EPISODE 171 | A Thousand Universes: Public Transportation Weirdness

Even in the urban transportation space, usually reserved for city dwellers, NUMTOTs, NUMTOAs, and other transit geeks, conspiracy and weirdness manage to infiltrate. There’s the GM Streetcar Conspiracy, which might explain why the US has crap public transport. There’s the story of the Tucker 48, an innovative car that got shut down before is could get up and running. There are early electric vehicle rumors and other ways we might have made cars better, but powerful people made other choices for us all. Dieselgate showed that even big companies lie for profit. And then there are the histories and mysteries of underground networks – subways, tubes, metros – filled with oddities, ghost stations, and even a few actual ghosts.

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SECTIONS

1. 03:02 - L.A. State of Mind - The GM Streetcar Conspiracy
2. 13:53 - Trouble's Braids - The Tucker 48
3. 23:19 - Drive My Car - The GM EV1, Tom Ogle, Dieselgate
4. 31:40 - Down in the Tube Station at Midnight - NYC Subway oddities, London Underground oddities and hauntings
5. 45:50 - Give Up the Ghost - Ghost stations around the world, Berlin's Geisterbahnhöfe

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

More Info

• GM and the Red Cars
• Kennedy, 60 Minutes, and Roger Rabbit: Understanding Conspiracy-Theory Explanations of The Decline of Urban Mass Transit by Martha J. Bianco, Portland State University, 1998
• Why do traffic reduction schemes attract so many conspiracy theories? in The Guardian
• What Caused the Tucker Automobile Corporation to Fail? paper
• Top 10 Automotive Conspiracies: Scandals, Myths, and Urban Legends in AutoGuide
• 10 Secrets of the New York City Subway on Atlas Obscura
• Ghost stations: abandoned subways around the world on Love Exploring
• The weird afterlife of the world's subterranean 'ghost stations' in The Guardian
• Full list of the London Underground's abandoned 'ghost stations' including one 50 miles from the city on My London
• Abandoned Tube Stations
• London Underground’s 7 Most Haunted Stations on The Serpent's Pen
• 7 of Paris’ Abandoned Metro Stations and Abandoned Tunnels with Vintage Trains on Untapped Cities

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EPISODE 170 | Loose Screws: 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

A little under two weeks ago was the 25th anniversary of the attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. So perhaps it is now time to take a quick look at some of the chatter that has gone on about those events.

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SECTIONS

1. 01:16 - That Day - The events of Tuesday, September 11, 2001
2. 07:28 - Can't Get You Out of My Head - Jewsdidit, Larry Silverstein, famous near-misses, controlled explosions, the Pentagon, MIHOP, Marc Birnbach, LIHOP, a new Pearl Harbor, stock puts, NORAD, bomb-sniffing dogs, hijackers not dead, info silos
3. 23:46 - The Face of the Earth - The schlockumentary "Loose Change", "Unfastened Coins", The Onion, the 9/11 Truth movement supersizes, Iran liked 9/11 CTs
4. 30:40 - Shadow Stabbing - WTC Building 7, asbestos, no planes at all, space lasers and dustification
5. 38:13 - Smooth Criminal - Cui bono, Cold War clarity, repercussions of 9/11, resources for debunking conspiracy theories

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

More Info:

• Seven Resources Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
• From 9/11 to the 2016 Election: How Conspiracy Theories and the Collapse of Truth Fueled a Resurgence of Antisemitism
• Antisemitic Conspiracies About 9/11 Endure 20 Years Later
• “What about building 7?” A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories
• Certainty 9 / 11 conspiracy theories and psychosis
• How 9/11 truthers planted the seeds for QAnon
• Unfastened Coins website

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EPISODE 169 | Harping on about HAARP, 5G & More

Radio waves are invisible and yet somehow carry sound and signal. They are used for transmitting messages, codes, news, and music. They enable us to speak to one another using small portable devices, and even access the internet. They are used to help us know our position on the ground with pretty darn good accuracy, and they allow us to study the depths of space.

So, surely they can be used for other things as well? Like controlling the weather, brainwashing humans, activating viruses, and much more.

Because, when you don’t know how anything works, then everything is a conspiracy. Or could be, right?

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SECTIONS

1. Video Killed the Radio Star - HAARP, CTs about it
2. Radio Silence - Radio waves, scalar fields, zero point energy, pseudomedicine
3. On My Radio - The Free Energy Suppression conspiracy theory
4. Radio Ga Ga - Radiophobia, electromagnetic hypersensitivity

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

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EPISODE 168 | Eating the Onion: War of the Worlds & Other Scares

In an environment of experimental fiction, metanarratives, postmodern satire, disinformation, deep fakes, and fake news, a sizeable portion of the content gobbling audience takes things that are not true as being actually true. Online, this happens with alarming regularity with articles published by satirical news site The Onion; so often, in fact, that there’s a term for this phenomenon – it’s called Eating the Onion.

The subjects of intentional disinformation, deep fakes, and fake news are one thing, but what we’re looking at here at times when something that was never intended to be taken seriously (though it used real world tropes and structures for narrative effect), were accidentally thought to be base din reality. And people quite rather lost their shit. Like the 1938 Orson Welles broadcast of The War of the Worlds. But there are other instances as well.

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SECTIONS

1. Here Come the Martian Martians - War of the Worlds
2. Life on Mars? - Alternative 3, Special Bulletin, The War Game & The Day After
3. Happy Phantom - Ghostwatch, Without Warning
4. Two Little Men in a Flying Saucer - April Fool's gone awry
5. Part of Your World - Mermaids, dragons, megalodon

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

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EPISODE 167 | American Trickster: The Cults of Carlos Castaneda

Guest: Ru Marshall, American writer and artist

Carlos Castaneda made a big splash with his books about the Yaqui shaman Don Juan, but there was a lot more happening than just those increasingly fantastical tales. A LOT more. Author and artist Ru Marshall spent more than 20 years looking into what was really going on with the man who was, at one time, the most famous anthropologist in the world.

And yeah - it gets weird.

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• Music by Fanette Ronjat

More Info:

• American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda by Ru Marshall on Amazon
• American Trickster at OR Books
• Ru Marshall website
• Review on Publisher's Weekly

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EPISODE 166 | Sassy Squatches: Chupacabra, Bigfoot & Yeti

Some of the most famous cryptids are the bloodsucking Chupacabra (which is of fairly recent invention) and the always popular Bigfoot and their higher latitude cousins, the Abominable Snowman. Is there any truth at all to stories of these creatures, or is it all misunderstandings, misapprehensions, misidentifications, and tomfoolery?

There’s only one way to find out: listen to this episode.

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SECTIONS

1. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) - Chupacabra, the Ozark Howler, the sigbin of the Philippines
2. The Amazing Bigfoot Diet - Sasquatch, Bigfoot, big hoaxes with Rant Mullens and Ray Wallace
3. Remember (Walking in the Sand) - The 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, "Capturing Bigfoot"
4. Abominable Snowman in the Market - Yeti reports, smuggling, theories

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

Further Listening:

• EPISODE 156 | The Shape of Water: Loch Ness and Other Lake Monsters
• Black Hills Weirdness section of EPISODE 49 | ’Merican Monuments (Travelogue 2)

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EPISODE 165 | MAHA Mia: The Misconceptions of RFK Jr

Guest: Evan Nadler, pediatric surgeon and researcher, pioneer in childhood obesity

The conspirasphere has been weaponized so much that actual conspiracy theorists now hold important and influential positions in the US government. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. What does an actual doctor think about some of his nuttiness? Listen and find out.

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• Music by Fanette Ronjat

More Info:

• Obesity Explained (Dr. Nadler's website)
• Evan Nadler's YouTube Channel
• EPISODE 02 | A Cavalcade of COVID-19 Crackpottery
• EPISODE 26 | Come On Vaccine! Vaccine Hesitancy & You
• EPISDOE 38 | The Dirty Dozen: Medical Misinformation Miscreants (RFK Jr section is the 2nd one)
• EPISODE 60 | Under My Skin: Morgellons Disease

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Other Podcasts by Derek DeWitt

• DIGITAL SIGNAGE DONE RIGHT - Winner of a 2022 Gold Quill Award, the 2021 AVA Digital Award Gold, 2021 Silver Davey Award & 2020 Communicator Award of Excellence, and on numerous top 10 podcast lists.
• PRAGUE TIMES - A city is more than just a location - it’s a kaleidoscope of history, places, people and trends. This podcast looks at Prague, in the center of Europe, from a number of perspectives, including what it is now, what is has been and where it’s going. It’s Prague THEN, Prague NOW, Prague LATER.

EPISODE 164 | Walk Like a Panther: The Palantir 22-Point Manifesto

A company many have heard mentioned but don’t know much about caused a stir in the interwebs when its CEO dropped a 22-point manifesto of sorts. Many felt the whole thing smacked of some sort of comic book supervillain’s shopping list, while others nodded their heads at the sage wisdom of the post of X (formerly Twitter).

Palantir is the company and the poster was Alex Karp. But just what is Palantir and who is this Karp guy?

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SECTIONS

1. Five Guys - Nathan Gettings, Stephen Cohen, Alex Karp, Jon Lonsdale, Peter Thiel (the 130th richest country in the world)
2. More Things in Heaven and Earth - Peter Thiel: a Randian Objectivist, a plutocratic reactionary, militarist techno-libertarian, or libertarian authoritarian; post-democracy, liquid democracy; Thiel's views and actions
3. Know Your Product - What Palantir does and what they're worth, Gotham, Foundry, AIP, TITAN, MetaConstellation and MOSAIC, Skykits, Metropolis, ELITE; who uses this stuff, JP Morgan spies on employees
4. Manifesto - Alex Karp's 22-point summary of The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

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Other Podcasts by Derek DeWitt

• DIGITAL SIGNAGE DONE RIGHT - Winner of a Gold Quill Award, Gold MarCom Award, AVA Digital Award Gold, Silver Davey Award, and Communicator Award of Excellence, and on numerous top 10 podcast lists.
• PRAGUE TIMES - A city is more than just a location - it’s a kaleidoscope of history, places, people and trends. This podcast looks at Prague, in the center of Europe, from a number of perspectives, including what it is now, what is has been and where it’s going. It’s Prague THEN, Prague NOW, Prague LATER