This episode of the Sofa King Podcast looks at the life, death, and conspiracies surrounding Lady Diana. Born to the royal Spencer family in Norfolk, England, she lived a life of privilege, even playing with the princes at some of the queen’s summer homes in her childhood. By the age of nineteen, she was working at a school for children, and she caught the eye of Prince Charles, the heir to the throne. They married a year later in a lavish wedding that dominated the world.

However, their relationship was not very stable. Prince Charles was having an affair with his now wife Camilla Bowles, and Diana had an affair of her own.

When they finally divorced in 1996, Diana was allegedly on the outs with the royal family, taking shots at Camilla in the tabloids and even frustrating the queen. Diana spent this time using her celebrity to advocate for curing AIDS, homelessness, and land mine disposal, among others. A year later, she died in a famous car accident with her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed at the Pont D’Alma tunnel in Paris. And this is the where the conspiracies start to rear up.

On the surface, yes, it could have been a case of the driver Henry Paul having too much to drink and crashing while trying to escape a horde of paparazzi. However, the evidence doesn’t add up. The official Paget Report which was sanctioned by the government claimed Paul had ten drinks. However, the official coroner’s inquest a year later claimed he was sober. Blood samples taken at the scene of the accident were possibly swapped and old, so DNA tests and blood tests run in 2006 said he was sober but had high amounts of carbon monoxide in his blood. So a lot of strange things didn’t add up with the driver, who was called in to drive at the last minute.

Also, there is the matter of the white Fiat Uno. Eyewitness claimed this car sped out of the tunnel, and Dodi Fayed’s father claimed it belonged to a member of the paparazzi named James Andanson. Andanson was found later in a burned out BMW with a bullet in his head. From there, everyone from MI6 to the British Secret forces have been blamed for the car crash.

Some theorize she was pregnant with Dodi’s baby, and the royal family wanted her killed and silences. Even Diana herself wrote a letter to her butler Paul Burell saying her life was in danger and that she was going to be killed in a car crash.

So, was her death a case of simple drunk driving, or was she taken out by the British government? Was there a secret strobe light weapon deployed against her driver in Paris that night? Why did the French scrub all evidence from the tunnel so quickly and embalm her body? Was it a cover up? Listen, laugh, learn.

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we explore the mysterious disappearance and the conspiracies surrounding Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt. Holt was the 17th Prime Minister of Australia and a lifelong politician. Many of his policies were controversial, such as helping to relax the racist “White Australia Policy,” creating a federal Reserve Bank of Australia, and tripling the number of Australian troops being sent to fight in Vietnam. Many critics claimed he was a stooge of American President, Lyndon B Johnson after Holt famously said “All the way with LBJ!”

On December 17th of 1967, he went swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria. This was his regular swimming spot near his vacation home, and he knew the waters well. However, on this day, he went into the water never to be found again. The simple conclusion is, he drowned, and his body was washed away. But there are a lot of questions and theories that surround this disappearance.

First, the waters were so rough that nobody else in his party would even dare go in. If he did go in those waters, he was almost certain to drown, so why did he? Second, there was no official inquest on the disappearance of the nation’s leader for almost 40 years! Why did they wait so long, and what did they find in their report?

The conspiracies range from the mundane, such as suicide due to political pressure for the Vietnam war to a man who faked his own death to be with his mistress (whom he was with on the beach that day). The theories heat up when the CIA gets involved (did they kill him because he was going to pull troops out of Vietnam or oppose their base at Pine Gap?). Some authors think he was a Chinese agent who was taken by his handlers on the beach that day, and the tin foil contingent believes what Mothman Prophecy author John Keel said in 1970—that Holt was an alien representative on earth and was taken by “elementals” on a UFO. So what’s the truth behind the disappearance of Australia’s most powerful man? Listen, laugh, learn.

This episode of The Sofa King Podcast is Part II of our coverage of John F. Kennedy, in which we look at the details of his assassination and then discuss the multitude of theories floating around about who killed him, how, and why. These theories range from the wild to the mundane, but the one thing everyone agrees on is that he was shot several times on November 22, 1963 while riding in a motorcade through the streets of Dallas. The famous footage known as the Zapruder Film is the clearest (but not the only) recording of his death, and it shows him undoubtedly get shot in the head and sustain a wound nobody could survive.

So, the big question is: Whodunit? The official word from the US government’s Warren Report was that a single gunman—Lee Harvey Oswald—killed JFK by firing three shots from the 6th floor of the Book Depository. According to the report, Oswald was a man with communist leanings. He had lived three years in the Soviet Union, had a Russian wife, and even applied for a visa to move to Cuba shortly before the assassination. Many people think he had attempted other political assassinations, in fact.

Oswald was arrested in a movie theater the day of the assassination and had allegedly killed a police officer named JD Tippit earlier in the day. He was arrested, and two days later, as he was leaving the Dallas jail to head to court, he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby on live television. Oswald claimed he was a patsy before he died; Ruby said from prison that nobody would ever know the depths of what was happening. It’s all very strange.

So, did Oswald kill JFK? That remains a burning question. Many people doubt he could have pulled off the three shots, and doubt that one bullet could have done through JFK’s body at the angle it did and then injure Governor Connaley in the front seat. This “Magic Bullet” makes people think there was more than one shooter, and so do the numerous eye witnesses who claim to have seen other shooters and activity on a grassy knoll in Dealy Plaza.

But there are other strange theories, and we talk about them on the show. Who was the peculiar “Umbrella Man,” and what were the odd pulses of light that came from his umbrella? Did JFK’s driver, agent William Greer, kill the president (either on purpose or by accidentally discharging his weapon)? What about the claims that Carlos Marcello, the mob boss of New Orleans ordered him killed, and why would the mob want him dead?

From the CIA to the KGB, from the mob to Fidel Castro, from his own vice president to people covering up the existence of aliens, many people have been blamed over the years. We even talk about the fact that the actor Woody Harrelson’s father, known mob hitman Charles Harrelson, killed JFK. You don’t want to miss this one. It’s the mother of all conspiracies. Special thanks to Doctor Randal Beeman for helping us sort out the details on this one!

This episode of The Sofa King Podcast is Part One of our discussion on the life, politics, policies, and death of the amazing John Fitzgerald Kennedy. JFK was one of the most beloved president of the United States, and his administration was often considered to be the “Golden Age” of America that many people called Camelot. Kennedy was the son of a wealthy business man who had alleged ties to the mob and illegal alcohol-running during prohibition. His legitimate businesses, however, set the Kennedy family up for a life of prosperity and prestige.

JFJ, also known as Jack, was a sickly child and had chronic back problems through his life. He also was a screw-up at school, more interested in pranks and flirting than his formal education. All that changed, however, when he was at Harvard, and he wrote a book called Why England Slept which explored why Great Britain was unprepared for the Nazis.

He used his family’s connections to let him join the Navy (something he couldn’t have done because of his back condition), and he became a war hero, saving members of his crew in pretty amazing ways in the battle of the Pacific on his boat PT-109.

After the war, he married Jackie Bouvier and served time in both the House of Representatives and the Senate before finally becoming president in 1960. While president, he did pretty amazing things, helping the poor, creating the Peace Corps, and even writing the Civil Rights Act. However, he also tried to have Fidel Castro overturned by the CIA’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion, heated up the cold war, and dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Aside from his policies and the crazy era of his presidency, Jack was also known for having affairs with women. From white house employees to Marilyn Monroe and even Judith Campbell Exner (who was the mistress of Sam Giancana, the mob boss for The Chicago Outfit), he slept around. So, if you want to know about JFK, his affairs, his decision, why he was a war hero, and who he upset over the years (and possibly pushed to assassinate him), give this one a listen. Stay tuned for part two, where we talk about his assassination and the theories surrounding it. Thanks to our special guest Doctor Randal Beeman.

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we put on our tinfoil hats and explore the conspiracy theory of MK Ultra. It turns out it wasn’t a conspiracy theory, so much as a conspiracy fact. MK Ultra was the CIA’s illegal attempt at behavior modification and mind control which officially ran from 1953 until 1973. Some say it is still running under a different name, but the official party line is that it was disbanded in the paranoid wake of the Watergate tapes.

The fact that MK Ultra existed is incontrovertible and involved three senate hearings, a freedom of information act release that included 20,000 pages of documents about the CIA’s secret funding, and multiple reports filed by senate subcommittees and even the office of veteran’s affairs.

So what did MK Ultra involve? The CIA funded experiments on various ways to control minds, alter perceptions, and get inside of people’s heads. They did this at 87 American universities, often without the knowledge of the subjects or the scientists (who didn’t know their funding was coming from the CIA). MK Ultra used LSD as a way to break people down, often dosing American citizens with the drug without their consent or knowledge through projects such as the accurately named Project Midnight Climax which used prostitutes to deliver the drugs in San Francisco.

MK Ultra used a doctor named Donald Cameron who was president of the World Psychiatric Health Organization to work on a technique called Psychic Driving. What did it involve? Induced paralysis and then an audio loop that played thousands of times to try and break a patient’s personality down and replace it. Oh, and the patients were coming to him for things like post mortem depression and anxiety and had no idea this was being done to them!

Find out about Subproject 54, which was a Naval Research project involving amnesia, and the case of Frank Olson. Olson (a biochemist employed by the CIA) was thought to have committed suicide in 1953, but an autopsy in 1994 that he was murdered with a blow to the head after being dosed with LSD. All of this is true, provable with congressional documents, and completely nuts.

Of course, it gets crazier when the tin foil does come out, and a woman named Cathleen Ann O'Brien reveals details about an alleged MK Ultra subproject called Project Monarch. It involves George Bush, holograms, and lizard people. Oh, and it also involves Shia LaBeouf, Roseanne Barr, and Michael Jackson. No. I’m not kidding...

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush. Though he ranks as one of the most hated presidents of the modern era (with a job approval rating as low as 19% before he left office), he is a polarizing figure that is perhaps symbolic of the increasing divide between the left and right wings of American politics. “W” was the son of George HW Bush and grandson of the infamous Prescott Bush, so power and money ran in his family.

After his time at Yale (where he was in the Skull and Bones secret society), he went to Harvard and eventually created an oil business in Texas, which he flipped for a profit. Then, he did the same with the Texas Rangers baseball team. While he co-owned the Rangers, he became a fixture in Texas life, and it helped him win a big for the governor of that state, though everyone thought he would lose the election by a landslide.

From there, his path in politics was set. After a term and a half as governor, he ran for the Oval Office and ended up becoming president. Note that I didn’t say he won the election because by most accounts, he simply didn’t. He lost the popular vote by half a million people, and he only won the electoral vote because of voter fraud and mishandling of ballots in Florida (a state that his brother Jeb—coincidentally—was governor of at the time). Oh, and did you know that the Diebold family who ran the voting machines in Florida is close friends with the Bush family. Funny…

The rest of his career was as controversial as the election itself, from the way he handled 9/11 (or caused it, according to some theories) to the way he sent America to war with faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. He supported torture, founded the Department of Homeland Security, eliminated civil rights with the Patriot Act, and started the system of mass surveillance that Edward Snowden alerted the public to years later.

Then, there was the mishandling of disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina and endless other flubs, fiascos, and controversies. Many people love this man and have good things to say about him; many people think he was the devil himself; and others think he was a pawn to his father and other members of his cabinet. What do your intrepid hosts think? Listen, laugh, learn.

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the Japanese Yakuza. They are larger in power, wealth, and scope than the Italian Mafia, but in America, we don’t hear much about them. And what we do hear about them is fairly glorified and bloody, more like Kill Bill than the truth. We learned a lot researching this group, including that they are estimated to have over 80,000 members, and they date back to the 17th century, where historians claim they existed as Ronin, rogue samurai with no masters, who started clans that protected cities.

They evolved during the tumultuous years of World War II, and one man in particular helped to consolidate their power and status in modern Japan. His name was Yoshi Kodama, and he went from a black-market smuggler during the war to the wealthiest man in all of Asia. Listen in as we talk about how much influence he had on framing post-war Japan’s culture, and even how a porn star tried to kill with an airplane, Kamikaze style!

So what is the modern day Yakuza like? They run themselves as legal corporate entities, and there are multiple Yakuza family clans through Japan and the world. They follow a very strict hierarchy where each man is bound to one person above them and one person below, called an Oyabun/Kobun relationship. At the top is the Kumicho who runs the entire family and is the big boss.

We had a lot of questions about them based on what we’ve heard in the past. Why do the Yakuza take their name from the numbers 8, 9, 3? Do they really practice Yubizume and chop their fingers off when the disappoint the boss? Are they really covered in head-to-toe tattoos? How powerful is the Yamaguchi-gumi (the biggest Yakuza family)? What did photographer Anton Kusters learn about them when a Yakuza clan let him live among them for two years? Listen, laugh, learn.

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we look at the legendary Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler, Vlad III, and Vlad Dracula. Tepes lived from roughly 1428-1477 (back in castle times), and he was like a Game of Thrones character. As a child, he was kidnapped by the enemy Ottoman Empire. They were at war with his father, who was the king of Wallachia (inside of modern-day Romania). While a prisoner, Tepes was taught as a royal, and he learned art, philosophy, and warfare.

He was freed as a teenager and took control of Wallachia after his father and older brother were both murdered by his Uncle! His uncle eventually drove him from the country and ruled it for a few years until Tepes came back with an army, killed his uncle in combat, and took the country back for the bulk of his life. In this time, he gained his reputation as a master guerilla tactician in his wars against the Turks, and he earned his grisly reputation as Kaziklu Beg, the “Impaler Lord.”

Some historians think Tepes murdered as many as 80,000 people. In one town alone, he impaled over twenty-thousand people and put them in concentric rings around the town to cause enough fear in the invading army to turn them back. They promptly left for fear of what this beast of man could do after seeing his “forest of bodies.”

Was Tepes the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula? How did Tepes defeat an army three times the size of his with far better technology? What other means did he have to torture and kill? Did he really dip his bread in the blood of his enemies? What are the completely gruesome details of how he impaled people (there were horses and squirming survivors involved). Listen, laugh, learn.

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the life of Alan Turing—the father of the modern day computer and the man who broke the Nazi Enigma Code and helped win World War II. Born in London, Turing was a mathematical genius at a young age and loved school so much, he once rode his bicycle 60 miles to make it school the first day (when he was only thirteen years old!). Turing attended Cambridge and Princeton and started working for the British Government Code and Cypher School, but when the war broke out, he reported for duty at Bletchley Park to work on encryption and decryption.

At Bletchley Park, Turing used his theoretical invention of the Turing Machine (which was the spiritual forefather of the modern computer) to create Crypto Bombs that would eventually break the impossible Enigma Code. The Nazi Enigma Code had over a million million possible solutions, so it took a true genius and the might of modern day computation to crack it, and Turing provided both.

After the war, Turing was the first to theorize about Artificial Intelligence in his seminal 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” In this paper, he proposed the Turing Test, which even today is the benchmark by which we judge whether or not a computer has achieved intelligence.

Turing was a homosexual, and sadly, the British government saw this as a crime back then. In 1950, he was arrested, tried, and convicted for being gay, and he had to face either jail time or chemical castration. What did this do to his later years of life? What other inventions did Turing make? How did he use a crossword puzzle to win World War Two? How did Turing die, and how does this tie to the famous Apple logo? Listen, Laugh, Learn.

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the notorious crime spree and violent death of Bonnie and Clyde. Their two year crime spree during the “Public Enemy Era” of the 1930s saw at least thirteen people dead, a dozen banks robbed, and countless small stores and gas stations knocked over by their famous “Barrow Gang.” Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow were both born during the great depression and lived in one of the poorest areas of entire nation, Cement City, Texas. They met and fell in love with each other and began their infamous crime spree in 1930.

Clyde was already a criminal when he met Bonnie, thanks to his older brother Buck. The brothers had a history as teenagers of stealing everything from cars to turkeys. But when Clyde was arrested in 1930, Bonnie began her life of crime by smuggling a gun to him in jail, so he could escape. And escape he did. He was caught shortly thereafter and got 14 years hard labor at the horrible Eastham Prison Farm. Here, historians believe Clyde was raped, killed his first man, and even had a fellow inmate cut off two of his toes with an axe to get out of the brutal conditions of hard labor at this prison.

Shortly after his missing toes, Clyde was set free, and he, Bonnie, his brother Buck, and Buck’s wife Blanche teamed up with W.D. Jones to make the Barrow Gang. They robbed, murdered, and stole cars through several states, evading the law at every turn.

We talk about them and their shootouts with the police. They had endless close calls, injuries, and wild escapes. The three of us couldn’t believe how brazen they were with their crimes and how many times they were busted, escaped, had shootouts with the law, and kept on going. Which gang member got shot in the head and kept on with his crime spree? What did Clyde write in a personal letter to Henry Ford? How did Clyde get military grade weapons for his shootouts with the coppers? What made Bonnie and Clyde nationally famous during their crime spree? How were they finally set up and gunned down by the law? Listen, Laugh, Learn.