0:00

This is a global player

0:02

original podcast. Warning! The

0:04

following podcast contains

0:06

strong language, bizarre

0:08

theories, unexplainable experiences,

0:11

and an impossible

0:13

scarf from another

0:15

universe. It may not be

0:17

suitable for younger weirdos. And

0:20

I distinctly saw a shape

0:22

of basically a teenage girl,

0:24

sort of standing in the

0:26

road. and then retreating backwards

0:28

melting into the verge at

0:30

the side of the road. Hello

0:52

and welcome to another episode

0:54

of We Can Be Weirdos.

0:57

My name is Dan Schreiber

0:59

and today's episode comes to

1:01

you just two days after

1:03

the assassination files have been

1:06

finally released. That's over 80,000

1:08

classified documents that relate to

1:10

the JFK assassination. They've finally

1:13

been made public, completely unredacted,

1:15

apparently. And I guess now

1:17

we sit and wait as

1:19

historians and conspiracy theorists and

1:22

people generally interested in that story,

1:24

sieve through the material and see

1:26

what they can find. I was

1:28

pretty excited, I've got to say,

1:30

when this news dropped. Not because

1:32

I'm an overly interested person in

1:34

the JFK assassination, but I'm curious

1:36

about what the answers within the

1:38

document are going to do to

1:41

the conspiracy theory community. Because this

1:43

is a fascinating one. It's probably

1:45

got nothing in there that's going

1:47

to solve it, but there's no question

1:49

that it will have stuff in there

1:51

that is going to spawn new theories

1:53

and build off this plus 50 year-long

1:55

mystery. And I'm keen to see

1:57

where it goes, because generally I'm not

1:59

overly... interested in conspiracy theories. Many listeners

2:02

of this show will know that. I

2:04

find them quite dark and I tend

2:06

to avoid them. But there is that

2:08

old school territory of conspiracy which I

2:11

definitely find fascinating and I love collecting

2:13

stories about them. And JFK sits absolutely

2:15

in that area. I mean this is

2:17

one of the conspiracy theories that almost

2:19

feels like it shouldn't be aligned with

2:22

the other conspiracy theories. So many people...

2:24

think that this must have been an

2:26

inside job. I read a stat somewhere

2:28

that at no point since Kennedy was

2:30

killed, have there been less than 60%

2:33

of Americans who believed that it was

2:35

an inside job, that Oswald was either

2:37

part of the CIA or there was

2:39

another gunman on the grassy knoll, or

2:41

that something was going on. And really

2:43

it was from the get-go that conspiracy

2:46

theories erupted off the back of this.

2:48

You know, one of the first people

2:50

to speculate that it was a hit

2:52

job by the government... Possibly even the

2:54

first person to get it down on

2:56

paper was Evelyn Lincoln She was his

2:59

personal assistant and it was while she

3:01

was on the plane on Air Force

3:03

One just a few hours later with

3:05

Jackie Kennedy and all the others that

3:08

she compiled a list of people that

3:10

she thought Might have committed the murder

3:12

and you can read the list. It's

3:14

in her handwriting. It says Lyndon as

3:17

in Lyndon B. Johnson, the person who

3:19

then became the next president of the

3:21

United States. It also says the KKK,

3:23

says Hoffa, it says Nixon, it says

3:26

CIA in Cuban fiasco, dictators, communists. No

3:28

relation to Abraham Lincoln, by

3:30

the way. Evelyn Lincoln, that's

3:32

just a coincidence that Kennedy's

3:34

personal assistant was Lincoln.

3:37

Which is a shame because it could

3:39

have been added to that brilliant list

3:41

of coincidences about Lincoln and Kennedy. I

3:43

don't know if you've read them. A

3:45

lot of them aren't true statements, but

3:48

let me bring them up here.

3:50

Lincoln and Kennedy each have seven

3:52

letters in their names. Both presidents

3:54

were elected to Congress in 46,

3:56

1846 for Kennedy, and then later

3:58

to presidency in 60. It's at

4:00

1860 for Lincoln, 1960 for Kennedy. Both

4:03

assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey

4:05

Oswald, were known by three names, composed

4:07

of 15 letters. Booth ran from a

4:10

theater and was caught in a warehouse.

4:12

Oswald ran from a warehouse and was

4:14

caught in a theater. Both of the

4:17

president's successors were Democrats named Johnson with

4:19

six-letter first names and born in 2008.

4:21

This is amazing. Both presidents were shot

4:23

in the head on a Friday in

4:26

the presence of their wives. Lincoln had

4:28

a secretary named Kennedy who told him

4:30

not to go to Ford's Theatre and

4:33

Kennedy had a secretary named Evelyn Lincoln

4:35

and she warned him not to go

4:37

to Dallas so she is on the

4:40

list. Okay, sorry. Should have read that

4:42

ahead of time. Still, glad I could

4:44

mention it just in case you weren't

4:47

aware of this amazing list. The things

4:49

that I said in that, according to

4:51

this list that are not true, is

4:53

that Booth did run for the theater,

4:56

but he did not get caught in

4:58

a warehouse, he got caught in a

5:00

barn, and that while Kennedy did have

5:03

a secretary called Lincoln, Lincoln did not

5:05

have a secretary called Kennedy, so it

5:07

doesn't belong on the list. My goodness,

5:10

what a roller coaster this is. Anyway,

5:12

man, there's been so many theories about

5:14

who's done it, and this is one

5:17

of those ones, it's kind of like

5:19

Jack the Ripper, the Ripper. about who

5:21

killed JFK or how he was killed.

5:23

I remember reading that even Malcolm Gladwell,

5:26

the Canadian journalist and the author of

5:28

tipping point and blink, he's in on

5:30

a theory as well. So the one

5:33

he subscribes to is that the third

5:35

bullet that hit JFK didn't come from

5:37

the book depository in Deely Plaza or

5:40

from the grassy knoll, but was in

5:42

fact from one of the secret service

5:44

agents who was protecting him who turned

5:47

around when he heard the first two

5:49

shots. panicked and then accidentally shot the

5:51

president in the head with his own

5:53

gun. It must be, you know, I

5:56

know it's dark. Kennedy did die, but

5:58

I do love hearing all the odd

6:00

theories. I've got a great book, by

6:03

the way, at home, which is called

6:05

The Seventy Greatest conspiracies of all time.

6:07

Got in my hand here. It's a

6:10

really brilliant collection. of conspiracy theories but

6:12

written with a great skeptical eye. There's

6:14

one theory in here by a guy

6:17

called James Shelby Downard and his personal

6:19

theory has it connected to the Freemasons

6:21

and he comes up with this idea

6:24

that the killing of JFK was a

6:26

sort of reenactment of the Macbeth ritual.

6:28

So Shakespeare's Macbeth, the killing of the

6:30

King drama. So what he says, this

6:33

is his theory, is that Dealey Plaza

6:35

where it happened. that was the site

6:37

of the first Masonic Temple in Dallas.

6:40

And it's a spot that's loaded with

6:42

Trinity symbolism. So Downard points out that

6:44

three is the most magical number of

6:47

all the magical numbers. So using that

6:49

First Masonic Temple and the number three

6:51

connection, he says that Dallas is located

6:54

just south of the 33 degree line

6:56

of latitude. And the 33rd degree is

6:58

the Freemason's highest rank. Kennedy's modicade was

7:00

heading towards the triple underpath. when he

7:03

was killed by three gunmen. Then he

7:05

says the Macbeth clan of Scotland had

7:07

many variations of the family name. One

7:10

was McBain or Baines. And who was

7:12

Kennedy's successor after the killing? Lyndon B.

7:14

Johnson, aka Lyndon Baines Johnson, who also

7:17

happens to be a Freemason. And one

7:19

of the people named by Evelyn Lincoln

7:21

as a potential killer. It's amazing. It's

7:24

a great theory. It goes on. It

7:26

goes way more out there. But yeah,

7:28

so what are the papers going to

7:30

do? Who knows? But this is something

7:33

that I put to my guest today.

7:35

Because, by way of a bit of

7:37

odd synchronicity, my guest today happens to

7:40

know quite a lot about the JFK

7:42

assassination, having co-written a book a few

7:44

years ago called Conspiracy, a history of

7:47

Bologs theories and how not to fall

7:49

for them. And that author, and my

7:51

guest, is Tom Phillips. Tom I met

7:54

many many years ago. He's a former

7:56

editorial director and senior writer for Buzzfeed

7:58

UK, but since leaving and since 2018

8:00

he's written brilliant books including Humans, a

8:03

brief history of how we fucked it

8:05

all up. Then he wrote Truth, a

8:07

history of total bullshit. And then in

8:10

2022, along with John Elage, he co-wrote

8:12

the conspiracy book that I just mentioned.

8:14

And then, as of this month, he

8:17

has just released his latest book, which

8:19

is called A Brief History of the

8:21

End of the Fucking World. It explores

8:24

the history of end-of-world prophecies and the

8:26

people who've made them. And that's what

8:28

we spend a lot of this episode

8:30

talking about. We talk about both the

8:33

conspiracy book. and his new end-of-world book,

8:35

which I'm really looking forward to, mainly

8:37

as it feels incredibly on point for

8:40

the world that we're currently living in

8:42

right now. And by the sounds of

8:44

it, it will hopefully leave you with

8:47

a bit of optimism, because so far

8:49

in the thousands of years of people

8:51

predicting the end of the world, no

8:54

one has yet got it right or

8:56

managed to push that big red button

8:58

to nuke us all to hell. So

9:00

a nice cheery read if anyone's looking

9:03

for it. We get to all the

9:05

stories in the stories in the episode.

9:07

It's a really great app. So let's

9:10

get into it. Here we go. Tom

9:12

Phillips and I will see you on

9:14

the other side. It's quite exciting getting

9:17

to talk to you today, actually, given

9:19

the events of yesterday. The... the final

9:21

big drop of the JFK files as

9:24

someone who's written extensively and talked about

9:26

it. Was it a big day or

9:28

is it just another little blip in

9:30

a ongoing mystery? For me, not a

9:33

big day at all because I don't

9:35

think, I'm going to wait for somebody

9:37

else who cares more about that to

9:40

plow through, was it eight? 100,000 pages

9:42

of document. I think they said 80,000

9:44

files, which may be even more. Yeah.

9:47

We don't know. It's just all so

9:49

confusing. My strong suspicion is that there's

9:51

nothing in there that's going to be

9:54

particularly revelatory. I mean, maybe. Who knows?

9:56

I'm excited to find out once somebody

9:58

else has. looked at them, but I'm

10:00

not going to do that myself. Yeah,

10:03

it just, it's like, I've heard you talk

10:05

about this territory before, and it's in your

10:07

brilliant conspiracy book as well. You, although you

10:09

kind of tiptoe over it in that book,

10:12

it's almost as if you're like, we don't

10:14

have time for this as so much more

10:16

to talk about. It's, I mean, we, me

10:18

and John, my co-author had a big discussion

10:21

of like, do we. Should we go big

10:23

on JFK or is it like being done?

10:25

I was just like, there's like, there's like,

10:27

literally thousands of books about this. There's no

10:30

way that we, and the other thing is

10:32

once you get into it, of course,

10:34

the people who really, really care about

10:36

JFK, they're going to be like, oh,

10:39

but you haven't considered the, you know,

10:41

the Burma hypothesis. There is just too

10:43

much law. there is too much now

10:45

yeah once you start to wrestle without

10:47

you just like I'm never coming back

10:50

from this yeah occasionally there's one

10:52

where I do something go okay

10:54

I'm back in there was one

10:56

I read recently where you know

10:58

this thing where they quite often

11:01

tie a conspiracy to a bigger

11:03

folk idea like they say it's

11:05

playing out a Greek idea or

11:07

like Macbeth is being played out

11:09

this one was tying it to

11:11

the Wizard of Oz world being

11:13

Oz and Jack Ruby and the

11:16

Ruby slippers and then building off

11:18

the back of that and those

11:20

those are when I find them

11:22

juicy I find that. So is

11:25

the suggestion there that the the

11:27

Wizard of Oz was predicting it

11:29

or the... Do you know what?

11:31

I tried looking into it and

11:33

it falls apart quite quickly so

11:35

I can't even remember. I'm shocked

11:37

to hear that, frankly. Or just

11:39

that there was some whoever in

11:42

the CIA planned it all was

11:44

just like really really into the

11:46

Wizard of Oz and they were

11:48

just like, I'm going to drop

11:50

some Easter eggs. Yeah. Why are

11:52

you asking Ruby to do the

11:54

killing? Just it will make sense.

11:56

It will make sense. That's one

11:58

for the fans. Yeah. about is, is

12:00

this the final bit of information that's

12:03

going to come out that we'll ever

12:05

have? Is this what they've all been

12:07

crying for, the conspiracy theorists? I think

12:09

the very obvious place, the conspiracy theory,

12:11

because no, there can never be an

12:13

answer to a conspiracy theory. That's not

12:15

how they work. I think the obvious

12:17

point to go is like, well, obviously

12:20

these are the files of the actual

12:22

investigations that they did. But of course,

12:24

they weren't going to even be allowed

12:26

to investigate. the real truth. So in

12:28

fact, actually, it's the things that aren't

12:30

in the files that show us where

12:32

the truth lies. My guess is that's

12:34

where that would go, because on the

12:37

assumption that there isn't, I mean, if

12:39

one of these documents says like, oh

12:41

yeah, it turns out it was the

12:43

CIA in league with Castro and the

12:45

mafia and the Illuminati and aliens, unless

12:47

there's something like that in there, then

12:49

it's going to be, well, why isn't

12:51

the evidence that we know must exist?

12:54

in there. And so that just makes

12:56

the conspiracy go a level further, which

12:58

is kind of how these things tend

13:00

to play out, I think. Yeah. Yeah,

13:02

it's always a new layer. And it's

13:04

such an industry now. Is it worth

13:06

losing it? And solving it? No. It's

13:08

such a lucrative thing for so many

13:10

lives. Imagine how many households will be

13:13

running into mortgage problems once there are

13:15

conspiracy books are no longer. Well, I

13:17

haven't done a thorough survey, but I

13:19

am fairly sure. that there are multiple

13:21

people out there who've written books called

13:23

something like JFK the final answer and

13:25

that's the first in a four-book series

13:27

you know it's you there's always got

13:30

to be something new that you find

13:32

it's got to be something new that

13:34

you can go on to because ultimately

13:36

these theories aren't really about trying to

13:38

figure out a rational explanation for a

13:40

mysterious event. They are an expression of

13:42

a deeper emotional need for the world

13:44

to be different, both not as we

13:47

see it and also to have a

13:49

narrative. that's more compelling than the messy

13:51

reality really. And so that emotional need

13:53

is never going to be fulfilled by

13:55

like, oh we've got a solution to

13:57

it. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And so

13:59

yeah, no, I think the thing about

14:01

these things is that they are, we

14:04

talk about people going down a rabbit

14:06

hole, but the nature of them is

14:08

the rabbit hole. Like they're not going

14:10

down the rabbit hole in search of

14:12

a thing they think is in the

14:14

rabbit hole. They're just going down the

14:16

rabbit hole. The rabbit hole is the

14:18

purpose. always peeling, yeah it's an onion

14:21

that there's always one more layer you

14:23

can peel away. Yeah exactly and it

14:25

is quite intoxicating when you go into

14:27

something like that because if you make

14:29

a new connection yourself as someone who's

14:31

a theorist that's so golden and unlike

14:33

most theories out there I guess scientific

14:35

discovery is collaborative but conspiracy theory is

14:37

a globally collaborative project where people are

14:40

going we've got this idea now let's

14:42

keep building and keep building and search

14:44

every photo meet every person And if

14:46

it wasn't so dangerous... If you just

14:48

stood back, it's quite beautiful. It's quite,

14:50

it's kind of like Terry Pratchit's disc

14:52

world. It's like, wow, you've created a

14:54

whole reality. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and

14:57

this is the thing, we said this

14:59

in the conspiracy book, is that there

15:01

has been a change, like back in

15:03

the day, conspiracy theories were often the

15:05

product of one mind. Thomas of Monmouth,

15:07

the monkey, started the blood label back

15:09

in the 12th century, who was very

15:11

much like this kind of... strange sort

15:14

of thing where you would have one

15:16

person would get an idea in their

15:18

head and they would beaver away for

15:20

20 years collecting the evidence in this

15:22

very obsessive way and then they'd write

15:24

a book about it and most of

15:26

the time nobody would read that book

15:28

and then occasionally people would read that

15:31

book and they'd go like oh this

15:33

works this is brilliant let's let's start

15:35

spreading this and it was a very

15:37

haphazard process there wasn't really a process

15:39

of testing and collaboration and collaboration in

15:41

quite that way. and much more so

15:43

once you're in the internet age, is

15:45

that exactly what you said is this

15:47

sort of collaborative process. It's like Dungeons

15:50

and Dragon style sort of stuff. Yes,

15:52

yeah. Is people telling a story together?

15:54

And you basically, every element of it

15:56

kind of gets tested. It's thrown out

15:58

to the community. And like, does it

16:00

get upvoted or downvoted? Does it get

16:02

in? Which results in these really fascinating

16:04

narratives that are a lot less coherent

16:07

a lot of the time? than the

16:09

kind of thing that you'd see from

16:11

the old-style conspiracy theorists, where like, at

16:13

the very least, it's got to make

16:15

sense in their head. That may not

16:17

always mean that it makes sense to

16:19

anybody else, but it has to have

16:21

a sort of an internal consistency. Whereas

16:24

when you get this sort of crowd-sourced,

16:26

massively multiplayer conspiracy theories, what you get

16:28

from that is this sort of thing

16:30

where it's completely internally contradictory a lot

16:32

of the time, but each element of

16:34

it. has one favor with the crowd

16:36

and is compelling in its own way,

16:38

they have that connection, that sort of

16:41

quality of random connections that don't make

16:43

sense, but they trigger something in our

16:45

brain. Yeah. Were you ever sucked into

16:47

that when you were younger? Like I

16:49

do remember myself being, you know, a

16:51

15-year-old watching a Kennedy assassination video or,

16:53

you know, when 9-11 happened and all

16:55

that stuff going around? Kennedy, yes. Absolutely.

16:58

It really was in fact only when

17:00

I was researching the book that I

17:02

was I had grown more skeptical over

17:04

time But it was only when researching

17:06

the book that I sort of actually

17:08

dived into it really properly and was

17:10

like oh None of this holds up.

17:12

And the weird thing about that is

17:14

is I wouldn't for a second discount

17:17

the possibility that there was a conspiracy

17:19

of some kind behind the Kennedy assassination.

17:21

Like that doesn't inherently seem implausible. The

17:23

thing that I hadn't realized that much

17:25

was all of the evidence for why

17:27

it must be a conspiracy theory, all

17:29

of the supposed holes in the official

17:31

narrative, none of those... stack up at

17:34

all. They're completely, they're either completely fictional

17:36

or they're based on a basic misunderstanding

17:38

of something. And so yeah, I'd always

17:40

assume that there was something else going

17:42

on there beyond, you know, the official

17:44

narrative. I actually think it was probably

17:46

around 9-11 is sort of when I

17:48

can trace to the point of going,

17:51

actually, no wait a second, you've got

17:53

to, you've got to step back a

17:55

little bit. from that sort of mode

17:57

of thinking because in fact it can

17:59

this is not the right way to

18:01

look at the world. Yeah well also

18:03

I don't know what age difference is

18:05

between us I'm 40 and I remember

18:08

if I had to get my conspiracy

18:10

stuff it was at VHS it was

18:12

at a video shop I didn't have

18:14

the internet in that initial period to

18:16

sort of see anything even be debunked

18:18

it was just what you were told

18:20

on that video. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm

18:22

just a couple of years older, but

18:25

I actually, I, having, you know, listened

18:27

to several episodes of this podcast, I

18:29

have to say that my, my sort

18:31

of ground zero for all this stuff

18:33

is not unusual for guests on this

18:35

podcast. It is the usborn world of

18:37

the unknown books. Yeah. and the writings

18:39

of Colin Wilson. Beautiful. Absolutely, straight down

18:41

the line, exactly where everybody else came

18:44

into this sort of stuff. Yeah, I

18:46

had all of it, I loved it.

18:48

Yeah. Again, eventually, back in and go

18:50

like, right, but it wasn't true, was

18:52

it? Yeah. I actually think my entry

18:54

point was, and I've built a theory

18:56

of this, that I haven't really explored

18:58

too much, but I might as well

19:01

err it now, give it its debut,

19:03

but Bill Hicks. with his whole routine

19:05

about Kennedy and how it was it

19:07

couldn't have been possible. That was a

19:09

big part of his stand-up and for

19:11

a lot of teenagers my age that

19:13

was a huge comedian at the time

19:15

Bill Hicks and when I looked into

19:18

it so when the investigation was going

19:20

on one of the biggest stand-ups in

19:22

America and political commentators who was basically

19:24

the only other major stand-up next to

19:26

Woody Allen and Richard Pryor in that

19:28

period was guy called Mort Sal. And

19:30

Mort Sal effectively gave up stand-up and

19:32

moved into Garrison's office so that he

19:35

could help him with the investigation, right?

19:37

That's amazing. Yeah, so he was lending

19:39

his voice to it. Then fast forward

19:41

to, we've got the video that no

19:43

one has really nationally seen. It's only

19:45

been shown a couple of times on

19:47

local TV. And then suddenly comes along

19:49

Dick Gregory, who's also one of the

19:52

big comedians of the time/political commentator. And

19:54

he's the one who brings it to,

19:56

is it, Gerald? What's his name? I

19:58

can't remember the TV show it was

20:00

on. Yeah, was it Geraldo? Geraldo yes

20:02

yeah yeah yeah yeah Geraldo memorable yeah

20:04

so he's he brings he's sitting on

20:06

the sofa along with a noted conspiracy

20:08

theorist writer and it is shown to

20:11

the nation for the first time ever

20:13

and then effectively globally that's another big

20:15

comedian then you've got this is amazing

20:17

Richard Belzer do you remember him he

20:19

was in yeah yeah Massive Conspiracy Theorists

20:21

wrote multiple books on Diana's death on...

20:23

This is a JFK book, basically, UFO's

20:25

JFK and Elvis. The big three. The

20:28

big three. And he's got, here's one

20:30

of his reasons it could have been

20:32

Oswald who was did it. I think

20:34

he liked the idea of the multi

20:36

Oswald theory, meaning that there were lots

20:38

of different people claiming to be Oswald,

20:40

but he says when Oswald joined the

20:42

Marines he was 5 foot 11 and

20:45

when he was buried he was 5

20:47

foot 9. So what's going on there?

20:49

That's his theory. And then of course

20:51

you land now... There's no one has

20:53

ever lied about their height on joining

20:55

the military. That's famously a thing that

20:57

never happens. And then we land on

20:59

Rogan, you know. And so it's, there's

21:02

a trajectory of comedians being a mainstream

21:04

peddler of the idea that it's conspiracy.

21:06

I love that theory. I love it

21:08

for two reasons. One because the structure

21:10

of a joke actually does sort of

21:12

match up quite well is you are...

21:14

a connection and the whole point is

21:16

it's an unexpected connection that's why the

21:18

audience laughs. But also the thing that

21:21

we've seen with social media is very

21:23

very few people actually before social media

21:25

had the experience of saying something that

21:27

came from their mind and just having

21:29

loads of people applaud it. And as

21:31

we've seen that feedback mechanism is profoundly

21:33

damaging to the human brain. And I

21:35

do think that, you know, like, really

21:38

weren't many people of them stand-up comedians

21:40

who just would have the experience of

21:42

going, like, here's a thought I had,

21:44

and then having people going, like, yes,

21:46

we love it, brilliant. And yes, so

21:48

yes, all comedians are inherently vulnerable. to

21:50

madness. It feels like a yeah, definitely.

21:52

So that so we're only touching on

21:55

one of your books here. It's just

21:57

because the the JFK papers came out.

21:59

Let's go for the latest one because

22:01

it's it's a brilliant idea. The history

22:03

of the prediction of the end of

22:05

the world, the apocalypse has constantly been

22:07

in our face no matter how far

22:09

back you go. Someone has said we've

22:12

got a year left or it's coming

22:14

up? Well I mean yeah yeah that

22:16

is part of the problem is going

22:18

like where did this idea come from

22:20

is because it just sort of predates

22:22

certainly writing that's not writing but writing

22:24

that survived in any you know large

22:26

amount but no it is the thing

22:29

that I actually find really fascinating about

22:31

it is that it was an idea

22:33

that someone came up with. and it

22:35

didn't really exist in the world before

22:37

that. You know, it is not one

22:39

of those universal things. There's no concept

22:41

of the Apocalypse in Greek or Roman

22:43

mythology. Most African belief systems don't really

22:45

have a concept of the Apocalypse. There

22:48

are lots of cultures around the world

22:50

who've gone quite happily without ever considering

22:52

the possibility that the world is going

22:54

to end in any sort of meaningful

22:56

way. And it is not a... fully

22:58

back to the dawn of humanity kind

23:00

of thing. You know, it's somewhere in

23:02

the region of, you know, 3,000 to

23:05

2,000 somewhere. in that zone, the idea

23:07

of the apocalypse kind of emerges into

23:09

the world. And then it spreads because

23:11

it's a really good story that really,

23:13

really works for us. And that to

23:15

me is the absolutely fascinating thing. And

23:17

why is it so sticky is the

23:19

thing that I really just wanted to

23:22

explore. Because, you know, as I sort

23:24

of say in the book, like if

23:26

you're writing, you know... three thousand years

23:28

of history of the idea that history

23:30

is about to end, then something has

23:32

gone wrong somewhere. Like I shouldn't be

23:34

able to write that book because somebody

23:36

should at some point have gone, yeah,

23:39

do you know what, but all those

23:41

other guys said that the world was

23:43

going to end immediately and that didn't

23:45

really can out. So maybe maybe tone

23:47

it down a little bit. And as

23:49

I say, like, the theme that sort

23:51

of links all that books together is

23:53

basically people being wrong. Because basically people

23:56

being wrong. this felt like it was

23:58

yet another example of like oh that's

24:00

a way that people have been consistently

24:02

wrong in a really specific way and

24:04

and in an all in way as

24:06

well it's a there's no hiding there's

24:08

no margin of error where you can

24:10

just say oh it sort of did

24:12

happen it's just well you say that

24:15

oh yeah because actually it did happen

24:17

is one of the most common rationalizations

24:19

for why your prediction Right. Absolutely. There's

24:21

a wonderful example. There was this group,

24:23

cult, cult-ish, called the Institute of Applied

24:25

Metaphysics, which was in Canada, I think,

24:27

in the sort of the 1970s. And

24:29

they'd sort of just been a vaguely

24:32

new age, vaguely spiritual sort of group,

24:34

when they took a bit of a

24:36

turn when their leader is this woman

24:38

called Winifred. Barton? She took a bit

24:40

of a turn when she left her

24:42

husband for one of her students who

24:44

was several decades younger than her and

24:46

it kind of turned from being a

24:49

just a general new-aged thing into being

24:51

sort of a much more hierarchical organization

24:53

because she very quickly proclaimed that her

24:55

and her new boyfriend were the king

24:57

and queen of earth. Right. Started taking

24:59

a much more sort of authoritarian approach

25:01

to the group in particularly focusing on

25:03

romantically pairing up older women with younger

25:06

men and then at some point she

25:08

just goes like oh and the apocalypse

25:10

is happening in a few months time.

25:12

She's quite vague about how it was

25:14

going to happen, but there were going

25:16

to be aliens involved somehow. Anyway, they

25:18

all go off. Basically, they had like

25:20

sort of three compounds, sort of in

25:23

rural areas. They all go off for

25:25

this event. And by all accounts, it

25:27

was just quite a chill weekend. Like

25:29

they were playing music, they were cooking

25:31

food, they were dancing, it was all

25:33

good fun. She was sort of ringing

25:35

around the different compounds. She had the

25:37

phrase... Keep Calm and Keep Up the

25:39

Vibe. That's a good line. I've now

25:42

found myself saying keep calm, keep up

25:44

the vibe quite a lot. I have

25:46

to be on. Anyway, cut to the

25:48

chase. Obviously, the appointed moment arrives. Nothing

25:50

happens. No aliens arrive. The world is

25:52

not destroyed. All that. But they convince

25:54

themselves that it did. And it all

25:56

starts where basically someone says, did you

25:59

feel it? And because of the sort

26:01

of the, the, the, no one wants

26:03

to be the one going like, no,

26:05

I didn't feel anything. They go, yeah,

26:07

yeah, I did feel it. There's interviews

26:09

with people who were part of it.

26:11

After was going like, I didn't feel

26:13

anything. But someone sort of came to

26:16

me and was like, I wasn't sure

26:18

if I felt it. And I go,

26:20

oh, it was very subtle. It was

26:22

very subtle. and it happened a level

26:24

of, you know, cosmic vibrations. And that

26:26

is one of the most common ways

26:28

of going. Why did your prediction not

26:30

come true? Yeah. I do remember there

26:33

was the whole thing with the Mayan

26:35

prophecy 2012 that as it got closer.

26:37

it started morphing from an all-out planetary

26:39

devastation to it's the end of an

26:41

epoch and it is an awakening of

26:43

a new spiritual era and and that

26:45

that's being an end of the world

26:47

so with the language being changed. Which

26:49

in fact is weirdly actually takes it

26:52

closer to actual Maya beliefs than the

26:54

thing about it because yeah lots of

26:56

indigenous American belief systems have the idea

26:58

that there have been multiple worlds before

27:00

this and that this world will end

27:02

and we will but it's not a

27:04

terminal apocalypse apocalypse apocalypse it's just we

27:06

will move into the next world. But

27:09

yeah, no, it is a really, really,

27:11

it's an interesting thing. Of course, the

27:13

other thing is that there are lots

27:15

of other rationalizations that people come up

27:17

with. But weirdly, this is actually one

27:19

of the more convincing ones because it

27:21

fits. Whereas there was a group called

27:23

the BUPC set, which I believe stands

27:26

for the highs under the provisions of

27:28

the covenant. They possibly the most dedicated

27:30

apocalypse predictors of recent times. They were

27:32

run by two guys called Neelen Leyland

27:34

and they predicted the apocalypse 20 times

27:36

in the space of less than two

27:38

decades. It's more than one apocalypse a

27:40

year. It's quite incredible. And the rationalizations,

27:43

they come up with absolutely amazing. They

27:45

predicted one of them was, they predicted

27:47

multiple times that New York City was

27:49

going to be struck by nuclear weapons.

27:51

One of those, they went, the prediction

27:53

was right. on the grounds that there

27:55

was a gas pipe explosion in New

27:57

Jersey the day after. I was like,

28:00

okay, so other than the location, the

28:02

time, and the nature of the event,

28:04

yes, your prediction was absolutely spot on

28:06

there. But it's absolutely fascinating the way

28:08

that people will sort of try to

28:10

rationalize how this works. Well, it's also

28:12

interesting when it does work in a

28:14

hysteria sense where people do buy into

28:16

a certain idea. I remember

28:19

I'd read about

28:21

this thing, which was

28:23

Halley's Comet Pills,

28:25

which were pills that

28:27

people were being

28:29

given in 1910, sold

28:31

on the streets

28:33

as if they were

28:36

real medicine, because

28:38

a story had been

28:40

reported that as

28:42

Halley's Comet was going

28:44

to be passing

28:46

Earth, we were going

28:48

to be going

28:50

through its extended tail,

28:53

which had all

28:55

of these toxic chemicals

28:57

in it. And

28:59

so as Earth passed

29:01

through it, we

29:03

were basically going to

29:05

be poisoned to

29:07

death. And there's all

29:10

these reports of

29:12

churches in St. Peter's

29:14

Square opening up

29:16

their doors so that

29:18

everyone could come

29:20

in and pray as

29:22

the ending was

29:24

arriving, whereas other people

29:27

were blocking up

29:29

their houses, so even

29:31

putting cloths through

29:33

the keyholes in their

29:35

doors in order

29:37

to stop the gases

29:39

from coming in.

29:41

And that happened. That

29:43

was a real

29:46

thing. Yeah, no, absolutely.

29:48

And it's one

29:50

of the, so I

29:52

did write a

29:54

little bit about the

29:56

1910 Halley's Comet

29:58

Panic, and I discovered

30:00

that a thing

30:03

I'd written in a

30:05

previous book was

30:07

completely wrong. Oh, really?

30:09

Yeah, because it

30:11

was all of the

30:13

stuff about the

30:15

idea that as we

30:17

passed through the

30:20

comet's tail, it would

30:22

poison us. All

30:24

came from a French

30:26

astronomer called Camille

30:28

Flamarion, and I'd written

30:30

in a previous

30:32

book about this guy,

30:34

a big, fancy

30:37

astronomer who went like,

30:39

oh, he's going

30:41

to happen and he

30:43

was completely wrong.

30:45

It turns out he

30:47

never said that.

30:49

It was just the

30:51

press, tribute to

30:54

him, and I was

30:56

just like, oh,

30:58

bugger. Didn't he come

31:00

out as well

31:02

and say, I didn't

31:04

ever say that?

31:06

Yeah, he was desperately

31:08

spending months trying

31:10

to go like, I

31:13

literally am saying

31:15

the opposite. The thing

31:17

you're quoting is

31:19

me laying out the

31:21

scenario. I'm debunking.

31:23

Please stop. But this

31:25

is so interesting

31:27

because this is this

31:30

is very specifically

31:32

something that you and

31:34

I do, which

31:36

is we write and

31:38

research about people

31:40

whose stories change multiple

31:42

times with the

31:44

tellings of it. The

31:47

truth gets so clouded

31:49

in people chasing, as

31:52

you say, the more

31:54

fantastical side of the

31:56

story. And you do

31:58

find yourself when you're

32:00

writing a book, sitting

32:02

and staring at the

32:04

screen going, what do

32:06

I do here? What

32:08

is. the right one. It's tough. How

32:10

do you how do you tackle that? I

32:12

mean, honestly, at some point I just sort

32:14

of give up and go like, look, there's

32:16

varying accounts of this. You know, there's one

32:18

of my favorite examples is the over the

32:20

large period of time in which I've had

32:22

course to write at some point about the

32:24

Battle of Karen Sabis, the one where the

32:26

Austrian army fighting the Ottomans and they got

32:28

drunk and friendly fired themselves and

32:30

they lost the battle that they were

32:32

the only ones who turned up to

32:35

because the Ottens were two days away. That

32:37

is an example of a thing during

32:39

the decade plus that I've had caused

32:41

a occasion to go like, oh there

32:43

was this funny, you know, this funny

32:46

thing. It's gone from amusing anecdote to

32:48

urban legend and back to, oh no, it

32:50

did happen. in terms of what the consensus

32:52

is, certainly in the English language, you

32:54

know, sources that I was able to

32:56

look at. And it literally went from,

32:58

yeah, this is a thing that's well

33:00

attested, we don't have many details, but

33:03

it happened, to actually the sources that

33:05

are given for where this information comes

33:07

from never existed or they never wrote

33:09

about it at the time, there was

33:11

nothing contemporary about it, this is actually

33:13

a myth that was made up to

33:15

like, you know, have some point about

33:17

military discipline or something like that. back

33:19

through to like, oh no, no, no,

33:21

actually, if you look at the, you

33:23

know, if you look at the Germans,

33:25

the contemporary German sources, it did happen,

33:28

although it may not have been anywhere

33:30

near as dramatic as these, you know, like

33:32

lots of accounts are like, oh yeah, 10,000

33:34

people died. No, they lost some cook, well,

33:36

right. And a bunch of people ran into

33:39

the forest. So it's, it's, I find it

33:41

absolutely fascinating the way that the very sort

33:43

of idea of like did this thing happen

33:45

how did it happen what is the correct

33:48

story it's very very difficult to find I

33:50

think at some point you have to just

33:52

go like it is okay to be uncertain

33:54

what's it where does the book take us

33:56

up to is it do we have many

33:59

outside of ask towards us? Do we

34:01

have many looming end-of-world prophecies on the

34:03

way? Well, the one that's particularly topical

34:05

right now, and which I've been genuinely,

34:07

like every time I sort of do

34:10

any view about this, I'm just constantly

34:12

checking my phone going, how's the Pope

34:14

doing? Because this, this, this, this, this

34:16

one is, again, is, complete nonsense. But

34:18

this, this is, this old document called

34:21

the prophecy of the Popes. which is

34:23

attributed to Maliki who is an Irish

34:25

saint in sort of I think the

34:27

12th century or something like that. He

34:29

didn't write it. Anyway, the reason for

34:32

it is that it is a list

34:34

of all the popes from the first

34:36

Pope up to the point where it

34:38

was published and then 112 future popes

34:40

who will reign after that time up

34:42

to the end of the world. But

34:45

the point that the reason it's relevant

34:47

right now is that Pope Francis is

34:49

Pope 112. future pipe 112. That's a

34:51

great theory. Like I can see the

34:53

attraction that people have towards that outside

34:56

of thinking it's real more people like

34:58

you and I going wow that's yeah

35:00

that's got good quality madness to it

35:02

which is wonderful. Well I think the

35:04

thing I like about it is that

35:07

it makes no claims whatsoever about how

35:09

the end will happen or anything like

35:11

that and it's in fact it's only

35:13

an apocalyptic prophecy sort of by the

35:15

side route like the person who wrote

35:18

it wasn't trying to prophecy at the

35:20

end of the world, they were trying

35:22

to prophecy popes. And so I think

35:24

there's, again, that sort of thing that

35:26

also really fits with conspiracy theories is

35:29

that there's a sense of discovery. You're

35:31

working it out. I

35:54

want to bring you on to the

35:56

Batchett list now. You've ticked officially with

35:58

some qualification. later on, two things. If

36:01

you had to replace the word believe

36:03

in the question I asked, so I

36:05

asked do you believe in and then

36:07

ask you to tick, what would you

36:10

put in place a belief for your

36:12

ticks? I don't think it's an easy

36:14

phrase for it, but I'm interested in

36:17

this in the sense that it suggests

36:19

that there is probably something that we

36:21

don't know. I don't believe in the

36:24

specifics of the way that believers in

36:26

these things believe in them. Yeah, I

36:28

don't think. But they are things that

36:31

probably point towards our understanding of things

36:33

being a bit incomplete. And to be

36:35

perfectly honest, there are probably there are

36:38

loads of loads of other ones on

36:40

the list as well, which also sort

36:42

of touch on that sort of territory

36:45

of like, I don't think the I

36:47

don't think the explanation that we've come

36:49

up with for these things is Israel,

36:52

but I do think there might be

36:54

something interesting going on there. What are

36:56

your general thoughts on that? I mean,

36:59

I've, I've, that's, that was one that

37:01

I really, my finger was hovering over.

37:03

Because no, I do not believe that

37:06

there are the spirits of the dead

37:08

linger on in a, you know, that

37:10

sort of thing. But there is just,

37:13

the concept of ghosts is so powerful

37:15

and so meaningful. And if you've ever

37:17

been in a place that just feels

37:20

very, very, very haunted, there's a thing

37:22

happening, right? Like I grew up in.

37:24

I grew up in. rural Cornwall. And

37:27

a lot of that landscape, you can't

37:29

walk through that landscape at night and

37:31

go, there's no ghosts. There's definitely ghosts.

37:34

I just don't think, you know, like,

37:36

these ghosts everywhere, it's riddled with them.

37:38

But, uh, yes, ghosts are real. They're

37:41

not the thing we think they are.

37:43

But, you know, there is a concept

37:45

of ghost that is meaningful and... in

37:47

common across almost all cultures, in slightly

37:50

different ways, but you know, there is

37:52

something there that sort of really is

37:54

very deep with inside of us. What

37:57

was it like growing up in Cornwall

37:59

with this kind of stuff? Did your

38:01

school and your friends, was there local

38:04

legends that you all talked about? Were

38:06

there cryptids and ghost encounters and so

38:08

on? Oh, I mean, yeah, Cornwall is,

38:11

if you like Dartmoor, in Devon, really

38:13

stole the beast thunder from Bobman, you

38:15

know? Just, Dartmoor's a bigger and more

38:18

impressive, more than Bobmin moor, and it's

38:20

got a more famous beast. But yeah,

38:22

no, no, no, there's always, you know,

38:25

and there's obviously there's loads of, you

38:27

know, local legends of, you know, Piskies

38:29

and Knockers and I was on, some

38:32

friends were visiting Cornwall last summer and

38:34

we were up in near Zena where

38:36

there's a famous mermaid story about a

38:39

young man who, who sort of, you

38:41

know, hears her singing and, you know,

38:43

he walks into the sea to join

38:46

her. I known that there was the

38:48

tale of the mermaid of the mermaid

38:50

of Zena. And it's very famous, and

38:53

like, you know, there's mermaids carved into

38:55

the end of the church, pews and

38:57

all that sort of stuff, and just

39:00

looking around the church, and actually reading

39:02

the story, it's going, oh, no, this

39:04

is actually just a very sad story,

39:07

isn't it? This is, he just took

39:09

his own life. Yeah, and he goes,

39:11

like, oh, it is probably one of

39:14

the many, many stories that are basically,

39:16

you know, taboo. Yes, sort of it

39:18

was out of their hands. They were

39:21

lured in by the siren call. Yeah,

39:23

exactly. Yeah. And so, but yeah, no,

39:25

no, there's a lot of that. And

39:27

as I say, the connection with sort

39:30

of the landscape, just it feels very,

39:32

like it is a place where you

39:34

can't really go like, oh no, nothing's

39:37

going on there. Like it just has

39:39

a very, very strong sense of, ooh.

39:41

for people who have an interest in

39:44

the esoteric and the spooky. And what's

39:46

that then? Why? Is it just because

39:48

it's a nice bit more natural place

39:51

or do events happen there more? I

39:53

mean, I think that there were probably

39:55

more, there probably were more events in

39:58

the past. I think most of them

40:00

have probably got replaced by sort of

40:02

pop-up music festivals. But like, they definitely,

40:05

they definitely always was, you know, in

40:07

much the same way there are, sort

40:09

of like little hotspots. around the country,

40:12

like Glastonbury is for, you know, obviously,

40:14

and you know, there are places that

40:16

sort of do attract people who just

40:19

have generalized sort of new agey beliefs

40:21

or outsider beliefs. And so have you,

40:23

even though you don't necessarily believe in

40:26

ghosts, have you ever had an experience

40:28

that you sort of thought, what the

40:30

hell's going on there? I mean, yeah,

40:33

I have seen a ghost. I obviously

40:35

don't think it was hmm. But it,

40:37

it, it, it, it, it, it, it,

40:40

and again. Much like, you know, you

40:42

do have to go for the explanations

40:44

of these things. Walking back from the

40:47

village at night, what kind of establishment

40:49

had I been at in the village?

40:51

Who can possibly say, was this in

40:54

any way impairing my perception of the

40:56

world? Not a chance, no. But yeah,

40:58

walking back and it's, you know, it

41:01

gets, out in the countryside, you know,

41:03

you get proper dark, you know, the

41:05

point at which... It's only shapes. There's

41:07

no details. There's nothing like that. It's

41:10

all you can make. And that's on,

41:12

you know, that's just, if there is

41:14

any starlight or something like that. And

41:17

I distinctly saw a shape of basically

41:19

a teenage girl, sort of standing in

41:21

the road, and then sort of retreating

41:24

backwards, melting into the verge of the

41:26

verge at the side of the road.

41:28

Now, the thing is, I just described

41:31

her as a teenage girl. She was

41:33

a shape. And that is the interesting,

41:35

that's the point at which I sort

41:38

of later kind of looking like I'm

41:40

going like, what about that made me

41:42

think teenage girl? It was a shadow

41:45

against other shadows, you know, it was,

41:47

my brain was filling in detail from

41:49

something that was almost certainly just a

41:52

pure optical illusion was just, my brain

41:54

was being confused by sort of. maybe

41:56

there was a slight reflection of some

41:59

starlight on the road or maybe there's

42:01

a car light in the distance that

42:03

maybe made some shadows change in some

42:06

kind of like I've no idea what

42:08

it was. But Tom what's weird about

42:10

it though and I wonder if this

42:13

is the same for anyone else who's

42:15

listening to this and just heard you

42:17

say that when you said that I

42:20

didn't go, well, how the hell with

42:22

you, you know, what a teenage shadow

42:24

would look like, girl's shadow? I just

42:27

absolutely do know what that would look

42:29

like. I could tell you that

42:31

absolutely I would be able to describe

42:33

if I saw something I would go,

42:36

yeah, it was like a teenage girl.

42:38

Yeah. You know, teenage girl in a

42:40

sort of sort of like the archaic

42:42

dress was how my mind was, you

42:44

know, sort of interpreting whatever it was

42:46

that it was seeing or not seeing

42:48

or not seeing. that maybe there was

42:50

just a teenage girl who was just

42:53

like going, oh, why is there a

42:55

weird man walking down what I thought

42:57

was a deserted road? I'm going to

42:59

get into the hedge. I can't entirely

43:01

rule that out. And so, you know, but I'd

43:03

say like my brain went ghost and

43:05

it was to me. The other weird

43:08

thing is the way that she sort

43:10

of melted back into the hedge in

43:12

retrospect. This was before I'd ever seen

43:15

the Homer Simpson going backwards into the

43:17

hedge gift. Yeah. But it was

43:19

basically that. That's so funny. And

43:21

so that was, how old were

43:24

you then? How old are you

43:26

then? That would have been sort

43:28

of late teenagers years, I think.

43:31

My memory is telling me

43:33

that I was back from

43:35

university. Okay. So it would have

43:37

been somewhere in the 18 to 21

43:40

sort of zone, I think, if that

43:42

memory is right, but who knows? Yeah.

43:44

The next one that you haven't ticked,

43:47

but is worth mentioning because it's a

43:49

large part of one of your books,

43:51

is UFO encounters. It's a lot of

43:53

conspiracy around that stuff. Yes. Are you

43:56

on the side that there must be

43:58

life in the universe? or even

44:00

do you question that? Not that

44:02

there must be, but I would

44:05

be very, very surprised if there

44:07

isn't life in the universe. Now,

44:10

intelligent life? Yeah, I don't know.

44:12

But I would be surprised if

44:14

there wasn't life elsewhere in the

44:17

universe. Very, very surprised. That's not

44:19

the same as aliens have been

44:21

probing farmers in Montana for decades.

44:24

and then stopping as soon as

44:26

you be all have smartphones. Yeah,

44:29

well, how did you find that

44:31

side of the research? Because in

44:33

my experience, it gets quite

44:35

exhausting when you're looking into

44:38

alien culture and belief of

44:40

the conspiracies of reptility, like

44:42

where it's got to. X

44:44

files days, wonderful. David Ike

44:46

days. Just very dark. Yeah, absolutely.

44:49

And you know, a lot of

44:51

the plot of the ex files

44:53

was taken from, I forgot his

44:55

name, big conspiracy theorist, Milton

44:57

William Cooper. Okay. Tell me about him.

45:00

So he was, as so many of

45:02

them are, he was a former military

45:04

guy. His main book was Behold a

45:07

Pale Horse. And it's one of the

45:09

sort of the sort of breakthrough cross-cultural.

45:11

conspiracy theory works in that

45:13

like it takes a lot

45:15

of stuff that had been

45:17

sort of in the you know had

45:19

been sort of sitting in silos

45:21

so it melded a load of

45:23

UFO stuff with a lot of

45:25

stuff that's sort of from the

45:27

the radical right you know sort

45:30

of one world government you know New

45:32

World Order type stuff, a lot of stuff

45:34

from sort of, you know, the religious right

45:36

as well, which was also played, and he

45:38

kind of put it all together into, again,

45:41

a thing that doesn't really make much sense,

45:43

but it kind of had this

45:45

cross-cultural appeal for whatever reason. It

45:47

really broke through a lot of stuff

45:49

from being the preserve of these sort

45:52

of small weird subcultures into going to

45:54

places that it never was, like it

45:56

was supposedly, it was really big in

45:59

prisons, apparently. One of those, there

46:01

are I think many books that

46:03

claim this title, but it was

46:05

supposedly for a long time was

46:07

sort of the most shoplifted book

46:09

that Barnes and Noble had. You

46:11

know, and so it was kind

46:13

of sort of crossing over and

46:15

sort of cross-fertilizing a load of

46:17

ideas that was sort of some

46:19

of which had kind of come

46:21

from sort of come from sort

46:23

of, the counter-culture and sort of

46:25

melding them all together and... Getting

46:27

an audience that went way way

46:29

way beyond that and loads of

46:31

the stuff in it basically the

46:33

Xbox went we'll have that that

46:35

is our plot including I think

46:37

one of the key points is

46:39

that the re, that to take

46:41

us back, the really hope that

46:43

I'm not getting this wrong, the

46:45

reason Kennedy was assassinated is that

46:47

he was about to blow the

46:50

whistle on the aliens. On Roswell

46:52

or just aliens? On the Roswell,

46:54

but the the Roswell, but the

46:56

bigger, broader, we've known about aliens

46:58

for a long time, but we're

47:00

covering up conspiracy. And that I

47:02

believe is is the ex-fels explanation

47:04

for what happened to JFK. I

47:06

believe in fact it was the

47:08

cigarette smoking man. who fired the

47:10

fatal bullet. I find it so

47:12

weird when you've just reminded me

47:14

mentioning Roswell just then that when

47:16

you spot something that should be

47:18

a conspiracy theory, but isn't, I'm

47:20

sort of going, why isn't that

47:22

happened? And so one thing I

47:24

noticed was the aliens of Roswell

47:26

didn't crash in Roswell. They crashed

47:28

closer to a neighbouring spot, which

47:30

was called Corona. And I just

47:32

thought with the pandemic. Why has,

47:34

why? Don't pull your finger out

47:36

guys? You got there first? That's...

47:38

No, no, because I do in

47:40

fact remember having that thought and

47:42

was going like, oh, yeah, I

47:44

didn't. No, I'm not going to

47:46

do anything with that. But yes,

47:48

yes, exactly. Yeah, it was, it

47:50

was the, the debris was found

47:52

close to, closer to Corona. I

47:54

do, yeah, there are occasions when

47:57

I'm trying to think more examples

47:59

now where you just go like,

48:01

why haven't you connected the dots

48:03

on this? the dots publicly in

48:05

a serious way. We would be

48:07

on the circuit. At some point,

48:09

I mean, there's always the temptation.

48:11

You just go like, do you

48:13

know what? I reckon, I reckon

48:15

I could do this. So yeah,

48:17

all right, let's jump into war

48:19

on your bad shit list. So,

48:21

well, the sense of being stared

48:23

at, that is a tick, but

48:25

a... Yeah, like that one, this

48:27

kind of sort of ties back

48:29

to what I was saying with

48:31

ghosts. is, but sort of from

48:33

the other perspective, is I actually

48:35

do think that our senses are

48:37

probably a lot better than we

48:39

realize. Or certainly that our brain

48:41

is a lot better quietly in

48:43

the background processing, very, very weak

48:45

signals from our senses. And like

48:47

some of this is just like,

48:49

again, the fact business and you

48:51

just like occasionally get surprised by

48:53

things just because you haven't looked

48:55

into it. or had calls to

48:57

check in on something recently. You

48:59

go like, how many human senses

49:01

are there? Well, it's five. And

49:03

you go like, no, there's somewhere

49:06

between nine and 21. Like, when

49:08

did that, when did that happen?

49:10

Yeah. Why didn't that get more

49:12

press? I feel like somebody should

49:14

have got like, guys, just in

49:16

case you know. And obviously like

49:18

loads of those are sort of

49:20

internal senses rather than external senses

49:22

or they're very specific. Like actually,

49:24

no, no, the sensation of this

49:26

is subtly different from the sensation

49:28

of that, you know, that sort

49:30

of stuff. But nonetheless, I do

49:32

strongly suspect that a lot of

49:34

the things that we probably put

49:36

down to the paranormal are in

49:38

fact just that our sensory perception

49:40

is in many cases better. than

49:42

we think it is, which comes

49:44

with the fact that then you

49:46

have the brain will also probably

49:48

overinterpret weak signals sometimes, which gets

49:50

you ghosts and whatever. But I

49:52

might, yeah, my suspicion is that

49:54

the sense of being stared at

49:56

is in fact something that we

49:58

are very... Why it doesn't work

50:00

in, a lot of the time,

50:02

in sort of double blind trials?

50:05

Because the blinding of it very

50:07

often will sort of change the,

50:09

you know, the, like, you know,

50:11

can you tell if you're being

50:13

stared at through a one-way mirror

50:15

type thing, stuff like that? So

50:17

that sort of sense of, like,

50:19

you're being stared at by someone

50:21

who is, you know, is in

50:23

the room, or, you know, or

50:25

you don't know for sure that

50:27

there's someone there, but someone has

50:29

approached you silently and you're like,

50:31

nonetheless I can kind of feel that there

50:33

is a person behind me. I read

50:35

a while ago that apparently a lot

50:37

of blind people have been taught or

50:39

have worked out on their own how

50:42

to use eco-location, which is extraordinary. It's

50:44

insane that that's an ability that we

50:46

have within us and just none of

50:48

us find the time to learn how

50:50

to echo locate. Well, I mean, we

50:52

know that that sort of, I mean...

50:54

yeah that level of echo actual echo

50:56

location is a thing but i mean

50:58

look we're recording a thing right now

51:00

if we turned out that we forgot

51:02

to say something and we have to

51:05

go back and record it and we're in

51:07

a different room it wouldn't

51:09

sound the same yeah you know room

51:11

room tone is a thing and you

51:13

just go like well obviously we have

51:16

much better perception of things there than

51:18

than we realize because how is

51:20

it possible that a silent

51:22

room can sound so different?

51:24

Different kind of silences. It's

51:26

very interesting. So

51:49

the only other tick that you've got

51:51

on your batch at list, but I

51:54

feel like we've covered the territory and

51:56

interest in it, is cryptids. So I

51:58

might fling us unless you... want to

52:00

say something about that I might fling

52:02

us to your soft rock because I

52:05

love what you've written here as your

52:07

soft rock is complicated anecdote involving a

52:09

scarf. Yeah and this is Jay because

52:11

I was thinking about this it's going

52:13

like what as actually happened to me

52:15

that is inexplicable. I go like, I

52:18

don't really, because I'm coming from a

52:20

perspective of like, oh, I saw something

52:22

once that didn't make sense, but I

52:24

go, yeah, that's brains. So most things

52:26

are explicable. This is not a high

52:28

stakes thing, but it is the one

52:31

thing in my life. I genuinely cannot

52:33

come up with an explanation for. So

52:35

anyway, basically, years ago, living in London,

52:37

we were flat hunting. and we've been

52:39

to a place I had a red

52:42

scarf on and it was a bit

52:44

chilly went inside I took the red

52:46

scarf off see the place it's lovely

52:48

we can never afford it leave realize

52:50

that I've left my scarf behind there

52:52

oh you idiot so I basically I

52:55

just email the agent just go like

52:57

oh hey sorry I think I left

52:59

my scarf there obviously I'm not going

53:01

to go back and just knock on

53:03

their door but if they you know

53:05

I'll arrange to come and collect it

53:08

some other day. Cut to that evening

53:10

and I'm on the tube after I've

53:12

been out, I think I was at

53:14

a gig or something like that, and

53:16

I'm just like, you know, in that

53:19

sort of slightly sleepy mode. Important point

53:21

about this is I was right at

53:23

the end of the train, so I

53:25

was, there was no door between carriages

53:27

beside me. I was at the end

53:29

of the carriage and there was nothing

53:32

else beyond it. It's quite late night,

53:34

it's not a, you know, it's not

53:36

a weekend, so there's not that many

53:38

people on it. I'm sort of slightly

53:40

dozing. And I wake up, and I'm

53:42

like, oh you idiot, there's a red

53:45

scarf at my foot. And I was

53:47

like, oh, you didn't leave your scarf

53:49

behind. It was caught in the sleeve

53:51

of your coat or something like that

53:53

you've just been missing. all this time

53:56

and you know pick it up and

53:58

go like fine good I've got my

54:00

scarf back and the next day the

54:02

agent emails goes like yeah yeah you

54:04

left your scarf at the place they

54:06

said you can come around there was

54:09

nobody else on like there was like

54:11

one other person at the other end

54:13

of the carriage nobody else got on

54:15

or off there was nobody could have

54:17

come through the door and this scarf

54:19

was not quite identical it was the

54:22

same maker scarf with a slightly different

54:24

shade of red, but only barely perceptible.

54:26

I have no idea where this scarf

54:28

came from. I do not know how

54:31

it is possible that this scarf materialized

54:33

at my feet while I was dozing

54:35

for a couple of minutes between stops

54:38

on the dew and that that would

54:40

have happened on the day that I

54:42

believed I had lost my scarf, but

54:44

I hadn't actually lost my scarf. Did

54:47

the people in the house, did the

54:49

landlords go like, oh God, we can't

54:51

find a scarf, he'll think we've stolen

54:53

it, quit, go and buy a scarf?

54:56

And they just somehow managed to get

54:58

like a literally identical red scarf? And

55:00

I literally, I held both scarves in

55:02

my hand, same, I don't know if

55:05

they were the same make, but they

55:07

were the same texture, same length, same

55:09

tassels on the end, very, very, very

55:11

slightly different shade red red. I too

55:14

this day cannot explain what happened there.

55:16

It's not. You know, this is not

55:18

going to provoke any sort of people

55:20

to reconsider the nature of the universe.

55:23

But it is something that I cannot

55:25

explain other than the possibility that there

55:27

are alternate universes and that my scarf,

55:29

one of those scarf was from another

55:32

reality. I can't believe you are doing

55:34

this story down. This is a top

55:36

10 story for the two years of

55:38

me doing this show. That's fantastic. You

55:41

have, there was a glitch, a new

55:43

scarf entered. the universe. At one point

55:45

I was just literally going like if

55:47

I touch them will they explode? You

55:50

know it's like the idea that they're

55:52

both are they in your house right

55:54

now? No I lost I then I

55:56

mean or maybe it returned. I lost

55:59

one. one about a year later. So

56:01

maybe it was summoned back to its

56:03

reality or maybe the swap. Maybe I

56:05

got the mirror universe one. I got

56:08

the evil scarf. Yes. And then and

56:10

the good scarf was taken back to

56:12

try and rescue their fallen reality over

56:14

there. So yeah I lost one about

56:16

a year later and then the other one

56:19

I think it just ended up getting it

56:21

ratty and I threw it out. Amazing story.

56:23

Let's get to your final question here which

56:25

is the weird of the week where I

56:28

like to ask. all my guests, if they

56:30

could recommend something that the listener can do

56:32

to sort of take them out of their

56:34

routine and make them look at things differently.

56:37

What are you thinking? Well, yeah, so I was

56:39

really, I was struggling with this one because

56:41

I was just going like, A, a lot

56:43

of these I would go like, is that

56:45

weird or is that just, you know, hello

56:47

listeners, have you considered? a range of undiagnosed

56:49

neurodiversity issues. I don't know the

56:52

audience of your podcast, but I'm

56:54

going to guess if I was

56:56

to say, have you considered being

56:59

awake at 3am reading the Wikipedia

57:01

entry on who put Bella in

57:03

the witch elm, they're going to

57:06

go, yes, yes, I have considered,

57:08

I'm doing it right now. What are you?

57:10

So I, the thing that occurred to me

57:12

is classic detective stories,

57:14

reading classic detective

57:17

stories, the... And particularly, there's

57:19

one author, John Dixon

57:21

Carr, was one of the sort

57:23

of the greats of the

57:25

Golden Age of Detective Fiction,

57:27

so as contemporary with, you

57:29

know, sort of Christie. Reputation

57:31

hasn't quite lasted in the

57:33

same way, but not, but

57:36

it is in terms of

57:38

like sort of mass popularity,

57:40

but John Dixon Carr was the

57:42

acknowledged king of the... the locked room

57:44

mystery. Okay. And that's his particular skill.

57:46

I think maybe he's not as popular

57:49

because his detective characters are maybe just

57:51

not quite as likable or as compelling,

57:53

but they're pretty good nonetheless. The sort

57:56

of reasons why some of these work

57:58

hasn't quite lasted. And he's maybe a

58:00

little bit more inconsistent, but incredible

58:02

construction of this sort of stuff.

58:04

The reason I'm thinking about this

58:06

is he has one incredible chapter

58:08

in one of his books, which

58:10

is called The Hollow Man, or

58:12

I think it's called. It's also

58:15

called the three coffins, depending on

58:17

what you're in the US or

58:19

the UK. Anyway, in this book,

58:21

he does something that he just

58:23

doesn't do in any other books.

58:25

His detective character is this sort

58:27

of big portly gentleman called Gideon,

58:29

Dr. Gideon Fell, who literally says

58:31

things like rumpf. Like it's typed

58:33

out in the text. He says,

58:35

rumpf. And he likes to lecture

58:37

people. Near the end of this

58:39

book, he goes, I'm now going

58:41

to lecture about the... the notion

58:43

of the impossible crime or sealed

58:45

rumor mystery in detective fiction. And

58:47

like the policeman character goes, like,

58:49

we're actually quite busy, we don't

58:51

need a lecture right now, why

58:53

would you, what possible relevance could

58:55

detective fiction have to this? And

58:58

he just goes, because we're characters

59:00

in a detective story. Oh. And

59:02

it would be an insult to

59:04

the reader to come up with

59:06

some other reason. The reader can

59:08

skip this chapter if they don't

59:10

like it. So good. It's brilliant.

59:12

It's like this is like 1940

59:14

something. It's really great. And then

59:16

he just delivers a lecture on

59:18

the all of the possible solutions

59:20

that there are to the locked

59:22

room mystery. Like where the person

59:24

has been found dead murdered in

59:26

a room with nobody else in

59:28

the room and the door is

59:30

locked. It's completely sealed and there's

59:32

no way in around it. Very

59:34

early on it goes like if

59:36

there's a secret passage, it's not

59:39

a locked room. You just misunderstood

59:41

the room. Absolutely, this metafictional just

59:43

drop-in in the middle of an

59:45

otherwise pretty well-constructed standard detective story.

59:47

Anyway, actually the solution to that

59:49

one is not his best, but

59:51

the setup is fantastic. What was

59:53

that one called? I don't remember

59:55

if you said it. It was

59:57

good. The Hollow Man, I think,

59:59

is the UK title, but I

1:00:01

think it's called... three coffins in

1:00:03

the US or vice versa. Anyway,

1:00:05

it's just, it's this great, great

1:00:07

bit. The reason that I say

1:00:09

this is because it really got

1:00:11

me thinking in the same way

1:00:13

that I was just thinking about

1:00:15

what are the possible solutions to

1:00:17

my scarf question other than multiple

1:00:19

universes, a crossover event. And the

1:00:22

thing that I really like about

1:00:24

it is that almost always, and

1:00:26

this goes across a lot of

1:00:28

his particular work, is that it's

1:00:30

always a core assumption. He doesn't

1:00:32

normally do the incredibly elaborate mechanisms

1:00:34

or stuff like that. It's always,

1:00:36

there is one assumption you made

1:00:38

about the setup that is wrong,

1:00:40

and it's identifying those. And it

1:00:42

was just, my mind in recent

1:00:44

weeks, I've been burning through a

1:00:46

bunch of these, has just been

1:00:48

really on like what is the

1:00:50

assumption. What is the assumption. that

1:00:52

is wrong and kind of like

1:00:54

starting to analyze all those things

1:00:56

and obviously yes for my scarf

1:00:58

my assumption that I've made that

1:01:00

is wrong is that the scarf

1:01:02

wasn't there when I sat down

1:01:05

when you sat down yeah there

1:01:07

are other explanations it could be

1:01:09

that actually no somebody did get

1:01:11

on and I just I maybe

1:01:13

I'd missed a stop and didn't

1:01:15

realize and they got on got

1:01:17

off and they dropped their scarf

1:01:19

unlikely but yeah there is something

1:01:21

about looking at the world through

1:01:23

the lens of an incredibly elaborately

1:01:25

and tightly constructed detective story that

1:01:27

relies on just what is the

1:01:29

when you start to go like

1:01:31

and you're a certain point going

1:01:33

like I know that there must

1:01:35

be one of the foundational assumptions

1:01:37

that we're making here isn't the

1:01:39

right one. It is specifically the

1:01:41

the mindset of looking at things

1:01:43

and going like Literally. What is

1:01:46

the, what are all of the

1:01:48

possible explanations for this? And once

1:01:50

you've got rid of all those,

1:01:52

what is the key assumption at

1:01:54

the beginning of them that actually

1:01:56

completely refrains the whole thing. I

1:01:58

love it. That's my answer. All

1:02:07

right, there we go Tom Phillips if you

1:02:09

would like to get in contact with

1:02:11

him You should check out his website

1:02:13

Tom hyphen phillips.com But the main thing

1:02:15

that you need to do is get

1:02:17

his new book A brief history of

1:02:19

the end of the fucking world. It

1:02:21

covers thousands of years of weird cults,

1:02:23

failed revolts, who are in anticipation of

1:02:25

the last days. Then there's those who

1:02:27

are waiting for aliens to rescue them

1:02:29

from our doomed planet. It looks like

1:02:31

a fantastic book. I've ordered mine. It

1:02:33

is out now. And if you find

1:02:36

the way that he talks about conspiracy,

1:02:38

interesting, I honestly would get his book

1:02:40

as well, because it not only gives

1:02:42

you a sort of low down on

1:02:44

all the main conspiracies out there. It

1:02:46

also delves into the psychology. this stuff,

1:02:49

why we want to think that there's

1:02:51

something more going on, that the government

1:02:53

isn't telling us about. It's a really,

1:02:55

really great books. And oh, and get

1:02:58

the truth and human books as well.

1:03:00

They're brilliant. He's a brilliant writer. All

1:03:02

right, okay. Well, that's it. That is

1:03:04

it for this week's episode. A last

1:03:06

quick thing before we wrap up.

1:03:08

If anyone does happen to have

1:03:11

any interesting theories that they've read

1:03:13

about with the JFK assassination that

1:03:15

weren't mentioned on this show, Instagram,

1:03:17

which is at Shribaland, or you

1:03:19

can DM them as well to

1:03:21

at We Can Be Weirdos, another Instagram

1:03:23

account. And yeah, please please do

1:03:25

send them, or any other great theories

1:03:28

that you happen to know about, to

1:03:30

do with anything. I'm always on the

1:03:32

hunt for great odd theories. Okay, that's

1:03:35

it. We will be back again next

1:03:37

week with another episode. I will see

1:03:39

you all then, and until then, stay

1:03:42

weird. We

1:03:47

Can The Weirdos is a global original

1:03:49

podcast. The senior producer is Ben

1:03:51

Tulla. The head of factual podcasts

1:03:53

is Al Riddell, and the head

1:03:55

of comedy and entertainment is Chris

1:03:57

Lander. And we want to give

1:04:00

Thanks to to Nick linen and Noll

1:04:02

Special thanks also go

1:04:04

to the members also go

1:04:06

to the members of the Secret Emma

1:04:08

Committee, Michael, Emma Our theme

1:04:10

tune, called theme tune, is

1:04:13

by is by Emperor Yes. This

1:04:38

is a Global player

1:04:40

podcast.