Pod Insights Conspiracy Theories The Marconi Mystery: 22 Scientists Die Mysterious Deaths in Britain About this episode In 1986, two young British defense scientists died under mysterious circumstances, sparking theories of foul play. Not only because both specialized in underwater defense systems; they also worked for the same company, Marconi Electronic Systems. Which was one of several defense contractors working with Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars. As journalists sought out connections between the victims, more unexplained deaths piled up – until as many as 22 deaths were ultimately linked to the so-called “Marconi Mystery.”
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Transcript 0:06 Speaker 00 It's February 27, 2026. A mild, late winter's day in northeast Albuquerque, New Mexico. 68-year-old William Neil McCaslin leaves his home sometime between 11:00 a.m. and noon, presumably wearing his hiking boots. For reasons unknown, his phone and his prescription glasses are left behind. He—or someone—takes only his wallet and his revolver. Three hours later, Neil's wife reports him missing. Authorities issue a silver alert due to Neil's age. They scour the footage from cameras stationed at both ends of his street, dispatch drones and helicopters.
0:48 Speaker 00 At night, they use infrared to search for Neil's heat signature in the surrounding area. But it's New Mexico. Practically every surface is hot, even this time of year. The following month, his disappearance makes national news. It breaks through the noise of thousands of other missing persons cases, because Neil is a retired U.S. Air Force Major General who once commanded the research laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, as in the prior headquarters of Project Blue Book, and the rumored home of Hangar 18, which some say contains the real remnants from the Roswell incident.
1:31 Speaker 00 Whatever secrets Wright-Patterson may or may not hold, Neil would have known about them. But it's not just this one disappearance that has people talking. It's the fact that Neil fits a pattern. He's one of at least 10 people who've died or gone missing as of late, who knew about top-secret information. This story is still developing, and as of this recording, federal investigations have been opened by the FBI and the House Oversight Committee. But it turns out, something a lot like this string of deaths and disappearances has happened
2:09 Speaker 00 before—in the 1980s, in Britain, when as many as 22 men, all of them defense scientists, died under mysterious circumstances.
2:25 Speaker 00 Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday. We'd love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts, or check us out on Instagram at the conspiracy pod. This episode contains discussions of suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, murder, and struggles with mental health. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. If you or someone you know is struggling emotionally or feeling hopeless, visit spotify.com/resources. Stay with us.
3:07 Speaker 00 It's August 5, 1986, in Bristol, England. Vimal Daji Bhai parks his car within sight of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The 24-year-old software engineer is a long way from where he lives and works in London, over 100 miles, in fact, so not a quick drive. But now, he gets the chance to stretch his legs. He presumably walks from his parking spot up to the massive bridge overlooking a vast gorge. Nobody knows why Vimal is here, or what happens next. There are no witnesses. We only know that at around midnight, his body is found at
3:48 Speaker 00 the bottom of the gorge, a fall of nearly 250 feet. The few clues he left behind only puzzle investigators more, like the fact that there was wine in his car, even though he reportedly did not drink. And there's not one, but two paper cups. He's also found with his pants around his ankles, and there's a strange puncture wound on his left buttock. Authorities can find no indication of what or who led Vimal to Bristol.
4:21 Speaker 00 Other than the second impromptu wine glass, there are no clear signs anybody else was with him. Detectives can't even say for sure that foul play was involved, nor can they pin the death on a suicide. The coroner returns an open verdict, a conclusion that really doesn't conclude much of anything at all. There's simply not enough evidence to say how Vimal died. As for the puncture wound, a coroner's spokesperson calls it "a mystery", and they leave it at that, for now. At first, the case comes and goes without attracting much attention. Vimal's family grieves in private, and when his body is finally released to them,
5:05 Speaker 00 they prepare to cremate his remains. Just before they do, they get a phone call urging them to "stop the cremation". The police want to take another look at Vimal's body, because now, there's been a second mysterious death, and there's a chance that the two cases could be linked. It's now October, and another young computer expert has been found dead. Just like Vimal, 26-year-old Ashad Sharif lives and works in London, and for some reason, he drove all the way out near Bristol to a public park, where he's been found dead in his car. We'll get into exactly how he died a little later.
5:48 Speaker 00 For now, let's focus on the really glaring similarity between both of the cases. Vimal and Ashad worked for the same company, Marconi, an electronics and defense subsidiary of General Electric Company, or GEC, which, by the way, is not the same as GE General Electric in the US. Marconi is a huge company with several divisions. Although both of the men were based in London, officials say they worked in different offices and wouldn't have known each other. But I'm sure any good detective can see that they had related lines of work. Vimal was employed by Marconi Underwater Systems.
6:30 Speaker 00 From what we know, he kept guidance systems in check for torpedoes—underwater missiles. And Ashad was with Marconi Defense Systems. He was testing out equipment that could simulate underwater vibrations. So, they're both working on underwater defense projects for a giant defense company, which, by the way, is currently contracted to work on the Strategic Defense Initiative, aka President Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program, which aims to create a defense system against nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.
7:11 Speaker 00 And, just like what's happening today with all of the deaths and disappearances of scientists, people in 1987 start to ask if there was some nefarious plot behind Vimal and Ashad's deaths. Rumors fly that they'd actually been assigned to top-secret research for Star Wars, and this theory that both deaths are linked really starts with one journalist who writes about computers for a living. Tony Collins is a journalist for Computer News. One day, he gets a tip that Vimal actually specializes in computer simulations, like
7:53 Speaker 00 he's some kind of wonderkin when it comes to programming them. And he was supposedly at work on a defense project codenamed Cosmos. The tipster describes Cosmos as a simulation tool that essentially allows someone to "practice nuclear war." It's kinda like the plot to the movie War Games, but, to our knowledge, Cosmos doesn't almost destroy the planet. So Tony starts digging for more information over at Marconi. As he later tells the TV news show 2020, "The company does not like him poking around." He also says that he discovered some of the information he got about Vimal turned out
8:37 Speaker 00 to be untrue or unlikely. I don't know for sure, but he could be referring to how involved Vimal was with the Cosmos project. Even so, Marconi allegedly tells Tony he's messing around with highly sensitive information. Information that could pose a threat to national security. And Marconi claims they've opened an internal inquiry to track down his source. No matter, though. Tony's not scared off. In March 1987, he publishes his article, "Mystery Shrouds: Deaths of Two Marconi System Staff." That piece catapults the story into the public.
9:22 Speaker 00 And it comes out right around the same time another computer scientist dies in a freak car accident. That same month, David Sands is heading into the office. He works for a Marconi sister company. And right now, it's 7:30 in the morning, and he's driving down a straight road in clear conditions. And then, suddenly, he makes a sharp U-turn. He drives up a small connector road, also known as a slip road, and he floors it. His car reaches 80 miles per hour until he crashes it into a deserted restaurant, and the vehicle explodes into a massive fireball.
10:03 Speaker 00 Because inside David's car are two 10-gallon jugs of gasoline. Nobody knows who put them there. But the high speed, combined with the fire, kills David instantly. He's considered the third Marconi employee to die under mysterious circumstances in just a few months. Reports differ on what exactly David did at his job. Some say he worked on satellites or secret radars. Others paint him as more of a design guy on command and communication systems. According to the LA Times, his employer is involved with Star Wars. Although the company insists David wasn't part of those projects.
10:47 Speaker 00 Regardless of his specialty, David's gruesome death forces more people to take notice of what's going on. A British lawmaker named John Cartwright writes to the Ministry of Defence, calling on them to take up a formal inquiry. His request is denied. A spokesman from the ministry admits he finds the deaths altogether odd, but he adds, "There any relationship stops." In other words, this is all a coincidence, a series of separate events. There is nothing more to investigate. But the story keeps getting bigger.
11:26 Speaker 00 Journalists call it "The Marconi Mystery," and they keep adding suspicious deaths to the list. Like Richard Pugh. He's found dead in his home in January 1987. His legs were bound, and there was a plastic bag on his head. Officials deemed it a "sexual experiment." Apparently, it looked like a case of autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong. But the details are sparse and questionable, so on to the list Richard goes. Then there's 46-year-old Peter People. In February, about a month before David Sands drives his car into that restaurant, Peter
12:09 Speaker 00 spent the evening with his wife and their friends playing Trivial Pursuit. Later that night, he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Peter was found in his garage, below his car. The really puzzling part about his case was how he could have gotten under there. His head was practically up against the garage door, but the space is so tiny, there's hardly any room between the car's bumper and that door. I mean, we are talking inches. So even the police are baffled. They say it's impossible for Peter to have closed the door first and then maneuvered into that position. Neither could he have gotten under the car and then closed the door.
12:53 Speaker 00 Once again, the coroner had to settle on an open verdict. At the time of his death, Peter was reportedly studying the Soviets' use of beryllium, which is used in atomic reactors, and Richard Pugh designed computer warfare systems. Neither of them were working for Marconi, but people think it's enough of a coincidence that they did work for defense contractors. Officials keep denying that there are any compelling links between all of these guys. Doesn't seem like they worked together, or knew each other, or touched the same projects. There are practically no personal connections to be found. Except...
13:38 Speaker 00 for one. In January 1987, 26-year-old Avtar Singida went missing from a reservoir in Derbyshire. He was a few months away from completing his PhD in Acoustics Technology at Loughborough University. For Avtar's specialty, there are a few better schools he could be going to. Loughborough is a leader in underwater warfare tech. That day by the reservoir, Avtar was working alongside a fellow researcher, testing out equipment. At one point, his colleague announced he was taking a lunch break. When he returned, Avtar... was gone. His family was baffled.
14:23 Speaker 00 Avtar and his wife had plans to celebrate their wedding anniversary. He'd already bought her a present, so they find it hard to believe he left on his own accord. Why would he willingly vanish when he was about to complete a four-year program, get his doctorate, and turn in his thesis paper? A paper that reportedly focused on some kind of underwater signaling research.
14:49 Speaker 00 That makes Avtar the third scientist added to the list who is involved with this type of defense, along with Ashad and Vimal, which gets some people thinking. Vimal also went to Loughborough University years earlier, and what do you know? He was there at the same time as Avtar. They lived in the same dorms and knew each other. It's not the wildest connection, not exactly a jaw dropper, but there is finally a clear link between two of the scientists, the kind of connection that officials keep saying doesn't exist. Marconi tries to minimize the relationship between Vimal and Avtar, calling them, quote,
15:34 Speaker 00 "nodding acquaintances." You know, when you see somebody all the time passing, but you aren't confident that you remember their name, and it's too late to ask them again, so you just nod and say, "Hey, what's up, buddy?" every time you see them? Well, Marconi is suggesting there's really nothing to see here. Okay, but even if those two guys didn't know each other that well, the rest of the coincidences are still troubling. And yes, the police are investigating each case, but they're not coming up with any satisfactory answers, and the Ministry of Defense continues to deny any need for an inquiry. Endless questions, zero answers.
16:17 Speaker 00 Until in May of 1987, the fate of Avtar Singida, the missing researcher, is uncovered. In May of 1987, a headline in the Evening Telegraph reads, "Exclusive: We Find Missing Darby Scientist." It's written by a mustachioed reporter named Tony Tweedy. He's back from Paris, where he says he's spoken to 26-year-old Avtar Singida, who is very much alive. Four and a half months after the researcher went missing from a reservoir, Interpol reportedly tracked Avtar down. And now Tony wants to see the man for himself.
17:01 Speaker 00 I mean, Avtar was believed to be a possible victim of foul play, linked to several mysterious deaths of fellow scientists, one of whom he'd gone to school with. He was part of a growing conspiracy theory playing out in Britain, and now Tony hears he's fine. And he's been working at a random sex boutique in a red light district in Paris. If that's true, Tony Tweedy wants the scoop. First, he calls the shop and simply asks for Avtar. And his coworker happily hands over the phone. But the man who picks up the other end of the line denies everything.
17:41 Speaker 00 Says he just happens to have the same name as the missing man Tony's looking for. So Tony travels to Paris and shows up at the sex boutique. It's called Presence, and it's located on a street cramped with similar shops. This time, Avtar agrees to talk. He leads the reporter to an adjacent alley. I don't know what this alleyway looks like, but I'm gonna go with the seedy. Anyway, to Tony, this guy looks like the same Avtar everyone's been looking for. But the man claims he's never even been to England. He says he's a refugee from India, and he insists he's definitely not some gifted researcher
18:24 Speaker 00 in underwater defense technology. If he was, he says, why would he be working at a sex shop in Paris? Oh yeah, that's a fair point. But the man is also very cagey, and he refuses to have his picture taken. He also demands to know how Tony found him. Hmm, classic move when you're completely innocent. When Tony interviews the coworkers, they unwittingly give Avtar up. One reveals Avtar told him he came from England, so Tony knows he's got the right guy after all. Eventually, officials confirm it. The missing scientist has been found.
19:09 Speaker 00 Authorities now have a logical answer to one part of the Marconi mystery. Now they can point to Avtar's case and say, see? There was no foul play after all. He's alive and well. Mystery solved. I mean, yeah, sure, dropping out of your prestigious PhD program and moving away to sell lingerie and sex toys? Yeah, I mean, what more explanation could you possibly need? Okay, look, we don't know what rationale Avtar gave for leaving his family behind. He might have just wanted to start over in a new city. But why? Well, here's where officials latch on to a possible explanation for what's going on.
19:52 Speaker 00 Why Avtar left home and why other scientists are dying. They say the world of secret defense research is extremely tough. Employees are susceptible to high stress levels. There's an element of loneliness. Certain clearance levels mean you can't talk to your family about work. Even Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's office supports this reasoning. They refer to all the Marconi mystery deaths as apparent suicides. And there is some reason to entertain the theory. An article from Australia's newspaper, The Age, mentions that Marconi employs something like 47,000 people at this time.
20:37 Speaker 00 That's a big company. They don't provide a breakdown of employees' ages or genders, but based solely on numbers, the newspaper says the suicide theory can't be totally written off. If these were all suicides, then Marconi's rate is well below the national average. Except, they caution, that doesn't take into account... Well, a few things. For example, none of these victims had any mental health diagnoses. With that in mind, Marconi's suicide rate is actually higher than the national average. Then there's the fact that only one of the deaths we've talked about so far was actually ruled as a suicide.
21:20 Speaker 00 Like I mentioned, most were an open verdict, meaning investigators can't determine whether it was suicide, homicide, or accident. Before we get further into this section, please note that the warning signs of depression can be silent. I know we cover this pretty frequently on this show, but it's important. We can't ever know what was going on in someone's mind right before they died. That being said, there are details about some of these deaths that I haven't mentioned yet. If you don't want to hear the grisly parts, you may want to skip ahead. What you really need to know is that several of these scientists died in ways that are
22:02 Speaker 00 so bizarre and violent, people find it difficult to believe they could have all been self-inflicted. Okay, you already know about David Sands, whose car full of gasoline went up in flames. In addition to that, you have Ashad Sharif, the second scientist on the list, the one who I mentioned was discovered dead in his car in a public park. Ashad was found with a rope tied around his neck. The other end was secured to a tree, then someone stepped on the gas pedal until Ashad was nearly decapitated.
22:41 Speaker 00 Notably, this case was ruled a suicide, that's because police found an audio tape inside the car. Whatever was on it convinced the coroner to make that ruling. However, when the tape was released to his family, they did not agree that it sounded like a suicide note. Throughout 1987 and 88, the list continues to grow. One scientist is found electrocuted to death in his home in a truly heinous way. There were wires jammed into an electrical socket, leading into his mouth, where they were taped down onto his back teeth, where he had metal fillings. There's also the case of Alastair Beckham in August 1988. On his last morning alive,
23:26 Speaker 00 Alastair pruned the trees in his garden, went into his quaint little shed, and was also electrocuted to death. He was found with a handkerchief in his mouth and wire wrapped around his arm. That wire had been rigged with a paper clip so that it tapped into the main electrical source for his home, and this happened while his daughters were inside the house. Alastair worked for years as a software engineer at Plessy Naval Systems. His wife Mary tells 2020 that hours after he died, men showed up at her house to remove sensitive documents from her husband's office, and the reporter, Stone Phillips, says he was told a similar story by other families too.
24:10 Speaker 00 Mary also insists Alastair had no reason to want to end his life. And again, I know we say this a lot, but it's true. It is common for family members to find the suicide angle hard to believe. Only one widow publicly accepts suicide as a possible answer for what happened to her husband, the man with the metal fillings. But a lot of the families in these cases say the same thing. They don't buy that their loved ones would come up with such violent ways to die. And as a mental health expert tells 2020, "Many of the deaths do not fit any sort of pattern expected of people from this background."
24:53 Speaker 00 As journalists pursue other theories and connections between cases, the list swells to as many as 22 dead defense scientists. The Sunday Times lays out a timeline that actually begins long before Vimal Daji Bai in 1986. They wonder if another unexplained death from 1982 could also be related. That year, a professor named Keith Bowden was driving home late after a dinner party when he ran off the road. He wasn't intoxicated. Other guests from the party said Keith wasn't drinking. So his wife wasn't satisfied when detectives couldn't come up with any answers. She hired a private investigator who found it odd that Keith's accident occurred on
25:38 Speaker 00 an empty road while driving a new car. So he tracked down that car and inspected it. According to this private eye, Keith's tires were completely bald. There was no tread left on them whatsoever, as if someone switched them out before he drove home that night.
26:01 Speaker 00 And the Sunday Times notes, Keith was a computer scientist who did classified work for the Ministry of Defence. Even with this expanded list of 22 defence employees, though, journalists can't find a clear connection. But maybe there's a reason for that, too. The Official Secrets Act. In essence, it's meant to protect British national security and deter espionage. Basically, the first rule of top-secret projects is, you do not talk about top-secret projects. The legislation has been in place since 1911, so it's nothing new.
26:43 Speaker 00 But critics say the Official Secrets Act is too vague, so it can be interpreted to the government's liking and utilized to hide misconduct. When journalists try to conduct independent investigations, they keep running up against this law. It bars them from accessing further information about the scientists' jobs, because many of them were involved in sensitive or classified work. Thus, the Official Secrets Act is invoked, and reporters are shut down. So it seems kinda impossible to dig up connections when you are legally banned from looking for connections.
27:26 Speaker 00 And since our knowledge on what these guys all did for work is pretty limited, people are going to assume there could be more links we just don't know about. Journalist Tony Collins points out that Britain is a world leader in underwater research. It's a big reason why he suggests those first two deaths could be related. Both men worked on underwater technology.
27:53 Speaker 00 Now, we can't confirm how many of these scientists were actually working on projects for Star Wars or the Strategic Defense Initiative. But the US promised 1.5 billion pounds' worth of defense contracts to Britain in exchange for Prime Minister Thatcher's approval of the program. That's a lot of money up for grabs. Some allege that the government and the contractors involved do not want this bad press. They don't want it to look like they have a security issue because that could jeopardize the work and the money. So they don't entertain the idea that there's some nefarious actor killing all their employees.
28:37 Speaker 00 To be clear, nobody's suggesting Marconi or any of the other defense companies are to blame for foul play. Although, side note, yet another theory points out that Marconi and its parent company had been under a federal fraud investigation for a couple of years when the deaths started, but no links were found between those who had died and the fraud allegations. At most, the companies are only responsible for not going out of their way to help the investigations or to find answers for grieving families. So, who is supposedly responsible then? If these aren't really suicides, but murders?
29:21 Speaker 00 Who has the motive and the means? Well, as one US congressman suggests, the answer to that question won't come from digging deeper into the British cases. Instead, it might be found in casting a wider net. Because a similar string of unfortunate events has been unfolding over in Germany.
29:49 Speaker 00 Okay, let's backtrack a bit and talk about the Strategic Defense Initiative, otherwise known as the SDI or Star Wars. On March 23rd, 1983, President Ronald Reagan addresses the American public. He says, "For years now, the Soviets have been developing bigger, faster, and more powerful weapons: planes, tanks, submarines, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, capable of delivering nuclear payloads across long distances. Meanwhile, the US arsenal has lagged behind." That, he says, is where the SDI will come in.
30:30 Speaker 00 The Strategic Defense Initiative would theoretically shield the United States from nuclear attack. It would build multiple lines of defense, on the ground and in space, capable of intercepting missiles. Some of the projects SDI wants to develop include satellites and...space lasers. Hence the nickname "Star Wars." Yes, that name is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, because the program faces criticism. At $30 billion, it's expensive. And while the technology sounds nice to have, a lot of people question if it's really feasible. I mean, as long as we're throwing sci-fi weapons onto the old wishlist, we might as
31:15 Speaker 00 well add some lightsabers and speeder bikes while we're at it. Then there's the concern that Star Wars will only bring us closer to the brink of nuclear war. It'll only stoke the flames. Nevertheless, the SDI gets its funding and moves forward. That's why, when defense scientists are dying in Britain a couple of years later, people want to know if these guys were working on Star Wars projects. If they were, it's not a huge stretch to think the KGB could be involved in foul play.
31:51 Speaker 00 Why them? It's a simple case of Occam's razor. The Soviets are the most likely culprits, because they have the most to gain by interfering.
32:01 Speaker 00 But it might not be that straightforward. In July 1987, a Republican congressman named Jim Quarter speaks to his fellow representatives. This is right as the Marconi mystery is heating up. And he presents a recent article from the National Review that details, in his view, a troubling pattern in Europe. That pattern being, scientists involved in Star Wars work happen to be dying left and right. He mentions the deaths of Vimal, Ashad, and David, as well as Peter Peoples, the researcher whose carbon monoxide deaths stumped investigators. But that's only the half of it.
32:43 Speaker 00 The article he reads lays out another string of deaths and bombings going on in Germany. There's Karl Heinz Beckert, director of research at a contractor we know worked with Star Wars. He and his driver were killed by a car bomb in July 1986 in Munich, weeks before Vimal died. His company tried to deny Karl Heinz was personally involved with the Star Wars program. Sounds familiar? But an LA Times investigation found that was not true. He had even personally met with US officials a year earlier to strategize how his company could work with them.
33:25 Speaker 00 Here we have a senior advisor in the defense industry, working with Reagan's SDI project, who also died a violent death. Sounds like it could all be related, right? There's just one, admittedly giant, difference between the case of Karl Heinz and what's happening over in Britain. Somebody took credit for killing him. A note was left behind by the German far-left militant group, the Red Army Faction, otherwise known as the RAF, or the Bader Meinhof Gang. If you haven't heard of them before, well, you might start hearing about them everywhere you go.
34:08 Speaker 00 The anti-capitalist, anti-establishment RAF claimed responsibility for assassinating Karl Heinz. They even spelled out their motive. They killed him strictly because of his involvement in those SDI talks, which they called "secret negotiations."
34:29 Speaker 00 They also owned up to shooting a German foreign ministry official a few months later in October. Over in Italy, a different militant group was at work, and another director general in the Defense Ministry is dead. He was shot in the street by the Union of Communist Combatants, like the RAF. They left a note behind, explaining they targeted the director general, quote, "exclusively for his responsibility exercised following the Italian adhesion to the Star Wars project." There were multiple office bombings as well, seven of them between July and November of
35:08 Speaker 00 1986, across Germany, France, and Denmark, all of which targeted companies that had, or were believed to have had, SDI contracts, including one working on a high-energy laser. Notably, no one took responsibility for the office bombings, only the assassinations. And there's a difference between openly shooting someone in the street versus making a death look like a possible suicide. But there are at least two militant groups at work simultaneously, and they're not coy about their motives. If we're looking for patterns, it seems worth considering that all of these defense industry
35:51 Speaker 00 deaths across Europe could be connected. Perhaps orchestrated by one group at the very top. It's never proven that the KGB is behind any of this, not directly, or via funding or intel. All we can really say is that they pushed anti-Star Wars propaganda. In the end, we know who's to blame for the assassinations in Germany and Italy, but we never get clear answers on the string of deaths in Britain.
36:26 Speaker 00 According to the article shared by Congressman Courter, "All of the fear and uncertainty surrounding these violent attacks might be yet another reason why the truth gets obscured." In light of the attacks in continental Europe, the British government and its defense contractors, like Marconi, wouldn't want to discuss Star Wars. That could invite unwanted attention from dangerous organizations, which might explain why they downplay bizarre details, connections, and the victims' involvement in classified projects.
37:07 Speaker 00 Until the Marconi mystery fizzles out by the end of the 1980s. After the Soviet Union falls in 1991, the US has less and less need for the SDI. A few projects live on, but for the most part, the Star Wars saga fades to black before its lofty goals can be achieved. So, no weaponized space lasers. Proponents of Ronald Reagan and his program credit it with helping to bankrupt the Soviets,
37:38 Speaker 00 but it might have also motivated violent organizations to action. When Vimal Daji Ba's body was reexamined, the coroner paid special attention to that puncture wound on his left buttock, the one with an undetermined cause. It had been described as small, almost needle-sized. If you recall, there were two cups discovered in his car, hinting that he wasn't alone in his final moments beside the suspension bridge. So, could he have been injected with something to impair his judgment or render him unconscious?
38:17 Speaker 00 Well, the second autopsy found that the puncture came from a bone fracture. Bimal suffered such a long fall, it's a logical conclusion. One, we probably wouldn't be talking about today. Except, perhaps, when you look at it alongside? Extreme electrocutions, car accidents that make no sense, and apparent suicides that detectives said could not have been pulled off by one person acting alone. In December 1988, The Age reports that Marconi's parent company, GEC, hired an outside firm, and they would be conducting an impartial investigation.
38:58 Speaker 00 But then, two months later, Marconi is back in the news with a new problem. Remember that fraud investigation I mentioned? It led to the arrests of four current and former Marconi executives. They were hit with 20 charges of theft, false accounting, and deception. After that, it's difficult to track down what became of the investigation into the deaths. If there were findings, they didn't seem to make headline news. Nothing squashes an old scandal like a new scandal. There are some troubling parallels between what happened in the UK in the 80s and what's
39:41 Speaker 00 going on now in the US, where the public has suggested links between a dozen or so dead and missing scientists. We can only hope that this time, the official investigation is more interested in providing answers than deflecting questions. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram, @TheConspiracyPod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts.
40:19 Speaker 00 Our sources for today's episode include Death at Marconi, Fact and Fiction by John Sweeney for The Age, Grave Secrets, reported by Stone Phillips for 2020, and additional reporting by The LA Times, Evening Telegraph, The Sun, The Chicago Tribune, and Newsday. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth. This episode was written and researched by Mickey Taylor, edited by Justin Sales, fact-checked by Sophie Kemp, and engineered, video-edited, and sound-designed by Alex Button.
41:03 Speaker 00 I'm your host, Carter Roy.
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