Short Stuff: Did a vampire legend help win the Cold War?

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – Short Stuff: Did a Vampire Legend Help Win the Cold War?

Podcast by iHeartPodcasts | Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: January 14, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this Short Stuff episode, Josh and Chuck unpack an unexpectedly dark tale from Cold War history: the CIA’s use of a Filipino vampire legend (the “Aswang”) as a psychological weapon. The hosts delve into Filipino folklore, Cold War psy-ops, and the way fear—and cultural superstition—were manipulated in a little-known operation against guerilla fighters. As always, they mix curiosity with dry wit for a punchy, bite-sized history lesson.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing the Aswang & Filipino Cultural Context

• The Philippines is a massive, diverse archipelago with “7,000 islands” and “175 different languages” (01:26–01:34, Josh).
• Many ancient folk beliefs persist across these islands; one of the most notorious is the Aswang—a shapeshifting, vampiric creature:
  • Drinks blood, feeds on organs and (disgustingly) “phlegm” (02:05, Chuck: “It feeds on phlegm, which is completely disgusting to me!”).
  • Targets pregnant women, unborn children, and can appear as a “giant pig,” “dog-shaped thing,” or “giant vulture” (02:23–02:40).
  • Used to explain “mysterious death or unexplained illness” (02:43).
• Etymology: “I saw somewhere that the name comes from ASO Wong, which means dog, I think, in Tagalog” (02:54, Josh).

2. CIA’s Psy-Ops in the Philippines

• During the Cold War, the CIA looked to local legends to gear its psychological warfare.
• Edward Geary Lansdale was a “pre-war ad guy” turned CIA operative, specializing in psychological operations (psy-ops):
  • “They said, since you’re an ad guy... you’d be great at psyops, using media and marketing and propaganda to help win the war. Like demonize the enemy—because that’s basically what you do as an advertiser” (04:35, Chuck).
  • Lansdale went beyond standard leaflet drops; he sought to “turn that culture’s beliefs and superstitions against it to win the war” (05:08, Josh).

3. The Philippine Conflict & Guerrilla Army

• In the late 1940s–1950s, the US backed the government of President Ramon Magsaysay against a rebel group known as the Huks (HUKS)—former heroic anti-Japanese fighters, now labeled communist insurgents.
  • Discontent was fueled by the “Philippine Trade Act of 1946,” which gave US “equal rights to the natural resources,” leading to a break with American-backed leadership (08:17–09:01).
  • Elections that installed the pro-US regime “were totally rigged by the CIA and US operatives... all dirty dealing going on in the CIA back then. Not like these days” (09:41, Chuck, wryly).

4. Deploying the Aswang Legend as a Weapon

• Lansdale and his team researched local beliefs to create fear-based propaganda:
  • Early tactics included “broadcast[ing] curses in Tagalog” from airplanes and painting ominous symbols (“Eye of God”) on sympathizers’ houses—moderately effective but limited (10:46–11:39).
• The Aswang operation represented a dramatic escalation:
  • “They basically had these Filipino commandos go into the village and start a rumor that the Aswang was haunting this area where the Huk rebels were camped out” (11:39, Josh).
  • The American-led operatives didn’t stop at rumor-mongering; they staged grotesque “Aswang-like” killings—kidnapping and killing Huk fighters, “disembowel[ing] them, cleaning them out Aswang vampire style, and leav[ing] their bloodless corpses behind.” (12:37, Chuck).

5. Fact vs. Folklore: Did It Work?

• Notably, some CIA actions (like “drain[ing] them of blood,” more akin to Dracula) didn’t strictly respect local Aswang lore—“that is not really Aswang at all... and that’s just shoddy research” (13:06–13:27, Josh).
• The effectiveness was more about the brutality than the legend itself: “I’m not sure if it worked because they thought it was an Aswang... or if it was because... [the soldiers were] so twisted... either way, don’t mess with these guys. It’s awful.” (14:16-14:31, Chuck)
• Conclusion: The Aswang ploy only worked once to “dislodge those Huk insurgents,” but the broader war was won by attrition; the Huks surrendered in 1954 (14:31–14:59).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Aswang legend:
  “It feeds on phlegm, which is completely disgusting to me!” — Chuck (02:21)
• On the CIA’s approach:
  “Since you’re an ad guy, you know what you’d be great at is psyops... That’s basically what you do as an advertiser.” — Chuck (04:35)
• On the ‘successful’ operation:
  “They had these agents go in and Aswang them. Basically, they would kidnap Huk fighters and disembowel them and clean them out Aswang vampire style and leave their bloodless corpses behind.” — Chuck (12:37)
• On the outcome:
  “But it worked. It didn’t win the war... it worked this one time.” — Josh (14:31)
• Dry CIA satire:
  “Not like these days.” — Chuck (09:41)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Filipino Folklore & Aswang Intro: 01:26–03:32
• Psy-ops and Lansdale’s Background: 04:35–05:51
• Anti-Huk Conflict Details: 08:15–10:39
• Psy-ops Tactics—Rumors & Aswang Deception: 11:39–13:06
• Discussion on Effectiveness, Fact vs. Folklore: 13:27–14:59

---

Tone & Style

The episode is delivered in the hosts’ signature conversational tone, blending fascination with wit and the occasional dry remark about CIA ethics, advertising, and the absurdity of militarized folklore. The gruesome historical facts are balanced by their banter and mutual incredulity.

---

Conclusion

This episode spotlights how psychological operations can harness (and distort) deeply-rooted cultural beliefs for warfare—sometimes with shocking cruelty. It's a vivid illustration of how folklore, fear, and propaganda intersected on the battleground of the Cold War. For all their characteristic humor, Josh and Chuck never lose sight of the disturbing legacy left behind.

---

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Advertisement Voice]

Guaranteed Human introducing family freedom from T Mobile. We'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones, all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom. Up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone16128 gigabyte 802999 eligible trade in eg iPhone11 Pro for well qualified credits. End and balance pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile.

You don't just live in your home, you live in your neighborhood as well. So when you're shopping for a home, you want to know as much about the area around it as possible. Luckily, homes.com has got you covered. Each listing features a comprehensive neighborhood guide from local experts. Everything you'd ever want to know about a neighborhood, including the number of homes for sale, transportation, local amenities, cultural attractions, unique qualities and even things like medium lot size and a noise score. Homes.com We've done your homework.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here for Dave. So this is Short Stuff. Giddy up.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And this week we are talking about more nefarious business by the American CIA.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

During the Cold war in this case. But first we should probably tell you just a short bit about the Philippines.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Yeah. There's 7,000 islands in the Philippines. More than. I did not know that. But that's a lot of island.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a lot. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There's 175 different languages. Tagalog is one of the larger language families or groups or just languages. And because there's 7,000 islands, there's a bunch of different languages. There are a lot of different cultural beliefs, but some of the ones are spread pretty far and wide across the Philippines, which would suggest they're very, very old, like folk beliefs. And one of them that we're going to talk about today is the Aswang.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. We don't have an exact correlation here in the, in the United States, but you might call it like a vampire potentially because it does suck blood, but it also feeds on organs and it feeds on phlegm, which is completely discussed into me.

[Josh Clark]

It's one of the worst things I've ever heard.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, feeds on phlegm. Unborn children, pregnant women. It can be a giant pig. It can be a giant vulture, it can be like a dog shaped thing. And sort of like, I can't. What was the one we did this past October about the Mexican folklore?

[Josh Clark]

The owl?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, similar to that. I can't remember the name of that one, but it's one of those deals where like any mysterious death or unexplained illness or any kind of misfortune that might happen, you might blame on the Aswang.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And you mentioned a dog. I saw somewhere that the name comes from ASO Wong, which means dog, I think, in Tagalog.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, all right.

[Josh Clark]

So people are like, okay, great. What's up with the name, though? The CIA vampires thing? What are you talking about, you guys? Well, this is what we're talking about. In the Cold war, in the 50s, there was a guy whose name was Edward Geary Lansdale and he worked for the CIA and he used the tail of the Aswang to try to manipulate people into turning against a guerrilla army there.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And you know, if you're afraid of something like this, it's probably because it's truly horrific. Aside from feeding on phlegm, this thing in humanoid form would lurk on rooftops at night and had a long tongue, sort of like a proboscis that it could lower through what's called a lickhole in the ceiling of your home.

[Josh Clark]

Do you have a lick hole?

[Chuck Bryant]

Horrible, horrible words put together. Feeding on phlegm and lickhole. And like we said, pregnant women, children that would suck out their insides with this tongue and essentially leave something devoid of organs and disemboweled and devoid of blood. It would suck them from the outside in or inside out, rather.

[Josh Clark]

Right, yeah. And again, we don't have a good analogy to this in the West. The best we can do is like Dracula, essentially. But that's really sucking or eating blood or consuming blood is. That's where the similarities end.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So Ed Lansdale comes along. He was pre war, World War II. He was an ad guy. And so once he got in the war, they said, all right, you're pretty sharp tech. We're going to move you over to the oss, the Office of Strategic Services, which predated the CIA. And they said, since you're an ad guy, you know what you'd be great at is psyops, you know, using media and marketing and propaganda to help win the war, like demonize the enemy, because that's basically what you do as an advertiser.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. And he was a whiz at it. So he excelled at psyops himself and he took a different view of things. He said normally that when people think about psyops conventionally, they're talking about dropping leaflets that try to demoralize the enemy, maybe using like Tokyo Rose type to talk about how GI's girlfriends are hooking up with other guys back home. Those are psyops and they're really kind of a low hanging fruit. What Lansdale was doing was really trying to dig into the local culture to figure out how to turn that culture's beliefs and superstitions against it to win the war.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. That feels like a pretty good time for a break. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. We're going to come right back and talk about what happened in 1950, right after this.

[Advertisement Voice]

Doing taxes the old way meant handing everything off and just hoping things were moving. But now you can feel confident your taxes are being handled right with Intuit TurboTax. Now you match with a TurboTax full service expert. Just upload your documents right in the app and boom. They take it from there. Start to finish. You've got a dedicated expert working your return. They check every deduction and credit to help you get the best possible outcome. So you can feel confident you're getting every dollar you deserve. And now you're not guessing what's happening, you're seeing it happen. TurboTax gives you real time updates on your experts progress while you go about your day, run errands, grab a coffee, live your life. You're always in the loop and if a question pops up, you get unlimited expert help at no extra cost, even on nights and weekends during tax season, taxes are finally transparent, easier and handled. Visit turbotax.com Only available with TurboTax full service experts. Real time updates only in iOS mobile app.

[Podcast Host]

What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Holmes.com knows these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent. That's why Each listing on Holmes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by Holmes.com's dedicated in house research team. It's also you can make the right decision for your family. Homes.com we've done your homework.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so I promised talk of 1950 that is. When Lansdale came to the Philippines, he was undercover as a CIA guy. He was officially there as an Air Force officer, an advisor to the president of the Philippines. Who was Ramon Magsaysa. Magsaysay.

[Josh Clark]

I'm going with Magsaysay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Magsaysay. I don't know why I said Sesa. So he was assigned there in the Philippines because the US Was backing that regime and they were fighting a war against communist rebels there known as the Huks. It was H U K S and they were, you know, they fought the hooks, fought, you know, pretty heroically in the Philippine army against the Japanese in World War II. But after the war, they, along with their leader whose name was, I guess, Louis Taruk, said nuts to this government, to borrow a Josh Clark term, because the Philippine Trade act of 1946 basically said the American government gets equal rights to the natural resources. And the hawks weren't down with that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and I'm not sure if the Huks were actually like communist or if they were just labeled as communist insurgents to help drum up public support against them because they really were this revered like infantry that really helped get the Japanese out of the Philippines and the US troops even fought alongside of them. But after they broke with this American backed administration, they were Persona non grata. They had to be gotten rid of because they weren't just like protesting, they were carrying out a guerrilla war to try to overthrow this US backed regime, I guess.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, not only US Backed, but sort of US Elected because those supposedly free elections in the Philippines that brought this party into power were totally rigged by the CIA and US Operatives. So it was all dirty dealing going on in the CIA back then. Not like these days.

[Josh Clark]

No, not like today. By the way, since we're talking about the CIA, I have another show recommendation for you. It's called the Agency Central Intelligence. It's a really stupid name, but it is a really well done, suspenseful, but also really dramatic show. It's Michael Fassbender. Richard Gere does it like. I've never seen him act like he is in this one. Jeffrey Wright. It's just this really great show. It's a great cast. Everybody does wonderfully. Even the people I've never heard of before. Everybody does great. You know what we should do?

[Chuck Bryant]

We should do a little 15 minute show once a week where we recommend stuff to people.

[Josh Clark]

That's a great idea. Where'd you get that idea? I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Let's hear from you. Do people want that?

[Josh Clark]

Let's find out.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so some of these CYWAR tactics, they got busy doing their stuff, like kind of doing research on the Filipinos. Like what would. Kind of what would sway them? What would work they did some studies of the people, like especially the peasants living in the Hook areas. One of the sort of, I guess, sort of low hanging fruit light you were talking about that they used was they would fly over these areas with, you know, kind of low flying light aircraft to broadcast curses in Tagalog. If anyone was like, if you're a villager and you're going to help the Huk soldiers, this curse will befall you. That sort of worked a little bit. He would also paint what's called the Eye of God. It was just kind of a scary looking thing on houses of Hook sympathizers, like on their front door. And that would kind of scare people out. But kind of nothing like what he did with Aswang, right?

[Josh Clark]

No, this was definitely a different level than those other ones that you mentioned, because there was a CIA trained that Lansdale helped oversee group of government. Filipino government military operatives. That's a really clumsy way to put it. But they were basically set out. They were unleashed on this village where a bunch of Hook Rebels, I think 100 to 300 of them, were encamped nearby. And they were intimidating the villagers into being quiet, giving them supplies, that kind of stuff. So the CIA found out about this, and they really wanted to get this Hook detachment out of this area. And this is when they unleashed this Aswang rumor. They basically had these Filipino commandos go into the village and start a rumor that the Aswang was haunting this area where the Huk rebels were camped out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you think, all right, well, that doesn't sound much different than the other thing. Like they're spreading a rumor that might scare them into not helping these local soldiers there in the nearby hills. But they took it one step further, and they had these agents go in and Aswang them. Basically, they would kidnap Hook fighters and disembowel them and clean them out Aswang vampire style and leave their bloodless corpses behind.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I saw also one of the things that they did was put puncture holes in their neck and drain them of blood. And that is not really Aswang at all. That's Dracula stuff. And that's just shoddy research of a poor quality if you're really trying to scare off people based on their superstitions.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, there was a guy that wrote a book about this in addition to Lansdale, wrote his own memoir. But there's a researcher. I think his last name was Clark.

[Josh Clark]

What's Jordan Clark? He talked to. I think he talked to Dave Roos, who wrote this for House Stuff Works.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay. Well, he basically backed up. What you're saying is like, if they would have done their research, they would have believed that the true local creature they were scared of was not Aswang. It was a self segmenting kind of Aswang, but it kind of strictly fed on the fetuses of pregnant women and was not a bloodsucker. And he's also not sure that, like, this thing worked, but he's not sure if it worked because they thought it was an Aswang or whatever. The local. I can't even. How do you pronounce that? Manananggal?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Was the local boogeyman. If it worked because they thought it was that or if it was because they were like, holy crap. These. They're so twisted. They're sucking the blood out of and draining blood out of people to make it seem like. So like, either way, don't mess with these guys. It's awful.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But it worked. It didn't win the war. Jordan Clark points out, like, this worked this one time. I think it was only used one time. And it did dislodge those hook insurgents, but the war was run by grinding them out. They basically fought over the years, and Louis Terroc finally surrendered in 1954. I think he secured a pardon for himself and his troops.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

And he said, did you see what happened with the Aswang years back?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And they were just like, that's it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Does that mean Short Stuff is out? All right.

[Advertisement Voice]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

[Podcast Host]

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.