beautiful game, cool story, great, great main character loved it. Uh alright, so thank you so much to Jackie, Matt, Johnny Logic, anonymous n S A signals intelligence person, whoever you are. Actually I know who you are, we just kept it out of this episode. Corn Dog chef Ben, and anonymous video game level upper maker of lots of money apparently industry that I want to get in. Hey, uh send a shout out. I want to know, like, could I do that in my spare time? Could I do that at night? Let me know, I'll take a job. Let's do it. So if you want to be like all of these awesome people, please let us know what you think. You can find us on social media on Facebook and on Twitter, we are conspiracy stuff. Also on YouTube conspiracy stuff. You can find us on Instagram where we are Conspiracy Stuff show. And if you want to do exactly what everybody else did on this episode, you can give us a call. That's right. You can call us using a telephone at one three S T D W y T K. Leave a message at the sound of Ben's dulcet tone, and um, let us know what to call you. Give yourself a nickname, a first name, anonymous, whatever we will. We will follow your lead and then you yes, you might end up on one of these listener mail episodes. And please, when you do leave a message, let us know if we can use your name whatever it is and your message on the air. That's very very helpful to us. 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