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Short Stuff: Did a vampire legend help win the Cold War? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here for Dave. So this is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: short Stuff gidea.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: That's right, and this week we are talking about more
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: nefarious business by the American CIA. Yeah, during the Cold
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: War in this case. But first we should probably tell
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: you just a short bit about the Philippines.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, there's seven thousand islands in the Philippines, more
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: than I did not know that, but that's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of io lots. Yeah, there's one hundred and seventy five
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  Speaker 1: different languages. Tagalog is one of the larger language families
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: or groups are just languages, and because there's seven thousand islands,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different languages. There's a lot of
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: cultural different cultural beliefs, but some of the ones are
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: spread pretty far and wide to cross the Philippines, which
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: would suggest they're very, very old like folk beliefs. And
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: one of them that we're going to talk about today
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: is the Oswan.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: That's right. We don't have an exact correlation here in
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: the United States, but you might call it like a
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  Speaker 2: vampire potentially because it does suck blood, but it also
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: feeds on organs. And it feeds on phlim, which is completely.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Disgusting, one of the worst things I've ever heard.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, feeds on flim, unborn children, pregnant women. It can
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: be a giant pig, it can be a giant vulture.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: It can be like a dog shaped thing, and sort
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: of like, I can't what was the one we did
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: this past October about the Mexican folklore the album Yeah,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: similar to that. I can't remember the name of that one.
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  Speaker 2: But it's one of those deals where like any mysterious
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  Speaker 2: death or unexplained illness, or any kind of misfortune that
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: might happen, you might blame blame on the Oswog.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Right, and you mentioned a dog. I saw somewhere that
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the name comes from OsO Wong, which means a dog
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I think can take.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Oh all right, So.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: People are like, okay, great, what's up with the name though?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: The CIA vampires thing? What are you talking about you guys, Well,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: this is what we're talking about. In the Cold War
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: in the fifties, there was a guy whose name was
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Edward Geary Lansdale, and he worked for the CIA, and
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  Speaker 1: he used the tale of the Oswong to try to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: manipulate people into turning against a gorilla army.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: There, that's right. And you know, if you're afraid of
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: something like this, it's probably because it's truly horrific. Aside
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: from feeding on phlegm, this thing in humanoid form would
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: look on rooftops at night. Yeah, and had a long
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: tongue sort of like a proboscis that it could lower
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: through what's called a lick hole in the ceiling of
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: your home. Do you have horrible, horrible words put together,
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  Speaker 2: feeding on flem and lick hole And like we said,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: pregnant women, children, it would suck out their insides with
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: this tongue and essentially leave something you know, devoid of
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: organs and you know, disemboweled and devoid of blood. It
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: would suck, suck them from the outside end or inside
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: out rather right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And again like we don't have a good analogy
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  Speaker 1: to this in the West. The best we can do
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  Speaker 1: is like Dracula essentially. But that's that's really eating sucking
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: or eating blood or consuming blood. Is that's where the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: similarities end. That's right.
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  Speaker 2: So Ed Lansdale comes along. He was pre war World
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  Speaker 2: War two, he was an ad guy, and so once
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  Speaker 2: he got in the war, they said, all right, you're
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: pretty sharp tech. We're gonna move you over to the OSS,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: the Office of Strategic Services, which predated the CIA, and
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: they said, since you're an ad guy, you know what
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: you'd be great at is psyops, you know, using media
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  Speaker 2: and marketing and propaganda to help win the war, like
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: demonize the enemy, because that's basically what you do as
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: an advertiser.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, and he was a whiz at it. So he
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  Speaker 1: excelled at psyops himself, and he took a different view
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  Speaker 1: of things. He said, normally that when people think about
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  Speaker 1: psyops conventionally, they're talking about dropping leaflets that try to
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  Speaker 1: demoralize the enemy, maybe using like a Tokyo Rose type
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  Speaker 1: to talk about how GI's girlfriends are hooking up with
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  Speaker 1: other guys back home. Those are psyops and they're really
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  Speaker 1: kind of a low hanging fruit. What Lansdale was doing
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  Speaker 1: was really trying to dig into the local culture to
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  Speaker 1: figure out how to turn that culture's beliefs and superstitions
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  Speaker 1: against it to win the war.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: That's right, That feels like a pretty good time for break. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: all right, we're going to come right back and talk
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  Speaker 2: about what happened in nineteen fifty, right after this, all right,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: so I promised talk of nineteen fifty, that is when
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  Speaker 2: Lansdale came to the Philippines. He was undercover as the
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  Speaker 2: CIA guy. He was officially there as an Air Force officer,
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  Speaker 2: an advisor to the President of the Philippines, who was
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Ramon Magsaysaw.
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  Speaker 1: Mag says, I'm going with magsay say.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Mag says, I don't know why I said. They saw
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  Speaker 2: so he was a sign there in the Philippines because
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  Speaker 2: the US was backing that regime and they were fighting
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: a war against communist rebels there known as the Hooks,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: it was Huks, and they were, you know, they fought.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: The Hooks fought you know, pretty heroically in the Philippine
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  Speaker 2: Army against the Japanese in World War Two. But after
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: the war, they, along with their leader, whose name was
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I guess Louis Taruk, said nuts to this government to
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: borrow Josh Clark term because the Philippine Trade Act of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty six basically said the American government gets equal
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  Speaker 2: rights to the natural resources, and the Hawks weren't down
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  Speaker 2: with that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm not sure if the Hooks were actually
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  Speaker 1: like communists or if they were just labeled as communist
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  Speaker 1: insurgents to help drum up public support against them, right,
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  Speaker 1: because they really were this revered like infantry that really
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: helped get the Japanese out of the Philippines, and the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: US troops even fought alongside of them. But after they
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: broke with this American backed administration, they were pushed on
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  Speaker 1: a non grad they had to be gotten rid of
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  Speaker 1: because they weren't just like protesting, they were carrying out
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: real of war to try to overthrow this US backed regime.
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  Speaker 2: I guess yeah, not only US back, but sort of
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  Speaker 2: US elected, because those supposedly free elections in the Philippines
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  Speaker 2: that brought this party into power, were totally rigged by
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: the CIA and US operatives. So it was all dirty
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: dealing going on in the CIA back then, not like these.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Dings, not like today. By the way, since we're talking
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: about the CIA, have another show recommendation for you. It's
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: called The Agency Colon Central Intelligence. It's a really stupid name,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: but it is a really well done, suspenseful but also
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: really dramatic show. It's Michael Fossbender. Richard Deeer does it
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: like I've never seen him act like he is in
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: this one, Jeffrey Wright. It's just this really great show.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: It's a great cast. Everybody does wonderfully, even the people
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of before. Everybody does great.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Do we should do a little fifteen minute show once
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: a week where we recommend stuff to people.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: That's a great idea. Where'd you get that idea?
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know, let's hear from you. Do people want that?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Let's find out?
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: All right. So some of these cywor tactics, they got
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: busy doing their stuff, like kind of doing research on
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  Speaker 2: the Filipinos and like what would kind of what would
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  Speaker 2: sway them, what would work? They did some studies of
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: the people, like especially the peasants living in the Hook areas.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: One of this sort of I guess sort of low
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  Speaker 2: hanging fruit like you were talking about that they use
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: was they would fly over these areas with you know,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: kind of low flying light aircraft to broadcast curses in Tagalog.
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  Speaker 2: If anyone was like, if you're a villager and you're
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: going to help the Hook soldiers, this curse will befall you.
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  Speaker 2: That sort of worked a little bit. He would also
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  Speaker 2: paint the what's called the Eye of God. It was
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  Speaker 2: just kind of a scary looking thing on houses of
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  Speaker 2: Hook sympathizers, like on their front door, and that would
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  Speaker 2: kind of scare people out, but kind of nothing like
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: what he did with Oswog.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Right, No, this was definitely a different level than those
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  Speaker 1: other ones that you mentioned, because there was a CIA
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  Speaker 1: trained that Lansdale helped oversee group of government Filipino government
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  Speaker 1: military operatives. That's a really clumsy way to put it,
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  Speaker 1: but they were basically set out. They were unleashed on
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  Speaker 1: this village where a bunch of Hook rebels I think
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  Speaker 1: one hundred to three hundred of them were in camp
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  Speaker 1: nearby and they were intimidating the villagers into being quiet,
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  Speaker 1: giving them supplies, that kind of stuff. So the CIA
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: found out about this and they really wanted to get
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  Speaker 1: this Hook detachment out of this area. And this is
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  Speaker 1: when they unleashed this Oswang rumor. They basically had these
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Filipino commandos go into the village and start a rumor
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  Speaker 1: that the Oswog was haunting this area where the Hook
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  Speaker 1: rebel were camped out.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you think, all right, well, that doesn't sound
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  Speaker 2: much different than the other thing. Like they're spreading a
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  Speaker 2: rumor that might scare them into not helping these local
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: soldiers right there in the nearby hills. But they took
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: it one step further and they had these agents go
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: in and oswong them. Basically, they would kidnap hook fighters
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  Speaker 2: and disembowel them and clean them out Oswong vampire style
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  Speaker 2: and leave their bloodless corpses behind.
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  Speaker 1: Well. I saw also one of the things that they
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  Speaker 1: did was put puncture holes in their neck and drain
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  Speaker 1: them of blood. And that is not really oswang at all.
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  Speaker 1: That's Dracula stuff, and that's just shoddy research of a
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  Speaker 1: poor quality if you're really trying to scare off people
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  Speaker 1: based on their superstitions.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there was a guy that wrote a
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: book about this, in addition to Lansdale wrote his own memoir.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: But there's a researcher. I think it's like, same was Clark.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: What's Jordan Clark he talked to? I think he talked
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to Dave Ruse who wrote this for Houstiff Works.
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  Speaker 2: Oh okay, well he basically back to what you're saying
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  Speaker 2: is like, if they would have done their research, they
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  Speaker 2: would have believed that the true local creature they were
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  Speaker 2: scared of was not oswog. It was a self segmenting
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  Speaker 2: kind of oswog, but it kind of strictly fed on
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  Speaker 2: the fetuses of pregnant women and was not a blood sucker. Right,
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  Speaker 2: And he's also not sure that like this thing worked,
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  Speaker 2: but he's not sure if it worked because they thought
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  Speaker 2: it was an oswog or whatever. The local I can't
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: even how do you pronounce that? Mena menon angall. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I think it was the local boogeyman. If it worked
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  Speaker 2: because they thought it was that, or if it was
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: because they were like, holy crap, these they're so twisted.
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  Speaker 2: They're sucking the blood out of and draining blood out
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  Speaker 2: of people to make it seem like so like, either way,
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  Speaker 2: don't mess with these guys. It's awful.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it worked, it didn't win the war. Jordan
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Arc points out, like this worked this one time. I
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: think it was only used one time, and it did
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: dislodge those hook insurgents, but the war was run by
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: grinding them out. They basically fought over the years, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Louis to Rock finally surrendered in nineteen fifty four. I
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: think he secured a pardon for himself and his troops.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, did you see what happened with the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: ostwoan years back. Yeah, and they were just like, that's it.
• 12:33
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• 12:39
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• 12:42
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