The Why Files: Operation Podcast

LEVITATION. The ruins of several ancient civilizations - like the pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge in the UK, and many others - are monuments constructed of massive stones. How the great pyramids of Egypt were built has been the subject of debate for a long time.   The fact is, no one really knows for certain exactly how some of these megaliths were constructed. Some researchers think ancient cultures may have mastered levitation through sound which allowed them to easily manipulate massive objects. Unfortunately, anyone suggesting the use of this kind of technology is attacked and labeled a "pseudoscientist".   Abul Hasan Ali Al-Masudi is known as the Herodotus of the Arabs. Like everyone, he was awestruck by the pyramids. He wrote a very intriguing passage about how the giant stone blocks were transported -- through levitation.   The Great Pyramid of Giza does possess some extraordinary acoustic properties, and can dramatically amplify sounds at certain frequencies. The Egyptians clearly knew a lot about sound science.    Let's explore the Coral Castle in Florida, built by Edward Leedskalnin, who cut, transported and sculpted over 1,000 tons of rock into a sprawling complex -- alone, without heavy machinery.  We'll visit The Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek in Lebanon which boasts the largest stones ever carved by human hands.    Nan Madol is an archaeological site in Micronesia. It's been called the Machu Picchu of the Pacific. The engineering of Nan Madol is so complex, no one can figure out how it was built.   Let's hear the story told by Dr. Jarl about Tibetan monks who lifted stones by chanting and playing instruments -- which Jarl put on film.  There is science behind all these stories, yet "mainstream" academia dismisses each and every one as pseudoscience. Why is it wrong to want to explore ancient knowledge that contradicts modern beliefs? Isn't this the exact purpose of science?   I think so.  Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

NOSTRADAMUS.  2022 Predictions: Earthquakes, Asteroids & Zombies? If you believe the predictions of Nostradamus and you enjoyed 2020, you're gonna *love* 2021.  While many astrologers, seers and mystics are predicting a hopeful future. If you believe Nostradamus, you better start kissing your mommies and saying your goodbyes.   He predicted that 2020 would be a "great trouble for humanity". Well, that was true. And he says a greater trouble is coming in the form of a global famine. According to Nostradamus, the famine will be the worst the world has ever faced and will ultimately end in a disruption of social hierarchies and state power.   Nostradamus predicted solar storms will take place. He said: "We shall see the water rising and the earth falling under it".   Then he predicts a comet or asteroid will hit the earth or come very close to striking the planet which will cause earthquakes and other natural disasters: "In the sky, one sees fire and a long trail of sparks."   FYI, we did have a few close calls with asteroids this past year. And NASA's automated asteroid watching system -- called Sentry -- is currently tracking asteroid 2009 JF1. JF1 is around 130 meters in diameter. About the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. This could hit Earth in 2022.   Nostradamus predicted a great calamity would shake through the New World in the "Lands of the West" causing it to fall into the ocean. This is thought to be California. He suggested that this great calamity will happen when "Mercury in Sagittarius, Saturn fading". The date when Mars and Saturn will be in those exact positions in the sky is Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 2021.   And the last prediction is a doozie. Two words: Zombie Apocalypse. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

STUXNET.  The virus that prevented; then started the next world war. Cyberwar is being waged right now in your name. No matter what country you call home, your government is engaged in highly dangerous combat on the Internet. Infrastructure around the world is under siege and everyone is at risk. Even you.  In 2010, the Stuxnet virus was discovered in Natanz, Iran and thousands of control systems that operate factories, power plants and nuclear reactors around the world. It was 20 times more sophisticated than any malware ever recorded. It could halt oil pipelines, destroy water treatment plants and bring down entire power grids.   Stuxnet is back, stronger than ever.   And we should *all* be concerned.   Cyber-security experts knew Stuxnet wasn't ordinary malware thrown together by some basement hacker. This was something different.   Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

NUMBERS STATIONS.  Not a relic of the past. Intelligence agencies use shortwave to communicate with spies, agents and assets in the field. Right now. Today. Let's listen to a few and learn how to tune in from home -- for free.   Since World War One, numbers stations have been transmitting coded messages to spies around the world using shortwave radio. And they're still transmitting right now. We're going to listen to a few in this episode.   These transmissions sound strange to casual listeners. But to the right set of ears, they contain information that could change the course of history. In fact, numbers stations *have* changed the course of history.   Countless numbers stations are on the air right now -- for what purpose, few really know. And the people that *do* know? They aren't talking. They're essentially pirate stations -- operating illegally. But, nobody shuts them down. And no government acknowledges they even exist.   Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

Is time travel possible? According to physicists, yes. Time travel *to the future* is not only possible, it's been scientifically proven.   But what about traveling to the past? Well, that's a little trickier.   BUT, there does seem to be evidence that travelers from the future have visited us in the past; and may be among us right now.  The human race has been fascinated with traveling through time ever since, well, ever since the human race understood what time was.   But has time travel been achieved by future humans? And if so, did they leave us clues that they were here?   We've scoured the internet for the best time travel stories we could find. You may know some of them. Some are hoaxes. A few have been debunked. But there are a couple of stories that defy explanation.  Why are we so obsessed with time travel? Probably because we're obsessed with time. Time rules our lives.    Who doesn't wish they could go back and talk to our younger selves, or meet our ancestors, or witness historical events.   Time creates possibilities; but time also *ends* possibilities. It's finite. When a moment is over. It's over. There are no second chances.   The expression "time is money" isn't exactly true. Time is much more valuable than money. Wealth can be made; lost and made again. But time? Once we lose it, we can never get it back.  Time is the most valuable thing you have.   Spend it wisely. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

The Aztec Death Whistle. If hell has a sound, I bet it sounds alot like the Aztec Death Whistle. The Aztec Death Whistle sounds like a shriek of death mixed with howling wind. It's so unnerving, that the significance of the horrifying sound of the Aztec Death Whistle has fascinated and perplexed scholars for years.  I'm going to play the sound of the Aztec Death Whistle for you today.   When Spanish conquistador Cortés and his men arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521, they described witnessing a gruesome ceremony. Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods. They then tossed the victims' lifeless bodies down the steps of the Great Temple known as Templo Mayor; in Mexico City.   Andrés de Tapia, also a conquistador, described two rounded towers flanking the Templo Mayor made entirely of human skulls. And between them, a *huge* wooden rack displaying thousands more skulls with holes bored through either side to allow them to slide onto the wooden poles.   Reading these accounts hundreds of years later, many historians dismissed the 16th-century reports as wildly exaggerated.   *But* over just the past few years, archeologists working at the Templo Mayor excavation site discovered *proof* of widespread human sacrifice among the Aztecs. And the proof was *none other* than the very skull towers and skull racks that the conquistadors had described centuries ago.   The Aztec Death Whistle has been described as sounding like humans howling in pain, or as one researcher said, the 'scream of a thousand corpses'.   Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

The Philadelphia Experiment. It was October 1943. The day the US Navy mastered time travel, teleportation, and invisibility. Actually, they didn't master anything. The experiment had disastrous consequences for the crew of the USS Eldridge.   In the summer of 1943, two years after the US entered World War II, American destroyers were being decimated by the infamous German U-boat submarines and German mines were making combat... and commerce dangerous enterprises.   The United States Navy knew something had to be done.   A few months later, on October 28th, 1943, the USS Eldridge, a Cannon-class destroyer, was docked in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. And the Eldridge held some secrets.  It was a newly commissioned vessel that was equipped with several large generators as part of a top-secret mission to win the Battle of the Atlantic once and for all.  Rumor aboard the ship was that the generators were designed to power a new kind of magnetic field that would make the warship invisible to enemy radar and undetectable to enemy mines.   With the full crew on board, it was time to test the system. In broad daylight, and in plain sight of nearby ships, the switches were thrown on the powerful generators, which hummed to life.  What happened next was unexpected. And it would baffle scientists and fuel decades of speculation. Witnesses described a murky green fog that surrounded the entire hull of the ship; and then swallowed it whole.    When the fog faded away seconds later, the USS Eldridge... was gone. It wasn't just invisible to military radar. It was invisible to everyone. It was gone...  That is, until it mysteriously turned up in Norfolk, Virginia. That's a distance of about 250 miles.    And the strangest part? When it arrived in Norfolk – it was ten minutes earlier in the day than when it disappeared from Philadelphia.  The Eldridge then reappeared in Philadelphia twenty minutes later. Or, uh, ten minutes later? Because of the whole, uh, time travel thing? Hard to tell. Either way, it came back.    But something had gone terribly wrong.  According to reports, when the ship rematerialized, members of the Eldridge crew suffered from terrible burns and disorientation. And some of its crew had been fused into the metal walls at the molecular level. They were unable to move. Unable to free their skin from the metal that it clung to; and died in agony.    Other crew members went insane. And some of the crew? They disappeared altogether.   Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

Most of us have heard of the Bermuda Triangle, where planes and ships have mysteriously gone missing in the Atlantic Ocean for decades. Did you know there is a similar place in Nevada? The Nevada Triangle. In a region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Nevada and California, 2,000 planes have been lost in the last 60 years. In this remotely populated area of more than 25,000 miles of mountain desert, many of the crash sites have never been found.   The Nevada Triangle is typically defined as spanning from Las Vegas, Nevada in the southeast to Fresno, California in the west, and to Reno, Nevada at the top. Within this wilderness is the mysterious, top-secret Area 51. Along with the dozens of conspiracy theories which include UFOs and paranormal activity that surrounds the air force base, similar theories have long been considered regarding the Nevada Triangle.   One plane to go missing was that of a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer named Steve Fossett on September 3, 2007. Fossett, flying a single-engine plane over Nevada's Great Basin Desert, took off and never returned. After hunting for a month for the plane, the search was called off and on February 15, 2008, Fossett was declared dead. Later that year on September 29th, Fossett's identification cards were discovered in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California by a hiker.   Throughout the years, many of the missing planes were flown by experienced pilots and have disappeared under mysterious circumstances: and their wreckage never found.  The biggest mystery is: nobody really talks about it.   Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

Discover the unique smells of outer space, from the moon's gunpowder scent to Uranus smelling like farts. Explore the diverse odors of planets like Venus and Mars, and learn about the intriguing aroma of different celestial bodies in our solar system.

Researchers explore the intricacies of the Voynich Manuscript, an enigmatic medieval codex filled with strange plants, astrological symbols, and naked women. Despite decoding attempts by experts, the manuscript's language structure remains a mystery, leaving scholars frustrated for centuries. The podcast delves into the historical background of the manuscript and examines theories, including alien origins and lost languages, that attempt to unlock its secrets.