April 21, 2025 • 57 mins
Domestic and international tensions grow as US courts square off with the administration over the rendition of innocents. A hapless, would-be internet influencer finds himself in Indian incarceration after attempting to contact the people of North Sentinel island. Over in Maryland, multiple women accuse pharmacist Matthew Bathula of egregious spying and cyber-voyeurism. All this -- and much more -- in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolph.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. It is time for
some strange news. So if you are tuning in to
our weekly strange news segment, let us be the first
(00:49):
to welcome you to April twenty first, twenty twenty five.
Hope everybody had a happy passover, happy Easter. When was Easter?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Does here have like a data associated with Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:03):
It moves around, Yeah it moves around.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Couldn't tell you if it hasn't happened yet. Happens in
four days on April twentieth, which will be before this
comes out.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
So Jesus is rising. Dat as movable is what we're
saying here.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So Easter has happened by the time this publishes, and
you're all joining us. We couldn't be happier that you're here.
We did receive we did receive some letters, and some
folks reached out to the show and to me specifically
to check in about us running some classic episodes in
place of Strange News. Everything's fine. We just get in
(01:40):
situations and adventures. We got on vacation and Matt was
on vacation, Matt was spring breaking.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
And I had a personal family crisis.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
So yeah, that's it. That's the adventures I'm talking about, Buddy.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And I don't take questions, but everything is fully, Everything
is fine.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
I appreciate the flex ability, y'all, and hope you didn't
miss us too badly. But we were there in some form,
and now we're going to come to you with extra
strange news.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
We're excited about.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It, and we are going to explore some things that
a lot of our fellow friends and neighbors conspiracy realists
have written about. We'll do that both in this Strange
News program and in our weekly listener mail segment. Tune
in this Thursday. First things first, Yes, we're not going
to spend too much time on it. You saw the
(02:31):
news about dire wolves. They're not really dire wolves. They're
kind of a new thing. They're gray wolves that look
like hearts of dire wolves. It's similar to the you know,
the wooly mice thing we talked about earlier. So don't
let the POPSI News mislead you. It is a phenomenal breakthrough.
It is not a dire wolf. Dire wolves are actually
(02:53):
way less closely related to modern wolves. Then you may think,
but are anything we wanted to get into real.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Quick though, ben yees, are dire wolves is a thing
like I thought that was made up? Okay, I did
not clock that. Could you maybe shared with the class
I don't think.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Maybe maybe a lot of folks that know the dire
wolves are not just a George R. Martin creation.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Right, let's go to real quick. Then let's go to
a great breakdown from Michael Lapage writing for New Scientists.
The title is no, the dire wolf has not been
brought back from extinction. This is all about a company
named Colossal Biosciences. Recently they created I think created, it's
(03:37):
the right word, three pups that they claim are dire wolves,
but instead they're gray wolves with genetic edits. A couple
switches turned on that make them resemble the extinct dire wolf.
The dire wolf has been gone for more than ten
thousand years, and this is this is a good push.
(04:01):
There are a lot of concerns that the introducing this
kind of thing into the wild, something that's no longer
quite a gray wolf and definitely not an actual dire wolf.
It may harm local ecosystems because it's a new apex predator. Essentially,
the dire wolf has again, it's been extinct. It was
(04:25):
only named the dire wolf in like the eighteen mid
eighteen hundreds, I want to say, because that it was
discovered four years later, but it's not. It's never been
a thing in modern human history.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Well, color me educated, because I thought it was just
a clever kind of Tolkien esque thing, like the olephants,
like sort of a made up term for a species
resembling something that exists in the real world, but sort
of fantasized for lack of a better term.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
That's interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Dire wolf, disastrous elephant, mega, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Sure, I like that.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So you can find a lot of really good science
on what's happening there, and we'd love to hear your
opinions on it. We'd also love to hear, by the way,
before we begin, if you yourself can help us out
with astronaut poop. Does anybody anybody in the crowd tonight
we're doing crowd work, guys, Does anybody in the crowd
(05:21):
tonight have a solution for recycling astronaut poop on the moon?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Okay, let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Oh wow, that was a good idea. Sorry, we were
listening to your idea there. I think it goes back
to we talked about this before about blood, Like, what
do we do with the blood and all the other stuff?
We make bricks out of that poop poop, guys.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Right, we've talked about the brick ideal, or you know,
with the blood, we could perhaps make sausages.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Oh blood, blood sausage, and that is Actually these are
very clever references to the composition of human fecies, which
which I greatly appreciate. Here's the the quick skinny on
this on the surface of our own beloved moon, which
does not influence menstruation. Thank you for the listeners who
(06:08):
wrote in with that there are ninety six bags of
human feces, urine and vomit. Apollo astronauts left that behind
so they could hit the weight requirement for their spacecraft.
If you can figure out how to recycle this stuff,
NASA is going to pay you three million US dollars,
(06:28):
which seems kind.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Of low, right, I mean for some poopoo, it seems
kind of low.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
It is astronaut poopo, though, I mean has clearly got superpowers.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, Yeah, there we go. We'll tell us your ideas, folks,
and while you're while you're collecting those ideas, please remember
to write them down, give us a call, drop us
a line however you feel most comfortable. We'll pause for
a quick word from our sponsors, and then we're going
to dive into North Sentinel Island, a thing that's always
been close to us. Pharmacy hacking. A lot of other
(07:02):
stories we're going to get to, including some other terrifying
future science. But to do that, we have to make
sure we can stay in these United States, which is
becoming increasingly a dicey proposition. We've returned Dylan. If we
(07:24):
could get a breaking news queue, Okay, something a little
more ominous, perfect, we have to talk about this. We'll
throw to a clip from the current president a little
bit later here. But we've all heard the news, right
Matt Noel. The United States, as we mentioned in a
previous Strange News segment, has been without due process, extraditing
(07:50):
innocent residents to different countries, sometimes not even their country
of origin. You know, we talked about the Venezuela and
gang moral panic we could call it at this point,
and then we talked about we talked about the case
of a guy who got sent off to several guys
who got sent off to prisons in El Salvador. They
(08:14):
are they have no proven criminal charges. There is right
now a great hulla blue and that's that's too fun
a word for it. There's a great hullablue going on
in the United States about this policy. What do you
guys know about it? Where's we what we consider a
starting point for the conversation?
Speaker 5 (08:34):
I guess the big starting point for me is the
story about the man uh his name is kilmar Abrego Garcia,
who was mistakenly deported to a an Al Salvadorian prison
known to be quite a brutal place, and then the
Supreme Court ruled that he needed to be.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Returned to which the Trump administration.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
More or less nah and hosted El Salvador President Nayeb
Bucle in the Oval office, wherein they referred to the
idea of bringing this man back as smuggling a terrorist
back into the country. Just the charged language around it,
as a lot of chatter indicating belief that this man
(09:21):
is no longer living, or the idea that if he
were to be returned, that it would be very bad
for El Salvador because he would likely speak to the
brutal conditions in the prison.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Right, and that's the Terrorist Confinement Center or abbreviated as
SEACOT in Spanish. It's a max prison, like we're talking
about maximum security. Garcia is a salvador in of origin.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
He was mistakenly deported on March fifteenth, twenty twenty five.
I would say renditioned, because later the DOJ lawyers said
this was an administrative error, but they still maintain he's
a member, not just a member, but a leader of
MS thirteen. And like you said, Noel, the courts went
(10:15):
to the current administration and they said, hey, you can't
take this guy down, Salvadore. There's no way. And Matt,
you and I talked about this in a previous Strange
News towards the end of the program, the White House
claims to have intelligence linking him Garcia to human trafficking.
This case continues, and it's going to Critics of the
(10:41):
administration say it's going to set a dangerous precedent, especially
because of a recent hot mic incident that we will
play a clip of. Now, we always have to obey
the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push
people into subways, hit elderly ladies on the back of
(11:03):
the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
That are absolute monsters.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I'd like to include them in the group of people
to get them out of the country. So what we
just heard there was the idea from the current president
that people his administration considers criminals should also be in
the President's perspective, deported, presumably without due process, to prisons
(11:35):
in Al Salvador, occurring in step with proposals to build
more prisons in El Salvador.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
And just want to say, I mean, this is less
of a hot mic moment and more of the camera
that they're rolling I'm saying this to the public moment,
which is a little scary. It's one of those things
too that the president often likes to write off after
the fact as a joke, you know, but it's not
(12:03):
particularly funny when you start to realize the big picture
ramifications and the massively slippery slope of this kind of thinking,
because then it becomes well, what constitutes this level of
criminality and that becomes a rubric for the administration to decide.
And his Press secretary Caroline Levitt has said that this
(12:25):
is something that they are looking into, so it's not
even really being written off as a.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Joke, right, yeah, And I want to be clear here,
this is a conspiratorial idea that has not been said once.
It has been reiterated as a matter of fact. We're
recording on Wednesday, April sixteenth, twenty twenty five. On Monday
of this week, on April fourteenth, the current US president
(12:52):
reiterated so said again that he'd like to send US
citizens to El Salvador in prison if they commit violent
prime and he told the President of El Salvador, Kelly,
that he'd have to quote build five more places to
hold the potential new arrivals. And we already know, you know,
(13:12):
like we said earlier, people have been immigrants primarily have
been deported to Seacott and Seacott is known for its
just horrific conditions.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Why would you want them? I don't understand.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
This seems very presumptuous on the President's part to say,
we'll just send them to your country so that you
can deal with them in your prison system. Isn't the
whole idea that this would be a burden on our
prison system? So what's with the outsourcing and why isn't
he pushing back against this instead having a real glad
handy kind of you know, photo op moment in the
(13:46):
Oval office.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I'm a little confused.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, they have kind of a they have kind of
a rapport. The El Salvadoran president has called himself the
world's coolest dictator. That is a quote from him. He
has also met with some success in combating the violent
(14:10):
crime rates of that country, and that stood out to
the current US administration. They visit it like the conversation
we're talking about happened on Monday, April fourteenth, And the
idea is that you could take being tough on crime
and extend that right so you can break some constitutional
(14:32):
rights for the greater good. And this has met with
some domestic support in parts of the United States. It
really depends on the perspective that people are coming from,
and quite candidly, the source of their news. Like we
all obsessively talk with multiple experts and read multiple news
(14:53):
sources that often contradict each other, and we have to
do that. But for people who are only you know,
you're only getting your news from MSNBC or Fox News
or what's the other one, the one America network?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
What is it all news now? American News?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, news back is another one.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
But yeah, but don't you guys think this is this
is doing a favor for the new strong man that's
running the world's largest military as well as for sure. Yeah,
but I mean, like his name is how do you say?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I think that's right?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Something like that, the U K E L E OK
coming in and basically saying, yeah, oh sure, we'll do
some things for you guys. We'll just you know, we'll
be your friends.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
You're saying it's a it's perhaps evidence of a long
term alliance. Yes, that could really mutate into something maybe
that we've never seen before.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, I would argue there is precedent to it. I
would argue this is not an original quid pro quo
transactional relationship. We've seen dirty deals in the past. This
does go to you know, this goes to what our
colleague Maggie was saying earlier in an interview segment you
(16:13):
guys did with her. And I'm still irritated that I
was not able to be there, but to point out
something that I'm really glad she said. And I think
it's the most important point of that conversation. These kind
of things should be treated as though they are expansionists,
as though they are precedent, as though they are harbingers
(16:34):
of ideas or desires for policy to come. You know,
if people get sent to El Salvador, they are outside
the jurisdiction of US courts, and that is a huge
piece of the issue.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Well, and they kind of double think of it. All
that really rubs me the wrong way.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Is this notion that this was a clerical error that
has been immediately walked back by a high level Trump official,
is like Stephen Miller, etc. Who are saying that this
was not a clerical error and this is exactly where
this man belonged, and that it is up to Al
Salvador to decide whether or not to return him.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
This is the point I want to make the judges
say this is illegal, because it turns out judges are
very into rule of law. The current administration argues, look,
if someone is sent to El Salvador, they're out the door.
We cannot legally say they must be released or return
to the US because we no longer have control over them,
(17:38):
which is an incredibly orwellian argument. Regardless of what somebody's
you know, political position or ideology is. We are approaching
a point where the Supreme Court of the United States,
the judicial branch, is going to be in increasingly escalating
(18:00):
conflict with the executive branch. Now, granted, part of that
is baked into the idea of the US legal system.
The judges and the legislature and the executive branch are
supposed to get beefed up to a degree, but ultimately
it is Scootis who is allowed to say what is
(18:22):
or is not legal, and their word is supposed to fly.
That's one of the bedrocks of democracy. When the foundational pieces,
the question becomes what happens if someone just ignores scutis.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Okay, so we talk about the Chicago bulls angle that
that's like.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
With the tattoo.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yeah, well no, no, it was a hoodie right right.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I'm sorry the tattoos in one case, the hoodie in another. Yeah,
we talked about strange.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
News, right, And just just to reiterate that, I think
that has become or is used as sort of like
gang colors in a way like Chicago bulls logos and color,
et cetera. Has been reappropriated as the facto insignia of
MS thirteen.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
And the Supreme Court has ordered the administration to quote
facilitate the return of Garcia, never charged with a crime
to this day, he got shipped against existing policy or
legal policy. This has not happened in US history, And
(19:26):
so we have to ask is the current administration just
sort of playing jazz spitballing on things like, hey, what
if we could get rid of inconvenient people? If so,
where does it stop? And I want to pause here
and ask everybody in the crowd just personally. Am I
being alarmist? Are people like Maggie or myself being a
(19:49):
little too quick to jump on the paranoia train?
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Well?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Rolling Stone today wrote an article about a nineteen year
old kid another person that was caught up when there
were two hundred and thirty eight Venezuelan's Deporta del Salvador,
and this kid was known to not be a part
of any organization. Mister Gutierrez will Merriwell merwill mer w
(20:14):
i L Gautierrez. According to the stories that are coming out,
at least the one that was written in Rolling Stone,
he was just standing out in front of his building
and ice folks rolled up, grabbed him and a few others.
One of them said that he wasn't the right kid,
the right on.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
The ice agents said yep, this is not the guy
we're looking for.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
One of the ice agents said, yep, this is not
the guy we're looking for. And then that was it.
Like they just took him because another one said, well, yeah,
take him anyway.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Take him anyway. Quote take him anyway. And this is
this is still happening. So to that question, I know
we're running long on time here. To that question, am
I being paranoid by saying we should treat this as
a precedent.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
No, I mean it's really scary, and like you said,
we have this is not without precedent. This is just
the first signs of what could potentially become an escalation
of defining anyone that disagrees with an administration or with
a government as an enemy of the States, you know,
or as some sort of terrorists or homegrown that term
there that you mentioned in the first place. It's really
(21:22):
slippery and I don't care for it one bit.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
And just to answer my own question.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
From earlier, there is a deal between the US and
l Salvador, a six million dollars deal where the Trump
administration is paying for the housing of these deported individuals
to El Salvador.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Again, quick pro quo. President Harbinger's tell us what you think,
folks at conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. There's so much
more to get to. This may be an episode in
the future. Meantime, just before we end this part of
our weekly Strange News segment, we do want to congratulate
good folks of Japan on making trading cards for middle
(22:05):
aged men out in the small town of Kowara. So
not everything is terrible. We're gonna check out more by
going to Tokyo Weekend or excellent article by Naz Sarah Filil.
Will be back with more strange news.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And we've returned. I would argue that most things are
terrible for those poor middle aged men that are on
those cards. It's like one is just.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
It's no joke.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
Can I also just say that I think it's funny
that we have middle aged, overweight man action figures in
the form of the Minecraft movie. There is a Jack
Black Steve figure that you can buy, and I've just
seen tons of no fat shaming here. It's just funny
the idea that a kid would want like a tubby
(22:59):
middle aged beer he did guy action figure. They're wearing
a T shirt.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I love the I love the positivity of it too.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
It's just funny, like it's very similar to the trading
card notion.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It's also not Steve. That's not Steve.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
It's not it's a different it's the mythos the Middle
East trade man. Trading cards are a they're a trading
card game.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Oh that's amazing. Okay, so they have.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Now you're back in Yeah, properties and powers.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Either way, have you seen the Divorced Dads trading cards.
There's somebody on TikTok and Instagram that does that. He
open them like magic. They look like magic cards, but
they're divorced dads. They're pretty great. Girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Anyway, I still got to get those Japanese magic cards
to you, Matt, Oh, Yeah, when.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
You when you tap the card, does that mean you
get to exercise your loneliness powers?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yes, every time.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I think it means you start a band.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
It depends on how I think it's all for the
regular magic to all that applies too real. Okay, So
here we go, guys, this is a story that has
been coming out of the woodwork everywhere around Maryland. Everyone
in the local news game has been writing about this
(24:17):
because it is not about a criminal trial. It is
about a lawsuit that has to do with a potential
criminal trial. So let's put that up front. This is
a class action lawsuit that we're going to be talking
about today, not a criminal trial that is going to
change things and maybe how we look.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
At it, but in its distinctions.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yes, but it's still it includes some of the most
disturbing allegations that I've seen in a long while. So
here we go. This comes to us again. Everybody is
writing about it, but what we're reading from directly is
from the Baltimore Banner, written on April third, twenty twenty five,
by Tim Prudente. So Tim, thank you. A lot of
(24:58):
these are going to be your world words. I want
to read it verbatim because it is important to get
some of this right, and it's messed up. Here we go,
Here we go, Here we go. A pharmacist at the
University of Maryland Medical Center allegedly carried out a nearly
decade long campaign of cyber voyeurism, hacking hundreds of hospital
(25:19):
computers to activate the webcams and watch young female doctors
and medical residents undressing and pumping breast milk, according to
this class action lawsuit. But it doesn't stop there, guys.
It's a class action lawsuit by six women. It was
filed very recently, right around to April third, twenty twenty five.
The women further accuse this person, I'm not going to
(25:40):
say their name yet, a man, a doctor, of installing
software on hospital computers to steal their personal passwords and
take control of their networks, like their home networks.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
This has given me, This has given me terrible recollections
of the inthroom case in South Korea.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Maybe know that one, but let's continue here. But let's
go back to that ben because I want to know
what that is. The allegations here include that this doctor
watched the women in real time including one in Howard County,
while she was at home where their children breastfeeding, undressing,
and having sex with her husband like again watching the
webcam in her house from wherever he is. He is
(26:20):
accused of disabling the camera lights inside the other women's
homes to secretly record videos of the women and their children,
of hacking into the cloud account of another plaintiff to
see her personal photos, her driver's license, passport, and credit
card information. So before we continue on.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Thoughts, ew uh yeah, abhorrent, unclean. Clearly this is not
just about sexual exploitation, but it's about control and violation
of people's boundaries. The fact that this guy, I know
(26:59):
you'll want to mention, yet the fact that this guy
is most likely acting alone Matt is perhaps one of
the equally disturbing things about this because the Interroom case
was a national scandal doing similar and perhaps even more
evil things throughout South Korea. But this, this sounds so
(27:23):
tell me if I'm on the mark here. This sounds
like a single actor in a position of some authority,
leveraging that to deeply invade the lives of innocent people.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yes, and it also gets into student teacher relationships stuff
and we're gonna we're gonna say his name now.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
This is a quote from the attorney Steve Kelly, who
is representing the six plaintiffs in the current class action suit. Quote.
For nearly a decade, a single pharmacist named Matthew Bathula
installed spyware on at least four hundred computers in clinics,
treatment rooms, labs, and a variety of other locations at
one of the nation's premier teaching hospitals.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And that's Bathula, Batula.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
That is correct. If you wish to look it up again,
you will find everybody in the local vicinity talking about this.
Tim the writer of this article, notes around this part
of the article that state and federal court records show
that Bethulah has not been charged with a crime at
this point. So these are allegations. Everything we're talking about
here are allegations brought forth in a class action lawsuit,
(28:37):
not a criminal suit like a trial by jury situation.
The University of Maryland Medical System officials, according to Tim,
have been working with the FBI and federal prosecutors for
the past several months as part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
So it is an investigation. It just isn't at the
part yet where they file charges right the state prosecutor
(28:59):
or somebody.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
And can't comment publicly.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
As a result, they will not neither will the FBI.
So none of the authorities are talking about it. But
since there is a class action lawsuit and statements are
being made, stuff is being filed, we know about it.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Here is where it gets pretty crazy, because the class
action lawsuit is actually against the hospital, the medical center itself,
because the plaintiffs say that essentially they were unaware that
this is what was happening, and they were so they
were not told that this is what's happening. You know,
our privacy is being invaded by a single creeper, and
they were not told, hey, here's how to protect yourself
(29:37):
the They just were in the dark basically for a
long time. Because, according to the lawsuit, the University of
Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore alerted employees in October of guys, quote,
a serious it incident. Right, there's been a serious incident.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
More than that, a bit more than just let's turn
it off and back on again.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's incredibly vague language.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Oh yeah, so let's talk about that. They send an
email out to employees, and they said they described this
event as quote a highly sophisticated and very difficult to
detect cyber attack that has resulted in the theft of
data from shared UMMS computers, which is true, right, yes,
but the theft of data, like what is that data?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
It's a implication.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
The other very vague phrase, the implication being that we've
got this under control. This was our proprietary data. No
indication of individuals being targeted or individuals being violated, like
the idea is that. Okay, good to know, Glad you
guys sorted it out. But absolutely no indication that someone
might need to be concerned about videos of them floating
(30:49):
out on the way.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Also, no specific next steps, No like freach your credit report,
something that would let you, you know, give you a
sense of the type of content being being compromised here,
No specific it looks I'm reading a couple other sources
here as well, Matt. No specific at the time. Declarations
(31:13):
of everybody bring your work computer.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
In it, you know, arguably intentionally misleading, which I'm sure
is at the heart of the suit.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Intentionally vague.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
But listen, listen to this, guys. Okay, So the Allegations
in this suit state that doctor Bethula went into individual
rooms using his like his credentials to get into specific
rooms in the hospital. A lot of it, a lot
of them are key carded. I'm imagined, just because I'm
(31:45):
watching Severance, I'm imagining the Severance employees putting their cards
into different things, and you would know, oh, it's logged
that this doctor went for that room or whatever. In
this case, he was going into individual rooms and installing
keyloggers on all of the machines.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Dude, but he was doing it. Maybe he was targeting
a few people, but it sounds like at some point
in the operation here, he just started going to everyone
he could find.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, he wanted everyone. Again. It's that control thing, right,
I want to know what everyone is saying about everything
at all times and doing and all that stuff. It's
it's insane power trip stuff, and it's hard to describe.
It's hard to understand. You'd think something this serious if
it were real, if it was happening, if you found
out it's happening, as the employers of this person, you
(32:35):
would take some pretty heavy action against them, against the person.
What they did was they put him on administrative leave.
Then they fired him, but they did not mention any
of this happening. When he went to take another job
at another medical institution, she saw that where he currently
is and is employed in another place. And again we
(32:55):
have said his name here. So it is difficult. It's
a tough thing. Right, he is accused of the things.
He has not been charged with these things. So you
have to leave a little bit I don't know. We
have to be at least a little bit objective and
say these are accusations. But at the same time, to
have six different individuals come forward to make a class
(33:16):
action lawsuit, it does feel like there's some sand to this.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
And to have the FBI involved, you know, they don't
waste a ton of time. We know that I read
in Campus Safety, I read that attorney's representing the current
plaintiffs say there may be as many as eighty additional victims.
So ye, this feels like the beginning of a larger
heroin story.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And that's an unknown that's a statement coming from the
folks filing the lawsuit, right, but still it gives you pause.
They just said we don't know the scope. That's one
of the other attorneys, Cindy B. Morgan.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
But they did ultimately replace those compromise computers.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
At the very least, right, Yeah, they replaced all the computers. Yeah,
because you kind of just have to because now you're
unsure what has what on it and what are you
going to do, Like he compromised specific workstations as well
as ones that are specifically used for cameras, you know,
and most of them have cameras installed in them anyway nowadays, right.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
And honestly it's pretty sophisticated. Yeah, no, and not being sarcastic.
It's like controlling the cameras, turning off camera lights, things
like that are not your run of the mill script
kitty kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, No, for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Let's see, let's just read a little bit more of
this and then we'll move on to the next thing.
But here's a last quote here from Tim. The medical
center where Bethula worked serves as the academic campus of
the University of Maryland Medical Systems, hospitals and clinics. So
this is like where the future doctors go to train,
and this guy is just running his little game there
(35:03):
on everybody. The plaintiffs who are currently filing this lawsuit
are requesting a jury trial, so to make all of
this come to light. I do not know how much, guys.
Maybe I don't know how. If there is a trial
like this, it will officially be on record all of
the evidence that gets presented, I believe, But I don't
(35:25):
know if it's the same way if it's a class
action suit versus a trial by jury. I just don't
know how the evidence actually becomes public or not.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I believe. I believe aspects of it have to become public.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, you know, MLK everything became public.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Yeah, it's the most notable exception in this country. In
legal beagles clarify this for us, the most notable exception
in this country is going to be cases that touch
on collection methods or now national security stuff, like the
FBI knows you're guilty, but they can't tell you how.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah. And the thing I want to leave you with here,
everybody is that this kind of thing is not happening
everywhere at all times.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
This is a very rare instance of somebody like this
just happening to exist. They're at the University of Maryland's
medical system. It is weird to know that in twenty
fifteen he was recognized as Preceptor of the Year or
(36:34):
Instructor of the Year by the University of Maryland School
of Pharmacy. So like he was given he was this
accoladd held up instructor there, and meanwhile in the background,
he's doing all this stuff once he gets home on
his laptop, which is ikey, ikey, ikey.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
To the point about authority, right, an accolade. It's in
hierarchical positioning.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Oh yeah, you look at this guy. You probably even
talked to this guy. He seems really great, I bet,
but then turns his head and he's doing this stuff. Yuck. Okay,
so there's other stuff we can talk about, but we'll
leave that for another day. Just put this on your radar, everybody,
lab grown human teeth. Just keep that on your radar. Yeah,
(37:21):
it's exciting news. All right, we'll be right back with
more strange news.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
And we've returned and Ben teased it at the top.
We're going to North Sentinel Island. But wait, no, don't
go there. Don't go there. You're not supposed to go there.
We heard a ways back about a missionary who attempted
to make contact with the Sentinel Ease people. They made
(37:52):
contact and they made contact right back in the form
of arrows through his guts, and he did not make it.
And that's indeed correct. One might argue, however misguided. His
intentions were good, and I guess from his perspective he
(38:13):
was going there to, in his mind, do the Lord's work,
and you know what intentions are irrelevant there.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
It was a boneheaded idea and he paid the ultimate
price for it.
Speaker 5 (38:24):
I guess I'm just putting in a slightly different category
than what we're talking about today, which is going to
North Sentinel Island for clout for Internet clicks. An American
tourist has been arrested, has been detained for piloting an
inflatable dinghy which is a word that I like, a
little boat to the remote island of North Sentinel in
(38:48):
the Indian Ocean. He presumably wanted to make a video
for social media. The person's name is Mick Viktorovich Polyyakov,
a twenty four year old internet TikToker YouTuber in the
(39:09):
YouTuber he's a YouTuber.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
I have not checked out his stuff.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
Maybe I should might give a little bit of context
to what this person was thinking. He came armed, not
with weapons, minds you, but with a can of diet
coke and a coconut, which is there's so many things
wrong with that. The whole point of this law, you know,
(39:32):
preventing people from setting foot onto North Central Island, is
the idea of giving autonomy to indigenous people who have
maintained their isolation from the rest of the world at large,
who live a life free of technology, free of you know,
a lot of the trappings that you or I certainly
(39:54):
fall victim to, you know, and whatever. It's not a
judgment call, it's just the facts. They do not have
to deal with a lot of the thing that we do.
They have a very specific way of life that has
maintained the legacy of indigenous community is many of which,
as we know, have been horribly changed by modern innovations,
(40:14):
by capitalism, by colonialism, all of those things. So the
idea that one could remain as it has been, I
think is a noble thing.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
I don't know how you guys feel about that part
of it.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
But the idea of going to this place and disrupting
this a diet coke to me representing that kind of commercialism.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
You know.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
It's almost like this person was doing a really elaborate troll.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Well, yeah, I agree with that cinement, and I hope
a lot of us are on the same patriar the
crowd because we did. We did several episodes about this.
Have long been fascinated with the mystery of North Sentinel Island.
I think we all the way back gosh, early years,
maybe twenty thirteen. Important to know to your point, know
(41:02):
that the people living there, the community living on North
Sentinel Island, has encountered quote unquote modern civilization, and inevitably
in disastrous ways, like some of their children were kidnapped,
diseases were transmitted to these people in the eighteen hundreds,
So there are very real reasons from their perspective that
(41:25):
they say no, they don't want to hang out with outsiders.
And I am ninety eight percent convinced that just due
to the way ocean currents and pollution work along the shore,
they have probably encountered, you know, artifacts of modern civilization.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Sure flotsam and or jetsam right.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Right, jetsam seeing flots and floats right flo Yes, they
found this and there must be you know, we all
felt it when we were researching, recording, and talking with
experts for our previous episodes on this there is a
tantalizing aspect there for people to say, Oh, I'm the
(42:07):
person who visited, whether I am bringing these people to
my religion on some kind of holy mission, or whether
I am, to your point, doing this for attention on
the internet. And you need to realize, folks, the government
of India, which sort of runs the overall affairs of
North Sentinel Island, they have hard rules against approaching this place,
(42:32):
and they haven't for reason because the North Sentinel Ease
have what appears to be hard rules of their own,
which is that all outsiders should be treated as an
active threat.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Well, I mean, look, I have the flu right now. Guys,
imagine if somebody who isn't showing symptoms but has the
flu shows up on North Sentinel Island and actually greeted
people and made contact and was close with them. Do
you like what what happens?
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Right?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Does their small population have enough immunity to influenza of
whatever strain that visitor has to like not all get
crazy sick and potentially die.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Oh That's exactly what I'm talking about, right, That's what happened.
I just looked it up. January eighteen eighty expedition named
Oh Wow, January eighteen eighty January March eighteen sixty seven.
These things happened, and those diseases were transmitted just like
your point, Noel, with uncontacted tribes, I would imagine in
(43:34):
earlier in parts of South and Central America, disease riddled
people because the folks simply weren't prepared. They had not
developed the so called herd immunity. And Matt, I do
thank you for spending tonight with us while you're recovering
from the flu. But I also think you raise a
(43:55):
fantastic point there. This really could happen that influencer, that
missionary they could to mass point, had some kind of
infection that they were not aware of that ordinarily would
have just been a bad couple of weeks for them,
and it could have killed innocent people just by being
in the same air. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
Indeed, and again you know, all of that being said,
the idea of doing this for some sort of internet
clout and bringing a can of diet coke and a
coconut that it seems like inherently disrespectful just as a
gesture like what it represents. So as you mentioned, been
North Centinel Island is home to the Sentinel Eese, as
a tribe believed to have between one hundred and three
(44:33):
hundred people. They have lived in complete isolation and are
known to defend their territory. And I imagine that some
of the laws surrounding this in that part of the world,
you know, from the Indian government, would consider their acts
defending their shores as acts of self defense and therefore
(44:56):
not you know, subject to prosecution. They were, they have,
they've killed and were seen dragging the bodies of two
fishermen who mistakenly washed ashore there.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
On the on the shores of North Sentinel Island.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
And the helicopters.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
That's right, And of course they did kill that missionary
that you were mentioning as well, try as he might.
Mikhailo Viktroviovich Viktrovovic, Yeah, that's right. Polyakoff did not make contact.
He blew a whistle from his little boat when he
came ashore, and when he was not greeted by any
(45:33):
of the sentinels, he left those quote unquote offerings on
the beach and took off, where he was then later apprehended.
He is known for doing like travel vlogs, travel you know,
videos and leaning toward the kind of dangerous.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
Side of those types of things.
Speaker 5 (45:53):
He referred to the can of diet coke and the
coconut as gifts and as I said, he blew a
whistle to a train attention. Local fishermen, however, did see him,
and they were the ones who reported him to the police,
so they must have some recourse for reaching out to
the outside world. When we say local fishermen, we are
talking about Centinalese fisherman.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Correct, We're talking about people off the southern offshore India
and other islands.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
The most seen him making.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
They must have seen him making his approach. That makes sense,
thanks Ben. And he was detained and accused of illegally
attempting to contact the Sentinalese. A local court this is
from the ap last week sent him to a fourteen
day judicial custody and he is set to appear in
court on April seventeenth, which is actually tomorrow as we
(46:49):
record this, So he could potentially get up to five
years in prison as well as a hefty fine. Indian
authorities have said that they informed the US embassy because
he is from scotts Dale, Arizona. I don't think we
mentioned that is of his father is of Ukrainian descent,
but he is an American citizen, and they have informed
the US embassy visitors are actually vanned from traveling within
(47:14):
three miles of the ice, and this is due to
the fact that they have more or less successfully maintained
that isolation for the rest of the world for thousands
of years. They do use bows and arrows and spears
for hunting the animals that roam this island, which is
heavily forested, and they are able to maintain that self reliance.
(47:37):
A couple of perspectives that I thought were worth mentioning
from an Economic Times report on the case. One comes
from Carolina Pierce from the Survival International charity group, saying,
this is I think a UK organization. It beggars belief
that someone could be that reckless and idiotic. This person's
actions not only endangered his own life, but they also
(47:59):
put lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk. To
y'all's point about the spread of disease, and I don't know.
This to me is just it's such an interesting intersection
of like the gross consumerism and look at me asm
of kind of American TikTok and YouTube culture completely clashing
with a part of the world and a people whose
(48:21):
whole existence is antithetical to all of that.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
So I would just.
Speaker 5 (48:26):
Say leave the Sentinelesee the hell alone and stop chasing
cloud at the expense of others.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
If someone tells you they don't want you to go
to their party, then you know, don't This is We
know also from the Sentinelese perspective that they've repeatedly had
disastrous interactions with outsiders, and we can lay a lot
of that at the feet of again the British when
(48:54):
they abducted six innocent people from a tribe. I think
right now, the current the current like satellite intel and
the current research suggests this is.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
So.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
This is an island about the size of Manhattan. There
are roughly three loose groups, but they're all continually going
to be in contact. So again, these folks who, doubtlessly
because they're human, they have rich oral history, They have traditions, right,
they have a collective memory of things that happened before,
(49:31):
so they they know and they have probably grown up
being taught that communication with these outsiders, whatever the word
for those outsiders may be, is catastrophic. And you can't
really blame.
Speaker 4 (49:44):
Them, you know, you certainly can.
Speaker 5 (49:46):
The police issued a statement saying that his actions posed
a serious threat to the safety and well being of
the Sentinel Theese people, whose contact with outsiders are strictly
prohibited by law to protect their indigenous way of life.
New York Times reported on this, saying the police said,
or rather, let me give you the person's name by
Christine Hauser and Harry Kumar, and they paraphrased a subsequent
(50:07):
part of the statements, thusly saying the police said during
their questioning of mister Polykov, he disclosed that he was
drawn to the island out of a quote passion for
a venture and his desire to undertake extreme challenges. Officials
said that his go pro footage suggested entry into the island,
(50:27):
and that he used GPS navigation throughout his voyage.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Then just go to Myanmar, you know what I mean,
show over the border into DPRK. Those are both in
the regional neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
May might I suggest to any adventurous young tuber out
there South Sentinel Island, why not visit Lee Sunny South
Sentinel Island. It's much smaller, but at the right angle
it would look almost exactly like North Sentinel Island. Why
not get some footage there and then just tell everybody
(51:00):
went to the other place. It'll be fine.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
What could go wrong about lying to millions of people?
Could you could?
Speaker 4 (51:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
I like that idea because you can visit South Sentinel Island.
That's the thing we discussed in the past as well.
And there's actually there's been some great research in previous
years about kind of figuring out the language of North
Sentinel Island, like to the people in South Sentinel Island
speak a mutually intelligible tongue, and if so, could that
(51:29):
be a way to communicate with people safely?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
It's are there people who live in South Center? It's
just super tiny, That's all I know.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
I did just finally, I am thinking of Andeman's or
Nico bar totally.
Speaker 5 (51:41):
I did just finally find his YouTube channel, which only
has three point two four k subscribers. He's got nineteen
videos and the name of the YouTube channel is in
itself a little problematic Neo orientalist past growth not good,
and there are videos of him entering Taliban controlled parts
(52:04):
of Afghanistan. Honestly, that seems to be mostly what is
on here? There aren't that many videos, so I guess
this guy's just getting started. But uh, sorry, buddy, looks
like the kaibash has been put on your youtubing days. Yeah,
and looking at these videos all very again, look at
(52:24):
me kind of like benefiting from difficult situations in other
parts of the world. There's one where he's actually, like
very glibly eating a soft served ice cream cone, you know,
while roaming Taliban controlled Afghanistan. It just feels very dismissive
and gross, like here, look at me, I'm getting a
(52:45):
haircut in Afghanistan.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
Wow. Agreed. Not good?
Speaker 5 (52:50):
Not good guy. I think he had this coming. Frankly, yeah,
might didn't get killed, but I think this punishment.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
I hope he doesn't get five years in prison, but
I hope this makes him rethink this kind of Shenanigan ring.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
There is a non zero chance, Noel, that the next
video will be how I survived prison in India.
Speaker 4 (53:12):
Hmm, fair enough, that's true.
Speaker 5 (53:13):
And honestly, he's getting more attention from this than he
ever got before. Three point two thousand subscribers ain't a lot,
So there you go.
Speaker 4 (53:21):
Maybe we're part of the problem.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
But there is another deeper look at some of the
things we brought up. In addition to our episodes on
North Sentinel Island, we had a great interview segment with
the journalist Rajiev Gola remember this from back in the
day his series The Missionary, which touches on the show
case as well.
Speaker 4 (53:43):
Totally forgot about that. Excellent Jeeves doing well.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
He's building his own motorcycle from the ground up. I
still talk to the guy. Yeah, he's super cool. So
do check out Do check out his program if you'd
like to learn more about this. And I appreciate you
bringing this up because it is mission critical for people
to realize there are reasons for rules like this, and
we've examined them in previous episodes, like oh the places
(54:07):
you can't go in secret or closed off towns. But
often you have to be really careful with the so
called adventure tourism or dark tourism. You have to wonder
about the consequences of your actions or your as you
as you put it, look at meism's.
Speaker 5 (54:25):
Yeah, I think that's all the podcast ink we're gonna
spill over this fellow. I do hope that he's okay
and that everything ends up all right for him, and
that this is an educational experience rather than like an
opportunity to double down.
Speaker 4 (54:40):
But you know what, not holding out hope on that one.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Yeah, well, people can evolve. It's and and we've hit
a lot of deep water here today, folks. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts. Perhaps you will join us
on an upcoming Listener male segment. We want to hear
your take on the ongoing horrific situation in Maryland, the
(55:04):
ongoing disturbing what I do think is a harbinger situation
here in the US overall. And of course where you
would travel instead of North Sentinel Island, may we respectfully
suggest Bhutan, which would love to have you tell us
your thoughts. Find us online. You can call us on
a phone. You can also always hit up our good
(55:26):
old fashioned email address.
Speaker 5 (55:28):
Indeed, find us all over the internet at the handle
Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook
group Here's where it gets Crazy, on x FKA, Twitter,
and on YouTube with video content colore not of us
trying to interlope on Indigenous people at our YouTube channel.
You can also find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff
(55:48):
show on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
Hey, we have a phone number. It is one eight
three three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself
a cool nickname. Let us know if we can use
your name and message on the air. If you've got
more to say than can fit in three minutes, why
not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet out afraid. Sometimes the
void rights back quick thing we didn't get to. Five
nurses working on the same floor to Massachusetts hospital have
contracted brain tumors. Do check out the story on NBC
News by Dennis Romero Austin Mullen. Let us know what
(56:29):
you think is going on conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolph.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. It is time for
some strange news. So if you are tuning in to
our weekly strange news segment, let us be the first
(00:49):
to welcome you to April twenty first, twenty twenty five.
Hope everybody had a happy passover, happy Easter. When was Easter?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Does here have like a data associated with Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:03):
It moves around, Yeah it moves around.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Couldn't tell you if it hasn't happened yet. Happens in
four days on April twentieth, which will be before this
comes out.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
So Jesus is rising. Dat as movable is what we're
saying here.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So Easter has happened by the time this publishes, and
you're all joining us. We couldn't be happier that you're here.
We did receive we did receive some letters, and some
folks reached out to the show and to me specifically
to check in about us running some classic episodes in
place of Strange News. Everything's fine. We just get in
(01:40):
situations and adventures. We got on vacation and Matt was
on vacation, Matt was spring breaking.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
And I had a personal family crisis.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
So yeah, that's it. That's the adventures I'm talking about, Buddy.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And I don't take questions, but everything is fully, Everything
is fine.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
I appreciate the flex ability, y'all, and hope you didn't
miss us too badly. But we were there in some form,
and now we're going to come to you with extra
strange news.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
We're excited about.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It, and we are going to explore some things that
a lot of our fellow friends and neighbors conspiracy realists
have written about. We'll do that both in this Strange
News program and in our weekly listener mail segment. Tune
in this Thursday. First things first, Yes, we're not going
to spend too much time on it. You saw the
(02:31):
news about dire wolves. They're not really dire wolves. They're
kind of a new thing. They're gray wolves that look
like hearts of dire wolves. It's similar to the you know,
the wooly mice thing we talked about earlier. So don't
let the POPSI News mislead you. It is a phenomenal breakthrough.
It is not a dire wolf. Dire wolves are actually
(02:53):
way less closely related to modern wolves. Then you may think,
but are anything we wanted to get into real.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Quick though, ben yees, are dire wolves is a thing
like I thought that was made up? Okay, I did
not clock that. Could you maybe shared with the class
I don't think.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Maybe maybe a lot of folks that know the dire
wolves are not just a George R. Martin creation.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Right, let's go to real quick. Then let's go to
a great breakdown from Michael Lapage writing for New Scientists.
The title is no, the dire wolf has not been
brought back from extinction. This is all about a company
named Colossal Biosciences. Recently they created I think created, it's
(03:37):
the right word, three pups that they claim are dire wolves,
but instead they're gray wolves with genetic edits. A couple
switches turned on that make them resemble the extinct dire wolf.
The dire wolf has been gone for more than ten
thousand years, and this is this is a good push.
(04:01):
There are a lot of concerns that the introducing this
kind of thing into the wild, something that's no longer
quite a gray wolf and definitely not an actual dire wolf.
It may harm local ecosystems because it's a new apex predator. Essentially,
the dire wolf has again, it's been extinct. It was
(04:25):
only named the dire wolf in like the eighteen mid
eighteen hundreds, I want to say, because that it was
discovered four years later, but it's not. It's never been
a thing in modern human history.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Well, color me educated, because I thought it was just
a clever kind of Tolkien esque thing, like the olephants,
like sort of a made up term for a species
resembling something that exists in the real world, but sort
of fantasized for lack of a better term.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
That's interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Dire wolf, disastrous elephant, mega, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Sure, I like that.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So you can find a lot of really good science
on what's happening there, and we'd love to hear your
opinions on it. We'd also love to hear, by the way,
before we begin, if you yourself can help us out
with astronaut poop. Does anybody anybody in the crowd tonight
we're doing crowd work, guys, Does anybody in the crowd
(05:21):
tonight have a solution for recycling astronaut poop on the moon?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Okay, let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Oh wow, that was a good idea. Sorry, we were
listening to your idea there. I think it goes back
to we talked about this before about blood, Like, what
do we do with the blood and all the other stuff?
We make bricks out of that poop poop, guys.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
Right, we've talked about the brick ideal, or you know,
with the blood, we could perhaps make sausages.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Oh blood, blood sausage, and that is Actually these are
very clever references to the composition of human fecies, which
which I greatly appreciate. Here's the the quick skinny on
this on the surface of our own beloved moon, which
does not influence menstruation. Thank you for the listeners who
(06:08):
wrote in with that there are ninety six bags of
human feces, urine and vomit. Apollo astronauts left that behind
so they could hit the weight requirement for their spacecraft.
If you can figure out how to recycle this stuff,
NASA is going to pay you three million US dollars,
(06:28):
which seems kind.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Of low, right, I mean for some poopoo, it seems
kind of low.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
It is astronaut poopo, though, I mean has clearly got superpowers.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, Yeah, there we go. We'll tell us your ideas, folks,
and while you're while you're collecting those ideas, please remember
to write them down, give us a call, drop us
a line however you feel most comfortable. We'll pause for
a quick word from our sponsors, and then we're going
to dive into North Sentinel Island, a thing that's always
been close to us. Pharmacy hacking. A lot of other
(07:02):
stories we're going to get to, including some other terrifying
future science. But to do that, we have to make
sure we can stay in these United States, which is
becoming increasingly a dicey proposition. We've returned Dylan. If we
(07:24):
could get a breaking news queue, Okay, something a little
more ominous, perfect, we have to talk about this. We'll
throw to a clip from the current president a little
bit later here. But we've all heard the news, right
Matt Noel. The United States, as we mentioned in a
previous Strange News segment, has been without due process, extraditing
(07:50):
innocent residents to different countries, sometimes not even their country
of origin. You know, we talked about the Venezuela and
gang moral panic we could call it at this point,
and then we talked about we talked about the case
of a guy who got sent off to several guys
who got sent off to prisons in El Salvador. They
(08:14):
are they have no proven criminal charges. There is right
now a great hulla blue and that's that's too fun
a word for it. There's a great hullablue going on
in the United States about this policy. What do you
guys know about it? Where's we what we consider a
starting point for the conversation?
Speaker 5 (08:34):
I guess the big starting point for me is the
story about the man uh his name is kilmar Abrego Garcia,
who was mistakenly deported to a an Al Salvadorian prison
known to be quite a brutal place, and then the
Supreme Court ruled that he needed to be.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Returned to which the Trump administration.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
More or less nah and hosted El Salvador President Nayeb
Bucle in the Oval office, wherein they referred to the
idea of bringing this man back as smuggling a terrorist
back into the country. Just the charged language around it,
as a lot of chatter indicating belief that this man
(09:21):
is no longer living, or the idea that if he
were to be returned, that it would be very bad
for El Salvador because he would likely speak to the
brutal conditions in the prison.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Right, and that's the Terrorist Confinement Center or abbreviated as
SEACOT in Spanish. It's a max prison, like we're talking
about maximum security. Garcia is a salvador in of origin.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
He was mistakenly deported on March fifteenth, twenty twenty five.
I would say renditioned, because later the DOJ lawyers said
this was an administrative error, but they still maintain he's
a member, not just a member, but a leader of
MS thirteen. And like you said, Noel, the courts went
(10:15):
to the current administration and they said, hey, you can't
take this guy down, Salvadore. There's no way. And Matt,
you and I talked about this in a previous Strange
News towards the end of the program, the White House
claims to have intelligence linking him Garcia to human trafficking.
This case continues, and it's going to Critics of the
(10:41):
administration say it's going to set a dangerous precedent, especially
because of a recent hot mic incident that we will
play a clip of. Now, we always have to obey
the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push
people into subways, hit elderly ladies on the back of
(11:03):
the head with a baseball bat when they're not looking.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
That are absolute monsters.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I'd like to include them in the group of people
to get them out of the country. So what we
just heard there was the idea from the current president
that people his administration considers criminals should also be in
the President's perspective, deported, presumably without due process, to prisons
(11:35):
in Al Salvador, occurring in step with proposals to build
more prisons in El Salvador.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
And just want to say, I mean, this is less
of a hot mic moment and more of the camera
that they're rolling I'm saying this to the public moment,
which is a little scary. It's one of those things
too that the president often likes to write off after
the fact as a joke, you know, but it's not
(12:03):
particularly funny when you start to realize the big picture
ramifications and the massively slippery slope of this kind of thinking,
because then it becomes well, what constitutes this level of
criminality and that becomes a rubric for the administration to decide.
And his Press secretary Caroline Levitt has said that this
(12:25):
is something that they are looking into, so it's not
even really being written off as a.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Joke, right, yeah, And I want to be clear here,
this is a conspiratorial idea that has not been said once.
It has been reiterated as a matter of fact. We're
recording on Wednesday, April sixteenth, twenty twenty five. On Monday
of this week, on April fourteenth, the current US president
(12:52):
reiterated so said again that he'd like to send US
citizens to El Salvador in prison if they commit violent
prime and he told the President of El Salvador, Kelly,
that he'd have to quote build five more places to
hold the potential new arrivals. And we already know, you know,
(13:12):
like we said earlier, people have been immigrants primarily have
been deported to Seacott and Seacott is known for its
just horrific conditions.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Why would you want them? I don't understand.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
This seems very presumptuous on the President's part to say,
we'll just send them to your country so that you
can deal with them in your prison system. Isn't the
whole idea that this would be a burden on our
prison system? So what's with the outsourcing and why isn't
he pushing back against this instead having a real glad
handy kind of you know, photo op moment in the
(13:46):
Oval office.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I'm a little confused.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Well, they have kind of a they have kind of
a rapport. The El Salvadoran president has called himself the
world's coolest dictator. That is a quote from him. He
has also met with some success in combating the violent
(14:10):
crime rates of that country, and that stood out to
the current US administration. They visit it like the conversation
we're talking about happened on Monday, April fourteenth, And the
idea is that you could take being tough on crime
and extend that right so you can break some constitutional
(14:32):
rights for the greater good. And this has met with
some domestic support in parts of the United States. It
really depends on the perspective that people are coming from,
and quite candidly, the source of their news. Like we
all obsessively talk with multiple experts and read multiple news
(14:53):
sources that often contradict each other, and we have to
do that. But for people who are only you know,
you're only getting your news from MSNBC or Fox News
or what's the other one, the one America network?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
What is it all news now? American News?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Oh yeah, yeah, news back is another one.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
But yeah, but don't you guys think this is this
is doing a favor for the new strong man that's
running the world's largest military as well as for sure. Yeah,
but I mean, like his name is how do you say?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I think that's right?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Something like that, the U K E L E OK
coming in and basically saying, yeah, oh sure, we'll do
some things for you guys. We'll just you know, we'll
be your friends.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
You're saying it's a it's perhaps evidence of a long
term alliance. Yes, that could really mutate into something maybe
that we've never seen before.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, I would argue there is precedent to it. I
would argue this is not an original quid pro quo
transactional relationship. We've seen dirty deals in the past. This
does go to you know, this goes to what our
colleague Maggie was saying earlier in an interview segment you
(16:13):
guys did with her. And I'm still irritated that I
was not able to be there, but to point out
something that I'm really glad she said. And I think
it's the most important point of that conversation. These kind
of things should be treated as though they are expansionists,
as though they are precedent, as though they are harbingers
(16:34):
of ideas or desires for policy to come. You know,
if people get sent to El Salvador, they are outside
the jurisdiction of US courts, and that is a huge
piece of the issue.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Well, and they kind of double think of it. All
that really rubs me the wrong way.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Is this notion that this was a clerical error that
has been immediately walked back by a high level Trump official,
is like Stephen Miller, etc. Who are saying that this
was not a clerical error and this is exactly where
this man belonged, and that it is up to Al
Salvador to decide whether or not to return him.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
This is the point I want to make the judges
say this is illegal, because it turns out judges are
very into rule of law. The current administration argues, look,
if someone is sent to El Salvador, they're out the door.
We cannot legally say they must be released or return
to the US because we no longer have control over them,
(17:38):
which is an incredibly orwellian argument. Regardless of what somebody's
you know, political position or ideology is. We are approaching
a point where the Supreme Court of the United States,
the judicial branch, is going to be in increasingly escalating
(18:00):
conflict with the executive branch. Now, granted, part of that
is baked into the idea of the US legal system.
The judges and the legislature and the executive branch are
supposed to get beefed up to a degree, but ultimately
it is Scootis who is allowed to say what is
(18:22):
or is not legal, and their word is supposed to fly.
That's one of the bedrocks of democracy. When the foundational pieces,
the question becomes what happens if someone just ignores scutis.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Okay, so we talk about the Chicago bulls angle that
that's like.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
With the tattoo.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Yeah, well no, no, it was a hoodie right right.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I'm sorry the tattoos in one case, the hoodie in another. Yeah,
we talked about strange.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
News, right, And just just to reiterate that, I think
that has become or is used as sort of like
gang colors in a way like Chicago bulls logos and color,
et cetera. Has been reappropriated as the facto insignia of
MS thirteen.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
And the Supreme Court has ordered the administration to quote
facilitate the return of Garcia, never charged with a crime
to this day, he got shipped against existing policy or
legal policy. This has not happened in US history, And
(19:26):
so we have to ask is the current administration just
sort of playing jazz spitballing on things like, hey, what
if we could get rid of inconvenient people? If so,
where does it stop? And I want to pause here
and ask everybody in the crowd just personally. Am I
being alarmist? Are people like Maggie or myself being a
(19:49):
little too quick to jump on the paranoia train?
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Well?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Rolling Stone today wrote an article about a nineteen year
old kid another person that was caught up when there
were two hundred and thirty eight Venezuelan's Deporta del Salvador,
and this kid was known to not be a part
of any organization. Mister Gutierrez will Merriwell merwill mer w
(20:14):
i L Gautierrez. According to the stories that are coming out,
at least the one that was written in Rolling Stone,
he was just standing out in front of his building
and ice folks rolled up, grabbed him and a few others.
One of them said that he wasn't the right kid,
the right on.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
The ice agents said yep, this is not the guy
we're looking for.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
One of the ice agents said, yep, this is not
the guy we're looking for. And then that was it.
Like they just took him because another one said, well, yeah,
take him anyway.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Take him anyway. Quote take him anyway. And this is
this is still happening. So to that question, I know
we're running long on time here. To that question, am
I being paranoid by saying we should treat this as
a precedent.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
No, I mean it's really scary, and like you said,
we have this is not without precedent. This is just
the first signs of what could potentially become an escalation
of defining anyone that disagrees with an administration or with
a government as an enemy of the States, you know,
or as some sort of terrorists or homegrown that term
there that you mentioned in the first place. It's really
(21:22):
slippery and I don't care for it one bit.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
And just to answer my own question.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
From earlier, there is a deal between the US and
l Salvador, a six million dollars deal where the Trump
administration is paying for the housing of these deported individuals
to El Salvador.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Again, quick pro quo. President Harbinger's tell us what you think,
folks at conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. There's so much
more to get to. This may be an episode in
the future. Meantime, just before we end this part of
our weekly Strange News segment, we do want to congratulate
good folks of Japan on making trading cards for middle
(22:05):
aged men out in the small town of Kowara. So
not everything is terrible. We're gonna check out more by
going to Tokyo Weekend or excellent article by Naz Sarah Filil.
Will be back with more strange news.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
And we've returned. I would argue that most things are
terrible for those poor middle aged men that are on
those cards. It's like one is just.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
It's no joke.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
Can I also just say that I think it's funny
that we have middle aged, overweight man action figures in
the form of the Minecraft movie. There is a Jack
Black Steve figure that you can buy, and I've just
seen tons of no fat shaming here. It's just funny
the idea that a kid would want like a tubby
(22:59):
middle aged beer he did guy action figure. They're wearing
a T shirt.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I love the I love the positivity of it too.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
It's just funny, like it's very similar to the trading
card notion.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It's also not Steve. That's not Steve.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
It's not it's a different it's the mythos the Middle
East trade man. Trading cards are a they're a trading
card game.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Oh that's amazing. Okay, so they have.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Now you're back in Yeah, properties and powers.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Either way, have you seen the Divorced Dads trading cards.
There's somebody on TikTok and Instagram that does that. He
open them like magic. They look like magic cards, but
they're divorced dads. They're pretty great. Girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Anyway, I still got to get those Japanese magic cards
to you, Matt, Oh, Yeah, when.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
You when you tap the card, does that mean you
get to exercise your loneliness powers?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yes, every time.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I think it means you start a band.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
It depends on how I think it's all for the
regular magic to all that applies too real. Okay, So
here we go, guys, this is a story that has
been coming out of the woodwork everywhere around Maryland. Everyone
in the local news game has been writing about this
(24:17):
because it is not about a criminal trial. It is
about a lawsuit that has to do with a potential
criminal trial. So let's put that up front. This is
a class action lawsuit that we're going to be talking
about today, not a criminal trial that is going to
change things and maybe how we look.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
At it, but in its distinctions.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yes, but it's still it includes some of the most
disturbing allegations that I've seen in a long while. So
here we go. This comes to us again. Everybody is
writing about it, but what we're reading from directly is
from the Baltimore Banner, written on April third, twenty twenty five,
by Tim Prudente. So Tim, thank you. A lot of
(24:58):
these are going to be your world words. I want
to read it verbatim because it is important to get
some of this right, and it's messed up. Here we go,
Here we go, Here we go. A pharmacist at the
University of Maryland Medical Center allegedly carried out a nearly
decade long campaign of cyber voyeurism, hacking hundreds of hospital
(25:19):
computers to activate the webcams and watch young female doctors
and medical residents undressing and pumping breast milk, according to
this class action lawsuit. But it doesn't stop there, guys.
It's a class action lawsuit by six women. It was
filed very recently, right around to April third, twenty twenty five.
The women further accuse this person, I'm not going to
(25:40):
say their name yet, a man, a doctor, of installing
software on hospital computers to steal their personal passwords and
take control of their networks, like their home networks.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
This has given me, This has given me terrible recollections
of the inthroom case in South Korea.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Maybe know that one, but let's continue here. But let's
go back to that ben because I want to know
what that is. The allegations here include that this doctor
watched the women in real time including one in Howard County,
while she was at home where their children breastfeeding, undressing,
and having sex with her husband like again watching the
webcam in her house from wherever he is. He is
(26:20):
accused of disabling the camera lights inside the other women's
homes to secretly record videos of the women and their children,
of hacking into the cloud account of another plaintiff to
see her personal photos, her driver's license, passport, and credit
card information. So before we continue on.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Thoughts, ew uh yeah, abhorrent, unclean. Clearly this is not
just about sexual exploitation, but it's about control and violation
of people's boundaries. The fact that this guy, I know
(26:59):
you'll want to mention, yet the fact that this guy
is most likely acting alone Matt is perhaps one of
the equally disturbing things about this because the Interroom case
was a national scandal doing similar and perhaps even more
evil things throughout South Korea. But this, this sounds so
(27:23):
tell me if I'm on the mark here. This sounds
like a single actor in a position of some authority,
leveraging that to deeply invade the lives of innocent people.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yes, and it also gets into student teacher relationships stuff
and we're gonna we're gonna say his name now.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
This is a quote from the attorney Steve Kelly, who
is representing the six plaintiffs in the current class action suit. Quote.
For nearly a decade, a single pharmacist named Matthew Bathula
installed spyware on at least four hundred computers in clinics,
treatment rooms, labs, and a variety of other locations at
one of the nation's premier teaching hospitals.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And that's Bathula, Batula.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
That is correct. If you wish to look it up again,
you will find everybody in the local vicinity talking about this.
Tim the writer of this article, notes around this part
of the article that state and federal court records show
that Bethulah has not been charged with a crime at
this point. So these are allegations. Everything we're talking about
here are allegations brought forth in a class action lawsuit,
(28:37):
not a criminal suit like a trial by jury situation.
The University of Maryland Medical System officials, according to Tim,
have been working with the FBI and federal prosecutors for
the past several months as part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
So it is an investigation. It just isn't at the
part yet where they file charges right the state prosecutor
(28:59):
or somebody.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
And can't comment publicly.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
As a result, they will not neither will the FBI.
So none of the authorities are talking about it. But
since there is a class action lawsuit and statements are
being made, stuff is being filed, we know about it.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Here is where it gets pretty crazy, because the class
action lawsuit is actually against the hospital, the medical center itself,
because the plaintiffs say that essentially they were unaware that
this is what was happening, and they were so they
were not told that this is what's happening. You know,
our privacy is being invaded by a single creeper, and
they were not told, hey, here's how to protect yourself
(29:37):
the They just were in the dark basically for a
long time. Because, according to the lawsuit, the University of
Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore alerted employees in October of guys, quote,
a serious it incident. Right, there's been a serious incident.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
More than that, a bit more than just let's turn
it off and back on again.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's incredibly vague language.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Oh yeah, so let's talk about that. They send an
email out to employees, and they said they described this
event as quote a highly sophisticated and very difficult to
detect cyber attack that has resulted in the theft of
data from shared UMMS computers, which is true, right, yes,
but the theft of data, like what is that data?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
It's a implication.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
The other very vague phrase, the implication being that we've
got this under control. This was our proprietary data. No
indication of individuals being targeted or individuals being violated, like
the idea is that. Okay, good to know, Glad you
guys sorted it out. But absolutely no indication that someone
might need to be concerned about videos of them floating
(30:49):
out on the way.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Also, no specific next steps, No like freach your credit report,
something that would let you, you know, give you a
sense of the type of content being being compromised here,
No specific it looks I'm reading a couple other sources
here as well, Matt. No specific at the time. Declarations
(31:13):
of everybody bring your work computer.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
In it, you know, arguably intentionally misleading, which I'm sure
is at the heart of the suit.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Intentionally vague.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
But listen, listen to this, guys. Okay, So the Allegations
in this suit state that doctor Bethula went into individual
rooms using his like his credentials to get into specific
rooms in the hospital. A lot of it, a lot
of them are key carded. I'm imagined, just because I'm
(31:45):
watching Severance, I'm imagining the Severance employees putting their cards
into different things, and you would know, oh, it's logged
that this doctor went for that room or whatever. In
this case, he was going into individual rooms and installing
keyloggers on all of the machines.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Dude, but he was doing it. Maybe he was targeting
a few people, but it sounds like at some point
in the operation here, he just started going to everyone
he could find.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, he wanted everyone. Again. It's that control thing, right,
I want to know what everyone is saying about everything
at all times and doing and all that stuff. It's
it's insane power trip stuff, and it's hard to describe.
It's hard to understand. You'd think something this serious if
it were real, if it was happening, if you found
out it's happening, as the employers of this person, you
(32:35):
would take some pretty heavy action against them, against the person.
What they did was they put him on administrative leave.
Then they fired him, but they did not mention any
of this happening. When he went to take another job
at another medical institution, she saw that where he currently
is and is employed in another place. And again we
(32:55):
have said his name here. So it is difficult. It's
a tough thing. Right, he is accused of the things.
He has not been charged with these things. So you
have to leave a little bit I don't know. We
have to be at least a little bit objective and
say these are accusations. But at the same time, to
have six different individuals come forward to make a class
(33:16):
action lawsuit, it does feel like there's some sand to this.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
And to have the FBI involved, you know, they don't
waste a ton of time. We know that I read
in Campus Safety, I read that attorney's representing the current
plaintiffs say there may be as many as eighty additional victims.
So ye, this feels like the beginning of a larger
heroin story.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And that's an unknown that's a statement coming from the
folks filing the lawsuit, right, but still it gives you pause.
They just said we don't know the scope. That's one
of the other attorneys, Cindy B. Morgan.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
But they did ultimately replace those compromise computers.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
At the very least, right, Yeah, they replaced all the computers. Yeah,
because you kind of just have to because now you're
unsure what has what on it and what are you
going to do, Like he compromised specific workstations as well
as ones that are specifically used for cameras, you know,
and most of them have cameras installed in them anyway nowadays, right.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
And honestly it's pretty sophisticated. Yeah, no, and not being sarcastic.
It's like controlling the cameras, turning off camera lights, things
like that are not your run of the mill script
kitty kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, No, for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Let's see, let's just read a little bit more of
this and then we'll move on to the next thing.
But here's a last quote here from Tim. The medical
center where Bethula worked serves as the academic campus of
the University of Maryland Medical Systems, hospitals and clinics. So
this is like where the future doctors go to train,
and this guy is just running his little game there
(35:03):
on everybody. The plaintiffs who are currently filing this lawsuit
are requesting a jury trial, so to make all of
this come to light. I do not know how much, guys.
Maybe I don't know how. If there is a trial
like this, it will officially be on record all of
the evidence that gets presented, I believe, But I don't
(35:25):
know if it's the same way if it's a class
action suit versus a trial by jury. I just don't
know how the evidence actually becomes public or not.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I believe. I believe aspects of it have to become public.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, you know, MLK everything became public.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Yeah, it's the most notable exception in this country. In
legal beagles clarify this for us, the most notable exception
in this country is going to be cases that touch
on collection methods or now national security stuff, like the
FBI knows you're guilty, but they can't tell you how.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah. And the thing I want to leave you with here,
everybody is that this kind of thing is not happening
everywhere at all times.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
This is a very rare instance of somebody like this
just happening to exist. They're at the University of Maryland's
medical system. It is weird to know that in twenty
fifteen he was recognized as Preceptor of the Year or
(36:34):
Instructor of the Year by the University of Maryland School
of Pharmacy. So like he was given he was this
accoladd held up instructor there, and meanwhile in the background,
he's doing all this stuff once he gets home on
his laptop, which is ikey, ikey, ikey.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
To the point about authority, right, an accolade. It's in
hierarchical positioning.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Oh yeah, you look at this guy. You probably even
talked to this guy. He seems really great, I bet,
but then turns his head and he's doing this stuff. Yuck. Okay,
so there's other stuff we can talk about, but we'll
leave that for another day. Just put this on your radar, everybody,
lab grown human teeth. Just keep that on your radar. Yeah,
(37:21):
it's exciting news. All right, we'll be right back with
more strange news.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
And we've returned and Ben teased it at the top.
We're going to North Sentinel Island. But wait, no, don't
go there. Don't go there. You're not supposed to go there.
We heard a ways back about a missionary who attempted
to make contact with the Sentinel Ease people. They made
(37:52):
contact and they made contact right back in the form
of arrows through his guts, and he did not make it.
And that's indeed correct. One might argue, however misguided. His
intentions were good, and I guess from his perspective he
(38:13):
was going there to, in his mind, do the Lord's work,
and you know what intentions are irrelevant there.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
It was a boneheaded idea and he paid the ultimate
price for it.
Speaker 5 (38:24):
I guess I'm just putting in a slightly different category
than what we're talking about today, which is going to
North Sentinel Island for clout for Internet clicks. An American
tourist has been arrested, has been detained for piloting an
inflatable dinghy which is a word that I like, a
little boat to the remote island of North Sentinel in
(38:48):
the Indian Ocean. He presumably wanted to make a video
for social media. The person's name is Mick Viktorovich Polyyakov,
a twenty four year old internet TikToker YouTuber in the
(39:09):
YouTuber he's a YouTuber.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
I have not checked out his stuff.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
Maybe I should might give a little bit of context
to what this person was thinking. He came armed, not
with weapons, minds you, but with a can of diet
coke and a coconut, which is there's so many things
wrong with that. The whole point of this law, you know,
(39:32):
preventing people from setting foot onto North Central Island, is
the idea of giving autonomy to indigenous people who have
maintained their isolation from the rest of the world at large,
who live a life free of technology, free of you know,
a lot of the trappings that you or I certainly
(39:54):
fall victim to, you know, and whatever. It's not a
judgment call, it's just the facts. They do not have
to deal with a lot of the thing that we do.
They have a very specific way of life that has
maintained the legacy of indigenous community is many of which,
as we know, have been horribly changed by modern innovations,
(40:14):
by capitalism, by colonialism, all of those things. So the
idea that one could remain as it has been, I
think is a noble thing.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
I don't know how you guys feel about that part
of it.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
But the idea of going to this place and disrupting
this a diet coke to me representing that kind of commercialism.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
You know.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
It's almost like this person was doing a really elaborate troll.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Well, yeah, I agree with that cinement, and I hope
a lot of us are on the same patriar the
crowd because we did. We did several episodes about this.
Have long been fascinated with the mystery of North Sentinel Island.
I think we all the way back gosh, early years,
maybe twenty thirteen. Important to know to your point, know
(41:02):
that the people living there, the community living on North
Sentinel Island, has encountered quote unquote modern civilization, and inevitably
in disastrous ways, like some of their children were kidnapped,
diseases were transmitted to these people in the eighteen hundreds,
So there are very real reasons from their perspective that
(41:25):
they say no, they don't want to hang out with outsiders.
And I am ninety eight percent convinced that just due
to the way ocean currents and pollution work along the shore,
they have probably encountered, you know, artifacts of modern civilization.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Sure flotsam and or jetsam right.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Right, jetsam seeing flots and floats right flo Yes, they
found this and there must be you know, we all
felt it when we were researching, recording, and talking with
experts for our previous episodes on this there is a
tantalizing aspect there for people to say, Oh, I'm the
(42:07):
person who visited, whether I am bringing these people to
my religion on some kind of holy mission, or whether
I am, to your point, doing this for attention on
the internet. And you need to realize, folks, the government
of India, which sort of runs the overall affairs of
North Sentinel Island, they have hard rules against approaching this place,
(42:32):
and they haven't for reason because the North Sentinel Ease
have what appears to be hard rules of their own,
which is that all outsiders should be treated as an
active threat.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Well, I mean, look, I have the flu right now. Guys,
imagine if somebody who isn't showing symptoms but has the
flu shows up on North Sentinel Island and actually greeted
people and made contact and was close with them. Do
you like what what happens?
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Right?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Does their small population have enough immunity to influenza of
whatever strain that visitor has to like not all get
crazy sick and potentially die.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Oh That's exactly what I'm talking about, right, That's what happened.
I just looked it up. January eighteen eighty expedition named
Oh Wow, January eighteen eighty January March eighteen sixty seven.
These things happened, and those diseases were transmitted just like
your point, Noel, with uncontacted tribes, I would imagine in
(43:34):
earlier in parts of South and Central America, disease riddled
people because the folks simply weren't prepared. They had not
developed the so called herd immunity. And Matt, I do
thank you for spending tonight with us while you're recovering
from the flu. But I also think you raise a
(43:55):
fantastic point there. This really could happen that influencer, that
missionary they could to mass point, had some kind of
infection that they were not aware of that ordinarily would
have just been a bad couple of weeks for them,
and it could have killed innocent people just by being
in the same air. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
Indeed, and again you know, all of that being said,
the idea of doing this for some sort of internet
clout and bringing a can of diet coke and a
coconut that it seems like inherently disrespectful just as a
gesture like what it represents. So as you mentioned, been
North Centinel Island is home to the Sentinel Eese, as
a tribe believed to have between one hundred and three
(44:33):
hundred people. They have lived in complete isolation and are
known to defend their territory. And I imagine that some
of the laws surrounding this in that part of the world,
you know, from the Indian government, would consider their acts
defending their shores as acts of self defense and therefore
(44:56):
not you know, subject to prosecution. They were, they have,
they've killed and were seen dragging the bodies of two
fishermen who mistakenly washed ashore there.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
On the on the shores of North Sentinel Island.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
And the helicopters.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
That's right, And of course they did kill that missionary
that you were mentioning as well, try as he might.
Mikhailo Viktroviovich Viktrovovic, Yeah, that's right. Polyakoff did not make contact.
He blew a whistle from his little boat when he
came ashore, and when he was not greeted by any
(45:33):
of the sentinels, he left those quote unquote offerings on
the beach and took off, where he was then later apprehended.
He is known for doing like travel vlogs, travel you know,
videos and leaning toward the kind of dangerous.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
Side of those types of things.
Speaker 5 (45:53):
He referred to the can of diet coke and the
coconut as gifts and as I said, he blew a
whistle to a train attention. Local fishermen, however, did see him,
and they were the ones who reported him to the police,
so they must have some recourse for reaching out to
the outside world. When we say local fishermen, we are
talking about Centinalese fisherman.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Correct, We're talking about people off the southern offshore India
and other islands.
Speaker 4 (46:24):
The most seen him making.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
They must have seen him making his approach. That makes sense,
thanks Ben. And he was detained and accused of illegally
attempting to contact the Sentinalese. A local court this is
from the ap last week sent him to a fourteen
day judicial custody and he is set to appear in
court on April seventeenth, which is actually tomorrow as we
(46:49):
record this, So he could potentially get up to five
years in prison as well as a hefty fine. Indian
authorities have said that they informed the US embassy because
he is from scotts Dale, Arizona. I don't think we
mentioned that is of his father is of Ukrainian descent,
but he is an American citizen, and they have informed
the US embassy visitors are actually vanned from traveling within
(47:14):
three miles of the ice, and this is due to
the fact that they have more or less successfully maintained
that isolation for the rest of the world for thousands
of years. They do use bows and arrows and spears
for hunting the animals that roam this island, which is
heavily forested, and they are able to maintain that self reliance.
(47:37):
A couple of perspectives that I thought were worth mentioning
from an Economic Times report on the case. One comes
from Carolina Pierce from the Survival International charity group, saying,
this is I think a UK organization. It beggars belief
that someone could be that reckless and idiotic. This person's
actions not only endangered his own life, but they also
(47:59):
put lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk. To
y'all's point about the spread of disease, and I don't know.
This to me is just it's such an interesting intersection
of like the gross consumerism and look at me asm
of kind of American TikTok and YouTube culture completely clashing
with a part of the world and a people whose
(48:21):
whole existence is antithetical to all of that.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
So I would just.
Speaker 5 (48:26):
Say leave the Sentinelesee the hell alone and stop chasing
cloud at the expense of others.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
If someone tells you they don't want you to go
to their party, then you know, don't This is We
know also from the Sentinelese perspective that they've repeatedly had
disastrous interactions with outsiders, and we can lay a lot
of that at the feet of again the British when
(48:54):
they abducted six innocent people from a tribe. I think
right now, the current the current like satellite intel and
the current research suggests this is.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
So.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
This is an island about the size of Manhattan. There
are roughly three loose groups, but they're all continually going
to be in contact. So again, these folks who, doubtlessly
because they're human, they have rich oral history, They have traditions, right,
they have a collective memory of things that happened before,
(49:31):
so they they know and they have probably grown up
being taught that communication with these outsiders, whatever the word
for those outsiders may be, is catastrophic. And you can't
really blame.
Speaker 4 (49:44):
Them, you know, you certainly can.
Speaker 5 (49:46):
The police issued a statement saying that his actions posed
a serious threat to the safety and well being of
the Sentinel Theese people, whose contact with outsiders are strictly
prohibited by law to protect their indigenous way of life.
New York Times reported on this, saying the police said,
or rather, let me give you the person's name by
Christine Hauser and Harry Kumar, and they paraphrased a subsequent
(50:07):
part of the statements, thusly saying the police said during
their questioning of mister Polykov, he disclosed that he was
drawn to the island out of a quote passion for
a venture and his desire to undertake extreme challenges. Officials
said that his go pro footage suggested entry into the island,
(50:27):
and that he used GPS navigation throughout his voyage.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Then just go to Myanmar, you know what I mean,
show over the border into DPRK. Those are both in
the regional neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
May might I suggest to any adventurous young tuber out
there South Sentinel Island, why not visit Lee Sunny South
Sentinel Island. It's much smaller, but at the right angle
it would look almost exactly like North Sentinel Island. Why
not get some footage there and then just tell everybody
(51:00):
went to the other place. It'll be fine.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
What could go wrong about lying to millions of people?
Could you could?
Speaker 4 (51:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
I like that idea because you can visit South Sentinel Island.
That's the thing we discussed in the past as well.
And there's actually there's been some great research in previous
years about kind of figuring out the language of North
Sentinel Island, like to the people in South Sentinel Island
speak a mutually intelligible tongue, and if so, could that
(51:29):
be a way to communicate with people safely?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
It's are there people who live in South Center? It's
just super tiny, That's all I know.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
I did just finally, I am thinking of Andeman's or
Nico bar totally.
Speaker 5 (51:41):
I did just finally find his YouTube channel, which only
has three point two four k subscribers. He's got nineteen
videos and the name of the YouTube channel is in
itself a little problematic Neo orientalist past growth not good,
and there are videos of him entering Taliban controlled parts
(52:04):
of Afghanistan. Honestly, that seems to be mostly what is
on here? There aren't that many videos, so I guess
this guy's just getting started. But uh, sorry, buddy, looks
like the kaibash has been put on your youtubing days. Yeah,
and looking at these videos all very again, look at
(52:24):
me kind of like benefiting from difficult situations in other
parts of the world. There's one where he's actually, like
very glibly eating a soft served ice cream cone, you know,
while roaming Taliban controlled Afghanistan. It just feels very dismissive
and gross, like here, look at me, I'm getting a
(52:45):
haircut in Afghanistan.
Speaker 4 (52:47):
Wow. Agreed. Not good?
Speaker 5 (52:50):
Not good guy. I think he had this coming. Frankly, yeah,
might didn't get killed, but I think this punishment.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
I hope he doesn't get five years in prison, but
I hope this makes him rethink this kind of Shenanigan ring.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
There is a non zero chance, Noel, that the next
video will be how I survived prison in India.
Speaker 4 (53:12):
Hmm, fair enough, that's true.
Speaker 5 (53:13):
And honestly, he's getting more attention from this than he
ever got before. Three point two thousand subscribers ain't a lot,
So there you go.
Speaker 4 (53:21):
Maybe we're part of the problem.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
But there is another deeper look at some of the
things we brought up. In addition to our episodes on
North Sentinel Island, we had a great interview segment with
the journalist Rajiev Gola remember this from back in the
day his series The Missionary, which touches on the show
case as well.
Speaker 4 (53:43):
Totally forgot about that. Excellent Jeeves doing well.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
He's building his own motorcycle from the ground up. I
still talk to the guy. Yeah, he's super cool. So
do check out Do check out his program if you'd
like to learn more about this. And I appreciate you
bringing this up because it is mission critical for people
to realize there are reasons for rules like this, and
we've examined them in previous episodes, like oh the places
(54:07):
you can't go in secret or closed off towns. But
often you have to be really careful with the so
called adventure tourism or dark tourism. You have to wonder
about the consequences of your actions or your as you
as you put it, look at meism's.
Speaker 5 (54:25):
Yeah, I think that's all the podcast ink we're gonna
spill over this fellow. I do hope that he's okay
and that everything ends up all right for him, and
that this is an educational experience rather than like an
opportunity to double down.
Speaker 4 (54:40):
But you know what, not holding out hope on that one.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Yeah, well, people can evolve. It's and and we've hit
a lot of deep water here today, folks. We can't
wait to hear your thoughts. Perhaps you will join us
on an upcoming Listener male segment. We want to hear
your take on the ongoing horrific situation in Maryland, the
(55:04):
ongoing disturbing what I do think is a harbinger situation
here in the US overall. And of course where you
would travel instead of North Sentinel Island, may we respectfully
suggest Bhutan, which would love to have you tell us
your thoughts. Find us online. You can call us on
a phone. You can also always hit up our good
(55:26):
old fashioned email address.
Speaker 5 (55:28):
Indeed, find us all over the internet at the handle
Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook
group Here's where it gets Crazy, on x FKA, Twitter,
and on YouTube with video content colore not of us
trying to interlope on Indigenous people at our YouTube channel.
You can also find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff
(55:48):
show on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
Hey, we have a phone number. It is one eight
three three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself
a cool nickname. Let us know if we can use
your name and message on the air. If you've got
more to say than can fit in three minutes, why
not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet out afraid. Sometimes the
void rights back quick thing we didn't get to. Five
nurses working on the same floor to Massachusetts hospital have
contracted brain tumors. Do check out the story on NBC
News by Dennis Romero Austin Mullen. Let us know what
(56:29):
you think is going on conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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