The Glenn Beck Program - Ep 219 ｜ Did the Deep State Kill a Journalist？ Netflix 'Octopus Murders' Review ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

00:00:00.000 This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines.

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00:00:30.000 And now, a Blaze Media Podcast.

00:00:34.220 What if I were to tell you a story about a man investigating a computer scandal?

00:00:39.340 And then he ended up dead in a hotel room.

00:00:42.800 Half think it was suicide, the other half are sure that he's murdered.

00:00:47.560 What if I were to tell you that this computer software scandal led a journalist down a rabbit hole

00:00:52.740 filled with government corruption, stolen elections, millions of dollars of cartel money, drugs, guns operated by the mafia

00:01:01.580 under the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency on an Indian reservation which had its own sovereignty?

00:01:09.440 What if I were to tell you that this all involved presidents, military coordination, local law enforcement, drug chemists, actors, computer geeks,

00:01:20.900 and operators with no oversight or no consequences calling the shots?

00:01:26.200 Because this story is so crazy.

00:01:32.920 It's 30 years old.

00:01:35.580 And the people I'm going to introduce you to have spent 10 years just trying to shape the story.

00:01:42.920 So you might, unless you've seen their documentary, you're going to be a little lost.

00:01:50.060 But believe me, it's worth it.

00:01:54.200 You have to watch the documentary.

00:01:56.480 And everybody I know said to me for weeks, Glenn, you've got to watch, you're going to love this documentary.

00:02:00.760 I don't know how I feel about this documentary.

00:02:03.080 Because there are times over a four-hour period, I watched it over four days, there are times when you're like, oh, I know exactly what's going on.

00:02:14.300 Other times, you have no idea whether to believe it or not believe it.

00:02:19.140 But it is a sign of our times right now.

00:02:22.160 This is a story that's 30 years old, but it speaks to us.

00:02:29.100 And I'm not sure what it says.

00:02:30.660 Can you pick out the lies?

00:02:34.860 The half-truths?

00:02:36.740 Is it true?

00:02:38.640 All of it? 1.00

00:02:39.960 Is all of it garbage? 0.89

00:02:42.380 Is the appeal of conspiracy so tempting that we start putting pieces together that just don't fit?

00:02:50.280 What is in us that does this?

00:02:54.080 And what is in our government that might encourage it?

00:02:57.260 My guests today have pulled America down a rabbit hole that is either the mother of all conspiracy theories or a cautionary tale about what happens when curiosity becomes an obsession.

00:03:10.260 I want to say, I want to thank these guys for doing what they did over a number of years, risking their lives.

00:03:18.460 I think, I think, the filmmakers of Netflix smash hit, American Conspiracy, The Octopus Murders.

00:03:27.840 It's Zachary Trites and Christian Hansen.

00:03:31.360 But first, before we get there, I want to talk to you about pre-born.

00:03:37.520 People talking back and forth about abortion and what we should do with laws and everything else, I really think we're missing the point.

00:03:46.240 And people say, oh, well, conservatives, they don't care about, you know, the moms.

00:03:50.140 They only care about the babies. 0.99

00:03:51.240 I care about the moms, too.

00:03:54.120 And I don't like shouting at people or anything.

00:03:57.300 I think information and then help changes the world.

00:04:02.080 And the Ministry of Pre-Born, that's what they do every single day.

00:04:06.060 They first, because of people like you, they pay for a free ultrasound.

00:04:10.920 So, a mom coming in, not sure what she's going to do, but leaning towards abortion, if you show her the ultrasound of the baby, she hears the heartbeat, it doubles the chances she's going to choose life.

00:04:25.460 But what people don't talk about is about 60% of these women come in, and they don't necessarily want to have an abortion.

00:04:32.540 They just feel completely alone.

00:04:34.240 They don't have the resources.

00:04:35.780 Everybody in their life is saying, get rid of this.

00:04:38.760 So, they do.

00:04:39.640 Well, the reason why Pre-Born has rescued almost 300,000 babies is because of love, compassion, the free ultrasounds.

00:04:48.920 But they also tell and mean it and back it up that they're going to be there for the mom two years after that baby is born.

00:04:59.160 Clothing, books, counseling, whatever they need.

00:05:03.680 Would you partner with Pre-Born? 0.69

00:05:05.380 Let's change the hearts of people.

00:05:07.240 One ultrasound is $28.

00:05:08.600 Donate securely.

00:05:10.560 Just dial pound 250.

00:05:12.060 Say the keyword baby.

00:05:13.000 That's pound 250, keyword baby.

00:05:14.900 Or go to preborn.com slash Glenn.

00:05:17.300 Zach, Christian, thanks for coming in.

00:05:32.260 I've just spent five days of my life watching the documentary.

00:05:39.360 Fascinated by it.

00:05:40.360 I don't know what the hell I just watched, though.

00:05:44.460 I don't know why.

00:05:48.060 I know it was wild, but I went through so many different emotions.

00:05:54.120 So many times I'm like, oh, yeah.

00:05:56.120 And then, well, maybe not.

00:05:57.960 No.

00:05:58.320 And I don't.

00:05:58.680 You've spent 10 years of your life.

00:06:05.340 I feel like I don't know what I did with those five days.

00:06:09.440 And if it was important or not.

00:06:12.140 Was this important for you?

00:06:14.080 Yeah, it was.

00:06:15.020 Yeah.

00:06:15.480 Well, I'm just, I was only laughing because I was trying to picture whether you were watching it on repeat for five days or sort of like.

00:06:21.600 You know, watching the five episodes.

00:06:23.680 And, you know, there were times that we.

00:06:24.940 Or four episodes.

00:06:25.500 We, or is it four episodes?

00:06:26.960 We went and just went back and forth, back and forth.

00:06:29.060 Yeah.

00:06:29.340 And, and it just got more and more bizarre.

00:06:33.780 Yeah.

00:06:34.200 I mean, even when we, I would watch cuts as new cuts came out.

00:06:40.160 And, you know, I, I found my, I know the story so well, but I would, I would be rewinding the.

00:06:48.260 Right.

00:06:48.580 Wait, wait, what?

00:06:49.380 Did that really happen?

00:06:49.920 It was like, you know, I told the, the editors of the director that this is what happened.

00:06:54.080 But then just seeing it in the film with the music is just mind blowing.

00:06:57.200 It is.

00:06:59.080 I have, I understood that you thought 40, 51% chance he didn't kill himself, Danny.

00:07:05.800 Right.

00:07:06.260 At the beginning.

00:07:07.060 Default mode.

00:07:08.620 Right.

00:07:09.020 Is to be a little bit more skeptical of this.

00:07:12.140 And you are 51%.

00:07:13.640 This is when you started 51%.

00:07:15.240 He did.

00:07:16.300 I mean, by the time I kind of settled into my.

00:07:19.920 Into my whatever gal pace.

00:07:23.360 You know, there were, I went through a lot of emotions going through this process of,

00:07:30.000 of investigating this story.

00:07:31.640 And sometimes I was a hundred percent certain, you know, but then what, you know, once I'd

00:07:36.020 kind of like matured into it and settled into the investigation and I joined up with Zach,

00:07:40.880 who was, who was sort of a ballast for me.

00:07:43.900 Yeah.

00:07:44.120 Um, I, I, he, he took 51% suicide.

00:07:48.840 So I went ahead and settled into 51%.

00:07:51.060 And where are you now?

00:07:53.640 I think, um, yeah.

00:07:56.260 So after a multi-year process of investigating and making a film at the same time, which is,

00:08:03.500 I'd say unadvisable for most people to do, to do both at the same time.

00:08:07.440 Um, usually you want to kind of be done with the investigation, but the, uh, the process

00:08:13.940 kind of took us, you know, we were, we would vacillate widely between, you know, even hour

00:08:20.160 by hour, just talking about the evidence and finding new things as we would go along.

00:08:26.140 And we would kind of debate back and forth.

00:08:27.760 So many times, you know, I'd be just certain that, that Danny had been murdered.

00:08:33.240 And sometimes I'd be absolutely certain, you know, hours later that it wasn't, that that

00:08:39.420 wasn't the case.

00:08:40.540 So I would say that essentially the official story of what happened to Danny Casalero that,

00:08:48.240 that I found pretty compelling when I first read the department of justice and FBI report,

00:08:52.280 it says that, that, you know, Danny was kind of misled and fell into these roles of con

00:09:01.100 artists who were essentially just pulling his leg.

00:09:05.200 And then he wound up, uh, broke and alone having realized that he had, he had basically

00:09:12.800 been led astray at the end of this year long investigation.

00:09:16.380 And their report was, is, is very detailed and, and pretty, um, you know, seemed pretty

00:09:24.860 accurate to me at the time, but that overall conclusion, I think I feel like is ultimately

00:09:32.620 very misleading.

00:09:34.880 Um, so that idea that like, oh, he was just dealing with con artists.

00:09:38.840 It's like, ah, I think you see over the course of the four episodes that we made that he was

00:09:43.520 dealing with extremely dangerous people who the authorities investigating his death, I

00:09:49.920 think knew were dangerous people or knew that they were criminals.

00:09:53.280 Um, it's clear that they're criminals.

00:09:55.380 Um, and why they didn't take those people more seriously is an open debate.

00:10:00.980 And so, so, you know, just going from the official story, I do not believe the official story.

00:10:06.960 He was the same place.

00:10:08.160 Um, yes.

00:10:09.660 Yeah.

00:10:09.940 Yeah.

00:10:10.380 So that's where I ended up, but I don't know what is true.

00:10:13.880 I, I will tell you the, the, um, what's his name?

00:10:17.000 Um, Michael, Michael.

00:10:19.840 Yeah.

00:10:21.120 I mean, he, when he first came on camera, I'm like, that guy's the penguin.

00:10:25.580 I mean, Danny DeVito's penguin.

00:10:27.700 The guy is so clearly, you know, not right.

00:10:31.500 And, uh, he's an interesting guy.

00:10:33.900 Yeah.

00:10:34.200 Yeah.

00:10:34.540 He's a very interesting guy, but I never.

00:10:37.260 He seemed to me to be the character that was the most misleading or playing a game.

00:10:46.740 But at the same time, the trajectory of his life, the things that he did experience, um,

00:10:53.340 are uncanny and, you know, and very real, you know, having the sort of, um, relationship

00:11:02.160 with the mysterious Dr. John Philip Nichols, actually being out of the Cabazon reservation

00:11:08.100 with the weapons, doing weapons research, having his partner brutally murdered and tortured

00:11:13.940 and having, you know, whose assets were stolen, um, by a, um, you know, serial killer and serial,

00:11:21.500 serial rapist with a relationship with the FBI and possibly the CIA.

00:11:26.500 I mean that, okay.

00:11:28.120 That is all stuff that actually happened to this.

00:11:30.380 Right.

00:11:31.380 And then, you know, so he tells a few other funky stories that we can't, uh, verify, but

00:11:37.000 that alone is, you know, unlike anybody.

00:11:40.200 It was, I think it was the last episode when he calls, you're kind of done.

00:11:44.820 Yeah.

00:11:45.260 And he calls up and he's like, people are being killed.

00:11:47.320 I got to meet with you.

00:11:48.280 And then the camera is rolling when you meet with him.

00:11:50.460 Um, and he says, I'll tell you after you finish the documentary.

00:11:53.260 Yeah. 0.99

00:11:53.880 And that, that's what, I mean, that just must've been like, I'm going to punch the guy's face. 0.96

00:11:58.720 Um, so frustrating. 0.97

00:12:00.680 Yeah.

00:12:01.180 Did he ever tell you anything after the cameras?

00:12:03.800 Yeah.

00:12:04.260 He, we still talk and he still has things to say, but I don't know if it's like, I don't

00:12:09.180 know if he'll be able to tell me, um, any sort of anything of such grand scale.

00:12:17.960 You know, I think like he's a human, he did have a lot of extraordinary experiences, but

00:12:23.760 he's got his, I'm interested in his POV, what, what he actually knows, uh, you know, less

00:12:31.640 what he might've heard.

00:12:33.180 He's not going to have the key, the single key that unlocks the, and that's the problem

00:12:36.500 with this story.

00:12:36.940 And I think that, that scene, regardless of.

00:12:40.180 And Michael, if you do have the single key, you know, unlock the door.

00:12:43.560 Yeah.

00:12:43.860 But it's, you're driving America out of its mind.

00:12:46.500 That, that scene I think is, is emblematic of, of dealing with Michael, but dealing with

00:12:52.720 a lot of people in this story, which is the feeling of, if I just had this one more piece

00:12:56.680 of information, I'll finally have.

00:12:58.540 Who was the, the journalist, the female that said, you know, you got to make a choice to

00:13:04.600 get in or out.

00:13:05.200 Oh, Sherry says that. 0.99

00:13:06.340 Because I thought, I thought that was brilliant.

00:13:08.520 You're, you either have a life of this or you just say, I can't, cause it'll always be

00:13:14.520 the next thing.

00:13:15.740 Right?

00:13:16.520 Yeah.

00:13:17.160 Yeah.

00:13:17.640 Is that barbecues and ball games?

00:13:19.840 Is this the less, what is the lesson of this?

00:13:25.560 I mean, I, I think, I think the, what we tried to show ultimately is a very subjective rather

00:13:36.540 than like objective.

00:13:38.020 We know everything.

00:13:39.360 We do not know everything, but a very subjective view.

00:13:42.140 I think it was really well done by the way.

00:13:44.200 I appreciate that.

00:13:44.800 And I liked the way I know you hated it on the, you know, doing it at the same time.

00:13:49.300 Oh, but the fact that the phone rings and you, you could see the look on your face and 0.93

00:13:54.060 you're like, Oh crap.

00:13:55.660 You just, it is, it's compelling because it was done at the same time. 0.96

00:13:59.940 I mean, no, it was exciting doing the investigation.

00:14:02.580 I'm just hard.

00:14:03.400 It's just nice to know exactly where you're going before you, when you call Netflix and

00:14:08.980 say, we want to do this thing.

00:14:10.220 And they're like, great.

00:14:11.000 How's it in?

00:14:11.520 And you're like, I have no idea.

00:14:13.060 And it was, it was amazing for me.

00:14:14.980 Uh, cause I, I was funded, you know, we were, Netflix was paying for me.

00:14:19.280 They were paying for us to make, uh, a film, a show, but I, you know, and Zach was, let

00:14:26.700 me continue investigating it throughout the post-production process.

00:14:30.560 So I basically had like a fully funded investigation that I was working on for years.

00:14:35.920 And that's very rare in, you know, any, any country.

00:14:40.200 Right.

00:14:40.440 Yeah.

00:14:41.120 But so what I was saying is just, just what we wanted to say, what we wanted to do was

00:14:46.240 make a very subjective view of what it feels like to go into this world hall of mirrors.

00:14:52.000 That is a, uh, portrait of, of, of the sort of governmental intelligence world, the official

00:15:02.560 one and madness, private intelligence world and the criminal world.

00:15:07.300 And where those three circles overlap and the, the, the, the, the feeling, and, and I think

00:15:14.120 it's, I think we show this by the fourth episode, the intentional, in my mind, feeling of helplessness

00:15:20.260 and madness that you, you grasp with when everybody is slippery, every truth is like hard,

00:15:27.040 is hard to pin down.

00:15:28.400 And that's, I think an intentional thing.

00:15:30.780 Oh yeah.

00:15:30.980 And I think Doug Vaughn, one of the journalists that we talked to, he says it really well

00:15:34.340 when he says that, um, confusion leads to paralysis.

00:15:38.120 Right.

00:15:38.820 And so, yeah, I mean, you could say it's a really frustrating thing.

00:15:42.140 I mean, I think that we maybe don't give ourselves enough credit in the show for the things that

00:15:46.060 we did nail down or did expose for the first time.

00:15:49.500 I mean, you made huge progress.

00:15:52.940 I just don't, I, you know, I, I was just so struck by the honesty that you had on.

00:16:01.800 I gotta, you gotta, you gotta have a choice.

00:16:03.960 I mean, I have to just go back to my life and just never know.

00:16:06.800 Right.

00:16:07.000 And, and, and, you know, I'd like you to expand a little bit on, you said, uh, um, I don't

00:16:16.340 look at things the same way.

00:16:18.180 Well, watching the documentary, I don't look at things the same way either, but I'm, I'm

00:16:25.920 not sure how I look at them yet.

00:16:27.540 I mean, I just experienced, you know, in four hours, what you experienced over 10 years

00:16:33.200 of your life.

00:16:33.940 So, but I'm not sure what I'm left with.

00:16:38.940 I mean, so this to expand on your last question about sort of what, what's the theme.

00:16:43.860 Right.

00:16:44.100 And I'm not really, uh, very good at packaging things into themes, but one, what I wanted

00:16:50.040 to say was that, um, at least three individuals who, whose loved ones, um, siblings or, or

00:17:00.200 parents or, or, and also a grandparent, um, were, um, taken out in, uh, hits by nebulous

00:17:12.220 intelligence agencies have, uh, reached out to us, uh, after they stumbled on the show

00:17:19.340 and, and watched it and, and they thanked us for having, um, given them a way to talk

00:17:26.320 about their family history.

00:17:28.200 Sure.

00:17:28.580 I mean, we didn't investigate those stories, but we are aware of those.

00:17:33.400 You would feel absolutely crazy.

00:17:35.860 Yeah.

00:17:36.020 I mean, you're by design, you are meant to feel crazy and, and it, and I've found this

00:17:43.580 in just some of the things that we've investigated where it just gets so intentionally complex

00:17:50.300 that it makes it almost insane to try to explain it because you're like, no, I mean, I saw your,

00:17:57.080 I saw your board where you're like, you know, you're, you're tinfoil on your windows away

00:18:01.560 being crazy, you know?

00:18:03.900 Yeah.

00:18:04.300 Um, the one guy that, well, let me, let me, let me go back to Danny's, uh, death.

00:18:12.980 I haven't seen a lot of suicide scenes, but I was, it never really addressed.

00:18:20.460 There were bloody handprints all over.

00:18:23.520 The guy cut his wrist to the tenants.

00:18:27.000 So a, how are you cutting the other wrist?

00:18:29.760 Um, but then, I mean, is the story that he got up and he was like, Hey, I need a towel.

00:18:36.240 I mean, I've never seen it.

00:18:37.780 Yeah.

00:18:38.060 I mean, we don't go into deeply into the forensics of the crime scene because we only had a certain

00:18:44.500 amount of time, you know, in, in the story.

00:18:47.020 And it was so complicated to tell the story that Danny was telling, but you know, and it

00:18:51.940 would have kind of been a totally different show really.

00:18:54.900 And like, and we're just not like forensic pathologists.

00:18:58.440 Um, so, but, but just to explain it further, you know, since, since we did look through the

00:19:04.120 autopsy and, and, um, we, we read the report, uh, they sent that report to a Connecticut forensics

00:19:12.680 lab run, run by, um, Dr. Lee, Dr. Lee Henry.

00:19:15.700 Oh yeah.

00:19:16.200 Yeah.

00:19:16.300 It was a very famous guy recently come over under some criticism for potentially having,

00:19:22.920 um, made up something else in a trial that a couple of people went to jail for a long

00:19:28.160 time over.

00:19:29.020 Um, but, uh, good.

00:19:31.380 Yeah.

00:19:31.860 I mean, I hurt your credibility a bit, but you know, he was famous for being at the OJ

00:19:37.020 trial.

00:19:37.520 He was at that show, the staircase.

00:19:39.260 He's a little part of that.

00:19:41.000 Um, anyway, I, and, and we called him actually, and he was, maybe this is too in the weeds,

00:19:46.640 but it was pretty amazing.

00:19:47.520 If, uh, if you're aware of him, like calling him and I started telling him about the case

00:19:53.120 and this is 30 years after he he's done tens of thousands of, of, of autopsies and, and

00:20:00.760 crime scenes.

00:20:01.340 And I started describing it and he's like, Oh, in the bathtub and there was a razor sitting

00:20:07.140 and it was like, he could picture the entire crime scene.

00:20:10.420 It was, it was, it was unbelievable.

00:20:12.060 But yes, his, his analysis of it was that, that Danny had stood up at some point and like

00:20:20.460 hit the wall or like brush the wall.

00:20:23.280 But it's, yeah, I mean, you look at the, you look at the, I don't, I, I, to me, that

00:20:30.160 doesn't necessarily mean that he was alone or not.

00:20:33.060 I mean, I, somebody can stand up for a variety of reasons.

00:20:36.360 Yeah.

00:20:36.580 Um, and so it's hard to kind of, what did he say about cutting the tendons and how did

00:20:42.380 he cut the other?

00:20:43.180 Well, we, we had, um, we actually sent that to another medical examiner, um, later on.

00:20:50.780 A non-partial family friend.

00:20:53.780 Okay.

00:20:54.680 Yeah.

00:20:55.040 I had nothing to do with the case.

00:20:56.380 And, and he, he was like, well, it's a suicide.

00:21:00.560 And we're like, Oh, okay.

00:21:01.500 Like tell us about that.

00:21:03.000 And he's like, well, Dr. Frost, who did the autopsy didn't do you any favors.

00:21:08.120 And we're like, what?

00:21:09.020 He's like, there's just not a lot of detail in this report.

00:21:11.620 And we're like, well, that is not a lot of favor.

00:21:14.420 Like, how can you be so certain that this was?

00:21:16.240 And so he, he claimed that the, you know, the, the depth of the cuts in the autopsy

00:21:22.780 is not specific enough to know one way or another.

00:21:26.660 So, you know, the, the, then there are also photos, there's photos, but there's also the

00:21:31.380 paramedic that we talked to Don, um, who we interview in the show.

00:21:35.300 And he, he talks about his, that's why we had to include his story really is because

00:21:38.620 he was the one who had the experience of having tried to pick up the wrist.

00:21:42.540 And he says, yeah, I thought, I thought he was compelling.

00:21:44.900 Yeah.

00:21:45.440 He's now actually, we don't mention this.

00:21:47.460 He was a paramedic at the time.

00:21:48.220 He's now a medical examiner himself.

00:21:50.280 So it almost lends him more credibility in my mind.

00:21:53.900 But, um, yeah, so it, the official documents do not give us quite enough to know the depth

00:22:03.040 of the, of the cut on the, on the ligaments.

00:22:06.040 So we just had to go by Don's.

00:22:07.440 And then the woman who's at the end, who her mother, uh, was an eyewitness said she saw

00:22:15.480 two people.

00:22:16.360 Right.

00:22:17.200 Uh, and you know, the drawings pretty remarkable, you know, you saw the drawing, you're like,

00:22:23.460 Oh, I, I've seen him in episode, you know, one and two.

00:22:26.860 Um, why was that never pursued?

00:22:30.040 Do you think?

00:22:32.020 I, I couldn't say we tried to talk to every detective still alive.

00:22:37.640 That was part of the, um, uh, Martinsburg police department.

00:22:42.100 And we tried to talk to that FBI agent who reinvestigated the case and no one wanted to

00:22:48.380 talk to us.

00:22:48.880 So we would just be speculating as to the question of why, um, we know that they had

00:22:53.740 the information, but my logical guess as to why is because, you know, look at me, I spent

00:23:00.500 10 years trying to, uh, say what happened.

00:23:06.260 It was much easier.

00:23:07.460 You know, I, I didn't accept the suicide conclusion.

00:23:11.500 I wanted more answers.

00:23:12.640 And that was a red led me down this like wild path.

00:23:16.740 But, um, to just say suicide, it's just a lot easier.

00:23:19.700 You can finish the investigation.

00:23:22.520 Have a nice summer.

00:23:23.680 Maybe go on vacation.

00:23:24.640 Yeah.

00:23:25.520 So as I'm, I'm watching this cause everybody said, you got to watch this, you got to watch

00:23:30.900 this.

00:23:31.280 And I didn't know what to expect.

00:23:32.840 I didn't know what I was walking into.

00:23:34.440 That's a good way to go in.

00:23:35.420 Yeah.

00:23:35.800 Do you remember the case from the nineties?

00:23:38.340 Do you remember it at all?

00:23:39.000 No, you know, I, I, I was in broadcast at the time.

00:23:42.060 I don't, it, it doesn't ring a bell.

00:23:44.280 It doesn't mean I don't remember it.

00:23:45.880 Um, but not off the top of my head.

00:23:48.180 I don't.

00:23:48.580 Does this Bill O'Reilly still in it?

00:23:50.660 Yeah.

00:23:51.020 Yeah.

00:23:51.280 Yeah.

00:23:51.460 Yeah.

00:23:51.580 Yeah.

00:23:51.940 Yeah.

00:23:52.220 He, he covered it for inside edition.

00:23:54.600 Yeah.

00:23:55.500 Geraldo covered the, the, uh, the Cabazon portion.

00:23:59.940 It was interesting to see.

00:24:00.840 There's a lot of older legacy media.

00:24:02.680 Leslie Stahl covered the Insla case.

00:24:04.900 Right.

00:24:05.360 Yeah.

00:24:05.560 So, so this, this started out as a computer software story, which,

00:24:11.400 I got, I mean, it's as banal as possible.

00:24:16.220 Yeah, but no, but I mean, it makes sense that if you are in an agency,

00:24:20.560 it makes sense.

00:24:21.920 That's exactly what they would do and are needed at the time.

00:24:27.300 And needed at the time.

00:24:27.900 And probably still doing stuff like that.

00:24:30.040 We would assume.

00:24:30.940 Yeah.

00:24:31.540 I mean, you would be remiss.

00:24:33.700 Our tax dollars wouldn't be properly spent if you weren't doing that kind of

00:24:37.240 activity.

00:24:37.580 That's what these agencies are supposed to do.

00:24:41.020 Yeah.

00:24:41.300 But not necessarily in the way they were doing it.

00:24:44.240 Right, right, right.

00:24:44.520 We're not supposed to steal intellectual property.

00:24:46.680 Yeah.

00:24:46.840 If that's what happened.

00:24:47.680 Yeah.

00:24:47.920 Right.

00:24:48.200 Yeah.

00:24:50.300 You believe that that is what happened?

00:24:52.420 Well, I'm just being careful.

00:24:53.860 Yeah.

00:24:54.060 Okay.

00:24:54.800 It seems like it.

00:24:56.220 Yeah, it does.

00:24:57.020 Because you're watching it.

00:24:58.200 You know.

00:24:58.940 Yeah.

00:24:59.240 You never know.

00:24:59.880 Yeah.

00:25:00.440 So, okay.

00:25:02.160 So then that's happening during the Reagan administration.

00:25:05.300 And that fits right with Iran-Contra.

00:25:08.320 Yeah.

00:25:08.480 And then, you know, also the Indian reservation fits.

00:25:15.240 You'd be making weapons used by the...

00:25:18.140 All of this stuff fits if I'm looking for a place where, you know, I don't think the government

00:25:23.740 actually cares about the Constitution anymore, but at the time when they at least pretended

00:25:28.880 to, the perfect place to do it is in a separate nation inside our own country.

00:25:35.360 Yeah.

00:25:35.780 I mean...

00:25:36.140 I think that's something that I would love to see people, you know, a little more scholarship

00:25:40.440 on, or books or whatever, investigations of, you know, this idea of using sovereign land

00:25:47.720 for projects that are not allowed to take place in the United States because of whatever

00:25:54.920 laws, you know.

00:25:56.520 So...

00:25:56.880 That didn't even occur to me.

00:25:58.320 And when you guys showed it, I'm like, oh my gosh, that...

00:26:02.100 It's brilliant.

00:26:02.700 Of course, it's brilliant.

00:26:03.380 Yeah, yeah.

00:26:03.920 It's brilliant.

00:26:04.400 John Nichols, the guy who was the tribal leader, tribal, sorry, the...

00:26:10.140 Administrator.

00:26:10.840 Administrator there, whose backstory is, as we show in this show, pretty strange.

00:26:17.720 And seemingly connected, seemingly he's in all of the right places and all the right

00:26:23.900 times before anti-leftist coups happen in South America.

00:26:29.340 He shows up at this Native American reservation and has this, you know, we explained this idea

00:26:35.520 of sovereignty that they can do whatever they want on this Indian reservation in Southern

00:26:43.060 California.

00:26:43.520 And I think it's just the...

00:26:46.520 I don't want to say sinister, but it's kind of brilliant in its own way.

00:26:50.800 And it just makes me wonder, of course, like, yeah, what else were they doing?

00:26:54.520 Was this the only place?

00:26:55.660 I'm not really...

00:26:56.720 Oh, I can't imagine it is.

00:26:58.820 I mean, you know, there is brilliance and evil.

00:27:05.500 You know, there's a lot of things that are happening now and in the past.

00:27:09.960 You have to look back and go, this was really quite brilliant, the way this was put together.

00:27:16.100 The 1980 election.

00:27:17.980 Yeah, so tell me about that, because it would just kind of seem to be brushed over.

00:27:24.220 We have to cover a lot of ground.

00:27:26.540 Yeah, I know, I know.

00:27:27.420 We're just like kind of...

00:27:28.120 There's like a documentary on every single piece.

00:27:30.560 It's a whole series.

00:27:31.940 Oh, yeah, there is.

00:27:32.880 Basically on each part.

00:27:34.580 A lot of people's complaint about crime documentaries is that they drag on for too long.

00:27:39.860 But ours is like, we just packed so much.

00:27:42.220 Oh, I know.

00:27:43.160 You'll just be like, and that's, you know, the 1980 election.

00:27:46.260 And you're like, wait, what?

00:27:47.480 Wait, what?

00:27:48.480 Yeah, well, so there's really like with what's called the October Surprise.

00:27:52.440 Right.

00:27:52.620 There's two, I think, main stories that I'd like to put out there, which is that there's

00:27:59.280 our, the one that appears in our show is Michael Reconisciuto's version of what happened,

00:28:04.060 which is he says that the Promise software, which we've talked about, is a...

00:28:10.900 Which was made to, it's brilliant software, made to tie all of the court cases and all

00:28:17.960 of the files together.

00:28:19.400 For the Justice Department.

00:28:20.880 Right.

00:28:21.160 So that you can search them and find relationships.

00:28:24.180 And so then it was used, it was supposedly taken and used covertly for what purpose?

00:28:32.760 For spying on our, you know, the United States enemies and then friends and their own spy

00:28:39.520 agencies so that you can collect the data that whatever their spy agencies are collecting.

00:28:43.480 One of the things, a smaller story that came out in the Snowden revelations was that the

00:28:48.920 app, the cell phone app, Angry Birds, the game, had a back door in it.

00:28:54.580 So basically the idea is that you give a software, somebody, in one case it could be Angry Birds,

00:29:01.240 in another case it could be their intelligence agency's like database software.

00:29:05.880 Right.

00:29:06.140 And it has a back door into it.

00:29:08.080 And so whoever knows about the back door could go in and siphon out, you know, whatever information

00:29:12.700 they want out of the back.

00:29:13.780 So since it was stolen for whatever reason, I'm sure Bill Hamilton would have been amenable

00:29:19.560 to licensing this, whatever.

00:29:22.660 Who invented the software.

00:29:24.080 But it had to be, I guess, sold through third parties to other countries.

00:29:29.360 I guess that makes sense because if, if he was the official, official licensee to the

00:29:36.140 U.S. government, then you're trying to sell it to Canada with the back door.

00:29:40.360 You'd want to sort of not have that.

00:29:42.380 He wouldn't generally, generally wouldn't go, oh, well, I'm sure the United States is

00:29:46.260 clean.

00:29:46.920 Yeah.

00:29:47.680 Here, Saddam. 0.95

00:29:48.520 Yeah.

00:29:48.960 What do you think you might like this software?

00:29:50.660 So going from that idea of this powerful, valuable piece of software and that, and that the October

00:30:00.400 surprise part of that from Michael's perspective is that that valuable piece of software and

00:30:04.920 that valuable off the book, off label contract where you could sell it around the world is

00:30:11.840 given to this guy, Earl Bryan, who was a friend of Ronald Reagan's, was in his cabinet and he's

00:30:17.200 governor of California and by the 80s Reagan is president and that, that this contract, this piece

00:30:23.860 of software, the, the source code for it is given to him as payment.

00:30:27.600 I mean, this is where it gets crazy.

00:30:29.360 Payment for the work that he did getting Reagan elected.

00:30:33.420 And this is Michael's allegation.

00:30:35.680 Michael's the guy who says, I am the one who installed the back door.

00:30:38.660 I programmed the thing and I was over in Iran.

00:30:43.060 And absolutely believable.

00:30:44.580 The kid, I mean, when he was a kid, he was.

00:30:46.420 He's a brilliant scientist.

00:30:47.680 A brilliant scientist.

00:30:48.660 Okay.

00:30:50.500 So he's over in Iran.

00:30:51.960 Yeah.

00:30:52.320 The idea that he's over in Iran with Earl Bryan, they're giving $40 million to the Ayatollah

00:30:58.260 to hold the hostages that are, that are being held in the U.S. embassy.

00:31:03.640 That's his version of the story.

00:31:05.080 I just want to say.

00:31:05.720 We've never seen any passports from Michael that shows that he's in Iran.

00:31:10.340 We've never seen any photos with him and Earl Bryan.

00:31:12.460 We have no, no evidence that he was there in Iran.

00:31:17.360 But there's a lot of stories and evidence about what generally the October surprise,

00:31:24.120 which I would say, let's call that Michael's October surprise.

00:31:26.480 And then there's this sort of more mainstream October surprise that people like Bob Perry,

00:31:31.180 Robert Perry, who broke the Iran, big part of the Iran-Contra story at AP, and Gary Sick.

00:31:38.440 I think these guys who are more mainstream of the conspiracy of the October surprise,

00:31:44.000 you know, talking about William Casey, if you're talking about the logic of a guy named

00:31:48.080 like William Casey, who was, who's kind of a background boogeyman for the entire octopus

00:31:54.140 conspiracy, really, throughout Danny's investigation.

00:31:58.740 The journalist Danny, who Christian was looking into the murder of, or, you know, strange death

00:32:03.500 of, he's, he, William Casey's a guy, I just think he's a prism through which you can see

00:32:09.180 all of this, and the October surprise is a really important part of that, is you have

00:32:12.640 a guy who's, starts out in the OSS, he's a lawyer, who starts out in the OSS, which is

00:32:20.500 the predecessor to the CIA in World War II.

00:32:22.720 He then is involved with various companies, and then he...

00:32:26.300 I mean, he, and he was an amazing OSS agent, he, um, did what was believed could not be

00:32:31.940 done, which was to get agents into, uh, Hitler's inner circle.

00:32:35.940 Right.

00:32:36.780 Um, which was like, you know, no one thought it could be done, and...

00:32:39.500 Right, an incredible spy.

00:32:40.820 Incredible spy.

00:32:41.720 And he, uh, he was also, we don't even mention this, outside counsel for this company called

00:32:47.380 Wackenhut, which was out, which was the joint venture at the Native American reservation that

00:32:52.740 we've already talked about, they were, they were in partnership with...

00:32:56.240 It's like Blackwater, except...

00:32:58.760 It is, it's...

00:32:59.380 Worse.

00:33:00.600 It's like, you know what Blackwater does, now here's the stuff that you don't know they

00:33:05.840 might be doing, right?

00:33:06.760 Right, it was the, it was the predecessor to that, the private, a private security company,

00:33:11.000 and they, uh, they were, they also were the first private prison in America.

00:33:16.040 They invented that, that concept for an immigration detention center. 0.57

00:33:20.860 Um, but, uh, so, so out, you have William Casey, and then he, he becomes...

00:33:27.460 He was the campaign manager.

00:33:28.440 The campaign manager of Reagan for his presidential election, and then he becomes CIA director.

00:33:34.620 Uh, and then the day he's supposed to show up for his hearings in Iran-Contra, he conveniently

00:33:41.300 dies.

00:33:42.160 Um, but...

00:33:44.600 Let's not go there.

00:33:46.960 Just keep throwing logs on the fire.

00:33:49.140 I'm just throwing logs on the fire.

00:33:50.240 But, but, but I'm just saying that, that Reagan was surrounded by intelligence people.

00:33:55.800 His vice president was the former head of...

00:34:00.700 Oh, I think the Bushes are scary as hell.

00:34:02.800 George H.W. Bush.

00:34:04.000 Yeah.

00:34:04.460 Um, watch what we say here in Texas.

00:34:07.140 Um, and you've got William Casey, who is his campaign manager.

00:34:11.440 You know, it's just, uh, it's not outside of the realm of William Casey's area of expertise

00:34:16.800 to manipulate world events for outcomes that he wants to happen and have the capability

00:34:21.800 to do that.

00:34:22.360 Also, Bob Perry, the journalist, uh, who, he wrote a book called, um, God, I can't...

00:34:28.800 Trick or treason?

00:34:29.380 Trick or treason.

00:34:30.140 Um, it came out in 1993.

00:34:32.040 He was able to basically prove the October surprise down to the point of, um, finding

00:34:41.700 Bill Casey's, uh, passport.

00:34:45.420 And, and, you know, he was a, uh, international businessman and super spy chief.

00:34:51.760 He traveled a lot.

00:34:52.420 So he had a lot of passport books and the only one that he didn't have in his archive

00:34:56.840 was, was that one.

00:34:58.300 Huh?

00:34:59.640 Yeah.

00:35:00.620 Yeah.

00:35:01.400 And that, if he had, if he had been able to, that, that passport will tell you definitively

00:35:06.420 whether he was in Paris or Madrid.

00:35:08.520 Yeah.

00:35:08.840 Yeah.

00:35:09.440 So let me go to...

00:35:11.700 We've already gone so far afield.

00:35:13.120 Sorry.

00:35:13.360 I know.

00:35:13.620 That's all right.

00:35:14.220 I mean, that...

00:35:15.860 That's the point.

00:35:16.800 That is, I know, but I mean, that's what, that's what this whole thing is.

00:35:20.440 So you can just take, you know, roads off of any of this and just go, and you don't

00:35:26.800 know where reality begins and ends.

00:35:30.280 It's crazy.

00:35:31.320 Well, we tried to at least, I mean, we tried to do it in a way that is not as, hopefully

00:35:36.420 not as crazy as how we're making it sound, which is, we tried to do it step by step and

00:35:40.940 back it up with as much evidence as we could and where we don't have evidence to be very

00:35:47.100 clear that we're being subjective or hearing somebody's perspective on what you're seeing.

00:35:51.400 Right.

00:35:51.960 But it does very quickly get into realms of, I mean, I think that some of the most damning

00:35:58.040 or strange or mystifying things for me going through this experience were the things that

00:36:02.320 were actually reported widely in the news.

00:36:04.320 And just when you see them, how Danny saw them, which is that they're interconnected based

00:36:07.900 on the people who were involved, things like Iran-Contra, BCCI, this bank that was working

00:36:14.040 with terrorists and drug dealers and intelligence agencies.

00:36:19.500 The savings and loan crisis, which was allegedly tied up with CIA operations.

00:36:24.980 All these banks, these assassins, rogue spies that these things, many of those things were

00:36:31.700 reported on in the eighties and up until Danny's death, but Danny was the, one of the few people

00:36:37.800 kind of realizing they're all the same people involved with all these things.

00:36:42.000 And that's what the octopus is, right?

00:36:43.580 Well, not the savings and loan.

00:36:44.680 There was not a Bush involved in that.

00:36:47.040 Let me go to the, let me go to what was his name?

00:36:52.800 Robert Booth Nichols.

00:36:55.440 You guys talked to some scary people.

00:36:57.680 Well, this guy chilled me to the bone.

00:37:01.620 Yeah.

00:37:01.960 He seemed like, he just seemed very confident that things happen and nobody's going to question

00:37:13.780 me and, okay, maybe I've killed people.

00:37:18.060 Maybe I, I mean, he just, he had that air about him of stone cold killer in a business suit.

00:37:25.960 Is that what you guys, I keep, I'm like, which door is he going to come out of?

00:37:30.940 Yeah.

00:37:32.120 Cause he may or may not still be alive.

00:37:34.600 Do you believe he is?

00:37:35.880 I think, I think he's, I think he might still be alive.

00:37:39.740 There's a chance.

00:37:40.760 I think he would be 80, right?

00:37:43.620 Yeah.

00:37:43.960 He'd be 80.

00:37:44.660 So if he was still spooky at 80, if he's alive, he's still spooky.

00:37:48.360 That guy, was he the, who's the scariest person that you encountered?

00:37:53.460 Well, okay.

00:37:55.120 Bob allegedly died in 2009.

00:37:58.780 Yeah.

00:37:59.480 So we didn't meet him, but we have a lot of documents and things like that.

00:38:03.520 We met him.

00:38:04.400 We met him.

00:38:05.380 I saw enough.

00:38:06.200 We talked to a lot of people who did know him and Sherry went, you know, who we interviewed

00:38:10.040 has an amazing story about going to his apartment, which I think is, is, you know, tell the story.

00:38:15.440 Yeah.

00:38:16.080 So Sherry Seymour investigated mainly the West, the West coast portion of, of the octopus

00:38:23.120 or this, this story, this Danny story.

00:38:27.160 And she met with, she started working on it about three months after Danny died and she

00:38:32.600 was calling all of his sources, much like Christian did.

00:38:35.260 Um, but this is in 1991 and 1992 and Robert Booth Nichols is one of, is a guy who Danny

00:38:41.420 talked to extensively on the phone and met in person and was, you know, I would say a

00:38:48.640 suspect in Danny's death.

00:38:50.160 Um, and at least for us.

00:38:53.520 Um, and so she went over to his apartment to ask him about these things.

00:38:58.040 And amazingly, he agreed and he was there with his wife and, uh, at the end of that meeting,

00:39:05.400 he shows her this tape, puts on this tape, which, um, I think they were talking about sort

00:39:11.980 of the manipulability of reality and what's in perception and in the media and things like

00:39:18.360 that.

00:39:18.780 And, um, he, he, it's the Zapruder film with the JFK assassination film.

00:39:25.200 Um, and he is playing it and then it's, it's not the one that you've seen before.

00:39:33.340 It's the one where the driver turns around and shoots JFK in the head.

00:39:37.860 And then she's like, wait, what?

00:39:39.540 I, you know, and this is 1992 when, when the Zapruder film is, you couldn't just like go

00:39:43.340 on the internet and watch it immediately, you know?

00:39:45.200 And it wasn't easy to make fake.

00:39:47.820 Right.

00:39:48.420 Films.

00:39:48.860 And then, and then he shows her on another tape and that tape he says is the,

00:39:55.200 the one that everybody's seen on the media and he pauses it and there's a half of a

00:40:00.280 tree missing.

00:40:01.060 And he says, this is the one everybody's seen has actually been manipulated.

00:40:05.200 I showed you the real one.

00:40:07.080 This one is, is the one that everybody's seen and it's been manipulated.

00:40:10.360 And I, when I heard that story, you know, I went to the internet immediately and I was

00:40:14.320 like, wait, what is there a tree missing in this thing?

00:40:17.100 And no, there, there's, there's no tree missing.

00:40:19.440 And I think that Sherry's conclusion from that story is, is similar to the one that I

00:40:23.840 take, which is that he's showing her two manipulated tapes.

00:40:28.800 He's showing her one where the driver is shooting him.

00:40:32.980 That's been doctored.

00:40:33.840 He's showing her one where the tree has been cut off.

00:40:35.460 That's been doctored.

00:40:36.080 And it's in order to make it so that if she tells the story of meeting Robert with Nichols

00:40:42.240 and what he told her and all the things that he said, then she tells that story and somebody's

00:40:46.880 like, uh-huh, uh-huh.

00:40:48.300 And what else? 1.00

00:40:49.160 And, and, and there was a, and the driver killed him and you're crazy. 1.00

00:40:52.340 Okay. 0.99

00:40:52.620 You know, just to make, discredit her. 0.68

00:40:54.040 Um, so I think it's a, it's a very powerful portrait of Bob and who he was and his, his

00:41:02.140 ability to kind of manipulate people and manipulate reality and the world around him.

00:41:08.240 And, uh, it just makes him endlessly fascinating.

00:41:11.740 But, but I think, and it makes him, it does a good job of making him seem just like a little

00:41:17.700 crazy and a little weird, but I think he was a lot more than that.

00:41:21.320 And I think that if he-

00:41:22.140 Yeah, I didn't think he was crazy.

00:41:23.680 I didn't think he was a little weird.

00:41:26.920 I, he was the one that didn't come off.

00:41:31.560 To me, he didn't come off crazy.

00:41:33.700 He came off, he came off like, no, we had a deal.

00:41:37.620 This was what the deal was.

00:41:39.360 Right. 1.00

00:41:39.720 And, uh, you need somebody killed. 1.00

00:41:41.420 Uh, okay. 0.99

00:41:42.740 Well, that's what's amazing.

00:41:43.980 We actually have his voice in the show, which I think is like, anybody who had heard these

00:41:49.160 stories would be like, oh, you're, this guy sounds like he's a JFK conspiracy theorist

00:41:53.240 or something like that.

00:41:53.780 But hearing him talk and then we have deposition footage of what, of what happened in 2008 with

00:41:59.540 him.

00:42:00.880 He's, he's chilling.

00:42:02.540 I mean, yeah.

00:42:03.440 He's bone chilling.

00:42:04.020 You, you, you asked who the most dangerous person that we encountered, you know, not necessarily

00:42:08.840 met, but encountered in this, I would have to give that prize to Philip Arthur Thompson

00:42:14.080 though.

00:42:14.940 Yeah.

00:42:15.140 Really?

00:42:15.620 Who's the, the serial killer in San Francisco.

00:42:18.240 He's got to be the person I would never want to meet.

00:42:23.920 Uh, right.

00:42:24.680 Yeah.

00:42:25.200 He, tell his story.

00:42:26.740 So he, uh, Philip Arthur Thompson, um, he shows up in, in episode three.

00:42:33.140 He's the one that like hog ties Michael or Kaneshudo's partner in such a way that his legs, um,

00:42:40.800 are choking, are choking him.

00:42:42.540 Um, and so he's like slowly dying, uh, like more, the, the gravity of holding up your legs.

00:42:47.700 You eventually just can't do it anymore.

00:42:49.420 It's kind of the way Jesus, you know, died of suffocation on the cross.

00:42:53.380 He couldn't hold himself up.

00:42:55.040 Um, if that story is true too, who knows?

00:42:58.580 So, uh, um, but yeah.

00:43:03.380 So, um, Philip Arthur Thompson was a, uh, serial, uh, well, a career criminal. 0.98

00:43:10.620 And, and one of the things that he liked to do was to rape and murder women. 0.93

00:43:15.200 And he also, uh, was a, uh, uh, kind of a, uh, like a major thief. 0.98

00:43:22.460 Um, he would, you know, rob antique stores, jewelry stores, um, he did.

00:43:28.040 Mainly in California, mainly in California, all up and down the coast of California.

00:43:30.800 And he loved robbing drug dealers and stealing their guns and drugs.

00:43:33.960 Yeah. 0.93

00:43:34.740 And he was a prolific criminal.

00:43:36.720 He was also a, um, a protected FBI informant.

00:43:40.920 Um, what exactly he, uh, was helping the FBI out with, I, that was so valuable that he

00:43:51.260 should be allowed to be unleashed onto the world.

00:43:55.120 I don't know.

00:43:56.300 I think a lot of jewelry store owners would be very resentful of, of that.

00:44:00.700 No, I mean, also just all kinds of people.

00:44:02.560 I mean, I, the jewelry store, you know, okay.

00:44:05.960 I'm the federal government.

00:44:07.220 He's got something big to help us on jewelry store.

00:44:09.840 Okay. 0.60

00:44:11.240 The, the rape and murder and. 0.99

00:44:14.120 I mean, that's, there was usually, he usually would murder the women after he raped them. 0.97

00:44:19.300 But one of them, I think he, he was working with a guy, Mark Masterson, or convinced him 0.98

00:44:25.720 not to.

00:44:26.900 And I've tracked that lady done and she was 16 at the time.

00:44:31.740 And, uh, I tried to find her to, cause I'm, I'm continuing my investigation of Philip Arthur

00:44:37.260 Thompson and, uh, yeah.

00:44:40.380 She drank herself to death, you know?

00:44:42.440 And I have to assume that those two events are connected, you know?

00:44:46.800 Oh yeah.

00:44:47.900 Um, you know, at 58, she, she drank herself to death.

00:44:50.980 But yeah, so he was somebody who, when he would get arrested, would almost always find

00:44:57.560 himself out of jail almost immediately on, on major charges, murder, you know?

00:45:04.160 Um, you showed the newspapers saying, you know, FBI.

00:45:07.780 Yeah.

00:45:07.800 And then his rap sheet that shows that he's just like in, out, in, out.

00:45:11.520 Yeah.

00:45:11.860 And it's, it's, it's like you have somebody who's, uh, he's, he's going on trial for murder

00:45:18.600 or something else.

00:45:19.440 And then, you know, the lead witness dies and it's just like, well, the lead witness was

00:45:25.480 murdered before he was testifying.

00:45:27.400 Like, could these events be more possibly interrelated?

00:45:31.040 Um, and so yeah, he, he, he stayed out committing all kinds of crimes for years until he eventually

00:45:37.480 went to jail for, for life, um, because it was just, I think the evidence was just absolutely

00:45:43.720 overwhelming.

00:45:44.880 Um, and it was a DNA case.

00:45:46.520 And I don't, I think that when he was committing these crimes, he, DNA, you know, evidence didn't

00:45:52.560 exist.

00:45:53.380 Right.

00:45:53.820 So it was, it was hard for them to argue against that.

00:45:57.340 Um, so he wasn't hedging against that possibility.

00:46:00.000 Um, but he, uh, the good old days.

00:46:02.800 Yeah.

00:46:03.400 When you could just get away with whatever.

00:46:05.060 Yeah.

00:46:05.240 You get away with murder and just walk away.

00:46:07.100 But it really is a scary sort of open question about what, what he was exactly doing with

00:46:11.840 the, um, various federal agencies, not just the FBI.

00:46:15.840 Um, and we made a little bit of headway into that and I don't want to like speculate too

00:46:20.480 much on, on, on what it was, but, um, it seemed to be beyond just kind of local street

00:46:26.840 crimes.

00:46:27.320 It seemed to be, there was, there was around him, there was the idea that he was helping

00:46:31.540 the federal government with, um, larger political, you know, geopolitical things.

00:46:38.360 Um, like getting, like raising money and gun running and things like that.

00:46:43.240 Yeah.

00:46:44.340 So anyway, you got to pick your business partners wisely and I would not choose Philip Arthur

00:46:49.620 Thompson.

00:46:49.980 And we, we, we, we knocked on the FBI agent's door that was running Philip Thompson and that

00:46:55.920 was also terrifying.

00:46:57.140 So, I mean, he's terrifying.

00:46:59.320 Tell me about that.

00:47:00.380 We can't really talk too much about that, but, um, hopefully more on that, you know,

00:47:04.680 in the future.

00:47:07.200 Zach was super scared that night.

00:47:08.580 I am the world's luckiest man.

00:47:12.420 Not only do I have the world's best wife who won't put up with any of my whining, um, she 1.00

00:47:18.880 made me try relief factor when I was in pain, but I also have relief factor.

00:47:24.420 I do.

00:47:25.200 And, uh, you know what I don't have anymore is the pain in my hands, that constant pain

00:47:30.920 that I couldn't pick up a pencil and write.

00:47:33.420 I couldn't paint.

00:47:34.840 I'm, I'm kind of a prolific painter.

00:47:37.340 Now I can paint a room in one.

00:47:39.940 No.

00:47:40.480 Um, I began to get my life back.

00:47:43.360 Now I take it every day and I have my hands back.

00:47:47.400 I have that pain gone.

00:47:49.220 If you've been dealing with pain in your life, you feel like you've tried everything.

00:47:53.260 Maybe it's just time to try relief factor.

00:47:55.420 Give it a try.

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00:48:02.640 It's 1995.

00:48:03.780 It's a trial pack.

00:48:04.640 It's not a drug.

00:48:05.420 So it's not something like, Oh, I got a headache.

00:48:07.060 I got to take this.

00:48:07.940 It was developed by doctors and hundreds of thousands of people have ordered relief factor

00:48:12.680 and about 70% of them go on to order more.

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00:48:21.000 The number four relief relief factor.com.

00:48:24.620 How much time did you guys spend?

00:48:27.940 I mean, the, the, the whole series opens up with a phone call. 0.98

00:48:31.380 You're going to get yourself killed. 0.66

00:48:33.540 Uh, I don't know. 0.98

00:48:37.280 When you started it, you were, you know, in your twenties.

00:48:40.440 I think you're in 26.

00:48:42.180 Yeah.

00:48:42.680 You're in a little invincible.

00:48:44.380 How, how many times did you look at each other and go, we, we should, we should not be doing this.

00:48:49.880 What are we doing?

00:48:51.580 A lot.

00:48:52.160 It was a fair amount.

00:48:53.300 Yeah.

00:48:54.400 But there's also over our head was that like, we had to finish.

00:48:59.520 Because of Netflix?

00:49:01.040 Partially.

00:49:01.760 And for our own, I don't think that's fair.

00:49:03.700 No.

00:49:04.160 Well, they pull the plug and you're going to be like, Oh, like I'm walking away.

00:49:07.980 It's worth dying.

00:49:08.520 No, but we, no, but we, no, we did have to finish like, cause we started it and, and, and we weren't gonna like get, we weren't gonna back down.

00:49:18.140 Right.

00:49:18.440 Like we had to finish.

00:49:19.900 Also, um, was there, what was the closest moment where you were like, if I, if I live in a country where you can get killed as like kind of a, I'm a pretty non-threatening, uh, guy investigating a case from 30 years ago.

00:49:35.460 Like, just, just take me out then, you know, just make it quick.

00:49:39.260 Cause this is, that would be absurd.

00:49:41.120 You know, I, we, there's a America, it's free country.

00:49:43.880 We're allowed to investigate things.

00:49:46.520 I think so.

00:49:47.440 Is that an invitation?

00:49:48.620 Um, careful what you wish for.

00:49:51.960 Um, I'm not wishing for it.

00:49:53.860 I'm just saying like, no, I know.

00:49:55.480 Like let's.

00:49:56.840 Yeah.

00:49:57.380 You know, one would hope that you could do an investigation like this without, and that was our experience.

00:50:01.340 We, we had a lot of people tell us that, that we would suffer dire consequences and to whatever credit we have not suffered those consequences.

00:50:10.640 The show has come out and what it is, is what it is.

00:50:13.500 I mean, that's, we're grateful for that.

00:50:16.520 The best place to survive is in the spotlight.

00:50:20.320 That's how we looked at it.

00:50:21.960 Yeah.

00:50:22.380 Yeah.

00:50:23.300 Um, what is, uh, what, what, was there a time where you thought you were this close to walking away?

00:50:32.840 What was that point?

00:50:33.840 If there was, I don't think walking away, but there were some moments where, I mean, you can tell it.

00:50:39.140 Or at least walking away from this line.

00:50:41.220 Well, there were times when I, I said to Christian, I was just like, this story or this part of the story is simply not worth dying for.

00:50:50.460 You know, it's just like, no, nobody is going to, uh, you know, benefit so greatly from us uncovering this thing that it was worth our lives.

00:51:02.620 You know, especially Phil Thompson, Phil Thompson, who we were just talking about.

00:51:06.540 He, I was like, Zach, we got to do the Phil Thompson.

00:51:09.840 We got to get Phil Thompson in here. 0.99

00:51:11.460 You know, the serial murderer, rapist punk from San Francisco. 0.98

00:51:16.360 Um, and how old is he now? 0.97

00:51:18.340 He died, he died like two years ago while we were editing.

00:51:23.260 And so then it was like, all right, so Zach, cause he could have, he was a state prisoner in California, which has the most lax parole system.

00:51:31.540 And he could have at any point paroled out.

00:51:34.860 And if he didn't like the show wreaked havoc upon our lives, but then he died of a heart attack in prison.

00:51:40.760 And so then we were like, Zach was like, okay, fine.

00:51:43.520 We're putting him in the show.

00:51:44.880 Wow.

00:51:45.560 Yeah.

00:51:45.860 And that was a cool thing about having a kind of ever evolving long project, you know, that morphed and evolved and changed.

00:51:54.440 And 30 years old.

00:51:55.380 And 30 years old.

00:51:56.160 30 years old.

00:51:56.640 Other people died.

00:51:59.160 There was a legendary spy from Israel named Rafa Itan, who is involved in different ways in this story, allegedly with the promise software.

00:52:11.700 And we got his cell phone number from a friend of mine in Israel.

00:52:18.240 And we obviously wanted to do our, we wanted to get our research like underway, you know, like really know what we wanted to ask him before we called him.

00:52:28.500 We felt like if he even picked up, we'd only have one shot.

00:52:31.760 And then within a month of getting that cell phone number, he died.

00:52:36.600 You know, he was old, you know, and people, that's kind of like.

00:52:39.120 Or that's what they wanted you to call him.

00:52:41.060 Well, I mean, he had a, you know, he captured Adolf Eichmann in South America.

00:52:46.800 Wow.

00:52:47.300 Yeah. 1.00

00:52:47.960 Rafi the stinker. 0.96

00:52:49.920 That's what he was called. 0.91

00:52:51.180 So, it didn't improve my feeling of trust in really anything.

00:53:05.640 You know, because it all seems so real and plausible.

00:53:17.720 It all seems, I mean.

00:53:18.920 It's a dirty story, too.

00:53:19.580 When you look at it as an octopus and it's all connected, it does, it seems overwhelming that that could be, you know, true.

00:53:29.880 But as you take it like you did, one piece at a time, every piece, you're like, yeah, that works.

00:53:37.840 Yeah, that's how we wanted it to feel was you were sort of like paddling out and you kind of go to this buoy and you're like, I can still see land.

00:53:45.160 Like, I'm fine out here.

00:53:46.040 And then we go to the next buoy and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's a little further away.

00:53:49.500 And then a few of those later, you're like, I'm in the middle of the ocean and I have no bearings anymore.

00:53:55.360 Which I think is what we wanted to capture of how we felt like Danny, who spent a year doing this and Christian spent 12 years doing this and me spending several years doing this.

00:54:06.440 That's the general feeling that you get when you go through this and you're just like, what is real anymore?

00:54:13.360 Did your families have 12 years, your family or any of your friends or anybody just go, dude, you are, you're gone.

00:54:22.860 In like the first, like 2015 was my worst year of, of this, like emotionally, physically, mentally.

00:54:34.220 And exactly.

00:54:35.240 Explain that, explain that to me.

00:54:36.700 I mean, I was just like, I'd like withdrawn.

00:54:40.020 I, I'd, I'd had a relationship with a, a business relationship with a literary agent.

00:54:46.940 And my background is as a photojournalist and I, my first book was going to be this in insanely complicated nonfiction investigation about this at that point, 26 year old case.

00:55:03.440 And, uh, I was way in over my head, but I was, I wanted to, to, to complete this.

00:55:12.040 I wanted to get it out.

00:55:13.140 And I was like, just like really like, and I was just alone and, uh, just struggling, not sleeping a lot, like trying to like, if I just stay up a little longer, I'll, I'll figure it out.

00:55:26.760 And, you know, I was like kind of miserable, I think, and, and lonely and, and I, you know, was broke and my other career as a photojournalist was suffering.

00:55:38.200 I wasn't taking good care of myself.

00:55:39.640 I mean, you, I mean, I, I kind of block a lot of that stuff out, but you were there, you, and I, you know, go over to Christian's house and he's like, been sitting in the same position for two days straight.

00:55:51.760 You know, like, it's like, did you sleep?

00:55:54.240 And it's like, ah, like a couple of days ago, you know, that kind of thing.

00:55:57.480 And it was just, it was just bleak.

00:55:59.220 And, and his sisters and I, and our friends all talked about it.

00:56:03.320 It was just like, you know, is it time to intervene?

00:56:06.220 And like, how do we get Christian back? 0.97

00:56:08.180 There's, you know, the stages of grief.

00:56:10.560 Um, there's also like the stages of conspiracy.

00:56:13.820 And I think one of the stages where you go to a dinner party or a barbecue and you try, you pick, you know, anybody.

00:56:21.760 From the crowd and you try to convince them of this thing that you've been studying, you know, cause if you can convince someone at the dinner party and they believe you, then it will help you believe you.

00:56:32.240 Cause you're like struggling with this like complex, untangible.

00:56:36.900 And doesn't really work out well, does it?

00:56:39.400 No, it doesn't.

00:56:40.860 Especially for the guests at the dinner party.

00:56:42.860 And I'd be like, all right, I'm just going to go to this barbecue and I'm not going to talk about the case.

00:56:46.380 Okay.

00:56:46.640 I'm just going to go.

00:56:47.380 I'm just going to be normal.

00:56:48.120 And then like, I, I, you know, that, that was like, it was a process that, you know, kept repeating.

00:56:53.260 And I referred to it earlier in the show.

00:56:55.160 Like I've sort of matured into this and I can talk about other things too.

00:57:02.040 Now, you know, uh, I think.

00:57:04.140 Can you, but it's all con, but it is all consuming and it changes your worldview enough to where you.

00:57:13.780 Even our editors that worked on it, sorry to keep interrupting you, Glenn, but like our, our, all the editors that we worked with, you know, they're just like, they're guys that they cut, they cut movies and shows.

00:57:23.780 Right.

00:57:24.620 And they, they all became like, you know, very suspicious and they changed their worldview of like geopolitics and.

00:57:32.440 You can't unsee things.

00:57:33.960 You know, and so when, and you know, when it's, you know, there's, there's so many conspiracy theories out there that are just so much bull crap, but there are a few, the, the really well designed ones.

00:57:49.160 I think are you, they, they have certain hallmarks and it is the same, like 25 people, you know, or 10 people that are just like, wait, wait, wait, this connects here because of that one person.

00:58:05.640 And once you start seeing that matrix, it, it's, uh, it's hard because you feel either alone, uh, uh, or you're, you feel like you're seeing something that nobody else is seeing and it's right there.

00:58:24.640 Yeah.

00:58:25.420 Does that make sense to you?

00:58:27.060 Yeah.

00:58:27.340 And that's usually when your friends go, maybe you should stop talking about this.

00:58:33.340 Maybe you should stop.

00:58:33.900 Maybe you, did your friend, did you, before you were like, let's roll up our sleeves and go, did you, was there talk about, let's get him off?

00:58:43.680 Yeah.

00:58:43.980 Yeah.

00:58:44.180 I mean, we did.

00:58:44.900 And, and, and it was a years long process.

00:58:47.660 I mean, I didn't start making this.

00:58:49.600 Christian started talking about this back in 2012 or whenever he started friends since before we were friends for, for, you know, we grew up together.

00:58:57.520 Um, and so it was mainly a process for me of like, Oh, that's an interesting thing.

00:59:03.900 Interesting story.

00:59:04.600 And then just worried about Christian for like his own mental health.

00:59:08.960 And then when he's telling me more about the people that he was reaching out to, and it was, then it was like worry for his physical safety.

00:59:16.580 It's like, these people don't seem like they might have your best interest at heart, um, that you're talking to.

00:59:22.580 And then, and then the problem is that you kind of hear enough about this story to where it begins to grabs onto you.

00:59:32.400 There's, it puts its little hooks in you.

00:59:34.060 And then you're like, well, that is kind of weird.

00:59:35.960 What happened with like, and it's got, I think you even said this.

00:59:39.640 It's got to feel like if I just get this, we just get this.

00:59:43.600 The carrot is in front of you.

00:59:45.440 And it just opens up another door of craziness.

00:59:47.900 I think, I think that what we tried to do though, was try to put some blinders on and that we didn't make a movie that's about conspiracy theories or about the, you know, the, the social history of conspiracy theories or anything that's really past 1992 or three, you know, Danny died in 1991.

01:00:05.700 We didn't graft this story onto the present and there's conspiracy, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories have become this boogeyman that, that is in the popular culture incessantly now.

01:00:17.520 And why is that?

01:00:19.820 I don't, I don't know for sure, but 1991, the year that Danny died is such an, such a significant year for conspiracy theories.

01:00:28.960 It's the year that the movie JFK by Oliver Stone came out.

01:00:32.780 It's the year that, do you know who David Icke is?

01:00:36.160 He's like a British conspiracy theorist.

01:00:37.820 He talks about lizard people.

01:00:39.720 He was a, he was a BBC, uh, sports announcer who goes on the Wogan show in 1991 and says that he's the reincarnation of Jesus.

01:00:49.600 Danny Casolaro dies.

01:00:51.660 Um, I mean, behold a pale horse.

01:00:54.820 This book, behold a pale horse came out.

01:00:57.140 It was just like, I think they called that summer, 1991, the summer of conspiracies because it was right at the end of Iran-Contra.

01:01:07.820 And there was an October surprise investigation going on.

01:01:10.820 The Insla case was going on.

01:01:11.940 All these conspiracies were bubbling up in Washington.

01:01:13.660 But, but, but, you know, I don't exactly know why conspiracy theories, uh, you know, are such a topic to do, do you know, now I do know the feeling of what they do to your brain.

01:01:27.020 And we don't really talk about this in the show very much, but my theory is that in the absence of knowledge, of information, the human brain makes up the worst possible, fills in the gaps with the worst possible possibilities.

01:01:44.420 Right.

01:01:45.300 And so you're, or, or programmed to see the negative.

01:01:49.640 I've, I've lost, I'm losing my hearing badly.

01:01:53.560 And, um, what happens is your brain fills in what you can't hear.

01:02:02.400 And it just, it just takes bits and pieces.

01:02:05.340 And it like, I've heard my wife say in just crazy things, you know what I mean? 0.82

01:02:11.480 And I, and I go, what did you just say?

01:02:16.040 What is like, it makes no sense that she would say something.

01:02:19.960 And it's just the brain filling in what it thought it heard by grabbing just a little bit.

01:02:26.640 And I think that's, I think conspiracy theories or, or the idea of like the government is doing this or, you know, these people are doing this or whatever group you don't like is doing this.

01:02:34.840 It's a, it's a, I think it's a very natural mental process.

01:02:37.700 I think it's based on psychological concepts like negativity bias and things like that.

01:02:41.280 We won't go into it.

01:02:42.220 But what I'm trying to really get back to is for us, we really tried to put blinders on and just focus on this story.

01:02:49.000 And it's a very complicated story, but just saying like, what can we actually, what is a conspiracy theory and what's an actual conspiracy?

01:02:56.120 Which has a legal definition and it's where, you know, multiple people get together and do a crime.

01:03:01.960 There's a difference between a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy fact.

01:03:05.380 Right.

01:03:05.560 You know, there are conspiracies and, and, and, but it's gotten so muddled.

01:03:10.500 Some people refer to, some people call it conspiracy theories.

01:03:13.800 They just say conspiracy.

01:03:15.220 I don't believe in conspiracies or like in our show, when we called the FBI agent, Scott Erskine, he says, oh, you know, Danny Casolaro.

01:03:24.500 Ha ha ha.

01:03:25.480 He was, uh, well, you know, he was talking to a lot of people who were, uh, who believed in conspiracies and were involved in conspiracies.

01:03:33.860 And we're like, okay.

01:03:35.880 Like, but he means to say conspiracy theories.

01:03:38.680 Conspiracy theorists.

01:03:39.500 Yeah.

01:03:39.940 But he, you know, give him the bit of the doubt.

01:03:42.260 No, I'm just saying, I just think it's, that is an example of how people, you know, it's so muddled.

01:03:47.240 Yeah.

01:03:47.520 Yeah.

01:03:47.680 So, because I, I drew some things to today that maybe you didn't intend at all.

01:03:56.000 And, and that would be, I guess, a good thing.

01:03:59.080 Or is it what you want me to do?

01:04:01.040 Um, but, uh, I, I, I drew, you know, in, in the, in the, in times where things, where you just don't have good answers.

01:04:12.540 And like, you know, the Titanic, we're, we're going way too fast.

01:04:19.240 Uh, what the hell are we doing going, you know, in around the icebergs at this speed?

01:04:25.060 Well, they didn't want to tell you that there was an out of control fire, you know, in the burners.

01:04:30.060 It wasn't, it wasn't going to burn everything to the ground.

01:04:32.560 They just could not control it.

01:04:34.220 So just open it up and let it run.

01:04:36.120 Um, when you don't have the facts, you look at things and go, well, I'm not getting the truth.

01:04:44.860 And so you're more open.

01:04:46.600 And the way to stop all this stuff is to just have some transparency.

01:04:52.340 But I don't even know what's transparent anymore because the internet has made things.

01:04:58.760 You can find whatever.

01:05:00.180 And now with deep fakes, it's going to get much work because you'll be able to make that Zapruder. 0.79

01:05:06.120 Right, right, right.

01:05:06.920 You know what I mean?

01:05:08.040 No.

01:05:08.440 Um, so in, in the, uh, in, there's an unsolved mysteries episode about the Danny Casolaro case

01:05:15.420 that came out in 1993.

01:05:17.020 And at the end of it, they talk about this event that occurred at, at Danny's funeral,

01:05:23.680 where a man in a military uniform puts a medal on Danny's casket.

01:05:28.380 And then, you know, Ann Clank, who's in our show and, and, you know, different friends

01:05:35.200 and family of, of Danny were like, who was that guy?

01:05:38.000 And why did he do that?

01:05:39.320 And what does it mean?

01:05:40.080 And, and the way that the unsolved mysteries episode is, you know, it's a, with a recreation,

01:05:46.240 the guy looks like Colin Powell kind of, and like, he's, you know, uh, and with the music

01:05:51.860 and editing, you're like, well, what was Danny, like, actually like a spy?

01:05:55.360 Like, why would he do that?

01:05:56.540 Like, what was he doing?

01:05:58.020 Um, and then, um, so it was very significant to me that Danny wrote about computers at a

01:06:04.980 time when not many people did.

01:06:06.240 And then that led him to the story about computers that led him to all of the rest of

01:06:11.560 it.

01:06:12.100 Um, you know, the, the promise software story.

01:06:14.520 So when I was working on the research for the book in the early days, I was calling

01:06:19.200 people that he worked with at this computer industry trade publication called computer

01:06:23.180 age.

01:06:23.700 And, and there were a few names on the masthead of the publications that I was able, able

01:06:27.540 to track down.

01:06:28.560 And they introduced me to, um, other people that work there and they introduced me to

01:06:32.940 other people that work there.

01:06:33.780 And I met, I called this guy that worked in the, in the print shop.

01:06:36.840 All I knew was, was his name.

01:06:38.860 I called him and I said, hi, my name's Christian.

01:06:41.540 I'm writing a book about Danny Castellaro.

01:06:44.060 And he was like, I've been waiting, you know, 25 years for, for this call.

01:06:49.260 And I was like, wow.

01:06:50.620 Okay.

01:06:51.480 And he was like, have you ever seen the unsolved mystery show about this case?

01:06:55.680 And I was like, yeah, I have.

01:06:57.840 Uh, he's like, I'm the guy.

01:06:59.820 And I was like, uh, what guy, which guy, you know, he's like, I'm the guy, I'm the

01:07:06.200 guy.

01:07:06.660 I'm like, what guy?

01:07:07.720 And he's like, I'm the guy that put the metal on, on Danny's casket.

01:07:10.320 And I was like, you wait, you were.

01:07:14.460 And he's like, yeah.

01:07:15.920 And I was like, well, first of all, tell me the story and then tell me why you didn't

01:07:20.100 come forward.

01:07:20.820 You know, that there's this big question about who this person is.

01:07:23.920 And he said, well, you know, me and Danny, we, we, we were friends at work.

01:07:28.000 We were work friends.

01:07:28.820 And, and after work, we'd sometimes have a beer in the parking lot of the office building

01:07:32.880 where they're, where their publication was based.

01:07:35.320 And, and Danny used to say that he'd wished that he'd gone to war because he wished he'd

01:07:40.040 gotten a medal.

01:07:41.300 And this guy was like a highly decorated, uh, uh, soldier from Vietnam.

01:07:47.480 He was in deep, heavy, horrible combat.

01:07:51.320 And, um, you know, he's like, Danny, you're, you're good.

01:07:54.920 You don't want the metal.

01:07:56.460 And, and Danny's like, no, I wish I had the metal.

01:07:59.340 And this guy, you know, had, had been through hell and he had a bunch of metals to show for

01:08:03.660 it.

01:08:04.320 And so he thought about that conversation the day that he was going to the funeral and

01:08:07.860 he decided to put on his military uniform, like his formal attire and put the metal on,

01:08:13.380 give Danny his best metal.

01:08:15.540 Wow.

01:08:16.300 And, um, and that was just something he did for himself.

01:08:18.960 He just, and it was something, a private moment between him and his late friend that, you

01:08:23.800 know.

01:08:23.980 So then I was like, well, why did you wait?

01:08:28.760 Like, why are you not, you know, why, why did you let this mystery surround it?

01:08:33.080 And he said, look, man, if they can't figure out who I was, they're not going to figure out

01:08:41.480 what happened to Danny.

01:08:43.180 So, you know, you found me and I want you to figure out what happened to Danny.

01:08:47.880 Something like that.

01:08:48.660 Um, but so like you're saying with the conspiracy theories, you know, you, you, you know, your

01:08:54.780 mind goes everywhere.

01:08:55.620 Who's the guy that put the metal on the casket?

01:08:57.160 Who was that?

01:08:57.920 You know, and it's just a guy, you know, we have in my job, I've had people come up to

01:09:04.400 me and say, I know what you were saying about such and such.

01:09:08.720 And you're like, what the hell was I saying?

01:09:12.380 Well, I know what you said, but I heard you.

01:09:15.940 You're like, no, I didn't.

01:09:18.140 No.

01:09:18.800 You know, there are people out there that do want to go into this space.

01:09:23.960 I don't know why, but they do want to go into that space.

01:09:27.440 And, and connect everything and connect everything to everything.

01:09:31.780 You know, some things are connected.

01:09:33.620 Yeah.

01:09:33.820 Some things are not, uh, you know?

01:09:36.080 Yeah.

01:09:36.400 Right.

01:09:36.900 I think that that was our main issue.

01:09:40.320 Right.

01:09:40.680 And we knew, we knew, we knew in the office that people on the internet would say that

01:09:45.200 the show is a limited hangout, which is a term, uh, that means that, you know, an intelligence

01:09:51.780 agency admits to part of a larger thing in order to like distract, distract.

01:09:56.900 And, you know, up, obfuscate the larger sacrificial lamb for the larger.

01:10:01.760 And then sure enough, you know, yeah, it's on the internet that this show is supposedly

01:10:07.880 a limited hangout, but no, we did the best we could.

01:10:10.340 Right.

01:10:11.360 So you're not CIA spies.

01:10:13.320 We honestly, like it would make our lives so much easier.

01:10:16.780 No, I know if the recruiters are out there and it would make it probably be a lot happier

01:10:22.760 to me.

01:10:24.000 No, I mean, if you were, if you were a spy and you had the answer, I mean, you would assume

01:10:29.040 you'd get more access.

01:10:29.940 Yeah.

01:10:30.180 You'd have access.

01:10:31.220 Right.

01:10:31.480 I wouldn't want to do any like wet work though.

01:10:33.740 I'm squeamish about blood.

01:10:37.200 Yeah.

01:10:38.120 Yeah.

01:10:38.520 The wet work part would probably be.

01:10:40.140 I've got morality.

01:10:41.200 Yeah.

01:10:41.720 Yeah.

01:10:42.040 Yeah.

01:10:42.220 Yeah.

01:10:42.420 I have morality.

01:10:44.980 So final, final thought.

01:10:48.180 What, what do you walk away with or hope that the audience walks away?

01:10:55.260 Cause I'm not sure.

01:10:56.300 And those are usually the best things you'll go to a movie or you'll read something and

01:11:00.260 you're like, I don't know.

01:11:03.080 I know that affected me.

01:11:04.400 I know that may have changed me, but I'm not sure how yet I think, and that's very

01:11:09.520 rare that that happens.

01:11:11.080 And I think you captured that.

01:11:12.500 Yeah.

01:11:12.600 I mean, I think that, you know, we can't inherently solve every mystery that is, that's brought

01:11:19.760 up by the octopus.

01:11:20.720 But I almost, and I, but we also, I don't think are leaving it with like a, Oh, like

01:11:28.200 just wait for season two or like, this is a completely ambiguous ending and nobody knows

01:11:32.920 anything.

01:11:33.260 It's like, I think that we bring people on a journey and show for the first time often

01:11:39.460 new information and new facts and, and, and draw conclusions about the relationships

01:11:44.820 between all these people and these string of murders and crimes.

01:11:48.640 Um, but I do think that there is, if you could say it's ambiguous, it's like, I look at it

01:11:56.440 like we're making almost like a nature documentary, like, like we're studying an ecosystem and

01:12:03.580 there's no real beginning and end to an ecosystem.

01:12:06.600 You, you know, you make a nature show and you see the hunt and you see the aftermath and

01:12:11.320 you see the relationships between all the different animals and character, you know, treat them

01:12:15.740 as characters.

01:12:16.240 That's a little bit what we're doing with the, some of these conspiracies or, or, or

01:12:21.000 political scandals or, or intelligence operations.

01:12:23.240 Like we're, we're showing our view, our experience of how they relate and they work, um, as, as,

01:12:33.440 as, you know, people who have done the research or whatever, done a lot of research.

01:12:37.980 Um, and so I think taking away from that feeling that you can get tangible answers, but you have

01:12:45.540 to be comfortable in a certain level of ambiguity.

01:12:49.240 You have to be comfortable floating just a little bit and never coming to grips with the feeling

01:12:56.420 of, okay, I can, I can walk away because I know at least this much information or I can

01:13:03.780 keep on living my life because I mean, for the more moral for me was you could do this forever,

01:13:10.160 but it's nice to have like other things going on in your life.

01:13:14.360 Like friendship, I think was a big part of it and being able to walk away and not have

01:13:19.100 to know every answer to every single thing.

01:13:21.720 And that's, that's actually important on a personal level.

01:13:25.800 You know, that makes sense.

01:13:27.460 That was a huge, it was a really blessing.

01:13:31.480 I thought a message in there.

01:13:34.480 Yeah.

01:13:34.720 I think it's tragic that, that, you know, Danny was doing this in 1990 and 1981 alone, largely.

01:13:41.800 And I think that is sad to think about somebody, you know, kind of traveling through this world

01:13:47.880 on their own.

01:13:49.600 And he had to bounce his ideas off of Robert Booth Nichols.

01:13:52.520 I had Zach.

01:13:53.920 He had a better partner.

01:13:55.260 Yeah.

01:13:56.040 Final thought from you.

01:13:57.720 Um, I, I intend to keep investigating.

01:14:00.780 Um, uh, this, this, well, this constellation, this ecosystem and, uh, you know, I'd love

01:14:09.100 to eventually make my way into, you know, the modern era.

01:14:12.640 I don't know.

01:14:13.200 Like I, cause I only know if, when I've like investigated something, what I think about it.

01:14:19.320 Um, so no, I don't know.

01:14:21.140 Uh, it's been amazing to have, uh, to have Zach help me out with this.

01:14:25.920 I mean, I would have been, I was pretty lost until, you know, he joined, he joined me.

01:14:29.560 I don't know.

01:14:30.220 It's great.

01:14:30.900 It's, it's too big of a thing to come up with like any sort of little final thought.

01:14:34.920 I think.

01:14:35.500 No, but I like the idea that, um, it's more satisfying to think of this as a study on the

01:14:41.820 ecosystem because something like this, you know, just doesn't appear and then go away

01:14:47.400 for whatever.

01:14:48.740 I mean, especially when nobody gets in trouble.

01:14:50.700 Yeah.

01:14:52.120 And people are clearly like making money.

01:14:54.700 I mean, it's worthwhile to people to be involved in it.

01:14:57.980 Guys.

01:14:58.300 Thank you.

01:14:58.820 Thank you so much.

01:14:59.420 Thank you for having me.

01:14:59.820 Appreciate it.

01:15:05.720 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend

01:15:11.360 so it can be discovered by other people.

01:15:12.980 Thank you.

01:15:13.020 Thank you.

The Glenn Beck Program - May 04, 2024

Ep 219 ｜ Did the Deep State Kill a Journalist？ Netflix 'Octopus Murders' Review ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast

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