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 Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is all they called me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer, pauled Mission Control Decond. Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. It is the second episode in our two part series on the secrets of the Founding Fathers, a subject that's been on the minds of many people or a number of centuries now. In our previous episode, we talked a lot about dead presidents, not the not the hip hop group they were all big fans of, but the the the actual presidents of the US and the Founding Fathers, some of whom were never president, such as you know Matt Um, Alexander Hamilton's right, never President Ben Franklin, never President George Mason. But they did They did a lot of tremendous, tremendous work creating the United States, and for a long time they were deified, perhaps to an extreme degree, uh, and people didn't talk about, you know, the hypocrisy of slavery or the uh, you know the nature of their membership and Masonic lodges. There's still a lot of little known myths, facts or factoids about the president's um. So maybe we start there. Here are the facts, Matt. If if someone hasn't listened to episode one, what's what's some of the crazy stuff to learn? Well, a lot of the Founding fathers were white men. No wait, yeah, they all were. Um. They many of them owned slaves or had in uh a close relationship with the practice of chattel slavery. That was a big deal. We definitely talked about freemasonry, about how the values that that Freemasonry puts forth have a lot of similarity with what ended up in the Declaration of Independence and a lot of the other major documents that went into creating the thing called the United States. And a lot of were members. Yeah, and the French Revolution. Right, there's a lot of commonality there. Uh, there's there are a couple other just fun things before you get to the really weird stuff today. The Founding fathers themselves probably never heard the phrase the Founding fathers, which makes sense, But Founders was probably in there somewhere. We're the we're the Founders. Yeah, yeah, but it's like that's the kind of title you probably shouldn't give yourself, you know what I mean? But yeah, they probably they probably did say that a couple of ales in at the public house Sam Adams. Did they drink Sam Adams? There is actually a really great brand of ale I think out of Michigan called Founders. It's one of my favorites. That's very true. I had one the other day. Hey, look, hey sponsorship Founders were here, wouldn't it be nice? No, it's a really good question. Do you really think they like coined themselves the founders or that seems like the kind of thing that the press would have to w like, that's a that's a pretty serious self aggrandizing statement. Well, if you're if you're hanging out at the Masonic lodge in secret, or the thing that would become the Masonic Lodge years down the road. Uh, you know, I can imagine, gentlemen, we hear all the founders of this great nation, not just the founders, Matt, the founding fathers. They sired this country from their very loins. Well, The earliest record we have of that phrase being used is actually it doesn't occur until nineteen sixteen, at least in documents. Warren G. Harding, who is a Senator at the time and you know later goes on to be president himself, talks to the Republican National Convention and he's like, you know, YadA, YadA YadA, the Founding Fathers. And this was his work with Nate Dog. This was also the first time he had ever said YadA, YadA, YadA, you know, which later is referenced in Seinfeld. That's just these are just historical facts. So his when he said founding Fathers in nineteen sixteen, he's talking about, like the earlier point you had made on the previous episode, Matt, He's talking about everybody whoever fought in the American Revolution and participated in any way in the Constitution as well as the Declaration of Independence. So he wasn't talking about the seven or eight people that often honed in on as founding fathers. He doesn't. He's not really even talking about John Hancock. And John Hancock, by the way, I know why more people don't talk about this. Uh, he's famous for his autograph, right it's very large, showy, it's like six inches. He was a smuggler. That was his job. That's like if if we were starting a nation and we were like, hey, let's get that. Do you know that guy who sells drugs like down down by the Kroger, we should get him in on this. Well, but that was a bankable skill at the time. Hamilton the Musical has anything to say about it. Right, you're right, You're right. I'm being unfair because it's a way to get around the British tax system. Really, he's more like the trafficker, right, he's the supplier of the drugs in a way, or the guy who's getting him across the Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he's the plug. That's a very good point. Yeah, he's not the he's not the corner guy. But are a ton of misconceptions, and I one thing I like is that a lot of them are pretty have been busted such that their common knowledge. Now, George Washington may have cut down trees in his life, but he certainly did not cut down a cherry tree as a child and then say I cannot tell a lie. Uh, it's such a weird story. He also didn't have wooden teeth. You have fake teeth, but they were up wooden. They were hippopotamus teeth. Is that correct? That wouldn't a k a sea horse teeth? Ah, that makes sense. Okay, and let's see what what what else we know? Oh, the signatures on the Declaration of Independence were kept secret. That is true initially, not because there was some conspiracy, although I guess from the British perspective it very much is a conspiracy. Right, Yeah, you're absolutely right. If the if this document had been found, and if they had not won the war, then there lie would be at risk. Absolutely. So those are Those are just some of the facts. And there are some fantastic innumerable actually books and podcasts and documentaries, musicals and so on about these things. But what we wanted to do today is explore the crazy, unproven stuff, some of the weirdest allegations you will hear about these founding fathers of this country. Here's where it gets crazy. It's the ten dual commandments. Uh wait, nope, that's not what we're doing here. Um, that was great, that was great. Let's uh, let's jump in and yeah, talking about the the crazy stuff, the unproven stuff, the stuff that's fun to think about, but may not have much sand to it, but maybe a couple of greens. As we discussed that Pearl last episode, this is something It reminds me a lot of the Paul is Dead theory that we discussed before with Paul McCartney and the Beatles. Uh. There is there's a theory roaming around out there that George Washington the founding father, I mean, the one that he was assassinated at some point and replaced with someone else. Happens all the time, happens all the time. Yeah, it's it's tough. It happened at our job earlier, just just a few weeks ago. But let's like get into that Easter egg so body doubles. We know that happens, right, That's happened and is possibly happening. Now. What's interesting about this theory is not just the idea that Washington was assassinated and replaced, but who replaced him. That's that's the weirdest part, all right, Yeah, shall we get into some Illuminati uh discussions here, That's what this whole thing is about, baby, I think so, yeah, John Johan actually Adam Weiss helped uh founded the Order of the Illuminati. It is a thing on May first, seventeen seventies six, and he was big into the rising trend of secret societies. UM. But they were often used as a way to kind of break away from the status quo a little bit and promote freethinking UH and freedom and equality actually um and as we've seen with for example, the Vatican did not care for Freemasons UM in in Europe and actually outlawed members of the Catholic Church from becoming members of the Freemasons. Similarly, monarchies did not care for these either, specifically the Order of the Illuminati. Yeah, yeah, And we had discussed the reasons why both monarchies and UH and the Vatican dislike the Order of the Illuminati. And of course why shops argument here for the Order of the Illuminati is uh, let's see, the best way to say it is he announced it as though it were a resurrection of an older thing, right, So his argument was always this dates back into antiquity. But you're right, May for seventeen seventy six, that's when he that's when he founds the Order of the Illuminati. But he founds it in Bavaria. Bavaria, Yes, because he is German. Would you come into play later he is German? If the name didn't give it away, definitely, Vati Vadi German. First of all, just before we keep going, isn't that interesting that as a nation was being birthed, this guy wise up decides to found the stinking Illuminati, Like the same in seventeen seventy six. What a version of the Illuminati, I would say, But you're right, you're right, it's weird. It's a big a year for history, and he's in Bavaria, as you said. But eventually he's exiled because the power structure rejects things like freedom and equality order things that are espoused by the Order of Illuminati. And the gist of our conspiracy theory here is that instead of living in exile, as all historians agreed this guy did, he traveled to the United States to spread the secret doctrine of illumination across the land. And in seventeen eighty five, the story goes wy Shopped assassinated George Washington and replaced him. Just to point this out, Okay, Washington's official death occurs on December sevent and it's still kind of mysterious. He was sixty seven years old. He had a brief illness. He lost forty of his blood. Oh and then he died all right, in a twenty one hour period. How have I never heard of this before? Of his blood? Was he being like blood let like as like a remedy to care? What ailed him? That's what happens when you get assassinated, dude, you lose at least your blood. At least I thought it was. He might have been in on the blood trade, you know what I mean, and somebody came to collect. But I want to want to mistake you. You're saying, these are the circumstances of his actual death or these are the purported circumstances of his supposed death, actual death, sexual death. Yeah, so he was. He fell ill and died over twenty one hour period in because he was being bled. It was a common medical practice. Okay, not super successful medical practice, but super common. He they bled him like think a total His personal doctor led him once, and then more doctors arrived and led him four more times over the next eight hours, and that's how he lost all the blood. He also, by the way, uh gargled a mixture of molasses, vinegar, and butter. Uh he did several other things, but he didn't. By late afternoon he knew that he was on the way out. And his last words are, I am just going have me decently buried. Do not let my body be put into the vault less than three days after I am dead? Do you understand me? Tis well, and then died. And he died. But was it him or was it Adam wy Shopped? Had had this guy come from Bavaria and sort of done, Um, what's that show? The Americans done? Kind of a sleeper agent thing and replaced the president of the United States. Well, that's okay. We do know the founding fathers were aware of Johan Adam y Shot. They even wrote about him. Yeah, it's true. Jefferson um speaks of him in a letter to Madison where he says that VISs Hopped was an enthusiastic philanthropist, um of outstanding moral character. And they seemed to to to dig this guy. He was. He was popular amongst the fathers. Yeah, we talked about how important Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were as Founding fathers, and it's interesting to note that they were definitely on board with this guy or at least, uh found took an interest with him and found him to be an upstanding fellow. But yeah, I don't I don't know, man, Let's keep going. It just feels, it feels Let's keep going, all right. Well, I do want to point out that while I think we were much more than fair with Thomas Jefferson in the previous episode, uh, he did originally just reminded of this. He did originally have a ban on slavery in the in the initial documents of the US, but he remove those bands because he thought they wouldn't be able to get support from delegates and slave owning areas, and also he owned slaves. It was a huge hypocrite, but but he liked Adam Wi shopped, Vy shopped, and there there's some other things here. It's something we had talked about earlier. Even if this guy, the founder of the Order of the Illuminati, did seek to spread these new World Order views, he wouldn't have been pushing for anything that was super wild to the founders of the United States. They were on board with a kind of stuff that, uh, at least the Illuminati on paper supported, like the values have a lot in common with Masonry, self determination, freedom from religious dogma, et cetera. If anything, the Illuminati is just a little more extreme on the religion stance. I think the Masonic thing is something like they're acknowledge a higher power or something like that. That's all you must do it. It matters not what you what dogma you place on. It is just that you you, yeah, acknowledge that something greater than you exist, and you are essentially a part of that plan or part of that thing. What separated it from the Freemasons, Like why bother starting all brand new secret society? Was there something about Freemasonry that advice help didn't like? That's a good question. One one of my initial cynical answers would be that people for some reason love to start their own thing instead of helping existing things, like you see it in the world of charity all the time. So one tries to start a charity when they're already you know, eight other things who have been doing it for a long time and could use the help. But of course these things don't occur in a vacuum. So it is it is likely that he knew about it, But it's also possible, and I haven't dug into this is just my speculation. It is also possible that he was trying to circumvent perhaps a ban on freemasonry that's happened in the past. Uh, But that that may be something we dive into in another episode. Yeah, we'll definitely dive into it in another episode. I just wanna point to one thing written by the Bavarian Illuminati of kind of what they stood for, and this is something they wrote in their general statutes. Uh. The order of the day is to put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control them without dominating them in interesting, So use your tendrils to control things, but don't let anyone know that that tendril is their influence. Yeah, so a hidden hand. That makes sense. But there's there's one big thing people are forgetting when they talk about this assassination theory. Yeah, it's it's a cool, crazy story. I would watch the feature film when Nicolas Cage about this. He would play both Why Shot and George Washington obviously up. But the problem is Why Shot is from Germany. He has a very thick, noticeable German accent. This is attested in other contemporary writings. It's like thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. Shout out to anyone who gets the reference. If we are being charitable, it is highly unlikely that this guy would have been able to kill George Washington, you know, put on the wig or whatever and seamlessly slip into that character. People would have noticed because he talked of people, you know what I mean. He wasn't emailing votes, so I would say this is not true. But there's a crazy thing we're going to explore even crazier than this, that is absolutely true and should terrify you. We'll get to it after work from our sponsor. Imagine there's no heaven, no heaven. I don't have to imagine that. Just well, that's I mean that that's where Thomas Jefferson was accused of being philosophically. During the election, there were these crazy rumors. You think elections are weird and propagandistic, Now these were nuts. Uh. These rumors spread that Thomas Jefferson was secretly an atheist, which used to be a very bad thing. Yeah yeah, yeah, very very bad. Uh. And they and pupil will say his opponents were saying, you know, Thomas Jefferson wants to be president, not because he cares about this country. He only wants to be president to ban religion. He is an enemy of God. He is infiltrating this, uh, this holy office in this holy place. Most people would say, I mean, that's the thing. Though, Jefferson wasn't a Jefferson hated churches, maybe not religion, but he was super not down with churches. Most people today would describe him as a non denominational theist. So kind of interesting is that sort of like being um not agnostic? Yeah, isn't agnostic where you recognize that there is some sort of higher thing but you don't know what to call it. You mean, like the like the basic police of Freemasonry and the Illuminati. Uh. Agnosticism is more saying that you can It's like leading no contest to the question of God. Right, So you're you're not. You're you're saying that you cannot you do You're essentially saying you do not have the information necessary to make informed uh the conclusion. So you're not you're not you're not You're not discounting it entirely though, Right, it's just say I don't know, you're leaving the door open for for like, you know, if you are one day blessed with that wisdom. Then okay, cool, I hedged my bets. I think that, Yeah, what do you think do you think agnostics when they meet St. Peter at the gates? You didn't they get a pass? Didn't they get in? You didn't deny him? You know, I don't know. Cath h him. It's to prove that he's even there. St. Peter's chilling somewhere by some gates. Maybe I was wonder why they were pearly. I think that it just felt like a fancy material with it. Maybe they're just pearl like encrusted, you know, because it's pearl. Wouldn't be a particularly good gate material, you ask me, I don't know what their budget is. You, um, what if they really are ivory and Heaven's got this thing with rhinos and they have counterfeit gates, Heaven is canceled you guys? Uh man, we got it well. Well. Other people thought about this, No, no, I can bring us back. Other people thought about this. Thomas Jefferson. The weird thing about calling him an atheist is that he thought often about matters of faith and religion. He wrote what's called the Jefferson's Bible. In a stunning display of humility, and it's the Jefferson Bible. Is well, it's called I think the official title is The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, and there are no copies around today. But essentially what he did is a cut and paste process of a new Testament, and he took out all the stuff that he thought was like super now troll or miraculous. So it's just Jesus Christ as a good and normal dude doing good and normal things. So that's the guy. He also was like a what is it? He believed in a watchmaker god, the idea that there is some divine force that sets reality or realities in motion and just sort of, you know, called it a day and the rest is up to us. These are radical and highly offensive ideas to a lot of people, but they're still not as bad as being an atheist and becoming the president. I mean, you would be hard pressed to be an atheist and win the election now. In so how did he respond to this these accusations. He did what every politician does. Sits him because it worked out for him. You play along, you kind of cave a little bit, you go to church, even if you don't have those personal beliefs and you espouse that maybe you do, or you you you know, you stand in front of a church that shuttered, didn't hold a Bible up to take some pictures. It's literally what what I'm saying is you you play the game. And that's what politicians do in all things, and especially when it comes to religion, and that's exactly what Thomas Jefferson did. It's a little harder to stomach, though, when the person playing the game is so clearly not that thing at all. Well, Jefferson wasn't either, I know, but he was smart enough to like put on a good front, put on a good show. At least he probably like memorized a few passages out of the Bible and could quote them properly and you know, didn't mispronounce the names anyway. I'm sorry. Moving on, Well, he did win the election, yea, it were. Do you think this was the first example, like in American like politics of this type of pageantry. I mean, obviously it's probably tail as old as time, right, you know, we can extrapolate and go back to you know, the times of anarchy's that the United States was fighting against in establishing itself. We've been and I talked about it a little bit last episode, just about the control structures of that, how control is maintained and the way you control people was by like the Illuminati wanted to the Bavarian Illuminati, and and why shopped you control through influence through structures and institutions like churches. That's a tough thing to square, especially if you're a believer or like a true believer, um that that we can be influenced and controlled through things that are largely positive in our lives like churches. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also to be absolutely clear here, we're not dinging on religion. We're saying that we're saying that Thomas Jefferson, whatever his personal beliefs are, was he was at the very least against the dogma of organized religion, but he sucked it up and he played the aim to become the president. And when he became the president, he did not ban religion. He he just wanted to maintain a separation of church and state, which seems normal now but was very controversial at the time. And uh, the question about performative acts, performative religious acts is interesting because we don't know folks inner motivations or their inner beliefs. At this point, they would have to write it down right in an explicit way. That's why we know some stuff about Thomas Jefferson. So do you know, I just think it's it's unfair to ascribe personal beliefs to people if we don't know what they are. But we do know that, we do know that he didn't ban religion. So this conspiracy theory is debunked, we can say. But there's another one that I think is interesting. M M, I'm gonna say it. I don't know, I don't know. The title of this is, Uh, the Boston Tea Party was an opium heist. You guys ever heard of that one? Nope? I saw it on the sheet and I was like, that is not something that I was taught in history class. What's the deal? It involves another secret society, this time the Sons of Liberty, the precursor of the Sons of Anarchy, and the Boston Tea Party really set off on December sixteenth, seventeen seventy three, three years there before the official founding of the US and this was it was a protest right, it was I guess you could say, an attack in a way it was, Yeah, it was an attack. Um, and it's known as the Boston Tea Party. This was a response, as we've talked about on this show before. I think maybe we haven't gone into full detail, but there's this thing called the t Act which had to do with imports of tea from China and was this thing that we have for sure talked about on this show, the British East India Company. Oh yeah, And again there a couple of slightly complicated things having to do with taxes and how essentially teriffs, like how how taxes were levied on some of these goods for the colonists. And it's a thing we can get into if we really really want to, but ultimately it's, you know, we're having to pay a lot of taxes that the citizens didn't feel they should be paying. And it empowered, Uh, it empowered this corporation. Yes, like the Dutch East India Company, British East India Company, these are sort of a harbinger of corporations to come, and they are immensely powerful. They're also they're also not restrained by laws in the way that many other corporations are, at least in paper today. So one h which effect this will have on the American colonies is that it threatens the smuggling trade John Hancock's stuff. I know they're messing with their messed with johns with Hancock. Nobody messes with John and so this makes people furious. The Sons of Liberty also, by the way, founded by Sam Adams. If they're if they're gonna sponsor us, we'll just keep doing Sam Adams fact facts. It's a beer not quite good enough to drink with your mouth, and it's a beer for what really talking about Samuel Adams is wonderful. Oh you're just saying that there's like seventeen varieties that I've tried. I do think that's cool. I think this season those stuff is cool. I'll admit it. They did they do the pumpkin ones, right, isn't that the thing that Sam Adams does. They do a seasonal like a pumpkin spice. Old Old Fezzy Wig is one of the best beers. Is that really the name Old Wig? Who is? What? Was he? Is he in the Christmas Carol? I think? So hold on now, I need to make sure that I'm saying that right. I hope I hope that he's a lesser known Sons of Liberty member. There's Old fezzy Wig who was instrumental in this. It is it's called Old fezi Wig. So there you have it, folks, Old Fezziwig recommended by none other than Matt Frederick wholeheartedly, right, Matt, without reservation, I think so so so you're right though, that smuggling is a big thing. It's a big industry and it thrives. The smuggling industry thrives because of the taxation system imposed by the British. So a threat to that is a threat to people's livelihoods. And so a group of people, some disguised as Native Americans, boarded three ships in Boston Harbor. As we said on December six, seventeen seventy three, they dumped officially three and forty two chest of tea into the ocean. This cost the British East India Company the equivalent of about a little more than two million dollars in today's terms. But the conspiracy is that they dumped the tea and they took something else, because again, the Sons of Liberty are in the like they move in circles with smugglers, and they're smuggling associates. Knew there was more precious cargo aboard opium, which should be familiar to anybody's heard our previous episodes British East India and Opium. Uh in in the opium trade in China. Wow, I mean it would make complete sense if the tea is coming directly from China via the East India Company of Britain um that there could be other cargo aboard that ship that was not on any manifest that wasn't recorded and you know, left to history, like you said, if it wasn't written down, we don't know. And if it's if it's secretly on that ship and then was taken, it just would happen and we'd have no record. Huh. Well, that would be a smart move. Dump the t take the opium, because you could sell that, right, it's immensely profitable. Uh, it's actually it's it's immensely profitable. It's immensely dangerous, but it's a it's a way to move a lot of money quickly. Uh. Because people might not donate to your revolution, but they'll buy opium. So so the pieces are there. We don't have proof, we just have a series of like circumstantial interesting things, you know what I mean, And together they they make for a tatalizing possibility. But we don't know, Matt. We don't know whether they through the t and took any opium. We don't know if any opium was aboard. But then again, that's the thing. If it's a smuggling situation, then you can't trust the manifest right interesting curious or and curious or But we don't know for sure. Perhaps one day in the future, newly uncovered documents will spilled the tea on this case. Man, Yeah, for sure, you know, and it is fascinating. I've never thought about opium in colonial America. I know that the United States after it was founded, I mean, I want to say, I want to probably I think it's about a hundred years after America was founded, there was quite a bit of an opium crisis in the United States because it was you know, it was a medicinal thing at the time that doctors would carry with them and would give you a tincture of it essentially if you required it. But the abuse of it as a narcotic, as a drug, I know nothing about in that time, you know, like pre eight hundreds, fascinating stuff. Yeah, and you know, I think we're not taught a lot about the US relationship with opium. It's it's an old one. The first millionaire officially in the US is a guy named John Jacob Astor. Yeah, he died in eight but the way he became so wealthy, it's entirely due to the opium trade. We also know that going back to the Mayflower in the sixteen hundreds, some pilgrims we're probably carrying opium. Especially there's a physician named Samuel Fuller and he probably had laudanum with him as a doctor. And during the American Revolution, opium was a comm in medical tool. Thomas Jefferson even used it later to treat his his his chronic diarrhea. But it would not be unusual to see opium in the in colonial America. Would this be opium that you would smoke or was it essentially just like laudanum was like a tincture, right, or like you could even put it on a rag right? Or Yeah, you know, I I can't. I can only really speak to the medicinal stuff. Um. We know that people were like Thomas Jefferson even ended up growing poppies in Monticello. Eventually, opium or opiates became a common ingredient in multiple products in like I would say more of the eighteen hundreds or so, but I don't know. I don't know about recreational use in particular, so we would have to have more proof of something for the opium high st to wore. So instead of saying this is debunked, all it kind of is. Instead of saying this is true what you don't have proof for, I want to pitch it to you guys as a film, the Boston Opium Heist. This is good. This is a good idea. You shouldn't pitch this on the podcast. That's a really good idea. Well, we get like an Ocean's eleven kind of vibe and ensemble heist film h and then you in order to get France's support. It's something that greases the wheels like opium. There we go, conspiracy. I love it, I love it, but it is not true. We're gonna pause for word from our sponsor, and when we return, we will tell you a conspiracy theory that is very true and very disturbing and should kind of scare you all. Right, we're back. So imagine, fellow conspiracy realists, you are with us, and as Matt said, the room where it happens. We're making a new nation. We're building a new, really weird system of government. We're working live. No one's tried this before, so we want to learn from the mistakes of the past, but we also want to pay attention to the stuff that worked. This leads us to the situation. The Continental Congress found itself in massively dysfunctional group, lots of competing interests. They're not on the same page about stuff, and they're also not efficient. They have an issue, like they one of their big issues is paying people. There are a ton of veterans who have fought in the war and survived, some with you know, lifelong injuries, and they're not getting paid because the government doesn't have the money to give them. Who knows, maybe they spent it all on opium. I'm kidding. Uh. The the this leads a guy named Daniel Says, a veteran two rally the Vets into something called the Sha Rebellion. The Sha Rebellion. Yeah, this was a group of Vets led by Daniel Shays, like you said, and they were not happy because they basically won the war and they weren't paid a nickel um. And this made the leaders of the United States very anxious because they needed something to kind of strengthen their executive power. And the most powerful executive position they knew of was a king, and they, you know, certainly were not trying to style themselves in the image of a king. That was sort of the whole point. Um. But John Adams actually wrote, quote, hereditary monarchy or aristocracy are the only institutions that can possibly preserve the laws as well as um. You know, they were not huge proponents of the idea of unbridled democracy early on. Um. And this followed his inauguration as vice president when he even designed a system that used something resembling a hereditary monarchy, only it was a hereditary legislature, and he had the notion of appointing the president for life. Yeah. Well, I mean that's that's what they wanted, right, I mean, and think about what they just experienced with George Washington. I mean, he won the war or with you know, with the help of everyone else, he won the war, that's my quotes, um. And then he stayed in power for quite a while, and he was considered a good leader. He was trusted by people, in respected by people, and there was you know, the rebellion rebellions against him, and um, the opinions against him were fairly good, I would say, across the board, even even though you know, he wasn't loved by everyone, he could keep people in line and he had enough respect to do so. Yeah, so she's rebellion. Of course, it's a terrifying thing to these guys, because we're talking about around four thousand, like battle trained and tested people who said, don't tread on me. We're not going to take it anymore. This, this is what what on earth were we fighting for? Right? Uh? And they have valid claims, they have valid problems, so we have to crack down this. This might surprise a lot of people to learn that many Founding fathers were so pro monarchy, but it should be even more surprising that these Founding fathers conspired against the nation they had created, which was very anti monarchy. Right, A lot of the what Pulpe would call the common people. Uh. In sevent six, the President of the Continental Congress, Nathaniel Gorham, decided they were going to pitch European Royalty on becoming the King of the United States. So Gorham writes to Prince Henry, who is the younger brother of Frederick the Great, the Prussian king at the time, and in this letter, which is a real letter, it's lost now, but it really happened, they invite Henry to go across the pond and become King of the United States of America. And they said, you know you're gonna You're gonna be head of a constitutional monarchy. We've modeled it on the English system because that's what we understand. Is that not a little hypocritical, uh, more than a little yeah, But it's just odd that that was the solution. And and maybe it was just to have a crown someone you know, have a crown and the money associated maybe to stave off or in the power. I I just don't understand the thinking. Maybe, and I personally need to do some more reading on it, and I highly recommend you listening to do the same, because that is a puzzling concept. Well, I also don't understand. I didn't realize that there was such a like, you know, focus on a monarchy esque form of government, considering that this was all a product of rebelling against the monarchy, and you know, been to your point in the idea, I know how you hate you know, political dynasties, which at the end of the day are sort of a modern form of monarchy you know, by a different name, but it functions very much the same um. Not to mention the idea of like Supreme Court justices that are appointed for life, we do have some things that resemble some of those, you know, forms of government. And considering that all of this again was like a rebellion against those systems, I think it's fascinating that there was such a you know, early push towards making it a lot like the thing they had rebelled against. Right, right, That's that's the issue. They should bother you if you live in the US. The only reason we don't have a king now is because of what Henry said. To be blunt about it, Henry turned down the job. That's why we didn't end up with the king. He was invited to be king, and he said, I'm good. I know what Americans due to kings. So actually we have the quote he said, the Americans have shown so much determination against their old king that they would not readily submit to a new one, smart guy. So the delegates in Philadelphia went to their Plan B. And today we call that Plan B the U S Constitution. That's ridiculous. Well, that's good. Wow, that's wow. I did not know this man, Thank you, so very close to becoming the thing it sought to destroy. But but you have to just remember, I mean, just to give these you know the people were talking about here and and Adams and all these guys a little benefit of the doubt. Uh. They're trying to figure out a way to have a strong leader that that as you said the quote common people would would respect and kind of bow to without actually having to bow, if that makes sense. And like you said, this is these are the systems they knew before. This is what worked before. Just because they didn't like having a king all the way across an ocean dictating what they had and had to do and couldn't do. Maybe there was a desire to have someone like that or a power structure like that, just that would be on the land which they occupied. I don't know, I don't Yeah, No, I think you're making a really good point. Maybe it's saying will have a monarchy because we know they work, but we'll have one that is our monarchy, right, uh, something where we have offspring, yeah yeah, yeah, and then maybe we'll get support from the Prussians or something. Uh. But these kind of machinations happen all the time, right in these sorts of calculations. That's why that leads us to another interesting one. The Boston massacre seventeen seventy March five. You've heard the name. It's a it's an altercation that leads to that that kind of becomes a spark that ignites a larger flame. An angry mob surrounds a Century and they start talking trash to him whatever picture whatever the colonial American version of trash talking is. You know what I mean. They're like, you smell of laudanum. I don't know, and they and thanks, and uh. Eight colleagues come to support the Century. And then the situation escalates and people are throwing stones and clubs and snowballs, which I thought was wholesome at the soldiers. And then the nine soldiers open fire on the crowd. They kill five people, they wound six others. Only two or convicted of anything man slaughter with reduced sentences. The rest are acquitted. Without going into this too deep, there is an idea that the Boston massacre was purposely instigated, that it wasn't just an organic kind of perfect storm of tension and you know, waiting for the shoe to drop. There's the idea that someone got together, someone conspired and said, Okay, go up, start talking to this person. Let's get them to fire on us. Why would they do that. We've seen this before in the asked if you can make an opponent act aggressively towards you without taking aggressive action towards them, public opinion is more likely to be in your favor as the person being attacked rather than the attacker. Right. I think that's the primary motivation there. Um. But but I don't know how that would work. I mean, it would have to be I can only imagine it being a group of people speaking to you know, this angry mob or whoever they are, and just kind of making them angrier and angrier and getting them more and more worked up, and then doing kind of what you're saying, then just pointing and going, hey, look over there, look at that guy. Let's go tell him to go back across the pond. But even then, I don't see how the Boston massacre. I it was, it was a rallying cry. I just don't see how that strategically would be the thing in that place at that time. Yeah, that's the thing. And you raise an excellent point, because we have to remember when someone is proposing a theory like that, they are doing so with the knowledge of what happened after the Boston massacre. It puts a great deal of predictive power on any conspirator here to assume that they purposely instigated something and somehow new roughly what effects that massacre would have. That's let's put in a lot on them, you know what I mean. But but let's remember what the Project for the New American Century said in their report that was put out right before the events of September eleven, two thousand one, where they said, we need a new Pearl Harbor. Oh God, you're right, And and the whole concept of that was to to fullment public opinion, to to make everybody okay with spending more money on war, on wartime stuff, on armies and you know material. Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm sort of being flippant, but it's like, I think that's a lot of the reasons. There are so many conspiracy theories behind nine eleven, is it. It certainly accomplished a goal for like these hawkish you know, people that were in power at the time, like gave them a really great excuse to kind of duel, bait and switch and and seek out the war they wanted, not necessarily the war that made sense as retribution. Yeah, and we're not saying that the Project for a New American Century or anyone caused nine eleven as a false flag attack. We are not saying that. No, that's not what I'm saying. Heither, I'm just saying I can see why people's minds would go there because of what it did. It was literally what the what the what do they call neo conservative playbook was calling for. It's exact it's exactly what it was calling for. Um. Yeah, but it doesn't mean we can anyone can prove that, and you know that's just where we live. That's certainly not not suggesting that. I think it's just a very interesting parallel to what we're talking about. Yeah, that report comes just before the two thousand election. Uh. And then they're not specifically saying the towers in New York need to blow up, but they do say a new Pearl Harbor, some catastrophic event. Uh. And clearly there were tons of opportunists taking advantage of of the situation, right of the chaos ensuing after this. But with that in mindment, that's a great example. That's I think that's incredibly grounding because some of this stuff can seem a little bit a little bit distant, right because we have again the benefit of centuries. But I don't want to leave this scene of the massacre just yet. I've learned some colonial insults. I would like to tell you what I think they were probably calling this guy. They were probably calling him a gentleman of three outs. That's a man who lacks with money and manners against three uh. And a lull poop I'm sorry, a loll poop l o l l poop, a lazy idle man. The female equivalent is the fsack. Wow. I didn't know they were doing like acronym insults. That's that's some next level stuff right there. The lull poop is now emoji very soon. Uh. And then they probably called them a guilt or rum dubber. These are great palliards and Clapper, Dogan's Clapper Dogan Clapper, Dogan's dogins, I'll be I'll be honest with you, guys. I wasn't actually at the Boston massacre, so so I don't know, but but I love lull poop. Anyway, moving on, what if there's a secret war happening. What if it's not just the US or what will become the U s fighting with Britain. What if after the foundation of the US they are waging a war against the illuminati. The Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed to the law in s under President John Adams, were super controversial because they gave the government like fascist level dictator powers over political dissenters and over people that were considered to be foreigners, which is which is pretty weird because you know, many people who fought in the Revolutionary War were foreigners. So so this is this act is ultimately repealed, but some of some pieces of it survived today, and that prompts people to think there might be some sort of hidden purpose behind the legislation. It extended the requirement for residency from just five years to fourteen. This is where this is where it gets very weird. These are very harsh anti immigrant laws. Uh, they give the federal government great power to kind of cherry pick and choose who they wish to allow into the country. And the idea is that they're trying to weed out members of the Illuminati before they could become a danger to to the newly birthed us. That's so weird, it's so interesting. I do not think it's true. I don't understand how it could be. I think xenophobia is a real enough conspiracy on its own. And there you have it, folks, These are just a few of the very strange, very crazy conspiracy theories or secrets of the Founding Fathers. The one that personally bothers me the most is just how close this country came to becoming a monarchy. So, Henry, if you are out there and listening to this show somehow, thank you for turning down the job. Good on you. Massive appreciate it. Uh. We haven't even gone into the rabbit hole about Illuminati bloodlines and the Founding Fathers. That may be an episode of its own. But in the meantime, what do you think about the stuff we've talked about today? Do you think any of it is possible, plausible? Do you think it's bunk. That's maybe best left for authors of historical alternative fiction. Let us know. You can find us online. We try to be easy to connect with their We're on Instagram, We're on Facebook, We're on Twitter. That's correct. You can head on over to YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. Check out our videos. We have a ton of them going way way way back. Watch them for fun. There's a which one did we We just talked about it, Ben. We were looking at some older ones and I stumbled upon, Oh gosh, I can't even tell you what it was, the snowpocalypse one made it just made me laugh so hard. We made this video back in the day about the time it snowed in Atlanta and everybody freaked out, and uh, Josh Clark was in it. That's right. Gave me a nice little chuckle. I I totally forgot. I totally forgot about that one, but that that actually held up. I think I actually appeared in one of those videos, maybe two. But I had a really bad haircut at the time. So if you want to see me with a bad haircut, do a little digging. It's called it's called the meeting. Check out that one. That's what the video is titled. Is that the one my bad haircut? Uh no, no, you have an haircut, Thanks Bud. I appreciate that. You can also call us, should you prefer that to social media. We are one eight three three st d w y t K. You will hear a message and you will have three minutes that entirely belonged to you, which you will with them. Leave us suggestions, leave us feedback, and most importantly on that one, let us know if it's okay do you your name and voice on air? And if you don't want to do any of that, um, why not head on over to Apple podcasts. This is the thing you could do. You could leave a review for the show, um, preferably a good one. But you know we we value constructive feedback. Leave some of that too. Helps people discover the show and boosts it in the rankings, So that's always helpful. UM, and you know, we hope you do that. But if you don't, you can do a combination of these things. It's not like mutually exclusive. You can send us an email. We are conspiracy at I heeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of i heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.