Image
Increasingly persistent airplane condensation trails, which CorpGov does not want people to notice
Today on the health and wellness show we will discuss conspiracy theories that hijack the mind and lead to mass confusion and disinformation. There are plenty of conspiracy theories that compete for the greatest lack of credibility, rationality and substance. Chemtrails and Flat earth theories are two that come up regularly in the alternative media.

What happens when attention is drawn away from real problems? How is the public emotionally sidetracked - ignoring underlying problems that really need addressing? The question is what are people thinking or rather are they thinking at all?

Stay tuned for Zoya's Pet Health Segment, for a fascinating talk on Skinwalker Ranch:Mysterious animals and creatures, cattle mutilations, and much more!

Running Time: 01:40:33

Download: MP3


Here's the transcript of the show:

Jonathan: Welcome to the Health and Wellness show everybody. Today is Friday, October 6th 2017. My name is Jonathan and I'll be your host for today. Joining me in our virtual studio from all over the planet we have Erica, Doug and Elliot. Hey guys!

[Hellos]

Jonathan: Hey, Elliot is there; we were having some difficulties; I'm glad you made it.

Elliot: Yes, I am here.

Jonathan: Awesome. We are missing Gaby and Tiffany today so hopefully we will talk to them next week. Today, our topic is Chemtrails, Flat Earthers, and Mental Disintegration: What's wrong with these people?

We want to talk about a mental health perspective on conspiracy theory so it should be an interesting show. We are just going to have a conversation around this because a lot of the information in conspiracies themselves - theories - are speculative a lot of the time.

We are not going to be throwing out a bunch of hard data but we want to talk about what makes this approach to reality and what happens when your attention is drawn away from problems or situations in the world that are either real or more legitimate in some way than what you are focusing on; what causes people to divert to that?

I guess, kicking it off I want to play devil's advocate a little bit because I think some weird things right? Specifically regarding theories about extraterrestrial life or are there multiple dimensions and do they interact with our dimension? Are these things possible? I think about all this stuff which sounds totally nutty to the average person, so, my question to kick off the discussion would be: How different is that from, say, thinking the earth is flat?

Elliot: That's a big jump.

Jonathan: That's what I'm wondering. I have my own answer but I want to see what you guys think.

Doug: For me personally, I think that a lot of it comes down to evidence. If you are out there and really have an honest search for the truth and what is actually going on. I think that is different than clinging onto something that maybe makes you feel more comfortable.

I think we are going to get into this a lot more, but right off the bat I would say that somebody who is really perplexed about something and want to know why things are the way they are will continue to search until they get a good answer. I think a lot of it comes down to being able to hold in idea in your head without necessarily identifying with it.

Like taking in an easy answer or an answer that has been given by somebody else and just clinging onto that. I think that a lot of people, when they are searching for answers, have this drive for an answer and it's uncomfortable to not have an answer and to not know why things are the way they are. I think that a lot of people end up falling into these traps - for lack of a better term - because they want to end that discomfort.

Elliot: I completely agree with Doug here and I think that what comes into play here is the willingness to dedicate time and effort and study, and put lots of hard work into trying to find an answer. I think that for a lot of people, when they come across certain information or they become familiar with many of these conspiracy theories, it is very easy to just discount.......

Like Doug said, you have this drive to find answers, because you know you are being lied to in some way but I think that the problem is that people just want the answers. They're not willing to put in the work to find the answers and so when you have a situation where people just want to be told what the truth is then you set yourself up for a position where anything that goes against the established narrative isn't taken on by people who aren't necessarily willing to research it further - or really don't have the qualifications to make any assumptions about that.

You mentioned flat-earth and I think that unless you are an astrophysicist how you could you make any solid statement about whether the earth was flat or not? I think that people take it upon themselves to do so.

Jonathan: That's a good point and that hits on something that I was thinking too. For instance: atheists versus Christians - simple example. A dogmatic atheist is just as closed minded as a dogmatic Christian in my mind. I'm sure you have all come across the flat-earth "proofs". That's what I feel like.

I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about this and I said, let's say, for the sake of the argument, we discount astronomical data and images from space; ok, we'll throw that out for a moment. I can't know, I can't prove it either way so I'll find out when I'm dead. That bugged the crap out of him because it was like "you don't care! How can you not care about something that's really interesting?"

Don't get me wrong, I think it's goofy but I do think it's interesting at the very least; it can't be said that it's boring. You have got to have an open mind when you are approaching it and any time you get 2 factions on one issue they seem to go to the dogmatic extremes on both sides.

Doug: I don't know. I feel like, even if you do take away the "going out into space and taking pictures" - which the flat-earthers all discount because they say that it's all photoshopped and that NASA is just faking all this stuff - there are still ways to determine the earth is round. They have known that the earth is round for a long time without having spaceships or satellites or anything like that.

That's where I think the problem really comes in with this, you do have very simple explanations for how you can determine for yourself that things are disappearing on the horizon in such a way that it shows that there is a curvature to the earth. I feel like it goes a lot beyond just convex windows on airplanes.

Jonathan: I totally agree. I should clarify when I'm saying, for the sake of that argument with some other person, that I'm not just throwing out stuff from NASA. I'm throwing out all recorded scientific data. The best I have got is a ship disappearing over the horizon right? The best you have is you can see something 200 miles away. Once you get into that argument without using recorded data then you just come up against a wall, I think.

Unless, like you said, you are using your logic and your reason in your approach to reality. What bothers me about that too is that I don't think it's impossible that NASA would fake some photos, I do think that it's very, very unlikely that they faked all the photos.

Doug: And they have been faking them since the 60's?

Jonathan: We don't need to delve into that black hole necessarily because it just goes round and round and that, I think, is an interesting psychological part of this whole thing. That there are these topics that you can get into discussions with people about where you will hit a wall and you are literally like "man, I just can't be with you on this." and they're "I can't be with you on that. I think the other thing." so you're like "alright, let's talk about the weather I guess".

Doug: But I do think that it's just a certain resistance on the flat-earther's part because you can sit down and show mathematically why this is the way it is, you can show different diagrams and you can do all these different things, you can show exactly how it works but then there are all these counter arguments that come in.

It's a certain level of willful ignorance I guess and I think what it really comes down to is that these people have a different perception and maybe aren't quite able to perceive, or hold the idea in their head, that things don't necessarily coincide with exactly what they see in front of them.

A lot of people are like "I look at the horizon and it's flat; therefore, the earth is flat. It's not round. '' It's like a jumping-off point and then it can get into the more complicated things. I'm rambling on a little bit here but one of the interesting things I found when researching this show was that some of the stuff I was looking into was all these different celebrities who have come out and said "yep - earths flat".

It's interesting to look at the twitter arguments they have had with people and it always seems to get to a place where people are like "I can't really explain it but you should research it the way that I have researched it." Obviously these people don't have a really firm idea of why they think that the earth is flat. It's like it comes down to the idea that it's round doesn't fit into their perspective and somebody out there has gone into a detailed analysis of why the earth is flat and they have just glommed onto that.

Celebrities like Shaquille O'Neal, Tila Tequila or B.o.B, their response is always "Do the research". It's like ok, if I did the research I would find that yes, in fact the earth is round. I don't know, it's like they have this perception and are much more comfortable with the idea that what their eyes are telling them is the whole story.

Jonathan: Even if you come at it from a personal perspective: my dad worked for many years and his PhD is in microwave technology. He worked on radio telescopes that looked into space and so that has come up where someone says "I hate to tell you this about your dad but he is part of the establishment and you have just been brainwashed like all the rest of them." I really don't think so, you know?

I'm super open-minded and I would admit it if I thought so but I really don't. It's such a fascinating thing and the fact that it's one of these things - to keep on the topic of our discussion and draw veins between chemtrails and flat-earth - we also wanted to discuss the idea of crisis actors. I realise that it's a touchy subject right now because of what just happened in Las Vegas so we don't want to impugn anyone's memory - so tying that topic in with these other ones my point being that these things ruin friendships which is really fascinating to me.

It's like politics almost where you can have people who have been friends for 20-30 years and you start getting into what-do-you-think what-do-I-think and it comes to a point where it's like I just can't hang out with you right now. I feel fortunate that that hasn't happened to me 100%. It has happened a little bit to the point where there is a thing now that you have that is different between you. Like, if you were a radical progressive liberal who was friends with a log cabin republican or something.

That's what is fascinating to me, that it's so deeply entrenched. It's not something that you could just say "oh, that's interesting, but let's still hang out". It goes so much further than that.

Elliot: It's so crazy. What's really interesting is that a lot of the people who ascribe to the idea of chemtrails and flat-earth and crisis actors is that they ascribe to all of them. Everything is a big conspiracy In my experience, from speaking to the people that I know who believe these things to be true, when we were looking at the topics for the show I could think of a couple of people who I know who ascribe to all of these things.

They think that the earth is flat, they think that every mass-shooting is like a Hollywood production and they also take pictures of the skies. The way I see it is that when someone realises that the world isn't necessarily the way that they thought it was before, they start digging deep into these things and then it's almost like they reach a point where they can see that they have been lied to but they completely throw the baby out with the bathwater and they assume that every single thing is a lie.

It's like they then search for anything that is the opposite of the official narrative. Anyone who reads SOTT knows that a lot of the things that we are told are simply not true or that they are altered in some way, they are managed. The perception of the population is managed in some way, but to say that certain events, simply because the establishment says that they took place, automatically means that no, it couldn't have happened; it's all a lie. It's just complete black and white thinking.

So many people jump onto this because, I think, it provides them answers for them, but when you dig into the arguments there aren't really any answers that can be given. For instance, I've had a couple of conversations with people about the flat-earth theory and one of the ideas is about gravity. They say that the idea of gravity is debated and gravity is simply just a theory and therefore there have been lots of scientists in the past who have argued against the "official" or accepted theories of gravity.

Ok, so you have that one idea and you can see that and you could say ok, we probably don't understand gravity very well. We know a certain number of things about it but there are probably multiple holes in our understanding and yet there will probably be a paradigm shift in the future where we will understand it with more clarity. Yet, instead of doing that, it's like they say ok, gravity is disputed; therefore, it cannot exist. [Laughter] You jump to the opposite end of the spectrum.

When you have a conversation with someone like this they say that gravity doesn't exist, and you ask if gravity doesn't exist then why is it that when you jump up you come back down to the ground, and they say that it's just a natural thing that happens. [Laughter] I think that's what gravity is, isn't it? Isn't that the idea?

Doug: Some of them have a more complicated answer than that. There is actually an article that I don't think is on SOTT called 10 Absurd Claims of Modern Flat-Earth Conspiracy Theorists, and some of these are just hilarious actually.

The one about gravity, it seems like they are starting with a premise from what they see. Like I was saying before, they see a flat horizon; therefore, the earth is flat. Then, in order to explain that they have to come up with these really complicated explanations. Rather than going with Occam's Razor and saying the most simple answer is probably the answer.

They say that gravity doesn't actually exist because if the earth is just a flat disc then it wouldn't adhere to the laws of gravity as we know them. So, what they say is there is something called universal acceleration. So, not only is the earth a flat disc, it is accelerating upward at a particular speed that causes momentum and therefore we have what appears to be gravity. Why? Why? Why so complicated?

Not that gravity isn't complicated but it just seems that they have to keep on adding things onto their model in order to explain what can't possibly exist if the earth is a flat disc.

Jonathan: I think it's bothersome because there are a lot of really creative people right? They come up with that and stretch for explanations and come up with explanations that make sense to yourself. It kind of makes sense if you don't look into it right? You would be like "oh, that sounds fancy". It's like a deviation from Occam's Razor almost.

It's a similar thing with the crisis actors too; I've had this similar discussion. Let's say there is a false flag attack perpetrated by some elements within the government; let's say that is the base argument. How did they perpetrate it? Was it faked to scare people or was it done for real and they actually killed people?

First of all, the premise that they give - pardon my french - two-shits about anybody's life. Why would they hire a group of actors that needed to be maintained and watched and monitored instead of just doing an attack? I know that's dark but if you approach that from that angle then I think that Occam's Razor says that it's impractical to hire a bunch of actors.

Elliot: If you look at the logistics of an operation like that; I've tried to get my head around this in the past and you think that this is not just any normal Hollywood production, this is a mass operation. You would have to have so many funds, you would have to make sure that no-one spoke out. The sheer coordination and organisation of this whole idea is so phenomenal.

The powers-that-be or these particular individuals who would want to lead you to believe that there was a mass shooting, why would they go to so much trouble orchestrating this fantastic production when they could just hire a couple of people who like to kill people?

Hire a couple of mercenaries. There are lots of people who really enjoy inflicting suffering on other people, why can't you just hire a couple of them and get them to do the dirty work for you?

Doug: It's unbelievably complicated; the idea that these tragedies happening and all the people who are involved in it and on the news and whatnot are actors. The same thing could be said about the whole chemtrail thing too.

To have a worldwide conspiracy of planes spraying everywhere - commercial passenger jets spraying on the population - you would have to have the production of whatever it is that they are spraying, all the pilots need to be in on it, all the ground crew has to be in on it, and the idea that you could employ millions of people worldwide - or at the very least hundreds of thousands - and have complete tight-lipped security on the whole thing is just ridiculous.

Jonathan: I feel you there. That's what I feel like and it's hard to frame, but if something is being done, if nuances are being routed out when you talk about these kind of things they are ruining fringe topics for the rest of us. I am interested in the idea of the Manchurian candidate; mind programming attackers; Greenbauming; the fact that that is possible, the fact that it has been done.

So, that in itself is really fringe to a lot of people and sounds super-complicated and weird. Let's say, hypothetically, I find myself on whatever side of society - over there is the buttoned-up authoritarian follower side and over here is people who try to think about alternative things. On the alternative side of things now there are factions happening there where it's like I think these things are really interesting and probably happening, I disagree with you about those things, but now we have split again and we are going to keep splitting and splitting to the point where nobody can have a nuanced discussion about anything that is going on.

"what about this, what about that? How can you keep ignoring the obvious bro?" It just puts the brakes on any kind of actual discussion about it. That's what bothers me. It bothers me less-so that people are being illogical and more-so that you just can't talk about it any more.

The same thing with the progressive-liberal ideology. I would love to have conversations with people about that but it has become nigh-on impossible to do so.

Elliot: It seems like there is a certain degree of programming that is involved here whether it's conscious or not, and there is a certain mindset that comes with these kinds of beliefs. It's almost as if the ideas that are portrayed by these specific theories... they come up with an answer for every counter-argument.

If you speak to a flat-earther and you provide some kind of evidence they will say "that was provided by NASA and NASA was created by nazis and so you have to discount everything that NASA say". They have answers for everything and so it's very, very, very difficult to have a rational discussion about what may or may not be true, and I think a lot of these people are probably well meaning or were at some point searching for answers because they saw that something was wrong.

When it gets to that point it's kind of like their ability to critically analyse information goes down the pothole. There are a lot of people who say that this is the case; I haven't seen any direct evidence of this but it would make a lot of sense if this was an intelligently directed operation - like a counterintelligence operation.

A lot of these things stink of counter-intelligence because i you can effectively neutralise a population of free thinkers, or people who may be deemed as a "threat" to the established narrative, then I guess a great way to do that would be to disseminate disinformation to a point where, to the ordinary population, these people sound crazy.

If you speak to any rational person about the earth being flat they will say "what the hell are you talking about?" They will think your mad. Unfortunately, the problem is that a lot of the flat-earthers are also highlighting truths about the military industrial complex, politics and geopolitics and everything that goes on that all of us like to speak about - as you said Jonathan, all of the fringe topics.

If you can infiltrate these so-called "truth movements" with these crazy theories then it's a great way to discredit anyone who is talking about true things because there's that association that people will have. They will think you are talking about 9-11 truth and they will say that there are a bunch of flat-earthers who also talk about that so they are just flat-earthers. It's like that I think.

Jonathan: Then there is that phrase: The Truth Movement which I had always associated with 9-11 investigations, but now people say they are truthers about anything. Not that it needs to only apply to 9-11 either, it's just that's what was entrenched in my mind as being associated with that.

It's frustrating to have all these divisions come up. You can almost picture Agent Smith and Agent Johnston having a little launch party for the flat earth movement; they launched the program; here we go.

Doug: There is actually some evidence for that.... I have been told. I shouldn't misrepresent here, but I was reading about this one guy who said that people who had a history of looking into fringe topics on YouTube apparently started getting fed, as suggestions, these flat earth videos.

Apparently they just popped up out of nowhere which really speaks to the fact that this might be some kind of psy-op situation where they have created all these flat earth videos and started feeding them to a possibly-susceptible population who is using YouTube. There were probably other things too.

Jonathan: I noticed that too, didn't it seem like it came up within a year?

Doug: It really seemed to come out of nowhere.

Jonathan: I heard whispers about a flat earth movement and then it was everywhere in no time at all.

Elliot: Apparently it was after Obama said something in his speech about comparing some sort of fringe movement to the flat earth society and then from that point onward apparently the flat earth society gained traction and it just appeared out of nowhere. Now it is such a big thing; it is a massive thing.

Like Doug said earlier, there are celebrities who are openly coming out and saying the earth is flat. This is getting so much media attention, why is this?

Jonathan: If you are tempted to get into a scientific argument with somebody who wants to talk about flat-earth just don't. Avoid that because it's not going to go anywhere. It may here and there but rarely. It's just not going to happen. I think, what is more interesting and fruitful as an investigation, if you are going to have a discussion with somebody, is to ask them where this leads.

Let's say that the earth is flat and it's a giant conspiracy and everybody is being lied to, where does that lead? What does that mean? If we uncover it, what does it mean? What does it mean for you or your family or society at large?

I personally only saw one guy - and I'm not saying there is not more - who had an answer to that and his answer was that it would result in world peace and that once the lies were exposed that everybody would surmise that we were all one humanity. You have got to be effing kidding me! For real. [Laughter] It's not going to happen. We are going to have to disagree on that point.

I think the whole simulacra thing is fascinating but in a way it takes away from the beauty of what is actually happening around us. When you go out and you really look at the geometric patterns that are expressed in plants and trees, or if you look at the way that there is a symbiosis in the soil, or how water columns behave in giant bodies of water, things like that which are really fascinating, I think the edge is taken off of them by some of this discussion.

Dude, just look around you and experience the world. I don't care if it's flat or round, it's beautiful. That is bothersome because you come across as somebody who doesn't care what the truth is. That's not true either, I do, it's just a hard discussion to have.

Elliot: A question that I had asked someone, because I was really curious, was who really benefits from this? Now, I think that this is something that we should always ask because it can lead to some interesting conclusions. The idea or the way that this person explained it was linked back to the Jesuits and the Freemasons and the Illuminati, as it always does.

So, apparently they benefit because humans or the earth is the centre of the universe and so they want us to believe that we are such a small planet and we are insignificant, whereas actually we are really special. If they can make us believe that the earth is flat then it keeps us controlled, and I guess, probably along similar lines as the person you mention Jonathan, maybe it would lead to world peace.

I probed further to ask what they would gain from having us believe that the earth is flat as compared to the earth being round? How would the human situation differ in any way if we believe the earth was flat and they couldn't really answer that, and that was it.

Doug: I think that it has to do with the idea of it being a controlled environment. Did you guys ever seen The Truman Show? (a movie) It's this story about a guy who doesn't know that he is in a TV show and everything around him are all actors. The entire town that he lives in is completely fabricated and it's a set somewhere and he lives his whole life trapped in this TV show and doesn't realise it, and the whole story is about him waking up to that fact.

People who ascribe to these conspiracy theories seem to have that perception of that world, that the whole thing is a show being put on for their benefit. The idea that the flat earth is a completely controlled environment and everything in it is false and you are just being fed lies and everything that you see is a lie.

It seems to be that there is this psychological perspective; it's like a narcissistic perspective actually: that you are the centre. It's not only that the earth is the centre of the universe, but you are the centre of the universe, and that everything is being presented to you for your benefit or detriment. Like everything is being presented to you and none of it is actually real.

I think that it takes other forms too. In certain forms of schizophrenia people think that they are being communicated to in some way and that they are very important. It's this weird psychological take on reality.

Jonathan: If I may, I'll add some levity with a South Park sample. It was the one where Cartman infiltrates the NSA because he was convinced that they had a huge file on him and he wanted to find it, and then they were like "no, we just designated him fat and unimportant". [Laughter]

I had that thought for many years. I used to be - and I guess I still have these leanings - classical tin-foil hat conspiracy guy. That was my MO for many years; hollow earth - I was super into the hollow earth theory, if you guys remember that one? UFO's, hyperdimensional things, cryptozoology, anything that I could soak up I just soaked it up because I thought it was really fascinating.

There then comes a point where, it's not so much that you have to let childish things go, you realise that a certain amount of these things are entertainment and some of them are real, and what becomes really interesting is the process of learning how to discern those things.

There are some things that are super bizarre that would completely blow your mind that are totally real, and if you let those taint the way you think so that you start thinking everything is a simulation you lose the ability to discern between what should be fascinating and what should not be. Some things that seem fascinating you will only just spin your wheels on and get sucked into for years and years.

I think that's the interesting part of the process. That's why I threw out examples like the Manchurian candidate, I think that is totally possible personally. Large-scale actors stuff like the Florida nightclub shooting that happened being staged? I don't think so. Can you talk about these subtle differences with people? It's very difficult.

Erica: It's that idea of co-opting your brain with things making you obsessed with it and then, the idea of mental disintegration and being completely closed off to other possibilities; that maybe it's not that.

Elliot: It seems like a really important point. A lot of these people really do undergo a form of mental disintegration, but then they don't really tend to re-integrate. When someone unintentionally comes across information that shatters their worldview it can be scary; I know it's scary; for all of us it's scary.

I think there is a certain degree of strength, or a certain characteristic that can drive a person to carry on seeking the truth despite the horrible sensations that often come with that. Doug, you wrote a really good article on this a while back - I think it was in 2013 - and it seems like the idea that a lot of these people have is that everything is controlled and everything is directed by a hidden hand; by a human agency, and this is really quite safe for people.

When they ascribe to the belief that everything that is wrong with the world is due to the illuminati or the Jesuits, or NASA, the Jews or whoever you want to say that it is - because there are all kinds of theories - in all of these things they try to place the responsibility for the issues that humanity faces on one group of people.

When they settle with the idea that it's this group of people that are essentially the cause of humanity's suffering then it's almost like a scapegoat thing. I takes away the personal responsibility, it takes away the reality of the situation. It's a safe thing, it's a safe belief and it's comfortable because it means that if only you could change and take down that group or if only you could protest against the government then everything would be right in the world, but that's just not the case.

Doug: All it takes is electing the right president and then everything will be better.

Jonathan: Let's talk about distraction for a minute because we were talking about some of these ideas: crisis actors and flat earthers having roots in cointelpro. Let's say they put a seed out there to see what it would do.

Elliot, you had mentioned that a lot of people in those camps are also talking about geopolitical stuff and the military industrial complex. What I hear about most is the giant lie that needs to be exposed which is X - whatever it is. It's crisis actors, it's chemtrails or flat earth. We are saying these three things because they are clear examples but there are a lot more examples of stuff like this.

What is not being discussed as the big problem is the military industrial complex that has killed hundreds of millions of people since World War I. I'm not a nationalist but the United States' infrastructure is crumbling. There are nations where people are so oppressed that you would never in a million years want to be born there. You are talking the ultimate lowest-of-the-low suffering and beating down of human existence that can possibly happen.

It exists in the world and is happening as we speak and it is a distraction from those things I think. You get sucked into the fantastical and you ignore the bloody and the real.

Doug: I think that the whole chemtrail phenomena points to what you are saying Jonathan. The idea that suddenly came around the mid to late 90's where you start seeing contrails persisting - they are making these big streaks in the sky. Suddenly, this explanation pops up for it on the internet that they are actually spraying this poisonous stuff.

The government is deciding that they want to poison the population by having it come out of the jet engines of passenger planes which doesn't make any sense. It diverts people enough that they are seeing these things in the sky - I think a lot of people didn't notice them until they got pointed out - and the explanation was that it's the government trying to poison us.

It stops people from looking into it more and investigating what is really going on which may actually be a lot scarier: that the upper atmosphere is actually changing; it's getting colder.

Why is that and what is the ultimate effect of that? It diverts what people are seeing into an easy explanation that is almost more comfortable because it makes them think that at least somebody's in control and is doing weather modification for the benefit of us all or something along those lines.

I think that the idea is that these things are distractions. If you give somebody and answer, a lot of people out there will be satisfied with that answer and it'll cease any kind of curiosity, or investigation really trying to get to the bottom of what's going on.

Erica: Or, all the other elements that are at play like chemtrails or chemicals in food, the manipulation of the population. It's not just one thing and to hold all of those things in your mind at the same time can be overwhelming. It couldn't just easily be that they are spraying us and that's the reason for everything.

Jonathan: Doug, you had mentioned earlier the ability to hold two seemingly divergent ideas and to think about them? Yes, beautiful things happen in humanity and in nature. There are beautiful and wondrous things such as compassionate actions that take place, there are incredible things that you can see and experience, and at the same time this planet is dark, it's a dark place.

Humanity is dark and super twisted, and has killed its own - just wanton destruction. So, holding these viewpoints and saying yes it's beautiful and it's dark - the yin and the yang - and being able to think about both of those at the same time is harder than saying it's just one thing. I agree, it's as comfortable to think that you have a saviour as it is to think that you have an enemy.

It's truly to find a deceiver, almost like a devil manifest, that people think of as this say, illuminati just to be super simplistic about it - whatever you want to call it. That's as comfortable as thinking that somebody is on their way to help, in a weird way.

Elliot: It seems like a similar mindset to someone who converts to a religion, a monotheistic religion, to see that there is and all-powerful overseer who is essentially directing and controlling everything. It takes away the emphasis from the individual and places it on some higher power outside of oneself.

As you said Jonathan, whether that's a benevolent god or a malevolent devil. That could be in the form of the illuminati, but it still takes away the importance of the individual and places it on a higher, external entity.

Doug: I think that you said earlier Elliot, that it alleviates responsibility to a certain extent. If I can blame all my problems on this monolithic entity then I am absolved of responsibility. How could anything be different? How can I do anything?

Jonathan: Was it George Carlin that said that the really terrifying idea is that it is all just chaos and you are on your own? That's what people can't handle.

Doug: Yeah, he did.

Jonathan: But, I think that's true. There are some "higher orders", if you want to put it that way, in the sense of geometry works right? Mathematics work. Things like that that you would call systems that are not necessarily chaotic but - I am getting out of my depth here - your existence on this planet is chaotic and you are definitely on your own until you maybe find some like-minded people.

Maybe that's where these men and women are coming from: that they are just trying to find like-minded people. I agree, there is something deeper going on there, but I wonder if that is one of the impulses. Like "you think that too? Let's hang out."

Elliot: I think, especially with the crisis actor thing, we have said it is more comfortable, but I think also the idea that there are people in the world who can happily just go and shoot up a bunch of innocent people and be fine with that is so scary. Most of us have never come across someone who is like that - or that we have seen act like that.

There is a lot of projection that goes on and I think that people tend to project their own inner qualities onto the masses of everyone else. To acknowledge the fact that there are some really horrible psychopaths in the world is really scary - and they walk amongst us and it could happen at any time. It's just so scary for people that they fabricate this idea that it must all just be a lie.

It's like they do this just to avoid feeling the suffering; feeling the pain, the acknowledgement that the world is not necessarily the way that you believe it to be with your eyes.

Doug: I think that's a really good point. I think that probably explain a lot of the psychology behind this whole idea that these people are suffering and being killed; it's just so gruesome that I can't deal with that and therefore I'll latch onto something that explains it all away. They're all actors, it's all faked, it keeps me from having to deal with that.

Jonathan: What's really fascinating about the actors that would not the people who take this job be really messed up? Wouldn't they be the darkness that you are trying to avoid thinking about?

Doug: That could be explained away by saying that they are all just in it for the paycheck.

Jonathan: But that's still screwed up.

Doug: You're right.

Jonathan: Unless they think it's a movie right?

Doug: They would have to send them away to some remote corner of the planet after that then because they would be like "wait a minute! I'm on the front page of this paper!"

Jonathan: I think that psychopathy is an important angle to all of this because probably more than a few of our listeners have had an encounter with a psychopath or a sociopath at some point in their lives- whether they knew it or not.

If you did know it and had a bad experience, you know that there is a certain point at which your mind breaks because you couldn't have possibly imagine that that would be true, you know what I mean? Like gaslighting for instance. The reason that gaslighting works is because people don't want to believe that it works.

When it's done, when the process is done, you're done! You're broken. That's really terrifying. I've had discussions with people in the religious community before - specifically Protestant and Christian - where we talked about the idea that there are people out there who hurt people because they think it's fun.

They say "no, that's the devil. People aren't like that." You could call it the devil if you wanted to get archetypal about it. It's this real reluctance to admit that somebody in a human body could do that.

Doug: I think that's true. Like Elliot said before, I think we tend to project our own psychology onto other people. You have this automatic bias to assume that other people think or feel like you. Even if you allow for some level of nuance there, the idea that somebody could be so cold and unfeeling and have absolutely no conscience - it's very difficult.

Even reading about psychopaths, I don't know if I really understand it. Like, really, deeply, totally understand it because it goes against your own perceptions.

Jonathan: I had an experience where - and everybody remains nameless - the man in a couple, in another state, in another time in my life, who I had hung out with - we were ostensibly friends - became jealous and thought that I was interested in his girlfriend. Long-story-short: I left town and started getting emails from her saying "hi, how are you doing? How's life?" Blah blah blah.

So, I responded and said "how are things with you?" Again, long-story-short: I come to find out that he had broken into her email account and was emailing me as her in order to find out if I would flirt or try to get her to move to where I had moved. There was this moment where I was like, is this really happening? I can't believe it. [Gasps]

Erica: I think we have all had experiences like that and that is the teaching moment that shows there are people out there [who are different] and as hard as it is to go through it at that time it's important to know, essentially, when you are going through it. You have all these conflicting feelings and emotions and, like you were saying, you don't want to think that the world is that evil, but then, when you interact with it it's like at some point you have to accept that it is!

I think that is where disintegration starts to happen because you keep trying to push it out of your mind. "No, it couldn't be like that; it can't be this bad; it'll get better; if I'm nice to this person......" and on and on and on. It can be mentally exhausting.

Jonathan: Totally. I feel like when I approach life and "thinking about reality" in my mind I like to have little memes or ways to think about things. This is probably going to sound really cheesy but I like to think of the movie The 300 when they are standing their ground against the Persians; that's you against life.

You have got to put your feet down; it's probably going to kill you but you just take it anyway. You don't complain about suffering and you don't complain about things that are uncomfortable. That seems to be a big part of this - it's a form or complaining in my mind - and it might be hard to explain, but the idea of explaining away things that make you uncomfortable is kind of in a similar vein of just sitting there and saying "this sucks". That's how it feels to me.

Erica: Adversity is a good teacher.

Jonathan: If we come back to one of our examples: the flat earth people will come back and say you're uncomfortable with the idea that the earth is flat and you are the one who can't handle it. Again, we have that wall that you hit.

Doug: Is that like that arctic wall that surrounds the entire planet? [Laughter] The ice wall that is guarded by NASA and the CIA's armed guards.

Jonathan: I think we had discussed previous to the show that proselytizing is another aspect of this? I think extra-terrestrial life is possible and likely, but I'm not walking around being like "aliens are real bro! Prove that they're not!" [Laughter]

Erica: The end is nigh!

Jonathan: I know a few people who subscribe to the flat-earth theory and we had been friends before that and so we continue to have discussions and stuff and they are not like that per-say, but I see a lot of people who are like that and are super antagonistic about it.

Doug: Just look at a flat-earther's Twitter stream or Facebook page. It's just this constant bombardment; it's kind of proselytizing sure.

Erica: It's like that chemtrail thing too, it's always the chemtrails. They are poisoning us and people are getting sick and dying and the crops won't grow.

Doug: Because nobody got sick or died before chemtrails showed up. [Laughter]

Elliot: Again, with the chemtrails thing, I feel like it is avoiding taking personal responsibility. As you just said, it's like they believed that if there were no chemtrails, everyone would be healthy. It completely takes away their responsibility of maintaining health and actually doing things to try to be healthy which takes life-changes which means actually having will and determination and putting effort into living life in a way that is conducive to health.

They avoid that and I think it's comfortable for them because they probably go along with the idea that there is nothing we can do because there's chemtrails. There's lots of things that you could do, and even if there were chemtrails then there would probably still be lots of things that you could do, but you don't want to do it because you don't want to change your life. You are too comfortable with you life as it is. I think that a lot of the time that is involved.

Doug: I think that you see that when people who are very comfortable and who get a diagnosis - when they get diagnosed with some kind of disease or something like that - they give themselves over to the doctor. "I will do what you say to save me." There is a certain level of resignation and comfort in that. It's like "there is nothing I can do, it's in somebody else's hands now." It's a total giving up of any kind of personal responsibility.

Jonathan: Weird anecdote, but I met a guy once who was a Buddhist monk and he was in his 70's and he said that when he was a young man - like in his 30's - he had been diagnosed with cancer. He laughed at the doctor and walked out of the hospital, and there you have it! Now he is in his 70's.

I don't want to sound like I am recommending doing that but I think that is an example of that. Just because somebody tells you something, even if they are coming from a position of authority, you don't have to acquiesce right away, you don't have to believe that. Again, we come up against that really fascinating thing where they are using this argument too; just because everybody says the earth is round bro - you don't have to believe it. I know I'm using "bro" a lot.

Doug: And I laugh every time you do.

Jonathan: Don't tase me bro. [Laughter] It's loopy in the sense that it loops: it continues to loop back around.

Doug: I think that's why you have to acquire knowledge - for lack of a better way of putting it. You need to know why the earth is round, and I don't think that necessarily requires going into all kinds of complicated mathematics or anything like that, but at least just getting the idea of why what you observe around you is evidence that we live on a round earth. Get an idea why when you look up in the sky and you see persistent contrails that it isn't evidence that the government is poisoning us.

Otherwise, it's just arbitrary and you are just picking a side. You have to exercise your brain at least a little bit, to a certain extent, to try and understand the world that you see around you. To me, the whole flat-earth thing is the most ridiculous one; it just seems completely out-there. I have seen people who have written very intelligent books on certain subjects, yet, they will subscribe to the chemtrails theory What's going on? You wrote this great book about politics, or something along those lines, but as soon as you cross over to this other area it's like all of a sudden your brain power just gave up or something?

I don't know! Look into it. Don't just subscribe to this. I know about politics, but I don't know why the contrails are persisting therefore I'll just jump onto this other conspiracy thing. I don't know, it's a weird thing.

Erica: You see it a lot in health news too. You will read a really good article about GMOs or vaccines, and then they will throw the chemtrails thing in there and it just completely throws me for a loop. Wait! You had a really good basis for an argument here and then you just threw the whole thing out the window with that.

Doug: Yeah! That's like Jeffrey Smith who has done all that amazing GMO research. He was really digging into it and actually exposing all the stuff, and all the different studies that normally people wouldn't get a chance to read, he was talking about them. He is a guy who seems to be all about getting the word out there, so any opportunity to speak? He will take it.

I saw him when he was at some chemtrail conference and I was like why are you associating with these people? I think it is just because he really isn't discriminating, he really just wants to get the word out there. The whole chemtrails thing, there is an angle to it where it's like "they are poisoning the earth so only GMOs will be able to grow". I was like [sigh] ok, do you have any evidence for that? Honestly. He was like since we are talking about GMOs I'll speak there. I think he doesn't realise how much credibility he loses by doing that.

Elliot: I think one of the problems with these researchers, or with a lot of people who can simultaneously write a really good book or a really well-researched article and subscribe to these crazy ideas with very little evidence, is that they, and everyone, should try to get a very basic understanding of some important concepts in human psychology. That is something that researchers don't tend to do.

They focus on GMOs and they focus on health but they don't necessarily try to understand the way that the human brain, or the mind, operates. I think, when someone doesn't have basic ideas of how our mind works then they open themselves up to lots of these faulty ways of thinking.

When I first read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's books - the Wave series - it gave me such a different perspective and it highlighted the importance that each individual needs, when they are researching these things and trying to understand how the world actually works, to refine one's thinking ability; to think with a hammer so-to-speak.

We are all susceptible to this: these biases, these unconscious beliefs, these underlying psychological aspects that we all have that can skew our thinking. It's so important for people just to try and get some basic education in this. It doesn't mean going and studying for a psychology degree, just read some books on it! It will give you a bit more of a perspective on the fact that you can't really trust the way that you are thinking a lot of the time.

Jonathan: I think that is a very important point.

Erica: And being ok with being wrong! After researching saying "oh, maybe I was mistaken about that", or "I was wrong" essentially.

Jonathan: It's funny how the quickest and easiest way to set someone on fire is to call them a liar. Instantly you have got an aggressive, confrontational situation. I don't know if maybe I'm a little damaged because this is the way that I think, but if somebody calls me that I'm like no I'm not! I'm not going to go crazy on it, but what do I care if you think that?

Unless it's a very close personal relationship where you are invested and you need to be on the same page, but most of the time it's like whatever. Whatever you want to think about me is fine.

Doug: An attack on credibility is a pretty strong way of attacking someone.

Jonathan: Doug, you had mentioned the fact that people are crossing disciplines, like this guy who was talking about chemtrails and GMOs - it makes me think of Mike Adams. He posts a lot about false-flag and he is so incendiary. He posted something recently about the Mandalay Bay shooting and the thumbnail image on Facebook was "5 things that don't add up about the shooting" or something like that, but then below it was all of his Natural News promo stuff: "learn more about this", "click here to get that". Dude, that is low.

Erica: it's almost like casting a wide net. Say, somebody has questions about something that is health related - because I used to read his site a lot - then you cast this wide net and you get everybody in and you herd them in a certain direction.

It is a psychological operation. Say, a mom wants to find out about the side-effects to vaccines and all of a sudden she is believing that there are chemtrails, or the flat earth or whatever it is. It could be anything. There is so much information that can be in overload. It's like that theory of junk-mail coming into your brain. When do you start filtering out the things that aren't beneficial?

Jonathan: Elliot, you had brought up the psyop idea earlier. I think that is definitely possible. I wonder how much of it is that and how much of it is just human nature combined with the fact that very few people read and write any more. There are these kinds of developments in society where we are going digital, we are going into less than 2 minutes of attention span. How much of it is just that?

Again, if you want to look at both it makes for fertile ground for a psyop, and it's effective. I say bravo! If that's what is going on then good job, because it's working.

Doug: Yeah! The whole Mike Adams thing is interesting because I think he does do that kind of thing. His articles are all very "ranty" and subjective in a lot of ways. Somebody who is just looking for information might get some of that but you really have to take his articles with a grain of salt because he does tend to detour into other areas.

He seems to be big on the whole idea that - actually I don't know if he still is because I've not read him in a long time, but I know he used to talk about the conspiracy to reduce the population. Which is another big one, you come across that a lot. That the whole reason for this is because they are trying to reduce the population; the whole reason that GMOs exist is because they want people to eat them and get sick and then they will have to get pharmaceutical drugs and then they will die and that will reduce the population etc. etc.

It goes back to this whole idea that there is this omnipotent, all-controlling, evil force that's trying to have all these devious ways of achieving its ends. I don't think that necessarily doesn't exist, but I also don't think that it's as intelligent as people tend to ascribe to.

Erica: Or as well orchestrated.

Doug: Exactly. Behind the scenes there are going to be all these competing factions and one person wants to do this for this reason and another person wants to do it for another reason and somebody doesn't want it done and etc. etc. I think that a lot of the time people aren't seeing the fact that it's actually just chaos.

If you follow the money trail a lot of the time a whole lot can be explained about what you are seeing and that it isn't necessarily that it's nefarious, it's just that someone is going to make a lot of money off of this. Like with GMOs, if we patent every seed that's out there and everything that gets grown and put in the grocery store is gaining us profit then let's do it. It doesn't necessarily require someone saying that this is going to make people sick so let's do it.

Erica: It's like the classic psychopathic corporate model; just watch the documentary The Corporation. That's what I always tell people when they go there on those topics: watch The Corporation and we will have a discussion later about it.

Jonathan: This point has been made a lot, but it's not that conspiracies don't exist. People meet and they plan things, even evil things, and even giant things that you couldn't possibly wrap your head around. Like international business leaders getting together in a room and saying "ok, we need to pull 1.4 trillion out of East Asia this year, how are we going to do this? People are going to die, yes."

I'm sure those kinds of things go on, but they are just trying, just like everybody else, to control what they can. They just have a tonne more power than we do. It's not like they are manipulating reality per-say. Maybe there are other things outside of our realm that are but I don't know and I'm not going to try to tell you that I know.

It's muddy ground. So, it's really important in all of this to maintain some discernment and some open-mindedness so you don't become an authoritarian follower by accident. That's another thing that can happen too. Of course, now the gun control debate is another one that's raging after Las Vegas, and that's a minefield.

Doug: I think it's too simplistic. So many people are like "it's a false-flag for the purpose of trying to institute gun-control. Everything shows that any time one of these incidents happens gun sales go up. If that is really what they are trying to do then they are going about it the wrong way.

Jonathan: And the fact that let's say it was that guy and he had those guns - they were illegal guns so what's gun control going to do?

Doug: Gun control couldn't do anything. I shouldn't be surprised but I came across some actors theory stuff on the whole Las Vegas shooting and they had found an ad for some agency based out of LA for actor work in Las Vegas coming up. So, for them this was hardcore proof that everybody involved in the Las Vegas incident was an actor.

Elliot: Talk about confirmation bias.

Jonathan: For real.

Elliot: It really is fascinating for me to see how someone can jump from something like that, like an ad? Let's take it back to the subject of the flat earth. I've had people say to me that because NASA has admitted that they edit, or they photoshop, images of planet earth that is somehow evidence for the fact that the earth is flat.

It's like jumping so far from one thing to another. We spoke about this before, but it really is that they cannot hold two simultaneous ideas at once. We know that a lot of what NASA say is probably a lie and is probably manipulated in some way and they probably lie to us just like any other agency does; that's not a secret; we know this, but to say that just because they photoshop the images somehow that means that the earth is flat? I just don't know where that comes from.

Erica: It's reaching.

Jonathan: Yeah, it's reaching. It's a big jump. I hate to be a bummer but I think we are going to see more and more of this; more and more disintegration. Amongst groups and in people's minds individually. It's like I'm almost nostalgic for the day when there was a left and a right and that the Hegelian dialectic was the problem. [Laughter]

Dude, there's more! It's not just the left and the right, there's more viewpoints. Now there are too many lefts and too many rights. It's just blown up to the point where you can't even complain about the dialectic any more. Everybody is fractured.

Doug: Where do flat-earthers fit in that dialectic? Are they liberals or conservatives?

Erica: They are in between.

Jonathan: Maybe this is just an effect of having been young, because I'm not that old, I'm 37, but I remember in my teen years that a lot of the discussion that came up was that if you were pro-life then you were conservative right? And if you were pro-choice then you were a democrat. It wasn't even liberal, it was just democrat; conservative and democrat; you are pro-gun or you are anti-gun.

Then you start to see that people have different views than that - now I'm repeating myself - what we have come upon is that ad-infinitum, almost like a Mandelbrot of opposing sides. Now there are a thousand different sides that oppose each other and tomorrow there is going to be a million, then after that a billion.

Doug: How do the flat-earthers feel about chemtrailers? Do they see eye-to-eye on that? Can they fit chemtrails into the whole flat-earth position?

Jonathan: Maybe the chemtrailers are dome-maintenance. [Laughter]

Doug: Yeah, that's it!

Jonathan: It's glass treatment. It's interesting, how do those people feel about each other? It's not something I want to spend a bunch of mental energy on but it's a funny thought.

Erica: Going back to what Jonathan was saying about back in the day when you had your pro-lifers an your pro-choicers, one of the things that always boggled my mind was how people were super pro-life, but then for the death penalty. How could you wrap your mind around it being good to save a baby but let's kill an adult. Just that alone? I can't understand. Explain it to me!

Jonathan: There's a fascinating thought experiment which I can't remember the name of - listeners may have heard of it before - where there is a train approaching and you are standing next to a lever and the track splits in two. On one side, are 5 men working on the tracks and on the other side is one man working on the tracks. Do you hit the lever and kill the one man as opposed to the 5?

Most people say I'll hit the lever because 5 lives are more important than 1. Then when you say the same situation but there is no lever, the train is coming, the men are behind you and you have the opportunity to push 1 man onto the tracks to stop the train.

Doug: Push one to stop it?

Jonathan: Yeah, onto the tracks. So there is no more lever splitting the tracks, the train is on one track and if it keeps going it'll kill 5 men that are down the track, but there is one man standing next to you on this bridge and if you push him onto the tracks it'll stop the train and won't kill the other 5.

You can pick this apart, but the idea is they are ok with hitting the lever and the result is still murder, but not ok with pushing the man onto the tracks; there is that separation. I think that is where the pro-life/pro-death penalty thing comes into play. They are ok with pulling the lever to kill somebody because you are psychologically distanced from it.

Doug: I guess so. It kind of seems that somebody is going to die regardless. I don't know. Murder somebody to save 5? I don't know. That's a tricky one.

Jonathan: It is. It's a weird question right? You get into the value of life, or could you do something else to save everybody? Going back to the idea of factions and splitting and disintegrating, I think it's going to keep happening. The main thing that I think is important for people - at least what I feel is important - is to continue to keep whatever discernment is possible.

What I find bothersome is, over time I find my thinking going more towards withdrawal from these situations. I would much rather turn my computer off, turn the phone off and go fishing for a day and think about nature and think about life and not hear anything about what's happening in the rest of the world.

I realise that it sounds like I might be sticking my head in the sand; I don't live my life that way, but there are days where I just need to. I don't want any of this, I don't want to talk to you about this and if you are going to bring it up I will talk to you next week - leave it. It's probably disassociating but it's just being honest, I've got to do that once in a while.

Doug: I think that's pretty normal. When you are confronted with something horrible.

Jonathan: My concern is that that is going to become my entire life and I'll withdraw from it 100% of the time.

Doug: I knew a guy whose plan was to take off into the forest and live off the land. He just couldn't take it anymore, and I think when you take it to that extreme then it is kind of like dropping out. "Nope, I can't deal with this any more. I'll see you later."

Jonathan: It's giving up in a way.

Elliot: Maybe, to some extent that is what is intended if this was some sort of a psy-op. To feed through into the so-called "alternative truth community" so many radical ideas that someone who is interested in finding out what the truth is just becomes so overwhelmed by all of it that they end up turning everything off and completely blocking it all out.

I can imagine that it is a way to deter people from looking into it. Probably because they feel like there is no way that they can ever find the answers; so what's the point?

Doug: It's a way of muddying the waters so much that it just makes the search almost impossible.

Jonathan: The way it feels in my mind is like this: I heard a story about this guy who is a hunting guy that I follow - I follow his work, his writing and stuff - and he had been gone during 9-11 on a hunting trip. He came back and learned that 9-11 had happened and the feeling he had was just like "I'm just going to go back out there, sorry".

Being aware that it's dissociative and that it's giving up [is important]. To do that 100% of the time to make your life so that you disconnect is the wrong approach I think. What concerns me is that I feel that, I feel compelled to do that. Now I am like where is that feeling coming from? Maybe I'm coming up against the inner conflict about feeling like I need to be involved because if everybody disconnects then we are all screwed, so why contribute to that problem?

Doug: At the same time, I think it's ok to take a break every once in a while if you need to. Take a mental health day whatever the case may be. Especially if you are reading SOTT regularly and you are seeing the state of the world then I think it is totally normal to need a break.

I think it is also normal to have that impulse to be like "I want to get away from this". I think giving in to it is not the best approach. Realistically you can't escape that kind of thing anyway. That stuff is going to find you unless you literally become a mountain man in a cabin in the woods; no media, nothing.

I don't think, in this day and age, that is realistic. I guess it's possible. How did we get here? [Laughter]

Erica: I think what you feel is similar. I think a lot of people go through that. Like you said Doug, if you are reading the news every day. For me personally, at some point I started to feel numb to it all and that's when I know I need to step away because you read about another tragic thing and you don't feel anything.

Sometimes that concerns me in and of itself. That there has to be, as you explained Jonathan, that yin and yang, that dark and light. There has to be an appreciation of the things that are beautiful and the fact that it's fall or that it's summer. You know what I mean? There is still beauty in the world even though we are exposed to so much darkness.

Jonathan: Yeah, you have got to squeeze a little bit of light in there.

Erica: Yet, not to be on the whole other side which is like "oh it's all love and light, it's good and it's fine and you create your own reality". I'm not encouraging that at all. To find that balance and to hold those two things - that this is the world and there are psychopaths and there are people who are doing evil and committing evil - and to be aware of it so you are not caught off-guard.

Jonathan: Again, this may sound really cheesy but it's like that classic example of a samurai. I know that history is more complex than this, but you have this picture in your mind of somebody who is battle-worn and ready to take on anything; alert, disciplined, discerning, but who can also sit down and contemplate a flower for an hour, but then can defend themselves immediately - that kind of versatility. Living on your toes and appreciating both sides of the spectrum.

Doug: Maybe you should become a samurai. [Laughter]

Jonathan: Maybe I am a samurai. [Laughter] I'm not really. Should we go to Zoya's segment? She has got a really interesting segment for us today that we were going to play previously but hadn't had the chance to. Let's check that out and then we will wrap up when we come back.

Zoya: Hello, and welcome to the pet health segment of the Health and Wellness Show. My name is Zoya, and this week I decided to delve into the area of the unexplained and share with you a recording about many creepy mysteries surrounding the famous Skinwalker ranch.

After all, the Skinwalker ranch has experienced it all including events involving animals. Like encounters with strange creatures, cattle mutilations, apparent hauntings, poltergeist activity, unexplained orbs and more. This topic was mentioned before, but since it is so fascinating that there is no harm in mentioning it again. Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Recording: You may have heard of Bigelow Ranch, also known as Skinwalker Ranch. This is a real place with a lot of unexplained activity. In the year of 1951, a science teacher that taught locally near the Skinwalker Ranch, named Junior Hicks, launched an investigation of the land.

His interest started when he and his students observed a large, unidentified object moving through the sky above the land of the ranch. In addition to being observed by Junior Hicks, his students also observed this unusual phenomena. According to the research conducted by this teacher, he documented well over 400 individual signs of paranormal activity.

While researching and documenting the unusual activity associated with the land, he stumbled upon an Indian lore associated with an Indian tribe known as Ute. He discovered that members of this particular tribe refrained from going near this land because of the fact that they believed it was cursed and possessed a large number of mythical creatures which they referred to as skinwalkers.

Not only did the Ute tribe avoid the land, they calmly referred to it as the "path of the skinwalker. During his investigation, he discovered that they had used this as a means of identifying the Skinwalker Ranch for hundreds upon hundreds of years. The Navajo skinwalkers are believed to be witches that have the capability to shape-shift; however, these witches are not considered to be a part of the living. In fact, they are considered to be spirits.

As a result of this belief held by the Ute Indian tribe, and the signs of paranormal activity that have been documented on, and around, the ranch this ranch has quickly been dubbed as one of the most paranormal places throughout the United States.

In 1994, Terry and Gwen Sherman purchased what is known today as the skinwalker ranch. It was their intent to purchase a large plot of land so that they could transform it into a cattle ranch. The couple was quite intrigued by the fact that the property had been abandoned and that it was exceptionally difficult to track the previous owners.

As they explored the property before purchasing it, they discovered numerous deadbolt locks on the doors and the windows of the structure on the land. Once they had reviewed the inside of the structure, they discovered the same types of locks on the cabinets within the kitchen area.

The family found this quite unusual but were awed at the potential of the property so they proceeded with the purchase. It was not too long after the purchase of Skinwalker Ranch that the Sherman family started experiencing signs of paranormal activity. The signs were numerous: mysterious voices in and around the home and property calling the family out into the woods, a large amount of real UFO sightings, unusual creatures that were claimed to be beastly in nature, and objects that would violently thrash about within their home.

In addition to this, there were quite a few cattle mutilations. Terry and Gwen's herd consisted of 80 cattle, and in just 2 years 14 of them were mutilated by an unknown source. In some instances, the signs of paranormal activity seemed to be related to unseen spirits. In other instances they seemed to be related to UFO sightings that they were experiencing while living on the property.

The following highlights some of the specific incidents that occurred at Skinwalker Ranch while the Sherman family resided and worked there. The first day the family arrived to move in their belongings they had an unusual encounter with an exceptionally large wolf. This creature allowed the family to pet it; however, shortly thereafter it attacked a small calf.

Despite numerous attempts to shoot the creature, with both a handgun and a shotgun, the animal was not injured and eventually walked off into the woods. Terry Sherman attempted to follow the animals tracks; however, eventually the tracks just stopped as if the creature had literally disappeared.

Miss Sherman pulled up through the ranch to encounter yet another wolf that stood taller than the roof of her car. This was one of many large wolves that the Shermans claimed to have seen on the property. At times, the pasture on the ranch would become exceptionally bright, similar to that of a stadium. At other times, beams of light could be seen dancing around the land from sky-to-ground.

Occasionally, the family would smell a very distinctive musky odour flowing through their home. It was not at all unusual for the Sherman family to wake up and discover large holes and crop circles throughout their land at Skinwalker Ranch.

At times, an unusual sound could be heard. It was very loud and sounded as if there were machines running underneath their ground. It was not at all unusual for the family and nearby farmers to witness mysterious blue orbs flying around. The family noted that these orbs seemed to have intelligence of their own and were quite frightening.

Many UFO sightings were reported during the time that the Sherman family resided on the ranch. The sightings included vessels that resembled RVs, spheres, and simply, orange glowing lights. In one incident, the dogs that belonged to the family chased off one of the orbs that were often seen around the ranch. Shortly after going into some dense brush, he heard the dogs yelp. The next day, Sherman discovered each one of the animals had been incinerated.

There were many signs of paranormal activity that seemed to be both of-this-world and out-of-this-world. Finally, the family had experienced enough and elected to flee the Skinwalker Ranch just 2 short years after purchasing the property. Despite the short amount of time that they were there, they now each possess a lifetime of devastating memories based on their experiences at what is now considered one the more haunted places in the world.

In the late part of 1996, the organisation known as The National Institute of Discovery Science, or NIDS, elected to purchase the Skinwalker Ranch for $200,000 for the purpose and intent of researching the land. Signs of paranormal activity started immediately after the purchase.

The very first night that the investigators started researching the land, they observed yellow orbs approximately 20-feet off the ground. Upon further inspection, they discovered an animal that appeared to be human climb into the furthest reaches of a tree. They made an attempt to kill the creature as they suspected it was responsible for the mutilations; however, the animal was not harmed and simply ran off into the snow.

As the investigations by the organisation continued, several cattle mutilations occurred. When these incidents took place at Skinwalker Ranch, the investigators found that it was done very quickly and with an extremely sharp object. During several mutilations, the researchers were within 300-yards of the murdered animals. When they researched the animals, they discovered that nearly 40% of all the mass associated with the cattle was removed without leaving behind one trace of blood.

As time progressed, the researchers experienced UFO sightings, poltergeist activity, unexplained animals around the ranch, and various other signs of paranormal activity. The Skinwalker Ranch has experienced it all: apparent hauntings, poltergeist activity, UFO sightings, cattle mutilations, crop circles, unexplained balls of light, the presence of skinwalkers, aliens, and a wide variety of other unusual forms of life.

While it is a private facility that is only viewable from the gates that lead to it, it has drawn the interest of paranormal investigators for years. Many consider it to be one of the most haunted places in the world. Others consider it to be one of the largest hot-spots associated with extraterrestrial life. The Skinwalker Ranch seems to hold many secrets, most of which pertain to the signs of paranormal activity that have been bound to there for decades.

To-date, the cause behind the activities is still considered one of the world's greatest mysteries.

Jonathan: Those goats are scared. [Laughter]

Doug: Paranormal goats.

Jonathan: That's pretty fascinating. That brings me back to staying up way too late and listening to Art Bell.

Erica: The music sucked me in!

Doug: Totally.

Jonathan: Awesome. The topics that we have covered today we could talk about for hours, but I think we will leave it where we are; just keep your head about you and keep your wits about you. Thanks everybody for listening and we will be back next week.

Be sure to tune into the SOTT radio show on Sunday at noon, eastern time, at Radio.SOTT.net and have a great weekend!

[Goodbyes]