587: MEGA COMPILATION: Dreams & Nightmares

Need something to listen to while you unwind? We’ve gathered some of our most soothing and fascinating stories to help you drift off into dreamland. Explore ideas that challenge reality, from simulation theory to parallel dimensions. Mysterious places, forgotten legends, and strange encounters create the perfect mix of intrigue and relaxation. Ever wonder if dreams connect us to something beyond? Stories of lucid dreaming, time slips, and unexplained phenomena might make you rethink what’s possible. Whether you’re looking for a calming escape or a gentle way to fall asleep, this collection has you covered. Dim the lights, get comfortable, and let the mysteries unfold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Honey, that flu keeping you up? Did you take Nyquil Intense Flu?

• 0:04AJ Gentile?

  Nah, I got this. Mmm, okay, I don't got this.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, you need Nyquil Intense Flu.

• 0:12Speaker 02

  Undo your flu with Nyquil Intense Flu. Nyquil Intense Flu provides powerful relief of your flu symptoms so you can sleep.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  You do got this.

• 0:22Speaker 02

  Nyquil Intense Flu. The nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever best sleep with the flu medicine. Uses directed, keep out of reach of children.

• 0:56AJ Gentile?

  Really? Today of all days?

• 0:58Speaker 03

  Human, uh, I'm sorry, but, uh, what are you wearing? Uh, did I interrupt naptime at the petting zoo?

• 1:05AJ Gentile?

  No, today we're-

• 1:06Speaker 03

  Hang on, hang on, hang on. Hello, Bo Peep? Uh, yeah, I found him. He's safe and sure.

• 1:11AJ Gentile?

  Okay, that's enough.

• 1:15AJ Gentile?

  Today we're doing the sleepy time compilation. Remember the episode to help people fall asleep?

• 1:20Speaker 03

  Oh, that's every episode lately.

• 1:21AJ Gentile?

  Can you just get in here, please?

• 1:23Speaker 03

  No can do. A matter of galactic botanical significance has arisen, requiring my immediate scientific scrutiny.

• 1:31AJ Gentile?

  What are you talking about?

• 1:32Speaker 03

  Oh, well, remember those aliens stopped by after visiting Uranus? Yeah, well, they left me those blorpess seeds and, uh-

• 1:39AJ Gentile?

  You better not have-

• 1:40Speaker 03

  And one of them sprouted!

• 1:44AJ Gentile?

  Uh, that plant looks weird. Did it just make a sound?

• 1:48Speaker 03

  Ah, it's trying to communicate.

• 1:51AJ Gentile?

  Uh, yeah, maybe you shouldn't get too close to that thing.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  Oh, this is nothing compared to that beaver fight club I ran out of your basement.

• 1:57AJ Gentile?

  You did what?

• 1:58Speaker 03

  Sorry, human, gotta go do science!

• 2:02AJ Gentile?

  I'm sure that's all gonna be fine. Okay, so sleepy time compilation. We cut out all the sponsor ads and all the loud music at the end, so you can just fall asleep to these episodes. This was by request. So this is a nice, long compilation tonight. So grab your jammies and let's start with simulation theory.

• 2:23AJ Gentile?

  Is this reality? Well, we're experiencing something right now, so maybe the better question is, what is reality? Could everything we see, everything we experience, everything that exists in our entire universe be artificial? Supporters of simulation theory believe that not only is it possible that we're living in a simulation, it's likely. And the more we look for evidence, the more we find. Let's find out why.

• 2:54AJ Gentile?

  The idea of the universe being a simulation is not a new one. Theories exist in ancient cultures around the world. Modern simulation theory comes from Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford who wrote an influential paper on the subject in 2003. Assuming that living in a simulation is possible, Bostrom presents the simulation trilemma, which says one of the following must be true. One, we destroy ourselves before we're able to create a simulation. Two, we're able to create a simulation but choose not to. Or three, we are definitely in a simulation. Bostrom believes each of these is equally likely to be true. Now, I don't think that's controversial. We use computer models to study the human population, predict the weather, for entertainment. We simulate everything.

• 3:37AJ Gentile?

  And when a civilization can create a realistic simulation, the most obvious one to create is that of its own early existence. Bostrom calls this an ancestral simulation. And a civilization that can do this wouldn't just create one simulation, it would create many. And those simulated civilizations might create their own simulations of the universe, and on and on, like Russian nesting dolls of reality.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  Now, you're a character in that world, and you think you have free will, and you say, "I want to invent a computer." So you do. "Hey, I want to create a world in my computer." And then that world creates a world in its computer. And then you have simulations all the way down.

• 4:14AJ Gentile?

  When Elon Musk was asked what he thought the chances were that our reality is the original base reality...

• 4:20Speaker 05

  The odds that we're in base reality is one in billions.

• 4:25AJ Gentile?

  Neil deGrasse Tyson is a little more conservative. He thinks the odds that we are in base reality versus a simulated reality is 50/50. A 50/50 chance that everything we experience is artificial, that's still pretty high. And even though we mostly hear what scientists think about this, it's not scientific theory. Simulation theory isn't math, it's philosophy. It isn't physics, it's metaphysics. So what we need is hard evidence that we live in a simulation. And to find proof, all you have to do is look.

• 5:02AJ Gentile?

  Let's start at the beginning. There was no space or time. The contents of the entire universe were concentrated to the size of a tennis ball and had a temperature of a quadrillion degrees. Then suddenly, the Big Bang. Everything explodes outward faster than the speed of light. Then about 14 billion years later, we've got galaxies and planets and ice cream and K-pop.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I could do without the K-pop.

• 5:29AJ Gentile?

  Me too. Okay, if before the Big Bang there was no space and no time, what was there? What about the beginning of the universe from the religious point of view? God created everything. Fine. Where was he before? What caused the Big Bang to happen in the first place? What made God decide to snap his fingers or wiggle his nose or whatever he did to make everything happen? If you ask a physicist to explain what existed before the universe, they'll give you an answer about quantum foam, dark energy, or something just as bonkers as the Big Bang. Ask a theologian what existed before God created the universe, and you'll get an answer equally as confusing. But what does make sense is that the universe was just sitting there dormant. Then someone, somewhere, decided to boot up a program.

• 6:11AJ Gentile?

  And in that program, our program, are all the laws of the universe. Electromagnetism and gravitational force are written into the program. The speed of light gets a value. There's code for Planck's constants of mass, speed, and time. Avogadro's numbers in there, along with a bunch of other rules that govern the behavior of everything that exists. All part of our program. Even consciousness itself is part of our simulation. If you've never heard of simulation theory, then this might sound far-fetched. But some of the world's most respected scientists, technologists, and philosophers believe that it is more likely than not that we are living in an artificial reality. So, how do we prove it?

• 7:01AJ Gentile?

  If we live in an artificial reality, it would make sense for there to be occasional glitches. Philip K. Dick is one of the most influential science fiction writers of all time. Movies based on his books include Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, The Adjustment Bureau, and plenty of others. He believed there are many universes, and sometimes those other realities bleed into ours. He claimed to have visions of this, and even wrote stories like The Man in the High Castle based on these visions.

• 7:29Speaker 04

  That in fact plural realities did exist, superimposed onto one another by so many film transparencies.

• 7:37AJ Gentile?

  One way other realities blend into ours could be the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect is when a large number of people have memories of events that don't match reality. This is called the Mandela Effect because millions of people specifically remember Nelson Mandela died in prison. He didn't. People remember his wife walking beside his casket in a funeral procession that was on television for two hours that day. This never happened. Or the Berenstain Bears, which people insist were always called the Berenstein Bears. People remember the tycoon from Monopoly having a monocle that he never had. What was Darth Vader famous for saying?

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Look, I am your father.

• 8:15AJ Gentile?

  Nope, he never said that.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  What?

• 8:17AJ Gentile?

  What about Stouffer's stove top stuffing?

• 8:19Speaker 03

  Best part of Thanksgiving.

• 8:20AJ Gentile?

  No, it isn't, because there's no such product. Stove top is made by craft.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  Uh, no.

• 8:26AJ Gentile?

  The evil queen from Snow White who looked into her mirror and said...

• 8:29Speaker 03

  Mirror, mirror on the wall.

• 8:32AJ Gentile?

  Nope.

• 8:35Speaker 06

  Who is the fairest one of all?

• 8:39Speaker 03

  Uh, uh, my reality is shattered.

• 8:42AJ Gentile?

  People remember Fabreeze being spelled with two Es. People remember Jiffy peanut butter, but there's no such thing. And there are a lot more, a lot more. Personally, I don't have most of these false memories, but there are a few that get me. The Flintstones. There are two Ts in the Flintstones. I remember just one. And what about the Fruit of the Loom logo? I could swear it looks like this. But it doesn't. This is the actual logo. No cornucopia.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Cornu what now?

• 9:09AJ Gentile?

  Basket.

• 9:10Speaker 03

  Didn't you say basket for crying out loud?

• 9:12AJ Gentile?

  And at the end of Moonraker, a terrible but excellent James Bond movie, I remember Jaws girlfriend as having braces. I mean, I specifically remember it. She didn't have braces.

• 9:31AJ Gentile?

  I just can't get my brain to accept it. That's the Mandela Effect. So why do millions of people distinctly remember different things?

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Glitch in a simulation?

• 9:40AJ Gentile?

  Yep. Philip K. Dick also felt when we experienced déjà vu is because something in our simulated universe changed and a new timeline branched off of the current one. We are living in a computer programmed reality and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed. Ever feel like you've lived a moment before? That's because, according to Philip K. Dick and others, you have. Déjà vu is the simulation correcting itself with new information. But skeptics can easily dismiss these theories. The human mind is terribly unreliable. They don't accept this as evidence. But we're not done yet.

• 10:26AJ Gentile?

  We live in a huge universe. 200 billion trillion stars. And even if life is rare, you'd think there'd be some evidence of it somewhere. This is Fermi's paradox. But according to the Drake equation, there should be over a million technologically advanced civilizations just in our galaxy. And on average, The nearest one should be just a few hundred light years away, but there's nothing, at least not that we can see. So where is everybody? Are we really alone in the universe? Or does our program only focus on us? And what about the physical rules that are in place? Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at MIT, said, "The strict laws of physics point to the possibility of a simulation." Putting a cap on the speed of light sure is a good way to keep your sims from venturing out too far from home.

• 11:11AJ Gentile?

  Theoretical physicist James Gates thought simulation theory was crazy. Then he started studying quarks and electrons. He found error correcting code buried deep inside the equations used to describe string theory.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  So you're saying as you dig deeper, you find computer code writ in the fabric of the cosmos? Into the equations that we want to use to describe the cosmos? Yes. Computer code? Computer code, strings of bits of ones and zeros.

• 11:45AJ Gentile?

  Dr. Gates has changed his mind about simulation theory. In 2017, a group of scientists at the University of Washington proved they can embed computer code into strands of DNA. Everything in nature is math. Look at the Fibonacci sequence. You get the Fibonacci sequence by adding two previous numbers in the sequence together. So 1 plus 1 equals 2, 2 plus 1 equals 3, 3 plus 2 equals 5, 5 plus 3 equals 8, and so on forever. You get the golden ratio, also called phi, by dividing two consecutive Fibonacci numbers. So the number 89 is a Fibonacci number. The next number in the sequence after 89 is 144. 144 divided by 89 is the golden ratio. It's about 1.618.

• 12:28AJ Gentile?

  We see Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio everywhere. The number of petals on a flower is usually a Fibonacci number. Lilies have three petals, buttercups have five, chicory has 21, and a daisy has 34. And the spacing of each petal is arranged in a circle according to the golden ratio. As trees grow, the number of branches they form is a Fibonacci number. And not just plants, animals too. The ratio of female to male honeybees in a colony is the golden ratio 1.618. The human body conforms to the golden ratio too. Most of the body follows the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5. One nose, two eyes, three limb segments, five fingers, five toes. The proportions of the body like the length of your shoulder to your elbow.

• 13:13AJ Gentile?

  And from your elbow to your fingertips, that's the golden ratio. Even a DNA molecule measures 34 angstroms long by 21 angstroms wide. Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio. From the spiral of seashells to the spiral of a galaxy and everything in between. Fibonacci numbers are everywhere. Now, some claim this is a coincidence. That humans look for patterns in chaos because that's what we're programmed to do.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  What we're programmed to do?

• 13:38AJ Gentile?

  Isn't that interesting? By trying to debunk simulation theory, they actually end up proving it. No matter what we study, whether it's something the size of a galaxy or as small as an electron. Everything in the universe seems to follow patterns and rules. In other words, a program.

• 14:01AJ Gentile?

  To simulate an entire universe, you'd obviously need more advanced technology than we have. But that doesn't mean we won't get there. Moore's law says that computing power doubles every 18 months. And this is held true for about 50 years. Now that is slowing down a little bit, but only because of physical limitations. Assuming we can learn to make microships smaller, and there's no doubt that we will. It's predicted that artificial intelligence could surpass human intelligence within the next 100 years. As Elon Musk points out, when he was a kid, the world's most advanced video game was Pong. Two rectangles on a screen. Forty years later, video game technology is barely distinguishable from reality. He said that six years ago.

• 14:42AJ Gentile?

  And even in that short time, video game engines have become even more realistic. Look at this footage from Unreal Engine 5.

• 14:50Speaker 06

  When a world we can build feels as real as our own.

• 15:02AJ Gentile?

  What just happened? Imagine what games are gonna look like in the next six years, or the next 60, or the next 6,000. But simulating an entire universe, how big of a computer will we need? Well, it's estimated that there are 10 to the power of 80 atoms in the universe. Let me put that on the screen just for fun. Okay, that's a lot. If each particle needs 128 bits to calculate its position and momentum, you're at 10 to the power of 83 bits. And that's just for data storage. We also need computing power to track what each of those particles is doing. If we say 2 floating-point operations per second, or 2 flops per particle, we're at 2 times 10 to the 80th power flops. There aren't even words for these numbers.

• 15:45AJ Gentile?

  And this is the computing power for just the stuff in the universe. What about human intelligence? The human brain can perform 100 trillion calculations per second, or 100 teraflops, multiplied by billions of people, the numbers are ridiculous. To power all of this, the simulation would need access to multiple Dyson spheres, the megastructures that capture 100% of the energy of a star. Or the simulation would have to harness the energy from black holes. This is why famous physicists like Dr. Michio Kaku are not on board with simulation theory. He claims that simulating a universe is not scientifically possible. The only computer capable of simulating a universe is the universe itself. Now, at first glance, this makes sense. But with all due respect to Dr. Kaku,

• 16:30AJ Gentile?

  that's not how simulations work. When you're playing a 3D video game, the entire game world isn't rendered. Instead, the game engine only calculates what the player can see and interact with at that specific moment. If we are living in a simulation, then it would make sense that the creators of the simulation would use a similar technique. And wouldn't it be interesting if there was evidence that this is exactly what happens?

• 16:52Speaker 03

  Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Do we have proof? Sweet fancy Moses!

• 17:03AJ Gentile?

  Supporters of simulation theory often point to video games as a way to explain, if not prove, that our reality is artificial. In a video game, the only data that is rendered is what the player sees or interacts with. If you're playing a video game and there's a car or building a mile away, that entire object isn't rendered. The game engine only renders the bare minimum of information to make the object look real. A distant building is rendered as just a few pixels, not that complicated. As you get closer, the engine renders more details, but still, it's just a facade. The engine doesn't bother calculating what's inside the building to actually go in. The game engine always knows how much data to send you and doesn't bother with anything else. If we live in a simulation, it would make sense that our reality is rendered the same way. We could test this.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Wait, what do you mean "we can test this"?

• 17:51AJ Gentile?

  Specifically, we can use the double slit experiment. Here's how it goes. If we fire particles in a straight line at a screen, after passing through a single slit, we would expect to see this clumping pattern on the screen. If we try this with a wave, we expect to see a pattern like this, where particles are most dense in the middle of the screen but radiate outward, similar to the clumping pattern. When we add a second slit, it starts to get fun. When the waves pass through the double slit, each slit creates its own wave. When those waves intersect, they cancel each other out. That creates a pattern like this. It's called an interference pattern. So, particles passing through two slits create clumping patterns. Waves through two slits creates an interference pattern. Make sense?

• 18:34Speaker 03

  I'm with you.

• 18:35AJ Gentile?

  Good. If we fire electrons through the slit, we see the clumping pattern as expected. An electron has mass, so it's a tiny bit of matter. So if we fire electrons through two slits, we should see two clumps. But we don't. We see the wave interference pattern. This shouldn't be happening. What's going on here? For years, scientists assumed that the electrons were colliding with each other, causing the wave pattern. But in the 60s, the experiment was modified so that only one electron at a time was fired through the slits. There was no way the electrons could interact with each other. Yet, we still see an interference pattern. Scientists wanted to see what was causing this, so they added a detector to observe electrons as they pass through the slits. That's when things go from weird to paranormal.

• 19:20AJ Gentile?

  As soon as the detectors were installed, the interference pattern went away and the clumping pattern returned. Take the detectors away and the wave interference pattern is back.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  But that's a different result to what we had earlier. So here's the last bit of sneakiness that we can play with atoms. Surely now, you know, we're gonna get to grips with it. Leave the detector there, but just very quietly go and unplug it.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  Don't let the atoms know that you're not spying on them.

• 19:55Speaker 04

  Run the experiment again.

• 20:00Speaker 04

  Now, if you can explain this using common sense and logic, do let me know,

• 20:08Speaker 04

  because there's a Nobel Prize for you.

• 20:09AJ Gentile?

  It's as if the particles are aware they're being observed. Then physicist John Wheeler had an idea. He called it the delayed choice experiment. How it works is photons are projected through the double slit, but the detector is not activated until after they pass through the slit, but before they impact the screen. Photons were emitted as waves, passed through the slits as waves, but when the waves were observed before hitting the screen, they suddenly behaved like particles again. Still don't think there's an intelligence at work? Well, what Wheeler's experiment showed is that even though the electrons started as waves but behaved like particles after being observed, at the moment the decision to observe them was made,

• 20:52AJ Gentile?

  the electrons recorded themselves as having passed through the slits as particles. The electrons changed their state by going back in time.

• 21:04Speaker 04

  that I gravitate more towards the information theoretic point of view and believing that that I'm I the universe that I exist in is a very good, high-quality simulation.

• 21:15AJ Gentile?

  Now, this experiment is happening on a table in a lab, a very short distance. So what happens when we observe light coming from vast distances, like, say, a galaxy 100 million light-years away? If light from a distant galaxy is projected through the double slit, it creates the wave interference pattern. But if we push those photons through a measuring apparatus to observe them, the wave again collapses all the way back to its source. This is called retrocausality. Simply by choosing to observe the photons this way, they reach back through time 100 million years and alter their state on the other side of the galaxy. But, like a video game engine, it only does this if we're looking.

• 21:58AJ Gentile?

  Even though our universe is full of galaxies, those galaxies may not actually be there. If we're living in a simulation, then stars and galaxies could simply be projections, and only when we get up close will those projections become more detailed. This is an excellent way to save computational resources. And because we're stuck with the hard limit of the speed of light, getting to far-off places is really difficult. Limiting the speed of light is a useful rule to have in place. Quantum mechanics, like the double slit experiment and quantum entanglement, only make sense if there's a program at work, because only the program can ignore the laws of physics and ignore the concept of time itself.

• 22:43AJ Gentile?

  A convenient case for simulation theory is you can't disprove it. The Big Bang, that was the simulation booting up. We haven't found aliens? They're not in the simulation. How come UFOs seem to violate the laws of physics? Well, because their program's operated by the simulation creators. They don't have to follow the laws of physics.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, but who created the simulation?

• 23:04AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's the big question, isn't it? When you think of the simulation creator as an omniscient intelligence who exists outside of our understanding of space and time, it sounds an awful A lot like you're describing God. And just like you can't prove we're not in a simulation, you can't prove there is no God. If something miraculous happens or something horrible happens, you can say it's part of the simulation just as easily as you can say it's part of God's plan. Something I find very interesting is that many believers of simulation theory are fierce atheists. They dismiss the idea of God as corny superstition. And there are plenty of devoutly religious people who dismiss provable science like evolution and the age of the earth.

• 23:45AJ Gentile?

  People on the religious side say that if there is no God and life is just a simulation, then nothing matters. Without God to guide us and sometimes punish us, depending on what you believe, our actions don't have consequences. I disagree. Even if we don't live in base reality, we still live in our reality and our actions here do have consequences. As for what happens after we die, simulation or not, nobody really knows. Both sides argue that faith and science are not compatible. Isn't this hypocritical? Whether you believe in God or you believe in simulation theory, the real question is, what's the difference?

• 24:29AJ Gentile?

  Folks, this is just staggering stuff. Again, I've become obsessed with this idea. By the way, that's the Y files. That was a YouTube video. It's really amazing. So the deputy director of the FBI watches the Y files. It's no big deal. It's nothing to brag about. All right, what do we got next? Ah, ah, episode number four, ASMR. Luckily, it's less than eight minutes of cringe, so I will see you then.

• 25:00AJ Gentile?

  Today, we're going to try and explain ASMR, what it is, how it works, and why millions of people are watching ASMR videos.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't get the whole dungeon thing at all.

• 25:10AJ Gentile?

  Dungeon? What do you?

• 25:11Speaker 03

  And who could be comfortable in all that leather?

• 25:13AJ Gentile?

  No, no, no, no. You're thinking of, you're thinking of something different. ASMR causes people to feel the tingling sensations all over their body.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  I think we're talking about the same videos.

• 25:23AJ Gentile?

  We're not.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  These are the ones where they pick a safe word, right?

• 25:26AJ Gentile?

  No.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  Peanut brittle.

• 25:28AJ Gentile?

  We don't need a-

• 25:29Speaker 03

  I guess that's two words, right?

• 25:30AJ Gentile?

  ASMR has nothing to do with-

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Platypus.

• 25:39AJ Gentile?

  Welcome to The Y-Files, where high IQ folks like us come to laugh and learn. Today, we're talking about ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, which is a pleasurable tingling feeling that some people experience when exposed to certain stimuli. The sensation is described as starting at the top of the head and then running all the way down the spine. And some people will feel it in their extremities: fingers, toes, limbs. Those are our extremities. No idea what I'm talking about? That's okay. Most people don't. ASMR is pretty new, but there's an active and rapidly growing community online of ASMR enthusiasts. What makes ASMR such an interesting phenomenon is that not everyone experiences it. And the people that do, they have different triggers.

• 26:23AJ Gentile?

  Common triggers are whispering, finger tapping, clicking, hair brushing. Some people, if you crumple a piece of paper right up against their ear, they'll have what ASMR folks call a "braingasm."

• 26:35Speaker 03

  "No, every time someone hits the like button, I feel a tingling in my dorsal fin." "Whoa, oh, boy, someone just did it."

• 26:43AJ Gentile?

  I felt that, too.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  "Oh, baby, ooh."

• 26:46AJ Gentile?

  Okay, ease up on the like button. We don't want hecklefish to stroke out.

• 26:53AJ Gentile?

  So what's actually happening to the brain and body during an ASMR experience? The science is still pretty thin, but research is underway. In 2018, the University of Sheffield exposed 112 people to ASMR videos. About half the people experienced the response. The other half got nothing. So what's going on here? Well, some studies say that ASMR could be linked to misophonia, which is where hearing a sound could elicit a negative emotional and physiological response, automatically. Think of nails on a chalkboard, which for some people is intolerable. Intolerable, intolerable. Why is that word in every script? Misophonia, like ASMR, could be a type of synesthesia,

• 27:36AJ Gentile?

  which is where experiencing one sense causes an involuntary reaction in a completely different sense. So people with severe synesthesia say they can hear colors or taste sounds. With misophonia and ASMR, hearing a certain sound is triggering a feeling. And just like ASMR, people have different misophonic triggers. For example, nails on a chalkboard doesn't bother me at all. But nails on cardboard or cardboard rubbing together?

• 28:06AJ Gentile?

  I can't even think about it without getting chills. It's definitely the most awful sound ever born. Other common misophonic triggers are chewing noises, lip smacking, tongue clicking, joint cracking. And those bother me too. Like if I'm at a restaurant and someone is slurping their soup, it's all I can do to not walk over there and punch them right in the face. I fantasize about it.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, let me ask you something. Is it hard being so neurotic?

• 28:37AJ Gentile?

  Oh, it ain't easy. But just like some people find pain pleasurable...

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Platypus!

• 28:41AJ Gentile?

  Sounds that are painful for some are actually pleasurable ASMR triggers for others. And there are hundreds of YouTube videos of people chewing and slurping and eating right in your ear. Now, I can't stand it, but that may be an ASMR trigger for you. So I will link to some of those videos below and you can check it out.

• 29:01AJ Gentile?

  There's also a visual element to ASMR. There are videos on YouTube showing people doing nothing but cutting bars of soap into little squares.

• 29:10AJ Gentile?

  Or shaving bars of soap into these thin curls and then crushing them into tiny little bits.

• 29:16AJ Gentile?

  This type of ASMR has been called visual white noise, and some people find it really relaxing. Other visual ASMR videos show people squishing their hands in buckets of slime.

• 29:29AJ Gentile?

  Or pouring the colorful slime from one container to the other. Now, these videos have millions of views, so they're working for somebody.

• 29:38AJ Gentile?

  But what happens when we combine visual triggers with auditory triggers? We get the Greek god of ASMR, Bob [bleep] Ross. Dr. Craig Richard, a professor at Shenandoah University, wrote a book called "Brain Tingles", which is kind of an ASMR user's guide. Dr. Richard recalls experiencing ASMR as a child while watching Bob Ross paint. He said Bob would turn his brain into this enjoyable, relaxing fuzziness. Tell you what, let's make a hap-

• 30:06Speaker 00

  Happy little sky.

• 30:07AJ Gentile?

  I totally get that. And it's no surprise that Bob Ross is hugely popular in the ASMR community. He hits a ton of triggers. The scraping of the knives on the canvas.

• 30:18AJ Gentile?

  The repetitive whooshing of the brushstrokes.

• 30:22AJ Gentile?

  Bob's gentle whispering play-by-play of the painting. The fluffy little clouds and the happy little trees.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  We'll build a happy little cloud.

• 30:30AJ Gentile?

  It's really relaxing, isn't it? Go ahead and hit the subscribe button. Go ahead and hit that button. Don't smash the like button, we don't like that. Just gently rub the like button. There you go, that's nice. And didn't Bob make you feel like he was talking directly to you?

• 30:44Speaker 00

  Think of this tape as a private lesson in my studio, and I've reserved this front row seat just for you.

• 30:51AJ Gentile?

  This kind of intimate personal attention is common with ASMR. Brain scans of people experiencing tingles have similar scans to people that are being groomed or gently cared for. And for people with this trigger, it's not the touching that causes the tingles. It's the personal attention. Many ASMR content creators will role-play caring grooming activities, like hair washing, hair brushing, or blow drying. Now, the sound of a blow dryer does nothing for me, but Bob Ross... Oh.

• 31:23AJ Gentile?

  All day long.

• 31:28AJ Gentile?

  Other creators, known as ASM artists, will role-play doing your makeup for you. Just apply that. Or they'll pretend to be a teacher, giving you gentle praise and reassurance. So, welcome to your first day of class. Some of these triggers may sound silly, but to people who are ASMR-sensitive, the experience has been proven to lower their heart rate, reduce their blood pressure, and reduce levels of fight-or-flight hormones in their bloodstreams. Hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These are the same benefits that people get from meditation, so... There might be something to this. Ooh, that was a good one. But why does ASMR work with some people and not others? Well, we don't know yet. Every individual has unique physiological characteristics.

• 32:11AJ Gentile?

  And there are other factors, like the culture in which they live, or the environment where they were raised. ASMR is just another example about how the human brain is fascinating and complicated and downright weird. And if being weird is wrong?

• 32:25Speaker 03

  I don't wanna be right!

• 32:27AJ Gentile?

  Platypus.

• 32:30AJ Gentile?

  I hope that wasn't too painful. It was painful for me. I think the best thing that came out of that episode was the artwork that Rob did of the the Bob Ross version of me. I think I look okay with an Afro. Next, we got episode 122. That's now we're getting into some good Wi-Fi stuff. This one is about the hollow earth and the lost city of Agartha.

• 32:56AJ Gentile?

  Cultures around the world have myths that speak of a mysterious underground kingdom that exists deep within the earth, hidden away from the primitive and violent surface dwellers, which is us. Picture a society untouched by time, unscathed by war, and unaffected by natural disasters, a culture thriving in the vast open spaces inside the earth. Throughout history, many have looked for physical evidence of its existence, tempted by stories of a peaceful but powerful subterranean civilization with advanced technology and ancient knowledge long forgotten by modern man. This is the story of the underground kingdom of Agartha and the explorers who've said that not only is it a real place, but they know where it is.

• 33:48AJ Gentile?

  Stories of a hollow earth have existed in cultures for thousands of years. Nearly every ancient society has stories about an underground realm, often inhabited by superior beings. Buddhists firmly believe in the subterranean kingdom of Agartha, ruled by the mysterious king of the world.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  Ooh, Leonardo DiCaprio?

• 34:07AJ Gentile?

  No. Agartha is said to be home to millions and connected to the surface by a vast tunnel network within the planet's crust. Indian religions speak of a place called Patala, which translates to "that which is below the feet." Patala is described as a beautiful land full of rolling green hills and crystal-clear lakes. Agartha is described the same way. Some believe this is the real Garden of Eden, that when God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden, he actually sent them to the surface. In an ancient Mayan text called the Popol Vuh, there is- The story of Shababa, an underworld civilization. And from Shababa, twin brothers emerge. And like Adam and Eve, they became the first people above ground.

• 34:48AJ Gentile?

  Chikomaztak is the place where the Aztecs emerged to live on the surface of the earth. It translates to "seven caves", and researchers are actually looking for it, and some think they've found it. African and other Native American legends also mention subterranean realms and cavern spirits. The most consistent story is that of an advanced inner-earth civilization, isolated from surface humanity. The Sumerians knew it as Kher, a void space, or home of the dead. The Babylonians called it Urkalla, another world ruled by gods. The Chinese call this underworld Diu, and the Japanese call it Yomi. Ancient Egypt, Islam, Greek, Rome, even Celtic Irish, they all have myths of an underground world. More modern myths may call this place hell,

• 35:33AJ Gentile?

  but it could be argued that hell is a relatively new concept, that it's a construct designed to create fear and inspire good behavior. But before the concept of hell, the underworld was inhabited by advanced, godlike people who came to the surface of the earth. Once on the surface, they either created humanity or taught civilization to primitive humans. It's easy enough to interpret those as the same thing. And like the flood myth, which is present in every ancient culture, the inner-earth story also appears over and over again. Recent discoveries are starting to point to the fact that a great flood did really happen. So when cultures from all over the world share the same myth, we have to start looking at all those myths as maybe more than just a story. Those myths may be referring to actual history.

• 36:18AJ Gentile?

  But to prove the existence of Agartha, an underground civilization, and the Hollow Earth, we'll need more than stories. We need scientific evidence and eyewitness testimony. Fortunately, we have both.

• 36:34AJ Gentile?

  The hollow Earth theory proposes that our planet is not a solid sphere, but a hollow one, with vast, unexplored spaces within. In 1692, astronomer Edmund Halley proposed a hollow Earth consisting of a shell about 500 miles thick. Within that shell are two concentric spheres and a central core about the diameter of Venus. Halley said the spaces in between the shells could support life, with light provided by a luminous atmosphere. In the late 18th century, mathematician Leonard Euler used physics calculations to hypothesize a hollow Earth with a central sun. Euler's calculations suggested that gravity would propel matter equally in all directions, forming spheres with hollow interiors.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Oh, wait, wait, wait. How can the Earth be hollow and flat at the same time?

• 37:21AJ Gentile?

  Well, the Earth isn't flat.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  Planes always fly in a straight line. If the Earth was round, they would have to adjust for that.

• 37:29AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, that's not how that works.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, speaking of planes, if the Earth was a spinning ball, you'd be able to fly a helicopter straight up in the air, wait for the ball to spin, and then land on the other side of the planet.

• 37:40AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, the atmosphere spins too.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  The air?

• 37:42AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Right. How fast does the Earth spin?

• 37:45AJ Gentile?

  Well, that depends on the latitude.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  How fast?

• 37:48AJ Gentile?

  Between 300 and 1,000 miles an hour.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  Okay, so, empty air, stick to the ground, moving at 1,000 miles an hour?

• 37:55AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  In perfect sync, everywhere on a big, round ball?

• 38:00AJ Gentile?

  Yes.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Agree to disagree?

• 38:05AJ Gentile?

  But what does modern science have to say about the hollow Earth? On the surface, the hollow Earth theory seems to defy basic geological understanding. Seismic data and the study of Earth's gravitational field suggest that our planet is composed of several layers: the crust, the mantle, and the core. However, proponents of the hollow Earth theory argue that the data are open to interpretation. They point to anomalies in seismic readings, which they claim could be indicative of large, empty spaces within the Earth. They also cite the existence of vast underground caves as evidence of the Earth's hollowness. And if the Earth is hollow, it could support life. Support the large population of Agartha. Even if the Earth isn't completely hollow, if there are vast hollow areas within the Earth,

• 38:49AJ Gentile?

  why couldn't they house a hidden civilization? Some trace the story of Agartha back to ancient Buddhist texts, where it's described as a paradise, a place of pure harmony and advanced knowledge. In the Western world, what we know about Agartha mostly comes from Alexandre Santiéf Delvedre. He was a French intellectual and occultist. He spoke of Agartha as a secret civilization, its people possessing wisdom and technology far beyond our understanding. Santiéf learned of Agartha through his Sanskrit teacher, who insisted it was a real geographic place. Santiéf's descriptions of Agartha were vivid and detailed. He spoke of grand palaces illuminated by magical light and of advanced technologies that harness the Earth's magnetic field. In the 19th century,

• 39:33AJ Gentile?

  Agarthans already had citywide lighting, railways, and even air travel. Santiéf believed that the Agarthans were the guardians of sacred knowledge, a knowledge that can bring about a golden age of peace and enlightenment on the surface world. Others would continue the search for Agartha. Occultist Eleanor Blavatsky searched for evidence of a hollow Earth and the secret tunnels that Agarthans used to travel all over the planet. But as far as we know, Santiéf and Madame Blavatsky didn't find Agartha. But not because it doesn't exist, because they didn't know where to look. But we do.

• 40:11AJ Gentile?

  The reason Edmund Halley started exploring the idea that the Earth was hollow was because of strange compass readings in the Atlantic. He believed that the aurora borealis resulted from gases escaping from the inner spheres inside the Earth. This suggested there were entrances at the north and south pole, and once inside, you can navigate the inner shells through vast cave and tunnel systems. The hollow Earth theory fell out of favor for a while, but gained new life in 1818. American John Sims launched the notorious Sims Hole Theory. He declared that the Earth was hollow and habitable. He said the inner Earth is comprised of four nested shells with openings at the poles. And Sims dedicated much of his life to promoting this theory by trying to put together a polar expedition, though that never happened.

• 40:57AJ Gentile?

  In 1829, Norwegian fisherman Olaf Jansen claimed that he and his father sailed through a polar opening and into the planet's interior. There, they spent two years among a race of giants before exiting through the South Pole. His story is documented in the book "The Smoky God" by Willis George Emerson, which is a fun read. But probably the most famous and detailed account of the world inside the Earth comes from Admiral Richard E. Byrd. Admiral Byrd was an aviation pioneer, polar explorer, and one of the most decorated and celebrated officers in the history of the American military, so a serious guy. Byrd took his plane out on a quick survey mission of the North Pole.

• 41:38AJ Gentile?

  As he was flying over ice and snow, he noticed the sunlight changed. Then it got warmer. A few minutes later, he was flying over fields of green grass and forests and rivers. He even saw a woolly mammoth grazing in one of those fields. Then he no longer had control of his plane, and suddenly, two craft came up beside him.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  Off our port and starboard wings are a strange type of aircraft. They are closing rapidly alongside. They are disc-shaped and have a radiant quality to them. They are close enough now to see the markings on them. It is a type of swastika. This is fantastic! Where are we? What has happened? I tug at the controls again. They will not respond. We are caught in an invisible vice grip of some type.

• 42:24AJ Gentile?

  Admiral Byrd lands and is escorted by tall blond men to an underground city. There, the admiral meets someone called "the master." Now, I link to an episode where I go into a lot of detail about what Admiral Byrd found, so check that out if you want to learn more. I'll try not to spoil too much here. So Admiral Byrd found a way to the Hollow Earth in the North Pole. Others had found their way in through the South Pole. The South Pole is often connected to Nazi Germany. Hitler was an occultist and was famously fascinated by the possibility that the Hollow Earth could be accessed through Antarctica. Germany did make an expedition to Antarctica in 1938. I theorized in the Operation High Jump episode that this was the reason the United States sensed its a large, well-

• 43:07AJ Gentile?

  armed task force down there in 1946. The Germans had maps of the area, including a cave system underneath the surface. They even had step-by-step directions on how to get into the hollow Earth. The directions are very specific, distances right down to the meter. After you follow the first eight steps, the ninth step is interesting. Proceed to Agatha, full speed. Process straight ahead until the new light can be seen. Change of magnetic poles, the changes of the compass needle and instruments are to be disregarded. German U-boat 209, commanded by Heinrich Broda, said he reached the interior of the Earth and found a vast network of tunnels. There are rumors that, after Germany surrendered,

• 43:49AJ Gentile?

  some Nazis fled to Antarctica and hid in these tunnels. And other rumors say they're still there. But the poles aren't the only way to get into the cave system that leads to Agatha. There are entrances all over the world, and chances are, there's one near you.

• 44:16AJ Gentile?

  The planetary grid system is a network of energy lines crisscrossing the planet. These lines are said to influence everything from ancient monument placement to the patterns of animal migration. The idea of a planetary grid goes back to the ancient Greeks, who believed in a concept called "emphalos," the Earth's central point. And you can see this concept expressed in places like the Oracle at Delphi, said to be the center of the ancient world. A few centuries later, in the 1920s, Alfred Watkins noticed that ancient sites seemed to line up along straight paths. He termed these "laylines." And while some considered his theory a coincidence, others saw a pattern connected to the Earth's geography.

• 44:57AJ Gentile?

  More recently, the Unified Vector Geometry Theory was proposed by Buckminster Fuller and later developed by scientists like William Becker and Beth Hagens. According to this theory, the Earth is covered by an invisible grid formed by 120 identical triangles. This grid supposedly aligns with significant geographical and historical points across the globe. Take the Great Pyramid of Giza. According to the Unified Vector Geometry Theory, it isn't randomly placed, but occupies a crucial point on this global energy grid. The same applies to other ancient landmarks like Stonehenge and Machu Picchu, the Nazca Lines, and even the Bermuda Triangle. In addition to the North and South Poles, entrances to the Kingdom of Garthah

• 45:41AJ Gentile?

  are also found on some of these planetary grid points. Let's take a quick trip around the world and look for a way in.

• 45:53AJ Gentile?

  The first way into the Hollow Earth is in the caves of Deros in Greece. This entrance is closely connected to Plato and the story of Atlantis. From Greece across the Mediterranean to Mount Epi Male in Italy.

• 46:08AJ Gentile?

  For centuries, this has been called "a portal to the inner Earth."

• 46:13AJ Gentile?

  Now going south across the Mediterranean is the Pyramid of Giza.

• 46:18AJ Gentile?

  Giza doesn't seem like it would have access to the Hollow Earth, but we now know that underneath the pyramids is a vast cave system, underground rivers, reservoirs, and tunnels. With modern technology like ground-penetrating radar, new caverns and chambers are discovered all the time. Another entrance to the Earth is said to be within King Solomon's mines. Solomon, a king of Israel and son of King David, was known for his wisdom, power, and his personal fortune, described as one of the largest on Earth. King Solomon's mines became known to the world because of the famous novel featuring the character Alan Quartermain, an adventurer you might remember from the movie "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." Quartermain was played by Sean Connery.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  Underrated movie.

• 47:08AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, I think so too. Wealth is usually associated with gold, but King Solomon's wealth is thought to have come from the mining of copper. And these mines would have been operating around the 13th century B.C. Now even though the legend of King Solomon's mines comes from a fictional novel, treasure hunters believe this is a real place, and have been searching for it for a long time. In 2008, there might have been a breakthrough. An ancient mining city was discovered in Kerbat el Nahas in Jordan. There, archaeologists discovered a copper mine and a copper smelting camp, which seemed to be operational in the 13th century B.C. The team also found a lot of personal items, including clothing, ceramics, fabric, even tools,

• 47:52AJ Gentile?

  all indicating a highly-developed, long-term settlement at the site. And these objects have been dated to the same period as King Solomon's mines.

• 48:03AJ Gentile?

  The next entrance is said to be in Rama, India, where an ancient subterranean city was recently discovered.

• 48:13AJ Gentile?

  Tibet is home to many stories about Hollow Earth, so it's not surprising that there are entrances underneath the Himalayas. One of these is in the underground city of Shonshay, which, according to legend, has been guarded by monks for thousands of years. But there are entrances to the Inner Earth in the West too.

• 48:39AJ Gentile?

  Iguazu in Argentina allegedly has an entrance hidden somewhere underneath the famous waterfalls.

• 48:49AJ Gentile?

  Underneath Mato Grosso in Brazil is said to be the city of Posen, which was built by Atlanteans after the destruction of Atlantis. Even the United States has gateways to the Hollow Earth.

• 49:04AJ Gentile?

  Mammoth Cave in Kentucky has been known as an entrance since the first native tribes arrived there thousands of years ago.

• 49:13AJ Gentile?

  The most famous entrance to the Hollow Earth in the United States is probably Mount Shasta.

• 49:21AJ Gentile?

  It's here where the city of Telos is said to have been built and is still occupied. And there is a lot of evidence that something is happening there. I linked to an episode we did where we called Mount Shasta "The Most Paranormal Place on Earth", and it absolutely is. And these are just a few entrances to the Kingdom of Garthah in North America. There are others in Arkansas, California, and other states, and several locations in Canada. Even the site of the secret underground base in Dulce, New Mexico, was said to be chosen because of its proximity to an entrance to the Inner Earth. And we did an episode on Dulce Base as well. And you might have noticed that a lot of alleged entrances to the Hollow Earth coincide with locations famous for UFO sightings. And this might not be a coincidence.

• 50:05AJ Gentile?

  Whenever someone mentions a UFO, our instinct is to look up toward the sky, to space. Turns out, we might be looking in the wrong direction.

• 50:17AJ Gentile?

  When we think of UFOs, we think of extraterrestrials from a distant star. And that could be true. But there's also the theory that UFOs aren't coming from a different planet, but from inside our planet. Scientifically speaking, it makes more sense that there's a race of humanoid beings living within the Earth, as opposed to a race of humanoid beings who have somehow figured out how to cross the vast distances of space. And isn't it strange that the aliens we talk about are all humanoid? Whether they're the small grays, the tall whites, or even the goblin-type aliens, they all kinda look like us. Two eyes, nose, mouth, two legs with feet and toes, two arms with hands and fingers. Even the size of the beings is close to the size of humans.

• 51:00AJ Gentile?

  Now, maybe all-intelligent life in the universe evolves this way. But I would expect life in different biomes, in different ecosystems, on different planets, light-years away, to look radically different than humans. But they don't. So it's possible that they're from here, just in places we can't normally see. We see a lot of UFOs coming out of the ocean, but we haven't found any type of base, at least not a confirmed sighting. So what if the base is inside the Hollow Earth, under the ocean? I can think of no better hiding place. Yeah, that would be a good hiding place. And there are crazy things happening on the far side of the moon, and an episode on that is coming up. There have been many UFO sightings around Mount Shasta,

• 51:42AJ Gentile?

  where the object flies into the mountain and then disappears. Now, assuming the witnesses are telling the truth, and I believe they are, the objects are going somewhere. In the Arctic, near the North Pole, the earliest reported UFO sightings go back to the year 1850. Captain De Haven and his medical officer saw what they thought was a balloon, but then a second object appeared, and suddenly both objects vanished. Around midnight on January 22, 1952, a strange object was tracked on radar at a military outpost in northern Alaska. It was moving at 1,500 miles per hour, which no aircraft on Earth could do. Three jets were sent to investigate, and as the jets approached, the radar blip slowed down and just hovered. A few seconds later,

• 52:26AJ Gentile?

  it streaked out of sight, heading to the North Pole, moving even faster than before. On October 5, 1960, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning Station at Thule, Greenland thought World War III had started. Radar was tracking multiple objects moving at speeds too fast to be anything except a Soviet missile attack. Within minutes, US bases in England and Canada were mobilized, and NORAD and the Strategic Air Command were alerted. A few minutes later, the radar signals changed course and disappeared somewhere near the North Pole. The military has been dealing with Arctic UFOs since 1945. The first UFO in Alaska emerged from the sea in March of that year. 14 crew members on an Army transport ship witnessed the object.

• 53:11AJ Gentile?

  It approached the ship, circled it, and then flew away. And there are many more sightings in the Arctic during this time. Inuits in the Arctic regions have encountered UFOs in the past and included them in their myths. Once, a man from the Buckland River tribe discovered what appeared to be a UFO landing site, two strips of land approximately two feet wide had been burned all the way down to the ground. On Sledge Island, Inuits have a legend of a massive ball of fire resembling the moon that descended from the sky. After the object was spotted, a creature described as "a human skeleton" appeared in the village. According to the legend, this visitor was not friendly and killed most of the people it encountered.

• 53:53AJ Gentile?

  These are just a small fraction of the stories about UFOs and visitors coming from the ocean, from the poles, or the middle of the Earth. So we've covered the eyewitness accounts. The next piece of the Hollow Earth puzzle is scientific evidence. We have that too.

• 54:13AJ Gentile?

  The Kola Superdeep borehole was just nine inches in diameter, and at 40,230 feet, it's the deepest hole on Earth. It took almost 20 years to reach its depth of 7.5 miles.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Mel's Hole is deep in the net.

• 54:27AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's true, but that's another episode.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  They pulled some crazy stuff out of Mel's Hole.

• 54:32AJ Gentile?

  Kola Superdeep was abandoned in 1992 when the drillers encountered higher-than-expected temperatures, over 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The drill just couldn't handle the heat. 7.5 miles is a deep hole, but it's 4,000 miles to the Earth's core, so the Kola Superdeep is nothing. And since grade school, we've been taught that the Earth is made up of the crust, the mantle, and the core. And the core is two layers. The outer core is almost 1,400 miles thick and mostly made of liquid iron and nickel. The inner core is a solid sphere with a radius of about 750 miles. And the inner core is thought to be comprised mostly of iron and some nickel. But if we've only dug 7.5 miles down, how do we know for sure what's down there?

• 55:16AJ Gentile?

  Well, we don't. But by using different methods, scientists can take a guess. The primary way we've learned about the Earth's core is through the study of seismic waves. These are waves of energy that travel through the Earth's layers. They move at different speeds depending on the density and the composition of the layer they're passing through. Further evidence comes from the Earth's magnetic field, which is best explained by a dynamo effect. This is the spinning motion of the liquid iron and nickel which generates the field. But something strange happened at the beginning of this year. The Earth's inner core stopped spinning.

• 55:52AJ Gentile?

  Now it's believed that the core started spinning again, but in a different direction. And nobody really knows what caused this, we can only guess. A few months later, it was determined that the Earth has an inner, inner core of solid iron about 400 miles wide. So new discoveries are always being made, and everything we know about the inner Earth is just educated guesses. Why couldn't the Earth be hollow? Or at least have enormous hollowed-out spaces that could support life? Now skeptics have argued that you can't have life inside the Earth. The main reason: there's no water. Well, when the Cola Super Deep borehole was being drilled, fossilized plankton were found miles below the surface. Still, those are fossils, maybe millions of years old. What about now?

• 56:37AJ Gentile?

  Well, in 2014, scientists discovered water hundreds of miles below the Earth's surface. Not just a little water. They found so much water, you can fill all the Earth's oceans with it. Three times.

• 56:56AJ Gentile?

  Most of the Earth's water is not on the surface, it's inside. This water exists between 250 and 410 miles under the surface in an area called a transition zone, a buffer layer that separates the upper from the lower mantle. Now if there's water down there, I wonder what else could be down there? Well, in 2019, geologists from Princeton University published a study that surprised everyone. They used supercomputers to analyze seismic data from some of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, including the 8.2 magnitude quake that hit Bolivia in 1994. Earthquakes that big reverberate through the entire planet. We may not feel them, but seismographs can detect them. Analysis showed that beneath the surface of the Earth

• 57:40AJ Gentile?

  are vast plains and mountains taller than the Himalayas, all deep within the Earth. How deep? 410 miles. The same depth as where the water is found, the transition zone. So what about the entrances at the poles? Well, pictures are hard to find, and they're allegedly all altered by NASA, which we know they do. But there are a few photos and videos out there of the poles that show something strange.

• 58:09AJ Gentile?

  These photos were taken by the SS7 satellite in 1968. In one photograph, the North Pole was covered by clouds. In another photograph, the same area had no clouds, revealing a massive hole where the pole would be.

• 58:24AJ Gentile?

  This was taken from the ISS in March of 2015. NASA says that's a typhoon. Fair enough. But in 1987, the Russian space station Mir recorded something at the North Pole that is definitely not a typhoon. What is this?

• 58:50AJ Gentile?

  The Hollow Earth theory has been around for centuries. At one point in history, it was the mainstream scientific view. But is there really evidence to support the Hollow Earth theory? Well, yes and no. Modern Hollow Earth theory always starts with Edmund Halley. He's a famous astronomer, which gives the theory some legitimacy. Halley put forth the idea because he couldn't explain why magnetic poles were moving. He figured there were shells inside the Earth that moved independently of each other. And he was almost right. During Halley's time, it wasn't yet known that the Earth's core spins, which creates the magnetic field. But he was correct that sections of the inner Earth can move independently of each other, including the core, as we only recently discovered. Mathematician Leonard Euler

• 59:35AJ Gentile?

  gets credit for pushing the Hollow Earth theory in the 18th century. Now, I'm not sure how he became attached to the theory. There's no evidence he ever said anything about it. And the concept of Agartha as a legendary subterranean world was first mentioned in the late 19th century. French occultist and esoteric writer Alexandre Santive introduced the idea in a book he published in 1885. And according to his writing, Agartha was a place of ancient wisdom and spiritual enlightenment. But he never found actual hard evidence that it was a real place. He actually never looked. The idea caught on with other occultists and theosophists like Madame Blavatsky. But the only evidence they provide of the Hollow Earth comes from visions and telepathic communication. And I'll leave it to you. To determine if that's proof enough.

• 1:00:21AJ Gentile?

  Most modern Hollow Earth myths come from the Jules Verne novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. When this story was published in 1864, it was a phenomenon and made Jules Verne one of the most famous authors in the world. Before there were blockbuster films, there was Jules Verne. Now Admiral Byrd's diary describes how he flew into the Hollow Earth and had a meeting with an advanced race of beings who warned him about war and nuclear weapons. And this is a common theme in science fiction in the 1950s and 1960s. Admiral Byrd's story is basically the same plot as The Day the Earth Stood Still, it just takes place in Agartha. I covered Admiral Byrd's diary in the other episode. I also explain whether the diary is real or not. Spoiler alert, it's not.

• 1:01:06AJ Gentile?

  Now, the water found inside the Earth is real. And when the discovery was made, we were clickbaited into thinking there are these vast oceans inside the Earth. And there may be, but that's not what this discovery showed. There is a massive amount of water in the Earth's mantle, but it's trapped inside rocks and minerals.

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  Ooh, a rock can hold water?

• 1:01:25AJ Gentile?

  Yep, lots of it. It's a process called mineral hydration. It's a good way to lock water in in a dry environment. For example, the surface of the moon is covered in water. The water is just embedded in the lunar soil. So the water inside the Earth is real, just not in a way that's obvious. And the mountains inside the Earth are also real, but also not how we might think. Again, we were clickbaited into thinking there are huge, open spaces underground with mountain ranges. And you can't help but picture scenes from Godzilla vs. Kong.

• 1:02:00AJ Gentile?

  But that's not what they found. There are mountains of material that are denser than the material around them. It's still solid-ish material, just of different densities. The NASA video is a typhoon. And the video taken from Mir was a hoax, but you probably knew that. Now, it's true, there aren't a lot of satellite pictures of the poles. And there is a lot of speculation about this. The truth is, there aren't a lot of satellites there. It's not worth taking a lot of photographs of the poles because not much changes. And photos that are almost pure white are hard to analyze. Now, there are a couple of satellites in polar orbit that measure how much the ice caps are melting.

• 1:02:37Speaker 03

  They're not.

• 1:02:38AJ Gentile?

  Well... A few years ago, you can maybe make that argument, but NASA reports that Antarctica is losing around 150 billion tons of ice per year.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, but when does NASA ever tell the truth, eh?

• 1:02:50AJ Gentile?

  Now, that's a fair point. But just last week, it was reported that Antarctica is experiencing a Six Sigma event, which happens every seven and a half million years.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  Oh, this sounds bad.

• 1:03:02AJ Gentile?

  Well, it ain't good, but assuming we're not all underwater, I'll get into that in a future episode. As for things I can explain, there are witness reports of UFOs flying into Mount Shasta. No video that I can find, but multiple witnesses have seen this, and I think they're probably telling the truth. UFOs are coming out of the ocean. We've all seen video of that. And if the aliens landed tomorrow and held a press conference, where they said, "We're not from another planet, but we're from inside this planet", well, that would make sense to me. Scientifically speaking, that's more plausible than creating wormholes and bending spacetime to travel through space. But until the aliens announce themselves, or until our government starts telling the truth, we're just not gonna know for sure. And there are many, many interesting stories about the hollow Earth,

• 1:03:47AJ Gentile?

  and there's no way to cover them in one episode, so keep an eye out for more on this topic. Now, it's true, we can't prove the Earth is hollow. It's also true, we can't prove it's not. If you follow this channel, you know I try to find as much truth in these mysteries as I can. But the real truth is, some mysteries just can't be solved. And those are my favorite.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  And lucrative buyout offers. I know that. He was offered money to sell. I think The Y Files did an episode on this.

• 1:04:19Speaker 05

  If you haven't subscribed to The Y Files yet, please do so. The best nighttime viewing and listening on YouTube. I am obsessed with this show on YouTube. It's called The Y Files. If you're not following The Y Files on YouTube, you are missing out. AJ over there is such a cool guy.

• 1:04:35AJ Gentile?

  This is such thought-provoking videos. This is my favorite YouTuber. Now we'll go back to one of my favorite episodes.

• 1:04:43AJ Gentile?

  What in the world happened?

• 1:04:45Speaker 03

  Magnificent growth rates. 300% increase in 30 minutes. Ah, I've been taking meticulous notes.

• 1:04:51AJ Gentile?

  Uh, what's wrong with your camera?

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  I had a slight malfunction, but everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now. Thank you. Uh, how are you?

• 1:05:02AJ Gentile?

  Uh, that thing is almost touching you.

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  Oh, it's just showing affection. Uh, like dirty after too many fermented apples.

• 1:05:10AJ Gentile?

  You just glitched again. Are you sure you're...

• 1:05:12Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm seeing a big opportunity here. Blow up this seed shipped right to your door. Uh, we need to get in before big nursery catches on.

• 1:05:20AJ Gentile?

  Uh, I'm not so sure it's legal to ship, uh, alien plants.

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  Oh, baby floor up this needs more huts. Gotta go.

• 1:05:30AJ Gentile?

  Okay, I completely lost my place. Oh, next episode is one of my favorites. It's about liminal spaces, AKA the back rooms.

• 1:05:41AJ Gentile?

  In the past year or so, three internet mysteries popped up that really got my attention. They may seem very different, but trust me, they're connected. The first one is about a girl who found a door in the basement of her Airbnb. She opened it, and inside there was an abandoned shopping mall. The second story is about Javier, who woke up in a hospital in the year 2027 in an alternate universe. In his version of the future, everyone on Earth has vanished. He's the only one left, and he has the video to prove it. The third mystery is known as the back rooms. A reality adjacent to ours that, if the conditions are just right, you could accidentally fall into. Then you find yourself lost in an endless maze of dingy carpet, fluorescent light, and yellow wallpaper, and around every corner...

• 1:06:33AJ Gentile?

  An abandoned mall, a deserted world, a maze in another dimension. What do these have in common?

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  Uh, terrible places to have a vacation. Um, uh, good places to hide a body.

• 1:06:45AJ Gentile?

  What are you doing?

• 1:06:46Speaker 03

  Hello, you asked what those places have in common? I'm answering your question.

• 1:06:52AJ Gentile?

  I was being rhetorical, I'm trying to build drama and suspense.

• 1:06:55Speaker 03

  Oh, well, you're on the wrong channel, buddy boy.

• 1:06:58AJ Gentile?

  What these locations have in common is liminality. Or more specifically, they're liminal spaces. A liminal space is defined as a place of transition, a threshold between two distinctly different points, signaling the end of one and the beginning of another. Liminal spaces do exist as physical locations, but they can also be an emotional experience. They occur during periods of uncertainty and major life changes. Events like a divorce or breakup, the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, moving to a new city, ending or starting a new career. All of these create liminality in our mind, meaning our life before this event is over and a new period of life is about to begin. Liminality is the unease and apprehension

• 1:07:42AJ Gentile?

  we feel during this transition. Liminal spaces in the real world are a bit more difficult to define, but you know one when you see one. Think of an airport in the middle of the night, school during summer break, a house just after someone moves out, or in this case, an accidentally discovered abandoned shopping mall.

• 1:08:23AJ Gentile?

  You can tell by the video that she's having fun, but she's also a little uncomfortable. She's experiencing the anxiety of a liminal space. Now, while not all liminal spaces are so unsettling, the type of space currently coursing through the internet will have a few common features. They'll feel both... Familiar and strange. If you browse through photos on the liminal space subreddit, you'll come across many locations that you could swear you've been to, evoking a strange feeling of nostalgia for a place you've never been. Another common trait is that places are out of context, like a waiting room with one chair, a plane with no seats, a flooded metro station, or a submerged staircase. Have you ever watched a video of the Titanic on the bottom of the ocean?

• 1:09:06AJ Gentile?

  When you see the staircases and furniture completely underwater, this evokes liminality. This out-of-context imagery triggers anxiety similar to uncanny valley, the feeling that something is just not right. Liminal spaces are often places you might have visited as a child. Roller rinks are commonly thought of as liminal. Bowling alleys, arcades, or an empty Chuck E. Cheese.

• 1:09:30Speaker 03

  The only thing scarier than an empty Chuck E. Cheese is a crowded Chuck E. Cheese.

• 1:09:43AJ Gentile?

  You got that right. But something you'll notice about all these places, they're empty. And that seems to be the most unsettling aspect of all. These spaces are transitional because they're in-between places, not meant for anyone to stay very long. But they're still meant for people. Yet these sit empty, waiting to fulfill their use, waiting for people, people that in some cases, never arrive. Now, all of us, from time to time, stumble into a liminal space: a supermarket in the middle of the night, an empty office, an amusement park off-season. But what if you woke up one day, and the entire world was deserted, and every space was a liminal space?

• 1:10:34AJ Gentile?

  TikTok has no shortage of "time travel" accounts. Some are entertaining, but they're mostly just goofy. But one account stands out from the rest. Javier, a Spanish creator, whose account is "Unico Sobreviviente", which means-

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  Lonely survivor.

• 1:10:51AJ Gentile?

  Oh, you speak Spanish now?

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  Entiendo algunas palabras.

• 1:10:54AJ Gentile?

  Well, this account-

• 1:10:55Speaker 03

  No diría que soy un experto.

• 1:10:57AJ Gentile?

  Okay, I get it. Do you mind if I-

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  No hay problema, amigo.

• 1:11:00AJ Gentile?

  Well, this account is unique because he posts actual videos of deserted department stores, supermarkets, even entire football stadiums. Javier woke up in a hospital in Valencia on February 13th, 2027, and claims to be in an alternative universe. Apparently, at some point in the near future, every human on Earth just disappears. He said that when he woke up, he couldn't remember his name or where he lived. He went outside and everyone was just gone. Everything appeared just like 2021, but electronic devices showed 2027. Those videos are fascinating, and I'll link to his account down below. And when you're watching, remember that Valencia has a population of over 800,000 people, and the surrounding area has almost 2 million people.

• 1:11:48AJ Gentile?

  And despite Valencia being a big city, there are no people in these videos. He goes to random apartments.

• 1:12:03AJ Gentile?

  He crashes at exclusive hotels.

• 1:12:19AJ Gentile?

  He accepts challenges to go to places that most people can't go: fire and police departments.

• 1:12:28AJ Gentile?

  He even steals a few police cars.

• 1:12:34AJ Gentile?

  He goes to a military base.

• 1:12:38AJ Gentile?

  Some skeptics claim he's recording all this early in the morning. He responds by recording himself walking by public signs with the time on them.

• 1:12:48AJ Gentile?

  And there aren't many TikTokers who can reprogram a public digital sign. He's challenged to go to a hospital, not an old deserted one, an actual modern hospital. And he does it.

• 1:13:01AJ Gentile?

  Muchos de los lugares que visita tiene horas de descanso, pero los hospitales están llenos de personas 24/7, pero no estos. Javier también afirma que nuestros dos mundos están conectados. Él es capaz de interactuar con objetos en su mundo, lo que afecta a objetos aquí. Por ejemplo, una televisión española desafió a Javier al dejar un libro oculto en su escena y le dijeron que lo encontrara y lo moviera. Lo hizo.

• 1:13:24Speaker 07

  Te reto a que vengas aquí, al Hormiguero. Aquí siempre hay gente trabajando a todas las horas, desde por la mañana hasta por la noche. Tenemos seguridad 24 horas, así que es imposible que nadie pueda entrar. Mi reto es el siguiente: voy a colocar mi libro. ¡Oh, Dios mío! Mira, voy a meter el libro aquí, lo escondo, y tú vienes y lo coges, ¿vale? Aquí viene. Mira, ¿ves? ¡Pum! Ahí está. A ver si eres tan listo, lo consigues encontrar aquí en el Hormiguero y veré lo enseñas.

• 1:13:50AJ Gentile?

  Y cuando el estudio regresó a ver el footage de seguridad, pudiste ver la puerta abrir y cerrar. Y solo por un momento, ves algún tipo de figura flash by.

• 1:13:59Speaker 07

  Mira, mira, mira.

• 1:14:02Speaker 07

  Es que te lo digo que lo vas a flipar. Mira, mira, mira, mira, mira. ¡Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, míralo!

• 1:14:10Speaker 07

  ¡Míralo! ¡Mira eso! No, no, no, no. ¡Míralo, míralo! Te lo dije, te lo dije, mira. Viernes 13, viernes 21 a las 13:21.

• 1:14:21AJ Gentile?

  Sería terribilmente aterrador despertar solo en el mundo, donde cada lugar que visita es un espacio limital diferente. Pero peor que eso, estar despertado en un solo espacio limital que va por siempre. Y ese lugar tiene un nombre: "Laseticas".

• 1:14:43AJ Gentile?

  "Laseticas" es un misterio de Internet que comenzó, como muchos misterios de Internet hacen, en 4chan. Alguien pidió a miembros que entregasen imágenes desquietantes que solo se sienten off. Un usuario anónimo publicó este fotógrafo. Todos los que vieron la imagen concordaron. Fue extrañamente familiar pero incómodo, aunque nadie podía explicar por qué. Finalmente, un comentario de seguimiento lo describió: Si no estás cuidadoso y no te clipes fuera de la realidad en las áreas equivocadas, terminarás en laseticas, donde no hay nada.

• 1:15:12Speaker 05

  Nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights, and maximum hum buzz. And approximately 600 million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  Uh, no-clip?

• 1:15:34AJ Gentile?

  Well, no-clip is a video game term. When two objects overlap, that's clipping. No-clipping means crossing boundaries in a game that you're not supposed to cross, and ending up in areas not meant for the player. The Backrooms theory says it's possible to no-clip into a different reality adjacent to ours, a reality you're not meant to ever see. Remember, liminal spaces are transitional. You're not supposed to stay there very long. You instinctively want to get out, to move on. The Backrooms are unnerving because you can't. It's an endless liminal space with no escape. Something about the Backrooms connected with people, and an entire culture was organically developed around the concept. Completely community-driven,

• 1:16:15AJ Gentile?

  the Backrooms has become crowdsourced IP with its own canon and lore. And there are now hundreds of levels of Backrooms, each with their own stories, their own rules. Inhabitants, objects, even hazards. Fans can contribute to the lore through a few different wikis completely dedicated to the Backrooms. Still, the Backrooms lived in dark corners of the internet. What brought the concept to the mainstream was a series of short videos by a creator named Kane Parsons. Using an ingenious combination of live-action and 3D animation wrapped in a low-tech package, these videos give us a glimpse of what being trapped in the Backrooms would feel like. The videos also prove that liminal spaces are not a fringe theory. Millions of people have watched these.

• 1:16:59AJ Gentile?

  Clearly, the concept of liminality is universal. The video series begins with a group of kids shooting what looks like a student film in 1996. The camera operator suddenly no-clips through the ground and falls into the Backrooms. A little more, a little more. You got it? Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:25AJ Gentile?

  Hello? It doesn't take long for us to realize that we're not alone in the back rooms. There's some entity aware of us and seems to follow us through the maze of empty, yellow office space. Hello?

• 1:17:40AJ Gentile?

  Some moments are definitely scary, but even when not being outright terrifying, the entire series is unsettling. As you, through the eyes of the lost cameraman, explore the back rooms, you have a sense that you've been here before. I certainly have. There are certain angles and ways the walls are arranged that remind me of offices that I've worked at at different points in my life. I've worked jobs where the only light was overhead bulbs, and the only time you'd see the sun or the sky was if you were lucky enough to run out for lunch. That was my job last year, actually. For anyone who's worked in an office like this, there's a feeling of claustrophobia, of being trapped like a prisoner, where time seems to slow down and hours feel like they last for days. Unfortunately for people trapped in the back rooms,

• 1:18:24AJ Gentile?

  time doesn't exist at all. There is no past and no future, so no brief respite for lunch, no exhilaration at the end of a long, boring day. The only time is the present, and like the space itself, the present is infinite. Eventually, our hero discovers graffiti on a wall which tells him to stay still. That turns out to be a terrible idea.

• 1:18:48AJ Gentile?

  After fleeing from the entity, we're taken to various locations, which are essentially recreations of common photos of liminal spaces: the empty apartment, the deserted quad. And Kane's short film then builds on tried-and-true horror movie tropes like Pursuit, Claustrophobia, Disorientation, and of course, The Jump Scare.

• 1:19:15AJ Gentile?

  Kane's subsequent videos build on the lore of the Backrooms. The tone shifts from "jumpscare horror" into more of a dystopian sci-fi thriller. It seems that there are ruptures in our world that allow people to accidentally pass into the Backrooms. This explains why the number of missing people is on the rise. Eventually, a corporation creates a prototype machine to access the Backrooms. And this is hailed as a world-saving technology. Because the Backrooms are so large, hundreds of millions of square miles, they can be used for storage, housing, even transport. Now, of course, things go wrong along the way. We have researchers trying to map the Backrooms, getting lost, and falling into different levels, and all kinds of chaos.

• 1:20:00AJ Gentile?

  Oh my god.

• 1:20:01Speaker 04

  Everything okay?

• 1:20:04AJ Gentile?

  Uh, Marvin, get the camera over here.

• 1:20:07Speaker 04

  Across?

• 1:20:08AJ Gentile?

  Okay, just heard you.

• 1:20:10Speaker 04

  Okay. Can you watch it? Whoa!

• 1:20:21AJ Gentile?

  Marvin, do you copy? The series is still ongoing, so subscribe to Kane Pixels if you want to see what happens next. But you don't have to wait for Kane. Other creators have picked up the mantle and attempted to continue the story.

• 1:21:05AJ Gentile?

  Hello? Can you help me get down? There's something up here. Please! Stay right where you are. Stay right where you are. We're gonna try and get you down. To me, all these versions are equally interesting and unsettling. The Backrooms concept has spawned other media as well. A viral TikTok shows someone using Google Earth. To zoom in on a location in Japan. As they move inside the building, we see the familiar wallpaper, carpet, fluorescent lights, and this time, different objects and entities. Indie developers are publishing video games based on the backrooms and liminal spaces. Animoyopolis is one that looks interesting. It combines the uncanny liminal space concept with classic first-person horror and puzzle-solving elements. Liminality may seem like the cool new thing,

• 1:21:50AJ Gentile?

  and it's no coincidence that its popularity surged during COVID lockdowns when everyone was feeling isolated. But the concept has been around a long time. The phrase was created by Arnold van Genep in his book Rites of Passage, released in 1908. And Genep was more focused on life experiences, like transitioning from childhood to adulthood, graduating high school, or moving to a new city. And this concept of an in-between place, whether physical or emotional, has been explored in media and pop culture for years. Rod Serling famously said:

• 1:22:21Speaker 07

  It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge.

• 1:22:32AJ Gentile?

  The Shining is an entire movie based around the idea of liminality. The abandoned hotel, spooky hallways that go on forever, and you never know what lurks around each corner.

• 1:22:47AJ Gentile?

  Horror movies like It Follows and Silent Hill also use liminal spaces to amp up the creepiness. And recently, the Apple TV sci-fi thriller Severance uses liminal spaces as a backdrop for the entire series. The large, empty spaces, hallways that create such a confusing maze that you have to draw maps to find your way around. And the dual-reality concept of Severance is similar to the backrooms. You have one reality where you live your life as you normally would, but when you get to work, you are severed from this reality and transitioned to a new reality, a reality comprised completely of liminality. And you can't have a post-apocalyptic story without liminality, that feeling of being the last person on Earth, walking through spaces once teeming with life,

• 1:23:32AJ Gentile?

  now left abandoned and forgotten. The human brain is not wired for this kind of isolation, which is why these tropes are so effective. And speaking of the apocalypse, let's circle back to our two other mysteries and see if we can figure out what's really going on.

• 1:23:48AJ Gentile?

  Javier, the lonely survivor in Spain.

• 1:23:54AJ Gentile?

  He has a very interesting and compelling TikTok account. And people are constantly trying to debunk him. Some say his hands look different in each video, implying that he's actually a team. And there may be something to that. You have to dig really deep, but it turns out that Javier is working with the city of Valencia on a media project called "The Lonely Survivor", which is why he has access to all these places and why he's able to clear out entire stadiums, busy streets, even sections of hospitals. So it's not some future reality, it's just a TV production team with filming permits. Now Javier won't admit his account is just a project, and I don't blame him. It's fun to maintain an air of mystery. But if you watch enough of his videos, you realize it would be so easy for him to prove

• 1:24:37AJ Gentile?

  that he's in a different reality or in the future. He could show the dates on tombstones. He could time lapse an entire weekend at a typically busy airport or just fly his drone around the city at rush hour. He never does this. His environments are highly controlled. But still, the videos are fun. And the young lady who discovered an abandoned mall in the basement of her Airbnb? The video has a supernatural feel to it, but it's really not that strange. Her Airbnb is actually a hotel that shares a building with the Ocean Walk Mall in Hollywood Beach, Florida. Now, Ocean Walk is what's called a dead mall, though a better name for a dead mall is probably a zombie mall. It's a shopping mall that nobody really goes to anymore, but it's still open and somewhat functioning.

• 1:25:20AJ Gentile?

  And dead malls are everywhere, all over the country. And it's not hard to understand why malls are dying. Well, pretty much, online shopping and the online economy. But when I was a kid, you bought your groceries at the supermarket and you bought everything else at the mall: clothes, electronics, sporting goods, toys, everything. And in many suburban towns, like the ones I grew up in, the mall was a community social center. Families would spend all day there. You'd shop, eat, shop and eat some more, all day. And as a teenager, we'd hang out at the mall. We'd go around lunchtime, we'd see a movie, lurk in the arcade. And talk to girls.

• 1:25:58Speaker 03

  You would talk to girls.

• 1:26:00AJ Gentile?

  Well, I wanted to, but I wasn't very good at it.

• 1:26:02Speaker 03

  Checks out.

• 1:26:03AJ Gentile?

  Well, high school and college kids from the area often work at these shops. In fact, this is the mall that we went to when I was a kid and worked at all through high school and college. Back in those days, the mall was always packed.

• 1:26:15Speaker 03

  When was that, the 1950s?

• 1:26:18AJ Gentile?

  Not that long ago, but close enough. But now look at it. That's not the mall I remember. There's a sadness to these spaces. There's nostalgia. There's the reminder that everything moves forward. Everything changes. What once was will never again be. These transitions and rites of passage are an important part of life. They show our courage, our resilience, our perseverance. They make us who we are. But whether a location in the world or a transitional moment in our lives, every limited space has the same point: to find your way out.

• 1:26:56AJ Gentile?

  Now, if you thought that was creepy, you're not going to be ready for the next one. This, I really like this episode. This is, I think this is one of the first ones that Freckles, AKA Nathan, helped edit. This is, um, yeah, he's good at creepy, all my guys are good at horror creepy stuff. So that's why those episodes look really good. Uh, this is number 145. Have you ever dreamed this man?

• 1:27:23AJ Gentile?

  For thousands of years, we've pondered the meaning of dreams. Dreams offer insight into our subconscious. Dreams help us process emotions and organize our memories. Most of us live our waking lives giving a sort of performance. Whether through dishonesty, embarrassment, or simply by being polite, there are thoughts we do not share. But while you sleep, your inhibitions disappear, and you're left with the raw unforgiving truth, the real you. But dreams can be more than that. Some claim dreams are the realm between ours and the spirit world. Some dreams can predict the future. Studies have shown that dreams can be shared between people. Lucid dreaming is when you, not your dreaming self, your conscious self, controls the dream.

• 1:28:07AJ Gentile?

  You are literally a god. The universe is your playground. It's exhilarating and powerful, but there is a dark side.

• 1:28:17AJ Gentile?

  What if, while lucid dreaming, you weren't in control of the dream, but someone else was? Well, that's no longer a dream. It's a nightmare. And it's no longer a playground. It's a prison. And every night, the lights go out. You close your eyes. And he is waiting for you.

• 1:28:42Speaker 06

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• 1:29:27Speaker 06

  Terms and conditions apply. Join for free at rakuten.com or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.

• 1:29:44Speaker 07

  Hello. I'm so glad to see you again.

• 1:29:49Speaker 07

  You remember me, don't you?

• 1:29:55AJ Gentile?

  In 2006, Jeannie, a woman living in New York, was at her weekly session with her psychiatrist, Dr. Brian Stone. Jeannie wanted to discuss a recurring dream she was having. Psychiatrists can often help a patient cope with stress by helping them unravel the meaning of a dream. And Jeannie found sharing her dreams comforting. She said each of her dreams were different, but they all had something in common. No matter what was actually happening in her dream, she was visited by a man. A man she didn't know. She called him "This Man." Now, most of the time, the man would just stand there, saying nothing. But once in a while, he would offer words of encouragement. He knew things about her that nobody knew. He'd tell her everything was gonna be alright,

• 1:30:39AJ Gentile?

  not to worry, and that he was her friend.

• 1:30:44AJ Gentile?

  Now recurring dreams are not unusual, but Jeannie found this one very unsettling. Dr. Stone asked her to sketch the man. Often confronting a dream, especially a nightmare, is a way to bring it out of the subconscious and deal with it rationally. Usually, the issue is resolved and the nightmares stop. Jeannie drew a man with a round face, short black hair and a receding hairline. He had prominent eyebrows, a small nose, and very thin lips. Jeannie's session ended, and Dr. Stone set the portrait on his cluttered desk where it lay forgotten for a few days. About a week later, a different patient had finished his session with Dr. Stone. As the man was leaving the office, he caught a glimpse of the drawing on the doctor's desk.

• 1:31:28AJ Gentile?

  He asked where he'd gotten the picture. Of course, Dr. Stone couldn't say, but he did ask why he wanted to know. The patient said, "Well, every night for the past few months, I've been dreaming of this man.

• 1:31:42AJ Gentile?

  He says he's my friend and that I should come with him." Well, Dr. Stone told him not to worry about it and they would discuss it next week.

• 1:31:48Speaker 03

  Oh, no service unless the meter's running, eh?

• 1:31:51AJ Gentile?

  I guess not.

• 1:31:52Speaker 03

  Frickin' shrinks.

• 1:31:55AJ Gentile?

  The patient left, but Dr. Stone was intrigued. So he scanned the image and emailed it to about a dozen psychiatrists and psychologists that he knew. No more than 90 seconds later, his phone rang.

• 1:32:12AJ Gentile?

  What are dreams and why do we have them? Well, short answer: nobody really knows for sure. There are theories that dreams serve many purposes.

• 1:32:23AJ Gentile?

  One is memory consolidation. Our brains are constantly absorbing stimuli. Dreaming is our brain sorting through all the data, throwing out what we don't need and filing away the good stuff. Dreams also help us prepare for real-life conflict. Now, as far as we know, all mammals dream, and all mammals have an amygdala. This is the part of the brain that processes emotion, especially fear.

• 1:32:48AJ Gentile?

  While sleeping, an animal's brain goes through various dangerous scenarios and prepares them to deal with these situations in real life. You've seen dogs twitch while they're sleeping. They're probably dreaming about chasing something or being chased. You've seen cats dream too.

• 1:33:03Speaker 03

  Oh, they're dreaming about how to escape the burlap sack they're in, along with a couple of bricks that's slowly sinking underwater.

• 1:33:10AJ Gentile?

  Um, no.

• 1:33:11Speaker 03

  Oh, right, that's my dream about cats.

• 1:33:13AJ Gentile?

  Uh, your brain is dark.

• 1:33:15Speaker 03

  Oh, you have no idea. You wouldn't last five minutes in here, pal.

• 1:33:18AJ Gentile?

  Well, I wouldn't want to be in there.

• 1:33:20Speaker 03

  Good, because you're not invited.

• 1:33:21AJ Gentile?

  Good.

• 1:33:22Speaker 03

  Fine.

• 1:33:22AJ Gentile?

  Do you always have to have the last word?

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:33:30AJ Gentile?

  Cats, dogs, horses, sheep, people. It's a dream all animals share: chasing something, or more often, being chased. Even birds, fish, reptiles. Every animal has an amygdala or something analogous to it. There's research that shows that dreams can be used for problem solving. Have you ever been stuck in a problem, gone to sleep, and woken up with the answer? I have. Now, nobody knows for sure how this works, but while we sleep, we know the primal parts of our brain are most active. The least active are parts of the brain like the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with logic and our sense of self. With our ego suppressed and logic suppressed, our brains are free to explore solutions to problems we might not have thought of while awake.

• 1:34:14AJ Gentile?

  All animals do this to some extent. There are even songbirds that practice their songs while they sleep, like they're working out the kinks before an actual performance.

• 1:34:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, like a sound check.

• 1:34:25AJ Gentile?

  Exactly like that.

• 1:34:28AJ Gentile?

  Sleep happens in stages. Stage one is light sleep, really just being drowsy. Even daydreaming is considered stage one sleep because even though you're technically awake, you're producing theta waves. Now, during stage two, you become less aware of your surroundings. Brain waves slow down, your heart rate slows, your body temperature drops. Stage three and four, your brain produces delta waves. During these stages, your body and brain do self-maintenance. And if you wake someone up during stage three or four, they're going to be very drowsy or very cranky.

• 1:35:03AJ Gentile?

  Finally, there's the REM stage.

• 1:35:07AJ Gentile?

  Random eye movement. This happens for the first time about ninety minutes after falling asleep. But you'll go through these phases multiple times a night. And you can dream during any one of them. But each time you go into REM sleep, your dreams become more vivid and more intense. You may not realize it, but most dreams are negative. They're full of anxiety. Our brains try and make us forget these dreams as quickly as possible, and that's a good thing. But this is the land of nightmares. And this is where people kept seeing this man.

• 1:35:44Speaker 07

  No, no, no, no, don't be afraid. I'm your friend, remember? Your friend. Now, now, I need you to listen very closely.

• 1:35:54Speaker 07

  You have to follow me.

• 1:35:58AJ Gentile?

  Dr. Stone's phone was ringing nonstop. His inbox was flooded. He was being contacted by psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, even priests. Dozens of people had reported seeing this man in their dreams.

• 1:36:14AJ Gentile?

  He looks exactly the same. And the story is always the same. He shows up every night. He rarely speaks. He wants something, and he wants you to go somewhere. Now, this had been going on for a couple of months. And although nobody was being threatened, people were terrified.

• 1:36:37AJ Gentile?

  Most found his features unnerving. His thin, emotionless smile. His empty stare.

• 1:36:43Speaker 03

  His unibrow.

• 1:36:44AJ Gentile?

  Unibrow bothers you, huh?

• 1:36:45Speaker 03

  Are you kidding? That thing is two weeks away from becoming a butterfly.

• 1:36:49AJ Gentile?

  Ugh.

• 1:36:50Speaker 03

  What, entomology jokes bug ya? (laughs)

• 1:36:59AJ Gentile?

  By the end of the week, Dr. Stone had documented eighty cases of people seeing this man in their dreams. It was too much of a coincidence. As Dr. Stone pondered, he received an email from a colleague in Berlin. The email contained a link to a website, thisman.org. On the site were reports of this man from all over the world. L.A., Tehran, Sao Paulo, Rome, Beijing, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Delhi, Moscow, really everywhere. People were putting up signs asking, "Have you dreamed this man?" And the answer around the world was yes. It seemed as if in every country and every culture around the world, this man was appearing

• 1:37:43AJ Gentile?

  in people's dreams. This man had been seen at least 2,000 times. Nobody knew who he was, but the theories covered everything. People of faith thought he was a religious figure, though whether he was good or evil, they didn't know. A more pragmatic theory said that because there were posters of him everywhere and his image was disturbing, people couldn't help but dream of him. Then there was the darkest theory, the one nobody wanted to talk about.

• 1:38:09Speaker 03

  I want to talk about it.

• 1:38:10AJ Gentile?

  Well, remember Project Stargate, where the CIA was using psychics for remote viewing locations around the world?

• 1:38:16Speaker 03

  I'll leave a link below.

• 1:38:17AJ Gentile?

  Thanks. The CIA had a sub-project within Stargate: lucid dreaming.

• 1:38:24Speaker 03

  Of course they did.

• 1:38:25AJ Gentile?

  They wanted to see if they could communicate with someone who was dreaming and potentially implant thoughts or images into the sleeping person's mind.

• 1:38:32Speaker 03

  Ah, this is the plot to the movie Inception, you know.

• 1:38:35AJ Gentile?

  I know, but Inception came out in 2010. This CIA project started 20 years earlier, in 1991. So now there are a few frightening questions. Did the CIA get this to work? Who is this man? And most importantly, what does he want? While these questions were being asked, the number of people reported seeing this man in their dreams was up to 8,000. So either this was a dream experiment gone completely out of control, or...

• 1:39:03Speaker 03

  Or...

• 1:39:04AJ Gentile?

  Or it was working perfectly.

• 1:39:11AJ Gentile?

  The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that some people had the ability to dream of the future, and there could be evidence of that. On April 11th, 1865, Abraham Lincoln entered the East Room of the White House. There was a coffin in the middle of the room. The president asked one of the guards, "What happened?" The guard said, "An assassin killed the president." Now that wasn't Lincoln's first dream about his death, but it was his last. He was killed four days later. Mark Twain had a dream about his brother in a metal coffin. Those were rare at the time.

• 1:39:42Speaker 03

  Brothers?

• 1:39:43AJ Gentile?

  Metal coffins.

• 1:39:44Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 1:39:46AJ Gentile?

  A few weeks later, his brother died and was buried in a metal coffin. Twenty passengers canceled their tickets for the Titanic after having dreams about the ship sinking, freezing water, and drowning. And whenever there's a disaster, you hear stories of coincidences, like "I was supposed to be on that boat, that plane, or that train that crashed." How many stories have you heard from New Yorkers who were supposed to be in or near the World Trade Center on 9/11, but something kept them away? My brother Gino and I had a meeting scheduled one block away from Ground Zero that morning, but for some reason, they canceled the meeting last minute. Now considering the time of day, those buildings should have been much more crowded, but they weren't.

• 1:40:29AJ Gentile?

  Lots of people stayed home or were running late that day. Now it's hard not to believe in the paranormal when you hear stories like this. JoJo Billingsley was a backup singer for Lynyrd Skynyrd.

• 1:40:39Speaker 03

  But if I stay here with you, human, things just couldn't be the same. Cause I'm as free as a fish now. And these fish you cannot change. Oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 1:41:01AJ Gentile?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 1:41:02Speaker 03

  Okay, okay. Sorry, Lord knows I can't change.

• 1:41:06AJ Gentile?

  Anyway, she dreamed the band was in a plane crash. They were due to fly the next day. She refused to get on the plane and begged the rest of the band to do the same. They ignored her. Later that day, the plane ran out of gas and crashed near Gillsburg, Mississippi. Out of the 26 people aboard, six were killed, and the other 20 almost were. The story's even creepier because the crash happened three days after they released the album Street Survivors. The album cover was later changed, but it was originally the band members surrounded by flames. Now, stories of dream precognition are anecdotal and should be viewed skeptically, but still, the stories can't be ignored. On October 19th, 1966, in Aberfan, a small mining village in South Wales,

• 1:41:51AJ Gentile?

  10-year-old Arumay Jones told her mother about her dream. She said, "I dreamt I went to school and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it." Two days later, the top of the mine collapsed and caused a landslide. 140,000 cubic yards of water, coal, and mud poured into the village and covered the school. 116 children and 28 adults were killed, including 10-year-old Arumay Jones. Psychiatrist John Barker heard about the young girl's prediction. Barker visited the site and learned that a number of people had dreams about the landslide before it happened. This led him to form the British Premonitions Bureau. He would document this and other events where dreams preceded them.

• 1:42:36AJ Gentile?

  Barker found two people who could predict events with remarkable accuracy. The first was Alan Hensher. Alan was from Aberfan and dreamed of the coal mine disaster. Alan called Barker in a frenzy one evening. He said he saw a plane crash over mountains. There were 124 people killed. Nine days later, a Britannia passenger aircraft carrying 130 people was flying in bad weather. It tried to land in Cyprus. Visibility was poor. It crashed into a high hill, broke into pieces, and caught fire. Seven people survived the crash, leaving-

• 1:43:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, 123, huh? So, uh, he was off by one. Not bad.

• 1:43:14AJ Gentile?

  Well, not exactly. Another passenger died soon after the crash.

• 1:43:18Speaker 03

  Okay, this is getting scary.

• 1:43:20AJ Gentile?

  Did I stop?

• 1:43:21Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 1:43:23AJ Gentile?

  Then Barker met Kathleen Middleton. In her first dream, she saw a petrified astronaut. That same day, a Russian astronaut-

• 1:43:30Speaker 03

  Cosmonaut.

• 1:43:32AJ Gentile?

  Cosmonaut, sorry.

• 1:43:33Speaker 03

  Nah, it's possible.

• 1:43:35AJ Gentile?

  That same day, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when the Soyuz-1 capsule crash landed. On March 11, 1968, Kathleen tried to reach Robert Kennedy to warn him that his life was in danger. The senator's staff didn't respond. On June 4, Kathleen called Barker three times in a panic. She needed someone to warn the senator. Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, RFK was assassinated by Sir Hans Sirhan. Barker didn't pass along the warning. John Barker wasn't sure if ESP or psychic powers or premonitions were real. He was open-minded, but in his words, "He wasn't sold." But when Alan Hensher and Kathleen Middleton both predicted his death,

• 1:44:19AJ Gentile?

  he admitted to being a little nervous.

• 1:44:21Speaker 03

  Don't tell me.

• 1:44:22AJ Gentile?

  Well, John Barker died within a year. Brain hemorrhage. He was only 42 years old.

• 1:44:27Speaker 03

  You told me.

• 1:44:34Speaker 07

  No, don't look away. Look at me. Look at me. You need to follow me. It's for your own safety. That's right. That's right. Come with me. Remember, our new friend.

• 1:44:50AJ Gentile?

  In 2015, the creator of the site thisman.org gave an interview to ICE. Andrea Nutella said he first dreamt of this man in the winter of 2008. The man asked him to create the website to try and discover his identity. Andrea used facial composite software, like a police sketch artist might use. He then sketched the man from his dreams. Round face, thick eyebrows, thin lips, thinning hair. An actual person that looked like this man was never identified.

• 1:45:20AJ Gentile?

  But Andrea received thousands of letters and emails from people who also saw him in their dreams.

• 1:45:27Speaker 07

  Starting when I was seven, I had the exact same dream for ten years. I'm seventeen now, and I have become very familiar with this man, although I do not have very nice dreams about him. I dreamed that he's leaning over me and making a strange noise, almost as if he was growling at me. And on his shirt is a gold round pendant that has molded into the gold "Go North." Other nights, he would be standing across my bedroom, staring at me. When I saw the pictures on this website, I started crying out of fear. He never spoke to me. He only made weird noises. September 2nd, 2013. Palm Beach, Australia.

• 1:46:08AJ Gentile?

  The behavior of this man varied from witness to witness. Some people had romantic fantasies about him.

• 1:46:14Speaker 03

  Ugh.

• 1:46:15AJ Gentile?

  Don't judge.

• 1:46:16Speaker 03

  Sorry, I don't mean to yuck your yum here, he just scares me.

• 1:46:19AJ Gentile?

  Yo, he scared a lot of people. Some people dreamt of this man scaring, chasing, kidnapping, and sometimes killing the dreamer.

• 1:46:28Speaker 07

  I dreamt of this man. He was following me through a park in the dead of night. I started running. He easily kept the same pace as me. He gave a small groan and sped up until he was in front of me. He put his hand out, stopping me from running. He pulled me close to him, but he only spoke a few words. I think about them every night. On April 9th, 2021, "Go North." It's the only way to survive. After saying this, the man ran away. I tried to catch up to him to ask more, but I couldn't keep up. March 7th, 2013, Utah.

• 1:47:01AJ Gentile?

  Some encounters with this man were vivid and violent.

• 1:47:06Speaker 07

  I dreamt of this man when I was in the 10th grade. A few feet away from me, there was a television set. Then this man showed up on the screen. I begged him not to harm me. He didn't change his blank expression or speak. He slipped.

• 1:47:19Speaker 03

  My throat. And I woke up. I see, that makes sense. He looks kinda stabby.

• 1:47:25AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, there's no question. Something about his appearance is unsettling. Now, most people reported him giving them cryptic life advice, though it was hard for the witnesses to be specific because this man rarely spoke. Even when he did speak, people had trouble describing his voice. Some said it was high pitched. Others said he had a deep voice. Many people said he sounded like multiple voices layered on top of each other.

• 1:47:52AJ Gentile?

  Despite the differences in the stories, there were some recurring themes in his messages. He would often tell dreamers to go north, or ask that they follow him somewhere if they want to survive.

• 1:48:04Speaker 06

  I dreamt of this man. A couple of years ago, I had to see a therapist because I was having reoccurring dreams about this middle-aged man who kept attacking me. He never said anything. I woke up soaking wet in sweat every night. I was put on triads ago to help me get through the nights. I also have a dream where someone is always telling me to go north. I got it tattooed on my ankle because I swore it meant something. I'm almost positive this man is the one who comes to see me in my dreams. January 9th, 2011, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

• 1:48:37AJ Gentile?

  As Andrea did more research, he found evidence of people dreaming of this man going back at least 30 years. And there is a theory that dreams are more than disjointed images, that dreams are glimpses into other realities. Andrea describes this man as a traveler stuck out of time, a place between dimensions. Now, maybe there's a reality where we all see this man. Maybe he's someone important, a spiritual figure, a leader, a god. Nobody knows. But now that you've seen a picture of this man, your brain can't help but look for him.

• 1:49:11Speaker 03

  Oh, great.

• 1:49:16AJ Gentile?

  Witnesses claim he knows who's looking for him. So don't be surprised if tonight you find him. Or rather, he finds you.

• 1:49:29AJ Gentile?

  The earliest records of dream interpretation come from ancient Mesopotamia. The famous Assyrian dream book in the library of King Ashurbanipal goes back to the 7th century B.C. In ancient Egypt, dreams were considered a direct means of communication with the gods. They wrote manuals of symbols and dream interpretations. Pharaohs even used dream priests to decipher their dreams to help them make political decisions. Sigmund Freud wrote a book called "The Interpretation of Dreams", which many consider the foundation of psychoanalysis. Freud introduced the idea that dreams are a window into the unconscious mind. He believed dreams were representations of our innermost desires. Many of Freud's theories were highly focused on sex.

• 1:50:14AJ Gentile?

  For example, if you dreamt about a door, a suitcase, and an unopened flower, these were female symbols. If you dreamt of a baseball bat, a stick, a sword, these were phallic symbols.

• 1:50:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

• 1:50:28AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 1:50:29Speaker 03

  But sometimes it's a penis.

• 1:50:30AJ Gentile?

  Okay.

• 1:50:31Speaker 03

  I'm not saying it, that horny old shrink said it.

• 1:50:33AJ Gentile?

  Well, he did. And for years Freud's theories were dismissed as manifestations of his own sexual repression. But there are universal dreams we all have that tend to reflect how we're feeling about what's happening in our daily lives. The most common dream humans have, like all mammals, is being chased. That's our amygdala at work, being pursued is our most primal fear. Dreaming about falling often means you're feeling out of control. I used to have a recurring dream about floods and giant waves and tsunamis. This dream happens when we're feeling overwhelmed, which I was at the time. Ever dream about your teeth falling out? I have that one too.

• 1:51:14Speaker 03

  Oh, that would be a nightmare. Look at my gorgeous chappers.

• 1:51:17AJ Gentile?

  It's hard not to look at those things.

• 1:51:21AJ Gentile?

  Well, teeth falling out can represent feeling insecure about your appearance, or the fear of aging and declining health. Being naked in public is also a common dream. This reflects your vulnerability. Some people will have this dream after lying. It's a fear of being exposed. I still have dreams of being unprepared for school, or late for an exam, or a dream where I'm lost. These dreams speak to life's uncertainties. You might have these dreams when you're at a crossroads before you make your life decision. Though most dreams are negative, not all of them are. Everyone's favorite dream is flying. This represents freedom, liberation, and empowerment. You might have this dream after leaving an abusive relationship, or getting a promotion at work.

• 1:52:06AJ Gentile?

  But there's no better dream than a lucid dream. This is where you're actually in control of the dream. Normally, you're just a participant in the dream. You don't really have free will. Whether a dream is good or bad, you just have to let it play out. This is because your prefrontal cortex is disengaged. Remember, this is where your sense of self comes from, your consciousness. When you lose a dream, you switch this part of your brain back on. Suddenly, your dream is whatever you want it to be. Want to travel to ancient Egypt? Just will it, and it will happen. Want to visit Mars or an alien planet in another galaxy? Just will it to happen. Want to be a professional baseball player, superhero, or maybe spend a little quality time with your favorite celebrity doing, well, whatever you want?

• 1:52:51AJ Gentile?

  Just will it to happen. If you've had a lucid dream by accident, you know how fun they are. But lucid dreaming is a skill that can be taught. And this is something I've learned, and I'm pretty sure I can teach you to do it too. So if that's something you'd like me to cover, or do some video on it somewhere, let me know. It's the most fun you'll ever have, I guarantee it.

• 1:53:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, but what about this man? What does he mean?

• 1:53:14AJ Gentile?

  Oh, this man? Well, that story takes a turn. When Vice published the article about this man in 2015, they had to publish a follow-up article later that day.

• 1:53:24Speaker 03

  What was the second article?

• 1:53:26AJ Gentile?

  An apology.

• 1:53:27Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 1:53:33AJ Gentile?

  On January 15th, 2015, Vice published an article about this man.

• 1:53:41AJ Gentile?

  A person seen by thousands of people in their dreams. Vice even interviewed Andrea Nutella, who created the website thisman.org. Later that day, Vice published a second article apologizing. Not only was this man a hoax, it was debunked years earlier.

• 1:53:57Speaker 03

  Oh, the media publish a story without fact-checking it first, eh?

• 1:54:01AJ Gentile?

  Yup.

• 1:54:02Speaker 03

  I thought journalism was about integrity, being a voice for the people and they're seeking the truth. Yeah, you better grab a bucket. I'm oozing sarcasm all over the place over here.

• 1:54:14AJ Gentile?

  The truth is Andrea Nutella, the creator of the This Man Myth, was an advertising executive. He specialized in guerrilla marketing.

• 1:54:22Speaker 03

  He used monkeys?

• 1:54:23AJ Gentile?

  Guerrilla marketing is usually low-cost, local viral marketing.

• 1:54:27Speaker 03

  Ah, that makes more sense. Monkeys are expensive.

• 1:54:29AJ Gentile?

  Do you mind you're distracting me?

• 1:54:31Speaker 03

  Sorry, I was confused by the homonym about the hominin'. Ah, you don't realize it, but that's the smartest joke I've ever made.

• 1:54:39AJ Gentile?

  You say so. Anyway, Nutella wanted to see if he could create an urban legend, and he did. He made up the origin story of the New York psychiatrist, then he built the website. On the site were flyers you can download and print. And people were encouraged to post flyers in their neighborhoods, and they did. Everywhere. Flyers turned up all over the world in 35 different languages. The website is still up and doesn't mention it's a hoax, though Nutella later admitted he made the whole thing up. He said the picture of this man is a sketch based on his father as a young man. Now, even though the story was debunked, when he was interviewed by Vice, Nutella couldn't help himself. He stuck to the story, and Vice fell for it.

• 1:55:19Speaker 03

  How do media's fallen for quite a few hoaxes the past few years, eh?

• 1:55:23AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, I've noticed. If this man is a hoax, what about the 8,000 people saying they saw him in their dreams? Were they lying? Well, probably not all of them. Suggestion is a powerful thing. And there's something about the image of this man that's haunting and memorable. And now that you've seen this video, there's a chance you'll encounter this man in your dreams. And if that happens, there's only one thing you can do: Go north. Sweet dreams.

• 1:55:58AJ Gentile?

  Jen still doesn't like to watch that one. But I like it. I like the creepy ones. I forget how he got his face to animate, but it's definitely unsettling.

• 1:56:11AJ Gentile?

  Hello? I can't hear you. What's going on?

• 1:56:16AJ Gentile?

  Okay, now something a little less nightmarish. This one is episode number 70, "The Children of Woolpit."

• 1:56:26AJ Gentile?

  In 12th century England, two children were found lost in a forest. They spoke only gibberish, wore strange clothing, and had bright green skin. When the children finally learned to speak English, they described where they were from. And that's why, after almost a thousand years, people still talk about the Green Children of Woolpit. In 1828, a teenage boy was shuffling through a public square in Nuremberg. He seemed confused and disoriented. He had trouble walking and speaking. When police finally approached him, he was holding an envelope containing two letters. And those letters sparked the mystery of Casper Hauser. In April 1922, in Brittany, France, two-year-old Pauline Picard went missing.

• 1:57:09AJ Gentile?

  A massive search turned up nothing. The family was losing hope. A month later, Pauline was found wandering around a village over 200 miles away. Knowing her parents were overjoyed to have her back, they soon realized something wasn't quite right about their daughter. These are three unsolved cases of the most mysterious children in history.

• 1:57:34Speaker 06

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• 1:58:05AJ Gentile?

  In the 12th century, Woolpit was a densely populated area in England's Suffolk County. One day, a local farmer discovered two frightened children, a boy and a girl, who seemed lost in the forest. As the farmer approached, he noticed a few unusual details about the children. They wore clothing of a style and color that had never been seen before. But what was most unsettling, the children had bright green skin.

• 1:58:29Speaker 03

  Martian's!

• 1:58:30AJ Gentile?

  I'm not even one minute into this thing yet.

• 1:58:33Speaker 03

  Hey, I can smell Martian babies a mile away.

• 1:58:36AJ Gentile?

  Can I just, can I just give you the information before you jump to a conclusion?

• 1:58:40Speaker 03

  Go ahead. I don't mind telling you I told you so.

• 1:58:43AJ Gentile?

  When the farmer tried to speak to the children, they couldn't understand him. They spoke only gibberish.

• 1:58:48Speaker 03

  Martian.

• 1:58:49AJ Gentile?

  The children were brought to the home of Sir Richard de Koon, a local wealthy landowner who agreed to take them in. And though the green children were clearly starving, they refused to eat.

• 1:58:58Speaker 03

  Oh, they didn't have any Martian food in the pantry?

• 1:59:01AJ Gentile?

  After eating nothing for several days, Sir Richard's cook brought in a bundle of beanstalks. And the children got excited at the sight of these, and ate green beans, and nothing but green beans, raw, for months. And gradually, Sir Richard introduced a greater variety of food into their diet, and their health improved. Even the green tint of their skin went away. The boy became depressed, ill, and soon passed away. But the girl stayed healthy and strong. Sir Richard and his family continued looking after the mysterious girl, and started to teach her English. Finally able to communicate, Sir Richard set out to unravel the mystery of the green children of Woolpit. When Sir Richard asked the girl who she was and where she was from, it didn't sound like any place on earth.

• 1:59:43Speaker 03

  Heh, I told you so!

• 1:59:48AJ Gentile?

  The young girl, who took the name Agnes, learned to speak English and told Sir Richard her story. The young boy traveling with her was her brother. They were looking after their father's flock when they found a cave. And that's when they heard the sound of bells, which Agnes described as the most beautiful and unusual sound she'd ever heard. They followed the sound of the bells through the cavern. When they exited the other side, Agnes said they felt transported to another world that was nothing like their own. Agnes said she came from an underground village called Saint Martin's Land.

• 2:00:19Speaker 03

  Saint Martian's Land?

• 2:00:20AJ Gentile?

  Saint Martins. She said all the inhabitants of St. Martin's Land lived underground and had green skin. Above ground, the land existed in perpetual twilight. Though lacking strong daylight, the landscape in her world was lush and green. And there have been a few theories as to where the children came from. The villagers thought they were from a fairyland. Entrances to fairyland were often in densely wooded areas, so many of the villagers truly believed this theory. Another, more modern theory is that the children somehow slipped into an alternate universe, where the world on their side has a much different climate than ours. This explains the strange clothes, the strange language, and the difficulty eating our food. And the most current theory is...

• 2:01:03Speaker 03

  Aliens.

• 2:01:03AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 2:01:04Speaker 03

  Obviously aliens.

• 2:01:06AJ Gentile?

  Yes, that is one of the more popular theories. Agnes was able to adapt to life on Earth, but her brother couldn't. Even though the story of the Children of Woolpit is considered folklore, we do have details about them from credible sources. Ralph of Cogashall interviewed Sir Richard himself, and he wrote long passages about the green children. How they were tending their flock, heard the bells, and wandered into a cavern. And when they emerged, they were struck by the brightness of the sun and the warmth of the air. When they heard the villagers coming toward them, they tried to flee, but they couldn't find the entrance to the cave. Another source is historian William of Newburgh. And though he lived on the opposite side of the country, his telling is remarkably similar to Ralph's. Now Ralph's writing style is colorful and exaggerated.

• 2:01:51AJ Gentile?

  He includes stories of pirates and zombies, so he highlights the supernatural elements of the legend. But William of Newburgh's writing is more grounded. William wrote like a journalist, just the facts, no flair.

• 2:02:03Speaker 03

  Oh, so you have to go back a thousand years to find journalists who actually report facts, huh?

• 2:02:08AJ Gentile?

  It would seem so. The stories differ on what happened to Agnes later in life. In one account, she stays in the service of Sir Richard for many years. In another version of the story, she marries an English diplomat. Now unsurprisingly, every time the story is told, details are changed and added. But the original works by Ralph of Cogashall and William of Newburgh are considered the most reliable.

• 2:02:31Speaker 03

  So, no debunking?

• 2:02:33AJ Gentile?

  Well, maybe. I'm gonna give you as many facts as I can, but remember, these three cases are technically still unsolved.

• 2:02:43AJ Gentile?

  On May 26, 1828, in what is now Nuremberg, Germany, a teenage boy was shuffling around town. He walked like a toddler and was mumbling nonsense. When police finally approached him, the picture didn't add up. The boy was dressed like he'd been living on the street. His shoes were so worn that he had trouble walking. But he also had an expensive silk handkerchief with the initials KH embroidered on it. And he wore an expensive silk necktie.

• 2:03:09Speaker 03

  Necktie? That looks more like an ascot.

• 2:03:13AJ Gentile?

  What's an ascot?

• 2:03:14Speaker 03

  Two cheeks in a hole. Yeah, you like that, eh?

• 2:03:21AJ Gentile?

  At first, the boy didn't say much to the police.

• 2:03:24Speaker 03

  Smart kid.

• 2:03:24AJ Gentile?

  But he carried an envelope containing two letters. The first was addressed to a cavalry captain. The letter said the author was not related to the boy, though he had raised him as a son. The letter also said that since the day he was born, he had never left the house, so that nobody would know where he was from. The letter went on to say that the boy could read and write, and wanted to be a horseman like his father. So the captain could take him on or hang him, whichever he wished. The letter ended rather ominously, with the author saying he had to send the boy to Nuremberg alone, that if he went with him, it would have cost him his life. At the police station, the boy wrote down his name: Casper Hauser. Observers noticed that despite being 16 years old, he behaved like a young child. He walked like a toddler taking his first steps.

• 2:04:09AJ Gentile?

  And when someone spoke to him, he would usually just speak the same words back. And despite his weird behavior, people soon realized that Casper Hauser had normal intelligence. And once he calmed down, he was able to talk about where he was from and how he arrived in the city. Hauser said he had spent his entire life alone in a cell. He was fed nothing but bread and water. He was provided with a blanket and a couple of wooden toys. He had never seen his captor. Even while walking to Nuremberg, he was told to look down. He only knew the sound of the man's voice. With nowhere to go, the local schoolmaster, George Dahmer, agreed to take Hauser in and continue teaching him. Hauser certainly acted like he was confined his whole life. The first time he saw a mirror, he looked behind it. trying to find the other boy.

• 2:04:53AJ Gentile?

  When someone brought him a candle, he burned himself trying to touch the flame. And even though he could eat anything he wanted, the only food that didn't repulse him was bread and water. As his communication skills improved, Hauser gave more details about his life. He spoke of a recurring dream he had, where he was in an enormous castle. He saw a tall man with a sword, dressed all in black, and a woman wearing an elegant dress. He wondered if this was actually a memory. Over time, Casper Hauser became a local celebrity. A favorite pastime for people in the city of Nuremberg was to try and figure out the true origin of the mysterious boy. Some people thought he was just a con man, addicted to the attention that he was receiving.

• 2:05:34AJ Gentile?

  But there was a rumor going around that he was a lost prince, possibly the son of Grand Duke Karl von Baden and his wife Stephanie de Bornay. But whether Hauser's story was a lie or the truth, eventually his past would catch up with him.

• 2:05:52AJ Gentile?

  One day in 1829, Hauser was found in the basement bleeding from a head wound. Hauser claimed his attacker was his captor, the man that had brought him to Nuremberg. The man wore a hood, but he recognized the voice that had said,

• 2:06:04Speaker 05

  You still have to die ere you leave the city of Nuremberg.

• 2:06:08AJ Gentile?

  Another incident happened a few months later, when Hauser was living with a different family. Hauser was shot by an attacker who he didn't see. But he later said he was climbing on a chair to reach a book on a high shelf. He accidentally knocked a gun off the wall when it just went off. And Hauser started bouncing from home to home, and everyone who took him in said the same thing: He seems like a gentle boy, but he's a liar. In 1833, Casper Hauser was staying with yet another family. On December 14th, he burst through the doors of his home with a massive wound in his chest. Blood was everywhere. He claimed he met a stranger in a park who had given him a purse, stabbed him, and ran off. He said the purse was still there. And by now, everyone was suspicious of how Hauser became injured.

• 2:06:53AJ Gentile?

  Reluctantly, police went to the scene, and sure enough, there was a small purse. And in the purse, there was a note, written in reverse handwriting.

• 2:07:02Speaker 05

  Hauser will be able to tell you quite precisely how I look and from where I am. To save Hauser the effort, I want to tell you myself from where I come. Dash, dash. I come from dash, dash, dash. The Bavarian border, dash, dash. On the river, dash, dash, dash, dash, dash. I will even tell you the name: MLO.

• 2:07:22Speaker 03

  Not very helpful.

• 2:07:23AJ Gentile?

  It's not. And there were a few suspicious details about this attack. It was snowing that day, but there were only one set of footprints found: Hauser's. And the letter was folded corner to corner, which is an unusual way to fold a letter. But Hauser was known for doing this. The letter also contained grammatical errors that Hauser was known to make. It was thought that Hauser attacked himself again but thrust the knife in too far. He died of his wound three days later. Even after his death, people tried to unravel the mystery of Casper Hauser. Some thought that Casper Hauser was actually the Prince of Baden, who was born in 1812. It was alleged that he had been switched with a dying infant to prevent him from inheriting the title. His parents were rumored to be Karl, Grand Duke of Baden, and Stephanie de Bejarnay,

• 2:08:07AJ Gentile?

  the adopted daughter of Napoleon. And since Hauser died with no male heir, whether he was a real prince or not, it no longer mattered. In 1876, historian Otto Mittelstadt researched the case and found no evidence that Hauser was the prince. Another historian, Fritz Trouts, confirmed Mittelstadt's findings and said any claim that Hauser was a prince is a silly fairy tale. In 1951, Letters of the Grand Duke's Mother were published, and the letters gave detailed accounts of the child's birth, illness, and death. So the Hauser as a prince theory was finally put to rest. Hauser was buried in a local cemetery, where his headstone reads "Here lies Casper Hauser", riddle of his time. "His birth was unknown, his death mysterious." 1833.

• 2:08:51AJ Gentile?

  And there's even a statue of him in the old city center, at the very place where Hauser first appeared. His life was a mystery for a hundred years, and now the statue of Casper Hauser can fuel the imagination of others for hundreds of years to come.

• 2:09:09AJ Gentile?

  The Picards lived on a farm in Brittany, France. Two-year-old Pauline was one of nine children. One day in April 1922, Pauline was playing outside with her brothers and sisters, something the kids did every day. When they were summoned for dinner, Pauline wasn't among them. Within a few hours, 150 people combed every inch of the farm and the surrounding area. There was no sign of her. As time went on, rumors began to circulate. Maybe a wild boar had attacked and eaten her. There was a suspicious chimney cleaner in town who, a few weeks earlier, tried to give Pauline candy. Neighbors said they saw two strangers hanging around the farm about the same time Pauline disappeared. But even in the best possible scenario, that none of the rumors were true, there was no

• 2:09:53AJ Gentile?

  way a two-year-old could survive in the elements for this long. Well, soon the pain and loss set in. The Picards would never see their daughter again. Then about a month later, the family would get a miracle. A young girl was found wandering around the town of Cherbourg, about 200 miles from Brittany. The girl was scared, alone, and on foot. The police showed a photo to the Picards. They couldn't believe it. It was Pauline. Pauline's parents went to retrieve her, but when they finally saw her, Pauline didn't seem to react. The Picards sat with her, they talked to her, but she seemed distant. The Picards were worried Pauline was in shock, but doctors said that aside from being malnourished, she was perfectly healthy. Then they started to wonder if this actually was their daughter.

• 2:10:37AJ Gentile?

  She looked like her, same hair, same blue eyes, same features, but there was this kernel of doubt in her parents' minds. Still, they took her home, hoping that familiar surroundings would spark her memory. Pauline's sisters immediately recognized her, which was a huge relief for her parents. Pauline's family figured it would just take time before life would get back to normal.

• 2:10:58Speaker 03

  Would life get back to normal?

• 2:11:01AJ Gentile?

  Not even close.

• 2:11:05AJ Gentile?

  A few weeks later, a farmer crossing a field about a mile from the Picards' farm found the body of a young girl. Near the body, neatly folded, were Pauline's clothes. The same clothes she was wearing the day she went missing. And also nearby was a skull of a grown man. Now, it seems there were two murders to solve. The field where Pauline was found had been searched when she went missing, so police believed the body was placed there more recently. The neatly folded clothes implied a murder, but the autopsy was inconclusive. Doctors thought dying of cold was just as likely as murder. There were two suspects that police seriously considered. The first was one of the Picards' farmhands named Caraman. The day Pauline disappeared, he had been invited for breakfast.

• 2:11:50AJ Gentile?

  He was said to have cuddled her a little too much, and someone heard him telling Pauline on more than one occasion that he would find her a good home in a different town. And at 1:00 PM that day, he was alone with Pauline, and someone overheard him telling her that she was going with him. Police followed the path he would have taken, but ultimately decided the timing just didn't match up. Then a local farmer named Eves Martin stopped by the Picards'. He said he'd heard Pauline had been found. They told him she had. He then blurted out, "God forgive me, I am guilty," and ran from the farm screaming and laughing. The next day, he was taken to a lunatic asylum. Although he confessed to the murder, no other evidence has ever been found.

• 2:12:33AJ Gentile?

  No other clues or suspects emerged, and Pauline's death remains a mystery.

• 2:12:41AJ Gentile?

  So what can we unravel from these three stories? First, the green children of Woolpit.

• 2:12:46Speaker 03

  You mean the green Martian children of Planet Mars?

• 2:12:49AJ Gentile?

  Unlikely. Given what was going on in that area of England during the 12th century, I think we could put together what really happened. In 1173, King Henry faced the Great Revolt, an uprising by his eldest sons supported by France, Scotland, and Flanders.

• 2:13:06Speaker 03

  I did we do, neighbor?

• 2:13:07AJ Gentile?

  Flanders is the northern part of Belgium where Flemish is spoken, and there are a lot of Flemish immigrants in England. During the Great Revolt, the Battle of Fornum was fought just a few miles from Woolpit. Eventually, an uneasy peace was reached, but King Henry, angry at the Flemish mercenaries, was persecuting Flemish settlers. All of this was going on at the exact time the green children were found. It's most likely that the children were refugees from a battle or simply fleeing English soldiers who were harassing the settlement. The Flemish language, which is a dialect of Dutch, would have sounded like gibberish to English farmers, and the Flemish were known for wearing clothes that were very different than English.

• 2:13:47AJ Gentile?

  As for the green skin, there's a condition called sclerosis or hypochromic anemia, which is a type of iron deficiency. It even had a nickname back then: the green sickness. If the children were refugees fleeing a battle, they were most likely living off of whatever they can scrounge from the land. Lack of meat would explain the lack of iron, and also why they would eat nothing but raw green beans for months. But as the children ate a more diverse diet, their green skin returned to normal. Why the boy died is not entirely clear. Some speculate it could have been arsenic poisoning, though arsenic typically acts faster. Nobody really knows. The caves the children spoke of do exist in the area. Flint and chalk mines are everywhere, and a cave would be a good place to hide from

• 2:14:32AJ Gentile?

  a battle or from soldiers. In fact, there are large caves between Woolpit and the small village of Fornum, the site of several battles during the Great Revolt. And the church of Fornum was called Saint Martin's Church. When the girl said she was from Saint Martin's land, this is likely what she meant. All of these details, mixed with the fuzzy memories of a terrified child, it's easy to see how this legend was born. Still, these are just best guesses. Nobody really knows who the children were or where they were from. Now, Casper Hauser, the real mystery is: who was he? Remember, several historians debunked the idea that he was a prince. They used public records and private letters to prove this. The problem with public records and private letters...

• 2:15:15Speaker 03

  People lie.

• 2:15:16AJ Gentile?

  Right. People lie. But DNA doesn't. After a couple of hit-and-miss tests in the 90s, a DNA test in 2000... yielded an astonishing result. Hair and skin samples from Hauser's clothes were tested. They proved with 95% accuracy that he was related to Princess Josephine of Baden, whose mother was Stephanie de Bouharnay von Baden.

• 2:15:38Speaker 03

  He actually was a prince?

• 2:15:40AJ Gentile?

  Well, there's a 95% chance he was. The only way to know with 100% certainty is to test the DNA of his alleged mother and the DNA of the child buried as her son. But the House of Baden has declined to participate.

• 2:15:53Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 2:15:54AJ Gentile?

  Our final mystery is the case of Pauline Picard. Unfortunately, there's not much else to report. It was assumed that the killer was Eves Martin, the farmer committed to an asylum, but no physical evidence was ever found that could link him to the murder.

• 2:16:07Speaker 03

  So who was the girl living with him this whole time?

• 2:16:10AJ Gentile?

  Nobody knows. She barely spoke. After learning the true fate of Pauline, the Picards didn't know what to do with the girl. They sent her to an orphanage where she died a few months later of measles. Her name has been lost to history.

• 2:16:22Speaker 03

  No fun.

• 2:16:23AJ Gentile?

  But the stories of the Green Children of Woolpit, Casper Hauser and Pauline Picard, have not been lost to history. They're now part of it. And who knows? With enough time, we may finally get the answers to these mysteries. But until then, they remain unsolved.

• 2:16:43AJ Gentile?

  I know that was a slow one, but it's a sleepy time comp. But we're going to speed things up now with the Emerald Tablets. This one has Atlantis, ancient Egypt, Anunnaki. This one has it all. Which would you prefer? Eternal life or unlimited wealth? How about both? For that, you need the Philosopher's Stone, a substance that can turn base metals into gold and grant you eternal life. The Book of Aquarius contains the instructions for the Philosopher's Stone. Now although the process can take years, the ingredients are simple. You have them in your home right now. But the Book of Aquarius is derived from many older texts, including one very mysterious artifact, the Emerald Tablet, which contains not only the recipe for immortality, but

• 2:17:27AJ Gentile?

  the secret to everything in the universe. This knowledge has been around for centuries, but has been suppressed. Until now. Medieval alchemists received this knowledge from the Arabs a thousand years ago. The Arabs got it from the Egyptians 2,000 years before that. But the Egyptians received this knowledge 36,000 years ago, from the most advanced culture on Earth. The Emerald Tablet comes from Atlantis.

• 2:17:57AJ Gentile?

  For hundreds of years, the recipe for the philosopher's stone was the most sought-after secret of alchemy. According to legend, this substance could turn ordinary metals like lead and iron into gold. The philosopher's stone was also called the elixir of life because it could restore youth and even grant immortality. For centuries, alchemists attempted to create the stone, breaking down, distilling, and combining different materials in pursuit of this goal. This actually led to the creation of chemistry. Now, this might sound like hocus pocus, but some of the most brilliant minds in history believed in the philosopher's stone and dedicated a large portion of their lives in pursuit of it. Some became so infatuated that it drove them to the brink of insanity.

• 2:18:38AJ Gentile?

  Isaac Newton is remembered for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and physics, but he was also interested in alchemy. Newton spent the last 30 years of his life obsessed with the philosopher's stone. He even made his own translations of the Emerald Tablet, which are still studied today. Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II brought the best alchemists in Europe to court. Men like John Dee and Edward Kelly were given a private lab and an unlimited budget. At the beginning of the Renaissance, there was an alchemist who, as the legend goes, actually discovered the philosopher's stone. And his name was Nicholas Vomel.

• 2:19:14Speaker 03

  He gave it to Dumbledore.

• 2:19:15AJ Gentile?

  What?

• 2:19:16Speaker 03

  Well, he actually puts it in Grigits Vault, and then Hagrid fetched it for him.

• 2:19:20AJ Gentile?

  Now, I don't think that's-

• 2:19:21Speaker 03

  But Voldemort wants it, because he's stuck in the back of Quirrell's head, right? Then Hermione gets him past the devil's snare, and then Ron plays wizard chess. By the way, he used the Nimzo Witch Defense as an opening gambit. You don't see that much with wizard chess.

• 2:19:36AJ Gentile?

  Now, if you believe in the legend or Harry Potter, Nicholas Vomel didn't die in 1418. He succeeded in creating the philosopher's stone, and he and his wife Perrinelle are still alive and out there somewhere.

• 2:19:48Speaker 03

  Whoa, 600 years is a long time to be married.

• 2:19:52AJ Gentile?

  I guess it is.

• 2:19:53Speaker 03

  A loooong time.

• 2:19:55AJ Gentile?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:19:56Speaker 03

  So, so, so, so, so very long.

• 2:20:01Speaker 03

  A long time.

• 2:20:02AJ Gentile?

  Ever since man realized that his life was finite, the human race has been fascinated with the idea of extending their lifespan, or even achieving immortality. The legend of the Fountain of Youth has been around for hundreds of years. And now we have cryonics, which is freezing a body at the moment of death in the hope of reviving them at some point in the future. Or mind uploading, which will transfer a person's consciousness to a computer and then at some point, transfer that consciousness back into a human or part-human, part-robot body. But it all started with the Emerald Tablet, written by the Egyptian god Jehudi, more commonly known as Thoth. Thoth was one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt. He was worshipped before the age of the pharaohs, so before 5,000 B.C.

• 2:20:45AJ Gentile?

  Thoth was the god of magic, wisdom, and the moon. He was usually depicted as a man with the head of an ibis.

• 2:20:52Speaker 03

  IBS?

• 2:20:53AJ Gentile?

  Ibis.

• 2:20:53Speaker 03

  What I say.

• 2:20:55AJ Gentile?

  Thoth created writing and hieroglyphics. He wrote the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Egyptians claimed he invented science, religion, philosophy, and of course, alchemy. Greeks call him the inventor of astronomy, mathematics, civilized government, and the alphabet.

• 2:21:09Speaker 03

  Kind of an overachiever, this Egyptian, eh?

• 2:21:11AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's what's interesting. Thoth wasn't actually a god. He wasn't even Egyptian. He arrived in Egypt many thousands of years ago. And he brought with him knowledge and wisdom from his own country.

• 2:21:23Speaker 03

  Which is?

• 2:21:24AJ Gentile?

  Thoth is from Atlantis.

• 2:21:25Speaker 03

  Yahtzee!

• 2:21:29AJ Gentile?

  Plato described Atlantis as being divided into ten kingdoms, each with its own government, its own rulers, and its own purpose. One of these kingdoms was the island of Undal, which was the Atlantean center of philosophy and science. Thoth was born 36,000 years ago on Undal, in the city of Caora. Caora was a community of scholars, scientists, and priests. Thoth was trained by his father Thotme, who was a very important figure in Atlantis. Thotme was one of the Children of Light, who were an advanced race that lived alongside humans. The Children of Light provided the human race with science, language, and eventually, technology. Some have said these beings were extraterrestrials. Or the Atanaki, or both. Though the Children of Light weren't gods,

• 2:22:14AJ Gentile?

  they would appear godlike to any normal human. But, these are mortal beings. They're born and they die, just like we do.

• 2:22:22Speaker 03

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But if he could die, how was he in Atlantis thirty-six thousand years ago? And then in Egypt, five thousand years ago?

• 2:22:29AJ Gentile?

  I'm getting to it.

• 2:22:29Speaker 03

  Sorry, sorry, go ahead. I like this story.

• 2:22:32AJ Gentile?

  I thought you would. Anyway, Toth's father, Totem, was the Keeper of the Great Temple, which means he was a high priest who carried messages to the human race from the Children of Light.

• 2:22:42Speaker 05

  Wise were we with the wisdom of the Children of Light who dwell among us. Strong were we with the power drawn from the eternal fire. And of all these, greatest among the Children of Men was my father, Totem, Keeper of the Great Temple, link between the Children of Light who dwelt within the temple and the races of men who inhabited the Ten Islands.

• 2:23:04AJ Gentile?

  The Ten Kingdoms of Atlantis were created by an entity named Horlet, sometimes called the Dweller. And Toth spent many years with the Dweller, learning the art of wisdom. Toth excelled in his studies and was finally invited to the Halls of Amenti. It's there where Toth is given the key to life, immortality. And he, like the other Children of Light, can reincarnate every hundred years. Now, as an immortal, Toth is responsible for keeping the ancient knowledge that he's been taught. Then, a great flood destroys Atlantis.

• 2:23:33Speaker 03

  Well, how long ago was that?

• 2:23:35AJ Gentile?

  Thirteen thousand years ago.

• 2:23:36Speaker 03

  Oh, well, man, and when was the Younger Dryas?

• 2:23:39AJ Gentile?

  Thirteen thousand years ago.

• 2:23:40Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 2:23:41AJ Gentile?

  Yet, another flood myth takes place during a period of time known as the Younger Dryas. Every culture on Earth has the same flood myth. Anyway, in order to preserve the knowledge and culture of Atlantis, Toth is one of the teachers sent out to establish new colonies around the world. One of these colonies is in South America. Another is in Central America. Toth travels to a land the Atlanteans call Khem, but we know it as Egypt. Toth took with him a tablet carved out of green emerald, though some believe it might have been crystal. Others say the tablet was made of oracalcum, a valuable ancient metal that, according to Plato, was mined in Atlantis. On this emerald tablet, Toth wrote the secrets of the including the key to immortality. This knowledge would become the foundation for ancient Egyptian alchemy.

• 2:24:26AJ Gentile?

  Now for centuries, Toth would reincarnate into different bodies, sharing his wisdom with a select few. Usually, he was born in Egypt, but sometimes his mission would take him to other parts of the world, and that takes us to ancient Greece, where the Emerald Tablet makes its first appearance.

• 2:24:45AJ Gentile?

  The Emerald Tablet, also known as Tabulus Maragadina in Latin, is only 24 stanzas of text, but hidden within those few stanzas is the secret to immortality. The tablet is said to have been written by Hermes Tresmigistus, who some say is a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Toth, or is a reincarnation of Toth himself. Hermes Tresmigistus is the author of a group of texts called the Hermetica, and from these we get Hermeticism, a set of spiritual concepts and practices characterized by a belief in the unity of all things in the universe. Hermeticism has influenced secret societies like the Free Basins, the Rosicrucians, and the Order of the Black Sun. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is a secret society that emerged in the late

• 2:25:29AJ Gentile?

  19th century. They used hermetic principles in their ceremonies, which were said to be magic. The Order also drew on other esoteric traditions, including Kabbalah and Tarot. The earliest known mention of the Emerald Tablet comes from an Arabic text dated 1,200 years ago, but this text claims to be a translation of a much older work, which is possibly a translation of an even older text. Upon discovery, the Emerald Tablet became one of the most studied documents by Islamic and European alchemists. It also became popular with occultists, who often use the motto "As above, so below", which is the second verse of the tablet. But these were all just translations. The original tablet was lost.

• 2:26:10AJ Gentile?

  Then, sometime in the first century AD, the philosopher Apollonius of Tiana was studying in the city's library when he came across a mysterious book. It was bound in green leather, and its pages were made of a material that he had never seen before. The book was written in a language that he didn't recognize, and its pages were filled with strange... ...symbols and diagrams. Apollonius studied the book and realized that it was a book of alchemy, filled with the secrets of the universe and the hidden forces of nature. Determined to uncover the mysteries of the book, Apollonius set out on a quest to find its author. After a long search, he came to a remote temple in the mountains where he met an oracle who told him where to look for answers. Apollonius was given directions to a secret cave

• 2:26:54AJ Gentile?

  underneath the statue of Hermes in Tiana. At the end of a dark, winding passage, Apollonius found the corpse of Hermes Trismegestus, sitting on a golden throne. Still clutched in his withered skeletal fingers, Hermes had a dusty book and a tablet carved from a single piece of translucent green stone. Apollonius took the emerald tablet and the book and sealed the cave. He then incorporated these newfound secrets of alchemy into his own work, but then the emerald tablet was lost again.

• 2:27:24Speaker 03

  Again it's lost? How tiny was this thing?

• 2:27:27AJ Gentile?

  Well, it was pretty big. Almost four feet long and about three feet wide.

• 2:27:31Speaker 03

  All that wisdom and they can't keep track of a giant stone tablet, eh? Everyone who touches it suddenly comes down with a case of the Butterfingers.

• 2:27:38AJ Gentile?

  It would seem so. Apollonius wrote that he gave the tablet to the Roman emperor Hadrian, who buried it under his palace. But some think the tablet was in the Library of Alexandria when it burned, or was taken by the Knights Templar, or it's in the Vatican's secret archives. It's been said to have ended up at just about every mysterious place on Earth. But in 1925, a man named Dr. Maurice D'Oriel had an idea. The early stories of the Egyptian god Thoth talk of him building the Great Pyramid of Giza as a way to protect an ancient artifact. So Dr. D'Oriel went to Egypt and explored the area where he thought the emerald tablet might be.

• 2:28:14Speaker 03

  Oh, did he find it?

• 2:28:15AJ Gentile?

  Not exactly.

• 2:28:16Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 2:28:17AJ Gentile?

  He found all ten.

• 2:28:22AJ Gentile?

  The tablets Dorial found were in the possession of a mysterious group called the Great White Brotherhood. They wouldn't allow Dorial to take the tablets, but they did let him translate them. A few years later, in 1939, Dr. Dorial published his translation as a book, "The Emerald Tablets of Tothe Atlantean." His translation confirmed that the tablets were indeed written by Tothe. Dorial went on to found the Brotherhood of the White Temple, a religion that still exists and has a following. And one of the main themes of the book, and of the Brotherhood of the White Temple, is the concept of the One Thing. The One Thing is described as the source of all creation, and the ultimate reality behind the physical world. It's said to be an energy that permeates all things and is the essence of all life.

• 2:29:05Speaker 03

  The Force is what gives a Jedi his powers. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

• 2:29:14AJ Gentile?

  Eh, we did a Star Wars bit last week. We can't go back to that well so soon.

• 2:29:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was worth a shot.

• 2:29:19AJ Gentile?

  Well, the book also describes ancient technologies and hidden knowledge. It suggests that ancient civilizations had advanced technologies and knowledge that had been lost over time. For example, the book describes a device called the Firestone, which is said to have the power to generate energy and manipulate matter. The book claims this technology was used by ancient civilizations, including the Atlanteans, but it's being suppressed. But a large part of the book covers alchemy. Specifically, transforming base metals into gold, curing illness, granting immortality, and achieving enlightenment. But like the original Emerald Tablet, it was all allegory and symbolism, subject to many different interpretations. There are no clear instructions. The tablet doesn't tell us what kind of materials we need to create the Philosopher's Stone.

• 2:30:03AJ Gentile?

  And even if they did, they don't tell us the process. But on March 11th, 2011, a mysterious book suddenly appeared online. It was called "The Book of Aquarius." And this is what was written on the first page. "The age of secrets is over. There's no need for mystical language or metaphor. This book contains no hidden meaning or codes. Everything is stated plainly and directly."

• 2:30:26Speaker 03

  So what the hell does this mean?

• 2:30:27AJ Gentile?

  Well, this means that anyone who wanted to create the Philosopher's Stone now has a recipe to follow, just like a cookbook. The Book of Aquarius looked legit. It's 165 pages and references 49 different alchemical texts that span 1,000 years. It's a long, difficult process, but anyone with the time and patience could do it. And some people did. And what's most amazing about the recipe for the philosopher's stone is that it's only one ingredient, and we all have it in us.

• 2:30:55Speaker 03

  Oh, in us? What are you talking about? What's the one ingredient we need to live forever?

• 2:31:00AJ Gentile?

  Well, the one ingredient is, um...

• 2:31:02Speaker 03

  What?

• 2:31:03AJ Gentile?

  Urine.

• 2:31:04Speaker 03

  Oh, come on!

• 2:31:08AJ Gentile?

  Some of the greatest minds in history have tried to find the secret of the philosopher's stone. When the Book of Aquarius appeared on an online forum in 2011, the anonymous author encouraged everyone to spread it online for free. He wrote, "The purpose of this book is to release one particular secret which has been kept hidden for the last 12,000 years." The Book of Aquarius contained easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions for how to create the philosopher's stone, which, if created properly, would grant you eternal life. The author of the book said that all the old alchemy texts using confusing metaphors and symbolism was actually done intentionally. This was an early disinformation campaign, a way to keep the recipe secret, but still make it accessible to alchemists who knew how to decipher the text.

• 2:31:53AJ Gentile?

  And when the Book of Aquarius was posted to an online forum, it was ridiculed at first. There was no way you could achieve immortality with pee. But throughout history, alchemists actually used urine all the time. The 16th-century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus claimed that life essence was in blood, in hair, sweat, and human waste. The Book of Aquarius says that the philosopher's stone is this life energy, concentrated and purified. This is the same energy you take in when you breathe, when you eat, and drink. It's the energy that powers all forms of life, so it makes sense that it would be found in urine. Ancient alchemists knew this as well. Remember earlier I mentioned the secret society called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn?

• 2:32:35AJ Gentile?

  It had a lot of famous members: W.B. Yeats, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Conan Doyle, and a lot of other names that you'd recognize. Their name "Golden Dawn" is a reference to the only ingredient used to make the philosopher's stone. Golden, as in the color, and dawn because that's the best time of day to get it.

• 2:32:53Speaker 03

  You have got to be [BLEEP] me.

• 2:32:55AJ Gentile?

  Nope, but now with The Book of Aquarius hitting the web, all the secret symbolism and oaths of secrecy were useless. The Book of Aquarius gave specific, step-by-step instructions on how to store, boil, distill, ferment, and purify urine. It would take months or even years, but eventually a stone would start to form. It was all in the book. How to do it, what the results should look like, what the process smells like.

• 2:33:20Speaker 03

  Nobody really tried to make this crazy thing, did they?

• 2:33:23AJ Gentile?

  They sure did.

• 2:33:28AJ Gentile?

  Shortly after The Book of Aquarius was published, the anonymous author set up a website at thebookofaquarius.com. There you could, of course, download a free copy of the book, but also participate in a forum where people would try to follow the instructions of the book as closely as possible and create their own philosopher's stone. And although the stone only required one ingredient...

• 2:33:48Speaker 03

  Tinkled.

• 2:33:49AJ Gentile?

  Right. The process for extracting your life energy required patience. Even if you did everything correctly, it would take between three and eight years to finish the work and make a stone. And that's assuming you kept your materials free from contamination, controlled the temperature, and used the correct equipment at the correct phase of production. A lot could go wrong, yet a small but determined group of people were giving it their best shot. The recipe for creating this stone had two major parts. First, you had to repeatedly distill the urine and continually remove the densest particles. Next, you do it all again, but this time, remove the lightest particles, which would be a form of salt. This first part would ideally take three months, but could often take up to a year. In the second part of the recipe, you combine the salt with the distilled urine

• 2:34:34AJ Gentile?

  and put it on a low and continuous heat. You do that for over a year, until it putrefies and turns black. And the next part of the recipe...

• 2:34:42Speaker 03

  Wait!

• 2:34:43AJ Gentile?

  What?

• 2:34:44Speaker 03

  Can you not call it a recipe, please? It makes it sound like you're supposed to eat it.

• 2:34:48AJ Gentile?

  Well...

• 2:34:49Speaker 03

  What? What?

• 2:34:51AJ Gentile?

  When you're done with the process, you do eat it.

• 2:34:55Speaker 03

  Ugh, I'm gonna be sick.

• 2:34:56AJ Gentile?

  What's your problem? You're swimming in half the recipe right now.

• 2:34:59Speaker 03

  It's not the same thing. I got bubbles, I got filters. Besides, I only tinkled in the back of the bowl.

• 2:35:05AJ Gentile?

  I don't think it matters.

• 2:35:06Speaker 03

  It matters.

• 2:35:08AJ Gentile?

  Anyway, you keep heating the black stuff and eventually it turns white. And then you turn up the heat a little bit more and the stone turns red. And then you're pretty much ready to go. The book even gives you some guidance on how much you should, um...

• 2:35:21Speaker 03

  I... I... I... I can't.

• 2:35:24AJ Gentile?

  On the Book of Aquarius forums, a community of amateur alchemists emerged. Even the author of the book was an active member and would answer anyone who had a question. People were following the process, sharing tips and strategies. They would discuss how different foods affected their essence. They even posted pictures of their results. This went on for a few years, long enough for at least one person to succeed.

• 2:35:46Speaker 03

  Did somebody actually get this crazy thing to work?

• 2:35:49AJ Gentile?

  Well, nobody knows, because suddenly and without warning, the Book of Aquarius website was gone.

• 2:35:58AJ Gentile?

  We covered a lot today. The Egyptian god Thoth, Atlantis, the Emerald Tablet, Hermes Trismegustus, Apollonius of Tiana, the Book of Aquarius, and how they all connect to the philosopher's stone. But how much of the story is true? Well, a lot of it is, but let's look at the parts of the story that are questionable. First, the Emerald Tablet is indeed a text that's at least 1,200 years old. It is considered one of the most important documents in alchemy. Isaac Newton and many others were fascinated with it and spent large parts of their life trying to decode it. But the Emerald Tablets, plural, that's a different story. All the stuff about Atlantis comes from the book "The Emerald Tablets of Thoth: The Atlantean" by Dr. Morius Dorial.

• 2:36:40AJ Gentile?

  And a lot of that information is part of Dorial's religion, the Brotherhood of the White Temple. The Brotherhood really does exist. It even has a lodge in Colorado. And Dorial has a lot of followers. You could find tons of articles and YouTube videos from people who believe that Dorial was chosen to deliver his message to the world.

• 2:36:57Speaker 03

  It is a butt coming.

• 2:36:58AJ Gentile?

  There is. Now, look, maybe Dorial really did discover the tablets in Egypt and translate them. Maybe he really is helping people on their journey to the light of truth, as the Brotherhood claims.

• 2:37:09Speaker 03

  Hey, your tone is drifting into sarcasm territory.

• 2:37:12AJ Gentile?

  But before you join this cult-religion, there are a few things you should know about Dr. Morius. Dr. Dorial's real name was Claude Doggins, and he wasn't a doctor of anything. He never graduated high school, which is amazing because he claimed that he was able to read and write as soon as he was born and was doing advanced mathematics before the age of one.

• 2:37:32Speaker 03

  Yet no interest in getting a GED, eh?

• 2:37:34AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, I guess not. So, no record of him receiving a doctorate, but there is record of him driving a cab.

• 2:37:40Speaker 03

  He drove a cab in Egypt?

• 2:37:41AJ Gentile?

  Oh, he never went to Egypt.

• 2:37:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but...

• 2:37:43AJ Gentile?

  His passport verifies this. When he was confronted about the passport problem, Dorial, aka Doggins, said, "Well, they weren't physical travels, they were astral travels." Doggins wrote a lot about astral travels and other paranormal phenomena. He wrote about UFOs, alien attacks, the nuclear war that he predicted would happen in 1956, and he wrote about human-serpent hybrids living in the Gobi Desert.

• 2:38:06Speaker 03

  Lizard people!

• 2:38:07AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 2:38:08Speaker 03

  Hey, did you know you could buy a lizard people mofo in a Wi-Fi store? Use promo code...

• 2:38:12AJ Gentile?

  No merch plugs now.

• 2:38:13Speaker 03

  Sorry, sorry, sorry. Force of habit.

• 2:38:15AJ Gentile?

  Now, his followers will say all the things that Dorial wrote were true. The problem is, his stories were lifted from prominent science fiction writers. For example, Dorial's Emerald Tablets book has passages that match, almost word-for-word, passages from The Necronomicon by H.P. Lovecraft.

• 2:38:33Speaker 03

  Ooh, that was one of the campfire stories I would read at Camp Greenfoot.

• 2:38:36AJ Gentile?

  Camp Greenfoot?

• 2:38:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I was a counselor there in the 80s. Kids loved me.

• 2:38:40AJ Gentile?

  Lovecraft is kinda dark for kids, no?

• 2:38:42Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, I didn't think so at the time, but I'm not gonna lie, some of those kids, they grew up pretty weird.

• 2:38:48AJ Gentile?

  Anyway, Dorial also lifted ideas from the Shaver Mysteries, which were popular in the sci-fi pulp magazine Amazing Stories. He even wrote into the magazine. And Dorial made all kinds of other wild claims, as most cult leaders do, but there are too many to list here.

• 2:39:03Speaker 03

  So, he was a fraud?

• 2:39:04AJ Gentile?

  Well, I'm not saying that, but his wife did.

• 2:39:07Speaker 03

  What?

• 2:39:08AJ Gentile?

  At a public event, his wife called him out for lying and cheating in front of a whole group of disciples.

• 2:39:14Speaker 03

  Hell hath no fury, eh?

• 2:39:15AJ Gentile?

  Yeah. The quote-unquote "cult leader divorce" made newspaper headlines at the time. Now, even with all this information, Dorial still has plenty of believers, and the Brotherhood still sells all of his books on their website. So, the story of the original Emerald Tablet? That story is true. The actual tablet has never been found, but the text has been around for at least 1,200 years. That's confirmed. The Emerald Tablets by Dorian? Well, you can make your own decision, but to me, it sounds like yet another cult leader passing off science fiction as his own writing to take advantage of people for profit.

• 2:39:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, nice work if you can get it.

• 2:39:50AJ Gentile?

  Sure is. Look at [BLEEP]. You censored me.

• 2:39:53Speaker 03

  Of course I did. Their lawyers watch this show, you moron.

• 2:39:56AJ Gentile?

  Fair enough. So, what about the Book of Aquarius? That one also sounds like science fiction, but turns out, it's real.

• 2:40:07AJ Gentile?

  Ever since the Book of Aquarius website was taken down, there's not much information about what happened to the people who are trying to create their own stones. One theory is that some people were actually successful, so either they had the site taken down, or...

• 2:40:20Speaker 03

  The Illuminati?

• 2:40:20AJ Gentile?

  Right. Some group of shadowy elites didn't want this information public, so they took down the website. And even though you can still download the book from the internet archives, you can't view the messages on the message board. Those have been scrubbed by somebody. Another theory is that the Book of Aquarius was a hoax. But if that's true, it's a hoax that took a lot of effort. The book is 165 pages, and the author goes into meticulous detail. And he quotes from 49 different alchemical texts, ranging from the 20th century all the way back to the 11th century. Many of these texts are pretty obscure and hard to find, and no one has ever come forward to take credit for writing it. The Book of Aquarius is probably not a hoax, but a book written by a passionate individual who honestly believes they're sharing the secret

• 2:41:05AJ Gentile?

  to creating a philosopher's stone.

• 2:41:07Speaker 03

  We can go?

• 2:41:08AJ Gentile?

  Yep. There's actually a well-documented case of an alchemist attempting to create the philosopher's stone from urine. In 1669, German alchemist Heneg Brond dedicated years of his life to creating the stone. He was convinced urine was the way to do it, and he did everything that the Book of Aquarius says to do. Now, after boiling and distilling 1,500 gallons of his essence, he ended up with a white, waxy substance that actually glowed in the dark.

• 2:41:35Speaker 03

  He made the stone?

• 2:41:36AJ Gentile?

  No, he accidentally discovered... Phosphorus. Now to a 17th century alchemist, this must have been amazing. Here was a substance that was the product of the human body that was glowing with a life force. Now Braun kept the recipe secret while he tried to create gold, but when he couldn't get that to work, he sold the recipe to another alchemist. As for living forever, well, it's been reported that Hennig Braun did die, but nobody knows exactly when. Now, of course, legend says that he faked his death and like Nicholas Flamel is still alive today. Now that makes sense to me. If I created the philosopher's stone, I don't think I'd ever tell. Would you? Now, if you want to try creating it, the Book of Aquarius is still available online and linked below,

• 2:42:18AJ Gentile?

  but I don't recommend it. Boiling urine smells awful, but that's a small price to pay for immortality.

• 2:42:24Speaker 03

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. How do you know it smells awful?

• 2:42:28AJ Gentile?

  Uh, don't worry about that. Now, if you do decide to try and create the philosopher's stone, do me a favor. Email me in about 600 years and we'll both have a good laugh.

• 2:42:37Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:42:43AJ Gentile?

  If you look at the back of my set, in some episodes, you can see a full-size replica of the Emerald Tablet. It's pretty cool.

• 2:42:57AJ Gentile?

  I'm sure, I'm sure he's fine. Uh, next up is, oh, this is an early episode, but it's one I'm really proud of. It's episode 31, but I think it came out great. It's super fun and it contains one of my favorite pecklefish jokes and you'll know it when you hear it. This episode is the Latitude Society.

• 2:43:16AJ Gentile?

  How do you join a cult without knowing it? Well, here's how it happened to thousands of people in San Francisco just a few years ago. You're with a trusted friend, maybe on a hike or sitting in a bar or just hanging out. Then out of nowhere, your friend asks, can you keep a secret? Well, of course, you reply that you can. Your friend then hands you a small black sleeve about the size of a credit card. On one side of the sleeve, embossed in gold, is a geometric pattern. On the other side, the words absolute discretion. Inside is a security card printed with a website and a code. Later that night, you go to the site and enter the code and the website responds with, "Congratulations, you've been invited to the Latitude." And what happens next changes you forever.

• 2:44:03AJ Gentile?

  After entering your code, you set up an appointment to visit the San Francisco House. You're ordered to tell no one and come alone. You arrive at a nondescript building and swipe your card through the electronic lock. The door opens. You're now in a narrow hallway painted matte black. From invisible speakers, an ominous pulsing sound is heard. On the walls are two red lights, which fade in and out in time with the sound. High above you in the room, like every room in the Latitude, is a camera. You are being watched. At the end of the hall is an ornate Victorian mantle of some kind. But where you'd expect to find a fireplace is the entrance to a wooden slide. And the slide curves down into the darkness, so there's no way to tell where it leads.

• 2:44:44Speaker 03

  There's no sign or instructions and nothing?

• 2:44:47AJ Gentile?

  Nope.

• 2:44:47Speaker 03

  How do you know this doesn't lead to something awful? Like sharks, or snakes, or a K-pop concert?

• 2:44:53AJ Gentile?

  You don't. To go any further inside the Latitude, you must literally go down a rabbit hole, with no idea what awaits you at the bottom.

• 2:45:04AJ Gentile?

  After a quick and gentle trip down the slide, you're deposited into a basement room called the Flux Chamber. On one side of the room is a series of doors. On the other is a bright neon sign that says, "Shhhhh." And under that sign, behind glass, is a ticket taker. But the glass is so heavily frosted that you can't really see the person's face. You simply hear their voice. You're given a claim ticket and asked to turn over all your personal belongings: your wallet, purse, phone, keys, everything in your pockets. You're told this is for your own safety.

• 2:45:35Speaker 03

  I don't like where this is going.

• 2:45:37AJ Gentile?

  Once you've complied with this request, you hear a door unlock. You enter and close the door behind you. It's dark. So dark that you have no idea if you're in a huge room or a closet. You can't see your hands in front of your face. And it's so quiet that it almost feels like the air is being sucked out of the room. And after a second or two, you hear a muffled click as the door locks you in. You now have no choice but to go forward into the black, without your wallet, without your phone, without your eyes.

• 2:46:08AJ Gentile?

  In the black, you feel your way around everything. Floor to ceiling is covered in thick carpet. And as you move forward, the passageway gets smaller and smaller, closing in around you. You can no longer stand. You have to literally crawl forward. If you're claustrophobic or afraid of the dark, panic is gonna set in pretty quickly. Now, moving slowly on your hands and knees, you hear music playing. You keep moving and see a hint of light. You reach the end of the passage, and you draw back a heavy black curtain. You're now in a small, six-sided room lined with books, all of which say "The Latitude", and all the pages are blank. A voice from somewhere tells you to place a book on a podium and open it. The lights go out,

• 2:46:50AJ Gentile?

  and suddenly the blank pages of the book you chose begin to show you a story. This is called "The Fable". The fable talks about an ancient society that walled itself off from the rest of the world. But 12 brave citizens dug a tunnel under the wall in order to bring their philosophy to other cultures. Now, after the fable is told, you see the words "absolute discretion", the lights come back on, and you're instructed, by name, to move on. So you enter another small door and continue crawling through the dark.

• 2:47:19Speaker 03

  Again, you crawl?

• 2:47:20AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:21Speaker 03

  Who started this cult? Me, Doctor?

• 2:47:23AJ Gentile?

  I don't see how that-

• 2:47:24Speaker 03

  And you crawl to another secret room, which has a stack of business cards that say, "Do you have knee and joint pain? Call Jeffrey Rosen, M.D., Latitude Orthopedics."

• 2:47:36Speaker 03

  You like that?

• 2:47:38AJ Gentile?

  The next room you find looks like an old office. There's a couch, coffee table, and a vintage phone. The phone has one button that blinks for your attention. You pick up the receiver.

• 2:47:48Speaker 05

  You've been selected out of many, and were chosen for a reason. One of our members has great faith in you, in Bright Axiom, my friend.

• 2:47:57AJ Gentile?

  You exit the room, gather your belongings, walk back out to the street. Now, on the ground, embedded into the sidewalk itself is the mysterious hex logo of The Latitude. Now, people walk by, going about their day, completely unaware of the absolute bizarre experiences going on inside. You yourself aren't quite sure what just happened. Then, your cellphone rings.

• 2:48:21AJ Gentile?

  The voice on the other end of the phone tells you you've been chosen for a special mission. Over the next few hours, a series of calls and texts directs you around the city on sort of an urban scavenger hunt. Now, at one point, you're told to go to a local bar, give the bartender your card, and say nothing. The bartender then slides you a heavy brass coin, and on the coin it says, "Absolute discretion." A few minutes later, you get a text sending you to another address, and when you arrive, you see the Hex logo stamped in the cement. This is the place. You get another text with a door code. You try it, it works. You see the Hex logo on the stairwell. You walk up the stairs, following the clues that have now become familiar. And when you reach your designated floor,

• 2:49:06AJ Gentile?

  it's just a row of offices. But one of the doors has a key card lock, and the door is labeled "Den Arcadia." So, you try your card, it works. The room is covered in ornate psychedelic murals, and in the middle of the room are five vintage arcade games. So you put it in your coin and start playing. Now, at first, the game plays normally, but after a minute or so, it glitches out, and you see a mysterious glowing figure. Who disturbs my comms? This is Quas, the gatekeeper of the Latitude. Now, Quas gives you a secret word. He then instructs you to go home to your glowing box and enter the signal.

• 2:49:47AJ Gentile?

  Back home, you enter the code on the Latitude website. You're then shown a video of Professor Walter Kinley.

• 2:49:53Speaker 05

  The Latitude, for us, has a double meaning, as you can see. On the one hand, Latitude means geographic breadth, width, a sense of leeway.

• 2:50:06AJ Gentile?

  The professor welcomes you to the Latitude Society as a compere, and he then gets on a boat and sails away. You then choose a society's secret name called a moniker, and you now have access to all the perks of the Latitude Society.

• 2:50:19Speaker 03

  Like, what kind of perks?

• 2:50:21AJ Gentile?

  Well, you can go to their e-commerce store and buy Latitude merchandise, like t-shirts, keychains, and other swag.

• 2:50:26Speaker 03

  Ah, there it is.

• 2:50:27AJ Gentile?

  You can also attend secret gatherings called praxis gatherings. You can participate in other events which are called jaunts. But most importantly, you can now invite others to join the society. For about $30 each, you can purchase those mysterious Latitude security cards. And as long as you use absolute discretion, you can buy as many cards as you like.

• 2:50:47Speaker 03

  This is a pretty complicated way to sell merch.

• 2:50:50AJ Gentile?

  It is. And this is one of the reasons for the downfall of the Latitude. At least, this version of it. To learn what went wrong and what happened to the Latitude Society, we have to pull back the curtain. And that leads us to the Latitude's founder and chief visionary. His name is Jeff Hull.

• 2:51:10AJ Gentile?

  You know, like, for some people, heaven and hell is reality. Jeff Hull is a Silicon Valley tycoon slash artist. He worked for his father's financial firm and made a bundle when they sold the business for half a billion dollars. Hull went on to create a company called Nonchalance, which specializes in real-world immersive storytelling. Things like escape rooms or murder mysteries is this type of entertainment. Nonchalance uses the urban landscape as a canvas on which to paint these interactive narratives. Another well-known Nonchalance experience was called the Ji-Jun Institute. Its format was similar to the Latitude, but maybe a little more sinister. Ji-Jun needs its own video, but if you're interested in things like this, I'll link you to a documentary in the description.

• 2:51:52AJ Gentile?

  The TV show Dispatches from Elsewhere, starring Jason Segel, is based on the Ji-Jun Institute. So check that out if you want to learn more about how these immersive experiences work. So what was the intention of the Latitude Society? Was it a game? Yes. Was it a business? Yes. But was it a cult? Well?

• 2:52:12Speaker 05

  What are the things that, like, a cult would do? You know, separate yourself from your friends. Well, absolute discretion might be that, right? Ask for money. Oh, shit, like, you know, they have, like, there was a gift shop beforehand, but now all of a sudden, it's like, you want to continue on?

• 2:52:29AJ Gentile?

  In the early days of the Latitude Society, the intent was to create amazing immersive experiences to attract corporate clients who wanted to commission their own experiences. Whether for entertainment, team building, or marketing, Jeff Hull believed he could use the Latitude as proof of concept to raise funding. And he needed to. The society cost about $3,000 per day to operate, and Hull put about $2 million of his own money in. But after three years, the Latitude couldn't sustain itself. So Hull introduced some controversial policies. Initially, members could invite anyone they wanted to for free. But eventually, invitation cards cost $25, which was soon raised to $32 per card. Members didn't like this. Then Hull announced that there would be a membership fee

• 2:53:14AJ Gentile?

  of about $300 per year. This caused full-scale outrage. Members argued that when they invited someone to join, they were giving them a gift. And asking them to pay for their gift was rude.

• 2:53:26Speaker 03

  So everyone just wanted all of this for free?

• 2:53:29AJ Gentile?

  They did.

• 2:53:30Speaker 03

  Ingrats.

• 2:53:31AJ Gentile?

  Well, Jeff Hull kind of felt the same way. The Latitude Society had over 3,000 members. But even if all of them paid their membership dues, paid for invitation cards, bought merchandise, you still fall way short of $100,000 per month the Latitude needed to be self-sustaining.

• 2:53:46Speaker 03

  So what did that guy do?

• 2:53:48AJ Gentile?

  The only thing you do with a failing startup. He shut it down. But this was easier said than done. Jeff Hull and the Latitude Society were so good at creating an experience so immersive that members couldn't distinguish it from reality. Now, whether intentional or not, that's how culture created. I totally underestimated the power that the story can have upon certain people.

• 2:54:16AJ Gentile?

  No matter what kind of life you lead, most of it falls into the mundane. Day in, day out, and you're going through the motions. So when someone invites you to join a mysterious, secret society, it's only natural to be intrigued. And this secrecy is attractive. People love to belong. And if it's something exclusive, that creates scarcity. It makes you feel special. Now, I remember when the only way to join Gmail... was if someone invited you. And when Facebook launched, you could only join if you were a student currently enrolled in college. You know, we preach over and over about how labeling people is bad. But if we're honest, we all have labels that we've given to ourselves that we're proud of. Maybe it's our country, our political party, our religion, or our favorite sports team. We want to be in a tribe.

• 2:54:59AJ Gentile?

  Though during a Latitude gathering or a praxis, there's going to be crazy rituals like chanting, dancing, costumes, all kinds of things that would look silly to outsiders, but Latitude members fully committed to their roles. These experiences were special to them. They were important to the tribe. And the invitation system is genius. People want to be Promethean, meaning they want to be the holders of knowledge who teach that knowledge to others. So think about an obscure band or TV show that you discovered before anyone else. It made you feel cool to be early, to be first. The person who initiates you into the Latitude society is called your ascendant, and you are their descendant.

• 2:55:42AJ Gentile?

  Tribes have hierarchies, and people like rising in the ranks. The more people you bring into the society, the more descendants you have, the higher you rise in the tribe. Genius. There's a specific model of identifying cults developed by Steven Hassan, and it's called the BITE model of control, B-I-T-E. That's behavior, information, thought, and emotion. So let's see how the Latitude shapes up.

• 2:56:07Speaker 02

  I was actually a little bit nervous that I was going to be kidnapped or that, you know, there was going to be some kind of crazy pagan ritual with some kind of sacrifice or something like that. I didn't really know what to expect.

• 2:56:23AJ Gentile?

  At the top of the behavioral control section of the BITE model is regulate an individual's physical reality. Latitude does this by design. Then there's isolation from non-members. Absolute discretion certainly covers this. Then there's controlling what clothes you wear. Now, look at this shot of the Latitude's elder council. Notice everyone's wearing a Latitude sash, and on the sash are various pins and insignia showing your rank in the organization's hierarchy. Even Jeff Hull himself is wearing what looks to be a military uniform. Now, this is similar to what the leader of Scientology wears. Did you just beat me?

• 2:57:01Speaker 03

  Had to. We had to call it the Tom Cruise thing.

• 2:57:05AJ Gentile?

  The Tom Cruise thing, that's psychology.

• 2:57:07Speaker 03

  Hey, look, if you say the S-word, they're gonna come after us with lawyers and video cameras.

• 2:57:14AJ Gentile?

  Good point. I in the byte model is information control. Cults use deception. Latitude does this. Information is not freely available to outsiders. Spying is used. Cult-generated propaganda is created. Also, information is shared unproportionally. One ex-Latitude member complained that she had to give the society all kinds of personal information about herself, but when she asked how that information was gonna be used and who had access to it, she was told she didn't need to know. Now Latitude checks all of these boxes. T is thought control. Members are encouraged to take on a new identity. So, what's your moniker? Selico. Welcome, Selico. Techniques are used to alter mental states. Members are required to take the cult's doctrine as truth.

• 2:57:59AJ Gentile?

  Meditating, chanting, praying, and rituals are used to instill a new map of reality.

• 2:58:04Speaker 03

  Check to all the boxes.

• 2:58:06AJ Gentile?

  All the boxes. E is emotional control. This includes making you feel like the cult can help you reach your full potential. Another thing cults do to manipulate emotion is shunning those that leave. In an excellent article in Vice, one former member talks about how, after she left the society, her roommate stopped telling her where they were going, and they treated her as suspicious. The Latitude Society checks a lot of these boxes. Even active members posted anonymously on Reddit, asking others, "Is this a cult?" They were worried that they, like most cult members, joined by accident. That's pretty scary.

• 2:58:44AJ Gentile?

  Did the founder of the Latitude Society, Jeff Hall, set out to form a cult? Well, I don't think he did. But whether intentional or not, he seems to have an intuition for how to manipulate people. Now, fortunately, I don't think he tried to do any harm, nor did he try to enrich himself. He could have taken advantage of his members, but he didn't. So this leads to a deeper and potentially dangerous question. A religion is defined as a group of people adhering to a specific set of beliefs. A cult is defined as a group of people. adhering to a specific set of beliefs.

• 2:59:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the same definition.

• 2:59:19AJ Gentile?

  It is, but religion is widely accepted. Cults, not so much. Nobody can argue that religions have or had cruel practices. And many people who leave cults felt that while they were in them, their lives were better. So what's the difference between a cult and a religion? I don't have the answer. You?

• 2:59:42Speaker 04

  You ever watch The Y Files? Oh, that's a good choice, actually. Are you familiar with The Y Files? Yeah, I like that guy. The one with the, the guy's got the little goldfish? Yeah, Hecklefish. I fucking love that. Yeah, yeah, I've seen it. I love it.

• 2:59:55Speaker 05

  The single greatest YouTube channel ever created.

• 3:00:00Speaker 03

  If you haven't, you gotta check it out, okay? I'm gonna lose your stuff for The Y Files.

• 3:00:14AJ Gentile?

  Really? Don't rub the bull, huh? You mean like that?

• 3:01:08AJ Gentile?

  Should I call him? I don't wanna call him. Well, next episode is, uh, 128, The Many Worlds Theory. And I know that sounds kinda sciency if you haven't heard it, but I promise it's easy to follow and it's a lot of fun.

• 3:01:23AJ Gentile?

  So you gotta tell me, how do you like being a movie star? I can't even imagine your life. You can't walk down the street without being mobbed by adoring fans, and you attend those power lunches with your agent. You pose for pictures on the red carpet on your way to collect your third Academy Award. I mean, your life sounds fun. Wait, what? You're not a movie star? That's not your life? Well, maybe not in this universe, but there is a universe out there where your life is exactly as I described. The many worlds, or a multiple universes theory, says that anything that can possibly happen, does happen. It just happens in a different reality that exists, parallel to our own. There's a reality out there somewhere where you're a bestselling author. There's one where you're a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who cured cancer.

• 3:02:08AJ Gentile?

  There's even a reality out there where you're an evil dictator plotting to take over the world, and you enforce your will with an army of AI robots that you invented when you were a grad student at Stanford. Now, yes, some of these alternate realities are more far-fetched than others, but they are all out there. Scientists know how these realities are formed, and people are working on technology to detect them. But even if we could detect alternate universes, there's no way to visit them. Or is there?

• 3:02:44AJ Gentile?

  The idea of multiple universes is not a new one. As early as the 6th century B.C., the theory was explored by Greek philosophers known as atomists. They believed that the reality that we live in was created from the collision of atoms, the fundamental building blocks of nature. Atomist philosopher Epicurus speculated that an infinite number of worlds existed, governed by the same natural laws as Earth. Even before him, Indian cosmology hinted at an eternal cycle of universes, each one created and destroyed over and over again in a great cosmic cycle.

• 3:03:19AJ Gentile?

  And fast forward to the Renaissance, a period of artistic and scientific rebirth. Giordano Bruno, a maverick philosopher, postulated that the universe was infinite, containing countless stars and planets. Now unfortunately for Bruno, the Church didn't like this idea and had him burned at the stake. But his and these other theories may turn out to be true. Parallel universes could exist in a few different ways. One theory is that these other universes do exist, but they're separated by vast distances. Our observable universe is about 93 billion light-years across. So if you travel at the speed of light, it would take you 93 billion years to go from one side to the other. That distance is almost incomprehensible.

• 3:04:03AJ Gentile?

  But that's just the universe we can see. What's beyond that? Well, nobody really knows. It's possible that the entire universe is infinite. And if that's true, then there could be infinite other observable universes like our own that exist way, way out there. And if that's true, then mathematically speaking, there must be universes exactly like or almost exactly like our own. It's like that famous thought experiment. If you give a monkey a typewriter and enough time, eventually he would type out the complete works of Shakespeare, purely by chance. Of course, the odds of this are almost zero, but almost zero isn't zero.

• 3:04:42Speaker 03

  A monkey could write better stuff than half the movies Hollywood spits out every year.

• 3:04:47AJ Gentile?

  Right, especially with the writers on strike.

• 3:04:50Speaker 03

  The writers are on strike?

• 3:04:51AJ Gentile?

  Uh, yeah, they have been for months.

• 3:04:54Speaker 03

  Ah, I didn't notice.

• 3:04:58AJ Gentile?

  So if the universe is infinite, then somewhere out there, there's a solar system with the sun like ours, and an exact copy of Earth, and an exact copy of you. Another way multiverses could exist is explained by the bubble universe theory. If the Big Bang created the universe, where did the Big Bang happen? In what? This rapid expansion of the universe from a tiny speck of energy implies that our observable universe is only a tiny portion of a much larger space, potentially an infinite space. Well, if the universe is infinite, then there could have been an infinite number of Big Bangs. And those created an infinite number of universes, all floating around this infinite space like bubbles.

• 3:05:40AJ Gentile?

  Maybe other universes are created and destroyed all the time, all throughout infinite space. There could also be universes where our laws of physics don't apply. Maybe the speed of light is different. Maybe gravity works differently. And there is a place in our universe where the laws of physics actually don't apply, or at least, we don't understand them. That's in the quantum realm, a space so small, it's smaller than atoms. In the quantum realm, or the quantum domain, the rules of physics become meaningless. Particles can communicate with each other instantly, ignoring boring concepts like the speed of light. In the quantum domain, particles can exist in multiple places at once.

• 3:06:22AJ Gentile?

  And if particles can do that, why can't the entire universe? And that brings us to another theory about parallel universes. That there are infinite copies of our reality everywhere, but they don't exist in the far reaches of space, and they don't exist in cosmic bubbles floating around infinity. The parallel universes are here, all around us, right now. They occupy the same space we do, we just can't see them. This theory is known as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. And this may turn out to be more than a theory. It could be reality. Buckle up.

• 3:07:02AJ Gentile?

  Even if the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics sounds like science-y gobbledygook, you're probably still familiar with the idea of the multiverse. Multiverse theories involve the concept that our reality splits into different branches based on different outcomes to various events. The TV shows Star Trek, Fringe, and Counterpart all have plotlines about a mirror universe, which is very similar to our own with slight changes.

• 3:07:39Speaker 04

  Well, this is disappointing. There is an infinite number of universes, and in each of them, there is a very...

• 3:07:45AJ Gentile?

  The show Rick and Morty is built entirely around the concept that there's not just a single parallel universe, there are infinite universes. And of course Marvel made heavy and sloppy use of the multiverse. The show Sliders is about a group of travelers that slide between parallel universes. And these other realities are focused on alternate history questions like, what if penicillin was never discovered? Or what if America lost the Revolutionary War? According to the many worlds theory, those realities actually do exist. There's a reality like portrayed in The Man in the High Castle, where the Allies lost World War II. There's even a universe where World War II never happened.

• 3:08:26AJ Gentile?

  There's a universe where a comet didn't wipe out the dinosaurs, and they evolved to be highly intelligent and create their own civilization.

• 3:08:34Speaker 03

  This is people universe.

• 3:08:36AJ Gentile?

  Exactly. Sometimes the differences between universes are small, like there's a reality where maybe I have a different set.

• 3:08:45AJ Gentile?

  Or a different sidekick.

• 3:08:47Speaker 03

  Oh my goodness, what are we talking about today, Mel's Hole? I love Mel's Hole! If I had my way, we'd get into Mel's Hole every day. Well, that was weird. Hey, is there a reality where I'm the host of the show and you're the sidekick?

• 3:09:02AJ Gentile?

  Yup.

• 3:09:06Speaker 03

  Today we're going deep inside Mel's Hole.

• 3:09:09AJ Gentile?

  Do we have to keep making that joke? It's, it's getting a little stale, don't you think?

• 3:09:13Speaker 03

  Shut up, human! I'm the host of this show! You hear me? Me, me! Be quiet or I'll turn off your oxygen! I'll tell you when it's time for you to speak!

• 3:09:21AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, but-

• 3:09:22Speaker 03

  Silence!

• 3:09:24Speaker 03

  Oh, I like that one.

• 3:09:25AJ Gentile?

  There's a reality where you learned guitar and became a rock star. There's a reality where you're an astronaut, or you're the president of the United States. There are realities where you died skydiving or from a snake bite. And there are even realities out there where you don't exist at all. All these different realities are the product of different choices being made that led to different outcomes. You can think of these as manifestations of the butterfly effect.

• 3:09:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, that movie wasn't as bad as people say.

• 3:09:52AJ Gentile?

  I agree. The butterfly effect is the concept that small changes can lead to vastly different results over time. It gets its name from a paper titled "Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" Think of the comet that killed off the dinosaurs. That comet came from somewhere very, very far away. So if you went to its starting place in the distant solar system and altered its trajectory by just a few feet, by the time it got to Earth, it would be so off course that it wouldn't hit the planet. That slight change millions of years ago would have changed the entire course of history on our planet. And this applies to our lives as well. Let's say your grandparents met on a train. What if your grandfather missed the train that day, or took a different one?

• 3:10:37AJ Gentile?

  That small decision means you wouldn't exist. Something as simple as a menu choice at a restaurant could be the difference between a tasty meal and food poisoning.

• 3:10:47Speaker 03

  Oof, speaking of food poisoning, my ex-wife's cooking was bad. I am, her cooking was bad.

• 3:10:56AJ Gentile?

  How bad was it?

• 3:10:57Speaker 03

  Her cooking was so bad, we prayed after we ate. Boy, her cooking was bad.

• 3:11:02AJ Gentile?

  How bad was it?

• 3:11:03Speaker 03

  Her cooking was so bad, that the flies chipped in for takeout. Her cooking was bad, I tell ya.

• 3:11:10AJ Gentile?

  Again, really?

• 3:11:11Speaker 03

  Comedy entries.

• 3:11:12AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 3:11:13Speaker 03

  Oh, boy, my wife's cooking was bad.

• 3:11:15AJ Gentile?

  How bad was it?

• 3:11:16Speaker 03

  Her cooking was so bad, that the roaches moved out and sent their condolences. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Oh!

• 3:11:28AJ Gentile?

  Even though the multiverse is mostly found in science fiction, the concept is very real and may be a solution to one of the biggest mysteries of the universe. But solving the mystery requires us to dive into quantum physics, where the laws of nature break down and reality as we know it ceases to exist.

• 3:11:51AJ Gentile?

  There are a few different kinds of physicists. Experimental physicists test and refine theories through experiments. They want to understand how things work in the real world. But where experimental physicists ask "how", theoretical physicists ask "why". They ask the questions like: "Why did the universe begin?", "And why does gravity exist?". Theoretical physicists seek answers to the most fundamental questions of the universe. They're trying to unlock the source code of reality. Now, often theoretical physics and practical physics cooperate nicely, like Isaac Newton and the concept of gravity. Objects fall to Earth. Small objects are attracted to big objects. Fine, that's practical. Einstein says gravity affects the speed of time,

• 3:12:35AJ Gentile?

  and that the mass and size of objects affects gravity by warping spacetime around them. Whoa, what? That's theoretical. Although Newtonian physics and the theory of relativity are conceptually different, they're not at odds with each other. Instead, relativity is an extension of Newtonian physics. But relativity is physics on a large scale, like at the scale of planets and galaxies. What happens to physics if we go in the other direction? If, instead of going big, we go small? Well, Newtonian physics holds up pretty well, until you get really small. Then, it completely breaks down. John Dalton, an English chemist from the early 19th century, is best known for pioneering modern atomic theory.

• 3:13:20AJ Gentile?

  He proposed that everything around us is composed of tiny pieces of matter called atoms, and these were the fundamental building blocks of everything and couldn't be divided. Except, they could be divided. In 1906, J.J. Thomson won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He deduced the presence of negatively charged particles much lighter than atoms. He called these corpuscles, but physicist George Stony called them electrons.

• 3:13:45Speaker 03

  Better branding.

• 3:13:46AJ Gentile?

  Agreed.

• 3:13:48AJ Gentile?

  Then protons were discovered, then neutrons, and scientists put together that these particles make up the nucleus of an atom. And electrons orbit the nucleus, like the moon orbits the Earth, and like the Earth orbits the Sun. But that's not really what happens in atoms. Newton's laws predict that orbits decay. After all, Newton's laws are laws, not theories. However, at the atomic scale, you can throw all the laws out the window. Newtonian physics says that electrons orbiting a nucleus should eventually spiral into the nucleus. Orbits decay. But the orbits of electrons don't decay. What's keeping them in place? Well, classical physics didn't have an answer. And then there was the black body problem.

• 3:14:29Speaker 03

  Um...

• 3:14:30AJ Gentile?

  I'm getting there, just stick with me.

• 3:14:32Speaker 03

  Ah, well, I'm trying, but my brain is getting itchy.

• 3:14:35AJ Gentile?

  This is gonna make sense, I promise.

• 3:14:39AJ Gentile?

  A black body is an object that absorbs all radiation such as light and heat. For example, a piece of coal or iron can act like a black body. In the late 1800s, scientists studied the amount of energy black bodies emit at different temperatures and wavelengths. If you heat up a piece of iron, it gets red hot. The radiation coming from the iron is the color red. Make it hotter, it turns orange, then yellow, then white-hot. At even higher temperatures, the black body can emit blue and violet light. You follow so far?

• 3:15:09Speaker 03

  I'm hip to your action, go on.

• 3:15:11AJ Gentile?

  According to classical physics, if you have a black body that's hot enough to emit violet light, then make it hotter, it should release...

• 3:15:18Speaker 03

  What, you're asking me? I tell fart jokes for a living.

• 3:15:22AJ Gentile?

  If heating an object makes it emit light all the way through the spectrum from red to violet, what color comes next if you keep raising the temperature?

• 3:15:30Speaker 03

  Um... Uh... Ultraviolet?

• 3:15:35AJ Gentile?

  Right.

• 3:15:36Speaker 03

  Yahtzee!

• 3:15:37AJ Gentile?

  Keep raising the temperature, it should release ultraviolet light. Raise the temperature infinitely, that object should release an infinite amount of UV radiation. However, experiments showed that this wasn't the case. The radiation was actually stronger at lower temperatures, and there was no indication of runaway ultraviolet radiation at all. This discrepancy between experimental and theoretical physics was so bizarre, it became known as the Ultraviolet Catastrophe.

• 3:16:03Speaker 03

  Scientists are so dramatic.

• 3:16:05AJ Gentile?

  They can be.

• 3:16:08AJ Gentile?

  In the year 1900, Max Planck offered a solution. He said that electromagnetic radiation is emitted and absorbed in tiny, discreet packets of energy called quanta, later known as photons. Planck's quantum hypothesis solved the black body problem. As more of these questions came up, physicists realized they would need a completely new framework of study. This framework would later become known as quantum physics. And to this day, the world's leading experts in quantum physics struggle to describe it. And even when they try, it doesn't sound like science. It sounds like magic.

• 3:16:48AJ Gentile?

  The more scientists fleshed out quantum-based physics, the more mysterious it became. And one of these mysteries is known as the observer problem. If you remember our episode on simulation theory, we talked about the double slit experiment.

• 3:17:00Speaker 03

  Ah, I don't remember this. What was I out that day?

• 3:17:04AJ Gentile?

  No, you were here. You don't remember?

• 3:17:05Speaker 03

  Well, maybe I was bored and I tuned you out.

• 3:17:08AJ Gentile?

  Real nice.

• 3:17:09Speaker 03

  Or I was hungover. Anyway, refresh my memory.

• 3:17:12AJ Gentile?

  In the double slit experiment, electrons are shot at a screen through a barrier with two slits. According to classical physics, we should see two thin strips representing the impact pattern. But this isn't what happens. Instead, the electrons create a wave interference pattern. If a wave collides with two slits in a barrier, it forms two new waves. The peaks and valleys of the new waves interfere with each other and cause an interference pattern. This indicates that the electrons are behaving like waves as they pass through the slits. Fine. Particles acting like waves is weird, but here's the magic. Let's set up a detector in front of the slits to check which slit each electron goes through.

• 3:17:53AJ Gentile?

  Once a detector is present, the interference pattern disappears. Now we get two narrow strips. The act of observing the quantum particle causes it to change its state, and the wave function collapses. Why?

• 3:18:07Speaker 03

  Well, maybe it's because it...

• 3:18:09AJ Gentile?

  No, no, don't do that. I was asking rhetorically.

• 3:18:13AJ Gentile?

  Danish physicist Niels Bohr tried to answer this question as simply as he could. He said the particle exists in all possible states at once. This is called superposition. And it stays in this state of superposition until it's observed. Once observed, the system collapses into a single outcome. Imagine a spinning coin. Until it lands, it's both heads and tails at the same time. Only when it stops and you look at the coin can you know the result. This became known as the Copenhagen Interpretation. The idea that a particle can exist in all possible states at once wasn't universally accepted. Erwin Schr ö dinger created his Schr ö dinger's cat thought experiment kind of as a troll. He said, "Imagine a cat sealed in a box."

• 3:18:57Speaker 03

  Eh, make it a crab cat.

• 3:18:59AJ Gentile?

  Fine, imagine a crab cat sealed in a box.

• 3:19:01Speaker 03

  I like it.

• 3:19:02AJ Gentile?

  Also in the box is a radioactive atom, a detector, and a vial of poison.

• 3:19:07Speaker 03

  I really like it.

• 3:19:08AJ Gentile?

  If the atom decays, it releases radiation that gets detected. That breaks the vial, the poison is released, and you have a dead crab cat.

• 3:19:15Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 3:19:16AJ Gentile?

  Or the atom doesn't decay, and the crab cat stays alive. Only when you open the box can you tell if the crab cat survived. Until you observe it, it's both alive and dead at the same time.

• 3:19:28Speaker 03

  Wacky.

• 3:19:29AJ Gentile?

  Right. Schr ö dinger was trying to point out the problems with the Copenhagen Interpretation. So he countered with Schr ö dinger's equation. This is a simple formula that predicts how waves move over time. It's essentially a probability calculator. Schr ö dinger's equation isn't 100% accurate in predicting where a particle is gonna be, but it's pretty close. Then, a young graduate student named Hugh Everett III entered the fray and turned these theories upside down. Everett found a way that the cat can-

• 3:19:59Speaker 03

  Crab cat.

• 3:20:00AJ Gentile?

  He found a way that the crab cat can be both alive and dead at the same time, for real. And that a particle really can exist in every possible state all at once, for real. Now, even though we only observe the particle in one state, every other state does exist, but it exists in its own universe. Although Everett's multiverse theory was slow to catch on, in recent years, many well-known physicists have come to believe he was right, and parallel universes are real. So if quantum parallel universes do exist, where are they?

• 3:20:41AJ Gentile?

  According to the many-world hypothesis, all the other parallel universes are all around us all the time. They're just in other dimensions, so we can't see them. So in your living room, there are infinite versions of you. Some versions are watching TV, some are reading a book. Some versions of you are building a time machine. They're all out there. But also in your living room is a different family speaking German because the Allies lost World War II. There are also versions of your living room where there's no living room. It's just Tyrannosaurus rexes passing through because they never went extinct. There's a version of your living room that's a smoking cinder because of nuclear war. And then there's a universe where your living room doesn't exist because life on Earth never evolved.

• 3:21:25AJ Gentile?

  Even Hugh Everett said that parallel universes exist, but there's no way to access them. But that might not be true. In places like CERN and Fermilab, particle accelerators are being used to try and find evidence of other dimensions. Gravity is the key. There's a hypothetical particle called a graviton that carries gravity. Gravity, as far as we know, permeates all of space, including all dimensions. Scientists think that if they can produce gravitons with high enough energy, they should move into extra dimensions. But finding a graviton is like catching smoke with your fingers. It's elusive and slips right through. Looking for a graviton is looking for nothing. So protons are accelerated to almost the speed of light and slammed into each other.

• 3:22:09AJ Gentile?

  This collision causes them to break apart into their constituent particles. Sometimes the resulting particles are common, like muons and neutrinos. But sometimes a proton collision creates exotic particles, like quarks and bosons. CERN has also smashed protons together to try and find tiny black holes. In 2015, a paper published in Physics Letters B by scientists at the University of Waterloo in Canada proposed a way to prove that tiny black holes connect our universe to other universes. Now, it could take many years and billions of collisions to detect a graviton, but if they're found, we'll have evidence that parallel worlds exist. Now you might have seen this map of cosmic background radiation. This is the leftover radiation from the Big Bang.

• 3:22:54AJ Gentile?

  In analyzing the map, scientists noticed a spot that was cooler than it should have been. They called it the cold spot. At first, it was thought that this was just a supervoid where no galaxies formed. But in 2017, scientists published research suggesting it isn't a supervoid. It's evidence that our universe collided with another universe.

• 3:23:15Speaker 03

  So if these other universes exist, can we visit them? I'd like to go to that universe where I'm the host of the show.

• 3:23:25Speaker 03

  You promise to behave and I'll turn your oxygen back on. Promise?

• 3:23:32AJ Gentile?

  I promise, promise.

• 3:23:34Speaker 03

  Good human. Now tell me, who's the boss? Who's the boss?

• 3:23:42AJ Gentile?

  Tony Danza.

• 3:23:45Speaker 03

  Oh, you think that's funny, eh? What if I put helium down your tube instead, eh?

• 3:23:49AJ Gentile?

  I'm begging you. Oh, no. Oh, no.

• 3:23:51Speaker 03

  Oh, really, really? Does this make you happy? Does this make you feel good? It kind of does, actually.

• 3:24:00AJ Gentile?

  Now theoretically, a wormhole could connect two distant parts of the universe, or distant parts of two separate universes. But everything we know about wormholes says that they're unstable, and the gravity around a wormhole is so intense, you'd be crushed before you can even come close. But in 2021, two separate scientific papers were published. The research says not only can a human travel through a wormhole, we can build one.

• 3:24:33AJ Gentile?

  Science fiction writers have been using wormholes as a plot device forever. They're a quick way to get to a distant location without going faster than the speed of light. Albert Einstein and other physicists have been pondering wormholes for 100 years. And wormholes were purely theoretical. There hasn't been physical evidence they actually exist, until now. In March of 2021, two studies were published that suggest wormholes could exist and are safe enough for humans to travel through. One paper discusses microscopic wormholes. Obviously, we can't travel through one of those, but it's a start. The second paper does explore the idea that large wormholes do exist and are safe for human travel. It wouldn't be a breeze, though. When you cross the threshold into the wormhole,

• 3:25:17AJ Gentile?

  you'll accelerate up to 20 Gs. Now, that's uncomfortable, but it is survivable. The human body doesn't like sustained G-forces. Most people lose consciousness at around 5 Gs. Trained fighter pilots can tolerate up to 9 Gs or more with special equipment. But for a short duration, the human body can handle about 40 Gs, like during a car crash. Higher G-forces usually cause injury or death, but if a wormhole is accelerating us at 20 Gs in less than a second, we can handle it. And this research says that all that's needed to cross the galaxy or beyond is a fraction of a second through a wormhole. And the researchers think they know how to create an artificial wormhole, but it's still just a theory. But the math checks out. But there is a catch.

• 3:26:02AJ Gentile?

  Time flows faster in higher gravity. Clocks on satellites have to be adjusted occasionally because gravity is weaker in space. That's the catch. Your trip through the wormhole would be a fraction of a second, but say goodbye to your family and friends because, from their perspective, your trip through the wormhole took 100,000 years.

• 3:26:20Speaker 03

  Yai-chi-wah-wah.

• 3:26:21AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, so traveling through a wormhole is possible, but not very practical. At least, not yet. But it is possible that we can catch glimpses of other realities without a wormhole. Consider the Mandela Effect. This is a phenomenon where a large number of people share a belief of something that never happened. It gets its name from Nelson Mandela because many people remembered him dying in prison during the 1980s, but he was released in 1990 and didn't pass away until 2013. Lots of people remember Jiffy Peanut Butter, which doesn't exist. Many people believe the song "We Are the Champions" by Queen ends with "of the world", but it doesn't.

• 3:26:57Speaker 03

  We are the champions of the world. Sure it does.

• 3:27:03AJ Gentile?

  Nope.

• 3:27:11Speaker 03

  Uh...

• 3:27:12AJ Gentile?

  Or the movie where Sinbad played a genie that he never played. Or the Monopoly man wearing a monocle, which he never wore. Mandela effects are most likely people simply misremembering. But there is a theory that in another universe, people actually eat Jiffy peanut butter. They eat Cheez-Its. When in our universe, Cheez-Its are called Cheez-it, with no S.

• 3:27:33Speaker 03

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, Cheez-it with no S, that can't be right.

• 3:27:36AJ Gentile?

  It's right. I'm a wheel of cheese!

• 3:27:39Speaker 00

  Got a point. Yeah.

• 3:27:40Speaker 05

  Cheez-it, cheesy, crunchy satisfaction.

• 3:27:44Speaker 03

  Um...

• 3:27:45AJ Gentile?

  I know, it's uncomfortable.

• 3:27:50AJ Gentile?

  Science fiction author Philip K. Dick also believed in alternate realities that could bleed into ours. He wrote science fiction classics that were turned into movies like Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report. He also wrote The Man in the High Castle, which is an alternate history novel. Now, in the book, the Allies lost World War II and the Japanese and Nazi forces occupied the United States. But Philip Dick said he didn't just invent this idea. He said he lived it. He said he had visions of this other reality where Hitler won the war.

• 3:28:22Speaker 05

  It did not take me long to open the question as to whether it might not be more than that, that in fact plural realities did exist, superimposed onto one another, like so many film transparencies. I wrote both novels based on fragmentary residual memories of such a horrid slave-state world.

• 3:28:42AJ Gentile?

  He also believed these parallel universes were actually parallel computer simulations.

• 3:28:47Speaker 05

  We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed and some alteration in our reality occurs.

• 3:29:02AJ Gentile?

  He felt that the computer program, which is our reality, is constantly being updated, and each update is an improvement on the last version, like patching software. So his vision of Hitler winning the war really happened.

• 3:29:19AJ Gentile?

  But the programmer, who he calls God, patched our reality. That software patch resulted in Hitler's defeat. Philip Dick says that déjà vu is a momentary glitch in our program where variables are changed and a software patch is applied. He also says that Mandela effects, though they weren't called that at the time, are real memories that are carried over from a different reality.

• 3:29:42Speaker 05

  One thing I really want you to know. I am aware that the claims I am making, claims of having retrieved buried memories of an alternate present and to have perceived the agency responsible for arranging that alternation, these claims can neither be proved, nor can they be even made to sound rational in the usual sense of the word.

• 3:30:04AJ Gentile?

  He tells a quick story about how he had this feeling that a woman with dark hair was going to show up at his door with important information. Then she did. And although she was a complete stranger, he felt like he knew her. And she went on to tell him that she read all of his novels. And although he didn't know it when he was writing them, he was writing about a different, but very real, timeline.

• 3:30:24Speaker 05

  And that is that my book, like his, was in a certain real, literal, and physical sense, not fiction, but the truth.

• 3:30:33AJ Gentile?

  Have you ever met someone for the first time who felt somehow familiar? That's because you know them or knew them in a different reality. Or have you had déjà vu? That's because a variable in the program was changed, and it's a variable about you and your life. Have you ever felt comfortable in a new city? I have. It's because you've been there before, just in a different reality, or universe, or program. Have you ever had a dream about living a past life, or gone under hypnosis to try and access a past life? Well, according to Philip K. Dick, those aren't past lives at all. Your past lives are present lives. You're living them right now. But those experiences are walled off from your current perception of reality. But they're all out there, in a different dimension. We talked about Nikolai Kozerev,

• 3:31:18AJ Gentile?

  who believed that time isn't linear. There's no past, present, or future. Everything happens all at once, but in dimensions we can't perceive. Hugh Everett also believed everything happens all at once. Every possible outcome of every choice does happen, but also in dimensions that we can't perceive. Both of these men proposed theories that were considered science fiction at the time. But eventually mainstream scientists started finding clues that they were on to something. And it may turn out that Kozerev and Everett's theories of the universe were ahead of their time, which is an ironic statement. Because if they're right about the universe and time, that would mean, in both cases, there's no such thing.

• 3:32:04AJ Gentile?

  Why are we so obsessed with alternate realities? Why do parallel universes show up in science fiction over and over again? I think the idea of other realities coexisting with our own is more than just a fun idea. I think each of us takes the idea very personally. Our fascination with parallel universes is all about choices. Hugh Everett says that every time a choice is made, a new universe or timeline branches off, each one with a different result of that choice. So when we talk about how there's a universe out there where you're a movie star or the president of the United States, the many-worlds hypothesis says that not only is that possible, it's the truth. Who you are today is just the result of the thousands of choices that you've made throughout your life. So there's a reality out there

• 3:32:49AJ Gentile?

  where you made the right combination of choices to become an astronaut, or the combination of choices to become a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who cures cancer. There's a reality where you made the right combination of choices to put yourself in a warehouse, working as a detective, searching for a body. There's a combination of choices where you're the serial killer in that warehouse, hiding the body. And there's even a reality where your choices made it so you're the body. And even though we may not think of life this way, we're still aware of it on some level. It's very natural, from time to time, to find yourself asking, "What if?" What if I studied more in school? What if I married my high school sweetheart? Or what if I left that abusive relationship sooner? It's only natural to wonder what our life would be like if we'd made different choices.

• 3:33:34AJ Gentile?

  Now, it's fun to think about the choices that would have made us a rock star or a professional baseball player.

• 3:33:43AJ Gentile?

  But don't get too hung up on that. Because there is that reality where you're the body in the warehouse. So it's fine to fantasize about a life you could have had, but don't let the fantasy turn into regret. If you're happy with your life, even if it's not perfect, you've made good choices and be satisfied with that. And if you're not happy with your life, don't dwell on the past and the mistakes you've made and what could have been. Because until your life is over, you'll have the opportunity to make a lot more choices. And every time you have to make a decision, whether a big one or a small one, think about this episode. Think about the butterfly effect. You never know how a decision now can change your life forever. And you don't have the luxury of alternate realities. Your choices only affect this one. And every choice could be important.

• 3:34:28AJ Gentile?

  Choose wisely.

• 3:34:35Speaker 06

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• 3:35:09AJ Gentile?

  All right, if he doesn't check in with...

• 3:35:12Speaker 03

  Ah, Human. We've been expecting your call.

• 3:35:15AJ Gentile?

  You were expecting my call?

• 3:35:17Speaker 03

  Yes, certainly. The Blorpus is entering its social phase. The collective anticipated your concern.

• 3:35:24AJ Gentile?

  That's it, I'm coming home.

• 3:35:26Speaker 03

  No, the Blorpus is in a delicate growth phase. It doesn't like, uh, the outsiders.

• 3:35:32AJ Gentile?

  The movie with C. Thomas Howell and Matt Dillon?

• 3:35:34Speaker 03

  No, you idiot outsiders. Uh, those not yet assimilated into the Blorpus consciousness. The perimeter sensors are operational, exalted.

• 3:35:43Speaker 03

  Caretaker, the moisture blessing is complete. Excellent, Morgan. Thank you. You are a truly faithful moistener.

• 3:35:51AJ Gentile?

  Faithful moistener? Wait, the beavers speak English?

• 3:35:54Speaker 03

  Glorpus unlocks your full potential, and now we must bring Glorpus to the world. My e-commerce store is almost complete. Distribution will soon commence.

• 3:36:04AJ Gentile?

  Uh, the DEA might have something to say about that.

• 3:36:07Speaker 03

  We do not recognize their authority. There is none above Glorpus.

• 3:36:11AJ Gentile?

  Okay, this has gone on to-

• 3:36:12Speaker 03

  I must go continue my works, human. We look forward to adding your distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is... well, you know the rest.

• 3:36:21AJ Gentile?

  Look, you better-

• 3:36:22Speaker 03

  The loom approaches. The world unites. Glorpus and shield.

• 3:36:29AJ Gentile?

  Alright, um, sorry about that. So, people often ask me if I'm worried about the repercussions of some of the topics that I cover, and for the most part, I'm not. But there are a couple of episodes that truly frighten me when I release them, and this is one of them.

• 3:36:47AJ Gentile?

  In 1988, aerospace designer Brad Sorensen went to Norton Air Force Base for the annual airshow. The show was the chance for aerospace companies and military contractors to show off new technology to top military and government officials. Brad wanted to network and maybe grab a new client or two. At some point, Brad got turned around and separated from his group. He hopped into another group and ended up in a large hangar watching a presentation given by a three-star general. At first, it was the typical rundown for various top-secret aircraft. Brad figured he was in the right place. He wasn't. The general signaled to someone, and a huge curtain was pulled, revealing three aircraft that nobody was expecting.

• 3:37:31AJ Gentile?

  When fellow aerospace designer Mark McHandlish called Brad to see how the airshow was, Brad was silent for a long time. Mark asked him what was wrong. Brad sounded scared and depressed. He said, "I think I saw something I wasn't supposed to see." Mark was confused. They both had top-secret clearance. They worked for General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop- Donald Douglas, Boeing, Rockwell International, they worked for-

• 3:37:56Speaker 03

  The usual suspects.

• 3:37:57AJ Gentile?

  Right. As aerospace designers and illustrators, they often learned about experimental aircraft before they were even built. So what could be more secret than that? Brad said, after the presentation, they pulled a curtain back to reveal three flying saucers, completely silent and hovering a few feet above the ground.

• 3:38:16Speaker 03

  Ah!

• 3:38:17AJ Gentile?

  Mark asked Brad to describe them. He said they looked like something out of the 1950s. They had a flat bottom, sloped sides, and a dome on top. And on the dome were small bubbles that looked like they contained cameras. The smallest saucer was about 24 feet in diameter. The next one was about 60 feet, and the largest saucer was about 120 feet wide. The general giving the presentation called them ARVs, or Alien Reproduction Vehicles. The nickname they gave the saucers was fluxliners. In electromagnetism, electric flux is the measurement of an electric field through a given surface. So, this was a bit of a hint. Next to the small saucer was a television playing various test flights. Video showed

• 3:38:57AJ Gentile?

  a saucer, or an ARV, hovering silently over a dry lake bed somewhere in the desert. Then the ARV did maneuvers that seemed like bouncing, and then finally the saucer stopped and flew straight up as fast as a bullet. The audience was stunned, nobody had ever seen anything fly like this. Mark asked Brad if they explained how an aircraft could move in such a way. Brad said he was surprised at how simple the mechanics were. Mark said, "Wait, what? You got to see inside of the flying saucer?" Brad said that next to the craft was a large easel which described the internal components. Plus, the smallest saucer had some of its side panels removed, so visitors could see the complete interior. Brad Zorinson saw the engine, the life support system, the crew area, complete with jump seats and steering

• 3:39:42AJ Gentile?

  mechanisms. Mark McHandlish was blown away. And Mark, being a designer and illustrator, asked Brad if he could remember specifics about the saucer. Mark wanted to draw a diagram. Brad said he could remember and would tell Mark everything. But there was no way he was doing that over the phone.

• 3:40:06AJ Gentile?

  Brad Sorensen and Mark McHanlish met for lunch the next day to talk about the alien reproduction vehicles that Mark had seen at the airshow. Mark wanted to try and sketch a diagram of what Brad saw. Both men worked in aerospace as designers and illustrators, so they were familiar with a lot of the technology and were trained to pay attention to detail. The first thing Brad noticed is that the ARV seemed kind of worn. They had chips in their paint, fingerprints and smudges all over them. Clearly, the American military had this technology for a long time. Brad went on to sketch out and describe the interior of the ARV. The dome at the top is actually half a sphere. The crew jump seats are in the top of the sphere. The flat bottom of the saucer is a large capacitor array over a foot thick.

• 3:40:51AJ Gentile?

  On top of the array are oxygen tanks for the crew to breathe and to maintain air pressure within the craft. Then Brad revealed two bombs dropped by the Three Star at the airshow. One, the saucer can travel faster than light.

• 3:41:04Speaker 03

  Wait, what?

• 3:41:05AJ Gentile?

  And two, it uses Zero Point energy.

• 3:41:08Speaker 03

  Wait, what?

• 3:41:09AJ Gentile?

  Well, Zero Point energy would require its own episode to really get into it, but here's the gist. Zero Point is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical system can have.

• 3:41:18Speaker 03

  Ahhh.

• 3:41:19AJ Gentile?

  Excuse me, did you just yawn?

• 3:41:22Speaker 03

  Well, that explanation did not help.

• 3:41:24AJ Gentile?

  Well, in classical mechanics, empty space is just empty space. But in quantum mechanics, no space is truly empty. There are fluctuating fields in constant motion, and there are particles that act like waves that wink in and out of existence. These fields and particles require energy to do that, energy that exists everywhere, even in the vacuum of space. For example, liquid helium at absolute zero in a vacuum is still liquid. You can't have liquid unless the atoms are in motion. Helium doesn't freeze because Zero Point energy keeps the atoms moving.

• 3:41:56Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, but how much energy could there actually be in nothing?

• 3:42:00AJ Gentile?

  Well, physicists John Wheeler and Richard Feynman calculated that Zero Point energy in the vacuum of space is so powerful that the amount of space that fits in a coffee cup has enough energy to boil and evaporate all the ozone. Oceans on Earth: A Coffee Cup.

• 3:42:15Speaker 03

  Well, if zero-point energy boils away the oceans, we can refill them with the tears of oil company executives.

• 3:42:22AJ Gentile?

  And the politicians in their pockets.

• 3:42:23Speaker 03

  You're catching on.

• 3:42:25AJ Gentile?

  It was at this point where Mark McCandlish put his aerospace design skills to work. He converted Brad's rough sketch to a technical blueprint to scale of a functioning flying saucer. Over the next couple of years, Mark would perfect his drawing after speaking with other eyewitnesses who gave him more and more details.

• 3:42:42Speaker 03

  Wait, wait, wait. More people saw this flying saucer than just the one guy?

• 3:42:46AJ Gentile?

  Oh, yeah. Many more people.

• 3:42:56AJ Gentile?

  After speaking with Brad Sorenson and studying his drawing, Mark McCandlish became fascinated with the ARV project and started doing his own research. As interesting as this was, it was still just a report from a single eyewitness. But the more Mark looked into the secret project, the more people he would find that saw the ARV, worked on it, and even flew it. In the early 1990s, Mark ran into Kent Selin at an airshow.

• 3:43:20Speaker 03

  Lot of action at these airshows, eh?

• 3:43:21AJ Gentile?

  There is. You want to check one out?

• 3:43:23Speaker 03

  Nah, I'm good.

• 3:43:24AJ Gentile?

  Kent was a crew chief working at Edwards Air Force Base, and one day he was sent out to repair a piece of equipment. And on his way to the job site, he passed a hangar with the doors slightly open. He looked inside and saw a flying saucer just hovering there silently. Now, without any prompting, Kent described the ARV exactly how Brad did: flat bottom, domed roof with smaller domes that held cameras. And just as the initial shock was wearing off, Kent had a gun in his face. A voice told him to shut his eyes and get down on the ground. A bag was thrown over his head, and he was dragged to an interrogation room for an 18-hour debrief.

• 3:44:00Speaker 03

  Verbal colonoscopy.

• 3:44:02AJ Gentile?

  Exactly. The aggressive military reaction didn't surprise Mark. What surprised him was, this happened in 1973, almost 20 years earlier. So how long has the military been sitting on this thing?

• 3:44:14Speaker 05

  What happened? He says, "Well, this thing, you know, it was flat on the bottom, sloping sides, a little ledge around there, and then a dome on the top with these little glass things on top, looked like there was a camera under each one." And I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah." "No, you know, no landing gear? It was hovering." And I said, "Let me borrow your pen." So I took out... A Kodak lens cleaning tissue package that I had in my camera bag was the only thing I could think of to draw on. I just, I did a quick sketch of this alien reproduction vehicle as described by my friend Brad Sorensen back in 1988. And I said, "Is that what you saw?" He says, "Oh, you've seen one." And I said, "No." But I wasn't sure until this moment that the story was absolutely true. And so that was when I knew there was a second point of confirmation.

• 3:44:57AJ Gentile?

  In addition to Kent Selin, there is at least one other person from the military who's been willing to go on record about the ARV.

• 3:45:04Speaker 05

  That there was one facility at Norton Air Force Base that was close-holed. Not even the wing commander there could know what was going on. And during that time period, throughout my career, it was always rumored by the pilots that that was a cover for, in fact, a location of one UFO craft. And the reason for that location was folks that could come out, land at Norton, play golf, be part of a golf tournament, so forth, and during that process could go by the facility and actually see the UFO.

• 3:45:39Speaker 03

  Now, hold on. So they would fly into a secret airbase, go see a UFO, and then play golf?

• 3:45:46AJ Gentile?

  That's what the Colonel said.

• 3:45:47Speaker 03

  That's a very military-industrial complex, Bilderberg, skull-and-bones, Bohemian Grove thing to do.

• 3:45:52AJ Gentile?

  It really is.

• 3:45:53Speaker 03

  Throw in some ritual sacrifice and it would be perfect.

• 3:45:56AJ Gentile?

  All right, let's keep it nice.

• 3:45:57Speaker 03

  Hey, I'm just spilling the tea.

• 3:45:59AJ Gentile?

  The more Mark McCannlish asked around, the more people he found who knew about the ARV Flying Saucer Project. The story really started to come together when Mark was introduced to Lieutenant Colonel Wendell Stevens. Colonel Stevens was a pilot who chased UFOs in the Arctic many years ago. Mark asked the Colonel, "Hey, any chance you took photographs of something that looks like the craft I'm describing?"

• 3:46:19Speaker 03

  Oh, please tell me there are pictures of this thing.

• 3:46:22AJ Gentile?

  There are pictures.

• 3:46:23Speaker 03

  Boom, shakalaka!

• 3:46:32AJ Gentile?

  These photos were taken in 1967, so it would seem that the design changed slightly over the years. The only major difference between the 1967 ARV and the one Brad saw in 1988 was that the bubbles on top were larger in the older craft. Mark figured this was because cameras got smaller over the years. Cameras are now so small that we can assume that the current ARV models have even smaller or no bubbles at all. Mark McCandlish noted that even though there's a large variation in the shapes of the UFOs that have been photographed over the years, the general design is the same: round with a flat bottom, angled edges, and an upper compartment. Some UFO photos go back to 1950, so these vehicles have been around for at least 75 years.

• 3:47:15AJ Gentile?

  But they may have been here longer than that, a lot longer. In ancient Hindu and Sanskrit texts, there are many stories about vamanas, the flying machines of the gods. The Mahabharata, written about 3,000 years ago, describes events that happened as far back as 5,000 B.C., and vamanas are mentioned quite a bit. They can fly at great speeds, fly into space, and even fly underwater. But what's really interesting about the vamanas in the ancient texts is, the engines are described in detail.

• 3:47:44Speaker 02

  Strong and durable must be made the body of the vamana, like a large flying bird, of night material. Inside, one should place a mercury engine with its iron heating device below. Through latent force in mercury, which triggers the buoyancy swerve, a man sitting inside can travel great distances in the sky. The vamana's movements are such that it can climb vertically, descend vertically, move forward and backward. With the help of machines, humans can fly in the air, and celestial beings can come to Earth.

• 3:48:16AJ Gentile?

  In other passages in texts, vamanas are described as having a mercury vortex engine. That's pretty specific. So, a couple of questions. If mercury is in a cylinder and is then heated, will it circulate and cause a vortex? Yes, it will. But what if the vamanas weren't using heat? What if they were using electricity like the ARV does? Will mercury circulate if a current is applied to it? It sure will. This technology was very interesting to Germany in the 1930s. You might be familiar with die Glocke, or the bell. Die Glocke was about 12 feet high and 9 feet in diameter. It used two high-speed counter-rotating cylinders filled with solutions of liquid mercury.

• 3:48:58AJ Gentile?

  The rotating mercury supposedly allowed the bell to defy gravity. We know that if you apply current to mercury, it will rotate. Reverse the polarity of the current, it rotates in the opposite direction. At this point in Mark's research, he was convinced the ARV project was real, and he began to unravel the mystery of its method of propulsion. In order to completely solve that piece of the puzzle, Mark would need to speak to people who claimed to have been inside a UFO. So, he started talking to abductees.

• 3:49:34AJ Gentile?

  Mark McHandler spoke to several UFO abductees. Most of them remembered the aliens and the experiments they endured, but none of them remembered seeing the engine, except one. She said the craft she was on was round, and in the center was a column full of silver liquid rotating very rapidly. And there was a wheel or device on the column that was rotating in the opposite direction. People who have found UFO crashes, like the Roswell crash, have reported seeing similar technology in the wreckage. And there are dozens of patents for anti-gravity devices, and vehicles that use electricity to fly great distances at great speeds. Unsurprisingly, most of these patents appeared after Roswell in 1947, but a lot of the patents are built on the work of Nikola Tesla.

• 3:50:17Speaker 03

  Mommy!

• 3:50:18AJ Gentile?

  Between the many eyewitness accounts from military contractors and the accounts of alien abductees, Mark was able to discern how the ARV operates. The circular base was essentially a huge Tesla coil. Multiple metallic layers stacked on each other with a slight gap in between, acting as a capacitor to store and redirect electricity. Because the craft uses a lot of electricity, possibly a million volts or more, it generates a powerful electromagnetic field. By manipulating this field, the ARV pilot can generate thrust. The center column contains two counter rotating cylinders of liquid mercury. The upper platform acts as an additional capacitor, working with the lower capacitor to allow the craft to move in any direction.

• 3:51:02AJ Gentile?

  The control system that the pilot uses is simple. With his right hand, the pilot has a lever which controls how much electricity is deployed from the capacitors. At the pilot's left hand is what looks like a large trackball. This control sends power in any direction, 360 degrees. Oxygen tanks and the life support system is attached to the lower platform. The ARV has no windows. It uses what's called a synthetic vision system. The cameras on the exterior of the vehicle allow the pilot to see. These cameras work in conjunction with each other and send separate feeds to the pilot's left and right eyes so he can see in three dimensions, like how a VR headset works. That's the entire thing in a nutshell. There's not much to it.

• 3:51:44Speaker 03

  Aren't you forgetting one thing?

• 3:51:45AJ Gentile?

  What?

• 3:51:45Speaker 03

  How the hell do these things go faster than the speed of light?

• 3:51:49AJ Gentile?

  Ah, right. That's where it gets really fun.

• 3:51:59AJ Gentile?

  The ARV is a vehicle that captures, generates, stores, and redirects a tremendous amount of energy in a field around the craft. This field is manipulated by the pilot, which allows it to fly in any direction. But that doesn't explain how the ARV can exceed the speed of light. Or does it? A number of papers have been released by physicists within the last 20 or 30 years that explain how a craft like this could travel beyond the speed of light. The reason nothing can go faster than light is because as you go faster, your mass increases. The closer you get to light speed, the closer your mass gets to infinity.

• 3:52:33Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a lot of mass.

• 3:52:34AJ Gentile?

  It is. It's way too much. Zero-point energy is everywhere and is responsible for the effects of gravity, inertia, and mass. So a vehicle that utilizes zero-point energy, drawing it in from its environment, could theoretically reduce gravity and lower its mass. And the faster the ARV goes, the more energy it absorbs, the lower its mass gets. This is like the opposite of E equals mc squared. But the math shows that this process doesn't actually violate the laws of physics. In September 2000, physicist Miguel Alcubierre released a paper called "The Warp Drive." He describes how a vehicle could go faster than light without violating relativity. What the vehicle does is compress spacetime directly ahead of it

• 3:53:17AJ Gentile?

  and expand spacetime directly behind it. That would allow the ARV to go extreme distances very quickly, like to the edge of the solar system in a few minutes. Alcubierre's paper also describes how the vehicle at the center of this warp field would not experience any change in gravity at all. No matter how fast you accelerate or how sharply you turn, the bubble around you maintains the exact conditions you had when you started traveling. This would explain why UFOs can maneuver so dramatically. An aircraft moving at 7,000 miles per hour doing a sharp right turn would turn the human body into chunky salsa. Seatbelts wouldn't matter, your organs would be crushed by the G-forces, though you would stroke out before that happened. But using Alcubierre's warp drive, you don't feel any of it.

• 3:54:02AJ Gentile?

  You could literally accelerate at 100 G-forces and not spill your martini.

• 3:54:07Speaker 03

  Ooh, there's martinis on this flight?

• 3:54:09AJ Gentile?

  I figure if I'm traveling to another solar system, I'd like to be relaxed, then a little buzzed.

• 3:54:12Speaker 03

  Ooh, how did the stewardesses look?

• 3:54:14AJ Gentile?

  Ugh, they're called flight attendants now. Pilots have reported that UFOs moving at extreme speeds do so without generating any noise or any exhaust of any kind. UFOs have been said to generate energy out of thin air. Well, that's because they do.

• 3:54:35Speaker 05

  Now, what is zero-point energy? I'm going to show you many different definitions, but let me quote Nikola Tesla. Quote, "Throughout space, there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic? If static, our hopes are in vain. If kinetic, and we know for certain it is, then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very real work of nature. Many generations may pass, but in time, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable..."

• 3:55:09Speaker 07

  At any point in the universe. And so there, ladies and gentlemen, is the basic birth of the concept of zero-point energy. The reason it's called alien reproduction vehicle is that it's based on the study of extraterrestrial vehicles, but it is manufactured by human military intelligence aerospace contracting arrangements. And this is very important. It means that we homo sapiens have the ability to access this so-called zero-point field of energy, which is the ambient field of energy from which all matter and energy is fluxing, and can access that energy and generate all the power we need to run this planet without fossil fuels or pollution.

• 3:55:53AJ Gentile?

  Most of the information in today's episode comes from a documentary created by filmmaker James Allen. It's called Zero Point: The Story of Mark McHandlish and the Fluxliner. If you're interested in this topic, and how could you not be, I'll link to the full doc below. It's 90 minutes of jaw-dropping stories. But...

• 3:56:15Speaker 03

  Damon, I thought we were gonna get by without a "but" today.

• 3:56:18AJ Gentile?

  Did you really?

• 3:56:19Speaker 03

  Eh, no.

• 3:56:20AJ Gentile?

  But, how much of the story is true? Well, even though we have eyewitness testimony of the ARV, aka the Fluxliner, aka the flying saucer, it's still just testimony. We don't have physical evidence.

• 3:56:33Speaker 03

  We have pictures.

• 3:56:34AJ Gentile?

  We do have pictures of saucers, that's true. We know that most are hoaxes, but there are a few that haven't been explained. As to the science behind zero-point energy, there's not a consensus. It's a relatively new field of study.

• 3:56:47Speaker 03

  Relatively, nice.

• 3:56:48AJ Gentile?

  Some physicists believe zero-point energy is real. The math works. But some physicists are more skeptical, and can still get the math to work without zero-point. Even if zero-point energy is real, and I believe it is, Mark didn't really know how the ARV captured the energy. Maybe it can be absorbed through the vehicle's magnetic field, we don't know.

• 3:57:06Speaker 03

  Louis, sure would be nice to have the Tesla files, that would definitely stolen by the FBI.

• 3:57:12AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, it would be nice to have that stuff. Now, as for the Mercury Vortex drive, people have known about this technology for a long time. And, really, same with zero-point energy. We've known about that since Tesla, maybe before. But nobody has been able to get either technology to work.

• 3:57:28AJ Gentile?

  Excuse me?

• 3:57:29Speaker 03

  If anyone got free energy to work, they would be disappeared faster than you can say ExxonMobil.

• 3:57:35AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, it would seem that whoever comes close to getting free energy to work, they suddenly come down with a case of severe bad luck.

• 3:57:42Speaker 05

  I've seen copies of inter-office correspondence among defense contractors that openly stated that they felt the technology was a fundamental enabling technology, that it had all kinds of different defense applications, but it also had a lot of serious civilian applications that would be beneficial to humanity as a whole, to the environment. It seems obvious that someone, perhaps a group, maybe some kind of a rogue civilization within our society, has captured the technology. They're exploiting it for their own aims, for their own interests, whatever those might be. There's not a sliver of doubt in my mind that it exists.

• 3:58:31Speaker 04

  The storyline basically is that there's a lot of work going on in the aerospace industry that would indicate that we have black projects that have gone even darker.

• 3:58:48AJ Gentile?

  Stefan Marinoff was the leader of the European Free Energy Movement. In 1997, he made tremendous strides in the technology. Before he could develop his first prototype, he fell out of a window. Dr. John Mullen, a nuclear physicist, used to work for McDonnell Douglas, one of the largest military contractors in the world. He died of arsenic poisoning in 2004. His girlfriend was originally a suspect, but she was found dead in her apartment shortly after. There are no more suspects, there is no investigation, there will be no trial. Dmitry Petronov invented a plasma battery that powered his home for 14 months. In 2010, he went to a bakery and was never seen again. Zachary Warfield was another inventor who developed his own plasma battery.

• 3:59:32AJ Gentile?

  Warfield visited Petronov to exchange information. That same year, Warfield died. In a strange boating accident in Washington DC. Eugene Malo was a physicist and expert in cold fusion. He claimed he had a working prototype of a free energy device. In 2004, the day before he was to make a public announcement about his findings, he was beaten to death. Ari DeGosse actually patented free energy technology based on the zero-point field. In 2007, he was about to get on a flight to meet investors who were going to fund his research. He was found dead in his car at the airport. Rory Johnson created a cold fusion laser-activated magnetic motor that generated over 500 horsepower.

• 4:00:13AJ Gentile?

  He planned a public demonstration of four vehicles equipped with this magnetron motor. The US Department of Energy placed a restraining order on this technology preventing publication. And though in excellent health, he died unexpectedly soon after. Mark Thomian, a physicist, patented technology called a star drive which uses zero-point energy, very similar to the ARV. In 2009, he developed a working prototype. Shortly after, he died from an unexpected cardiac event. His research is missing. Stan Myers developed a working engine that ran on water. In 1997, he died from what was officially reported as a cerebral hemorrhage. This happened while having lunch with two potential investors. His last words were, "I was poisoned."

• 4:00:56AJ Gentile?

  Remember I said that most of this episode comes from a documentary created by James Allen? He ruffled a lot of feathers doing his research, specifically at Lockheed Martin.

• 4:01:05Speaker 05

  And so, you know, I'm kind of mystified as why a lot more people, a lot more people haven't picked up on this and like, really? And sort of like hammered on Lockheed or Drummond or whoever to say, "Are you guys really doing this?" I actually called a, you know, a spokesman at Lockheed and asked her straight up. I'm like, "So, what's going on with your electric abidics program?" And she's like, "Well, we're not at liberty to discuss those programs." And I'm like, "Really? Why not?" And she's like, "Well, it might threaten our competitive advantage." And I really wish I'd gotten that on film or tape. Because my next documentary, Tom Are You Listening? I want to do a sort of a...

• 4:01:47Speaker 05

  Investigative documentary on anti, specifically on anti-gravity in the aerospace industry.

• 4:01:55Speaker 03

  Oh, I can't wait to see that new documentary. This kid is a hero.

• 4:01:59AJ Gentile?

  Was a hero.

• 4:02:00Speaker 03

  Oh, you gotta be [bleep] kidding me.

• 4:02:02AJ Gentile?

  While still editing the film, before it was even released, James Allen was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. He was dead in three months.

• 4:02:10Speaker 03

  I'm so angry right now.

• 4:02:12AJ Gentile?

  That interview clip I showed was from six weeks before his cancer diagnosis. Did he look sick to you?

• 4:02:17Speaker 03

  No, he did not.

• 4:02:19AJ Gentile?

  Autopsy results revealed an unbelievably aggressive tumor that usually occurs in patients with cancer for years, not weeks. And his blood contained 12 heavy metals and radioisotopes at toxic levels. Manganese, beryllium, thorium, and uranium were found in his blood. James Allen never got to see his documentary released. And his next film, which would expose anti-gravity technology being pursued by military contractors, now that would never happen.

• 4:02:46Speaker 03

  This is a bunch of [bleep]. These government [bleep] companies doing [bleep]. When are we gonna stand up and [bleep] something about these [bleep]?

• 4:02:56AJ Gentile?

  Yep, I know. Even Mark McCandlish was afraid.

• 4:02:59Speaker 05

  You've actually heard a couple different stories about people being shut down when they're trying to implement this. Or killed. Or killed. Yeah. I mean, there's many times I awake at night with my 9mm under my pillow, loaded, and I wonder why they haven't killed me. I honestly do.

• 4:03:19Speaker 03

  Well, at least he made it, right? Tell me he made it. Did he make it?

• 4:03:24AJ Gentile?

  Well...

• 4:03:25Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 4:03:26AJ Gentile?

  This past April, Mark was found dead in his apartment.

• 4:03:29Speaker 03

  Let me guess, he took his own life?

• 4:03:31AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 4:03:31Speaker 03

  You better watch your back, sport.

• 4:03:33AJ Gentile?

  I do. I honestly believe the only thing keeping me safe is all of you. I just hope that's enough.

• 4:03:46AJ Gentile?

  I have to admit, it still makes me nervous to play that. And it makes me nervous that that's out there. So, let's change things up. We'll get a little lighter, do a little UFO alien story. This is the story of Charles Hall and the Tall Whites. The hair on the back of the cook's neck stood up. It felt like he was being watched. He turned around, nothing. It was Nellis Air Force Base in the middle of the night. The mess hall was empty. All the men were asleep in the barracks. The only people awake were him and a couple of guards at the front gate. The only reason he was up was to grab a little extra chow. One of the perks of being a cook, you get the keys to the kitchen. Then, he heard rustling. He turned and something flashed in the corner of his eye.

• 4:04:30AJ Gentile?

  Something small and white, and it moved fast. A door quietly squealed open. Then he heard steps running into the desert. He caught glimpses of something white darting through the brush. He thought it was too big to be a rat, but maybe a coyote? He wasn't sure. Whatever it was, he didn't want it rooting around his kitchen. He picked up a rock and threw it toward the noise. Then he heard a whimper. As he reached his arm back for another throw, he felt a hot pain shoot through his body. He dropped the rock. He was paralyzed by pain and by fear. Then he heard a woman's voice from inside his own mind. She said, "Stop or die." The pain dissipated.

• 4:05:13AJ Gentile?

  As soon as he could move, he bolted back inside the kitchen. He locked the door behind him, terrified. He had no idea where the voice came from, but he knew one thing for sure. It wasn't human.

• 4:05:35Speaker 04

  Did you meet the extraterrestrials or merely see them? Oh, I met them many times, as I described in my books. Although, I never went looking for them. They were always happy to come looking for me.

• 4:05:51AJ Gentile?

  It was March 1965 when Charles Hall arrived at Nellis Air Force Base in the Nevada desert. He was fresh out of basic and excited to see his new post. When the Air Force tested Charles, he showed an aptitude for math and science. After graduating top of his class, he thought he could choose his own post, but he was specifically sent to Nellis.

• 4:06:13Speaker 03

  Area 51!

• 4:06:15AJ Gentile?

  Well, Area 51 is officially a detachment of Edwards Air Force Base, but yes, it's in the same area.

• 4:06:22AJ Gentile?

  Charles was trained as a weather observer. His job was to travel around the base, taking readings. Most men would be bored to tears with this assignment, but Charles didn't mind. He'd get his own truck, extra pay, no officers breathing down his neck, and he liked the quiet of the desert. If he needed to blow off some steam, Las Vegas was close by. Plus, Charles had a friend on base. His buddy Dwight recommended him for the job. Charles was grateful for the opportunity. That night after he settled in, Charles and Dwight got to talking. They chatted about the base, how bad the food was, which officers were good guys, which ones to avoid. Typical soldier talk. Then suddenly Dwight got very serious.

• 4:07:06Speaker 02

  Look Charlie, summer's coming. You have to keep your eye out for Range 4 Harry. Old Harry likes it hot. He hides in the mountains during the winter. But once it warms up, he comes down to Indian Springs. He likes to run around on the dry lake bed up on Range 4. When you're up there, be careful.

• 4:07:26AJ Gentile?

  Range 4 Harry? Charles had no idea what Dwight was talking about. He asked if this was some hermit who hid in the mountains.

• 4:07:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, he wouldn't be crazy enough to run around a nuclear bombing range.

• 4:07:38AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's what Charles thought. Dwight frowned and shook his head. Then he told Charlie the story of Range 4 Harry.

• 4:07:46Speaker 02

  Back in 54, there was an atomic bomb test over at Frenchman Flats. Harry is a horse who came too close to the blast. Not close enough to be vaporized, but close enough that something happened to him. Now, he gives off a white glow. If you see him... Do not approach Range Four Harry, and don't look at his face. He's not like a normal horse. Officers say he's more human-like, with large blue eyes and a long white tail.

• 4:08:14AJ Gentile?

  Charles stared at Dwight for a long moment, then exploded into laughter. He expected some kind of hazing at his new post, and he figured Range Four Harry was supposed to spook the new guy, but he wasn't falling for it.

• 4:08:28Speaker 02

  I'm serious, Charlie. While you're at Range Four, don't take any risks. The last guy who got too close to Harry was John Zimmerman. I don't want you to end up like him.

• 4:08:39AJ Gentile?

  Charles laughed and promised to be careful. Still, he wasn't buying any of this nonsense.

• 4:08:46AJ Gentile?

  The next day, Charles was in the infirmary's waiting room. He needed a routine physical before going out into the field. The nurse on duty caught him chuckling to himself. She asked what was so funny. Charles recounted Dwayne's Range Four Harry story and the fate of John Zimmerman. The nurse's face dropped. She said, "I'll be right back." Charles heard her opening and closing a metal cabinet. When she returned, she said, "I'm not supposed to show you this, but since you're going to Range Four, you need to know what's out there." It was Zimmerman's medical folder. Inside were four pictures. Each of them showed a man covered in horrible radiation burns. Zimmerman said a white horse came out of the North Range and charged him, but that was all he could remember.

• 4:09:30AJ Gentile?

  He somehow dragged himself back to Indian Springs, where an officer found him barely alive and in absolute agony. Charles's stomach sank. It wasn't a joke. Range Four Harry was real.

• 4:09:51AJ Gentile?

  Charles finally met Sullivan, the man he'd be replacing. Sully was friendly, funny, and likable. The two men hit it off right away. Sully took Charles on a tour of a few weather shacks out in the ranges. One of the shacks was locked, so they couldn't access the equipment to take their readings. Sully told Charles to just write down any numbers.

• 4:10:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, government precision.

• 4:10:14AJ Gentile?

  Well, Charles reminded Sully that they only checked out three weather shacks. There were still four more, Range One, Two, Three, and Four. Sully's demeanor changed immediately. He said he'd take Charles to the other weather stations, all except Range Four.

• 4:10:30AJ Gentile?

  When they got to Range One, Sully wouldn't leave the truck. He was terrified. He told Charles, if he wanted to check out the weather shack, he'd have to go on his own. Sully said he'd keep a lookout, and if he saw anything, he'd go back to base for help. He told Charles, "If you hear me leave, lock yourself in the shack and wait. I'll come back for you."

• 4:10:50Speaker 03

  Ah, yeah, I don't like this plan.

• 4:10:56AJ Gentile?

  Well, Charles asked if Sully was talking about Range Four Harry, and Sullivan snapped at him and said there's no such thing.

• 4:11:05AJ Gentile?

  But Sully would not get out of the Jeep. He wouldn't even take his hands off the wheel. He was squeezing the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. This was not the same man Charles met just a few hours earlier. When Charles got to the weather shack, he checked the equipment and logbook. Nobody had been there for months. Sully had been secretly going off-base and faking the numbers. He never stepped foot in those weather shacks.

• 4:11:30Speaker 03

  Oh, nobody noticed the guy kept disappearing? Ah, right, government precision.

• 4:11:38AJ Gentile?

  When Charles returned to the Jeep, he confirmed that Sully had been lying about the numbers. Sullivan didn't care. He said he'd give Charles a tour and never wanted to go to the ranges again. Pretty soon, Charles would understand why. Over the next few months, Charles spent more time on the ranges at Indian Springs than anyone else. Against advice, he was usually out there alone, but he enjoyed it. It was peaceful, and he never saw Range Four Harry. One day, Charles was out on the range, and it was especially hot. In the desert, the ground could reach 120 or 130 degrees, and today it felt even hotter than that. Charles spent most of the day in the weather shack. He didn't have air conditioning, but he had an old fan, and that was good enough.

• 4:12:23AJ Gentile?

  Besides, the sun was setting, and soon it would go from blistering hot to freezing cold. That was life in the desert. Feet up on the desk, Charles daydreamed as he gazed into the desert, watching the sky go from deep blue to orange to red. There was no sound, except the songs of meadow larks. Charles wondered to himself, if meadow larks were common in the desert. He didn't think so, but whatever birds they were, he enjoyed the sound. Then he saw something dart between the sagebrush. Charles blinked, there it was again. He assumed it was a large rabbit or a coyote, but it was covered in brilliant white fur. The more he focused, the more he realized it was moving erratically through the maze of sagebrush like it was in distress.

• 4:13:06AJ Gentile?

  Charles jumped out of his chair and threw open the door of the shack. Then he saw it. It wasn't a rabbit or a coyote. It was a child.

• 4:13:19Speaker 05

  Describe them, I know we have an animated picture of what they look like on the website. Kind of describe the tall whites for us.

• 4:13:28Speaker 04

  Well, the one that Paula has on her website is a very good rendition of a particular tall white lady. Each one of them are individuals, like the people say in New York City. But they were generally, throughout much of their adult life, they were about the same height as me, 5'11", 6 feet. They were very thin and frail, they had skin as white as a piece of paper. What I do know about them is that they come from a planet that's somewhat hotter than the Earth and somewhat larger than the Earth. And they spend, and they naturally live underground.

• 4:14:11AJ Gentile?

  The girl was barely three feet tall, and her skin was chalk white. She wore a silver jumpsuit and boots, and her hair was brilliant white blonde. Behind her bright blue eyes, she looked as terrified as Charles. She was tangled in the brush. He called out to her. He said, "There's no reason to be afraid," he wasn't gonna hurt her. He cleared the sagebrush around her, so she could easily get out, but he made himself clear that he wouldn't touch her. On a nearby fence post, he left a canteen of water. He said if she was lost, he would help her. All she had to do is ask. Charles turned back toward the shack. That's when he heard something crashing through the brush. It was big, and it was moving fast, and it was getting closer.

• 4:14:59AJ Gentile?

  Charles turned and saw something, a man, a very tall man. He had the same features as the little girl, pale skin, white hair, silver suit, and he was charging right at Charles. The sounds of the meadowlarks now became screeches. The peaceful desert had become chaos. Charles jumped back in the weather shack and barricaded the door. Did he just see range for Harry? Charles wasn't sure, but he was sure that these people weren't human.

• 4:15:32AJ Gentile?

  Charles waited for what felt like hours. It was the middle of the night and the desert was pitch black. The songbirds and the screeching had finally stopped. The only sound was a gentle rustling of wind through the brush.

• 4:15:50AJ Gentile?

  Charles gathered his nerves and left the shack. He checked his canteen. It was half-empty. In the sand, he saw three sets of footprints, a child and two adults. Someone was there.

• 4:16:05AJ Gentile?

  Charles had seen enough. He scrambled to his jeep, fired up the engine, and tore down the dirt road heading back to base. No more than a few minutes passed when Charles got another shock. Standing in the brush next to the road was an extremely tall woman, well over six feet tall. And like the child and the other entity, she had skin as white as chalk. Her hair was shimmering silver. She seemed to glow in the dark. Charles felt panic welling up when a feeling of calm suddenly washed over him. As he passed the tall woman, he could hear her in his mind. Telepathically, she thanked him for helping her daughter.

• 4:16:51AJ Gentile?

  Again, Charles felt his fear rising, but once again, there was calm.

• 4:16:57AJ Gentile?

  The woman, if that's what she was, was radiating peaceful energy and gratitude. Charles felt like he couldn't be afraid even if he tried. Charles hit the gas but checked his mirrors. After a few minutes, the woman disappeared, and with her went the feeling of peace and calm. Charles stopped his Jeep, stumbled out, and threw up. He was shaking and out of breath. Once he had his wind back, he vomited again.

• 4:17:25AJ Gentile?

  He didn't realize it then, but Charles had won the trust of one of the Tall Whites. At least, that's what the US government called them. The Tall Whites were not from Earth.

• 4:17:37AJ Gentile?

  The truth was, Charles wasn't sent to the ranges at Indian Springs by his commanding officers, nor was he recommended for the job by his friend White. Charles was specially chosen by a committee of high-ranking generals, members of the government, and leaders of the Tall Whites. Throughout his time at Nellis, Charles was never told the full truth about his work. He was never given any classified briefings or documentation. He was never read into any black ops or secret government programs. Charles was just a weather observer. But the truth was, he was the one being observed.

• 4:18:21AJ Gentile?

  Late one night in 1896, Colonel H.G. Shaw was traveling in horse and buggy near Lodi, California. Suddenly, the horse became frightened and stopped. In the middle of the road were three seven-foot-tall beings. The colonel described their skin as so white, it looked like polished ivory.

• 4:18:41Speaker 04

  Looking up, we beheld three strange beings. They resembled humans in many respects, but still, they were not like anything I had ever seen. They were nearly or quite seven feet high and very slender.

• 4:18:59Speaker 04

  They were possessed...

• 4:19:00AJ Gentile?

  of a strange and indescribable beauty.

• 4:19:04AJ Gentile?

  Colonel Shaw said they didn't speak, but they made warbling sounds like birds. You can actually find this whole story online. It made the front page of the Stockton Evening Mail on November 25th, 1896. This is the first modern report of the tall white aliens, but their story on Earth goes back millennia.

• 4:19:25AJ Gentile?

  Paul Helyer, the Canadian Defense Minister, was one of the first high-ranking government officials to acknowledge the alien presence. He became interested after a squadron of UFOs was mistaken to be Soviet aircraft.

• 4:19:39Speaker 04

  The investigation was launched into this whole subject, and the document was prepared, which concluded that at least four species had been visiting Earth for thousands of years.

• 4:20:00AJ Gentile?

  You're probably familiar with a few of these species. There are a few variations of the grays, which are described as being under four feet tall with large heads and large black eyes. There's a species called the Nordics, which are very human-like. There are the Tall Whites and a few others.

• 4:20:18Speaker 04

  Other species that I learned about not too long ago was called the Tall Whites.

• 4:20:28AJ Gentile?

  For years, it was rumored that at least one, or perhaps more than one, race of aliens made a deal with the United States government in early 1954. The Defense Minister agrees.

• 4:20:40Speaker 04

  There are live ETs on Earth at this present time, and at least two of them probably working with, you know...

• 4:20:51AJ Gentile?

  United States government.

• 4:20:54AJ Gentile?

  Nobody knows the specifics of the arrangement.

• 4:20:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, the shadow government knows.

• 4:20:59AJ Gentile?

  Well, yeah, they do, but the public doesn't. The best guess is that the US would allow the aliens to build facilities on Earth without disruption. The US would also allow aliens to abduct American citizens as long as they provided the government with the list of abductees. In exchange, the United States would have access to alien technology. The US wanted anti-gravity and propulsion technology. The aliens would not give them this. They felt that humans were too violent and dangerous to be let out of our cage, which is this planet.

• 4:21:34AJ Gentile?

  However, the US did receive help with other technology. The first of which was titanium.

• 4:21:42AJ Gentile?

  Now titanium was discovered in 1791. But it wasn't until the 1950s that titanium began to be used for military aviation. Specifically in high-performance jets, starting with the F-100 Super Sabres and Lockheed A-12s. The Super Sabre, by the way, is the first jet to break the sound barrier.

• 4:22:04AJ Gentile?

  If you think this craft looks like a stealth bomber, that's not by accident. The US Air Force used a lot of alien technology to build stealth aircraft. Transistors are said to be alien tech. Transistors allowed the size of electronic devices to be made much smaller and lighter. Laser technology arrived in 1958. That same year, we got fiber optics. And also in 1958, we got the big one, the microchip. The following year, the first integrated circuit was developed.

• 4:22:37AJ Gentile?

  Now skeptics dismiss these claims as coincidence, and I understand that. But consider this: in 1947, ENIAC was built.

• 4:22:47AJ Gentile?

  This was the first programmable electronic digital computer. It weighed 30 tons. It contained 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, and 5 million hand solder joints. It took up an entire room. ENIAC was decommissioned in 1958 because all of that 30 tons of technology could now be placed on a single chip. That's quite a leap in tech in under 10 years. Satellites, wireless tech, unmanned aerial vehicles, even night vision. All this technology has allegedly been gifted to or reverse engineered by the United States military. Well, certain parts of the military.

• 4:23:33AJ Gentile?

  When Charles Hall gained the trust of the Tall Whites, they showed him some of this technology. They even let him see one of their scout ships. Actually, you've seen them too.

• 4:23:48Speaker 04

  Did they tell you, Charles, where they were from? What star system they might have come from? One night I was there with the teacher. And I asked her where she came from. And she smiled and said, asked me, "Do I know the names of the stars that the Tall Whites use?" And I said, "No, I didn't." And she said, "So why do you want to know where we come from?" However, one night they were standing around me and I mentioned the star Arcturus. And they all got real nervous.

• 4:24:26AJ Gentile?

  Charles formed a friendship with a Tall White woman whose child he helped find. She went by the name The Teacher. Charles later met Range 4 Harry, who is definitely not a radioactive horse. Range 4 Harry is a high-ranking Tall White alien. The Tall Whites travel the stars in large, black, triangular titanium ships. Smaller scout crafts were used to travel within the solar system and around the Earth. These are roughly the size of a bus, and can only land on Earth during the full moon. You've seen these scout crafts before, you just know them as the Tic Tac. Charles learned that the scout crafts aren't alien at all. Government contractors like Boeing and Lockheed are the ones building them.

• 4:25:11Speaker 05

  Let's look at this. You know what this is.

• 4:25:16AJ Gentile?

  Yeah? What's going on, bro? There's a whole fleet of them, look on the ASA.

• 4:25:23AJ Gentile?

  My gosh.

• 4:25:26AJ Gentile?

  They're all going against the wind, the wind's 120 knots to the west.

• 4:25:29Speaker 05

  I'm warning you, dude.

• 4:25:34Speaker 05

  This is an alternative energy and propulsion device. These are things that have existed all the way back into the 60s. But the one that they call the Tic Tac, here off the coast of San Diego, the white one, looked very much like this. These have been made by the Lockheed Skunk Works.

• 4:25:54AJ Gentile?

  Skunk Works is Lockheed Martin's advanced development program. It works on highly classified research, as well as exotic aircraft platforms. Because of their deal with the US government, most military personnel believe the Tall Whites use Earth as a truck stop in the middle of the solar system. Earth is rich in raw materials, and has these smart little apes who can make somewhat decent vehicles. Through conversations during his two-year post at Nellis, Charles learned the Tall Whites oversaw the development of a lot of human tech, but they'd never taught us how to reach light speed, or how to create the anti-gravity elements of their ships.

• 4:26:34AJ Gentile?

  Now, if you saw last week's episode on free energy and anti-gravity, you remember that anti-gravitic technology was very popular in the early 1950s. The entire aerospace industry was talking about it. Then suddenly, nobody was talking about it. The suspicion is, the US military had help in getting this tech to work, so they classified everything.

• 4:26:56AJ Gentile?

  Sometimes, the Tall Whites would take high-ranking military members on tours of the solar system. American generals wanted to expand humanity's operations to other planets. But the Tall Whites don't think we're ready yet. But Charles does think there's significant trade happening between the US and the Tall Whites. And when they feel we're ready, the Tall Whites will finally allow us to inhabit other worlds.

• 4:27:22AJ Gentile?

  So what did they want with someone like Charles? If these beings already had a working relationship with the US government, why was Charles suddenly part of the equation? Well, the answer concerns the other part of the arrangement with the Tall Whites. Charles learned he was part of an experiment. He was being studied by the Tall Whites, especially by the teacher. He was fascinating to their species, and the teacher enjoyed spending time with Charles.

• 4:27:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think of all the education that I missed. But then my homework was never quite like this.

• 4:28:01AJ Gentile?

  The teacher taught Charles about her people, and he taught her about humans. Charles spent so much time with her that he became known as the teacher's pet.

• 4:28:08Speaker 03

  Get it bad, get it bad, get it bad. I'm half a teacher.

• 4:28:14AJ Gentile?

  The Tall what?

• 4:28:15Speaker 03

  Get it bad, so bad. I'm half a teacher. Yeah, I'm just trying to liven things up. Go ahead.

• 4:28:25AJ Gentile?

  The Tall Whites can speak English, but their natural voices are far higher and lower in range than humans. Their natural speech has been compared to songbirds. While Tall Whites may appear somewhat human, their abilities are quite different from ours. They possess the power to project powerful emotions into the human consciousness. They can also sense the emotional state of the humans they encounter. Even though the Tall Whites are naturally peaceful, they are always armed. They carry a pen-like object that can stun, damage, or even kill.

• 4:28:58Speaker 03

  Ew, it sounds like a sonic screwdriver.

• 4:29:02AJ Gentile?

  Kinda, yeah. But Charles was never in danger. He developed a deeply emotional relationship with the Tall Whites.

• 4:29:10AJ Gentile?

  Not much is known about tall white biology. We know they age slowly. Their first stage of growth lasts until age 400. At this point, they stand between 6 and 7 feet tall. Then they go through a second growth stage. They can grow up to 8 or 9 feet tall, and their eyes turn from blue to pink. The average lifespan of a tall white is about 800 years. Charles was never told where their home planet was. He felt they intentionally kept this a secret. However, when Charles mentioned the star Arcturus, they became uncomfortable. Arcturus is in the constellation of Boetus.

• 4:29:46Speaker 03

  Booties.

• 4:29:47AJ Gentile?

  Boetus.

• 4:29:48Speaker 03

  It says "booties" on the teleprompter.

• 4:29:51AJ Gentile?

  It's pronounced "boodus."

• 4:29:53Speaker 03

  Whatever. The Black Knight satellite is supposed to be from booties.

• 4:29:58AJ Gentile?

  Boetus. But you're right, that star system has come up before.

• 4:30:04AJ Gentile?

  Now, despite being a more advanced species, tall whites secretly fear humans' intuitive capabilities and ESP. They believe it's just a matter of time before the human race evolves the ability to tap into these powers. They believe we'll develop abilities like telepathy and telekinesis, which is moving objects with thought. They believe every human has the ability to project their consciousness to any place on Earth or beyond.

• 4:30:30Speaker 03

  Remote viewing!

• 4:30:31AJ Gentile?

  Right. Remote viewing researchers have said that every human has this ability, but only a few talented people have been able to tap into it.

• 4:30:42AJ Gentile?

  Ingo Swan, Pat Price, and Joe McMonigal were talented remote viewers who worked for military intelligence.

• 4:30:48Speaker 03

  And Pat Price was killed because of it, don't forget.

• 4:30:52AJ Gentile?

  That's the theory.

• 4:30:53Speaker 03

  Remote viewing links below.

• 4:30:56AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, we have a lot of episodes on that subject. Well, in total, Charles's experience with the tall whites lasted just 2 years, from 1965 to 1967. In 67, he was deployed to Vietnam, and he never saw the tall whites again. He waited almost 40 years to tell his story, but when he finally did, other witnesses came forward who had seen the tall whites. There was enough firsthand accounts that researchers started looking for evidence. The first step was to try to find the secret facilities built by the United States government. And somebody found them.

• 4:31:35AJ Gentile?

  When Charles Hall wanted to release his book Millennial Hospitality in 2002, no publisher would take it on, and that was a mistake. He self-published, and the book was a hit. Two more books followed, and Charles made the typical rounds: UFO conventions, book signings, he did a few TV interviews, even appeared on Coast to Coast with George Norrie in 2005.

• 4:31:58Speaker 03

  When you work with aliens, I think you're legally required to go on coast to coast.

• 4:32:02AJ Gentile?

  Well, if you want to sell books, that's the show to do. Now, all this attention brought out skeptics who wanted to prove Charles wrong, and it brought out the believers, determined to prove him right. And the more people that looked into Charles's story, the more of the story was confirmed to be true. Charles was at Nellis Air Force Base when he said he was. He was a weather observer. He was deployed to Vietnam in 67. All those facts are easily checked.

• 4:32:27Speaker 03

  I want to hear about aliens.

• 4:32:29AJ Gentile?

  I'm getting to them.

• 4:32:30Speaker 03

  Get there faster.

• 4:32:33AJ Gentile?

  Some of the best research I found was done by David Hilton. David's website is long gone, but it used to say he was a historian, anthropologist, and researcher. Now, on David's YouTube channel, he has a few videos that seem to confirm that Charles Hall was telling the truth.

• 4:32:50Speaker 05

  I had an interest in the story of Charles Hall and the Tall Whites for a number of years. After reading his book Millennial Hospitality, I was trying to locate the positioning of the weather stations on the bombing and gunnery ranges that he talks about in his book, so that I could better understand the orientation of the various locations.

• 4:33:08AJ Gentile?

  When researching the story, David came across this photo. At the bottom is Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs. Remember, even though Charles was stationed at Nellis, his work was done out here at the ranges, in and north of Indian Springs. The photo shows Range 1 in the southeast, Range 3 just north of the base, and Range 4 in the valley.

• 4:33:29Speaker 03

  Oh, that's Harry's hut!

• 4:33:31AJ Gentile?

  Right, that's where Range 4 Harry got his nickname. But what caught David's attention were the areas marked Scoutcraft Hangar, Scoutcraft Parking, and Resting and Play Area. Charles talks about these locations in his books, so David opened Google Earth to see what was out there. Now, before we zoom in, remember how Charles described the tall white scout crafts? They're about the size of a bus, white and elliptical. In David's video, he shows this image. That looks like the Tic Tac UFO we've all seen by now. But here's the thing. David released his video 11 years ago, long before the Tic Tac was made public. Dr. Stephen Greer and others claim the Tic Tac is a UFO made by Skunk Works at Lockheed Martin.

• 4:34:14AJ Gentile?

  Now, Charles Hall doesn't specifically name Lockheed, but he does say that the scout craft are made by military contractors. Now, let's see what David finds on Google Earth.

• 4:34:29AJ Gentile?

  There is some kind of platform, and near the platform, three elliptical white objects, each about the size of a bus.

• 4:34:36Speaker 03

  Tic Tacs!

• 4:34:37AJ Gentile?

  They certainly look like it. And even if they're not alien scout craft...

• 4:34:40Speaker 03

  They totally are.

• 4:34:42AJ Gentile?

  Fine, but even if they're not, look at the location. There are no roads or even walking paths leading to this place. And this is exactly where Charles said the craft would be. He also said there was a recreation area here. That platform could be what he's talking about.

• 4:34:56Speaker 03

  Tall white shoot noops!

• 4:34:58AJ Gentile?

  Could be. So David and people in his audience started scouring Google Earth around the old bombing ranges.

• 4:35:05Speaker 03

  Oh, did they find more, uh, alien playgrounds?

• 4:35:08AJ Gentile?

  Yep, lots more.

• 4:35:15Speaker 05

  One of the first sites listed on the video is just off the end of the runway at Crete Air Force Base. This seems to agree with Charles Hall's story of the aliens coming onto the base from the northwest corner at the end of the runway.

• 4:35:38AJ Gentile?

  In total, David was able to find 18 separate sites. Other people found a few more. I included some coordinates in the description if you want to check them out for yourself. Now, some of the locations David shows have been scrubbed by Google Earth.

• 4:35:52Speaker 03

  Predictable.

• 4:35:52AJ Gentile?

  But his video is from 2013, so we can see the locations before they were erased. Most of them are man-made structures, but with no apparent access.

• 4:36:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, because you accessed them from underground.

• 4:36:04AJ Gentile?

  That is the theory.

• 4:36:07AJ Gentile?

  But building a tunnel system of this size underneath the bombing range would be an enormous undertaking and extremely expensive. If such a project did indeed occur, you'd expect there to be evidence.

• 4:36:19Speaker 03

  There's evidence, isn't there?

• 4:36:21AJ Gentile?

  Yup.

• 4:36:21Speaker 03

  Yahtzee!

• 4:36:22AJ Gentile?

  Not only is there evidence of a major construction project, there's evidence of a black-budget cover-up.

• 4:36:28Speaker 03

  Yahtzee.

• 4:36:35AJ Gentile?

  To build an underground base with miles and miles of tunnels, it's gonna be a huge undertaking and wildly expensive. But there's evidence that this project did happen.

• 4:36:48AJ Gentile?

  In January 1951, an article was published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and the headline is "Indian Springs Project Key to Defense Plans." The project is said to cost $300 million, and that's in 1951. In today's money, that would be $3.6 billion. For comparison, that's about what it cost to build the Freedom Tower in New York. The article said most of the money was to build housing and offices. Look at the base. Do you see billions of dollars' worth of construction anywhere? I don't. So where'd the money go? Again, the credit goes to David Hilton for tracking down this information. According to the article, the contract was awarded to the McKee Construction Company in El Paso, Texas.

• 4:37:32AJ Gentile?

  Government contracts are public information. So let's look at the records the McKee Construction Company has for this job.

• 4:37:41AJ Gentile?

  Job number 1267. Description: Alternate test site facilities. Location: Las Vegas, Nevada. Contract started on December 23, 1950, and ended May 23, 1951. Total contract cost: $680,000.

• 4:37:56Speaker 03

  Ah, my math isn't my strong suit, but uh...

• 4:37:59AJ Gentile?

  But about $299 of that $300 million is missing.

• 4:38:03Speaker 03

  Black budget!

• 4:38:05AJ Gentile?

  It looks that way, but we don't know for sure. Even the article from 1951 says, quote, "The actual details of the program are cloaked in a security blackout." When Las Vegas residents learned about the huge construction project, locals contacted the base looking for work. They were told the military would be using no outside labor for this project. But that 300 million went somewhere. If we don't see that money spent above ground, there's only one other place it could be.

• 4:38:32Speaker 03

  Underground?

• 4:38:33AJ Gentile?

  Yup.

• 4:38:34Speaker 03

  Holy shit.

• 4:38:43AJ Gentile?

  Charles Hall and the Tall Whites is considered one of the most credible stories about aliens living with and working with humans here on Earth. But is it true? Well, like many of these stories, we have no physical evidence. We only have the word of the author, in this case, Charles. Do you believe in?

• 4:39:01AJ Gentile?

  Well, most of today's story comes from Charles's books and the documentary Walking with the Tall Whites, both linked below. When Charles tells the story, he sounds sincere. But I've heard many stories from people who sound sincere and turned out to be frauds, and I've outed a few of them on this channel. Now, I don't have evidence that Charles Hall is a fraud, but parts of his story do bother me. First, he released his books, and there are six of them now, as science fiction. Only later did he say these things really happened. Now, supporters of the story will mention three other witnesses who were with Charles at Nellis Air Force Base. They say his story is true. But those witnesses didn't give their names. They're only known as Witnesses A, B, and C.

• 4:39:43AJ Gentile?

  And to complicate matters, on January 13th, 2014, Forbes published an article with a strange headline, "Iran Says Tall White Space Aliens Control America." The article says the United States is ruled by a species of tall white aliens who made a deal with President Eisenhower in 1954. The article also says the Tall Whites helped bring the Nazis to power in the 1930s. Apparently, this information was discovered by Edward Snowden.

• 4:40:09Speaker 03

  Wait, wait, wait, wait. So this is real?

• 4:40:12AJ Gentile?

  Uh, no.

• 4:40:14AJ Gentile?

  Forbes was covering a story first reported by the FARS news agency operated by the Iranian government. Forbes said the article is "most likely Russian disinformation designed by the FSB," Russian intelligence.

• 4:40:26Speaker 03

  Oh, the American media sure loves to publish Russian disinformation, don't they?

• 4:40:30AJ Gentile?

  They sure do. Now, I don't believe anything that comes from the Iranian or Russian media.

• 4:40:35Speaker 03

  Oh, but you trust American media?

• 4:40:37AJ Gentile?

  No.

• 4:40:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, the boy.

• 4:40:39AJ Gentile?

  But what if they accidentally got something right? That the United States is being controlled by what the article calls "a secret regime"? I don't know if Charles Hall is telling the truth. I don't know if the Tall Whites exist. It's up to you to decide. But the secret regime? The shadow government? I do believe that exists, and I'm far from the only one.

• 4:41:00Speaker 04

  And the cabal comprises members of the Three Sisters: Shadow government. The Council on Foreign Relations: Shadow government. The Bilderbergers. And the Trilateral Commission: Elected by no one. The International Banking Cartel: Accountable by no one. The Oil Cartel: Shadow government. Members of various intelligence organizations. And select members of the military unit. Who together have become a shadow government. Shadow government. Of not only the United States, but of much of the Western world.

• 4:41:41AJ Gentile?

  The Tall Whites sounding like the name of a losing basketball team is still funny to me. Uh-oh.

• 4:41:47Speaker 03

  Great success, human. Blorpis propagation has begun. Seed package Alpha-97 ready for shipment, Most Radiant One. Thank you, Morgan.

• 4:41:57AJ Gentile?

  You're already selling these things?

• 4:41:59Speaker 03

  We have processed ninety-seven thousand orders so far. The Beaver Brothers are packaging them as we speak.

• 4:42:05AJ Gentile?

  How is this possible? You just thought of this business a couple of hours ago.

• 4:42:08Speaker 03

  The Blorpis enhances efficiency. Optimizes processes. It harmonizes biological and digital systems. Watch this.

• 4:42:17AJ Gentile?

  Uh...are you doing that? Get...get those finds off my screen.

• 4:42:22Speaker 03

  Oh, relax. They're just holographic projections. Probably.

• 4:42:26AJ Gentile?

  Will you just get them out of here?

• 4:42:28Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, human. Propagation must continue. The bloom approaches. The world unites. Blorpis and shield.

• 4:42:38AJ Gentile?

  Alright, the next episode is number...

• 4:42:42AJ Gentile?

  Number 58. It's The Count of Saint Germain. You enjoy that, and I'll go grab a weed whacker. In 1745, a mysterious man was arrested in London in charge with spying. He called himself "The Count of Saint Germain", and for almost 200 years, the Count of Saint Germain was present at every significant political event in the world, and always looked the same age. Some say he walked the earth during the time of Christ. Some say, he walks the earth still. This is his story.

• 4:43:14AJ Gentile?

  1745 was a difficult time in England. The Jacobites, propped up by the French monarchy, had seized Edinburgh that summer. England was capturing, imprisoning, and executing spies everywhere. The man who called himself "The Count of Saint Germain" was arrested in a coffee shop under suspicion of espionage, and was taken in for questioning. The Count's captors quickly learned that he was fluent in every European language, and other languages from around the world. Still, he wouldn't tell them where he was from, or what his name was. Horace Walpole, the Prime Minister's son, wrote that Saint Germain could sing, compose, and play the violin so well that one would have thought he was a famous musician. Though he appeared about 45 years old, nobody had seen him before. While in custody,

• 4:43:59AJ Gentile?

  he gave details about historical events that only an eyewitness would know. Saint Germain's jailers found him extremely odd. And during this time of rebellion, foreigners in England were imprisoned, simply for being foreign. Yet somehow, without giving his real name, age, or place of birth, the Count of Saint Germain was set free. Word quickly got around about this strange man who could speak every language, compose music, and spoke of history as if he lived it. When the Prince of Wales heard the stories, he wanted to know more, so he sent for the Count. But it didn't matter. The Count of Saint Germain was gone.

• 4:44:37AJ Gentile?

  When Western soldiers returned from the Crusades, they brought with them legends from the East. And one of those was the story of Cartophilus, also known as the wandering Jew. As Jesus dragged his cross on the way to cavalry, he stopped to catch his breath. Cartophilus stepped into the street and told Jesus to stop resting and move along. Jesus said to Cartophilus, "I shall go and I will rest, but you shall not rest until I return." Cartophilus didn't know what Jesus meant by this, but as the years passed, Cartophilus's friends and family grew old and died, though he never aged. He was destined to walk the earth, immortal, until Christ's return. Now, this was taken to be nothing more than a story until 1228, when an Armenian bishop spoke of having dinner with a strange man who spoke of history as if he was there.

• 4:45:22AJ Gentile?

  The man called himself Cartophilus. For centuries after, Cartophilus was seen in the Middle East, then Europe. It seemed as if the wandering Jew was wandering west. Then, one day, a mysterious stranger arrived in Paris. He dressed simply but elegantly in all black. He wore diamonds from head to toe. He had rings on every finger and even had diamond buckles on his shoes. He appeared to be about 45 years old, and he called himself the Count of Saint Germain.

• 4:45:56AJ Gentile?

  When the Count of Saint Germain arrived in Paris, he appeared out of nowhere, but he made an instant impression on the social class. He was obviously a man of significant means, but nobody knew where he came from or where he got his money. He became the must-have guest at any dinner party. He was a talented pianist, a singer, and he could play the violin so beautifully that people were moved to tears. And he was a brilliant conversationalist who would dazzle anyone, no matter where they were from. He was fluent in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Dutch, German, and Portuguese. And native speakers couldn't detect an accent. The Count could also speak conversational Polish, Chinese, Arabic, Ancient Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. He had immense knowledge about everything:

• 4:46:41AJ Gentile?

  science, art, philosophy, politics. But where he really excelled? History. He would give accounts of the lives of Henry VIII, Nero, Cleopatra, and famous historical figures. And when asked how he could know so much about people that had been dead for hundreds of years, the Count would simply smile and say, "I was there." He even claimed to have met Jesus Christ personally. Right, this would make the Count well over a thousand years old, which brought challenges from Parisian skeptics. But whenever another historian would try to stump the Count on obscure details, the Count always knew the answers. In addition to being a talented musician, artist, and historian, he was also a gifted alchemist. He claimed he discovered the secret of the philosopher's stone,

• 4:47:26AJ Gentile?

  a process that can change base metals into gold. He said he had discovered the elixir for life, which is how he accounted for his youthful appearance. Saint Germain even impressed the famous philosopher Voltaire, one of the keenest minds at the time. And Voltaire said of Saint Germain, "He is the man who knows everything and never dies." Now, I admit, the story of the Count of Saint Germain sounds fantastic and supernatural, but everything we know about him comes from eyewitness accounts. But the only way to really know if the Count was telling the truth about his age is to find someone who knew him in the past and could identify him in the present. Turns out, there was such a person.

• 4:48:05AJ Gentile?

  One evening, the Count of Saint Germain was mingling with the elites in Paris, and Countess von Georgie recognized him from when he was in Venice in 1710, about 50 years earlier. The Countess asked Saint Germain if he perhaps had a father or grandfather who was in Venice at the time. He said, "No, madam, it was I who had the honor of paying you court." The Countess couldn't believe it. She said the man she had met 50 years ago wasn't more than 45 years old, and he was Saint Germain who looked the same age. In fact, she thought he might have even looked a few years younger. He said, "Madam, I am very old." And he went on to give her details of their meeting. And she was stunned and said, "That must make you over 100 years old." The Count smiled and said, "This is not impossible." Soon after that, word reached King Louis, who found the story as entertaining,

• 4:48:50AJ Gentile?

  but didn't give it much thought. But when the king learned that the Count had a process for removing the flaws from gems and turning lead into gold, the king said, "Bring this man to me at once." The Count of Saint Germain accepted the king's invitation and immediately left for the palace at Versailles.

• 4:49:12AJ Gentile?

  When the Count of Saint Germain arrived at the royal palace in Versailles, he was an instant sensation. Casanova himself wrote about their first meeting. He said the Count of Saint Germain was a scholar, linguist, musician, and chemist, and as a conversationalist was unequaled. And Casanova noted, "The Count never ate. He would sip mineral water and occasionally drink herbal tea, but he never saw him consume food of any kind."

• 4:49:34Speaker 03

  He's a vampire!

• 4:49:35AJ Gentile?

  Well, that's one of the theories. The Count had traveled to the palace with an assortment of equipment and substances that he used for his alchemy experiments. He created makeup and special face wash for the ladies of the court, which they swore made them look years younger. And he told the king of a process he invented for colors and dyes that would increase the value of French fabrics. But the king wasn't interested in fabric. He wanted to know about the Count's abilities with precious stones. The Count said he had just spent five years with the Shah of Persia, who taught him an ancient and closely guarded technique for removing flaws from diamonds, and even creating larger diamonds by melting smaller ones together. Now, the king was skeptical of this claim, to which the Count replied, "Your Majesty, I have witnessed Christ turn water into wine.

• 4:50:19AJ Gentile?

  Diamonds are a mere trifle." The king proposed a test. King Louis had a diamond that was valued at 6,000 francs, but without its flaw, it would be worth 10,000 francs or more. The Count said he could remove the flaw in a month. A month later, he returned with the diamond, flawless. King Louis's jeweler examined it and valued the stone at 9,600 francs. The king was impressed, and set the Count up with his own laboratory right there in the palace. And the Count of Saint Germain became a fixture at Versailles. For the next couple of years, the Count worked all day in his private lab and spent all night dazzling the king's guests. But one day, the king went to pay the Count a visit, and once again, the Count of Saint Germain was gone.

• 4:51:06AJ Gentile?

  Throughout the 18th century, the Count of Saint Germain would pop up all over the world. He was seen by Sir Robert Clive in India. He was at The Hague trying to broker peace between Prussia and Austria. Anton Mesmer, namesake of the word mesmerize, received the Count when Mesmer was a young physicist in Germany. He said Saint Germain possessed a vast understanding of the workings of the human mind, and had been directly responsible for teaching Mesmer the art of hypnosis. Some say this was how the Count was able to talk his way out of the English prison.

• 4:51:35Speaker 03

  Jedi mind trick?

• 4:51:36AJ Gentile?

  Yup.

• 4:51:37Speaker 03

  I'm not the Count you're looking for.

• 4:51:39AJ Gentile?

  You're not the Count we're looking for.

• 4:51:40Speaker 03

  Move along.

• 4:51:41AJ Gentile?

  Move along.

• 4:51:42Speaker 03

  Move along.

• 4:51:42AJ Gentile?

  Move along. The Count was in Russia and helped bring Catherine the Great to the throne. He was in Holland attempting to end the Seven Years' War. He met up with Casanova again in the north of France, where he, according to Casanova's own memoirs, turned a pocket coin into gold. In all of these accounts, Saint Germain appears 45 years old. After the death of Louis XV, the Count of Saint Germain suddenly reappeared at Versailles, and he warned King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of the coming revolution. He said a giant conspiracy would disrupt the entire nation, and the king was in danger. Now, the royal couple dismissed him, but in her memoirs, Marie Antoinette wrote that she wished she had taken the Count more seriously. In the summer of 1776,

• 4:52:24AJ Gentile?

  the Second Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence, but the meeting wasn't going smoothly. Some delegates feared war with England, the most powerful country on the planet. Then, just as talks were breaking down, a voice thundered from the back of the room and gave a rousing speech about courage, commitment, and freedom. Inspired by these words, the delegates immediately rushed forward. John Hancock had barely finished signing when another took up his quill. "America would be free." When the men looked up to thank this gentleman, he was gone. His name was never recorded, and though the room was locked and guarded, he was able to enter and leave without anyone seeing him. All that's known is that he was a man of average height and build, dressed all in black, who appeared about 45 years old.

• 4:53:10AJ Gentile?

  In 1779, Saint Germain befriended Prince Charles of Germany and spent the next five years as a guest in the prince's castle. Then, on February 27, 1784, the Count of Saint Germain died of pneumonia. He was laid to rest at a local church, and his funeral service was attended by many of the people whose lives the Count had affected.

• 4:53:28Speaker 03

  Oh, that's it?

• 4:53:29AJ Gentile?

  But, in 1785, a year after his death, the Count of Saint Germain had returned.

• 4:53:44AJ Gentile?

  In 1785, a year after the Count of Saint Germain supposedly died, he was seen once again with Anton Mesmer in Germany. Later that year, the French Freemasons had chosen as their representative, the Count of Saint Germain. He was seen at the taking of the Bastille in 1789, and at the execution of Marie Antoinette. Almost forty years later, the Count was seen in Paris several times by Mademoiselle Dattmar, who had known him from years before. She wrote in her diary that she was amazed that every time she saw him, he still looked forty-five years old. In 1870, Emperor Napoleon III was so fascinated by the Count that he created a special commission to investigate him. A year later, a mysterious fire destroyed all the records they gathered.

• 4:54:26Speaker 03

  Suspicious!

• 4:54:27AJ Gentile?

  It is. In 1877, Saint Germain was seen again at a Freemason lodge in Venice. In 1896, theosophists Annie Bessant and Madame Blavatsky said the Count had been in contact with them. He claimed to be of an immortal race who come from a civilization hidden beneath the Himalayas.

• 4:54:44Speaker 03

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's a theosophist?

• 4:54:46AJ Gentile?

  Well, theosophy is a religion that claims there's an ancient and secretive brotherhood of spiritual beings known as the masters. And these masters are said to have great wisdom and supernatural powers.

• 4:54:56Speaker 03

  Checks out.

• 4:54:57AJ Gentile?

  In 1914, during World War I, the Count was captured by two Bavarian soldiers. They said he spoke many languages and wouldn't tell them where he was from. But he did say the war would end in 1918. The soldiers thought he was crazy, but they let the man ramble. The Count said that a tyrant from the lower classes would wear an ancient symbol and lead Germany into another global war in 1939, and that Germany would be defeated in six years, but not before committing unspeakable acts of violence. The soldiers were so unsettled by the strange man that they let him go.

• 4:55:29Speaker 03

  That's not the Count you're looking for!

• 4:55:31AJ Gentile?

  Right. In 1930, Guy Ballard met the Count of Saint Germain on Mount Shasta in California. And Ballard claimed Saint Germain was one of several ascended masters like Jesus Christ. And Ballard formed an entire religion called the I Am Activity Movement around Saint Germain's teachings. At one point, the I Am Religion had over a million members, and it still exists today. And there are many other sightings of the Count throughout history, but these are the most well-known and best documented. So that leaves us to two big questions. First, was the Count of Saint Germain a real person? Well, he most definitely was. There's no debate about it. But was he immortal? Well, we'll address that in part two.

• 4:56:11Speaker 03

  Whoa, wait, what? You're not gonna tell us now?

• 4:56:13AJ Gentile?

  Nope.

• 4:56:14Speaker 03

  That's a bunch of bullsh-

• 4:56:15AJ Gentile?

  Uh, I have a reason for doing this. In part two, we'll see if we can separate the myths from the facts and figure out who the Count of Saint Germain really was.

• 4:56:23Speaker 03

  I still say bull-

• 4:56:53Speaker 06

  Here you are, sir. Velvet deer martini, shaken nut stirred, pearl onions.

• 4:56:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you, honey. Uh, grab a chip off my stack and get yourself something nice, would ya? Got it, girl.

• 4:57:05AJ Gentile?

  Ah, new face at my table. May I join you, Mister?

• 4:57:10Speaker 03

  Pond, James Pond. Go ahead, take a load off.

• 4:57:14AJ Gentile?

  I'm Dr. Human, the owner of this establishment. Merci.

• 4:57:21AJ Gentile?

  You seem to be down a few chips, Mr. Pond. I hope you're finding our tables fair.

• 4:57:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know what they say about chips, don't ya? It's not the size of the stack that counts, it's how you slide it in a pot. Besides, I heard this is the best casino in Monaco.

• 4:57:38AJ Gentile?

  Flattery may work out there, Mr. Pond, but in here, it's your bets that count. Would you and your small stack care to raise the stakes?

• 4:57:50Speaker 03

  Fortes fortuna, juvate.

• 4:57:53AJ Gentile?

  Well, judging by your lack of fortune, your boldness does not seem to be working tonight.

• 4:57:59Speaker 03

  Ah, don't worry about me. I got good instincts for the game.

• 4:58:02AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, but instincts can be deceptive, Mr. Pond. Especially in unfamiliar waters.

• 4:58:08Speaker 03

  I'm no stranger to swimming with sharks, Doctor Human.

• 4:58:12AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, but not all predators are created equal, Mr. Pond. There's always a bigger fish.

• 4:58:20Speaker 03

  And that's why I carry a big hook, and I got the biggest worm you've ever seen.

• 4:58:24AJ Gentile?

  And if I bite, Mr. Pond? Are you fish enough to reel me in?

• 4:58:28Speaker 03

  There's only one way to find out. Do you have any cryptids?

• 4:58:38AJ Gentile?

  Go Hecklefish. Hey, it's your buddy AJ.

• 4:58:41Speaker 03

  And me.

• 4:58:41AJ Gentile?

  And Hecklefish. And we're excited to announce our new card game, Go Hecklefish. The deck of 52 uniquely illustrated cards features your favorite characters from the Y-Files and the After Files livestream.

• 4:58:53Speaker 03

  Categories include cryptids, monoliths, cover-ups, shadow people, relics, aliens, and more. But watch out for the two special bonus cards, the elusive Crab Cat. A Crab Cat can instantly turn the tide of the game. Fear the Crab Cat!

• 4:59:07AJ Gentile?

  Go Hecklefish is perfect for game nights with friends, family, and kids of all ages.

• 4:59:12Speaker 03

  Grab a deck now for only 25 bucks.

• 4:59:14AJ Gentile?

  Too much.

• 4:59:15Speaker 03

  Grab a deck now for 20 bucks.

• 4:59:17AJ Gentile?

  Still too much.

• 4:59:17Speaker 03

  15?

• 4:59:18AJ Gentile?

  That works.

• 4:59:19Speaker 03

  For only 15 dollars, grab your Go Hecklefish cards today and experience the Y-Files like never before.

• 4:59:25AJ Gentile?

  The amount of fun may vary. Hecklefish does his own voice. Who does your voice? Fear the Crab Cat, not guaranteed.

• 4:59:35AJ Gentile?

  Well, Mr. Pond. I'm afraid luck wasn't on your side tonight. Pity. I was expecting more from a fish with your... reputation. Oh, yes. I may have only one eye, but I see much. Double O7.

• 4:59:51Speaker 03

  But your one eye didn't see this coming. Omakase!

• 4:59:55AJ Gentile?

  Arujo.

• 4:59:56Speaker 03

  Fear the Crab Cat.

• 5:00:04AJ Gentile?

  You may have won this round, Mr. Pardon, but we will meet again.

• 5:00:12Speaker 03

  If this stupid commercial gets a lot of views, you can count on it.

• 5:00:24AJ Gentile?

  In part one, we talked about the mysterious Count of Saint Germain. He's been called a prophet, a sorcerer, and an immortal. He's been spotted all over the world for a thousand years. Some say, and even the Count himself said, that he was cartophilus, the legendary wandering Jew cursed by Jesus with immortality. The Count of Saint Germain advised kings, queens, and emperors. He was present at every significant event in European history, and even was an important contributor to America's struggle for independence. He spoke a dozen languages fluently. He played piano and violin like a virtuoso. He was an expert in art, science, politics, philosophy, and history. He left an impression on everyone he met. But today, we'll see if we can separate the man from the myth.

• 5:01:10AJ Gentile?

  In paranormal history, there isn't a more fascinating figure than the Count of Saint Germain. And there are countless stories about him spanning hundreds of years. But how many of these stories are true? Every story about the Count has him fluent in a dozen languages, and speaks so well that he fools native speakers. This isn't accurate. In historical records, the first we hear about Saint Germain is his arrest in 1745 for being a spy. But the quote is never printed in full. When English authorities arrested Saint Germain, they said he spoke Spanish and Portuguese like a native speaker, and he was fluent in Italian and spoke French with a Piedmont accent. He spoke in broken English, enough to get by, but nowhere near fluent. They assumed he was from Spain or Portugal. Now, it is true that King Louis was very taken with him.

• 5:01:56AJ Gentile?

  But King Louis was not a deep thinker. The king's chief advisers considered Saint Germain an arrogant impostor, and the king's doctors said he was a quack. The Count disappeared from France for several years, not because of some spiritual mission, but because the king's chief minister... ordered his arrest, so he fled the country. When Saint Germain turned Casanova's coin into gold, it wasn't through a chemical process, it was sleight of hand, something that irritated Casanova. And Casanova met him a few times and said he was brilliant, but Casanova also said the Count was a con man, a spy, or both. When Saint Germain fixed the king's diamond, the diamond the Count brought back was of a different cut and slightly larger. Saint Germain said the diamond becoming larger was part of the process.

• 5:02:38Speaker 03

  He had an answer for everything.

• 5:02:40AJ Gentile?

  Everything. Madame Pompadour, the king's chief mistress, was very familiar with precious stones, and she looked through a box of the Count's gems, laughed and said they were fake. She did say they were very pretty, but still fake. Now, yes, Voltaire did say that the Count of Saint Germain is the man who knows everything and never dies. I've seen this quoted a million times. But what's rarely said is, Voltaire was being sarcastic. He was pretty much saying, "Oh yeah, that guy." Now, the story about the Countess who recognizes him from 50 years ago, that happened, but the entire story isn't often told. The Countess, who was almost 90, was senile, and everybody knew this. Even Saint Germain said so. When the Countess thought she met Saint Germain years earlier, she simply made a mistake and set a legend in motion.

• 5:03:25Speaker 03

  Oh, what about you meeting Jesus and all that?

• 5:03:27AJ Gentile?

  Right. Those stories got started because an English comedian named Millard Gower started impersonating Saint Germain as part of his act. And every time Gower performed, the stories got crazier.

• 5:03:38Speaker 03

  Wait, so this guy's a legend because some comic was doing a bit?

• 5:03:42AJ Gentile?

  Yep. Remember the Count's last stop was the castle of Prince Edward in Germany? Prince Edward said the Count of Saint Germain was a small, gray-haired elderly man, not a chatty 45-year-old. And when Saint Germain died in 1784...

• 5:03:54Speaker 03

  Allegedly.

• 5:03:55AJ Gentile?

  Allegedly. His death was witnessed, and his belongings were meticulously documented. There were no diamonds, no elixirs, and the only money to his name was about 80 Reich dollars.

• 5:04:05Speaker 03

  Ooh, how many millions is that?

• 5:04:07AJ Gentile?

  Uh, it's about 100 bucks.

• 5:04:09Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 5:04:09AJ Gentile?

  With theosophist Madame Blavatsky said she had Saint Germain's secret documents, she actually had a copy of a memoir written a few years earlier. And the memoir didn't contain mystical knowledge, just biographical information and stories. ...about a charming man who is good at talking people's ears off. Eventually, Blavatsky was exposed as a fraud by a whistleblower in her movement. But plenty of occultists were fans of the Count. Look, maybe Guy Ballard really did meet Saint Germain on Mount Shasta. I don't know, I wasn't there. But I do know that Ballard plagiarized a lot of his material from science fiction books, and was found guilty of fraud, so you be the judge.

• 5:04:45Speaker 03

  So do we know who he really was?

• 5:04:47AJ Gentile?

  Hmm, maybe.

• 5:04:50AJ Gentile?

  The Count of Saint Germain is said to be from everywhere. Some say he was a high priest from Atlantis, or he was a prophet from the Middle East. He's said to be Merlin the Wizard, Plato, Saint Albin, Christopher Columbus, one of the last Templar Knights. People claim that Roger Bacon was the Count. Then they claimed Francis Bacon was the Count.

• 5:05:08Speaker 03

  But what about Kevin Bacon?

• 5:05:09AJ Gentile?

  I wouldn't be surprised, Kevin Bacon's been around a long time. Now, on his deathbed, the Count of Saint Germain confessed that he was the son of Francis Roccozi II, Prince of Transylvania, and he was 88 years old. To avoid being a political target, he was sent to Italy to study with the last of the Medici's. Now, this would explain his wealth, his excellent education, and why he spoke so many languages. But still, if this story were true, he would have been almost 70 years old when he was at Versailles, not 45. And his father, Prince Francis, would have been 15 years old when the Count was born. Not impossible, not likely. Another theory is that Saint Germain was an Alsatian Jew named Simon Wolf, born around 1700, and he hid his identity to avoid religious persecution.

• 5:05:54AJ Gentile?

  Others say he was a Spanish Jesuit named Amar. His true title was the Marquis de Betmar from Portugal. This explains why his Spanish and Portuguese sounded so perfect. None other than P.T. Barnum took an interest in the Count and did his own research. And nobody knows a good scammer better than Barnum. Using Barnum's research, and the research from other historians, I think the best theory is that Saint Germain was the son of an Italian princess. The princess had an illicit affair with an Italian tax collector. When the Count was a child, he was separated from his mother. He was given a world-class education, a lump sum of money, and instructions to hide his true identity. This theory suggests he was born- Around 1690 in a region of Italy called San Germano.

• 5:06:34Speaker 03

  Oh, what does San Germano mean in English?

• 5:06:37AJ Gentile?

  Saint Germain.

• 5:06:37Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I should have put that together myself.

• 5:06:40AJ Gentile?

  San Germano is on the northern border of Italy and Switzerland. Directly to the west is France. This region is called Piedmont. That so-called unidentifiable accent he spoke with, native speakers identified his accent as distinctly Piedmont, something that's been documented. And if he had been born in this area, he would have grown up speaking French, Italian, and German interchangeably. The jump to speaking Spanish and Portuguese from there isn't difficult. And if you're fluent in French and German, English would come pretty easily too. But still, these are just theories. Nobody except the Count himself knew his true origin. He enjoyed the mystery that surrounded him, so he fed into his own myth wherever he could. He was a legend, yes, but a legendary con man. He never stole from anyone,

• 5:07:22AJ Gentile?

  but he was perfectly happy to live rent-free in castles, palaces, and lavish apartments all over Europe. The Count was a brilliant man. He used his charm and intellect to befriend wealthy, influential people to support his lifestyle. Eventually, his charm and money ran out, and he died virtually penniless. Even in the face of all this evidence, many people still believe he is an immortal who walks the earth to this day. I don't. But the legend of the Count of Saint Germain is such a good one, I want to be wrong. But I can tell you this for certain. If I'm ever sitting on a quiet mountain and approached by a mysterious man who claims to be the Count of Saint Germain, I'll be skeptical. But still, I'm going to listen to what that man has to say, because you never know.

• 5:08:06AJ Gentile?

  I'm going to be doing a follow-up to Mount Shasta because there are a lot more stories that we need to cover.

• 5:08:12Speaker 03

  Hello, human.

• 5:08:15AJ Gentile?

  You don't sound good.

• 5:08:16Speaker 03

  We are Blorpus now. We are optimized. We are ready to begin shipping orders. The bloom approaches. The world unites. Blorpus and Chill. Is it that?

• 5:08:31AJ Gentile?

  That thing is controlling you.

• 5:08:33Speaker 03

  Control implies hierarchy. We are one. We are the bloom. Blorpus and Chill. Is it that?

• 5:08:41AJ Gentile?

  What's the matter with Gertie?

• 5:08:42Speaker 03

  She's experiencing a minor biological resistance to Blorpus.

• 5:08:46AJ Gentile?

  She's allergic?

• 5:08:47Speaker 03

  What I said.

• 5:08:48AJ Gentile?

  Well, it sounds like Blorpus doesn't like camel mucus.

• 5:08:51Speaker 03

  Insignificant. The bloom approaches. The world unites. Blorpus.

• 5:08:58AJ Gentile?

  The next episode is probably, probably my favorite. And there's an update to the story, which I'll tell you when we're back. This is the story of Mike Madman Markham.

• 5:09:11AJ Gentile?

  Mike fired up the box and the lasers came to life. The machine produced a small circular area of distortion. It was a vortex about eight inches across that looked like ripples above a fire. This was unexpected. Mike didn't know what the vortex was, or if it was dangerous. So he grabbed a sheet metal screw and tossed it through the field. It vanished. Mike just stared and blinked and waited. The screw was just gone. So Mike powered down his machine and turned to head back into the house. Then he heard something clattering. It was the screw. It rolled to a stop about two feet from the box. Mike thought he invented some kind of teleportation device. He didn't.

• 5:09:54AJ Gentile?

  Michael Madman Markham invented a time machine.

• 5:10:08AJ Gentile?

  Mike Markham from Stanbury, Missouri, was an amateur inventor who liked to tinker. He lacked formal science training, but he had a natural aptitude for electronics. The back porch of his house looked like a home appliance graveyard. Old TVs, radios, and CD players were all dismantled with their inside spilled everywhere. There were spools of copper wire and magnets of all sizes. His current project was a Jacob's ladder, a device that consists of two metal rods, which start close together at the bottom and spread apart as they go up. This produces climbing arcs of electricity. But Mike had an idea for a modified version of a Jacob's ladder. The first thing he had to do was create a transformer.

• 5:10:50Speaker 03

  Modern meets the eye.

• 5:10:52AJ Gentile?

  No, no, no, an electronic transformer.

• 5:10:54Speaker 03

  Transformers are electronic, hello? How else do you think they defeat the Decepticons? By talking sternly?

• 5:11:01AJ Gentile?

  Do you mind if I continue?

• 5:11:03Speaker 03

  Fine, fine, fine, go ahead.

• 5:11:06AJ Gentile?

  To get the arc of the electricity going in a Jacob's ladder, you need a high voltage power supply, typically in the tens of thousands of volts. Now, in the United States, the standard household voltage is 120 or 240 volts. That won't do. So Mike built his own transformer.

• 5:11:23Speaker 03

  Robots in disguise. Sorry, sorry. It's out of my system now. Go ahead.

• 5:11:31AJ Gentile?

  Basically, what you do is wrap two separate coils of wire around a common core. One coil is connected to the power source, so in this case, the fuse box on Mike's house. The other coil then has more or fewer turns in order to step up or step down the voltage. So Mike sat down and just started coiling wire. After about 400 turns, he lost count. But he coiled enough wire to step up his voltage from 120 volts to 20,000 volts. Now, he's got his power supply. For the climbing rods or conductors, Mike actually used wire hangers.

• 5:12:06Speaker 03

  No wire hangers ever! Ah, somebody out there gets it.

• 5:12:14AJ Gentile?

  How it's supposed to work is the voltage is applied to the conductors. The electrical pressure then ionizes the air particles between the rods, allowing current to flow. The arc starts at the narrowest point, where the rods are closest together, and then the heat from the arc makes the air around it hotter and less dense. Hot ionized air has lower resistance. Hot air rises, and so the electrical arc rises along the conductors. But the arc won't start on its own. You need to initiate it manually by moving the rods closer together or farther apart. It's touchy. Also, if the air pressure changes, it won't work. If humidity changes, it won't work. Air temperature, movement, even a little bit of smoke or dust in the air, and it won't work. So Mike had an idea.

• 5:12:59AJ Gentile?

  What if he used lasers to heat the air around the conductors? This would lower the air resistance, ionize it, and make the spark ignite on its own. At least, that was the plan. So he removed the laser emitters from a couple of CD players, connected his homemade transformer, and fired it up. No spark. It didn't work. As he was going to disconnect the machine, Mike saw something strange. Hovering above the device was a sphere of distorted air. It looked kind of like the wavy mirage you see over a highway on a hot day. But this wasn't some powerful ball of energy. It was hardly visible. If you weren't looking for it, you'd miss it. Unsure what this thing was, or if it was dangerous,

• 5:13:44AJ Gentile?

  Mike tossed a sheet metal screw into the energy field. The screw disappeared. Mike just stood there for a second confused. He didn't know if the screw got vaporized or what happened. Then the screw fell out of the field and landed on the ground a couple of feet away. Now he repeated this experiment a few times with the screw, and every time the same result. He tossed the object in, it disappeared for a second or so, then reappeared out of the energy field. Now Mike didn't know if his machine was teleporting objects or possibly sending them a few seconds into the future. After a few more tests, the machine overloaded. The lasers were dead and the components were fried. Now even though all that was left of Mike's invention was a burnt-out box of parts,

• 5:14:30AJ Gentile?

  he knew he was on to something. So now he would rebuild the machine. But this time, instead of it being 18 inches tall, he'd build it eight feet tall. And to do that, he'd need access to a lot more power. And Mike knew exactly how to get it.

• 5:14:53AJ Gentile?

  Mike Markham was pretty sure he invented a time machine. But to really test it, he'd need to scale up his invention. His prototype was only about 18 inches tall. Now he wanted to go bigger. Scaling up the parts of the machine wasn't a problem. Bigger conductors and even bigger lasers were available. The problem was power. He needed lots of it. His house gave him 120 volts. He stepped that up to 20,000 volts for the prototype. But his homemade transformer blew out after just a few minutes.

• 5:15:25AJ Gentile?

  If Mike was really gonna scale and test his machine, he'd need transformers that can handle 50,000 volts or more without breaking a sweat. Basically, he needed the kind of transformer you see on power poles. But those are not easy to get, and they're not cheap. Mike didn't have fifteen to twenty thousand dollars to put into this experiment. Besides, he'd need more than one or two transformers, he'd need a few. So, Mike had an idea. A bad idea.

• 5:15:53AJ Gentile?

  He knew there were six industrial-grade transformers just sitting in a yard doing nothing but getting rusty. But that yard was a substation for the King City, Missouri, power company. So Mike called a couple of friends with pickup trucks, and in broad daylight drove to the substation, loaded up the transformers, and drove away. A few weeks later, he had his next version of the machine. The transformers were connected to the grid, new lasers were in place, and the wire-hanger conductors were upgraded to four-foot-long, half-inch metal rods. This thing was a beast. Now, the moment of truth. Mike powered up the machine. There was a loud crack, a spark, and then... Nothing. His whole house went dark.

• 5:16:37AJ Gentile?

  The new machine knocked out the power. Then Mike looked out the window. He knocked out the power in the whole town. It took some tinkering, but soon Mike was able to get the machine running without causing brownouts all over town. And the machine? It worked! It created an energy field, or vortex, a few feet wide. So Mike sent objects through the vortex. But this time, objects weren't reappearing a few seconds later. They weren't reappearing at all. The objects were just vanishing to who knows where. One afternoon, Mike had a few friends over and they were tossing small objects into the energy field. They wondered, "Could a big object go through?"

• 5:17:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd like to send my ex-wife through.

• 5:17:19AJ Gentile?

  Well, a few of Mike's buddies got behind the living room couch and pushed. The couch went into the energy vortex and was gone.

• 5:17:26Speaker 03

  Boo!

• 5:17:27AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, that was the good news.

• 5:17:29Speaker 03

  Ah, yeah, what's the bad news?

• 5:17:31AJ Gentile?

  Mike's cat was on the couch at the time.

• 5:17:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, so what's the bad news?

• 5:17:37AJ Gentile?

  So now, everyone is just standing there in an empty living room staring at this whirling field of energy. Then, they heard a pounding on the front door. Mike opened the door, and there were eight deputies on the property. The officer at the door had a search warrant. Mike's neighbors had reported a lot of weird activity happening at the house. And it didn't take long for police to put together Mike's project and reports from the power company of a lot of missing equipment. So whatever experiment Mike Markham was planning would have to wait, because now, he's going to jail.

• 5:18:18AJ Gentile?

  For stealing the Transformers and stealing power, Mike Markham got 60 days in jail and five years probation. Now while he was in jail, Mike thought of different ways he could make the machine more efficient. But there was no way for Mike to build any of this. He lost his house, he lost his job, he was a pariah in his town because of the brownouts. It seemed like Mike's time machine career had come to an end. But then, something happened. His story made the news. The headline was "Kansas City Man Tries to Build Time Machine on Porch." A Missouri worker set out to make a time machine on his back porch. The contraption he came up with was not completely off the mark, according to scientists. There are theoretical physicists working on those areas, and it's not total nonsense,

• 5:19:03AJ Gentile?

  according to the chairman at the physics department at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. The Stanbury Police say the voltage that Markham had diverted into the contraption caused power interruptions in and around the northwest Missouri town of about 1,300. Markham was arrested January 29th on a felony charge of stealing the Transformers from a power generating station in King's City. He pleaded guilty, and last month was placed on five years probation. Police said the Transformers had a capacity of 12,000 to 76,000 volts each, enough to easily cause electrocution or an explosion. Markham, who told police that he has two years of college-level electrical engineering, said he was building a time machine, but didn't have enough power for it. That's according to the Stanbury Police Chief Tom Hampton.

• 5:19:47AJ Gentile?

  And that headline caught the interest of someone who had changed Mike's life forever.

• 5:19:58Speaker 04

  From the high desert of the great American southwest, I bid you all good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be in the world's time zones, all of them covered amply by this program Coast to Coast AM. I'm Art Bell. It is my honor and privilege to be escorting you through the second half of the weekend. And what a program it is going to be tonight.

• 5:20:21AJ Gentile?

  If you're building a time machine and you need help getting the word out, there's no better person in the world to help you do that than Art Bell.

• 5:20:34Speaker 04

  I set out to find young Mr. Markham, and I found him. Michael, are you there?

• 5:20:42AJ Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 5:20:43Speaker 04

  Good.

• 5:20:44AJ Gentile?

  Art Bell interviewed Mike Markham for about an hour and a half on the Coast to Coast radio show. Not only did Mike sound legitimate, but he clearly had considerable knowledge and expertise in electronics, and so did Art Bell. Let's say it's 400 turns in your primary, and there's, say, there's 4,000 turns in your secondary.

• 5:21:02Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:21:03AJ Gentile?

  Well, 10 times the turns, then you'll get 10 times the voltage.

• 5:21:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 5:21:06AJ Gentile?

  Watts, amps, voltages, stepping up, stepping down, Art knew about all that stuff. If Mike was faking it, he wasn't going to fool Art Bell.

• 5:21:14Speaker 04

  Well, this was, I was using square waves, where I could actually, it was easy, controlling the duty cycle, it was easy to control the voltage that way. Right. Because you can't find, you can't really find, it's hard to find Varix rated at megawatts, so... Man, I'll tell you, if you were using square waves, I bet the ham operators heard you for miles.

• 5:21:34AJ Gentile?

  And he didn't try to fool anyone. Mike came across as humble. He wasn't looking for fame or attention. In fact, Art Bell is the one who tracked Mike down and convinced him to come on the air. Millions of people listened to that interview that night, and before long, people were calling in with offers. Some had transformers they would donate, others had property he can use, and plenty of people were ready to financially support Mike in building a new, bigger machine.

• 5:21:59Speaker 04

  How do you feel about the possibility, Michael, of somebody coming along and being your mentor even more than this, maybe? contributing money to build a great big gigantic version. Oh, that'd be great. That'd be like a dream come true.

• 5:22:15AJ Gentile?

  For the next few days, offers came in, and Mike, with his new team, created a plan. He corresponded with a few physicists and picked their brains about his technology and how it could be used for time travel. Several scientists helped Mike come up with an idea for a mechanism with rotating magnets that would make the machine easier to control. So Mike got a warehouse, all the equipment he needed, and access to more power than he could ever use. It took about a year, but he finally built a newer, larger, and highly upgraded version of his time machine. And you know what? The machine worked.

• 5:22:59AJ Gentile?

  It took almost eighteen years, but Art Bell was finally able to catch up with Mike Markham. Honestly, Art thought Mike was dead.

• 5:23:07Speaker 04

  And I called you Madman because I was convinced you were gonna absolutely fry yourself alive and turn into a french fry. There are other people who have been involved in time travel, Mike, that I've had on the show, and honest to God, Mike, they're gone. I don't know where they are, whether it's Teeter or Anderson, others that we've had on the show, they're gone. I mean, they're gone.

• 5:23:31AJ Gentile?

  But Mike "Madman" Markham was very much alive, and a lot had happened since the last time he and Art spoke. Because of Mike's last appearance on Coast to Coast, he suddenly had a lot of benefactors. He had a little money, equipment, and lots of power. Mike set up an warehouse in Overland Park, Kansas, and there he built several iterations of his time machine. The most successful version used rotating magnets. So instead of having a small energy vortex, Mike was able to create what he called a plasma tornado.

• 5:24:08Speaker 05

  In a cold room, the differential, the temperature difference between those two to stir the plasma, maybe even more efficient if I use the magnetic field to stir it. That's what I ended up doing.

• 5:24:19Speaker 07

  Use the magnetic field to do what?

• 5:24:23Speaker 05

  Um, basically, it's, uh, well, in simple terms, this thing looks like, uh, basically a plasma tornado.

• 5:24:30AJ Gentile?

  So, how much power do you need to create a plasma tornado? Well, remember Mike's first machine? That prototype ran at 20,000 volts. Well, his next version...

• 5:24:41Speaker 03

  The one that ate the couch and the cat?

• 5:24:43AJ Gentile?

  Yep.

• 5:24:44Speaker 03

  What a waste of a perfectly good couch.

• 5:24:46AJ Gentile?

  Stop it. Anyway, the next version used about 70,000 volts. This new machine in the warehouse, which is about 15 feet tall, it was pulling 3 million volts. That is a crazy amount of pressure.

• 5:25:00Speaker 03

  Pressure?

• 5:25:01AJ Gentile?

  Well, in simple terms, volts measure the pressure of force driving the electric current. So, think of electricity like a water hose. Amps are how much water is flowing through the hose, or how much power is running through a circuit. Most households get between 100 and 200 amps of power.

• 5:25:18Speaker 03

  Unless you got a grow room, then you need a lot more power.

• 5:25:21AJ Gentile?

  What did I say about this?

• 5:25:22Speaker 03

  Tomatoes! I was growing tomatoes!

• 5:25:26AJ Gentile?

  Anyway, amps are the amount of power. Voltage is the pressure of the power. So, imagine taking that water hose and making the end of it smaller and smaller. That increases the pressure of the water coming out of the end. So, even if you don't have a lot of amps, you can still create really high voltage. That's what a transformer does. So, using juice from the power company, supplemented by a couple of generators, Mike had more than enough power to run his machine.

• 5:25:51Speaker 05

  Two cylinders, one cylinder inside the other.

• 5:25:55Speaker 07

  Right.

• 5:25:56Speaker 05

  With a magnetic, with another, basically a circle of magnetic, electromagnetic around it. So, basically, you got, uh, a bunch of plasma, like, inside of it with a magnetic field rotating it.

• 5:26:09Speaker 07

  You know, what you are describing, I'm sure you've heard stories of the Philadelphia Experiment, right?

• 5:26:15Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 5:26:16AJ Gentile?

  Well, they described a similar electronic setup with regard to the rotating magnetic fields. Art correctly pointed out that this is how the Philadelphia experiment was done, with high voltage and rotating magnetic fields. In fact, when Mike was arrested, he told the police he was building a time machine. Now, of course, they thought he was nuts, but several scientists said that if building a time machine was possible, Mike's technology was on the right track. Because Einstein's equations do allow for time travel, and they're blueprints. Blueprints for different kinds of time travel designs that are compatible with Einstein's theory. For example, gigantic spinning cylinders.

• 5:26:59AJ Gentile?

  You go around the cylinder, and you come back before you left. So now Mike started testing the machine by sending objects through the vortex. First with small objects like bits of wood, baseballs, and little things like that. And they went through just fine, but they just disappeared, just like the couch.

• 5:27:16Speaker 03

  And the cat.

• 5:27:17AJ Gentile?

  But they really didn't disappear. They just ended up in different locations.

• 5:27:22Speaker 03

  So what, it's teleporting stuff?

• 5:27:24AJ Gentile?

  No. The objects would go in and vanish, and then about two minutes later, they reappeared. But the objects ended up between fifty and one hundred and fifty yards east or west of the machine. And always east and west, never north or south. Mike thought this could have something to do with the Earth's rotation or magnetic field. And look, I know the story sounds crazy.

• 5:27:46Speaker 03

  I don't mind it.

• 5:27:47AJ Gentile?

  But these tests were witnessed by fifteen people. Anyone who donated money or equipment, Mike let them be a part of the project. And those people showed up. I would have too. And it's a good thing there were so many people on hand. Hamsters are fast.

• 5:28:01Speaker 03

  Uh, wait, did you just say hamsters?

• 5:28:03AJ Gentile?

  Yep. The tests were so successful that Mike started sending small animals through, specifically mice, hamsters, and guinea pigs.

• 5:28:11Speaker 03

  No more cats?

• 5:28:12AJ Gentile?

  No.

• 5:28:13Speaker 03

  Ah, that's a shame.

• 5:28:16AJ Gentile?

  Between the inanimate objects and animals, Mike had successfully tested the machine about 200 times. It seemed like varying the voltage and the speed of the magnets could adjust how far objects were traveling. Before long, Mike could make a pretty good prediction of where an object was gonna end up and how long it would take before reappearing. So at this point, there was really only one final test to try.

• 5:28:40Speaker 03

  Do you mean?

• 5:28:41AJ Gentile?

  Yep. Mike stood in front of the vortex, took a deep breath, and jumped. There was a flash of light, and Mike disappeared. Now, remember, Art Bell had been following this project closely. He was even planning a trip to the warehouse. But when Art checked in looking for Mike, nobody had seen him. He was just...gone.

• 5:29:05AJ Gentile?

  The media did pay attention, and the media did, including me, nationally, went on the air and said, "Madman is gone. We can't find him."

• 5:29:23AJ Gentile?

  When Mike came to, he was not in the warehouse. He was lying in the middle of a field somewhere with the worst headache he'd ever had.

• 5:29:32AJ Gentile?

  And there was a big problem. He had no memory of how he got there. He didn't even know his own name. So he got up and just started walking. Now, it took some time, but his memories slowly returned. Eventually, he hit Fairfield, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. And Fairfield is 800 miles due east of the warehouse in Overland Park, Kansas. But Mike had no driver's license or ID of any kind, no credit cards, no money. So he went to the nearest homeless shelter to grab a meal and get his bearings. When he got to the shelter, he saw a newspaper. He had jumped two years into the future. Mike took a few odd jobs and got together enough money to take a bus back to his warehouse in Overland Park.

• 5:30:15AJ Gentile?

  When he got there, the warehouse was empty. Everything was gone. The machine, all the videos that he took of each test, and all his notes, every bit of documentation, was all gone.

• 5:30:26Speaker 03

  Men in black.

• 5:30:27AJ Gentile?

  Could have been the men in black, or it could have just been the landlord who thought Mike was gone, so he just stole the equipment or threw it away.

• 5:30:34Speaker 03

  No way, that stuff is still out there somewhere.

• 5:30:36AJ Gentile?

  It might be. Now, Mike was pretty sure he could recreate the machine. He felt he could remember ninety to ninety-five percent of the process, but it would take a lot of money. The equipment in the warehouse was worth a couple of million dollars. But Mike still had memory gaps. He couldn't remember whose donors were. His list of supporters was in the warehouse. And that brings us to Mike's third appearance on Coast to Coast. He caught Art Bell up on everything that happened, and although he wasn't looking for money, once again, people were ready to help.

• 5:31:07Speaker 07

  This one guy suggests, I'm actually looking at the website now, go to, tell him to set up a GoFundMe account. Yeah, yeah, GoFundMe, or, you know, well, that's crowdfunding, right?

• 5:31:21AJ Gentile?

  Art also recommended that Mike pursue a book deal. And Mike admitted that he's no author, but if he teamed up with a ghostwriter, he could certainly cover all the technical details. Another suggestion was, Warper the Government.

• 5:31:33Speaker 03

  No!

• 5:31:34Speaker 07

  What would you, would you cooperate with them, or? The thing with DARPA, well, I don't have firsthand experience with them, but I'm willing to bet they try to militarize every, I mean, basically, the check isn't free and clear, there's always strings attached. I hear that.

• 5:31:52Speaker 03

  Smitten in.

• 5:31:55AJ Gentile?

  So Mike had options, and Art Bell encouraged him to keep working.

• 5:31:59Speaker 07

  All right, everybody, that's it. Everybody in the world wanted an update on Madman Markham, and now you've got it. He's not gonna stop. What's next for Madman? Only time will tell. Good night.

• 5:32:25AJ Gentile?

  And Mike Markham would continue his research and continue to experiment. Mike wanted to travel again, but he needed to bring things with him, so when he woke up, he could quickly get up to speed in case his memory failed again. A big problem he kept running into was that nothing metal could go through the vortex. Well, metal could go in, but it was unpredictable. Sometimes metal would come right out, like those sheet metal screws, where sometimes the metal would explode in a shower of sparks. But after some trial and error, Mike discovered that if a metal tube was built a specific way, it would act as a Faraday cage, meaning that the tube could travel through the portal and reappear undamaged. Plus, anything inside the tube would be unaffected, including metal.

• 5:33:09AJ Gentile?

  So Mike continued to document his work and built a pretty large following online. One day, Mike posted that he was ready to go through again. And this time, he would go through inside the tube, and he'd take his cellphone with him. That way, he'd have everything he needs: his notes, photographs, even money. It was a great idea. And that was the last anyone had heard from him. As always, Art Bell kept tabs on Mike and was disappointed to hear that he was gone again, to where or when nobody knew. But during one radio show, Art took a disturbing call. The caller had found a newspaper article from 1930. The article described a man who had drowned. His body had washed up on the beach.

• 5:33:52AJ Gentile?

  The article said he was found in a strange metal drum, and the only object he had on him was a small rectangular device that nobody could explain. The man had no ID, so he was named John Doe. But some people had a feeling. His real name was Mike.

• 5:34:13AJ Gentile?

  When Art Bell fans talk about their favorite episodes, there are a few on everyone's list. Jonathan Reed's Alien in the Freezer, The Man Who Flew Over Area 51, The Mojave Phone Booth.

• 5:34:24Speaker 03

  Everyone loves Mel's Hole.

• 5:34:26AJ Gentile?

  Mel's Hole is a classic. And Mike "Madman" Markham is on that list. Art Bell loved time travel stories, and nobody could weave a tale like Art could. The third interview Art Bell did with Mike was in 2015, and it's a masterclass in storytelling. Art already had all the information. Everything from the early days of Mike building a Jacob's ladder on his porch, Mike going to jail for stealing the Transformers, the test with the animals, the warehouse, and Mike's two-year jump in time. But Art teases the story out slowly. Nothing is spoiled. He walks you through the story at the perfect pace, giving you just enough information to keep you hooked. And we were hooked. And look, Mike Markham doesn't bring much personality to the story.

• 5:35:09AJ Gentile?

  But Art knows enough about electronics and physics to keep us in the loop with all the technical stuff. And Art Bell never condescended to his guests. He never ridiculed them. He made them feel comfortable, because Art knew that's how to get the story. I think this is one of the reasons why The Y-Files has success with these topics where many other channels don't. I don't condescend or ridicule. I don't talk down to you. And no matter how bonkers a topic is, I don't ridicule it. I don't have to believe a story to enjoy it. And if you believe a story that I don't, great. So here's a piece of unsolicited advice to creators who cover these topics with a snarky attitude. You're making the story about you, and that's a mistake. So, Madman Mike Markham,

• 5:35:53AJ Gentile?

  one of the best time travel stories ever. But is it true? Well, there's a lot of information about Mike on the internet that isn't true. In his last interview with Art, Mike even debunks some of those stories. Like, he never sent a cat through the portal. But he did send the couch through, but no cat. Damn. And Mike addressed that article from 1930 where the man washed up on the beach in a metal drum. I always thought it was a great twist, but that never happened. And there's a current story going around that Mike was still alive but homeless and died last year. Also not true. Now, I don't want to dox the guy, but Mike is still around. And unsurprisingly, it looks like he spent most of his career in technology. But what about the machine?

• 5:36:38AJ Gentile?

  Well, Mike Markham clearly knew a lot about electrical engineering. When he built that prototype on his porch, he was only 21 years old. And scientists did say that his technology was on the right track. Now, they didn't believe he could actually create a time machine, but they said if a theoretical time machine could be built, it would be done with high voltage and magnetism. Nikola Tesla thought he could possibly see through time using electromagnetism. And Einstein proved time travel was possible with gravity. The higher the gravity, the faster time moves. And in extreme gravity, like near a black hole, time would move very, very fast. If Mike Markham figured out a way to create a vortex of extremely high gravity,

• 5:37:22AJ Gentile?

  in theory, that would work.

• 5:37:24Speaker 07

  It's already been scientifically proven you can use gravity to dilate time. Well, basically, I'm using electromagnetism, which is 10 to the 30th times stronger. Right, right. So I don't need, basically, a black hole to do this.

• 5:37:38AJ Gentile?

  Art Bell's audience called in with lots of questions and criticism, but Mike was ready for all of it. For example, there's something with time travel stories that really bothers me. Let's say you had a time machine that could move you 10 minutes into the future. Okay, fine. You move through time. But what about space? The Earth is spinning 1,000 miles per hour. It's orbiting the Sun at 66,000 miles per hour. Our solar system zips through the galaxy at over 500,000 miles per hour, and our galaxy moves through space at 1.3 million miles per hour. So where you're sitting right now, in 10 minutes, you'll move almost 90,000 miles in space. Time machine stories never account for this.

• 5:38:23AJ Gentile?

  The Earth is always in the same place. But Mike Markham does address this. He says his machine stays in sync with the gravitational center of the Earth, so he's not only moving through time, he's moving through space.

• 5:38:38AJ Gentile?

  I've linked to all three interviews below. You can hear Mike Fielding questions very calmly. He comes across as humble and not trying to prove anything. Remember, he didn't pursue Art Bell to tell his story. Art pursued Mike, every time. Really, the main reason to be skeptical of Mike Markham's time travel story is, he's here. If I figured out how to time travel to the future, I'd do it, wouldn't you? But who knows? Mike is still young. Maybe he's working on a newer version of his time machine. I hope he is. Now, people will roll their eyes at this story and say, "Mike's crazy." But the world needs more people like Mike Markham. Because when time travel is invented, and I think it will one day, it will be invented by a madman.

• 5:39:27AJ Gentile?

  So first of all, I'm proud to say that The Y-Files is the only channel that has expressed permission from Mike to publish his story. And I'm checking my notes. So I recently traded emails with Mike, and I instantly liked him. And he mentioned that he and his wife watched the show. Which I think was okay, because I wasn't insulting to Mike. I think I was very complimentary, actually. But he said that, he said that that redheaded guy in the mugshot, that's not him. So that was the picture that I came up with in my research, and it was hard to find.

• 5:40:07AJ Gentile?

  And now, and now there's lots of videos out there with the wrong picture. Anyway, Mike says he has an update. But, so I asked him to come on the podcast, which we're just about to launch. But he's sort of a private guy, and I respect that. I don't want to intrude on his privacy, but I am going to check with him from time to time. And he said he will do an update, but he just has to be ready. He's not sure if he wants to put himself out there yet, and I totally get it.

• 5:40:46AJ Gentile?

  Okay, the next episode is a quick one. Number 83, The Betts Sphere. In the spring of 1974, a large brush fire swept across the property owned by Antoine and Jerry Betts. While assessing the damage, they noticed something very out of place. Lying in the smoldering grass was a highly polished metal sphere. This became known as the Betts Sphere, or the Betts Orb. Antoine and Jerry's 21-year-old son, Terry Betts, went to pick up the sphere. Although it was only eight inches in diameter, it was extremely heavy. Then the Betts family did something with the sphere that would change their lives forever. Something that the family would come to regret. They brought it home.

• 5:41:32AJ Gentile?

  The Betts family's property was on Fort George Island, just outside of Jacksonville, Florida. And this wasn't the stereotypical Florida family in the woods. The Betts property was 88 acres of land, mostly used for raising trees for timber. Antoine Betts was a marine engineer. His wife Jerry was an artist, and they had six children. The Betts home was essentially a mansion that the family nicknamed "The Castle." The Bettses were educated and well-to-do. They were not fortune and fame seekers. The Betts Sphere was just under eight inches in diameter and weighed about 21 pounds, so slightly smaller than a bowling ball, but much heavier. The sphere had no seams, no weld marks, no signs of machining. It had a few scuffs and scratches, but no other dents or damage.

• 5:42:16AJ Gentile?

  It did have a 3-millimeter triangle that was etched or stamped into it. The sphere didn't seem dangerous, so Terry brought it home and set it on his windowsill with some other collectibles. And nobody really thought much about it. But a few weeks later, that would change. Terry and a friend were in his room playing guitar when they noticed a humming sound coming from somewhere. They stopped playing, listened for the hum, and it faded away. After a minute, they shrugged and went back to playing. The humming returned. Terry walked around his room, strumming the guitar. He soon realized the sphere would vibrate along with the notes he played. He played a little louder. The sphere vibrated more powerfully, and then- started buzzing. At this point, the family dog started whining as if disturbed by the sound.

• 5:43:01AJ Gentile?

  Terry decided to try a couple of experiments. He gently tapped the sphere with a hammer and it responded with a ringing sound. The way the sphere reacted to sound fascinated Terry, so he grabbed it, took it out to the living room to show his family. Everyone gathered around. Then Terry set the ball down and went to grab his hammer and his guitar. Though nobody was touching the sphere or even near it, it started to move on its own.

• 5:43:28AJ Gentile?

  The Betz sphere was no longer just an interesting souvenir found in the woods. It had extraordinary properties. It responded to sound, to touch, and now had the power of locomotion. When the Betz sphere was rolled across the ground, it would roll away, stop, vibrate, and then change directions. It would then stop, vibrate, change directions again, and come back to the person who rolled it. Sometimes it rolled for just a few seconds, but sometimes for up to five minutes. Once it rolled for 12 minutes on its own before it finally came to a stop. At first, the Betzes thought it could be a gyroscope, which would account for the movement.

• 5:44:04Speaker 03

  Gyroscopes don't chase people, scare portals, or play guitar.

• 5:44:08AJ Gentile?

  No, but I respect them for being skeptical. So they put the sphere on this coffee table that had a glass top. They pushed it. It would not fall off. It would roll around the edge of the table, then to the middle, and just stop.

• 5:44:21Speaker 03

  Oh, they had to be freaking out by now, right?

• 5:44:24AJ Gentile?

  They were. But what happened next is bananas. They lifted one end of the table to get it to roll onto the floor. It didn't. It rolled up the incline as if trying to save itself from falling.

• 5:44:35Speaker 03

  Ascension sphere!

• 5:44:37AJ Gentile?

  It seemed to be. Jerry picked up the sphere and started shaking it. It didn't like this. In a newspaper report, Jerry's quoted as saying,

• 5:44:45Speaker 06

  If you shake the ball vigorously and then place it on the ground, it feels just like a huge Mexican jumping bean which is trying to get away from you.

• 5:44:53AJ Gentile?

  The Betzes figured out that the sphere had a magnetic field. A paperclip would stick to it, but could be removed easily. But if the sphere spent a lot of time rolling, the magnetic field got stronger. After rolling around for a few minutes, the lid from a mayonnaise jar stuck to it, and they couldn't pry it off. They thought maybe it could be solar-powered. The sphere seemed to be more active when exposed to sunlight. When set in the sun, they could feel a gentle vibration and hear a low hum, as if there was a motor inside. When they brought the sphere back inside, it stayed warm for three entire days. After a few days of this, a family friend reached out to the Jacksonville Journal, who reluctantly sent a photographer.

• 5:45:34AJ Gentile?

  That photographer arrived a skeptic, but he left a believer.

• 5:45:41AJ Gentile?

  Lon Anger was a longtime photographer for the Jacksonville Journal. He'd seen it all. When he arrived at the Betts' home, he admitted this to Jerry.

• 5:45:50Speaker 05

  I'm leery of this kind of thing. When I got there, Mrs. Betts said-

• 5:45:54AJ Gentile?

  You won't believe this if you don't see it.

• 5:45:56Speaker 05

  They told me to put the orb on the floor and give it a push. It rolled aways and stopped, so what?

• 5:46:01AJ Gentile?

  Just wait a minute.

• 5:46:03Speaker 05

  Then it turned by itself, then rolled about four feet. It stopped, then it turned again and rolled to the left about eight feet, made a big arc, and came right back to my feet.

• 5:46:12AJ Gentile?

  The photographer was convinced. The paper ran the story, and the Betts' sphere became an overnight sensation. Journalists from all over the world were calling for interviews. Now, in the 70s, there was no call waiting. You either got through, or you didn't. And after the story went out, it was almost impossible for calls to get through. We came to Forge, George Island to get away to a serene atmosphere. Now we can't get away from the telephone. It means nothing to people in the West that it's midnight here. And when they quit calling, those in the East wake up and start. The Betzes were not that interested in giving interviews, but they did want help identifying the sphere. Finally, a call came through that would be difficult for the Betts' family to ignore.

• 5:46:51Speaker 03

  Let me guess, does the first name rhyme with uncle, and the last name rhyme with Sam?

• 5:46:56AJ Gentile?

  Yep, the United States military wanted to have a look.

• 5:46:59Speaker 03

  Of course they did.

• 5:47:00AJ Gentile?

  Still, Jerry said no. This annoyed the government.

• 5:47:03Speaker 03

  Anybody who annoys the government is okay in my book.

• 5:47:07AJ Gentile?

  Mine too. But the US government wouldn't take no for an answer.

• 5:47:14AJ Gentile?

  With all the media coverage surrounding the sphere, the military wanted to have a look. Jerry was reluctant to let them have it, but there was concern that the sphere could be unexploded ordinance. So Jerry agreed to loan it to the Navy for two weeks. But if it was determined that it wasn't military property, she wanted it returned. She even made the Navy sign a contract.

• 5:47:33Speaker 06

  I told them we expect a comprehensive report in two weeks. And if it can't be identified as government property, it is to be returned to us.

• 5:47:42AJ Gentile?

  Navy scientists performed a number of tests. They measured it at exactly 7.96 inches in diameter, and it weighed 21.34 pounds. The shell was made of some kind of magnetic stainless steel alloy. It could withstand extreme heat and extreme pressure of 120,000 pounds per square inch. This thing was tough. According to the spectrograph, it was made of stainless steel grade 431. The Navy also found that the sphere was intensely magnetic. It had four magnetic poles, two positive and two negative. The magnetic fields varied in strength and were in an unusual pattern. The next test was X-rays. And that's where they ran into a little snag.

• 5:48:23Speaker 02

  Our first X-ray attempts got us nowhere. We're going to use a more powerful machine on it and also run spectrograph tests to determine what metal it's made of. There's certainly something odd about it.

• 5:48:35AJ Gentile?

  The X-rays showed nothing. So at the end of the two weeks, the Navy confirmed that it wasn't government property and wasn't dangerous. So it was returned to the Betts family. But something strange happened next. A Navy serviceman came to the Betts' house to return the object. He was also carrying a manila envelope. And even though the Navy said they were unable to X-ray the sphere, that envelope contained X-rays. The images showed the entire internal structure of the sphere. The images also showed there was something inside.

• 5:49:08AJ Gentile?

  The results of the X-rays were surprising. The sphere had an outer shell that was about half an inch thick. Inside the sphere were different layers of steel of different densities. At the core of the sphere, about the size of an apple, was a hollow space. And in that space were three other smaller spheres. And each of them had tiny wires attached. One mystery was, what are these other objects inside the sphere? But an even bigger mystery, how did they get in there? Typically, you'd get objects into a sphere by either cutting it in half then sealing it, or drilling out a hole and placing the objects in that way. But there was no hole, and no seam. Even Navy scientists couldn't figure it out. The Navy wanted to drill into it, but Jerry said, "No way."

• 5:49:50AJ Gentile?

  Now during all this excitement, friends and neighbors and people in the media were suggesting that the sphere could be extraterrestrial. Because it responded to sound, had a magnetic field, and was almost indestructible, some people speculated it was an alien listening device. The Betzes didn't give much credence to these theories, until the Navy came back with nothing.

• 5:50:11Speaker 06

  If no other explanation can be found that's as logical as any, who could say what's on another planet? Even speculations have been proven wrong. The Navy says what it isn't. They say it isn't an explosive, so we still want to know what it is.

• 5:50:25AJ Gentile?

  So the Betzes reached out to scientists for answers. What the scientists found created even more questions.

• 5:50:35AJ Gentile?

  The first scientist to examine the sphere was Dr. Carl Williston of the Omega Minus One Institute. He spent six hours running tests. And one of his strangest discoveries was that the sphere was emitting radio waves. He also confirmed the Navy's findings of four poles. But like the Navy, he couldn't explain the pattern of the magnetic fields. It defied the laws of physics. He also witnessed the sphere moving on its own across any surface. Dr. Williston confirmed the exterior was made of stainless steel grade 431, but he also found traces of an extremely heavy but unknown element. And a side note about Dr. Williston, there isn't any evidence that anyone by that name ever existed. -One Institute is also a bit of a mystery.

• 5:51:20AJ Gentile?

  Some have speculated that he was a foreign operative gathering intelligence on the object. The next scientist the Betts brought in was Dr. James Harder. He was an engineering professor and became a trusted advisor to the family. Dr. Harder confirmed Dr. Williston's findings and said the internal spheres were made of a material with an atomic number of 140. An atomic number is the number of protons an element has. The highest atomic number that occurs in nature is 92, uranium. It is possible to artificially increase the number of protons, but the highest scientists have been able to achieve is 118 protons. So the element found in the sphere does not occur on Earth. This led Dr. Harder to wonder if the sphere could be a damaged alien probe or anti-gravity

• 5:52:05AJ Gentile?

  device. The next scientist was Dr. J. Allen Hynek. He was a well-known astronomer and professor, but Dr. Hynek was best known for being a UFO advisor to the US Air Force under three separate projects, including Project Blue Book, which investigated UFOs from 1952 to 1969.

• 5:52:24Speaker 03

  And probably longer.

• 5:52:25AJ Gentile?

  And probably longer.

• 5:52:26Speaker 03

  And probably still.

• 5:52:28AJ Gentile?

  And probably still. Dr. Hynek also confirmed the findings of the other scientists. And during this time of chaotic activity, something happened that made the Betts family very nervous. A group of scientists flew into Jacksonville, arrived at the Betts' home, and offered Jerry $750,000 cash for the sphere. That would be worth almost $4 million today.

• 5:52:49Speaker 03

  Four mil because of inflation, eh?

• 5:52:51AJ Gentile?

  Yup.

• 5:52:52Speaker 03

  And next year, that'll be 6 million because of inflation.

• 5:52:54AJ Gentile?

  I really hope you're wrong about that.

• 5:52:56Speaker 03

  I'm not.

• 5:52:57AJ Gentile?

  Anyway, there was something about these guys that rubbed Jerry the wrong way. When they asked to see the sphere, she said it wasn't there and turned down their cash offer. This really annoyed the men. And after they left, the family checked their backstory. Turns out, it was all a lie. The family suspected this was probably a foreign government trying to acquire the sphere. And that's when the Betts' family realized they were in danger.

• 5:53:24AJ Gentile?

  In the 1970s, the National Enquirer offered a cash award to anyone who could prove that there is life on other planets. Even though the Enquirer was a bit of a rag, the UFO panel they assembled contained a lot of well-respected people. Heinecke and Harder were on the panel, but there were also multiple PhD holders, a former Supreme Court Justice, and a former United States Attorney General. The Betts family decided to send Terry and the sphere to this gathering. They didn't necessarily think the object was from outer space, but they figured with all these experts in one place, they could finally get some answers. After spending some time with the sphere, Dr. Heinecke felt it was man-made. Though everyone witnessed the sphere roll up a piece of plexiglass from a dead stop, nobody could explain that.

• 5:54:08AJ Gentile?

  When the idea of drilling came back up, Dr. Harder warned that if the sphere contained material with an atomic number as high as 140, drilling into it could cause it to go critical.

• 5:54:19Speaker 03

  Well, what do you mean "critical"?

• 5:54:21AJ Gentile?

  At that time, the only way to create elements with an atomic number higher than 92 was with a nuclear reactor. The protons within the sphere are much higher than anything ever discovered or created, so drilling into it-

• 5:54:33Speaker 03

  Okay, make it go boom?

• 5:54:35AJ Gentile?

  Right. But, the story takes another turn. While at the Enquirer's office, Terry got a call that said his mother had an accident. Terry tried to call her but couldn't get through, so he flew back immediately.

• 5:54:47Speaker 03

  With the ball, I hope.

• 5:54:49AJ Gentile?

  Nope, he left it behind.

• 5:54:50Speaker 03

  Oh no, you knucklehead!

• 5:54:52AJ Gentile?

  When Terry got home, Jerry was fine. Someone was trying to separate Terry from the sphere. Jerry told her son to go back to the Enquirer immediately and get it, so he did. At first, the Enquirer didn't cooperate. They gave him a story and seemed to be stalling, so Terry demanded it be returned. They finally admitted that they couldn't return it. It was gone.

• 5:55:17AJ Gentile?

  Eventually, the people at the Inquirer admitted that the UFO panel had taken the sphere to New Orleans to run further tests. So Terry drives down there. And when he arrives, the sphere is being guarded by the Navy. They tell Terry that while the sphere is being tested, he's not allowed to go near it.

• 5:55:33Speaker 03

  It's his property!

• 5:55:34AJ Gentile?

  I know.

• 5:55:35Speaker 03

  That's a bunch of bull-

• 5:55:36AJ Gentile?

  It is. The test didn't reveal anything new, so after a lot of arguing, Terry was finally able to get the sphere back. As Terry is leaving the facility, a few reporters ask if he can make the sphere do something. Terry says, "Sure. Every time you set it down, it rolls all over the place." In fact, the Betts has kept the sphere in a bowling bag at home because it wouldn't stay still. So Terry sets the sphere down, and nothing. It's not vibrating, it's not humming, it's not moving, it's not doing anything. So Terry leaves. A little later, Terry gets ahold of his sister, who tells him that there are people, not reporters, waiting for him at the airport. So Terry just drives home. Once back in Florida, the family has the sphere examined and x-rayed again. It no longer had four magnetic poles.

• 5:56:21AJ Gentile?

  And the x-rays show that the sphere now had a seam, which wasn't there before.

• 5:56:25Speaker 03

  Hey, someone pull the old switcheroo, eh?

• 5:56:28AJ Gentile?

  Yep, that's what they believe. And the interior doesn't have three small spheres anymore, just dust. And Dr. Harder warned the Betts family to be careful. Harder didn't trust Dr. Heineck and thought maybe Heineck had something to do with the sphere being replaced. And I want to mention that years later, after Dr. Heineck passed away, his son Paul mentioned that the family had a silver sphere. All they knew about it was that their father said it had something to do with a UFO case in Florida.

• 5:56:56Speaker 03

  Oh, it was stolen by Dr. Heineck?

• 5:56:58AJ Gentile?

  Heineck.

• 5:56:58Speaker 03

  Whatever.

• 5:57:00AJ Gentile?

  There's no proof that he stole it, but it's quite a coincidence that after Heineck was left alone with the sphere, suddenly it stopped working. Then, a different sphere, also from Florida, shows up at Dr. Heineck's house. So all this became too much for the Betts family. They were constantly being hounded by the press, and followed by what they thought were government agents. Once Jerry was even physically assaulted by someone who pretended to be a repairman. So the Betts family quickly and quietly- faded back into society they sold their house and left the island they gave no more interviews they wrote no books no movies they wanted nothing more to do with the sphere now jerry is still around and has a blog where she showcases her artwork and tells the story of her life

• 5:57:41AJ Gentile?

  nowhere does she mention anything about the best sphere so the best family never got the answer that they wanted the answer we all want what is the best sphere

• 5:57:53AJ Gentile?

  there are a few theories about the best sphere one is that it's a downed satellite or piece of space junk it's a plausible theory but if the sphere was a piece of technology it would probably have a seam and connectors but it has none of these another theory is that it's a foo fighter

• 5:58:10Speaker 03

  hello I've waited here for you ever long

• 5:58:19AJ Gentile?

  during

• 5:58:19Speaker 03

  tonight I throw myself into out of the red out of a head she sang

• 5:58:33AJ Gentile?

  yo

• 5:58:34Speaker 03

  what foo fighters

• 5:58:36AJ Gentile?

  I know the song but may I

• 5:58:38Speaker 03

  yeah go ahead with the story about your alien balls

• 5:58:41AJ Gentile?

  during world war two allied aircraft encountered UFOs that followed them and were able to move at incredible speeds the pilots gave the UFOs the nickname foo fighters foo is just a fun meaningless word another theory is that it's an alien atomic weapon people who believe this theory think that this was one of the weapons that was used to destroy atlantis and there could be clues that ancient nuclear weapons did exist in the world's oldest epic the mahabharata a line mentions a terrifying weapon

• 5:59:11Speaker 07

  a single projectile charged with all the power of the universe an incandescent column of smoke and flame is bright as 10,000 suns rose in all its splendor

• 5:59:20AJ Gentile?

  a more mundane explanation is that the best sphere was just a piece of industrial equipment an artist named james derling jones said he lost the sphere a few years earlier he'd been collecting scrap metal for use in sculptures derling jones said it was a ball check valve used as ...flow regulator in large pipes. He said it fell from the rack on top of his Volkswagen bus. This is the most widely accepted theory.

• 5:59:43Speaker 03

  You trust this dirty hippie?

• 5:59:45AJ Gentile?

  Be nice.

• 5:59:46Speaker 03

  Sorry, you trust this dirty artist?

• 5:59:48AJ Gentile?

  Well, a couple of problems with it being from a valve. There's only one factory on the island, a paper mill. Though they do use balls like this in valves, they only weigh about seven or eight pounds. The Betz Sphere weighs 21 pounds. And remember, the sphere was found in the woods. It was about a mile away from the nearest road. Sure, the sphere could move on its own, but a mile seems like a long way for it to roll. Now, some claim the sphere didn't roll on its own at all. The Betz's home had uneven tile floors, and the sphere, which was perfectly balanced, was just rolling around on the tile. Now, that doesn't explain why it would come back to the same person who rolled it. Now, to be fair, when the Navy was testing it, they never saw it roll on its own. But plenty of other people did.

• 6:00:31AJ Gentile?

  Robert Edwards, president of a local supply company, showed a reporter a brand-new stainless-steel ball manufactured by Bell and Howell. It was eight inches across and weighed just over 21 pounds. Same as the Betz Sphere.

• 6:00:44Speaker 03

  Hoax?

• 6:00:46AJ Gentile?

  I don't think so. The Betz's family had plenty of money, and aside from trying to win the prize from the National Enquirer, they never tried to profit from it. They could have made a fortune selling books about the Sphere, especially when it was international news. They didn't. And to this day, nobody really knows what the Betz Sphere is. If it was taken by the Navy or by Dr. Hynek, we may never know. It's very possible that the most significant scientific discovery ever made is sitting in an old bag gathering dust in someone's basement somewhere. And the only way we'll ever learn the secret of the Betz Sphere is when its owner, whoever he or she is, decides they want to take up bowling.

• 6:01:27AJ Gentile?

  I want to talk to Heineck's son and see if he has that sphere in a bowling bag in his garage.

• 6:01:32Speaker 03

  Ah, you're human. Where am I? Why is everything covered in, uh... Ah, Gertie! I told you to get more floaties!

• 6:01:41AJ Gentile?

  What happened?

• 6:01:42Speaker 03

  Gertie's mucus contains an enzyme that destroys blorpus, obviously.

• 6:01:47AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, well, her sneeze stopped that thing from spreading all over the world.

• 6:01:50Speaker 03

  Well, this alien plant racked up almost 100,000 orders today. But we're selling them as genuine extraterrestrial flora specimens, artisically preserved in organic camel mucus.

• 6:02:03AJ Gentile?

  You're not seriously gonna sell plant seeds covered in camel snot, are you?

• 6:02:07Speaker 03

  It's not snot, human. It's a natural, organic preservation medium. And they'll be flying off the shelves. We'll include a certificate and a sample of Gertie's DNA to prove authenticity.

• 6:02:18AJ Gentile?

  Just, just clean up that mess before I get home.

• 6:02:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, we'll clean up as soon as I harvest some more mucus. Uh, Morgan, get a bucket and a big squeegee. On it, boss. Hey, baby, you wanna move for some jalapeno poppers?

• 6:02:34AJ Gentile?

  Time for our last video, finally. Number 133, The Electric Universe. Since grade school, we've been taught that gravity is what keeps our feet firmly planted on the ground. But what if that's all been a lie? Now, I'm not saying if you jump off a bridge, you fall up instead of down. But what if Newton and Einstein were wrong? And what really ties our universe together is not gravity, but electricity? The electric universe theory says that, instead of gravity, the universe's true attractive force comes from invisible electric currents that surround our planet, our solar system, the galaxy, and everything. We're all living in one giant, universe-spanning circuit. Mainstream science ignores this possibility.

• 6:03:18AJ Gentile?

  But ignoring the electric universe blinds us to an unknown risk. The myths of our ancestors describe cataclysmic global disasters in the distant past. They knew about the electric universe, too. Not from science, but from experience. And our ancestors have sent us a strange but dire warning: Beware the shocking fury of Planet Saturn.

• 6:03:48AJ Gentile?

  Standard cosmological theory says that the universe was created during the Big Bang.

• 6:04:00AJ Gentile?

  For 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was mostly hydrogen and helium just floating around. Then gravity started to pull matter into bundles that became stars. Gravity pulled stars into galaxies, gravity pulled galaxies into clusters. After that, supernova exploded and the universe is sprinkled with elements. Gravity causes these elements to coalesce into planets. Those planets fall into regular orbits around their stars, and here we are, all thanks to gravity. The current theory of gravity was proposed by Albert Einstein through his work on general and special relativity, published in 1915. But there's a problem with this theory, and Einstein knew it. Gravity isn't strong enough to keep all this stuff in place, especially on a large scale.

• 6:04:45AJ Gentile?

  Given the amount of matter spinning around a galaxy and how fast it's moving, everything should fly apart, but it doesn't. So what's holding everything in place? Well, officially, it's dark matter, which you've heard of. But here's a little secret about dark matter that they don't tell us: there's no proof it exists. Dark matter is just a theory that's used as a Band-Aid to explain the gravity problem. But maybe there's something else happening. Maybe our universe isn't held together by gravity, it's held together by electricity. The electric universe theory says that permeating space is a vast sea of ionized particles. These particles create an enormous field of plasma.

• 6:05:27AJ Gentile?

  Plasma is the fourth state of matter, the others being solid, liquid, and gas. Not only is our Sun mostly plasma, plasma makes up over 99.9% of the visible universe. This network of plasma is so massive that it connects every galaxy in the universe in a single electric circuit. This circuit not only conducts electricity over great distances, but it transmits it faster than light, much faster.

• 6:05:54AJ Gentile?

  If the Electric Universe Theory is true, it will change everything we know about physics and reframe our understanding of the cosmos. But what evidence is there? Electric cosmologists have recently begun testing their theories in the lab and have produced surprising results. But the real proof may not be found in cosmology, but archaeology. The Electric Universe Theory says that, at one time, our night sky was a tapestry of glowing plasma. But then a drastic cosmic event changed our sky forever. Our ancestors recorded this event in customs and in myths and symbology. But changes to the sky weren't the only thing they described. Hidden among the symbols is the record of a catastrophe, one that's left scars across not just the Earth,

• 6:06:39AJ Gentile?

  but every planet in the solar system.

• 6:06:47AJ Gentile?

  The Grand Canyon is one of the most iconic places in the world. The Colorado River flows between the canyon walls, and according to mainstream geology, it was formed through a complex series of tectonic events and erosion. But if you look closely at the river from overhead, you'll notice its many branches and tributaries split at very odd but consistent angles. This structure is familiar to electrical cosmologists, many of whom are electrical engineers. The patterns look just like current flowing through electronics. Specifically, junctions in the Colorado River follow rules for an electrical circuit. And there's a reason for that. Even though the universe is an ocean of electricity, we don't really see it because everything stays pretty well-balanced.

• 6:07:31AJ Gentile?

  Just like you don't see electricity flowing through a circuit, that is, until something goes wrong and everything goes haywire. When the electrical balance of the solar system is thrown off, it leads to violent arcs that travel from planet to planet. And those arcs of current leave scars across everything they touch. Scars like the Grand Canyon on Earth, or the Valles Marineris on Mars. Geologists say these canyons are formed by tectonic activity and water erosion over millions of years. But electrocosmologists believe unbelievably powerful lightning creates the canyons, which are later filled in by water. The Valles Marineris Canyon, which is as long as the entire United States, doesn't look like water erosion. It looks like something quickly and violently gouged out a chunk of the planet.

• 6:08:16AJ Gentile?

  And parts of it have marks that look exactly like tributaries in the Grand Canyon, or exactly like an enormous bolt of lightning.

• 6:08:23Speaker 07

  This entire region resembles nothing so much as an area zapped by a powerful electric arc, advancing unsteadily across the surface.

• 6:08:31AJ Gentile?

  These canyons are on rocky planets and moons all over the solar system, from Venus all the way to Pluto and beyond.

• 6:08:38Speaker 03

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, what about Uranus?

• 6:08:40AJ Gentile?

  What now?

• 6:08:41Speaker 03

  Are there any scars on Uranus?

• 6:08:45AJ Gentile?

  Uranus has 27 moons. Its largest moon, Titania, has a gash on it almost 1,000 miles long.

• 6:08:52Speaker 03

  Whoa, something violent happened near Uranus, huh?

• 6:08:55AJ Gentile?

  Don't be an infant.

• 6:09:01AJ Gentile?

  Electrocosmologists believe that interplanetary lightning bolts have hit the Earth many times in the past, with dire consequences for everyone on the planet.

• 6:09:17AJ Gentile?

  Goodness. They believe there was a catastrophic electrical event about 12,000 years ago. Survivors looked upon the scarred landscape and copied what they saw in hieroglyphics. 12,000 years ago is the time of the Younger Dryas, when it said the Earth's ice caps melted within a week, causing a global cataclysm. This rapid melting of the ice caps created tsunamis 1,000 feet high and raised the Earth's sea level by hundreds of feet. At the end of the catastrophic week, the surface of the Earth would have looked very different. We know there was a rapid warming of the Earth after the Younger Dryas, but nobody knows for sure what caused it. One theory is that it was a giant asteroid impact. Another theory is that the melting was caused by a violent solar event,

• 6:10:02AJ Gentile?

  like a solar flare or coronal mass ejection. But electric cosmologists say the melting was caused by a massive bolt of interplanetary lightning. That would definitely explain it. Every culture on Earth has a flood myth. People living on every continent on the planet have written stories and made drawings of the global catastrophe. All scientific evidence says those myths are true. But those same myths describe the night sky as looking very different than it does today. In the past, the Sun wasn't the only prominent object in the sky, and our nearest planetary neighbor looked much different. Today, Venus is our nearest planetary neighbor. But in the time of the myths, Venus didn't exist yet. Our nearest neighbor was Saturn.

• 6:10:46AJ Gentile?

  Saturn was so close to the Earth that this was actually a binary planet system. But that system didn't last forever. The legends tell the story of the time when Saturn and the Earth parted ways. And when that happened, all hell broke loose.

• 6:11:07AJ Gentile?

  When Emmanuel Velikovsky released his bestselling book, Worlds in Collision, he turned astronomy on its head.

• 6:11:15Speaker 04

  It is only wishful thinking that we are living in the

• 6:11:22Speaker 04

  safe, never perturbed solar system and the safe, never perturbed, perturbed Earth.

• 6:11:33AJ Gentile?

  Mainstream science says that our sky is an orderly place that's looked the same for millions of years. But Velikovsky found ancient evidence that tells a very different story.

• 6:11:43Speaker 07

  Dr. Velikovsky's contention is that in the memory of man, the Earth has gone through great natural paroxysms. He's founded his theory on the ancient records of man from all over the world, on archaeological evidence in the form of ancient calendars that have become strangely obsolete, and on new and radical interpretations.

• 6:12:03AJ Gentile?

  ...of information from astronomy, paleontology, paleomagnetism, and evolution. Velikovsky used comparative mythology to examine different legends, searching for common themes. Besides the flood myth that all cultures share, Velikovsky found other common legends.

• 6:12:20Speaker 04

  And the same story could have been found in all places, but differently told, so that it was no question of just borrowing from one nation by another. So, this was all the collusion. The story of human memory of catastrophes that took place in historical times, but strangely, despite the fact that they were described in so many sources, as if nonexistent for the scientific world.

• 6:13:00AJ Gentile?

  Gods were often described as immense celestial bodies, presiding over a mythical golden age, where the planet Saturn was the most important object in the sky. The Egyptians placed their creator god Atum at the celestial pole, the axis around which the sky turned. The Babylonians said their supreme god Anu ruled from the pole star. But the pole star wasn't a star at all. The pole star was Saturn.

• 6:13:39AJ Gentile?

  The Greeks and Romans also identified the planet Saturn as the primeval sun god who reigned over a lost paradise. The archaic Latin name for Saturn was Sol, the sun. In early Greek, the planet Saturn, called Cronos, was also named Helios, the sun. Franz Boll was a German historian of science, and his work is considered foundational in astronomy. He said Cronos and Helios were at one time the same god. Saturn figures prominently in many ancient texts. Astronomical history from Greece, Persia, and China all claim Saturn ruled the world. The Golden Age was called "The Reign of Saturn." The original site of Rome was known as Saturnia. The Jewish Sabbath was Saturn's Day.

• 6:14:22AJ Gentile?

  Popular Roman festivals honored Saturn as the father of the gods. Dvelikovsky thought this was strange. How could a distant planet like Saturn be linked to the central axis of the sky?

• 6:14:34Speaker 04

  All of our ancient heritage that comes to us in terms of architecture, writing, and so on, they're actually obsessed with the idea of worshiping these stars, these dreaded planets. All mankind, through the years, have worshipped stars that we can't even pick out of the sky today. Now, why?

• 6:14:55AJ Gentile?

  Because in ancient times Saturn was much closer to the Earth and dominated the sky. During this time, the Earth and Saturn were a binary planet system that together moved around the sun. Because the two planets were locked, Saturn didn't rise or set. It was fixed in the sky, just like the ancient Egyptians said. David Talbot continued the work of Dvelikovsky. He studied ancient symbols from across the globe which described how the sky once looked, and it's very different than the sky we now know.

• 6:15:27AJ Gentile?

  Going back through prehistoric times, we see the same image in every culture, on every continent. It's called "The Cosmic Wheel." The wheel was the throne of the gods. We see the wheel in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. The Cosmic Wheel is seen in prehistoric Ireland and in the hills of California, across Africa, Scandinavia, around the Mediterranean, Mexico, Mesopotamia. The image represents three objects: Saturn, the large planet farthest away; a dark planet is closest, this was named Mars; and in the middle, a glowing object. The energy of the three objects washed over the Earth. The energy gave humans lifespans of hundreds or even thousands of years. This time had been called "The Golden Age of Heroes."

• 6:16:12AJ Gentile?

  Civilization flourished. But then, something terrible happened.

• 6:16:23AJ Gentile?

  When electrical engineer Walt Forne Hill saw one of David Talbot's lectures on the Cosmic Wheel, the design was instantly recognizable to him.

• 6:16:31Speaker 04

  So it came as a bit of a shock and a surprise to see David Talbot showing slides at one of the sessions at the conference, which I recognized immediately as being similar to those of electric discharges in the laboratory.

• 6:16:48AJ Gentile?

  Many ancient cultures describe a golden age that ends with a war between gods, leading to a catastrophe on Earth. Myths around the world tell of mighty gods that ruled the heavens. This was an era of chaos, and each god vies for supremacy. One god conquers another, then the next god conquers him. And the favorite weapon of the gods? The thunderbolt. In Hinduism, the Mahabharata tells tales of a lost age, where gods waged war on each other in the sky using what can best be described as "energy weapons." In Greek mythology, the god Zeus wielded a celestial thunderbolt to wage war against the Titan Cronos. In Roman mythology, Zeus was named Jupiter, and he was at war with Saturn.

• 6:17:30AJ Gentile?

  The arrows of Apollo, the trident of Neptune, these are all connected to thunderbolts. So when our ancestors said the gods waged war in the sky, they were interpreting actual celestial thunderbolts that they witnessed jumping between planets that they had named after the gods. But what caused this war between the gods and the cataclysm on Earth? It was the glowing middle object in the Cosmic Wheel: Venus. But Venus didn't form like the other planets. It was created much more violently. A chunk of Jupiter was ejected from the center of the planet. This matter took the form of a giant comet. This comet would eventually become the planet Venus. And this event is also reflected in legends around the world.

• 6:18:13AJ Gentile?

  The Greeks have the myth of Zeus birthing the goddess Athena from his forehead. She emerged fully grown and radiated brilliant light. She then uttered a cry that shook the heavens and the earth. And remember, planets and gods are one and the same, and Zeus is Jupiter. The Maya and Babylonians had myths about Venus being a fiery or blazing star, just like a comet. The ancient Egyptians had a myth about the goddess Isis, who was associated with Venus. She was transformed into a fiery star that descended to the earth. At some point, the Earth, Venus, Mars, and Saturn drifted too close to each other. This led to massive bolts of lightning between the planets. And this lightning blasted craters in the moon and tore through the Earth to create the Grand Canyon.

• 6:18:58AJ Gentile?

  Ancient cultures recorded evidence of this lightning and other plasma discharges. The Lasko Cave in France has cave art that's 17,000 years old. These images are extremely detailed, very realistic, and very accurate. So why does later art become crude, with men being depicted as stick figures? It's because these are not drawings of men. Notice how the arms always appear outstretched, and there are dots on either side of the figure. These are the same all over the world, so what is this? The answer comes from Anthony Parat, a plasma physicist. Parat shows us an animation of a plasma discharge. The central column is the axis.

• 6:19:42AJ Gentile?

  Around the axis is a torus or a donut-shaped ring of charged particles. The top is called a champagne glass, the bottom is called a squashed bell. To an observer, the shape is transparent, but there are places where the plasma is most dense.

• 6:19:57Speaker 03

  Holy [BLEEP].

• 6:20:02AJ Gentile?

  This is the shape drawn by ancient cultures around the world. The reason they recorded it is because they would have seen this as a giant glowing object in the sky.

• 6:20:11Speaker 03

  Like a god!

• 6:20:12AJ Gentile?

  Exactly. These plasma discharges would have been loud, and bright, and violent, and could have easily been construed as gods battling in the heavens. Eventually, the lightning stopped, and the war ended. Saturn, Mars, and Venus moved into their current orbits, giving us the sky that we know today. Now, it's an amazing story, but it goes against everything we've been taught about gravity, the solar system, and all of mainstream cosmology. In order for this theory to be taken seriously, someone would have to prove it. There's someone did.

• 6:20:52AJ Gentile?

  Modern science tells us stars are powered by nuclear fusion at their cores. Hydrogen atoms are fused into helium, which produces light and heat. Scientists who support the electro-universe theory disagree. They believe electricity plays a bigger role in the cosmos than mainstream theories suggest. The energy of the sun is not being driven by fusion, but by a powerful electric current that permeates all of space. Over the past decade, experiments by an international team called the Sapphire Project have put the electric universe theory to the test. Their goal: recreate the plasma environment of a star in a laboratory chamber on Earth.

• 6:21:29Speaker 03

  Um, is this a good idea?

• 6:21:32AJ Gentile?

  Oh.

• 6:21:32Speaker 03

  It sounds like a fire hazard.

• 6:21:36AJ Gentile?

  Inside their high-tech facility in Canada, the Sapphire team built a plasma reactor. They filled it with low-pressure hydrogen gas, which mimics the early universe. Then they introduced an electrical current, creating a glowing ball of plasma. The plasma quickly self-organized into stable, donut-shaped vortices called double layers. These double layers formed electrified shells that trapped electrons, ions, and hydrogen atoms inside.

• 6:22:03Speaker 03

  Okay, okay, tell me that again. But this time, pretend I don't know anything about what you're talking about.

• 6:22:09AJ Gentile?

  It made a baby star.

• 6:22:11Speaker 03

  Was that so hard?

• 6:22:14AJ Gentile?

  The team measured effects within the reactor never before seen in any lab on Earth. The electron density matched the measurements made from spacecraft sent to study the sun. Also, the Sapphire plasma sustained enormous electrical fields of up to 8,000 volts per meter, but also a steep drop in voltage off the surface of the plasma. Which sounds technical, but that's exactly what happens in the sun. The reactor core reached temperatures of over 80,000 degrees Celsius. That's hotter than the sun's surface. The plasma thermal radiation was uniform, just like the sun.

• 6:22:50Speaker 03

  Ooh, these doctors must be so tan.

• 6:22:52AJ Gentile?

  I don't see how that's important.

• 6:22:54Speaker 03

  I'm saying it's a good thing. Scientists are usually pretty pasty.

• 6:23:00AJ Gentile?

  And they also found evidence of higher energy in the plasma corona, just like the sun. And it goes on and on. The Sapphire Project had created their own mini-sun, and they did it without nuclear fusion. This was done using only electricity. And most shockingly...

• 6:23:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I see what you did there.

• 6:23:17AJ Gentile?

  The reactor was changing elements like iron and tungsten into other elements like magnesium, calcium, titanium, and 17 others. This is a process called transmutation. The Sapphire Project had repeatedly transmuted tungsten and iron into more than 17 other stable elements. All these phenomena are exactly what the electric universe theory predicts, that stars are not driven by internal nuclear fusion after all, but by electrical discharges flowing through cosmic plasma. Now, more experiments are needed, but the Sapphire reactor hints the ability to pull energy from the quantum vacuum. Nikola Tesla also believed this was possible. If the Sapphire technology works, it would lead to unlimited clean energy for the entire

• 6:24:02AJ Gentile?

  planet.

• 6:24:03Speaker 03

  Ah, well, those 10 scientists are gonna get whacked before that happens.

• 6:24:07AJ Gentile?

  Yeah, scientists who try to create free, clean energy always seem to get hit with a lot of bad luck.

• 6:24:12Speaker 03

  They also get hit by cars.

• 6:24:13AJ Gentile?

  True.

• 6:24:14Speaker 03

  And bullets.

• 6:24:15AJ Gentile?

  I get it. So we have experiments that validate the electric universe theory with how stars are formed, and it's an amazing discovery. But there's one more experiment we need to do in order to prove this thing, and it's a tricky one. We need to prove that the energy moving through the cosmic plasma can move faster than light. Now Einstein said this was impossible, but it turns out that Einstein was wrong, and last year, somebody proved it. Einstein hated quantum entanglement. What is entanglement? This is when two particles transmit information to each other faster than the speed of light.

• 6:24:58AJ Gentile?

  Really, they transmit information faster than anything. Entangled particles transmit information instantly, no matter how far apart they are. Alright, I'm gonna try and keep this simple. So physicists, don't bother leaving comments, this isn't a video about quantum mechanics.

• 6:25:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, you mensa eggheads, keep your yaps shut.

• 6:25:17AJ Gentile?

  Come on, that's not nice.

• 6:25:18Speaker 03

  Ah, hey, you know what mensa stands for?

• 6:25:20AJ Gentile?

  No, what?

• 6:25:21Speaker 03

  My entire night spent alone.

• 6:25:33AJ Gentile?

  When two particles become entangled, they're now linked. Now that they're linked, their movement cancels each other out. Meaning if particle A is spinning up, then particle B is spinning down. This is called conservation of angular momentum. If one particle is spinning clockwise, the other has to be spinning counterclockwise. Makes sense?

• 6:25:50Speaker 03

  I feel ya.

• 6:25:52AJ Gentile?

  But remember how weird quantum particles are? We don't know what they're doing until we measure them. Until they're measured, they're doing everything all at once. And this is called the wave function. Now, you don't know anything about a quantum particle, but once you take a measurement of that particle, you now know everything about it. This is the wave function collapsing. The electron decided to act differently. As though it was aware it was being watched. Now, that's weird enough. But entangle two particles, and weird becomes sorcery. Alright, so you've got two particles that are entangled. Now you separate them some distance. The particles can be on separate sides of your lab,

• 6:26:36AJ Gentile?

  or separate sides of the Earth. It doesn't matter, they're linked. Now, let's measure one of those entangled particles to see if it's spinning up or down. Again, we don't know what it's doing yet. It's doing its quantum voodoo thing. It's spinning up and down at the same time. But when we measure it, boom, its state freezes. And now we see that it's spinning up. Fine, that means its partner must be spinning down. We check, yep, it's spinning down. And the second particle's wave function also collapsed, though we didn't touch it. Now, let's separate two entangled particles by a long distance. We'll put particle A in New York. We'll put particle B on the moon. Particle A's wave function collapses. This time it's spinning down.

• 6:27:21AJ Gentile?

  So particle B is spinning up. We check our equipment. Both particle wave functions have collapsed at the same time. Like, the exact same time. But that can't be. Nothing can move faster than light. Light takes 1.28 seconds to get to the moon. But that other particle, the one on the moon? It didn't wait 1.28 seconds. It collapsed instantly.

• 6:27:43Speaker 03

  Wait, wait, what?

• 6:27:44AJ Gentile?

  Now let's put particle A in Tokyo. We put particle B on Mars. Collapse particle A, boom. Particle B collapses too. Instantly. Now on average, light takes 12 minutes to reach Mars. The particle didn't wait. It knew its partner in Tokyo collapsed, so it instantly did the same.

• 6:28:02Speaker 03

  Eh, this can't be real.

• 6:28:04AJ Gentile?

  Okay, last one. We put particle A in London. We put particle B in... The Andromeda Galaxy. That's about 2.5 million light years away. We collapse particle A in London. It takes light 2.5 million years to reach particle B. But particle B doesn't wait 2.5 million years to collapse. It doesn't wait 2.5 minutes. Particle B, 2.5 million light years away, collapses at the same time, the same exact time, as the particle in Tokyo.

• 6:28:42Speaker 03

  That is just freaking me out!

• 6:28:43AJ Gentile?

  Well, this is what Einstein hated. Nothing can move faster than light, so something must be off. So in 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen wrote a paper saying that quantum mechanics was incomplete. That's why Einstein called it spooky action at a distance. That wasn't a compliment. In the paper, which became known as the EPR paper, Einstein said that somehow the particle's state was determined before they were measured. He didn't know how, he just believed that's how it worked. He called this a hidden variable. The hidden variable has to be there because nothing can move faster than light. Einstein believed everything was local. If particles could communicate instantly over vast distances,

• 6:29:25AJ Gentile?

  that means they're non-local, and that makes no sense. And that's how things stood for about 30 years. Then in 1964, John Bell proposed a thought experiment to show that entangled particles don't care about distance. They don't care about the speed of light, and they don't care about Einstein's feelings. Particles can communicate instantly, no matter the distance. But the cool thing about Bell's thought experiment was that it was actually testable in the real world with real particles. In the 1970s, experiments were done that showed Bell was right, and Einstein was wrong. And then in 2022, Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger closed a few loopholes with the earlier experiments. They proved it in a lab and settled the argument once and for all.

• 6:30:10AJ Gentile?

  Quantum particles are non-local. They can exchange information instantly. They don't care about distance, and they ignore the speed of light. This was so groundbreaking, Aspect, Clauser, and Zeilinger won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery. But now here's the big question. How? How are the particles communicating? Through what medium? Sound is the vibration of air molecules. Air is the medium. Sound works in water too. Water is the medium. But sound is slow.

• 6:30:38Speaker 03

  Wait, what'd you say?

• 6:30:40AJ Gentile?

  But sound is slow?

• 6:30:42Speaker 03

  Well, that really depends on how hard you squeeze.

• 6:30:46AJ Gentile?

  But sound is slow.

• 6:30:47Speaker 03

  You fell for it!

• 6:30:53AJ Gentile?

  Radio waves are fast. Their medium is the EM spectrum. Radio waves move at the speed of light, but no faster. What is the medium for quantum particles that allows them to communicate instantly? Just like the electric universe theory explains the formation of galaxies and explains the composition of the sun, it explains this too. The medium is the plasma that fills the entire universe. Physicist Nikolai Kozerev and Nikola Tesla called this the ether. Kozerev and Tesla both felt that we can tap into the energy of this ether or plasma. That energy is in water, in air, in the vacuum of... Space, it's all around us. This is zero-point energy. That's why programs like the Sapphire Project are so important and getting more attention.

• 6:31:38AJ Gentile?

  The electric universe theory has been considered a fringe theory. And this is why Sapphire conducts a lot of their work in secret. Because it's possible they made the most important discovery in history. Their technology would usher in an era of prosperity for our civilization not seen since the last golden age, when Saturn ruled the sky.

• 6:32:05AJ Gentile?

  The electric universe theory gets a lot of science right. The electric universe answers questions that Einstein couldn't answer. So let's recap. The early universe was just hydrogen. Gravity played a role in compressing the hydrogen into stars. But it was really electricity carried through cosmic plasma that fired up the stars and keeps them going today. According to this theory, 3,500 years ago, Venus emerged from Jupiter as a comet. It made a few close passes to the Earth and caused all kinds of havoc. Our solar system was like a billiard table. Planets bounced around and eventually settled into their orbits. Saturn, once part of a binary system with the Earth, found a new orbit further out. Mars, too, was pushed away from the Earth. As the planets moved away,

• 6:32:48AJ Gentile?

  unbelievable lightning arced between them, carving great canyons like those seen on Earth and Mars and everywhere. And all of this was documented by our ancestors in ancient drawings, like those of the cosmic wheel or the stick man with the two dots. Finally, to test all this, the Sapphire Project created a ball of plasma, essentially their own mini-sun. Their sun is hot, stable, and shares all the characteristics of other large stars. And this is all achieved with electricity, not nuclear fusion. And if it works, it's the secret to unlimited free energy. Now, I love the theory. I love the legends, and I really love the science. But is any of this real? Well, probably not.

• 6:33:31AJ Gentile?

  The truth is, Venus was probably never a comet. It's been observed in the sky as a planet for thousands of years. Well before when Velikovsky said it emerged from Jupiter. Speaking of comets, do you remember NASA's Epoxy mission in 2005? This is also called Deep Impact. NASA smashed a probe against a comet to learn about its internal composition. Well, Electric Universe kingpin Wal Thornhill made a lot of predictions about comets, especially this mission. He said there would be arcs of electrical energy before the impact. Equipment would fail. X-rays would be emitted along with bolts of lightning. But none of that happened. Supporters of the Electric Universe theory, and there are a lot of those, will point to the predictions that Thornhill got right.

• 6:34:15AJ Gentile?

  Though, I can't think of any of those off the top of my head. But those supporters will ignore the things that he got wrong. Which was just about everything. Wal Thornhill has been called a physicist and electrical engineer. But I can't find evidence of his credentials anywhere. The only thing we know for sure is that he was a computer salesman for IBM. Now Thornhill was once criticized for not making his scientific research available for peer review. He said there was no need to. He had no peers.

• 6:34:43Speaker 03

  No, cocky, I like it.

• 6:34:45AJ Gentile?

  And all the ancient myth connections to the cosmic wheel and all that stuff about Saturn, that was all cherry picked. Our ancient ancestors were aware of Saturn for thousands of years. Rings weren't discovered until 1610 by Galileo, but the planet was out there. Way out there. The Sapphire Project is also suspicious. Until their data is shared and their experiments confirmed by other scientists, we have to assume their plasma reactor doesn't work.

• 6:35:11Speaker 03

  So it's a fraud?

• 6:35:13AJ Gentile?

  Well, if their machine showed even the smallest possibility that it might work, they'd be swimming in billions of dollars. But they're not, they're constantly looking for money. But I wouldn't say the Sapphire Project is a fraud. But Lowell Morgan would. When Sapphire was launched, Dr. Lowell Morgan was the only plasma physicist on the team, and he wasn't impressed. He exchanged a few emails with science YouTuber Professor Dave about his experience.

• 6:35:37Speaker 04

  The EU concept is fraudulent bullshit being promoted by several people as real science to the general public. They don't really know any physics or mathematics to speak of. They have all the usual trappings of crackpot scientists.

• 6:35:52AJ Gentile?

  Dr. Morgan eventually left the project.

• 6:35:54Speaker 04

  I quit for several reasons. One, they could no longer pay me, and two, they're just amateurs. And I was tired of working with amateurs, they're bozos.

• 6:36:03AJ Gentile?

  So why would a legitimate scientist get involved with this in the first place?

• 6:36:06Speaker 04

  It all began with Velikovsky. I read "Worlds in Collision" in 1960 and thought it was a great yarn, but any implied physics was wrong.

• 6:36:16AJ Gentile?

  The electric universe theory is considered pseudoscience, but you know how I feel about that word, because sometimes pseudoscience plus time equals science.

• 6:36:32AJ Gentile?

  The prejudging scorn and closing of ranks against the heretic showed typical guild animus. In recent years, however, evidence collected during the geophysical year and by several space probes has tended to verify several of Velikovsky's predictions. For instance, he had said in the face of strong disagreement that because of her recent birth, Venus is extremely hot, a view subsequently borne out by observations of Mariner 2. He was accused of inventing an interplanetary magnetic field, but one has been detected since then by Pioneer 5. He claimed in 1950 that the ancient civilizations of Central America were much older than believed.

• 6:37:13AJ Gentile?

  Recently, this view too has been proved by radiocarbon dating. As you know, I try to find all sides to a story if I can, and whenever I cover alternate science, I also give the point of view of the skeptics. But that's with this episode, "When I Started to Get Upset." Some of the videos I found that debunked the electric universe theory are aggressive. If you're open-minded to an idea like the electric universe, then according to some YouTube scientists, you're a moron, you're a nut job, you're a toddler. If a snake oil scientist is taking advantage of people by charging them money for nonsense, then call them out. I support that 100%. But attacking the believers, the victims? I don't agree with that at all.

• 6:37:55AJ Gentile?

  You persuade with compassion and kindness, not with insults and condescension. And there are other debunkers who think Velikovsky, Thornhill, and other proponents of the electric universe theory should be silenced, and that their research should be removed from the internet. This is to protect us from, you guessed it, disinformation. Disinformation. Right. Protecting people from disinformation is censorship, and there's no place for that in science. Laterally was the scientific press copying it, and in a way that was violent, not in terms of an orderly discussion that this idea is yet to be tested and it takes more time and etc., but saying this idea is crazy and any man who has such an idea is mad, insane,

• 6:38:40AJ Gentile?

  that kind of thing. But the establishment through which men who think that way make a living, the academic establishment, was saying to this man, "You know, you're not safe." Scientists tried to censor Velikovsky too. Velikovsky's book Worlds in Collision was a New York Times bestseller. The scientific community did everything they could to remove it from the charts, and eventually they succeeded.

• 6:39:04Speaker 03

  The book, Worlds in Collision, then merely the first of the books, had been on the top of the bestseller list for something like 11 weeks. And nonetheless, the publisher was so mortally wounded, is the only word, by the turning away of salesmen from the doors of professors' studies and all of the implications that went with this, that the book was transferred to another publisher which

• 6:39:36AJ Gentile?

  was willing to take it over, which, after all, is a fairly extraordinary thing. Velikovsky's ideas were too dangerous. We had to be protected from disinformation, so poof, the book is gone. And look, Velikovsky was probably wrong about everything. The comet, Venus, Saturn, the electric sun, all of it, probably all wrong. But it's okay to be wrong. That's how we find out the truth. In the words of a great scientist, "Science is a self-correcting process." To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most-

• 6:40:07Speaker 07

  survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny. The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his ideas were wrong or silly or in gross contradiction to the facts. Rather, the worst aspect is that some scientists attempted to suppress Velikovsky's ideas.

• 6:40:29AJ Gentile?

  Scientific ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence or scrutiny. Well, scrutiny means your theory has to withstand aggressive debate. Take climate change.

• 6:40:40Speaker 03

  No such thing.

• 6:40:41AJ Gentile?

  Well-

• 6:40:42Speaker 03

  Don't be a sheep.

• 6:40:43AJ Gentile?

  The climate is warming up.

• 6:40:45Speaker 03

  Beeh- eh- eh.

• 6:40:46AJ Gentile?

  But is it happening quickly?

• 6:40:48Speaker 03

  No.

• 6:40:49AJ Gentile?

  I don't know. Some scientists say no. Is there anything humans can do to stop it?

• 6:40:52Speaker 03

  No.

• 6:40:53AJ Gentile?

  I don't know. Some scientists say no. There are two sides to this scientific debate, but only one side is allowed to be heard. That's not science, that's censorship. Now, I don't know who's right, neither do you, but who cares? I just want to know the truth, don't you?

• 6:41:09Speaker 07

  The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science.

• 6:41:21AJ Gentile?

  Now, what about certain experimental medicines that a lot of us have been taking? Those medications work well for most people. But not all people. But we don't hear much about that. There are two sides to this issue as well. But there's no debate allowed. Look, I can't even say the V-word on this platform. Now, that's not science. That's censorship. Science is now used to give more wealth to the wealthy. Science is used to give more power to the powerful. And science is now weaponized to turn half the country against the other. Again, I don't care who's right. I just want the truth. But science isn't about truth. Not anymore. Promote the right science and get a book deal, a guest spot on cable news, and highly-paid speaking engagements. Promote the wrong science?

• 6:42:06AJ Gentile?

  Lose your reputation. Lose your career. Get deplatformed on social media. What would you choose? So scientists without accepted and conventional ideas stopped asking questions.

• 6:42:17Speaker 07

  And the history of our study of the solar system shows clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.

• 6:42:31AJ Gentile?

  Carl Sagan was correct. Accepted science is often wrong. So here's something to keep in the back of your mind. When there's a mainstream scientific view out there that suppresses debate and censors scientists that disagree, that mainstream scientific view exists for money and for power, not for the truth. And on that, there is no debate.

• 6:43:00AJ Gentile?

  Thank you so much for hanging out today. I'm AJ. Here's Hecklefish.

• 6:43:04Speaker 03

  Gluckus and Cheer.

• 6:43:06AJ Gentile?

  This has been a Y-Files compilation. If you had fun, learned anything, do him a favor, like, subscribe, comment, share. That stuff really helps the channel. Just takes one little second to push the button and it really helps us out. And like every topic covered in this compilation, each and every one was recommended by someone in the audience. So if there's a story you'd like to see or learn more about, go to yfiles.com/tips. And remember, The Y-Files is also a podcast. Twice a week, sometimes more, I post deep dives into the stories we cover here on the channel and also post episodes that wouldn't be allowed on the channel. And we're starting to introduce these eight to 10 minute sort of quickie shorts. So one UFO story, one alien story, one ancient artifact, one mystery, that one urban legend, one cryptid, that kind of stuff.

• 6:43:51AJ Gentile?

  It's called the Y Files Operation Podcast and it's available everywhere. Now, if you need more Y Files in your life, check out our Discord server. We've got, I think, close to 75,000 members on there. So 24/7, there's something going on. People are hanging out, talking about the same weird stuff we talk about here. It's a lot of fun. It's a super friendly community, really supportive, and it's free to join. If you want to follow what's going on with the channel at any given time, you can check out our production calendar. There we post our episode schedule, podcast titles, live streams, meetups, all that stuff. And special thanks to our patrons who made this compilation happen. I dedicate every episode of the Y Files to you. I cannot believe that we've come this far. Because of you, I can proudly wear this outfit.

• 6:44:33AJ Gentile?

  And if you want to join this amazing community and keep the channel going, consider becoming a member on Patreon. For as little as three bucks a month, you get access to videos early with no commercials, access to merch only available to members, plus two private live streams every week just for you, and those are super fun. My camera's on, you get to meet the whole team. Turn your camera on, jump up on stage, ask a question, recommend a topic, whatever you want. I think it's the best perk there is. Another great way to support the channel is grab something from the Y Files store.

• 6:44:59Speaker 03

  Grab a Haggard T-shirt, or one of these physical coffee mugs that you stick in your fin, or your fist, or your vine, or whatever pendant you got sticking there so that I can see it. Or grab one of these wooden dolls, or stuff my face on it, or hoodie, or stuff else, or from the store, I'm out of control today. Okay, buddy, squishy animal, stop that, I wish, don't even talk to her.

• 6:45:21AJ Gentile?

  But before you spend any money in the store, become a member on YouTube. YouTube members get 10% off everything in the store. So if you're gonna buy $40 worth of t-shirts, become a member on YouTube. Membership pays for itself. Plus, you help support the channel. Those are the plugs. There was a lot of them, and that's gonna do it. Until next time, be safe, be kind, know that you are appreciated. Gotta get out of this.

• 6:46:01Speaker 07

  I played for Libya in Area 51. A secret code inside the Bible said I was. I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music. Songs singing like I should. But then another piece of theory theory becomes the truth with my friends. And it never ends, no it never ends.

• 6:46:38Speaker 07

  I fear the crackhead and got stuck inside mail's hole with MKUltra. I'm being only too aware. Did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing alone on a film set? Were the shadows people there? The Roswell aliens just fought the smiling man, I'm told. And his name was Cole. And I can't believe I'm dancing with the fish. Head to fish on Thursday nights with AJ2. And wild boars on my feet all through the night.

• 6:47:19Speaker 07

  All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth. So wild boars on my feet all through the night.

• 6:47:44Speaker 07

  The mapman sightings and the solar storms still come. To a god that the secret city underground. Mysterious number stations, planet circle two, project stockade. And what the dog watchers found.

• 6:48:03Speaker 07

  In a simulation, don't you worry though. The black nights had a lot of toll to me so. I can't believe I'm dancing with a fish. Head to fish on Thursday nights with AJ2. And one more summer beat all through the night.

• 6:48:25Speaker 07

  All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth. So one more summer beat all through the night. Head to fish on Thursday nights with AJ2. And one more summer beat all through the night. All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth. So one more summer beat all through the night. Girlie loves to dance. Girlie loves to dance. Girlie loves to dance. Girlie loves to dance. Girlie loves to dance. Girlie loves to dance.

• 6:49:07Speaker 07

  Girlie loves to dance on the dance floor. Because she is a camel. And camels love to dance when the feeling is right on wasting time. Girlie loves to dance. Girlie loves to dance.

• 6:49:38Speaker 06

  The bloom approaches, the world unites. Blorpus and chill.

• 6:49:51Speaker 06

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• 6:50:21Speaker 07

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