What is Gang Stalking?

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

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and

(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt noel
is Where is he on a knull somewhere? Perhaps a
grassy one? Yes, they call me Ben. We are joined
as always with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decond
Most importantly, you are you. You are here and that
makes this stuff they don't want you to know? Matt.

(00:47):
How's it going? It's going? Well? I'm wondering what you
are doing out there right now as you're listening to this.
Are you driving? Are you walking? Are you sitting at
your desk if you are able to? If you look
around right now, is anybody paying attention to what you're doing?
Did somebody just dart their head down as you glanced
at them? Is someone on a phone but not appearing

(01:10):
to speak into that phone? Are they making eye contact
in with you or looking in your direction while they're
on the phone. Uh? Do you think that they're actually
using the phone? Do you think they're actually calling? One? Eight?
Three three st d w y t K. Well, you know,

(01:31):
we have a lot of We have a lot of
hang ups as a species, right, and many of those
are the inevitable results of our great intelligence or the
problem of consciousness and and sentience or consciousness sapience, whatever
you want to call it is its own bag of badgers.

(01:51):
But our our fears drive so much of our you know,
our failings and our triumphs, our innovations, even our music.
You and I were talking off air with Mission Control
about various songs that are catchy but strongly paranoid. You know,

(02:12):
should we sure? Do you always feel like someone is
watching you? Do you feel like private eyes are watching you?
So they see here every move? What I thought you
were gonna say? Poop again? Oh? Yeah, no, we worked
on an alternate version of that song. Yes, today's Today's

(02:34):
episode is about a troubling um, a troubling feeling phenomenon
that everyone has experience to some degree at one point
or another. And this this is the feeling of being watched,
feeling being stalked. And if you were one of the
lucky few who are thinking, oh gee, man, I've I've

(02:55):
never personally felt like someone was following me or stalking
me and then strap in because you're going to feel
that way after this episode, so I will I will
give a when I don't talk too much about the
personal stuff, but I will give a personal example of
when I was actually followed or stalked. This was when

(03:16):
I was living in a different country and I was
interacting with some political activists. Let's let's keep it at that, okay.
And I was not in any way a lynchpin of

(03:37):
this organization, nor was I involved in any criminal enterprise.
I'm very much Dudley do good when I am in
someone else's geopolitical house, and it's the best policy. But
I noticed a few you know, a few weeks after

(03:59):
I had met with met with a group. I was
a fairly I had a fairly predictable routine. So I
was always sleeping more or less in the same place,
and I was typically going to do things in more
or less the same area, often predictable times of day,

(04:21):
which any p I can tell you is not the
best strategy. Private investigator, right right, thank you. And I
started noticing. I started noticing the same people at the
same time, and eventually, eventually somebody very politely make contact

(04:44):
with me and asked me some questions about the folks
I met a week or two ago, and nothing ever
came of it. And I you know, the story ends there.
But you're fairly sure you were being surveilled or stalked uncertain. Yeah,
and it wasn't. It wasn't in a threatening way. I think.

(05:06):
I think these folks just wanted to see what I
was going to do next. What I mean, is this
just hanging out? These just some friends hanging out in
a coffee shop or a wine bar, or is this
a public meeting that leads to something else? And that's
not I have to also be very clear, it is

(05:29):
not illegal for intelligence agencies or law enforcement to do that.
As a matter of fact. Uh, at least on paper.
The US has some laws that are meant to constrain
the unchecked use of those powers. Other countries do not,
and uh, and as often to the peril of many

(05:50):
unfortunate people. But let's let's go away. That's a little scary,
but it all all's well, that ends well, you know, uh,
here are the facts. Have you ever been followed, like
we said, you know, we've all we we've all experienced
if you if you are savvy enough to be listening
to a podcast, you have experienced some sort of how

(06:14):
would you describe it, man, a sense of surveillance. Yeah. Sure, Again,
it doesn't even necessarily mean that it's true, but the
perception that something like that perhaps is going on you
you maybe have felt it before. We certainly you and
I I think in particular maybe as well as know
a little bit to a lesser effect, have experience kind

(06:37):
of a fluctuating feeling of being surveilled over the ten years,
the decade of making this show where that it waxes
and Waynes. We even had a joke and a say
intern there that we've mentioned several times in the past,
shout out to Steve whose tasks with listening to our
episodes and all the ideas that we put forth into
the universe. Um, honestly, they're they're worried about, you know,

(07:03):
the next season of Ricking Morty, like what's going to
come on there? Like because you getting influenced, like what
are we gonna do? Right right? Let's sie up is this?
And also shout out to you, Steve, if you have
not graduated yet, if you are still an intern at
one of the spooky alphabet agencies, then it can only
mean you're pursuing a PhD and good luck. That's right.

(07:26):
But but again, to our knowledge, we have never really
experienced overt surveillance on this show, at least for making
this show. Um again, we don't. We don't have knowledge
of it at least, and we certainly haven't encountered what
would be considered a stalker. Now. We have received a

(07:47):
number of cryptic and or troubling emails, a couple of
texts on mobile phones, things like that. I have a
few pieces of physical paper in my desk that I've
kept around that we're a bit odd with the symbols
and everything that was on their mapping connections to things

(08:09):
that I didn't understand. Yes, yeah, we've received some odd
post too, But we haven't encountered what would be described
legally as a stalker or stalking situation, which can happen.
It's a real thing. The Department of Justice defines stalking
as engaging in a course of conduct directed at a

(08:30):
specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear
for his or her safety or the safety of others,
or suffer substantial emotional distress. And we have some statistics
about this too. Oh sure. If you look to the
c d C, they've got a thing called Prevalence and
Characteristics of Sexual Violence, stalking and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization.

(08:56):
This is a National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey
within the United States eleven. Okay, that's a lot to
get through there. It's through the c d C. That's
what you need to know, and it's a survey um
and this whole thing is commonly referred to as the
n I s VS. According to this thing, seven and
a half million people were stalked in one year alone

(09:17):
in the United States. And of course this is the
eleven survey, so this is data from now. A lot
of these victims were stalked by either a current or
a former intimate partner. That would be of female victims
and fort of male victims. And if you look to
the population overall, an estimated fifteen percent of women and

(09:38):
six percent of men have been a victim of stalking
throughout their entire lifetimes, which you know is statistically fairly low.
But when you think about that number of people, seven
and a half million human beings that experienced stalking in
a single year, it's pretty staggering in the US alone. Yeah,

(09:59):
and when we say stall can, we're not talking about
you know, creeps on the Internet sliding into your d
m s. We're talking about the sort of stalking that
is defined by the d o J. For a lot
of US. These numbers seem surprisingly high, you know what
I mean? This is like cape fear, single white female

(10:20):
kind of thriller stuff. But critics of this survey believe
the CDC has used an overly conservative definition of stalking,
and honestly, I tend to agree with some of the
problems here. Survey respondents were classified as stalking victims if
and only if one they experienced multiple stalking tactics or

(10:42):
a single stalking tactic multiple times by the same perpetrator
a part makes sense, or two they felt very fearful
or believed that they or someone close to them would
be harmed or killed as a result of the perpetrators
stalking behavior, and this comes from the Stalking Source Center.
They say this definition fails to address the varying levels

(11:05):
of fear reported by victims right somewhat fearful, maybe distressed, disquietant,
or slightly fearful, and no stalking law in the US,
which goes the stalking laws pretty much goes state by
state unless you're talking about interstate stalking. Uh. These these
stocking laws, uh don't qualify fear the way that the

(11:26):
c d C is. And so they say that using
this conservative definition of stalking results in an inaccurate depiction
of the practice. But wait, as Billy mayors want to say,
there's more, folks, you see, we have, uh, we have,
we have piles of disturbing facts and statistics about this phenomenon,

(11:47):
this type of crime according to the Bureau of Justice
statistics during a twelvemonth period. You'll notice these statistics don't
all agree during a twelve month period and estimate to
fourteen out of every one thousand people age eighteen or
older or victims of stalking somehow, and again the definition changes. Right,

(12:09):
But let's keep in mind these are different organizations of
the same government, and you can only use surveys, right, So,
depending depending on who you're surveying, even as random as
you want it to be, you may get very different statistics, right. Right,
So it's true because we have to ask ourselves about

(12:31):
the methodology. One surveying may just be going off self reporting, right,
one survey may be going off only reports that have
been made to law enforcement, and as we know, quite
a few people do not report things like that to
to law enforcement unless unless it exceeds a certain threshold,

(12:54):
like most people are not calling nine one one every
time they get an unseld lisited again, an unsolicited maybe
message on Instagram or something you know sure or you know,
a robo call, or consistent robot calls from the same
number or something. About half of stalking victims around forty

(13:17):
said they experienced at least one unwanted contact per week.
Eleven percent of victims said they've been stalked for a
long time five years or more. The risk of being
a victim of stalking was highest for individuals who were
divorced or separated. That's thirty four out of one thousand individuals.
Women were at a greater risk than men for being

(13:40):
for stalking victimization. However, women and men were equally likely
to experience harassment. Nearly three and four stalking victims knew
their offender in some way. That person you can go
to school with, who's kind of quiet and ex significant other,
even if it's just an neighbor, even if it's just

(14:01):
a neighbor, just a face, wom in some way. So,
you know, when we see these crimes or these situations
depicted in works of fiction, people go to the police,
and predictably, especially if it's a thriller, the police ignore them.
Our hands are tied. They say, we could get a

(14:22):
restraining order. That's the extent of it. Now, that's you know,
oversimplified for the sake of plot and narrative. But it
is unfortunately true that not all states treat stalking the
same way. Yeah, currently just over half of states. They
will require that there are at least two or more instances.

(14:45):
Were kind of talked about this a little bit, but
there have to be at least two instances where this perpetrator,
whoever the person is that's perceived as a stalker, is
either following, harassing, watching in some way. The person who's
who is the victim. Right, But then some state laws
actually you specify the victim has to be frightened by

(15:06):
the stalking. Like there again we're talking about fear here.
It's kind of what we mentioned earlier, Like if if
you were walking into a police department to make a
report and you are not fearful of this stalking is
just a nuisance perhaps or something like that, then uh,
it wouldn't necessarily be considered stalking. Um. Some others require

(15:27):
that the stalking behavior must have caused a reasonable person
to experience fear. Um. But again a lot of these
states vary on what fear is, like what what are
we defining fear as? Is it somewhat fearful, quite fearful,
very fearful? And some state laws even require you know,
a prosecutor if they were gonna take somebody to court

(15:50):
and charge them with stalking, they would require the prosecutor
to establish that fear of death or at least some
kind of you know, serious harm was at least felt
by the victim um. And you know, others just required
that a prosecure established the victim suffered some kind of
emotional distress. And that is generally going to be experienced

(16:10):
by anyone who feels at least that they are the
victim of stalking. And we'll get back to a problematic,
challenging issue with that definition. But but first we've painted
the scene right the broad context, being stalked in North

(16:31):
Dakota is not the same as being stalked in California
or Oklahoma. Right, we know that stalking israel. We know
that it is by itself a frightening phenomenon for the
people involved. Yet over the course of recent years, more
and more individuals are coming forward, often forming communities online,

(16:54):
claiming that they have been harassed, stalked, terrorized, not by
an ex lover, not by a single creepy obsessed neighbor
or former school chum, but by groups of people, coordinated groups,
acting in concerts and behaving as though they have a plan,

(17:14):
a gang of stalkers. So today's question is what exactly
is going on? And we'll get to that right after
a quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy.

(17:36):
Gang stalking. Gang stalking. This is something many of our
fellow listeners have written in to us about over the years,
and I do mean years. As we've established earlier, stalking
has a few common characteristics. Tends to be highly personal
and individualized. Tends to be measured at least partially in

(17:58):
subjective emotional terms, at least as far as the letter
of the law applies in the US, and that's a
tricky thing. We cannot objectively measure a subjective experience, especially
because we know that emotions are malleable and to a
degree in ephemeral. Often right things we feel different ways

(18:22):
about the same thing at different times, which sounds elementary
but is incredibly important for this. It reminds me of
you know, how the Sackler family and other criminals of
that ILK had put in you know, it's spent. You
just phrased it that way. It's true, sorry, criminals who
are not going to be convicted, right, Uh, drug dealers,

(18:47):
I don't know what you want me to say. No, No,
it's refreshing to hear it. Well, those are unfortunately true things.
But but the the is, like these organizations, the opioid mongers,
had spent millions making a standardized pain reporting scale that

(19:12):
medical professionals were more or less forced to use. And
we've all we've all kind of heard it before. Describe
your pain on a scale of one to ten, right,
it's basically comfort or yeah, y yeah, yeah yeah. And
so we're asking we're asking people to subjectively rate something.
So if we're asking people to subjectively rate their fear

(19:38):
after something incredibly frightening has happened to them, you know
what I mean? Like, I I just got an envelope
full of like hair and a picture of my kid
at the playground. Uh oh, do you think I'm somewhat
discomfited by this? You know it's insane? Well, it is.
I mean, when you're speaking of perceived stalking, as we're

(20:02):
going to find a little later in the episode, it
ranges from a glance from somebody that perhaps you don't know. Two. Um,
I mean, I can be I can only imagine the
nth degree. There would be someone holding a weapon to
to your body and you know, threatening you like that.
That would be the range I'm assuming if you're talking

(20:25):
about levels of fear within stalking, right, Yeah, Yeah, that's
that's the problem with that definition, because different people will
have different thresholds, right, what they consider frightening. And this
is not at all in any way shape, form or
fashion meant to diminish or minimize the experiences of people

(20:46):
who are victimized by stalking. We're saying that some people
will behave differently, and there's not really a one size
fits all form. Yes, some people behave and perceive differently. Yeah,
there we go. That's incredibly important. So here's the strange
part for people who believe that they're victims of group

(21:06):
stalking or gang stalking. The same rules apply, but with
but not in the same way, and with even higher stakes,
like they may feel there's a highly personal, individualized motive
behind this group of people stalking them, but they may
not have known these people before. It's just the guy

(21:27):
who's always now at the bus stop around the same
time as you. And because the definitions of the term
gang stalking can be a little tough to come by,
we we found some pretty pretty comprehensive definitions from the
subredit on gang stalking. And there is a dedicated subredit

(21:49):
to this and I I like their definition. I think
it gives us a good lay of the lands. It
says that gang stalking is an umbrella term and it
describes a series of technique utilized by a group to
instill mental instability within a victim. So that would be
a particular individual with the intent to discredit, sabotage, harass, extort,

(22:11):
and even drive a victim to suicide or at least
to mental distress. And it goes on to say the
victims of this practice are often described as targeted individuals
known as t s for short. So we will relation
to the artists correct, and we will be using t
I sometimes targeted individuals moving forward. Yeah, and according to

(22:33):
the ties who feel that they are victims of gang
stalking operations, the stalking can take multiple forms. Right. Oh yeah, Well,
there are lots of different perceived things here that have
been described by multiple people. So this isn't just one

(22:55):
person's account of what it's like to be gang stocked
or the option of what is occurring. So let's get
to something called mobbing. Let's let's hit that first. So
this is an intense and organized harassment, sometimes in the workplace,
but mobbing can also occur outside of the workplace, where

(23:16):
it's just a whole bunch of people that appear to
be around you or paying attention to you or watching
you all at once. Like again, if you just if
you imagine the concept of mobbing, it's a lot of
people all at once with their attention focused on you.
But then but then their attention will go away and

(23:38):
they will come right back to you. Yeah, and then
there are black bag jobs, which would be a residential
break in where maybe something is stolen or something's messed with,
but your house is not Valuables aren't necessarily taken. It's
not like a burglary. It's a for me, my understanding

(24:00):
it was. It's a perception that your inner sanctum, your
your place of safety has been disheveled or messed with
or looked at by somebody who physically, you know, breached
the perimeter or whatever. And maybe they altered something, or
maybe they installed something to monitor you. And generally it's
to mess with your right, I mean, that's the perception,

(24:23):
is that somebody broken here just to mess with me,
not like you said, not to take something of any value. Right,
maybe in some cases to leave something. Uh. The idea
is that the the idea here in both those cases
is that someone is attempting to compromise the victim's sanity
or the perception of reality. This term is come. We

(24:46):
commonly encapsulate this in the term gas lighting. Right, So,
gas lighting is when someone attempts some person or some
group attempts to convince some other person or some other
group that they are in fact mentally unstable, they're losing
their mind, and so on. It comes from a play

(25:07):
called Gaslight. In the US, it's known as Angel Street,
and it's about a woman whose husband slowly manipulates her
or gaslights her into thinking that she is losing her mind.
There are other things like a street theater. Yeah, now
this is this is one that you can find videos

(25:30):
of online in a in a lot of places in
YouTube where it will be um a group of people
that if you're watching objectively, it feels as though it's
just normal activity out on a street, particularly or it
doesn't have to be a street, it can be just
in any public space. And you know, but for the

(25:53):
person who believes they're being gang stocked, everything feels inauthentic.
It feels like it's it's a bunch of theater people,
theater kids putting on a play. It like it's organized
in some way for specifically the purpose to agitate the
person who's perceiving it as being as stalking. Right, And

(26:17):
this this goes into the concept of some performance art.
Some of us listening might say, well, what about things
like improv everywhere? Have you seen those clips? Yeah, it's
like people spontaneously freeze for sixty seconds and train station
or everybody starts in a flash mob dancing and stuff.
It's not like that. That's not what MHM. People who

(26:40):
have encountered this They don't feel that they're watching some
needo artsy performance. They feel like that person is pretending
to read a magazine, pretending to be on the phone.
How long is that person going to keep uh, you know,
looking at different hairs of sunglasses. Oh yeah, you know

(27:02):
what I mean totally? And then another thing here. Then
I want to just talk about We're gonna have some
examples moving forward, a little bit of personal experiences with
this and our accounts. But other other ways gang stalking
takes shape sometimes is when you're driving your car and
there's a there's the feeling that several cars around you,

(27:26):
maybe maybe the one in front of you is slowing
down to keep you going a certain speed, But then
they're also cars next to you, so you can't change
lanes to go around this person that seems to be
controlling you. And then maybe another car will box you
in from behind and prevent you from really doing anything,
especially if you're on a freeway. Um. There there are

(27:48):
instances where people will believe their home is wherever they
wherever it is they live, and sleep is being consistently
surveiled by the same people that by the house at
certain Like you said, it kind of at certain times,
or maybe wearing a very specific hat or are wearing

(28:09):
the same clothes. Um, that's kind of the way it
takes form. And there are a lot of reasons that there.
There are several categories of reasons people believe they're being
gang stocked. And before we get into too much of that, UM,
let's just I think we should give some examples of

(28:30):
people's accounts, like personal accounts. Yeah, yeah, that's probably the
best way to depict this experience. Let's look at some
first hand accounts of people who feel they have experienced
gang stalking. James Crockett has has a great quote on
this in his article for Medium, and he describes it thusly.

(28:50):
In one video, a t I takes a go pro
that's a GoPro camera on the New York subway and
narrates his journey to try to prove the existence of
his stalkers. He know. It's a man in an orange
jacket who occasionally looks at him, another tall man who
enters the train and makes eye contact with the man
in the jacket, and a lady who he thinks he's
giving him dirty looks whenever he looks away from her.

(29:12):
For several stops, she just stands there. He says, these
people really do perform a vicious act. They don't care
if people are driven to suicidal depression, like I almost was.
It wasn't until after that I realized this was some
kind of sick game I am in. So there's another
possibility there, you know, the saying it's a sick game.

(29:32):
There's the idea that maybe this is a recreational activity
for some people. Maybe the causes just just to mess
with people, you know, per perhaps um And you can
also go online and see videos of people with a
cam quorder in a public space filming other people that

(29:54):
they believe our gang stalking the person with the cam quorder.
And we're gonna have to get into that a little
bit later too, But just that concept of being in
a public place with a camcorder aimed at strangers that
you don't know, I'm gonna say it's likely that you're
going to bring attention to yourself because you're doing that.

(30:18):
Many of us, when we're in public spaces will notice
if there is a camera aimed at us, right, And again,
like it's it's tough to know whether or not that
attention is brought upon by the actions of the filmer
or if it's I mean, it feels that way to me,
but it's not conclusive, so we'll get into that a

(30:41):
little bit later too. There's also a Vice short documentary
that was created in two thousand seventeen called The Nightmare
World of gang Stalking. It's a it's a video that's
available on YouTube right now, and there are several people
in it who describe their experiences. So let's first turn
to Billy B who was a makeup artist and a
self described uh gang stalking victim, and in his particular account,

(31:04):
he believes he's a victim of culture stalking, which is
kind of an offshoot of gang stalking functions in the
same way, the reasons that he's being stalked are a
little bit altered. So in this case, he is a
man who identifies as homosexual, who is living in a
very let's say, conservative area, and he believes there's some

(31:25):
conservative Christian group that is in in an organized way,
stalking him and doing these things like street theater. They're
making him feel uncomfortable. Where he will be parked in
a fairly empty lot somewhere and then a lot of
cars will pull in and each one that pulls in
a head heterosexual couple gets out holding hands, being all

(31:48):
cute right near his car and on purpose making eye
contact with him or you know, flaunting it in front
of him, and it would happen over and over and
over and over and over. So this is this is
the way he describes it. You're in the all of
this ridiculous rational impossibility that is real and is happening,
and it's stranger than fiction or anything that you can imagine,

(32:08):
and it's just terrifying. It pisces you off, it frustrates
you beyond anything that you can imagine, and it changes you.
I mean, that's that's rough to be feeling that right
at an individual level. And what do we know? What
part of the country, Uh, this this person Mr B

(32:31):
is in. This is California. This is California, and there's
a conservative area of California which does exist. Some people
outside the state might be surprised by that. And the
question then becomes, is this a situation where everybody in
a community knows each other? You know, Like if you

(32:51):
go to a small town, right, people make eye contact,
people wave, uh, And if you go to a small
town where people don't care for outside writers or don't
care for you specifically. It becomes very clear very quickly
that's is that gang stalking or is that just people
being jerks? And people don't have to like have a

(33:13):
meeting beforehand to be jerks. They naturally take to that. Yeah. Well,
and this is gonna be a common theme here no
matter no matter what even the truth is about what's happening,
these targeted individuals believe that this is happening so wholeheartedly

(33:34):
that it's affecting them, you know, mentally and emotionally and
physically sometimes so you know, you're you're right on the money,
But they're been like the way that I'm thinking about
these you know, some of the statements and some of
the things that people are describing. Um, so let's let's
just turn to another person who was also from that

(33:58):
Vice documentary named Richard Bruce. He he's a guy who
I believe was living out of his RV and he
is describing his where he's lived over the course of
several years in different places those like apartments and you know,

(34:19):
the car and where he's living down the RV. All
of these places were constantly surveilled by groups of people,
as well as by helicopters, police helicopters that would fly
over all the time, UM law enforcement vehicles that would
pass by his living spaces all the time. When he
was being interviewed for this documentary, he had a small

(34:40):
device next to him and I don't know if he
was a radio or some kind of monitor or something,
but when he would begin to talk about certain subjects
or in certain ways, the device would make some noise,
and he believed that he was being listened to by
electronic surveillance, and specifically when he would bring up certain topics,
that's when they were recording or you know, established to

(35:02):
the connection or something like this. And he does a
fantastic job, at least in this quotation or in this interview,
showing medic cognition right thinking about thinking. He's self aware,
and he understands how this may to someone hearing about
this for the first time. He understands how this may
sound a little bit off kilter. Yeah, he says, it's

(35:26):
confusing to humans trying to understand gang stalking. Why would
they do this to me? Why would they do these weird,
petty little things that may even just irritate me at
some moment this happens to you enough, believe me, you
will feel stress. You will get that feeling of helplessness.
This is not just like a gang of random people

(35:46):
just doing this. This is procedural. If you were to
ask me what gang stalking is, it's a way to
slowly kill people using their own decisions, which is fascinating, right,
And from that interview, I think we can all feel
the as if we're looking through a window into the
hopelessness in the in the terror and anxiety of this

(36:09):
this person's life. If you want to read more of
these personal accounts, which again are anecdotal and are not
you know, uh, they don't contribute to a quantitative study
of any sort. But if you would like to read
these first hand accounts, again without us being able to

(36:29):
vouch for their veracity, we recommend heading toward reddit dot
com are gang stalking reddit dot com slash are slash
gang stalking all one word, speak of words. We're gonna
pause for one from our sponsor, and when we come back,
we're going to address the elephant in the room motive

(36:56):
we have returned. We hope that if you listening to
this show while you're in a public space. You're not
getting increasingly weirded out. But there's a big problem that
you'll see with a lot of these Well, problem isn't
the most accurate word. There's a big question that remains

(37:18):
unasked in a lot of these firsthand reports and a
lot of the literature you will see about the concept
of gang stalking. It is this why why would you
do that? Right? Would you? Would you do it for
just pure evil, twisted recreation? You know, is this a

(37:39):
situation where mission control, Matt, you and I get together
and we say, hey, you know, the four or five
of us, it just just find someone on Facebook who
lives in our town and you know, just stalk them. Yeah,
I just poked the bear, right, We're so tired of
playing board games. Let's let's do something different with our friendship.

(38:01):
Which may have happened, but that's that doesn't seem like
it would be the normal thing for people to do,
not because people are inherently so great or noble, just
because it feels like a lot of work for a
lot of people unless they're getting something out of it.
So another question or another possible motive that we see

(38:21):
cited a lot pretty often by people who believe they
are being gang stalked. Is the idea that these activities
are occurring at the behest of the U S intelligence community,
and this again goes to a lot of US reports.
So there's a site called fight gang stalking dot com

(38:43):
and according to you can tell from the title that
to them, this is a legitimate, real phenomenon. And according
to fight gang stalking dot com, gang stalking is quote
most likely a disinformation term created by US intelligence agencies.
It refers to the intense, long term, unconstitutional surveillance and
harassment of a person who has been designated as a

(39:05):
target by someone associated with America's security industry. And it
goes on to say, quote, the goal of such operations,
in the parlance of counterintelligence agents is disruption of the
life of an individual deemed to be an enemy or
potential enemy of clients or members of the security state.

(39:26):
Arguably the most accurate term for this form of harassment
would be counter intelligence stalking. So there's a problem here though.
The problem is this the t i s or targeted
individuals are rarely unified in what exactly caused them to
be stalked. While it is absolutely, inarguably true that extensive

(39:48):
and a legal surveillance has been used by past and
current governments. Should not be a surprise to anybody. Uh,
there's relatively little follow up reporting in these gang stalking stories,
and there's relatively little coherent explanation for why these people
would be driven to fearful actions or to mental instability,

(40:10):
or you know, at the worst, to self harm. Yeah,
well you have to apply the motive problem then to
the security state or to the intelligence agencies, right, why
what is their motive for targeting that individual? And then
this goes to the the trench coat clad fenora wearing

(40:32):
elephant in the room. Is this a genuine phenomenon occurring
the way in which it's described and are the people
experiencing and describing it accurately or are people some if
not all, these people experiencing some kind of delusion that

(40:54):
that that could be considered an offensive question, but it
shouldn't be. It's a necessar seri question. Absolutely. If we're
going to talk about this, we have to at least
think about so what do we have to go on?
Where where can we look to for some answers like
what what even? What is? What do we mean when
we say delusion. Well, let's jump back to that Vice
documentary again. Huge shout out to the team members Advice

(41:19):
that created that documentary. It really is fantastic and there's
a lot of insight here and things to think about
to chew on philosophically. Um. So, they interviewed a fellow
named Josh Basil or b A. Z E. L l Uh.
He's a physician and an author, and he's discussing the
psychiatric definitions of delusion and he's saying that these tend

(41:39):
to focus really on two principles. The first one is
that the ideas, if you're at at least uh, if
you're experiencing a delusion, the ideas that you have are
not vulnerable to evidence. So if someone shows you, look
this thing, you believe it is not true because of
this I have evidence, that wouldn't matter because you would

(42:01):
still believe it. Okay. The other part of a delusion
is that people in your immediate sphere of influence, perhaps
the people in the culture at large, or in your town,
or in the case of Billy b maybe the conservative
neighborhood where he's moved to. Those people don't share your beliefs,
so they don't believe that what you believe is happening

(42:22):
is true. That would be one of the ways we
get to considering someone to have a delusion. Now, he
goes on to say, the question becomes, um, there is
a full quote. The question becomes, if you can find
ten thousand people on the internet who believe the same
thing as you, is that then a delusion? Is it?
Is it even bizarre? Quite possibly not? If everybody believes

(42:45):
this stuff at least, this would be the question you
ask yourself as you stumble upon ten thousand other people
that share your in this case what he's calling a delusion. Uh,
is it in any way insane? And the answer would
be no, because it is not delusionable. Look at all
these other people who are experiencing the same thing, and
I think this is It's a fascinating way to look

(43:07):
at it. Because then does it get into the realm
of group delusion or is it still on the personal
level of because it is a very personal experience. Gang
stalking like the perception that I am being gang stalked.
It is not as though gang stalkers are looking at

(43:28):
my whole neighborhood or looking at my whole you know.
Cul de sac or whatever whatever it may be. It's
generally a targeted thing. That's why they are called targeted individuals.
I don't know, it's a tough thing. It's a tough
egg to crack there. For for me at least, it
also goes into philosophy. Yeah, that's that's really what what

(43:50):
the psychologist is doing here is looking at the problem
of perception and reality. Oh yeah, no, you're right. So
that's that's a that's an egg that our species has
yet to effectively crack. We know that things can become

(44:11):
normalized for people at a cartoonishly quick rate. So we
know that our our concept of what normal is is
very malleable. And we know that our species tends to
look to anything we perceive as peers for confirmation of things.
And also at the weirdest times, we're very talented and

(44:33):
big up in each other. I mean, maybe that's just
my experience, but I've had I've had some conversations with
absolute strangers that confirms some deeply held quote unquote crazy
things that I believe, you know, uh, and and having
someone else, whether you meet them in person or whether

(44:54):
they're just a block of text that you can assume
is a person, uh talking back to and confirming your beliefs.
Having somebody else say that is a light in the
darkness for a lot of people, you know what I mean.
And that's a huge that's a huge thing. That's a
trope in fiction. That's a common experience and individual reality

(45:16):
to have someone else say something to you that lets
you know I'm not the only one. We do that
in the smallest, like the smallest, most seemingly insignificant situations,
you know, like let's say you and I and and
Paul are like recording in the studio, Matt, and then
all of a sudden, there's this weird you know, where

(45:37):
did you come from? Where did you go? Where did
you come from? Cotton ey Joe? We look around and
we check even now, and we're a relatively saying mental
stuff arguably, but even we still check, like, Hey, does
anybody here cotton eyed Joe? Or is this finally that
psychotic break we all there was coming uh this? And

(46:00):
I don't want to get too far off topic there,
but I can see the power of that, certainly, and
it's a reinforcement all the way, right. And then there's
also uh set and setting, which I think continues in
the quotation oh absolutely, UM. And just before we jump
into that bend, I want to talk about a concept

(46:22):
of hyper vigilance. And it's it's something that Josh brings
up in that documentary, and it's this. It's the concept that, UM,
for our own self preservation, if we are experiencing something
where we believe we're experiencing something, we we AerR on

(46:43):
the side of safety for ourselves, for our personal safety,
rather than on whatever the social moras would be, whatever
the standard actions to take would be for someone. And
it all occurs when there's a perceived connection that may
or may not be there. So we're talking about seeing
somebody walk by and then seeing that person maybe walk

(47:07):
by again. Um. The hyper vigilance within a lot of
people experiencing this would be, Oh, that person may want,
you know, maybe a part of this thing that I'm
already feeling or already believe I'm experiencing, rather than perhaps
that person went to go get you know, something down

(47:27):
the street and then you didn't see them walk by.
Now they're going back down again, or you know, something
to that effect. But ultimately, what this is, or what
that means is that people experiencing this are going to
be more hyper aware of things like that because they
are so worried about their own safety already, because of
the anxieties that are brought up by feeling this way.

(47:50):
Um it's almost like it just builds on itself. Um. So,
then Josh goes on to talk about how there are
real world instances of surveillance, either targeted or mass surveillance,
that maybe we should be worried about. That are they
are very much real, They've been proven, they exist around

(48:12):
us every day. And I'll just read this quick quote
from you, he says, because this this reminds me of
stuff and what you know. He says, given that the
world is filled with groups of people operating in secret
or trying to to divorce us from our money, our power,
or whatever they want from us, one thing that might
be helpful to ask from a psychiatric point of view

(48:33):
is what's wrong with the rest of us? Why am
I so relaxed? What's wrong with me? Why don't I
feel like I'm being gang stocked? Is it that I'm
living in the matrix where, in order to feel more comfortable,
I've decided to ignore a lot of the evils in
the world and a lot of the potential threats to me.
And there he's referencing the n s A is mass
surveillance of citizens within the United States. He's referencing other countries, UM,

(48:58):
such as the UK and England over there where you
know it's they're the most CCTV cameras per capita anywhere
on the planet. He's he's mentioning that this stuff is
very real. Uh, and why aren't more of us worried
about that kind of thing? If you apply in a
more general sense, what these people who believe they're targeted

(49:21):
individuals are feeling to UM on a mass level, let's
say that. Yeah, so let's let's spend just a just
a second on that concept, because it's the other side
of that coin, right, it's the it's the other side
of the argument. If you feel like you are being

(49:43):
gang stocked, and then you go somewhere you find ten
thousand other people who say, yes, it's true, then are
you how are you supposed to feel if you don't
believe you're being getting stocked and then you're surrounded by
people who are saying, yeah, no, it's true, it's there
out for all of us. Why are you so chill,
what is wrong with you? It's an interesting question because

(50:06):
it hits on that, It hits on that need for
consensus that has just baked into every human mind. U.
I want to go back to the concept of hyper
vigilance because it's another concept that is baked into the
human mind, and that is a pattern must exist and
so much so so many of our even relatively mundane activities,

(50:30):
especially our observations, there's this little voice in her head.
May not be able to hear it all the time
because it's tough for us to listen to ourselves, but
the little voice in your head is always going A
pattern must exist, A pattern must exist, right, and this
is uh, this is a crucial skill. We have to

(50:51):
have it to survive in the world. Ever since we
were not the Apex predator and we were running around
trying to figure out what are a two bees and
if then's were that would keep us alive for the
next day. So arguably hyper vigilance is just a reflection
of that. Are just an extension of that much needed

(51:12):
survival skill. Now, if it sounds like we're poking holes
in the experience of gang stalking, that's because we we
are asking important questions that haven't been answered. It's not
necessarily uniform motive. There's not necessarily a lot of follow up. Right,
There are very many good stats on the phenomenon known

(51:35):
as gang stalking. But speaking to the other side of
the coin, uh, there are things that are like it
that are proven the reality of government and corporate surveillance.
According to the a c l U, privacy today faces
growing threats from a growing surveillance apparatus. It's often justified

(51:56):
in the name of one of our favorite boogeymen, national security.
You can do it in a spooky voice. A ton
of government agencies I'm paraphrasing. Now, they didn't say a
ton a ton of government agencies from like the n
s A, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and so on,
along with state and local law enforcement, intrude on the

(52:19):
private communication of innocent citizens, and they amass great databases
of who we talked to or interact with and when
we do, and then catalogs suspicious activities based on very
very vague standards. We've talked already about big data. We've
talked about the strange what's that? What's that? Game? People

(52:40):
like celebrities play six six degrees of Kevin Bacon. That's
that's how Uncle Sam traces terrorist activities. You know associates,
right known associates, which extends further and further out, similar
to the DPRK's policy of intergenerational punishment, except now you're

(53:04):
it's now the laws don't apply to you. The same
way if a guy you knew in college met somebody
and became Facebook friends with him, and then they later
tried to join isyes, you know what I mean. And
the argument there is that that is that hoover vacuum
approach to data and in in personal information is the best

(53:26):
way to prevent a future catastrophe. And that is I mean,
that argument does have some sand, but it also it's
tough to prove. It's like the old time travel problem.
Like if you if you went back in time and
you killed Hitler when Hitler was a kid or something

(53:49):
that yet no no one would know that you uh,
no one would know that you prevented him from playing
a part in World War two because no one would
know about World War two. You would have killed a
child as far as everyone was concerned. So you have
committed a great sin. We can't prove to people. It's
hard to prove to people that we prevented something from

(54:12):
happening when we do it in such a way that
it never happened. I know, and sorry it's virgin into philosophy,
but it's the It's an argument that we hear pretty often,
and it's a fascinating argument. But the truth is, these
standards are very vague, and we know that surveillance has

(54:32):
been abused in the past. Co Intel was is real? Right,
It certainly was. It certainly was. Let's put that is
in parentheses with a question mark. Multiple government agencies have
in the past monitored and harassed civilians even though it
is not suspected of committing a crime. We just don't
like what this person is doing to the status quo.

(54:54):
We don't like what they're protesting. Let's keep an eye
on them. We don't like the potential movement of society
of this person is let to be successful, right exactly,
And today's episode has been you know, necessarily us centric
because these we were able to find some of the
best UH stats on you know, on on orthodox stalking,

(55:16):
and then we were able to find a lot of
information on gang stalking. But This is by no means
of phenomenon solely reported in the US. The United Kingdom
has a fair share of people who believe they are
being gang stalked or they are targeted individuals. And additionally,
it is absolutely true, absolutely irrefutably true, that other repressive

(55:40):
governments do have stuff like this happening. If secret police,
there's security agents. You you're a journalist in a in
a particularly oppressive country, Yeah, you're gonna be followed. You might.
I mean it's not it might you and them. It
might not even be surreptitious. You might land at the
airport they do allow you in and they say, okay,

(56:02):
you're gonna hang with these two people entirety, and they're
gonna drive. It's for your safety, it's it's for your
safety and for our national security. This also applies to
opposition politicians, activists, right, somebody fighting for a particular type
of human rights that the government would rather not have

(56:23):
um members of non state approved religions, like this stuff happens.
You know what, I don't want to pile on here
as though, like, oh, this is all real, there's so
much impression to our privacy and our security. But uh,
you know, we willingly let this stuff, especially the corporate
kind nowadays, directly into our home. We have whole episodes
on this about the smart assistant that maybe you're listening

(56:46):
to this through. Maybe it's uh, just a couple of
the apps within your phone where you store all your email,
but it's a company, a corporation, the third party from
you that is controlling all of that stuff. Um, the
social media posts that you make every day of where
you are and what you're doing, and the you know,

(57:06):
think about that like establishing patterns were we're doing that
every day. That's what we do, and we just let
it out into the world, not only for the corporation
but for anybody else who cares to watch or listen.
And it also doesn't help, by the way, that there
are commercial applications out there that will do the things
that people are the most terrified about. Do tell like, uh, um,

(57:30):
what's it called m spy and flexi spy or two.
There's just two of them, but these are two available
things applications that can be added onto your device, whatever
it is. And one of them only takes a few
minutes and another one takes about an hour to fully install.
Because you have some of them you have to like
jail break phone or whatever your device is. Yeah, but

(57:51):
if you some of them, you can just if if
let's just say I was able to get hold of
Paul's phone for a few minutes while he went to
the bathroom or something thing, and you were able to
get past the security code. Yeah, yeah, but but it's
specifically in people who are worried about stalking. If you're
talking about your significant other or someone who maybe does
know the codes to your phone or something. Uh, it

(58:13):
can be installed like that, then you can access their email,
their texts, they're in staff feed, there were you know,
blah blah blah blah blah, whatever it is. It's terrifying
that that's out there. Don't let people touch your phone, man,
I mean that's the rule, yes, and it's it's all true,
and it can easily be abused. There's another thing. We

(58:35):
just had it in the notes as Oh and one
more thing yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to spoiled
a surprise. So this sounds pretty sci fi. I want
to hear whether anyone else has heard of this. But
a lot of people own smart TVs right now, right, Yeah,
you may not even be aware that it's a smart TV, right,

(58:57):
maybe a smart TV plane dumb and you can tie
your phone or you can you know, pair your phone
to the television and things of that nature. It turns
out that the technology exists such that a smart TV,
there's certain types of TVs when they are playing commercials
will send a an audio signal out. It's non adio

(59:19):
signal you can hear. If you have pets, good for you,
they probably can't hear it either, but your smart devices
can and through this, through this relay, this ping you know.
Of course, one of the big gets is the advertisers
know someone's in the room when the add is playing.
And that's big. Someone's actually seeing the thing. They can

(59:40):
prove it or maybe even how many and maybe even who.
So the data is you know, anonymized or whatever. But
this this means that for people who are dismissing the
idea of gang stocking, don't dismiss the idea of surveillance

(01:00:02):
that you cannot perceive. It's there. It's real, you know
there are It's not like there's one shadowy cabal that
knows a ton of stuff about you that you thought
was secret. And it's not like you're doing anything bad.
It's more like there are a bunch of people who
are trying to figure out how best to predict your

(01:00:25):
behavior in such a way that they can monetize your behavior, or,
at the very sith end of the spectrum, push you
to make decisions that you might not have ordinarily made.
That's real. That's not a theory. Instead of a theory,
it's a huge business. If you'd like to, If you'd
like to learn more about some of this, check out

(01:00:47):
article in New York Times how smart TVs and millions
of US homes track more than what's on tonight. That's
just an opening to the rabbit hole. And then burrow
in and tell us what you think. And speaking of
what you think, I've gotta say this leads to some
of the key issues with the concept of gang stalking.
Number One, government surveillance, at least here in the US,

(01:01:10):
is typically intended to be invisible. That does not apply
to every other country. I don't know whether it's still
the case somebody in mainland China tell me, but for
for a long time, if you're using the internet like
you're in an Internet cafe in China. Uh. When we
talked about this on previous episode. Every so often there
will be a cute little cartoon police officer that comes

(01:01:33):
on just to let you know that the government is
monitoring your Internet usage for your safety, to keep you safe,
you know, national security, etcetera. The concept of gang stalking
argues that targeted individuals are very much aware of the
situation and being and having your target be very much
aware of the situation. In normal stalking, surveillance stuff or

(01:01:56):
a normal surveillance at least renders that surveillance ineffective because
it changes the behavior of a target, like how observing
things can change their behavior. So wait, we might rightly say,
isn't the point of this not to observe someone and
gather info, but to interfere with their sanity, waging psy

(01:02:17):
ops to gaslight them and maybe even drive them to suicide.
Sure there's a problem with that claim too. Oh yeah, uh,
we know we have proof the government, at least in
this country, and intelligence agencies that are just arms of
that government, have at least in the past, done a
lot more than gang stalking to terrify and seek vengeance

(01:02:41):
against people that they perceive at least as threats. We
know that for sure, So I mean, we have to
ask ourselves, like, why would a government agency with the
ability to literally disappear somebody. It's happened before, it's happening.
I don't know if it is. It's probably happening now
or next week. We could it could happen. Um, why

(01:03:03):
would they bother to just annoy somebody? Why would why
would they do this kind of strategy that is so
long term, with so many resources as you said earlier,
that would be required to do it to a target
like some of the people who believe they're being targeted, right, Yeah,

(01:03:24):
if you can just grab a mouse and snap its neck,
why would you play a game of mouse trap? Why
would you have this Rube Goldberg esque thing? It could be.
I I heard some people say it is psychological experiment,
similar to some of that m. K Ultra stuff. But

(01:03:44):
still it's something that we would have to explain. It's
a question you have to answer. If you think state
supported intelligence agencies are just lightly in person stalking someone
in a way that is meant for that person to
be aware of, that's that's tough. It's tough to answer that. Now. Now,

(01:04:05):
look before we completely discount gang stocking, maybe you are
feeling that way as we're you know, talking about all
of this, which we're not, We are not saying that.
So if you if that's the way you're feeling right now,
just remember that if if you or someone else truly
wants to reach someone that believes they are being gang stoked,

(01:04:27):
and you know, even if you if it's your intention
is to tell them, look, it's okay, it's not real
or something like that, the one of the worst things
you can do is make someone to feel as though
they are crazy, right, It's very unproductive. Absolutely, So I
would say an avenue you know, and this is actually

(01:04:48):
stated in the Vice documentary that we we keep referencing
the avenue rather should be why why do you feel
like you're worth you know, being per secuted? What's happened
to you? What's troubling you? You know, like that very personal, like,
let's let's talk about that, Let's talk about those issues,
let's start working through those um because the perceived persecution,

(01:05:14):
maybe from the outside perhaps is a factor of that
other things. Just just putting that out there for anybody
who's extremely skeptical of this, and what do you think
do you feel like you have encountered something like this
in your own life, or you know, what, do you
want to join a protest supporting targeted individuals? Because if

(01:05:36):
you have, my good pal Matt has actually found one.
Is that correct? Yeah, there's a website called targeted Justice
dot com. If you head over there, you can learn
about the October protest. It's they're calling the targeted Protests.
It's going to run in Washington, d C. From October
eighteenth this year until the twenty two And uh, it's

(01:05:59):
a register ration is thirty five dollars if you do
want to register and go. But but but what do
you get a T shirt? You do get a T shirt.
It's a free t shirt. I don't think you should
call it a free t shirt. It's a twenty five
dollar T shirt with a ten dollar registration. It's like
complementary valet l A is complementary if you are a

(01:06:20):
jerk and don't tip. Yeah that's true. Uh, but anyway,
it's it exists out there, and there are advocates for
for you. If you believe you are a targeted individual,
you can you can find groups online and maybe even
go to targeted Justice dot com. And I'm fairly certain
I saw several resources there and you can follow. Yeah,

(01:06:41):
and to be clear, we're making a cheap skate joke
about the T shirts stuff. Registration for protests and these
kind of organizations typically just goes to keep the organization running. Yes,
then we're we're wholeheartedly joking. It's but one thing we're
serious about. Before we tell you all the ways to
find us on the internet and talk to us and

(01:07:02):
we hope that you engage in one of those platforms
with us, before we get to that part, we have
to tell you the most important part of this episode,
the thing we absolutely one hundred one million percent will
never joke about. If you believe that you are a
victim of stalking, doesn't matter whether it's from a gang,

(01:07:25):
a significant other, romantic partner, anyone. There are resources, there
are people, there are services out there that will help you.
You're not hopeless, you're not isolated, you don't have to
be alone in this, and a solution exists. Yeah, you can.
You can check out the Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center.

(01:07:47):
There is a Victim connect line there. It is one
eight five five four eight four to eight four six.
You can also check out Safe Horizon. They also have
a hotline that is available to any four hours a day,
seven days a week, and that number is one eight
six six six eight nine four three five seven. Thank

(01:08:10):
you so much for joining us today. We look forward
to hearing your thoughts, your experiences. Do you think this
is paranoia on the part of people who feel their
targeted individuals? Do you think there's more than meets the
eye when it comes to these stories, and if so,
what is it? What are your personal experiences. You can
find us on Facebook, you can find us on Instagram,

(01:08:31):
you can find us on Twitter. We particularly like to
recommend Here's where it Gets Crazy, where you can interact
firsthand with our favorite part of the show, your fellow listeners.
And if you don't want to do that, you can
call us at our number. Like we stated at the top,
we are one eight three three st d w y
t K. Leave a message, tell us your thoughts on
any of the things we've discussed today, tell us ideas

(01:08:54):
for new episodes that you want to hear us talk about,
or just um, I don't know. You could be silly
and lighthearted, that would be cool. Everybody. Everybody needs a
break sometimes. And if you are speaking of breaks, if
you are taking a break from social media. If you
like me hate being on the phone, then we have

(01:09:14):
good news for you. You can send us a good
old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart radio
dot com stuff they don't want you to know. As

(01:09:41):
a production of i Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.