Pod Insights Crime Weekly S3 Ep260: Crime Weekly News: Hannah Kobayashi Found & Drones Swarm New Jersey About this episode This week we have good news in the case of Hannah Kobayashi, a woman from Hawaii who was reported missing by her family in early November. We're also discussing the recent drone sightings in the skies of New Jersey and the Northeast... Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:45 Derrick Levasseur? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derrick Levasseur.
0:48 Stephanie Harlowe? And I am Stephanie Harlow.
0:50 Derrick Levasseur? And we're going to have two stories for you today. You can see it from the thumbnail. One being an update on Hannah Kobayashi. This is a case that we covered a few weeks ago. We talked about it pretty extensively, our opinions on it. And I know, Stephanie, I think I'm OK with saying this. You have a full-length video coming out on your channel.
1:06 Stephanie Harlowe? Oh, it's already out.
1:07 Derrick Levasseur? It's already out. So everybody, go check that out. Stephanie was kind of going back and forth with me. And every time we spoke, there was a new update of the case that she had to go back in and.
1:15 Stephanie Harlowe? And I had to re-record. Oh, my God. But it's fine because I went, you know, it's a deep dive. So the whole timeline from beginning till end, everything that we know.
1:25 Derrick Levasseur? Yep.
1:25 Stephanie Harlowe? Which I know for a fact is hardly anything.
1:29 Derrick Levasseur? It's scratching the surface.
1:30 Stephanie Harlowe? Right. Because there's people that do know everything, but I doubt they'll ever talk.
1:35 Derrick Levasseur? We have that. And I also want to say, so you have that full-length video. So you're an expert on the case now, which is going to be good as far as we go in the update today. I also want to say, we're going to talk about drones as well. I don't know how many people are concerned about it. I am. I was telling Stephanie, I'm very concerned about it. We're going to talk about why. And I just want to give a quick thank you. Criminal Coffee Peppermint Bark. The ground coffee sold out in 12 hours. I got more coming, roasting and grinding as we speak. So I'm still going to try to get all those orders out before Christmas. And we have plenty of whole beans. So thank you so much for everybody who supported us and checked it out. It was our largest product launch ever in that period of time. So thank you to everybody who ordered it. And please let us know what you think when you try. I'm excited to hear your feedback.
2:21 Derrick Levasseur? But that's it. Let's talk about Hannah Kobayashi.
2:23 Stephanie Harlowe? All right. So we, we did a crime weekly news on Hannah Kobayashi two weeks ago, I believe.
2:28 Derrick Levasseur? Yep.
2:28 Stephanie Harlowe? And basically she's a 30-year-old woman from Maui. She was traveling to New York City. She had a layover at LAX. She did not make her connecting flight to go onto JFK. And then for a few days, there was just weird stuff happening. Like she told her family that she was on standby. And then she was trying to get another flight out to New York because she had a job as a photographer there. But then she would leave the airport every day and then just explore around downtown LA, which is, you know, not something you want to do if you're on standby because if you're on standby, you gotta be there. Because if the flight opens up or a seat on a flight opens up, they're going to give it to whoever's there.
3:13 Stephanie Harlowe? And if you leave the airport, you gotta go all the way back through security. And anybody who's ever been to LAX knows that's a nightmare, a nightmare upon a nightmare. So it just didn't seem like she was actually trying to get to New York. It kind of seemed like she was hanging out in LA for a few days. Then, so November 8th was when she landed at LAX. And then November 11th, she started sending her family and friends weird messages saying that hackers had stolen her identity and somebody she trusted had taken all her funds. And, you know, she was thinking about going to find a homeless shelter or a hostel to stay in. And her friends and family were like, what the heck are you talking about? Like, go home, you know? And it was just all weird.
3:55 Stephanie Harlowe? And then we got an update that the police, the LAPD, had surveillance footage of Hannah entering Tijuana, Mexico, at the San Ysidro border passing in, you know, in California. And that they saw her go through the tunnel on foot. She had her luggage. She was alone. She appeared unharmed. She was unaccompanied. It didn't feel like anybody was there making her do it. And then the police kind of announced that she was a voluntary missing person. And they said, this is it, you know, this is as far as we go with it. And now, you know, we'll, we'll keep in contact with Mexican authorities, but she's a grown woman and she can disappear and go off the map if she wants to.
4:37 Stephanie Harlowe? Now, the sad thing was that Hannah's father, Ryan Kobayashi, had flown to LA along with a dozen other family members to look for her and to, you know, make it her, her missing, her, the fact that she was missing, make it aware to the people of LA, put up posters. And while she was still missing, Ryan, apparently, according to the Los Angeles coroner, took his own life by jumping off a seven-story parking garage.
5:07 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah, yep.
5:08 Stephanie Harlowe? And this was before he found out that Hannah had been seen safely going into Mexico, which is a funny thing to say, you're not safely going into Tijuana, it's not a good place to be.
5:18 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah.
5:19 Stephanie Harlowe? So now, we have word that Hannah's back, that her family made contact with her on December 11th, that she's now back in LA, and she's not saying anything about where she was or what she was doing. And the police are basically saying, hey, she hasn't committed a crime here, so if she doesn't want to talk, she don't have to talk.
5:37 Derrick Levasseur? And by the way, that's the truth, as much as the public outcry, and I do think eventually she'll say something because people are pissed.
5:44 Stephanie Harlowe? She better, yeah.
5:45 Derrick Levasseur? But legally, they can't force her to, what did she do?
5:47 Stephanie Harlowe? Also, I will say, like, I'm sure people are pissed, but she didn't technically ask her family
5:55 Derrick Levasseur? This is true.
5:56 Stephanie Harlowe? to do all this, and, but also, what would you expect your family to do, kind of thing, but the, the whole problem is that Hannah's family members were raising money, doing a lot of GoFundMe fundraising, they got, I think
6:06 Derrick Levasseur? A lot of the country got behind it, we're covering it.
6:08 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, they got over something like over $30,000 in, in donations, and
6:14 Derrick Levasseur? Clearly it was pretty serious because they believe that the father, as you were talking about, killed himself, there might be more to it, I know that
6:20 Stephanie Harlowe? Something's up with that, I don't, I don't, yeah.
6:22 Derrick Levasseur? But, but there are people like, that are looking at it on the surface, saying he killed himself because he thought his daughter was gone. Now, maybe we'll find that's not the case, but on the surface, it's just, what a terrible tragedy.
6:33 Stephanie Harlowe? That part of the story does not Add up for me. And I don't also don't understand how you get multiple blunt force traumas just from one single jump.
6:41 Derrick Levasseur? I, I think it could be multiple areas that, that struck the ground that caused the blunt force trauma without being too descriptive. But if you're going to go down that road, could he have been assaulted before going off the parking lot?
6:53 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, or could have been, could have been beat up and then pushed off.
6:55 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah, we're not suggesting that.
6:56 Stephanie Harlowe? We're suggesting it's, it's, it's possible, I think. Yeah. Because the person who called 911 said that they, that somebody had either been thrown off of or jumped off of the parking garage. It wasn't, you know, oh, I saw somebody jump and, and fall to their death. It was kind of, they didn't know what happened. But yeah, that's weird. But either way, um, one of the many theories that does hold water that's going around is that Hannah kind of unraveled and took off in the wake of a green card marriage gone wrong. According to a lot of news sources, Hannah's friends have revealed that her trip to New York was not just a vacation.
7:36 Stephanie Harlowe? She was accompanied by her green card husband, an Argentinian native named Alan Casache. And, uh, apparently their goal was to stage a romantic vacation in New York to trick immigration officials into believing their marriage was real. And so they were planning on, you know, taking pictures in front of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Eiffel, not the Eiffel Tower, the, uh, what is it? The Statue of Liberty, you know, things like that so that it could make it look like this was more of a real sort of marriage for immigration purposes. Now, the green card scam was allegedly set in motion after this Alan guy paid Hannah
8:15 Stephanie Harlowe? $15,000. He was promising more money once the paperwork was finalized. Apparently, this was not a secret. Hannah had told her friends and even it seems some of her family members, the very same ones who were looking for her in the, the wake of all of this, that this was what they were doing. Um, that she was planning to do this green card marriage, get the money. And I guess this Alan guy had a girlfriend and Hannah herself had her boyfriend, who was her ex-boyfriend, and allegedly both of these other people were on the flight with them. Apparently Hannah and her ex-boyfriend were still dating when they made this agreement with
8:56 Stephanie Harlowe? the Argentinian couple, but when her boyfriend found out that she had met with an ex DJ that she had dated for years, he broke up with her, but they still agreed to travel to New York and hold up their end of the bargain with the green card scam. Apparently, the breakup with her boyfriend really hurt her and, you know, remember she had sent a text to one of her family members saying she was scammed and had been robbed of all her money by somebody she thought she trusted. And we're wondering, you know, was that-
9:26 Derrick Levasseur? In line with that, now it might make more sense. It might have actually, because I know there was the inference that it wasn't even her sending those messages potentially.
9:34 Stephanie Harlowe? Oh, I think it definitely was, yeah.
9:35 Derrick Levasseur? And now, now it looks like it might line up.
9:37 Stephanie Harlowe? Absolutely. And, you know, how did she miss her flight? Was she, were these other people that she was with, including her ex-boyfriend? Like, did she go into the bathroom and say, "Oh, hey, guys, I gotta pee really quick before we go on to the next gate?" And they like took off and left her there?
9:51 Derrick Levasseur? Right.
9:52 Stephanie Harlowe? Who knows, you know? But clearly, she was upset. She didn't want to go home. She also didn't want to go on to New York. She probably just wanted to get away, which is, this is what happened, I guess. But that's just kind of what the, the general theory is. And obviously, that's her private business. That's her private information. But her disappearance did become very public. Lots of money was raised. And, and now, you know, there are people that they'll want some answers. So we'll see if she makes a statement. I doubt it. I really doubt it.
10:21 Derrick Levasseur? So number one takeaway for me, glad she's safe. Wish she was under better circumstances. Wish her father was still here to see her return home. And in the last time we covered this, I, I said, if this was true, that she had intentionally done at least some of this, it's unfortunate that she didn't let anybody know because a lot of time, money, resources, and a lot of people who are not even just direct family members, the whole country concerned about her. Now, from what you're saying, and you've done much more research on this, it does appear that she told people, friends and family, potentially before she left. And if that's the case, that's really all she has to do. We can't really, I mean-
11:01 Derrick Levasseur? She says, hey, this is what's going on. This is where I'm going. That's all she really responds. She's an adult. She can do what she wants.
11:06 Stephanie Harlowe? Well, there's pictures. There's like wedding pictures with her and this Alan guy too. And there's, there's a text message with her, like a group message. These texts, these screenshots, these texts were, were leaked between her sister and like other people. And the sister writes in this chat like, oh, it's confirmed. You know, this is, she got married, like, this is what's happening.
11:26 Derrick Levasseur? Right. This is after the fact.
11:28 Stephanie Harlowe? After Hannah went missing, but while they were still saying like, oh, we're worried about her. She might've been trafficked, things like that. So that's kind of an, an issue.
11:36 Derrick Levasseur? And it is an issue. Some of you may be mad at me for saying this, but I can almost understand where the family would come from on this. If I would put myself in those shoes where they, they genuinely at that point don't know if something bad happened to her. So they know if they put this information out there, all the resources, law enforcement, the finances, it's all going to dry up. Now, if we were to find out that they were using this money for things other than what it should be for, that would be a major problem and you go after them. But it sounds like their intent, although misguided, was we want to keep focused on finding her because we genuinely don't know.
12:13 Stephanie Harlowe? Yes.
12:13 Derrick Levasseur? Where she is right now.
12:15 Stephanie Harlowe? Yes.
12:15 Derrick Levasseur? But overall, I would just say what we take away from this as we're sitting here looking at it now is if you're an adult, you do not have an obligation to tell anyone where you're going. But if you're going to go off the map for a while, maybe let some people know as much as you can. And if you do divert from that plan, give people an update more than just I'm being ripped off because there's a lot of missing men and women out there right now who need our time, attention, resources, money. And investigators can't be in two places at once. So when they're working on your case, they're not working on theirs. And that's the problem. And we don't want people to become desensitized to missing persons cases by saying,
13:00 Derrick Levasseur? oh, what if this is just another Hannah Kobayashi where she's an adult, she has the right to go on her own. We can see certain images. She's fine. Because they don't pay as much attention. There's not as much awareness. So. There's a balance there, but we got to find it. And I do think even though this case is not exactly how we wanted to work out, we're happy Hannah's home, but it does, there still was a death.
13:21 Stephanie Harlowe? And where was she, by the way, between when she went into Mexico on, on November 11th or 12th?
13:27 Derrick Levasseur? How much did she know was going on?
13:29 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, because you're telling me you had no idea this was happening.
13:31 Derrick Levasseur? You don't have a TV or, you know, a phone, you know, I mean, these are the things we got, yeah.
13:35 Stephanie Harlowe? For a month? You didn't have a TV or a phone or any way of knowing anything that was happening here for a month? And you thought your family was just gonna like, be like, okay, she's gone for a month and we're not gonna say, no. Like you had to have known something was gonna go down and that resources would be used to find you by law enforcement.
13:53 Derrick Levasseur? I
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14:24 Derrick Levasseur? Really hope that Hannah eventually decides, although she's under no obligation to do so, comes out, makes a statement, gives us a little bit more insight into what happened because there was a lot of people who were concerned about her and put their money where their mouth was. So they do in a certain
14:36 Stephanie Harlowe? And return the donations.
14:38 Derrick Levasseur? Well, that's good. That's great. That's great. Well, that's, that's number one, right? So we'll see how it plays out. I don't know if we would do another update on this. The fact is Hannah's home. And, you know, as far as our coverage of it, that'll probably be it, but I'm sure you can go find more on the internet. There will be more stuff coming out. And if you want a more extensive overview of this entire case, go check out Stephanie's channel. She has you covered. So we're gonna transition now. Not something that I'm normally known for. And not necessarily your biggest conspiracy theorist, but this whole set of circumstances does have me extremely concerned and I became more concerned after a video came out on X
15:19 Derrick Levasseur? from someone who I found believable and I and Stephanie has not watched it yet. I told her about it. We're actually going to watch it together. But just to give you a quick recap, because I think a lot of you already know, starting around November 18th, there was an increased amount of drone sightings in the area of New Jersey. And these drones were reported to be approximately six feet in diameter. So not your typical, you know, DJI drone. And there was a whole bunch of reports-
15:47 Stephanie Harlowe? And they've been around like a lot of military facilities.
15:49 Derrick Levasseur? Military bases where they do, you know, secret research and there was even one reported over nearly Donald Trump's golfers or-
15:57 Stephanie Harlowe? Golf club, yeah.
15:58 Derrick Levasseur? And so it's been a lot. It's been, there's been a lot and they, it's been reported and it's hard to kind of decipher fact from fiction, but it's been reported that whenever someone has tried to get close to the drone, it's, it's used some maneuvers that are not known to be-
16:14 Stephanie Harlowe? Evasive maneuvers, yeah.
16:16 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah, evasive maneuvers that are not, the drones that we know of are not capable of. And then there's other videos, because I went down the hole, I'm not gonna lie to you, where people like myself who have a drone have sent it up near the drone and immediately the battery of their drone goes to zero, even though it was on full battery when it took off.
16:33 Stephanie Harlowe? It's crazy, yeah.
16:34 Derrick Levasseur? Some of them are dropped out of the sky. And so I don't know, people could be faking those videos.
16:39 Stephanie Harlowe? And it's not just New Jersey. There was drones spotted around an Air Force base in Ohio, Logan Airport. This past weekend, a few men were arrested. There was three of them altogether. Two men got arrested. The other one like ran away and evaded the police. So, you know, it's, it's kind of all over the place. New Jersey, New York, Ohio. Yeah, it's crazy.
17:03 Derrick Levasseur? And they have been increasing some of their restrictions. The FAA has put up different parameters where when you can fly drones, when you can't. And there have been public officials that have come out and said some different things that to me- Don't make me feel any better. They really don't. They've said, oh, you know, it's not us. It's not us.
17:25 Stephanie Harlowe? They don't know who it is, they said.
17:26 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah, they don't know who it is exactly, but it's not us and they don't believe it's a foreign entity. They, but again, they haven't, they haven't taken any of them down. They haven't had the chance to dissect one of them. They don't know where they're coming from. They haven't been able to capture them. And yet they're certain that it's not them, which that they should know. Um, and they're also certain that it's not a foreign entity that's doing some type of reconnaissance. Or who knows, planning something.
17:54 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah. How could they be certain of that?
17:57 Derrick Levasseur? How could you be certain of it if you haven't got one yet? There was even one, like an FBI official I saw somewhere that said.
18:01 Stephanie Harlowe? But I just, in general, how can you be certain that this isn't some foreign entity?
18:05 Derrick Levasseur? How do you know?
18:05 Stephanie Harlowe? Like, how the hell do you, if you don't know who it is? Then if you don't know who it is, then how do you know that it's not that, that person? Or that entity?
18:14 Derrick Levasseur? There was something that came out over the weekend with Homeland Security, Mayorkas. He basically said, yeah, there's drone sightings, but some of the drone sightings were misidentified. They're actually manned aircraft. But that's where he said, quote, "No foreign involvement." So I have a drone. I don't think I'm an expert. I do have my 107 license. I got it for the PI firm. So there's a lot of requirements you have to go through to get that. It's not easy. Anyone who has a 107, they know what I'm talking about. And drones aren't great at night unless they're equipped with like thermal imaging and.
18:46 Stephanie Harlowe? Unless they have some serious technology that a regular, like run of the mill, day to day drone operator.
18:51 Derrick Levasseur? No, my DJI, unless you have the thermal camera on there, it's not great. The sensors don't normally work as good on like, on, on just like, uh, consumer products. I mean, these are definitely not consumer. These gotta be commercial use. You're supposed to have specific, a specific license or specific approval to fly at night. Drones aren't usually allowed to fly at night, but they did change that rule, I believe, last year. So fast forward to, again, a couple of days ago, I'm on Twitter or X, whatever you want to call it. I'm going down the rabbit hole and this TikTok pops up on there that was shared by hundreds of thousands of people. And it's about an eight minute TikTok. We're going to play it here. Stephanie hasn't seen it. I want to get your honest opinion on what you think of this guy and what you think of what he's suggesting.
19:35 Derrick Levasseur? Do you find him believable? And what do you think about his theory? So we're going to put it up now. We're going to play it. You guys can watch along if you're watching on YouTube or you can just listen to it. But the guy made some points and it has me extremely concerned.
19:48 Speaker 03 Hey everyone. My name is John Ferguson. I'm the CEO of Saxon Aerospace here in Wichita, Kansas. I'm not normally a TikTok kind of a guy. I like watching this stuff every once in a while. But I'm a manufacturer of unmanned aircraft, military-grade unmanned aircraft, as you can see one of my systems here. There's all of these mysterious drones going on off the East Coast. And as a professional, as a subject matter expert, I wanted to give you all my opinion on what I think could be going on with these drones. I don't particularly believe that these have a
20:29 Speaker 03 nefarious intent. I could be wrong, but I want to give you the truth and what I believe. It's my own opinion, and I've not bounced this off of anybody. So, you know, if you think it's bullshit, whatever, that's cool. You know, I don't want to spread misinformation, as we know that there's a lot of that going around. But anyway, back in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan had dismantled the nuclear program. And there were, with Russia, there were countless nuclear missiles that were
21:06 Speaker 03 that were disarmed and disposed of. Well, there were over 80, I believe, there were over 80 nuclear warheads that were in Ukraine that came up missing. Okay, we don't know where they are. Maybe somebody does, but nobody really knows where these are. And I, you know, I speak with some pretty high-level government officials on this stuff, and it seems as though that is the case.
21:38 Speaker 03 So I spoke to a gentleman a few months ago who was trying to raise an alarm to the highest levels of our government, which they had their ears closed, about this one particular nuclear warhead that he physically put his hands on. He physically touched this warhead that was left over from Ukraine. And he knew that that thing was headed towards the United States. Okay?
22:10 Speaker 03 That is a very serious deal. And everyone knows that the United States government, this administration, is pushing to get into a war with Russia. We all know that, we all feel it, we all see it, okay? We'll back up a few years. Do y'all remember when those drones were mysteriously flying across the Interstate 70 corridor? From Colorado up into Nebraska, down here into Kansas and out into Missouri? Well, it was believed that those drones were looking for radioactive material, because there had been some material that come up missing here in the United States.
22:53 Speaker 03 And they felt like it was a high probability that it would, the nuclear or the radioactive material would be taken along the Interstate 70 corridor, heading east or west or south. So, from what we understand, they were out there trying to find this radioactive material. Now drones, they have no reason to be in the air at night. Unless you're doing some type of ISR work, intelligence surveillance reconnaissance, you know, looking for bad guys? Or looking for a victim? A search and rescue victim? Or law enforcement?
23:38 Speaker 03 Or some type of military project, right? There's no reason for a drone to be flying at night, really, okay? Because they don't see shit. So, you know, unless you have thermal optics, drones really don't see stuff. You need to do mapping during the day. If you're gonna do farming stuff, mostly do it during the day. The only reason why you would ever fly an aircraft, an unmanned aircraft at night, is if you're looking for something. Whether it be a person. Or trying to smell gas. We have methane gas detecting, detection systems
24:25 Speaker 03 that can, that can detect gas leaks and pipelines. You really wouldn't use thermal optics for trying to find gas leaks, just simply because the only way you're actually going to find a gas leak with thermal optics is if the gas leak is aggressive enough that it has a difference in temperature. Because radio thermal imaging, it, it creates a digital image based off of the temperature variance. So whatever is different in temperature, it creates an image. Gas, usually gas leaks so slow that it goes quickly into ambient you know, before you can even see it. So we have special sensors that can detect gas leaks.
25:08 Speaker 03 We also have special sensors that can detect radioactive material. So
25:17 Speaker 03 with this gentleman that I had spoken with, who was trying to raise the alarm to try to get somebody in the government to say, hey, we need to work together to go try to find this nuclear warhead. None of that ever happened. They knew that warhead was on its way to the United States. That's all that ever came of it. Nothing ever happened. This government did not do anything at all to help this gentleman raise the alarm and raise awareness that there is a very
25:51 Speaker 03 deadly weapon on its way to the United States. It's out there. Nobody knows where it's at now. It, it left Europe, now it's gone. So my guess, my own guess, is that these drones are not nefarious in intent. If they are, they are, but I doubt it.
26:12 Speaker 03 But if they are, are drones, the only reason why they would be flying and flying that low is because they're trying to smell something on the ground. That's it. There's no other reason for a drone to be flying in the air other than to piss a bunch of people off at night. That's it. So my belief is they're trying to smell something on the ground. Gas leaks.
26:39 Speaker 03 Radioactive material, whatever. So, and do I think that, uh, that they're coming up out of the ocean? No, I don't think so. Uh, drones that are multi-copter type drones, not the, not the, you know, the, the fixed wing aircraft that look like regular airplanes, but the multi-copters, you know, they only have so much battery life. They have hybrid versions that are gas powered with electric, uh, but those can still only fly for a short period of time. There's no way in hell that any drone is going to go miles off the, off the coast as a multi-copter and fly into the interior of the United States and do a bunch of work and then turn around and fly back.
27:25 Speaker 03 It's just physics will not allow that to happen. So, these drones, I believe are launched from an, um, a location that nobody knows, but I do believe that, that they're flying low enough that they're just trying to sniff the ground and try to find something. So, again, uh, I hate to be a pessimist or a guy that thinks, you know, directly to the negative. However, I do, I know as, as a professional, I mean, we build professional stuff for the military. You know, I, I believe that they're actually out there trying to smell something that's very important. So, anyway, uh, let me know what you think of this video.
28:10 Speaker 03 I'm not trying to gaslight. I'm not trying to scare people. I'm just trying to let people know that this is a serious deal. Um, there, it's, it's only serious for what the potential could be, you know, or for what the potential is. You know, there's a lot of them out there. They're flying all over. They're flying low. They're flying at night. There's no reason for it other than to smell something. So, anyway, God bless. I hope you all have a wonderful Merry Christmas and let me know what you think of the video. Thank you.
28:43 Derrick Levasseur? So, there's the video and before you weigh in, I just want to put a disclaimer out there. I don't know this guy. I'm not condoning certain things that he's saying as far as all we want to get into a war with Russia. I'm not interested in that. What I'm interested in his area of expertise, what he knows, his knowledge of drones and his past experience in what drones have been used for. And what he is saying to me, not that I have any proof of it, but based on what we already discussed as far as the government really not saying much. They're saying it's not a foreign entity. Um, but they're not, they're kind of being cryptic and it does sound like this could be government involvement.
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30:19 Derrick Levasseur? So what was your, obviously scary if this guy's right. If they're out there looking for a warhead or they're looking for some type of radioactivity out there, that's, that's not good. And you're in New York. Not good for you.
30:32 Stephanie Harlowe? I mean, you're, you're, I mean,
30:34 Derrick Levasseur? I'm close enough where I'm dead too.
30:35 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, exactly.
30:36 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah.
30:37 Stephanie Harlowe? Um.
30:38 Derrick Levasseur? Residually.
30:40 Stephanie Harlowe? It is obviously scary, but I would also like to say that I think this is so much more common than we even are aware of because usually our government doesn't tell us shit, right? We know that. So I believe that the US is currently missing something like six nuclear bombs to date.
31:04 Derrick Levasseur? How about 80 in Ukraine too? That was crazy.
31:06 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, so exactly. So I mean, it's, there is a ton of things that happened historically where these weapons have been hidden and buried and stowed away places to the point where I don't, our own government doesn't.
31:24 Derrick Levasseur? They forget where they're buried.
31:25 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, exactly.
31:27 Derrick Levasseur? Literally.
31:28 Stephanie Harlowe? So I feel like we're consistently living in an environment of ignorance where we're going about our little lives and there's all of these things happening on a mass scale around us that we have no idea about. It would make sense, right? This, this absolutely makes sense that this is what it is and I, especially when you were saying, oh, the, the official narrative from our government is like, well, it's not us. Whenever they say it's not us, it usually is us, by the way.
31:58 Derrick Levasseur? But they're also saying there's no foreign involvement. So is it like, are we supposed to believe like John and Jane who have their own drone just happen to have a fleet of drones that they're sending up around New Jersey?
32:08 Stephanie Harlowe? Or just everybody, everybody decided to put their drones up at the same time?
32:13 Derrick Levasseur? Six foot drones, not the DJI drones that we would buy, like the size of me flying around, like basically a small car flying around in the air. These are commercial drones. They're not your normal drone that you can buy for little Timmy or Jane during the Christmas season. This is different. And here's my other issue with it. There's technology out there where they can shut these drones down really easy. There's a gun they can point at them and it'll take them down. They have them at airports and stuff too.
32:42 Stephanie Harlowe? Well, they closed the airspace over a lot of places recently, which is, I believe, probably what they're, what they're doing, right? If they're sending up like signals like over the airport in New York City, I think. This past weekend, Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul were like, yo, this drone situation is out of hand. I think Kathy Hochul, he was even like, this is completely out of hand now. And for like an hour, they shut down the airspace around an airport. So maybe that's what they mean when they're saying they're shutting down the airspace. Maybe they're sending these like signals up so that nothing can sort of fly in that area. And I've operated, I have not personally operated a drone, but I've been around people who do. And there are certain areas where you will try to send your drone into-
33:24 Derrick Levasseur? It won't, it's a dead zone. Can't do it. It won't go up.
33:27 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, there's ways to stop this from happening, but they're not.
33:30 Derrick Levasseur? No, and that's, and that's why I believe just my gut. I don't know if what John Ferguson's saying is true, but what I do believe is these, these are somehow connected to our government. And that's the reason they haven't shot one down yet. Do you remember the Chinese air balloon?
33:45 Stephanie Harlowe? Oh, how could I forget? Yeah.
33:47 Derrick Levasseur? F-22 Raptor, boom, takes it out of the sky. It's gone. See ya. Like, that was confirmed. It's gone. And the government has the capability, their own drones and everything, to go up there and start shooting these down, or at least using whatever interference devices they have to take them out of the sky. Also, there's no tracking on them, nothing like that. So there's just a lot of weird things going on. And to me, it just leans toward the government feels we don't need to know. There's something they're doing, we don't need to know.
34:15 Stephanie Harlowe? Along with everything else that we don't need to know.
34:18 Derrick Levasseur? And I'm, I'm hoping that's it. I'm hoping this is some type of military operation that they're practicing for. It's not even really something they're concerned about that they're, they're looking for a nuclear warhead. I really hope that's not the case.
34:30 Stephanie Harlowe? No, why wouldn't they just say that then? Why wouldn't they just say that? Like, hey, we're upping, you know, air security to make sure that no foreign, like, why wouldn't they just say that?
34:38 Derrick Levasseur? I don't know. Maybe they don't want their adversaries to know what they, their capabilities, what they have. I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me.
34:44 Stephanie Harlowe? The fact of the matter is, they know. There's no way they don't know. They know. And the fact that they're saying they don't know is what makes it catchy.
34:51 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah. And there was another report somewhere, and I don't believe this, that there was like a, an Iranian ship off the coast in the Atlantic that might be the mothership where these drones are flying to and then back to the ship. And that's why we're not finding them. Like, they're just going off into the distance over the Atlantic and they're disappearing. I don't know what type of capabilities they have. Again, I'm not an expert, but I know with my limited experience, the amount of batteries you would have to have on that drone to get it to fly that distance. It's kind of what John was inferring. The amount of batteries you would have to have on there would make that drone so heavy. It wouldn't be able to travel that far of a distance. There's like a drone out there where you can see like a guy actually riding it. It's been all over the internet a lot where it's like,
35:32 Derrick Levasseur? it's a, it's like a helicopter style drone where the guy's on it with a motorcycle helmet, but he's not flying 20, 30 miles. You know, he's going a short distance, a couple of football fields. So I don't think, I think that these drones are, they're landing somewhere in the United States. The military is more than likely aware of that location. It's a discreet secretive location that we're not allowed to see. And that would be the only explanation as to why they're going up and then disappearing and no one knows where they are.
35:59 Stephanie Harlowe? So, and, and yes, it's scary, right? Because
36:02 Derrick Levasseur? Not good. I don't like it.
36:04 Stephanie Harlowe? Because if, if there's a
36:07 Derrick Levasseur? Have you seen Terminator?
36:08 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah. If there's a rogue nuclear weapon out there, like, yeah. And, and it's crazy because it's so funny. They always try to minimize this stuff when they talk about it. So I'm reading this article, "Over the decades, the US military has had 32 nuclear accidents, also called broken arrow incidents. These incidents include accidental launches, radioactive contamination,
36:28 Derrick Levasseur? No biggie.
36:28 Stephanie Harlowe? Loss of nuclear weapons or other unexpected events involving nuclear weapons. Luckily, of these 32 accidents, there were only six US nuclear weapons that could not be located or recovered. And only one of these six was capable of nuclear detonation when it was lost. It's like, it's like they're saying like, oh, there's a, a world ending bomb out there that's capable of detonation, but the only one of them, don't worry about it. And this is crazy to me. And, and just, this is six that the United States government has admitted to because they had to, because they had whistleblowers and people coming out and saying stuff. And I guarantee you there's more than six. This article keeps going on and it's like, well, even one missing nuclear weapon sounds scary.
37:11 Stephanie Harlowe? It's worth noting that the Soviet Union lost far more during the Cold War, often due to submarines sinking with a dozen or more nuclear missiles on board.
37:20 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah.
37:20 Stephanie Harlowe? Like, can I go to a different planet now? I'm all set here.
37:23 Derrick Levasseur? There is one possible scenario that could be good. Could be Santa Claus doing his little reconnaissance, recruiting the area, making sure the route's safe. Okay? That's also possible. We can't, sometimes you just have to believe. You just have to believe.
37:37 Stephanie Harlowe? But like, imagine there's these, there's these nuclear weapons at the bottom of-
37:41 Derrick Levasseur? Not addressing my Santa theory, going right back to nuclear. Okay.
37:43 Stephanie Harlowe? Because I-
37:44 Derrick Levasseur? I was trying to land us on a light note.
37:46 Stephanie Harlowe? No, I can't. Imagine, they're, they're like- They're buried in the ocean somewhere. Imagine like a big ass whale just like knocks into it or something one day and like, phew. And you know what would happen? A nuclear weapon goes off? I mean, this could mean tsunamis. It could, it's crazy what could happen. It's not good. So like, how the hell? Like, you have one job, government, okay? And maybe you have more than one job, but one of the most important ones, one of the most important ones would be like,
38:12 Derrick Levasseur? Don't blow us up.
38:13 Stephanie Harlowe? Don't misplace nuclear weapons.
38:15 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah, that might be at the top of the list, or close to it.
38:17 Stephanie Harlowe? And how many do you really need, really, if you're thinking about it, like?
38:21 Derrick Levasseur? I hope we find out soon, and if they don't, I could tell you, someone is gonna take it upon themselves to shoot one of these things out of the sky and figure it out for everybody, so. I hope sooner than later, they come out with information that kind of, uh, lets us know what was going on. Maybe not all the details, but at least to say, hey, this was us. It was a secret operation that was going on. That's all we're gonna say. That would make me feel a little better. Not great.
38:45 Stephanie Harlowe? They're gonna be like, hey guys, aliens, aliens, look over here, let's talk about aliens again. That's what they do every time something like this happens, the government, the government's like, by the way, guys, aliens are real, let's talk about that.
38:54 Derrick Levasseur? Or, Santa Claus, like I said, it's a thing, it could happen.
38:58 Stephanie Harlowe? Santa Claus could technically be an alien.
39:00 Derrick Levasseur? That is also true, and I only bring up Santa Claus, because as we wrap up this episode, this will be our, our last episode before Christmas. We are off next week. So this will be our last Crime Weekly News before the holiday. We'll be back, as I'm looking at it now, with Crime Weekly News on-
39:16 Stephanie Harlowe? Wait, we're off next week?
39:17 Derrick Levasseur? We are off next week. Congratulations.
39:19 Stephanie Harlowe? Wait, we don't have an episode?
39:21 Derrick Levasseur? No episode next week. Completely off. Yeah.
39:24 Stephanie Harlowe? Really?
39:25 Derrick Levasseur? Dark for the week of Christmas. Yeah, you're welcome. Merry Christmas. Finding out right here- Live and in person.
39:31 Stephanie Harlowe? Well, cuz I was go I had like I was gonna bring Bella on this little Polar Express thing on the 23rd, which is when we film and I was gonna be like, oh, can we film on Sunday? And I was all stressed out about it, but now I feel great.
39:41 Derrick Levasseur? Well, Christmas is on Wednesday of next week, so clearly there's not gonna be an episode. Next week is the 25th.
39:48 Stephanie Harlowe? I don't know.
39:49 Derrick Levasseur? So, um, but we do have an episode of John O'Keefe, part five, coming out on the 20th. So this Friday on audio and then it'll be on Sunday, the 22nd on YouTube. So we will be off the week of the 23rd, no crime weekly news, no crime weekly. We'll be back on Wednesday, New Year's Day, January 1st with our, our new crime weekly news. And then obviously picking up on January 3rd with the new crime weekly. So we hope everybody.
40:16 Stephanie Harlowe? And then we'll be finishing out the John O'Keefe.
40:17 Derrick Levasseur? We'll be finishing it. Yeah, we got like two, you said two episodes left, right?
40:20 Stephanie Harlowe? Yeah, so this week and then the.
40:22 Derrick Levasseur? We'll have a week off to enjoy the holiday and then we'll come back and we'll finish the Karen Reed series strong. But we hope everyone has an amazing holiday. If you celebrate, everyone stay safe, everyone stay, you know, take some time off, enjoy it, get away from the true crime for a week and just enjoy your family and friends. And, uh, think about what you have to be grateful for, I guess, right? Any final words from you?
40:43 Stephanie Harlowe? Um, nope.
40:45 Derrick Levasseur? Just then you have the week off next week.
40:47 Stephanie Harlowe? I'm, if we make it there, I mean.
40:49 Derrick Levasseur? We make it there, yeah.
40:50 Stephanie Harlowe? Who, who knows what's gonna happen with the drones?
40:52 Derrick Levasseur? Yeah, what's gonna happen, we will find out. Until then, everyone stay safe out there and we will see you after the holiday. Have a good night.
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Previous S3 Ep259: John O'Keefe: The Evidence (Part 4) Next S3 Ep261: John O'Keefe: Conflicts and Butt Dials (Part 5) Page updated November 5, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated