QAA Podcast

In part 2 of this 2 part episode, this continued examination of John C. Lilly's life leads Jack into a sensory deprivation tank.

Building upon the research done by Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb, Lilly's use of sensory deprivation tanks (and a lot of hallucinogens) led him to develop the concept of the Earth Coincidence Control Office (ECCO). ECCO would ultimately consume Lilly, dramatically altering the course of his life and he would later attribute it to nearly ending it on a few occasions.

Along the way, prolonged isolation of graduate students who need to be "toileted", elements of Lilly's research end up in a CIA interrogation manual, "Tron is us", and rules for humans such as: You are expected to expect the unexpected every minute, every hour of every day and of every night.

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa

Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media! All episodes of Spectral Voyager Season 2 are out now! Binge the entirety of Truly Tradly Deeply by Annie Kelly and Megan Kelly as well as Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: cursedmedia.net

Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe and Jake Rockatansky. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)

qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

In 2025, researchers at the University of California submitted an academic article related to a case study of what they called “New-onset AI-associated Psychosis”. The article breaks down the case of a 26 year old woman who was hospitalized after she began to believe her brother was speaking to her through ChatGPT. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident and in today’s episode Liv examines similar stories that have emerged in the wake of the AI chatbot surge. Along the way, she explores how the companies behind these chatbots plan to prevent situations like this from happening - or if they plan to at all - and even shows what happens when a user becomes overly reliant on their AI and begins to sound like one themselves. In Jake’s words: “They are not making anything that’s dope.”

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa

Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media! All episodes of Spectral Voyager Season 2 are out now! Binge the entirety of Truly Tradly Deeply by Annie Kelly and Megan Kelly as well as Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: cursedmedia.net

Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)

qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Before marine mammal song CDs conquered mall kiosks and the slogan “Save the Whales” appeared on bumper stickers nationwide, one scientist became obsessed with the idea that dolphins might be our closest nonhuman intellectual peers. In part one of our two-part Evil Neuroscience series, Jack dives into the life and work of John C. Lilly: neurophysiologist, dolphin researcher, SETI-adjacent dreamer, and the man whose attempts to bridge the interspecies communication gap proved to be more horrifying than illuminating.

We follow Lilly from Biblical ideas about language and human supremacy to the Green Bank conference, where astronomers, NASA advisors, and future SETI legends formed the secretive “Order of the Dolphin.” Then we head to Marineland and Dolphin Rock, where Lilly’s research involved whale brains, suffocating dolphins, dolphin vocalization experiments, LSD, Margaret Howe’s infamous live-in language study with Peter the dolphin, and the tragic collapse of the project.

Along the way: Bob Dylan’s worst song, existential elk, horny dolphins, Cold War science funding, animal language research, and the birth of the New Age dolphin obsession. Next time, Jack unpacks how Lilly’s search for nonhuman intelligence turned inward through isolation tanks, psychedelics, MKULTRA-adjacent research, and the Earth Coincidence Control Office.

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa

Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media! All episodes of Spectral Voyager Season 2 are out now! Binge the entirety of Truly Tradly Deeply by Annie Kelly and Megan Kelly as well as Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: cursedmedia.net

Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)

qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

We’re joined by former U.S. diplomat Josef Burton to examine modern Pahlavism: an online, diaspora-driven movement built around nostalgia for Iran’s deposed Pahlavi dynasty and the imagined restoration of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. What was once a marginal exile politics of royalist uncles, former regime officials, and anti–Islamic Republic hawks has, in the past decade, been transformed into a bizarre right-populist scene. It’s part monarchist revival, part regime-change lobby, part “Make Iran Great Again” fandom.

Josef traces how this movement emerged from the trauma and politics of the Iranian diaspora, then accelerated through Persian-language satellite TV, social media influencers, think tanks, bot campaigns, and the broader ecosystem of neoconservative, Israeli, Gulf State, and MAGA-aligned regime-change politics. Pahlavism presents itself as the authentic voice of Iranians, but often functions more like an astroturfed culture-war identity: anti-regime, pro-Western intervention, aggressively nostalgic for a whitewashed “Iran before the revolution,” and hostile toward Iranian dissidents who favor diplomacy, pluralism, or any future not centered on the Pahlavi name.

The movement has started to resemble a QAnon-style political subculture: very online, retribution-focused, conspiratorial, obsessed with hidden agents and imminent deliverance, and convinced that posting, doxxing, street theater, and displays of loyalty are forms of revolutionary action. But unlike QAnon, modern Pahlavism’s fantasy of “the storm” has been tied to real intelligence networks, real lobbying money, and real military escalation. When the long-promised war finally arrived and failed to produce a restored monarchy, the movement was left to cope with betrayal, humiliation, factional infighting, and increasingly bizarre displays of royalist devotion.

Josef Burton on Twitter
https://x.com/pinstripebungle

“Shah's infamous Savak deputy chief participates in LA protest” by MEE correspondent in Tehran
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-shah-infamous-savak-deputy-us-protest-press-review

“The Problem of Iran Expertise in Washington” by Negar Razavi
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/39946

“The Iranian Diaspora Is Fracturing Over Trump’s War” by Keyvan Golsorkhi
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/iran-diaspora-war-trump-israel/

“I’ll Burn You Alive” by Daniel Bock
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/22/iran-diaspora-harassment-00092598

“How Iranian monarchist networks built ties to Europe’s far-right” by Nima Ghadakpour
https://www.theamargi.com/posts/how-iranian-monarchist-networks-built-ties-to-europes-far-right

“Waiting for Day Zero” by Will Alden
https://archive.is/20260427011144/https://www.nybooks.com/online/2026/04/22/waiting-for-day-zero-los-angeles-iranians/

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa

Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media! All episodes of Spectral Voyager Season 2 are now streaming! Binge the entirety of Truly Tradly Deeply by Annie Kelly and Megan Kelly as well as Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: cursedmedia.net

Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)

qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Are the nation’s top federal scientists being vanished to cover up earth-shattering revelations about aliens and advanced space technology? It’s a theory that President Trump, FBI Director Kash Patel, and the House Oversight Committee are at least pretending to take seriously. But what’s the truth behind the “dead or missing scientists” lists floating around social media for the last few months?

Mike Rothschild joins us today to discuss the recent cases of scientists seemingly disappearing or dying under mysterious circumstances. Along the way we unpack the long tradition conspiracy theories that involve assembling lists of dead people and concluding they all have the same mysterious cause, including the “Curse of King Tut,” the Clinton body count, and little known GEC-Marconi scientist deaths conspiracy theory.

Mike Rothschild on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/cw/MikeRothschild

Mike Rothschild on Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/rothschildmd.bsky.social

Mike Rothschild on Twitter
https://x.com/rothschildmd

Federal Employees in the Physical Sciences and Engineering
https://www.aip.org/statistics/federal-employees-in-the-physical-sciences-and-engineering

Case Detail for Michael Hicks - LA County Medical Examiner
https://me.lacounty.gov/case-detail/?caseNumber=2023-09733

Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa

Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media! Spectral Voyager Season 2 is releasing now! Binge the entirety of Truly Tradly Deeply by Annie Kelly and Megan Kelly as well as Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: cursedmedia.net

Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)

qaapodcast.com

QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.