Conspiracies, inventions, futuristic visions, alien communication – it’s as if legendary inventor and physicist Nikola Tesla was designed in a lab to be a topic on The What If? Podcast. This week we dive into the life and times of Tesla, and tell the story of his fabled, strange, cryptic and fascinating career.

His time in Serbia, traveling to the United States to war with competitor and inventor Thomas Edison, death rays, picking up alien chatter on a Tesla coil, wireless data transfer, and FBI confiscation of his life’s work. It’s all there, and more, this week on The What If? Podcast.

Hot Topics: Mr. Freeze the Mayor of Minneapolis, Stinky Tesla, Make Money Spend Money, Bucket Crunderdunder, ACDC the Power Not The Band, I HAVE DONE A RESEARCH, and much more.

The post Ep. #117 – What If Nikola Tesla Was A Genius Mad Scientist? – Nikola Tesla appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

In the mid-60’s, an Italian priest and scientist is supposed to have invented one of the greatest and most mind-blowing devices in history. The Chronovisor. A cabinet decked out with tubes, levers, wires, and antennas, the Chronovisor supposedly let its users tap into history by traveling back to high volumes of electromagnetic signals left in time and space.

The priest, Pellegrino Ernetti, allegedly traveled to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, to see Roman plays from 169 BC, and a whole lot more. Is it a big bucket of BS? Maybe. Are we gonna dive deep into it and see? Of course we are. Join us this week, on The What If? Podcast.

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The post Ep. #112 – What If You Could See Into The Past? – The Chronovisor, Vatican Secret Archives appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

Boy oh boy, when we said we had a part two coming, we didn’t know it’d be all this. But here we are, back again to talk about the strangeness of isolation. When it comes to living in isolation, the concept takes takes a few different forms. This week on The What If? Podcast, we do a follow up on last week’s eerily timed episode, and put out an update on John Chau, the American missionary who was killed on North Sentinel Island, just days before we put our episode on The Sentinelese people.

From there, we shift gears to talking about isolation in space. NASA has spent millions of dollars over the years, studying the effects of isolation on both individuals and groups. One of their most prominent studies has been on Hawaii, in the execution of the HI-SEAS program. Six missions over the past five years have gone, to varying degrees of success, in creating an analog world that recreates the isolation of a mission crew on (or on their way to) Mars.

How did it go? Why did the sixth mission fail after just four days? How much can we make fun of NASA’s bad YouTube videos? Find out this week, on The What If? Podcast.

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The post Ep. #109 – What If You Lived In Isolation? Pt. 2 – HI-SEAS appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

On October 19th of 2017, an interstellar object was observed in our solar system for the very first time. Observed through Hawaiian telescopes, scientists named it Oumuamua. What has followed, is a curious exploration into what, in fact, this interstellar visitor actually is. The topic of of borderline scientific brawls, new Harvard papers this week suggest the possibility that Oumuamua is in fact a solar sail, hull, or ship-based alien probe.

This week, on The What If? Podcast, we dive into what makes this object so different from the comets and asteroids we’re familiar with, and why the hypothesis of some very smart people lead us down a line of questioning, that entertains the possibility of alien life.

Karen J. Meech’s TED Talk on Oumuamua.

Outro music by Lydia Liza and Big Cats

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The post Ep. #107 – What If Oumuamua Is An Alien Probe? appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

Today on The What If? Podcast you’ll hear our first ever crossover episode with the dope dudes from the Not Alone Podcast! We’re talking about The Philadelphia Experiment, an alleged military exercise in 1943 that made a US Navy Destroyer literally disappear.

The Story

The Philadelphia Experiment was carried out by the U.S. Navy in a shipyard in Philadelphia on October 28, 1943. The goal was to make the ship invisible to radar by creating a strong electromagnetic field around the ship. However, it had a totally unexpected side effect. First, the ship disappeared, both to radar and the naked eye. As the experiment began, a hazy green light appeared around the ship. Soon the whole ship was full of this green haze and the craft, together with is personnel, began fading from sight of those on the dock until only its waterline was visible.

In addition to becoming invisible, the ship allegedly teleported to Norfolk, Virginia.

Dangerous Side Effects

The test was a great success, except that some men aboard the ship got pretty well fuckified. Several sailors died when they fused with the ship’s hull. They maybe also travelled to another dimension where they met aliens and teleported through time.

Is time travel real? What about space travel? Can the military bend time and light as a weapon? Is all of this a bunch of B.S.? Yep, it probably is! But all we know is, we’re going to ask some questions and laugh with our new buds Sam Fredrickson and Jason Moitoso of the Not Alone Podcast.

Hot Topics: Morris Jessup Loves Aliens, Carl Allen aka Carlos Allende, The Philadelphia Experiment, Sailor Puns Ahoy, Never Had A Bad Year Again, and much, much more.

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The post Ep. #45 – What If You Had An Invisible Boat? [Philadelphia Experiment, ‘Not Alone Podcast’ Crossover] appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

Sean Anonymous, Eric Mayson, and Chance York join the party to talk about dreams. The guys discuss precognitive dreams, dream recording, lucid dreaming, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Recorded live at the Nomad World Pub in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 16, 2017.

Precognitive Dreams

Many people have reported predictive dreams. Mark Twain famously dreamed of his brother’s death two weeks before it happened. Twain dreamed that his brother, Henry, had died, and his corpse was lying in an open metal coffin. An elaborate bouquet of white flowers marked by a single red rose in the center laid on his chest. Two weeks later, Henry died in a riverboat accident. When Twain arrived at Henry’s funeral, he saw his brother lying in an open, metal casket.

Lucid Dreams

Lucid dreaming occurs when one is conscious of the fact that they are dreaming. Most people aren’t able to lucid dream naturally, but almost everyone can after some practice. First, you should keep a dream journal. Record of every dream you remember in a notebook by your bed. At first, it may be just one dream per night, but eventually you’ll remember several each night.

You can also train yourself to do “reality checks”. Just like Cobb’s spinning top in Inception, there are ways to check if you are awake or dreaming. One reliable way is to look at your own hands. If you’re awake, they will look just like your hands always do. However, if you’re dreaming, they’ll likely look distorted or transparent. Another strategy is to look at a clock. First, note the time, then look away, and look back. If the time is the same, you are awake. If the time has changed, you’re likely dreaming (or there’s something wrong with your clock).

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The post Ep. #27 – What If You Could Record Your Dreams? appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

We’re back with our second live episode! Eric Mayson and Chance York join us to talk about the Transportation Security Administration. First, Mayson tells a story about flying without an ID, and Spencer needs help with his pants. Then, Chance shares some insights from cousin Malik, and Ryan shows us the TSA’s Instagram feed.

Hot Topics: Bomb Water, TSA, Bags of Dicks, Stanford Prison Experiment, Security Theater, Follow us on Instagram Bro, Flying While Intoxicated, Don’t Bring _____, ______, or ______ Through Security.

Why the TSA?

Congress created the Transportation Security Administration on November 19, 2001, in direct response to the 9/11 attacks. In less than two months, they hired 55,000 employees. They were immediately responsible for aviation security at 450 U.S. airports. They have an annual budget of roughly $7.6 billion.

Why not?

First of all, the TSA is wildly ineffective. A 2015 investigation revealed that agents failed to detect banned items 95% of the time. According to the head of security for El Al, Israel’s national airline “This is not an airline security system. This is a system for bothering people”.

Secondly, they make travel much more expensive. The TSA collects a “September 11 fee” from each airfare. These fees total almost two billion dollars each year.

Lastly, they steal from airline passengers. More than 500 TSA agents have been fired or suspended for stealing from passenger luggage since the agency’s creation.

Are there other options?

Before 9/11, each airport was responsible for its own security. While we probably can’t go back to that model, there may still be some other options. Some have suggested we follow the Israeli airport security model. The model focuses more on profiling and passenger screening. Each passenger is questioned by highly trained  agents before they reach the check-in counter. While this model may be more effective, it can also take much longer. Some interviews can take up to an hour.

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The post Ep. # 23 – What If The TSA Isn’t The Answer? appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

P.O.S and Eric Mayson join us for our very first live episode. Ryan breaks down the history of intellectual property and asks “holy shit does someone own this?”. Spencer talks about Humanzees. Stef thinks money is to blame, and Mayson claims not to own oxygen.

Hot Topics: Chumans. Intellectual Property. What Is My Purpose? Everybody Sample Stef’s Shit. The World’s Saddest Kindergartner. Uncle Mouse. Naruto. How Do You Milk A Snake? Stalin Was A Dick. You Get Cancer.

Holy s***, does someone own that?

People have tried to patent a lot of weird stuff. Currently, someone holds patents for a one-person seesaw, a kimchi vending machine, and Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Card Game. People have tried, and failed, to patent even weirder stuff. Harley-Davidson tried to patent the sound of their motorcycles. McDonalds tried to patent the prefix “Mc”.

Animal Patents

Since the 1980s, animal patents have increased. The first such patent was for Oncomouse, a mouse genetically modified to get cancer more easily. Prior to Oncomouse, biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov tried to make a human-chimp hybrid, or a humanzee. It’s not clear if he was successful, but we’re suckers for a weird story.

More recently, Naruto, a macaque from Indonesia managed to take a selfie. David Slater, whose camera took the picture, argued he owned the photograph. However, since the monkey clicked the shutter, some argued that the photo belonged in the public domain. Apparently, monkeys aren’t legal people capable of owning copyrights.

Eric Mayson is a singer, songwriter, and musician. Listen to his music here.

Stef aka P.O.S is a rapper and producer. Listen to his music here.

Humanzee – Story of Oliver the Chimp

The One Person Seesaw

Uncle Mouse

Naruto, the selfie-taking monkey

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The post #19: What If Ideas Belonged To Everyone? – Intellectual Property appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

Max Selim is back to talk about genomics and the privacy of our DNA. Max gives us the quick history of genomics and the Human Genome Project, Spencer thinks aliens have been manipulating our DNA for thousand of years, and Ryan has a 23 and Me-induced existential crisis.

Hot Topics: Genomics, 23 and Me, Louis Vuitton Babies, X-Men, The Nephilim, Alien-Human Hybrids, Genetic Manipulation, GATTACA, Old Money/New Health, Wait – Which One Is Iceland?, and much more

23 and Me

23 and Me’s mission is “To help people access, understand and benefit from the human genome.” They offer genetic testing to determine your ancestry, genetic traits, and health. They might also sell your genetic data to third parties.

The Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project sequenced the full human genome for the first time in 2003.

From genome.gov: “A genome is an organism’s complete set of DNA, a chemical compound that contains the genetic instructions needed to develop and direct the activities of every organism. DNA molecules are made of two twisting, paired strands. Each strand is made of four chemical units, called nucleotide bases. The bases are adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C). Bases on opposite strands pair specifically; an A always pairs with a T, and a C always with a G.

The human genome contains approximately 3 billion of these base pairs, which reside in the 23 pairs of chromosomes within the nucleus of all our cells. Each chromosome contains hundreds to thousands of genes, which carry the instructions for making proteins. Each of the estimated 30,000 genes in the human genome makes an average of three proteins.

23 and Me

The Human Genome Project

Gattaca on Youtube

Music by Big Cats

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The post #15: What If Google Knew Your DNA? appeared first on The What If? Podcast.

The guys are talking about espionage in the social media age. Spencer talks about numbers stations and their 21st century counterparts, Ryan breaks down Cicada 3301 and maybe starts a chocolate factory.

Hot Topics: Numbers stations, Cicada 3301, Web Driver Torso, The German Language Is Scary, Jimmy’s Chocolate Factory, UVB-76, I’m Sorry I Can’t Do That Dave, Shakespearean Robot Wars, SierraGolf5, and much more.

Cicada 3301

Back in 2012, a strange image popped up on 4chan. It was accompanied by the following:

“There is a message hidden in this image. Find it and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few who will make it all the way through. Good Luck. 3301”

Some people were able to decipher the message, which led to another clue, and another. Solving the puzzle required a very wide base of knowledge and access to locations all over the world. Most people believe it is a recruitment tactic for some three-letter agency. There have been subsequent puzzles each year since 2012.

Numbers Stations

Numbers stations intermittently broadcast sets of numbers, usually read by an automated voice. They started during the cold war, and continue to this day. Most people think they are used for communication between spies. The Conet Project houses the largest archive of Numbers Stations recordings. One especially weird numbers station is UVB-76. It has broadcast a buzzing sound 24 hours a day, since 1973. It also seems to be broadcast from a live microphone rather than a recording.

SierraGolf5

SierraGolf5, and similar accounts, appear to be Twitter’s version of numbers stations. The accounts tweet sequences of numbers every few minutes. Some occasionally tweet lines of poetry.

The Spooky World of Numbers Stations

The Conet Project

UVB-76

Web Driver Torso

SierraGolf5 on Twitter

Music by Big Cats

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The post #14: What If It Really Went Down In The DMs? – Cicada 3301, Numbers Stations appeared first on The What If? Podcast.