Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope you got a loved one cozied up with you, a little chocolates. I mean, you know, Valentine’s Day sucks for dudes. Like, what do I get? I don’t get any. There’s no card, there’s no treats. Leftover chocolate. There’s literally nothing. I get nothing.

Or you can get lucky. Do you get stuff? Me and Eric get lucky. I get literally nothing. I mean, a little, you know. No, I don’t even get that. Nothing. You know what I get? I get like, “Where’s my Where’s my Sean? Where is it?” And I’m like, “Oh, here’s all this I bought for you.” Anyways, you guys have a happy Valentine’s. We will figure it out. We will have a very mediocre Valentine.

And if you don’t have a Valentine, then you got us, you know. I’m your Valentine. I’ll be your huckleberry. I’ll be your huckle bear. No. Our Patreon has really taken to a new level and Sean’s going to give some love to some of the new ones.

All right. So, we got Neon Lynx as part of the conspirators. What’s up, Neon? We got Jay Walker, part of the founding crew. Then we have David B. I’m not going to say your last name, but it’s a good name. David B. I want to say the last name so bad, but he did a yearly founding crew. Love you. You’re amazing.

Patrick B, even more amazing at a conspirators level yearly. Patrick B, huge shout out. Please join the Patreon so I can thank you in person. Well, digitally in person. Anyways, Tammy W, another founding crew member. Then we got Sergio with a yearly founding crew member.

A little Hispanic in the house. Gio, it might be Italian though. Sergio sounds. He could be Hispanic, he could 100% be Hispanic, but I’m going to go Italian. Sergio is Spanish. I’m Italian. It’s Hispanic. I include the Italians in my Hispanic crew. They’re the same. Same same. Ciao. Ciao. Sergio.

Then we got Jill D, another yearly founding crew member. You guys with these years, God, I’m just going to fall in love with one of you guys. And then we got Rob P with the Conspirators selection. My guy, those are all brand newies. These are all brand new. And I just want to say I love you guys. Like I actually genuinely love you.

And dude, podcasting is a depreciating asset. This isn’t like we are not rich. Not a lot of people know the difficulty of breaking into podcasts. It’s so hard. It’s very difficult. We’ve been doing this almost two and a half years and we don’t, this is not like we’re raking in the dough. I have two day jobs, like legitimately I’m not even kidding. So we appreciate you guys.

Just so you guys know if you are listening and you have consumed some content over the last couple years, the Patreons actually keep the show going. The Patreons are the sole reason we still exist. And from new merchandise to advertisements that we can expand the show, to even actually just equipment. Everything that you guys do helps the podcast. So if you like the content then you can support us via Patreon and then we’ll get more content to you.

And when you join the Patreon you get access to Discord. We have a fantastic community. We’ve got about 150 folks in our Discord. If you’re a VIP member, if you’re actually in a paid Patreon, not the free version, you get access to all the channels. We’ve got about 20 or so different channels. Very strong community. Literally people have been in there for years. You also get discounted merch which is now live, which you can go and we’ll post this on the social so you can get access to the merch.

Dude, there’s some cool stuff. I’m going to get a little coffee mug. Black. It’s blacked out coffee mug just with our logo. Dude, I’m getting the coffee mug, a koozie, and I’m getting the mouse pad. I need some of that. Gamer Dave got the hoodie which, as you said, was actually solid quality. So I was super jazzed about that.

Also, there’s a football jersey. I might wear that at the Super Bowl. But it also gets you accessible. Yeah, I’m not going to go to the Super Bowl. And neither is your team. It also gets you access to the minis. So we have almost 20 minis in there. And we’ve been, surprising enough, adding more minis as our promise that we made to you last year, about two a month.

We’re about doing about two additional minis a month and we’re going to try to keep that trend, if not more, going because we want to give back to the Patreons because you guys are the lifeblood of this organization. So there you go. What do we got on the deck of the day, Big E?

Okay, so this is kind of a strange one, dude. I love this one. We’re going to label this one fringe. This one’s fringe. It’s fringe as I don’t know how many people are searching for this. No, I mean pretty much nobody’s searching for this. We are the only ones searching. This might be a low listen to episode. It’s got like six downloads. The first, this is birds are fake. Just saying it. You can’t say that with a straight face. I know. It’s so stupid, but I kind of like it.

Do you have any skin in this game already? Not really, cuz pigeons are weird. There’s weird little, so my wife brought this up to me. I think it was two days ago and she was like, “Have you ever seen a baby pigeon?” Yeah, exactly. And I was like, “Well, of course I haven’t. I’ve seen their nest.” She’s like, “Not even in the nest. Have you ever seen a picture of a baby pigeon?” And I was like, “No, that’s a good point. I’ve never even seen a picture of a baby.”

No, they’re born adult. That doesn’t work that way. They’re born out of an egg. You don’t hatch out of an egg an adult, literally. Is it like an ostrich egg? How big is an egg? Is it an egg? They’re birds. Well, what do you mean? It’s called science. What do you mean? Birds are born from eggs. I don’t know enough about these birds to talk about. All birds are born from eggs. That’s what we’re going to get into today.

I think they’re just born and they look like an adult. They’re born in like 40. I get it that they’re born out of an egg, but you know, it’s like the pelicans. They’re just born. They’re born with like a mustache and a receding hairline ready to go. Like literally, they’re born like on Medicaid.

Well, if it flies, it spies. And that’s the quote from a crowd chanting on a sunny afternoon in Hollywood. Wait, there’s a crowd. If it flies, it spies. Okay. Hundreds of young people march with their tongue and cheek fury, hoisting signs that read, “Birds are not real.” There was an, okay, you’re, hundreds of, wait, you’re telling me, there was a protest. There was a protest about birds but not about Epstein.

You mean to tell me that hundreds of, whatever the these people are, Hollywood. Oh, that makes sense. Checks out. Okay, you continue, please. Leading the charge is a wide-eyed young man with a megaphone and a cowboy hat. His voice booms with outrage. CNN, he prompts. Pro bird. Oh my god. Is this real? Did you really say this? Yes.

The protesters holler back. It’s a scene that feels like a sketch comedy bit. Yet the energy is real. Strangers on the sidewalk pause, half confused but half amused, as the rally thunders by. Everybody seems to be in on a joke. Is it a joke? In an age when wild conspiracy theories have, Jesus Christ, I can’t even look at you while you’re saying this.

In an age when wild conspiracy theories have become common and actually factual, a movement declaring that birds are government drones has somehow taken hold. Okay, I’ll let you finish. So that’s the conspiracy. It’s that all birds. All birds. All birds are drones.

I mean, I’m sorry, but like, brother, what are you doing that’s so important that they need to spend that much capital on a goddamn peregrine falcon to watch your ass? It’s funny you bring it up cuz the other day, I forget who was saying something like, you know, aren’t you worried about them? I think we were talking about the Pegasus program and looking into your phone and I was like, bro, my shit’s not that, there’s not a lot of information.

They’re going to go to my history and they’re like whatever. Like he’s got a strange fascination with Sydney Sweeney. This guy is so lame. That’s about it. Found the keyword bath water 59 times. Like soap swamp. It’s never ending quizzes about who’s hotter. Anna de Armas or, I mean that’s such a tough question, it’s like this is, I mean that might be the pinnacle of.

I rewatched the 007 movie that was her first movie, so dude she’s wearing this like, dude I watched, I was on a flight when I last went to England and I watched Ballerina. Oh really? How was it dude? It was good. It was not bad. It was not bad. I mean, it was like the worst of the, it was the worst of the wicks for sure. And like, but she put in the time. No, but she was good. And then John Wick was in it, which was the best part of the movie.

That’s why, it was the only good part of the movie. How much was he in it? Like just like a 10-minute, it was probably like 18 minutes totally, pops. And he’s literally just like beating her. He’s like, “Please stop.” And she’s like, “No.” And he’s like, “Just stop it. You can’t beat me. Like stop.” Yeah. But she’s so hot. I told my wife that I was into her and she’s like, “That’s your type.” Cuz my wife is like blonde hair, blue eyes.

And I’m like, “No, it’s, I can agree that like Chris Hemsworth or the Hemsworths are all like beautiful men. Like why can’t I just, can you just agree that she’s beautiful?” Anyways, we’re talking about birds. Speaking of birds, I just think it’s funny that they’re like, “Okay, birds are fake. They’re drones, but you have a literal supercomputer that’s filming you and listening to you all the time.” Although that’s not the issue. The issue is the birds. Yeah, exactly.

Although drone technology has come quite far. Quite far. Yeah. The origin of birds aren’t real reads like Gen Z folklore. It all began on a whim in 2017 in Memphis, Tennessee. Peter Mackando, a 20-year-old college student, found himself amid the fervor of a woman’s march. Okay. Just one day after Trump was inaugurated for the first time. Vibing.

Tensions in the streets were high. Protesters carried serious messages and a few counterprotesters lingered at the margins. Feeling mischievous, Mackando scrawled three words on a poster board. Birds aren’t real. So he did it as a joke. He was just messing around. I love it. He says it was a spur of the moment. Dude, I love this guy. This guy is a legend.

He said, “I just thought I should write a sign that has nothing to do with what’s happening in this protest.” Dude, this guy is a legit legend. I’m actually on board with this. I’m in. He’s right. When curious counterprotesters asked what his sign meant, Mackando didn’t miss a beat. On the spot, he made up an entire conspiracy theory based on his board. He is all in. He claimed to be part of a secret movement back in the 1970s, one that tried and failed.

Wait, how old is this guy? He’s 20. But how was he part of a secret movement in the 70s? They can’t do basic math. He’s, the 1970s, he’s like 12, like 26 years before I was born. Dude, I got to have a beer with this guy. Dude, I would happily buy this guy a beer.

So, he claimed that he was part of a secret movement dating back to the 1970s, one that tried and failed to save the country’s birds. In his impromptu tale, the deep state had wiped out all birds and they replaced the birds with flying surveillance drones, then they were disguised as birds. Little did they know the American people created blinds. No. This is what he told protesters, straight face. This is what he said. Every bird you see is actually a tiny feathered robot watching you.

Do you understand the capex cost? Like I just want to put this in human perspective terms. The sheer cost to do, can you imagine the government stuff, the trillions of dollars, 10 times more expensive. True. Oh yeah. They’re upcharging everything. The trillions of dollars this would cost. Is this where Palantir comes in? Oh yeah. No, like the largest government contract in the history of mankind.

So protesters and counterprotesters listened in earnest, looking at this young man who was warning that the government had engineered the genocide of birds and then that flocks of spy drones were now perched on power lines to recharge. That’s how they, so they’re solar too. Their little claws are just like absorbing the ambient power on the lines? Yes. So you see all the birds on the power lines just perched up there? Yeah. They’re recharging.

Well, common misconception. All right. So there’s different grades of power lines. No, there is. So there’s transmission lines, which are like the big towers. The big tall ones. They’re called T lines, transmission lines. They’re triple braided. They’re huge and those are the ones that you hear like when you hear like the, those are coming straight from the power plants and those are transmitting insanely high levels of energy, those are the ones that are off energy.

So birds are on distribution lines. So what happens is, birds, if birds are perched on the power line, you’re talking about like those are more like the neighborhood. It’s called a distribution line. So what happens is the power from the T-lines goes to a substation which dumbs the power down to normal levels and then that gets distributed on the power lines that are in your neighborhood, which goes to your transformer and then makes it into 240 which goes into your house.

Like those lines aren’t energy off. Yeah. My wife’s telling me to land the plane. Jesus Christ. Show me to land the bird. Land the bird. Land the drone. The drone bird. No. So I’m saying you could touch one of those lines and you would be fine. So it’s not like they’re, oh yeah, that’s what I’m saying. You’re adding, I’m adding context to like, oh, they’re recharging. If a bird touched the tea line, it would explode. It would literally blow.

You’d be fine if you touched those. I didn’t know that. I’m not going to touch that. I’m not. Yeah. I’m not going to test that out. Nobody listening touches. This is not financial advice. This is not financial. I’m not telling you to do it. I’m just telling you the science to do it. And if you wanted to do it, you could do it. God damn it. Am I going to get sued for this? Yeah. And you’re going to get hate comments. So I always get hate.

Mackando’s friends watched in astonishment as he stayed in character and shouted the following. Wake up, America. Birds are fake. They’re a myth. They’re an illusion. They’re a myth. Thank you for your time. That was it. That was it. I love it. He did like a speech and it’s like Forrest Gump, like that’s all I got to say about that. Oh god. That’s all.

This might be the world’s greatest conspiracy. The birds aren’t real clip from Memphis went viral. It struck a nerve online. As the video continued to expand, Memphis became ground zero for birds are fake. Ground zero. It’s like the crusades. Like ground zero.

As things progressed, Mackando started seeing the phrase scrawled in graffiti and chalk on walls, and teenagers at high schools began shouting, “Birds aren’t real” at football games. Social media accounts bearing the name popped up as fan accounts, Instagram, TikTok. Hundreds of thousands of followers to quote unquote official birds aren’t real accounts popped up.

We also got hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers on the flat earth theory. So I mean there’s a market for anyone. We should make a birds aren’t real coin, like fake bird coin. I might wear a t-shirt this person, dude. I would just add it to the merch store. You know what? We’re gonna tell Gamer Dave to add it. I actually I’ll buy one. I’ll buy one. I’ll legit buy one. I promise.

So the question though is what made this bizarre idea resonate? In part, it was just a realistic enough parody to real conspiracies. So this is almost like a conspiracy within the conspiracy within the conspiracy, almost like a satire of him being at the protest. This is like a conspiracy inception. Yeah. On Reddit as of 2022, so this is years ago, there are 360,000 subscribers to the thread birds aren’t real.

Okay. Maybe there’s an untapped market here that we have not activated. We’re about to get our highest. This might be the greatest. Honestly, we’re going to get tons of bad reviews saying that we didn’t give them a chance. Remember the flat earth? Yes. We didn’t give them a chance. All right. We’re going to start taking this serious episode serious. I can’t, I’m sorry. I can’t do it. Continue, please, though.

As one teenager explained, teenagers understand it. They don’t need footnotes. I don’t even know what to say. What does that even mean? What does that even, what teenagers don’t understand it? They don’t need foot. What? Meanwhile, Mackando leaned into the absurdity. Sensing he tapped into something big, he decided to drop out of college and see how far his bird joke could fly.

His parents were baffled and they begged him to reenroll and finish his degree. But he saw birds aren’t real as art imitating life in the post-truth era, and he said, “It could be a very interesting art project, a mirror to the exponentially growing absurdity of America.” Okay. What is this guy? Is he a philosopher? What is he talking about?

I think where he’s going with this, correct me if I’m wrong, at this point, conspiracy theorists had a bad name. None of this stuff was coming true yet. And so he thinks this is going to give them a good name. This is the anti. It’s the satire of it. It’s so insane that he’s seeing how many millions of followers he can get on something absurd. Oh, so this is like his own individual scion. Yes.

So Mackando recruited a few like-minded friends and they got to work building the lore. If birds aren’t real was going to be a proper conspiracy, it needed a backstory. It needed evidence, quote unquote. Mackando enlisted his buddy Connor Gaaden, a history buff, as a chief mythology maker. Together, they cooked up a delightfully ludicrous official story. According to their lore, the CIA had grown so annoyed by birds, specifically their enragement of pooping on windshields, that the agency decided to exterminate 12 billion birds.

You know what? I feel that. I feel that so hard. Those with all over. How do they make the robot birds still, yeah, now hold on. We got the whole, they created a whole backstory. They had no, they dropped out of school to do this. So they really worked it out. So the CIA had grown so annoyed by birds, their pooping habits, the agency decided to exterminate 12 billion birds and replace them with surveillance robots.

Oh, genius. The bird genocide supposedly began under Eisenhower in the 50s and was completed by 2001. Birds Aren’t Real’s creative team gleefully sprinkled the narrative with just enough familiar beats from actual conspiracy lore, secret CIA programs, deep states, etc. to give it some sort of authenticity, legitimacy. They even produced fake classified documents and staged an ex-CIA whistleblower testimony in order to support it. Oh my god.

In 2019, Mackando hired an actor, and he called it the oldest, most world-weary man he could find, to portray Eugene Price, a retired agent spilling government secrets. And in a video titled The Confession of Eugene Price, the gravely voiced agent described bearing evidence of the great bird cover up. No big deal. It now has 10 million views on TikTok alone. No big deal, dude.

Like, see, this is the problem. These are the people that we make famous. This is literally, like maybe this guy is a genius. This guy actually just might, this guy might just be a genius. What the hell are you talking about? Because we’re all so dumb that they bought into this psychosis and now he’s getting 10 million views.

I mean, hold on. We got like 5 million views on like some Titanic water. Listen, Jorge, that was your accidental genius. And there was like 30 million. That was Jorge. It was like 30 million. So literally when Jorge posted, I was like, “Okay, sure.” And then we’re like, “This is our highest viewed video ever.” Literally 30 million views on someone putting their hand in cold Titanic water. It’s on our Instagram. Go watch it. It’s on the IG. Give us a couple more views.

So in 2019, a billboard in Memphis touted birds aren’t real. All it said on the billboard was birds aren’t real. And it provided a perfect selfie backdrop for those in the joke. So the movement then became bigger and there became billboards in Tennessee, California, Florida, etc. And by 2019 the satire had spilled from the internet into the world where in Memphis, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, etc. All these billboards just declared nothing else but birds aren’t real. And they were kind of like selfie spots.

So then people would come and, you know what I mean, take a little selfie. Then it’s like engineered virality. Yeah. I mean I really fear for the education system in our state. Jesus Christ. It went even further. Merchandise exploded. Merch, of course. Merch exploded. T-shirts, hats, all sorts of things. I mean, I want to steal the idea. We need to add this to our merch for sure.

Dogs aren’t real. Yeah, they’re literally robots. They’re spies. There’s robot spies inside your home. They sleep in your bed and, yeah, they made the lovey lick you and they all over the place. They eat all your food. Shit’s not real though. No, it’s just not real. Like all the, my dog Harvey who just ate my daughter’s pretzels and ripped up the bag. It was totally not legit. It’s all part of the scam. Just in your mind, Sean. Just imagine it.

What had started as a lone prank was now a movement with a life of its own. They created a team called the bird brigade. The bird brigade. And it was an activist network called the bird brigade. Stop. Why do you keep saying brigade? Brigade. Sorry. The bird brigade. The aesthetic was purposely DIY, like a little crappy, like poorly photoshopped, like you go to HomeGoods and get some paper and you write on it.

Pretty soon there were real life rallies and Mackando bought a beat up van for $2,000 and he nicknamed it the Duchess and on the sides he painted pigeons are liars. I like this guy. I mean this guy sounds like Jeffrey Dahmer. He’s like starting a weird religion that’s starting to get traction. So he’s like, oh, I can’t stop now. He’s like, “How do I monetize?” Exactly. Like do merch.

At one of these rallies, he said the following. He stood up and he said, and I quote, “All birds in the United States were killed by the government and replaced by federal drones. Birds sit on power lines. We believe they’re charging on power lines. Bird poop on cars is liquid tracking apparatus.” Liquid tracking apparatus. Damn it. Water washes it away. No.

City by city, the tongue and cheek tour rolled on. In San Francisco, a band of bird truthers gathered outside Twitter’s headquarters to demand the company change its bird logo. Cancel them. Cancel these. Having a picket conspiracies. What the. Oh man. Bird truthers. Oh my god. Continue, please.

Of course, not everybody got the joke. Mackando’s dedication to character sometimes fooled some people. He would do local radio interviews in full conspiracy mode, somberly describing the tragic bird genocide, which some radio hosts were not sure how to respond. They would just be like, oh that’s horrible. Yeah. Like I just saw a bird legit like today. Like what?

But he kept in character and he just said, just so you know you’re being watched. They want mass control. Stay woke. Stay woke. Stay woke, bros. Oh my god. This is insane. I can’t believe we’re doing this. After four years of elaborate hoax, hoax or whatever this madness, he finally decided to step out of character. By late 2021, especially online, he really appeared as himself in the media almost like he became a character.

Like he, Borat or like Maron, created the character that he would become. And he said, real, the birds aren’t real. I’m trying to do the Borat voice. The birds. There you go. He said, “Real conspiracy theorists will approach me like I’m their brother. They’ll start spouting out hateful rhetoric and racist ideas because they feel I’m safe.” In other words, some folks didn’t see the joke.

And I guess that is like his whole plan, his whole creation. It’s literally just like Borat. You’re creating this thing that’s insane, but it’s funny to you and to others because you know how insane it is, but then people think you’re for real. And then you just keep it going. And like you just perpetuate the lie forever.

And there’s some more stories that are involved in here, but to be honest, I hate it. Dude, it’s, I don’t hate it. I think it’s hilarious. It’s hilarious. It’s actually hilarious. It’s really funny. I mean, there’s a couple points that are so hard to circumvent. It is like the sheer waste of money that it would take and time to manufacture billions of birds and then program them to all magically fly around and then eat and.

But they’re fake, but it’s real, but it’s fake, but it’s a tracking, but also it’s like, oh we’re going to track you but when you’re in your home we’re kind of alive hunt and then you eat them like quail. They’re just drones. The turkey. Yeah. No, I mean obviously, ostrich. Yeah. But the point of all of this is obviously to go, I mean at this time was to go conspiracies are going too far. Yeah, that’s the joke, right? I see. That was like his joke. That’s his intention. Yes.

And it’s also like, okay, cool. Like you’d have birds as tracking things, but you have a literal device that you carry with you at all times that’s tracking your location with your permission. That’s listening to you, looking at you, and literally recording all of your written and voice communication. That’s with you in your house whenever you sleep next to, that literally never leaves your side. Ever. It’s basically your digital you. Yet they need birds to track it. They need birds to keep an eye. It’s so insane.

But he says, and I quote, Mackando, he says, “It’s taking this concept of misinformation and building a little safe space to come together within it and laugh at it rather than be scared about it.” I think he had a great idea. It is a great social experiment, to like, and it’s fun, but then I thought he kept taking it too far. He was perpetuating, instead of being like, “Don’t you guys see how funny this is? It’s a joke.” He was trying to make it real, right?

And I think he was doing a cash grab, which is, he was doing like a little pump and dump on his own, his own pump and dump. So I think that in a sense, do I think the concept is insane? No. Do I think they probably use some sort of technology like that on a very small, very minute scale? 100%. But against just the population, just general citizens? No, I’m talking about like in Iraq and like Iran, like they’re like, “Oh, it’s a pigeon. Don’t look at me.” And it’s like they got C4 in it to blow up the house.

Sure that we have like films that are small, the Chinese, I’ve seen the Chinese ones. Yeah. But in terms of like on a massive scale where they genocided all the birds, and dude, I literally watched two pigeons, and it was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Real life. I was on my honeymoon, granted this is in the US, no, I was in Barcelona, and we’re at a bus stop waiting to go to Gaudi Park and there’s a pigeon there and another pigeon flies down and I’m like, okay, what’s happening?

And then the one looks at it and it’s walking around in circles around this other pigeon. I’m like this is interesting. And then it jumps on top of him. And I’m like, “Oh my god, what’s happening?” And then he like flies away and I was like, “Did they just, did this just, and they’re gone.” And he flew away. The best 15 seconds ever. No, but he bailed. The dude bailed out. It’s not my kid, off. Just like dipped. I was like, “Oh my god.”

No, but I guess the question is, is there a point of, he’s making fun of the conspiracies. Yes. So like maybe, are we taking them too far? No. I think he probably, also at that time, like nowadays I kind of, what was the year again? 2017ish, you know. But I kind of consider nowadays a little bit of the age of conspiracy theorists because a lot of it has come true. Yes for sure.

You know we have a lot of episodes, if you guys follow us, a lot of our episodes have actually come true. You know what I mean? Things are coming to light. I think that he probably had a good idea, probably saying that some conspiracy theories are so not rooted in anything logical or anything that is even remotely plausible or realistic, fear ridden. And it’s also like he’s probably trying to prove you can convince people of anything. It can make anybody think anything.

Whereas the conspiracies that I subscribe to are ones that logically would make sense and there’s a purpose behind it and that purpose makes sense and, yes, like we don’t want to believe that our fellow man could be capable of such cruel dastardly deeds. Or we want to believe that aliens, pyramids. I mean, but if you look at it from an actual statistical probability of there being aliens, it is 100%.

Okay, Eric, from the statistical probability of there being other life in the universe, it is 100%. Like it is 1,000%. Do you realize how infinitesimally small the earth is in the grand scale of the universe? It is the smallest. We are a grain of sand in a beach that’s the size of our galaxy. In all of the beaches, that’s the size of our galaxy. We’re a grain of sand.

If you guys don’t know, we spent about like six hours on this. We’re about to spend another six, but Eric, I actually consider it one of our better, best episodes. If you go back, but the pyramids. The pyramids. I really think we did a good job. About five hours I think of it. It was about five.

So I just want to touch on one thing that Sean was talking about, the cash grab thing. Oh, it’s 100% cash. Full cash grab. He just happened to come out with a book in 2024, like not even that long ago. So you know, did he? Yeah. Really? It’s called the bird or birds real or some, yeah, I think that’s the name of the title. Anyways. All right. So it’s a cash grab. Clear cash grab. Like, he hasn’t found a new thing. No. Well, obviously he didn’t finish school, so he has no career plans.

Although, I like the guy. I like that he was able to get some traction behind this. It just shows also how gullible some people are. That’s the question, is he correct in the sense that do we take it too far? Well, no. See, here’s now. Granted, we have a show called The Conspiracy Podcast. But we’re actually pretty mellow. We actually have fans who are like, “You guys don’t even scratch the surface of it.”

Like, we don’t go down the rabbit hole that way, in a sense, like on purpose. We’re just trying to bring you enough information, but we also don’t go so super deep into every single detail, you know? We’re trying to just keep it more entertaining. No, but I also, I’m a scientist. I want to look at things from the most logical possible perspective I can. Obviously, we don’t know everything and our concept of reality is very limited to our reality. Like that’s all we know.

But there’s a problem with what he’s doing because he’s making a very good point. He’s proving that the American populace is extremely gullible, which they are. Look, they get force-fed every day and they just believe it. So I think that by him doing that proves the point why it’s like, it proves the point against himself.

So he’s saying, oh, people will just believe any conspiracy theory that they’re told. But on the flip side of that, people will just believe what they’re told. So if you don’t question the narrative, you just believe what you’re told by the people in power, like the powers that be, they tell you this is it, you’re like, “Oh, yeah, of course. Of course, yes.”

But if you’re not willing to question what you’re just being force-fed and be like, “Well, what about this? This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t add up. This happened and this happened. Well, maybe they’re doing this.” Like now he’s saying, “Oh, you’re an idiot for believing that potentially maybe there’s some nefarious going on that we’re not privy to and we’re just going to believe what we’re force-fed. He’s literally proving the point of actually believing conspiracies.

By his social experiment, prove the point that you should question. Like you should question, are birds real? Of course they’re real. Like why are you believing this? You should question it. You should question everything because that’s what makes you human. That’s what makes you an individual. If your friend told you that the color red was the color blue, would you just take it at face value or would you be like, well actually I think it’s this because this is what I was taught.

Like if we didn’t question, we would still be cavemen. We wouldn’t be, you wouldn’t, why is there fire? How do you make fire? I don’t understand. Also I’ve learned in this whole adventure that we’re on, which is creating this podcast, is that, you know, if you don’t ask those questions then you don’t hold those people accountable. That’s a very good point, Eric. That’s very true.

Cuz when we started I was very much not, Eric was, I was very much pretty much everything we talked about. But that’s really the basis of it, is, you know, a lot of it has to do with our government. For sure 100%. Or situations, and if you don’t hold them accountable, they must be a higher, like if you’re running our country you must be at a higher standard. It’s just the way it is.

I hate to say it cuz there’s millions, there’s what, 300 million people in the US. There’s like 375, 370 something, crazy. So in theory, the best of the best should be there. Yes, they should be. And so somebody has to hold them accountable. And that’s drain the swamp is what you’re saying. Well, I mean the 342 million. Yeah, that was close. But somebody has to be held, like we have to, and it’s the people that have to do that. The people have to hold those other people accountable.

Well, it’s also like why are you accepting any sort of facts at face value? I mean, look at what happened. If you just go back in time when, you can’t trust anything anymore, so you shouldn’t. Dude, I’m not even saying now. I’m saying go back in time. Like look at when homie was like, “Oh, there’s this thing called gravity.” They’re like, “You’re crazy. No, there isn’t.” He’s like, “No, but here, let me prove it.” They’re like, “Okay, that kind of checks out. Okay, sure.”

But anytime anyone discovered anything, everyone was like, “Fuck off. You’re insane.” And they had to prove it to make it real. Or you don’t even have to take it like that, you could just take the major incidents of our life. 9/11. 2008 financial disaster. Jesus. The Benghazi situation. Yeah. Like all these things, why did they happen? And that’s what we’re here to question. Exactly. And that’s it. 100%.

Well, we’re also here to question, especially because, for example, the 2008 financial thing, what was the official, we never even did this episode but, like what is the official, we haven’t, there probably is no official thing. Like the official, what happened? Why did everybody lose their homes and all their stuff up?

Well, no. But the real question, that’s not the real question though. The real question is everyone lost everything but the banks that made everyone lose everything got bailed out. Why did they get bailed out? Why did the government save them and not us? Right. I mean we’re the ones fronting the bill. We’re the ones paying for everything.

Like how do you think the government runs? It’s not off of, they’re not producing any sort of product that makes money. We’re the money. We’re the product. Tariffs. No. But like we, tariffs are our product. Like we are the product. About tariffs, I don’t, no, but the tariffs, who gives a about tariffs? We are the money. We are the money that powers the government. People don’t think about that.

People don’t really actually put two and two together that your tax money is the government. That’s the pay. That is the government that literally funds it. So why are you bailing out these banks when the people that literally keep the government alive are. We got to do a whole episode on that. I know we should. Yeah.

Well, so overall in this whole birds scenario, back to the birds, I think it’s hilarious. It is funny. It’s funny. I get that. It is a little shot at people. It’s like a meme. Exactly. And I also subscribe to the fact that if I can’t laugh, it’s not even worth talking about. So it’s pretty funny and I’ll give him that. You know, kudos. I actually respect it. Funny. I respect that.

I like the slogan. He purposely did something that was so dumb and people bought into it. I respect him. 100%. That’s right. So there you go, guys. Birds are not real. Would you guys buy our merch if we put that on there? Yeah. I would buy it for sure. I just think it would be a funny shirt cuz, you know how many looks you would get? People be like, I want to make it.

I know, even if, I’m going to tell people aren’t going to buy it and we’re not going to sell it. Trademark. You think he went all the way? Oh, for sure. Super cash. Ultimate cash grab. We could change it. Him. I’m going to do it anyway. We could change it to birds or fake. No, we should be like, real our birds. Birds are drones. Real our birds. Fake our birds. I like that.