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Project A119: The Cold War Plan to Nuke the Moon! · Ridiculous History

0:10
Speaker 1: Yea. Hey, no, you're a fan of Mr Show. Right,
0:26
Speaker 1: the old sketch comedy series. Not that old, is it?
0:28
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, it's uh, it's mid tour. Yeah,
0:32
Speaker 1: god no, it makes me feel Oh that's just probably
0:33
Speaker 1: about twenty years old now, but it's still holds up.
0:37
Speaker 1: It really does. Hey everyone, I'm Ben. This is ridiculous
0:41
Speaker 1: history and we are joined, of course, with a super producer,
0:45
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram Casey, are you a fan of Mr Show?
0:49
Speaker 1: It's my favorite show ever? Is that really? Oh? Yeah?
0:53
Speaker 1: I love it. It's great. Yeah, it's a very very
0:54
Speaker 1: influential show. I think he's been sincere. I think you're sincere.
0:58
Speaker 1: Love that show? Can't he's up? Part? No you should.
1:00
Speaker 1: You should beat yourself. But yeah, it's great as Casey
1:03
Speaker 1: on the case. Wow, that's passion. He brought the gabble
1:08
Speaker 1: down on that one. My man, he sure did, he
1:10
Speaker 1: sure did. What does Mr Show have to do with this?
1:14
Speaker 1: Oh good, and I'm so glad you asked. Well done.
1:17
Speaker 1: I think we should just play the clip. Let's do it,
1:19
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. We have an announcement to make.
1:23
Speaker 1: On July four this year, America will blow up the moon.
1:29
Speaker 1: We had the technology. The time is now. Science can
1:32
Speaker 1: wait no longer. Children are our future. America can, should, must,
1:38
Speaker 1: and will blow up the Moon and we'll be doing
1:42
Speaker 1: it during a full moon, so we make sure we
1:44
Speaker 1: get it all. So what you just heard was the
1:48
Speaker 1: beginning of a sketch of Mr Show where in two
1:52
Speaker 1: guys from NASA announced to great fanfare their plan to
1:56
Speaker 1: blow up the moon. Awesome, right, and it's seems so
2:00
Speaker 1: ridiculous when when I first saw it, I imagine when
2:04
Speaker 1: everybody else first saw it. Uh, we just assumed that
2:08
Speaker 1: these were brilliant comedy writers, which is true. Yeah, it's true.
2:11
Speaker 1: And I don't even know if they were aware of
2:12
Speaker 1: this story because I don't think it really came out
2:16
Speaker 1: until well after that episode was done, um or at
2:20
Speaker 1: least Yeah, I'm pretty sure that this would not have
2:22
Speaker 1: been widely known information at the time. Um, but yeah,
2:25
Speaker 1: sure enough. UM. A handful of years ago, a physicist
2:29
Speaker 1: by the name of Leonard Rifle did an interview where
2:33
Speaker 1: he kind of spilled the beans on a little something
2:36
Speaker 1: called Project A one one nine, which was a Cold
2:39
Speaker 1: War era plot not really applaud It was more of
2:43
Speaker 1: like a weird nuclear fireworks display um two. Yeah, shoot
2:47
Speaker 1: a nuclear missile into the Moon to freak out the Russians. Yeah.
2:52
Speaker 1: They they wrapped it in a couple of slightly more
2:56
Speaker 1: scientific sounding terms. They called it a study of lunar
3:00
Speaker 1: research flights or something that would help in answering quote
3:04
Speaker 1: some of the mysteries and planetary astronomy and astrogeology and
3:07
Speaker 1: freak out the Russians that was the main thing. Or like,
3:11
Speaker 1: you know what we should do, We should just make
3:13
Speaker 1: a clearly visible nuclear explosion on the Moon because Russia
3:17
Speaker 1: can see it, and you know, that'd be that'd be cool.
3:21
Speaker 1: That was their planning phase. Carl Sagan was in on it. Uh,
3:24
Speaker 1: he was. He was a wee young type when this
3:27
Speaker 1: was happening. I think he was still in school at
3:30
Speaker 1: the time. This was in nineteen fifty eight, and as
3:33
Speaker 1: you said, Nold, this did not come out until two thousand.
3:37
Speaker 1: The documents detailing the project we're secret for a little
3:41
Speaker 1: less than forty five years. And even today the US
3:45
Speaker 1: government does not recognize this. They don't officially admit it
3:50
Speaker 1: because it sounds so ridiculous. Yeah, and that Mr. Show
3:54
Speaker 1: probably was in like the late nineties. Oh wow. Yeah,
3:58
Speaker 1: it's like mid mid to late ninety so they did
4:01
Speaker 1: they didn't know. Wow, total parallel thinking. Good job Bob
4:05
Speaker 1: oden Kirk and David Cross and the team of writers
4:08
Speaker 1: who made that show possible. Yeah, I think you know
4:10
Speaker 1: the way people say um headlines today, you can't tell
4:13
Speaker 1: if it's like the onion or not. Yeah, there's there's
4:15
Speaker 1: been numerous times where Mr. Show is like eerily predicted
4:18
Speaker 1: the future. He you were going, you were doubling down
4:20
Speaker 1: on Mr Show, my friend. Now we got a second
4:22
Speaker 1: installment of Casey on the Case, right, So so blessed today.
4:27
Speaker 1: I know we're we're doubling up, right, We're case Rich,
4:32
Speaker 1: We're Casey Rich. My my grinch heart just grew three sizes.
4:36
Speaker 1: I can see it in a little frame. It just
4:37
Speaker 1: burst out in your chest. Yeah. Still pretty dark though. Uh.
4:41
Speaker 1: Dr Leonard Rifle was I believe seventy three when he
4:45
Speaker 1: gave this interview in two thousands as correct. Yeah, and
4:50
Speaker 1: he says himself that despite their stated aims on paper quote,
4:57
Speaker 1: it was clear that the main name of the proposed
4:59
Speaker 1: Debton was a pr exercise and a show of one upsmanship.
5:03
Speaker 1: The Air Force wanted a mushroom cloud so large it
5:06
Speaker 1: would be visible on Earth because the US, according to
5:11
Speaker 1: their own estimations, was lagging behind in the space race.
5:14
Speaker 1: Was he like from chap a quittic or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
5:16
Speaker 1: yeah he was. It just what a you know, spice
5:19
Speaker 1: up the voice a little bit, like believable way I
5:21
Speaker 1: like it? No, it's I was. I was there with you.
5:23
Speaker 1: And so this whole idea of what upsmanship, though, Ben
5:26
Speaker 1: this was a theme. This was kind of what the
5:28
Speaker 1: Cold War was all about, right, because it was like,
5:30
Speaker 1: we got nukes, You got nukes. Who's gonna do what? First?
5:33
Speaker 1: You know, We're going to develop a nuclear submarine. We're
5:35
Speaker 1: gonna develop a nuclear submarine. I think I I read
5:38
Speaker 1: in one of these thinking the Vice article by Harry
5:40
Speaker 1: Cheatle that at one point the US was considering um
5:43
Speaker 1: developing a nuclear powered spaceship. And the thing was, we
5:48
Speaker 1: weren't doing so hot in the space race because sput
5:51
Speaker 1: Nick was a thing, right, and we had not yet
5:54
Speaker 1: gone to the moon, and so we were desperately kind
5:57
Speaker 1: of trying to scrabble for purchase and showing our might
6:02
Speaker 1: over the Russians in some way. What better way to
6:05
Speaker 1: do that than to shoot a missile at the moon.
6:08
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, got crazy and that pitch so much blow
6:17
Speaker 1: you know what it does sound like it was. It
6:20
Speaker 1: was something allowing those lines of people just stuck in room.
6:25
Speaker 1: So this this research conducted the team that we're talking about,
6:29
Speaker 1: By the way, there were ten people in it. They
6:32
Speaker 1: were led by Leonard Rifle at the Illinois Institute of
6:35
Speaker 1: Technology in Chicago, and what they were tasked with studying
6:39
Speaker 1: was the potential visibility of the explosion and he benefits
6:43
Speaker 1: to science and as well implications for the lunar surface. Now,
6:48
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan was just kind of in the camp of
6:51
Speaker 1: the benefits to science segment. I believe he was looking
6:53
Speaker 1: at the way dust particles would they know. Maybe that
6:56
Speaker 1: was more about how it would look, maybe a combination
6:58
Speaker 1: of the two. I think it was because your spot on.
7:01
Speaker 1: He was attempting to build a mathematical projection of how
7:06
Speaker 1: a dust cloud in space around the Moon would work
7:09
Speaker 1: and whether that would obscure the visibility of the explosion.
7:13
Speaker 1: That was one of the big questions. So it was
7:15
Speaker 1: both the implication for the surface of the Moon and
7:18
Speaker 1: the visibility. Initially they said let's use a hydrogen bomb,
7:23
Speaker 1: but the problem was from the air force perspective that
7:26
Speaker 1: a hydrogen bomb was going to be too heavy to
7:29
Speaker 1: be useful, So then they tried to use a small,
7:33
Speaker 1: lightweight warhead that had a one point seven kill it's
7:36
Speaker 1: un yield. This is when they had developed intercontinental ballistic missiles,
7:40
Speaker 1: right yeah, I c b M so, so hitting the
7:43
Speaker 1: moon with with the right type of missile is not
7:48
Speaker 1: as tough. It's just the big question is will it
7:51
Speaker 1: be visible? You know? And then I mean there's no
7:53
Speaker 1: doubt from from from reading these interviews with Rifle that
7:56
Speaker 1: this was within the realm of possibility to accomplish their
8:00
Speaker 1: As of course that slightly nagging concern of what if
8:03
Speaker 1: there's a malfunction and the rocket kind of crashes back
8:07
Speaker 1: into Earth or like sling shots off the moon or
8:10
Speaker 1: something like that. Right yeah, certainly rife with potential problems. Um,
8:16
Speaker 1: but where what happened next? So at this point they're
8:21
Speaker 1: they're still evaluating this and they think they think they've
8:24
Speaker 1: come up with a plan. So just for contrast, this
8:27
Speaker 1: warhead that they decided to use, the WI it is
8:31
Speaker 1: a very low yield one point seven KILLO tons I said,
8:34
Speaker 1: for comparison, Little Boy, the bomb that was dropped over
8:38
Speaker 1: Hiroshima was between thirteen and eighteen killo tons, So this
8:44
Speaker 1: is not as big as bombs we've already dropped here
8:48
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. They thought, okay, we can hit it
8:52
Speaker 1: at the dark side of the Moon, the hidden side
8:54
Speaker 1: of the Moon. The dust cloud from the explosion will
8:56
Speaker 1: be lit up by the sun and you can see
8:59
Speaker 1: that from Earth. And due to as you said, no,
9:03
Speaker 1: the development of I C b ms, they believed that
9:06
Speaker 1: they could make this launch feasible by next year, by nine.
9:16
Speaker 1: How big is the moon? Man? How big is the Moon?
9:18
Speaker 1: I have a feeling how how how big is it?
9:20
Speaker 1: The Moon's actually only six thousand, seven eighty six miles
9:24
Speaker 1: in circumference, whereas the Earth is twenty four thousand, nine miles.
9:29
Speaker 1: So the reason I'm asking this, yeah, it's it's all
9:31
Speaker 1: very silly questions. Um, but you know, I would think
9:35
Speaker 1: couldn't this like cause problems with like the tides and stuff.
9:39
Speaker 1: I mean, it isn't the Moon responsible for regulating the tides?
9:42
Speaker 1: And if you damaged it or I don't know, I mean,
9:44
Speaker 1: I guess the nuclear blast wouldn't blow up the Moon.
9:47
Speaker 1: That's a misnomery, which just cause a big old crater
9:50
Speaker 1: I I looked into this. Okay, So first off, we
9:53
Speaker 1: know that they just wanted to make a visual splash.
9:57
Speaker 1: They just wanted to scare the Moon a little bit, right,
10:01
Speaker 1: But if they attempted to actually blow it up, it
10:06
Speaker 1: would take much, much, much more than the nuclear armaments
10:11
Speaker 1: that we currently possess, or especially that we possess then
10:16
Speaker 1: people have estimated the first off, to blow up the Moon,
10:19
Speaker 1: you would need uh, six hundred thousand of the largest
10:25
Speaker 1: atomic weapons ever built, the Starbamba, the Soviet r D
10:30
Speaker 1: S two twenty hydrogen bomb. It's the most powerful explosive
10:35
Speaker 1: that's ever been detonated ever by human kind back in
10:41
Speaker 1: We need six hundred thousand of those. Not only would
10:43
Speaker 1: we need six hundred thousand, we couldn't shoot them from Earth.
10:46
Speaker 1: We would have to dig into the Moon, distribute them evenly,
10:50
Speaker 1: and then detonate them, which would take centuries. Nobody's going
10:53
Speaker 1: to do that. That is a scale of international cooperation
10:57
Speaker 1: that has never existed, or like something like some kind
10:59
Speaker 1: of fictional supervillain might consider doing. Yeah, it's like a
11:03
Speaker 1: doctor Doom thing. But this did remind me of something
11:07
Speaker 1: we were talking about off air that we thought you
11:10
Speaker 1: would enjoy fellow ridiculous historians. The author Neil Stevenson, in
11:15
Speaker 1: the book Seven Eaves, takes a hard sci fi look
11:20
Speaker 1: at what would happen if the moon actually exploded, and
11:24
Speaker 1: he does it in a way that is not a
11:26
Speaker 1: spoiler for the book, for the plot of the book. Rather, So,
11:30
Speaker 1: I think we're okay to read this, but if you
11:33
Speaker 1: consider these things spoilers, then this is your official warning.
11:37
Speaker 1: No one, can you help me out with a spoiler? Countdown? Three, two, one,
11:42
Speaker 1: spoiler time. Okay. So the first sentence of Neil Stevenson
11:46
Speaker 1: seventies is the moon blew up without warning and for
11:50
Speaker 1: no apparent reason. That's how the That's how the novel starts.
11:55
Speaker 1: But what people quickly find is that when the moon
11:59
Speaker 1: blows up, pieces of it remain and they start falling
12:04
Speaker 1: toward Earth. So in in the story seventies, the moon
12:09
Speaker 1: breaks up into about seven more or less equal size pieces,
12:15
Speaker 1: and for a while they just orbit Earth. But then
12:18
Speaker 1: two of the pieces collide and that causes a fragment
12:21
Speaker 1: that makes future collisions more likely, and it keeps repeating
12:25
Speaker 1: at an exponentially growing rate until Earth is under this
12:28
Speaker 1: constant bombardment from meteorites, and they wipe out almost all life.
12:34
Speaker 1: The sky is ablaze. So it's it's not a good
12:39
Speaker 1: idea for us to blow up the Moon, just in
12:41
Speaker 1: case anyone was on the fence about that. But one
12:44
Speaker 1: thing I thought, uh that that was interesting too, is
12:47
Speaker 1: the idea that just detonating a nuclear device, even a
12:52
Speaker 1: relatively small one, on the Moon, could have effects on
12:56
Speaker 1: certain aspects of it. Right. I don't believe that single
12:59
Speaker 1: missile employed from Project A one one nine would be
13:03
Speaker 1: powerful enough to alter orbit, or maybe I'm just being hopeful.
13:07
Speaker 1: I hope it wouldn't. Me too, Ben, me too. But Ben,
13:10
Speaker 1: did you read that the Russians had a counter plan
13:13
Speaker 1: to blow up the Moon. I'm just gonna keep calling
13:15
Speaker 1: it blowing up the moons. That just sounds way more,
13:17
Speaker 1: way more fun. Detonating a nuclear device on the surface
13:21
Speaker 1: of the Moon. Well, what's the what's the Russian equivalent?
13:24
Speaker 1: What were they kicking around? Well, then the Russians plan,
13:28
Speaker 1: according to a cool article in the New York Post,
13:31
Speaker 1: called USA and USSR plan to nuke the Moon out
13:34
Speaker 1: of existence. That's a little hyperbolic there, I like it.
13:38
Speaker 1: There's what's called um Project E four and um. Their
13:43
Speaker 1: idea was to hit the moon with their own missile,
13:47
Speaker 1: but there were you know, same pitfalls as as as
13:50
Speaker 1: our issue, and this this fear that the missile could
13:54
Speaker 1: like boomerang off the Moon and you know, come back
13:57
Speaker 1: and hit the hit the Earth, or that I could
13:58
Speaker 1: you know, malfunction in midflight and fall down on the
14:02
Speaker 1: heartland Missouri or something like that. Who knows, this is
14:05
Speaker 1: just the dumbest Moscow Cold war competition ever. No, it's
14:09
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's as you would like to put
14:11
Speaker 1: a cartoon isshn, Yeah, it really is. It's like some
14:13
Speaker 1: seriously liney tunes bananas business. Now, in the USSRS defense,
14:19
Speaker 1: they sort of eased into it. I'm saying that because
14:24
Speaker 1: this was part of a series of proposals, all of
14:26
Speaker 1: which bore the code name E Project. E one was
14:30
Speaker 1: just like, here's how we're going to reach the moon.
14:32
Speaker 1: E two and E three were like, okay, once we
14:35
Speaker 1: reach it, here's how we send a probe to the
14:37
Speaker 1: dark side of the moon to take some photos. And
14:39
Speaker 1: then E four was like, here's how, stay with me,
14:43
Speaker 1: we launch a nuke at the moon. And who knows,
14:47
Speaker 1: maybe it was another room of ten people just walking
14:50
Speaker 1: around going yeah, yeah, that's great, that's great. Okay, a
14:53
Speaker 1: probe is good. But you know what we should do,
14:55
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I do know what you mean, Ben,
14:57
Speaker 1: I do know what you mean. And you know, it'd
14:59
Speaker 1: be pretty cool to go outside and have like a
15:01
Speaker 1: moment with the family where like kind of like watching
15:03
Speaker 1: an eclipse, you know, where you watch the mushroom cloud
15:07
Speaker 1: appearing on the moon. That would be pretty intense, But
15:09
Speaker 1: I think it would really instill some national pride in US.
15:12
Speaker 1: You know that we're smart country who does smart things
15:16
Speaker 1: while for good reasons, while we were still able to
15:20
Speaker 1: think those things right. Well, the Vice article makes a
15:23
Speaker 1: really good point about how like, in the same way,
15:25
Speaker 1: we're experimenting with drones so much, and everyone's just so
15:28
Speaker 1: hot for the new technology that we have now militaristically
15:32
Speaker 1: that the generals and the folks in charge of the time,
15:35
Speaker 1: we're really into exploring the power of nuclear energy. Yeah.
15:41
Speaker 1: I think that's a great point too. You know, everybody's
15:44
Speaker 1: so excited about this new technology. I mean, look at
15:48
Speaker 1: all the ridiculous things that we are attempting to do
15:50
Speaker 1: with drones, both in the commercial and private and public service.
15:55
Speaker 1: Fear but you know what's most disturbing to me about
15:59
Speaker 1: this story with Project A one one nine. It's not
16:02
Speaker 1: that it didn't happen. It's that the head scientist isn't
16:07
Speaker 1: sure why it never came to fruition. That's in the
16:10
Speaker 1: Vice article as well. He says he was horrified that
16:13
Speaker 1: such a gesture to sway public opinion was ever considered.
16:18
Speaker 1: And we've, you know, on a couple of different shows
16:20
Speaker 1: here at How Stuff Works. You and I both have
16:23
Speaker 1: dove head first into very strange plans by Uncle Sam
16:27
Speaker 1: to do one ridiculous thing or another. What was it.
16:31
Speaker 1: There was the bat bomb, there was the cyber cat spy,
16:35
Speaker 1: there was the what they called the gay bomb. They
16:40
Speaker 1: had some terrible ideas. Yeah, it's true. I mean, there's
16:42
Speaker 1: certainly been a lot of hair brained schemes throughout military history,
16:45
Speaker 1: and this was one that I was not personally aware of.
16:47
Speaker 1: It one of the hair brained beast. Well, let's say
16:50
Speaker 1: that you are listening to this episode and you have, uh,
16:56
Speaker 1: you have been sold on the idea. You respectfully disagree
16:59
Speaker 1: with your pals here at Ridiculous History, and you say,
17:02
Speaker 1: you know what, I've thought about it, and we should
17:05
Speaker 1: blow up the Moon. We should at least try our
17:08
Speaker 1: best to knock the crap out of it a couple
17:10
Speaker 1: of times with some nukes. I mean, the Moon's gotta comment.
17:12
Speaker 1: Look at that face. It's got the most punchable face.
17:14
Speaker 1: It always just pushes. It's just pushing. I like, how
17:17
Speaker 1: where anti moon? Yeah? Man, the moon. You're seeing the
17:21
Speaker 1: mighty bush. I have you know that in the Moon.
17:24
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm the Moon. He's kind of an idiot. Well,
17:28
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't deserve to get nuke them does
17:30
Speaker 1: not deserve to get nuked. No one does. And that's
17:33
Speaker 1: why for those of us who support the plan to
17:35
Speaker 1: blow up the Moon today maybe a tough day. This
17:39
Speaker 1: might be a tough episode because you see, not only
17:41
Speaker 1: did the project never come to fruition, but it will
17:45
Speaker 1: probably not happen for the immediate to mid future because
17:49
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, the United Nations Outer Space Treaty
17:54
Speaker 1: banned the use of nukes in space, making any study
17:58
Speaker 1: of nuking the moon fun illegal. Nukes in space the
18:07
Speaker 1: heady days of the fifties to the early sixties, So
18:12
Speaker 1: now we know why there is still a moon. That's great,
18:17
Speaker 1: that's a great point all the trash I've been talking
18:19
Speaker 1: about the moon. I'm kind of glad to have it.
18:22
Speaker 1: I love it. And we recently had a blood moon
18:25
Speaker 1: as we recorded this episode. Did you catch that? Did
18:27
Speaker 1: you do any weird pagan rituals that night? Ben Na?
18:30
Speaker 1: Just the normal, normal, normal rituals. And so that is
18:39
Speaker 1: our story of the moon. It's a little light, but
18:43
Speaker 1: you know what it's it was. It was self contained.
18:45
Speaker 1: We hit all the boxes. We talked about blowing up
18:47
Speaker 1: the moon. You guys, you got to hear mr show clip.
18:49
Speaker 1: What more do you want from us? How about a
18:50
Speaker 1: little listener now? Okay, so our first one comes from
18:57
Speaker 1: Kimia in and Kimira wrote to us and said, howdy,
19:01
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the podcast, but I tend to skip around
19:03
Speaker 1: to random episodes. Only started listening earlier this year, so
19:06
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of backlog for me too. I
19:08
Speaker 1: think we only started making this earlier this year. Has
19:11
Speaker 1: it been that long? I don't know how long it's
19:13
Speaker 1: been that short, Casey, how long have we been doing
19:15
Speaker 1: this show? How long have you been sitting in this room?
19:17
Speaker 1: Let's see the first episode came out. O, whoa, it's
19:23
Speaker 1: been a minute it's almost a year. Look at us
19:26
Speaker 1: well anyway, So Commira says, I just listened to your
19:29
Speaker 1: recent Napoleon Bunnies episode. The bunny story was totally hilarious
19:33
Speaker 1: and I had to relate it to several of my friends.
19:34
Speaker 1: But Os is super charmed with the anecdote about Napoleon's
19:37
Speaker 1: maybe crush on the Czar and people shipping them. Since
19:41
Speaker 1: you said you were curious and thick about the two
19:43
Speaker 1: of them, I went spelunking and sure enough something came up.
19:47
Speaker 1: Although several of them were in languages other than English,
19:50
Speaker 1: it does seem it's much more popular to ship Napoleon
19:53
Speaker 1: with Arthur Wellesley. Though fick writers do love them, some
19:57
Speaker 1: hate shipping. Anyhow, here the fix I did find when
20:01
Speaker 1: Napoleon Alexander that we're in English, not that I have
20:04
Speaker 1: read them full your convouchul quality. Ha ha uh. And
20:07
Speaker 1: she posted one of these fan fiction links, and then
20:11
Speaker 1: she posted a sequel, and then she posted another another
20:17
Speaker 1: fan fiction and says in this one quote, Napoleon Bonaparte
20:22
Speaker 1: works at Thomas Jefferson strip Club and falls for his
20:25
Speaker 1: coworker Arthur Wellesley. Though it says it contains some Napoleon
20:30
Speaker 1: Alex stuff as well. I loved your episode on the
20:34
Speaker 1: history of mooning, which I listened to earlier tonight. Thanks
20:37
Speaker 1: again for producing such an enjoyable podcast. Caim here, thank
20:41
Speaker 1: you for checking out the show and doing that research
20:43
Speaker 1: for us. I will you know, I'm I'm gonna go
20:45
Speaker 1: out on limb and say this stuff probably isn't my thing,
20:48
Speaker 1: but I am going to read through to see if
20:52
Speaker 1: there is one that is safe for work, and if
20:54
Speaker 1: it is, we'll go ahead and post it on ridiculous historians.
20:58
Speaker 1: What do you think we've seen that been an all
20:59
Speaker 1: fan pick this floating around out there? I have not.
21:02
Speaker 1: I have not. Did you write it pretty steamy? Did
21:05
Speaker 1: you write it? No? Maybe there's not though right, there's not.
21:12
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say, oh man, the tension. Okay, who's next? Next?
21:16
Speaker 1: We have a quick one from Rex Wesley are great name. Um,
21:21
Speaker 1: He just says, had to chime in on some listener
21:24
Speaker 1: mail you got about accents. As someone who was raised
21:26
Speaker 1: in both Georgia and California, I was usually told I
21:29
Speaker 1: had one when I was in California, but when I
21:32
Speaker 1: was in Georgia, I would get grief for not having one.
21:34
Speaker 1: I have not lived in the South for many years
21:37
Speaker 1: now and have lost it until I have had some drinks,
21:41
Speaker 1: so kind of along the same lines of what we
21:43
Speaker 1: talked about, then it seems to come out with a vengeance.
21:46
Speaker 1: Thanks for the show, Rex, Yeah, I saw that as well.
21:49
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Rex, and uh, I imagine that
21:53
Speaker 1: you are not alone in that experience there. I've seen.
21:57
Speaker 1: I've got some friends who sound pretty neutral in their
22:01
Speaker 1: American accents, but if they have a couple of drinks
22:04
Speaker 1: or a couple of glasses of wine, they sound like
22:06
Speaker 1: Boston townies like that. Okay, I had to bring this
22:10
Speaker 1: one up because I think you've seen this too, Bid,
22:11
Speaker 1: But this is really interesting. It's called thoughts on the
22:14
Speaker 1: Malor Wildlife Refuge. I mean, I'm still flummexed on the
22:18
Speaker 1: pronunciation of that. Male. I'm gonna say Mallear the Mallard
22:20
Speaker 1: Wildlife Refuge episode plus a little blink one of you
22:23
Speaker 1: two says, Hey, guys, love the podcast and many others
22:25
Speaker 1: that you have your hands in. If you can make
22:27
Speaker 1: it all the way to the end of this email,
22:29
Speaker 1: you shall find a funny nugget regarding an episode from
22:31
Speaker 1: one of your other shows. Wait, wait, point of order.
22:33
Speaker 1: I thought we were reading short ones. Woman, I'm gonna
22:36
Speaker 1: I'm gonna summarize this one. It's mainly because it's like
22:38
Speaker 1: some bullet point. I think this is a great I
22:40
Speaker 1: think it's very interesting, says I just finished your episode
22:42
Speaker 1: on the Wildlife Refuge and felt compelled to immediately right
22:45
Speaker 1: to you. I imagine you've gotten some thoughts about this.
22:48
Speaker 1: We have indeed got some thoughts on this one. Um,
22:50
Speaker 1: but I'd like to throw my two cents in because
22:53
Speaker 1: I believe, in the absolute core of my being in
22:55
Speaker 1: the importance of preservation of all protected land in the
22:58
Speaker 1: U S. And I suppose because of this, I felt
23:00
Speaker 1: this episode surprisingly problematic and scary. I will try not
23:04
Speaker 1: to make this too long, but a couple of points
23:06
Speaker 1: that are burning behind my eyeballs. Once a way to
23:10
Speaker 1: remove protections is found, this opens up a disastrous can
23:14
Speaker 1: of worms that could spiral out of control, especially under
23:17
Speaker 1: this administration. First, it's as innocent seeming as letting cows graze,
23:21
Speaker 1: and the next thing you know, someone's figured out how
23:24
Speaker 1: to get oil out of Yosemite. Secondly, preserving the biodiversity
23:28
Speaker 1: of ecosystems surrounding farm land is essential to being able
23:31
Speaker 1: to farm that land. I hate to be a cliche,
23:35
Speaker 1: but it is quite literally a delicate balance, and once
23:37
Speaker 1: that is disrupted, that domino effect would absolutely lead to
23:40
Speaker 1: problems with the plants and animals that farmers rely on.
23:44
Speaker 1: What's the solution, sustainable and responsible farming practices, Use the
23:47
Speaker 1: land responsibly rather than barrel through and then ask for more.
23:51
Speaker 1: Look at Easter Island for example. The running theory is
23:53
Speaker 1: that the people on that island used up every last
23:56
Speaker 1: resource they had and then they pretty much all died
23:59
Speaker 1: or left because they could sustain themselves anymore. Bad plan. Uh.
24:02
Speaker 1: That was really the points that I wanted to get to.
24:04
Speaker 1: I think this is really interesting and something we did
24:06
Speaker 1: not really discuss in the episode. The idea of the benefits.
24:09
Speaker 1: We just gouss some of the sure pitfalls of of
24:12
Speaker 1: some of this preservation, but not so much maintaining that biodiversity.
24:15
Speaker 1: I think that ecosystem point is essential, and I'm really
24:20
Speaker 1: glad we got that on air. I think this is
24:22
Speaker 1: also worth it. Alise, I think you have a great
24:26
Speaker 1: story about Tom DeLong. You want to do that one? Sure? Yeah? Okay,
24:30
Speaker 1: So Elise, you say about five years ago, I just
24:32
Speaker 1: moved to l A. I went to one of their
24:34
Speaker 1: last concerts as the former Blink one D two A Palma.
24:37
Speaker 1: I was their agent at the time. So after the show,
24:39
Speaker 1: a handful of us went to the green room for
24:41
Speaker 1: post show business stuff or whatever it is they do.
24:44
Speaker 1: We plopped down for a BS sesh. It's cool phrase
24:48
Speaker 1: in Tom's dressing room and I saw that he has
24:50
Speaker 1: stack of space books and the TV was just playing
24:52
Speaker 1: loops of space videos. At some point, knowing Tom's affinity
24:56
Speaker 1: for aliens, I began to ask about what was on
24:59
Speaker 1: the TV. It was an immediately met with the chorus
25:01
Speaker 1: of no no, no, no no no no no no no
25:03
Speaker 1: no no no no no from everyone there who knew him.
25:07
Speaker 1: They said, do not get him started on space. So uh,
25:12
Speaker 1: at least goes on to say she managed to avoid that.
25:16
Speaker 1: But Tom DeLong was a really nice guy and a
25:20
Speaker 1: little bit weird, but overall very endearing. So this was
25:23
Speaker 1: a great letter with some important points, some amusing anecdotes,
25:27
Speaker 1: and to explain for anybody who hasn't checked out our
25:30
Speaker 1: other shows, stuff they don't want you to know. We
25:33
Speaker 1: recently did an episode on Tom DeLong, who has quit
25:37
Speaker 1: Blink one D two to pursue his beliefs about unidentified
25:43
Speaker 1: aerial phenomenon full time. That sounds about right. It does
25:47
Speaker 1: sound about right, and it also sounds like the other
25:48
Speaker 1: guys in Blink one any too. We're kind of being
25:50
Speaker 1: bullies to poor Tom. So you know, let that boy
25:54
Speaker 1: have his space. Yeah, and this concludes our listener mail. Okay,
26:01
Speaker 1: but not our show. Let us know what other strange, secret,
26:06
Speaker 1: hopefully hilarious cold war plans you have happened across in
26:11
Speaker 1: your neck of the Global Woods. It doesn't have to
26:13
Speaker 1: be just us stuff. We would love to hear a
26:15
Speaker 1: weird plan from Australia, New Zealand wherever. You can make
26:19
Speaker 1: these suggestions on Ridiculous Historians, our Facebook page, on our Instagram,
26:24
Speaker 1: on our Twitter, you can emails directly where we are
26:27
Speaker 1: ridiculous at how stuff Works dot com. As always, we'd
26:29
Speaker 1: like to thank our super producer Casey Pegram, Alex Williams
26:32
Speaker 1: who composed our theme, Christopher haciotas our researcher extraordinaire, and
26:37
Speaker 1: we'd like to thank you. See you next time.