Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Oklahoma City Bombing
38 Plays4 years ago
Josh and M cover a topic they never realised they had never really spoken to: the conspiracy theories around the Oklahoma City Bombing back in 1995.
—
Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
You can also contact us at: podcastconspiracy@gmail.com
You can learn more about M’s academic work at: http://mrxdentith.com
Why not support The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy by donating to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/podcastersguidetotheconspiracy
or Podbean crowdfunding? http://www.podbean.com/patron/crowdfund/profile/id/muv5b-79
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction & COVID-19 Jokes
00:00:00
Speaker
So are you really comfortable with this intro? What do you mean? It's funny, it's topical, it introduces the fact we have a new patron. Just because in this intro you blame the entire COVID-19 situation on them? So the problem is... Well it's not a conspiracy if it's just one person is it?
00:00:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Whoops-a-daisy. So, Rafa, if that is your real name. And I'm pretty sure it is. You're getting off lightly this week. The good doctor wanted to claim that you were entirely responsible for the pandemic, but it's not much of a conspiracy if you're acting alone. So we know you're up to something. We just don't know what.
00:00:39
Speaker
But I'm assuming it involves scuba diving. Ah, yes, the most conspiratorial version of diving. So conspiratorial. So whatever you're doing beneath the glaciers, rougher, we will find out. And if you're conspiring with the cephalopods, well, they might reconsider their veganism. Scud rings get in my tummy. Indeed.
Hosts' Introductions & Lockdown Reflections
00:01:11
Speaker
The podcaster's guide to the conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Denton.
00:01:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. I am Josh Addison. Sitting miles and miles away from me is Dr. Em Denteth as we responsibly, socially distance ourselves in the second week of New Zealand's nationwide lockdown. It was the second week, right? It started last Thursday, so it must be, like, tell me it's been at least a week.
00:01:42
Speaker
The thing is it feels like it's been a lot longer and that it feels like we last recorded a podcast about a month ago and yesterday seemed like it was actually 3000 years ago. So time is really a little bit slippery and slidey, but yes, we are entering into
00:02:00
Speaker
the second week of lockdown. We have not yet flattened the curve on COVID-19. So today we had more diagnosed cases than we've had for several days. So we're in a kind of peaking situation, but hopefully in a week's time, it will be in a kind of more trophy-like situation. Yes, it's supposed to take about two weeks.
00:02:24
Speaker
for us to see a difference, because that means all the people who got infected before the lockdown began start
New Zealand's COVID-19 Situation & Strategies
00:02:30
Speaker
to show. And then hopefully, if people aren't continuing to get infected, we'll see it level off. But yeah, it will be another week, I think, before we start seeing some numbers and know whether we're going to have to extend the lockdown or if maybe it can get relieved in a few places. Probably not Auckland though, given that we have the most people here, we're likely to have the most infectees.
00:02:49
Speaker
And indeed, part of the discussion that's been going on with the government and the Ministry of Health is that when we see the flattening of the curve, we might be looking at unlocking some of the regions first, which I'm assuming is a coded message from the Ministry of Health of Aucklanders, you're going to be in lockdown for a long time because there's a lot of you and you're in one location.
00:03:13
Speaker
Well, most likely. Last I heard, there had been no cases like on the west coast of the South Island
Welcoming Patrons & Discord Discussion
00:03:19
Speaker
or something. There had been regions where it seemingly hasn't got yet. So if they can keep it that way, fair enough. But anyway, enough COVID-19. You must all be sick of hearing about it by now. Instead, hello to our new patrons.
00:03:36
Speaker
oh yes we've got we've got one named patron who's elected for the we'll make fun of them at the beginning of the podcast here and one unnamed patron who we shall call the mysterious h because it is all the information you'll ever get about their name
00:03:52
Speaker
And being patrons, of course, they get access to our Discord chat server thing, which I finally signed up to. You've actually joined the Discord and even interacted with some of our Discord patrons. How did you find it? Well, frankly, it seems exactly the same as Slack, which we use at work, which I'm not a fan of. So there you go.
00:04:14
Speaker
Well, now you're doubling your displeasure. Yes, it's all good. So yes, we're there. If you're a patron, you should have received an email, I believe, giving you the link. If you'd like to be a patron, then just just be
Encouragement to Support the Podcast
00:04:28
Speaker
one. Quite frankly, go to patreon.com and search for the podcasters guide to the conspiracy and sign yourselves up. It only costs a dollar a month and oh, oh, the pleasure you get for your simple dollar.
00:04:39
Speaker
I mean, probably if you have money to spare, you should maybe be giving it to struggling artists who actually rely on it in a living rather than people like us who rely on it to simply run a podcast. But still, I'm not going to tell you what to do. You can be our patrons and we'd like that just fine. Indeed. We'll appreciate it all the
Oklahoma City Bombing Introduction
00:05:02
Speaker
more.
00:05:02
Speaker
So, with that admin out of the way, we should get into the main content of the episode. It's a bit of a weird one, I think, this week, because it's a topic we've talked about several times, but we've never actually done a full proper episode on it. It's one of those topics where we thought we had done an episode, but we definitely talked about it. It turns out we've talked around it, never talked
Detailed Overview of the Bombing
00:05:27
Speaker
about it. And that, of course, is the late, the great Oklahoma City bombing.
00:05:32
Speaker
Hmm. I don't know about late. Don't really know about great. That was large, I guess. I'll give you... Yeah, I thought I was going somewhere with that and... Turned out I wasn't. I was just sitting still the entire time. Right. Well, in situations like this, I find the best thing to do is play a chime and then talk about something else. Or put a bit of awkward silence in and then play the chime. Yep. That's awkward.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yes, the Oklahoma City bombing. Oklahoma, where the wind comes rushing off the plains.
00:06:13
Speaker
Oklahoma, it's the place to be. Right. That's the sum total of my knowledge of that musical. And I don't really think we should go there because all you're going to be talking about, of course, is the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building, Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on the 19th of April, 1995. Now, 1995, I was 19 years old.
00:06:40
Speaker
I don't remember, I was always aware that this thing had happened, but I don't remember much of it at the time. I don't know if that was just because I was a callous, ignorant teenager who wasn't paying attention to the news, or if it didn't make as big a ripple here in New Zealand as it otherwise might have. But nevertheless, before 9-11, I think I'm right in saying that the Oklahoma City bombing was the worst terrorist attack in America, wasn't it? And certainly in terms of loss of life.
00:07:10
Speaker
Yes, so the Oklahoma City bombing kind of was the big conspiracy theory before 2001 9-11 attacks. What makes the Oklahoma City bombing particularly interesting from the perspective of those of us who do the philosophy of conspiracy theory is that of course it's the central example
00:07:30
Speaker
and Brian Alkeley's of conspiracy theories that had with retrospect and misfortune of being published in 1999, two years before 2001. I actually meant to say two years before 9-11. Of course, 1999 is two years before 2001. It better be, or something's gone horribly wrong, yes. Well that being said, I mean with the whole quarantine lockdown thing and time not working properly, actually making the claim
Conspiracy Theories Around the Bombing
00:07:56
Speaker
that
00:07:56
Speaker
an event occurred two years after the event occurred actually is a fairly novel and interesting statement to make given that we last recorded this podcast what appears to be 36 years ago. So yeah so Brian's paper of conspiracy theories uses the Oklahoma City bombing as kind of an exemplar case of a conspiracy theory about an event
00:08:18
Speaker
where you have an official theory and a rival conspiracy theory that uses particular types of evidence to advance that you should believe this theory instead. And of course to a very large extent the Oklahoma City bombing has become a kind of non-entity in the annals of conspiracy theory.
00:08:37
Speaker
because of 9-11. But I think you're right, with respect to those of us living in Aotearoa, New Zealand, I don't think the Oklahoma City bombing was a big story. The related event that was a big story was the siege at Waco, which of course, two years to the day before the Oklahoma City bombing occurred.
00:09:03
Speaker
And that's going to be important because that story was big news overseas. Strangely enough, a federal building in the US being bombed by a domestic terrorist wasn't actually big news at
Perpetrators: McVeigh & Nichols
00:09:16
Speaker
the time. I mean, I'm sure it must have made the news here, but not... Yes, but it wasn't the kind of rolling news that you would kind of expect it to be if it occurred now. It just goes to show we live in different times.
00:09:29
Speaker
We certainly do. So, I mean, I guess start with the details of the bombing itself and then get into the conspiracy theories. So it was nine o'clock in the morning, April 19, 1995, as you say, two years to the day after the government's attack on David Koresh's compound at Waco, which resulted in a lot of deaths. And then where did Ruby Ridge come in between the two? Was it before or after Waco?
00:09:57
Speaker
That is a good question. I do not recall. That was the other one anyway. Those were the two instances of government forces taking fairly violently compounds owned by sort of your survivalisty, military right-winger
Critique of Conspiracy Theories
00:10:14
Speaker
types.
00:10:14
Speaker
And of course, the federal institution which lived the siege on Waco was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or the BATF. And it is kind of interesting that the US would have a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, because of course, in retrospect, they all do go together, but at the same time, it's kind of an excess of evil related thing.
00:10:40
Speaker
And the BATF is going to be a fairly major player in the conspiracy theories we'll be talking about later on in this episode. So at any rate, just after nine o'clock, a truck bomb went off. A truck that had been full of basically drums of ammonium nitrate and other explosive compounds wired to fuses exploded and destroyed
00:11:06
Speaker
the Alpha Pima Refedera. I don't know if you've seen the photos. It's a big building and this bomb, like the front third of the building, is just gone. It's just not there. The explosion was big enough that it damaged buildings for, I think, up to 16 blocks away or something. It was massive.
00:11:25
Speaker
cars all around destroyed and so on and the final death toll was around 168 possibly up to 170 and getting close to 700 people injured including unfortunately a couple of dozen children who were in the daycare center in the building. Now shortly there shortly after that a man called Timothy McVeigh was picked up on an unrelated matter he had been his car he was driving without license plates I think
00:11:54
Speaker
And when he was pulled over the arresting officer, notice that there was a bulge in Timothy McVeigh's pocket, which indicated the existence of a firearm. McVeigh then admitted to carrying a firearm and also admitted to having other firearms and related things in the boot of his car, which then led him to being arrested and brought in for questioning.
00:12:18
Speaker
Now, as you can imagine, in an event of this magnitude, the authorities were on it straight away. Although initially they did blame, ye bog standard, Middle Eastern terrorists. Oh, yes. And this is a thing we've seen before in the immediate aftermath of an event like this, sort of claims start going round, rumours turn into facts quite quickly when perhaps they shouldn't and so on.
00:12:42
Speaker
Now, I'm assuming the blaming of Middle Eastern terrorists, of course, relates to the first attempted attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Probably. I don't know the specific details. I think at that stage, Middle Eastern terrorists were even then kind of the go-to bad guys. When did true lives come out? Oh, I don't know exactly. But yeah, that was the one that cemented the meme of the Middle Eastern terrorists.
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah, also starred Eliza Dushku in a very early role and apparently there's a lot of scuttlebutt about how she was treated on set at the time. Anyway, that aside, it took a while but eventually they connected Timothy McVeigh and another man by the name of Terry Nichols. Now the reason why they connected Terry Nichols is that when McVeigh was arrested
00:13:39
Speaker
he said his place of residence was Terry Nichols' brother's house and that turns out to be important because it's suspected that where Nichols and McVeigh made the bomb was his brother's house so when they searched the location that was what then linked Terry Nichols back to Timothy McVeigh.
00:14:00
Speaker
Interestingly, if you've saw the Michael Moore documentary Bowling for Columbine. A long time ago. A long time ago. Nineteen-nine, I think it was. He interviews Terry Nichols' brother and the brother comes off as not entirely balanced, but anyway. So basically, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were found to
BATF's Alleged Foreknowledge
00:14:22
Speaker
have been behind this bombing. McVeigh and Nichols
00:14:25
Speaker
built the bomb themselves. McVeigh was the man who drove the truck, parked it outside the building, lit the fuse, and then legged it in his getaway car. Two other people, Michael and Laurie Fortier, were also arrested as sort of being accomplices from what I gather
00:14:42
Speaker
They knew about it and didn't do anything. They didn't actually help them, but they knew about it. So I think Michael, 48, got 12 years first. I forget the exact name of the charge. It was to do with not alerting the authorities when he should have. Whereas his wife, I assume, Lori, or sister, actually, I don't know what the relationship was there. She got immunity in exchange for her testimony.
00:15:07
Speaker
So McVey and Nichols were both found guilty. Timothy McVey was sentenced to death and was executed in 2001, apparently the first federal execution in 38 years at that time. In Terry Nichols' trial, the juries were apparently deadlocked when it came to the sentencing, and he ended up getting a life sentence and remains in maximum security prison today. So that's kind of the official narrative, I think.
00:15:34
Speaker
But in a term that will become very familiar to anyone who's talked about the 9-11 conspiracy theories, or pretty much any other ones really, there are plenty of challenges to the official narrative.
00:15:47
Speaker
Yeah, so to go back to Brian Alkely's work, which of course was my introduction to the conspiracy theories around Oklahoma City bombing, and of conspiracy theories, Brian uses the official theory of the Oklahoma City bombing to point out that conspiracy theorists about it, the people who claim that there's more to the story,
00:16:09
Speaker
tend to cite a whole bunch of errant data with respect to the official theory which they feel isn't adequately explained by the verdict. Which is to say there is data which is either unaccounted for by the official theory or data which is contrary or contradictory to the official theory.
00:16:28
Speaker
And as Brian points out, there's a whole bunch of oddities about the story, which you do need to provide some kind of explanation for. So for example, McVeigh had apparently a whole bunch of fake IDs, but when he books himself into the motel the night before he commits the offense, he actually uses his real name rather than an assumed identity.
00:16:55
Speaker
He flees the scene of the crime in a car that doesn't have license plates which is the kind of thing which means you know if you pass a cop car you're going to be stopped. When the cops do stop him he does absolutely nothing to resist arrest despite the fact he has military training and a gun on him.
00:17:16
Speaker
And of course when he is arrested he gives as his address the property of James Nichols, Terry's brother, where of course the bombs were found to have been made in the first place. And this has led some conspiracy theorists about the Oklahoma City bombing to go
00:17:33
Speaker
Timothy McVeigh acts in a very, very odd way as if he assumed he was going to get away with it because the authorities knew exactly what he was doing and McVeigh is surprised when he gets arrested as opposed to actually tries to resist it. What's going on?
00:17:54
Speaker
Actually, I'm surprised you, listening to you say that, I thought you were going to finish with he was acting like he was supposed to be picked up, implying that he was some sort of a patsy. But either way, yeah, there have been your basic, your good old fashioned false flag conspiracy theory claims about this.
McVeigh's Motives & Actions
00:18:14
Speaker
Some people think
00:18:16
Speaker
have made the claim that actually the government was behind it. The Clinton administration either knew about it in advance and didn't stop it, knew about it in advance and in fact approved it or indeed perpetrated it and those options for a false flag should sound familiar to you. You're not talking about let it happen on purpose or made it happen on purpose there is the old Lee hop in my heart.
00:18:41
Speaker
Yep, there's a variety of theories around there. And again, as we see, I think Sandy Hook was the one where I remember seeing it most clearly. You get a whole lot of asking questions. Why did this happen? Why did this guy act that way? Isn't it suspicious that this thing happened?
00:19:03
Speaker
I mean, they're not invalid questions, but in and of themselves, they're not much more than a new endo and don't really add up to a substantive challenge. Hey Josh, Josh, they're just asking questions, man. They're just asking questions, which is one of the most infuriating responses. I mean, yes, there are situations where you can just ask questions to try and elicit some kind of rival explanation.
00:19:27
Speaker
But if you are going to put forward, say, a conspiracy theory about an event, you want to base putting forward that conspiracy theory on more than just, I've got some questions, you want some evidence. Is there evidence, Joshua? Is there evidence?
00:19:44
Speaker
Well, there are things that people point to, to suggest that there's more here than meets the eye. Sorry, are you about to launch into Transformers? Mind the meets the eyes. Although me and my boys recently watched the old 1986, I think.
00:20:00
Speaker
animated the movie, the Transformers movie, do you remember that? That was massive. I do remember being traumatized by the Transformers. I don't remember being traumatized by it, which is strange. Given and watching it now as an adult, it's just the most blatant piece of marketing at children I've ever seen where they actually kill off all the old toys so they can bring in all the new toys for you to buy. It's it's horribly blatant, but I don't think you remember. The worst prime of all time.
00:20:28
Speaker
He was a bit rubbish. Voiced by Judd Nelson. None of this is relevant to what we're talking about. You know what is relevant though? Ultra Magnus should have become the replacement to Optimus Prime. Now there was a true lead. He was voiced by Robert Stack. Anyway.
00:20:44
Speaker
You get things like, and again, this is going to sound very familiar if you've ever heard anyone talk about September 11 ever, reports that there was more than one bomb, that the idea that it was a single truck bomb can't be true either because
00:21:01
Speaker
people, there were reports either from eyewitnesses or news agencies that there was more than one explosion. Supposedly the explosion was big enough that it was picked up by seismographs at a nearby or not that nearby institution, but supposedly the seismographs showed more than one peak on their dials or readouts or switches or whatever it is seismographs have these days.
00:21:26
Speaker
which have led people to say ah look there see you know you say it was just one guy with one one big bomb but now we've got evidence there was more than one bomb so something must be going on there and uh i believe at least one reply or one reply to that is um it is as we've seen with lots of other things initial reports just get things wrong um there's a lot of uncertainty there's you know massive uh trauma basically emotional and and otherwise um people get the facts wrong in the in the um
00:21:56
Speaker
in the immediate aftermath and then things get clarified later which yes results in the news saying one thing one minute and then another thing later. Another thing people have said is that where there are multiple seismograph readings one of them is the bomb going off and then the secondary one is actually the just the collapse of the building which also would have would have shaken the ground though not to the extent of the initial explosion.
00:22:18
Speaker
Or of course a bomb going off and then other things in the building exploding as a result of a bomb going off and then a building collapsing. Or a really really good jazz band just playing at the same time causing good vibrations. It'd have to be really good but yes I suppose. It's really bad.
00:22:38
Speaker
That's all that I've heard when it comes to sort of the false flag side of conspiracy theories around this, the multiple explosions, what was up with McVeigh's behavior. Are you aware of anything else? Well, so the big theory around the Oklahoma City bombing is why was the Oklahoma City bombing performed?
Theories on a Third Conspirator
00:23:03
Speaker
Now the usual story is it was a reply to what happened at Waco. So McVeigh and Nichols in particular were incensed by what happened at the branch Dravidian compound and felt they needed to get some kind of revenge on the BATF for what they did given the Alfred Maragh building, it was a BATF building,
00:23:26
Speaker
and so they plotted an attack upon it. Now, one of the theories goes, the BATF became very much aware that the attack was going to occur, but the BATF was also very much aware that they had lost a lot of kudos after their handling of the siege at Waco, because basically it was thought by the American public that they went in too hot and too violently
00:23:53
Speaker
and people died in a fire that never needed to happen and so the BATF when we need some good press and what's better than stopping a domestic terrorist in their tracks so they basically set McVey and Nichols up in order to stop them from performing the attack
00:24:16
Speaker
and due to some kind of administrative slip-up the attack occurs before the BATF thinks it's going to and thus they don't have people in place to stop it. Now of course the obvious problem with this particular hypothesis is that you think would be fairly obvious that the attack is going to be on the anniversary of Waco
00:24:36
Speaker
So you'd think they'd be particularly aware that that's the day it's going to occur. But this theory is meant to explain why McVeigh acts so oddly when he's apprehended by the authorities. Because if he thought the authorities were in on it with him, then he should be able to flee the scene of a crime in an unmarked car
00:25:01
Speaker
carrying weaponry and think he's going to be waved through, that would explain his very odd behaviour at that particular point in time. And now I know I suppose
00:25:13
Speaker
The counter to that, of course, is that killing hundreds of people and bombing a building isn't really what you'd call a rational act and that we shouldn't expect logical rational behavior or what we would think of as logical rational behavior because, of course, obviously this was premeditated. It takes some amount of skill to make a bomb of that kind. It was planned and so on. So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't loopy craziness, but certainly not
00:25:42
Speaker
not an act that a normal person would countenance, so why would we expect someone who'd done that to then switch into perfectly rational, sensible mode immediately afterwards?
00:25:53
Speaker
And of course, that kind of folk psychology is important for our analysis because if we assume that criminals are masterminds thinking through everything they do, then you do have to confront the fact that why do we have prisons filled with so many failed criminals?
00:26:13
Speaker
Turns out that people often do perform actions without thinking through the consequences or thinking about how to best get away with them and then get surprised by the fact they get found out.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yes, I mean, as I think we've seen in plenty of other cases, there are a bunch of a bunch of weird things about this, which individually, or which together, you know, you can pile them all up and say, oh, look, this is a serious challenge. And yet individually, each one of them isn't really that strong. And so it's not actually valid to you. What was it?
00:26:53
Speaker
was the Rendlesham one I think we were talking about where a person said a whole lot of bad evidence doesn't add up to one piece of good evidence. But there's more. There is more. I think it's time to talk about the third man. Orson Welles. No. John Doe, number two. You're a number two. Yeah.
00:27:13
Speaker
I'm not sure why number two actually surely he'd just be John Doe number one because I'll know because After those nickels John Doe number one. Well, yeah, so after the event they had they had discarded the Middle Eastern terrorist thing there were descriptions of two white men in their 20s at the scene of the crime and they were labeled John Doe number one and John Doe number two and
00:27:36
Speaker
I see, so McVeigh presumably then was John Doe number one. But yes, so there were supposedly numerous reports that Timothy McVeigh had been seen with another man at the time planting the wands, and this other man, if indeed they existed, has never been identified. There's the strange case of there's an extra leg
00:28:03
Speaker
Obviously, as you can imagine, in a mass of bombing like this, there were lots of body parts that needed to be identified so that the victims could be identified and also so that the remains could be collected for burial. But apparently, there was one leg which they could not place to a victim.
00:28:23
Speaker
And so that has been jumped on as, well, maybe that was this extra person. We thought there was someone around who we don't know where they are. We've found a body parts that we can't account for, two and two together. Maybe this extra man stuck around too long, got left behind by McVeigh to cover his tracks for whatever reason, ended up getting killed in the explosion.
00:28:45
Speaker
So that's one. Now McVeigh, of course, it should be said, McVeigh said there was no third man. And indeed, he actually sort of at one point, I was on the morning of his execution, he had written a letter. And at one point in his letter, he says, for those diehard conspiracy theorists who refuse to believe this, I turn the tables and say, show me where I needed anyone else. Financing, logistic, specialized tech skills, brain power strategy, show me where I needed a dark, mysterious, mysterious.
00:29:14
Speaker
So his claim was that it was me and Terry Nichols. We did it. We were able to do it. We didn't need another person. Why would there have been another person there? I mean, of course, you could write that off as him trying to protect his compatriot who managed to get away scot-free. Or you can write it off as someone who's going, accept that I did it. Please stop making conspiracy theories about me. It's the only thing I did. I at least want that credit.
00:29:43
Speaker
But also, there's another interesting sort of related case with a related conspiracy theory, which I talked about all the way back in episode 21.
00:29:56
Speaker
Oh God, that was 2014. That was five years ago. That was very nearly. That was four and a half years ago. Five and a half years ago, yes. Which is the case of Kenneth Michael Trentedew. Trentedew, Trentedew. I don't know who's American. I've only ever seen the name written down, so I'm not quite sure how it's pronounced. But I think we had this conversation five and a half years ago. We had this conversation last time, I think, as well, yeah.
00:30:17
Speaker
So it's an interesting case. Kenneth Michael Trudy was picked up sometime after the Oklahoma City bombing. What we know for sure is that he was found dead in a prison cell, supposedly having hung himself with his bedsheets. Now, his family claims that when they picked him up, they found his body was covered in injuries, that it was considerably more than simple than a strangulation or anything, that he'd clearly been seriously beaten.
00:30:46
Speaker
And their claim was that he had been either beaten up during his interrogation or possibly beaten so badly that he committed suicide rather than be subjected to any more of it the next day. But certainly their argument was that he hadn't just committed suicide, something had been done to him.
00:31:10
Speaker
Now that was a bit odd, the authorities obviously claimed nothing of the sort had happened, although they had done weird things like, as I recall, trying to get their permission to cremate his body immediately before anyone had picked it up, stuff like that.
00:31:25
Speaker
And people were a little bit unsure exactly why he had been picked up in the first place. He was apparently, he was a bit of a rough looking guy. He was big. He had long hair. He had a big tattoo on his arm. And some people have thought, have taken his description and said, that's interesting because there's this other guy called Richard Lee Guthrie Jr. who was known to Nichols and McVeigh, who was also a big man with long hair who had a distinctive tattoo on one arm.
00:31:53
Speaker
And supposedly the story goes that McVeigh was shown a picture of Kenneth Michael Trentidoo and said, you know, do you know this guy was he your accomplice? And he said, no, I don't know that guy, but I can see why you've picked him up. He looks just like Richard Lee Guthrie.
00:32:08
Speaker
So the conspiracy theory goes that this man was picked up by possibly overzealous authorities because obviously as you can imagine in the aftermath of an event like this there's going to be a lot of pressure on these guys to get results as quickly as possible. He'd been picked up in an attempt to get him to confess or to give up information. He had been being brutalized basically and then either
00:32:34
Speaker
had been, either they staged a suicide to cover it up, or he actually committed suicide and they used that to cover up his treatment, or to hide the fact that that actually got the wrong man, and had, you know, obviously broken the law by brutalising in the first place, and needed to cover the whole thing up, which
Conspiracy Theories & Internet's Role
00:32:53
Speaker
I've always found that actually to be quite an interesting conspiracy theory because it is the whole sort of, it's elements of cock up and conspiracy, it's a conspiracy to cover up a cock up if the conspiracy theory of course is true. Well yeah, so it does require the assumption that there's something strange about bust into Ghostbusters, there's something strange in your neighborhood, who's gonna call?
00:33:17
Speaker
Richard Guthrie, Lee Guthrie, yes, it does actually require you to assume that there's some connection between the events. But of course, given the oddity of the event in question, and by the oddity, I mean the weird behavior of McVeigh on that particular day, you can see why people are going, all this other weird stuff that was going on at the same time, what was going on?
00:33:42
Speaker
Now there's a little bit more to it apparently. Supposedly there is security camera footage from the building from just before the bombing is apparently missing.
00:33:57
Speaker
One theory, one conspiracy theory is that this footage would have shown McVeigh with John Doe number two. And if it was shown that he indeed conspired with Richard Lee Guthrie Jr, that could be at least evidence for the people who think that Kenneth Michael Trentidoo was wrongly picked up because of his resemblance to Mr. Guthrie. And of course, I mean, just by itself,
00:34:23
Speaker
Missing security camera footage is, of course, the stuff that makes any conspiracy theorist rub their hands with glee. Well, indeed. So, yeah, I guess from this point in the future, it is interesting to look back and see all the things about Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories echoed in 9-11 conspiracy theories.
00:34:47
Speaker
and a whole bunch of other false flag ones. And so it is interesting to think that had 9-11 not happened, this could still be the example that we would be talking about today. Yes, it would be quite curious to know, given that it actually took quite some time for the 9-11 Truth movement to actually kick off. So it's five or six years after 9-11 before the first major 9-11 Truth question to being asked and the research agenda is being set.
00:35:17
Speaker
Now, given the short gap basically between the Oklahoma City bombing and the events of 9-11, it's possible to imagine that if 9-11 hadn't occurred, this would be the Oklahoma City bombing truther hypothesis that we'd be looking at. But of course, 9-11, as you say, kind of swamps everything.
00:35:38
Speaker
So the Oklahoma City bombing becomes an oddity of history, and it's kind of unfortunate it became an oddity of history because the Oklahoma City bombing is a case of a major domestic terrorist incident. And maybe if the US had focused on domestic terrorism,
00:35:58
Speaker
as opposed to international terrorism after 9-11. It wouldn't be in quite the disastrous state it is in now. Possibly. And I suppose another factor, possibly another factor, is the whole internet angle. In 1995 the internet was around. When did I get my... I got my first internet address in university.
00:36:25
Speaker
I don't think I would have been on the internet in 1995. I might have fiddled with it, but... I remember using a modem with Windows 95 fairly soon after Windows 95's release. Also remember how much of a pain it was to bring things online back in those days. It was not a trivial task to go online at all. And yes, it was...
00:36:52
Speaker
it was a lot more difficult to find information online and there really weren't what you would call blogs or even geocity pages at that particular point in time. It was all new and to find stuff you had to kind of know where to look already.
00:37:09
Speaker
as opposed to use a search engine to find things you were interested in. So yes, quite possibly that's the other reason why it never became a big story. It kind of occurs before it's possible for these theories to proliferate online.
Conclusion & Transition to Patreon Content
00:37:24
Speaker
So there you have it. It's an interesting case, which is why we've talked about it in connection with other things in the past, but that really did deserve its own episode. And now it's got one. So I guess we're done for this week. We of course have a patron episode to get on with for all you patrons who are welcome to jump on the odd Discord. I might even be there.
00:37:49
Speaker
I might be able to rein in my curmudgeonly disgust with you, you children and your discords and you're probably streaming on Twitch as well, aren't you? And TikTok with the dance videos and what? I'm sorry listeners, Josh is now doing his rail at clouds routine. Yep, I'm 44 years old, I'm allowed to not be down with the kids anymore, that's okay.
00:38:15
Speaker
But anyway, as well as access to our Discord, it's not a server, is it? Our Discord chat? No, no, it is a server. It's a dedicated server. OK, well, there we are, our Discord server. Patrons get to hear this week's Patreon episode where we have a follow up to the whole hobby lobby, antiquities, bits of papyrus, Araki artifacts thing. I think we should change the name of our podcast, the podcast's Guide to the Art World.
00:38:42
Speaker
No, I think that would be not well. We've had two of those episodes out. The podcasters' guide to forgery in the art world. There might be something to it. But we have a bit of COVID-19 news, because of course we do. In fact, it's all COVID-19 news, isn't it? Except for the Holy Lobby stuff. So there we go. These are the times we live in. Yeah, I mean, we'll be talking about the Pizzagate guy. We'll be talking about what the Prime Ministry of Hungary is up to.
00:39:10
Speaker
We'll be talking about a train accident in LA and we'll be talking about what's happening in Turkmenistan. So it's quite an interesting and eclectic mix of COVID-19 news. But it largely is all COVID all the time. Except for Hobby Lobby.
Closing Remarks & Listener Engagement
00:39:28
Speaker
Which is good because it gives us an excuse to say Hobby Lobby a lot. Hobby?
00:39:33
Speaker
lobby. So I think we're at the end of an episode. So thank you listeners, patron and otherwise. We know times are a little bit weird and uncertain and so on. So it would be nice to think that we're helping you occupy your time and captivity, assuming you are actually in a location where you're required to self isolate. I know there are still plenty of places where it's still a little bit optional. It's like some parts of Brazil.
00:39:59
Speaker
Well, doesn't the president there still think it's all nonsense or something? Yes, and most of the local governors and mayors disagree apart from one or two sympathisers who have opened up their particular cities to allow COVID-19 to spread to its heart content.
00:40:17
Speaker
Hooray. Well, anyway. No, no, not at all. Oh, OK, sorry. Yeah. So until next week, when hopefully things will remain as they are, we will still be in lockdown. But maybe a little more optimistic about where things are heading. We'll just have to see. Or at least optimistic with our country. With our country, yes, yes. So until then, I believe all that is left to say is goodbye. Toodly pip, pip.
00:40:48
Speaker
you
00:40:54
Speaker
You've been listening to the podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, starring Josh Addison and Dr. M.R. Extended, which is written, researched, recorded and produced by Josh and Em. You can support the podcast by becoming a patron, via its Podbean or Patreon campaigns. And if you need to get in contact with either Josh or Em, you can email them at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com or check their Twitter accounts, Mikey Fluids and Conspiracism.
00:41:55
Speaker
And remember, remember, oh December was a night.