The world’s most controversial events, and the complex beliefs behind them. From Bigfoot sightings to bitcoin takeovers, alien landings to assassinations, who’s shaping the narrative — and why? Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify Podcast. New episodes Wednesdays.
Popular Clips
Unharmed travelers to stay put. It's safer on board than out in the desert. But few people heed the advice There are still cries of pain and fear, and everyone is just trying to figure out what's going on. Like a twenty nine year old kitchen worker named Daryl Taylor. In a stroke of bad luck, Daryl happened to be in one of the cars that went into the ravine. A dorm style sleeper car for the crew. When the train derailed, Daryl flew out of his bed and slammed into the window of his compartment. By the time people are assessing the situation above, Daryl is stuck in the ravine inside his train car with a concussion. The power's out. He's been sleeping naked, and now he's fumbling around in the dark, trying to put on his clothes. That's when he hears someone in the next room calling for help. Daryl feels around for a door But the only way to escape is through the windows. Since the car is on its side, they are now above it. Daryl wiggles up through the opening and calls to the person in the other room, telling them to do the same. He emerges into a world of chaos. He sees the other derailed cars. He hears people screaming in fear and pain. It's dark, cold, and his head is throbbing. The whole situation is unreal, like something from a disaster movie. But unfortunately, for everyone involved, This is real life. And those screams mean there are people who need help. Daryl quickly jumps into action and follows the cries.
You've probably heard someone use the term gaslighting before. It's made a resurgence in recent years. But you might not know that the word originally comes from a play that was adapted into a Hollywood thriller. The film was called Gaslight and it featured a young Angela Lansbury in her first ever Oscar nominated role. Charles Boyer plays a husband who manipulates his new wife, played by Ingrid Bergman, into believing, among other things, that she's insane for thinking the gas lamps in their house keep dimming. The lamps really are dimming, but he convinces his wife that it's all in her head so he can send her to a psychiatric hospital and search for jewels that are hidden in the house. If you like classic cinema and gothic romances, it's worth checking out. But the real reason I mention it is because the movie hit theaters in 1944. The exact same year that a violent and bizarre mystery shook a small Illinois town, attracting international attention. And for the past 80 years, one question has continuously come up. Was the mystery of the mad gasser of Mattoon solved? Or was an entire town of people gaslit? Welcome to conspiracy theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at the conspiracy pod, and we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Stay with us.
Move beyond letters to phone calls and signs placed around Circleville. Ron and Mary work with the local sheriff's department to try and end the harassment. Stakeouts are conducted. Phones are tapped. Officials even try to work with the US Postal Service to identify the culprit. But according to reports, they're not much help. For a while, the sheriff's department receives daily letters from concerned residents targeted by the Circleville writer. The volume is overwhelming, but no matter how hard they try, authorities can't seem to identify the culprit. So Mary and Ron formulate their own plan. They hold a meeting with 2 close relatives. Ron's sister, Karen Sue, and her husband, Paul Freshour. According to Paul, Mary had suspicions of who was behind the letters, so they write anonymous letters of their own to their suspect. 4 or 5 of them. Each one basically says, we know who you are and what you're up to. Their hope is that if they're correct, it'll scare the person enough to stop. And for a while, it seems to work. Then in the summer of 1977, Mary leaves for a trip to Florida with Ron's sister, Karen Sue. Before they leave, Ron reportedly tells Mary that he figured out the true identity of the Circleville writer. He says he plans to handle everything while she's away. But before Mary arrives at her destination, disaster strikes. On August 19, 1977, Ron Gillespie receives a phone call from an unknown individual. To this day, no one
Hawaii at Manoa, and I study biogeography and population genetics of marine organisms. Peter and I were talking over Zoom. To start, I just told Peter about my misadventures, about my desperate Google searches, about my suspicion that this all might have something to do with a mysterious, gut destroying fish called the Wallu Wallu. When I started googling this sushi experience, I was sort of plunged into a world of academics talking about how, in America, sushi can be like a 3 card ponte game a little bit, where what people are ordering might not be what they're getting. And I I just wanted to know, like, what your research has shown and sort of, like, how you even started poking at this question of, like, fish in the states at all. I got into this field purely by accident. I was a brand new assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, and I wanted to run a class for graduate students on molecular biology techniques. And so I was thinking, well, what can we do? What can we do? Well, a colleague of mine who happens to also be my partner in life suggested, well, why don't you guys go down to, grocery and buy some seafood and, you know, bring it back to the lab and just extract DNA and identify it and just see what it actually is. So that was the idea for the experiment. But then when Peter started thinking about what fish he'd wanna test, he very quickly stumbled on a pretty good question. His question was about red snapper, a very sought after, very popular fish. Once I had a look at fisheries landings for red snapper in the United States and how much red snapper was caught in the Gulf of Mexico and how much was imported from South America. I said, how is it that I can buy red snapper at any time of the year in any quantity at any grocery in the Chapel Hill area. There wasn't nearly enough of this fish being caught and imported to supply every grocery in the United States. And my experience was that you would see red snapper every
Afternoon at the grocery store. After she brings the supplies home, she practices the flute. Emanuella gets so into her music that she loses track of time. And before she knows it, she's late for class. Her lessons are held in a school near Piazza Navona, a public square just a couple miles outside Vatican City. Emanuella asks her older brother Pietro to take her to class. Usually, he'd happily give her a ride. He loves flaunting his new motorcycle. But today, his answer is a firm no. He's got a date with his girlfriend and doesn't want to risk being late to do his little sister a favor. Plus, it's a really hot summer day. Emanuella heads to Piazza Novona. She had made plans with her younger sister, 12 year old Christina, to meet up nearby around 7 PM. Then she arrives at her flute lesson half an hour late. After lessons, Emanuella walks across the piazza where a classmate sees her near the bus stop. When the bus arrives, the classmate hops on and Emanuella continues on to pick up Christina. At least that's her intention, but she apparently gets sidetracked. Sometime before 7 PM, Emanuella calls home. She tells her older sister, Frederica, that a man approached her with this great opportunity. He wants to hire her to advertise Avon products. He's even gonna pay her over $200. Old friend, Rika knows right away that it's a scam. She tells Emanuella not to accept any cash until she speaks with their parents during dinner. And that's basically the end of their conversation. Dinner at the Orlande household is served at 8 PM. But that night, when the family gathers
