CLASSIC: What is Gang Stalking?

Have you ever felt as if somebody was watching, following or even stalking you? If so, you're not alone. Most people have, at some time or another, had an experience like this -- and, tragically, many people are physically stalked every year. Yet there's a strange twist to the tale: More and more people are claiming they're being stalked by a group of people -- a gang. Join Ben and Matt to learn more in this evening's Classic episode.

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist, We return to you from literally around
the world with a classic episode that remains oddly relevant today.
We were talking about this off air, Matt, and you
and I both agreed that this is sort of an
eternal subject or an eternal concern for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh yeah, the concept of being a targeted individuals, as
we're going to get into in this episode. This is
it's sensitive, right, because you're dealing with potentially mental health,
You're dealing with potentially actual human beings that are under
some form of investigation. There's all kinds of things that

(00:40):
go into this, right, and we still people still write
to us and ask us to do Gang Stocking episodes
like updates to this and this is back in October
twenty nineteen that we covered.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, it's an experience that a lot of people have
had to degree or another. Who is that person who
seems so similar? Right? Is that the same person I
saw at the grocery store?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
That hat looks Wait, I know I've seen that happ before, right, right? Am?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I gaslighting myself? Is something afoot? Who is after me?
And why? More and more people as we recorded this
were claiming that they had been stalked by not a
single individual, but by some enigmatic group.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
And that group is interchangeable. You never know who it
could be.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Let's roll the tape from UFOs to psychic powers and
government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want
you to know. A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is
Matt nol Is. Where is he on a nol somewhere?

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Perhaps a grassy one. Yes, they call me Ben. We
were joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission
control deck, and most importantly, you are you. You are
here and that makes this stuff they don't want you
to know? Matt. How's it going?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's going?

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Well.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I'm wondering what you are doing out there right now
as you're listening to this. Are you driving? Are you walking?
Are you sitting at your desk? If you are able
to If you look around right now, is anybody paying
attention to what you're doing? Did somebody just dart their
head down as you glanced at them.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Is someone on a phone but not appearing to speak
into that phone? Are they making eye contact? With you
or looking in your direction while they're on the phone.
Do you think that they're actually using the phone? Do
you think they're actually calling one eight three three std
wyt Well, you know, we have a lot of We

(03:16):
have a lot of hang ups as a species, right,
and many of those are the inevitable result of our
great intelligence or the problem of consciousness and sentience or
consciousness sabiens, whatever you want to call it is its
own bag of badgers. But our fears drive so much

(03:39):
of our you know, our failings and our triumphs, our innovations,
even our music. You and I were talking off air
with Mission Control about various songs that are catchy but
strongly paranoid. You know, yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Do you always feel like someone is watching you?

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Do you feel like private eyes are watching you.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
So they see here every move? What I thought you
were going to say? Poop again?

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Oh? Yeah, no, we worked on an alternate version of
that song. Yes, Today's Today's episode is about a troubling
a troubling feeling, a phenomenon that everyone has experienced to
some degree at one point or another. And this this
is the feeling of being watched, the feeling of being stalked.

(04:34):
And if you were one of the lucky few who
are thinking, oh, gee, man, I've never personally felt like
someone was following me or stalking me, well, then strap
in because you're going to feel that way after this episode. Okay,
So I will give a I don't talk too much
about the personal stuff, but I will give a personal
example of when I was actually followed or stalked. This

(04:59):
was when I was living in a different country and
I was interacting with some political activists. Let's keep it
at that, sure, okay. And I was not in any
way a lynchpin of this organization, nor was I involved

(05:23):
in any criminal enterprise. I'm very much a dudly do
good when I am in someone else's geopolitical house, and
it's the best policy. But I noticed a few, you know,
a few weeks after I had met with a group,

(05:45):
I was at a fairly I had a fairly predictable routine.
So I was always sleeping more or less in the
same place, and I was typically going to do things
in more like the same area, often with predictable times
of day, which any PI can tell you is not

(06:07):
the best strategy investigator, right right, Thank you? And I
started noticing I started noticing the same people at the
same time, and eventually, eventually somebody very politely make contact

(06:28):
with me and asked me some questions about the folks
I met a week or two ago. Wow, and nothing
ever came of it. And I you know, the story
ends there.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
But you're fairly sure you were being surveilled or stocked.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
I'm certain, yeah, And it wasn't. It wasn't in a
threatening way. I think. I think these folks just wanted
to see what I was going to do next. Sure,
what I mean, is this just hanging out? These just
some friends hanging out in a coffee shop or a
wine bar, or is this a public meeting that leads

(07:06):
to something else? Yeah, and that's not I have to
also be very clear, it is not illegal for intelligence
agencies or law enforcement to do that. As a matter
of fact, at least on paper, the US has some
laws that are meant to constrain the unchecked use of

(07:27):
those powers. Other countries do not, and as often to
the peril of many unfortunate people. But let's go away.
That's a little scary, but it all's well, that ends well,
you know, here are the facts. Have you ever been followed.
Like we said, you know, we've all we've all experienced

(07:51):
if you are savvy enough to be listening to a podcast,
you have experienced some sort of how would you describe
it matter as sense of surveillance.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah. Sure, Again, it doesn't even necessarily mean that it's true,
but the perception that something like that perhaps is going on.
You maybe have felt it before. We certainly you and
I I think in particular, maybe as well as Noel
a little bit to a lesser effect, have experienced kind
of a fluctuating feeling of being surveilled over the ten years,

(08:25):
the decade of making this show, where it waxes and wanes.
We even had a joke nsa intern there that we've
mentioned several times in the past.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Ah, shout out to Steve.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, who's tasked with listening to our episodes and all
the ideas that we put forth into the universe. Honestly,
they're worried about, you know, the next season of Rick
and Morty, Like what's gonna come on there? Like is
he getting influenced? Like what are we gonna do?

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Right? Right? Let's sign up? Is this and also shout
out to you, Steve, if you have not graduated yet.
If you are still an intern at one of the
Spooky Alphabet agencies, then it can only mean you're pursuing
a PhD and good luck.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
That's all right. But again, to our knowledge, we have
never really experienced overt surveillance on this show, at least
for making this show. Again, we don't have knowledge of
it at least, and we certainly haven't encountered what would
be considered a stalker. Now.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
We have received a number of cryptic and order troubling emails,
a couple of texts on mobile phones, things.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Like that I have a few pieces of physical paper
in my desk that I've kept around. Oh yeah, that
we're a bit odd with the symbols and everything that
was on there and mapping connections to things that I
didn't understand.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yes, yeah, we've received some odd posts too, But we
haven't encountered what would be described legally as a stalker
or stalking situation, which can happen. It's a real thing.
The Department of Justice defines stalking as engaging in a
course of conduct directed at a specific person that would

(10:16):
cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her
safety or the safety of others. Or suffer substantial emotional distress.
And we have some statistics about this too.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Oh sure. If you look to the CDC, they've got
a thing called Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Violence, stalking
and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization. This is a National Intimate
Partner and Sexual Violence Survey within the United States twenty eleven. Okay,
that's a lot to get through there. It's through the CDC,
that's what you need to know. And it's a survey,

(10:50):
and this whole thing is commonly referred to as the NISVS.
According to this thing, seven and a half million people
were stalked in one year alone in the United States,
And of course this is the twenty eleven survey, so
this is data from twenty ten. Now, a lot of
these victims were stalked by either a current or a
former intimate partner. That would be sixty one percent of

(11:13):
female victims and forty four percent of male victims. And
if you look to the population overall, an estimate of
fifteen percent of women and six percent of men have
been a victim of stalking throughout their entire lifetimes, which
you know, is statistically fairly low. But when you think
about that number of people seven and a half million

(11:35):
human beings that experience stalking in a single year, it's
pretty staggering.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
In the US alone. Yeah, and when we say stalking,
we're not talking about you know, creeps on the Internet
sliding into your dms. We're talking about the sort of
stalking that is defined by the DOJ. For a lot
of US. These numbers seem surprisingly high, you know what
I mean? This is like cape fear, single white female

(12:03):
kind of thriller stuff. But critics of this survey believe
the CDC is used an overly conservative definition of stalking,
and honestly, I tend to agree with some of the
problems here. Survey respondents were classified as stalking victims if
and only if, one they experienced multiple stalking tactics or

(12:26):
a single stalking tactic multiple times by the same perpetrator.
That part makes sense. Or two they felt very fearful
or believed that they or someone close to them would
be harmed or killed as a result of the perpetrators
stalking behavior. And this comes from the Stalking Resource Center.
They say this definition fails to address the varying levels

(12:48):
of fear reported by victims. Right somewhat fearful, maybe distressed, disquietened,
or slightly fearful. And no stalking law in the US
which goes these stalking laws pretty much goes state by
state unless you're talking about interstate stalking. These stalking laws
don't qualify fear the way that the CDC is. And

(13:11):
so they say that using this conservative definition of stalking
results in an inaccurate depiction of the practice. But wait,
as Billy Mayss want to say, there's more, folks. You see,
we have piles of disturbing facts and statistics about this phenomenon,
this type of crime according to the Bureau of Justice

(13:34):
statistics during a twelve month period. You'll notice these statistics
don't all agree during a twelve month period, and estimated
fourteen out of every one thousand people age eighteen or
older or victims of stalking somehow. And again the definition changes, right,
But let's keep in mind these are different organizations of

(13:57):
the same government.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Well, and really, you're you can only use surveys, right,
So depending on who you're surveying, even as random as
you want it to be, you may get very different statistics.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Right, Right, So it's true because we have to ask
ourselves about the methodology. One survey may just be going
off self reporting right. One survey may be going off
only reports that have been made to law enforcement, and
as we know, quite a few people do not report

(14:30):
things like that to law enforcement unless unless it exceeds
a certain threshold, Like most people are not calling nine
to one one every time they get an unsolicited again
an unsolicited maybe message on Instagram or something you know.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Sure or you know, a robo call, or you know,
consistent robo calls from the same number or something.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
About half of stalking victims, around forty six percent, said
they experienced at least one unwanted contact per week. Eleven
percent of victims said they've been stalked for a long
time five years or more. The risk of being a
victim of stalking was highest for individuals who were divorced
or separated. That's thirty four out of one thousand individuals.

(15:20):
Women were at a greater risk than men for being
for stalking victimization. However, women and men were equally likely
to experience harassment. Nearly three and four stalking victims knew
their offender in some way. That person you go to
school with, who's kind of quiet and ex significant other.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Even if it's just a neighbor, even if it's.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Just a neighbor, just a face woman in some way. So,
you know, when we see these crimes or these situations
depicted in works of fiction, people go to the police,
and predictably, especially if it's a thriller, the police ignore them.
Our hands are tied. They say, we could get a

(16:05):
restraining order. That's the extent of it. Now, that's you know,
oversimplified for the sake of plot and narrative. But it
is unfortunately true that not all states treat stalking the
same way.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, currently just over half fifty one percent of states.
They'll require that there are at least two or more instances.
We kind of talked about this a little bit, but
there have to be at least two instances where this perpetrator,
whoever the person is, that's perceived as a stalker, as
either following, harassing, watching in some way the person who's

(16:43):
the victim, right, But then some state laws actually specify
the victim has to be frightened by the stalking. Like
there again we're talking about fear here. It's kind of
what we mentioned earlier, like if you were walking into
a police department to make a report, and you are
not fearful of this stalking is just a nuisance perhaps
or something like that, then it wouldn't necessarily be considered stalking.

(17:09):
Some others require that the stalking behavior must have caused
a reasonable person to experience fear. But again, a lot
of these states vary on what fear is, like what
are we defining fear as? Is it somewhat fearful, quite fearful,
very fearful? And some state laws even require, you know,
a prosecutor if they were gonna take somebody to court

(17:33):
and charge them with stalking, they would require the prosecutor
to establish that fear of death or at least some
kind of you know, serious harm was at least felt
by the victim, And you know, others just require that
a prosecutor established the victim suffered some kind of emotional distress.
And that is generally going to be experienced by anyone

(17:54):
who feels at least that they are the victim of stalking.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
And we'll get back to a problematic, challenging issue with
that definition. But first we've painted the scene right. The
broad context, being stalked in North Dakota is not the
same as being stalked in California or Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Right.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
We know that stalking is reel. We know that it
is by itself a frightening phenomenon for the people involved.
Yet over the course of recent years, more and more
individuals are coming forward, often forming communities online, claiming that
they have been harassed, stalked, terrorized, not by an ex lover,

(18:43):
not by a single creepy obsessed neighbor or former school chum,
but by groups of people, coordinated groups, acting in concerts
and behaving as though they have a plan, a gang
of stalks. So today's question is what exactly is going on?

Speaker 2 (19:06):
And we'll get to that right after a quick word
from our sponsor.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Here's where it gets crazy. Gang stalking. Yes, gang stalking.
This is something many of our fellow listeners have written
in to us about over the years, and I do
mean years. As we've established earlier, stalking has a few
common characteristics. Tends to be highly personal and individualized. Tends

(19:38):
to be measured at least partially in subjective emotional terms,
at least as far as the letter of the law
applies in the US. And that's a tricky thing. We
cannot objectively measure a subjective experience, especially because we know
that emotions are malleable and to a degree in ephemeral.

(20:02):
Often right things, we feel different ways about the same
thing at different times, which sounds elementary but is incredibly
important for this. It reminds me of you know, how
the Sackler family and other criminals of that ILK had
put in you know, it'd spent.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
I love that you just phrased it that way.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
It's true, sorry, criminals who are not going to be convicted,
right people, drug dealers. I don't know what you want
me to say.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
No, no, I'm completely honest. It's refreshing to you hear
it stated in the.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well those are unfortunately true things. But but the these
like these organizations, the opioid mongers, had spent millions making
a standardized pain reporting scale that medical professionals were more

(20:57):
or less forced to use. And we've all we've all
kind of heard it before. Describe your pain on a
scale of one to ten right.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
On comfor it's basically comfort or.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah yea yeah, yeah yeah. And so we're asking we're
asking people to subjectively rate something. So if we're asking
people to subjectively rate their fear after something incredibly frightening
has happened to them, you know what I mean, Like,

(21:27):
I just got an envelope full of like hair and
a picture of my kid at the playground. Oh do
you think I'm somewhat discomfited by this? You know it's insane?

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Well it is. I mean, when you're speaking of perceived stalking,
as we're going to find a little later in the episode,
it ranges from a glance from somebody that perhaps you
don't know, to I mean, I can only imagine the
nth degree. There would be someone holding a weapon to

(22:02):
your body and you know, threatening you, Like, that would
be the range I'm assuming if you're talking about levels
of fear within stalking, right.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem with that definition because different
people will have different thresholds right of what they consider frightening.
And this is not at all in any way shape,
form or fashion meant to diminish or minimize the experiences
of people who are victimized by stalking. We're saying that

(22:32):
some people will behave differently, and there's not really a
one size fits all for you.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yes, some people behave and perceive differently.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, there we go. That's incredibly important. So here's the
strange part. For people who believe that they're victims of
group stalking or gang stalking, the same rules apply with
but not in the same way and with even higher stakes,
like they may feel there is a highly personal, individualized

(23:02):
motive behind this group of people stalking them, but they
may not have known these people before. It's just the
guy who's always now at the bus stop around the
same time as you. And because the definitions of the
term gang stalking can be a little tough to come by,
we found some pretty pretty comprehensive definitions from the subreddit

(23:29):
on gang stalking, And there is a dedicated subreddit to
this and I like their definition. I think it gives
us a good lay of the land.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Oh sure. It says that gang stalking is an umbrella term,
and it describes a series of techniques utilized by a
group to instill mental instability within a victim. So that
would be a particular individual with the intent to discredit, sabotage, harass, extort,
and even drive a victim to suicide or at least

(23:58):
to mental distress. And it goes on to say the
victims of this practice are often described as targeted individuals
known as TIS.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
For short, So we will no relation to the artists.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
Correct, and we will be using TI sometimes targeted individuals
moving forward.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, and according to the TIS who feel that they
are victims of gang stocking operations, the stalking can take
multiple forms, right.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Oh, yeah, there are lots of different perceived things here
that have been described by multiple people. So this isn't
just one person's account of what it's like to be
gang stalked or the perception of what is occurring. So
let's get to something called mobbing. Let's hit that first.

(24:49):
So this is an intense and organized harassment, sometimes in
the workplace, but mobbing can also occur outside of the workplace,
where it's just a whole bunch of people that appear
to be around you or paying attention to you or
watching you all at once. Like again, if you just

(25:12):
if you imagine the concept of mobbing, it's a lot
of people all at once with their attention focused on you.
But then but then their attention will go away and
they'll come right back to you.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, and then there are black bag jobs, which would
be a residential break in where maybe something is stolen
or something's messed with, but your house is not valuables
aren't necessarily taken. It's not like a burglary.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
It's for me. My understanding is it's a perception that
your inner sanctum, your place of safety, has been disheveled
or messed with or looked at by somebody who physically,
you know, breached the perimeter or whatever.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
And maybe they altered something, or maybe they installed something
to monitor you.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
And generally it's to mess with you, right, right, right,
I mean that's the perception, is that somebody broke in
here just to mess with me, not like you said,
not to take something of any value.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
Right, maybe in some cases to leave something. The idea
is that the idea here in both of those cases
is that someone is attempting to compromise the victim's sanity
or their perception of reality. This term we commonly encapsulate
this in the term gaslighting. Yeah, right, So gaslighting is

(26:35):
when someone attempts some person or some group attempts to
convince some other person or some other group that they
are in fact mentally unstable, they are losing their mind,
and so on. It comes from a play nineteen thirty
eight called Gaslight. In the US, it's known as Angel Street,

(26:55):
and it's about a woman whose husband slowly her or
gaslights her into thinking that she is losing her mind.
There are other things like a street theater.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, now this is this is one that you can
find videos of online in a lot of places in YouTube,
where it will be a group of people that if
you're watching objectively, it feels as though it's just normal
activity out on a street, particularly or it doesn't have

(27:30):
to be a street, it can be just in any
public space. And you know, but for the person who
believes they're being gang stoked, everything feels inauthentic. It feels
like it's a bunch of theater people, theater kids putting
on a play. It like it's organized in some way
for specifically the purpose to agitate the person who's perceiving

(27:56):
it as being as stalking.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Right, And this goes into the concept of some performance art.
Some of us listening might say, well, what about things
like improv everywhere? Yeah? Have you seen those clips?

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh yeah, it's like.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
People spontaneously freeze for sixty seconds in train station where
everybody starts in a flashmob, dancing and stuff. It's not
like that. That's not what people who have encountered this.
They don't feel that they're watching some NDO artsy performance.

(28:32):
They feel like that person's pretending to read a magazine,
pretending to be on the phone. How long is that
person going to keep, you know, looking at different pairs
of sunglasses?

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Oh yeah, you know what I mean totally. And then
another thing here that I want to just talk about.
We're gonna have some examples moving forward, a little bit
of personal experiences with this and or accounts. But other
way gang stocking takes shape sometimes is when you're driving
your car and there's a there's the feeling that several

(29:08):
cars around you may maybe the one in front of
you is slowing down to keep you going a certain speed,
but then there are also cars next to you, so
you can't change lanes to go around this person that
seems to be controlling you. And then maybe another car
will box you in from behind and prevent you from
really doing anything, especially if you're on a freeway. There

(29:31):
are instances where people will believe their home is wherever
they wherever it is they live, and sleep is being
consistently surveilled by the same people that walk by the
house at certain Like you said, kind of at certain times,
or maybe wearing a very specific hat sure, or are

(29:51):
wearing the same clothes. That's kind of the way it
takes form. And there are a lot of reasons that
they're There are several categories of reasons people believe they're
being gang stalked. And before we get into too much
of that, let's just I think we should give some
examples of people's accounts, like personal accounts.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's probably the best way to depict this experience.
Let's look at some first hand accounts of people who
feel they have experienced gang stalking. James Crockett has a
great quote on this in his article for Medium, and
he describes it thusly. In one video, a TI takes
a GoPro that's a GoPro camera on the New York

(30:38):
subway and narrates his journey to try to prove the
existence of his stalkers. He notes a man in an
orange jacket who occasionally looks at him, another tall man
who enters the train and makes eye contact with the
man in the jacket, and a lady who he thinks
he's giving him dirty looks whenever he looks away from her.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
For several stops, she just stands there. He says, these
people really do perform a vicious act. They don't care
if people are driven to suicidal depression, like I almost was.
It wasn't until after that I realized this was some
kind of sick game I am in.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
So there's another possibility there, you know, the saying it's
a sick game. There's the idea that maybe this is
a recreational activity for some people. Maybe the cause is
just to just to mess with people, you.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Know, perhaps, And you can also go online and see
videos of people with a camcorder in a public space
filming other people that they believe are gangstocking the person
with the camcorder. And we're gonna have to get into
that a little bit later too. But just that concept

(31:49):
of being in a public place with a camcorder aimed
at strangers that you don't know, I'm gonna say it's
likely that you are going to bring attention to yourself
because you're doing that. Many of us, when we're in
public spaces will notice if there is a camera aimed
at us, right, and again, it's tough to know whether

(32:11):
or not that attention is brought upon by the actions
of the filmer or if it's I mean, it feels
that way to me, but it's not conclusive, so we'll
get into that a little bit later too. There's also
a Vice short documentary that was created in twenty seventeen
called The Nightmare World of gang Stocking. It's a video

(32:34):
that's available on YouTube right now, and there are several
people in it who describe their experiences. So let's first
turn to Billy Bee, who is a makeup artist and
a self described gang stoking victim, and in his particular account,
he believes he's a victim of culture stalking, which is
kind of an offshoot of gang stocking functions in the
same way, the reasons that he's being stalked are a

(32:58):
little bit altered. So in this case, he is a
man who identifies as homosexual, who is living in a
very let's say, conservative area, and he believes there's some
conservative Christian group that is in an organized way stalking
him and doing these things like street theater that are
making him feel uncomfortable. Where he will be parked in

(33:19):
a fairly empty lot somewhere, and then a lot of
cars will pull in, and each one that pulls in
a heterosexual couple gets out holding hands, being all cute
to you, right near his car and on purpose making
eye contact with him or flaunting it in front of him,
and it would happen over and over and over and
over and over. So this this is the way he

(33:41):
describes it.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
You're in the middle of this ridiculous, irrational impossibility that
is real and is happening, and it's stranger than fiction
or anything that you can imagine, and it's just terrifying.
It pisces you off, it frustrates you beyond anything that
you can imagine, and it changes you.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
I mean, that's that's rough to be feeling that right
at an individual level.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
And what do we know what part of the country
this person, mister B is in. This is California, This
is California, and there's a conservative area of California which
does exist. Some people outside the state might be surprised
by that. And the question then becomes, is this a

(34:29):
situation where everybody in a community knows each other? You know,
like if you go to a small town, right, people
make eye contact, people wave, And if you go to
a small town where people don't care for outsiders or
don't care for you specifically, it becomes very clear very

(34:49):
quickly that's is that gangstalking or is that just people
being jerks? And people don't have to like have a
meeting beforehand to be jerks. They naturally take to that.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, well, and this is gonna be a common theme here.
No matter what even the truth is about what's happening,
these targeted individuals believe that this is happening so wholeheartedly
that it's affecting them, you know, mentally and emotionally and

(35:22):
physically sometimes, so you know, you're right on the money.
But there have been like the way that I'm thinking
about these, you know, some of the statements and some
of the things that people are describing. So let's just
turn to another person who was also from that Vice
documentary named Richard Bruce. He he's a guy who I

(35:46):
believe was living out of his RV and he is
describing his where he's lived over the course of several
years in different places, those like apartments and you know,
the car and where he's living now in the RV.
All of these places were constantly surveilled by groups of

(36:09):
people as well as by helicopters. Police helicopters that would
fly over all the time law enforcement vehicles that would
pass by his living spaces all the time. When he
was being interviewed for this documentary, he had a small
device next to him and I don't know if it
was a radio or some kind of monitor or something,
but when he would begin to talk about certain subjects

(36:32):
or in certain ways, the device would make some noise,
and he believed that he was being listened to by
electronic surveillance, and specifically when he would bring up certain topics,
that's when they were like recording or you know, established
the connection or something like this.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
And he does a fantastic job, at least in this
quotation or in this interview, showing metacognition right thinking about thinking.
He's self aware, and he understands how this may to
someone hearing about this for the first time. He understands
how this may sound a little bit off kilter.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, he says, it's confusing to humans trying to understand
gang stalking. Why would they do this to me? Why
would they do these weird, petty little things that may
even just irritate me at some moment. This happens to
you enough, believe me, you will feel stress. You will
get that feeling of helplessness. This is not just like

(37:28):
a gang of random people just doing this. This is procedural.
If you were to ask me what gang stalking is,
it's a way to slowly kill people using their own decisions.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Which is fascinating, right, And from that interview, I think
we can all feel the as if we're looking through
a window into the hopelessness and the terror and anxiety
of this person's life. If you want to read more
of these personal accounts, which again are anecdotal and are

(38:00):
not you know, they don't contribute to a quantitative study
of any sort. But if you would like to read
these first hand accounts, again without us being able to
vouch for their veracity, we recommend heading toward reddit dot
com are gang stalking reddit dot com slash are slash

(38:21):
gang stalking all one word speaking words. We're going to
pause for one from our sponsor, and when we come back,
we're going to address the elephant in the room motive.
We have returned. We hope that if you're listening to

(38:43):
this show while you're in a public space, you are
not getting increasingly weirded out. But there's a big problem
they will see with a lot of these, Well, problem
isn't the most accurate word. There is a big question
that remains unasked, and a lot of these firsthand reports

(39:05):
and a lot of the literature you will see about
the concept of gang stalking, it is this why why
would you do that? Right? Would you do it for
just pure evil twisted recreation? You know? Is this a
situation where Mission Control, Matt, you and I get together

(39:27):
and we say, hey, you know, the four or five
of us should just just find someone on Facebook who
lives in our town and you know, just stalk them. Yeah,
I just poke the bear, right, We're so tired of
playing board games. Let's let's do something different with their friendship. Yes,
which may have happened, but that doesn't seem like it
would be the normal thing for people to do, not

(39:50):
because people are inherently so great or noble, just because
it feels like a lot of work for a lot
of people unless they're getting something out of it. So
another question, or another possible motive that we see cited
a lot pretty often by people who believe they are
being gang stalked is the idea that these activities are

(40:13):
occurring at the behest of the US intelligence community. And
this again goes to a lot of US reports. So
there's a site called fight gang stalking dot com and
according to you can tell from the title that to them,
this is a legitimate, real phenomenon. And according to fight

(40:33):
gang stalking dot com, gang stalking is quote most likely
a disinformation term created by US intelligence agencies. It refers
to the intense, long term, unconstitutional surveillance and harassment of
a person who has been designated as a target by
someone associated with America's security industry WHOA.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
And it goes on to say, quote, the goal of
such operations, in the parlance of counterintel telligence agents, is
disruption of the life of an individual deemed to be
an enemy or potential enemy of clients or members of
the security state. Arguably the most accurate term for this
form of harassment would be counter intelligence stalking.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
So there's a problem here, though. The problem is this
the tis or targeted individuals are rarely unified in what
exactly caused them to be stalked. While it is absolutely,
inarguably true that extensive and illegal surveillance has been used
by past and current governments should not be a surprise

(41:36):
to anybody, there's relatively little follow up reporting in these
gang stalking stories, and there's relatively little coherent explanation for
why these people would be driven to fearful actions or
to mental instability, or at the worst, to self harm.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, well you have to apply the motive problem then
to the security state or to the intelligence agencies, right,
what is their motive for targeting that individual?

Speaker 1 (42:09):
And then this goes to the trench coat clad, fedora
wearing elephant in the room. Is this a genuine phenomenon
occurring the way in which it's described and are the
people experiencing it describing it accurately or are people some

(42:31):
if not all, these people experiencing some kind of delusion.
Not that that could be considered an offensive question, but
it shouldn't be. It's a necessary question.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Absolutely. If we're going to talk about this, we have
to at least think about it.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
So what do we have to go on? Where can
we look to for some answers like what even is?
What do we mean when we say delusion?

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Well, let's jump back to that Vice documentary Again, huge
shadow out to the team member's advice that created that documentary.
It really is fantastic and there's a lot of insight
here and things to think about to chew on philosophically.
So they interviewed a fellow named Josh Basil or Bazell.
He's a physician and an author, and he's discussing the

(43:19):
psychiatric definitions of delusion, and he's saying that these tend
to focus really on two principles. The first one is
that the ideas, if you're at least if you're experiencing
a delusion, the ideas that you have are not vulnerable
to evidence. So if someone shows you look this thing,
you believe it is not true. Because of this I

(43:41):
have evidence, that wouldn't matter because you would still believe it. Okay.
The other part of a delusion is that people in
your immediate sphere of influence, perhaps the people in the
culture at large, or in your town, or in the
case of Billy b maybe the conservative neighborhood where he's
move to. Those people don't share your beliefs, so they

(44:03):
don't believe that what you believe is happening is true.
That would be one of the ways we get to
considering someone to have a delusion. Now, he goes on
to say, the question becomes this is a full quote
the question becomes, if you can find ten thousand people
on the Internet who believe the same thing as you,
is that then a delusion? Is it even bizarre? Quite

(44:26):
possibly not if everybody believes this stuff at least, this
would be the question you ask yourself as you stumble
upon ten thousand other people that share your in this case,
what he's calling a delusion, is it in any way insane?
And the answer would be no, because it is not delusionable.
Look at all these other people who are experiencing the
same thing, and I think this is It's a fascinating

(44:50):
way to look at it. Because then does it get
into the realm of group delusion or is it still
on the personal level of because it is a very
personal experience. Gang stalking like the perception that I am
being gang stocked. It is not as though gang stalkers
are looking at my whole neighborhood or looking at my

(45:12):
whole you know, cul de sac or whatever it may be.
It's generally a targeted thing. That's why they are called
targeted individuals. I don't know, it's a tough thing. It's
a tough egg to crack there.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
For me, at least, it also goes into philosophy. Yeah,
that's really what the psychologist is doing here is looking
at the problem of perception and reality.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Oh yeah, no, you're right.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
So that's that's a that's an egg that our species
has yet to effectively crack. We know that things can
become normalized for people at a cartoonishly quick rate. So
we know that our concept of what normal is is

(46:02):
very malleable, and we know that our species tends to
look to anything we perceive as peers for confirmation of things.
And also at the weirdest times, we're very talented and
big up in each other. I mean, maybe that's just
my experience, but I've had I've had some conversations with

(46:24):
absolute strangers that confirm some deeply held quote unquote crazy
things that I believe. You know, and having someone else,
whether you meet them in person or whether they're just
a block of text that you can assume is a
person talking back to and confirming your beliefs. Having somebody

(46:47):
else say that is a light in the darkness for
a lot of people, you know what I mean. And
that's a huge that's a huge thing. That's a trope
in fiction, that's a common experience in individual reality to
have someone else say something to you that lets you
know I'm not the only one. We do that in
the smallest, like the smallest, most seemingly insignificant situations, you know,

(47:12):
like let's say you and I and Paul are like
recording in a studio, Matt, and then all of a sudden,
there's this weird you know, where'd you come from? Where'd
you go? Where did you come from? Cotton Eye Joe.
We look around and we check even thow and we're
a relatively sane mental stuff arguably, but even we still check, like, Hey,

(47:35):
does anybody here cotton eye Joe? Or is this finally
that psychotic break that we all knew was coming? This?
And I don't want to get too far off topic there,
but I can see the power of that, certainly, and
it's reinforcement all.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
The way, right.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
And then there's also set and setting, which I think
continues in the quotation.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Oh absolutely, And just before we jump into that bed,
I want to talk about a concept of hypervigilance, and
it's something that Josh brings up in that documentary, and
it's the concept that for our own self preservation, if

(48:20):
we are experiencing something or we believe we are experiencing something,
we err on the side of safety for ourselves, for
our personal safety, rather than on whatever the social morase
would be, whatever the standard actions to take would be
for someone. And it all occurs when there's a perceived

(48:41):
connection that may or may not be there. So we're
talking about seeing somebody walk by and then seeing that
person maybe walk by again. The hypervigilance within a lot
of people experiencing this would be, oh, that person may want,

(49:01):
you know, maybe a part of this thing that I'm
already feeling or already believe I'm experiencing, rather than perhaps
that person went to go get you know, something down
the street and then you didn't see them walk by,
and now they're going back down again, or you know,
something to that effect. But ultimately, what this is or
what that means is that people experiencing this are going

(49:25):
to be more hyper aware of things like that because
they are so worried about their own safety already because
of the anxieties that are brought up by feeling this way.
It's almost like it just builds on itself. So then
Josh goes on to talk about how there are real
world instances of surveillance, either targeted or mass surveillance, that

(49:49):
maybe we should be worried about that are They are
very much real, They've been proven, they exist around us
every day. And I'll just read this quick quote from you,
he says, because this reminds me of stuff they want
you to know. He says, given that the world is
filled with groups of people operating in secret or trying
to to divorce us from our money, our power, or

(50:11):
whatever they want from us, one thing that might be
helpful to ask from a psychiatric point of view is
what's wrong with the rest of us? Why am I
so relaxed? What's wrong with me? Why don't I feel
like I'm being gang stocked? Is it that I'm living
in the matrix where in order to feel more comfortable,
I've decided to ignore a lot of the evils in
the world and a lot of the potential threats to me.

(50:33):
And there he's referencing the NSA's mass surveillance of citizens
within the United States. He's referencing other countries such as
the UK and England over there where you know, they're
the most CCTV cameras per capita anywhere on the planets.
He's mentioning that this stuff is very real, and why

(50:55):
aren't more of us worried about that kind of thing?
If you apply more general sense, what these people who
believe they're targeted of individuals are feeling to on a
mass level, let's say that.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, So let's spend just a second on that concept,
because it's the other side of that coin, right, It's
the other side of the argument. If you feel like
you are being gang stocked, and then you go somewhere
and you find ten thousand other people to say, yes,
it's true, then how are you supposed to feel if

(51:34):
you don't believe you're being gang stalked, and then you're
surrounded by people who are saying, yeah, no, it's true.
It's they're out for all of us. Why are you
so chill? What is wrong with you?

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (51:45):
It's an interesting question because it hits on that It
hits on that need for consensus that is just baked
into every human mind. I want to go back to
the concept of hypervigilant because it's another concept that is
baked into the human mind, and that is a pattern

(52:06):
must exist. Yes, and so much so many of our
even relatively mundane activities, especially our observations, there's this little
voice in her head. May not be able to hear
it all the time because it's tough for us to
listen to ourselves, but the little voice in your head
is always going A pattern must exist, A pattern must exist, right,

(52:30):
and this is a crucial skill. We have to have
it to survive in the world. Ever since we were
not the Apex predator and we were running around trying
to figure out what our A to b's and if
then's were that would keep us alive for the next day.
So arguably hypervigilance is just a reflection of that, or

(52:53):
just an extension of that much needed survival skill. Now,
if it sounds like we're poking whole in the experience
of gang stalking, that's because we are asking important questions
that haven't been answered. It's not necessarily uniform motive. There's
not necessarily a lot of follow up. Right. There aren't

(53:15):
very many good stats on the phenomenon known as gang stalking.
But speaking of the other side of the coin, there
are things that are like it that are proven. The
reality of government in corporate surveillance. According to the ACLU,
privacy today faces growing threats from a growing surveillance apparatus.

(53:38):
It's often justified in the name of one of our
favorite boogeymen, national security. You can do it in a
spooky voice. A ton of government agencies I'm paraphrasing. Now,
they didn't say a ton a ton of government agencies
from like the NSA, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security,

(53:59):
and so on, along with state and local law enforcement,
intrude on the private communication of innocent citizens, and they
amass great databases of who we talk to or interact
with and when we do, and then catalogs suspicious activities
based on very very vague standards. We've talked already about
big data. We've talked about the strange what's that? What's

(54:23):
that game? People who like celebrities play six six Degrees
of Kevin Bacon. Yes, that's that's how Uncle Sam traces
terrorist activities. Yeah, you know, associates, right known associates, which
extends further and further out. Similar to the DPRK's policy

(54:44):
of intergenerational punishment. Oh boy, except now you're it's now
the laws don't apply to you the same way. If
a guy you knew in college met somebody and became
Facebook friends with them and then they later tried to
join isis you know what I mean? And the argument
there is that that is that hoover vacuum approach to

(55:06):
data and personal information is the best way to prevent
a future catastrophe, and that is I mean, that argument
does have some sand, but it also it's tough to prove.
It's like the old time travel problem. Like you if
you went back in time and you killed Hitler when

(55:30):
Hitler was a kid.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Or something, Yeah, I remember doing that.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Yeah, no one, No one would know that. No one
would know that you prevented him from playing a part
in World War two because no one would know about
World War two. You would have killed a child as
far as everyone was concerned, So you have committed a
great sin. We can't prove to people. It's hard to
prove to people that we prevented something from happening when

(55:57):
we do it in such a way that it never happened. WHOA,
I know. Sorry, it's virgin into philosophy, but it's it's
an argument that we hear pretty often, and it's a
fascinating argument. But the truth is, these standards are very vague,
and we know that surveillance has been abused in the past.
Co intel was is real, right, It certainly was. It

(56:22):
certainly was. Let's put that is in parentheses with a
question mark. Multiple government agencies have in the past monitored
and harassed civilians, even those not suspected of committing a crime.
We just don't like what this person is doing to
the status quote, we don't like what they're protesting. Let's
keep an eye on them.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
We don't like the potential movement of society of this
person is let to be successful.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
Right exactly. And today's episode has been, you know, necessarily
US centric because these we were able to find some
of the best stats on, you know, on orthodox stalking,
and then we were able to find a lot of
information on gang stalking. But this is by no means
a phenomenon solely reported in the US. The United Kingdom

(57:10):
has a fair share of people who believe they are
being gang stalked or they are targeted individuals. And additionally,
it is absolutely true, absolutely irrefutably true, that other repressive
governments do have stuff like this happening. They have secret police,
there's security agents. You're a journalist in a particularly oppressive country, yeah,

(57:34):
you're gonna be followed. You might. I mean it's not
It might for you and them. It might not even
be surreptitious. You might land at the airport they do
allow you in, and they say, okay, you're gonna hang
with these two people the entirety, and they're gonna drive.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
It's for your safety.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
It's for your safety and for our national security. This
also applies to opposition politicians, activist right, somebody fight for
a particular type of human rights that the government would
rather not have members of non state approved religions like
this stuff happens.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
You know, I don't want to pile on here as though, like,
oh this is all real. There's so much oppression to
our privacy and our security, but you know, we willingly
let this stuff, especially the corporate kind nowadays, directly into
our home. We have whole episodes on this about the
smart assistant that maybe you're listening to this through. Maybe
it's just a couple of the apps within your phone

(58:34):
where you store all your email, but it's a company,
a corporation, the third party from you that is controlling
all of that stuff. The social media posts that you
make every day of where you are and what you're doing,
and the you know, think about that, like establishing patterns.
We're doing that every day. That's what we do, and

(58:55):
we just let it out into the world, not only
for the corporation but for anybody else who cares to
watch or listen. And it also doesn't help, by the way,
that there are commercial applications out there that will do
the things that people are the most terrified about. Ooh,
do tell like a what's it called m spy and

(59:15):
flexy spy or two. There's just two of them. But
these are two available things applications that can be added
on to your device, whatever it is. And one of
them only takes a few minutes. Another one takes about
an hour to fully install. Because you have some of them,
you have to like jail break phone or whatever your
device is it. Yeah, but if some of them you

(59:36):
can just if let's just say I was able to
get hold of Paul's phone for a few minutes while
he went to the bathroom or something.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
And you were able to get past the security code.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Yeah, yeah, but specifically in people who are worried about stalking,
if you're talking about your significant other or someone who
maybe does know the codes to your phone or something,
it can be installed like that. Then you can access
their email, their texts, there, insta feed there, you know,
blah blah blah blah blah. Whatever it is. It's terrifying
that that's out there. Don't let people touch your phone, man,

(01:00:09):
I mean that's the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Rule, yes, and it's it's all true, and it can
easily be abused. There's another thing. We just had it
in the notes as.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Oh oh and one more thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
You didn't want to spoil the surprise. So this sounds
pretty sci fi. I don't want to hear whether anyone
else has heard of this, but a lot of people
own smart TVs right now.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Right, yeah, you may not even be aware that it's
a smart.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
TV, right, Maybe a smart TV playing dumb and you
can tie your phone or you can you know, pair
your phone to the television and things of that nature.
It turns out that the technology exists such that a
smart TV. There's certain types of TVs when they are
playing commercials, will send an audio signal out. It's not

(01:01:02):
an audio signal you can hear. If you have pets,
good for you, they probably can't hear it either, but
your smart devices can. And through this, through this relay
this ping. You know. Of course, one of the big
gets is that advertisers know someone's in the room when
the ad is playing. And that's big. Someone's actually seen

(01:01:23):
the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
They can prove it, or maybe even how many.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
And maybe even who. So the data is, you know,
anonymized or whatever. But this this means that for people
who are dismissing the idea of gang stocking, don't dismiss
the idea of surveillance that you cannot perceive. It's there,

(01:01:48):
it's real, you know, there are It's not like there's
one shadowy cabal that knows a ton of stuff about
you that you thought was secret. And it's not like
you're doing anything bad. It's more like there are a
bunch of people who are trying to figure out how
best to predict your behavior in such a way that

(01:02:10):
they can monetize your behavior or at the very sith
end of the spectrum, push you to make decisions that
you might not have ordinarily made. That's real. That's not
a theory. Instead of a theory, it's a huge business.
If you'd If you'd like to learn more about some
of this, check out article in New York Times, How

(01:02:31):
Smart TVs and millions of US homes track more than
what's on tonight. That's just an opening to the rabbit hole,
and then burrow in and tell us what you think.
And speaking of what you think. Got to say this
leads us some of the key issues with the concept
of gang stalking. Number One, Government surveillance, at least here

(01:02:52):
in the US is typically intended to be invisible. That
does not apply to every other country. I don't know
whether it's still the case somebody mainland China tell me,
but for a long time, if you were using the
Internet like you're in an Internet cafe in China when
we talked about this on previous episode, every so often

(01:03:13):
there will be a cute little cartoon police officer that
comes on just to let you know that the government
is monitoring your Internet usage for your safety, to keep
you safe, you know, national security, et cetera. The concept
of gag stalking argues that targeted individuals are very much
aware of the situation and being and having your target

(01:03:34):
be very much aware of the situation in normal stalking
surveillance stuff or in normal surveillance at least, renders that
surveillance ineffective because it changes the behavior of a target,
you know, like how observing things can change their behavior.
So wait, we might rightly say, isn't the point of

(01:03:55):
this not to observe someone and gather info, but to
interfere with their sanity, waging psyops to gaslight them and
maybe even drive them to suicide. Sure, but there's a
problem with that claim too.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Oh yeah, we know we have proof that the government,
at least in this country, and intelligence agencies that are
just arms of that government, have at least in the past,
done a lot more than gang stocking to terrify and
seek vengeance against people that they perceive at least as threats.
We know that for sure. So I mean we have

(01:04:30):
to ask ourselves, like, why would a government agency with
the ability to literally disappear somebody it's happened before, it's happening,
I don't know if it is. It's probably happening now
or next week, at least could it could happen. Why
would they bother to just annoy somebody? Why would they

(01:04:51):
do this kind of strategy that is so long term,
with so many resources, as you said earlier, that would
be required to do it to a target like some
of the people who believe they're being targeted.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Right, Yeah, if you can just grab a mouse and
snap its neck, why would you play a game of
mouse trap? Why would you have this Rube Goldberg esque thing.
It could be. I'd heard some people say it is
psychological experiment, similar to some of that MK ultra stuff.

(01:05:27):
But still it's something that we would have to explain.
It's a question you have to answer. If you think
state supported intelligence agencies are just lightly in person stalking
someone in a way that is meant for that person
to be aware of, That's that's tough. It's tough to

(01:05:48):
answer that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Now. No, look before we completely discount gangstocking, maybe you
are feeling that way as we're you know, talking about
all of this, which we are not saying that. So
if you if that's you're feeling right now, just remember
that if you or someone else truly wants to reach
someone that believes they are being gang stoked, and you know,

(01:06:11):
even if you if it's your intention is to tell them, look,
it's okay, it's not real, or something like that, the
one of the worst things you can do is make
someone to feel as though they are crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Right, It's very unproductive.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Absolutely, so I would say an avenue, you know, and
this is actually stated in the Vice documentary that we
keep referencing the avenue rather should be why why do
you feel like you are worth you know, being persecuted?
What's happened to you? What's troubling you? You know, like

(01:06:46):
that very personal like, let's let's talk about that, Let's
talk about those issues, let's start working through those because
the perceived persecution, maybe from the outside perhaps is a
factor of that other thing. Just just putting that out
there for anybody who's extremely skeptical of this.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
And what do you think. Do you feel like you
have encountered something like this in your own life or
you know what, do you want to join a protest
supporting targeted individuals? Because if you have, my good pal
Matt has actually found one. Is that correct?

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Yeah, there's a website called targetedjusice dot com. If you
head over there, you can learn about the October protest.
It's they're calling it the Targeted Protest twenty nineteen. It's
going to run in Washington, d C. From October eighteenth
this year until the twenty second, and it's a registration
is thirty five dollars. If you do want to register

(01:07:46):
and go. But but but what do you get a
T shirt?

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
You do get a T shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
It's a free T shirt.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
I don't think you should call it a free T shirt.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
It's a thirty five people. It's a twenty five dollars
T shirt with a ten dollars registration.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
It's a complementary valet. Valet is complementary if you are
a jerk and don't tip.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
Yeah, that's true. But anyway, it exists out there, and
there are advocates for you. If you believe you are
a targeted individual, you can you can find groups online
and maybe even go to targetedusice dot com. And I'm
fairly certain I saw several resources there and you can follow.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
Yeah, and to be clear, I'm making a cheapskate joke
about the T shirt stuff. Registration for protests and these
kind of organizations typically just goes to keep the organization running.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
Yes, we're wholeheartedly joking.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
It's but one thing we're serious about. Before we tell
you all the ways to find us on the internet
and talk to us and we hope that you engage
in one of those platforms with us, before we get
to that part, we have to tell you the most
important part of this episode, the thing we absolutely one
one hundred one percent will never joke about. If you

(01:09:02):
believe that you are a victim of stalking, doesn't matter
whether it's from a gang, a significant other, romantic partner, anyone.
There are resources, there are people, there are services out
there that will help you. You're not hopeless, you're not isolated.
You don't have to be alone in this and a

(01:09:24):
solution exists.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
Yeah, you can. You can check out the Stalking Prevention
Awareness and Resource Center. There is a Victim connect line there.
It is one eight five five four eight four two
eight four six. You can also check out Safe Horizon.
They also have a hotline that is available twenty four
hours a day, seven days a week, and that number

(01:09:46):
is one eight six six six eight nine four three
five seven.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts, right, let us know what
you think. You can reach you to the handle Conspiracy
Stuff where we exist on Facebook x and YouTube on
Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy Stuff Show.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
If you want to call us, dial one eight three
three STDWYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes,
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
We are the entities to read every single piece of
correspondence we receive. Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. More podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.