A (2:23)

Especially for the first, you know, couple of weeks at least.

C (2:26)

I kind of. It was entertaining to me. Yeah, I kind of thought it was funny. I enjoyed the Gucci clown. I ain't going to sit here in front now.

B (2:33)

The. I think one of the more recent famous ones was Jamie Foxx.

C (2:37)

Yes.

B (2:38)

Got sick, I think. And Lost a bunch of weight and I don't know, people were really crazy about that one.

C (2:44)

The clone shit threw me.

E (2:46)

Yes.

C (2:46)

When they said I was a clone that made me flip in the hospital.

A (2:50)

That's it.

C (2:51)

These motherfuckers are trying to clone me.

E (2:52)

I didn't have a stroke.

C (2:53)

So I'm sitting in the hospital bed like these bitch ass. And then I saw me walk into my room, but I'm white. Well, especially because we didn't see him for a while.

B (3:03)

Yes, he did see.

C (3:04)

And that's always, I feel like a key part of this cloning stuff that comes up over and over again. It's like if you don't see a public person in person for a bit, they think that's when the cloning stuff is happening.

B (3:16)

Yes. It's a very long process according to the conspiracies.

C (3:22)

And then you didn't mention one of my favorite new ones. Cause this is, you know, I feel like a lot of these are kind of a little bit more dark web. But the one that I've seen that like I've heard normal people talking about is the Melania clone. Have you heard about this, Chelsea?

F (3:39)

Yeah, I've definitely heard about this one. I don't know a ton about it, you know, but I feel like that one is like one where I'm like, maybe this could be this. She's got a clone vibe about.

C (3:54)

Who.

A (3:54)

Am I to judge? Yeah, I definitely remember with that people would do it, you know, side by side videos and being like, her nose looks totally different here or her hands doing this thing. It's someone like, you're like people that I would think are normal minded people.

C (4:06)

Not computer conspiracy people.

B (4:08)

Sometimes it's clones, but sometimes it's body doubles. So I think that was more the, like that they were like, she didn't want to participate in these events.

C (4:15)

Yeah.

B (4:16)

So they got like an actress, I guess.

E (4:18)

Yeah, yeah.

C (4:18)

They get look alikes. Speculation that Melania sometimes sends a body double to make official appearances with her husband first surfaced in 2017. The first lady's office has previously called the fake Melania story ridiculous. It's funny because it's like she's not really doing anything. You know, it's like it's just standing there. And Berta, like, I can tell by the way that that person stays. That is not Melania. This is some other thing.

F (4:45)

And you know who hasn't been mentioned yet is Avril Lavigne.

A (4:48)

Oh, yeah, of course.

F (4:49)

Cause that was a really popular one for a while. She was replaced by I think someone named Melissa. I like that one because there was, like, a whole backstory to the clone. Or maybe it wasn't a clone. You know, this is what you're saying. There's, like, a lot of body double clone crossover, and I think.

C (5:05)

Yeah.

A (5:05)

Replacements. Yeah.

F (5:06)

And another one I'm thinking of too is. And I. Again, this is like, clone body double. I can't quite remember, but the one where Taylor Swift is the same. Same person or was cloned from Anton lavey, the famous Satanist. Either daughter or someone that ran the Church of Satan. There's like, a picture side by side that everyone should go and see. And it's like this woman from, like, the Satanic panic era. Like, you know, she looks very witchy. And then it shows, like, side by side, and it is compelling. They do look very similar.

A (5:40)

Yeah, I got it now. Wow. Actually, yeah, it's. Yeah. We'll make a video and we'll show this, but.

B (5:47)

Yes.

E (5:47)

Yeah, please.

B (5:48)

Oh, wow.

E (5:49)

Okay.

A (5:50)

Definitely Some. Some shared DNA. Yeah.

B (5:52)

To say the least, that is kind of nuts.

C (5:54)

The blonde hair and the eye, the.

A (5:56)

Eyebrows and the nose. All right, I'm convinced. I've seen enough.

F (5:59)

Well, if you throw some Satanism in there, things are just gonna really pop the off, so. Yeah.

A (6:05)

Yeah.

B (6:05)

Well, that's what I'm excited to learn a little bit about in this episode is like, I've heard these theories my whole life. No one has ever been like, and this is why they're a clone.

C (6:15)

Yeah.

A (6:15)

Wow.

B (6:17)

So I can't wait to hear some of this.

C (6:18)

Funny you mentioned that.

A (6:19)

So, yeah, why don't we take this. And Devin's done some research into kind of the ins and outs of this whole world.

C (6:27)

Yeah. The cloning industry.

A (6:28)

Yeah. Why don't you take us there?

C (6:32)

So celebrity cloning, really, at least the conversation around it really hit its peak in 2016. But a few years before that, we had our first, let's call them cloning whistleblower. All right. It's this guy named Donald Marshall. He's known on the dark Web as the guy really bringing, let's say, eyeballs and attention to this issue of cloning, because he, in fact, is a clone himself.

A (7:08)

Oh, wow.

C (7:08)

Mm.

A (7:09)

That's fun.

F (7:10)

A man on the inside.

C (7:11)

A man on the inside. So they're not happy that he's talking about this stuff. He's brave, as we'll find out. So in 2011, Donald wrote a Facebook post that really sort of blew up any circles where he walks through some of the mechanics of the cloning world. And what's happening. So let me read some of it. And then I want to play a bit of an interview that he did. So in 2011, he writes, this is no hoax. This is no joke. My name is Donald Marshall. I have been cloned by a large secretive cult known as the Freemasons. And the Vril Society and Scientologists together.

B (7:53)

Oh, they collabed.

C (7:56)

And this is called the Illuminati.

A (7:58)

Oh, yeah, Heard of it?

F (7:59)

I've never heard of it.

C (8:02)

They make replicated bodies of people to victimize in terrible ways. They clone children for men with underdeveloped penises to have sex with.

B (8:17)

Whoa.

C (8:18)

Some very famous and politically powerful people all getting together for a disgusting time. Most of the G20 gather there to discuss worldly matters and watch gruesome things done to innocent people for sport. I have seen this firsthand and will tell all as it must be stopped.

B (8:41)

What year was this?

C (8:42)

This was in 2011.

B (8:44)

Wow.

F (8:45)

Wow.

B (8:46)

It's so funny with these, with like, the details of the conspiracy theory, Most of the G20, like, some of them were not invited.

E (8:54)

Not everyone swapped it out.

C (8:56)

Yeah, not everyone is showing up, but most of the G20. And we're gonna get some more specific names. So that was 2011. He starts to make the rounds. He starts appearing on a couple podcasts. You know, this is around. You gotta think about, shortly after this, we're getting Pizzagate. We're getting a lot of these conversations around people in politics, especially being tied to pedophilia. So a lot of this comes up in Donald's story. So here's him on conspiracy podcast in 2013. Donald Marshall, welcome to the program.

G (9:29)

Hello. Thanks.

B (9:30)

Why don't you tell us just a.

C (9:31)

Little bit of background about yourself for those who are unaware.

G (9:36)

First, I wanted to tell you about the cloning stuff. Okay. Now, human cloning, I have to tell you, it's been done since at the end of World War II. Okay, I'll tell you how they got it. And the whole shebang. Like 33rd degree Freemason knowledge. I'm probably gonna die for this. Somewhere along the lines it's me.

B (9:56)

When I do a hot take.

C (9:59)

I'll.

A (10:00)

Skip over this picture.

G (10:01)

This a memory. Memory repressed about everything. Couldn't remember anything. I'm still getting side effects from this. About. I was memory repressed about the cloning stuff until I was 30 years old. They call it the awakening when they give you back the memories. And turns out they had me there since I was five years old. Okay. And my family is there My family members and everything. And they said they're not going to lie on a lie detector test about it.

E (10:29)

It's.

G (10:30)

It's pretty big. Like they were going to kill me. They said, thing is, the way that this cloning works, okay, there's two different kinds of cloning, and it can. It confuses people. Now there's replication, cloning, where it comes up as a baby, right? Put the cells in, make the same person as a baby. Well, there's duplication, cloning as well, where they grow you in a big thick tank, fill full of water. This is another crazy aspect of it. Okay, the thing is with all the songs that I made at this place, and they were bringing me back every single night.

C (11:08)

Oh, can you pause this real quick? Okay, so some context here. He talks about basically the way, you know, a lot of people are tortured and at this place and taken advantage sexually. The thing that kind of saved him was his music ability. So he would sing a lot and write songs and that he would entertain the people in the cloning facility, which is why he was spared from the worst of it. So that's some context going into this up here.

G (11:38)

This is another crazy aspect of it, okay, the thing is, with all the songs that I made at this place, and they were bringing me back every single night and saying, sing a song or we're going to torture you next night. Sing a song, we're going to torture you. Sometimes I couldn't think of anything and they would just like, stab me and watch me bleed there. And now they're all watching like it's a bizarre Faces of Death thing. And different people want to know what it's like to stab someone. So they send them out to stab me while I'm on drugs so I won't hit them or something. It's like that. It's pretty sick. And, well, I have to tell you, Queen Elizabeth is there, of course, Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister Obama is there. Vladimir the Pope is even there. All kinds of heads of different factions of different things. The head of the Mexican drug cartel is there. Mafia in Italy is there. Man, everybody's there. It's like rich guys, crazy.

B (12:34)

They, like, sell.

G (12:36)

And you have to be real privileged to go there. Well, I don't want to go there. And I'm not privileged there. I'm pretty low on the totem pole there, actually. Probably the lowest. So anyway, they all. They'll threaten me never to talk about it along as I've been divulging this stuff on Facebook, they've been Bringing me there and threatening me and stuff. And then asking me not to mention them, specifically what they've done there and stuff. And panicking, really.

A (13:10)

Okay. First thing I want to mention that I'm glad Donald brought up is kind of the baby clones versus the replication clones. Because this was always stopping me because I was looking into the history and there's people talk about Paul McCartney being cloned. It's like, well, that's great. But I mean, did they know when he was a baby in 1940 in Liverpool? We're gonna need a second one of these lads and let's get this one cooking. So then when we're ready, we can just, you know, swap them out.

G (13:35)

Swap them out.

B (13:36)

Yeah.

A (13:36)

So that this is helpful, that there's a way to, you know, do a full body clone in a thick tank of water to match, you know, whenever you need does help.

B (13:46)

That was illuminating to understand their theories.

A (13:50)

It does help because that was the one. I was totally on board, but that was the one thing that always kind of got in the way of me accepting these.

C (13:57)

But now that you know that, now you accept it, this checks out. Yeah.

F (13:59)

I think this would be a kind of good moment to like orient ourselves in this conspiracy era really quick because I think we know, you know, we talk about conspiracy theories all the time in the Trump era, but I was a conspiracy theorist during the late Bush, early Obama era. And don't worry, it wasn't. It didn't get too hairy or anything like that. But, you know, I was. My dad was like a prepper, kind of like an Illuminati guy. So I knew a lot about it. But it's just like the clones. It's related to the Reptilians. You guys remember that, right? Like those videos of Obama blinking sideways.

A (14:41)

Oh, yeah, yeah. Those are simpler times.

F (14:44)

They were simpler times. And it was like all linked to the Illuminati, but it just like wasn't so overtly racist and so overtly like anti Semitic as it would become. Or it was, but you had to, like dig really deep until you got to that shit.

A (15:00)

Yeah, it was so niche. It didn't feel as bad.

F (15:02)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B (15:03)

I definitely remember all of the, like Jay Z's like, Rockefeller hand. So.

A (15:08)

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

B (15:09)

This triangle. And like, at a certain point there were. So there was. The conspiracy theory snowballed to the extent where he, like made a song about. He like, denied the claims in a song.

E (15:21)

Conspiracy theorists screaming Illuminati.

A (15:24)

They can't believe this.

C (15:25)

My skill is in the human body.

A (15:27)

He's 62. How the he fit in the new Bugatti? Ah, it.

B (15:32)

You got me.

F (15:32)

But that only made people believe it more.

E (15:35)

Yeah.

B (15:35)

It's like, that's some. That's what you would say if you wanted us to believe that.

F (15:38)

Exactly what you would say.

B (15:40)

I thought Donald's clip there was interesting about how he's kind of divulging all this information, secret information, and the most powerful people in the world are just kind of like, please don't say this. Like, killing him. Yeah. Like according to his conspiracy. It's like, why would they be so allowing.

C (16:01)

Yeah. And looking into this. He does. This is a major contradiction in his, you know, quote unquote reporting is that he says, yeah, these are the most powerful people. They do all these horrible things to everyone. But somehow they're keeping him alive and letting him talk about this stuff. Maybe because he's a clone himself. He said he was actually cloned from when babies are circumcised. And, you know, the tissue at the hospital that's discarded. He was. He said he's a clone from that tissue himself. So I don't know why he gets a pass despite being pretty loud online about what's happening behind closed doors. But I want to. You know, we talked about Britney Spears already. Donald says he actually has a connection to Britney Spears.

B (16:47)

Okay.

F (16:48)

Oh, of course.

C (16:49)

And her clones. So Britney Spears, right before she drops baby one more time in 98, allegedly, she got into a really bad car crash with Justin Timberlake. And that is the moment in which she was cloned. And in Donald's telling, most of these celebrities who have clones, it's not just one clone. You gotta have a few backups. So there's five or six or seven clones. And Donald's telling, like, the reason why Britney has had so many ups and downs in her career is because these are different clones. These are actually different people that you're seeing. Some are a little bit more manic than others. But one of the clones in 2009 came to Donald and say, hey, I need your help. Because remember, he's musically talented and this.

A (17:41)

Is in the clone camp or where the meeting.

C (17:44)

Yeah, I'm assuming it's in the clone camp.

A (17:47)

We'll check in with Donald for some details.

C (17:49)

We'll get some fact checking on this from Donald and talks to her. And in that year, Britney Spears releases a song called Break the Ice, called.

F (17:59)

I'm a Clone.

C (18:02)

Which there's some clues in which. If you listen to the lyrics, there's some clues there about cloning that she sneaks in to try to let the world know. And this is an interesting tidbit here. The music video, it's an animated video. And in the video, Britney Spears goes to a clone lab where there's all these clones and blows it up.

A (18:32)

Oh, wow.

B (18:33)

Clones of her. They're just like in tanks.

C (18:37)

Clones lab. Yeah, yeah.

B (18:38)

Okay.

C (18:38)

They're in the tanks that Donald talks about, filled with water, developing.

B (18:42)

I see.

F (18:44)

Can you imagine how he felt when he saw that video?

C (18:48)

Yeah, Like I've been telling everybody, look. Holy.

A (18:53)

It's happening.

B (18:54)

Well, conspiracy theorists love the idea that the masterminds are leaving behind clues for you to follow along.

C (19:02)

Yeah. There's a great stand up bit about that.

B (19:05)

Oh, yeah, Nick Mullen.

C (19:06)

Nick Mullen. Yeah.

A (19:07)

But that was always so funny to me.

G (19:08)

Cause it's like, what do you think happened? Right? Like the fucking CIA was like, okay, plan's ready to go. Ready to blow up the World Trade Center. There's only one step left. The clues. Yep. Yeah.

C (19:27)

It's clue time.

A (19:30)

Time to get the clues out there.

C (19:35)

We wouldn't have gotten away with it. So I was curious, you know, a lot of this is over 10 years old now from Donald, so I was curious if he's still posting and talking about this stuff today. He is. His Facebook is very active to the point where obviously we're recording this just a few days after finding out that Rob Reiner was killed along with his wife. And you know, the leading suspect who are in the cops right now is their son. And Donald posted just last night. They went to the cloning center regularly. It's possible their son regained his memory about cloning after age 30 spontaneously or they allowed him to remember and he got revenge for mistreatment there. So this is where we have this sort of like, you know, it's funny, we're having a good time and then real people's lives are, you know, being affected. And he's sort of swooping in here to sort of like take advantage of this situation. Yeah. And claiming that actually they kind of deserved it because of what they did to him. So this is where the conspiracy theories start to get a little icky for me.

A (20:52)

Yeah. Not as fun. Chelsea, I'm curious how this feel. Like this echoes a lot of kind of alien abduction sorts of theories. I'm sure in your work you've found tons of things like this. How does this kind of stack up generally?

F (21:04)

Yeah, I mean, God, it's like there's so many things popping into my head as we're going along. One of them would be the history of alien abductions and how people go to therapists to recover memories of their alien abduction. Right? So there's this memory thing which is also satanic panic where it's like suddenly you recover this memory of being a child in a satanic cult that you had completely repress. So it's like this like memory coming back suddenly is a big part of conspiracy theory. And then like, it makes me think of like MK Ultra, right? Where there's like this government body controlling the most famous and powerful people for, you know, name your reason. Right. And I also, you know, I go back to, like I said, the Reptilians. This like body swapping thing has been around a long time and continues to be around. And then I can look at someone like Tila Tequila. Do you guys remember Tila Tequila?

B (22:12)

Extremely familiar.

C (22:13)

Yes.

A (22:14)

Huge fan.

F (22:15)

Yeah. I mean, I loved her on A Shot at Love. I really loved that show. Was like the bisexual reality, like men and women vying for her.

C (22:24)

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

B (22:25)

Yeah, great show.

F (22:26)

When I was 13, great thing to revisit, everyone.

C (22:30)

Last season, Tila Tequila began her quest for love.

A (22:34)

I'm a bisexual.

C (22:37)

And after meeting 16 hot lesbians and.

E (22:40)

16 straight guys, she found the one.

F (22:43)

She went down the Illuminati pipe like really hard. And I tracked that, cuz of course, it was fascinating to me. And you know, she got into MK Ultra. She said that she was MK Ultra. She said she was cloned at one point, which is, you know, why I think it's relevant. But she did that classic like pipeline into literally becoming a Nazi. You guys know this.

A (23:07)

It's interesting.

F (23:07)

Yeah, right, Right. So she's kind of a great like case of how you can start with these kinds of silly things. I mean, we know this now. We know the like, algorithm pushes us toward extremism. But things were like, we didn't have the same types of algorithms then, so it is more self propelled, I think. And you could just start with like, yeah, maybe all the powerful people are like reptiles. Like, or there are alien, they are inhuman looking to me. So let's like start from there and then eventually you're like in a Nazi uniform taking a photo shoot. It can happen.

C (23:39)

Wild. Yeah. The Reptilian thing is coming up a lot with the clone stuff. Looking into a lot of these people that they're claiming are clones. There's, you know, random videos where the person blinks in a certain way and they're like, oh, they're glitching out One of the people who comes up time and time again with this stuff is Eminem. You know, he's been famous for a long time now. Part of the conspiracy is, like, people say, oh, his voice has actually changed over his career. Like, it doesn't sound early. Slim Shady doesn't sound the same as.

B (24:09)

It does older than he used to. Weird.

C (24:11)

How so? Just people's voices change over time.

F (24:14)

Sounds older.

A (24:15)

He's aging every day.

B (24:17)

He sounds about 20 years older than.

C (24:19)

He did about 20 years ago.

A (24:21)

Interesting.

C (24:21)

And then people will point to videos like this. So this is an interview between Eminem and Snoop Dogg.

G (24:28)

Have y' all shot a video together before?

C (24:32)

Nope.

G (24:33)

We was in a movie together, and the video was a Dre video. I'm representing for the gangsters. When you on the beach running on that video. Was I in that video? Yeah, you was running on the beach. That was, like, your debut album.

E (24:51)

I was.

G (24:52)

You was running on the beach with no clothes on. You was running on the beach with him. Damn near no clothes on. What the fuck?

A (24:59)

Yo, you gotta show me that shit.

G (25:01)

Cause I don't remember Slim Shady, cuz you was, like, crazy back then.

C (25:04)

Like, real crazy.

A (25:05)

You don't remember that?

G (25:07)

Cuz you was running on the beach. Cuz in the video. What? I don't even. It was a bunch of girls around you, and all of a sudden, signed Eminem.

C (25:14)

He's triple platinum doing 50.

A (25:16)

Oh, yeah.

B (25:16)

Okay.

A (25:17)

Okay. Now I remember.

G (25:18)

Come on, man.

C (25:19)

So people are pointing to this video as, oh, obviously he doesn't remember, because that a clone.

A (25:24)

Yeah. It wasn't him.

C (25:25)

It wasn't him.

B (25:27)

So that's incredible.

C (25:28)

So, you know, even small moments of people being like, oh, I don't really remember that thing, people turn into. Okay, here's more proof.

B (25:36)

Yeah.

C (25:36)

That this person.

B (25:38)

Him forgetting is so easy to believe, too, because, like, you know, in the music industry or, like, the rock world, you're kind of drunk all the time or doing all these drugs on these music video sets. It would stop. It's not hard to believe that he would forget that.

C (25:52)

Probably not the first or last thing he's filmed on a beach either.

B (25:55)

Yeah.

A (26:00)

Next up, we hear from someone who knows how cloning actually works. My interview with biosciences expert Professor Henry Greely after the break.

B (26:09)

New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the how to Money podcast. And every week, we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there? If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

D (26:37)

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iheart twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business? Think iHeart streaming radio and podcasting. Call 844-844-IHeart to get started. That's 844-844-IHEART.

H (27:07)

What if mind control is real?

E (27:10)

If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

H (27:13)

Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?

G (27:16)

When you look at your car, you're gonna become such good feelings.

H (27:21)

Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

C (27:23)

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.

H (27:27)

Can you get someone to join your cult?

F (27:29)

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.

H (27:32)

Nlp, AKA Neuro linguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain.

C (27:43)

It's about engineering consciousness.

H (27:46)

Mind Games is the story of nlp, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, nlp, might actually work.

B (28:03)

This is wild.

H (28:04)

Listen to mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A (28:16)

All right, we are back. We're here with Chelsea talking about clones, celebrity clones and all the theory surrounding them. I wanted to find out, does cloning actually happen? And how, and then try to find out if humans could be cloned and why or why not. So I spoke to Dr. Henry Greely.

E (28:38)

I'm a law professor at Stanford where I work on ethical, legal and social issues in the biosciences. I'm the director of Stanford center for Law and the Biosciences and a professor by courtesy of Genetics.

A (28:50)

So we all know about Dolly the sheep. Yes. In the late 90s. Yes, her name is Dolly.

B (28:57)

Seven months old.

A (28:58)

She may not be the monster imagined in a science fiction fantasy. Yet the Cuddly Finn, Dorset lamb may represent a major landmark in the history of genetic engineering. On an ordinary farm in Scotland, scientists say a clone was created from a.

B (29:14)

Single cell taken from the udder of a sheep.

A (29:17)

The embryo was then implanted in a surrogate, making an exact genetic copy of.

B (29:22)

Its so called mother. Scientists hail it as a triumph for.

A (29:27)

Research in aging medicine and genetics. So Dolly was really important because before this people didn't really think you could clone mamm. Frogs and other animals had been cloned before and like people had tried with mice and rats and it never worked. And people weren't sure exactly why. But certainly something like a sheep has never happened before. There was a, you know, major reaction to Dolly. Not just excitement and like, wow, but, you know, ethical concerns and like, what does this mean for humanity?

E (30:00)

The reaction to Dolly was startling. It was worldwide hysteria. We went from one cloned lamb to armies of cloned warrior slaves in headlines. I think part of the hysteria was even though we should have known that this could happen, nobody had been paying attention. So the result of the hysteria was a bunch of laws around the world saying human cloning is illegal. California actually passed one of the first of those, although it made a nice distinction that later became pretty important in the U.S. controversially, the distinction between reproductive cloning, cloning a human to make another baby, and research cloning or therapeutic cloning, cloning a human in order to make an embryo where you could take some cells from that embryo to use to treat the person who you had cloned. Because that way if the cells have the same DNA as the person you cloned, that person's immune system won't attack them. It'll think accurately that it's the same person. It kicked off a six to 10 year fight about embryo research, cloning embryos. And much of the cloning came down to, I mean, everybody agreed you shouldn't clone babies. Some thought it was just wrong and others thought it's too dangerous. But there was a disagreement about whether you should be able to clone embryos.

A (31:36)

So that's kind of the immediate aftermath of Dall E is, you know, okay, what is this going to mean for us? Like, are we just going to make a bunch of humans? Is this just how the world is going to be, like overrun with clones? We get into a little bit more of the ethical concerns of playing God in this way. But even there, you know, he touched on kind of the actual therapeutic uses of cloning.

C (31:57)

Yeah.

A (31:58)

So anyway, we can get a little bit more into that and kind of the actual Uses of quote unquote cloning. But these laws didn't scare everyone off. Some people went for it.

E (32:09)

After Dolly's birth is announced, it's front page headlines all over the world. Lots of different cries of outrage and legislation. But there were also some. There was a counter current. There were people who said, I'm going to clone myself or I want to make a clone. One of them particularly noteworthy was a physicist named Richard Seed. S E E D I mean, sometimes fact is stranger than fiction. You know, a guy named Seed who wants to clone himself. He strongly resembled Doc Brown from the Back to the Future franchise. And he looked like a mad scientist. And he went on TV and his brother ran an IVF clinic. So he was going to clone himself. There were two OB GYNs, one from Kentucky and one from, I believe, Greece, who also announced that they were going to do human cloning. And they actually claimed to have gotten a pregnancy started, although no one actually knows whether that was true or not. But the most interesting would be Cloners was a religious cult, I think I can call them a cult that's still around, called the Raelians. R A E L I A N.

F (33:22)

S.

E (33:26)

There was a French race car driver who was visited by aliens in a spaceship.

C (33:31)

Claude, you best tell us yourself really.

A (33:34)

What your experience was with aliens and so forth.

E (33:37)

Yes, I was journalist in the center of France in 1973 and I was contacted by people coming from outer space.

G (33:45)

And these people are very special.

E (33:48)

They contact me. They came in a volcano with what? The name you give is ufo, but it was not exactly ufo, and the man went out of this flying saucer and he spoke to me who told him that they had seeded life on Earth millions of years before and they had seeded humans and you know, they were our parents, our gods, and he should form a group that would acknowledge them and pass along their truths. And by the way, his new name was Rael. He apparently was a charismatic race car driver. And as is, I think, the case with many of these particularly unusual religious sects, he seems to have had a strong degree of sexual magnetism because his sex seemed to be made up mainly of attractive young women.

A (34:42)

Interesting.

E (34:43)

But it was a flying saucer cult. You know, they believed that there were these aliens who had started us and the aliens wanted the things for us to do. This had started, I think in the 70s, I mean, years before Dolly. But once Dolly comes out, Raelle says, oh, by the way, the aliens told me that it was our duty as Raelians to clone humans because that's the next step in human evolution. So we're cloning humans. And here, by the way, is my very attractive young female head cloner, Brigitte de Boissanger, who is a biochemist, which has very little to do with the science behind cloning. But they set up a cloning lab, which was Brigitte, in West Virginia. And they said their goal was to clone people. FDA then got involved and said, no, you need our permission to do that. So they said, well, we don't want to ask your permission. And they moved their lab to the Bahamas.

A (35:43)

They got to work. And in late 2002, Brigitte held a press conference to make this announcement. I'm very, very pleased to that the.

E (35:50)

First baby clone is born. Her name was Eve. But they weren't going to disclose any more information in order to protect her privacy, of course. But I don't think anybody outside the RA aliens believes it. Eve has never appeared. There's never been any proof that she exists or that she's a clone.

A (36:16)

Yeah. So I thought this was a pretty interesting group.

F (36:19)

That's amazing.

B (36:21)

Yeah, they sound like almost like the Heaven's Gate cult, where the aliens are giving them instructions that they need to do. And then at the end of those instructions, they're supposed to commit suicide and.

F (36:34)

Go away on the spaceship.

B (36:36)

But the Raeliens are still around, it sounds like.

A (36:38)

Yeah. And I had heard about them in some passing capacity before this. I didn't realize, though, that they had existed way before the clones. And then I like that, you know, their leader was like, read the news and was like, oh, yeah, this is. This is actually. Yeah.

F (36:52)

And like, going to fold.

A (36:53)

Grabbed onto that. Yeah, it's pretty smart, you know.

G (36:56)

Yeah.

C (36:57)

Gotta stay in the headlines.

A (36:59)

Exactly. And there's more examples of people trying in different levels of kind of seriousness. There was a South Korean scientist who claimed to have succeeded and, like, was really revered in Korea. And they made postage stamps with his face on it and stuff. And then he was debunked as a fraud. But that person does have a successful pet Cl. Cloning business today. So pet cloning, we know does happen. Barbra Streisand, I think Tom Brady recently.

C (37:23)

Yes, Tom Brady came out recently, announced this.

F (37:26)

Tom Brady's adorable pup, Juni, is a social media star. But if she looks familiar, it's definitely not a coincidence. The dog is actually a clone of.

C (37:36)

Brady's previous Pitbull mix, Lua, who died in 2023.

F (37:40)

The NFL legend revealing his new dog's background this week. Writing in a few short months Colossal gave my family a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog, Brady, an investor in the biotech company Colossal Biosciences.

A (37:55)

Yeah, and then. Yeah, and then I talked to Dr. Greeley about all this stuff, too.

E (37:59)

But you.

A (37:59)

You see all these stories about, you know, cloning mammoths or dire wolves.

B (38:04)

Yes, yeah, yes.

A (38:06)

The issue. And this kind of speaks to the ethics when. Especially when we're talking about humans, is it's very mysterious, and there's a lot of loss when you're doing these. So a lot of dogs are dying when they're cloning these pets.

E (38:18)

Oh.

B (38:19)

So they.

A (38:19)

So it's like. Because there's kind of these source dogs that they're using, and it's. It's kind of. They're not. They're unclear about the numbers, but when you look into it, there's a really good New Yorker article that I'll link to as well, where it's like, they're talking about it and it's like. Yeah, they're very vague about it because it's probably like 30 dogs dying to make your one clone that lives.

B (38:39)

It's pretty, you know, these pet cloning businesses. Is it the same. Same kind of cloning as the. As Dolly?

A (38:45)

I think it's a pretty similar process where it's basically. Yeah, you have kind of these cell lines that you can keep alive for generations, and then you kind of grab from that and then mix it with new ones.

B (38:56)

Yeah.

A (38:57)

So, yeah. I mean, the ra. Aliens. Fascinating. And, you know, it's interesting, there's always going to be some people who, whenever some big thing happens, is going to be like, all right, we're going to do this, but in a bigger, more, I don't know, more important way. So let's see. In. In 2013, someone was able to clone human embryos, but as Dr. Greely explained to me, other developments, like different stem cell research and fibroblasts for these therapeutic uses that kind of took the pressure off the cloning question. So, you know, the science world at large kind of focused on this, this kind of research because it's not as clouded with, like, okay, you're trying to make a whole different race of people. Or, like, you know, it's like. Like, it's like, okay, we're doing this purely for, you know, these purposes of, you know, more medicinal sorts of things.

B (39:44)

Embryonic cloning is essentially making a twin, right?

A (39:48)

Yeah. Hank explained, like, we are all clones essentially, as far as the process. So it's a matter of just doing it kind of out of. Yeah, exactly. And then like identical twins are naturally clones.

B (40:02)

Yeah.

A (40:02)

Because it's just a matter of the cell splitting at the right time and then it just to human developing at the same time. That's basically the process that these people have been trying to just do, you know, artificially. Exactly.

B (40:14)

Yeah.

E (40:14)

I see.

B (40:15)

So that makes it a lot more sense. It's like cloning at the conception stage versus what a lot of these conspiracy theories are, which is that today you could clone me and then like I would grow at an accelerated rate in a tank or something and then come out like two weeks later.

A (40:33)

Well, yeah, because again. And you know, I've mentioned this before, but yeah, I asked. I was like, well, the problem with cloning, if you were trying to swap, the person would be you'd need to do it when they're born and have a backup. Because I was like, okay, well, Paul McCartney or something. Well, there's some level of, you know, musical talent or something that is probably genetic.

B (40:50)

Yeah.

A (40:50)

But a lot of it is probably circumstance and obviously being around the right people. So it'd be very difficult or I wouldn't put my money on being able to re remake Paul McCartney and hope that he's gonna be as successful.

B (41:02)

It is interesting. Like William Shatner, this is so random. Was like the host of a kind of a. An Unsolved Mysteries type show that's on Netflix now. And they did an episode about twins. And they interviewed these two twins who were separated at birth. And the like similarities between their lives were just so insanely deep. Like that they had that they bought the same make and model car the year of the car, that their wives had the same names. Like now a lot of it probably is coincidence, but like, I wonder with the Paul McCartney example, like maybe if they cloned him and he grew up in America instead, he would still be like a number one artist, but with an American style music or something. I don't know.

A (41:46)

I mean, it's, you know, it's a great. What if.

F (41:49)

I suppose I feel like when I was a kid, because when Dolly happened, I would have been like 7, 8 years old. And in my mind it was definitely like they put the sheep in the machine and then the sheep came out of the machine. Right. That was the cartoon version. I feel like the Simpsons did it a bunch of times.

C (42:08)

Oh, for sure.

F (42:09)

Cloned Bart and it was just like a million clones would pop out of the machine. And I think I thought that that was what cloning was for a very long time. I did not know, and this just makes so much sense. It's like so much less mysterious when you are talking about just the very basic science of it. It's still incredible and amazing, but it's like, okay, I get that a lot more than some kind of special plasma machine that you got.

B (42:32)

Yeah. Like a 3D printer, essentially.

F (42:34)

Yeah, exactly.

A (42:35)

And I ask like, why, you know, why haven'. And you know, aside from now, obviously there's laws and all these things, but, like, is there something about humans that makes it so difficult to clone us? And he said kind of how before Dolly, they were like, maybe mammals can't be cloned. Just too complicated. For whatever reason, we can't find the right combo. That seems to be also a lot of it with humans where it's like one, we don't want to necessarily go so far, so we're not going to push it or we can't legally.

C (43:00)

Yeah.

A (43:01)

And also it's a matter of the cost would be so high. The cost not being money, but just like you might make a lot of really messed up people who won't survive or anything else. And that brings up a whole other host of questions, actually.

F (43:14)

I feel like people are really playing with fire because a lot of times these clones turn out to be evil.

A (43:19)

As far as I've heard, the risk might not be worth it. No. Let me play one more clip on kind of the ethical concerns from Hang and then let's wrap up and kind of talk about why we are so fascinated by this.

E (43:38)

So the ethical concerns around human cloning really fall into probably two different buckets. One is a more absolute something man was not intended to do. We shouldn't mess with ourselves in this way. This is not God's will. Interestingly, this is one of those areas where the police political spectrum is a circle. So you've got conservatives who say it's not God's will. You've got ultra liberals who say, well, it's not natural, it's not evolution's will, it's not Darwin's will, which shows the misunderstanding of evolution and Darwin, but it's certainly not natural, at least not in humans, not in mammals. Add to that the fact that you're manipulating human embryos and you're going to end up killing a lot of human embryos in the research or with leftover embryos. And that is viewed by many people as murdering babies. Not by a majority of the country, but a substantial chunk of the country. And several states think that destroying embryos is murdering babies. So that's one set of concerns. And those would say, no, it's just wrong. It doesn't matter. There's no two ways about it. The other side focuses more on not is the process right or wrong, but what would the likely consequences be. So what's wrong with cloning humans to make babies? And there, everyone still agrees it's too risky. You know, I care about dead puppies, but I care about dead babies a lot more than I care about dead puppies. So we don't know how safe it would be with humans. How would you ever know how safe it would be with humans? You'd have to try it in humans. So safety is a big, big, big question. And so far, everybody thinks it's a. It's a deal killer. One can imagine a research program that would give you enough confidence that you'd say, okay, you can try this. But no one seems to be working along those lines, in part because there seems to be no really great reason to clone humans. And that's the second argument. I mean, one argument is it's unsafe. The other argument is why bother?

A (45:45)

Yeah. There you get a taste of kind of lots of the questions milling around. This kind of why. Overall, it's been basically shut down as a thing.

B (45:53)

Yeah.

A (45:53)

All to say is, as far as we know, there have been no grown human clones to debunk. You know. Yeah, you guys can calm down. Devin, I don't know if you're convinced yet, but, you know, I'll hook you up with Hank and you guys can chat it out.

C (46:08)

Yeah, we'll see. I would be shocked if there were human clones, but they wouldn't tell us if there were, you know, exactly.

A (46:15)

Of course, Stanford is obviously, you know, bought off by big clone.

C (46:20)

Oh, yeah.

A (46:21)

G20.

B (46:22)

So there hasn't, to our knowledge, been a cloned human that has then grown up. But it seems like the technology is possible. It's a thing that could happen if there were not so many hurdles or obstacles. Not that I think those hurdles or obstacles shouldn't be there, but, like, it seems like they could essentially do this if. If they wanted to. They being like the world's leading scientists.

A (46:51)

Yeah, I don't think it's something that's impossible.

B (46:53)

Just like, the same way they thought.

A (46:54)

Maybe the sheep couldn't be cloned and then was. It's a matter of a lot and lot and lot of trial. But, yeah, it seems like that same process, I think, in theory would work for humans.

B (47:06)

So then for the conspiracy theorists who believe this stuff, you know, that that's an easy leap to make. It's like, okay, someone is cloning somewhere and it's just a secret. Originally, at the beginning of this episode, I thought it wasn't even possible to do it for humans. So I could see kind of where the conspiracy theorists are coming from. Of course, I don't agree or believe that, but. But, yeah, the technology, like, you know, it kind of makes sense.

A (47:32)

We're gonna take one more quick break, and when we're back, we're gonna discuss why we're so attracted to these clone theories.

B (47:40)

New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the how to Money podcast. And every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

D (48:08)

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H (48:38)

If mind control is real?

E (48:41)

If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

H (48:44)

Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car?

G (48:47)

When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings.

H (48:51)

Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?

C (48:54)

I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused.

H (48:58)

Can you get someone to join your co?

F (49:00)

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious.

H (49:03)

Nlp, AKA Neuro Linguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain.

C (49:14)

It's about engineering consciousness.

H (49:16)

Mind Games is the story of nlp, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a new Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all, nlp, might actually work.

A (49:33)

This is wild.

H (49:35)

Listen to mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A (49:49)

Doing all this and thinking about it, and both the kind of moral red lines and otherwise, you wonder kind of why these are such reoccurring trips. We're talking about much more recent history, 2016 as a kind of peak, but also, obviously, you go back, you know, 50, 50 years more, and people are talking about this, and it's kind of a recurring thing, and I wonder why that is. Do you guys have any. Any theories on kind of what draws us to this idea?

F (50:16)

I would think that one thing at least would be, like, for example, I remember when people were saying Kanye west was cloned, and that was in, like, 2023. And it does feel like this, like, cope kind of thing, where it's like, okay, he did a bunch of shit that I didn't think he would do. And so what's an easy explanation? He's the evil clone of himself, you know, and so I think that there's this very easy way to. Whether it be like a doppelganger or it be even a reptilian, but, like, this body swap idea where you can just say, if someone I like is doing something I don't like, or even if someone I don't like is doing something good, well, that's actually still evil because they have these evil intentions. So it's like this really easy way to, like, morph the person who is in your crosshairs for whatever reason, into either being good or bad based on what you want.

A (51:19)

Yeah, I guess it's kind of. It's kind of just like being possessed by the devil or some demon or something, really. I mean, in just a religious sense of, like, you're doing this wrong because you're being tempted by something else. And essentially that's what the clone is doing or whoever is making the clone and swapping out these people or that sort of thing.

B (51:36)

Yeah, yeah. I would also say that, like many other conspiracy theories, I feel like so many of them are rooted in a. Just a massive kind of distrust for governments or institutions. And then it just becomes so easy for you to believe that some incredibly nefarious stuff is going on. If you already don't trust those kind of organizations, if that makes sense.

E (51:59)

Yeah.

C (51:59)

Bring some. I would say order. Like, it's like, you know, people are complex. Like, you know, Justin's talking about the Kanye example. I saw the opposite of, like, now that Kanye's going on this, you know, like, Jewish apology tour, where he's, like, a little bit more Chill. And now people are saying, oh, now this is actually the clone.

A (52:18)

Yeah.

C (52:18)

The real one wouldn't sit down and do this and go back when there were.

F (52:22)

You can choose which one of those two, Right?

E (52:24)

Exactly. Yeah.

A (52:24)

It is a nice.

C (52:25)

It works for everyone and it gives order to a thing that's like kind of confusing. Doesn't really make sense. You don't have a lot of context for. Right. These people aren't spending time with Kanye. They aren't spending time with these politicians. They don't understand why horrible things are happening in the world. And it's easy to be like, oh, it's clones. You know, it's clones. These people are evil. This is all a conspiracy. It seems like there was no order to it. And it seems like the world is just so unpredictable, but behind the scenes, there's so much order to it. And the world is predestined to be this way because these people are pulling the puppet strings behind closed doors.

F (53:02)

I mean, it really is just the perfect example of every conspiracy theory of things are not what they seem. It's just a perfect one to one of the heart of conspiracy theory. And I think that's why it endures too.

A (53:16)

Yeah. And I'm sure this is gonna. Yeah, it will endure. And I'm sure in 30 years people will be sitting around podcasting about, you know, the next round of clones will be replaced probably soon.

C (53:26)

Oh, yeah, our clones.

A (53:27)

We do a little. If our podcast gets a little more popular. They're changing us out.

C (53:31)

Yep.

B (53:32)

Kaleidoscope fires us. But they've been growing clones the whole time.

F (53:37)

Would we know we were the clones?

B (53:40)

That's a great question.

C (53:41)

We have to give like a code word or some sort of signal that if you ask us this and we don't respond in the right way.

E (53:47)

Yeah.

C (53:47)

That's how know it's the clone.

F (53:48)

It's that thing where, yeah. The person's like pointing the gun or the laser and being like, who is it? Which one? This one or this one? I shoot. Say the right thing. Say the secret thing.

B (53:58)

Because in modern. In modern day cloning capabilities, the clone would not have the memories of the original.

C (54:06)

No.

A (54:06)

Right.

C (54:08)

They have to study up.

B (54:09)

Yeah.

A (54:10)

They're going to be listening to all these podcasts. Yeah. Like, all right, this is his stance on this.

B (54:14)

Yeah.

F (54:15)

Just like Eminem.

A (54:27)

No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Mangesh Hata Kadur. The show is created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman and Devin Joseph. Theme and credits song by Manny Fidel Mixing is by Steve Bone. Our guests this week are Chelsea, Wilbur Smith and Professor Henry Greely. Check out Chelsea's show American Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and on Instagram American Hysteria Podcast and you can visit Nosuchthing show to subscribe to our newsletter. You can see links to research and other things discussed in this episode and more. If you have feedback for us or a question, our email is mannynoadevonmail.com and you can also leave us a voicemail by calling the number in our show notes. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks. No such thing.