True Mysteries of the Internet | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. [Music]. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck it's just us. there's no. Jerry there maybe never was camp and. this is stuff you should know camp and. what camp Oh Camp inside chip yeah. Jerry's at Camp right now.

uh can I do a quick COA at the head. here. sure uh the things we're going to be. talking about today folks uh internet. Mysteries times three uh there are a lot. of people who get very into this stuff. um specifically you know the three. things we're talking about as with most. internet Mysteries but we are uh. certainly not going to get into it in. the detail that will satisfy.

if this is something that you have. researched a lot and have been super. into because you know they're getting. about 15 minutes a piece and uh you know. just give us a break we're doing our. best to kind of cover it in a short. amount of time yeah for sure I think. that was a good COA that was like a true. Bonafide. COA yeah because I've answered the. question that you're probably going to. want to email which is how could you not. talk about blank right exactly we're. going to talk about as much as we can. and like you said we got three amazing.

Unsolved Mysteries of the internet uh to. discuss there's plenty out there but in. my book these are probably the three. best I think oo all right I mean there's. a lot out there and I don't I'm I'm. saying I'm excluding True Crime. obviously these are just Oddities that. have not been solved at this point maybe. never will be solved but probably could. be at some point you never. know well now we're just eating into our. cicada 33.

so let's talk first I guess then yes. about cicada 3301 shall we sure uh this. was a series of three puzzles that were. put out um starting January 4th 2012. then a year later and same date on the. 13th and then again same date on the. 14th uh on 4chan and then eventually. some Clues would come out on Twitter uh. but they were posted um online under the.

the banner. 3301 and have since become known as. cicada 3301 because many of the messages. and clues ended up containing an image. of a cicada yeah kind of like a stylized. um line drawing or of a cicada I've seen. it compared very much to like the moth. on the Silence of the Lambs poster yeah. totally especially the first image had a. cicada in it and cicas are important. because they come out every.

a certain number of years but those. years are always prime numbers it's very. interesting yeah and in that first. message that they sent out they posted. it on forchan and the post said hello we. are looking for highly intelligent. individuals to find them we have devised. a test there is a message hidden in this. image find it and it will lead you on. the road to finding us we look forward. to meeting the few that will make it all. the way through good luck cryptic it was. super cryptic but definitely caught the.

attention of people they posted it on. the right um social media platform. forchain was a great one to post it on. to get the attention of people who would. want to do this and the whole thing. spread pretty quickly um people. obviously immediately started trying to. figure out what the hidden message was. steganography is what it's called hiding. a message inside something else usually. an image and uh it turns out there's all. sorts of like tools out there on the. internet uh that you can used to decode.

stuff like this and so people just kind. of set about getting getting busy with. it as some people. say uh yeah and one of those kids uh did. I assume you read the Rolling Stone. article or no I don't know I don't think. so no not for this one okay they had a. really big super long one that talked to. two of the guys who were teenagers at. the time who were the uh I mean I think. probably the some of the first people. that solved it that uh I'm not going to.

go on record and say the first but uh. one guy would only go by Tech. tkk and another guy's name was Marcus. wner MH uh and they would eventually. hook up online but initially this kid. Tech as a. 15-year-old learned that when he copied. that uh image as a text document in. notepad that you got what you would. expect which is a wall of text but part. of it was was readable text that said. Tiberius Claudius Caesar says and then.

it had a bunch of alpha numeric text he. knew that the Caesar ciphers one of the. oldest ciphers one of the oldest kinds. of encryption which is a a substitution. Cipher where like this I don't know if. the Caesar was uh literally a is one B. is two but you can apply it to different. you know numbers and he knew that Caesar. was the fourth Emperor so he substituted. four letters down from each of the. letters that follow.

and discovered a hidden message a. website in fact yeah that was the thing. so one of the reasons why the cicada 331. puzzles captured the attention of some. really smart and capable people is. because they were multi-layered like if. you wanted to unlock one puzzle you had. to kind of go off over here and unlock a. couple of other puzzles to unlock the. key that you would take back to unlock. the first puzzle essentially it was. multi-layered multi-step process uh and. this was no exception to it that that um.

that Cipher that you had to decode from. the first image took you to a um a. website I guess an imager um image of a. duck that just said only decoys over. here and so you would think you just. went were sent intentionally down a. blind alley no there was another hidden. message in there even though it didn't. say that there was one and so people. would decipher that it turned out that. there was an encoded book uh and then. you could also find a link to a. subreddit and there were more passages. from that book.

and it turned out that book was a Welsh. Aran Legend and another Reddit post. contained some Mayan numerals that you. had to decode that became a key that you. could use to analyze the artherion. legend with and then you got another um. solution or another hint I guess to use. from that point on and what it said when. you used um that that that key to decode. the Aran Legend um it said hey um here's. a phone number give us a.

call yes all this to say that some super. smart nerdy people were doing some super. smart nerdy stuff yeah having a good. time figuring this stuff out and uh when. they eventually got that phone number. and called it they got a message that. said very good you have done well there. are three prime numbers associated with. the original jpeg image 3301 is one of. them you will have to find the other two. then multiply all three of these numbers.

together and add a com at the end to. find the next step good luck goby yeah. and I I didn't read the Rolling Stone. profile but another um solver I think he. was profiled in a national poster. Telegraph article his name was Joel. Erikson he was from Sweden I'm not sure. how old he was at the time but he um. figured out that probably the other. prime numbers were the dimensions of. that image uh 509 pixels by 503 pixels. and it turned out he was right so he.

multiplied all those the took the answer. uh put a do com on the end and it took. him to a website that had a countdown. clock and a picture of his cicada so he. knew he was at the right spot he he'd. multiplied correctly and guessed. correctly and um when that clock. finished counting down the website. updated and there were a bunch of um GPS. coordinates that were posted all of a. sudden yeah and all of a sudden it said. find our symbol at location nearest you.

so all of a sudden this thing jumped. from the the internet out into the real. world uh with real physical coordinates. and it turned into kind of a scavenger. hunt uh there were 14 telephone polls. all around the world um America France. Japan Poland Russia Spain and other. places and uh all of a sudden like you. would I mean if you could afford to and. had the time I guess you would go to the. one closest to you find that telephone. pole flyer and that had a QR code it.

again with a picture of that cicada and. that led to another cicada image with. another riddle uh and this one contained. some uh some poetry I think it was from. um cyber Punk writer William William. Gibson's poem a grippa that was from. 1992 and if you applied the key that. they originally came up with to that. poem it led to another puzzle that would. eventually lead to a website.

wow yeah the website was the end um and. so there that guy Joel Erikson made it. to the website uh by the time he got. there it had been shut down for a couple. of reasons one I think it was shut down. a little under a month and I guess they. had posted on that website that they. were disappointed that some people were. collaborating and they said they wanted. the best not followers so they stopped. the game but apparently in the meantime. they had some people had solved it and. gotten to the site because uh a month.

later on that Reddit um subreddit that. they've been posting artherion Legends. and Mayan codes on uh they said we found. the intelligent individuals we were. looking for right so but the fact that. Joel Ericson made it to that site that. was it like he solved everything he's. considered a solver he just got there. too late because he heard about this. after other people who who um started. before him did yeah like Marcus wner and. Tech exactly and Marcus wer is one of.

the few people who's known to have made. it past that site or gotten to that site. within the time frame the a lotted time. frame and actually was in communication. with the people who were behind cicada. 3301 he still has no idea exactly what. they were doing or what they wanted but. based on the interview that they. subjected to and some of like the. interactions he had with them he guesss. that they are some sort of um hacker. Collective. that is um very much interested in.

promoting internet privacy and internet. Freedom yeah it sounds like they may. have been looking for code Breakers uh. because they gave him a a private test. of creating a decryption mechanism right. um and he failed that I guess or wasn't. able to do it so they you know they got. rid of him I had the impression he blew. it off oh really I I saw that he didn't. uh wasn't able to do it yeah he just. didn't deliver the Goods but I for some.

reason one of the readings I I had about. him it just made it sound like he was. just like he lost interest maybe I don't. know oh interesting so to be clear uh I. believe what we just described was just. that first puzzle right uh and you know. we don't have the time to get into the. rest of the puzzles I don't think I. think the first two were solved I don't. think anyone ever solved the third. really before they they permanently just. removed every reference to it uh I think. about a month after that final puzz. puzzle was removed uh they did post a.

message on forchan once again that said. uh we have now found the individuals we. sought sort of like that original. message uh thus our month-long Journey. ends you undoubtedly wondering what it. is that we do uh we are much like a. think tank and that our primary focus is. on researching and developing techniques. to Aid the ideas we Advocate Liberty. privacy. security yeah and you could tell it was. written by a computer person because. there's like very little punctu and lots. of run-ons and all that so it seems.

legit it checks out so who is it NSA or. CIA or somebody a lot of people say that. um that it was a an elaborate scheme to. recruit you know cyber security people. and Hackers from like the the dark. reaches of the internet somebody said. that doesn't really make sense because. they posted on forchan and this was the. era of Snowden so they probably wouldn't. have wanted people from forchan at the. time that's not true Snowden leaked in.

2013 and the first puzzle was 2012 so. it's possible it was the government. entirely possible but um there were some. other aspects of the whole um contest. that suggest it might have been. otherwise although some of this seems to. have been purposely deliberately. misleading right like there was a poster. named wind from Michigan and uh she was. kind of joining in like these this. collaborations on different sites until. until somebody figured out that she.

seemed to deliberately be giving out. misleading information and then there. was a a claim on paste bin from a. somebody who said that they were an ex. cicada member that they were a military. officer from a non-english-speaking. country that had been recruited by a. superior and that he said cicada is. actually a left-hand path religion. disguised as a progressive scientific. organization and that it was comprised. of very smart people who weren't happy. with the way the world was going so they. wanted to transform Humanity into the.

Nichi and Uber. Minch yeah well I did see stuff about. religion I saw some people posit that it. was Julian. Assange um there I mean there's all. kinds of fun theories out there on who. it might have been I I think the one. thing is pretty clear it I feel really. really strongly that it probably wasn't. just some like somebody having fun doing. some cool scavenger hunt mystery puzzle. thing on the internet like it seemed.

like it was probably some kind of legit. recruitment I agree I but I think my. money's on a hacker Collective whether. white hat or black hat I don't know but. a group of hackers does that mean good. guys or bad guys yeah I don't know all. this terminology well I mean it's pretty. straightforward you know you can guess. you just did all right there you go did. I pass the test you did he made it on to. the next riddle um why did you just text. me a wooden Duck picture then right just. decoys here uh I say we take a break and.

we move on to the next mystery of the. internet how about that oo tension. builds Stu you should. know. [Music]. and stuff you should know.

[Music]. all right so mystery number two and I'm. shocked I've never heard of this one as. a music guy had you ever heard of it uh. yes I don't remember exactly where but. I'd never really researched it until we. started researching this so for all. intents and purposes not really okay uh. we're gonna be talking about what's. become known as the uh most mysterious. song in the internet and this was a song. that uh sometime between 82 and ' 84 a. guy named Darius s um recorded in.

Germany on the North Coast the coast of. Germany Josh there's no such thing they. mean some sort of landlock Border I. think I think so uh reference to Old. error by the way um but yeah this guy. did what all of us did in the early 80s. is we would sit around listen to the. radio and record songs from the radio. onto our cassette um deck so we could. take them on the road with us and he was. doing this had a big mixtape of all. these things from you know the people. that you would expect to hear from in.

1984 uh about 25 of them he wasn't sure. who the songs were and it sounds like he. figured out um who all of those songs. came from save one uh yeah I think so I. don't I think that was the only one that. that he didn't ever figure out he called. those unknown ones his Unknown Pleasures. a Joy Division reference right because. most of this music was Post Punk New. Wave uh and this song this most. mysterious song on the internet uh is no. exception it Sounds Like a Rolling Stone.

writer put it it has a rigid beat and. dry monotone vocals and sounds like a. synth pop hit you would have heard in a. dance club in the 80s which is true like. all of that is true but it also it has. like a a strong guitar Rift like early. Joy Division it kind of has a little bit. of that but it's also more produced than. that um and it the vocals the lyrics and. the vocals are incomprehensible except. in little nipp itss that you hear just.

enough that to me the fact that you you. can't fully understand what the person's. saying and it's so open to. interpretation I think that's what. starts to suck people in the most yeah. probably so um the only thing I'll. disagree with about the Rolling Stone is. that it sounded like a hit I don't think. the song's very good oh really I find it. I I wouldn't say good but I find it. definitely. catchy I mean it's okay and I have been. walking around singing it so it must be. a little catchy but. uh compared to the music of that era and.

this is just my dumb opinion I I think. it. sounds uh like what I think it is which. was an a fairly amateurish Eastern block. person recording a song okay that. sounded a little bit like you know the. rest of the music of the era so the. thing is I don't know if we've said. entire entirely yet no one on the planet. seems to know what the song is what the. name of the song is or who artist is who.

created this what the band is or the. solo artist whoever not a single person. on the planet and you might be like well. you know maybe you just haven't looked. deep enough wrong people have looked. into the depths of 1980s Germany using. all sorts of different tools to analyze. the song digitally I mean like people. have really dug into this and the other. thing about it that makes it so. impressive that it remains mysterious is. that people have been searching for who. made this song since before.

2010 mhm let's tell them about that. story shall we Yeah you mentioned uh. using you know modern tools one of the. one of the mysteries from Darius was he. was like I guess in his German accent. which I'm not going to try good said I'm. not even sure you know for sure that I. taped it from this program on the indr a. station in Germany nice the music for. young people program that he listened to. he's like cuz I recorded stuff from. other stations and other programs. uh but they have since proven that um.

proven that basically using uh. spectrogram analysis they they actually. pinpointed it and said no there was a 10. KZ line uh that this station used as. like a modulation scheme that isn't. found on other stations and they found. that that modulation line in that song. so they was like at least we know it was. definitely from IND r i right so they. figured that out they also figured out.

that it was um at least from 1984. because the Technics deck is it Technics. or techniques I always said techniques. but who knows that may have been wrong. okay uh the tape deck made by technices. or techniques you know the brand that he. was using to record off the um radio. wasn't made until. 1984 and you might think well okay it. could be 1985 86 um the song the other. songs that are on this tape which are. known as cassette 4 were songs from. ecstasy um The Cure uh I could not for.

life of me find what songs they were but. everybody seems to be satisfied that. this these ecstasy songs and Cure songs. and other songs that were played on that. that that were recorded on the same tape. came out in 1984 or right before 1984 so. the guess is that this this was taped. off of the radio between 1983 and. 1984 yeah and you know what there's. people that have time on their hands and.

uh Tech technological wherewithal that. we don't have I'm calling on somebody. somewhere to. find the and make a playlist of cassette. 4 and put it on your whatever your. favorite uh streamer is yeah I can't. believe it's not out there actually I. bet that's a banging playlist I'll bet. it is too so um back to the story the. the the initial story of where this all. came from Darius uh his he apparently. was content with just putting a question. mark next to the the song or in the.

song's place on the track listing on the. cassette um but his sister was not. satisfied with that his sister Lydia who. just goes by Lydia H in this Rolling. Stone interview um she always really. wanted to know who made this song I. don't know if obsession is the right. word but it was certainly something that. drove uh her to some extent and as the. internet kind of blossomed and grew uh I. think in starting in 2007 she started um. sharing it on the internet it to there's.

a couple of sites that she put it posted. it on initially one a Canadian site. another a German site that are kind of. they crowdsource people to say what what. song is this and that was the start of. baffling internet users with this song. yeah and and that's where I would have. expected an answer if there was one um. it's on YouTube you can listen to it. they people on on YouTube and other. places too have tried to decipher uh the. lyrics as best they can um it seems.

pretty clear that it's probably a. foreign uh or at least you know a. non-american speaker foreign to us but. but people are pretty sure it's in. English no it's definitely in English. Okay I mean I think it's clearly in. English great are people debating that. no I don't think. so uh you can't get all the words you. can get a lot of them um like the wind. is the title that a lot of people have. put on it because you know the very. beginning of the song it's like the wind.

but is it I don't even know if it's. saying like the wind mhm uh it almost. sounds like something again but I I. can't even tell that part yeah so. there's a bunch of names for the song. which the official generic name for it. is uh TMS the mysterious song or the. most mysterious song on the internet um. but people call it blind the wind uh. locked away some people think that's. what he's saying instead of like the. wind I can hear it actually as a matter.

of fact and I can't remember what the. line is but there's other lines in there. that make it sound like he is talking. about being locked up um check it in. check it out take it in take it out. disco woman um there's there's a lot of. different names for this song uh based. on what people think this guy is saying. because no one can say what the lyrics. are no one knows you can't do it and the. it's beware there because there's. Madness that way if you really start.

paying attention and trying to figure. out what the lyrics are friend you're. going to end up with a new hobby you may. or may not want yeah um they've gotten. in touch with uh that original DJ who um. said you know I I don't know what that. song was I certainly don't remember. playing it uh no recollection of it. whatsoever uh this was a time obviously. when Germany was split in half uh or. maybe not technically half uh by the. Cold War. and um you know the DJ DJs were like you.

know we would get like uh tapes thrown. over the wall at us that we didn't even. know what they were but they were they. were just music that people wanted us to. hear and play uh here's my theory okay. aam's Razer man it's a song that someone. made and they died and no one knew they. made. it I guess that is probably the the the. simplest solution yes it's just no one. no one knowing that that person made no. one recognizing that person's voice I.

mean this is. widespread yeah and it's possible just. the right person hasn't heard it yet I I. don't know but I kind of tend to agree. with you I think that's probably what. happened it was a an an obscure East. German or Eastern block musician who who. managed to get their tape out and I mean. that's not unprecedented tapes went both. ways through the Iron Curtain during the. Cold War there's a really great. documentary called Chuck Norris versus.

communism that came out in 2015 and it's. about how people smuggling in American. action movies into Romania they think. essentially led to the downfall of. Nikolai chesu and his regime because. people kind of saw how life could be. isn't that amazing yeah did Chuck Norris. win yeah he won because there's no more. communism in Romania as far as I know do. you know what would be great I mean I'm. 53 years old I'm in way into music and.

I've gone down some rabbit holes about. music I had never heard of this before. this week mhm like you know maybe the. person who made it literally has never. heard this whole mystery and in a year. someone's like hey that was me I know I. think that a lot of people would be. really sad when when that happened yeah. then just keep it to yourself buddy if. that's the case Everyone likes a mystery. a little bit more so let's talk about a. couple of couple more things that people. have done for this investig ation I mean. you said spectrog spectrography right am.

I saying that correctly I don't know. spectrograph yes spect. spectrography I think so it sounds right. geez so um in addition to that people. and in addition to getting in touch with. Paul Baskerville the DJ who hosted that. show in. 1984 um people have gotten in touch with. the archist at that radio station and. gotten a full list of playlists for. every single. um episode of that radio show this song.

does not turn up on it don't forget. though they've proven that it was played. on this radio station so they started. looking at playlists for other radio. shows and they've gotten a substantial. number of them still hasn't turned up on. any playlist anything that could be this. song and then someone else essentially. pinned the song in between 1983 and 1984. because they believe that the. synthesizer that was used was a specific. type of Yamaha a DX7 that was not.

available until 1983 isn't that nuts. that people have done all this uh that. one's the most believable because that's. just how keyboard nerds are but sure. yeah I just think that's super cool that. people have just tried all of this. different stuff and it still is just not. budging it will not budge yeah and again. if that guy's out there um just you know. let that be our own little secret and. maybe that's the case maybe this person. knows this and they just think this is. awesome and uh you know who knows that's.

why it's a great mystery his friends and. family are like why are you always. tittering to yourself it's so. weird why are you talking about the wind. so if you uh if you haven't heard the. song it's worth going to check out just. look up the most mysterious song on the. internet and you will find it for sure. although you can also look up like the. wind and mysterious and all that stuff. and it'll turn it up yeah and to be. clear I don't think it's like a bad song. I just think it it's it's not like as it.

didn't become a big hit for a reason. yeah I think hit is a little overly. generous too I'm with you but you could. still have heard it at like a 80s Club. on like wave night for sure yeah there. were there was plenty of worse music. than this at back then or sure but there. was also a lot of really good music too. like the. wind locked. away disco. girl uh okay uh well I think we reached. the end of the most mysterious song on. the internet our second of our three uh.

Mysteries of the internet and we'll take. a message break we'll come back and we. will reveal the. third after. this Stu you should know Josh and. [Music]. Sh stuff you should know.

uh we're back and you know dude this. could be a whole other show for us just. three mysteries per week 15 minutes a. pop you like that huh I don't know it's. kind of fun careful what you do you have. time on your hands like that oh no no no. I quit my other show for a reason and. you as well we need to edit that part. out man I don't want the wrong people to. hear that and be like hey that's a great. idea uh all right take it away my friend. oh okay uh here we go we're talking.

about what in my opinion is one of the. top three great Mysteries of the. internet yeah I think I agree the. mystery of John tier I believe that's. how it's pronounced I've only ever seen. it written down I've never heard anybody. say it out loud but I've heard that name. for a long time because this is a a. ancient internet mystery and as a matter. of fact it turns out it seems to predate. essentially the internet or at the very. least it was it Finds Its origin off the. internet through fax machines and the.

radio no less yeah and this is another. one that a lot of people have gotten. really into like I went on Reddit and. was kind of looking at some stuff and it. broke my brain such that I was like all. right we're going to we're going to do. our best to give a little overview here. yeah I think something about the UN the. um the most mysterious song on the. internet it seems far more holesome and. less dark for some reason getting sucked. into the John titer mystery seems like. you you could really just just go crazy.

essentially well the first one was. either like MI6 or CIA this one is. possible time traveler in Civil War and. the middle one was like a cool synth pop. hit yeah so let's just tell him a little. bit about John tier okay um John tier is. a internet-based no one's ever seen or. spoken to him in real life um poster who. claimed to be a time traveler from the. year 2036. in America an America that had been.

racked like you said by Civil War that. had gone on for a while but was ended by. World War I which presumably that. brought America together again uh and. that it seems like the American economy. has completely collapsed and um. everybody's much more family and local. community centered and he said that the. average Day in the Life in. 236 uh outside Tampa Florida where he's. from is like a day on the farm and you. might be wow that's pretty descriptive. that is the tip of the iceberg of the.

information that John tier willingly. gave out as a time traveler on the. internet starting in 1997 or8 and then. in 2000 again yeah he uh he said the US. had been divided into five zones and. that time travel had been invented had. have been invented two years previous in. 2034 uh but let's back up to where this. started uh because it all started in. like you said pre- internet in a very. kind of unlikely way I think uh by.

somebody sending a couple of faxes to a. radio show art Bells Coast to Coast AM. and this was uh read on the air and then. a couple of years later um posted. basically the same thing uh online on. the time travel Institute site M uh. which is a site that's been around since. 97 dedicated to temporal Sciences MH uh. and the user name was time. travelor 0 MH um so like we said uh time.

traveler from the future uh and started. saying things. like uh you know um there there were six. components to The Time Machine uh there. was an onboard or onboard cesium clocks. twin micro singularities uh which are. tiny uh very tiny black holes um that uh. he traveled using a stationary Mass. temporal displacement unit powered by. two Top Spin dual positive singularities. producing a typical offset tipler uh.

sinusoid and that was put in the back of. a 66 Corvette yeah very back to theut. part that gets me very back to the. future the thing about John tier and the. posts that he posted are um that this. stuff that this what sounds like. gibberish is actually not at all made up. um for example a tippler sinusoid refers. to a theoretical type of time travel. that was proposed in the 70s by a.

physicist named Frank tippler and he. essentially figured out mathematically. that if you could take two huge masses. many times denser than the sun say two. black holes and um pull them out. spaghettify them essentially and then. spin them really fast like billions of. rotations a second you would what you. would do is essentially pull open. SpaceTime and open essentially a portal. to some somewhere in the future possibly. somewhere in the past possibly galaxies.

away from where you started um and again. this is hypothetical theoretical but. this is not something that the average. person is walking around in their head. like that the the tipler sinusoid exists. so I'm just impressed that and that's. just another example where if you put. all this stuff together and all of the. how different and complimentary and um. very in infrequently. contradictory um the the information.

that John tier gave out was it's I see. how some people who believe that time. travels possible consider John tier an. an actual time. traveler okay I don't but I could see. how people do it's just so convincing. like the stuff he says is so convincing. and he seems to have no agenda. whatsoever that's the other. thing uh I'm not so sure about that part. but um he would go on to talk you know. again you you know he was a US Soldier. in Tampa living on a river in a treeh.

house and um said that he was there on a. an official mission um he was supposed. to uh he was you know sent back in time. by his I guess the army or the US. government uh but he stopped off for a. personal um personal reasons in 2000. basically to get uh family pictures that. were lost during the Civil War momentos. to visit his family that kind of thing. right but the official mission that he. was uh sent back for supposedly by the.

federal government was to go back to uh. Minnesota in 1975 to get an IBM. 5100 which was the first portable. computer um and his grandfather. supposedly worked on developing this. thing and so that's why he was sent back. to get this computer so they could debug. Legacy computer programs that they you. know they were Obsolete and they. couldn't work with anymore CU they. didn't have this old working computer.

right and what so that's cool that's an. obscure computer again most people. aren't walking around with awareness. that the IBM 5100 ever existed but even. more than that John tier said that the. reason they wanted a 5100 is because it. had a specific unique component to it um. it apparently could run other programs. written for like those huge mainframes. and that that was the reason they needed. it in the future and that um IBM had. actually like kept us quiet and it turns.

out that's true the I think the. Rochester Minnesota post bulletin got in. touch with one of their local residents. who worked on the IBM 5100 in the. mid-70s who confirmed like that's. absolutely true there was this little. Quirk that was peculiar to the 5100 and. IBM did not publicize this at all so. it's just so bizarre that this person. knew that and that that that was the. reason that they were s back into the. into the future I mean come on dude like.

think about how creative that is if the. guy is just a hoer yeah so he goes on to. uh and this is a very key thing is he. went on to say by the way uh the mini. worlds um Theory of physics is correct. uh which means that you know for every. possible uh different outcome the. universe splits into different versions. to accommodate those outcomes he's like. that's all true so the fact that I'm. saying he didn't say this part but the.

fact that he talks about the uh the the. George W Bush election um sewing Discord. and there being an uprising and a civil. war in the in the. 2000s um the fact that none of that. happened he said that's just cuz that I. went back in time and changed the. outcome so basically anything I say you. can't prove wrong that's one part of it. yes he he was saying like because his. very presence would change it and that. he came from a different time stream.

himself the other implication of that is. that he can't possibly create a paradox. even going and visiting his family and I. I read his three-year-old self in 2000. um would not create a paradox because he. comes from a different time stream did. not exist in this time stream until he. hopped over to it so there's no Paradox. for him being there and meeting him. himself as a younger kid right again. really genius details that so I I I feel.

like I'm coming off like I'm trying to. convince listeners to believe that this. is real that's not the case if you do. believe it's great I'm just so. thoroughly impressed with the creativity. behind every component and facet of what. John tier said that it's just I'm just. in awe a Gog even you could. say so uh as this thing gained steam. over the years uh he finally. um made a post in March 2001 that said.

this is you know the last post I'm going. back to 2036 smell you later and he. wrote this big long um kind of. uh fairly deep. philosophical um take on what he learned. and what he saw and also the fact that. um he had he had already been talking. about the fact that like by the way. people in the future don't think you're. too great mhm and that you guys haven't. been doing the right things and you kind.

of screwed everything up for the future. um so he kind of writes this kind of. nice long thing at the end uh which was. ended with farewell John you know. there's a lot of symbolism going on like. I encourage people to read it in full. because it's pretty cool it is it is. very cool but he basically says like. here's why I'm leaving and why I won't. be back or recommend anybody come back. here either because you guys don't take. care of one another like he talked about. how people with in stranded on the side. of the road with car trouble people just.

drive past him nobody stops and he asks. his family that he was visiting why. people don't stop and they were saying. it's too dangerous to stop and pick. somebody up you never know if they're. going to kill you and they need to learn. the lesson about making sure you don't. run out of gas in the first place and. he's just like a gas at this at how. people treat one another in the in. America in the early 2000s and um in. that farewell thing he said make sure. you keep a gas can with you for when.

your car dies on the side of the road um. and I'm going back to this this time and. place where you know community and. family is absolutely everything a Utopia. if you will a bit but he didn't he. didn't talk it up like a Utopia it. sounded like it was probably you or I. would consider it hard living but to him. it was vastly superior to the the kind. of lifestyle that we live pre Civil War. here in the United States and. 2024 yeah so this is one that um a lot.

of people have tried to solve over the. years I feel like it's been solved. personally prob um signs you know there. were there were people that got on uh. the web and started I'm looking at. metadata and like um what's it called. when you can uh pinpoint where something. came. from oh I can't think of it. now a pinpointing. no something uh to deal with your.

computer and where it where it was. posting from. anyway yeah but there's another word for. it I know this is people are just. yelling at me but long story short uh. both the metadata and this method of. pinpointing that um a website called. hoax Hunter uh condu conducted this. investigation pointed to uh this area of. Florida in both cases so that really. narrowed it down and then I believe they. ALS found a registration to like a a an.

LLC or a company with the word tighter. in it that all it had was a PO box from. that same area Florida um and so they. basically think that it is uh there are. three brothers um the habber brothers. for my money it's uh Larry or his. younger brother John and not the older I. think older brother my habber yeah so. Larry Haber exists myy Haber exists I've. seen that John Haber does not exist um. but the haers do seem they certainly.

have something to do with this because. like you said they run the John tier. foundation and Larry Haber claims to be. the rep the legal representative of K. tier John tier's mother she doesn't seem. to exist either and it's possible the. whole thing was just a hoax carried out. by these guys totally possible but. what's interesting is I turned up um. another article that interviews in part. a guy named Joseph maeni who's a. multimedia artist who said we were the.

ones who started this whole thing by. sending those faxes to Art Bell and we. stopped after that and apparently some. Coast to Coast Fans took up the mantle. and carried it on from there a couple. years later so two groups that weren't. communicating or um working with one. another were inadvertently collaborating. or one was collaborating with the other. later on to create this whole hoax that. was the John tier mystery now where did. you see that the youngest brother didn't. exist well I know that Larry Haber I.

believe it was Larry who said I don't. have a brother John and um I think I saw. somewhere else that that John is not. real that there's not a John um Haber. interesting because I saw stuff quotes. from John but like I think it's one of. those things where you can't trust. anything you're reading at this point. exactly 100% because again Larry Haber. is saying that he represents k. and ker doesn't seem to exist like.

there's a lot of people again people. have not met these people everything has. been on the internet so it's there's no. telling who is involved or who isn't. involved who's real who's not real it's. fascinating in that regard so there's. multi-layers to what makes this whole. mystery just so great yeah well I mean. they're on the internet those two guy I. mean at least the two guys are yeah uh. and like one of them is a very well to. do business person and uh I don't know.

it's very interesting yeah the hyds. definitely exist Larry and Mory and. possibly John but I saw he. doesn't right I understand okay well no. I was wrapping it up for everybody else. I know you know gotcha uh I think that's. it right Chuck I got nothing else I mean. but a a deep sense of unfulfilled uh you. know podcast Duty dyom right I'm with. you on that uh since Chuck said dyom of. that means he's just unlocked listener.

mail uh I'm going to call this tomato. fun fact from Brian creal or maybe it's. kryal in Germany it would be creal but. who knows uh Hey guys in the salsa. episode you mentioned that when. Europeans first encountered Tomatoes. they thought they were deadly because. they're a member of the nightshade. family I forget where I learned this but. this idea was initially fueled because. some of them were actually killed by. eating tomatoes however it was not the. tomatoes that killed them they were. eating them off lead plates and the acid. from the tomatoes dissolv some of the.

lead which was then consumed along with. the tomatoes thus killing some uh this. is what led to the belief that Tomatoes. were poisonous and persisted uh. throughout Europe for a little while one. little bit of hubris for a group that. thought they knew everything there was. to know and that they were A step above. the indigenous communities. burn who was that from that was from. Brian Brian that's awesome thank you. very much I've definitely never heard. that one so thanks for filling that out.

for us and if you want to fill something. out for us like Brian did you can send. it via email too wrap it up spank it on. the bottom and send it off to stuff. podcast iheartradio.com. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts iHeart. Radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows. [Music].