Conspiracy Cabal

In the days before the attacks, traders placed unusually large bets that United and American Airlines stock would fall. Those were the two airlines whose planes were hijacked. The 9/11 Commission found no sign that anyone had advance knowledge. A finance professor, a former Australian market regulator, and a widow who testified before the Commission all saw something different.

"Follow the money." That was the advice to Bob Woodward during Watergate, and 25 years after September 11, it may be the best way into the one 9/11 theory that won't go away. This week, Rich and Nick quickly run through the five best-known 9/11 theories before following the money into the trades that regulators, academics, and families have argued about for a quarter of a century.

The guys look at whether any of the theories have any kernel of truth. The intelligence failures were real, with warnings about hijacked planes flying into buildings circulating as far back as 1998.

Some of this is statistics: put-to-call ratios, trading volumes up a hundredfold, and a peer-reviewed 2006 study that found the activity consistent with informed traders. Some of it is just the plain fact that al-Qaeda's plans were an open secret in parts of the intelligence world.

Contact the show at conspiracycabal@outlook.com.

The first listener to write in with their name and postal address gets one of the first Conspiracy Cabal tinfoil hat brewing trucker caps.

The Conspiracy Cabal doesn't promote conspiracy theories — we examine them. We search for the kernel of truth in every story, exploring how conspiracies start, why they persist, and what drives people to believe them.
Contact the show at conspiracycabalpod@outlook.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Reports in Israel are suggesting that Benjamin Netanyahu received a warning about the October 7th attacks and failed to take action.

As well, Manchester City faces punishment for mass cheating.

Contact the show at conspiracycabal@outlook.com.

The Conspiracy Cabal doesn't promote conspiracy theories — we examine them. We search for the kernel of truth in every story, exploring how conspiracies start, why they persist, and what drives people to believe them.
Contact the show at conspiracycabalpod@outlook.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the mountains of southwest China sits a radio telescope big enough to swallow the MCG. It's built to listen to the cosmos. Meanwhile, Beijing has reportedly brought in a science-fiction writer to advise on what to do if something out there answers. That writer is Cixin Liu, author of The Three-Body Problem. His big idea, the "dark forest," says the universe is full of silent hunters, and any civilisation that reveals itself gets destroyed.

So what does China think it's listening for, and why does it want the man who wrote that theory in the room? This week, Rich and Nick head into the dark forest. They start with the Three-Body Problem trilogy and move on to real telescopes, unexplained signals, and what happens to the human mind on the day disclosure stops being hypothetical.

- The silence problem: Trisolarans, sophons, and decades of signals we've already sent out. If any civilisation out there is far more advanced than us, announcing ourselves may be the worst thing we could have done. Our only edge may be the one thing the aliens don't understand: treachery.
- The telescope problem: FAST, the 500-metre dish with about 4,500 movable panels that can refocus without the structure ever moving. It's the most sensitive ear on the planet, and it's already picking up things nobody can fully explain.
- The signal problem: Fast radio bursts flash and fade in milliseconds but reportedly carry more energy than the Sun puts out in a year. Scientists assume they're natural. Rich has other ideas.
- The secrecy problem: Harry Reid's quietly funded UAP program, Luis Elizondo's resignation, and the private money from Robert Bigelow and Yuri Milner's Breakthrough Listen. Then there's Jeremy Corbell's prediction that governments will warn of an alien craft arriving in 2027, and his claim that the warning itself will be the misinformation. - The shock problem: Covid emptied the toilet-paper aisles. What would disclosure do? The guys look at "ontological shock," at how Disclosure Day handled public reaction, and at new research asking who would be hit hardest if confirmation ever came.

Some of this is astrophysics: radio waves, filament structures, bursts nobody can explain. Some of it is just history. Every time a more advanced civilisation has met a less advanced one on this planet, it has gone badly for the one with less.

Contact the show at conspiracycabal@outlook.com.

The Conspiracy Cabal doesn't promote conspiracy theories — we examine them. We search for the kernel of truth in every story, exploring how conspiracies start, why they persist, and what drives people to believe them.
Contact the show at conspiracycabalpod@outlook.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lachie Neale got off, and he's now free to play in the Grand Final. Couldn't have happened to a better bloke.

Also, the PM has called a hasty press conference to detail how a rogue Open AI agent hacked into Medicare.

Contact the show at conspiracycabal@outlook.com.

The Conspiracy Cabal doesn't promote conspiracy theories — we examine them. We search for the kernel of truth in every story, exploring how conspiracies start, why they persist, and what drives people to believe them.
Contact the show at conspiracycabalpod@outlook.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ivan Milat was convicted of seven murders and died in a prison hospital bed in 2019, still insisting he didn't do it. Almost nobody in Australia believes him. But a New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into unsolved murders and missing persons is now asking a different, more uncomfortable question: were seven enough?

This week, Rich and Nick dig into the growing list of cold cases with Milat's name attached to them - from a stabbing on a beach when he was 22, to a body found after he was already behind bars - and sit down with a former NSW detective pushing for a coercive-powers commission to finally crack them.

The near-miss problem: Englishman Paul Onions, a gun, a rope, a highway shootout - and the report to police that went nowhere until bodies started turning up in a state forest
The Wanda Beach problem: a 1965 double murder, a police artist's sketch, a photo of a 22-year-old Milat shown to the sitting Premier, and a resemblance nobody can quite explain away
The ballistics problem: an 18-year-old hitchhiker, a Ruger 10/22 rifle, and free bullets that matched a gun already tied to two of Milat's known victims — with no charge ever laid
The timeline problem: a 16-year-old's murder in the Hunter Valley that happened after Milat's arrest, and what that does to the theory that he always worked alone
The institutional problem: a 12-day turnaround letter from the NSW Homicide Squad, a cold case process that reviews old files instead of starting fresh, and why the families still waiting call it a desktop exercise

Some of this is forensic - ballistics, timelines, photographs held up side by side. Some of it is just the arithmetic of a man who was, by his own family's account, capable of far worse than what he was ever tried for, working alone in a state forest for the better part of two decades before one man got away.

Contact the show at conspiracycabal@outlook.com.

The Conspiracy Cabal doesn't promote conspiracy theories — we examine them. We search for the kernel of truth in every story, exploring how conspiracies start, why they persist, and what drives people to believe them.
Contact the show at conspiracycabalpod@outlook.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.