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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist, it is one of our favorite times of the week. It is our listener male segment where we share the best part of this show, your fellow listeners stories with the best part of this show you specifically you, so stay tuned. You might be in today's episode, and if you're not, will give you plenty of ways to contact us so that you can join in. Uh them maybe not fun, but the strangeness right, Uh, this is funny because our first one today is a blast from the past and a couple of levels. If you have ever checked out our old YouTube videos, then you may have heard of this story. And in surprising you know, our video on this was the first way a lot of people learned about it. But nol, I think you have found a voicemail that the more people should hear. What do you say, Oh I did, let's hear let's hear it from Wyatt. Hey, guys, this is why it Parsons from Columbia, Missouri. I previously called and encourage you all to do an episode on the group based program, which is great. They said, listening to your episode on the Maple Syrip cartel, which is also great. But I was wanted to say, uh, it probably could have used the context of mentioning the Phobos Cartel, which is a fairly well known cartels that was operating among early light bulb manufacturers in order to keep the price of the light bulbs among the sels uh as close to a similar as they could, remaining quote unquote competitive. Um. So I wanted to say, well, the show appreciate you guys, I want I say and take care. Oh Wyatt, you are absolutely right and honestly you know, the story of any kind of collusion in formation these cartel is always interesting. But to me, the better place to have mentioned the Phoebus Cartel would have been in our recent discussions of things like planned obsolescence UM or the idea of the right to repair. You know, that's sort of my conversation really does kind of go part and parcel with what he's talking about, which is, Yeah, a group of light bulb manufacturers UM in the nineteen twenties GAP Third in Geneva, representatives from UH Germany's as Rum Corporation, Phillips which is still around today, UH from the Netherlands, and UH Campagni de lamp from from France. UM also General Electric was in on it. They essentially got together and decided that UM, it would be in their best interest not to necessarily league up with well there's a lot of ramifications of this meeting, but not necessarily to like league up or share supplies or things like that, but essentially too in tandem make their products worse. So yeah, to make their products worse. UM. Up to that point, engineers working for these companies their job would have been to how do I improve the life of a light bulb of fulfilment with like different material sciences and all of the research that goes into that stuff. What they realized is if you have a bulb that burns forever, UM, they can't sell you more balls and and therein kind of became the dawn of the idea of planned obsolescence, which now we know as applied to all kinds of other things like the iPhone and any product. There's different flavors of it, though, there's like psychological planned obsolescence, where like say, you know, a company will sort of psychologically UM trick you, maybe trick is maybe I don't know, it depends UM where you stand, whether it's trickery or not, but convince you that you need the next best thing, and that if you don't have that or you're a bad person, you're a failure, you're you should be ashamed. There's a really really great piece that talks about the Phoebus Cartel and also the genius of UM, Alfred P. Sloan Um, who you may know from NPR or the pre Sloan Foundation. UM. He was, in fact a guy who was a genius business person UM very much like Al Edward Burnet's type, guy who who recognized psychology to trick people into thinking that they a needed UM give them so many options that they think if they didn't have all the options or at least the next best model UM, than they were somehow lacking the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. You know, this is something that was kind of sold to us as consumers. This is actually right around the time, um, we were starting to be referred to as consumers. But but back to Phoebus, Ben, you mentioned this as a blast of the past. You and Matt before my time, did an excellent video about the Phoebus cartel. Um. What was y'all's takeaway when you first discovered this very very real bit of collusion and um kind of price fixing and the idea of you know, taking it something that you should be improving and consciously making it worse so that you can sell more of the thing. Oh man, hey, thanks so much. Well, it's it makes meat. You didn't know that that you checked it out, mainly because then I were talking about this earlier that that's one of the classic videos we did that really does hold up and more people should know about it. Um, this was gosh, Matt, when was it that we did this one shoot that video was released? Wow the time? Hey, hey, al right, So it's it's strange because this idea was phrased as standardization even in a lot of internal documents they weren't calling it a grift. They were saying, let's make sure we're all selling the same expectations right for a product. But the problem was the standardization they created kind of crippled the lifespan of lightbulbs, making them all last a thousand hours and for four the Cartels ascendency, the average light bulb would last like more than two thousand hours, like two thousand, five hundred hours. And and Apple was still, you know, very much active when we were making this video. And it's kind of like, um, I don't know about you, Matt, but I experienced, what is it kind of a better mine Hoff thing with the idea of planned obsolescens because I started seeing it everywhere. Even now, you can have a pretty strong debate about how much of a manufacturers recommended things are meant to sell more stuff versus get the best operation out of something, right, Like I'm thinking of things like, um, how often one should or should not use certain beauty products for example, I'm thinking of how like directives on how to use something can also be a part of this planned obsolescence you're talking about, and it's just it's just extended. Phoebus got away with it too. By the way, the only reason that they really ended. They were planning to break up in nineteen fifty five, but then World War two came along and they had bigger fish to fry, bigger bolts of light. It's interesting too, because, I mean, the history of this is so fascinating because you know, think about it, the light bulb was like one of the great innovations of mankind, you know, I mean it was like it went from gas lamps to these electric light bulbs on par with like the the the automobile. And understandably there was a lot of competition UM when electrification was kind of introduced uh into the world, into all kinds of other vehicles, for example, like bikes and you know cars, headlights and street lights and all of the other possibilities that you needed for light bulbs. So it was these um this kind of cartel. The formation of this cartel was as a result of sales dropping the as Rum Corporation UM. Their German sales dropped from sixty three million light bulbs in n to twenty three fiscal year to twenty eight million the following So they were actually the ones that was their head, William mine Heart, that decided to, you know, put this group together, um and kind of cut out all of the smaller players and just you know, make uh an understanding that they would like you said, Ben, limit Literally it took them a while too, interestingly to figure out how to work backwards. Uh, to get it at a standardized amount of of hours of light a thousand hours what they were shooting for. Took them quite quite a few years to get that perfect. But then they did. There's a really great piece on NPRS Planet Money that talks about this story and then talks about again like I was talking about the Alfred P. Sloan story where Sloan essentially decided to give more options to people with cars. He was competing with Ford, who had invented this model t which is a very workman like kind of you know, almost like a piece of farm equipment. It wasn't sexy. Uh. Ford famously said, Ben, I'm sure you recall this from Carstone episodes. Uh. You can have in any color as long as black. Um. But then Chevrolet totally changed the game by realizing that women were largely making financial decisions for the household, including cars, um, and that if you had more options for you know, variety and the style that would be something that they would maybe glaum onto a little more than men who maybe we're a little more utilitarian, you know at the time not to you know overly uh generalized, but I think that was the idea and it definitely worked. And then Ford was forced to release the Model A and uh constantly kind of was keeping up with this, you know, marketing. It really it is marketing because they're selling the same invention just wrapped up in a different package. But um, nowadays, you know, when we have these more costly and more efficient and longer lasting um l E ed bulbs, it's something to think about, you know, how we got to where we are now. Um, And I've got to wonder like is that same thinking going into LED lights or are they really working to make them as efficient and long lasting as possible? Because it was ultimately General Electric that kind of spilled the beans on the cartel because they got brought up and I believe some anti competition charges and in the court case, uh, some information got leaked or was was in the you know, the documentation and the testimony about the Phoebus cartel. Uh, and that's when it kind of got essentially disbanded. Just on the LED bulb front. I've only got my own experience, but I saw the LED lights in my entire house three years ago and one of them has gone out, one bulb out of know, how many dozens? How long is a thousand hours? Is that? Like? You know? And this is obviously if you're turning your lights off at night, a thousand hours should last you what maybe a year? I don't know, Like right now, there are lights on in this room in my house, zero other lights, so it's hard to judge, right, So maybe I'm just a bad test case. Well, there's also there's something interesting about LED light bulbs. Uh, some folks may recall the LED light bulbs are thoughts to last like fifty thous hours. They can last if you keep them on twelve hours a day. That works out to more than a decade. It's like eleven years. So the issue is that it's hard to sell these long lasting bulbs. So some manufacturers have been designing LED light bulbs that will burn out sooner they're they're meant to, or they need upgrades or replacements of some component to continue working. And this is not necessarily illegal. There are other like you said, Well, there are other genres of planned obsolescence, and some of them are things that humans just routinely accept in their lives, like the disposable culture. Right buy, you buy razor blades in bulk, and you're supposed to get rid of them, or or with printers. Printers are often purposely designed such that when when one part of it breaks, replacing just that part is so prohibitively expensive that it's cheaper just to buy another printer. And in many cases they're just making money off the ink anyway, so they don't want much you pay for the printer. I think it's true, and I think we're gonna see more of it, especially as society, at least in the developed world, trends further and further away from an ownership culture and further and further into the wild land of a subscription or um service rental culture. Now there's no doubt we're we're we're more than we've got. We've got more than our toes dipped in that model. By the way, a year calendar year is roughly eight thousand, seven d and sixty hours, so uh yeah, a thousand hours. You can change your light bulbs around eight times a year. Uh, if you leave them on all the time. I mean, obviously this is people are not leaving their light bulbs on constantly. But that's significant. Um, so very interesting stuff. Thank you whyat for hipping us to this blast from the past. Uh and also happening having us revisiting, cause I think it's more valid now than ever. And uh. And so also take it with a healthy grain of salt when you read things that put a burden of the light bulb working on the consumer. When they say, hey, this is uh an energy saving tip for your home or something like that, I'm not saying they're lying to you. I'm just saying, keep your eyes open. Well, let's take a quick pause for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll come back with more messages from you. All right, and we're back, and we are jumping to the phone lines to hear from Schneider. So here we go. Hi, my name is Schneider. I stay the programs. I'm going to tell you a spooky story about the time I'm at a ghost of concentration care. So I live in Germany for about a decade, right, and every year they would take us to a concentration camp to show off, like, hey, this is our history, let's not repeat it, let's learn from the etcetera. Well, I was about sixteen at the time with a bunch of my friends, and we were in the crematorium, just walking through, looking at everything. The crematorium is a large sum instructure. There's no way in or out. There's no event other than the like pipes that pumped that smoke. In the crematorium. They have this giant like book where they they wrote down did names of everyone who was cremated in that building. So all my friends just living through and they're poking fun at like, oh, look, there's so many people who had your name. Look at all the shiners. Well, Schneider is like the name Smith. It's super common. Anyway, they don't know this, but I am the direct descendant of people who narrowly escaped the Hall of Fame. While my grandparents managed to escape, a lot of their other family did not. Now I don't know what camp they went to, or even if they went at all. I don't know when they were killed. We weren't really informed on the subject. As Shulder, It's not something we talked about. It's also the middle of German summer. German summer is a lot like Jordan summer. I lived in Columbus for about three years, so I know it's how hot it. Kids out there, guys, it's hot in this building. They start poping fun they say, look, Schneider, look it's you. It plummets to freezing temperatures in that building on the drop of a hat, and we do this like how kind of sound coming from the ovens and needle us to stay. It's scared the respect into us. Really, it could have been something perfectly normal, but I'm conscient it was a ghost, uh, teaching us that, hey, stop joking around about this stuff. It's really serious. Guys. Anyway, that's my story. Thanks guys, love the show. Bye, Wow Schneider. I think I can speak for all of us first off when I say, you're your friends need to learn to be better behaved, just singing, like to put it put it lightly. But what a what a fascinating story. Huh. Yeah. The concept that some you know, sixteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old kids in a place like that joking around could cause something to occur like that, even if it's completely coincidence. Right, even if they're joking around and then something just occurs, that's a normal process within that place that is now in many ways a um you know, a place of remembrance and a museum of sorts with that book that Schnyder mentioned, And if that's the furthest most skeptical thing, it's just completely unrelated, just a normal thing. Even then, it's a story. I think that's worth retelling. And I do appreciate this Snyder retold it to us. Um. If not, if it's something else, my goodness, it gives you a chill a little bit, the feeling that concept of the temperature changing so rapidly after that, I I do. I will say, I know not everybody believes this, and I know a great deal of the experience maybe psychological in nature rather than physiological. But I think everybody has been in a place that has been the location of a great deal of atrocity or a great deal of of horror from humans to each other, and has felt the place was somehow different in one way or another. You know, taal As old as time people have walked, people have stumbled across cemeteries because something in the field didn't feel right. It reminds me of this excellent book called The Gift of Fear, which I highly recommend, which essentially the argument is that you're unconscious mind picks up a lot of things that your conscious mind might miss, and when you get a bad vibe or you get a strange feeling, that could be your some other part of your mind saying hey, you in the forebrain pay attention to this um. And with that, I think, Uh, what a story, Schneider. And I'm still I'm still sorting through this, but I think there are a lot of factors that play here. As you said, Matt, Yeah, And just to take it to graveyards for a moment. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and we're discussing the concept that graveyards have this weird feeling. Many times we get that weird feeling if we're in a graveyard. But depending on what you believe is going on with a human when it expires, when any human expires, um, a graveyard may not be the place that should feel weird. Right If there is, if there's a body slash, soul slash or whatever that the consciousness is connection, then no, nothing's in that graveyard really right, except for the corporeal forms of people. And if there's something else that exists, then it probably left that body at the moment that that person expired. And I'm imagining this place where Schneider is in this concentration camp, within this crematorium, at that site, this would be a place where a great many people expired. So I can imagine some kind of if there is something too that you know, to the soul or spirit or that energetic yeah as I always associated with is like some sort of like energy signature you now that kind of remains like I don't know if I would call something like that a ghost, but I feel like we always talk about things like vibes. You know, in the movie Vibes you can get started. Um, But yeah, no, it's an excellent movie. Everyone should see it. It's totally worth your time. And I'm not joking. I quite enjoyed it very much. But now it's a thing. You can sense people's vibes, whether when they're alive, and I don't think there's any reason why you should be able to sense remnants of those when they're when they're not, especially in a place like say like the catacombs you know of Rome or something like that, where you know you just have thousands and thousands of of rema remains you know that are there. Uh, They're called remains for reasons, that something that's left behind. And I think it's not just physical. Sometimes I truly believe that and and have felt it. And I think even for the most skeptical h that is, however you would like to interpret or however you would like to explain it to yourself or two others, that is a feeling that is going to be very familiar to many of the people listening today. And I, UM don't talk a ton about my personal beliefs in this show. In particular, I don't think they particularly matter, um and we try to be objective as possible, so I don't want to distract from that, but I am I am going to say it is my personal belief that history is a pal obsessed and that traces of things that occur can linger in ways that human beings don't fully understand. I can't conclusively prove it because there's not there's not a way to yet, so it's just one end to these opinion. But I don't think that it's I don't think it's very much of a of a hot take, and I'm honestly we have to make this point. It is incredibly important. Even though those kids were being jerks, it is incredibly important for children to be aware of those sites and to be aware of what happened there, because as soon as people forget something like that, that's when another group of people comes around and engages in the in the next iteration of it, all across the world, all across time. So if if this put a little bit of what they would call it in the South, a little bit of the fear of God into those kids, then, overall, and I don't want to sound like a monster here, overall, I think that's a very good thing. Thank you so much Sneider for sending us that story. Okay, so we're gonna jump over to one more quick voicemail and it is coming from road Dog. Hey, Fred, this is road Dog from Arizona. Listen to your podcast the other day about the Mulu and training cows how to tea. I think you missed a great opportunity for some comedy. Uh. Several years ago, the government and a few multi national corporations got together figure out a way how to sell cow piss to the Americans, particularly the American Truckee Association. It's called g EF and it's an additive that we used to uh knock out the sulfur that comes out of your missions of Dr Taylor's. And so there you go, you figure out how to sell a cow piss and uh, I don't know who's better for it or where the laptoes, gentlemen. Well know this story around that arcticle or that that news story. There was a question what are they gonna do with all of these gallons upon gallons of cawier And maybe they had a plan the whole time and they were just being like coy about it. The cartels, there's the comedy. There's the comedy that road Dog was was was missing up. Well, Hey, road Dog, thank you for for telling us about that. I know you're out there driving right now, probably doing some work. Do all those those jars of those jugs a trucker piss? That's what I want to know. Hey, Well, it's it's dude, it's all. This is all one thing here, okay. So, d first of all, this is diesel exhaust fluid. This is primarily made up of water and uria. The stuff that's in urine. Not a ton of it in urine, but it is a big part of urine. And Um, I just went down a bit of a rabbit hole. Ben, I thought you would probably be the best one to to actually walk us through some of this just from your from your car stuff days. But this stuff is an additive that to my knowledge and from everything that I can find, UH is generated in a laboratory setting because of the concentrations needed of urrea within these compounds. UH, if you were just to take urine, let's say cow urine, you would have a certain percentage of urrea within that. Then you'd have to have to synthesize that down somehow. Um. And it's it appears that it's much much easier to just generate urrea with a couple of simple chemicals in a lab. Yeah, that's gonna tend to be correct. In a weird way, you could get to and I don't know if this is happening yet, Somebody reach out and let us know. You can get to a world in which automobile components or trucking components are sold as organic labels, like here's your organic more expensive cow generated d e f U. It would just have to be You just have to figure out where the where the economics makes sense. But that's my understanding right now is the same as what you said. It's much more affordable to create d e f out of synthetic chemicals. I've also heard bat urine being used road dog, which I think is cool because I mean, it's mainly a myth. But how cool would it be if you could tell your friends that you're you did have a batmobile. It's just he's a bat urine mobile. But you know, work the ease them into that part of it open with batmobile. So look, I don't have the best sources here, but I went to trucking truth dot com and just checked out what they have to say. Uh, maybe don't take this as complete fact, but this is what they have to say over here. Human urine is roughly water, and the actual urrea concentration is around nine point three grams per leader, at least again according to this website. It's not exactly the Mayo clinic, but uh, if you think about that, there's a very low concentration. If you think about the urea concentration in d e F that's available in stores for your big rigs. That's around thirty two point five urea. So it's gonna be tough to get unless you're just taking tons and tons and tons of coal pus. Oh my god, here it is true, guys. It's also it's also there. This has nothing to do with the um confusing to me. Japanese drink kalpis, which is c A l P. I s try it, you know, if you're open minded, but it does not contain urrea as far as I know, I I my Japanese is not good enough to understand the entirety of the label, but not what you're saying. Leads to a really interesting question which I have heard before. People have asked, Hey, if I'm I'm low on store butt d e F, can I can I just p M my d F tank just to get to like the next stop or whatever. The The answer as you can, but it's very bad. It's very bad to do. So it's like saying you can p in there is like saying you can put sugar in a gas tank. It's not gonna work out well, uh, and you should not do it. It's not a cool mcgiver move. Um Also, depending on where you decide to uh to urinate in your t F take, you might have an audience that is very confused, very confused about your motivations and where you're at emotionally and psychologically. Uh. But uria does have uses, right Matt, Beyond d ef It's been used in agriculture, I believe. Oh yeah, I mean it's it's nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. That's what uria is. All the great things that you need, that the planet needs, the humans need, just in a different form, slightly different. There not, Noll, I think we've stumbled across something. This is a pitch to you, road dog, and I'll see if you guys have my back on this one. You don't have to. If it's too weird, just throw me under the tractor trailer, as they say. Okay, road dog, here's the idea. Here's the idea. If we know that it is cheaper to manufacture synthetic d e F, then why not get into the organic DF businessman, why not collect the mass of RPE from these body train cows and if you can figure out how to do like, how to derive it effectively in a way that doesn't break the bank. Then you could be selling it as organic. D I don't pay a lot of heat to stereotypes, but I think it would do well in like California. I think you could get a market. What do you what do you guys think too crazy? I think it's a great idea, Ben. I mean, as long as it's not like, you know, trying to hop on like organic you know, uh, kombucha urine as a replacement for kombucha thing. You know, there was all those quacks that were saying, we're thinking your end's good for you. Remember that that was a thing. It turns out not not good for you at all, sort of neutral but definitely not like good for you. Yeah, no, no, thank you. They make that up. It's a thing called urine therapy. It's like it's a whole Yeah. Yeah. There's also some kind of gurus who recommend it. Yes, usually it's drinking your own urine. Yeah, I would say it's not. It's not the guru's urine cult territory. It's a road dog. Be careful. Don't be in or on your truck please unless you have to. Unless it's a dr Pepper zero sugar bottle. Yes, yes, yes, uh, the multi purpose soda. Yeah, okay, all right, well that's it for now. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And we have returned doc that spooky sound cue we're doing for October. Check this out, guys, visual effects and changing the lights. It's time for some ghost stories. As as you said earlier, for the rest of October. I'm just reading the Fellows ghost stories and we are comparing notes on these to see if, like in the case of Schneider, we can get a little sense of what's going bump in the night here. So our first one is a voicemail and it comes from Mario uh Nold Matt. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. There we go, Hey, guys, this is Mario. I have a ghost story for you. Guys. I've been wanting to tell somebody this story many years ago. When I was a child. I'm forty now, and I was probably about eight years old and my mom and dad household was just me and them, and I'm around maybe two or three. I woke up in the middle of the night, land in the bed. I could see a light on the wall and it's zig zag and went up and down, moved around, and then went away, just like that. I was scared to death. I put the covers over my head, stayed there, didn't move. So let me tell you, no one is behind us. No one lived on the side of us, behind us, no roads behind us, know anything. I just always wanted this. I've never told anybody this because I told my wife the story about a few years ago. And this story still gives me chills when I tell someone this story. I don't believe in goes, don't believe in UFOs, but love you guys, show I love our murder mysteries. Um, I like you guys are discussing things well, come to the right place, Mario. So that's interesting because you know, Mario did something very prescient. You already could tell like you already clocked that one of the first things that the three of us would ask, which would be light sort this right? And and this is something that we've we talked about. The more I listened to it, I'm first off, you have a you have a great voice for storytelling as well, Mario. The more I listened to it, the more I realized they were checking off some of the obvious boxes, right there's no there's no road to refract light. It sounds like it's not just a glow which could come from an ambiance source like the moon on a foggy evening. So, so what do you guys think about This obviously really affected him. Yeah, I definitely did. Man, I don't know why I had this image in my mind of the burning I get. So there's a ring around the camera that I'm looking at right now, and if I close my eyes and I look around, even if I opened them and there's a dark space, then I'm looking at I see that ring of light. Sure, I'm not saying this is what happened, Mario. I'm just that's the first image that came to my mind, is that burning effect where if it's zigzagging around as your looking at the wall, and it seems to be following where your eyes are following, that would be one thing. It sounds like that's not what this is. That's just the way my my brain put it into an image. Yeah, when it gets me every time is this is not related. But that sort of is like I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I will see like some clothing hanging over the back of a chair, maybe with like a hat on top of it, and I will genuinely think there's like someone leering over my bed, you know, or even like I have a rack of hats on my closet door, like on these little hooks, and sometimes if I catch it just right from a certain angle, I think there's someone like hulking over me, like a massive, like tall figure. Um. Again, not not trying to explain your story away. I'm just saying this is something that I genuinely in the moment, I'm like terrified, like almost like shadow people type terrified. Another thing I'm thinking about here, or lasers again, because of the way it moves, But Mario didn't mention anything about streaking. I feel like you would observe the streaking of a laser and moving um if you if that's what he was seeing. But that's something that could if it was just a lone person out in the woods maybe and they had one of those more high powered lasers and just shining it around and it just happened to go through a window and stay on the wall for a bit. Wouldn't that be kind of specialized equipment? Though? Thirty years thirty two years ago, because Mario, you said you're forty, you saw this when you were eight. I mean they were out there, definitely, they were definitely out there. But I don't know how. I guess you wouldn't have to be super strong. Yeah, I guess wouldn't have to be super strong either, depending on how close they were. But then that's that's another frighting possibility. How close with someone dear house, If that's the explanation. I mean, this clearly made an impression on you, Mario, on this, and I think we have a lot of fellow conspiracy realists who have their own childhood experiences that they still can't explain. Actually we know this because we've received a lot of wonderful correspondent from these folks. I would you know, I'd love to hear um anything. I'd love to hear a little bit more about the house. I'd love to hear a little bit more about maybe possible sounds that were unusual that you heard, or anything else, because sometimes searching in the for that unexpected context can get you a little bit closer to an explanation. But thank you so much for calling us. Glad you made it out of there, and would love to hear if anything else unusual happened during your time in that place. For now, we're going to move to last ghost story of the day. This story comes to us from Kevin, and it really I was really interested in this. I want to see what you all think high conspiracy people, says Kevin. Having heard your recent call for scary stories, I thought I would share mine if there is interest, Oh, Kevin, there is interest. It takes place in Shanghai, China and is related to the Wu Kang Mansions, which has a history of hauntings. The ghostly Fright is followed by some historical context. Thanks in advance for reading before we begin. We can talk about the historical context together. I think it would be the best way to do it. But we're gonna we're gonna edit some of it because it is It is uh pretty detailed, A ghostly tail rooted in tragic reality, Wooden floorboards creaked beneath his shifting feet. As a friend mumbled, not sure how to describe it, but there's a presence in the baby's room. Intentionally vague or not. I was ushered through a door, his hand firmly at my back. Please go in and let us, uh know if you uh feel something. Hesitantly stumbling forward, I found myself in a room a wash and blue light. Dust particles twinkled in and out of existence. Below large French bay windows was an antique bed, complete with candle wick coverlet and a wrought iron frame. At the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers. In the farthest reaches of the room of bassinet set still on wooden rockers, minus the blue glow, The furniture and walls were you did white, rubbing a hand over the coverlets, embroidery, and odd unwelcome chill entered my body, yanking my hand away. I tried to shake it off, failing. Something tugged at my side, as if possessed. My arm lifted itself into the air, taking aim at the chest of drawers. Against internal protest, it continued to stretch itself towards the end of the bed, feet petrified. My upward body leaned forward, helping what my mind did not want. My arm seemingly grew in length, extending itself further than was humanly possible, emanating from the bottom of my spine. Another chilly wave confirmed it. A presence was undeniable fingers reaching the base of the bed, A dark shadow began to grow from beneath My hand began to trigger as it continued to defy caution. Fingers crossing the threshold, I was not prepared to breach inches from the approaching darkness. I held my breath, willing them to stop. Neither index nor the middle finger listened. If my heart had been beating, it had surely stopped. The room's atmosphere was eerily silent. Another inch of space was past, reaching its edge. My fingers entered the trespassed, Hovering dangerously above the darkness. A cold vice suddenly clapped soundly around my fingers. The lights went out, blindly smack in a ghostly apparition way. My upper body sprung upwards, my heart threatening to burst from my chest. I heaved loudly over my own frightening gas, hyperventilating lung star for oxygen of tiny, yet faintly familiar female voice cried, Hey, what did you do that for? Watching me struggle for a single breath, white knuckling the bedspread eyes wide with terror, The woman beside me was witnessing a full blown panic attack. Inhaling harshly, I weise who are you mind? Not yet cleared? I tried to continue, what is going? Uh? Delicate, steady hands back as my own shaking ones. She tried to comfort me as I rambled where I mean you? After a long minute, panting, shallowy eyes adjusting to the darkness, muddiness gave way to clarity. I was finally able to confirm that was safely in our bed. The woman was my wife, and most importantly, there was no longer an earth sleep presence. So we'll we'll pause there, we'll we'll actually stop there again. As Matt said, you can read the full thing in in this wonderful article by Kevin on Medium. It is called a ghostly tale rooted in tragic reality. I thought of sleep paralysis when I read this. Did that sound familiar to you? Guys? You can't move, you know, Yeah, you're you're dreaming, but everything feels real. You're in the same place physically where you are in your mind feels very similar. Yeah, Matt, you were the one several years ago came up with the idea of looking deeper into sleep paralysis. And we have we have some great stuff on it for anybody who's interested in reading more about the science surrounding this as well as the folklore, which I think are equally fascinating. But there's another fascinating thing that you've done here, Kevin, which is to go from from this experience. Kevin is okay. His wife's okay, although you know she's very patient with him. Kevin goes on to talk in depth about the historical context of the Wu kang Men mansion and why so many people feel it's haunted, and he adds that at the time they were living within what did he say, within a hundred yards of this area, And I get the sense that, Um, Kevin is maybe a little bit more on on the skeptical side in terms of how how this is described. But he says he's never had a panic attack like that. Um, couldn't have been a nightmare. I mean, have you guys ever had I feel silly asking have you guys ever had very very vivid nightmares like I was saying, amantigo, But the you know, the the hats and the coats and stuff like that, that tends to join up with a nightmare type situation. I wake up and feel as though there's something, you know, kind of glower ha hang over me. Never had a nightmare, not once. It's all it's rainbows and arcade games. Yes, this would was fascinating as well for the context because it talks a little bit about something called the Red Guard, which many Westerners might not be aware of. The Red Guards were, as Kevin puts it, a student led paramilitary force. They were fanatically ideological. They they determined who would be a quote unquote enemy of the state, and then they would subject them to like sanctioned mob violence. It's like all the scary things you see in all the scary things you see in fiction about children being turned into despise, you know what I mean, and like reporting on their parents, very orwellian stuff. Some of that actually happened or something like that happen and in UH in China, and a lot of people died as a result. So it's a glimpse into UH. It's a glimpse into the story that I think a lot of people are unfamiliar with and and should read more about. But it's also for anybody who has has had a panic attack. It's also a bracing story because if you've ever had a panic attack, you know that while you're in those endless moments, it feels like nothing can fix it, and uh, I don't think something has to be a ghost to be frightening in that regard, and we hope you agree. We hope that you are also enjoying some of these wonderful ghost stories we're getting from around the world, and we would love to hear from you. So thanks to everybody who took the time to call in road Dog. If this business idea works out. You don't know us a thing, you know what I mean? Just at us out in the commercials and we wish you luck. If you would like to take a page or a phone from your fellow listeners books, why not? Why not join the show, reach out to us online. We try to be easy too, fled Oh. Yes, you can find us all over the internet. We are conspiracy Stuff on YouTube, conspiracy stuff on Twitter, conspiracy stuff on Facebook. You can also join our Facebook group Here's where it gets Crazy, or hit us up on Instagram or a conspiracy Stuff show. If you don't like social media, you can use your mouth to contact us. And you don't have to do it in some alley way or at a crossroads or into a darkened mirror with four candles. You can just call us. Our number is one eight three three std w y t K. You'll have three minutes. Those three minutes are your own. 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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist, it is one of our favorite times of the week. It is our listener male segment where we share the best part of this show, your fellow listeners stories with the best part of this show you specifically you, so stay tuned. You might be in today's episode, and if you're not, will give you plenty of ways to contact us so that you can join in. Uh them maybe not fun, but the strangeness right, Uh, this is funny because our first one today is a blast from the past and a couple of levels. If you have ever checked out our old YouTube videos, then you may have heard of this story. And in surprising you know, our video on this was the first way a lot of people learned about it. But nol, I think you have found a voicemail that the more people should hear. What do you say, Oh I did, let's hear let's hear it from Wyatt. Hey, guys, this is why it Parsons from Columbia, Missouri. I previously called and encourage you all to do an episode on the group based program, which is great. They said, listening to your episode on the Maple Syrip cartel, which is also great. But I was wanted to say, uh, it probably could have used the context of mentioning the Phobos Cartel, which is a fairly well known cartels that was operating among early light bulb manufacturers in order to keep the price of the light bulbs among the sels uh as close to a similar as they could, remaining quote unquote competitive. Um. So I wanted to say, well, the show appreciate you guys, I want I say and take care. Oh Wyatt, you are absolutely right and honestly you know, the story of any kind of collusion in formation these cartel is always interesting. But to me, the better place to have mentioned the Phoebus Cartel would have been in our recent discussions of things like planned obsolescence UM or the idea of the right to repair. You know, that's sort of my conversation really does kind of go part and parcel with what he's talking about, which is, Yeah, a group of light bulb manufacturers UM in the nineteen twenties GAP Third in Geneva, representatives from UH Germany's as Rum Corporation, Phillips which is still around today, UH from the Netherlands, and UH Campagni de lamp from from France. UM also General Electric was in on it. They essentially got together and decided that UM, it would be in their best interest not to necessarily league up with well there's a lot of ramifications of this meeting, but not necessarily to like league up or share supplies or things like that, but essentially too in tandem make their products worse. So yeah, to make their products worse. UM. Up to that point, engineers working for these companies their job would have been to how do I improve the life of a light bulb of fulfilment with like different material sciences and all of the research that goes into that stuff. What they realized is if you have a bulb that burns forever, UM, they can't sell you more balls and and therein kind of became the dawn of the idea of planned obsolescence, which now we know as applied to all kinds of other things like the iPhone and any product. There's different flavors of it, though, there's like psychological planned obsolescence, where like say, you know, a company will sort of psychologically UM trick you, maybe trick is maybe I don't know, it depends UM where you stand, whether it's trickery or not, but convince you that you need the next best thing, and that if you don't have that or you're a bad person, you're a failure, you're you should be ashamed. There's a really really great piece that talks about the Phoebus Cartel and also the genius of UM, Alfred P. Sloan Um, who you may know from NPR or the pre Sloan Foundation. UM. He was, in fact a guy who was a genius business person UM very much like Al Edward Burnet's type, guy who who recognized psychology to trick people into thinking that they a needed UM give them so many options that they think if they didn't have all the options or at least the next best model UM, than they were somehow lacking the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. You know, this is something that was kind of sold to us as consumers. This is actually right around the time, um, we were starting to be referred to as consumers. But but back to Phoebus, Ben, you mentioned this as a blast of the past. You and Matt before my time, did an excellent video about the Phoebus cartel. Um. What was y'all's takeaway when you first discovered this very very real bit of collusion and um kind of price fixing and the idea of you know, taking it something that you should be improving and consciously making it worse so that you can sell more of the thing. Oh man, hey, thanks so much. Well, it's it makes meat. You didn't know that that you checked it out, mainly because then I were talking about this earlier that that's one of the classic videos we did that really does hold up and more people should know about it. Um, this was gosh, Matt, when was it that we did this one shoot that video was released? Wow the time? Hey, hey, al right, So it's it's strange because this idea was phrased as standardization even in a lot of internal documents they weren't calling it a grift. They were saying, let's make sure we're all selling the same expectations right for a product. But the problem was the standardization they created kind of crippled the lifespan of lightbulbs, making them all last a thousand hours and for four the Cartels ascendency, the average light bulb would last like more than two thousand hours, like two thousand, five hundred hours. And and Apple was still, you know, very much active when we were making this video. And it's kind of like, um, I don't know about you, Matt, but I experienced, what is it kind of a better mine Hoff thing with the idea of planned obsolescens because I started seeing it everywhere. Even now, you can have a pretty strong debate about how much of a manufacturers recommended things are meant to sell more stuff versus get the best operation out of something, right, Like I'm thinking of things like, um, how often one should or should not use certain beauty products for example, I'm thinking of how like directives on how to use something can also be a part of this planned obsolescence you're talking about, and it's just it's just extended. Phoebus got away with it too. By the way, the only reason that they really ended. They were planning to break up in nineteen fifty five, but then World War two came along and they had bigger fish to fry, bigger bolts of light. It's interesting too, because, I mean, the history of this is so fascinating because you know, think about it, the light bulb was like one of the great innovations of mankind, you know, I mean it was like it went from gas lamps to these electric light bulbs on par with like the the the automobile. And understandably there was a lot of competition UM when electrification was kind of introduced uh into the world, into all kinds of other vehicles, for example, like bikes and you know cars, headlights and street lights and all of the other possibilities that you needed for light bulbs. So it was these um this kind of cartel. The formation of this cartel was as a result of sales dropping the as Rum Corporation UM. Their German sales dropped from sixty three million light bulbs in n to twenty three fiscal year to twenty eight million the following So they were actually the ones that was their head, William mine Heart, that decided to, you know, put this group together, um and kind of cut out all of the smaller players and just you know, make uh an understanding that they would like you said, Ben, limit Literally it took them a while too, interestingly to figure out how to work backwards. Uh, to get it at a standardized amount of of hours of light a thousand hours what they were shooting for. Took them quite quite a few years to get that perfect. But then they did. There's a really great piece on NPRS Planet Money that talks about this story and then talks about again like I was talking about the Alfred P. Sloan story where Sloan essentially decided to give more options to people with cars. He was competing with Ford, who had invented this model t which is a very workman like kind of you know, almost like a piece of farm equipment. It wasn't sexy. Uh. Ford famously said, Ben, I'm sure you recall this from Carstone episodes. Uh. You can have in any color as long as black. Um. But then Chevrolet totally changed the game by realizing that women were largely making financial decisions for the household, including cars, um, and that if you had more options for you know, variety and the style that would be something that they would maybe glaum onto a little more than men who maybe we're a little more utilitarian, you know at the time not to you know overly uh generalized, but I think that was the idea and it definitely worked. And then Ford was forced to release the Model A and uh constantly kind of was keeping up with this, you know, marketing. It really it is marketing because they're selling the same invention just wrapped up in a different package. But um, nowadays, you know, when we have these more costly and more efficient and longer lasting um l E ed bulbs, it's something to think about, you know, how we got to where we are now. Um, And I've got to wonder like is that same thinking going into LED lights or are they really working to make them as efficient and long lasting as possible? Because it was ultimately General Electric that kind of spilled the beans on the cartel because they got brought up and I believe some anti competition charges and in the court case, uh, some information got leaked or was was in the you know, the documentation and the testimony about the Phoebus cartel. Uh, and that's when it kind of got essentially disbanded. Just on the LED bulb front. I've only got my own experience, but I saw the LED lights in my entire house three years ago and one of them has gone out, one bulb out of know, how many dozens? How long is a thousand hours? Is that? Like? You know? And this is obviously if you're turning your lights off at night, a thousand hours should last you what maybe a year? I don't know, Like right now, there are lights on in this room in my house, zero other lights, so it's hard to judge, right, So maybe I'm just a bad test case. Well, there's also there's something interesting about LED light bulbs. Uh, some folks may recall the LED light bulbs are thoughts to last like fifty thous hours. They can last if you keep them on twelve hours a day. That works out to more than a decade. It's like eleven years. So the issue is that it's hard to sell these long lasting bulbs. So some manufacturers have been designing LED light bulbs that will burn out sooner they're they're meant to, or they need upgrades or replacements of some component to continue working. And this is not necessarily illegal. There are other like you said, Well, there are other genres of planned obsolescence, and some of them are things that humans just routinely accept in their lives, like the disposable culture. Right buy, you buy razor blades in bulk, and you're supposed to get rid of them, or or with printers. Printers are often purposely designed such that when when one part of it breaks, replacing just that part is so prohibitively expensive that it's cheaper just to buy another printer. And in many cases they're just making money off the ink anyway, so they don't want much you pay for the printer. I think it's true, and I think we're gonna see more of it, especially as society, at least in the developed world, trends further and further away from an ownership culture and further and further into the wild land of a subscription or um service rental culture. Now there's no doubt we're we're we're more than we've got. We've got more than our toes dipped in that model. By the way, a year calendar year is roughly eight thousand, seven d and sixty hours, so uh yeah, a thousand hours. You can change your light bulbs around eight times a year. Uh, if you leave them on all the time. I mean, obviously this is people are not leaving their light bulbs on constantly. But that's significant. Um, so very interesting stuff. Thank you whyat for hipping us to this blast from the past. Uh and also happening having us revisiting, cause I think it's more valid now than ever. And uh. And so also take it with a healthy grain of salt when you read things that put a burden of the light bulb working on the consumer. When they say, hey, this is uh an energy saving tip for your home or something like that, I'm not saying they're lying to you. I'm just saying, keep your eyes open. Well, let's take a quick pause for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll come back with more messages from you. All right, and we're back, and we are jumping to the phone lines to hear from Schneider. So here we go. Hi, my name is Schneider. I stay the programs. I'm going to tell you a spooky story about the time I'm at a ghost of concentration care. So I live in Germany for about a decade, right, and every year they would take us to a concentration camp to show off, like, hey, this is our history, let's not repeat it, let's learn from the etcetera. Well, I was about sixteen at the time with a bunch of my friends, and we were in the crematorium, just walking through, looking at everything. The crematorium is a large sum instructure. There's no way in or out. There's no event other than the like pipes that pumped that smoke. In the crematorium. They have this giant like book where they they wrote down did names of everyone who was cremated in that building. So all my friends just living through and they're poking fun at like, oh, look, there's so many people who had your name. Look at all the shiners. Well, Schneider is like the name Smith. It's super common. Anyway, they don't know this, but I am the direct descendant of people who narrowly escaped the Hall of Fame. While my grandparents managed to escape, a lot of their other family did not. Now I don't know what camp they went to, or even if they went at all. I don't know when they were killed. We weren't really informed on the subject. As Shulder, It's not something we talked about. It's also the middle of German summer. German summer is a lot like Jordan summer. I lived in Columbus for about three years, so I know it's how hot it. Kids out there, guys, it's hot in this building. They start poping fun they say, look, Schneider, look it's you. It plummets to freezing temperatures in that building on the drop of a hat, and we do this like how kind of sound coming from the ovens and needle us to stay. It's scared the respect into us. Really, it could have been something perfectly normal, but I'm conscient it was a ghost, uh, teaching us that, hey, stop joking around about this stuff. It's really serious. Guys. Anyway, that's my story. Thanks guys, love the show. Bye, Wow Schneider. I think I can speak for all of us first off when I say, you're your friends need to learn to be better behaved, just singing, like to put it put it lightly. But what a what a fascinating story. Huh. Yeah. The concept that some you know, sixteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old kids in a place like that joking around could cause something to occur like that, even if it's completely coincidence. Right, even if they're joking around and then something just occurs, that's a normal process within that place that is now in many ways a um you know, a place of remembrance and a museum of sorts with that book that Schnyder mentioned, And if that's the furthest most skeptical thing, it's just completely unrelated, just a normal thing. Even then, it's a story. I think that's worth retelling. And I do appreciate this Snyder retold it to us. Um. If not, if it's something else, my goodness, it gives you a chill a little bit, the feeling that concept of the temperature changing so rapidly after that, I I do. I will say, I know not everybody believes this, and I know a great deal of the experience maybe psychological in nature rather than physiological. But I think everybody has been in a place that has been the location of a great deal of atrocity or a great deal of of horror from humans to each other, and has felt the place was somehow different in one way or another. You know, taal As old as time people have walked, people have stumbled across cemeteries because something in the field didn't feel right. It reminds me of this excellent book called The Gift of Fear, which I highly recommend, which essentially the argument is that you're unconscious mind picks up a lot of things that your conscious mind might miss, and when you get a bad vibe or you get a strange feeling, that could be your some other part of your mind saying hey, you in the forebrain pay attention to this um. And with that, I think, Uh, what a story, Schneider. And I'm still I'm still sorting through this, but I think there are a lot of factors that play here. As you said, Matt, Yeah, And just to take it to graveyards for a moment. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and we're discussing the concept that graveyards have this weird feeling. Many times we get that weird feeling if we're in a graveyard. But depending on what you believe is going on with a human when it expires, when any human expires, um, a graveyard may not be the place that should feel weird. Right If there is, if there's a body slash, soul slash or whatever that the consciousness is connection, then no, nothing's in that graveyard really right, except for the corporeal forms of people. And if there's something else that exists, then it probably left that body at the moment that that person expired. And I'm imagining this place where Schneider is in this concentration camp, within this crematorium, at that site, this would be a place where a great many people expired. So I can imagine some kind of if there is something too that you know, to the soul or spirit or that energetic yeah as I always associated with is like some sort of like energy signature you now that kind of remains like I don't know if I would call something like that a ghost, but I feel like we always talk about things like vibes. You know, in the movie Vibes you can get started. Um, But yeah, no, it's an excellent movie. Everyone should see it. It's totally worth your time. And I'm not joking. I quite enjoyed it very much. But now it's a thing. You can sense people's vibes, whether when they're alive, and I don't think there's any reason why you should be able to sense remnants of those when they're when they're not, especially in a place like say like the catacombs you know of Rome or something like that, where you know you just have thousands and thousands of of rema remains you know that are there. Uh, They're called remains for reasons, that something that's left behind. And I think it's not just physical. Sometimes I truly believe that and and have felt it. And I think even for the most skeptical h that is, however you would like to interpret or however you would like to explain it to yourself or two others, that is a feeling that is going to be very familiar to many of the people listening today. And I, UM don't talk a ton about my personal beliefs in this show. In particular, I don't think they particularly matter, um and we try to be objective as possible, so I don't want to distract from that, but I am I am going to say it is my personal belief that history is a pal obsessed and that traces of things that occur can linger in ways that human beings don't fully understand. I can't conclusively prove it because there's not there's not a way to yet, so it's just one end to these opinion. But I don't think that it's I don't think it's very much of a of a hot take, and I'm honestly we have to make this point. It is incredibly important. Even though those kids were being jerks, it is incredibly important for children to be aware of those sites and to be aware of what happened there, because as soon as people forget something like that, that's when another group of people comes around and engages in the in the next iteration of it, all across the world, all across time. So if if this put a little bit of what they would call it in the South, a little bit of the fear of God into those kids, then, overall, and I don't want to sound like a monster here, overall, I think that's a very good thing. Thank you so much Sneider for sending us that story. Okay, so we're gonna jump over to one more quick voicemail and it is coming from road Dog. Hey, Fred, this is road Dog from Arizona. Listen to your podcast the other day about the Mulu and training cows how to tea. I think you missed a great opportunity for some comedy. Uh. Several years ago, the government and a few multi national corporations got together figure out a way how to sell cow piss to the Americans, particularly the American Truckee Association. It's called g EF and it's an additive that we used to uh knock out the sulfur that comes out of your missions of Dr Taylor's. And so there you go, you figure out how to sell a cow piss and uh, I don't know who's better for it or where the laptoes, gentlemen. Well know this story around that arcticle or that that news story. There was a question what are they gonna do with all of these gallons upon gallons of cawier And maybe they had a plan the whole time and they were just being like coy about it. The cartels, there's the comedy. There's the comedy that road Dog was was was missing up. Well, Hey, road Dog, thank you for for telling us about that. I know you're out there driving right now, probably doing some work. Do all those those jars of those jugs a trucker piss? That's what I want to know. Hey, Well, it's it's dude, it's all. This is all one thing here, okay. So, d first of all, this is diesel exhaust fluid. This is primarily made up of water and uria. The stuff that's in urine. Not a ton of it in urine, but it is a big part of urine. And Um, I just went down a bit of a rabbit hole. Ben, I thought you would probably be the best one to to actually walk us through some of this just from your from your car stuff days. But this stuff is an additive that to my knowledge and from everything that I can find, UH is generated in a laboratory setting because of the concentrations needed of urrea within these compounds. UH, if you were just to take urine, let's say cow urine, you would have a certain percentage of urrea within that. Then you'd have to have to synthesize that down somehow. Um. And it's it appears that it's much much easier to just generate urrea with a couple of simple chemicals in a lab. Yeah, that's gonna tend to be correct. In a weird way, you could get to and I don't know if this is happening yet, Somebody reach out and let us know. You can get to a world in which automobile components or trucking components are sold as organic labels, like here's your organic more expensive cow generated d e f U. It would just have to be You just have to figure out where the where the economics makes sense. But that's my understanding right now is the same as what you said. It's much more affordable to create d e f out of synthetic chemicals. I've also heard bat urine being used road dog, which I think is cool because I mean, it's mainly a myth. But how cool would it be if you could tell your friends that you're you did have a batmobile. It's just he's a bat urine mobile. But you know, work the ease them into that part of it open with batmobile. So look, I don't have the best sources here, but I went to trucking truth dot com and just checked out what they have to say. Uh, maybe don't take this as complete fact, but this is what they have to say over here. Human urine is roughly water, and the actual urrea concentration is around nine point three grams per leader, at least again according to this website. It's not exactly the Mayo clinic, but uh, if you think about that, there's a very low concentration. If you think about the urea concentration in d e F that's available in stores for your big rigs. That's around thirty two point five urea. So it's gonna be tough to get unless you're just taking tons and tons and tons of coal pus. Oh my god, here it is true, guys. It's also it's also there. This has nothing to do with the um confusing to me. Japanese drink kalpis, which is c A l P. I s try it, you know, if you're open minded, but it does not contain urrea as far as I know, I I my Japanese is not good enough to understand the entirety of the label, but not what you're saying. Leads to a really interesting question which I have heard before. People have asked, Hey, if I'm I'm low on store butt d e F, can I can I just p M my d F tank just to get to like the next stop or whatever. The The answer as you can, but it's very bad. It's very bad to do. So it's like saying you can p in there is like saying you can put sugar in a gas tank. It's not gonna work out well, uh, and you should not do it. It's not a cool mcgiver move. Um Also, depending on where you decide to uh to urinate in your t F take, you might have an audience that is very confused, very confused about your motivations and where you're at emotionally and psychologically. Uh. But uria does have uses, right Matt, Beyond d ef It's been used in agriculture, I believe. Oh yeah, I mean it's it's nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. That's what uria is. All the great things that you need, that the planet needs, the humans need, just in a different form, slightly different. There not, Noll, I think we've stumbled across something. This is a pitch to you, road dog, and I'll see if you guys have my back on this one. You don't have to. If it's too weird, just throw me under the tractor trailer, as they say. Okay, road dog, here's the idea. Here's the idea. If we know that it is cheaper to manufacture synthetic d e F, then why not get into the organic DF businessman, why not collect the mass of RPE from these body train cows and if you can figure out how to do like, how to derive it effectively in a way that doesn't break the bank. Then you could be selling it as organic. D I don't pay a lot of heat to stereotypes, but I think it would do well in like California. I think you could get a market. What do you what do you guys think too crazy? I think it's a great idea, Ben. I mean, as long as it's not like, you know, trying to hop on like organic you know, uh, kombucha urine as a replacement for kombucha thing. You know, there was all those quacks that were saying, we're thinking your end's good for you. Remember that that was a thing. It turns out not not good for you at all, sort of neutral but definitely not like good for you. Yeah, no, no, thank you. They make that up. It's a thing called urine therapy. It's like it's a whole Yeah. Yeah. There's also some kind of gurus who recommend it. Yes, usually it's drinking your own urine. Yeah, I would say it's not. It's not the guru's urine cult territory. It's a road dog. Be careful. Don't be in or on your truck please unless you have to. Unless it's a dr Pepper zero sugar bottle. Yes, yes, yes, uh, the multi purpose soda. Yeah, okay, all right, well that's it for now. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And we have returned doc that spooky sound cue we're doing for October. Check this out, guys, visual effects and changing the lights. It's time for some ghost stories. As as you said earlier, for the rest of October. I'm just reading the Fellows ghost stories and we are comparing notes on these to see if, like in the case of Schneider, we can get a little sense of what's going bump in the night here. So our first one is a voicemail and it comes from Mario uh Nold Matt. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. There we go, Hey, guys, this is Mario. I have a ghost story for you. Guys. I've been wanting to tell somebody this story many years ago. When I was a child. I'm forty now, and I was probably about eight years old and my mom and dad household was just me and them, and I'm around maybe two or three. I woke up in the middle of the night, land in the bed. I could see a light on the wall and it's zig zag and went up and down, moved around, and then went away, just like that. I was scared to death. I put the covers over my head, stayed there, didn't move. So let me tell you, no one is behind us. No one lived on the side of us, behind us, no roads behind us, know anything. I just always wanted this. I've never told anybody this because I told my wife the story about a few years ago. And this story still gives me chills when I tell someone this story. I don't believe in goes, don't believe in UFOs, but love you guys, show I love our murder mysteries. Um, I like you guys are discussing things well, come to the right place, Mario. So that's interesting because you know, Mario did something very prescient. You already could tell like you already clocked that one of the first things that the three of us would ask, which would be light sort this right? And and this is something that we've we talked about. The more I listened to it, I'm first off, you have a you have a great voice for storytelling as well, Mario. The more I listened to it, the more I realized they were checking off some of the obvious boxes, right there's no there's no road to refract light. It sounds like it's not just a glow which could come from an ambiance source like the moon on a foggy evening. So, so what do you guys think about This obviously really affected him. Yeah, I definitely did. Man, I don't know why I had this image in my mind of the burning I get. So there's a ring around the camera that I'm looking at right now, and if I close my eyes and I look around, even if I opened them and there's a dark space, then I'm looking at I see that ring of light. Sure, I'm not saying this is what happened, Mario. I'm just that's the first image that came to my mind, is that burning effect where if it's zigzagging around as your looking at the wall, and it seems to be following where your eyes are following, that would be one thing. It sounds like that's not what this is. That's just the way my my brain put it into an image. Yeah, when it gets me every time is this is not related. But that sort of is like I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I will see like some clothing hanging over the back of a chair, maybe with like a hat on top of it, and I will genuinely think there's like someone leering over my bed, you know, or even like I have a rack of hats on my closet door, like on these little hooks, and sometimes if I catch it just right from a certain angle, I think there's someone like hulking over me, like a massive, like tall figure. Um. Again, not not trying to explain your story away. I'm just saying this is something that I genuinely in the moment, I'm like terrified, like almost like shadow people type terrified. Another thing I'm thinking about here, or lasers again, because of the way it moves, But Mario didn't mention anything about streaking. I feel like you would observe the streaking of a laser and moving um if you if that's what he was seeing. But that's something that could if it was just a lone person out in the woods maybe and they had one of those more high powered lasers and just shining it around and it just happened to go through a window and stay on the wall for a bit. Wouldn't that be kind of specialized equipment? Though? Thirty years thirty two years ago, because Mario, you said you're forty, you saw this when you were eight. I mean they were out there, definitely, they were definitely out there. But I don't know how. I guess you wouldn't have to be super strong. Yeah, I guess wouldn't have to be super strong either, depending on how close they were. But then that's that's another frighting possibility. How close with someone dear house, If that's the explanation. I mean, this clearly made an impression on you, Mario, on this, and I think we have a lot of fellow conspiracy realists who have their own childhood experiences that they still can't explain. Actually we know this because we've received a lot of wonderful correspondent from these folks. I would you know, I'd love to hear um anything. I'd love to hear a little bit more about the house. I'd love to hear a little bit more about maybe possible sounds that were unusual that you heard, or anything else, because sometimes searching in the for that unexpected context can get you a little bit closer to an explanation. But thank you so much for calling us. Glad you made it out of there, and would love to hear if anything else unusual happened during your time in that place. For now, we're going to move to last ghost story of the day. This story comes to us from Kevin, and it really I was really interested in this. I want to see what you all think high conspiracy people, says Kevin. Having heard your recent call for scary stories, I thought I would share mine if there is interest, Oh, Kevin, there is interest. It takes place in Shanghai, China and is related to the Wu Kang Mansions, which has a history of hauntings. The ghostly Fright is followed by some historical context. Thanks in advance for reading before we begin. We can talk about the historical context together. I think it would be the best way to do it. But we're gonna we're gonna edit some of it because it is It is uh pretty detailed, A ghostly tail rooted in tragic reality, Wooden floorboards creaked beneath his shifting feet. As a friend mumbled, not sure how to describe it, but there's a presence in the baby's room. Intentionally vague or not. I was ushered through a door, his hand firmly at my back. Please go in and let us, uh know if you uh feel something. Hesitantly stumbling forward, I found myself in a room a wash and blue light. Dust particles twinkled in and out of existence. Below large French bay windows was an antique bed, complete with candle wick coverlet and a wrought iron frame. At the foot of the bed was a chest of drawers. In the farthest reaches of the room of bassinet set still on wooden rockers, minus the blue glow, The furniture and walls were you did white, rubbing a hand over the coverlets, embroidery, and odd unwelcome chill entered my body, yanking my hand away. I tried to shake it off, failing. Something tugged at my side, as if possessed. My arm lifted itself into the air, taking aim at the chest of drawers. Against internal protest, it continued to stretch itself towards the end of the bed, feet petrified. My upward body leaned forward, helping what my mind did not want. My arm seemingly grew in length, extending itself further than was humanly possible, emanating from the bottom of my spine. Another chilly wave confirmed it. A presence was undeniable fingers reaching the base of the bed, A dark shadow began to grow from beneath My hand began to trigger as it continued to defy caution. Fingers crossing the threshold, I was not prepared to breach inches from the approaching darkness. I held my breath, willing them to stop. Neither index nor the middle finger listened. If my heart had been beating, it had surely stopped. The room's atmosphere was eerily silent. Another inch of space was past, reaching its edge. My fingers entered the trespassed, Hovering dangerously above the darkness. A cold vice suddenly clapped soundly around my fingers. The lights went out, blindly smack in a ghostly apparition way. My upper body sprung upwards, my heart threatening to burst from my chest. I heaved loudly over my own frightening gas, hyperventilating lung star for oxygen of tiny, yet faintly familiar female voice cried, Hey, what did you do that for? Watching me struggle for a single breath, white knuckling the bedspread eyes wide with terror, The woman beside me was witnessing a full blown panic attack. Inhaling harshly, I weise who are you mind? Not yet cleared? I tried to continue, what is going? Uh? Delicate, steady hands back as my own shaking ones. She tried to comfort me as I rambled where I mean you? After a long minute, panting, shallowy eyes adjusting to the darkness, muddiness gave way to clarity. I was finally able to confirm that was safely in our bed. The woman was my wife, and most importantly, there was no longer an earth sleep presence. So we'll we'll pause there, we'll we'll actually stop there again. As Matt said, you can read the full thing in in this wonderful article by Kevin on Medium. It is called a ghostly tale rooted in tragic reality. I thought of sleep paralysis when I read this. Did that sound familiar to you? Guys? You can't move, you know, Yeah, you're you're dreaming, but everything feels real. You're in the same place physically where you are in your mind feels very similar. Yeah, Matt, you were the one several years ago came up with the idea of looking deeper into sleep paralysis. And we have we have some great stuff on it for anybody who's interested in reading more about the science surrounding this as well as the folklore, which I think are equally fascinating. But there's another fascinating thing that you've done here, Kevin, which is to go from from this experience. Kevin is okay. His wife's okay, although you know she's very patient with him. Kevin goes on to talk in depth about the historical context of the Wu kang Men mansion and why so many people feel it's haunted, and he adds that at the time they were living within what did he say, within a hundred yards of this area, And I get the sense that, Um, Kevin is maybe a little bit more on on the skeptical side in terms of how how this is described. But he says he's never had a panic attack like that. Um, couldn't have been a nightmare. I mean, have you guys ever had I feel silly asking have you guys ever had very very vivid nightmares like I was saying, amantigo, But the you know, the the hats and the coats and stuff like that, that tends to join up with a nightmare type situation. I wake up and feel as though there's something, you know, kind of glower ha hang over me. Never had a nightmare, not once. It's all it's rainbows and arcade games. Yes, this would was fascinating as well for the context because it talks a little bit about something called the Red Guard, which many Westerners might not be aware of. The Red Guards were, as Kevin puts it, a student led paramilitary force. They were fanatically ideological. They they determined who would be a quote unquote enemy of the state, and then they would subject them to like sanctioned mob violence. It's like all the scary things you see in all the scary things you see in fiction about children being turned into despise, you know what I mean, and like reporting on their parents, very orwellian stuff. Some of that actually happened or something like that happen and in UH in China, and a lot of people died as a result. So it's a glimpse into UH. It's a glimpse into the story that I think a lot of people are unfamiliar with and and should read more about. But it's also for anybody who has has had a panic attack. It's also a bracing story because if you've ever had a panic attack, you know that while you're in those endless moments, it feels like nothing can fix it, and uh, I don't think something has to be a ghost to be frightening in that regard, and we hope you agree. We hope that you are also enjoying some of these wonderful ghost stories we're getting from around the world, and we would love to hear from you. So thanks to everybody who took the time to call in road Dog. If this business idea works out. You don't know us a thing, you know what I mean? Just at us out in the commercials and we wish you luck. If you would like to take a page or a phone from your fellow listeners books, why not? Why not join the show, reach out to us online. We try to be easy too, fled Oh. Yes, you can find us all over the internet. We are conspiracy Stuff on YouTube, conspiracy stuff on Twitter, conspiracy stuff on Facebook. You can also join our Facebook group Here's where it gets Crazy, or hit us up on Instagram or a conspiracy Stuff show. If you don't like social media, you can use your mouth to contact us. And you don't have to do it in some alley way or at a crossroads or into a darkened mirror with four candles. You can just call us. Our number is one eight three three std w y t K. You'll have three minutes. Those three minutes are your own. Give yourself a cool nickname, let us know if it's okay to use your name and or voice on the show, and then tell us what's on your mind, whether you're sharing a spooky story or your you've got some more information on one of our recent episodes, we would love to hear from you. Most importantly, in the list of important things, there's a space between number two and this is at the very top of the page. Don't feel like you have to edit yourself. Don't feel like you have to censor yourself. If you have a story, or if you have something to share with us and it needs more than three minutes, then take all the time you need. Send along any supplemental links, any photographs, any uh, any audio samples, whatever is on your mind. Send it to us directly at our good old fashioned email address. Where we are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production of I Heart Radio. 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