Fraud Friday: The Fake Fossil Finder w/ Adam Conover

Summary

Scam Goddess Podcast — Fraud Friday: The Fake Fossil Finder w/ Adam Conover

Date: August 29, 2025
Host: Laci Mosley
Guest: Adam Conover

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Episode Overview

In this Fraud Friday classic from the Scam Goddess vault, comedian and host Laci Mosley welcomes Adam Conover (Factually, Adam Ruins Everything, The G Word) to dive into the wild world of archaeological fraud. Together, they dissect the story of Charles Dawson and the infamous Piltdown Man hoax — one of the most spectacular scientific scams in history. Along the way, Laci and Adam riff on their own real-life brushes with scams, discuss the pressures of workplace capitalism, and reflect on the broader implications of gullibility, bias, and fraud throughout history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Scam Confessions and Everyday Hustles

Timestamps: 02:36–10:33

• Adam’s LA Scam Story:
  Adam recounts being scammed by a man in LA who promised to fix the scrape on his car, only to make it worse and pressure him for extra cash.

  "He jumps out of whatever van he was in, pulls out some kind of weird solvent... just makes the whole thing look worse." — Adam Conover [03:25]
  Both Laci and Adam reflect on the awkward social pressure of such situations, and the prevalence of hustle culture in LA.

• On Internalized Capitalism:
  Adam and Laci discuss how people end up paying for bad services out of politeness, and segue into a broader point about feeling pressured to “do the right thing” at work or during scams.

  "You pay somebody to fuck it up more. But I would have done the same thing as it would have felt awkward. I'm like, well, thank you for your service." — Laci Mosley [04:22]

Listener Scam: The Paid-For-My-Own-Overtime Scheme

Timestamps: 10:33–20:41

• Listener Letter Breakdown:
  A fan (“Mortimer O’Houlihan”) writes in about sneaking extra hours on the weekend at work and forging an email to get them compensated — only for Adam and Laci to note the real scam is a toxic employer:

  "Mortimer, this is a horrible story... You're getting scammed. That you unfortunately are the one getting scammed." — Adam Conover [17:06]

  • Laci and Adam emphasize how companies exploit "internalized capitalism," making employees feel guilty for demanding their due rights or payment.

  "If you need anything from them, they like, 'Oh, hello. No, we're a business.' Everyone wants to be Olive Garden when they need something from you." — Laci Mosley [18:48]

Historic Hoodwinks: The Piltdown Man Hoax

Timestamps: 23:42–53:41

• Introducing the Piltdown Man:
  Laci presents the story of Charles Dawson, an amateur British archaeologist who claimed to find the “missing link” in Sussex, England in 1912.

  • Adam and Laci riff about how archaeologists’ work is often misrepresented as glamorous.

  "They're always doing makeup on the bones, you know what I mean? They're just feeding the bones... giving them a nice blush and foundation." — Adam Conover [24:53]

• The Anatomy of a Scientific Scam:

  • British scientists, desperate to have an early-human find like other countries, accept Charles’ fraud uncritically.
  • A single vocal critic, David Waterson, is ignored because the find fits what the community wants to be true.

  "It's really hard to convince people a hoax isn't true when they want it to be true." — Adam Conover [40:16]

• The Details of the Fraud:

  • Dawson’s “discovery” included wrongly matched human skull fragments, filed orangutan teeth, and a “cricket bat” bone implant, all to make the supposed skeleton distinctly British.

  "So now they're just making anything up. They like, oh, my God. The first man, he was definitely British. He was super white. He loved cricket and tea." — Laci Mosley [41:15]

  • Despite evidence to the contrary, scientists and the public believe the Piltdown Man for decades because it confirms national pride and biases.

• Decades Later: The Reveal

  • Only after new scientific methods in the 1940s–50s was the hoax uncovered: the bones were a jumbled mix, jaw and skull from different (and much later) species, and artifacts were faked.
  • The scam endures as a warning about scientific bias, groupthink, and the dangers of letting personal or national ambitions blind reason.

  "40 years is like a long time to be taken in by a fraud. When all the scientists of the world were working on this, I am a little bit embarrassed for them, honestly." — Adam Conover [53:01]

  • Discussion broadens into how every era has its own “accepted truths” that may one day be revealed as scams.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "My fans already have personalities, very fine personalities, but their personalities are enhanced and improved by watching the show." — Adam Conover [25:52]

• "A lot of history is revised by, you know, whoever was the most evil and murdered everybody." — Laci Mosley [53:41]

• "A lot of people do it. They like to make their own conjectures... but I don't participate in that, you know, so they would get me with this. I would be like, yeah, it looked like a old brain to me... Looks good." — Laci Mosley [49:17]

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Scammer of the Week

Timestamps: 55:25–59:38

• Spotlight: Actress Q’orianka Kilcher, charged with two counts of worker’s comp fraud for allegedly collecting disability payments while working on TV (“Yellowstone”).
• Both Laci and Adam sympathize and highlight the disparity in public outrage over small-scale scams versus celebrity or corporate fraud.

“We do not need to put this beautiful woman in jail. Like that is very ghetto.” — Laci Mosley [58:43]

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Epilogue & Takeaways

• Awareness and Skepticism:
  Fraud persists where there’s desperation, bias, and lack of oversight. The story of the Piltdown Man is a reminder to stay curious, skeptical, and aware of our own biases — whether it’s at work, in history, or reading the headlines.
• Workplace Realities:
  Sometimes, the real scam is the system itself. Demand what you deserve, and don’t let “internalized capitalism” make you complicit in your own exploitation.
• Comedy as Critique:
  Laci and Adam use humor to deflate pomposity and expose frauds — whether historical or current — while encouraging compassion for those caught up in scams.

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Where to Find More

• Adam Conover:
  Listen to the Factually podcast for in-depth interviews with experts on a huge variety of topics.

  “You will learn, you will laugh. It’s a great time.” — Adam Conover [59:54]

• Laci Mosley:
  @DivaLaci on all social platforms, Scam Goddess podcast for weekly fraud-filled fun.
  Submit your own scam stories to [e-mail].

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⚡️ Notable Moments & Timestamps

• Adam’s LA scam story: [02:36–06:58]
• Listener scam & workplace hustle discussion: [10:33–20:41]
• Piltdown Man hoax story start: [23:42]
• The 'cricket bat' bone absurdity: [41:15]
• Scientific community finally exposed: [47:55–53:41]
• Scammer of the Week segment: [55:25–59:38]

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Closing Tone

Funny, fast-paced, irreverent, and thoughtful — combining real history, laughter, and hard truths about scams, systems, and our own willingness to believe.

"Congregation, stay scheming!" — Laci Mosley

Transcript

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[Laci Mosley]

All set for your flight?

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[Laci Mosley]

Wait.

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[Laci Mosley]

I'm gonna leave you to it.

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[Laci Mosley]

What's poppin, Congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. Welcome to an episode of Fraud Fridays where we release older episodes from the Scam Goddess vault. That's right, Fraud Fridays is where we bring back your favorite episodes from behind the Paywall. Enjoy this episode from behind the Paywall and as always, stay scheming. Scams cause robbery and Frau Scam Cause robbery and fraud Scam Goddess. What's poppin Congregation? It's ya girl, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. And we're back with another installment of Scam Goddess, the podcast all about robbery, fraud and those who practice it. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them. But someone I definitely do not hate. And I'm very. What, yes. Excited for on the podcast. I really, truly am. This is a great get. Huge get. I've been on many a zoom with this man for many years. So what's one more zoom? Guys, we have an amazing guest for the show today. He's the host of the podcast. Factually, he's the creator and host of Adam Ruins Everything, with all past episodes streaming now on HBO Max. Plus check out his new documentary entitled the G Word streaming now on Netflix. Congregation, please welcome Adam Connor over to the show. What's up, Adam? You about to ruin scams?

[Adam Conover]

Hello, Lacy. I don't know. I don't know if I can ruin scams. They're pretty much already ruined by you.

[Laci Mosley]

Every day on the show, I do try to ruin the scams. I'm very inspired by you. I do have to ask you, what is your relationship with scams? It could be that you love them, you hate them. Have you ever been scammed? Have you ever ran some scams that you could talk about legally now?

[Adam Conover]

I've been scammed once. I've been scammed once. Back when I first moved to Los Angeles, and I had just learned to drive, I had barely. I learned to drive in my 30s. I moved to L. A. And I have since, partially because I'm a New Yorker. Yeah, partially because of this story. I eventually quit, but I had scraped my car in the parking garage, you know, against a pillar. Like, the back. One of the back passenger doors was scraped, right? So I'm driving through Hollywood with a scrape. I don't give a shit. It's a 2010 Prius. I don't care. It's all scraped up. But this guy pulls up next to me and he yells, hey, I can. I can fix your door. I can fix your door. Come. Come with me. I'll fix your door. And I'm like, okay. I mean, if you can fix my door. All right, cool. And I pull over, he jumps out of whatever van he was in, pulls out some kind of weird solvent, rubs it over the door and scrubs it. Just makes the whole thing look worse. Just, like, removes some of the paint so even more of the paint that was already off. And then I was like, how much money is this? I handed him some money, and he was like, no, you got to give me more money. Let's go to an ATM together. And then I was like, I'm not going to an ATM with you. This is a very bad. I've already seen. You already lied to me about being able to fix the door. My. My fault, sir, for believing in the first place that a guy pulling out next to me in traffic would be able to fix my scrape. Scraped door. But I'm not going with you to an ATM now.

[Laci Mosley]

Okay. Fooled me once, right? Fooled me once. But also, we're very similar in the fact that, like, if I went with a shady man to let him, like, put a patch on my scraped up car, I would have paid the motherfucker, too. Even though he ruined your car? Like, you pay somebody to, like, fuck it up more. But I would have done the same thing as it would have felt awkward. I'm like, well, thank you for your service. I didn't really vet you, so, I mean, how do I do yelp from the street? Like, have y' all ever been on Santa Monica and somebody yelled at you for services? Like, how would you vet that guy, you know?

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, I mean, he tried, You Know, like, you go to a food, you eat, you try. You go to a restaurant. You go to a restaurant, you try the food, it doesn't taste good. You still pay him at the end, you know? And that's basically my experience. Well, all right. It was an honest scam. You know what I mean? He got the right word. It was pretty straightforward. He did a good job getting my, like, 60 bucks from me, but I wasn't gonna give him anymore.

[Laci Mosley]

And, I mean, for the effort and for the hustle, Scamming is a job. So you paid him, he did his profession to you, which is. And then you both move on. But he got a little greedy trying to go to the atm, trying to see how far he could push it. So I'm glad that you didn't go anywhere with this, man. But as someone who used to drive, like, a car that was so fucked up. Like, so fucked up. And I didn't even care either, Adam. I would go to valet with my fucked up car. I pull in hemming and han bumper hanging off the ship. And I remember, you know, like, the ballet dudes, they always have to walk around your car and, like, do the little marks so they can be like, this shit was already here. You can't say that. We scratched it when we brought it back. And I remember looking at one of them dead in his face. Cause he was doing the marks, and the shit was just too. I was like, it was more mark than the photo of the car. I'm like, it's gonna be black in a second. And I was like, sir, look at me. Do you think I'm gonna come out here with the. With the. The hand mirror that I have taped to the driver's side mirror? You think I'm gonna come out here and try to say, y' all fuck my car up? And he was like, nah. I was like, yeah, go park that raggedy shit. Hopefully it comes back.

[Adam Conover]

If you were good. If you were good enough of a scammer to pull that off and be suing valets for scratching your car, you wouldn't have such a fucked up car because you'd be able to use your scam money to buy a nicer car. So if your car's that fucked up, well, you. You can't be a very good scammer because you're not doing well in the world.

[Laci Mosley]

I mean, you would think that, but I actually did end up having the city pay for that for the whole. They had to get my whole car fixed because one of them accidentally sideswiped Me on a street, and the car was already fucked up, but they sideswiped the whole driver's side. So I was like, oh, yeah, that mirror was also. It was there when I left the car. So, yeah, y' all gonna have to fix all of that. Also, I have a neck brace. I, too, was in the car when I was trying to get everything from them, but they did.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, my God.

[Laci Mosley]

This is the best. As a trifle.

[Adam Conover]

This is the best. You're. I underrated you. It turns out you're a criminal mastermind. You're ripping off the city. This is brilliant stuff. You're really good. That's really good to get all that to know. Hold on a second. Now they got to pay me, and they got to pay for everything. Yeah. And all my kids Christmas presents were destroyed as well. You gotta give me a gift card to Amazon, too.

[Laci Mosley]

All my millions in the backseat. Y' all gotta reimbursement for my millions. Now. If I. If I really wanted to take it up a notch, I should have hopped my ass in front of the car, like, underneath, like, ow. My neck and my back. Who's gonna stop me?

[Adam Conover]

Incredible.

[Laci Mosley]

But no, I'm sorry that happened to you. But also, that's a very common LA scam. It's like, yeah, I used to get very offended because the we buy junk cars people, they were always putting a damn business card on my car. I'm like, what are you trying to. Like you're gaslighting me right now. What can take this off your hands? Aren't you embarrassed to drive this? This is very embarrassing.

[Adam Conover]

How dare you call my car with a hanging off mirror a junk car? Give me a break, right?

[Laci Mosley]

And then what are you gonna really do for me? It's just whenever anybody's soliciting business like that out on the street, I already know it's a little shady. But sometimes, I don't know, you look up and maybe they're an artisan and they could have fixed the car, but this guy. No, But I'm glad you didn't go to the atm. This has happened during daylight. Was it right out this.

[Adam Conover]

This was like. I was, like, on my way to work, and this happened. Like, I pulled over and made myself late in order to get scammed. That's how big of a sucker I am. I'm very trusting. I'm a very trusting person.

[Laci Mosley]

If you're late, you supposed to come in with Starbucks. Not even worse. Scratch on your car and $60 less. I don't want this for you. I don't want this for you. Scams, yo. Sometimes it is so hard having hair. If your hair looks crazy, you look crazy. And sometimes you don't have enough time to stroke it with all the waters and the creams to get it to look beautiful. Which is why I love Batiste Light, the lightest dry shampoo from Batiste. Batiste light dry shampoo has lightweight, non gritty feel, and it effectively absorbs oil and grease, leaving your hair looking clean and refreshed without weighing you down. Hallelujah. With an invisible finish that blends seamlessly into your hair. There's no white residue for cleaner looking, feeling hair. It's great on your hair and it's easy on your wallet, giving you a blowout look without a blowout price. I love being able to put some Batiste in my hair. Cause y' all know I got, like, 50, 11 jobs, and sometimes I gotta show up and be cute, but I don't have time to, like, get this hair together. And Batiste comes in and scams my hair back into life, and it's amazing. Buy Batiste Dry shampoo online or in store at your nearest retailer. All set for your flight?

[T-Mobile Ad Voice]

Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T mobile. Headphones.

[Laci Mosley]

Wait.

[T-Mobile Ad Voice]

T mobile? You bet. Free in flight. Wi Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T mobile. Same goes from a water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers.

[Laci Mosley]

I'm gonna leave you to it.

[T-Mobile Ad Voice]

Find out how you can experience travel better@t mobile.com Travel qualifying plan required. Wi Fi were available on select US airlines. Deposit and Hilton honored membership required for 15% discount. Terms and conditions apply.

[Laci Mosley]

And it's time for what's hot and fried. As you guys know, this is when we warn you guys about scams that are popping in the zy. Or more often than not these days, we get a letter from you all. As always, snitch on your friends and family and your [e-mail] just make sure the scam is retired because we don't want to. What? Yes. Fuck up your bag. Amen. So, Adam, I need a fake name for this person. We don't care about gender on this show. Could be anything.

[Adam Conover]

Mortimer o'. Houlihan.

[Laci Mosley]

Mortimer Ohoulihan. Wow. He could. Mortimer could be anybody. Could be white. Could be from the island.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Laci Mosley]

Could be, like, the oldest white man.

[Adam Conover]

Mortimer could be any. Anybody from any part on Wall Street. There's a lot of women named Mortimer, too.

[Laci Mosley]

Really? Where?

[Adam Conover]

Maybe. I don't know.

[Laci Mosley]

Could be Your whole career is, like, telling people facts about stuff. You cannot scam me like that. I won't believe anything you say.

[Adam Conover]

Not on this show. No. On this show.

[Laci Mosley]

Oh, you acted different over here. Okay. Cause I've even quoted you on this show when you were talking. You had that Twitter thread that was great about how we should also ask for room service at hotels, because hotels are getting away with staffing the people who are, like, cleaning the rooms, and they're not having to pay them or clean the rooms. So it's like we should be calling yes.

[Adam Conover]

Not. Not room sir, not room service. Like.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah, room cleaning. That's what I mean. Not, like food, but room cleaning.

[Adam Conover]

Room cleaning.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I was like. Until I saw that thread, I thought I was being nice by being like, oh, you know, I can sleep on the same sheets twice now. I'm like, get these off of me right now. I put all my towels on the floor.

[Adam Conover]

Request it every day, man. I mean, it's a struggle sometimes, too. I was just at a hotel in New York for a week, and they were like, you're gonna only have cleaning every other day. And I was like, fine, but I'm gonna try to request it. And I went for the first four days with no cleaning. Because they are really trying to understaff and they're trying to train the customers into thinking, we don't need our rooms cleaned every day. Oh, we don't need them cleaned. But really, they're just trying to reduce their labor. And that's straight from the. From the unions of the hospitality workers who tell you, please ask for room cleaning every day if you are in.

[Laci Mosley]

A hotel, if you're traveling out there these days, you know, even if it's the Motel 6, they leaving the light off for you. So you leave the light off for the cleaning, too. Okay, Everybody and you.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, and you got to leave a tip and. And you. And leave a note next to the tip that says, this is a tip for housekeeping. So nobody can doubt that that's what it is.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah. And then if you want to do an extra measure, when I leave the tip, I'll go by the front, and I'll be like, oh, by the way, I left a tip for housekeeping. Like, just so you know, if anybody else walks in there in the meantime, in between time, they're not trying to steal the coins that I left for specific people.

[Adam Conover]

There you go.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah. Cause, you know, everybody's trying to get theirs out here. Can't be mad at that. So Mortimer says Hi, Lacy. I'm just gonna get right to the scam. And nice. For what? Please call me Pia Pie for the scam. Oh, okay. Well, Mortimer. Your name is Mortimer now, but we'll give you a middle name. Mortimer Pia Pie. Oh, Houlihan. The we've ever had for anybody on the show. Definitely a fake name.

[Adam Conover]

Peel pot.

[Laci Mosley]

And I am. Yes. And obviously you listen to the show because I asked people to. If you want to say nice things or tell me things about your life, put it at the end. So thank you for remembering. So I wanted to do the write this for once and complete all my work without being asked. Okay, Houlihan, you could have proofread this, but I'm thinking you were trying to say, I wanted to do the right thing for once and complete all my work without being asked. Okay, so usually being a good employee. So I had a lot left over Friday afternoon, so I decided to come in Saturday morning to knock it out and be done with it for the weekend. Me being the good employee I am. I forgot to email my boss to clear me arriving on Saturday, but I assumed it would be okay. Anyways, so I wake up early, smile on my face. Okay? Come on. Capitalism on a Saturday. I'm not smiling. If I gotta go to work, come in, my mouth muscles be looking at me like, smile.

[Adam Conover]

This person is volunteering to go into work on a Saturday. I didn't tell anybody just to get work done. And they're waking up with a smile. This. This person is a sucker. Already this person. I can tell they're getting scammed without even hearing anybody else do anything.

[Laci Mosley]

Or are they a schemer? Because I'm like, in. Not in this economy am I getting up on anybody Saturday, okay? Not the Sabbath or that Sunday, but not Saturday. Sunday. None of that. None of these days you're getting work out of me. But, you know, let's see where it goes. Cause I'm intrigued. It could be what you said, Adam. It could be like this person Mortimer's getting played. Or like maybe they're about to do the playing. I don't know yet. Let's see.

[Adam Conover]

Let's find out what happens.

[Laci Mosley]

I woke up with a smile on my face and waste two hours of my weekend time to scan some damn papers. Two hours, Lacey. So I finish up feeling all accomplished and whatnot and go enjoy the rest of my weekend. Fast forward to Monday. Times are being checked, and I know my manager is about to be happy that I came in and put my best foot forward. But no, I get an email Telling me overtime is not approved, mind you, I was under my 40 weekly hours I'm supposed to have. My manager then asked me for an email that I definitely forgot to send. So I had to put it on my scam goddess hat and pull out my scam bible to write the best forwarded email I've ever sent. So Mortimer says, here's an email. It's my personal account because, you know, after hours I can't get on my business account because it'd be lacking. So you just gonna have to take this email from hatmail. It's very legitimate. I got an AOL.com email for you. It's definitely work related.

[Adam Conover]

And the boss calls them out.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah, the boss asked in front of everyone if I sent the email and I said no and bust out laughing in her face because if she was as smart as she looked, then she would notice the company email. I told her and emailed from my personal account are not the same. Okay, so what I'm getting from what I can read here, is that your boss was like, did you just send this email from your personal account? And you were like, no. Why would you say that? No, everybody, she crazy. Look at her being crazy and a woman. Are you bleeding right now? You probably bleeding. That's why you acting crazy, huh? Like, just gaslight her. Okay, so I got to keep my Saturday time, which I worked for. Plus I got to do a fun scam just because. Thank you. Hope you read my scam. Okay, so your scam was that you went and worked on the weekend.

[Adam Conover]

Mortimer, this is a horrible story. I'm really sorry to Mortimer, but you're getting scammed. That you unfortunately are the one getting scammed. Because first of all, okay, there's a lot of things going on here. First of all, Mortimer reveals that they have a 40 hour guarantee of hours that they are not even being provided by their workplace.

[Laci Mosley]

Right.

[Adam Conover]

First of all, like she says, she's guaranteed 40 hours. I think, was it she or is it they? Or what are they trying to say?

[Laci Mosley]

Anybody? So Mortimer could be any person, but so we know that the boss is identifying as a woman. So you can just say Mortimer whoever. We don't care.

[Adam Conover]

Okay, so Mortimer. Mortimer Peepu Ohoulihan. Was that their name? So they, so they, first of all are not getting the hours that they've been promised. Then they go in on the weekend to do extra work and then they like weirdly get in trouble like, oh, you can't get overtime, but they haven't gotten their full 40 hours yet. It's not overtime. And then they're asked to provide an email. And now, Mortimer o', Houlihan, I'm sorry that you're suffering from something that is called internalized capitalism, where you believe that you owe them all of these forms and emails in order to prove that you deserve the money you obviously already deserve. And so you. You think you pulled off a scam to just, you know, with all these emails, they're scamming you. You should need to send them emails in order just to get your 40 damn hours a week. You're going out on the weekend, and they're still. They're saying, prove to me that we should pay you your 40 hours a week that we already owe you. Fuck them. Quit your job. Get out of this place. This is a toxic work environment. That's what I think.

[Laci Mosley]

Yes. Come on, preach. Also, Mortimer, I hope when you went in on Saturday, you at least stole four staplers. Like, don't be in there just. Just working and then leaving. I hope you got some Keurig K packs. You took all the Lacroix out the fridge. Several mugs. You know, I hope that, you know, you were also getting something out of this other than just working on your off time, because that's not fair to you. And these companies, they don't care about us. It's only family. When they need something from you. If you need anything from them, they like, oh, hello. No, we're a business. Then it's a big, okay, everybody want to be Olive Garden when you're here, Your family when they need you to work overtime or you can't go to a funeral because you got hours, then we family. But then let your ass need something. They'll be like, family. No, we get an ancestry. We are not related. 23. And who you? No, not us. Get back to work. And if you don't, they'll replace you.

[Adam Conover]

Now you're preaching.

[Laci Mosley]

You know, so I hope that Mortimer, like, I feel like the scam here is that you, like, under capitalism, they will try to, like, not pay you for your work. So I guess the scam is that you got paid for your work. But why is that a scam? Why do you have to lie to people to get compensated for your work?

[Adam Conover]

This is a sad case, Lacey, I'm sorry to say. It's a sad, sad case.

[Laci Mosley]

Blink twice, Mortimer, if you need help. You need us to come break you out of your job? Cause we got you. We will show up, and I will steal staplers and office supplies. Oh, yeah, roll out of there with a chair. I could get a chair in the elevator. Good lumbar support chair.

[Adam Conover]

Mortimer is still the hero of the story, but Mortimer is being suppressed by systems that Mortimer does not yet fully comprehend. And Mortimer needs to go to, you know, needs to get radicalized and go galaxy brain and start understanding the mechanic, the mechanisms of capitalism that is holding Mortimer down. That's. That's my diagnosis.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah. Cause Mortimer, you sound like a hard worker. Because whenever I had nine to fives or anything where I could clock in and out. Oh, bitch. When it hit 4:59, the laptop was closing. I was putting things in my purse, some that belonged to me, some newly belonging to me and leaving and not thinking about it at all all weekend. I dare you. But now I work for myself and I work all the time. I need to be a better boss to myself.

[Adam Conover]

But, oh, that's the worst. We're scamming ourselves in the entertainment industry here by. We're just constantly. You never get to clock out when you're your own boss. Oh, boy.

[Laci Mosley]

That's your brain. That is your brain not clocking out. And I'm like, sis, we need a break.

[Adam Conover]

And that's some internalized capitalism. I got it real bad.

[Laci Mosley]

And I hope you know that, Mortimer, like, we're not judging you. We're also on this hamster wheel because we were born here. What else were we supposed to do? Not, you know, like, we didn't have a choice. And also, I don't consider myself scamming the city when they paid to get my car fixed because I give them motherfuckers so much money and not a pothole has been filled. And next time they fill something with cement, I want them to sign the names of the taxpayers on it. I need to see an initial or something. I need to just know where some of the money is going. Okay. Start naming streets at the regular people. Okay, this is. This is now Jenny Lawson. Yeah, she live up. She live up on Grand. Yeah, no, it's called Jenny Lawson street now. She pay a lot of taxes. She. She gets a lot of tickets. Okay.

[Adam Conover]

I love that. Yeah. I mean, hell yeah. Every time. Every time you get a parking ticket, they should name whatever they paid with that parking ticket with after you.

[Laci Mosley]

Like, we should all at least have a meter. We should have a meter dedicated in our honor at least.

[Adam Conover]

I think that's a percent. I want my own parking meter. Absolutely.

[Laci Mosley]

Robbery.

[Scott Aukerman]

This is comedy Bang Bang, the podcast, the promo. And in 30 seconds, I'm going to tell you why. You should check out the show. I, the host, Scott Aukerman, have a lighthearted conversation with famous celebrities like Jon Hamm, Allison Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, Jason Alexander, Natasha Leone, Bob Odenkirk, just to name a few things go a little off the rails when different eccentric characters and oddballs drop by to be interviewed as well. Each week is a blend of conversations and character work from your favorite comedians, as well as some new hilarious voices. Comedy Bang Bang the Podcast. Listen every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Laci Mosley]

All set for your flight?

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[Laci Mosley]

I'm gonna leave you to it.

[T-Mobile Ad Voice]

Find out how you can experience travel better@t mobile.com Travel qualifying plan required. Wi Fi were available on select US airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount. Terms and conditions apply.

[Laci Mosley]

And fraud. And we're back. And it's time for historic Code Race. This is where I will regale Adam with the famous Connor Caper. He will interrupt all the way through with his thoughts and opinions and musings. And maybe we get off topic, maybe we don't. You know how it goes here. Today we're talking about we're going back in time, which is something I try to do when I have higher profile guests, you guys, because the living scammers, they like to get on Twitter, they like to get on Instagram. So we're not going back to those days. So we're talking about February 1912, Adam. So there's an amateur British archaeologist named Charles Dawson who claimed to have discovered the missing evolutionary link between apes and humans in a portion of a human skull he had dug up in Piltown, Sussex. The larger collection of fossils later found were thus dubbed the Piltown Man. They would also come to be dubbed one of the greatest frauds in archeology. I don't know much about archaeology other than they were having them little brushes and then they like brush all the dirt off and maybe Indiana Jones.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, they're always doing makeup on the bones, you know what I mean? They're just feeding the bones, basically giving them a nice blush and foundation on all the little bones in the hole.

[Laci Mosley]

Yes, that's what I know about them.

[Adam Conover]

I think I've heard the Piltdown Man. I've heard this name before. I don't know much about it, but I've heard of this Piltdown Man.

[Laci Mosley]

Of course you have. You're very well read, Adam. Like if you've never watched a show. Guys, come on. If you want to seem real smart at dinner parties and have new information to share with the world, watch. Adam ruins everything. If you don't have a personality, watch Adam ruins everything. And you go get you a pop of personality right there, okay? You'll be the coolest person at the salon. Okay? Everybody's drinking red wine and.

[Adam Conover]

Okay, hold on a second.

[Laci Mosley]

I'm guaranteeing that you will get a personality if you watch my audience to.

[Adam Conover]

Say they don't have.

[Laci Mosley]

Say they did it. I'm just saying that you would get material from it.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, my God.

[Laci Mosley]

You are out of.

[Adam Conover]

You'll get one, okay?

[Laci Mosley]

Is my guarantee.

[Adam Conover]

My fans already have personalities, very fine personalities, but their personalities are enhanced and improved by watching the show.

[Laci Mosley]

I was not saying you're a fan of the boy of personality, Adam. Wow. See how my words get twisted against me? It turns against me. I'm a victim.

[Adam Conover]

That's my scam.

[Laci Mosley]

So finding the bones. I do want to say real quick, though, the bones stuff has become interesting to me because did you see on Twitter when there was that guy who, like, he. He collects human vertebrates and, like, skulls and bones and stuff, like, of humans, and he has, like, a whole closet of, like, vertebrates and, like, all types of shit. There's a guy on TikTok. I can't remember his name. I'll try to pull it in the footnotes for you guys. But he just collects bones, and apparently you can do that. I'm like, aren't these people. Put these people back.

[Adam Conover]

Put them back in the dirt.

[Laci Mosley]

What are you supposed to be. I don't think you should be able to collect that.

[Adam Conover]

No, we don't need to be having human bones in our closet, because I.

[Laci Mosley]

Know for studying, like, okay, if we're repairing bones, a lot of the information we get scientifically does come from cadavers and people who donate their bodies to science. But I'm like, if you just dug this up, I feel like you need to just put it back. Like, that's. I don't think, like, what have we got done? Like, what's the moratorium? Like, how long do you have to wait before digging up somebody is science?

[Adam Conover]

Because it's not like I'm donating my body to the David Geffen School of Medicine at ucla. When I die, I filled out a whole form. I got it notarized, and when I die, they get my whole body and the scientists there, or honestly, the students there will cut me up for practice, for surgery practice. So I'm all about it. You can use my bones for whatever the fuck you want. I don't give a shit. And you know what? Maybe that means I'll use other people's bones, too. I'm not really precious about it.

[Laci Mosley]

So, Adam, if you ended up in this guy's closet and they were like, this is Adam's vertebrae right here. Like, one of the best. He never has scoliosis. Like, are you cool with that? Like, you being in somebody's closet in their apartment?

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, I'm not around. That's just that. That's just like, you know, if you go to the barber and they cut your hair, who. What do you care with what they do with what's on the floor of the barbershop? You know what I mean? They could keep it in the back and, you know, in a big bag and hug it and sleep on it at night. I don't give a shit. It's off of me. It's not part of me anymore. That's how I feel about my vertebrae and my skull and all that other stuff. After I die, they can do whatever the hell.

[Laci Mosley]

You heard it here first. I can have Adam's vertebrae whenever you want it. Well, I guess when you die.

[Adam Conover]

When I die, it'll take a while. It's in my body. I'm using it right now. But later on, you know, I'm the kind of guy. I donated everything to Goodwill. So I'll do the same thing with my bones, you know?

[Laci Mosley]

Okay. Okay. I can see science. I just couldn't do it just to be, like, in somebody closet. Like, that's not. I deserve more than that. Okay. I deserve good lighting. I want the full makeup brushing off my bones, like.

[Adam Conover]

Sure. You know, you want to be. You want to be in the bodies exhibit?

[Laci Mosley]

Yes. They pose me up cute. Yes. That's where I think that, you know, being shown off. Then I want to be posing. Yes. Just giving the fiercest skeletal pose. Okay. Yeah.

[Adam Conover]

What kind of. If it was your skeleton, what kind of pose would you want to be in? What pose would you choose for your skeleton to be in for children to come see?

[Laci Mosley]

For children to come see. Why you have to say that now? That's really limiting. Okay. I feel like I just give, like, a good model pose, like, two hands on the hips, but, like, bringing the shoulders forward, like a good, you know. You know, maybe a high kick. You know, I want the girls to remember. I can Split my bones in a split. You know, these are entertaining.

[Adam Conover]

How come you go to the museum, you never see the bones doing anything interesting, like a split or a high kick. That's what we need to see at the Natural History Museum.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah. Why do you got the bones all basic like that, like just sitting there? Or even the dinosaur bones? I'm like, give me a little rare or something like, you know, give us some drama, like. Yes. So finding the bones. Charles was known as the wizard of Sussex because of his great skill at finding archaeological treasures around the county. He was also a contemporary and a friend of Arthur Conan Doyle, which may have lent to his sense of adventure. So it was therefore not unusual that one night he had been out on a nightly stroll at Barcomb Manor in Piltdown when he noticed unusual pieces of flint through a pile of gravel used for road construction. So he's like, walking down the street, probably lit after the function, and he's like, oh, that's weird. Is it bones coming out of that pile? He believed that the oddly shaped rocks might point to findings in the area. Later, an unidentified laborer who had been keeping an eye out for him, presented him a portion of a human cranium of a men's thickness. Okay. Thick with two Cs. Cranium.

[Adam Conover]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This guy. Hold on a second. This whole thing starts with the guy's like, walking around and he sees some mounds and stuff. But then, then a labor, an unidentified laborer, hands him the skull. This guy didn't do shit. Who's the laborer who found the skull? What is this? What is this gap in the story? This is like.

[Laci Mosley]

Whose work is this? Story goes, he probably stole the skull. Unidentified laborer, it's giving theft. Did you steal the skull from this laborer? I'm not sure if a laborer is also rude. Like, you couldn't get the man's name when you were stealing the skull from him, I guess. Sha. So it may.

[Adam Conover]

You can't steal the credit if you know his name.

[Laci Mosley]

That's true. That takes away your, like, that's your one rule for theft of credit. And paths. Like, if I know, I can't humanize them. Okay. No kissing on the mouth.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah.

[Laci Mosley]

Just steal. So in May, Charles, friend and keeper of geology at the Natural History Museum, Arthur Smith Woodward, took charge of Charles's findings. He concluded that they belonged to a brand new, previously unknown early human named Eanthropus Dawsoni. Okay. Or Dawnman Dawson's Donman is what people called It. Colloquially. And that's what I'm gonna call it. Cause Chile. No. So an excavation site was opened at Barkham Manor and a series of flint tools were uncovered along with more bone pieces and even an ancient hippopotamus tooth or multiple teeth. Which hippopotamus is hippopotami? Hippos.

[Adam Conover]

Hippopotami. Hippopotami. Yeah, it's hippopotami. Yeah.

[Laci Mosley]

They have the best PR team because those things are murderous and aggressive. But we always thought they were cute as children. Hippos are out here, murders to people. Okay? They're hippos.

[Adam Conover]

Hippos are the most dangerous animal. They'll kill you so quickly, they're so big, and they'll trample you and they'll bite you. They're so strong.

[Laci Mosley]

They get elephants hella fast.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah, they're like elephants.

[Laci Mosley]

What if an elephant was Michael Phelps and petty? Because what are you even murdering me for? Hippo? You don't even like human meat. You just kill it for fun. What's wrong with y'? All?

[Adam Conover]

Did you ever see this videos on the Internet years ago of these people who hadn't had a hippo in their house, A full grown hippo, and it would. It lived outside, but it would come into their kitchen and it would open its mouth and go, ah. And they would just shovel food into it. They would just shovel in lettuce and vegetables and like fully cooked meals. And I was watching this going, like, you guys don't realize this hippo's gonna kill you pretty soon. This hippo's gonna tear up your house and murder you as soon as you're born. Cabbage in there. Exactly, Exactly. It's a horrifying video. You can go look it up.

[Laci Mosley]

Okay, I'm gonna. I have to look at that. Because you're not supposed to keep wild animals like that as pets. And y' all be thinking like, oh, they like me. Like, we have a connection. No, bitch, they're like, you giving me food right now. Now don't run out of lettuce because that's your ass. Like, you're being shook down.

[Adam Conover]

Yep.

[Laci Mosley]

You're being extorted by a murderer.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. So this totally also, by the way, this. This family is a white South African family, by the way, who has the hippo? So these are totally some white people going on South Africa being like, oh, all the animals here love us. You know what I mean?

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah. And when they say that, they're including the black people, so.

[Adam Conover]

Oh.

[Laci Mosley]

Cause, you know, shout out to the South Africans, the ones Of y' all who aren't racist anyway. Anyways, so the story finally broke in Manchester Guardian in November of 1912. An article called the Discovered skull. By far the earliest trace of mankind that has yet to be found in England. So, you know, we know about Lucy in Africa. I don't know. Had Lucy been discovered by this time? Someone looked that up for me. But that was considered to be, like, the oldest human remains that we had found. So now England's like, we got old bones, too? No, we just found a dude. He hella dude. Like, we're in the race. So in the ensuing weeks, Arthur continued to release details that were generally approved by the scientific community. Only one scientist, anatomist David Waterson, voiced doubt. So he had one hater, and it was David, okay? And David was like, I don't know, y'. All. Something ain't looking funny in the light. But they were like, shut up, David. We finally got some discovery. Shut up, David. So David, you get. You absolute git. David in it, okay? Shut up. So Lucy was discovered in the 70s. So at the time, this is, you know, the most popular thing, I guess, you know, for medical science or not medical science, but, you know, for science and research science or whatever. So he noted, this is David. He noted that the cranium looked human, but the jawbone looked like a chimpanzee. So David was like, I don't even think this is a human skull, y'. All. Like, he was like, it's not giving human. No one else agreed, mostly because there had not been any recent major findings in Great Britain, and paleontologists were all desperate for a major discovery, which that desperation. We talk about that a lot when it comes to a scam. How bad do you need it? And if you need something really badly, you have to really assess why you are willing to take certain risks. Because if you're letting that need drive you, then you're ignoring the red flags and the things that don't make sense. You know what I mean? Like, homeboy was like, that skull had a banana in his hand. And everybody's like, no, it's a human. Shut up, David. Cause, like, paleontology and, like, archaeology are careers that I feel like just like marine biology when you're a kid and people are like, what do you want to do when you grow up? It's like the most arbitrary shit, but you've seen it in books, so you're like, yeah, I want to be a marine biologist or archaeologist. But it's like, to a certain extent, if they don't make any major discoveries or findings, then that funding is going to go down because we just. We paying y' all to play in the dirt, bitch. We got real problems.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, yeah? Yeah. These are not glamorous jobs. My dad was a marine biologist, and it's not a glamorous job. He mostly counted the size of fish. He had a big vat of fish and he counted how big they were. That was the whole job.

[Laci Mosley]

It was.

[Adam Conover]

But when you see it, it looks.

[Laci Mosley]

Like Free Willy as a kid, they told me we was gonna be free and Willie and we was gonna be riding on the back of the killer whale. So I was like, cute. I'm involved. Yeah. A wetsuit. That's a great look for me. But when you really find out what it is, like, how much education you have to have, and then what you're really doing is so meticulous. I was like, wait a minute. So that's like, we ain't gonna swimming now. You don't play a song around here.

[Adam Conover]

But this period in the period 1912, when the Piltdown man was happening, it was just a bunch of old rich guys, like, pretending to be paleontologists in the first place. They were just like, yeah, I got there with my brushes. Look, I found a bone. Like they were swashbuckling. Just rich dudes doing this as a hobby. So they. They did a pretty dumb, dumb version of paleontology in the first place.

[Laci Mosley]

A lot of them, truly. And also, that's the thing about why people shouldn't be so rich. Once you get to a certain point of wealth, you just start collecting ra. Oh, these are pins. This is the pin that Abraham Lincoln used. Who fucking told you that lie? Like, you just start collecting shit because you don't know what to do with the money. Cause you shouldn't have that much fucking money. That's why. So, you know, they're rich as hell. They're out here playing in the dirt for funsies, getting their lives. So other countries had found plenty of evidence of early humans, but there hadn't been no such great discoveries in Britain, to both embarrassment and frustration. So all the other countries are finding the gold and the mummies and they're digging up all the dead. And the UK's like, we got spotted dick and the worst breakfast you've ever tasted, but no scientific discoveries. So this is their chance. One French paleontologist was even noted to have called British paleontologist Chaser de Caillou. What does that mean? Or pebble hunters, Not y' all throwing shade in the Paleo community, it's like, bitch, they over there digging up rocks, like, ghetto. So I understand the desperation. They're like, no, we got something. We on the map. So the Pinto skull, or, excuse me, the Piltdown skull, gave Britain a foothold in the discovery of early man. The skull also served to support a specific theory of evolution upheld by English paleontologists that growing brains was what drove human evolution. Their theory was that our brains would have expanded early in our evolution, and fossil skulls, such as the one found in Piltdown, would support that. Right. So this is also supporting. Now you're taking information and confirming your own biases with it instead of looking at that information objectively, because you're like, we gotta get on the map, y'. All. Okay. All we're known for right now is incest. And, like, really old monarchies are just like, cousins. Fuck it. Like, we gotta have something revolutionary, like, first man. Cool. So it had a huge brain case, but primitive teeth, erroneously implying that cranial expansion happened early in mankind's evolution. So, in truth, brains came late to humanity. But finding the largest early human skull appeared to Britain's sense of nationalism, and thus the history was heavily interrogated, or was not heavily interrogated. Cause again, they're like, we wanna win, we need a W. So despite distant whispers, the excavations continued, and England celebrated the discovery. So they were like, shut up. Shut up. Yeah, we know a monkey. Like, I heard the skull say, oh, no, you didn't. Let us have this.

[Adam Conover]

It's really hard to convince people a hoax isn't true when they want it to be true. That's the real. That's the real problem.

[Laci Mosley]

And that's the issue with a lot of scams, is if you're in too deep and you've tied your identity to it, the nationalism, it's like, you want this to be true. It would be embarrassing otherwise. So, August 1913, influential Jesuit scholar Father Pierre Tell hard this Chardine. Y' all gonna give me names. This episode joined the excavation team and found a canine tooth, supposedly from the larger skeleton. So now they're just finding any old teeth, bones, and being like, yeah, this also is.

[Adam Conover]

Is that supposed to be the tooth what you just opened?

[Laci Mosley]

Yes.

[Adam Conover]

That is so big.

[Laci Mosley]

You know how that's ridiculous teeth be? You know how teeth be when you're human?

[Adam Conover]

I know how teeth be 2ft long. These are ridiculous. These don't look like teeth or bones or anything. These look like, I don't even know, fossilized pieces of wood. What the hell? This is Ridiculous, right?

[Laci Mosley]

At this point, they're just saying anything, doing anything. So they eventually also found a large slab of bone dubbed the cricket bat in name only. But the idea that this early Englishman had actually played a rudimentary form of cricket became popular. So now they're just making anything up. They like, oh, my God. The first man, he was definitely British. He was super white. He loved cricket and tea.

[Adam Conover]

Yeah. And he. He played a little bit of footy and he. I don't know. I get. Sorry, my English. My British accent sucks. I'm gonna participate in the bit, but it fucking sucks, Lacy. And I'm embarrassing myself. You have such a beautiful accent. I believe that. That you have spent time in London. Me, I'm like, doing an impression of, like, a BBC faulty towers I saw 15 years ago.

[Laci Mosley]

And I love that. No, don't be. I love that for both of us. I do lots of terrible accents on this show. And the Brits are going to come for me. It's fine. They know what's happening over here. I'm disrespectful. So. So by 1915, Dawson's dawn man had become an established scientific fact. Charles benefited greatly and was now known as one the world's greatest archaeologists. He would have been. People believe this.

[Adam Conover]

This is ridiculous.

[Laci Mosley]

They believe he was playing cricket. They believe. Oh, my God, everything. So he would have been knighted with Arthur Smith Woodward had he not died of sepsis in 1916, along with many of his secrets. For it turns out the wizard may have not been entirely truthful.

[Adam Conover]

Well, duh.

[Laci Mosley]

I do like that he pettily died with his secrets, though. Like, more people need to die with their secrets. Yeah. So blood infection. Yeah. I mean, you could die of anything in the early 1900s. You could die of tripping. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, he died of rock. There was a rock in the road and he tripped and then he died. He died of rock. Like anything. A strong breeze.

[Adam Conover]

Died at 52. Died a young man. You know, that's too bad. Even though he's a scammer, you know, I feel bad.

[Laci Mosley]

No, for sure. Cause, like, I wish that he got a scam harder. I wish that he could have gone around the world purporting to be the best archaeologist out there. I wanted him to milk it even more. So as it turns out, Charles hadn't been entirely truthful about the Piltdown man or more than several, dozens of his previous discoveries. So not only was he lying about this man that he got from the unknown laborer, he's Also been lying about other discoveries before, but I guess those lies weren't hitting as hard. He finally found his sweet spot with this. So it wasn't known until after his death that he had entirely fabricated his historical account of the Hastings Castle and that he had come into his estate by pretending to be an official part of the Sussex Archaeological Society, which he was not. Modern archaeologist Mike Russell has actually counted 38 hoaxes or fabricated finds made by Charles before he discovered Piltdown. So he was onto this man, and he hadn't even gotten to the biggest one. Charles was lying about everything.

[Adam Conover]

Jesus.

[Laci Mosley]

Like, don't let Charles near none of y' all dirt, because he's definitely gonna make a discovery. Okay? And your house is gonna belong to the city. Okay. Oh, wow.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, look what I found. Oh. A quarter. An ancient quarter down here. Wow. I'm a genius.

[Laci Mosley]

I just dropped that, Charles. I just dropped that quarter. No. Look at how much dirt I got.

[Adam Conover]

It's an incredible find. And.

[Laci Mosley]

Oh, wow.

[Adam Conover]

We're gonna need to close this place down and possess your house. Wow. I'm a hero.

[Laci Mosley]

Look at me. Is that the paper? Yeah, I pose. Love it. So according to Russell, he forged axes, statuettes, ancient hammers, and Roman tiles. So he was just over here making shit, you know, put rubbing dirt on it, putting it in the oven, and telling people it was ancient. Love that for him, deep down, he craved recognition and created the Piltdown man as his final act to humiliate who had looked down on him. So, you know, the French were saying he was just digging up pebbles and shit. Why people should look down on you, Charles. You never made anything. How you gonna have ego about literally something you've never done? How are you gonna be mad at other people because you actually are bad at your job? They hating on me just because I'm bad at my job. Like the fuck? You sound like the bullies.

[Adam Conover]

This guy's pathetic. This guy's pathetic. I hate him. I hate him.

[Laci Mosley]

Him? Yeah. It's like. Like what? So the fabrication of the Piltdown man came about when English archaeologists theorized they were likely to find an early man in grave pits of southern England. Charles had been walking along one day in 1908 when he saw a pile of gravel, right, used to build a pond. And he decided that he was going to stake his greatest life work in that. He actually met Father Pierre the following year, and it's possible the two were accomplices in creating the fossils. Oh, now y' all could these fossils up together. That's Sexy. Still, it would take decades before. I hope they were doing it on a clay mold. And it was very ghost, where they're arms around each other just making fossils. Like, oh, yeah, I want it to be that. I want it to be steamy.

[Adam Conover]

It's erotic.

[Laci Mosley]

So still, it would take decades before the truth would come out. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, real early human fossils were discovered and found to have little in common with any of the Pilton man fossils. Yeah, because that fossil wasn't chemical. Tests that could help with further investigation were developed in the 40s. So honestly, at this time period, they didn't even have the technology to disprove this man. I wish I could have scammed back then, because you could just be saying anything. Who gonna check you? There's no Internet. Yeah. They didn't have testing kits, carbon dating.

[Adam Conover]

There was nobody. There was. There were no. There was no Reddit forum to, like, pour through everything and figure out where all the mistake. People can't go Johnny Depp on you. You know, like, people just. They see a skull and they're like, oh, I guess it's real. I don't know. This guy says he found it in some gravel. Who's to know, right?

[Laci Mosley]

Who? Go check the work. Not me. I would have been like, look at us, y'. All. We got a skull. We on the map. Cheerio. We did it, Joe. Like, so the tests, the likes of which had never been conducted on the bones, definitely show that they were fakes. The upper part of the skull was dated to be only, like, 500 years old, and the jawbone only a few decades old. So these couldn't have even belonged to the same person or species or whatever this, you know, entity was, because the bone doesn't even connect to the head. They don't just randomly found pieces of people pieces.

[Adam Conover]

This is. This is ridiculous. I'm. I'm so mad about this. People believe this for, like, 50 years. This is so stupid.

[Laci Mosley]

And, I mean, look, that's kind of how science goes, right? Like, we believe something until we know that it's factually disproven. That's the reason why the 50s and the, you know, early 60s, like, women were smoking while they were pregnant. Nobody knew that that was bad for the baby. That's, like, one of my favorite jokes in Hairspray is, like, they run in to a bar, and then all these women are smoking and drinking martinis, and then they all turn around and they're, like, fully, like, eight months pregnant. It's like, you know, science Changes science. Be like, my bad. Like, instead of saying my bad, science is always, like, according to new research. And this is like, but what happened to the old research? Oh, our bad. Okay, we lied. But we telling the truth now. We telling the truth right now, though. I love that for science, because it's the best way to lie. There's rarely a time where, like, look at the cdc. Like, anything they were telling me, I was like, yes, cdc, go off, wear my hand washing here, mask here. You know, ventilation here. Yes, Queen. And then somebody clearly got to the cdc, because now they're like, okay, if you got Covid, you can go back to work the same day. And.

[Adam Conover]

I know it's hard to argue with because you're not a scientist. You're like, well, this seems a little fishy, but I don't know.

[Laci Mosley]

I'm out of my dad.

[Adam Conover]

Who am I to say, right?

[Laci Mosley]

And I don't argue with things that I can't refute, you know, to 100%, you know, like. Like, why would I do that? That's stupid. A lot of people do it. They like to make their own conjectures and, like, make up their own science, but I don't participate in that, you know, so they would get me with this. I would be like, yeah, it looked like a old brain to me. Oh, skull to me. Looks good.

[Adam Conover]

Especially there's. If there's no other experts around telling you, if all the other experts in England are like, yes, yes, very real. Very real. I get why we would believe it. I mean, look, we all believed in Elon musk for, like, 20 years before we figured out he's a scammer. You know, we were all like, oh, this guy is real smart. He's got good ideas. He's building electric cars and shit.

[Laci Mosley]

Shit.

[Adam Conover]

And now we know he's just steals ideas from other people and does acid and fucks around on Twitter, you know, but it took us a little while to figure it out. Everybody's gullible. So we shouldn't judge the people of the past too harshly.

[Laci Mosley]

No, we don't. And for you billionaire Stans with your posters of Elon Musk, and you're, you know, up on your apartment walls and stuff, like, I'm sorry about that. Honestly, if he hadn't tried to buy Twitter, he could have kept grifting us by saying he was a genius. But then when he did that Twitter shit, we were like, something is up, sir. You're not. He's not giving smart. Obviously the man is smart, but, like, he didn't invent anything. And so many people think he did. And I had to disprove that to people, like, showing them on the Internet. Like, he bought all these companies, y'. All. He didn't make PayPal. He didn't make Tesla. And they're like, no, he did. And I was like, no, he didn't. It's okay, y'. All. I get it. The brand is strong. So the teeth in the jaw had been filed down to make them look human, but they actually came from an orangutan. And the cricket bat was fossilized elephant bone carved with. With a steel knife. So y' all really should have knew the nick was lying when he said cricket. Y' all really thought a skeleton with long ass teeth.

[Adam Conover]

And we found an Xbox controller in there too. And he loves to play FIFA.

[Laci Mosley]

He actually got. It's. It's a note he left in here that says, invest in Bitcoin. So we should probably all get into crypto, because that's what he said from the past. He. The first name. And he would know. Cause if you ain't first, you're last. Ricky Bobby. Also science. What?

[Adam Conover]

Come on.

[Laci Mosley]

The bones around the skull were also broken in such a way that they could be reattached smoothly. So gullible scientists could easily project their assumptions. So they did, like, crack the skull up a little bit so that the girls could have a puzzle. Cause the girls love a puzzle in science. And so then once they were putting it together, that affirmed their own egos of all. Like, look how smart we are.

[Adam Conover]

We put the head back together because they had the. They had the suckers do the last step and discover it themselves. The suckers put it back together and say, oh, look, it's all, wow, a discovery. And so they. Oh, this is a really good scam technique. So you have to rope people in and involve them in it. So they think that they're the smart ones.

[Laci Mosley]

Right? So even if hater David came over to these, you know, researchers who were presented this broken up skull, and he was like a. Yeah, I think that's. I think it's a. They're like, get the fuck out of here. Hater David. We all put this skull together. We're geniuses. Like, they were not giving up this grift. And that's.

[Adam Conover]

I think that's. Your accent is so good. It's such a good accent.

[Laci Mosley]

You wait till UK congregation steps in, because they're gonna drag me. But it's okay. So scientists Weiner, Oakley, and Park published their findings in time magazine. In November 1953, and the world finally learned that the Pilton man was a fake. In the end, it was a mix of gullibility, desperation, and traditional British that duped the world for almost 40 years into thinking of Frankenstein's set of bones represented early man.

[Adam Conover]

I mean, 40 years is like a long time to be taken in by a fraud. When all the scientists of the world were working on this, I am a little bit embarrassed for them, honestly.

[Laci Mosley]

Think about how much money they made with people looking at that, man. Think how much money they made. I think how the cricket industry probably was really booming after that. They was like, no, we all got to get out here and play cricket, us men. You know.

[Adam Conover]

It just makes you wonder what things we believe in today could perhaps be scams by some idiot with a knife and a bunch of old bones. You know, what could it be that we're falling for today?

[Laci Mosley]

A lot of it. A lot of history is revised by, you know, whoever was the most evil and murdered everybody. So there. I'm sure there's so much in our history, in our text that is. And not even a guess. I'm absolutely positive there is. I mean, even look at what they're trying to do with like, critical race theory, which is a collegiate level course, but, like erasing which textbooks have done forever. The real history of our country here. So that it looks all roses and shit. I went to Maui and we had a personal tour guide, and he was super cool, but he was like this old white dude. He's telling us about the island. And one of the things he told us was that, like, when the white man showed up to the island in a boat, the natives were so nice to this white man because they. In their folklore, they thought that God was gonna show up on a boat. And we had a pause, my guys. Cause it's just three, four African Americans in an SUV and this man telling us these lies. And we were like, sir, don't give us no more of whatever. I don't know who said that. I don't know who said that, but it just doesn't sound real to me. I just don't think that. I think a lot of colonial times, white dudes were just like, wow, people are being nice. We're gonna take advantage of them. That's what happened, of course.

[Adam Conover]

And there's so much history. You look at so many history stories, and it'll come down to. To people started telling this story because they wanted to make Great Britain sound great, or they wanted to spread this or that idea it's always so much of the history you've been taught is the person who's telling you the history having a particular version of events that they want you to know, rather than the history itself, including the history that you and I might tell. We. We as well are people in the present day with our own set of, you know, motives and biases. And that's part of what you need to understand about the telling of history. And it doesn't mean it's all false. It means you need to be aware of that dimension at all times if you don't want to get scammed.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah. And also be aware of that in documentaries about people's lives. If someone is alive and they do a movie about their life or a story about their life or they're involved in it, I always take that with a grain of salt because I'm like, if you're alive, you don't skirt. Skirt over all the real tea because you're still here. Like, you don't want people to know that. If you're not going full Quincy Jones, I don't want it, you know, so it's just something to be aware of. Like, look at everything. Look at people's motivations for why they're doing things. I hate to make y' all all suspicious all the time, but we do need to be suspicious all of the time. But that doesn't mean don't. That doesn't mean don't let a man pull you over in the street who says that they can fix your car and make yourself late to work. Cause maybe it works out and he fixes your car. You know, it could work. You know, try it sometimes. But, guys, we had to go to the saddest part of the episode. The end. This is where I have to let Adam go. But before he goes, we're gonna do Scammer of the week real quick. This is where we just highlight a charlatan who's worthy of our praise. Or maybe not. Today we're talking about Yellowstone actress Koreanka Kilchar. She's 32 years old and she's been charged with two felony counts of workers compensation fraud. The actress collected over $96,000 in disability benefits, even though she was working on Yellowstone for several months. To during the period she said that she was too injured to work. She self surrendered and was arraigned in May and pleaded not guilty to the charges. I would have pleaded not guilty, too. I'm sorry. She reportedly injured her neck and shoulder in 2018 while filming Dora and the Lost City of Gold, a live action adaptation of the children's TV show Dora the Explorer. She saw a doctor a few times over the course of the year, but then stopped going to treatment and did not respond to the insurance company handling her claim. In 2019, she went back to the insurance company and requested treatment, saying that she had been such severe neck pain since the injury occurred that she had to turn down work. Based on her statement, she was paid a temporary total disability benefit of $96,838 between October 2019 and September 2021. Despite her statement, she was found to have worked on Yellowstone from July 2019 to October 2019. The investigation is still going. If convicted, she could face up to five years in state prison and a $50,000 fine for each count that she's charged with. I'm on your side, sis.

[Adam Conover]

Me, too.

[Laci Mosley]

Me too.

[Adam Conover]

I'm a little. I'm a little suspicious of this story. And. And you know why? Because what was it you said it was? $96,000. All right, look, this. And when did this happen? This was like, over the last couple years. Look, in the last three years, everybody in Hollywood's been getting PPP loans. You know what I mean? Like, everybody's got their loan corporation. Yep. We're get. We're all getting bailed out. All right? And, you know, a lot of people got PPP loans who shouldn't have gotten them, and that's not great. Right? I'm not saying everyone should. Should just do that all the time, but, like, we're talking about that kind of thing. I don't see why this woman should go to prison for five years for, you know, like, making a.

[Laci Mosley]

For.

[Adam Conover]

For workers compensation that she shouldn't have taken. Make her give the money back if you want and, you know, call it a day, in my opinion. And also, I don't. Has she been convicted yet?

[Laci Mosley]

Like, no, she hasn't.

[Adam Conover]

The fact she's been charged, I don't know. I want to know a little bit more details before I pass judgment on this lady.

[Laci Mosley]

Yeah, I'm not passing judgment on her. You know, we. We love a scam. Your scam up. And honestly, like, five years in prison, that's taxpayers dollars. That's wasted money. Obviously, this person has a lot of talent. Obviously this person is contributing something to society. So if y' all really want to go after the $96,000, especially when you've been forgiving celebrities for millions that they did not use to pay their employees like they were supposed to, that they were out here buying cars with and shit. Like we do not need to put this beautiful woman in jail. Like that is very ghetto. So prayers out to her that hopefully it's just a slap on the wrist or maybe nothing, but certainly not prison. That's absolutely ridiculous and a waste of everyone's time involved. But guys, I agree. That brings us to the end of another amazing episode. Adam, I'm so happy that you could be here. We always ask, where would you like to be found? Anything? Want people to watch, anything you want, socials, all those things.

[Adam Conover]

Oh, please go check out my podcast. Factually available wherever you get your podcast. I talk to a different amazing expert every single week. We have a great time. And you know, you can find my new show on Netflix if you look for it. But. But go check out Factually if you're a podcast listener. That's what I would love to direct you towards. You will learn, you will laugh. It's a great time.

[Laci Mosley]

Yes, learn and laugh. And that's what we're all about here. As always. Scam. Got a [e-mail] on your friends and family. Just make sure your scam is ret if you want to find me D I V A L A C I Diaval Lacey on all platforms. If you want to see the photos from the show and whatever bits I put on Instagram, Scam got us pod on Twitter and on Instagram Congregation. Stay scamming Scam Goddess. This has been an Earwolf production in association with Team Coco. Scam Goddess stars and is hosted by me, Laci Moseley, AKA AKA Scam Goddess. It's produced by Judith Kargbo, engineered by Marina Paiz, and researched by Kalen Brandt. Stay scheming.

[Adam Conover]

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.

[Kelly Ripa]

Hey there, it's Kelly Ripa. And if you've been listening to my podcast, we are knee deep in season three. And if you haven't heard it, it's time to get on board. After years of interviewing celebs on camera, I finally got get to bring you the real conversations that take place when the cameras aren't rolling. Where else are you going to hear Michelle Obama talk about keeping her girls out of Page Six, Hilaria Baldwin's hilarious reaction to Alec running for office, or Jeremy Renner's lucid hallucinations about Jamie Foxx? Nowhere else. It's raw, it's honest, and best of all, it's off camera. And believe me, that's where you get the good stuff. So download. Let's talk off camera with Kelly Rippa. Now, wherever you get your podcast casts.

[Laci Mosley]

All set for your flight?

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[Laci Mosley]

Wait.

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[Laci Mosley]

I'm going to leave you to it.

[T-Mobile Ad Voice]

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