Latest / Boozy Banter with Friends / So Far, So Good!

Transcript

So Far, So Good! · Boozy Banter with Friends

• 0:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hello and welcome to boozy banter with friends.
• 0:21
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm Leyla,
• 0:22
  Trisha Smith: I'm Trisha,
• 0:23
  Diane Black: I'm Diane,
• 0:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: Grab your favorite spirit and join us because shits about to get real.
• 0:37
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hello.
• 0:38
  Diane Black: Hello.
• 0:39
  Trisha Smith: Hi.
• 0:40
  Leyla Zmeskal: How is everyone doing today?
• 0:41
  Trisha Smith: I'm good.
• 0:42
  Diane Black: Well.
• 0:43
  Trisha Smith: Well.
• 0:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: Well.
• 0:45
  Diane Black: I'm well.
• 0:47
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm pretty adequate if I do say so myself,
• 0:59
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, it's just hot.
• 1:01
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's a little warm outside. I mean Florida,
• 1:03
  Trisha Smith: Florida Summer in July, hot.
• 1:06
  Diane Black: What's not to love?
• 1:07
  Trisha Smith: I know, the humidity is killing me. I don't like humidity. I feel like I'm being suffocated by Mother Nature.
• 1:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: And love, you love Mother Nature,
• 1:20
  Trisha Smith: Right. I feel like it's payback for the rest of the year where I'm like, I hate nature and then summertime comes around Mother Nature's like, let me show you bitch.
• 1:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: You say you hated me huh?
• 1:31
  Trisha Smith: Here you go.
• 1:32
  Leyla Zmeskal: How do you like this one.
• 1:35
  Diane Black: Good for the skin.
• 1:36
  Leyla Zmeskal: But you know what else is good for the skin? Day drinking!
• 1:39
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, probably not. But, It's good for the sou
• 1:45
  Diane Black: It is!
• 1:45
  Leyla Zmeskal: Good for the soul.
• 1:47
  Leyla Zmeskal: .
• 1:51
  Diane Black: Cheers. Cheers that.
• 1:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah,
• 1:54
  Trisha Smith: So what are you drinking?
• 1:56
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm gonna let you guys go first.
• 1:58
  Trisha Smith: What are you drinking, Diane?
• 2:00
  Diane Black: I am drinking, Ace Pineapple Crafted Cider, mixed with literally just a splash today of our longtime favorite, City Gate Spirits, Coconut Rum.
• 2:11
  Diane Black: So very summery drink.
• 2:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: Summer in a glass again.
• 2:18
  Diane Black: Yeah, it is. very summery. Like luau, summery.
• 2:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: Luau.
• 2:24
  Trisha Smith: Luau.
• 2:26
  Diane Black: Jinks, drink up.
• 2:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: Okay,
• 2:30
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 2:34
  Diane Black: Drink, drink, drink,
• 2:35
  Trisha Smith: Huh,
• 2:36
  Diane Black: Trisha, what you got?
• 2:37
  Trisha Smith: I am drinking. Oh, you know what I'm drinking wine.
• 2:42
  Trisha Smith: But it's a really good light, like summer kind of wine. I a couple months ago I went to Ellijay Georgia and I visited the, Ott Family Vineyards.
• 2:57
  Leyla Zmeskal: I love them.
• 2:59
  Trisha Smith: There. It was just so nice. They have such a nice vineyard to, to visit. They had live music playing and they have you know, you can do tastings and just everybody was so nice.
• 3:11
  Trisha Smith: And I bought a ton of wine and brought it home. And I am drinking their It's called, Affection, and I think it's like their Rosae but it is delicious.
• 3:21
  Trisha Smith: And it's perfect for summer and it just makes me want to go back.
• 3:29
  Diane Black: Yeah. Ellijay is a special town.
• 3:31
  Trisha Smith: It is.
• 3:32
  Diane Black: If you never been, it's a, it's a like a bucket list visit. My, my sister Kara has property up there. Actually it was her aunt. It's like 20 acres on the mountain with a Crick and deer everywhere. The people are so nice. It's really a small town. But it hasn't been like become tourists. It's very authentic. A lot of people that live there like the Ott family have been there for a long time.
• 4:02
  Diane Black: Although aren't the Ott family, aren't they from Sanford?
• 4:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: He actually had fernery I think in Deland.
• 4:12
  Diane Black: Deland. Yeah,
• 4:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: But all of Ellijay, when I went up there and visited, all, a lot of people in Ellijay are from like the Central Florida area.
• 4:23
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, many are.
• 4:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: I went to Cartacay River Brewery, and the gentleman that actually suggested Ott, he was from Apopka.
• 4:33
  Diane Black: Oh my god.
• 4:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: So it was very, you know, coincidental and I went Ott family farms and I love that place so much. I think in the week that I stayed there, we visited the winery like three times and brought multiple bottles back, because it's so pretty, and they're so nice.
• 4:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, I just loved it.
• 4:59
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 5:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: I loved it. I loved the whole area too. Like you said, Diane. It's really a nice area.
• 5:04
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, yeah definitely go, go check it out if you haven't been because I mean, just the whole areas, beautiful.
• 5:10
  Diane Black: Apple capital of the world.
• 5:12
  Leyla Zmeskal: I didn't Yeah, I didn't know that.
• 5:14
  Diane Black: I didn't either.
• 5:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: There's like some apple festival. I heard Ellijay gets crazy during the apple festival.
• 5:20
  Trisha Smith: Apples, but we went to Blue Ridge is it Blue Ridge that's the next town up.
• 5:26
  Trisha Smith: And that was really pretty. I went to a couple wineries over there. I had never been to Ellijay specifically, I had been to Dahlonega before. Yeah, there's a military post over there. And they're actually known for their gold mining.
• 5:44
  Diane Black: Yeah.
• 5:45
  Trisha Smith: I mean, now they have a lot of wineries and people visit for that. But in the center of Dahlonega they have like a gold mining museum.
• 5:51
  Trisha Smith: And then at the last time I was there, they had a little restaurant in the middle of off their square that was like a gold mine, where the whole area is just really pretty nice.
• 6:08
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, we should have taught North Georgia.
• 6:13
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, we should do like a trip up there and get like a big cabin to rent.
• 6:17
  Trisha Smith: We should do it.
• 6:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: On a creek, like a little river or something.
• 6:21
  Trisha Smith: Let's add it to the list. Yeah, I guess there's ghosts up there.
• 6:25
  Leyla Zmeskal: I bet you we can find some.
• 6:26
  Trisha Smith: The ghosts of the Appalachian or we can find somebody who tell us some ghost stories. I'm sure we could.
• 6:31
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm positive.
• 6:33
  Trisha Smith: Let's do it.
• 6:34
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm down.
• 6:35
  Trisha Smith: Alright. You ready to tell us what you're drinking?
• 6:36
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, so what I'm doing is this, is a drink that was suggested to me. So I said that I will,
• 6:47
  Trisha Smith: By a listener.
• 6:48
  Leyla Zmeskal: By a listener.
• 6:48
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, you may heard like, you know, a couple weeks back, I did that little race up in Northwest Passage. So I was in a van, you know, with,
• 6:59
  Diane Black: Down by river.
• 7:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: 6 people for 36 hours. So we got to talkin and my friend Libby, who she listens to the podcast, she suggested this drink, so she didn't give me a name for it. So I'm dubbing this drink, The Libby.
• 7:17
  Trisha Smith: The Libby.
• 7:18
  Diane Black: Perfect.
• 7:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: The Libby, and it's Bird Dog Blackberry Whiskey, mixed with Jim Beam, Vanilla Whiskey and a, splash o Sprite. And she mentioned just splash.
• 7:35
  Trisha Smith: So you're not just drinking straight whiskey, I think, you know, psychologically make you feel better.
• 7:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: So that's what I'm having.
• 7:43
  Trisha Smith: Yeah.
• 7:44
  Diane Black: Yeah.
• 7:47
  Leyla Zmeskal: Cheers to a listener suggestion.
• 7:49
  Trisha Smith: Yeah. It's a nice drink. I would. That is a an evening cocktail to me.
• 7:56
  Leyla Zmeskal: I would say, yeah. The blackberry whiskey smells so good.
• 8:01
  Trisha Smith: So good.
• 8:02
  Diane Black: Sounds like it would be a good fally, winter drink.
• 8:06
  Leyla Zmeskal: We love the word fally.
• 8:08
  Trisha Smith: I think it's cuz, for me, I'm looking forward to fall. I'm like, come on.
• 8:14
  Diane Black: No, the summer solstice, for me, it's the beginning of the end.
• 8:19
  Trisha Smith: Hmm,
• 8:20
  Diane Black: Yeah, cuz I love summer. I love 99% humidity, and Trisha you love the fall and pumpkin spices, stuff like that.
• 8:34
  Trisha Smith: I'm super basic.
• 8:36
  Diane Black: You're good. No, far from it. You're gonna, you're gonna,
• 8:40
  Trisha Smith: Give me my flannel and my pumpkin spice latte.
• 8:45
  Trisha Smith: Give me, give me all the things and launch me right into Thanksgiving.
• 8:49
  Diane Black: You can add, The Libby,
• 8:53
  Trisha Smith: I will add, The Libby, there was something out we have another drink that we talked about would be a good fit. And hey, I'm all ready for it. My fall drink list is long.
• 9:05
  Leyla Zmeskal: Stay tuned for some fally drinks.
• 9:09
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 9:09
  Diane Black: Tell me not, not too soon. Let's not rush it.
• 9:12
  Diane Black: Right.
• 9:13
  Leyla Zmeskal: We're in late July right now.
• 9:15
  Diane Black: Yeah,
• 9:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean, it's late enough to say late July. I mean, then it's August. Can you believe it?
• 9:23
  Trisha Smith: August. Well, the kids start going back to school and then it's Labor Day and then I feel like that's when things start to change. Start getting ready for, fall and winter all my kids birthdays are September and October. So once their birthdays hit I feel like it, it that's like the jump off point for the holidays. Birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
• 9:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah.
• 9:50
  Trisha Smith: So,
• 9:51
  Diane Black: Yeah, tis true.
• 9:52
  Leyla Zmeskal: That is true. I'm ready.
• 9:54
  Trisha Smith: I'm always ready for Christmas.
• 9:56
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm not ready for Christmas, but I'm ready. I am ready for is to tell you guys a story,
• 10:02
  Trisha Smith: Do it girl.
• 10:03
  Diane Black: We're waiting.
• 10:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: Today is story day. Not to repeat myself but, I was in a van for 36 hours with six people. And the next story that I'm going to do is actually a suggestion from I mean, she wasn't a listener then but she's a listener now, so I am using her suggestion.
• 10:24
  Diane Black: Awesome
• 10:25
  Leyla Zmeskal: So the story I'm going to tell you is about the, Woodsmen Circle House. And this is a story suggestion by, WendI Kavanaugh, she was one of my team mates for the Ragnar relay Northwest Passage,
• 10:40
  Diane Black: Congratulations, Wendi, you did it girl.
• 10:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: All the things that I got from is from an exemplore, exemplore?
• 10:46
  Leyla Zmeskal: exemplore.com.
• 10:51
  Trisha Smith: Okay,
• 10:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: She actually told me that she went, she sent me some pictures of the inside of this place. So she actually went to this house and did a little exploring to, and had some photos taken so she sent me some photos of the house. I was like, Oh, that's kind of a cool one.
• 11:06
  Leyla Zmeskal: So the Woodsmen Circle Home is a group of large seemingly abandoned red brick buildings that sits on a 15 acre piece of land in Sherman, Texas.
• 11:21
  Trisha Smith: Oh, Texas. Okay,
• 11:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: Texas story, because WendI is from Texas.
• 11:27
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 11:28
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's one of our hometown stories. I'm just saying that, I don't know if she's from Sherman.
• 11:34
  Diane Black: She lives there now.
• 11:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: One of our home state stories.
• 11:36
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, she, she went there.
• 11:38
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah. So the property is sometimes erroneous Lee referred to as the Woodsmen Home, Woodsman Circle, the Sherman Orphanage or the haunted orphanage. Diane's like that's already. Yeah. So here's some background on the home. The Woodman circle was founded in the late 1800s on a radical idea to allow women to purchase insurance. So one of its founding members, Dora Alexander Tally was the driving force behind the building of the Woodsman Circle Home. She invis, she envisioned a home for widowed or retired insured members, or for the orphan children of the members. So I guess you had it was like a club that you joined or something, I'm not, sure. Dora helped choose the 240 acre site previously known as Lebaron Farm on a hill three miles west of downtown Sherman. Ground was broken on the home in November 1928. And the main building was opened in 1930. The Pennsylvania building was added in 1933. And the West Wing was added in 1941.
• 13:05
  Trisha Smith: Wow. Okay, so they drug that out.
• 13:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: They did. Maybe as more members came in,
• 13:11
  Trisha Smith: More money,
• 13:12
  Leyla Zmeskal: They had more money, I'm guessing. In 1938, the home that Dora envision was considered to be so successful that the main building was named the Dora Alexander Talley building.
• 13:25
  Diane Black: Fancy.
• 13:26
  Leyla Zmeskal: I know. And between 1930 and its closure in 1971, the Woodsmen Circle Home had over 100 children and 165 elderly women living there, who otherwise might have had nowhere else to go.
• 13:45
  Trisha Smith: Oh, wow.
• 13:46
  Leyla Zmeskal: So that's a lot of people.
• 13:48
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 13:48
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean,
• 13:49
  Trisha Smith: Like a retirement, a retirement community before there really were any,
• 13:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: I guess, yeah, which is interesting and for orphan kids.
• 13:58
  Trisha Smith: Yeah.
• 13:59
  Leyla Zmeskal: In 1971 the home was closed, in part for failing to meet local building codes. So I think it was like there was no fire escapes because if it was kind of almost commercially, right, it was so that's what I heard. So,
• 14:13
  Trisha Smith: Huh.
• 14:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: And then it was purchased shortly after by a series of investment groups. So from 1977 through 1981, the main building was leased to Dr. Ariel Sherman of the Good Shepherd Tabernacle Church. So the local rumor was that this was a Satanist cult. Look at Diane face her eyes already are like huge,
• 14:42
  Trisha Smith: So that's the shift, cuz I'm like, Well, so far it sounds like was really good.
• 14:46
  Leyla Zmeskal: It sounds great.
• 14:47
  Trisha Smith: You bring Satan into the picture,
• 14:50
  Leyla Zmeskal: Ruins it every time. damn Satanists ruins everything. But those were just rumors of course. However, in the late 80s members of the same church had legal difficulties in Oregon regarding the treatment of children. This served to increase the local legends that a child had died in the house.
• 15:11
  Leyla Zmeskal: And that it was haunted. So I don't know what kind of legal things because I didn't click on the link, but apparently it was they weren't treating children good.
• 15:21
  Diane Black: Throughout,
• 15:22
  Leyla Zmeskal: The 80s, the homes sat empty and was a target for vandals Of course, as most, you know, a seemingly abandoned homes are . In the 90s there was a series of fires on the property that severely damaged the buildings and further fueled stories that the place was haunted. So I get vacant, a haunted I mean, abandoned building how to fire a start, you know, but it's probably vandals and you know local kids doing something,
• 15:49
  Trisha Smith: Or homeless, you know, if it's away from town and shelter, you know,
• 15:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: You never know.
• 15:56
  Trisha Smith: Yeah,
• 15:57
  Leyla Zmeskal: So people will have explored and live around the property claim the place is absolutely haunted. One story claims that a young boy fell down on a well on the property.
• 16:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: I also like, I think there's an elevator in there, or a dumbwaiter. And I heard that the boy fell down the dumbwaiter. So there was kind of conflicting stories on that. So I don't know if he fell down a well, or the dumbwaiter. But apparently, some kid supposedly fell down and his spirit still walks the property.
• 16:31
  Leyla Zmeskal: According to one story. People often say they see strange lights, orbs, or faces in the photos they take of the house.
• 16:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: There are also stories of people entering the house and seeing strange shadows, hearing noises, or having strange feelings.
• 16:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: Diane's like, nope. One person even claimed to have some kind of time warp experience, thinking that they were only in there for 10 minutes, but in fact, they were in there for like 45 minutes. But they would swear that they were only in there for 10 minutes, tops.
• 17:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: Which to me, I'm kind of like,
• 17:13
  Trisha Smith: Are you high?
• 17:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: Or were you just looking around and like,
• 17:17
  Trisha Smith: Lost track of time?
• 17:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: Ah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: So for me when I read that claim, I'm like, I find that one bullshit, anyway, some say that house is full of demonic spirits due to the satanist performing rituals on the property after it was about abandoned. But one of the weirdest claims of the house is apparently, in the basement There was a room that wa covered with really thick carpe and padding on the walls. An there was a long glass window o one wall and a door that onl opened from the outside. Ins de the room there was also a met l cot attached to the back of t e wall with chains from the cot o the wall like you see in l ke the jail cell movies. And a cording to one person, someone w nt into the room and close the d or and yelled and screamed and h t the walls. But the people c uld not hear them on the o tside of the wall. I don't k ow. That's kind of strange r om for a church to build.
• 18:25
  Trisha Smith: Right? Yeah, that's like they were keeping somebody prisoner. Yeah, I wonder if it's there. Okay, so
• 18:32
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's a little weird, though, isn't it to have that kind of room. Why would you have that kind of soundproof room with a window to view things and only able open on one side? And a cot with chains?
• 18:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: Like I don't understand,
• 18:48
  Diane Black: Prison torture room?
• 18:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yes. A little weird.
• 18:51
  Trisha Smith: So okay. So while we were just talking about that, I was gonna say like, maybe they put people who were possessed or something down there. You know, it was weird, but okay, if you're a Satanist, and you're possessed, what do you like? We always say, well, they're possessed by the devil. So but if you're a Satanist, would that be a good thing?
• 19:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah.
• 19:07
  Trisha Smith: So what did they consider possessed? Like the holy rollers, are they like? How does that work?
• 19:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: I don't know.
• 19:16
  Trisha Smith: Do Satanists believe in possession?
• 19:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's a,
• 19:19
  Diane Black: That's a really good question.
• 19:21
  Trisha Smith: I don't know, because you know, I've never watched a horror movie about where the people are.
• 19:27
  Leyla Zmeskal: Satanists and like, get possessed.
• 19:29
  Trisha Smith: Right. So yeah.
• 19:32
  Trisha Smith: The things that make you go, hmm.
• 19:33
  Diane Black: Any Satanist that could be listening. If you
• 19:34
  Trisha Smith: Or even if you just know the answer, like if happen to have the answers, send it to us at Boozy Banter, you just read a book and,
• 19:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean, we joke Satanists ruin everything but if that's what you want to do, I'm fine with it. I mean,
• 19:50
  Trisha Smith: That's your jam,
• 19:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm not judging.
• 19:51
  Trisha Smith: But, we do have questions.
• 19:53
  Diane Black: Yes.
• 19:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean, I like turtles.
• 19:59
  Trisha Smith: Turtlist.
• 20:06
  Diane Black: That's a legit good question.
• 20:09
  Leyla Zmeskal: So that's my tiny story.
• 20:11
  Diane Black: I like it,
• 20:12
  Leyla Zmeskal: Brought to you by Wendi Kavanaugh.
• 20:15
  Diane Black: Thank you.
• 20:16
  Trisha Smith: Is she the one that, we did say, we share the gulf?
• 20:20
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yes. She's the one.
• 20:21
  Trisha Smith: We're almost like Texas.
• 20:22
  Leyla Zmeskal: We're almost like Texas, we share a gulf.
• 20:26
  Trisha Smith: So yes, she does listen to us.
• 20:30
  Diane Black: Yes, that was a good story Wendi.
• 20:32
  Leyla Zmeskal: That was a good suggestion.
• 20:33
  Trisha Smith: It was.
• 20:34
  Leyla Zmeskal: There's some pic ures that she sent me with, I'll share, I'll get permissio from her to share the pic
• 20:37
  Trisha Smith: Can anybody go visit?
• 20:39
  Trisha Smith: ures.
• 20:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: They said no.
• 20:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: Because there's a big field that you have to go through of grass because the house is like on a hill. And they said behind the house is apartment complex. So if you see. Yeah, that's kind of weird. But they say, people will say if they see people like going across the field that they'll call the cops and the coppers will come and site ya, give you a ticket.
• 21:07
  Diane Black: But she went in the house.
• 21:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: She did go in the house.
• 21:09
  Diane Black: Did she see that room? That?
• 21:11
  Leyla Zmeskal: No, she didn't say anything about that. I think she stayed mainly on the on the main level, I think, but she said it definitely. She says she could see how the house had a like would have a creepy vibe to people.
• 21:25
  Trisha Smith: Right?
• 21:25
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah. And of course, there's a lot of graffiti on the walls and you know, from being abandoned and write things.
• 21:32
  Trisha Smith: Weird, weird places.
• 21:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah. If you're from Sherman, Texas, and if you know of the Woodsmen Circle Home, you know? Yeah, some us some information.
• 21:42
  Trisha Smith: We need more detail.
• 21:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: Boozy banter.
• 21:44
  Diane Black: Yeah.
• 21:45
  Leyla Zmeskal: With friends.com, or Instagram. boozy banter with friends, and let us now. Yeah, so that was my my little snippy snappy.
• 21:53
  Trisha Smith: I like it. Yeah.
• 21:55
  Diane Black: Yeah.
• 21:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: Was a nice quicker, quickie.
• 21:56
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, yeah. a quickie,
• 21:58
  Leyla Zmeskal: A quickie. Yeah.
• 21:58
  Leyla Zmeskal: All right. What do you got?
• 22:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: Trisha?
• 22:03
  Trisha Smith: Well, actually, I can't remember if my husband had a book or if somebody gave me a book on this subject. But I thought about the other day when I was going through some stuff I've been trying to do, really late spring cleaning. And this made me think of it, but it's the Department of Defense and the CIA's paranormal research.
• 22:28
  Leyla Zmeskal: Oh,
• 22:29
  Trisha Smith: It's a thing. It's still going on today. And uh but,
• 22:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's interesting.
• 22:34
  Trisha Smith: Yeah. And this is actually recent news, because there's a book that came out called, Phenomena, The Secret History of the US government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.
• 22:47
  Trisha Smith: And it's by investigative journalist, Annie Jacobson, and she explores the bizarre world of government funded research into the paranormal.
• 23:02
  Leyla Zmeskal: Ooh,
• 23:03
  Trisha Smith: Have you heard of that book? Have you read it?
• 23:06
  Diane Black: I haven't read it.
• 23:06
  Diane Black: I've heard of it. And I watched a documentary recently on that.
• 23:11
  Trisha Smith: I saw that there are a couple.
• 23:13
  Diane Black: Yeah.
• 23:15
  Trisha Smith: So this article that I read was actually, it was written by James Clark and he is the deputy editor of, Task And Purpose, and a Marine Veteran.
• 23:22
  Trisha Smith: So from the 1950s to the 1990s.
• 23:28
  Trisha Smith: The military and intelligence communities investigated psychic phenomena, conducted secret missions that use subjects that supposedly had supernatural powers, and competed with the Soviet Union in a psychic arms race.
• 23:44
  Diane Black: What?
• 23:44
  Trisha Smith: Right! So I mean, we all know about the Cold War,
• 23:47
  Leyla Zmeskal: Right,
• 23:48
  Trisha Smith: But a psychic arms race. According to Jacobson, the responsibility of the Department of Defense and the CIA is to be aware of what the enemy is working on and to create programs to counter it. You know, we always hear about all the secret squirrel squirrel stuff that the CIA does, but, you know, now we know it's, it's a lot bigger than we,
• 24:13
  Leyla Zmeskal: I don't know that CIA, that's, man. That's, uh,
• 24:16
  Trisha Smith: I know!.
• 24:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's an interesting branch right there.
• 24:20
  Trisha Smith: Right. So how it all started. So after the Nazis were defeated in 1945 and elite US scientific intelligence initiative called, Operation Alsos, AlSOS, sent members into Berlin to find as much info as possible on German military projects, where what they found were documents and artifacts that were part of onn a nurb. I think that's how we pronounce it, Onnanerb, Onnanerb. It was Heinrich Himmler's science organization. Now, Heinrich Himmler was worse. I mean, you know, what's his name?
• 25:04
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hitler,
• 25:05
  Trisha Smith: Hitler.
• 25:13
  Trisha Smith: I know nobody can see that.
• 25:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: She put her finger under her nose. She goes, What's his name and she looks at me and puts her finger at her nose. I was like, Hitler?
• 25:24
  Trisha Smith: Hitler gets all the credit for being, you know, the bad guy. But Heinrich Himmler was bad. He was like, the worst of the worst of human beings. So AOnnanebw as, what is his very, very well funded and huge organizations. According to Annie Jacobson, it even had an entire branch devoted to what was called the survey of the so called occult sciences. Because Himmler was obsessed with the occult. On his orders. Ss officers raided Germany's occupied territories for any artifacts related to magic .Naz iscientists at Aonaerb searched for items like the hHoly grail, and the lands of destiny, which was the spear thought to have killed Christ. And they looked all around the world for it, which, you know,
• 26:21
  Leyla Zmeskal: Goes in line with the Indiana Jones movies.
• 26:23
  Trisha Smith: Right, Raiders of the Lost Ark, right because you know who
• 26:26
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm serious because they were competing with the Germans,
• 26:29
  Trisha Smith: Right, cuz you're like,
• 26:31
  Leyla Zmeskal: No Nazis.
• 26:32
  Trisha Smith: Nazi. Yeah. So why are it's like in the movie? Why are the Nazis in on this? This is why?
• 26:39
  Trisha Smith: Wow so there is air of truth.
• 26:41
  Trisha Smith: Yeah. So the US later learned that the Soviets had also discovered a significant amount of infrared, information on the same subject. And Jacobson says this is their origin story of the psychic arms race, that they both found the same information, you know, in a Nazi cache, and they went in.
• 27:03
  Diane Black: Crazy.
• 27:04
  Trisha Smith: Yeah. So in the 1950s, the US started their psychic research to counter what they thought at the time to be a legitimate concern, Soviet Mind Control.
• 27:17
  Leyla Zmeskal: Oh,
• 27:18
  Trisha Smith: Right. So this fear was brought about by videos of American prisoners of war, reciting communist propaganda.
• 27:26
  Trisha Smith: Both the US and the Soviet Union were relying on information from the Nazi research they'd retrieved, some of which were detailed experiments conducted within the concentration camps.
• 27:40
  Trisha Smith: So in 1953, the CIA backed a mind control program called MK Ultra, that ran well into the 60s. It involved dosing American citizens with biological and chemical agents like LSD or acid, often with the individual not knowing. Can you imagine, they're just like, go into community and give them this certain people a bunch of LSD and turn them loose to see what happens. God their sub project, sub Project 58, research, became significant in using psycho pharmacology, which was using drugs to enhance psychic functioning in psychic people.
• 28:31
  Trisha Smith: So were they watching people to see who they thought was psychic, or was it something that people put out?
• 28:36
  Leyla Zmeskal: Or they thought maybe this innocent, you know, they're part of some kind of, you know, study or something,
• 28:43
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 28:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: All of a sudden, they're like, haha,
• 28:46
  Trisha Smith: LSD
• 28:46
  Leyla Zmeskal: You should have saw that comming. If you're psychic.
• 28:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: You're not part of the program.
• 28:55
  Trisha Smith: Right, you're out.
• 28:56
  Diane Black: That's not how it works.
• 28:58
  Leyla Zmeskal: Oh okay. Thanks, Diane for, for being the voice of reason. Because I'm like, but is you are pyschic shouldn't you have seen this comming?
• 29:08
  Diane Black: Not neccessarly.
• 29:10
  Leyla Zmeskal: Alright, fine.
• 29:12
  Diane Black: Good. Good. In theory,
• 29:13
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean,
• 29:14
  Diane Black: You wish, that would be great.
• 29:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, just dash my hopes and dreams right there.
• 29:18
  Diane Black: I'm sorry.
• 29:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's okay.
• 29:19
  Diane Black: Barer of bad news.
• 29:20
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's all right.
• 29:21
  Diane Black: Okay.
• 29:22
  Trisha Smith: Both the Soviet Union and US government used what they considered advances in the others research into mind control, counter mind control and psychic phenomena in general, as justification to continue. So basically, it's like, they're doing this so we have to hurry up and do this, so that, we're ahead, kind of like the space race.
• 29:47
  Leyla Zmeskal: Wow.
• 29:47
  Trisha Smith: So there were stories of Americans putting telepaths on nuclear submarines and Soviet mind control rays. So I mean, then people were scared of that stuff.
• 30:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: Like mind control rays, were they sending out a ray from the mind to like control someone else's mind?
• 30:07
  Trisha Smith: So that, well they were sending rays to control people to do bad things to other people, but the Soviets are controlling them with a ray.
• 30:17
  Leyla Zmeskal: It reminds me of Aqua man with a little circle,
• 30:21
  Trisha Smith: Exactly so, in the 70s, the DOD started the, Remote Viewing Program. Remote Viewing involve the idea that someone could visualize details of people and objects at a distance through telekinesis. In 1976, a Soviet bomber went down in the jungles of Africa. After the CIA and Military Intelligence were unable to find it using modern technology. They contacted the, Remote Viewing Operation, at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. That's why there's so much weird shit in Ohio.
• 31:03
  Diane Black: Add it to the list,
• 31:04
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's all starting to come together now.
• 31:06
  Trisha Smith: Military experiments,
• 31:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: Picture is almost complete.
• 31:11
  Trisha Smith: So a secretary in the program, Rosemary Smith, who believed she had psychic powers was put on the job, she was able to draw maps pinpointed where the bomber was located within a few miles. So the CIA CIA sent a paramilitary team into the jungle near where she said it would be. And they saw a villager carrying a piece of aircraft out of the jungle, which led them to the downed aircraft. Jacobson writes, it was an earth shattering event, a psychic was able to produce actionable intelligence when no one else could. So they consider their program a success. So another remote viewing unit known as, Detachment G, was established by top ranking Army officers who didn't want to bring in civilian psychics. So they filled the program with soldiers. In 1979, the National Security Council asked them to use their remote viewing powers to investigate Soviet Naval Base. So this is a quote, "while concentrating on a photo in a closed envelope", which is kind of bothered me, I mean, pause in the quote right there. Why did they just open the envelope? Why did I mean unless they were testing these people?
• 32:30
  Leyla Zmeskal: Maybe that's why.
• 32:31
  Trisha Smith: Because they, they make it sound like, they got the information because this guy like could see what was in the envelope it's like, but they already had the information in the envelope, it seems redundant. But anyways, on with
• 32:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: Oh, that's interesting.
• 32:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: the quote, one of the unit members describes seeing a building on a shoreline, which smelled of gas and industrial products. inside the building was a large coffin like object, a weapon with fins like a shark.
• 32:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: A few months later, CIA received satellite imagery showing that the Soviets had constructed a new ballistic missile submarine, later made famous by its NATO designation, the typhoon class, the hulking new nuclear sub was known in the USSR as the Akula, Russian for shark.
• 33:26
  Trisha Smith: So that was something she wrote in her book.
• 33:30
  Trisha Smith: So but I mean, I'm like what was in the envelope then?
• 33:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, what was in the envelope?
• 33:34
  Trisha Smith: Was it just like a picture? And then they were trying to get him to see what he could see. In reality of what the picture was? I don't know.
• 33:40
  Trisha Smith: But yeah, he was he I mean, he he thought he was there. He was able to describe what they were able to confirm was something,
• 33:50
  Leyla Zmeskal: Wow,
• 33:50
  Trisha Smith: Shaped like shark.
• 33:50
  Trisha Smith: There's a movie. My son and husband say they've seen it.
• 33:54
  Trisha Smith: I've not seen it. But there's a movie called, The Men Who Stare At Goats.
• 33:59
  Diane Black: Oh, yes.
• 34:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: I've heard of that movie.
• 34:02
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, and this remote viewing is the basis for that movie.
• 34:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: Oh, now we got to watch that movie.
• 34:09
  Trisha Smith: I know. Me too. So have you seen it?
• 34:12
  Diane Black: Yes.
• 34:13
  Trisha Smith: Is it good?
• 34:13
  Diane Black: Yes. I mean, I like it.
• 34:15
  Trisha Smith: Is it about this?
• 34:16
  Trisha Smith: This stuff?
• 34:16
  Diane Black: Yeah, Yeah. Remote view.
• 34:17
  Diane Black: Remote Viewing, is that what they call it?
• 34:20
  Trisha Smith: Yeah,
• 34:20
  Diane Black: I liked it.
• 34:21
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 34:22
  Diane Black: I mean, you'll probably tear it apart.
• 34:25
  Trisha Smith: Not me.
• 34:26
  Diane Black: No,
• 34:27
  Trisha Smith: Like I said, this is still being researched to this day. Presently. The Office of Naval Research calls this program, Anomalous Mental Cognition. They just gave it a fancier name. Then remote,
• 34:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: That is fancy.
• 34:44
  Trisha Smith: Anomalous. And this is referring to a $3.9 million program, founded by the ONR in 2014, to investigate the existence of Pre cognition, which they refer to as a spidey sense,
• 35:05
  Leyla Zmeskal: A spidey sense,
• 35:06
  Trisha Smith: But, they still have evidence to support it because in 2006, Army Staff Sergeant Martin Rickberg, Richburg, will go with Richburg sensed something odd about a man in a cafe in Iraq. After getting everyone out, he found an improvised explosive device that the man had left behind. Whether he was just perceptive or unknowingly psychic, Reacher, researchers want to find a way to activate that kind of insight. So I mean, he saved a lot of lives.
• 35:38
  Leyla Zmeskal: He saved a lot of lives. But I would think that he was just very aware of his surroundings, and anybody acting a little weird,
• 35:44
  Trisha Smith: Right
• 35:45
  Leyla Zmeskal: So being over there, you you have to be on your guard at all times, I would imagine,
• 35:50
  Trisha Smith: Right, so what made him suspect that guy?
• 35:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: Maybe he was acting weird.
• 35:55
  Trisha Smith: Because he left something or you know, I mean,
• 35:56
  Leyla Zmeskal: Interesting.
• 35:57
  Leyla Zmeskal: 2006 that's back when they were like, don't leave your suitcases outside unattended. You know, so I don't know. So is it factor or fiction? Now we have advanced technology, including computers, biotechnology and nanotechnology, and Annie Jacobson says, will this rubric of advanced technology allow us to solve this age old mystery?
• 36:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: Whether or not extrasensory perception exists, biologically
• 36:27
  Trisha Smith: Right. So it's kind of creepy to think that the you know, military still,
• 36:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: I don't think that's creepy, because they do,
• 36:35
  Trisha Smith: Doing mind control race. Now that was,
• 36:38
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean, they, look at all the alien stuff that they're hiding. So I that does does not sound, I don't doubt this at all.
• 36:45
  Trisha Smith: Right. Yeah.
• 36:45
  Leyla Zmeskal: Not at all.
• 36:46
  Trisha Smith: Right. So it makes you wonder, are they able to use I mean, we've seen there are a lot of movies out there where they've used biotechnology to solve crimes and cryptic things and do it, you know, and it's like, what if they develop something where they can get people to activate that in their mind and do these things.
• 37:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's what happened in Zoolander.
• 37:09
  Diane Black: Right.
• 37:13
  Trisha Smith: Where there's a movie, there was a Tom Cruise movie, where he uses a computer to like track, like the criminals, do you remember that movie? I don't know what it's called.
• 37:26
  Leyla Zmeskal: I don't remember the name of the movie, but I remember,
• 37:30
  Trisha Smith: And he could, like, find out where the next criminal was coming from, or, you know, it's just this one was like, he had a screen and he would move it with his hands and like, put the crime together, and he could figure out who was doing the crime based on this and that, and,
• 37:46
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm doing the Google's right now,
• 37:47
  Trisha Smith: Do the Google's.
• 37:48
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm doing it.
• 37:49
  Trisha Smith: But yeah, I think there are some aspects you think about it as, you know, some kind of use in warfare, and then it's not so appealing, but when you think about how they could use it for everyday crime,
• 38:03
  Diane Black: It's been, it's been being used and,
• 38:06
  Trisha Smith: well, not officially, technically, I mean,
• 38:10
  Diane Black: Officially, yes.
• 38:10
  Diane Black: Not put out into public knowledge but official. I mean, police stations and depar ments have been hiring psych cs for a very long time that ork for them for a long long ime. That's been goes on for y
• 38:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: Was it Minority Report?
• 38:25
  Leyla Zmeskal: ars.
• 38:26
  Trisha Smith: Yes. Minority Report.
• 38:29
  Diane Black: It's just because it's so out of the mainstream norm acceptance, so to avoid backlash, it's been under the radar, but that's been happening for decades.
• 38:41
  Trisha Smith: It's not official where they put it out we solve this crime because of this and this and this it's still pretty much an unofficial unreported use of,
• 38:52
  Diane Black: Resources,
• 38:52
  Trisha Smith: Resources Yeah, absolutely.
• 38:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: Interesting.
• 38:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's interesting. Yeah, don't doubt it.
• 38:58
  Trisha Smith: I know right.
• 38:59
  Leyla Zmeskal: Don't doubt it.
• 38:59
  Trisha Smith: It is the military, a lot of things,
• 39:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: Tis the government.
• 39:04
  Trisha Smith: Right, you know.
• 39:05
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah,
• 39:06
  Trisha Smith: They do what they want, so anyways, that's all I got.
• 39:08
  Diane Black: That was good.
• 39:09
  Leyla Zmeskal: It was a good one. I liked it.
• 39:11
  Trisha Smith: That one you could really, there are a lot of rabbit holes. That's why I stuck with one source and one book because when you start looking at all, you know, one thing leads to another and you start looking at all of them. It gets so involved,
• 39:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: All of a sudden our paranormal podcast turned into a conspiracy podcast.
• 39:33
  Trisha Smith: Yeah. It really does.
• 39:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: We don't want that.
• 39:36
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, we're not, we don't do that. We're not into conspiracy at all.
• 39:40
  Diane Black: There are,
• 39:41
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean we're just sticking with paranormal.
• 39:44
  Trisha Smith: Yes,
• 39:45
  Diane Black: There are several really good documentaries on Netflix and Prime regarding this subject matter. So if anybody's like interested and doesn't want to get overwhelmed by the research online, it is a rabbit hole, great documentaries,
• 40:02
  Trisha Smith: Right, I was very interested in the, when it first started with the the all the information they got from the Nazis. Yeah, the stuff they did for their research. I didn't include all of that there was so much. And being the things that they, when I say that they sent the knots that SS soldiers into gather as much as you know, things that they could find that were related to magic. I mean, they trashed museums, they trashed synagogues, and churches and artwork and thinking that there was like, magical text.
• 40:34
  Trisha Smith: And I mean, it was just, just horrible. I didn't include any of that, because again, I mean, that's all of that detail. All of the Nazis involvement is, you know, 45 minutes alone, you know,
• 40:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm sure
• 40:50
  Trisha Smith: They were obsessed. They were obsessed.
• 40:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: You have to think that there's some, something some error of truth behind it for them to be so obsessed about it, and so involved with finding answers.
• 41:07
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 41:07
  Diane Black: I don't know if you guys ever watched Ancient Aliens.
• 41:11
  Leyla Zmeskal: I've seen an episode or two,
• 41:12
  Diane Black: We have a running, we have a running joke, my husband and I and my kids like cuz they refer to the scientists who are brilliant as, Ancient alien Theorist, and they say that like repeatedly, repeatedly throughout the show, and so we turned it into drinking it. But there is so much in their series and their document. It's not documentaries, what it is, but it's a series ongoing. And when they show you the connections and ask you the questions, how could this have happened? And like back in the time when technology wasn't there, or the equipment wasn't there? It always goes back to aliens. Oh, you should check it out Trisha, you might find it really know fascinating like, you found that to be fascinating. Ancient Alien. It's really good. Okay, well,
• 42:04
  Leyla Zmeskal: I like that.
• 42:05
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, that's cool.
• 42:06
  Leyla Zmeskal: That was a good one today.
• 42:07
  Diane Black: It got you thinking, right.
• 42:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah. It got me thinking, about another beverage.
• 42:12
  Trisha Smith: Me too.
• 42:13
  Leyla Zmeskal: Alright let's go do it.
• 42:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: Alright.
• 42:14
  Trisha Smith: Cheers.
• 42:15
  Diane Black: Cheers.
• 42:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: Cheers.
• 42:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hey, like what you hear.
• 42:18
  Diane Black: Check us out on Instagram.
• 42:19
  Trisha Smith: Or send us a message at boozybanterwithfriends.com.
• 42:23
  Leyla Zmeskal: Thanks for listening.
• 42:24
  Trisha Smith: Until next time,
• 42:25
  Diane Black: Late-a.