0:00

From UFOs to psychic powers

0:02

and government conspiracies. History

0:04

is riddled with unexplained events. You

0:07

can turn back now or learn

0:09

this stuff they don't want you to know. A

0:12

production of iHeartRadio.

0:24

Hello, welcome back to the show. My name

0:26

is Matt, my name is Noel. They call

0:28

me Ben.

0:29

We're joined as always with our super producer

0:31

Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson.

0:33

Most importantly, you are you.

0:36

You are here that makes this

0:38

this stuff they don't want you to know.

0:41

It's an exciting time of the week for

0:43

us, folks. This is our

0:45

listener mail program where we get

0:48

to hear directly from the best

0:50

part of the show, you, specifically

0:52

you. We always conclude our

0:54

episode saying, Hey, reach out to us,

0:57

find us online, call us on the phone,

0:59

send us an email, and we're not blowing

1:01

smoke. We're going to hear about active

1:03

fitness groups. We'll get a note from

1:05

a Knoxvillian, we'll

1:07

learn about some mysterious holes.

1:10

And before we do any of that, we

1:12

have a couple of voicemails we'd like to share

1:15

with you.

1:22

I have so many questions about active fitness groups,

1:24

and that just sounds like a group of people

1:26

that's really active, and they go out and they do

1:28

fitness together.

1:30

Because I do that part is true.

1:32

I know a lot of those see them at

1:34

the what is it? There's orange theory

1:36

Jim right around where I am and see

1:39

him doing that. All right, So let's

1:41

jump first to a voicemail message

1:44

from Ta Gray.

1:45

Hi, you can call me Gray. I'm

1:48

a PhD candidate at Florida State

1:50

and I study political science and international

1:53

relations. And

1:55

I just want to say I teach American foreign

1:57

policy. Uh and as a long

1:59

time listener of your show, it's hard not

2:02

to deveolop my class into discussions

2:04

of all the shady stuff that the United

2:06

States government has done overseas.

2:10

But I'm a big fan of the show. Keep up the

2:12

good work. I'm calling because

2:14

I had any potential idea

2:16

for a future episode. Recently,

2:19

I had a talk at

2:22

my university from professor Danielle

2:25

Donno. She's at University of Oklahoma

2:28

on fraudulent election monitors.

2:32

So according to her, there's an international

2:34

conspiracy going on about election

2:37

monitors. These popped

2:39

up a lot in international relations after

2:42

the fall of the Soviet Union. What

2:45

they do is they go into countries

2:47

that are you know, developing democracies

2:49

and they monitor their elections. They

2:52

then develop objective reports

2:55

about, you know, whether the election

2:57

was free or fair, or whether there was some

2:59

fraudulent to be going on. However,

3:02

recently there have been efforts

3:05

uncovered that Russia

3:07

has been spearheading a lot of fraudulent

3:09

election monitors. These

3:12

monitors are usually you know, kind

3:15

of developed overnight, paid off

3:17

by either the governments that

3:20

they're monitoring, or you know, Russia

3:23

themselves, and they go in

3:25

and say elections are free and fair when they

3:27

weren't. But they always assign themselves

3:29

really official sounding names, so if you're citizen

3:32

of that country, it's hard to tell, you

3:34

know, whether or not this is legit,

3:36

especially if your media is you

3:39

know, not free and fair as well. So

3:41

I know there's some work in terms of sources by

3:43

Danielle Donnell and her co

3:45

authors. There's also been a series

3:48

of investigative journalism that looks

3:50

at some of these kind of pop up election monitors

3:53

and tracks their finances and has

3:55

found a lot of ties to Russia

3:58

and other kind of shady governments as well. So

4:01

anyways, I thought this might be of interest.

4:04

Of course, I'm a political scientist, so

4:06

my interests are a little bit more niche.

4:09

But I hope to see this

4:11

in a future episode, thinks I.

4:14

Yes, well, thank you take grade.

4:16

That's amazing. It's awesome

4:19

to your PhD candidate

4:21

at Florida State that's teaching

4:23

international relations. My

4:25

goodness. And this is something

4:27

that we have had our eyes on for a long

4:29

time. We've talked about this a little bit in the past,

4:32

been in Noel right, specifically election

4:34

monitoring and kind

4:37

of a fishiness that can occur there when

4:39

it's a third party or an NGO or some

4:42

you know, some other group that goes into a

4:44

country to verify

4:46

in some way that this election is

4:48

good to go, you guys, especially

4:50

when it's a paid group, right, because

4:53

the money flows from somewhere for some reason.

4:56

If it's not just some some

4:59

pro democratic group

5:01

that is just all good and

5:04

only you know, only working

5:07

for good in the world.

5:08

The good folks at Wagner want

5:11

you to vote your conscience.

5:12

Yeah, but they would never say that,

5:15

would never say it. Bogner would be some other

5:17

group. I don't know, have you guys heard anything about

5:19

this or been specifically just do you know

5:21

much about the election monitoring process

5:24

that's in place right now.

5:25

Yeah, this is astic,

5:28

T Gray, thank you for reaching

5:31

out to us. We share similar

5:33

interest, especially appreciate

5:35

your recommendation to our

5:38

fellow conspiracy realist about Professor

5:40

Donno's work. The idea

5:42

here in specific seems

5:45

to be a conspiracy to

5:48

legitimize corrupt elections.

5:50

Election monitoring is an at

5:53

times controversial industry.

5:55

The Carter Center, based here in Atlanta,

5:58

Georgia, sends groups

6:00

across the world to monitor

6:03

elections. We know people who

6:05

work in election monitoring.

6:08

However, we see in this

6:11

in this industry, we do see

6:14

opportunity for conspiracy and

6:16

corruption. I mean, you know, it's weird

6:19

because there is an arguably

6:21

condescending framework for

6:24

Americans. Looking at the elections

6:27

in other countries. The Americans

6:29

say this election needs

6:31

to be investigated, but never

6:34

our own, because we're

6:36

so great.

6:37

Yeah, I'm looking at outfits like the

6:39

Office for Democratic Institutions

6:41

and Human Rights based at least it

6:43

looks like it is based out of Poland. Maybe yeah

6:46

it is. It's based in Warsaw, Poland

6:49

that do this very thing, right, go into

6:51

other countries and monitor elections

6:54

for theoretically the good of everyone.

6:56

And they've got something called thesc

7:00

E, which I'm just finding

7:02

a handbook on it. Maybe it's just because I've already

7:04

searched for it. OSCEE called

7:07

the Organization for Security

7:09

and Cooperation in Europe, which

7:11

is a whole other thing. Again,

7:14

like some of this stuff, just in looking at it, you know,

7:16

in the moment here after listening to that message, there's

7:19

no way for me to die or at least me personally to dive

7:21

into all the stuff we need to talk

7:23

about. But y'all, I found a handbook

7:27

from for that Office of Democratic Institutions

7:29

and Human Rights that goes over like how

7:32

to make sure an election is

7:34

good to go or at least on the up and up.

7:37

Wow, there's a lot here.

7:39

And to be clear, folks, election

7:42

monitoring is a necessary

7:45

process. There are tons

7:47

of corrupt elections around

7:49

the world every year. That

7:52

is not a hot take, That is simply

7:54

true. The question then becomes

7:57

something like who watches the

7:59

Watchman? Yeah that's not

8:01

a dated reference.

8:02

No it's not. But but legitimately

8:05

is there something like that? Is there some kind

8:07

of third party that comes into the United

8:09

States and monitors our elections?

8:11

Do you mean like consensually or do

8:13

you mean they're pole watchers.

8:16

No, No, I mean not. I mean an

8:18

actual third party like this one based out

8:20

of Warsaw, Poland that goes into the United States

8:23

just to be like, okay, well, let's monitor these elections, just to

8:25

make sure.

8:25

No.

8:25

I mean to Ben's point though, right, Like,

8:28

isn't that sort of a little bit uh

8:31

oh, We're so great like these

8:33

these things don't happen here, you know,

8:35

because I think that would be a conflict

8:37

of interest to the election process. There's so many things

8:40

you're not allowed to do at polls,

8:42

you know, like they're very particular about

8:44

certain you know, campaigning and the like. I

8:47

don't think there would have to be special dispensations

8:49

made for an organization quote unquote doing

8:52

that poll watchers. If I'm not mistaken,

8:54

what's the deal with that?

8:55

Guys?

8:55

Remind me, I don't think I've ever witnessed that practice.

8:58

But don't they have to keep a distance of some

9:00

kind? They hang out outside the

9:02

polling place. They're certainly not looking over

9:04

people's shoulders whilst they vote.

9:06

Well, there's a whole issue that was brought up

9:09

with that thing with intimidation,

9:12

right, pole watchers being put

9:14

in place as an intimidation tactic.

9:16

Potentially, maybe not, but

9:19

it certainly seems that way to me, at least

9:21

from my perspective. I wonder

9:24

what hole monitoring is like in another

9:26

country where it is a third party coming

9:28

through just to keep an eye on everything. And

9:30

the point you made been like it

9:33

could be some third party that is actually

9:35

a part of the election, that is

9:37

doing it on purpose. I don't

9:39

know. It just gives me a weird feeling, you guys,

9:42

because it makes me want to look internally

9:44

and just make sure we're actually good.

9:46

I think the US is good, but maybe

9:48

that's just because I grew up saying the

9:50

pledge of allegiance, you know.

9:53

And just to answer my own question, I guess pole

9:55

watchers can be affiliated with any number

9:58

of organizations where they be a political party

10:01

or some kind of non partisan group. They also

10:03

can conduct exit polls, which

10:06

we know are really important for e Gauging

10:08

how an election is going right in

10:10

advance.

10:11

I think they just had one hundred feet back.

10:14

Yeah, the idea of corruption here is

10:18

worth asking, it's worth investigating.

10:21

Completely, agree with you, Tay. This maybe

10:24

an episode in the future. We

10:26

do know that Vladimir Putin's pulling

10:29

numbers are through the roof. Who would have saw

10:31

that coming unanimously

10:33

loved by the nation.

10:35

Of Russia now that we're there, the

10:38

shirt off.

10:39

Yeah, yeah, he's he's a real stub

10:41

buff in that guy. We do know

10:44

that there are international observers

10:46

to your question, Matt, that

10:48

will. I guess they're not quite

10:51

on the level of poll watchers all the

10:53

time, but there are institutions

10:56

and groups from other countries

10:59

that will monitor US elections,

11:02

and yeah, and it needs to happen.

11:04

Elections do need to be monitored,

11:07

hopefully by an objective third

11:09

party. The problem is

11:11

that a lot of those parties are not indeed

11:14

objective.

11:15

Right, How do you get one? There was such a huge

11:18

issue during the last presidential

11:20

election in the United States, and there's about

11:22

to be another one. It would be awesome if

11:24

there was some kind of watchers of the

11:27

watchmen, as you said, Ben, that could

11:29

just go, hey, guys, we got it. We're just gonna make sure

11:31

we're all good, and we're

11:33

good, or and oh nope,

11:35

we have to do that one again, sorry, y'all.

11:38

I wonder what would happen, though, if some member

11:40

state of NATO came

11:42

out and publicly said or

11:45

like the United Nations said, this

11:47

election has too many serious

11:50

problems and we need to just do

11:52

a take to reset vote

11:55

again. America would not have.

11:57

It at I know you're

11:59

right, especially if it was like a NATO or

12:02

some other group that we're supposed to say.

12:04

Okay, we'll do what you say. Oh

12:08

man, oh well, this feels like

12:10

a conundrum to me. We need people

12:12

like Take Gray out there

12:14

figuring out what to do next.

12:17

So congratulations on the PhD.

12:19

Tap absolutely, heck yeah,

12:22

and shout out to Professor Danielle

12:25

Adno, that's awesome. I've looked

12:27

at her about page on

12:29

her own website. It's very interesting stuff

12:31

and there's a whole book that we can look into.

12:33

Guys.

12:34

The Cypress research is fascinating.

12:37

Hm.

12:38

Very cool.

12:38

All right, well, thanks so much, Take Gray. We

12:40

are going to jump to another piece of

12:43

a listener mail, but we'll be right back with more

12:45

messages from you.

12:53

And we have returned with

12:55

listener mail. This particular

12:58

missive.

12:58

Comes from Cool Guy, big

13:01

fan of Cool Guy. Let's just jump

13:03

right into it. This is a fun one. Howdy,

13:06

gentlemen.

13:07

I've been a huge fan of you guys four years

13:09

now and always wanted to reach out but never had

13:11

anything to say, so glad you finally

13:13

did.

13:13

Cool guy.

13:14

I was scrolling through the internet when I stumbled

13:17

upon a whole m Mel's

13:19

hole. To be exact, who is this mel,

13:22

you may ask, as son in the email. I was

13:24

just curious if you guys have ever heard

13:26

of it, and what are your thoughts.

13:28

I'm going to attach a link.

13:29

To a YouTube video because it's like, actually

13:31

super gn hourly.

13:33

Cool guy.

13:34

I appreciate your podcast and can't wait

13:36

to hear your thoughts.

13:38

Ps.

13:38

I apologize if I have a spell this, which he does.

13:41

But Noel's evil voice

13:43

definitely is sounding like the killing

13:45

Joke joker.

13:47

What is my evil voice? I

13:49

love it?

13:49

I gotta know. Let us know, cool

13:52

guy you're talking about. I hope he's not saying that I sound

13:54

evil all the time. Apparently

13:57

I put on a bit of an evil

13:59

patois.

14:00

Let's do a test. Let's do a test. Say something really

14:02

evil in your evil.

14:04

Voice, meda most foul.

14:07

There we go. Yeah, I think that's what he's talking about.

14:09

Okay, cool.

14:10

He spells my name nol though, like the grassy

14:12

noole, which I get a lot, and I guess

14:15

that makes sense considering, you know the nature

14:17

of the of the podcast, So I do not.

14:20

Begrudge you that cool guy.

14:22

But Mel's Hole, y'all,

14:25

this is actually pretty prescient because we may well

14:27

have a full episode coming up

14:29

on mysterious Holes,

14:32

and we're gonna try real hard not to giggle

14:34

like little school girls throughout that

14:36

one. But yeah, this actually

14:39

kind of ties back around to

14:41

an episode of a show that's in some

14:44

ways adjacent to

14:46

our show, at least in this in the sense

14:48

that it's on our network, the iHeart

14:51

Podcast network.

14:52

Coast to Coast AM.

14:55

And if I'm not mistaken, this story

14:58

first surfaced in the nineties,

15:00

and there's a real cool article. You guys, remember

15:03

ifl Science you

15:05

still have a dirty word in it was still

15:07

around. Holly Large is

15:09

kicking it as their resident whole expert,

15:12

and the headline to this piece

15:15

is geologically impossible. The

15:17

strange story of Mel's supposedly

15:20

bottomless hole essentially

15:23

what the gist is. And in February

15:25

of nineteen ninety seven, a fellow

15:28

calling himself Mel Waters called

15:30

into the late night conspiratorial.

15:33

Talk show Coast to Coast.

15:35

This is back when Art Bell was still

15:37

at the helm there and this guy

15:40

you know, I you know, guys, I've never really spent

15:42

any time with coast to coast. Is this pretty common? Like

15:44

folks just calling in and telling their wild stories?

15:46

Is that sort of the format?

15:48

Yes? Early, Okay, got it, So that

15:50

makes sense. So this guy had

15:52

a bit of a doozy.

15:54

He calls in and says that on his property

15:56

around fourteen kilometers nine

15:58

miles to the west of Ellensburg, Washington

16:01

State, there was once

16:03

a giant hole that, according

16:06

to this fellow, waters.

16:08

Had no end was

16:10

it was an endless, bottomless

16:13

pit.

16:13

He talks about how locals from

16:16

the area would throw away their their

16:18

garbage into the hole pretty regularly,

16:20

and one might ask, well, then, at what point wouldn't

16:22

that hole just start to fill up and

16:25

an overflow with with nasty waiste.

16:28

Apparently it never did, because he goes on

16:30

to talk about how he went to literally

16:33

try to get to the bottom of this thing, ha ha, And

16:36

he took a real large

16:39

amount of fishing line. You know, I

16:41

mean, I'm not I'm no fishermen here,

16:43

no angler, but I think a big

16:45

old reel of fishing line probably comprises

16:47

quite a lot of length and

16:50

he had to go through several of them, so

16:52

he claimed to get to still not

16:54

the bottom, he exhausted.

16:56

I believe three reels that he had brought.

16:59

Constitute around

17:02

eighty thousand feet twenty

17:04

four thousand meters.

17:07

So yeah, without, he said, without,

17:09

still, by the way.

17:10

Reaching the bottom of this chasm.

17:13

The IFL Science article

17:16

then goes on to talk a little bit about geology.

17:18

So let's not be the spoilers quite

17:21

yet.

17:21

Let's talk a little bit more about some of the lore behind

17:24

Mel's hole. Waters

17:26

also goes on to claim that some

17:29

government agents of

17:31

unknown origin or affiliations

17:34

just call them general spook type individuals

17:37

showed up and shut

17:40

down the area, claiming that it had been the

17:42

site of a plane crash,

17:45

an official you know, government vehicle,

17:47

perhaps some kind of spyplane.

17:49

Perhaps didn't really go into detail, so

17:51

they shut it down. And then he claims

17:54

that they essentially forced

17:57

him to lease his land

18:00

to the government, which

18:02

they paid him, you know, obviously for and

18:05

he supposedly was able to use that

18:07

money paid to him by the government to move

18:09

to Australia, which sounds nice.

18:12

Probably got some pretty deep holes out there Australia

18:14

way as well. So

18:17

some of the properties of this hole that he described

18:19

were things like bringing

18:22

animals back from the dead is one

18:24

that strikes me. I'm a big I don't know fan

18:27

is the right word. Pet Cemetery I find to be one

18:29

of the most nihilistic and upsetting

18:31

pieces of fiction ever penned.

18:34

I think it was so effed up.

18:35

That sorry, talking like Jojo Sewell

18:37

over here, that Stephen

18:39

King kept it in a drawer for many years.

18:42

He says it's the novel that scared him

18:44

the most.

18:44

That's right, yeah, because it was also I think

18:47

when he was in the deepest throes of his

18:49

cocaine addiction. I don't

18:51

know if that has anything to do with it, but it certainly

18:53

is a really, really, really dark and

18:56

sinister novel about a place

18:58

in of course, Maine, where is

19:01

supposedly an Indian burial ground on the

19:03

other side of what became a child's

19:05

kind of cemetery for dead burying

19:08

dead pets and when you bury

19:10

them on the other side, the Micmac

19:13

burial ground, I believe what they call it. The First

19:15

Nations tribe that is depicted in the

19:17

book and in the film.

19:19

Then it comes back, but it comes back bad

19:22

comes back.

19:23

The soul sour?

19:25

Yes, boy, is it ever? Fred Gwyn for

19:27

the Wind to the Road loss

19:30

Loss, I.

19:31

Mean God, talk about what a bummer.

19:33

And then that guy meets a real gnarly end at the

19:35

hands of a spoiler for

19:38

a probably thirty year old piece of fiction. At this

19:40

point, they bury a small

19:42

child in the pet cemetery and

19:44

it comes back and slices old

19:46

Herman munster up with a scalpel and eats

19:48

his Adam's apple out of his throat. Scared

19:51

the crap out of me. You guys have a memory of seeing

19:53

a movie that was above your pay grade for

19:56

the age you were, and it kind of wrecked you

19:58

a little bit. That was that for me Event

20:00

Horizon as well, because I would argue Event

20:03

Horizon was irresponsibly marketed.

20:05

I thought that was gonna be a fun

20:08

space romp, and it had all kinds

20:10

of weird, horrible hell raiser surgery,

20:14

clawing out people's eyes kind of stuff in and that

20:16

one wrecked me. But Pet Cemetery really did a number

20:18

on me. So guy claims that a local

20:20

threw his dog in there and saw

20:22

it later shambling around.

20:24

With another hunter and it didn't recognize him.

20:27

Okay also claims

20:29

that he had heard tale of people

20:32

taking radios holding it up around

20:34

the ridge, which I believe

20:37

the mouth of this cavern hear this thing

20:39

he claimed to be around

20:41

nine feet wide

20:44

the mouth of the hole, only

20:47

to pick up music

20:49

from the past. Huh,

20:51

broadcasts from yesteryear.

20:54

There are claims of transmutation

20:57

of substances, the kinds

20:59

of things that you would only hear in tales of

21:02

alchemy, you know of like turning

21:05

you know, brass into gold or what have

21:07

you. Metals specifically said held

21:09

near the whole would morph into other substances,

21:12

and you guys are already kind of getting the just this is starting

21:14

to take on urban lore urban legend

21:16

type status real quick. My

21:19

favorite one was the

21:22

story of like somebody

21:25

lowered like a pack of life savers

21:27

down there be not my favorite one, and it's

21:29

pretty smart, hoping they would reach water

21:31

and then it would call.

21:32

You know what.

21:32

I think it was the fishing line.

21:34

It had life savers on the end of it and

21:36

it was supposedly if it hit water then it

21:38

would dissolve, but it never did. So

21:40

that's that's one thing. And the last thing

21:42

was sounds black beams emitted

21:45

from this thing and

21:48

supposedly the sounds of some

21:50

sort of sinister creature, you

21:52

know, lurking within. This is very Cthulhu

21:55

esque kind of stuff. So before

21:57

we try to debunk it, or at least talk to some

21:59

folks that maybe we'll

22:01

try their hand at that.

22:03

This cool stuff is very interesting.

22:04

It's the stuff of probably Coast

22:06

to Coast, you know vibes. It

22:09

seems to me to have clearly been an influence

22:11

in the television series I

22:13

think it's called Outer Range starring

22:16

Josh Brolin, about a mysterious

22:18

hole that is some sort of portal. It

22:22

would have to be because it's definitely a rural kind

22:24

of setting and similar kind of mystery

22:26

surrounding this hole.

22:28

But how does this guy? How does this hit you?

22:29

Guys?

22:29

Do you have any analogs for this sor

22:32

as you guys heard of this story?

22:33

Yeah, I have heard of it. In full disclosure,

22:37

I am one of the executive producers

22:39

for a lot of Coast to Coast AM podcast.

22:42

However, I didn't put my thumb

22:44

on the scale of this exploration

22:47

of mysterious holes.

22:49

It is.

22:50

It is startling. I think one of the things

22:52

we have to remember if we're hearing this

22:55

and we're saying, I'm a skeptical person.

22:57

We have to remember that the vast

23:00

majority of cavern systems

23:03

on this planet remain unexplored.

23:06

Like right now, it is

23:08

totally possible, not plausible,

23:10

but totally possible that there

23:13

is an entire region

23:16

of the world, subterranean region that

23:19

we do not understand knell.

23:21

For the case of mel Waters

23:24

in particular, if I recall

23:26

correctly, we just

23:28

know that the guy called himself

23:31

Mel Waters.

23:32

We don't know if real Further

23:34

exploration of into this dude revealed

23:37

that no such individual existed by

23:40

that name, and he also

23:42

referred to his wife, I believe, by

23:45

name in the broadcast, who was affiliated

23:47

with a university in

23:50

the area. And the cross references

23:52

of that name also led to bump.

23:54

Guess when it came to you know, somebody that had

23:56

been employed at this university And sorry, I'm my

23:59

tabs are all askew and

24:01

I'm not getting the names quite

24:03

right.

24:04

Way here we go.

24:06

Ellensburg, Ellensburg,

24:09

Washington, and yeah,

24:12

Kitchitas County. Yeah,

24:14

his wife, he claimed worked

24:16

at c w U, which

24:19

I guess is Central Washington University.

24:21

He named her, and no.

24:23

No person of that name

24:26

working at Central Washington University.

24:28

So yeah, one hundred percent.

24:30

Ben Seattle's k o m

24:32

O TV station did a piece

24:35

on it on February seventh

24:37

of that year.

24:38

You know this, this conversation.

24:40

On art Bell definitely hit the hit

24:42

the small community pretty hard for

24:45

whatever reason though this the exact

24:47

location is very

24:50

vague and no one seems to have been able

24:52

to actually find the thing. And

24:54

for a giant, bottomless hole, that seems a little sketchy,

24:57

but again, the guy said that the government basically co

24:59

opted it. One would maybe, you know, if we were

25:01

to believe that line of thinking, maybe

25:04

filled it in or camouflaged it or

25:06

whatever in some way.

25:07

Well, we are talking about only a nine

25:10

foot diameter hole, right, so that's

25:12

I don't know, imagine if

25:14

you're looking out on this like vast

25:17

landscape where there's not really much

25:19

there that does have

25:21

ups and downs to it, right, the elevation

25:24

shifts a little bit, it'd be pretty

25:26

hard, I think to find just a hole that's

25:28

that small.

25:29

Yeah.

25:30

Also, didn't didn't this

25:33

person make repeat appearances

25:35

on Coast to Coast?

25:36

He did?

25:37

Yeah, as recently as two thousand, is

25:40

my understanding, and another person

25:42

who kind of entered the chat when

25:45

this story first, you know, kind of hit the

25:47

airwaves and then the you know, the TV was

25:50

a guy who actually did confirmed,

25:53

did work at CWU,

25:56

a geologist for

25:58

the Department of now Shore Resources

26:01

by the name of Jack

26:03

Powell, and he was

26:06

very skeptical. He kind of even referred to the

26:08

art Belt show as being all about UFOs and sasquatches

26:10

in kind of.

26:11

A dismissive way.

26:13

And he had

26:15

this to say when interviewed by

26:17

filmmakers. Jack Powell, a geologist with the Washington

26:20

State Department of Natural Resources, he said,

26:22

geologically and physically, it's not possible

26:24

for a hole to be that deep. It would collapse

26:26

into itself under the tremendous pressure

26:29

and heat from the surrounding strata.

26:33

He believes that the legend

26:35

sparked from the existence

26:37

of a local goldbind shaft

26:40

that he remembered from being a boy that

26:43

had its entrance in a local field with

26:45

a shaft of around twenty seven meters

26:47

or ninety feet deep, which is certainly deep,

26:49

but not what one might call bottomless

26:53

or like you know, portal into the unknown

26:56

waters does reference something called the Cola

26:59

super deep hole on the Cola

27:01

Peninsula in northwestern Russia. Which

27:03

is a hole that or it is a project,

27:05

I guess, a dig that spanned from May twenty

27:07

fourth, nineteen seventy to after

27:10

the collapse of the Soviet Union, which

27:12

saw the digging of the deepest

27:15

hole ever, which

27:18

is forty thousand feet below the surface.

27:21

That's a that's a pretty deep hole there.

27:23

It's about still a half what

27:25

this hole was purported to have been. And

27:28

there was another kind of point of reference.

27:31

Let's see the Russians, he said, drilled

27:33

the deepest hole two hundred and thirty feet

27:36

in nineteen eighty nine is when that rapped.

27:38

He said, if they had said over the

27:40

radio was on the north side of the valley,

27:42

well I might have stayed with the

27:44

program for a while longer. I was thinking the hole

27:46

I knew about was somehow being made into

27:49

Mel's hole.

27:50

And he's referring to.

27:54

Some areas of the eastern Washington

27:56

you know region, the lower Kitsitas

27:59

County and Manna stash

28:02

Ridge Specifically.

28:04

He says, geologically and physically.

28:06

It's not possible for a hole to be

28:08

that deep because of the reasons we mentioned

28:11

earlier. He said whoever

28:13

mel was, he probably knew about the hole

28:15

in northwest of allens Burglet's on private land

28:18

fenced with barbed wire and is not too

28:20

far from State D in r Lands. I

28:22

suppose this mell Waters, he says, usually

28:24

the real hole as a kind of inspiration for

28:27

making up this mysterious one in Manustache

28:30

Ridge.

28:31

Cool idea.

28:32

I really get it, you know. And it's like I

28:35

know that art Bell and Coast to

28:37

Coast. Certainly there are stuff that gets talked about

28:39

on there that you know has

28:41

grains of truth, like a lot of the stuff we talk about

28:43

on this show. But this

28:46

one does maybe seem like someone was

28:48

trying to get some airtime and created

28:50

a story that was maybe rooted

28:53

in a grain of truth with this other hole, but

28:55

then kind of went a little bit. He

28:58

jumped the shark a little bit in terms of some of the details.

29:01

What do you guys think, I think we should

29:03

all watch out Arrange. I think we've talked about it before

29:06

on the show.

29:06

It's good show, really a lot very

29:08

twin peaksy I really dig it. I like the

29:11

the weird, evil kind of rancher

29:13

guy who's always singing like

29:16

to his son, like he bursts into

29:18

song all the time. And I can't remember the character's

29:21

name. It's been a minute, but I think there's another season

29:23

of that too. But I did watch every

29:25

episode of the first season and enjoyed it very

29:27

much.

29:28

Been any any other thoughts about Mel's hole?

29:31

Oh you know, Mel, I'm kidding me

29:37

very very much, looking

29:39

forward to our future subterranean

29:42

exploration. Uh, it's

29:44

a it's very it's very hold by beer

29:47

of humanity to say how

29:49

deep can we dig? And we

29:51

will dig into that in a future episode.

29:53

So thank you so much for writing in what a

29:55

fantastic suggestion.

29:57

Absolutely thanks a lot.

29:59

Cool guy.

30:00

We're gonna take a quick pause here a word from our

30:02

sponsor, and then come back with another

30:05

one final.

30:06

For this evening's episode. Piece of

30:08

listener Mayo.

30:15

And we've returned, Ben. I thought you were gonna

30:17

say, hold my beer like you

30:19

just tossed it in.

30:21

This is why we hang out.

30:22

Yeah, maybe you would come out a different kind, right,

30:25

Or are.

30:26

You guys talking about beers in butts?

30:28

Uh?

30:29

No.

30:29

Always If you look back over the

30:31

course of this show, every episode in

30:33

some way is about beers and butts. Mm

30:35

hm, you know, think about it. We

30:39

have. We have a couple

30:42

of pieces of correspondence here. This

30:44

is something that is pretty serious.

30:46

It's been on our collective

30:48

mind for some time. Here

30:51

is a piece of correspondence

30:53

from our longtime conspiracy

30:55

realist Fiota. Fiona

30:57

says, hi, all, very long time

30:59

listener here. I had never heard the term

31:02

active clubs until today.

31:04

I've missed some episodes recently, so not

31:07

sure if you've covered these already,

31:09

Fiona. We have yet to do so, and

31:11

we're glad you brought this up. Fiona

31:14

is quoting from a newsletter

31:16

called The Real Intel, and

31:19

Fiona quotes the following. Active

31:21

clubs are fraternal, white

31:23

only fitness groups that use

31:26

physical fitness as a lifestyle

31:28

draw to funnel men into

31:30

white nationalism and into

31:33

militant neo Nazism. In

31:35

addition to using fitness culture

31:37

as a means of influence and recruitment,

31:40

the fitness proposition of active Clubs

31:42

allows white nationalists to train

31:45

for street violence. They were

31:47

started in January twenty twenty

31:49

one and use Mma

31:51

style training to train for what

31:54

they claim is an upcoming race

31:56

war. They're found throughout the US,

31:58

Canada, Europe, and Australia. Canada

32:01

has twenty two known chapters,

32:04

including a rare women only

32:06

chapter. They've spread fast

32:08

and hard in an unprecedented

32:10

amount of time by hiding and Playing

32:13

Sight and making it easier to

32:15

draw new members in.

32:18

Let's pause there, peep behind

32:20

the curtain. All of us are exploring

32:23

physical fitness on our own as

32:26

individuals. Have you, guys, ever heard of active

32:28

fitness clubs?

32:29

Literally?

32:29

Matt was talking about earlier and it sounded

32:31

perfectly innocuous to me.

32:33

But what you're describing doesn't,

32:36

doesn't.

32:37

Yeah, I've never seen one, and

32:39

I'm right now searching for and

32:42

failing to find

32:44

like official websites of any

32:46

of these things. All I see is links

32:48

from Anti Defamation League and a bunch.

32:50

Of other groups talking about them.

32:52

Yeah, but nobody. But there's no like place

32:54

online. I guess where there was.

32:57

You know what I mean? You wouldn't advertise

32:59

that, you would just have your gym's

33:02

website. We want to recommend,

33:04

First off, Fiona, thank you for the suggestion.

33:07

Here.

33:07

We want to recommend an excellent piece

33:09

by Tim Dickinson writing

33:12

for The Rolling Stone, who says,

33:14

quote this violence ready militia

33:16

is hiding in Playing Sight and

33:19

also Dickinson describes these

33:21

active clubs as quote

33:24

who the Proud Boys wanted to be.

33:26

Do you guys remember the Proud Boys debacle?

33:29

Unfortunately, Well, I

33:33

wish we were video for this, because

33:35

folks, you had to see Matt nol nod

33:38

when we remember Proud Boys.

33:41

Oh my gosh.

33:41

Well, yeah, we talked about them a while back before

33:44

they got involved with the January

33:47

six things at the right date, that

33:50

whole stuff, because they were

33:52

one of those groups that seems like

33:55

an interesting way

33:57

for especially like former

34:01

soldiers or people who are no longer soldiers,

34:03

to get together and have like a

34:05

thing to do, right, a post

34:08

deployment hang kind of thing,

34:10

which is really important actually, but

34:13

it seems like it went a

34:15

different way. I don't know it,

34:18

like this whole defending the constitution thing no

34:20

matter what. From like there's something at

34:22

the heart of it that seems like, okay, I get

34:24

that, but then it just

34:27

goes towards I don't know how to

34:29

even say it. Some often

34:31

racism and terrible things.

34:34

Yeah.

34:35

You can read reports from

34:37

outfits like the Counter Extremism

34:39

Project or CEP that

34:42

describes these groups this

34:45

cottage industry of militias

34:49

as a backup standby

34:51

army for what they envision

34:53

as some sort of apocalyptic

34:56

reckoning, right, some sort of race

34:58

war. They have been affiliated

35:01

with groups like the oath Keepers,

35:03

right, and I'm sure there are some one

35:06

percenter motorcycle clubs

35:09

that might have a Venn diagram there.

35:12

We do have to say, most importantly,

35:15

one, this conspiracy does

35:17

appear to be real. It may be an episode

35:19

in the future. And two, I

35:22

hate to say it, but hashtag not all gyms.

35:25

Some people just like to go boxing, you.

35:27

Know, well, of course, well, absolutely

35:30

not all gyms, and also not all groups

35:33

like that. I mean, it's so weird to

35:35

me because you guys remember

35:37

early early in the especially ben early

35:40

in the video days, when we would

35:42

get reached out to sometimes by people who

35:44

were like oathkeeper kind

35:47

of folks. I would say, right,

35:49

who have this mentality

35:51

of I am finished with

35:53

my military service, but I'm dedicated

35:56

to either the country or the human beings

35:58

inside the country. Right, So, at

36:01

least from what we've saw from their writings,

36:03

it's I will protect

36:05

the human beings who live in the United States from

36:08

any enemy that tries to roll

36:10

through here, right, including exactly

36:13

including if it's like a government

36:15

that comes through, or a tyrant comes through, I

36:17

will defend the people around me basically,

36:20

which I don't know about you guys. That feels

36:22

pretty noble to me, at least

36:25

in theory when you say it like that.

36:27

But again, when you have a bunch of people who

36:29

are like minded in that way and then there's

36:32

a leader who maybe has some different

36:34

kind of views, it gets it's a slippery

36:36

slope towards radicalization. So

36:38

it's it's I don't know, I just I

36:40

just want to put that out there because I know there are people

36:42

listening, at least some people listening right now

36:45

that feel the positive

36:47

parts of that, but hopefully

36:50

aren't in you know, infected or

36:52

influenced by the negative parts.

36:53

Dude, honestly shout out to everybody

36:55

doing reps as you're listening to the show.

36:58

You know what I mean.

37:00

There.

37:01

Yeah, this also reminds me to your

37:03

point, met, this reminds me of

37:06

nol and observation you made

37:08

in a recent previous episode where

37:10

he said, yeah, communism

37:13

could be great if anybody

37:15

actually did it right. Because these

37:18

theories, these grand ideas,

37:21

in practice, they so often divolve

37:24

into very different things. And when

37:27

we're talking about active

37:29

clubs. Again, it's

37:32

just like motorcycle gangs. A very

37:34

small percentage of active

37:37

clubs or whatever you want to group them as, a

37:39

very small percentage of them are

37:41

these white supremacists. But

37:43

if you look at the origin story, as

37:46

far as we can tell, it goes back

37:48

to a guy named Robert Rundo,

37:51

Are you in d operating

37:53

out of Orange County, California,

37:56

was attempting to launch an extremist

37:59

network for some time. In twenty

38:01

seventeen, he built something called

38:04

the Rise Above Movement

38:06

or RAM, and it

38:09

called itself like a top notch

38:11

MMA club. It was going to find

38:13

the warrior spirit in

38:16

you, and anyone could sign up

38:18

as long as they were a dude and white.

38:21

Low caveat there. He

38:25

got into a lot of trouble.

38:27

In twenty nineteen, this guy was charged

38:30

with federal conspiracy to riot

38:33

in sight violence

38:35

right to try to create the race war

38:38

the same way that Charles Manson pushed

38:40

his followers to enact Helter

38:42

Skelter and tune

38:45

in for our Manson and Cia

38:47

episode on the way.

38:49

There's some wild stuff in there, Ben, with the Manson

38:51

Cia connections that I only just stumbled across

38:53

recently.

38:55

I can't wait to have that conversation.

38:56

Excited as well. Yeah, that's

38:58

going to be a doozy, as you said, federal

39:02

prosecutors when they charged

39:04

Robert Rundo. The

39:06

judge threw the case out

39:09

just in March of this year,

39:12

in twenty twenty four, and then another

39:14

judge came back in and reinstated

39:17

the case. If you want to learn more, check

39:20

out the Fantastic Guardian article

39:22

summarizing this by Ali

39:24

Winston. The headline is

39:26

jailed, released, jailed again.

39:29

Whiplash in a leading neo Nazis

39:32

legal case. It's strange,

39:34

man, I don't know about this stuff. Have you guys

39:36

ever entered into an

39:39

organization or pursued some kind

39:41

of hangout or fellowship only

39:43

defined? It was very different than

39:46

what it presented itself.

39:48

As I think I mentioned to you that I had

39:50

a brief period where I was hanging out with some behigh

39:52

faith folks that

39:55

you know, it has been lumped in with the

39:57

C word and.

39:58

You know, the cult that is the

40:00

other sea where.

40:01

I found it to be very

40:04

friendly, you know, kind of meet

40:07

for dinner and like minded

40:09

folks just kind of talking.

40:10

It's almost like a group therapy or like an

40:12

AA meeting or something like that.

40:14

I did get to a point where it felt a little

40:16

weird or like it wasn't exactly what

40:18

my wheelhouse is. But

40:21

I never felt like I was being

40:23

coerced into anything at

40:25

all.

40:26

But I did get to the point where I'm like, I don't think

40:28

I am the same as these people. Well, they're

40:30

very lovely people. And then I have, you know, gradually

40:32

just sort of slow faded it.

40:34

But it was it was, you know, because of school

40:36

friends of my kid, and

40:38

no shade on any of those people. They are all really lovely people.

40:41

Just you know, I just felt like I didn't really belong.

40:43

Yeah, for a while I was in this group. We

40:46

would get together like once or twice a week

40:48

and we would all kind of sit together, listen to somebody

40:51

talk, and we would sing songs together,

40:53

often like repeat

40:56

these words that were written down in this book

40:58

we had. And then they tried to get me to

41:00

drink blood and eat you know, human

41:02

flesh. And they

41:04

were called the United Methodist Church or

41:07

something like that.

41:08

I did stuff to you.

41:10

I'm just playing. I'm just playing.

41:12

Canibalism tells us that transubstantiation

41:16

is like calling bass in a game attack

41:19

catalyst.

41:20

I don't think transibstantiation counts as

41:22

cannibalism.

41:23

I think it's okay. Yeah, yeah,

41:25

I went to youth group too.

41:26

I ate a lot of tacos, didn't really eat any

41:28

human flesh that I know.

41:29

Technically a sandwich.

41:33

Why am I so anti taco as sandwich?

41:35

I'm just it's like the most

41:37

conservative opinion I have ever heard.

41:39

I never really associated that with being one

41:41

way or the other politically speaking.

41:44

I like that you're a firebrand for it.

41:45

I think I just like being contankerous about this one

41:47

really pretty meaningless issue.

41:49

You know, I will die on this hills.

41:53

And there are people who

41:56

appear to have decided that

41:58

they will die on this hill of

42:01

white supremacy. Right of active

42:03

militias. One thing we need to understand

42:06

in the larger context, going back

42:08

to our earlier conversation

42:10

in tonight's program about the importance

42:13

of election monitoring, we

42:16

see opportunities for conspiracy

42:19

and we see opportunities for

42:21

corruption. One very clever

42:24

thing that the US military

42:26

does is rotate

42:28

out its leaders such

42:31

that you are following a position

42:34

rather than following a person right,

42:36

and this avoids the cultish

42:40

riz that is created by the Mansons

42:42

and the Jim Joneses, and you know, I'll

42:45

say at the castros. But the

42:47

issue here is that the

42:50

US right now, the anglosphere

42:52

entire is pretty

42:55

concerned about the

42:57

idea of this hidden column of

43:00

successionist supremacist you

43:02

know, and oftentimes

43:05

you will hear references

43:07

to groups like this in just

43:10

passing in, like our

43:12

conversations about attacks

43:15

on power stations, right

43:17

on the very vulnerable US

43:19

infrastructure, we see again

43:21

the shadow of these supremacists.

43:24

It's a very old enemy, and

43:26

it's a it survives, and

43:29

it's a very troubling conspiracy in

43:32

my opinion. Obviously, we don't obviously

43:35

we don't co sign this stuff. We think

43:37

fitness is super cool, but

43:39

we really appreciate you, Fiona, for reaching

43:41

out because a lot of people don't know about

43:43

this. Imagine you go to a

43:46

gym, right You've got your New Year's

43:48

resolution or whatever, and you're thinking,

43:51

this is it. I'm gonna learn

43:53

mma, I'm gonna learn parkour,

43:56

I've got my gloves, I got my weird

43:58

little shorts whatever, and

44:01

then several months in they

44:04

start inviting you to a different sort of

44:06

meeting. I don't know, like, how prevalent

44:09

do you guys think this could be.

44:11

I don't think it's prevalent at all.

44:13

I think it must be a rarity, right.

44:15

I've seen a lot of MMA Jim's. I've seen

44:17

a lot of individuals who

44:20

like study that kind of martial arts,

44:23

and I've yet to meet somebody who

44:25

crosses that goes into whatever

44:27

that is, or at least openly. Right, Maybe

44:30

I haven't. I just haven't had

44:32

that conversation with them.

44:33

Yeah.

44:34

Yeah, maybe they did

44:36

a vibe check on you and they decided

44:39

you weren't receptive, which I

44:41

think is a good thing.

44:42

I doubt it, though, I don't know.

44:44

Well, they're out there, folks, And with

44:48

this we are going to call it

44:50

an evening. We're going to dive into

44:53

these stories in future episodes.

44:55

Thank you to everybody who took the

44:57

time to reach out and touch faith and

45:00

contact us. If you would like to

45:02

join the show in a future program,

45:05

please come into

45:07

our cult. It feels

45:09

weird to ask people to contact us

45:12

after we just talked about how

45:14

fitness clubs will sucker people into

45:17

evil things. But you

45:19

know, find us online.

45:20

Oh, find us online.

45:21

Indeed, we exist in the handle

45:23

conspiracy Stuff on YouTube,

45:26

where we have video content rolling out and switching

45:28

up the order this time, on xfka,

45:30

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45:32

you can join our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy.

45:34

On Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy Stuff

45:37

Show.

45:37

You can find us by calling this

45:40

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45:42

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45:44

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45:46

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45:49

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45:51

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45:55

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45:57

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46:00

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46:21

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46:24

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