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- [00:00]
Tamsen Fadal
Take the exit, turn right into the drive thru.
- [00:03]
Peyton Marlin
Nope, I'm making dinner tonight.
- [00:05]
Tamsen Fadal
You don't have time. Josh has practice.
- [00:07]
Peyton Marlin
Oh, that's right.
- [00:08]
Tamsen Fadal
I'll just get a salad and fries.
- [00:10]
Peyton Marlin
No, just the salad.
- [00:11]
Tamsen Fadal
But salad cancels.
- [00:12]
Peyton Marlin
Fries. Salad only.
- [00:14]
Tamsen Fadal
Fries.
- [00:14]
Peyton Marlin
Salad, fries.
- [00:15]
Tamsen Fadal
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- [00:22]
Peyton Marlin
Hey, can I get the fries? Salad? Sorry.
- [00:25]
Tamsen Fadal
Learn more@joinmochi.com Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary.
- [00:31]
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- [01:00]
Peyton Marlin
You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hi everyone and welcome back to the into the Dark podcast. I'm your host, Peyton Marlin. I'm so glad you are here. Before we jump into today's episode, we are going to start with my 10 seconds and to be honest, not doing very well. I've had some panic, start back up again. I'm just trying to take it day by day at this point. But that's why I look the way I do. I just did some skincare, trying to hydrate my face. I'm anxious. I'm just trying to live in the moment. Try to focus on like right now, this second. Not the future, not the past. Just breathing, being conscious in my thoughts, doing all the things, doing all the things I know I gotta do. But it's hard. It gets old, you know, dealing with the same thing. And I think there's a part of me that's like still. But I also think that resistance to it is kind of what keeps me stuck a little bit. So I don't know, just trying to remind my brain that all's good, we're good. Despite what I may be feeling or, you know, the spiral thoughts I may be thinking. Having a conscious grounding of everything's good, we're okay, we're breathing, we're alive, we're here, all the things. But yeah, if you have been struggling at all with anything, just know you're not alone. We're all here. Just getting through day by day. That being said, I actually decided to do a tinfoil tale this week just to kind of do something a little bit Lighter, not so serious. So yeah, let's get into today's episode. So this year 2026 is actually a pretty big one for Americans. First of all, in February, the US Competed in the Winter Olympics. So sports fans have had plenty of opportunities to root for their favorite athletes to win for gold. But also this year is the country's 250th birthday. So there are a bunch of events being held across the Nation on July 4th. Museums are actually hosting special exhibits and celebrities are making photo and video projects for the anniversary. Former presidents like George W. Bush and Barack Obama are actually planning appearances together. And of course, like any other Independence Day, there will be fireworks and huge block parties all across America. And it is easy to get caught up in the excitement and the glamour. But it is also worth keeping in mind that the United States has a dark history. There have been injustices in the past and the present. There have also been cover ups and plenty tinfoil tales. That's obviously my term for the sorts of theories some people believe in which are related to other people conspiring together. I know there's a whole other term for that. Unfortunately YouTube does not like that phrase. So we just call them tinfoil tales. And as we think back on how the country was first founded, the there are quite a few tinfoil tales around that time and we are going to explore five of those today, actually five tinfoil tales about our Founding Fathers. So let's get into it. The tinfoil tell number one, the Freemasons were involved in the writing of the Constitution. Now we can't talk about the birth of the United States without covering the very first president, George Washington. As you may know, he was born and raised in the Virginia Colony back before it even became a state. Washington's family were well off plantation owners. So they were wealthy. They had a lot of rich and powerful friends. Naturally, this meant that as Washington got older, he also got to meet important political figures and businessmen and he even had the opportunity to join some exclusive clubs. So it should be no surprise that he joined a Virginia based Masonic Lodge on November 4, 1752. This was when George Washington was only 20 years old. Now, for those who don't know, the Masons or Freemasons are a secret society. Okay. And I want to emphasize how secretive they are. Nobody is entirely sure when the Masons were founded or who even started the organization, but they probably originated at some point in Europe in the 1600s or 1700s. It's impossible to say exactly why the group started or what their goal was because, again, they're very private and protective of their information, even to this day. Now, the Freemasons basically don't like to talk about who they are or what they do, but lots of people have their own theories. If you look for information about the Freemasons online, you will see countless allegations. It is this secret society working to take over the world with very exclusive, high powerful people. Or that they have connections with rich and powerful people all across the Earth. They can allegedly influence politicians or encourage business owners to make decisions that benefit them. So basically, there's no way to prove this, but some people believe that the Freemasons are actually the only people on our planet with real power. They run it, and we all have no idea. And wealthy CEOs, political figures, celebrities, and everyone else will do whatever the Freemasons say. Now, if that's true, it's safe to assume they were very involved with the formation of the United States, perhaps even back then. They made decisions about how the government would function and what principles were written into the Constitution. And that's because Washington was very involved with them from the day he joined until the day he died. He was 20 when he officially became a Freemason in 1752. And just one year later, he achieved the highest rank that's possible in the Masonic organization. So clearly, he was incredibly involved and important to the Freemasons. And this remained true for the entire rest of his adult life. I mean, like, obviously, he became the President of the United States. In fact, the entire time he was a president, Washington worked closely with the local Masonic chapters called Lodges. He let the Masons perform a ceremony when he was first sworn in. And it involved strange rituals and almost felt like they were kind of casting a spell. And they did the same thing again. When the Capitol Building was built, Washington invited them to come out and perform a mysterious, possibly supernatural ritual. And all of it happened at the building where Congress would later gather and make the country's laws. On top of that, there were Masonic symbols all over government documents, and some are still used today. I mean, if you've looked at a dollar bill recently, you probably notice it shows a pyramid with, like, an eye on it. And that's not just an unusual work of art. That is a Masonic symbol with some people believing it has magical properties. So George Washington was literally printing Masonic logos right onto American money, performing rituals at important national events, getting advice from them, and working closely with the group. And he continued to attend their secret meetings the entire time he was in office. Now, of course, we have no idea what they discussed during those gatherings because that information has obviously never been released to the public. Some believe the society may have influenced the decisions he made or even told him how to rule the nation. And I have to note, George Washington was the first president who was also a Freemason. Obviously we know that the Masons are very heavy in our culture, like I just said. But he wasn't the last. Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Gerald Ford and more. All of these presidents a part of the Freemasons. So it gets you wondering. Have they had something to do with our country this entire time? Except that being said, there are skeptics to this theory. They say this is exaggerated. It's based on unfair assumptions. Spokespeople with the Freemasons say, no, this exclusive club is not trying to take over the world. Even if they wanted to, how would one club have the resources to do that? Officially, the Masons are more like a social club than a secret society. They say they have chapters all across the earth, but they don't really work together or plot with one another. And different Masonic lodges can have very different goals that contradict one another. So there's not much room for cooperation. However, there are certain values that all of the Freemasons everywhere are supposed to believe in. And this included democracy, freedom of religion and caring for those who are less fortunate. Which, yes, are principles that were written into the Constitution. Those are beliefs our country was built on. So you could argue that the Masons did help shape the USA's laws. But if you sincerely believe in those things, you're probably not going to try to take over the world, right? Like that seems like good qualities to have. At least that's the Freemasons argument. Ultimately, you'll have to decide for yourself if you can believe them or not. So if you're more interested, go look into Freemasons and their history with America.
- [10:24]
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- [10:49]
Peyton Marlin
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You guys know I actually have used my own code dark50 off to order factor. That's how much I love it. So eat like a pro this month with Factor New subscribers only varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active. Now the second one is the country's Illuminati origins. Now, many people believe a different secret society has been manipulating the scenes and it is called the Illuminati. The Illuminati is different than the Freemasons, but they're very similar. Like, they have the same stereotype, they have similar values, they use a lot of the same symbols. Many Masons were members of the Illuminati and vice versa. So you could like be part of both groups. And both groups are very secretive and real. We know for sure they're real. We just don't know what they do. And according to the rumors from the time, both of these groups were trying to take over the world. See, the Illuminati was founded in Germany in 1776. This is the same year the Declaration of Independence was signed. And one of their main goals was the freedom of religion. Just like the Freemasons, just like America. Except the earliest Illuminati members actually wanted a complete separation of church and state. They didn't want political leaders to have anything to do with organized religion at all, which was very against the times because basically everywhere in the world, religion ran things. This is very threatening to the German government, which had close ties to the Christian church. So two years later, in 1778, German officials actually then said it was illegal to be a member of the Illuminati. Kind of saying it was like a terrorist group, if you will. They arrested as many of the group's leaders as they could. They tried to shut down their meetings, and officially the Illuminati disbanded that year. However, rumors began spreading almost immediately that despite the Illuminati starting and ending, some founders had escaped arrest the gossip was people in the Illuminati had fled to other countries and were now secretly working to overthrow the church and destroy Christianity across the world. Now, according to rumors that were flying around, in 1800, Thomas Jefferson was working for the Illuminati. Let me back up a little bit. In 1800, Jefferson was the United States Vice President. He was serving under John Adams, but he was running for president that year. He was also quite open about the fact that he did not believe in God, which was at that time, very anti American. Plus, he had close ties with rich and powerful people in Europe, many people who were rumored to be a part of the Illuminati. So all through his campaign, Jefferson was dealing with certain allegations. They said he was part of the Illuminati and he was plotting to make Christianity illegal in the United States. Rumor also said that if Jefferson was elected, he'd get rid of democracy altogether, and then he would let the Illuminati take over the nation and then conquer the world. But if you know your history, you can probably see the problem with this. Namely, Jefferson did win the 1800 election. He became the third president of the United States, and he did not outlaw Christianity or get rid of democracy. However, some people still say that Jefferson's presidency only existed to allow the Illuminati to gain power. The idea is that they told him what kind of laws to pass, who to appoint into important positions. So the Illuminati that year didn't do anything obvious like trying to destroy religion by using the American president, but they did gain power in smaller, subtler ways. The theory goes that Even now, over 200 years later, the Illuminati is becoming more influential and has way more of a hand on the elite than we believe. Except they're so secretive about their goals, we still can't say what they're trying to achieve. Now, I know this is vague. Many people believe the Illuminati or the Freemasons are a threat to democracy, that they deal with evil, but they can't say what they're doing that's so dangerous or even what evidence they have to support their tinfoil tales. This is just what happens when you're talking about secret societies. Some groups are supposedly so good at hiding their goals and motives that it is impossible to really understand what they're doing. And then the rumors run, and that takes us into tinfoil tale number three, and that is that Benjamin Franklin was a serial killer. So let's back up to something that doesn't require as much speculation. We'll change our focus to the next tinfoil tale, which has nothing to do with secret societies. And instead, I want to explore the theory that Benjamin Franklin may have been a serial killer. Now, I know that probably sounds wild, but there is evidence to support this idea, which is why this tinfoil tell even exists. A lot of this evidence wasn't found until after Franklin's death. And then over in England. See, Benjamin Franklin was an ambassador, and he had to travel a lot for his job. And in the late 1700s, he was living in London. 200 years later, in 1998, the. The house where he had been staying at way back then needed to be renovated. So a construction crew started digging in the dirt and what used to be the garden. And that was where they found bones. 1200 of them, to be exact. Now, forensic experts looked at the remains, and they said these bones had come from roughly 15 different people. These bones were human. They were not from animals. They had cut marks on them, suggesting someone had sliced these bodies up. And they all could be dated to the same period of time, the late 1700s, when Benjamin Franklin was living at this exact house. I mean, if this wasn't a former president, you would be like, whoever used to live here was a serial killer. Well, it was a former president. And a lot of rumors start to fly. People begin wondering if Franklin had a dark secret. After all, we know some serial killers move around a lot. It makes it harder for people to notice how often friends or acquaintances or strangers around them go missing. So, officially, Franklin moved all the time for his work as an ambassador, but that could have been a cover story. I mean, this discovery made a lot of people feel like they had to reevaluate everything they knew about American history. I think what's most shocking is that these early presidents actually had a lot of ties and spent a lot of time outside of America. I mean, these bodies were found not on American soil, but an American president lived in this house. If one of our most famous, respected founders was actually a brutal serial killer, that changes everything. However, a lot of historians have looked into this and actually interpret the bodies in Franklin's garden very differently. They say those remains didn't come from his victims. Instead, the theory goes that it was actually Franklin's roommate who buried those remains. See, his roommate, a man named William Hewson, was a doctor, and he ran a successful medical school, and students came to London from all across the world to learn from him. And back then, the best way for aspiring doctors to study the human body was by performing autopsies Problem was there were a lot of laws at the time that limited how many corpses a person could buy, even if you had a legitimate need for them, like teaching or a med student. Basically. In the 1700s and 1800s, many officials believed autopsies were kind of shameful. The science behind it was, was iffy. It was a different time with different values. And government leaders thought it was disrespectful to let even doctors operate on people who had died. This meant even if you were alive, you couldn't consent to donating your body to an autopsy. The law said it wasn't allowed. The one exception was for criminals who had been executed. So the idea was that if you broke the law and got sentenced to death, you didn't deserve for your body to be treated with respect after you died. So by law, only executed criminals could get autopsied and be studied. But there's obviously not enough criminals remains to go around to all the doctors who are trying to use a human body to practice surgery on or study. So this is when the illegal body trade becomes the thing. Okay, so his roommate William buys a bunch of bodies for students to work on. He could never get as many as he needed, and he thought it was important. He thought that his students deserved a good education, that this was important to the future. Future patients deserved to have their this work be done. So William, like many doctors and teachers at the time, started to buy remains illegally. It was common for medical professionals to hire people to rob graves. And obviously when this demand becomes high enough, people start committing murder and selling bodies to, to doctors on the black market. In 1828, one grave robber was actually convicted of suffocating multiple people to death so he could sell their corpses to medical professionals. But in spite of these dark realities, demand for bodies was high. There was always a market for them. Most buyers didn't want to ask too many questions. And William might have been in the same boat. So all of this to say we don't know exactly where the remains of these 15 people that were buried in this house's yard came from, if they were murdered, if they were from grave robs, or if they were legal criminals whose bodies after death were bought. But it's not that crazy to think that a former US President didn't kill and bury all these bodies, but his very well known and prominent doctor who lived there and taught students was responsible for these bodies. You know, especially if they were illegal, it would make sense that he would be burying them in his own home to cover up evidence and the Cut marks on the bodies were consistent with, like, medical grade surgery. They don't resemble, like, injuries from a stabbing or a beating or something messy. So a lot of historians actually settled on this matter. They said the bodies that were found in Benjamin Franklin's old home did belong to his roommate William's medical school. Basically. Most experts agree Franklin probably wasn't a serial killer, but you obviously can't rule out the possibility entirely. Now, the next tinfoil tell is that the Revolutionary War was to protect slavery. This is a lot more controversial. Some experts believe it's completely true. Others have their doubts. And the idea is that the Revolutionary War wasn't actually fought so the colonists could have freedom from Britain, but so that they could keep slavery legal in the Americas. So according to reporters with the New York Times and other researchers, many American colonists in the 1700s felt like they absolutely needed slavery. Now, at that time, 20% of all the people in the colonies were enslaved. Literally, one in five people handled the majority of the hard labor and difficult work. Business owners and rich families claimed they couldn't afford to hire employees to replace these workers if they were freed, which was kind of the trend going on. They feared the entire American economy would collapse without legalized slavery. And to them, this felt like a very real possibility. In the 1700s, many people were speaking out against the institution, campaigning to get rid of slavery. This included formerly enslaved people who had either escaped or been granted their freedom. They publicly shared details about the horse they had experienced, talked about how unfair it was. There were also regular rebellions on plantations. People fought back against their captors. And on top of that, in 1705, England began the process of making slavery illegal. In the UK they didn't ban it all at once. There was more of a gradual shift with different laws changing over time. Now, most of the laws actually only applied to the mainland, not the colonies. But many Americans feared that this would soon be banned for them. And this tinfoil tale says that this was the main reason why they actually decided to even rebel against the Crown, because they didn't want the king to force them to let enslaved people go. In fact, when the Revolution first began, a lot of Southern colonies weren't on board with the idea. They made most of their money by trading with England. They didn't want to lose out on business opportunities by going to war against them. However, the Northern founding fathers convinced the south to join the Revolution, and they did it by pointing out how much money they would lose if they let enslaved people free. Like what was happening over on their land. So the Southerners understood the argument. They accepted that if they kept being a British colony, they would eventually have to give up the way of life that was happening on American soil. And if the revolutionary was successful, they could fight to keep slavery legal. So this is kind of the dark history of the revolution. That was a major part of it that isn't given credit, if you will. So after the war began, British soldiers actually recruited enslaved people to fight on their side. They were like, listen, this revolution, if we lose it, we then don't have control to be able to let you go. So fight for us so we can ban slavery. Now. Unfortunately, the British were never able to make good on their promise. The American side was victorious. And then they wrote a constitution that promised freedom, justice, and liberty, but only for some people. They ensured that slavery would remain legal in America and even added language saying it couldn't be outlawed for at least 20 years. Like, literally, they protected it. Even if every government leader in the United States in 10 years wanted to get rid of slavery, they couldn't do anything about it until at least 1807, at least legally. So it really did seem that one of the top goals of the American Revolution was to keep people enslaved. And it's something that isn't brought up all the time. Except there are many historians. They argue this wasn't a main motive, and it's unfair to make it sound like it was. They don't deny that some people did join the revolution because they wanted to keep slavery legal, but they also say there was a lot of founding fathers who actually wanted to get rid of slavery from day one. In fact, some military leaders in Washington's army made the same offer to enslaved people that the British had. So both sides were saying the same things. Join us, and we will make slavery illegal. And in fairness, many of those leaders actually did make good on their promise. They arranged to have the people who had fought for them released once the war was over. But unfortunately, that didn't grant liberty to everyone. It was a major sticking point when they wrote the Constitution. Some of the founding fathers argued very hard that slavery shouldn't be allowed in the United States, but others fought just as intensely to keep it legal. So it wasn't like everyone agreed on this when it came to creating America. However, this compromise allowed slave owners to continue owning, abusing, and mistreating people. It was unfair and unjust, and I don't want to downplay that, but it's important that we don't make it sound like all of the early Patriots agreed on pretty much anything. They all had major differences of opinion on political and human rights issues like slavery, and even with supernatural issues too. Alright you guys, I'm getting into an ad and I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it. And unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also seem to like keeping my money too. So after years of overpaying for wireless, I finally got fed up with the crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees and free perks that actually cost more in the long run. And I decided to switch to Mint Mobile. And honestly, it was one of those discoveries that was kind of shocking to me that I can be basically receiving the same thing at a lower price with Mint Mobile. 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Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.comdark go to shopify.comdark that is shopify.comdark. and that takes us to our last tinfoil tale. And that was that. Thomas Jefferson was a UFO hunter. So, again, this has to do with Thomas Jefferson, namely that he was a very early UFO investigator. See, in 1800, an American citizen named William Dunbar was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That night, he looked up at the sky and saw something flying above his head. He said it was as big as a house and it looked like a giant glowing ball. The thing was reddish orange in color, but it was illuminated, but not bright enough to, like, block the stars in the sky. William claims that it didn't seem to be sparking like you'd expect it to if it was an object that was on fire. And he estimated that it was probably 600ft up, so about the same level as the top of the Space Needle or the Washington monuments. That's pretty high, but also not far enough up to be an airplane. Not to mention that in 1800, there really weren't any planes, drones, satellites, blimps. And according to William, the thing was too big to be a bird or a different kind of animal. However, he had no idea what it could be. So he wrote a letter to Vice President Jefferson because the two of them had met before. William respected Jefferson's intelligence and hoped the Vice President could figure out what he had seen. Now, Jefferson, while being a Freemason and possibly being in cahoots to try to get the Illuminati and Freemasons to take over America, was just as baffled as William was about this ufo. He was intrigued enough to head straight to Louisiana. He said, hold up, Illuminati. I gotta go find these aliens. And he questioned William and everyone else who had seen this craft, because, as it turned out, William was not the only eyewitness. At the time, Baton Rouge was actually a very small town. It wasn't the big city it is today. But even though there weren't many residents, countless people had seen the object in the sky that day. And they told Jefferson it had zipped from the southwestern corner of the horizon and then moved northeast. And it had appeared, raced away, cut out of sight in only about 15 seconds. Nobody knew of any animal or flying vessel that could travel that quickly. Plus, many of those witnesses told Jefferson that the Thing had disappeared, and when it did, they had heard a booming sound. It almost seemed to be following the vessel like an echo. Needless to say, Vice President Jefferson was intrigued by all of this. This is real. He went there. He investigated this enough so that he gathered his evidence and published a paper on his thoughts and theories about this ufo. Unfortunately, his findings weren't conclusive. And at the end of the day, all he could say for sure was that some unknown object had been flying that night and was witnessed by multiple people. It couldn't be explained through science, and it also didn't seem to be a hoax or a trick of light either. So according to Thomas Jefferson, it was just a mystery that might never be solved. But then he received another letter about another sighting on July 3, 31st, 1813. So that day, Thomas Jefferson opened a note that was signed by two men. A tavern keeper and a sailor. They'd been together in Virginia one week earlier, on July 25th. And while they had been walking around, they'd seen something strange in the sky. According to the two men, it looked like a glowing ball of fire, or at least that's what they thought it was. But while they stared at it, the thing began to morph and change. Four blobs came out of it until it was shaped more like a turtle. You know, two arms and two little legs attached to his central body. And then, according to them, it changed shape again, and it looked like a giant human skeleton made of fire. And finally, the skeleton grew flesh, skin, and clothes. It appeared to be a man wearing a Scottish soldier's uniform in the sky. Now, I know this is a wild story, and just like William from Louisiana, these two men were unable to make sense of anything that they had seen. So they were writing Thomas Jefferson to hear what he thought and honestly take out the ufo. Just that there was a time where you could write Thomas Jefferson and be like, I think I saw something. Can you come look? And he would come. What a different America that they lived in. But I digress. I don't know how he reacted to this letter, if you believed it, or if he assumed the two men had been hallucinating. Although it's hard to imagine how two separate people could have the exact same strangely detailed hallucination. The point is, Jefferson never wrote back to them, so we don't know what conclusions he drew. Maybe he was just a little too busy with his secret societies at that point. But the whole situation was very odd. To this day, nobody is sure why so many Americans wrote to Thomas Jefferson about paranormal encounters and UFO sightings. Maybe it was because, you know, so many people associated Jefferson with aliens. Remember when he was president, he established the first UFO investigation teams, and he did write papers on it. I don't know. But just think UFO was, like, not an unheard of thing. Investigations were going on all of the time. People even at this point thought that the presidencies knew more than they were saying. But there's no official evidence that Thomas Jefferson actually used his authority as president to really investigate UFOs. For all we know, he was just as confused by UFOs as the rest of us and did exactly what all presidents, or honestly, any world leaders do. And that is to investigate everything around them. What could be a threat, what couldn't. So we might never know for sure if aliens exist. Just like how we can't say if the Illuminati or the Freemasons pulled the strings of the American government 250 years ago or even today, or if the Revolutionary War was actually just one big fight over slavery, or if a serial killer helped a doctor gather bodies for an illegal autopsy school. What we can say, though, is that the United States has had and still does have its ups and downs. And the nation certainly has its secrets. That is one thing we know for sure. That is not a tinfoil tale. So as we celebrate its birthday this year, let's not forget the past we can learn from our dark history, the parts that are true, the parts that are maybe just theories. Because whether they're accurate or not, these tinfoil tales tell us something about our national fears and anxieties, the lack of trust we have in our leaders, the continued fear of big secrets and conspiracies going on right underneath our noses. And we, the average American citizens, will just continue to sit here and wonder. All right, you guys, that was five different tinfoil tales about the Founding Fathers. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and I will see you next time when with another one. Goodbye.
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Tamsen Fadal
Hi, I'm Tamsen Fadal, journalist and author of how to Menopause and host of the Tamsen Show, a weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond. We cover it all, from dating to divorce, aging to adhd, sleep to sex, brain health to body fat, and even how perimenopause can affect your relationships. And trust me, it can. Each week, I sit down with doctors, experts and leaders in longevity for unfiltered conversations packed with advice on everything from hormones to happiness, and, of course, how to stay sane during what can be well face it, a pretty chaotic chapter of life. Think of us as your midlife survival guide. New episodes released every Wednesday. Listen now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.