Latest / Conspiracy! The Show / Welcome to Jonestown

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Welcome to Jonestown · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Winter insurance, the Truth. I'm a check out both things.
0:31
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm Adam Todd Brown.
0:36
Speaker 2: Who are you.
0:37
Speaker 1: I'm visiting SAI.
0:38
Speaker 2: We are your hosts. There's a how's it going, Oh.
0:43
Speaker 1: It's going, it's going well all things considered.
0:46
Speaker 2: You know, we are talking about Jonestown, not just this week,
0:50
Speaker 2: but we're going to be talking about Jonestown for a
0:53
Speaker 2: while on this podcast.
0:55
Speaker 1: The original kool Aid drinkers.
0:57
Speaker 2: That's where the phrase comes from. You it wasn't I
1:01
Speaker 2: know they bring that up in the documentary.
1:03
Speaker 1: We're talking about off brand kool Aid.
1:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, which was flavored was pretty good too.
1:09
Speaker 1: So it was I've never had it.
1:10
Speaker 2: I fucked with it when I was a kid. So
1:12
Speaker 2: we're talking about Jonestown. What we're gonna eventually talk about
1:17
Speaker 2: is this book called was Jonestown a CIA medical Experiment.
1:22
Speaker 2: It's a book that's very hard to find. The author
1:25
Speaker 2: of the book is a very mysterious, shadowy figure and
1:29
Speaker 2: that book is five hundred and eighty five foot in
1:31
Speaker 2: pages long. So it's going to take a few episodes
1:34
Speaker 2: to get through this Jonestown conspiracy that we're going to cover.
1:38
Speaker 2: Starts at the end of World War Two. That's how
1:43
Speaker 2: far back in history it goes?
1:45
Speaker 1: What's that year? What year did it? It was right
1:48
Speaker 1: after World War Two? So fifties?
1:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it would have been mid forties. The war
1:53
Speaker 2: ended in forty six, right, I don't know how we
1:56
Speaker 2: would find out.
1:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, forty five. So yeah, late forties, maybe early fifties.
2:01
Speaker 2: Okay, So it goes back a long long ways, and
2:05
Speaker 2: we're going to cover the entire theory as told in
2:08
Speaker 2: that book, but today we're just covering the official version
2:13
Speaker 2: of events.
2:15
Speaker 1: Every time I say Jonestown, I just want to say
2:17
Speaker 1: it like Jonestown, Jonestown.
2:21
Speaker 2: It's a fun name.
2:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, he wasn't a fun person, though.
2:25
Speaker 2: He seemed like a very unpleasant person. How much did
2:28
Speaker 2: you know about Jonestown before this documentary?
2:33
Speaker 1: I mean I knew like the broad strokes, but I
2:35
Speaker 1: mean again, it was like the bullet points of it
2:38
Speaker 1: was before nine to eleven, the largest group of Americans dying,
2:44
Speaker 1: and then I did it was Initially I did remember
2:49
Speaker 1: being told it was a mass suicide, so I was
2:52
Speaker 1: it was disturbing to see that, you know, it was
2:57
Speaker 1: a massacre, and that a third of the the victims
3:01
Speaker 1: were children. Yeah, so there's no consent there, so all
3:04
Speaker 1: automatically one third of who who was killed were like,
3:08
Speaker 1: didn't have the ability to make that choice themselves.
3:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know where I learned about Jonestown, but
3:15
Speaker 2: it's a thing I've kind of always been familiar with.
3:18
Speaker 2: It happened two years after I was born, maybe three years,
3:22
Speaker 2: so I was alive for it, but I obviously don't
3:26
Speaker 2: remember it, but I for some reason, I feel like
3:30
Speaker 2: I remember asking my mom about it and her just
3:34
Speaker 2: being like, fucking poison some people, Man, what do you want?
3:39
Speaker 1: So it was seventy eight, nineteen seventy eight, Yeah, I
3:42
Speaker 1: mean it was such a big deal. There were so
3:44
Speaker 1: many people. Was over nine hundred people, right, over nine
3:47
Speaker 1: hundred people. So I can imagine that people were really
3:50
Speaker 1: Americans would be realing that from that for years. So
3:53
Speaker 1: I could see how it's still in the zeitgeist and you,
3:56
Speaker 1: as a child, would have heard about it.
3:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's still it is. Like we're covering the
4:02
Speaker 2: official version of events by way of an ABC News
4:06
Speaker 2: documentary called Truth and Lies. Jonestown, Paradise Lost.
4:12
Speaker 1: Sorry, Jonestown Pasted, Oh, Jonestown, don't stop for gas?
4:17
Speaker 2: Now it's not gassed. That's kool aid, but not real
4:21
Speaker 2: kool aid.
4:22
Speaker 1: Although Jonestown was in Guyana, so that's a long.
4:26
Speaker 2: Ride, long long drive.
4:28
Speaker 1: Uh, shorter flight.
4:29
Speaker 2: But and yeah, I figure if we're going for a
4:33
Speaker 2: really straight forward telling of events, you can't get more
4:36
Speaker 2: straightforward than ABC News.
4:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:39
Speaker 2: I don't think the word CIA is mentioned once in
4:43
Speaker 2: this and it seems like the CIA did have at
4:47
Speaker 2: least some connections to Jonestown, if nothing else, And it
4:51
Speaker 2: seems like that would come up, but it also seems
4:54
Speaker 2: like it wouldn't come up in an ABC News documentary.
4:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think that would. I could. I couldn't
4:58
Speaker 1: see that as part of the main stream official report
5:02
Speaker 1: that's being released to the general public.
5:04
Speaker 2: I still don't know what people think the CIA does,
5:07
Speaker 2: Like that we spend so much money on the CIA.
5:10
Speaker 2: There's such a huge outfit that operates in so many countries.
5:14
Speaker 2: It's like, what do you think they're doing? Nothing?
5:16
Speaker 1: They get they get information, and they don't do anything
5:19
Speaker 1: with it until something happens. Oh yeah we knew about that.
5:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they do. Yeah, they do that. That's how
5:25
Speaker 2: our entire government works though, So, wow, did you one
5:30
Speaker 2: of the people they interview in this documentary is Stephan Jones,
5:34
Speaker 2: or it might have been Stephen. They don't ever clarify.
5:37
Speaker 2: They just have that weird spelling of his first name.
5:40
Speaker 2: And it seems like he kind of still believes in
5:44
Speaker 2: what they were doing at Jonestown.
5:46
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so that was he has, Well, he has
5:48
Speaker 1: several sons. Which of his sons was this one the
5:51
Speaker 1: his biological white son.
5:53
Speaker 2: His biological white son, which I love that his biological
5:57
Speaker 2: white son is named Stephen and his adoption did black
6:00
Speaker 2: son his named Jim Jones Junior.
6:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I mean, it's I guess it's it's hard
6:07
Speaker 3: to be unbiased when the man is your biological father.
6:11
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, you know again, I think sometimes
6:16
Speaker 3: it's hard to be honest with ourselves with unpalatable truths
6:19
Speaker 3: like that.
6:20
Speaker 1: But but I mean, come.
6:22
Speaker 2: On, I bet he was so mad about that Jim
6:25
Speaker 2: Jones Junior thing most of his life and if you
6:29
Speaker 2: ask him now, he's probably like, really dodged bullet there
6:32
Speaker 2: not being called Jim Jones Junior.
6:35
Speaker 1: There's a rapper name Jim Jones.
6:37
Speaker 2: Yes, dip set for life set Uh, Jim Jones is great.
6:45
Speaker 1: The Jim Jones. Jim Jones the rapper is also black.
6:47
Speaker 1: So Stephen just has a chip on his shoulder.
6:53
Speaker 2: What if that is Jim Jones junior.
6:56
Speaker 1: Oh rapper he invented himself. Yeah, it's it would be hilarious.
7:00
Speaker 1: And there's dipset.
7:02
Speaker 2: There's video of him returning to Guyana twenty years later
7:06
Speaker 2: in this documentary and he says he's there to explore
7:09
Speaker 2: the sickness in the people who killed themselves. And that's
7:12
Speaker 2: a controversial statement right there.
7:14
Speaker 1: That's a slap in the face. That's a slap in
7:16
Speaker 1: the face to everyone who was murdered. Like maybe some
7:19
Speaker 1: people took the kool aid out of their own volition,
7:21
Speaker 1: but it was documented that well what third of them
7:24
Speaker 1: were kids, and then several were injected and if they
7:28
Speaker 1: didn't want to take it, they were forced to. And
7:29
Speaker 1: then also if you if you tried to run away,
7:31
Speaker 1: they'd kill your ass.
7:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would get you risked being killed with a
7:36
Speaker 2: bow and arrow if you ran away, which that's a
7:40
Speaker 2: warrior's death right there. But still I don't want it.
7:43
Speaker 1: Crossbows they were using crossbows.
7:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, crossbows, that's what it was.
7:47
Speaker 1: Like, This is some fucking game of throne type of.
7:50
Speaker 2: Shit Planet of the Apes or some shit.
7:52
Speaker 1: Oh my god, crossbows are no joke.
7:55
Speaker 2: And yeah they also it's really up in the air,
7:59
Speaker 2: like even if the people, even the people who took
8:01
Speaker 2: it willingly, they took it under the influence of a
8:06
Speaker 2: cult leader and someone who was controlling their thinking. So this, yeah,
8:11
Speaker 2: even calling them suicides feel sketchy to me.
8:15
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's beyond sketchy. I think it's
8:17
Speaker 1: a slap in the face because like, being under the
8:19
Speaker 1: influence of a cult is a psychological condition.
8:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so interesting that now this is becoming a
8:27
Speaker 2: thing with QAnon where people are like, I think we
8:31
Speaker 2: got to get a cult deprogrammer in here to talk
8:33
Speaker 2: to Uncle Rick. He is way too far gone for
8:37
Speaker 2: us to help him.
8:38
Speaker 1: You know what's crazy though, is like, Okay, back in Jonestown,
8:41
Speaker 1: you know, people weren't as interconnected, so you know, there
8:45
Speaker 1: were pockets of these people and they communicated in ways
8:48
Speaker 1: that were maybe like you know, not as effective or efficient.
8:52
Speaker 1: But now like QAnon, it could people could be anywhere,
8:55
Speaker 1: Like you know, every every QAnon member is its own sleeper.
8:58
Speaker 2: Self kind of Yeah, huh, it's freaky. So let's talk
9:02
Speaker 2: about the there's this interview audio where in the beginning
9:08
Speaker 2: of the documentary it's Jim Jones from the early seventies
9:12
Speaker 2: and this church he formed it was called People's Temple.
9:15
Speaker 2: It formed in Indianapolis, so a long long way from Guyana. Yeah,
9:21
Speaker 2: And there's this audio of him that makes it seem
9:25
Speaker 2: like because he was such an outcast as a child,
9:28
Speaker 2: it made him really in tune with the needs of
9:32
Speaker 2: black people and as a result, a lot of his
9:35
Speaker 2: message was more racial justice, social justice than religion, even
9:40
Speaker 2: though he was also very religious. And it one of
9:45
Speaker 2: the quotes you hear about him in this documentary and
9:49
Speaker 2: that you hear all the time in general, is he
9:51
Speaker 2: had charisma And I don't know did he I mean.
9:55
Speaker 1: If he can get a whold that many people to
9:57
Speaker 1: follow him to Guyana and like he is Robin elbows
10:01
Speaker 1: with politicians while running a cult, like he a lot
10:04
Speaker 1: of you know, he probably and he's a he's a
10:08
Speaker 1: what is it called an apex predator type. He's a
10:13
Speaker 1: predator type. So the thing is is like, even though
10:16
Speaker 1: he you might be able to get his number when
10:19
Speaker 1: you first meet him as someone who's extremely manipulative, if
10:23
Speaker 1: you are vulnerable. He can find his way in through
10:26
Speaker 1: the chinks and give you sort of what you need
10:30
Speaker 1: for him to be able to, you know, run run
10:32
Speaker 1: the show. It's it's so dangerous. I think when when
10:36
Speaker 1: people with unpure intentions use positive messages to to cover
10:44
Speaker 1: their their intent, their their sort of evil intent. I
10:48
Speaker 1: don't even like using the word evil, but it's, you know,
10:51
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't for the good of the people,
10:53
Speaker 1: the whole social justice movement, all of that, Like you're
10:56
Speaker 1: sort of looking you're in a way, he's sort of
10:59
Speaker 1: taking ine of marginalized populations who are more vulnerable. So
11:05
Speaker 1: it's like, how calculating was he? Did this ever actually
11:09
Speaker 1: start as a movement for that stuff, or was it
11:13
Speaker 1: just the perfect in for this guy.
11:16
Speaker 2: In the early parts of the documentary, when they're showing
11:19
Speaker 2: footage of the People's Temple, especially when they were in Indianapolis,
11:23
Speaker 2: everyone does seem relatively happy and it seems like they
11:27
Speaker 2: are all kind of moving toward one common goal. But
11:32
Speaker 2: then people start defecting and telling the police and the
11:38
Speaker 2: media about what things are like inside Jonestown, so it
11:42
Speaker 2: starts to kind of crumble. Eventually, it gets too big
11:46
Speaker 2: for them to be in Indianapolis anymore, so they move
11:51
Speaker 2: at first to Redwood Valley. They moved to Redwood Valley,
11:55
Speaker 2: California in nineteen sixty five. He convinces one hundred and
11:59
Speaker 2: fifty of his most fervent followers to follow him there.
12:02
Speaker 1: So he chose that city because Yeah, es Square magazine
12:05
Speaker 1: named it as one of the nine best places in
12:07
Speaker 1: the event of a nuclear apocalypse.
12:09
Speaker 2: It's not the worst criteria to use when you're selecting
12:13
Speaker 2: a home. I also forgot to mention he and his
12:17
Speaker 2: wife adopted a bunch of kids. They already had a
12:22
Speaker 2: biological kid or two, but then they adopted a couple
12:25
Speaker 2: Asian kids, a couple of black kids, mostly for show,
12:29
Speaker 2: mostly to make his message seem even more real.
12:34
Speaker 1: Their family makes Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt look like
12:37
Speaker 1: reserved in their adoptions.
12:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, they really swung for the fences. And Jim Jones
12:44
Speaker 2: Junior said a really interesting thing in this documentary where
12:47
Speaker 2: he mentioned that his dad would always refer to him
12:50
Speaker 2: as maya adopted black son, So not just as my son.
12:55
Speaker 2: He would always say my adopted black son. And he
12:58
Speaker 2: would say it as if it was a thing to
13:01
Speaker 2: be proud of but like he should be proud of it.
13:04
Speaker 2: Like Jim Jones was boasting basically, but even when he
13:08
Speaker 2: was talking to his kid, he.
13:09
Speaker 1: Was like a prop. His kids are props, right.
13:12
Speaker 2: And so they move to California in nineteen sixty five,
13:17
Speaker 2: And this is one of the points where I feel
13:21
Speaker 2: like any responsible documentary about Jonestown should bring up what
13:25
Speaker 2: else was happening in the United States in this area
13:29
Speaker 2: at the time, and they don't. And that's MK Ultra,
13:33
Speaker 2: which was very active in the exact same locations Jim
13:39
Speaker 2: Jones moves to, especially San Francisco. San Francisco is where
13:44
Speaker 2: the CIA, among other things, during the counterculture movement, set
13:50
Speaker 2: up a brothel that they would just use to drug
13:54
Speaker 2: people and then see what kind of stuff they could
13:57
Speaker 2: get on tape.
13:58
Speaker 1: Blackmail, yea mail, blackmail against powerful people.
14:03
Speaker 2: Medical experiments. They were so involved, like MK ultra, We've
14:08
Speaker 2: said it so many times, happened at I believe one
14:12
Speaker 2: hundred and forty colleges and universities across the US and Canada. Wow.
14:16
Speaker 2: So that was just the CIA doing experiments on people,
14:20
Speaker 2: most of the time without their knowledge. So when I
14:24
Speaker 2: say that we're building up to covering a book called
14:27
Speaker 2: was Jonestown a CIA medical Experiment? It's not really that
14:30
Speaker 2: crazy because all of this stuff is happening at the
14:33
Speaker 2: same time. Jonestown is where the People's Temple is becoming
14:37
Speaker 2: a thing at the exact same time MK Ultra is
14:40
Speaker 2: really becoming active in San Francisco.
14:43
Speaker 1: That's quite a coincidence, quite a coincidence.
14:47
Speaker 2: So, yeah, the mk Ultra is happening at this time,
14:50
Speaker 2: the Vietnam War is happening, civil rights riots are happening
14:54
Speaker 2: all across the country. It's a very tumultuous time. And
14:57
Speaker 2: the People's Temple rises up in in the midst of
15:01
Speaker 2: all this, And I don't know, I could picture the
15:03
Speaker 2: government having some sort of interest in a movement that's
15:07
Speaker 2: planning to take a bunch of relatively radical people, not
15:12
Speaker 2: just radical but also clearly very easy to influence, and
15:16
Speaker 2: just getting them out of the country in some way.
15:19
Speaker 2: There were probably several Jonestowns type things that happened that
15:23
Speaker 2: just didn't end in mass suicide.
15:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in other words, there were lots of
15:28
Speaker 1: red flags, right.
15:30
Speaker 2: And in addition to being progressive and charismatic, Jim Jones
15:35
Speaker 2: also claimed to be able to perform acts of faith healing.
15:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, he hired one of his own employees to pretend
15:42
Speaker 1: that she was unable to walk and then you know,
15:45
Speaker 1: quote unquote healed her publicly and that was one of
15:48
Speaker 1: his miracles.
15:49
Speaker 2: Wow, someone doesn't have much faith, jeez. Yeah, that part
15:54
Speaker 2: of the documentary is crazy.
15:55
Speaker 1: I think also, like you know, it's important to clarify
15:58
Speaker 1: like he you used progressive views, I think, to his
16:02
Speaker 1: advantage instead of actually being progressive, because it doesn't seem
16:05
Speaker 1: he had any he didn't actually have the community's best interest.
16:09
Speaker 2: Oh right, yeah, definitely, But it's that that rhetoric. Yeah,
16:14
Speaker 2: giving off that impression that he was progressive is what
16:19
Speaker 2: really endeared a lot of people to him.
16:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the time, you know, with the counterculture stuff
16:25
Speaker 1: going on during Vietnam, Like, I can see how people
16:29
Speaker 1: would really sort of be drawn towards him if it
16:32
Speaker 1: was it was a tumultuous time.
16:34
Speaker 2: It was a very tumultuous time, and it was especially
16:37
Speaker 2: tumultuous time for black people. Good thing that's past and.
16:42
Speaker 1: Fucking countryman, ridiculous.
16:44
Speaker 2: Right, So yeah, it's not matter. Black lives matter. Yes, Yeah,
16:48
Speaker 2: it's not hard to understand. It's never hard to understand
16:52
Speaker 2: why people fall into the arms of a cult. It's
16:55
Speaker 2: it all ends up being that they they have a
16:59
Speaker 2: need that they perceive as being fulfilled by that group,
17:03
Speaker 2: and they just want to feel some connection.
17:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's people who are susceptible. I don't know if
17:07
Speaker 1: I've ever told you, but I have some experience of
17:10
Speaker 1: sort of accidentally being pulled into a cult.
17:13
Speaker 2: Oh fascinating. What happened.
17:15
Speaker 1: Essentially, I was targeted by the cult leader, the charismatic
17:19
Speaker 1: cult leader. We went to school together, and you know,
17:21
Speaker 1: at the time, he didn't have that kind of power,
17:24
Speaker 1: but I knew he had a lot of resources because
17:26
Speaker 1: of the family he came from, so he basically got
17:29
Speaker 1: to know me. I think this person has antisocial personality disorder,
17:33
Speaker 1: so he truly was a predator or is and essentially
17:37
Speaker 1: made friends with me, got close. I think it was
17:40
Speaker 1: all based on you know, he used he used the
17:43
Speaker 1: tricks in the book like he was. He made up
17:46
Speaker 1: a story and started crying about something tragic that happened
17:49
Speaker 1: in his life, which I found out later was false.
17:51
Speaker 1: And immediately I remember that was the moment that I
17:54
Speaker 1: sort of like let him in. So the trust was
17:56
Speaker 1: formed there. And then as he became more and more powerful,
18:00
Speaker 1: sort of like friend group, and he really began to
18:04
Speaker 1: operate like a cult leader, and eventually I defected before
18:08
Speaker 1: I think he got more powerful because he this person
18:13
Speaker 1: is someone who works in the entertainment industry or did.
18:17
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on with him now, but yeah,
18:20
Speaker 1: it's a lot after I left, I just heard it
18:23
Speaker 1: got insane. So yeah, again, you know the typical cult
18:27
Speaker 1: leader stuff, manipulating sex with the people in the group, uh,
18:33
Speaker 1: belittling them. I see psychological damage, emotional abuse, you know,
18:38
Speaker 1: Like I'm not an unintelligent person, but I was young,
18:41
Speaker 1: and I was in a new city, and you know,
18:45
Speaker 1: I was susceptible because I didn't know that I had
18:48
Speaker 1: never met a sociopath, so you know, I didn't know
18:51
Speaker 1: that anomalies like this existed. I just assume, like, you know,
18:54
Speaker 1: you can level with all people, and there are dangerous
18:58
Speaker 1: people who are fundamentally deceptive, like Jim Jones.
19:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of people don't want to believe
19:06
Speaker 2: that there are people like that in the world. And
19:08
Speaker 2: that's also understandable, Like you want to have some faith
19:11
Speaker 2: in humanity. I don't think people like Jim Jones are
19:14
Speaker 2: proof that you shouldn't have faith in humanity, but you
19:17
Speaker 2: should definitely be skeptical. I'm gonna be honest, I'm skeptical
19:21
Speaker 2: of anyone who's got just too many friends. I'm like, yeah, whoa,
19:25
Speaker 2: what are you? What are you planning?
19:27
Speaker 1: I know, right, Like, I mean, I think it's just
19:29
Speaker 1: you know, most people are not sociopaths, but just know
19:32
Speaker 1: that the anomalies exist and there are just no you know,
19:35
Speaker 1: it's should protect yourself when you see certain red flags
19:39
Speaker 1: or certain behaviors. I think one thing that sociopaths do,
19:43
Speaker 1: like a telltale sign, is they try to garner sympathy.
19:46
Speaker 1: So if someone's perpetually sick or going through something or
19:50
Speaker 1: you know, making illnesses up to garner empathy, that could
19:54
Speaker 1: be a red flag. Otherwise, it's just it's hard to
19:56
Speaker 1: prove people's intent and motive without a collection of the actions.
20:01
Speaker 1: But you know, unfortunately, sometimes it goes too far by
20:05
Speaker 1: the time you know, the person can be stopped.
20:07
Speaker 2: One of the things you see with cults like Jonestown,
20:11
Speaker 2: and one of the things you saw with Jonestown is
20:14
Speaker 2: eventually there becomes this push to keep people in. Yeah,
20:18
Speaker 2: because once people start leaving and you always wonder, like,
20:21
Speaker 2: why why won't you just let them leave? Well, because
20:24
Speaker 2: you're abusing people and if they leave, they're going to
20:26
Speaker 2: get out and tell people. And that's kind of what
20:30
Speaker 2: you see with Jim Jones is he keeps taking these
20:33
Speaker 2: different measures to keep people from leaving.
20:37
Speaker 1: What's interesting about cult leaders is they always sort of
20:39
Speaker 1: tend to position themselves as the fix, the god figure,
20:43
Speaker 1: like you need me, you can't like, and they make
20:46
Speaker 1: you need me. That's the dynamic that is developed. They
20:49
Speaker 1: make the follower feel like they need the person to survive. So,
20:54
Speaker 1: you know, the psychology of getting into a cult is fascinating.
20:59
Speaker 1: It's complicated, and I think it's more simple than just saying, oh,
21:03
Speaker 1: that's not going to happen to me, because it's not
21:05
Speaker 1: about intelligence necessarily. You know, it's about a predator targeting
21:11
Speaker 1: individuals and just putting them in psychological chains. Essentially.
21:18
Speaker 2: You see him do a lot of that in this documentary.
21:21
Speaker 2: Well you don't see him do it, but they talk
21:23
Speaker 2: about it a lot, like the things he would do
21:26
Speaker 2: in particular to his followers. Because really, minus if you
21:31
Speaker 2: take the mass suicide at the end out of this,
21:34
Speaker 2: then the people's temple is kind of a basic cult.
21:38
Speaker 2: There's not The only real standout thing about them is
21:44
Speaker 2: their leader, who was an especially eccentric cult leader. But
21:48
Speaker 2: cult leaders are always eccentric. But with Jim Jones, one
21:53
Speaker 2: of the things that I found really interesting when he
21:56
Speaker 2: moved to San Francisco. There's still all these images in
22:00
Speaker 2: the documentary of this commune in them, like working in fields,
22:04
Speaker 2: and I'm like, man, San Francisco was different back then.
22:08
Speaker 2: I don't know where you would find a fucking open
22:10
Speaker 2: field in San Francisco now, but I.
22:13
Speaker 1: Wouldn't know where to find an apartment in San Francisco.
22:19
Speaker 2: Not an affordable one. Holy shit. And yeah, what he
22:22
Speaker 2: was doing during this time in San Francisco when he's
22:25
Speaker 2: trying to when he realizes he can't get people, he
22:28
Speaker 2: can't let people leave, the first thing he tries is blackmail.
22:31
Speaker 2: He'll bring in new members and just make them sign
22:35
Speaker 2: a blank piece of paper and it'll be like, we
22:38
Speaker 2: can write anything above this and it will show that
22:41
Speaker 2: you signed it. And wow, that's like an admission.
22:44
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you're selling your soul to him. And
22:47
Speaker 1: that's like if someone's in that position, they're obviously vulnerable.
22:51
Speaker 1: It's he wanted everyone to call him father, right.
22:55
Speaker 2: He wanted to be called father. He would isolate people
22:59
Speaker 2: from their family. That's another sign you should always watch for,
23:02
Speaker 2: because the thing about a cult, not all of them
23:04
Speaker 2: are gonna have been caught by the time they come
23:08
Speaker 2: your way. Sometimes you're just gonna have to figure it
23:10
Speaker 2: out on your own. The only reason Nexium was found
23:13
Speaker 2: out is because someone responded to a job ad that
23:17
Speaker 2: they thought was very weird, and as they looked into
23:20
Speaker 2: it more, they were like, oh shit, that's a cult.
23:23
Speaker 2: But those motherfuckers operated pretty much unimpeded for years and
23:27
Speaker 2: years and years and years. So if you're in a
23:29
Speaker 2: situation and the person at the head of the room
23:33
Speaker 2: is saying, look, your family aren't believers, and because they
23:38
Speaker 2: don't believe, then you should probably just distance yourself from
23:43
Speaker 2: them and listen to me. You want to be very
23:45
Speaker 2: wary of that, And I am talking to you. Qann followers.
23:49
Speaker 2: If you watch a documentary and they say, hey, don't
23:54
Speaker 2: read any media outlets, delete all your social media, just
23:58
Speaker 2: follow people who are speaking the truth like us, you
24:02
Speaker 2: should be worried. That's what they're doing. They are isolating you.
24:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, being in a cult is like being an addiction.
24:08
Speaker 1: Like once you're in, it's just like you know, it
24:10
Speaker 1: just takes what it takes to get out, Like it's
24:14
Speaker 1: it's like there's a psychological hold. So it's yeah, it is.
24:18
Speaker 1: It's better to learn from others' mistakes in that situation
24:21
Speaker 1: because cult life can be so damaging in ways that
24:26
Speaker 1: you don't know how long it'll take to just even
24:28
Speaker 1: move through some of that. This dude, Jim Jones was
24:31
Speaker 1: like he was like raping and maybe some were consensual,
24:35
Speaker 1: but fucking and raping followers left and right, men, women, boys, girls,
24:40
Speaker 1: so the children, that's rape, you know.
24:42
Speaker 2: And then he would say he was doing it for
24:43
Speaker 2: the cause. Oh yeah, like he had to do he
24:46
Speaker 2: didn't deserve it.
24:47
Speaker 1: He said, I don't even want to do this. I
24:49
Speaker 1: have to do this, Like what is this? What? Who?
24:54
Speaker 1: Who is this? Dude? Like have people like it's crazy,
24:58
Speaker 1: these anomalies, the anomalies people who like have the you know,
25:02
Speaker 1: have the capability of doing this stuff and then you know,
25:06
Speaker 1: figure out a means to do so. And it's like
25:09
Speaker 1: those people are so dangerous. So he studied them. That's
25:12
Speaker 1: the thing is they study each other. Also, he read
25:15
Speaker 1: Hitler's shit.
25:16
Speaker 2: Right, and the government was studying this at the time too,
25:19
Speaker 2: Like this was all the rage at the time. Was
25:23
Speaker 2: for some reason, the sixties were all about trying to
25:26
Speaker 2: control people's minds. It's a very weird time. Like what
25:29
Speaker 2: they teach you in school is that it was all
25:31
Speaker 2: about peace and love, but not really, Like the sixties
25:36
Speaker 2: into part of the seventies are just a time when
25:39
Speaker 2: the American government was fucking running amuck over our rights
25:46
Speaker 2: and doing really horrific shit to its citizens. Like we
25:50
Speaker 2: look back on the the Woodstock stuff and the civil
25:54
Speaker 2: rights movement, but I feel like that stuff all pales
25:57
Speaker 2: in comparison to how goddamn evil our government was after
26:01
Speaker 2: World War Two. We adopt. That's one of the episodes
26:05
Speaker 2: in this series of podcasts is about Operation paper Clip,
26:09
Speaker 2: where we basically adopted a bunch of Nazis after World
26:12
Speaker 2: War Two.
26:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:14
Speaker 2: One of the theories that's brought up in the jon
26:19
Speaker 2: was jonestown of CIA Medical Experiment book, is that at
26:22
Speaker 2: some point during World War Two, the Nazis basically convinced
26:27
Speaker 2: the United States that communism was the real enemy and
26:30
Speaker 2: that they should figure out a way to end this
26:33
Speaker 2: military war. And then team up to fight communism. And
26:37
Speaker 2: we definitely brought a bunch of Nazis into the fold
26:42
Speaker 2: after World War two, and we did completely focus on
26:46
Speaker 2: fighting communism after that, even though we were fighting side
26:50
Speaker 2: by side with Communism against the Nazis. So I don't know.
26:54
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing is, It's just like who's pulling
26:57
Speaker 1: the puppet strings? And is this drama just you know, manufactured?
27:01
Speaker 1: Wait when I say drama, that includes like sort of
27:04
Speaker 1: the pain and suffering of humans.
27:06
Speaker 2: So yeah, we.
27:07
Speaker 1: Saw manufactured for the sake of power control for a
27:11
Speaker 1: few people.
27:12
Speaker 2: Yeah. What's interesting to me is we talk so much
27:15
Speaker 2: about all these crazy medical experiments the Nazis did, yeah
27:20
Speaker 2: when they were in power. But then as soon as
27:23
Speaker 2: World War Two ends, we start doing that shit. Yeah,
27:26
Speaker 2: like we start doing it left and right. That's a
27:28
Speaker 2: little suspicious to me. It feels like everything started with
27:33
Speaker 2: like Roswell. I feel like there was a Nazi in
27:36
Speaker 2: the Roswell ship and we were like, oh shit, the
27:38
Speaker 2: Nazis fucked. The Aliens are on their side, we have
27:41
Speaker 2: no choice. Who knows?
27:43
Speaker 1: Well? Notice, yeah, like it is it is the same era, right,
27:46
Speaker 1: what is the fifties?
27:47
Speaker 2: Uh, Roswell I think was the forties, also.
27:49
Speaker 1: Forties, forties, fifties, and around that time is when I
27:54
Speaker 1: think a lot of sources say contact with with aliens
27:58
Speaker 1: were happening between the are between governments and aliens. Yeah,
28:03
Speaker 1: so that's another interesting cool and.
28:06
Speaker 2: That all happens around the time we drop the first
28:10
Speaker 2: nuclear weapon in the history of warfare, which that's another
28:13
Speaker 2: theory that aliens somewhere were like, well shit, what did
28:16
Speaker 2: they just do? And that's why we started seeing aliens
28:20
Speaker 2: after that.
28:21
Speaker 1: Like, these idiots are going to kill themselves.
28:23
Speaker 2: Did they really do that? Oh my god. July seventh,
28:26
Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven is when the Roswell crash happened.
28:30
Speaker 1: We're like in their hamster cage and eating each other
28:33
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, no, stop it.
28:37
Speaker 2: So yeah, even by the point of moving to San Francisco,
28:40
Speaker 2: he's got this group completely under his control, and he's
28:43
Speaker 2: doing it with all of the hottest and latest mind
28:46
Speaker 2: control techniques.
28:47
Speaker 1: Of the day, all the classics as well.
28:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, all your grandfather's favorites. He also does it with
28:56
Speaker 2: public beatings during meetings. If someone is accused of doing
29:00
Speaker 2: something that Jim Jones didn't like, he would bring them
29:03
Speaker 2: up and have someone beat them in front of the
29:06
Speaker 2: entire crowd. And they have audio of these beatings in
29:09
Speaker 2: this documentary and they sound pretty harsh, and he is
29:14
Speaker 2: just a chucklin through the whole thing. His laugh. Once
29:19
Speaker 2: I heard that laugh, I would be like, I'm not
29:21
Speaker 2: spending an extended around amount of time around this guy.
29:24
Speaker 2: What if he laughs a bunch.
29:27
Speaker 1: It was creepy. It was very very creepy, And I mean, like,
29:31
Speaker 1: that's not a stable person who's you know, getting a
29:35
Speaker 1: kick and a thrill out of human suffering. You know,
29:38
Speaker 1: like that's that's a psychopath. And then also you know, you're, you're,
29:42
Speaker 1: you're he's using it as a tool. Public beatings are
29:45
Speaker 1: going to only discourage and scare others from doing the same.
29:49
Speaker 1: This guy is a monster, and if.
29:51
Speaker 2: You can believe it, around this time, he starts getting
29:54
Speaker 2: a lot of defectors for some reason. You thinks you
30:00
Speaker 2: gotta realize that's why you don't start your cult in
30:04
Speaker 2: a major city.
30:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, some people's like, some people's boundaries are a little lose,
30:07
Speaker 4: But eventually you'll get to a person's boundary and then
30:11
Speaker 4: it'll be like, I mean, that's what happens to sort
30:13
Speaker 4: of everyone when they realize, oh, this is too much.
30:16
Speaker 1: I gotta you know, so I can see how something
30:19
Speaker 1: like that would wake folks up a little a little bit,
30:23
Speaker 1: a little bit.
30:24
Speaker 2: So at this point he's getting all of these defectors.
30:28
Speaker 2: And the thing about setting up your cult in a
30:31
Speaker 2: major city is to escape, you just kind of got
30:33
Speaker 2: to get outside. You don't have to do much else.
30:36
Speaker 2: Once you get outside, you can just run to a
30:38
Speaker 2: cafe and be like, hey, call the police, big, big,
30:41
Speaker 2: big trouble happen in that building behind us. Jim Jones
30:44
Speaker 2: hated that. He hated that people were escaping and going
30:47
Speaker 2: out and telling the media what was happening. So he
30:50
Speaker 2: decides to.
30:51
Speaker 1: Move but where.
30:53
Speaker 2: But first he starts taking people in the San Francisco
30:57
Speaker 2: group through suicide practice. As early as nineteen seventy three,
31:02
Speaker 2: he starts floating the idea of staging a mass suicide
31:06
Speaker 2: to protest capitalism and just generally spread the group's message,
31:11
Speaker 2: which capitalism doesn't fucking care. It's not like capitalism Like imagine,
31:18
Speaker 2: if capitalism was a living, breathing thing, it would be
31:21
Speaker 2: a hideous, goddamn monster that would hear about these nine
31:25
Speaker 2: hundred suicides and be like, I don't give a fuck.
31:28
Speaker 2: How much money did we make off of that?
31:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if it's profitable, then you don't need to jump,
31:33
Speaker 1: because we'll push you exactly. So, like some of the
31:36
Speaker 1: ideas he was floating around were like jumping off the
31:39
Speaker 1: Golden gate Bridge, getting on a plane and shoot the
31:41
Speaker 1: pilot in the head, which is very disturbing, like Jesus Christ,
31:44
Speaker 1: and like just all options were on the table for
31:47
Speaker 1: this dude.
31:47
Speaker 2: That Golden gate Bridge thing would have been kind of
31:49
Speaker 2: cool to see, YEA, if nine hundred people jumped off
31:53
Speaker 2: the Golden gate Bridge at once, I.
31:56
Speaker 1: Mean, it'd be nice to know. But like, you know,
31:58
Speaker 1: they were jumping into like a swimming pool or something
32:00
Speaker 1: not like something that would like if it was if
32:02
Speaker 1: there was a Golden gate Bridge but it wasn't that high, yeah,
32:07
Speaker 1: or I don't know, it would be a very interesting visual,
32:10
Speaker 1: for sure, a stunning visual.
32:13
Speaker 2: He also starts running mock poisoning drills around this time,
32:17
Speaker 2: where he the first one. He rounds up all the
32:20
Speaker 2: followers and tells them to meet up in this one
32:24
Speaker 2: location at the camp and tells them all to drink
32:28
Speaker 2: this kool aid, and they do it without question because
32:30
Speaker 2: he's Jim Jones and he's like, ah, suckers, you've all
32:33
Speaker 2: been poisoned. And they're like, oh really, and he goes, nah,
32:36
Speaker 2: just joking.
32:37
Speaker 1: That's fucked up.
32:38
Speaker 2: That is insanely fucked up. Stuff like that always reminds
32:42
Speaker 2: me of this girl I went to high school with
32:44
Speaker 2: who for one hour, believed she had full blown AIDS.
32:48
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
32:49
Speaker 2: She got a blood just a routine blood test, and
32:52
Speaker 2: the doctor called and was like, I'm sorry, you have
32:54
Speaker 2: fucking AIDS. You're kidding AIDS AIDS, and then called her
32:58
Speaker 2: an hour later and we're like, whoops, we read the
33:02
Speaker 2: test results wrong. Oh my god, yeah.
33:06
Speaker 1: Oh my god. She was like a kid.
33:08
Speaker 2: She I think was twelve at the time.
33:11
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
33:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god. It's pretty brutal.
33:16
Speaker 1: Like they're lucky that they didn't get sued.
33:18
Speaker 2: Jim Jones could have just done that, Like that would
33:21
Speaker 2: have traumatize people too.
33:23
Speaker 1: So like, after all this talking about the mass suicide,
33:26
Speaker 1: there are people who are still on board. They are
33:28
Speaker 1: still you know, in the on the team.
33:32
Speaker 2: Most people are still on board, Yeah, which is crazy.
33:36
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's a tell tale like sign of just
33:39
Speaker 1: how devastatingly powerful cults can be to this to the psyche,
33:47
Speaker 1: you know, like how it affects the psyche, because that's
33:49
Speaker 1: that's crazy. It is crazy. It's crazy. People are down
33:52
Speaker 1: to do crazy shit that like, you know, maybe if
33:55
Speaker 1: they were in therapy, they'd be able to recognize that
33:59
Speaker 1: that that's not really benefiting them.
34:03
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Jim Jones takes steps to make sure they can't
34:07
Speaker 2: do that. Yes, because at this point people are so
34:13
Speaker 2: far in He's running mock poisoning drills and telling people
34:17
Speaker 2: eventually they're going to have to kill themselves, and they're
34:19
Speaker 2: still there, so he can make people do whatever he
34:22
Speaker 2: wants basically, So his idea to stop that defector problem
34:27
Speaker 2: is to just move everyone to Guyana, which is apparently
34:32
Speaker 2: an English speaking nation in South America. So of course,
34:37
Speaker 2: once he gets everyone there, he's going to take their
34:39
Speaker 2: passports and they won't be able to leave basically, and
34:43
Speaker 2: he moves everyone there. He calls this place Jonestown after himself,
34:49
Speaker 2: and at first people mostly seem happy. They're growing crops,
34:52
Speaker 2: they're raising animals, they're living off the land, and Jim
34:56
Speaker 2: Jones is filming propaganda videos to send to people who
35:00
Speaker 2: have stayed behind in San Francisco, and this despite the
35:04
Speaker 2: fact that what was really happening was they were not
35:08
Speaker 2: able to grow enough food to feed all the people
35:10
Speaker 2: who were there. They it's at one point they say
35:14
Speaker 2: they were surviving on rice with powdered milk, and then
35:18
Speaker 2: it had weavils in it. I don't even know what
35:21
Speaker 2: a weavil is.
35:22
Speaker 1: I think it's alive, like visually, like you can see it.
35:25
Speaker 1: It's a living creature that you can see with your
35:27
Speaker 1: bare eyes.
35:27
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I know it's a bug of some sort.
35:30
Speaker 2: Ew definitely don't want it my rice.
35:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's not my cup of tea.
35:35
Speaker 2: And in nineteen seventy seven, because by this point, well,
35:40
Speaker 2: by this point, Jim Jones is a pretty well known
35:43
Speaker 2: figure because he's like that's that's inevitable. He's very active
35:48
Speaker 2: in the San Francisco counterculture scene. He's got this massive
35:52
Speaker 2: amount of followers who follow him everywhere he goes. So
35:55
Speaker 2: people are interested. And in nineteen seventy seven, a magazine
35:59
Speaker 2: called New West runs this expose on Jim Jones and
36:03
Speaker 2: they talk about his drug use and all of the
36:08
Speaker 2: scandalous shit he's getting up to at his compounds and
36:12
Speaker 2: at that point he's like, everyone has to go to Guyana,
36:15
Speaker 2: everyone in San Francisco, you have to leave right now,
36:18
Speaker 2: and they fucking do it. They all get up at once,
36:21
Speaker 2: and he said they say in the documentary that he
36:24
Speaker 2: had them kind of stagger their flights a little bit,
36:27
Speaker 2: so it didn't seem too obvious, but pretty much everyone
36:30
Speaker 2: high tails it out of the country once that magazine
36:33
Speaker 2: article comes out, which bad sign.
36:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I mean, it's like again a cult leader
36:38
Speaker 1: trying to say that, like the truth is fake news, right,
36:42
Speaker 1: and these leaders like you know, as rough around the
36:46
Speaker 1: edges as some of them may be, you know, they
36:48
Speaker 1: sociopaths are known to be a very charming, charismatic and
36:54
Speaker 1: know how to play people, know how to work people.
36:57
Speaker 1: So it's not uncommon that, I mean, it's not uncommon
37:00
Speaker 1: to see those dangerous people rubbing elbows with leaders or
37:05
Speaker 1: being the leaders, like in mainstream, in the mainstream until like,
37:09
Speaker 1: you know, their dirty laundry is aired like it was
37:11
Speaker 1: here in nineteen seventy seven in New West magazine.
37:14
Speaker 2: So during this time, once he gets everyone to move,
37:17
Speaker 2: he starts getting more and more paranoid, and he takes
37:22
Speaker 2: everyone's there's no telephones, there's no televisions, there's no radios,
37:27
Speaker 2: there's no reading materials, no contact with family. The only
37:32
Speaker 2: entertainment in Jonestown is literally when Jim Jones would hop
37:36
Speaker 2: on a loud speaker and just pre chet people out
37:40
Speaker 2: of the blue.
37:41
Speaker 1: Oh also when he raped people.
37:44
Speaker 2: Well there was that too. There was lots of rapes
37:47
Speaker 2: and public beatings, public beatings. Those were probably fun to watch.
37:51
Speaker 2: The public beatings.
37:52
Speaker 1: I mean a couple other quote unquote entertainment options.
37:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was rough. Meanwhile, of course he's living in
37:59
Speaker 2: an air condition cabin and he has all the food
38:01
Speaker 2: he needs. He's got a harem of women, got a
38:04
Speaker 2: mini fridge. Pepsi was a really big deal in Jonestown.
38:08
Speaker 2: They keep bringing up Pepsi and they talk about how
38:10
Speaker 2: he had all the cold pepsi he wanted.
38:13
Speaker 1: Pepsi brought to you by Pepsi, the.
38:16
Speaker 2: Pepsi sponsored Jonestown.
38:19
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the man had air conditioned.
38:24
Speaker 2: He had air conditioning in Guyana. It's crazy. And the
38:29
Speaker 2: suicide drills, there was a big uptick in those during
38:33
Speaker 2: this time. They actually have some audio of them in
38:36
Speaker 2: the documentary. And he would just jump on that loud speaker,
38:40
Speaker 2: and he would say attention, attention. This is a quote
38:44
Speaker 2: from the documentary. They'd wake us up in the middle
38:46
Speaker 2: of the night. They'd take us to the pavilion. They'd
38:49
Speaker 2: give us cups of kool aid and tell us we
38:50
Speaker 2: were about to die. He called it revolutionary suicide, and
38:55
Speaker 2: I don't think that's a thing, but he did say
38:57
Speaker 2: God wouldn't mind, because you're doing it for.
38:59
Speaker 1: A He coined the term revolutionary suicide. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
39:04
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't a hard sell. He already you know,
39:07
Speaker 1: they were already in.
39:08
Speaker 2: It, so oh yeah, for sure.
39:10
Speaker 1: I mean he could literally say whatever he wants. Like
39:12
Speaker 1: I knew as sociopath who was telling people that he
39:15
Speaker 1: pulled a string and a piano fill from the sky
39:17
Speaker 1: and was like, literally like these are what are the
39:20
Speaker 1: snake oil sales? People like they're The psychological impact they
39:24
Speaker 1: have on their victims is just I can't express, you know,
39:28
Speaker 1: how damaging and how deep it is.
39:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's all these recordings of people basically vowing
39:37
Speaker 2: to commit mass suicide at some point, and this is
39:40
Speaker 2: months at least weeks before this thing actually happens. And
39:45
Speaker 2: you hear audio of all these meetings where they're just
39:47
Speaker 2: very calmly debating this idea of well, should we all
39:52
Speaker 2: kill ourselves? And most of the people who talk are like, yeah,
39:55
Speaker 2: I've thought about it and I've decided this is the
39:57
Speaker 2: right thing to do. And it's just so creepy be
40:00
Speaker 2: how casual it all is, Yeah, the way they're talking
40:03
Speaker 2: about it, at least until the night it happens. Then
40:07
Speaker 2: the conversations get a little more heated, but even then
40:10
Speaker 2: they're like just sitting around debating, like should we do this?
40:13
Speaker 2: The right thing you do?
40:14
Speaker 1: And then at this point the group is so far
40:16
Speaker 1: removed from the outside world they have no frame of reference.
40:19
Speaker 1: They just know what Jim tells them, they see what
40:21
Speaker 1: Jim shows them because they don't have TV, radio, all
40:24
Speaker 1: that stuff. Cut contact with their families.
40:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no contact with the outside world. But word
40:32
Speaker 2: of how bad things are inside Jonestown is getting out
40:35
Speaker 2: to the outside world, and it specifically reaches a guy
40:39
Speaker 2: named Leo Ryan, who was a United States congressman. He
40:43
Speaker 2: had not too long before this looked into a scandal
40:48
Speaker 2: at Fullsome prison, and he was really famous for actually
40:52
Speaker 2: going to Fullsome prison. And I believe he stayed for
40:57
Speaker 2: like two weeks as an inmate, or maybe just week,
41:00
Speaker 2: but if I'm not mistaken, he stayed as an inmate
41:03
Speaker 2: to get an idea of what being an inmate at
41:06
Speaker 2: fulsome prison was.
41:07
Speaker 1: Like, that's off to him, Yeah, he was. People just
41:10
Speaker 1: talk about it. Leo Ryan bees.
41:12
Speaker 2: About it for a while. He did because the next
41:17
Speaker 2: place he decided, Yeah, the next place he decided to
41:21
Speaker 2: take his investigative journalism was Jonestown. He rounds up this delegation.
41:27
Speaker 2: It's one staff member, there's a few journalists, some concerned
41:31
Speaker 2: family members. They all fly down to Jonestown and they're
41:34
Speaker 2: interviewing people's temple members at first, and everyone at first
41:40
Speaker 2: swears they've never been happier. They show the food and
41:44
Speaker 2: the spread just looks wonderful. Granted it looks like KFC.
41:48
Speaker 2: But if I was in the middle of Guyana and
41:50
Speaker 2: someone was like, you want some KFC, I'd be like,
41:52
Speaker 2: where did you get that? Yes?
41:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean would love some. It's a stark contrast
41:57
Speaker 1: to the rice with the powder.
41:59
Speaker 2: And the weavil weavil fried rice.
42:03
Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, they were trying to put on
42:05
Speaker 1: a show here.
42:06
Speaker 2: And they do. They put on a whole talent show.
42:09
Speaker 2: Food's good, everyone's happy, and le o' ryan gets up
42:13
Speaker 2: in front of the crowd and is like, yeah, it
42:16
Speaker 2: seems like people are genuinely happy here, and the whole
42:20
Speaker 2: crowd gets up in cheers, and it seems like for
42:24
Speaker 2: a second there that they've pulled it off, that this
42:27
Speaker 2: congressman has showed up and they put on a good
42:30
Speaker 2: enough show that he's going to go back to the
42:33
Speaker 2: United States and be like everything's fine, don't worry about it.
42:37
Speaker 2: But then they try to leave, and as soon as
42:41
Speaker 2: they're getting ready to depart, this journalist reveals that the
42:46
Speaker 2: entire time he's been there, people have been handing him notes,
42:50
Speaker 2: or at least a couple families handed him notes, and
42:52
Speaker 2: we're like, we actually want to get out of here,
42:54
Speaker 2: like we're being held against our will. This is a nightmare.
42:57
Speaker 2: Please help, And that kicks off this whole firestorm of
43:03
Speaker 2: people's temple followers just walking up to this delegation and
43:07
Speaker 2: being like, yeah, me too, I want to please get
43:10
Speaker 2: me out of here. And this is all happening with
43:13
Speaker 2: Jim Jones right there, and it's all happening on camera,
43:17
Speaker 2: and I cannot imagine how unspeakably tense. That situation had
43:23
Speaker 2: to be because they're almost out. All of these people
43:26
Speaker 2: that so desperately want to leave are almost out, and
43:30
Speaker 2: then someone attacks Leo Ryan with a knife, which at
43:34
Speaker 2: that point you assume you're probably gonna die, ye, But
43:38
Speaker 2: they managed to fight this knife attacker off and get out.
43:43
Speaker 2: They get these families out, and they get to the
43:46
Speaker 2: airstrip where the plane is and they realize they have
43:49
Speaker 2: too many people now and they need a second plane.
43:52
Speaker 1: It takes forever for the second plane to come. People
43:55
Speaker 1: are nervous.
43:56
Speaker 2: I don't know why just some of the people didn't
43:58
Speaker 2: go at first, like even just the followers, like let
44:02
Speaker 2: them go in that first plane.
44:04
Speaker 1: Well, I guess they weren't suspecting what was coming next.
44:07
Speaker 1: I mean how could they. I mean, as the planes
44:09
Speaker 1: were loading, the People's the People's temper members jumped out
44:13
Speaker 1: and started firing at the crowd with assault rifles. So
44:15
Speaker 1: there were again, you know, like I think there was
44:18
Speaker 1: enough time for Jones's people who are still with him
44:21
Speaker 1: to organize and infiltrate the defectors.
44:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, what happened is they show up with the intention
44:29
Speaker 2: of taking these defectors with them and there's only one plane,
44:32
Speaker 2: so they call the US embassy and they're like, we
44:34
Speaker 2: need a second plane to get us out of here.
44:37
Speaker 2: And while they're waiting for that second plane, this truck
44:40
Speaker 2: full of people's temple members show up and they're like, uh,
44:43
Speaker 2: this looks bad. This is probably gonna be bad. And
44:46
Speaker 2: sure enough, this is also all caught on video. They
44:48
Speaker 2: hop out of that truck and just start shooting with
44:51
Speaker 2: automatic weapons. And Jackie Spier, who I believe is still
44:56
Speaker 2: in Congress now, but she was an aid to Leo
45:00
Speaker 2: Ryan at the time. She gets shot six times and
45:04
Speaker 2: she lives, but three journalist, one defector, and Congressman Leo
45:09
Speaker 2: Ryan are all killed.
45:11
Speaker 1: It's like they almost left. That's just he gets so close,
45:15
Speaker 1: and then.
45:15
Speaker 2: The second plane had landed by the time that happened
45:18
Speaker 2: so close. That's like, it's movie shit. It's the kind
45:22
Speaker 2: of thing you would see in a movie because they
45:24
Speaker 2: were they were literally loading them onto the plane when
45:28
Speaker 2: that shooting started, which that's the worst wow. And so
45:32
Speaker 2: then in the documentary you hear another recording of Jim
45:36
Speaker 2: Jones where he says, the congressman is dead. The congressman
45:40
Speaker 2: is dead. Do you think they're gonna let us get
45:42
Speaker 2: away with this. If we can't live in peace, at
45:45
Speaker 2: least let us die in peace. So he knows he's fucked.
45:49
Speaker 2: They've just killed a US congressman.
45:51
Speaker 1: Obviously, Luckily he's been planning for a moment like this
45:55
Speaker 1: for years.
45:56
Speaker 2: I did put luckily in Yes. So he runs another
46:01
Speaker 2: White Night drill, which that's what he has taken to
46:04
Speaker 2: calling this revolutionary suicide is the White Night, which I
46:09
Speaker 2: don't know if I was in the group. And it's
46:11
Speaker 2: all been about racial justice up to this point, and
46:14
Speaker 2: then you get to the big finish and it's like,
46:16
Speaker 2: we're gonna call it the White Night.
46:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like the KKKA send out the White Nights.
46:22
Speaker 2: It's like, have we been tricked? Yes, you have. Unfortunately,
46:25
Speaker 2: so he runs another White Night drill, except this time
46:29
Speaker 2: the poison is reel and the guards surrounding the pavilion,
46:33
Speaker 2: because when he would run these drills before, he'd have
46:35
Speaker 2: guards surround the pavilion, but he would say those guards
46:38
Speaker 2: are to keep people from getting in, but nope, turns
46:41
Speaker 2: out they're there to keep people from getting out because
46:44
Speaker 2: there are several people who try to flee as this
46:47
Speaker 2: is happening, and they're just shot or shot with a crossbow,
46:52
Speaker 2: which is gnarly.
46:53
Speaker 1: As funny awful damage.
46:56
Speaker 2: And there are some people who managed to get out.
46:59
Speaker 2: There's a couple of guys. There's a lawyer named Mark
47:03
Speaker 2: Lane and then another lawyer I don't remember his name,
47:06
Speaker 2: but these two lawyers really really hated each other. But
47:09
Speaker 2: they escape together and hid in the woods or in
47:13
Speaker 2: the jungle throughout the night, and then that's how they
47:16
Speaker 2: got away. There's a really limited number of people who
47:20
Speaker 2: were able to escape. There's audio of again people standing
47:24
Speaker 2: up to object to say, Hey, I kind of think
47:27
Speaker 2: we should have our own free will and maybe we
47:29
Speaker 2: should get to decide what happens. And you would expect
47:33
Speaker 2: Jim Jones would be the one to admonish this woman
47:36
Speaker 2: for this radical belief, but he doesn't have to. The
47:39
Speaker 2: entire crowd is like, shut up, lady, what are you
47:42
Speaker 2: talking about having individual beliefs and free will? Crazy? We
47:48
Speaker 2: don't have free will. We're about to kill ourselves and
47:51
Speaker 2: so one way or another, everyone in that room is
47:55
Speaker 2: gonna die. And the recordings of this, the audio is
48:00
Speaker 2: just horrifying because you're hearing kids screaming, and he's basically
48:05
Speaker 2: encouraging moms to not comfort their kids as they watch
48:09
Speaker 2: their kids die. They killed the kids first, They had
48:11
Speaker 2: the parents kill their children first. So right off the bat,
48:15
Speaker 2: a good portion of them clearly not suicides. I don't
48:18
Speaker 2: know if a kid.
48:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, if a parent is encouraging or if an adult
48:22
Speaker 1: is encouraging a child to kill themselves, that's murderer.
48:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. There's a survivor in the documentary who talks
48:30
Speaker 2: about looking over and seeing his wife holding their baby
48:36
Speaker 2: and injecting poison into the baby's mouth, or holding the
48:41
Speaker 2: baby so someone can inject poison into the baby's mouth. Yeah,
48:45
Speaker 2: and he survived by playing dead basically, but his wife
48:50
Speaker 2: died too. And yeah, lots of people died from drinking
48:54
Speaker 2: cyanide lace kool aid. But I feel like it's hard
48:57
Speaker 2: to make an argument that any of those people were
48:59
Speaker 2: actual suicides. It just was kind of a long con
49:04
Speaker 2: where they fell in with this cult leader and he
49:07
Speaker 2: got to them in such a way that they fucking
49:11
Speaker 2: killed themselves.
49:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very unlikely anyone joined his cult initially with
49:15
Speaker 1: the intent that they would be killing themselves at the
49:18
Speaker 1: end of it, or that would be something that they'd
49:20
Speaker 1: want to do. That's something they were misled, right.
49:23
Speaker 2: And what's especially said about the body count is after
49:28
Speaker 2: it first happened, they were like, oh, it looks like
49:30
Speaker 2: about four or five hundred people. And what they realized
49:33
Speaker 2: is a lot of adults fell on top of kids
49:36
Speaker 2: that it had also died. So they start pulling the
49:39
Speaker 2: adults out of there and they're like, oh no, there's
49:41
Speaker 2: also hundreds and hundreds of kids who died. It's pretty
49:44
Speaker 2: a horrific event, and history has written it off as
49:49
Speaker 2: this was a bunch of cult members who committed suicide.
49:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how I remember it was. It was explained
49:55
Speaker 1: to me, at least in the nineties.
49:57
Speaker 2: That's the way I've always heard it too, and it's
49:59
Speaker 2: definitely not that, but that's generally the accepted version of events.
50:04
Speaker 2: That's how history has painted this as just a simple
50:07
Speaker 2: cult that took things to the most extreme and possible.
50:13
Speaker 2: And then there's a really sad part in the documentary
50:16
Speaker 2: about how a lot of the families couldn't afford to
50:19
Speaker 2: bring the bodies back, and then when they did get
50:22
Speaker 2: the bodies back, a lot of cemeteries wouldn't take them
50:25
Speaker 2: because they considered these people to be cult members and
50:29
Speaker 2: they didn't want that stink on their cemetery.
50:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's sad. So it's super tragic. Yeah, it's not
50:36
Speaker 1: just a bunch of people drinking kool aid out of
50:39
Speaker 1: their own volition saying yeah, I'm going to die. It
50:41
Speaker 1: was there. I mean, it was completely tragic and awful.
50:45
Speaker 1: And if people who were trying to leave would be
50:47
Speaker 1: shot with crossbows and kids were being murdered by their
50:51
Speaker 1: own parents, I mean, that's that's not the story that
50:56
Speaker 1: was presented to me.
50:58
Speaker 2: And after all that, it turns out the CIA might
51:01
Speaker 2: have been involved too, and that's what we're going to
51:04
Speaker 2: be talking about for It's probably gonna take a month,
51:07
Speaker 2: I think. I don't know, it's going to take a
51:09
Speaker 2: few episodes to get through this theory that Jonestown was
51:14
Speaker 2: actually a CIA medical experiment.
51:16
Speaker 1: Which is like, yeah, of course they wouldn't want to
51:19
Speaker 1: publicize that because when all of a sudden done nine
51:21
Speaker 1: hundred and eighteen people died, right.
51:24
Speaker 2: Bad look for the CIA, especially fresh off the Church
51:28
Speaker 2: Committee hearings. See, we should probably even do an episode
51:32
Speaker 2: about that as part of all this. But I think
51:34
Speaker 2: next week's episode is going to be about Operation paper Clip,
51:37
Speaker 2: which is the effort to integrate Nazi government officials and
51:43
Speaker 2: scientists into the American government. It's not a conspiracy theory.
51:48
Speaker 2: It's just a thing that happened. We have declassified all
51:51
Speaker 2: the documents about it until then. A thank you for
51:55
Speaker 2: doing this episode. Do you have anything to plug before
51:58
Speaker 2: we get out of here?
51:58
Speaker 1: Yeah? I do, Thanks for me. I have a weekly
52:01
Speaker 1: podcast called Facial Recognition Comedy where I shoot the shit
52:05
Speaker 1: with other people who look like me and some people
52:07
Speaker 1: who don't. New episode every Tuesday. I'm hosting a late
52:11
Speaker 1: night show this month, one day only on February nineteenth.
52:15
Speaker 1: It's live streaming seven pm p s T, ten pm
52:18
Speaker 1: E s T. And also have a Facial Recognition Comedy
52:22
Speaker 1: stand up show the week after February twenty six, seven
52:26
Speaker 1: pm p s T as well, which will be live
52:28
Speaker 1: streaming online. And if anyone wants to hit me up,
52:31
Speaker 1: contact me stay in touch. I'm at Phisit Dosani on
52:34
Speaker 1: all platforms f I Z A A D O S
52:38
Speaker 1: A N I.
52:39
Speaker 2: I am also at Phiza Desani on all platforms. No.
52:44
Speaker 2: You can follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Adam
52:47
Speaker 2: Todd Brown. That's Todd with one D. You jerks, uh Patreon,
52:52
Speaker 2: dot com, slash on pops or on Popsnetwork, dot Supercast,
52:55
Speaker 2: dot tech you can get bonus episodes and things of
52:57
Speaker 2: the like. And I think that's it. Get the funk
53:00
Speaker 2: out of here, Fizzle say.
53:01
Speaker 1: Goodbye, goodbye GPS.
53:05
Speaker 2: Goodbye everybody. Jones Time