What really happened to the men who followed Jesus?

For nearly 2,000 years, stories about the deaths of the apostles have been passed down through Scripture, early Church writings, historical accounts, and Christian tradition. Some are well documented. Others remain debated. Many have become legendary.

In Episode 9 of Ground Zero, Joseph Charafi and Benjamin Richau examine the lives and deaths of Jesus' apostles through the lens of history, archaeology, medicine, and theology. Rather than simply repeating tradition, they explore the evidence behind each account, discussing what historians know, what remains uncertain, and why these stories continue to shape the Christian faith today.

Topics include:

• Peter's crucifixion upside down

• Andrew's X-shaped cross

• James, the first apostle martyred

• John, the only apostle believed to have died of natural causes

• Thomas' mission to India and his reported execution

• Matthew, Bartholomew, Simon, Jude, Matthias, and the varying historical traditions surrounding their deaths

• Paul and the persecution of the early Church

• Roman methods of execution and what crucifixion actually did to the human body

• The difference between historical evidence and Church tradition

Whether you're a Christian, skeptic, historian, or simply curious about one of history's most influential movements, this episode takes an honest look at the evidence while asking one of the most compelling 

questions in history:

Why were these men willing to suffer and die for what they claimed to have witnessed?

Ground Zero is a podcast exploring history, faith, folklore, politics, the paranormal, movies, culture, and the mysteries that continue to shape our world.

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This week Joey and Ben sit down with Jedidiah Tilleo — a man who was called on the Damascus Road, sent to Las Vegas, played Jesus in the Passion Play for seven years (getting crucified more times than he can count), took Clark County to court over religious land use law and won, and had a divine encounter where he saw what he calls "God's computer" — massive spinning fiery pillars covered in living Hebrew script.

Jedidiah walks us through his conversion, his ministry Legends Ranch, the five-year fight against the county that cost him $150,000 but ended in a federal-law victory, and the wilder moments of his spiritual life. Then we get into what's actually going on with the Society of St. Pius X and the Vatican schism that dropped this week — six bishops excommunicated, 750 priests worldwide, and what Pope Leo XIV inheriting his first major crisis actually means.

Then the rabbit hole opens. Holograms. Pepper's Ghost. Tupac at Coachella. The Norway Spiral. Project Blue Beam. And the Vietnam-era "dicinian goggles" — where multiple U.S. soldiers reportedly saw demons flying around their helicopters through experimental night vision made from coal-dust fluid pressed between glass. Ben knows how to make them. Joey wants to buy a pair.

Then dolphins. Dolphins have larger brains than us on some measures. They have names for each other. They coordinate hunting across miles with no visible communication. They mate for pleasure. Male dolphins form "wingmen" alliances that last decades. And in the 1960s, the CIA and NASA funded a program where researcher Margaret Howell Levet lived with a dolphin named Peter for 24 hours a day for six months — while both of them were on LSD. This is real history. Joey and Ben go through it.

Plus: Apollo and Abaddon as the same being, moose diving underwater to be eaten by orcas, the Boto dolphin that seduces Amazonian women, Bimini Road, Yonaguni underwater megaliths, the shape of water metaphor, and Jedidiah's final word that ties the whole night together.

🎙 Ground Zero Podcast — hosted by Joseph Charafi & Benjamin Richau

🎤 Guest: Jedidiah Tilleo

Full episodes on YouTube, Spotify & Apple Podcasts. New episodes weekly. All speculation. Draw your own conclusions.

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This week Joey and Ben sit down with Rafael Arroyo, candidate for Nevada State Senate District 12, for one of our most unique episodes yet. Two completely different conversations woven into one.

In the first half, Rafael walks us through the story most candidates won't tell. Born in Puerto Rico, moved to Las Vegas at six years old. Opened his own business at 22. Got visited by a detective with a gun in his first three months telling him his entire business model was illegal — and pushed back until the state admitted they were wrong. Then in 2019, when the DMV tried to shut down his entire industry, he flew to Carson City, chased the committee chair down three flights of stairs in dress shoes, waited two hours outside her office for a five minute meeting, and saved over 170 small businesses with one piece of legislation. He ran for Assembly in 2024 and lost by 257 votes out of 36,000. Now he's running for Senate District 12 with the unanimous endorsement of the Nevada GOP caucus and Governor Lombardo.

We get into the inner workings of Carson City — the lobbyists, the fraternity dynamics, the high school cliques, the secret societies underneath every state capital, the unwritten rules a freshman senator has to figure out fast. Rafael shares why he won't take the trades that compromise his principles, what data centers in Henderson actually mean for Nevada's water and energy, and how a Republican wins a 6-point GOP district that elected a Democrat in 2022.

Then we pivot. Hard.

The second half is the Christmas rabbit hole. The real Saint Nicholas was Turkish, not Norwegian, and reportedly punched a heretic in the face at the Council of Nicaea. The name "Old Nick" has meant the devil for a thousand years. The Nicor in Beowulf are water demons from the Nephilim bloodline of Cain. The Christmas tree comes from a pagan oak grove that an Anglo-Saxon monk named Boniface chopped down in 723 AD. Krampus is the half of Christmas America completely deleted. Modern Santa is essentially a poem from 1823, a political cartoon from the 1860s, a Macy's parade from 1924, and a Coca-Cola advertisement from 1931. And we tell our kids that a man named Nick watches them sleep all year and judges their behavior, and we wonder why the next generation doesn't trust authority.

Three men. Three perspectives. A senate candidate who loves Christmas and won't lie to his kids about Santa. A Christian researcher who puts Christmas lights up because his kids use them as night lights. And a host who admits the psyop worked on him and he still loves it anyway.

🎙 Ground Zero Podcast — hosted by Joseph Charafi & Benjamin Richau

🎤 Guest: Rafael Arroyo, candidate for Nevada State Senate District 12

Learn more about Rafael's campaign at rafaelarroyo.com

Full episodes on YouTube, Spotify & Apple Podcasts. New episodes weekly. All speculation. Draw your own conclusions.

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This is Ben's full testimony. The long version. Strap in.

Joseph Charafi sits back and lets Benjamin Richau take the wheel for an hour and a half of one of the wildest faith journeys you'll ever hear. From junior high arms dealer to crack and meth addict to confined-space pressure vessel welder to ministering in a coffee shop, every chapter is more intense than the last.

Ben walks through the hauntings in his childhood home — the disruptor creature with old man teeth, the three chanting hooded apparitions, and the snake-bodied shadow that climbed on his chest and choked him in sleep paralysis. Then the bell, the flash of light, the breeze through his room
— and the start of his hunt for "the man of light."

The story goes through getting caught selling guns at school, smoking weed with his dad at age 12, becoming a church kid, Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and the 1996 outpouring, mission trips to England and South Africa, encountering a real zombie animated by a witch doctor in Musenberg, getting pulled into a biker church called Set Free with an ex-Aryan pastor named Ace, the satanic cult that infiltrated and dismantled his church, the years lost to meth, doing 18 months alone in a cabin to come back to himself, settling debts in Phoenix with ice picks in his sleeves, 14 days awake on the streets, marrying the woman who wouldn't let him hold her hand until they were sure God wanted them together, getting paid to walk on water and watching God provide for five years without a job, the cattle word that broke a young cowboy in the front row of church, the seer gift switching back on, and meeting Ryan Pineda for a ten hour prophesying session in Las Vegas.

Plus — the night he saw a literal spiritual dragon resting in a vacant city lot in Billings, what the Father's throne room actually looks like, and why the closest Ben can get you to seeing it yourself is by praying for you in person.

This is the testimony. Pour a coffee. Take notes. Send it to someone who needs it.

🎙 Ground Zero Podcast — hosted by Joseph Charafi & Benjamin Richau

Full episodes on YouTube, Spotify & Apple Podcasts. New episodes weekly. All speculation. Draw your own conclusions.

📖 Ben's book — "Where the Heavens Meet Heaven" by Benjamin Richau — available on Amazon.

#GroundZeroPodcast #Testimony #SpiritualWarfare #HolySpirit #Toronto1996 #Deliverance #FaithJourney #Christianity #Seer #ProvidenceOfGod #BibleMysteries #PropheticMinistry

This week Joey and Ben go a different direction. No giants. No Saturn. No underground bases (well, a little). Just two grown men telling the truth about how God found them.

Joey shares the night a demonic apparition appeared in his college dorm, the prayer his mom taught him as a kid that he didn't understand until that moment, and the blue blanket of God's presence that swept the room and changed his life. Then the Pentecostal youth camp, being slain in the Spirit for the first time, learning what speaking in tongues actually is, and the journey from Catholic to non-denominational to Pentecostal worship leader.

Ben shares fragments of his own story (the full testimony is coming in a future episode) and the two of them go deep on what forgiveness actually does, why holding onto offense gives the enemy a legal foothold, what really happened when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, the temple of Solomon and the Shamir, Psalm 18 and the God who rode a cherub down through the clouds, the Mount Hermon transfiguration connection, and the wild possibility that there's now a Quartet instead of a Trinity.

Plus: Jacked Jesus. Riding the devil like a sandworm from Dune. And why the only soul the devil came up here to get was the one in the Constantine movie.

🎙 Ground Zero Podcast — hosted by Joseph Charafi & Benjamin Richau

Full episodes on YouTube, Spotify & Apple Podcasts. New episodes weekly. All speculation. Draw your own conclusions.

#GroundZeroPodcast #Testimony #Forgiveness #SpiritualWarfare #Pentecostal #PsalmEighteen #Transfiguration #MountHermon #BibleMysteries #Christianity #FaithJourney #HolySpirit

1.4 billion people believe they descend from one man — the Yellow Emperor — who was born from a cloud of light, fought a six-armed monster, and ascended to heaven on a dragon. Tonight Joey, Benjamin, and Tony Benton go deep into the strangest threads in Asian mythology and where they connect to everything else we've been pulling on.

A pearl diver in 960 AD who psychically rescued ships at sea while in a trance — remote viewing 1,000 years before the CIA tried to reproduce it at Stanford. The Lady of the Pearl who cut her own chest open to hide the dragon king's stolen jewel inside her body. The Yellow Emperor's connection to Saturn — and why Imperial robes were always yellow. Cosmic egg giants, Lake Biwa as a giant's footprint, and Pangu's body becoming the world. The Triads — a 350-year-old initiation order with blood oaths, sacred numerology, and rituals nearly identical to Freemasonry, allied with every Chinese government for 250 years.

And then Benjamin shares what he saw this morning when he looked under Area 51. A 1950s-style underground city. People living in a closed environment for generations. Tunnels. Manufacturing plants. And entities a few levels deeper that don't want to be seen.

Tech kept failing. Lights died. Audio cut out the second we got near the dark stuff. Something didn't want this episode going out either.

We recorded it anyway.

🎙 New episodes weekly — YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts

💬 Subscribe, share, draw your own conclusions

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Ben's computer crashed. Then his camera. Then his headphones. Then the whole rig — twice. Three cameras in one night. Right as we sat down to record an episode about Saturn worship, the Black Cube, and the symbol hiding in plain sight across every major religion on earth. Coincidence? You decide.

This week Joey is joined by Ben, Tony, and Ground Zero's youngest guest ever — 15-year-old Lucas Jeffords — for a wide-open conversation that goes from the Kaaba in Mecca to the hexagon NASA can't explain on Saturn's north pole. We get into Moloch, El, the star of Remphan, why God rebukes Israel for Saturn worship in both the Old and New Testament, the black cubes Jewish men strap to their foreheads, the 29-year Saturn cycle, dragons, giants, the Nephilim, and Ben's ongoing trip to District 5 in Tehran.

Tech failures. Cameras dying. Headphones cutting out mid-sentence. Something didn't want this episode happening.

We recorded it anyway.

All speculation. No conclusions handed to you. Draw your own.

🎙 New episodes weekly 📍 Find us on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts 💬 Tap in — what do you think is going on?

In Episode 2 of Gr0und Zer0, Joey Charafi and Benjamin Richau are joined by Tony Benton — board member of the Stop the Traffic Foundation and AI expert — for one of the most wide-ranging conversations the show has had yet.

They open with the deep ocean — NASA's history of underwater research, the five depth zones, and the mystery of the Bloop, the most powerful unidentified sound ever recorded, detected simultaneously three thousand miles apart. They dive into the SOSUS network — a classified Navy hydrophone system installed on the ocean floor in the 1950s that wasn't declassified until 1991 — and what it was hearing that the public wasn't allowed to know. They cover Bimini Road, the mysterious underwater stone formation in the Bahamas discovered the same year Edgar Cayce predicted Atlantis would resurface, and the Eye of Africa as the location that best fits Plato's description of the lost continent.

Then Ben takes it to the firmament — the solid, hammered dome described in Hebrew scripture over fifteen times as a physical structure, not empty sky — and shares a firsthand account of standing on the edge of the third heaven and looking down at the cosmos.

The episode closes with Tony's deep dive into the $2.3 trillion in unaccounted Pentagon transactions announced by Donald Rumsfeld on September 10th 2001, and what Joey and Ben have been piecing together about Justin Bieber, Diddy and the shipping container connection.

Jesus is Lord. The rabbit hole goes all the way down.

🎙️ Joey Charafi & Benjamin Richau 👤 Guest: Tony Benton 📍 @Jcharafi | @TWRCH 🌐 stopthetrafficfoundation.org

Gr0und Zer0 is the podcast that asks the questions your Sunday school teacher skipped. Hosted by Joey Charafi, president of the Stop the Traffic Foundation, Nevada Assembly candidate, and lifelong Las Vegan, alongside co-host Benjamin Richau, spiritual advisor, seer, and Bible study facilitator for entrepreneurs across the U.S. This show lives at the intersection of scripture, the supernatural, history, conspiracies, and modern culture.

Both hosts are committed believers who keep Christ at the center while refusing to keep the weird stuff at arm's length.

Episode 1: The Nephilim. The Watchers who left heaven, the giants they fathered, and what Genesis 6 tells us about why the world had to be wiped clean. From the bloodline of Jesus to the alien question to what's really walking the streets of Las Vegas at night — this is where the conversation starts.