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- [00:07]
Carter Roy
Oh, okay. Looks like we're starting off with a bit of trivia today, folks. Who was named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive back in 1988? All right, let me guess. Oh, Tom Cruise? No. Okay. Ah, Tom Selleck. No. Really? I mean, come on, with that mustache? Uh, it wasn't. It wasn't me. Carter. Roy, was it? I think I would have remembered that. Ah, yeah, no, right. People's Sexiest Man Alive that year was not an actor. He was actually a third year law student living in New York with a very famous name, John F. Kennedy Jr.John is a celebrity. From the moment he's born, he's surrounded by famous relatives. But as he grows up, what he wants more than anything is to forge his own path, to prove he's more than a name and that he is not to be defined by the tragedies he's endured. And then, in 1999, at the age of 38, John is piloting a single engine plane when it goes missing over the Atlantic Ocean. His life is cut short, just like his father and his uncle before him. The abrupt and mysterious nature of JFK Jr. S death means people don't just jump to conclusions. They fling themselves at every possible theory, some of which are admittedly hard to buy. Other theories, however, do make me wonder. Was John's name powerful enough for somebody to want to kill him? What secrets did John know about his father's assassination? And who would have the most to gain by silencing him? Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, the Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday. We would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Or check us out on Instagram heonspiracypod. Stay with us. And later, we have a special story update about Havana Syndrome. You are not gonna wanna miss it. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring can be time consuming. Almost as time consuming as trying to find out what's inside Area 51. Takes a lot of work, a lot of effort. With ZipRecruiter, you can spend less time hiring and get back to what you really love, like solving the world's biggest mysteries. And even better, you can try it free at ZipRecruiter.com theory ZipRecruiter's latest improvements can help find you quality candidates in literal minutes. And not only does it help you find talent quickly, it also helps you connect with them. You'll gain access to their contact info, so you can even encourage encourage them to apply for your role. Use ZipRecruiter and save time hiring four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter. Get a quality candidate within the first day. And if you go to ZipRecruiter.com theory right now, you can try it for free. Again. That's ZipRecruiter.com theory ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire this episode is brought to you by Focus Features. Would you let AI pilot your plane? Raise your child? Decide your future? On March 27, Focus Features presents the AI Doc or How I Became an Apocalyptomist, an explosive new motion picture event critics and audiences at the Sundance and South by Southwest film festivals call the most urgent movie of our time the AI doc or how I became an apocalyptomist. Rated PG13. Only in theaters March 27. This episode is brought to you by Cologuard. Do you know what's really scary? Not screening for colon cancer when you turn 45. The cologuard test is non invasive, requires no special prep or time off work, and ships right to your door so you can do it at home. In just three simple steps, Cologuard takes the scare out of colon cancer screening. If you're 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about the Cologuard test. Cologuard is available by prescription only. Learn more or request a prescription today@cologuard.com screen When John F. Kennedy Jr. Is born in November of 1960, he is, as his biographer Stephen Gillen calls him, the most famous infant in America. His father is the President Elect of the United States, and if you're a fan of this show, you probably know what happens three years later after JFK is assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963, John Jr. Affectionately known to the world as John John, is photographed saluting JFK's casket. This moment actually happens on John's third birthday, and it becomes one of the most iconic images in US History. John, his mother Jackie, and his sister Caroline will always strive to honor the Kennedy legacy. And yet this image of John John Salute will also pigeonhole him for the rest of his life. From a very young age, he becomes a living symbol of what his father stood for and a very nostalgic time for many Americans. According to some theories, John's status as a living symbol of a better world will make him a target. But before we get into the theories about John's death, there are some details you need to know about his life. As a young child, John moves away from the prying eyes of Washington, D.C. to New York City. His mother tries her best to keep her kids out of the spotlight and to give them a regular childhood. Well, as regular as it can be when you have nannies, assistants, expansive family compounds, et cetera, et cetera. But by pretty much all accounts, Jackie's plan works. John grows into someone who's compassionate, down to earth, and despite the weight on his shoulders, shockingly carefree, which does at times translate into some risky behavior. It's always in the name of adventure, though. After graduating college, John goes on a literal treasure hunt to explore a shipwreck and is nearly buried alive under a mound of sand. He later takes a girlfriend on a dangerous kayaking trip that almost gets them maimed. But the close calls never slow him down. John seems incapable of staying in one place, including when it comes to his career. As I mentioned earlier, John goes to law school. After his treasure hunting trip, he studies for the bar exam. Doesn't exactly sound like big news, right? Except it is if your last name is Kennedy and you fail the bar twice. Tabloids track his progress, or lack thereof, the same way they follow his dating life, which, by the way, includes celebrity girlfriends like Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Daryl Hannah. On his third attempt at the bar, he passes. And he goes on to have a successful, albeit short, legal career. He wins all six cases. He tries to, but once again, the press portrays him as a caricature. He's gone from little John. John, with his sad salute to JFK junior The handsome face who's too busy with women to focus on his job. It's not really an accurate portrayal, so I imagine it gets to him. And he decides that now more than ever, it's time to prove himself. Which is why he comes up with George. George magazine is years in the making. In 1988, John and his business partner, Michael Berman, start drumming up ideas. They want to launch something big. They're not sure what exactly. Fun fact. One of John's early pitches is a service where clients can rent dogs in need of a home. Honestly, the man was ahead of his time. Eventually, they land on a magazine that blends politics and lifestyle, and John is in a unique position to lead it. He's lived within the sphere of politics his whole life. Plus, his mom is now a respected book editor. George, named after President Washington, is billed as postpartisan. John wants it to be informational, not ideological. The goal is to make politics accessible, break down barriers, and make people see the humanity that can and does exist in the world of politics. George debuts in late 1995, with John as editor in chief, right out of the gate. It's a huge success. The first issue, featuring Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington on the COVID sells nearly half a million copies. The second issue, only slightly fewer. There's advertising money out the wazoo. The magazine graces coffee tables everywhere. It feels like John has finally gotten the success he's wanted for so long, but it's fleeting. By the late 90s, George is still selling copies, but they aren't pulling in enough advertisers, which means less money, and George isn't profitable. John's not giving up. In fact, he's trying to finagle his way into the burgeoning business of digital magazines online. But if he can't make that work, George may run out of money. And that's not the only stressor in his life. Let me backtrack for a second. In the mid-90s, John is dating actress Daryl Hannah. They've had their issues, but things really come to a head when John's mother, Jackie, dies in May of 1994. And John bears the task of breaking the news to the world. She was surrounded by her friends and her family and her books and the people and the things that she loved. And she did it in her own way and on her own terms, and. And we all feel lucky for that. The loss puts things into perspective, as death always does. And John breaks up with Daryl. He begins dating in earnest another woman he'd already met, Carolyn Bessette. Charming and statuesque, Carolyn works in fashion. John reportedly loves her fierce independence. He sees someone who can hold her own, who won't be swayed by his or his family's fame. Their romance is intense, but the passion seems to go both ways. And they're always either madly in love or fighting, sometimes publicly. And their arguments are often secretly photographed and splashed across the tabloids. For John, it's an annoyance he's used to. For Carolyn, the paparazzi, the constant attention and scrutiny is a lot to get used to. After they hold a secret wedding In September of 1996, John and Carolyn hope the press will stop bothering them. But what happens is very much the opposite. Photographers follow her everywhere. She feels like she can barely leave her home. By 1999, when George magazine is faltering, reports suggest that John and Carolyn's marriage is failing, too. Now, whether or not they're heading for divorce is pure speculation. Close friends say they've been fighting, which is nothing new and that John is living in a hotel at the moment, which is also nothing new. But that brings us to the evening of July 16, 1999. John and Carolyn's last night alive. John arrives at the Essex County Airport in New Jersey around 8pm along with all his other thrill seeking hobbies. He's a licensed pilot. Having his own plane makes the frequent trips between New York and the Kennedy compounds in Massachusetts much faster and more private. Tonight, John and Carolyn are heading to Hyannis Port for a family wedding. After some heated arguments in the past few days, she has agreed to attend. She doesn't want to draw more unwanted attention to their marriage. Before they get there, they'll be making one quick stop first. Carolyn's sister Lauren Bissette is coming along for the ride and John plans to drop her off in Martha's Vineyard. It's a flight he's made many times before. Usually, though, John takes off earlier in the evening. See, he's still flying under what's called VFR or visual flight rules. It means he relies on visuals like the horizon, the coastline and the city lights below to navigate, as opposed to relying solely on his instruments. But traffic getting out of the city that night is a beast. He's running late and Carolyn is. Even later, as John makes his final preparations to his single engine Piper Saratoga. Dusk is already falling. At 8.38pm, the local air traffic control tower clears John for takeoff. He acknowledges their instructions and after that, John, Carolyn and Lauren are never heard from again. Before they reach Martha's Vineyard, their plane vanishes. A massive search gets underway. The next day, the eyes of the world watch as days pass, debris washes up on a beach on Martha's Vineyard. A suitcase, seat cushions portions of a small aircraft. Hope fades. And then on July 20, four days after their disappearance, the plane is found in pieces along the ocean floor about eight miles from its destination. Along with it, still in their seats, are the bodies of John F. Kennedy Jr. Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Lauren Bessette.
- [15:49]
Narrator/Reporter
Divers located the wreckage and the victims in about 120ft of water off the tip of Martha's Vineyard. They were led to the site by underwater robots and side scanned sonar equipment, devices towed by the Navy recovery ship Grasp, which bounced sound waves off the bottom of the sea.
- [16:08]
Carter Roy
The nation struggles to face this tragedy. I remember when it happened, it wasn't exactly like the space shuttle Challenger explosion when I was a kid where everyone was like, I knew where I was. But it has that same sense of the whole nation collectively rallying around this moment, being aware it happened. There's this pervasive feeling like, how could this have happened? How could we lose another young Kennedy and two brilliant women to a freak accident? That is assuming it really was an accident or that John really did die. This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. I get so intimidated when I think about organizing my finances. It just seems overwhelming. Rocket Money helps so much just by putting it in one place. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. I mean, I get so freaked out when I think of how many subscriptions I have out there. I can't remember when I signed up for anything. Rocket Money helps you keep track of all your subscriptions. It also helps me consolidate checking, savings, loans, investments, all my financial matters put into a single dashboard so I can look at it all at one time. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join@RocketMoney.com faster. Conspiracy. That's RocketMoney.com conspiracy RocketMoney.com conspiracy Disney wants
- [17:49]
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- [17:57]
Carter Roy
Let's do this.
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- [18:02]
Carter Roy
Hey, you weren't listening to me.
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Carter Roy
Meet the New Avengers. That's cool then.
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- [18:19]
Carter Roy
In July of 1999, the deaths of JFK Jr. His wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren Bissette is the top story.
- [18:29]
Narrator/Reporter
A final farewell at sea for three young lives taken so tragically this morning. A mournful procession of family members from the Kennedys and the Bessetts embarked on a sad mission to cast ashes of those they loved to the ocean. For many people watching from the shoreline, just being nearby was important.
- [18:48]
Carter Roy
This is where they went down, and it's the most appropriate place to be. It almost seems like it is like jinx or something. I don't know how you would put it.
- [19:00]
Interviewee/Guest
This one, I don't know how we cope.
- [19:02]
Carter Roy
It's almost too much. The wreckage is hoisted to the surface, then turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board, or ntsb, for the official investigation. Already there's a question on a lot of people's minds. Could somebody have crashed John's plane intentionally? He's a huge celebrity from perhaps the most famous political family in America. And the public isn't alone. The NTSB goes into this investigation knowing they have to look into foul play. They check for evidence of tampering, sabotage, or even telltale signs of a bomb. But when they piece together all of the wreckage, they've got about 75% of the plane. The evidence says everything was working fine until it crashed into the water. The wreckage was found close together, indicating the plane did not break up in midair. The engine was in working order, so were all the instruments and the control cables. According to the ntsb, there are no signs of mechanical failure, which means they have to look to the pilot. John had been flying planes since 1982, nearly 17 years. He wasn't always consistent with his lessons, though. In fact, he'd had several different instructors. But he had been flying a lot more over the past year and a half. Fifteen months before the accident, John got his private pilot's license. Since then, he'd made this exact same flight from Jersey to Martha's Vineyard 35 times. About half of those he made with an instructor on board. The rest were solo and five were at night. In total, he'd logged over 300 flight hours. So not an expert, but he was definitely no rookie. However, flying in the dark is obviously risky. What might start out as a clear night can get hazy or cloudy fast, especially in the summer when it's humid. The NTSB finds that John did check the weather before his flight, and not just, you know, on any old random dial up website. He input a special user code to access an official portal with detailed weather conditions for pilots. But he did this before leaving his office that day in New York City around 6:30 over two hours before he ended up taking off. So if John was mid flight when a patch of haze formed, he might have lost the visuals he needed to navigate. He would therefore need what's called an instrument rating, meaning he'd need to be certified to rely solely on his plane's instruments when he can't see anything. John was halfway through working on getting that rating, and. But he did not have it yet. The NTSB maps out John's route to find out exactly where things went wrong, but he did not file a flight plan. And honestly, as long as nothing's going wrong, air traffic control wouldn't typically monitor a small plane that closely, so they have to rely on radar data to piece together his path. John's Piper Saratoga flew east northeast from New Jersey to New York to Connecticut, then followed along the coastline up to Rhode island, flying along the coast when you're a visual flyer is smart. As he cruised along at 5,500ft, he could see the lights below on land. But when he turned and set out over the Rhode Island Sound, heading for Martha's Vineyard, he ran into a problem which experts believe was a combination of bad weather and pilot error. They think the last moments of John's flight went something like this. It's dark. A sudden haze forms, obscuring the horizon. He can't tell where the water ends and the sky begins. Up, down, left, right. It all looks the same. And maybe to make things worse, he looks away for a moment, perhaps to tune his radio, trying to find out what's going on with the weather. At some point, the fluid in his inner ear starts playing tricks on him. He can no longer pinpoint his location where he is in relation to the water. It's called spatial disorientation, and it can be extremely dangerous. His senses are essentially lying to him. We're so used to relying on what we see and hear, and in this moment, what John sees isn't real. Pilots who do have their instrument rating say it's incredibly difficult to learn to trust what your instruments are telling you when your mind is screaming something different. The plane begins to descend slowly but unevenly toward the water. Around 9:38pm an hour into the flight, John makes an inexplicable turn to the right. Now he's heading south, the wrong direction. He must realize something's wrong. Once he's down to 2,200ft, he begins to climb. Thirty seconds later, he levels off. He banks left and climbs again, but then he descends again and banks hard to the right. Experts think he's trying to pull the tip of the plane up to go higher, but he's spinning in a tight turn now, and if his wings aren't level, John would enter what's called a graveyard spiral. He thinks he's going up, but he's really flying down to the water at 4,700ft per minute until the plane crashes, going 200 miles per hour. The NTSB concludes the probable cause was, quote, the pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were Hayes and the dark night. End quote.
- [25:44]
Promotional Voice
The now.
- [25:44]
Carter Roy
This comes out about a year after the accident. Does everybody accept this answer without question? Of course not, no. People are cut deep by this tragedy. And in that year since it happened, plenty of alternate theories have spread across the Internet. One of my favorites that the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long island is in some way responsible. Now this collider won't even be fully operational until the year 2000. But while it's being built, there are concerns about unforeseen consequences like creating black holes. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's a lot like the theories about CERN's Large Hadron Collider located in Switzerland, which has been blamed for allegedly causing everything from earthquakes to thrusting us all into another dimension. As for the collider on Long island, well, people aren't quite sure what it's capable of, but maybe during some kind of testing it interfered with John's plane. Like on a subatomic level. Just three days after the plane went missing, the director of the laboratory actually had to release a statement denying their ability to, say, turn a Piper Saratoga into a hypothetical soup of strange matter. Other early theories are a little more concrete. Right off the bat, people notice similarities to another plane crash that happened just a few years earlier. The explosion of TWA Flight 800. Like this woman interviewed on Martha's Vineyard mere days after John went missing three years ago.
- [27:39]
Interviewee/Guest
We were on the same beach, we were vacationing with the children before I had my baby. And it was the same kind of,
- [27:44]
Carter Roy
you know, the atmosphere in the air was the same way when we found out about Flight 800. We've covered TWA Flight 800 in the past. If you want to listen to that episode, I'm sure we can link it in the description. I know some people. Essentially it was a commercial airliner that broke up in midair after leaving JFK airport and 230 lives were lost in the Atlantic Ocean. It happened around the same time of day as John's crash at 8:31pm and it took place on the evening of July 17, 1996. Which means John disappeared exactly one day shy of the three year anniversary. The NTSB's extensive investigation on the TWA case found that a random spark caused the fuel tank to explode. But a lot of people still don't buy that explanation. One theory alleges that a U.S. navy missile accidentally shot down the airliner. There were even witnesses who claim they saw something suspicious in the air that night. The same happens in John's case. There are early reports that at least two people witnessed a flash or explosion around the time John's plane fell off the radar. A lawyer, who we'll call Norman, said he was night fishing off the southern tip of Martha's Vineyard on July 16 when he heard a loud bang, he thought it sounded like there'd been an explosion maybe four miles away. As a reminder, John's plane was found about 8 miles off the coast. Others say they remember watching a reporter from the Vineyard Gazette appear on a live newscast right after the plane vanished. And he supposedly saw a, quote, big white flash in the sky that night near Philbin beach, the same spot where debris later washed up. It's yet another similarity to the Flight 800 case. The difference? Well, with Flight 800, there were far more witnesses, over 730 of them. And honestly, nobody seems to have successfully tracked down that reporter from the Vineyard Gazette or the clip where he appeared on the News. But in 1999, when John's plane goes down, the Flight 800 case is still being talked about. The NTSB just sat for a congressional hearing two months earlier. There's already some level of distrust, some portion of the population who believe the NTSB is capable of taking part in a massive cover up. When the report on John's accident comes out, people are quick to pick apart certain details, several of them, actually. But let's focus on three. Number one, the fact that John never makes contact with the outside world. After takeoff, John is in the air for a full hour without speaking to air traffic control or a flight service station. It's not unheard of, but get this. Less than 15 minutes into the flight, John's plane gets a little too close to an American Airlines commercial flight coming in for a landing. Air traffic control contacts the American Airlines pilot and instructs him to descend to avoid a close call. On top of that, the NTSB says John later flew into bad weather. You'd think that at some point he'd radio someone to advise him. Is it more risky behavior on John's part? Did John speak to somebody after all, during his flight who wasn't included in the official report for some reason? Or as some have suggested, could something have gone wrong with his radio? When the wreckage of his Piper Saratoga was examined, investigators found that his radio was still tuned to the frequency 127.25. If John was looking for updated weather information coming straight from the Martha's Vineyard airport, well, he was one number off. The correct frequency he needed was 126.25. And honestly, this part of the story raises some questions even for me and my team. He'd made this flight numerous times before, right? He should know the correct number. Now, I have no way of knowing if he'd accessed that weather station in the past. Maybe he never really needed to. But let's say you're in your car looking for a station you haven't listened to in a while. You know, back before we all had smartphones. And you turn the dial to the station, but you only get static. What do you do? You toggle the dial a little to the left and the right, trying to find the frequency. Right. Could that explain what happened here? Okay, sure. John is probably panicking. Maybe he's not thinking clearly. But it is odd that he's so close, just one digit off. Now, the NTSB tested his radio and reported that it was still operational. And they found no evidence that anything onboard his plane was sabotaged. So, unfortunately, this one is kind of a dead end. That brings me to the second part of the report. Not everybody agrees with the weather. Some say it was not as hazy as the NTSB reported. Documentarian John Hanke, who directed Dark Legacy, says his research showed that it was a clear night. To his point, the NTSB does quote the tower manager from the Martha's Vineyard airport who said the visibility, present weather and sky condition at the approximate time of the accident occurring was probably a little better than what was being reported. The tower manager remembered seeing stars that night and another plane that landed using a visual approach without a problem. On the other hand, there is a good deal of evidence that the weather truly was bad and that a thick patch of haze rolled in from nowhere. Another pilot flying in the vicinity that night reported hazy conditions. A second said conditions were clear at his altitude, 14,000ft, much higher than John was flying. But that as he flew over Martha's Vineyard, he looked down and couldn't see a thing. He actually thought the whole island might have had a power failure. Then there's Kyle Bailey, a pilot who was the last person to see John, Carolyn, and Lauren alive. Kyle was at Essex County Airport preparing his own plane for a flight to Martha's Vineyard, just like John. But Kyle decided against making the flight at the last second due to weather concerns. He could already tell the hazy hot and humid air might cause problems. So not everybody encountered bad weather that night. But. But enough pilots did to suggest that John could have gotten blindsided by thick haze. Number three in our list of questions regards John's autopsy. Okay, so I mentioned earlier that the wreckage was located on July 20, four days after the crash. The bodies of John, Carolyn and Lauren were raised to the surface the next day, July 21st, around 4:30 in the afternoon. That same night, the chief medical examiner performed the autopsy. Then the three victims were immediately Cremated and their ashes were scattered at sea the next morning. The family gave this reasoning. They didn't want to risk any spectacle. That hasn't stopped people from asking why the autopsy appear to be so rushed. A thorough autopsy can reveal any number of surprises, like undiagnosed health issues, heart attacks, strokes, and so forth that could contribute to a crash. It's an important part of any accident investigation. Not something you'd normally want to hurry through, but that could just be the power of the Kennedy name. I will clarify that. John's full autopsy report and notes haven't been released to the public. His death certificate is circulating out there, which lists his cause of death as simply multiple traumatic injuries. I have to wonder if people sometimes confuse the death certificate with the coroner's report. The toxicology report, though, well, that's a different story. The tox report was released by the ntsb. It's a single page long, and some people question its findings. Two of the tests weren't performed at all. It found no drugs or alcohol in John's system. And, well, let me take you back to June 1, 1999, about six and a half weeks before the plane crash. John, who always loves a thrill, is flying, but not in a plane. He's in this contraption called an ultralight aircraft. It's like an open paraglider with a seat. It kind of looks like something da Vinci might have dreamed up if he were alive in the 1980s. Anyway, John flies it straight into a tree, and miraculously, he only breaks his ankle. He has surgery the next day, and for several weeks after that, he has to wear a cast and then one of those giant boots which gets removed just one day before his fatal accident. Now, you might be saying. Excuse me, What? Why are you only mentioning this now? And I get it, but his medical records noted that John could put full pressure on his ankle, and when his cast came off. And despite not having full range of motion in his ankle, his surgeon said on record that John should have been able to operate the plane normally. So what does this have to do with the toxicology report? Well, some have suggested he would probably have managed his pain with painkillers. So why weren't any detected? Certain painkillers would stay in his system for days. But here's what I noticed. The NTSB report also says that his doctor never prescribed him any painkillers after his surgery. So if he took a mild over the counter drug, that might not have been detectable on the toxicology screening. Okay, so those are what I see as the three most questionable parts of the official report. And they all have some kind of logical answer. Whether you buy it or not. There are those who say anything you read to back up the official story could have been manipulated. This is a Kennedy we're talking about here, who was arguably in the best position to pick up where his father's legacy ended. I mean, after the assassinations of RFK and jfk. New revelations have certainly called those official stories into question. Is it so wild to think someone could be manipulating the information coming out about John's crash? Someone or some organization who might want John out of the picture?
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Carter Roy
How did I not know Rack has Adidas?
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- [41:28]
Carter Roy
Okay, remember how the NTSB considered early on in their investigation that John's plane crash could have been caused by foul play? Given his status as both a celebrity and the poster child of American politics, it was a real possibility. John had already been the target of three kidnapping plots over the years, the most recent in 1995, four years before he died. It's unclear how serious these attempts were or if John even knew about them, but some believe the real threat that could have come from within the US Government by an organization that has been accused of allegedly conspiring in the two known Kennedy assassinations. The CIA, November 22, 1963 John Jr. Is two going on three years old when his father, President John F. Kennedy, is shot dead while his motorcade parades through Dealey Plaza In Dallas, Texas, one week later, the new President Lyndon Johnson, orders a special committee to investigate the assassination. The Warren Commission concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as the lone gunman and was not part of any conspiracy to kill the President. But of course, Oswald has already been killed on live tv, no less, by Jack Ruby. So Oswald can't provide any further information. Early on, the CIA denies any meaningful prior knowledge of Oswald or his activities. But over the years, they've had to walk that claim back again and again. Unredacted documents released in 2025 proved that a CIA agent named George Joannidis was covertly working with a student organization in contact with Oswald through three months before JFK was killed. Nowadays it's no secret that JFK had no love for the CIA. Especially after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. He forced out CIA Director Allen Dulles. And a newly declassified memo from Arthur Schlesinger, one of JFK's advisors critiqued the CIA's clandestine operations and called for a, quote, fairly drastic rearrangement of our present intelligence setup. All of this might explain why the CIA is at the heart of so many conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination. After JFK's death, Robert F. Kennedy became like a father figure to his nephew, John Jr. Under his brother's presidency, RFK had acted as Attorney General. And at the time of his assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in LOS ANGELES In 1968, when John was 7 years old, RFK was running for President. He's also found to be killed by a lone gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, who later claims he doesn't remember shooting Robert Kennedy. In fact, he says he may have been hypnotized and brainwashed like the plot of the Manchurian Candidate. And just as with JFK's death, details surrounding RFK's assassination don't always add up. Like how witnesses saw Sirhan standing in front of RFK a few feet away. Which doesn't square with the autopsy findings that Robert was fatally shot at point blank range from behind, suggesting there may have been a second shooter. A claim made by multiple witnesses to the assassination, including one man who was shot in the head by Sirhan. Now, just who was this alleged second shooter? Independent researchers have tried and failed to find a clear connection between the CIA and the death of Robert Kennedy. But he and JFK were both disruptors. They threatened the status quo for a lot of powerful people and agencies. So much so that a lot of people think they could have been killed as a result. Okay, you might be thinking, hold on, wait a second, JFK and RFK were prominent politicians. John Jr. Had never run for public office. He was the editor of a failing magazine. Right. Well, according to John's close friends, he'd been thinking about his move in politics for a long time, and he was talking about making that move soon. His whole life, people had bugged John about when he would go into politics. The idea followed him around like a shadow. And then something happens in 1988 that seems to whet his political appetite. He introduces his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, at the Democratic National Convention. John gets a huge standing ovation before he even opens his mouth to speak. When he does talk, people are sure that he has a future in politics. It's only a matter of John deciding when. Some say he plans to run for Senator of New York in 2000, and that this actually makes him a target of the Clinton family since Hillary Clinton ends up running for and winning that seat. Except that theory has been repeatedly debunked. Some of John's friends suggest he considered running for the Senate, but as a friend of the Clintons, he stepped back once he learned about Hillary's intentions. He may have even been disappointed about having to do so. But then he decides he doesn't want to be a legislator. He wants to be in the pilot seat. He wants to be in the executive branch. The night before he dies, John goes to a Yankees game with friends and insinuates that he's planning to run for governor of New York in 2002. Presumably, that gives him enough time to right the ship to get his business and his marriage back on solid ground. First, John's biographer, Stephen Gillen, a historian and personal friend of John's, believes he would have then planned to run for president someday. Think about it. An extremely handsome young Kennedy running for president. And not just any Kennedy. The only son of jfk. By many accounts, he's considered a popular president. He may have had his faults, but in the years since his death, he's become this almost mythical figure. There's this sweeping nostalgia for the idealism in simpler times that JFK represented, which John very well could have campaigned on, unless perhaps someone thought it might be easier to remove that kind of political force before he ever had a chance to rise to power. As for any proof the CIA was involved in covering up an intentional plane crash, there is none that I can corroborate. Anyway, there's only the belief that if this was a cover up, the strings had to have been pulled by an organization as powerful as the CIA. And the reluctance of a grieving nation to accept that John. John, the little boy who famously saluted his father's Coffin back in 1963, could have died in such an ordinary way. Which might help explain why a very small but vocal faction doesn't believe John is even dead at all. Let's jump ahead to November 2021. A crowd of hundreds waits anxiously on the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza. A lot of these people might not know each other, at least not in person. They're members of QAnon who believe that today is the day John F. Kennedy, Jr. Will re emerge alive because he never really died on board that plane back in 1999. Possibly, the crowd thinks John will then introduce his father. A celebration will break out right then and there, and John will announce that he will be Donald Trump's vice president as Trump is reinstated in the White House. It's a fringe theory held by a tiny percentage of the QAnon community, in part because, well, even the mysterious Q denied that John was still alive. John and his father do not end up returning on that November day. Seems to me that if JFK were to suddenly come back, his top priority might not be parading around Dealey Plaza. But the whole thing is indicative of how the Kennedy mythos opens the door to pretty much any theory under the sun. Their influence, their power, their hold over history and pop culture for decades really does make it feel impossible that they could be taken down by a lone gunman or a simple mistake behind the controls of a private plane. Kyle Bailey, the pilot who was the last person to see John alive, says there probably isn't any singular cause for John's accident. As in so many plane crashes, it was a string of unfortunate events lined up like a row of dominoes. The weather, stress from his business, his marriage, even from running late. His experience with taking risks, and his inexperience with flying on a hazy night, the dominoes simply toppled over. But I do want to say one last thing. Some have suggested that John may have been open to conspiracy theories about his father's death. To be clear, he always refused to speak publicly on the subject, even in private. Friends felt it was off limits. However, a high school girlfriend reportedly wrote that as a teenager, John wanted to make sure that anybody behind his father's death was brought to justice. And his biographer distinctly remembers John saying once that Bobby knew everything, referring to his uncle Robert Kennedy and perhaps suggesting he knew more than had been released to the public. Regardless of what John personally believed or how much he talked about it, if he did someday run for president and got elected, he presumably would have gained access to confidential files about JFK's assassination. If you had access to top secret information concerning the murder of your father and your uncle, who is like a father to you, would you be able to keep your curiosity at bay? Or would you wield your power to see the complete and unredacted files? And if those files revealed any kind of COVID up at any level, who would you feel more loyalty to? The people who knew about the murder or your family? If the files really could reveal some shadowy corner of the government was responsible for the assassination, do you think they'd risk being found out? And there's one more thing we have for you. There might finally be an explanation for Havana Syndrome, the mysterious neurological illness affecting U.S. government officials and their families. Turns out the government may have been hiding the truth this entire time. You might remember our episode on havana syndrome from 2023 recently. It's back in the news. We've been following the story and wanted to do an update because, wow, a lot has happened. Refresher back in 2016, government workers at the US embassy in Havana, Cuba, began hearing odd high pitched sounds during and after they experience symptoms including headaches, vertigo, and reduced cognitive function. Many of the victims, who some people allege are spies, believe they were targeted by a Russian sonic weapon. The weapon shot microwaves, causing brain injuries. And yes, it does sound like it's straight out of a James Bond movie. In fact, so much so that in 2022 and 2023, the US government report said that sonic and microwave weapons were unlikely to be the cause. They would be too big, too visible, and require too much power to actually implement. Havana Syndrome was the result of unrelated anomalies, not foreign attacks, and that is still the official story as of 2026. But new allegations suggest the government may have said that to protect the status quo, it recently came out that in 2024, a Norwegian scientist might have accidentally proved this conspiracy theory true. Allegedly, he followed classified blueprints that had been stolen from a foreign government and followed them, hoping to prove that this kind of weapon was harmless. Instead, he accidentally gave himself Havana Syndrome. And according to the Washington Post, both the Pentagon and the White House investigated because they were in the market for one of these devices. Both the Washington Post and 60 Minutes recently reported that the Biden administration secretly spent around $15 million to buy a portable sonic weapon. They bought it from Russian underground arms dealers, and President Trump may have confirmed it. In a press conference. He referenced a portable microwave energy weapon called a discombobulator. That's certainly a name. And said he wasn't allowed to talk about it, but revealed that US Forces used the weapon to kidnap the president of Venezuela. But according to suffering Havana Syndrome victims, the official line has remained there is no sonic weapon that can do this to you. This is all coming to light because former CIA officers are finally sharing what they saw and they have two main theories why the truth might have been brushed under the rug. One, the CIA wanted to keep agents calm and focused on their missions and not have them freaking out that they and their families would be attacked. 2. The Pentagon didn't want to go to war with Russia. Confirming a Russian attack would mandate defensive action. As these former CIA operatives told 60 Minutes, this is a massive CIA cover up. And this is one of those cases that's so crazy to me because it involves the history of the CIA, which we know has many conspiracy theories in it, but it's unfolding in real time. It is happening right now and having impacts on our lives and the geopolitical situations of the moment. So I don't know about you, but we will keep following the story. Let us know what you think in the comments. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram he conspiracypod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts for more information on John F. Kennedy Jr. Amongst the many sources we used, we found Stephen M. Gillen's biography America's Reluctant the Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. Along with A&E's JFK. The final year and the Series may Air disaster. Extremely helpful to our research. Until next time. Remember, the truth isn't always the best story and the official story isn't always the truth. This episode was written and researched by Miki Taylor, edited by Connor Sampson, fact checked by Sophie Kemp and engineered video edited and sound designed by Alex Button. I'm your host Carter Roy.