The Conspiratorial World of High-end Fakes

From shoes to handbags, from watches to super cars: luxury goods are a multi-billion dollar industry. Along with these high price tags comes an assurance of not just quality but authenticity. And there's another market at play here: a global network of increasingly sophisticated fakes that, year ov…

CLASSIC: Haunted Houses: What's Going on at the Emily Morgan Hotel?

Most people associate San Antonio, Texas with the Alamo -- yet ghost hunters look across the street, where the structure currently known as the Emily Morgan Hotel has stood since the 1920s. This building, often called the "third most haunted hotel in the world", is home to numerous reports of unusu…

Strange News: War Dogs, Bigfoot, Anthropic and More

Colossal Biosciences is planning to build genetically-modified war dogs -- and the CIA is helping to fund it. The world's most infamous Bigfoot footage gets roundly debunked. The AI bubble may well be on the verge of bursting, and what's up with the military's new Operation Fortress? Join Ben, Matt…

Our Favorite Devil Folktales

Happy Halloween, fellow Conspiracy Realists. Whether or not you're religious, you've doubtlessly heard all sorts of stuff about the Biblical Devil. Ethics aside, he's one of the most well-known characters in all of literature. And he occurs in way more than just religious texts. In celebration of t…

Listener Mail: Card Heists, Phrexian Nightmares, Weaponized Absurdity and More

Big Cheese responds to the episode on smart dust, prompting a conversation about Magic: The Gathering. Privacy Guy shares a story about a trading card heist. Void inspires an exploration of weaponized absurdity. Plus Codename PinBrock reveals a huge mac and cheese conspiracy. Join Ben, Matt, and No…

What Is 'Smart Dust'?

Remember a few years back, when it seemed everyone was excited -- or terrified -- about the "internet of things"? Tonight, Ben, Matt, and Noel are diving deep into the next step: swarms of tiny, interconnected sensors collectively called 'smart dust'. Predicted by science fiction writers decades ag…

CLASSIC: What was Operation Outside the Box?

As the guys continue exploring the strange, silent war over who gets to own nuclear weapons, they stumble across the little known story of Operation Outside the Box. When the Israeli military learned its regional rival Syria might be building a nuclear facility, they felt they had only one course o…

Strange News: Space Wars, 'Flying' Cars, Gambling Karma, and More

Canadian Brady Rogers wins a local election by telling folks he doesn't really care about it. Tesla unveils a new 'flying' car. Florida gambling helpline director Philip Sullivan embezzles more than a million dollars for -- wait for it -- gambling. Russian satellites prompt growing concerns about w…

The SeaWorld Episode

For millions of children growing up in the US, a visit to SeaWorld was the peak of vacation. You could finally see magnificent marine mammals up close and personal -- and even interact with them. Yet there was a dark side beneath the waves, one a lot of people didn't realize until the debut of the …

Listener Mail: Bad at Math, Flock Maps, Australia's Moth Plague, and More

Ron B. checks the boys on math. Vinny shares an astonishing Flock surveillance map. Rembrandt prompts a future episode on the West Nile virus. Join Ben, Matt, and Noel for all this and more in this week's listener mail segment.