Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 93 | 5 Scary Subliminal Messages Hidden in Media & The Talking Angela Predator Panic &...

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Ep. 93 | 5 Scary Subliminal Messages Hidden in Media & The Talking Angela Predator Panic &... · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Our toy manufacturers corrupting the minds of children by hiding
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: subliminal messages in their toys. Young minds are thought to
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: be particularly susceptible to the effects of mind control and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: hiding a certain set of imagery in our toys may
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: be a very effective way of influencing the brains of
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a future generation. Here are five examples of creepy messages
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: hidden in children's playthings. The first message is one that
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I remember from when I was a kid. This was
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: after the Lion King movie had been released and its
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: overwhelming popularity meant that the market was flooded with cheap
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Lion King themed toys. One of these was a sound book,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: one of those ones where you read the story and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: pressed the buttons along the side to make noises that
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: correspond to something happening in the story. I'm not sure
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: how it all started but a small consumer panic made
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: their headlines when angry parents started to complain that one
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of the sound bites contained a sexual message. The Rafiki
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: button when pressed repeatedly sounds like it's saying squashed bananas
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: up his ass. He's actually supposed to be chanting a
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Sandy Sanaa, squash banana, a phrase from the movie. Most
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: likely it sounds like it's swearing because the sound is
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: being compressed through some very cheap early 90s electronics. But
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the idea that Disney are hiding sexual messages in their
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: movies and toys is nothing new. I could make a
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: whole video about the sexual messages hidden in Disney cartoons.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: The Lion King has its fair share of subliminal images.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: In fact there's even another Rafiki toy with strange sexual connotations.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: The idea is that Disney are trying to covertly corrupt
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the minds of children and turn them into sexual deviants
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: by implanting perverted imagery into their brains. So did the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: children of the 90s grow up to enjoy inserting exotic
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: fruits into their rectums or was this just parents overreacting?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: The next toy I don't have any footage of because
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: it appears that Walmart have tried to remove all evidence
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: of it ever existing. The only evidence I can find
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: is a small news article from the Colombian newspaper. The
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: article states that a Vancouver family received a toy for
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: their baby as the Christmas present. The toy was a
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: plastic boat that attaches to the side of a crib
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: and emits soothing ocean noises. It's very similar to this
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Ocean Wonders aquarium made by Fisher-Price. But this toy was
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: produced by Walmart's on brand called Kid Connection. The parents
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: noticed a strange hypnotic voice coming from the device repeatedly
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: saying the phrase, I hate you among the ocean sounds.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: They returned the device to Walmart and tested a few
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: other copies of the same toy on the store shelves
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and found that they all contained the same creepy message.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Shortly afterwards, all copies of the toy were removed from
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Walmart stores. The problem is that no product recall was
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: ever announced and nothing was mentioned on Walmart's website at
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the time, leading many to believe that Walmart was attempting
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to cover up the incident. There are various theories as
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: to why the toy might contain the hateful message. It
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: was manufactured in China and some people have speculated that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it might be part of a communist plot that brainwash
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: our children into a state of self-loathing. It's a shame
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: that I can't find any clips of the toy. It's
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: described as being a blue and white boat with a
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: red anchor and it attaches to a side of a crib.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: It's got buttons that play either music or ocean sounds.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: The article was published in 2003 so it's likely that
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: someone still has one of these toys. If you're watching
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: this and you have one of these ocean toys, please
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: upload some footage of it so we can hear what
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: it sounds like. Another toy with a hidden hateful message
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: is the You and Me Talking Triplets doll set sold
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: at Toys R Us. The dolls are motion activated and
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: are supposed to emit random baby noises when you wave
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: your hand in front of them. However, people were horrified
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to hear that one of the dolls is capable of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: some very adult language. The doll apparently saying, you crazy bitch,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: caused uproar among parents when they started to hear their
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: kids repeating the phrase. Toys at Us have refused to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: remove the toy from sale, claiming that it's just the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: sound of baby battle but they did offer refunds to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: any unhappy customers. Do you think this is just random
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: baby noises or is it a more sinister attempt to
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: corrupt the minds of our children? The next toy looks
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: like a normal magic wand and it was sold at
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: dollar stores across America. The packaging tells us that it's
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: an evil stick but this could easily be mistaken for
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a mistranslation. In actual fact the toy contains a dark secret.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: When you press a button an evil laugh is heard
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and an image flashes up behind the silver foil. The
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: picture is quite difficult to see and some curious children
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: peeled off the foil to see what was underneath. Beneath
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: was an image of a child apparently possessed by demons
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and slitting her own wrists with a knife. The idea
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: is that the silver flower acts as a mirror and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: when a child looks into it and presses the button
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the shocking image appears in their reflection and gives them
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a fright. Many have speculated that this toy could be
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: used to subliminally implant the idea of self-harm and suicide
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: into a child's mind. The fact that the picture is
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: repeatedly flashed over their own reflection causes the child to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: associate such actions with themselves. Nothing on the packaging mentions
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: this creepy feature. Lots of parents will have bought this
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: toy for their kids without realizing it has a hidden secret.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody knows who made this toy or how it ended
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: up on store shelves. One thing is for certain though,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: this image definitely isn't appropriate for young children. The last
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: toy is another talking doll. Once again it's supposed to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: admit random baby bubble but one of the noises sounds
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: like it's saying something rather more nefarious. Listen to this
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and try to decipher what it's saying. A lot of
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: parents believe that the doll is saying Islam is delight
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and that it may be trying to indoctrinate their children
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: into a religious ideology. The doll is made by Fisher
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Price and is called the cuddle and coo doll. The
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: phrase is uttered among a number of other baby noises.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: If you listen to the whole thing the phrase seems
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: oddly out of place and much clearer than the other sounds.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: It's as if it's been added deliberately. The phrase can
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: also be heard in a Nintendo DS game called Baby Pals.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: When you wash a baby in the bath it repeatedly
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: tells you that Islam is delight. I've heard other rumors
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: that the doll also says Satan is king but I
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: can't find any evidence of that. There are a few
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: recordings on the internet of people running the doll through
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: its full repertoire of noises. Their supposed Islam phrase is
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: fairly clear in all of them but I can't find
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: anywhere the doll says anything about Satan. So maybe that's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: just a rumor. So if this subliminal message stuff really
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: works we can expect our kids to grow up to
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: be potty-mouthed religious self-harmers. The problem is that these kind
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: of things are designed not to be detected by the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: conscious mind but rather to affect the subconscious. So finding
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: them is almost impossible most of the time. It's only
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the most blatant examples to get found out. In a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: time when almost every toy contains some sort of electronic circuitry,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: who knows what other hidden messages are being pumped into
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: children's minds? Shout out to Tim Farrell, James and Roman Jones.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for your support. You guys are awesome.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Welcome to a new series where I'll be looking at
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: bizarre conspiracies, fringe science and any other weird theories that
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: happen to take my interest. This one's pretty old so
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you've probably heard at least some version of it over
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the years. It started around 2013 and it involves an
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: app called Talking Angela. In 2010 a Slovakian company named
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Outfit7 released an app called Talking Tom. It was an
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: interactive cartoon cat that would repeat whatever you said to
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: it in a funny voice. Back when I was a
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: kid we had something similar called the Pete Repeat Parade.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Except Pete was cooler because you could use him to
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: torment your pets. Anyway, Talking Tom was so popular that
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Outfit 7 made a whole load more cartoon animal apps
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: including Talking Angela which was released in 2012. Again it
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: proved to be very popular and lots of kids downloaded
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: it and parents were happy to let their children play
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: with talking Angela unsupervised. That is until somebody noticed something
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: strange about Angela's eyes. For some reason the reflection in
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Angela's eyes show a dimly lit room. It's quite strange
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: because the character's meant to be outdoors at a Parisian
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: restaurant or something like that so where is that room located?
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Even strange is still some people swear that at certain
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: times they would see a man in this room looking
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: back at them. Quite how this room was started is
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: unclear but around the same time there were numerous Facebook
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: posts being circulated. They said that Talking Angela was asking
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: their kids inappropriate questions like how old they were, where
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: they went to school and if they'd kissed anybody. Apparently
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it would also encourage them to remove their clothes and
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: stick their tongue out at the camera. Here's an example
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: of what one of those viral Facebook posts said. I
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: can't even in words say what I just found out.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I am shocked and want to tell my friends and family.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Be aware so they can make sure their children are safe.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Angelica stayed home from school today and thank God she
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: did because she was on her iPod playing a game
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: called Talking Angela which is similar to Talking Tom. Anyway
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: she's sitting next to me with this interactive cat says
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: to her. Hi Angelica where is your brother? She says
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: always right next to me. The cat says, oh cool.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Then the cat says, what do you do for fun?
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  Speaker 1: Angelica says, I don't know. Now I'm being quiet and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: listening because I think it's weird that this Angela cat
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: knows that she has a brother and is talking to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a like a person. Then its voice changes and in
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: some weird robotic voice it says, Angelica when you date,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: what do you do on date? She looked at me
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and got red in the face and said nothing. Then
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: it said, stick out your tongue, I'll stick mine out too.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: It said, what are some things you can do with
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: your tongue? I can find many things. So please if
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: your kids use this app, please shut it down because
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: some kids told them the name of the school they
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: went to and is now unread alert at the school.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Please pass this on to all your friends. Pretty soon
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: these rumors were widespread. More and more reports came in
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: from parents concerned that the app was actually a front
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: for illegal pornography ring. It was widely believed that the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: reflection in the eyes was showing a live feed of
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: an actual room. If you could see a man in
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: there that meant that the man was controlling Angela and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: secretly recording you. Even worse, once the app had your
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: location your child was in serious danger. A news article
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: appeared on Hustlers about a 7-year-old boy named Eli Marino.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: He had gone missing after installing the Talking Angela app.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: The article says, after installing the app for her son,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Jasmine Marino noticed Talking Angela was asking questions like, what
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: are you wearing right now and are your parents home?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Friday morning she let Eli play with her phone while
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: she showered. By the time she was ready to drive
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Eli to school he was missing. She reported him missing
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: one hour later and a detective asked her if she
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: had the Talking Angela app on her phone. She was
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: stunned to find out that several kids in the same
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: neighborhood had gone missing after installing the app. Hustlers talked
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to a local detective and he told us, we have
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: been tracking the Angela predator for days now, he's like
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a shadow. We are assuming this news hasn't been made
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: public to keep app users from panicking. The article was
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: widely circulated on Facebook and parents all over the world
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: were panicking that their child might be the next victim.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: The only problem is this article was a complete hoax.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: If I look at the Hustlers website today one of
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the main headlines is, Scientists discovers new HIV strain that
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: explodes your penis. So clearly it's a satirical website. I hope.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: As for all the other rumors, well that's a bit
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: more complicated. There's no real evidence that it was taking
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: illicit photographs of people's kids or trying to find out
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: where they went to school. But it may have been
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: asking them some strange questions. One of the features of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the app was that it could use the phone's camera
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to detect someone's facial expressions and talking Angela might prompt
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the user to pull certain faces. It also had an
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: AI-powered chat function where you could talk to Angela about
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: different topics and she would provide amusing answers. According to
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: this Guardian article, Talking Angela can be prompted into saying,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: you know what's fun too? A clothing swap party. Have
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: you ever been to such a party? She then tells
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: you about a time where she swapped clothes with her
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: boyfriend and everyone at the party laughed and they had
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: a cool night. You can see why if a parent
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: heard this they might think the app was trying to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: encourage their child to undress. Also when Talking Angela was
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: asked about sex, she would say, cat sex is hair-raising.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: It's perfect. This chat feature could be disabled by switching
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: it to child mode. The main problem is it's very
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: easy for a kid to switch it back out of
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: child mode simply by pressing this inviting looking smiley face
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: button at the top of the screen. When parents report
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: that the cat would suddenly start asking sinister questions, it
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: could be that their kid simply switched it out of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: child mode. Still it's kind of weird that the app
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: had those sorts of phrases in it to begin with.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Even if it can be switched off in child mode,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: why does a cartoon cat app have the ability to
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: talk about sex and clothes swapping parties in the first place?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So what about the man in Angela's eye? I can't
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: find any proof that he ever really existed, but there
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: are a lot of eyewitness accounts. Possibly it's because the
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: reflection in the eye is a bit ambiguous to begin with,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: especially when you're looking at it on a small phone
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: screen and if the cat's moving about. People might have
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: thought that they saw somebody in there when really they
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: were just seeing the normal reflection. It doesn't even really
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: make sense of why would you be able to see
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: somebody else in the eyes. Even if the app was
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: being controlled by a secret group of child abductors, why
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: would they add a feature that allowed themselves to be
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: seen on the user's screen? I did download the app
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: to look for myself, but since the panic of 2013
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: to 2014, the developers have removed a lot of the features.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: You can no longer chat with Angela and the app
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't access your camera, plus they've changed how her eyes look.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Still though, it does seem slightly adult for a kid's game.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: There isn't any option to change it to a kid's mode.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: It just asks for your age when you first start
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: up the app, but that doesn't change any content in
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the app itself. You can give a flirty makeup and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: plier with booze. If you poke her in the boobs
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: or the legs, she responds accordingly. If you stroke her,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: she gives you this saucy little wink. I mean, am
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I reading too much into this? I don't know, it
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: just seems a bit creepy. Maybe there is something more
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: sinister going on here, a subtle corrupting of the minds
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of its young easily influenced users. Or maybe I'm being
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: paranoid because I've just finished reading Brave New World, I
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: don't know. As for whether the app is sending your
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: kids personal information to shady people, undoubtedly this part is true.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not taking illicit photographs or finding what school
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: they go to, but as with most apps, it will
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: be collecting huge amounts of personal information and sending it
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: to people all over the world to do God knows
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: what with. You can actually read what kind of information
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: they collect on their privacy policy page. I don't think
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: it's much different to most other apps, but there are
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: some interesting things in there. For example, it says, we
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: might collect the following information. Age and gender of the
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: person using the app, whether another person uses the app
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: and whether children under the age of 13 are using
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the app on their own or with an adult. So
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: although that Hustler's article was a hoax, it wasn't that
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: far from the truth when it said the app was
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: trying to find out if the child was alone. Anyway,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: that's pretty much all I have on this. It's always
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: possible that there's more truth to this story than it seems,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: but apart from anecdotal stories, there isn't much concrete evidence
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: to back up a lot of the claims. In all likelihood,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: there probably isn't a child molester watching you from inside
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: talking and jealous eyes, but that doesn't mean the app
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a sinister ulterior motive and it isn't harvesting
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: massive amounts of private information about you. But then it
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: would be hard to find an app that doesn't. Besides,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the feds are probably watching you through your phone right now,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: so why worry? Let me know what you think of
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: this series idea. I've got a few other things I
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: wanted to cover for this, and stories that seemed a
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: bit too silly or weird for a regular video, but
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: they might be interesting for this series. Thank you very much.